Here is a wonderful post from "Fate" from the pally forums. I really connect with many of his comments for both my pallys are strong critadins with very good agi crit gear, with Demetrius able to swing to Holy with no problem because of his assortment of gear. Demetri is a full all out crit build. He is a little concerned about 1.9 lol.
I will monitor this closely and feel for all the pallys out there who like to swing a large slow 2her for decent damage. I especially feel for the pallys who have obtained the uber end game 2hers and have the pvp uber weps - this is a really big issue for them.
I just wish they would allow each tree to really give us different personalities ... and the retribution tree above 20 points is not getting the job done... yet!
Kevin
------------------
Several paladin's have already posted about how disappointed they are in the quaility of the changes in 1.9 and why they feel that this patch is more Nerf than buff to their playstyle.
Paladin's who in Full judgement or who play like clerics don't understand the problem with these changes so I hope that this post will help non-pally's and PvE Paly's in understanding what the effect of this patch changes will be if they go live.
1.8 Critaden:
History
The original PvP build for Paladin's the Critaden was orginated before the Reckoning build was popularized as these players wanted to focus on the paladin's offensive capabilities instead of primarily playing support. Most quality Critadens still provide support but nowhere near the same level as that provided by the Clerics.
Playstyle
Relying on the low mana Cost damage dealing skills that the paladin class possess these Paladin's pickup gear that enhances Melee Damage potential (+Crit, +Attack Power, +STR) which typically does not include +int. Because they have a Damage focus even the best geared Critadens have around 4K mana pools. Even though this is pretty low with the cheap melee cost for dealing damage they use close to 100% of thier mana pools for support.
Low Cost???
Why was is the Cost for damage dealing with a Critaden so low you ask? The answer is simple: Paladin's in 1.8 lack control of damage output. The Critaden build is that of a gambler. The damage output was not stellar at all that's for sure but a few good Crits at the right time and we could take just about anyone out. The neat thing about this is in that we can still heal our allies and provide good buffs to our team. Certainly our damage wasn't great but hey we are a good guy to keep around if we help other and might even get lucky
. Almost 100% The low Cost was primarily in Casting Rank 1 Seal of Command (55 Mana). The damage of this Seal is 100% weapon based and the useless judgement is the only think that is improved by casting the Rank 5 vesrsion (180 Mana). Other aspects of the low cost include utilitizing the other trees to inprove our ability to survive and our ability to conserve Mana. 11 points into Holy yeilded the 1.8 Critaden a Free heal every couple mins and the remaining points lowered the cooldown on our Melee Bubble and on our Emergency Heal. If a Critaden had MC duties on the side 20 points into Holy yeilded him an improved Blessing of Wisdom and lower cost on his Flash heals. Certainly he didn't get an opportunity to Melee in MC but with a set of PvE gear and a 20/0/31 build a Critaden was able to rival a holy paladin in healing capabilities. The last aspect of our low cost was in the form of Vengeance a short duration small buff to our Damage output after we got a crit. Vengeance doesn't set the world afire but with a good crit rate it stays up more often than not and boost all forms of Paladin damage.
1.8 Gear
The typical Critaden made quest reward choices like:
Onyxia Tooth Pendent over Dragonslayers Pendant
Blackhands Bredth over Eye of the Beast (which the 1.9 Paly should have access to in all fairness)
The Critaden spent crafting resources on:
Strongarm Gauntlets
Lionheart Helm
The Critaden spent DKP on:
Onslaught Girdle
Quick Strike Ring
After a year with this build and this focus many Critadens have recently seen indications from Blizzard that our build was what they had in mind for PvP and what they want to see more of from our class. The PvP set reinforces that concept that Paladin Damage should come at a low mana cost and should be improved by passive abilities and stats.
Tier 2 PvP Paly Set
+24 Int
+90 Str
+55 AGI
+4% Crit
Tier 1 PvP Paly Set
+14 Int
+67 Str
+34 AGI
+4% Crit
For the Critaden these sets provided good validation and when couple with some Lawbringer or Judgement to fill in for the lack on +Int the critaden was able to find sucess in his own way with his build.
The primary rule for playing a Critaden gearwise was that while your best gear should meet your damage dealing needs you MUST also secure PvE gear on the side to participate in PvE.
1.9 Changes
After spending a couple days around 400g in respecs on the test server I have to say that my intial evaluation of the 1.9 changes was not realistic. I saw the changes as providing little extra to the Critaden and simple as a sideways step for the build.
I was thourghly depressed when I realized How wrong I was about that however. 1.9 is not a sideways step for the Critaden but instead a systematic assassination of the spec. Hopefully for the non-pally's and non-critaden you read as I described the 1.8 Critaden you understand how it works now. If not this may not make sense to you.
1.9 Nerfs
SoC Nerf #1: 30% Damage Decrease
When this change was initially announced 2 things came with the announcement.
#1 The frequency of the Proc was increased.
#2 Damage overall for the paladin would make-up for this massive loss of Burst Damage.
#1 is currently bugged on the test servers as only a few people (who haven't done testing) feel that the proc rate has been inreased. Those of us who have done testing however are confident that there has been no improvement to the proc rate of SoC. Certainly not the 40% increase that it would take to compensate for this massive nerf.
#2 Damage overall for the paladin class has not been increased for most specs and is only increased through passive means by a 5% boost to 1h weapon damage avaiable in Tier 6 of the Protection tree. In Fact damage overall for the paladin class in most specs has auctually been reduced with the changes in 1.9. IF a paladin wants to get the same damage that was available in 1.8 that paladin is required to dramatically reduce the amount of support he provides his team and focus his mana usage on Damage dealing.
SoC Nerf #2: Rank 5 & Mana Cost increase
I don't have access to the new mana cost of SoC atm (If someone could post it I'll add it here) but the difference between Rank 1 and Rank 5 even in 1.8 was approximately 150 mana. Rank 1 SoC was typically used in 1.8 until it got bugged and then Rank 2 -> Rank 5 until you were forced to log out to fix one of our most long term buggs.... (By some paladin's reports this is still unresolved in 1.9 BTW) The mana Cost of SoC is a super sensative issue for Paladin in Combat for many reason and the 1.9 cost is rediculous:
#1 Seal Removal: Both Priest and Shaman can easily remove 100% of the buffs that a Paladin has. The only defense that a Paladin has in 1.8 against a Shaman spending 75 mana casting Rank 2 Purge and removing 10% of all of his stats and 40% of his damage is that the paladin can spend 55 mana to get his damage back repeatedly. The 1.9 Paladin isn't afforded this defense however and each recast of SoC will cost him a significant amount of his mana pool at little cost to the shaman. The SoC changes make Paladin's even weaker against one of our most feared skill.
#2 Rank importance/Damage in the Judgement: 1.9 has moved SoC from being an entirely weapon based damage dealing ability to being a situational set number damage dealing ability. In addition to this change 1.9 makes Judging SoC important to getting back up to our 1.8 DPS. Where rank 1 SoC was an acceptible seal now we are forced to spend over 4x as much to get the same seal which does less damage. And then spend that same 4x as much again repeatedly to get up near the the old DPS. I'd have to perform test to give an exact mana increase but to get the same damage as before I would approximate the cost to be 10 times as high at least. (and this is assuming that nobody purges you.)
1.9 Nerf #3: Holy Tree reorganization
The old 13/7/31 build is gone and the 20/0/31 build has been severly weakened by the movement of Tier 1,2,3 skill to Tier 2,3,4. This movement makes the Free Heal a 20 point investments, It also remove the Mana Cost reduction potential on Flash heal and since improved Blessing of Wisdom is the same tier as illumination this was effectively removed also. The bright side is that you can get a 10% intellect boost which is nice but does not make up for the over 1000% increase in damage dealing mana consumption.
