Paladins and 1.9

[savaughn]

Ok, I need to know what the Paladins out there think of the 1.9 changes so far. Personally, I keep getting more and more upset about them when I look at them.

We have:
- A shielded nerf which prevents multiple paladins from stringing shields or a single paladin using Blessing of Protection anywhere close to the godshield
- A 2% damage reduction to Seal of Command
- 5dps less with Seal of Righteousness, Judgement is about half what it was
- RADICALLY lower threat generation using the new fury system
- All of the healing talents are significantly harder to get now
- The lowest number of talents of any class
- A judgement system that requires the pally be hitting the mob to maintain, meaning you're either keeping judgement up OR healing

I look at what was done for Warriors, Warlocks, Hunters, and Druids and I'm totally baffled. It's one thing not to be best of class if you can do multiple things well, but at this point we're looking at worst of class for any given category without even the talents necessary to become middle of the road. You still aren't going to do instances with a Pally as main healer end game. You used to be able to tank any 5-man instance with a pally end game and now that's going to be radically harder. DPS is even lower overall with SoC crits barely hitting four digits on the test server...

Is anyone happy about the 1.9 Pally changes? If so... why?

<updated!

Blizz has switched some talents around, significantly improving the Retribution tree.

- BoK is now 11 points in the Protection tree
- Repentance is now the 31 point talent in the Retribution tree
- Blessing of Sanctuary got moved to 21 points in Prot
- Holy shield got moved to 31 points in Prot

End Result:

Well, the Pallies have their controlled DPS increase now. They can use BoS to effectively judge a 400 or so point strike twice a minute now. The protection tree is looking a bit weak now, though. That said, everyone was thinking the changes were done - looks like we're still on the journey!

end edit>

[Treesh]

You still aren't going to do instances with a Pally as main healer end game. [right][snapback]96501[/snapback][/right]

Why not? I do it as a shaman now. Have paladins healing capabilities been cut down so much in 1.9? They used to be able to heal slightly easier than shamans. It was still tough for paladins to do, but slightly easier for pallies to do. I can see the issue with having to melee in order to keep up judgement of light knocking down your healing effectiveness, but what else has hurt your healing? This is an honest question. I haven't really looked at the paladin changes much because that's one class I don't enjoying playing. Most of my pally knowledge comes from GG and Tal. :)

[Chesspiece_face]

So far I really like the changes. But i have to admit that I don't like them because they make the class any more interactive and fun for me to play. I've pretty much shelved my paladin only to be brought out to farm cash for my other characters as they level. And that's why i like it, I can farm money so much easier now! weeee.

:ph34r:

[kandrathe]

And that's why i like it, I can farm money so much easier now!&nbsp; weeee.&nbsp;

:ph34r:
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I don't understand why that is true. Would you elaborate?

[Chesspiece_face]

I don't understand why that is true.&nbsp; Would you elaborate?
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With the changes to BoSanctuary and other protection talants along with the relocation of Consecration to an 11 point talant i can now easily take on 8-10 lvl 50-52 mobs at a time or i can clear through entire rooms of SM in half the time it would take me prior to 1.9.

The porcupine paladin got extremely buffed in 1.9. unfortunately the only thing that build is really very good at is farming money.

[Chesspiece_face]

Frome Caydiem on the WoW paladin boards:

You've asked for the philosophy and reasoning behind the Paladin changes; after speaking with the developers, I've returned with some notes on why the talent trees were changed.

Now, each tree has an overall theme for what it's meant to accomplish: Protection is the defensive tree, upping survivability and defense; Retribution is the damage tree, increasing the Paladin's capacity to dish out DPS; and Holy is the "holy magic" tree, increasing both healing and damage spells. Now, these are the overall ideas behind the trees, but they aren't completely specialized towards these goals -- creating a tree that's completely specialized in one direction causes players to be pigeonholed even further, which is something the designers want to avoid. As such, there are some diverse elements in each tree, such as Blessing of Kings in the Retribution tree. (A similar effect is seen in the Druid talent trees, with both beneficial feral and casting abilities spread throughout.) With a hybrid-like class such as the Paladin, it's important to promote that diversity rather than shun it for over-specialization.

