WotLK talent trees/abilities discussion - Page 118

levk · 09/03/08, 9:08 AM

Originally Posted by Valerys

I agree with Hylo, any mana regen for retribution needs to be in the retribution tree, it would make no sense otherwise. Just as holy and prot have their own regen talents in their trees (Illumination and BoSanct).

Conviction is a regen mechanic for holy. You can still get it with a 15/5/51 build. I get it though, it's way too far up for basic operation.

Exemplar · 09/03/08, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

Crazy idea: Beacon (or hand?) of Light sets off a small CoH-type AoE heal from the beacon rather than just a heal on the Beacon. Merging old and new ones, basically. Or heals on the Beacon go AoE, because that makes a little more sense, sort of like the "splashing" HL idea but as a Hand buff instead of a glyph.

What if x% of overheal on the beacon intelligently splashed to the most needy target (lowest % of max hp) within 10 or 15 yards. Where x can be balanced - 10%, 20%, 50%? Or split x% of overheal equally amongst all targets with less than 100% health within range?

You get some benefit from overheal, it's range limited, and intelligent (hello chain heal).

You could beacon the MT, and overheal would affect nearby raid members. Since it's not 100% overheal splashing it shouldn't be too powerful for PvP (you're better healing the new target than spamming a fully healed person).

Blizzard's architecture allows for some really cool abilities if they leverage it. We know it can intelligently target, we know it can split spells, we know it can range check - combine their code in new ways.

Cathela · 09/03/08, 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by Sorry

What if they change Illumination to return mana on every crit, regardless of which ability, and not just on FoL/HL/HS? Holy Paladins would probably not notice it very much, Prot can't reach it realistically but they have the new BoS for regen and Retri would lose out on the 15% Strength to go for a quite possible 15/0/56 or 15/x/5x.
Of course it would not be real regeneration again, just longevity, but it'd at least scale with crit.

If this were to be used as a major source of mana regen for Ret, then I think the return rate would need to be higher than 60%. And moving Holy's key regeneration/longevity talent to Tier 1 has some spec-balance implications.

I like the idea in principle, but I think unifying it under Illumination is too tricky to make it work. Maybe the regen talent in the middle of Ret should be a similiar mana-on crit (although I'd be concerned about streakiness.)

Originally Posted by Kayella

I think that Conviction / Sheath of Light are currently too strong a lure in Retribution. It strikes me that Imp Dev Aura and Divine Guardian could be extremely strong healing-type talents. Guardian's Favor, Kings, and Imp RF are all useful to pick up. It seems a shame that you have to sacrifice so many talent points to get at them right in the top of Prot. A strong tier 1 talent in protection that would appeal to both holy and ret would certainly help.

This is exactly what I'm talking about with respect to good Tier 1 talents. At present there's nothing in Tier 1 of Prot to appeal to a Holy build. Divine Strength and Anticipation are both solid talents in their own rights, but they appeal only to Prot and, in the case of DS, Ret.

Holy right now is the only tree with a really good first tier that offers something to (almost) everyone. Prot has good talents in Tier 1, but their appeal is limited and they offer nothing to a Holy paladin. Ret's first tier is similarly limited in its appeal, although that has a lot to do with the fact that Benediction iright now is just a bad talent for anyone.

Having three trees with solid, broadly useful, multifunctional talents will make choosing a spec much more interesting and reduce the tendency towards cookie-cutter builds.

Geerock · 09/03/08, 9:02 PM

I know plenty of suggestions have been thrown about for the JotW 'fix' that is much needed, and most of them aren't that bad of ideas.

I do have one of my own, and even though I doubt that the developers would ever be interested in it, I'd like to hear your opinions on it.

Your Judgement Spells have a (33/66/100) chance to restore mana equal to (75/50/25) percent of your attack power and spell damage to you and...(Add in battery component).

So, obviously you have a choice in the above. The more points you spend in the talent the better your chance of restoring mana is, however your mana return is reduced.

