Paladin Talent Guide

Average: 3.4 (55 votes)
This guide provides an overview of the most popular paladin talent builds, how to use them and what they are for. CHECK OUT THIS EXTREMELY in depth paladin guide, it covers everything you'll ever want to know about your paladin.

The Paladin is infamous amongst other classes for their survivability. Even untalented, simply wearing plate and having the capacity to heal yourself is not a pair of skills to be taken lightly. The Paladin can primarily fill two roles, healing and tanking, when properly talented, either paladin role can be filled with great success.

Holy Healing - 43/18/0

The primary focus of the Holy tree is healing, and that's exactly what this build sets out to do. Picking up all the good healing and mana conservation talents on the way down the tree, skipping a few that either have purposes not suited to your cause (i.e. Divine Strength, Improved Seal of Righteousness) or not particularly useful or worth their points (Aura Mastery, Blessed Life). The leftover points find a home going a bit into Protection, where you get a couple talents, mostly filler, to pick up Blessing of Kings and Improved Concentration Aura, which combined with Spiritual Focus makes the paladin healing abilities unable to be impacted by pushback. Not bad at all.

Protection Tanking - 12/44/5 or 0/49/12

The second of the roles the Paladin will primarily fill is tanking. The Paladin is arguably the best in the game at tanking multiple mobs, and with so many talents reflecting damage back every time the Paladin is attacked, it's easy to see why that's the case. But otherwise, everything else is very useful for getting and holding on to threat. A couple points in Retribution and the first five in Holy help with mana management. Feel free to move some points around to get anticipation if you are having problems with +defense items. You can also max out hammer of justice instead of precision if you rely on that to save party members.

Retribution - 12/0/48

The Paladin if properly geared can become a DPS machine but holy/survival paladins are better overall for PvP due to the survival the trees afford. Still, if you want to do damage, this is your tree -- just make sure you have a nice, slow weapon, preferably slower than 2.1 seconds, to make full use of Seal of Command. The talents skipping in the tree really don't warrant too much attention, for even if they sound good on paper, the actual effect isn't as profound (for example, Improved Seal of the Crusader accounts for about 35 spell damage at 70). The 12 spare points go into some base stat enhancement in Holy.

Holy DPS - 40/0/21

Rather than having Protection as the secondary tree as in the Holy Healing build, this one makes Retribution your backup. In addition to picking up a couple of the more DPS oriented talents in the Holy tree, this paladin build makes you quite the formidable healer while still dishing out damage, a frustrating combination in any PvP environment. This paladin build functions best well geared with considerable spell damage, but if you can scrape that together, it's a very effective combination of talents.

PvP Protection - 13/48/0

Protection is somewhat surprisingly a very competent PvP tree. You're extremely difficult to take down, both through a combination of healing talents from Holy and the Protection talents themselves. Notable deviations from the tanking Protection build include the entire fourth tier of talents -- Stoicism, Improved Hammer of Justice, and Improved Concentration Aura -- which all have sub par PvE uses but are invaluable against PvP opponents. Ardent Defender's effect isn't as profound in a burst-happy PvP environment, so it's sacrificed for the Holy talents that help prevent you from getting below 20% in the first place. A solid choice for any Paladin wishing to stick it to a fellow human.


Posted December 3rd, 2007 by webmaster
Fix This Guide

pally tank spec

On January 16th, 2008 Guest says:

this is a stupid tank spec. try something more along the lines of this http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZVhtIx0dMgqtVbx

protection better in pvp

On February 1st, 2008 Guest says:

protection better in pvp than ret?

/lol

Sorry.. but.. That is the

On March 1st, 2008 Guest says:

Sorry.. but.. That is the SHittest Retri spec ive ever seen :(

Sorry But that is the

On March 1st, 2008 Guest says:

Sorry But that is the SHITTEST retribution spec ive EVER SEEN!!! :(
sorry if i offend you but really that is not gonna output dps...

TBH that Holy DPS build

On March 5th, 2008 Guest says:

TBH that Holy DPS build is'nt all that good. You've got too many talents in useless talents such as stun resist and less damage. I reccommend something like:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?0555300...
Then spend the last 3 points in either Vindiction or Crusader.

