Burning Crusade Paladins: Protection

Blizzard has released some of the new spells and talents in the expansion. I'm going to take a look at each tree and give some thoughts on the new spells and talents. I'm going to start with Protection.

Spells:

Righteous Defense
Come to the defense of a friendly target, commanding up to 3 enemies attacking the target to attack the Paladin instead.

The AoE taunt. Looks solid. Pretty good for our role of "protectors of the cloth". If you enable Target-of-Target, it will be trivial to use to taunt a specific mob as well.

Seal of Justice - Rank 2
Fills the Paladin with the spirit of justice for 30 sec, giving each melee attack a chance to stun for 2 sec. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy for 10 sec, preventing them from fleeing and limiting their movement speed. Your melee strikes will refresh the spell's duration. Only one Judgement per Paladin can be active at any one time.

The new Seal of Justice depends a great deal on what "limiting their movement speed" means. If it's an out and out reduction in speed, like Hamstring, this is a great boost. However, it's also possible that it just means that you can't use speed boost abilities to increase your speed past 100%. In that case, it's a small boost, but may be useful with your own permanent speed increases like Pursuit of Justice. Hopefully the side effect of being immune to Fear while affected by Judgement of Justice has been removed.

Talents

Stoicism
Increases your resistance to Stun effects by an additional 10% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by an additional 30%.

This is a decent 2pt PvP talent. Nothing amazing, but the anti-dispel is nice as purge-happy shamans are annoying.

Improved Resistance Auras
Your Resistance Auras also reduce all spell damage taken by an additional 5%.

This is an all-star talent. 2pts for 5% less damage is really good.

Improved Divine Shield
Reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield spell by 1 min and reduces the attack speed penalty by 100%.

LOL. Sometimes, I love Blizzard. Everyone complains about paladin bubbles, so they give us a talent that makes them even better. Again, much more useful in PvP than PvE.

Ardent Defender
When you have less than 20% health, all damage taken is reduced by 50%.

Now this is an intriguing talent. The paladin boards seem to disdain this talent, but I think it may be good for tanking. The key to this talent is to ask, if I am tanking, when will I be at less than 20% health?

Given that most bosses do steady dps and additional spike damage in the form of special abilities, if you drop to less than 20% health, it probably means that you were just critted by a special ability. In that case, Redoubt will proc and combined with Holy Shield, means that you probably push criticals off the combat table, meaning the next few attacks will not crit. So blocks and half damage should be enough to buy your healers the few seconds they need to complete their big heals.

However, I'm not really sure how this will work in actual play, and it will be very interesting to watch. In PvP, I don't think it will help all that much. It might buy you one or two seconds, but I don't think it will be worth the 5 points for a primary PvP'er, give that you might get dropped from 30% to 0% quite easily, and this talent will do nothing to help.

Weapon Expertise
Increases your weapon skill with all weapons by 10.

Decent talent. Reduces the number of glancing blows and misses against end-game bosses, which will help a lot in generating threat. Again, mainly PvE.

Avenger's Shield
Hurls a holy shield at the enemy, dealing 270 to 330 Holy damage, dazing them and then jumping to nearby enemies. Affects 3 total targets.

The Captain America move! If this talent has a half-way decent animation, I am probably going to spec Protection. This is everything a 41-point talent should be. Fun, unique, and stylish. And it dazes people! Which means you use it to slow runners.

Actually, let's be honest, I'm going to be using this whenever the cooldown is up. About the only downside is that you can't use it to pull. Although you are a Protection Paladin, so pulling 3 mobs at a time isn't that big a deal.

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My final verdict is that the new Protection tree is very good. The mid-level has been fleshed out with useful talents, and the end talents are solid. Plus you get to throw your shield at people! The only real downside is that the first tier of Protection is still a little lackluster, especially compared to Holy or Retribution.

Patch 1.12 Experiences

I haven't had a lot of time to play WoW in the last week or so. I did take a quick look at some of the new things in the latest patch.

• World PvP - seems interesting. Probably will be a lot more fun on a PvP server. Nothing much was happening on Skywall when I checked in. In EPL, the Alliance had already capped all the towers. It's going to really hard for me to complete the 'Capture the Towers' quest at this rate.


