Paladin changes in WoW Patch 3.1 PTR build 9733
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 27th 2009 at 2:00PM
A new build was pushed to the patch 3.1 PTR yesterday, and while the list of changes wasn't huge, there are a few significant ones for paladins:
- Seal of the Martyr/Seal of Blood now add 48% of weapon damage, up from 22%, to all your melee attacks as holy damage. However, the Judgment was changed from 16% of AP + 25% of spell power + 26% of minimum weapon damage to 11% AP + 18% SP + 26% min weapon damage.
In other words, the bonus damage per attack was roughly doubled, while the coefficients of AP and SP on the judgment were cut by 30% (approximately).
The general expectation is that this will keep overall damage pretty much the same, while reducing burst damage. This makes the seal play a bit differently in PvP – it's no longer going to hit like a truck when you judge, but you'll get more consistent damage out of it (edited). A benefit of the change is that you won't see quite as big hits on your health when you judge the seal: more survivability in PvE, which is something the blues have shown concern about with respect to this seal.
There was one other change: a new talent called Divine Guardian was added, at tier 4 in the Protection tree. Note that this is not the same as the old Divine Guardian, which was reworked and renamed Divine Sacrifice. I do really like the icon, so I'm glad they're reusing it, but the naming is slightly confusing.
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Clbull Mar 27th 2009 12:49PM
Seems like a good change to improve paladin's sustained dps and
Except... Seal of Command seems like the ideal PvP choice, as its judgement can crit for thousands on a stun/incapacitating effect (it automatically crits on those effects) and therefore it seems overpowered to me because of that.
Why not boost the sustained damage of Seal of Command whilst toning down the burst a bit.
Jeff Mar 27th 2009 2:11PM
As a ret pally who feels bad taking down clothies before my stun wears off, I agree with this sentiment. I'm not sure if burst from SoC is a huge problem though, as so many have just been using SoB/M for pvp afaik.
Malkeior Mar 27th 2009 2:18PM
Fight better clothies.
Landoz Mar 27th 2009 2:20PM
As i do like the changes, i agree with Clbull, i crit for 6400 last night on a warrior with my SoC Judgement(stunned of courses)
Clbull Mar 27th 2009 8:58PM
Well my point was that back in 3.0.2, this may have been what made Ret Paladins stupidly overpowered, as the moment you saw one, you'd just get stunned and 2 - 3 shotted with their instants. (this was still at lvl 70 tho.) They're still stupidly powerful in the "stunlock and burst" situation.
I still think that in the case of ret paladins, either:
A) The stuns have to be toned down a bit, although this can have a bad side effect of making their CC worse in PvE. Maybe even make SoC no longer crit on stuns.
B) Tone down the burst damage and up the sustained damage with Seal of Command, so it can be a good DPS Seal and not overpowered in PvP.
Andras Mar 27th 2009 2:19PM
Ok. I see all the new changes but couldn't they just have buffed 'Crusader Strike' now instead of waiting another month for the next patch. Is it really too much to ask? Don't see the logic.
Graham Mar 27th 2009 2:42PM
The logic is the new Crusader Strike is not completed. Blizz said that they were thinking of ways to make it better, but they haven't come up with what they are doing with it yet and it hasn't even been tested on the PTR at all. All of the changes are tested and then released all at once. That is the way they have always done it.
joej Mar 27th 2009 2:22PM
The comment about this less powerful in PvP is completely inaccurate. In fact, this change make this seal even better for PvP rendering SoC completely useless.
You forget SoB/M procs off all attacks, so now every single attack when using this seal will be even more powerful. The reduced judgment damage will HELP PvP in that you won't kill yourself nearly as fast. Thats a little less burst, but who cares if you you are killing people with every swing.
I like this change. A lot.
Sometimes WoW insider really confuses me with their posts. Right on one moment, way off the next.
Lemons Mar 27th 2009 3:05PM
Do you play the pvps? consistent damage is very healable and basically sucks. Even if each attack is more powerful it's not going to matter. If we played that game in pvp then you wouldn't even switch from you pve spec when you arena.
