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

巨龙时代由 Lincoln 发表于 2022/08/06，10:00

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 New神圣意志圣洁怒火疯狂圣贤黄昏与黎明

残光: This is just a passive healing trait for 荣耀圣令. We’ll need to test how smart it is but with smart 守护者之手 usage, it could be a nice passive bonus at the right tuning.

牺牲报偿: This talent will give more damage or healing based on the damage intake of our 牺牲祝福 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.

明澈圣印: The concept isn’t new. We had something similar in Shadowlands but this works off spenders and not builders.

神圣志向: This is a permanent stat buff that will always be up.

炽热 & 光明之触: 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.

秩序圣印: This adds a new effect to 黄昏与黎明. You get more damage in the Dawn phase and more defensive value in the Dusk phase.

十字军圣印: 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 强效审判, 复仇之怒, 复仇之怒：凛威, and even 神圣马驹. Even something like 圣疗术, 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 戒卫 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 破咒祝福 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 光环掌握, 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 破咒祝福.

The left side/branch is a mini-game – 黄昏与黎明 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 Calc疯狂圣贤Protection Paladin Dragonflight Spec TreeProtection Paladin Dragonflight Talents - What’s New?

戒卫: 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.

内视之光: 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.

无情审讯: 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.

烈火奉献: This was a Legion Artifact trait that extended the duration of 奉献. 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 奉献 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.

圣光壁垒: 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 正义盾击 and 奉献 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.

泰坦之光: 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.

十字军的决心: This is a returning set bonus from Tomb of Sargeras that gives your 复仇者之盾 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 复仇者之盾 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, 大十字军 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 庇护 which is more predictable and not subject to RNG.

提尔的执行者 / 专注敌意 / 费伦·玛库斯的狂热 / 信仰壁垒: These are a series of talents to add more weight to 复仇者之盾 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.

信仰圣光: 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 荣耀圣令 self-heals.

金色瓦格里的礼物: 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 正义保护者 which can be a better all-around talent. This could be a candidate for changes in future alpha builds.

提尔之眼: 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.

戒卫复仇之怒View in Dragonflight Talent Calc正义保护者戒卫提尔之眼正义盾击费伦·玛库斯的狂热专注敌意提尔的执行者飞舞之盾Protection Class Dragonflight Talents for Raiding - How Strong is It?正义盾击提尔之眼戒卫正义盾击正义盾击Conclusion正义之锤祝福之锤

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