General Information
On this page, we present the viable talent and glyph choices forHoly Paladins in World of Warcraft MoP 5.4. We detail what each of the talents andglyphs do and in which situations they should be taken.
The other pages of our Holy Paladin guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.
1. Talent Choices↑top
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- Performance-enhancing
- Survival
- Crowd Control
- Movement
- Utility
- Situational
There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents arenow viable. They can easily be changed, thanks to 
Dust of Disappearance(and 
Tomes of the Clear Mind from level 86 to 90).You will frequently find yourself changing talents and glyphs betweenencounters, in order to adapt your play style to different mechanics.Therefore, it is important to understand what each of your talents does andhow they affect your play style.
2. Tier 1 Talents↑top
Tier 1 talents offer you a choice between 3 means of improving yourmovement speed.
Speed of Light is an active ability, with a 45-second cooldown,which increases your movement speed by 70% for 8 seconds.
Long Arm of the Law causes your successful 
Judgments toincrease your movement speed by 45% for 3 seconds.
Pursuit of Justice passively grants you 15% increased movementspeed, and an additional 5% increased movement speed for each charge of HolyPower that you have, up to a maximum of 3 (so, up to a grand total of 30%increased movement speed).
Speed of Light is excellent because it offers you a reliable movementspeed burst. Given the drawbacks of the other two talents, Speed of Light shouldbe your default choice.
Pursuit of Justice offers you a constant, passive movement speedboost, which is excellent for moving out of harmful effects. That said, it doesnot stack with the movement-speed-increasing feet enchant, and you willseldom have 3 Holy Power charges when you are on the move.
Long Arm of the Law offers more frequent but shorter bursts of speed thanSpeed of Light. It requires you to judge in order to get the speed boost,however, and overall we do not recommend it.
3. Tier 2 Talents↑top
Tier 2 talents offer you a choice between 3 means of crowd-control.
Fist of Justice is an improved version of 
Hammer of Justice,which it replaces. Fist of Justice stuns the target for 6 seconds, with a30-second cooldown, from a 20-yard range.
Repentance puts the (Demon, Dragonkin, Giant, Humanoid, orUndead) target to sleep for 1 minute. Damage done to the target will break theeffect, and only one target can be under this effect at one time (from thesame Paladin).
Evil is a Point of View allows you to use Turn Evil on Humanoids andBeasts.
The talent choice here is largely irrelevant, and it will not affect yourperformance in any way. You should choose based on your own preference, or onthe requirements of the encounter, in terms of add crowd-control.
That said, you will probably find Fist of Justice to be the mostuseful option in the vast majority of encounters. The stun provided by it isone of the longest single target stuns in the game, and it has no significantresource cost attached to casting it.
4. Tier 3 Talents↑top
Tier 3 talents offer you a choice between 3 healing abilities.
Selfless Healer causes your Judgments to generate 1 Holy Power,and to reduce the cast time and mana cost of your next 
Flash of Light,
Divine Light, or 
Holy Radiance by 35% per stack. Additionally, ifused on players other than yourself, it also increases their healing by 20%per stack. The effect can stack up to 3 times.
Eternal Flame replaces 
Word of Glory. It costs Holy Power(up to 3), heals the target for an amount roughly equal to Word of Glory'shealing, and places a HoT on the target, lasting 30 seconds. The power of theHoT is dependant on the amount of Holy Power with which the spell is used. WhenEternal Flame is used on yourself, the HoT's power is increased by 50%.
Sacred Shield places a 30-second buff on the target, which thengoes on to create a damage absorption shield every 6 seconds. The individualshields being broken by damage or expiring has no effect on the main buff.Sacred Shield can be active on more than one target at once. It uses a chargesystem, having 3 charges and a 10-second recharge time.
The best choice is Eternal Flame. As an added bonus, the healing done byEternal Flame transfers through your 
Beacon of Light, meaning that if youblanket the raid with Eternal Flame HoTs, then the Beacon target will alsoreceive a steady stream of healing.
Sacred Shield is is also a viable option if you are tank healing,although we still feel that Eternal Flame is a little better.
Selfless Healer is quite good as well, but still slightly behindEternal Flame.
5. Tier 4 Talents↑top
Tier 4 talents offer you a choice between 3 ways of situationally improvingyour utility.
Hand of Purity places a 6-second buff on a target, reducing thedamage they take from harmful periodic effects by 80%, and from harmfulperiodic effects that cannot be prevented by immunities by 40%. It also reducesall damage taken by 10%.
Unbreakable Spirit reduces the cooldown of 
Divine Shield,
Divine Protection, and 
Lay on Hands by 50%.
Clemency gives each of your Hand spells 2 charges. This means thatyou can use them twice before triggering the cooldown (but the cooldown willbegin ticking as soon as it is used for the first time).
We believe Unbreakable Spirit should be the default choice in mostencounters. It greatly improves survivability (by allowing more frequent useof Divine Protection) and utility (allowing you to bypass mechanics orreset debuffs more often with Divine Shield).
Clemency will literally double your already powerful utility. Incase your Hand spells turn out to be useful in an encounter, this talent willundoubtedly be a strong choice.
Hand of Purity's usefulness depends greatly on the number of effectsthat are affected by it. If it works against relevant boss mechanics, it can bean excellent cooldown to use on the tank.
6. Tier 5 Talents↑top
Tier 5 talents offer you a choice between 3 powerful performance-enchancingtalents.
Holy Avenger is a 2-minute cooldown that, for 18 seconds, causesyour abilities that generate Holy Power to deal 30% additional damage andhealing, and to generate 3 charges of Holy Power, instead of 1.
