Paladin Help

[Shrike]

What, are enhancement shamans going to stop using mana in Cataclysm? How are they going to itemize the same if shamans are still casters?

We still have mana. Just in Cata it'll be a pally-sized pool, instead of the oversized one we have now. So in Cata we can't spam (lesser) healing wave to save the tank's dumb ass when he overpulls and the dedicated healer drops group.

[Azazel]

Well, that sounds, um.. great to remove a bit of get-out-of-jail utility from the class.

[Setanta]

Well, that sounds, um.. great to remove a bit of get-out-of-jail utility from the class.

You mean like cleansing totem?

[Shrike]

Don't remind me. Instead we get a magic decurse. Gee. Be still my heart. And in other news, rogues still have poison.

[Merusk]

What the fuck are they doing to Pallies this time? Jesus Christ.

Lots of stuff; here's what I remember off the top of my head.

Seal consolidation.. wis/light combined into the same seal.  Command is a talent that affects other seals not a new seal.  Crusader Strike is a baseline skill. 
Blessings; Sanctuary is gone, now a talent that just works on the pally tank.
New resource called "Holy Power" that builds up on attacks like rogue combo points. (Max of 5) You release charges to do specialty strikes & heals.
Holy Shield isn't an active skill anymore but a passive one that works off of SoR or Inquisition

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/1670-Paladin-Cataclysm

[Chimpy]

Don't remind me. Instead we get a magic decurse. Gee. Be still my heart. And in other news, rogues still have poison.

Wait, Shaman get a magic debuff removal?

WHY COULD THEY NOT HAVE PUT THAT IN WHEN WE WERE IN BWL WORKING ON CHROMAGGUS?!?!

[Morfiend]

From looking at the changes, it seems they are making ret paladins in to rogues (hello combo points), and enh shaman in to wotlk ret paladins. 

Judgement anyone?

Unleash Elements
Focuses the elemental force imbued in the Shaman's weaponry, with the concentrated effects depending on the enchantment unleashed.
See individual weapon imbue spell tooltips for details regarding the effects of unleashing each.
7% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 15 sec cooldown

[Rendakor]

Blessing of Might and Blessing of Wisdom have also been combined, so there are now only 2 blessings to juggle.

[Ratman_tf]

What the fuck are they doing to Pallies this time? Jesus Christ.

Lots of stuff; here's what I remember off the top of my head.

Seal consolidation.. wis/light combined into the same seal.  Command is a talent that affects other seals not a new seal.  Crusader Strike is a baseline skill. 
Blessings; Sanctuary is gone, now a talent that just works on the pally tank.
New resource called "Holy Power" that builds up on attacks like rogue combo points. (Max of 5) You release charges to do specialty strikes & heals.
Holy Shield isn't an active skill anymore but a passive one that works off of SoR or Inquisition

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/1670-Paladin-Cataclysm

[deadpan] yay

[lesion]

I thought it was a pretty cool change, but I haven't really played a paladin since BC.

[Sjofn]

WotLK made me finally quit my paladin mostly (still got her to 80 and I still dust her off once in a while) and I heart the changes coming. I feel that way every time they change paladins, though. I have a hard time breaking up with the paladin. Baby, we can work it out.

[proudft]

What are those bruises? Did you fall down the stairs?

I am totally meh about my ret/prot paladin.  I dunno, I'll probably like the changes for holy.  Almost anything would be an improvement.

[Fordel]

The Prot Paladin feels nice to me, but I don't like the Ret Paladin, feels too much like a Rogue. I'm not a rogue person. Haven't tried Holy, but I can't see how it could be worse then what it is in wrath, like shit, you get at least 5 or 6 REAL LIFE HEAL SPELLS in cata. 


Of course healing in general is pretty much as fucked as lots of people feared it would be right now.

[Dren]

Guess I should start seriously looking at the changes...

Yes, you should.

Ok, went to go do this last night.  The official website is terrible for details.  I got nothing from it.  The link it provides to the forums is really convenient until you get there and are faced with literally hundreds of pages of posts.  I don't have time to sift down through all that to find what I care about.

Anyone have a link to a good summary of the forum-library for the next update?

[dd0029]

The EJ Class Mechanics forums usually have a good run down thread for each spec and class.

Wowhead also has a big Cataclysm guide that breaks down things in a higher level way than the minutia that the EJ theorycrafters will deal with.

[Dren]

Thanks.  I'll check them out.

[Hawkbit]

I'm caught somewhat between the proverbial rock and a hardplace.  I casually played my pally as ret with a gearscore of around 4500.  My offspec was prot and that gear is shameful, maybe 3200 gearscore?

With these changes that came through (I'm not doomcasting, I swear..) I'm having a real problem with either spec.  Soloing around as ret and I'm taking entirely too much damage compared to what I used to be as ret, not to mention it's taking longer to kill things with this new rotation.  I don't have the gear to switch over to prot at this point, but even when I did I'm getting my ass handed to me by more than 2 mobs at a time.  Before patch I could easily take 7+ mobs as prot...

So I'm not exactly sure what to do.  Looking at my mage (only lvl 76), he owns in soloing around - he's nearly impossible to kill.  But my 4500gs pally just feels like a shell of what he was. 

[Simond]

Well yeah, that's what happens when an overpowered class gets nerfed. 
More seriously, Blizzard have already acknowledged that retadin DPS (and other classes/specs) is too low and they're going to 'fix' it.

[Hawkbit]

Playing in the midrange of gear I never felt too powerful, maybe at the topend it was. 

I didn't do horribly in a random dungeon last night.  Last on dps, but not last by much.  Some of that might just be getting familiar with the new rotation.  Here's hoping!

[Morfiend]

For anyone that plays Ret. Word is that TV and HoW got massively buffed during downtime last night. Reports of 28k+ crits on HoW and TV and 12k+ crits on CS.

I will test it out when I get home and report my findings.

[WindupAtheist]

Well yeah, that's what happens when an overpowered class gets nerfed. 

Yeah, I mean a ret paladin could routinely beat as many as a couple of different classes. Not any with range, or any that healed, or any tank types that would just sit there going "Hey is something hitting me?", but there were a couple of melee DPS types that didn't totally tool a ret paladin. Overpowered.

[Soulflame]

Not to mention that holy paladins are having trouble outhealing a shadow priest in 25 man raids at level 80.  That is 100% awesome, and is sure to guarantee paladins raid spots.

[Ironwood]

Our Raiding holy Paladin last night was TERRIBLE.

And the guy himself knows how to play.

[Sheepherder]

Ret was fine with the first patch, it's great now (I probably gained ~1k DPS at low gear levels).  It's still funky as all shit to play, but it puts out decent numbers.

Someone had the great idea to tack a 30 second cooldown onto Consecrate, make Hammer of the Righteous the primary threat generator of the Protection rotation, while simultaneously redesigning HotR to scale off of weapon damage rather than weapon DPS in an expansion with exactly one tanking weapon slower than 1.7 speed.  Motherfucker.

Holy is not my forte, but ICC25 hard mode raiding paladins on my server are reporting being outhealed by Leader of the Pack.

[Shrike]

Since my DK looks to be ready for primetime, I was eyeing protection paladin stuff today. I do not like what I'm seeing.

I'm thinking my warriors will be getting attention before my pallies. Hunter is intriguing me, though. I think hunter is the weekend project, to be followed by the warriors.

[Ingmar]

Ret was fine with the first patch, it's great now (I probably gained ~1k DPS at low gear levels).  It's still funky as all shit to play, but it puts out decent numbers.

Someone had the great idea to tack a 30 second cooldown onto Consecrate, make Hammer of the Righteous the primary threat generator of the Protection rotation, while simultaneously redesigning HotR to scale off of weapon damage rather than weapon DPS in an expansion with exactly one tanking weapon slower than 1.7 speed.  Motherfucker.

Holy is not my forte, but ICC25 hard mode raiding paladins on my server are reporting being outhealed by Leader of the Pack.

No good reason to use a tanking weapon for tanking IMO, especially now that DPS weapons all gained stamina and tanking weapons did not. I haven't used a tanking weapon for 75% or more of this expansion.

[Rendakor]

Since my DK looks to be ready for primetime, I was eyeing protection paladin stuff today. I do not like what I'm seeing.

I'm thinking my warriors will be getting attention before my pallies. Hunter is intriguing me, though. I think hunter is the weekend project, to be followed by the warriors.

