Champions Online: Characters

I picked up Champions Online a couple days ago and have been trying it out since. I haven't gotten very far, but here are some first impressions. I've never played the other major Superhero game (City of Heroes/Villains) so I have no idea how this game compares to that.

The character creator is very powerful. The first character I made is Cassiel:


The inspiration for Cassiel should be fairly obvious. I took the Supernatural template and Flight travel power. It actually works very nicely. Cassiel uses his fists and chains as weapons. Oddly Cassiel looks better in-game and flying, even at the lower resolution I play at:


The second character I made is Rake. I made a Regency noble, but made her female:



Rake is a Single Blade swordswoman, with the Acrobatics travel power. She's a lot faster and seems to do more damage than Cassiel, but is a lot more fragile.

You can make a lot of different looks with the character creator. It's very powerful. There are lots of interesting characters being made. For example, I teamed up with a machine-gun-toting rat who travelled underground for one quest. Probably half the fun in the game is making new heroes.

The comic book covers are actually generated when you save a costume in the character creator. That's a very nice touch.

Ask Coriel: Farming Instances at 70

Juniorkow asks:

I enjoy your blog and was wondering at level 70 could you provide a template to farm old instances ? I dont have wrath yet so just something to keep me busy.

I would suggest going Protection and using a build like this: 4/51/6.

I think that should give you a good build so you can AoE farm most older instances. Note that it isn't a proper tank build as it is missing Spiritual Attunement (no other healer) and Guarded By The Light (you get Divine Plea at level 71).

You might have mana problems. If you find you are, you might be better off with a Retribution build like: 2/5/54

You'll have to be a bit more careful, but there won't be any mana worries.

Introducing New Characters

In the comments to the previous post, Elladrion, makes an interesting point:

They have no depth, and no charisma to back up their lack of depth. Also, specifically from a horde perspective, I will never be able to get past the entire questline where hellscream is moping around being a little defeatist bitch becuase he's not as great as his father and their people are doomed. You do an entire questline helping them out and at the end of it, he gets even more despondant and whiney becuase it was you that did all the work and not him and oh what a worthless creature he is. Then with no warning wrath comes out and he's all gung-ho rip-roaring kill all alliance with no transition story in between. And Varian wrynn doesn't even have that amount of story (in game) going for him, he just shows up out of nowhere trying to start fights.

It's very true. Garrosh and Varian emerge in Wrath almost fully-formed. There is a questline with Garrosh in TBC, but he doesn't play a major part, and Varian just shows up (and takes credit for Onyxia, to boot).

This is in stark contrast to one of the other major characters in Wrath: Tirion Fordring. Unlike Garrosh and Varian, Fordring is introduced in 1.0 in Eastern Plagueline. He has one of the best and most-loved questlines in the game. It's also a very personal questline for the character, and shows the reasons he decides to reforge the Silver Hand. In a lot of ways, Wrath and the Argent Crusade are sequel to those quests.

I think those quests have a lot to do with how popular Tirion Fordring is. We got to see the character at the beginning of the story, to sympathize and empathize with him. By doing the quests, in a way we were responsible for the character, and the way events turned out. We are more invested in the Argent Crusade and Tirion's storyline.

Tirion illustrates how important doing is to a video game. Garrosh and Varian illustrate how weak merely telling is. The strength of games is that we are not passive consumers, we have to do something to advance the story. That has the potential to make us more involved with the story, and make it more important.

In the abstract, I understand Garrosh's and Varian's story. But I am far more interested in Tirion's story, and that is almost entirely due to the original questline in the Plaguelands.

Would Varian have been more successful if there had been a questline to restore him to the throne? I think so. Similarly, a questline showing Garrosh's conversion to a more aggressive stance would have helped a lot.

There are two major lessons here. First, in an MMO, doing is always better than telling. Second, major storyline characters really benefit from being introduced early and fixing the player's sympathy, before they actually undertake a major role.

There are a lot of other examples. For example, consider the player base's attitude towards High Overlord Saurfang, Chromie, or Bolvar Fordragon vs that towards someone like Rhonin. Early exposure in a more trivial setting really benefits the character when it comes time for them to take the spotlight.

