Tips for Paladins... or rather lack of thereof
Kogenta brought this up on the official Paladin US forum, regarding the latest Alterac Valley advice on class roles: "Paladin - Good at defense. Use your stuns on AoE/Fear charges. Use your Shield when the enemy is about to capture a graveyard or flag."
Lmao, they might as well add "and Hearth" after "Use your Shield". ..and he continues to add with that it proves Blizzard designed the Paladin class to be a loser class from the beginning. That's not my opinion. I don't think we're a loser class. Extremely flawed, yes. They (developers/Blizzard) realize themselves that this class brings little to the table so they're covering it up by giving nonsensical advice and arguments that any experienced Paladin player can see through immediately. From the Alterac Valley tip page. The Paladin tips are at the very bottom, probably so nobody will happen to see it. Notice that it also has the shortest lines of text: Good at defense.What the heck does that mean? Why can't they describe what tasks we're supposed to in more detail like they did with the other classes? It's pretty cheap to give such a broad covering subject such as "Good at defense". It can mean a thousand things! Priests, Druids and Shamans are suggested to heal other players -- we're not, why? Also, do you think they gave Mages and Rogues "Good at offense"? It's like an action movie when the lead role says "wait in the car" so his partner won't follow with him. This is not a tip. All it does is say that we're supposed to stay back and hopefully do something when Horde attack. Remind me again why only one Paladin won the test of honor contest? Use your stuns on AoE/Fear charges. Stuns are: Hammer of Justice with a single target one-minute cooldown (usually more than one person that attacks), Repentance with a single target one-minute cooldown that breaks on damage and requires 30 talents in to the Protection tree (max talent investment, leaves little room for other things) and a Seal which randomly procs and subject to diminishing returns (highly unreliable). One or two stuns and one that's unreliable. Stun them and let other players grab kills. Next time you can use them is when all enemies are gone or dead. Use your Shield when the enemy is about to capture a graveyard or flag.This one just absolutely disgusts me. Kogenta said it right, they might as well add "and Hearth" after "Use your Shield". Makes me want to take a shower and cry. The main things we end up doing in PVE -- healing, judging, blessing and cleansing, is notoriously absent from the advice given. All we've got left is the shield and a two-three ways to crowd control. Is this what the class is supposed to do? Is this what our objective is? Yeesh... We're a miserably broken class, that's for sure. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason for the existence of this blog. We've gotten the reputation for being nagging players. But the only way we can really change things is through grass roots efforts. We've proven we can talk the talk, but we really need to walk the walk. It's time to pressure Blizzard by bringing up stuff like this. It's not going to change over night but I think we can accomplish our goal by organization through player mobilization, effective talking points distribution and steering of public debate. It's time to stop this pro-Horde, anti-Paladin bias once and for all.
You're the man now, dog!
If anyone here hasn't heard about YTMND before, you've not experienced one of the latest and hippest websites on the internet. The basic premise of it is simple. Peoples create their own pages. You may have a sound clip, have a picture and write three lines of text. The simpleness is what makes the cheesiness work real good. Nonsensical postmodern humor. Without any introduction, here's the vastly popular Picard ytmnd. Extremely popular. Over 1 000 000 hits. And with no shame in my body I have to link the Snoop doing it old school. I failed to create a fad, but being on the top list of most viewed and beating Picard for a couple of days this summer sure felt pretty sweet! Naturally, because it's a user driven website, it is bound to attract disgruntled Paladin players. Here are a couple of highlights: The meetingA ytmnd-ization of Azeran's famous video.Pally DPS FTW!Based on a movie where a raid had Lucifron at around 1 to 3% of health. A couple of Paladins left -- they wiped! STFU Paladins... (not work safe: contains cursing!) Obviously made by a disgruntled person who thinks that people should be quiet and just learn how to play the class. Shield and Heart'dWhen will Blizzard release this specially customized Paladin keyboard? Paladin DisgraceSomeone who hates when we wear the Elements' shoulders -- however I know some people who find wearing them hot! PaladinsWe've all been in this situation. Horde player summarizing our class. Runner up:Paladins in a nutshellIs he screaming because he's angry? Screaming because his Divine Intervention failed protecting a wipe for the 32:nd time? This one makes you think. My favorite:WoW PaladinsThe courageous warrior of light yet again doing what he does best. Gaze at his nobility while the soothing trumpets accompany a picture of the most stereotypical thing a Paladin does. (the music makes it work!)
