In this article, we present you with various talent trees for Protection Paladins (WoW 4.3) that you can use in specific situations. We also explain in detail what the talents do, how they work together, and how you can customise your talent tree in order to adapt it to a particular boss. The other articles of our Protection Paladin guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the left.

1. Common Talent Builds↑top

As a Protection Paladin, your choice of talent builds is very limited. To be entirely competitive, you will have to choose one of the two following builds, although there are a few other optional talents you can consider.

This is the standard Protection Paladin talent build. It takes all the useful survivability and threat talents.

This talent build takes points in Eternal Glory, which gives your Word of Glory a chance not to consume Holy Power. Using Word of Glory costs Holy Power, sacrificing some of your threat generation. This will not allow you to use Word of Glory more often (it is limited by a cooldown), but it will reduce the loss of threat generation.

2. Customising Your Build↑top

In this section, we will briefly go over your choices for optional talent points. Then, we will look at each of the useful glyphs that you can use.

2.1. Optional Talents

As a Protection Paladin, your choice of optional talents is very limited. In the vast majority of cases, you should simply take one of the two talent builds advised above. Except for the difference between the two advised builds ( Seals of the Pure vs. Eternal Glory), here are your other choices:

• Guarded by the Light, which buffs the healing of your Word of Glory by 10% when used on yourself and causes any overhealing done by Word of Glory to apply an absorption shield on you. Generally, this talent is recommended, but you should not take it if you wish to take points in Improved Hammer of Justice or 2 points in either of Reckoning or Hallowed Ground (see below).
• Improved Hammer of Justice, which reduces the cooldown of your stun by 20 seconds. It is a highly situational talent, with few uses.
• Choosing between Hallowed Ground (1/2 or 2/2) and points in Reckoning (1/2 or 2/2). Reckoning is a higher single target threat increase, while Hallowed Ground may help in AoE tanking.

2.2. Glyphs

None of your glyphs boost your survivability. Most of your options will either provide you with extra threat or utility.

2.2.1. Prime Glyphs

In terms of Prime Glyphs, you do not have much variety to choose from:

• Glyph of Crusader Strike, which boosts your threat by a small amount by increasing Crusader Strike's critical strike chance by 5%.
• Glyph of Seal of Truth, which grants you 10 Expertise while Seal of Truth or Seal of Righteousness is active. This is another threat boost.
• Glyph of Shield of the Righteous, which increases the damage of your Shield of the Righteous. This is yet another threat boost.

In fights where you want to maximise your own self-healing (from Word of Glory), you can take Glyph of Word of Glory instead of Glyph of Crusader Strike. The benefit of this glyph is very minor.

2.2.2. Major Glyphs

There are no mandatory Major Glyphs (although Glyph of Focused Shield is better than the rest because it improves your threat). You should choose them based on the encounter and your own preference, from among the following:

• Glyph of Focused Shield, which increases the damage done by your Avenger's Shield. As a drawback, it causes your Avenger's Shield to only hit a single target, as opposed to 3.
• Glyph of Holy Wrath, which allows your Holy Wrath to also stun Elementals and Dragonkin.
• Glyph of Lay on Hands, which reduces the cooldown of your Lay on Hands, allowing you to possibly cast it twice during an encounter.
• Glyph of Divine Protection, which causes your Divine Protection to grant you 40% magic damage reduction, instead of 20% physical damage reduction and 20% magic damage reduction. This is a situational glyph that may be useful in fights with heavy magic damage on the tank.
• Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader, which reduces the mana cost of your Crusader Strike by 30%.
• Glyph of Consecration, which increases both the duration and the cooldown of your Consecration by 20%, providing a minor and negligible DPS increase.
• Glyph of Dazing Shield, which causes your Avenger's Shield to also daze its target. This is a highly situational glyph.

2.2.3. Minor Glyphs

There are only three minor glyphs that offer any use at all to a Protection Paladin, and they all offer it in the form of reduced mana cost on abilities that are generally used out of combat.

• Glyph of Blessing of Kings, which reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Kings by 50%. It is useful if you have to rebuff it during an encounter due to someone having been resurrected.
• Glyph of Blessing of Might: reduces the mana cost of Blessing of Might by 50%. Useful if you have to rebuff it during an encounter due to someone having been resurrected.
• Glyph of Truth: it reduces the mana cost of Seal of Insight by 50%. The only real use is if you died and are resurrected during an encounter.