Cataclysm Changes: Paladin

[Svpernova09]

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm we’ll be making several changes to class talents and abilities across the board. While this list only outlines some of our plans for the paladin class, we want to give you a look at the new high-level abilities and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with each talent spec.

New Paladin Spells

Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure's ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.

Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.

Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).

Next you will find a list of some of the paladin spell and ability changes, followed by our intentions for improving each talent tree for the release of Cataclysm. There will be further changes, but those revealed below should offer some insight into our goals.


Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack. Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.
Cleanse is being rebalanced to work with the new dispel system. It will dispel defensive magic (debuffs on friendly targets), diseases, and poisons.
Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.
Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins.


New Talents and Talent Changes

We want to ease off the defensive capabilities of Retribution and Holy paladins slightly. We think the powerful paladin defenses have been one of the things holding Retribution paladins back, especially in Arenas. One change we’re considering is lowering Divine Shield’s duration by a couple of seconds. Having said that, Retribution does pretty well in Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds will be a much bigger focus in Cataclysm since they can provide the best PvP rewards. Furthermore, the healing environment of Cataclysm is going to be different such that a paladin may not be able to fully heal themselves during the duration of Divine Shield to begin with, so this may not be a problem.
We feel Retribution paladins need one more mechanic which involves some risk of the player pushing the wrong button, making the rotation a bit less forgiving. In addition, we want to add to this spec more PvP utility. Right now the successes of the Retribution paladin in PvP seem to be reduced to either doing decent burst damage, or just being good at staying alive.
We want to increase the duration of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes and keep the limit to one target. The intention is that the paladin can use it on their main healing target. That said, we would like to improve the Holy paladin toolbox and niche so that they don’t feel quite like the obvious choice for tank healing while perceived as a weak group healer.
We want to add to the Holy tree a nice big heal to correspond with Greater Heal. Flash of Light remains the expensive, fast heal and Holy Light is the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. Beacon of Light will be changed to work with Flash of Light. We like the ability, but want paladins to use it intelligently and not be constantly healing for twice as much.
Holy paladins will use spirit as their mana regeneration stat.
Protection paladins need a different rotation between single-target and multi-target tanking. Likewise, we're looking to add the necessity to use an additional cooldown in each rotation.
Holy Shield will no longer have charges. It will be designed to improve block chance while active, and will continue to provide a small amount of damage and threat.


Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Holy
Healing
Meditation
Critical Healing Effect

Meditation: This is the spirit-to-mana conversion that the priest, druid, and shaman healers also share.

Critical Healing Effect: When the paladin gets a crit on a heal, it will heal for more.

Protection
Damage Reduction
Vengeance
Block Amount

Vengeance: This is the damage-received-to-attack-power conversion that all tanks share.

Block Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks a lot. So by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical blocks, but the paladin will absorb more damage with normal blocks.

Retribution
Melee Damage
Melee Critical Damage
Holy Damage

Holy Damage: Any attack that does Holy damage will have its damage increased.

This concludes this Cataclysm preview for the paladin class. The development of these changes will continue to evolve in the coming months. Please be sure to provide any feedback and thoughts you might have on what was covered here.

[Kalros]

You know, its not as bad as I thought it was going to be, especially from a Prot perspective. I've only just recently starting messing around with Ret, but it seems it might not be good for us boxers, but hard to say for sure.

I noticed how they kind of tap-danced around the whole AoE tanking issue, and earlier claims of how Crowd Control was definitely coming back in Cataclysm. Here they just mention a "change in rotation" for multiple targets.

Very interesting.

[Fat Tire]

hmmm... whole lot of nothin. A pet at lvl 85? meh might be kinda cool for holy pallys in a pvp setting. I thought they were going kill off HoR dmg, maybe they still will, but so far doesnt look too bad. Still wonder what they are going to do with ret. I mean wtf rets cant even use this new blind effect! Maybe I am reading it wrong.

[Kicksome]

Seems like a lot of nothing.

[Velassra]

Ya, seemed o worse then a regular patch nerf.
Yeah! 2 button spam tanking instead of 1!