The Nature of War

In a game like Civilization, most of us have launched a war for the purpose of expanding our nation's territory and power, or to weaken a rival nation. In this, we are following Carl von Clausewitz's observation that "War is merely a continuation of politics." In the context of such a game game, and indeed much of human history, such a strategy of conquest was not considered wrong or immoral.

However, the modern world is moving away from Clausewitz's statement. It is moving towards a view that the only moral war, the only just war, is a defensive war. And this is causing an interesting reaction between game players and developers.

Consider the current plot lines in World of Warcraft. Blizzard wants to heat up the simmering conflict between Alliance and Horde. From a gameplay perspective, war is more interesting than peace. It gives players more things to do. To that end, Blizzard has introduced the characters of Garrosh Hellscream and Varian Wrynn, who are pushing the Horde and Alliance towards a war.

However, these two characters are not very popular with WoW players. I believe that the failure of these characters has more to do with the changing nature of war, than by their actual characteristics. If the only just war is a defensive war, then an aggressive leader is necessarily worse than a leader who is mostly peaceful (for example, Thrall).

As well, whichever faction starts the war is the aggressor, and in the wrong. And Blizzard definitely wants to avoid painting one faction as the bad guy. One of the strengths of WoW is that both the Horde and the Alliance have their good points and bad points.

Other games avoid this in a variety of ways. Often one side is clearly labelled as the bad guys, rendering morality moot. For example, in Warhammer Online, the Chaos faction are the bad guys and clear aggressors. Other games have the war between factions being more of an "eternal war", one that has no real beginning and no real end.

But how do you start a war between two good factions, when starting a war is considered wrong? This would be possible in the times when the Clausewitz dictum held, but I think is all but impossible now.

Tauren Paladins?

Holy Cow! (Be warned: Massive potential spoilers for the next expansion.)

To be honest, I've always thought Tauren would make good paladins. They have a certain nobility. Hopefully they become more Silver Hand-style paladins rather than Blood Knights.

Simplifying PvE Retribution

With the change to Crusader Strike in 3.2, Retribution gameplay can be simplified with a couple of macros. The optimum Retribution rotation is a priority First-Come-First-Serve (FCFS) list with:

Hammer of Wrath > Crusader Strike > Judgement of Light > Divine Storm > Consecration > Exorcism

Basically, you hit whatever ability is off cooldown and at the top of the list.

Regular Gameplay

For the first 80% of the fight--where Hammer of Wrath is not available--you can simplify the ability list using two macros:

Macro 1:Single-Target
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=4 Crusader Strike,Judgement of Light,Crusader Strike

Macro 2:AoE
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=10 Divine Storm,Consecration

Your priority list now becomes:

Macro 1:Single-target > Macro 2:AoE > Exorcism

If the first macro is on cooldown, hit the second. If both are on cooldown, and Art of War is up, hit Exorcism.

This scheme is identical to optimal FCFS, but only uses 3 buttons instead of 5, so you might find it easier to use. It also has the advantage that if you can't AoE (for example, Crowd Control is being used), you can just ignore Macro 2.

Execute Range

Once Hammer of Wrath comes into play, the above system breaks down. However, there is another sequence which comes very close to optimal FCFS play. You lose about 1 second out of every 24 seconds of DPS, which is about a 4% loss from perfect play. However, 2 buttons are a lot easier to press than 6, so you might find that you come out ahead.

Macro 3: Execute
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=target Hammer of Wrath,Crusader Strike,Judgement of Light,Divine Storm,Hammer of Wrath,Crusader Strike,Consecration

The priority list becomes:

Macro 3:Execute > Exorcism

As before, if Macro 3 is on cooldown and Art of War is up, pop Exorcism.

3.2 Impressions

So new patch. Here are some quick thoughts:

• Female paladin T8 chestpieces now cover the stomach. Thank you, Blizzard! I actually really like the look now--even the helm has grown on me--and am hoping to pick up the shoulders soon.


