Rasputin

Given the uphill battle it took to actually make ret worthwhile in raids, you'll have to forgive my doomsaying. I do still realize that the beta is early and many changes are still on the way. However, this was still a large nerf to the damage ret wes doing in beta(the burst at least was merited, and I'm not trying to argue that AoW should have stayed as it was), while maintaining none of the raid utility which allows us a raid spot on live. Perhaps JotW and DS will prove powerful enough to justify a spot, or perhaps our damage will scale such that we will actually do enough damage to be taken on that basis alone. But as the tree stands now, we just took a large nerf to damage done, nerfing both our pve and pvp viability. I can't comment on the beta as it will be in 3 months, but I also do not think ignoring all changes and just assuming they will fix it by the time the expansion goes live is the correct choice.

edit: after re-reading, I wasn't even commenting on the mana cost of DS. I was commenting on the loss of AoW as a damage talent in any form, as well as the strong nerf to Righteous Vengeance, combined with the already present issue of Holy paladins being able to take all the significant utility talents in Ret.

 

Kadrok

All Seals have a two minute duration in beta, and Divine Storm has a nice graphic now--basically a tornado of golden hammers. JoJ is still bugged, but the overall damage output is much more reasonable thanks to the Art of War change.

 

flyingtoastr

3% haste is nothing to shake a stick at (2% damage ain't bad either). I'm positive they will be changing haste stacking effects (if they don't Boomkins and Ret Pallys are officially worthless after all their hard work to make them raid viable) so I wouldn't get too bent out of shape.

That being said, Righteous Vengeance should change. The 10th tier is supposed to be a 5 talent points that define your tree for all specs and classes (Holy Pallys are based on fast heals, Arcane Mages get their cool twist their rotation is based around, Shadow Preists get their DoT scaling damage components, etc). 25% more crit damage on 2 long cooldown abilities is incredibly underwhelming for a 5-pointer, especially as a "tree summarizer" talent.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Prinsesa

Referencing this thread:

WoW Forums -> Paladins receive Evocation and Shield Wall

Apparently Divine Protection has been changed to provide a 50% damage reduction while slowing your own attacks by 50%.

There's also a new spell, Divine Plea, which restores 50% of your mana over 6 seconds, with a 5 minute cooldown.

Normally I'd take it with a grain of salt, but I did find Divine Plea on Wowhead.

The thread also asserts:
1. All Seals having a 2 minute duration
2. Forebearance increased to 3 minutes, but is removed immediately if your Forebearance-causing spell is dispelled/stolen
3. Only one rank of Divine Shield

Independent confirmation would be great

*For reference, Divine Protection is the early, level 1 predecessor of Divine Shield that prevents the Paladin from attacking

======================

EDIT:

Yup, the OP just posted screenshots. The changes are confirmed.

Divine Plea looks to be baseline, and is affected by haste. Divine Protection still causes Forebearance, but should not a problem given AW that does not.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

flyingtoastr

Not to be an ass but...

I so called it!!!!!!

I suppose the devs did have a little sneaky plan to fix our mana problems.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Snow

I am going to answer my own question from earlier. According to wowhead, it looks like [some ranks, at least] of consecrate are scaling with AP. That is good news for prot and ret paladins, if true. Also,

5 MIN SHIELD WALL WOO!

Sorry, had to get it out of my system.

 

◊ Cathela

The new language on Divine Guardian mentions Divine Protection as well as Divine Shield, so that makes the new DP effect believeable. (And Sacred Duty really should affect DP now as well too, but that's a minor point.)

I'm going to hold off on updating the OP until we have confirmation from someone I trust (Coriel, bellator, or one of the other beta-enabled posters in this thread).

Looks like 4% per tick for both spellpower and AP.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Snow

DG affecting DP seems a bit dangerous. Means that taking that talent once again becomes something more for holy paladins than prot, as taking 30% of the raid's damage when you apparently are in trouble healthwise could be quite hazardous, even if it is reduced by 50%.

 

flyingtoastr

Here's a screenshot of Evocation courtesy of the Wrath topic in the General boards.

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/4155/pleapy9.jpg

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Prinsesa

Nice catch on Divine Guardian.

I suppose it should also be mentioned that the cooldowns of DP and DS are apparently unlinked now.

As well, 50% damage reduction for 12 seconds every 5 minutes compared to 75% damage reduction for 10 (20) seconds every 30 minutes? The ball looks solidly in the Paladin's court.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Syrion

A 5 minute shield wall in a PVE situation seems a bit overwhelming. Especially if ardent defender procs leading to an 86% damage reduction overall.

Edit: Question about 2 spells being unlinked answered above.

 

Antmanton

More to the point, while the tooltip makes no explicit mention of it, does the new Divine Protection still drop debuffs? Can it be used while stunned, feared, incapacited, or silenced? Also, does Sacred Duty affect Divine Protection as well as Divine Shield? And finally, that thread seems to indicate that Divine Protection and Divine Shield no longer share a cooldown.

All these changes add up to a massive tanking buff, mostly in the form of all those "OH, SHIT!" buttons Warriors get to salvage a near-wipe at a critical moment. Hell, even Divine Plea has some tanking utility if, for example, you're going balls-out trying to OT something while not getting hit.

And on a related note to the Consecrate change, does anyone else feel like the paladin class is being heavily focused on its hybridity this time around? Might we see the return of tri-specs (for leveling at least), where you can carry around only one complete set of gear plus a couple extra weapons, trinkets, and assorted jewelry and be effective enough in any role to complete the leveling dungeons? It kind of feels like a return to roots of the class, and I do believe I like the idea.

