The Light and How to Swing It: 3.2.2 means re-balancing... again
by Gregg Reece 
Sep 24th 2009 at 3:00PM
Lately, that feeling of things being too easy has been happening while tanking in the 3.2.0 world. Ardent Defender got a huge boost with the sexy paladin version of Last Stand. Along with the fact that Argent Defender now works as it reads like it should, this means that tanking paladins can stop fearing the dreaded 36% health zone. Also, with changes to Seal of Corruption/Vengeance as a DPS boost to both protection and retribution, threat has been through the roof. In other words, we're an unstoppable force that does unbelievable amounts of threat by just sneezing (at least, according to some on the forums).
There is also the problem of doing things against the way Blizzard sees things. A PvP tactic using a mostly protection build, but wearing holy spell plate was causing issues. It wasn't that prot paladins were healing, because we are a healing class after all. It was the fact that those prot paladins were healing just as well as holy, but with the added utility and survivability that prot offers. This was thanks to the talent Touched by the Light which would convert stamina to spell power for prot threat. This on top of the spell power already offered in the healing plate gave enough of a boost that it was worth the change over to this tactic. So, they need to stop making Stamina a threat stat and instead get your additional threat via a more logical source that doesn't overlap into healing plate gear.Lastly, we run into the problem that a talented skill like Seal of Command had fallen to the point that hardly anyone talents it anymore. Sure, there are those that argue on fast trash fights Command is better due to the fact you can't build a full stack of dots to get the bonus from Vengeance/Corruption. But really, that's a kind of situational point where you ask yourself, "Okay, is one talent point worth it for the occasional really really short trash fight?" The answer is probably no. It needs a buff for PvE, but needed to keep its damage low enough to prevent us from being bursty again.
Thus, I introduce you to Patch 3.2.2. Now live on a server near you.
Protection
- Righteous Fury: The bonus threat from holy spells caused by this talent has been reduced from 90% to 80%.
- Ardent Defender: This talent now reduces damage taken below 35% health by 7/13/20% instead of 10/20/30%.
- Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now grants 10% strength in addition to its current effects. Also, the strength and stamina bonuses from this blessing will no longer be lost when Blessing of Kings is removed.
- Judgements of the Just: The reduction in cooldown to Hammer of Justice provided by this talent has been reduced to 5/10 seconds instead of 10/20 seconds.
- Touched by the Light: This talent now provides 20/40/60% of the paladin's strength as spell power instead of 10/20/30% of the paladin's stamina.
Retribution
- Seal of Command: This ability now chains to strike up to 2 additional targets when it is triggered by an attack that can only strike a single target.
- Seal of Corruption and Seal of Vengeance: These seals will now only use the debuff stacks generated by the attacking paladin to determine the damage done by the seal and by the judgement.
- Relics: All buffs provided by relics (idols, librams, totems and sigils) now share an exclusive category such that gaining a buff from one of these items will remove all other buffs gained from items in this category.
- Libram of the Sacred Shield: The block value buff from this relic has been increased to match its item level.
Let's take care of retribution first. Seal of Command has become a cleave. Unfortunately, for those of you drooling out there, it won't work this way when used with Divine Storm (or for a strange build, Hammer of the Righteous). It also doesn't proc off of judgements, so your melee attacks and Crusader Strike will be the primary and likely only sources. In PvE, this means you'll likely have Command up for any multi-target fights (yes, trash does matter) and then pull out Vengeance/Corruption for single-target fights. This also means that Seal of Command will be part of the latest round of troll posts on the forums when it comes to cleave teams in Arena matches. All in all, this is a really nice change for Command and should bring it back into use again. The change to Corruption/Vengeance was to prevent piggy-backing off of another paladin's debuff stacks when you hadn't already built up your own yet on that target.With protection, we've got a bunch of small nerfs and changes concerning threat to make it so that the damage dealers will have to occasionally have to use their threat reduction abilities. Righteous Fury being reduced by 10% should have the most impact. Touched by the Light appeared to be a fairly close conversion on my current set of gear, but did slightly reduce my spell power. Your mileage may vary depending on your particular gear, gem, and enchant makeup. Finally, we've got Blessing of Sanctuary adding 10% Strength along with the current 10% Stamina. This should mean higher mitigation return thanks to the boost in block value from strength in addition to the increase in overall attack power for additional threat. But, for those of you who are used to running Kings and Sanctuary at the same time, you probably won't even notice this change occurred.
For survivability and utility, Ardent Defender took a bit of a beating now that it works as it always should have. Taking 30% less damage the instant your health drops below a certain point was a bit high and was letting paladins easily handle encounters that the other tanks were struggling with. This should put things back to the point where low health starts to mean something again without completely stripping away our cool talents. With the Judgements of the Just change, it's a matter of keeping something or someone stunned for a maximum of 30% of the time as opposed to 20% of the time all with Hammer of Justice. It was pushing the edge of the balance envelope for a while and it looks like Blizzard decided to make the change since they were already in the neighborhood.
Let's finish up with the topic of items. A trick some people have pulled for a while is to get the item in their relic slot to proc and then swap it out with another relic and then attempt to proc its effect. Most recently, this was used to stack block value buffs from two different librams. Blizzard has come down and said no to this once and for all. Now if you swap out a relic, you'll still keep the old buff until it expires, but if the new one goes off, it will overwrite your old buff. This still allows you to swap out these items as needed in combat (for example if you had forgotten to equip your new Libram during the middle of the boss fight, you can still swap it out, but don't get to stack its effects with the old one).Oh, and then there's the fact we're being replaced by a drum. Don't worry, druids are as well. Priests, on the other hand, are being replaced by a nifty piece of paper. Drums of Forgotten Kings, Drums of the Wild, and the Runescroll of Fortitude were items added expressly for raiding guilds running hard modes on 10-man. With the limited number of slots, you can't necessarily guarantee that Blessing of Kings, Gift of the Wild, and Prayer of Fortitude are covered. The development team decided that these buffs were needed in some way, shape, or form despite not being able to fit the casting class in the group. Lucky for us that the real thing is still better than the replacement.
The Light and How to Swing It tries to help Paladins cope with the dark times coming in Cataclysm. See the upcoming Paladin changes the expansion will bring.Filed under: Paladin, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Gnosh Sep 24th 2009 3:13PM
Drum of Forgotten Kings is handy to have even with one paladin in the group. Throw Might on the physical DPS, Wisdom on the mana-users, and toss a slightly-nerfed Kings on everyone. 1.8 blessings from a one-pally group.
impurezero Sep 24th 2009 3:44PM
Exactly what I was thinking. :D
Preston Sep 28th 2009 1:27PM
"...the class has been a little off at times."
A little off?! Your god-mode class has dominated the entire expansion. Even death knights got knocked off their pedestal.
Skonged Sep 30th 2009 9:52AM
@Preston
Paladins have their down falls like any other balanced class. A lot of our cool downs share a 2 min cool down timer.
Gnosh Sep 30th 2009 9:54AM
Meh. It's usually obvious which of them you need to use in a given situation.
Task Sep 24th 2009 3:15PM
Yaayy.. SoComm is better than it was in 3.1... I guess I can wait for 3.3 and see if they change it yet again.
And on a separate note, I'm still waiting on my seahorse from Ghostcrawler.
Valt Sep 24th 2009 3:17PM
Dont take touched by light too serious.. I was in pug with some paladin tank who already claimed "guys you have to excuse my threat because they nerfed touched by light and I havent had time to regem after patch". Yeah.. wat. Please dont switch stamina gems to str because of the change. But of course.. you wouldnt, right? :p
Nick S Sep 24th 2009 4:17PM
Paladin threat is still very high, and no actual tanks should have to regem due to TbtL. It does make Strength a *slightly* more desirable threat stat, but not enough to warrant gemming away from a great survival stat.
Popes Sep 24th 2009 11:50PM
I'm a Pally tank and, honestly, I barely noticed. I tanked ToC last night and had no problems whatsoever with threat.
Well, except against the Hunter, but, well. It's a Hunter.
Angus Sep 25th 2009 1:59AM
The amount of spellpower I lost to the change was: 50.
Yep.
Str was high enough that it was almost not even noticeable.
Rhabella Sep 24th 2009 3:18PM
Almost everything is tolerable except the touched by the light change. Prot paladins were gearing exactly as they were intended to do, and now we are being punished because of a PVP build.
The main reason the change is so insulting is because no tank sacrifices survivability for threat, NOT A SINGLE ONE. In Wrath, the point has been somewhat moot because losing threat isn’t nearly as possible as it was prior to 3.0.8. Any of the 3 other tanks who make the comment, “oh, qq moar, now you have to pay attention to threat stats,” is being absolutely ridiculous. None of them gem for threat either. The boost was nice, but it doesn’t quite synergize the same way that stamina did. Tanks are using stamina in trinket and gem slots, and they are losing the added threat from those areas.
Overall, not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but the touched by the light thing is still annoying.
Mecer Sep 24th 2009 3:41PM
Prior to 3.2.2 all non-pally tanks that ignored threat stats (like +hit and +expertise), would threat cap DPS. Prot Pallies now have to hit these numbers too, welcome to being mortal like the rest of us.
Rhabella Sep 24th 2009 4:02PM
Don't pretend you are gemming or enchanting for hit or expertise. The best tanks in the world don't gem for those things. Want some proof?
http://armory.wow-europe.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tarren+Mill&n=Kungen
As you can see, even "the tank enchants" like armsmen are being ignored in this example for mongoose, a proc that boosts avoidance (dodge) and not threat. It's not about being mortal like the rest of you. Yes all tanks take those threat stats as a matter of them already being on your gear, but if you are taking them with gems and/or enchants and exchanging your survivability, well, then I would argue you have other issues.