• Cross-server Battlegrounds - Awesome. Wait times have plummeted Alliance-side. I hear it's a little buggy, but it seemed to be working well enough.


• Battleground Improvements - The automatic raids is really nice. I'm actually seeing some leadership from the highest ranked people in the BGs, and that is a vast improvement. And I don't have to worry about healing or Blessing of Sacrificing non-raid members.


• Scrolling Combat Text - Pretty good. Looks like a nice, clean implementation. The one item of info I really miss, however, is the amount you healed someone else for, with the overheal separated out. That was a really useful piece of information.


• Seal of the Crusader - SotC is currently bugged like crazy. It's giving me slightly more than double the amount of bonus Attack Power that it gave pre-1.12. I think that it is adding some +AP bonuses twice. Ah well, should be fun until Blizzard fixes it.

All in all, it was a pretty small patch. Maybe this means that the expansion is not far off.

Options for Raid Guilds

A lot of existing raid guilds are worried because the new raid cap means that they will have to change their structure to meet the new requirements. Here is a listing of the options as I see them.

1. Stop recruiting and let attrition reduce the guild size.

All guilds suffer attrition. People leave for real life or other options. During the levelling from 60-70, you'll probably have some natural attrition, decreasing the numbers in the guild. This might leave you at the proper size, and it might not. If it doesn't, you'll have to use one of the other options

2. Cut the weakest people in the guild.

Identify your weakest players and cut them. This gets you down to the required size, and preserves the strongest part of your guild. However, it's painful to have to leave your friends. As well, this decision is ruthless and may cause a lot of drama.

3. Recruit more and run two raids.

If you recruit a few more people, you will have enough to run two raids. However, running two raids is a lot of administrative work. Splitting people up into an "A" Team and a "B" Team may also cause bad feelings, as people on the "B" Team will feel slighted.

This might be interesting in a winged dungeon, though. Team A could work on one wing, and Team B could work on another wing. The two raids could swap strategies as they defeat bosses, making it easier for the other team.

4. Introduce rotations.

Instead of each person raiding 5 nights a week, each person raids 4 nights, allowing everyone to raid, though at a lesser rate than previous. The advantage is that everyone remains together. Some people may dislike sitting out, though. Progression will also be much slower, as it will take longer to gear everyone up and for everyone to learn the encounters.

5. Set up an Guild Arena PvP team.

Take 4-10 people who like PvP and set them up as an Arena team. While the rest of the guild raids, the Arena team goes out and PvPs. Then when a PvP season ends, the Arena team takes their new toys and is folded back into the raiding team, and a new PvP team is set up.

Advantage is that the people who are not raiding are doing their own thing. They are upholding the guild name and reputation on the battlefield. As well, it provides a nice opportunity for people to experience PvP as a solid team. It gives people an opportunity to mix things up. Hardcore raid for a while, then hardcore PvP. There may be a hiccup in guild quality at the end of each season as people come back to the raiding group, as you have to gear and train the PvP'ers.

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Personally, I think I would go with a mixture of attrition and PvP Arena teams. I think it would be the easiest, depending on the length of a PvP season. It gives people an opportunity to try different things and get different gear. Also, it'll give your raiders a chance to go off-spec, and indulge their inner Shadow Priest/Feral Druid/etc. to their heart's content.

As well, I am quite partial to the notion of having a team specifically carry the guild banner in PvP. A good guild has to maintain a certain reputation after all.

Thoughts? Any other ideas on what a raiding guild should do?

25-Man Raids

Time to take on the current hot topic in WoW circles: the new 25-man raid cap.

Unsurprisingly, I think this is a good idea. I have always maintained that the single hardest thing about raiding is the transition from levelling guild to raiding guild. Reducing the number of 60s required is a great help for a new guild to achieve critical mass. I think this change will go a long way to seeing more people trying out the raiding scene, and I think that it is a good thing.

Raiding is fun, and I would love to see more players get a chance to realize that.

Secondly, I don't think the current raiding ecosystem is healthy. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but it doesn't seem like raiding guilds are particularly stable, especially ones that are not on the top tier. There's been some research that beyond 50 people, guild cohesion drops dramatically. I think this is true. Smaller guilds are more tightly knit. Even the top tier guilds seem to be constantly recruiting.

