USA
EU
Korea
BluetrackerThe Blue Post Blues
Since the Burning Crusade talents came out September 1st here's a list of the blue posts regarding classes in their respective forums that actually answer stuff. I ignored threads which were moderated, and I think I definetly missed certain posts on classes that were in the Generals forum. If you find any more, post it in comments and I'll add it to the list.
Drysc:
One Druid Post
Tseric:
One Warlock Post
Three Mage Posts
Two Warlock Posts
Eyonix:
One Warlock Post
Kalgan:
Six Mage Posts
Five Hunter Posts
Four Mage Posts
Two Mage Posts
One Druid Post
Two Druid Posts
Six Druid Posts
Three Priest Posts
Two Warrior Posts
Six Priest Posts (one can count as a Paladin)
You're telling me, with all these questions on the philosophy of Sanctified Crusader, all these complaints on how *everything* we have can be dispelled including Divine Shield, Seal of Blood versus Seal of Vengeance balance, our Divine Illumination nerf, how we rely on only one school for our entire arsenal leaving us to be completely locked down in PVP, whether Avenging Wrath is counted as a magic buff and where Blessing of Spell Warding is - we haven't gotten a single blue post yet?
This is ridiculous in my opinion, especially considering the seriousness of our concerns. The only real answer from a blue we've gotten was that Mass Dispell now removes Divine Shield. That's it - and it wasn't even in our forums!
Drysc:
One Druid Post
Tseric:
One Warlock Post
Three Mage Posts
Two Warlock Posts
Eyonix:
One Warlock Post
Kalgan:
Six Mage Posts
Five Hunter Posts
Four Mage Posts
Two Mage Posts
One Druid Post
Two Druid Posts
Six Druid Posts
Three Priest Posts
Two Warrior Posts
Six Priest Posts (one can count as a Paladin)
You're telling me, with all these questions on the philosophy of Sanctified Crusader, all these complaints on how *everything* we have can be dispelled including Divine Shield, Seal of Blood versus Seal of Vengeance balance, our Divine Illumination nerf, how we rely on only one school for our entire arsenal leaving us to be completely locked down in PVP, whether Avenging Wrath is counted as a magic buff and where Blessing of Spell Warding is - we haven't gotten a single blue post yet?
This is ridiculous in my opinion, especially considering the seriousness of our concerns. The only real answer from a blue we've gotten was that Mass Dispell now removes Divine Shield. That's it - and it wasn't even in our forums!
posted by Mastgrr at 12:26:00 AM
29 Comments:
The only thing I can think of, is that the CM's don't play the Paladin class, and thus don't visit the forum as much as they do for the other classes. I know that has been mentioned before, (comically in the fangtooth video) but it doesn't seem to have changed.
It would be nice to have a reasonable dialog with a CM at some point.
Glad someone finally realised this as well. I almost snapped lastnight when I seen the recent blue thread Druids received answering questions.
I pity the fools who can't see how little Blizzard really cares for this class.
I really do hate the forums. Nothing but fanboy pallys trying to increase their epeen as soon as you mention that we've been IGNORED the past few months.
Kalgan himself seems to have soft spot for mages. I've tried to create a consolidated thread for our clarification questions here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=30087709&sid=1
But it just keeps drifting down with few responses and no CM answer.
Not much activity from the CMs on shaman forum, that is true... on the other hand, the new talent trees look actually good for us (even for PVE types like me who were feeling abandoned when the shaman review did not do a thing for raid shamans), but you wonder why the two real hybrid classes are left pretty much on their own.
We'll have to see how shamans and paladins interact in raids, going to be fun.
Brohuld
Chaman 60
Hi mate,
Just wanted to say thank you for the fab blog. It is extremely helpful and I couldn't live without it! :)
Thanks again and I have placed you blog on my wow blog in the blogs section.
Its at WoW Guru Blog
Thanks again,
Sam Hyams
In fairness Thoma, I don't think that the EU CM's have any genuine communication to the higher-ups but can't really come out and say it directly. They need to keep being encouraging otherwise the EU-Eng community would die out completely, so they stay positive ("interesting post", "nice discussion" and other platitudes) whilst making zero commitment to getting a genuine response. They're doing their best, but they simply don't and will never have the sort of information which we demand.
