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Q u o t e:
* Hand of Sacrifice is now trained at level 80. Up from 78.
* Seal of Justice no longer stuns the target but limit it's maximum run speed instead.
* Avenger's Shield no longer dazes the targets, but silences them for 3 secs.

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Really nothing to comment but AS now silencing as its only effect. I remember GC commenting the dazing just made the pull take longer for the adds to be positioned. A welcomed change.

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Q u o t e:
* Vindication now gives your Holy Wrath a chance to reduce physical damage done by the target by 10% for 30 sec. (Old - Proc from all damaging attacks, 10 sec duration)/[quote]

Seems like a big nerf to Vindication but it's basically now a true copycap of DemoShout -- Using a GCD for us to apply the debuff and all, I'll touch on this later on.

[quote]* Devotion Aura is now trained at level 9. Down from 18.
* Hand of Protection no longer seems to have the Avenging Wrath restriction.
* Righteous Fury now increases all threat.

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Improving the effectiveness of low level tanks, specially in the 10-20 bracket -- I'm all for that.

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Q u o t e:
* Ardent Defender - Activate to reduce damage taken by 20% for 10 sec. While Ardent Defender is active, the next attack that would otherwise kill you will instead cause you to be healed for 15% of your maximum health.
* Shield of the Templar now reduces the cooldown of Avenger's Shield by 3/7/10 sec (Up from 2/4/6 sec), Guardian of Ancient Kings by 1/2/3 min (Down from 10/20/30 min). No longer increases the amount absorbed by your Sacred Shield, now reduces the cooldown fo Avenging Wrath by 20/40/60 sec.

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I am happy with AD as long as the 35% health restriction is gone, which has been since the previous build. It seems interesting how AS is being changed -- again, I'll touch on this later on.

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Q u o t e:
* Holy Shield now Lasts 20 sec. Up from 15 sec.

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Makes the HP generation more forgiving. Previously, you needed 13.5secs to have enough HP for HS to be effective, provided you did not miss any CS. It still seems clunky however -- again, I'll touch on this later on.

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Q u o t e:
* Guarded by the Light has been revamped - Increases your Word of Glory by 20/40% when used to heal yourself. Any overhealing will create a protective shield equal to the amount of overhealing that lasts for 6 sec (last part NYI).

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This is the first WTF change of this build. HP generation for protection paladins is clunky at best (see the 13.5 secs to generate 3 HP from the holy shield example) and we can either use it to block more or heal ourselves. Incredibly situational -- the only I can think of where this is preferred over using your HP on HS instead is for a big magical attack since block does nil for that -- and in a raid setting, you'd prefer to use an actual cooldown so you can then go back to continue blocking with your HS.

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Q u o t e:
* Grand Crusader now has a chance to reduce the cooldown of your next Avenger's Shield instead of Holy Wrath.

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I'll finally be able to talk more about AS. It seems they want our AS to be the counterpart of Revenge in the sense of the proc. It also seems they want us to use it constantly as part of our rotation and they're making this our interrupt to boot. Highly counterintuitive considering that AS was primarily our pulling tool of preference for a whole expansion.

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Q u o t e:
* Hallowed Ground now decreases Consecration's mana cost by 25% instead of increasing its damage.

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With the talk that they want to nerf AoE even more, I saw this change coming.

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Q u o t e:
* Protector of the Innocent is now a Tier 1 Talent. Down from Tier 2. Now Increases your healing by 1/2/3% on allies affected by Devotion Aura and increases the damage of your Retribution Aura by 20/40/60%.

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It went from a pure prot talent to a talent only Holy and Ret will take -- unless the "your healing" is a typo and it really is "healing"

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Q u o t e:
* Toughness is now a Tier 2 talent. Up from Tier 1.

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No comment on this one.


--

My overview.

Touching back on Vindication: Will the Vindication effect still be applied to a target if Holy Wrath misses?

On AS: Another note -- if this is going to be our interrupt, even with a proc, it's still on the GCD. And let's not forget that it takes 4 secs for the chance to proc.

On flavor (paradigm): I sense a shift. We were being sold the philosophy of paladin tanks blocking more often although for less, it seems that idea has changed recently. Now there's a ramp up time to match the 15% block baseline warriors get; then we were told that ramp up time was to compensate for the warriors using their GCDs to apply debuffs -- but now it's the same thing for us with Holy Wrath/Vindication. And now there's the new Warrior Critical Block with its 10% chance to block + 10% chance to crit block + mastery.

At this point, warriors seem more complete on the beta pass than the paladins and I feel the problem is still the implementation of Holy Power.

Holy Power, IMO, is the elephant in the room. It works great for Retribution and that;s awesome -- ret paladins seem to like how HP weaves into the way they dps. The problem arises on trying to implement that system into the other two trees. And the one that comes out losing the most, at this stage, is protection.

It is my hope that next builds will touch on protection paladin quite a lot more, but at this stage, I am disappointed.

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And a question: Would blizz be willing to trash the concept of Holy Power for both Holy and Protection if it's holding the development and implementation of the trees?

We'd like to give Prot paladins (Ret too) passive spell hit somewhere.

We'd also like to find a way to bring Shield of Righteousness back, but only if we can find an actual niche for it -- not just "here's another attack." Something like it consuming Holy Power but refreshing Holy Shield.

Word of Glory has no cooldown. It is limited by Holy Power production.

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Q u o t e:
I am in the beta. Unless they changed it back with the latest patch, it only affect spellpower and NOT healing spellpower. I am currently downloading 12644 to take a screenshot of my character stat page, assuming you don't believe me.

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I'm pretty sure it affects both damage and healing.