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BluetrackerQuote of the day, 11/14/05
McHammar's latest writings:
...Paladins are a very difficult class to balance...take a look at our abilities.
Hammer of Justice - The longest stun in the game, at range...
Divine Shield - Full invincibility
Blessing of Protection - Invincibility to 3/8 classes that you fight
Reckoning - Potential damage over 2000, without crits...
Consider for a moment, that if you gave ANY OTHER CLASS ANY ONE (1) of these abilities, that class would be instantly overpowered. Instantly. There's no question. Such abilities are the BANE of anyone trying to balance the class; one could argue that as long as these abilities exist, there is really no fixing it.
...My point is, that at the moment, Paladins are balanced. Anything more would overpower us. What the class truely needs is simply a lesser dependance on cooldown abilities.
posted by Mastgrr at 9:16:00 PM
13 Comments:
I've said very much the same thing, at least about Divine Shield. Any DPS 'buff', especially in the form of instant attacks, would have to be at the expense of some durability, and DS is the more viable target.
That said, were DS to be the 31pt Talent in Holy there's no way i'd take it unless the 1-30pt holy talents were fantastic. It's good, but not so good that i'd go without some (hopefully tasty) 21pt prot or ret talents.
MC Hammer often overestimates the paladin class. I think he is very well geared, and tends not to remember what it's like at 60 with just blue gear. (I have plenty of epics now as well). Either that or the horde is really crap on his server. Lets look at a few things he mentioned.
Hammer of Justice - The longest stun in the game, but made up for by the lack of any snare. Most classes have more ways to snare, or even better restart a fight. Hammer of justice is resisted 25% of the time by orcs, and a trinket can dispell it. Do we really think that hammer of justice is better than polymorph which seems to have very little in the way of diminishing returns?
Divine Shield - Full invincibility. Of course, this is the excuse for us to have nothing else. Pretty much any paladin knows this is good for getting off 3 free heals, using a gnomish death ray, or prolonging your own death. I'd much rather trade it for the viability other classes have on offense, or the insta-cast heals many classes can aquire through talents.
Blessing of Protection - Invincibility to 3/8 classes that you fight? What is the third? BoP makes you immune to warriors and rogues. Last time I checked, the horde doesn't have a paladin and every other class is non-melee. BoP is very overrated, the best thing to do with it is throw it on someone in the BG's who is being attacked by a rogue or warrior. Very situational.
Reckoning - Potential damage over 2000, without crits. He's right about this. Althought reckoning is once again very situational, the ability to 1 shot other classes will likely be removed.
When we review the above abilities however, it's easy to see how other classes excel while we fall back. We simply lack options, and our best combat move is on a 5 minute timer and lasts 12 seconds.
Zebra,
Say DS were a 31 point talent, works exactly how it does now, except healing spells were granted +200 to healing (so it would be around +100 to FoL) for the duration of DS?
Make the 21 point talent a healing aura, and improved SoL heal the whole party on proc and you have a front line healer. Change FoL to cost more mana and heal for 700~HP and you really have an attractive holy tree.
I agree that DPS buffs have to be balanced around DS. Really, what needs to be prevented is DS being used for offense. Few paladins do now (I do, it's pretty funny to drop a reckoning bomb or death ray on someone from behind it) but if we had better DPS then DS really can't be allowed for offensive use.
If it were up to me, Flash of Light would heal for around 700, Holy Light for 1600 (Base amounts), and BoL would be abolished. Also, Seal of Command would be nixed for Strike of Command (or something cooler sounding), which would have a 12 second cooldown and do weapon damage + 60 in holy. The strike would cost whatever % of base mana makes it ~250 at level 60.
In compensation, I would abolish Divine Shield entirely. Period. It's gone. Divine Protection would remain our bread and butter, but we would no longer have 12 seconds of invulnerable healing. Luckily, we'd have good enough heals that we could make it up.
Also, my gear isn't that fantastic. It was pretty good when I started posting, but it hasn't really upgraded in 3 months. I have 4 epics: LB bracers, Judgement Crown, LB Shoulders and my TuF.
Sounds like an interesting way of doing things Vir. Unfortunately the crucial thing which needs doing is making Paladin's provide more healing by melee-ing than they require from being in the front lines, which would likely need to be substancial considering the prevalence of Cleave-esq attacks and AoE in Raid encounters.
Another way of doing it would be to make Paladins only non-talent means of regaining health SoL and JoL and place a high-quality Flash Heal as a 21pt Talent and a Divine-Shield 31pt ability with no nerf to attack speed.
Well, okay, maybe that is a bad idea. But an interesting change to healing mechanics for Paladins may be the only real practical way to alter the status quo. And possibly it is required even more given the nerf BoS is likely to get at some point in the future.
I think the next few weeks will be quite fun on the forums and test realms :)
i'm quite happy to lose DS period. I don't need it, never have. For PVP if I haven't already got concentration aura up for healing then me and my buddies are going to die anyway, whether or not I have DS. It's absolutely useless in PVE as it may as well be marked a big red sqitch called "turn all ya aggro onto the squishies", I use it less than I use holy shock, and I don't have holy shock ;)
I would have to agree with the assessment that at the moment paladins are balanced, but not in a pleasurable or effective way. We have some talents are far too powerful, and so as a result we had our base DPS lowered to reflect this. What the talent review will do will make our trees much, much more specialized and the resultant builds will vary greatly. If someone specs heavily prot they will be a very effective tank but that will result in a loss of good healing abilities; holy = great healer, somewhere near as good as a druid, but meaning the loss of survivability; ret will be the dps tree, but of course that will result in a loss of survivability and healing power.
