I’m sure you have heard now, it’s something that really has the attention of every paladin in the community. Blizzard has said they are doing massive examination of Paladins in WotLK, and because of this, our talents and skills have not been finalized for testing yet.
You can read it here; http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Paladin
Now a lot of people are jumping to conclusions, I want to remind everyone these things;
Alliance will probably NOT get Seal of Blood. Blizzard wants to keep the factions unique, however, they will have a seal (probably command) do more overall damage then Blood due to some of the changes. You can, knowing that, figure why we didn’t just get Blood in the first place, and why Blizzard claims that the DPS difference isn’t big. It isn’t, the fact is though, SoComm isn’t scaling correctly (especially the judgment) so the problem isn’t the seal, but the paladins reliance on so many stats.
We will probably not get charge. The reason we don’t have these two things is a little different. Charge is something they are over-using, and they know that. Obviously classes are suppose to have mechanical downfalls to balance the game out, and right now ours is the reliance on Blessing of Freedom for movement, which while annoying you could see some improvements upon in WotLK, however, Blizzard will more then likely try to be unique on what they work in for this improvement, if any. It maybe more protection on Blessing of Freedom, or it could be another mechanic. They gave us the improved Pursuit of Justice to see how that would help, but I am sure they see a small issue that needs to be kept at a certain point. If it is too much of a weakness we will see movement improvements for us, but until then don’t hold your breath on a charge.
Say no to Mortal Strike. Why? You think I’m stupid now don’t you? Well hold on hear me out; PvP in this game is balanced around Group of Players vs Group of Players, and those groups are theorycrafted upon synergy. Now here is the tricky part; the Synergy and figuring it all out. Ever noticed what’s really annoying about playing a Warrior on the same team as a rogue or with any class with another healing debuff? The effects override each other. Say 5 stacks of wound poison, gone, instantly from 1 Mortal Strike. Best part is, let’s say now the warrior is snared, rogue better get 5 stacks of wound back up pronto. So while sure, the effect alone is amazing, it starts becoming frustrating and actually less beneficial at times in group pvp, and something that your class was balanced around, is now negated. The real answer here is something else to make us have more synergy with other class specs by using different original ideas, to secure our place on a number of different compositions.
Tanking changes You might see more baseline spells come to paladins in terms of the protection area, this will help people tank those 5 mans and smaller dungeons to help groups get going easier. However, the big changes to Protection are probably going to be with more controllable abilities. Right now paladins lack the ability to “panic button” Sure we can bubble, click it off, but obviously, that is a band-aid fix, and while it might work for now, Blizzard will look into the possibility of improving it. We might see a deep protection talent of being able to be immune to all damage for X seconds and cause forbearance but not cause an agro drop. Possibility of moves like Last stand and shield wall are obviously tempting, but again, Blizzard is going to try to be original, however, in terms of survivability of the tank it is hard to be original, the only object there is, well, let the tank have a little control on his fate. One thing we might also see is the removal of Holy Shield as a spell, and slapped in as a physical move, to prevent those cool silencing mechanics Blizzard likes to throw into boss fights from hindering the ability for us to play, and them to be creative.
Healing changes Touching base on this one as well. We where recently told of a “Hand of Purity: Provides preemptive reactive healing on the target, similar to a single target version of Prayer of Mending.” So what you are looking at, is the recognition of Holy having downfalls in PvP and well, hopefully they will touch base with PvE as well. Lazloth (one of our top priest healers) touched base with the fact that, other classes can make just as good of Main tank if not better healers then paladins, it is only due to the fact that paladins suck at other healing jobs compared to the abilities of other classes. He also goes on in the conversation to mention how it boggled him how a class not reliant on spell crit (priest) got inspiration (armor bonus to healed target if heal crits) over paladins, who are based around critical heals, which would have made them possibly the best main tank healers. There are a number of things Blizzard could do with healing, in terms of where they want to take us. One can only wonder if it is HoTs, AoE heals or if they are going to throw us a curved ball.
I would also like to add, the only information that can really be trusted for WotLK information is at http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Main_Page
Do not trust information posted on random forums, as it is usually some guy using tid bits of accurate information mixed into what he thinks would make you happy just to pull your leg for a good laugh.
