Growing a new tree. The reason why Holy Paladins are struggling in Arena

Recently, I began leveling a new character. I decided to finish up the last piece of the puzzle and chose to level up my Druid. I am surprised at myself that I didn't level this class sooner, but I guess it is true that you save the best for last. Personally, I feel that I should have been playing a Druid long before I made my Paladin. However, being drawn to the conclusion that Paladin were going to be the healer to play in the early seasons of the expansion. I went along with the decision of playing a Paladin.

This may have been the worst decision I've made. The talent tree feels like it was still designed with WoTLK in mind and most of their abilities feels clunky and not up to par with the modern day arena. They are currently the weakest healer at the moment in both the 2v2 and 3v3 bracket. I do enjoy playing Paladin in 5v5. This is because the Paladin class revolves around the proper usage of defensive cooldowns and you really only get to experience the full extent of their benefits in large brackets such as 5v5, Rated BGs, and raids because the damage in larger brackets are a lot higher.

So what went wrong? 


One of the major reasons why Holy Paladins feel weaker in smaller brackets and higher in others is due to the loss of Mortal Strike debuffs. In a 2v2 or 3v3 match, the most helpful cooldowns have short durations, and the less effective cooldowns are too long in duration.

The good cooldowns for the small brackets include:

• Aura Mastery
• Hammer of Justice

The least effective cooldown for the smaller brackets include:

• Guardian of the Ancient Kings
• Avenging Wrath 
• Divine Favor

Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Protection are the only cooldowns that can be considered to be good and useful in small brackets, because they can be used as a CC breaker or a life saver. 

Aura Mastery gives equal utility for every bracket. If you pop it in 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, or rated BGs. This spell doesn't favor one bracket over another because its purpose is to immune interrupts onto you. This is useful when being trained or you're looking to free cast into heavy damage. However, the duration is too short and Paladins are extremely susceptible to crowd controls, most classes are capable of countering a Paladins Aura Mastery in almost every occasion and it is far easier to counter this ability in 2v2 and 3v3 since the opposing teams have a wider variety of crowd control available for healers in smaller brackets than they do in larger ones. 

Hammer of Justice is a Holy Paladins only form of Crowd Control. The cooldown on it is far longer than any other healer's cc, and the duration is too short. There is an inconsistency between the cooldown on Hammer of Justice and the number of opportunities you can kill someone. 

If we analyze Guardian of the Ancient Kings, Avenging Wrath, and Divine Favor. These abilities get half their use in smaller brackets, and close to full benefit in larger brackets because of the large number of players to heal. This is where the loss of Mortal Strike effected these abilities the most, and consequently lead to Paladins lagging behind the rest of the healers. In the current state of Arena, any healer is capable of healing one's health from close to death up to 100% of their health in as much as four heals. When you use abilities such as the three listed above, you could potentially get one's health from dying to full in as little as two casts. Leaving more than half the remaining cooldown being unused. Nearly half of a Paladin's cooldowns are greatly diminished as the number of players to heal get smaller. 

When you use these abilities in 5v5, you feel that these cooldowns are responsible for keeping your team mates close to full health. Allowing them to continue on with their offensive damage abilities. In a 2v2, or 3v3, using these cooldowns feel more of a mana conservation cooldown than a survivability cooldown. 

If Mortal Strike is still present, these cooldowns would be considered overpowered. We would see an abundance of Holy Paladins running rampant in Arena, and a cry for help from other healers. You will typically get a repeat of season five all over again since these cooldowns would allow Paladins to be the only healer that could keep their team alive. However, when every healer is capable of capping one's health bar to full in a few heals. What is the point of having cooldowns that boost your amount of healing by a percentage? Arena currently revolves around consistency, and relying on cooldowns that sit on 3+ minute cooldowns is not reliable, especially if you're spec is balanced around cooldowns. Control is more important than ever, and that is what Paladins are lacking at the moment. 

So based on this reasoning, I have gone down the path as a Druid. The first few levels were not too bad, but tanking dungeons proved to be a bit of a challenge. Since we share the same specialization as a DPS spec, they gave us Mangle as the ability if you spec into Feral. This doesn't help much at all with tanking if you compare it to Heart Strike/Avenger's Shield/Shield Slam that the other tanks get as soon as they specialize in a tanking spec. Moreover, I don't get Enrage until level 22 so I get absolutely no rage until a few seconds after the pull. Oh well, I get swipe at level 36, and I don't mind going Resto until then.