Uh... but they aren't, are they? MW Shaman can use their instant-heal proc without affecting their dps; AoW paladins can't.
(Unless I missing something where Enh Shamans now need to use every GCD to hit full dps? Or where they now run into serious mana issues?)
You might want to done down the hypberbole a bit yourself, chief.
How about:
Because the talent is substantially less useful, and more to the point for the developers, substantially less fun, if it significantly impacts your dps.
Remember we're talking about FoL here. Sheath of Light is nice, but it still ain't gonna be that much for a Ret paladin.
Okay perhaps I wasn't explicit enough.
If Shaman don't use a MW stack to either cast Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning or Lava Burst they lose damage. Or to put it in reverse in case you didn't get it the other times I've said it: If a Shaman casts a heal using a MW stack they are penalised because they lose the opportunity to cast a damaging spell and they may find themselves in mana problems.
If Paladins don't use an AoW proc what exactly do we lose? Nothing.
Please answer the following question: Why should paladins be able to cast targetted heals while continuing a virtually full DPS rotation with no downside? Shaman are unable to do the same, priests are unable to do the same, druids are unable to do the same. Why are we special?
If Paladins don't use an AoW proc what exactly do we lose? Nothing.
We lose 2 talent points. Shaman spends 5 talent points to add X DPS to their rotation, where X is the DPS added by the MW Lightning Bolt. Paladin spends 2 talent points to add about 1 Flash of Light every 10s to their rotation.
Back to the Ret breakdown, this is my new breakdown (level 70, T4, Gorehowl, 500K damage to a 70 Training Dummy, about 1100 DPS, macro'd DS-CS-J-CS-DS-J-CS rotation):
Melee - 28.6%
Seal of the Martyr - 25.7%
Judgement of the Martyr - 19.7%
Crusader Strike - 14.1%
Divine Storm - 11.9%
We lose 2 talent points. Shaman spends 5 talent points to add X DPS to their rotation, where X is the DPS added by the MW Lightning Bolt. Paladin spends 2 talent points to add about 1 Flash of Light every 10s to their rotation.
Art of War Rank 2
Increases the critical strike damage of your Judgement, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities by 20% and when these abilities critically hit your next Flash of Light spell becomes instant cast.
We're spending 2 talent points to increase critical strike damage. The argument over the efficacy of the talent is a separate issue. It seems unlikely that it will be buffed since Retribution seems to do reasonable dps already and the talent adds some very nice utility.
Last edited by Andrast : 09/27/08 at 3:58 AM.
Reason: Edit to quote more succinctly
Please answer the following question: Why should paladins be able to cast targetted heals while continuing a virtually full DPS rotation with no downside?
Happily: Because it's a small heal that's available randomly, every ~15 seconds on average. And because it's fun.
The logic that you don't have to take advantage of an AoW proc could be used to justify any penalty. What if in addition to the next FoL being instant, it also cost ten times as much mana? You still wouldn't have to use it, so you're not any worse off. But that's obviously silly, because it violates an unstated assumption: that talents are meant to be meaningful and fun.
Does AoW resetting the swing timer make the talent no fun at all? No. But is it more fun if you can use it without worrying about the effect on your damage? Obviously.
Is it imbalanced if a Ret paladin can cast a <2k instant heal on a semi-random basis a few times a minute? I suppose that's an issue for testing to address, but offhand I don't really see how it would throw things out of whack.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
Happily: Because it's a small heal that's available randomly, every ~15 seconds on average. And because it's fun.
The logic that you don't have to take advantage of an AoW proc could be used to justify any penalty. What if in addition to the next FoL being instant, it also cost ten times as much mana? You still wouldn't have to use it, so you're not any worse off. But that's obviously silly, because it violates an unstated assumption: that talents are meant to be meaningful and fun.
Does AoW resetting the swing timer make the talent no fun at all? No. But is it more fun if you can use it without worrying about the effect on your damage? Obviously.
