Changes to the Paladin Class and Developer Feedback for The War Within – Removal of Light of the Martyr and Enhanced Secondary Stats

Blizzard has recently released the War Within Developer Notes, unveiling a plethora of exciting class changes for players to delve into. Among the extensive list of changes are updates specific to Paladins, accompanied by developer comments in the class feedback thread for Holy and Retribution specializations. In this blog post, we will explore the Paladin class changes introduced in The War Within and dive into the reasoning behind these updates.

Holy Paladin Changes

As the developers sought to revamp the Holy Paladin, their primary objectives were to replace Light of the Martyr with a passive spell that retained the thematic sacrifice element, shift more of the class's throughput from Beacon of Light into their baseline spells, and redesign Blessing of Summer to better align with the Paladin's role.

The updated Blessing of Summer now functions as an external buff that converts healing into damage or damage into healing, depending on the specialization it is applied to. This change introduces a dynamic and more engaging aspect to the spell, with a slight cap to allow for tuning between AoE and single-target scenarios, similar to the mechanics of Ancestral Guidance.

Additionally, the developers have decided to redistribute the considerable amount of throughput tied to Beacon of Light, incorporating more of that budget into the Paladin's base spells. This adjustment aims to enhance the gameplay experience by making direct healing more impactful, while still maintaining overall output.

The spell Light of the Martyr has undergone a rework to integrate its power into a passive ability, addressing the issue of it feeling disconnected from the Paladin's toolkit and requiring an additional keybind. The goal of this update is to retain the thematic elements while streamlining the gameplay.

Retribution Paladin Changes

Greetings, Champions of the Light! The developers of The War Within have introduced several updates to the Retribution Paladin specialization, and they can't wait for players to experience them in the Alpha. Let's delve into their goals and philosophy behind these changes.

• Secondary Stat Scaling

One of the initial objectives was to make secondary stats more appealing to Retribution Paladins, allowing for natural progression and scaling throughout an expansion. The developers found it challenging to make Critical Strike a valuable stat due to the nature of talents that guaranteed critical hits. Thus, they decided to rework and rebalance these talents, shifting away from automatic crits and instead increasing the value of critical strike damage when they do crit.

This design philosophy extends to other aspects of the Retribution specialization, boosting the importance of critical strike. Notably, Art of War now has an increased chance to proc when a critical hit occurs, or when players reach the capstone talent, Burn to Ash, it extends the duration of Truth's Wake and amplifies the potency of other damage over time effects upon critical hits.

Another subtle yet effective change is an update to Mastery's coefficient to ensure better scaling with secondary stats. Mastery also receives a passive proc that grants a chance to blast the target with holy damage when Judgment is cast, increasing both damage and chance as the Mastery stat is improved. To further enhance the engagement and flavor of Mastery, several new talents have been introduced.

• AOE versus Single Target

The developers acknowledged the frustration caused by the friction between Single Target and AoE builds within the Retribution specialization, leaving little flexibility for hybridization. To alleviate this tension and allow for the exploration of hybrid builds in certain scenarios, they restructured aspects of the specialization.

Their hope is that these changes will open up new build possibilities, making Crit and Mastery more exciting as stats, and creating more meaningful talent choices. As players test these updates, the developers encourage feedback on any unforeseen issues such as degenerate builds or rotations.

Paladin Class Changes in the War Within

Here is a summary of the Paladin class changes introduced in The War Within:

• Holy Paladin

The following changes have been implemented for Holy Paladins:

• A new talent, Bestow Light, reduces the health threshold of Light of the Martyr to 70% and increases Holy Shock's healing by an additional 5% for every 5 seconds Light of the Martyr remains active, stacking up to 3 times. While below 70% health, Light of the Martyr will urgently heal every second.
• Light of the Martyr has been redesigned. While above 80% health, Holy Shock's healing is increased by 20%, but it creates a heal absorb on the Paladin for 30% of the amount healed. This absorb prevents Beacon of Light from healing the Paladin until it dissipates.
• Blessing of Summer has also undergone a redesign. When cast on an ally, it causes 20% of all healing to be converted into damage onto a nearby enemy and 10% of all damage to be converted into healing onto an injured ally within 40 yards.
• Beacon of Light now transfers 15% of healing done (previously 25%).
• Barrier Faith now transfers 20% of healing into its absorb (previously 25%).
• Word of Glory healing has been increased by 25%.
• Light of Dawn healing has been increased by 20%.
• Holy Shock healing has been increased by 20%.
• Tyr's Deliverance healing has been decreased by 15%.
• Sacrifice of the Just now reduces the cooldown of Blessing of Sacrifice by 15 seconds (previously 60 seconds).
• Blessing of Sacrifice now transfers 30% of damage taken (previously 20%) for Holy Paladins.
• A bug causing Tyr's Deliverance's healing to be unaffected by certain modifiers, such as Avenging Wrath, has been fixed.
• Barrier Faith is now part of a choice node with Holy Prism.
• Tyr's Deliverance and Reclamation have swapped positions in the talent tree.
• Light's Hammer has been removed.

• Retribution Paladin

The developers have implemented the following changes for Retribution Paladins:

• A new talent, Burn to Ash, extends the duration of Truth's Wake by 2 seconds when it critically strikes. Additionally, other damage over time effects deal 30% increased damage to targets affected by Truth's Wake.
• Righteous Cause has been redesigned to grant a 6% chance for each Holy Power spent to reset the cooldown of Blade of Justice.
• Art of War has undergone a redesign, with auto attacks now having a 20% chance to reset the cooldown of Blade of Justice. Critical strikes further increase this chance by an additional 10%.
• Divine Hammer has been redesigned, with spinning Divine Hammers consuming Holy Power to strike enemies within 8 yards for Radiant damage every 2.2 seconds. While active, Holy Power generating abilities recharge 75% faster, and the rate at which Divine Hammer strikes are cast increases by 15% when activated. The damage dealt beyond 8 targets has been reduced. The Divine Hammer ability now has a 2-minute cooldown, with damage increased by 300%, and the periodic base decreased to 2.2 seconds (previously 3 seconds), scaling with Haste.
• Final Reckoning has been redesigned to increase the damage taken from single-target Holy Power spenders by 30% and increase the damage taken from other Holy Power spenders by 15%.
• Vengeful Wrath has been redesigned to make Hammer of Wrath deal 50% increased damage to enemies below 35% health.
• Vanguard of Justice has been redesigned to increase the cost of Templar's Verdict and Divine Storm by 1 additional Holy Power and increase their damage by 20%.
• Templar Strikes has been redesigned to have a 15% increased cooldown for Charge. Templar Slash, the second part of the combo, overrides Templar Strike for 5 seconds (previously 4 seconds). Crusader Strike now becomes a 2-part combo, with Templar Strike slashing an enemy for damage and being replaced by Templar Slash for 5 seconds. Templar Slash subsequently strikes an enemy for damage and applies a burn effect for 50% of the damage dealt over 4 seconds.
• The effect of Truth's Wake has been added to Wake of Ashes as a baseline ability.
• Highlord's Judgment has been renamed Highlord's Wrath.
• Mastery: Hand of Light has been renamed Mastery: Highlord's Judgment. It now also grants Judgment a chance to blast the target with Light, dealing Holy damage.
• Highlord's Wrath has been redesigned to make Mastery: Highlord's Judgment 50/100% more effective on Judgment and Hammer of Wrath. Additionally, Judgment applies an additional stack of Greater Judgment.
• Adjudication has been redesigned to increase the Critical Strike damage of abilities by 5%. Hammer of Wrath also has a chance to cast Highlord's Judgment.
• Blades of Light has been redesigned to make Crusader Strike, Judgment, Hammer of Wrath, and damaging single-target Holy Power abilities deal Holystrike damage. These abilities now deal 5% increased damage.
• Divine Arbiter now grants a stack of Divine Arbiter when Highlord's Judgment and Holystrike damage abilities are used.
• Searing Light now has a chance to cause Highlord's Judgment and Radiant damage abilities to trigger an explosion of Holy Fire.
• Blessed Hammer from Adjudication now spawns from the target of Hammer of Wrath.
• Execution Sentence now causes the enemy to suffer 20% of the damage dealt during its duration after it expires (previously 30%). The damage from Execution Sentence no longer counts as a damage over time effect.

Conclusion

The War Within Developer Notes have unveiled a host of exciting changes to the Paladin class, catering to both Holy and Retribution specializations. Blizzard's intentions to enhance gameplay, promote build variety, and optimize stat scaling are apparent throughout the updates. Players are encouraged to test these changes and provide valuable feedback to perfect the Paladin experience in The War Within.

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