Crusader Strike

With the buff coming to CS in 4.0.6, prot paladins are going to be looking at a very strong attack when combined with Crusade, Wrath of the Lightbringer and T11 2pc bonus.

Warning: math may be fuzzy.

WotL: 135 * 100% = 270, gain of +135%
Crusade: 135 * 1.30% = 175.5, gain of +40.5%
T11: 135 * 1.10% = 148.5, gain of 13.5%

Taking the gains additively, 135+135+40.5+13.5 = 324% weapon damage.

Now consider buffs. While raid buffs will contribute to it a small amount, the real power behind this attack with be Vengeance while tanking a raid boss. With of paladin of 160k hp, this means a potential 16,000 AP will be factored into the weapon damage calculation. This, on top of 324% after talents.

Who's excited?

In the next expansion, Cataclysm, This spell is meant to be used by Paladins at level 1.
Down from level 50.

I'm a little sad that Blizzard waited till this late in the game to give paladins an tool with which to level easier, but I can't complain because now tankadins will be able to put out more single target threat! This and the universalization (i dunno what the actual word would be XD) of holy shock will definitely help single target threat and make pally tanking a little more interesting.

After some testing on live I can confirm the following:

Holy Power charges persist once combat is over, and disappear at a rate of 10 seconds per charge. If you kill an opponent with 3 charges left, you got a 10 sec window to use a 3 charge ability (or re-enter combat), and a 30 second window to use any ability that requires at least 1 Holy Power charge.

The Holy Power charge generation of Crusader Strike is 100%.

This means it is solely dependent on you casting the ability, rather than whether the ability lands or not.

Lay man's terms:

Under normal circumstances (ignoring haste effects and assuming you are casting Crusader Strike on every cool-down) you generate 1 Holy Power charge per 4,5 seconds, whether it hits, crits, misses or is dodged, blocked and parried by your target.

Regarding the people referring to it as a "Rogue's Sinister Strike rip-off". Don't be so quick to jump the wagon. Though there are some similarities, they are fundamentally different in one key aspect:

Combat applications. While a Rogue (at least on Combat spec) is using Sinister Strike to build up dmg on a target, a Paladin has the luxury of carrying that dmg to the next target at no apparent penalty. Rogues have the Redirect ability on a 1min cd, allowing them to "move" their combo points to another target. A Paladin however, can finish off an opponent without losing the "combo points" generated and immediately casting Templar's Verdict on his next opponent.

Pun Intended: Paladins can now open with a finisher :D

Has anyone else notice how the icon for this looks alot like Twinblade of the Pheonix?

Yeah, I wish Blizz would've put this new system into effect awhile ago, would've made my pally lvling experience (and I'm sure the same goes to many others) much better because having to press 3 buttons and then waiting for them to die started to get on my nerves...Ah well might as well roll a pally (again) when Cata comes out.

Looks like Blizz is going to make this a basic spell that can be used at a very early level. This will be nice even for protection paladins while they are leveling ;)

This is going to be a very useful spell as a prot pally. With the current build talents you gain 90% more damage dealt with this and about 10-20% crit depending on how you glyph/spec, seems like this is going to be a fantastic single target attack.

Ever since last patch, Crusader Strike now has some sort of /startattack [harm] to it . Causing it to target an enemy nearby, if pressed and then Judgement pressed there after, you could aggro a mob that your group is not intentionally attacking in an instance, and causing a wipe. I used to used /startattack [harm] for Crusader Strike, and removed it for that fact. Im hating this change, i know other class abilities are doing the same "target next/start attack" kind of thing. Does anyone know of a macro fix perhaps?

They seem to forget to put the "Grants a charge of Holy Power" into the tooltip.

Nope...levelling a pally through the first 50 levels or so was as boring as batpoo if you are used to more rotation heavy classes. True story.

While Crusader Strike's damage was buffed in 4.0.6, it now no longer generates Holy Power on a dodge, miss, or parry (source: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2046735520 ). The same is also true of Hammer of the Righteous.

Thanks to Eksmortis, here is the macro to stop auto targeting/attacking (4.2 change) #showtooltip Crusader Strike /cast [nodead, harm] Crusader Strike So with this macro you will still auto target someone attacking you, but now with the added bonus of being able to solely target off of your tank without any reservations/fear of grabbing other mobs after the tank's target is dead. Just like it was prior to patch 4.2

The new tooltip for Mists of Panadaria:

Crusader Strike
An instant strike that causes 0% weapon damage plus 0 and grants a charge of Holy Power.

The "plus 0" is the Ret Paladin mastery effect.

Does anyone know how much haste it takes to get this down to ~3 seconds for ret?

and this seems to be an old version of crusader strike at the time of typing this. far as i know it currently doesn't have a boost to weapon damage and always makes a charge of holy power (unless you miss with it), and it's not dependent on anything other than hitting the target to make a charge of holy power.

the only current boost to crusader's damage is from talents in either prot tree (+100% dmg) or ret tree (crusade for +30% dmg and rule of law for +15% crit chance)

"Crusader Strike
10% of base mana Melee Range
Instant 4.5 sec cooldown
Requires Melee Weapon
An instant strike that causes 135% weapon damage."

For some odd reason, this seems to use the One-Handed Special animation on my new young Dwarf Paladin rather than the Two-Handed Special animation since he's wielding a two-handed weapon. Not really complaining, makes him look more like a badass, but it's still a graphical bug.

I have actually found it to be a lot of fun to level my Paladin. The worst was the first 20 levels, but at 15, I just tanked 'till 20 and then I got exorcism. With exorcism and the damage dealing taunt, I thought it was fun. It's important to spec into reduced cooldown on judgements, though. Adds some excitement! Anyway... My point is that if you WANT it to be fun, it is possible. I was very sceptical going in to it, but it turned out great. I just hit 50 and got this wonderful thing. Now I'm actually busy and don't have time to sit back and relax. Well, I could. But I want it to be fun! Sor

Read the above posts.

till level 9 it doesn't

Why does it say generates 0 power...

That's going to be a great chance since paladin leveling is kind of dull without no ability of this kind. Right now it's only auto-attack and use abilities when off cooldown (until 50 if ret).

This was a very helpful post. Hubby and I were trying to figure out why he has a longer cooldown on his ret than my prot. We were also trying to compare what each spec had that generated the Holy power. The post lays it all out nicely.

I am a level 3 Paladin and in the game it writes to me: 125% weapon damage plus 25.
I don't know something or is it outdated?

Is the Weakened Blows effect being removed in WoD? Or is it just not in the tooltip anymore? I don't see it on Hammer of the Righteous either.

As Holy, this ability's... well, ability, to grant you a charge of holy power should not be underestimated. One charge from Holy Shock every few seconds is great, but if you can manage to get into melee for a moment or two and Crusader Strike, you'll be getting two charges of Holy Power every 5-6 seconds or so. That's just one off of a Light of Dawn, or Word of Glory!

While melee isn't exactly the best place for us as healers to be, remember this ability. If you're needing some holy power, and fast, a Crusader Strike could be the difference between healing that dying tank with a three-charge Word of Glory, or not healing enough without enough holy power and wiping.

I do not see anything related to the thing that you mentioned.

It was boring only as Ret. ;)

Blue post there now says that this was a bug. :) CS is not intended to give hopo on a miss though, says the Blue.

It's probably a hidden change, to keep its CD in line with HotR.

Pandaria* This has been updated. It's tooltip says that it causes 160% weapon damage plus 702. 160% is higher than we have currently (135%), and 702 is the base damage from the mastery effect, it will increase as you get more mastery.

Currently in 4.0.6, this skill has a 3 second cooldown in Protection spec, but has a base 4.5 second cooldown in Ret specs. This is not mentioned in the summary tab of the in game talent tree viewer. Is there a reason it isn't mentioned? Now of course Retribution does have a talent that enables Crusader Strike's cooldown to be affected by Haste, but how much haste does it take to get it down to a 3sec cooldown?

Considering we are three expansions later. It's not that late in the game, as wow is still chugging for a good time to come. So in hindsight, this will have been a very early change in wow's total history. Not that you'd have any way of knowing back then I suppose.