• Healing is weird now. Healing the tank by not healing the tank (except for a random FoL every so often to put up the HoT) feels really awkward. It's really weird when you hit someone with a 20k Holy Light, and they only had 3k damage, but the tank needed the big heal. However, I haven't had a chance to try healing in a raid yet, so I'll reserve judgement. It is a flat out buff numbers-wise though.


• The new daily quests are pretty neat. I like the fact that they are fairly random.


• The 5-man is pretty fun. The transition between jousting and regular combat is a bit abrupt, especially as we all have lances equipped. But other than that it is quick and fun. I particularly like the fact that if you get through a fight without deaths, you get an extra piece of loot. That's a nice touch.


• Badge changes are also good. I like running random Heroics. Having epic gems available for the lowest rank of Badges was a nice touch.


• Speaking of epic gems, I regemmed to all +23 Spellpower gems in order to maximize Flash of Light and Sacred Shield. However, I find that I really don't like not getting the socket bonus. I miss the green text lighting up and the gem border doing that little sparkle. It may be the optimum way to gear, but skipping socket bonuses offends my sense of order.


• I don't like the new Crusader Strike, it's very weak. The new Hand of Reckoning is nice, though. As for the Seal change, I've pretty much switched to using Righteousness most of the time, and only using Vengeance on long boss fights.


• I haven't tried the new raid, but I think the staggered release of bosses may be a good thing. We get new bosses every week, but can still work on Ulduar, rather than dropping it unfinished. After a while, we can start extending the Ulduar lockout timer to work on the last half of the instance.


• The Coliseum also seems to have much higher item level loot than I was expecting. I was expecting the 25-regular to come in at ilvl 239, the same as Ulduar-hard. Instead it comes in at ilvl 245. Loot in heroic mode extends all the way up to 272, which is pretty crazy.


• Speaking of the ilvl 272 cloaks, Blizzard made a mistake on the names. The paladin cloaks (Bolvar's, Lady Liadrin's) have spirit on them, and the mage cloaks (Jaina's, Aethar's) don't. Probably should be switched.


• I really like being able to trade Bind-on-Pickup items in the instance. Makes it very easy to recover from a mistake when handing out loot.


• The new Battleground is interesting. I've only played it twice so far on Horde. The current strategy seems to be grab the airport and parachute into the base. Looks like fun though.


• There are a lot of other nice, small mechanical changes: the new quest log, mount changes, seeing the change in attributes when looking at new gear, being able to see item level, etc. It's not a big content patch, but it has a lot of small changes, fixes and experiments on new ways of doing things. It seems more like a "palate cleanser" to get us ready for Icecrown.

Crowd Control and PvP

Note: This post is from a high-level perspective of what is "fun". I fully admit that I am not an experienced PvP player, and am just going by what is fun or not for myself. I am not calling for any specific class to be nerfed and/or buffed in a vacuum.

Crowd Control--by which I mean effects that cause a player to temporarily lose control of her character--is an important part of PvP. It adds a second layer of strategy over just inflicting and healing damage. To make an analogy, Crowd Control is like executing a pin in chess. You prevent a piece from being used, without actually needing to capture it.

But Crowd Control is also very frustrating to play against. No one likes losing control of their character, even if only for a short while. So Crowd Control is in somewhat of an awkward position. It needs to exist, to add that extra level of complexity, but it also needs to be kept in check or games become miserable.

There are two situations where Crowd Control in WoW goes over the boundary, in my opinion. The first situation is being able to lock down a character for an excessively long time with multiple abilities. At this point, you are simply not being allowed to play, which is extremely frustrating.

The second situation is being killed while being affected by Crowd Control. The primary culprits here are Stuns and Fears. No one likes being stunned and then blown up. It feels very unfair, like the player is unable to even try to defend themselves.

I would offer two suggestions for WoW PvP:

1. All abilities which cause a player to lose control of her character share diminishing returns. No more categories for different types of Crowd Control. Treat them all equally.


2. In PvP, all abilities which cause a player to lose control of her character break on receiving damage. This includes Stuns and Fears.

