Paladins and 1.9

[Rinnhart]

Get over it, people. If you argue with MongoJerry you're just a bad player.

[Quark]

So ... can we cut down the cursing, just a little? I'm not seeing much in the way of reasoned thought.

Anger may be justified, but it certainly doesn't look good in a logical argument that you're typing and you can look at before you hit 'submit'.

[Tuftears]

IMHO: holy shield isn't powerful enough as a 31 point protection talent. It would need to be beefed up significantly. Same with Blessing of Sanctuary (24 damage reduction at level 60).

Blessing of Kings is quite powerful, more so as a raid buff. It should go in the raiding tree - that's Holy.

Blizzard is saying here, 'We don't want you to be able to spec in one tree for everything you want, we want you to have to sacrifice and take only half of what would help you tank better, fight better, or heal better.' And that's really insanely strange, since druid talent trees don't work that way. We have some cross-tree stuff but they're all at low levels, i.e. furor, natural weapons, natural shapeshifting.

If I were Blizzard: swap Holy Shock with Blessing of Kings. Double damage on Holy Shock and dump that silly heal thing. (it's about 500 mana for 400 damage at the moment) Keep Repentance in Protection.

Sanctity Aura is okay in Retribution as well. Put Consecration at 11 in Protection.

Now, repentance in Retribution isn't completely stupid. You can use it to judge an extra Seal of Command, thus a bit more DPS. But Holy Shock in Holy is just totally orphaned now, you can never get Sanctity Aura with it, meaning you'll get 90% of the damage you used to be able to do, and it was not buffed in damage. Putting Holy Shock in Retribution gives paladins the controlled burst DPS they want. Putting BOKings in Holy gives paladins a great raid buff without having to spec PvP.

[MongoJerry]

You take this from a PvP perspective and then say Rogues have CC?  Hah!  No, Rogues who limited their potential for the awesome Assassination/Combat combo (by getting Improved Sap in Subtlety) have CC.  Sap unimproved is a risky venture, especially if you're not a group that's well coordinated.  Sap unimproved in PvP is just stupid, as it means you'll automatically leaving stealth, and an unstealthed Rogue is a dead rogue.

Yes, sap, especially improved sap, is an excellent cc device. In PvP people get out of combat a lot, so there are many opportunities to use it. Obviously, it helps in flag defence in AB. Also, it's great for flag offence -- sap a solo defender and tag the flag or try the advanced techinique of sapping one defender, blinding another, and then tagging the flag. Another annoying occurance is in WSG when I've seen rogues sap enemy flag carriers as they come down the tunnel -- or even back at the entrance to the flag carrier's base. That gives the rogue's team lots of time to gather to destroy the flag carrier. And, of course, sap's just plain useful at the start of any assault.

Also, slowing poison is an excellent PvP crowd control device -- especially in WSG.

EVERY class can effectively dispel most crowd control spells. You have a PvP trinket. I have a PvP trinket. Anyone who's spent more than 3 days in BG during a holiday has a PvP trinket.

Eh, sort of, but not really. Each trinket only breaks a certain set of cc and only lets you break cc's on yourself once every five minutes. It's useful, but considering the amount of cc that gets sprayed around, it's not adequate. The classic case is with warriors getting polymorphed, frost novaed, and rooted (entangled roots). The warrior trinket doesn't break polymorph and even if the warrior trinkets out of one root, the warrior will just get rooted again. So if your team's warriors don't have a dispeller with them, you're just asking for all your warriors to be permanently cc'd while the rest of your team's squishies get taken down.

On Tichondrius, we had a major 5v5 tournament with a grand prize of 200g (and honor, glory, and all that). The contest announcement said, "So which team of five will win?" One person quickly replied, "The one with two warriors and two paladins in it." There was broad agreement among both Alliance and Horde players -- so much agreement that they changed the rules to require that only one of any given class was allowed to be on any given team. The Alliance teams still won, but at least the Horde teams got to make some noise in the contest.