Is it imbalanced if a Ret paladin can cast a <2k instant heal on a semi-random basis a few times a minute? I suppose that's an issue for testing to address, but offhand I don't really see how it would throw things out of whack.
In the scheme of things it probably isn't a big deal. Despite this I see multiple people here claiming that it shouldn't reset the swing timer normally because Maelstrom Weapon doesn't reset it. A totally different argument might be that it is confusing to cause such a dps loss to a casual player when using an ability gained deep within the dps tree. That seems to be a valid point although there are many instances where the tooltip doesn't match in game effects.
Currently we both agree that AoW is a fun, interactive and interesting talent. It will remain that way and I dispute the fact that it will be more fun if the swing timer isn't reset. Furthermore you still haven't given a particularly good reason as to why we should be allowed to cast targetted heals with no drawback.
Your argument over a hypothetical AoW which causes FoL to cost more is a fairly obvious straw man. Having slight drawbacks for using abilities is part of the game. Which leads neatly into the question you ignored which was:
Why are we special? No other spec can cast targetted heals while continuing a near full dps rotation. As I pointed out earlier an enhance shaman must sacrifice a fairly large source of damage to heal so why should we be able to heal with minimal cost?
You think there's no difference in the gameplay experience between having your swing timer reset by an AoW heal and not having it be reset? Really? I mean, do you think it's just not noticeable, or do you think people don't care, or what? Because I'd think the discussion that's happened so far is a pretty good indicator that people do care.
As for my hypothetical being an obvious straw man, of course it was. (I guess the phrase "that's obviously silly" must have given it away, huh?) The point was to show that the "you don't have to cast the heal" argument was also silly. Your statement that a lot of abilities in the game carry drawbacks to using them, on the other hand, is perfectly correct. What I'm saying is that this particular drawback on this particular ability is unnecessary and makes gameplay worse.
And I did give a good reason why AoW heals should be instant: Because it's fun. Do you not consider that a good reason?
Originally Posted by Andrast
Why are we special? No other spec can cast targetted heals while continuing a near full dps rotation. As I pointed out earlier an enhance shaman must sacrifice a fairly large source of damage to heal so why should we be able to heal with minimal cost?
There are a lot of things only one class can do. Paladins, for example, are the only class that can wear plate and heal. Isn't that a slightly bigger deal than being able to cast a small instant heal on a semi-random basis a few times a minute? If it's not imbalanced (and you seem to agree it isn't), and if it would be a better and more fun talent if it didn't reset the swing timer, what does it matter if it violates this rather specific rule you've read into the game? Isn't unique abilities for different classes and specs one of the things that makes the game interesting? It sure is for me.
Your argument is really just "No other class in the game has an ability that satisfies conditions X, Y, and Z, so therefore there can't ever be an ability that satisfies conditions X, Y, and Z, even if that ability would be fun and not-imbalanced."
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
For what it's worth, I see AoW not resetting the timer as potentially out of line in PVP. Shamans are a different class. They do not have SoC, or use 2h weapons, for example. I can understand why in their case the decision has been made to not reset the timer.
The reason might also be something like Paladin mechanics not allowing instant healing spell casts without swing time reset, for all that we know. The code itself may just not be able to support it without a more complex rewrite.
It should not matter too much in PVP anyway. You have more free GCDs in PVP, and more time is spent running, cleansing, HoFing or HoJing, or JoJing. As for PVE, I do not think the instant FoLs will ever be important enough to interrupt the dps cycle for a Ret. This is a pity, as Cathela mentioned, because it would be more fun. But this is probably a case of PVP balancing taking the fun out of PVE balancing, something we are all familiar with.
Also, it certainly shows in the last pages that the lack of sensible Paladin news is making us nervous and restless. Let's ease up a bit.
Also, assuming there are not more than 2 tanks and you don't heal raid, whom will you HoT? There is no real need for the HoT unless you want to heal raid.
That's kind of the point. Given Blizzard's avowed intention of removing specific class requirements from raid composition, a little something to make Paladins slightly more capable raid healers would not go amiss. We should never be really good at it, but we do need the capacity to do it.
Priests get an expensive clone of FoL. I don't think giving Paladins a likewise expensive clone of Renew would unbalance anything.
After over 10 minutes of testing various Seals on the level 70 target dummies in Orgrimmar, I've come to the conclusion that:
* Seal of Blood and Seal of Vengeance proc on auto-attacks, Crusader Strikes, Divine Storms, and Judgements.
* Seal of Command and Seal of Righteousness only proc on the first three attacks.
This was borne out of a Curator kill wherein I had 60 SoB procs, but only 52 known Seal-proccing attacks (29 auto-attacks, 10 Divine Storms, 13 Crusader Strikes).
To test out my theory, I simply stood far enough from the dummy to be out of auto-attack range but still be within Judgement range, and repeatedly Judged.
Upon Judging Blood, I would hit the dummy twice, take damage twice, and separate events for Seal of Blood and Judgement of Blood damage would be logged.
Vengeance (or Corruption in my case) was even more obvious, since a stack of the DOT was placed on the mob after every Judgement.
To verify, I could not get Seal of Righteousness to proc on the dummy after 2 minutes of Judging, although I did make sure that it's still a guaranteed proc on hit from any of the other three attacks.
Seal of Command was the longest. I judged over and over for about 10 minutes without ever getting a single SoC proc. It's a chance on hit, but I felt that 75 Judgements should be statistically significant enough with a 3.50 speed weapon AND the Glyph of Seal of Command.
That's kind of the point. Given Blizzard's avowed intention of removing specific class requirements from raid composition, a little something to make Paladins slightly more capable raid healers would not go amiss. We should never be really good at it, but we do need the capacity to do it.
Priests get an expensive clone of FoL. I don't think giving Paladins a likewise expensive clone of Renew would unbalance anything.
You are right, but BoL let us heal a raid if needed. Also I don't mind a HoT of course, but getting underpowered renew as 51pointer? No thanks. They could make cleanse to have a small renew or LB effect even when there is nothing to cleanse on target. Or add a HoT as 41 pointer. But not 51 pointer.
You think there's no difference in the gameplay experience between having your swing timer reset by an AoW heal and not having it be reset? Really? I mean, do you think it's just not noticeable, or do you think people don't care, or what? Because I'd think the discussion that's happened so far is a pretty good indicator that people do care.
As for my hypothetical being an obvious straw man, of course it was. (I guess the phrase "that's obviously silly" must have given it away, huh?) The point was to show that the "you don't have to cast the heal" argument was also silly. Your statement that a lot of abilities in the game carry drawbacks to using them, on the other hand, is perfectly correct. What I'm saying is that this particular drawback on this particular ability is unnecessary and makes gameplay worse.
And I did give a good reason why AoW heals should be instant: Because it's fun. Do you not consider that a good reason?
There are a lot of things only one class can do. Paladins, for example, are the only class that can wear plate and heal. Isn't that a slightly bigger deal than being able to cast a small instant heal on a semi-random basis a few times a minute? If it's not imbalanced (and you seem to agree it isn't), and if it would be a better and more fun talent if it didn't reset the swing timer, what does it matter if it violates this rather specific rule you've read into the game? Isn't unique abilities for different classes and specs one of the things that makes the game interesting? It sure is for me.
Your argument is really just "No other class in the game has an ability that satisfies conditions X, Y, and Z, so therefore there can't ever be an ability that satisfies conditions X, Y, and Z, even if that ability would be fun and not-imbalanced."
No that is merely one of my arguments. Your argument for changing AoW to not reset the swing meter is "because I want it like that". You've provided no reason as to why we should be able to concurrently heal and dps.
I consider AoW to be fun in its current form. I like the drawback because it means I need to choose between keeping myself or a friend alive or continuing my damaging abilities at maximum dps. I like that drawback and think it needs to stay. Hence my "you don't need to cast the heal" argument.