1.9 Nerf #4: Stunned Targets/Protection Tree
Not as much of a nerf as an insult the SoC reliance on Stunning the target first is pretty rough. So many end-game mobs and most non-endgame bosses are stun immune which means that our Damage output was substainly lowered against these target. I don't think we were setting world records before so this reliance is a 100% nerf to paladins in the end-game. Now in PvP with a 1 min cooldown on our only stunning ability its still a joke which gets even worse when you realize the only way to improve your ability to stun the target is to go 18 pts into protection tree and forgo most combat healing improvements entirely Sure you can get a 10% boost to Concentration aura at 20 pts in protection so you don't have to forgo all of it but its so close to all of it that it feels the same.
1.9 Critaden Buffs????
Ok so being critical without pointing out good things is mean so lets look at the "Good" things
Eye for an Eye
This skill sounds AWESOME. I was estatic when I first read it and grabbed it immediately. Upon testing it however I learned a little bit about the Crit rate on Caster.... In each fight I participated in I think I reflected around 200-400 damage. 90% of the damage I took from casters was non-Crit and that's the ball game. This talent would be a great way to close that extra mile in 1.8 but the extra mana usage required in 1.9 limits my survivability to the point where getting a Caster down felt even worse with this build. In 1.8 my best answer to a Caster is to heal through most of his mana and/or get a couple lucky crits on him. In 1.9 however I find that I'm the one out of mana more frequently and this minor reflection on 10%-15% of a casters spells doesn't help that one bit. Honestly I'd rather get mana back each time they Critted me than anything else
Pursuit of Justice
Many people have commented that this is the same as 70 extra Stamina. Save you the trouble of enchanting your boots. This skill needed to provide on-command boost damage like Charge or Sprint or should be a base class ability. Heck even changing it to a +3 Stamina per rank would be better than it in the current form. Blizzard put the reduction of Interrupts in the Tanking Tree and the reduction in Disorient/Fear in the Casting Tree. Honestly Unyeilding Faith in Pursuit of Justices position would make alot more sense along with moving improve Concentration Aura back to the Holy tree. I'm sure Protection Paladins wouldn't Mind getting a Skill that increased thier Stamina to replace the improved Concentration Aura and from everyone's evaluation of this talent that's exactly what it does
Tier 3 Conviction???
While it sounds like a great deal to move Conviction up in the Retribution tree this auctually adds insult to injury making it available to Protection/Holy specs while at the same time making those tree less friendly for grabbing a skill or two. This would've been fine if Vengeance wasn't sent down to Tier 6 of our tree without any improvement. Personally I feel that the ideal place for Blizzard to make improvements to the Retribution tree lie with Vengeance and with improving our 31 point talent. I would love to see Vengeance be replaced with a Set amount of bonus to damage each time we Crit or a 2 sec stun to provide synergies with the new SoC. Instead we have the same exact benefit but its significantly deeper in our tree.
Suggestions
Now that I've explained many of the concerns with 1.9 and its impact on the Critaden I should prolly highlight areas for improvement that should be reviewed.
Seal of Command: Mana Usage
For the Critaden to exist mana usage for DPS has to be reviewed. McHammer made a great suggestion for revising JoC that is to make the max damage done by the judgement weapon based. If Blizzard was to implement this change then the need for multiple Ranks of SoC would be removed and the only rank left of SoC could be a 55-100 mana seal that hopefully wouldn't be bugged. Honestly I'd prefer to see the damage returned to the base Seal but if blizzard is intent upon forcing a seal, stun, judge, seal mechanic to this ability it needs to have a dramatically lower mana Cost.
Seal of Command: Retribution Tree Synergies
To help improve the damage potential of the Retribution there needs to be a stunning mechanism or enhancement added internal to the tree. Moving Improve HoJ to retribution would be ideal but baring that it could be pushed deeper into protection and retribution could be enhanced by Either adding a short duration stun to Vengeance or replacing the 31 point talent with something that had a stunning effect would be great ways to improve the synergies. We certainly don't want to become a stun-locking but if that is going to be an important part of our damage dealing then we need to have better ways of stunning our oppponents.
HoJ Improvements
The lack of stunning in the end-game lowers our JoC damage by 70%. Adding a skill to improve HoJ to stun bosses for a short duration would help to improve it considerably. a 0.5s or 1.0s stun once per minute isn't too much to ask since we are now relying on stuns. This change would also give raiding groups additional incentive to allow Paladin's to Melee in the end-game.