The first change already somewhat exists in WoW. Most abilities are separated into categories, and abilities in each category share diminishing returns. This just removes distinctions between different types of Crowd Control.

The second change is the bigger one, and would probably require balance adjustments. If necessary, glyphs or talents like [Glyph of Polymorph] could be added to make Stuns or Fears more usable.

Crowd Control is necessary in PvP, but it can also be overused and make the game less fun. Separating out Crowd Control from dealing damage lessens the frustration in PvP, and would remove a major source of irritation between classes.

Period of Repeating Content

What is the ideal period for content that is meant to be repeated?

For example, WoW has quests which you can do once per day. Raid dungeons, on the other hand, can be done once per week. Is one time interval better than the other?

Part of the issue is that rewards tend to map towards how often the content can be repeated. The shorter the period, the smaller the reward is. Dailies in WoW tend to reward about 10 gold. Rewards are balanced assuming that people will do the content as often as possible. This is because there are people who will do the content as much as humanly possible.

Instead of having a daily quest which rewards 10g, would it be better to have a weekly quest that rewarded 70g?

I think it comes back to how people play. Are people (who are working on repeatable content) more likely to log in every day for small amounts of time, or do they log in less often but for longer play sessions? My personal thought is that the second alternative is a better fit for most lifestyles. Balancing around a period of a week might be better than balancing around a day. You could even make the quests a bit more involved.

However, there are two repeatable quests which I think are good as dailies: The daily Heroic Dungeon and the daily Battleground. These quests work best when there is a large pool of potential players, and having a fresh quest each day means that it will be easier to find a group.

To sum up, repeatable solo content and fixed group content are better off on a weekly basis, as this allows players to better make use of the time they have available, without being pushed to play every day. However, repeatable ad hoc group content is best on a daily basis, to make forming groups as easy as possible.

Duoing and System Requirements

Spinks has a good post on Duoing in MMOs, where she examines content in MMOs and pairs of players. I'd just like to add another thought to this discussion.

One important point about duoing that’s not often considered is that it has a large impact on system requirements.

A couple or family rarely has two top-of-the-line computers. They might have one edge computer, but the other computer will be a few years older. Then the oldest computer gets an upgrade, and the other person lags behind. Or the second computer won't be a desktop machine, but a laptop geared more towards work and websurfing.

So it’s important that your game be playable on the *second* household computer. I think that is where WoW has a marked advantage. A lot of newer MMOs are definitely playable on the first system, but won’t run on the second system in the household, and so the couple cannot play together.

Where a single-player game can target the spec of the first computer and still count on a purchase, an MMO or co-op multiplayer game really needs to target the second system in order to be considered a viable option for many players.

Paladin PvP From the Other Side

I decided to do some battlegrounds with my warlock. I'd forgotten how much fun they are. The BGs also seem to be a lot more competitive these days, as I had a wide range of experiences. Short, quick charges to the end, and also prolonged defenses. Several wins and several losses.

After a few games, I'm beginning to sympathize with all the anti-paladin feeling out there. However, it's not really the damage, or the healing, or even the bubble that's annoying. All of these seem to be more or less comparable to the other classes. I'm just in the crafted tailoring gear, so I have the minimum resilience, but it doesn't seem that bad.

The real annoyance is the Hammer of Justice stun. It's a long stun, and the paladin gets free reign to beat on you while it's up.

It seems like the only comparable class that locks you down for so long is the Rogue. At least rogues have the courtesy to stealth and sneak up on you. When a rogue stunlocks, it feels like she went to some trouble to do so, so you can't really begrudge her that.

In comparison, the paladin just bulldozes ahead, runs straight at you, and stuns you. It just seems effortless for the paladin, and it doesn't seem fair that the paladin should be able to stun you for so long without taking a lot of trouble to do so.

If I were to change Paladins in PvP, I'd take a long look at Hammer of Justice, and find a way to make it more interesting. Maybe a shorter stun with a lower cooldown. Maybe an incapacitate instead of a stun. But it feels too easy as it exists now.

Official Paladin Q&A

Blizzard's Paladin Q&A can be found here.

