[Pre-WoD] 6.0 Patch Notes!

[Fouton 266]

Firstly, I apologize for being slow on this post, I've spent 27 of my last 36 hours in bed being sick Let's get started.

 

The patch notes are long, and have some key changes to everything in gameplay. This post will cover only paladin specific changes (while those key changes affect paladins, it will be something you'll have to read here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/13423478/warlords-of-draenor%E2%84%A2-alpha-patch-notes-4-3-2014)

 

Hit and Expertise changes:

 

We decided to remove Hit and Expertise, and make it so you don't need them. We still want melee specializations to attack creatures from behind when possible, so attacks from the front will have a 3% chance to be parried that cannot be eliminated for non-tanking specializations.

 

• All players now have a 100% chance to hit, 0% chance to be dodged, 3% chance to be parried, and 0% chance to glance, when fighting creatures up to 3 levels higher (bosses included).

 

•     Holy Insight no longer increases the chance to hit with spells.
•     Sanctuary now also reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.

 

In essence, holy paladins no longer need hit for denounce so it was removed, and prot paladins are given 3% 'expertise' to remove the parry chance. Ret paladins will still have 3% chance to be parried from the front, but that is all.

 

This means you can DPS from the front of a boss with a minimal damage loss, so if there's a deadly mechanic behind the boss and the tank isn't moving the boss, the front doesn't feel as horrible!

 

Healing Changes:

 

We're removing the low-throughput, low-mana-cost heals like Nourish, Holy Light, Heal, and Healing Wave, because we think that while they do add complexity, they don’t truly add depth to healing gameplay.

• Paladin Higher Efficiency: Holy Light, Holy Shock, Word of Glory, Light of Dawn
• Paladin Higher Throughput: Flash of Light, Holy Radiance

General Changes:

• Smart heals will now randomly pick any injured target within range, instead of always picking the most injured target. Priority will still be given to players over pets.
• Long-cast-time single-target heals, such as Greater Heal and Healing Touch, now cost roughly half as much as fast-cast-time single-target heals, such as Flash of Light or Healing Surge, and heal for roughly the same amount.
• Every class has multiple area healing spells available, some low throughput and efficient, others high throughput and inefficient.
• Area healing spells are tuned to be less efficient than single-target healing spells when they heal 2 or fewer targets, and more efficient when they heal 3 or more targets.
• Spells with cooldowns or limitations may have higher efficiency than the no-cooldown equivalents.

 

It will be hard to interpret these healing changes, however it sounds like paladins will be drifting back to a more single-target mindset. Not saying that holy paladins will become single target healers again, but merely that spamming AoE heals will likely be less effective than it is now. (Opinion)

 

However, these will not be the only changes to healing. As we saw on the last blue post relating to healers, there are also some cutbacks to instant casts:

We're still preserving the option to instantly heal, but are reducing the number of instant-cast healing abilities overall. Raid and dungeon encounter damage during high-movement phases will be adjusted accordingly.

.

Paladin

• Eternal Flame now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast) for Holy Paladins.
• Light of Dawn now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast).
• Word of Glory now has a 1.5-second cast time (up from instant cast).
• Guarded by the Light (Protection) now also makes Word of Glory and Eternal Flame instant cast.
• Sword of Light (Retribution) now also makes Word of Glory and Eternal Flame instant cast.

 

An interesting note is that these instants are for Holy. Ret and Prot keep their instant casts, allowing them to quickly save their life in raids, while also being unable to be interrupted (and locked out of their DPS abilities) during PvP. The only worry I have on this matter is that Ret/Prot paladins might start PvPing with the purpose of being an instant cast healer that can do a fair amount of damage.

 

Note that with the changes to these instant casts, they're addressing Crowd Control abilities and Diminishing Returns, to balance these changes:

 

Another big takeaway from Mists of Pandaria is that there was simply too much crowd control (CC) in the game.  To solve that, we knew that we needed an across-the-board disarmament. Here's a summary of the player-cast CC changes:

.

• Removed Silence effects from Interrupts. Silences still exist, but are never attached to an Interrupt.
• Removed all Disarms.
• Reduced the number of Diminishing Returns (DR) categories.
•     All Roots now share the same DR category.
•         Exception: Roots on 'Charge' types of abilities have no DR category, but have a very short duration instead.
•     All Stuns now share the same DR category.
•     All Incapacitate ("Mesmerize") effects now share the same DR category, and have been merged with the Horror DR category.

