Talent options

Ulduar & 3.1 brought major changes to the talent options for Paladins. The Holy tree was always slim - about 51-53 points got you all your PvE healing & utility talents, this remains the case in 3.1. This lightweight design has now been extended to both Retribution and Protection - both trees are "complete" with ~53 points invested.

In Protection, this was achieved via the deletion of Kings (now baseline) and the conversion of most of the very deep prot talents from 5/5 to 3/3, without reducing their overall effectiveness. Basically, 53 points gets you what you had to spend 60 points on before. Similar changes were made to the Ret tree - instead of needing 61 in ret to complete their PvE setup, it is more like 53.

3.2 brought minimal talent changes.
• Ardent Defender went from good to "Most powerful tanking talent in game" - utterly mandatory now.
• Vindication went from PvP to very good PvE debuff talent - same as Imp. Demo Shout or Imp CoW, and we have the easiest time putting it up of all classes. My warrior MT loves the fact that I stick Demo up now.
• SotP didn't change, but SoV did - it now has a significant damage proc on melee swings when stacked to 5. This makes SotP pretty good, especially in Ulduar where Crusade is poor.
• Reckoning went from utter rubbish to "almost OK". Still worst TPS talent, but not completely laughable.

Throughout this section of the guide I'm indebted to PsiVen's original TPS work, but I'm currently using Theck's MATLAB thread for TPS comparisons.

Cookie cutter build design

Step 1: Don't die

We're a tank. Our primary job is to live. Thus, you take all primary mitigation talents. Then, you take the basic TPS and rotation talents required to be able to tank (eg: 1/2 Imp Judge so you can do 969).

Basic tanking talents

Unpossible talent build, of course. We need to put 3 more talent points into Tier 1-5

Justifications so far:

• 1/2 Spiritual Atunement?
See post 8 on how not to go OOM. Short version is that 2/2 is radical overkill. Certainly for boss fights, 1/2 is plenty, trash you just need to be careful with maintaining high DP uptime and low use of Consecrate. Chain-pulling trash so DP uptime is 100% will be good for your mana, so long as your healers can cope. Only fight that 1/2 is marginal for is Vezaxx hard-mode, which I've tanked with 1/2 with minor threat-cap issues for ranged. Everything else, 1/2 is plenty. Even more so in 3.2, when Sanc includes stamina and "Kings vs Sanc?" doesn't come up as a major issue in a pally-light 10-man.

• 3/3 One Hand Specialisation
We also take 1HS, as it is our best TPS talent by roughly double, and we have to take something to reach the bottom half of the tree - all sensible tanking specs will have 1HS.

• 3/3 Touched by the Light Second best TPS talent after 1HS. Nothing to collect that gives more DPS/TPS. Also has a little utility when soloing in ret gear and you have to heal yourself.

• 3/3 Ardent Defender
As of 3.2, AD is ridiculously OP. 5% EH per point, plus bonus death avoidance.

Step 2: Fill to 53 points in Prot

We need to put 3 points in Tiers 1-5 somewhere. What are our options?

Good Choices

• Divine Sacrifice Nerfed in absorption terms quite badly from infinite to 150% of health. But buffed in that the CD was unlinked from bubble, so you can pop it more flexibly (so long as you can live...)

I was a fan of the 3.0 version, and used it pretty much every Sapphiron & Malygos kill, even when I was tanking those bosses, still took it in 3.1 for Ulduar hard modes. Worst case, you can steal some damage from the other tanks during trash to regen some mana, best case it's a handy raid-wide CD during an AE phase, or an external CD for hard modes.

• Divine Guardian Well... it's OK. Tiny buff to DS. Tiny buff to Sacred Shield amount (Holy Paladin version still better, even unimproved). Big buff to SS duration, so at least you're only wasting GCDs once a minute instead of twice. More important now the Holy Paladin can't stick it on every tank in 3.2.

• Imp HoJ Base CD is a minute. We take that down to 40 sec due to JotJ in Tier-10. So if you get Imp Hoj, you have a 20 sec CD stun. Still too slow for NukingBossWhoNeedsToBeInteruptedOrHeNukesYourFaceOff, but pretty nice for trash, and hand for covering boss interrupts if your rogue stood in FIARITBURNZ! I'm not a fan, but some people swear by it. 20 sec CD is still too long.

• Reckoning Changes to SoV in 3.2 make this a decent talent. Still our worst TPS option, but "OK" simply because it is right there and very easy to get. May be quite OP in 3.3 for trash (no trash in 3.2).

"Meh" (at best) Choices

• Divinity This talent is bad for Holy, let alone Prot. If you're over-healed (the norm), it has zero impact. Skip it. We already have a +6% healing received aura that the other tanks don't need, adding in another 5% isn't going to help.

Bad Choices

• Stoicism / Guardian's Favour I'm ignoring these right off the bat. Next to nothing in PvE will dispel, and you don't much care if your stuff is dispelled anyway. Very few things stun. Buffing your Hand spells is also pretty useless for PvE. These two talents are for PvP.

Step 3: A dozen points left... now what?

OK, you've stuck you 3 points in the start of prot in your choice. You have the 5% parry and 1/2 Imp Judge for 969. Where do you put your last 12 points?

Choices:
• There's no full-time mitigation talents (though Vindication is pretty close).
• The only accessible "tanking CD" talent is Improved Lay On Hands.
• There are DPS/TPS talents in Ret, or SotP in Holy.

What to do?

First: Ignore what Holy and Ret are doing.

This used to matter, we no longer care. Make sure someone is judging Light, and someone is doing Wisdom. It all just works now.

Second: Rank TPS Options: Crusade (only if already unlocked by utility talents) > SotP > Conviction (only if already unlocked)) > Reckoning.

Third: Think about what utility talents you want. Vindication is almost "must have", PoJ is nice.

SotP and Crusade are same TPS on normal mobs, Crusade is double against undeadanoids. SotP beats Conviction, but Tier-3 of Ret now has Vindication and PoJ, both of which are pretty good (especially Vindication).

It is worth noting that Imp LoH is a powerful CD - 20% physical mitigation. 11 min CD is painful, but vs big hits, it is almost as good as Shield Wall.

If you want the CD? Spec 12/53/6 - Imp LoH is good.

Step 4: Ret filler in Tier 1 & 2

Bad choices are all bad. Pursuit of Justice is lovely, but is in Tier-3, competing with Conviction. Take it if you like running fast more that hurting things.

• HotC is covered by Ret but is great if you don't have one.
• 2/2 Imp Judge is OK for trash, doesn't help for bosses (except Vezaxx hard where you're not consecrating due to OOM). Still, it's a useful point, and we're having trouble finding any.
• Imp Might is OK as well.
• Benediction is still "nigh" useless... but a tiny bit of useful is still something.

Look, just grab 2/2 Imp Judge, and stick the last 3 points any damn place, it doesn't matter. I use HotC for the 10-man utility.

Final spec boils down to one of these, on the assumption that you value utility ahead of TPS:

4/53/14 That's what I'm using for the first few weeks of 3.2, while we're still concentrating on last couple of hard-modes in Ulduar-25.

0/53/18 I will switch to this once we unlock Coliseum hard-modes.

Ardent Defender Rant redacted, since AD is retardedly OP in 3.2