Why Paladin block capping is bad for the game
Posted 06/08/11 at 10:35 AM by Tyvi
First off: A huge thanks to Malthrin for helping me post this Blog and cross checking it. Thanks again!
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This blog entry is going to point out the bad effects the current Paladin mastery will have on the game from a tank's point of view, specifically that of a Death Knight (others will be mentioned briefly, too).
The warning signs
Blizzard appears to atleast be aware that the Paladin mastery is a problem as you can see from this quote:
Source
Let's focus on the "causing other undesirable effects" bit because that is the thing that will affect all tanks and healers. A 40% permanent reduction from melee swings is not good for the game, simply because bosses will have to hit harder to actually challenge block capped Paladin tanks.
In case you were not aware, something similar happened in the Cataclysm beta when Bear Druids were so significantly ahead of other tanks that Blizz had to make the raid bosses which were being tested hit much harder than they intended. In the end Blizz realized the mistake and brought down Druids to the level of the other tanks and readjusted boss damage instead of bringing all tanks up the Druid level.
The problem
And there is a good reason why: Noone likes bosses hitting so hard that they can 2 or 3 shot you. The Wrath design can rot in hell for all I care, dying to boss autoattacks because your healer(s) had to move is not my type of fun. Cataclysm was supposed to bring a different tank damage environment back into the game: One where tanks took gradual damage, healer mana mattered and where you could actually use survival CDs reactively on top of the obligatory pre-planned parts (Crackle etc) and for Tier 11 this appears to have been a success. I haven't had this much fun tanking in a while because avoiding a swing, timing CDs and so on actually mattered.
As our healers gear up, mana becomes less and less of a concern. I frankly don't remember the last time we had tank deaths because healers ran out of mana but I do remember tanks dying on Cho'gall hardmode because healers were either moving from Shadow Crash or got their cast interrupted in a Worship and so on (this is from a 10 man PoV where you can only bring 2 healers because of the DPS requirements, maybe it's not such a big problem in 25 mans but the point remains). And Cho'gall wasn't even balanced around block capped Paladins. Can you imagine a boss like him hitting 40% harder full time to accomodate for block capping? I can and I really hope it does not come to that.
The effect on tanks
This is especially true for a Death Knight who heals reactively and has to take swings to the face before their mastery can kick in. Such a mitigation method would simply not be feasible if you are always at the risk of getting 2 or 3 shot since you actually need to wait for 2 swings (ideally 3 even, but let's assume it's just 2 for the sake of argument) in your heal window to get something useful out of your Death Strike/mastery. But if you can get 3 shot, you will not wait for those 2 swings, you will most likely have to Death Strike after the first swing because not connecting your Death Strike (Why do bosses have such a massive parry chance again? Stupid archaic design that only serves to frustrate tanks... but that's a topic for another time) after you ensured those 2 swings in your heal window will most likely get you killed or put you and your healers in "emergency mode": You have to use CDs, your healers might throw theirs as well and they will have to use the high HPS heals that cost even more mana to bring you back up - even if you land your Death Strike on the next GCD. It doesn't matter anymore, the damage has been done.
Granted, Death Knights are the tanks that are affected the most when Effective Health becomes king once more since I have less armor on my Death Knight unbuffed now than I had on my Warrior at level 80 (pre-bonus armor gear, mind you). And don't get me wrong - I do not mind this one bit. I like the DK tanking design but it's going to crumble once EH is being pushed since DKs just don't have any comparable amount. Even the slightly higher stamina scaling isn't going to save DKs here and while Blizz could just ramp up that health scaling even further to fix the EH discrepancies while maintaining the flavor of low-armor tank, it just brings a whole new slew of problems (can you say magic tank niche?).
What about the other tanks?
Druids just got their defensive stance equivalent massively buffed to 18% damage reduction plus their innately higher armor. I might be wrong here, but most Druids don't stack mastery as much as the other 3 tanks anyway and focus on avoidance instead so even with a gimped Savage Defense mechanic they still look like they would be in a good place in a world where EH matters.