Gap-closer

The quote that is inciting the most controversy is:

Judgment of Justice is intended to be the gap-closer for paladins.

Ghostcrawler is getting a fair bit of flack for this statement. However, I think he just used the wrong word. JoJ isn't a gap-closer, but is more of snare. However, using the word "snare", would be impolitic. In a little bit of sophistry, JoJ isn't technically a snare, which means that anti-snare mechanics like druid shapeshifting don't work. JoJ is designed to be the "glue" that allows a paladin to stick to her target once she is in range.

Personally, I don't PvP, so I'm not too sure how good JoJ is. I think it would be neat if it had an additional constraining effect. Something like "prevents teleportation" so the target can't Blink or Demonic Teleport away from the paladin. Another amusing idea I had was that JoJ could prevent the target from changing form. So if a priest was in Shadowform, JoJ would prevent him from dropping out of Shadowform.

Q&A in General

In general, nothing new or interesting came up in the Q&A, other than Ret would get an interrupt effect. I got the sense that Blizzard feels that the paladin class is finished and complete, with only minor tweaking to be done as needed. So if you're not happy with your paladin spec playstyle, it's probably time to switch classes.

Champions Online and Unique Names

Gamespy has an interesting video where Bill Roper demos character creation in Champions Online, an upcoming superhero game.

It looks pretty neat, but what struck me was an almost throwaway line at the end (at about the 3:10 mark). Roper states or implies that multiple player characters can have the same name:

Just like you see in comics, sometimes there are heroes which share a name or share a concept for a name. We know that's going to happen, but the important thing is that when I put that name on the character, I'm going to get the name that I want to really put the last finishing touch on my concept.

This is a radical concept. Most games enforce that each character on a server has a unique name. Thus that character can always be identified by that name. Sometimes it's annoying when you have a good name and it's taken, especially if it's taken by a low-level character that is never played.

But at the same time, can you imagine two characters running around on the same server with the same name? There would be mistaken identities and the possibility for identity theft. How would you send mail or whispers to a character?

Basically, you'd end up with all the problems and confusions of names in the real world. Except in the real world, most people are bound by the geography they inhabit, which you can use to be reasonably sure of identity. Joe Smith who lives at 11 Haro Street and works at 21 Bond St in Toronto is different from Joe Smith who lives at 32 Cordova Street and works at 944 Younge St in Toronto.

In a virtual world with multiple people of the same name, it seems like you would have a lot more problems.

I just don't see how non-unique names would work. Maybe you'd have a "superhero name" which is not unique, but also a "secret identity" which is unique. Of course, it's possible that I'm reading too much into that one line and that Roper means something else entirely.

In Defense of the "B Team"

Eric at Elder Game has written an article claiming that the current Live team working on WoW "is making newbie design mistakes that seem like a benefit on the surface, but are really not good decisions."

I disagree with most of his assessment. The current WoW team has changed some of their practices, and is experimenting with new ones, but I would argue that the current design team is the most successful, and that WoW is in far better shape than it has ever been because of their efforts.

Eric tells the following anecdote about Asheron's Call 2:

I found that the Feral Intendant class was 30% overpowered, and that’s why so many people were playing a Feral Intendant. Yet somehow, reducing the power of the Feral Intendant to the correct level did not suddenly make the game more fun… thousands of players were complaining and nobody was telling me they were happy about the change. Weird! I double checked my calculations. They were correct. So what had gone wrong?

Turns out that the people who played the other classes available to that race had taken on an “underdog” mentality. The people who played Claw Bearers liked that they were woefully underpowered compared to Feral Intendants. It was like playing the game on Hard Mode. And the people playing Feral Intendants liked playing on Easy Mode. In balancing the game I had failed to understand the needs of the people playing it. I just ham-handedly fixed the equations, instead of solving the problem with the finesse it needed. It was one of my more serious missteps. (And it’s a great example because I think it’s pretty obvious in hindsight. Most mistakes were much more subtle.)

