Difference Between Casuals and Hardcore

In a comment, Maybe offers the following reason on why the hardcore "deserve" epic loot:

However, if your guild is entering a new instance like BWL, and nobody in the guild has been there before, then that is a different story. My guild took 2 months to figure out how to down the first boss of BWL (even after reading all the strats online). That's 2 months of 40 people coming to the instance week after week knowing that they will probably wipe a bunch of times each night, getting no loot or gold in the process and having to spend their own gold on repairs (which can be quite substantial). That kind of dedication defines a "hardcore" player, and I think deserves epic rewards.

I disagree with the idea that a casual player would not be willing to come to wipe after wipe. I think that this is a common misconception on the part of the hardcore. In fact, a lot of casual players would be more willing to come to BWL than many so-called "raiders". You see this reflected in many posts on the WoW Raid & Dungeon forums. It's fairly common to see a post by a guild leader complaining that attendance for Blackwing Lair--with its many wipes and little loot--is much lower than attendance for Molten Core, which has few wipes and lots of loot.

Casual and hardcore are two ends of a spectrum. We all have elements of both casual and hardcore. Some people lean more towards one end or the other. In my view, the difference between a hardcore player and a casual player has to do with the process vs. reward outcome. A hardcore player aims for the "optimal" outcome regardless of the process, while a casual player will settle for a "good-enough" outcome if the process is interesting enough.

For example, take levelling. A hardcore player will try to get to 60 as fast as possible, even if it involves just grinding away on the same mob over and over. Grinding is the "optimal" way to get to 60. A casual player will quest, even if questing takes more time. Questing is "good-enough" for them because it is more interesting than grinding.

The same perspective carries over to gear. If a hardcore player decides that Blackhand Doomsaw is the "optimal" weapon, she will run Upper Blackrock Spire over and over, until she finally gets the Doomsaw. The casual player will probably acknowledge that the Doomsaw is the best weapon, but will be satisfied with his Bonecrusher. The Bonecrusher is "good-enough".

This also carries over to time spent in the game. The hardcore spend vast amounts of time, because that's necessary for the "optimal" outcome. Just look at the grind required to become Rank 14 in the PvP system. The casual player may spend one night a week playing WoW, because that's good enough for them. On that one night though, they'd be willing to come and wipe with the guild on Blackwing Lair.

Another example is Molten Core vs Zul'Gurub. A hardcore player is more likely to want to do MC, because the rewards are so great. A casual player would prefer to do ZG, because it's more interesting, even if the rewards are less powerful.

[Edit: I'm not sure the above paragraph is clear enough. I'm basing it on a personal experience. The guild I was in did a ZG run and an MC run each week, while learning each instance. The ZG run was stopped--even though people liked running ZG--in order to concentrate our efforts on mastering MC (ie multiple attempts, trash runs for materials for Fire Resistance gear, etc.). I do not think a casual guild would have made the same choice. I think they would have been more willing to accept slower progress in MC, but keep the ZG run as well. I don't think the decision to stop ZG was necessarily wrong (we did spawn Ragnaros in 3 weeks) but it was a "hardcore" decision.]

A casual player who is in a raid guild will come to Blackwing Lair wipes (maybe not every night of the week, but whenever they play). The process is interesting enough. A lot of hardcore players will also come, because the rewards are so great. The problem lies in getting the casual player to join the raiding guild. The rewards are great, but the process seems so much more of a hassle than non-raiding content.

A casual player is not less willing to raid (and wipe) than a hardcore player. However, a casual player is less willing to join a raiding guild than the hardcore player. This may seem like the same thing, but I think there is a subtle and important difference. In my opinion, Blizzard would be best served to cutting down the barriers that keep casual guilds from raiding.

Casuals vs. Raiders, Part II

There was a post on the WoW forums where someone asked the question "Why do people raid?". In large part because of Scholo/Strath raids, a lot of casual players simply don't think that 40-man raids can be challenging. After all, people raid Scholomance with 10 raiders because it is easier than going with 5 players. If 10 people is easier than 5, surely 40 is easier than 10. There are also few raid-style fights in 5-man. In my opinion, you really don't understand what the attraction of raiding is until you actually try one. The only real attraction a casual player sees is that raiders get epic loot.

Raiding is like solving a puzzle. The attraction of raiding lies in figuring out the puzzle, coming up with a strategy, and executing that strategy with a large number of people. It does require skills, but different skills than a 5-man does. A 5-man is more in the moment, more about anticipating and reacting to unexpected events.

