Holy Paladin: Midnight Expansion Preview

Welcome to our Midnight expansion guide for Holy Paladin. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Holy Paladin spec in the forthcoming Midnight expansion, including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regular changes expected as updates hit the Midnight beta. This is not meant to be a launch guide for Holy Paladin, but instead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, and what you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Heading into Midnight, Blizzard wanted to focus on reducing the amount of healing sources that Holy Paladin has while also removing the need to track multiple different buffs such as Awakening. Additionally, they wanted to cut back on the number of cooldowns available to the spec while also making Aura Mastery feel more impactful. Even Crusader Strike has been removed as more emphasis is placed on Holy Shock and Infusion of Light. Finally, Light of Dawn received adjustments its targetting and now no longer heals players in front of you but instead players around you. Some of the core changes will be listed below:

• Holy Prism and Divine Toll now share a choice node.
• Hammer of Wrath is no longer castable and instead replaces Judgment during Avenging Wrath. Hammer of Wrath will gain all the talent benefits that Judgment does when this occurs.
• Crusader Strike has been removed.
• Light of Dawn now heals players around you instead of players in front of you.
• Ringing of the Heavens is a new talent that causes Aura Mastery to cast Divine Toll when used.
• The following talents have been removed: Barrier of Faith, Blessing of the Seasons, Boundless Salvation, Merciful Auras, and Relentless Inquisitor.
• Numerous new talents were added, and some have been redesigned.

The overall impact of these changes is still to be determined. What is clear however is that Holy Paladin should have a more clear rotation and not as many cooldowns to manage during a fight. Divine Toll will be a mid-range cooldown usable for burst situations while Avenging Wrath remains your extremely powerful throughput cooldown. In terms of rotation, you will still focus on generating as much Holy Power as possible while maximizing Holy Shock casts and Infusion of Light consumptions. This means the rotation won't change massively, you will just have less buttons to worry about.

With Midnight comes the addition of Apex talents. Each specialization will have access to new talents, and Holy Paladin will gain Beacon of the Savior. This is a passive ability that will target an ally player with the lowest health. This beacon functions the same as Beacon of Light, Beacon of Faith, and Beacon of Virtue meaning that healing you do will transfer to the player with this beacon. Additionally, they will gain all the effects of talents that increase Beacon's effectiveness: Saved by the Light and Glistening Radiance for example. Beacon of the Savior will constantly jump around to new players providing them additional healing, beacon-related effects, and a decent sized shield that will also reduce damage taken. In other words, this is an incredibly powerful passive that should play a large role in helping you to keep players out of danger.

In addition to Apex talents, you will gain access to additional talents within your Hero Talent Trees.

Herald of the Sun gains 3 new talents in Midnight. The very first of these talents is Walk Into Light. This talent provides an interesting bonus, causing your next Holy Shock after casting Avenging Wrath to generate an additional 2 Holy Power and guaranteeing a proc of Blessing of An'she. This gives you a very strong Holy Shock cast heading into your primary throughput cooldown.

Endless Gleam is the next talent added and this causes Dawnlight to have it's duration extended whenever it heals an ally at full health. This allows you to extend the duration of your Dawnlights by a decent amount, helping you to get more healing out of each them and will lessen the impact that mistiming your Dawnlights can have.

The final talent added to Herald of the Sun is Born in Sunlight. This is a fairly basic bonus that increases the critical strike chance of Dawnlight during Avenging Wrath.

Lightsmith's new talents have not yet been released.