With Mage, Druid, Pally, and Rogue new talents/skills all in that other thread, things are getting crowded. Mind if I break it up?

As posted:

BASE SKILLS:

SPIRITUAL ATTUNEMENT (66): Gives the Paladin mana when healed by other friendly targets. The amount of mana gained is equal to 10% of the amount healed.

BLESSING OF SPELL WARDING (6Cool: A targeted party member is protected from all magical attacks for 10 sec, but during that time they are Silenced. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. Once protected, the target cannot be made invulnerable by Divine Shield, Divine Protection, Blessing of Spell Warding, or Blessing of Protection again for 1 min.

CRUSADER AURA (64): Increases the mounted speed by 20% for all party members within 40 yards. Players may only have one Aura on them per Paladin at any one time.

SEAL OF BLOOD (64): All melee attacks deal additional Holy damage equal to 30% of normal weapon damage, but the Paladin loses health equal to 10% of the total damage inflicted. Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing 409 to 451 Holy damage at the cost of 136 to 151 health.

AVENGING WRATH (70): Increases all damage caused by 30% for 20 sec. Causes Forbearance.

UNNAMED TAUNT: “The Paladin class will see a class-defining ability of its own in an ability to pull aggressive creatures off of classes with a "snap-aggro" ability. That ability, Chilton explains as the equivalent of an AOE taunt, but instead of being cast on the enemies, instead, true to the Paladin's role of buffing and supporting players, it is castable buff on a party member. At that point, the mobs that were attacking the party member within an Area of Effect range will then turn and attack the Paladin� (1up)

Comments:

ARE THESE REAL? They're missing one Confirmed skill, the Pally Taunt. I’ve added it from the 1up article. This is probably not hugely significant. If someone was creating fakes this good and believable, surely they’d be bright enough to put in the only confirmed pally skill. More likely, therefore, that it was either overlooked or has not been added to Alpha yet. Some of the Talents, which are from a different source, are also questionable, but the skills seem spot-on.

OVERALL it looks like Blizz made two significant direction changes with the Paladin. The first, and most remarkable, is Spiritual Attunement. It’s a fundamental prerequisite to serious Paladin tanking, and accomplishes it with a very impressive economy and grace. The mana bar becomes a Rage bar, constantly full on Raid encounters, requiring more management in smaller group content.

PALADIN TANKING: That being said, the clear direction of the Prot class appears to be as a dedicated, nearly preferable, off-tank. The ‘Snap Taunt’ is really an ‘off-tank Snap Taunt.’ I imagine it will work like this: in 5-10 man encounters, it’s most useful picking up singles that peel off, and building aggro on that mob. It’s of marginal use for the initial aggro gain, and will be difficult to use effectively when distracted by keeping aggro on many sets. Instead of clicking mob, pushing Taunt, you have to click mob portrait, see who is target of target, click target of target, buff. In raid encounters, it’s most useful off-tanking adds, where really only the off-tank healer could be stealing that mob’s aggro. Not to mention that it leaves the Paladin free to drop off-tanking at some point and begin healing with a full mana bar.

HOLY SHIELD: Second, it finally picks up on the image of Paladins as Holy Shields to the party, trading off damage taken to help the party. One of the fundamental problems with the Paladin, thus far, is that there was no real big point to being the most survivable class. You rarely if ever grab aggro and take damage. When solo, the survivability and consequential lack of downtime was nice but boring. The ability to turn that survivability into raw damage and party-assisting abilities is a huge shift in thinking on Blizzard’s part, making a class-defining trait into a major asset, and adding a lot of fun in balancing mana pool and health bar.

OTHER: Crusader Aura is a nice toy, possibly of some utility in outdoor PVP and other areas. Spell Warding completes the Paladin’s repertoire of Party-protecting talents, and the addition of the silence turns a possibly-overpowered move into an interesting strategic challenge.

New Talents:
HOLY
PURE OF HEART, requires 20, 3 point talent
Increases the paladin's chance to resist curse/disease by 5(10/15?)%

PURIFYING POWER, requires 25, 2 point talent
Reduces the mana cost of Consecration and Cleanse by 5(10?)%, and increases the critical strike chance of Holy Wrath and Exorcism by 10(20?)%

BLESSED LIFE, requires 30, 5 point talent
All attacks against you have a 2(10?)% chance to cause half damage

LIGHT’S GRACE, requires 35, 3 point talent
Your Holy Light has a 33(100?)% chance to cause our next Holy Light spell cast within 15 seconds take .5 seconds less casting time.

HOLY GUIDANCE, requires 35, 5 point talent
Your damage/healing is increased by 7(35)% of your Int.

DIVINE ILLUMINATION, requires 40, 1 point talent
Reduces mana costs of all spells by 50% for 20 seconds, 2 minute cooldown.

