Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
July 24, 2025, 08:41:38 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  World of Warcraft  |  Topic: Reality, it's a subjective thing, at least for WoW developers. 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Pages: [1] 2 Go Down Print
Author Topic: Reality, it's a subjective thing, at least for WoW developers.  (Read 16043 times)
Jeff Kelly
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6921

I'm an apathetic, hedonistic, utilitarian, nihilistic existentialist.


on: February 28, 2007, 02:36:36 AM

"With that being said, we do feel that the Paladin is currently capable of producing too much burst damage and are investigating reasonable ways to make minor reductions for the future. " - Eyonix

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=79669544&pageNo=2&sid=1#23

So one of the lowest dps classes in the game is overpowered and should be nerfed, while druids in cat form, rogues and arcane/fire mages can put out insane amounts of damage in a short time (btw. I am not calling for nerfs, just pointing out that paladins are already one of the lowest damage classes in WoW).

I don't know what they are smoking, but gimme some of that.

To add some value to the QQing, is it just my impression or have the developers lost every clue as to what purpose the different classes should have and how to realize that.

They add new stuff to classes and take something old away to balance it (more damage output to druids, more armor, less threat generation to balance it), they then nerf the new feature because it is overpowered (damage output of druids, armor of druids) but don't put the thing in which they had taken out for balance (more threat generation to make tanking possible) leaving the class with less than before.

There are countless examples (mage, low HP to balance high dps potential now partially surpassed by warlocks with pets and much higher HP etc.) where things are nerfed, buffed and nerfed again without any indication that they have any kind of clue or strategy as to why they are doing it.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657


Reply #1 on: February 28, 2007, 03:01:31 AM

Somebody want to explain how a Paladin generates "too much burst damage" (been out of the game for too long now)?
Jeff Kelly
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6921

I'm an apathetic, hedonistic, utilitarian, nihilistic existentialist.


Reply #2 on: February 28, 2007, 04:07:58 AM

Somebody want to explain how a Paladin generates "too much burst damage" (been out of the game for too long now)?


A retribution specced paladin has to rely hugely on crit luck because the way seal of command works is just plain broken.

So huge amounts of burts damage (for a given definition of huge) would include the need of the following to happen:

white damage crit, seal of command crit, hammer of justice, Judgement of Command crit, Crusader Strike crit, activation of trinkets and the activation of righteous fury while wearing the equivalent of PvP rank 14 Armour plus 25-man raid epic two-hander.

So only if I blow every cooldown available, have every ability crit and the luck of several passive abilities proccing at the right moment (vengeance) after having spent months pvping and clearing everything up to and including Gruul's lair. So for all intents and purposes, never. Even then with that streak of luck I will only get to around 8000 damage against clothies (supposing they don't kite me and just stand there getting owned) and significantly less against players with serious damage mitigation through armor (because most of the damage above is mitigated by armor) and only if I spec at least 41 Points in retribution (for crusader strike). With PVP mages reaching 10,000 HP and other classes eben above that, this won't one-shot anybody.

A value that I can easily top with my arcane/fire mage that has 1/3rd of the gear and that can easily be topped by other DD classes without requiring that extreme amount of luck or gear.
Dren
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2419


Reply #3 on: February 28, 2007, 04:41:08 AM

That statement by the dev is insane.  I went Ret spec with my Paladin for awhile and couldn't take the subadequate DPS and went back to Prot to help my guild in instances.  Who cares that they get a lucky crit once in awhile.  Like you said, it still doesn't compare to my Rogue for instance.  My Rogue crits consistently.  He's at over 20% crit at the moment and that only rises as I get better gear!

I already have a hard time playing my Paladin solo as it is.  If they are going to moderate their DPS even more, bullocks!

You heard me.
ajax34i
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2527


Reply #4 on: February 28, 2007, 04:54:12 AM

I think this is the big nerf patch to undo the benefits that the BC expansion gave everyone.  I don't know details but there's apparently a nerf to priests too that has them all up in arms, in addition to, like it's been said, the druids and the warlocks and other classes.
Miasma
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5283

Stopgap Measure


Reply #5 on: February 28, 2007, 06:51:58 AM

I think this is the big nerf patch to undo the benefits that the BC expansion gave everyone.  I don't know details but there's apparently a nerf to priests too that has them all up in arms, in addition to, like it's been said, the druids and the warlocks and other classes.
I came back a couple weeks ago and made the mistake of reading the forums for my priest.  They are mad because since launch priests have tended to be more level-headed and patient than other classes when it comes to nerfs/lack of attention and it has gotten them absolutely nowhere.  Only classes that scream bloody murder get any attention so they are deciding to do just that, it is a rather unpopular class though so there aren't many people to complain.

