Paladin

New What changed vs Classic

• New Holy Strike at level 6: instant melee strike, 10 s cooldown, 25% weapon damage at rank 1 up to 50% at rank 8, plus Holy damage.
• Judgement does not consume the Seal. No more recasting after every Judge.
• Blessings last 1 hour (Greater Blessings too). One Blessing per Paladin on each player.
• Blessing of Kings (level 20) and Consecration (level 20) are trained, not talents. Consecration does real damage to only the first 4 enemies, so its threat caps at about 4 mobs.
• Lay on Hands: 20 min cooldown (was 1 hour).
• New Seal of Fury (level 10): its Judgement taunts for 4 s at 10 yards (warrior Taunt is 5). With a shield, hits also give an absorb worth half their Holy damage.
• Righteous Fury: +90% threat from Holy attacks.
• New Salvation / Mass Salvation replace Blessing of Salvation and do NOT take a Blessing slot. Revoke removes it from someone.
• Retribution Aura scales with your spell power (6% coefficient).
• Hit and crit are each one stat for melee and spells (Blizzard). New Expertise reduces enemy dodge and parry.
• Low-rank spells get less benefit from spell power. Seal twisting is gone unless you take Twist of Light.

The three trees

• Reworked: 7 rows, 51 points, and a New gold talent at 16 points in every tree.

Holy (heals, or "Shockadin" caster damage)

• 11 pts: New Voice of Truth: immune to silence and interrupts for 6 s (3 min cooldown).
• 16 pts: Divine Favor: your next Flash of Light, Holy Light or Holy Shock crits (2 min). Moved up from the old 21-point slot.
• 21 pts: Holy Shock: instant, damages an enemy or heals an ally (10 s cooldown).
• 31 pts: New Light's Vigil (needs Holy Shock): a 1.5 s cast that marks a target for 30 s. Your next Holy Shock on them has no cooldown and either heals their whole party or hits the enemy and refunds 75% of the cost. One active per party. Rank 1 costs 730 mana.
• Also: New Reverence (30% of regen keeps ticking while you cast), New Infusion of Light, New Consecrated Ground, New Divine Precision, Holy Power (+15% crit on Holy Shock and Holy Strike).

Protection (tank)

• 11 pts: New Improved Seal of Fury: gives mana back when the Seal of Fury shield is used up.
• 16 pts: New Swift Judgement: finishes Judgement's cooldown and makes the next one free (1 min cooldown). It is your second taunt.
• 21 pts: New Templar's Bulwark: an absorb equal to 100% of your max HP for 8 s. Applies Forbearance, 5 min cooldown.
• 31 pts: Holy Shield (needs Bulwark): +30% block for 10 s, 4 charges.
• Also: Shield Specialization (blocks give 4% max mana, once every 3 s), New Iron Creed (Holy Strike threat, and damage reduction while Righteous Fury is on), New Sacred Duty.

Retribution (two-handed melee)

• 11 pts: Seal of Command: its Judgement does double damage to stunned or incapacitated targets.
• 16 pts: New Sacred Arbiter: +20% Holy Strike damage, and Holy Strike refreshes all Judgements on the target, including other Paladins'.
• 21 pts: Repentance: incapacitates a Humanoid for 6 s (1 min cooldown).
• 31 pts: New Twist of Light: Seals cost 20% less. When you swap from Command, Righteousness, Fury or Justice to another Seal, your next swing still applies the old one.
• Also: New Holy Conduit (cheaper Consecration, Exorcism, Holy Wrath and Hammer of Wrath), New Sanctified Judgement (mana back), Vengeance (crits give +1/2/3% damage, stacks 3), New Champion of the Light (spell damage = 10/20/30% of your Intellect since 16 Oct; ! the client tooltip still says 20/40/60), New Instrument of Law.
• Two Ret styles: Twist of Light (seal swapping, physical stats) or Shockadin (21 Holy points for Holy Shock, spell power).

Roles

• Ret DPS: the default pick. Strong single target, heavy self-healing, no interrupt, no slow, very little mobility.
• Prot tank: a real tank now that it can taunt. It holds packs with Consecration. Weak spots: you regain mana only by blocking, so off-tanking drains you, and Judgement is both your taunt and your damage.
• Holy healer: excellent on a single target. Light's Vigil is its only AoE heal and costs a lot of mana. Icy Veins doubts it will keep up in heavy AoE fights.
• Raid value in any spec: Icy Veins rates Greater Kings, Might and Wisdom and Mass Salvation as core raid utility.

