Paladin guide for WoW Forever

The paladin is the plate hybrid: mana, seals and judgements, auras for the group, blessings and heals that in Classic made it more useful supporting than hitting. It can heal, tank and deal damage, and it is the class that changes most in Forever, with 14 entries in the build 1.60.1.70009 list, almost all so that Retribution and Protection work as real specializations.

Holy (healer)

The plate healer: Holy Light and Flash of Light, Illumination refunding the mana of every crit and now Holy Strike with Holy Power, which gives it something to do when nobody needs a heal. It is the sturdiest healer in the game and the one that spends the least mana per point healed.

Protection (tank)

Shield tank whose threat comes from Consecration, Holy Shield and seals, so it scales with intellect and spell power as well as stamina and defense. In Forever, Righteous Fury returns to Classic's 60% holy threat after trying 90% in the beta.

Retribution (damage)

Two-handed damage with Seal of Command and very slow weapons. It is the tree Forever rebuilds most: Holy Strike as a weapon attack, Sacred Arbiter, Twist of Light and a Vengeance that triggers on direct crits. It is the leveling spec.

Fourteen documented changes: no class moves this much. Everything centres on Holy Strike, a new attack that does not exist in Classic and dealt 25-40% weapon damage per rank in the beta; it now progresses from 25 to 50% (25/29/32/36/39/43/46/50) and for Holy its cooldown drops from 12 to 10 seconds. Three talents orbit it: Sacred Arbiter raises its damage by 20% (was 10%), Holy Power adds 15% crit to it on top of its old effects, and Improved Holy Strike disappears from the Holy tree.

For Retribution, Vengeance now triggers only on non-periodic crits and drops to 3 stacks (5 in the beta), Two-Handed Weapon Specialization settles at 2/4/6% (3/6/9 in the beta, 1/2/3 in Classic) and Twist of Light cuts the mana cost of seals by 20%. The tree leaves the build with less burst but more base damage and more mana.

The rest are general adjustments: Righteous Fury returns to Classic's 60% threat (it tried 90%), Retribution Aura scales dynamically with spell power, Consecration fixes three bugs (targets missing the increased damage, the Z axis and the vertical pull), Echo of Justice fixes its activation chance, Light's Vigil reorders its tooltip and Flash of Light fixes its animation. For a tank, what matters is that Consecration now hits everything standing in it.

Recommendation: Retribution from 10 to 60. In Classic, leveling a paladin was judgement, auto-attack and waiting; in Forever, with Holy Strike at 25-50% weapon damage, Sacred Arbiter and Twist of Light cheapening the seals, Retribution finally has a rotation and the mana to sustain it. Protection for leveling is still slow solo, though it is the most sought-after tank in dungeons; Holy only if you will heal group after group.

Recommended talent order, broadly:

• From 10 to 20, the Retribution talents that raise damage and crit; Two-Handed Weapon Specialization as soon as you can, because the whole tree lives off the slow weapon.
• The 16-point milestone arrives around 25-26; in Forever you can use one of the two class presets if you would rather not decide.
• Sacred Arbiter and Twist of Light as soon as you use Holy Strike and seals every fight: that is where you gain the most damage and mana per point in this build.
• Vengeance maxed: with 3 stacks it fills faster than with 5 and with direct crits it is easy to keep up.
• Switching to Protection to tank costs 1 silver in the beta: do it the day you have a group.

Pacing:

• No level scaling: the paladin handles orange mobs better than almost anyone thanks to plate and heals, but every heal is mana you do not spend on seals. Yellow and a judgement in every fight.
• The mount comes with the riding skill in Forever; if you are undead, the epic mount quest at level 60 starts at Bandarion Keep.
• The campsite repairs your plate and gives you three one-hour buffs before Shadowfang Keep and Wailing Caverns, the two dungeons with Retribution BiS pieces at level 20.
• Legacy Points: Well Rested, the example perk Blizzard has shown, gives more rested experience, which helps a class that rarely dies but kills slowly.

Retribution: a slow two-hander above everything (Seal of Command deals weapon damage with 7 procs per minute, so speed weighs even more than for an Arms warrior), then strength, hit, crit and a pinch of intellect and spell power for judgements. Protection: stamina and defense like any tank, dodge, parry and block, which is worth more here thanks to Holy Shield and Redoubt, plus some intellect and spell power for Consecration threat. Holy: healing and spell power, then intellect (Illumination refunds the mana of every crit, so 1% crit ≈ 8 healing) and mana per 5 s; with no ranged slot, librams are not scored. In Forever, melee and spell hit and crit are separate stats: check which one the piece carries.

At level 20 the paladin wears Blacksmithing: Protection equips six new Forever recipes, Retribution five and Holy four plus two from Tailoring. The dungeon pieces are few but decisive: for Retribution, The Axe of Severing from Shadowfang Keep and Cobrahn's Grasp from Wailing Caverns; for Protection, the Rift Bracers from Shadowfang Keep and the Defias Renegade Ring from The Stockade (the Jimmied Handcuffs from the same dungeon come in at 30); for Holy, the Seedcloud Buckler from Verdan in Wailing Caverns and the Mindthrust Bracers from Shadowfang Keep.

On the way up, the Scarlet Monastery is the paladin's gold mine with nine BiS pieces across the three trees (Scarlet Leggings and Boots, Raging Berserker's Helm, Aegis of the Scarlet Commander, The Frozen Clutch…), and the Temple of Atal'Hakkar adds three for Protection (Might of Hakkar, Warrior's Embrace, Nightfall Drape). Shadowfang Keep and Razorfen Kraul hold three each; the Death Speaker Scepter from Razorfen Kraul is Holy's leveling weapon. The new beta dungeons have no loot in our database yet. Full list per level on the paladin BiS page.

The big news is the undead paladin, the only Horde race that can be one and one of Forever's six new combinations, with its own Tirisfal storyline and an epic mount quest at level 60 starting at Bandarion Keep. The Alliance keeps humans and dwarves, unchanged. There is no Skyborne paladin. Among the racials changed in this build, none is paladin-specific; Touch of the Grave no longer breaks crowd control or triggers from non-damage abilities. Choose by faction: for the first time the Horde has paladins, and that changes group play more than any racial.

Mining + Blacksmithing, with more reason than anyone: four to six pieces of each tree's level-20 BiS are Blacksmithing recipes, and Forever adds more than 600 new recipes and a passive bonus per profession. Legacy also has its own Professions tree, although its perks are not detailed yet.

If you will heal, Herbalism + Alchemy pays for your mana potions; if you will tank, Blacksmithing is almost mandatory for the shield and plate. First Aid even if you heal (bandages cost no mana) and Cooking for the small experience bonus of crafted food. Each profession's leveling path is in the profession guides.

• Leveling the Classic way (judge and wait). Forever gives you Holy Strike and Vengeance; use them in every fight.
• Carrying a fast weapon as Retribution. Seal of Command deals weapon damage: the slower, the better.
• Tanking without Righteous Fury. It is back to Classic's 60%, but it is still your threat multiplier.
• Dropping Consecration and moving the group. It now hits everything standing in it; keep the mobs inside.
• Healing yourself mid-fight every time. Every heal is mana you do not spend on seals; bandage between fights.
• Skipping Twist of Light. 20% less seal cost is the cheapest mana talent in the tree.
• Fighting orange mobs. Without level scaling you survive, but it takes twice as long. Yellow.
• Repairing late. Plate breaks expensively; the campsite repairs before every dungeon.