-Slayton
July 11th, 2008 - 6:04 am
If Alliance gets a seal better than Blood that Horde Paladins don’t get we’ll just see the QQ reversed. I’d be amused despite being Blood Elf.
Charge I couldn’t care one way or another, but I definitely agree with you about Mortal Strike. WoW doesn’t need another MS effect in the game, quite frankly, and I’d rather we got some other mechanic that was more unique. I don’t want to be a complete warrior clone.
July 11th, 2008 - 8:16 am
Theres a ine line between orginality and functionality, though- I personally dont want ‘Last stand’ ‘Mortal Strike’ or ‘Charge,’ but whatever they give us needs to work, or at least we need to be able to make it work. this is why I’m skeptical about HOP.
I’m not saying we dont have the tools necessary to do our jobs, but it certainly feels like it sometimes.
July 11th, 2008 - 11:38 am
I posted about this yesterday on the wow forum, got a few replies before it appears to have been deleted.
There really are just to many issues in my eyes and the blackout on communication of any meaningful kind is just frustrating.
July 11th, 2008 - 12:16 pm
I miss Lazloth lol
July 11th, 2008 - 3:25 pm
Are you suggesting we don’t trust you?
“Do not trust information posted on random forums, as it is usually some guy using tid bits of accurate information mixed into what he thinks would make you happy just to pull your leg for a good laugh.”
July 11th, 2008 - 7:52 pm
I don’t think you’re thinking big enough…
I’m thinking out loud here. Don’t hate too harshly…
I’ve been thinking about three upcoming changes that we sort of know a bit about. Though, really, who knows what will be implemented.
First, we know that itemization is changing a bit for casters: +spell dam and +healing are being combined into something like “Spell Power.” *Source: http://www.wowobsessed.com/kalgan-interview-at-pcgamer-reveals-wotlk-spell-damage-gear-change/
Second, it seems that players will get to have two specs that they can switch dynamically. *Source: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=4672858194&sid=1&pageNo=1
These two changes, taken together, are interesting to caress in the mind. A priest could heal in one encounter and do shadow dps in another one with the same gear and without having to drop money on re-speccing.
Things are a little more complicated for a pally though, which is why I suspect few pally changes have been revealed (or leaked). *Source: http://wowpaladin.org/2008/07/07/blizz-says-paladins-are-changing-in-wotlk/
The gear demands among the three pally specs are very different. The main way to use the same gear would have to involve converting different stats, like an ability that converts spell power -> def rating -> attack power, for example. Does this seem likely?
July 12th, 2008 - 1:17 am
“say no to mortal strike”? Are you fucking retarded? There is no *synergy* with Mortal Strike because it’s a required debuff in PvP. If anything, freeing up more classes from the “I need a rogue or warrior buddy to wipe my ass” will by FAR open up more “synergies” and class comps then anything else could in this game.
While I am no advocate for a Paladin-MS, I definitely feel that flat out rejecting the idea is naive. Saying “We probably won’t get an MS” is what should of been said. And you know what? Paladin’s wont get it.
Hint: Paladins (according to Blizzard’s excuse) are “last” because they need the most work. Right. The general game mechanics that are changing with WOTLK (spell rating, dps-plate normalization, yada yada) happen to affect Paladins the most, that’s why it’s taking so long. Not because Paladins are receiving an epic overhaul.
Speaking of witch. You can’t tell me druids did not go through the same thing. You can’t tell me Death Knights didn’t take longer. <— proof of the bull shit.
July 12th, 2008 - 1:24 am
You’re wrong about the charge I think. Paladins should always have had it, and given the choice between snares and a charge, Blizzard will give the latter before the former. One of them is required, and the charge is it. It is the combination of charges and snares that make warriors and SS rogues so powerful. Having one of them is not spectacularly effective. Don’t be surprised if there is a caviat to it though.
Our “reliance” on Blessing of Freedom is crippling the class and will do so even more come WoTLK where every other class is getting far more dynamic abilities. Having no snare and a dispellable anti-snare where every other melee class has either a combination of freedom effects and snares or freedom effects and charges or roots and snares leaves only one logical conclusion. There is only one combination remaining. Freedom effect and charge, which is what they will want for paladins.