Levelling: go Retribution

• Every Forever levelling build we found, Holy and Prot included, opens in Ret (Benediction or Deflection, then Improved Judgement) and has Pursuit of Justice (+15% move speed) by level 22. Every build is on the Builds tab as an interactive tree you can step through by level; levelling trees and rotations are on the Levelling tab.
• Use your mana as a second health bar: top up with Holy Light rather than sitting down to eat.
• Do not refresh a Seal until it is about to run out. Skip Judgement or Holy Strike if your next swing will kill the target.
• Panic buttons: Hammer of Justice then Holy Light, Divine Protection or Divine Shield, Lay on Hands, and Blessing of Freedom to escape.
• Exorcism (20) pulls Undead and Demons from 30 yd. Hammer of Wrath (44) finishes targets below 20%.
• Horde class quests: Redemption at 12 from A Lesson in Divinity (Tirisfal Glades). At 20, New Wolfsbane, a new two-handed sword. Icy Veins: the chain is Old Fire-Eye, from Danitha Morr at Bandarion Keep (starts with Diplomatic Incident), and needs items from Deadmines, Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deeps. ! quest names from one source

Rotation: Retribution

Rotation: Protection

Rotation: Holy

Stat priority (Icy Veins, 26 Oct, beta data)

• Ret, Twist of Light: weapon damage > hit (to 8%) > expertise (to 6.5%) > spell power > strength.
• Ret, Shockadin: weapon DPS > hit (to 8%) > spell power > crit > expertise (to 6.5%).
• Intellect turns into spell power through Champion of the Light, which makes it a strong stat for Ret.
• ! Unconfirmed: 8% is the beta estimate for the melee hit cap against raid bosses, and 6.5% is the estimate for boss dodge.
• Prot: stamina > defence (! to 440, unconfirmed) > spell power > intellect > strength. Block also matters, because blocks are your mana.
• Holy: healing power > intellect > spirit > mp5 > crit.

World PvP (PvP ruleset)

• You are flagged automatically in contested and enemy zones, which Icy Veins puts at roughly level 15 and up. ! unconfirmed
• Control: Hammer of Justice (3 s stun, 10 yd, 1 min), Repentance (Ret 21-point, 6 s on a Humanoid, 1 min). Seal of Command's Judgement does double damage to stunned or incapacitated targets.
• Escapes: Blessing of Freedom (10 s immune to slows and roots, 20 s cooldown), Divine Shield (10 s, halves your damage, 5 min).
• New Voice of Truth (Holy 11-point) stops casters locking you out for 6 s.
• Icy Veins has no PvP ranking for any spec yet ("TBD").

Race: Undead (racials as of the 26 and 27 Oct notes)

• Touch of the Grave: 20% chance on hit (paladins) to drain up to 5% of your max health, 15 s internal cooldown.
• Will of the Forsaken: breaks charm, fear and sleep, 2 min. It no longer gives immunity.
• Cannibalize: 7% health and mana every 2 s for 10 s from a Humanoid or Undead corpse, 2 min. Not usable while immune to physical damage (e.g. Divine Shield).
• Underwater Breathing: breath lasts 300% longer.

Professions

• Mining + Blacksmithing: craft your own mail and weapon upgrades, many of them with spell power. The usual Ret pick.
• Herbalism + Alchemy: potions and elixirs, but no gear.
• Engineering + Mining for Prot (Icy Veins).

Pre-raid / BiS

• None yet: the beta stopped at level 30. This section fills in after launch, once level-60 gear is datamined and tested.

Sources Blizzard dev notes · Blizzard paladin deep dive · Blizzard panel recap · Wowhead tooltips · Icy Veins Paladin · Icy Veins Ret stats · Icy Veins Prot · Icy Veins Holy · Icy Veins class quests · Icy Veins PvP · ForeverWisp · LFCarry · client 1.60.1.70009

How the trees work now

• 51 points by 60, one per level from 10. Each row needs 5 more points in that tree.
• Gold talents sit at 11, 16, 21 and 31 points. The 16-point slot is New.
• Respec at a class trainer in a major city. ! Live respec pricing is unconfirmed (it was 1 silver in the beta). New Dual Specialization at 40.
• World PvP: the Icy Veins Ret builds take Repentance at 30. The Holy, Prot and Shockadin builds have no incapacitate, just Hammer of Justice.
• Calculators: Icy Veins (links below) · Wowhead (empty, no share string checked).

Ret levelling 10-60 → 16/0/35 (Icy Veins)

• Ret levelling: open in calculator
• Solo option: take Deflection instead of Benediction at 10-14. Holy Conduit pays off from 20, when you learn Consecration and Exorcism.
• If you stack spell power and Intellect, Seal of Righteousness can beat Command. The Command point is then free to move.

Ret alternative → 20/0/31 (ForeverWisp)

• Same early core (Benediction, Improved Judgement, Seal of Command at 20, Pursuit of Justice, Sanctified Judgement, Sacred Arbiter), Twist of Light at 40, then 20 Holy points.
• ForeverWisp publishes the finished tree only, so the tree above fills it lowest row first. That is not ForeverWisp's order: follow the line above.
• Open on ForeverChanges

Dungeon builds at level 30 (Icy Veins)

Ret 0/0/21 · Calculator

Shockadin 21/0/0 · Calculator

• Icy Veins: Shockadin is weaker on mana than Ret, because it misses Ret's cost-reduction talents. It needs a lot of spell power.

Prot levelling and entry tanking → 0/35/16 (Icy Veins)

• Open in calculator
• Benediction instead of Deflection makes Consecration cheaper early. Icy Veins rates both as competitive.

Holy levelling and healing → 32/0/19 (Icy Veins)

• Open in calculator
• Icy Veins calls 53-60 filler. Spend them where you like.

Raid builds at 60 ! theory, untested

• No tested raid builds exist. The level-60 raids open 9 Dec, and logs will settle this. Until then these are wowtbc.gg's published Forever builds (read 31 Oct), checked talent by talent against the game's tree. One source.
• 51 points cannot reach both Twist of Light (31 Ret) and Holy Shock (21 Holy). Pick one Ret style.
• Each spec's raid rotation sits under its tree.

Retribution, Twist of Light (wowtbc, 15/0/36)

Protection (wowtbc Standard, 8/34/9)

Protection, AoE tanking (wowtbc, 0/23/28): deep Retribution support for pack tanking.

Holy (wowtbc Standard, 32/7/12)

Shockadin (wowtbc, 23/0/28): Holy Shock damage, no Twist of Light.

PvP at 60 ! theory, one source

• RankedBoost's Holy PvP build (30/21/0), built on beta client 70450. Low confidence: one source, and nobody has played 60 yet.

Classic Era for comparison

Long-standing Classic Era builds, to compare with Forever. Classic Era paladins are Alliance only, so these are for reading, not playing. Open any of them in the planner to flip between the two games.

Macros

! Beta-tested by guide writers only. Try each one on a training dummy at launch.
Repentance, then Judgement on the same press (Seal of Command bonus; Icy Veins says it does not break Repentance)

#showtooltip
/cast Repentance
/cast Judgement

Stun, then Judgement (same idea)

#showtooltip
/cast Hammer of Justice
/cast Judgement

Light's Vigil on your focus (Blizzard fixed a focus-macro bug for Light's Vigil in the beta)

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,help,nodead][] Light's Vigil

Mouseover heal (! assumes @mouseover works like @focus)

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help][] Flash of Light

Prot emergency taunt (Seal of Fury must be up)

#showtooltip Judgement
/cast Swift Judgement
/cast Judgement

Cooldown Manager layout (our suggestion)

• Turn it on under Options > Gameplay Enhancement. Every class has been supported since 8 Oct.
• Ret: main row Judgement, Holy Strike, Consecration, Exorcism, Hammer of Wrath. Second row Hammer of Justice, Repentance, Divine Shield, Lay on Hands, racial. Buffs: Seal, Vengeance stacks.
• Prot: main row Judgement, Holy Strike, Consecration, Holy Shield, Swift Judgement. Second row Templar's Bulwark, Divine Shield, Lay on Hands, Hammer of Justice, racial. Buffs: Seal of Fury, Righteous Fury.
• Holy: main row Holy Shock, Light's Vigil, Divine Favor. Second row Voice of Truth, Lay on Hands, Blessing of Protection, Hammer of Justice, racial.

