Protection Paladin Talents Guide

CIEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAsMzMMzyMLjZMzM2mxMmhZYAAAGAAAAAAASmZ2MMDGzMzWbAADYAMYbAAAQAmZW2WabmxiBGGwMMDjB

CIEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAsZMYWGLzMjZmZZbmZGzsNzMGAAgBAAAAAAg2amZWMMzwYG2aDAYgBAYbAAAQAmZW2WaZmxCDGGAMDjB

CIEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAsNzMMzyYZMzMzM2mZmxMYYAAAGAAAAAAASmZ2MMDGzMzWbAwYADgBbDAAwMTbzysNDQgNDMMgZYGGD

CIEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAsZMYWGLzMjZmZZbmZGzsNmxAAAMAAAAAAA0WzMzihZGGzwWbAwYgBAYbAAAmZabWmtZACsxghBAzwYA

Notable Class Tree Talents

Punishment

This is an extremely important node in M+, particularly for Templar, as it can grant a ton of bonus Blessed Hammer casts in situations where you are able to consistently interrupt casts with either Rebuke or Avenger’s Shield. This not only gives you a lot of Holy Power, but for Templar specifically it interacts with Higher Calling, allowing an Avenger’s Shield cast to extend Shake the Heavens when it otherwise cannot.

Divine Toll and Divine Resonance

Divine Toll has been a staple paladin cooldown since it was introduced back in Shadowlands, where for Protection it shoots out up to 5 Avenger’s Shields based on the number of targets, which also grant holy power when they usually would not. Because the value scales with target count it is a bit weaker in ST compared to AoE. That being said, if you’re trying to interrupt multiple mobs in a pack with more than 5 enemies you can run into problems with the spells target cap, resulting in you not hitting a mob you want to interrupt. To help mitigate this your current target is always hit by one of the shields, but if you’re trying to interrupt multiple targets then you will need to be ready to use your own Avenger’s Shield or Rebuke on the 2nd target if it gets missed.

Divine Resonance adds an additional effect to Divine Toll, causing you to shoot out an Avenger’s Shield at your current target every 5s for 15s. If tracked you can also get some very good value out of this talent in M+ situations, allowing you to keep multiple mobs interrupted for the duration, while also proccing bonus hammers from the previously mentioned Punishment talent. In ST situations this also increases the value of Divine Toll slightly, as it now accounts for 4 Avenger’s Shield presses with a single GCD.

Divine Purpose

One of the more powerful throughput nodes on the class tree, Divine Purpose gives your holy power spenders the ability to make your next spender free to cast. For the most part you’ll just use this on another Shield of the Righteous cast to give you some more damage, but it also opens up the possibility to cast Word of Glory without impacting your Shield of the Righteous uptime, which can also give significant defensive benefits if you’re spec’d into Faith in the Light.

Sacrifice of the Just and Recompense

This is a powerful choice node that alters your Blessing of Sacrifice, where both options are chosen in different scenarios.

Sacrifice the Just halves the CD, making it extremely powerful in situations where you are consistently using sac to help out your allies, such as some raid fights as well as many high level M+ keys.

Recompense on the other hand turns Blessing of Sacrifice into a pseudo dps CD, allowing you to gain a bit of damage from the ability in situations where you otherwise wouldn’t be using it. In these cases I recommend putting it on your co-tank while they’re taking heavy damage in order to maximize its output.

Zealot’s Paragon

An extremely powerful node that causes Hammer of Wrath and Judgment casts while Avenging Wrath is active to extend it by 0.5s, which may not seem like much, but it adds up quite a bit over the duration of the buff, drastically increasing the uptime of your most powerful cooldown.

Of Dusk and Dawn

This talent empowers you in the form of 2 different buffs, where Blessing of Dawn grants your spenders increased throughput after using 3 generators and Blessing of Dusk grants you some damage reduction after consuming Blessing of Dawn. Maintenance of these buffs is usually not something you think about much, as following the rotation rules in this guide should allow you to have nearly 100% uptime on Dusk as well as good value from the Dawn empowerment. That being said, Templar specifically will want to make sure that Hammer of Light is always used while the Dawn buff is active, as this is a substantial damage increase to the heavy burst ability.

General Utility Nodes

Paladins have no shortage of utility in their class tree, so the following talents can be swapped around depending on your needs in a given dungeon or boss encounter.

Fist of Justice and Blinding Light are strong CC options, mostly used in M+.

Cleanse Toxins is nice if a Disease or Poison dispel is needed, which will be nice in Darkflame Cleft, the Motherlode, Theater of Pain, and the Stix Bunkjunker encounter.

Blessing of Freedom has niche value if you or other players need to remove a root or slow effect, which can be expanded further by Unbound Freedom if this effect happens to multiple players at once, yourself included.

Righteous Protection is another niche talent, which essentially gives you another Poison or Disease dispel in Blessing of Sacrifice, making it useful if a lot of these debuff types are going out over a short period of time.

Blessing of Protection has quite a few uses, most commonly used to clear physical debuffs or soak extremely large physical hits on an individual player. Outside of this it can also be used on DPS players if they are close to pulling aggro, or on the tank themselves during a dangerous trash grouping in M+, but in this case be aware that no one else can be in combat with the pack as you’re doing this otherwise they’ll be attacked instead of you. You can also take Improved Blessing of Protection to reduce the cooldown if you need it up more often, which also applies to Blessing of Spellwarding in your spec tree. If using this ability on yourself to clear a debuff, make sure you’re ready with a cancelaura macro so that you don’t lose aggro, which will be linked in the macro section of this guide.

Notable Spec Tree Talents

Blessed Hammer

Blessed Hammer is the default talent in this choice node, with the exception of Lightsmith ST builds, and one of the main reasons for this outside having an additional charge is that it does not require a target. This means you can continue to build holy power between trash pulls, during intermission phases, or just if you’re out of range of mobs, which allows you to always ensure you can cast a Shield of the Righteous once you’ve re-engaged mobs. It also provides significantly more defensive upside than Hammer of the Righteous which is a nice bonus.

Shining Light

This is an important buff that allows you to cast Word of Glory without spending holy power, allowing you to weave in healing to either yourself or allies as needed while still maintaining full uptime on your shield of the righteous. At the same time it lets you take advantage of some of the additional bonuses casting Word of Glory provides, including extra block from the Faith in the Light talent and CDR from both Resolute Defender and Righteous Protector.

Grand Crusader and Crusader’s Judgment

The combination of these talents is what causes a lot of the reactionary gameplay that defines Protection Paladin. In M+ the Avenger’s Shield resets are what allows you to lockdown casters for an extended period of time, whereas the extra charge of Judgment and CDR is the backbone of your holy power generation, allowing you to maintain Shield of the Righteous uptime and filling many of your globals.

Sanctuary

If you find yourself struggling with maintaining Consecrate, this talent is your best friend, giving you 4 seconds of breathing room if you are ever forced out of its radius for any reason. This is particularly good in dungeons or boss encounters that have heavy movement or spawn ground effects you need to avoid.

Blessing of Spellwarding

This is a niche but powerful tool, unique to Protection Paladin. While Blessing of Protection immunes physical damage and debuffs, Spellwarding protects against magic damage and can prevent magic based debuffs entirely. It can be used to save an ally or even as a personal for yourself when taking heavy magic damage, and is much safer to use than Blessing of Protection as it does not cause you to drop aggro.

Avenging Wrath and Sentinel

This choice node grants you the defining cooldown of paladins, with Avenging Wrath granting additional crit rating and uptime compared to Sentinel giving you a significant boost to your maximum health and damage reduction. Unfortunately the uptime loss of using Sentinel is quite significant, which leads to not only dealing less damage but also generating less holy power which leads to less CDR on the ability from Righteous Protector, so in the vast majority of situations you’ll currently opt to take Avenging Wrath.

Faith in the Light

An interesting talent that didn’t see a lot of use in Dragonflight, this provides a hefty amount of block for 6s after using Word of Glory, which when combined with Barricade of Faith and Improved Holy Shield actually allow Paladins to hit 100% block for spells. This is one of the few “stat breakpoints” that exist currently in WoW, which we’ll discuss a bit in the Stat Priority section.

Gift of the Golden Val’kyr

An extremely powerful defensive talent, basically acting as a pseudo cheat death with it’s free proc of Guardian of Ancient Kings when you drop below 30% health. This is a defensive staple in the Protection kit, without even considering the fact that it can also provide significant CDR on Guardian of Ancient Kings as well.

Barricade of Faith, Strength in Adversity and Crusader’s Resolve

These two talents are both buffs tied to Avenger’s Shield, resulting in significant defensive gains if you use the ability at least once every 10s. Despite nerfs to Strength in Adversity it remains a powerful form of mitigation in AoE situations, and as previously mentioned Barricade of Faith helps you reach 100% spell block on top of also assisting with physical damage that you do not parry.

Crusader’s Resolve is on a choice node with Strength in Adversity, and is a potentially good raid option on boss encounters that deal heavy melee damage, however this has yet to see significant play in The War Within.

Bastion of Light

A familiar cooldown that has seen a bit of a rework, this button now gives you 2 bonus holy power on your next 5 judgment casts, which can provide some nice burst damage that is enhanced by Templar’s Hammerfall, as well as a boost to CDR from Resolute Defender and Righteous Protector. Just be careful to not cap on holy power when using this ability, as during Avenging Wrath a single judgment will give you 4 holy power while this is active.

Eye of Tyr and Inmost Light

This 1min CD ability is what Templar is designed around, making it - along with the CDR and damage boost provided by Inmost Light - mandatory in all builds for that hero spec. Lightsmith has a bit more flexibility, and can instead choose to opt into it if they specifically need another CD to rotate through, or even if they just want a little extra damage.

Resolute Defender and Righteous Protector

These 2 talents fuel the core cooldown reduction of the spec, causing holy power spent to also reduce the cooldowns of Ardent Defender, Divine Shield, Avenging Wrath, and Guardian of Ancient Kings. This allows paladins to have significantly improved uptime on these abilities if they’re able to generate and spend high amounts of holy power without wasting it, which I’ll explain more about in the Rotation section.

Moment of Glory

Another short CD available to Prot, this has great offensive upside when stacked with Avenging Wrath, plus it has some less obvious benefits in M+ situations, guaranteeing that you can lockdown multiple casters for the duration while also synergizing with other offensive talents like Bulwark of Righteous Fury and Punishment.

When Paired with Divine Toll this also creates a significant amount of shielding on you in AoE situations, so the defense it provides shouldn’t be scoffed at either, especially when you consider this shielding stacks with the absorb provided by Bulwark of Order.

Last Stand

An extremely unique talent, this causes Divine Shield to taunt all enemies around you for 8s instead of dropping threat, turning it into the strongest defensive in the game. This allows you to do things like clear otherwise undispellable DoTs, or even just soak up otherwise lethal damage as if nothing happened. The one thing to be aware of is the 15yd range on this taunt effect, as if you exceed that distance while Divine Shield is still active you will immediately lose aggro which can be very bad for other nearby players.

Lightsmith

This hero tree grants you a new ability in Holy Armaments, which is a 1min CD with 2 charges that rotates between Holy Bulwark, an absorb shield that grows over time, and Sacred Weapon, a buff that empowers the target to deal bonus holy damage or healing to their target. These buffs aren’t just for allies though, as whenever you buff someone else you actually gain the same benefit, so you get to feel empowered as well! This tree also has a few interactions with Shining Light, giving you the opportunity to gain more of them while also causing your free Word of Glory casts to grant CDR for your armaments.

In terms of choices in this tree, 3 out of the 4 choice nodes are locked in, however you do have the choice between Divine Guidance and Blessed Assurance, where the latter is often used in raid alongside Hammer of the Righteous to optimize single target damage, leaving the former as the default choice in M+ when you’d rather be using Blessed Hammer.

Rotationally there isn’t too much different with this hero spec compared to baseline Prot Paladin, making it a solid option for players new to the spec. There are some minor adjustments when taking the previously mentioned Divine Guidance/Blessed Assurance, otherwise it’s mostly about optimizing your Sacred Weapon uptime and doing your best to ensure this buff is active for as much of your Avenging Wrath window as possible in order to maximize the output of Blessing of the Forge.

Templar

If buffing people isn’t your thing, Templar opts to instead rain hammers down from the heavens, empowering Eye of Tyr to turn into Hammer of Light after being used which does some solid burst damage, but also giving you a maintenance buff in Shake the Heavens that allows you to consistently call down smaller Empyrean Hammers for more consistent throughput. Extending this buff via Higher Calling is core to the Templar hero spec, as these hammers also can apply damage reductions to enemies as well as grant you a free use of Hammer of Light once you’ve called down 60 of them thanks to Light’s Deliverance. Keep in mind that all uses of Hammer of Light have a 12s limit, so you can’t hold on to these for too long.

When it comes to choice nodes you really don’t swap any of them for Templar, as in all cases there’s one option that significantly outshines the other. The rotation does get altered though, as Avenger’s Shield loses a lot of offensive value since it does not extend your Shake the Heavens buff. This results in dramatically less casts of this ability in most cases, with the exception being if you can get an interrupt while talented into Punishment or if you need to press it in order to maintain your defensive buffs in Barricade of Faith and Strength in Adversity.

While I wouldn’t say this hero tree is extremely difficult, it is very punishing for both mistakes or lack of boss uptime, particularly if they result in you losing Shake the Heavens. It also causes the spec to lose a bit of flexibility, as regardless of the situation you’ll need to spec into both Eye of Tyr and Inmost Light since the hero talents revolve around it.