Feedback: Paladins

In Development Midnight Beta Test
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This thread is dedicated to leaving feedback on Paladins in Midnight. Look in this thread and in the Midnight Alpha Development Notes for adjustments and bugfixes made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

Apex Talents

Many Apex Talents are available for playtesting and may be selected using specialization tree points in the final specialization tree node. The current User interface (UI) is temporary for playtesting purposes and will be replaced with a final UI later in development. As with any test cycle, we will be adding more Apex Talents to the test over time and not all will be available with the start of the alpha test.

To help us refine Apex Talents, please consider the following questions as you playtest:

  • How gameplay-impacting, exciting, and fantasy forward is your Apex Talent to you?
  • Are your Apex Talents and new Hero Talents meeting the approachability goals laid out in our Combat for Everyone in Midnight article?
  • Are there cases you would consider not selecting your Apex talent?
  • Does the Apex talent disproportionally favor a particular talent build or Hero Talent tree?

For feedback regarding the changes on making the combat system more approachable for players of all skill levels, leave your feedback in the Combat Approachability feedback thread.

Thank You

We greatly appreciate all your feedback and are very excited for you to test out all the changes in Midnight!

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Holy

Holy Paladin’s updates are focused on removing various inconsequential healing sources and cutting secondary tracking buffs. We are also reducing the amount of mid-range cooldowns they have access to as we felt there were a few too many in that space and making sure Aura Mastery is a satisfying and impactful button press instead. Light of Dawn is also getting an update to its targeting, now being a circular radius around the paladin rather than a frontal cone. Getting the perfect angle for Light of Dawn could sometimes be difficult, and we don’t feel like it matched our combat approachability goals.

Protection

We’re addressing some pain points Protection Paladin has been experiencing at the start of combat with competing priorities and abilities clashing. Protection Paladins were subject to significant pressure and tension between defensive abilities, Holy Power generation, generating and maintaining threat, and an immediate need to place Consecration. We are also aiming to streamline by paring back on the number of layers of short-duration or low-impact defensive abilities in order to concentrate power into fewer moving parts.

Retribution

As we head into Midnight, we’re taking a close look at a couple of things such as how Retribution Paladin generates Holy Power, the amount of spells needed to cast for setup, the Hero Talent balance and the design of the third gate in the spec tree.

Currently, we feel the choices in the 3rd gate are too limiting, forcing players to pick between single-target and AoE effectiveness with little flexibility. To address this, we’re redesigning some abilities while removing some others. The most impactful change here happening with Execution Sentence and Final Reckoning. In Midnight, we’ve decided to combine these two abilities into one powerful ability that is useful both in AoE and in single target situations.

For Holy Power generation, we’re looking into the amount of passive over time effects. A key focus here is Crusading Strikes. While it has served Retribution very well in some areas, over time it has become an invisible, passive Holy Power generator that’s difficult to track and lacks meaningful interaction. We’re shifting emphasis toward Templar Strikes. Another important change will be coming to Divine Resonance, with the aim of giving players more agency and clarity in their Holy Power generation.

Going back to the amount of spell casts, one change we would like to address is Divine Hammer. We know many enjoyed its interactions with the Templar Hero Talents. But on the other hand, many found it stressful to manage on top of other abilities such as Execution Sentence. In Midnight, with approachability in mind, we decided to find a different place for Divine Hammer inside the Templar Hero Talent tree as a key AoE component. This change will allow us to be more flexible with the tuning of Empyrean Hammers and Hammer of Light and find a healthier balance between Herald of the Sun and Templar Hero talent trees.

We’re also exploring ways to make Art of War and Righteous Cause feel more impactful and distinct, while shifting more power back into Holy Power spenders like Final Verdict and Divine Storm to reinforce their importance in the rotation.

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Holy Paladin is currently missing some very important buffs on the Cooldown Manager. Infusion of Light, Hand of Divinity, and Divine Resonance are missing completely, and Empyrean Legacy is greyed out even when specced into it.

I keep a full list of known Holy Paladin bugs here: https:// docs.google. com/spreadsheets/d/1MTbf-dYMsNF3wWUqE8HZokIm8drV1-hNogcQtV31Ues/edit?usp=sharing

(not allowed to post links apparently)

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Would love to post some comments but its unplayeble at the moment

nice start of the beta blizzard

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Add also stuff like Avenging Wrath and co to those track bars. I want to be able to see uptime, not remaining CD (I already have action bars for that!)

