The Light Fades for Protection

Good morning everyone…

Lots of new news coming out now that Patch 4.1 has made its way to the PTR….

What?… you wonder where I’ve been?  I kind of expected that. Anyway, I’ve been really busy with some RL changes, most of them keeping me from really getting onto WoW much.  But that’s changed a bit, and I’ve gotten a little more time on my hands, and my workload has shifted at work.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  Looks like there will be a few changes to the Paladin with this new patch.  here’s a quick outline.

Paladin

Word of Glory: We hope Retribution and Protection Paladins occasionally do the right healing to others, but as we know Paladins sometimes feel that Holy Power is only for the healing. We rather like these specs use more Holy Power on damage abilities, and occasionally heal.

Holy

• Divine Light now costs 30% of base mana, down from 33%.
• Flash of Light now costs 27% of base mana, down from 30%.
• Walk in the Light (Mastery) now removes the cooldown on your Word of Glory.
• Word of Glory now has a 20 sec cooldown.
• Aura Mastery now improves the effect of Devotion Aura, Resistance Aura, and Retribution Aura instead of all auras.
• Conviction now procs from non-periodic spells.

Protection

• Divine Guardian now has a 3 min cooldown, up from 2 min.

Retribution

• Divine Storm now grants a charge of Holy Power if it hits 4 or more targets.
• Sacred Shield now cannot occur more than once every 60 sec, up from 30 sec.

Well, as the title states, it looks like some of the Light is fading for Protection.  What I mean by this is the change in Word of Glory.  At the moment, it has become a practice among some Paladin tanks in raid environments to use WoG each time you have 3 Holy Power.  This saves a bit of mana for the healers, and provides a nice little buffer. With this new change, Paladins are now forced to use Shield of the Righteous or Inquisition. I have yet to follow the WoG spam method, but I’m also not raiding yet.  Time is still a little restrictive.  But do see how it could be a boon for healers.  I myself have moved towards using the more damaging Holy Power dumps in dungeons, in fact here’s how I usually work the rotation, boss tactics especially.

•  
  • Avenger’s Shield > Divine Plea (3 Holy Power) > Shield of the Righetousness
  • This is then followed by: Judgement > CS > Avenger’s Shield (if off cooldown) > CS > Holy Wrath > CS > Inquisition > Judgement > etc. etc.

Following this method, I’ve been able to keep threat, as well as increase my damage after the initial threat build. using Inquisition as my second HP dump, has been a way for me to increase that outgoing damage, gaining a nice little buffer, where I can then move to WoG as the HP dump.  But instead of using WoG each time I have 3 HP, I would instead spread it out: WoG > Inq. > ShotR > WoG > Inq. > ShotR

Of course this is situational, as sometimes ther eis a need to burn down the target, and in those cases, i would often use ShotR on each 3HP cooldown.  Something I’ve come to love about the abilities linked with HP.

Some may be asking “What about Holy?” Well, the Walking in the Light mastery has fixed that by removing the 20 sec cooldown, allowing Holy Pallies to continue with their normal usage of WoG, as it is very unlikely that they’ll need a DPS increase while healing.

I have also noticed that the healing costs are still being tweaked and twisted.  I was a bit set back by the initial nerf to the cost, but do see that Blizz recognizes this too.

I am sad that Aura Mastery does not work for Crusader Aura, but had already gotten used to that. Though I’m unsure why Consentration Aura was removed. I guess it is due to the fact that CA is already being modified by the Aura Mastery spell itself, but time will tell.

Lastly is changes to Conviction. As there aren’t that many HoTs, it doesn’t really affect us a lot, outside of the fact that Holy Radiance does not proc it.  As I’ve said, I’ve yet to do any raids yet, so am not totally sure how it is going to affect healing.