 

• Removed the ability to make cast-time CC spells instant with a cooldown.
• Removed many CC spells entirely, and increased the cooldowns and restrictions on others.
•     Pet-cast CC is more limited and often removed.
•     Cyclone can now be dispelled by Immunities and Mass Dispel.
•     PvP trinkets now grant immunity to reapplication of an effect from the same spell cast, when they break abilities with persistent effects like Solar Beam.
•     Long fears are now shorter in PvP, to account for the target also needing to run back afterward.

 

Additionally, we've significantly reduced the number of throughput-increasing cooldowns and procs, in order to further reduce burst damage. Please keep in mind when reading the specifics of the patch notes that some classes may have lost abilities, or had the power of select abilities reduced.

 

Paladin

• Blinding Light has been removed.
• Repentance's cast time has been increased to 1.8 seconds.
• Turn Evil's cast time has been increased to 1.8 seconds and now has a 6 second duration in PvP (down from 8 seconds).

 

These changes are mostly for PvP, however the loss of Blinding Light in PvE is a big control loss for Prot Paladins. It did cost a major glyph to be able to have that AoE stun, and most of the DPS classes had a form of applying it, but it does hurt AoE control to lose that ability. I imagine Blizzard will have some sort of balance on the matter.

 

The removal of Blinding Light was not the only big ability removal, in fact it was just one of many!

 

Ability Pruning:

 

Over the years, we've added significantly more new spells and abilities to the game than we've removed. This has led to the complexity of the game increasing steadily over time, to the point we're at now, where players feel like they need dozens of keybinds.

 

Paladin

• Avenging Wrath is now only available to Retribution Paladins.
• Devotion Aura is no longer available to Protection Paladins.
• Holy Light has been removed.
• Divine Light has been renamed Holy Light.
• Divine Plea has been removed. Mana costs for Paladins have been adjusted accordingly.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings is now only available to Protection Paladins.
• Hand of Salvation has been removed.
• Inquisition has been removed.

 

The changes are actually quite fair in terms of playstyle. Holy Paladins had too many offensive healing CDs, so removing Wings and GoAK will keep them on a more balanced-consistent healing role. Note: GoAK was merely added to Divine Favor for Holy Paladins (see final quote in post)

 

Prot paladins will lose Avenging Wrath and Devotion Aura, which will cause them to be less DPS oriented (and a small self healing loss) and unable to provide a raid wall.

 

Ret paladins will lose Inquisition and GoAK, however they will most certainly be balanced to make up for the loss.

 

Most of these changes are very understandable, and will free up some keybinds for more entertaining or important abilities.

 

Next we will look at the Buffs and Debuffs changes:

 

Weakened Blows was a debuff that mattered almost exclusively to tanks, and that every tank automatically applied. We removed the debuff and reduced creature damage to compensate.

 

This is merely a Protection Paladin change, and that is all that directly affects paladins in this form. There are many more changes though, such as Casting and Physical haste being merged into one buff.

 

On the topic of Prot Paladin changes, there were some large changes to the how tank damage affects the tank (Vengeance is changing!):

 

We like that tanks can provide meaningful DPS to their group, however, it swung wildly based on the fight, even surpassing the dedicated damage dealers occasionally. To solve this, we're going to remove the offensive value of Vengeance, but preserve the defensive value, by making it increase the effect of your active mitigation buttons, instead of Attack Power.

 

General

• Vengeance has been removed and replaced with a new passive ability, Resolve.
• Resolve: Increases your healing and absorption done to yourself, based on Stamina and damage taken (before avoidance and mitigation) in the last 10 seconds.

 

Then, to keep tank DPS meaningful, we'll be raising their damage, since it would be meager with no Vengeance Attack Power (Vengeance accounted for 70-90% of a tank's damage on high-tank-damage fights in Mists). To do that, we're increasing the damage of several prominent tank abilities, as well as having tanks also gain increased Attack Power from  Mastery, in addition to the stat’s existing benefits.

• Mastery: Divine Bulwark now also passively increases Attack Power by 12% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.

