Cataclysm beta: Paladins in build 12984
by Gregg Reece 
Sep 18th 2010 at 11:00PM
Most of our changes are small tweaks and talent reorganizations, but a few are obvious balancing passes. While there is a new talent for holy, it's just another of the spirit-to-hit conversion talents that other classes have seen. This could, however, mean a possible comeback of the shockadin -- but I'll leave that for Chase to speculate on tomorrow when he covers the holy changes in more depth.
Some quick excerpts from the patch notes, with everything after the break:
- The holy tree gets a spirit-to-hit conversion talent.
- Holy Light's healing has decreased by 25% and mana cost has increased to 9%.
- Divine Purpose proc rate has lowered to 20%.
- Holy
- Holy Light base healing has been reduced by 25%; mana costs changed to 9% of base mana, up from 6% of base mana. This looks like Blizzard's trying to hit a magic sweet spot in spell efficiencies to promote using different abilities for different situations, but doing so using a dartboard. I do have faith the developers will get it tuned to where they want it, but things keep changing around a lot.
- Light of Dawn base healing has been increased by 10%; can no longer consume holy power to increase healing. This comes down to a case where putting holy power on everything isn't always the best solution. Blizzard had removed the mana/holy-power hybrid abilities from the other trees, as they didn't work well there, either.
- Improved Concentration Aura is gone. This may be a case that Blizzard doesn't want that buff in the game anymore.
- Daybreak now has a 10/20% chance to make your next Holy Shock not trigger a cooldown if used within 12 sec. (formerly: 15/30% chance to reset Holy Shock's cooldown). This should be a little more usable, as Holy Shock only had a 6-second cooldown to begin with.
- Spiritual Focus (Tier 5) *New* Grants hit rating equal to 50/100% of any spirit gained from items or effects. Leveling, PvP or the possible comeback of the shockadin.
- Protection
- Wrath of the Lightbringer is slightly revamped -- now increases the damage of your Crusader Strike and Judgement by 30/60% and increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Wrath and Hammer of Wrath by 15/30%. A bit of a threat adjustment to give Crusader Strike a little more oomph.
- Guardian's Favor is now a tier 2 retribution talent. This really wasn't something I was talenting as a tank with the new talent trees and fits better into a ret PvP or utility build.
- Improved Hammer of Justice is now a tier 2 talent, up from tier 1. Moved up to take the place of Guardian's Favor.
- Retribution
- Divine Purpose now has a 20% chance to generate holy power, down from 40%. There were complaints that it was proccing too much with the new mastery bonus for retribution. You felt like you were constantly needing to hit Templar's Verdict. There's also a slight issue with the extra holy power it grants taking too long to show up.
- Eternal Glory is now a tier 1 Protection talent. This has been moved over to take the place of Improved Hammer of Justice in the prot tree, from when they were playing musical talents. It's now within reach of all specs for anyone who wants to use Word of Glory on a regular basis, which should be of interest to those of you playing holy.
- Templar's Verdict no longer costs mana. There's really no reason for it to still cost mana.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Pyromelter Sep 18th 2010 11:08PM
Do you guys really need one post for every single beta build class change? IMO it should be up to the class writers, if they feel there is something pertinent to discuss, like the huge changes to moonkin, instead of just listing every change for every class and spec. :/
Glich Sep 18th 2010 11:12PM
3 words
Pay Per Post
Tomac Sep 18th 2010 11:40PM
Is it really necessary for people to leave comments like this on every post about the new class changes?
Saeadame Sep 18th 2010 11:25PM
Wish I could get pay per comment...
Sean Sep 18th 2010 11:25PM
Glich has it right. More posts probably mean more money. I know I'd be doing the same thing if it were my job. Plus, it IS new stuff to talk about, and we are all eating up whatever info we can get on Cataclysm right now.
Bahska Sep 18th 2010 11:36PM
More posts > more traffic > more money
Cetha Sep 18th 2010 11:38PM
I actually like when they do it class by class like this. It makes the information easier to digest, instead of trying to take in all the classes at once, which since I play so many classes, I find a bit overwhelming.
Noyou Sep 18th 2010 11:48PM
Pro tip: you don't have to read every column on here. True story :) IMO I find it very useful to gather as much info as I can. I also like the ability to selectively chose which articles to read. I encourage everyone to do the same :)
Noyou Sep 18th 2010 11:52PM
@ Tomac
Apparently they do :( I try to be my own edit button after every comment and decide if my comment adds anything to the overall discussion. Sometimes I fail but at least I try :)
@Cetha
I too get a little overwhelmed when there seems to be 'too much info' so I also like the more frequent less foreboding amounts of info :)
Brett Porter Sep 19th 2010 2:28AM
Funny thing is, folks (not necessarily the OP) would complain if a class writer *doesn't* post about the new changes. Not only do I prefer they separate them, but those that don't play every class may not want to sift through a ton of information to find what they only want to read.
