path411

Unless you can actually change specs in combat, this statement from Blizzard is very strange. All boss fights are already balanced around mim/maxing specs as well as hybrids are already taxed. Any serious progressing guild back in sunwell, either had respec breaks between bosses or swapped out replacements as each fight required different raid spot requirements.

Everything that I've read though states that dual spec is only available at 80, though they might consider lowering it later.

 

Prinsesa

The dual-spec feature is available at level 40, with a 1k price tag to underline the point that this is not something they would necessarily want all players to have, particularly players below the level cap.

I think what GC meant by the dual-spec comment is that: Consider a 3 boss, 10-man raid instance. Boss X requires one tank. Boss Y requires three tanks. Boss Z requires one tank again.

You'd take your MT, two healers and 5 DPS. The last two spots are for your Boss Y OTs, either DPS players with OT experience or tank players with DPS sets.

Without dual-spec, you'd either:
A) Take Boss Y with non-tank-specced OTs
B) Boss X and Z would take a DPS hit from your OTs being tank specced
C) You'd tackle all three bosses with "correct" specs, but with respec breaks for your OTs

Dual-spec doesn't really change anything, except for C being much more likely and with no need for respec breaks. Your raid composition isn't likely to be affected.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Proudmoore

I think you're working on a flawed assumption there. We can all hope Uldur will be more of a challenge, but expecting Sunwell-difficulty level may be a tad... optimisitic? Possibly for the latter hardmodes, the alternative being that the majority of players get stonewalled because they can't field silly group requirements even with Dualspec. The state of Naxxramas would seem to blatantly disprove you right there.

On an even more flawed level, I highly doubt that Blizzard are going to tune the second raid dungeon of the expansion (especially if you assume it's going to be a sensible difficulty jump from end-Naxx/Malygos) to assume all 25 members of the raid have spent the last few months honing their gear and skills to absolute perfection.

My interpretation, for what it's worth, is that if the first boss requires three tanks, a second boss requiring one tank will be doable without the excess tanks respeccing DPS.

 

path411

This isn't what I implied. Maybe I'm thinking of "balancing" wrong, and thinking that the term can really be applied to both the "balanced" and "unbalanced" ends of the spectrum (I'm probably wrong in this assumption, but I took the term balancing to apply to allowing a fight to be "unbalanced").

Take the 10man naxx KT fight for example, though most people usually take 1.5-2 tanks to naxx, the KT fight can often end up even easier with only 1 tank grabbing all the adds in his last phase. If they wanted to fix it they could make a mechanic to disallow this, but instead they balanced it to allow for an increase in ease with a better raid comp.

On the other topic:
I really hope Blizzard implements BoSanc into other abilities. If they don't, even though only prot paladins need BoSanc, unless I'm going to live without one of the others, my raid still needs to bring 3 other paladins to cover Blessings. If given the choice between Kings and BoSanc though, I think alot more paladins will start choosing Kings simply because of the Divine Plea change. Even in a heroic I could rarely see going oom with DP and SA.

 

◊ Cathela

I think I'm now 0-for-4 in answering questions correctly over the last week in this thread. (EDIT: Anyone mind giving me a link to an authoritative source on this just to make sure?)

Having dual-spec available earlier does at least theoretically open the door for the developers to assume it'll be present at least for all Northrend content, since it's pretty easy to amass 1000g by level 70.

I believe them when they say right now that they don't intend to assume dual-speccing for raid design. The first problem with that is that once these things are in place, it's easy to forget the "promises" you made about what you would and wouldn't do with them. A year or two from now the devs might find the temptation to assume dual-speccing irresistible (it would certainly give them greater design freedom).

The second problem is that what the developers intend isn't usually what ends up mattering; what matters is what players will do with a given ability once they have it. It's the old "Well, the top guilds will do this, so the content has to be balanced around it, and therefore everyone will have to do it to beat the content" argument.

If dual-speccing is at all useful in pushing PvE progression (and I don't see how it could not be) then the devs will be at least tempted to tune content with dual-speccing in mind, in order to keep content challenging for top-tier guilds. (Though as dustdog says above, that may only be a hard-mode issue.)

EDIT: Actually, I just thought of a counterargument, which is that hardcore guilds already "dual spec" just by blowing money to respec and re-glyph on a per-fight basis. So while the ability to change specs might be a factor in raid tuning decisions, it's something that would be there anyway even if the dual-spec function weren't being implemented. (Second edit: IOW, what vorda says below.)

Also:

It's not so much losing one other blessing that's the problem; wisdom does pretty much nothing for tanking, and might doesn't do a whole lot more. The problem is that other paladin specs do need wisdom and might, so adding Sanct into the mix means you need to do a whole lot of blessing-juggling and 10-minute individual blessings to get everyone the buffs they want.

Paladins are now the only class that has to do multiple spellcasts before a raid to buff -- every other raid buff is either a one-cast-to-buff-the-raid spell or something that shows up only in combat. That's an unavoidable effect of the mechanics of blessings. Making us also do some individual blessings after casting 10 greater blessings is only going to make buffing more annoying for everyone in the raid.

