[UPDATED] Patch 3.1 PTR build 9658 Paladin changes
by Zach Yonzon 
Mar 6th 2009 at 6:10PM
So the new PTR build dropped, and it doesn't look very pretty for Holy Paladins. Before we get into the grim side of things, it looks like Aura Mastery has been made baseline. Does this mean a new talent will be popping up in the Holy tree? That seems likely, but don't bet on it yet. Now on to the bad stuff...Holy
Sacred Shield - Cannot be on more than one target at any one time.
Ouch. So much for raid damage mitigation. Back to single target healing, the lot of you!
Infusion of Light - No longer has a chance to reduce the casting time of Holy Light, but increases the the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead. Moved to Tier 10.
Double ouch. This seems to be a PvP nerf to me, and others are crying out the same on the forums. Without addressing it directly, Ghostcrawler states that "several of those changes were made for PvE reasons". He was, of course, referring to Sacred Shield, considering that one of Blizzard's concerns was the increasing number of mitigation abilities going into Ulduar. Losing half-a-second Holy Lights will be severely palpable to Holy Paladins in Arenas.
[UPDATE: With Aura Mastery's old effect made baseline, the new activated ability talent is all kinds of awesome - Now makes anyone affected by Concentration Aura to be immune to Interrupt and Silence mechanics and increases the effectiveness of all other auras by 100%. Lasts 10 sec. 2 min cooldown.
This is a fantastic ability that compensates a little for the other nerfs. Because it is a party or raid-wide buff, this is extremely powerful -- imagine the improved versions of Retribution Aura and Devotion Aura working at 200%. This makes Paladin synergy simply too good. The 2 minute cooldown is about right for PvP, although a 12 second duration might have been more appropriate. It's an excellent talent on paper, I can't wait to see in practice.
UPDATE: Blessed Hands - No longer reduces cooldowns of Hand spells. Instead, it improves the effectiveness of Hand of Salvation by 50/100% and Hand of Sacrifice by an additional 5/10%.
One step forward, two steps back. What looked to be a great talent for PvE has now become a skippable, lackluster talent for PvE. Even the improved Hand of Sacrifice effect won't be enough to compel PvP Paladins to pick it up, while Hand of Salvation simply sees little use in the face of new, higher threat tanking for two points to be wasted here.]
UPDATE: Enlightened Judgements - No longer increases the range of Judgement of Justice. Moved to Tier 10.
And the nerfs just keep on coming. Clearly aimed at PvP, the move down to Tier 10 doesn't quite make any sense. It's already deep enough in the Holy tree to begin with that no other spec would pick it up. The change won't make an impact on PvE, but now prevents Holy Paladins from casting this snare-like effect from afar. Swapped places with Judgements of the Pure.
Protection
Hand of Sacrifice - Lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transfered 100% of their maximum health.
This is another effective nerf although will scale excellently with Protection Paladins. It's just not as effective when used by other specs, and seems to be part of Ulduar tuning which seems to be toning down mitigation abilities.
Targets affected by Divine Shield, Hand of Protection or Divine Protection can no longer be affected by any of these spell for 2 minutes. (Down from 3 minutes)
We're probably never going to see Forbearance return to one minute, but at least Blizzard seems to realize that three minutes is just plain silly.
Divine Sacrifice *New Talent* (Tier 3) - 30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin's health). Instant, 2 min cooldown.
Finally, some good news! This is an extremely attractive talent to pick up and oddly seems counter to the whole mitigation ability nerfs. Coupled with Divine Guardian, this translates to a 60% damage soak albeit scaling with health. Considering it affects all party or raid members, that cap will be reached rather quickly during those 'oh $#!+' moments and looks very attractive for PvP, as well. So much love going Protection's way in Patch 3.1, it almost makes up for Holy going through the crapper. Almost.
UPDATE: Divine Guardian - Redesigned. Now increases the effectiveness of Divine Sacrifice by an additional 5/10% and increases the duration of Sacred Shield by 50/100% and the amount absorbed by 10/20%.
So much for getting all excited about Divine Sacrifice. Blizzard made the old Divine Guardian separate from Divine Shield, which isn't altogether exciting albeit more useful because of the shorter cooldown. Still, this makes Divine Sacrifice absorb 40% damage instead of 30%, which is pretty good, and makes Sacred Shield much more powerful. Both talents are significant buffs, and used properly, Divine Sacrifice is much more flexible and has an impact in both PvE and PvP. Both excellent talents, so while the Holy nerfs continue, so does the Protection love.
