Prot Paladin Changes (Updated)

[Infinus]

After playing Turtle Wow for some time, I have given Protection Paladins some serious thought. I have provided a breakdown of talents and abilities below that I feel would make Protection a much more flavorful spec to play and making them somewhat viable in raids, but still not as perfect as Protection Warriors for big boss fights.

When looking over these talent changes, you will notice a dramatic difference in the required number of points spent in the Protection tree. This is because the Retribution tree points are very cheap and go a long way compared to the ridiculously expensive talents in the Protection tree.

Effectively, the points are not actually massive when you consider the new changes.
Protection Paladins lose access to Vengeance and Seal of Command with this new build and Paladins must choose between One Handed Weapons Specialization talent or having Improved Retribution Aura. Aoe dmg vs Single target dmg flavor choice.

I really like the intended function of classic Protection Paladins, a tank that slowly drains their target through attritional damage.
Essentially, Holy bleeds that come from multiple sources of passive abilities. Ret aura/Holy Shield/Sanctuary/Shield Spikes/ETC.

I wanted to build on this idea that Protection Paladins are not immediate damage dealers, but stack damage over time and build threat slowly but surely over time for tanking purposes. This makes for incredibly fun gameplay, but also keeps the spirit and functional place of Paladins in the tanking tiers.

What is the end goal here? Make Protection paladins a very viable, but second choice tank, behind Protection Warriors.
Allow Protection Paladins to enjoy themselves with entertaining gameplay and not constantly fight an uphill battle. Protection Paladins should be able to MT most bosses in raids and hold threat on their intended targets. Swapping Protection Warriors and Paladins depending on the fight would be a nice change of pace. Edited

(Talent)Improved Devotion Aura 2/2: Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 15%(Total 30%) per rank. Devotion Aura also grants the Paladin 4% Stamina per rank(Total 8%).

- Devotion Aura is largely useless to Prot paladins in it's current state. This change helps Paladins soak damage from
raid/dungeon bosses without also buffing them during AOE farming(which they already are good at). This means this
buff really only buffs the Paladin in specific situations and is not a flat-out increase at all times. It could also be tied to
"Requires a Shield to be equipped". Obviously, this talent will only benefit the Paladin casting it and not the party they are in. Think of this as almost a defensive stance.

(Talent) Redout 3/3: No changes except 10% per rank(Total 30%).

-Dropping cost to 3 points to be used in conjunction with Improved Devotion Aura.

(Talent)Toughness 5/5: Increases your armor value from items by 4% per rank(Total 20%) and reduces damage taken from spells by 3% per rank(Total 15%).

-Toughness is an expensive talent for only a 10% armor buff. This talent would be best suited for deeper in the Protection tree as to not benefit Retribution. If you look at other classes, the majority of 5/5 talents are vital to their build. This would give Paladins a decent hardiness to melee damage as well as a bit of magic protection, considering the lack of a spell reflect. Protection paladins do not use bubble during PvE encounters, as they are the tank and lose all threat.

(Talent)Anticipation 3/3: While under the effects of Righteous Fury, increase the Paladin's chance to block by 2% per rank(Total 6%).

-Anticipation is known to be the worst talent in the Protection tree. 5 ranks for only 10 defense is completely worthless. The block could also be replaced with a dodge increase. Knocking this down to 3 points allows Prot paladins to learn the next talent change listed.

(Talent)Improved Hammer of Justice: Delete. Replace with:
Holy Ground 2/2 : Increases the threat generated by Consecration and all affected targets are slowed
by 10%(Max 20%) per rank. Targets affected by Consecration cannot flee.

-Consecration is a wildly expensive ability for Protection paladins but is also the bread and butter of aoe threat. This
allows the Paladin to keep mobs nearby and a speed/time buffer to re-target and aggro loose mobs. The anti-flee mechanic would be a really nice flavor add to Prot paladins that would make them unique to other tanks, but it is not as necessary as the extra threat.

(Talent) Improved Righteous Fury 2/2: Increases the amount of threat generated by your Righteous Fury spell
by 30% per rank(Total 60%).

- 10% threat buff, nothing major. Dropped to 2 required points.

