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Eyonix:
Interesting to see that the reason we didn't get a Taunt-ability was cause they want us to be different, and that they're willing to give us something that would improve our tanking if it's a good idea. Nice to see!
Otherwise a very nice gesture by Eyonix to spend some time with the Pally community.
First, thank you for taking the time to offer your feedback. Moving right in to address some of the specifics of your comments, I'd like to begin by stating that we actually had a Holy Strike during beta and currently have no intention of returning to those times.Why do they have no intention on bringing back Holy Strike? Certainly they must have a reason for it, and I'd love to hear why.
As far as the Paladin having a taunt ability, we're just not convinced that a tank is required to have the warrior "Taunt" ability in order to be a tank. We're striving for something different, but still very effective. If players have suggestions along those lines that's what I'd be interested to hear.
All three suggestions are simple, effective, but do over compensate. It's a very fine line between where we are now with the Paladin and where they were in Beta where they were too good in too many areas. Proposals to add a Taunt or a Strike to the Paladin just aren't very constructive at this point.
We've heard these ideas many times and don't want to cut and paste other class abilities. Continue providing your feedback though, we're definitely getting somewhere.
Interesting to see that the reason we didn't get a Taunt-ability was cause they want us to be different, and that they're willing to give us something that would improve our tanking if it's a good idea. Nice to see!
Otherwise a very nice gesture by Eyonix to spend some time with the Pally community.
posted by Mastgrr at 10:50:00 PM
12 Comments:
People need to realize that, in one sense, they *did* give us a strike back of sorts - two in fact. If you set up the macros I've posted before, you can cast and judge seal of command/righteousness in a single keystroke. With improved judgment, they're essentially on an 8 second cooldown.
All in all, I think I'm going to like Eyonix better. He's certainly very good about maintainting steady feedback. It almost felt as if Blizzard assigned us Caydiem out of spite. She was sparse in her communication, and when she did communicate it would often drip with bitter sarcasm and a poorly concealed dislike for the class. Anyone knows her first love is the druid class - particularly on the Horde side. At least Eyonix deals with holy spells as a priest, so we're getting warmer.
I still think Caydiem = Ellia.
Both played druids, and both had a vendetta for the Paladin class. I'll withold any comment about likely comparison in appearance.
I believe that when Caydiem told that what Ellia was doing was good, it was a sort-of death touch that was struck upon her.
Ironically, had they kept SoF and JoF in 1.09 our threat mechanics would be damn impressive. 8-sec cooldown on Judgement, a low level, low mana Consecration Holy DoT, non-DPS based threat and the like all add up to a boat load of aggro for relatively little mana. Indeed, aggro that may be even more effective than a warriors tools for multiple targets. Needless to say, I am unconvinced about Righteous Fury and DPS-based aggro in general.
Unfortunately though, they are in all likelihood correct in not giving Pallies a taunt. 1. Warriors would scream bloody murder, and 2. The Horde would scream bloody murder. That Warriors would remain the tanks of choice due to defensive stance and the rage mechanic does not seem to come into it for those groups. And that doesn't even touch on itemisation issues.
I'm really not sure what the solution is. Whilst Shaman and Paladins remain so different, and indeed Horde and Alliance have to have similar capabilities in a raid setting, Paladins cannot be a viable alternative to a Warrior tank. I think that though there are some very good ideas for getting us 'in the thick of things', such as making the 'chance on hit' mechanic work to aid the group in a significant manner, efforts to make Paladin significantly better tanks are doomed to fall on deaf ears.
It's not the threat generation that kills us with tanking. As strange as it sounds for the most defensive class, it's the damage mitagation. I can generate agro, I can generate a lot of agro. But I can't sustain it and have the +stamina and +defense that allows a tank to survive the damage spikes the bosses put out. Taunt is nice for multi-tank situations where tanks are rotating but it's not the end all be all of tanking.
The ironic thing about the Paladin/Shaman debate is that, if Paladins were allowed to tank, the Horde would scream bloody murder that it unbalances the faction balance to allow the Alliance to have an extra tank, no one says a word about the Horde having an extra caster class.
Shaman may not equal a mage or warlock for spell damage, they can come close. Or at least a lot closer than a Paladin comes to tanking a raid boss.