UPDATE: Guarded by the Light - Now makes Divine Plea 50/100% less likely to be dispelled.
I can't get on the PTR to test, so I'm not sure if this is an added effect or a redesign. As it stands, this is one of the best talents in an already phenomenal tree, guaranteeing 100% uptime on Divine Plea. The change also doesn't make much sense because Divine Plea is now undispellable to begin with. We'll have to take a look at this some more.
Retribution
UPDATE: Sanctified Seals - Renamed Sanctity of Battle. Now also increases damage done by Exorcism and Crusader Strike by 5/10/15%.
Best news of the day. This is part of Blizzard's move to increase the DPS of Retribution Paladins, and it looks really good. Crusader Strike has needed a lot of love since Patch 3.0 and deals a small percentage of Retribution's overall DPS now. It's not quite complete as the talent itself still needs to be buffed beyond vanilla-hood, but these are steps in the right direction. It's also low enough in the Retribution tree for other specs to pick up. A straight up buff is always welcome news in the face of the many nerfs to Holy this build.
Filed under: Paladin, Patches, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
holyjon Mar 6th 2009 6:26PM
if anyone says "first" now, they should have their account banned from WI...
on another note, holy paladins are pretty OP in pvp (i play a holy paladin as a main) but i dont think they need pve nerfs... we're solid (a lot better than we were in BC) but I dont think the divine plea nerf should've made it close to unusable by a holy pally... im still geting beat on the meters by priests in lesser gear because of our lack of flexibility and i hate that... and i know my class very well (so stop it with the L2P.. please)
anyways i like the love prot is geting ^^
Manatank Mar 6th 2009 6:29PM
But holy paladins are completely OP in PvE. You really do need to learn to play.
Heilig Mar 6th 2009 6:46PM
Gotta agree with Manatank here. My main spec is Prot, I go Ret if we have enough tanks online, and I only go Holy if we're going to call the raid for lack of healers, and I routinely outheal everyone else in the raid, regardless of class, and manage to be near the bottom on overhealing as well. Understanding your class, watching for procs, and casting in the right order at the right time, combined with proper use of trinkets and cooldowns turns paladins into healing juggernauts. No one else can drop a guaranteed 25k+ in less than 2.5 seconds. Now if you're still playing like it's BC and just spamming Flash with the occasionally HL, not using shields, not using flashes properly, and gearing for MP5, then yeah, you're gonna lose on the meters. But properly played pallies are completely unbeatable in PvE healing.
Heilig Mar 6th 2009 6:47PM
"not using flashes properly"
SHOCKS! I meant not using SHOCKS properly. Stupid brain goes faster than my fingers.
Wasuremono Mar 6th 2009 7:02PM
Why don't you post some WWS so everyone can see what you other healers are doing wrong?
I'm sorry holy pallies have a shot at the top of the meters.
Treason of Farstriders Mar 6th 2009 7:04PM
That's because you're retarded and looking at meters. The only meter that matters for healer is the number of deaths meter.
Heilig Mar 6th 2009 7:21PM
Actually, meters are pretty reliable if you know how to read them. "Number of deaths meter" only matters if you're the only healer, it doesn't show whether or not the other healers are picking up your slack.
If you look at healing meters on two equally geared people, and one does 2M healing with 50% overheal and the other does 1.5M with 33% overheal, they're healing for the same amount. The guy with higher total healing is either dropping bigger heals or healing just a little bit too late. Those guys are both probably doing their job well.
If you have two equally geared healers and one does 5M healing with 80% overheal and the other does 2M healing with 50% overheal they are both healing for the same amount. but the first guy is a spammer and will not last into harder content healing the way he is. He will start to go OOM and is not healing effectively anyway since most of his heals are either taking too long to land or are being cast WAY too early and landing before the damage is taken.
I could go into multiple scenarios for different situations, but the point is meters DO matter, if you know how to read them. They can tell you who is healing whom, what spells they are using, how often they are using them, and whether they are using them at the right times and in the right sequence.
To give a more anecdotal example, when I check my meters at the end of the night after having to heal, my top three healing spells are Flash, Beacon, and Holy Shock, in that order, and roughly equal percentages. I end up first on the overall meter with about 20% overhealing done and I rarely drop below 40% mana. my partner in crime is an old-school Holy Pally. His top 3 spells are Holy Light, Beacon, and Flash, with Holy Light taking up about 65% of his total healing. he ends up 3rd or 4th on the meters overall, with around 50% overhealing, and has to drink after every other pull. I can determine all of this information via meters.