(Talent) Improved Seal of Justice 3/3: Replace with:
(Talent) Seal of Justice 1/1. Melee attacks strike two additional targets and apply Holy Justice, which deals 50 holy damage
over 15 seconds. Holy Justice can stack up to 5 times. Each of the Paladin's weapon attacks also deal up to 25% weapon
damage as additional holy damage, based on the number of Holy Justice stacks applied to the target.

- This obviously is an aoe version of Seal of Vengeance, with a slightly less bonus damage multiplier. This would be extremely
beneficial to hold threat on multiple targets in dungeons and aoe farming would be much more entertaining, not to mention
questing would be much better.


(Talent) Reckoning 2/2: Gives you a 17.5% chance per rank(Total 35%) to gain an extra attack after successfully blocking an attack. That can only happen once every 5 seconds.
Updated Reckoning change after discussion in Discord.
(Talent) Reckoning 2/2: Gives you a 20% chance per rank(Total 40%) to gain an extra attack with an additional 60% holy damage after successfully blocking an attack. That can only happen once every 6 seconds.

-Reckoning is currently never taken in favor of Vengeance in order to deal more damage and hold threat. This could be averted by making Reckoning actually aid in damage. Vengeance is also super RNG dependent and leaves the paladin without threat generation often. By giving this ability a higher probability of the extra swing, but capping how often it happens, gives the paladin a sustained damage increase without making it a lottery jackpot when aoe tanking multiple mobs. These updates were applied after discussing the damage output of vengeance being far superior to even the Reckoning changes. This attack would also stack with the updated Seal of Justice aoe changes.

(Talent) One-Handed Weapon Specialization 2/2: Dropped to 2 points from 5. Increases the damage you deal with one-handed
melee weapons by 5% per rank(Total 10%).

- This talent is a flavor choice for the Paladin. They can either choose this talent or dig into the Retribution tree and finish off their points with Improved Retribution Aura. Trade off is increased damage to 3 melee targets vs increased damage to 4+ targets.

(Talent) Ardent Defender 1/1: Reduce all damage taken by 35% for 15 seconds and regenerate 15% of your mana over that time. 2 minute cooldown.
Updated Ardent Defender after Discord discussion.
(Talent) Ardent Defender 1/1: Reduce all damage taken by 35% for 15 seconds and increase your threat generation by 30% for 15 seconds. 1.5 minute cooldown.

- Ardent Defender has been skipped over by every decent Protection Paladin due to it's benefit almost never working. If a Paladin reaches 25% health, even a 35% reduction in damage will not stop them from being one-shot. It would be nice to have a panic button when boss fights get hairy or a quick mana boost if you make a mana mistake. The updates to the changes were made because other Paladins felt that mana management should not be as forgiving as this change would allow. Also, threat generation for later tiers of raiding has become problematic, this change would assist the paladin with holding threat for the duration of fights.

Updates: 8-8-23

(Ability) Hand Of Reckoning. Taunts the target to attack you. If the target is tauntable and not currently attacking you, deal (1*0.5 Spell Power) holy damage. Costs 5% total mana. 25 second cooldown.

This ability was given to paladins in wrath pre patch because it solved so many issues with core mechanics. The Paladin community has been begging for it. With the change to seal of justice, a taunt will still be needed for major fights. This should not be useable on PvP targets. I increased the mana cost from 3 to 5% because many paladins want mana conservation to be a prime consideration for paladins.

[Getplucked]

Dungeons are buffed here and mobs hit almost 2x harder than they did in Classic.

Initial pull costs 50% of my mana and leaves no room for error.

You're doing something wrong.

I usually go below 10% health multiple times.

Tell your healer to stop falling asleep.

[Geojak]

You dotn have defensive stance or bear fo and lower base health than those classes. Yes you die way quicker. Out lvl the dungeon, out gear it at max lvl. Ony way to cope or use consumables to make up for it

[Gantulga]

There's this cool thing called CC. AoE pulls are for when you're overgeared and overleveled.

[Regaldandin]

you're doing something very wrong, never had this issue. I have been able to pull 4-6 mobs 1-2 levels below me at a time without any cds since level 24 with w.e gear i had from questing

[Hctwowfan]

you're doing something very wrong, never had this issue. I have been able to pull 4-6 mobs 1-2 levels below me at a time without any cds since level 24 with w.e gear i had from questing

Where? Inside the deeprun tram area? Those pesky kebabs! I call bs. 4-6 lvl 22-23 mobs per pull in regular ass quest gear? Vid or it didn't happen.

EDIT: srsly tho, there's a reason why druids and warriors use rage to tank. Mana based tanking is just an uphill battle.

[Reploidrocsa]

Why don't you try druid or warrior then? I also tried warrior tanking, didn't like it, switched to druid tanking and i love it. You have a general idea on how paladins work, now try another tank and see if it works better or worse.

Once you decided, you can use your other characters as lv 35 profession alts to xmute for you and get easy $$$

[Regaldandin]

you're doing something very wrong, never had this issue. I have been able to pull 4-6 mobs 1-2 levels below me at a time without any cds since level 24 with w.e gear i had from questing

Where? Inside the deeprun tram area? Those pesky kebabs! I call bs. 4-6 lvl 22-23 mobs per pull in regular ass quest gear? Vid or it didn't happen.

EDIT: srsly tho, there's a reason why druids and warriors use rage to tank. Mana based tanking is just an uphill battle.

You gain mana when you block, the more mobs you pull the more you block. around 4-6 mobs depending on there attack speed is enough to have enough mana to continually cast consecrate

Its really not rocketscience, you pull the mobs, consecrate with ret aura and sanctuary blessing and the thorns+consecrate kills them

At 30 you judge seal of light to survive from the parry haste.

[Allwynd01]

Paladins will never be as good tanks as Warriors and I'm saying it as a Paladin main. Every other Paladin I've seen that attempts to tank in dungeons, is the same - barely holds aggro, almost on the brink of death, etc. That's why my Paladin is Retribution and uses a Polearm.

[Redmagejoe]

Paladins will never be as good tanks as Warriors and I'm saying it as a Paladin main. Every other Paladin I've seen that attempts to tank in dungeons, is the same - barely holds aggro, almost on the brink of death, etc. That's why my Paladin is Retribution and uses a Polearm.

You've only ever seen shitty Tankadins then.

Not saying that there isn't room for improvement in class changes for Tankadin, but none of these things you've described reflect my experience.

[Foobs]

I've been tanking since level 20. Getting hit on by the mob hasn't been an issue. There are times I feel squishy but only when I'm in an instance equal level to me. Earlier I did go OOM very fast but since I got Seal of Wisdom its been a lot easier.

The only problem I run into is DPS not waiting for me to raise agroe before they start dpsing. As soon as I even point in the mobs directions mages, hunters and warlocks have already started casting/shooting even before I have reached the mob. When that happens I let them have it. I will always be blamed for anyone dying but if DPS doesn't understand their role in this I don't think I'm to blame and just ignore the ensuing QQ.

Don't let DPS run the group. Either the tank or healer say when to go or don't expect the group to last very long.

THIS IS NOT RETAIL WOW!!

It's a whole lot different. Control the group or just cut your losses. You as a tank or healer will always get groups MUCH faster than the DPS. Best thing about Tanking or healing, you don't have to deal with man baby's you just que again and 5 to ten minutes later your trucking to your next level or item.

[Infinus]

I understand that this isn't retail... but isn't that the reason we are playing this server?? It is basically Classic plus, so they can right the wrongs. The wrongs are, prot paladins and bear druids should be able to tank end game content on a near equal basis as warrior tanks.

Otherwise, we are just in the same exact meta as true classic and there is no reason for anyone to be a druid, paladin, etc when you can just take 20 warriors.

[Drubarrymooer]

I understand that this isn't retail... but isn't that the reason we are playing this server?? It is basically Classic plus, so they can right the wrongs. The wrongs are, prot paladins and bear druids should be able to tank end game content on a near equal basis as warrior tanks.

Otherwise, we are just in the same exact meta as true classic and there is no reason for anyone to be a druid, paladin, etc when you can just take 20 warriors.

As a feral tank main, I heartily agree. Paladins need a deep prot ability that can make them feel less squishy. You shouldn't have to outgear the content to make it tankeable.

