incogn.egro.ito

I hope they do. I recognize Ret Paladin have problems and I do believe that Blizzard recognizes this. I do think Ret Paladins will become strong in "double" DPS teams and I think it is where classes like R.Pallies, E(l/n).Shamans and F/B. Druids should excel. IMO, they should possibly be better than traditional double DPS teams because of the "buffs" they bring to their partner.

 

Fiola

My PoV is that if the heal is worth casting, it's probably time sensitive, and you want to minimize the time spent healing. But that's going to depend on your group makeup and tactics. /shrug


I've looked for the source of the mechanics I described, and I might have confused someone's suggestions for actual changes.

 

Lookit

 

• Avitus

It's a valid viewpoint, then again you need to look at the big picture:

1 sec lost if you're throwing a heal out every 2-5 secs on average (holy) will rack up very high (then we can start quoting HPS) vs 1 sec lost on that one or two heals over a 5-10 min match (ret).

Btw, this is coming from someone who used to spec partial spiritual attunement for a while for my ret arena spec, so I do understand where you might be coming from, but with the spell pushback change I really don't think it's going to be worth the talent points.


I've seen this blue post before. It says nothing about levk's claimed change to how resistance mechanics work.

 

Aeverius

But that doesn't say anything about how existing pushback resist mechanics are being reworked.

[e] On the other hand, the post Fiola linked indicates that currently on beta, x% pushback resistance does in fact reduce pushback duration by x%. Fair enough.

Improved Lay on Hands is really fucking good:

 

Fiola

Found it:
Wrath of Lich King Stuff (was 'Blizzcon' thread)

 

◊ Cathela

Ret and Holy have already been theorycrafted out of their raid spots in this thread. Grats on completing the trifecta.


For what it's worth, Ret and Prot heals will be a good bit more powerful in WotLK. Not sure if that'll change anything or not.

Interesting change. Definitely fits in with their reduce-the-importance-of-the-RNG philosophy. It makes the difference between healing with SF and healing without SF much "smoother", for lack of a better term. On Malacrass during the shadow volley, for example, SF is the difference between "you can heal just fine" and "you can't do shit". With this change, doing it without SF will be "you can heal at a reduced throughput, but you can still do something."

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

 

dgkiller

The fact that JoTW isnt working proprely atm is hard to say if ret will be able to heal proprely in arenas depending on the situation. The low mana pool of the ret pallys makes it where he throws 1-2 heals and then get back to dpsing to get his mana back(with the current JoTW giving all the mana back to the paladin) but if the mana back gets splited to other ppl in the arena i'm not too sure if he can get his mana back very well.

Also resillience will be nerfing JoTW's mana return alot as well since judgements crit ALOT of the time and based on the damage. So the heals a ret paladin can do are very good but will he actually be able to afford doing some in arena at level 80 with full resillience gear with a fixed JoTW talent? dunno yet but i have kind of a bad feeling about it.

Oh and don't forget mana drains, if a ret paladin gets mana drained can he recover? with the new system i think a ret pally should be able to since they have absolutly no control over their mana "regen". Thats another questing that will only be answered once ppl get lv 80 and fighting in arena with resillience i think

 

Noctivagant

This extends to almost everything ret would do in a group though. If you get 1/2 as much mana back with a partner and 1/3 with a trio, wouldnt, at least, some times, you eschew grouping? I mean its going to enter peoples minds.

 

GSH

Perhaps, but then you have to take into account that you are feeding your partners mana, which decreases their downtime, which allows the group to kill more smoothly.

All in all, I think this is one question we're not going to be able to answer before we see the fixed JotW in action.

 

Amera

I'm just trying to play Developer Devil's Advocate here. If I am a Dev looking at the arena and classes, my first goal is to try to get every class represented, regardless of spec (something they have admittedly failed horribly at in this expansion). I have three classes whose only role is melee DPS, two other classes with that + a healing and caster option, and a third with just a healing option. I don't think it is a stretch to think that a Dev looking at that is going to say "let's worry about DK/Rog/War primarily" and leave everyone else out to dry. I mean, that is the situation we've been living in for the past 18 months or so. We just got double whammied because not only are we not top tier melee DPS, we are also the worst arena healer outside of 5v5. But I'd definately wager that this is the logic as to why ret/enhance/feral are in their present states and not better off, even if the logic is flawed.

The healing debuff is unquestioningly the best one, but neither druids nor shaman have snares anywhere as powerful as hamstring or crippling. The crux of the warrior/druid 2v2 is MS/hamstring. If warriors didn't have hamstring, it would not be an effective combo at high ratings. The same applies to rogue/x setups, and many other matrices beyond 2v2. I'd actually say interrupts are the least important of the Big Three (especially on non-burst teams), and that is also the one thing shamans have better than the pure classes in earthshock.

--

Anyway, I'd love to see warriors/rogues get some actual front-line competition as much as the next melee hybrid, I just don't think copying their abilities is something we are likely to see from the Devs. A more likely change would be an entirely new ability. Think along the lines of the aforementioned "spellbreak" effect on CS (reduces spell damage of target -this would include their healing) or even some type of other damage debuff; it would be unique and thematically appropriate. But realistically, we will almost assuredly just have to make do with what we have in beta at the moment, which is excellent melee support and burst, balanced by the inability to be threatening without a pure melee class tag-a-long.

The other solution no one wants to hear is that Blizzard could actually clearly designate what are PvP and PvE trees and act accordingly. While this isn't a particularly elegant solution, I think many of their problems in PvP balance (and even PvE balance) stem from their inability to just draw a line in the sand.

 

• Avitus

Yep, it's flawed logic as you say. I understand the Developer misconception, but that really doesn't help us or the argument in any way (since we're all in agreement that it's flawed and no one is going to defend that view).

I'm hoping with the way we can regen our mana now and significantly improved heals in ret we'll finally be true hybrids again.

 

DarKNecross

The point I was reaching for was having a Snare or an Interrupt, even if they aren't as powerful as Hamstring, Crippling Poison, Kick, or Pummel, isn't going to replace those classes. If we had a JoJ capping movement speed at 75% for 6 seconds, it wouldn't be as powerful as Hamstring or Crippling Poison. If Hamstring reduced a target to 50% speed, JoJ would only be half as effective. If Hamstring reduced a Travel Form druid to 70% speed, JoJ would be a flat 5% more powerful, but still lasts half as long.

There are so many snares and interrupts in the Arena already, adding one more wouldn't change any strategies. Teams already play around the assumption that they're going to have to deal with them every time they enter the queue.

http://crimson-guild.com

 

Noctivagant

You know, one warp to player (whatever you want to call it) per match wouldn't be the end of the world and would allow the other classes that have more/better/faster recharging versions (rogue, wotlk kitty, war) the chance to be the specalists still.

Just a 5-10 min cooldown warp to opponent. Ends up being once a match or once in a blue moon in BG's when someone is kiting you like mad. (Personally, I would like it to be a giant arcing leap)

Hell, just brainstomring, a 5 minute ability that makes your next hammer of justice have like a 50 yard range and add a short snare, just anything to mitigate being unable to catch a person.

 

Rudegirl

It wouldn't be the end of the world for that ability to be a 30sec cooldown either, just tone down our damage accordingly and we'll be better of. I don't see why you or any other paladin should have to settle for less, no spell interrupt or snare is in all fairness a pretty devestating handicap to our arena viability - and most likely it will limit retri to double melee setups.

The huge burst we currently have and most likely will need to make up for the missing offensive utility, will most likely be seen as imbalanced anyhow. Not to mention the fact that we'll have to leave all the gamebreaking moves to our teammates, doing damage is the easy part - interrupting an enemy caster in a critical moment is what wins games, same goes for snares.

 

• frmorrison

The vision of the Paladin is supposed to be the defensive melee hybrid character.

Having a slow and "warp" moves would not fit that theme.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Duncan

Having a snare might help retribution, but please not more of this "intercept/shadowstep kinda stuff". The insane burst a retribution paladin has, at the moment, should be traded in with more consistent, but lower "on use damage" and something like a snare or interrupt ability.
I personally highly dislike playing retribution in it's current state. Sure it's fun to heal as much on a single heal as i do on live with 40+ in holy and full healing gear, while wearing full retribution gear and even having the chance for a nice HoT. But 6-9k judgement crits on a stunned target are just plain wrong. And the fact that a paladin can still be kited to death and having only one chance to win "aka the one judgement in a stun crits pewpew" is no fun gameplay, either.