 

Essentially this will mean that you can actually apply threat at a reasonable rate without needing to have already tanked something. This will make initial threat much much better, while making overall threat consistent and (probably) somewhat more difficult to maintain. If it doesn't become more difficult, it will simply cause threat to become much easier overall.

 

This also gives Mastery a significant buff. Look for Mastery to step ahead of Haste by a slim margin for a prot paladin, or for you to be required to balance the two to provide a proper DPS increase while keeping uptime and damage mitigation relatively the same percentage. Haste will still be a consistent damage mitigation, and mastery will have a higher skill-cap (difficult to effectively time boss swings, but reduce much more damage overall).

 

Res Changes:

 

We reduced the mana cost of all resurrection spells to 4% of base mana, so that mana isn't an inhibitor on the Raid or Party's ability to recover from a wipe. Cast time already functions as the primary cost of these spells. Note that Priests' Resurrection spell was already at 4% of base mana, so it remains unchanged.

• Druid: Revive, Monk: Resuscitate, Paladin: Redemption, and Shaman: Ancestral Spirit now cost 4% of base mana (down from between 10% and 50%).

 

Simply means that Ret/Prot paladins can res more than 2-3 people between wipes before everyone just runs back! Finally!

 

Leveling and Glyphs:

 

While leveling, characters unlock Glyph slots at several specific levels. However, in order to get glyphs, characters need to visit an Auction House (and potentially pay way more gold than an average character of that level has yet), or know a Scribe from which to request them. To solve this, we've made characters learn some Glyphs automatically as they level.

 

At level 25, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by paladins:

• Harsh Words, Flash of Light, Alabaster Shield, Dazing Shield, Avenging Wrath, Templar's Verdict

At level 50, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by paladins:

• Denounce, Divine Storm, Word of Glory

At level 75, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by paladins:

• Light of Dawn, Final Wrath, Double Jeopardy

 

This is fairly straight forward, and will save a ton of gold for new players. While it isn't many glyphs, it does give some choices for those who don't want to buy the best of the best for 100g.

 

Final Class Changes:

 

For Paladins, we have a few tweaks in store. To compensate for the removal of Guardian of Ancient Kings from Holy, we merged its benefit into Divine Favor. We also raised the range of Denounce to be consistent with other spells. And for Hammer of the Righteous, we revised its functionality a bit, such that its performance is about the same, but its tooltip is much clearer.

• Divine Favor now also increases all of the Paladin’s healing by 100% for its duration.
• Denounce's range has increased to 40 yards (up from 30 yards).
• Hammer of the Righteous now deals 50% Physical weapon damage (up from 15%) to the primary target, but the primary target is no longer hit with the Holy damage.
• Seals no longer cost any mana.
• Stay of Execution (the Holy version of Execution Sentence) now deals its healing in a large burst at first, and then decreasing over time (reversed from before).
• Eternal Flame now deals 100% of the direct healing of Word of Glory (up from 70%), but only 50% as much periodic healing as before. Additionally, Bastion of Glory no longer affects the periodic healing.

 

These are some key changes for Prot and Holy paladins.

 

In terms of healing, Holy Paladins will get much less usage out of blanketing the raid with Eternal Flame, though a larger initial mastery bubble from the spell. Execution Sentence will also be more useful in tank healing, since you can now apply it as damage is going out, instead of trying to preemptively time the damage so that the heavy healing hits when they need it. Divine Favor will also become a standalone cooldown, since it has gained the capabilities of GoAK.

 

For Tanks, the biggest change is for self healing. Eternal Flame will be much less useful overall, since WoG will be as effective as Eternal Flame's initial heal, but the HoT no longer scales on Bastion of Glory, and is much weaker. This will likely mean Sacred Shield will take a big leap in usefulness, and become our primary talent choice. Execution Sentence will also be easier to use effectively, and might be considered a personal cooldown in terms of heavy damage intake.

 

 

That concludes the changes listed in the 6.0 Patch Notes, however it does NOT conclude all changes! The WoD Alpha 100 Talents have recently changed on Wowhead, and I will be reflecting those changes in the Level 100 Talents forum post on these forums.

