Rasputin

Honestly, AoW is now an artifact from a time when we did have the mana to use it. It has no use in any real scenario aside from carefully constructed hypotheticals where if you use an instant flash right NOW your teammate will be healed by the healer and you will cruise to victory despite you losing 10% of your mana pool to that heal. You can't use it with any regularity in PvE or PvP. It was a cool mechanic while it lasted I suppose. I agree that the offheal mechanic was interesting and I was hoping to see that as our niche; sustainable outlast DPS with moderate offhealing capability. I think that would have been an interesting and unique role to play. I did expect some nerf to the sustainability of our healing itself, something like increasing the cost of our heals in order to prevent us from overbalancing from DPS to healing. Unfortunately this playstyle won't be viable, and we have leftover talents like AoW to commemorate it.

 

midnightwinter

Right I've been following all of this rather eagerly (eagerly like someone who's just found out the spec they've put all their time and effort into is about to get /lol'd out of any sort of raiding environment, and is praying it isn't so), and I'd love some clarification of one thing *madness glinting in eyes* I read the reports of judgements not proccing seals....is that true of strikes? Please tell me it isn't. Because frankly I might have to go and have a quick cry. Having my mana sustainability as retribution dps torn in half is beyond a joke, and having all my baseline seals and judgements, strikes and specials kicked in the face is bad....but are we losing seal-procs on strikes too?

Ive tried -so- hard to find a reason to stay on my retridin for Wrath. I was looking forward to not feeling -guilty- when I come as dps to a heroic with friends or a raid, because I know they'd do better with -anyone- else in that role. I have an elemental shaman, a shadowpriest, and my retridin. Guess how happy -I- am about all the latest changes. I won't bring the concerns of my older mains into a Paladin thread, but honestly, I'm so sorry to all the other Retridins out there. Our hard work and perseverance is going to go unrewarded this expansion it would seem.

Do they really want us to use jow, sow and bow while we dps in order to not bottom out early?
Raiding now we'll want the glyph of crusader strike, the glyph of consecrate (for those fights where we can SPOIL ourselves and use it) and the glyph of spiritual attunement in all likelyhood, purely because we're now going to have to watch our mana expenditure like hawks, and pray to god we take a crap-load of raidwide damage so someone can heal us and loan us some mana.

Because of the changes to our mana regen now, and the fact that using aow heals -will- contribute towards a sickeningly fast oom state, wouldn't it be (and bear with me as I know there will be pvp problems with it potentially) an idea to change the AoW proc from an instant flash into a free consecrate? If it reduced the cost of consecrate by 100% after a judgement or ds crit it would mean that we could say goodbye to a now defunct proc and would contribute towards sustained, non burst dps. I know the talent has undergone many incarnations but its time to make it work for us and not to sit there glowing on our buff bar reminding us we can't afford to cast it.

 

Kaylee

I was going to make the same comparison, but I didn't think anyone would actually get the reference. For such a good game, it seems like nobody actually played it.

Comparisons to under-appreciated MMOs aside, it does often seem as though Blizzard are getting their numbers and running their tests from a completely different game, let alone a different version. Remember the "Threatribution" saga? Either their test situations are out of whack with real life, or they have hugely different expectations for what a class should or should not be doing in a fight. Or a combination of both. How are they actually running these tests? If it's running a 25 man raid, then what was the raid composition? How much AE splash damage was taken? What gear and consumables were used? Did the paladin get Mana Spring / Mana Tide? How long was the fight? If they insist on using Patchwerk as a model, was there enough mana to use Exorcism and Holy Wrath? What about Consecration?

Now that I think about it, another side effect of the massive changes paladins seem to get with each build is how... out of place some of the new spells, abilities and talents are already looking. If paladin damage abilities all scale with attack power then what's the point of Sheath of Light or Touched by the Light? I originally assumed they were added because everything scaled with spell damage in TBC, but if they were actually intended to help with healing then why didn't they just make the three heals also scale with attack power when they changed the other spells? Why do Crusader Strike and Divine Storm still proc seals, when removing them could have lowered Ret's burst DPS (and sustained) without giving the middle finger to Holy and Prot at the same time? If Ret is supposed to be so mana limited now, what's the point of having Art of War?

