Introduction
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Protection Paladin Guide! My name is Tactyks and I’m an avid tank player who has played paladin at the top 100 world level in raiding as well as to the 0.1% M+ title in both Dragonflight and The War Within. I’ve also competed in The Great Push as a tank player and create M+, Raid, and Tank guide content over on my YouTube and Twitch channels, so make sure to stop by and say hi!
Socials
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Protection Paladins are your classic holy warrior archetype, using the strength of the light to empower allies as well as their own fighting abilities. The Hero trees double down on both of these ideas, with Lightsmith enhancing the fantasy of buffing your allies and Templar allowing you to rain down hammers on your enemies. The Paladin class also has a unique and powerful utility kit that makes them very desirable in group content, so they’re always a solid choice in both M+ and raid!
Protection Paladin Video Class Guide
What has changed
Midnight Prepatch is bringing quite a few changes to Protection Paladin, with the biggest by far being changes to consecrate to remove most of the defensive power from it, instead moving it into other cooldowns and passives. For example, Aegis Of Light and Shield Of The Righteous now grant more armor, Mastery now works at all times and gives twice your rating as spell block, and both Ardent Defender and Guardian Of Ancient Kings have had their base cooldowns reduced.
When it comes to gameplay this is mostly unchanged, however Hammer Of Wrath has seen some significant changes, with it no longer being its own button and instead its a transformation of Judgment while Avenging Wrath is active. While this does hurt your execute damage outside of wings and reduces the skill ceiling of the spec slightly, it does have some upsides such as increased execute damage during Avenging Wrath and synergy with talents that previously only interacted with Judgment.
Outside of this, there’s been a general move away from the multitude of short duration buffs that paladin previously juggled, with some including Blessing Of Dusk and Blessing Of Dawn being made into passives, and others like Faith In The Light and Barricade Of Faith being removed entirely. There’s also been a general pruning of cooldown buttons, with Eye Of Tyr, Moment Of Glory, and Bastion Of Light all being removed.
As for new talents there are a few notable additions, such as Sweeping Verdict for cleaving Judgment, Adjudication to help against bosses with heavy melee swings, Instrument Of The Divine for more powerful Shield Of The Righteous hits, and a trio of new Consecration related talents to boost its damage and healing
Other changes include a significant rework to Righteous Protector which is now a flat amount of cooldown reduction on Avenging Wrath paired with a duration reduction, the removal of Eye Of Tyr with you now being able to grab a 2nd charge of Guardian Of Ancient Kings in its place, and the addition of Zealot's Paragon in the spec tree which takes the spot of Resolute Defender, meaning Ardent Defender will be on a bit of a longer cooldown.
Overall there are several positive and negative changes coming with Midnight, but for the most part I think the changes lean towards things players have been wanting for some time now, so I’m optimistic about how they’ll feel and perform in the new expansion.