It's also setup so that it benefits both the Caster aspect of paladins aswell as the DPS and Tanking aspect of paladins. I didn't want to leave the healers out, considering that although their AP component is going to be lower, they can still benefit from it.

*************

That aside, I like the way that the talents have been progressing. I look at this primarily from a Ret perspective as that's my favorite role to play currently, and I must say that everything I've read so far sounds promising. At the very least it sounds fun! And while there are a lot of numbers to crunch in the theorycrafting department, and the hardcore raiding and end game content. The game is about fun!

I do have to say thought, that I am saddened by the loss of Sanctity Aura on a whole. I think it should be reinstated, but that's just me.

Fiola · 09/03/08, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by Geerock

...

Your Judgement Spells have a (33/66/100) chance to restore mana equal to (75/50/25) percent of your attack power and spell damage to you and...(Add in battery component).

What's the point of the 2nd/3rd points then? You basically gain 100% of the mana regen with the first point, and hit severe diminishing returns for future points in the talent.

With those types of returns, any other talent in the Ret tree would be preferable to an additional point in that talent.

EDIT: On second thought, I can see the mana battery component making the 2nd/3rd points desirable, but I don't think it makes the talent an interesting choice - for solo/PvP you'd put in 1 point, for raiding you'd put in 3 points.

EDIT x2: I got the math wrong. See http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t28560-p...18/#post880020 below.

GSH · 09/03/08, 11:14 PM

For those who don't read the beta boards, Ghostcrawler is specifically requesting feedback on the Protection tree in this thread.

Please post if you have beta access, or feel free to PM me if you have feedback and I can post for you.

Rasputin · 09/04/08, 1:45 AM

Oh jesus, I just typed out an essay on the Prot tree and forgot to copy it and it got eaten by the autologout. I will get something in as soon as I recover though. I'm excited for our upcoming second pass, but I wouldn't expect it for another 3 weeks at least if they're just asking for feedback now.

Cathela · 09/04/08, 3:08 AM

Posted mine right here and also gave us a plug, so if nobody at Blizz is reading this thread (I really have no idea one way or the other) maybe there's a small chance they'll start. Tried to limit my commentary to things I thought other people weren't likely to mention, so mostly I talked about the "look and feel" issues of ShR and HotR, pimped the idea of Conviction in tier 1 of Ret, and made an argument that "Shield of Righteousness" should really be called "Shield of the Righteous".

Also, Prinsea commented (through GSH/Coriel) on Judgements of the Just not producing its own debuff. To the best of my ability to tell, JotJ hasn't been implemented yet. This is just based on rough observation of mob attack speeds with and without a judgement up, but I really didn't notice any difference at all.

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Oh jesus, I just typed out an essay on the Prot tree and forgot to copy it and it got eaten by the autologout.

Pro tip for avoiding that: Compose the post as a PM to yourself on this forum or some other forum. The basic BB-code is the same (as far as I know anyway) so you can still use preview to check bolding and underlining and such. Only C&P to the Blizzard forum when you're done.

Believe me, I've learned the hard way.

Joasuf · 09/04/08, 3:11 AM

Originally Posted by Geerock

Your Judgement Spells have a (33/66/100) chance to restore mana equal to (75/50/25) percent of your attack power and spell damage to you and...(Add in battery component).

This seems to be a bit silly imo. Lets say you put 1 point into it then every 3rd Judgement should grant you 75% of your AP/SP (lets say thats 1000 for ease of maths) this gives you 750 mana every 3rd Judgement or 250 mana per Judge on average. By putting 2 points into it you proc twice in 3 judgements so you get 1000 mana per 3 Judge giving you 333 mana per Judge on average. By putting 3 points into it you proc every judge but for 250 mana per judge.

Looking at the above the best return therefore is to only put 2 points into the talent. Name me a single other talent where putting more points into it make it worse? Putting 3 in might give you less rng issues but in reality over a long(ish) fight 2 points would always be superior and you could argue that 1 point is better than 3 points as it means you have 2 extra talent points to spend elsewhere. Being forced to spec for 3 points for the mana battery side of things would therefore actually be hurting a ret rather than helping them.

I dont usually play ret but I dont understand why people are coming up with lots of new mana regen mechanics, Blizz have already shown a way forward with JotW they just need to tweak it until they feel its balanced giving the mana battrery and a mana return solely for the retridin.

Exewut · 09/04/08, 4:00 AM

I hadn't seen it mentioned yet, but Righteous Fury - Spell - World of Warcraft a toggle spell now. No more failed tanking because it ran out and you forgot to rebuff it.

edit: I blame the lack of caffiene, it isn't a toggle spell, it's a malfunctioning addon which wasn't displaying the time left on the buff =/

Rustik · 09/04/08, 4:27 AM

Originally Posted by Joasuf

This seems to be a bit silly imo. Lets say you put 1 point into it then every 3rd Judgement should grant you 75% of your AP/SP (lets say thats 1000 for ease of maths) this gives you 750 mana every 3rd Judgement or 250 mana per Judge on average. By putting 2 points into it you proc twice in 3 judgements so you get 1000 mana per 3 Judge giving you 333 mana per Judge on average. By putting 3 points into it you proc every judge but for 250 mana per judge.

Looking at the above the best return therefore is to only put 2 points into the talent. Name me a single other talent where putting more points into it make it worse? Putting 3 in might give you less rng issues but in reality over a long(ish) fight 2 points would always be superior and you could argue that 1 point is better than 3 points as it means you have 2 extra talent points to spend elsewhere. Being forced to spec for 3 points for the mana battery side of things would therefore actually be hurting a ret rather than helping them.

I dont usually play ret but I dont understand why people are coming up with lots of new mana regen mechanics, Blizz have already shown a way forward with JotW they just need to tweak it until they feel its balanced giving the mana battrery and a mana return solely for the retridin.

It's entirely possible that:

A) It was a typo and he put it in backwards

B) THree options. Stating simply that it could be 25 per point, or 50 per point, or 75 per point, or the percentage remains the same, but the chance to proc goes up.

Try to think before you say silly things.

Joasuf · 09/04/08, 4:38 AM

Originally Posted by Rustik

It's entirely possible that:

A) It was a typo and he put it in backwards

B) THree options. Stating simply that it could be 25 per point, or 50 per point, or 75 per point, or the percentage remains the same, but the chance to proc goes up.

Try to think before you say silly things.

He specifically stated that as the chance to proc goes up the amount of mana returned would go down. Yes you could alter it in the way you suggest but all I was pointing out is that that the concept or one going up while the other goes down sort of defeats the object.

Please read the source material I commented on before telling me I'm 'saying silly things'.

Rustik · 09/04/08, 6:13 AM

My apologies, I had only skimmed the most recent postings. I missed the part where he had intended the effect lessens as the chance increases.

Although, this doesn't really sound like a bad idea, the numbers are just a bit off. You get an increase from 1 to 2 points, but then the third point drops it back down to be exactly the same as point 1. If the third point was a 33% effect, it would be a buff with each point, and 33% would be enough to keep Judge/CS/DS going indefinitely, with a slight surplus for healing, cleansing, etc.

Geerock · 09/04/08, 8:57 AM

Originally Posted by Joasuf

Name me a single other talent where putting more points into it make it worse?

Sanctified Seals. Putting 3 points into it increases the chance that your other buffs will be hit by purge/dispel mechanics. Seals are very easy to reapply mid battle, considering their mana cost, as opposed to recasting an 800 mana blessing.

But I'm glad to see some feedback from my idea. I'm not against changing the numbers, so please feel free to play around with it. I just wanted to toss the concept out there.

Puretide · 09/04/08, 9:30 AM

Originally Posted by Geerock

Sanctified Seals. Putting 3 points into it increases the chance that your other buffs will be hit by purge/dispel mechanics. Seals are very easy to reapply mid battle, considering their mana cost, as opposed to recasting an 800 mana blessing.

But I'm glad to see some feedback from my idea. I'm not against changing the numbers, so please feel free to play around with it. I just wanted to toss the concept out there.

In Wrath, don't seals cost more mana than blessings?

Geerock · 09/04/08, 9:33 AM

Originally Posted by Puretide

In Wrath, don't seals cost more mana than blessings?

While this is true, and this is a WotLK thread, it wasn't specified that my example had to be from the beta.

Moot point, it's still a talent where the more points you put into it, the worse the effect CAN be.

james · 09/04/08, 10:38 AM

Probably something mentioned at least once - but Blessing of Kings has to be the most annoying talent. If you take BoSanc, you're no longer using BoK in 5-mans. IMO, the effect of BoK and BoSanc need to be rolled into a single blessing.

Herzak · 09/04/08, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by james

Probably something mentioned at least once - but Blessing of Kings has to be the most annoying talent. If you take BoSanc, you're no longer using BoK in 5-mans. IMO, the effect of BoK and BoSanc need to be rolled into a single blessing.

I don't think blizzard will do that... that will make the blessing too powerful, you're not supposed to have 1 blessing that does everything, the idea is to have different options, kinda like Wisdom is good for regen, but Might is better for faster killing.

I'm all for making Kings baseline though

Cathela · 09/04/08, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by Herzak

I don't think blizzard will do that... that will make the blessing too powerful, you're not supposed to have 1 blessing that does everything, the idea is to have different options, kinda like Wisdom is good for regen, but Might is better for faster killing.

I'm all for making Kings baseline though

I agree.

However, I think the most useful thing we can do right now is simply to identify problems. The developers are good at coming up with solutions; in fact, very often they come up with a solution that's much better than anything we think of. (Remember when everyone was suggesting that Holy Shield return mana on a block? That was a good idea, but the devs actually invented and implemented a much better idea in the new BoS.) Basically, they're really good at coming up with solutions to problems. But we have a crapton more experience actually playing the class than they do, so we're much better than they are at seeing what the problems actually are, and that's where we can do the most good.

Which is not to say people shouldn't suggest solutions as well if they think up something neat. I certainly haven't been shy about pimping my pet ideas. And sometimes the answers we come up with are really good enough to be implemented -- see Xaviera's suggestions on warriors recently. Or even better, Gurgthock's post regarding consumables just before BC and his post about raid buffs a few months ago, and how many of his suggestions were implemented almost unchanged.

But generally I think if we can identify problems and perhaps just suggest some solutions, then that's good and it's probably not going to make much difference for us to debate the solutions in detail. We didn't really need to take a debate on whether having Holy Shield return mana to a conclusion; it was enough that we suggested it, and they took the concept and ran with it, and delivered the new BoS. (Or maybe they came up with the idea on their own, but whatever.)

EDIT: So, sorry for rambling, but to tie this back into the post above, what's important is for us to identify the issue, which is having BoK and BoS in the same tree. Once the devs are aware of the issue, they can come up with an answer they like. Suggestions don't hurt, and a bit of constructive criticism can often help make a good idea into an even better idea. But we don't need to pick each other's ideas to death. Lay out some basic arguments for and against the idea, and then let the developers pick it up from there if they want. (And yes, I've been guilty of dragging arguments on too long myself.)

james · 09/04/08, 11:38 AM

Fine then. Hand of Sanctuary. 10 min cooldown, 10 min duration. Players may only have one Hand on them per Paladin at any one time, etc.

Khaelarys · 09/04/08, 11:41 AM

On a side note, here's your chance.

Here's the Prot discussion.

And here's the ret discussion.

Cathela, get em!

flyingtoastr · 09/04/08, 11:43 AM

Then you can only put it on one person at a time and if you wipe you're kinda screwed (you die and lose the buff but it is still on cooldown). I was honestly willing to bet last week that Sanctuary would become either a passive effect or a self-buff (not a blessing) that would simply cause reflected damage on blocks. I'm pleasantly surprised with the new version but it's placement leaves much to be desired.

I still maintain that the best course of action is to make Kings baseline and just throw in something else in T3 prot.

Theras · 09/04/08, 1:19 PM

I would have to agree that having two talented Blessings in a single tree is pretty undesirable, especially given the fact that not all Holy Paladins will have a Protection sub-spec any more. I also don't think that Blessing of Sanctuary is going to remain in its current state, seeing as half of its effect is a unique power regen mechanic that otherwise isn't available to all tanking classes. And as swell as I personally would find that, I don't think it would be all that healthy for the game for Protection Paladins to be a key member of raids because we have a unique snowflake buff. I'd rather we earn our slot based on what we actually can do.

I'm pretty fond of a solution like this:

Blessing of Sanctuary becomes Sanctified Blessings - "In addition to the normal effect, your Blessings will also reduce all damage done to the target by an additional 3%."
The power restore component of Blessing of Sanctuary is split off onto a self-only talent. Doesn't matter which one. Redoubt would be a great candidate, though.
All tanking classes should have a similar talented ability. Unique flavor would be nice, but not required. All that matters is that it scales inversely with gear, so that as your chance of being struck decreases, your power regeneration increases.

That seems like a pretty clean solution, without having do something "imbalancing" like making Blessing of Kings baseline. Not that doing that would actually be imbalancing, of course; I'm just trying hard to think like a beta forums poster.

Cathela · 09/04/08, 1:29 PM

Originally Posted by Khaelarys

On a side note, here's your chance.

Here's the Prot discussion.

And here's the ret discussion.

Cathela, get em!

Prot I've already done. I'm going to do a Ret post this afternoon (within 2 hours or less, probably) but as I'm not primarily a Ret player (in fact, the last time Cath was Ret on the live server was... February 2005?) I'm probably going to miss a lot of points. So if you have any point you'd like to see made -- especially something kind of "off the beaten path" that hasn't appeared in 5 million posts already -- post it up and I'll do what I can to include those.

Re: what to do about BoS+BoK. A week ago I was assuming that BoS would no longer be a blessing, and I was happy with that. But actually after seeing what they've done with it, I like having it this way. There's a nice symmetry to having a "melee blessing", a "caster blessing", and a "tank blessing". I do agree with Theras' concern about BoS providing a lot of utility that's (so far) unique to prot paladins, but if that's going to be an issue I'd rather see 1-2 other classes/specs get buffs that provide similar utility. (Non-stacking, of course.)

Theras · 09/04/08, 2:03 PM

Originally Posted by Cathela

Re: what to do about BoS+BoK. A week ago I was assuming that BoS would no longer be a blessing, and I was happy with that. But actually after seeing what they've done with it, I like having it this way. There's a nice symmetry to having a "melee blessing", a "caster blessing", and a "tank blessing". I do agree with Theras' concern about BoS providing a lot of utility that's (so far) unique to prot paladins, but if that's going to be an issue I'd rather see 1-2 other classes/specs get buffs that provide similar utility. (Non-stacking, of course.)

I guess a more overarching conclusion you could reach from what I was saying, is that I buy into Gurgthock's raid utility thread whole hog. Specifically that two of any given class would be optimal, with a third bringing marginal utility at best, and anything beyond that being wasteful. Sanctuary would make it so that up to a fourth Paladin could provide marginal additional utility, which doesn't fly with the theory. It probably wouldn't matter much given that Battle Shout precludes the need to put Blessing of Might on any melee classes, but it still bugs me a little, you know?

Like you said though, changing Sanctuary isn't the only solution. Spreading its ability out to other classes would work just fine. Spreading our other two Blessings out to other classes probably would work, too. Like Kings. Or Wisdom. Or Judgement effects. Or... you know, now that I think about it, we've got a lot of unique snowflake buffs still. The only other unique effects I can think of right now are Power Word: Fortitude, Mark of the Wild, and Wrath of Air totem; all of which are spec-independent, and two of which don't necessitate more than a single member of their class.

We could probably stand to spread the love a bit. From that perspective, I'd be fine with Sanctuary staying as it is, though Kings being in the same tree will remain puzzling unless it gets moved, baselined, or chopped up and given to other classes.