If you want to see just how powerful your paladin can be in PvP, team up with a warrior. Just tell your chosen warrior that you're going to follow him or her around and heal and dispell him or her. Then, if you can, find a fellow paladin and tell him or her that you both are going to stay together and heal and dispel each other and that warrior. Then, grab another warrior. If you can, try to make a group like that and play with each other consistently over time. You'll soon find that you can destroy anything in your path with a well functioning group like that.

[Rinnhart]

So ... can we cut down the cursing, just a little?  I'm not seeing much in the way of reasoned thought.

Anger may be justified, but it certainly doesn't look good in a logical argument that you're typing and you can look at before you hit 'submit'.
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It's bull#$%&, Quark. Period.

[Tal]

The 31 point protection talent should have been a taunt with a longer cool down than warrior taunt.

[Brista]

It seems to me that the adjustments are a response to what people asked for

These were the main complaints

Paladins:
we can't catch players (run speed talent)
we don't have enough dps (dps got boosted)
raiding is boring buff micromanagement (fixed)

Other players:
Paladins are unkillable (hence the "you can't touch me abilities" were adjusted to no longer stack)


What we have now may not be what anyone wants but it is pretty close to what people were asking for on the official Blizzard forums

I think if Paladins are tweaked away from invincibility towards killing power that seems to be what both the paladins themselves and the people who are on the receiving end of the "unkillable healers in plate" battleground teams both want, or at least what they're publically asking for.

We may of course end up with a class that is basically Alliance shamans at which point it will dawn on some players that the grass was greener before they started demanding changes :rolleyes:

[Arnulf]

Secondly, the amount of times that i've fought an equally sided match in skill level and was able to get the most out of my strengths is personally few and far between.  For every time that i've been able to use my abilities in the way you describe there are 10 times where i'm hit by a counterspell or kicked by a rogue silencing me for most of the battle.  The reality is that these OFFENSIVE abilities are out there in much more abundance and if used wisely and properly can destroy any hope i have of using my defensive abilities to help my group.
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Seconded.

MongoJerry, you can agonize over these special situations as much as you want. What Chesspiece here states holds true throughout every PVP situation. Without Decursive paladins wouldn't be of any use in PVP at all...

-Arnulf

[Chesspiece_face]

If you want to see just how powerful your paladin can be in PvP, team up with a warrior.  Just tell your chosen warrior that you're going to follow him or her around and heal and dispell him or her.  Then, if you can, find a fellow paladin and tell him or her that you both are going to stay together and heal and dispel each other and that warrior.  Then, grab another warrior.  If you can, try to make a group like that and play with each other consistently over time.  You'll soon find that you can destroy anything in your path with a well functioning group like that.
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If you can get a group like that, if decursive still works, if. if. if. if. if. Sorry Mongo but each time you throw another "if" on there just takes you one step away from this "real" pvp you always seem to harp on. Everytime you bring up the power of the paladin you always fall back on a proof that happens in some overly-controlled situation. nobodys arguing that in these types of situations paladins can't be powerful. What we are saying is that these situations are not prelevant in, nor can be extrapolated to cover, "real" pvp, in any shape or form.

[Quark]

Alright, I'll start ignoring your viewpoint now.

[Lissa]

The 31 point protection talent should have been a taunt with a longer cool down than warrior taunt.
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Agreed, Paladin's need a snap agro skill.

[Tal]

It's bull#$%&, Quark. Period.
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Nevertheless his point is valid - there are ways of expressing ourselves that don't involve the use of profanity filtered or not. And believe me, since you and I often see eye to eye when it comes to paladins, I feel your frustration. But the forum is rated "PG-13" and our post content should reflect that.

[Tal]

If you believe that, you must lose a lot in PvP.  Paladins are best at *living*, buffing, and supporting their teams. 