Sources Icy Veins calculator · Icy Veins Ret levelling · Icy Veins Holy levelling · Icy Veins Prot levelling · Icy Veins Ret · ForeverWisp · LFCarry · Blizzard dev notes · Blizzard paladin deep dive

New What changed for levelling a paladin

• Holy Strike at 6: instant strike, 10 s cooldown, weapon damage plus Holy damage. Your second button from level 6.
• Judgement no longer eats your Seal: put one Seal up and keep it, no recast after every Judge.
• Blessings last 1 hour. Kings and Consecration are trained at 20 by every paladin, not talents.
• Consecration: moderate damage to the first 4 enemies, very low to the rest (Blizzard). Threat holds on about 4.
• Lay on Hands: 20 min cooldown (was 1 hour). New Seal of Fury at 10: its Judgement taunts.
• Pursuit of Justice is now +15% run speed (was 8%). Spells cast at ranks far below your level get less spell power, so keep heals current.
• Paladins have no interrupt and no slow (Blizzard). Runners are a problem until Hammer of Wrath at 44.

Which spec, when

• Ret, 10-60 (main). Icy Veins calls it "a very efficient choice for leveling": good single target, heavy self-healing, immunities. Weak points: no answer to casters, no slow, little range to tag mobs.
• Prot (group / dungeon). Prot Paladin averages 5.0 of 5 on our 5-man tank lists (5 sources). Icy Veins' Prot levelling build still opens in Ret and only starts Prot at 22.
• Holy levels too (32/0/19, also Ret-first). Full order in Paladin builds.
• New Dual Specialization at 40: our suggestion is Ret for questing plus Prot for dungeon runs. Respec at a class trainer in a major city.

AoE levelling: honest version

• Consecration is your only AoE until Holy Wrath at 50 (! Icy Veins: Holy Wrath hits Undead and Demons only).
• Blizzard capped it to 4 on purpose, to match warrior Thunder Clap and to avoid "AoE-focused gameplay". On Reckoning: "we don't want to encourage tanking large numbers of enemies at once."
• It ticks for 8 s. Icy Veins: skip it if the mobs die sooner or you will move out of it.
• It is expensive: even with Holy Conduit it costs about twice Judgement plus Holy Strike (Icy Veins).
• Green mobs give less XP (see Levelling), so packs of low mobs pay less.
• So for SF-Speed: 3-4 same-level mobs from level 20, in either spec. No Forever source shows bigger paladin pulls working. The Prot tree has no AoE damage talent; both builds take Holy Conduit for cheaper Consecration.

Ret talents (main build, Icy Veins)

• Same order as Paladin builds (calculator link there). Solo swap from that page: Deflection instead of Benediction at 10-14.
• Benediction (-10% on instant spells) and Holy Conduit (-40% on Consecration and Exorcism) are your mana talents. Sanctified Judgement refunds part of the judged Seal's cost.
• With high spell power, Seal of Righteousness beats Command and the Command point can move (Icy Veins).

Prot talents (dungeon tank build, Icy Veins)

• Icy Veins: Benediction instead of Deflection makes early Consecration cheaper; both are competitive.

Holy and the Ret alternative

Holy, levelling and healing (Icy Veins, 32/0/19). Ret first for Pursuit of Justice, Holy from 22. Full order on Paladin builds.

Ret alternative (ForeverWisp, 20/0/31). Same early Ret core, Twist of Light at 40, then 20 Holy points. ForeverWisp gives the finished tree only, so the slider fills it lowest row first.

Talent rules that matter here

• 7 rows, 51 points, a point per level from 10, 5 points per row. New The row-4 gold talent (Sacred Arbiter, Swift Judgement) needs 15 points in the tree, so 25 at the earliest.
• Legacy Talented gives points up to 5 levels early (alts mostly). Shift each line 5 levels down: Pursuit of Justice by 17, Sacred Arbiter at 20. See Legacy system.

