Where to begin.
First, Seal of Command is STILL bugged. How Blizzard plans to obtain accurate testing information when JoC is dealing 50% more damage than intended when within 5 yards of the target, but 50% less damage when beyond 5 yards makes little sense to me. Especially when Justice is our "gap closer" intended to be used at ranged to close gaps. Speaking of which, it is not a gap closer. A gap closer is something that puts you in melee range of the target on demand. Death Grip, Intercept/Charge, Feral Charge/Leap, Shadowstep. All these abilities allow you to close a 25+ yard gap with no setup and no 10 yard range requirement to apply. JoJ's closest analogy is a weak snare, potentially on par with other snares when applied to movement increasing effects.
Second, the Seal of Vengeance change to have it only apply the DoT on autoattacks/HoTR is poorly thought out. Why waste development time implementing this band-aid that is clearly ridiculous from a fight mechanics point of view? Many fights, old and present, do not allow for SoV to be the "PvE" seal. Four Horsemen, Yogg Saron, Mimiron, etc all require sustained DPS on relatively high health adds that require full PvE DPS capability to make you worth your raid slot. A FIFTEEN SECOND dispellable setup time is unsuitable for any fight where you must avoid AoE or have timed target switches on high health targets. SoV has certainly been removed from PvP, which was one of the accomplished goals, but its purpose as the PvE seal has been completely gutted as well. Suffering a 30% DPS penalty for the first 15 seconds of a target swap is not acceptable.
Third, the ever present "Skill Cap" has not been raised. Exorcism vs FoL is barely a decision. Facerolling damage is still the same. All that changes now is Paladins must choose somewhat between supporting their team with Cleanse globals or the additional Crusader Strike globals we need to pay to maintain roughly equivalent PvP damage.
Fourth, Paladins still lack sustainable ways to escape or enter combat. Walking around to every target with no sprint/charge type ability makes Paladins a liability against kite heavy teams that play properly, as well as ranged heavy teams that can put a Paladin at dangerously low health before they have a chance to deal any damage back. This was especially true in Dalaran Sewers, since you could not mount in.
Fifth, Paladins with damage on par with other DPS specs in arena means they are relying on their defensive utility to defeat an opponent. Keeping your teammates alive rarely leads to a kill. At best you will save your healer some mana, at worst you set yourself up for a target swap in taking the damage. Supportive ability is not sufficient to justify the lack of Interrupt or Gap Closer/Creator Ret currently must deal with.
Sixth, Judgements of the Wise not working on Damage Shields. Blizzard was fairly clear that "hard counters" are not fun, yet insists on allowing the Priest class to be able to completely control Ret. Double Magic Dispel, Mass Dispel, and of course denying mana regeneration through shields, plus mana burn. This is a quality of life concern for any class the Ret paladin fights but a priest. In that case, it is just a disaster, as a Ret paladin has no choice but to rely on Divine Plea(dispellable) for mana, gets kited(and becomes unable to judge as a result), or uses up more mana trying to open a hole in a relatively low cooldown damage shield so that they can attempt to judge for mana.
Seventh, Free Expertise. Most melee specs come with a bit of free expertise to reduce the occurence of RNGing. This is especially devastating to Retribution as seal attacks DO NOT WORK unless the originating attack deals damage. The seal attacks roll AGAIN for avoidance/miss, and so are double penalized. Ret needs a free expertise talent and Glyph of Seal of Vengeance, even if it stays, is not a viable solution.
Eighth, and possibly the worst : "We will monitor the situation and make adjustments as necessary." This makes little sense. PvE damage is obviously going to be great on dummies/test patchwerks but poor in actual use. PvP we're still required to attach an interrupt/ms/snare capable class to our hip in order to perform. Shadow Priests and Frost Mages have already been given some of these tools to make them more viable without someone covering these roles. It should be fairly obvious now that Ret PvP damage has been toned down that it too will need additional tools. This is to say nothing of PvE where interrupts are required.
Summary : Poorly thought out changes are going to devastate Ret for 3.2. We're still reliant on others to do our work for us, and the "skill less" portions of the class remain the same. Bad players will still be demolished by Retribution, but good ones will just laugh even harder. PvE looks grim as glyphed SoR could potentially outperform fixed SoC in DPS, while SoV remains complete garbage except for tank and spank fights.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Seal of Blood/Martyr 3.1 and Weapon Speeds
SoB is an unnormalized attack because it procs on "next swing." Since it is not by definition an instant attack, the damage it deals is directly related to your weapon's speed. This makes faster but higher DPS weapons marginal upgrades at best, since Seal damage has been buffed to be the primary damage dealer instead of the judgement. Remember that this seal applies to crusader strike AND divine storm. This unnormalized damage, when attached to normalized instants, creates a damage disparity that makes a significant number of weapon upgrades unattractive or sidegrade at best.
A paladin with a Sword of Justice and 10000 attack power will only be a little over 2% behind in DPS than a Paladin wielding Rune Edge with the same stats. This is perhaps an unrealistic gear level in this current content patch(it is likely achievable with a few trinket procs, though). The fact that a very slow Blue weapon can even compare to a Faster high end Epic due to Blood not being normalized is absurd. Given 30% armor mitigation, you expect a Crusader Strike to deal 3800 damage with the Rune Edge, and 3622 with the Sword of Justice(noncrit). However, their blood hits will amount to 2073 and 2163 respectively. The totals? 5873 for Rune, 5785 for Sword of Justice. That is an extremely small difference given the ilvl difference of the two. If sword of justice were 3.4, the damage difference would be over 400 for a crusader strike+blood hit.
The issue here is that a normalization of all SoB damage would reduce the effectiveness of haste/haste effects for Paladins, haste being a fairly low priority stat to begin with. This comparison is understandably skewed, but even standard situations such as Sword of Justice Naxx10 weapons become sidegrades, such as Demise vs Sword of Justice. The heroic HoL axe becomes a downgrade. This is a huge problem with itemization as it may end up forcing Paladins to wait on extremely low drop rates of the slowest two handers, as the others simply cannot compare. It would be a repeat of the 1.0 MS warrior and the arcanite reaper.
A paladin with a Sword of Justice and 10000 attack power will only be a little over 2% behind in DPS than a Paladin wielding Rune Edge with the same stats. This is perhaps an unrealistic gear level in this current content patch(it is likely achievable with a few trinket procs, though). The fact that a very slow Blue weapon can even compare to a Faster high end Epic due to Blood not being normalized is absurd. Given 30% armor mitigation, you expect a Crusader Strike to deal 3800 damage with the Rune Edge, and 3622 with the Sword of Justice(noncrit). However, their blood hits will amount to 2073 and 2163 respectively. The totals? 5873 for Rune, 5785 for Sword of Justice. That is an extremely small difference given the ilvl difference of the two. If sword of justice were 3.4, the damage difference would be over 400 for a crusader strike+blood hit.
The issue here is that a normalization of all SoB damage would reduce the effectiveness of haste/haste effects for Paladins, haste being a fairly low priority stat to begin with. This comparison is understandably skewed, but even standard situations such as Sword of Justice Naxx10 weapons become sidegrades, such as Demise vs Sword of Justice. The heroic HoL axe becomes a downgrade. This is a huge problem with itemization as it may end up forcing Paladins to wait on extremely low drop rates of the slowest two handers, as the others simply cannot compare. It would be a repeat of the 1.0 MS warrior and the arcanite reaper.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
"When it's ready" - 3.1 Paladin stuff that STILL doesn't work
Holy Wrath still only hits demon/undead. Tooltip seems to imply that it would deal the damage, and additionally stun demon/undead.
Divine Storm tooltip/ability(?) still 100% instead of 110%.
SoC still proccing at 5 yards on Judgement, but not at any greater range.
Judgements still being "lost" when CC'd at the same time.
Divine Guardian does not stack with Blessing of Sacrifice and vice versa. Not an issue with one spell being more powerful, they simply consume each other and cannot be overlapped.
Righteous Vengeance DoT breaks repentance. Two patches and counting on this introduced regression that still remains unfixed.
Who knows what else. Apparently all these bugs can simply be swept under the rug until the "next patch," Blizzard certainly is not going to hotfix these issues in. Thx Blizz.
Divine Storm tooltip/ability(?) still 100% instead of 110%.
SoC still proccing at 5 yards on Judgement, but not at any greater range.
Judgements still being "lost" when CC'd at the same time.
Divine Guardian does not stack with Blessing of Sacrifice and vice versa. Not an issue with one spell being more powerful, they simply consume each other and cannot be overlapped.
Righteous Vengeance DoT breaks repentance. Two patches and counting on this introduced regression that still remains unfixed.
Who knows what else. Apparently all these bugs can simply be swept under the rug until the "next patch," Blizzard certainly is not going to hotfix these issues in. Thx Blizz.
Friday, April 10, 2009
3.1 Ret PvP Specs
So far for 3.1 I see two likely specs.
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sxhdZVZVfMxbIuGdubsu
11/x/5x, for Fear/Disorient reduction, incredible team support through aura mastery+conc aura, and added support healing ability through Spiritual Focus and Healing Light. Obviously this is more suitable for larger brackets where you will most likely have a healer. Remaining points would likely go toward finishing off Ret, possibility Divinity but it doesn't seem worth the points.
Alternatively there is :
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sxhdZVZVfMxbIuGdubsu
0/19/52, nearly the same as your classic 3.0 0/20/51. 6% healing is tempting but I'm of the opinion that 1min SS with 20% more absorb and SoL scaling will probably end up doing more with so much MS flying around these days. Improved Divine Guardian is just a minor boost.
In either case, I consider Vindication essential to any Ret build. 20% stamina greatly increases your team's ability to kill a player while CCing another, especially with the limited duration/long cooldown nature of Paladin CC. Seal of Blood/Martyr will likely be the go-to seal for PvP, though most Ret paladins already did use SoB in PvP. Damage moved off the Judgement into the Seal means skipping Fanatacism is not as big a deal, and SoB now behaves like SoC but with a 100% procrate, no internal cooldown, a slightly weaker Judgement, and some minor feedback. Things honestly look good for Ret in 3.1. Added utility, more reliable damage, and far less bloat.
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sxhdZVZVfMxbIuGdubsu
11/x/5x, for Fear/Disorient reduction, incredible team support through aura mastery+conc aura, and added support healing ability through Spiritual Focus and Healing Light. Obviously this is more suitable for larger brackets where you will most likely have a healer. Remaining points would likely go toward finishing off Ret, possibility Divinity but it doesn't seem worth the points.
