Holy Paladin Talents Guide

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Let's talk about the Paladin Class Tree. I want to talk about it in the "Row" sections and explain why you should pick specific talents, I’ll only cover the important/interesting ones.

Row 1 - 4

Lay on Hands - is picked by default. While its 7-minute cooldown might make you hesitant to use it, don't hold back. It's a crucial ability that can save lives.

Auras of Resolute - is also picked by default. This is some of that famous paladin utility that earns us a raid spot even when the class isn’t in a good place.

Greater Judgment - You're going to be casting a lot of Judgments no matter what content you do or what talents you run, so this will be a nice source of some passive healing that you don’t have to think about.

Divine Steed and Cavalier are absolute must-picks. One of paladin's biggest weaknesses is its lack of mobility, these talents are all we have to work with in terms of movement.

Blessing of Freedom/Steed of Liberty - With 11.0.5 this has been turned into a choice node. Steed of Liberty will remove your ability to throw freedom on other people and will also shorten its duration, there is no reason to pick this talent. Always pick Blessing of Freedom.

Improved Cleanse - lets you dispel disease and poison, it might sound situational but it also unlocks other important options so there’s very little reason to spec out of it.

Blinding Light - excellent utility that's a must-pick if you plan on running higher keys, it has only gained in value after Repentance and Rebuke have been removed in Midnight pre-patch.

Row 5 - 7

Divine Toll and Quickened invocation are an absolute must-have, this is a great bust-healing mini-cooldown that will also fully fill your Holy Power bar.

Holy Prism - This is now a choice node shared with Divine Toll. In its current state Divine Toll is clearly the better choice.

Blessing of Sacrifice and Blessing of Protection these life saving abilities will further bolster your already impressive utility toolkit.

Echoing Blessings - this will further buff your already impressive utility kit. Personally my favorite part of this talent is the extra 15% DR provided to Blessing of Protections target, essentially giving you a second external.

Sacrifice the Just - reduces the cooldown of Blessing of Sacrifice by 15 seconds. This talent used to be a 1 minute reduction and a must-pick. In its current state, just like Improved Blessing of Protection, it’s highly situational and should only be picked with very specific strategies in mind.

Divine Purpose - has been turned into a choice node with Sacred Strength.Unfortunately the new talent is so undertuned that picking Divine Purpose is a nonbrainer.

Row 8 - 10

Relentless Inquisitor - As of 11.2 we can finally pick this talent without having to go through Tyr’s Deliverance.

Worthy Sacrifice - at first glance, this talent seems pretty exciting. While the idea of granting your entire M+ team a 30% damage reduction might sound overpowered, there are two significant drawbacks that ultimately make it less effective than it appears.First is the fact that it removes your ability to cast Blessing of Sacrifice normally, taking away your agency over the ability. The Second, and even more egregious problem is that it triggers when your friends have already dropped below 35% HP, so it’s a DR that gets applied AFTER the damage has already hit.

Lightbearer - hugely disappointing for a capstone talent. This only works when you receive healing from someone else making it a small HPS boost in raid and completely worthless in M+. Clearly this was designed with Protection in mind.

Blessing of Dusk - The only capstone that's a clear must-pick

Row 1 - 4

Holy Shock - this is your bread and butter as Holy Paladin, it's your signature spell learn to love it, you’ll spend a lot of time together.

Light of Dawn - This ability has been reworked in Midnight and now heals in a 15 yard radius around the paladin and reduces its healing beyond 5 targets (was capped at 5), rather than being a frontal cone.

Aura Mastery - will give the whole raid 12% damage reduction, this is our big raid cooldown that buys a raid spot even when we’re not very good at anything else.

Beacon of the Lightbringer - Holy Paladin mastery has always been a point of much contention, the main argument being that it’s just awful to play around and for the longest time it was just ignored. This talent is the developers way of trying to fix this issue. With this talent you can put Beacon of Light on the range stack and get full benefit of your mastery even if you yourself are locked in melee.

