Halion

This just in.

"We did add the interrupt to Hammer of Justice. This was done solely so that Protection paladins wouldn't feel like they couldn't tank mobs that needed to be interrupted but were stun immune. We just think that interrupt capability crosses over the line into something that a tank needs to do his job."

Again, from Ghostcrawler on Beta boards.

Edit: We are still a little behind other tanks. DK Mind Freeze is a 10 sec CD, Warrior Shield Bash is a 12 sec CD. We are on equal footing with druids, both HoJ (untalented) and Bash are 1 minute CD's. It's a step in the right direction, but not quite equality.

 

Mordekhuul

Ghostcrawler also pontificated a bit on perceived disparities in our ability to main tank here.

Anyone have an offhand number for how much stamina a raid buffed paladin walking into Naxx10 has on beta or a guess at how much a raid buffed paladin in the expansion might have on starting Naxx10/25?

Considering our talent advantage on stamina scaling, it is just the disparity in base health we have to overcome if comparing tankadins to warriors, and a feel for how quickly we'll close that gap in the expansion may be telling.

 

PsiVen

I don't think you're seeing the big picture here. Our threat is already outrageously good to the point of DPS never even coming close, and now it's 43% higher than way too high. They're double dipping here, by improving our scaling and damage dramatically and then "baking in" Salvation. Imagine if you will, a situation where as a warlock entering Naxxramas your tank is doing 5000 TPS (yes, this is a serious figure). You would need to do 6500 DPS and never soulshatter in order to pull aggro.

Threat meters are in the game now for a reason, and it's supposed to be useful information, not pretty big numbers for tanks to look at instead of damage meters

 

◊ Cathela

As reported in the general paladin WotLK thread, the coefficient on SotR has been reduced to 100% in a recent hotfix (though the tooltip hasn't been updated yet). That gives 130% with SotT, or 143% with SotT+1hspec. At present it still has no inherent threat modifier aside from what it gets from RF.

I think we all saw a nerf coming, although this one seems pretty steep. Hopefully this is just another testing point and not the final value.

EDIT: Oh, and of course, good news on the HoJ thing. Dunno if this is hotfixed in now or still waiting on a patch.

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

 

Holtzhammer

Rewritting this post. Was orignally doing Druid/pally, but decided to do all 4 tanks.

Comparing Prot Pally v. Bear, Warrior, and DK.

Druid

• Feral Charge--15s cooldown, 4s immobilize, 4s interrupt
• Bash--1 min cooldown 4s stun, 3s counterspell(interupt+lockout)
• to a lesser extent
  
• Maim--10s cooldown incapacitate, 3s counterspell, damage

Paladin

• Hammer of Justice--30s cooldown(talented, I know) 6s stun, interupt.
  to a lesser extent
  
• Repentance--1m cooldown, 10s incapacitate, but valid CC.

Warrior

• Shield Bash--12s cooldown, 6s counterspell. Requires shield
• Gag-order'd Heroic Throw--1m cooldown, 100% silence.
  to a lesser extent
• Conc. Blow--30s cooldown, 5s stun
• Intercept--30s cooldown, 3s stun
• Pummel--10s cooldown, 4s counterspell.
• Warbringer'd Charge--15s cooldown, 1s stun

Deathknight

• Mind Freeze--10s cooldown, 4s counterspell
• Strangulate--30s cooldown, 5s counterspell/silence.

They may have another one, I dont know for sure. Please post if they do.


Stun's != interupts when it comes to BOSSES, but for non-boss situations, they do. I dont know if it's possible for a warrior to switch stances on a boss and Pummel, but I'm doubting that they can. This is a non-issue when it comes to DPS-spec's, druids and warriors win hands-down.



Follow-up:
I was going to put Seal of Justice, but since bosses are IMMUNE it's a non-issue, unless this mechanic is changed (or SoJ is buffed)

That leaves druids with a talented 15s interupt/stun, a 1m stun/interrupt, and this leaves us with a 30s talented (for triple the talent points) that's worst.

For warriors, 2 talent points (better than us, worst than druids) they get another interrupt on a longer cooldown than ours, but with more threat, and for deathknights, that leaves at least 2 spells that interupt, if not more.

