Preface: My main is an elemental shaman. I have a paladin alt that's approaching 80 that I've done some pvp in lower level brackets as ret; therefore, I'm not claiming to be an expert at paladin pvp.
Taking note of the second paragraph quoted, then having read the ensuing arguments about whether or not to leave the middle/bottom of the Ret tree alone, I started thinking "what could be done to *nerf* the hybrid holy/ret build(s)?". I can't see there being a problem with having CS and Repentance swap places in the ret tree...it gives leveling paladins another instant attack to help with leveling, puts Repentance out of reach from Holy (as far as I can tell), and doesn't nerf either ability.
Just food for thought.
Swapping repent and CS is a good idea, and you're right it gives much value to leveling paladins. I like it.
You're already losing some reasonable amount of healing for going repentance + JotW. Currently it's quite worth it, but once you add IoL to the list of things you lose for repentance + JotW + divine purpose it tips the scales towards full holy. Again you're not giving up repentance + JotW + divine purpose for IoL only, you're also getting 15% haste and the ability to keep that haste up when not in melee as well as keeping people out of combat and possibly breaking sheep at range, 4% hit ~175 spellpower, 5% more healing, 30% stun duration reduction and dispel resistance. I think with IoL added to the list of things you lose, the ret spec just isn't worth it.
I'm not sure about vindication and PoJ, though, it may be worth going 47/8/16 or 49/8/14 for it, but then again 51/20/0 seems sweet too. It has a couple nice talents I'm not sure which to pick, though - DS/DG and imp RF seem nice but so do imp devo and toughness (imp HoJ and the first 10 points are probably must-have).
For glyphs I'm assuming HS and a seal is a given, but not sure whether to go with salv or Hoj.
It's a good self-defensive tool, which is absolutely needed with the nerf to IoL (holy light part). I think the holy paladin will still be a good thing in 3.1 and I will enjoy playing it. And if not I am already leveling my priest
I am not sure why people believe that nerfs always require compensations. Certain classes, most notably DK and paladins, require heavy PvP nerfs with absolutely zero compensation.
DK/paladin is 43% of the top 2 vs 2 teams. Paladins are roughly 3x more represented than they should be if the game was properly balanced.
That means that around 2/3s of paladins over 2k should not be there if the class was at an appropriate level of power. Paladins need zero compensations for any nerfs they will receive, and the current patch does nothing to knock them off their perch.
I am not sure why people believe that nerfs always require compensations. Certain classes, most notably DK and paladins, require heavy PvP nerfs with absolutely zero compensation.
DK/paladin is 43% of the top 2 vs 2 teams. Paladins are roughly 3x more represented than they should be if the game was properly balanced.
That means that around 2/3s of paladins over 2k should not be there if the class was at an appropriate level of power. Paladins need zero compensations for any nerfs they will receive, and the current patch does nothing to knock them off their perch.
I wonder how mixed up percentages like that are with the percentage of people choosing to play DK and paladin. I have no doubt that overpowered aspects pushed DK/paladin to the top unjustly in many cases, but it might be more interesting to have an idea what percentage of paladins choosing to play arenas regularly made it to the top spots versus the percentage of other classes playing regularly.
I suppose those are the kind of numbers Blizzard knows and will be looking at with season 6 though, which they have said they would watch closely.
I wonder how mixed up percentages like that are with the percentage of people choosing to play DK and paladin. I have no doubt that overpowered aspects pushed DK/paladin to the top unjustly in many cases, but it might be more interesting to have an idea what percentage of paladins choosing to play arenas regularly made it to the top spots versus the percentage of other classes playing regularly.
I suppose those are the kind of numbers Blizzard knows and will be looking at with season 6 though, which they have said they would watch closely.
I did that analysis if you are interested. The pearson correlation between total number of people playing a particular class and success in different brackets is something like 0.61 or basically no significant correlation at all.
I am not sure why people believe that nerfs always require compensations. Certain classes, most notably DK and paladins, require heavy PvP nerfs with absolutely zero compensation.
DK/paladin is 43% of the top 2 vs 2 teams. Paladins are roughly 3x more represented than they should be if the game was properly balanced.
That means that around 2/3s of paladins over 2k should not be there if the class was at an appropriate level of power. Paladins need zero compensations for any nerfs they will receive, and the current patch does nothing to knock them off their perch.
You should also look at the number of existing paladins and deathknights (28% together, so almost a third, at level 80 over all servers, Warcraft Census -). If every class would have an equal amount of good players (this is a very fair guess considering the size of the sample), this would mean that these two classes together should have about 28% of the top teams in arena. If you know divide 43% by 28% it gives you the factor which paladin/dk has too much teams up there: 1.53.
This basically means that your numbers (your 2/3 vs. my 1/3 of overrepresentation) are severely biased and do not take ANY class representation into account. Furthermore, where do you draw the line for "top rated". If you take the common SK100 indicator, your sample size of 200 players for a estimated WOW player population of 11 million is pretty small (0.0018%). It is ridiculous to base a general statement like yours onto such a small sample size.
Paladins have a stupid amount of RNG attached to them at the moment (hello, 1 sec holy light, after a holy shock) which leads to the simple fact that they are unbeatable (save for counterspells etc.) IF lucky with holy shock crits. This is really the most important factor which makes paladins too good at the moment (you cannot count bubble as we had it also in season 4, where we have been an absolute joke of a class). The rest is the OPness of the DKs and hunters which we are usually paired with. --> The most important factor is adressed with the severe IoL nerf. The spiky RNG part of our class is taken away and replaced with fair buffs that account for this. Without IoL and additional buffs to the protection tree we would be in the state of season 4. Meaning that every single lockout is a game lost. I tthink Blizzard is very well aware of this situation and hence the buffs for the protection tree, keeping us viable without being OP.
You do realize that DKs use the exact opposite of your description? DKs are not OP, paladin healers are OP. Paladins use the exact opposite, it is almost cute.
You do realize that DKs use the exact opposite of your description? DKs are not OP, paladin healers are OP. Paladins use the exact opposite, it is almost cute.
It is not cute it is scary, like Orwellian Ministry of Truth scary. Both classes are overpowered, anyone saying otherwise has managed to put on a massive set of blinders, and should probably not be paid attention to until either
a. the two classes see some real and sustainable nerfs to their skills and overall arena representation, or
b. that poster manages to adaquately explain how one of the two classes can be overpowered when the other is not.
Holy paladins atm are a faceroll class. So too are deathknights. Blizzard needs to find a way to make it so that holy paladins either spec deep holy or choose to go prot as a sub tree instead of speccing into mid/deep ret. Granted this is mainly just for 2v2 but its also the arena where most people compete. 3v3 and 5v5 will see deep holy and a prot sub spec because it is the most viable. On the other hand with the ability to gain infinite mana hell I would spec pretty much anything to get it as long as I could still heal effectively. With divine plea, and jotw we do not have to worry about mana, which is a HUGE part to arenas.
Even with the IoL nerf why wouldn't you try and get infinite mana?
You do realize that DKs use the exact opposite of your description? DKs are not OP, paladin healers are OP. Paladins use the exact opposite, it is almost cute.
It reminds me a bit of Vanilla PvP, when horde used to blame all losses on pallies, and allies would simultaneously blame all losses on shaman.
In all seriousness though, Dodo, you can't seriously believe pallies are overbalanced at the moment purely because of a bit of RNG + hunter/DK. The problem is much more severe than that. Pallies make the sk-100 in 2s with the comps pally/DK, pally/hunter, pally/lock, and pally/druid. Totaling those up puts pally comps at 68.4% of the top 100 teams, compared to their 13% in-game representation, which is approximately 5.25x overrepresentation. DKs are the next worst offender at 44.9% of the top 100 teams, all pally/DK, compared to their 15% in-game representation, which is about 2.99x overrepresentation. Hunters come in third; hunter teams make up 23.5% of the top 100, which is 2.35x overrepresentation given their 10% in-game representation. (For reference on my perspective, I was a ~2100 holy pally all but the last season in 2s (pally/warrior), 3s (pally/shaman/warrior, with shaman sometimes resto, sometimes ellie), and 5s (2345) in BC.)
If you really want to consider how severely broken healer balance is at the moment, just scroll down the list at World of Warcraft Arena Ranking | SK Gaming and enjoy the sea of pally icons. You could see the same obvious problem near the end of BC with druids when you would scroll down the list and see druid/warrior, druid/warrior, druid/hunter, druid/hunter, druid/warrior, mage/rogue, druid/warrior, druid/hunter, shaman/warrior, etc.; it was almost comical, and it still is, with pallies replacing druids. Comparing pally numbers directly to priests is the most entertaining; the only priest comp in the top 100 is half as represented as the third most popular pally comp - pally/DK at 44.9%, pally/hunter at 9.2%, pally/lock at 8.2%, and there's priest/hunter down there at 4.1%.
While I fully agree with pallies/dks being overpowered, I totally disagree with your statistics. 68.4% of all teams having paladins compared to 13% of all players being paladins does not mean 5.25x over-representation. Assuming no double-pally team then only 34.2% of the top pvpers are paladins, which makes 2.62X over-represented. Still quite highly over-represented, but not as highly as you claim it to be. Same goes for DKs - heck DKs aren't even *that* over-represented with only 1.5X - still over-represented but nearly as badly as paladins are.
Of course even after correcting your statistics it's still wrong - you're assuming all players picked their classes while completely ignoring how they'll do in top rated arena. In reality, lots of players picked their classes based on how well they expect to compete in PvP. Pallies and DKs being represented much higher than 10% (considering that they're not really overpowered in PvE or farming) just proves my point. This means that the 3x and 1.5x over-representation values above are actually too low. If people actually picked their classes based on their PvP ability, paladins would be 3.41x over-represented and dks 2.25x. Of course this isn't correct either as many people have multiple characters or pick their class on non-pvp factors.
The bottom line is that the only thing you can truely use to determine whether a class is over-represented in arenas or not is how many of the top-rated pvpers play those classes to those ratings. Anything else doesn't really matter and mostly skews the numbers in various directions, as it makes unrealistic assumptions.
I still wonder if vengeance actually works as a trash debuff for dispel protection or not, though.
Even with the IoL nerf why wouldn't you try and get infinite mana?
Because when your HP hits 0 you die no matter how much mana you have left.
Because when your HP hits 0 you die no matter how much mana you have left.
I am pretty sure as a paladin you have the most CC breaker abilites as well the ability to heal on the run. Do not forget that you have a partner that can peel for you. Infinite mana is what makes the paladin class so OP right now. Not stuns or CC.
I am pretty sure as a paladin you have the most CC breaker abilites as well the ability to heal on the run. Do not forget that you have a partner that can peel for you. Infinite mana is what makes the paladin class so OP right now. Not stuns or CC.
What makes them OP is their ability to keep people alive without losing mana. You can fix this in two ways, either by making it harder for them to keep people alive, or by making them lose mana while keeping people alive. What they actually did is let each paladin choose for themselves which of the nerfs they are receiving.
And yes, vengeance is a magic buff so you can use it for dispel protection. It only activates on offensive abilities, but it's probably still worth 1 point in a hybrid build since there aren't any great alternatives.
You are all looking at a percentage of 0.0018% of all players and base your opinion of classes and their OPness around this. I do not have to mention how awesomely skewed your numbers and perceptions are then.
The bottom line is that the only thing you can truely use to determine whether a class is over-represented in arenas or not is how many of the top-rated pvpers play those classes to those ratings. Anything else doesn't really matter and mostly skews the numbers in various directions, as it makes unrealistic assumptions.
This statement blatantly oversees the fact that many of the top pvper just reroll together with their teampartner to whatever class combination is best for them. Combine this with easy raids and your class representation will get skewed even more because the DK and Paladin population actually takes up all the high quality FOTM rerollers that want to go for (deadly) glad and put enough time into it to do so. This happened in season 3 and season 4 (the amount of resto druids EXPLODED on my server) and it will happen in season 6.
I am definitely not saying that paladins at the moment are OK, but they are also not as overpowered as the other classes make them look. Paladins have a stupid amount of positive (abuseable) RNG in the form of IoL with 1 second holy lights (hence the 2 piece T7.5 almost everyone uses), but this is being addressed. The other thing is the infinite mana of paladins which is also getting addressed. Together with the HUGE loss of utility (imagine a priest with a fear cooldown of 1 minute and tell me it is not a huge offensive and defensive nerf) that goes together with the destruction of the very popular 37/0/34 spec, there HAD TO BE compensation attached to it. This happened in the form of aura mastery and divinity. The fact that blizzard implemented this suggest that they thought along the same lines.
People holding on to the "just nerf!" philosophy just want the paladin class nerfed to the ground, so that they can be the next fotm. I think with the upcoming 3.1 changes to the paladin class it will be a huge step into the right direction and it will probably be enough to make it balanced.
Dodo, I will be very precise on this point. Are you willing to bet a certain amount of in-game gold that following the 3.1 patch, paladins will still be by far the most popular healer in arena and very highly over-represented in the top 100 players?
I am very sure the patches do not go far enough to nerf paladin healers, you believe they do. Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? I am not speaking without experience, my paladin alt with 3 weeks of arena experience peaked at 2280 before crashing down to 2100. I am very sure that any priest that is at 2200 within one week of playing can hit 2300+ on a similarly geared paladin since priests are better players than paladins at a similar rating.
Paladin level will drop (maybe not drastically but it will) and priest/shaman level will probably rise with druids staying roughly constant. I would bet money on it if you were on my server.
Dodo, I will be very precise on this point. Are you willing to bet a certain amount of in-game gold that following the 3.1 patch, paladins will still be by far the most popular healer in arena and very highly over-represented in the top 100 players?
I am very sure the patches do not go far enough to nerf paladin healers, you believe they do. Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? I am not speaking without experience, my paladin alt with 3 weeks of arena experience peaked at 2280 before crashing down to 2100. I am very sure that any priest that is at 2200 within one week of playing can hit 2300+ on a similarly geared paladin since priests are better players than paladins at a similar rating.
Wait so your saying that paladin players are inferior to priest players? How is that logical?
Personally I feel that certain classes do need retuning. This may be in the form of buffs or nerfs, however I feel that Blizzard is actually listening to the community and trying to fix the problems of season 5. (They even said that there is too much burst atm) Death Knights have been hit hard by the nerf bat and hunters as well. We are seeing improvements to warriors because they basically sucked this past season. Paladins were one of the OP classes. However, they were OP in a different way. It was a certain spec rather then abilities that gave them their strength. Bliz has responded by making a paladin choose. Either go the traditional holy/prot defensive spec or spec holy/ret and gain offensive at the expense of instant heals.
Healers are going to be more balanced in season 6 then nearly every other season (shaman may have a slight advantage in certain areas) In addition, people have finally begun to gain all of the resilience they need and can now start stacking other important stats. If you look at season 1 you can see many similarities between now and then. Paladin/Warrior and Paladin/Lock was very strong that season. Now you have Paladin/DK Paladin/Lock and Paladin/Hunter. Paladins wearing plate armor and having a bubble is usually the cause of them having an advantage in the beginning.
Wait so your saying that paladin players are inferior to priest players? How is that logical?
No, that's foolish. I think paladins are a lot more powerful than priests, so hitting 2200 with a paladin is much easier than hitting 2200 with a priest, so if you are sitting at 2.2k with a priest you are a better player than if you hit 2.2k with a paladin.
Personally I feel that certain classes do need retuning. This may be in the form of buffs or nerfs, however I feel that Blizzard is actually listening to the community and trying to fix the problems of season 5. (They even said that there is too much burst atm) Death Knights have been hit hard by the nerf bat and hunters as well. We are seeing improvements to warriors because they basically sucked this past season. Paladins were one of the OP classes. However, they were OP in a different way. It was a certain spec rather then abilities that gave them their strength. Bliz has responded by making a paladin choose. Either go the traditional holy/prot defensive spec or spec holy/ret and gain offensive at the expense of instant heals.
DK have had shadowfrost nerfs, they will still be the most powerful dps class, and paladins will still be the most powerful healer.
Healers are going to be more balanced in season 6 then nearly every other season (shaman may have a slight advantage in certain areas) In addition, people have finally begun to gain all of the resilience they need and can now start stacking other important stats. If you look at season 1 you can see many similarities between now and then. Paladin/Warrior and Paladin/Lock was very strong that season. Now you have Paladin/DK Paladin/Lock and Paladin/Hunter. Paladins wearing plate armor and having a bubble is usually the cause of them having an advantage in the beginning.
No, I am already at 900 resilience, the lack of resilience is not the reason why paladins dominate.
Paladin level will drop (maybe not drastically but it will) and priest/shaman level will probably rise with druids staying roughly constant. I would bet money on it if you were on my server.
do you think priests will rise to paladin-like levels?
No, that's foolish. I think paladins are a lot more powerful than priests, so hitting 2200 with a paladin is much easier than hitting 2200 with a priest, so if you are sitting at 2.2k with a priest you are a better player than if you hit 2.2k with a paladin.
At high ratings in arena everyone knows how to play their class. Teams work together and know how to win. Granted in the lower brackets yes, paladins do have it easier at the moment due to high burst and paladins having the ability to go immune to attacks while priests cannot.
DK have had shadowfrost nerfs, they will still be the most powerful dps class, and paladins will still be the most powerful healer.
Saying dks will still be the most powerful is your opinion. I feel rogues, warriors, ele shaman, and shadow priests all have had their dps increased major. DKs got the nerf stick hard and harder then you think. They lost a lot of unholy and blood dmg while basically cutting all their crit dmg in half. Not to mention losing the HoT debuffer. Good DKs will still be good, but good players are always good.
Paladins have had their entire hybrid spec shut down. Most paladins are feeling they need to go a holy/prot build since it is very dependable and long lasting. Paladins by nature are a defensive hybrid when specced with holy. When bliz gave paladins the ability to heal on the move and be offensive, while at the same time they have 26k armor they created imbalance.
No, I am already at 900 resilience, the lack of resilience is not the reason why paladins dominate.
Yes, you have 900 resilience. Think about everyone else who plays arena. The majority of people do not have that much. In addition, paladins scale relatively badly with resilience while everyone else scales much better. Burst damage was redic in season 5. Season 6 hopes to correct that.
do you think priests will rise to paladin-like levels?
Priests, throughout all arena seasons, have probably been the most stable healer. They scale extremely well with gear and resilience, while being able to heal on the run, direct heal well, group heal well, and have good CC and offensive/defensive abilities. So, yes there will definetly be an increase in priests and a decrease in paladins. Druids will also increase a lot as well.
At high ratings in arena everyone knows how to play their class. Teams work together and know how to win. Granted in the lower brackets yes, paladins do have it easier at the moment due to high burst and paladins having the ability to go immune to attacks while priests cannot.
You are missing the point that I actually got my paladin do 2300 in 3 weeks of arena with horrible gear. Paladins are easier to play, and if I was as good on my paladin as I am on my priest I'd be easily hitting Gladiator with him - this is not remotely controversial, Gourd did the exact same thing but earlier than me and I think she's on the easy gladiator track with him.
Saying dks will still be the most powerful is your opinion. I feel rogues, warriors, ele shaman, and shadow priests all have had their dps increased major. DKs got the nerf stick hard and harder then you think. They lost a lot of unholy and blood dmg while basically cutting all their crit dmg in half. Not to mention losing the HoT debuffer. Good DKs will still be good, but good players are always good.
I am very sure that DKs will be more represented than ele shamans and shadowpriests and warriors put together.
Paladins have had their entire hybrid spec shut down. Most paladins are feeling they need to go a holy/prot build since it is very dependable and long lasting. Paladins by nature are a defensive hybrid when specced with holy. When bliz gave paladins the ability to heal on the move and be offensive, while at the same time they have 26k armor they created imbalance.
I agree.
Priests, throughout all arena seasons, have probably been the most stable healer. They scale extremely well with gear and resilience, while being able to heal on the run, direct heal well, group heal well, and have good CC and offensive/defensive abilities. So, yes there will definetly be an increase in priests and a decrease in paladins. Druids will also increase a lot as well.
You avoided the question. Do you believe that priests will be as good as paladins, as defined by their representation at high rating?
Do you believe that priests will be as good as paladins, as defined by their representation at high rating?
Even if they perfectly balance priest and paladin for arenas the answer will be no. Paladin popularity in season 5 has them overrepresented and a lot of them, as long as their class is viable, will just stick with what they have built on already, so there is no doubt season 6 will see a lot of paladin/dk teams regardless of balance (unless they get extra nerfs so badly they can't compete at high levels anymore, which we don't forsee at the moment).
If other comps get a boost and paladin/dk gets a nerf, along with a little less overpowering burst all around in arenas, I think season 6 will be an interesting one regardless. I'm pretty excited for it.
You are missing the point that I actually got my paladin do 2300 in 3 weeks of arena with horrible gear. Paladins are easier to play, and if I was as good on my paladin as I am on my priest I'd be easily hitting Gladiator with him - this is not remotely controversial, Gourd did the exact same thing but earlier than me and I think she's on the easy gladiator track with him.
Ok yes I agree atm it is easier to play a pally then a priest. However, in the past that was not so and in the future priests will start to gain an advantage. They already are starting to see more priests in 3v3 then in the beginning of season 5. Priests in 2v2 will come about in 3.1 when they can play adequetly with rogues, locks and warriors again.
I am very sure that DKs will be more represented than ele shamans and shadowpriests and warriors put together.
Thats because there is a higher population of DKs period. Everyone I know has a DK alt. They start at lvl 55 and are the new class to the game. When more people play a class and it is OP then it is skewed to show that class having a higher representation. In addition, if you are talking about 2v2 representation then there is limited speccing/classes that are the higher tier. Certain classes have better synergy together. As you go to 3v3 and 5v5 class representation changes. Many people play shadowplay but is that viable in 2v2. Meh, its a toss up. But there are better combos a lock can play and a priest can play. Lastly, with the nerfs to incoming DKs I think rogues will be among one of the top classes again and warriors will start to be played in arena more. (We are all speculating at this point and there is no way we will be able to tell.)
You avoided the question. Do you believe that priests will be as good as paladins, as defined by their representation at high rating?
More people play paladins then priests. Therefore there will always be a greater chance for more people to be good at playing a paladin then compared to a priest. Paladins will go down in arena representation as they did when season 2 hit. Priests will go back up and be on par if not extremely close to paladins. I feel druids will as well. Shamans will continue to be high as well. Healers next season will be very balanced.
03/30/09, 5:35 PM
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