Raiding is like playing in an orchestra. 5-man is like improvising jazz. Both require skill, but the skills required are different.

Of course the question then becomes: why do raids deserve epic loot, and 5-mans do not? The answer is that raids are not necessarily harder than 5-mans, but they can be more intricate. To go back to the music analogy, with a saxophone you can do a lot of crazy things while improvising jazz, but you simply cannot have a violin solo in the middle as you don't have a violin. Similarily, you cannot make a 5-man fight that lasts longer than one healer's mana bar. You cannot count on there being more than one healer in the group. But a raid fight can be arbitrarily long, thanks to the existence of healing rotations, where one healer regenerates mana while another heals, with a switch when a healer runs out of mana.

However, I do think that WoW overly rewards raiders, at the expense of casual players. Molten Core is a bit too easy or simple for the quality and quantity of rewards that it gives out. However, Blizzard seems to be making an effort to improve the imbalance in 1.10, increasing the quality of rewards available from 5-man dungeons.

OMG Epix!

Got my first epic from Molten Core today: [Lawbringer Gauntlets].

Upcoming Dungeon Changes

Heh, the day after I post about raiding the 5-man instances, Blizzard puts up the test patch notes for 1.10. Of special interest is the following:

Along with the new Armor Sets, the high-level 5-10 man dungeons have received some changes regarding loot. Many items have been improved in quality and use. In addition, several epic items, such as Headmaster's Charge and the Runeblade of Baron Rivendare, have had their drop rates significantly increased. In order to preserve the challenge of these dungeons, they have had their instance caps lowered. Stratholme, Scholomance, and Blackrock Depths now allow a maximum of five players inside, and Blackrock Spire allows a maximum of ten. [Emphasis mine]

Good work, Blizzard. With this move, Blizzard corrected a huge mistake, and made end game a whole lot more appealing. I seriously doubted that Blizzard would make such a big change with the expansion coming in a few months. I am really glad to see I was wrong.

Casuals vs. Raiders, Part I

There is a lot of debate and acrimony over casuals versus raiders in WoW. "Casual" players feel that Blizzard inordinately caters to the raiding players, rewarding them with better gear and interesting content. Raiding players, meanwhile, think that casual players just want epics handed to them, and are unwilling to put in the work. As someone who was a casual player for many months, before finally becoming a raider, I feel I have an interesting perspective on things.

Here are some points that I'd like to discuss:

1. Raiding looks harder than it is.

For a casual player, raiding is very intimidating. The raiding guilds force you to apply, almost like applying for a job. You hear horror stories of guilds expecting people to commit 12 hours a day. You can no longer just log on and do stuff. Instead, activities are formally scheduled. You don't get loot in a run, instead earning DKP which you exchange in some fashion for loot. The system used to give out DKP can be insanely baroque. The guild may demand that you spec a certain way, or play your character in an very specific way. You may be forced to download and install mods and accessories such as Teamspeak. The attitude of some raiding guilds is also very arrogant, as if Molten Core is incredibly hard, and you have to be an awesome player to even think of going inside.

Here's a big secret: raiding is not that hard. You go in, and you do what you've always done. If you can follow orders, you can raid. Most raiding guilds don't raid that much, and usually only in 3-5 hour increments. Molten Core is not very hard. If you can 5-man the endgame instances like Scholomance, Stratholme, and Dire Maul, you're more than competent enough to handle Molten Core. Raiding is not really about raw skill, it's about strategy. Coming up with the correct strategy for the raid as a whole, and then executing it well are the key points of raiding.

Scheduled runs are also more beneficial to the casual player than you think. If you know that MC is on Thursday nights, you can clear your schedule on that night. A hardcore player, on the other hand, is always online and really has no schedule to clear.

A lot of the problems with raiding stem from the player base. In many ways, raiders are extremely conservative in their approach. They are often unwilling to consider doing something in a different manner than the "established" strategy. You first encounter this when raiding Scholomance, etc. Often times, people looking for Scholo raids will demand a very precise make-up of the raid. You *must* have two priests, you *need* a mage, etc. Newsflash: You're already going in with twice as much firepower as you need. As long as you have the basics covered (tank, healer, dps), you'll probably do just fine.