Also, this division into raiding guild and levelling guild is not healthy either. When I levelled my warlock, I deliberately turned down guild invites. I wanted to raid, and I didn't want to join a guild and then leave them at 60 for a raiding guild. Realistically though--unless I was incredibly lucky--that is probably what I would have to do. I think a game that forces this choice on people is flawed. Ideally, I should be able to join a guild, level with them, and move into raiding together. With 40-man raids, I do not think this is truely possible.

However, there is a price to pay for this change, and I don't think that we should make light of it. The current raiding guilds are going to have to change, and maybe make some painful decisions. And I do feel bad for them. It will really suck to have to reduce your raiding force by 15 members, or attempt to juggle 2 raids. Hopefully, guild churn during the expansion--either attrition while levelling or older players coming back or people rolling Blood Elves/Draenai--will lessen the magnitude of change needed.

In my view, though, the new cap will result in many more guilds and players attempting and using raid content, and so the price is worth paying.

A Bad Explorer

Continuing the discussion of Bartle Player Types.

I think a bad Explorer is one who hoards knowledge, and delights in seeing other people fail because they lack it.

Blood Elf Paladins and Faction Imbalance

It looks like I was wrong about Horde Paladins and Alliance Shamans being a joke. Too bad. While this move does solve the mechanical imbalance between the two factions, it does so in the least elegant way possible. (Not to mention that the whining has already started about racial abilities.) I'm kind of disappointed in Blizzard, and I still think that making the two sides less unique is a bad move in the long term.

However, a more interesting question is whether this move (and Blood Elves/Draenai in general) will solve the more pressing problem of numerical imbalance. In many ways, the Horde's biggest problem in raiding is lack of numbers. The Alliance has a much bigger pool of recruits to sustain the raiding guilds, and high end Alliance guilds have the option of feeding on lower guilds. But why is there an imbalance in the first place?

If you look at this article at PlayOn, you can see that the Alliance:Horde ratio stays fairly steady. However, there is a significant difference between server types. On PvE/RP servers, the ratio is 2 Alliance for every 1 Horde. But on a PvP server, the ration is 1 Alliance for every 1 Horde. Why is there such a difference?

I think the explanation lies in the Bartle player types. Killers are far more likely to roll on a PvP server. After all, their entire reason to play is to challenge and defeat other players, and PvP offers far more opportunity for that than PvE. So the difference in Alliance:Horde ratios can be explained with the theory that Killers are more likely to roll Horde than non-Killers.

This sort of makes intuitive sense as well. The Horde races project power. They are larger and more brutish. While not precisely evil, they are more likely to be the 'monster' races in other games. So it's kind of natural that a Killer would gravitate towards the Horde.

So why don't the non-Killers like the Horde? There are several possible explanations:

1. Alliance has better PvE racials that attract the Achiever. While this is true, it's very subtle, and really only raises it's head at level 60. As well, the ratios are very steady, and if this was strictly true, we should see the ratio for Alliance rising as more Achievers switch over. Instead, the steady ratio indicates to me that new players are making characters at the same ratio, before they really understand the mechanics.

2. Alliance races are prettier and do not project power. Perhaps non-Killers prefer playing prettier races. In the case of the Socializer, it may be deliberate to get away from Killers.

3. Non-Killers prefer to play the 'good guys'. Maybe a greater amount of people would prefer to what are normally the good guys, rather than the bad guys. As well, the Alliance has Paladins, which are viewed as extremely good characters.

It could also be a combination of things. As well, a lot of people simply follow their friends, so one person who feels strongly about race could influence the choice of a whole bunch of people. My first character was Horde, and I made it because an Achiever friend was playing Horde, and he made his because a Killer friend insisted on playing Horde. One Killer made a choice that dragged multiple Achievers and Explorers along.

But in any case, the important question is 'Can Blood Elves attract a greater portion of non-Killers to the Horde?'

I am not too sure of the answer. Blood Elves are clearly a 'pretty' race, so that may hold a greater attraction. But their racials appear to be more PvP oriented. And a greater mistake may be that they are evil in the mythos. They have paladins, but the paladins are 'evil' paladins (torturing an angel/Naaru and whatnot). If the motivator to play Alliance is to play the good guys, the Blood Elves don't help in that regard.

The problem is that it is fairly obvious why the Horde is more attractive to Killers. But it is less obvious why the Alliance is more attractive to non-Killers, and that will make a huge difference in whether the expansion numerically balances the two factions.

Personally, I would have made the Blood Elves an obviously 'good' race, and if they had paladins, to make the paladins truely good paladins. (The Lore, as Blizzard has proven, is fairly easy to manipulate.) At the same time, the Draenai could have been left as their original evil-ish selves. That way, the people who want to play the good side end up on Horde, in addition to the people looking at mechanics and racial looks.

Bartle's Players Who Suit Muds

I'm working on a rather long post, and I find that I need to provide background information. So rather than trying to work it into the post, I'm talking about it here. Plus, it's an interesting topic in and of itself.

Dr. Richard Bartle wrote a paper, Players Who Suit Muds, back in 1990. Though taken from old-school text muds, a lot of it is still relevant today.

In his paper, Dr. Bartle divides players into four categories:

Achievers - people seek to beat the game, by amassing loot or gear or killing bosses.

Explorers - people who try and find out as much about the game as possible.

Socializers - people who's main interests are in interacting with other players.

Killers - people who seek to defeat other players.

Of course, this is a bit simplistic, as most people have elements of each of the four player types. But usually one style is dominant.

For example, I'm pretty close to pure Explorer, as I'm pretty sure most of my posts have demonstrated. I get my enjoyment from learning about the game, doing new things, and seeing what makes things tick. I do have a bit of Achiever, as I like getting new loot, but I'm pretty far down on the Socializer or Killer scale.

Also, none of these archetypes are inherently good or bad. Your awesome raid leader is an Achiever, the guy who comes up with useful new strategies or advice is an Explorer, the guildmaster who holds the guild together is a Socializer, the best PvP'er in the battleground is a Killer. Loot whores are bad Achievers, drama queens are bad Socializers, griefers are bad Killers. I'm not entirely sure what a bad Explorer would be, maybe someone who refuses to help with old content.

Dr. Bartle's paper is a very interesting read, as he describes the different types in more detail, and the effect each type has on the others. I found that I could look at the personalities and arguments in the game in a different light. Of course, since I am an Explorer, this is the kind of stuff that appeals to me. :)

So which archetype are you?

Ninja!

I had my first real ninja yesterday. I was on a Strat Live run, and [Pattern: Truefaith Vestments] dropped. As there was no priest in the group, we decided to free roll it. After the roll, which I won, a warlock looted the pattern and hearthed.

So I contacted an officer in his guild. It turned out that it was the warlock's brother who was playing the character, and the real warlock sent me some gold in an effort to make up for the ninja, which I shared with the other group members. It's possible that he could have been lying, but I didn't really care.

Apparently the warlock was a tailor, and the warlock's brother learned the pattern for him, which amused me greatly.

All in all, it was an interesting experience. In my mind, it just reinforces the notion that the whole "pass on blues and epics and discuss" is a bad idea. Need/Greed takes care of the vast majority of cases.

As another random observation, the group was really competent for a pickup group. I think dropping the instance cap to 5 has done a lot of good for people's skill levels.

Nefarian, Lord of Blackrock Spire

I've been killing a lot of new bosses these last couple days. Yesterday we downed the Prophet Skeram in AQ40, and got in some attempts on Battleguard Sartura. Today we blew through Blackwing Lair, one-shotting every boss up to Nefarian. Nef himself took two attempts, but he went down nicely on the second one.

Of the new fights, the Nefarian fight was probably the best, followed by Skeram. Vael was pretty interesting, but I got Burning Adrenaline fairly early and died. I was sad that Vael did not do the "Forgive me Coriel, your death only adds to my failure" line, as I probably died too close to an earlier death. But still, it's a neat fight, and I always like fighting dragons.

As for Nef, it's fun being a paladin. I don't have an Onyxia Scale Cloak, but I survived the Shadowflame with a bubble. Also, the paladin class call is a joke. So we stop fighting for a few seconds, it's not that much of a problem. Nef should Hammer of Justice the main tank or something. That would be funny.