I'm sure this post is going to come off as whining, but I'm honestly confused here. I just can't fathom what Blizzard really intend paladins to be doing, or where they want them to be come endgame at 80. I know what they've been saying, I know the rhetoric about how 'we want you to be able to tank/heal/dps anything', but with Holy remaining as interesting to play as a broken triangle, concerns over Prot's ability to compete with warriors still carrying over from TBC and the merciless battering Ret just received... I'm not sure I can swallow the propaganda anymore.


But out of all the questions I have about the paladin class in WotLK, there's just one that I really want Ghostcrawler to answer in his next blue post. Why is it that in the world of hybrid melee DPS, there is one set of rules for druids and shaman but a separate, more restrictive set of rules for paladins?

 

Mountie

I know we're not supposed to toss out talent ideas and the like, but in an effort to stimulate discussion on solutions instead of problems maybe I'll toss this here as well since I posted on my guild forums.

I don't know how you solve the Ret problem. With Warriors it's easy because stances allow you to differentiate abilities between offense and defense. with druids you have forms to do that for you(having to shift to heal). Shadowform also does this regulation in priests. Paladins don't have this sort of differentiation and everything is baseline. The talents are about making what's baseline better not giving new abilities(every pally gets the melee dps seal, tanking seal and supposed "spell damage" seal). So if you want to make Ret weaker, you crush the life out of Holy dps. If the paladin 51 point talent was an "angelic" form that shifted you and allowed you to return 33% mana on judgement, as well as other dps abilities, but nothing other than Flash of Light, suddenly you don't have the problem of pallies chaining Holy Light and recovering with judgements while in healing gear.


See, the mana return itself isn't OP in pve. Having unlimited mana is meaningless because every ability is on a cooldown. If you think Ret does too much damage, you just increase the cooldown of Crusader Strike or Divine Storm by 2 seconds, see how it is then. You make judgement every 10 seconds and see if it causes mana/dps issues. You can now individually tinker with things. The DPS, to remain competative for Ret, is such that every ability needs to be used on cooldown, so you don't sit on many empty GCDs unless there's movement in the fight. If I want to Salv a warrior, it costs me DPS(this is a fair trade and the definition of pve utility). By requiring every ability to be used you can now lower the dmg of the 'burst skills' and roll that damage into things like consecrate and righteous vengeance. Dps remains equal, burst is lowered, cats are playing with dogs, down is up and up is down. PVE is now fixed and can be perfectly tinkered to whatever the Devs want it to be(high or low, at least you know).


The mana return in PVP is only OP because you can heal with it and recover, but that problem goes away if you disable Holy Light in that form. Flash of Light doesn't matter because it triggers GCD and a pally who's tossing 1500 point heals at the cost of his GCD isn't outputting damage to put pressure, you have him on the defensive. If you "shift" out of the form to use Holy Light, you no longer regen your mana on judgement and can't use crusader strike or divine storm or whatever else they want. If you make shifting back into form cost you a significant portion of your base mana (like 50%) then a paladin can shift OUT, but once he does he can't go back without a high ammount of mana(meaning he can not have healed much).


For example: I want to heal my 2v2 partner because he's taken a lot of dmg from a Rogue, so I BoP him and then shift out to use Holy Light. If I use one Holy Light(30% base mana at 80) I can heal him for ~3.5k, Crit for 6k, maybe getting him to 80% HP on a crit. I can then shift back but be extremely low on mana and need to judge my way back up(judge restores 33%, so I get the cost of the heal back, but not the cost of the shift which is a hefty 50%). Alternatively if Holy Light doesn't crit and I throw a second Holy Light to get him up to 80 or 90% HP, I now used 60% of my mana in two spells and can no longer shift to dps mode. I'm fighting the rest of the fight as a ghetto healer or getting out of combat to drink a few ticks to get the mana to shift. Either way there's a penalty if I want to drop bigger heals than the 1.5-2k Flash of Lights that Art of War allows.


