Siawn

Excellent. This is exactly what I wanted to hear. After BC, I'm more than ready for skill to make me competitive, rather than just a slightly less terrible buffbot. I am curious though.... How are the other "hybrids" faring in Naxx meters? Are Priests, Druids, and Shaman equally as competitive in damage?

 

Mode

Balance druids: Doing great.
Feral druids: No clue.
Shadow priests: Not very far above the tanks.
Ele shaman: Often has trouble beating the tanks.
Enhance shaman: Pretty great.

 

Cathela

Isn't that true of everyone now?

[e]: Ah, right. You mean beating the tanks for dps, not for threat. Sorry.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

• Avitus

I've seen some pretty amazing Spriest DPS. Could have been a few patches ago however.

As said previously, with Gear being such a massive factor right now, it's really hard to pin down if that's what's creating these DPS breakdowns or if it's class, or even skill.

 

flyingtoastr

Q: What are the plans for sacred cleansing?
A: I don't have an answer to that. it's something on the white board list, but i don't have a big unveil for it yet.

Save Atlantis!

 

Rasputin

I dunno, I prefer that answer to "We think it's a fun talent and is powerful, and have no plans to change it". At least it's under review.

 

flyingtoastr

Pally Q/A stuff:

Q: One of the cool things about classes is the art styles. will pallys and druids ever see their relic have some graphic?
A: We'd love to have some physical representation, but we don't have any plans currently. it's something we'll definitely consider.

No visible librams...

Q: The sound for HoR is so annoying and needs to be changed. as far as taunting, the 3 target taunt is great until you're trying to taunt one thing and is there any chance the 11 point talent would be a single target taunt.
A: It wouldn't be a 11 point talent. it'd be pretty lame to have to spec down into that. there's a glyph to make it single target but it comes down to how similar do the classes have to be? we had to change the DK because it was too much like warriors and druids.

There's a glyph to make RD not suck?

Q: About holy pallies, the relationship between classes and talent specs. the classes provide a framework and the trees allow you to specialize around that framework. the holy tree keeps pallys away from melee as much as possible, but are there plans to keep them with that paladin ideal?
A: We wanted to make tanking more fun and the next thing to look at ont he list will be healing. we did add death grip to DK to keep the holy pally in melee range.

Didn't answer the question.

Q: I pvp as a holy pally and i was wondering with cyclone and mind control. pallys have no great offensive pvp ability so will we get something?
A: It's a valid concern and we're keeping our eye on other healers. they have a lot of offensive abilities and we're going to keep our eye on pallys and try to help them out.

Good to hear.

Q: The 11 point talent has always been defining, pallys have kings but it was moved. we don't have that class defining talent anymore now that RF has no mitigation.
A: Warriors got a lot of what pallies can do, and now pallies can do what warriors do. we'll definitely end up giving pallies something else, but we need to see where protection tanking takes us.

So we will get an 11-point talent, just not for a while because they want to see how the class works without one?

Q: As a 2k holy paladin, when I do a heroic its sort of hard its hard for me to heal the whole group in the dungeon when there's a boss that does aoe dmg since pallies are a single target healer.
A: Beacon of light is really supposed to be the spell that covers that role. there are talents that will help with flash of heals but your big aoe is beacon of light.

If this was the WoW boards I would have a giant ASCII facepalm right about here.

Save Atlantis!

 

annerajb

I am tempted to do BS and Enchanting on my RET paladin now that it has been confirmed.

 

allythepally

The impression I got from his answer was, "We know prot's missing their 11-pointer, and we're holding it in reserve to fix whatever is (inevitably) broken." IIRC, he said prot would be getting a real 11-pointer in no uncertain terms, but it won't be present at release.



Re: Holy Shock scaling with Benedection, Glyph of Seal of Wisdom, and extra crit: I went all out and made a spreadsheet.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...VfHWcKjypQp1TQ
Conclusions are at the top of the sheet, detailed formulas below. At low spellpower levels, Holy Shock is actually more efficient than Flash, but of course Flash scales a lot better. However, with high crit percentages Holy Shock remains quite reasonable in efficiency, especially given its instant nature and ability to proc Infusion. It really seems like it could be the "middle heal" we've been needing.

One interesting thing I learned is that the coefficient on FoL is not 100%. Even with no talents, there's a boost of 1000 (exactly!) healing with 992 spellpower, or a coefficient of ~1.009. The coefficient on Holy Shock (tested without having Healing Light) is ~.8065.

 

DdarkDdemon

Look at all of the answer, most don't answer the question(s).