Also, I got to melee-heal a fair bit in the last half of BWL: Ebonroc, Chromaggus, and Nefarian. Meleeing on Chromaggus in particular is very helpful, as JoWisdom helps keep the mana up for Cleanse. We had the Timelapse/Corrosive Acid breaths. I really wish I had a single point in Lasting Judgement, though. It would make keeping up Judgements so much easier.

So far, my verdict on BWL is that it is extremely melee-friendly for paladins, as is Skeram and everything up to Sartura. The Sartura fight itself, I'm not so sure about. Paladins meleeing with Seal of Justice, and HoJ rotations might be a good idea, at least on Sartura herself. The AoE from the adds may be too much. Most strats I've seen keep the rogues off the adds, and if the rogues don't go in, it's probably a bad idea for the paladins to. In any case, I think it was only the guild's second attempt at her, so we were basically just learning how the fight works.

Of course, I predict responses saying that paladins should not melee in anything beyond Sartura. It's amusing how the "Paladins Should Not Melee" parts of this game always coincide with the parts I have not done yet. :)

Ah well. It's been a fun couple of days. Hopefully I'll get a chance to kill Ragnaros sometime soon.

Ossiran the Unscarred

I got into an AQ20 run with the prospective guild today. They had already cleared the first couple of bosses, so we pretty much went straight to the final boss, Ossiran the Unscarred. Ossiran is a really cool fight.

There are these crystals which weaken him which spawn in semi-random places in the room. You have to have someone find the next crystal, then the tanks drag him to it, and activate it before he goes into supreme mode and wipes the raid. Everytime you weaken him with a crystal, he becomes extra vulnerable to a specific type of damage. (There are also whirlwinds flying around, but I'm not really sure I understand what that was about.)

It's a cool fight because there is a lot of running around. The raid is constantly trying to keep themselves between Ossiran and the next crystal. It kind of reminds me a bit of Warsong Gulch, and the way you need to heal the flag carrier as she runs past you.

Quite honestly, I love the 20-man zones. Blizzard really outdid themselves here. If the expansion was all 20-mans, with this level of quality, I think this would be the perfect game. It's especially good for hybrids, because there's a lot more opportunity to shift roles. I did some judging, some melee, and some healing (though mostly healing on Ossiran).

Oh, and I got epix! Ossiran dropped [Mantle of the Horusath], and I won the roll! I love getting loot the first time I beat a fight. Somehow it makes it more special.

Honestly, these days are what make WoW fun. An interesting fight, the thrill of victory, and mad lootz. What more can you ask for?

Influence of the Lead Guild

One of the interesting things about Skywall, at least compared to the other servers I have been on, is that the endgame guilds do not have spec requirements. They also have very low gear requirements. Additionally very few of them have extensive loot restrictions. The majority that I've looked at have open loot, but frown on passing on set pieces, or will force people to take them.

This is very different than many of my previous servers. Off-specs, like feral druids or shadow priests, are disdained, and many guilds require people to have a certain spec. Additionally, high end guilds tended to have very high gear requirements, especially when it came to resistances. Finally, class restrictions on gear were the norm, especially when it comes to dps vs hybrid gear.

So why is Skywall different? I think it's mostly due to the influence of the lead guild on the server. The lead guild, or the guild that has advanced the most in the end game, is a guild called Rebirth. Rebirth believes very strongly in the viability of off-specs in raiding. Additionally, their gear requirements are pretty low, though they are very discriminating in actually guilding people after trials. And they don't seem to have loot restrictions.

The lead guild, in many ways, sets the tone for the server. A classical economist might say that this is because of competition. A lower guild cannot set higher requirements than the lead guild, because that would drive better players towards the lead guild.

I'm not sure that is quite right. A lot of guilds have spec/gear/loot restrictions because the guild believes that it is necessary for progression. They get the idea that it is necessary from the lead guild. An appeal to authority, as it were. If the lead guild requires specs, than we probably should as well. People try to imitate people who are successful.

On Skywall though, Rebirth serves as a counter-example. Guilds that want to be successful on Skywall try to imitate Rebirth, and that means that they tend to avoid spec/gear/loot restrictions.

One interesting area where lower guilds do not follow the lead guild is loot systems. The fact that a lead guild uses a specific loot system doesn't seem to influence the lower guilds. Each guild seems to come up with it's own system, and what the other guilds do has less impact. Every server I have been on displays this pattern.

My guess is that the loot system is evaluated on fairness as well as progression, and people feel more able to evaluate fairness than progression. If you ask, "Does having off-specs help us to progress?", you can point to the lead guild for evidence. But if you ask, "Is this loot system fair?", the answer hinges much more on the internal structure of the loot system than what the lead guild does.

In conclusion, the lead guild has a lot of influence on progression-related matters. If a question relates to progression, very often a guild's answer will be the same as the lead guild's answer. However, if the question moves away from progression, the lead guild's influence lessens dramatically.

Blackwing Lair

I switched servers with Coriel again, this time to Skywall. Skywall is a PST server, so guild raid times are a lot more convenient for me. I've applied to a raiding guild, and today they took me on a run to Blackwing Lair.

Blackwing Lair is pretty neat. We wiped several times on Razorgore, but then killed him. I sat out Vael for one of their guildies, but got back in for the Suppression Room and Broodlord. We then killed Firemaw, and called it a night. I forget what loot dropped, but none of it was useful for paladins.

The fights are pretty interesting. I mostly healed, spamming FoL Ranks 1 or 6. I like the Suppression Room. When I got back in, I wasn't assigned a Greater Blessing, so I got to go nuts with Blessing of Sacrifice and Blessing of Protection (the 3 minute cooldown is really useful while running the gauntlet). Sacrifice really adds up. I almost killed myself a couple times as I had Sacrifices on eight or so targets. After that I tried to be more discriminating. :)

I still think that meleeing-healing is the way to go, though. Honestly, I don't think I ever fell below half mana, and I'm sure I had significant overhealing. And my gear is under-par. Rather than spamming FoL-1, melee-healing with FoL-6 still seems to be a much more efficient use of a paladin. It may be that this raid was geared more than normal, or more experienced, but I don't think the full potential of the paladins is being realized. Nothing in this half of BWL has made me reconsider the notion that paladins should be meleeing.

So far, I really like BWL, and hopefully I will get to see more of it. It's much more interesting and chaotic than Molten Core. I also kind of regret missing the Vael fight, as it's supposed to be quite unique.

I Call Shenanigans

I'll go out on a limb and declare the Blood Elf Paladin/Draenei Shaman a practical joke by the Blizzard team.

If both factions are the same, you cut down replayability of this game. If you decrease replayability, you reduce the length of time a player spends subscribed to WoW. If people are subscribed for a shorter time, Blizzard makes less money.

Right now, if a player tires of playing Alliance, they can roll Horde. Because the Horde have Shamans, the experience of the game, both in PvE and PvP, is different for each faction. If both factions have all classes, there is much less incentive to roll a new character, and more incentive to simply quit.

The majority of players do not raid, and thus are unaffected by faction imbalance. Solving faction imbalance in a way which reduces replayability for the majority of subscribers will negatively affect Blizzard's bottom line.

MMO's require subscriber retention. It is their entire reason for being. I believe there is no way any sane cost/benefit analysis would show that improving high-end raiding balance is worth the cost of decreased length of subscription time for a majority of the players.

That's just the financial reasons. I'm not even going to get into the damage this move would do to Blizzard's reputation as the masters of faction balance (see StarCraft).

Or the shattering of the balance of the 1-59 game, which most people believe is superior to the raiding game. Seriously, it's already hard enough finding a primary healer for a lower-level instance. How much harder will it be when only 2 of 9 classes are primary healers?

High-end raiding balance is simply not worth this price.

Tanking Idea: Fear Immunity

Okay, here's a random idea to help improve factional balance AND help us tank.

1. Take Fear Ward away from dwarf priests, and give it to Troll Priests.
2. Make paladins immune to Fear.

Now, Horde gets easy mode on bosses that fear. Instead of having to stance-dance, their priests can Fear Ward them like Alliance does now.

Alliance-side, because paladins are immune to Fear, they become a viable choice for tanking Fear-based encounters like Magmadar and Onyxia. (Or you can have a stance-dancing warrior, but the paladin has an actual advantage.)

This choice also makes thematic sense. Paladins are stalwart defenders of the light. Being immune to fear fits that vision of the paladin.

