-EDIT- Ignore this post as it has been said that most of it is no longer valid.
The new 31 point trees are up and there is some very good new, some good news and some average news.
This is going to be a long post so hold with me, I'll try to make it as stream lined as possible.
--PROTECTION--
-Tier One-
Toughness-3/3-Increases armor from items by 10%.
Seals of the Pure-3/3-Increases damage of seals and judgements by 15%.
Improved Hammer of Justice-2/2-Decreases the CD of HoJ by 20sec.
So far nothing new but its nice to have SotP in the Prot tree now.
-Tier Two-
Judgements of the Just-2/2-Increases Seal of Justice effect by 1sec and your Judgements reduce melee attack speed by 20%.
Sanctuary-3/3-Reduced damage taken by 3% and when you block, parry or dodge a melee attack you gain 3% of max mana.
Guardian's Favor-2/2-Reduces the CD on HoP by 2min and increases HoF by 4sec
Sacred Oath-3/3-Increases damage while using one handed weapons by 10% and amount absorbed by Sacred Shield by 30%.
Some very nice merging of talents in this tier and the passive Sanctuary so high in the tree removes the issue of lacking mana in our tier bonus as mentioned before.
-Tier Three-
Spiritual Attunement-2/2-10% of heals received from friendly targets returned as mana
Divine Sacrifice-1/1-Instant cast-2min CD-30% of all damage taken by party members withing 30yrds is redirected to the Paladin. Damage which takes you below 20% health will break the effect. Lasts 10 sec.
Improved Exorcism-2/2-Reduces the cast time of Exorcism by 1.5 sec and increases damage by 20%.
Improved Devotion Aura-3/3-Increases armor bonus of Devo Aura by 50% and increases amount healed on all target effected by 6%.
Now we hit the big changes, most importantly the killing of "Raid Wall" and more importantly Exorcism will now replace Holy Shock in our single target rotation countering that note from the Holy tier bonus's.
-Tier Four-
Hallowed Ground-2/2-Increases the Duration of Consecration by 30sec and its damage by 20%.
Vindication-2/2-Your damaging attacks reduce physical damage done by the target by 10% for 10 sec.
Shield of the Templar-2/2-Your Avengers Shield has a 100% chance to silence your targets for 3sec.
The Hallowed Ground talent is an interesting one, with their new stand on AoE tanking it leads me to believe the untalented spell will be very weak. On top of that the greatly increased duration means it would possibly make it in as a filler spell for our single target rotation or a great flag defence in BG's
-Tier Five-
Ardent Defender-1/1-Instance cast-2min CD- Activate to reduce damage taken by 20%. While active attacks that would otherwise kill you cause you to be healed for 15% of you max health. Only usable when your health is below 35%.
Divine Guardian-2/2-Reduce the CD of you Divine Sacrifice and Divine Plea abilities by 60sec.
Holy Shield-3/3-Reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 6% and deal holy damage for each blocked attack.
Here is the big talking point for our trees, while many other classes hated AD as it stands this if a big nerf. Not only is it now a CD but its only usable while you are under 35% health. I realise health pools are increasing but having to wait till 35% to use and "Oh S**t" ability seems rather risky to me.
Divine Guardian is very nice not only does it make DS more usable but the reduction on DP's CD will help for leveling and running Heroics so we no longer have to chain pull.
-Tier Six-
Sacred Duty-3/3-Increases stamina by 15% and reduces the CD of Divine Shield and Divine Protection by 3min
Improved Crusader Strike-2/2-Reduces the CD of Crusader Strike by 4sec and increases its damage by 100%
Its nice to have all our Stam bonus in one talent finally and the reduced CD on DShield and DProt are handy but still no word on how they interact with each other via Forbearance.
Improved CS is interesting as it makes the spell completely spammable and giving us a very full spell rotation. The increased damage will simply be to compensate for the lack of damage on single target weapons
-Tier Seven-
Hammer of the Righteous-1/1-Instant cast-Melee weapon hammer the current target and up to two nearby targets for 3x DPS as holy damage.
This was an obvious one however do note that while the damage done is reduced by 1x the CD has been completely removed making it our AoE spam attack similar how to CS will be for single targets.
--RETRIBUTION--
-Tier One-
Improved Judgements-2/2-Decreases the CD on your Judgements by 2sec.
Heart of the Crusader-3/3-Your judgements also increase the critical strike chance of all melee attacks by 3%.
Crusade-3/3-Increases the Damage and healing of your Crusader Strike,Hammer of the Righteous and Holy Shock by 15% and an additional 15% vs Humanoids, Demons, Undead, Dragonkin and Elementals.
Not much new here bar the obvious movement of Crusade into the first tier and the restriction on spells it effects however as two of those spells will be spammed by Prot it makes a very nice talent. Also note that it now works on Dragonkin as well which we will no doubt see much more of in Cataclysm.
-Tier Two-
Eye for and Eye-2/2-All damaging attacks cause you to strike the attacker with your judgement. This cannot happen more than once every two seconds.
Righteous Vengeance-3/3-When Judgement, Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous or Divine Storm deal a critical strike, your target will take 30% additional damage over 8sec.
Pursuit of Justice-2/2-Increases movement speed by 15%.
There are some good talent choices here and with the way the new point system will work we will likely get to only pick one, this will no doubt be a big debate in the community over which will be the most useful.Particularly when you look at Holy and consider the new way healing will work.
--HOLY--
-Tier One-
Sanctified Light-3/3-Increases the critical strike chance of you Judgements and Holy Shock by 15%.
Spiritual Focus-2/2-Reduces the push back from damage while casting heals by 70%.
Divinity-3/3-Increases the amount of healing done and received by 6%.
The increased crit on Judgements is very nice depending on how often we will use them in our rotations and with healers prone to going OOM now the increase in healing received might be worth taking for those longer or progression fights.
All in all I think these new trees will definitely create a wider variety of specs for Prot Paladins and plenty of debate to go with it.
Also to note that Seal of Command is gone for good and it seems that a talented Seal of the Righteous will take its place as a Ret only cleave.
I'm very much liking the new trees and since Ghostcrawler has said that these are simply "rough drafts" I think we can expect even more good things to come,and I can not wait to get planning on what talents I will take as well as looking over the other classes.
Showing posts with label Class Preview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Class Preview. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Paladin Preview
Preview has finally gone up and while there is some interesting stuff in there some of it is still rather vague.
New Paladin Spells
Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure's ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.
This sounds very nice and quite similar to warriors shockwave giving us that snap agro ability we need for large AoE pulls. Also Rhidach called it on us getting Eadrics ability.
Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.
Who called this one. Player targeted AoE HoT with sort range. Granted its only on yourself but still interesting, only problem is Blizzards current trend to spread ranged out so this seems very situational unless we have a way to quickly get into melee.
Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
Sounds like a fun ability and another CD is always good. I just hope that the effect isn't to big with 2/3 of them using it in melee range. Also very nice for boss kill screenshots if can be popped with wings.
Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack. Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.
This is good to see but not very unexpected.
Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.
Hopefully the "on everyone" means all at once and not class by class. No mention on whats happening with Sanctuary though
Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins.
This is very nice handy for spot fixes on yourself while tanking. No word on if the damage component remains so we can add it to rotations though.
We want to add to the Holy tree a nice big heal to correspond with Greater Heal. Flash of Light remains the expensive, fast heal and Holy Light is the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. Beacon of Light will be changed to work with Flash of Light. We like the ability, but want paladins to use it intelligently and not be constantly healing for twice as much.
This was expected with how they have handled the other healing classes this also gives us a total of three new baseline heals two of which are brand new heals completely.
We want to increase the duration of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes and keep the limit to one target.
Nice little quality of life change.
Protection paladins need a different rotation between single-target and multi-target tanking. Likewise, we're looking to add the necessity to use an additional cooldown in each rotation.
Another change we knew was coming, this is re-enforced by Blinding Shield being added to the game.
Finally Mastery's
Block Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks a lot. So by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical blocks, but the paladin will absorb more damage with normal blocks.
Well still assume this will be called Redout, nothing we haven't known since Blizzcon.
Overall not a lot we didn't expect and a lot we already knew. Will be interesting to see what changes they are working on that they haven't announced and if that involves something finally being done with Forbearance. Still no word on an interupt and charge yet ether, if they are coming they will be a big thing so they might be holding back for a surprise.
New Paladin Spells
Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure's ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.
This sounds very nice and quite similar to warriors shockwave giving us that snap agro ability we need for large AoE pulls. Also Rhidach called it on us getting Eadrics ability.
Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.
Who called this one. Player targeted AoE HoT with sort range. Granted its only on yourself but still interesting, only problem is Blizzards current trend to spread ranged out so this seems very situational unless we have a way to quickly get into melee.
Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
Sounds like a fun ability and another CD is always good. I just hope that the effect isn't to big with 2/3 of them using it in melee range. Also very nice for boss kill screenshots if can be popped with wings.
Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack. Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.
This is good to see but not very unexpected.
Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.
Hopefully the "on everyone" means all at once and not class by class. No mention on whats happening with Sanctuary though
Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins.
This is very nice handy for spot fixes on yourself while tanking. No word on if the damage component remains so we can add it to rotations though.
We want to add to the Holy tree a nice big heal to correspond with Greater Heal. Flash of Light remains the expensive, fast heal and Holy Light is the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. Beacon of Light will be changed to work with Flash of Light. We like the ability, but want paladins to use it intelligently and not be constantly healing for twice as much.
This was expected with how they have handled the other healing classes this also gives us a total of three new baseline heals two of which are brand new heals completely.
We want to increase the duration of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes and keep the limit to one target.
Nice little quality of life change.
Protection paladins need a different rotation between single-target and multi-target tanking. Likewise, we're looking to add the necessity to use an additional cooldown in each rotation.
Another change we knew was coming, this is re-enforced by Blinding Shield being added to the game.
Finally Mastery's
Block Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks a lot. So by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical blocks, but the paladin will absorb more damage with normal blocks.
Well still assume this will be called Redout, nothing we haven't known since Blizzcon.
Overall not a lot we didn't expect and a lot we already knew. Will be interesting to see what changes they are working on that they haven't announced and if that involves something finally being done with Forbearance. Still no word on an interupt and charge yet ether, if they are coming they will be a big thing so they might be holding back for a surprise.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Cataclysm Previews
All classes have now had their Cataclysm previews with the exception of paladins and already many bloggers have put forward their ideas on what may be coming in the expansion. I thought that it was time that I to put out my predictions and wish list.
Mastery
We already know that the first two levels will be a damage reduction and Vengeance. My guess for our third tier is that Redout will be removed as a talent and added as our Mastery in the form of increased block amount as we saw at Blizzcon. I imagine it will increase blocked amount from 30% up to maybe 40% depending on whether or not there is a cap on mastery numbers, if not then I would assume some kind of diminishing returns up to and over that mark.
This would allow Paladins to block similar amounts of damage over time to warriors but in a steadier stream as apposed to the very slightly more spiky Critical Block.
New Spells and Talents
Most of these will be rather obvious and have generally been covered by every other writer out there but I'll go through my list anyway.
First off I see us getting not one but 2 new heals to keep up with the common changes one base line heal somewhere between Flash of Light and Holy Light and an AoE heal of some kind possibly trained between 81 and 85 maybe as a Holy Talent. What I would like to see is a player targeted AoE HoT something that you cast on your rogue and that player and everyone in 5-10 yards gets healed for 50% of each HoT tick on the rogue. Its the AoE heal we need and something not yet in game that fills our missing HoT position as well as keeping similar to the Holy Light Glyph.
For Ret I think its fully assumed that we will get a new attack for leveling, maybe something new or maybe Crusader Strike will be baseline and Ret get a new cooler ability that will replace CS in their end game rotation. On top of the new attack I hope to see a non damaging off the GCD interrupt but I'm not sure if they will give us that and i doubt they would give us both this and my next point together unless they finally feel Ret is fixed enough in PvP to not be over powered with them. Charge, nice and simple with warriors getting two now and priests getting their "Life Grip" I hope its about time to get this ability. As I said I don't see us getting both a charge and an interrupt unless they are truly happy with where Ret is in PvP but if I had to pick one it would be charge.
The other thing I see coming for Ret is a talent with a cool proc something to spice up the rotation and step it away from the FCFS, I'm not quite sure what but possibly something to re-set the CD of the new spell they will be getting.
I can't see alot of changes coming to prot that wouldn't fall under Ret, the two big things though would be a Sword and Board like talent to help break the rotation. Secondly I hope for a overhaul of forbearance which while not a prot change would hopefully seen Divine Protection removed from the effect if it still remains.
General Changes
The biggest change I would like to see is the addition of the "stance" based system through auras such as Rhidach had talked about several weeks ago. Its a great idea that would help to solve a lot of class problems and coupled with a heavy reduction in base heals I think we could really come along way and start to see some really interesting new idea for the future of Paladins.
The other class change I hope to see which would work really well with the stances is the removal of spell power as a co-efficient in Ret and Prot ability's. With how Death Knights work their damage there is no reason that Paladins can't do the same further reducing things like Prot heals in Arena that Blizz hates so much.
Over all i think what we have seen from the previews so far has been amazing and hopefully we won't be disappointed come the 16th. I am half expecting to see something completely out of the blue for us like what Bliz have done for Balance druids but for now all we can do is wait.
Mastery
We already know that the first two levels will be a damage reduction and Vengeance. My guess for our third tier is that Redout will be removed as a talent and added as our Mastery in the form of increased block amount as we saw at Blizzcon. I imagine it will increase blocked amount from 30% up to maybe 40% depending on whether or not there is a cap on mastery numbers, if not then I would assume some kind of diminishing returns up to and over that mark.
This would allow Paladins to block similar amounts of damage over time to warriors but in a steadier stream as apposed to the very slightly more spiky Critical Block.
New Spells and Talents
Most of these will be rather obvious and have generally been covered by every other writer out there but I'll go through my list anyway.
First off I see us getting not one but 2 new heals to keep up with the common changes one base line heal somewhere between Flash of Light and Holy Light and an AoE heal of some kind possibly trained between 81 and 85 maybe as a Holy Talent. What I would like to see is a player targeted AoE HoT something that you cast on your rogue and that player and everyone in 5-10 yards gets healed for 50% of each HoT tick on the rogue. Its the AoE heal we need and something not yet in game that fills our missing HoT position as well as keeping similar to the Holy Light Glyph.
For Ret I think its fully assumed that we will get a new attack for leveling, maybe something new or maybe Crusader Strike will be baseline and Ret get a new cooler ability that will replace CS in their end game rotation. On top of the new attack I hope to see a non damaging off the GCD interrupt but I'm not sure if they will give us that and i doubt they would give us both this and my next point together unless they finally feel Ret is fixed enough in PvP to not be over powered with them. Charge, nice and simple with warriors getting two now and priests getting their "Life Grip" I hope its about time to get this ability. As I said I don't see us getting both a charge and an interrupt unless they are truly happy with where Ret is in PvP but if I had to pick one it would be charge.
The other thing I see coming for Ret is a talent with a cool proc something to spice up the rotation and step it away from the FCFS, I'm not quite sure what but possibly something to re-set the CD of the new spell they will be getting.
I can't see alot of changes coming to prot that wouldn't fall under Ret, the two big things though would be a Sword and Board like talent to help break the rotation. Secondly I hope for a overhaul of forbearance which while not a prot change would hopefully seen Divine Protection removed from the effect if it still remains.
General Changes
The biggest change I would like to see is the addition of the "stance" based system through auras such as Rhidach had talked about several weeks ago. Its a great idea that would help to solve a lot of class problems and coupled with a heavy reduction in base heals I think we could really come along way and start to see some really interesting new idea for the future of Paladins.
The other class change I hope to see which would work really well with the stances is the removal of spell power as a co-efficient in Ret and Prot ability's. With how Death Knights work their damage there is no reason that Paladins can't do the same further reducing things like Prot heals in Arena that Blizz hates so much.
Over all i think what we have seen from the previews so far has been amazing and hopefully we won't be disappointed come the 16th. I am half expecting to see something completely out of the blue for us like what Bliz have done for Balance druids but for now all we can do is wait.
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