As for my own first impressions

General

  • The new options for Hero Talents are a nice addition.
  • Having 13 potential Hero talent nodes but 10 points is a quite good sweet spot for decision making.
  • I haven’t leveled yet, so idk if we get additional Hero Talent points as we level up.
  • Armory of Light passive talent should be a default-unlocked passive.
    • Additionally, Paladins should by default be able to see their parry chance with 2-hand weapons equipped.
  • Hammer of Wrath should have a choice node between being a “passive upgrade” during Avenging Wrath for Judgement OR being an individual active skill to use for those that prefer more buttons or agency using it.

Holy Paladin

  • Light of Dawn has a false description
    • It mentions in the Beta for me rn that it will heal within 40y for 2.049 and that healing will be reduced beyond 2.049 TARGETS
  • Holy Paladin without Crusader Strike isn’t as bad as I thought in rotation (still sucks incredibly for the class identity to lose it tho!)
  • Holy Shock SHOULD have an alternate cast animation when using Holy Shock on an enemy target. Right now, there is 0 visual difference between a friendly use and an enemy use.
  • Holy Paladin players using a 2-hand weapon should get Shine of the Righteous (as we have in Legion Remix atm). Shine of the Righteous should be an alternate version of Shield of the Righteous, fulfilling the very same role in all talent interactions while having a 2-hand equipped as Holy Paladin.

(Update 15.11.2025) Make Avenging Crusader more powerful

Improve it by giving it another charge for Judgement/Hammer of Wrath OR during Avenging Crusader Judgement/Hammer of Wrath generates 2 Holy Power instead of 1 OR Avenging Crusader lasts 25 seconds instead compared to Avenging Wrath.

  • Reason for that is that Avenging Crusader has only an uptime of 15s compared to Avenging Wrath. Avenging Wrath is a no-cost spell (means it doesn’t need Mana to be used), while Avenging Crusader needs 1.500 Mana for less benefit than Avenging Wrath has every 2 minutes.
  • Avenging Wrath gives you for 20s +15% dmg, +15% healing and +15% crit chance every 2 mins for free.
  • Avenging Crusader gives you +30% CD reduction (Judgement), heals for 150% of the damage done and also buffs Auto-Attack/Judgement/Hammer of Wrath damage [Value missing] (literally useless without Hammer of Wrath talent) for 15s every Minute at the cost of 1.500 Mana.
  • My Holy Light heals a single target for 17.690. My Hammer of Wrath does 10.407 dmg per use. Avenging Crusader would turn that into 15.611 Hp healed (if splitt at max player effect, 3.122 HP per target). As a healer I have currently 120k roughly.
  • That means if unsplit, Avenging Crusader heals a single target like me for 1/8 of my entire HP (which is a fair amount) and splitt it heals a target like me for up to 1/38 of my entire HP (which is incredibly low in comparison).
  • During Avenging Crusader, the base CD of Judgement/Hammer of Wrath, goes down from 5.6s to 3.3s (which is again fair), but a Holy Light cast is still 1.2 seconds. So for 0.1 second more, I could cast 2 Holy Light and heal 2 targets for much more than just a single throw of Judgement/Hammer of Wrath.
  • With Avenging Wrath on the other hand, those values are amplified by 15% both in damage, healing and crit chance. So my abilities heal for:
    • Holy Light - 17.690HP → 20.344HP → 40.688HP (Crit optimum)
      (1/3 of my current HP)
    • Holy Shock - 5.503HP → 6.328HP → 12.656HP (Crit optimum)
      (1/9 of my current HP)
    • Word of Glory - 6.886HP → 7.919HP → 15.838HP (Crit optimum)
      (1/8 of my current HP)
    • Light of Dawn - 1.770HP → 2.036HP → 4.072HP (Crit optimum)
      (1/29 of my current HP)
  • That means in reference, healing output is much more superior with Avenging Wrath than with Avenging Crusader. Avenging Crusader is in number-usefulness ratio more of a gimmick than a useful skill. Adding any of the options I named above in the edit title would do well to make this spell more of a useful pick for endgame content.
  • And I didn’t even mention the current talent version of “Hand of Divinity” that makes 2 Holy Light spells be instant casts during Avenging Wrath/Crusader. They are objectively stronger with Avenging Wrath, no matter if instant or not. Also my current armor stats allow for a base 40% crit chance too. And I didn’t calculate Mastery: Lightbringer into it as well…

Unless new encounters are entirely balanced around constant healing, the burst healing from Avenging Wrath empowered spells will be much more useful by default every 2 minutes than a 1min/30s spell that objectively heals less while damaging targets.