Similarly, you don't need mods. Decursive is just laziness. The global cooldown gives you more than enough time to manually select your next target to be cleansed. CT_RaidAssist is nice, but is not really absolutely necessary. But the conservative nature of a lot of raiders insists that such extras be download and used.

Personally, I think that if casual players just gather enough courage to apply to the raiding guilds--especially ones that are just starting out--I think that they will find that they can raid just as well as the hardcore players. They may not be able to make every single raid that the guild does, but they will be more than able to contribute, see all the cool content in WoW, and get epic loot.

2. Raiding Scholo, Strath, etc. is an aberration.

I think the ability to raid a 5-man instance is a mistake for WoW. If the 5-mans were capped, people would be forced to do the instances properly. They would learn the skills appropriately, and be able to complete quests. The endgame content would last much longer, and you could properly bridge to the raiding content. I've been a 60 for months, and I still have a ton of unfinished quests.

In addition, I think the "raids" are a bad introduction to raiding in general. They really bring out the "loot" side in people. People raid just to get loot. These small raids aren't that fun, and are very easy. Real raid instances are more interesting and challenging. One of the great joys in raiding is having a plan and executing it well, something which is just not present in a Strath/Scholo raid. Instead it's pretty much pure firepower.

So a casual player who gets to 60 has a very distorted idea of what raiding is like. Small raids are an aberration, that really hurts the casual player's view of the end game in WoW.

3. Converting a casual guild to a raiding guild is hard.

A teaser for my next post. :)

Continuing Adventures in Molten Core

On Friday, our raid killed Gehennas, at which point I volunteered to leave the raid so another person could go. The guild continued on and dropped Garr, Baron Geddon, and Shazzrah. Saturday, I rejoined the raid and we attempted Golemagg. We had a bit of trouble with the trash mobs leading to Golemagg, and we ended up wiping three times on Golemagg before calling it a night.

Sunday, we tried Golemagg again, this time with 8 paladins! For some reasons, the paladins show up for all the raids, unlike a lot of other classes. We wiped again, and then we tweaked our strategy a little, assigning paladins to specifically heal the off-tanks, instead of healing everyone. This time the fight was smooth and we killed him easily. We moved on to Sulfuron, but we have trouble with people disconnecting and then having to wait in the queue. We did attempt Sulfuron 3 times, but on the third try, some of the trash mobs respawned in the middle of the fight. The raid was basically called, and we decided to take Monday off, and restart the instance on Thursday.

Still, taking down 7 bosses on our first MC run is a pretty good accomplishment. I think we are beginning to reach the limits of our gear, though, and another couple of weeks just to gear up with epics would probably help a lot. I still don't have any epics from the Core, though I do have a lot of DKP. Just waiting for Paladin gear to actually drop.

I did try out some of the options in CT_RaidAssist. The amount of effort people put into automating these fights amuses me. Automatic Decursing of the raid is standard. I was playing with Mana Conserve, which checks the target's health 0.5s before the healing spell finishes casting, and cancels the spell if the target's health is too high. It's somewhat useful, as I did end up cancelling two or three spells a fight.

Paladin Tanking Idea: Guard

Eyonix, one of the Customer Managers at Blizzard, mentioned on the paladin boards that Blizzard is looking at ways to improve Paladin tanking. One of their goals, however, is specifically NOT to give paladins a Taunt-like ability. So there are now many posts on the boards tossing out different ideas. Here's mine, reposted for fun:

---

Here's an idea for tanking (sort of) that I think is reasonably different from warrior tanking, but is still flavourful for paladins.

Every paladin at level 10 gets a passive ability called Guard.

Guard
If the paladin is in front of the enemy, [melee] attacks made against a party member have a 50% chance of hitting the paladin instead.

Basically, the paladin can't force the mob to attack her, but she can put herself between the mob and her ally. This keeps the other person alive longer, and hopefully gives the paladin enough to time to truely regain aggro. It requires positioning, and since the mob isn't attacking the paladin, she can't "walk" it away or similar.

Then in the Protection tree we can have:

Improved Guard (5 pts)
Requires 0 points in Protection
Improves the paladin's chance to Guard a party member by 5/10/15/20/25%.

Frustrate (1 pt)
Requires 20 points in Protection
If the paladin successfully Guards a party member, has a 25% chance of forcing the enemy to attack the paladin for 6s.

Basically, deep in the protection tree, the paladin gets a kind of taunt. It's not very good, but relies on using the Guard mechanic. Plus the flavor is very obvious: "Stupid paladin blocking my attacks. Die Paladin!"