Comments:

THE REBIRTH OF HOLY LIGHT?: This Holy Tree is a puzzle. There is some recognition of the traditional Paladin healing role as the mighty mana-efficient healer. Holy Guidance, in particular, is a good heal/dmg boost, if the numbers work out. Others are strangely placed. Blessed Life seems more like a Prot talent, or even a Ret talent. Healing Pallies just aren’t taking much damage. Pure of Heart makes sense, and the big catch-all that is Purifying Power gives a damage boost alongside some mana-cost reduction.

But what’s with Light’s Grace and Divine Illumination? Is this meant to be some kind of Divine Illumination + Divine Favor + Holy Light � Light’s Grace Holy Light combo for major healing power? Granted, that’s a very interesting combination, but it’ll take a lot of foresight to use effectively. That COULD help with Paladin burst healing, which is not a class ability at present. I don’t see Divine Illumination doing much for Paladin Raid healing, either. Are Paladins running out of mana for some reason? I’m not a number cruncher, but this seems like a calculated move to 1) Give Paladins a reason to use Holy Light, 2) Lessen the dependence on FOL1-4, and 3) Give Holy Paladins some more utility with burst healing in 5-10 man combat.

PROTECTION
IMPROVED RESISTANCE AURAS, requires 20 points, 2 point talent
Your resistance auras also reduce spell damage by additional 3(6?)%

IMPROVED DIVINE SHIELD, requires 25, 2 point talent
Lowers the cooldown for Divine Shield by 30 (60?) seconds, and lowers the attack speed penalty by 50(100?)%.

ARDENT DEFENDER, requires 30, 5 point talent
When your health is below 20(100???)%, reduces all damage against you by 10%
Ed: I have no idea which part scales, but a perma defensive stance doesn't seem hideously out of line, and makes deep prot a whole new level of appealing.

LASTING DEFENSE, requires 35, 3 point talent
When struck by a melee attack, you have a 4(12?)% chance to gain 50% of the damage taken in mana.

WEAPON EXPERTISE, requires 35, 5 point talent
Increases skill with all weapons by 2(10?)

AVENGER’S SHIELD, requires 40, 1 point talent
range 8-30 (shooting range), Requires shield, 30 sec cooldown
(Listed are from the talent, it may scale with level, there don't seem to be any ranks on the trainer)
500 mana, 270-330 damage.
Hurls a holy shield at the enemy, dealing listed damage, and then bouncing to additional close targets. Affects 3 targets total.

Comments:

WELCOME TO PALLY TANKING: Frankly, all of these pale in comparison to the new Paladin tanking ability. As a core skill! If it was the 41-point I would still hail Spell Attunement as a brilliant move to create a Paladin Tank. Thematically, these all accord with the theme of Paladin tanking, namely “Abilities and Skills grow when you take damage.� It’s an interesting idea, although it tends to get messed up by the fact that as you gear up, you get hit with those ability-raisers less. Imp Resistance Aura lends credence to the idea of Pallies as off-tank specialists. Ardent Defender and Lasting Defense are both solid abilities; Ardent Defender + Imp Resistance + Spell Warding especially makes me wonder if they’re aiming Pallies at off-tanking spellcasters.

Avenger’s Shield gives Pallies a good spell for 5-10 man main tanking, and should in general be super-fun to kick ass with.

RETRIBUTION
CRUSADE, requires 20, 3 point talent
Increases all damage to Humanoid, Undead, Demon and Elemental foes by 1(3?)%

IMPROVED SANCTITY AURA, requires 25 and Sanctity Aura, 2 point talent
The amount of healing done to targets affected by Sanctity Aura is increased by 3(6)%

DIVINE PURPOSE, requires 30, 5 point
Decrease the chance that melee and ranged attacks will critically hit you by 1(5?)%.

EMPOWERED JUDGMENT, requires 35, 3 point
Gives your Judgment a 33(100?)% chance to refund 50% of the mana cost of the judged spell

FANATICISM, requires 35, 5 point
Increases the critical strike chance of Seal of Command and all damaging Judgements by 2(10)%

SANCTIFIED CRUSADER, requires 40, 1 point
In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement of the Crusader will increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made vs the judged target by an additional 2%

Comments:

WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS?: Of all the trees, Retribution puzzles me the most. There’s a lot of strange stuff thrown in Ret, witness the awful run speed enchant. I don’t think Blizzard knows what to do with Paladins who (lawlz) want to do damage, so they get a grabbag without much direction. However, there are some solid talents here. Fanaticism in particular is a great talent. Crusade and Divine Purpose are okay talents with PVP utility. Empowered Judgment is kind of weird – Ret Pallies aren’t running out of mana that often – but must be an attempt to make judgments more attractive.

If there is a direction here, it looks like its in making Ret Pallies an asset to their party, particularly PVP Pallies. Hence coupling Sanctity Aura with a +healing for group members.

But Empowered Judgment (EDIT: I mean Sanctified Crusader here, duh) is baffling. More then anything else it makes me question if these talents are real. It looks like an honest attempt to get a Ret Pally into a raid, blissfully whacking away at a mob while the DPS cheers him on. I imagine that the numbers work out such that a Pally keeping Crusader up is worth losing the heal utility. But it really has no utility outside of a raid. Zero PVP utility. In PvE, the damage boost will be slight at best. Why all these abilities that aid in a PVP/Solo/Small Group situation, then a half-assed attempt to get a Retnoob into a raid? Very questionable.