Mortal Strike was never on the options list in the first place.
All I’m saying is as someone who has worked through the options list for paladins a thousand times and has worked from Blizzard’s perspective for 2 years, the Seal/Judgement system is at a dead end and in its current condition is unfixable. Expect that to change more than anything. Don’t think from the point of view of a Ret paladin. Think from the perspective of a developer and you’ll understand why I say these things.
July 12th, 2008 - 5:30 am
best way to deal with SoB/SoV/SoComm would probably make SoComm a talent that gives a passive windfury style ability (30% chance of 2 extra atks, all dmg is holy; gets renamed to Blades of Light) and let SoB/SoV/SoR proc from that
July 12th, 2008 - 4:51 pm
“If Alliance gets a seal better than Blood that Horde Paladins don’t get we’ll just see the QQ reversed. I’d be amused despite being Blood Elf.”
The new Seal of Command would be available to ALL retadins. If Blizz makes another imbalanced seal for one faction, tat only proves their idiocy. if you are saying that BE paladins will QQ because they won’t have more raid viablity dpswise than Alliance retadins, yes that’s true but fair.
July 13th, 2008 - 11:33 pm
Speaking from PvP, we need something help us out, and I think a MS effect would be perfect. In the rogue/warrior team, simply have a the rogue use a different posion, like mindnumbing. Giving paladins an MS effect (with Crusader strike) would give loads of more combos for 2s, maybe 3s, not really 5s.
Will we get it? No, we won’t get anything really. Because everyone but paladins will whine and get it removed. We don’t have a reliable interupt, any tool to catch up (5 classes can remove BoF) and no real burst damage with Resil. Using SoJ with a 3.6 weapon is NOT a reliable interuppt, neither is a warriors Mace stun.
July 14th, 2008 - 7:14 am
I blogged about my hopes/expectations for Wrath and in regards to Snares vs Charge my hope would be that we’d have a Charge rather than a Snare. However I would expect to see it be tied rather closely to being a protection spell, requiring shields (called Shield Charge) or Blessing of Freedom. Thus to be effective in PvP you’d have to hot-swap weapons, blowing (I think) 3 Global Cooldowns for the effect. Tie it to a ‘Knockdown’ effect, i.e. a Spell Interrupt and I think it’d be very interesting potential Prot/Ret PvE/PvP Spell.
Of course, everything we post right now is pure speculation. Hopefully we and Hunters will finally get our first look at spells and talents next week with the projected release of the Dalaran patch in Alpha, that’ll be the only way for us to get a handle on what Blizzard feels the abilities of Paladins should be as we move forward into the Expansion.
July 14th, 2008 - 8:42 am
Interesting read, though I have to admit that I disagree on certain points. Paladin’s have trouble in pvp with anything that has a healing spell and knows how to use it. Maybe giving us a MS effect isnt the most original way to deal with them, but the simple fact is that its better than nothing. Resto druids can simply instantly cast their hots and out heal our damage by a good margin. The way this article tries to spin it so that MS more of a burden than a blessing is absolutely nonsense. Ok it dont stack with wounding poison….so what? Giving paladins a similar effect would be a BUFF, no two ways around it.
And i really dont care about getting a charge ability, but we need something to help prevent kiting. BoF + Pursuit of Justice simply isnt enough, if you have Hammer of Justice up you can prevent kiting for a few seconds provided it dont resist (lol). Giving our BoF some baseline speed improvement, 20%ish would be great, and would cure most our ills. If we dont get a charge like ability or something like what Death Knights are getting, we need some kind of baseline speed improvement, something more than Pursuit of Justice.
July 16th, 2008 - 1:07 am
My main problem with Seal of Blood vs. Seal of Vengeance is that, they did not do this to Shamans. Heroism and Bloodlust are replicas, however, Paladins didn’t get this.
Shamans were brought to Alliance and Paladins vice-versa, to make balancing either, so they didnt have to compare classes, but now they have SoC vs SoB for raiding. It seems they didn’t fix the issue, although it not as big as it had been.
September 28th, 2008 - 9:49 am
paladins are stupid and weak. Let them rot
May 15th, 2009 - 11:19 am
I just do not understand what you are trying to so…anybody else understand?