The official Paladin talent discussion.

[Aceldama]

All of these do the same thing: they're single target threat. The tree is wallowing in mediocrity, rehashing the same dulled mechanics ad infinity. The "hits 2 extra targets" bonus of avenger's shield (outside of pulling) and hammer of righteous are pointless, as consecrate is going to operate as the main multi-target threat attack regardless. No change to the 30 second cooldown on avenger's shield only means it gains modestly more usability than where it was previously.

Stam to spell power is not a buff, it's just a transition from old spell power plate to regular tanking plate. There's a slim chance that spamming all these abilities will not just equal the old threat paladins could put out with spell damage, but surpass it, but that optimism is borderline naivety at this point. It's more than likely the threat has been kept in line where it was before: vastly behind druids and warriors for single target threat.

Keep in mind that a weapon still carries the single largest spell damage bonus on it, but hits for virtually nothing. So utilizing a spell damage weapon with Hammer of the Righteous is pointless. It's advantage, is once again, only to create a transition from old spell damage weapons and gear to new single cross-class tanking plate.


Essentially these talents all add up to the ability to equip and act like a warrior. On the very slim chance that they provide insane threat all together, then at least they'll have a singular advantage in what they aim to achieve, but more than likely they'll barely make up for the loss of that 600+ spell power for those that used to stack it.

I also have to totally disagree with you Zarcob, firstly having spent over a year tanking on my paladin I would confidently say that simply using consecration will never hold aggro from any dps focusing on something that is not your target. Consecrate simply allows us to easily out-aggro healers keeping them from getting squished, as I have seen on numerous large trash pulls with a warrior or druid tank. Our main threat production when aoe tanking comes from re-active damage caused when using holy shield, blessing of sanctuary and retribution aura hence we get a large portion of our threat from being hit.

You seem to think a transition to being able to easily use warrior tanking gear is problem through the "touched by light talent". I think it is great. When considering our main weakness as prot pallys is our lack of damage mitigation I found it incredibly annoying when choosing badge gear to sacrifice spell damage tanking gear for plate gear with the greater amount of mitigation and avoidance stats on it just so I could more easily MT raid bosses. This means we no longer need to sacrifice stam for improving our threat as much as we had too during TBC just one reason why warriors would have health pools 2k larger than ours.

Also you have missed two major points when you spoke of the problems of using a spell damage weapon with the new spell "hammer of the righteous". First the weapon damage it causes will be holy as such our righteous fury buff will still give a large amount of increased threat to it and second the description of the spell even states "This ability causes high threat", regardless of the damage on the weapon im sure we will still see hotr causing a large amount of threat. Considering we also have another new spell "shield of righteousness" which causes holy damage based on 200% of our block value we will now have many more abilities to use when tanking meaning we will no longer spend 6-8 seconds simply staring at our computer screens following the usual 'seal, holy shield, consecrate, judge, seal .................... repeat' spell rotation.

You also seem annoyed by the talent "divine guardian" and the critical healing improvement of "touched by the light" I really cannot understand why as these talents are quite obviously not designed to be used by tanks. Would you choose the "eye for an eye" talent in the ret tree for a PvE dps build? No you wouldnt because a lot of talents are designed to be used in different ways or in conjunction with different talent tree's. As you suggested a talent such as "divine guardian" is obviously designed to be used in either a ret PvP build or maybe a holy PvP or PvE build.

All together the changes to the protection tree have massively improved our single target threat production, however I still feel that the tree lacks any strong mitigation move. What we need is an ability like shield wall, I was hoping to see a talent along the lines off "reduces the duration of your divine shield spell by 50% but you no longer lose threat when it is cast" although that would probably be incredibly op atleast last stand is now a 20minute cd which gives us one regularly available wipe saving mechanic and depending on the damage of level 80 raid and dungeon mobs our other new holy spell "sacred shield" could prove incredibly useful when tanking.

As for the holy tree I really like most the changes especially pushing us to use seals more when healing which I look forward to attempting (im sure we will be seeing more holy/ret holydins now thanks to the changes to conviction and heart of the crusader), however beacon of light which is the spell I had hoped paladins would get for the last 3 years appears incredibly broken right now. Hopefully we will see it tweaked to work more effectively or a mana reduction to make repeated use more viable.

I wont even bother talking about the ret tree as I would hope we can all see how imba it looks right now

Rant over.

[Rawberry]

I wont even bother talking about the ret tree as I would hope we can all see how imba it looks right now

If Blizzard keeps buffing that tree I'm going to start having recurring dreams about the Ret. talent tree. It's so good :O.

[Zarcob]

You seem to think a transition to being able to easily use warrior tanking gear is problem through the "touched by light talent". I think it is great.

I don't seem to think it’s a problem at all. In fact it's the type of ability that should have been accessible through some type of "Dire Paladin-Bear form" ability, such as druids use to solve the obvious issue that tanking in leather presents, from day 1. I refuse to give Blizzard kudos for simply fixing what is blatantly obvious to the paladin community.

And again, it's nice they finally got around to fixing itemization... but this is just a fix for broken game mechanics. Paladin gear should never have been stretched so thin as to create massive itemization gaps for tanks in the first place. All I see are some new aggro attacks to spam that in all likelihood will only provide threat on par with other tanks. Abilities can’t be examined inside a vacuum, so unless these put the paladin well above, or at least equal to, druid threat, all their “newness” will seem largely wasted.

"hammer of the righteous". First the weapon damage it causes will be holy as such our righteous fury buff will still give a large amount of increased threat to it and second the description of the spell even states "This ability causes high threat", regardless of the damage on the weapon im sure we will still see hotr causing a large amount of threat.

Righhhhht. Look up one of the hammer's of judgement. 19 - 129 damage. A spell-damage weapon that has a low end damage of 19 will never cause a lot of threat. I don't care if the tooltip description states "This will cause an UNGODLY ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF THREAT" it's NEVER going to generate a lot of threat when building off a base of 19 damage period. It's clearly intended to be utilized with regular melee tanking weapons, as opposed to "prot paladin" tanking weapons; although the latter could certainly still be useful in some form for AE tanking. It's the weapon version of Touched by the Light, that's it. It's just another itemization "fix" instead of a unique buff or ability. Which, hey, is great, but Warlocks get a new uber siphon life-type DoT in affliction and we get… the ability to use warrior weapons? Seriously?

People might be saying the math on Titan’s Grip sucks, but math can be fixed. I’d much rather have the ability to do something wholly unique than simply equip something another class has already been using to better effectiveness for the past 4 years.

Considering we also have another new spell "shield of righteousness" which causes holy damage based on 200% of our block value we will now have many more abilities to use when tanking meaning we will no longer spend 6-8 seconds simply staring at our computer screens following the usual 'seal, holy shield, consecrate, judge, seal .................... repeat' spell rotation.

It's good they're working to make the class less boring in combat. It would have helped more to have a taunt cooldown reduction. I like that they're inching toward avenger shield in combat but they didn't bother to reduce the cooldown there either. At least they reduced the cooldown on holy shield, so they’re on the right track there.

You also seem annoyed by the talent "divine guardian" and the critical healing improvement of "touched by the light" I really cannot understand why as these talents are quite obviously not designed to be used by tanks.

Exactly. That’s my point. Why does prot keep getting riddled with abilities not designed to be used by tanks? Stoicism (and don’t bother pitching me the anti-stun as a tanking mechanism bullshit), the old Imp Concentration Aura, and now Divine Guardian. I can understand abilities in the first tier or two that benefit other specs, as is common, but Divine Guardian could EASILY be the best ability in the entire tree if it weren’t wasted on tier 4 and lacking any synergy with a tank’s actual role.

And the healing improvements of Touched by the Light just show that blizzard intends paladins to heal. A sad reality, not something I’m psyched about. I’d sooner just pay the money to respect to holy when I need to heal than waste prot talent implementation to provide it.