[Fouton 266]

In addition to all these changes, there will be the addition of Perks! In Warlords of Draenor, leveling 91-99 will give you a beneficial change to one of your existing abilities! The list of the perks (unsure if in order) are:

 

 

Protection:

• Improved Hammer of the Righteous: Increases the damage done by Hammer of the Righteous by 20%.
• Improved Word of Glory: Increases the healing done by Word of Glory and the initial healing done by Eternal Flame by 20%.
• Empowered Avenger's Shield: Avenger's Shield strikes 2 additional targets.
• Improved Consecration: Increases damage done by Consecration by 100%.
• Improved Block: Increases your chance to block by 10%.
• Improved Crusader Strike: Increases damage done by Crusader Strike by 20%.
• Improved Judgment: Increases damage done by Judgment by 20%.
• Improved Divine Protection: Divine Protection reduces magical damage taken by an additional 10%.
• Improved Forbearance: Reduces the duration of Forbearance by 30 sec.

 

Retribution:

• Improved Divine Protection: Divine Protection reduces magical damage taken by an additional 10%.
• Improved Forbearance: Reduces the duration of Forbearance by 30 sec.
• Improved Crusader Strike: Increases damage done by Crusader Strike by 20%.
• Improved Judgment: Increases damage done by Judgment by 20%.
• Empowered Seal of Truth: Increases the Censure damage done by Seal of Truth by 20%.
• Enhanced Hand of Sacrifice: Reduces the cooldown on Hand of Sacrifice by 30 sec.
• Improved Exorcism: Increases the damage done by Exorcism by 20%.
• Improved Flash of Light: Increases the healing Flash of Light by 20%.
• Empowered Hammer of Wrath: Hammer of Wrath can now be used on targets below 35% health.

 

 

Holy:

• Empowered Beacon of Light: Your single-target heals heal your Beacon of Light target for 10% more.
• Improved Daybreak: Increases the healing from Daybreak by 100%.
• Improved Holy Light: Increases the healing from Holy Light by 20%.
• Improved Flash of Light: Increases the healing Flash of Light by 20%.
• Improved Denounce: Increases the damage done by Denounce by 20%.
• Empowered Holy Shock: Increases the damage done by Holy Shock by 20%.
• Enhanced Holy Shock: Your Holy Light and Flash of Light have a 10% chance to cause your next Holy Shock to not trigger a cooldown.
• Improved Divine Protection: Divine Protection reduces magical damage taken by an additional 10%.
• Improved Forbearance: Reduces the duration of Forbearance by 30 sec.

 

[Astherion 4]

Thanks of the updates, my thoughts from retribution point of view.

 

1. Blinding light - not a big loss. I was using it only for RP and I hope they will make a glyph to still have the ability for role playing.

2. GoAK - I will really miss this ability. Not from DPS point of view but it was the coolest one

3. Hand of Salvation - I won't miss it at all.

4. Inquisition - missing inquisition will make the rotation a bit too simple.

 

5. Frankly, they should also remove Emancipate which is duplicated by Hand of Freedom.

 

[Boltt 28]

With the knowledge that any of these changes can be further changed I'll get into my opinions on some of the more interesting (to me) concepts.

 

Hit & Expertise Removal

- First off, the removal of some gear stats is needed to make room for the new sats or else ther ewould be too many stats too juggle and a large theme of WoD changes is bloat removal.

 

- The hit/exp caps are pretty much mandatory and do not change each tier, this means early on when gea has lower stats to being with, a large proportion must be dedicated to hit/exp, as more tiers release and the gear has higher stats, we need a lower proportion driven towars hit/exp and so the rise in haste/crit etc throughout an expansion is affected by two sources which aids in the stat bloat at the end of an expansion.

 

-I'm glad they are keeping front facing parry chance for non-tanks, They are loosening position requriements i ngeneral but I still think position should be a 'skill' to distinguish informed and uninformed players.

 

Healing Changes

-Smart heals no longer 'smart' but the relative increase of health pools and decrease of incoming damage will give players time to analyse the raid's health and triage heal through manual targeting.

 

-I for once prefer healers having different toolkits and being good at different things, I'd like to see single target emphasis for paladin again

 

-The instant healing changes seem like a mixed bag to me in terms of how they affect PvE and PvP

 

Ability Pruning

-The removal/exclusivity of cooldowns (AW,GoAK) will be accounted for so no issues.

 

-I'll miss being able to throw out a raid cooldown (DA) as a tank, I feel like the tank is responsible for damage reduction to the whole raid, not just themselves. I'm not entirely convinced of raid walls being removed from tanks.

