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Paladin 6.0 Transition Guide

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So I'm starting this topic to assist Paladins who have been unable to test PTR or beta with the upcoming changes to their specs. As of right now I am going to put the biggest changes to ret down, and when I can get on PTR to refresh my memory I'll add more. Later on down the road, my fellow Paladin Mods, Geoda and Fouton, will be putting in the information on Holy and Prot, respectively.

 

Retribution Changes 6.0 - 

 

Major Changes

 

Inquisition is being removed - after being a staple in the ret rotation for years this is by far the biggest change to the spec. 

 

Guardian of Ancient Kings removed - this will primarily affect burst and CD lineup with skills such as ES, it's also a loss of some extra damage that can be used on targets we aren't able to hit.

 

Devo Aura gone - our biggest raid CD is being removed for the spec leaving it much more important for us to focus on using our single target CDs; BoP, Sac, Salv, HoP, and so on.

 

Minor Changes

 

Sac is no longer on global - this is applied to all specs but it is a big deal for ret especially as it will no longer affect our dps to use it, and as such we will hopefully be able to make a macro to allow you to use it almost instinctively when you have to.

 

Seals no longer cost mana - minor change, but still huge as we can change specs without sacrificing the ability to heal ourselves, this is mostly a pvp buff.

 

New Passives: Righteous Vengeance and Sanctity Aura - RV gives us a passive 5% increase of mastery from any sources; SA gives your entire raid or party +3% versatility.

 

Be aware that many of our old passives have been made innate and while they will not show in your spell book they are still there. (E.G. Judgments of the Bold and Art of War)

 

 

A lot of these changes will just affect your personal game play, such as GoAK removal and Inq, but a few of them will affect your raid, and if your RL doesn't know you should make them aware of the changes being made to your class, specifically the loss of Devotion Aura for our spec. 

 

Overall ret feels less "clunky" but far more simplified, without the need to keep up Inquisition and the loss of snapshotting guardian stacks ret begins to feel monotonous, but by no means should this put you away from the class, we have an amazing tier set when warlords drops and there are more changes still to come, and you are more than welcome to post questions on this thread, message me, or give your input on any changes I might have missed.

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Holy Changes 6.0 -

 

Talents (New/Changes)

  • Eternal Flame doesn't change too much. It'll tick every 2 seconds instead of 3. Also, the duration and healing power of the Eternal Flame will increase per charge of Holy Power. This will basically force us to use a 3 charge Eternal Flame since it'll give the maximum duration and healing. The Heal of Time will be the same, just the duration of the actual HoT will increase per charge of Holy Power.
  • Execution Sentence is now a little more appealing since it gives a large healing burst at the start and then decreasing over time.
  • Selfless Healer is one of the most interesting changes. Judgment still gives 1 charge of Selfless Healer, but does not give Holy Power anymore. However, with the increase of healing and cast reduction, it may be a tempting talent choice since healers strongly lack instant cast healing spells.

Glyphs

  • Glyph of Divine Wrath is an interesting glyph since it will reduce all mana costs while Avenging Wrath is active by 25% but reduces all healing by 50%. It's good for mana conservation but dramatically gimps our HPS. 
  • Judgment has increased by 10 yards! Yay? 
  • That's about it, not a lot of glyph changes that have a huge impact

 

Spells (Added/Changed)

  • Devo is now Holy only. 
  • Avenging Wrath is now beast mode. Increases healing done by 100% for 20 seconds! It's only a 3 min CD so it'll be something to be ready to use when the damage is ramped up. This has replaced Divine Favor and GotAK though.
  • Holy Light is now our big long heal. It used to be called Divine Light.
  • Holy Radiance now only splashes 6 ally players within 10 yards. Not really important but should be noted.
  • Light of Dawn is now a 1.5 second cast. This is very different than how it used to be since it was instant. It's also our only mass (30 yard) AoE heal. I see this being more frequently used with 3 holy power due to the 1.5 second cast. 
  • Word of Glory is also a 1.5 second cast. Basically, our Single Target and AoE spells that consume Holy Power are no longer instant. 

Spells (Removed)

  • No more Divine Plea 
  • Our old Flash of Light and Divine Light (removed) on the Beacon has been removed. Holy Power is going to be a lot more difficult to generate now.
  • Guardian of the Ancient Kings has been removed from Holy. Now our main CD will be Avenging Wrath. 
  • Hand of Salvation is now Prot specific

 

Summary

 

Healing as a Holy Paladin seems a lot simpler. With the adjustments of mana and reduction of spells and cooldowns, Paladins don't have to feel that they need to be casting something every second. It will be a little bit more reactive instead of forward mitigation focus. With minimal cooldowns, it will need to be saved in times of the heaviest of damage. Holy Power is also difficult to obtain, so it appears that 3 Holy Power charged spells will be more common. Lastly, with the double beacon opportunity, I can see Paladins starting off as tank focus again, especially early on when we're still learning the playstyle. 

 

Per usual, don't be afraid to ask questions or give feedback on Paladin changes. You can either comment or PM me in case I have missed anything or given false information. 

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Protection Changes 6.0 -

 

Spell Changes

 

We've lost a few abilities that won't really change your playstyle. Devotion Aura is now Holy only, so we can no longer provide raid CDs. You'll also notice that Avenging Wrath is gone, which means you can't pop it for extra DPS or self healing. These won't feel different to your own rotation though, you'll just feel a bit more helpless when the raid is in trouble.

 

As for other changes, Hand of Sacrifice is no longer on the global, so you can put it out during your rotation. This is very useful to be able to apply a 30% reduc to a player who needs it without compromising our mitigation. There's also a change you wont ever notice, but seals no longer cost mana.

 

Talent Changes

 

You'll notice that Blinding Light is missing from your spellbook, and that is because it is now a tier 2 talent, in place of Repentance. Prot paladins will no longer have Repentance, and also means you can't have a 30s Fist of Justice along with a 2min AoE stun. You'll now need to talent Blinding Light AND glyph it just to have an AoE blind, it cant even become a stun.

 

Execution Sentence has also been changed slightly for the healing use. The damage dealing version will stay the same, however when you use ES to heal, the healing is in a quick burst that slows down. This is different from before when it used to ramp up. You no longer need to time it for big damage to have it spike a useful heal on you, now you can just use it when you see you need health.

 

Stat Changes

 

There's been some changes in gearing now. Hit and Expertise has been completely removed, and the hit/expertise you have on your gear is changing into different stats. The stat it is becoming is not always the same, so I recommend looking up the items on wod.wowhead.com so that you can see for yourself.

 

Another stat change is that we're getting more types of stats. There will be Bonus Armor (which is essentially just more armor. It's actually fairly good), Multistrike (which procs extra heals for ourselves), Leech (%damage turns into healing), Versatility (More DPS/HPS, Less Damage Taken), and Avoidance (AoE damage reduction).

 

Our stat priorities won't change much for the 6.0, so you can keep your Haste > Mastery builds, with stats like Bonus Armor/Versatility/Multistrike having some value to you as a tank.

 

Resolve vs Vengeance

 

Another big change is Vengeance being removed, and being replaced by Resolve. Overall they're essentially the same, but there are some differences. The most talked about part of this is that tanks don't get OP damage scaling from vengeance. Now tanks will be expected to do 75% of a DPS's damage, and it won't ramp up depending on if you're tanking or not. This means you may have to watch threat over lesser tanks, since vengeance isn't there to support them.

 

The bigger change about Resolve is really in the healing portion of it. With Vengeance you were able to use crazy boosts to throw big heals on raid members with EF/WoG, giving comfortable healing blankets across the raid when big damage was coming. Now, Resolve doesn't scale healing to others, only to yourself. This means there's going to be very little value in giving other players your EF. I did a quick test on beta, and my 463 premade character's EF was ticking for 0.1% of a random players health. You won't have any gain in healing others.

 

You will still keep the same gains you had from self-healing. The only difference is that it's based on the last 10 seconds of damage, rather than 20 seconds.

 

 

 

It all sounds like a lot of changes, but it really isn't. Your stat priority is relatively the same, you won't be changing your rotation, and your self healing is really the same. The difference is mainly in how you will deal damage, and the loss of a raid CD. The big changes will be when WoD hits and you level from 91 to 100, but those updates will come with the expansion.

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What a shame! I have completely overlooked this topic ... too much stress at work i suppose wink.png

 

 

  • Glyph of Divine Wrath is an interesting glyph since it will reduce all mana costs while Divine Favor is active by 25% but reduces all healing by 50%. It's good for mana conservation but dramatically gimps our HPS. 

 

I don't understand: healing reduction during healing cd? Oh boy ...

 

 

But what really scares me is the fact that HP generation will become slow as well as HP spending unsure.png

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I see this expansion really relying on healing assignments. With the mana, throughput and damage changes on raid, it will be necessary for healers to conserve mana and really only cast spells that are needed. Having a "free for all" approach will be chaotic and a huge mana concern early on.

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  • Eternal Flame doesn't change too much. It'll tick every 2 seconds instead of 3. Also, the duration and healing power of the Eternal Flame will increase per charge of Holy Power. This will basically force us to use a 3 charge Eternal Flame since it'll give the maximum duration and healing. 

 

Just a note, Eternal Flame's heal-over-time will tick for the same amount regardless of the amount of Holy Power you cast it with.  It is the initial healing amount and duration that is different per Holy Power consumed.

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Are these changes going to be really worth playing this spec now? ive seen some beta videos and seen some discussions saying ret will be very high in dps, but also very reliant on procs.

any beta testers out there? what kind of gear are rolling? strength cap, haste cap, mastery cap? any help would be greatly appreciated

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The bad thing about gear in WoD is you can't control it and just go with what you can, but from what I've seen crit is our best stat; however, I don't see ret performing well at all until later in the expac, unless you play it to a high level plus a lot of fights aren't melee friendly still.

 

Edit: A lot of the fights I tested. This includes CM fights and dungeon fights.

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see ive heard just the opposite, that most fights are melee friendly. a lot of the data out there is pointing to ret being top 4/5 as a dps spec

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In reality, the 6.0 changes are really a way to feel comfortable with the new talents and spell choices prior to the WoD release. I wouldn't stress too much on gear since it will be outdated very soon.

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Something to mention with regards to the transitions, which I think should be updated in the Paladin guides: The enchants that the Icy-veins guides are giving are all Mists of Pandaria enchants such as Enchant Cloak - Superior Critical Strike. This is actually incorrect.

 

Due to the stat squish, enchants are in a bit of a flux at the moment. Some enchants from pre-MoP are actually more powerful than enchants from MoP. The Superior Critical Strike enchant is one such as example, as it currently increases crit strike by 12, however, the Enchant Cloak - Greater Critical Strike, which is a Cataclysm enchant, actually increases crit strike by 13, making it more powerful than the MoP enchant. Another enchant which may be better is Enchant Boots - Surefooted, which increases both crit and haste by 10, making it better than the Pandaren's step enchant recommended for Rets, as well as more powerful than Enchant Boots - Greater Haste, which only increases Haste by 11.

 

It may be worth Icy-Veins rechecking their enchant recommendations for 6.0...

Edited by SingingPaladin

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All of the class guides will be updated in due time but as only our admins can edit them they don't always have the time to do them with everything they have to keep up with on the site.

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I am just wondering, what are healing rotations going to look like now? Specifically for eternal flame users. Can anyone who has been in on the beta or PTR give me a little breakdown of what you're doing? Currently, at only ilvl 505 my holy paladin is almost always able to stay in the top 3 healers in any raids, even SoO. As well I am able to do this efficiently without ever completely depleting mana. With the new changes, especially the complete removal of holy light, it seems that this will no longer be possible.  What are we using now as our cheap single heal in its stead? Or how are we circumventing the need to use such a spell? Just want to get a leg up on understanding before the switch tomorrow. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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After the changes, we are left with Holy Light and Flash of Light as our main single target heals. They will both heal for the same amount, but Holy Light will be a 2.5 sec vs Flash of Light being 1.5 sec cast and using nearly twice as much mana. You'll get a bit of mana back if used on the Beacon though.

 

Holy Shock and Holy Radiance will be our Holy Power generators. Holy Shock on CD will be vital in keeping our HP pool up. 

 

During the MOP to WOD transition, I would focus more on the spell changes rather than the number throughput. This is a dramatic change to the normal Paladin healing style and this transition time should be used to get accustomed. 

 

But to answer the question, Blizzard is really trying to take the healers away from feeling the "constant need to be casting" and make us more critical on our spell choices.

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After the changes, we are left with Holy Light and Flash of Light as our main single target heals. They will both heal for the same amount, but Blizzard is really trying to take the healers away from feeling the "constant need to be casting" and make us more critical on our spell choices.

 

I wonder how this is going to work for some of those "Look! Your uptime was NOT 100%! You suck!" meter-readers.

Edited by Maplefire
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Damage Break Down for a normal Garrosh Kill rotation felt smooth. 

 

Stats:

49.75% Haste (unbuffed)

30.26% Crit (unbuffed)

57.59% Mastery 

 

(fully raid buffed)

 

X3vNXxw.jpg

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I wonder how this is going to be work for some of those "Look! Your uptime was NOT 100%! You suck!" meter-readers.

Good question. I'm sure min/maxers will find a way to have an optimized healing style for stagnant damage. But by the looks of it it appears to be more thinking ahead and preparing for damage.

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Any respectable guild or healer knows what to look for when recruiting.

 

I've heard stories of otherwise from US25+ guilds.

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