So saying "OMG n00b meters are gay" is about as stupid as saying "Holy pallies are underpowered."
Rawtashk Mar 6th 2009 6:28PM
Every time I hear about all the BS that happens to Holy...I tell myself, "I'm selling all my holy gear and going prot", but I never do. I might actually do it this time.
Mattimus Mar 6th 2009 6:32PM
I did this in 3.0. I saw the way Holy Paladins were going, compared to the HUGE amounts of love Prot and Ret were getting, and felt it was time for a changed.
I went through all of BC, including raiding, as Holy. It was hard to drop all of those epics to go Prot, but I did it. And now I feel like Superman. (Group quest? Ha. More like I'll solo it and laugh.)
Treason of Farstriders Mar 6th 2009 11:41PM
The taking away of our HOT (the FOL glyph) made me say bye bye forever to pally healing.
Corrytrevor Mar 9th 2009 9:49AM
Did anyone actually use Glyph of Flash of Light when it cut down initial FoL healing by 50%.
I sure didn't
I think the new FoL glyph is delicious (5% increased crit, thank you very much)
Milo Mar 6th 2009 6:29PM
Yay, back to HL spam...
Rawtashk Mar 6th 2009 6:30PM
I agree. Last time I was in Naxx I got outhealed by a priest with 250 less SD than me, and a drood with 235 less. Don't tell me to "L2P" either, I beat equally geared priests and droods in BC all the time.
Manatank Mar 6th 2009 6:53PM
I understand that you want to believe you are great because when your class could heal by simply spamming 1 button you could do alright, but holy paladins do require at least a little bit of skill now. They are completely OP and their endless mana pool is just broken.
Wasuremono Mar 6th 2009 6:54PM
Did require skill. This nerf actually gives us less choices making us back into the skill-less healbot were used to be.
Heilig Mar 6th 2009 7:24PM
That's about the stupidest thing I've heard. This nerf makes it require MORE skill, not less. Having to actually ANTICIPATE big damage spikes instead of just being able to completely heal through them in 2 seconds means you have to pay attention to the fight and not just play whack-a-mole all night.
Ron Mar 6th 2009 6:40PM
Anyone who looks at healing meters as a measure of healing performance really does need to L2P.
My main is a Healadin. I freely admit to being OP in both PvP and PvE. Doesn't mean I want a nerf, but it's pretty inevitable. Let's see:
* I do not run out of mana. Ever.
* I have a 42% crit chance on Holy Shock. Unless I get really, really stunlocked I can run away from any PvP situation, just insta'ing myself all the way.
* I regularly crit 22K+ on Holy Light, and a third to half of those casts are like .8 second casts. And they are typically going to two targets instead of one.
* I can mitigate damage for thirty seconds on as many tanks as I care to.
* I regularly have 45%+ overheals by the end of a Naxx run. I usually main heal, and still have time for spamming Holy Light, over and over again, on raid members.
Yes. We will get nerfed. To the ground, baby.
Manatank Mar 6th 2009 6:51PM
It is really funny too, because prior to 3.0 going live there was so much qq from the holy paladins about how their spec was completely broken, and it turned out that they were in better shape than any of the other healers.
GC tried to make it clear they weren't seeing a problems with paladins, but the community told him he didn't know how to play. I guess he did.
Wasuremono Mar 6th 2009 6:58PM
That does look like a list of abilites but I fail to see exactly what makes most of these overpowered.
The first one isn't really true and blizzard is still looking into that.
If you combine the third and last point you will reveal that while 22k is a big number it isn't really a useful number most of the time and typically only a portion of that number is going to your second target.
Ron Mar 6th 2009 7:18PM
>>The first one isn't really true and blizzard is still looking into that.
What? Yes it is. These days the only time I ever come close to running out of mana is on Razuvious, healing those dang Understudies, when they take so much damage that it's a (slowly) losing battle even with two healers on them. Even then I usually finish up the fight with 1/3 of my pool left. Worst case scenario I can pop LoH and get like 3K back which will usually carry me to my next Holy Plea.
I completely ignore the 5SR, like it doesn't exist. It's totally irrelevant.
I don't even have the four-set T7 bonus yet, and I STILL have absolutely no problem with mana. In fact I finally stopped stacking Int because Holy Plea is ticking over for over 1,000K/tick. I don't even remember the last time I hit a mana pot. Post T7x4, I anticipate the whole situation getting even more ridiculous with a flat across the board 5% mana cost reduction for Holy Light.
I dunno, maybe it's just a matter of perspective.