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

 

vorda

We have already had tons of fights where you need a much higher amount of tanks (or healers, or dps) than the previous fight. All dual speccing does is save those of us who raid as more than 1 spec the time to the trainer and back.

From a design point of view, nothing changed. Sapphiron will still require 1 tank while sartharion 3D 10 man will still require 2-3 (depending on setup. 3 is more likely).

I really don't see what the hell they could 'assume' in boss design. Dual spec saves you having to swap people in and out or having to respec. They won't just go make fights that require 1 healer and 6 tanks now all of a sudden dual spec is available.

edit: it's not only about being able to swap talent trees, for them to be able to do mad design decisions like that, all gear would have to be 'uniform', changing on your spec. They cannot expect guilds to gear up 15+ people in 2-3 spec gear to be able to kill a boss.

 

biped

My intentions for bringing up the 'dual spec' topic, was partly from observing what has been happening in the frost mage raiding thread. To paraphrase briefly, frost hasn't been a viable min/max raiding spec, subsequently has solicited a lot of complaints and discussion. The play here from blizzard ( if I'm interpreting correctly ), is that frost is broken for single target (boss) dps, but you now have 'dual-spec' feature, so use it ( we don't have to fix frost single target dps anymore ).

If you are going to run into mana issues trying to tank content, post level40, as holy or ret; I imagine blizzard will offer a similar response. You have dual specs, use them. If endgame mana regen is an issue for either spec, they will more than likely be addressed. I just can't see blizzard balancing around leveling concerns.

Besides I'm not sure how you can have problems tanking content in any spec pre level40, I've done it with an enhancement shaman. Having to drink every few seconds might be annoying. Certainly not prohibitive.

As for endgame dual spec:

It might be viable to use it for alternative glyphing, or changing spec flavour points around. A nice 'raid heal spec' and 'tank heal spec' for resto shamans for instance.

I was thinking about this from a protadin perspective a while ago... A nice kings inclusive spec perhaps, and another without. Well ok, thats no longer in the cards, my how rapidly things change on the PTR.

 

dustdog

To be clear; hard mode and dual spec was conjecture on my own part; not what was posted by a blue.

I can't find the original post I saw (I'm bad) which mentions dual-spec and how they won't build bosses around it; but here's one that "confirms" it for 40+:

Dual Spec level reduced to 40!!!!! | General | WoW Blue Tracker | World of Raids


edit: found it thank goodness I think I'll keep my 1k gold, thanks | Heal | WoW Blue Tracker | World of Raids

 

Fqubed

You can expect that while not tuned around it if a fight has a tight enrage timer, and requires 6 healers and one tank, having more than one tank is going to be a liability. Before dualspec was called Portal+Summon, now its a template swap.

 

Lau

Don't forget that for advanced guilds, dualspec was also called "4 players go back farming and 4 new ones, more adapted to the encounter, take their spot".

Well, that was mostly for SWP, and Blizzard claim that there will never be such difficulty again (moreover, now that classes are a bit more in line with each others, this kind of requirement is also lowered). But I wouldn't be too surprised is some Hard Modes were actually approaching a bit of what SWP was, with tighter requirements on the raid composition...

Of course dual spec would be useful there to avoid portal/summon or people switch, but this will not change the habit for advanced guilds to have very optimized raids for each encounter.

 

Mordekhuul

Latest PTR has a new prot talent in it:
Looks like this is designed to make it easier to slip SS into our tanking rotations for some additional mitigation.

 

Stethorel

This also seems another way to entice holy into putting points into Protection rather than Retribution.

It seems that the protection tree is a little bloated at the moment. Any thoughts on talents you can skip or not fill to their full stack to save a few points? I was thinking Touched by the Light might be a good candidate, but it may be too much of a threat loss. Maybe the talent to skip is Divine Strength and opt to take Divinity to enter the tree. Also, does anyone pick up Seals of the Pure in the Holy tree for the extra threat, and is Reckoning worth the points (or any points if you have some left over)?

 

Exewut

Reckoning isn't worth the points, you should pick divine strength over seals of the pure and you should have enough talent points to get a decent prot build (http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...0&version=9733) with 4 points left to put into seals of the pure (that would be my pick), imp bom, divine sacrifice/guardian or conviction. I don't see the need to take 2/2 spiritual attunement but you could max it if you want.

Ask me about obscure politicians.

 

Meloree

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...0&version=9733 is likely to be better. Seals of the Pure isn't nearly as strong as 3 points in conviction and 3 in crusade. 2/2 imp judgements helps out somewhat with OT threat. It isn't necessary to max Divinity. It isn't really necessary to take it, those points could go into imp HoJ, Divine Sacrifice/Divine Guardian, or even 3/5 Reckoning, if you want to eke out a touch more DPS.

 

path411

Conviction is more TPS than SotP, and would be best grabbed for your next talent points.