The poor level of communication and slow information desemination is something that we've all been commenting about here since pretty much the blog was started, and certainly around November 2005 (we all remember what was happening then, don't we). Even with an Expansion coming out I don't think we can expect any improvement in that for any class not one of the 'Power Three', and even those will be somewhat starved of it. This is the big problem with having no dedicated class CM's passionate about the class they represent and determined to root out info for themselves if nothing else, or developer blogs outlining thoughts as they happen.
Hopefully, Blizz will learn from this with their next project. Somehow though, if they still have 6m subs this time next year, I'd doubt it.
The funny part is, they are screwing up retribution paladins and they would have been so easy to please. An improved seal of command talent that brought the damage back up to 100% would have made them very happy.
The idea that they gave them this judgement to make them wanted in raids does show blizz is out of touch. For one, guilds still won't want them in melee during raids, and for two, Retribution paladins don't care about raids unless they are to AQ 40.
Raids don't want retibution paladins, and retribution paladins don't want raids. Why not cater to their playstyle? I know that blizz likes to 'mix the trees up', but a 41 point talent really should reflect the 'theme' of the tree rather than being a 'balancing' talent.
Also, moving reckoning to the top of ret would have been acceptable. As would have any offensive spell. Hell, dropping the cast time of hammer of justice by .5 or 1.0 seconds would have been welcomed. Instead they get an underpowered buff that won't even accomplish what blizzard set out to do.
Also, the SoV is nice, since we finally get a DoT effect. The blood elf thing brought up an old point. When will we get a way to either silence a caster, or attack their mana pool? Every other class has a spell interupt (kick, pummel), a mana drain (viper shot), or a silence. Why is the paladin not allowed to have this?
One of the original design interviews I read stated that the paldins would 'do damage and tank' but be different from the warriors in that they would have a lack of combat options. Well we don't do damage or tank (tanking may change), but we still lack combat options. Why should one of the lowest DPS classes in the game also lack combat options? It seems silly at this point.
Disclaimer: I respec every month, so I'm not married to retibution.
Vaguely off-topic: new talents/spells update.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=31013618&sid=1
Paladin change: Divine Purpose got nerfed.
What was it before? I remember thinking it wasn't worth the points before. Blessed Life on the other hand looks pimp.
I must admit Lord Vir, I simply don't think that a debuff which increases raid DPS by 1-2% is worthless, infact it is pretty substancial. The number crunchers will probably need to look at it, but 2% increase to raid DPS is probably going to be pretty tempting to many guilds in a 25-man raid setup, so long as the Paladin was good enough to spot heal/cleanse whilst meeleing (not too hard, we've all done it in 5-mans). And I'm all for a change which would tempt a guild into taking a Ret Paladin into a raid (and really, this talent should go hand-in-hand with Vindication working again with Boss's).
In fact, were Sanc Crus at the 35pt level @ 2pts for 2% I'd be raving about it, in fact my only real issue with it would then be that it is from JotC rather than all debuffing judgements (which I think would be a good idea even now). As things stand, I personally only dislike SC because it is the 41pt talent... and is unimaginative, passive in it's effect and essentially pretty boring. Oh, and it is useless in PvP.
As for the Silence/Interrupt/Mana Burn arguement, I think that many would counter with the number of Paladin stuns/disorientates through talents or otherwise, though their impact is lessened by racials and resist-type talents (damn Orc Warriors!). I'm not convinced that it balances out particularly well, and I do dislike just how neutered we may be to a spell-casting class, but I think it is a reasonable arguement to make.
I must admit Lord Vir, I simply don't think that a debuff which increases raid DPS by 1-2% is worthless, infact it is pretty substancial.
I was talking about the talent that got nerfed (Maybe?) today. I don't even remember what it was before, but it was the 5 point one in ret to reduce critical strike damage. I do think Sanctified Crusader is alright, I've surely seen worse, but like you go on to mention, I don't think it's a good 41 point talent, especially for that tree.
The number crunchers will probably need to look at it, but 2% increase to raid DPS is probably going to be pretty tempting to many guilds in a 25-man raid setup, so long as the Paladin was good enough to spot heal/cleanse whilst meeleing (not too hard, we've all done it in 5-mans).
I think the first guild to clear naxx, or some pve heavy guild already did the calculations and said it wasn't worth it to keep a paladin in melee just for the 2% to crit and imp sanctity aura.
That said, it at least gives ret paladins an excuse to melee, even if the numbers don't work out. It really seems like a hack though.
And I'm all for a change which would tempt a guild into taking a Ret Paladin into a raid (and really, this talent should go hand-in-hand with Vindication working again with Boss's).
In fact, were Sanc Crus at the 35pt level @ 2pts for 2% I'd be raving about it, in fact my only real issue with it would then be that it is from JotC rather than all debuffing judgements (which I think would be a good idea even now). As things stand, I personally only dislike SC because it is the 41pt talent... and is unimaginative, passive in it's effect and essentially pretty boring. Oh, and it is useless in PvP.
Not only is it fairly useless in PvP, but Retribution is the tree that a lot of PvP paladins like to take. It's almost as bad as blessing of kings being up there.
All this said, I do think Blizz did a good job with the new spells, especially the deathwish one. That will be fun in PvP. The other trees look good, and some parts of ret could be fun. I'd still like to see them do something different with the 41 point talent.
As for the Silence/Interrupt/Mana Burn arguement, I think that many would counter with the number of Paladin stuns/disorientates through talents or otherwise, though their impact is lessened by racials and resist-type talents (damn Orc Warriors!). I'm not convinced that it balances out particularly well, and I do dislike just how neutered we may be to a spell-casting class, but I think it is a reasonable arguement to make.
It doesn't really fit, I play a rogue as well as my paladin, and my rogue has a lot more stuns on a shorter timer along with kick. Granted the rogue is a much more offensive class, but in general every class has a way to attack a casters mana bar, or interrupt their spells. Most of those abilitys aren't on one minute cooldowns either (ie kick, pummel, viper sting, earthshock, etc).
I think stuns are a whole different issue/mechanic than spell interupts/mana drains.
Hang On. Divine Purpose currently reads (with my cached copy)
Divine Purpose
Rank 0/5
Reduces the chance that melee and ranged attacks will critically hit you by 1%.
In which case, the talent has been buffed enormously, and pisses all over Rogues and Fury Warriors. And yeah, I agree, Blessed Life looks pimp (though I am not sure how often it would be used), and it's a pitty it is it or Vengence in a Holy/Ret PvP spec.
The new version is a nerf. -5% crit would piss off a lot more classes than -15% damage from crits. That's 5% less chance they get deep wounds, flurry, etc. (or extra combo points or w/e). It's also a lot less damage reduction overall.
keep in mind druids just got what we did have(-5% crit, though just to melee, not to range) and they got it in their tanking tree. And it also adds 5% to all attributes. I'd like to see the reasoning for our much weaker version in the wrongish tree getting nerfed.
And yes, I agree. Paladins really need some sort of interrupt. My suggestion was making judgement of justice interrupt spells. That way we'd still have to make a choice, etc.
Also, read the blue post. Maybe it's a typo, but it says the warlock aoe stun ability(41 point destro) is going to be 30 yards. THIRTY. thirty yards of stunning. GG. 30. (now on a minute cd)
Oh, on the topic of warlocks, UA got nerfed to 1.5 second cast time, which is signifigant, although still a slap in the face.
Also new destro talent is backlash, 25% chance when struck in melee to make immolate/shadowbolt instant cast. You could go SM+nightfall/ruin+backlash. Even at level 60 it would be possible to cast shadowbolt, get nightfall, instant cast shadowbolt, get backlash, instant cast shadowbolt again. It's not unheard of with SM/ruin to crit for 3k. Unlikely scenario, I guess, but still possible.
Eh, we'll wait and see what these talents really add.
As for Improved Sanctity Aura: I'd be pretty surprised to see guilds say "no" to an increase in healing. I beleive it is like 6% increase to healing? Which is like getting 2 additional talent points in imporved healing on the priest tree? I'm assuming this just stack with all the other +healing and whatnot, so 6% on top of that? (could be calculated differently)
Perhaps as a compromise for sme sort of counter spell/silence thing we could get Shield Bash as a talent in Prot? It would give us a little more utility over the casters but would require some strategy to do it. Plus, when we actually are tanking (sinc eBlizzard seems set on having us tank things) it would be a greta thing for us to throw on a caster mob.
Gah, you're quite right Snow. The changes to Divine Purpose were a lot more functional (and bigger a nerf) than the Blue post made out. Yeah, it is a lot less interesting now :(
Oh, and the Priest changes look interesting (I'd be very interested in seeing just how much mana Shadowfiend provides on only a 15sec duration), and Shadowfury kicks so much ass it isn't funny. Vampiric Touch, as a mana-regen spell, seems like it may be quite good in PvE. Of less interest in PvP though it has to be said.
Lots of changes there to Priest talents. Hopefully more will be comming for the other classes disappointed with thier BC talents. So long as they don't touch Avengers Shield (the only Paladin Talent which really makes me grin) I'd be okay with that.
Well, Kalgan is all over the forums again today answering questions for each of the classes they support except ours.
Pisses me off extremely.
BTW, anticipation is now 20def with 5 points.
Paladin Comedy Talent shuffle TBC Aplha
Ok I'm going to keep this Plain & Simple
Retribution:-
The act of punishment or taking vengeance for wrongdoing, sin or injury.
Protection:-
The act of protecting or the condition of being protected.
Let's have a look at the change I'm referring to
Divine Purpose
Rank 0/5
Reduces the chance that melee and ranged attacks will critically hit you by 1%
Now -3% damage from crits per rank.
I think it is painfully obvious that this skill sits firmly in protection that's where all the synergy is. All it needs is to add crushing blows to the list & there we go.
How can it be moved ?
As reckoning is an offensive ability which is no longer supported by a tree that demands + Defense Gear move it to retribution, take The timer off it & just make it the Next four swings. If SOC can proc off it then it becomes a powerful ability which is triggered as the result of being injured/attacked. It is an act of reprisal. Now the Reck Bomber is no more move this talent & put it in it's proper home.
Finally you missed a real trick you didn't follow your own idea through to it's logical conclusion........
You upped the crit chance of Judgements & Reduced their mana cost by 50%... but what did u forget ???
Here you are have this one 4 free
Remove Sanctified Crusader & replace it with the following
Righteous Judgement
Your judgement of Command will now apply all damage as if the Target was stunned.
Oh look an on demand (8 secs with talents) Damage capability that will be useful in PVP & PVE (where all bosses are immune to HOJ) put it in a macro & you can pretend it's a strike
Come on Blizz get a clue
Paladin Comedy Talent shuffle TBC Aplha
Ok I'm going to keep this Plain & Simple
Retribution:-
The act of punishment or taking vengeance for wrongdoing, sin or injury.
Protection:-
The act of protecting or the condition of being protected.
Let's have a look at the change I'm referring to
Divine Purpose
Rank 0/5
Reduces the chance that melee and ranged attacks will critically hit you by 1%
Now -3% damage from crits per rank.
I think it is painfully obvious that this skill sits firmly in protection that's where all the synergy is. All it needs is to add crushing blows to the list & there we go.
How can it be moved ?
As reckoning is an offensive ability which is no longer supported by a tree that demands + Defense Gear move it to retribution, take The timer off it & just make it the Next four swings. If SOC can proc off it then it becomes a powerful ability which is triggered as the result of being injured/attacked. It is an act of reprisal. Now the Reck Bomber is no more move this talent & put it in it's proper home.
Finally you missed a real trick you didn't follow your own idea through to it's logical conclusion........
You upped the crit chance of Judgements & Reduced their mana cost by 50%... but what did u forget ???
Here you are have this one 4 free
Remove Sanctified Crusader & replace it with the following
Righteous Judgement
Your judgement of Command will now apply all damage as if the Target was stunned.
Oh look an on demand (8 secs with talents) Damage capability that will be useful in PVP & PVE (where all bosses are immune to HOJ) put it in a macro & you can pretend it's a strike
Come on Blizz get a clue
Blizzard designers have showed very little inclination to give us any sort of synergy. Apparently if our talent trees make sense we're overpowdered
It doesn't matter what the developers do. No amount of buffs for raiding isn't going to change raids leaders minds. So what if they crunched the numbers. So did the developers. It's still up to interpretation whether it's worth it or not.
