Divine %s is a pretty safe bet
The last patch saw the healing penalty on Divine Plea increased to 50% from 20% (when ret paladins were begging for a mortal strike effect, I don’t think this is what they had in mind) which makes using it a lot more difficult. It’s a good change, I think – there’s nothing terribly exciting about pushing a button every minute, pillar humping a bit, and never going OOM.
With the change, though, I expect a lot more holy paladins to try out the hybrid JotW build in an attempt to alleviate some mana issues. I thought I’d do a quick overview on what I consider competitive holy paladin PvP builds. Note that these are the versions I play, and YMMV as always. I’ll try and point out any talent choices that might be controversial.
Note that all of my builds take 4/5 Spiritual Focus – if you have 3/3 Improved Concentration Aura that’s all you need to get full pushback reduction on your heals. I’m in conc probably 95% of the time – I basically only switch to ret aura when there’s no chance I’ll be casting (rogue on me) or to crusader if I’m kiting mounted at the start of a match. Although 1/5 Seals of the Pure doesn’t sound like much, I do use Seal of Righteousness as my primary seal, so additional damage on it is welcome.
51/20 Divine Guardian Holy [link]
This build is the most popular for 3s/5s – Divine Guardian + BoSac is an amazing way to reduce pressure, you get a 30 second hammer, and you get all of the important throughput talents in holy. Beacon, despite its vulnerability to offensive dispel, can situationally be a very strong healing talent. You also get stoicism (dispel resist) which can be pretty clutch. Finally, kings, though they’ve mentioned making this baseline in 3.1.
Of course, without going into the ret tree at all, you miss out on a lot of holy crit as well as some of the nicer utility there.
49/0/22 Divine Purpose Holy [link]
This is the canonical 2s spec. Beacon is worthless in that format, and going 22 points into ret gives you access to Divine Purpose to remove stuns from you or your partner. This is mainly strong against rogue teams, although ret paladins have a lot of covering debuffs to prevent you from dispelling HoJ and it’s also occasionally useful versus DKs (Gnaw) or druids (Bash, but not Maim, sigh). The strongest aspect of the talent is that you can use it on yourself, while stunned, to remove the stun.
Your choice of ret filler can vary, but vindication and Imp Might are both nice (the latter depending on your partner). You still get the great holy stuff, and the absurd crit levels combine with Infusion of Light to make you a fairly mobile healer. The fact you can both judge and shock from 40 yards makes proper positioning a lot easier than in the past.
37/0/34 Repentance + JotW Holy [link]
This is the spec I’m currently playing. You throw out a lot of the really nice talents in deep holy – Judgements of the Pure, Divine Illumination, and the 40y judgement talent. You lose holy guidance so your spell damage will suffer a bit.
You end up taking a few weak talents in ret, too – imp ret aura and sanctified retribution are situational but not amazing, but once you get down to 30 in ret you’re in the money – repentance gives you a second (ranged) crowd control on a one minute cooldown, and JotW gives you incredible mana regen with the caveat that you have to actually be within 15y of your target to judge them.
A lot of the filler choices come down to personal preference. Whether Unyielding Faith or Aura Mastery are important talents to you depends a lot on your playstyle.