Quest Reward Itemization Problems
With multiple quest rewards offering opportunities for a Paladin to pick up different gear depending on his build this patch has put a bad taste in the mouth of all Critadens. With the high mana reliance the Dragonslayer Signet for example is much more appealing than the Onyxia tooth Pendant. For each quest of this kind 1.9 should add a Paladin quest to turn-in gear that made sense for year one WoW and recieve Gear that makes sense in the future. While changing itesm doesn't make sense due to Rogue and Warriors still needing them I would love to see paladin quest added to blacksmiths in IF to convert some of the more common +Crit armor and items like Lionheart Healms and Strongarm Gauntlets into more 1.9 Paly friendly versions of these items with +Int and +Spell Crit. Whatever additional items or cost required to convert items would be well worth it if I could move the 1500g investment in Epic Crit Gear into gear that makes more sense with this entire change of direction in 1.9.
PvP Set
The current PvP Set for paladin's is a joke in 1.9. The +Crit +AGI and some +STR should be replaced with +Spell Damage, +INT and +Spell Crits to more closely relate to the new skill and talents for our class.
Seal Classification
Again we go back to the same arguement. Seals should not be dispellable. Shamans/Priest should be able to dispell our Blessings but not our seals. Since nothing has been done for passive increases our base damage and at the same time our seal cost have all been increase it is an important change that should be made before 1.9.
Holy Tree Organization
Restore the now Tier 2,3,4 abilities to Tier 1,2,3. The higher cost on our damage dealing abilities is already a major nerf to our ability to provide support at the same time as damage. Lowering our abilities further is un-necessary entirely.
Air Totem
With the addition of the Salvation like totem to the Shaman Class the old school of thought that paladins are better in PvE and Shaman better in PvP has been shattered. Instead we are almost equal in PvE and they are significantly better in PvP. There shouldn't be any hesistation to add a meaningful boost our PvP capabilities with 1.9. So far this patch has provided slightly better support abilities while nerfing our non-support abilities significantly.
I will monitor this closely and feel for all the pallys out there who like to swing a large slow 2her for decent damage. I especially feel for the pallys who have obtained the uber end game 2hers and have the pvp uber weps - this is a really big issue for them.
I just wish they would allow each tree to really give us different personalities ... and the retribution tree above 20 points is not getting the job done... yet!
Kevin
------------------
Several paladin's have already posted about how disappointed they are in the quaility of the changes in 1.9 and why they feel that this patch is more Nerf than buff to their playstyle.
Paladin's who in Full judgement or who play like clerics don't understand the problem with these changes so I hope that this post will help non-pally's and PvE Paly's in understanding what the effect of this patch changes will be if they go live.
1.8 Critaden:
History
The original PvP build for Paladin's the Critaden was orginated before the Reckoning build was popularized as these players wanted to focus on the paladin's offensive capabilities instead of primarily playing support. Most quality Critadens still provide support but nowhere near the same level as that provided by the Clerics.
Playstyle
Relying on the low mana Cost damage dealing skills that the paladin class possess these Paladin's pickup gear that enhances Melee Damage potential (+Crit, +Attack Power, +STR) which typically does not include +int. Because they have a Damage focus even the best geared Critadens have around 4K mana pools. Even though this is pretty low with the cheap melee cost for dealing damage they use close to 100% of thier mana pools for support.
Low Cost???