And for those of us (myself included) that do play every class, they can figure out which post gets priority for their preferred class, and which post they wanna read first.
Pyromelter Sep 19th 2010 2:47AM
If they did every-class update every beta/ptr build, the site would be cluttered, and would push down some of the more popular columns, like The Queue and Arcane Brilliance.
Kind of like how it is right now. Sure, it's nice to have updates on your class, but once a week is enough, and my point is that if there are major changes, it should be up to the class columnist whether it's worth discussing.
As opposed to, you know, just copy/pasting all the changes without any real discussion on the changes. What I'm saying is that I feel it's fine (and informative and interesting) if Murmurs feels that the Balance druid changes are so huge, he wants to do a well thought-out post on them. It's a waste, however, to just repeat information, that likely is going to change again in a week or two.
I also suggest if wowinsider wants to publicize all the changes, do it in one big post and include all the changes, like in your Daily Blues segment. That way of reporting these things works pretty well on mmo champ.
Ysonia Sep 19th 2010 3:06AM
@ Pyromelter: Note: Arcane Brilliance isn't a column that *everyone* reads. Sure, The Queue is pretty universally popular but I only read the class-specific articles for classes I play personally.
I like having the "latest beta build" articles that they've been doing lately, just because this is the first (and when pressed for time, often the *only*) place I come for beta news. I take everything with a grain of salt, as it's still in progress, but it's nice to know what direction some of my favorite classes are heading, and to try and re-assess my estimates for when the expansion will be coming out based on how "done" things seem to be.
Alex Ziebart Sep 19th 2010 3:28AM
Damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If we cover every class, people call it spammy. If we don't cover this stuff, people complain that ... we aren't covering it.
We use the nice middle ground: We don't force anybody to write anything. If they think the changes are interesting enough for their class, they write it. If not, they don't.
Hahahaha Sep 19th 2010 4:30AM
BTW everyone knows that they have this whole bar from which one can select whatever column they prefer more, right?
Please don't say its not the same as having "your" favorite topic right up on top of the main page - I personally would call it spoonfeeding. And it would be really hard for WoW Insider to implement that change. Individually everyone can do it by setting your favorite column page as favorites, atleast I think they can.
Pyromelter Sep 19th 2010 4:54AM
Guys, it's a freakin list of changes. It doesn't deserve it's own post. This isn't a damned if you do/don't. This isn't a "i'm qq'ing cuz my favorite column got pushed down."
I'm just saying if all you are doing is listing changes, and not discussing them, it's not worth it's own post. Let the other posts shine through the writers' good work. And yes, I do believe that Tyler's and Christian's posts as well as the queue got unfairly pushed down with a stream of "let's copy and paste" blog posts. Let's be a bit objective about it... More interesting to read: A simple list of beta changes that have changed a hundred times before, and likely will change again in the next 7 days? Or some funny/insightful and well thought-out postings by some of wowinsiders best bloggers.
Hahahaha Sep 19th 2010 5:19AM
"Let's be a bit objective about it..."
Surely let's.
"More interesting to read: A simple list of beta changes that have changed a hundred times before, and likely will change again in the next 7 days? Or some funny/insightful and well thought-out postings by some of wowinsiders best bloggers."
I believe this is a rhetorical question implying that you find the second type of posts more interesting - correct me if I am wrong. What you precisely are trying to tell everyone is "I think this is more interesting and everyone else who feels otherwise is _________." See the flaw there? You might not find every little detail posted, as and when its found out, as a separate post interesting but there would be others who might.
BTW I am with you on that there are some very good bloggers wow insider has got and I never miss my favorite columns.
Mistrblank Sep 20th 2010 5:43PM
I know the poster is getting reamed here, but I agree. WoW.com is quickly earning it's way OFF of my RSS feed reader. This 50-60 posts in an afternoon is ridiculous and flooding out the other more legitimate sites that can handle posting a days worth of information into one posting.
BurgerTea Sep 18th 2010 11:25PM
Eyy, I don't feel like downloading a 16 gig file. THANKS WOW (.joystiq).COM!
Kvothe Sep 18th 2010 11:46PM
The proc rate for Divine Purpose probably hasn't actually changed. The datamining here just highlights a bug fix where you'd get the 40% chance at both 1/2 and 2/2. My guess is that 2/2 DP will remain 40%.
Ed Ross Sep 18th 2010 11:49PM
There was really ppl complaining about "Divine Purpose proc'ing too much"?
WTF these ppl want? The more HoPo the better! They should be glad to get more HoPo faster to be able use the big-hitter TV as soon as possible and increase DPS... Unfortunately, for Ret, there is not much to do in order to inflict big damage besides TV. Judge, CS and HW aren't that great (there's also Exo, but it need to proc AoW). TV is the big deal.