 

Prinsesa

Maim does not interrupt unless you have the Gladiator Gloves, requires you to be in Cat (non-tanking) form, and most importantly requires you to be in Cat form for a non-trivial amount of time (at least 2 GCDs worth, for one CP plus the Maim).

You can make a case for Feral Charge, but that isn't usable on any raid boss that has a melee attack.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Holtzhammer

Unless the Wowhead WotLK spell list is wrong, it's listing maim as having a 3s interupt.

"Finishing move that causes damage and incapacitates the target. Additional damage caused may interrupt the effect. The victim's spellcasting is also interrupted for 3 sec. Causes more damage and lasts longer per combo point:"

So a druid cant run 8 yards out, then charge back in for feral charge in a raid?

 

PsiVen

I'm sure you've noticed that melee bosses tend to follow you and be immune to snares, so no, feral charge isn't really an option there. Maim interrupt was baselined though. Given those two it seems fair enough that druids have Bash as their tanking interrupt, and we have HoJ acting as one on a 30s cooldown if for some reason we needed it to be.

Personally I'm indifferent towards the issue of tank interrupts as the situations that demand them have been pretty sparse. I am however very concerned about the increased threat scaling and its implications for tank DPS (i.e. going back to TBC damage output).

 

Mode

You CAN, but it's pointless. Pummel and shield bash share cooldowns.

 

Hylo

If you are comparing prot specs you might want to remove that. Repentance requires 30 points in retribution.

 

Holtzhammer

Didnt know that. I was merely posting all possible interrupts to spell casting that all classes were privy to, taking Pve into consideration before pvp (where stun isnt, and is a valid form of interrupt).

I was just showing the comparison that if prot-paladins wanted as many interrupts (total, not useable) that other classes had they have to get it from another tree, and it's 31-deep. That's why I put "to a lesser extent" before repentance.

So far though, warriors have the lead with possible spell interrupts, followed by DK's, druids, then us.

 

Demonseedx

We are a Interrupt weak class I'm not sure that is a huge issue when you are Tanking as other classes can be helping you out there. To me the much more important question is what is a Protection's strength over other tanks that make it desirable for a raid to work around the Prot paladin's weaknesses.

 

Kaylee

In TBC that advantage was extremely high AoE threat. I think that still seems to be the case in WotLK, though the lead we had in TBC is now considerably smaller.

The other main 'advantage' of a paladin in TBC was the ability to remain uncrushable against a large number of incoming hits thanks to Holy Shield. I used quotes there because it never really ended up being an advantage outside of tanking Prince Malchezaar way back when Karazhan was fresh and new. Other dual wielding bosses either cannot crush, or their hits are weak enough that a warrior just shrugs them off. With all bosses now unable to crush, how Holy Shield's charges and reflective damage will stack up against things like Critical Block and the Shield Block changes is debatable.

Ranged threat was an advantage in TBC with Righteous Defense and Avenger's Shield. Heroic Throw seems to have been implemented to slightly counter that, though we still have the edge against multiple mobs. Righteous Defense remains a multi-target taunt in a world where others are single target (outside of Challenging Shout/Roar), but the advantage of getting a mob to aggro you without having to walk over and bash it over the head has been improved upon by Death Grip and marginalised by an in-combat Charge.

In TBC we had the advantage of removing physical debuffs with a quickly cancelled Blessing of Protection, or removing all debuffs using Divine Shield. We still keep that advantage in WotLK - it's even better now that Hand of Protection doesn't overwrite our blessing - but with the change to Divine Protection doing so will lock us out of our panic ability. And now with a three minute Forbearance debuff, may God help us if there's another Fear fight.

Holy Wrath and Exorcism may help to give us an edge in threat for certain encounters if we have the mana to use them, particularly in Naxxramas where damn near everything is undead. The advantage outside of that is precisely zero. Turn Evil may provide some small help for undead or demon adds?

Our threat is all based upon the amount of Holy damage we deal. If our tier sets had been stacked with Holy damage instead of generic spell damage we would have been amazing, but our threat still scaled very well in TBC. Damage or threat multiplier effects (such as Seethe in the Reliquary of Souls encounter) massively increase our threat. In WotLK, the other tanking classes are also getting a more paladin-like system of scaling damage rather than fixed values, potentially lessening our advantage. It does still look like we'll be scaling very well, although this time with Strength more than with Spell Power.

We have the unique ability to use caster consumables, enchants and buffs in order to increase our damage, resource regeneration and threat. Not exactly an historical advantage since the traditional melee buffs were mostly useless for paladins, but it's something which warriors and druids can't do. Destruction Potions, Wizard Oil, Blackened Basilisk, Flask of Blinding Light, Wrath of Air Totem, Totem of Wrath, Mana Stream Totem, Misery, Improved Divine Spirit, the old Power Infusion, Avenging Wrath, Blessing of Wisdom and many others I can't think of are things that we can use and the other tanks can't. In WotLK we've been changed to scale from Attack Power... as well as Spell Power. With most party buffs going raidwide that means we'll get the benefit of both caster and melee buffs, which means a clear advantage over other tanks now that certain buffs don't stack.

We also still bring buffs and debuffs. A lot of them can be duplicated by a Holy or Retribution paladin, but everyone wants at least two out of the three big blessings - Blessing of Wisdom, Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings. Blessing of Sanctuary is amazing for tanks and could work out extremely useful for fights with a lot of incoming raid damage. Judgements of Wisdom and Light still help to keep blue bars full and the melee alive. Improved Devotion Aura will make healers happy when the Restoration druids are missing. The three Resistance auras are almost mandatory for any fight which uses the corresponding element, with the exception of Shadow if you have a priest. The Hand buffs (Freedom, Protection, Sacrifice and Salvation) provide a good chunk of utility.



That's more than enough strengths to provide an incentive for the raid working around our weaknesses. I can't actually think of many weaknesses that haven't been addressed.

- We have lower health than warriors (and death knights?), but we also have higher stamina scaling.
- We had no spell interrupts, but we now have Hammer of Justice and we still have other classes who can do that for us.
- We still can't break fear effects, but all priests have Fear Ward and we can equip a PvP trinket.
- We're still vulnerable to mana draining effects, but mana burn also deals damage for Spiritual Attunement and the new Blessing of Sanctuary helps us even more. Our small mana pools were actually an advantage for the Soul Scream mana burn in Reliquary of Souls.
- We made poor OTs since we have to be taking damage and getting healed in order to continue generating threat, but we now have Divine Plea and Hand of Sacrifice to assist us.
- We're crippled by silence effects. Yeah. That one doesn't change. Bosses with a silence need to work like other boss effects: all targets except the tank.
- We're unable to taunt a single target, which could end up being an issue. Two paladins tanking the Four Horsemen encounter is the example I keep hearing about, where the the paladin on Boss A taunts Boss B, while the paladin who was on Boss B before tries to taunt Boss A but ends up taunting them both.
- Umm... we're forced to wear unflattering pink armour sets?

 

Prinsesa

I believe that recent testing has revealed that SHOR and HOTR are castable through silence. Seals would still be proccing through auto-attacks, Ret Aura (if used) procs through silence, as does Holy Shield for whatever duration is left between its last cast and the silence's duration.

That realistically only cuts out Judgement, Consecration and Holy Shield (if it was a very long silence and/or you timed the Shield refresh badly). It's not perfect, but we'd still be putting out more than half our TPS even during periods of silence.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Kaylee

Last I heard, ShoR and HotR were considered spells. But if they're physical... well, that changes things. Silence in WotLK will give us a slight limp rather than putting us in a wheelchair.

 

Rasczak

Well put but this is clearly our biggest problem. Well that and the fact that our weapons have (and might still be) wussy looking caster things while warriors get shit like the brutalizer. Worth mentioning here is GC "One final comment, that you have already seen, is we want you to gear like a warrior: collect Strengh and Stam and use tanking weapons instead of caster weapons. " here So far this seems to be only semi true and it might be worth someone with beta running some tests and posting results for threat gen between tank and spellpower weapons to illustrate the problem and posting on the beta boards.

Right now my concern is that warriors have the hp and mitigation advantage, and mathematically critical block gives them the block advantage too. Additionally holy shield has charges where damage shield and shield block don't. Considering they have more tanking oh shit buttons than we do its kinda squeezing us out. It might not be huge numerical difference but as plenty of posters have shown it adds up and as often as not its the perception of a spec that determines if its gonna get a raid slot.

Its also frustrating to see wildly different buffs and nerfs like the devs don't even talk to each other before putting shit in patches, but thats hardly a paladin specific problem. I am really loving GC actually discussing their thinking for various issues and feel very sorry for anyone who has to put up with the official forums.

 

Kaylee

A poster called PsiVen over on Maintankadin has already done that. Turns out that the top four weapons are all caster weapons.

 

Synbios

While this is true, I am of the impression that Blizzard is aware of it and will be/are taking steps to fix it.

Even if they're not, the differences are pretty marginal. The top threat weapon is only a couple hundred TPS ahead of the bottom threat weapon; when you're looking at 3k+ TPS with the DPS coming nowhere near (as is the current case on Beta) that couple hundred TPS is pretty much negligible. I'd rather have another couple points of avoidance over TPS in that case, especially since avoidance is a little harder to stack in Wotlk.

 

PsiVen

As far as I can tell HotR is currently the only spell we can cast while silenced, though longer duration seals also mitigate the effects. It's still a huge annoyance to be silenced while tanking.

I'm pretty happy with the state of tank weapons. The ones with actual tanking stats are now quite close behind the threat weapons to the point where it might be comparable to a warrior's choice. The effects of threat under the new scaling mechanics are very much up in the air but it's looking like we will have a fair choice for once.

 

jere

Speaking of tank weapons, I took a look at your spreadsheet last night and noticed that it didn't have the new holy shield scaling in it. The version I looked at still had the 5% spell coefficient and 1.35 threat multiplier, neither of which is current anymore. I did some off the cuff testing, and most of my values hovered around 5.6% AP and 9% SP coefficient,s which matches some others, though I did have some anomalies, but I will chalk that up to having 1HWS and back calculating errors. Also, there appears to be no more bonus threat, just the normal holy damage to threat from RF.

Is there a more up to date version? I pulled it off of the googlepages link in the maintankadin thread last night sometime.

 

Zapf

Is there some change to divine shield mechanics / de aggroing that explains our 4 set bonus on the naxx tanking set, or is it some sort of cruel joke?

Nax 10 Set Paladin Tank - Item Set - World of Warcraft

 

Russta

I don't see what's wrong with it.

Consider the +3 seconds to Divine Protection +3 seconds to "Shield Wall" and the Divine Shield one as a bonus they didn't have to give us.

 

Kaylee

I guess Divine Shield being on there could be intended for Divine Guardian?

 

◊ Oggie

Edit:
Oggie please asks that you don't read this post of insulting fail. There's a reason it's infractioned. I was a petty jackass. Appology is on the next page.






I like how the poster mentioned a maintankadin poster like 1) we would not know that site 2) the poster in question would not post here.


Anyway.


Zapf you are either stupid or haven't thought about the effects of a 15 vs 12 second shieldwall on a 4 min C/D. A 3 second increase on half damage is -huge-. Admittedly the 2p is idoitic, but the 4p is absolutely phenominal.

As for Kaylee (since a lot of other posts seem to echo these concerns):
Lower health is still an issue.
HoJ is our interrupt, and it sucks beyond reason.
If you're still worried about fear you are stupid beyond reason.
Mana burn is a concern, SA helps mitigate the worst effects.
Being shitty OTs is a HUGE concern. WTB fix.
Silences suck. Got nothing else here. Please make some of our stuff unslienceable (not all, just some).
Our taunt is beyond OP now. Nothing will depend on a single target that is a raid instance so we can promise our raid taunt ALWAYS hits the intended target. Seriously, do not fuck with the MASSIVELY OP ability, please?

 

Prinsesa

All of the tanking classes' T7 4 set bonus is +3 seconds to their Shield Wall abilities. Ours is Divine Protection. Divine Shield is only there for consistency, I wouldn't read too much into it.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler