Protection Paladin: First Impression of the New Paladin Talent Trees in Dragonflight

Dragonflight Posted 2022/08/06 at 10:00 AM by Lincoln

To learn about the best PvE talent builds in Dragonflight for this class, and export these builds into the game, please check out our Holy, Protection, and Retribution Paladin class guides:
Holy Paladin Talent BuildsProtection Paladin Talent BuildsRetribution Paladin Talent BuildsPaladin Dragonflight Class TreePaladin Dragonflight Talents - What’s NewDivine PurposeSanctified WrathThe Mad ParagonOf Dusk and Dawn

Afterimage: This is just a passive healing trait for Word of Glory. We’ll need to test how smart it is but with smart Hand of the Protector usage, it could be a nice passive bonus at the right tuning.

Recompense: This talent will give more damage or healing based on the damage intake of our Blessing of Sacrifice target. You’ll want to pop it on the other tank to maximize damage output. It does add some co-op gameplay with your co-tank so you know when to use it. Communication will be key to using this well. However, I find this idea a bit toxic as it adds incentive to use a critical utility button for throughput.

Seal of Charity: The concept isn’t new. We had something similar in Shadowlands but this works off spenders and not builders.

Aspiration of Divinity: This is a permanent stat buff that will always be up.

Incandescence & Touch of Light: These are just passive damage traits. Both are not fully working on Alpha so we can’t judge the damage gain. These will only be used if they sim well.

Seal of Order: This adds a new effect to Of Dusk and Dawn. You get more damage in the Dawn phase and more defensive value in the Dusk phase.

Seal of the Crusader: This is a throwback to Classic/Vanilla Paladin!

Paladin Dragonflight Talent Tree - First Impressions

The tree is too inflexible with its pathing – This boils down to that the fact that it's very linear and vertical. There aren’t many connecting nodes into different paths of the tree. Once you’re on a path, you can’t pivot for another path like you can in the Shaman class tree. You are forced to pick up specific talents and go a specific path because it's the only way to move down the tree.

Too many two- and three-point talents – There are simply too many two- and three-point talents that water down the value of my talent points. It feels better to spend two points and get two unique talents than spend two points on the same talent.

Too much of a clear division between right and left – The character power is on the right side of the tree while the utility is more towards the left. This means that you have to go a completely separate branch/path to pick up utility. You can't just pick them up on your normal path to the bottom.

Too many trivial talents that should be "baseline" – This includes talents like Greater Judgment, Avenging Wrath, Avenging Wrath: Might, and even Divine Steed. Even something like Lay on Hands, should be baseline as its part of the current Shadowlands New Player Experience and it's such an iconic button in the history of the class.

Lessening of Rewarding gameplay – , for example, is much harder to justify because it doesn't mesh well with how Sentinel works and our reduced Holy Power economy. is meant to reward a Protection Paladin with more damage for taking some risk to their survivability. The risk as presented is not worth the reward.

Gives away my only unique button – I’ve written a lot on Wowhead about Blessing of Spellwarding being such an important button in the tank meta as well in the meta of other Paladins. Now that Holy has access to it and Aura Mastery, I’ve lost the one thing that made me unique. Holy Paladin is such a staple in PvE content that now any tank has access to Blessing of Spellwarding.

The left side/branch is a mini-game – Of Dusk and Dawn was not an interesting mini-game in Shadowlands and it won't be an interesting mini-game in Dragonflight. It's too much work for what is extraordinarily little payoff.

View in Dragonflight Talent CalcThe Mad ParagonProtection Paladin Dragonflight Spec TreeProtection Paladin Dragonflight Talents - What’s New?

Sentinel: This is the big new one. It adds a damage reduction effect to Avenging Wrath and some interplay with the Holy Power system. We'll need to optimize our resource economy to use it well. This looks like a must pick so far.

Inner Light: This was an Azerite trait in BFA and I’m really surprised that it was brought back. This trait was notorious for being insanely broken/overpowered for all BFA beta and nerfed beneath the ground the night before BFA launched. The pendulum in power swung so much that you never used this, ever. And I think it won’t be used again without a massive buff. The biggest issue is the ICD on the damage part. And if it’s ever “good” again, you’ll see potential /cancelaura macros to maximize damage output. This is a clear candidate for replacement in the iteration process.

Relentless Inquisitor: This is a boring and passive haste trait. The reason it’s on here is to call out that I think they put the wrong version of this trait in the talent tree. This is the Azerite version that was in BFA but I think they meant to include the Shadowlands legendary version. The BFA Azerite version was not particularly good and if it remains, you'll skip over it.

Consecration in Flame: This was a Legion Artifact trait that extended the duration of Consecration. But unlike then, this will be skipped unless it sims well for damage. The intent of the talent is to reduce the cast frequency of Consecration and make maintenance a bit easier. However, a one second duration increase is not even one global cooldown. You gain nothing in terms of rotation flexibility. It has to be at least three seconds for it to have an impact, even if that means the damage bonus is a bit lower.

Bastion of Light: This is a returning talent from BFA. This is the type of thing that Protection Paladin needs as mitigation ramp-up e.g. the time into a fight it took to get Shield of the Righteous and Consecration active was four global cooldowns in Shadowlands and it could be five in Dragonflight. This could be a good talent for those situations where a Protection Paladin could just die on the pull or to even offset potential usage. However, its placement could use some work as I think it should be more centralized and harder to dodge.

Light of the Titans: This is a returning Legion Artifact trait. Back then it was quite weak but now it’s very strong after a huge buff. This could be a must pick.

Crusader's Resolve: This is a returning set bonus from Tomb of Sargeras that gives your Avenger's Shield a damage reduction effect to any target it hits. After thinking about this, as well as recollecting the Legion version of the bonus, I don't think this will be any good. It has two flaws: first, the hits on Avenger's Shield are random. You can’t ensure it debuffs the mob you need especially if your priority is another target from the dangerous mob in a dungeon pull. And in raid, Grand Crusader procs vary a lot from boss to boss and you could have extremely poor uptime. With low uptime, you’ll get more damage reduction from Sanctuary which is more predictable and not subject to RNG.

Tyr's Enforcer / Focused Enmity / Ferren Marcus's Fervor / Barricade of Faith: These are a series of talents to add more weight to Avenger's Shield and keep it an important button in the rotation as they are meant to offset the loss of Holy Power. All of them have situational value and could see use in Dragonflight.

Faith in the Light: This is the return of a Mists of Pandaria set bonus. It will only be picked because of its tree location and pathing but it will add some better defensive value to free Word of Glory self-heals.

Gift of the Golden Val'kyr: This is a returning Legendary from Legion. Back then it wasn’t used much and yet to be seen how much use it sees in Dragonflight. It’s on the same row as Righteous Protector which can be a better all-around talent. This could be a candidate for changes in future alpha builds.

Eye of Tyr: And finally, we come to our Legion Artifact ability, which is returning for Dragonflight. I wrote a bit about this in my wish list and my general opinion remains. However, given the layout of the tree, I think it is a strong talent option that will be included in a number of builds.

Protection Dragonflight Talent Tree - First Impressions

There aren’t enough talents to change and customize our gameplay.

There are too many two-point talents. Again, it feels better to spend two points on two talents instead of two points on the same talent.

It’s way too linear without much horizontal movement. Once you’re stuck in a path, you usually can’t get out of it.

SentinelAvenging WrathView in Dragonflight Talent CalcRighteous ProtectorSentinelEye of TyrShield of the RighteousFerren Marcus's FervorFocused EnmityTyr's EnforcerSoaring ShieldProtection Class Dragonflight Talents for Raiding - How Strong is It?Shield of the RighteousEye of TyrSentinelShield of the RighteousShield of the RighteousConclusionHammer of the RighteousBlessed Hammer

Comment by DwellingerI have not really looked into this too much,but it looks quite good and fun,but yeah alot of choice and multiple good rows you want,but u would like to take something else. Soo it will be something you will most likely play around and test what works better for what.Comment by CodemagusI agree pretty much with all of this. The only thing I think you need to justify is why you are saying Seraphim doesn't work with Sentinel. Sentinel doesn't care how you spend the holy power, so I disagree with that part, but Seraphim isn't going to work out to be worthwhile in the reduced holy power economy like you said.

"This tree does too many things wrong that other class trees, like the Shaman or Evoker class trees, do right." This line is the kicker. The thing is, Blizzard is doing little to push most of the trees towards this type of tree. Hunters will likely get there since they're getting iteration after iteration, but if they can't do any better than this we better get used to the 3+ month balance cycles because we have some classes like monk who don't even have a tree, others such as the poor feral tree that could use help but is ignored, and Blizzard iterating and reworking Evoker/Hunter, and tweaking shamans. The level of bias is ridiculous whether it originates from "that's what they play" or just some kind some type of OCD mentality that they want to perfect those specs before moving on. Unfortunately they don't have time to iterate on all specs at the same level, so some are just going to be left in a meh state.Comment by ThoeledenI was super excited to see the paladin trees come out, but every time I tried a different "build" it just didn't feel right. This article nails all the negative feelings I have towards the pala/prot trees.

I'm looking at the other classes I play (assa rogue/warrior) and loving the ability to make up different builds/play styles... but that's just not here for prot at the moment.

Prot is the first tree I've played with where it feels like we're losing stuff from SL to DF. A lot of our baseline kit is gone and put on the tree. Then we have to sacrifice a portion of the throughput we already had in SL if we want the same level of utility back. It's a painful start and I hope they iterate on the tree soon.

