USA
EU
Korea
BluetrackerWhy Protection still is in bad shape.
Even after the buff to Holy Shield, there's a reason as to why Protection *still* won't be a tree people will spend their points in to beyond Blessing of Kings. This guy nailed it:
It all boils down to that Protection lacks utility.
Even if you want to be a tanking Paladin, what are you going to do when there's a (Protection) Warrior around? Holy gains in healing, Lasting Judgement, etc. Retribution gains in damage, Repentance, Vindication, etc. So, if you're going to end up not-tanking more than you think -- why even go that deep in to Protection in the first place?
The tree *tries* to accomplish this, but really fails at it: Most people go to the first three tiers for Blessing of Kings and Guardian's Favor, so you're not special for having that. If you want to tank you're probably not going to get Improved Concentration Aura, since you're most likely going to use Retribution or Protection.
After that there's not that much beyond Blessing of Sanctuary: Congratulations! You're probably the only Paladin with this blessing, so bless the main tank and go watch the Retribution Paladins do more damage and the Holy Paladins do better healing while you stand back in the corner.
What are you going to do that's so special when you're not tanking?
So, in order to be the 3rd most effective tank in game, we have to waste 31 points on a talent we would never use otherwise, sacrificing FAR more viable talents from the other two trees... 31 points to be the 3rd most effective tank in 20-man instances or less. Wow. That is extremely broken.(Emphasis mine).
It all boils down to that Protection lacks utility.
Even if you want to be a tanking Paladin, what are you going to do when there's a (Protection) Warrior around? Holy gains in healing, Lasting Judgement, etc. Retribution gains in damage, Repentance, Vindication, etc. So, if you're going to end up not-tanking more than you think -- why even go that deep in to Protection in the first place?
The tree *tries* to accomplish this, but really fails at it: Most people go to the first three tiers for Blessing of Kings and Guardian's Favor, so you're not special for having that. If you want to tank you're probably not going to get Improved Concentration Aura, since you're most likely going to use Retribution or Protection.
After that there's not that much beyond Blessing of Sanctuary: Congratulations! You're probably the only Paladin with this blessing, so bless the main tank and go watch the Retribution Paladins do more damage and the Holy Paladins do better healing while you stand back in the corner.
What are you going to do that's so special when you're not tanking?
posted by Mastgrr at 10:27:00 PM
7 Comments:
I agree with you to a point. The Protection Tree, given Blizzard's position on Paladin tanking, is officially useless. I cannot concieve of a reason to use a Paladin as a tank when, by design, a Druid and a Warrior are better tanks.
I'll give my guild as an example. Silverblades is a medium size guild. We're not large enough for MC, but we can blow through UBRS in no time (we group with another guild for MC).
We have a lot of Warriors and Druids. There is almost no time that a Warrior isn't available to go on a raid or a group. So, almost all the Paladins in my guild are either Holy or Retribution because they know they're not going to tank.
However, I think Retribution is nearly as bad off. The only difference is that doing mediocre damage is a little cooler than trying to get mobs to attack you. But, comparing the Retribution tree to any other melee tree and it is plain sad. Paladins have no moves that don't rely on him casting a spell. If a Paladin is silenced or counterspelled, he is pretty much done for the day.
And since the Paladin only has one type of magic, all it takes is one counterspell to stop a Paladin. (You ever notice that the Paladin has a lot of those bad "only"s? The only class without a range ability; the only class with one spell school; the only melee class who relies on spells to attack; the only class that relies on random procs for most of their attack power, et cetera).
For a class that is trained in the martial arts, we seem to rely on a lot of spells for our attacks.
If paladins really want to 'see the light' they should play different classes on test...I have a shadow priest, warrior and mage on test right now (somehow they let me copy an extra 2). The shadow priest really, really owns. The mage is pretty good, and 2 hitting paladins is cake with the trinkets. The warrior is alright, but has so many combat options it's crazy.
I also have my pally on there. Whoo.
Enough with the Protection business. There are more important things to attend to, like showing off Soulforge. Here's what I've gathered from the test realm thus far...
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/4189/soulforge66nw.jpg
I've shown 6 of the pieces that I've seen linked in trade chat. From what I understand, if you can manage to kill the baron in strath within 45 mins of opening the 2nd gate and entering the gauntlet, the shoulders come next, followed by the legs. We know what the helm stats are, as Blizzard showed it in the Under Development section of the website. I'm assuming the breastplate is epic also.
Final tally: 4 rares, 4 epics
Every piece has healing/spell damage
Every piece has well balanced stats
I like the new look. The purple doesn't bother me, as the silver seems to be the dominant color. Anything's better than the McDonalds look. I still won't be displaying the helm.
My verdict: Soulforge will pwn
Protection needs to become pvp viable, it's insane that this class is billed as the 'survivability' class, yet gets 2 shotted by mages, and destroyed by most caster classes. Sure, your personal skill can make up for the imbalance of the classes..but once you get around to playing other classes you realize how poor the paladin really is.
We get two shotted by casters because there is inflation of offensive firepower but no inflation of defensive ability. Frankly trying to balance PVP around a defensive class simply doesn't work. We have no way to control the battle and no way to control initiative. If our foes are stupid, we can beat them. But since our ability to control the battle and it's flow is limited (one or two stuns depending on build) and our only really scary ability requires being critted on several times then we aren't hard to beat.
As much as Critadins like to boast about 25% crit rates, it just doesn't happen against tier 1/tier 2 equiped warriors with all of the +defense their armor has. It doesn't happen against tier 1/tier 2 equiped rogues with all of their dodge from agility. Other classes just kite around us.
I do fine against melee classes, if I have my crit gear on (mix of blues and boe epics) or even my mana gear (half LB/some LF and other blues.
My whole point is, if the main feature of the paladin class is defense, then why do we only have about 15% mitigation vs casters, and that's only if we have the correct aura up? 15% mitigation doesn't sound like a defensive classes stat.
I was on test last night, with a mage. No paladin could even touch me, unless they used DS to stop the insane sheep -> Trinket -> Talent for + damage -> Pyroblast -> Presence of mind(causes next spell to be insta cast) -> Fireball -> Fireblast.
Most paladins couldn't even make it to the fireblast.
This class isn't defensive against casters.
On a side note, this is funny as hell:
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=3566
My favorite is:
http://i.somethingawful.com/mjolnir/images/abraham~holycrestofmixedsignals.gif
I don't think that Protection necessarily needs to become "PvP viable." The Warrior Protection tree, for example, is probably the worst possible choice for PvP. Personaly I was hoping to see more changes to the Protection tree with regard to actual protective abilities. For example, talents to increase the effectiveness of the various resistance auras, or perhaps a shield talent that granted an ability along the lines of Shield Bash.
Post a Comment
<< Home