Find me the tanks who trade survivability for threat, especially in Wrath, and we will talk. Until then, let's not pretend any of the other tanks are gemming and socketing for threat because it just isn't true.
Djbrill Sep 24th 2009 4:06PM
The point is there were problems in pvp and WoW isn't just a pve game. Wow is a pve and pvp game. The solution of changing the stat we need for threat from stamina to strength, which would only seem natural if you look at the basics of both stats, solved a big pvp problem withouth effecting pve to much. This change is should only effect our spell power slightly.
The real change to our threat comes from the rightous fury nerf. And if it turns out they nerfed us to hard then they will adjust either touch by light (more spell power per strength) or rightous defense (more threath).
Mecer Sep 24th 2009 5:01PM
Oh my! You linked a warrior who is expertise capped(actually far over it)! And you know what? He picks his gear to maintain that cap. Warriors get more value from expertise than +hit (due to using few spells). Blood DKs are another in this category. Gems have and always will be for filling in gaps in certain slots, if you are maintaining caps without needing gems then you do so. Check TankSpot if you want to debate this.
Even Blizzard has come out and stated that they dont want tanks to ignore threat stats.
Rhabella Sep 24th 2009 8:18PM
Being capped as a natural progression of your gear is different than gemming for it. In fact, despite what Blizzard may say about what they wish was desirable, they have missed the mark on a few occasions. Blizzard also said they want MP5 to be valuable, and yet it's not nearly as popular as they would like.
It's so not popular, they are doing away with it in the near future. Being capped for hit and expertise becomes more and more important as the dps start to be less forgiving. The natural progression of gear means that early on in raid progression, you have other more important survivability stats to worry about like defense. The gear progression have provided problems for Blizzard. Check the forums, and GC and said they avoidance of tanks is out of control mainly because the progression of gear means you have more avoidance or the piece doesn't feel like an upgrade.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/19820323342-tank-balance-and-encounter-design.html
Blizzard may want many things, but some of the design issues are preventing that in the live version of the game.
I'm not implying threat stats are not important, but surviving have always been the primary role of a tank. The threat stats, particularly in Wrath, have been tacked onto the gear and resulted in a lost desire to actually gem for them. As you get into higher tiers of gear, the secondary stats are even more available and reaching your caps becomes child's play.
In early endgame, the working toward the caps is important, but Blizzard also recognizes the need to not actually allow you to reach those caps or the upgrades don't feel like upgrades.
Byron Sep 25th 2009 12:32AM
I don't see what you guys are arguing over exactly. If you're not at soft exp and melee hit cap, you gem, ench, food buff, alch buff, etc. for that, then for survivability. Once you hit those caps, everything else goes into survivability. I mean nobody is saying tanks gem for additional exp once they hit 26. After that point it's all Stam and avoidance, right?
Heilig Sep 24th 2009 3:18PM
"This was thanks to the talent Touched by the Light which would convert stamina to spell power for prot threat."
The extra spellpower was not the issue and the problem still hasn't been fixed. I can't believe Blizzard missed this, the pally forums are all rejoicing about how dumb Blizzard is.
Let me paint you a picture: Prot pally in Holy gear starts to heal in arena. He is healing for 80-10K Flash of lights because of the CRIT HEAL bonus from TbtL. He begins to go OOM. Divine Plea is popped. His heals now hit for half as much as they were. he now switches to Holy Light and is still healing for 10-12K or more because of the CRIT HEAL bonus. The other team tries to mana drain the paladin. "Hey, he's not going OOM! He has Divine Plea popped. Dispel that shit...What do you mean you can't? Alright, then let's just kill him" Suddenly they are attacking not a holy pally, but a prot pally with massive damage reduction anda consecrate that hits like a truck due to their stupid high spellpower. Smart pally changes his blessing to sanctuary and begins to regen mana incredibly fast as half the attacks aimed against him are blocked. he begins to be bursted down anyway and is able to bubble, remove Divine Plea, and heal back to full with a SINGLE HOLY LIGHT CRIT.
The problem with TbtL isn't the SP. It's the crit. Holy paladins crit for 20K. Prot paladins in holy gear crit for 24-26K. THAT is the problem, and it hasn't been fixed yet.
Juan Hernandez Sep 24th 2009 3:30PM
LOL
Taladan Sep 24th 2009 4:36PM
Although the crits were nice, the SP was the key.
Using the same gear, gemmed with stam, I had 2400 SP in my proly spec. With proper gems for holy (and the proper spec), I go to only 1900. So not only out crits where higher, out healing where higher (and with more SP instead of int, the spell cost of spells would be lower and, thus, provide a better mana/healing-done ratio.)
Not to mention Sacred Shield. Although it doesn't say, Sacred Shield *does* scale with spell power. So we had a stronger sacred shield against melee and a silencing ranged attack against casters.