The last straw seemed to be the current changes on the test server where they have decided to nerf our Vampiric Embrace (after two years now it is suddenly unbalanced), removed an already crappy aggro reduction ability if you dare to have fun playing shadow and destroyed the only new usefull healing spell we got in BC (prayer of mending) solely because it was over powered in 2v2 arena.  We still get groups but only because people wrongly assume we are still the best healers, paladins and resto druids are actually better and have the added benefit of being able to actually take hits.  Thankfully I don't PvP but the priests that do are depressed because since the expansion all of the other classes' dps has spiked but ours doesn't scale up at all, it is also more difficult to heal ourselves.

What is it about reading official forums that makes me unhappy with my class, I mean I was having fun before - now I'm just pissed off.  This always happens, if enough people in the same class as me say we suck I eventually start to believe them.  I'll probably roll a Blood Elf toon, which class would currently be best at soloing, warlocks?
« Last Edit: February 28, 2007, 07:41:01 AM by Miasma »
Jayce
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2647

Diluted Fool


Reply #6 on: February 28, 2007, 07:02:13 AM


What is it about reading official forums that makes me unhappy with my class, I mean I was having fun before - now I'm just pissed off.

I think this is key.  KEY!!  Never read the WoW forums, and certainly never read the class forums beyond the stickies that give you hints on builds and tactics.

Witty banter not included.
ajax34i
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2527


Reply #7 on: February 28, 2007, 07:16:22 AM

Thankfully I don't PvP but the priests that do are depressed because since the expansion all of the other classes' dps has spiked but ours doesn't scale up at all, it is also more difficult to heal ourselves.

Let me ask you this:  I keep hearing about how people used to raids suddenly are very poor at healing or functioning in small groups.  Is that 100% the case?  I get the feeling that NPC damage has spiked as well in the expansion, to the point that cloth classes are instantly killed if they draw aggro, so that would make healing a lot more difficult overall.  I do remember mentally comparing ZG (when it was gear-appropriate to me) with AQ20 (also), and AQ20 was a lot more difficult to heal for me.

So, is it purely lack of skill, or is it the fact that damage dealt is higher / spikier in the expansion?
Dren
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2419


Reply #8 on: February 28, 2007, 07:31:38 AM

Thankfully I don't PvP but the priests that do are depressed because since the expansion all of the other classes' dps has spiked but ours doesn't scale up at all, it is also more difficult to heal ourselves.

Let me ask you this:  I keep hearing about how people used to raids suddenly are very poor at healing or functioning in small groups.  Is that 100% the case?  I get the feeling that NPC damage has spiked as well in the expansion, to the point that cloth classes are instantly killed if they draw aggro, so that would make healing a lot more difficult overall.  I do remember mentally comparing ZG (when it was gear-appropriate to me) with AQ20 (also), and AQ20 was a lot more difficult to heal for me.

So, is it purely lack of skill, or is it the fact that damage dealt is higher / spikier in the expansion?

The trouble my groups have had at higher level instances has been with mind control, fear, summoned pets, exploding pets, teleporting, AE damage, etc.  The general chaos created has been our healers' downfall more than the higher/spikier damage.  Of course, the higher spikier damage adds to the issue too though.  You'd think some kind of CC would be the answer, but typically these same bosses can't be MC'ed, stunned, poisoned, etc.
Dren
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2419


Reply #9 on: February 28, 2007, 07:33:40 AM


What is it about reading official forums that makes me unhappy with my class, I mean I was having fun before - now I'm just pissed off.

I think this is key.  KEY!!  Never read the WoW forums, and certainly never read the class forums beyond the stickies that give you hints on builds and tactics.