[Aeternusdoleo]

As a feral tank main, I heartily agree. Paladins need a deep prot ability that can make them feel less squishy. You shouldn't have to outgear the content to make it tankeable.

Yea, and I nominate the last ability "Ardent Defender" to be reworked for this. Maybe a stackable, short duration heavy buff to defense or armor upon receiving a crit (which makes you tankier the more you get hit). What it does now is just pointless...

[Drubarrymooer]

Yea, and I nominate the last ability "Ardent Defender" to be reworked for this. Maybe a stackable, short duration heavy buff to defense or armor upon receiving a crit (which makes you tankier the more you get hit). What it does now is just pointless...

I wouldn't call it pointless. As someone who mained a horde pally tank in OG TBC and WOTLK, its a decent talent. However, in twow, the current state of pally tanking, I agree it should be reworked. iirc, in tbc and wotlk it was a high tier talent, but not the end tier. Maybe have it add more dodge or additional charges to holy shield or a stam buff. Something.

[Infinus]

After playing Turtle Wow for some time, I have given Protection Paladins some serious thought. I have provided a breakdown of talents and abilities below that I feel would make Protection a much more flavorful spec to play and making them somewhat viable in raids, but still not as perfect as Protection Warriors for big boss fights.

When looking over these talent changes, you will notice a dramatic difference in the required number of points spent in the Protection tree. This is because the Retribution tree points are very cheap and go a long way compared to the ridiculously expensive talents in the Protection tree.

Effectively, the points are not actually massive when you consider the new changes.
Protection Paladins lose access to Vengeance and Seal of Command with this new build and Paladins must choose between One Handed Weapons Specialization talent or having Improved Retribution Aura. Aoe dmg vs Single target dmg flavor choice.

I really like the intended function of classic Protection Paladins, a tank that slowly drains their target through attritional damage.
Essentially, Holy bleeds that come from multiple sources of passive abilities. Ret aura/Holy Shield/Sanctuary/Shield Spikes/ETC.

I wanted to build on this idea that Protection Paladins are not immediate damage dealers, but stack damage over time and build threat slowly but surely over time for tanking purposes. This makes for incredibly fun gameplay, but also keeps the spirit and functional place of Paladins in the tanking tiers.

What is the end goal here? Make Protection paladins a very viable, but second choice tank, behind Protection Warriors.
Allow Protection Paladins to enjoy themselves with entertaining gameplay and not constantly fight an uphill battle. Protection Paladins should be able to MT most bosses in raids and hold threat on their intended targets. Swapping Protection Warriors and Paladins depending on the fight would be a nice change of pace. Edited

(Talent)Improved Devotion Aura 2/2: Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 15%(Total 30%) per rank. Devotion Aura also grants the Paladin 4% Stamina per rank(Total 8%).

- Devotion Aura is largely useless to Prot paladins in it's current state. This change helps Paladins soak damage from
raid/dungeon bosses without also buffing them during AOE farming(which they already are good at). This means this
buff really only buffs the Paladin in specific situations and is not a flat-out increase at all times. It could also be tied to
"Requires a Shield to be equipped". Obviously, this talent will only benefit the Paladin casting it and not the party they are in. Think of this as almost a defensive stance.

(Talent) Redout 3/3: No changes except 10% per rank(Total 30%).

-Dropping cost to 3 points to be used in conjunction with Improved Devotion Aura.

(Talent)Toughness 5/5: Increases your armor value from items by 4% per rank(Total 20%) and reduces damage taken from spells by 3% per rank(Total 15%).

-Toughness is an expensive talent for only a 10% armor buff. This talent would be best suited for deeper in the Protection tree as to not benefit Retribution. If you look at other classes, the majority of 5/5 talents are vital to their build. This would give Paladins a decent hardiness to melee damage as well as a bit of magic protection, considering the lack of a spell reflect. Protection paladins do not use bubble during PvE encounters, as they are the tank and lose all threat.

(Talent)Anticipation 3/3: While under the effects of Righteous Fury, increase the Paladin's chance to block by 2% per rank(Total 6%).

-Anticipation is known to be the worst talent in the Protection tree. 5 ranks for only 10 defense is completely worthless. The block could also be replaced with a dodge increase. Knocking this down to 3 points allows Prot paladins to learn the next talent change listed.

(Talent)Improved Hammer of Justice: Delete. Replace with:
Holy Ground 2/2 : Increases the threat generated by Consecration and all affected targets are slowed
by 10%(Max 20%) per rank. Targets affected by Consecration cannot flee.

-Consecration is a wildly expensive ability for Protection paladins but is also the bread and butter of aoe threat. This
allows the Paladin to keep mobs nearby and a speed/time buffer to re-target and aggro loose mobs. The anti-flee mechanic would be a really nice flavor add to Prot paladins that would make them unique to other tanks, but it is not as necessary as the extra threat.

(Talent) Improved Righteous Fury 2/2: Increases the amount of threat generated by your Righteous Fury spell
by 30% per rank(Total 60%).

- 10% threat buff, nothing major. Dropped to 2 required points.

(Talent) Improved Seal of Justice 3/3: Replace with:
(Talent) Seal of Justice 1/1. Melee attacks strike two additional targets and apply Holy Justice, which deals 50 holy damage
over 15 seconds. Holy Justice can stack up to 5 times. Each of the Paladin's weapon attacks also deal up to 25% weapon
damage as additional holy damage, based on the number of Holy Justice stacks applied to the target.

- This obviously is an aoe version of Seal of Vengeance, with a slightly less bonus damage multiplier. This would be extremely
beneficial to hold threat on multiple targets in dungeons and aoe farming would be much more entertaining, not to mention
questing would be much better.


(Talent) Reckoning 2/2: Gives you a 17.5% chance per rank(Total 35%) to gain an extra attack after successfully blocking an attack. That can only happen once every 5 seconds.
Updated Reckoning change after discussion in Discord.
(Talent) Reckoning 2/2: Gives you a 20% chance per rank(Total 40%) to gain an extra attack with an additional 60% holy damage after successfully blocking an attack. That can only happen once every 6 seconds.

-Reckoning is currently never taken in favor of Vengeance in order to deal more damage and hold threat. This could be averted by making Reckoning actually aid in damage. Vengeance is also super RNG dependent and leaves the paladin without threat generation often. By giving this ability a higher probability of the extra swing, but capping how often it happens, gives the paladin a sustained damage increase without making it a lottery jackpot when aoe tanking multiple mobs. These updates were applied after discussing the damage output of vengeance being far superior to even the Reckoning changes. This attack would also stack with the updated Seal of Justice aoe changes.

(Talent) One-Handed Weapon Specialization 2/2: Dropped to 2 points from 5. Increases the damage you deal with one-handed
melee weapons by 5% per rank(Total 10%).

- This talent is a flavor choice for the Paladin. They can either choose this talent or dig into the Retribution tree and finish off their points with Improved Retribution Aura. Trade off is increased damage to 3 melee targets vs increased damage to 4+ targets.

(Talent) Ardent Defender 1/1: Reduce all damage taken by 35% for 15 seconds and regenerate 15% of your mana over that time. 2 minute cooldown.
Updated Ardent Defender after Discord discussion.
(Talent) Ardent Defender 1/1: Reduce all damage taken by 35% for 15 seconds and increase your threat generation by 30% for 15 seconds. 1.5 minute cooldown.

- Ardent Defender has been skipped over by every decent Protection Paladin due to it's benefit almost never working. If a Paladin reaches 25% health, even a 35% reduction in damage will not stop them from being one-shot. It would be nice to have a panic button when boss fights get hairy or a quick mana boost if you make a mana mistake. The updates to the changes were made because other Paladins felt that mana management should not be as forgiving as this change would allow. Also, threat generation for later tiers of raiding has become problematic, this change would assist the paladin with holding threat for the duration of fights.

[Infinus]

Please see my new forum post. I have stopped complaining and decided to give advice on how to fix protection paladins here:

viewtopic.php?t=8650

[Noephix]

Tank needs some form of a taunt to be raid-viable. That's just how vanilla WoW dungeon/raid design is. There are already too many fights that pala can't tank (manaburn fights, Chrommagus). Exclude paladins from taunt-swap fights in addition to that - and you might as well just delete prot tree from the game.

