On this page, we present the viable talent and glyph choices forProtection 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 Protection Paladin guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.

1. Talent Choices↑top

• 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).

Your choice here will depend entirely on your playstyle and the requirementsof the encounter.

Speed of Light is excellent because it offers you a reliable movementspeed burst.

Pursuit of Justice offers you a constant, passive movement speedboost, which is excellent for moving out of harmful effects.

Long Arm of the Law offers more frequent but shorter bursts of speed thanSpeed of Light, and in case this is beneficial for a particular encounter orplaystyle, the talent can be appealing.

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.

4. Tier 3 Talents↑top

Tier 3 talents offer you a choice between 3 healing abilities.

• Selfless Healer causes your Judgments to reduce the cast timeand mana cost of your next Flash of Light by 35% per stack, up to amaximum of 3 stacks. If cast on players other than yourself, it also increasesits healing by 20% per stack. When casting Flash of Light on yourself, itshealing is increased by 20% for each stack of Bastion of Glory that youhave, consuming these stacks in the process.
• 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 100%.
• 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 choice in this tier comes down to either Sacred Shield or Eternal Flame, but we feel that Eternal Flame is currently the bestchoice.

When self-cast at 4-5 stacks of Bastion of Glory, Eternal Flame'sheal-over-time component does about 3-4 times as much healing as SacredShield absorbs, and ticks twice as frequently. While Sacred Shield adapts toyour damage intake pattern to provide a natural smoothing effect and does notcost Holy Power, the sheer amount of healing that Eternal Flame producessmooths damage intake more efficiently through brute force.

Sacred Shield is a close second choice, however, and may be worth using onfights that stress Effective Health through high-damage single attacks (TalonRake, etc.) or at lower gear levels.

Selfless Healer is useful for self-healing and for healing other raidmembers, but is a distant third to the other, more powerful choices in thistier.

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).

Unbreakable Spirit gives you more frequent access to several potentpersonal cooldowns, and this should be your default choice for encounterswhere Clemency and Hand of Purity do not provide a larger benefit.Note also that thanks to the Tier 15 and 16 Set 2-piece Bonus, UnbreakableSpirit becomes even more powerful.

Clemency is great for times where being able to use your hand spells(most notable Hand of Protection) twice as much is beneficial. This isusually the case when your hand spells can be used to negate certain encountermechanics.

Hand of Purity is only worth taking when you can reduce the damage of avery powerful DoT.

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 Judgment generates an extra charge ofHoly Power. Additionally, while Avenging Wrath is active,all healing received by you is increased by 20%, and the cooldown of Judgment is reduced 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.

All 3 talents are pretty solid here, but we advise you to take Holy Avenger in most situations, because it gives you more control overwhen you can benefit from it than the other two talents. Holy Avenger can alsobe coupled with Avenging Wrath, which, in case you are interested inboosting your DPS, will greatly increase its value.

It is also worth noting that, due to the frequent tank switching mechanicsin raids, your uptime on Holy Avenger while actively tanking the boss will bemuch higher than it would initially appear (you will have it active roughlyhalf the time you are tanking).

Divine Purpose procs randomly and gives you less control over yoursurvivability and DPS, but also gives the largest average effect in bothdepartments. It requires more finesse and skill to use properly, but can bevery effective in situations where you are tanking a boss continuously for theentire encounter.

Sanctified Wrath is competitive, but problematic because using itproperly requires that you alter your rotation (you need to prioritize Judgment ahead of Crusader Strike) if you wish to get the maximumbenefit from 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.

The best choice in the vast majority of situations is Light's Hammer. This spell provides you with AoE damage and healing, andcan also serve to burn down groups of adds.

Execution Sentence is the best in terms of single-target DPS orhealing, but the healing has a ramp-up time that often causes it to beineffective.

Finally, Holy Prism lags behind the other two choices both in terms ofDPS, and in terms of healing. It has a shorter cooldown, being available moreoften, but this also means that you need to spend more global cooldowns on it.It is most useful as a snap aggro tool, because casting it on yourself or onan ally will usually pick up the nearest 5 enemies in a single globalcooldown.

