There has been changes to Seals in 3.2, Seal of Blood/Martyr has been removed and Seal of Corruption/Vengeance has been replaced to be the primary DPS Seal.

The functionality of Seal of Blood/Martyr has been built into Seal of Corruption/Vengeance in patch 3.2, once the debuff from your seal attacks has built up to 5 stacks, your attacks will deal ADDITIONAL 33% damage on top of Seal of Corruption/Vengeance’s DoT debuff.
Simply put, once you built up 5 stacks of debuff you got Seal of Blood/Martyr AND Seal of Corruption/Vengeance working together.

Sounds OP, I know, but it requires some time for you to built the debuff to 5 stacks and there are some conflict when there are multiple Seal of Corruption/Vengeance applied on the same target. For example, if you got 5 stacks up while another paladin only just start up his seal stack, your Seal procs will only work as according to his stack.

Also another problem is on trash mobs, before you seal can built up to 5 stacks and release its full potential, the target will probably be dead before 5 stacks can be applied.

The workaround for this problem is to use Seal of Righteousness on trash mobs and Seal of Corruption/Vengeance on raid bosses.

In the coming patch 3.2.2, Seal of Command has been reworked to hit an extra target when active. But it only procs when you are using single target attacks, meaning Divine Storm will not proc Seal of Command. But whether will Seal of Command be effective it is still to be seen. If you want to do AoE damage, Divine Storm is going to be an important spell in your DPS rotation and having it not to proc Seals attack is ridiculous.

Seal-twisting again? On trash mobs you will use Seal of Command then switch to Seal of Righteousness when you Divine Storm? Not very friendly. But thats a problem Blizzard should be working on.

Our Seal spells are starting to look like a mess.

This build hereis the typical 51 points spent for Holy Paladins.

Where do you put the remaining 20 talent points?
Theres two common builds for Holy Paladins these days and both have trade offs. Which build would be better for you? Let’s take a look.

HOLY(51) / PROTECTION (20)
The first build is the Holy/Protection build, which puts all 20 talent points into the Protection tree.

The main feature of this build is Divine Sacrifice, which absorbs incoming raid damage up to 150% of your Paladin’s health. When combined with Divine Shield, you are absorbing raid damage at no cost. This makes it easier for healing massive raid damage such as XT Deconstructor’s Tantrum, Kologarn’s Shockwave.

But of course there are disadvantages, Divine Shield can only be used once every 5 minutes, so you probably can use it once per fight. Also you trade 5% spell critical chance in the Retribution Tree for this spell. This brings us to the Holy/Retribution build.

HOLY(51) / PROTECTION (5) / RETRIBUTION (15)
The Retribution Build offers more utility than the Holy/Prot build with talents such as Heart of the Crusader and Conviction. Conviction offers additional 5% spell critical chance, which is substantial in healing.

SO? WHICH SPEC DO I USE?
Well, both specs honestly are equally effective, but it’s down to your preference. A heroic geared paladin prepped for raids shld have about 20% spell critical at the very least, but 25% spell critical chance is recommended for beginners who are raiding. If your raid can handle AoE damages, it’s better to use the Holy/Ret build. Or if you want a high critical holy healing build it’s obviously Holy/Ret.

Whereas some people would choose Holy/Prot because of Divine Sacrifice/ Divine Shield Bubble, which can be a raidsaver at times. It is a good emergency combo that would prevent a wipe. But they would have lower healing due to 5% loss in spell critical chance. Also, if you are highly geared and can hit 25% spell critical chance just from gear, going Holy/Prot build is a good choice.

Ultimately it comes down to your opinion which build would benefit your raid more. Some people would think having more CRIT would help raid healing more than Divine Sacrifice, whereas some find Divine Sacrifice more useful since their raid might be more subjectible to raid damage.

Try both builds and find one that fits your style and your raid composition.

Patch 3.2 is around the corner, and here we look at the changes to the Protection in the upcoming patch. There’s been some fixes and changes to block in general. General tanking stats have been changed as well.

Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount of dodge a player has with 0 agility by a slight amount as well, so all players will see their dodge percentage vary a small amount.

Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.

On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren’s Lucky Coin, Lavanthor’s Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.

Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.

Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.

Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.

Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.

Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%. In addition, the benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player’s level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player’s level.

Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Any damage that takes the paladin below 35% health is reduced. This reduction applies only to the portion that pushes the paladin below 35% health (example: a paladin at 50% health takes a 40% hit; the first 15% hits as normal while the next 25% is reduced). In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead heal the paladin for up to 10/20/30% of maximum health depending on the paladin’s defense rating (example: a paladin with defense equal to only 5 times his or her level will receive no healing from the talent, while a paladin who is immune to critical strikes from boss creatures through defense will receive the maximum amount).