This is a nerf to pally pvp because the judgment won't be a huge burst of damage and it's about bloody time too, my arena partner basically got two shot by a pally using a martyr judgment.
joej Mar 27th 2009 3:24PM
I am going to front load so much more damage from SoB now. The judgment is roughly the same as SoC. So when I smash your healer into the ground, you can go back to Blizzard and cry because you think healing is "leet" skillz.
Zach Mar 27th 2009 7:50PM
@joej - You don't PvP.
Autoattacks are $#!+ in PvP because your opponent isn't going to stand still like Patchwerk. Facing problems will also cut down your autoattack frequency by a huge margin.
PvP is all about burst and crit. SoB throughput isn't going to give you nearly enough burst to give a killing opportunity. You need the biggest damage in the smallest window. Judgements provide that. Nerfing this removes a Paladin's biggest nuke. SoC hasn't been nearly as competitive for some time now.
Please don't talk about PvP again.
Clbull Mar 27th 2009 9:02PM
You also forgot the fact that judging Seal of Command on a stun makes it crit. If it means that you can crit 5000+ on a Judgement with this, then you are going to see targets getting bursted down VERY quickly with all the other instants.
Slam down a Hammer of Justice, Judge SoC, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm and you've got your opponent's health down a lot tbh.
SoC isn't useless because of this change. Maybe its affected SoC's usefulness in PvE but PvP wise, I don't think so at all.
joej Mar 27th 2009 9:27PM
I'll try to spell this out for you...
SoB is still better for everything except Judgment.
On judgement it will be the SAME as SoC (minus the crit bonus on stun).
With HoJ going to 40 sec cooldown, your target will be stunned less, not to mention trinket.
SO...
If Judgment on SoC and SoB are EQUAL, you take the STRONGER base attack from SoB.
Damn man, how can you not see that?
Zach Mar 28th 2009 6:04AM
@Joej - Let me spell it out for you.
Autoattacks are BAD for PvP. PvP is about controlled burst, not sustainability. Doesn't matter if you can hit harder with auto, you're not going to kill anyone with an auto-attack.
PvP is about bursting someone down, not whittling them away. Lowered Judgement damage is a NERF to PvP, get that through your head. Doesn't matter how high your sustained throughput is, what matters is how much you can unload in a small amount of time.
You laugh at healers? A healer is a Retribution Paladin's bane. What the hell have you been fighting? Scrubs in greens with no Resilience? A Retadin CANNOT kill an equally geared and skilled healer. Period. Without an interrupt or MS effect, all the damage you unload can be erased with one Riptide or Holy Light. Give me a break. Do you Arena at all?
You don't PvP. Stop talking as if you do.
Magius Mar 27th 2009 2:31PM
I was surprised by the change, it is the first smart one they have done in a while, not to mention that they did a number of similar changes to the other classes.
Gives me hope that they will fix the whole mana regen issue before the patch goes live. Unless I've missed a change to JoW that is.
I think the SoC stun bonus is more of a strategic thing. It is not guaranteed. Given how pvp works the other player/team needs to be geared and have the skills to deal with a stun situation, so I don't think it is much of a problem.
Korey Mar 27th 2009 2:51PM
http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/03/24/paladin-changes-in-patch-3-1-ptr-build-9722/
There's a change to the glyph of SoB in there, and one to JoTW.
Lialia Mar 27th 2009 2:43PM
While to the naked eye these changes look like a move in the right direction, if you go and look at the numbers being worked on the forums, this change leads to a net dps loss.
*facepalm* while GC may be "nuerotic" about buffing ret, they sure don't mind nerfing us while were down
brittwilson Mar 27th 2009 2:48PM
Agreed, they said they were just shuffling the damage around, but they either borked the numbers on accident, or they thought they could get away with nerfing it under the wave on numbers and words in the change.
Either way, the change is against what they said they were doing.
tankadin Mar 27th 2009 3:20PM
I still can't believe there's a new tanking libram that will do absolutely nothing when combined with full t7.5 gear and up. The block that it provides will roll off the combat table, effectively making it useless. Glad to see they're fixing ret as they go
The new prot talents suck btw
Arivia Mar 27th 2009 3:38PM
It's block value, not block rating - so unless you've somehow reached 102.4% miss/dodge/parry with no block (in which case, please share), you will get an uptick in blocks from 1100-1600 to 1600-2100.