The biggest kicker for me right now? Avenger's Shield not generating holy power anymore. It's not even talent tree related, but it hurts the most to read.Comment by Judgmentoracompare this to prot warrior talents, like they get die by the sword from arms? like what?
why dont prot pals dont get shield of vengeance?
no hate to the warriors but their talent choices are better and much superior.
for example : Faith in the light talent is completly useless when u cast WoG on an ally.. and its 2 talent for it? dafuq ?Comment by pawpurrThis talent tree is an embarrassment (this write up is great) but Blizzard should be ashamed to have released it in such an unfinished state. They couldn't be bothered to add Holy or fill out a bunch of passive placeholders in prot/ret .. But managed to release another 2 COMPLETE talent trees for other classes since then? Yikes...

So I looked into why. As it turns out, Other classes have rockstars like Kaivax, Scarizard, and so on representing their feedback. The person supporting the paladin forums has 2 posts on battle.net total. One describing a bit of feedback from last week, and one describing how they weren't even a game designer and they just started working at Blizzard. They only played Wow since Legion. Yep they assigned a relatively inexperienced dev (In both game dev and warcraft in general) to handle paladin. I feel bad honestly, Blizz needs to support them better. They state they like Tanking in their intro post which is probably why the Prot tree is the best developed of the 3 (and thats not saying much comparing to ret and holy LOL)

One look at this situation tells you why it's been left unfinished for 2 weeks, why the talents are boring, weird and feel disconnected from Paladin gameplay in the last 20 years.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-paladins/1289849/11
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/introduce-yourself-here/1147370/86

Now maybe they're an awesome human but so far my only perception of their work is the paladin talent tree so that's two thumbs down for me.

IMO the paladin talent tree needs a divine intervention ASAP, Comparing to every other talent tree released so far, it's in shambles. And it only took about a minute of research to see why.

If I could ask Blizzard for anything it would be to allocate the appropriate resources to this task, which they clearly have not.Comment by LincolnSentinel doesn't care how you spend the holy powerComment by tomcheeJust hope their heal output will not be so ridiculously high in this expansion.
In shadowlands an avg prot can tank and heal up to m+10.Comment by EphielNot a word on Avengers Shield not generating HP. Like... Seriously, author?Comment by FrostyDwarfIf this tree stays as is, as much as I don't want to, I will not be playing pally in DF. Those warrior trees look nice tho.Comment by sniperorcEditorial question about this article (not about the content): why is this tagged "Live"? It's clearly DragonFlight (beta filter) content.Comment by DaveXilantI was hoping for the return of Aegis of Light :_Comment by dancarp31Say goodbye to protection paladin, too long you've borne the crown, it's time to lay it down and pass it to someone else.
It's time for protection warriors to rise up.Comment by SchattensangToo many trivial talents that should be "baseline"Comment by SoulhammerGrondI mained a prot paladin from BC until Legion. The pruning was just too much to handle for me and I literally lost 7 actively used bindings over that time period. These talents look to further prune paladins, and force choice of damage vs utility. Personally the talents don't look terrible, but they pale in comparison to other classes--they're simply uninspired. Overall, I'd say the current iteration of these talents needs trashed and completely reworked from the ground up.

My disappointment was unmeasurable that Holy Wrath didn't return.Comment by EphielJust hope their heal output will not be so ridiculously high in this expansion.
In shadowlands an avg prot can tank and heal up to m+10.Comment by MorpheuslefayAm I the only person wondering where The Actual F. the Holy tree is? this is the only class that didn't get the 3rd tree right away so they most probably pissing in a bottle and seeing what they can do to ^&*! holy over again. Almost week 3 after pala tree got released. still no holy tree REEEEE WTFComment by TheodicusAre the Blizzard Devs ever going to give us the chance to collect all the Artifact Weapons for each class again?

I have 5 paladin characters and the Artifact Weapons that I have already collected do not match certain gear colors that I would like to use for each character. It would be great for us players to collect all those wonderful class specific weapons that which some of us didn't have the chance, time, guild companionship to obtain those back in Legion.

And.... Heritage Armor for the classes the races/classes that don't already have them?Comment by TiranuuhlI've been out of the game for about a year now. I was pushing +13 when I left. I found that divine toll was incredibly potent. Why not anymore? No legendaries to synergize with I guess? Not even mentioned in this whole thing.Comment by DremallI agree on all your points. There needs to be a lot more lateral movement and less three and two node spots.Comment by TyranukI dont understand why some of these things are not base line abilities!

taking away abilities we have in shadowlands just to make us talent back into it is not how u create a spreadsheet of talents..... Paladins where the best for raid utility now we are forced to talent into utility to be invited to raids ridiculous