Anyway, I know it's out there, but it's just an example of how they could rectify the paladin class in this regard. It wouldn't solve everything, but it would allow abilites to be balanced independant of spec which is the reason for a lot of nerfs right now. It all boils down to healers abusing JotW to endlessly heal. If you solve that first, the other things become so much easier to tinker with because you have the ability to roll the dps of the burst into the sustained dmg of righteous vengeance and consecrate(also increasing holy pve dps which they've admitted they want/need to do).


Sorry if you percieve this as incessent whining, it's more frustration. We got the class we wanted all along, and it's tough to just let it go without any kind of fight. Delete it if we're sticklers for 'no made up talents' discussion. I don't see how else we can balance this class other than something like this that will disallow certain abilities in certain specs. Trying to balance everything at once and keep everyone happy has lead, as anyone over the age of 13 knows, to no one being happy.

 

Arthaal

I thought the exact same thing when reading that comment as well. If anything, if more than 1 paladin is present the ret paladin would be judging light due to better scaling for his judgement (since JoW is static 1% back per proc). Then again, I think at this point they're on the defensive about the changes and are attempting spin control.

Percent modifiers R'US

 

Asimo

The only thing that really gets me about the Ret changes - and I freely admit this comes from someone who hasn't actually raided with the spec - is that it seemed like Blizzard actually came up with a very fun sort of mechanic, but seems to be going out of their way to ruin it. It isn't the damage, although that certainly fuels cries of overpoweredness, but rather the fact a Ret paladin (much like an Enhancement Shaman or a Feral Druid) could basically solo without downtime, cleaving through enemies in a nice rythmn. It's not that I don't understand exactly where Blizzard is coming from; I topped DPS and kill charts in a battleground with blue and green quest gear and a freaking Oathkeeper. It's not even that (at least it feels) Ret is worse off in 3.0, even post-nerf. It's just... going from a "fun" sort of gameplay pace to a "not fun", mana-watching and downtime-heavy pace. I'm not even sure Ghostcrawler or whoever else is involved in the decision making is really aware of what they're giving up here.

 

Corronach

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Retribution nerfs in the latest beta build 3

It's pretty outrageous that ghost is trying to downplay the changes now, after not trying to "sugar coat" it. Commenting that ret is 3rd on damage and 4th on healing is laughable. Does he think it's from the mana to cast holy light or flash? It's JoL, and if a Holy Paladin put it up instead of the Ret Paladin his healing total would be much much lower.

Not at all, I had assumed that being able to heal was our new role to make up for having boring abilities and a lack of other tools. I had assumed this because we received no other utility that could otherwise turn a terrible PvP comp into possibly a competitive one. Now all mana has to be dedicated to just doing damage, and all our "utility" is gone in a couple seconds of mana burns. I guess the only interesting thing after reading the bs is that JoL is going to stay that powerful.

Exactly, the latest posts show a complete lack of attachment to the class. It was fun to be able to heal and dps, throwing out holy lights is far more paladin-esque than "divine storm" or "seals".

 

Ivriniel

I know it might be an unpopular opinion, but this latest nerf of both AP and SP coefficients on all our seals and Judgments just strengthens my opinion that the fundamental problem here still is and has always been Sheath of Light.

I can understand that blizzard tries to balance Retribution DPS, to what extent is hard to judge. But I am really getting tired of always being hit by these nerfs too so let's try and handle a simple question.

Why does Retribution need spellpower ?
I can understand them needing Healing Spellpower, but why (for the lack of better wording) "damage" spellpower ?

Every single ability that I consider to be part of a Retribution Paladins cycle (and that has been pointed out to be in the cycle in this thread) has (or now had) strong AP scaling. So from a damage point of view I just don't see the need for spellpower.


Basically my suggestion at this point would be to simply drop SoL or make it affect Healing spells only, and then clean up our Seals and Judgments. Have a dedicated Holy Seal that scales with spellpower, have a dedicated Retribution Seal that scales with AP, and have a mixed Seal for Protection in the middle.

I know it's a fundamental change, but I personally see it as the cleanest and best solution. Surely balancing Retribution damage around AP only must be easier than around AP and SP.


Also for those who downtalk the impact of the latest nerfs on Protection TPS have to keep in mind that DPS classes still scale alot better than tanking classes (even with ShoR), having seals and judgments scale half as good as they did before could cause serious problems later on.

I do feel sorry for Retribution Paladins and I think they deserve to have a properly working DPS spec, but not at the cost of Protection or Holy. (Basically I feel more sorry for myself :P)

 

Prinsesa

The basic justification for Sheath of Light giving spell damage is that Exorcism, Hammer of Wrath, Consecration and Holy Wrath are all baseline Paladin abilities, which can be used by both Prot and Holy as well as Ret.

Of course, Prot has a ton of AP nowadays, so they could make good use of the above 4 spells even if they scaled exclusively with AP.

Which leaves Holy. They won't have a drop of AP in healing gear, and making those 4 spells scale exclusively as such would cripple Holy's ability to use them.

This of course calls into question whether or not this should matter in the first place, but I digress.

------------------

Has anyone tested Righteous Vengeance's interaction with other CCs? I assume it correctly allows Repentance to stay, but what about Sap/Poly/etc.?

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Shandara

Also, GC mentions JoW proc chance has been cut by 50%. Cut from what? And to what? It seemed to be a 100% chance to proc with not internal CD on live, but it'd still be rather overpowered with a 50% proc chance.

For hunters at least with our very high rate of fire.

WotLK Hunter DPS Spreadsheet

 

Palados

They did right that - 50% proc chanse with no internal CD.

 

Ivriniel

But that's exactly my point. The 4 spells you named were all changed to scale with AP and SP. (Even holy shield scales with SP and AP now?).

Thus to me it looks like there is no justification anymore, there was but it was fixed by giving all Paladin spells scaling with SP and AP.

I am not arguing who should do more damage with which spell, I am arguing of what they should scale with and how it would be easier to control scaling.

 

Rasputin

At this point Sheath of Light has indeed become obsolete. If they left Seals to scale with AP and spellpower, but Ret didn't HAVE spellpower, the seals would be fine with much higher coefficients. Holy would have reasonably scaling Seals and Judgements, Ret wouldn't be able to heal with our previous limitless mana, and everything else could simpyl be using an AP coefficient in addition to a spellpower one. I never wanted a spellpower talent for this very reason. PEople clamored for it for months and I always had the same response: don't bandaid us, leave us with strength and AP, and fix our Ret abilities to work with it. Sheath of Light has done more harm in the background than any other talent. It worked too well with JotW, it worked too well with dual-scaling Seals and Judgements, it worked too well with the heals of a non-healing spec. Instead of fixing our problems at the problem point, Sheath, they bent over backwards to let us keep it and nerfed every single thing it affected instead.

Would anyone really be unhappy if they had removed Sheath, rebuffed Seals on AP + SP coefficients with the idea of only one of those being present, and left JotW where it was? I know I would have been more than fine with that, and Ret would probably be stronger as a spec if they had.

 

Ulthwithian

Rasputin: It's a good idea, but what about Touched by the Light? 30% Stm -> Spellpower would mean that Prot Paladins (who IIRC are also not supposed to be using 'caster gear') would have double scaling. Whether or not this is even a bad thing is arguable, but I think it's good to bear in mind that there are two talents that convert a stat to spellpower, not just one.

