That is not how you tone down pally representation in arenas. That is how you ensure that the pallies that are in arenas stick with straight hybrid builds- the exact same builds everyone's been complaining about all this time.
If you want to fix overpowered paladins in arenas, force them out of ret's utility, control, and mana regeneration by buffing holy's straight healing ability
That all makes sense, and the hybrid spec may still be too powerful. But you don't fix the hybrid spec by buffing holy - you fix it by further moving or nerfing the ret talents. Otherwise you just trade an overpowered hybrid spec for an overpowered holy spec.
That all makes sense, and the hybrid spec may still be too powerful. But you don't fix the hybrid spec by buffing holy - you fix it by further moving or nerfing the ret talents. Otherwise you just trade an overpowered hybrid spec for an overpowered holy spec.
But people aren't saying "paladins heal for too much" or we'd be hearing a lot more about druids and shaman, whose straight healing output can rival ours in live. What makes paladins unkillable is repentance, BoF, and infinite mana. That doesnt mean you have to nurf those things, it means that if paladins at least had a choice of improved healing talents in deep holy, we could take them.
Offer paladins an alternative to rets utility by giving holy more healing abilitiy, because (to summarize) its the utility that is the problem here. You dont have to remove it, just give paladins other options.
You don't reduce the representation of a class by giving said class extra options. You reduce it by eliminating/weakening the options that caused it to be over-represented in the firstplace.
To be honest, while I may not have enough arena experience, I just don't see people rolling in arenas without holy shock.
Offer paladins an alternative to rets utility by giving holy more healing abilitiy, because (to summarize) its the utility that is the problem here. You dont have to remove it, just give paladins other options.
Think about this for a second. The only way you are going to tempt someone out of taking OP abilities in Ret is by making the holy options even more OP - otherwise, why would they switch? The holy tree would have to have something better than repentance et al for players to want to swap, and that wouldn't help the problem of paladins being overpowered.
So yes, the solution is to nerf the Ret abilities or make them unreachable, not to provide better alternatives.
But people aren't saying "paladins heal for too much" or we'd be hearing a lot more about druids and shaman, whose straight healing output can rival ours in live. What makes paladins unkillable is repentance, BoF, and infinite mana. That doesnt mean you have to nurf those things, it means that if paladins at least had a choice of improved healing talents in deep holy, we could take them.
Offer paladins an alternative to rets utility by giving holy more healing abilitiy, because (to summarize) its the utility that is the problem here. You dont have to remove it, just give paladins other options.
People aren't complaining about us healing for too much because their complaints are focused upon the most common spec; one that sacrifices throughput in favor of nearly endless mana. Even if people are/were complaining about the healing capabilities of paladins (which I have heard from countless people, especially in regards to holy light with infusion procs), these complaints are overshadowed by more serious concerns (jotw).
I am an absolutely horrible paladin, and relatively new to the paladin class, but I find that the deep holy spec (sans beacon) works better for me than the repentence spec with jotw. Longer judgement range is wonderful versus heals, the haste is very welcome when juking CS, and I really like the extra spell power. I find that a huge source of my mana is just random melee swings vs pets or other people using SoW - that's a shitload of mana right there.
I haven't been PvP'ing on holy long at all, but I hardly ever have mana issues anyway. I usually die while I still have mana. I picked up a bit more gear and some new enchants so might try things, but right now for my playstyle 3.1 looks like a good buff - you give up 8% crit and bof out of stuns(auch) for 10% more self healing, toughness, dispell resist, and toughness.
I find that a huge source of my mana is just random melee swings vs pets or other people using SoW - that's a shitload of mana right there.
Hmm, other than pets, I'm not sure what I would hit often enough to make SoW worth it over utilizing the glyph of SoL. I'm pretty new to arenas myself though, so I'm curious what others have to say.
I'm also debating picking up the deadly boots or not, over the titan-forged ones I'm using, but that's probably more personal choice than anything else.
Think about this for a second. The only way you are going to tempt someone out of taking OP abilities in Ret is by making the holy options even more OP - otherwise, why would they switch? The holy tree would have to have something better than repentance et al for players to want to swap, and that wouldn't help the problem of paladins being overpowered.
So yes, the solution is to nerf the Ret abilities or make them unreachable, not to provide better alternatives.
I am thinking about it. Listen let's take this from another angle. Let's say, for example, that the rogue combat tree had a talent near the middle that allowed for 50% resistance to stuns and fears. Now let's also say that their deep assassination tree had nothing of real worth for pvp, making it a very obvious choice as to what build to use. Forced, you might say by a combination of lackluster assassination talents and shining combat talents.
Now, what if they were to leave the combat talents intact but make the assassination talents viable for pvp? Not buff them per se, just make them useful for pvp in a way that more rogues said "Ahh, cool, now my tree does what I wanted it to do this entire time".
The issue people were complaining about in my make believe scenario (which matches our real scenario) is the utility of the talents in combat. If you pull people away from those talents, the complaints cease.
Just think about WHY people are complaining. We can break stuns and remove snares with self cast HoF. We can repent any DPS that is chasing us, then hammer the healer. We have infinite mana. These are the only things that separate us from other healers. In fact "PALADINS ARE HEALING PEOPLE IN ARENAS WTF NURF" is not something you will hear on forums.
What I am saying is that there are three ways to handle this, make the ret tree look like a pyramid by moving all the talents to deep ret, nurfing the talents in ret, further breaking a spec that isn't great already, or you can fix deep holy to make it useful for pvp, thus pulling all the hybrids away from the talents that people are bitching that we abuse.
I never said BUFF holy. Holy is already great for pve. I said CHANGE holy. Anything that will pull paladins away from the ret talents will fix this situation. Would it be a positive change for holy in pvp? Yes. Would it be an overall buff to paladin healing in pvp? No. The reason we are over represented in pvp healing is the versatility of ret. Something that, to be honest, is not being addressed in 3.1. Hybrids will be as prevalent as ever for one single goddamn reason that I am trying to beat into your heads:
Deep holy sucks for pvp. (not all talents, but most)
In order for paladins to willingly not spec into the bottom of ret they want something that is BETTER in pvp than what they are giving up. They won't give up the bottom of ret unless the top of holy is even better than what they give up.
The goal of the changes (which falls short spectacularly) is to greatly reduce and weaken paladins in PvP. You do not weaken a class by compensating them for nerfs.
Amera explained this to you already, I am not sure how you can still be failing to understand that if the changes were succesful, then you should see a lot fewer holy paladins at the top of the ratings. They need to cut the number of paladins at the top of the arena ladder by 2/3s.
In order for paladins to willingly not spec into the bottom of ret they want something that is BETTER in pvp than what they are giving up. They won't give up the bottom of ret unless the top of holy is even better than what they give up.
The goal of the changes (which falls short spectacularly) is to greatly reduce and weaken paladins in PvP. You do not weaken a class by compensating them for nerfs.
Amera explained this to you already, I am not sure how you can still be failing to understand that if the changes were succesful, then you should see a lot fewer holy paladins at the top of the ratings. They need to cut the number of paladins at the top of the arena ladder by 2/3s.
No, I am seeing your point, you're not seeing mine. Allow me to prove this by regurgitating your point back to you:
You cannot successfully nurf a class that is overpowered by providing buffs to compensate for the nurfs. There, now you cannot accuse me of not understanding your point. Allow me to further break mine down for you.
We can take the simplistic, childish approach to this and say "Paladins are over-represented in arenas because they are overpowered, nurf them!" without actually looking at the facts. We could do that. It is very easy to say "Just start nurfing stuff, it'll work out in the end." or you can ask WHY they are overpowered? What talents, specifically, are causing the issue?
What part of their gameplay is causing problems for teams? Is it mana regen? Is it massive healing output? Is it survivability? Is it control? These questions need asked. You cannot say that Mages are overpowered, and then nurf frost nova and expect to fix the problem if the problem lies with arcane doing massive damage. You have to be more specific.
Therefore, if paladin presence truly is a root cause of ret's control and infinite mana, the solution is to draw paladins AWAY from those things.
Let's look at core paladin strengths.
Control (Hammer, repentance, JoJustice)
Survivability (Plate, SS, HoFreedom breaking stuns, infinite mana)
Healing output (HS, instant FoL, occasional full heals of FoL, rarely HL)
Which do you think people are complaining about? Do you think it is the healing? No, probably not, other classes have this in spades and in cases in greater quantities than paladins. It is by and far, the survivability and control. That is what "makes" the paladin class in arena healing.
Therefore, to summarize: You can safely leave ret alone (thus allowing ret to not further slide down into the dumps of shitty dps spec) and improve DEEP holy, to allow for more paladins to spec into it- thus removing the primary complaints of people that we are the kings of survivability, control, and mana regen.
Tada! That wasn't so hard.
Addressing the root cause of the issue, what a concept.
defdef you might be the dumbest person who has ever posted on this thread, and that's a very high praise coming from me. Unfortunately you mostly write with coherent english so you probably won't end up banned like you should.
Therefore, to summarize: You can safely leave ret alone (thus allowing ret to not further slide down into the dumps of shitty dps spec) and improve DEEP holy, to allow for more paladins to spec into it- thus removing the primary complaints of people that we are the kings of survivability, control, and mana regen.
Absolutely bullshittingly wrong. Both Mearis and Amera have been trying to beat this into your head for a page or so, but here, let me emphasize:
Why would a paladin ever give up Infinite Mana and fantastic control to go deeper into the Holy Tree? If you leave the ret tree unchanged, the spec of most Paladins will. not. change, regardless of what you do to holy. Stop filling your triple posts with mindless words and actually mull that over for a second.
