Midnight, what has changed?
Going into the pre-patch of midnight we're going to see a rather large overhaul of holy paladin; Blizzard's new philosophy can be broken down into 2 important parts:
- Remove button bloat
- Less random trickle healing
So from talents to spells, removals, reworks and additions we'll be doing a run-through of all of them!
Class Tree
Removed
As part of Blizzard's ongoing pruning, most healers had their interrupts removed. Holy paladin was no exception, with Rebuke and the follow-up Punishment being removed.
The Repentance and Blinding Light choice node is now just Blinding Light.
Our two passives Seal of the Crusader and Judgment of Light were both removed as part of the expansion shift in design philosophy that removed a large portion of passive/trickle healing.
Reworked
Hammer of Wrath:
Hammer of Wrath now turns Judgment into Hammer of Wrath for the duration of Avenging Wrath, removing some of our button bloat.
Hammer of Wrath keeps any and all modifiers to Judgment during this period of time.
Of Dusk and Dawn
Of Dusk and Dawn has been turned into two passive talents, instead of one. The new Blessing of Dawn provides a minor Aura of Sacrifice-style aura, while the new Blessing of Dusk is a small passive damage reduction.
Moved
Holy Prism has been added to the class tree and moved away from the spec tree.
Light's Revocation has been moved up two tiers to take the place of Judgment of the Light instead of being a capstone.
Added
Guided Prayer and Armory of Light are both noteworthy talents, giving us some more passive survivability in a small free, passive heal whenever we dip low and the ability to block all spell damage, including aoe.
Worth noting is that a shield provides more passive damage reduction against physical damage than 15% parry chance, so this talent only locks us further in to wearing 1-hander plus shield.
Brought to Light and Fear No Evil are two confuddling talents that are both very bad and you won't have to worry about them in any capacity.
Herald of the Sun
Added
Three new talents have been added to Herald of the Sun.
We have Endless Gleam which increases the duration of Dawnlight by 0.5 seconds every time it heals a new ally.
Born in the Sunlight which increases the critical strike chance of Dawnlight by 15% during wings
and Walk Into Light which gives you 2 holy power every time you press Avenging Wrath.
The playstyle changes by these three are near non-existent, but they are nice enough talents anyway.
Reworked
Gleaming Rays is now just a flat 3% healing increase to spenders.
Blessing of An'she is now a flat healing and damage increase to Holy Shock.
Second Sunrise has been changed to be a 15% chance to cast again at 30% effectiveness instead of 100% chance at 15% effectiveness. A small healing loss, but as it already accounted for little it's not the end of the world.
The big change is Sun's Avatar which now links you to all active Dawnlight whenever they are up, instead of being conditional with Avenging Wrath.
This is a very large gameplay change, and also a form of quality of life improvement which makes the spec a lot simpler to play and gives you less avenues for bad play.
Instead of having to worry about pooling Dawnlights for burst windows, you can mostly use them whenever you have them and there's damage coming out.
Solar Grace has been turned into a flat 5% haste, instead of the conditional 2% haste per Dawnlight you apply; the position of the talent has also changed to middle row, right column.
Lightsmith
One extremely large note here: Authoritative Rebuke still applies to Rebuke, but we had that talent removed several patches ago.
Added
Three new talents have been added here: Masterwork, Reflection of Radiance and Resounding Strike
Masterwork causes your armaments to apply a lesser armament on the next 3 spell casts.
Reflection of Radiance causes you to have a chance to gain Awakening every time Holy Bulwark absorbs damage or Sacred Weapon deals damage or healing.
Resounding Strike causes your holy armaments to proc Hammer and Anvil, making it much more consistent.
Moved
Hammer and Anvil has been moved, to the right column and up one row.
Reworked
Blessed Assurance now causes the effect of your next Holy Shock to be increased by 20% because of the removal of Crusader Strike.
Spec tree
Reworked
Holy Shock now replaces Crusader Strike.
Light of Dawn is now a 360 degree aoe around yourself, healing all allies within 40yds.
Unending Light gives Light of Dawn a 20% increased mastery benefit, instead of the increased healing per holy power spent.
Righteous Judgment now replaces Consecration, assisting in the pruning of buttons.
Saved by the Light has been changed to by a more reactive heal whenever your beacons take damage, increased based on their missing health.
Shining Righteousness is now a %-chance to activate Divine Purpose.
Empyrean Legacy causes your Judgment critical strikes to activate the effect, instead of having a cooldown.
Veneration has been changed to make Judgment grant an absorb shield split evenly among affected allies, instead of being a heal from Hammer of Wrath. It's also only reset by Flash of Light and Holy Light critical strikes, with Judgment no longer resetting it.
Avenging Crusader now causes your auto attacks to deal 1000% increased damage, and replaces the spell with Crusader Strike while it is active. The cooldown reduction has been removed, and now Judgment and Crusader Strike only heals for 100% instead of 260% of the damage dealt.
Sanctified Wrath increases the duration of Avenging Wrath and Avenging Crusader by 50% instead of reducing the cooldown of Holy Shock while active.
Awakening has been changed to make your holy power spenders have a 10% chance to cause your next Judgment to deal 30% increased damage and critically strike. This is also activated when you use wings.
Rising Sunlight is no longer a burst after casting toll and wings, it is instead a scaling 10% healing increase based on the average health of your beacons, with it being stronger the lower health they are.
Added
We've seen several new additions to our talent tree. Some more interesting than others, but almost all with their own unique flavor.
Most interestingly we have our new Apex Talent Beacon of the Savior which is a passive beacon that flies around from injured target to injured target, it also applies shields to its targets every 8 seconds or whenever it jumps to a new target. This shield is a 10% DR for 15 seconds and a large absorb. Extremely strong as it stands, but also completely passive and uninteractible.
Infusion of Light has been turned into a talent for god knows which reason.
Ringing of the Heavens is a nice new addition, making Aura Mastery cast a free Divine Toll.
Divine Overload turns Holy Light into an even bigger nuke of a heal, increasing its healing by 30% while increasing mana cost by 20%.
Call of the Righteous is a very interesting new talent, it makes Avenging Wrath have 7.5/15 second reduced cooldown, but 2.5/4 seconds reduced duration through 2 talent points. Definitely an interesting choice for more uptime on wings.
Seraphic Barrier is one of the more underwhelming additions. On paper it is nice, making our spenders heal less up-front but do more of their healing as absorb shields which are always heavily favored. Unfortunately as it stands it's a large healing loss outside of massively overhealed situations.
Moved
Holy Prism has been moved to the class tree.
Crusader's Might has been moved up two rows to be a choice node with Liberation
Tyr's Deliverance has been turned into a capstone, making it a choice node with Hand of Divinity which has been moved down from a mid-tier talent to be a capstone.
Tirion's Devotion and Extrication have been moved down two rows.
Removed
A rather large list of abilities have been fully removed or turned baseline: Power of the Silver Hand, Boundless Salvation, Merciful Auras, Blessing of Summer, Barrier of Faith and Tower of Radiance are all no longer part of the spec tree.