The last change is Divine Storm now working almost like Hammer of the Righteous and providing a charge  if Holy Power if the attack hits more than 3 targets. This is a nice change, as when I was specc’d as Retribution it almost didn’t feel necessary to use Divine Storm at all, with the nice damage of Templar’s Verdict. I have yet to experiment with the Sacred Shield change, since I haven’t even experienced it before (Have been Holy/Prot since about 81).

Anyway, with all the other changes including the return of Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub as heroic 5 mans and the introduction of the Firelands raid, 4.1 looks to be an interesting patch.

Light be with you.

The Long Word

Good afternoon folks…

I’ve decided that I’m going to start changing up my format.  As you can tell, I have not been able to post much as of late, partly because I’m busy, and partly because there hasn’t been a whole lot to go into until lately. So, I’m going to start doing a weekly post (much like Tuesday with Tarinae) called “The Long Word”.  It’ll be a mixed bag of Retribution, Protection, and of course Holy info as it comes in throughout the week.  I may even throw in a few little extras from my alt’s classes, etc.

The Long Word

I’ll probably begin this either Friday or maybe next week, we’ll see how the schedule goes.  I hope you all will like this new format, as it’s a bit easier for me to handle, and get out to you all. (Don’t worry, I’ll have a much better banner than just the Word of Glory icon :P)

Until next time, Light be with you.

The First cracks appear

Well, like I promised, with the new patch out, and the impending Cataclysm coming December 7th, I’ll likely be posting a bit more again.  And so, here I am 🙂

First up, let me say, the new UI changes are nice, I really like the new spellbook and talent tree setup.  It took a little getting used to, and took some time to iron out my talent choices, but since the servers were halfway stable last night, I hopped on to set up my specs on my paladin.

Sadly, this blog’s namesake, “Illumination”, no longer exists *sigh*. Oh well, probably won’t change the name though. Anyway, back to the subject at hand.

Patch 4.0.1 brings in a plethora of changes. Outside of the entire talent tree revamp, we also now have access to Reforging, Mastery, a handful of new spells and to top it all off a new resource system for us Paladins. My fellow blogger over at A Healadin’s Tear has done a great job of descibing how each of these work, so I won’t reinvent the wheel, I will however comment some on what I think of the change.

I ended up with a slightly different 32/2/2 build, taking advantage of some of the new Holy Power generating abilities, and getting more out of Holy Shock since it will be a very important spell now.

This post will pretty much be a quick intro to a more detailed one tomorrow (I don’t have any screenshots, and can’t really show you the choices I made).

But, 4.0.1 has begun to crack open the potential of the next expansion.  I hope to help with some of the transition in the coming posts.  Until then, I will see you in the new world.

Seeing the Forest through the Trees

Good morning fellow Paladins… and the others 🙂

I’m here today to take a look at some of the Cataclysm Paladin Talents, and what should/could and shouldn’t be chosen, based on your role. Yes, I’ve decided to dive into it for just a little while, as I’m sure that the talent trees will change (in fact it was just stated through MMO-Champion that the next build would likely change the Holy tree *sigh*).

Welcome to the ever changing world of Cataclysm

This will likely be a LONG post, as I’m going to try to include each and every talent in here.  It’s as up to date as I can get, though I’m sure it’s to change as mentioned earlier. So, prepare for some information overload, as there is a lot to come.

So, without further ado, here is what I’ve come up with for us Holy types.

Naming Conventions and Updates

Hi all, I’m still here, and have a little bit more information for the paladin class. First up being the official GUI update for Holy Power.  it looks like a little bronze dog tag hanging below your player portrait. It provides you with a visual of how many charges of Holy Power you have. Another change were some naming changes for spells such as Healing Hands.  Now known as Holy Radiance, it makes me feel much less pervy if I had to use it.

Holy Power GUI change.

Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of things that I can test, because I am still yet to be in the beta 😦  The major thing that I want to test is the new Masteries. With the removal of Sacred Shield, several folks wondered what was going to take its place.