Alternatively there is :
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sxhdZVZVfMxbIuGdubsu
0/19/52, nearly the same as your classic 3.0 0/20/51. 6% healing is tempting but I'm of the opinion that 1min SS with 20% more absorb and SoL scaling will probably end up doing more with so much MS flying around these days. Improved Divine Guardian is just a minor boost.
In either case, I consider Vindication essential to any Ret build. 20% stamina greatly increases your team's ability to kill a player while CCing another, especially with the limited duration/long cooldown nature of Paladin CC. Seal of Blood/Martyr will likely be the go-to seal for PvP, though most Ret paladins already did use SoB in PvP. Damage moved off the Judgement into the Seal means skipping Fanatacism is not as big a deal, and SoB now behaves like SoC but with a 100% procrate, no internal cooldown, a slightly weaker Judgement, and some minor feedback. Things honestly look good for Ret in 3.1. Added utility, more reliable damage, and far less bloat.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Parity and well tested changes.
Seal of the Martyr is still broken on PTR. They're receiving very little feedback as a result of the bug and posters are being told to wait for the next PTR patch. Business as usual except 3.1 is planned to go live in 2 weeks. Well tested changes? Focus on class parity? Really? This reminds me of the phantom judgement bug which made unlucky RNG a huge mana problem for Ret. Supposedly Blizzard tested it internally and "did not oom." They declined to state any other details besides L2P.
This is a pretty massive change, one that could potentially make or break Ret dps and pvp. Yet its likely only going to get one week of feedback/analysis, if even that. You could argue that they could simply amplify the values of a given parse by the percentages given and call it a day, but GC has said repeatedly that they employ well versed players to run these tests and greatly value that avenue of testing. "Mere theorycraft" is not useful. I'm not seeing it.
Conspiracy theory points toward the relatively COMPLETE resolution of the glyph of backstab change. Altering/fixing a bug and then understanding possible ramifications and immediately rectifying the problem. Meanwhile Paladins remain the red headed stepchild.
Bugs still outstanding :
Martyr not doing the right amount of damage.
Judgement not working but consuming cooldown when CC'd a the same time of casting.
Judgement of Command having a 5 yard range requirement to proc the seal, but a 10 yard range. Same may be true for divine storm.
Unfixed and Unloved /wrists
This is a pretty massive change, one that could potentially make or break Ret dps and pvp. Yet its likely only going to get one week of feedback/analysis, if even that. You could argue that they could simply amplify the values of a given parse by the percentages given and call it a day, but GC has said repeatedly that they employ well versed players to run these tests and greatly value that avenue of testing. "Mere theorycraft" is not useful. I'm not seeing it.
Conspiracy theory points toward the relatively COMPLETE resolution of the glyph of backstab change. Altering/fixing a bug and then understanding possible ramifications and immediately rectifying the problem. Meanwhile Paladins remain the red headed stepchild.
Bugs still outstanding :
Martyr not doing the right amount of damage.
Judgement not working but consuming cooldown when CC'd a the same time of casting.
Judgement of Command having a 5 yard range requirement to proc the seal, but a 10 yard range. Same may be true for divine storm.
Unfixed and Unloved /wrists
Thursday, March 26, 2009
3.1 DPS Implications
By any guess, Ret raid DPS is going to improve 20-30% from 3.0.8 to 3.1. This is a huge increase, far beyond the scope of "minor tweaks." Is ret playing with a handicap in raids right now? GC has always said they'll tweak the numbers if X class falls behind. Ret has only been "tweaked" down and is now getting huge sustained damage buffs, if it needs a "tweaking" of over 20%, shouldn't this have been addressed much earlier?
Seems like we're back to the buff/nerf rollercoaster.
Lets look at recent changes to Ret DPS from the PTR:
Buffs:
SoB/M going to 46% Weapon Damage, with a minor nerf to JoB. This is huge as it is a large increase to CS/DS/White.
Haste/ArP - Benefit increased.
Divine Storm - 100->110%
Exorcism - Glyph 20%, now works on all types, 15% from Sanct Seals
Holy Wrath - All types.
Crusader Strike - 15% Sanct Seals, now procs RV.
Nerfs:
RV - 40%->30%, no longer double dips from damage modifiers.
Fanatacism - 25->18%
Fanatacism change is minor as a majority of SoB's damage is moving to the seal.
RV change also has less impact as judgement becomes a smaller contributor to DPS, the addition of CS to RV as well as the improved DS/CS weapon damage coefficients greatly offset the reduction.
The question at hand is whether or not these changes are made to turn consecration into a cooldown active/mana dump move as opposed to a sustained damage ability. A reduction in blood recoil, even paired with the glyph, may result in insufficient mana for a full damage rotation including consecrate.
In any case, Ret will be far more competitive in 3.1 than it has ever been. I would seriously expect nerfs after 3.1, especially to the most recent SoB change. Huge implications to controlled burst in PvP as it adds near SoC-equivalent damage to all attacks with no internal cooldown.
Seems like we're back to the buff/nerf rollercoaster.
Lets look at recent changes to Ret DPS from the PTR:
Buffs:
SoB/M going to 46% Weapon Damage, with a minor nerf to JoB. This is huge as it is a large increase to CS/DS/White.
Haste/ArP - Benefit increased.
Divine Storm - 100->110%
Exorcism - Glyph 20%, now works on all types, 15% from Sanct Seals
Holy Wrath - All types.
Crusader Strike - 15% Sanct Seals, now procs RV.
Nerfs:
RV - 40%->30%, no longer double dips from damage modifiers.
Fanatacism - 25->18%
Fanatacism change is minor as a majority of SoB's damage is moving to the seal.
RV change also has less impact as judgement becomes a smaller contributor to DPS, the addition of CS to RV as well as the improved DS/CS weapon damage coefficients greatly offset the reduction.
The question at hand is whether or not these changes are made to turn consecration into a cooldown active/mana dump move as opposed to a sustained damage ability. A reduction in blood recoil, even paired with the glyph, may result in insufficient mana for a full damage rotation including consecrate.
In any case, Ret will be far more competitive in 3.1 than it has ever been. I would seriously expect nerfs after 3.1, especially to the most recent SoB change. Huge implications to controlled burst in PvP as it adds near SoC-equivalent damage to all attacks with no internal cooldown.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Seal of the Martyr
This spell used to be the holy grail of paladin dps. Scaling with haste/heroism/windfury, it was the alliance dream, especially because paladins had nothing in the way of regen mechanics as ret back then.
Now the feedback damage is becoming a problem. Fights with damage amplifiers, extreme unavoidable aoe damage, or other gimmicks make use of SoTM tricky to use.
Gluth - If you do not have a decimate timer, its very possible to kill yourself with a single judgement.
Thaddius - You become a terrible burden on your healers if your judgements crit. Also possible self kill with a bad chain lightning+judge crit and low health/no priest.
Sapphiron - Constant frost damage, blizzards, throw in some feedback just to make ret a liability.
Loatheb - A trivially easy fight to be sure, but you become a healer attention sponge as you can do 10k+ in feedback to yourself between reflections.
The issue here is that the feedback will start to become a liability on harder content. Currently its not an issue because there is plenty of mana to go around, and plenty of globals to heal with. As damage scales out, both player and enemy, judging with martyr will begin to be a liability. Making martyr the "pve" seal and command the "pvp" seal needs work, unless Blizzard wants to try to balance paladin pve dps and pvp burst in one seal(unlikely). Also, I still don't see the reasoning behind a baseline ability being better for dps than a talent, but I'll accept that as long as martyr stops being a liability in raids. Being forced to use command will be a significant dps loss(though not as much as recount will show, as self damage is credited to the paladin doing the damage). This pushes paladin damage well below "competitive dps."
Summary : Martyr requires additional healer burden that is simply unacceptable as content difficulty increases. Why bring a ret paladin when someone else can provide the same damage with no health loss that could possibly contribute to a healer OOMing or a dead dpser?
Now the feedback damage is becoming a problem. Fights with damage amplifiers, extreme unavoidable aoe damage, or other gimmicks make use of SoTM tricky to use.
Gluth - If you do not have a decimate timer, its very possible to kill yourself with a single judgement.
Thaddius - You become a terrible burden on your healers if your judgements crit. Also possible self kill with a bad chain lightning+judge crit and low health/no priest.
Sapphiron - Constant frost damage, blizzards, throw in some feedback just to make ret a liability.
Loatheb - A trivially easy fight to be sure, but you become a healer attention sponge as you can do 10k+ in feedback to yourself between reflections.
The issue here is that the feedback will start to become a liability on harder content. Currently its not an issue because there is plenty of mana to go around, and plenty of globals to heal with. As damage scales out, both player and enemy, judging with martyr will begin to be a liability. Making martyr the "pve" seal and command the "pvp" seal needs work, unless Blizzard wants to try to balance paladin pve dps and pvp burst in one seal(unlikely). Also, I still don't see the reasoning behind a baseline ability being better for dps than a talent, but I'll accept that as long as martyr stops being a liability in raids. Being forced to use command will be a significant dps loss(though not as much as recount will show, as self damage is credited to the paladin doing the damage). This pushes paladin damage well below "competitive dps."
Summary : Martyr requires additional healer burden that is simply unacceptable as content difficulty increases. Why bring a ret paladin when someone else can provide the same damage with no health loss that could possibly contribute to a healer OOMing or a dead dpser?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Ranged Attacks & You, Paladin Edition
Blizzard has rescinded their old methodology of not allowing Paladins to have ranged attacks.
So far on the list as of 3.1 -
Exorcism
Holy Shock
Judgement(Holy)
Avenger's Shield
Hand of Reckoning
The logic of this never made sense to me, starting from the early days of trying to farm Elemental Fires for FR pots. How was I supposed to gather raid materials when everyone could beat me to the tap? "Class Flavor" decisions vs practicality in gameplay did not seem well explored.
So much change after years of adamant refusal to allow Paladins to strike from range. Much of the early buzz around Avenger's Shield was "wow we'll finally be able to pull trash packs by ourselves instead of body aggroing!!!!" To me this showed a lack of actual testing and play, how can anyone expect a tank spec to body pull caster packs when the said tank has no intervene type ability to quickly move away and LoS? How could anyone think "niche" tanking roles of TBC would have any sort of use in a half decent raid? Paladins with the least effective health of all the tanking classes at the time had great AoE aggro and practically nothing else going for them, and a mana regen mechanic centered again around requiring a resource to get a resource. Paladins made trash easier for brain dead raiders, but were by no means anything close to Warriors in raid situations that actually mattered. With no panic buttons, no armor/aspd debuff, and a lower EH, there really was no reason to have a paladin MT. Blizzard claimed that it was simply a matter of player perception, yet the numbers didn't add up. Feral druids were the kings of Tank for now, dps when my add is dead, and thus secured a few spots in a raid tank array. In TBC we had mana drain mechanics everywhere and were the ONLY mana dependent tank class. Silence abilities locking out a majority of our threat related moves, and exposing us to potentially lethal burst situations from crushing blows.
