With Paladin still in early access for Lord of Hatred pre-orders, a lot of players expected Blizzard to come down hard on the class in Season 12. After all, Paladin has been one of the strongest, and in some cases, outright broken classes in Season 11.
So is Paladin getting nerfed? No, not exactly.
Season 12 does not “delete” the Paladin, but it cleans up a huge amount of unintended power, and also adjusts some of the class’s best features!
Not a Nerf but a Reality Check
If you only peek at the patch notes, Paladin might even look buffed in most places. A few core damage sources received direct improvements, including:
Heaven’s Fury, with Triplicate’s base damage jumping from 36% to 56%
Path of the Penitent, now granting 12% damage per stack instead of 10%
Sunbrand, which saw its damage range doubled to 60-100%
These are buffs that clearly reinforce Paladin’s intended damage. However, the bigger story is where Paladin is losing power, and it has less to do with raw numbers than with how the class was functioning in Season 11.
Blizzard Is Cutting Out “Fake Power”
A massive portion of Paladin’s current power came from bugs, snapshotting, and scaling issues, especially around Judgement, Thorns interactions, and aura effects. Season 12 fixes a long list of these problems.
Some changes include:
- Judgement damage was scaling incorrectly and stacking in ways Blizzard never intended
- Thorns bonuses frequently failed to apply correctly or applied too well
- Snapshotting allowed buffs to lock in inflated values
- NPC allies inside
Holy Light Aura were dealing damage far beyond intended rates
Fixing these issues alone effectively brings Paladin back to earth, even when other skills receive buffs. This is why the class might feel weaker at first in Season 12, even though it received several damage increases on paper.
Pronouncement of Heaven (Spear of Heavens Enhancement)
One of the most notable changes is Pronouncement of Heaven. This skill was completely redesigned. Previously, it created a single permanent spear that passively dealt damage. Now it does the following things instead:
Spear of the Heavens spawns three initial spears- Each spear deals damage over 12 seconds
- Spears can be marked with Judgement, creating more active gameplay
This change pushes the skill away from passive damage and toward a more direct damage-dealing skill.
Quality-of-Life Improvements
Beyond balance, Season 12 also adds a lot of adjustments:
- Tooltips now correctly explain scaling, durations, and effects
- Holy Light Aura gains proper UI indicators and duration tracking
- Several misleading or incorrect descriptions across the skill tree were fixed
These changes do not move the meta directly, but they make Paladin far easier to understand and build correctly.
Is Paladin Still Strong?
Yes, but not in the same way. Season 12 Paladin is going to feel a bit more “honest”. It loses a lot of bug-driven power, but gains better scaling, clearer mechanics, and more intentional damage. Players who relied on Season 11’s broken interactions will, of course, feel the difference, but you should still be able to clear high pit levels.
Here are the official Paladin patch notes for the upcoming PTR:
2.6.0 PTR Patch Notes
2.6.0 PTR Build #70465 (PC Only)—February 3, 2026
Expansion
Balance Updates
Paladin
Skills
Holy Light Aura
- The tooltip now clarifies that it gains damage from attack speed.
Sanctify
- Damage now remains at 90% when selecting the upgrade.
Conviction
- Adjusted Rank Up description in tooltip to reflect that the attack speed maximum is increased and not Resolve maximum.
Defiance
- Increased the damage-over-time tick rate of Rite of Prayer from 2 seconds to 1 second.
- Adjusted the tooltip to clarify Rite of Prayer works by healing yourself as well.
Heaven’s Fury
- Triplicate base damage increased from 36% to 56%.
Word of Sacrifice (Rally Enhancement)
- Health cost increased from 15% to 35%.
- Added a duration indicator and UI number to the Rally icon for this variant.
Pronouncement of Heaven (Spear of Heavens Enhancement)
- Previous: Spear of the Heavens’ first spear gains a permanent Judgement mark and remains on the battlefield, dealing x% damage per second for 8 seconds.
- Now: Spear of the Heaven’s gains 3 initial spears that deal x% damage per second for 12 seconds. These spears can be marked with Judgement.
Passives
Path of the Penitent
- Damage increased from 10% to 12% per stack.
Unique Items
Dawnfire
- Updated the tooltip to indicate that the aura around the player changes size.
- Activating Holy Light now refreshes the duration.
- Chance for Holy Light aura to deal double damage increased to the higher value for Paladin unique items.
- Buff duration increased from 15 to 20 seconds.
- Added a buff number and duration indicator to the Holy Light aura icon.
- Adjusted the tooltip to show its increased burn area per stack.
Sunbrand
- Damage increased from 30-50% to 60-100%.
Sundered Night
- Anointing passive affix replaced with +2-4 ranks to Aura Skills.
Tempering
Holy Light Aura Potency
- Amount granted doubled.
Paragon
Castle
- Previous: You deal increased damage equal to 1.8% of your Armor.
- Now: You deal increased damage equal to 125% of your Damage Reduction granted from Armor.
Bug Fixes
Paladin
Skill Tree
- Fixed an issue where Zenith’s second cast counted towards casting an ultimate skill for the Zan rune.
- Fixed an issue where the Sunder upgrade for Zenith only dealt 10% of the intended damage.
- Fixed an issue where Consecrate would not properly apply Weakened.
- Fixed an issue where the Armor while in Arbiter form temper did not update if new values were gained or lost while in Arbiter form.
- Fixed an issue where Judgement marks could rarely apply to destructible objects in the environment.
- Fixed an issue where Judgement dealt damage as if it always hit one additional target.
Developer’s Note: This fix will be relatively unnoticeable when you’re getting procs from many judgment explosions in a short window, but greatly reduces single explosions.
- Fixed an issue where Judgement Day’s bonus was stacking multiplicatively rather than additively.
- Fixed an issue where Holy Light Aura would have a delay before it was granted to allies.
- Fixed an issue where NPC allies within Holy Light aura dealt damage at a far greater rate than intended.
- Fixed an issue where Fanaticism would snapshot its stats the first time the buff was added.
- Fixed an issue where the Rite of Prayer upgrade for Defiance Aura caused Resolve to be gained per ally it affected, rather than if at least one ally was affected.
- Fixed an issue where Thorns bonus from Defiance Aura would not increase with ranks immediately after upgrading the skill.
- Fixed an issue with Defiance Aura’s Active power not granting the full bonuses from Thorns on its attacks.
- Fixed an issue with Retribution where it wasn’t granting the full bonuses from Thorns on its attacks.
- Fixed an issue with Blessed Shield’s Shield of Retribution where it wasn’t granting the full bonuses from Thorns on its attacks.
- Fixed an issue with Fortress’ Rampart of Thorns where it wasn’t granting the full bonuses from Thorns on its attacks.
- Fixed an issue where Aegis’ Impunity was not granting its Thorns bonus.
- Fixed an issue where the player would sometimes not dash when using Divine Lance.
- Fixed an issues where the Juggernaut Oath was granting all skill damage rather than Juggernaut skill damage.
- Fixed an issue where pressing Falling Star twice in rapid succession would queue a second cast before the first cast completed.
Paragon
- Fixed an issue where Castle Legendary node would snapshot the values it gains from Armor in some cases.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Law glyph to grant its additive bonus to base damage rather than the additive bonus for Judgement.
- Fixed an issue where the Preacher paragon node scaled with weapon speed rather than bonus attack speed.
Items
- Fixed an issue where Aspect of the Disciple would not properly apply Weakened.
- Fixed an issue where some skills could stack Apogeic Furor more than once per Ultimate cast.
Developer’s Note: Recasted Ultimates will grant one stack on the first Cast of the sequence. Ultimates with charges will grant one stack per Cast.
- Fixed an issue where both Aspect of the Golden Hour and Aspect of the Judicator were granting base damage rather than multiplicative bonus damage.
- Fixed an issue where the damage bonus from Bastion of Sir Matthias was being applied to base damage.
- Fixed an issue where Light’s Rebuke and Sunbrand were granting the incorrect amount of Strength and Maximum Life.
- Fixed an issue where allies had the visual fire aura around them when Dawnfire was equipped.
- Fixed an issue where the Holy Light Aura granted by Dawnfire would change the rate that NPC allies dealt their damage.
- Fixed an issue where a player with affixes that reduce Evade’s cooldown with attacks allowed Argent Veil to spawn infinite Core skills.
- Fixed various other Legendary Aspects and Unique items that were applying damage improperly, granting less bonus than intended.
- Fixed an issue where Arbiter Wing Strikes double damage tempered affix would snapshot after the effect happened once.
- Fixed an issue where Judgement of Auriel’s damage reduction bonus was not being doubled.
- Fixed an issue where Judgement of Auriel activated on all versions of Arbiter form’s activation.
UI & UX
- Fixed an issue where Holy Light Aura’s Rite of Submission tooltip did not properly explain its effect.
Developer’s Note: This skill stuns enemies it hits, and then deals a burst of damage in an area if the stunned enemy is killed during the duration.
- Fixed an issue where damage lowered on the tooltip for Sanctify.
Developer’s Note: A compensatory buff for Paladin was implemented for this, see above.
- Fixed an issue where the tooltip for the Atonement Upgrade for Condemn Atonement didn’t display its increased damage per rank.
- Fixed an issue where tempering for Block Chance didn’t display the exact value that would be gained.
- Fixed an issue where Herald of Zakarum’s tooltip was incorrectly displaying a multiplicative value.
- Fixed multiple issues when using the Keyword search in Paladin’s Skill Tree.
- Fixed multiple issues where tooltips and descriptions weren’t accurate or missing information.
Miscellaneous
- Fixed an issue that caused the Spiritborn Revealing Legendary paragon node to gain more than the intended double bonus when hitting Crowd Controlled enemies.
For more updates on Season 12 and Lord of Hatred, visit our Diablo 4 News hub.