As well, it shores up one of our big weaknesses in PvP. Because of our lack of speed and range, Fear hurts us far more than any other class. A fight between a paladin and a warlock/priest actually becomes interesting now.

Edit: Okay, as the comments are indicating, a passive immunity to Fear is probably too extreme. How about a self-buff/debuff that breaks Fear and grants immunity for 10s, but increases damage taken by 10%? Maybe make it 'Unyielding Faith', and have the talent be "Improved Unyielding Faith", reduce damage taken by 2/4%?

Update to Factional Imbalance

Well, looks like I was wrong. Possibility #3 (an unbalanced game) was correct.

As an aside, it's funny how Blizzard always releases controversial changes on a Friday. Changes that will be positively received come out earlier in the week.

More thoughts to come later.

Edit: It could also be a complex joke. Blizzard did something similar with the wisps. But that was on April's Fools Day. The problem is that Blood Elf Paladins/Draenai Shamans are too close to an actual solution for any faction balance problems that may exist.

A Bit More on Faction Imbalance

Azreal posted a very detailed and interesting comment to the post about faction imbalance. It's well worth reading, and I'm still chewing on a lot of the nuances. However, I'd like to zero in on one idea:

Each encounter requires you do a set amount of DPS in a certain time frame in a controlled environment.

Here are my thoughts:

1. For this game to be at all balanced, a Horde raid must be able to do the same raid-wide DPS as an Alliance raid.

2. However, a single Alliance DPS class can always do more damage than a single Horde DPS class. If the encounter is threat-limited, Blessing of Salvation enables the extra damage. If the encounter is not threat-limited, Blessing of Wisdom, Might, and Kings allow for more DPS than the shaman totem equivalents.

The only way to reconcile statements 1 and 2 is for the Horde raid to get additional DPS from another source. The only possible source that a Horde raid can draw DPS from, which the Alliance cannot also tap, is shamans.

So there are three possibilities:

1. Shamans are expected to add some DPS.

OR

2. Shaman Totems enable as much extra DPS as Paladin Blessings.

OR

3. Blizzard has deliberately made an unbalanced game.

I'm pretty sure that we are all in agreement that Possibility #2 is wrong.

As for Possibility #3, I do not think that Blizzard--the makers of Starcraft--would think that making a game with two factions, where one faction is strictly better than the other faction, is a good idea.

So by a process of elimination, the only possibility left is that Blizzard expects shamans to add DPS. I do not see any other logical explanation for raid and class design.

Crazy Talent Idea

1. Move Repentence to 31pt Protection.
2. Drop Holy Shield to 21pt Protection.
3. Drop Blessing of Sanctuary to 11pt Protection.
4. Move Blessing of Kings to 11pt Retribution.
5. Move Seal of Command to 31pt Retribution AND increase it to 100% of weapon damage (with 7ppm).

Reasoning:

Seal of Command is the talent with the single greatest effect on paladin gameplay. It changes the weapons you try to acquire, and pretty much becomes the default Seal for most situations. The way it changes our gameplay is worthy of a 31pt talent.

However, SoC as it stands is not powerful enough for 31pts. Increasing the damage dealt makes it a seriously powerful option, but requires a heavy investment in Retribution. It becomes our 'Shadowform', if you will.

As well, the increase is mitigated somewhat by moving Repentence to Protection. So no extra stunned JoC. As well, Protection becomes stronger, and Holy Shield becomes more accessible. Additionally, both Blessings are far easier to acquire for raids.

The change also improves the viability of Protection builds. Now the bottom half of Protection is roughly equal to Retribution, so 31/20/0 ~ 31/0/20. And 30/21/0 is also a decent build. Reckoning builds get the added boost of Repentence, making them seriously viable once more.

Indeed, even 0/21/30 has the potential of being an interesting build. Holy Shield + Vengeance + Improved Retribution Aura has some interesting possibilities.

In many ways, the current placement of SoC warps the paladin class. It is too good, too fast. Making it better, but more costly, frees up a lot of potential for new and unique builds.

Is Blizzard Playing the Same Game?

This entire post is completely hypothetical. A thought experiment, if you will.

