Cataclysm Classic Protection Paladin Talent Builds

Protection Paladin has a relatively restrictive talent build mostly due to the fact talents found outside of the Protection tree do not typically offer much to benefit your survivability. Threat is much less of an issue in Cataclysm and while optimizing your damage is always a positive we will focus on a build that maximizes your personal survivability.

This spec goes is focused on maximizing your ability to handle incoming damage There are a few preference choices to be made for example Eye for an Eye can be taken in place of a talent like Pursuit of Justice while not necessarily recommended it will yield more damage output in a situation where you are primarily tanking.

In this section we will go over some of the key talents you will use when you are playing a Protection Paladin. Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play the build to its fullest strength.

• Seals of the Pure — increase the damage done by your Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Truth, and Seal of Justice by 12%. This flat damage increase greatly increases the amount of damage you will be dealing.

• Judgements of the Just — causes your Judgement ability to reduce the targets Melee and Ranged Attack Speed by 20% for 20 seconds, greatly lowering the amount of outgoing damage from the target.

• Toughness — increases the Armor value of your items by 10% making any upgrade even more impactful when it comes to mitigating incoming Physical damage.

• Sanctuary — reduces the chance you will be Critically Struck by 6% and reduces all incoming damage by 10% It also causes you to gain 3% of your maximum mana anytime you Dodge or Block an incoming attack.

• Hammer of the Righteous — attacks your current target for 30% of your Weapon Damage and hits all targets within 8 yards of your target. This ability grants Holy Power and takes place of Crusader Strike in our rotation when fighting more than one mob.

• Shield of the Righteous — deals damage to the target based off the amount of Holy Power consumed, this will act as our primary Holy Power.

• Vindication — causes your Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous to reduce the Physical damage the target deals by 10% for 30 seconds, greatly reducing the amount of outgoing damage.

• Holy Shield — increases the amount blocked by your Shield by an additional 20% for 10 seconds, greatly reducing incoming Physical damage.

• Divine Guardian — reduces damage taken by all party and raid members excluding the Paladin who casts it 20% for 6 seconds. This is an incredibly powerful form of damage reduction for your entire group and should be utilized early and often.

• Ardent Defender — allows you to quite literally cheat death, reducing damage taken by 20% for 10 seconds but more importantly causing an attack that would otherwise kill you to return you to 15% of your maximum health.

• Crusade — increases the damage done by your Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous abilities.

• Pursuit of Justice — increases your movement speed by 15%, as a Paladin of any specialization mobility is always an issue so any added movement speed greatly helps.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm, giving you a third "row" of glyphs you can use on your character. While there are a couple of different options to choose from, there are some very clear front runners for each specialization.

• Glyph of Crusader Strike — increases the Critical Strike chance of your Crusader Strike ability by 5%. Crusader Strike is our primary form of Holy Power generation in a single target situation so making it stronger is never a bad thing.
• Glyph of Shield of the Righteous — increases the damage dealt by your Shield of the Righteous ability by 10%. Similar to Crusader Strike this acts as an entirely passive damage increase to an ability we will already be utilizing in our rotation.
• Glyph of Seal of Truth — grants you 10 Expertise Rating while Seal of Truth or Seal of Righteousness is active making gear much easier as we are able to focus more heavily into Tanking stats as opposed to maximizing our damage/threat output by having to find Expertise.

Major glyphs typically offer utility-based options and can be highly situational. For Protection there are a wide variety of Glyphs, but we have highlighted what are typically the most useful.

• Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader — reduces the mana cost of your Crusader Strike ability by 30%, Crusader Strike is likely to be the button we hit the most in an encounter and reducing the Mana cost will allow us to maintain our rotation.
• Glyph of Focused Shield — causes your Avenger's Shield ability to become strictly single target but increases the damage it deals by 30%.
• Glyph of Lay on Hands — reduces the cooldown of your Lay on Hands ability by 3 minutes, allowing you to sometimes cast it multiple times on longer encounters.

Minor glyphs typically provide very minor benefits. Your choices will typically depend on what quality of life increase is the most meaningful for you.

• Glyph of Truth — reduces the mana cost of your Seal of Truth ability by 50%.
• Glyph of Blessing of Kings — reduces the mana cost of your Blessing of Kings by 50%.
• Glyph of Blessing of Might — reduces the mana cost of your Blessing of Might by 50%.