Protection Paladin Tank Guide — 12.1

Midnight Season 2 has begun and has all of the usual endgame offerings available. Two raids (technically only one as the other is a new style of World Boss), alongside Midnight's second Season of both Mythic+ and PvP. Below, we have some quick links to dedicated hubs covering everything available!

Patch 12.1 brings the Venomous Abyss as the raid for the Season on the Coiled Isles. Thematically the dungeon pool for the Season features the remaining Midnight Dungeons, three revamped old dungeons Temple of Sethraliss, Ruby Life Pools, King's Rest, and one new dungeon Altar of Fangs.

New Patch Content

Patch 12.1 Overview

Check out our 12.1 Patch Hub for all the information you may need on new content, new gameplay systems, and more!

Midnight Patch 12.1 Guide

Patch 12.1 brings a large rebalance to the Protection Paladin spec tree where you are now able to comfortably pick up all of the key defensive talents without the opportunity cost of losing damage. You are able to pick Blessing of Spellwarding, Sentinel and Sanctuary through standard pathing through the tree. A great change for Protection Paladin cooldown consistency!

There have also been some improvements to Single Target damage but at the cost of some burst AoE.

Check the Talents and Gear Guides for more information.

The following is a short list of the changes mentioned in this Patch:

• Talent Reshuffle: Several talents have moved within the tree allowing you to pick talents such as Sentinel without sacrificing damage. Sanctified Wrath has been removed. Improved Ardent Defender, Seal of Reprisal, and Masterwork have all been redesigned, and Blessed Word is introduced as a new talent.
• Defensive Buffs: Improved Ardent Defender now grants 20% maximum Health while active and no longer cancels when the cheat death aspect triggers. Seal of Reprisal provides 10% damage reduction, and additional buffs to to Bulwark of Order, Solace, and Undying Embers. A subtle change has happened with Guardian of Ancient Kings where it now has an internal cooldown preventing you from using both charges at the same time.
• Single Target Damage Increases: Core rotational abilities have been significantly buffed, with Shield of the Righteous, Judgment, Avenger's Shield, Consecration and Hammer of the Righteous all receiving sizeable damage increases.
• AoE Damage Nerfs: Several of Protection Paladin's strongest burst AoE talents have been toned down, with Hammer of Light, Empyrean Hammer, Hammer and Anvil, and Divine Exaction all recieving varying degrees of toning down.

Midnight is here and with it comes a large amount of changes! Many talents have been removed with new talents being added to replace them, new Hero Talents have been added but the core rotation for Protection Paladins have not changed much. The main rotational piece you are likely to notice is that Hammer of Wrath is now a passive ability and will replace Judgment when you are in Avenging Wrath, Eye of Tyr has been removed, and Guardian of Ancient Kings is now a 3 minute cooldown.

The core Paladin Talent Tree looks very similar to how it was in The War Within. The Protection Talent Tree has had a bit of a shake up with the left side of the tree focusing more on Avenger's Shield and the right side focusing on Consecration. These changes complement the spells rather than changing how they function. The end result is that the rotation has not really changed, so you do not need to worry about learning how to play Protection Paladin all over again!

Apex Talents are new talents at the end of the Protection Talent Tree which you can unlock from Level 81 with points being awarded to you at Levels 81, 84, 87 and 90. These are all passive effects which for Protection Paladins will give you more rotational Holy Power to spend and increase damage.

Glory of the Vanguard (2nd and 3rd Point) specifically synergise well with Divine Toll as you can rotationally trigger the effects of Glory of the Vanguard (1st Point) through casting Judgment and the free casts of Avenger's Shield via Divine Resonance will trigger the Holy Power regenerative effects.

Finally Glory of the Vanguard (4th Point) will make every cast of Avenger's Shield benefit from the effects of Vanguard giving it bonus damage and Holy Power generation while Avenging Wrath is active. This in reality would essentially give you an endless supply of Holy Power during Avenging Wrath.

Lightsmith is functionally identical to how it played in The War Within however the Tier Set Bonus which made it a powerhouse in Season 3 has been removed and added in as a Hero Talent at a lower power level.

Templar has been made a bit stronger, it is now hooked to Divine Toll (as Eye of Tyr has been removed) which may not sound like a big change but Avenger's Shield now contributes to a larger potion of your total damage and the Templar Tree adds to that power even more!

There are a few changes in this department. A short cooldown defensive ability has been removed (Eye of Tyr), but two core changes have been added to make Protection Paladins defensively very powerful in Midnight.

• Mastery has changed to focus on Block and Spell Block. Very high levels of Mastery will be required to guarantee a Spell Block which will not be achievable until much later in the expansion.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings is now a 3 minute cooldown (down from 5) and has two charges!

Earlier it was mentioned that Avenger's Shield contributes more DPS. This is primarily though Refining Fire which adds a DoT to targets hit which has been significantly buffed from ~57% of the damage over 5 seconds to 100%. If we add that to Divine Toll being a core ability for Templar to activate Hammer of Light and Avenging Wrath having a fixed 1 minute cooldown (which matches Toll) you have a very clear burst DPS window. This is all before we mention Divine Exaction which is a new Hero Talent for Templars which makes Divine Toll cast two more times at 150% power. With all of these combined the DPS output of Protection Paladins should be in a better place than it was in The War Within.