You already removed Crusader Strike, resulting in a big blow against the “melee fantasy” of Holy Paladin. Don’t leave Avenging Crusader this impotent on the ground as well. If Holy Paladins should be more focused on casting, then give us “Melee Holy Paladins” at least a good 1 minute CD that allows us to play how we want effectively.

I will update this comment as time goes on.

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Just some first glance feedback for protection:

  • while “Valiant Crusade” sounds good on paper, I don’t think many people will play it other than convenience, because you can still build holypower before combat and have a similar effect running and spend a talent point elsewhere for a consistent combat upgrade, rather than a QOL perk. similar to how the 4 second grace period “Consencration” drop-off was not played very much.

Some alternatives could be baking this into another talent node- with a nice passive or changing how the effect works, like not requiring combat to drop.

  • About judgement/hammer of wrath.

Right now there are capstone talents that would work in tandem with judgement (judgement chaining and helping you build and absorb shield, but these only work outside of avenging wrath/sentinel because judgement gets replaced by hammer of wrath.

My recommendation would be including these 2 capstone talents to also work for hammer of wrath.

  • not sure why “Divine Exaction” casts 2 more “Divine Toll”s but only on a single target, might as well be 2 more “Avenger shield”s at this point. I think this choice node doesn’t need to exist (in this form)

All in all - as for the work that has been done, good changes, rotation feels good as templar.

I’ll update upon further development of the tree and playing more.
Thank you for reading.

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Retribution Paladin Feedback – Consecration, AoE Feel, and RNG Flow

After spending time testing Ret on Beta, I wanted to share some focused feedback around AoE identity and RNG design, as both currently feel a bit disconnected from the Paladin fantasy.

:dove: Consecration & AoE

  • Bring Consecration back as a core, active spell that anchors our AoE gameplay.

  • While standing in your own Consecration (Sanctified Ground buff*):

    • Judgment becomes an AoE slam, Judging all enemies inside Consecration.

    • Templar Strikes gain horizontal cleave animations, visually showing holy energy sweeping through nearby enemies.

  • This gives Retribution a sense of positional control and battlefield sanctity, instead of relying on passive cleave or random AoE effects.

:bright_button: RNG and Flow

  • Art of War feels overly random and visually disconnected — summoning swords constantly doesn’t feel like melee combat.

  • Divine Purpose provides a much better form of RNG — empowering, and thematically appropriate. its just more fun spamming finishers than generators in my opinion

  • Consider reducing Art of War frequency or reworking it, while giving Blade of Justice a more grounded visual (a radiant thrust or wave of holy light instead of floating swords).

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Apparently maybe I’m just stupid, but Consecration is not on the Holy Paladin spellbook. Meanwhile, the Hero Talent Divine Guidance requires using Consecration in order to proc. And the talent Righteous Judgment doesn’t work with it. Maybe it’s a bug, but currently I cannot see any use for Divine Guidance at all.

Can you Double-Check?

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Its a talent that replaces Consecration for Holy. You now automatically place it at the target when using Judgment.

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Thanks for noticing it.

Apparently, the talent Righteous Judgment doesn’t have the Consecration flag required to activate Divine Guidance. You can test it: pick Divine Guidance and take Righteous Judgment. The procs from Divine Guidance are not triggered when Judgment places down Consecration.

Not sure if this is intended or a bug.

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As far as I know, all Consecration triggers are now passive.

Yeah, the “sword summon” spell never sat right with me animation-wise. Especially since it isn’t a “spectral Holy Blade” but just a blade that comes from the ground as animation. Make it look more like holy energies!

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I debated about posting this because I haven’t really played paladin in TWW. Prot Paladin was my main for about 15 years before that and it still holds a special place in my heart. I switched because it just wasn’t fun anymore and actually I do feel like this is still valid feedback. I love the game, I love the class. Here’s how I could love it more, I guess.

