Protection Paladin: Midnight Expansion Preview

Welcome to our Midnight expansion guide for Protection Paladin. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Protection 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 Protection 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 competing rotational priorities across all tanks. For Protection Paladin this focuses on movement where you needed to remain in a Consecration at all times, and the dynamic rotational changes, for example when you are in Avenging Wrath Hammer of Wrath becomes available and is now your highest priority button. The core changes that would impact your day to day experience of Protection Paladin are listed below:

• Hammer of Wrath is now a passive spell and replaces Judgment during Avenging Wrath. This lowers rotational complexity in execute and wings windows.
• Holy Shield has been removed. The effects of it are in a new reworked Mastery which is a simple block increase and 2x of that is attributed to spell block. For example if you had 20% Mastery this would increase your block chance by 20% and give you a 40% chance to block spells and DoTs.
• Consecration no longer has strict defensive benefits tied to it. This removes a lot of the friction when having to move in combat. However you can still get damage reduction from it from a reworked Sanctuary which gives 5% damage reduction while in it and for a few seconds after leaving.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings now has 2 charges.
• Eye of Tyr has now been removed. This means for Templar this now triggers from Divine Toll.
• New: Valiant Crusade will grant you Shield of the Righteous when you use Divine Steed outside of combat for the duration of steed + 2 seconds. This means that you no longer need to generate Holy Power before the pull to not die on the first melee swing.
• Righteous Protector has been reworked. It no longer gives cooldown reduction but instead gives 50% a reduced cooldown to Avenging Wrath, however this comes at the cost of 40% reduced duration.
• Word of Glory now refunds 100% mana when used on yourself, but is more expensive to use in terms of Mana when used on someone else.
• The following talents have been removed: Judgment of Light, Seal of the Crusader, Barricade of Faith, Bastion of Light, Eye of Tyr, Faith in the Light, Holy Shield, Improved Holy Shield, Inmost Light, and Moment of Glory.
• Numerous new talents were added, and some have been redesigned.

The overall impact of these changes is that the spec still feels similar enough to the current iteration of Protection Paladin to play but slightly slower. The gameplay loop should be more consistent with the removal of dynamic cooldown reduction however this unfortunately removes a level of skill expression which rewarded good rotational mastery. In terms of how it stacks up against the other tanks, I would argue that Protection Paladin has come out the best of them all for now as you do not have huge gaps in your rotation during normal gameplay and it still feels quite active and rewarding.

With Midnight comes the addition of Apex talents. Each specialization will have access to new talents, and Protection Paladin will gain Glory of the Vanguard. This is a set of passive abilities which increase in power as you spend more points into it.

• First Point: Judgment has a chance to grant you Vanguard which will cause your next Avenger's Shield to deal damage to all enemies between you and the target.
• Second Point: When Vanguard is consumed you will gain 1 Holy Power. Judgment deals 10% more damage.
• Third Point: Holy Power increased to 3 and damage increased to 20%.
• Final Point: After Vanguard is consumed Shield of the Righteous will deal 20% increased damage to the primary target and deal some AoE damage. During Avenging Wrath every cast of Avenger's Shield will benefit from Vanguard.

Apex talents aren't the only new segments of the talent tree. You will gain access to an additional set of talents in your Hero Talent Trees.

Templar gains 4 new talents in Midnight, and some updated talents.

• New Divine Hammer: Divine Toll will now summon hammers that spin around you.
• New Light's Judicator: Empyrean Hammer's deal increased crit damage and have a 50% chance to give another stack of Light's Deliverance.
• New (Choice Node) Seal of the Templar: Judgment increased by 30%.
• New (Choice Node) Divine Exaction: Divine Toll will now cast 2 more Avenger's Shield on your target.
• Updated Endless Wrath: Empyrean Hammer's have a 10% increased chance to crit.
• Updated Wrathful Descent: Cleave damage from Empyrean Hammer crits now deal 50% damage (was 100%).
• Updated Sanctification: Damage bonus for Empyrean Hammers from casting Judgment has been reduced to 5% (was 10%).

Lightsmith's new talents have not yet been released.