 

-Inquisition, this spell seems to be hated by many on various forums, I've never had a problem with it but I use CLCRet so it's not really a problem to keep track of recasting it. I understand the point of view that it may aswell be passively built in since it's pretty much a mandatory maintenance buff.

 

Resolve/Mastery (Tanks)

-Vengeance can be an issue when tank switching is needed, the tank with no vengeance takes over so the other tank is forced to stop dps all together or they'll take aggro back with their increased AP.

 

-Ramping up dps after the pull doesn't make sense in the mantra of tanking, we're not dps. Removal of Vengeance is good.

 

-Keeping all the survivability aspects of Vengeance through Resolve is good

 

-Increase of tank's static dps to account for removal of vengeance so we're not wet noodles. I believe depending on the level they decide to tune tank's dps to we could easily see good tanks outdpsing poor DPSers in LFR

 

-I wonder how they will balance the tank dps to keep it consistent with respect to actual DPSers throughout the expansion, in the current iteration of mastery I feel like we will see dps shoot through th eroof towarsd the end of the expansion. Should still be easier to tune than Vengeance though.

 

-I'm certain one of the tanking classes will not be tuned appropriately and deal ridiculous damage at release :P

 

Eternal Flame

-Slight retuning of EF to make other talent options potentially viable again

 

-The balancing of the these talents will be interesting considering the change of Vengeance/Resolve

 

Draenor Perks

-Nice little treats while leveling, passives that will pretty much be forgotten about since they're built into the spells and are therefore assumed.

 

Talents

-Beacon of Faith (Holy). I really like this one, a second Beacon of light will make single target healing soo efficient, we will probably see plenty of overhealing with this, but when it counts the healz will be insane and so mana efficient.

 

-Beacon of Insight (Holy). Interesting, short cooldown so can be used multiple times, lasts for 1minute so it can be placed premptively in anticipation of a known large attack. Upon consumption or when target is fully healed will move to the most injured player (limit 1), 2 for 1 isn't bad especially with only a 15sec cooldown, 'smart' targeting.

 

-Saved by the Light (Holy). Nice auto shield every minute if needed, seems situational to me, for example if an encoutner has a mechanic that occurs on a known time interval that reduces a target's health below 30%, the other talents seem generally better to me.

 

-Empowered Seals (ret/prot). Effectively a passive, btu what's interesting is the different buffs for different seals. 99% sure seal shuffling won't be worth using up GCD's just to get extra buffs.

 

-Seraphim (ret/prot). Very large buff with only 30 second cooldown, gets better as gear improves. At the cost of 5 holy power however I don't see it working well. For tanks this would be good when tank swapping or a known phase/mechanic is incoming so you can store 5 holy power, but cannot be used an emergency cooldown because we are spending holy power on general survival all the time. For ret the sacrifice of almost 2 TV or DS may not be worth the buff in general, but perhaps lining it up with other cooldowns will make the insane burst worth it.

 

-Holy Shield (prot). I feel a bit cheated that one of our new toys isn't new, used be available (and at a much lower level) and is now a level 100 talent. Increased block chance=migation, so okay. Deal X damage when blocking a target, obviously good for aoe dps (against melee mobs) especially if stacking mastery, nice for leveling and 5mans and trash in raids. Doubt it will be useful on most boss fights (single target or spell damage)

 

-Final Verdict (Ret). Big hitter replaced by even big hitter, sounds borign to me, i'm sure they'll make it more interesting in time. Given that TV is currently such a hard hitter and is the main finisher of our rotation, if FV is meant to be stronger I can't see any other talent being better for dps.

 

Overall i'm happy with these proposed changes and look forward to any future information.

I'd love to have a discussion about the changes on here.

[Fouton 266]

I agree with every statement you bring up, and it's nice to see. I'm very glad haste will most likely drop to mastery (prot) for the 6.0 to WoD span, and potentially in tier 17. Its been the playstyle I wanted, and I've even changed to it a week ago for fun. It reduces so much more damage already.

There were some new glyph announcements, I'll get those up soon.

[Boltt 28]

I believe Blizzard have said they want all stats to be desirable or at least none to be wasted stats. We may be fortunate enough to see different playstyles that are all viable, although as is always the case one of the playstyles will come out ahead. Info regarding the interaction between tanks and crit/multistrike are yet to come but they will come eventually.

