The Light and How to Swing it: The BlizzCon 2007 edition
by Robin Torres 
Aug 7th 2007 at 11:45PM
On to the info after the jump:
The Paladin Challenge
Blizzard explained that there is a challenge with Paladins when considering balance and itemization: the three talent specs define three very different roles. Unlike Mages, who are DPSers regardless of spec, Paladins are separated into three very different roles according to which spec they choose. The Holy spec makes the Paladin a powerful healer -- so powerful that Priests are crying foul. The Protection spec makes the Pally a good tank -- not great, but good. And the Retribution spec is intended to be a DPS spec, though it obviously has issues.
Stat Focus
Because of the three very different roles a Paladin can take on, we are forced to dilute our statistics across almost all of them in order to be effective. Blizzard agrees wholeheartedly that Paladins have too many stats to worry about. They are going to reduce the "necessary" number of stats, particularly reducing any need for Spell Damage. They want Pallies to be able to have a better gear overlap with Protection and DPS Warriors instead of with casters. This change probably won't happen until the expansion, but they say it will happen.
Tankadins will get better survivability
In general, Blizzard realizes that it is hard to find good tanks for groups and raids. This is one of the reasons they chose the Death Knight as their first Hero Class. But they also realize that each tank class and spec has to be not only viable but fun. While they are happy with the tanking abilities of the Bear and the Protection Warrior, they do realize that Protection Pallies need some love. The developers indicated that an increase in survivability -- perhaps by way of some health bonuses -- would be forthcoming for Tankadins. Their goal is to make the current three tank types equally viable but with specializations that make them better in certain situations.
Retribution
Often lovingly referred to as Retardins, this spec is going to see a lot of improvement in the form of talents, stats and itemization. But Blizzard and at least one BlizzCon questioner want to be clear, it is currently a viable spec if you have the skills. They do agree, however, that it needs more improvement than just a command to L2Play. Ret Pallies are going to get their talent tree tweaked to be more than just burst DPS. Better items for this offspec will also be dropping in future patches and definitely in WotLK to fill the current gear gap.
PvP
All of these changes will of course apply to both PvP and PvE, but one PvP-only change will be that the Season 3 Arena Gear will include Resilience.
Collateral Goodies
Some changes that the developers are making to tweak other classes may also help Paladins. Spirit will be overhauled as a stat to make it more valuable, particularly as it affects Mana. Healers are going to be getting "free" spell damage so that they don't have to respec in order to solo and this may also help Paladins, but there is no guarantee. Even if the new changes to Spirit and Healer spell damage doesn't directly affect Paladins, it may help relieve the burden Paladins currently feel to heal. Holy Priests are getting some love and it sounds like Shadow Priests may be hit with the nerfbat -- this may make Holy Priests more prevalent and more desirable on raids, allowing Paladins to take other roles.
In my opinion, it looks like Blizzard has been listening and is on the right track. Or did I just drink too much of the happy Koolaid? What do you think of the changes. Is there anything they've overlooked?
Filed under: Paladin, BlizzCon, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It, Analysis / Opinion, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Argent Aug 8th 2007 12:25AM
i'd be amazed if the 'more dmg for healers' thing didn't encompass paladins as well, because if it doesn't who exactly (besides priests) does it encompass?
that was the one bit that excited me th most, to be honest. ret changes will be nice also. i think it'll be very cool if they can make ret more broadly raid viable.
having spirit cannibalize mp/5 is about 2 years overdue (imo), but i kinda doubt they can do that within the framework of things as they are now and prolly will happen with the xpac (otherwise, the amount of re-itemization they would have to do would truly be epic.)
Baluki Aug 8th 2007 1:04AM
It's going to be interesting to see what they do with Spirit. What will happen to classes that currently have no use for it (like shamans)? I've been thinking that if they just removed Spirit from the game completely, it'd be a step in the right direction, but I guess they have something else planned. If they reworked it to replace HP5 and MP5, that'd be cool too; finally I'll have a use for the naturally high spirit I get as a troll shaman.
And they had better do something to make troll Regeneration worthwhile.
Dave Aug 8th 2007 1:22AM
Death Knights are NOT going to fix any tanking problem.
The reason there aren't enough tanks ever? Because nobody likes tanking. It's a thankless job, you get blamed first for anything that goes wrong (omg hold aggro, i can't even double crit pyroblast without getting 2-shot nub!) and your repair bills even when successful are really high. Tanking well is a skill, and most smart guilds understand this, so the good tanks go to the guilds that appreciate them the most. Or give them first dibs on all the loot they want, since of course you can't run a raid without a tank and nobody wants to die. To top it off, a tank spec anything is almost useless in any non-raid tanking situation. Wanna PVP some? hah! Maybe druids don't suck at it, but paladins and warriors sure do.
So, unless these Death Knights are simultaneously awesome at both tanking and PVP... yeah whatever.
Go ahead, give everyone a tank. The vast overwhelming majority will say "screw this crap" after their first 100g repair bill after being blamed for the demise of their raid and go back to being a blameless support class that just melts faces instead. Face melting is far more fun than the happy dance of tanking that's for sure.
Dierle Aug 8th 2007 3:00AM
@3:
tanking right is VERY much a skill. you're very right about that, BUT, tanking is not a thankless job. a good tank is quickly recognized and enormously appreciated by good players of all other classes. as a 70 paladin tank myself, my 7 mob at once tanking of shattered halls frequently finds me friended, remembered, and invited to quality groups, plus my guild throws more epix at me than I know what to do with (their understanding of what gear I need is at best marginal, further supporting Blizzard's realization that pally itemization is fuxxed, but they're happy to give me virtually anything that drops if I want it). bad players whose enormous and misplaced egos don't allow them to accept any responsibility for their own obvious mistakes do frequently blame their deaths on the tank, this is true. but good players make less such mistakes and are generally more willing to accept when they've done something retarded. so far from being thankless, a good tank quickly gets himself free of the land of stupid puggers by establishing good raport with quality players, who all are looking for good tanks to run with. I will agree though that a tanking spec should not be attempted by players seriously interested in PVP. (MAKE TAUNT WORK ON PLAYERS DAMMIT!!)
bonse Aug 8th 2007 5:29AM
I don't think it's entirely fair to say good tanks don't pug, remember, only being able to play 2 hrs a night doesn't make you a bad tank, just not a riding one and/or one that can reliably have guild runs organised around. I know at least one prot warrior who went prot because thats how he saw the class best used and how he enjoyed playing it best, as a result he is a good tank, and enjoys pugging due to time constraints but will never get the recognition as a good tank due to the fact 'good tanks don't need to pug, they raid'. Now, bearing in mind this stigma against non raiding prot warriors how the hell is a prot pala supposed to get through the initial grouping procedure?
You see, my concern is not whether or not blizz make the paladin a viable tank, I really dont think they have to do that much, all told, its a pretty good basis to work around, but like the feral druid we will have to become IMMENSE tanks, and then nerfed before we get recognition.
As far as Death Knights are concerned I think an earlier poster had it right when they said let everyone have a tank....they will get bored of costs and blame etc. I think the thing that makes a tank a good tank is one part talent/itemisation 9 parts experience. If partied with a warrior i tend to sit back and let them tank unless they prefer otherwise, I can do what i do whether i get hit or not, to them its a big deal, plus i can always sit back and heal for a bit if i get bored, not an option for them. I would do this happy that should the need arise i can step in and tank, also that the person controlling warrior has 70 levels experience of controlling a warrior......I'm not entirely sure that I would feel the same with a Death Knight tanking...I just see the quote 'I'm a better tank than a paladin because my level 80 mage completed a quest and i have 10 levels of playing a plated char behind me'.
I'm afraid that should that happen, i will be tanking three or four trash mobs alone, while a death knight is 'main tanking' the fifth and demanding to know where he is on the damage meters
Junzim Aug 8th 2007 6:06AM
In the closed Alpha, Spirit used to do a whole lot more than it did in release.
The problem with the stat is that it requires a player to use an ability/talent to actually make it do anything worthwhile that can't be supplanted by drinking. Furthermore it's MASSIVELY overcosted on items now and the relativeHP% healing nerf in TBC has drastically cut the amount of time a priest can remain outside the 5-second rule in Raid Healing.
Here's how it should go:
1) The 5 second rule should be a 3 second rule
2) Spirit should be cheaper on items
3) Spirit should have a secondary effect beyond mana regen. Perhaps increasing your resists slightly or taking a leaf from the priest talent Spiritual Guidance (5/5 - 25% of your Spirit is converted into +Spellpower).
Methuselah Aug 8th 2007 7:02AM
Resilience will be added to paladin arena season 3 gear? I do not get this and I see it everywhere... I have arena season 2 gear and there IS indeed resilience on it.
rinc Aug 8th 2007 8:21AM
Let me get the old herald out of bank :p
@7
to paladin retribution set set
Shavlik Aug 8th 2007 8:25AM
Stat focus... are you kidding me. Seriously if there going to incorperate spell dmg into stats for pally's then they need to do this for druids and shaman. My heart goes out to the pallys that have to carry a couple sets of gear.."not" Might as well start pumping out plate gear for us warriors that lets us tank and dps... Oh thats right it would put us on the same page as a druid.. Can have that. Glad to see they'll give holy priest some love finally. Doubt it will be enough to make them the best healing class like they should be. And a pally with more tank skills. I can see warriors getting the shaft again like they did in the beginning of the last expansion when druids were preferred tanks. GG bliz.
Nightwatch Aug 8th 2007 9:11AM
Thanks Bliz. As a Tankadin, I am forced to balance my armor between spell damage (to hold aggro) and defence/stam gear (to survive). It's not about having 2 sets of gear, it's about having 1 set of gear that fits neither stat really all that well. If spell damage was removed from the aggro holding equation, that alone would benefit the Tankadin community in a HUGE way. Though if Bliz wants to give me more health as well neither I or my healers will complain one bit!
Iosef Aug 8th 2007 9:19AM
"the burden Paladins currently feel to heal"
why would you heal then? please reroll....
I am a lvl 70 "holy" paladin for 4 months now
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Demon+Soul&n=Iosef
what you guys are not understanding is that spell damage can do great things for us, look at my gear im still wearing blues and yet, i'm not afraid of warlocks/priests/mages/shamys anymore.
rogues/warriors/hunters/druids are a walck in the park
to be honest... do some reaserch, try diferent equipment, wear your plate proudly...
it pisses me off when i see this burden things..
sorry about the english....
Kaylek Aug 8th 2007 9:46AM
I think with they heavy reliance we have now on spell damage/healing itemization, it's a little odd that we don't have a base stat that pushes it. Intellect seems like the obvious choice, but it does so much already (mana, spell crit, damage/healing conversion for paladins).
Maybe Spirit could be the answer. It could provide a baseline mp5 and spell+. Spiritual Guidance, the priest talent that does this currently, would just need a rewording of "increasing spell damage/healing from spirit by X." In the end, these high spirit healers have a decent amount of inherent spell damage for farming and other things.
Spirit's just a joke right now, so it needs to be more like a baseline mp5 stat and/or spell+ stat.
Levi Aug 8th 2007 11:10AM
Paladins just need another good boost to health in the protection tree and have Imp. Holy Shield increase the block chance significantly to make it easier for Paladins to become uncrushable.
My Paladin alt is full protection, and it's a lot of fun tanking an instance without losing aggro, while simultaneously doing the most damage...
PallySucks Aug 8th 2007 11:44AM
I'm surprised nobody compared about Warlock's "40 sec" bubble.
In PVP situations, the Warlock sacrifices the pet and gets a 40 sec bubble while being able to do damage with dots inside this. Complete OP and nobody realizes. Usually a last ditch thing warlocks do if they are going down and pop healthstone and sacrifices pet.
OP OP OP OP OP
Krick Aug 8th 2007 1:01PM
@6 I remember reading a rumor that having a lot of spirit ups the proc rate on whatever random procs your gear or build has. It would be kind of cool if it really worked that way. "Of the Whale" items would suddenly get a lot more valuable. I can see it now... all the battleground twinks stacking spirit to get more crusader procs.
Heraclea Aug 8th 2007 4:24PM
The problem with tanking among the several tanking classes it is simple. What do you do when you're not in an instance or a raid?
Can't make yourself very useful in arena, or outside of a single battleground. Alone, you still take too much damage and don't put out enough damage to farm motes. Your time is pretty much limited to the gathering professions, and to running those daily quests that don't necessarily require you to kill anything. This gets dull fast.
J Aug 9th 2007 3:56PM
@16 It's called weekly respecs.
draeth Aug 12th 2007 10:29PM
@17 Who wants to waste gold and patience weekly to repecc back and forth, back and forth, back and forth whenever youre not raiding???? That gets old fast.
Kod Sep 7th 2007 2:57AM
@11
You must be new to the pally world. There is NO need for a pally to reroll and I'll tell you why. With the way things are now in WoW a paladin is almost ALWAYS forced into healing. Why? Because no one wants to see a tankadin (that doesn't have a good rep to back him). Instead they have feral druids and prot warriors that they prefer for tanking. Dps? They want holy pallys. Not ret pallys. And this applies to raiding and non-raiding aspects of the game.
Look at arena for example. Most people will almost always look for holy pallys. Why? Because they are just that awesome at healing. Look at the spec's tree. It is just well suited for healing. Compared to the ret tree or the prot tree holy is the spec to be which makes pallys feel burdened to be healers. As a holy pally myself (lvl 70 on Cenarion Circle) I'm asked 9 times out of 10 if I'm a healer and if I'll come heal. I have to take a damn ugly stick and beat ppl away from me because they are after my heals. When I was ret I didn't get the same amount of love at all.
We have to face the facts, holy pallys are the class to be. It's over represented and it's about time that Blizz did something to fix that. Otherwise you'll only see most pallys that are holy and the occasional player that is ret or prot.