Perfect Defender (1 pt)
Requires Frustrate, 30 points in Protection
100 mana, 10s duration, 2 min cooldown
Increases the paladin's chance to Guard a party member by 25%. In addition, the first time the paladin successfully Guards a party member, the enemy is forced to attack the paladin for 6s.

This gives you pretty close to a guaranteed Taunt. You still have to do it through the Guard mechanics, so it's not as good/versatile as a true Taunt.

As well, the Guard mechanic would give us an added dimension in PvP. It doesn't seem likely that we are going to get any damage anytime soon, but we could use Guard to protect mages and priests, as we are supposed to do.

---

One more thing I'd like to mention is that I feel it is important for mechanics to 'fit' the class as much as possible. Divine Intervention is a terrible, terrible mechanic. You can only cast it on another person, who must be a resser AND in a position where she won't draw aggro when the fight ends. Compare that to the Warlock soulstone, or Shaman self-res. And yet the flavour of Divine Intervention--the paladin sacrificing herself to save her companion--is so strong, that the spell somehow works.

Hopefully this idea fits the flavour and 'sense' of being a paladin.

First time in Molten Core

I joined a raiding guild on Eitrigg last week. Over the weekend we went to Zul'Gurub and killed Venoxsis (Snake) and Jeklik (Bat). They later killed Broodlord Mandokir, though I did not attend that raid. Today we went to Molten Core for the first time. We killed Lucifron and Magmadar, and then called it a night.

We wiped twice, once on a Core Hound pack, before we really understood the strategy behind them, and once on Magmadar, when a druid accidentally held down the forward key and charged him.

I didn't get any loot, though some good blues and epics dropped. Ah well, I'm accumulating DKP, so I'll eventually get some.

I like ZG more than Molten Core so far. The colour scheme in MC is very drab, all reds and browns. As well, the fights in ZG just seem so much cooler, much more puzzle-like and complicated. It could also be that I had twice as many health bars covering my screen, so I didn't actually get to see much of the event. To be honest, I'm not really sure what Lucifron even looks like.

Raiding as a paladin, well, it kind of sucks in some ways, actually. Every fiber of my being calls for me to be in the front lines, swinging my hammer. Instead, I'm standing at range, spamming Flash of Light and cleansing. Joy. Important jobs, I'll grant, but not what I made this character to do. There is a great sense of satisfaction in working as a team, though. All parts working together, executing well, and accomplishing a large goal as a group.

Still, the best part of the raid was when Magmadar dropped to 10%, and our Paladin captain ordered us to fling Hammers of Wrath at the big dog. Ahh, Hammer of Wrath. Still the best change to the paladin class ever!

Quote about Paladins

My post however is not to complain about being kicked from the raid but to inform the rest of the alliance on Eitrigg what fvcking retards these people are. They took 3-5 minute breaks in between every pull, instead of pulling the guys from Drak's room across the bridge, they all fought on the bridge, even after people got knocked off, there were no druids in the group, 2 priests and a bunch of paladins who thought they could melee [Emphasis mine], and instead of healing, the priests were too occupied with MC'ing the guards and throwing them off of the bridge. They also distributed every BoE loot as soon as it dropped, rather then doing them all at the same time at the end of the raid. Yea, like I said, noobs.

- Jurandrese, 60 Warrior, Officer of the end-game guild Epicus Furor on Etrigg

Look Blizzard, when an officer of an end-game guild can call a melee hybrid a 'fvcking retard' for attempting to melee, I would suggest that there is a fundamental problem with the design of the class.

New Beginnings

The last couple of weeks have seen two significant changes for Coriel. First, I left my guild. Second, I left my server.

(I also respecced to 0/27/24, but that proved to be a horrible, horrible mistake. I respecced back to 20/0/31 as soon as I got enough gold.)

I'd been with my guild, Defender of the Crown, for a long time. Months, in fact. I joined as a level 10 paladin killing murlocs in Elwynn Forest. I was one of the first 60s in the guild, and spent a long time waiting for enough 60s to start raiding. Curiously, though, the start of regular raiding was what led me to quit the guild. The problem was that DotC was, in the end, a primarily Australian guild. We started raiding the 10-man instances regularly, but on Australian time, which was quite late for me. And the time difference just proved too hard to overcome.

I actually feel quite sad about leaving my guild. The people were really nice, and I have a lot of good memories.

