With the release of the 10.0.7 PTR over the last few weeks, we have seen several class changes to the Paladin class including changes for Protection, Retribution and Holy. 10.0.5 did not bring much except some minor quality of life changes for Holy. Protection and Retribution were effectively unchanged compared to launch day Dragonflight.
Looking at the current state of live balance, Protection Paladins are not a “meta” spec this tier. It’s not a highly popular spec for raids — most Mythic teams are progressing with Death Knight and Warrior tanks with very few Paladins who have cleared 8/8M. And for Mythic Plus, Paladins are strong but again Warrior and Death Knight tanks have higher representation in higher keys. Andybrew is once again pushing the highest Mythic+ on Paladin but looking at the larger population, Protection Paladin is not that popular.
Paladins have been patiently waiting since beta for their day in the sun as other classes saw major changes repeatedly while Paladins saw really none. The class tree is effectively the same as it was in early Dragonflight alpha builds. There were some changes and iterations during alpha and beta to address feedback but none of them were really that satisfying. But based on the PTR, it seems like improving the gameplay experience for Paladins is now a focus!
In this article, I’ll be going over the changes for Protection Paladins in 10.0.7 and why I think it’s a vast improvement compared to 10.0.5.
About the Author
This content was written by Lincoln. He is a moderator for the Hammer of Wrath Community where he helps players on a daily basis get better at playing Protection. Feel free to message him questions, comments or concerns about what you read here.
You can find him posting random opinions on Twitter.
First, let’s start with some of the improvements in the Paladin Class tree.
Paladin Class Tree: More Generic Options
The first major change to the Paladin class tree, especially early in the tree before the 8-point gate, was just increasing the number of generic options available. Generic options are talents that can be used in any situation and the 10.0.5 tree was lacking them. As an example, in 10.0.5 we were forced into talents like Fist of Justice since it was required for Greater Judgment but in raid situations, those two points were effectively zeros. 10.0.7 solves problems like this in a meaningful way by making talents like Fist of Justice independent and skippable. If I want to drop Fist of Justice because it’s not useful, I can spend a point on Obduracy instead for something passive and generic.
Paladin Class Tree: More High Value Nodes
They increased the value of existing nodes through buffs or redesigns. Seal of Might was redesigned to be active all the time instead of just during Avenging Wrath. Seal of Alacrity now affects the Judgment cooldown. Judgment of Light was buffed to be more impactful for small group content. They also added new nodes like Sanctified Plates and Faith’s Armor that make Paladins more survivable. In 10.0.7, spending a talent point in the class tree will have more weight and feel a lot better.
Paladin Class Tree: Improved Gameplay
The redesign of Of Dusk and Dawn reduces some of the gameplay pressure on Protection Paladin to maintain so many buffs. It was quite common for Protection Paladins to message me that they were having trouble maintaining Blessing of Dawn, while also keeping up Shield of the Righteous. The 10.0.5 version of Of Dusk and Dawn restricted your Holy power usage quite a bit as there was this inherent conflict of trying to maintain a damage buff or core defensive mechanic. Additionally, procs like Divine Purpose or Seal of Charity would disrupt the ability to refresh either buff. It was one of the reasons why those talents were dropped when people were looking to truly min/max. Now that Blessing of Dawn is tied to buttons that generate Holy power, it should happen more naturally without needing to juggle so many buffs and procs. Blessing of Dusk will now proc. when Blessing of Dawn is consumed — again something that will be natural as you use any Holy Power spender.
They also removed a few procs namely, Seal of Charity and Aspiration of Divinity. While they weren’t the most impactful talents, it just cleans up buff tracking, and UI overload. Sometimes cutting down on this is better for gameplay and in this case it is.
Just like the class tree, the Protection spec tree on the 10.0.7 PTR is a vast improvement over live. Let’s talk about why.
Protection Spec Tree: Improved Pathing
The pathing in the tree is much improved in 10.0.7. This was done mostly by adding new lines and paths between talents. As an example, you can go directly from Tyr’s Enforcer to the Focused Enmity/Soaring Shield choice node. There was also new pathing added to the bottom of the tree so you can now path towards the middle from the left and right branch which cannot be done on live. Most talents now have multiple paths to get to it, which cuts down on the restrictions and what talents can be combined with each other!
Protection Spec Tree: New Build Options
There are a myriad of new build options. Here are some examples of talent changes that expand the number of possible builds:
10.0.7 Protection Paladin Sample Build
Here is a sample build that could be used in 10.0.7 in Mythic+. Note: This is just a sample and not a recommendation. The PTR is very much in flux.
You can see that the class tree is similar to live and that will be the case until they fix some talents. More on this later. But in the Protection tree, you can see that I was able to grab Sanctuary, Faith in the Light, and Hand of the Protector, which are not used on live. I did give up Blessing of Spellwarding and Final Stand but I’m taking the gamble that the increased access to Ardent Defender and Eye of Tyr on top of increased passive survivability will make up for it.
10.0.7 Protection Paladin Suggestions
There are some bugs on the PTR, which are being tracked here, but I think both trees are headed in the right direction given the foundation that Blizzard created for Protection Paladin in Dragonflight. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be better. Here are some changes I would make to improve both the class tree and spec tree.
Paladin Class Tree Suggestions
- Separate Divine Resonance and Quickened Invocation into two separate nodes that can be taken together. With the removal of Seraphim, Quickened Invocation might not be powerful enough to take on its own so being able to combo it with Divine Resonance for stronger Divine Toll could make it more appealing for some situations
- Give value to Protection for Lightforged Blessing and Crusader’s Reprieve. Neither work with anything in the Protection kit so we’re just not going to take them if things don’t change.
- Fading Light will likely need a buff for Protection as the shield will never outvalue spending that point on Seal of Order or even on another talent node all together.
- Redesign Punishment so it’s not such a blatant DPS increase. Encouraging kicks and interrupting is good for dungeon gameplay but make it more nebulous like movement speed or even cooldown reduction on Rebuke itself.
- Faith’s Armor should be switched to trigger on Word of Glory for Protection. This would help align it with the newly buffed Faith in the Light talent. Getting armor when your primary Holy Power spender gives armor is … weird. I would also consider moving it up a row. It’s currently exceedingly difficult to select as a talent below the 20-point gate.
- Seal of Alacrity has two issues. First, it’s increasing the cooldown on Judgment – not reducing it. The second is that the tooltip is deceptive for Protection. Protection has a 50% reduction to the cooldown of Judgment on the spec aura, which is modifying the value of cooldown reduction provided by Seal of Alacrity. It’s really giving .25s/.5s reduction for Protection. The tooltip should be fixed to reflect this.
- Buff the healing options on the left side of the tree — Golden Path is very weak, and Afterimage has some weird behavior with free procs like Divine Purpose. Paladins should have more viable off-healing options in their class tree like Druid’s Nature’s Vigil or Shaman’s Ancestral Guidance and none of the current options hit that mark.
Protection Spec Tree Suggestions
- Make Uther’s Counsel playable. This is the hardest talent to include in any build right now for Protection and that’s because the tree structure has six required talents after the 20-point gate for difficult content: 1 in Sanctified Wrath, 2 in Resolute Defender, 1 in Righteous Protector, 1 in Gift of the Golden Val’kyr, and 1 in the Focused Enmity/Soaring Shield choice node. That leaves 4 points to pick between Eye of Tyr/Inmost Light, Moment of Glory, Bulwark of Righteous Fury, Final Stand, and Uther’s Counsel. Out of these options, Uther’s Counsel is strictly utility and is a lower priority pick. One solution could be to swap it with Seal of Reprisal so all the choices below the 20-point gate are pure damage and power increases, while the middle section has some flexibility to opt into utility with some flex points. That said, I could see this being tabled till a future patch as it could require more structural changes to the tree that aren’t on the table right now.
- Light of the Titans needs some love. In a lot of cases, it’s just overheal and ineffective healing. This is disappointing as it blocks access to Seal of Charity, which could be very nice to use.
- Reconsider Tirion’s Devotion and move it to the class tree. This could be a useful talent for all Paladins, especially if it were in the healing section of the class tree. It could be extremely hard to spend a Protection spec tree point on this talent.
- Change Moment of Glory to 80% cooldown reduction on Avenger’s Shield. This is mostly quality of life. All of Protection’s abilities have a cooldown that are a multiple of 1.5 and Moment of Glory messes with that. It creates these micro-gaps in the rotation that are less than a GCD and are very awkward.
Conclusion
What Blizzard is doing for 10.0.7 is hitting all the right buttons for Protection Paladins. There is always room for improvement but the overall gameplay experience for Protection Paladins in 10.0.7 will be much better. I can’t wait to see what’s next in 10.1 and beyond.
