[2022] Feedback: Paladins

In this thread, please post your feedback on the revamped Paladin talent tree, once you’ve had a chance to test Paladins in the Alpha.

Please note: We’re initially testing Protection and Retribution, with the Holy spec coming to the Alpha soon.

Thank you.

The Holy Paladin Talent tree is now enabled in today’s Alpha build.

For Dragonflight, we want to give Holy Paladins more options for caster-focused playstyles by bringing back the Power of the Silver Hand passive effect from the Legion Artifact, in addition to the active button Tyr’s Deliverance.

From today’s Alpha update notes:

• Retribution
  • Divine Protection has been added as a choice node with Shield of Vengeance. Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
  • Justicar’s Vengeance now costs 3 Holy Power and deals 7% less damage.
  • The talent locations of Ashes to Ashes and Divine Toll have been swapped.

Today’s update includes the following for Paladins:

• General
  • New Ability: Intercession – Petition the Light on the behalf of a fallen ally, restoring spirit to body and allowing then to reenter battle with 60% health and at least 20% mana. 2 second cast time for Retribution and Holy specializations, instant cast and requires 3 Holy Power for Protection specialization.
• Class Tree
  • Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
  • Seal of the Crusader damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 15%).
  • Seal of Reprisal damage bonus reduced to 10% (was 20%).
• Protection
  • Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
  • Developers’ note: This week we focused on pathing adjustments for the Class & Protection trees. In the coming weeks, we will be transitioning towards talent iteration and tuning.
• Retribution
  • Final Verdict damage reduced by 6%.
  • Righteous Verdict damage bonus reduced to 5% (was 15%).

Greetings Holy Paladins!

In the next beta build we will have an updated tree ready for testing This update will include major pathing changes, new spells, and node cost reduction. We would like to give you our thoughts on our design direction for this tree moving forward.

Pathing Improvements

We’re excited at the prospect of offering tools for a casting focused Holy Paladin build existing in this tree. Our intention is for this to not overpower the melee playstyle, but we want to find room for both to exist simultaneously without impeding each other. At the same time however, we do not think separating the tree into two distinct “caster” and “melee” paths is compelling tree structure in this case. Our goal is to intermingle spells and abilities in such a way that players are encouraged to path throughout the tree, but not feel like they must pick up undesirable talents for their build along the way.

Spells Changes

We felt the overall nodes in this tree were in a solid spot and that most of the issues in this tree were pathing related. That said, we’ve added several new or returning spells in support of both the melee and caster styles. Hopefully this mixes gameplay up a bit more and offers further compelling choice, particularly in the bottom section of the tree. We’ve also removed a few nodes that we felt were not playing well including Liadrin’s Fury Unleashed and Tyr’s Munificence. Tyr’s Munificence’s effect will be added baseline to Tyr’s Deliverance.

Lay on Hands in rated PvP

We’ve decided to enable Lay on Hands in rated PvP with a 25% PvP multiplier healing reduction. This change was influenced by several factors. Modern PvP realities are that a powerful heal such as this does not have the same level of impact that it did in previous versions of the game. It is likely that if we were to go back in time with the current tools we have, our solution would have been to apply a PvP multiplier to such a strong ability without outright disabling. Given that Lay on Hands applies Forbearance, its cooldown is quite significant, and with Dampening and PvP multipliers to leverage, we feel comfortable enabling this iconic Paladin ability in rated PvP. This change will be applied soon and won’t apply to the upcoming beta build.

Here’s a preview of what you can expect to see next build:

New Talent Additions

Infusion of Light: Now learned baseline.

Divine Insight. New Talent, row 3. Holy Shock’s healing and damage is increased by 5%.

Tirion’s Devotion. New Talent, row 4. Lay on Hand’s cooldown is reduced by 1 second per Holy Power spent.

Resplendent Light. New Talent, row 4. Holy Light heals up to 5 targets within 8 yards for 8% of its healing.

Imbued Infusions. New Talent, row 5. Consuming Infusion of Light reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1.0 seconds.

Unwavering Spirit. New Talent, row 5. The cooldown of Aura Mastery is reduced by 30 seconds.

Boundless Salvation. New Talent, row 10. Casting Flash of Light on targets affected by Tyr’s Deliverance extends the duration of your Tyr’s Deliverance by 0.5 seconds. Casting Holy Light on targets affected by Tyr’s Deliverance extends the duration of your Tyr’s Deliverance by 1 second.

Divine Favor. New Talent, row 5. The healing of your next Holy Light or Flash of Light is increased by 60% and its cast time is reduced by 30%. 45 second cooldown.

Veneration. New Talent, row 8. Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Judgment critical strikes reset the cooldown of Hammer of Wrath and make it usable on any target, regardless of their health.

Relentless Inquisitor. New Talent, row 9. Spending Holy Power grants you 1% haste per finisher for 12 sec, stacking up to 3/5 times.

Empyrean Endowment. New Talent, row 10. Judgment empowers your next Word of Glory to automatically activate Light of Dawn with 25% increased effectiveness. The effect can only occur every 30 seconds.

Inflorescence of the Sunwell. New Talent, row 10. Infusion of Light has 1 additional charge, reduces the cost of Flash of Light by an additional 30%, and has a 30% chance to generate an additional Holy Power from Holy Light.

Thank you all for your continued feedback!

In this thread, we’ll be testing and talking about Paladins in The War Within. Look here for posts from the development team as adjustments and bugfixes are made throughout the testing period.

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

The War Within Beta

All classes’ Hero Talent trees are available for testing. Please keep in mind that this is a Beta environment:

• There may be UI elements on the talent panel that are placeholder, including things like talent icons, text, or final UI art.
• Some talents may not be functioning yet, or may be marked as not yet implemented (NYI).
• Some new spell visuals and audio may still be a work in progress.
• There are some talents that are not fully tuned yet. This is expected, and we will implement tuning adjustments throughout testing.

The combat design team has two big areas of focus at this time:

• Finish work on changes to talents, especially wherever Hero Talents still need adjustments.
• Fix bugs that are blocking testing of new talents.

Working from Feedback

Alpha feedback thus far has been of great benefit to us.

Now that we are entering Beta, our focus on Hero Talent trees is shifting away from reworks and design changes and towards tuning and refining. We want to thank you so much for all the forum posts, videos, and discussions all over the internet. Your feedback and impressions have been invaluable for bringing their identities to life and making them fit into what you love about the classes you play.

We are looking forward to hearing from more of you as you get a chance to try Hero Talents for yourself. We are specifically interested in feedback or impressions on these topics:

• Hero Talents that you feel are “required” for your spec in a type of content, such as raiding or Mythic+, or that push you towards picking a specific tree. This could be due to damage profile, utility, defensives, or something else.
• Hero Talent trees that you feel are either too strong or too weak in power level compared to other options.
• Hero Talents whose functionality is confusing, unclear, or difficult to track during gameplay.
• Hero Talent choice nodes that you feel could offer more meaningful choices.

Again, Thank You

Feedback throughout the Alpha test was highly impactful on our design of the game, and we look forward to refining every class with you in the Beta. Thank you!

– The World of Warcraft Combat Design Team

We have a significant update for Protection Paladins coming in today’s new Beta build.

Please read all about our overall philosophy here:

Protection Paladin

Paladins have a balance of good defenses against both physical and magical damage. They can be in danger if they lose the defensive power of standing in Consecration or if the armor bonus from Shield of the Righteous drops, so we are not reducing any of their passive physical defenses like armor or block. Like druids, paladins have high uptime on their defensive cooldowns, so we’re pulling back some of their durations to make timing their use more important. We would like paladins to have slightly more self-healing, so we are increasing the power of Word of Glory.

• Shield of the Righteous increases your Armor by 150% of your Strength (was 170%).
• The damage reduction effect while standing in Consecrate of Mastery: Divine Bulwark is reduced by 20%.
• Sanctified Plates’ armor increase no longer applies to bonus armor from Shield of the Righteous.
• Improved Holy Shield increases your chance to block spells by 8% (was 10%).
• The Dusk buff from Of Dusk and Dawn reduces your damage taken by 4% (was 5%).
• Word of Glory healing increased by 10%.
• Sentinel’s duration reduced to 16 seconds (was 20 seconds).
• Eye of Tyr’s duration reduced to 6 seconds (was 9 seconds).
• Righteous Protector: Holy Power abilities reduces cooldowns by 1.5 seconds (was 2 seconds).

We’d like to call your attention to adjustments we’re making in the next Beta build.

• PALADIN
  • Hero Talents
    • Herald of the Sun (Holy/Retribution)
      • Retribution
        • Sun’s Avatar damage increased by 20%.
        • Eternal Flame is now 35% more effective on self (was 25%).
    • Lightsmith (Holy/Protection)
      • Holy
        • Blessed Assurance now increases the damage of your next Crusader Strike by 20% (was 100%).
    • Templar (Retribution/Protection)
      • Retribution
        • Wrathful Descent now deals 100% of the damage dealt to nearby enemies when Empyrean Hammer critically strikes (was 80%).
        • Templar Sacrosanct Crusade healing can no longer crit.
  • Holy
    • Righteous Judgment now has a 50% chance to create a consecration (was 30%).
    • Blessing of Dawn now increases the damage and healing of holy power spenders by 5% per stack (was 20%).
    • Fading Light and Seal of Order now increase Blessing of Dawn’s effect by an additional 5% (was 10%).
    • Word of Glory healing increased by 15%.
    • Light of Dawn healing increased by 15%.
    • Hammer of Wrath damage increased by 50%, but its cooldown has been increased by 15 seconds (was 12 seconds).
    • Awakening now requires 15 stacks to activate (was 12) and increases the damage of Judgment by 40% (was 30%).
    • Tyr’s Deliverance healing increased by 30% and now increases healing taken by 12% (was 10%).
    • Crusader’s Might now reduces the cooldown of Judgment and Holy Shock by 2 seconds (was 1.5 seconds).
    • Sanctified Wrath now decreases the cooldown of Holy Shock by 50% for its duration (was 20%).
    • Overflowing Light now converts 30% of Holy Shock’s healing into an absorb shield (was 15%).
    • Holy Infusion now increases the damage of Crusader Strike by 50% (was 25%).
    • Crusader Strike damage increased by 25%.
    • Moment of Compassion now increases the healing of Flash of Light by 50% (was 15%). Does not apply in PvP combat.
    • Saved by the Light now activates when an ally drops below 50% health (was 30%). Does not apply in PvP combat.
    • Blessing of Summer now transfers 12% of healing into damage (was 20%) and transfers 12% of damage into healing (was 10%).
    • Shield of the Righteous damage increased by 25%.
    • Power of the Silver Hand now increases the healing of your next Holy Shock by 20% of all damage and effective healing done (was 10%).
    • Power of the Silver Hand has moved to the final gate.
    • Empyrean Hammer and Inflorescence of the Sunwell are no longer on a choice node with each other.
    • The locations of Righteous Judgment and Liberation have swapped.
  • Protection
    • All ability damage increased by 15%.
  • Retribution
    • Nerub’ar Palace (4) Set Bonus – Wake of Ashes increases your damage done by 8% for 8 seconds (was 10%).
    • Blessed Champion now deals 25% reduced damage to secondary targets (was 50% reduced damage).
    • Final Verdict damage reduced by 10%.
    • Templar’s Verdict damage reduced by 10%.
    • Justicar’s Vengeance damage reduced by 10%.
    • Hammer of Wrath damage reduced by 15%.
    • Blade of Justice damage reduced by 20%. Does not effect Blade of Vengeance.
    • Blade of Vengeance damage increased by 25%.
    • Expurgation damage reduced by 10%.
    • Divine Storm damage increased by 25%.
    • Templar Strike damage reduced by 10%.
    • Templar Slash damage reduced by 10%.
    • Crusading Strikes damage reduced by 10%.
    • Crusader Strike damage reduced by 10%.
    • Word of Glory healing increased by 20%.
    • An issue causing Radiant Glory to not function with fast back to back procs has been resolved.