Anyways, I was guildless, and just pvping occasionally and casually inquiring into joining a raiding guild, when Blizzard opened transfers from Bronzebeard to Eitrigg. I wasn't having much luck in finding a raiding guild (most guilds were full on paladins), and the queues were getting very long, so I jumped ship.

Now, I'm on Eitrigg, looking for a guild. In the meantime, I've been helping farm Silithid carapaces for the Ahn Qiraj sceptre questline. It's amusing, and is actually pretty good money if you skin.

I do want to write up a couple of posts. One on pvp and one on some end-game thoughts. Hopefully, I'll get to them sometime this week.

Being Ganked in Towns

Alhough Coriel is on a PvE server, I started playing on a PvP server. I still maintain a couple of Horde alts on a PvP server which I play from time to time.

I do not engage in a lot of world PvP. Personally, I never saw much point in attacking someone who was lower level than you, and if she's higher than you, it's silly to attack as you're going to die. (The few times I have fought someone around my level were a lot of fun, though.) I don't really mind if someone ganks me as I'm adventuring. That's the price of being on a PvP server, and part of the fun.

What I do mind, however, is a 60 rogue de-cloaking inside one of my towns (Tarren Mill, Sun Rock Retreat, etc.) and killing me. Your towns should be a bit of a safe haven in the wilderness. Sure, there are guards, but they do nothing against sneaking rogues.

So what I propose is that the guards get dogs. Dogs which can scent the stealthed rogue and raise the alarm. This seems like a change that is in character for the game. Guard dogs make logical sense. Perhaps you could have a guard and dog patrol the town, forcing a stealthed rogue to time his movements to avoid the patrol.

(If, upon spotting the rogue, the dog went all Beastial Fury, I wouldn't complain. That would probably be excessive though.)

Guard Dogs. A change the towns in Azeroth need.

Theorycraft: +Spellcrit and +Healing

h = amount of +dmg or + heal
c = spell crit rate, 0 < c < 1
M= crit multiplier (usually 1.5 for spells)

p'(h) = rate of increase of power when adding +heal

---

For power of the spell (healing/second):

p(c,h) = [p(0,0) + Kh][1 + (M-1)c]

p'(h) = K[1 + (M -1)c] (constant)

p'(c) = [p(0,0) + Kh][M - 1] (constant)

where K = 2/7

---

For efficiency (without Illumination) (healing/mana):

e(c,h) = [e(0,0) + Lh][1 + (M - 1)c]

e'(h) = L[1 + (M-1)c] (constant)

e'(c) = [e(0,0) + Lh][M - 1] (constant)

where L = (2/7)*(SpellSpeed/SpellCost)

---

For efficiency (with Illumination) (healing/mana):

i(c,h) = [i(0,0) + Lh][ (1 + (M - 1)c)/(1 - c) ]

i'(h) = L[ [ (1 + (M-1)c)/(1 -c) ] ] (constant)

i'(c) = [i(0,0) + Lh][ M / ((1 - c)^2) ] (Exponential!!!)

Also note that i'(c) > e'(c)!

Threat and Aggro

There was an extremely good post about threat and aggro on the WoW forums a couple days ago. Unfortunately, I can't find the post now, which is a real pity.

Update: Gitr found the post that I was referencing. Comments below have been corrected.

The poster undertook a series of experiments to quantify "threat" in WoW, and the post detailed his results. The main conclusions of his experiments were as follows:

1. Threat is cumulative: You accumulate threat throughout the entire fight. The longer the fight, the higher the threat totals are.


2. 10% Barrier:To take aggro from someone, you must do 10% more threat than them. For example, if a mage has 100 threat, you need to do 110 threat before the mob switches to attack you. This means that the person with aggro may not be the person with the highest threat level. The barrier increases to 30% for a character at range.


3. Taunt: In addition to forcing the mob to attack you, taunt is a "threat-shortcut". When you taunt, it permanently gives you the threat level of the person with aggro. It also recalculates aggro for the mob, most likely giving the warrior aggro permanently.

In particular, the way Taunt works is interesting, especially on long fights. Taunt is essential for pulling a mob off someone, because it gives you a huge gain in threat in a very short time. However, paladins don't have a taunt, making it very hard for them to take over tanking a mob.

