New Beta Build, New Paladin Talents.

Well, the internetosphere is alive with the sound of new WoW talents being debated (though the 'blogosphere' is still playing catch-up). MMO-Champion yet again has the skinny, and here is a condensed list of Paladin changes.

General
* Judgement is now on the Global Cooldown.
* Seals now have a duration of 2 minutes.
* Forbearance: Now lasts 3 minutes. (don't forget, Avenging Wrath is now not tied to Forbearance)

Retribution

* Vindication: Gives the Paladin's damaging attacks a chance to reduce the target's attributes by 10/20% for 15 seconds (was only melee attacks and 3 Pts for 5/10/15%).
* Pursuit of Justice: Reduces the chance you'll be hit by spells by 1/2% and increases movement and mounted movement speed by 8/15%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects (was 3 Pts for 1/2/3% reduced chance to be hit by spells and 5/10/15% speed increase).
* Eye for an Eye: All criticals against you cause 10/20% of the damage taken to the attacker as well. The damage caused by Eye for an Eye will not exceed 50% of the Paladin's total health (was 15/30% damage return for spell attacks only).
* The Art of War: Reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3% and gives your Hand of Freedom a 33/66/100% chance to remove Stun effects.
* Righteous Vengeance: Increases critical damage bonus of your Judgement and Divine Storm spells by 5/10/15/20/25% (was 3/6/9/12/15% for all damage criticals).
* Divine Storm: Mana cost changed to 20% of base mana up from 12%.


Holy

* New Spell: Divine Plea (5 Minutes cooldown, Channeled) - While channeling this spell, you gain 50% of your total mana over 6 seconds.
* Seals: All seal spells now last 2 minutes. This does not apply to special seals like Seal of Protection or Seal of Sacrifice.
* Holy Shock: Rank 1 mana cost reduced from 335 to 245. Healing increased from 351-379 to 481-519 (Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 314 to 340 Holy damage to an enemy, or 481 to 519 healing to an ally).
* Enlightened Judgements: Chance to hit added (Increases the range of your Judgement spells by 10/20 yards and increases your chance to hit by 2/4%).
* Beacon of Light: Mana cost reduced from 780 to 675.


Protection

* Reworked: Divine Protection (118 Mana, 5 Minutes cooldown): Reduces all damage taken by 50% for 12 seconds, but increases the time between your attacks by 50%. Once protected, the target cannot be made invulnerable by Divine Shield, Divine Protection or Hand of Protection again for 180 seconds. [-this is a Holy Spell, but it makes more sense to place it in the Prot changes]
* Guardian's Favor: Tooltip corrected (Blessing of Freedom renamed to Hand of Freedom).
* Divine Guardian: This talent now affects Divine Shield and Divine Protection (While Divine Shield or Divine Protection is active 15/30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin.).
* Guarded by the Light: Reduces the mana cost of your Consecration, Holy Wrath and Avenger's Shield spells by 15/30% (was "Whenever you parry or dodge an attack you have a 10/20% chance to reduce the mana cost of your next Consecration, Holy Wrath or Avenger's Shield spell by 25/50%").

Updated talents trees Here.

The extent and scope of these changes is why I tended to not comment on specific talents but rather mechanic changes. Key features are that Retributions' insane burst damage has been reduced through the change to the Art of War talent, many Holy Spell Mana costs have been reduced, Judgement is now on the Global Cooldown and Divine Protection has been significantly reworked. DP is now your Paladin Last Stand, on a 5-minute cooldown, at the cost of a new 3min Forbearance (boohoo) and 50% slower Auto-attack.

There's something I'm forgetting... oh yes... Divine Plea. Apparently this is a trainable spell at lvl71, providing 50% of your total mana over 6 seconds. That's a big boost as far as I'm concerned in PvP and PvE for Holy and Ret, and it also scales favourably with Haste. Yes, it's a channelled spell so at risk of interruption, but there had to be a downside of some form.

I think that all of these changes were somewhat predictable. Whether they survive unchanged into the final release is as always tough to say, but I'd expect a few tweaks over the course of the next few builds. Another look at Blessing of Sanctuary, Benediction and consolidating Prot talents would be a good use of their time IMO.

ADDENDUM:

From your friendly neighbourhood RetPaladins we have the new Divine Storm graphic: