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Best Paladin PvP Spec 4.3 – By Negzero
Paladins are a diverse class with 2 specs that currently work in arena, but I personally believe Holy to be the best Paladin PvP spec, overtaking retribution slightly since the last patch. Holy paladins are extremely useful in Rated Battlegrounds and their ability to put out massive single target heals on a target being trained is unmatched. They can easily pump out instant 50,000 critical heals with the right spec.
Currently there are two main Holy Paladin specs that seem to dominate arena and rated battlegrounds, centering the two talents either Improved Hammer of Justice or Rule of Law. Rule of Law is the best Paladin PvP spec for Rated Battlegrounds, while Improved Hammer of Justice is better for 3v3 and 2v2 depending on who I’m playing with. For the purpose of this guide I’ll call Rule of Law “ROL” spec and Improved Hammer of Justice”HOJ“ spec.
Best Paladin PvP Spec Breakdown
Holy Talents
2/3 Protector of the Innocent – It provides a decent heal every time you heal someone else. It’s a great talent that helps paladins deal with aoe damage. Typically I only invest 2 points so I have a 3rd point for Judgements of the Pure.
3/3 Judgements of the Pure – This talent is pretty straight forward, it’s close to 10% haste for free every time you use judgement and it’s important to use judgement because it grants mana with every judgement cast. Next patch it also provides a bonus of spirit, making it probably one of the best talents in the holy tree, and a must-have for the best Paladin PvP spec.
3/3 Clarity of Purpose – This is another talent that grants passive haste to your healing spells, which is always a good thing. The .5 seconds is fairly huge when combined with all the other passive haste talents in the tree.
2/2 Last Word – An extremely important talent as Word of Glory is your hardest hitting instant heal and it’s completely mana free. This is an amazing talent for saving Flag carriers or teammates after you’ve been stuck in a crowd control chain for awhile.
1/1 Divine Favor – An amazing cooldown that any healer should want. It’s like a person Blood Lust or Heroism and grants 20% critical strike chance on all your heals. Use this in clutch situations when you need to catch-up on healing.
2/2 Infusion of Light – A talent that simply can’t be ignored, it provides a bonus in critical strike to your holy shock and gives a haste proc that reduces the cast time of your next heal by 1.5 seconds
2/2 Daybreak – It gives a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of Holy shock, enabling you to spam shock to fish for Infusion of Light procs or build Holy Power charges for instant Word of Glory heals.
1/2 Enlightened Judgements – This gives a bit of a small judgement range increase to make getting that mana back easier and it provides hit cap so your Hammer of Justice and judgement spells don’t miss. You only need 1 point to reach the hit cap, putting in two points is a total waste. The heal from it isn’t really that important, just a little passive healing to help negate dots that might be on you.
1/1 Beacon of Light – Beacon has been around for ages for paladins, it takes 50% of your last cast heal and heals the target with Beacon of Light on it. It can be really useful for dealing with teams that do lots of AoE damage or for putting on the target that’s being trained by the enemy team. An obvious choice for the best Paladin PvP spec.
3/3 Speed of Light – Another talent that provides a small haste buff but it also grants the ability to sprint when you use Divine Protection (take 25% less damage) or Holy Radiance (aoe heal) It’s probably one of the most important Holy talents for a PvP Paladin spec. It enables you to escape being trained, catch-up to people, or possibly out range or out run other players trying to crowd control you. One good example of this being useful is say a priest is chasing after you, trying to fear you. You can pop it can sprint away from him with ease. Or, say your flag carried gets a smoke bomb dropped on him, you can easily sprint into the smoke bomb and start spam healing.
1/1 Sacred Cleansing – It’s nothing special when compared to other healer’s dispels but it’s required in order to dispel magic; required for a Paladin PvP spec.
3/3 Conviction – Crit chance as a holy paladin is pretty important, so a healing buff that stacks up with the more you crit is a pretty good talent. However, it is sort of optional but it does provide a pretty nice increase in healing. Some players choose to pickup Denounce instead, which puts a dispellable debuff on the target that prevents them from landing critical strikes.
1/1 Aura Mastery – While it has a 2 minute cool down and no where even close as good as inner focus, it’s an important talent that can be used to stop crowd control chains or buy a small window in which you can free heal. Majority of good players will counter this by using silencing effects first in their crowd control chain, but sometimes you can use it to block a counter spell or strangulate.