You advocate "leaving the ret tree alone" and that is patently ridiculous. Nothing would change.. What, seriously, what could possibly make an Arena Hybrid Healing Paladin ever consider giving up JotW and Repentance and like 8% free crit to everything? What could you possibly put in the Holy deep talents that would make them spec out of that?
how does toughness and pure of heart work against crippling poisons? Are you looking at base duration * 0.7 * 0.7? Because that seems ridiculous.
I believe your math is right, poisons would last for 50% of the time. However, that is what they currently do with pure of heart.
I think the top Paladins will use deep Holy/Prot, but I see people using HS + AoW spec.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Absolutely bullshittingly wrong. Both Mearis and Amera have been trying to beat this into your head for a page or so, but here, let me emphasize:
Why would a paladin ever give up Infinite Mana and fantastic control to go deeper into the Holy Tree? If you leave the ret tree unchanged, the spec of most Paladins will. not. change, regardless of what you do to holy. Stop filling your triple posts with mindless words and actually mull that over for a second.
You advocate "leaving the ret tree alone" and that is patently ridiculous. Nothing would change.. What, seriously, what could possibly make an Arena Hybrid Healing Paladin ever consider giving up JotW and Repentance and like 8% free crit to everything? What could you possibly put in the Holy deep talents that would make them spec out of that?
Enough of this.
Let's bold things and increase their size, that way I appear more right than the guy who doesn't.
Listen bro here's what you have going against you: Facts. Real quick question- so far what has been changed to address holy pallies in arena, ret or holy? Go ahead, go look. Take a nice long gander.
The only change to address the hybrid spec has occurred in Holy. They moved IoL, nurfed it, and changed SS.
Welcome to reality my friend, where we dont cripple other specs to nurf holy! There are still people that play ret you know, you can't just break their tree because holy pallies are doing well (exceedingly so, I'll admit).
So you can rant and rave as much as you want about changing ret, but the fact of the matter is that the developers so far are agreeing with me that breaking the DPS tree to fix a healing issue isn't the right way to go about things.
Enough of you, your theories don't hold up to reality, which I am basing my entire argument on.
You are so retarded it hurts. Do you realize that Amera already pointed this out to you? Let me quote the relevant portion:
Originally Posted by Amera
But you don't fix the hybrid spec by buffing holy - you fix it by further moving or nerfing the ret talents. Otherwise you just trade an overpowered hybrid spec for an overpowered holy spec.
They made it so that you cannot reach the relevant ret talents while still keeping the core of the holy talents. In practice, they simply made it so that to heal at a decent level in arena you require the higher end talents and you cannot double dip and pick up the ret trees.
I am also convinced that those changes do not do enough to nerf holy dominance, and I am prepared to bet that holy paladins will still be very over-represented after this patch, because the nerfs were not severe enough.
For the record - I consider myself a fucking terrible paladin. I just started PvP'ing with the class with an alt who has awful gear, and I made 2050 in the 2nd week of serious PvP. Gourd is also a long time priest who switched to her paladin and made 2400 extremly quickly. The class is completely broken and severely in need of nerfs.
You are so retarded it hurts. Do you realize that Amera already pointed this out to you? Let me quote the relevant portion:
They made it so that you cannot reach the relevant ret talents while still keeping the core of the holy talents. In practice, they simply made it so that to heal at a decent level in arena you require the higher end talents and you cannot double dip and pick up the ret trees.
I am also convinced that those changes do not do enough to nerf holy dominance, and I am prepared to bet that holy paladins will still be very over-represented after this patch, because the nerfs were not severe enough.
....
So in other words you are completely agreeing with me that the fix to this situation lies in making top tier holy more attractive, and leaving ret alone.
We agree on that then?
I love that your counter arguments start off by using personal attacks, brilliant. Makes you look very intelligent.
So in other words you are completely agreeing with me that the fix to this situation lies in making top tier holy more attractive, and leaving ret alone.
They are not making top tier holy more attractive, unless your idea of making it more attractive is 'requiring more points to achieve the same talents you could have for less earlier'.
How many people calling you fucking retarded do you need before you realize that it applies?
They are not making top tier holy more attractive, unless your idea of making it more attractive is 'requiring more points to achieve the same talents you could have for less earlier'.
How many people calling you fucking retarded do you need before you realize that it applies?
I was more focused on the fact that most of the people nay-saying me right now are bitching about ret, but they arent even TOUCHING ret. In fact most people I've talked to are still going to be rocking a hybrid spec switching IoL (which was nurfed anyway, and then tossed into the trailer park that is deep holy) for AoW, while keeping repentance, improved HoFreedom, and infinite mana.