 

Arthaal

My issue with the Art of War nerf is that the the replacement talent encourages the use of BoF reactively instead of simply spamming it on a warrior/ourselves on cooldown. So basically we can either make sure a team member isn't being kited or unstun him... but not both. Oh nevermind, it was dispelled anyways.

 

Snow

I'm not so sure. It might seem strong compared with shield wall, but compare with Bone Armor,. Plus it gives us a "Oh shit!" button, and the cooldown is comparable with last stand and beserk, which we had no analogues to.

 

flyingtoastr

YouTube - New Divine Storm

Should really be added to the OP.

I can't wait to see what some of our other new stuff looks like now.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

◊ Cathela

By any objective standard, Ret in Beta has all the raid utility that Ret in live has and more.

You "lose" a small bit of utility now that Holy paladins have the incentive and the tools to keep a judgement up on their own.

You gain group-healing through damage, group-mana-return through damage, a raid-damage buff, and a raid-haste buff, all from talents beyond the fourth tier. Perhaps most importantly, Ret paladins are making out far better than any other spec with the new scaling on JoW/JoL, and if nothing else a good Ret paladin will be wanted for that alone.

Now granted, almost everything I list above currently has some ambiguity associated with it (Does Swift Retribution stack with WF? How exactly is the mana from JotW distributed? etc.) But even if you make the most pessimistic assumptions possible, a statement like "we no longer bring any utility to the raid" is just flatly untrue.

That is too cool.

Is that the new Holy Wrath at 0:16? It looks like the mobs are stunned for a few seconds afterwards.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

flyingtoastr

It sure is.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Kaincael

With Judgements of the Pure, Divine Plea should be 5.4 second cast.

In 5-man, 6 seconds is quite a while to chill out and hope someone doesn't get flattened when you're the only healer, but having 10% haste built in will at least help get that first tick of mana in, and maybe the second if your tank has a nice avoidance string.

Otherwise, I don't know. 10-mans and 25-mans, you can at least have another healer keep an eye out for you.

Hm. I take it this would mean more than one Holy Paladin in a raid would require using Divine Plea smartly in order not to have 2-3 (sometimes my raid runs with 4. Yech. Oh well, we make do with what we have) healers out at one time.

Divine Guardian + Divine Shield + Divine Plea (too many Divine prefixes...) = a quite respite to gain mana back?

It's at least a thought.

 

TheFjord

time for me to horn in on the "I called it" action.

Divine Plea SS

Soooooooo Spicy.

WTB Baseline Kings.

 

Rasputin

I do admit I overreacted a little bit in my previous posts. I'm still unsure whether 2% damage and 3% haste(assuming haste stacking is implemented properly) will justify sub-par personal dps. OF course, it's still too early to even determine our place in dps at level 80. I'm just very uneasy about our signature utility(JoW and 3% crit) being available by any holy paladin with an 8 point investment into ret. I'm more upset about the strong nerf to Righteous Vengeance, and I'm unhappy but not incensed by the Art of War change. I saw a brief chance of Ret being STRONG, not just "good enough". I still think we'll be low on the totem pole as a physical dps in PvP given our lack of that type of utility(or may JotW and DS will be enough?), but I'm mostly concerned for the possibility of ret being sidelined in favor of a dps deathknight who brings 9% magical damage or some such, with holy and prot getting the paladin slots, since both of those specs are looking only stronger with each build. I was just surprised by the depth of the changes I think. I was expecting AoW to go to a higher proc chance with lower effect(maybe 50% and 30% or some such) and I was very surprised by the change to Righteous Vengeance, which is undeniably a large dps loss. I'm not ready to abandon paladins by any stretch, but I'm no longer as cautiously optimistic about ret's role and place as I was a week ago.

 

Kaincael

Hear hear, especially with another class being brought into raids, and blessing of salv gone bye-bye.

Edit: What, Divine Shield is 10 seconds now instead of 12? Dumb. :<

 

• Snowy

Here's a SS of the Divine Protection tooltip, along with showing the 3 min forbearence on it, and just the 1 rank of Divine Shield. Also confirmed that seals last for 2 minutes now.

[e] Notable change: Judgement is on the GCD now.

Attached Thumbnails

 

 

Antmanton

And one more note from the beta forums. It appears that Sheath of Light is now rolling like Ignite, although only actual effective healing is being counted. Still, this could be quite the buff for sheathbot specs spam-healing a tank or focus-fired Arena partner.

 

bathoz

I'm with you there regarding RV. It's just... underwhelming. You'll still take it (as you have to eek out every point of damage dealing), but... so much less impressed.

Personally, from a ret perspective, I'm actually kinda worried about the Divine Plea. It looks like the type of ability that they balance our mana curve around (like Mages have a seriously painful time managing their mana, even though they have most the most tools to do it). That means we're going to be taking a 6 second break every 5 minutes to regen 50% of our (tiny) mana pool. And if DP is anything like Evocation, we're going to have to take a little walk away from the boss so we can get 6 seconds without being hit.

All the people who claim that our base mana pool won't be anything like our final mana pool appear to missing out the very repeated comments by the designers that they want us in intless warrior gear. Sure Arcane Int, MotW, Kings etc will raise our mana in raids, but I don't think it'll be anything like as big a difference as it is now. Unless I'm missing something obvious. Which is entirely possible.

Another interesting thing, if we're going to have this short, but quickly replenishing mana pool, are we going to have tailor our "rotations" for to prevent us having sequences of 'not-enough-mana'?

 

Kaincael

When as Ret in TBC have you ever worn stuff with Int on it besides Tier gear?