[UPDATED] Tankadins and Retadins! Speak!
by Zach Yonzon 
Sep 4th 2008 at 1:30PM
While I effused about the great change to the otherwise lackluster Blessing of Sanctuary -- it should really be named Blessing of Badass -- Paladins have yet to receive the promised second pass. There have been massive changes to the class itself, but there's more to come. Hopefully on the positive side.The Paladin community's new "Beacon of Light", Ghostcrawler, has popped up on the forums saying that the second pass is forthcoming. Blizzard is looking at making major changes to the Protection tree, stating that the developers feel that there are too many mandatory talents and mitigation talents that don't do anything interesting.
If you've got brilliant ideas about how to improve the Protection tree, now's your chance to speak up. Ghostcrawler is putting the entire Paladin community up to task by giving feedback on which talents are fun and which ones aren't; what areas feel bloated and what feels barren; and talents that seem mandatory, talents that seem fun but optional, and talents that often get the shaft. Head on up to the forums now and let Blizzard hear your thoughts. Given all the great changes to the Paladin class that have shown up in the Wrath Beta, I have a very good feeling that Blizzard actually listens. [EDIT: Ghostcrawler also mentions that the Beta forums aren't the only source of feedback they have, so head over to the Paladin forums, too, in the hopes of getting heard]
[UPDATE: Ghostcrawler has made the same call to Retribution Paladins, as well. Jump over to the thread now...]
Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Heilig Sep 4th 2008 1:46PM
"Ghostcrawler is putting the entire Paladin community up to task by giving feedback on which talents are fun and which ones aren't"
Oh how I wish this were true. Unfortunately, the forum is only open to people in the beta, so some of the best minds in the tankadin community (Lore jumps immediately to mind) will have zero input.
Can't say I blame them, though. The Prot tree is so bloated and contrary to the new tanking philosophy that if they opened this up to the entire community the thread would be 200 pages long in the first day.
evankimori Sep 4th 2008 1:51PM
Well for those of us who have Beta passes-we can speak on behalf of you! :)
Post away. There's Copy and Paste for a reason.
zappo Sep 4th 2008 2:10PM
Bloated trees are the natural progression for classes like Paladins. You can heal/tank/dps so you end up with distinct trees to do so. If you put talents in other trees then everyone starts complaining about how those talents don't belong in those trees. So your options after that are either bloated trees, or requiring more talent points for various skills.
Robert M Sep 4th 2008 6:30PM
evankimori,
here are some ideas for dealing with bloat...
1. Unlink redoubt to sheild specialazation. Unlinking would free up an entire 5 points for some mitigation that we take now. The hits on tanks in wrath can only seeming be much harder with the adjustment to strenght to block ratio. Warriors get their additional block unlinked to any other talent, albeit much deeper in their trees, but we are travelign down our trees anyway so that point is moot. Redoubt is also a proc that scales inversely with avoidance, and it would be nice if the better we geared, we could drop those 5 points altogether and not lose our block value buff.
2. Make the new and improved BoSanc a baseline ability. Sure it's a pure tanking blessing, but making it baseline gives the healers and retadins a little more utility for their tank in 5 mans since not all of them have kings.
Zach Sep 4th 2008 1:50PM
Hi Heilig! How're you today? Anyway, Ghostcrawler did say they're listening on more fronts than one (edited the post to reflect that), so keep your fingers crossed.
On another note... Lore isn't in Beta? =p
Heilig Sep 4th 2008 4:21PM
Unless she got in the last round, she is stuck on live realms like the rest of us. Van and Invis have been handling the beta new on maintankadin.
Muiran Sep 4th 2008 2:07PM
I'm pretty sure Lore is in, at least that's what I gathered from Maintankadin. Also, several people who are active on Maintankadin are collecting feedback from there to post on the Beta forum.
Clasifyd Sep 4th 2008 2:14PM
IMHO, change Benediction and Divine Strength positions, or something like that. I feel like we tankadins shouldn't have to wade through five points of junk for Defletion, a Tier 1 talent for warriors. We'd have a little more wiggle room like this. The only problem would be that Benediction doesn't make a whole lot of sense as a Prot talent.
suicidalzebra Sep 4th 2008 4:41PM
The problem is that Benediction right now isn't much good for anyone. Deflection, or even Conviction, would make adequate replacements for this talent. However a better solution may well be to just completely rework Benediction so that its benefits are non-trivial and provide a sensible alternative to Imp. BoM.
Oh, and on the subject of the new BoS, the Rage restore is only 1 rage, not 10. There's a typo in either the tooltip or the talent has been wrongly implemented.
Manatank Sep 4th 2008 2:16PM
As long as the new Blessing of Sanctuary makes it to live I'll be happy.
Palladiamors Sep 4th 2008 2:26PM
Direct call for retri's now, as well. No call for holies, though I'll assume they are listening there, as well.
Beep Sep 4th 2008 2:26PM
Druids make good tanks too. They can turn into bears, and also like a tree form and cast barkskin and then keep healing. It's pretty cool if you like to play a lot of classes beyond a paladin.
Dyermaker Sep 4th 2008 2:42PM
Please take a moment to inform Blizzard how their recent changes are taking away responsibility in raiding. Mana users are no longer responsible for their own efficiency, those who use their mana the fastest will get the most replenishment. Those who are lax in their aggro management will get the tanks to take it away instead. It rewards the people who play the poorest!
elprogramer Sep 4th 2008 2:57PM
They're up to Retribution Paladins now. I suppose Holy is next.
omni guy Sep 4th 2008 2:58PM
What, no energy regeneration?
It's true - nobody loves a Rogue.
Improvidence Sep 4th 2008 6:10PM
I'd really like to see paladins get an ability sort of like revenge. Right now on live, all of my spells are based around cooldowns. Effective tanking requires that I make a cycle of spells to cast and stick to that cycle. Give me something that's more reactive, something that will light up when some condition is met that will do something interesting, or even just do damage. If they're looking for something to make the class more fun, something like that could go a long way.
Chamual Sep 5th 2008 8:54PM
It would be great if they made reckoning useful again, I loved that talent while leveling up
Chamual Sep 5th 2008 8:54PM
It would be great if they made reckoning useful again, I loved that talent while leveling up
Beras Sep 4th 2008 7:16PM
I see the changes as mostly good, but I do see one key problem in raiding although others have brought it up.
With the way talent trees are now and holy paladins not as likely to take Blessing of Kings, it should be a learned spell and not a talented one.
I'm a prot pally but I'd hate to see raids favor bringing two prot pallies so they can get kings and sanctuary.
I'm not sure how long the wait between the patch and the release of lich king is going to be, but at level 70 it will be impossible for a holy pally to have both Beacon of Light and Blessing of Kings.
Other than that I like most of the changes. The only thing I could see changing is adding something to improved righteous fury, it just seems empty since a 90% threat increase is baseline. Perhaps they should combine it with spell warding or something else useful to pally tanks.
Oh yeah, we could still use an interupt or spell reflect, (at the moment I'm thinking of the sentinels in TK) even if its something on a longer cooldown than other classes.
Doxa Sep 4th 2008 9:15PM
"Post away. There's Copy and Paste for a reason."
In that case, I'd love to see Blessing of Sanctuary turned into a pure talent that does not require a "Blessing". As such, a tankadin could run with Kings and Sanctuary without forfeiting Stam. or mitigation / mana management.