Paladin talent review.

[Holyssa]

List of new talent changes as of Beta 8926:

Retribution

Skills

* Seal of Corruption's damage reduced. (Check spell list for details)

* Seal of the Martyr's damage reduced. (Check spell list for details)

* Seal of Blood's damage reduced. (Check spell list for details)

* Seal of Vengeance's damage reduced. (Check spell list for details)

Talents

* Divine Storm (Tier 11) mana cost reduced.

* The Art of War moved from Tier 9 to Tier 7 and changed to 2 ranks. It now increases the critical strike damage of your Judgement, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities by 10/20% and when these abilities critically hit the cast time of your next Flash of Light is reduced by 0.75/1 sec.

* Sanctified Seals moved from Tier 7 to Tier 4.

* Divine Purpose moved from Tier 7 to Tier 5 and changed to 2 ranks. It now reduces your chance to be hit by spells and ranged attacks by 2/4% and gives your Hand of Freedom spell a 50/100% chance to remove any Stun effects on the target.

* Vengeance (Tier 6) changed to 3 ranks and now stacks up to 3 times.

* Judgements of the Wise moved from Tier 6 to Tier 7 and now your Judgement spells have a 33/66/100% chance to grant the Replenishment effect to up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.5% of their maximum mana per second, and to immediately grant you 20% of your maximum mana.

* Sheath of Light moved from Tier 5 to Tier 9.

* Improved Retribution Aura moved from Tier 4 to Tier 6.

* Crusade (Tier 4) now increases all damage done by 1/2/3% in addition to its previous effect.

* Seal of Command (Tier 3) damage reduced. (Check talent list for details)

* Pursuit of Justice (Tier 3) no longer reduces chance for spells to hit you. Instead, it reduces the duration of disarm effects by 25/50%.

* Deflection moved from Tier 2 to Tier 1.

* Improved Blessing of Might moved from Tier 1 to Tier 2. It now is 2 ranks and increases the effect of Blessing of Might by 12/25%.

* Benediction (Tier 1) changed to reduce the mana cost of all instant cast spells by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Holy

Skills

* Divine Plea changed so that you gain 25% of your total mana over 10 sec, but the amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50%

* Seal of Light - Unleashing this Seal's energy will deal [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage to an enemy. (Damage reduced)

* Seal of Wisdom - Unleashing this Seal's energy will deal [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage to an enemy. (Damage reduced)

* Seal of Righteouness - Fills the Paladin with holy spirit for 2 min, granting each melee attack [ 2.8% of MWS * AP + 5.5% of MWS * Spell Power ] additional Holy damage. (Damage reduced)

Talents

* Holy Guidance (Tier 8 ) now increases spell power by 4/8/12/16/20% of your intellect. (Previously was 7/14/21/28/35%)

Protection

Skills

* Shield of Righteousness now deals holy damage equal to 240% of your block value. (Up from 200%)

* Seal of Justice - Unleashing this Seal's energy will deal [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage to an enemy. (Damage reduced)

* Righteous Defense is now a 10 sec cooldown.

Talents

* Hammer of the Righteous (Tier 11) now causes 120% weapon damage as holy damage, but no longer "causes a high amount of threat".

* Shield of the Templar (Tier 10) changed to increase the damage of your Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield and Shield of Righteousness spells by 10/20/30%.

* Avenger's Shield (Tier 9) now deals more damage and is instant cast. (All ranks)

* Guarded by the Light (Tier 9) now reduces spell damage taken by 3/6% and reduces the mana cost of your Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield and Shield of Righteousness spells by 15/30%.

* Combat Expertise (Tier 8 ) changed to 3 ranks, increases your expertise by 2/4/6, and total Stamina and chance to critically hit by 2/4/6%

* Improved Holy Shield removed from the talent tree.

* Holy Shield (Tier 7) now has 8 charges, but no longer causes additional threat.

* One-Handed Weapon Specialization (Tier 6) now increases damage you deal with one handed weapons by 2/4/6/8/10%.

* Spell Warding removed from the talent tree.

* Reckoning can now proc off a blocked attack.

* Blessing of Kings moved to Tier 1. It now increases all stats by 2%. (Previously 10%)

* Improved Blessing of Kings is a new Tier 1 talent that increases the effectiveness of Blessing of Kings by an additional 2/4/6/8%.

* Shield Specialization removed from the talent tree.

* Redoubt moved from Tier 3 to Tier 8. It now increases your block value by 10/20/30% and damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10/20/30% chance to increase your chance to block by 10%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks.

* Anticipation moved from Tier 1 to Tier 2.

/chinrub

Blizzard clearly is trying to remove a lot of bloat from the tree, but again - it still suffers from too many GOOD talents to allow any deep hybrid playability. Let's have a look at the talents based on Tiers (rows).

Tier 1: What the f*ck is this sh*t? People asked for Kings to be baseline (NOT a complicated decision). Instead, it is split into two talents. The strength boost is very nice though with the upcoming gear changes.

Tier 2: Anticipation is still mandatory here. The rest are still PvP or healer hybrid talents in my eyes.

Tier 3: Nothing new here. Still two must-have talents for any smart tankadin.

Tier 4: We can't stop here...this is bat...err, PvP country! Skip these talents as usual for a heavy tanking build. It's still hybrid/PvP stuff.

Tier 5: Reckoning now procs off of Blocked attacks, but only if you fill in all 5 points...not sure if this is a bug. Then again, if you skipped Stoicism, it's kind of a "stump" in the road that many will be forced into taking even for only 1 point. The changes to Sanctuary make it a must-have now, but if you have extra points to blow and don't want Reckoning (due to too much avoidance and the talent simply refusing to proc), you'll have to use your head here.

Tier 6: Sacred Duty hasn't been touched, but 1H Weapon Spec now does twice the damage, up from 5%. PWNSAUCE!

Tier 7: Bai bai Improved Holy Shield - this is where the bloated stuff becomes consolidated into older talents. Holy Shield now offers 8 charges from the get-go, an amazing change! 10 was a bit excessive unless you WANTED to tank the entire castle with one pull, and on most boss fights you barely use all 8 charges anyway.

Tier 8: Redoubt and Shield Spec did the Fusion Dance, and are now a 3 point talent. Incredible! But Combat Expertise is now a mere 3 points as well, which results in losing 4% stamina. Kind of understandable given the new spellpower changes, but it's nothing clever itemization can't correct.

Tier 9: More consolidated talents: Spell Warding and Guarded by the Light are now molded into one...very smart change considering how often people ignored SW to get to the tree's better talents.

Tier 10: Nothing new here.

Tier 11: We lose the heuge threat boost from HotW, but it's still a formidable DPS talent. The rule hasn't changed: find a slow weapon, see big numbers.

Overall, they addressed a lot of the bloating problems in the tree, and the minor loss to stamina can be overlooked. With the current state of the tree, people can go with a cookie-cutter build that utilizes all of the important talents (read: everything from Tier 6 down), yet still have just enough extra points to muck with a Holy or Ret hybrid build for that extra touch of utility.

Here's what I came up with:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=05...011251533312321

Here's a general L70 build. You can also put 5 points into Deflection as opposed to Benediction, but I'd only recommend it if mitigation is a problem for your tankadin: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=05...011251533312301

A fairly standard build, with 3 Points leftover can be put into...

-Deflection (for avoidance)

-Unyielding Faith (to help teach those crazy warlocks a thing or two when PvPing with friends)

-Healing Light (+12% healing when taking on elites is a huge help!)

-Improved Blessing of Might (Tankadins usually use Kings or Sanctuary when alone for survival, but this will make for some very happy raiders that lack a Ret paladin)

Holy likey very much! Happy Birthday!

Edited September 12, 2008 by Holyssa

[Kadi]

List of new talent changes as of Beta 8926:

Retribution

Talents

* Sheath of Light moved from Tier 5 to Tier 9.