A phased "rebuild from the ground up" seems to be whats happening to the Paladin class. Practically every core philosophy for Paladins has been uprooted since WoTLK. The changes have been good, that is no doubt, but lots of "fun" elements still need work. Paladin healing is still boring, the ability to use hots/aoe heals during trash is much nicer than sitting around waiting to heal someone. Constant button presses against low incoming damage versus a few hots and letting it ride. Protection is in a good spot, still damaged by mana drains and silences, but a majority of prot threat has been moved to physical abilities(HOTR SOTR), Ret still has mana issues and has its main damage ability locked out by silence mechanics which is going to either limit ret damage or limit encounter design in the future. Furthermore, Ret is hurt on certain fights as a result of the damage feedback mechanic that makes it unsafe to use its maximum damage seal.
So far on the list as of 3.1 -
Exorcism
Holy Shock
Judgement(Holy)
Avenger's Shield
Hand of Reckoning
The logic of this never made sense to me, starting from the early days of trying to farm Elemental Fires for FR pots. How was I supposed to gather raid materials when everyone could beat me to the tap? "Class Flavor" decisions vs practicality in gameplay did not seem well explored.
So much change after years of adamant refusal to allow Paladins to strike from range. Much of the early buzz around Avenger's Shield was "wow we'll finally be able to pull trash packs by ourselves instead of body aggroing!!!!" To me this showed a lack of actual testing and play, how can anyone expect a tank spec to body pull caster packs when the said tank has no intervene type ability to quickly move away and LoS? How could anyone think "niche" tanking roles of TBC would have any sort of use in a half decent raid? Paladins with the least effective health of all the tanking classes at the time had great AoE aggro and practically nothing else going for them, and a mana regen mechanic centered again around requiring a resource to get a resource. Paladins made trash easier for brain dead raiders, but were by no means anything close to Warriors in raid situations that actually mattered. With no panic buttons, no armor/aspd debuff, and a lower EH, there really was no reason to have a paladin MT. Blizzard claimed that it was simply a matter of player perception, yet the numbers didn't add up. Feral druids were the kings of Tank for now, dps when my add is dead, and thus secured a few spots in a raid tank array. In TBC we had mana drain mechanics everywhere and were the ONLY mana dependent tank class. Silence abilities locking out a majority of our threat related moves, and exposing us to potentially lethal burst situations from crushing blows.
A phased "rebuild from the ground up" seems to be whats happening to the Paladin class. Practically every core philosophy for Paladins has been uprooted since WoTLK. The changes have been good, that is no doubt, but lots of "fun" elements still need work. Paladin healing is still boring, the ability to use hots/aoe heals during trash is much nicer than sitting around waiting to heal someone. Constant button presses against low incoming damage versus a few hots and letting it ride. Protection is in a good spot, still damaged by mana drains and silences, but a majority of prot threat has been moved to physical abilities(HOTR SOTR), Ret still has mana issues and has its main damage ability locked out by silence mechanics which is going to either limit ret damage or limit encounter design in the future. Furthermore, Ret is hurt on certain fights as a result of the damage feedback mechanic that makes it unsafe to use its maximum damage seal.
Monday, February 9, 2009
About damn time, +History
3.0.9/3.1 Notes :
BoK Baseline - 31 Ret(LOLRETUTILITY)->11Prot(...)->0Prot(ACCESSIBLE!!!)->Present Day
Seals - 30 Seconds Dispellable Consumed on Judge-> 2 Mins Dispellable not Consumed on Judge -> 30 Mins Undispellable.
Judgements - Seal Dependent, pitiful damage, some useless debuffs, did not refresh on hit->Refresh on Hit->Refresh on Crusader Strike+on originating paladin's hits->Cannot be refreshed-> Split into 3 spells that don't refresh.
All in all its taken 3 years for Blizzard to finally attempt a real FIX on their Paladin combat system that was put together right before release with very little testing.
SoTC was garbage, the judgement was mostly garbage.
SoJ mostly garbage, judgement was bad except in rare pve situations(made the judged ENEMY immune to fear, which also made them unable to flee). Only useful because paladins had no snares and did extremely poor damage, thus a fleeing mob would certainly live to aggro more mobs.
SoC LOLRNG, terrible judgement effect(miniscule damage when target gets stunned). Constantly tweaked as gear scaled out. 5 PPM -> 7PPM, 70% MW-> 50%MW-> 45%MW.
SoR rofldps, broken scaling but SP was nowhere to be found minus JOTC that didnt refresh on hits. Pitiful judge damage.
SoL/SoW - useful judgements, retarded refresh hassle. 10 yard range when the game revolved around 40 yard+ dancing heals to avoid AoE, on a class that had no repeatable instant healing moves.
tldr = changes were LONG overdue, I don't know what was so overpowered about seals being undispellable like shaman weapon enhancements, or giving them longer durations.
BoK Baseline - 31 Ret(LOLRETUTILITY)->11Prot(...)->0Prot(ACCESSIBLE!!!)->Present Day
Seals - 30 Seconds Dispellable Consumed on Judge-> 2 Mins Dispellable not Consumed on Judge -> 30 Mins Undispellable.
Judgements - Seal Dependent, pitiful damage, some useless debuffs, did not refresh on hit->Refresh on Hit->Refresh on Crusader Strike+on originating paladin's hits->Cannot be refreshed-> Split into 3 spells that don't refresh.
All in all its taken 3 years for Blizzard to finally attempt a real FIX on their Paladin combat system that was put together right before release with very little testing.
SoTC was garbage, the judgement was mostly garbage.
SoJ mostly garbage, judgement was bad except in rare pve situations(made the judged ENEMY immune to fear, which also made them unable to flee). Only useful because paladins had no snares and did extremely poor damage, thus a fleeing mob would certainly live to aggro more mobs.
SoC LOLRNG, terrible judgement effect(miniscule damage when target gets stunned). Constantly tweaked as gear scaled out. 5 PPM -> 7PPM, 70% MW-> 50%MW-> 45%MW.
SoR rofldps, broken scaling but SP was nowhere to be found minus JOTC that didnt refresh on hits. Pitiful judge damage.
SoL/SoW - useful judgements, retarded refresh hassle. 10 yard range when the game revolved around 40 yard+ dancing heals to avoid AoE, on a class that had no repeatable instant healing moves.
tldr = changes were LONG overdue, I don't know what was so overpowered about seals being undispellable like shaman weapon enhancements, or giving them longer durations.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Delicious Paladin Tears
Divine Plea is being nerfed to -50% healing done in the upcoming tentative patch.
Why are paladins the only healers with an active regen mechanic that has a penalty?
Druids : Innervate - No Penalty
Priests : Shadowfiend - No Penalty, it actually deals damage and scales with SPELLPOWER. Can be blocked with shielding effects, but priests have dispel to manage that issue.
Shamans : Mana Tide - No Penalty except eats your water totem for a bit. Water Shield - Precludes Earth Shield, closest thing to an actual penalty, but not really on the same caliber.
Nearly all healing specs have some sort of illumination mana return now, so that argument is even more bunk than it used to be. Cost-based mana refund mechanics are NOT a replacement for regen mechanics until gear reaches impossible levels. High Efficiency with no regeneration is vastly different than Good Efficiency with Good regen. Priests have Rapture/Serendipity + Holy Concentration, Shamans have Imp Water Shield, Druids admittedly don't have anything exactly similar, but Omen+ToL is somewhere along those lines.
Is it too much to ask for no penalty but have it scale against Base Mana + some small coefficient of Int/MaxMana? Why are holy paladins the only healing spec forced to gimp their healing abilities while regenerating mana? By nature of the limited toolset paladins are given, excessive overhealing is mandatory to keep up with heavy AoE encounters. Thx Blizz.
Why are paladins the only healers with an active regen mechanic that has a penalty?
Druids : Innervate - No Penalty
Priests : Shadowfiend - No Penalty, it actually deals damage and scales with SPELLPOWER. Can be blocked with shielding effects, but priests have dispel to manage that issue.
Shamans : Mana Tide - No Penalty except eats your water totem for a bit. Water Shield - Precludes Earth Shield, closest thing to an actual penalty, but not really on the same caliber.
Nearly all healing specs have some sort of illumination mana return now, so that argument is even more bunk than it used to be. Cost-based mana refund mechanics are NOT a replacement for regen mechanics until gear reaches impossible levels. High Efficiency with no regeneration is vastly different than Good Efficiency with Good regen. Priests have Rapture/Serendipity + Holy Concentration, Shamans have Imp Water Shield, Druids admittedly don't have anything exactly similar, but Omen+ToL is somewhere along those lines.
Is it too much to ask for no penalty but have it scale against Base Mana + some small coefficient of Int/MaxMana? Why are holy paladins the only healing spec forced to gimp their healing abilities while regenerating mana? By nature of the limited toolset paladins are given, excessive overhealing is mandatory to keep up with heavy AoE encounters. Thx Blizz.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Economy Collapse?
Many people believe all the players unable to get to X rating in S4 will simply stop playing. I highly doubt this will be the case. Many arguments are :
"I'm in honor blues and greens and I get stomped by full S3 people they aren't skilled they just started earlier. How am I supposed to compete against them if I get LESS points for fighting them?"
True, you probably aren't much of a challenge in your current gear situation, but you will eventually catch up to them through the purchase of non rating restricted S3 pieces. Just like you don't move from SSC to BT instantly, you do have to acquire intermediary pieces just like all those S3 teams did through S2/etc. That is, unless you are carried by your teammates(also applies to raids). If you must, consider full S3 gear an "attunement" to S4 loot. Not completely true, but for the purposes of the people filing this complaint, valid.
"Theres no reason to play S4 if I can't buy a majority of the S4 rewards"
First of all, two of the pieces do not even require ratings, second you can still purchase most of S3. You can also begin saving for the next iteration of arena in WoTLK if you don't think blizzard will reset arena points. Personally I'm not sure about that, but they did not reset honor for TBC so we'll see.
"All the sub 1500 teams will stop playing and there wont be 2xxx teams because there are no bottom level points being fed into the system."
Not true, people will play 10 games just to get their leftover pieces, offspec S3 pieces, or just out of boredom. Note that with gold being so easy, more and more teams will be feeding rating into the system, as there isnt much reason to continue playing a sub 1400 team each week.
