First of all. I would like to state that it is always pleasantly suprising to see more attention given to the development and progression of the Paladin class. I would like state that at least the efforts made and attention paid is appreciated by people including me
As it was previously mentioned in feedback by several players in the community aswell as me in my feedback posts, the amount of throughput provided by class talent tree was absurdly high compared to some classes out there. Which let the Paladin class as a whole since the reimplementation of ‘talent trees’ to use one cookiecutter talent build on the class side entire time with maybe one or two points to be able to flexed.
This so far has been remedied with the changes implemented in the 11.0.5. General assumption i feel from my fellow Paladins is the obvious loss of throughput is going to be compensated by buffs on other sources. I would like to congratulate the development team for recieving the feedback given by many Paladin players and acting on it.
Alas, there are obvious problems with some of the changes being implemented. While the overall utility of the class seems to be improving. It so far very heavily leans on changes mostly benefit Healer role and less so for DPS and Tank roles. The amount of healing and heal bouncing talents in the tree are dubiously weak for end-game content in any aspect of the game be it M+, Raid or PvP
I will make a small list of changes that could be done to increase the value of certain nodes in pretty much all aspects of the endgame
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First of all. Protection and Retribution has long suffered from the fact that while other two plate classes in the game has access to so called ‘healer’ defensive cooldowns such as AMZ and Rally while Paladin had it only limited to Holy spec. It should be moved into the Class Talent Tree for parity and matching QoL and Utility.
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Lightbearer providing healing throughput usually will go to complete waste. It should grant an absorb shield equavilant to closer allies.
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Likewise A Just Reward and Holy Ritual should also provide an absorb shield.
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Blessing of Protection cooldown reduction talent should be even lower cooldown but also duration as in modern WoW it’s most important use is a bleed dispell and it simply has too long CD to be worth it.
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Light’s Revocation should be revamped to provide dispells to nearby players aswell as the paladin. (Parity with DK AMS changes)
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Blinding Light should be removed and replaced by a CC that is not broken a milisecond after it is used.
Anyway these are just what comes to mind in such short term. Aim is to start a civil discussion if possible and provide feedback to Blizzard to further improve the class.
Good first changes! Paladin starts to feel like paladin again.
Need %less damage taken talents like:
Protective forbearance: While forbearance is active all damage you take is reduced by 15%. (Reduced overtime).
Paladins are a plate class, and in a PvP perspective, they are the easiest healer to kill, armor doesn’t really matter much since everything is magic in modern wow.
I will provide feedback when I do testing.
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Moving the Avenging wrath up to two minute cooldown seem like a hard nerf. As the one minute gave good options and output. Now thanks to radiant glory this will maybe not be noticed as much but it should stay a one minute cooldown. to give options if the 20 sec burst window is more useful in situations than the the sorter 2 part window provided by the radiant glory talent.
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For all that is left of prot Paladin please do not go through with those changes. From the New Talents only 2 are somewhat ok to take. The rest is just dead weight. We are turning more and more into the Druid Talent Tree with soo many useless Talents. The Removal of Seal or Order for Prot, the already weakest and Squishiest Tank, hat gutted that even more. Now we have even less Damage Reduction and it nerves Templar as well with the Effect on Eye of Tyr. A quick rundown on what is wrong with the new Talents from the Prot Side of things:
New Talent: Holy Ritual
Very Niche, not going to be taken with the position in Talent tree and Competing with Survivability of Tank.
New Talent: Worthy Sacrifice
No self respecting Prot Pally is going to use that. You want to SAC someone when they are healthy, not nearly dead.
New Talent: Steed of Liberty
Again dead Talent as you want to use Steed and Freedom separately from each other.
New Talent: Eye for an Eye
Potential to be decent dps wise but does 0 for survivabilty, which Prot is lacking.
New Talent: Stoicism
0 use in PVE, maybe in PVP. Dead otherwise
New Talent: Wrench Evi
Again cannot take as it fights with Survivability Talents.
New Talent: Stand Against Evil
Same as above.
New Talent: Righteous Protection
Very niche. Could be usefull but highly Encounter dependent and fighting with other already needed Talents.
New Talent: Light’s Countenance
Dead node as others outweigh it heavily
New Talent: Sacred Strength
Not viable as it is compering with Divine Purpose which is much stronger.
New Talent: Divine Spurs
May see some use but with other Talents being more Important probably dead
New Talent: A Just Reward
Again cannot take as we need Talent Points for other more useful Talents
New Talent: Empyreal Ward
Awesome Talent, Position also Great GJ
New Talent: Lightbearer
Again Very niche. Has Potential to be used if Prot Pala gets buffed where we can spent the Talent point there
New Talent: Selfless Healer
You are not Casting any of those Spells as Prot so dead
New Talent: Inspired Guard
Also somewhat decent. Helps with sustain a bit and with the Loses of the good Talents needed.
New Talent: Holy Reprieve
No
New Talent: Light’s Revocation
Useless as Prot as you never have Forbearance if it could hurt you. The Healing Part is useless because you get topped during Divine Shield anyway.
New Talent: Blessed Calling
Dead as it is competing with needed Survival Talents.
New Talent: Lead the Charge
Niche but probably not able to take as you have better Talents you need
New Talent: Divine Reach
Kinda useless as Prot as you are mostly in the Middle of the Group
Sanctified Wrath has been redesigned
As i understand Crit Wings are baseline and every Spec now gets their respective Avenging Wrath and you cannot choose anymore. Which means with the nerfs to Sentinel this forces you to take it and you lose 5 Seconds Wings Uptime. Overall could be ok if Sentinel gets reverted before the nerfs.
Fist of Justice has been redesigned
Ok is nice
Consecrated Ground is now a class tree talent.
Ok
Auras of the Resolute now additionally teaches the paladin Crusader Aura.
A tad useless but ok
Lightforged Blessing now heals for 3% of maximum health for all specializations (was 1% for Holy/Protection and 2% for Retribution).
Is nice to get some more needed healing. Still not enough overall.
Of Dusk and Dawn: Blessing of Dawn’s effect has been increased by 10% for Protection and Retribution and by 5% for Holy Paladins.
Nice buff but with the loss of Seal of Order still a net nerf. Biggest Issue with the Changes is the Removal of that after all.
The following talents have been removed:
Seal of the Crusader
DPS Nerf
Golden Path
No one took
Strength of Conviction
Ok as we have the things from this now baseline
Fading Light
No one took so ok
Seal of Order
Biggest loss and cause of overall Nerf to Prot Paladin dps and more important Survivability wise
Seal of Mercy
Same with Golden Path no one took
Touch of Light
Badly tuned and never buffed so no one cares about removal
Incandescence
Same as Above
Avenging Wrath: Might
Overall fine as it now baseline. Nerf dps wise for Prot though if Sentinel is now Forced.
Overall we can say that Prot Paladin will be worse off after these go live with current Talents. Tuning will Probably not help much as we are just Lacking base Survivability Talents now. Hope this gets a major rework still or just no implementation. Maybe some more love to the Prot Talent Tree.
Prot Paladin Talent Tree changes:
Templar:
With the removal of Seal of Order → Eye of Tyr is now on a longer CD meaning less dps.
Overall Nerf
Lightsmith:
Currently the weaker Hero Talent but with the following changes and Tuning might be viable:
New Talent: Authoritative Rebuke
Very Very strong with Avengers Shield resets.
New Talent: Tempered in Battle
Probably not very useful because as Prot you are most likely not going to be Overhealed much with how much dmg you take. Might be useful if Prot gets more Survivability in line with the other Tanks.
The following talents have been removed:
Fear No Evil
Excoriation
Good as those were never really usefull.
Prot Paladin Talent Tree:
New Talent: Refining Fire
Just the old Set Bonus. Depends on Tuning but will most likely not be picked as it is blocked by Improved Holy Shield and you need those 2 Talent Points somewhere else. Must be tuned high for it to be worth.
- Word of Glory healing increased by 20%.
- Shield of the Righteous damage increased by 20%.
Just the Fix from the Removal of Strength of Conviction so a net 0 there.
Consecrated Ground has been removed.
As it is now in the base tree.
Without the upcoming Heroic Week Balancing we can overall say Prot Paladin will be much worse off if these go live. We lose Survivability even more as the already squishiest Tank. DPS wise Prot Paladin was decent but with the Changes also not looking too good. If those Talents go live and we do not see some major Buffing in the Heroic Week Prot Paladin will fall even more behind as it already is. Maybe do not remove Seal of Order and we might still be ok. A lot of the Talents, as explained earlier, are just not thought through it feels like and are just replacing Talents which no one took with others no one will take.
Final Thoughts:
Please rework those Talents massively and give us some Survivability back or do not implement them. Ideas sound nice but they are not useable.
3 Likes
If you’re happy with the holy paladin as it is, I guess you’re not maining a holy paladin or your level of gameplay is very low - some regular bg’s, maybe some heroics, etc.
The spec (I’m talking about holy paladin - I don’t care about prot or ret) is dead in high level pvp (all forms and tiers) and in pve is the worse choice overall. In pvp every defensive you cast can be dispelled one second later, sacrifice was nerfed to the ground, you have no efficient hots, so if you’re CC’d, it’s over. In pve the aoe heal is a good joke and the healing overall is just bad. You’re only viable for tank spot healing in raid, but only if you’re being supported by other healers.
Paladin has become the class for noobs. The simplest dumbest healer, quoting many other pro players who aren’t even touching the hpal. Pun intended.
After maining a hpal for 15 years, I had a 3k rated (last season) tank yesterday saying in M0 that I’m a ret paladin and I should quit healing. Yes, it is that bad. Holy was deleted from the game in TWW. I don’t know what the paladin class devs are doing, but I guess they are listening to the hype of the new players. Shiny bubbles, yea 
At least you’re looking good and shiny when you’re being killed and farmed in pvp.
Can we just fix the mana issues please , i literaly use 4 wogs im half mana , not the mention they don’t heal much as they used to , now offhealing is literaly impossible , u have to choose between you surviving versus saving someone , and even if u save both your literaly oom , how comes a tank feels like he have a death timer and i have to ask mage for food ???, the longer the deadlier the counter , paladin is pugs is gonna be so hard if your dps is average and you can’t kill the boss fast enough , just make wog on self cost no mana and make it cost mana only if you heal your allies , also not to mention hand of the protector is not a talent anymore i heal 600k/800k non crit and it slurp my mana just for a tiny amount , nobody taking that talent anymore , increase its healing by 200% instead of 100% , with these two options i literaly think lightsmith will be strong enough to compete with high tier tanks , i also hope for mastery nerfs reverting back , but i feel like the mana removal from self healing will be so huge for paladins.
I’m not a holy player, I play ret. And as a ret I have to ask where on earth this tree came from.
Mostly healing based talents?
Less haste?
Did blizzard forget paladin has a dps spec?
Steed of Liberty and Blessing of Freedom is a really silly choice because Unbound Freedom (the talent choice connected underneath) only works with Blessing of Freedom. This part of the tree really needs improving.
Unbound Freedom is a dead talent point if you’re choosing Steed of Liberty with it. They should be reworked to interact with each other, or one of these parts should become baseline.
E.g. Unbound Freedom becomes part of Blessing of Freedom baseline.
Blessing of Freedom becomes baseline with Unbound Freedom as a choice node.
Steed of Liberty becomes baseline and Blessing of Freedom + Unbound Freedom stay as choice nodes.
As it stands, the freedom on yourself and an ally from Unbound Freedom is far superior to Steed of Liberty. Saving a GCD by attaching a 3 second freedom to your main mobility spell (which is on a very long CD) is nowhere near as good as 2 freedoms and a speed boost.
It’s not a good choice node if the talent connected beneath it only works with one of those choices.
Divine Spurs needs its numbers tuning. Kiss/Curse talents are never appealing and even the Diablo 4 developers only just learned this with Sorcerers. Reducing the duration of Divine Steed by 40% (3.2 seconds taken from 8 seconds) is insanely bad when you’re only reducing its CD by 20% (9 seconds from 45 seconds).