Patch 3.3 PTR: Undocumented Paladin changes
by Gregg Reece 
Oct 2nd 2009 at 6:00PM
HOLY
Holy Shock/Holy Light/Blessing of Wisdom/Consecration/Exorcism/Greater Blessing of Wisdom/Holy Wrath/Flash of Light/Blessing of Wisdom: Mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.
While this is something that won't be noticed by those of you raiding Ulduar and the Argent Tournament, it should help out those trying to do Wailing Caverns or Scarlet Monastary as mana can sometimes be an issue at lower levels. As Holy Shock, Holy Light, and Flash of Light are all included, this should make it easier on those of you trying to level as an instance healer.
More after the break.
PROTECTION
Avenger's Shield/Holy Shield: The mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.
Having leveled as a protection paladin, it can be frustrating sometimes with mana problems of not enough attackers or not being able to keep Divine Plea active. Hopefully, this will help with that and allow the leveling paladin a little more leeway when using abilities. Also, the mana reduction for Consecrate mentioned above in the Holy tree is nice as that is a large resource drain even when you've got multiple attackers to help keep your mana up.
RETRIBUTION
Seal of Corruption: Deals [13% of AP + 6.5% of Spell Power] instead of [15% of AP + 7.8% of Spell Power]
While this might look like a 15% damage reduction on the skill according to Ghostcrawler, it isn't. Seal of Corruption's tooltip has been incorrect for a while and they're just fixing it. Seal of Vengeance, on the other hand, had the correct tooltip and didn't need to be changed.
Blessing of Might/Greater Blessing of Might/Hammer of Wrath: The mana cost of their lower ranks reduced.
The Hammer of Wrath part of this change will be fairly helpful while leveling. Otherwise, Blessing of Might usually shouldn't be enough of a mana sink that it causes problems. There is also a lack of any seals or judgements in the list. We've still got a couple months before we'll see 3.3.0 on the live realms, so it's possible more skills will be added to the list.
Overall, nothing all that exciting yet for Paladins on the PTR. Hopefully, we'll see something more interesting than tooltips and leveling skills. Also, some Holy tree love would be nice... maybe... please?
Filed under: Paladin, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Killchrono Oct 2nd 2009 6:05PM
I think Blizz has run out of things to do with Paladins in Wrath. They've already made a gazillion and one major changes from beta to the latest patch, if the change anything more before Cataclysm our heads would explode.
About the only thing I can see them doing is removing Seal of Righteousness as well, since no-one seems to use it anymore.
Rydaan Oct 2nd 2009 7:30PM
have you tried using SoR while grinding? up-front instant damage is way faster than waiting for 5 stacks to proc when the mob's gonna be dead after like 2 procs anyways.
Dazaras Oct 2nd 2009 7:39PM
Seal of Righteousness is the only seal available to low level and mid-level-non-retribution-spec players. Removing it would be all kinds of stupid.
I too was surprised at the definite lack of a Paladin entry on the list of class changes. I'm surprised to say I'd gotten kind of used to a major class mechanics overhaul every major patch. Maybe they'll finally leave us alone? We're pretty well balanced atm, relatively speaking.
JKWood Oct 3rd 2009 2:07PM
I use Seal of Righteousness as an 80 ret for grinding. Haven't respecced Seal of Command yet, but I understand the damage is still competitive.
natelikesoreos Oct 4th 2009 2:17AM
remove SoR? you're a fucking retard.
Thorlo Oct 27th 2009 8:37AM
Even as a tank I like to use SoR because it does more dmg. SoR has been out since the beginning and like someone else said, SoR is the only seal pallies have mid lvl if they arent ret. I think it would be idiotic to take SoR out.
Hyperious Oct 2nd 2009 6:17PM
Well, since holy wrath is incredibly useful as a stun more than as a damage-dealing spell, I think the old bar-bloat issue may come back into play here...
Granted, if a massive aoe-stun to undead costs me less mana because it's dealing less holy damage, I'm fine with it.
Thorlo Oct 27th 2009 8:35AM
No, especially as a tank in places like ToC (5 man) and apparently the new IC, phase 2 with the Black knight's army of the dead spell, if you are a tank if you cast holy wrath, you do massive aoe dmg to all those undead baddies. Even if you are ret, its lots and lots of aoe dmg. If you are healing the instance as a pally, that is when the stun effect comes in handy. Cast holy wrath and r-u-n-n-o-f-t.
syi Oct 2nd 2009 6:23PM
I wish thye'd reverse the changes to prot tanking...
jonas Oct 2nd 2009 6:28PM
The whole "The mana cost of their lower ranks reduced." thing is to do with the fact that lower ranks currently cost MORE than the high ranks. To use hammer of wrath as a prime example, ranks 1, 2, and 3 cost 14% of base mana, where ranks 4, 5, and 6 cost 12%. This type of difference was introduced when they got rid of down-ranking, if I remember correctly. From the wording of the patch notes, it sounds like they're making it so that low rank versions of the spell cost the same % of base mana as the max rank spell.
jonas Oct 2nd 2009 6:33PM
Aha, found the relevant patch note:
* Spell Mana Costs: These costs have been reduced for almost all lower level spell ranks. In general, if a spell decreased in cost with a higher level rank in patch 3.2.0, that spell now has the decreased cost at all ranks. In addition, spells learned before level 20 with reduced cast times and/or durations have even further reduced mana costs, proportionate to their reduction in cast time or damage.
The way I read this is that in my example above, HoW would be 12% base mana across the board, and things like fireball for mages (which has a shorter cast time on ranks 1-4) would have even cheaper of a mana cost; i.e. 19% for ranks 5-16 (instead of 23% for most of those ranks) and maybe as cheap as 9-10% for rank one, etc.
catharsis80 Oct 2nd 2009 6:52PM
Also, when you get past 70, it's easier to get a larger mana pool by way of gear, enchants, and gemming, making OOM'ing harder to do than it was at, say, level 20.
Jamie Oct 3rd 2009 4:44AM
Aren't all spell costs percentage based, so your amount of mana pool doesn't matter, right?
kuri Oct 3rd 2009 6:01AM
It's based off your character's base mana, AKA mana pool before gear is considered. That way it's consistent across characters and spells 'feel' cheaper as you upgrade gear.
Seems kind of silly if a spell would cost more as your mana pool increased, eh? :)
vexis58 Oct 2nd 2009 6:45PM
Man, I was hoping to see some actual undocumented changes here. The lower mana costs for lower ranks are documented, they just toss it into a "many lower level abilities now cost less" rather than listing out exactly which ones for which classes.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Oct 5th 2009 10:15AM
Are the druids down rating this? She makes a good point now that druids can rez out of battle, why should they be the only ones with that spell?
But I one up this, make it so that both priests and paladins can battle rez. Any class that could rez should be able to also battle rez.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Oct 5th 2009 10:16AM
Sorry this was meant for the post below... I don't even know how I clicked this one instead of that one. >
RetPallyJil Oct 2nd 2009 6:48PM
How about giving us battle res, like we should have had all along?
catharsis80 Oct 2nd 2009 6:55PM
Please don't invite more paladin bashing on us, Jil. Blizzard already hates us and makes fun of their own class that THEY designed more than enough already.
Examples:
http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=35575
http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=35576
http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=3803
Dazaras Oct 2nd 2009 7:45PM
Oh yes, lets give us a Bladed Armor type talent too
And misdirect, and fake death and vanish and self rez and have retribution aura heal ourselves by the amount of damage dealt to us.
Am I forgetting anything? Oh, how about eliminating the cooldown on Divine Shield? Lay on Hands?