Hopes of Troll Paladins... Dashed.

From the Faction Change Service FAQ:

Updated* 7/1- Due to the many questions that have come up with the announcement of this new service, we wanted to take the time to answer the ones we can at this point in time.

Q. Will we be able to switch between the races on our own faction?
A.. No. Players will only be able to switch to a race of the opposite faction.

Q. Will I be able to choose the race on the opposite faction that I want to change to?
A.. Yes, but you will only be able to switch to a race that has your class type available to it. So if you play a human paladin, you’d only be able to change to a blood elf paladin.

Q.How much will it cost?
A.. We do not have further information on this at this point in time.

Q.Will I be able to switch back to my original faction but a different race?
A.. No. You will only be able to switch back to your originally chosen race.

Q.. How will the switch between reputation, gear, mounts, etc be handled?
A.. We’ll have more details for you at a later point in time, though we plan to keep these as close to a reflection of the other faction as much as possible.

Q.How often can you change your faction?
A..We do not have any information to share on this at this point in time, however we will have restrictions on the frequency by which players can change their faction.

Q. How will this affect the balance of Horde and Alliance on the realms?
A.. We are taking great care in how we implement this new service in order to maintain balance between the factions on the realms but do not have any further details to share.

No Troll Paladins? Gnome Shaman? I'm now totally against this service :(.

Unintended Consequences Don't Always Suck.

Stephanie in comments mentioned the following:

from the new PTR:
Judgements: Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can't be dodged, parried or blocked.

Okay, at first glance this isn't much of a change. JoB already couldn't be dodged, parried or blocked and it would make sense that JoV would be the same too. However, I wasn't reading this change closely enough and conflated 'Ranged' with 'Spell' (i.e. miss rates and crit bonuses). There's one extra thing to consider though: procs. Specifically, Seal Procs.

Judgement of Command is currently something of an oddity as it has it's own chance to proc Seal of Command. In 3.x to date this has been something of a non-factor because of SoC's 1sec internal cooldown which tore down the Seals' viability. We all rolled with SoB, even in PvP, and this quirk was consigned to the big bin of meaningless 'bugs' (not the first time this has happened with SoC... see the original Judgement debuff). In hindsight the reason is obvious: JoC, like Crusader Strike and Divine Storm, is a melee strike and so procs melee seals.

So, why doesn't JoB proc SoB? Well, I'm not exactly sure but it's probably because 'Judgement of ...' actually casts 2 spells, one applying the debuff and one dealing damage. The former remains the same no matter the active Seal, the latter changes depending on the active Seal. For JoC the 'damage dealing' part is an unavoidable melee strike and hence it can proc SoC, in contrast by some quirk JoB's 'damage dealing' part was ranged attack, and it seems likely that ranged attacks cannot proc Seals. Unfortunately there is no way of testing this directly as Paladins are without skills recognisable as ranged attacks (rather than spells), but that conclusion seems borne out by the patch notes.

The result this brief patch note is that if this change makes it into Live 3.2 Judgement of Vengeance just got a huge buff. It will not only do damage ([14% Att Pow + 22% Spell Power]*[1+.1*stack size]) regen mana and apply a debuff, it will also Proc a Seal and add to the SoV debuff stack. JoV instantly goes to the top of the dps priority list, no ifs and no buts.

Intended? Well, I don't think so, it seems to me to be a side-effect of cleaning up the Seal/Judgement system so the game mechanics are more logical. Still, one man's correction is another man's 250 DPS.

Right now we're shaping up to do higher sustained DPS in PvE, which is fairly important given the reports of falling behind in Ulduar. Unfortunately the PTR is pretty FUBAR'd so getting any significant testing done is somewhat difficult, but the next build should hold some interesting revelations.

But SoC... poor poor SoC. It so badly needs a quality niche and it still doesn't have one, not even PvP where SoV is still likely to dominate. I really hope Blizz think of something.

The Argent Charger.

The Argent Charger is a Paladin specific mount available from the Dame Evniki Kapsalis, the Crusader's Quartermaster in the Argent Pavilion. Also for sale are the Argent Warhorse, Pony Bridle, Argent Tabard and Argent Banner. Unsurprisingly, you need to have attained the title of 'Crusader' to unlock these rewards:



The Charger and the Warhorse cost 100 Champion Seals each. At first glance this seems like a lot, especially for those still saving for all the pets, mounts and flying mounts available from the Tourney as a whole. However there are also at least 5 new daily quests to complete for more Seals, as well as drops from the 5-man Dungeon.



The Warhorse, which every Crusader has access to, is a recolour of the lvl30 Paladin mount. The Argent Charger is a recolour of the lvl60 Epic Mount.



I love how it looks, but I also love the Silver Covenant Hippogryph (Exalted with Silver Covenant req.), which is 150 Seals. If you want to save for either you'll have to make up your own mind which you prefer, but acquiring both is a matter of time rather than skill.

EDIT:

Lance over at A Bit Of Lance has a great write-up of the new Tourney features as a whole (so good, I wish I'd seen it before I wrote this ;)). Give it a look.

Paladin PTR Speculation.

It's that time again... PTR info will rule the WoW-tubes for the next few weeks. As the first test build is now downloadable MMO-Champ has yet again done sterling work to extract all the relevant bits, which means that we can put some numbers to rather pressing matters.

But before that, Super Double-important news:

"Please clarify: will DS and CS crits proc AoW?"

--

Yes. Any melee attack, not just white swings. Ranged attacks or spells will not proc it.
(Source)

Thank goodness for that - melee in, Judgements out as they are classes as Ranged attacks. On to more general matters.

Seals

Seal of Command has been redesigned - All melee attacks deal [ 36% of mw ] to [ 36% of MW ] additional Holy damage. Lasts 30 min. Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing [ 8% of AP + 13% of Spell Power + 19% of mw ] to [ 8% of AP + 13% of Spell Power + 19% of MW ] Holy damage.

Seal of Vengeance now deals [ 13% of AP + 6.5% of Spell Power ] Holy damage (down from [ 15% of AP + 7.8% of Spell Power ]) and has a new effect - Once stacked to 5 times, each of the Paladin's attacks also deals 33% weapon damage as additional Holy damage.

From the looks of things the internal cooldown on SoC has finally been removed (it would be extremely silly if it hadn't). However, the damage the proc deals is significantly less than the current incarnation of SoB (~48% MWD) and Judgement damage blows chunks. Also, the guaranteed Crit-On-Stun effect appears to have been removed. The implication is that SoC is designed to be a PvP/Trash Seal in situations where high up-front damage is required, but even with instant Exorcism the implication is that burst damage will be significantly reduced. Great in theory, but in practice makes you wonder if Ret has the tools to keep up in PvP.

The strength of SoV largely depends how, if at all, it interacts with Seals of the Pure. A flat 15% increase would make it a very strong PvE boss fight Seal, but right now we can't bank on it. Needless to say however that SotP would be a heavy blow to Hybrid utility in PvE compounded with the loss of 1 GCD every 12 secs. From a tanking perspective it will also hopefully remain a competitive Tanking Seal, but the jury is still out given the reduction in threat (and SotR's similar threat reduction). As far as PvP goes, SoV would be mutilated by a Priest on any sort of dispelling duty as the bonus weapon damage only kicks in at 5 stacks, just dispelling one would make a Paladin hit 25% weaker.

In terms of stat weights in 3.2, Hit will still be the daddy. Expertise and Strength will however regain some ground lost to Hit in relative weights, and Haste will lose significant traction against Crit. Essentially, capping Hit and Expertise, and then gemming a remainder for Str will be the order of the day.

Itemisation

Sets -

Okay, I won't talk at any real length about the Set bonii. It's fairly obvious that placeholders are abound throughout the released Tier 9 and the Paladin sets are no exception. Suffice to say that sticking 5% crit on Judgement or Holy Light as 4 Piece bonus's given the nerfs these abilities are faced with in 3.1 would be madness, and it's unlikely that they'll reduce Forbearance's duration by another 30secs just to fit in a set bonus (though I can't but hope that they've got rid of it completely... fat chance).

Oh, there is one thing... the 2 pieces Ret bonus allows RV to Crit. Okay, that has the chance to be a significant DPS increase, much more than you might think at first blush. RV's rolling nature could also cause some pretty monster crits to occur on timers not linked to weapon swings which may cause some balance issues. Resilience is obviously the premium stat of 3.2 PvP, but one or two Rets may sneakily seek to push this bonus into their PvP gearset for greater pressure and RNG burst.

Relics -

Paladin T9 Retribution Relic (Seal of Vengeance) (Class: Paladin) -- Each time your Seal of Vengeance ability deals periodic damage, you have a chance to gain 200 strength for 16 sec.

Finally, a PvE relic actually useful for PvE? The internal cooldown is the real killer for this new Libram, but of course that sort of information isn't held on the tooltip. 200 Str is 506 AP, and with the standard 45 sec trinket internal cooldown + 100% chance to proc it would corresponds to ~180 AP on average. This is far, far better than the Furious Gladiator's Libram of Fortitude (144AP) and likely to be better even than the S7 Libram (whilst specifically being tailored to PvE). Anything close to a 35% up-time will make this Libram absolutely rock in PvE.

---

So, those are my preliminary thoughts on the figures so far. It's broadly a coin-toss whether the class as a whole comes out ahead in these changes but nothing in Paladin gameplay gets inherently more interesting. It is very early days however so nothing should be taken for granted.

Enough Twinks To Sustain BG XP Changes?

So, the new patch notes have been released. I've finally got material to talk about other than how much my guild failed last week on Thaddius (*sigh*) or setting up a weekly snark screenshot. But rather than shoot my proverbial load too early I'll instead space things out a bit.

By now you've probably all heard of the changes to Battlegrounds so that XP can now be gained from PvP objectives, and that XP gain can now be turned off. If you haven't, the notes are in the UnderDev page. The key line is the following:

# Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.

It'll be interesting to see if there are enough players to make Twink BG's a self-sustainable exercise. The assumption that most non-twink players make about low level battegrounds is that a small number of (primarily Rogues) dominate a session against a set of non-twinked players there to have a bit of fun. The stipulation outlined above may just serve to split the groups doing low-level PvP between those PvPing and Levelling at the same time, and those who aren't. This could have a very significant impact on low-level PvP in smaller Battlegroups.

On the other hand my own rush to judge may be doing the Twink community a disservice. Sure, they may have to get organised, but there just may be enough players to really keep the gameplay vibrant at the low levels. Preventing any form of XP gain also makes creating and gearing your Twink a heck of a lot easier. If nothing else the hardcore PvPers will have a chance to compete in organised, selective, large-scale PvP against each other at lvl80 earlier.

What do you think, should the XP/Non-XP separation remain in place?