A name change inbound?

Thinking about the idea of changing the name of this blog, as the one now has kinda run out of steam. The paladinsucks.com domain name is soon up for renewal, so I would have no problem with ditching it and getting another name if that would be the case. What's a fun or interesting replacement, if that would be the case?

Any suggestions?

Ya'll gonna learn Chinese...

When the pumps go off, ya'll gon' speak Chinese.

Lack of talent tree synergies. Um?

Is it me, or do our trees horribly lack synergies between them? Tseric grants Mages with:

In 1.11 there will be ... talents that support mutiple spell schools, which will assist in the balance and playability between trees. Overall, the retooling of the talent trees looks to free up talent points and tighten the effects on talents to allow easier point expenditure throughout the three trees.

Oh boy. Where's our stuff that's similar to that?

Druid trees for example got Omen of Clarity (tier 3) and Moonglow (tier 5) in Balance, Heart of the Wild (tier 6) in Feral, though Restoration is lacking beyond Furor (tier 1). Moonglow gives a bonus to Balance in healing, whereas Heart of the Wild gives a bonus to Feral so they don't have zero mana out of Feral forms.

Priests are much fuzzier because there really are only two things to do: healing or damage, so many talents that benefit one thing (for example, Mental Strength) benefit all builds. Examples of talents are Force of Will (tier 6) in Discipline, Spiritual Guidance (tier 5) in Holy, however Shadow is lacking, but that makes a bit of sense considering Shadow Form locks out casting non-Shadow spells. Spirit Tap is fun with a Spirit-build though.

Where is this for the Pally? Talent tree synergies exist so that you shouldn't be punished that much for trying to invest many points in to a single tree. The best part about this is that it also increases the amount of different types of interesting and fun builds you can come up with. Try Spirit Healer/Damage dealer with Priests (Spiritual Guidance + Divine Spirit + Spirit Tap) or a speed critting healer build for Druids (Natures Grace + Improved Regrowth + Nature's Swiftness).

There's a huge lack of this, really, considering we've got three trees that do vastly different things; Holy damage and healing, Tanking and Damage.

The Protection tree should have some more utility and playability between trees as it needs the most work. Give One-handed Weapon Specialization in the Protection tree a bonus to +damage and +healing, put Blessing of Kings as the Tier 7 talent and add another talent around Tier 4 or Tier 5 that improves group and raid utility. Give the Improved Righteous Fury-talent a +1% dodge per talent or similar to make it more interesting and useful outside tanking. Talents that only benefit PVE give me a sour taste in my mouth.

Give Retribution a Tier 5 or Tier 6 talent that increases utility and aiding in raid groups. A talent that makes it so holy damage done is transfered in to healing for the group or whatever. Just like Vampiric Embrace for Priests. Needs something more to finish it off, but I can't put my finger on it.

Holy needs the least work. Healing a ton better is good enough for grouping and raiding. The best way to make the tree perfect would be a Tier 6 talent that increases healing slightly to give healers who go full Holy a stronger advantage beyond Healing Light or Divine Favor.

Our talent review, Eyonix, Protection and Seal of Command.

Flin complains about that Shamans get a review whereas Paladins still haven't gotten as a good review in comparison to others.

Eyonix responds with a harsh tone. Unexpected...?

Is that what we've come to expect from him now? It seems to me every single time he talks about the Paladin class, he drifts away from his cheerish and positive behavior to a sly figure that overtly attacks the original posters intention of not being sufficiently constructive in his critisism. I don't know why this is the case, but, if he wants to leave a better impression than Caydiem he's not trying his best.

More Eyonix respondes here.

The Paladin talent review was 2/3rds of a review. How damn hard is that to understand? It's a total failure of Blizzard's part and I have no problem on people calling on bullcrap when it's true. They should just take it like men and admit that they just didn't give a dump's worth of the Protection tree during the review. Secret message: Check your server data Blizzard. Most of the Paladins agree that Protection is garbage. Sorry.

Also, one thing that's been bothering me A LOT lately is that Tseric's been leaking the information that Mages will get Evocation and Improved Arcane Explosion because "it's essential talents". Then what the heck is Seal of Command? I don't know of a single Paladin that doesn't have that seal. It's an essential talent to basically any Paladin that wants to solo and kill stuff within any form of sane amount of time.

I still have faith in 1.11 and 1.12. I hope they will provide some good stuff.

Mining Thottbot: Auras

I decided to dig through the depths of thottbot.com today to see what was hanging around in the form of auras. It was depressing, to be honest, but fascinating nonetheless. There were quite a few different auras, but many of them are recognizable as NPC spells. Here are a few of the ones that specifically mention the Paladin class in the description:

Charismatic Aura
http://thottbot.com/?sp=19748
"Decreases range at which monsters will attack party members within 30 yards. Players may only have one Aura on them per Paladin at any one time."
Currently, Blessing of Salvation - for as potent as it is - does not affect aggro range. This would be a great addition.

Healing Aura (Rank 1)
http://thottbot.com/?sp=7331
"Heals the Paladin and nearby group members for 10 every tick."
I know this one was in Beta and actually made it into the printed strategy guide at the game's release, along with Holy Strike, etc. Could only be used out of combat, so no great loss I guess. I still think something like this should be added to the Holy tree, or have Consecration heal friendlies for the same amount it deals as damage to enemies.

Haste Aura
http://thottbot.com/?sp=13589
"Increases the attack speed of all nearby party members by 20%. Players may only have one aura on them per paladin at any one time. The aura lasts until cancelled."
This one really caught my attention. If Blizzard even considers giving the Shaman class Bloodlust, we should demand something like this as compensation in the name of faction balance. There's an even more potent version listed, but it did not explicitly name the Paladin class:

Frenzy Aura
http://thottbot.com/?sp=25801
"Increases the attack speed of all nearby party members by 20% and attack damage by 20%"
Fanatacism Aura from D2 anyone? I'd be willing to bet this is actually an NPC spell. It was just too cool not to mention.

Patch 1.10.2 Public Test Realms Now Available

The specific notes on Paladins:

- Holy Shock will now be guaranteed to crit when used offensively while Divine Favor is active.
- Eye for an Eye will now properly produce its damage effect on the attacking caster.

Woot... I guess. Go here to download.

(Thanks Gerbodis!)

Update: After playing a bit on test; yep. It works excellently. You know what's the coolest? If your Holy Shock is resisted, Divine Favor won't be used! That's awesome...

The nail in the coffin?

The Draenii won't be the Alliance race. Right? Confirmed now?

I personally think they won't be, as I still believe Ogres is the race. I'm not saying that Ogres *will* be the race as I can in no way be 100% accurate in my guess. But from scouting around all the potential ones out there, they seem to be the safest bet.

I know that I'll eat my words later. But that's how it goes...

In other news, the Blood Elves finally got decided that they will have Rogues (scroll down to the second screenshot), not Hunters. If you don't recall, when the Burning Crusade was revealed, there was much discussion whether the Blood Elves would have either Rogues or Hunters. Seems like they didn't go with Hunters due to the fact Horde would have too many races with them (five out of six).

Horde still got three who can be Shaman, while Alliance only got two that can be Paladins. Will the logic of class-balance make is so that Blizzard plans the sixth Alliance race be able to be Paladins? It's an interesting perspective that isn't bought up as much as it ought to.

Has this been mentioned?

You probably knew about this, but Lay on Hands works as it used to now as it properly returns mana when you cast it on yourself since last Tuesdays' patch. Also I believe the failure of Vengeance to proc was fixed as well.

Kinda sucks to not find stuff to write about. Hopefully we'll get a taste of the new relics in 1.11 this upcoming week.

Ouch. Tricked again.

The notes were fake according to Tyren.

1.11 Patch Notes from China

First, the source.

Next, a rough translation.

Finally, the important stuff. The best translation guesses I've seen are very very promising for our class.

- Seal of Righteousness: Magic effect upgraded, and can not be resisted.
- Blessing of Protection can no longer be dispelled or purged.
- Judgement of the Crusader - Will now raise target's damage taken from all spell schools. (Maybe just in part)
- Targets will no longer be able to stealth while under the effect of a Judgement (Justice only?)
-Resurrection - Additional spell ranks will replace existing ones.
Divine intervention - were now unable to use their control objectives. (I have no idea)

Another guess from the Mage forums

Paladin
Hammer of Justice - Effect upgraded, can no longer be resisted.
Divine Favor - fixed a bug where the buff would not disappear
Judgement of Crusader - Now properly receives bonus from spell damage
Judgement - When a target is being judged, he cannot vanish or stealth.
Redemption - You will no longer be able to use lower ranks of this skill once higher ranks are learned.
Divine Intervention - Can no longer be used on MC'ed units

The new relics in 1.11

Eyonix will give sneak peek of 1.11 relics soon.

FINALLY!

The pertinent exerpt from today's mini-patch 1.10.1:

Paladins
- Fixed a bug that occasionally prevented the Seal of Command talent from casting.

In other news, I've been playing a hunter and love it. I've actually considered joining my friend's raiding guild and doing some of that. Now that I can do something other than flash heal and cleanse, it might be fun. Hope to hit lvl 57 today.

Update:
Bugs aplenty in this new "Bug Fix and Realm Migration" patch.


Check this one out.
"The boat from Menethil to Theramore now goes from Menethil to Dalaran in Hillsbrad Foothills."

Servers crashing every few minutes, people unable to download the patch if they removed the background downloader, etc. And as always, state of the art computing technology allowing for a streamlined authentication process.

A list of everything, and a celebration of nothing.

Schwick just emailed me and said he had updated his comprehensive list of what's coming in 1.11 and beyond. It's one of the best reads you can do if you're interesting in what's up-and-coming. Awesome work!

Oh, and if you've noticed, the counter now above hit 100 days! Hooray!

But... What's there to celebrate about?

It's been so long I can't say I even remember the actual question anymore. The link above to the original post is so old it's broken. The thread doesn't exist anymore. Thank god though for BlueTracker with which I quickly found the original post:

So, this was said at Blizzcon:

http://img354.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img02568cd.jpg

And yet you are now telling us that the devs say our place *IS* at the back of the raid group, healing/cleansing?

Note: He's referring to this post where Caydiem said, "Regarding raids, it's a simple social fact that if a class has a heal spell, they'll be asked to heal in a raid...". Anyways, moving on:

I just am trying to understand why there is some sort of internal disconnect at Blizz...

We've never had problems being "at the front" on 1-59 content before, and early 60 stuff, as well. It's always been the later L60 stuff (which, for most of us, is the majority of the game) that has brought on the "you live in the back of the pack" situation.

Maybe you don't have an answer, but then could you point this out to the devs, at least?

Thanks for reading,

-Taner

And this is what Caydiem gave as a response:

I'll mention it to them and see if I can get an explanation, but it may not be for a while given the time.

"Quite for a while", excuse me for saying this; ROFL. She was true to her word on that, that's for sure.

But alas, she has left us. Maybe someone who's strong enough could ask if we'll get the answer to our question soon. Maybe Eyonix will give it to us?

Just so you know, I will still have that counter up and have it link to the original thread for as long as the question remains unanswered.

Relics: Official Explanation.

A guy complains and says what we've all been thinking about Relics. So Eyonix decides to respond, and gives an interesting perspective on it.

Proccing. Proccing!

As Vir reported in the comments below, Tseric answers. Some aren't as optimistic.

Pre-emptive April Fools

You've probably seen it already. Wisps are the new race. There are also complaints about BurgerCraft already. This guy has some comedy gold.

Caydiem posted the 1.11 patch notes. Here's the part regarding Paladins:

1. Paladins will now receive a 2% increase to DPS for every cloth item worn. In addition, chance to crit will increase by 5% if a dress is worn. This is to encourage a wider variety of itemization for the Paladin.
2. Paladin can no longer target self with Lay on Hands as the spell was intended to help others.
3. New Form: Bear Form and Dire Bear Form! This new ability should help the Paladin tank in five, ten and twenty player-capped dungeons.

1. Really funny because it points out that Paladins use cloth since we don't have enough plate gear to suit our needs.

2. I don't get this one. Kidding on the square? If it would be possible to only use on others I wouldn't mind the actual cooldown reduced to like 30-20 minutes, for real. However, while I don't know who wrote it -- someone within Blizzard, it gives valuable insight at what they probably wished the game would really work. Just look at for example this change in Quests and Reputation:

Improving faction with Timbermaw Hold will now decrease your faction with Argent Dawn, and visa versa, as we want to encourage players to make more important choices at higher levels.

Something in the back of my mind says to me that would something that Blizzard wish they could implement in to the game.

3. Woot... No need to revamp the Protection tree!