I do not like this change at all. I sincerely hope that Exemplars Option 1 is correct (TV or DS) instead of option 2 (DS only) although my reading of GC's wording is that it is meant to be Option 2. The goal seems to be to alter our rotation, not to boost cleave.

I appreciate that they would like to make our 4pc more interesting, and a proc which changes our ability choice is definitely interesting .... but this strikes me as the wrong way to do it. You have hit the problem spot on with your comment about how strong that DS would have to be to be single target optimal and of an appropriate 4pc strength. I sincerely doubt that will happen. I think it is much more likely that this will end up as a particularly weak single target bonus and will only really shine in a cleave situation.

BLEGH. I preferred the original bonus. I guess it's time to look at those 5.2 raid previews and see how much melee range cleave there is.

Here's some more information. There are other methods of contacting blues than blue posts.

/cry. I'm not a fan of this change. A lightning strike? I miss the holy damage implementation.
edit: Fine, I guess it can be a holy damage lightning strike.

This is still really unclear. I read it as "the devs gave us the ele shaman 2pc bonus and tacked it onto DS" but others are arguing that it sounds like a single target damage proc. I guess we still do need to wait for more clarification. I'll update if I get any.

And here I was about to suggest it could be a "does X bonus damage, split evenly amongst all targets hit" (where X scales). Think Holy Wrath during Cata. I guess they really want to avoid AOE increase of any sort. Thanks, anafielle.

I doubt it's a target debuff (as someone else's DS could eat it if it were - the increase Holy Damage from 2 piece benefits all striking the target and isn't eaten). As such, I have to wonder about odd situations such as infinite range Arcane Missiles. For those unfamiliar, there was once an issue where a Mage could target something (oh, let's say a Horde newly zoned in at their cave in AV) while standing inordinately far away (let's say the Alliance entrance cave to AV), then cast Arcane Missiles, which would duly hit its target. In short, if I target A, which is at some range (30-40 yds? The next room? Across the zone?), use a macro to Crusader Strike on your focus target (target B, in melee range), proc, then hit my DS (which doesn't care if a target is in range in order to cast) does the lightning go to A?

Regardless, lightning + single-target DS still has to be in the realm of 210% TV damage to match the 'old' bonus. That's a crazy strong lightning proc.

Unfortunately, lightning is Nature damage, not Holy (unless you're stretching things). 4 piece won't benefit from the 2 piece bonus.

P.S. Beyond the name, Divine Storm has nothing to do with storms. The animation is a golden swirl with maces and such. Lightning is as related as increasing bust size when a Warrior casts Cleave would be. It can be cool. It can even be badass, but it's still not related.

Edit: Yes, it sounds single target. You cast DS and whatever you are presently targeting takes the lightning. If you have no target or it's a friendly target, it should select the nearest target (just like any target-requiring attack made without a target).

From the description, I don't think this is true of the 2pc; it only says "from your attacks". One of those weird debuffs that only affects the caster's attacks, like Colossus Smash, I guess?

There's another post in the PTR thread as of a few minutes ago, containing this:
Unless the proc rate is much higher, that won't be as good as the previous bonus, at least for single-target: a proc allows you to replace a TV with roughly a DS+TV, so the proc is worth about as much as a DS, instead of the previous version that was worth about as much as a TV.

But would it kill them to actually tell us what the proc chance and amount of damage are -.-

Chill Rav, they're probably still figuring out the proc rate, how much (precisely) Y damage should be, and how it will scale with your stats. We'll either be told or figure it out in ptr way before it actually affects us on live Blizz is actually being very open about where they're at with the set bonuses, which is a good thing.

I'm not sure why they decided to make this Nature damage, not only is it not "Paladin-y" but Nature damage has a much different mitigation model than Holy does which is going to have to be taken into account when figuring out how hard it will hit...man it's going to have to hit hard.

This is actually not true. In an AoE situation where you're already pumping out Divine Storm and Hammer, HotR can proc our bonus and give us a slight boost. The proc will be a damage boost in all situations, particularly cleave.

Nature? I´ll go hug some trees -.-

All these announcements to me sound totally devoid of any long term vision for paladins. Using nature sounds pretty desperate to me, like they can`t balance anything else (did somebody say holy) considering the current mechanics. Changing a 4pc entirely including mechanics and type of damage in mid-PTR does not sound like the pursuit of long term design goals. The good news is, they`re being responsive, but to me those responses only open up more questions and insecurities at the moment.
With more and more raids being 10-man, they would need to make all classes better allrounders, because even in an optimal setup you can`t have all classes and specs in a 10 man. Instead there is open talk about wanting to push Ret even further into the single-target burst-only niche.

Very curious what is up next and a little worried. Hopefully they do come around and provide us with some paladiny bonus (and maybe sets? *cough*).
Sorry, not helping theorycrafting with this, I know, but had to get that out...

The raid is thunder and lightning-themed...

Yes. You have nailed EXACTLY my opinion on this set bonus. It lacks elegance. TV already has a slightly awkward place in our rotation as our finishing nuke, yet our lowest priority. This 4pc steals more TV's away from us and..... we are supposed to hit our wet-noodle boring cleave spell instead? Huh. It does not feel right or sound like an interesting change. Even with a lightning bolt. Also, I find putting AE spells into single target rotations extremely awkward and I thought the devs agreed since they seem to have made significant changes to carefully separate the two for us. I know we'd only be DSing on a proc, but it still feels.... odd.

The nature damage change must be because 5.2 is themed Back to the Trolls and nature damage. It's kinda like how Firelands tier procced Fire, except Nature instead. But I'm still grumbling. It's difficult to separate this from the original Holy damage proc, which was significantly cooler and more Paladin themed as well as being much more interesting from a stat perspective. Why do we have to be like everyone else? I want to be a special snowflake (made of holy damage).

Unfortunately, I understand where the devs are coming from..... I cannot disagree with the reasoning behind the change. This is definitely a bonus which causes us to change our behavior mid-rotation. I support this (in theory), I enjoy bonuses which require a playstyle change. I am in support of decisions which allow me to express my skill in a tangible way so I can gleefully embarass Fiers on the DPS chart and display my superior skill and awesomeness. I will make a Weak Aura for this proc and alter my behavior accordingly once we determine how it actually works. This is, no matter how you shake it, a more interesting 4pc.

I like that it changes our play. I just do not like the particular method they selected to do it. GC claims that paladins think Divine Storm is cool. I suppose I am just not one of these paladins. I think Divine Storm is massively boring and there are not enough lightning bolts in the world to change my mind.

Obviously, I might just be crazy. I am not commenting on the relative strength of this bonus, since I have no number based opinions. All I have are crazy paladin opinions. We should all probably prepare ourselves for this to be significantly weaker though than what we were originally looking at, I think that is obvious.

Tbh I don't care either way. I like the idea of being able to cleave a bit more once in a while, but other than that I'm sure that both are going to be two powerful dps increases.