If memory serves, AC2 was a failure, and didn't really last long enough to develop a significant endgame. All this talk of "Easy Mode" and "Hard Mode" goes out the window once people stop getting invited to groups because their class is underpowered.

Then you see how important class balance becomes. The point of MMOs is to play with other people. If other people refuse to play with you because of your class, your game has failed at a fundamental level.

By that measure, the current Live team has done a superlative job. Pretty much every spec for every class is respectable in the modern PvE game. That is a massive difference from the situation during WoW 1.0. If you now want to play as a Enhancement melee shaman, go ahead. Survival Hunter, why not. And each of these specs are reasonably different from each other. The current Live team managed to make Discipline priests both viable and play differently than Holy priests, which is nothing short of a minor miracle.

As an example of how much better the game is, last night I got to DPS as Retribution on our guild-first kill of XT-002 Hard Mode. (I was pretty terrible--lol 4k DPS--but it is my secondary spec.) In 1.0 and TBC, I would not have been able to play as Retribution as my primary playstyle in optimum gear, let alone in mismatched leftover gear. I would have been forced to heal. Now, I heal because I choose to heal. For that alone, I think that the current Blizzard team is doing a great job.

It's not just class balance. Ulduar is a superb instance. It has a large variety of bosses, interesting trash, complex fights, and challenging hard modes. It is quite possibly the best instance ever released. Even the hotfixes have improved the pacing and tuning.

I do think Eric has some good points, especially about the fact that some changes are not "clean" enough, and the fact that tooltip changes lag behind hotfixes. Some of the current Live practices could be improved. But I think he is focusing on smaller flaws, and is missing the very large advantages that the current Live practices are bringing.

The current WoW team is doing many things differently from the original team. Changes are coming faster, and they are more open about current and future plans, even if those plans end up changing. Sometimes this makes them seem more fallible, but I think they should be judged by the result. And the clear result in my view is that the current game is leagues ahead of WoW 1.0 and 2.0.

Making an Impact

I don't really understand why so many MMO commentators are obsessed with the idea of players making an impact on the game world.

Scratch that. I understand why they want to make an impact. What I don't understand is how they expect people who don't make an impact in the real world, to all of a sudden be able to make a significant impact in a virtual one.

Very few people actually change the world. Most of us settle for small victories and quiet defeats. That's not bad, that's just how life is. Very few of us are offered Achilles' choice.

But it would be the same in an impactful MMO. You'd have a few people--the hardcore, the Ensidias and the Mittanis--and they would shake the world. A dragon would arise, and they would rush to slay it. You and I, we'd probably arrive on the scene much too late, long after the dragon has been defeated.

Faced with that, I'd much rather have a world of handcrafted, polished content that I can experience. Even if everyone else experiences the same content. Indeed, there are advantages to having shared experiences. Everyone knows who Hogger is, because because everyone has experienced Hogger. Shared experiences help knit a community together.

In the end, I guess I doubt I would be the hero in an impactful world. At least in a static world I can slay dragons, even if everyone else can slay them as well.

Updates

Blog

I've really been slacking with this blog for the last couple months. I'm not really sure why. There's stuff I want to write about, but I can't seem to take that last step and actually put the words down.

Warlock

I finally got my warlock Valarin up to level 80 last weekend. Now I'm wondering what to do. I could:

1. Do Battlegrounds with Valarin and get some PvP gear.


2. Continue questing with Valarin.


3. Do Battlegrounds with Coriel.


4. Level a new character.

Healing

I'm contemplating switching to a 51/20/0 Holy/Protection spec that relies on Sacred Shield and Flash of Light. Between Divinity and Glyph of Seal of Light, that makes FoL 10% stronger. It would also be really good once I got 4-piece Tier 8 and the improved Sacred Sacred Shield.

I'm even considering regemming to [Revitalizing Skyflare Diamond] and then putting a red spellpower gem in every gem slot to maximize the effectiveness of FoL. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, and it seems a bit too expensive to just experiment wildly.

The Emblem Debate

Changes

• Both the 10 and 25-player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
• The Heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
• New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.