Why was is the Cost for damage dealing with a Critaden so low you ask? The answer is simple: Paladin's in 1.8 lack control of damage output. The Critaden build is that of a gambler. The damage output was not stellar at all that's for sure but a few good Crits at the right time and we could take just about anyone out. The neat thing about this is in that we can still heal our allies and provide good buffs to our team. Certainly our damage wasn't great but hey we are a good guy to keep around if we help other and might even get lucky
. Almost 100% The low Cost was primarily in Casting Rank 1 Seal of Command (55 Mana). The damage of this Seal is 100% weapon based and the useless judgement is the only think that is improved by casting the Rank 5 vesrsion (180 Mana). Other aspects of the low cost include utilitizing the other trees to inprove our ability to survive and our ability to conserve Mana. 11 points into Holy yeilded the 1.8 Critaden a Free heal every couple mins and the remaining points lowered the cooldown on our Melee Bubble and on our Emergency Heal. If a Critaden had MC duties on the side 20 points into Holy yeilded him an improved Blessing of Wisdom and lower cost on his Flash heals. Certainly he didn't get an opportunity to Melee in MC but with a set of PvE gear and a 20/0/31 build a Critaden was able to rival a holy paladin in healing capabilities. The last aspect of our low cost was in the form of Vengeance a short duration small buff to our Damage output after we got a crit. Vengeance doesn't set the world afire but with a good crit rate it stays up more often than not and boost all forms of Paladin damage. 1.8 Gear
The typical Critaden made quest reward choices like:
Onyxia Tooth Pendent over Dragonslayers Pendant
Blackhands Bredth over Eye of the Beast (which the 1.9 Paly should have access to in all fairness)
The Critaden spent crafting resources on:
Strongarm Gauntlets
Lionheart Helm
The Critaden spent DKP on:
Onslaught Girdle
Quick Strike Ring
After a year with this build and this focus many Critadens have recently seen indications from Blizzard that our build was what they had in mind for PvP and what they want to see more of from our class. The PvP set reinforces that concept that Paladin Damage should come at a low mana cost and should be improved by passive abilities and stats.
Tier 2 PvP Paly Set
+24 Int
+90 Str
+55 AGI
+4% Crit
Tier 1 PvP Paly Set
+14 Int
+67 Str
+34 AGI
+4% Crit
For the Critaden these sets provided good validation and when couple with some Lawbringer or Judgement to fill in for the lack on +Int the critaden was able to find sucess in his own way with his build.
The primary rule for playing a Critaden gearwise was that while your best gear should meet your damage dealing needs you MUST also secure PvE gear on the side to participate in PvE.
1.9 Changes
After spending a couple days around 400g in respecs on the test server I have to say that my intial evaluation of the 1.9 changes was not realistic. I saw the changes as providing little extra to the Critaden and simple as a sideways step for the build.
I was thourghly depressed when I realized How wrong I was about that however. 1.9 is not a sideways step for the Critaden but instead a systematic assassination of the spec. Hopefully for the non-pally's and non-critaden you read as I described the 1.8 Critaden you understand how it works now. If not this may not make sense to you.
1.9 Nerfs
SoC Nerf #1: 30% Damage Decrease
When this change was initially announced 2 things came with the announcement.
#1 The frequency of the Proc was increased.
#2 Damage overall for the paladin would make-up for this massive loss of Burst Damage.
#1 is currently bugged on the test servers as only a few people (who haven't done testing) feel that the proc rate has been inreased. Those of us who have done testing however are confident that there has been no improvement to the proc rate of SoC. Certainly not the 40% increase that it would take to compensate for this massive nerf.
#2 Damage overall for the paladin class has not been increased for most specs and is only increased through passive means by a 5% boost to 1h weapon damage avaiable in Tier 6 of the Protection tree. In Fact damage overall for the paladin class in most specs has auctually been reduced with the changes in 1.9. IF a paladin wants to get the same damage that was available in 1.8 that paladin is required to dramatically reduce the amount of support he provides his team and focus his mana usage on Damage dealing.
SoC Nerf #2: Rank 5 & Mana Cost increase
I don't have access to the new mana cost of SoC atm (If someone could post it I'll add it here) but the difference between Rank 1 and Rank 5 even in 1.8 was approximately 150 mana. Rank 1 SoC was typically used in 1.8 until it got bugged and then Rank 2 -> Rank 5 until you were forced to log out to fix one of our most long term buggs.... (By some paladin's reports this is still unresolved in 1.9 BTW) The mana Cost of SoC is a super sensative issue for Paladin in Combat for many reason and the 1.9 cost is rediculous:
#1 Seal Removal: Both Priest and Shaman can easily remove 100% of the buffs that a Paladin has. The only defense that a Paladin has in 1.8 against a Shaman spending 75 mana casting Rank 2 Purge and removing 10% of all of his stats and 40% of his damage is that the paladin can spend 55 mana to get his damage back repeatedly. The 1.9 Paladin isn't afforded this defense however and each recast of SoC will cost him a significant amount of his mana pool at little cost to the shaman. The SoC changes make Paladin's even weaker against one of our most feared skill.