As for listening to European basement dwelling teenagers: my self image is sturdy enough to survive this terrifying barrage of mean words on the internet. I am a smart guy, I can see the forest through the trees. You can bitch and moan all you want about pally healing- I might even agree. That doesn't mean you're right about how to fix it. Let's leave it to the devs, who are so far agreeing with me- leave ret alone.
I was more focused on the fact that most of the people nay-saying me right now are bitching about ret, but they arent even TOUCHING ret. In fact most people I've talked to are still going to be rocking a hybrid spec switching IoL (which was nurfed anyway, and then tossed into the trailer park that is deep holy) for AoW, while keeping repentance, improved HoFreedom, and infinite mana.
As for listening to European basement dwelling teenagers: my self image is sturdy enough to survive this terrifying barrage of mean words on the internet. I am a smart guy, I can see the forest through the trees. You can bitch and moan all you want about pally healing- I might even agree. That doesn't mean you're right about how to fix it. Let's leave it to the devs, who are so far agreeing with me- leave ret alone.
Presumably the only reason JotW hasn't been moved down in ret is to help out leveling paladins. It could easily be swapped with swift retribution without hurting ret dps and if the build you're proposing turns out to be as overpowered as 37/0/34 is at the moment I imagine it will be quickly nerfed as Blizzard probably don't want another season of Paladin + DK/lock/hunter teams making up a majority of the high level representation with hardly any weaknesses (although I still think you'll have survivability issues without IoL).
Presumably the only reason JotW hasn't been moved down in ret is to help out leveling paladins. It could easily be swapped with swift retribution without hurting ret dps and if the build you're proposing turns out to be as overpowered as 37/0/34 is at the moment I imagine it will be quickly nerfed as Blizzard probably don't want another season of Paladin + DK/lock/hunter teams making up a majority of the high level representation with hardly any weaknesses (although I still think you'll have survivability issues without IoL).
Thanks for a non-insulting post, I appreciate that after being called retarded for bringing up issues easily observable by checking out the latest talent build.
Yeah the IoL change was definitely a blow, but I've heard a lot of 2k+ pallys saying they will just rock AOW instead. I agree that a solution to that might be moving all these talents deeper in ret, but the tree is going to end up looking like a pyramid with the best talents in deep ret. Even removing AoW won't be enough. We can talk about how we should move AoW, JotW, improved HoFreedom, and repentance deep into ret, thus making the tree look ridiculous and hampering leveling paladins, or we could simply make holy more attractive for pvp.
Like I said, EJ posters' opinions might vary from mine on this one- but a quick look at the current PTR kind of sides with me; butchering ret isn't the fix.
Breaking the ret tree by stacking too many talents high is a perfectly legitimate issue, but the alternative isn't to buff the holy tree. A better solution would involve moving some ret talents (maybe even shuffling some of the dps ones higher and utility ones lower, since that would actually benefit levelers and not affect holy pvp) and moving some of the holy talents. Shift some of the essential holy talents higher in the tree, so that if you want the ret goodies you miss out on, say, Illumination, Sanctified Light, or other things that would totally cripple your healing ability. There's really no reason those couldn't be much higher in holy. Then you've managed to take away the hybrid toys without giving them better alternatives.
Breaking the ret tree by stacking too many talents high is a perfectly legitimate issue, but the alternative isn't to buff the holy tree. A better solution would involve moving some ret talents (maybe even shuffling some of the dps ones higher and utility ones lower, since that would actually benefit levelers and not affect holy pvp) and moving some of the holy talents. Shift some of the essential holy talents higher in the tree, so that if you want the ret goodies you miss out on, say, Illumination, Sanctified Light, or other things that would totally cripple your healing ability. There's really no reason those couldn't be much higher in holy. Then you've managed to take away the hybrid toys without giving them better alternatives.
That is definitely something that can be done. I still think that sidesteps the issue of having deep holy full of trailer trash talents that are only good for pve. Regardless, it looks like 3.1 is going live with hybrid still as a valid spec, so I guess blizz isn't too concerned with it.
That is definitely something that can be done. I still think that sidesteps the issue of having deep holy full of trailer trash talents that are only good for pve. Regardless, it looks like 3.1 is going live with hybrid still as a valid spec, so I guess blizz isn't too concerned with it.
I assume by valid hybrid spec you are referring to your IoL'less holy/ret spec that you think is somehow viable?
I assume by valid hybrid spec you are referring to your IoL'less holy/ret spec that you think is somehow viable?
Actually I am not such a fan of it. I think I am going to spec slightly deeper and just pick up improved HoF in ret- though that is still pretty much a hybrid spec. My guild has a couple 2k+ rated pallys and they are both using an IoL'less build relying on AoW instead. With IoL's placement and nurf, it's still great but it isn't what it was.
03/26/09, 9:28 PM
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