Paladin talents

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Starting at level 10, a Paladin can begin spending talent points to gain new abilities and spells, strengthen existing abilities, and specialize how he/she functions. See the entry on Talents for more information about the Talent system. Paladin Talents have undergone significant changes since the game was released, most notably with the patch 2.3 Retribution Tree revamp.

Paladin talent trees

Paladins train in three schools: Holy, Protection, and Retribution. Which talent trees the Paladin spends points in determines the Paladin's role in parties and raids. Holy Paladins are strong single target healers, and are able to do burst spell damage if specced properly. Protection Paladins make great tanks. Retribution Paladins are powerful melee DPS.

Holy

Talent	Requirements	Ranks	Description
Spiritual Focus	None	5	Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Flash of Light and Holy Light by 14%-70%.
Seals of the Pure	None	5	Increases the damage done by your Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption and their Judgement effects by 3%-15%.
Healing Light	Holy 5	3	Increases the amount healed by your Holy Light, Flash of Light and the effectiveness of Holy Shock spells by 4%-12%.
Divine Intellect	Holy 5	5	Increases your total Intellect by 3%-15%.
Unyielding Faith	Holy 5	2	Reduces the duration of all Fear and Disorient effects by 15%-30%.
Aura Mastery	Holy 5	1	Now grants anyone affected by Concentration Aura immunity from Interrupt and Silence mechanics, and increases the effectiveness of all other auras by 100%.
Illumination	Holy 10	5	After getting a critical effect from your Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock heal spell, gives you a 20%-100% chance to gain Mana equal to 60% of the base cost of your spell.
Improved Lay on Hands	Holy 10	2	Gives the target of your Lay on Hands spell a 25%-50% bonus to their armor value from items for 15 seconds. In addition, the cooldown for your Lay on Hands spell is reduced by 2 min-4min.
Improved Concentration Aura	Holy 15	3	Increases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an additional 5%-15% and reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effect used against an affected group member by 10%-30%. The duration reduction does not stack with any other effects.
Improved Blessing of Wisdom	Holy 15	2	Increases the effect of your Blessing of Wisdom spell by 10%-20%.
Blessed Hands	Holy 15	2	Reduces the mana cost of Hand of Freedom, Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Salvation by 15%-30%, increases the effectiveness of Hand of Salvation by 50%-100% and the effectiveness of Hand of Sacrifice by an additional 5%-10%.
Pure of Heart	Holy 20	2	Reduces the duration of Curse, Disease and Poison effects by 15%-30%.
Divine Favor	Holy 20 Illumination 5	1	When activated, gives your next Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock spell a 100% critical effect chance.
Sanctified Light	Holy 20	3	Increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Light and Holy Shock spells by 2%-6%.
Purifying Power	Holy 25	2	Reduces the mana cost of your Cleanse, Purify and Consecration spells by 5%-10% and reduces the cooldown of your Exorcism and Holy Wrath spells by 17%-33%.
Holy Power	Holy 25	5	Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 1%-5%.
Light's Grace	Holy 30	3	Gives your Holy Light spell a 33%-100% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 0.5 sec. This effect lasts 15 sec.
Holy Shock	Holy 30 Divine Favor 1	7	Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 340-1,402 Holy damage to an enemy, or 481-2,599 healing to an ally.
Blessed Life	Holy 30	3	All attacks against you have a 4%-10% chance to cause half damage.
Holy Guidance	Holy 35	5	Increases your spell power by 4%-20% of your total Intellect.
Sacred Cleansing	Holy 35	3	Your Cleanse spell has a 10%-30% to increase the target's resistance to Disease, Magic and Poison by 30% by 10 sec.
Divine Illumination	Holy 40	1	Reduces the mana cost of all spells by 50% for 15 sec.
Judgements of the Pure	Holy 40	5	Your Judgement spells increase your casting and melee haste by 3%-15% for 1 min.
Enlightened Judgements	Holy 45	2	Increases the range of your Judgement of Light and Judgement of Wisdom spells by 15-30 yards and increases your chance to hit by 2%-4%.
Infusion of Light	Holy 45 Holy Shock 1	2	Your Holy Shock critical hits reduce the cast time of your next Flash of Light by 0.75-1.5 sec or increase the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10%-20%.
Beacon of Light	Holy 50	1	The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all targets within a 40 yard radius. Any heals you cast on those targets will also heal the Beacon for 100% of the amount healed. Only one target can be Beacon of Light at a time. Lasts 1min.