 

Mountie

It's hard to control scaling when everything is baseline. It's the reason Holy Light is such a problem for Ret to be able to cast with any regularity. Holy Light is the strongest heal we, as a class have. Seal of Blood is the strongest damage seal we have as a class. Everyone has both. Now trying to balance across specs becomes a real challenge. If you give Ret mana, they can choose to use the best heal the class has.

 

Rasputin

Prot Paladins don't need that talent any more than we did. I've been prot on beta and on live post 3.0; it's not an amazing talent, it's just better than the alternatives. They could have happily cooked up a better talent that didn't fubar our scaling mechanisms to such an extent that they had to nerf all our seals and judgements to such an extreme level. I don't have the early beta build patch notes on hand, but if I am not misremembering, I'm pretty sure that all Seals and Judgements have dropped some 50% in total power over the course of this beta. Can you honestly say that just removing TbtL and putting Seals and Judgements back where they were at beta release wouldn't have been higher PTS and DPS? I haven't run the specific math, but I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.

 

Merple

Not that NI is particularly powerful in its current incarnation, but model it off of a Feral Druid's Nurturing Instinct. It only affects healing spells and accomplishes the same thing.

-In our country, any CBC reporter can dream of becoming head of state.

 

Cevil

Sheathe of Light, upon first encountering the talent, signaled to me the Ret Paladin dynamic: Crits and Heals. What bothers me the most about this nerf is that they hit both our damage—burst and sustained—and our mana regen, so we cannot see if we'd be effective DPS/healers. Had they gotten to these damage nerfs early, and not been hampered by an obscure weapon switching bug (which seems to me to have wasted about 2 months time on beta) we might have been able to effectively test a lower-damage Ret with offheal capabilities in PVP. As it stands now, one holy light taking 30% mana, and one judgement returning 15% mana pretty much eliminates that, except for a post-combat heal in BGs, to save on food costs.

More than anything, its the hypocrisy of the whole argument that is infuriating to me. We simply do not have any way to scale our regen, or longevity. At all. Hunters have Viper. Warlocks have Lifetap. Mages have Evocate. Druids have innervate. Shamans have Shamanistic Rage. Priests have shadow fiend. All of these scale, and all gain their effectiveness from Int. Replenishment helps all these classes by orders of magnitude more than Ret Paladins, simply because they have int. Even Divine Plea helps holy more. Yet, Ret is told it must be saddled with the burden of a mana bar, yet all our offensive abilities have cooldowns, thus negating the benefits of being mana based. As for our heals, their cost compared to our mana makes them prohibitive.

It simply feels like Blizzard is unaware or ignoring the main factor of Ret: we have no way at all, via gear, to improve our mana situation, in either longevity or regeneration.

Their argument that we shouldn't be able to go from target to target without drinking doesn't hold water, when the alternative is to drink between target to target, especially in light of so many classes that DO go target to target.

This is where the lolret stigma and perceived bias against Ret Paladins surfaces from, I think. The fact that the JotW nerf contradicts other ret talents, namely SoL, furthers this feeling.

 

CKaz

Blizz giveth, blizz taketh away... I was ready for a change and got interested in Pallies 2.3/2.4 and the change up 3.0+
So I'm a bit fresher to the crew, but even in my limited play however these things ring true.

- Mana drains absolutely kill us, e.g. are we suppose to be DoA to hunters? Really?

It's very frustrating being not able to do anything, forget silence and stunlock, at that point we're just funny to watch.
Energy builds up, Rage builds with damage taken and has some building/charge mechanics, but Mana?
It looks like we may get some help with Divine Plea... has a ring to it, a message from Paladins to Blizz in general
- But hey thanks for making everyone wait to 71/wotlk... and now it's already dispellable so... yeah it'll be great
In PvP, how many abilities sack Energy, Rage, and the forthcoming Runes/Runic Power? Ones that did got removed.
And with Prot and Ret having no pool to begin with these mana drains just devestate.

