The talent system is designed to allow you to customize your character by giving you new abilities or enhances your old ones. Every time you level up you receive a talent point which can then be used to buy a new ability in one of the three talent trees. Holy, Protection and Retribution. Each tree is broken into tiers stacked on top of each other. In order to put points into tier two of a tree you must have first spent at least five points in that tree. In order to put points in tier three you must spend at least ten points. Also, some talents also require that before you spend point in that talent you have to spend points in another, usually in a lower tier.
All of this is important because you will only have a maximum of sixty one points to spend and must choose carefully which talents you want to invest in. The most powerful ones are lowest down in the trees because of their requirements and prerequisites. But this also means you will be mostly limited to that one trees specialty and it will severally influence and limit your play style. If you spec mostly holy you will be a great healer, but if you spec retribution you will get a large boost to your DPS. Since some talents are not very worthwhile or even worthless, talent builds were developed to make sure that your sixty one points are spent as efficiently as possible.

Holy
The Holy tree focuses on healing and increasing your healing, especially in the lowest tiers. But it can also enhance some of your offensive abilities too. Of the three trees this one is the most balanced and not surprisingly tends to be the most popular.
Divine Strength
Description:
your strength by a set percentage.
Ranks:
Rank 1- 2%
Rank 2- 4%
Rank 3- 6%
Rank 4- 8%
Rank 5- 10%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
A great talent for those who have just started leveling and also those who wish to increase their melee DPS. Since it is so low in the holy tree you can put this in nearly all DPS builds.

Divine Intellect
Description:
Increases your intellect by a set percentage.
Ranks:
Rank 1- 2%
Rank 2- 4%
Rank 3- 6%
Rank 4- 8%
Rank 5- 10%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
Nearly all support and healing builds try to put this in. It increases your mana pool as well as your chance to critically strike with spells. If your build requires a lot of casting then definitely get this.

Spiritual Focus
Description:
Decreases the chance your healing spells will lose casting time when hit.
Ranks:
Rank 1- 14%
Rank 2- 28%
Rank 3- 42%
Rank 4- 56%
Rank 5- 70%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
Nearly all builds that involve healing need this. One of the problems with healing is that when you get hit your casting bar goes back and it takes longer to cast a spell. So a seventy percent reduction is incredible when you are being hit over and over. This is especially helpful in PVP, but also great for soloing and some group play.

Improved Seal of Righteousness
Description:
Increases the damage dealt by your Seal and Judgment of Righteousness.
Ranks:
Rank 1- 3%
Rank 2- 6%
Rank 3- 9%
Rank 4- 12%
Rank 5- 15%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
This is not a very worthwhile talent. Righteousness hits for such a little amount that such a small percentage increase will only amount to a few extra points at best. If you are going to do a lot of tanking and need the extra holy damage it might be worth it. But even then that’s a stretch. Avoid it all together otherwise.

Healing Light
Description:
Increases the base amount your healing spells heal.
Ranks:
Rank 1- 4%
Rank 2- 8%
Rank 3- 12%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
A requirement for those who are focusing on healing. It essentially translates into several hundred + healing at the maximum level so definitely take it. Especially if you don't have much +healing yet.

Aura Mastery
Description:
Increases the radius of your Auras to 40 yards.
Ranks:
Usefulness:

Commentary:

The only time this will be really useful is when you are in a raid environment and your group gets spread out. Solo it is worthless because you are in the center of your aura and in small groups you will usually be in a tight formation. One thing to consider though is that there aren’t very many other really good talents in this tier.

Improved Lay on Hands.
Description:
Reduces the cooldown of Lay on Hands and gives the target an armor bonus.
Ranks:
Rank 1- Reduces the cool down by 10 minutes. The target also gets a 15% bonus to their armor value.
Rank 2- Reduces the cool down by 20 minutes. The target also gets a 30% bonus to their armor value.
Usefulness:

Commentary:
The cool down reduction is good, but it means that instead of using your LoH once an hour you can use it every forty minutes. That still doesn’t make it incredibly useful since that is still is a very long cool down. The Armor bonus is also very nice but again, you can only use this every 40 minutes. In short, your LoH ability is only used in emergencies anyway and this makes it even better. Some raid groups require their paladins to spec in this because it can help in a raid environment. But if you are more interested in soloing there is no justification for spending two points in it. You would get better mileage out of putting those two points into either Divine Intellect or Strength.

Unyielding Faith
Description:
Iincreases your chance to resist fear and disorient effects.
Ranks:
Rank 1- 5% increase to resist.
Rank 2- 10% increase to resist.
Usefulness:

Commentary:

If you are going to PVP you will definitely want this. It is only really useful for PVP where stuns and fear is a much more important, but for PVE and raiding it is really not worth it.

Illumination
Description:
Gives a chance for your critical strikes from your healing spells or Holy Shock to give back sixty percent of their mana cost..
Ranks:
Rank 1- 20%
Rank 2- 40%
Rank 3- 60%
Rank 4- 80%
Rank 5- 100%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
This is arguably the best talent in the entire Holy tree. It means that all of your crit cost almost no mana, which increases your mana efficiency and lets you heal longer. It is especially powerful when combined with the Divine Favor talent in tier 5. While it has been pretty heavily nerfed in patch 2.1, it is still the core of paladin healing.

