The Bare Bones of Paladins

For an aspiring healer a Paladin is probably the best place to start. They are, in my opinion, the most straightforward of the healing classes. We have a few tricks up our sleeves, but for the most part pallys utilize their big heal, Holy Light, and their small heal, Flash of Light. These two will be your bread and butter. My personal strategy consists of using Flash of Light consistently to keep the tank as high as possible. When combined with Sacred Shield, Flash of Light places a HoT (Heal over Time) on the target for 100% of the Flash of Light heal, basically giving you a free FoL heal. This makes it crucial to have Sacred Shield on your tank at ALL TIMES. It will save you mana and time. Holy Light is less mana efficient but heals a great deal more than FoL. This is usually used when your tank takes a large amount of damage in a short time and then does not take more for a while. Its long cast time also makes it more difficult to use effectively. Another trick in the bag is Holy Shock. This spell is an instant cast "medium heal" that usually does between 3000 and 7000 at level 80. This is a great tool to use in an "oh-shit" situation where the tank takes a huge, unexpected hit. When this happens I will usually use Holy Shock followed by a quick FoL to get them back up and a Holy Light to top them off. There's the basics, now lets talk about gear.

A Paladin's main stats as of now are (in order of importance) Intellect, Spell Power, Critical Strike Chance, Haste, and MP5 or Spirit. Lets start with Intellect. This stat will increase your Spell Power, Crit Chance, and Mana. It is the most important thing to a Paladin because it has such a wide effect. An important note for low-level players, Intellect does not raise your Spell Power directly, but rather through the 35-point talent, Holy Guidance. The second on our list is Critical Strike Chance (usually abbreviated Crit). This is more important for a Paladin than any other healing class. Paladins are called a crit-centric healing class because thanks to the 10-point talent Illumination, Paladins regen Mana after a critical heal. This is also what causes Spirit and MP5 to be so low on the list. If you use a great amount of Intellect and have a high Crit Chance, you will likely NEVER run out of Mana. Ever. Finally lets talk about Haste. Haste is like a delicious candy that tastes great but can only be eaten after your gefilte fish (which is Int and Crit). Haste deducts from your cast time as a percentage of 100. So, for example, if you have 394 haste rating like me right now that reduces all of your cast times by 12.02%. It is helpful but hardly essential. If you find yourself always above halfway on Mana and confident that your Mana Pool is sufficient I would definitely use gems and enchants to increase Haste, but only after the latter is achieved.

So in conclusion, Intellect GOOD, Spirit BAAAAAAAD, Sacred Shield is your friend and use the Mana efficient, small heals first. [I had a teacher that told me to never use that phrase to sum up a paragraph. That was for you Mr. Johnson]