The main reason why many people don't understand this is because they fall into the trap that Dozer fell into that causes you to think that fights are only about damage and healing damage.  He forgot completely about crowd control.  In particular, I would change:
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I wish I had the vaulted survivability attributed to my class so often. When Sharanna pvp's I find myself CC'd early if I pop out of it with a shield (don't have the trinket yet) then I find myself dying shortly thereafter due to focus fire. The ONLY time I've been able to stay alive for any length of time is when the horde is dumb enough to ignore me and let me heal someone else. 9 times out of 10 I am targetted for destruction before any other class. If I use my shield then to heal through it then I can count on being sheeped/seduced as soon as it wears off.

[Kevin]

It seems to me that the adjustments are a response to what people asked for

These were the main complaints

Paladins:
  we can't catch players (run speed talent)
  we don't have enough dps (dps got boosted)
  raiding is boring buff micromanagement (fixed)

Other players:
  Paladins are unkillable (hence the "you can't touch me abilities" were adjusted to no longer stack)
What we have now may not be what anyone wants but it is pretty close to what people were asking for on the official Blizzard forums

I think if Paladins are tweaked away from invincibility towards killing power that seems to be what both the paladins themselves and the people who are on the receiving end of the "unkillable healers in plate" battleground teams both want, or at least what they're publically asking for.

We may of course end up with a class that is basically Alliance shamans at which point it will dawn on some players that the grass was greener  before they started demanding changes  :rolleyes:
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Actually many paladins were complaining about not having controlled DPS. They did get some of that with the new seal/judgement. My burst DPS is better, my overall DPS has been worse though. Playing with my gear more might be able to fix that.

I also agree that paladins that spec to it should have had a snap aggro skill, something similar to mocking blow. Long cooldown the shortest I could see would be once every 30 seconds but have it give a longer hold on the mob, like mocking blow or the druid taunt. With the new seal and judgements that paladins can do to get multi target aggro and the timered stun something like this would go a long way to helping them tank but would not put them on a the level of a warrior. They would be taking less damage than a druid tank would (parry, block and dodge with warrior level armor vs just dodge with higher than warrior armor) and without having to build rage to do other aggro generation skills they should end up as good a tank as a druid in most situations, if they spec for it. I would also like to see shaman that spec deep enough for it get something that helps their armor even more so they can take the physical beating while tanking. Rockbiter and their shocks work well enough as taunts and good use of a stoneclaw totem works as a taunt as well. However the prot spec shaman simply can't take the beating well enough at times. I wouldn't mind seeing a high level restoration talent that lets shaman do more dispel as well.

Having paladin and shaman experience the grass isn't greener on either side, it's different grass and the grass that shaman have is more fun to play in, in most situations, it's a more fluid class that has more control on what it can do. You have more choices of what you can do. As mongo says the paladin can follow a warrior around and heal and dispel them and not add much else. A shaman can choose to be effective as an offensive or defensive weapon they can pair up with and enhance pretty much any other class in PvP with play style change (they can be the offensive force with a healer backing them, they can be the healer, they can snare) as people say a paladin can do defense or heal an offensive player. You would laugh at a paladin that was trying to do damage. People don't seem to laugh at a shaman trying to do offensive damage. They don't seem to laugh at a shaman that is healing and snaring in a defensive capacity. They don't laugh at shadow priests who do offensive damage. They don't laugh at shadow priests who heal. This is the issue that paladins have. Other classes get much more choice on how they want to play, mages are probably the next least flexible as they pretty much have to kite no matter what spec they are. Rogues can do offense or defense (sap, blind, gouge, stun). Warlocks depending on spec play differently, warriors play differently with different specs (as a prot spec in PvP I still don't do a lot of damage but I'm better at disrupting the enemy than a damage spec is), priests are limited by their spec, but their spec changes the play style. Even with the changes pretty much all paladin specs will still only be able to do one thing in PvP or PvE. Stand around and wait while things die. Be able to tank if the group works with them to do so but if they lose aggro it's lost.

I don't mind specs choosing your playstyle, but a protection paladin still doesn't really tank better than other paladin specs (of course neither does a prot warrior in 90% of the game) a retribution paladin really doesn't do more damage or deliver it differently than a holy or protection paladin. Shaman specs change the playstyle, enhancement and elemental shamans get more DPS but they deliver it in different ways. Druid specs change the play style and druids have low level and high level cross talent tree talents. Heart of the Wild deep in feral helps your healing by giving more mana, and helps you if you want to do feral balance for the same reason. Nature's Grace and Moonglow deep in Balance help with both balance and healing by lowering costs or casting times. Innervate can help you do more damage if you are a resto/balance by extending the mana pool. So the talents for a druid do help specialize you and do help other trees with talent synergies.

They did a little of this for the paladin with some low level talents but I see no high level synergies for them. I see no play style changes for any spec like the other hybrid the shaman gets. I don't see the complaints that people raised about this being addressed.

[Concillian]

In any game involving equally skilled players, the team with the best communication and game plan wins.
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This is true.
However, I'm farily certain that MJ is discussing a case where you have two teams with :
~equally (high) skilled players
~equally (epic) geared characters
~equally (good) game plans
and
~equally (good) communication

When both teams are that organized, having a class that can last an extra 12 seconds that can dispel poly and freeze traps might be as big a deal as MJ makes it out to be. 12 seconds, when the GY resapwns come in less than 30 seconds, is almost a lifetime in this kind of PvP... and even without Decursive, CTRA can be setup to readily see who needs cleansed.

I think it's ignorant to dismiss MJ's opinion too quickly. He is obviously a very strategic player from his history in D2 and WoW. He hasn't, in my observation of his history, whined about challenges that could be overcome with strategy. He has made posts here, asking for counter strategies to situations like he mentions here, etc...

He is also playing on Tich, which is not just a PvP server, but one of the more 'hardcore' PvP servers, where I can imagine that it's probably pretty common to find very organized group in BGs.

Think about the abilities each side has access to in group PvP. Then think what each side would do in an ideally orchestrated strategy, and you come up with the conclusion that his perspective might be correct. Even if you've never been in a group that organized, so you aren't fully qualified to say that it definitively is or is not correct, you have to at least come to the conclusion that it could play out that way.

[Chesspiece_face]

They did a little of this for the paladin with some low level talents but I see no high level synergies for them.  I see no play style changes for any spec like the other hybrid the shaman gets.  I don't see the complaints that people raised about this being addressed.
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I think "synergy" can only describe what they did in the paladin trees in the most generic sense. Mix-n-match is far more appropriate. If they went to mages and took Ice Shards and swapped it with Ignite that would be as close to synergy as paladins have.

[Concillian]

Note, I've only ever seen one person use Repentance.  Nice little spell sometimes, I guess.
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I've seen it used a lot... usually on me.

A very common pally tactic if they are caught 1 on 1 in BGs is to repentance and charge up a gnomish death ray while you are sitting there. Very common amongst the good alliance guild teams on Terenas anyway.

Of if a pally flag runner needs to run past 2 defenders. Stun #1, repentance #2, blessing of Freedom and they're gone.

[Rinnhart]

Nevertheless his point is valid - there are ways of expressing ourselves that don't involve the use of profanity filtered or not. And believe me, since you and I often see eye to eye when it comes to paladins, I feel your frustration. But the forum is rated "PG-13" and our post content should reflect that.
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Fine, but I still get my one f-bomb per post.

That or a single instance of nudity.

[Tal]

Fine, but I still get my one f-bomb per post.

That or a single instance of nudity.
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Oh alright but it better be worth the price of admission! ;)

[Rinnhart]

Actually many paladins were complaining about not having controlled DPS. They did get some of that with the new seal/judgement.  My burst DPS is better, my overall DPS has been worse though.  Playing with my gear more might be able to fix that.

