This build hereis the typical 51 points spent for Holy Paladins.

Where do you put the remaining 20 talent points?
Theres two common builds for Holy Paladins these days and both have trade offs. Which build would be better for you? Let’s take a look.

HOLY(51) / PROTECTION (20)
The first build is the Holy/Protection build, which puts all 20 talent points into the Protection tree.

The main feature of this build is Divine Sacrifice, which absorbs incoming raid damage up to 150% of your Paladin’s health. When combined with Divine Shield, you are absorbing raid damage at no cost. This makes it easier for healing massive raid damage such as XT Deconstructor’s Tantrum, Kologarn’s Shockwave.

But of course there are disadvantages, Divine Shield can only be used once every 5 minutes, so you probably can use it once per fight. Also you trade 5% spell critical chance in the Retribution Tree for this spell. This brings us to the Holy/Retribution build.

HOLY(51) / PROTECTION (5) / RETRIBUTION (15)
The Retribution Build offers more utility than the Holy/Prot build with talents such as Heart of the Crusader and Conviction. Conviction offers additional 5% spell critical chance, which is substantial in healing.

SO? WHICH SPEC DO I USE?
Well, both specs honestly are equally effective, but it’s down to your preference. A heroic geared paladin prepped for raids shld have about 20% spell critical at the very least, but 25% spell critical chance is recommended for beginners who are raiding. If your raid can handle AoE damages, it’s better to use the Holy/Ret build. Or if you want a high critical holy healing build it’s obviously Holy/Ret.

Whereas some people would choose Holy/Prot because of Divine Sacrifice/ Divine Shield Bubble, which can be a raidsaver at times. It is a good emergency combo that would prevent a wipe. But they would have lower healing due to 5% loss in spell critical chance. Also, if you are highly geared and can hit 25% spell critical chance just from gear, going Holy/Prot build is a good choice.

Ultimately it comes down to your opinion which build would benefit your raid more. Some people would think having more CRIT would help raid healing more than Divine Sacrifice, whereas some find Divine Sacrifice more useful since their raid might be more subjectible to raid damage.

Try both builds and find one that fits your style and your raid composition.

Here’s a deeper look in Holy in Patch 3.2. For those concerned about the changes to Holy in the coming patch, this is a informative read.

First let’s look at the changes again,

Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.

Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal-over-time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds

Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.

Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.

Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.

In addition,

Mana Regeneration: All items that provide “X mana per five seconds” have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.

Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target’s maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).

Overall great changes but as you can see the mana refund from Illumination went from 60% to 30%, a substantial amount. Still with Beacon of Light buffed and the new ability of Sacred Shield we are able to get more healing than before. Blizzard’s intention is to make paladins worry about their mana regeneration, h
ence the Illumination nerf and the buffs to MP5 gear and Replenishment.

Healing wise we are able to multitask better, with Beacon of Light able to heal the Beacon(usually the tank) for the full amount even if the heal lands on a raid member with 100% health. With Flash of Light providing a HoT on a member with Sacred Shield we are able to dish out more healing.

The counter to this is obviously mana regeneration issues, Holy paladins now have to be more careful with their casting in Patch 3.2 with Illumination nerfed. Unlike Priests and Druids who obey the 5 second rule, where they regenerate substantial mana if they are able to stop casting for 5 seconds. In priest/druid itemization and talents, mana regeneration and spirit is an important stat. Paladins however, place these stats on the lowest priority, with Intellect and Critical Rating being the most important due to Illumination in the past. By having a huge mana pool and a high critical rate, Illumination used to be able to provide the mana regeneration paladins need to last through a fight. With the nerf, Illumination is no longer a reliable way for mana conversation. Actually I should use the word conservation instead of regeneration.

To cope with this problem the obvious way is better mana management. This requires better utilization of Divine Illumination, Divine Plea and other spells such as Divine Sacrifice. When the fight enters a intense situation where the whole raid takes damage, it would be wise to pop Divine Shield with Divine Sacrifice to absorb the raid damage to conserve mana.

Divine Plea is a tricky spell use considering the 50% reduction to heals, which means its only usable when you are able to share the healing tasks with another healer. A popular workaround is to combine it with Divine Illumination, Avenging Wrath and using Trinkets to heal and regenerate in that period. Think about it, with Divine Illumination and Divine Plea, you are technically healing for the same amount, only it takes you twice as long to cast the heal. With Avenging Wrath and trinkets you in fact are increasing your healing. Let me clarify,

With Divine Plea and Divine Illumination,
Healing lowered tp 50% effective
Mana cost lowered to 50% required

which balances out, you’re paying half the mana cost for heals that’s half effective. Full mana cost equals heals that’s 100% effective without Divine Plea and Divine Illumination.

With Avenging Wrath and Spellpower Trinkets
Avenging Wrath adds 20% healing
Trinkets boost spellpower

which effectively increases healing output. So adding these effects, you healing at 60% + spellpower boost with 50% mana cost per spell.

So effectively, you’re healing at full potential or more, only that you are taking twice as long to do that AND you are regenerating mana. The only downside is whether the tank is capable of dealing with the longer inflow of heals.

As of now there are few alternative strategies for regenerating mana, such as attacking with Seal of Wisdom. But with 3.2 still in the PTR, all is not set in stone yet. Watch this page for more news.

Finally Patch 3.1 has finally been released. Changes have been made to the talent trees. Holy got a little nerfed, Protection got some new talents and Retribution gets somewhat balanced. Unforunately still no improvement on Seals.

With my exams coming within a month and busy preparing for it, I am sorry to say I can’t post a detailed informative document on the new talent specs. I will post core talent builds for each spec, so there will be leftover/spare talent points. These talent points are for you to decide on the kind of build you want.

The good thing (or bad depending the way you see it) about Patch 3.1 is that talent points are freed up, so you can have more variation with your build. Holy Paladins used to spec probably 51/0/20 to amp their critical chance, now with 3.1 you can spec into Protection for Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian. Retribution paladins can also opt to have that talent now that less talent points are needed for a proper Retribution build. This makes the paladin a more “hybrid” class.

HOLY (51/5/5)

In the Holy tree it is still the same old 51 points allocation, feel free to switch between Improved Lay on Hands and Blessed Hands.

Divinity is a exciting new talent, improving heals given and received by 5%.

Benediction is specifically for Holy Shock, so if you find the 5 points here not worthwhile simply pump them into Protection for Divine Sacrifce and Divine Guardian. Divine Guardian increases the duration of Sacred Shield by 100% and amount absorbed by 20%, which is a solid talent. Alternatively invest remaining points in Retribution tree for more critical chance.

PROTECTION (0/56/6)

While reading through sites for info on Protection build, the ironic thing is that the new talent Divine Sacrifice is deemed more a offtank/non-tank spell. This seems more usable in a situation when the whole raid is taking heavy damage, such as EoE Phase 2 ,instead of in a boss fight, so use it wisely. You are only bringing more hurt upon yourself if it is used in a boss fight, apart from boss damage you are taking damage from other party members. In my build you can see I left Divine Sacrifice out, but it is optional. Probably in 25 man raids where raid takes heavy damage it will be needed.

Remember to spend only 1 point in Improved Judgements, this is because of the 9 6 9 rotation. If you don’t already know, 9 6 9 rotation is a spell rotation for tankadins. You can read about it HERE and the SacredDuty blog has a post on it.

Divinity might seem to be a Holy talent, but it works for Protection as well. It increases healing received by 5%, that is enough reason to take it.

RETRIBUTION (0/5/52)

Retribution tree went through some tweaks, what used to require heavy points investment, now has talent points reduced considerably. Seal of Blood/Martyr had Judgement damage reduced but Seal damage increased, bringing a balance to it.

You can see I have no points in Improved Blessing of Might, this is due to Warrior’s Battle Shout. There are problems of Blessing of Might clashing with Battle Shout (Sorry but I will have to look into it in detail in later posts.) Seal of Command is optional.

From then on it’s pretty much the core talents for Retribution paladins. The remaining talent points can be invested in the Protection Tree for the new talents, it will help raid survivability. With instant Flash of Lights and Divine Sacrifice, you can provide additional support in situations where the raid is taking damage or you are unable to DPS the target.

Finally came up with gear guides to prepare yourselves for raids.

All three specs are here:

Holy Gear Guide

Protection Gear Guide

I excluded some items either they are deemed too low level or restricted to selected people. For example Sonic Booster is excluded due to the fact you have to be an Engineer to be able to use it. It does not cater to the majority so I will not put it in the list.

If you feel I have left out some items feel free to comment or email me.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Holy 3.0 Guide added.
Based on previous raids in Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, healing style has changed and will take some time to get used to.

Click this link to read the guide

I wrote a page on Paladin glyphs and my assessment of them. The glyph guide is listed in Guides

Click this link to read the Glyph Guide.