  • Why do warriors get to have Challenging Shout, but paladins lost Righteous Defence (AOE taunt ahhh I’m in trouble button). Yes, I know it’s been years but I am still bitter.
  • Speaking about things I’m still bitter about after years - making Divine Steed the only option for movement. In Mists we had Speed of Light. Calling on the power of the light to boost us just makes so much more sense than pulling a horse out of nowhere for a few seconds (yes I know that’s how all mounts work in this game but not in the middle of combat). To this day I don’t understand why you went with the horse, was speed of light too close to rogues sprint? Well frost DK’s can now call a temporary horse just like the charger, so it feels like there’s always overlap somewhere.
  • As a personal note I am a huge fan of leaping abilities e.g. Heroic Leap. I think a paladin smashing down like a Jedi using the power of light seems very cool and thematic. Even better than Speed of Light (hint, hint).

Full disclosure my favourite iteration of paladin was in Mists. That was as close to perfection as paladins have ever been mechanically. So I could just TLDR and suggest make it more like that but I’ll try and break down what was so great.

  • Sacred Shield as an absorb. I do like the class fantasy of self-healing with word of glory, that is absolutely a good thing (and what I miss very much on the warrior). But it is also very spiky. I’m especially concerned about incoming damage in Midnight given the gutting of cooldowns so it’s not as possible to cycle through them for decent uptime. It’s all very well to just heal incoming damage - but I have to be alive to do that. Softening the damage a bit first, and then healing the rest, would be a lot less stressful.
  • Vengeance. I realise that this was a general tank mechanic and not paladin specific BUT it really helped paladins because we generated more holy power, which meant more self-healing, and we did more damage, which made keeping threat a lot easier. I have always struggled on paladin with keeping threat on large groups of mobs (yes this is probably a skill issue but its still how I feel). The CD on Avenger’s Shield is too long and the chance for resets too RNG. Consecration has never hit hard enough, I know it has a DOT like effect so long as the mobs are within it, but that only makes things harder if we have to kite. Some kind of like ‘lightforged blessing’ would be fantastic in today’s WoW, that turned incoming damage into outgoing holy flame damage.

Oh finally how can Midnight be THE light vs void expansion and not be bringing any new race combos for paladin??? For a start every single race can be warriors (plate), and every single race can also be priests (worship the light), so really it makes very little sense why every single race can’t already be paladins. However, if there was ever a time to correct that it would be now. Huge stakes! Light vs void epic showdown! If there was ever a time for different races to “hear the call of the light” it would be now. Seriously, as an example we had a Night Elf paladin in Legion’s order hall - more paladin races is long overdue.

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Let them use their Avenging Wrath wings for increased mobility during the uptime. Imagine if you could do a (obviously not that damaging) leap with your wings and hammer as Paladin like Thor in Avengers 1.

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Honestly i despise the changes made to ret i think it felt fine in TWW now it feels clunky and awful to play, when will they learn their lesson the pruning never works.

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Just played the first instances a couple of times, got some new items (lvl 120-130) before to make sure that the impression is not influenced by a low ilvl.

Feedback: Holy is lacking heal output! Healing in general is absolutely not fun if you can barely see a bump in the health bars. If this is the general concept (less spikes etc.) then say goodbye to many healers including me. If it’s only the paladin, then how come all healing of Holy was reduced by 5% in the last patch? It needs a big buff instead.

Reminds me of the start of Cataclysm. Same situation for all healers, healing was terrible back then.

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So, I just did test Retribution merely in rotation flow. Idk what damage I’ve been doing but the rotation feel was incredibly fluid and fun. I feel like I will enjoy playing Retribution a lot in Midnight.

From my perspective, you did everything right with Retribution, Blizzard.

Only thing that eludes me is that Golden Path still exists in this weak state… Like, can you not buff the healing provided per tick through stacks that are generated by spending Holy Power on any ability? The more Holy Power you spend, the better you can keep the stacks up for Golden Path to become effective.

155 healing in total split among 5 targets every 0.8s is not much when my own DD HP are 125.000-something. Golden Path in that state is still not worth a single talent point. Make it more proactive!

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About the patch update today, 19.11.25:

PALADIN

  • Holy
    • Avenging Crusader has been updated:
      • Now grants access to Crusader Strike for its duration.
      • Crusader Strike now transfers damage into healing for its duration.
      • No longer increases the damage of Judgment.
      • Auto-attack damage is now increased by 1000% for its duration (was 30%).
    • Crusader’s Might has been updated – Now additionally causes Crusader Strike to decrease the cooldown of Judgment by 1.5 seconds.

I love everything about this, except 1 thing, Blizzard.