I never read the forums.  My experience has been that everytime I go back to play my Paladin for awhile, I don't have fun.  I really do notice the class becoming weaker compared to my other characters over time.  It is still a solid class that adds a whole lot of help to groups in instances and probably PvP, but as an individual class, it is just boring and uninspired.
Miasma
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5283

Stopgap Measure


Reply #10 on: February 28, 2007, 07:37:39 AM

Thankfully I don't PvP but the priests that do are depressed because since the expansion all of the other classes' dps has spiked but ours doesn't scale up at all, it is also more difficult to heal ourselves.

Let me ask you this:  I keep hearing about how people used to raids suddenly are very poor at healing or functioning in small groups.  Is that 100% the case?  I get the feeling that NPC damage has spiked as well in the expansion, to the point that cloth classes are instantly killed if they draw aggro, so that would make healing a lot more difficult overall.  I do remember mentally comparing ZG (when it was gear-appropriate to me) with AQ20 (also), and AQ20 was a lot more difficult to heal for me.

So, is it purely lack of skill, or is it the fact that damage dealt is higher / spikier in the expansion?
I don't know, I'm only 57 and don't PvP.  Since the complaints about dps scaling always seems to be related to PvP I doubt it has anything to do with getting used to five man PvE encounters.

That said a lot of the priests are saying that healing through the heroics is quite stressfull (which many like), I imagine that is due to the switch to five mans but it is also because everyone is still gearing up.  It's not really appropriate to compare healing at the start of level 70 to healing people who have been level 60 for two years and have been getting better gear the whole time.
Koyasha
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1363


Reply #11 on: February 28, 2007, 07:38:14 AM

I'll probably roll a Blood Elf toon, Which class would currently be best at soloing, warlocks?
I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'best at soloing'.  If you mean 'can take on the most ridiculous odds alone and win', that's the Paladin.  I'm regularly testing myself against the strongest enemies I can find - defeated King Mukla solo at level 50 yesterday on my Blood Knight, when me and a Druid friend together couldn't take him at level 52 a few weeks back  Also just killed Myzrael and all those little swarming elementals she summons tonight, and dinged 52 off the quest completion.  Paladins are also great at farming, as they can fight lots and lots of mobs at the same time, and they don't have to drink often either, because good use of Seal of Wisdom tends to keep mana flowing mid-battle.  But they don't kill that fast.

As for the burst DPS mentioned above...yeah...ret paladins can get some nice burst dps.  Protection/ret paladins can get some really nice burst dps when Reckoning pops and they get good crits.  And about 1 in 30 times or so, a ret paladin will be able to bust out a series of crits that can obliterate an enemy within the duration of a single Hand of Justice stun.  This makes people whine in pvp.  Every class that ever gets an instant-kill combo gets whined about in pvp.  Never mind that these combos generally require top end equipment (durr..what are we busting our asses for equipment for anyway, when if we get too good, they'll just nerf us?) and often a lot of luck.  Never mind they added in Resilience specifically to counteract massive critical hit strings, they're wanting to nerf paladins because people that don't have enough of the right equipment to pvp in are whining about it.  Seriously, there should be a rule - if you don't have a decent amount of Stamina and Resilience, you don't get to whine about being killed too fast in PvP.

As for priests and vampiric embrace...it becomes a problem because the healing is a percentage of their DPS and as DPS goes up, the healing VE adds gets bigger.  Unfortunately, nerfing the base healing to 15% from 20% isn't going to address the percieved problem, it's going to delay it for a while.  Not to mention it nerfs every priest out there, when again, the 'problem' is with priests with 1200+ or so spell damage that are putting out such huge dps that their vampiric embrace is actually a significant amount of healing.  VE's healing should simply scale down past a certain soft-cap on spell damage, which would address the percieved problem without hurting the 95% of priests who don't have that much spell damage equipment.  Not to mention that again, I don't see how this is a problem in the first place.  If you work hard to get the best equipment, logic suggests you should actually be better for it.  Speaking of scaling and priests, on an unrelated topic...Power Word: Shield becomes more useless the higher level you go, since it shields a fixed amount of damage that does not scale with +Healing gear (or anything at all).

-Do you honestly think that we believe ourselves evil? My friend, we seek only good. It's just that our definitions don't quite match.-
Ailanreanter, Arcanaloth
Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9171


Reply #12 on: February 28, 2007, 07:40:16 AM

I don't know how you can compare paladins to classes like rogues or mages, paladins are not a dps class and their dps shouldn't come close to either of classes under any circumstance.  Its not the devs who have lost track of what the purpose of each class is, a class that can TANK and HEAL complaining about their sub par dps simply needs to stfu and take their nerf.  Paladin dps wasnt too high compared to rogues or mages or hunters, it was too high for paladins.  Yes, it was, deal with it.  Druids are also taking a huge nerf in their dps, much more so than either palis or priests.

