WotLK talent trees/abilities discussion - Page 2

flyingtoastr · 07/18/08, 1:41 AM

Originally Posted by burghy

* Hammer of Wrath is now considered a Retribution spell, moved from Holy, mana cost reduced, missile speed increased, now usable on targets below 35% health.

Why is this bad?.

Long story short:
With a cast time it resets the swing timer and results in a massive DPS loss. As it is not marked as changed to instant (like Holy Wrath was, which by the way looks crazy dope) it will still suffer from this limitation. I can get you the math if you really want it that badly, but it might be better just to trust me.

This is why our T6 bonus makes baby jesus cry himself to sleep.

burghy · 07/18/08, 1:43 AM

Still... the ability is buffed.

• frmorrison · 07/18/08, 1:45 AM

Originally Posted by Corronach

* Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.
* Hammer of Wrath is now considered a Retribution spell, moved from Holy, mana cost reduced, missile speed increased, now usable on targets below 35% health.

The avenging wrath change is good for a lot of paladins, but it is a dps nerf in PVE for ret pallies. Not cool.

Did you see the new imp Righteous Fury? Instead of 60%, it is 90%, so tank threat is buffed. Hand of Salv makes having more Paladins more interactive, other than hitting 2 buttons.

Hammer of Wrath being a Ret spell implies it will scale with attack power vise spell damage.

There is a little nerf with AW, but at least you don't lose the ability to bubble yourself.

Corronach · 07/18/08, 1:45 AM

Originally Posted by burghy

Still... the ability is buffed.

0*x = 0

What flyingtoastr said about Hammer. Unless it was instant, it's not good.

And you didn't list as bad or ugly this "nice" change:
Blessing of Sacrifice renamed Hand of Sacrifice, is now only 1 rank and transfers 20% of the damage taken to the caster, duration reduced to 12 seconds, cooldown increased to 2 minutes. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.

That's because I was too disappointed to read thoroughly, that's clearly an ugly change. The good part is it can be used to get some mana back only in PVE, but it will be a significant amount through spiritual attunement. The straight up nerf part is that the duration was decreased, and the cooldown increased making it even less useful in PVP. I'm sorry I missed this one, because it clearly makes us worse in 2s.

Originally Posted by frmorrison

Did you see the new imp Righteous Fury? Instead of 60%, it is 90%, so tank threat is buffed. Hand of Salv makes having more Paladins more interactive, other than hitting 2 buttons.

Believe me, I want more than anything for pallies to have more then 2 buttons, but crap that lowers the raid's dps instead of a buff that increases the raid's dps is not good. Not to forget with how Blizzard is designing Sunwell encounters, do you really think Pallies have the GCD's to spam that ability?

flyingtoastr · 07/18/08, 1:45 AM

Originally Posted by burghy

Still... the ability is buffed.

It was "buffed" in 2.2 (IIRC) as well, which still only changed it from "utter shit" to "slightly less utter shit".

Unless it becomes instant or doesn't reset the swing timer (or gets some massive AP scaling component so that the pushback is worth the loss of swing damage akin to Slam) no ret pally will ever use it in a rotation.

burghy · 07/18/08, 1:46 AM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

Did you see the new imp Righteous Fury? Instead of 60%, it is 90%, so tank threat is buffed.

"Improved Righteous Fury (Protection) threat bonus folded into base spell, talent still reduces all damage taken by 2/4/6%."
It improves threat for paladins with no points in protection.

As for HoW, it is buffed for every situation where it is used now. And until you see it in action you won't know if the current math still applies.

Pyralissa · 07/18/08, 1:52 AM

Besides the regreatable decision to put HoW on a PVE set bonus, there is nothing wrong with the spell if it's intended purpose is to kill PVE runners and as an effective PVP tool. The improved missile speed and reduced mana cost are handy upgrades. The new holy wrath is simply wonderful.

Going to be a pain keeping all these new abilities on my bars.

• frmorrison · 07/18/08, 1:52 AM

Originally Posted by Corronach

That's because I was too disappointed to read thoroughly, that's clearly an ugly change. The good part is it can be used to get some mana back only in PVE, but it will be a significant amount through spiritual attunement. The straight up nerf part is that the duration was decreased, and the cooldown increased making it even less useful in PVP. I'm sorry I missed this one, because it clearly makes us worse in 2s.

Blessing of Light and Greater Blessing of Light removed. Their effects have been folded into all relevant abilities. This implies Flash and HL will heal for more.

Hand of Purity (likely 51 Holy) will be some sort of instant heal.

Holy Shock has a longer range.

LoH may be usable in Arena if imp LoH remains.

There are other nice PvP things there, Paladins will be better in 2s than they are today with the new stuff.

Lamaros · 07/18/08, 1:52 AM

Originally Posted by Corronach

The salvation thing is huge, atm you bring 3 Paladins for Wisdom/Might, Kings, and Salvation. I'm not sure yet what a Paladin brings to justify their 3rd spot atm. You'll want 1 with devotion aura, and 1 with imp. retribution aura. Hammer of Wrath being "buffed" still makes it absolutely useless for everyone but prot paladins. Holy paladins can't stop healing, and ret paladins are better off staying with their rotations. The hammer of justice change really bugs me, because it implies to me that paladins will have to run into combat every 30 seconds, eating more mana burns without seeing a whole lot of new mana saving techniques. I don't know exactly what I expected, but I can say I'd be a lot happier if I saw these exact changes without the salvation nerf (not saying I dislike the idea in general, but a better replacement then something that nerfs your raid dps instead of increases it), and if I saw something that all implied a fix to holy pallies in PVP. Holy shock being 40 yard range still sucks due to the mana efficiency of the spell, and the fact that we're oom in arenas before any other healers.

I just really hope Hand of Purity isn't our 51 point talent, because as it stands I really hope those new ones are something unique to pallies to inspire me again towards playing this class.

And the avenging wrath change is good for a lot of paladins, but it is a dps nerf in PVE for ret pallies. Not cool.

'Earning' a raid spot simply because you bring an overpowered buff isn't really something to be happy about. This level of complaining is on the level of warlocks complaining about the curse changing because it means one less spot for them. It's entirely beside the point. If a Paladin can't justify a spot beyond the secodn one then the class needs fixing in another way, not just given back a single buff.

We want to be in a situation were we justify two of each class based on the class skills, and then the rest of the spots get filled up based on merit or avaliability. So if a ret pally can't justify a third spot based on doing decent dps and their individual contributions then we'll want a Ret buff. If a holy pally can't justify a position based on their healing contributions then we want a holy buff. Pining for Salvation is not productive.

As for hammer of wrath being useless for ret, well: Blizzard has clearly shown that they don't really like rotations. They've put in more procs and conditional abilities in WotLK, so I assume they want to try and destory 'rotations' as much as possible. I wouldn't be surprised to see some changes that make wrath being useful.

There's a lot more stuff to come, and probably much more there already that we will see shortly. So I don't see the need to be so negative at this point.

kalbear · 07/18/08, 1:53 AM

Did you see the new imp Righteous Fury? Instead of 60%, it is 90%, so tank threat is buffed. Hand of Salv makes having more Paladins more interactive, other than hitting 2 buttons.

It's the same as it was before. The only difference is that all paladins can now put out the same threat modifier that prot paladins could before. No real change.

Corronach · 07/18/08, 2:02 AM

Originally Posted by Lamaros

'Earning' a raid spot simply because you bring an overpowered buff isn't really something to be happy about. This level of complaining is on the level of warlocks complaining about the curse changing because it means one less spot for them. It's entirely beside the point. If a Paladin can't justify a spot beyond the secodn one then the class needs fixing in another way, not just given back a single buff.

We want to be in a situation were we justify two of each class based on the class skills, and then the rest of the spots get filled up based on merit or avaliability. So if a ret pally can't justify a third spot based on doing decent dps and their individual contributions then we'll want a Ret buff. If a holy pally can't justify a position based on their healing contributions then we want a holy buff. Pining for Salvation is not productive.

There's a lot more stuff to come, and probably much more there already that we will see shortly. So I don't see the need to be so negative at this point.

I think you should reread what you quoted,

but I can say I'd be a lot happier if I saw these exact changes without the salvation nerf (not saying I dislike the idea in general, but a better replacement then something that nerfs your raid dps instead of increases it)

I'm essentially saying the same thing you said, without Salvation it will become really up in the air if you can justify the spot of a holy paladin in a raid. Atm you'll need 1 ret for their aura, and 1 prot for their aura. The prot paladin can get kings, and the ret paladin can get might/wisdom.

There are a lot of nice changes, but a large amount of insignificant changes or negative changes. For a class that was expecting a lot of buffs, I don't think these were expected.

Lamaros · 07/18/08, 2:07 AM

Originally Posted by Corronach

There are a lot of nice changes, but a large amount of insignificant changes or negative changes. For a class that was expecting a lot of buffs, I don't think these were expected.

We are yet to see any new spells or the full talent trees, and the beta has just started, so I don't think we should read too much into these patch notes. What they have shown is for the most part good (if not good enough), so it would be reasonably to expect that the stuff we are yet to see, that must necessarily be there, will also move in the right direction.

flyingtoastr · 07/18/08, 2:07 AM

Originally Posted by Lamaros

As for hammer of wrath being useless for ret, well: Blizzard has clearly shown that they don't really like rotations. They've put in more procs and conditional abilities in WotLK, so I assume they want to try and destory 'rotations' as much as possible. I wouldn't be surprised to see some changes that make wrath being useful.

The main thing is that technically Ret pallys don't even have a rotation right now. We have a very fluid priority system based on apparent damage/buffs (CS>Judgement>Exorcism>Consecration) to be smashed on cooldowns. Making HoW useful wouldn't change much, it would just take the spot of something else on the priority list.

I would still like HoW to simply scale with weapon damage. It is a simple and elegant solution and it can have a sweet graphic of me chucking my Cat's Edge at people. Actually I think I would play the Paladin Class regardless of anything else if I could throw my sword at people.

Hellcry · 07/18/08, 2:09 AM

51 holy:
Beacon of Light
The target becomes a Beacon of Light, healing all party or raid members within $a1 yards for $o1 over $d.

prot:
Hammer of the Righteous
Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing $s1% of weapon damage as Holy damage. This ability causes high threat.

ret:
Divine Storm
An instant weapon attack that causes Holy damage to up to ${$i-1} enemies within $a1 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totalling $s2% of the damage caused.

According to mothball @ wotlkwiki

Anedris · 07/18/08, 2:14 AM

I like the salv change. It was always dumb to have a buff that was absolutely mandatory in any kind of serious content (including the ZA bear run) and justifying your raid slot because you click your pallypower button 9 times before the pull is hardly anything to crow about. I like the trade-off with the current damage nerf functionality, but it may be too prone to griefing - perhaps they can disable it in BGs or something.

HoW needs to stop resetting the swing timer or do a huge amount of damage to be worth using for retadins. For all we know however there may be a new talent that gives a proc on hit to get an instant cast HoW or whatnot.