Sunday night blogging
Gallant's Wristguards.Is this potentially the most underestimated Healadin item of all time? Link. Awesome +14 int. Awesome +29 heal. Much better than Lightforge bracers. Drops off of the guards in Northern Dire Maul. I've never see a Paladin gear list have it on it. Might be because it's "only" green (it ought to be blue, really). I've wanted this one bad for a long time. Only thing preventing me is the hard time finding people who are willing to farm the guards. Divine Strike.Caied, a 60 paladin on Eredar mailed me about Divine Strike on Thottbot, and wondered if this is a leaked ability for our upcoming changes, for example in the style of the Divine Intervention(NEWTEST). Is it a sign that they're bringing back Holy Strike with a new name? It made me do some digging to find out whether that's true. Turns out that it might not be 'leaked' the same case as with Divine Intervention above, but rather something that was never given to the Paladin in the first place -- leftover from the beta data files. Wowrunes.com is an excellent website. Kind of like Thottbot, but working in a different way. If I am not mistaken they extract data from the World of Warcraft MPQ-files and let you search through it. Divine Strike is there, but it's called "zzOldDivine Strike". If you just type in zzOld in the search find and hit enter, you will find many old abilities and skills. Why is this? Why do they keep them when the Paladin isn't using them? Well, anyone who's been to Scarlet Stratholme can do the math. There are units there which are the old Paladin. If you're a Priest you can Mind Control and play the Paladin retro-style -- with Holy Strike and everything (as I've heard). Removing the old Paladin skills and talents would mean they'd have to redesign the units there, and that's just unnecessary work. In fact, the description for the spell is awfully similar to what Hammer of Justice is ("The paladin's next attack will stun the enemy for 8 seconds."), except more sucky since it'd require us to be in close melee range. Will 1.8 bring our talent improvements?Druid (talents, primarily) is the higher priority class in 1.8, with Paladin next up behind them. ..says Caydiem, Winterbleed reports. Looks like the awaited changes might not be that far off as I thought. Druids are given the priority in 1.8, and seems like if they have the time they'll focus on the Paladin. Link.Forum spotlightWe've all done this, right? Funny story by Odinsan
The best way to regain your mana
You think Innervate is good for mana regeneration? Think again. A lot of people already know about this. I haven't discovered it really until now (stupid me!). This trick is pretty clever. Sneaky also. Sneaky enough for Blizzard to not thinking about it when they designed our seals and judgments. I remember reading on the Paladin forum way back with someone who said that he found out a clever way to have "ulimited mana" and that he wasn't telling anyone on how to do it because he didn't want it to be beaten with the nerf-stick like Seal of the Crusader was. To a certain extent I agree. But the trick -- it's just too good to not let you guys in on it. And let me tell you: It... Is... Amazing... We've got two amazing judgments that are very beneficial to groups: Judgement of Light and Judgement of Wisdom. Judgement of Light grants all melee attacks at it's rank 4 the chance of healing themselves for 61 hp. Judgement of Wisdom grants all attacks the ability to restore 59 mana. For example, casters with wands do not have the ability to be affected by Judgement of Light, whereas with Judgement of Wisdom they do. Makes sense? Warriors and Rogues don't need mana. Many Paladin players argue whether the best way to gain back mana in battle is to use Judgement of Wisdom in combination with Seal of Wisdom or Seal of the Crusader. With Seal of Wisdom you have the chance of both proccing and thus giving you mana. With Seal of the Crusader you strike faster, increasing the chance of gaining mana. Both work, but with limited results. Usually you have to spend a great deal of time on a mob to regain the mana you invested. Seal of Fury is our aggro-grabbing spell. It's meant for us to be our primary seal for tanking. We were meant to use Blessing of Salvation in combination with Seal of Fury to be the party tanks. How does Seal of Fury work? It works by giving you 'invisible' procs. It doesn't show up on the combat log. When you strike with your weapon and it procs, it strikes simultaneously one time more with your weapon (...or was it two times? not sure, might've been Reckoning doing it's work). The extra strikes do not do damage. They're simply meant to bump you up on the aggro list. The trick? The procs off of Seal of Fury works off of Judgement of Wisdom. Judge Wisdom on a target. Activate Seal of Fury. Watch your mana regeneration zoom. It doesn't work with Judgement of Light because the extra strikes granted aren't counted as melee attacks. I'd recommend you to check your combat log and rub your eyes. As the cherry on top -- if you've got three Paladins you can judge all three different ranks of Wisdom on the target. They stack. Mega mana regain! Waiting to be beaten by the nerf-stick, for sure...