The Holy tree contains talents focused on healing and caster-related buffs. A Holy Paladin may go into the protection tree for Divinity, Guardian's Favor, Divine Guardian, and/or Improved Devotion Aura. A Holy Paladin could alternatively go into the Retribution tree for Benediction, Heart of the Crusader, Conviction and/or Sanctified Seals.

Protection

Talent	Reqs	Ranks	Description
Divinity	None	5	Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 1-5%.
Divine Strength	None	5	Increases your total Strength by 3%-15%.
Stoicism	Protection 5	3	Reduces the duration of all Stun effects by an additional 10%-30% and reduces the chance that your helpful spells and damage over time effects will be dispelled by an additional 10%-30%.
Guardian's Favor	Protection 5	2	Reduces the cooldown of your Hand of Protection by 60 sec-120 sec and increases the duration of your Hand of Freedom by 2 sec-4 sec.
Anticipation	Protection 5	5	Increases your chance to dodge by 1%-5%.
Divine Sacrifice	Protection 10	1	30% of all damage taken by the party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin's health). Lasts 10 sec.
Improved Righteous Fury	Protection 10	3	While Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 2-6%.
Toughness	Protection 10	5	Increases your armor value from items by 2%-10% and reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 6%-30%.
Divine Guardian	Protection 15 Divine Sacrifice 1	2	Improves the effectiveness of your Divine Sacrifice spell by an additional 5-10% and increases the duration of your Sacred Shield by 50-100% and the amount absorbed by 10-20%.
Improved Hammer of Justice	Protection 15	2	Decreases the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice spell by 10-20 sec.
Improved Devotion Aura	Protection 15	3	Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 17%-50% and increases the amount healed on any target affected by any of your Auras by 2%-6%.
Blessing of Sanctuary	Protection 20	1	Places a blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage taken from all sources 3% for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 2% of maximum displayed mana. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.
Reckoning	Protection 20	5	Gives you a 2-10% chance after being hit by any damaging attack that the next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec will generate an additional attack.
Sacred Duty	Protection 25	2	Increases your total Stamina by 4-8%, reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield and Divine Protection spells by 30-60 sec.
One-Handed Weapon Specialization	Protection 25	3	Increases all damage you deal when a one-handed melee weapon is equipped by 4-10%
Spiritual Attunement	Protection 30	2	A passive ability that gives the Paladin mana when healed by other friendly targets' spells. The amount of mana gained is equal to 5-10% of the amount healed.
Holy Shield	Protection 30 Blessing of Sanctuary 1	1	Increases chance to block by 30% for 10 sec and deals 79 holy damage for each attack blocked while active. Each block expends a charge. 8 charges.
Ardent Defender	Protection 30	3	When you have less than 35% health, all damage taken is reduced by 10-30%.
Redoubt	Protection 35	3	Increases your block value by 10-30% and the damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 10-30%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks.
Combat Expertise	Protection 35	3	Increases your Expertise by 2-6, total Stamina and chance to critically hit by 2-6%.
Touched by the Light	Protection 40	3	Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 10-30% of your Stamina and increases the amount healed by your critical heals by 10-30%.
Avenger's Shield	Protection 40 Holy Shield 1	1	Hurls a holy shield at the enemy, dealing 623 to 719 Holy damage, Dazing them and then jumping to additional nearby enemies. Affects 3 total targets. Lasts 10 sec.
Guarded by the Light	Protection 40	2	Reduces spell damage taken by 3-6% and gives a 50-100% chance to refresh the duration of your Divine Plea when you hit an enemy. In addition, your Divine Plea spell is 100% less likely to be dispelled.
Shield of the Templar	Protection 45 Avenger's Shield 1	3	Reduces all damage taken by 1-3% and grants your Avenger's Shield a 33-100% chance to silence your targets for 3 sec.
Judgements of the Just	Protection 45	2	Reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice by 10-20 sec, increases the duration of your Seal of Justice effect by 0.5-1 sec and your Judgement spells also reduce the melee attack speed of the target by 20%.
Hammer of the Righteous	Protection 50	1	Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing 4 times your main hand damage per second as Holy damage.

Protection

The Protection tree contains talents focused on defense, damage mitigation, damage return and one-handed weapons.