If it wasn't for the fact that there aren't enough priests to go around druids/paladins/shamans would never get a chance to raid.
Just because these people play 24/7 just to claim that they did it first doesn't make them all knowing Gods at the game. I've played in competitive circles before and these circles tend to be incredibility stubborn because there is a lot of ego involved. My team used strats that these elitist would think to be stupid and weak yet when they find themselves at the receiving end of it I wonder what they think when they lose to it?
Elite guilds are like corporations. Unwilling to experiment and be innovative. Instead they look around at the competition and simply imitate. In the least they might achieve similar success, but they won't get any further than that.
If it was me making the changes (And it isnt, so this is pure wishful thinking on my part) id switch Divine Purpose with Sanctified Crusader.
"But thats crazy talk, ones a 5 point talent the others a 1!" you say...and I realize that which is why I change it some too.
Divine Purpose
Instant Cast 3 minute Cooldown
X% of base mana.
For the next 10 seconds 50% of the damage dealt to the paladin is reflected back at their attackers as holy damage. Damage may not exceed 50% of the paladin's total health. Causes the Forbearance effect.
The ability becomes a proactive offense/defense thats very much in the "retribution" theme. If Reckoning wasnt already in the Prot tree id definitely change its name to something else to give this ability the "Reckoning" name. Suddenly that group thats focus firing you down isnt so keen on doing so anymore since half the damage they deal to you is going right back at them, and to avoid the whole "Well what happens when you Divine Purpose a boss that one shots the paladin for 5123409809824 damage"...thats why the Eye for an Eye type clause is in there...maybe Divine Retribution would be a better name...I really would like to see something like this have the Reckoning tag though.
As for Sanctified Crusader, its changed to become a 20/40/60/80/100% chance when you judge to cause the "Remorse" effect on an enemy. Remorse would cause the same effect sanctified crusader would only it wouldnt be tied to Judgement of the Crusader and it wouldnt refresh on hit. Change the name to Sanctified Judgement though, since its not tied to Crusadering anymore.
Thats just me brainstorming of course, its something to do to pass these early morning hours.
Arganoth, your idea would be fine. Really, any other talent at the top of ret, that does some type of damage or is pvp friendly would be nice.
Personally, I'd like to see an improved seal of command that brings the damage back to 100%, but that is just me.
To the anonymous guy who said:
It's still up to interpretation whether it's worth it or not.
Not really. It's simple numbers, if having a paladin in melee means more damage for the whole party than having a rogue or DPS warrior, then the melee paladin will go. Hardcore raiding guilds, much like corporations are more interested in results then how those results are achieved.
The easy way to logically test your claim is the following, if sanctified crusader was a 15% chance to crit rather than 2%, would paladins still be locked out of melee in raids? Of course not.
And what do you mean by Elite? Are we talking the very, very top like Death and Taxes? Because thier Paladin class leader is ret spec.
http://www.dtguilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4270
That may be true, but D&T's paladins don't seem to be holding their future in high regard.
"The way I see it, come expansion, we'll bring three Paladins (maybe) and they will all be high into the Holy tree. With 25 slots, there isn't room for a Hybrid who will do subpar DPS compared to ANY classes, even the Hunters and Warlocks (trust me, they out dps our Paladins in AQ40 by 2x, and I see no reason to think they will fail to do so come expansion--it's not exactly like they're redesigning the class or revinventing the wheel, they're just adding a few perks)."
"The way I see it, come expansion, we'll bring three Paladins (maybe) and they will all be high into the Holy tree. With 25 slots, there isn't room for a Hybrid who will do subpar DPS compared to ANY classes, even the Hunters and Warlocks "
Oh, QQ D&T. There will be hyrbids and they will work well. Perhaps you won't be able to play one well (oh no, healing & damage! Where's a mod for that ??)but there will be others who can. And really that's what makes a good hybrid, someone who can do multiple thing effectively.
Have a nice day.
Least you got one comment about your class - none for rogues.
Cos rogues r in such a Bad way ROFL
Post a Comment
<< Home