Paladin Guide for Midnight - Patch 12.0.1

Paladin Guide for Midnight Quick Summary:

• Paladin has great survivability, lots of useful utility, and can heal in any spec. The main downside is its mobility and lack of presence in the meta.
• The best races for Paladins are Dwarves and Taurens.
• You want to max the following stats for Retribution and Protection: Strength, Mastery, Haste, Crit Strike, and Versatility.
• For Holy Paladin, you want to max Intellect and the same four stats as above.
• The best Paladin professions are Alchemy, Blacksmithing, and Enchanting.

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Paladin Changes in WoW Midnight

As all classes in Midnight, Paladin became a victim of major changes to how the class works. It has been stripped of many of its useful passives, especially Prot and Holy Pals, but gained some new ones. Can’t say he became any better for that. In fact, compared to The War Within, he became much worse in my opinion. If I were to place a whole class into a tier list, I’d rate TWW Pal as an A tier, top or middle of the list, but with Midnight Paladin, it’s more around B to C-Tier. Around lower B. Idk if it’s intentional, as Paladin wasn’t insanely strong, but worked perfectly fine, so the changes actually making him worse are questionable. Let’s see what they took away from my boy and what they made him.

Retribution Paladin

Probably the weakest of the bunch currently. Ret hasn’t seen any new abilities added to his pool. Some removed, some reworked, not all of it in spec’s favor.

• Divine Hammer: Became a passive talent in the Templar Hero ability tree.
• Divine Resonance: Instead of casting Judgment every few seconds, now lets you cast 3 Judgments at 100% effectiveness.
• Hammer of Wrath: Now makes Judgment a part of the cast during Avenging Wrath.
• Radiant Glory: Now activates Avenging Wrath with Wake of Ashes instead of making it randomly.
• Shield of Vengeance: Is now an upgrade to Divine Protection. Still the same barrier as before.

Divine Arbiter, Final Reckoning, Of Dusk and Dawn, and Searing Light are now removed from the game. Retribution Paladin was mostly mediocre throughout WoW’s history, and it seems they kinda made him bad again. Still, if you’re just starting out, you can try this spec as it’s really simple, unlike it was in Classic and TBC.

Holy Paladin

With some buttons being removed, the rotation on this spec became a bit simpler, but not everyone loves the decision. It’s always nice to have more options, but it seems the devs overdid it trying to make the game less complex.

• Beacon of the Savior: A nice new Apex talent that lets you micromanage a lot less. It does it passively, which might not be as good as it sounds, 'cause sometimes you gotta decide who to focus heal on, but now the game does it for you.
• Crusader’s Might: Makes your Holy Shock and Crusader Strike reduce the cd on Judgment.
• Crusader Strike: Now only available during Avenging Crusader.
• Holy Shock: The cooldown is reduced significantly and is now a very nice button to press.
• Light of Dawn: Such a pleasant change. You now heal allies around you in 40yd space.
• Ringing of the Heavens: A new talent that makes your Aura Mastery cast a Divine Toll.

Blessing of Summer, Merciful Auras, Rebuke, and Repentance are now removed. As of now, Holy Paladin isn’t that good in Raids and M+. His future heavily depends on tuning, as spot healing right now is not as good as it was before. Hopefully it’ll be fixed.

Protection Paladin

The tanking spec of Paladin is actually not that bad. While you had a lot of defensives and passives removed, you’re still decently tanky, but the ultimate choice between Sentinel and Avenging Wrath is still there. Do you want to be really tanky but do zero damage, or do you want to deal damage but be a poor tank? I still don’t understand why we have such a big choice on one node, and it can’t be both.

• Empyrean Authority: New talent adding one charge to the Guardian of Ancient Kings.
• Glory of the Vanguard: Splash damaging spell that makes your Avenging Wrath better.
• Instrument of the Divine: Shield of the Righteous drains more Holy Power, but deals 50% more damage for each unit of Holy Power.
• Solace: Self-sustain that lets you heal for 300% of the damage your Consecration deals.
• Sweeping Verdict: Expands your Judgment zone of influence.
• Valiant Crusade: Infuses Divine Steed with Shield of the Righteous.