TBH Divinity is a terrible talent. Even on my last patchwerk which is a little more "healing" intensive than most fights, there was 63% overhealing done to me. Meaning for 5 whole talent points I'd only be gaining ~3% more effective heals, which even in ulduar, I don't see ever meaning the difference between a death or living.

Though there are some debates about Pursuit of Justice etc, I see specs close to: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...00000000000000
being the most popular next patch.

 

Prinsesa

A problem I can foresee with Divine Guardian is that only one Sacred Shield can work on the same target, which means casting your own SS on yourself, as a tank, is redundant if a Holy Paladin is already assigned to you.

Of course, SS can only be cast on one target at a time, but then that Holy Paladin's SS is always more powerful than yours, so you'd have to do some coordination gymnastics with your raid healers: Either the Holy Paladin isn't going to be assigned to you, the Holy Paladin SS's someone else, or you don't benefit (or don't take) the talent.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Kobor

Thank you for the suggestions for indentifying escaping mobs from Tanks.

It seems it is not working for S3D fights, because the mobs with the same names need marks to be identified by addons. I hope Blizz will make the feature to show mob's target on nameplates, it would be very handy for tanks.

 

Tourette1

I havn´t seen anyone deebate the new improved Lay on Hands talent so i´ll just throw this spec out there:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=&version=9733#

I know that the 5 points in the 2nd holy tier will feel like a waste, but then - heart of the crusader, imp might or benediction in the ret tree never made my day either.

The main reason specing for LoH is that with Uludar on the horizon i´d rather spec for survivability than for threat. Sure, sometimes you need extra threat, but should that be the case the let a few rogues or hunters pop MD and ToT.

In theory you gain a "oh-shit" button with 50% extra armor for 15 sec on a 11 min CD (in reality only 25% as you´re likely to have either the ancestral healing or inspiration buff up). 25% more armor isn´t half bad though, and an 11 min CD means you can use it once on most bossfights. The fact that you´re back on full health when you use it is just icing on the cake.

What you´d miss out on are some dps (=tps) talents and pursuit of justice in the ret tree. I actually won´t mind that trade off to much as threat seldom is a problem, the run speed can bee made up with the boots enchant, and the disarm effect with weapon chain - if disarms for some reason bothers you in pve.

 

jeydax

There has not been any changes to LoH in 3.1 afaik so I'm not sure where you got the "new" part from. I also don't think it is worth it considering the mitigation increase is negligible and you're losing 12 talent points into holy where the only real benefit is SotP. The other 5 points going into getting LoH are more or less a complete waste.

 

◊ Cathela

Nothing's changed about Imp LoH itself. The main "new" things about LoH are that with the slimmed-down Prot tree you can actually pick it up in a 12/53/6 build, and with the new glyph plus the talent you can bring the cooldown down to 11 minutes.

Considering that SotP is a better dps/tps increase than Conviction, you don't even lose all that much damage-wise.

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

 

Dekkar

A little nitpick, but if you have that many points to spare to get Imp LoH, SotP is actually a worse DPS/TPS increase than Conviction + Crusade (you have to consider them together in the case of just putting those 12 holy points into ret).

 

Lunkhedd

Has anyone tried to evaluate whether Divinity is a worthwhile talent?

My initial impression of it is that a useful way to model it is as a boost to throughput and mana efficiency for the healers. In the best possible case, the talent will correspond to a 1% increase in both per talent point. This benefit will clearly be reduced in practice, but I don't know of a good way to model that (presumably, it's tied mainly to overhealing).

For a Holy paladin, 1% throughput corresponds to about 25% of a point in Healing Light, and 1% efficiency corresponds to about 25% of a point of Illumination at 33% crit (assuming I can do math...), meaning 1 talent point of Divinity on a tank is worth at best half a talent point to a Holy paladin healing that tank. Divinity does scale with the number of healers, of course, so it will be more useful in a 25-man raid than in other contexts, and even then should have significantly more value in a main tank role where there are more likely to be multiple healers assigned to the tank.

 

Exewut

Lunkhedd, it's very easy to evaluate how much divinity is worth. All you have to do is ask yourself, if I were a healer, would I take this talent? The answer will obviously be yes, so 1 player spending 5 talent points to give all the healers an extra 5% extra healing is a good deal. I'm not sure where the hate is coming from.

Ask me about obscure politicians.

 

vorda

Another way to evaluate it is to ask yourself: "would I be able to spend these talent points in something that holds a bigger benefit for the raid group?"

I strongly doubt you can.

 

◊ Cathela

Latest PTR patch notes have a few interesting bits:

Combat Expertise: This talent will now properly increase spell critical strike chance.

I had no idea it was supposed to affect spells, so that's good news.

Holy Shield: Damage from this ability now increases properly from attack power.

I wasn't aware it had a problem. Was it not scaling with AP at all before, or what?

Seal of Vengeance/Corruption: The bonus damage applied a target which already has the maximum stack of debuffs is now properly affected by Judgements of the Pure.

What I want to know about this is how they ever found out it was wrong. Did someone really sit down and do the math to figure out that his full-stack SoV hits should have been doing 9 when they were only doing 8?

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