Am I really the only one who didn't mind the new Prot Pally? Compared to the DK who feels nerfed to shit, the Prot Pally felt like an aggro magnet.

[Sheepherder]

No good reason to use a tanking weapon for tanking IMO, especially now that DPS weapons all gained stamina and tanking weapons did not. I haven't used a tanking weapon for 75% or more of this expansion.

No, there isn't a good reason to use a tanking weapon for tanking.  However it just so happened that I had a tanking weapon, and it was more or less optimal for my role.  Now it isn't, because Blizzard made a change that they really did not need to make (HotR calculating from DPS), did not make another change that would have eased the transition (decrease speed on all tanking weapons to ~2.6) and all tanking weapons are now effectively vendor trash while tanks are obliged to fight to obtain gear statted for the agility based classes.

[Fordel]

Blizzard with terrible Itemization, news at 11? 

[Ingmar]

No good reason to use a tanking weapon for tanking IMO, especially now that DPS weapons all gained stamina and tanking weapons did not. I haven't used a tanking weapon for 75% or more of this expansion.

No, there isn't a good reason to use a tanking weapon for tanking.  However it just so happened that I had a tanking weapon, and it was more or less optimal for my role.  Now it isn't, because Blizzard made a change that they really did not need to make (HotR calculating from DPS), did not make another change that would have eased the transition (decrease speed on all tanking weapons to ~2.6) and all tanking weapons are now effectively vendor trash while tanks are obliged to fight to obtain gear statted for the agility based classes.

On a prot pally, slow weapons were already optimal (for threat) because of the way seal damage was calculated - old HotR didn't make fast weapons better, speed just was irrelevant for it. Unless you needed whatever the +def was on a given weapon or you had one with bonus armor, you should have been using a slow dps weapon already (IMO).

[Sjofn]

Since my DK looks to be ready for primetime, I was eyeing protection paladin stuff today. I do not like what I'm seeing.

I'm thinking my warriors will be getting attention before my pallies. Hunter is intriguing me, though. I think hunter is the weekend project, to be followed by the warriors.

Am I really the only one who didn't mind the new Prot Pally? Compared to the DK who feels nerfed to shit, the Prot Pally felt like an aggro magnet.

I know Fordel likes the way it plays, but I'm not sure how much of that is "Fordel is in the beta and playing past level 80." I've never played protection a lot on my paladin, not enough to care about the changes one way or the other, anyway.

I still haven't tanked on my DK. I'm being a baby.

[Sheepherder]

On a prot pally, slow weapons were already optimal (for threat) because of the way seal damage was calculated - old HotR didn't make fast weapons better, speed just was irrelevant for it. Unless you needed whatever the +def was on a given weapon or you had one with bonus armor, you should have been using a slow dps weapon already (IMO).

Threat wasn't an issue, survivability won the day.  I didn't need to steal a hunter weapon.  Now I do.

[Fordel]

I know Fordel likes the way it plays, but I'm not sure how much of that is "Fordel is in the beta and playing past level 80." I've never played protection a lot on my paladin, not enough to care about the changes one way or the other, anyway.

I still haven't tanked on my DK. I'm being a baby.

Yea, it feels nice, especially since they dropped Protection CrusaderStrike/Hammer to 3 seconds. I feel like I have "enough" buttons to push without it being overly demanding or limiting in either direction.

The biggest hurdle is undoing the previous years worth of 969 muscle memory. That can be annoying since it is just so automatic for most prot paladins at this point. "Is it a boss? AE Pack? 2 Elite Goons? 96969696969696969!!!1!". You'll have to approach different targets differently with the new system. Not terribly differently mind you, but enough so that you can't just fall into one rotation to rule them all.


Otherwise everything seems solid to me, the mastery, the talents, the cooldowns, the glyphs.

[Sjofn]

On a prot pally, slow weapons were already optimal (for threat) because of the way seal damage was calculated - old HotR didn't make fast weapons better, speed just was irrelevant for it. Unless you needed whatever the +def was on a given weapon or you had one with bonus armor, you should have been using a slow dps weapon already (IMO).

Threat wasn't an issue, survivability won the day.  I didn't need to steal a hunter weapon.  Now I do.

Hunters are busy stealing feral druid staves.