Lolpaladins

[Bokeh]

Paladins now get a category of spells next to blessings called "hand of ...."

we all know what that means..... a paladin using his hands.

On a serious note though, salv and tranq air are being removed and is being addressed in tanking abilities to reduce the dependancy on salvation that some dps'ers have.

http://www.worldofraids.com/news/208.html

the pala buffs (which have a few good things i think but someone like m/wharf/sqall will have to look at it)


o All Auras now affect all party and raid members within the area of effect.

nice, being less dependant on group setup, also makes pala aura's much more viable (concentration for everyone in the raid close to pala, devo, resistance, etc.)

o Anticipation (Protection) moved to tier 1, now increases chance to dodge by 1/2/3/4/5%.
o Avenger's Shield (Protection) cast time reduced to .5 seconds, duration increased to 10 seconds.
o Avenging Wrath no longer causes Forebearance, damage increase reduced to 20%, now increases healing done by 20%.

very nice buffs, makes wings actually good (doesn't cause you to lose DS and 20% healing every 5 minutes is not bad or anything

o Blessing of Freedom renamed Hand of Freedom. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.
o Blessing of Light and Greater Blessing of Light removed. Their effects have been folded into all relevant abilities.
o Blessing of Protection renamed Hand of Protection. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. All ranks now cost 6% of base mana.
o Blessing of Sacrifice renamed Hand of Sacrifice, is now only 1 rank and transfers 20% of the damage taken to the caster, duration reduced to 12 seconds, cooldown increased to 2 minutes. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.
o Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.

Nice move on making short duration blessings not overwrite normal blessings so you can do freedom/protection/sacrifice on a target without removing their current blessing. If threat is going to be changed and BoS removed (yes, paladins, tranq air is removed as well :P) it will mean less mucking about with only 2 pala's in the raid to give druid 1 salv druid 2 might druid 3 wisdom etc. Same goes for blessing of light, no longer need to bless every tank with light but dps'ers of that class with another buff. Holy Light/FoL will apparently be changed to increase healing.

Also, Hand of Salvation seems to be an awesome emergency threat tool. See that warlock getting high on threat? Pop salvation on him and bam instant 10% threat reduction in exchange for 10% less dmg done. It'll be a tradeoff that you actively have to choose instead of mindlessly relying on BoS then when you don't have a pala in your raid you pull aggro.

o Conviction (Retribution) now increases critical chance with all spells and melee attacks.
o Divine Intellect (Holy) moved to tier 2, increases total Intellect by 3/6/9/12/15%.
o Divine Intervention cooldown reduced to 20 minutes.
o Divine Protection and Divine Shield now cost 3% of base mana.
o Divine Purpose (Retribution) now reduces chance to be hit by spells and ranged attacks by 1/2/3%.
o Divine Strength (Holy) moved to tier 1 in the Protection tree.
o Greater Blessing of Salvation removed.
o Hammer of Justice now costs 3% of base mana.
o Hammer of Wrath is now considered a Retribution spell, moved from Holy, mana cost reduced, missile speed increased, now usable on targets below 35% health.


Well a nice buff for retridins probably but also for holy pala's grinding maybe?

o Healing Light (Holy) moved to tier 2.
o Holy Shield (Protection) cooldown reduced to 8 seconds.
o Holy Shock (Holy) range changed to 20/40 yards when used on enemies/friends respectively, cooldown reduced to 6 seconds.

Well less cooldown is always good, it means a lot more instant heals for pala's


o Holy Wrath is now instant cast, causes a 3 second stun, cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, radius reduced to 10 yards.

Not sure if Holy Wrath will cause stun on only undead/demons (most likely), if then it's a bit meh but still nice to have, a buff is a buff.

o Illumination (Holy) moved to tier 3.
o Improved Concentration Aura (Protection) moved to the Holy tree.

Always nice to be able to spec into it as a healer i guess.

o Improved Concentration Aura moved from the Protection tree to tier 4 in the Holy tree.

o Improved Devotion Aura (Protection) moved to tier 4, reduced to 3 ranks, now increases armor of Devotion Aura by 17/34/50% and increases all healing done to units affected by Devotion Aura by 1/2/3%.

This is a very very nice buff buff. With the aura changes (everyone in range is affecetd) this can basically mean a flat 3% healing increase on everyone in the raid on fights that demand it (gorefiend, najentus, bloodboil)

o Improved Hammer of Justice (Protection) now reduces cooldwon by 10/20/30 secs.

Probably a nice new pvp buff.

o Improved Righteous Fury (Protection) threat bonus folded into base spell, talent still reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6%.

o Improved Sanctity Aura (Retribution) renamed Sanctified Retribution, now causes all units affected by Retribution Aura to cause 2% more damage.

The combination of aura changes (aura's raidwide) plus this change can make a ret pala a bit more viable, though most ranged casters will probably be out of aura range.

o Improved Seal of Righteousness (Holy) moved to tier 1, renamed XXX, now affects Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption.
o Improved Seal of the Crusader (Retribution) renamed Heart of the Crusader and the effects now apply to all Judgement spells.
o Judgement of Justice will no longer prevent Fear effects, only prevent NPCs from fleeing (e.g. at low health).

o Lay on Hands no longer drains all mana, cooldown reduced to 20 minutes.

An instant massive heal with a 20 minute cooldown and no negative effects whatsoever, plus the buffs that it gives when specced into imp LoH? I'll take it.

o Pure of Heart (Holy) reduced to 2 ranks, now reduces duration of Curse and Disease effects by 25/50%.
o Redoubt (Protection) moved to tier 2.
o Repentance (Retribution) mana cost changed to 9% of base, duration increased to 1 minute (10 second PvP duration), now usable against Demons, Dragonkin, Giants, Humanoids and Undead.
o Retribution Aura damage increased and now gains damage based on Holy spell power.
o Righteous Fury now increases threat caused by Holy damage by 90%.

o Sanctified Light (Holy) now also increases the critical chance of Holy Shock.

Well a holy shock buff is always nice. It seems holy paladins get their mobility and raid viability without being limited to a set group buffed a lot (aura changes, blessing/hand changes, holy shock buffs).

o Sanctity Aura (Retribution) removed.
o Seal of Justice/Judgement reduced to 1 rank with all the effects of the previous rank 2, the Judgement effect no longer prevents Fear.
o Seal of the Crusader has been removed. The effects of Judgement of the Crusader have been folded into all relevant abilities.
o Seal of Vengeance damage over time effect duration increased to 18 seconds.
o Spiritual Focus (Holy) moved to tier 1.
o Stoicism (Protection) moved to tier 2, now reduces duration of Stun effects by 10/20/30% and reduces chance your spells will be resisted by 10/20/30%.
o Toughness (Protection) moved to tier 3.
o Turn Undead (ranks 1 and 2) removed. Turn Evil now granted at level 24, mana cost changed to 9% of base.
o Unyielding Faith (Holy) moved to tier 2.


All in all, it looks like at least talent wise paladins are getting quite a few pimping buffs, and we haven't even seen the WOTLK talents yet. What do you guys think?

[Henke]

Overall pretty impressed some good improvements - Protadins info still abit thin on the ground Improved HoJ is very nice means 20sec HoJ if you gimp yourself with 2 pvp set.

Seal of Justice/Judgement reduced to 1 rank with all the effects of the previous rank 2, the Judgement effect no longer prevents Fear - pretty useless - although I did read somewhere that this will be changed and when Seal of Justice is Judged its a 2sec stun not having to pray for a proc.

From Warlock point of view increasing Tank threat is obviously very nice however removing BoS, Totem of Tranq AND changing Master Demonologist Imp(lowers threat) means Locks have one 5min threat dump and relying on Pallys who could be healing their asses off to watch Lock threat.... in the hand of Brandt(in The Big Lebowski) our "lives are in you hands Dude"

[sacha]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?paladin=05005000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000050050335203210252155312321

hmmm...are these at least unofficial?

tbh Blizz wants the fight between prot warriors and prot pallies back?..

ouched by light seems to indicate so...then again, casters and paladins do not have to fight anymore...

[MFive]

Most of these changes are nice things indeed. The avenging wrath change is a great buf, they should have done this ages ago, but that is true for a lot of the pala changes.
Some changes also have a downsite like the blessing of sacrifice, now it is a handy trick to get out of a sheep with this cooldown this will no longer be possible. It will be something to use in PVE, for example to keep the tank alive when a big fireball has his nametag.

Some other change’s that are on the forums:
Judgements of the Pure (Rank 5): Your Judgement spells increase your casting and melee haste by xxx for x
Hand of Purity, Provides preemptive reactive healing on the target, similar to a single target version of Prayer of Mending. I hope it’s as good as it sounds.
Infusion of Light (Rank 2): Your Holy Shock critical hits reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by xxx.
Unknown: Your Cleanse spell has a x% chance to increase the target's resistance to Disease, Magic and Poison by x for x.
Divine Storm 11 (50 Pt Req) Retribution An instant weapon attack that causes Holy damage to up to x enemies within x yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totalling xx of the damage caused.
Beacon of Light (Rank 1) 11 (50 Pt Req) Holy The target becomes a Beacon of Light, healing all party or raid members within 10 yards for 990 over 15 sec.cast time is 1.5 sec
(780 mana, 1.5 sec Cast)

A lot of the bufs seem to fix that most of our abilities have a downsite. Without the talent tree and an in detail look of all the other changes it is hard to tell what the effect will be but over all it looks oke.

[Bokeh]

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=s

Paladin tree is up.

[Bokeh]

Beacon of light looks like an awesome ability for paladins btw, it's like a mobile AoE heal which you can fire and forget.

[Bokeh]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?paladin=05005000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000050050335203210252155312321

hmmm...are these at least unofficial?

tbh Blizz wants the fight between prot warriors and prot pallies back?..

ouched by light seems to indicate so...then again, casters and paladins do not have to fight anymore...

I still want to know why prot warriors get their short cd block ability (shield block) removed so they cannot get uncrushable anymore whereas paladins still keep their holy shield.

[sacha]

are crushing blows not removed in WoTLK??

[sacha]

Beacon of light looks like an awesome ability for paladins btw, it's like a mobile AoE heal which you can fire and forget.

AoE HoT even

[Bokeh]

are crushing blows not removed in WoTLK??

Put it this way.

If crushing blows are removed druids will be much much better tanks because their only weakness is that they cannot get crushing immune.

If crushing blows are NOT removed paladins will be much much better tanks because they will actually be able to become crushing immune.

[sacha]

So does this mean that:

A) either wars and pallies are obsolete? or
B) druids and warriors are obsolete,

in respect to tanking ofc...note i left DK's out because we do not know wheter they can be crush immune, my guess is they cannot, however if that is the case they can be lumped in with druids and outshine the pallies and warriors, if crushes are removed.

Tbh if SWP is anything to go by, as in I had heard the bosses don't crush, then I'm fairly sure crushing blows will go the way of the dodo.

[MFive]

Some standard PVE builds will be 63/0/8 (Heart of crsuader) or 60/11/0 (BoK).
For a PVE building it might be interesting not to go for beacon of light, so you can get Seath of Light (T5 ret talent), with BoM and a druidbuf you will probably around 1000 attack power at lvl 80. It would give 330 plus heal and the hot you would get from crits is sweet.

For holy PVP you can either for nearly a full holy tree with enough points in prot to get BoK, Improved righteous Fury and Improbed hammer of justice or you go for a liitle bit gimped holy tree with enough points in Ret to get Sheath of Light, good for healing and it would make a nice critadin build. There are also many hybrid builds posible (41/17/23 for example). Many options that look viable now, so good good :p

[Henke]

Celtic's Tanking build 0/59/12 - keep it simple I always say(sometimes...well once).

Or more likely 5/54/12 - less PvP shizzle but more threat/dmg.

Retadins with Sanctified Retribution Aura and Swfit Retribution buff raid for +2% damage AND increases Casting, Ranged and Melee attack speeds by 3%.

Must resist going Retadin....my true calling....must resist.


edit....

For PvE tanking Blizz have made the Prot tree very slim(and very good) - I have no wasted talents at all, after putting 53 in the must haves in Prot that leaves 18 points - 12 have to go into Ret so 6 points to be decided. 5 in (holy)Seal of the Pure(great for dmg and threat) 3 in (Ret)Heart of the Crusade better for raiding or 2 in (Prot)Guarded by the Light(Better AoE tanking/mana efficientcy) - or a mixture of the 3 or even 1 point in Kings. If the Talent trees stay the same Blizz really have improved Pallys alot.

Still need info on how Block value/strength/spell dmg relate to Shield of Rightousness(Shield slam for pallys).

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sVZV0xIxczMgqeohoVdx initial build - may change depending on circumstances/theorycrafting.


Actually getting pretty excited about WotLK now.

[MFive]

I know critadins are laughed at now, but might be viable in tLK. More than 40% crit for holy shock and judging should be well possible, with a lot of added damege trough vengeance, ret. aura etc. If the discriptions of judgement of the wise is correct you will have 0 Mana problems grinding and be great in PVP, it might even be descent raid dps.

Something simular to the build below should do great in arena with:
- Good healing
- A lot instant damage
- Increased speed
- No mana issues
- Vindication, repentance and eye for an eye +sanctified wrath.

Holy Talents - 31 point(s)

# Seals of the Pure - rank 5/5
# Healing Light - rank 3/3
# Divine Intellect - rank 5/5
# Unyielding Faith - rank 2/2
# Illumination - rank 5/5
# Pure of Heart - rank 1/2
# Divine Favor - rank 1/1
# Sanctified Light - rank 3/3
# Holy Power - rank 5/5
# Holy Shock - rank 1/1

Retribution Talents - 40 point(s)

# Benediction - rank 5/5
# Improved Judgements - rank 2/2
# Heart of the Crusader - rank 3/3
# Vindication - rank 2/2
# Conviction - rank 5/5
# Pursuit of Justice - rank 2/2
# Eye for an Eye - rank 2/2
# Crusade - rank 2/3
# Sanctified Retribution - rank 1/1
# Sheath of Light - rank 1/3
# Vengeance - rank 5/5
# Judgements of the Wise - rank 3/3
# Sanctified Seals - rank 3/3
# Repentance - rank 1/1
# Fanaticism - rank 1/5
# Sanctified Wrath - rank 2/2

[Henke]

We are about ready to do our next major pass on the Paladin trees. We think Prot does have too many mandatory talents, and too many talents that offer passive mitigation without other interesting mechanics or even dps. This thread is a great opportunity to discuss the tree and offer your feedback.

For purposes of this thread, the kinds of feedback that are useful:


Which talents are fun vs. which ones aren't
Areas in the tree that tie up too many talent points vs. areas that feel barren
Talents that feel mandatory vs. talents that feel fun but optional vs. talents you'd never get


For purposes of this thread, we are less interested in:


Mitigation and threat capabilities of the paladin vs. other tanks (we'll get to that)
Holy and Retribution (we'll get to that)
Mana, dps, interrupts or other paladin issues (we'll get to that)
Whether it's a good goal for Prot to be viable at healing, dps or PvP. (It's helpful to mention when talents might fit these roles, but let's not use this particular thread for a debate on whether Prot should be at all decent in PvP.)
Questions about other topics, pleas to visit other forums or catty arguments


Rest assured this is not our only avenue for collecting feedback. We do talk to experienced and beginner tanks alike as well as drawing on our own internal resources to make decisions.

Well the expected Pally Prot tree nerf is INC. I knew it was too good to be true. There really was no spare points going - vitrually every point used was essential.

[Bokeh]

Source?

[Bokeh]

nvm found it.

[MFive]

Where is it saying that this will be a nerf? I read it like they are trying to combine some talens that are mandatory to free up some talent points for " interesting " mechanics. In the " things we are less interesed in" they say they will look at diferent balancing issues.
I do expect a nerv for the tank related abilities of a prot paladin. I do agree that most points in the prot tree are mandatory, but not that they have no " interesting points". I would not mind (ofcourse :p) if they striped retibution talents a bit and gave them to the other paladin specs. Not only will their melee spell hit harder than that of holy or prot paladins but so will their spells, in adition they have better damage mitigation and they get a lot awesome abilities.

[sacha]

Holy (0 points)

None

Protection (61 points)

5/5 Divine Strength
5/5 Anticipation
5/5 Redoubt
1/1 Blessing of Kings
3/3 Improved Righteous Fury
3/3 Shield Specialization
5/5 Toughness
2/2 Divine Guardian
3/3 Improved Devotion Aura
1/1 Blessing of Sanctuary
2/2 Sacred Duty
5/5 One-Handed Weapon Specialization
2/2 Improved Holy Shield
1/1 Holy Shield
5/5 Ardent Defender
5/5 Combat Expertise
3/3 Touched by the Light
1/1 Avenger's Shield
3/3 Shield of the Templar
1/1 Hammer of the Righteous

Retribution (10 points)

5/5 Benediction
5/5 Deflection
</pre>

I guess you were right Bok, assuming the talents stay this way I might consider this as a viable build

[Bokeh]

Yeah this looks like a very viable build, i came up with a comparable build as well 10 minutes ago, except i took JotJ for a maintank raiding spec.

For maintanking divine guardian will be a lot less useful, for offtanking it'll be better than JotJ obviously. Also depends, if you have a feral druid that's in the raid fulltime you're better off taking spell warding over JotJ and DG for a maintanking prot pala spec.

You can afford to drop imp judgement since your main threat will be coming from shield/hammer of righteousness.

[Henke]

I personally would go for this build http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sVZV0tIxczMgqeohoVbx

I see why you would go for Divine Strength since Pally threat is going to be less based on Spell power and more on Strength and Attack Power(although I would never use AP since it doesn't scale with BoK) however 5 points in Seals of the Pure(Holy Tree) give us longer term threat generation and when multi tanking cannot always guarantee to get equal applications of SoV(or to judge it before it runs out) - SoR does scale ALOT better with spell dmg than AP so this may change depending on gear - making DS >SotP.

JotJ is(as far as I can see) an offtank tool to be used in raids when another class is tanking(a huge percentage of Pally threat come from mobs hitting you) since pallys want mobs hitting them as Holy Shield is our main threat builder especially when multitanking(although this may change with HotR).

Blizz appear to want Pallys, Warriors and DKs to share the same gear which does mean that pallys will be lacking Int hence lacking Mana - however with the removal of SoC(Q_Q) it means pallys can apply SoW on 2nd judgement(1st judgement should always be SoR for instant threat) which should keep mana ticking over.

I would always take 2 points in Improved Judgements since Judging SoR gives a huge threat boost especially with 3 points in Imp RF and with JoL and JoW(which I now assume are indepentant of SoL and SoW) mean we can regen Health or Mana or increase threat by 17% more than without the 2points in Imp judgements.

Divine Guardian is the 1 talent I just don't get - I assume its aimed at offtank/healing Pallys who will bubble when a AoE comes into play(Archi Soul Charge anyone). The redirected damage is that going to be absorbed by Bubble or will it ignore and wtfpwn the Pally?

With this build I do have 1 point going free so I stick it in BoK since its always nice to have and will scale very well with Stamina and Strength.

All this is subject to change when the thoerycrafters get invloved - whether I go for a Spell Dmg weapon or a typical warrior tanking weapon will remain to be seen - although may need both(Spell dmg for AoE tanking and normal tanking weapon for boss)

[Bokeh]

5 points in Seals of the Pure(Holy Tree) give us longer term threat generation and when multi tanking cannot always guarantee to get equal applications of SoV(or to judge it before it runs out).
in WOTLK your judgements and seals will be a much more minor part of your threat, shield of righteousness/hammer of the righteous are much more. On top of that, you won't always be using SoV but might be running SoW/SoL depending on the fight.

15% more str will also brings 15% * 15% = 2% more damage to your JoV on top of the extra threat it brings to consecration, SoR, HotR, and ofcourse white threat. In general 15% more str is much more flexible than extra damage on judgements.



JotJ is(as far as I can see) an offtank tool to be used in raids when another class is tanking(a huge percentage of Pally threat come from mobs hitting you) since pallys want mobs hitting them as Holy Shield is our main threat builder especially when multitanking(although this may change with HotR).
JotJ an offtank tool? So thunderclap is an offtank tool as well? A huge percentage of warrior threat also comes from mosb hitting you, that still doesn't mean you don't want thunderclap on that badass "hits you for 9000" boss. If you're not tanking as a prot paladin there's also no point judging it for JotJ since all other tanks can apply thunderclap as well, so i really don't where you get that it's an offtanking tool if anyone can do it. 20% lower attack speed = 20% less dmg taken, 20% more time between hits (so it improves your time to live by more than 20%) and this also means healers have 20% more time before their heal has to land. How often to you see the situation where a healers says "i was just about to land a heal"? With JotJ that heal would have actually landed.

Remember if you want to get hit more, you don't have to judge the mob, in aoe situations you most likely won't judge all of them anyway, and simply put, if you don't take JotJ you don't deserve a raid spot. It'd be like a prot warrior not taking imp thunderclap, you're gimping the entire raid without it.


I would always take 2 points in Improved Judgements since Judging SoR gives a huge threat boost especially with 3 points in Imp RF.
With the new skills you don't need an 8s cd on judging anymore, plus your shield of righteousness/hammer of the righteous is a much better threat choice. Prot paladin judging is going to be more utility and less threat. You can take 2 points yes, but 2s less on judgements will be situational since you have much more abilities to use in your rotation (1.5s gcd hammer, 1.5s gcd shield, 1.5s gcd holy shield, 1.5s gcd judgement, 1.5s gcd consecration, 1.5s gcd reapplying various buffs like that self-shield).

Divine guardian is aimed at offtanking and healing paladins yes, The redirected damage will be absorbed by the paladin.

And yes, you will need a spell damage weapon for multitarget tanking since spell damage weapons usually do not have mitigation in exchange for more spell damage (more threat) and a tanking weapon for single target threat and mitigation.

[sacha]

Well as it turns out, I'm guessing these will be prime choices to tank with for a paladin pre raiding ofc.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=55370
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?item=41384

Combined with:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?item=42508#created-by

All trainer taught, so easily accesable and BoE so even craftable for others.

Apparently there's this shield vendor in Dalaran who sells this:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?item=40701 jummie!

I could exchange DG for JotJ, we'll see wheter they debloat the tree a bit

[MFive]

Here are some things we are looking at right now. You may not agree with them all, but I will share them with you in the hopes of making you feel better about your class, and maybe even getting you excited again. I also can't promise they are final because it's still the sort of thing we're wrestling with, and I don't want to disappoint anyone if it doesn't work out or we change our minds. Okay, massive caveats out of the way:



We'd like to do something else with Kings. I don't know that a core ability is the answer, but burying it deep in Prot, when Prot warriors would just as soon play with BoSanc, doesn't feel great either.

BoK becoming a base talent would be great, but the Prot tree still has a lot of goodies for a holy pala (Divine guardian, Imp RF, Imp DA) so I am not sure if it will stop from holy pala's having to spend a lot points in the prot tree.
We'd like to mess around with the top 2 tiers of all 3 trees, still encouraging you to cross-spec a little, but making that initial bite into the upper tier more tasty instead of just an icky appetizer to get the what you really want down deeper.


Partily agree there. Judgement of the just for prot paladins is not an apatizer and shield of the tempelare doesnt sound that bad to me either.
The ret T10 talent is crap, I personaly dont fin the holy T10 great but wowinsider disagrees with me.

I think Beacon of Light is starting to feel pretty good. It may be a little OP right now, but I think we can get it in a good place. (I'm sorry, but I don't know if you have the version I'm talking about or not.)

Priest get a simular spell for free that has 30% effect where BoL gives 100%, great yes but if you find it OP go look what other classes get to. If hey nerv it a lot holy palas will drop it and go for sheath of Light in the Ret tree.

We'd like to get Vengeance back to 3 stacks, because that just feels more fun than 2. I can almost assure you that it won't be at 15% total damage -- that is hugely generous for 5 talent points, and would normally be budgeted at more like 15 talent points. If I had to guess, it will end up at something like 3 talent points for 1 / 2 / 3% that stacks up to 3 times (so 9% at 3 stacks). That is still over-inflated for 3 talent points. I understand that your dps used to depend on Vengeance. We'll just have to buff it in other ways. Death Knights will get the exact same treatment, whatever it ends up being.

Oh plix give ret paladins more talent pointst to spend on on "fun" ;p

JotW was changed to support the new party buff system and it needs to keep that role. That is one of the main reasons why a group would want to take a Ret pally over another dps class. I understand your mana was dependent on this ability. We'll just have to buff that in other ways as well. Having too many talents that just lower mana costs feel like a band-aid, so we'd rather not overdo that route. Instead we'd just like to make sure you have enough mana. The new Divine Plea is one mechanic here (it works more like Blood Rage than Evocate now), but it's not the only one.

Problem with the new mana regen abilities is that they give mana regen based on max mana, so a retribution paladin will have a smaller benefit from it than mages or holy paladins. I wonder if they included the effect of JoW. The problem I have with this is that they are fixing all mana problems ret paladins have but dont do sheit about the mana problems that holy paladins have when they have to kill anything.



Deep Ret and deep Prot need 1 or 2 more cool talents. We'll carve out room by bundling or just swapping out some of the current talents.

Fuck me. Prot oke, but Ret?? Ret paladins get >50% crit on their judgements (a spell!!) , shorter cooldowns on avanging wrath, repetance, increased movement speed, damage reflection, a lot damage reduction and more.
Again the spotlights are mainly on ret paladins. Prot and Ret paladins will be viable healers, not at the same level as holy paladins but still. Holy paladins will only be able to heal. In TBC leveling as holy was slow, because they did no damage and piss trough your mana but it was partily worth it because their consecrattion and judgements did more damage. This advantage is gonne, maybe you need to be specced holy to heal in a 5 man but I seriously doubt it. Going retribution to level is one thing, but it would be nice if (this time) a holy paladin can grind at a reasonable speed.

[Henke]

Fuck me. Prot oke, but Ret?? Ret paladins get >50% crit on their judgements (a spell!!) , shorter cooldowns on avanging wrath, repetance, increased movement speed, damage reflection, a lot damage reduction and more.I think Blizz are still chasing all the Pallys(like myself) who after the 2nd major Pally nerf(must be 3 years ago now) 'retired their pally' and rerolled. That 2nd nerf totally destroyed pallys as anything but healers, Retadins were very good DPS wise, Prot had never been good till TBC so the nerf took way any real damage done by a Pally.

However TBC has been very very kind to Pallys(hence the number of new pallys impressed with the tanking and damage done), still very good healers, they are now able to tank very effectively and have some very good sustained damage(not as good as pure DPS classes but they are a hybrid so thats expected) and it looks like Blizz realised that more people are playing/enjoying their pallys again but they have now have tilted the balance too much and making us 1st choice tanks(for a lot of people anyway especially nubnub 5mans) and Retadins seem to be getting huge buffs in WotLK just to appease the new breed of pallys.

