Pace what Cathela said above, there's also the nontrivial point of the lessened survability that I'm looking at because of only taking 38 points in Prot (less anticipation, no AD). While Anticpation may be overcome with gear, AD can't- and frankly my primary concern is survability (backed up by what was said earlier), so failing to take something that enhances that is hard to justify in my eyes.

Avenger's is a nice ranged aggro skill (obviously something I'm missing otherwise) and more importantly, a psychological factor simply because if someone else has to pull every time it lowers confidence in you as a tank.

SO yes, I considered Sanc aura but I just can't see it being worth it. Then again, once I get some more experince I might easily do a 180.

Wouldn't it be nice if instead of Weapon expertise we'd have something like "improved spiritual attunement" wich for 2 or 5 points would give us 5% or 10% more mana back from SA. Cause it is indeed hard to keep aggro as Off tank when you arent taking much damage... I know that i'd have to re think my build setup a lot if something like that was made since i really don't know just yet what i'd give up for it...

Divine Shield and Avenging Wrath are confirmed as being tied together in 2.1 and intentional.
http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/f...67.htm?posts=1
I have a hard time seeing the motivation for this change and I call the bluff on this one being a bug. There was no indication at any point in beta from usage or spell description that this was supposed to share a cooldown with DS, only that AW caused forbearance. It's not a gamebreaker but it's silly.

I concur. I don't really see if being more than an moderate-to-large annoyance for anyone but ret paladins in pvp, which strikes me as extremely puzzling. Ret paladins needing a nerf in pvp!? Maybe some of the devs haven't installed TBC yet...

Originally my thought process was that it was reshuffling things around to give forbearance a damage nerf(I've heard -15%, though nothing is confirmed at this point); possible reasoning for that was to make it more of a "save the dying person" spell rather than a "BoP the mage so he can just go nuts" that it is sometimes used for. That could be construed as kind of a backhanded nod to prot pallies, as it makes aoe tanking a relatively stronger solution to some problems. But since then I've heard it's physical damage only, though again, nothing is confirmed. Regardless, my gut reaction is still "What game are they playing?"

They could've have just Put AW on GCD, problem solved for the AW+DS seemingly unintended. Linking CD just makes Sacred Duty a +6% stam talent since pressing AW will makes your DS 5min instead of 4min. It puzzles me why* they are doing what they are doing atm. Maybe i'm just dumb but i fail to see the logic behind all this.

Exept on the Far stretch of thing... it's just a band aid on the bigger problem wich is:

Blizzard wants a -15% dmg on Forebearance, but that would be stupid if AW still caused Forebearance. Then How can they make DS and AW mutually exclusive *if* AW no longer triggers Forebearance?

By keeping Forbearance as it is, and keeping it on all the spells it currently applies to on live, but making the -15% damage debuff a separate (and similarly undispellable) debuff triggered by DS and BOP only.

That's my initial thought in response to your question, at least.

Exactly... Why do they keep doing Band-aid fixes is beyond me

Even better, they could have triggered a 1 minute cooldown on DS on activation of AW instead of the full length cooldown. (They do it for things like trinkets now for example).

Not game-breaking, maybe, but they may as well delete AW if they put this change in. It makes it totally useless in PvP, and I won't even be using it in PvE grinding very often. I'd rather have the option of saving a repair bill by popping DS than killing a mob slightly faster.

It certainly does appear that AW is now going to be primarily used as a threat generation booster in PVE. Given the defensive nature of the class I can't really imagine using it for anything else where DS wouldn't be more effective.

For the life of me that's the only situation I can think of using it right now. Even then, probably only on a boss that's non-tauntable, since the DS+taunt trick is still handy sometimes.

Logic has never had anything to do with paladin changes... after all we still have precision in the tanking tree instead of the dps tree, parry in the dps tree instead of the tanking tree and various other talents that suck up points for minuscule benefits (imp sotc, imp devo, imp bom).

I can't even see using it in group PvE; yes, AW is nice for initial aggro, but I'd rather have DS available if I need to DS+RD, etc. Frustrating to see yet another PvP-based nerf, but that's been the recent theme of things.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...eNo=2&sid=1#23
So, now that the past page of discussion is irrelevant . . .

I had a slice of cheese pizza from the UCD MU for dinner. Good stuff.

Well that's nice, but I still think it's funny that "paladins are doing too much burst damage." Are there really problems with Ret paladins just smoking people in arenas?

I'm not even sure it'd be limited to Ret paladins, JoR + Holy Shock + Hammer is pretty parallel to Stun + JoC + CS + Hammer albeit maybe not quite as outrageous when you get the crit gravy train.

Forewarned is forearmed though (no pun intended). I would say that a Forbearance damage nerf of some sort will make its way in to the game fairly soon, probably in the next major content patch.

EDIT: I'm dumb.

4 posts above you. I suggest reading a topic before replying

How is this different from killing someone while they are stun-locked, or feared ?
How is it different from being kited to death as the only class without a snare ?

I just dont see the ability to possibly kill someone if you get lucky, or if they are already close to death, once every 5 mintues needs to be balanced. This will not affect my playstyle significantly in an arena (battle cleric, and 99.99% of the time BoP goes on the other healer), but it just seems totally unneccessary.

I also object to the fact that this will be a major nerf to shield + taunt, causing 15% less threat for the rest of the fight.

Well since they said that isn't how it is going to be changed, it's not really relevant anymore.

See there's the thing. Every paladin I have seen in arena is a cleric. They aren't meleeing, they aren't doing burst damage. I would love to play the role of a melee support healer who runs in, does significant damage, heals when possible, blesses the team, and fills a useful group role - you know, a hybrid. Basically paladins in warcraft 3 - healing weak units, but otherwise standing at the front line fighting and giving passive buffs. I love healing, but this was supposed to be a melee hybrid class, after all. I have yet to see anyone effectively pull this off in an arena where their position wouldn't more effectively be filled by a full DPS class, a DPS specced hybrid, or just a straight healer.

If anything, Ret needs *more* damage to be an effective spec in the only PvP that really matters at the moment, so I don't understand how they can feel justified in saying paladins are doing too much burst damage. Are they worried about Ret paladins smashing faces in Eye of the Storm?

I agree to a point, but the fact of the matter is we are so damn good in that role that most of the organized group paladins are going to end up doing it. In PvE Im a hardcore tankadin, but in pvp I know that I am going to win more games playing a battle-cleric than by hoping to burst out damage with some lucky crits.

I doubt any serious pvp team will be taking a ret paladin because they lack the reliable burst required for early game.

That's exactly my point. How, then, are paladins doing too much burst damage?