As part of the World of Warcraft Talent System Panel held at BlizzCon 2011, Ghostcrawler introduced details of the Paladin talent trees.
Level 15
At the top is a tier that’s about movement. I know it sounds pretty crazy for a Paladin. We totally redesigned Speed of Light, and now think of it as a Sprint that does self-healing while you are sprinting.
It’s up against a modified Long Arm of the Law. Whenever you judge, you get a speed movement and we don’t think we need to have a minimum range requirement there anymore.
And then there’s a very different Pursuit of Justice which gives you a 10% movement speed for each current charge of Holy Power.
Level 30
Level 30 is a crowd control tier. Fist of Justice replaces Hammer of Justice — but it’s a very short cooldown so you can just go around and being the stun guy.
We wanted to make Repentance available to any paladin, but wanted to make it really hard choice because we put a much improved Seal of Justice that does a really legit snare.
Level 45
Level 45 is a survival tier. Hopefully that will be a hard choice for the Protection Paladin, but there’s good stuff here for the other specs as well. Blessed Life is the modification of the current talent that gives you Holy Power when you take direct damage.
Sacred Shield is the automatic defense mechanism when you get brought down low in health, and Ardent Defender is the active one. If you want to be active take Ardent Defender. If you don’t want to worry about so many buttons, take Sacred Shield.
Level 60
Level 60 is a healing tier. A very redesigned selfless healer, all about Flash of Light. One of the things we did was give Flash of Light to all Paladins, but Holy Light and Divine Light are Holy only.
We figured if the other two Paladin specs really wanted to cast a heal they would have to cast a fast heal. So it’s based on Flash of Light.
Eternal Glory is an existing talent. It gives you a chance not to use Holy Power in your heal. Word of Glory is the single target and then think of Holy Shield as an absorption version of Word of Glory.
Not everyone can have a shield, but if you want it, there’s one right here.
Level 75
Level 75 is about Utility. Veneration is a new idea where if you put down a consecration, your allies on the consecration will be immune to movement impairing effects for a limited time.
Acts of Sacrifice is an existent talent that lets you cleanse a movement impairing effect on yourself, and reduces the cooldown of your Hand abilities a little bit.
And then Clemency is a way to immediately finish the cooldown of your Hand abilities so you can cast it again.
Level 90
Finally, Level 90 is a really exciting tier about cooldowns. The common complaints we get are cooldowns are cool, but Paladins have a little too many of them. So here’s the way to pick the way you want to do it. I’m gonna go through these real quick.
Holy Avenger, when you have Guardian of Ancient Kings out, your abilities don’t cost Holy Power.
Sanctified Wrath varies depending on your spec. For Holy, you can holy shock with no cooldown. For Protection, you can judge with no cooldown, and for Retribution you can use Hammer of Wrath as you can today.
We also have Divine Purpose in here. It’s a fun talent for some Retribution Paladins, but others get frustrated by the OMG. Here’s a way to get Holy Power — it’s not so tied to a cooldown. Sometimes you will have more Holy Power than others.