[Infinus]

So you are referring to the Seal of Justice "taunt". Which this build obviously takes away. Let me take some time to think about how I could work a taunt ability into the Prot tree.

I think a good possible trade-off could be a taunt that causes forbearance.

[Khagrim]

Some advice for lvling prot pallies
You don't need strength, it does nothing for you
Try to find mail/plate of the Eagle (stam/int). More int = more mana = more Consecrations and Holy Shields
Quests usually don't reward int mail/plate so your best bet is AH. You don't need to buy a mount at 40 so you should have enough gold.
Use a fast weapon. Seals and Judgements of Light and Wisdom don't have ppm so fast weapon = more procs = more mana which seems to be the main problem pre 60.
Your best weapon for mana regen is a lvl 33 green Knightly Longsword with a whoping 1.5 speed. You can use it all the way to 60 cause there are no faster weapons that pallys can use. Flurry Axe is slightly better but is a world drop epic so costs accordingly. Maybe TWoW added more fast weapons, will check database.
Engineering is great. Grenades are a great way to range pull and get some initial aggro and you can use Target Dummies if a pull goes wrong.
Don't bother with keeping aggro on all things all the time. It's Vanilla and it's almost impossible for any class at low lvl. If skull runs away from you let the dps finish it and switch to the next target. If dps complain ignore them.
Use 2-3 Consecrations in a pull, be conservative with your mana. Use rank 1 Consecration if you really need more after the initial 2

[Khagrim]

I think the should stop with that vanilla flavour nonsense and just give pallies straight up taunt ability.

[Infinus]

Updates: 8-8-23

(Ability) Hand Of Reckoning. Taunts the target to attack you. If the target is tauntable and not currently attacking you, deal (1*0.5 Spell Power) holy damage. Costs 5% total mana. 25 second cooldown.

This ability was given to paladins in wrath pre patch because it solved so many issues with core mechanics. The Paladin community has been begging for it. With the change to seal of justice, a taunt will still be needed for major fights. This should not be useable on PvP targets. I increased the mana cost from 3 to 5% because many paladins want mana conservation to be a prime consideration for paladins.

I wanted to touch more on this:

I proposed to replace the mechanics of Seal of Justice completely, because prot needs it's own damage seal that works with it's gameplay. The changes to the seal allow Prot to stack aggro on their targets and secondary targets along with actually producing damage to their target.

Right now, Prot has a serious inability to deal any significant damage, which is why all raid tanking Paladins have swapped over to a 2H ret-heavy build. Without a 2H weapon, they can't hold threat reliably. With a combination of a true taunt and a damage-stacking seal, prot can finally hold threat in raids and dungeons.

Also, with a 5% mana cost and a 25-second cooldown. You actually have to plan your taunts.

[Hellion]

Any reason to skip over righteous defense, the taunt that was added in TBC? it worked wonderfully for me and i tanked everything in TBC classic. it fits well in line with the multiple mob trash tank theme that's already present with the class/spec.
-you deal with twice the CD of the warrior's taunt(17 seconds IIRC)
-you can get aggro of up to 3 mobs at once
-works by casting it on the player, rather than the mob.(this can be worked around via macro making it apply to the mob's target.)

i agree about giving the class seal of vengeance although its not necessary to make it hit multiple mobs. I think you have more than enough of that with all the passive attacks like consecration and blessing of sanctuary. if something should be added to hit multiple mobs, i think it should be something with snap threat like judgement of righteousness. maybe it could hit 2 extra mobs by putting points into an existing or some new talent. although I still don't really feel it needs it.

Ardent Defender TBC version was junk even then and adding it into vanilla was a mistake if they weren't going to buff it. It doesn't need to be OP cheese like WotLK though. making it a panic button I agree with. Not as beefy as shield wall with the 30ish % damage reduction and maybe it could gain some kind of effect that makes it better for tanking multiple mobs.

kind of going on and on here but just wanted to share more opinions because I love the class and its theme.