Bastion of Light, Eye of Tyr, Hammer of Wrath, Judgement of Light, Moment of Glory, and Repentance are all removed. If you are planning to play Paladin, you can safely pick this spec, as, despite all the nerfs and changes, it still plays pretty well, pretty fun. It’s definitely not a spec to play if you’re a new player, though, as it’s really punishing for mistakes.

Paladin Pros & Cons

Paladin is quite an interesting class that has three (kinda) viable specializations to choose from, each providing different pros & cons. They also play significantly differently from each other and have different skill ceilings. I’ll try to include general pros & cons in this list, as well as a few spec-specific ones.

Pros	Cons
Wide variety of playstyles to choose from.	Low mobility.
Quite tanky even in healing and DPS specs.	Skill ceiling varies drastically from one spec to another, making it a poor choice to respec far into the game.
Lots of good utility suitable for any type of content.	Ret Pals utility falls off in endgame content.
Can heal in any spec and provide more survivability for the whole crew.	Prot Paladin is hard to learn and master, and will punish you hard for making mistakes.
Each class is viable even if not meta now.	Holy Pally can feel clunky to play, as he doesn’t have fast healing, and Holy Power can feel awkward in the beginning.

If you were discouraged by my previous words that Paladin is in a bad state right now, don’t be. He’s quite alright, he’s just not top of the meta compared to other classes.

How to Play Paladin in Midnight

Depending on the specialization you’ve chosen, the gameplay explanation can be as short as a couple of sentences or so complex that I’d need a separate guide for that. Despite this, I’ll try to fit in as much as possible when explaining each specialization and its gameplay style. Here’s how to play Paladin in Midnight:

• Retribution Paladin: Don’t store Holy Power. Always use it. Overcapping it is a DPS loss. Always apply Judgment and Expurgation debuffs on enemies as they increase your damage output. Finally, try to dump all your GCDs together. They’re not as strong individually, and considering that Ret isn’t a very prominent DPS spec, you don’t want to lose out on DPS even further.
• Holy Paladin: This spec is a classic builder-spender. Generally, you just want to be casting as much as possible, even if it doesn’t fit the rotation. Use your cooldowns, spend your Holy Power, track the quantity of Holy Power charges so as not to generate too much to lose value, and remember - always track your party’s HP. Your goal is to keep party members alive, no matter the cost.
• Protection Paladin: The main point of why Prot Paladin is considered difficult and punishing is that mistiming your cooldowns always leads to you dying in a matter of seconds. Always plan what you will cast next. If you don’t have a strict plan, I recommend learning the Prot Paladin’s rotation. Otherwise, the rules that apply to other specs also apply here. Don’t overcap Holy Power and try to cast as much as possible, but be wary of what your cooldowns do.

Out of these three, I think Prot Paladin rewards your understanding of what their buttons do the most. Like, you can get away with having a general understanding of how your abilities work on other Pal specs, but it’s the Prot that makes it super satisfying. Try it once you feel you understand how Paladin works in general.

WoW Midnight Best Paladin Races

I’ll answer it right away - the best race for Paladin is Dwarf. Their Stoneform is too good to ignore. You also get Might of the Mountain passive, which is very strong on this class due to the scaling. Stoneform is one of the best racials, especially for you, since you can use it on yourself and save other cleansing casts on your team members during Raids or Mythic+.

Another strong option is Tauren if you want to play as Horde. They also have a passive that works exactly like Might of the Mountain called Brawn. War Stomp is a good CC to avoid being mauled to death and works as a panic button. You also get better stamina with Endurance. If you are extremely into min-maxing, I’d suggest going with Dwarf. Otherwise, you can pick any race you like, as Paladins work decently with most of them.