For example, consider a druid, priest, and off-tank warrior. The druid is tanking and generates 2000 threat, the priest is healing and has 1000 threat. The OT warrior has 250. The druid gets crit hard and dies. The mob attacks the priest. The OT taunts, and now has a threat level of 1000 and aggro from the mob.

Now consider the same scenario with a paladin as off-tank. The mob attacks the priest. The paladin is at 250 threat, and needs to get 850 more before the mob turns away from the priest. Odds are the priest is going down.

(Of course, a paladin would probably toss Blessing of Protection on the priest, causing the mob to turn it's attention to the paladin and giving the priest and paladin 10s to fix the situation. But BoP has a 5min cooldown, making it a bit unreliable.)

So a paladin needs to get as much threat on a mob as possible, because she lacks the instant threat gain of Taunt. Because paladin healing is fairly low-threat, the more a paladin heals, the worse her position becomes if she is suddenly called on to tank. Of course, the more a paladin heals, the less likely it is that the warrior will die and she need to tank. Trade-offs are what make life interesting.

Lightforge Helm!

I went on a guild raid of Scholomance, last night. This was a highly successful raid, and I netted my [Lightforge Helm] from Darkmaster Gandling. I'm now up to 5/8 Lightforge, and the helm was the last piece I really wanted.

Update: When it rains, it pours. I played a game of Alterac Valley and hit Honored reputation with Stormpike. I picked up the [Stormpike Sage's Pendant] and [Stormpike Plate Girdle].

I hate Warsong Gulch

Maybe hate is too strong a word. But I find Warsong Gulch to be a demoralizing affair. More than any other battleground, it seems designed to expose the paladin's weaknesses. Unfortunately, ever since the introduction of multiple queues, it is the most played battleground on Bronzebeard.

WSG is all about mobility. And the paladin has no speed to outrun or catch people, and no snares to slow them down, and no ranged weapons to hurt them at a distance. Seeing a tauren druid or shaman drop down, grab the flag, warstomp, and shift to travel form and run away while you are stunned is soul-destroying. Paladins really have only one snare, Hammer of Justice, which we can use once a minute. A second pally snare, Repentance, is a 31-point Retribution talent which does not work on animal forms. This is terribly unfortunate given that animal travel forms (druid and shaman) are the preferred Horde flag carriers.

Paladins on offense is equally hard. Since you have no speed, you cannot keep up with the flag carrier. If you start a heal, given that it is 2.5s long, odds are the person you are healing will be out of range before the heal finishes. If you are the flag carrier, you're so slow that you are easily caught. You can't move while healing, meaning you have to stay still for 2.5s to get a decent heal off. Finally, you can't use your bubbles or you drop the flag.

There's no real role for paladins in WSG that I can see. The best paladin role, that of battlefield healer, doesn't work as well when the point of battle moves faster than your heal. It works in Arathi Basin, as the points of battle are fixed and so people are almost always within range of a heal.

I switched enchants on my [Mirah's Song] from Fiery (chance of +40 fire damage) to Icy (chance of slowing) in order to shore up this weakness. So far, I'm not too sure if it's working. It doesn't seem to be proccing all that much. I'll play a few more games to see if it is an effective strategy.

Quick thoughts on Pursuit of Justice

Testing by various paladins reveals that the Pursuit of Justice talent (8% to movement speed) stacks with mounted movement enhancements, but does not stack with ground movement enhancements. So PoJ is a weaker talent than a lot of the other talents, given that you can just put a speed enchant on your boots and get most of the effect.

However, there may be some areas where the increase to mount speed is useful. For example, in Arathi Basin, I notice that the Alliance almost always caps the Stables before the Horde caps the Farm. Yet the Horde almost always gets to, and often caps, the Blacksmith before the Alliance arrives. I'm not sure why this is--perhaps the route from Horde base to flag is slightly shorter. Regardless, a paladin with PoJ might be able to arrive at the flag fast enough to stop the Horde from capping. As well, there might be some advantage in Alterac Valley, as a paladin at the base will be able to get to the front lines faster.

Of course, the stacking with mounted movement might be unintended, and fixed by Blizzard in an upcoming patch.

Patch 1.9

Patch 1.9 was introduced yesterday. This was the "paladin patch", where paladins were reviewed and given some changes. I feel that, for the most part, this patch just added polish to the paladin in its current form. The talent trees were tightened up, and a few abilities were switched around. Paladin tanking was made a bit easier to use with the Righteous Fury buff. Judgement of Command was changed to add a little more damage. On the whole, the patch was probably a good one for paladins (though I do feel sad about the changes to Holy Shield). It did not, however, address the fundamental dissatisfaction with paladins in raids.

