Today Blizzard announced some new paladin changes that will affect Holy Paladins when the 3.1 Patch hits.  Most of them are nerfs.  In all, they’re not too bad for PvE paladins, they were more aimed at PvP paladin which are pretty OP in Arenas right now.

• All paladins auras had their range extended from 30 yards to 40 yards.

This is a nice buff that I’ve been wanting for a long time.  Now, anyone in range of your heals will get your aura buff, even tanks at max range.  Blizzard is also buffing all improved aura effects to work with any aura.  I’m still not taking Improved Concentration Aura for PvE, since the silence affect isn’t used very often.  Its awesome for PvP though, especially since it sounds like its being buffed to a 100% silence immunity.

• Sacred Shield now cannot be on more than one target at any one time.

This change is a big nerf to Sacred Shield, especially for raids and PvP.  Sacred Shield is a very quick and mana-efficient spell that absorbs a ton of damage, especially for those who stack Spell Power.  It isn’t difficult at all for me to keep up 2 or 3 sacred shields on tanks and others who are frequently taking damage, and this change reduces that number to just one.  Sacred Shield is awesome because it absorbs all damage, not just physical damage, so it can help round out the damage during those dragon breaths and AoE damage.  It is also useful on fights where everyone is taking damage or healing is impossible, like on Loatheb, Sapphiron, and during Malygos’ vortex.  This nerf will hurt Holy Paladin’s ability to deal with raid-wide damage, since it can now only be used on the tank.

Honestly, I was surprised when they first revealed this ability that it could be used on multiple targets at once, especially considering the Flash of Light buff it gives.  It almost seemed like a bug.  Ghostcrawler has stated that the damage mitigation while testing Ulduar was getting too high with it.  This change should bring it more in line with what they originally intended.  For me, it will mean I have a few less things to worry about.  Keeping up one sacred shield will be cake and I can focus more on healing.  However, it also means we’ll need more front-end work assigning sacred shield targets before the fight if there are multiple paladins.  I guess I’ll have to find something else to do between Loatheb’s auras.

• Infusion of Light no longer has a chance to reduce the casting time of Holy Light, but increases the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead.

This is a nerf to both Holy Shock and Holy Light.  I can’t begin to count the number of times this talent has saved my group from a wipe.  Following a Holy Shock crit with a 1 second Holy Light cast is godly.  I have to admit, it was a little OP.  The effect was pretty random though.  When it happened, it would save a wipe, but you couldn’t reliably control if it happened or not, except once every 3 minutes with Divine Favor.  The change means less burst healing in PvE and PvP.

This change nerfs our healing throughput (heals per second), while increasing our mana efficiency.  The 20% increased Holy Light crit is nice, especially for mana-efficiency, but a lot of the actual crit will go into the overheals.  Blizzard is probably trying to encourage Holy Paladins to use Flash of Light more with this nerf to Holy Light, especially since the Flash of Light component wasn’t changed.  Some might want to stack a little less crit or use Holy Shock a little less, but I’m personally going to keep the same healing strategy I’m using now.

• Hand of Sacrifice now lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transfered 100% of their maximum health.

Yet another nerf.  I use Hand of Sacrifice often for boss enrages (such as Maexxna) or really any other time to save some mana or catch up on healing.  Combined with Divine Shield, it was a flat 30% damage reduction on the tank for 12 seconds, your own personal Shield Wall.  Now, all it does is absorb the tank’s maximum health, which is much less damage absorption than before.  Its a pretty big nerf to Hand of Sacrifice, but you shouldn’t ever rely on HoS anyway since it does only last 12 seconds.  Its a nerf mainly to PvP.

• Targets affected by Divine Shield, Hand of Protection or Divine Protection can no longer be affected by any of these spell for 2 minutes. (Down from 3 minutes)

This is a buff, but a pretty small one.  If you really need to use any of those spells on the same person within 3 minutes (in PvE), then something is very wrong.  Of course, in a game like Warcraft, things go wrong a lot, so being able to Divine Shield yourself and then HoP yourself again 2 minutes later is nice, but it probably won’t be used very often at all.  In PvP, this buff will be much more useful.

• Divine Sacrifice *New Talent* (Tier 3) - 30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin’s health). Instant, 2 min cooldown.

This is a renamed and nerfed version of the current Divine Guardian talent. A lot of Holy Paladins specced into Divine Guardian to get this talent when there’s a ton of AoE damage, like on Sartharion with three drakes and to help out in PvP.  Combined with Divine Shield, it would absorb a ton of damage.  Blizzard decided that the combination of using Divine Shield while absorbing other members damage was OP and needed to be nerfed.  This was especially true if you had 3 or 4 pallies chain-casting Divine Shield for a flat 30% damage reduction to everyone for a large portion of the fight.  Holy Paladins speccing into Divine Guardian would have to waste a lot of talent points to get it, and this should help eliminate that desire.  It was never really intended for what its been used for.

This change allows a Protection Paladin to actually use it while tanking to help take some of the damage the group is taking.  It’s a little more flexible for a Holy Paladin if you’re inclined to go into the prot tree, since now you can choose whether or not to use Divine Shield.  Its probably still best used by a paladin who isn’t actively tanking and who can bubble.  It might help a prot pally if for some reason you can’t control the adds.  Even so, the addition of the 150% maximum health limit makes this talent pretty weak.

• Another change that doesn’t affect PvE paladins is that Warriors will be able to remove Divine Shield.  Pretty sucky for PvP Paladins.  That’s all I have to say about that.