OVERALL: We’re seeing some good, smart direction for the Paladin. They’re being cemented into their off-tank/off-healer utility role. It’s a good role to have, without much competition from other classes. The abilities here will continue to make Paladins highly desirable in group play, and the new Health -> DPS abilities should aid somewhat in solo play. There isn’t much I see here for the PVPally, but that’s not a role I can really speak to; someone else probably could say more.

Still stuck with seal/judgment, still have some level of dependence on RNG. But Seal of Blood in particular, coupled with Avenging Wrath, should lessen the blow. I’m a happy Pally.

It's probably early for number-crunching, but I'm sure there are plenty of combinations and PVP/Raid utilities I missed on.

Also, I hope these are fake so I just wasted 2000 words on BS stuff.

EDIT: Thanks Fiola for saving my post :P

I'd just like to point out my own thoughts on some of the leaked talents.
Blessed Life: No hybrid talent tree should exclusively focused on one possible role/function. Even a holy paladin will be taking some hits (They get spiritual focus for a reason). This will also help holy paladins when they tank, as well as for PvP.

Light's Grace: In raid spam healing, your Holy Light spell is now a 2 second cast, and it only took you 3 talent points. One, this gives HL a healing boost of 2.5/2, or 125%. (HLR4 becomes uber) Two, we now have better than priest single target healing power. Currently, for top rank Greater Heal and Holy Light (with current talents), GH wins out by a little in healing power and base cost. Give Holy Light a 25% boost, and HL comes out ahed. (Though we'll have to see what new talents priests get)

Divine Illumination: Light's Grace encourages spamming Holy Light. This talent allows you to do so without killing your mana pool (for lesser geared pallies, at least). I think Illumination will give back mana equal to the original mana cost when DI, meaning if you crit one heal , you gain the mana to cast two heals.


Empowered Judgement has great PvP utility - saving a few hundred mana from a few judgements is another heal. Mebbe you don't run out of mana in PvP, but that mana bar has nowhere to go but down in a sustained fight. If you're this heavy in the ret tree, you'll be judging often. This talent will save you mana when you do that.


Crusader: We use feral kitties and oomkins because they give 3% crit to their party. Judging by the wording here, a single Ret pally is giving 2% crit to his whole raid. For PvP, you spent five talent points earlier in the Ret tree for 5% crit - if you put up JotC on a target, you get 2% crit for a single talent point. No use outside of raids at all?


For quite a few of the talents that you don't see the utility in - they diversify the trees they're in. Improved damage mitigation for holy pallies, improved mana regen for prot/ret, improved healing for Ret, etc. I'd say that's a good thing, since a hybrid needs to be able to fill multiple roles regardless of spec.

I meant Sanctified Crusader in that last bit, sorry.

Did I really just delete most of my post trying to edit it?

EDIT: Fixed, thanks Fiola

yes, and it was quite confusing when I treied to find your original description of empowered judgement :(

2 second holy lights don't hold any allure for you? /boggle


In addition, having Illum-DF and the higher tier healing talents really change your healing style. As a retnub without Illumination-DF, I mainly use FoL to avoid running myself OOM. Back when I had illumination, I thought nothing about tossing out a few top rank HLs, even though I had a much smaller mana pool then.


/shrug. Use whichever tree you like, but there's no way that consumnables can make up the difference of a 13 holy and 41+ holy talent build.

Lucky you, I still have a copy of your full post. I'll delete this when you put it back in your OP.
[DELETED]

That's much more than a toy of possible utility for PvP. A Paladin is now required on your BG team to be competitive. It means free inital caps in AB/AV and allows one side to dictate the match pace in WSG if both sides can't field it.

I think that Crusader being a must for raids does something that really defines the hybrid a bit more.

How many raid-must Judgments are there? 3. (Wisdom, Light, Crusader)
How many Paladin will you have in 25-man raids? 2-3.

That means they'll all be meleeing, at the very least once every 30 seconds.

They'll be meleeing more than that since Judgements only last for 10 seconds unless there is a melee strike on the target by the judging paladin or you talent spec deep into the Holy tree for the longer duration JoL/W.

However, I've discovered having Target of Target up lets me keep an eye on the MT (or someone who pulls aggro) and get heals on him/her in plenty of time.

You know, it just occured to me that the Blessings of Kings, Wisdom and Light are going to be the pick for paladins in raids. Right now, a crit Holy Light heal would net my paladin an additional 440 mana over the refunded cost.

It really does I'm afraid. I go back and forth between holy and retribution and, with my gear, that is the only real difference. It wasn't until really getting into Nax that I ever have to bother with illumination and divine favor in order to cut down on my mana potion consumption (In raids all I do is heal and outside of Nax, regardless of build, my potions consumption hovered around 0-1 pvp mana per raid).