Now, to go over a few specific questions you had regarding the talent changes:

Consecration was switched with Sanctity Aura to put more low-mana DPS in the "damage" (Retribution) tree and more utility in the Holy tree. The Consecration spell benefits more from being in the Holy tree, as Paladins specced towards that tree are likely to have more mana and thus be able to make better use of it. In addition, it has been shifted to an 11-point talent, making it more accessible to a variety of builds (thus making it easier for Retribution Paladins to take it if they choose).

Many of you have asked about the ability to tank or otherwise be on the front lines. The Protection tree is definitely more of a "front lines" tree (defensive-wise; retribution is obviously the offense tree), and with certain group makeups, Paladins certainly can fill the role of tank in a 5-man group. There are no plans to make Paladins tanks in line with Defense-specced Warriors. There are differences in the way Paladins can tank as compared to Warriors; this is intended. Their tanking styles are not meant to mimic the Warrior, but rather complement their particular group makeup in the right situations. As for Retribution, it's certainly meant to give the Paladin more damage output, but there are no plans to make Paladins a primary DPS class.

Lastly comes the question of class role. I covered this earlier, but we are not going to release a detailed role description that makes your guild only pigeonhole you further. The ever-present "class role" request is often a quest to find what the developers think your class should be "best" at, and go from there. The issue here is that World of Warcraft's classes are all "best" at what they do in various situations, but no one class is king. The mentality that someone simply must be the "best" at something is common but incorrect in terms of how the game is designed. It's all situational; everyone has their chance to shine.

Lastly, don't be afraid to experiment with the class as a whole and find what works best for you. Learn the breadth of your class abilities -- you might find there's more to be had there than you first thought.

Original Post.

Edit: I think this concept that keeps coming from the devs about "not pidgeon-holing" characters and not trying to define what a class should do best is a complete cop out. Whether they conciously want to make a class best at one thing or not is completely besides the point. Each class is best at one thing or another (well maybe not the paladin!) I guess during all the revisions of this post above by caydiem the devs missed the complete irony of the fact that they don't want to make one class best over another class but then they go and state that they don't want to make paladins as good of tanks as a prot warrior. Inherant to that statement is the fact that they want protection warriors to be the BEST!!!! MORONS!

All in all i think 1.9 and the responses i've seen from the CR's and Devs only goes to show that they have no place reserved for the paladin class nor do they have any interest to define one. And since they really don't care to deal with the situation they go and hide behind this blanket "we don't want to make any class best" statement. well excuse me blizz but i call Bull$#!%.

[Dozer]

No matter what Blizzard says, every class has a role they are best at(and some with two):

Warriors - Tanking
Hunters - Ranged physical DPS
Mages - Ranged Magical DPS
Warlocks - Debuffs, other forms of Ranged Magical DPS
Rogues - Melee DPS
Priests - Healers
Druids - "Pure" hybrid
Shaman - offensive/healer hybrid
Paladins - defensive/healer hybrid



There's a deeper problem with the paladin that blizzard won't (can't) do anything about - playing defense is boring. :P

[Chesspiece_face]

No matter what Blizzard says, every class has a role they are best at(and some with two):

Warriors - Tanking
Hunters - Ranged physical DPS
Mages - Ranged Magical DPS
Warlocks - Debuffs, other forms of Ranged Magical DPS
Rogues - Melee DPS
Priests - Healers
Druids - "Pure" hybrid
Shaman - offensive/healer hybrid
Paladins - defensive/healer hybrid
There's a deeper problem with the paladin that blizzard won't (can't) do anything about - playing defense is boring.&nbsp; :P
[right][snapback]96527[/snapback][/right]

Well the other issue, apart from defense being possibly boring, is that the areas that blizzard has chosen to direct it's post 60 game do not allow for defensive play. in the 20/40 man raids the only defense you have is to control agro and possibly utilize terrain. In PvP the only defense is a good Offense. Paladins obviously can't do either control agro or put up a good offense. If blizzard continues to direct the post 60 game further in these areas the grievances of paladins will only grow.

[savaughn]

Well the other issue, apart from defense being possibly boring, is that the areas that blizzard has chosen to direct it's post 60 game do not allow for defensive play.  in the 20/40 man raids the only defense you have is to control agro and possibly utilize terrain.  In PvP the only defense is a good Offense.  Paladins obviously can't do either control agro or put up a good offense.  If blizzard continues to direct the post 60 game further in these areas the grievances of paladins will only grow.
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Exactly. As of right now, once you get to level 60 "defensive" play has all of one use and that's guarding a flag in AB.