Advantages

1. It will be easier to gear up alts or new 80s.


2. More people will be running the heroic daily, making it easier to find a group.


3. Lower raid guilds get a bit of a gear advantage, which could push them to catch up to current content.


4. Acts as a soft gear reset, hopefully putting everyone into a good position for Icecrown and Arthas.


5. Simplifies the emblem system into "best" and "everything else". This is very similar to the PvP setup, and should keep PvP from becoming the best way to gear up (for PvE purposes).


6. Gives people who don't raid or PvP--but who can do 5-mans--a path for gear progression.

Disadvantages

1. Edge raiders will be required to do heroic dailies--content which they've already done a lot--to maximize progression.


2. Will cause some guilds to keep farming Naxxramas, instead of pushing on into new content. Old content needs to be dropped. Choosing to farm Naxx over wiping in Ulduar is the wrong choice, if you want your guild to progress. But many people over-inflate the importance of gear and may choose to farm for emblems. We saw this happen with Badges of Justice and Karazhan in the last expansion.

Conclusions

If guilds keep moving forward, using the new badge system to push themselves, then this new system will be a success. The playerbase will be in a solid position for Icecrown.

What's more likely to happen is lower-tier guilds farm Naxxramas incessantly, in the belief that they need gear to progress. Then they will start to lose their best players to the higher tier guilds and fall into decline and stagnation.

I wonder if this system would have been better if it had been introduced in 3.1 with Ulduar. Heroics and 10-man Naxx could have been boosted to Emblems of Valor. The jump wouldn't have been that extreme, and would have gotten everyone used to the idea.

3.2: Retribution Paladins

Changes

• Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.
• Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage.
• Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant.
• Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4-second cooldown.
• Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.
• Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.

Seal Changes

With Seal of Blood removed, Blizzard appears to be pushing Seal of Vengeance as the sustained damage seal, and Seal of Command as the burst damage seal. SoV needs 5 hits to get the full debuff rolling before it starts dealing damage, but looks to do more damage overall than SoC, especially if you pick up Seals of the Pure in the Holy Tree. This looks like a pretty good design to me.

General Rotation Changes

I'm not really a fan of the direction Blizzard is taking Retribution. I really liked the model of 3 abilities with 6-10s cooldowns. It felt measured with lots of open GCDs to do hybrid things. The upfront burst was a problem, but I think it could have been fixed without moving in the direction that Blizzard has gone.

The thing is is that I like the "few big hits" model. I'm not really a fan of the rogue/deathknight "many small hits" style. It feels wrong and frantic for a 2H weapon class. But it also appears to be the only model that this Blizzard dev team can balance, so all the melee classes are trending towards it. For paladins, that has resulted in Consecration and Exorcism being part of the regular rotation, and a weak, quick Crusader Strike.

As for the Art of War change, I don't think it makes much of difference. Ret crits a lot, so it should be available whenever it is off cooldown. It will be used a lot less in PvP though. I don't think this change will result in any extra thought or deliberation on the paladin's part.

Vindication

This is a good change for Vindication. It becomes useful in PvE, provides another alternative to Demo Shout, and let's the warriors do more DPS. All good.

Conclusions

The Ret changes are probably mathematically sound, and will probably result in Ret doing the proper amount of damage in PvE, while reigning in their burst in PvP. However, I'm not sure I will like the resulting button-mashing playstyle. It just doesn't feel right for a 2H class.

3.2: Protection Paladins

Changes

• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.
• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren's Lucky Coin, Lavanthor's Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.
• Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
• Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration or mana cost, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage.
• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%.
• Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin's health to 10/20/30% of maximum.
• Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.

Blocking

Blocking becomes a bit better, though Shield of Righteousness is nerfed slightly. The real problem with Block though, is that it just isn't as attractive as Avoidance.

Blessing of Sanctuary

I guess Blizzard is trying to set up a system where the first paladin does Kings+Sanctuary, while the second paladin does Might+Wisdom. This change does solidify Sanctuary the priority blessing for tanks. To be honest, the real issue is that Greater Blessings are done on a per-class basis, but the desired order depends on the specific spec. The real problem with Sanctuary is that it makes handing out Blessings more of a hassle.