Seal of Vigor and some stuff
Interesting stuff... Seal of Vigor
Grants the Paladin a 50% movement speed bonus for 6 sec seconds. If the seal is not judged before the seal expires, the Paladin is afflicted by Exhaustion Interesting. When the developers spoke about changing the seal system, they probably meant to change it to something like this. Instead of judging enemies and waiting for things to proc, you use your judgement skill to cancel or enhance your active seals, etc. This sure would make the seal and judgement system more interactive. If you can notice, as of late I haven't updated that much... It's because I've been working non-stop on my druid. Paladins are one of the most played classes end-game, so I decided to play the least played class just for a change (and for more chance to get loot!). Enjoying it so far. Got from 40 to 50 in less than 13 days. I hate 40-49. Levels 46-48 especially. Truth be told that not much has happened lately. When 1.7 goes out perhaps this Tuesday we'll see the reactions of it from the new stuff.
Eyonix thanks the Paladin community
No 1.7 today
No reports at all that it's coming out today. I understand why: test server release is very, very buggy. Maybe next week I guess.
The irony...
Isn't it ironic that as soon as Horde start to complain about Alliance advantage in PVE, they get a detailed developer response on the issue... Yet ever since (especially) Battlegrounds came out, there's been constant complaints about the advantages Shaman give to Horde -- and we get no response. Only silence. Just a thought.
1.7 discussion.
 Fellow guildmember Chelsea started a thread on discussing Hammer of Wrath. I just bought it, and apparently it's classified as a Holy spell. And frankly, that sucks. If only it was Retribution -- Benediction would become so much more useful. Blessing of Freedom and Sanctuary don't blink anymore. Their animations are fixed. No reports that other blessings have graphics yet. The test client seems to crash on me quite frequently, have yet to check out that much content yet. Edit: Specced to 9/31/11 and tried it out. Hated it. I hate Seal of Command. Edit 2: Funny screenshot of Hammer of Wrath in action. From this thread.
Solving the salvage of Salvation
If you've ever gone to the Raids and Dungeons forum recently you've started to see probably dozen of threads regarding one of our most interesting Paladin blessings, Blessing of Salvation. I'd have to say that along with Blessing of Freedom and Cleanse, it's one of our best spells. Very powerful. Very useful. Casters love it. It is it's power that's ticking Horde players off. They're claiming it gives Alliance a really unfair advantage in Blackwing Lair. An example is this rant by Gurgthock on the Mal'ganis server. He makes some good points. No developer response on the issue, until recently... Kindly brought to my attention by an email from Jennifer, Tigole -- the head of dungeon design (if you don't know who he is, there's an interesting interview with him here), made an official statement on the issue: ....we are analyzing Blessing of Salvation's overall impact on the Raid Game. At this point, the raid and dungeon designers are consulting directly with the Class Spells & Abilities team to determine what the next step will be. We will evaluate if BoS is too powerful or too weak. We will evaluate if the Horde has adequate aggro management solutions to match that of the Alliance. But it will take some time before any change is made. I will keep you informed of any developments that arise. This statement will keep Horde players rubbing their hands, hoping Blessing of Salvation will be beaten with the nerf stick. Here is where the underlying problem is: Blessing of Salvation was probably never intended to be used for situations like this. It was most likely a blessing designed to enhance our tanking ability by reducing the threat generated by the party. The way the Paladin "tank" is designed is interesting since our Protection tree makes us function as a tank in such a different way compared to Warriors or Druids in bear form (and it fails to that in many aspects also, but that's for another time). ...and that is ultimately it's doom. Take it as no surprise if Blessing of Salvation either is toned down or removed when our class is up for reevaluation. Toned down if we get minor changes, or removed if we get sweeping changes to the class to function more like a regular tank. I'm not too optimistic.
Our blessings are too expensive
It's been said before and it's good enough to be said again. This time Marius completely shreds the developer response to pieces regard that if they increase the duration they have to increase the mana cost. Gift of the Wild - 9600 mana per hour Prayer of Fortitude - 27,200 mana per hour Arcane Brilliance - 27,200 mana per hour Blessing of Light - 64,800 mana per hour (our most expensive blessing)
The Burning Crusade to be announced at BlizzCon
This was brougth to my attention recently, and according to Blizzard's PR guy George Wang BlizzCon's going to have an announcement of some sort regarding to World of Warcraft. "We're going to be showing off a new product we haven't announced yet," said Wang. (And for those thinking it's the long-rumored unveiling of "Diablo 3" or "Starcraft 2," get ready for a letdown. Wang said the announcement will be linked to "World of Warcraft".) Link.We all know what it is.
Ask Questions of the World of Warcraft Team at Slashdot
Fangtooth's back with a vengeance
Updates, monthly celebration and grudges
This blog celebrated one month yesterday. That's like, infant age in internet time. Let's hope this upcoming month is more interesting, with Hammer of Wrath and 1.7 and all... Old news since it's four days old, but Caydiem says Druids have a bigger priority than Paladins. I hold no grudge. I'm just happy to see that we're on the schedule. Interestingly enough, I noticed that the Uther's Hammer thread is now gone (broken link). It's still available at the European Paladin forum, thank god. I've saved it now for safe keeping. Also, one thing that's been driving me nuts just thinking about it is the use of the words "refinement and polish" from the latest developer response. The designers - already aware of the majority of concerns presented, agreed that several aspects of the class were in need of refinement and polish. I just hate that they're wording their response to downplay things. It sends the signal that they're promising little to nothing, which in turn leaves us unsatisfied. If Blizzard can't admit how significant these problems are, how can we be happy with their response? Refinement and polishing is something you do to a Porsche before an automobile convention. What we need are under-the-hood redesigns.
1.7 soon out on the test server
Nightsbane reported some info on 1.7's release: Zul'Gurub and Arathi Basin are 1.7.0 (next content patch). The patch is almost complete with a few minor hitches. Then it goes to QA and then the test server. After that it gets patched live.
Ahn'Qiraj is 1.9.0 or later. It's a massive zone.
1.8.0 has some pretty cool stuff. We haven't announced any of that content yet but we'll try to get some information out soon. Also the English Arathi Basin preview is up. How is Blizzard really going to top things with 1.8? 1.7 is going to be massive.
Once again, the cleverness of people is intriguing...
A clever guy figured this one out: How to beat Hammer of Wrath? Run away at 30% health. Hehe! We'll see how this turns out. If it becomes common practice against Paladins to just run away from when starting to approach 30-50% health -- it's probably back to the drawing board!
The sitting Paladin bomb!
Araxes has discovered a really, really fun thing to do if you're using the Reckoning-bomb spec. He discovered that when you press X and sit you automatically get a critical hit on you. Hence a trick would be to just sit in battle to store up on Reckoning attacks. Sounds insane? It is! Waiting to be beat with the nerf-stick, in the meanwhile the cleverness of people surprise me.
Interviewing "What Fangtooth doesn't want you to know"
 Remember the Blizzard-meeting video that was all the rave a couple of weeks ago? I wrote about it here. You can view the original thread here. Then you can finally download it here. (requires Windows Media Player) I managed to ask the author a couple of questions... However, it wasn't Ryucha who made it, rather it was Azeran (there's a long story behind it he told me):
Is this movie an act of a displeased Paladin player, or is it simply made to poke fun at people?
I am quite displeased with the Paladin but I'm waiting for the new changes. Hopefully they will improve the class. I didn't make the movie to poke fun at anyone specifically, just put a funny spin on things that really happened.
How did you come up with the idea to do something like this -- subtitling a hindu movie, in the first place?