2/2 Paragon of Virtue – It reduces the cool down of Divine Protect so you can sprint more often. It also reduces the cool down on Hand of Sacrifice to help avoid crowd control effects and lastly it gives players a 2 minute cool down on Avenging Wrath for a bit more on-demand burst healing.
3/3 Tower of Radiance – This talent might seem unimportant, but it’s probably one of the best in the tree. It enables players to put beacon on the target being trained and spam heals on that target to get free holy power combo points. It’s a huge help when dealing with high damage classes or healing the flag carrier in a Rated Battleground, and an important addition to the best Paladin PvP spec.
1/2 Blessed Life – One point is enough for this talent due to the inner cool down. The tooltip is a little misleading as almost any damage on the paladin will usually give you a point of holy power. This can be really useful when being trained or when aoe teams dot you.
Protection Talents
2/2 Eternal Glory – This is a must for a Paladin PvP spec. It’s a random chance to double your biggest instant heal. It can be amazing for clutch moments when a flag carrier gets low or when coming out of a crowd control chain.
Optional talents for those wanting to go Improved Hammer of Justice
3/3 Divinity – It’s just a static 6 percent healing done by you and another 6 percent for when you heal yourself. Great talent for being trained but it’s not really necessary as other people will usually be the target.
2/2 Improved Hammer of Justice – The reason for taking this talent is usually so you can put out some pressure as a healer and crowd control the other team’s healer. It’s great in certain comps where you can coordinate your crowd control with your teammates but going for it will ultimately lower your total healing output.
Retribution Talents
3/3 Crusade for ROL, 2/3 for HOJ – Crusade increases the healing of your holy shock, while holy shock is a small heal, it’s a good instant heal that can add up overtime. Taking one point out of it for HOJ spec isn’t the end of the world.
2/2 Improved Judgement for ROL, 1/2 for HOJ – Improved judgement just increases the range of judgement, making it easier to get the mana proc from judgement and judgement helps to put you into combat so you can avoid sap.
3/3 Rule of Law – Obviously you’re only going to spec this if you’re going for rule of law. The main benefit of this talent is the extra 15% crit with Word of Glory, you biggest instant heal. This talent along with a Last Word can be a real life saver even if you’re under-geared. Imagine being stuck in a crowd control chain for 10 seconds only to come out and instantly heal your teammate twice for 40-50k. It’s a game-winning talent in certain situations.
Best Pally PvP Spec Glyphs
Prime Glyphs
Word of Glory – Increases your most important heal by 10%, extremely important addition to the best Paladin PvP spec.
Holy Shock – Gives you another 5% chance to get an instant heal thanks to Infusion of Light.
Seal of Insight – Free 5% healing with this seal up, pretty good stuff.
Optional
Divine Favor – Some paladins prefer this glyph as it gives a pretty nice boost in healing when Divine favor is active. The problem is most teams in arena will dispel Divine Favor fairly quickly and the other glyphs are just as good in terms of increasing your healing and totally risk free. If you want to try this glyph out swap it with Seal of Insight.
Major Glyphs
Turn Evil – Makes it so you don’t get locked out while trying to fear warlock and death knight pets. Along with a mouseover macro, it’s great to spam on cool down.
Cleansing – Cleanse is a pretty important spell and very costly in mana. Some paladins consider this optional but I personally think it’s extremely important.
Divine Plea – More mana from Plea, but plea is difficult to get off in a lot of matches so it’s fairly optional, for your 3rd glyph you should probably pick this one or Beacon of Light.
Optional
Beacon of Light – It’s good for swapping beacon onto the target that’s being trained by a high damage melee team but that’s about it. I think it’s a bit less mana overall compared to Divine Plea.
Lay on Hands – Important for Rated Battlegrounds, worthless for arenas. Swap it out going in between the two with your 3rd glyph.
Hammer of Justice – It makes it a bit easier to get off those important Hammer of Justices to stop the other team’s healer. Use this for your 3rd if you plan on going HOJ spec.
Minor Glyphs
Minor glyphs for paladins are fairly unimportant as all they do is reduce mana cost. They only help when having to recast a buff in-combat or if you happen to forget to put up your Seal of Insight.
So, I believe that Rule of Law is probably the best spec for raw healing and most players will want just raw healing, but Improved Hammer of Justice can be a really great spec too if you play with certain classes that can crowd control well. If you have a lot of trouble with one, try the other. Regardless of what spec you choose however, make sure you’re always using Hammer of Justice on cool down.
That’s it for my breakdown of the best Paladin PvP spec. I’ll continue to update this page as new patches are released and the game changes.