Rotation: Ret, solo

Rotation: Prot, pack of 3-4

Mana and downtime

• Undead Cannibalize: 7% health and mana every 2 s for 10 s from a Humanoid or Undead corpse, 2 min cooldown. Use it instead of a drink when a corpse is there.
• Blessing of Wisdom at 14 for mana regen on long sessions.
• Do not refresh a Seal until it is about to drop. Icy Veins: watch the 5-second rule and skip a cast when the mob is nearly dead.
• Prot: blocks give 4% of max mana, once per 3 s (Shield Specialization, 33-35). Improved Seal of Fury (32) returns mana when its shield is used up.
• Panic buttons: Hammer of Justice then Holy Light, Divine Protection (6) or Divine Shield (34), Lay on Hands, Blessing of Freedom to run. Divine Shield and Templar's Bulwark share Forbearance.
• Legacy alts: Thrill of Adventure gives health and mana back after each kill (Legacy system).

Trainer: what unlocks when (BETA client)

• Ranks you will press keep coming every 2 levels or so: Holy Light (6, 14, 22, 30 ...), Seal of Righteousness (10, 18, 26 ...), Holy Strike (12, 20, 28 ... 60), Exorcism (20, 28, 36 ...), Consecration (20, 30, 40, 50, 60).
• Must-train: Holy Strike, your Seal, Holy Light and Flash of Light, Consecration, Exorcism. Forever gives ranks far below your level less spell power, so old Holy Light ranks lose value fast.
• Safe to skip (our read): Seal of Fury ranks on Ret (you never cast it solo); Seal of Command ranks on Prot (not talented); resistance auras (Shadow 28, Frost 32, Fire 36) until a fight needs one.
• Training costs are not published for Forever. Beta respec was 1 silver; the live price is not announced.
• Not in the client spell dump we read: Righteous Fury and Redemption. Check your trainer.

Class quests (Undead, Tirisfal)

• 1-6: A Difficult Path sends you to Aramis Hammerhand in the Deathknell church. Then heal 5 Injured Deathguard with Holy Light, deal with the Frightened Paladin, and Continue Your Training takes you to Shari Stilwell in Brill.
• Brill: Shari trains you (Holy Strike at 6, per RestedXP) and gives A Second Home: report to Bandarion Keep, east Tirisfal.
• Bandarion Keep: Murlocs at the Gates, Touring the Grounds, The Tarnished (Rudolph Gelhardt's head goes to Sylvanas via A Token of Good Faith) and Making Repairs. ! RestedXP: the murloc quest's reward is a big weapon upgrade (8.9 DPS).

• 12, Redemption: A Lesson in Divinity from Danitha Morr, Bandarion Keep. Bring 10 Linen Cloth to Tanis Alderwood in the Undercity, back to Danitha, then Deathguard Billmuth. Use the Symbol of Life to raise Deathguard Falgan at Venomweb Vale and take the Scarlet Crusade Attack Plans there. Save 10 Linen Cloth early.
  • RestedXP: about 15 minutes and little XP, so it can wait. Icy Veins: do it before any group content.
• 20+, Wolfsbane (New Horde 2H sword). Icy Veins: chain starts with Diplomatic Incident from Danitha Morr and needs items from Deadmines, Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deeps; hard before 22. Wowhead's quest DB has the steps: The Debt (Lumina Windsinger, the Sepulcher), A Moon-Kissed Blade (level 25), Seeking the Kor Gem (Ulric Frostveil, Ashenvale), the Ott smithing steps, The Moonsilver Blade, then Old Fire-Eye (level 26, Silverpine). ! chain order not confirmed
  • Wolfsbane (Wowhead): 2H sword, 25.6 DPS, 3.40 speed, +9 Stamina, +10 Intellect, Holy proc that triples on Wolves and Worgen. Icy Veins: it lasts to about 30.
• 40 / 60 mounts: Icy Veins only expects class mount quests here and calls it speculation. Blizzard: riding training gives you a mount anyway.
• Trainers on the route (! RestedXP): Garen Largo in the Undercity (14-16), Alodan the Hopeful in Thunder Bluff (20-22), Hilda the Breaker at Bandarion Keep.