Basically the Holy Paladin Mastery will be doing that.  Each heal that you provide will be creating a “Divine Shield” and providing a mini version of the Sacred Shield based on the strength of the heal used. This is a really interesting addition, and in a way gives me a sense of Discipline Priest bubbling, except it’s happening automatically. Currently there is a bug that is replacing the shield with the next spell’s shield, no matter if it is less powerful or not. An example being, you cast a Divine Light that crits; this would put a substantial shield on the target. However, if you happen to have Holy Radiance running, it’s heals will overwrite the shield with its own shield, based on the power of the spell. This has been noted though, and marked as a bug.

There is a ton more that has been updated, in fact more that I’d be able to put into this post… yay for a busy RL.   But, I will begin breaking out some of these changes in future posts.

In other news, I went back Ret… yup, again.  I was actually on with some friends and we ran Heroic Halls of Reflection, and simply didn’t have the DPS to complete the final walk.  So, I hearthed out, and respec’d real quick into ret and grabbed my gear.  Needless to say, I actually hit near 5k dps and was able to help my buddies get the achievement for that run. Seeing that damage kind of excited me, so I decided to keep it and see how often I’d have a chance to get some instances in.  After a few runs, and also tweaking my gear to meet the hit cap, and maximize strength, I decided that it would be fun to continue this offspec… again.

Well, the next day, I was asked by a friend if I still had my tank gear.  Of course, I said yes, and ended up respecing AGAIN to go tank a couple of bosses in ICC. What sucked though is that I had just bought the T10 shoulders for my Retribution set… *sigh* Oh well.  So after that run was over, I swapped back.  I balanced the set out again, as changing the shoulders had dropped a good bit of +hit, and went looking for some raids. Fortunately I caught wind of a VoA 25, and decided to join as DPS. What a fortunate move that was, as the Sanctified T10 legs dropped, and I was the only Paladin DPS in the raid! So, I guess in a away, I had a bit of payback from helping my friends out earlier… ah, gotta love karma.

Haven’t really thought of a way to close this up, but will end it by saying that I plan to map out the latest changes for Paladins and provide some posts on the recent updates.  It’s difficult to keep up with, as they are changing almost daily, plus not being in the Beta, I’m having to look up the changes from other sites/blogs, and not blatantly plagiarise them.

So, until next time, Light be with you.

Holy Sh-…. Shock

The world is continuing to be torn asunder, and along with it the talent trees are shifting wildly. Protection paladins are losing and gaining spells left and right, Retribution paladins are still gaining their footing, and Holy paladins are constantly feeling their buffs rearranged. 

However, among all these things, one thing seems for certain. Holy Shock is turning out to be a monster. 

Betcha didn't know Goku was a Paladin

Here’s the basics: 

Holy Shock
8% of base mana
20-40 yd range
6 sec cooldown
Blasts the target with holy energy, causing 1399 to 1515 Holy damage to an enemy, or 3938 to 4266 healing to an ally, and grants a charge of Holy Power 

From the last notes I was able to read up on, it had an 81% spellpower (healing) coefficient. 

At the moment, I am sitting at 2813 Spellpower unbuffed, with a 30.78% crit chance. This would mean that my base Holy shock should heal for around 3938 + (2813 [SP]*.81) = 6216.53 to 6544.53 with no talents or buffs added. 

So, let’s start adding some talents.  First we’ve got Divinity, which is currently Tier 1 on the Holy tree.  It provides, when maxed at 3/3, an increase in all healing done by you by 6%. Next we have Healing Light, sitting in Tier 2, providing, when maxed at 3/3, an increase in the amount healed by your Word of Glory and the damage and healing of your Holy Shock by 30%. Lastly we have Crusade, sitting in Tier 1 of the Retribution Tree, (meaning we can’t put points into it until level 70). With Crusade maxed at 3/3, you will have an increase in the damage of your Crusader Strike, Hammer of Righteous, and Templar’s Verdict by 30% and the damage and healing of your Holy Shock by 30%. 