Guarded by the Light: This talent will no longer cause Divine Plea’s duration to be refreshed by using Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of Justice, or Judgement of Light.

The good news is that Block Value on all items have been doubled, but sadly few tank gear in the game nowadays have block rating or block value. Most tank gear now only have mainly Defense, Dodge, Parry stats, gear with Block Rating and Block Value are few.

Also, Dodge and Parry now has a higher cost per percentage. You now need 15% more Agility, or Dodge Rating per 1 percent of Dodge. So expect your stats to drop a little.

Only way to fix this is to gear up more I guess. Good thing there’s the new 5 man instance and Emblems of Conquests dropping all around.

Last time we looked into Holy changes in the upcoming 3.2 patch. Now let’s take a look at the Retribution tree in 3.2. Although Paladin class changes focused mostly on Holy, Retribution received a few changes as well.

Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.

Judgements: Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can’t be dodged, parried or blocked.

Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.

Seal of Blood/ Martyr: This ability has been removed.

Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of a spell attack.

Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant. In addition, this talent now provides notification in the floating combat text when it activates.

Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4-second cooldown. Mana cost reduced to 5% of base mana.

Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.

Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.

Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when the target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.

The biggest change is obviously the removal of Seal of Blood/ Martyr, and Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption the new standard Seal for DPS. The top priority when using Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption is obviously getting its attack to reach 5 stacks as soon as possible. Only when you have applied 5 stacks of debuff then can your Seal attacks yield its full damage potential. With Crusader Strike cooldown lowered to 4 seconds, it should not take long to apply a full 5 stack on the target. Also when at 5 stacks, Judgements proc Seal attacks as well, so you want Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption to stack fully ASAP.

The downside to Seal of Vengeance/ Corruption is that Seal attacks can be resisted, DoT application can be dodged and resisted.

However note that all this information i obtained are from players on the PTR, so there will be changes and adjustments. At the moment the Seal changes seem to be working out pretty well. Talent wise, you will now want to have Seals of the Pure, which increases Seal/Judgement of Vengeance/ Corruption damage by 15%.

Another great change is Art of War, which now allows you to cast Exorcism instantly whenever you crit. At least you now have the option to either heal or DPS when Art of War procs. Currently Art of War is a useful talent, but doesn’t lives up to its name. (Art of War procs, heal yourself? WTH?)

Lastly another change is Crusader Strike, lowered to 4 seconds and 75% damage. Opinion is divided on this one, some thinks a lower CD will yield higher DPS while others disagreed. But one thing is certain, this bloody 41-point needs a debuff effect. It’s been a simple melee strike attack for a few years now, and a debuff effect is due.

Here’s a deeper look in Holy in Patch 3.2. For those concerned about the changes to Holy in the coming patch, this is a informative read.

First let’s look at the changes again,

Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.

Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal-over-time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds

Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.

Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.

Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.

In addition,

Mana Regeneration: All items that provide “X mana per five seconds” have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.

Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target’s maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).

Overall great changes but as you can see the mana refund from Illumination went from 60% to 30%, a substantial amount. Still with Beacon of Light buffed and the new ability of Sacred Shield we are able to get more healing than before. Blizzard’s intention is to make paladins worry about their mana regeneration, h
ence the Illumination nerf and the buffs to MP5 gear and Replenishment.

Healing wise we are able to multitask better, with Beacon of Light able to heal the Beacon(usually the tank) for the full amount even if the heal lands on a raid member with 100% health. With Flash of Light providing a HoT on a member with Sacred Shield we are able to dish out more healing.

The counter to this is obviously mana regeneration issues, Holy paladins now have to be more careful with their casting in Patch 3.2 with Illumination nerfed. Unlike Priests and Druids who obey the 5 second rule, where they regenerate substantial mana if they are able to stop casting for 5 seconds. In priest/druid itemization and talents, mana regeneration and spirit is an important stat. Paladins however, place these stats on the lowest priority, with Intellect and Critical Rating being the most important due to Illumination in the past. By having a huge mana pool and a high critical rate, Illumination used to be able to provide the mana regeneration paladins need to last through a fight. With the nerf, Illumination is no longer a reliable way for mana conversation. Actually I should use the word conservation instead of regeneration.

To cope with this problem the obvious way is better mana management. This requires better utilization of Divine Illumination, Divine Plea and other spells such as Divine Sacrifice. When the fight enters a intense situation where the whole raid takes damage, it would be wise to pop Divine Shield with Divine Sacrifice to absorb the raid damage to conserve mana.

Divine Plea is a tricky spell use considering the 50% reduction to heals, which means its only usable when you are able to share the healing tasks with another healer. A popular workaround is to combine it with Divine Illumination, Avenging Wrath and using Trinkets to heal and regenerate in that period. Think about it, with Divine Illumination and Divine Plea, you are technically healing for the same amount, only it takes you twice as long to cast the heal. With Avenging Wrath and trinkets you in fact are increasing your healing. Let me clarify,

With Divine Plea and Divine Illumination,
Healing lowered tp 50% effective
Mana cost lowered to 50% required

which balances out, you’re paying half the mana cost for heals that’s half effective. Full mana cost equals heals that’s 100% effective without Divine Plea and Divine Illumination.

With Avenging Wrath and Spellpower Trinkets
Avenging Wrath adds 20% healing
Trinkets boost spellpower

which effectively increases healing output. So adding these effects, you healing at 60% + spellpower boost with 50% mana cost per spell.

So effectively, you’re healing at full potential or more, only that you are taking twice as long to do that AND you are regenerating mana. The only downside is whether the tank is capable of dealing with the longer inflow of heals.

As of now there are few alternative strategies for regenerating mana, such as attacking with Seal of Wisdom. But with 3.2 still in the PTR, all is not set in stone yet. Watch this page for more news.

If you don’t already know, details of Patch 3.2 Paladin changes has been released by Eyonix two days ago.

You can read it from the source here or at WoW Insider.

If you’re lazy to read I took the initiative of summarizing the changes. Read on:

Holy

1. Flash of Light places a HoT(Heal over Time) effect on any target with Sacred Shield on them. This is somewhat vague, does it mean Flash of Light becomes a HoT on targets with Sacred Shield? Or it adds an additional HoT effect on top of Flash of Light? What if I want a Flash of Light and not a HoT on that target with Sacred Shield?

Rating: 3/5? (Needs more specifics.)

2. Beacon of Light gets a big buff, any heals on a target, regardless of health, heals the tank with Beacon of Light. If you still don’t understand, it means placing a Holy Light on a raid member with 100% HP will still heal the target with Beacon of Light. This is a significant buff!

Rating: 5/5

3. Due to above buffs, Illumination will be nerfed. Reducing Illumination’s mana refund from 60% to 30% would make mana regeneration a issue for Holy paladin. But fear not, adjustments will be made to Replenishment and buffs to MP5 to balance things out (Right… Balance…That turned out well last time.). Gear selection will be affected by this, as CRIT might become a lower priority, let’s leave this to the theorycrafters to crunch it out.

Rating: 2.5/5

Protection

1. Ardent Defender gets some proper adjustments, so that any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced instead of while the paladin is at 35% health or below. Also once every 2 minutes any attacks that would kill the paladin would instead set the paladin’s health to a certain percentage.

Rating: 4/5

2. Blessing of Sanctuary will be getting buffed, no details on this yet. But they want to make it the blessing of choice for tanks. So it should be buffed significantly.

Rating: ?/5

3. Block will be changed over time, but for now the effects of bonus block value will be doubled. Currently Block does not provide sufficient mitigation, my friend can attest to that. Boss hits him for 20,000, he only blocks 1500 of it, Block isn’t as valuable as before.

Rating: ?/5 (Needs more details)

Retribution

1. Seal of Blood/the Martyr will be removed and Seal of Corruption/Vengeance will be buffed. Once there is 5 stacks of the debuff, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes doing double damage. Seal of Command will be reworked to deal 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage. Finally working on the Seals, but lots to be done here.

Rating: 3/5

2. Exorcism has a cast time of 1.5 seconds but can be used on players again. Honestly, not helpful in PvP as paladins need to be chasing down enemies instead of casting. Would be better if the cast time was 1 second. More like a bandage fix.

Rating: 1/5

3. Art of War makes not only Flash of Light instant, but also Exorcism. Nice idea, considering Art of War procs were not really contributing to PvE DPS. This makes the talent more viable in both PvP and PvE.

Rating: 4/5

4. Crusader Strike cooldown reduced to 4 seconds from 6 seconds, but damage reduced to 75%. Seriously, 4 seconds, 6 seconds, it doesn’t matter. IT’S STILL A 41 POINT MELEE STRIKE, IT NEEDS SOMETHING, A DoT, SOMETHING.

Rating: 1/5

5. Vindication reworked to target attack power. Primarily a PvP talent, this rework only targets melee classes but not magic-users. Would be more useful if it reduced spell power as well.

Rating: 1/5

These are some promising changes, hope they go in the right direction.

For full details on Patch 3.2, check the latest patch notes at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html