Warriors can only block cap through Shield Block and otherwise still risk getting hit by unblocked swings. Warriors might actually be the 2nd worst off in terms of EH since they cannot guarantee blocking like a Paladin can even though their block amount can shave off up to 60% of the damage on a crit block. Since there is a chance you can eat 2-3 unmitigated swings in a row, it is bound to happen and it is going to be just as frustrating for them as it will be for us.
(That is, until they reach the block cap themselves in 4.2 or later. That would obviously be just as bad as the Paladin block cap.)
Paladins? They obviously will not take unblocked hits. But all is not sunshine for them either since their mastery is worthless on the block cap and if my prediction of EH becoming king is correct, chances are they will actually start gemming stamina while maintaining their block cap, possibly getting even further ahead on the EH curve.
Note: This is not meant as a comparison of which tank will be OP and what not. This is just to illustrate that allowing Paladins to block cap this early in the expansion has adverse affects for all tanks (and for healers who don't want to go back to spamming tanks and risk them dying whenever they have to move - but I don't play a healer so maybe there actually are people who enjoy this playstyle).
Proposed solutions
This one really is not hard to figure out: Just make sure neither Paladins or Warriors can ever get to cap block. Return the mastery stat to it's roots; namely a stat to reduce damage taken over time. Ensure that mastery will never be reliable Effective Health while still making sure that mastery is worth it for every tank.
To elabore: A Paladin that blocks 40% of all swings for 50% damage takes just as much damage as one that blocks 80% of all swings for 25% but the latter is much more dangerous for the game as a whole because it adds to EH and in turn requires bosses to be balanced around it (assuming the missing 22.4% are filled by parry/miss/dodge, of course).
What Blizzard is doing for 4.2
Blizzard has done two things here that I can see:
1) Paladins "only" block for 30% on the PTR now while still being able to block cap. (They also received a new cooldown which is not important for EH discussion though.)
2) Mastery seems to be a lot less prevalent on the tank gear than it was in Tier 11 so block capping is presumably harder for Paladins in the new gear.
[3) Druids got a defensive stance buff. I do not know if this is only because Savage Defense falls behind the other masteries or because it is an acknowledgement that they cannot stop Paladin block capping and Blizz is ensuring that atleast Druids will not be left behind. Hence why this is in brackets.]
Both methods supposedly ensure that Blizzard does not have to balance around block capped Paladins - for the normal mode anyway. And even if they block cap, it's for 10% less damage blocked which means bosses will put less of a strain on tanks than they would have to do if the block cap was still at 40%.
What these changes however do not do is solve the issue completely. Paladins (and Warriors) will block cap eventually and healers will steadily gain more and more mana regeneration which necessites harder hitting bosses to challenge them.
All this does is delay the point at which bosses have to be balanced around block capped Paladins. It might already be for hardmodes in tier 12. Or maybe just normal mode tier 13 bosses. Either way, this is not a permanent solution.
Final words
Again, let me stress that this is not a "OMG NERF PALADINS" post. I just genuinely believe that going back to world where EH dominates is bad for the game as a whole. And I doubt I am the only one.
If Paladins get nerfed, then I expect all other tanks to get nerfed as well (including raid boss damage) and that is the price we all to pay for a more enjoyable tanking environment.
Thoughts?
----
This blog entry is going to point out the bad effects the current Paladin mastery will have on the game from a tank's point of view, specifically that of a Death Knight (others will be mentioned briefly, too).
The warning signs
Blizzard appears to atleast be aware that the Paladin mastery is a problem as you can see from this quote:
Quote:
We are in the process of trying some different numbers for various talents and mechanics on the PTR, with the goal of making it harder (or impossible) to cap mastery. What we want to avoid is making mastery worthless or causing other undesirable effects.
Let's focus on the "causing other undesirable effects" bit because that is the thing that will affect all tanks and healers. A 40% permanent reduction from melee swings is not good for the game, simply because bosses will have to hit harder to actually challenge block capped Paladin tanks.
In case you were not aware, something similar happened in the Cataclysm beta when Bear Druids were so significantly ahead of other tanks that Blizz had to make the raid bosses which were being tested hit much harder than they intended. In the end Blizz realized the mistake and brought down Druids to the level of the other tanks and readjusted boss damage instead of bringing all tanks up the Druid level.