Oh joy. An entire class that does that one thing well. The new seal system guarentees a Paladin can't pull aggro off of a cloth wearer so they actually can't offtank much if at all. On my runs on the test server, a 60 Pally couldn't hold aggro over a frost mage - one or two misses and that blew it. And once aggro was gone, there is no mechanism under the sun that will get it back.

This despite the fact that there's now a bonus 50 holy damage per block, with or without sanctity aura, and spamming holy shock and/or consecrate like mad. It's just going to be damn hard for a Pally to tank now. The improved fury talent just takes your holy damage and gives it a 1.9 bonus multiplier. As a result, all white damage is pretty much pointless and judging fury used to give better than a 1.9 - at least it certainly felt that way.

So, in reality, the only "defensive" play you get comes in one of two locations. 1) you're soloing so nothing can get peeled off of you, 2) AB. Aside from that you're a cleanse/buffbot.

Joy.

>>Have paladins healing capabilities been cut down so much in 1.9?

It's always been tricky for a Paladin to be a main healer in anything they aren't over-levelled for. The way I was doing it was blessing of light, judging and sealing wisdom, and then casting Holy Light. You can actually get a whole lot more healing out of your mana pool with the FoL, but let's face it ... FoL heals so little it might as well be a HoT. That meant that you were limited to HL and that meant you were going to be running out of mana. The judge/seal combo really did wonders with that, though.

With a 10s limit on renewing your judgement, though, that means you end up having to re-judge several times during a fight just to keep that up. With a 2.0 attack weapon, you get 4 shots at renewing a judgement. If you have to cast 2 heals during that time ... you get one. A miss/dodge/parry and you have to lose mana and casting time to re-judge. A move that was already skating on thin ice as it was teeters over the edge to just becoming dangerous to the party.

I may be wrong on this. It still may be possible. Unfortunately, I can't test this since the test server, right now, has a build on it that is not refreshing ANY of my judgements.

Oh, one other thing. Vengeance is, as of right now, not boosting Seal of Command damage anymore. That's about an 8% damage loss to the "critadin" crowd. This may be a bug though, Blizz hasn't commented either way.

<edit - a healing paladin may be more viable with a faster weapon like a Flurry Axe to proc wisdom. Unfortunately, I can't afford Flurry for my Pally. In case you were wondering, there are all of 3 weapons in the entire game that are 1.5 speed for a pally. I predict the number of clerics running around with Hanzo swords is going to go up, post patch>

[Kevin]

>>Have paladins healing capabilities been cut down so much in 1.9?

It's always been tricky for a Paladin to be a main healer in anything they aren't over-levelled for.&nbsp; The way I was doing it was blessing of light, judging and sealing wisdom, and then casting Holy Light.&nbsp; You can actually get a whole lot more healing out of your mana pool with the FoL, but let's face it ... FoL heals so little it might as well be a HoT.&nbsp; That meant that you were limited to HL and that meant you were going to be running out of mana.&nbsp; The judge/seal combo really did wonders with that, though.

With a 10s limit on renewing your judgement, though, that means you end up having to re-judge several times during a fight just to keep that up.&nbsp; With a 2.0 attack weapon, you get 4 shots at renewing a judgement.&nbsp; If you have to cast 2 heals during that time ... you get one.&nbsp; A miss/dodge/parry and you have to lose mana and casting time to re-judge.&nbsp; A move that was already skating on thin ice as it was teeters over the edge to just becoming dangerous to the party.

I may be wrong on this.&nbsp; It still may be possible.&nbsp; Unfortunately, I can't test this since the test server, right now, has a build on it that is not refreshing ANY of my judgements.

Oh, one other thing.&nbsp; Vengeance is, as of right now, not boosting Seal of Command damage anymore.&nbsp; That's about an 8% damage loss to the "critadin" crowd.&nbsp; This may be a bug though, Blizz hasn't commented either way.

<edit - a healing paladin may be more viable with a faster weapon like a Flurry Axe to proc wisdom.&nbsp; Unfortunately, I can't afford Flurry for my Pally.&nbsp; In case you were wondering, there are all of 3 weapons in the entire game that are 1.5 speed for a pally.&nbsp; I predict the number of clerics running around with Hanzo swords is going to go up, post patch>
[right][snapback]96532[/snapback][/right]

That's why the lasting judgement talent in the Holy tree. A paladin main healer pre 1.9 still generally have to have have 20 points in Holy (I know it made it a lot easier for me when I was only healer in instances growing up). It's difficult but I didn't find it that much more difficult than I did with a druid becuase the druid either relied on a slow heal (3.5 second cast) to save mana or chewed it up in Regrowth. Though I did have the instant cast HoT. I also could not oh #$%& blessing of protection, though I could nature's swiftness. And as only healer as a druid if someone died more than once every 30 minutes it meant end of instance or fighting the repops (unless that person could stealth or we had a warlock).

Of course I had improved blessing of wisdom which I will miss a lot with just a 20 point Holy investment 6 mana/5 second adds up when you are looking the the pulls in a 5 man being 1.5 to 2 minutes or so each (3 to 5 mobs at 15-30 seconds per mob) and losing divine favor which was huge in 5 mans for a free heal and a crit heal to make the mana pool last longer and give you more time to heal other hurt people. I would generally judge light and run wisdom and of course the MT got blessing of light. I did pretty much only use Holy Light in healing the 5 man though. But I was not doing them while over leveled. I was 47 and turned 48 in Sunken Temple, I was 37 and turned 38 in Maraudon (and I wasn't 20 in holy then I was 8 Holy/21 retribution). I had rather varied groups that I healed too. Sometimes I had a couple of warriors sometimes I had a pally tanking, sometimes I had CC, sometimes I didn't.

As mentioned overall DPS has probably gone done even if you can control it a bit better with the new judgements but that ups your down time for more drinking. Overall aggro control appears to have gone down, even for prot spec, and you can't heal as well with a retribution or a protection build because of where the holy talents are now. So they are pigeon holing the paladins even more. At least the old trees all paladins could help their healing some if they wanted or mix damage with tanking. Now you pretty much have to try and specialize more it seems. So the stated mixing it up is wrong. I will say the trees make the builds a bit more distinct but they are all still relatively poor builds except for the two things you mentioned.

Now had they done what they did for druids where you could be a resto with good feral (like I am) or a feral with good resto, or a balance with good either or feral or balance it would have been different. And all 3 of those trees offer something different at the high end that gives you specialization that is helpful everywhere in the game. Holy shock doesn't really give you a healing edge. Innervate does and it helps the party more even if you put it on someone else. The paladin holy tree suffers many of the same problems as the priest one now. Mana tide for a shaman offers much more benefit as well (though the investment to get mana tide is generally too high because of other things you have to get up and how horrible the prereqs are).

Repentance has a very marginal effect on how well you can tank and survive because of the short duration and cooldown and it doesn't really help the party much either. Leader of the pack/Moonkin help you do your job and help the party more. Stormstrike or improved grace of air will do more the party and your tanking or survivabilty for the shaman in my book too.

Blessing of kings is generally not the first choice blessing though it does help the party and raid a lot (this is a bigger deal to me in the horde vs alliance debate than salvation ever was, 200-500 more HP for everyone as well as more mana) but if you are tanking in party pretty much everone is getting salvation so you can have better aggro control, if you are healing anyone expecting to take damage is getting light and mana users are generally going to get more benefit from wisdom, DPS classes will get might or salvation in most cases. Though kings has had it's uses in 5 mans where I'm the only paladin as well. So kings is closer to what the top tier talents a druid has. Elemental Mastery for the shaman will probably do more of a DPS boost though it isn't a big help to the party but since other deep shaman talents are.

Of course they may nerf the shaman in similar ways but right now of all the hybrids the paladin has become the most dependent on spec to perform one of their jobs well. So shaman should expect talent changes like the paladin got, that will pigeonhole them even more and probably nerf them too. I already felt the shaman was able to more fluidly change roles than a paladin was and that won't go away simply because they have always had more control of their DPS.

Now I still need to play the 1.9 paladin more than I have on test but as you mention the test build isnt' working the way it should be for some stuff anyway making that hard to do.

I'm not really happy with the changes.

[MongoJerry]

In PvP the only defense is a good Offense.  Paladins obviously can't do either control agro or put up a good offense.  If blizzard continues to direct the post 60 game further in these areas the grievances of paladins will only grow.

If you believe that, you must lose a lot in PvP. Paladins are best at *living*, buffing, and supporting their teams. There's no class better at it. I can definitely see paladin players having issues with the PvE experience in that in a well functioning party, the damage is generally directed at a warrior, so their ability to live far longer than any other class doesn't come in to play. However, the support skills that paladins have are good in PvE and the ability to live through just about anything (on the short time scales that are PvP fights) is overwhelmingly powerful in PvP.

