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So in my Paladin Preview, I didn’t realize until just now that I failed to include the mastery talents. How I managed to pull that off, I will never know; but for your reading pleasure & knowledge, here they are!
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Holy: Healin/Meditation/Critical Healing Effect
Protection: Damage Reduction/Vengeance/Block Amount
Retribution: Melee Damage/Melee Critical Damage/Holy Damage
Meditation: This is the spirit-to-mana conversion that the priest, druid, and shaman healers also share.
Given the mana mechanics that will be changing, this is a necessary talent. I feel that it should be a passive mechanic; built into the class/spec, not a mastery spec. Perhaps this is to eliminate other paladin specs from utilizing this change but they are not going to take gear with spirit anyways.
Vengeance: This is the damage-received-to-attack-power conversion that all tanks share.
Critical Healing Effect: When the paladin gets a crit on a heal, it will heal for more.
Assuming that the build will not change in base make-up, this could be a very viable attribute to the “critadin” healing spec (See my armory page). Not only will you crit often, but hard! That sounds really….dirty.
Block Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks a lot. So by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical blocks, but the paladin will absorb more damage with normal blocks.
I am not a shield using tank by any means (I tank on four legs, if you remember) so I am not entirely sure how this will change the current block mechanic. The idea of a critical block seems confusing. The change set for the paladin blocks though, will help the healers out considerably.
Holy Damage: Any attack that does Holy damage will have its damage increased.
Unlike mages, THIS talent will simply give you a damage bonus. You are not required to do ANYTHING except your normal rotation and you’re going to see an output increase. omgretpalliesaresoophaveyouseendivinestorm? 🙂
Overall, I think the mastery changes are great addition to a stable hybrid class but a little boring to say the least. Entirely more useful than that of an Arcane Mage but there is nothing quite as cool as shadow orbs floating around our priest comrades. I am also really sorry that I failed to include this on my preview but here it is and I hope it is still helpful.
A Healadin's Tear 