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 :: 10/29/2010

Welcome to another edition of The Long Word.  Got some interesting stuff this week.  Including some changes for my Paladin, and some good news for my DK. Lastly, I’ll try to keep everybody up to date with the latest releases and updates from Blizzard.

The Long Word

 “Tanking” Care of Business

Yes, yes… it’s a corny title, so sue me. But it gives me a good start for this part of the post. After reading some of my favorite Tankadin’s blog (Righteous Defense), I decided to give Prot a shot again. I felt a bit lost with Retribution. Sure there were more buttons to push; however, it felt as if there was a lot of waiting, either that or I just had not yet figured out a “rotation” to work with. I usually topped out at aobut 5k dps, and just couldn’t break that barrier. Sure it’s still a good number, but I didn’t want to feel limited by my inept Ret skills, and wanted to go back to something a bit more comfortable.

Boy was it a suprise to see how little comfort was there. I will agree, originally Paladin Protection tanking was a bit of a faceroll.  The same buttons, whenever the popped up, no procs, no Holy Power, the same old same old. That has all changed. I will admit, it is a much more fluid feeling rotation, though the rotation changes dependant on the types of enemies, and yes, it gets  a bit monotonous hitting Crusader Strike every other attack, but wow does it feel so much more structured and fluid.

Per Rhidach

Pull with AS > CS > J > CS > HW > CS > ShoR > CS > J > CS > AS > CS > Shor > CS > J > CS > HW > CS > ShoR > CS > AS > CS > J > CS > ShoR > etc.

The rotation looks a bit complicaated, but isn’t that bad. It’s donned the name “939”, and though can be considered  a rotation, requires for you to watch for procs, and have patience on using abilities “as they light up.”

A big change, is the fact that Holy Shield is no longer cast on yourself, but rather placed as a buff upon using Shield of the Righteous. Speaking of ShoR… it hits like a truck with 3 Holy Power… just keep that in mind 😉  It is important to get the ShoR of as soon as possible though, so that you have that extra block buffer up.  It will normally last until you have built up the Holy Power to place a full power ShoR, so get it up as soon as you can.

Threat

This is a tough subject.  First up, you automatically get Vengeance upon choosing Protection.  This converts some of the damage done to you to Attack Power, allowing you to hit a bit harder, in turn generating more threat. Next up is the good ol standby of Righteous Fury. This still provides us with the threat we need, as well as… if I’m not mistaken… our ability to be uncrittable (defense cap’d).

I was able to tank a few heroics last night, and discovered that our front side threat has really dropped from what it was.  And, to tell you the truth, AoE threat has appeared to have been lowered as expected. But it took me a little whlie to realize it.  First of all, I had forgotten to use Hammer of the Righteous whenever tanking groups… oops, give me a break here, it was only my first or second instance since 4.0.1.  I had gotten so used to being able to use HoR as an extra attack when tanking groups, that I forgot the fact that it and Crusader Strike are exclusive from each other, and now share a cooldown. This did however, teach me how flexible our new rotation is. I was able to go from AoE tanking a group using HoR down to a single target focus by replacing HoR with CS on the fly, allowing me to keep threat up on a single target while the DPS burns it.

As I mentioned earlier, it feels very fluid, and the spells seem to work very well with each other. By the end of the night, I had pretty much gotten the rotation down pat, and was still hitting about 3k dps on the charts.

Tasty Holy Buffs

With the latest info released, it looks like several of our holy spells are getting a nice buffs.  Check out the list below:

• Holy Radiance‘s effectiveness now diminish on targets farther than x yards away.
• Divine Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 8538-9512 to 11100-12366 (!).
• Flash of Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 5313-5961 to 6907-7750.
• Holy Shock base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3033-3285 to 3943-4271.
• Holy Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3202-3567 to 4162-4637.
• Beacon of Light now lasts 5 min, up from 1 min.
• Mastery: Illuminated Healing now absorbs 10% of the amount healed, up from 8%. Now lasts 8 sec, up from 6 sec. Each point of mastery increases the absorb amount by an additional 1.25%, up from 1%.
• Lay on Hands no longer restores mana.
• Holy Wrath now scales from 61% of SpellPower, up from 30%. Base damage reduced by 22%, from 3122 to 2435.
• Exorcism now scales from 34.4% of SpellPower or AP, up from 15%. Base damage increased by 15% from 2343 to 2741.

In the words of the Almighty Cthuloo… “Yum Yum!”

So, let’s begin:

Holy Radiance
This actually did not come as a surprise to me.  I expected that you couldn’t run across the raid, and heal everybody for the same amount.  That really just seemed to be a bit overpowered to me.  So this change, was sort of expected. I still can’t wait to get this spell though.

Divine Light
Holy tauren… them thar numbers is quite large. And to think that those are base numbers, not buffed by spell power or any other healing buffs. Ever since 4.0.1 came out, I felt that Divine Light was a bit weak for its status as the heal bomb. But now with these “enhanced” numbers, I feel that we’ll begin to see some huge heals again, and possibly some more use of this spell.

Flash of Light
Yup, it’s still potent, and yup, it’s still expensive.  However, I have a feeling (since I haven’t really done any raids since 4.0.1) that it will still be used, and now be spammed as much as Holy Light was back in the day. It feels so strange to not use it as my go-to spell, but it’s quick cast is so very nice combined with it’s big numbers.

Holy Shock
Not a whole lot to say, like the other healing spells, it got a nice buff in base potency, and in turn should mean a little quicker turn around on tanks after damage spikes.

Holy Light
Our “go to” spell, though still slow as Christmas (unless a proc is present), did get a little bit of a buff as well. Again, not much different here, besides the base potency change.

Beacon of Light (!)
Oh shout praise and joy to the Heavens! Beacon of Light is now a 5 minute buff!  That is a very big change.  One thing that it will save is an extra global cooldown.  I’ve always had those moments, when I need to get some big heals out, but also notice that the Beacon is starting to drop off of the tank, or my beacon target.  This change will be huge.  Next is the mana savings.  With Beacon’s cost having been dropped as of 4.0.1 (6% base mana), it still is not an easy decision to make when you are running on fumes. But now that you will likely only have to cast it once maybe twice a fight, there is a good bit of savings there.

As for the Glyph to go with it, it now removes the mana cost… hmmm… not much of a help considering you will likely have regained enough mana to cast it tenfold by the time it would fall off after 5 minutes.  Means it’s time to take another look at my glyphs.  Or just follow Tarinae’s advice and go with the Cleanse Glyph in it’s place.

Mastery: Illuminated Healing
This new central mechanic of our class has gotten a nice initial buff of a 2% increase to the amount absorbed. In addition, an extra .25% is earned with each point of Mastery added.  I’m not really sure of the reasoning behind this; however, it is a welcome addition.

Lay on Hands
Well, it no longer returns mana as well as HP.  This is not that big of a deal to me, as I was not using it to return mana, but rather save a tank from the brink of death (or get huge numbers on Valithria Dreamwalker). It does have an effect on the Glyph though, which has now been changed to simply return 10% mana to you upon using it on another target.  This is a welcome change, as it provides the same amount of mana return as Divine Plea would, but without the Healing debuff.

Holy Wrath
The damage output of this spell is now buffed by over twice as much spellpower now (61% up from 30%), though the base damage has been dropped by 22%. I’ve yet to really work these numbers in game, but some quick napkin math says that it’s about a 300 damage boost:

Original (with 3100 spellpower):
3122 (base) + 930 (30% SP) = 4052

New (with 3100 spellpower):
2435 (base) + 1891 (61% SP) = 4326

Nothing huge, but a nice little buff nonetheless. It very well may scale better with Ret and Prot, but I don’t have many numbers to work with there.

Exorcism
Again, like Holy Wrath, not much use for a Holy Paladin, but it too has been buffed to scale a bit higher via Spellpower or Attack Power (I’m assuming whichever is higher).

Original (with 3100 Spellpower):
2343 (base) + 465 (15% SP) = 2808

New (with 3100 Spellpower):
2741 (base) + 1066.4 (34.4% SP) = 3807.4

It is about a 1000 damage increase… very nice.

The Longer Word

Well, that’s all for the paladin class that I have got for this week. I’m sure I’ll have more as I get back into doing a few raids.

In other news though, I finally got my Horseman’s Mount.  I actually got it after my son watched me take down the HH, and was about to head into the living room to play with some cars.  I opened the pumpkin (which I thought I had not gotten since I thought my bags were full), and apparently had one slot left in my bags.  So there went a stack of chilled meat… oh well, very much worth the mount,  haha.  Simply put, I’ve basically slowed down doing that fight anymore on my paladin, though have been hitting him up on my death knight.

Speaking of my Death Knight, he’s now getting close to half way through level 79.  I hope to hit 80 this weekend.  Sadly this will only be my second max level character. He has been fun to play though, an interesting difference from the paladin. He’s also my money maker, selling glyphs left and right.  But I’ll have more on him later.

Until next week… 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.

Chat Window: It’s there for a reason

WARNING: INCOMING VILE SPEW OF WHININESS AND QQ…. 

Ok, maybe not that bad, but it is a bit of a rant, but don’t worry, I’ll lighten it up. 

The Chat window.  It’s that thing that you start out with in the bottom left of  your UI, it’s where you can see what other folks are talking about in the area, or even what kind of stories or villainous rhetoric is being spewed in Trade Chat. It’s where important information appears, whether it be Blizz GM’s replying to a ticket, or achievement spam from your most recent conquer. 

It's got a purpose

 

It is also where instructions are relayed, and information provided to help your situational awareness. Addons take advantage of it to provide you with quick glimpses at information, or even warnings of incoming danger. 

Most importantly though, at least in most cases, it’s where your party or raid is commenting/talking/instructing/YELLING. It’s where your fellow members can inform you that you are standing in the bad, or not standing in the right place at all.  It’s where Raid Warnings appear before showing up in the middle of your screen. 

I went through all of this to get to this point… It’s there for a purpose, and that purpose is to convey information to  you that may be very important to the ongoing encounter. 

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.

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

No Longer the Faceroll Tank Class

Well, I promised that I’d take a look at the Protection changes. Since I currently have a tank offspec (which ends up getting as much or more use than my healing spec), these changes caught my eye when they were revealed as well. It looks like a lot is changing in how Protection paladins will manage threat and conduct rotations. In fact, there really won’t be a true rotation anymore. Now nobody can say that we’re the easiest tanking class… so eat that haters 😛

Haters Gonna Hate

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