I think it is extremely unbalanced to be able to dps at full tilt and heal at the same time and I think you'll find alot of other people would agree with me. Perhaps not in PVE but if AoW doesn't reset the swing timer then in PvP players will simply hit a self-heal button every time they see the AoW proc appear. We'll be the only class that gets a healthstone every 10 or so seconds. So I guess, to answer your question, no I don't consider "it's fun" to be a good enough reason. Perhaps if you'd said "It's fun but also confusing to have a talent which actively reduces our dps in a subtle and confusing way to be so deep in our dps tree" then I'd concede you have a valid point.
For the record I started this because I disliked people comparing the Art of War instant-FoL to shaman Maelstrom Weapon. They are fundamentally different concepts and should be treated differently. If we get instant-FoL that doesn't reset our swing timer it should be because of good reasons that don't sound like "Enhance shammies can do it.. so why can't I".
It will likely not be a fear break, since GC has talked about Paladin tanking and fear breaking. They felt it was fine. First of all, fear breaks are not absolutely necessary anymore due to changed aggro mechanics. Second, there are Tremor Totems and Fear Ward.
Third, is there even a boss who AE fears in any of the WOTLK raid content we have seen so far? Is there even one in any of the current T5-T6-SP encounters? Nightbane is the only fearing boss in all of BC, isn't he? (EDIT: Archimonde too, of course.) It may still be fair to say that the encounter design team no longer is going to put AE fear on a raid boss.
Also, it would be in direct conflict with Unyielding Faith. I do not think such a extremely limited and situational talent would be what most Prot Paladins want at all.
Third, is there even a boss who AE fears in any of the WOTLK raid content we have seen so far? Is there even one in any of the current T5-T6-SP encounters? Nightbane is the only fearing boss in all of BC, isn't he? It may be fair to say that the encounter design team no longer is going to put AE fear on a raid boss.
One in each tier I believe. Nightbane in T4, Lord Sanguinar as part of the Kael'thas encounter in T5 and in T6 you get the big one - Archimonde.
Originally Posted by Andrast
I think it is extremely unbalanced to be able to dps at full tilt and heal at the same time and I think you'll find alot of other people would agree with me. Perhaps not in PVE but if AoW doesn't reset the swing timer then in PvP players will simply hit a self-heal button every time they see the AoW proc appear. We'll be the only class that gets a healthstone every 10 or so seconds.
So should Retribution paladins be penalised further for Divine Storm, which does much the same thing without the disadvantage of waiting for a proc? Should the mechanics in game right now which grant passive healing to the player and group while continuing a full DPS rotation be removed or nerfed? Should Feral druids be penalised for taking Improved Leader of the Pack? What about Shadow priests using Vampiric Embrace?
Art of War is already at a disadvantage to those two abilities by making the paladin use extra mana for each heal (Shadow priests would be using mana for DPS anyway). You could also make a case for requiring the paladin to take time out and target the heal being a disadvantage. You have a point when you say Art of War and Maelstrom Weapon are different, but being different doesn't have to mean that one is necessarily worse than the other. I wonder, would you still be opposed to Art of War not resetting the swing timer if it also let the paladin cast an instant Smite or Holy Bolt?
Every DPS class also has other unique upsides or utility besides DPS and nonstackable buffs/debuffs, it's not like that were Paladins only. A Rogue for example has the highest survivability of all melees when using the cooldowns right (Vanish, CoS, Evasion, Sprint) and can boost tank threat or other DPS' damage by Tricks of the Trade.
So should Retribution paladins be penalised further for Divine Storm, which does much the same thing without the disadvantage of waiting for a proc? Should the mechanics in game right now which grant passive healing to the player and group while continuing a full DPS rotation be removed or nerfed? Should Feral druids be penalised for taking Improved Leader of the Pack? What about Shadow priests using Vampiric Embrace?
Art of War is already at a disadvantage to those two abilities by making the paladin use extra mana for each heal (Shadow priests would be using mana for DPS anyway). You could also make a case for requiring the paladin to take time out and target the heal being a disadvantage. You have a point when you say Art of War and Maelstrom Weapon are different, but being different doesn't have to mean that one is necessarily worse than the other. I wonder, would you still be opposed to Art of War not resetting the swing timer if it also let the paladin cast an instant Smite or Holy Bolt?