The problem
And there is a good reason why: Noone likes bosses hitting so hard that they can 2 or 3 shot you. The Wrath design can rot in hell for all I care, dying to boss autoattacks because your healer(s) had to move is not my type of fun. Cataclysm was supposed to bring a different tank damage environment back into the game: One where tanks took gradual damage, healer mana mattered and where you could actually use survival CDs reactively on top of the obligatory pre-planned parts (Crackle etc) and for Tier 11 this appears to have been a success. I haven't had this much fun tanking in a while because avoiding a swing, timing CDs and so on actually mattered.
As our healers gear up, mana becomes less and less of a concern. I frankly don't remember the last time we had tank deaths because healers ran out of mana but I do remember tanks dying on Cho'gall hardmode because healers were either moving from Shadow Crash or got their cast interrupted in a Worship and so on (this is from a 10 man PoV where you can only bring 2 healers because of the DPS requirements, maybe it's not such a big problem in 25 mans but the point remains). And Cho'gall wasn't even balanced around block capped Paladins. Can you imagine a boss like him hitting 40% harder full time to accomodate for block capping? I can and I really hope it does not come to that.
The effect on tanks
This is especially true for a Death Knight who heals reactively and has to take swings to the face before their mastery can kick in. Such a mitigation method would simply not be feasible if you are always at the risk of getting 2 or 3 shot since you actually need to wait for 2 swings (ideally 3 even, but let's assume it's just 2 for the sake of argument) in your heal window to get something useful out of your Death Strike/mastery. But if you can get 3 shot, you will not wait for those 2 swings, you will most likely have to Death Strike after the first swing because not connecting your Death Strike (Why do bosses have such a massive parry chance again? Stupid archaic design that only serves to frustrate tanks... but that's a topic for another time) after you ensured those 2 swings in your heal window will most likely get you killed or put you and your healers in "emergency mode": You have to use CDs, your healers might throw theirs as well and they will have to use the high HPS heals that cost even more mana to bring you back up - even if you land your Death Strike on the next GCD. It doesn't matter anymore, the damage has been done.
Granted, Death Knights are the tanks that are affected the most when Effective Health becomes king once more since I have less armor on my Death Knight unbuffed now than I had on my Warrior at level 80 (pre-bonus armor gear, mind you). And don't get me wrong - I do not mind this one bit. I like the DK tanking design but it's going to crumble once EH is being pushed since DKs just don't have any comparable amount. Even the slightly higher stamina scaling isn't going to save DKs here and while Blizz could just ramp up that health scaling even further to fix the EH discrepancies while maintaining the flavor of low-armor tank, it just brings a whole new slew of problems (can you say magic tank niche?).
What about the other tanks?
Druids just got their defensive stance equivalent massively buffed to 18% damage reduction plus their innately higher armor. I might be wrong here, but most Druids don't stack mastery as much as the other 3 tanks anyway and focus on avoidance instead so even with a gimped Savage Defense mechanic they still look like they would be in a good place in a world where EH matters.
Warriors can only block cap through Shield Block and otherwise still risk getting hit by unblocked swings. Warriors might actually be the 2nd worst off in terms of EH since they cannot guarantee blocking like a Paladin can even though their block amount can shave off up to 60% of the damage on a crit block. Since there is a chance you can eat 2-3 unmitigated swings in a row, it is bound to happen and it is going to be just as frustrating for them as it will be for us.
(That is, until they reach the block cap themselves in 4.2 or later. That would obviously be just as bad as the Paladin block cap.)
Paladins? They obviously will not take unblocked hits. But all is not sunshine for them either since their mastery is worthless on the block cap and if my prediction of EH becoming king is correct, chances are they will actually start gemming stamina while maintaining their block cap, possibly getting even further ahead on the EH curve.
Note: This is not meant as a comparison of which tank will be OP and what not. This is just to illustrate that allowing Paladins to block cap this early in the expansion has adverse affects for all tanks (and for healers who don't want to go back to spamming tanks and risk them dying whenever they have to move - but I don't play a healer so maybe there actually are people who enjoy this playstyle).