Beacon of light isn't for healing huge AoE damage in it's current form on current content.
It's a band-aid ability (I want to be able to do roughly 3k healing to 5 targets, let's give them an ability that needs to be kept up and heals only two), and it's very inconsistant with what they said earlier.
Earlier was said that they didn't want to put a taunt as 11 prot talent because it would be lame to have to specc down that.
(Which I interpret as: it would be lame for ret and holy to have to specc down 11 pnts prot to be able to tank)

I don't dislike Beacon of light, but it's not what I would have prefered as new ability.
Oh well, it's much better than divine illumination anyhow...

 

SirSilk

I don't understand how they consider beacon to be an AoE. It just baffles me.

 

Palados

Because it heals more than 1 person probably? Lame excuse, but strictly speaking we are not purely single target healer anymore if specced into BoL. We will be like druids on live now. They could HoT tank and then spend GCD on group members healing them. Instead of HoTing, paladins will BoL tank and heal group members. Druids showed that AoE heal is not needed as soon as you could keep tank alive while spending GCD on group members.

 

Spiry

There's a difference between Area of Effect and Multi Target.
Circle of Healing is aoe.
Chain heal is Multi target.

Arcane explosion is aoe.
multi-shot is multi target.

Beacon of Light is a multi target heal in my book, but unlike chain heal it is limited to two targets, although both get (potentially) the full healing amount. Chain heal's bonus is that it can cover three people (4 glyphed iirc).

I also feel beacon is a tad unwieldy compared to CH.

 

• Avitus

From MMO-Champion:

That's pretty cool. I was starting to worry about having to find a Lexicon of Power every time I respec to re-Glyph and how that goes completely against trying to make respeccing faster/more comfortable, however this is very good news.

As paladins of course it would be even better if we could have 5 specs to switch through (Ret, Holy, Prot, PvP Ret, PvP Holy). 4 backup specs please? No? Ok

The only problem is the overheal constraint, which makes you unable to rely on BoL. Someone snipes the heal you're throwing on your group member making your heal just land as overheal and the tank with BoL dies. It's not as reliable as "set and forget" HoTs (+Swiftmend/NS for emergency).

This means that while nice under optimal conditions (5 man, and select "smart" 10 mans) it might be good, under normal conditions (25 man raid with cross healing) you'll simply have to heal as if it doesn't exist (you can't blindly rely on it), making it an occasional perk.

Also any chain heals/group heals/PoM/earth shield and what not (basically any random heals flying around) all risk making BoL useless when you are counting on it.

One solution I can see is to do something about the overhealing constraint. Make overhealing heal for 50% or apply a HoT for the amount overhealed or something like that to make BoL more reliable.

Anyway, I wanted to point out that you can't directly draw this analogy, however this topic has been done to death so I'll leave it at that.

 

Sparticusrex

At level 70, I can see where you would say this, but at 80 5/5 SotP doesn't seem overly difficult to get in a pure pve build. SoC would be unnecessary, which would allow you to get all the DPS increasing talents (in addition to the 5 in SotP) and leave you with 5 flex points to choose from either Kings, Imp BoM/Guardian's Favor, or whatever other utility you wish to bring to the raid. Is there some talent I'm overlooking in this spec?

Also, your assessment of SoR (/w SotP) > SoB is based off of SoL properly affecting SoR, correct? I was under the assumption that this is currently bugged, but under review.

 

Redcape

You will most likely be forced to spec kings. Once you get every single utility and dps talent with kings you can't finish off SotP. Depending on raid makeup it may (or may not) be reasonable to get SotP.

 

Anedris

I think Blizzard probably sees beacon like this:

- In 5-person instances where you're the only healer, beacon functions as a completely reliable way to keep the tank up while healing your group (you're the only healer so no one else is going to snipe anything). Vexallus, for example, would be an awful lot easier with beacon.
- In raid content, you should be assigned to MT-heal and beacon becomes just a useful trick in the bag. Paladins are the strongest single-target healers so that's what they should be doing. (Detailed healing assignments can prevent heal sniping most of the time as well - generally if your heals are being consistently sniped you brought too many healers, unless the encounter is Twins but let's hope they never make another Twins again.)

Of course, this still leaves paladins without a true AoE heal which will be problematic on e.g. 2-holydin 10-person raids. A multi-target heal can probably cover everything AoE heals are used for in 5-person instances, but it's not quite the same as an AoE heal and the difference will show if Blizz makes e.g. another Felmyst. How big an issue this will be is heavily dependent on encounter design, though (given that Blizz has confessed that they designed SWP to be anti-holydin they're presumably aware of this... I hope, anyways.)

 

Sparticusrex

If this is the case you won't be needing Imp BoM (unless you are the only paladin in the raid... unlikely, given the desirability for at least 2 in a 25 man). SoC is pointless if your PvE seal of choice is going to be SoR. Really the only sacrifice is 2 points in Guardian's Favor for getting the full 5 in Kings. [Link to Build]

Truth be told, I'm uncertain how (outside of fringe cases) you would be unable to work in 5 SotP (and thus maximizing your personal DPS with SoR). At most you lose ~138 AP to your BoM (in favor of Kings) which would be negated by a Warrior with Commanding Presence. Kings is more generically beneficial to a raid anyways (assuming you are not extremely physical heavy).