I believe they will tune down the judgement damage before it goes live - and just move on, leaving us behind with the option for playing with warriors or rogues in arena/PvP to make up for our downsides.

 

Dannethkilm

With the changes to holy shock in the next expansion, was there any mention of the interaction of the [Brutal Gladiator's Ornamented Gloves] 4 piece bonus and the newly revamped holy shock? Or are current beta pallies already using the set bonus while healing to heal in instances?

Blizzard stated that arenas are here to stay. Will this set piece bonus stay "as is" in future incarnations of the arena healing set? If so, it would mean that any serious PvE healing paladins would obtain the 4 piece bonus for level 80 raid content. High stamina, high spell crit, and 30% more to an instant heal. Its the reverse of what happened in the tier 6 and season 3 gear that I have noticed.

Base healing from wowhead:
Min: 2401* .3 = 720
Max: 2599* .3 = 779

Comes out to ~745 additional healing to your holy shock heals, without even adding in +healing from gear and talents. Just something I thought was interesting.

 

Prinsesa

For those who are tanking in the beta, how high are your block values?

I'm curious because of this screenshot: http://www.outlawzpc.com/critaw.jpg

Even if you rigged your talents to maximize your SHOR damage, something like this talent build, I reckon most Paladins won't see much higher than 1.1k block value with the Auto-blocker activated, which leads to roughly 6.8k crits, far short of that number.

Sure, if we go all out and include Sunwell gear I can theorycraft a maximum 10k crit, but it just doesn't seem realistic.

Basically, I'd like to know what's going on behind that screenshot, because even Northrend STR tanking gear is probably inferior to TBC block-value tanking gear due to Shield Spec not affecting BV from STR.

Note: I skipped on the math for readability's sake, but if you'd like to see my numbers, just let me know.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Rasputin

Really? We haven't left these tired old themes 3 years ago when they were written, before the extensive revamping to skills, talents, and balancing that changed the way every class performs? If we're so caught up in that, just give Paladins "Hunker Down", a talent which makes you invulnerable and unable to act until you release it to prevent kiting. That's nice and defensive, right? Or maybe a passive which causes the paladin to reduce damage taken from all players more than 8 yards away?

Yes those are clearly ridiculous. But so is a melee class which cannot enter or maintain melee range without assistance from other classes. Blizzard can feel free to tweak the specific mechanic any way they like to make it fit the paladin flavor, but I sincerely hope that paladins(ret in particular) will be given some way to at the least maintain melee range, or we will once again be relegated to the bench, or tied at the hip to MS warriors and rogues.

 

GSH

Is that 5.2K or 8.2K? I can't tell. It looks different than the 8 in the second line.

 

Aeverius

Are you not getting an option to view larger resolution when you open the picture? It's most definitely an 8, although when I look at the lower-resolution version I see the disparity you mention.

Improved Lay on Hands is really fucking good:

 

Stolidus

It could be AW? The combat log snippet doesn't look very long, so it could very easily be between the gain and fade, though the other numbers might rule that out, I wouldn't really know.

 

◊ Cathela

He doesn't have Ret Aura up in the picture, and he got the crit against a giant, so let's assume Sanct. Ret and Crusade are non-factors.

So, the factors I can see are:

2.30 (block value to base ShR damage)
2.00 (crit)
1.20 (Avenging Wrath)
1.05 (One-hand Spec)

All together, that's a factor of 5.796, so a crit for 8224 implies a block value of about 1419.

Are you including [Glyph of Deflection] from Naxx? A paladin wouldn't be too likely to have that, but if he did that would cover the gap between your estimate of 1100 and his (apparent) block value.

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

 

Deac

Nothing we have atm can do 9k my best of pre sunwell gear gives me around 5-6k if i really stack my cooldowns

edit, just going to throw in that my mage can push out 5k+3k+what ever pom pyro does with ap up in 3 global cooldowns.