Some of the Paladin skills and spell animations or icons have changed in World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.

The first huge change you will notice is that Auras are gone!!! The auras no longer exist. They were replaced in the UI bar by the Seals: Seal of Insight, Seal of Righteousness, and Seal of Truth, Seal of Justice (Retribution spec).

We know since BlizzCon 2011, but I still love to mention this. Using Repentance as a healer? Oh yea! You can basically spam Repentance now — it no longer has a cooldown. I was able to re-apply repentance often to a dragonkin in the End Time dungeon.

In live servers, there is one spell that I love to use in retribution and healing spec. With Holy Wrath + the glyph of Holy Wrath, I could stun elementals, demons, undead, and dragonkin. I often AOE stun during my healing rotation — it helps prevent damage to the tank. It only has 1 minute cooldown, so I definitely use it when the cooldown is over. I am definitely going to miss in Mists of Pandaria … Holy Wrath. It’s gone. Now the spell is named Denounce, with no cooldown, but affects a single target. Denounce is a Holy spec spell. Retribution Paladins don’t have it.

The Holy Shock icon is different now. No changes to the spell.

Divine Shield looks awesome now. Looks like a radiant sun surrounding the Paladin.

Ever get a player asking you to turn off your Righteous Fury because you are aggroing? Ahh, darn! You forgot about it right? All these years we have had to click the buff icon to disable it. The spell icon is now an ON/OFF switch — sorta like a self-aura.

Turn Evil icon is different now, and it seems it has a holy-smite-like special effect.

The Hammer of the Righteous is a new spell for Retribution Paladins. It sorta provides an extra filler for the cooldown rotations. It has a mix of benefits from other spells that were removed. For example, the Retribution Aura used to do damage per hit taken, this spell sorta sums up all the potential damage you used to do with retribution every few seconds, but you have to cast the spell. At the same time, it works like Crusader Strike producing 1 Holy Power in your Holy Power Bar. Yet, it also reduces the damage of all enemies within 8 yards by 10%. Kinda a three-in-one spell. At first, I thought it was a replacement for crusader strike — because they have the same cooldown and share cooldown timer, but then Hammer of Righteousness has a 2,340 mana cost. I don’t know. Doesn’t convince me as a replacement, even when it has the AOE benefit. I’d cast it once every 30 sec to renew the Weakened Blows debuff — which demoralizes the target reducing their physical damage by 10%.

Talents

There are only 18 talents, and you can only choose five of them. In this video, you will see these a few of these.

  • Pursuit of Justice: You gain 10% movement speed at all times, plus an additional 10% movement speed for each current charge of Holy Power up to 3 (30% movement speed with 3 Holy Power charges)

  • Selfless Healer: Your successful Judments reduce the cast time of your next Flash of Light by 50% per stack and improves its effectiveness by 50% per stack when used to heal others. Stacks up to 2 times.

  • Hand of Purity: Places a Hand on the friendly target, reducing the damage of harmful periodic effects by 70% for 6 sec. Players may only have one Hand on them per Paladin at any one time. 1 min cooldown. 1,400 mana. 30 yrd range

  • Holy Avenger: Abilities that generate Holy Power will generate 3 charges of Holy Power for the next 20 sec. Instant. 2 min cooldown.

  • Repentance: Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 1 min. Any damage from sources other than Censure will awaken the target. Usable agaisnt demons, dragonkin, Giants, Humanoids and Undead.

  • Speed of Light: Increases your movement speed by 70% for 8 sec. Instant cast. 1 min cooldown. — Paladins can sprint like Rogues now!!! In PvP: Where are you going foo! Come’re! [Speed of Light] + Hammer of Justice (Pwned)

  • Hammer of the Righteous: Hammer the current target for 20% weapon damage, causing a wave of light that hits all targets within 8 yards for 1,081 Holy damage and applying the Weakened Blows effect. Grants a charge of Holy Power. (Weakened Blows: Demoralizes the target, reducing their physical damage dealt by 10% for 30 sec). 2,340 Mana. Melee Range. Instant cast. 3.9 sec cooldown. Requires Melee Weapon.

  • Eternal Flame: Consumes up to 3 Holy Power to place a protective Holy flame on a friendly target, which heals them for 1702 per charge of Holy Power every 2.60 sec for 31.22 sec. Can be active only on one target at a time. 40 yd range. 1 Holy Power. Instant.

Check out the video to see all these in action. There are other skills not mentioned here that didn’t appear in the video. I’ll show those later during the week.