So, let’s add these up. First let’s think about what is affected by the percentage increases that the talents provide. Will they be added to the base spell strength where the SP coefficient is added at the end, or will it be added on top of the spell’s strength after the SP coefficient has been added.  I’ll put both in, just to see what the difference may be. 

[D] = Divinity
[H] = Healing Light
[C] = Crusade
[SP] = Spell Power
In addition to the SP Coefficient (Before):
3938 + (3938 * .06 [D]) + (3938 * .30 [H]) + (3938 * .30 [C]) + (2813 [SP]*.81) = 8815.61 to 9360.09
Including the SP Coefficient (After):
(3938 + (2813 [SP]*.81)) = 6216.53
6216.53 + (6216.53 * .06 [D]) + (6216.53 * .30 [H]) + (6216.53 * .30 [C]) = 10319.44 to 10863.94

So, we now have an idea as to what kind of potency the new Holy Shock will have.  This is not even including the crit chances which will increase this amount by 150%-200%. Holy Shock is turning out to become one of the most useful spells in our spellbook, even though I already use it plentifully, this will make it even better. 

Now the other talents that it will affect.  First up, it will provide a stack of Holy Power.  Holy Power being our new extra resource to manage, allowing us the instant mana free heal called Word of Glory. Outside of its new primary function, Holy Shock will provide some cast time reductions for Holy Light via Infusion of Light, dropping its cast time by 1.5 sec. Next, via Speed of Light, Holy Shock will also grant upwards of 30% spell haste for your Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light spells (if talented 3/3). So mixing Holy shock with a Judgement, via Judgements of the Pure, you could increase your overall haste by 39% for at most 1 minute. 

I know this is a lot of information to take in at once; however the effects of these changes are huge.  We are going to truly have the flexibility that we may not have had before, mostly thanks to Holy Shock. 

I hope this helps get you a bit excited about the upcoming changes, though they are still in Beta, they really do appear to be shaping up to be something great. Again, until Blizzard makes it law, it’s only speculation, but it sure does get me ready to start trying some of this out in Cataclysm. 

[start emo mode]
But I’m not in the Beta… *sigh* /wrist
[end emo mode]

Pop the Bubble

Yesterday afternoon, I read a great article by Ambrosine on I Like Bubbles. Her post focused on why some Paladin tanks ask a Discipline priest to not bubble them O_0 

Wait, wha? 

Yup, I do understand that there is an issue of the bubble actually being “too” powerful, scaling too well, and preventing any damage from actually getting to the tank, and in turn not requiring any heals.  This effect, causes the paladin to not regain mana from Spiritual Attunement. This, apparently, is what these tanks are complaining about. Now, to be fair, most, if not all of these Paladin tanks that complain are found using the LFD system, they may just be starting out, and are running 5 mans. However, if  you actually plan to tank, and fulfill that role, then it would be best for you to learn your class. 

Popping the Bubble - Learning your Role

Some Insight on Insight

Just looked at some more information for the Holy Paladins out there.

As noted in the Twitter chat, and the latest blue posts, it has been confirmed that Seal of Wisdom is gone. This does not bother me, as I more often used Seal of Light because of my glyph choices. Anyway, some more information has been provided on the “replacement” for this Seal, and how it will work with the new single Judgement spell.

Holy Paladins are going to be using a new Seal as their primary seal. This new Seal is called Seal of Insight.

Some further insight and quotes from the Blues behind the break.

Holy Guacamole!

Well, looks like us Paladins are on a roll now. After being rudely awakened this morning by a not so happy 4 month old, I decided after calming him down that I’d take a quick look at MMO-Champion to see if there were any updates on the paladin changes announced during the Twitter chat.  As some may also know, the Beta had a patch yesterday, where several of the new things were to be implemented.

And implemented they were.

Awwwww YEAHHH!!!

