Protection Paladin Rework

Classes Paladin
1

Hello welcome to the post about reworking Paladin class tree and Protection Paladin spec tree to improve gameplay without changing its core identity or its strengths and weaknesses. I have been playing Protection Paladin since Legion and pushed very high in Mythic+ and have a good feeling of how it has been played for years. The first step is to explain what the gameplay of the spec looked like for the past 8 years and and how to keep it the same while smoothing out gameplay. The 2nd step is my own personal take on reworking the class and talent tree to promote smoother gameplay and meaningful choice. Balance and strengths of every talent would be variable but the effects of the talents I would introduce would greatly smoothing out gameplay and make it feel much more rewarding for playing it correctly.

  1. How has protection paladin been played until now?
    To keep it simple the class HAD TO BE in a damage reduction cooldown to live(consecrate does not count). If you tanked any pack of monsters or boss without ardent, sentinal,eye of tyr,Kings, or bubble the chances of you dyeing are extremely high if not guaranteed. This has been good gameplay design because for the most part the last 8 years we should rotate those defensives indefinitely. Currently in TWW it is not “doable” if you rotate your defensives correctly u would have 54 seconds of “Damage Reduction Effects” till you run out and have to wait another 26 seconds for cooldowns to reset, and after they reset you will still be missing Kings and Bubble for a longer duration. Offensively it has been played the same for a while as well, If you played the correct DPS rotation it would reduce the cooldowns of your defensive ability or extent their duration, Providing you with engaging way to play your defensive rotation and offense rotation, and would be rewarded by living.

To simplify having 5 abilities that Reduce damage taken with the total duration of 1 min and having them all reset 1 min after they are used(assuming you are dpsing correctly) is in my opinion “Good Gameplay”.

2.How would I Rework the class and Talent tree?

Class Tree Changes:
a. Devotion Aura Reworked to Increase Armor by % and % Damage Reduction from periodic effect (this will make a lot of sense once we go into the talent changes).
b. Remove Improved Blessing of Protection and replace its spot with Faith’s Armor.
c. Remove Sacrifice of the Just/Recompense and replace its spot with Strength of Conviction( losing 1 min sac sounds horrid but you will be able to get it on the Spec tree instead for Prot and Holy)
d. Remove Seal of Mercy
e. Remove Touch of Light
h. Unbreakable Spirit no longer includes Ardent Defender.

Spec Tree: Ill cut it into 2 section left side and right of the spec tree

Left side: Avenger Shield Focused
a. Inner Light Reworked to give you 10% block while SOTR is active.
b. Improved Holy Shield/Choice node Reworked to give you block rather then just spells block. With the Choice of Increased absorb effects on you by %.
c. Replace Relentless Inquisitor Location with Barricade of Faith.
d. Seal of Reprisal also reduces damage taken by its effect by 20%
e. Soaring Shield Removed and made baseline(again this will make sense later).
f. Focused Enmity Reworked Allowing Avenger Shield to bounce off of yourself. Giving you a an Absorb Shield fot % of the damage it would deal.
g. Gift of the Golden Val’Kyr 1 point talent.
h. Ferren Marcus’s Fervor 1 point talent.
i. Crusader’s Resolve reworked to stackable debuff but not duration and nerf it down to 5%
j. Moment of Glory Removed replaced with Avenger Shield now gives 1 HP.

Right Side: HP Finisher Focused
a. Shining Light Reworked every 3rd SOTR casts WOG at 50% effectiveness.
b. Sanctuary reworked/Choice node 100% the effect of your mastery while standing in consecrate Choice 50% effect to your mastery and you no longer must stand in consecrate to gain your mastery.
c. Consecration in Flame removed replaced with while u you are under the effects of your mastery SOTR and WOG are % more powerful.
d. Seal of Charity Reworked After you cast WOG the target receives 100% increase effect of your Devotion Aura.
e. Faith in the Light Reworked WOG also gives you an absorb shield for % of healing done.
f. Uther’s Counsel Reworked 1 point talent also reducing the cooldown of Ardent Sentinal King and eye of tyr by %.
g. Bastion of Light Removed Replaced with Holy power spend reduce the cooldown of Blessing of Sacrifice and Blessing of Protection(to make Sac 1 min and and BOP 3.5ish min cd).
h. Inmost Light Reworked to gain an absorb shield for x% of damage done for x seconds.

