Mists of Pandaria Classic Protection Paladin Spell Summary

Protection only gains a few new abilities in Mists of Pandaria, but many of the existing abilities have been slightly reworked. The guide below does a rough breakdown of each of your core abilities as a Protection Paladin so you have a better idea how to properly utilize each of them.

Protection remains one of the strongest tanks in Mists of Pandaria, though the play style changes considerably. Your goal as a Protection Paladin is to stack as much Shield of the Righteous up time as possible by generating as much Holy Power possible by utilizing generating abilities like Crusader Strike and Judgment.

• Crusader Strike — is an instant cast melee attack that deals damage based off of your weapon damage and Attack Power. It also generates a Holy Power and applies the Weakened Blows debuff to your target reducing their physical damage dealt by 10%.
• Avenger's Shield — is an instant ranged attack that deals damage based off of your Attack Power. This also interrupts the primary target of the cast and can bounce up to 3 nearby enemies. This will also generate a Holy Power if you have a Grand Crusader proc active.
• Hammer of the Righteous — is an instant cast melee attack that deals damage based off your weapon damage and Attack Power. This attack deals slightly less single target damage than Crusader Strike which it shares a cooldown with but hits multiple targets and applies Weakened Blows to all of them.
• Judgment — is an instant cast, short cooldown ranged attack that deals damage based off of your Attack Power and generates a Holy Power.
• Hammer of Wrath — is an instant cast, short cooldown ranged attack that deals damage based off of your Attack Power and generates a Holy Power. This ability is only usable against targets that are below 20% health.
• Shield of the Righteous — is an instant cast damaging ability that consumes up 3 Holy Power. Shield now also grants two buffs, one reducing the amount of incoming Physical damage taken for 3 seconds, this stacks with each cast so the more casts the longer this buff is active. It also grants the Bastion of Glory buff which increases the potency of your next Word of Glory/ Eternal Flame when cast upon yourself by 10% for each stack, stacking up to 5 times.
• Holy Wrath — is an instant cast burst of Holy Damage to all nearby enemies. This ability will also stun any Undead or Demon. This ability deals an additional 50% damage to targets under 20% health.
• Consecration — summons a small area of consecrated ground beneath the Paladin dealing Holy damage to any enemy standing inside of the area.
• Reckoning — taunts the target forcing it to attack you and increases the amount of threat you generate on the target by 200% for 3 seconds.
• Holy Prism — is an instant attack that can be used either on a friendly or hostile target. When cast on a friendly target it will heal the target based on your current Attack Power and deal Holy damage to 5 nearby enemies. If cast on an enemy it will deal Holy damage to the target based on your current Attack Power and heal 5 nearby allies.
• Light's Hammer — is an instant attack that places a radiating hammer on the ground at a targeted area, the effected area will deal Holy damage to any enemies within it and heal any allies within it.
• Execution Sentence — is an instant cast ability that will either apply an increasing damage-over-time effect to your target if cast on an enemy or an increasing healing-over-time effect if cast on an ally.

Protection Paladin In Mists of Pandaria has some of the most powerful cooldowns in the game and utilizing them effectively can not only greatly increase your personal survivability but even bolster your groups chance at defeating any given encounter.

• Avenging Wrath — increases your damage and healing by 20%. Avenging Wrath is an ability that you can use to either deal extra damage or greatly improve your ability to self-sustain depending on the encounter, it is difficult to say exactly how it should be used as there are a large number of factors but if you find yourself comfortable with the damage a boss is dealing then use this ability to deal extra damage, the quicker you are able to kill an enemy the less overall healing is required. If you find yourself struggling to survive a specific part of an encounter then consider using this to bolster your ability to self heal via abilities like Eternal Flame.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings — reduces all incoming damage by 50% for 12 seconds. Guardian should be used in a situation where you are taking a massive amount of incoming damage or in a situation where you are likely to receive less incoming healing, for example if your group is moving a great distance or your entire raid is taking damage. This can also be used towards the start of encounters to allow yourself time stabilize and generate a considerable amount of Vengeance which directly increases the healing of your Eternal Flame.
• Hand of Purity — reduces damage taken by a friendly target by 10% and 80% from harmful damage-over-time effects. This is a great tool to deal with many boss abilities but note there are some effects that will ignore Purity's damage reduction.
• Lay on Hands — a ten-minute cooldown that instantly heals a friendly target for an amount equal to your total max health. This ability is best used only in emergencies where your target would otherwise die.
• Divine Protection — reduces incoming Magic damage taken by 40%. This is ideally used to mitigate a large amount of incoming Magic damage but if you find yourself in a situation where the encounter is dealing a large amount of physical damage and you are not getting much value from the Magic damage reduction consider using Glyph of Divine Protection which reduces the Magic damage reduction to 20% but will now also grant 20% Physical damage reduction as well.
• Divine Shield — is a five-minute cooldown that makes you immune to all incoming sources of damage for eight seconds while reducing the damage you deal by 50%. It is important to know that you are not able to maintain aggro on the target outside of a brief moment when utilizing Reckoning while Divine Shield is active. This ability can be used to trivialize many mechanics so make sure to coordinate with your group when to properly utilize it.
• Ardent Defender — reduces incoming damage by 20% for 10 seconds. This ability also has a 'cheat death' effect that will cause an attack that would otherwise kill you to immediately return you to 15% of your maximum health. This ability can be used as mentioned as a tool to avoid a killing blow but is often times better used for its flat 20% damage reduction to smooth damage taken throughout the encounter as the 15% health that you will be returned too is rarely enough to survive another incoming boss attack. This can also be used to soak very specific boss abilities that are designated to be one shot abilities so make sure to coordinate this with your group as it is an incredibly powerful tool.
• Hand of Sacrifice — is a two-minute cooldown that redirects 30% of the damage being dealt to the target to the Paladin who casted the Sacrifice. This lasts 12 seconds or until the target has transferred 100% of its maximum health in damage. You can only have one Hand active on the target at any time so if you need to cancel this effect consider applying Hand of Freedom to the target.
• Hand of Protection — is a five-minute cooldown that instantly makes the target immune to incoming Physical damage for ten seconds. While Hand of Protection is active the target cannot attack or use any Physical abilities. You can only have one Hand active on the target at any time so if you need to cancel this effect consider applying Hand of Freedom to the target.
• Devotion Aura — is a three-minute cooldown that grants your group immunity from silence and interrupting effects for 6 seconds and reduces all incoming Magic damage by 20%.
• Hand of Salvation — is a two-minute cooldown that greatly reduces the targets threat for 10 seconds.
• Hand of Freedom — is a twenty five-second cooldown that removes and makes the target immune to movement impairing abilities for 6 seconds.

In addition to the many rotational abilities and cooldowns you find yourself using Paladin has been given a number of incredible tools that you will find yourself using.

• Cleanse — removes all Disease and Poison effect from a friendly target.
• Blinding Light — is a instant cast that disorients all enemies within 10 yards for 6 seconds. This effect is broken by damage.
• Rebuke — is a 15 second cooldown melee-ranged interrupt that allows you to disrupt spell casting.
• Hammer of Justice — is a one-minute cooldown instant cast stun that will stun your target for 6 seconds.
• Word of Glory — is an instant burst of healing on a friendly target. This ability scales directly with the amount of Holy Power consumed to use it and is best used with 3 Holy Power. If talented for it, this ability will become Eternal Flame which is an incredibly powerful heal-over-time effect that scales based on your Vengeance and your Bastion of Glory stacks that are active when cast.

Seals and Blessings have all been greatly simplified for Mists of Pandaria but it is incredibly important to understand how each works and which you should be using at any given time.

• Seal of Truth — applies Censure to the target, stacking up to five times. Each attack with this seal active also deals up to an additional 12% of weapon damage to the target. This will be the default seal as Protection when fighting a single enemy.
• Seal of Insight — increases your casting speed by 10%, increases the amount of healing done by your abilities by 5% and causes your melee attacks to have a chance to heal you. If you find yourself struggling to survive, especially against multiple enemies this is a great option to improve survivability.
• Seal of Righteousness — causes each of your melee attacks to deal 9% weapon damage to all targets within 8 yards. This seal should be your default choice when fighting three or more enemies and is a great way to generate AoE threat against large groups of enemies.
• Blessing of Kings — increases the targets Strength, Agility, Stamina and Intellect by 5%. You can only have one Blessing active per Paladin.
• Blessing of Might — increases the targets Mastery by 3000. You can only have one Blessing active per Paladin.