FIrst official 3.1 preview

[shoju]

Paladin

* Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.

Finally! I'm a Ret Paladin. I tanked for the majority of my TBC experience (Terenas Lurkers know, I went ret right before we dropped Kael in the Eye)

As a prot paladin in TBC, you were EXPECTED to have kings. After 3.0, Ret was EXPECTED to have Blessing of Kings. Now, this means that there will be a HUGE overhaul to the prot tree, but it was needed, and should free up another 5 points for ret to get some fun stuff.

I will say, with this being changed, the Prot tree is going to need some serious stuff, and it might be time for Prot to finally get a 1 point talent at the 11th talent point slot.

* Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn't drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.

Ok..... While I like this change, we are going to see lots of crying about Ret having to much damage potential now. I mean, I am in mostly crafted + badge gear with a weapon from Naxx (I don't count the chest since it can be purchased with emblems) and I'm hit capped with 3k ap and 32% crit unbuffed. Giving me another source of damage is going to be nice, and appreciated, but I have a feeling that people are going to scream about it.

* Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger's Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.

Shield bash, and a ranged shield bash on a 30 second cooldown? That will be nice. I know that the DR on silence effects will keep it from being OP in PVP, but watch out for the crying.

* Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.

So in having their ranks reduced are they going to lose come effectiveness? or are they just taking them from 5/3 TP to less TP and keeping the same effect?

* Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.

So, if you have DP up, it has a chance to refresh it? Seems a little odd, but I guess if they are talking about this, then you should expect to see a sanctuary nerf.

* Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.

meh, I don't care. HoJ was never a tool I relied on when tanking. As a paladin, you needed the mana from getting healed, that getting beat on was more important. I guess having a short CD stun might be ok, and putting it so deep in a tree will make sure ret can't abuse it in pvp.




I like the changes that they have shown so far. I'm really curious what the new prot tree is going to look like. By my esitmation, they are going to need to add 4 talents to keep the tree from being too skinny by cutting BoK and reducing the points in other talents. This would mean

2 tier 1 talents, 1 11point talent, and 1 talent down near holy shield I think.