Note: The rest of the talents are good as they are.
2nd Note: The Talents that reduce the CD of your defensive ability if all taken should make every single 1 of your cooldowns to a 1 min cd and the duration of all of them combined 1 min. and if you choose not to have 1 of those like wings(Righteous Protetor) and kings u could or ardent and bubble(Resolute Defender) u would have that choice too.
3rd Note: With the health buffs in TWW, blessed hammer and Avenger shield are worse as well with WOG.

2 Likes
2

I am having flashbacks to Antorus where you had to use Ardent Defender on the pull because you would get one shot by bosses auto attack if you didn’t have Shield of the Righteous up. Which at the time had a melee and target requirement.

It is almost impossible to imagine that there was once a time where Prot Paladin was considered the “steady” damage tank. Like todays Brewmaster.

Okay, this is really cool. Want.

4

Class tree changes needs to benefits all specs or be spec specific ( which would largely defeat the purpose of a class tree).

Any rework of prot need to start with a discussion has to how to reconcile Avenger Shield with the HP system.

5

they nerf you b/c your hero talents are op

6

I don’t have much raid experience but yeah you need to be in cooldown in high end content always, and yeah Avenger shield bouncing off yourself is nice for bulwark of the righteous Fury 5 stacks and Bulwark of the Order on every avenger shield. Making it so we get full value.

7

return to monkey, go full passive mitigation, high block high parry. so u can ignore cds

8

The two changes I’d make are:

Anything that can proc and reset it’s cooldown should have two charges. So I’d give shield throw a second charge.

WoG, when cast on yourself, would give you a partial absorb.

Bonus change:

Change spinny hammer because the not SE is annoying and it feels so dinky.

9

Wrong again.

10

Ohh so you’re following me around now?

Adding harrassment to what you already said in the other thread is bold.

Guess you’ll have a longer vacation, bye-bye!

11

Giving Avenger shield two chargers doesn’t effect much since grand crusade has a built in GCD(it can not proc twice in 1 global). If Avenger shield gave HP you would just hit it more often and gain more value. Right now you can get a grand crusader proc and not even use the shield until many global later because you need to press other buttons to live.

12

Great so you’re for the change because it doesn’t matter. :+1:

13

It’s more important to give you holy power then have 2 charges. Makes it more fun to react to procs.

14

Honestly, I’d rather they made AS become a damage spender with all the talent still related to it.

Giving you an actual decision to make as to which between SotR and AS to use in a given situation.

It reconciles AS with the HP system and do away with the mindless spam of SotR.

Just a thought.

15

That sounds horrid (with current design). SOTR does way more damage and is uncapped.

16

Don’t… sigh…
OBVISOUSLY you’d adjust AS damage accordingly as to be in line with a spender.
Should I have said, "make it a spender with everything that this would entail? "

17

I don’t think they will ever move away from WOG and SOTR as spenders.

18

Ret has 2 damage spender + SotR even if they don’t use it and WoG

Holy has 2 healing spenders + SotR

Why can’t prot have more than just SotR and WoG?

I don’t think it’s that farfetched.
Hell they just did it, HoL IS a spender, only you can’t “spam” it.

19

Design wise, I think giving players the option and a higher skill cap is better. But I don’t think blizzard thinks this way.

1 Like
20

I don’t think they know what they want out of Prot paladin.

Spec has been disjointed ever since they decided to “reduce” the uptime of SotR only to leave every single talent that incentivize spamming it and add literally 1 talent that plays around letting it fall off.

IMO, it should be a candidate for a rework.

In this context, I think everything is on the table for Prot.

21

I think they know what they want its been playing the same way for last 8 years.