Sanctified Wrath passively increases the duration of
Avenging Wrath by 50%, and it increases the critical strike chance of
Holy Shock by 20%. Additionally, while Avenging Wrath is active,it reduces the cooldown of your Holy Shock by 50%.
Divine Purpose gives your abilities that cost Holy Power a 25%chance to cause your next Holy Power-costing ability cost no Holy Power and becast as if you had 3 charges of Holy Power.
While mana regeneration is an accute problem, we feel that Divine Purpose is the best choice, since it will often result inmana-free spells.
Once mana regeneration levels stabilise, we believe that Holy Avenger will be the strongest choice, because it offers you itsbenefit on-demand, essentially granting you another healing cooldown.
Divine Purpose's randomness will make the talent less desirable toyou as a healer later on, since you may get its benefit when you do not needit, and you may need it when it does not proc.
Sanctified Wrath should mostly be considered for the 50% durationincrease to Avenging Wrath. While we believe that this element isquite strong, we still prefer Holy Avenger or Divine Purpose to it.
7. Tier 6 Talents↑top
Tier 6 talents offer you a choice between 3 abilities that are centeredaround damaging multiple enemies and healing multiple allies.
Holy Prism can be cast on an ally or enemy target. If cast on anenemy, Holy Prism deals damage to them and heals 5 nearby allies. If cast on anally, it heals that ally and damages 5 nearby enemies.
Light's Hammer places a hammer at a target location on the groundfor 16 seconds. During this time, the hammer will heal the 6 most injured nearbyallies, as well as damaging all nearby enemies. Enemies' movement speed isalso reduced by 50% for 2 seconds each time they take damage.
Execution Sentence can be used on enemies or on allies. If usedon an enemy, they take a certain amount of damage over 10 seconds (the damagethey take is low at first, and it increases gradually). If used on an ally,they will be healed for a certain amount over 10 seconds (the effect is alsogradually increasing). If Execution Sentence is dispelled, it will instantlydeal damage or healing to the target (depending on who it is cast on) equal to5 times the value of the most recent tick.
Execution Sentence is very good for single target healing, but itsramp-up time and high cooldown make it more difficult to use.
Therefore, we believe your best option, currently, is Holy Prism.You should use this by casting it on the boss or add that is positioned nextto your raid members. Light's Hammer is a close second to Holy Prism, itssmart-healing effect being quite useful.
8. Major Glyphs↑top
There are several Major Glyphs that are of interest to you, although noneoffer clear performance improvements.
Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice causes your 
Hand of Sacrifice to no longertransfer damage from the target to you, instead simply reducing the damagethat the target takes. This glyph is extremely useful, making Hand of Sacrificeusable in a large number of situations.- Glyph of Denounce causes Holy Shock to reduce the cooldown ofyour next
Denounce by 0.5 seconds per stack, stacking up to 3 times.If you are using a lot of Denounce in a particular encounter, this glyph canprove quite useful. - Glyph of Divine Plea causes your
Divine Plea to return 50% lessmana, but to also have a 50% shorter cooldown. - Glyph of Divinity increases the cooldown of Lay on Hands by2 minutes, but causes it to also restore 10% of your maximum mana whenused. If you know that you will use Lay on Hands at very specific moments ofthe fight, and this glyph does not interfere with that, or if you are onlygoing to get a single use out of Lay on Hands anyway, then this glyph is quitegood. Overall, you should almost always be using it.
- Glyph of Protector of the Innocent heals you for 20% of the amount that Word of Glory (or Eternal Flame, in case you have taken thattalent) heals its target. It only works if you cast these spells on someoneother than yourself. It is a nice way to gain some free self-healing, and itis preferred when there is magic damage in the encounter.
- Glyph of Divine Protection adds 20% Physical damage reduction to your Divine Protection cooldown, at the expense of 20% magic damagereduction. This can be useful in certain situations, particularly in cases ofphysical raid damage (in which case it should replace Glyph of Protector of theInnocent).
- Glyph of Beacon of Light removes the global cooldown of Beacon of Light, making it much easier to change your Beacontarget.
- Glyph of Flash of Light places a 7-second buff on the targets of your Flash of Light, which increases your next heal on them by 10%.
- Glyph of Illumination causes your Holy Shock criticalheals to grant you 1% of your maximum mana, but at the same time reduces themana return you gain from your
Holy Insight passive ability by10%. - Glyph of Light of Dawn causes
Light of Dawn to affect 2fewer targets, but to heal each target for 25% more. This glyph is excellentif you are in a 10-man raid, or if you generally want to use Light of Dawn insituations where it will not heal more than a few players.
9. Minor Glyphs↑top
Minor Glyphs are purely cosmetic, and have no effect on your gameplay.
One glyph is worth mentioning, though. 
Glyph of the Righteous Retreatincreases the cast speed of your Hearthstone by 50% while Divine Shieldis active, allowing you to successfully bubblehearth once again.
10. Changelog↑top
- 14 Jan. 2014: Fixed a minor mistake in the description of Eternal Flame.
- 11 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
- 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing to change.
- 04 May 2013: Slightly adjusted the discussion of Tier 3 talentsto express that Eternal Flame is better even if you are tank healing.
- 30 Apr. 2013: Made several updates.
- 05 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
- Added mention of the movement speed reduction applied by Light's Hammer.
- Added mention of the damage reduction provided by Hand of Purity.
- Added mention of the new values of the Flash of Light boost providedby Selfless Healer (20%/40%/60% per stack, down from 33%/66%/100%).
- Added mention of the increased healing done by Eternal Flame when caston self.