Now I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before, but I wanted to say that because I think with the talent review, palys are going to become much more interesting to play, as people discover they are going to have to make considerable sacrifices if they want to spec heavily into a certain tree.
I fully expect nerfs on all shields and stuns, so that they either become talents or their current form is lessened, and you will be able to improve them through talents. for instance I could imagine HoJ becoming a 3 second stun, with a 3 point talent in the protection tree to increase it to 6 seconds. That's just an example. If DS ended up being a 31 talent I would be very pissed off though, I have to say!
To be honest I am most excited about the holy/prot tree overhauls. I would like to see a base FoL of 700 as well, and would also like to see a HoT as a talent, deep into the holy tree.
Prot wise, well we know now from blizzcon that there is going to be some kind of taunt in the overhaul, and that I am extremely happy about. TBH I'd be quite happy if they chucked Seal/judgement of Fury altogether and replaced it with a snap-taunt talent in the prot tree. I fully expect to see a paly tanking raid bosses post 1.9. I wouldn't wish us to be a warriors equal at tanking though, of course.
blah i'm just rambling so I will stop now!
Let's remember that HoJ, BoP and Reckoning are pretty useless in endgame instances.
HoJ works on none of the endgame mobs.
BoP protects against little of the damage endgame mobs deal.
Reckoning requires you to play the tank or at least off-tank, which rarely happens.
Only DS might come in handy in a place like MC, but if you have to use it, usually the whole party is in trouble, and a wipe is likely regardless of one or two DSed pallies.
DS is too awesome an ability to lose if you're healing. It blows any other aggro-losing abilities like Fade out of the water. That's why I think it should get put into the Holy tree as a talent, with maybe an "up to 200" healing bonus while under the shield.
I'm definitely with McHammar on changing our baseline healing to match his figures. To assist in melee interactivity, I think it would also be nice to get an ability like Mongoose Bite or Overpower - useable after an enemy dodges.
Crusader Strike (Rank 4)
60 Mana 5 yd range
Instant cast 5 sec cooldown
Counterattack the enemy for 100 holy damage. Can only be performed after your target dodges.
I donno, 100 is kind of weak...maybe 500 is more like it.
Eh.. you guys overestimate these abilities. A lot of classes think they're great but they think so from THEIR perspective. What self respecting mage would NOT want DS? You could cast aoes with impugnity. But from our persective we can't do much with it.
You think these abilities are great? DS is just our "OH SHIT!" ability like every other class. Let's compare, rogues have evasion. My friend has 97% or so to evade when he has it up. Don't even say a warrior will beat that because overpower is on a timer. It's either getting creamed by MS and regular hits or being critted by overpower once in awhile. And IMO Evasion is a lot like BOP. It's practically physical immune when you dodge 97% of the time and on top of that it doesn't nerf damage output and it belongs to a DPS class. It can't be purged either. Doesn't something like that scream overpowered to you? But then again BOP can be cast on others... so it can be purged.
Abilities like these shouldn't even factor that much into balance of a class since their overall effect is so small. DS is like what? 12 seconds of 5 minutes?
Like I said these abilities are a trump card. Every class has them. You should know what they are. They are on long timers for a reason because they aren't supposed to be used so lightly.
And if Blizzard did create this class around these timed abilitys, it's a poor choice. Any class balanced around these abilities is AWESOME for like 10 seconds and then complete crap the rest of the time. I'd rather have decent abilities I can use all the time rather than super abilitiy every now and then.
What's so great about a 6 second stun on a 1 minute timer? I'd rather have a 5 second stun on a 20 second timer (KIDNEY SHOT). Or even a travel form that I can use all the time.
Anyway I doubt blizzard will touch any of these abilities. DS as a talent? Yeah right. What will happen is we'll get a spammable ability(s). Likely costing around 200 mana. Mana = heals. Mana = damage. You make that choice. And rumor has it that maybe DS will share a timer with an offensive ability like the warrior's "big three". I'm cool with that. And about reckoning I think it will turned into a riposte/overpower/mongoose bite like ability. It would become active instant strike that does weapon damage whenever you're critted. There problem solved. No need for complex coding and storing attacks nonsense. Not to mention it solves the interactivity issue. EVERYONE'S HAPPY HUZZAH!
I LIKE being a healing pally. The idea I have to spec down holy to be as good as I am NOW is doesn't sit well with me.
But sometimes I am in a position where I don't want to heal. Sometimes the raid leader kicks you out and you have to try to dps as much as you can to get as much honor out of the match. Or sometimes you group with in pugs just plain suck and even healing the 10 times they still can't kill anything. I've been in so many pugs were I've successly made 5v5 squirmishes become a 5v0. But we still lose. Totally frustrating. I only like to heal if the team isn't dumb i.e. my guidies, but sometimes you have to pug.
Like I always say, this game is not designed for 1v1? Too bad 1v1 happens. Sometimes you have to solo in this game.
I find it ironic that I wanted to play a healing class but not be pigeon holed into just healing. I didn't pick a priest because I thought it'd be a one trick pony that just healed as its answer to everything. Look were I am now. I'm playing a class whose only response to anything is to heal.
I don't think you'll have to spec all the way down the Holy tree to be as good as we were before at healing. The idea is that investing talents deep into any one tree will augment the aspect of that tree. Thus, a large talent investment into Holy should (if what I understand is correct) only serve to improve Paladin healing above what it is now.
You will likely end up being a better healer than you are now in PvP after this patch. I'd be really suprised if they don't improve flash of light somehow. You likely won't be as mana efficent, but this really doesn't matter in PvP.
I think holy strike or something like it will be coming back. It wasn't overpowered in beta, people just whined about it costing too much mana.
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