Paladin Stat Priority WoW

Paladins are one of the few classes that have different stat distributions and primary stat changes depending on the specialization they pick. Retribution and Protection Paladins value Strength, while Holy Paladin values Intellect. The rest of the four stats are Haste, Versatility, Mastery, and Crit Strike. They’re pretty close in their importance and can depend on what’s important for your build now. Thus, I recommend simming your character to see what stats you need.

Best Retribution Paladin stat priority:

1. Strength
2. Mastery
3. Haste
4. Crit Strike
5. Versatility

Doesn’t matter the Hero tree, you’ll always prioritize the stats this way. Mastery is for increased Holy damage with your Mastery: Highlord’s Judgment. It also influences your baseline abilities overall. Haste decreases cooldowns of your important abilities. Crit Strike increases the chance of your abilities to deal extra damage and healing. Basically, anything that can crit has an increased chance to do it thanks to the stat. Versatility, while increasing the damage, also lowers the damage you receive, which is important for all Paladins.

Best Holy Paladin stat priority:

1. Intellect
2. Mastery
3. Crit/Haste
4. Versatility

Intellect is your most important stat to follow as it improves your healing and damage on abilities. Mastery makes the Mastery: Lightbringer more effective. Crit, Haste, and Versatility work absolutely the same way here as they do for Retribution Pal.

Best Protection Paladin stat priority:

1. Strength
2. Haste
3. Versatility
4. Mastery
5. Critical Strike

With Protective Paladin, the story repeats itself. All four secondary stats are equally important, so always check your stats when deciding what to prioritize. Try to keep em somewhat evenly distributed. Most important is Haste, as it makes this spec a bit less punishing.

 

Best Paladin Builds for WoW Midnight

A little disclaimer: these builds are for Raids, not for Mythic+ dungeons. Thankfully, you can easily redistribute your allocated points to fit the content you’re planning to play. From the three builds I provide here, the Holy and Protection builds work the best in this patch, as Retribution is quite weak even with the proper build. I’ll show it first and then move on to the other two.

Best Retribution Paladin Build in Midnight

It’s a strict priority loop rather than a rotation, but let’s go over it. Start stacking your burst and then convert Holy Power into your spenders. The following is a combo you should try building every time. Activate Avenging Wrath, use Divine Toll, Execution Sentence, Wake of Ashes, and then Hammer of Light once it’s available. Keep these abilities on cooldown, then spend at 5 Holy Power with Final Verdict, fill with Blade of Justice, Hammer of Wrath, and then Judgment.

Best Holy Paladin Build in Midnight

In this rotation, your gameplan revolves around Avenging Wrath once again. Activate Avenging Wrath, use Holy Shock on cooldown as a Holy Power generator, spend at 3 on Word of Glory for single-target, or Light of Dawn for group healing. Judgment and Crusader Strike should stay active for extra Holy Power generation in melee. Align your major cooldowns with high damage segments in Raids.

Best Protection Paladin Build in Midnight

You will never guess it, but Avenging Wrath makes an appearance here again. You start with it on pull, use Consecration into Judgment and Avenger’s Shield on cooldown to generate Holy Power. Once you have 3 charges of Holy Power, spend them on Shield of the Righteous to keep your armor. Never let the armor effect wear out during the encounter. Use Hammer of the Righteous or Blessed Hammer as fillers while Consecration is active, and keep the Consecration on cooldown all the time. Hammer of Light is your damage button during burst windows. You should rotate Guardian of Ancient Kings, Ardent Defender, and Divine Protection when you know a big damage spike is coming.

 

 

Paladin Best in Slot Gear in WoW Midnight

Finally, it’s here. I can now tell you what gear is the BiS for each class in Midnight. This BiS gear list is for Phase 1, and I’ll be sure to update it with each new Phase coming out, but for now, check the Best-in-Slot Gear for Paladin in Midnight:

Slot	Retribution	Holy	Protection	Where to Get
Weapon	Bellamy's Final Judgement	Spellboon Saber	Turalyon's False Echo	Lightblinded Vanguard/Algeth'ar Academy/Crown of the Cosmos
Offhand	—	Viryx's Indomitable Bulwark	Thalassian Dawnguard	Skyreach/Belo'ren
Head	Luminant Verdict's Unwavering Gaze	Luminant Verdict's Unwavering Gaze	Crown of the Fractured Tyrant	Lightblinded Vanguard/Fallen-King Salhadaar
Neck	Amulet of the Abyssal Hymn	Amulet of the Abyssal Hymn	Eternal Voidsong Chain	Midnight Falls/Crown of the Cosmos
Shoulders	Luminant Verdict's Providence Watch	Luminant Verdict's Providence Watch	Luminant Verdict's Providence Watch	Fallen-King Salhadaar
Cloak	Rigid Scale Greatcloak	Rigid Scale Greatcloak	Draconic Nullcape	Skyreach/Vaelgor & Ezzorak
Chest	Luminant Verdict's Divine Warplate	Luminant Verdict's Divine Warplate	Luminant Verdict's Divine Warplate	Chimaerus
Wrist	Spellbreaker's Bracers	Trollhunter's Bands	Light's March Bracers	Crafting/Maisara Caverns/Imperator Averzian
Gloves	Voidclaw Gauntlets	Luminant Verdict's Gauntlets	Luminant Verdict's Gauntlets	Seat of the Triumvirate/Vorasius
Belt	Hate-Tied Waistchain	Ezzorak's Gloombind	Ezzorak's Gloombind	Crown of the Cosmos/Vaelgor & Ezzorak
Legs	Luminant Verdict's Greaves	Extinction Guards	Luminant Verdict's Greaves	Tier Set/Midnight Falls
Boots	Greaves of the Unformed	Parasite Stompers	Greaves of the Unformed	Chimaerus/Vorasius/
Ring	Eye of Midnight	Eye of Midnight	Eye of Midnight	Midnight Falls
Ring	Loa Worshiper's Band	Sin'dorei Band of Hope	Band of the Triumvirate	Crafting/Belo’ren/Seat of the Triumvirate
Trinket	Gaze of the Alnseer	Gaze of the Alnseer	Gaze of the Alnseer	Chimaerus
Trinket	Umbral Plume	Refueling Orb	Heart of Ancient Hunger	Belo’ren/Magister's Terrace/Vorasius

Now you know what to kit your character with. You can always settle for Blacksmithing if you can’t get the BiS gear, as you can craft something that’s really close to being this good.

Best Paladin Professions

In Midnight, professions don’t really matter this much. You can pick whatever you want on your Paladin. Make him a flower picking Herbalist if you want. But in all seriousness, the recommendations are the same across all professions. The all-rounder good professions are usually Alchemy and Enchanting. With Alchemy, you can create your own consumables, and with Enchanting, you can make your gear better. The armoring professions, like Blacksmithing or Tailoring, are always good, depending on what your class wears.

Best Consumables for Paladin

Paladin has a surprising variety of consumables. Then again, it might not be that surprising, since the class has three varying specs and doesn’t specialize in one thing only. Here are the best Paladin consumables for every specialization:

1. Retribution Paladin: Flask of the Magisters, Royal Roast, Light’s Potential, Thalassian Phoenix Oil.
2. Holy Paladin: Flask of the Magisters, Potion of Recklessness, Lightfused Mana Potion, Silvermoon Health Potion, Thalassian Phoenix Oil.
3. Protection Paladin: Flask of the Blood Knights, Draught of Rampant Abandon, Thalassian Phoenix Oil.

Consumables are basically long-lasting buffs (for the most part), and they can be quite expensive to buy. If you are someone who respecs often, I’d suggest you learn Alchemy to not go broke.

Read our other Midnight guides:

• Druid Guide
• Mage Guide
• Evoker Guide

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