Updated: Ret Paladin Changes on the 3.1 PTR!
Update:
Boo, hiss:
One correction:Oh well, to be expected given that the forums went ape-**** as soon as the change was uncovered. That people still see Ret as overpowered in PvP never fails to amaze.
* Crusader Strike is now An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage. In addition, if you strike a player while they are casting, their magical damage and healing will be reduced by 50% for 6 sec.
That is not an official change. It is something we were experimenting with, but not a change we are going to make for 3.1.
The short story is that while we want to make Crusader Strike a more exciting ability, we don't think that this is the way to go about it. The "Overpower debuff" won't really give them anything more interesting in PvE. In PvP it isn't as game-changing for a warrior who already had access to an interrupt and the Mortal Strike debuff. Giving both of those to a paladin could be very game-changing and not the kind of thing we are ready to do without a lot more testing.
Sorry for any confusion. Sometimes in our haste to update the PTR as often as we can, you get a chance to see behind the curtain a little more than we intend. :)
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Someone give me GC's mail address, the man deserves some cake. There are quite a few Ret changes on the PTR, as well as some interesting additional changes to the SoB/tM Glyph and Holy Tier 8:
Paladin Changes
Holy
* Divine Plea now only reduces the amount healed by your Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Holy Shock spells.
* Aura Mastery tooltip has been modified to properly reflect its 10 seconds duration.
Protection
* Divine Sacrifice tooltip has been modified to properly reflect its 10 seconds duration.
Retribution
* Divine Storm now causes 110% of weapon damage to up to 4 enemies within 8 yards. - [Old was 100% of weapon damage. If you take Art of War you will see 121% on your in-game tooltip.]
* Righteous Vengeance now also affects Crusader Strike.* Crusader Strike is now An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage. In addition, if you strike a player while they are casting, their magical damage and healing will be reduced by 50% for 6 sec. [Pure Buff. The 121% you may see on your tooltip in game includes the Art of War talent](See Above)
* Judgements of the Wise now immediately grant you 25% of your base mana. (Up from 15%) [Needed to go up, but is this enough?]
Glyphs
* Glyph of Seal of Blood -- When your Seal of Blood, Seal of the Martyr, Judgement of Blood, or Judgement of the Martyr deals damage to you, you gain 11% of the damage done as mana. (Old - Glyph of Seal of Blood -- Your Seal of Blood or Seal of the Martyr increases the mana received from Spiritual Attunement by 10% while active.)
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Tier 8 Set Bonus changes:
* Paladin T8 Protection 2P Bonus (Class: Paladin) -- Increases the damage done by your Seals of Vegeance, Corruption, and Righteousness by 10%. (Old - Increases the damage done by your Seals by 10%.) - [This was down to the possibility that Ret paladins would feel tempted to grab 2 piece Prot-T8 for the damage bonus to SoBlood. I'm not convinced that it was a real issue as a lot of Crit and Hit would be lost in the process.]
* Paladin T8 Protection 4P Bonus (Class: Paladin) -- Shield of Righteousness now increases your shield block value by 225 for that attack and for 3 sec afterward. - [Just a tooltip clarification, this was already in effect. Still not a great T8 bonus, almost certainly not something to grab over BiS items from hard-mode encounters]
* Paladin T8 Holy 4P Bonus (Class: Paladin) -- Your Sacred Shield can now trigger its effect every 4 sec instead of every 6. (Old - Increases the damage absorbed by your Sacred Shield by 10%.) - [A much more significant T8 bonus than previous as long as the coeff per proc isn't affected, effectively 50% boost over the base spell and greater up-time for the FoL increased crit rate]
Mmmmmm, delicious.
For the record, I'm not convinced that a 25% base mana JotW is enough mana to allow Ret to self-sustain a rotation without some form of mana cost reduction in Consecration. The changes to DS and CS should go some way towards making our PTR DPS competitive with other hybrids. Not removing Judgement of Blood's feedback damage is a bit of a downer, but you can't have everything ;). It also may be that the Glyph of SoB/tM is required to be functional for PvE raiding, which as design goes isn't that good an idea. We'll see how things develop, as there's still only 3 pts in Tier 10 hopefully things aren't quite finished.
The Divine Plea change is very welcome. This means that all Paladins (esp. Tankadins) will gain the full benefit from cast heals which count as self-heals (ProM, Earth Shield), Judgement of Light and Lay of Hands. It was key for Prot because of the new talent allowing Divine Plea to run 100% of the time.
All very promising. We'll see tomorrow if there are any undocumented changes to be aware of.
Posts
4 comments:
So prot paladins get Spiritual Attunment and get to have Divine Plea up 100% of the time. Seems to me they are NEVER going to run out of mana if they manage to keep DP up all the time + heals they will be receiving. Whereas ret and holy are going to have to manage their mana really closely. It should be interesting to see how this plays out.
The Divine Plea change is actually REALLY nice for my Herbalist Dreanei Paladin... Lifeblood won't be reduced when I use it on myself... and more importantly... I'll be able to Gift of the Naaru people for the full heal even when using Divine Plea.
@ Eidlhe; Considering Warriors, Druids and DKs are generating Rage / Runic power constantly through a fight, it seems fair that a Paladin should have access to something similar, though I agree that NEVER running out of mana is a bit unfair, especially since none of the other Tanking classes start out with full rage/runic.
We will have to see how it turns out, but in all honesty, protection's mana regen feels very cobbled together, with Spiritual Attunement, Divine Plea, and BoSanc all sort of doing the same thing.
If I were doing things, I'd remove Blessing of Sanctuary, increase it's effect substantially, and roll it into Improved Righteous Fury (which would move deeper into the tree). I'd then remove all of the new talents that buff Divine Plea and Spiritual Attunement since Imp RF is now doing their job.
My logic is, since it is tied to Imp. RF, Holy won't use it because they don't want threat and they never get hit. Ret could probably grab it if it wasn't deep enough, though they'd be giving up a lot of DPS capacity for extra mana regen.
I would then suggest a new talent in place of Divinity or Divine Guardian that basically works like a highly gimped Spiritual Attunement (you receive a small amount of mana when healed), but have it require shields. To make it even more useful, it can increase all damage while wielding a shield.
In this way, Holy can increase it's damage and gain mana back when healed, but Ret cannot unless they give up their two-handed weapons; conceivable, but improbable. It would fit with Shockadin, Healadin, Prot, and maybe a strange Reckoning / Ret 1h Hybrid Spec.
Thoughts?
The reason for Spiritual Attunements' movement to Prot's talent tree is precisely because of Holy gaining mana through being healed in Heavy AoE fights. The General Vexaz Ulduar encounter is the one glaring example where SA for Holy breaks the designed in limitations of the encounter. As such, Blizzard are loathe to put a SA analogue in any position where Holy can get it easily.
Retribution getting SA was never that big an issue, arguably it was required to make the spec viable. However removing it takes a lot of the guess work out of design and balancing process, so that's probably why they didn't have too many qualms doing it.
SA aside, there's a lot of trimming to be done with Prot's mana now. Roll on the next build I guess.
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