This isn't just pvp either, PvE vs Mana drain mobs as Prot - AFAIK no other tank has mobs sack Rage and Runes/Runic
[One] Potting hasn't done the job for me to date, - maybe it lets me do a thing or two, and then I'm flatlined again.

- I always thought Ret was about the big slow 2h wind-up, and *if* they get a swing or two off its supposed to HURT.

Paladin's frankly have been generally a bit boring on most fronts. We don't get much for interrupts, we have glaring weaknesses (e.g. vs spell and range), but oh we can shell-up and heal... which usually just seemed to mean we're a longer kill in PvP, and/or just drain our Mana and get to us when you want to bother.

CS and DS nerfs are glaring and dulled us right out. Hammer of Wrath 20% once again, good luck if you get it off/its any use.
Shield of Righteous is yet another flat tps/dmg... we can't get any interrupt/mechanic there either? Really?
The list goes on. The class seems to be flushing out as a boring mess, 2 weeks away from live WotLK.

My 'saving grace' is that I've been mostly interested in the Prot Pally PvE lately, but Ret/Holy/PvP look boring, if not bad.

 

Corronach

New post, not a lot of new info except "plate and heals." And if the problem is that " let's base their dps around stuns and big crits," would anyone be opposed to a paradigm shift? And my last concern is that their goal of 2000+ Arena teams is a pretty lame number considering 2200 is the number needed for the last item and 2300 is roughly gladiator level. Their goal should be to have a class that is competitive with the pmr, wwd, that fill up the 3's tournaments. Both holy and ret.

 

• Avitus

Honestly, I'm sorry to say I don't believe this "vision" has always been the same. It feels like flip flopping and saying "oh well that was our original plan (despite everything they've been doing so far)".

Anyway, I'm getting tired of this whole pre-WotLK mess in general and I've reached a point where I don't honestly care about the details anymore. There's been so much back and forth and questions about what paladins expect and what not.

If I was to sum up all my broad concerns with Ret it would boil down to this (in no particular order):

-PvE damage: As advertised in blue, I want us to do enough damage to be "close-to-equal" to pure DPS (on non-undead mobs), "equal-to-better" than unskilled pure DPS (or skilled pure DPS on undead mobs) and "equal" to other hybrids. How, where and with what means is not my job to design. I don't care as long as it lands within these advertised boundaries.

-PvE resource/endurance: I don't want to be a gimp/liability any more than the other hybrids. I don't want to have to sit down and drink when I see an enhancement Shaman or Feral continue non stop, classes that are melee hybrids just the same (as has been the case for a year). I don't want to have a fixed "shutdown time" in any given fight where I go oom and become useless due to having an ultimately finite resource, because that's not what any other melee class/spec has. I don't want to mana manage when I have no tools to mana manage indefinitely. I don't want us to be the only melee class that has this deficiency when all other 5 melee DPS do NOT have this constraint, including two that have/or should have mana (enhancement and feral). Why are we the exception?

-PvP: I want to see us able to fill more spots than Rogue+Ret (2v2) or Druid/Sham + War/Rogue + Ret (3v3) at a successful level. This is too limiting. Specifically we should be able to be the DPS in Healer + DPS combo. To be desirable in such a role just as any of the other melee DPS classes are (and not jut a "technical viability" that would be taken as a last choice). How they want to achieve this I don't care, I care about the ultimate goal not the method here. Whether it's by giving us enough burst to be able to balance against a team that has MS/interrupts (while we don't) or whether it's to give us one of those tools and reduce our burst.


Those are the 3 conditions I believe need to be met, irregardless of the mechanics, coefficients or systems they chose to settle on (those don't matter, only the outcome does) in order for Ret to be competitive and fun.


Yes. Do that. Understand that being the only melee class with our limitations is NOT fun and will always be inferior due to it. It's the fat kid that's out of breath. This is not something people "don't like because they're picky", this is something that simply does not work. Melee classes by design should have infinite regeneration, balance any concerns of DPS with cooldowns or something else ("energy bar", "rage", "runes", "insert new mechanic"), not by a fueltank that WILL go down to 0 during an encounter.

What's better, creating a good mechanic that will work everywhere or if you balance every single fight in the game to a fixed retadin "time till oom" that you want to enforce, think about it?


Name the imbalance and give us choice.

Healing? Add a high level talent in Ret to gain everything we want for the sacrifice of "Holy Light" ability (or for HL to be put at 10 sec CD).

The second bit aligns with my own views about the class, we're fine with whatever methods you chose, as long as the goals are met. The only problem is that it's hard to "assume/trust" that the right thing will be done, given history (prime examples as comparing Ret and Enh shammies over 1 year of TBC, two classes that should have been at the same level in viability, DPS, desirability but were nothing alike and nothing was done about it).

 

Merple

Rets need the ability to sustain a cycle -close- to indefinitely, but shouldn't be able to move between targets without drinking.

Blizzard needs a way to reward momentum.

Change Judgements of the Pure to just offering Replenishment. It's a decent buff, make it at 1/1. I realize that breaks from the 3/3 schema of the other ones, but whatever.

Add in:

Furious Vengeance 3/3:
Your Judgements give you a buff reducing the cost of your Judgement, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm spells by 30%. Stacks up to 3 times (90%). Fades when combat ends.

This reduce the effectiveness of mana burns, make DPS cycles sustainable and make the Mana Bar more a reflection of Utility than of DPS. It also ensures that for most situations, a paladin would have to drink after completing a PVE or PVP encounter, but wouldn't be limited in the duration of the encounter in terms of their basic ability to contribute DPS. Utility could be limited, but DPS is (for the most part) not.

The difference between warriors and paladins is that warriors "start from zero". Using this method, we don't start from zero, but we pay a heavy cost each time we do start. We're looking at 50% of our mana bar to get going, but the rest of it we get a _lot_ more use out of. Would we have to drink after combat ends? Yeah, probably, but if combat doesn't end, are we screwed for damage? Not so much.

And to top it off, we're not building up toward damage. Our damage is the same - it's just the cost of maintaining.

That's my 2c as a new paladin.

-In our country, any CBC reporter can dream of becoming head of state.

 

Foxconfessor

Care to explain why? I have a modestly geared 70 mage (950 spellpower) which when specced frost rarely runs out of mana between evocates unless I blizzard 10 mobs at once, which is slightly different. Again, I have a 70 rogue with rubbish gear, don't recall having to pause much on that either. I have a level 57 shaman in greens, don't seem to experience too many pauses on that either. The list goes on.

I find it revealing that I couldn't even be bothered to do Netherwing/Skyguard rep on my paladin pre-3.0 (now doing it for achievements/mounts) despite it having T6/Sunwell gear, and I prefered to instead do it on a 70 Shadowpriest in epic craftables (around 1050 sp) despite the gear being about 40 ilevels different. I don't know about shadowpriests post 3.0, but before it was a class where one didn't have to pause.

 

Merple

I'm not saying that's _my_ view, I'm simply trying to answer the problem Ghostwalker puts forth. If that's really the issue, here's a solution.

Personally, I didn't find anything wrong with "infinite mana". I had assumed that it was fine. Besides, the buff I suggested, so long as you're chain pulling, wouldn't prevent farming. Additionally, with DP, you've got a reasonable way to recoup mana between pulls that doesn't require drinking even if you _do_ full stop.

-In our country, any CBC reporter can dream of becoming head of state.

 

GSH

A commenter on my blog points out an interesting observation. GC says:

Why is GC comparing Vampiric Touch to Judgement of Wisdom?

Vampiric Touch provides Replenishment, which is exactly what Judgments of the Wise does. Those two are identical in effect. Judgement of Wisdom is a complete extra on top of Replenishment. It seems odd to be directly comparing the two effects. Now, maybe the combo of JoW + Replenishment made Ret Paladins better mana batteries than Shadow Priests, but it's still odd, especially since any paladin can provide JoW.