All together the changes to the protection tree have massively improved our single target threat production,

That’s really what it comes down to. These changes could increase the threat but I’m willing to bet Blizzard will be watching it like a hawk. If paladins so much as nudge above druids in single target tps, I anticipate sweeping nerfs. Since we don’t really have TPS parse logs available for level 80 raiders I’m not yet willing to accept that they’ve decided to promote paladins to the top of the TPS meters.

however I still feel that the tree lacks any strong mitigation move. What we need is an ability like shield wall, I was hoping to see a talent along the lines off "reduces the duration of your divine shield spell by 50% but you no longer lose threat when it is cast" although that would probably be incredibly op atleast last stand is now a 20minute cd

That’s the ability Divine Guardian + Sacred Duty SHOULD provide. I mean, just look how laughable it is to have the two of them in the tree whose primary design prohibits their use. It’s lunacy that continues to pervade that which is the protection paladin.

No, I refuse to give high marks to prot. It had a lot of goofy questions that weren’t answered; reckoning, sanctuary, no defensive abilities, etc. A lot of the base class abilities, like sacred shield and shield of righteousness, do look very nice, but I expected a lot more house cleaning.

[Gestalt]

... but I expected a lot more house cleaning.

.... and there we agree.
The itemization fixes can't really be viewed ad nihlo. Yes, the new prot talents (and removal of CB's) do little besides retiring the joke that "A warrior fights with a shield and sword, a Paladin fights with a shield and sliderule". The delicate balance of maintaining uncrushability, spelldamage, and stamina will largely be a thing of the past (moreso than it already is). I wonder if that's enough, and that wondering cuts both ways: it very well may be enough.

There are some subtle changes that seem to by and large escape notice:
-Holy Shield has had its cooldown reduced to 6 seconds (which seems to be the new rotation standard for Tankadins in Wrath) and its base charges bumped to 6.
-The *other* blocking tank, Warriors, have had their Shield Block cooldown bumped to 30 seconds.

Changes to Paladin tanking need to be considered in the context of how they compare to other tanks, and here I see a definite shift in the Paladin to Warrior comparison. With the 2str=1bv change, the changes to the blocking mechanics of each class, and the talents that make using generic "tank plate" possible, Paladins are looking at substantially more mitigation return from Strength than Warriors.

Again, not sure if it's "enough".

What I was hoping to see, and haven't, is a "trimming of the fat" from the prot tree.
-Redoubt. Ugh. Redoubt.
-With the threat component of Improved Righteous Fury now base, the talent is pure bloat.
-Improved Devotion Aura is nice. It's also another "must-have" talent added to a tree that hasn't had any streamlining to help free up points to snag it.
-Reckoning. Ugh. Reckoning.
-Blessing of Laughability.. I mean, Sanctuary. Let's either scrap it and replace it with something useful or give it positive, instead of negative, scaling from gear. Give the damage a nice SP coefficient, make the reduction apply to post-armor damage, scale reduction from SP, SOMETHING. This talent rocks at level 30. It's trivialized by 40.
-Sacred Duty. Can we PLEASE fold the two Divine Shield talents together and tack the 6% stam component on something we actually want?
-Ardent Defender. Can we shave some of the point cost here? Make it a 3 point talent, perhaps?
-If we have 5 points worth of talents reducing the cost of Avenger's Shield, maybe we just need to reduce the base cost.

[Moar Pew Pew]

To Zarcabob, I didnt want to quote your whole post so I'm just gonna address you. lol

Blizzard has specifically said that threat will no longer be an issue, so why would it matter if a druid has 50tps more than you when you've got about 100000000tps more than the rest of the raid? Yes, that number is rediculius, but if Blizzard is serious about this than it may as well be that high. All in all Sword and Board of the Rightous are gonna solve our threat problems. We can still AOE tank like champs.

But I agree we generally need more mitigation, maybe something to define our tanking besides LOLAOETANK. But even if this stayed until release, I'd be satisfied. Its generally huge improvements all around and we will be better because of it, even if we dont have nice abilities like last stand. Prot Paladins have always been the Vanilla of tanking, I'm just happy we got a full damn spell rotation! ^_^

Trim the bloat and we should all be pretty happy tanks.