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First Look at Protection Paladin in Dragonflight 10.0.7 - Feedback & Wishlist
RPT
Publié
20/02/2023 à 11:21
par
Lincoln
Protection Paladins have received significant changes with the 10.0.7 PTR, but were these changes enough to fix some of the issues plaguing this Tank of Faith? Our Protection Paladin Writer, Lincoln, breaks down all changes while providing insightful feedback and a wishlist that might help Protection Paladin meet its full potential.
With the release of the 10.0.7 PTR over the last few weeks, we have seen several class changes to the Paladin class including changes for Protection, Retribution and Holy. 10.0.5 did not bring much except some minor quality of life changes for Holy. Protection and Retribution were effectively unchanged compared to launch day Dragonflight.
Looking at the current state of live balance, Protection Paladins are not a "meta" spec this tier. It's not a highly popular spec for raids -- most Mythic teams are progressing with Death Knight and Warrior tanks with very few Paladins who have cleared 8/8M. And for Mythic Plus, Paladins are strong but again Warrior and Death Knight tanks have higher representation in higher keys. Andybrew is once again pushing the highest Mythic+ on Paladin but looking at the larger population, Protection Paladin is not that popular.
Paladins have been patiently waiting since beta for their day in the sun as other classes saw major changes repeatedly while Paladins saw really none. The class tree is effectively the same as it was in early Dragonflight alpha builds. There were some changes and iterations during alpha and beta to address feedback but none of them were really that satisfying. But based on the PTR, it seems like improving the gameplay experience for Paladins is now a focus!
In this article, I'll be going over the changes for Protection Paladins in 10.0.7 and why I think it's a vast improvement compared to 10.0.5.
About the Author
This content was written by Lincoln. He is a moderator for the
Hammer of Wrath Community
where he helps players on a daily basis get better at playing Protection. Feel free to message him questions, comments or concerns about what you read here.
You can find him posting random opinions on
Twitter
.
First, let's start with some of the improvements in the Paladin Class tree.
Paladin Class Tree: More Generic Options
The first major change to the Paladin class tree, especially early in the tree before the 8-point gate, was just increasing the number of generic options available. Generic options are talents that can be used in any situation and the 10.0.5 tree was lacking them. As an example, in 10.0.5 we were forced into talents like
Poing de la justice
since it was required for
Jugement supérieur
but in raid situations, those two points were effectively zeros. 10.0.7 solves problems like this in a meaningful way by making talents like
Poing de la justice
independent and skippable. If I want to drop
Poing de la justice
because it's not useful, I can spend a point on
Insaisissabilité
instead for something passive and generic.
Paladin Class Tree: More High Value Nodes
They increased the value of existing nodes through buffs or redesigns.
Sceau de puissance
was redesigned to be active all the time instead of just during
Courroux vengeur
.
Sceau d’empressement
now affects the
Jugement
cooldown.
Jugement de lumière
was buffed to be more impactful for small group content. They also added new nodes like
Plaques sanctifiées
and
Armure de foi
that make Paladins more survivable. In 10.0.7, spending a talent point in the class tree will have more weight and feel a lot better.
Paladin Class Tree: Improved Gameplay
The redesign of
Aube et crépuscule
reduces some of the gameplay pressure on Protection Paladin to maintain so many buffs. It was quite common for Protection Paladins to message me that they were having trouble maintaining
Bénédiction de l’aube
, while also keeping up
Bouclier du vertueux
. The 10.0.5 version of
Aube et crépuscule
restricted your Holy power usage quite a bit as there was this inherent conflict of trying to maintain a damage buff or core defensive mechanic. Additionally, procs like
Dessein divin
or
Sceau de charité
would disrupt the ability to refresh either buff. It was one of the reasons why those talents were dropped when people were looking to truly min/max. Now that
Bénédiction de l’aube
is tied to buttons that generate Holy power, it should happen more naturally without needing to juggle so many buffs and procs.
Bénédiction du crépuscule
will now proc. when
Bénédiction de l’aube
is consumed -- again something that will be natural as you use any Holy Power spender.
They also removed a few procs namely,
Sceau de charité
and
Aspiration divine
. While they weren't the most impactful talents, it just cleans up buff tracking, and UI overload. Sometimes cutting down on this is better for gameplay and in this case it is.
Just like the class tree, the Protection spec tree on the 10.0.7 PTR is a vast improvement over live. Let's talk about why.
Protection Spec Tree: Improved Pathing
The pathing in the tree is much improved in 10.0.7. This was done mostly by adding new lines and paths between talents. As an example, you can go directly from
Massacreur de Tyr
to the
Inimitié ciblée
/
Poussée de bouclier
choice node. There was also new pathing added to the bottom of the tree so you can now path towards the middle from the left and right branch which cannot be done on live. Most talents now have multiple paths to get to it, which cuts down on the restrictions and what talents can be combined with each other!
Protection Spec Tree: New Build Options
There are a myriad of new build options. Here are some examples of talent changes that expand the number of possible builds:
Main du protecteur
is way more accessible in this tree than it was before. Before it was locked behind
Lumière des Titans
but now you can pick up
Foi en la Lumière
instead.
Foi en la Lumière
makes spending that GCD on
Mot de gloire
just a bit safer especially if you use Holy Power for it.
Speaking of
Foi en la Lumière
, it's actually a viable choice to pick now for some passive damage reduction. It's 15/30% block for 5s after you press
Mot de gloire
and in normal play, you'll have ~25% uptime on it or ~7.5% more Block chance.
It's now easier to pick up
Sanctuaire
for some passive damage reduction while in
Consécration
.