A paladin tank would normally invest at least 51 talent points in the protection tree to get Avenger's Shield, although it is not strictly necessary. It is the only ranged ability that a protection paladin has to pull with other than via items or via proximity/judgements or other close range abilities, it bounces and tags a total of 3 targets and applies a 6 second snare to its targets. With 3.0 and inscription, this ability can be modified with a Glyph to increase its damage by 100% while reducing the number of targets hit by 2, making it ideal for tanking hard hitting mobs or bosses that you want to have individual tanks upon. Since patch 2.3, there are more useful talents than the points we can spend, so we see a lot of tanking builds with some minor variation here and there. However, as long as it contains the following core talents, it should be viable: Redoubt (Now with Shield Specialization built into it), Toughness, Improved Righteous Fury, Anticipation, Blessing of Sanctuary, Sacred Duty, One-Handed Weapon Specialization, Holy Shield, Ardent Defender, Combat Expertise, Avenger's Shield, Hammer of the Righteous.

Other talents worth noting for paladin tanks include: Guarded by the Light, which provide some protection against spell damage and reduces mana costs of Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield and Shield of Righteousness; Blessing of Kings, and Touched by the Light, which eliminates the need for gear that adds spell power.

Reckoning is a very good skill when AOE leveling/farming. With more than four to five mobs keep hitting you, reckoning will be up most of the time. This is a very significant improvement in dps, health regen or mana regen when combined with Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Light, or Seal of Wisdom respectively. Nevertheless, its usefulness in end-game instance tanking is not much, so most tankadins would put the points to some where else at level 70.

Concerning PvP, paladin's protection tree is not as designed as the warrior's against enemy spellcasters, since your damage output comes from blocking and being hit by melee damage, and your improved armor and defense will not lower spell damage at all. With Reckoning however, at close proximity to casters, higher damage output may be dealt. Improved Hammer of Justice is excellent if they're trying to cast, so not only do you interrupt them, but you can also get in heals more frequently. Also, with Sacred Duty, you can use Divine Shield while still pummeling spellcasters without slowing or stunning effecting you, and like before, more time for healing as well. Improved Concentration Aura is also useful, especially if you have caster groupmates. Stoicism provides some protection against stun and dispel.

A typical healing raiding paladin who selects talents in protection will invest 5 talent points in the protection tree, selecting Blessing of Kings(1/1) and Improved Blessing of Kings(4/4) since an extra 10% to everyone's stats takes the edge off of new encounters and speeds up raid progression.

For Retribution Paladins, Divine Strength is a must for the extra 15% strength. Blessing of Kings and Improved Blessing of Kings could be chosen if interested. If Blessing of Kings is chosen, it is basically for the benefit of the raid because Blessing of Might is better for retadins' DPS.

Retribution

Talent	Reqs	Ranks	Description
Deflection	None	5	Increases you Parry chance by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Benediction	None	5	Reduces the mana cost of all instant cast spells by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Improved Judgements	Retribution 5	2	Decreases the cooldown of your Judgement spells by 1/2 sec.
Heart of the Crusader	Retribution 5	3	In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement spells will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 1/2/3%.
Improved Blessing of Might	Retribution 5	2	Increases the attack power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 12/25%.
Vindication	Retribution 10	2	Gives the Paladin's damaging attacks a chance to reduce the target's attributes by 10/20% for 15 sec.
Conviction	Retribution 10	5	Increases your chance to get a critical strike with all spells and attacks by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Seal of Command	Retribution 10	1	Gives the Paladin a chance to deal [0.7mw] to [0.7MW] additional Holy damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts 30 sec. Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing [0.16 * AP + 0.25 * SP + 0.24 * MW] Holy damage. This attack will always be a critical strike if the target is stunned or incapacitated.
Pursuit of Justice	Retribution 10	2	Reduces the duration of all Disarm effects by 25/50% and increases movement and mounted movement speed by 8/15%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.
Eye for an Eye	Retribution 15	2	All criticals against you cause 5%/10% of the damage taken to the attacker as well. The damage caused by Eye for an Eye will not exceed 50% of the Paladin's total health.
Sanctity of Battle	Retribution 15	3	Increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and attacks by 1/2/3% and increases the damage caused by Exorcism and Crusader Strike by 5/10/15%.
Crusade	Retribution 15	3	Increases all damage caused by 1/2/3% and all damage against Humanoids, Demons, Undead and Elementals by an additional 1/2/3%.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization	20 Retribution	3	Increases the damage you deal with two handed melee weapons by 2/4/6%.
Sanctified Retribution	Retribution 20	1	Damage caused by targets affected by Retribution Aura is increased by 3%.
Divine Purpose	Retribution 20	2	Reduces your chance to be hit by spells and ranged attacks by 2/4% and gives your Hand of Freedom spell a 50/100% chance to remove any Stun effects on the target.
Vengeance	Retribution 25 Conviction 5	3	Gives you a 1/2/3% bonus to Physical and Holy damage you deal for 30 sec after dealing a critical strike from a weapon swing, spell, or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
Improved Retribution Aura	Retribution 25	2	Increases the damage done by your Retribution Aura by 25/50%.
The Art of War	Retribution 30	2	Increases the critical strike damage of your Judgement, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities by 5/10% and when these abilities critically hit the cast time of your next Flash of Light is reduced by 0.75 sec/instant cast.
Repentance	Retribution 30	1	Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation for up to a minute. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Usable against Demons, Dragonkin, Giants, Humanoids and Undead.
Judgements of the Wise	Retribution 30	3	Your Judgement spells have a 33/66/100% chance to grant the Replenishment effect up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of their maximum mana per second, and to immediately grant you 25% of your your base mana.
Fanaticism	Retribution 35 Repentance 1	5	Increases the critical strike chance of all Judgements capable of a critical hit by 5/10/15/20/25% and reduces threat caused by all actions by 6/12/18/24/30% except when under the effects of Righteous Fury.
Sanctified Wrath	Retribution 35	2	Increases the critical strike chance of Hammer of wrath by 25/50%, reduces the cooldown of Avenging Wrath by 30/60 secs and while affected by Avenging Wrath 25/50% of all damage caused bypasses damage reduction effects.
Swift Retribution	Retribution 40	3	Your Retribution Aura also increases casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 1/2/3%.
Crusader Strike	Retribution 40	1	An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage. 6 sec cooldown.
Sheath of Light	Retribution 40	3	Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 10/20/30% of your attack power and your critical healing spells heal the target for 20/40/60% of the healed amount over 12 seconds.
Righteous Vengeance	Retribution 45	5	When your Judgement and Divine Storm spells deal a critical strike, your target will take 8/16/24/32/40% additional damage over 8 sec.
Divine Storm	Retribution 50	1	An instant weapon attack that causes damage to up to 4 enemies within 8 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totaling 25% of the damage caused.

