Paladin instance grouping guide

Back to the Instance grouping guide

This page contains some handy tips for paladins in an instance group. For details of different roles of paladins in group, please refer to Paladins as healers, Paladins as tanks, and Paladins as DPS.

General tips as a Paladin
/target [Party Member Name] /s <<< Casting Divine Intervention on %t >>> /cast Divine Intervention
 * At the beginning of the Raid/Group, set a macro to use Divine Intervention:
 * If the leader announces a wipe is going to occur, cast Divine Intervention. You must weigh whether or not the spell is worth the effort into the instance thus far, as the cool down is 1 hour on the spell. Discuss at the start of the raid who you have targeted and what Divine Intervention does. Target someone who can resurrect, and who will be safe from mobs (they are out of combat and cannot be attacked until the spell wears off, but cannot move either). The targeted person can begin to resurrect people after the mobs have dropped aggro. MAKE SURE you bring reagents for the spell!


 * Cleanse disease, poison, and magic debuffs. Some fear effects are magic and can be Cleansed.

There are fairly standard buffs for different classes, depending on their roles in the group.
 * Buff Party Members. Blessings can be a pain to manage because of their limited timer, but they are beneficial. Be sure to coordinate with other Paladins for strengths of buffs (buffs don't stack) and to give multiple types of buffs to party members.
 * Recast your Blessings often - do not wait for them to expire. However, casting them in combat can draw aggro, so be careful.
 * Buffs for Party Members:
 * Tank: Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Sanctuary (paladin ability). They need stamina and damage mitigation.
 * Healer: Blessing of Wisdom, Blessing of Kings. Mana regeneration is what the healers need most.
 * DPS blessing by class
 * Fury Warriors/Rogues/Feral Druids/Retribution Paladins/Enhancement Shamans: Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings. If you have a DPS warrior, they will probably use Battle Shout, which doesn't stack with Blessing of Might, so use Kings on everyone. Blessing of Wisdom is third priority on paladins and shamans, but rarely necessary.
 * Mages/Warlocks/Shadow Priests/Elemental Shamans/Balance Druids: Blessing of Wisdom, Blessing of Kings
 * Hunters: Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom (especially since changes to mana regen in patch 2.4). As of Patch 2.0.3 Blessing of Might affects ranged attack power, so it is useful for hunters.


 * If there are more than one paladin in the party, coordinate auras and ask who has improved talents. They don't stack. During fights that fire, frost or shadow damage is expected, the respective resistance auras are very valuable.


 * Know how to use your seals and judgements.
 * Judgement of Justice stop any target from running when they get low on health, and when they have already started running, they will come back. However, it will not stop them from running for other reasons, such as after getting off a Frost Nova.
 * Judgement of Wisdom is extremely useful during long fights, as it will help the casters regain mana.
 * Judgement of Light is a useful way to heal the tank without drawing aggro. It can also be used to heal otherwise non-healable NPCs, if they're in melee combat.

Generally, the first paladin should judge Wisdom and the second Light, though a very melee-heavy group may want to switch the priority.


 * If you are going to resurrect someone, resurrect another rezzing class if one is in your group. This is will speed up the wipe recovery process, and fewer people will be left waiting.


 * At lower level 5-man instances, a protection paladin can both tank and self-heal as a last resort if the healer dies. The threat from the healing combined with Righteous Fury can succesfully hold aggro, although you will not be dealing any damage, and you will take more damage than usual as you cannot block while casting. This works on most trash pulls, although it will not work on bosses unless the boss has already lost most of his hp.

The Paladin as a melee DPS

 * Make sure you are using a 2-handed weapon. The slower the better.
 * Use whatever aura benefits the group. None will help your DPS directly (not Retribution Aura, since you should never get hit.
 * Seal of Command for multiple mobs, Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption for single mobs.
 * Your gear priorities are:
 * Get 8% hit chance in order to never miss a boss. This requires 263 hit rating, lower if you are grouped with or are a Draenei.
 * Strength, strength, strength. Strength is by far your best stat. You should only gem for anything other than strength if you need to meet a meta gem requirement, if you're below the hit cap, or if you want to put a strength/crit gem in a yellow socket with a socket bonus of 4 strength or better. Never, ever gem for AP or haste or armor penetration (or spirit or intelligence or mp5 or...).
 * Even though dps is your usual job, there are many situations that you may need to temporarily withhold your attack and help the others. For example, when a mob get loose and is heading for a clothy, you can Repentance and/or stun it, or taunt and off-tank it. If the main healer(s) can't keep up with all the healing required, you can help and throw out some Holy Light (old). Keep an eye on the main healer's mana bar so you know when they're running short.

The Paladin as a tank

 * Retribution Aura is useful for producing threat. Devotion Aura gives you bonus armor, and should be always used if you aren't having issues holding threat.
 * Make sure to keep Righteous Fury up; your threat is crippled without it.
 * Seal of Vengeance should be the seal in use in most situations. If you have points in the Retribution tree, Seal of Command is good for AOE situations.
 * Consecrate is very good at keeping aggro on multiple enemies, but is also a mana drain for Paladins with little mana, and will also break crowd control. Learn to pull the tanking mobs to a place that is clear of CC'ed mobs before using it.  In many cases, 1-2 consecrates will be useful for a large amount of initial aggro, but no more will be needed.
 * Gearing:
 * If you're tanking a heroic or a raid, you MUST have 535 (heroic) or 540 (raid) defense skill . This is unnecessary at lower levels, but defense is still an excellent skill to have.
 * After you reach that cap, you usually want to stack stamina.
 * The above tips are only the very superficial basics of paladin tanking. For those who are interested in learning more details, please read the related articles: Paladins as tanks, Paladin Builds: Protection.

The Paladin as a healer

 * Devotion Aura is usually the preferred aura by groups for it allows your group/raid to take less damage, and thus to need less healing. If another paladin in the group is already using it, the next good aura for a paladin healer (and for other casters and healers too) is Concentration Aura, to reduce spell interruptions.
 * It is always advisable to have a separate healing set even if it contains cloth, mail, or leather. However, always have a shield (with healing stats) equipped in case you draw aggro. It will give you about 10% extra armor plus block chance.
 * Place Judgement of Wisdom on the target which is currently being attacked (and attack the target too) to keep your (and other people) mana being restored.
 * Excellent stats for you: intelligence, spellpower. Decent stats: haste, crit, mp5. Useless stats: spirit, strength, agility, attack power ...

Working with a Paladin

 * Ask for Blessings if the paladin is not diligent in giving them out. They require very little mana, and while they last only 10 minutes, they do benefit. Remind the Paladin between battles to reapply blessings, if they don't remember on their own. Please however do not demand blessings or changes to applied blessings.  Past level 60, any but the stingiest paladin should use Greater Blessings, which last for 30 minutes.
 * If the paladin has recently been resurrected, ask him to put up his aura if he has failed to do so. And if you want a specific aura, request that.
 * Ask for Cleanse if you need one. It's hard to keep track of lots of people's buffs/debuffs.
 * Paladin tanks are excellent at keeping aggro on multiple enemies, thanks to their reactive holy damage skills and consecrate. If you are in a group with such a paladin, you can often use AoE spells after a consecrate without fear of pulling aggro off the paladin.