It possibly made paladins a bit better in PvP, though to a large extent this depends on whether Pursuit of Justice (8% bonuse to movement speed) is working properly or not. It is currently stacking with other permanent speed enhancements like Mithril Spurs, even though the tooltip says it does not. (It is not stacking with temporary speed enchancers like potions.) If it does stack with the permanent enhancements, PoJ is an awesome talent, and will help paladins in PvP significantly. If it's a bug, and is fixed/nerfed, then paladins are more or less the same in PvP as they were before the patch. (I'll still take it as I'm lazy and don't want to waste time juggling trinkets).

Prior to this patch, Coriel was specced Holy/Protection (27/24/0). I had all the healing talents, Holy Shield and Improved Blessing of Salvation. It was a very PvE, healing/support, 1H+shield focused build.

Post-patch, I'm going Retribution (18/0/33), mostly for a change of pace. The new build is pretty good, especially for soloing. I can kill things a bit faster than I could before, though I have less survivability when attacked by multiple enemies. Retribution is a very mana-efficient tree, even with judging Command fairly often.

It's an interesting exercise, trying to determine what the paladin talent trees represent. For example, the priest trees (Holy/Discipline/Shadow) are for healing, metamagic, and damage respectively. The purpose of other class trees are also fairly obivious or easy to figure out. The paladin trees (Holy/Protection/Retribution), in contrast, are the source of much debate. The conventional view is that they are healing/tanking/dps, the three main MMO roles. Ellia, a notorious forum poster/troll/devil's advocate, maintains that they are spellcasting/1H+shield/2H. Personally, I think they break down as follows: Holy = doing stuff with mana; Protection = doing stuff when people are hitting you; and Retribution = doing stuff without mana.

I'm not really sure if this is a useful breakdown for paladins, but you have to work with the tools you are given.

Paladins in Raids, Part II

Previously, I have discussed the intended role of the paladin (5th-man) and how that role disappears in a raid setting, forcing the paladin into the healing role. Now, why then are paladins so unhappy at being forced to heal? I think the answer has to do with how players view their characters.

We all have a mental image of our characters. This image is forged by culture, by the class description, and by our play experiences. I think that a player is happiest when the actions her character takes matches the image in her mind (and the loot she gets furthers that image). A rogue is happiest when she is sneaking around or stabbing people people in the back. A hunter is happiest when she is shooting enemies from range. If the rogue was forced to shoot people with a bow, or the hunter melee, they would be less happy. They would still do what they had to do to be effective, but they would be less happy.

This image also extends to loot. Loot that enhances the mental image is the most valued. Rogues go crazy over epic daggers, but aren't that interested in epic guns. But it's vice versa for hunters.

The mental image of the paladin strongly involves wearing plate and hitting things with giant hammers (possibly swords, depending on the player). A situation where the paladin gets to hit something with a giant hammer makes the player of the paladin happy. This is a simple concept, but it's reinforced in all sorts of ways, from our culture's image of paladins, from Dungeons & Dragons, from the Blizzard class description, from game mechanics, and most importantly, from the play experience from levels 1-59. From levels 1-59, paladins are in melee hitting things with giant hammers. It is said that levels 20-30--when we get [Verigan's Fist], a paladin quest reward 2H hammer--are the best levels of a paladin's career. (I still have my [Verigan's Fist] in my bank. I even enchanted it with Demonslaying!)

The fundamental problem with raids is that there isn't enough hitting things with giant hammers.

In fact, most paladins who heal spend most raids out of the melee zone and in the ranged zone. Which is just crazy from the image point of view. Paladins don't even have ranged weapons! But from a pure efficiency standpoint, the paladin should be in the ranged zone. A paladin's healing in raids usually consists of constantly casting Flash of Light, which is low power but highly mana efficient. When you are constantly casting a spell, there's no point in being in the melee zone, as you will never get a chance to actually attack, and you leave yourself more vulnerable to interrupts or damage.

Healing Paladins also wear cloth, leather and mail gear to enhance their healing, as this type of gear tends to be better for healing than plate. Plate armor and survivability only truely matter if you are being attacked.