One thing I would love to see added to the talent tree in exchange for some of the useless stuff, is something to increase shield block value via stacking a stat. right now, 20 points of strength gives just 1 block value. its not very good to be frank. Block value's strength for a paladin lies in tanking several mobs at once. instead of stacking tons of HP for tanking through singular big hits, when tanking lots of mobs who each hit for a small amount, shaving down that amount by raising block value is the way to go. There is a talent that increases block value by 30% but I think there should be an option to stack stats to increase it farther. as it is now, there just isn't enough block value in game to make it worth stacking and strength gives too little return. buffing the return from strength might be good but another route could be intelligence. With the current shield block talent, you may actually want to stack Intelligence, because if you have a larger mana pool, you will receive more mana back when blocking. all the while your base spell costs remain the same.

another talent thats total junk in its current state is the one handed sword specialization. the way its currently worded, the only thing it will increase is the actual sword swing's damage. this will increase your SoR very slightly but not enough to make it worth it. In TBC it was changed to give a 10% increase to all damage. That's probably too hot for vanilla though. considering that righteous fury only increases threat caused by holy damage, the increased white damage from your sword swing is next to worthless and absolutely not worth 5 talent points.

Devotion aura is a tough one. its not very good for tanking because its not enough armor to really compete with the threat gains of sanctity aura or retribution aura. I think it would be a step in the right direction to make it increase armor farther or add some kind of scaling armor buff. another direction you could go is to make it encompass all the defensive auras. shadow resist, fire resist, frost resist... if the talent buffed those that could be appealing. a 3rd idea would be reducing all damage by a flat % like we got from Righteous Fury in TBC. that gave us 6% total damage reduction with 3 points into the RF talent. not sure if 6% would be too much but we def don't want to step on warrior's toes with their 10% damage reduction via defensive stance. besides, we have a lot of auras, none of them should be over or underpowered in a perfect world.

Thats all I can think of for now but I really do like a lot of the stuff you've brought up and suggested. I don't want our class to be overpowered but I do think its reasonable to want to make some of the useless parts of its kit more useful. IDK how often the Devs read this stuff or how much of it is actually possible to change but I'd be happy to throw more suggestions or insight out there.

[Infinus]

Thank you for checking out the suggested changes!

I do have a problem with the multi-taunt from tbc because if you want to pull an add off the MT, you end up pulling the boss too. I also like how hand of reckoning does a bit of damage to help build threat and allow you to range pull packs(due to pallies not having a bow).

I would be fine with seal of vengeance only being single target, but I think it is more flavorful to have a lighter aoe addition to the ability since consecration is so expensive.

[Karico]

Thank you for checking out the suggested changes!

I do have a problem with the multi-taunt from tbc because if you want to pull an add off the MT, you end up pulling the boss too. I also like how hand of reckoning does a bit of damage to help build threat and allow you to range pull packs(due to pallies not having a bow).

I would be fine with seal of vengeance only being single target, but I think it is more flavorful to have a lighter aoe addition to the ability since consecration is so expensive.

reading this makes me want to play a pally just a problem finding the confidence in confiding that much time in a class that might not be worth it

[Jrobz]

Lots of good ideas here. Lemme add mine and some back story.

I tanked on Paladin all through Classic Vanilla and raid Tanked through BWL. I had full T2, Scarab, DPS caster rings, 400 +SP, etc. Having actually done this, while trying NOT to BoK spam (aka IMO play it 'right'), the primary issues I saw are:

Constant (1-60) on no decent pull
Mid (20-60) Severe mana issue due to gearing options - drink after every pull
Late (when DPS is in full raid gear) on our Shields dont scale for damage reduction
Late (when DPS is in full raid gear) our threat, single target AND AoE, does not hold up to reasonable DPS

Gear:
Add a Libram to use as a pull - How about a +%5 Holy DMG taken debuff as option instead of hammer for our Main lvl 20 Quest
Int/Stam gear would be nice 1-59
Love the T1 changes!!

Talents:
Toughness - 2/4/6/8/10 +DEF and increases armor bonus of shield by 20/40/60/80/100%
Anticipation - SBV is increased by 5/10/15/20/25% of your INT
Rek - Procs on block instead of crit - Reset Cooldown of Holy Strike
1H Specialization - 3/6/9/12/15% ALL DMG increased while a shield is equipped
Imp Holy Shield (Instead of AD - Make the end talent worth taking..) - Successful Procs/Blocks Refresh Consecration, threat from HolyShield + 50%, and it gets much more coef of your SP for more DMG

Misc Thoughts:
I like the Judge = Taunt idea of the current Justice, just make it work as a taunt all the time as a base skill. All Warriors get taunt. We can get 8s Judge CDs.

