Paladin Class Overview

Paladin is a melee oriented class that is one of two classes able to Tank, DPS and Heal. Paladins have two primary resources, Mana and Holy Power. While all three Paladin specializations use Mana, you will only really be concerned with maintaining your Mana as Holy. However, all three specializations will be heavily utilizing Holy Power. This is a resource that is generated by abilities like Holy Shock and Crusader Strike. Holy Power allows you to use powerful abilities like Word of Glory, Templar's Verdict and Shield of the Righteous.

Paladin is able to choose from three specializations: Holy, Protection, and Retribution.

• Protection — Protection is the tanking specialization for Paladin. Protection Paladin remains one of the sturdiest tanks in the game with the ability to generate incredible AoE threat and mitigate massive amounts of incoming damage. Protection Paladin also provides extremely valuable utility that many other tanking classes cannot due to generic class abilities such as Hand of Protection or even Divine Shield, allowing you to easily deal with mechanics that other tanks cannot.
• Holy — Holy is the healing specialization for Paladin. Holy Paladin's healing output tends to fall behind other healers in Mists of Pandaria, but it still remains an overall viable choice due to the utility and cooldowns it provides a raid group. In addition, Illuminated Healing is stronger than ever, encouraging you to always be healing even when no damage occurs, that way you can stack your mastery for extra shields.
• Retribution — Retribution is the DPS specialization for Paladin. While not offering the highest DPS, Retribution will continue to be used in many 25-man comps due to the large utility it brings to raid, as well as strong burst damage.

Each Paladin specialization fills a different role so it really depends on what role you are interested in playing, and that becomes one of the main reasons to play Paladin in the first place. Protection Paladin is one of the most consistently durable classes and if played correctly provides very little variance in survivability from attempt to attempt. Holy Paladin while not topping the meters continues to offer very strong single target healing in addition to powerful raid cooldowns. Similarly, Retribution offers some of the most utility out of any DPS class while also providing strong raid damage.

Protection is as mentioned the Tanking specialization for Paladin. Prot Paladins will focus on consuming Holy Power on Shield of the Righteous to increase tankiness before damage goes out, or casting Word of Glory to heal themself after the damage has occurred. As a Prot Paladin, you will also have access to a large set of tools to help you manage every different damage pattern that might be thrown at you. Guardian of Ancient Kings, Ardent Defender and Divine Protection all provide strong defensive value while Divine Shield will allow you to completely stop damage if used at the correct time.

Holy is the Healing specialization for Paladin. While Holy does not provide the highest healing output among the healers, it still remains a competitive choice due to the utility it provides. Holy Paladins similar to Ret and Prot will focus on building Holy Power through key abilities like Holy Shock and Holy Radiance, and spending it when possible on Word of Glory for single target healing or Light of Dawn for AoE healing. That being said, the majority of your healing comes from your mastery effect: Illuminated Healing, which causes all your abilities to place shields on targets. This will incentivize you to always be casting healing spells even when no damage is occurring, creating a fast paced rotation where you always have something to do.

Retribution is the DPS specialization for Paladin. Retribution focuses on building Holy Power through abilities such as: Crusader Strike, Judgment and even Exorcism. With Holy Power, you are able to maintain a damage increase buff ( Inquisition) and cast either a powerful single target or AoE ability: Templar's Verdict or Divine Storm. This creates a unique rotation where you are tasked with maintaining your key buff while also maximizing how often you cast one of your powerful Holy Power spending abilities.

Paladin is extremely viable and highly sought-after as all three specializations; While their output may be behind other specs for their respective role, they offer some of the best utility in the game and you will often see raids running multiple paladins. Though each Paladin specialization fills a different role, they are all extremely competitive among the other classes that fill the same role and viability is far from an issue.

Paladin is unfortunately quite limited in regards to what Race can be selected, but below we have highlighted the races available and how to best make an informed decision as to what the benefits are for each race for your Paladin. As Horde you are able to choose from Blood Elf and Tauren. As Alliance you are able to choose from Dwarf, Human and Draenei.

• Tauren is widely regarded as the best race for Protection due to its Endurance racial, which increases your base health by 5%. War Stomp is another great tool that stuns up to five enemies for two seconds. Tauren are also slightly more resistant to Nature damage. Specifically for Retribution, Tauren may be the ideal choise as they start with more Strength.
• Blood Elf will be our default choice as Holy as Arcane Torrent returns a small amount of Mana.

• Human is your default choice as both Holy and Retribution. The Human Spirit increases your Spirit by 3% greatly increasing your Mana regeneration. Sword Specialization increases your Expertise when using a Sword, and the majority of weapons you will be using through Mists of Pandaria as Retribution are swords. Human comes with the ability to instantly remove all crowd controlling abilities in the form of Will to Survive which can be extremely powerful in very specific encounters.
• Dwarves are considered to be the best race for tanking as Alliance due to their Stoneform racial. Stoneform is another Tank cooldown that reduces incoming damage by 10% for 8 seconds and removes all Poison, Disease and Bleed effects. Dwarf also gains expertise when using a Mace thanks to Mace Specialization.
• Draenei is a great choice for both tanking or DPSing due to their ability to self heal with Gift of the Naaru, healing the target for 20% of their total health over 15 seconds. Draenei passively have an extra 1% chance to hit thanks to their Heroic Presence racial.

Paladin can wear all armor types but you should only be wearing Plate. Plate Specialization greatly outweighs any possible benefit you may find by wearing a non-plate piece due to the emphasis put on Primary stats in Mists of Pandaria.

Paladin is able to equip one and two-handed Swords, one and two-handed Maces, One and two-handed Axes, Shields, and Polearms. The Weapon you use will depend on the specialization you are playing, but generally speaking the type of weapon you use is irrelevant as long as it is offering you the most of your desired stats.

Due to the nature of stats and gearing, it is recommended that you visit our dedicated pages for each respective spec to get a full understanding of what gear you should be after. A general rule to follow is that the more primary stat an item has, the more of an upgrade it will be.

Addons and Macros can greatly improve your quality of life in Azeroth and Pandaria. Listed below are some of our recommendations on Addons and Macros to help get the most out of your time playing the game.