They are fundamentally different things. All those effects you mentioned are untargeted, relatively passive and heal one target for substantially less than a single flash of light even without factoring in SoL. Over the course of a long fight LotP may provide a decent chunk of healing but in a burst damage situation a targeted heal for 2k is far more effective.
A paladin's flash of light still remains the cheapest single target heal in the game. It costs 7% of base mana which isn't a big hit considering that a Ret pally will regen 20% of maximum mana every 8-10 seconds. This means casting a FoL has considerably less impact and penalises the retribution paladin considerably less than say a Shadowpriest dropping form, or an enhance shaman using a MW stack to cast a heal. Also what people are arguing for here is the ability to not have to take any "time out" and continue to dps while throwing out heals. A skilled player can easily throw out heals to their party while maintaining at least a semblance of their full dps rotation.
Finally, you know as well as I do that if paladin DPS was based around having a hypothetical "holy bolt" that was only castable with an Art of War proc then it shouldn't reset the swing timer, just like Maelstrom Weapon doesn't reset the swing timer. This isn't the case though and arguing on weird and wonderful hypothetical situations doesn't really lead us anywhere.
ret feels a lot like spam DS/CS/Judge on CD and go to sleep.
I'd like to interject here. I'm specifically speaking of level 80 ret here: If you compare our rotation/DPS system to any other DPS class, we're actually on the high end of "fun"/"interactive" now.
Have you noticed how most classes DPS at the moment (pre-3.0)? Warlocks spam 1 button over and over. That's it. How can you complain with that in mind? Mages, Rogues aren't much further. Hunters used to be interesting with shot rotations, but it's all being macro'd nowadays. The list goes on.
The popular example "warriors" is also blown severely out of proportion, requiring the cognitive processing power to hit slam when it says "slam now" at level 80 doesn't really make it that much more interactive. They don't have as many abilities on cooldowns to deal with as we do now.
I was doing Naxx yesterday on beta and it felt very interactive, every GCD there was something to push. The distinction between "fun" and "boring" to me is whether paying attention or being able to snooze has a noticeable effect on your DPS. As a ret paladin, if you "go to sleep" you're losing DPS.
Crusader Strike = 6 sec cd
Judgement = 8 sec cd
Consecration = 8 sec cd
DS = 10 sec cd
Exorcism = 15 sec cd
(Holy Wrath = 30 sec cd)
(At <35% HoW = 6 or 3 sec cd)
Going with a FCFS rotation (though with educated choices during GCD clashes) it really felt very interactive. I was adding Holy Wrath in fights like Noth.
You also need to time your AW and try to have it fall into <35% for extra benefit from HoW, even more so if you're using the AW/HoW glyph.
Admittedly being a 99% undead instance adds 1 more button to press, however even without undead/demon targets it still didn't feel boring or unimportant to pay 100% attention.
At Heigan I was cleansing melee/tank somewhat from the disease, any parts of naxx with frost nova I was monitoring tanks for HoF. Throwing BoPs (HoPs) during trash is a no brainer.
At fights like Sapphiron, I was trying to keep Sacred Shield up on myself all the time, though I'm not going to claim that this ability is worth it (yet).
What I'm saying here is the class feels very interactive, there's so much to press each second and decisions to take that impact your DPS significantly (even if you're not doing any of the utility business in a straight burn down boss), I really have to say if you're illustrating it as "DS/CS/Judge on CD and go to sleep" you have no clue what you're talking about.
Originally Posted by Andrast
In the scheme of things it probably isn't a big deal. Despite this I see multiple people here claiming that it shouldn't reset the swing timer normally because Maelstrom Weapon doesn't reset it.
I'm a proponent of "equality" between classes in cases where equality can be justified (not blindly "omg look what they got"),
That said, "in the grand scheme of things it probably isn't a big deal" is something I can subscribe to.