[Fat Tire]

One cool thing after re reading it again is Holy Shock is baseline so that healing would help ret and prot a bit.

[thefunk]

Ya, seemed o worse then a regular patch nerf.
Yeah! 2 button spam tanking instead of 1!

This almost sounds like the usual OMGNERFSWTFIMCANCELLINGMYSUBSTOMORROWBUTNOTREALLY. ..

Actually I really like this change as there are times I single target tank instead of multiple, which means I already have 2 rotations, and this means I may hold more threat or not worry about unsheeping ....sheep. Or penguins. The only interesting thing is whether holy shock will also damage mobs in prot spec or just heal, which means at least 2 more spells to add to rotation. This also may mean a big backlash from other classes ....

[Velassra]

This almost sounds like the usual OMGNERFSWTFIMCANCELLINGMYSUBSTOMORROWBUTNOTREALLY. ..



Sarcasm was lost on you.I was actually joking seeing as there's no major changes really.

But thanks for jumping on it.

[Seldum]

Somehow I thinks its a shame they try to make "all" classes equally good at everything.

F.eks. Holy/pala - not a very good group healer. Well we will fix this. Druids have also been strengthening on the healing part. Shamans also got a new AoE healing (the rain thing) etc.

It seems a bit like bliz doesn't wan't specialization between the different races and classes. But that probably only me seeing ghosts.

[thefunk]

Sarcasm was lost on you.I was actually joking seeing as there's no major changes really.

But thanks for jumping on it.

hehe that's why I put the caveat of "almost" just in case i'd read it wrong.

[Fursphere]

GG Bliz - Paladins are now 100% pigeon holed as the AOE Tank of choice...blinding shield instant for tanks... lol

Actually, it looks like a well thought out plan for the class.

[blbjtb]

Im excited for

Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears)

Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack. Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.

Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.

Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins. This combined with the Ret spec of Extra holy damage plus exorcism... AMAZING

Im Excited for all of that stuff

I dont understand

We want to ease off the defensive capabilities of Retribution and Holy paladins slightly. We think the powerful paladin defenses have been one of the things holding Retribution paladins back, especially in Arenas. One change we’re considering is lowering Divine Shield’s duration by a couple of seconds. Having said that, Retribution does pretty well in Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds will be a much bigger focus in Cataclysm since they can provide the best PvP rewards. Furthermore, the healing environment of Cataclysm is going to be different such that a paladin may not be able to fully heal themselves during the duration of Divine Shield to begin with, so this may not be a problem.
We feel Retribution paladins need one more mechanic which involves some risk of the player pushing the wrong button, making the rotation a bit less forgiving. In addition, we want to add to this spec more PvP utility. Right now the successes of the Retribution paladin in PvP seem to be reduced to either doing decent burst damage, or just being good at staying alive.

Explain?

[Myc]

Yay.

[Shodokan]

I'm officially excited for cataclysm and feel my time and effort leveling the ret paladins was well worth it (pvp wise)

We get a guardian on a 3 minuet cooldown... SWEET. Extra burst for us considering we will be summoning 4 of them.
We get holy shock... if it still does damage like btj said then it will be a great addition to filling those odd moments where you have nothing else to push.
We get a blind ability (macro to switch to shield and cast and then switch back)
We get EXTRA healing from healing hands for our group... 4x extra heals that can be used every 15 seconds? Yes please.

What i want to know is if Art Of War is staying the same. Also the change for sacred shield basically lasting an indefinite amount of time(30 minuets) but can only go on 1 target is an amazing change imo if it just stays with the reduced damage taken every few seconds type thing. We can obviously abuse this mechanic and have to waste less mana to keep the team taking less damage.

Better crusader strike? Sign me up.

This was the kick in the ass i needed to show me that blizzard wasn't fucking around. Being able to dispel poisons and defensive magic is great, there are few things that will need to be dispeled other than that PVP wise anyway.

So to recap... We have... Lowered bubble duration (really doesn't matter for boxers, we use it to mitigate damage for the entire team most of the time or to break fear). Holy shock for a new heal/damage spell for retribution/prot. AOE healing close to one another every 15 seconds for 6 seconds. The ability to blind (yes i know it requires a macro) but we don't know how far the insta blind talent will be down the prot tree so there is still hope. Still keep judgement of light's healing abilities... divine storm is here to stay so more passive healing...a pet for extra burst/annoyance. This seems pretty amazing to me.

[Redbeard]

I saw GC state somewhere that the pally changes werent as far along as the other classes so they wouldnt have a lot of specific talent changes to point out yet... so who knows what theyll do.

[Starbuck_Jones]

We want to ease off the defensive capabilities of Retribution and Holy paladins slightly. We think the powerful paladin defenses have been one of the things holding Retribution paladins back, especially in Arenas.

I do not understand that statement either. We have a couple of ret pallys in our guild and the only thing that holds them back from a floor tank award is a steady stream of taunts. They murder everything pve and pvp.

Oh well, Im happy with whats posted so far, I expected the Jesus class to be cut down to mortal status and it doesnt look like it is. As a prot pally, I get crusader strike to play with, an AOE heal. A combined might/wisdom buff so the elemental and enhancement shaman can quit bitching over what blessing they get. I already have a second button for single target no aoe fights like Saurafang25. Now I can add Crusader strike and Holy Shock to it for the loss of consecration. Another defensive cool down at 85. And holy fuckballs a 30min sacred shield? That already makes me 80% invincible against everything outside of a raid and the new icc heroics. Now all we need is a walk on water spell and we really will be Jesus.

[Mosg2]

I don't know how anyone running anything+4 Rets hasn't creamed their pants over this.

Insta cast AE heals from each of my Paladins? Not having to spam SS every minute anymore? More burst via Guardians? An AE blind--TIMES FOUR?? Four MORE insta cast heals via Holy Shock baseline?

AND I GET TO KEEP MY DEFENSIVE DISPELLING?

/faint

[Ualaa]

I would guess... they don't want a class to be very strong defensively and very strong offensively at the same time. So the defensive power currently inherent in the class is preventing them from adding additional offensive powers. Maybe they feel the class needs more offense in arena, and are planning on removing some defense to make the class still balanced.

Looking at the general lack of changes to prot tanking... the old adage, no news is good news does come to mind.
Two button tanking is not that big of a deal; look at the Unholy click posted by Stealthy in the wiki. Spam button A for single target and button B for aoe targets. Then have the dps spam/click on both buttons.

[Prega]

i ve honetsly hoped something different.

with current infos, on defensive front, some interestings news.
holy shock, healing hands.
offensive: it is not clear what really will change, atm.

Is realistic immagine 2 instant cast offensive spells: exorcism/holy shock?

protection:new ability looks like paladin version of warrior shockwave. sounds me as compensation vs HW, almost useless in Cata content .

final consideration: i read " add holy shock, add healing hands"...something is wrong...where is the trick...what is the trade-off?

[Mercurio]

They didn't screw the overpowered tank that 90% of boxers use and love? Great!

They actually gave us MORE nice abilities to outdistance them further from other tanks? Super great!

They make having a 2nd spec as holy a decent healing option for AOE healing a boxing team? Super great with an added bonus!

[Kalros]

Blue post from yesterday:

But this isn't even about that. This is about AoE tanking. Ghostcrawler said they were going to scale back the aoe capabilities so that it would be more like Warriors and Naxx. I want to know what happened to that goal.

That's still the goal. I guess I'm unclear of what part of the paladin preview you took to mean that we're keeping the same or even enhancing the ability for paladins to AE tank.

We tried to stay away from numbers as much as possible in the previews, except to give you a vague sense of the intent for some of the new abilities in terms of whether something has a short cooldown or a long cooldown.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24262389747&pageNo=5#88

So they're still gonna fuck us on AoE tanking.

[Starbuck_Jones]

They would have to really rape the prot pally to reduce the ability to aoe tank. Seal of Command, Hammer of the Righteous, Consecration, Avengers Shield, Shield of the Righteous (with command), Sacred Shield, Holy Wrath (situational), and Righteous Defense all work on multiple targets.