This probably doesn't sound very sensible, but I think that haveing another class able to front-load DPS is not of a great deal of significance in raid PvE. When you are talking about a hybrid idealy they should either augment the pure classes abilities (through the use of Blessings/Aura's/Totems etc) or in a pinch fulfill the roll of a primary class when the shit hits the fan. It is for this reason that both Pallies and Shaman really shine in 10-man PvE, whereas in 40-man PvE there are enough pure classes that the hybrids are not required for the emergency roll and not good enough in the primary roll to warrant the added risk (though range in this case give Shaman an edge over Pallies, who deal only melee damage).
In raids, both classes get the short end of the stick. Totems are a pretty crappy mechanic when compared to Blessings and Auras purely due to limited range and the party limitation. But that mechanic in itself creates demand for the class in end-game PvE which Paladins don't have. Thus you have the counter-intuitive 'Paladins are great' and 'we only want 3 Paladins in our raid'.
Fundamentally, 40-man raids kill the non-specialised Hybrid (as opposed to Druids, who can do one of a Paladin/Shaman's roles when called upon better than either class) in everything but the hated 'support' category simply due to numbers. Thus while you may not have any pure 'support' classes, pigeon-holing is the logical (and predictable) outcome given the end-game. And so as only the hybrids have strong support tools, that is the role they are force into by the very nature of both end-game raids and class role jealousy (esp. Warriors and Mages). Even if you improve Paladin tanking to the levels of fractionally lower than a Druid, said druid will always fulfill that role when required.
The difference between Pallies and Shaman really come to the fore more in BG PvP, where front-loaded DPS and speed is king. Here Shocks, Snares, Interrupts and big 1.5sec heals are hugely effective over mana efficiency and surviveability. Which is why PuG Alliance teams always get rolled by PuG Horde (and not because Paladins need to 'learn to play').
So, to sum up, both Shaman and Paladins need a hand in raid PvE, Shaman with their totems and Pallies with their general 'role' and itemisation. PvP though is the toss of a coin.
Eyonix said:
We've heard these ideas many times and don't want to cut and paste other class abilities
But every melee class has a strike, hell even the damn hunters have raptor strike. Why are paladins, the melee based hybrid 'different'.
I guess because they see see the Seal+Judgement system as a viable alternative. And in many ways it is, but that does not mean that it isn't boring as heck to use.
Yesterday I was farming for fire pots, and I wondered what would happen if I cranked my holy damage up as far as I could. I have three bits of Lawlbringer, the Earthshaker with +22 int, and some +spell-damage gewgaws.
I used ret aura instead of sanct, used consecration (which I rarely ever use) I judged Crusader and stun-judged Command every other fight, judging it "plain" whenever the timer was up (sometimes got a lucky proc of the mace's stun and got an extra damage bonus) and hammered whenever I could.
My DPS went from around my usual 150 to 169-ish (for the 45 fights I monitored with recap after I made the changes) and the mobs died very, very quickly. I healed less because I killed more quickly; I had to eat a mana biscuit after every 4 fights or so for health mana regen.
Ret paladins will find my gear and dps laughable, but I am so used to the bargain basement that even 169 dps makes me smile.
THE REAL POINT of this post is that now my spell damage is over 60% of my total damage. I am a castadin.
I plan to test this out some more, but if ret is much better than sanct, as soon as 1.10 is live I will respec for the new Holy Shock.
Same here. I almost have 6000 mana and I'm thinking of respeccing Holy (I'm Ret right now) for 1.10.
I tried out the same thing I was doing as described above, but with sanctity aura instead of ret aura, and I was consistantly maintaining 195 dps. SO. I think I will wait to get HS after expansion (if the trees work the same way at level 61.)
If my total damage is 60% holy, then 117 of that 195 dps is holy. About 10.6 of the holy dps was due to sanct aura's 10% holy damage bonus. (does that 1% work on top of the judged SotC effect? So confusing.)
If I dropped SanctA for Holy Shock, (averaging damage possible with HS and my +spell damage stuff,) and I used HS every 30 secs, and it crit once every 3 mins (with divine favor)....lemme see...I would add 9.7 dps from HS, with a loss of 10.6 dps from trading SanctA for HS.
SO. Damage is better with sanct. But then with HS you get that crit insta-heal which is nice in MC, etc. Why can't I have sanct *and* Holy Shock...WHY?
(BUT WAIT. My holy crit% is always around 20%...so say that HS crit one more time in that 3 mins...THEN my HS dps rises to 11.1 *pulls out hair* AND ALSO I wasn't figuring in judged SotCrusader in that HS dps figure either, which averages out to 14 dps.)
PS My numbers may be ALL WRONG.
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