More Paladin Changes To Come.

Ghostcrawler earlier posted a list of the Paladin changes we can expect to see within the next couple of Beta builds:

Righteous Defense -- cooldown lowered to 8 sec. It had been 10 sec recently and is 15 sec on live.

Infusion of Light -- now affects Flash of Light or Holy Light. Flash of Light is reduced to 0 cast time with 2 ranks, meaning that if you're running around and get a Holy Shock crit, you can also Flash without stopping.

Judgements of the Pure -- haste benefit now up to 15% with 5 ranks (was 10%).

Enlightened Judgements -- range benefit is now 30 yards with 2 ranks (was 20). This means you can judge or heal from the same range without having to run around so much.

Bacon of Light -- no change here, but I can never miss an opportunity to call it Bacon.

(Source)

All in all these are a nice set of buffs. The Tankadin community at large is still a little worried about Righteous Defense, more due to the multi-target aspect in specific raid encounters than a long cooldown, but are unlikely to look this gift horse in the mouth. The Infusion Of Light change is probably the ideal compromise if Blizzard feels that instant cast Holy Lights truly are an issue; I'm not sure that I'm convinced, nor that an Instant FoL is all that to write home about in comparison for a healing build (as opposed to Retribution).

When it comes to Judgements for Holy there is still something missing. A 15% Haste Buff for 1 minute is a huge increase to throughput, but somehow it seems... meh? Part of the issue is undoubtedly that you have to Judge to get the buff, not only swallowing a GCD but also performing an action that just seems out of character for a Healer. The Judgement debuff effect still only lasts for 20secs so keeping the debuff effect up is quite a GCD intensive task, though if the nerfs to JoW and JoL remain unchanged that is unlikely to matter. It is essentially 7 talent points for the ability to gain 15% haste (less a GCD or three), and when seen in those terms reinforces how underwhelming it feels.

Whilst these changes are going in the right direction, and should finally eliminate the desire to run a heavy Ret healing build for healing, Holy still lacks the punch we should see deep in the Talent Trees. Beacon, much to my surprise to be perfectly honest, is looking pretty handy for raiding in 10- and 25-man Naxx (though it does require a lot of co-ordination by all accounts) but it seems like a hell of a trudge through uninspiring talents to get there.

The only question now is whether this will make the Pre-Wrath patch. It seems reasonable that if there is another build tonight or tomorrow then it may reach 3.0.2 on Tuesday of next week. Blizzcon this weekend is a pretty big impediment though, so it may be that it's delayed till November. That's not the end of the world, you should still be able to heal well enough for the TBC raiding instances should you decide to do them.

I'd like to see more significant changes throughout Holy (*glares at Cleanse talents*) and the odd new talent at 11pts, but if the first Paladin reaches level 80 and has these talents to work with I'll see it as a qualified success.