Hunter, Paladin, and DK info from the alpha forums
by Eliah Hecht 
Jul 17th 2008 at 2:30PM
With new talents and spells for all the other classes having come to light by now, it would be easy to understand if Paladins and Hunters were feeling a little bit left out. I don't have talent trees or anything to share with you right now, but I do at least have a few tidbits that appeared in the official Wrath of the Lich King Alpha forums yesterday:
- Hunters:
- Loyalty is being removed for pets, though you will still have to feed them to keep them happy.
- They're looking at pet stat scaling, especially in PvP, and particularly resilience; they want pets to be killable if that's what other players want to do. The idea is to make you, the Hunter, strike a balance between damage and mitigation for your pet.
- There will be new abilities in the pet talents, including "some that will make it less painful when your pet dies just a few moments into a fight."
- They want all pet families to be viable (Wryxian mentioned specifically turtles; they should have more DPS now while still having powerful defensive abilities).
- Update: New pets will only need to gain a maximum of five levels, implying that if you're level 80 and tame a level 17, it instantly becomes level 75 [thanks, Wabbajack].
- Paladins: The devs recognize that Holy is at a bit of a weak point right now relative to the other healing classes. The goal is for Holy Paladins to be powerful single target healers: they should be tank healers, or be able to spot-heal a low-health target "super fast." They're working on building "mechanics that don't make running fights so punishing," as well as new talents and skills.
There's also a note for Death Knights: Death and Decay and Army of the Dead are feeling too similar, both being long-cooldown AoE abilities. To remedy this, Army of the Dead is going to become an emergency button (Wryxian compares it to Retaliation or Recklessness), while Death and Decay is having its cooldown lowered to let it become more part of your normal spell rotation.
[via DeathKnight.info]
Filed under: Hunter, Paladin, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jim Jul 17th 2008 2:42PM
Light Word: Life incoming, I would imagine for Pallys. Short CD, high mana, instant cast, medium heal.
hi675 Jul 17th 2008 2:48PM
This spell is already in the game. It's called "Holy Shock" and it's not that great.
Kar On E Jul 17th 2008 2:57PM
I dunno...Holy Shock tends to be a lifesaver for me.
hi675 Jul 17th 2008 3:03PM
That's about all it's good for, it costs a lot of mana, has a 15 second CD and heals for about the same as a FoL (which costs considerably less mana, speaking from a T6 perspective, I'd imagine it heals for more in PvP gear). Holy Shock really isn't a good solution to the 'healing-on-the-move' problem paladins have.
Salculd Jul 17th 2008 3:56PM
I'd find myself using Holy Shock a lot more if its range wasn't half that of all my other healing spells. It seems, more often than not, when I actually think it'd be a good time to use it, my intended target is out of range. Then, by the time I've determined that, if I happen to know where they are in relation to me and move in range of them, it'd have been faster to just use one of my other heals in the first place.
Wabbajack Jul 17th 2008 2:44PM
You forgot one of the most importent news for hunters: New pets will only need five levels max to level, e.g. you are 70 and tame a 7 pet, and POOF it becoms 65 :D
Eliah Hecht Jul 17th 2008 2:44PM
Good call, edited that in
SpaceDog Jul 17th 2008 2:47PM
Yeah I was all confused about that.
Great news. :)
SpaceDog Jul 17th 2008 2:51PM
On second thought... You're probably right that the pet would jump to a level 5 below yours. However, I wondered if it might go:
Tame a level 15 pet. It goes 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 80 (or whatever your level is).
I really doubt it will go that way, but it did cross my mind.
SpaceDog Jul 17th 2008 2:56PM
Actually that wouldn't work at all anyway, since the hunter could level in the meantime.
Durr. I'll shut up now. :)
jrb Jul 17th 2008 3:31PM
kind of a bit annoyed about this, not massively, but a little.
for those illusive pets that we may have missed from the start of the game.. (e.g. humar), it was always too daunting for all but the hardcore to go back and tame him, which in turn made him all that more unique.
of course, with wrath, that will no longer be the case.
But on the other hand, i can see why they're doing it... to tease people to go back and tame types of pets that they wouldn't normally bother with pre-wotlk. crabs, turtles, gorillas, etc.
Hurode Jul 17th 2008 4:25PM
I can't wait for more pet families to become more viable. Gorillas! Turtles! Spiders! Hyenas! Even Spore Bats!
I'm giddy just thinking about it, and I'm hoping this means Spiders will finally get a Web spell.
Celton Jul 17th 2008 2:46PM
Can we get a link directly to the wow forums, instead of to that awful site with 15 billion ads?
Eliah Hecht Jul 17th 2008 2:47PM
Sorry, this information is from the alpha forums, which are only visible to participants in the friends & family alpha test.
hi675 Jul 17th 2008 2:49PM
Good luck getting access to the alpha forums.
Badger Jul 17th 2008 3:01PM
Doesn't that mean that it is 100% Confidential? I thought the stance here on Insider was that you could link to other sites where it was being discussed, but that you would not disclose "privileged" Alpha info while the Alpha was in effect. (Yes, I know that it's supposedly closed, but why would the Alpha Forums still be active, if that was the case?)
Urthona Jul 17th 2008 2:57PM
Uhm, I see nothing Paladinish.
"Holy is being fixed" is something we all knew, already, for months.
Procris Jul 17th 2008 4:22PM
Agreed. We know Bliz plans to address holy's problems with encounters that require lots of movement. We know a new spell is coming that will help address this in some way, as well as the obvious improvements to the talent tree.
We still know very little on how they intend to address tankadins. Retri, pretty much all we know is we will share warrior gear.Which isn't helpful when we don't know how exactly we will be getting int/mana we need to do damage. I've read various things about how it could be based on int from a talent or base skill but both are just speculation.
Procris Jul 17th 2008 4:24PM
I mean based on armour* Sorry.
twh Jul 17th 2008 2:57PM
The way they talked about the paladin talents is that they sound like it was the right thing to do by simultaneously nerfing Illumination and buffing spirit, and adding AoE damage while knowing that paladins don't have heals that hit more than one target.
It reeks of ignorance and unprofessionalism.