The Raid and Dungeon forums are currently in an uproar over the slated nerf to Windfury Totem. It is a general consensus that Alliance raiding is easier than Horde raiding, and that shamans are less powerful than paladins in PvE. So to nerf Windfury Totem, which is used by Horde tanks to increase rage and threat, seems nonsensical. If you add this nerf to both the shaman and paladin reviews, it almost begs the question, is Blizzard playing the same game as the rest of us?

Well, what if Blizzard isn't?

In all the discussions on the forums, the only items being taken into consideration are blessings, totems, and heals. All other aspects of the two classes are ignored. In a 40-man raid, the player base assumes that there are 15 healers, who stand in the back, buff and heal. Gregthegreat on the paladin forum summed it up best: "A paladin is better than a shaman because a paladin emulates a priest better."

But what if Blizzard does not have that same assumption? What if they assume that there are only 10 or so full-time healers, and shamans and paladins are meleeing/casting and spot healing? And that their raid design takes into account the additional paladin/shaman damage when they balance the two factions.

I think that a lot of Blizzard's actions regarding the shaman and paladin make more sense when looked at through this lens. If Blizzard believes that the existing optimum raid strategy for paladins is to melee, how are they going to react to calls to improve meleeing? I think they would be confused, and make minor changes, shuffling things around. Which pretty much describes the paladin review. After all, if meleeing is already the best strategy, making meleeing better just breaks things.

I believe that Blizzard tests its content, with raids from both factions. That proposed changes are the result of the internal testing. But if the internal testing makes fundamentally different assumptions than the player base, there will be a disconnect between what the internal team believes is necessary, and what the player base believes is necessary.

From my own personal experience, 15 healers *is* excessive for the majority of fights. 10 healers, with additional spot healing from meleeing paladins, is good enough for most fights. And if that holds Alliance side, it should also hold Horde side.

It also explains the Horde/Alliance disparity a bit. A paladin has a low amount of internal power, but gives a lot of power to her allies through buffs. A shaman has a higher amount of internal power, but gives less power to his allies. So if they both restrict their actions, the Horde raid suffers much more from the withdrawal of shaman power than the Alliance raid does from the loss of paladin power.

Now, I don't know if what I described in this thought experiment is true or not. For this to be true, the commonly held wisdom by the player base about raid roles--that paladins and shamans are primarily healers--is false. But a lot of Blizzard's actions simply do not make sense if the common wisdom is true. So we're left with two choices. Either the common wisdom is wrong, or Blizzard does not know what they are doing.

I'm sure I know what the cynical among you would pick. :)

Horde Edge in PvP

After PvPing for a bit, I've been reconsidering Horde vs. Alliance. I still think that the Horde have a slight advantage when it comes to mobility, and that Paladins are a little too vulnerable to interrupts/fear/shiny distractions. But for the most part, the factions are reasonably balanced against each other in PvP.

However, on average, the Horde are still better than the Alliance. As Horde, I win far more games than I lose. I think that this is because the Horde gets much more practice than the Alliance.

If I'm only on for an hour, as Horde I can get in three to four games. As Alliance, I'm lucky to even get one. So the average Horde gets a lot more practice at the BGs, and thus gets skilled in a faster time than the Alliance. I would estimate that a Horde Rank 6 plays as many games in a week as an Alliance Rank 10+.

As well, the fast queue times allow you to experiment or incorporate new ideas faster. If you have an idea to improve your play, you can instantaneously test it out. If it's a bad idea, and you lose the game, it doesn't matter, because the next game is right around the corner. The feedback cycle is much faster, and thus you can improve your skills faster.

As they say, practice makes perfect.

Fear Ward

On the topic of fearing paladins, I actually think that Fear Ward should be taken from dwarf priests and given to paladins. Race should be a mostly cosmetic choice, and Fear Ward is really unfair to the night elf and human priests. If it is given to paladins, it keeps it alliance-only, makes priests of difference races more equal, and shores up an excessive weakness for paladins. Honestly, I shouldn't have been able to toy with the paladins like I was (see previous post).

Paladins already lack speed and range, so Fear is really devasting to a paladin, removing them from combat for both the duration of the Fear and the amount of time it takes to return to melee range. As well, Fear Ward just seems like a paladin ability, helping the paladin and her allies stand strong in the face of terror.