Wow.... whoever submitted

On March 8th, 2008 Guest says:

Wow.... whoever submitted these talents can by no means seriously think anyone that plays a Paladin would believe the submitter has ever played WoW. Every single one of these trees are screwed up... if you are reading this DO NOT use these talent guidlines! Almost Gaming is just that.... almost gaming.... as long as these talent trees are posted, they will never be "Actually Gaming." Roflstomp at this site... goodbye

easy 2 whine about something

On March 11th, 2008 Guest says:

easy 2 whine about something but post good talents yourself if you disagree.
cheap comments

The Ret build does not work

On March 25th, 2008 Guest says:

The Ret build does not work since its impossible....if you look it has points spent without fullfilling the prereq's....anyway this is what I was thinking of for a PvE build on a Ret Pally, any comments? http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?0550300...

Ya, no kidding, crappy spec!

On March 30th, 2008 Guest says:

Ya, no kidding, crappy spec! the improved seal of righteousness is unusual, but could be good for threat. No Ardent defender should be ok if ur healer is capable. The rest doesnt look good at all: Impr BoM?! no pally should have BoM on for any serious fight. Reckoning? shouldnt u be dodge/parrying enough that it doesnt proc much? ...which brings up Anticipation & Deflection: great talents for getting that uncrushable status, i wouldnt go without them.

I agree with Noob's spec (allowing for some variation). Here's what im thinking: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?0000000...

im not sure about the Ardent Defender, it seems only worth while for 1v1 (pvp or pve elite);
I may take Pursuit of justice & Imp Ham of Justice for pvp benefits, note sure of their worth tho;
Could SoCommand give more dmg/threat than SoRighteousness??

LMFAO, holy = healing?! No

On April 15th, 2008 Guest says:

LMFAO, holy = healing?! No feckin' way!!

Is it just me or does this site screw up a lot on talents?

heres some tanking builds

On April 18th, 2008 Guest says:

heres some tanking builds that really work.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sVVZV0tIx0dgMotVf
this is also a good build
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sVZV0tIx0dgMotVfx

having lvled up a fare number of pallys and played with all specs for them the builds a listed are to 2 builds that i have on both of my lvl 70 pallys one horde and one alliance. a good source for how to tank well with a pally and where to have toy stats it here http://www.wowinsider.com/paladin-tanking it dose not really go into builds on the page but the rest of the info worth it's wight in gold in the time frame of one day it took me from being a sub-par tank to an awesome tank.

Lmao do u even play wow? the

On April 28th, 2008 Guest says:

Lmao do u even play wow? the ret, shock(holy dps), and pve prot spec were horrible. im gonna assume your just some noob who read a few forumns got the basic concept of how each spec works and decided to put together some bullshit builds and claim to know what your doing. don't wast our time, this is a horrible guide, disregard it.

This guide has been updated.

webmaster's picture
On May 6th, 2008 webmaster says:

This guide has been updated. When the talent trees change from patches the old talent builds get messed up. I've implemented some of your changes into some of the talent builds, feel free to click the fix this guide link next to add comment to make your own corrections.

Reckoning is back

On May 25th, 2008 ceko1 says:

Reckoning is back http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=000...

For a prot paladin what

On June 7th, 2008 Guest says:

For a prot paladin what about this one.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=050...

I have made my own PvP

On June 25th, 2008 Guest says:

I have made my own PvP retribution paladin build.

i think it is goo enough to defeat everyone in arena and battlegrounds. tested this build by myself so u can try it too.
gave this build to some of my friends and they are real pvp machines now :)

so here it is:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=550...

Best tankadin

On July 1st, 2008 loladino (not verified) says:

Best tankadin spec
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=050...

....i should'nt be telling you this :O

Best tankadin

On July 1st, 2008 loladino (not verified) says:

Best tankadin spec
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=050...

....i should'nt be telling you this :O

Best tank spec if you know

On July 1st, 2008 Guest (not verified) says:

Best tank spec if you know how to use it

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=050...

Arthoz T5 Human paladin - Terenas

This is a good Dps holy

On July 13th, 2008 Guest (not verified) says:

This is a good Dps holy talent tree
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=050...