Paladin changes in Beta build 8982
by Zach Yonzon 
Sep 25th 2008 at 1:00PM
Seals were nerfed again. The coefficients for Seal of Vengeance / Corruption, Seal of Blood / of the Martyr, and Seal of Command were lowered. I don't really have much to say about this other than that I'm disappointed but confident that it's all balanced. I haven't done as extensive a test of the Beta as I probably should, so if these damage nerfs were based on hard numbers that Blizzard has gathered, then they're probably right. I have to believe that.
Melee hits no longer refresh Judgements, which means that in order for the debuff to stay on opponents, Paladins will actually have to continuously Judge them. With the change to Crusader Strike some time back removing its Judgement refresh feature, this means Judgements will be every Paladin's responsibility. This also means Blizzard is forcing Holy or healing Paladins to insert Judgements into their rotation. With Judgements eating up the GCD now, I'm not so keen on the idea.
Shield of Righteousness was rebalanced to deal 100% of block value plus 300, although this might not be its final form as Blizzard tries to get the right amount of damage for the spell. As it turns out, a pure multiplier of Block Value -- as high as over 300% in older builds -- made Shield of Righteousness deal insane damage. This change mostly affects Protection Paladins who will have the spell firmly in their rotation.
The last interesting change is that Hammer of Justice now interrupts spellcasting for 3 seconds. The long asked for spell interrupt is finally here and it's bundled with the one spell we've always used to try and interrupt. A spell that stuns. A spell that's on a one minute cooldown. A spell that has what feels like a ridiculously high resist rate. It works as a spell interrupt against mobs that are immune to stuns, so... yay, I guess? I can't make heads or tails of this change, and I'm wary of criticizing it right now because there might be something that I'm missing.
We have yet to see a real second pass for the Holy tree, although Protection and Retribution are shaping up rather nicely. Retribution can still be kited like silly little hedgehogs (don't ask me where that metaphor simile came from), but other than that, it's pretty exciting. As I've maintained throughout all my posts, I really think Blizzard is moving in the right direction. They may take little detours along the way, but I'm fairly confident that Paladins will be great to play when Wrath finally comes out.
Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Raynn Sep 25th 2008 1:18PM
with the 3 second interrupt it prevents a hoj to blink or trinket heal. ive found that with the new direction of arenas in the beta you need 2 things to successfully stick to a target:
1. a class that has ANY form of slow. i mean even spamstring is good enough. ANY slow allows me more than enough time to get to a target.
2. LOS abilities. this applies mostly to healing with holy light, but los does wonders against kiting especially in sewers.
if any class in the game tries to tank a retadin they die. they are the #1 toe to toe class at 80. It is shaping up to be extremely balanced in this build (minus typhoon lawl)
Reinard Sep 25th 2008 1:16PM
Ah, mages and trinkets. That's what I missed.
...Still doesn't seem incredibly useful O_o
Zach Sep 25th 2008 1:20PM
If you stun a Mage with Blink available, you're just playing it wrong. I use Afflicted specifically to see when Blink's on cooldown. Trinket isn't affected by the silence.
I don't need a PREVENTIVE silence. I need a spell interrupt.
And yes, I'm happy with Retribution. =D
Malkeior Sep 25th 2008 1:23PM
Hes talking about interrupting a spell cast and it breaking early so you start to see the benefit of the interrupt (A free target that can't cast). Only problem is; Blink is in the arcane school so that means the mage would have to be stupid enough to cast Arcane Blast/Missiles and get hit with HoJ. Even if said situation were to occur though, the interrupt would most likely be a minor inconvenience than a deciding factor.
Killu Sep 25th 2008 1:54PM
Or he might want to cast sheep?
derek Sep 25th 2008 2:51PM
Err... it's a spell interrupt, not a silence, so unless the mage was casting a spell at the time you hammer them, then blink will still be available. It seems the tooltip needs to say "in that school" or "silences". Never seen interrupt without school attached.
Reinard Sep 25th 2008 1:13PM
"Stuns the target for 6 sec and interrupts spellcasting for 3 sec."
...Can anyone make sense of that for me? How does it interrupt anything, if it stuns? What's the point of doing both at once? The 6 second stun is just as good an interrupt as a...3 second interrupt. Well, no, better. How exactly does one combine the two?
Am I missing something?
The only use I can see for this is on mobs that are immune to stun effects. If that's the case, it's not incredibly useful otherwise o_O
I really feel like I'm missing something. Maybe a brain. Durrrr.
raynn Sep 25th 2008 1:24PM
prevents blink for 3 seconds and when healers trinket you have 3 seconds of no heal. it makes a big dif against kiting classes
Jack Spicer Sep 25th 2008 1:23PM
"The only use I can see for this is on mobs that are immune to stun effects."
You answered your own question. I think every single instance boss is immune to stun effects, so this adds something to ret and prot pallies.
xtyle Sep 25th 2008 1:24PM
Correct me if I'm wrong someone, but the spell interupt works on mobs that are immune to stun... think R&J in KZ. J casts her heals but she's immune to stun. With this tool, the heal would be interrupted, but she would not be stunned. Makes sense?
I may be off base, my testing has been limited. Can anyone confirm this mechanic?
Zach Sep 25th 2008 1:25PM
@Jack Spicer - You realize, of course, that most bosses who are immune to Stun are also immune to silence effects, right? =p
Ktok Sep 25th 2008 1:28PM
Nope, you have it right. This is for bosses that can't be stunned, but can be interupted. Think Aran in Kara for an early, easy example.
And for the record, a lot of classes are getting similar "stun plus silence" moves in Wrath that didn't really have one before. It would likely be more obvious if it said "stuns for X seconds *or* silences for X seconds if immune to stun".
Malkeior Sep 25th 2008 1:38PM
Good thing it's an interrupt and not a silence :P.
It's still pretty retarded compared to Shield Bash/Kick/ Pummel, 6 second interrupt w/ 10 sec cooldown. It's a 3 second interrupt on a 1 MINUTE cooldown, but for the sake of arguments, I'll throw in the modifiers. So, with 3 extra talent points and a full set of PvP gear, we get a 3 second interrupt on a 20 second cooldown. That's half the interrupt on twice the cooldown, yay is us?
VSUReaper Sep 25th 2008 1:32PM
The interrupt effect was added to HOJ in order to help Prot Paladins become more viable raid main tanks (warriors have ~5). This was not necessarily a PVP buff (which is how it seems you are looking at it) unless you count the fact that it will still interrupt long after the DR has made the stun mostly useless.
Robert M Sep 25th 2008 1:45PM
it will work as an interrupt for those immune to stun.
Raya Sep 25th 2008 2:24PM
Read the article better, that's what he said. You get a spell interrupt if the mob is immune to stun.
Heleth Sep 25th 2008 4:21PM
The spell interrupt is there specifically for protection paladins who felt that they had problems tanking bosses that had some spell ability that needed to be interrupted. Every other tanking class has an interrupt for such a situation, prot paladins do not.
MaverickSoloist Sep 25th 2008 4:50PM
That was a buff to Tankadins in PvE, so that when they're tanking a boss that's immune to stuns, Hammer of Justice can still be used as an interrupt and not be completely useless. :-)
Balasan Sep 26th 2008 3:27AM
From where I'm seeing, Heleth got it right.
Reminded me of that time I was prot and tanking Kael in heroic MGT, and the mage was a bit slow in the counterspell, and me having removed my bubble off the bar...
Malkeior Sep 25th 2008 1:14PM
So Zach, where did that simile come from? (You used like)