"I'm quitting way to put PR onto everything in the game GG Blizz owning casuals."
Can I have your stuff? Seriously S3 gear isnt even that bad. Yes S4 will be marginally better but WoTLK gear reset is coming soon anyway. For leveling/grinding/dailies, you may kill 3-5% slower than a S4 geared player, but adding travel time to and from quest areas, its really a marginal difference. It would be better to complain about someone getting lucky crits than to complain about the marginal gear difference from S3 to S4.
"My friends suck at WoW or play weird offspecs that aren't suitable for arenas so I can't achieve X rating."
Learn to play better. There aren't that many dysfunctional class comps in arenas, and its not even a problem past 1800ish. Now if you're a prot warrior/paladin in arenas, well a respec isn't that hard to do. Should you have to respec to arena? Well, frankly yes, you do it for raids anyway. Why is the arena any different? Besides, you owe it to your "terrible/offspec friends" to put your best foot forward with respect to arena success, and that does include speccing properly. Also if being on a different arena team is going to kill your friendships, get new friends. If you like to play with them, then feel free to team hop. Unless your "pro" team passes 1650, team hopping isnt particularly detrimental to you or your "pro" team. Even then your "pro" team's members will bring up the average queuing personal rating, so you can get as high as 1950 in a theoretical 3v3 without your team-hop PR of 1500 affecting the team. Of course you will get less points per week if your TR is beyond ~1650 depending on W/L but thats your choice.
As for spec, I've played ret and holy to over 2000 in every bracket and gotten gladiator in S1/S2 as holy in the most complained about brackets(2v2,3v3). Many will claim the class is gimped but 2000 is not that hard to do. It may require more skill than other classes, but that isn't something to complain about really. So for the spec problem for paladins, I'm just going to have to prescribe some over the counter L2P.
"Oh yeah, I've killed Illidan, where is my 310% mount?"
If you were in the raid of the first 0.5% Illidan kills before Sunwell was released, then I will concede you deserve a 310% mount. The rest of you rode on the backs of nerfs/ez lewt/guides. Illidan was the hardest content at the time, but to parallel the actual arena system, you have to be one of the select first people to accomplish the feat.
"You realize 5 people can currently do absolutely nothing and get epix through arenas while its not true in raids?"
Yes and you realize the top of the arena system are inherently better at raiding than a vast majority of raiders? Arena requires strict attention to environmental effects, positioning, cooldowns, abilities and counter abilities, damage that is not controlled by threat, and prediction of damage based on the situation at hand. Constant evaluation of those factors drives arena success. Raids only have watered down portions of these mechanics, making good arena players exceptional raiders. The opposite is almost never true. Also, S4 fixed this and most players are still crying up a storm, seriously just pick one.
"Okay you convinced me. I suck at WoW and will never get beyond 1550."
Good. Realize that as time goes on ratings will be easier and easier to get. You may be a 1520 team now but in a few months you'll be at 1600 or higher. Early in the season lots of bad/poorly geared players get knocked into the 1400s. They will move up past 1500 as ratings settle down and they start fighting equivalently bad/undergeared players. S4 gear WILL be availible to a majority of players. People under 1500 that fail@arena inherently boost their own rating the next week by purchasing another charter.
"I'm in honor blues and greens and I get stomped by full S3 people they aren't skilled they just started earlier. How am I supposed to compete against them if I get LESS points for fighting them?"
True, you probably aren't much of a challenge in your current gear situation, but you will eventually catch up to them through the purchase of non rating restricted S3 pieces. Just like you don't move from SSC to BT instantly, you do have to acquire intermediary pieces just like all those S3 teams did through S2/etc. That is, unless you are carried by your teammates(also applies to raids). If you must, consider full S3 gear an "attunement" to S4 loot. Not completely true, but for the purposes of the people filing this complaint, valid.
"Theres no reason to play S4 if I can't buy a majority of the S4 rewards"
First of all, two of the pieces do not even require ratings, second you can still purchase most of S3. You can also begin saving for the next iteration of arena in WoTLK if you don't think blizzard will reset arena points. Personally I'm not sure about that, but they did not reset honor for TBC so we'll see.
"All the sub 1500 teams will stop playing and there wont be 2xxx teams because there are no bottom level points being fed into the system."
Not true, people will play 10 games just to get their leftover pieces, offspec S3 pieces, or just out of boredom. Note that with gold being so easy, more and more teams will be feeding rating into the system, as there isnt much reason to continue playing a sub 1400 team each week.
"I'm quitting way to put PR onto everything in the game GG Blizz owning casuals."
Can I have your stuff? Seriously S3 gear isnt even that bad. Yes S4 will be marginally better but WoTLK gear reset is coming soon anyway. For leveling/grinding/dailies, you may kill 3-5% slower than a S4 geared player, but adding travel time to and from quest areas, its really a marginal difference. It would be better to complain about someone getting lucky crits than to complain about the marginal gear difference from S3 to S4.
"My friends suck at WoW or play weird offspecs that aren't suitable for arenas so I can't achieve X rating."
Learn to play better. There aren't that many dysfunctional class comps in arenas, and its not even a problem past 1800ish. Now if you're a prot warrior/paladin in arenas, well a respec isn't that hard to do. Should you have to respec to arena? Well, frankly yes, you do it for raids anyway. Why is the arena any different? Besides, you owe it to your "terrible/offspec friends" to put your best foot forward with respect to arena success, and that does include speccing properly. Also if being on a different arena team is going to kill your friendships, get new friends. If you like to play with them, then feel free to team hop. Unless your "pro" team passes 1650, team hopping isnt particularly detrimental to you or your "pro" team. Even then your "pro" team's members will bring up the average queuing personal rating, so you can get as high as 1950 in a theoretical 3v3 without your team-hop PR of 1500 affecting the team. Of course you will get less points per week if your TR is beyond ~1650 depending on W/L but thats your choice.
As for spec, I've played ret and holy to over 2000 in every bracket and gotten gladiator in S1/S2 as holy in the most complained about brackets(2v2,3v3). Many will claim the class is gimped but 2000 is not that hard to do. It may require more skill than other classes, but that isn't something to complain about really. So for the spec problem for paladins, I'm just going to have to prescribe some over the counter L2P.
"Oh yeah, I've killed Illidan, where is my 310% mount?"
If you were in the raid of the first 0.5% Illidan kills before Sunwell was released, then I will concede you deserve a 310% mount. The rest of you rode on the backs of nerfs/ez lewt/guides. Illidan was the hardest content at the time, but to parallel the actual arena system, you have to be one of the select first people to accomplish the feat.
"You realize 5 people can currently do absolutely nothing and get epix through arenas while its not true in raids?"
Yes and you realize the top of the arena system are inherently better at raiding than a vast majority of raiders? Arena requires strict attention to environmental effects, positioning, cooldowns, abilities and counter abilities, damage that is not controlled by threat, and prediction of damage based on the situation at hand. Constant evaluation of those factors drives arena success. Raids only have watered down portions of these mechanics, making good arena players exceptional raiders. The opposite is almost never true. Also, S4 fixed this and most players are still crying up a storm, seriously just pick one.
"Okay you convinced me. I suck at WoW and will never get beyond 1550."
Good. Realize that as time goes on ratings will be easier and easier to get. You may be a 1520 team now but in a few months you'll be at 1600 or higher. Early in the season lots of bad/poorly geared players get knocked into the 1400s. They will move up past 1500 as ratings settle down and they start fighting equivalently bad/undergeared players. S4 gear WILL be availible to a majority of players. People under 1500 that fail@arena inherently boost their own rating the next week by purchasing another charter.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Situational awareness & watered down lemonade
Its surprising how many paladin tanks(and tanks in general) lack this basic ability. If a monster runs by you and spirits of redemption start appearing everywhere, can you really blame healers for your subsequent death? Too often this is what happens. Some tanks dont even have raid frames and complain about not getting healed when only five raid members are alive. This is just plain unacceptable. At the very least raid frames should be open to track debuffs and aggro gains on raid members.
In a recent trip to help out a black temple run, the paladin tank died shortly after 3 priests died to whirlwind from a loose add that ran straight past consecrate and was not picked up. The pull consisted of five monsters. I was boggling at this epic failure, as you don't even have to be looking behind you to see a mob sail clear past you into the healer crowd. Shortly after 3 healers die, the paladin tank in question says "wow i didn't take too much damage, this wipe as a healer problem." This is a common fallacy among most raid wipes.
How he should have approached the pull : SoR, AS to hit 3, JoR/Reseal on the fourth, and melee attacks on the fifth. Doing this ensures you have threat on each one. Too often paladin tanks focus all their abilities on the primary damage target when taunt can actually provide a threat increase and misdirects are availible.
Another failure I had the displeasure of witnessing was a paladin tank that did not know how to tank adds for Dragonhawk. He simply could not deal with having to tab to different monsters. All he understood was spamming consecrate and seal/judging. Not even a holy shield inbetween. Such a lack of complicating mechanics leads very terrible players to rise to higher levels of instance progression by virtue of their class, but actual player skill is incredibly low.
Just because paladins are easymode tanks doesnt mean you can faceroll your way through trash. One loose add can easily destroy your healers. Ranged taunt and JoR's 10 yard range provide more than enough reaction time to pick up loose adds. Its really sad to see the extent of player failure when playing such a watered down version of a role.
Retribution has this problem as well. Tunnel visioned retardins are extremely prevalent. Ret paladins do not have to manage that many globals, and have bof/bop+cleanse to support their group in pvp or instancing. Repent and HoJ are useful for the primary target as well as secondary targets as a temporary CC to alleviate healers with aggro, or for keeping enemy healers out of the fight. Another good example is paladins who mash a castsequence to CS/Judge/Reseal/(Consecrate). This leads to lost DPS if you mash it and judge in a global(making you unable to reseal) and melee swing in that time.
So to all paladin players - Please, please, take your job seriously even if it is easymode. Your failures only contribute to lolret lolprot (and lolholy but thats somewhat rare). The more you suck the less people will accept the class in non holy roles.
In a recent trip to help out a black temple run, the paladin tank died shortly after 3 priests died to whirlwind from a loose add that ran straight past consecrate and was not picked up. The pull consisted of five monsters. I was boggling at this epic failure, as you don't even have to be looking behind you to see a mob sail clear past you into the healer crowd. Shortly after 3 healers die, the paladin tank in question says "wow i didn't take too much damage, this wipe as a healer problem." This is a common fallacy among most raid wipes.
How he should have approached the pull : SoR, AS to hit 3, JoR/Reseal on the fourth, and melee attacks on the fifth. Doing this ensures you have threat on each one. Too often paladin tanks focus all their abilities on the primary damage target when taunt can actually provide a threat increase and misdirects are availible.
Another failure I had the displeasure of witnessing was a paladin tank that did not know how to tank adds for Dragonhawk. He simply could not deal with having to tab to different monsters. All he understood was spamming consecrate and seal/judging. Not even a holy shield inbetween. Such a lack of complicating mechanics leads very terrible players to rise to higher levels of instance progression by virtue of their class, but actual player skill is incredibly low.
Just because paladins are easymode tanks doesnt mean you can faceroll your way through trash. One loose add can easily destroy your healers. Ranged taunt and JoR's 10 yard range provide more than enough reaction time to pick up loose adds. Its really sad to see the extent of player failure when playing such a watered down version of a role.
Retribution has this problem as well. Tunnel visioned retardins are extremely prevalent. Ret paladins do not have to manage that many globals, and have bof/bop+cleanse to support their group in pvp or instancing. Repent and HoJ are useful for the primary target as well as secondary targets as a temporary CC to alleviate healers with aggro, or for keeping enemy healers out of the fight. Another good example is paladins who mash a castsequence to CS/Judge/Reseal/(Consecrate). This leads to lost DPS if you mash it and judge in a global(making you unable to reseal) and melee swing in that time.
So to all paladin players - Please, please, take your job seriously even if it is easymode. Your failures only contribute to lolret lolprot (and lolholy but thats somewhat rare). The more you suck the less people will accept the class in non holy roles.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Invulnerablility vs Near Invulnerability, Mass Dispel
Straight to the point : A trend coming around with newer abilities intended to improve survivability is to grant partial resistance to damage instead of immunity, so that mass dispel cannot be used against it.
Shamanistic Rage
Pain Suppression
Focused Will
Natural Perfection
Barkskin
These abilities/effects were introduced post TBC and are engineered against mass dispel. Is PS+SR/FW/NP/BS invincibility? No, but its damn close, especially because you'll be healed up right after and realistically will not die. Being able to grant near invulnerability to OTHERS versus being able to make only yourself invincible seems like a flawed and outdated mechanic. Yes you are still vulnerable to interrupts/stuns/debuffs, but having a shorter cooldown and practically guaranteed duration makes up for a majority of the downsides. This is beyond that self immunities generally arent useful for saving teammates, a huge restriction in use. In many cases non immunity is BETTER than immunity, this should never even occur, and is only true due to mass dispel. This was originally envisioned to counter paladins, as 10.5 seconds of undisturbed action was considered OP. Note that these abilities in 1v1 are not inherently overpowered, but a combination of the two guarantees far more than Divine Shield can in most situations.
The counterclaim to mass dispel not being overpowered was it only MIGHT remove divine shield, it has a 1.5 sec casting time, and you can hammer of justice it.
None of these are true anymore, in fact, running to the priest to try to hammer of justice will result in a trinket->MD->fear, or a resist and a lol. Not to mention this is a complete waste of time better spent looking for LoS cover or healing.
Divine Shield should be updated to be in line with these changes. Mass Dispel should remove a portion of divine shield, but a lesser effect should remain. Either mass dispel makes the paladin immune to only the next X hits before fading, or it reduces their damage reduction to Y%. Why? Because in no case should a partial immunity be better than full immunity. Because paladin survivability is at an all time low, and other healing capable classes have been buffed to ridiculous levels in that regard. Because mass dispel no counter except twitch reflexes and a really good connection, and pre-conditions positioning to even consider countering. Because paladins currently have no reliable defensive measures or mitigation, while retaining a poor health pool. Because Divine Shield needs to be updated to TBC standards, instead of a second 5 minute trinket with forbearance.
Shamanistic Rage
Pain Suppression
Focused Will
Natural Perfection
Barkskin
These abilities/effects were introduced post TBC and are engineered against mass dispel. Is PS+SR/FW/NP/BS invincibility? No, but its damn close, especially because you'll be healed up right after and realistically will not die. Being able to grant near invulnerability to OTHERS versus being able to make only yourself invincible seems like a flawed and outdated mechanic. Yes you are still vulnerable to interrupts/stuns/debuffs, but having a shorter cooldown and practically guaranteed duration makes up for a majority of the downsides. This is beyond that self immunities generally arent useful for saving teammates, a huge restriction in use. In many cases non immunity is BETTER than immunity, this should never even occur, and is only true due to mass dispel. This was originally envisioned to counter paladins, as 10.5 seconds of undisturbed action was considered OP. Note that these abilities in 1v1 are not inherently overpowered, but a combination of the two guarantees far more than Divine Shield can in most situations.
The counterclaim to mass dispel not being overpowered was it only MIGHT remove divine shield, it has a 1.5 sec casting time, and you can hammer of justice it.
None of these are true anymore, in fact, running to the priest to try to hammer of justice will result in a trinket->MD->fear, or a resist and a lol. Not to mention this is a complete waste of time better spent looking for LoS cover or healing.
Divine Shield should be updated to be in line with these changes. Mass Dispel should remove a portion of divine shield, but a lesser effect should remain. Either mass dispel makes the paladin immune to only the next X hits before fading, or it reduces their damage reduction to Y%. Why? Because in no case should a partial immunity be better than full immunity. Because paladin survivability is at an all time low, and other healing capable classes have been buffed to ridiculous levels in that regard. Because mass dispel no counter except twitch reflexes and a really good connection, and pre-conditions positioning to even consider countering. Because paladins currently have no reliable defensive measures or mitigation, while retaining a poor health pool. Because Divine Shield needs to be updated to TBC standards, instead of a second 5 minute trinket with forbearance.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Seal of Blood, again and again and again
CM's are an interesting lot. They're supposed to relay concerns, but don't tell you much about how they went about wording them.
A good example is seal of blood. This seal is balanced against command down to a few percents of damage, IF the users do not have any haste or extra attack abilities. Thus it is a "flavor" seal much like SoV(which typically does less than SoR unless used in unreliable conjunction). Now when a CM wrote regarding "Any plans to give seal of blood to alliance," he stated "None so far, not a concern." Did he present the overwhelming evidence of a 10-20% TOTAL dps difference between the seals at high levels of gear? I highly doubt it.
Devs of course are not entirely retarded, but its unlikely they remember how the mechanics of SoC were originally coded with regards to how the damage is applied. It doesnt work on instants and it was recently nerfed along with rogue ppm abilities to not scale with haste. I highly doubt any CM actually went to the trouble of laying down the REASONS that alliance want seal of blood, rather than presenting it as some sort of factional I WANT THIS whine. The math is there and it clearly shows that SoC is at a large disadvantage in fights where there is haste or windfury. Good thing death knight is coming soon.
A good example is seal of blood. This seal is balanced against command down to a few percents of damage, IF the users do not have any haste or extra attack abilities. Thus it is a "flavor" seal much like SoV(which typically does less than SoR unless used in unreliable conjunction). Now when a CM wrote regarding "Any plans to give seal of blood to alliance," he stated "None so far, not a concern." Did he present the overwhelming evidence of a 10-20% TOTAL dps difference between the seals at high levels of gear? I highly doubt it.
Devs of course are not entirely retarded, but its unlikely they remember how the mechanics of SoC were originally coded with regards to how the damage is applied. It doesnt work on instants and it was recently nerfed along with rogue ppm abilities to not scale with haste. I highly doubt any CM actually went to the trouble of laying down the REASONS that alliance want seal of blood, rather than presenting it as some sort of factional I WANT THIS whine. The math is there and it clearly shows that SoC is at a large disadvantage in fights where there is haste or windfury. Good thing death knight is coming soon.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Tanking Mechanics, Revisited
Protection Paladin tanking, notably Holy Shield, is flawed in design.
Protection Paladins require the monster to be MELEEING them to generate sufficient threat.
To generate sufficient sustained threat, they must take enough damage and continue to be melee'd.
Feral Druids and Protection Warriors must TAKE DAMAGE to generate sufficient threat.
to generate sufficient sustained threat, they must continue to take damage.
This basic concept is fine until you factor that Paladins have no way to pull casters to them barring LoS, and cannot interrupt spells to force caster mobs to begin meleeing them. Sure their spells will require damage to be healed and thus feed them mana, but a very significant portion of their threat is from actually blocking attacks. Warriors can interrupt spells or reflect them, and intervene away from melee monsters to either a caster or a healer. Feral druids can also temporarily avoid melee damage while cutting out a caster by Feral Charging. All tanks have a long cooldown stun.
The problem is compounded with the fact that paladin tanking is absolutely shut down by many more things than any other tank.
Silences, Mana Burns, Fears, Knockdowns, and spellcasters all affect paladins to a greater degree than other tanks, by virtue of either base mitigation values, or ability use. Very few fight mechanisms specifically target rage(RoS), but many target mana under the idealogy that actually 10k~ mana healers/dps will be getting hit by it. An oversight, perhaps, but a very large one.
As a more minor note, Holy Shield should most definetly be taken off GCD. Paladin cooldowns overlap in an irritating manner ( 8 sec, 8-10sec, 10sec ) and as an extremely important tank mechanic, I don't think holy shield should be a holy spell, nor take up a GCD. This is not outside the realm of possibility, as Warriors already have their block ability off GCD.
Protection Paladins require the monster to be MELEEING them to generate sufficient threat.
To generate sufficient sustained threat, they must take enough damage and continue to be melee'd.
Feral Druids and Protection Warriors must TAKE DAMAGE to generate sufficient threat.
to generate sufficient sustained threat, they must continue to take damage.
This basic concept is fine until you factor that Paladins have no way to pull casters to them barring LoS, and cannot interrupt spells to force caster mobs to begin meleeing them. Sure their spells will require damage to be healed and thus feed them mana, but a very significant portion of their threat is from actually blocking attacks. Warriors can interrupt spells or reflect them, and intervene away from melee monsters to either a caster or a healer. Feral druids can also temporarily avoid melee damage while cutting out a caster by Feral Charging. All tanks have a long cooldown stun.
The problem is compounded with the fact that paladin tanking is absolutely shut down by many more things than any other tank.
Silences, Mana Burns, Fears, Knockdowns, and spellcasters all affect paladins to a greater degree than other tanks, by virtue of either base mitigation values, or ability use. Very few fight mechanisms specifically target rage(RoS), but many target mana under the idealogy that actually 10k~ mana healers/dps will be getting hit by it. An oversight, perhaps, but a very large one.
As a more minor note, Holy Shield should most definetly be taken off GCD. Paladin cooldowns overlap in an irritating manner ( 8 sec, 8-10sec, 10sec ) and as an extremely important tank mechanic, I don't think holy shield should be a holy spell, nor take up a GCD. This is not outside the realm of possibility, as Warriors already have their block ability off GCD.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Why play a paladin? Or Why not.
Q : Why play a paladin?
A : Like a buffet, a paladin can give you a perspective of every role in WoW. However, like a buffet, the quality of your experience will pale in comparison to what other "more specialized" classes can do.
A paladin gets to do everything in the game. They can heal, tank, and dps. Some will tell you that because you have no "forms" you can do this all at once. Very much false. Attempting to perform a role that you are not specced for is futile, and druids(the only ones who really try to push this point) need to cry more.
As a paladin you get your watered down healer with two heals. Your itemization is awful, people will claim you are OP while arena numbers show otherwise, but at least your peers will accept you for who you are. That is, until you try other specs. The biggest downside of a holy paladin is you're never sure if your friends are loyal to you or just because of what you've specced. And maybe that healing as one is a two button chore.
As a paladin you can also be a watered down tank. You have terrible tanking mechanics, strange scaling with practically no 10 man gear to assist you(spell damage tank plate?). Everyone loves you because you can run their alts through farm content easily, but when push comes to shove they'll blame your class before they'll blame healers for MT deaths(you). This is okay, because you'll need a lot of badges to supplement your poorly itemized pieces as warrior gear doesn't really help your threat. Your badge gear has lolspellhit, even after the change of taunt to melee hit(warrior change that trickled off to paladins). The advantage of prot is it shows you who your true friends are, as you aren't holy and therefore don't implicitly make their game experience more fun through healing.
You can also be a watered down dps. You can mash a button to deal damage like any other class, but have no viable way to competitively DPS without a non-retarded shaman in group. Like many other hybrid dps'ers, you have no aggro dump. This will prove frustrating when trying to pug to get gear, but divine shield will save you from the horrors of awful pug tanks. That is, assuming a pug will even take you over a green geared 6k HP mage that isnt even 70. Also, every player will tell you that you rolled a healer and are foolish to want to dps. Those players will also typically be shadow priests, balance druids, feral druids, enhancement shamans, and elemental shamans. LOLRET lrn2reroll.
So, while a paladin CAN be one or two more things than other classes, he is at the bottom of the barrel for functionality in those roles.
1 Role Classes : Mage, Hunter, Warlock, Rogue - Top of their role, game philosophy and scaling makes these classes the highest DPS. Warranted, as they can only deal damage. All these classes have aggro dumps.
2 Role Classes : Shaman, Warrior, Priest - Utility based classes, can perform well in either role and are exceptional in both. Note that the warrior is the only 2 role tank class, and thus is the prime tank.
3 Role Classes : Druid, Paladin - Mostly frowned upon due to weak offspec performance, doomed to heal barring some gimmick fights(druids on Brutallus, Paladins on felmyst/hyjal trash).
It should be fairly obvious then, why druids and paladins are practically the worst in their roles. They "can" do more but have to respec to do so. Unsupported by gear specifically tailored to them, the 3 role classes quickly fall short of their 2 role counterparts. Is this fair? I dont think so. If I am doomed to have to respec every time I want to do something different(just like any 2 role hybrid), why should my performance suffer so greatly? In a raid environment I can still only be one role. I should be able to compete(with individual class flavor), against other 2 role classes.
Some would argue that this would be fixed if priests and shamans could tank. A flawed argument, as tank classes were from the getgo advertised as paladins,warriors, and druids. Even then, tanking is just a necessary spec to include just for PvE functionality. The entire concept of aggro makes little sense, Ragnaros should not be so retarded as to tunnel vision onto a tank instead of one shotting cloth with his ranged attack. If priests want to tank, by all means try. I suspect a shadow priest could manage to run at least a few heroics with an overgeared group with CC. Rogues, shamans, and moonkins already tank, its just a matter of exploiting the hit table and gearing appropriately.
In conclusion, if paladin spec viability is really to be gimped because we can "do more when spam respeccing," then a tree should be removed. Or two trees merged so that we can do poorly in two roles but perform them at the same time.
A : Like a buffet, a paladin can give you a perspective of every role in WoW. However, like a buffet, the quality of your experience will pale in comparison to what other "more specialized" classes can do.
A paladin gets to do everything in the game. They can heal, tank, and dps. Some will tell you that because you have no "forms" you can do this all at once. Very much false. Attempting to perform a role that you are not specced for is futile, and druids(the only ones who really try to push this point) need to cry more.
As a paladin you get your watered down healer with two heals. Your itemization is awful, people will claim you are OP while arena numbers show otherwise, but at least your peers will accept you for who you are. That is, until you try other specs. The biggest downside of a holy paladin is you're never sure if your friends are loyal to you or just because of what you've specced. And maybe that healing as one is a two button chore.
As a paladin you can also be a watered down tank. You have terrible tanking mechanics, strange scaling with practically no 10 man gear to assist you(spell damage tank plate?). Everyone loves you because you can run their alts through farm content easily, but when push comes to shove they'll blame your class before they'll blame healers for MT deaths(you). This is okay, because you'll need a lot of badges to supplement your poorly itemized pieces as warrior gear doesn't really help your threat. Your badge gear has lolspellhit, even after the change of taunt to melee hit(warrior change that trickled off to paladins). The advantage of prot is it shows you who your true friends are, as you aren't holy and therefore don't implicitly make their game experience more fun through healing.
You can also be a watered down dps. You can mash a button to deal damage like any other class, but have no viable way to competitively DPS without a non-retarded shaman in group. Like many other hybrid dps'ers, you have no aggro dump. This will prove frustrating when trying to pug to get gear, but divine shield will save you from the horrors of awful pug tanks. That is, assuming a pug will even take you over a green geared 6k HP mage that isnt even 70. Also, every player will tell you that you rolled a healer and are foolish to want to dps. Those players will also typically be shadow priests, balance druids, feral druids, enhancement shamans, and elemental shamans. LOLRET lrn2reroll.
So, while a paladin CAN be one or two more things than other classes, he is at the bottom of the barrel for functionality in those roles.
1 Role Classes : Mage, Hunter, Warlock, Rogue - Top of their role, game philosophy and scaling makes these classes the highest DPS. Warranted, as they can only deal damage. All these classes have aggro dumps.
2 Role Classes : Shaman, Warrior, Priest - Utility based classes, can perform well in either role and are exceptional in both. Note that the warrior is the only 2 role tank class, and thus is the prime tank.
3 Role Classes : Druid, Paladin - Mostly frowned upon due to weak offspec performance, doomed to heal barring some gimmick fights(druids on Brutallus, Paladins on felmyst/hyjal trash).
It should be fairly obvious then, why druids and paladins are practically the worst in their roles. They "can" do more but have to respec to do so. Unsupported by gear specifically tailored to them, the 3 role classes quickly fall short of their 2 role counterparts. Is this fair? I dont think so. If I am doomed to have to respec every time I want to do something different(just like any 2 role hybrid), why should my performance suffer so greatly? In a raid environment I can still only be one role. I should be able to compete(with individual class flavor), against other 2 role classes.
Some would argue that this would be fixed if priests and shamans could tank. A flawed argument, as tank classes were from the getgo advertised as paladins,warriors, and druids. Even then, tanking is just a necessary spec to include just for PvE functionality. The entire concept of aggro makes little sense, Ragnaros should not be so retarded as to tunnel vision onto a tank instead of one shotting cloth with his ranged attack. If priests want to tank, by all means try. I suspect a shadow priest could manage to run at least a few heroics with an overgeared group with CC. Rogues, shamans, and moonkins already tank, its just a matter of exploiting the hit table and gearing appropriately.
In conclusion, if paladin spec viability is really to be gimped because we can "do more when spam respeccing," then a tree should be removed. Or two trees merged so that we can do poorly in two roles but perform them at the same time.
Friday, May 2, 2008
BEASTCOIL!!!!!111!1!1
Seriously.
Hunters may get instant cast fear beast which can apply to hunter pets, druids, AND shamans.
Meanwhile paladins get a fear with a cast time, unsupported by pushback resistance beyond conc aura, that has pitiful range and shares the holy tree.
This is balanced how? I'm not against hunter's getting beastcoil and support this buff against druids and shamans. (Hint, both classes gain mobility through animal forms). I'd just like to understand how our "warlock counter" is anything more than forcing an earlier spell lock. And how its range is pitiful. And how its got a duration with no pushback resistance. As a general rule, spells that have COOLDOWNS are very powerful and tend to be instant.
Lets look at a few instant offensive spells with no cooldowns :
Ice Lance
Corruption(typically)
All Curses
SW:P
Moonfire
Insect Swarm
Faerie Fire
Few of these do anything immediately, and are of practically no consequence if spammed.
Some offensive instants with cooldowns :
Death Coil
Fire Blast
Frost Nova
Psychic Scream
SWD
BEASTCOIL!!!!
Powerful, fairly overpowered if spammed. High mana cost to boot, typically.
Offensive cast time spells with no cooldown :
Polymorph
Cyclone
Mana Burn
Fear
Mind Control
Powerful crowd control moves. Devastating but only useful when not being attacked. Many tend to be supported by pushback resistance talents. Basically force interrupts to be used.
Now, some offensive spells with cooldowns and cast times.
Turn Evil.
Hammer of Wrath.
Soul Fire.
Mind Blast.
Worst of the worst. Not useless, but not on the level of other spells of its caliber. A skill with a cooldown AND a cast time is a failed concept. Dev's learned this with pyroblast. Soulfire is on a cooldown because of the potential abuse with seduce and soulfire. Mind Blast cooldown exists to prevent shadow priests from instagibbing people at long range. Spammable mind blast would be absolutely ridiculous combined with SWD. Its high damage is balanced against its high threat, so the cooldown seems more like a pvp consideration.
As we can see from the above examples, spells with only cooldowns allow for powerful abilities that must be used situationally and saved when necessary instead of used on a whim. Spells with cast times improve the class's functionality while not being focus fired, and give them the ability to adversely affect their enemies. Putting both restrictions on a spell, a cast time, and a cooldown, implies the spell is so powerful that it should not be useable while focused and is so strong in effect that it cannot be repeatedly cast.
I dont think the paladin spells fall into these categories.
For one, Hammer of Wrath costs an enormous amount of mana. It is also restricted as a 20% health or below move. It exposes the Paladin's holy tree(if you're fast). It rarely kills a 19% target unless they have terrible gear. If it had no cast time, it would still be fine. If it had no cooldown but a cast time, it would be fairly strong but easily blocked by interrupts/silence, crowd control, and healing on the target. It would likely have to be increased to 1 sec cast time. Note that it will still take on average 3 casts to kill a 19% player. This is a large sum of mana, and requires the paladin divert his attention from healing and possibly become school-locked. Requiring that hammer of wrath 1)finish casting, 2)have the target below 20%, 3) have enough mana to cast the spell and expend the mana doing so 4) not be on cooldown is a little too much for such a mediocre spell.
Turn Evil affects one class, and even then only their pet. It exposes the holy tree. Being able to use it instantly is only detrimental to warlocks, who have the benefit of being able to by themselves completely lock out a holy paladin from play. Its only use is to cast freely during the fear, and after the first spell lock, additional fears are relatively pointless. Examples:
No cooldown - The first TE could be spell locked. A recast on TE is insignificant, spell lock is still cooling down. A TE cast AS spell lock cools down can buy a few seconds, but the warlock knows when this can occur and can position to counter it. This is where some marginal drinking benefit could come into play. However, leaving combat and 4 sec drinking would make this fairly useless unless combined with say, a banish that did not resist somehow. A 2nd TE would last 5 seconds. With the drink change it is unlikely that the paladin would get much benefit from drinking if undisturbed by any other players. Spell lock is still useable on any cast and the warlock loses very little in combat options.
No cast time - A viable crowd control move against one class for ten seconds. TU can still be dispelled, and warlocks are a class that arguably has the most control against a paladin anyway. However the warlock can be assured of being able to spell lock the paladin after these 10 seconds are up.
See? Improving Turn Evil would not make paladins overpowered. In fact, it only put them in line with other abilities, but even then against only one class, and beyond that, just their pet.
Hunters may get instant cast fear beast which can apply to hunter pets, druids, AND shamans.
Meanwhile paladins get a fear with a cast time, unsupported by pushback resistance beyond conc aura, that has pitiful range and shares the holy tree.
This is balanced how? I'm not against hunter's getting beastcoil and support this buff against druids and shamans. (Hint, both classes gain mobility through animal forms). I'd just like to understand how our "warlock counter" is anything more than forcing an earlier spell lock. And how its range is pitiful. And how its got a duration with no pushback resistance. As a general rule, spells that have COOLDOWNS are very powerful and tend to be instant.
Lets look at a few instant offensive spells with no cooldowns :
Ice Lance
Corruption(typically)
All Curses
SW:P
Moonfire
Insect Swarm
Faerie Fire
Few of these do anything immediately, and are of practically no consequence if spammed.
Some offensive instants with cooldowns :
Death Coil
Fire Blast
Frost Nova
Psychic Scream
SWD
BEASTCOIL!!!!
Powerful, fairly overpowered if spammed. High mana cost to boot, typically.
Offensive cast time spells with no cooldown :
Polymorph
Cyclone
Mana Burn
Fear
Mind Control
Powerful crowd control moves. Devastating but only useful when not being attacked. Many tend to be supported by pushback resistance talents. Basically force interrupts to be used.
Now, some offensive spells with cooldowns and cast times.
Turn Evil.
Hammer of Wrath.
Soul Fire.
Mind Blast.
Worst of the worst. Not useless, but not on the level of other spells of its caliber. A skill with a cooldown AND a cast time is a failed concept. Dev's learned this with pyroblast. Soulfire is on a cooldown because of the potential abuse with seduce and soulfire. Mind Blast cooldown exists to prevent shadow priests from instagibbing people at long range. Spammable mind blast would be absolutely ridiculous combined with SWD. Its high damage is balanced against its high threat, so the cooldown seems more like a pvp consideration.
As we can see from the above examples, spells with only cooldowns allow for powerful abilities that must be used situationally and saved when necessary instead of used on a whim. Spells with cast times improve the class's functionality while not being focus fired, and give them the ability to adversely affect their enemies. Putting both restrictions on a spell, a cast time, and a cooldown, implies the spell is so powerful that it should not be useable while focused and is so strong in effect that it cannot be repeatedly cast.
I dont think the paladin spells fall into these categories.
For one, Hammer of Wrath costs an enormous amount of mana. It is also restricted as a 20% health or below move. It exposes the Paladin's holy tree(if you're fast). It rarely kills a 19% target unless they have terrible gear. If it had no cast time, it would still be fine. If it had no cooldown but a cast time, it would be fairly strong but easily blocked by interrupts/silence, crowd control, and healing on the target. It would likely have to be increased to 1 sec cast time. Note that it will still take on average 3 casts to kill a 19% player. This is a large sum of mana, and requires the paladin divert his attention from healing and possibly become school-locked. Requiring that hammer of wrath 1)finish casting, 2)have the target below 20%, 3) have enough mana to cast the spell and expend the mana doing so 4) not be on cooldown is a little too much for such a mediocre spell.
Turn Evil affects one class, and even then only their pet. It exposes the holy tree. Being able to use it instantly is only detrimental to warlocks, who have the benefit of being able to by themselves completely lock out a holy paladin from play. Its only use is to cast freely during the fear, and after the first spell lock, additional fears are relatively pointless. Examples:
No cooldown - The first TE could be spell locked. A recast on TE is insignificant, spell lock is still cooling down. A TE cast AS spell lock cools down can buy a few seconds, but the warlock knows when this can occur and can position to counter it. This is where some marginal drinking benefit could come into play. However, leaving combat and 4 sec drinking would make this fairly useless unless combined with say, a banish that did not resist somehow. A 2nd TE would last 5 seconds. With the drink change it is unlikely that the paladin would get much benefit from drinking if undisturbed by any other players. Spell lock is still useable on any cast and the warlock loses very little in combat options.
No cast time - A viable crowd control move against one class for ten seconds. TU can still be dispelled, and warlocks are a class that arguably has the most control against a paladin anyway. However the warlock can be assured of being able to spell lock the paladin after these 10 seconds are up.
See? Improving Turn Evil would not make paladins overpowered. In fact, it only put them in line with other abilities, but even then against only one class, and beyond that, just their pet.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Uncrushability
This is probably the most annoying mechanic about paladin tanking. Low end paladin tanks have awful mitigation(55-58%) while druids can easily approach 70% from armor. This is in addition to paladins having to gem avoidance or gear for shield block rating to reach uncrushability. Even with nearly full badge/ZA gear my tank is still edging on crushability. If I decided to use an arena shield I would fall into crushability. Should this really even occur? I have SBR on my shoulders,ring,and gloves, and shield. I should not have to sacrifice so many itemization points just to become uncrushable. I already hybridize my gemming to obtain socket bonuses while including avoidance, but I'd much rather just be gemming stamina. Not only are Stars of Elune dirt cheap right now, they're the most effective gems when your healers are competent/geared.
Redoubt should really add 5% passive block, even 10% would not be overpowered. Paladin gearing is far too complicated for being a watered down warrior tank. If we are to be "specialized" as AoE tanks but "capable" of raid tanking, then additional passive block does not seem out of the question. Being presented with a clear upgrade but being unable to use it because of becoming crushable is absolutely ridiculous. A gem option to add SBR would be fine too, but would just be smothering the problem instead of fixing it.
Some people argue that crushing blows are not the end of the world and that uncrushability doesn't matter until post/late kara. While this can be true, crushing blows still :
1)Increase the overall damage you take, costing extra healer mana.
2)Drastically improve monster capacity to RNG gib you. Back to back crushings can drop you faster than progression geared healers can heal you for.
Tank gearing is about smoothing incoming damage and being able to sustain as much damage as you can before dying. Dodge, parry, block, and miss change serve to reduce mana consumption by healers.
As a paladin, you have the lowest baseline mitigation (6%) against physical damage, which comprises most of the damage a tank expects to take. You also have poor hitpoints until your gear starts to reach T5-ish level. These two factors make crushes extremely dangerous for paladins, moreso than even druids that cannot avoid crushings.
Redoubt should really add 5% passive block, even 10% would not be overpowered. Paladin gearing is far too complicated for being a watered down warrior tank. If we are to be "specialized" as AoE tanks but "capable" of raid tanking, then additional passive block does not seem out of the question. Being presented with a clear upgrade but being unable to use it because of becoming crushable is absolutely ridiculous. A gem option to add SBR would be fine too, but would just be smothering the problem instead of fixing it.
Some people argue that crushing blows are not the end of the world and that uncrushability doesn't matter until post/late kara. While this can be true, crushing blows still :
1)Increase the overall damage you take, costing extra healer mana.
2)Drastically improve monster capacity to RNG gib you. Back to back crushings can drop you faster than progression geared healers can heal you for.
Tank gearing is about smoothing incoming damage and being able to sustain as much damage as you can before dying. Dodge, parry, block, and miss change serve to reduce mana consumption by healers.
As a paladin, you have the lowest baseline mitigation (6%) against physical damage, which comprises most of the damage a tank expects to take. You also have poor hitpoints until your gear starts to reach T5-ish level. These two factors make crushes extremely dangerous for paladins, moreso than even druids that cannot avoid crushings.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Bandaid fixed in prot, what about ret?
Its a well known fact that ret paladins need more stats to function than other melee classes.
A naked warrior has 1200 more HP than a paladin.
For protection, we get 16% Stamina to counteract this imbalance(as well as gaining no stats from our ranged slot).
While this is indeed fantastic for protection paladins, ret paladins are left with very mediocre hit point pools. Not only is our base hp lower, but we devote item points toward int which drastically cuts down our stamina.
Comparing Warrior to Paladin 5/5 Vengeful we have :
+16 Str
-54 Sta
+119 Int
-252 ArP
-31 Crit Rating
+45 Resil
The paladin set is fairly well itemized, and the problem is not really the set itself, but a combination of that and the base totals for our class. Starting with a 1200 hp handicap combined with another 54 Sta + 3/3 Vind puts paladins over 2000 health behind warriors. As a melee class with the least defensive options versus magic, this is particularly devastating as plate is useless against spells.
A geared out paladin expects to have about 10000 HP, while a warrior will have something like 12500. a 25% increase in health points is fairly large in terms of survivability, and warriors sacrifice very little to obtain this. I would say a STR->INT conversion at this point is necessary to allow ret to function properly in PvP. Even if it scaled to some ridiculous level where ret paladins were getting to 9k mana, there isn't much of a consequence to game balance. Ret paladins still have no active regen, and their HP/sec while healing doesnt make a larger mana pool ridiculously overpowered. Even better would be to allow retribution to regain mana when dealing damage as a function of damage dealt or max mana.
Bottom line : Because paladin damage and healing are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE, deriving additional int for free and gaining other stats does not drastically improve paladin hybrid function or power. When a paladin heals his teammate, he is unable to move. This is compared against say, a druid that can heal his teammate while moving(albeit for very little), or to a lesser extent a shadow priest that can swap out to heal while dots tic(and heal from VE). With no closer move such as ShS/Intercept/and Sprint/Dash to a lesser degree, the paladin loses more damage than just his swing timer as he attempts to catch up to his opponent.
A naked warrior has 1200 more HP than a paladin.
For protection, we get 16% Stamina to counteract this imbalance(as well as gaining no stats from our ranged slot).
While this is indeed fantastic for protection paladins, ret paladins are left with very mediocre hit point pools. Not only is our base hp lower, but we devote item points toward int which drastically cuts down our stamina.
Comparing Warrior to Paladin 5/5 Vengeful we have :
+16 Str
-54 Sta
+119 Int
-252 ArP
-31 Crit Rating
+45 Resil
The paladin set is fairly well itemized, and the problem is not really the set itself, but a combination of that and the base totals for our class. Starting with a 1200 hp handicap combined with another 54 Sta + 3/3 Vind puts paladins over 2000 health behind warriors. As a melee class with the least defensive options versus magic, this is particularly devastating as plate is useless against spells.
A geared out paladin expects to have about 10000 HP, while a warrior will have something like 12500. a 25% increase in health points is fairly large in terms of survivability, and warriors sacrifice very little to obtain this. I would say a STR->INT conversion at this point is necessary to allow ret to function properly in PvP. Even if it scaled to some ridiculous level where ret paladins were getting to 9k mana, there isn't much of a consequence to game balance. Ret paladins still have no active regen, and their HP/sec while healing doesnt make a larger mana pool ridiculously overpowered. Even better would be to allow retribution to regain mana when dealing damage as a function of damage dealt or max mana.
Bottom line : Because paladin damage and healing are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE, deriving additional int for free and gaining other stats does not drastically improve paladin hybrid function or power. When a paladin heals his teammate, he is unable to move. This is compared against say, a druid that can heal his teammate while moving(albeit for very little), or to a lesser extent a shadow priest that can swap out to heal while dots tic(and heal from VE). With no closer move such as ShS/Intercept/and Sprint/Dash to a lesser degree, the paladin loses more damage than just his swing timer as he attempts to catch up to his opponent.
Monday, April 28, 2008
History Lesson
Taking a trek back in time, some ridiculous paladin "fixes", nerfs, bugs, and stuff that just doesnt make any sense.
Seal of the Crusader - This one is huge. SoTC used to be the damage seal, provided great baseline physical damage to any paladin, and only did as much overall dps as Windfury with NO burst whatsoever. It was then nerfed to just forcibly change your weapon speed so your autoattack dps remained the same. The recent SoTC/CS ptr change is simply doubly logged as a fix to this change, all that occurs now is SoTC adds 40% CS damage to make up for the 40% swing speed reduction(fuzzy math but I'm too lazy to work the numbers). Why shamans and blood elf paladins have better baseline melee dps than "melee hybrid" alliance paladins, I have no clue. For all the naysayers:
10 swings pre nerf-
Windfury Weapon - 20% chance for 2 attacks at additional AP = 14 attacks every 10 swings. 4 of those have additional AP
SoTC - IIRC 40% more attacks at additional AP = 14 attacks every 10 "swing timers". Each swing has additional AP.
So less burst for slightly more sustained DPS. This seemed balanced to me. Both moves were baseline, heck SoTC was purgeable and that was a huge problem in paladin vs shaman fights. Being different, but having the same overall effect was fine with me. Then SoTC got nerfed and paladin dps went to the pisser.
Spell Critical/Illumination - Pre BC it was way too hard to stack spell crit, and itemization for paladins was horrendous(and still is, sometimes). When TBC hit and spell crit was being stacked everywhere, and illumination became too strong with a shadow priest. Solution? Nerf illumination. Unfortunately our PVP sets didnt get re-itemized with this nerf and continue to have ZERO mp/5.
BoP+Judgement - Since judgements induce autoattack, you cannot judge while bop'd. This is a rather silly change and they say its not fixable. Not fixable? Are you kidding me?
CC+Judgement - For a while now, casting a judgement at the same time as eating a CC has resulted in a lost seal+mana, but no judgement effect.
BoS+BoF Nerf - I was fine with the BoF nerf, but the BoS one was ridiculous. With paladins still having no hot/instant heal worth a damn, BoS was one of our only ways to mitigate dot damage on our teammates while being CC'd. Against a mage BoS still required significant blessing swapping. You could freedom to remove a root(cleanse versus winterschill... yeah good luck), but would have to apply bosac immediately, leaving your teammate open to snares once more. With the changes to allow all buffs to be seen by enemies, the BoS nerf needs to be undone. Its very easy to tell who its on, and who you can snare at will.
Mass Dispel - Again, Paladins are no longer the PvP healing juggernauts they once were. I dont think this one even needs an explanation.
Aura Removal - Cyclone used to cancel auras permanently and it was working as intended. Are you kidding me? This one eventually got reverted but it sure took a while.
Reckoning Bombs - The infinite charge reckoning bomb was admittedly broken, but the current incarnation is relatively useless outside of pve server aoe farming. Single target threat typically isnt a large issue for paladin tanks, and paladin kiteability makes the current reckoning very useless in a pvp situation. Being able to save up damage while kited was a key benefit of this talent, much like a warrior that gains rage from second wind/damage while kited. When he arrives at the target and gets his few seconds of damage in, those seconds are quite lethal(HS/MS/WW). This talent may see more use in WotLK if the higher ret talents prove useless. A reckoning/CS/sacred duty build would be great for arenas.
Divine Purpose - This talent needs a rework, as crit damage reduction is capped at 25%. It was a decent bandaid when paladin ret gear had no resilience but now this talent needs to be in line with the druid and priest talents that were changed due to the reduction cap. Changing it to say, an on crit buff that increases damage dealt by 5%, and damage taken by -5%, stackable to 3 would be fine. Paladins suffer greatly under focus fire, and have very few escape moves. Alternatively, this talent could be the new reckoning, perhaps offering 5% damage mitigation, stackable to 3. On swing, uses all charges for extra attacks. This would allow a focused paladin to choose between defense or offense, with consequences in each. Its current incarnation leaves much to be desired, as crit damage reduction is not nearly as valuable as the mana burn/dot reduction that I'm fairly certain this talent does not provide.
Seal of Command - Should not be PPM, nuff said really. Weapon speed drastically affects SoC performance, as slower weapons not only increase the proc rate, but increase proc damage as well.
This list is not comprehensive, but its a good outline of the crap this class has been through.
Seal of the Crusader - This one is huge. SoTC used to be the damage seal, provided great baseline physical damage to any paladin, and only did as much overall dps as Windfury with NO burst whatsoever. It was then nerfed to just forcibly change your weapon speed so your autoattack dps remained the same. The recent SoTC/CS ptr change is simply doubly logged as a fix to this change, all that occurs now is SoTC adds 40% CS damage to make up for the 40% swing speed reduction(fuzzy math but I'm too lazy to work the numbers). Why shamans and blood elf paladins have better baseline melee dps than "melee hybrid" alliance paladins, I have no clue. For all the naysayers:
10 swings pre nerf-
Windfury Weapon - 20% chance for 2 attacks at additional AP = 14 attacks every 10 swings. 4 of those have additional AP
SoTC - IIRC 40% more attacks at additional AP = 14 attacks every 10 "swing timers". Each swing has additional AP.
So less burst for slightly more sustained DPS. This seemed balanced to me. Both moves were baseline, heck SoTC was purgeable and that was a huge problem in paladin vs shaman fights. Being different, but having the same overall effect was fine with me. Then SoTC got nerfed and paladin dps went to the pisser.
Spell Critical/Illumination - Pre BC it was way too hard to stack spell crit, and itemization for paladins was horrendous(and still is, sometimes). When TBC hit and spell crit was being stacked everywhere, and illumination became too strong with a shadow priest. Solution? Nerf illumination. Unfortunately our PVP sets didnt get re-itemized with this nerf and continue to have ZERO mp/5.
BoP+Judgement - Since judgements induce autoattack, you cannot judge while bop'd. This is a rather silly change and they say its not fixable. Not fixable? Are you kidding me?
CC+Judgement - For a while now, casting a judgement at the same time as eating a CC has resulted in a lost seal+mana, but no judgement effect.
BoS+BoF Nerf - I was fine with the BoF nerf, but the BoS one was ridiculous. With paladins still having no hot/instant heal worth a damn, BoS was one of our only ways to mitigate dot damage on our teammates while being CC'd. Against a mage BoS still required significant blessing swapping. You could freedom to remove a root(cleanse versus winterschill... yeah good luck), but would have to apply bosac immediately, leaving your teammate open to snares once more. With the changes to allow all buffs to be seen by enemies, the BoS nerf needs to be undone. Its very easy to tell who its on, and who you can snare at will.
Mass Dispel - Again, Paladins are no longer the PvP healing juggernauts they once were. I dont think this one even needs an explanation.
Aura Removal - Cyclone used to cancel auras permanently and it was working as intended. Are you kidding me? This one eventually got reverted but it sure took a while.
Reckoning Bombs - The infinite charge reckoning bomb was admittedly broken, but the current incarnation is relatively useless outside of pve server aoe farming. Single target threat typically isnt a large issue for paladin tanks, and paladin kiteability makes the current reckoning very useless in a pvp situation. Being able to save up damage while kited was a key benefit of this talent, much like a warrior that gains rage from second wind/damage while kited. When he arrives at the target and gets his few seconds of damage in, those seconds are quite lethal(HS/MS/WW). This talent may see more use in WotLK if the higher ret talents prove useless. A reckoning/CS/sacred duty build would be great for arenas.
Divine Purpose - This talent needs a rework, as crit damage reduction is capped at 25%. It was a decent bandaid when paladin ret gear had no resilience but now this talent needs to be in line with the druid and priest talents that were changed due to the reduction cap. Changing it to say, an on crit buff that increases damage dealt by 5%, and damage taken by -5%, stackable to 3 would be fine. Paladins suffer greatly under focus fire, and have very few escape moves. Alternatively, this talent could be the new reckoning, perhaps offering 5% damage mitigation, stackable to 3. On swing, uses all charges for extra attacks. This would allow a focused paladin to choose between defense or offense, with consequences in each. Its current incarnation leaves much to be desired, as crit damage reduction is not nearly as valuable as the mana burn/dot reduction that I'm fairly certain this talent does not provide.
Seal of Command - Should not be PPM, nuff said really. Weapon speed drastically affects SoC performance, as slower weapons not only increase the proc rate, but increase proc damage as well.
This list is not comprehensive, but its a good outline of the crap this class has been through.
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