Latest Paladin Patch Notes

Paladin (Updated)
 
Ability Pruning

See the Ability Pruning section above for discussion of why we’re pruning class abilities. For Paladins, the pruning focused on removing niche abilities, and trimming cooldowns.

•     Avenging Wrath is no longer available to Protection Paladins.
•     Divine Favor has been removed.
•     Divine Plea has been removed. Mana costs for Paladins have been adjusted accordingly.
•     Guardian of Ancient Kings is now only available to Protection Paladins.
•     Hand of Salvation is now only available to Protection Paladins.
•     Holy Light has been removed.
•     Inquisition has been removed.
•     Seal of Righteousness is no longer available to Holy Paladins.
•     Seal of Truth is no longer available to Holy Paladins.

    

Ability Consolidation and Refinement

There were a few mergers of passive abilities, and some tweaks to a couple of abilities.

•     Divine Light has been renamed Holy Light.
•     Divine Protection now lasts 8 seconds (down from 10 seconds).
•     Guardian of Ancient Kings now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds).
•     Daybreak now heals all allies within 10 yards for 15% of Holy Shock's healing (instead of 75%, split between each ally).
•     Grand Crusader now triggers from any avoidance, not just dodge and parry.
•     Hand of Sacrifice is now off global-cooldown.
•     Judgment is now naturally free for Holy Paladins, and naturally generates 1 Holy Power for Protection and Retribution Paladins.

               -  Judgments of the Bold has been removed.

•     Redemption’s mana cost has been reduced by 95%.
•     Selfless Healer no longer causes Bastion of Glory to apply to Flash of Light. For Holy Paladins, it now increases the healing of Flash of Light on others by 35% per stack (up from 20%). For Retribution and Protection Paladins, the effect on Flash of Light remains unchanged.
•     Sword of Light now increases damage by 25% (down from 30%).
•     The Art of War’s effects have been merged into baseline Exorcism.

    

Holy Changes

We made several changes for Holy, to go along with other larger system changes to compensate for the removal of Guardian of Ancient Kings from Holy, and merged its benefits into Divine Favor. In order to follow through on our change to merge all types of Haste %, we removed the Spell Haste % from Seal of Insight to a Holy-only passive, so that it didn't also increase Protection's baseline Haste by 10%. Our changes to healer mana and mobility also indirectly increased the value of Selfless Healer by a large amount, so we brought it back down to be even in power with the other talents on its row. We also raised the range of Denounce to be consistent with other spells. Lastly, we adjusted the critical strike chance of Holy Shock, to increase the value of Critical Strike for Holy Paladins.

•     Avenging Wrath now also increases all of the Paladin’s healing by 20% for its duration.
•     Beacon of Light now has a small Mana cost.
•     Denounce's range has increased to 40 yards (up from 30 yards).
•     Holy Shock now has twice the normal chance to critically strike (instead of having an additional 25% chance to critically strike).
•     Infusion of Light now also passively increases Haste by 10%.
•     Seal of Insight no longer increases spell Haste by 10%.
•     Selfless Healer for Holy no longer causes Judgment to grant Holy Power. It also is only usable on Flash of Light, no longer on Holy Light or Holy Radiance.
•     Tower of Radiance’s effects have been changed and merged into baseline Beacon of Light.
•       - Tower of Radiance now causes Flash of Light and Holy Light on a Beacon of Light target to refund 40% of the spell’s Mana cost instead of generating 1 Holy Power.

        

Protection Changes

For Protection, we tweaked Eternal Flame in order to reduce its massive self-healing amount, and provide better balance between talents on that row. We also added a new passive, Shining Protector, in order to give defensive value to the new Multistrike stat. Holy Wrath’s damage and cooldown were also increased, and Sanctified Wrath changed to buff it further, in order to give Protection Paladins more burst threat and damage, while retaining its core damage-splitting identity.

•     Mastery: Divine Bulwark now increases damage reduction from Shield of the Righteous by 6% (scaling with Mastery, down from starting at 8%), and causes Bastion of Glory to increase healing received from Word of Glory by 6% (scaling with Mastery, down from starting at 8%).
•     Bastion of Glory no longer affects the periodic healing of Eternal Flame. It still affects the direct healing portion of the ability.
•     Sanctuary now reduces damage taken by 10% (down from 15), and no longer increases Armor.
•     Guarded by the Light now increases Stamina by 15% (down from 25%), and increases block chance by 5% (down from 10%).
•     Shield of the Righteous now reduces physical damage taken by 20% (down from 25%).
•     Bastion of Glory now increases Word of Glory’s healing by 6% per stack (down from 10% per stack).
•     Shining Protector is a new passive ability for Protection Paladins.
•     Shining Protector: All heals you receive have a chance equal to your Multistrike chance to trigger Shining Protector, healing you for an additional 30% of the triggering heal.
•     Holy Wrath’s damage has been increased by 100%, and its cooldown increased to 15 seconds (up from 9 seconds).
•     Sanctified Wrath for Protection Paladins has been redesigned.
•     Sanctified Wrath (Protection) now increases the damage of Holy Wrath by 100% and causes it to generate 1 Holy Power.

        

Miscellaneous Changes

We made a few additional changes to Paladins. We revised the functionality of Hammer of the Righteous a bit, such that its performance is about the same, but its tooltip is much clearer. We also made Stay of Execution much more attractive to use as an emergency button. We also revised how Eternal Flame interacts with Holy Power, and allowed it to once again trigger Illuminated Healing. One big change for Retribution that isn't mentioned here is the removal of Inquisition (see Ability Pruning), which will have a notable effect on their rotation.

• Eternal Flame’s periodic healing effect has been changed. Its duration now scales with Holy Power, instead of its healing. Its effect at 3 Holy Power remains unchanged.
• Hammer of the Righteous now deals 50% Physical weapon damage (up from 15%) to the primary target, but the primary target is no longer hit with the Holy damage.
• Illuminated Healing can once again be triggered by Eternal Flame.
• Seals no longer cost any mana.
• Stay of Execution (the Holy version of Execution Sentence) now deals its healing in a large burst at first, and then decreasing over time (reversed from before).