 

flyingtoastr

Losing Improved Ret Aura is a non-trivial TPS and DPS loss for your tanks. With 5000 AP your ret aura should be hitting for ~315 improved versus 210 non-improved, so even assuming a slow boss attack speed of 2 seconds you're dropping ~100 TPS for a prot pally and ~77 TPS for the other tanking classes. The DPS loss isn't substantial but it is there.

It comes down to the fact that you have to have 5 points in prot and 56 in ret as a baseline. Given that ret is the only spec that can pick up Kings nicely you're left with 5 extra points. You can shove them into SotP or put them into utility.

Incidentally "not speccing Improved BoM doesn't matter" is a giant middle finger to your hunters. Your DPS warriors most likely won't appreciate it either given that you only have to bless every half hour.

Save Atlantis!

 

Sparticusrex

First of all, this assumes there are no other paladins in the raid. Given the benefits of both JoL and JoW, you will want at least 2. Most Holy specs will have Imp BoM (which would indeed make the ret pally speccing Imp BoM irrelevant) on the way to picking up Conviction/Sanctified Seals. If its 10 mans that you are concerned about, you are just as likely not to have a hunter as you are to have a 2nd pally. I don't see asking a warrior to hit an ability once or twice extra over the course of a fight in a 10 man as a huge burden given the fact that you will be giving him Kings for his efforts. Middle fingers averted?

Additionally, the DPS loss from your tank shouldn't even be mentioned. The point of having 5 in SotP is to maximize DPS. If 5 points in SotP does NOT make up for the ~55 DPS you lose from your tank, then I would agree with your argument. I don't think this is the case. Net result? RDPS gain with SotP.

The one good point that you do offer is the loss of TPS. ~77 TPS seems a bit high, however, as you are assuming the tank is getting hit EVERY swing. Does a parry, dodge, and miss all proc the recoil damage? Granted you were being generous with the 2.0 boss swing speed, but avoidance should more than make up for that (especially on druid tanks). Ironically, as a tank's gear gets better and the amount of avoidance increases, the TPS gained from Retribution Aura recoil should actually get lower. Does this really warrant 2 talent points over the increase in DPS that SotP provides? All that aside, whats an approximate figure for TPS generated from our LK tanks? DPS numbers look much much higher... If TPS numbers have increased similarly (and there is no reason to believe this is not the case) then the relative gain of the meager 77 TPS is far less beneficial than it would be if we were still sitting at level 70 stats.

 

• Avitus

Toaster remember that the far majority of Holy paladins will have Imp BoM. If you have 2 holy paladins in raid, you should be sorted.

At the same time threat seems to be a non-issue for most tanking classes in 3.0. Unless something is changed in threat generation, I don't think dropping Imp Ret Aura will make any noticeable difference to them.

Alternatively at 80, BoL specced Holy paladins can take BoK with only minor losses (3 % spell crit).

I'm still undecided about this. It does feel somewhat like using an unintended mechanic, I just can't see SoR being the best Seal for 2h Ret by design. Sure we don't "have" to use it, but if an advantage exists, people will generally take it.

I hope something is changed here so I don't have to feel like either: A. Gimping my whole spec to squeeze out ~2-3% more total damage or B. Not taking it and knowing I could be doing ~2-3% more damage. It's a lose-lose situation.

 

flyingtoastr

A Holy Pally has to drop 3% spell crit (which is not a small loss by any stretch of the imagination) as well as 2 more extra points, usually in Pursuit of Justice or Improved Conc Aura, to pick up Kings. Can he do it? Yes, but Ret is the only tree that sacrifices only utility to pick it up. You don't lose any DPS throughput (aside from conditionals like PoJ) for speccing Kings.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just calculated it out and even with SotP SoR is coming out a little behind Blood for me.

5000 AP, 30% crit, Black Ice (570-856 dmg, 3.5 speed). No haste, hit capped, percentage modifiers of Crusade (3%), Crusade (3%), Vengeance x3 (9%), Sanctified Retribution (2%), Curse of Elements (13%), Seals of the Pure (15%), Art of War (20% crit dmg), Righteous Vengeance (25% crit dmg). Assumed Judgement ECD of 8 seconds.

Seal of Righteousness:

B: 778.75
M: 1193.65

DPS: 341.04

Judgement of Righteousness:

B: 1851
M: 2837.16
C: 6951.04
A: 5099.75

DPS: 637.47

Total SoR DPS: 978.51

Seal of Blood

B: 588.9
M: 784.91
C: 1569.82
A: 1020.38

DPS: 291.54

Judgement of Blood