Holy's new talent tree

This is not the holy revamp that you're looking for. Ghostcrawler (WoW lead systems designer) said that what we're seeing isn't what they're wanting for holy paladins yet. It will likely be a beta build or two before something vaguely final for our class is ready as we're one of the classes lagging towards the back of the pack.
One thing I'm annoyed with (but I believe they're going to fix in an upcoming patch) is that our spell pushback resistance is talented, when just about every other caster appears to be getting it as one of their passive bonuses for picking the tree. Expect some sort of change regarding this in the future.
There are still a couple things to glean from these changes, though. First off, Holy Shock has returned to a healadin-only ability. Blizzard felt that it was important to start giving us the tools we needed to heal earlier on as well as giving us something that can double as a damage ability. Secondly, Beacon of Light (at least for this brief moment) has been tossed higher into the tree so that you can nab it at sometime around level 30.
Also, notice a couple other strange talent interactions, like Purifying Power (sixth tier), which can give you free Judgements when cleansing effects, and Inspired Judgement (third tier), which heals your beacon target when your Judgement hits. So imagine a cleanse-heavy fight. Every time you cleanse, you judge the boss, which heals your beacon target. These talents may not make it to expansion, let alone the next beta build, but they do give us some idea of things that the developers are thinking of.
- Spec Active Ability
- Holy Shock Instant cast. 6 sec cooldown. Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 314 to 340 Holy damage to an enemy, or 481 to 519 healing to an ally.
- Spec Passives
- Meditation Allows ???% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.
- Healing Bonus Increases the effectiveness of your healing spells by ???%.
- Tier 1 talents
- Sanctified Light (3) Increases the critical effect chance of your Judgements and Holy Shock spells by 5/10/15%.
- Spiritual Focus (2) Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Divine Light by 35/70%.
- Divinity (3) Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 2/4/6%.
- Tier 2 talents
- Healing Light (3) Increases the amount healed by your Holy Light, Flash of Light, Divine Light, and the effectiveness of Holy Shock spells by 4/8/12%.
- Improved Lay on Hands (2) Grants the target of your Lay on Hands spell 10/20% reduced physical damage taken for 15 sec. In addition, the cooldown for your Lay on Hands spell is reduced by 2/4 min.
- Judgements of the Pure (3) Your Judgement spell increases your casting and melee haste by 3/6/9% for 1 min.
- Unyielding Faith (2) When you are affected by a Fear or Disorient effect your next spell cast within 15 sec has its cast time reduced by 50/100%.
- Tier 3 talents
- Illumination (3) After getting a critical effect from your abilities you gain mana equal to 10/20/30% of the base cost of the spell.
- Divine Light (1) 2.5 sec cast. Heals a friendly target for 7761.99 to 8648.14.
- Beacon of Light (1) Instant cast. The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all members of your party or raid within a 60 yard radius. Each Holy Light or Holy Shock you cast on party or raid members will also heal the Beacon for 100% of the amount healed. Only one target can be the Beacon of Light at a time. Last 1 min.
- Inspired Judgement (2) Your Judgement spell also heals your Beacon of Light for 50/100% of the damage caused.
- Tier 4 talents
- Infusion of Light (2) Your Holy Shock critical heits reduce the cast time of your next Flash of Light by 0.75/1.5 sec or increase the critical chance of your next Holy Light or Divine Light by 10/20%.
- Blessed Life (2) All attacks against you have a 5/10% chance to cause half damage.
- Enlightened Judgements (2) Increases the range of your Judgement spell by 15/30 yards and grants you hit rating equal to 50/100% of any spirit gained from items or effects.
- Tier 5 talents
- Improved Concentration Aura (3) Increases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an additional 5/10/15% and while any Aura is active reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effects used against an affected group member by 10/20/30%. The duration reduction does not stack with any other effects.
- Aura Mastery (1) Instant. 2 min cooldown. Causes your Concentration Aura to make all affected targets immune to Silence and Interrupt effects and improve the effect of all other auras by 100%. Lasts 6 sec.
- Sacred Cleansing (1) Your Cleans spell now also dispels 1 Magic effect.
- Tier 6 talents
- Purifying Power (2) When you Cleans a harmful effect, you have a 50/100% chance to strike the caster of the harmful effect with your Judgement ability.
- Selfless Healer (3) Your healing spells have a 2/4/6% chance to critically hit when cast on others.
- Tier 7 talents
- Divine Illumination (1) Instant. 3 min cooldown. Increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and attack by 30%.






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
The Dewd Jul 14th 2010 5:09PM
I have to say, I love the way the judgement talents in Holy work with the ones in the first tier of Prot and the first two tiers of Ret. I'm a bit baffled by the fact that Eye for an Eye could (when working with Beacon and Inspired Judgement) passively cause you to heal your beacon target every 2 seconds during an AoE fight. Maybe that's the idea - and if so I really like it. Plus there's all the other judgement talents in Ret that will stack on top of that.
lucajo16 Jul 14th 2010 5:25PM
you forget that you have to go 31 points in a 41 point give. You will never make it to the third tier in any tree again. They killed off the 40/40 talents. So no beacon in your divine storm. XD
The Dewd Jul 14th 2010 7:45PM
Oh, no, I'm not expecting beacon and divine storm. I've got a holy paladin and I'm looking at stuff in the first couple of tiers of ret to go with a nearly fully packed holy tree.
Jacobpadkins Jul 14th 2010 5:22PM
Wait, why is Holy Shock associated with a talent tree? I thought it was going to be a basic, trainable ability.
Gregg Reece Jul 14th 2010 5:26PM
It was before they scrapped the old talent trees. With the new talent trees, they decided it worked better with holy. The paladin trees and abilities are going to be changing a lot over the course of the next few beta builds, so stay tuned.
Saromez Jul 14th 2010 5:27PM
I thought that was Crusader strike, but I may be wrong.
crschmidt Jul 14th 2010 5:28PM
They changed their minds.
Valt Jul 14th 2010 8:26PM
I think its good that they did. Balance issues mostly.
Imagine holy shock being forced to ret rotation? If it does too much damage they will nerf the damage making it useless GCD in raids (but maybe not leveling) maybe even removing damage part.
Imagine holy shock as "death strike" version for prot palas? Prot palas will now take "more damage beacuse they can have self heal on-demand"(see reason dks take more damage: death strike healing) and they would either nerf the healing of it due the amount of QQ about prot palas claiming that they never used it for starters, gimping healers holy shock.
crschmidt Jul 14th 2010 5:29PM
Saromez: It was originally going to be both.
Sergel Jul 14th 2010 5:34PM
With the way the holy tree is looking it looks as tho I may roll a Holy paladin. I like healing, and with Holy Shock and Crusader Strike, soling as a holy spec may not be so bad anymore.
decongle Jul 14th 2010 7:20PM
I have never been anything but holy sence hitting 70, and have never speced into anything else. Even my duel talent spec is just a PVP holy spec, and I have never had a issue leveling (one of the first on my server to hit 80) or soloing anything, even soloed AQ20 in Naxx gear.
shadcroly Jul 14th 2010 6:13PM
I hope Meditation is gonna be strong enough to justify Divine Illumination being changed from a mana conservation cooldown to a +crit cooldown.
Jebediah54 Jul 14th 2010 6:25PM
Am I the only one concerned with how much hit is going to be required for dps?
"and grants you hit rating equal to 50/100% of any spirit gained from items or effects."
Already we're seeing spirit above 1k, so hit rating is going to be insane come Cataclysm. It'll be interesting to see how crucial it is to be hit capped with that much rating needed.
krusty_burger Jul 14th 2010 6:38PM
unyielding faith looks pretty sick.
Jay Jul 14th 2010 6:56PM
I hope there are not too many cleanse-heavy fights like Garfrost coming up if they are making the cleanse heal the tank.
For some reason Garfrost is the one and only fight that always makes me cry a little inside.
Icarys Jul 14th 2010 7:13PM
You shouldn't need to cleanse that fight.
If everyone runs behind a boulder while he is reforging the stacks go away and start again
Jay Jul 14th 2010 7:27PM
And yet, they never do, even when asked to which leaves you in the middle rolling your scroll wheel on them while they keep up MaxDPS on him.
I find I can work through DPS lack of sense/desire to top recount if I havn't needed to blow my bubble on the patrolling drakes before the fight. I can then blow it during Garfrost and catch up.
500ms lag blows some times.
Kren Jul 14th 2010 7:40PM
You could just use frost resistance aura. Using it or the totem generally causes at least 1 out of 10 of the applications to miss and reset the stack.
Jay Jul 14th 2010 8:35PM
That's what is weird, I am good with my situational auras, Things like the ramp up to the tunnel or the run through the slag in HoL or the many mobs using shadow are so easy, yet even with my frost active there never seems to really stop them.
With you saying that I am thinking that it is a totem like range issue (I also have level 80 RestoDruid and RestoShaman) and that I am just not near enough to them all. Cleanse and run with the group during that pushback is just beyond my skills so I tend to stand still in the middle, that probably is putting them outside my aura. Something to try the next time it pops; stop all cleansing and move closer to the group.
Somedays I think we all have one nemesis fight, this one so far is mine and only on my pally. I can heal it on every other class I have without even raising a sweat.
G-Wiz Jul 14th 2010 7:09PM
No mention of Beacon of Light excluding Flash of Light heals? That seems like a pretty big change to me...