PvE Protection Paladin Tank Talents, Builds & Glyphs
Protection Paladins have a standard build that can be subjected to various changes depending on what you require for specific fights or raids. We will display two possible builds, keeping in mind that you have complete freedom in altering them if you favor one set of talents over another.
Talent Builds
This build will be most useful for high-end content, regarding the fact that there are no points in Divinity, so we assume that your party/raid group has capable healers. Besides that, it takes all of the crucial talents you’d expect, like Ardent Defender, Divine Sacrifice and of course Hammer of the Righteous.
There are some choices here that aren’t strictly speaking mandatory. The first of those would be Seal of Command — it helps you generate threat in cleave-type fights and on trash, but isn’t too useful on bosses — thus some people don’t see the appeal in it. Furthermore, this build puts 2 points in the mana regeneration Spiritual Attunement talent, where it will often be enough to only have 1 point — this just helps alleviate any mana concerns you may have during the fight, but if you find you don’t need the extra mana regen, you could absolutely put this talent point elsewhere.
This build is incredibly similar to the standard build, while shifting some of talent points towards more utility-focused talents. The biggest difference is the talent distribution in the Retribution tree, putting points into Vindication for its attack power debuff and points into Pursuit of Justice for increased mobility. This comes at the cost of trading points from Conviction, thus giving you slightly worse threat output.
This build also puts points into the Judgements of the Just talent, but as we have explained elsewhere, you will likely not need to apply this debuff yourself, so you could move these 2 points to other talents instead.
Notable Talents
Glyphs
Author
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You should take vindication since boss’ damage calculated as “(attack power + base dmg) * coefficient”. It means that AP reduction for bosses is really effective. Also, in raid environment 1/2 spiritual attunement is enough (divine plea, blessing of sanctuary, hard heals on you, a lot of manareg buffs and effects). Usually im going that build (https://wotlkdb.com/?talent#sZV0tAbuMusIufzxfMzbc:Gkpmcz). There is 2 unspent points. You can go improved stun for stunning beasts on DBS (beasts CD will be same with stun CD). You can go judgement of the just if you are tanking RS HC inside and there is no DK for same attack speed debuff. You can go conviction or seals of the pure for more aggro generation.
Im taking for pursuit of justice for dynamic fights. This talent is slightly better than boots enchant (15 stamina + 8% movement speed), so you can enchant +22 stamina on boots.
Hey, thank you for your comment and feedback! We do list a Vindication build :)
how do i utilize the glyph of vengeance while using seal of command in the tree?
Hey, you don’t. You only use Seal of Command in AoE fights, and then you don’t gain the benefit of Glyph of Seal of Vengeance — you only gain that benefit in single target fights, where you use Seal of Vengeance.
If you are committed to tanking, you can have 2 different talent builds for your dual talent specialization, 1 of which has single target talents & glyphs (like the glyph of SoV!) and 1 has AoE talents & glyphs (like SoC, glyph of Hammer of the Righteous, etc).
Many people don’t want to use their dual spec for 2 tank builds though so this talent build just gives you a little bit of both!
is getting ‘touched by the light’ useless? cuz it gives spellpower and heal crit , and if you are in a doungen or raid you dont need to heal your self… you can spend them on something like stoicism …. any coment on that.?
Touched by the Light is a must-have. Spell power increases the damage dealt by your seals, Judgement, Holy Shield and Consecration. This means this talent alone will make threat a non-issue paired with Righetous Fury.
It is not useless. Most of your attacks are spells. This just makes strenth also good for your spells. Pick it up
In terms of Judgements of the Just…
If it doesn’t stack with similar abilities, that means it doesn’t stack with Thunder Clap – an ability that generally provides a 10% decrease in attack speed, but if you grab Improved Thunder Clap (i.e Protection Warriors) then one of you has a pointless talent chosen, and Protection Warriors should ALWAYS pick up Improved Thunder Clap.
I have never witnessed (or heard of) a Paladin generating mana from their own heals via Spiritual Attunement, nor have I experienced this myself. It does specify that it is based on “…other friendly targets’ spells” in the tooltip.
For Glyphs…
Dungeons/Trash Pulls – Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous / Glyph of Divine Plea / Glyph of Righteous Defense or Glyph of Holy Wrath or Glyph of Exorcism
Is Kings still the go-to self blessing? Sanctuary was rubbish in TBC, but updated talent looks viable. Get the Str and Stm from kings, plus dmg reduction, and mana.
Nope, Sanctuary was buffed to also give the same 10% strength and stamina buff that Kings gives (the 2 do not stack!) so you trade 10% agility, intellect and spirit (by not having Kings) for 3% reduced damage taken and the mana restoration buff. The 3% reduced damage taken buff doesn’t stack with the Discipline Priest talent that does the same thing, but if you can only pick 1 of those 2, go with Sanctuary!
And even more important, you gain mana every time you dodge/block/parry so you should very rarely ever have mana issues when paired with divine plea. If you have mana issues, you aren’t pulling enough mobs basically 😂.
2/2 Improved Judgements is not needed. Only need 1/2 for the 969 rotation to work, though there may not be better places to put that point depending on the raid comp. Seal of command is also largely unneeded for Prot, as most of our attacks already hit multiple targets. If you can’t hold aggro on AoE pulls without it, you’re doing something wrong with your rotation.
Pursuit of Justice is generally a bad talent for Prot in PvE. Think of it this way, Tuskar’s Vitality gives 15 stam+8% movement speed increase, while Greater Fortitude+PoJ gives 22 stam+16% movement speed. One seems better than the other in a vacuum, however you have to consider your other talent choices. Putting those two points into Conviction grants 2% crit, a stat we basically will never see as a Prot Paladin outside of Agility enhancements, and certainly not in flat percentages. 2% crit made Lionheart Helm and Blackhand’s Breadth pre-raid BiS in Vanilla. It’s huge. It’s basically like always having a third trinket. I would personally take a flat 2% crit over 80 health and an extra 8% movement speed any day. If 80 health and 8% movement speed are the difference maker to a fight, something else is wrong. 2% crit will be felt more significantly in every fight in the game, guaranteed. In regards to the disarm, it’s not really much to write home about, as most of our abilities do not require a melee weapon to cast. That aspect of it is highly situational at best, and meaningless most of the time, and is more useful in PvP as Ret than PvE as Prot.
should put 2 points in sanctity of battle as it gives 2% crit chance + 10% more damage on exorcism pull, and 4 points in conviction