The paladin's self-image relies on being in the melee zone, wearing plate, and hitting things. The paladin's role in raids requires them to be in the ranged zone, wearing cloth, and not hitting things for maximum efficiency. This difference between image and reality is the source of the paladin's unhappiness.

Some raiding guilds even go so far as to deny paladins loot that enhances the image (such as powerful 2H weapons meant for melee) , and force them to only take loot which enhances the reality (healing gear). From a point-of-view that emphasizes the strict efficiency of the raid, this is a good idea. It makes your healers better. For the paladin player's image, it's another setback.

A lot of suggestions by paladins on the forums have this disconnect at the heart. They cry, "Give us more dps", and think "If we did a lot of damage, we would have a reason to be in the melee zone". Or "Give us a taunt" for "If we could tank better, we would have a reason to be in the melee zone". And of course Blizzard cannot give paladins these things, as they would then be overpowered or eclipse warriors.

Now why then does the shaman not raise as many complaints? Shamans are a spellcasting class, and are more comfortable being in the ranged zone. As well, the cultural connotations of the shaman lend themselves more to the primary healing role. There is not as great a conflict between the shaman image and the shaman reality. In fact, the class that probably has the second greatest disconnect between image and reality is the feral druid. For a feral druid, shapechanging is an essential part of the character's image. Being forced into one shape for all of the raid deviates from the player's image, making them slightly unhappy.

Paladins in Raids, Part I

Continuing on from my previous post about the role of paladins, I'd like to examine the role of paladins in raids, and why this is a source of dissatisfaction for many paladins today. Two caveats, though. First, I'm not an experienced endgame raider, I have not gone into Molten Core. Rather these observations come from trends observed in non-epic raids, forum posts, and conversations with other paladins. Second, I make the assumption that the paladin is designed for a "5th-man" role, and not one of the three standard roles (tank, healer, dps).

There are two problems, both related to each other, at the heart of paladin dissatisfaction in raids. First, the increase in numbers eliminates the need for the 5th-man role. Second, and more importantly, the paladin's role in raids does not match the player's vision of her character.

To see the first point, lets take the standard 5-man party of tank, healer, dps, dps, and 5th-man. If we expand it to ten people we get 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps, and 2 5th-man. However, the point of a 5th-man is to provide redundancy to the tanks and healers. So instead of taking 2 5th-man, let's take 1 tank and 1 healer. Each can provide redundancy for their respective groups much better than a 5th-man. Boom, we've just eliminated the paladin's role, the one that it was designed for. The ideal raid now consists of 3 tanks, 3 healers and 4 dps.

But that's not all. The need for tanking does not scale with additional numbers. The entire point of a tank is to funnel all damage taken by the group to a single point. Then the healers funnel all healing to the same point. In the ideal raid a single person, the Main Tank, would take all of the damage and receive all of the healing. (In practice, of course, it is much messier, but the ideal is still valid.) So in our 10-man raid, we don't really need the third tank, as the second should provide enough redundancy. Instead we replace the 3rd tank with another dps or healer. (Usually dps, as healers are rare). So the ideal 10-man group is now 2 tanks, 3.5 healers (usually ends up as 3 healers), and 4.5 dps (ends up as 5 dps).[1]

Here's where real life comes into play. There are a lot of paladins and shamans. There are few priests. Of necessity, paladins and shamans are forced into the healer slots in raids. It is important to note that the healer role is not the role that paladins were designed for. The role they were designed for, 5th-man, simply does not exist in raids.

Now why do paladins chafe at being forced into the healing role? Why don't shamans raise the same level of complaints? The answer, I believe, lies in player psychology, and the nature of paladin healing. Another post for another time.

[1] If you extrapolate these numbers out to a 40-man raid, you'd see that they come very close to a raid that has 5 of each of the 8 character classes (counting all paladins and druids as healers). Hopefully, this is an indication that I am on the right track.

Boring Day

Bronzebeard now has server queues of upwards of 250 people. Quite sad, really.

I didn't accomplish a whole lot today. I helped some guildmates with a quest and completed another quest dealing with the aftermath of some Sunken Temple quests. Unfortunately, the next quest in the chain is in Blackrock Spire, so that's the end of that chain for a while. I tried to queue up for some PvP, but the wait times were just too long.

Oh well, tomorrow is the first of our endgame guild runs. Hopefully that will go well, and it will become a regular affair. Ideally, I'm hoping for enough people to raid the Undead side of Stratholme. It is New Years Eve in Australia, so we may not get a lot of people though.