8. Major Glyphs↑top

There are no mandatory glyphs, but Protection has quite a few interestingMajor Glyphs to choose from.

• Glyph of the Alabaster Shield causes your blocks to increase thedamage of your next Shield of the Righteous by 10%, stacking up to 3times. This is a solid DPS/threat increase.
• Glyph of Focused Shield reduces the number of targets that your Avenger's Shield hits to 1, but increases its damage by 30%. This isexcellent if there is no need for multiple-target DPS/threat in theencounter.
• Glyph of Consecration allows you to place Consecration ata targeted location (instead of simply underneath your character). This is agreat way to pick up adds that spawn in a location far from you.
• Glyph of Divine Protection turns 20% of the magical damage reductiongranted by Divine Protection into physical damage reduction. Choosingthis glyph will depend on the type of damage you want to use Divine Protectionagainst in the fight.
• Glyph of Holy Wrath causes Holy Wrath to stun Elementals,Dragonkin, and Aberrations, which adds utility to the spell.
• Glyph of Burden of Guilt causes Judgment to reduce the target'smovement speed by 50% for 2 seconds. This can be useful in encounters where youneed to kite a dangerous mob instead of tanking it.
• Glyph of Devotion Aura causes Devotion Aura to only affect thecaster, but reduces the cooldown by 60 seconds. This may have niche usefulnesson fights where the raid-wide benefit is unnecessary.
• Glyph of Divine Shield causes Divine Shield to heal you for 10% ofyour maximum health for each harmful debuff it removes.
• Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice removes the damage transfer component of Hand of Sacrifice, making it safer to use while tanking.
• Glyph of the Battle Healer causes Seal of Insight to heal thelowest-health player in melee range, instead of the paladin, but only for 30%of the un-glyphed amount. This sacrifices personal survivability for extraraid healing in cases where you do not need your own Seal of Insighthealing.
• Glyph of Avenging Wrath will turn out to be a very small self-healover the course of a fight.
• Glyph of Final Wrath gives your Holy Wrath increased damageagainst targets below 20% health, which can come in handy in somesituations.

9. Minor Glyphs↑top

Glyph of Focused Wrath turns your Holy Wrath into a single-targetattack. This is useful when there are crowd-controlled mobs around yourprimary target, but you still want to get to use Holy Wrath against thatprimary target.

Other Minor Glyphs are purely cosmetic, and have no effect on yourgameplay.

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

• 17 Sep. 2013: Vastly improved the description of Selfless Healer.
• 11 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
  • Replaced Burden of Guilt with Evil is a Point of View as a Tier 2talent, reflecting the removal of the former and the addition of the latterin-game.
  • Updated the descriptions of Selfless Healer, Hand of Purity, Unbreakable Spirit, Sanctified Wrath, Execution Sentence, and Light's Hammer to reflect the changes that these abilities received.Also made adjustments to the sections discussing the relative values ofTier 3 and Tier 5 talents.
  • Removed Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous.
  • Updated the descriptions of Glyph of the Alabaster Shield, Glyph of Holy Wrath, and Glyph of the Battle Healer.
  • Added Glyph of Burden of Guilt, Glyph of Devotion Aura, Glyph of Divine Shield, Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice.
• 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: updated the description of Glyph of the Battle Healer.
• 04 Apr. 2013: Changed Hand of Purity's category toUtility, and Unbreakable Spirit's category to Performance-enhancing.
• 31 Mar. 2013: Made several improvements.
  • Updated the Tier 1 talents section to make Long Arm of the Law appearmore appealing than before.
  • Updated the Tier 3 talents section to emphasise that Sacred Shield isthe best choice by far.
  • Updated the Tier 4 talents section to reflect that Unbreakable Spiritshould be the default choice.
  • Updated the Tier 5 talents section to better reflect the value of Holy Avenger (as the best talent), when compared to the other twochoices.
  • Updated the Tier 6 talents section to correct a minor error in thedescription of Holy Prism, and to offer a better evaluation of the threetalents.
  • Updated the description of Glyph of the Battle Healer to better accountfor its value. Also updated the descriptions of a few other glyphs to bemore accurate. Added Glyph of Holy Wrath and Glyph of Focused Wrath.
• 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.

Introduction

Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities