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Ghostcrawler and the 3.3 Paladin Nerfs
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Post by
Rouen
As you can see, we are trying some different things with some paladin mechanics.
The Aura Mastery change (to 6 sec duration) is one we think is appropriate. If I had to guess, this one will stick.
We are trying some things with Sacred Shield to make it more of a Holy tool and less useful for Ret and Prot (without being totally irrelevant). I don't have a lot of faith that the implementation on the PTR is the one we'll go with for a couple of reasons, but our overall goal is to make Ret less tanky and the Holy tree feel like it's the right one to focus on for healing. I would expect a Sacred Shield change of some kind though.
I wouldn't worry too much on the Lay on Hands change at this point. I don't want to promise we won't change the spell for 3.3, but our intent was to revert the others only change before it went out to the PTR, which is why we didn't patch note it. We have already changed it back on our local builds.
The paladin class isn't just supposed to be for support anymore, but at the same time, the original intent for many paladin abilities was to help the group. Over time however they have contributed into making the paladin into a "one-man army," able to play offensively, defensively and heal without say the stance changing or shapeshifting or sometimes event talent specialization required of other classes. Many of the LK balance problems we've had with the class are because of that core issue.
With that said, we're just not sure a Lay on Hands change really accomplishes much from a balance perspective, while it feels bad to lose such an iconic ability. We just don't think the bang for the buck is there on this change, which is why we reverted it. But I'm not going to promise we won't touch it.
In fact, I'm not going to promise anything with this post. :) Please don't dredge it up later to try and argue against any upcoming changes. I'm just trying to clear up some confusion.
Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer
Source
They plan on doing something with LoH in the future, but not the original idea of not being able to cast it on yourself.
Sacred Shield Nerf: Makes sense, my roommate has frequently stated how Sacred Shield was OP in PvP as a retribution paladin. It sucks up an awful lot of damage, even more as holy, but at least they'll leave the holy SS alone.
*Hides in a bunker*
Here comes the torrent of "I'm specced into Ret, not holy, not prot so I should do as much DPS as a pure" debaters. Frankly, I agree with Ghostcrawler on the subject though.
Post by
GenXCub
The only time I'd say that ret should do as much damage as a pure DPS class is if it had a true restriction like a Moonkin does. Moonkin cannot heal themselves without stopping their DPS, etc. That's the point at which you're not a hybrid character.
Post by
Rouen
Over time however they have contributed into making the paladin into a "one-man army," able to play offensively, defensively and heal without say the stance changing or shapeshifting or sometimes event talent specialization required of other classes.
That's essentially what Ghostcrawler is saying and that's how I've felt about it for a long time, but there are those on these forums who have previously said "If that's the case then whats the point, /roll warrior."
(I don't feel like digging for it, it's in the pally forums somewhere)
Edit: I take that back, forgot you can view all your previous forum replies.
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=105748
Post by
Squishalot
GC does have a good point - paladins are one-man armies, which is part of what makes them both fun and a challenge to play well.
I also agree that Sacred Shield is fairly OP, but it does work in some way to counter the difference in medium-term damage between us and other DPS classes. As always, if they're going to remove some of the defensive utility, balance dictates that they need to improve the offensive utility.
Post by
blademeld
Problem with paladin balancing, as I often say (not on the forums) is that they balance paladin performance of PvP or soloing.
Paladins are too defensive for them to be doing a lot of damage, but at the same time, if you nerf the damage, they're not performing as well as other classes in PvE. Same with healing or defenses.
Post by
Squishalot
Problem with paladin balancing, as I often say (not on the forums) is that they balance paladin performance of PvP or soloing.
Paladins are too defensive for them to be doing a lot of damage, but at the same time, if you nerf the damage, they're not performing as well as other classes in PvE. Same with healing or defenses.
Well said. The original concept of the 'utility paladin' was a good one, but it fails to work in practice.
Perhaps, you could actually make the paladins a healing/tanking utility class by retaining their defensive abilities (in deep Prot and/or Holy), and reducing damage, and improving raid-wide buffs. That would still provide incentive to bring several paladins along into a raid still, while not making them overpowering in PvP.
Post by
44284
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Just a thought. If it only procs once, then how is it any different from a Power Word: Shield?
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Just a thought. If it only procs once, then how is it any different from a Power Word: Shield?
Because PW:S is continually active, while SS won't activate until you take damage besides the fact that SS is spamable.
Post by
Rouen
CAN WE PLEASE STOP NERFING PVE FOR PVP!
You know that will never happen. Blizzard will not make a set of talent trees devoted purely to PvP to prevent most of the balancing problems. If they did, it would be easy is pie to tweak without much of the fear of breaking classes or their mechanics. At the same time, if they did do it, PvP would become homogenized and potentially boring. Remember, Blizzard looks for community averages and not who is the cream of the crop when making design decisions.
