01 September, 2006

Tracking BC Talent/Spell Changes...

Head on over to the preview page for our new spells and talents, and you'll start to see some changes per Tseric's post.

Here's what's been altered thus far:

Improved Devotion Aura has been buffed, increasing the armor bonus by 8% per talent point invested (up to 4o% bonus, previously 5% per point for up to 25%). This was a no brainer, and I'm glad the developers have finally heard the cries and logic.

Avenger's Shield (41 point Prot talent, AKA "ZOMG Captain America!") tooltip now shows two additional trainable ranks of the spell, the top costing 825 mana and dealing 581-709 Holy damage. Adding in the snare effect from the daze, this is shaping up to be a really cool ability.

Righteous Defense, our AOE "taunt" ability, has had its cooldown increased from 13s to 15s. In case you were wondering, the Warrior AOE taunt Challenging Shout has a 10 minute cooldown, while their standard Taunt cooldown is 10 seconds. Some are crying about it on the forums, but for now I'm not finding it to be that significant a change.

The Redoubt talent has had its mechanics altered. It no longer reacts to critical strikes. The tooltip now reads: "Successful melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 6% (up to 30% with 5 invested points). Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks."
  • Plusses: It is much improved and in-line with tanking - the gear for which generally adds defense skill and reduces the chance you will be critically struck.
  • Minuses: It is now yet another RNG ability which we will observe to be very effective at times, and endure dry spells in others.
Reckoning, that quirky old talent, has finally been changed a bit. The tooltip now reads: "Gives you a 20% (100% with 5 talents) chance after being the victim of a critical strike that the next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec. will generate an additional attack.
  • Plusses: You now only need to get critted against once in order to deal four extra attacks. It will hopefully have eliminated the auto-attack swing timer problem. If used as I believe it was originally intended, it is vastly improved. Remember, also, that (assuming it hasn't been changed) the extra attacks will carry with them the effects of whatever seal you have up at the time.
  • Minuses: With only an 8 second window, you will need to be using a weapon with a speed of 2.0 (Quel' Serrar) or faster in order to get the full benefits out of this ability. I'm assuming it no longer stores attacks, bringing an end to the fabled "reck bomb" era - something I always found pretty cheesy anyway.
Holy Shock (Rank 5), as described in the tooltip, eliminates the range of damage/healing and states that it will deal 640 damage/healing. Note, this is prior to factoring in spell damage gear and such.

Seal of Command tooltip now shows additional trainable ranks, up to 6. The judgment damage for rank 6 is disproportionately higher than the preceding ranks - 579-639 Holy damage if the target is stunned. Looks like a buff overall here.

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have followed this site for over 1 year, i must say that it owns, very fast and good info about new paladin things.

but beeing a reckoning fan as i am... i will never allow this Nerf to reckoning!

Why cmust they remove our last good talent i had Sooooo much planed for TBC...damn u could have good reckoning speccs but not anymore it seems...

i will quit my paladin if they make this change since i play for this talent and whitout it i cant enjoy pvp my way anymore.

Such a big waste!!!! i have 5/9 Tier3, full Naxx/bwl/aq40 Epic pvp gear (5khp 24% crit 1000+ap Sulf etc) For what good? NOTHING!

Reroll shaman FTL :((( or mabey Quit wow?... Get a grip Blizzard

2:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I must admit, the only genuinely positive way this could be a good change to Reckoning is if Paladin skills and enchantments could proc from the extra swing.

Previously, although you got up-to four extra free swings from the skill, these swings couldn't proc passive skills like SoCommand (thus limiting SoC to a max of once per bomb). I heard that also recently Reck swings couldn't proc SoR, a definite retrograde step if that is true.

Allowing these extra swings on the new Reckoning to proc SoR or SoV could improve its potential as a Prot talent through aggro generation (though it remains in a nutty place for a skill that requires being crit), and if it could proc SoB or SoC then in fact it could be a very positive change (if remaining uncontrollable, as to the Reck-Bomb which was a makeshift strike) in terms of DPS.

Extra swings for white damage only though is pretty crappy in this tree (generates sod-all aggro compared to our holy moves), and not great for the Ret tree either. I can't see anyone desiring to go for it over the high lvl Ret or Holy skills TBH.

3:18 PM  
Blogger LordVir said...

Reckoning was the best pvp skill we had, granted it was buried in a worthless tree. Reckoning is 'cheezy' the same way Trinket PoM fireball is or Ambush Backstab...ie it's class defining.

I can see good reason for fixing it, but the 8 second window sucks, it would be at least 10 so you can get 2 swings in with a 2Her. Meh.

The other stuff all looks good.

5:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I believe there's a reason they stuck this in the 1H tree and left it there. They always intended for it to be a way to increase damage a bit when going 1H, and help a tanking Paladin hold aggro. Think of it like a Warrior's Revenge, only you don't have to pay attention to know when to use it. You get crit, your next few swings will get a bonus attack.

People that discovered you could store charges were enjoying an aspect of the talent that was simply a biproduct of its mechanics. As with anything, I say give the new version a try before you pick up your toys, crying, and go home.

6:46 PM  
Blogger LordVir said...

I believe there's a reason they stuck this in the 1H tree and left it there. They always intended for it to be a way to increase damage a bit when going 1H,

You are wrong. They've said time and time again they mix talents in trees where they don't seem 'themed' for so all the trees are viable. They do this for every class, but a good example of this is divine purpose. If protection is meant to be the 'tanking tree' then divine purpose would make more sense there, but the trees are meant to have variety.

I'm not crazy about it being that way, but I've seen blue mention it several times.

and help a tanking Paladin hold aggro. Think of it like a Warrior's Revenge, only you don't have to pay attention to know when to use it. You get crit, your next few swings will get a bonus attack.

Umm, no.

People that discovered you could store charges were enjoying an aspect of the talent that was simply a biproduct of its mechanics.

Actually Eynoix came out quite a long time ago and said it was 'working as intended'. On top of that, if it wasn't 'working as intended' it would have been fixed in the 1.4 patch or whever they stopped you from being able to store unlimited amounts of charges.

As with anything, I say give the new version a try before you pick up your toys, crying, and go home.

Nobody is crying, I'm just commenting like people usually do on blogs. Just because someone doesn't agree with your almighty assessment, that doesn't mean they are crying.

7:51 PM  
Blogger Relmstein said...

The Seal of Command probably had its effectiveness raised because of the horde only Seal of Blood. Does anyone think the alliance only Seal will be useful at all?

10:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you've got a fast 1 hander and are fighting say a druid/warrior then ya, putting the alliance seal to max on them then switching to soc and a 2hander would be decent. Useless pretty much under any other circumstance (well, dotting rogues too).

10:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous at the top there sure sounded like he was shedding a tear over the Reckoning change. There are plenty of posts on the forum now that echo his sentiment.

Personally, I can't say I'm one way or the other on the change because I've never had the talent. I refused to spec into it as it is, because I knew that it was bugged and reset the autoattack timer. If it came to define the class before, I'm glad it's getting changed. Few things looked as rediculous as a Paladin repeatedly sitting and standing, staring off into space - especially if he got feared (or any one of a number of other things that caused you to lose the stored charges).

Deathcoil was intended to be a defensive spell when it was changed to instant cast. A good number of clever Warlocks instead use it as an offensive opener to begin chain fearing. As far as we know, this loophole is also "working as intended" in spite of being contrary to it's original design.

People complaining about Seal of Vengeance as opposed to Seal of Blood seem to be overlooking a number of key points. First, the Alliance seal doesn't hurt you everytime you swing or judge it. Second, the Horde Paladin will lack an advantage Alliance Paladins will have over Rogues - DoT damage. Third, I believe that both of the new seals will fall short of the damage potential of the new high rank of SoC, so arguing about their effectiveness in PvP is rather moot. At least the Alliance will have tactical options when dealing with classes that can stealth.

8:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I refused to spec into it as it is, because I knew that it was bugged and reset the autoattack timer. If it came to define the class before, I'm glad it's getting changed. Few things looked as rediculous as a Paladin repeatedly sitting and standing, staring off into space - especially if he got feared (or any one of a number of other things that caused you to lose the stored charges).

So you are running around telling people not to 'cry' over a changed talent that you never spec'ced. That sounds like the height of ignorance to me.

Also, pretty much any reckoning paladin realizes you don't just 'stare' into space while using it, it's best used when you are healing your teammates and you can build up charges to take someone down in one swing.

Yeah it's bugged, but it's still the best pvp talent we ever had. I'd suggest you give it a spin before it's gone, you might want to know what you will be missing before you comment on it.

4:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Recknoning sucks. LAWL at all you "Sitadins"

5:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't think I ever saw a paladin sit around and collect reckoning charges other than in a duel.

Maybe you play with noobs?

4:17 PM  

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