#2 Rank importance/Damage in the Judgement: 1.9 has moved SoC from being an entirely weapon based damage dealing ability to being a situational set number damage dealing ability. In addition to this change 1.9 makes Judging SoC important to getting back up to our 1.8 DPS. Where rank 1 SoC was an acceptible seal now we are forced to spend over 4x as much to get the same seal which does less damage. And then spend that same 4x as much again repeatedly to get up near the the old DPS. I'd have to perform test to give an exact mana increase but to get the same damage as before I would approximate the cost to be 10 times as high at least. (and this is assuming that nobody purges you.)
1.9 Nerf #3: Holy Tree reorganization
The old 13/7/31 build is gone and the 20/0/31 build has been severly weakened by the movement of Tier 1,2,3 skill to Tier 2,3,4. This movement makes the Free Heal a 20 point investments, It also remove the Mana Cost reduction potential on Flash heal and since improved Blessing of Wisdom is the same tier as illumination this was effectively removed also. The bright side is that you can get a 10% intellect boost which is nice but does not make up for the over 1000% increase in damage dealing mana consumption.
1.9 Nerf #4: Stunned Targets/Protection Tree
Not as much of a nerf as an insult the SoC reliance on Stunning the target first is pretty rough. So many end-game mobs and most non-endgame bosses are stun immune which means that our Damage output was substainly lowered against these target. I don't think we were setting world records before so this reliance is a 100% nerf to paladins in the end-game. Now in PvP with a 1 min cooldown on our only stunning ability its still a joke which gets even worse when you realize the only way to improve your ability to stun the target is to go 18 pts into protection tree and forgo most combat healing improvements entirely Sure you can get a 10% boost to Concentration aura at 20 pts in protection so you don't have to forgo all of it but its so close to all of it that it feels the same.
1.9 Critaden Buffs????
Ok so being critical without pointing out good things is mean so lets look at the "Good" things
Eye for an Eye
This skill sounds AWESOME. I was estatic when I first read it and grabbed it immediately. Upon testing it however I learned a little bit about the Crit rate on Caster.... In each fight I participated in I think I reflected around 200-400 damage. 90% of the damage I took from casters was non-Crit and that's the ball game. This talent would be a great way to close that extra mile in 1.8 but the extra mana usage required in 1.9 limits my survivability to the point where getting a Caster down felt even worse with this build. In 1.8 my best answer to a Caster is to heal through most of his mana and/or get a couple lucky crits on him. In 1.9 however I find that I'm the one out of mana more frequently and this minor reflection on 10%-15% of a casters spells doesn't help that one bit. Honestly I'd rather get mana back each time they Critted me than anything else
Pursuit of Justice
Many people have commented that this is the same as 70 extra Stamina.
Save you the trouble of enchanting your boots. This skill needed to provide on-command boost damage like Charge or Sprint or should be a base class ability. Heck even changing it to a +3 Stamina per rank would be better than it in the current form. Blizzard put the reduction of Interrupts in the Tanking Tree and the reduction in Disorient/Fear in the Casting Tree. Honestly Unyeilding Faith in Pursuit of Justices position would make alot more sense along with moving improve Concentration Aura back to the Holy tree. I'm sure Protection Paladins wouldn't Mind getting a Skill that increased thier Stamina to replace the improved Concentration Aura and from everyone's evaluation of this talent that's exactly what it does Tier 3 Conviction???