Improved Blessing of Wisdom
Description:
Increases the amount of mana returned by Blessing of Wisdom.
Ranks:
Rank 1- Increases mana generated by 10%
Rank 2- Increases mana generated by 20%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
This is really only useful for those who raid where you need all the mana you can get. Even then well structured raids will only need one paladin to add points to this. Since you will most likely have points in Illumination you will already have access to tier five and putting points in this is not really necessary, though it is helpful.

Pure of Heart
Description:
Increases your resistance to Curse and Disease effects by a percentage.
Ranks:
Rank one- 5%
Rank two- 10%
Rank three- 15%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
Since we have a cleanse spell this is really pretty worthless in my opinion. The only way it is really useful is if you put three points in it and that is three points you could spend in other more useful talents. The resistance to curse effects is nice in PVP though since we can't remove curses.

Divine Favor
Description:
Gives your next flash of light, Holy light, or Holy Shock spell a guarantied critical strike chance.
Ranks:
Rank 1- No rank increases.
Usefulness:

Commentary:
You can probably see that with Illumination this gives you a mana free heal every two minutes. This can go a long way towards increasing your mana efficiency in raids where fights can last several minutes and mana is a precious resource. It is also great for soloing when you are low on mana and health and are in desperate need of a critical heal.

Sanctified Light
Description:
Increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Light spells by a percentage.
Ranks:
Rank one- 2%
Rank two- 4%
Rank three- 6%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
For healing builds this is great, for raiding builds this is great and if you have Illumination this is really great. Since you only have three talent choices in this tier there is no reason not to get it.

Purifying Power
Description:
Reduces the mana cost of your Cleanse and Consecration spells by a percentage and increases the critical strike chance of your Exorcism and Holy Wrath spells by a percentage.
Ranks:
Rank one- Cleanse and Consecration mana reduction by 5%. Exorcism and Holy wrath by 10%.
Rank two- Cleanse and Consecration mana reduction by 10%.
Exorcism and Holy Wrath by 20%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
This is really good for raiding where mana efficiency is vital. Many fights have you cleansing every member in the raid and Consecrate has a very high mana cost that prevents you from using it all the time in a raid or party. The crit on Holy Wrath is nice but you won’t use it that often. But the improvements to Exorcism is incredible and great for grinding against undead. I would probably put some points in this regardless of build to give myself a little extra fighting and staying power.

Holy Power
Description:
Increases your critical strike chance with holy spells by a percentage
Ranks:
Rank 1- 1% increase.
Rank 2- 2% increase.
Rank 3- 3% increase.
Rank 4- 4% increase.
Rank 5- 5% increase.
Usefulness:

Commentary:
Those who have made it this far in the holy tree should definitely fill out these points. It increases your healing and enhances Illumination but also your holy damage spells like judgments.

Light’s Grace
Description:
Gives your Holy Light spell a chance to reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by .5 seconds. This effect lasts for 15 seconds.
Ranks:
Rank one- 33%
Rank two- 66%
Rank three- 100%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
This is another raid/healing talent. Half a second may not seem like much but it will actually greatly increase the amount you heal over a long period of time. A complicated part of this talent is that unless you are a one hundred percent designated healer you can probably get by with only putting two talents in this instead of three. This way you can put one point into Holy Shock and have access to the next teir.

Holy Shock
Description:
Causes an instant burst of holy damage to an enemy or heal to an ally.
Ranks:
Rank 1- 204-220 damage and healing.
Rank 2- 279-302 damage and healing.
Rank 3- 365-396 damage and healing.
Rank 4- 452-488 damage and healing.
Rank 5- 640 damage and healing.
Usefulness:

Commentary:
Many people don’t like this because it costs a lot of mana. But is can be a good heal because it is our only instant heal, even if it is for only a little bit. Its damage component is also not that great, but it is a ranged attack and one of weaknesses is a lack of those. It can be great for pulling purposes as well as finishing off a running enemy. If you have come this far in the holy tree you might as well get it.

Blessed Life
Description:
All attacks against you have a chance of causing half damage.
Ranks:
Rank one- 4%
Rank two- 7%
Rank three- 10%
Usefulness:

Commentary:
This give you more survivability for if you are on the front lines. But I haven’t found the effect incredibly useful. Considering the other talents in this tier I would put my talents in Holy Shock and Light’s Grace instead.

Holy Guidance
Description:
Increases your spell damage and healing by a percentage of your total intellect.
Ranks:
Rank one- 7%
Rank two- 14%
Rank three-21%
Rank four-28%
Rank five- 35%
Usefulness:

Commentary:

Fully talented this can be really nice, but it depends on how much Intellect you have. If you have good gear with a lot of int then your healing will pop up a good deal and you’ll have more damage from spells like Holy Shock or Seal of Command. It is another talent best used in a raid environment for healing. But it can give you a much needed boost for other activities since most of this tree is centered around playing a supporting role. If you have already gone down deep into the holy tree then you should definitely try to pick this up.

Divine Illumination
Description:
Reduces the mana cost of all spells by 50% for fifteen seconds.
Ranks:
One rank.
Usefulness:

Commentary:

Frankly, this is not very good for the final talent in the tree. If the cooldown was shorter or the duration longer it would be better. But as it stands it is only useful for those who focus entirely on healing. Another problem with this talent is that until you reach level 61 you won’t have enough points to get Seal of Command. With the nerf to pally mana efficiency in patch 2.1 this is a little more useful, but still rather weak.