The above changes should more or less incentivize Tankadins to go deep Prot instead of Hybrid due to gimmick hunting in a broken system.

At the end of my Classic Vanilla journey, I spec'd into a Hybrid for Shock due to insane burst threat and the shield just not doing much.

Given the above changes, my spec:

https://talents.turtle-wow.org/paladin/5-5K1LU1Z6-5CU

[Jrobz]

Another big picture Pally idea:

Tune the entire class, all three specs, to a gearing pallet of, let's say, T2: STR, INT, STAM, SP, MP5

Give Holy a reason to have Strength, SP vs exclusively Healing, etc (Ex. +Heal from % of STR)

Give Prot a reason to have Strength, INT, etc (Ex. SBV from INT, SP from STR, etc)

Give Ret a reason to have INT, SP, etc (Ex. AP/Hit from INT, Spell scaling tweaks)

[Casavir]

Just make scaling 3 AP = 1 SP like it was on Nost. This change will cure our broken class. Strength will be really our primary stat.

[Jrobz]

That certainly isn't a bad idea as that sweeps over the itemization issue among a few other things.

If STR/AP is to be a major stat for (at least Prot/Ret) Paladins, drawing in significantly more SBV from STR could fix the Shield scaling/survivability issues. The other core viability issue is Tank Paladins going Ret in later stages of content due to Prot threat ceilings. My more broader changes seek to fix both of these while keeping Prot the tank tree tookit through out the 1-60 and end game.

Just like the Druid Bear, you never want the Hybrid classes to be broadly superior to the Mainline Class at their niche, but I think the game has enough varied encounters to where a Hybrid tank can have moments of shining and still be broadly capable of filling the role. I would think this is a worthy design goal for Druid and Paladin tanks. I think if we tune this 'ideally', RAIDs would be optimized by having a Tank of each type. My Guild tried this in Classic Vanilla, and it more or less worked well through BWL, though Paladin was the first to cap out in late Phase 4 (PreAQ) just as Bear was really just getting gearing to shine. Bear was not in a great spot until BWL gear.

[Springboards]

stack eagle gear, you wont have a problem levels 1-30. Running around in 1.2k health untwinked at lvl 20. Its also dirt cheap on AH since virtually no class can use it--you do NOT have a mana problem

use the auction house, its there for a reason. Paladin gear is dirt cheap since no class can use eagle mail before 40

[Casavir]

We are hardcore. We can't use AH.

[Siflisk1]

One handed weapon spec:. (5 ranks) Converts 6% per rank damage dealt by 1 handed weapons to holy damage.

Vs usual 30% npc armor this is 9% damage increase and 27% more threat per auto attack with talented righteous fury. Also makes it easier to use different seals if holy on swing is defaulted.



I like the idea of something like elemental focus/omen of clarity reducing the cost of your next holy strike, consecrate, or holy shield.


Would love 5% parry to be tier 1 instead of tier 2 in ret.

Will have to have a stamina increasing talent since paladin gear will require so many stats the stamina budget will be lower.

[Munra]

My suggestion to fix squishiness is to give prot palas Sacred Shield.

[Poggo]

I feel like literally every post about prot paladin misses the mark entirely.

Prot pally suffers from two major points - itemization and crits/crushings

Itemization has been worked at consistently and with spec based tier should be pretty good

That leaves crits and crushes, pallies need something in their talent tree which works similar to survival of the fittest or shield block, something that makes crit immunity feasible.

A pally will never be a viable raid tank unless they're no longer under the threat of being crit for 7-8k.

[Calli]

Self healing is the way to improve survivability and threat and make the paladin unique. So I suggest to give top tier prot talent based on this idea. For example when reckoning procs on critical hit that would allow the paladin to heal himself with an instant holy light to mitigate the damage and gain a shield equal the healing. This can happen like once in 20 seconds or something like that to be good with the numbers. This heal would also generate threat under righteous fury. Do not copy warriors or wanting to be like them and make spell power more desirable than strength