Proposed solutions
This one really is not hard to figure out: Just make sure neither Paladins or Warriors can ever get to cap block. Return the mastery stat to it's roots; namely a stat to reduce damage taken over time. Ensure that mastery will never be reliable Effective Health while still making sure that mastery is worth it for every tank.
To elabore: A Paladin that blocks 40% of all swings for 50% damage takes just as much damage as one that blocks 80% of all swings for 25% but the latter is much more dangerous for the game as a whole because it adds to EH and in turn requires bosses to be balanced around it (assuming the missing 22.4% are filled by parry/miss/dodge, of course).
What Blizzard is doing for 4.2
Blizzard has done two things here that I can see:
1) Paladins "only" block for 30% on the PTR now while still being able to block cap. (They also received a new cooldown which is not important for EH discussion though.)
2) Mastery seems to be a lot less prevalent on the tank gear than it was in Tier 11 so block capping is presumably harder for Paladins in the new gear.
[3) Druids got a defensive stance buff. I do not know if this is only because Savage Defense falls behind the other masteries or because it is an acknowledgement that they cannot stop Paladin block capping and Blizz is ensuring that atleast Druids will not be left behind. Hence why this is in brackets.]
Both methods supposedly ensure that Blizzard does not have to balance around block capped Paladins - for the normal mode anyway. And even if they block cap, it's for 10% less damage blocked which means bosses will put less of a strain on tanks than they would have to do if the block cap was still at 40%.
What these changes however do not do is solve the issue completely. Paladins (and Warriors) will block cap eventually and healers will steadily gain more and more mana regeneration which necessites harder hitting bosses to challenge them.
All this does is delay the point at which bosses have to be balanced around block capped Paladins. It might already be for hardmodes in tier 12. Or maybe just normal mode tier 13 bosses. Either way, this is not a permanent solution.
Final words
Again, let me stress that this is not a "OMG NERF PALADINS" post. I just genuinely believe that going back to world where EH dominates is bad for the game as a whole. And I doubt I am the only one.
If Paladins get nerfed, then I expect all other tanks to get nerfed as well (including raid boss damage) and that is the price we all to pay for a more enjoyable tanking environment.
Thoughts?
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The tank Q&A is out now, here are the relevant snippets:
Quote:
Q: What are your intentions with each tank's mastery and mastery in general?
Paladins: Mastery is an attractive stat for paladins, but has some design problems. It scales very well, but due to the nature of our combat tables (and being able to “fill them up”), you can get “block capped,” which is a massive performance benefit. Worse, Protection mastery scales with itself, since there are no diminishing returns on block chance, and the amount of rating you need to block cap goes down as your dodge and parry improve, allowing you to put even more of your stats into dodge or parry. This sort of feedback loop is something we always try to stay away from, so we plan to change this in the future. We tried several alternatives for 4.2, but weren’t happy with the results. Any change which made mastery weaker (such as subjecting block to diminishing returns or changing what it does) would have required mitigation compensation for paladins elsewhere (with all the design risks inherent in making such changes), as well as asking many players to extensively re-gem or re-forge. We’ll ask players to do that when the need is great, but we didn’t think this problem crossed that line. The major risks are that Protection paladins become too powerful or too weak or that gear with mastery will at some point be rejected once characters are over the cap. We don’t think any of those problems will manifest themselves in the 4.2 content. Warriors: Warriors’ mastery is in a similar boat as paladins’, except that it still provides a notable benefit past the cap and scales much slower, making it much more difficult to “block cap.” That delays, but doesn’t remove the problem. Looks like the devs are atleast on the same page regarding block capping. They even admitted that 4.2 does not fix the issues permanently at all. Here is to hoping they are correct about Paladins and Warriors having a hard time capping with the new gear and that they will actually find a true fix for block capping inbetween 4.2 and 4.3. That's good news, I guess, though I am dubious that Paladins won't be able to block cap anyway. But even if they do, the bosses are atleast not balanced around it which ultimately just makes Paladins better tanks for the hardmodes but doesn't prevent the other tanks with lower EH from succeeding either. I can live with that. |
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Recent Blog Entries by Tyvi
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