I also agree that paladins that spec to it should have had a snap aggro skill, something similar to mocking blow.  Long cooldown the shortest I could see would be once every 30 seconds but have it give a longer hold on the mob, like mocking blow or the druid taunt.  With the new seal and judgements that paladins can do to get multi target aggro and the timered stun something like this would go a long way to helping them tank but would not put them on a the level of a warrior.  They would be taking less damage than a druid tank would (parry, block and dodge with warrior level armor vs just dodge with higher than warrior armor) and without having to build rage to do other aggro generation skills they should end up as good a tank as a druid in most situations, if they spec for it.  I would also like to see shaman that spec deep  enough for it get something that helps their armor even more so they can take the physical beating while tanking.  Rockbiter and their shocks work well enough as taunts and good use of a stoneclaw totem works as a taunt as well.  However the prot spec shaman simply can't take the beating well enough at times.    I wouldn't mind seeing a high level restoration talent that lets shaman do more dispel as well.

Having paladin and shaman experience the grass isn't greener on either side, it's different grass and the grass that shaman have is more fun to play in, in most situations, it's a more fluid class that has more control on what it can do.  You have more choices of what you can do.  As mongo says the paladin can follow a warrior around and heal and dispel them and not add much else.  A shaman can choose to be effective as an offensive or defensive weapon they can pair up with and enhance pretty much any other class in PvP with play style change (they can be the offensive force with a healer backing them, they can be the healer, they can snare) as people say a paladin can do defense or heal an offensive player.  You would laugh at a paladin that was trying to do damage.  People don't seem to laugh at a shaman trying to do offensive damage.  They don't seem to laugh at a shaman that is healing and snaring in a defensive capacity.  They don't laugh at shadow priests who do offensive damage.  They don't laugh at shadow priests who heal.  This is the issue that paladins have.  Other classes get much more choice on how they want to play, mages are probably the next least flexible as they pretty much have to kite no matter what spec they are.  Rogues can do offense or defense (sap, blind, gouge, stun).  Warlocks depending on spec play differently, warriors play differently with different specs (as a prot spec in PvP I still don't do a lot of damage but I'm better at disrupting the enemy than a damage spec is), priests are limited by their spec, but their spec changes the play style.  Even with the changes pretty much all paladin specs will still only be able to do one thing in PvP or PvE.  Stand around and wait while things die.  Be able to tank if the group works with them to do so but if they lose aggro it's lost. 

I don't mind specs choosing your playstyle, but a protection paladin still doesn't really tank better than other paladin specs (of course neither does a prot warrior in 90% of the game) a retribution paladin really doesn't do more damage or deliver it differently than a holy or protection paladin.  Shaman specs change the playstyle, enhancement and elemental shamans get more DPS but they deliver it in different ways.  Druid specs change the play style and druids have low level and high level cross talent tree talents.  Heart of the Wild deep in feral helps your healing by giving more mana, and helps you if you want to do feral balance for the same reason.  Nature's Grace and Moonglow deep in Balance help with both balance and healing by lowering costs or casting times.  Innervate can help you do more damage if you are a resto/balance by extending the mana pool.  So the talents for a druid do help specialize you and do help other trees with talent synergies. 

They did a little of this for the paladin with some low level talents but I see no high level synergies for them.  I see no play style changes for any spec like the other hybrid the shaman gets.  I don't see the complaints that people raised about this being addressed.
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Can this one get stickied?

Perfect post, Gnollguy.

I think "synergy" can only describe what they did in the paladin trees in the most generic sense. Mix-n-match is far more appropriate. If they went to mages and took Ice Shards and swapped it with Ignite that would be as close to synergy as paladins have.

Every class has a concept behind the logic of their talent trees, and then the talents designed around that concept. The paladin trees had that, but it was poorly defined and, as noted, the talents never altered the playstyle of the paladin (versus a shadow priest, dagger rogue, or frost mage, for example, who are defined by their talent choices).

The entire class needs to be reviewed, and they seem unwilling to do that for whatever reason.