I am the .00000001428%
Miasma
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5283

Stopgap Measure


Reply #13 on: February 28, 2007, 07:53:11 AM

Quote
Paladins are also great at farming, as they can fight lots and lots of mobs at the same time, and they don't have to drink often either, because good use of Seal of Wisdom tends to keep mana flowing mid-battle.  But they don't kill that fast.

I don't understand how paladins can be good at farming if they kill slowly, that seems at odds.  I'd be interested in making a paladin because they can heal quite well but now that I'm leveling beside so many of them for the first time (I play horde) it looks absolutely painful to level one.  As a priest I'm not exactly the fastest soloer but even I manage to kill two or three mobs while the paladin is still working on their first, I see a lot of Paladins killing stuff in duos so that they can actually have a decent kill rate.
ajax34i
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2527


Reply #14 on: February 28, 2007, 08:09:14 AM

I don't understand how paladins can be good at farming if they kill slowly, that seems at odds. 

Heh, well, the one situation where how fast you kill doesn't matter that much, but being able to survive (unexpected) adds does, is when your walking algorithms tend to walk you into mobs often, and then your bot needs to deal with that without you having to come back from afk.
Simond
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6742


Reply #15 on: February 28, 2007, 08:10:17 AM

Prot-spec pally + good sword + good shield + good shield spike + social, non-ranged mobs = Near-endless PBAOE

"You're really a good person, aren't you? So, there's no path for you to take here. Go home. This isn't a place for someone like you."
Polysorbate80
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2044


Reply #16 on: February 28, 2007, 08:56:56 AM

Paladins are designed to tank in the middle of a pack of mobs.  I'm more effective with a pack of 3-5 mobs hitting me than I am with just one.

When I am restricted to one at a time--which is what I usually have to do for casters--it turns into a painful and mind-numbing experience.

Be aware that this PvE goodness does *NOT* translate well to PvP, unless the enemy is very stupid.  Or a rogue or warrior.

“Why the fuck would you ... ?” is like 80% of the conversation with Poly — Chimpy
Driakos
Terracotta Army
Posts: 400


Reply #17 on: February 28, 2007, 09:33:34 AM

I don't understand how paladins can be good at farming if they kill slowly, that seems at odds. 

It's easier to generate Reckoning when more things are hitting you.  Plus what the other folk said.  Shield spike, consecration, retribution aura, all that.

oh god how did this get here I am not good with computer
CassandraR
Terracotta Army
Posts: 75


Reply #18 on: February 28, 2007, 09:34:16 AM

I don't know how you can compare paladins to classes like rogues or mages, paladins are not a dps class and their dps shouldn't come close to either of classes under any circumstance.  Its not the devs who have lost track of what the purpose of each class is, a class that can TANK and HEAL complaining about their sub par dps simply needs to stfu and take their nerf.  Paladin dps wasnt too high compared to rogues or mages or hunters, it was too high for paladins.  Yes, it was, deal with it.  Druids are also taking a huge nerf in their dps, much more so than either palis or priests.

Retribution is the Paladin damage tree. If you invest most of your points in it and gear with your talent spec in mind then you cannot heal or tank worth shit. You go out of mana -very- quickly if you start throwing heals and don't even come close to having enough mitigation to do more then off-tank the occasional single trash mob in non-heroic instances. So yes they should be able to put out good damage because they give up effectiveness in every other area for the ability.
Dren
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2419


Reply #19 on: February 28, 2007, 09:38:21 AM

I can clear an area with my Rogue much quicker and safer than with my Paladin.  Yes, it takes more attention and care, but there is no comparison.  If you want a class that can walk into a group of mobs and just start wailing away, then yes, the Paladin will win out.  You just keep cycling through your blessings, judgements, etc. to keep yourself alive.  However, using those skills and talents that keep you alive severely depresses your damage output, so it will take longer.

Hell, if they took the spikes out and made their overall damage more even, but higher than it is now, I'd take that.

I play my Paladin as a tank and backup healer anyway, so it doesn't matter to me.  For Paladins that are trying to PvP, this is death.  Solo PvE is already really bad, so I guess this doesn't affect it much.  When I say "bad," I mean slow.  Yes you can take on elites and huge odds, but it is still mind numbingly slooooooow.
Dren
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2419


Reply #20 on: February 28, 2007, 09:44:39 AM

I don't know how you can compare paladins to classes like rogues or mages, paladins are not a dps class and their dps shouldn't come close to either of classes under any circumstance.  Its not the devs who have lost track of what the purpose of each class is, a class that can TANK and HEAL complaining about their sub par dps simply needs to stfu and take their nerf.  Paladin dps wasnt too high compared to rogues or mages or hunters, it was too high for paladins.  Yes, it was, deal with it.  Druids are also taking a huge nerf in their dps, much more so than either palis or priests.

Retribution is the Paladin damage tree. If you invest most of your points in it and gear with your talent spec in mind then you cannot heal or tank worth shit. You go out of mana -very- quickly if you start throwing heals and don't even come close to having enough mitigation to do more then off-tank the occasional single trash mob in non-heroic instances. So yes they should be able to put out good damage because they give up effectiveness in every other area for the ability.

I agree.  When I was Ret specced, I only had mana for damage output.  I would pour all of my mana out during a fight and end it quickly, but only have enough left to pop a heal.  Then I'd sit and drink.  Even with Ret spec you have to use all of your powers/talents available to get your damage up to par with other damage dealers. (Well not even up to par...but in the same league at least.)

I suppose that would be the way a PvP'er would go to get any results, but for the rest of the game, that tree sucks.  I see this nerf as a PvP only demand that the non-PvP crowd is just gonna have to eat.  The only good thing is that those that aren't specced in Ret won't be affected nearly as much.  They weren't relying on crits to begin with.
Alkiera
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1556

The best part of SWG was the easy account cancellation process.


Reply #21 on: February 28, 2007, 10:04:38 AM

I don't know how you can compare paladins to classes like rogues or mages, paladins are not a dps class and their dps shouldn't come close to either of classes under any circumstance.  Its not the devs who have lost track of what the purpose of each class is, a class that can TANK and HEAL complaining about their sub par dps simply needs to stfu and take their nerf.  Paladin dps wasnt too high compared to rogues or mages or hunters, it was too high for paladins.  Yes, it was, deal with it.  Druids are also taking a huge nerf in their dps, much more so than either palis or priests.

Retribution is the Paladin damage tree. If you invest most of your points in it and gear with your talent spec in mind then you cannot heal or tank worth shit. You go out of mana -very- quickly if you start throwing heals and don't even come close to having enough mitigation to do more then off-tank the occasional single trash mob in non-heroic instances. So yes they should be able to put out good damage because they give up effectiveness in every other area for the ability.

Warning: N00b statements may follow...

Comments like the above amuse me.  Looking at talent trees, the vast majority of the improvements are between 3-12% of base values.  Even if some of them synergize, and allowing for new spells/powers gained from the tree, being fully spec'd in tree A is maybe a 15-20% improvement in that aspect of your character.  Other aspects are only missing that 15-20%, and since at the high end you generally don't want all the talents in a single tree, you can often get a good 5-10% of the improvements in a second aspect.

So your talent spec has relatively little to do with how well you heal/tank/DPS (for a pally, or a druid for that matter).  I would think that the vast, vast majority of the difference is equipment.  The reason you'll run out of mana if your gear is DPS based is because you don't have the +int to have a big mana pool, not because you're missing the +12% to heal effects talent.  Your tanking ability has suffered because you're all +str/agi with a 2-handed weapon, instead of having a shield like someone who doesn't want to get hit.

In short, equipment >>> talents.  This is what makes me laugh when I see 'oh, you're X-spec, you can't Y!'  Of course I can, I just swap out a few pieces of equipment and I can Y just fine.  Just maybe 10-15% worse than someone who is fully spec'd as Y... and short of raids or Heroic instances, that's usually Just Fine.