While it sounds like a great deal to move Conviction up in the Retribution tree this auctually adds insult to injury making it available to Protection/Holy specs while at the same time making those tree less friendly for grabbing a skill or two. This would've been fine if Vengeance wasn't sent down to Tier 6 of our tree without any improvement. Personally I feel that the ideal place for Blizzard to make improvements to the Retribution tree lie with Vengeance and with improving our 31 point talent. I would love to see Vengeance be replaced with a Set amount of bonus to damage each time we Crit or a 2 sec stun to provide synergies with the new SoC. Instead we have the same exact benefit but its significantly deeper in our tree.
Suggestions
Now that I've explained many of the concerns with 1.9 and its impact on the Critaden I should prolly highlight areas for improvement that should be reviewed.
Seal of Command: Mana Usage
For the Critaden to exist mana usage for DPS has to be reviewed. McHammer made a great suggestion for revising JoC that is to make the max damage done by the judgement weapon based. If Blizzard was to implement this change then the need for multiple Ranks of SoC would be removed and the only rank left of SoC could be a 55-100 mana seal that hopefully wouldn't be bugged. Honestly I'd prefer to see the damage returned to the base Seal but if blizzard is intent upon forcing a seal, stun, judge, seal mechanic to this ability it needs to have a dramatically lower mana Cost.
Seal of Command: Retribution Tree Synergies
To help improve the damage potential of the Retribution there needs to be a stunning mechanism or enhancement added internal to the tree. Moving Improve HoJ to retribution would be ideal but baring that it could be pushed deeper into protection and retribution could be enhanced by Either adding a short duration stun to Vengeance or replacing the 31 point talent with something that had a stunning effect would be great ways to improve the synergies. We certainly don't want to become a stun-locking but if that is going to be an important part of our damage dealing then we need to have better ways of stunning our oppponents.
HoJ Improvements
The lack of stunning in the end-game lowers our JoC damage by 70%. Adding a skill to improve HoJ to stun bosses for a short duration would help to improve it considerably. a 0.5s or 1.0s stun once per minute isn't too much to ask since we are now relying on stuns. This change would also give raiding groups additional incentive to allow Paladin's to Melee in the end-game.
Quest Reward Itemization Problems
With multiple quest rewards offering opportunities for a Paladin to pick up different gear depending on his build this patch has put a bad taste in the mouth of all Critadens. With the high mana reliance the Dragonslayer Signet for example is much more appealing than the Onyxia tooth Pendant. For each quest of this kind 1.9 should add a Paladin quest to turn-in gear that made sense for year one WoW and recieve Gear that makes sense in the future. While changing itesm doesn't make sense due to Rogue and Warriors still needing them I would love to see paladin quest added to blacksmiths in IF to convert some of the more common +Crit armor and items like Lionheart Healms and Strongarm Gauntlets into more 1.9 Paly friendly versions of these items with +Int and +Spell Crit. Whatever additional items or cost required to convert items would be well worth it if I could move the 1500g investment in Epic Crit Gear into gear that makes more sense with this entire change of direction in 1.9.
PvP Set
The current PvP Set for paladin's is a joke in 1.9. The +Crit +AGI and some +STR should be replaced with +Spell Damage, +INT and +Spell Crits to more closely relate to the new skill and talents for our class.
Seal Classification
Again we go back to the same arguement. Seals should not be dispellable. Shamans/Priest should be able to dispell our Blessings but not our seals. Since nothing has been done for passive increases our base damage and at the same time our seal cost have all been increase it is an important change that should be made before 1.9.
Holy Tree Organization
Restore the now Tier 2,3,4 abilities to Tier 1,2,3. The higher cost on our damage dealing abilities is already a major nerf to our ability to provide support at the same time as damage. Lowering our abilities further is un-necessary entirely.
Air Totem
With the addition of the Salvation like totem to the Shaman Class the old school of thought that paladins are better in PvE and Shaman better in PvP has been shattered. Instead we are almost equal in PvE and they are significantly better in PvP. There shouldn't be any hesistation to add a meaningful boost our PvP capabilities with 1.9. So far this patch has provided slightly better support abilities while nerfing our non-support abilities significantly.
. Currently on Terenas my build allows for 110-130 dps 1h. With 2h on the test server I struggle to stay above 100dps, on Terenas I can easily hit above 150 dps.