WotLK talent trees/abilities discussion - Page 201

rozetta · 09/05/08, 7:34 AM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

HotR currently requires one-handed weapons.

This has bothered me from the moment I heard about it. I mean, I know they're trying to get prot specs to solo with a shield, but as it stands, making this useable with a 2-hander would open up better soloing and the possibility of even PvP usage (at the BGs level). Prot still has the problem of being useless for absolutely everything but running instances or levelling up to 58. Now that they've made a conscious effort to improve the prot tree for Warriors, especially on the DPS front, I hope they don't relegate the Paladin prot tree to tanking or off-healing. This would continue to make the tree useless for more than 50% of the game.

As a prot paladin myself (for the duration of TBC), I noticed this problem and started levelling a rogue. Since our guild has very few tanks, I don't want to be stuck in another 2-years of having to spec something that I only log onto for instances. Barring decent changes to prot, my paladin will be shelved purely out of necessity come WotlK.

jere · 09/05/08, 8:13 AM

Originally Posted by DarKNecross

With 3 Paladins (1 Holy, 1 Prot, 1 Ret), only 3 groups won't get every buff. Hunters, Ret Paladins, and Enh Shaman won't get Blessing of Sanctuary. Everyone else will be covered.

Actually add protection paladins to that list. We would want all four blessings (BoM, BoW, BoK, and BoSanc). We will have to lose out on one blessing if there are only 3 paladins. (Though obviously, if we had either the holy or ret paladin with BoK, then we would be covered if a warrior was in the raid, but I think I read your comment as being related only to paladins providing them.)

Avitus · 09/05/08, 9:35 AM

Buff coverage is not the problem, you can give everyone what they want with 3 paladins.

The problem is, who specs for BoK? Ret and Holy can't get there in an optimal way. If Prot is available they will be buffing BoSanc and be the first on the list of "BoK needers".

Exewut · 09/05/08, 9:43 AM

Originally Posted by rozetta

This has bothered me from the moment I heard about it. I mean, I know they're trying to get prot specs to solo with a shield, but as it stands, making this useable with a 2-hander would open up better soloing and the possibility of even PvP usage (at the BGs level). Prot still has the problem of being useless for absolutely everything but running instances or levelling up to 58. Now that they've made a conscious effort to improve the prot tree for Warriors, especially on the DPS front, I hope they don't relegate the Paladin prot tree to tanking or off-healing. This would continue to make the tree useless for more than 50% of the game.

As a prot paladin myself (for the duration of TBC), I noticed this problem and started levelling a rogue. Since our guild has very few tanks, I don't want to be stuck in another 2-years of having to spec something that I only log onto for instances. Barring decent changes to prot, my paladin will be shelved purely out of necessity come WotlK.

Actually it makes sence for prot to dps with a shield, don't forget holy shieldslam should do acceptable damage. They could even make it scale with spelldamage so holy paladins could use it in their damage rotation as well. Or perhaps add a t1 strenght -> spelldamage talent in a tree somewhere and base the scaling of holy shieldslam on having that ability.

mclem · 09/05/08, 9:50 AM

I'm wondering if the problem should be handled the opposite way around. People are talking about removing BoK, but would a better solution be to make BoS accessed in a non-blessing manner? People have made the point that Sanc doesn't fit as a Hand, which is adequate, but what about as an aura?

What I think would work for consistency and appeal would be:
Kings baseline, reduced effect (5%)?
Improved Kings, 1 talent point to up it to 10%
Sanctuary talent adds its effect to Devotion Aura.

The first two points make Kings with the other blessings; each tree takes one of the three baseline blessings whch it goes on to improve with talents in the tree. The last one leaves us with three paladins for three blessings again. Thematically, Sanctuary works as part of the defensive aura, and it adds a small positioning interest from the range limits.

The only real downside with this is that there's already an improved devotion aura, and the concept of "Really very improved devotion aura" comes across as a bit messy.

As a footnote, people are making the point that Battle Shout is now the same effect as Blessing of Might, but is there any BS equivalent to glyphed Blessing of Might? The other advantage of what I suggest is that the three blessings which can be glyphed are now the three baseline blessings.

Blutelf · 09/05/08, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by mclem

is there any BS equivalent to glyphed Blessing of Might?

Warrior glyphs are not in yet though.

flyingtoastr · 09/05/08, 10:54 AM

Originally Posted by mclem

As a footnote, people are making the point that Battle Shout is now the same effect as Blessing of Might, but is there any BS equivalent to glyphed Blessing of Might? The other advantage of what I suggest is that the three blessings which can be glyphed are now the three baseline blessings.

To the best of my knowledge Warrior Glyphs haven't been implemented yet.

This does bring up an interesting point about the "glyph minigame". Assuming the glyphs we know about stay in game and we still only have 3 Major Glyph slots we might not have much choice for which ones we pick up.

From a Holy standpoint you will absolutely have to have either Glyph of SoW or Glyph of SoL (reduces mana cost of heals or increases healing done respectively). That leaves you with 2 slots open. Glyph of Holy Light (Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 5 of the initial target) has great potential synergy with the new BoL and Glyph of Lay on Hands 1 (Your Lay on Hands also grants you as much mana as it grants your target) could be useful. The Flash of Light Gyph is problematic but could be nice as well. So Holy has 5 "good" choices without even looking at the blessings glyphs for 3 slots.

Ret and Prot will both assuredly be using the Glyph of Judgement (Your Judgements deal 10% more damage) but outside of that ret has no other PvE glyph to worry about. Prot can make some choices with the Avenger's Shield glyph or the Consecration glyph but it too doesn't require anything else. The problem again is that prot wants to be doing Sanctuary (on the tank classes at least) so there isn't any reason for him to pick up the BoK glyph. Ret has to choose between the BoK or BoM glyph (and spec kings still), he can't be giving out both.

Kayella · 09/05/08, 10:58 AM

It's surprising to me that the holy tree feedback thread hasn't yet touched upon the downranking change and how that affects healing with a paladin (particularly with respect to Holy Light). I would have thought this was a fairly major point to put across to the developers before they finalise the healing tree - with HS on a cooldown and FoL being very weak, what is our mid-range mana-efficient heal as a holy paladin? I mean, the tree is one thing and obviously needs some work, but healing is as much about the gameplay style as it is the exact talents - are BoL and Infusion of Light the answer to all our problems?

Edit: Also, it would be useful to touch on the supposed intention to make all paladins / warriors / druids / death-knights be able to tank. As it currently stands, the holy paladin seems to have lost a lot of utility in this area compared to TBC. Perhaps dual-purpose talents could help.

Khaelarys · 09/05/08, 11:15 AM

I guess I just assumed that there's no reason for overlapping raid utility if you still differentiate them by Glyph additions.

Maybe it'll come down to min/max certain classes into certain raid buffs by what glyphs they have to give up to get the raid utility glyphs, but then - if that's the case, they haven't fixed much - they've just made everything more complicated.

Clearly, if I can give some portion of my BoM as spell damage and warriors cannot - that's not a perk, that's a purely better buff. I don't see that flying.

EDIT: GC just said that they've started the numbers pass for all classes. How can that be when they haven't even done the paladin class basic focus yet?

• Chicken · 09/05/08, 12:04 PM

In regards to the "Kings issue", it wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard's solution to it would be that another class also gets a buff that increases your stats by a percentage. It's currently one of the few buff types that's still completely unique, which seems to be the opposite of their design intent (Which is buff redundancy). The most likely candidate for receiving this would be Shamans, most likely in the form of an Earth totem. Other classes are certainly possible as well, I'm just expecting Shamans as they basically lack a second Earth totem at the moment which is always useful to have.

I'd prefer personally if the Blessing of Sanctuary effect were to become the effect of Improved Devotion Aura though: Remove the extra healing and armor, change it to the 1/2/3% damage reduction and the mana/rage/runic power restoration on avoiding an attack. Buff redundancy is nice and all, but I think in the current design having four potential blessings a person can benefit from doesn't work. With ten classes, I'd say two blessings should give the most powerful effect, with a third blessing being nice but not required. That works best if there's one blessing which is desirable for everyone (Kings), and two other blessings of which the desirability depend mostly on your class and spec, but can be nice to have both if your class is designed that way (Might, Wisdom).

More in the "Unlikely to happen but it'd be neat if..." realm would be if Kings were made baseline, and each spec basically has it's "own" blessing. That is, every Paladin can provide Might, Wisdom and Kings, but if you have a Paladin of the appropriate spec, you get a slightly more powerful version of each Blessing. That'd probably require improved Might to be moved slightly deeper in the Retribution tree. I'd say it'd be neater design anyway if it was a 2 point talent on about the same depth in the tree as improved Wisdom.

GSH · 09/05/08, 12:13 PM

I was thinking about Retribution's mana issues, and it occurs to me that Protection still has the same problem when not getting hit. For example, if you're off-tanking an add, what do you do when the add dies? You're in all strength gear with no int, so your mana pool is pathetic, and you can't really heal. If you try and do damage, you'll run out of mana really fast as BoSanc or Spiritual Attunement won't return anything. Prot warriors, feral druids, and death knights can at least sustain their damage for the rest of the fight, even if the damage is lower than a DPS character.

To me, that says that whatever the solution to Ret's mana issue is, Protection must be able to share it. But if it's a talent within reach of Protection, then it is within reach of Holy.

I think that Judgement should return a significant percentage of base mana when judged. Fold this into the base Judgement rather than making it a required talent. Make the mana return high enough to sustain a Judgement + Crusader Strike/Hammer of the Righteous cycle indefinitely.

It would also be another incentive for Holy to judge, along with the Haste. A bit of mana return which is not tied to Illumination.

I'd prefer personally if the Blessing of Sanctuary effect were to become the effect of Improved Devotion Aura though: Remove the extra healing and armor, change it to the 1/2/3% damage reduction and the mana/rage/runic power restoration on avoiding an attack. Buff redundancy is nice and all, but I think in the current design having four potential blessings a person can benefit from doesn't work. With ten classes, I'd say two blessings should give the most powerful effect, with a third blessing being nice but not required. That works best if there's one blessing which is desirable for everyone (Kings), and two other blessings of which the desirability depend mostly on your class and spec, but can be nice to have both if your class is designed that way (Might, Wisdom).

You know, this is a spectacular idea. The extra armor from Devo Aura, while nice, has never been exciting. If the baseline Devo Aura had the new BoSanctuary effect, that would work really well. 3% damage reduction is pretty much the same thing as the extra armor while leveling.

That would also get rid of the extra Blessing issue as well. Now I'm not sure if Imp Devo Aura should tack on the extra healing as well, as that would be one buff covering two categories, but it's not that different from one character providing two buffs.

zenos · 09/05/08, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by DarKNecross

In reply to Avitus:

Your argument falls apart when the Holy Paladin buffs the raid with Improved Blessing of Might and Improved Blessing of Wisdom. Since Holy Paladins aren't going to be buffing Kings, there's nothing else in the Protection tree worth getting (except Divine Guardian, which is a 17pt talent sink). Obviously, regardless of being Beacon of Light or Sheath, they're going to pick up Conviction, and Imp BoM is on the way.
With 3 Paladins (1 Holy, 1 Prot, 1 Ret), only 3 groups won't get every buff. Hunters, Ret Paladins, and Enh Shaman won't get Blessing of Sanctuary. Everyone else will be covered.

I think people are overvaluing Blessing of Sanctuary's potency. The new BoSanc is amazing - for tanks. 3% damage reduction on a 9k hit means taking 8,730 damage: 270 less damage. I'd hardly call that mandatory. With the changes to downranking, I'm expecting to see frequent overheals as well.

It takes roughly 1.5 points of talents in the pally protection tree and 5 points in the warrior protection tree to emulate the given effect. At this point without knowing the details of the raid content and whether all tanks will live in the "infinite rage/mana" territory while tanking progression, it's easy to over estimate or down play the blessing.

It could be a more dependable alternative to grace, or it could be a required mechanic for at least all of tanks on cleaving bosses, etc.. The raid content will largely determine its effectiveness. Looking back at BC raid bosses however, this blessing would be present in most every min/max guild.

Jessie · 09/05/08, 12:58 PM

Blessing of Kings: Personally, I'd just change MotW into a BoK copy. Maybe 8% stats baseline increased to 9/10 with talents. You could either remove the armor component or add it into Kings.

Also, here's my post in the suggestion thread explaining my thoughts about Light's Grace and Beacon:

Just to elaborate on two points:
Beacon of Light: Assuming the bugs get fixed, I think the most obvious issues with Beacon of Light are the high mana cost, short duration, and the overheal issue.

However, the question I'd most like to address is what should the effect be when casting heals directly on the Beacon? I think including total healing could just encourage blind spamming, which wouldn’t be best. Perhaps when healing the Beacon Target, your heal amount would get split between all affected targets? That would probably be a little too powerful in a 5 man, but something along those lines would be nice.

The idea would be that healing somebody else duplicates the healing on the beacon, and healing the beacon provides some sort of AoE effect.

Light's Grace: Another place we could look to change things up would be Light's Grace. Since it doesn't really synergize well with Infusion of Light, why not change this up? Some possibilities could be:
-- Change the cast time reduction or the triggering effect to Flash of Light. FoL triggering the HL cast time reduction would make it easier to keep up the buff, or just letting it reduce the cast time on FoL would give that spell some better throughput with HL mostly for burst with Infusion of Light.
-- Add an AoE component to HL, FoL or HS
-- Spell crits do AoE healing (maybe 10% of the total amount healed?)
-- Reduce the effects of overhealing. This could be done by either spreading overhealing done over time, distributing overhealing around the raid, or by storing your overhealing on the target as a reactive heal. I'm personally in favor of Light's Grace - Whenever your Holy Light, Flash of Light, or Holy Shock overheal the target, they will be imbued with the Light's Grace, storing that overheal until the next time they take damage. Lasts 15s and cannot excede 30% of the heal's total effect.

Kigale · 09/05/08, 1:06 PM

do damage reduction talents/abilities scale multiplicatively? If so, (correct me if I'm wrong), BoSanc isn't a 3% reduction for a tank.

My Math could be wrong:

with 6% reduction from imp RF a paladin will be taking 94% of damage. 3% of 94% is 2.82%
This value will drop with any other % reduction.

Modal · 09/05/08, 1:10 PM

So this hasn't been discussed in this thread in a few days, but I want to bring it up again because I haven't really seen anything but rumors. I've been doing some investigation into how dodge rating affects character sheet dodge %. It does seem to me that there is evidence of the diminishing returns people have been talking about. Btw, these numbers are for a level 70 paladin.

Dodge Rating     Dodge % per Rating
       38            .0542
      147            .0507
      277            .0471
      338            .0456
      442            .0433
      577            .0406
      742            .0377

I won't reproduce the data I derived these numbers from here, in the interest of saving space. If you want to see it, check out my maintankadin thread:

Maintankadin :: View topic - Diminishing returns on dodge rating?

I have also noticed that defense skill is giving more parry and dodge % than .04 per point (only slightly more), if you believe the numbers on the character sheet. This set of numbers depends on the assumption that defense is contributing the same amount to dodge % as parry % on my character sheet. But the numbers aren't much different if you instead assume that defense skill is contributing .04 per point to dodge %.

Definitely looks like diminishing returns to me. I've tried to bring it up on the beta forums for blue confirmation, but no luck (just people telling me the character sheet is bugged so I should shut up).