It would take a complete overhaul of the threat mechanics to undo all those abilities. Maybe if they made Seal of Command, Consecration, and Sacred Shield cause zero threat it could work. But still, anyone worth 2 cents as a tank can tab target and still pull it off with ease.

[Firstcow]

I don't know how anyone running anything+4 Rets hasn't creamed their pants over this.

Insta cast AE heals from each of my Paladins? Not having to spam SS every minute anymore? More burst via Guardians? An AE blind--TIMES FOUR?? Four MORE insta cast heals via Holy Shock baseline?

AND I GET TO KEEP MY DEFENSIVE DISPELLING?

/faint

Didn't they say rets and prots won't be able to Cleanse anymore?

The AE blind has a 2 sec cast time. I doubt it will be low enough in the prot tree to make it instant. So probably rets won't be able to have a macro to equip a shield and blind.

[Kang]

I'm not real thrilled about pally's possibly getting another stun ability.

[Boylston]

Healing Hands was not promised to be an "all specs" ability. I worry that it's a deep-holy talent only, like Wild Growth. Would be nice if it was like shaman healing stream totem, where everyone got it but holy could buff it with talents, though.

[Shodokan]

Healing Hands was not promised to be an "all specs" ability. I worry that it's a deep-holy talent only, like Wild Growth. Would be nice if it was like shaman healing stream totem, where everyone got it but holy could buff it with talents, though.

The fuck you talking about? Its a new spell at 83. Meaning it is for all specs. Unless they change that to a talent and make a new level 83 spell then it wont be across all specs.

[Boylston]

The fuck you talking about? Its a new spell at 83. Meaning it is for all specs. Unless they change that to a talent and make a new level 83 spell then it wont be across all specs.

Ah, good catch. I stand corrected!

Dominating!!

[Kicksome]

The fuck you talking about? Its a new spell at 83. Meaning it is for all specs. Unless they change that to a talent and make a new level 83 spell then it wont be across all specs.

I didn't think about that, I hope you're right.

[Mosg2]

I guarantee you it'll be an all-specs spell. That plus everything else... 4x Paladins is going to be amazing.

[Seldum]

Heres more for all you paladins out there:


Paladin

Q: Will healing hands be a paladin-centered tranquility, or something we have to run around to keep people in range of?

A: The idea is that it matters where the paladin is, so it won't be raid-wide like Tranquility will be in Cataclysm. We will make sure the magnitude of the heal is sufficient that it's a button the paladin wants to use. The cooldown and duration aren't set in stone either.

Q: Now that paladin's Holy Shock is baseline is there any plans to change the Art of War talent?

A: We like Art of War, so we don't expect it will go away. We understand the concern that Holy Shock might compete with Art of War a little bit in terms of role (an instant damage spell) and that's something we're going to have to addres

Q. What information/ideas can you share on PvP utility in the Retribution tree? Mandatory gap closer/interrupt question. Not having a cleanse will hurt. :\

A. Retribution paladins will be getting an interrupt. :)

Source: http://www.wow.com/2010/04/16/twitter-developer-chat-for-april-16th-2010-organized-by-catego/#druid

[Slats]

The main thing the Retribution Paladin is losing here is Dispel Magic or that component of Cleanse.

Sounds like they are getting a bit more instant healing and ranged damage if Holy Shock stays the same.

I think Paladins are looking to be a very interesting boxing team come Cataclysm. :)

[blast3r]

I don't know how anyone running anything+4 Rets hasn't creamed their pants over this.

Insta cast AE heals from each of my Paladins? Not having to spam SS every minute anymore? More burst via Guardians? An AE blind--TIMES FOUR?? Four MORE insta cast heals via Holy Shock baseline?

AND I GET TO KEEP MY DEFENSIVE DISPELLING?

/faint

I was thinking the same thing. I am just starting to read up on Cataclysm. I have a prot/4 ret team. The AOE heals is just awesome. This will make dungeons a LOT easier.