Actually, you know what might be cool--but possibly overpowered--is if Sanctuary wasn't a separate Blessing, but rather an Improved Blessing of Kings. If you had the Sanctuary talent, your Blessing of Kings gives the 3% damage reduction. It's potentially too good, but this would make handing out Blessings so much easier.

Ardent Defender

This is a major change. I think the "unleapfrogable" nature of the new Ardent Defender is possibly too good. It's the equivalent of just getting 10% more health. I'd be somewhat surprised if this went Live as is.

The automatic Avoid Death is cool. The only issue I can see is not knowing whether the effect is available or on cooldown. This could be important for coordinating external cooldowns. If the effect is on cooldown, you might need to call for a Hand of Sacrifice to survive a burst of damage.

Other Changes

Righteous Fury becomes more stance-like. Seal of Vengeance becomes stronger, but this is balanced by the Shield of Righteousness nerf. The Vindication change allows a Prot paladin debuff the mob, freeing up a warrior or warlock to do more DPS.

Conclusions

Overall, Protection doesn't change that much. Blocking becomes a bit stronger, a Protection Paladin effectively gets more health, and she obtains a new cooldown and debuff. Coupled with the Death Knight nerfs, this should leave paladins in a decent position.

3.2: Holy Paladins

Test Realm Patch notes are available. There's lots of changes, so I'll take them one section at a time.

Sometimes I feel that no one at Blizzard plays a paladin. Then I see patch notes like these and I know that no one plays a paladin. These are the changes which effect Holy Paladins.

Changes

• Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.
• Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
• Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target's armor. (I assume this is Improved Lay on Hands)
• Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal over time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.
• Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker's maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.
• Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
• Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
• Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.

Mana Regeneration

Major reductions in mana regeneration. Our regeneration from critical heals is halved. There is about a 20% nerf in regen from Replenishment and the change to Divine Intellect. We do get an increase in effectiveness from mp5. On the whole, mana conservation and controlling overhealing will become a lot more important. I don't think that Holy Light will be able to be used as heavily as before.

However, I think this is a good thing. I called for Illumination for Holy Light to be cut to 30% back in December. We've been ignoring mana for too long, and it will be good to have to consider it once again.

Beacon of Light

First, let's get one thing straight: This is a complete buff for paladins. The new Beacon effectively doubles paladin throughput.

However, it's also a terribly stupid idea which doesn't actually solve any problems that paladins were facing.

In my experience, the fights where I feel the most constrained as a paladin are fights like Mimron Phase 2 or XT's Tantrum. Fights with a lot of raid-wide damage. The new Beacon does not really change much for these fights. It also doesn't change much for the 3rd or 4th paladin healer in a raid. Those paladins are still useless and can't really contribute. Tank healing is already been taken care of by the first couple paladins. I know that having 3-4 paladin healers is not ideal, but it is a much worse position than having 3-4 of any other class.

Second, it changes the dynamic between healer and tank. Paladins will be tank healers who never, ever cast heals on the tank. We heal the tank by not healing the tank. Even if everyone else in the raid is at full health, it is better to cast a heal on a random DPS than it is to cast it on the tank.

This is just wrong. I like casting heals on the tank. I think that going from spamming heals on the tank to spamming heals on everyone but the tank is just stupid, and not in line with what a healer should be doing.

Honestly, I don't see how Blizzard can manage to miss the mark so completely. We're fine as tank healers. Our problem comes when when the tanks are already being taken care of by others. If that ever happens, our usefulness goes to zero. The new Beacon does nothing to rectify that situation.

Other Changes

The other changes are pretty decent. Imp Lay on Hands gives another cooldown that's useful all the time. The new Flash of Light/Sacred Shield interaction adds some more ablation on the tank, while still preserving the doubled throughput. Judgement of Light is reigned in, and now will probably be cast by Holy paladins, allowing the Rets to maintain full Wisdom uptime. All good tweaks.

Conclusions

Mana regen changes hurt but are necessary. Beacon changes are a buff, but are stupid and miss the mark. The other small tweaks are good.