Paladins and 1.9

[Rinnhart]

Honestly?

I love them.

Lets talk about why.  Repentance in and of itself isn't brilliant.  A 6 second incapacitate gives you enough time to throw another heal on yourself under 1.8 and gives the pally another "life". Also cuts down on running that kind of thing.

Under 1.9 it's an entirely differnet story.  Look at the whole retribution tree now.  The 11 point talent (Seal of Command) is enhanced by the 21 point talent (sanctity aura) and triggered by the 31 point talent (Repentance).  That's right - you can get the high bonus damage on SoC judgement from Repentance.

What does this mean?

A paladin with engineering (should be all of them) can now pull off the following combo:

Because a class being completely dependant upon a tradeskill is cool. We shouldn't NEED to be goddamn engineers to be a functional class.

- SoC
- Hammer of Justice
- Judge
- SoC

wait 8 seconds

- Grenade stun
- Judge
- SoC

wait 8 seconds

- Repentance
- Judge
- Hammer of Wrath

Fixed it for you.

It works differently and it's on a significantly longer cool down, but Paladins can get shock level damage now in retrib.

Yeah, except if a shock is resisted, it sets back the shaman six seconds instead of halving their offense. The "stun build" is flawed on a basic level due to it's dependance upon cooldowns. Even assuming nothing is resisted, we still can't force anyone to stay in combat with us. You stun, drop your judgement, the rogue gouges, walks swiftly away, and binds wounds. The mage eats your grenade combo, polymorphs you, and has a snack. The warrior withstands the full force of your fury- and outdamages your 20 second combo with a MS and a regular hit.

The priest laughs and heals up unmolested because you burned all of your interrupts.

There's also no alliance race with a 25% chance to resist shocks.

So we have nice synergy for Holy Warriors.  Holy Power enhances divine favor and illumination (and stacks with divine intellect) so we have synergy in the Holy tree for Clerics.  Lastly, we have redoubt, Sanctuary, and Holy Shield stacking in Protection.  This gives a lot more focus to the trees than they've had before.

Good thing Sanctuary + Holy Shield does the same damage as a pre-nerf Judgement of the Crusader + Holy shield, and consumes your blessing slot.

Now, Holy and Retrib are fine as they are.

I can only hope the Shaman revamp goes so well.