Blessing

A paladin blessing his allies.

A blessing is a powerful buff that can be applied to friendly players and some non-player characters (NPCs). Blessings are unique to the paladin class.

Blessings can be applied to most friendly targets, drastically increasing their combat abilities.

Available blessings

Blessings

Blessings are short-term spells that give their target a powerful effect before fading shortly after. These were previously known as hands.

Blessing	Level	Spec	Description
[Blessing of Protection]	Level 32	All	Places a blessing on a party or raid member, protecting them from all physical attacks for 10 sec. Causes Forbearance for 30 sec.
[Blessing of Freedom]	Level 22	All	Places a blessing on a party or raid member, granting immunity to movement impairing effects for 8 sec.
[Blessing of Sacrifice]	Level 41	All	Blesses a party or raid member, reducing their damage taken by 30%, but you suffer 100% of damage prevented. Last 12 sec, or until transferred damage would cause you to fall below 20% health.
[Blessing of Sanctuary]	Honor Level 25	Retribution	Instantly removes all stun, silence, fear and horror effects from the friendly target and reduces the duration of future such effects by 60% for 5 sec.

Greater Blessings

Greater Blessings last for 60 minutes and are only available Retribution. There can only be three Greater Blessings active at one time per paladin, meaning a single paladin can only cast a total three Greater Blessings on friendly targets. Casting the same Greater Blessing from multiple paladins do not stack, and applying a Greater Blessing on a fourth target removes the first one cast.

Blessing	Level	Description
[Greater Blessing of Might]	Level 42	Places a blessing on an ally that gives their attacks a 10% chance to deal 30% additional damage as Holy.
[Greater Blessing of Kings]	Level 44	Places a blessing on an ally that grants them an absorption shield. It absorbs up to (180% of Spell power) damage, and will be refreshed to full strength every 6 sec, even if fully consumed.
[Greater Blessing of Wisdom]	Level 46	Places a blessing on an ally that causes them to regenerate 1% of maximum health and mana per 3 sec.

History

• Many blessings have been scrapped, such as [Blessing of Light].
• Originally all blessings lasted for only 5 minutes. If you wanted to buff a whole 40-man raid, by the time you ended the buffing, first members had only 2-3 minutes left on their blessings, making paladins more like walking buff machines than efficient healers or DPSers.

Patch changes

• Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19):
  • Blessings are now known as Greater Blessings, only available to Retribution and redesigned. [Blessing of Kings] and [Blessing of Might] have been replaced by [Greater Blessing of Kings] and [Greater Blessing of Might].
  • Hands are now known as Blessings.
    
• Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12):
  • The functionality of Greater Blessings has replaced the single-target Blessings, making all Blessings last for 1 hour and apply to all same-class members of your raid or group as your target.
  •  [Symbol of Kings] no longer required.
    
  • [Blessing of Sanctuary] became [Sanctuary], a passive effect for the protection paladin, instead of a buff.
  • [Blessing of Kings] does not stack with a Druid's [Mark of the Wild] buff.
  • MP5 from [Blessing of Wisdom] merged into [Blessing of Might]. Blessing of Wisdom removed.
    
• Patch 3.0.2 (2008-10-14):
  • [Blessing of Freedom], [Blessing of Protection], [Blessing of Sacrifice] and [Blessing of Salvation] have become short-term blessings known as Hand spells.
    
  • [Blessing of Light] removed.