Holy

Skills

* Divine Plea changed so that you gain 25% of your total mana over 10 sec, but the amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50%

* Seal of Light - Unleashing this Seal's energy will deal [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage to an enemy. (Damage reduced)

* Seal of Wisdom - Unleashing this Seal's energy will deal [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 1 ] Holy damage to an enemy. (Damage reduced)

* Seal of Righteouness - Fills the Paladin with holy spirit for 2 min, granting each melee attack [ 2.8% of MWS * AP + 5.5% of MWS * Spell Power ] additional Holy damage. (Damage reduced)

Talents

* Holy Guidance (Tier 8 ) now increases spell power by 4/8/12/16/20% of your intellect. (Previously was 7/14/21/28/35%)

/chinrub

Blizzard clearly is trying to remove a lot of bloat from the tree, but again - it still suffers from too many GOOD talents to allow any deep hybrid playability.

Holy likey very much!

Kadi hatey very much! I can't believe that they're nerfing Holy, which was underpowered anyway in WotLK, and even in the 'endgame' of TBC. Holy Pallies frustrated with Tier6 dungeons won't find a lot to love here.

I quoted the sheath of light change, because that is a HUGE nerf to a holy pally who doesn't want to exclusively sit in the back of a raid and heal a tank. I was playing around with a Holy/Ret build with that talent because it was shallow enough in the Ret tree to be able to take it and still be able to take enough points in Holy talents to do good spell damage and healing. Now in order to take that talent, I'd have to lose TWENTY points in holy talents, and while it's obviously something that is soooo good for Holy pallies, it no longer seems worth the cost. I thought the talent was put in place in the Ret tree to encourage holy paladins to 'hybrid' a bit into Ret and add some solo/pvp ability to the spec, and I wonder why they decided to make that change... other than the obvious 'Oh noes, this makes holy pallies OP OMG we need to fix it before (insert other healing class here) complains!!!!.

So it appears I'm left with the choice of 'decent melee and decent healing' or 'good healing but good luck killing anything without someone else smacking it in the face for you'. I already have that now, and it really sucks. *SIGH*

And here I was starting to think I might actually keep my Pally as my main in TBC... now I'm back to thinking it'll be my Shaman instead.

Edited September 15, 2008 by Kadi

[Waldonnis]

I'm not sure that I understand the direction that they're taking retribution or holy specs. It seems like they're trying to make ret more capable of healing in 5-mans and Arena, but let's get real...ret paladins won't even heal themselves most of the time, so what's the point. Mana efficiency for ret is looking a bit better than before, though, which is good and I'm happy to see that moving in a reasonable direction (if they can get the numbers/abilities worked out).

As for holy...ugh. It's almost like the talents are being balanced from a "middle-tier" gear standpoint again with very little in the way of "new fun stuff". Holy has always been bloated with talents that really didn't do anything for a paladin's issue's with mana regen (which is the worst-scaling of any healing class), or were so situational that they weren't really valuable (Divine Illumination, Light's Grace post-libram nerf, etc.). I was hoping to see some new dynamics that way, since quite a bit of the class got a retooling mechanically, but it's still not looking good overall.

I think what disappoints me most of all about the holy talents is that there continues to be so much crap packed into the tree that it still seems like I have to put points into other trees. If I want to heal, I don't want to see really good-looking, and fun talents in retribution...I want to see them in holy. Ret fans will likely sink tons of points into ret, same with prot fans...holy will end up with some wacky hybrid spec and still won't have the points available to grab "the good stuff" to make healing more interesting or powerful. Instead, they'll end up doing what we've done up until this point: drop points in situational talents that we may use a few times per month or only in PvP (e.g. Blessed Life and such in TBC).

Oh, and for the love of Thrall, WTB reverting the Illumination change. While I know for a fact that it wouldn't solve the scaling problems, it would at least make crit more interesting again stat-wise.

Edited September 15, 2008 by Waldonnis