Here’s what I found while perusing the site (I’ll stick with Holy for now):

Holy

• Healing Hands now has a 1 min cooldown
• Divine Plea is now trained at level 58. Down from 68.
• Light’s Beacon (!) now affects each heal you cast on the target instead of just Holy Light and Holy Shock. Now heals the beacon for 50%. (Down from 100%)
• Holy Wrath no longer scales from attack power and deals 2400 Holy damage divided among all targets within 10 yards.
• Holy Shock now grants a charge of Holy Power.
• Seal of Wisdom is gone.
• Seal of the Pure (!) now seems to have a chance to restore the Paladin’s mana.
• Holy Light is now trained at level 14. Up from 5.
• Divine Light – A large heal that heals a friendly target for 7761.99 to 8648.14. Good for periods of heavy damage. // 30% base mana, 40 yd range, 2.5 sec cast
• Divine Favor now increases your chance to critically hit with your next Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Divine Light by 100% / Instant, 1 min cooldown
• Denounce (!)- You have a 50/100% chance when any of your Holy spells get a critical effect to make your next Exorcism spell instant and cost no mana.
• Sacred Cleansing is now Tier 4 Talent. Down from Tier 5.
• Infusion of Light is now a Tier 3 Talent. Down from Tier 4. It now only affects Holy Light. (No longer affects Divine Light)
• Blessed Life is now a Tier 6 Talent. Up form Tier 4.
• Enlightened Judgements is now a Tier 3 Talent. Down from Tier 4.
• Healing Light now affects Words of Glory.
• Tower of Radiance (NYI) *New* (!) – Directly healing the target of your Beacon of Light has a % chance to generate Holy Power.
• Judgements of the Pure is now a Tier 1 talend. Down from Tier 2.
• Sanctified Light now affects Word of Glory and increases critical chance by 6/12%. (Up from 5/10%)
• Speed of Light *New* (!) – Casting Holy Shock grants 5/10/30% spell haste for your next Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Divine Light, and casting Healing Hands grants you 10/20/60% movement speed for 10 sec. Also lowers the cooldown on Healing hands by 10/20/30 sec at all times.
• Clarity of Purpose *New* – Reduces the casting time of your Holy Light and Divine Light spells by 0.1/0.2/0.3 sec.

Holy Power Rangers!

Sadly, I missed my chance to get into this month’s Twitter Developer chat, but the news that was revealed turned out to be a massive shift for us paladins. It appears that the mechanic change that was mentioned earlier, did actually make it’s way to the public sooner than I  had expected. Contrary to my belief from the last post that this change would be “controvercial”, I actually don’t feel that it will be that much of a problem to most of the paladins who are out there.  Well at least to the ones who play Paladins for the class and lore, and not just because they can sometimes get the job done by being facerollers.

The actual change is quoted below:

All of the paladin specializations will make use of a new resource called Holy Power. Holy Power accumulates from using Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and some other talents. Holy Power can be consumed to augment a variety of abilities, including:

• An instant mana-free heal: Word of Glory
• A buff to increase holy damage done: Inquisition
• A massive physical melee attack for Retribution paladins: Templar’s Verdict
• Holy Shield’s duration is now extended by Holy Power
• Divine Storm’s damage is now increased by Holy Power

We also introduced several new heals for Holy Paladins including Healing Hands (an AoE heal-over-time that is applied to all players standing near the paladin), Light of Dawn (a cone heal with a 30-yard range), as well as a new heal called Divine Light, which is similar to a priest’s Greater Heal, and the new instant heal mentioned above, Word of Glory.

Q: Can you give us a sneak peek at one or two of the new Retribution abilities or talents?
A. Templar’s Verdict: An instant weapon attack that causes a percentage of weapon damage. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase damage dealt:

• 1 Holy Power: 55% Weapon Damage
• 2 Holy Power: 125% Weapon Damage
• 3 Holy Power: 225% Weapon Damage

Word of Glory: Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for a specific amount per application of Holy Power (0 mana cost, 0 cooldown, instant cast)

Holy Power Ranger