[Henke]

Latest Pally tree is up. So here is my latest build...

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0xqAbuMteIRGoEf

Blizzard has changed a few thing moving Redoubt very high into the Prot tree, while making BoK(10%version) require 5 talent points.

After getting the 'must haves' I have 5 points left over. My Choices are...

In Holy.
5 points in Seals of the Pure. 15% more dmg from Seal of Rightousness(and its judgement) is considerable and scales very well with AP(as do most Pally tanking spells). Good for longer term threat generation.

In Protection Tree.
5 Points in BoK - Very good Talent(especially when Glyph adds 3%AP) however its easy access means alot of Holy Pallys will pick it up and with the improvement to BoSanc most Protadins will want that up.

In Retribution Tree.
5 Points in Benediction - All instant cast spells have 10% lower Mana cost - while this doesn't seem great(and it may not be) due to Int(and spell damage for that matter) being removed from all(that I've seen) Pally tanking gear I'm worried about my mana pool. Most Pally tanking spells are instant cast(including Holy Wrath now) so this could be a considerable bonus.

The is the other possibility of spread the 5 points around - 2 points in Improved BoM(always nice for melee/hunters) and 3 points in Improved Hammer of Justice(CD down from 60secs to 30secs) very nice indeed.

All of this conjecture is dependant on how the new mechanics work especially with regards mana and threat. But if anything Blizz had made the Pally Tanking tree have more 'must haves' rather than less. But looking good nonetheless.


Just a wee side note regarding Hammer of Justice.... With 3 points in Improved Hammer of Justice AND 4 set bonus of Pally Arena/PvP gear(reduces the Cooldown of HoJ by 10 secs) AND Glyph of Hammer of Justice(Increase duration of HoJ by 1sec) - this means Pallys can stun a target for 7 seconds every 20 seconds....Is that OP?...maybe just maybe.

[Bokeh]

@HoJ: set bonuses for pvp gear will be changed.

@Talents: i am still not sure that imp judgements will be worth it, considering you have 3 new abilities to use in your rotation so you won't be able to fit a judgement in every 8 seconds, especially not while conserving a bit of mana. On top of that, avenger's shield is now instant so in a threat intensive bossfight where mana is not an issue you can use it once every 30 seconds (once every 3 rotations on avg), taking away even more GCD's. The first GCD to drop as a tank is the one that has the worst TPR (Threat per Rage, or for paladins Threat per Mana) in low rage/mana situations, and the one that has the worst TPS in high rage/mana situations. So in a paladin's case considering how your other abilities scale that would most likely be a judgement.


Same goes for seals of the pure, ofcourse it's extra threat but tanking is not just about threat, otherwise we'd have hunters tanking. Is it really worth 5 talent points for a relatively minor threat increase? (Shield of the righteous gives so much threat it's not funny, judgements seem to be more about debuffing than actual threat in WOTLK)

If you are not going for kings, at least put that last point in something useful like stoicism, not guardian's favour. A stun is deadly for tanks, any reduction in that helps, especially while you're still doing 5 and 10 mans content.

Then you'd reach something like this

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxVA0uMteIRGoEc


Holy (0 points)

None

Protection (58 points)

1/1 Blessing of Kings
4/4 Improved Blessing of Kings
5/5 Divine Strength
5/5 Anticipation
3/3 Improved Righteous Fury
5/5 Toughness
3/3 Improved Devotion Aura
1/1 Blessing of Sanctuary
2/2 Sacred Duty
5/5 One-Handed Weapon Specialization
1/1 Holy Shield
5/5 Ardent Defender
3/3 Redoubt
3/3 Combat Expertise
3/3 Touched by the Light
1/1 Avenger's Shield
2/2 Guarded by the Light
3/3 Shield of the Templar
2/2 Judgements of the Just
1/1 Hammer of the Righteous

Retribution (13 points)

5/5 Deflection
5/5 Benediction
3/3 Heart of the Crusader

[Bokeh]

With the change to hammer of the righteous prot paladins will want to pick up slow melee weapons now. Fast weapons will scale worse for threat considering your main threat move is instant based on weapon damage.

[MFive]

Grr, can somebody post the actual changes?

[Bokeh]

done in the other changes topic.

[sacha]

Hrm...this would be mine

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=s

Level 80 Paladin (0/61/10)

Holy (0 points)
NoneProtection (61 points)
Blessing of Kings - Rank 1/1
Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing total stats by 2% for 10 min. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.

Improved Blessing of Kings - Rank 4/4
Increases the effectiveness of Blessing of Kings by an additional 8%.

Divine Strength - Rank 5/5
Increases your total Strength by 15%.

Stoicism - Rank 3/3
Reduces the duration of all Stun effects by an additional 30% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by an additional 30%.

Anticipation - Rank 5/5
Increases your chance to dodge by 5%.

Improved Righteous Fury - Rank 3/3
While Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 6%.

Toughness - Rank 5/5
Increases your armor value from items by 10% and reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 50%.

Improved Devotion Aura - Rank 3/3
Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 50% and increases the amount healed on any target affected by Devotion Aura by 3%.

Blessing of Sanctuary - Rank 1/1
Places a Blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 10 rage, 20 runic power, or 2% of maximum mana. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.

Sacred Duty - Rank 2/2
Increases your total Stamina by 6%, reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield and Divine Protection spells by 60 sec and reduces the attack speed penalty by 100%.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization - Rank 5/5
Increases all damage you deal when a one-handed melee weapon is equipped by 10%.

Holy Shield - Rank 1/1
Increases chance to block by 30% for 10 sec and deals 211 Holy damage for each attack blocked while active. Each block expends a charge. 8 charges.

Ardent Defender - Rank 5/5
When you have less than 35% health, all damage taken is reduced by 30%.

Redoubt - Rank 3/3
Increases your block value by 30% and damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 30%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks.

Combat Expertise - Rank 3/3
Increases your expertise by 6, total Stamina and chance to critically hit by 6%.

Touched by the Light - Rank 3/3
Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 30% of your Stamina and increases the amount healed by your critical heals by 30%.

Avenger's Shield - Rank 1/1
Hurls a holy shield at the enemy, dealing [846 + 0.07 * SPH + 0.07 * AP] to [1034 + 0.07 * SPH + 0.07 * AP] Holy damage, Dazing them and then jumping to additional nearby enemies. Affects 3 total targets. Lasts 10 sec.

Guarded by the Light - Rank 2/2
Reduces spell damage taken by 6% and reduces the mana cost of your Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield and Shield of Righteousness spells by 30%.

Shield of the Templar - Rank 3/3
Increases the damage of your Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield and Shield of Righteousness spells by 30%.

Judgements of the Just - Rank 2/2
Your Judgement spells also reduce the melee attack speed of the target by 20%.

Hammer of the Righteous - Rank 1/1
Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing 120% weapon damage as Holy damage.Retribution (10 points)
Deflection - Rank 5/5
Increases your Parry chance by 5%.

Benediction - Rank 5/5
Reduces the mana cost of all instant cast spells by 10%.


BTW has anyone considered the possibility that tankadins might end up with close to holy spellpowers?

[MFive]

It looks like the holy powers of a ret paladin will be higher than those of a holy paladin, maybe not in their ret gear but it in healing gear they will. I will do the math when I get home :o

[MFive]

Here the calculations I promised. Lets start by saying that Judgement of the wise and Sheath of light in the ret tree are Imba and make a ret paladin a better healer than a holy paladin.
Just compare a PVE specced ret paladin: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=05232051003231032213523135150300000000000 0000000000000050000000000000000000000, for comparison I used http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=05230010000000000000000000050350152320130 0531025012511400000000000000000000000 as holy build.
Raidbufs give more attack power than intellect. The talents will give a holy pala around 220spell power and a ret pala around 600 spellpower.

This makes for a ret paladin:
Holy ligh non crit =(5200+(2.5/3.5*1.6*(2200+600))*1.12=9408
Flash of light non crit =(830+(1.5/3.5*1.6*(2200+600))*1.12=2980

And for a holy paladin
Holy light =(5200+(2.5/3.5*1.6*(2200+220)))*1.12=8921
Flash of light: =(830+(1.5/3.5*1.6*(2200+220))*1.12=2688

A holy paladin gets 7% extra crit for flash of light and 13% for holy light (1% is from extra intellect, and 1 % from conviction)
Ret paladins get 8% for both heals, but the heal of a ret paladin will heal for 60% extra.

This makes the avg holy light for a ret paladin:
HL= 9408*0,26*1,5*1,6+9408*0,74=12832
FOL= 2980*1,6*0,26*1,6+2980*0,74=4188

for a holy paladin
HL= 8921*1,5*0,31+8921*0,69=10303(25% less)
FOL= 2688*0,25*1,5+2688*0,75= 3024 (38% less)

Silly isnt it? These numebrs become even more silly when you include sacred shield, but lets forget that for now.
So what about illumination? A holy paladin gets mana back from crit heals,
this will make HL 21,7% cheaper and FL 17,5%. But a ret paladin will get 20% of his maximum mana back from judging, in healing gear with a 20k mana pool that will be 4k each hit and that is without counting the 0.5% mana ticks!
A holy paladin will need 6,5 crits to get the mana back that a ret paladin gets from 1 judgement. A ret paladin that judges once every 10-15 seconds will be able to do full time holy light spamming, something a holy paladin can not even dream of. A nice extra is that a ret paladin his judgements will have a 74% crit chance (not kidding).
What about beacon of light than? They are already looking if it should not be nerved, but lets supose they leave it like it is now. It is a good ability, but the majority of the healing it does will be overhealing and you will not come near the healing potential of a ret paladin.

To make a real insane build look at this:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=35232050203001202213400030050330050320130 0300000000000000000000000000000000000

33% crit on flash of light and 36% on holy light, with ilumination and a hot for every crit you do. That combined with unending mana when you judge every once in a while. With this spec you dont need any mp5 on your gear.

[sacha]

M please redo the math with a Prot build...taking into account the 30% increase in spp from the prot tree

Quick guestimate says 600+ sp from that talent alone, add gear, gems and enchants, and I'm looking at a cool 1000+ Spp...


edit: numbers to do the math with: max stam to date: 1700ish (30% of which is 510)

[MFive]

Let's asume this spec: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=53000000000000000000000000050300000000000 0000000000001450053500310251533312021

1700 or probably a bit more is what you get in prot gear, but I am looking at what you have when you are healing so in healing gear. Your stamina will probably be around 1300, so thats 433 spp. You get 6% crit from talents.

Your holy light will do 9194 non crit and your flash lof light 2852.
Avg holy light will be 11290 (9,5% more) and your avg flash of light 3502 (16% more).
You will not have the mana benefits a ret paladin has, but you do take 12% less spelldamage and have a nice bit more stamina, bring bosanc, can buble more often and have improved devotion aura.

[Bokeh]

33% crit on flash of light
Don't you also get 50% from that new shield spell?

[MFive]

Yes, I mentioned not including sacred shield. In a nutshell gives blizard more plusheal to offspec healers than to holy paladins and they give a bonus effect on crit heals, and on top of that they give ret palading unending mana.

[MFive]

http://www.wowinsider.com/category/the-light-and-how-to-swing-it/

And a remark in the forum:

Most high-end holy-pallies in the beta are actually speccing 37/0/34 specifically for Judgements of the Wise. Since it is based on total mana, they are judging every 8 seconds, getting about 3K mana back each time in their healing gear, along with the 250-300 MP5 they're carrying around and Illumination, they can spam max rank Holy Light and never go OOM. That build gives all the mandatory holy abilites, unlimited MP5, and extra soloing viability.

Altogether, it makes you a mana battery for the party, a CRAZY mana battery for yourself, insanely large heals with a very high crit percentage, instacast holy lights on holy shock crits, and a 0.75 second Flash when judgement crits. Nothing further down in the Holy tree, including Beacon, can even come close to that for healing utility.

[Henke]

Just a wee side note regarding Hammer of Justice.... With 3 points in Improved Hammer of Justice AND 4 set bonus of Pally Arena/PvP gear(reduces the Cooldown of HoJ by 10 secs) AND Glyph of Hammer of Justice(Increase duration of HoJ by 1sec) - this means Pallys can stun a target for 7 seconds every 20 seconds....Is that OP?...maybe just maybe. @HoJ: set bonuses for pvp gear will be changed.http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2008/september/8970/hatefulglad_paladinmelee.jpg

Have the developers not see this yet? Do they not care?

[Bokeh]

These are the old set bonuses, not all set bonuses have been implemented yet. Also shouldn't be needed since even after release they still have a while until the first people hit 80 and start getting the pvp gear.

[sacha]

hmm, with the changes to HoJ this might be viable...


Holy (5 points)

5/5 Seals of the Pure

Protection (59 points)

1/1 Blessing of Kings
4/4 Improved Blessing of Kings
5/5 Divine Strength
5/5 Anticipation
3/3 Improved Righteous Fury
5/5 Toughness
3/3 Improved Hammer of Justice
3/3 Improved Devotion Aura
1/1 Blessing of Sanctuary
2/2 Sacred Duty
5/5 One-Handed Weapon Specialization
1/1 Holy Shield
5/5 Ardent Defender
3/3 Redoubt
3/3 Combat Expertise
3/3 Touched by the Light
1/1 Avenger's Shield
3/3 Shield of the Templar
2/2 Judgements of the Just
1/1 Hammer of the Righteous

Retribution (7 points)

5/5 Deflection
2/2 Improved Judgements

</pre>
(http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent)

[Geilia]

<meta http-equiv="CONTENT-TYPE" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title></title><meta name="GENERATOR" content="OpenOffice.org 2.2 (Win32)"><meta name="AUTHOR" content="Leony Verheij"><meta name="CREATED" content="20081011;12495959"><meta name="CHANGED" content="16010101;0"><style type="text/css"> <!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } --> </style> I would go for this talent spec on Bubble atm for Prot



http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=55100000200000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000001450053500310251533312321


One variation might be dropping BoK, and taking Stoicism and Divine Guardian.
I'm not going for seals of the pure, since I consider that a pure Holy paladin grinding talent. But that is my opinion :). And in case of outgearing stuff I plan to use seal of the martyr anyhow.



The reason why I take only one point in imp judgements is this scematic down here.
Also Judgements have been added on the global cooldown, so it won't work like in the old days anymore, on the plus side, seals last 2 minutes now.

Going from to a 8 second cooldown form a 9 second one, will contribute nothing to a steady rotation. Since every cooldown will already be used in this rotation, and having an 8 second cooldown will only mean it's sitting there doing nothing, and is a talent point wasted.
Pursuit of justice means faster movement, and paladins don't have that many ways to reposition themselves on the battlefloor, the disarm reduction is further a nice bonus, and this also means I can take a different enchant on my boots instead of something with minor run speed.



6 Secs: Shield of Righteousness
6 Secs: Hammer of the Righteous
8 Secs: Consecration (Yup, one second of consecration uptime will be lost in this rotation.)
8 Secs: Holy Shield (but the duration is 10 seconds, so there is a 2 secs spare)
9 Secs: Judgement


Rotation 18 seconds, 12 uses (18/1.5 = 12) (3,3,2,2,2 = 12)


0 Shield of Righteousness (6 second rotation ability)
1.5 Holy Shield (9 second rotation ability)
3.0 Hammer of the Righteous (6 second rotation ability)
4.5 Consecration (9 second rotation ability)
6.0 Shield of Righteousness (6 second rotation ability)
7.5 Judgement (9 second rotation ability)
9.0 Hammer of the Righteous (6 second rotation ability)
10.5 Holy Shield (9 second rotation ability)
12.0 Shield of Righteousness (6 second rotation ability)
13.5 Consecration (9 second rotation ability)
15.0 Hammer of the Righteous (6 second rotation ability)
16.5 Judgement (9 second rotation ability)
18.0 Shield of Righteousness (6 second rotation ability)
And repeat all.

[Cowl]

I was reading that while hammer of justice stuns are irrelvent on bosses it also spell interupts so it might be something useful when tanking even if most bosses are stun immune.



Also does Divine Protection (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=498) drop aggro like bubble does - I am assuming not but wasnt sure.

[MFive]

Yesterday I was in a BT run, this gave me a good opertunity to test the new pala healing abilites. What suprised is that you need to have a seal active to cast a judgement, you can judge light while you have seal of light active. What also suprised me is the short duration of Infusion of light, it only lasts for 15 seconds.
I found it very hard to watch all the cooldowns and debufs, I dont have an addon for that yet but maximizing your performance as a holy paladin is seriously insane.

The cooldowns and debufs you will have to watch:
- 20 seconds, refresh judgements to give mana or healing and 3% crit for dps
- 60 seconds, judgement of the pure to get 15% haste
- 120 seconds, referesh seal otherwise you cant judge and you want seal of light or wisdom depending on your inscription.
- 60 seconds beacon of light, to help out healing on the beacon
- 60 seconds divine plea, to regain mana
- 180 seconds, avenging wrath to do 20% extra healing
- 15 seconds light grace, to make your holy light go 0.5 seconds faster
- 15 seconds infussion of light, to make your holy light go faster
- 6 seconds holy shock to trigger infussion of light
- 120 seconds divine favor cooldown, to get crit heal or holy shock
- 180 seconds divine illumination cooldown to cast cheaper spells
- 30 seconds sacred shield

All this while you heal and cleanse 25 people with a main healing spell that costs around 1.2 seconds to cast!

[Bokeh]

Well at least paladins aren't boring anymore then i guess :P

[Wharf]

Yea because keeping stuff alive is a cake walk ;P I have Sooooooo missed the days of having to keep an eye out for things running out every 5 minutes!

Sounds like there is some interesting stuff for me to go play with.

[Bokeh]

Nah but what i did mean was, i did hear a bit of complainining sometimes from m that all he did was spam 1 or 2 spells :)

[MFive]

Yesterday in MH we got a first glimpse of these changes. What surprised me most is how much healing judgement of light is doing, and this will become even better after the patch when spells will also proc the healing. Keeping it up and getting the haste buf seems to me like the way to go, adding 3% crit will make it even more sweet.

I am still not sure about infusion by light, so far is my feeling that its no good. It lacks synergy with light's grace and (trying) to keep it ready will more often get a tank killed than it saves one.

So far Beacon of light seems worth it, not as a mana saver or to do more healing but mainly to prevent te tank from getting killed while you healed someone else. According tot the Webstats I did around 12% of my healing with it, that might look nice but tells nothing at all. Most of it, if not all, I could have done without it and it would probably not have costed more effort or more mana.

With divine plea we will get a lot better mana regen, I seriously doubt if we even need MP5 from gear. I have done some calculations and they show that a flask of distilled wisdom gives much more mana than flask of restoration and BoK will be better for palas mana regen than BoW.

Sacred shield still lies in the dark, I don't think it will be used much in PVE but we will have to see how it realy works.


The way I see it now holy paladins are still very good at single target healing and still bad at multi target healing, our mana problems are fixed and we certanly have a lot more to do now to max our healing. The thing we miss most is a lazy heal like all the other healing classes have :)

[MFive]

Blue's should start staying of the boose, because they can't separate holy paladins from druids any more:

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/24x24/paladin.jpg Paladin (Skills List (http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=610) / Talent Calc. (9095) (http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin))
Reasons behind the Retribution nerf in PvP
Holy Spec and AE Healing
Druids have better single-target and AE heals now, but the single-target spells aren’t as good as the paladin ones and the AE isn’t as good as a shaman or priest. They are just there to fill in the gaps. Paladins got Beacon of Light, Holy Shock and things like Infusion of Light to also fill those gaps. The question asked was what if those aren’t sufficient, and my reply was we will buff them or add new spells.

Based on the healing numbers we’re seeing from paladins in raids, I don’t think you’ll lose your spots to druids. But if that happens, then that gives us a reason to buff your AE and hots even more. You need 1 to 3 tanks in a raid, which is why we can’t have very discrete niches for them. You need 3-8 healers in a raid on average, which is why we think it’s more interesting for them to have niches. But in a 5-player, you are the only healer, so you need to be able to get the job done. Magister’s used to be hard for a Holy paladin. Ignoring the increased tanking and dps potential at the moment on live, how is it now?

The only pala spec that has AE healing and hots are ... retribution paladins. The real problem for a holy pala will not be the 25 man but the 10 man runs.

[MFive]

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/24x24/paladin.jpg Paladin (Skills List (http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=610) / Talent Calc. (9095) (http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin))
Skills
Holy


Seal of Wisdom now deal [ 16% of AP + 25% of Spell Power + 1 ] holy damage when unleashed. (Down from [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage)
Seal of Light now has a chance to heal for [ 15% of AP + 15% of Spell Power ]. (Down from [ 28% of AP + 28% of Spell Power ])
Seal of Light now deals [ 16% of AP + 25% of Spell Power + 1 ] (down from [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ]) holy damage when unleashed.
Seal of Righteousness now grants each melee attack [ 2.2% of Melee Weapon Speed * AP + 4.4% of Melee Weapon Speed * Spell Power ] additional Holy damage. (Down from [ 2.8% of Melee Weapon Speed * AP + 5.5% of Melee Weapon Speed * Spell Power ])


Blizzard is clearly listening to the holy pala community ;p

[MFive]

New nerv:

Avenging Wrath now causes Forebearance, and Forebearance's duration has been reduced to 2 minutes.
This is again meant to nerv ret palas but hits holy palas hard, it means you can not pop it anymore in a raid to do some extra healing.

[silverlight]

Its neded for ret, but its vv silly that it hits holy so hard why dont they make your 51 point tallent also remove the forebearance effect form Avenging Wrath then it would be impossible for ret to get that tallent

[MFive]

I posted this on the Bizzard forum:

In the line of the recent changes I would like a fix for my hearthstone. It is a clear problem that the hearthstone can be used while being under the affect of forbearance. Read all the complaints about paladins and you will see a significant amount of complaints about this ability.
Time to change this overpowerd ability and make it so that the hearthstone no longer can be used under when a paladin has forbearance.

[Cowl]

UPDATE - pallys to only be allowed to weld fishing rods now. Needed. over .

[MFive]

Carrot on a stick:

AoE Healing and dungeon difficulty
Heroic Loken is hard. He’s the hardest heroic boss. Having a priest may make the encounter easier, but it doesn’t make it tirival and having a paladin doesn’t mean you are almost certainly doomed to fail. Honestly it has a lot more to do with what the rest of the group is doing to minimize the damage they take than what the healer has to do to keep everyone up.

Malygos is a slightly different situation. We kept amping up the damage of Vortex because CoH and WG could just easily heal through it. We finally decided those two spells were just OP and pushing priests and druids into just relying on that one spell too much. With the cooldown on COH and WG we will probably nerf the Vortex. I say probably because players are farming the encounter already so I’m not 100% that things will go from farm to impossible with this change, but we’ll be sure to test it out a lot and watch for your feedback. (Source)


Bugs with Judgements
We are trying to track this issue (Judgements sometimes failing) down. We aren't sure what is causing this and we can't come up with a situation that causes it reliably so we can figure out what's happening. More information from players about what situations seem to reproduce the bug will be more helpful than just posting "still happening" over and over. Yes, we know it is still happening. We just don't know why. (Source)


Paladin healing efficiency
There are certainly situations where paladins have to work a bit more. But I haven't encountered anything where I wished we had a priest, druid or shaman healing us instead.

The same is true of nearly every class. Mages are better at CC in a lot of dungeons than other classes. Paladins are still probably better AE tanks than death knights. But that doesn't mean that only the best death knights can handle those dungeons.

Now here's an extreme example. Before druids had an out-of-combat rez, many players did believe it was a liability to bring a druid healer, especially whenever they were going to be faced with a respawn situation. We don't think paladin limited AE healing is anywhere close to this degree of problem, but I'd certainly be interested in hearing more.


Holy Paladins
I think it's a bit premature to declare that Holy paladins (or any healer really) can't keep up. In situations where a paladin can really benefit from Beacon, it may in fact be hard for others to keep up, but that won't be every fight.

If you look at the guilds who are doing the (current) end game content, they are using a lot of Holy pallys and those guys never seem to run out of mana. So presumably there are plenty of situations where they really shine.

The change to Judgement of Wisdom was so Protection and Ret paladins (and Feral druids and whoever else) didn't feel like they were supposed to stack Int for mana, since there is none on their gear. We picked a number that shouldn't be a nerf to most Holy paladins, though it will mean that it won't keep scaling as your Int climbs, so I imagine it will be called a nerf anyway. :) We'll keep an eye on this -- perhaps adding an effect to a Holy talent or something to increase the return.

Paladins received more changes to core mechanics than any other class in LK, so I would not be at all surprised to see changes to their talent trees over the next few patches. Holy, IMO, is likely to see the most work. (Source)

Leveling as Holy + buffs in Patch 3.0.x
That’s a bit of a misinterpretation, though I suspect I don’t need to point that out. The Holy paladin is a healing spec. If you take that spec, it’s with the expectation that you are giving up some other strengths in order to be a good healer. We don’t want leveling to be horribly painful for you, but to be honest, I don’t think it is. My answer was more that if you find leveling as Holy (or Protection or Discipline or whatever) too slow, then you do have the option to respec. Many players do. Shadow is probably the most common case of a spec that is used to level even by players that fully intend to heal.

You also make it sound as if we somehow broke existing gameplay here. Healers have never been exceptionally fast at leveling (and neither have tanks for that matter). We think we made things a little easier with the changes to spellpower and similar adjustments for tanks, but I would be surprised if your relative (for your level) dps actually went down between BC and LK.

Also, you are still going to want multiple sets of gear even with this change. Once you hit level 80 and get your stuff gemmed and enchanted it is going to be better for one role (healing, dps, PvP) than for others. The spellpower change makes healing gear better at dps (and vice versa) but it doesn’t mean they become the same thing. (Source)



[...] I don’t actually think Holy paladins get different and substandard treatment. You did get hurt by the Ret nerfs, and as I said, we intend to compensate you for that. It will be in the next patch, which will be before the 3.1 Ulduar patch.

[Bokeh]

The same is true of nearly every class. Mages are better at CC in a lot of dungeons than other classes. Paladins are still probably better AE tanks than death knights. But that doesn't mean that only the best death knights can handle those dungeons.



The difference being that 1) cc is a non-issue anymore and 2) any tank with half a brain can generate enough aoe threat to tank through a hysteria'ed bloodlusted arms warrior bladestorming.

[MFive]

One of the biggest problems I have in heroics is that our abilities need predictable damage, something healing almost never is.
Beacon of ligh, seals and judging will fall of fast during a fight and cost global cooldown and so do dp, holy shock and our bubble. That gives a lot of time during a fight where you can not heal at all. This makes healing more luck based than it should be.
Infusion of light and sacred shield are also luck based, there is no way to ensure they are there when you need it.