--
Alkiera

"[I could] become the world's preeminent MMO class action attorney.  I could be the lawyer EVEN AMBULANCE CHASERS LAUGH AT. " --Triforcer

Welcome to the internet. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used as evidence against you in a character assassination on Slashdot.
Morfiend
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6009

wants a greif tittle


Reply #22 on: February 28, 2007, 10:23:16 AM


So your talent spec has relatively little to do with how well you heal/tank/DPS (for a pally, or a druid for that matter). 
--
Alkiera

This is so very wrong. Talent spec has a LOT to do with how well you can heal or tank. I would say its about 50/50 spec and gear. Yes, a ret pally can heal well if he is in all healing gear, but not close to what a holy pally can do. Same for a druid tanking or healing. They can do it, but watching a resto druid try and tank a heroic or a ret pally try and heal one is painful.
CassandraR
Terracotta Army
Posts: 75


Reply #23 on: February 28, 2007, 10:33:16 AM

I did mention gear in my original post but for a Paladin Retribution is a large damage upgrade. Seal of Command and Crusader Strike provide about 13 or so extra attacks a minute that bypass mitigation. And when you are using a huge two-hander thats at least half if not more of your damage output.
Polysorbate80
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2044


Reply #24 on: February 28, 2007, 10:43:15 AM

The best part about the paladin nerfs?  Griefing your own side.

The 1-minute post-bubble effect cuts all your DPS output by 15% on test.  Use it to fuck with people in your group/raid/battleground who won't stop annoying you by casting it on them every chance you get.  Fun times!

"No, I'm not healing you, and if you don't STFU about it I'm bubbling your whiny bitch ass!"

“Why the fuck would you ... ?” is like 80% of the conversation with Poly — Chimpy
Chenghiz
Terracotta Army
Posts: 868


Reply #25 on: February 28, 2007, 12:12:54 PM

Quote
The 1-minute post-bubble effect cuts all your DPS output by 15% on test.
That isn't going live. Linkie.

Look, paladins were generally fine because they were fucking hard to kill but didn't do as much damage. Now a paladin is fucking hard to kill and kills me quickly. That is why there is a problem. If that is due to one spec, well, nerf that one spec. Great. I don't know much about pallies (mine is level 8 ) but I fight them a lot.
Alkiera
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1556

The best part of SWG was the easy account cancellation process.


Reply #26 on: February 28, 2007, 01:07:43 PM


So your talent spec has relatively little to do with how well you heal/tank/DPS (for a pally, or a druid for that matter). 
--
Alkiera

This is so very wrong. Talent spec has a LOT to do with how well you can heal or tank. I would say its about 50/50 spec and gear. Yes, a ret pally can heal well if he is in all healing gear, but not close to what a holy pally can do. Same for a druid tanking or healing. They can do it, but watching a resto druid try and tank a heroic or a ret pally try and heal one is painful.

So I'm looking at the pally Holy talent tree, stuff that affects healing ability.  We have:
1) a 10% bonus to Int(more mana)
2) 70% chance to not lose cast time on damage (shouldn't be getting hit, but eh.
3) 12% bonus to amount healed
4) Lay hands timer decrease (I forget what the full timer is, but it's long if they're taking 20 mins off it)
5) Blessing of Wisdom upgrade (more mana regen)
6) Total +11% chance to crit-heal?  (not sure that's right)
7) -.5 second off heal cast time on 2nd and later heals when chain healing.
8) bonus of 35% of Int to heal spells.

All that seems to boil down to +10% mana/mana regen,
Lower likelyhood of being interrupted when casting heals,
and a 12%+35% of Int added to heals, and a 20% casting haste on 2nd and later heals when chaining.
lvl 70 pally healing spell is ~2300 hp healed... +12% is ~276, 300 Int gives another +105.
So your talents are adding 381 hp healed to the biggest best heal you have...  From what I'm hearing of +dmg/heal gear in TBC, 380 is not too hard to get, but maybe that's only for cloth casters.

It's 40 points in Holy to get that benefit, when for 13 points you can get everything except the +105(from +35% of int) and the -.5 sec from consecutive heals.  You can get that and still be 41 pts into another tree.  Admittedly, I dunno how often you end up chain-healing at the high end, 20% less cast time might be a big benefit.  Just the +heal is close to the 20% bonus I claimed.  So maybe it's 25% better all told.  On the other hand, some of that is gear-dependant... if you're in a relatively low-int set, you're not gonna get the same beenfits from those high-end talents.  Whereas the good +int/+heal gear will work no matter what your spec, and a mere dip into Holy will get you a large chunk of the benefit.

Even at 25%, I still don't consider that a big deal outside of the very top end raids/instances, which I don't have much interest in anyway.  Getting to the top end as retribution or protection and switching to Holy will make you somewhat better at healing, but I posit that if you haven't got the gear to be a healer, or haven't practiced healing on the way up, you'll be a crappy healer.  Player Skill > Gear > Talents.  Just switching your spec isn't gonna make that big a deal.

--
Alkiera

"[I could] become the world's preeminent MMO class action attorney.  I could be the lawyer EVEN AMBULANCE CHASERS LAUGH AT. " --Triforcer

Welcome to the internet. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used as evidence against you in a character assassination on Slashdot.
Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9171


Reply #27 on: February 28, 2007, 01:14:08 PM

I don't know how you can compare paladins to classes like rogues or mages, paladins are not a dps class and their dps shouldn't come close to either of classes under any circumstance.  Its not the devs who have lost track of what the purpose of each class is, a class that can TANK and HEAL complaining about their sub par dps simply needs to stfu and take their nerf.  Paladin dps wasnt too high compared to rogues or mages or hunters, it was too high for paladins.  Yes, it was, deal with it.  Druids are also taking a huge nerf in their dps, much more so than either palis or priests.

Retribution is the Paladin damage tree. If you invest most of your points in it and gear with your talent spec in mind then you cannot heal or tank worth shit. You go out of mana -very- quickly if you start throwing heals and don't even come close to having enough mitigation to do more then off-tank the occasional single trash mob in non-heroic instances. So yes they should be able to put out good damage because they give up effectiveness in every other area for the ability.

You can still tank and heal tons better than a rogue or mage.  Your dps should not come close to the classes that can only do one thing, even if you spec for it.

I am the .00000001428%
Zetor
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3269


WWW
Reply #28 on: February 28, 2007, 01:19:23 PM

In your talent assessment, you didn't mention Illumination and Divine Favor. Those two talents ARE the reason holy pallies heal as good as they do [or rather, how they can keep going basically forever]. If you stack int and spellcrit, you'll have absolutely insane mana regen.
If you have the 70% interruption talent, you can stack it with concentration aura to make your heals uninterruptable by normal damage. So yeah, it's not really noticable in pve (though there are plenty of aoe attacks being thrown around), but without it you might as well forget healing in pvp.
Holy Shock gives holy paladins a ranged attack, something other builds lack [well prot gets avenger's shield at 41, but that's an aoe and has a casting time]. It can also work as an emergency heal.

Edit: otoh, it's quite true that the "best" and most versatile talents are very often near the top of the tree. This is true of almost all classes I can think of actually... Tactical Mastery for warriors, Inner Focus for priests, the crit% talents for rogues and warriors, etc etc. As you progress down the trees, you become extremely efficient at one aspect of the class, which is I guess the intended purpose (even though some 21 pointer talents are stronger than 41 pointers in other trees... kek). As a mage you could spec 50+ into arcane and focus completely on arcane-based damage, or put some into fire for crazy burst damage in pvp. Both are arcane-heavy builds, but play completely differently... anyway, this is a derail so I'll stop now. :P


-- Z.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2007, 01:25:19 PM by Zetor »

Jayce
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2647

Diluted Fool


Reply #29 on: February 28, 2007, 01:39:35 PM

%%%+++

I think this is the very definition of TheoryCraft.  I mean, how do you quantify 25% "better" in real world (so to speak) terms? This is why balance is HARD.  Not only do you have percents and time and +this and -that to worry about, you have to care about the interaction between multiple abilities and the general feel of the class.

One thing I was surprised by when I started playing WoW is how the talents all seemed so incremental.  I mean, +5% to (say) power word:shield? Who cares?  Where's the one WTFPWN talent to rule them all?  I never found it, but it turns out that all these little percents and plusses here and there, if you apply them in a synergistic way (which is why we have canned builds), end up being really powerful versus the baseline.

If you don't beleive me, unlearn all your talents and then go try to play :)

Witty banter not included.
Morfiend
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6009

wants a greif tittle


Reply #30 on: February 28, 2007, 03:21:29 PM

%%%+++

I think this is the very definition of TheoryCraft.  I mean, how do you quantify 25% "better" in real world (so to speak) terms? This is why balance is HARD.  Not only do you have percents and time and +this and -that to worry about, you have to care about the interaction between multiple abilities and the general feel of the class.

One thing I was surprised by when I started playing WoW is how the talents all seemed so incremental.  I mean, +5% to (say) power word:shield? Who cares?  Where's the one WTFPWN talent to rule them all?  I never found it, but it turns out that all these little percents and plusses here and there, if you apply them in a synergistic way (which is why we have canned builds), end up being really powerful versus the baseline.

If you don't beleive me, unlearn all your talents and then go try to play :)

Totally agree Jayce. At first I always thought wow, 3% here, and ohhhh look, 10% there. Would be no biggie, but those % really make a build different.
ajax34i
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2527


Reply #31 on: February 28, 2007, 03:52:39 PM

I also agree; you can see this in EVE, where the skills and modules also add only 5% but you end up with 200% bonuses when you put them all together.  Perhaps WoW doesn't go as far as EVE does, but I've seen threshold abilities, like spells becoming insta-cast, or that .5s reduction in the casting time for heals allowing you to beat druids to the punch, which pretty much forces them to abort most of their heals and thus become secondary healers whenever a priest is on the same tank as them.

On the other hand, though, I would never use the phrase "can't do X worth shit", or qualifiers like "huge improvement."
Alkiera
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1556

The best part of SWG was the easy account cancellation process.


Reply #32 on: February 28, 2007, 04:15:27 PM

I also agree; you can see this in EVE, where the skills and modules also add only 5% but you end up with 200% bonuses when you put them all together.  Perhaps WoW doesn't go as far as EVE does, but I've seen threshold abilities, like spells becoming insta-cast, or that .5s reduction in the casting time for heals allowing you to beat druids to the punch, which pretty much forces them to abort most of their heals and thus become secondary healers whenever a priest is on the same tank as them.

I guess I can see that.  Especially the threashold abilities, things like the talent that makes Warlock Corruption an instant, or for pallies, lets you use an aura to make your heals immune to interruption.  Or stuff like Ice Block or Pyroblast for mages, spells you just woulldn't have without the talents.

The other stuff, +2% per talent kinda things, I have a harder time seeing making a big difference.  Then again, a lot of these games is min/maxing, and a few % one way or the other can be just what is needed.

On the other hand, though, I would never use the phrase "can't do X worth shit", or qualifiers like "huge improvement."

This is mostly what my post was about.  I read those kind of statements and wonder if it's true, or just hyperbole?  I mean, stuff like 'Feral druids can't heal worth crap' is obviously false.  They have the same heal spells a Resto druid does, they just aren't as fast or efficient or effective.  They aren't as good as a priest, duh, but they aren't supposed to be as good as a priest even when spec'd to Restoration, at least when it comes down to really tough healing situations.  Anyone with 'healing' as part of the class description can manage in a random 5-man if they have half a clue.  Priest, pally, shaman, druid.  It's only for the over-difficult tasks where everyone is forced to be an uber-specialist that the extra few % improvements from talents really come into play, and I don't find those events to be nearly as interesting as those allowing for more generalized characters.

I play a druid for this reason, I want the variability.  I wanna start the run doing DPS, shift to helping offtank a bad pull, and then shift again to heal when the normal healer is out of mana.  That is way more fun, to me, than repeatedly mashing assist and then the 'OMG FIREBALL O DOOM' key.  It's also not very compatible with raids, but oh well.

--
Alkiera

"[I could] become the world's preeminent MMO class action attorney.  I could be the lawyer EVEN AMBULANCE CHASERS LAUGH AT. " --Triforcer

Welcome to the internet. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used as evidence against you in a character assassination on Slashdot.
Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075

Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #33 on: February 28, 2007, 04:32:29 PM

As a warrior, gear will always be first, but spec plays a much bigger part now than it ever did before. Perhaps paladins are different in this respect, but I know for certain druids, warlocks, hunters, and priests vary widely on spec.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021


Reply #34 on: February 28, 2007, 07:48:43 PM

Burst DPS != Sustained DPS.

Thus, "OMG NERF DPS HOW? WE HAVE CRAPPY SUSTAINED DPS!!!" is a silly argument to make.

Also, shadow priests are currently NUTS and need the VE and threat nerf.
Pages: [1] 2 Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  World of Warcraft  |  Topic: Reality, it's a subjective thing, at least for WoW developers.  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC