Paladins- Get your Holy Power on! Updated

[Fat Tire]

Q: What is the goal when re-designing the paladin class? How do you plan to change rotations, talents, etc?
A. All of the paladin specializations will make use of a new resource called Holy Power. Holy Power accumulates from using Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and some other talents. Holy Power can be consumed to augment a variety of abilities, including:

• An instant mana-free heal: Word of Glory
• A buff to increase holy damage done: Inquisition
• A massive physical melee attack for Retribution paladins: Templar’s Verdict
• Holy Shield’s duration is now extended by Holy Power
• Divine Storm’s damage is now increased by Holy Power

We also introduced several new heals for Holy Paladins including Healing Hands (an AoE heal-over-time that is applied to all players standing near the paladin), Light of Dawn (a cone heal with a 30-yard range), as well as a new heal called Divine Light, which is similar to a priest's Greater Heal, and the new instant heal mentioned above, Word of Glory.

Q: Can you give us a sneak peek at one or two of the new Retribution abilities or talents?
A. Templar’s Verdict: An instant weapon attack that causes a percentage of weapon damage. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase damage dealt:

• 1 Holy Power: 55% Weapon Damage
  2 Holy Power: 125% Weapon Damage
  3 Holy Power: 225% Weapon Damage

Word of Glory: Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for a specific amount per application of Holy Power (0 mana cost, 0 cooldown, instant cast).

Q: If Judgement of Wisdom is being removed from the game, are paladins getting a new Judgement so we don't all have to use Judgement of Light?
A. There will only be one Judgement spell. This spell places a single debuff on the target with the effects currently associated with Judgement of Light and Judgement of Justice. The Judgement of Wisdom effect has been retired completely

.Q: Are the improved aura talents going away? They were still present in beta.
A. If you mean talents like Improved Devotion Aura, then those are gone. We still have talents that, say, increase healing on targets of your auras. Improved Concentration Aura still exists. In genera, though, you shouldn’t have to worry about having raid buffs of different power competing with each other.

Retribution

• Divine Storm - An instant weapon attack that causes 20% of weapon damage to up to all enemies within 8 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totaling 25% of the damage caused. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase damage dealt:
  1 Holy Power: 22% Weapon Damage
  2 Holy Power: 50% Weapon Damage
  3 Holy Power: 90% Weapon Damage / 20% of base mana, Instant cast
• Crusader Strike now grants a charge of Holy Power.
• Inquisition *New* - Consumes Holy Power to increase your Holy Damage by 30%. Lasts 10 sec per charge of Holy Power consumed. / 20% of base mana, Instant cast
• Conviction is now a Tier 2 talent. Down from Tier 6.
• Sanctity of Battle is now a Tier 3 talent. Down from Tier 6. Now reduces cooldown of Exorcism by 3/6 secs. (Up from 2/4 secs)
• Swift Retribution is now a single rank talent increasing melee and ranged attack speed by 20%.
• Fanaticism (Tier 4) is now Improved Judgement (Tier 2) - Increases the damage of your Judgement spell by 15% and decreases its cooldown by 3 sec.
• Judgements of the Wise now grants you 40% of your base mana over 10 sec. (Old - immediately grants you 25% of your base mana)
• The Art of War is now a Tier 4 talent, down from Tier 3. It now has a 15/30% chance to proc from any melee attack (Old - 100% proc from Critical) and no longer reduce the casting time of Holy Light.
• Seals of Retribution is now a Tier 4 talent. Up from Tier 3.
• Eye for an Eye is now a Tier 1 talent. Up from Tier 2. It now gives you a 5/10% chance to cause 30% of the damage taken back to the attacker.
• Righteous Vengeance is now a Tier 6 talent. up from Tier 2.
• Improved Judgements is now Improved Crusader Strike - Increases the damage of your Crusader Strike by 15/30% and decreases its cooldown by 1.5/3 sec.
• Heart of the Crusader is now a Tier 3 (Up from Tier 1) single-rank (Down from 3 ranks) talent.

[DLoweinc]

Well crap maybe I shouldn't lvl my ret paladins any further....

[Elektroz]

Can you please elaborate, DLoweinc?

This seems manageable to multibox, but maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, lol. I'll admit. I don't multibox paladins.

[Shodokan]

Can you please elaborate, DLoweinc?

This seems manageable to multibox, but maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, lol. I'll admit. I don't multibox paladins.

It is... keep track of the procs with using a magnifineglass type addon that exists or something.

[lans83]

It is... keep track of the procs with using a magnifineglass type addon that exists or something.

'Move Anything' lets you increase the size of anything on the window. I use this for my slave's minimaps so I can use them for tracking. Very useful with my Hunters. Also, this sounds like Death Knights, Rogues, Druids, and Paladin classes are gonna be very similar in combat now with the Holy Power stacks on enemies. Just like combat points or that one spell for DKs, sorry can't remember, been a while since I played'em, where there more you got, the more powerful the spell is to use them. Can't wait to try them out tho. Man I hope there's gonna be a way to track these on main toons like Procs with Jamba. I finally geared my main Pally in tanking gear to take on ICC, I hope the Ret gear won't be a waste right now to try and get for my slaves. I haven't been reading up on the changes, kinda wanna wait and see the final version. Any tips on which route would be best? Was thinkin about goin after PvP sets with Emblem of Triumphs, but would a Holy or Ret set be better to grab for my team?

[DLoweinc]

Can you please elaborate, DLoweinc?

This seems manageable to multibox, but maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, lol. I'll admit. I don't multibox paladins.

I am just thinking that ret palis may not have the versatility that they do now. If one judgement provides what three judgements do now, perhaps I shouldn't shoot for an all pali group. There are some huge game changing things coming, that is for sure. I'm just thinking about the best reward for my time investment (and I know that the best investment is what is fun for me, but everyone likes feeling OP). I don't want to have any regrets ... Only time will tell

[outdrsyguy1]

sounds to me like ret pallies will be able to heal less and when they do, it's at the cost of less damage till they restack the holy power.

Course on the other hand, the 225% 3 stack of holypower X 4 palidins could be nasty burst.

[Khatovar]

Things like MSBT also can be set up to report only full-stack de/buffs. It was a godsend for my Enh. Shaman's Maelstrom Weapon procs. You can also enlarge your own de/buffs vs the rest of the party's in Pitlbull, as well as showing only certain de/buffs. With the way Pitbull4 allows you to make any kind of frame you like, you could simply make a nice big frame in the middle of your slave screen that shows just that proc to help with same-class teams.

Personally, I've never been a fan of multiples of the same DPS. I like versatility, which I think I'll still get plenty of with my current setup. If not, it'll just give me an excuse to get a kitty in there. But Judgements are only one fairly small factor with paladins. You'll still have things like Repentance, multiple Blessings/auras, tons of mana regen, etc. Either way, there's a lot of changes incomming to paladins, as well as some other classes, so I wouldn't hold my breath on anything yet. It's something I've come to expect with expansions and even major patches.


Edit - It looks like Holy Power will be measured by an additional bar, not stacking buffs. This should make tracking it slightly easier since you can do the Pitbull thing with a large Bar instead of just a buff icon with a number you'd have to read. Or better yet, you'll possibly be able to see it from your main on your party frames like mana bars. :

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...eNo=1&sid=1#12

[jinkobi]

Well there's one positive thing I'd like to add! They mentioned on the podcast last night. The new talents and things will be in before Cataclysm releases. So we might be looking at 1-2 months before Cataclysm to reorganize our teams around the new talents.

[moosejaw]

They have always pushed the X.0 patch 6-8 weeks prior to an expansion launch. So we will have plenty of time to hash things out.