Tying Crusader Strike to Avenging Crusader as a button-swap makes it very hard to keybind this spell for players like me properly.

To be clear about this, I use only the number keys 1-6 for the action bar. I always keep Avenging Crusader on a different action bar without keybinds so I can’t press it by accident and need to click it.

Problem is now with this change, that I need to click a spell that I, on the retail servers rn, have bound to no. 1 key above Q on my keyboard.

On the beta servers, this key is reserved atm for Holy Shock as “attack/heal” button.

I think it would be a better solution for this (imo VERY POSITIVE) change to simply “unlock” Crusader Strike as an extra spell itself, as long as you have Avenging Crusader talented. In detail I mean:

With Avenging Crusader talented:

  • Grants Crusader Strike (1 charge)
  • Crusader Strike generates 1 Holy Power (every second use if some cutback is needed)
  • Crusader Strike CD is 6s (or whatever value is currently on TWW S3 Retail)
  • Does not benefit from Crusader’s Might

While Avenging Crusader is active:

  • Grants a second charge for Crusader Strike
  • Crusader Strike still generates 1 Holy Power (but overall more due to 2 charges)
  • Crusader Strike CD is 3.2s (as rn on beta servers)
  • Does benefit from Crusader’s Might

Point I’m trying to make here is that Crusader Strike in combination as an “exclusive” spell for talenting/using Avenging Crusader should act as a Tier I / Tier II “empowered spell” type of thing.

You can use it in general, but the benefits are weaker than in the intended use during Avenging Crusader active. And in such a way that the additional holy power granted from using it doesn’t break the intended balance.

I hope I explained my problem/suggestion well enough.

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Holy:

The recent changes to Avenging Crusader are a step in the right direction, but the Awakening talent still feels awkward to play with.

The Crit-Chance synergy from Judgement mostly benefits Hammer and Anvil, with some niche use cases in Empyrean Legacy. Technically, Hammer of Wrath benefits from Awakening when Avenging Crusade is active, but here’s the issue: when you actually suppost to use Holy Power spenders during Avening Crusade?

You can essentially reset Holy Wrath repeatedly using Crusader Strike and Holy Shock - thanks to Crusader’s Might -, which makes Holy Power spenders feel like dead buttons during your core damage-healing burst inside Avenging Crusader.

Suggested Changes:

  1. During Avanger Crusader, reaching Holy Power threshold automaticly casts a Holy Power spender without triggering a global cooldown. (Enhancement Schaman)
  2. Change Avanger Crusade back to how it works in TWW, this was by far the most fun and unique playstyle for players who enjoy healing through dealing damage.
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It could cast Light of Dawn, since it’s now a circle ability.

That would be nice. Personally I wish we could chose between Holy Shock and Crusader Strike as first Holy Pala talent (with CS being on par with Holy Shock, means multiple charges, etc.). Crusader Strike damage could be generally healing players around you (so actively engaging is rewarded). For bigger heals, Blizzard could make it so that Crusader Strike buffs Holy Power spells alongside generating 1 Holy Power per use of CS. That way the main healing comes from Light of Dawn and Word of Glory.

Completely unrelated to Avenging Crusader, please give us an option to toggle the “spell highlight” on the Beacon of Light spell. Players won’t have it constantly active while outside of group content, so having it flash all the time out of combat will be annoying.

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Mastery of auras with Divine Toll is total nonsense! Why not put Tyr’s Deliverance there instead? With a nice buff and uncap the 5 targets.
Because throwing Holy Shocks on full-HP targets since aura mastery is a predventive spell… it’s not great. Whereas Tyr’s Deliverance, which provides healing over time, makes much more sense.

As for the mix of Hammer of Wrath and Judgment, that doesn’t bother me much. Let’s say that’s a good point.

But removing Crusader Strike bothers me a lot more. The lack of a filler is really noticeable. If you absolutely want to remove spells, then why not remove Holy Light? It overlaps with Flash of Light. In my opinion, Holy Light should go. Very little synergy and it basically does the same thing as Flash of Light. So that’s a button saved without messing up the whole spec.

Same for Holy Prism — who’s going to pick that over Divine Toll? No one.

Another nonsense talent: Holy Ritual. It heals the target of Blessing of Protection or Sacrifice. Same issue as aura mastery! These spells are preventive. It only results in overhealing. Again, makes no sense.

I think there is still a huge amount of work needed on the Holy Paladin spec. Because right now, it’s really, really not great.

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