While doing KT I was throwing 1 instant cast FoL to each person that got ice cubed. Sure it meant I lost a fraction of a swing every ice cube, but "in the grand scheme of things" it's a very useful utility I'm happy to have.
I don't know how anyone could argue for such a broken mechanic. Instant spells don't reset the swing timer, if they do, that's a bug. The only reason why Nature's Swiftness instant heals were still resetting the swing timer was that it didn't matter anyway, Restoration Shamans tend not to be meleeing and healing at the same time.
Why bring that discussion here? Post it on the beta forums. If it gets changed, that's nice. If it doesn't, that's not a big deal. Exactly the latter is what most people are saying here.
EDIT: Does HL when cast under Infusion of Light interrupt the swing timer? In which case it might be a mechanics thing. If it does not, then AoW might just be bugged or intentionally set this way.
After over 10 minutes of testing various Seals on the level 70 target dummies in Orgrimmar, I've come to the conclusion that:
* Seal of Blood and Seal of Vengeance proc on auto-attacks, Crusader Strikes, Divine Storms, and Judgements.
* Seal of Command and Seal of Righteousness only proc on the first three attacks.
...
To test out my theory, I simply stood far enough from the dummy to be out of auto-attack range but still be within Judgement range, and repeatedly Judged.
I have have seen SoC proc on JoC many, many times on the PTR. It seems that you need to be in melee range in order for SoC to proc, so that explains why you didn't see it with your test.
I was trying to see if the SoC proc rate on judgements was the same as auto-attack, so I did the same thing you did by judging out of auto-attack range. Seeing 0 procs made me realize there was something wrong with the test, so I changed my method - I stood in melee range, used FoL to reset my swing timer and judged. I got 10~ SoC procs over 20 Judgements and 2 melee swings (forgot to turn off autoattack sometimes). Sorry, no screenshot, but I could get one if you'd like.
This would be another factor in favor of SoB as our main (raid) DPS seal, since it wouldn't have range issues like SoC. (on a movement fight, say)
It will likely not be a fear break, since GC has talked about Paladin tanking and fear breaking. They felt it was fine. First of all, fear breaks are not absolutely necessary anymore due to changed aggro mechanics. Second, there are Tremor Totems and Fear Ward.
Third, is there even a boss who AE fears in any of the WOTLK raid content we have seen so far? Is there even one in any of the current T5-T6-SP encounters? Nightbane is the only fearing boss in all of BC, isn't he? (EDIT: Archimonde too, of course.) It may still be fair to say that the encounter design team no longer is going to put AE fear on a raid boss.
Also, it would be in direct conflict with Unyielding Faith. I do not think such a extremely limited and situational talent would be what most Prot Paladins want at all.
A fear break would "fit" into the ideas of a tanking tree, but at 11 points, it would give all specs the ability to pick up something useful for PvP. Paladins are one of the most susceptible classes to fear, and this is a bone I'd like thrown our way. Also, after tanking some heroics today, I can definitely say that a fear break would be more than welcome in my eyes. I hope you're right about the lack of fear mechanics in WotlK, because I remember a certain blue post talking about "lack of fear in TBC" and it was nothing but a complete misrepresentation of the truth.
They are fundamentally different things. All those effects you mentioned are untargeted, relatively passive and heal one target for substantially less than a single flash of light even without factoring in SoL. Over the course of a long fight LotP may provide a decent chunk of healing but in a burst damage situation a targeted heal for 2k is far more effective.
A paladin's flash of light still remains the cheapest single target heal in the game. It costs 7% of base mana which isn't a big hit considering that a Ret pally will regen 20% of maximum mana every 8-10 seconds. This means casting a FoL has considerably less impact and penalises the retribution paladin considerably less than say a Shadowpriest dropping form, or an enhance shaman using a MW stack to cast a heal. Also what people are arguing for here is the ability to not have to take any "time out" and continue to dps while throwing out heals. A skilled player can easily throw out heals to their party while maintaining at least a semblance of their full dps rotation.
