So, finally got a chance to play on a pally now on the beta. Couple of notes: HotR really needs to start auto attacks. Especially since on multi-mob pulls, you're likely to use that over Judgement to kick things off, it feels really odd to be spamming all these abilities...and not see your auto-swing going. I've already submitted that feedback.

Also, I now understand why the Glyph for the alteration of AS (hits two less targets, but does 100% more damage.) With the insanely long amount of time it dazes targets for, you can hit that one, get primary aggro on it, then get it CC'd by someone else while it's away from the group, and switch to hitting other stuff as it races in to eat your face. If CC pops, it'll still come to you due to the amount of threat you put on it. It's a flavor glyph, but used properly, it'll work really well. HotR works well as an in-close version of AS anyways, and has the advantage of being instant. While you can certainly use AS while being swarmed with the casting change, I like it for use one-on-one on mobs for more threat being Glyphed.

Finally, got silenced by several things in dungeons the last couple of days...HotR and SHoR are NOT physical abilities. When I got silenced, those abilities were not able to be used. If anyone else has different results, I'd like to hear it.

I'm pretty sure I was able to HotR through a silence at one point, but that was many patches ago. Seems stupid to me that a weapon strike and a shield slam should be silenceable, but apparently they are.

On the plus side, if things stay this way presumably it means that haste-stacking will be an interesting way for paladins to bulk out the threat rotation a bit more.

Not disagreeing, but it's always been the same with Crusader Strike. The solution so far has been to create a macro with /startattack /cast <ability>. Obviously this will get very tedious if we have to do it for a whole number of abilities.


Changing SoW to 0 mana cost could be a possible fix. Agree on the rest of your post ("Seals -> Dispel immune imbues" bit).


Minor nitpick: Actually, the only spec/class is Ret (again).

Enhancement Shamen will have tons of int on their gear (http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...aman_melee.jpg), which is actually desirable now considering it gives them AP (1 int = 1 AP), a larger mana pool, as well as the scaling mana return you're talking about: [Mental Dexterity]

This is not to say I think we should get equal treatment here, I'm fine with a supercharged jotw and keeping with intless plate.

Just because the result is a weapon or shield strike, doesn't mean the paladin isn't casting a spell to invoke the power of the Light. An interesting, if needlessly complex, compromise would be a HotR and ShR that connected but did physical damage instead of Holy. Silence would negate the "spell" aspect and harm your threat but still permitting you to hit the monster upside the head. But I digress.

A thought about balancing a scaling Judgement of Wisdom. Make its base mana regen small, maybe 15% of base mana. Then add a component that scales with AP. Tweak the numbers and it can remain a useful spell for healers to regenerate mana while still providing the reliable scaling "nuke-regen" many of us are looking for. Tanks would benefit from the effect greatly in a situation when they're mana-starved, too.

Another idea would be to allow the mana regen to crit; this would benefit healers more than tanks assuming Holy paladins still like crit in LK. It would also favor Retribution because it would be affected by talents like Sanctified Seals, Fanaticism, and Righteous Vengeance. Protection (I assume) won't be stacking crit but no one's complaining about their mana regeneration mechanic.

Everyone assumes we will have Replenishment with 100% uptime, but is that really realistic?

I haven't seen any parses on it, just curious since it was listed as ten targets only and picking intelligently. If it picks based on actual mana, Ret and Prot will probably be among the lower ten most of the time. But if it picks by % of total mana, will retadins/holydins/protadins still be among the lowest?

Everyone is assuming there will be 2 classes providing replenishment and that it is/will be coded to be smart enough to cover 10 each. That leaves 5 out so it assumes you either have 5 total warriors, rogues, DKs and feral druids, or the remainder were full and didn't need the mana.

DarkNecross: ONe minor nitpick: There will be 5 seal casts, not 4(0 min, 2 min, 4 min, 6 min, 8 min). It still doesn't change the end result much. We're still in the positive.

Selenia: In a 25 man group, we can assume you'll have 2 mana batteries for an optimal group. You only need 5 rogues/warriors/DKs to make those two mana batteries cover the entire raid. That is assuming that replenish will not stack with multiple mana batteries, and simply select other raid members.

For a 10 man group it's even easier. Everyone will get replenish with a single mana battery.

Seal of Wisdom should be mana free. You already lose DPS from having not another seal up. You're already punished by having to repay the mana cost of a damage seal.

Warlocks don't pay mana for Life Tap. Hunters don't pay mana for Aspect of the Viper.

These other abilities are ways to increase your mana at a cost to your DPS. Seal of Wisdom shares the same mechanic, however, you need to earn 28% of base mana to cover the cost of sealing wisdom, and then resealing a DPS seal.

If they still have time budgeted to balance I would expect some sort of AP/STR->INT conversion. A lowering of mana costs on DPS abilities.

I suppose this is a moot point if JotW stays as it is, but I'm pretty sure Blizzard doesn't want any mana based class to operate at peak DPS forever without having to stop and do something with their mana.

[quote]
The issue is quite obvious. Retribution paladins have very low mana and burn through it too quickly.

You can band-aid this by adding ridiculous regen, but that fails the "mana classes shouldn't treat mana as an unlimited resource" test.

You can otherwise leave ret paladins with a smaller mana pool, but cheaper spells. This breaks down when you need to consider that other specs use the same spells, but have different mana concerns. (IE: now prot paladins have an impossible time running out of mana, and what might happen with shock DPS builds?). Also, any static (not based off max mana) mana gains give an unbalanced benefit to ret paladins than to other classes.

For Example:
A moonkin and a ret paladin have equal levels of gear. The moonkin has 15,000 mana, and the ret paladin has 5,000 mana. Both are balanced to go OOM after 10 minutes of fighting at their peak efficiency, all buffs considered, without having to do anything special to regen. At the 10 minute mark the paladin drinks a 4,300 mana potion, and so does the moonkin. The paladin now has 8.6 more minutes of peak DPS they can do, while the moonkin now has 2.8 minutes.

Also consider the impact that mana burn has on a class with 5k mana vs a class with 3-4 times that.


Or you could give ret paladins a properly sized mana pool somehow, and scale their mana consumption to match other mana based classes. This would mean that ret paladins have and spend about the same amount of mana as other mana based classes. It would mean that mana effects wouldn't have to take into account the special case of the ret paladin with 5k mana. It also means you don't have to give a ridiculously high mana regen rate to them as a special case, as you can see already, holy builds are already trying to figure out whether they can wrangle JotW into a healing build.

How do you make the paladin in the above example have 15,000 mana in warrior gear? The only way I can imagine it is to have it scale off stats that they are already looking for. It would also have to be something that holy paladins wouldn't want, or couldn't get. IE: don't bake it into Sheath of Light.

Something like a talent:

Faith in Strength
You gain 375%/750%/1125% of your strength in mana, but lose 33%/66%/100% of your intellect. Also, your melee critical hits cause Vengeance which makes you deal 1%/2%/3% more damage. Vengeance stacks up to 3 times.


Something like that would be interesting because it gives you about the same mana as a holy paladin, but your healing efficacy and diversity would be low (slow HLs, no BoL, no Holy Shock, Weak Heals, etc etc) but wouldn't preclude you from offhealing a normal instance or whatever in ret spec. (Despite the fact that you have 0 int).

It would also drive holy paladins away from trying to pick up the talent. Because if they really wanted that talent they would have to spec deep into ret, put on DPS gear, lose healing talents, and basically be a ret paladin.

It would allow retribution's mana pool to scale much more smoothly with other mana based classes, and make balancing regeneration easier.

I suppose the only fear would be that the ret paladin and their massive mana would be busting out 2.5 second holy lights all over the arena between doing massive damage. But if you've ever actually tried healing as a non-holy paladin (I have, while I was prot) it's pretty pointless, and only acts as an easy way to lock out the goof's holy school for a while.

With the changes to spell pushback, a Ret Pally with a ton of mana is a bad thing, since they will be about to heal a lot, assuming they don't get interrupted in the 2.5 seconds.


I think the 20% base mana + the normal mana buff from JotW is good enough.

At the risk of digressing into discussion of how to balance another class, perhaps the solution is for mana burn to function in a way that it depletes a percentage of the mana pool, rather than a fixed a value.

What if as an additional effect on Eye for an Eye:

Whenever you lose mana to a spell or effect, the caster of that spell or effect loses double the percentage of their mana that you lost.

Or something to that effect. Basically, you can manaburn a paladin, but there's a significant penalty for doing so.

Putting it in low ret also means that some holy paladins will have it (at a substantial cost), so manaburning a holy is not risk-free either.