If I had to guess what caused them to make this change (this is operating under the assumption that a tool exists, which I believe it does in some form) is that all the QQ'ing of all the damage paladins were absorbing due to
Sacred Shield
caused them to look at those numbers and saw that the average was much higher then they wanted it to be. As additional raids are released and arena seasons have come and gone, gear has improved dramatically. Due to
Sheath of Light
giving spellpower in proportion to Strength, which Ret pallys stack, it's probably giving them too much absorption. Combine that with the great synergy of a Sacred Shield proc and Sheath of Light, which improves your chance of Flash of Light to crit by 50% and getting a HoT to boot, it is starting to become a little OP. Before people jump down my throat for stating that this might be OP, a holy paladin is my main and I PvP in retribution off-spec.
I'm not great at PvP, but this synergy is allowing a fail PvPer like myself to succeed when I probably shouldn't.
I'm a PvE healer at heart.
Edit: On a side note, I would
love it
if Ghostcrawler and the other devs to find a way to create more depth in the Holy Tree. It's pretty simple at the moment. I do want more buttons to push other then our three heals and a ton of 2 minute cooldowns that are mostly situational. I'm not downplaying abilities like Aura Mastery, Divine Sacrifice, or Hand of Salvation by saying that, I would just like more buttons when what we have.
Post by
385380
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Post by
161859
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454309
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Post by
Rouen
I believe it was put there to entice Holy to spec down the Prot tree. Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian are obviously meant to be used more by Holy Paladins than Prot Paladins. Yes, Prot can use them. But, the talents are geared more towards Holy.
Agreed. It was placed high enough in the Prot tree where other primary specs can reach it, IE Retribution and Holy.
The fact that Divine Sacrifice is based on total health, which protection paladins who are well geared will have between 2 to 2.5ish times more health then Ret or Holy, would absorb a great deal more damage then Holy or Ret. One could argue that Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian was placed on this tier within the Protection tree because they felt it wasn't valuable enough to be deeper in the tree or enough of a balance issue for PvP/PvE to be deeper as opposed to deep prot talents like
Guarded by the Light
or
Touched by the Light
which would drastically affect the style of play
and how the player would choose to gear
.
Edit: Changes in bold.
Post by
Quest
Consider the following; Wow1 (this game) is being turned into a testing ground for Wow2 (the sequel to this game).
This is why I dont take things the devs say seriously anymore. Its obvious they have ulterior motives for the changes they do. GC wants to sit there giving reasons like that, yet they are the ones that put these changes in in the first place, and due to heavy class changes every couple months instead of light class changes every couple weeks with small transparently installed patches.
They have 14~ million people to test new ideas against for their next game. That’s a huge base, and if I was running a business I’d do the same. I just wish they would stop the simile glad-hand that is Ghostcrawler, but that’s PR for you.
Post by
Lightrain
I also agree that Sacred Shield is fairly OP, but it does work in some way to counter the difference in medium-term damage between us and other DPS classes. As always, if they're going to remove some of the defensive utility, balance dictates that they need to improve the offensive utility.
TBH, I would GLADLY give up SS if JoJ was a 50% slow and CS or Hand or Reck had an interupt or MS attatched to it in the ret tree.
I personally prefer a straight up fight against a utility fight.
Having melee almost dead, then they manage to heal thru all your offense is pretty stupid. The same goes for getting someone from 100% down to 10% over the span of a perfectly executed CC chain, only to have their healer get one heal thru that takes them from 10% to 80% instantly is rather dumb. Also, most melee vs melee fights are all about RNG. Whoever gets more crits(or more crits during procs) wins the match. It also goes to say, if you are ret, and get a terrible "lack of crit" spree, you can't heal yourself, and also can't do enough damage to the enemy to get him down or even come close to stressing his healer.
Post by
Sgtpain
I also agree that Sacred Shield is fairly OP, but it does work in some way to counter the difference in medium-term damage between us and other DPS classes. As always, if they're going to remove some of the defensive utility, balance dictates that they need to improve the offensive utility.
TBH, I would GLADLY give up SS if JoJ was a 50% slow and CS or Hand or Reck had an interupt or MS attatched to it in the ret tree.
I personally prefer a straight up fight against a utility fight.
Having melee almost dead, then they manage to heal thru all your offense is pretty stupid. The same goes for getting someone from 100% down to 10% over the span of a perfectly executed CC chain, only to have their healer get one heal thru that takes them from 10% to 80% instantly is rather dumb. Also, most melee vs melee fights are all about RNG. Whoever gets more crits(or more crits during procs) wins the match. It also goes to say, if you are ret, and get a terrible "lack of crit" spree, you can't heal yourself, and also can't do enough damage to the enemy to get him down or even come close to stressing his healer.
This! These are my exact thoughts on it also.
Post by
477440
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Post by
44284
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161859
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