Finally, you know as well as I do that if paladin DPS was based around having a hypothetical "holy bolt" that was only castable with an Art of War proc then it shouldn't reset the swing timer, just like Maelstrom Weapon doesn't reset the swing timer. This isn't the case though and arguing on weird and wonderful hypothetical situations doesn't really lead us anywhere.
Shadow Priests passively raid heal through Vampiric Touch. They DPS and heal at the same time. The more DPS they do the more healing goes out.
Ret Paladins passively heal the melee through Divine Storm and Judgement of Light. They DPS and heal at the same time. The more DPS they do the more healing goes out.
So again, if we're already filling the role of melee battery what is so unbalanced about AoW? You still wouldn't have to use it if you're lazy, it just gives us something useful to do during all that downtime we have. The only thing you keep saying is "it's OP for us to heal and DPS". Are you gonna try to get Divine Storm nerfed? Remove Judgement of Light? Delete Vampiric Touch? This isn't a new idea.
Last edited by flyingtoastr : 09/27/08 at 11:54 AM.
The only thing you keep saying is "it's OP for us to heal and DPS". Are you gonna try to get Divine Storm nerfed? Remove Judgement of Light? Delete Vampiric Touch? This isn't a new idea.
If this is what you think I'm saying you need to read what I've written slightly more carefully. In fact I direct you to the first paragraph of the text you quoted from me.
My main concern was that people were arguing that the swing timer shouldn't be reset because it doesn't get reset for shaman. I consider this to be a fundamentally flawed and weak argument for all the reasons I've posted. Furthermore no-one has really advanced compelling arguments as to why it should be changed. AoW is fun now, it would be fun if it didn't reset the timer. I happen to prefer that it has the downside it currently has but I accept, and understand, that other people disagree.
Originally Posted by Hidden
I don't know how anyone could argue for such a broken mechanic. Instant spells don't reset the swing timer, if they do, that's a bug. The only reason why Nature's Swiftness instant heals were still resetting the swing timer was that it didn't matter anyway, Restoration Shamans tend not to be meleeing and healing at the same time.
You're right it might genuinely be a bug. But they didn't "fix" the Invigorated proc that Enhance shaman received from 2pc tier 5 which also caused a swing timer reset upon use so I'm not sure if they'll "fix" this. I'd really much rather blizzard concentrate on larger issues such as the deep holy tree instead of fixing a reasonably obscure aspect of one retribution talent.
If this is what you think I'm saying you need to read what I've written slightly more carefully. In fact I direct you to the first paragraph of the text you quoted from me.
My main concern was that people were arguing that the swing timer shouldn't be reset because it doesn't get reset for shaman. I consider this to be a fundamentally flawed and weak argument for all the reasons I've posted. Furthermore no-one has really advanced compelling arguments as to why it should be changed. AoW is fun now, it would be fun if it didn't reset the timer. I happen to prefer that it has the downside it currently has but I accept, and understand, that other people disagree.
Why does everything need a downside? For things like glyphs I can understand, but naturally aren't talents supposed to be pretty much flat increases to utility and whatever your job is? You complain that we can't compare it to MW. Fine. Then your argument falls apart as well, given that you're comparing AoW's "downside" to MW's "downside".
AoW instants fill our role as melee healy battery perfectly. It fits with the flavor of the class (smashing things with hammers while watching out for your buddies), fits our new job perfectly (doing damage and healing) and gives us something to do during the long cooldown periods where we usually just make a sammich or two. Its fun, interactive, and really doesn't change very much in the grand scheme of things. It's also a change of maybe one or two lines of code, it really shouldn't take too much of a dev's free time to fix. There's your argument.
Incidentally you compare it to your 5-piece T5 bonus. Tell me, did anyone actually use that bonus? My gut answer would be no because of the resetting. Blizzard doesn't like it when people don't use the things they work hard to code (see: deep Arms, Arcane, Survival).
09/27/08, 3:20 AM
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