Gear and stats

• Ret (Icy Veins levelling): weapon DPS first, then hit and expertise, spell power, Intellect, crit, Strength. Spell power scales nearly everything but your white hits, so a leather or cloth piece with spell power can be worth the armour loss.
• One hit stat and one crit stat for melee and spells (Blizzard). Intellect turns into spell damage through Champion of the Light (35-37).
• Weapon speed picks your Seal: slow weapon, Command; fast weapon or a proc, Righteousness.
• Prot (Icy Veins): stamina, spell power, Strength, block. Early on, weapon damage, hit and crit, because white hits are most of your damage.
• Notable picks (both dungeon guides list them): Scepter of the Abandoned (Ruins of Lordaeron, spell mace), Corpsemaker (Razorfen Kraul, Strength 2H axe), Manual Crowd Pummeler (Gnomeregan, 2H mace), Reliquary Mantle and Ring of Power Regulation (Excavation Site).
• ! Icy Veins only: Hammerbone (Leaders of the Fang, WC) and Forsaken Greataxe (The Wrath of Rath'mael, Ruins) as early 2H quest rewards; Crusader's Silvered Chain Helm (Blacksmithing, BoP) at 20.
• ! RestedXP has Undead paladins train Two-Handed Axes from Hanashi in Orgrimmar.

Professions, food, camp

• Mining + Blacksmithing: craft your own mail and weapons, many with spell power. The usual Ret pick. Engineering for Prot (Icy Veins).
• Cooking: New crafted food adds +5% kill XP to Well Fed Beta. First Aid: bandages, and New healing potions moved there Beta.
• A Leatherworker's Camp Tent tops rested XP up to 5% of a level. Camp buffs clash with your own Blessings: Fish Bowl vs Kings, Lodestone vs Might, Mana Well vs Wisdom. Bring the ones your party lacks.

Macros (! test at launch)

• Repentance + Judgement on one press (Icy Veins: Judgement is off the GCD and does not break Repentance):

#showtooltip
/cast Repentance
/cast Judgement

• Self heal without dropping your target:

#showtooltip
/cast [@player] Holy Light

More in Paladin builds.

Common mistakes

• Recasting the Seal after each Judgement (a Classic habit).
• Downranking Holy Light to save mana: low ranks lose spell power now.
• Pulling 6+ for Consecration: mobs 5 and up take very little damage.
• Consecration on mobs that die in under 8 s.
• Blessing of Protection on your tank: they lose aggro (Icy Veins).
• Group content without Redemption.

Fast route

• Undead: Deathknell and Brill 1-12, Silverpine 12-14, then The Barrens. See Horde 1-22 (RestedXP Forever route) in Levelling.
• RestedXP's paladin version shifts the brackets: Tirisfal 6-13 (with the Bandarion Keep and Redemption chains), Silverpine 13-15, Barrens 15-18, then Stonetalon/Barrens/Ashenvale 18-22.
• Set your hearth to the Undercity (RestedXP), next to the Ruins of Lordaeron and the Redemption chain.
• Past 22 there is no verified route: see 22-60: zones by level in Levelling. Plan Silverpine and Ashenvale trips for the Wolfsbane chain.

Dungeons for a paladin

• Respect the rules in Dungeons vs questing (Levelling): dungeon kills give more XP now, but Blizzard will not let dungeon cleaving be the fastest route. Go when you hold the quests.
• Ruins of Lordaeron (15-20): above the Undercity, six Horde quests, Scepter of the Abandoned.
• Ragefire Chasm (13-18) and Wailing Caverns (15-24).
• Shadowfang Keep (20-30) and Blackfathom Deeps (24-32): Wolfsbane chain items, plus Seeking the Kor Gem in BFD.
• The Deadmines (Westfall, Alliance ground): no Horde quests, but the 15-25 Legacy point and the paladin weapon chain need it. !
• Excavation Site (24-29, Wetlands): Reliquary Mantle and Ring of Power Regulation.
• Posts per dungeon are in Dungeons.

Unverified until launch

• Everything past 30, including the 31-60 talent points.
• Wolfsbane chain order and levels; trainer NPC names outside Brill.
• The 4-target Consecration cap and every mana number.

Sources Blizzard paladin deep dive · Blizzard dev notes · Blizzard panel recap · Icy Veins Ret levelling · Icy Veins Prot levelling · Icy Veins class quests · Wowhead quest DB · Wowhead Wolfsbane · RestedXP · client 1.60.1.70009