3.3 Paladin testing changes explained

[Vitandus]

As you can see, we are trying some different things with some paladin mechanics.

The Aura Mastery change (to 6 sec duration) is one we think is appropriate. If I had to guess, this one will stick.

We are trying some things with Sacred Shield to make it more of a Holy tool and less useful for Ret and Prot (without being totally irrelevant). I don't have a lot of faith that the implementation on the PTR is the one we'll go with for a couple of reasons, but our overall goal is to make Ret less tanky and the Holy tree feel like it's the right one to focus on for healing. I would expect a Sacred Shield change of some kind though.

I wouldn't worry too much on the Lay on Hands change at this point. I don't want to promise we won't change the spell for 3.3, but our intent was to revert the others only change before it went out to the PTR, which is why we didn't patch note it. We have already changed it back on our local builds.

The paladin class isn't just supposed to be for support anymore, but at the same time, the original intent for many paladin abilities was to help the group. Over time however they have contributed into making the paladin into a "one-man army," able to play offensively, defensively and heal without say the stance changing or shapeshifting or sometimes event talent specialization required of other classes. Many of the LK balance problems we've had with the class are because of that core issue.

With that said, we're just not sure a Lay on Hands change really accomplishes much from a balance perspective, while it feels bad to lose such an iconic ability. We just don't think the bang for the buck is there on this change, which is why we reverted it. But I'm not going to promise we won't touch it.

In fact, I'm not going to promise anything with this post. :) Please don't dredge it up later to try and argue against any upcoming changes. I'm just trying to clear up some confusion.
Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer

[Tessekai]

I'm interested to see what changes they end up sticking with for Sacred Shield. I like that they are going to try to make it more of a Holy utility than a Prot/Ret ability. There have been several occasions during groups/raids where I'll be tossing Sacred Shield on the tanking Paladin so I can mitigate their damage and gain a delicious HoT, only to notice that they keep overwriting it with their own since they are spec'd into the improved shield. Kind of difficult to decide if the HoT from the Holy paly or the increased mitigation from the spec'd Prot paly is more valuable.