I remember from my Starwars: Galaxies days a site called Fanta Shokata that allowed you to put subtitles into movies . I looked that site up but they have taken it down. So I searched for Bollywood movies since they are usually good quality and don't have subtitles already. Sarkar was the best one I found that didn't contain singing.
What's with the "Sahara" text that's garbled all over the footage?
I honestly don't know. I found the movie with them on it. I could speculate but I could be incriminating myself ;)
How did you feel about the feedback you got after you released it? Front page on the community site, Eyonix referring to it as a jest...
I was very pleased by all the feedback I have received, I really wasn't sure if everyone would like it. I think it was great that both Fangtooth and Eyonix took the time to watch it and thought it was funny.
Your Thottbot character profile is out of date... Are you a two-hander or one-hander?
I've tried several builds/talent specs. For a while I was full ret spec with an Arcanite Reaper, I got to rank Knight in the first couple weeks with this build. I don't pvp much anymore so I'm mostly holy spec now for MC, with a nice 1-hand and shield.
As said by "Fangtooth" in your video, is it really your opinion that our DPS is fine?
In the movie all of what the characters say are based on actual statements and events from the forums. I've always gotten the idea that Blizzard has thought that the Paladin dps was fine. From personal experience a Paladin with the right build can generate some decent burst damage. The only problem I see is that it is all luck based. We just need more control and maybe a boost to dps but it's hard to be truly objective in this regard.
Any plans for a sequel, or do you feel like you can't top yourself?
I have been working on some new material for a couple new movies. It's still too early to give any details but I'll let you know when I am going to release something.
Thanks for taking the time to interview me and good luck with the site, it looks good so far.Thanks Azeran!
Fortune cooky got at Darkmoon Faire
Hammer of Wrath
Welcome Hammer of Wrath!In the next patch, at level 44 Paladins will have a new spell available to them called "Hammer of Wrath". This spell, useable only on wounded targets is a ranged attack which does holy damage. This spell is primarily designed to give Paladins greater control when fighting enemies which choose to flee. Sounds good? Here's the specifics: Since my initial post brought forth more questions than answers, I gathered some specfic details to share with you. Please be aware that what's listed below applies to the final rank of the spell - available at level 60.
Damage 504-556
Mana 425mana
Cast 1second
Cooldown 6seconds
Range 30yards Eyonix later says in the thread that wounded is at "20% Health." Looks nice, though the mana cost is a bit high.
Talent critique!
Talent feedback:More specifically now, with the upcoming Paladin talent review, I felt it important to be thorough in my task of gathering feedback, and to provide each of your an opportunity to voice your thoughts on the matter. Please reply to this thread by quoting the specific talent(s) which you'd like to offer feedback, and post your reply underneath. Edit: Great.... I wrote a whole piece on the talents which I didn't like, and when I posted it the thread broke. Gah! Edit 2: Eyonix now deleted his original message to un-bug the thread. You can still read it here. Edit 3: Eyonix now recovered his original message and cut the thread in half, which you can now find here.
Morning bites
A thread kicking off regarding our upcoming spell on the US Paladin forum. Interesting enough, some are reporting rumors that Flash of Light is going to do 50% of it's healing as damage "against Horde". That'd be friggin awesome, quoting Soki "Flash 50% is like...175dmg, which is like 125 DPS, controlled. 40 yard damage." Sounds sweet! Paladin nicknames of the day:Holy Janitor and Complainadins.
Mentioned by the media
Caydiem talks about class representation: ...we're not class representatives. We do take your concerns to the developers, and when we get an answer we can share with you, we do share it. A lot of times we can't for a variety of reasons. Now, there are times -- such as the Paladin meeting that just recently occurred -- when we have an intensive meeting about one class in particular, and then precisely what you describe is what we endeavor to produce. Eyonix tells the priority of the class tree redesigns: (thanks Zerdesht!) All class talents (which haven't already) will be receiving improvements, however, Rogue talents are further down the line than most. The next two are Druids and Paladins seeing as they currently need the most attention. Edit: Improvements might come in patch 1.8, considering the fact that the Druid talent changes were pushed back from 1.7.
Undead... and the troubles they cause
There's a lot of talk circling around the fact that in the beta we used to be able to use Exorcism and Turn Undead on Undead players. Then the developers changed it because they felt it was unfair to those who wanted to play the Forsaken. Thus they became Humanoids instead, rendering our Undead spells obsolete in PVP. One of the community managers said the reason why this was the case was due to the fact (paraphrasing here) "that the Forsaken were not Undead, they were the Forsaken." That made total sense? Keep in mind that this is the game where Orcs and Dark Elves are good. Chris Metzen likes to spin things around. You can always question whether they adapted the lore around the gameplay or the gameplay around the lore, but that's for another time. In fact, this very issue got me in to a brawl on a community website centered around the city where I live. I just wanted to casually start talk World of Warcraft so I started to talk about this Undead-issue on how they're undead but not undead. It ended with one guy (who I've met before thought was a good guy) said I was wrong (though by using harsher words) and that he was going to rape/murder my mother and father. It sounds crazy, but I'm totally serious about this. Later on I heard from a friend of mine that he now seemed to absolutely detest me. All I could think was "Jeez, that came out of nowhere". So there hasn't been much talk about the lore for this for quite a while, because that was several months ago... until recently! Addressed by Caydiem in a thread a couple of days ago she opened up the subject again: The Forsaken are not bound to the will of the Lich King as are the Scourge, Lorber [guy who's asking the question]. A beast and a humanoid are made, physically, of the same material, and operate in the same capacity, but the minds are different -- what works on a beast (say, sleep) may not affect a humanoid due to that difference. The same holds true for Forsaken vs. Undead. The spells do not affect the Forsaken. That makes sense, sort-of. The Forsaken aren't bound by the Lich King's mind spell and have more of a free will, thus any form of exorcism don't bite on them. It's the same reason why Druids can't use their Sleep or Mind Sooth spells on other creatures except Beasts and Dragons. And remember the "stealth nerf" that was brought upon the Tarren Mill guards in patch 1.50? Many complained you couldn't use Exorcism, Turn Undead or Holy Wrath on them anymore... But keep in mind: It wasn't a nerf, it was a lore fix! Oh, and that guy that hates me... Well, since he hasn't raped or murdered my mother and father yet I can only guess he realized I was right all along.
Friday today!
Let's hope and pray for that the developer response is interesting and that it answers our main criticisms. Edit: Looks like no. Caydiem: The developer meeting, due to a variety of factors, didn't occur until today -- as such, we need to delay the writeup for you. The meeting did happen, it went well, and information is coming. :) I guess next week then.
Slight design changes
Slightly altered the design of the blog a bit, such as adding small icons such as     just for fun. Planning on giving some improvements to the design, which will show over time.
Stand and Deliver?
I'm going to lurk around in the next hour to see if I can verify this. The spell seems crazy enough to actually be true. This combined with Repentance would give us three forms of single enemy stuns. That's pretty cool. Othniel reports:Stand and Deliver (Rank 1)
Immobilizes enemy target for 4 seconds
Available at level 40
Mana cost 100
Range 20 yards
Cooldown 1 Min
Stand and Deliver (Rank 2)
Immobilizes enemy target for 6 seconds while doing 150 Holy damage over 6 seconds.
Available at level 50
Mana cost 150
Range 20 yards
Cooldown 1 Min
Stand and Deliver (Rank 3)
Immobilizes enemy target for 8 seconds while doing 250 Holy damage over 8 seconds.
Available at level 60
Mana cost 250
Range 20 yards
Cooldown 1 Min Edit: Haven't been able to find anywhere else where this information is available. Othniel says in a post on the second page "When I get new info from my source I will be sure to update it here."
Debuff limit raised to 16 in next patch
Talent trees will be getting revamped
One of the biggest concerns brought up in the two suggestion threads ( here and here) is that the Paladin's trees are messed up. Our talking points are that they provide little diversity between builds, the Holy tree doesn't even improve healing that much, and that there are so many useless talents. Our talent trees will be getting revamps. Most likely in the style of the recently revealed Hunter changes. In other words, major revamps. Remember more than two months back? The answers for all of our questions are right under our nose: ...Please note that many of your concerns will be addressed when the talent trees are looked into.
Talent Trees
As with all classes, the talent trees for Paladins will be under investigation. The developers would like to make the talent trees more diverse. Please be aware that these talent changes will not come for a few content patches. We hope to improvement the existing Seals and Judgment system so you will have more control over your damage, and the fights will be more interactive. Translation: We are going to change the talent trees of the Paladin. The developers messed up with trying to make sure that all three trees were not being specific enough, because we discovered that our original idea of them balancing out each other was in retrospect a bad decision and meant little variation in class distinction. These changes won't come out in quite a while, at least for several months. We will also try to make the Seal and Judgement system so it won't be as boring, inefficient and annoying to use.Funny thing, it's bolstered more upon with the following: Class Role
Paladins are good at many things, including healing, keeping others free of debuffs, and staying alive. Because of this, they are not set into one role. The improvements to the talent trees, mentioned above, should help define the Paladins role in groups. The developers liked the idea of being able to make Paladin’s into a healer with the Holy Tree, a fighter with the Retribution tree, or a tank with the Protection tree. We will be able to give you more details about the upcoming changes when the talent tree improvements begin. Once again, translation: Making a catch-em-all class by trying to make all talent builds do everything didn't work out. Our talent tree revamps will help making Paladins more distinct, to help Paladins easier fine a specific role in a group. We changed our plans and now want the Paladin to become a healer with the Holy tree, a fighter with the Retribution tree and a tank with the Protection tree -- things that the class currently do not become by specifying in these trees just mentioned. We will be able to give you more details about the upcoming changes when the talent tree improvements begin. I highlighted a word there I particularly found interest in... "Liked". The pure use of that word explains so much. It explains what they plan to do (diversify us), what they truly think of the class as it is right now (messed up), and that they made a mistake during design (we did bad). The answers to our nagging has been under our noses for over two months, yet there was a ton of nagging regarding our fluky trees. I certainly hope that most of the questions answered aren't related to our talents.... because we already know this! Edit: My use of the words "change", "messed" and "revamp" have hit new records.
1.7? Not today.
Downtime is over and a new patch has arrived. It's not 1.7 though, it's 1.6.1. Read the notes. Tough luck, maybe next week? Interesting to see the improvement of the Warriors Bloodthirst. As Caydiem said not too long ago the developers decided to let a toned-down version of Bloodthirst first be put in and boost it's power if needed. Maybe that's a sign of what's to come with our new ability in 1.7? Maybe it won't be that good at first sight, but that we can be assured it will be improved later -- if it's needed of course.
9/31/11
This build is becoming more and more popular I've noticed as of late. Believe touches with it here. He discovered, I speculate, almost a replica of the build that Loke -- the only Paladin to win the Test of Honor-contest, is using (except it differs in things like Improved Blessing of Freedom, etc). Loke did not win without a reason, he unlocked the in my opinion the most powerful build right now that a Paladin can have. : 1. It grabs all the good stuff from the Protection tree such as Repentance, Reckoning, Improved Blessing of Protection. Reckoning is awesome with a two-hander. Repentance is awesome crowd control. 2. Despite going Protection it's not locking you in to using a shield. 3. It uses the best seal for damage: Command. 4. It still has room for the essential of the Holy tree: Spiritual Focus. 5. A nice bonus is Improved Salvation, something many people wouldn't get otherwise. More and more I'm considering this build now over the Holy/Protection build I have going on right now. Doing an average of 90 damage per attack (with a 1.6 one-hander) isn't fun anymore. While I hate Seal of Command's complete randomness, imagining the extra attacks stacked up by Reckoning and using them all in a row with a two-hander just makes my stomach tingle. However, I'm holding off to redistribute my talent points for a couple of days because we might get to know how our new talent trees look like at the end of this week. It'll probably require some major rethinking of how to specify our talent points if the Hunter-changes are a preview of what's to come...
Paladin Warsong Gulch exploit
Yet another fun use of Divine Intervention. Nothin reports:I noticed Sunday while playing in Warsong that a certain Player was either using an exploit or I believe his divine intervention to kill his charater right before the CTF game begins and would rez outside his base and enter the Horde side shortly (i.e. less than 8 seconds) after the match had begun.... This most likely isn't "working as intended". A fun and creative use of Divine Intervention though!
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