Consecration scales less than half as well

Consecration now gets 0.042 of spell power per tick, down from 0.095. That is the biggest of a round of Paladin changes in the beta of World of Warcraft: Forever. Righteous Fury makes more threat again, Salvation is no longer a blessing and Reckoning stores charges.

What changes for every Paladin

Blessing of Salvation and Greater Blessing of Salvation become Salvation and Mass Salvation. They are cast the same way, but no longer exclude Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom or Blessing of Might. With Salvation, Paladins also learn Revoke, which removes Salvation from a party or raid member.

Righteous Fury raises the threat of Holy damage to 90%, up from 60%. It had been lowered during the beta, when Consecration and Retribution Aura were much stronger than now.

Seal of Fury is no longer overwritten by Power Word: Shield, and its third rank can now be trained at level 26 instead of 25. Seal of Righteousness got almost twice the intended benefit from spell damage; that is fixed. Judgement of Righteousness and Judgement of Fury now use the coefficients of an instant spell.

Talents

• Shield Specialization restores 4% mana on a block, down from 6%, still with an internal cooldown of 3 seconds.
• Reckoning now gives a charge each time it triggers, up to 4. The next auto attack uses every stored charge as an extra attack.
• Champion of the Light, in the Retribution tree, adds 10, 20 or 30% of Intellect as spell damage, down from 20, 40 or 60%.
• Sanctified Judgement no longer generates threat when it restores mana.

What it means for tanking

Consecration was the reason to bring a Protection Paladin to a pull with many enemies. Its threat per tick was (base + 0.095 × spell power) × 1.6 and is now (base + 0.042 × spell power) × 1.9, with the new Righteous Fury. At rank 5, with a base of 39 per tick, both give the same threat at about 162 spell power. With less spell power the new version makes more threat, with more spell power less.

Salvation no longer takes a blessing slot, so a group no longer has to choose between Salvation and Kings or Wisdom. For a raid, a third Paladin now adds only Blessing of Light and Judgement of Light.

Stored Reckoning charges can be saved for the start of a fight: up to 4 extra attacks in one swing. A weapon swap costs a global cooldown of 1.5 seconds, so swapping to a two-handed weapon for that swing and back to a shield has a price.

How the Protection Paladin compares with the Protection Warrior and the Feral Druid at level 60 is not known yet. The beta stops at level 30, and Blizzard has not said whether more Paladin changes will follow. A talent build from 1 to 60 is in the Paladin leveling guide.