The main reason why many people don't understand this is because they fall into the trap that Dozer fell into that causes you to think that fights are only about damage and healing damage. He forgot completely about crowd control. In particular, I would change:

Mages - Ranged Magical DPS, crowd control
Hunters - Ranged physical DPS, crowd control
Rogues - Melee DPS, crowd control
Warlocks - Debuffs, other forms of Ranged Magical DPS, crowd control
Druids - "Pure" hybrid, crowd control

Priests - Healers, dispel crowd control and damage dot's
Paladins - defensive/healer hybrid, dispel crowd control and damage dot's

As you can see, there are only two classes in the game who can effectively dispel most crowd control spells and damage dot's, and paladins with their ability to live and additionally cure poisons are far better at it than priests are in PvP. This is why Alliance wins at PvP in any game involving equally skilled players.

[Dozer]

Point Taken, but do you think Blizzard thought about it in that context? :P

[Quark]

You take this from a PvP perspective and then say Rogues have CC? Hah! No, Rogues who limited their potential for the awesome Assassination/Combat combo (by getting Improved Sap in Subtlety) have CC. Sap unimproved is a risky venture, especially if you're not a group that's well coordinated. Sap unimproved in PvP is just stupid, as it means you'll automatically leaving stealth, and an unstealthed Rogue is a dead rogue.

[Frag]

Sap unimproved in PvP is just stupid, as it means you'll automatically leaving stealth, and an unstealthed Rogue is a dead rogue.
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Rapid Concealment ftw. :)

~Frag

[Concillian]

You take this from a PvP perspective and then say Rogues have CC?&nbsp; Hah!&nbsp; No, Rogues who limited their potential for the awesome Assassination/Combat combo (by getting Improved Sap in Subtlety) have CC.&nbsp; Sap unimproved is a risky venture, especially if you're not a group that's well coordinated.&nbsp; Sap unimproved in PvP is just stupid, as it means you'll automatically leaving stealth, and an unstealthed Rogue is a dead rogue.
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It depends on you objective. There are plenty of cases where improved sap is more useful as crowd control than increased DPS would be, especially on flag defense.

Improved sap is quite a powerful CC in PvP because it cannot be dispelled in the same manner as other CCs... as long as you have a group disciplined enough not to attack the sapped target.

[oldmandennis]

Obviously, improved sap is better. However, solo flag defenders get sapped all the time.

[Chesspiece_face]

If you believe that, you must lose a lot in PvP.&nbsp; Paladins are best at *living*, buffing, and supporting their teams.&nbsp; There's no class better at it.&nbsp; I can definitely see paladin players having issues with the PvE experience in that in a well functioning party, the damage is generally directed at a warrior, so their ability to live far longer than any other class doesn't come in to play.&nbsp; However, the support skills that paladins have are good in PvE and the ability to live through just about anything (on the short time scales that are PvP fights) is overwhelmingly powerful in PvP...
...As you can see, there are only two classes in the game who can effectively dispel most crowd control spells and damage dot's, and paladins with their ability to live and additionally cure poisons are far better at it than priests are in PvP.&nbsp; This is why Alliance wins at PvP in any game involving equally skilled players.
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Oh we dance this dance over and over again. I have never, nor will i, said that the paladins abilities to dispell debuffs is not a strong one. What i will say, and i will argue for eternity is that this ability is extraordinarly limited by situation and circumstance. At present the greatest boon to this ability is the inclusion of the Decursive Add-on. Without that the paladins ability to effect the battlefield by dispelling on thier party becomes nearly inconsequential. the time it takes to target between players is really what that comes down to as well as the loss of mana efficiency when Decursive leaves.

Secondly, the amount of times that i've fought an equally sided match in skill level and was able to get the most out of my strengths is personally few and far between. For every time that i've been able to use my abilities in the way you describe there are 10 times where i'm hit by a counterspell or kicked by a rogue silencing me for most of the battle. The reality is that these OFFENSIVE abilities are out there in much more abundance and if used wisely and properly can destroy any hope i have of using my defensive abilities to help my group.

[savaughn]

As you can see, there are only two classes in the game who can effectively dispel most crowd control spells and damage dot's, and paladins with their ability to live and additionally cure poisons are far better at it than priests are in PvP.  This is why Alliance wins at PvP in any game involving equally skilled players.
[right][snapback]96539[/snapback][/right]

MJ, this is a gross misrepresentation.

EVERY class can effectively dispel most crowd control spells. You have a PvP trinket. I have a PvP trinket. Anyone who's spent more than 3 days in BG during a holiday has a PvP trinket.

40% of the horde population can effectively dispel most crowd control.

So... what are these crowd controls that the Paladin can dispel? Warrior fear? No. Priest fear? No. Rogue sap? No. Stuns from much of anywhere? No. Gouge? Blind? Scatter shot?

A Paladin can dispel poly, warlock fear (which is pretty dumb), and remove most roots and snares. As a trade off the paladin has no movement capabilities, no range, and every single spell they can cast including the godshield that seems to freak horde players out so much is in the same tree meaning that a:

- silence
- kick
- counterspell
- shield bash
- spell lock
- earth shock

and so on shuts the player down completely. It's not that hard to do.

In any game involving equally skilled players, the team with the best communication and game plan wins.

[Quark]

To prove that Blizzard has absolutely know idea what to do with paladins:

We're still in the process of refining our changes to the Paladin talent trees. In the interest of keeping you informed of these developments, here are the latest changes, which will be updated on the Test Realm soon:


&nbsp; &nbsp; * Blessing of Kings, the former 31 point talent in Retribution, has been shifted to the 11 point talent in the Protection tree.
&nbsp; &nbsp; * Blessing of Sanctuary, the former 11 point talent in Protection, has been shifted to the 21 point talent in the same tree.
&nbsp; &nbsp; * Holy Shield, the former 21 point talent in Protection, has been shifted to the 31 point talent in the same tree and has had its mana cost slightly reduced.
&nbsp; &nbsp; * Repentance, the former 31 point talent in Protection, has been shifted to the 31 point talent in the Retribution tree.


Please be aware that, as developer and player alike continue to test patch 1.9, further changes will be made if deemed necessary.

Before you ask why numbers weren't buffed during the shift, please understand that talent trees aren't necessarily designed to get much stronger as you get deeper into the tree, but rather unlock more options along the same basic line. Other class trees are designed in precisely the same way.

The developers will continue to evaluate the situation and make changes should they find something lacking, never fear.

Pally thoughts on the changes? Note, I've only ever seen one person use Repentance. Nice little spell sometimes, I guess.

[Rinnhart]

To prove that Blizzard has absolutely know idea what to do with paladins:

We're still in the process of refining our changes to the Paladin talent trees. In the interest of keeping you informed of these developments, here are the latest changes, which will be updated on the Test Realm soon:
&nbsp; &nbsp; * Blessing of Kings, the former 31 point talent in Retribution, has been shifted to the 11 point talent in the Protection tree.
&nbsp; &nbsp; * Blessing of Sanctuary, the former 11 point talent in Protection, has been shifted to the 21 point talent in the same tree.
&nbsp; &nbsp; * Holy Shield, the former 21 point talent in Protection, has been shifted to the 31 point talent in the same tree and has had its mana cost slightly reduced.
&nbsp; &nbsp; * Repentance, the former 31 point talent in Protection, has been shifted to the 31 point talent in the Retribution tree.
Please be aware that, as developer and player alike continue to test patch 1.9, further changes will be made if deemed necessary.

Before you ask why numbers weren't buffed during the shift, please understand that talent trees aren't necessarily designed to get much stronger as you get deeper into the tree, but rather unlock more options along the same basic line. Other class trees are designed in precisely the same way.

The developers will continue to evaluate the situation and make changes should they find something lacking, never fear.

Pally thoughts on the changes? Note, I've only ever seen one person use Repentance. Nice little spell sometimes, I guess.
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Repentance is nice, but it has never been 31 point nice. The only real reason alot of "hardcore" paladins got it was because it was just past Reckoning.

They fixed the stupidity of Kings, but at what cost? Shuffle around a few more abilities? Kings should be a base Blessing. Holy Shield was so-so for being a 21 point talent given that it REQUIRES YOU BLOCK. A 31 point talent and no buff but a "slightly reduced mana cost"?

They're trying to address the problem of kings as the 31 point retribution talent by mangling protection further. Excellent #$%&ing work. Let's dodge the bullet by ruining something else.