Jugement du croisé
is now less costly as it's not gated behind a low power 2-point node.
Inimitié ciblée
has been redesigned so it's not as punishing on raid fights with split Single Target and AoE phases. The old version was not playable at all on some bosses this raid tier and the only choice was to take
Poussée de bouclier
or to unspec the node. Now, you can pick up
Inimitié ciblée
for some extra single target damage while still maintaining the ability to hold AoE threat.
Lumière intérieure
is back! The beloved Legion Legendary is now back as a talent option to modify
Œil de Tyr
and make it the heavy hitter that people remember.
Cooldown reduction galore: You can get sub two-minute cooldown on
Bénédiction de protection des sorts
and
Bouclier divin
, sub one minute cooldown
Œil de Tyr
and
Ardent défenseur
, and even sub three-minute cooldown on
Imposition des mains
! This is on top of retaining access to sub two-minute
Gardien des anciens rois
and one minute
Sentinelle
/
Courroux vengeur
.
10.0.7 Protection Paladin Sample Build
Here is a sample build that could be used in 10.0.7 in Mythic+. Note: This is just a sample and not a recommendation. The PTR is very much in flux.
You can see that the class tree is similar to live and that will be the case until they fix some talents. More on this later. But in the Protection tree, you can see that I was able to grab
Sanctuaire
,
Foi en la Lumière
, and
Main du protecteur
, which are not used on live. I did give up
Bénédiction de protection des sorts
and
Résistance finale
but I'm taking the gamble that the increased access to
Ardent défenseur
and
Œil de Tyr
on top of increased passive survivability will make up for it.
10.0.7 Protection Paladin Suggestions
There are some bugs on the PTR, which are being tracked
here
, but I think both trees are headed in the right direction given the foundation that Blizzard created for Protection Paladin in Dragonflight. But that doesn't mean it can't be better. Here are some changes I would make to improve both the class tree and spec tree.
Paladin Class Tree Suggestions
Separate
Résonance divine
and
Invocation accélérée
into two separate nodes that can be taken together. With the removal of
,
Invocation accélérée
might not be powerful enough to take on its own so being able to combo it with
Résonance divine
for stronger
Glas divin
could make it more appealing for some situations
Give value to Protection for
Bénédiction sancteforge
and
Sursis du croisé
. Neither work with anything in the Protection kit so we're just not going to take them if things don't change.
Lumière faiblissante
will likely need a buff for Protection as the shield will never outvalue spending that point on
Sceau de l’Ordre
or even on another talent node all together.
Redesign
Punition
so it's not such a blatant DPS increase. Encouraging kicks and interrupting is good for dungeon gameplay but make it more nebulous like movement speed or even cooldown reduction on
Réprimandes
itself.
Armure de foi
should be switched to trigger on
Mot de gloire
for Protection. This would help align it with the newly buffed
Foi en la Lumière
talent. Getting armor when your primary Holy Power spender gives armor is ... weird. I would also consider moving it up a row. It's currently exceedingly difficult to select as a talent below the 20-point gate.
Sceau d’empressement
has two issues. First, it's increasing the cooldown on
Jugement
- not reducing it. The second is that the tooltip is deceptive for Protection. Protection has a 50% reduction to the cooldown of
Jugement
on the spec aura, which is modifying the value of cooldown reduction provided by
Sceau d’empressement
. It's really giving .25s/.5s reduction for Protection. The tooltip should be fixed to reflect this.
Buff the healing options on the left side of the tree --
Voie dorée
is very weak, and
Image rémanente
has some weird behavior with free procs like
Dessein divin
. Paladins should have more viable off-healing options in their class tree like Druid's
Veille de la nature
or Shaman's
Soutien ancestral
and none of the current options hit that mark.
Protection Spec Tree Suggestions
Make
Conseil d’Uther
playable. This is the hardest talent to include in any build right now for Protection and that's because the tree structure has six required talents after the 20-point gate for difficult content: 1 in
Courroux sanctifié
, 2 in
Défenseur résolu
, 1 in
Protecteur vertueux
, 1 in
Don de la Val’kyr dorée
, and 1 in the
Inimitié ciblée
/
Poussée de bouclier
choice node. That leaves 4 points to pick between
Œil de Tyr
/
Lumière intérieure
,
Moment de gloire
,
Rempart de la fureur vertueuse
,
Résistance finale
, and
Conseil d’Uther
. Out of these options,
Conseil d’Uther
is strictly utility and is a lower priority pick. One solution could be to swap it with
Sceau de représailles
so all the choices below the 20-point gate are pure damage and power increases, while the middle section has some flexibility to opt into utility with some flex points. That said, I could see this being tabled till a future patch as it could require more structural changes to the tree that aren't on the table right now.
Lumière des Titans
needs some love. In a lot of cases, it's just overheal and ineffective healing. This is disappointing as it blocks access to
Sceau de charité
, which could be very nice to use.
Reconsider
Dévotion de Tirion
and move it to the class tree. This could be a useful talent for all Paladins, especially if it were in the healing section of the class tree. It could be extremely hard to spend a Protection spec tree point on this talent.
Change
Moment de gloire
to 80% cooldown reduction on Avenger's Shield. This is mostly quality of life. All of Protection's abilities have a cooldown that are a multiple of 1.5 and
Moment de gloire
messes with that. It creates these micro-gaps in the rotation that are less than a GCD and are very awkward.
Conclusion
What Blizzard is doing for 10.0.7 is hitting all the right buttons for Protection Paladins. There is always room for improvement but the overall gameplay experience for Protection Paladins in 10.0.7 will be much better. I can't wait to see what's next in 10.1 and beyond.
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