Light’s Conviction - Holy Shock is our bread and butter so having 2 charges of it is an absolute must-have.

Row 5 - 7

Commanding Light - Simple buff to Beacon healing, unremarkable but important enough to mention, must-pick.

Imbued Infusions - As mentioned earlier Holy Shock is very integral to everything we do so reducing its cooldown is enough to spend a talent point on.

Lights Protection - Even on double beacon this is a great way to give your squishy party members some passive protection. However it becomes especially powerful in M+ when you spec into Beacon of Virtue as it allows you to give your entire party even more DR on top of what they already get from your Devotion Aura.

Light of the Martyr and Bestow Light - this is a controversial one because technically it’s an overall healing loss when you account for the healing absorb. However it buffs Holy Shock, a spotheal we rely on heavily, so it could be the difference between someone dying and not. Be a team player, pick it up.

Liberation/Crusaders Might - CM makes our rotation flow much better but in its current state Liberation is pretty broken. This will likely change in the future, but until Liberation is officially nerfed, I recommend picking it over CM.

Row 8 - 10

Beacon of Faith/Beacon of Virtue - One of these is a must-pick. Beacon of Faith will be easier to manage and wont consume any mana. Beacon of Virtue has a higher HPS ceiling but you have to contend with a high mana cost and you have to be aware of damage patterns in order to get full use out of it. It’s highly encouraged you swap between these depending on what encounter you’re facing.

Pillars of Light - This talent is pretty powerful when paired with Beacon of Virtue, but pretty insignificant when paired with Beacon of Faith

Avenging Wrath:Might/Avenging Crusader - Wings have been repeatedly nerfed over the years and in their current state it's a pretty lack-luster cooldown. Still this is a must pick node, both versions are viable, but I recommend going with Avenging Wrath.

Call of the Righteous - This was a pretty exciting talent when it was first revealed, but in it’s current state the trade-off is simply not worth it, and thus I don’t recommend picking it.

Inflorescence of the Sunwell - This is a key talent in caster builds that gives you an extra stack of Infusion of Light, on top of buffing both Flash of Light and Holy Light.

Seraphic Barrier - Depending on how much overhealing you’re doing this talent might actually be a healing loss. As of writing this guide all of the other talents in the same row are pretty underwhelming, with Rising Sunlight being the best alternative. The answer to which one is definitively better will have to wait for more testing.

Herald of the The Sun

In addition to a bunch of passives that enhance some of our core abilities there are three talents that stand out:

Eternal Flame - this ability will replace your Word of Glory. In addition to a large upfront heal this will also leave your target with a HoT. The main use of this spell is still spot healing and its main feature is the massive single-target heal, so don’t worry about tracking the HoT.

Dawnlight - this is a deceptively intricate ability. At first glance it's just a simple HoT that gives you some free passive healing. However if you consider its interaction with Sun’s Avatar, applying Dawnlight and proper setup for Sun’s Avatar will be the main skill-ceiling differentiator in TWW. Also it's a fun mechanic that breaks some of that pop-a-mole monotony that hpala can have.

Sun’s Avatar - This talent will provide you with an immense amount of throughput and make wings the impactful and fun cooldown we’ve been starved of for the whole of Dragonflight.

Lightsmith

The talents that really stand out in this tree are:

Holy Armaments - This is the core mechanic of the talent tree. It will allow you buff yourself and your allies with either Holy Bulwark - providing a large absorb shield, or Sacred Weapons - providing extra damage.

Solidarity - A common pitfall of buffs is that they feel unfun to play because someone else is getting all the benefits. This talent ensures you don’t have to choose between buffing yourself or your allies.

Hammer and Anvil - Judgment critical strikes cause a shockwave around the target, dealing healing at the target's location. This talent does a lot of healing and is the reason crit gains so much value when playing Lightsmith.

Blessing of the Forges - Though not as powerful as Sun’s Avatar it still upgrades wings to be more impactful.