The Retribution tree contains talents focused on damage output, two-handed weapons, holy damage, and damage avoidance.

DPS Retribution Paladins: Gone from being the underestimated Paladin spec to becoming a formidable holy melee fighter, the Retribution Paladin brings buffs and debuffs, offhealing, cleansing and excellent damage when properly geared. The Retribution tree has both raid and arena viability and can be of interest to any Paladin who would rather deal damage than take or heal it.

For those interested in being a melee damage Paladin, 51 talent points should be invested in the Retribution tree. It is strongly advised that any serious Retribution spec for Divine Storm and Crusader Strike. It is also highly recommended that the Paladin puts 3 points into Heart of the Crusader, as it gives a 3% critical bonus to melee, ranged and spells for everyone who attacks the judged target.

The most common Retribution builds have at least 51 points in the Retribution tree, and some Retribution Paladins decide to spec for Blessing of Kings bringing more party and raid utility, not to mention being able to give more survivability to their fellow PvP'ers in Arena and Battlegrounds (of course, there may be others in the arena who have Blessing of Kings already). However, people who spec into this build lose some benefits from the Retribution tree. This build is able of putting out a good amount of damage while still bringing excellent raid utility. Several variations of Retribution build exist, such as 0/5/56 or 0/10/51.

As for PvP builds, there are a few variations. A common PvP build tends to be 0/16/45, being specced for increased survivability Divine Purpose and for shorter cooldown on your primary stun Improved Hammer of Justice this build is very potent for high end arena play, as your stun when combined with the Gladiator PvP set bonus and the Improved Hammer of Justice talent has its cooldown lowered to 35 seconds, making it quite semi effective as Crowd Control.

Eye for an Eye is a great talent for PvP, as it returns damage from all criticals against you. This ends up being a noticeable damage increase in PvP, and even while soloing. Vindication is an excellent choice as the 20% reduction of all stats can be very useful in many situations. Note, that most bosses are immune to Vindication, but it still serves a purpose when fighting trash mobs, solo'ing, and of course PvP'ing.

Holy Paladins can put points in Benediction for the reduced mana cost of Holy Shock, seals, judgements, and instant Flash of Lights. They may also want to put points into Heart of the Crusader, Conviction, and Sanctified Seals.

Paladin Tanks usually max Deflection and have one point into Improved Judgement (for smoother spell rotation) here. Other retribution tree talents that may be useful for tankadins include Heart of the Crusader, Conviction and Pursuit of Justice. While Retribution Aura is useful for additional threat generation occasionally, it is too far in the Retribution tree to get Improved Retribution Aura. Devotion Aura (with Improved Devotion Aura) is usually a better aura for tanking.

Patch changes

Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): Blessing of Kings is not a talented skill anymore, but it's trainable at level 20.