WOW Class Patch 3.2 Q&A: Paladin

Once again, it's time for a Class Q&A with Ghostcrawler! Today Paladins get their chance to shine

(previously: Shaman, Mage, Death Knight, Warlock).

As with the other Q&As, this one starts with a bit on what the idea is behind paladins, with a

glance at their history and at their present.

In the beginning: paladins were a "defensive buffing class...buffs were pretty much the entire

reason you'd want to group with a paladin." End-game classic WoW: paladins were healers only. BC:

paladins could tank, but were still mostly OTs. Wrath: "finally embraced all three specs."

Paladins still have several unique facets: bubbles, strong dispels, plate armor as a healer, and

the Seal and Judgment system.

Itemization: so far in Wrath, MP5 wasn't particularly valuable, and they claim it wasn't inteded

to be. They still think MP5 is undervalued right now, though, hence the buffs coming to it in

patch 3.2. They also think Int/Crit based mana regen is a bit out of control, and furthermore than

in patch 3.2, some Holy pallies might look into taking Haste.

At this point they drop a hint that is interesting for all caster classes: they're considering

collapsing MP5 and Spirit into one stat. This is for the farther future, though.

Paladins can expect to see "other interesting healing spells" later on, but not in 3.2, and don't

expect "something that looks like Prayer of Healing or Wild Growth." Flash of Light should be more

valuable now with the Sacred Shield changes, and the Beacon changes should make paladins "an

exceptional dual target healer" (is that a valuable role?).

Ret PvE DPS is too low right now; they're buffing it with the new Seal of Vengeance/Corruption.

SoV is aimed towards boss fights, since it works best once the pally gets five stacks up; Seal of

Command is for short PvP or PvE fights.

The change to Exorcism (adding a cast time) means Rets have to pay a bit more attention to their

rotation - you want to use Exorcism with Art of War procs, most of the time. To compensate for the

nerf to Prot that his change brings, they also buffed Hand of Reckoning.

On the topic of Avenging Wrath and possible dispel immunity ("possible but not probable"), they

mention again that they want to redo the entire dispelling system. One method they suggest is to

give defensive magic dispelling to all healers, but prevent offensive dispelling entirely, or at

least for most buffs.

They would like to add a "stand-alone interrupt" to pallies, although they need to get Ret burst

down a bit still first before giving them more tools. As far as escape and gap-closer abilities,

Judgment of Justice is meant to be pallies' gap-closer.

Finally, they would like to make Librams visible on the Paladin models, but this might take a

while. The same goes for Shaman totems and Hunter quivers (but I thought they were getting rid of

quivers).

Is it just me, or is this Q&A even fluffier and more content-free than the ones we've gotten so

far? I guess they just don't have a lot of Paladin news to talk about that we haven't already seen

in the patch 3.2 notes.