 

I'm running the standard haste/mastery build right now (flex level) for tanking, one thing I do like about stacking haste is always have spells to cast, some people might complain that it's spammy, I like th eskill involved in reacting fast to priority abilities coming off cooldown.

[Fouton 266]

It's more of a rotation though, since haste only speeds up the same pattern into smaller intervals, though I understand what you mean. I like mastery for timing the mitigation with swings or heavier mechanics. Of course in SoO both builds have strong points, so I think building a mix is the best, though it's all relative to gear levels so it's difficult.

I'm very interested in the new stats however. Multi strike could be amazing for AoE threat, though I can't think of a way to make it a real prot stat.

[Arriay 0]

Empowered Avenger's Shield: Avenger's Shield strikes 2 additional targets.

 

Is there any word on how that's going to work with Glyph of Focused Shield? Hopefully, they'll change the wording of the glyph from "Strikes two fewer targets" to "Strikes only one target", especially since they're saying that Heroic dungeons will be more like Cataclysm Heroics. It was so useful in situations where there were casters that you wanted to interrupt and bring in closer to the group without risking hitting CC'd targets or having the shield fly off and pull other things if packs were close together. Hopefully the "perk" doesn't become a detriment.

[Fouton 266]

I believe the shield's bounce is already designed to skip over CC'd targets when there are other targets around. If they change the glyph to be 1 single target, the damage on the glyph will likely become 100% more damage, though I think it's too much of a single target DPS gain, and should stay the way it is.

 

I personally like the idea of being able to glyph it back to 3 targets for a damage increase, because its not often (and perhaps in WoD much more rare) that you have 5 targets consistently alive. I can see what you mean and what you are hoping for it to avoid, which I agree would be a negative effect of the perk.

[Fouton 266]

There were some new glyph announcements, I'll get those up soon.

 

I can no longer seem to find where I originally found this, can someone help me out with a link or post to cover it? =\

[Fouton 266]

Nvm, Got em!

 

Glyph of Ardent Defender

Glyph of Divine Favor

Glyph of Hand of Freedom

Glyph of Judgment

Glyph of the Consecrator

Glyph of the Liberator

 

For Glyph of Ardent Defender:

I find it unlikely that Glyph of Argent Defender will come into play often,  however for some beginner players it could be good to have this glyph and macro it into everything. It's not the best way to learn, and very inefficient for damage reduction, but it could help a new player survive mechanics that they know they can't manage to time.

 

It can also come in handy for fights that mimic Ji-Kun's talon rake, where you get a massive burst of tank damage in 1 unavoidable swing, and must survive it no matter what. Also good for mechanics that DBM struggles to time, or just is unable to predict in any way.

 

For Glyph of Divine Favor:

Glyph of Divine Favor will be for those who have a bit of mana issues and believe that the cooldown has become too powerful. Remember that GoAK was merged into Divine Favor, so its possible that this glyph will become a common glyph to give more mana for a now-powerful cooldown.

 

For Glyph of Hand of Freedom:

This is a bit confusing to me, as I don't know of any changes to Hand of Freedom. It sounds like this is to preemptively halt new effects? I'll need someone elses input on this because I'm pretty confused.

 

For Glyph of Judgment:

I think this glyph will come in handy much more often for Holy Paladins, though I don't think it'll really happen often. It's also nice for PvP.

 

For Glyph of the Consecrator:

This is a wonderful glyph. Trying to keep mobs around your consecrate can be nearly impossible at times, so this glyph can really boost your DPS and threat on AoE/movement fights. I know this glyph will see a lot of usage in raids, and tons more from people who just prefer this glyph for simplicity's sake. It narrows your options a little bit for stunning mobs in your consecrate and moving elsewhere, or for soloing Thorim, but they're very specific scenarios.

 

For Glyph of the Liberator:

A pretty helpful glyph for PvP, and for raid mechanics that deliver constant slows. I can see this become a semi mandatory glyph for specific fights, or certain PvP players.

 

 

Overall, I like the new glyphs. I think they will all see a fair amount of use, even if they aren't optimal. This is exactly what Blizzard wanted from glyphs as well, not a cookiecutter glyph build.

[Oreoxd 165]

It means all ccs (fears, stuns, mesmerizes) have their duration lessened by 25% (8 second fear loses 2 seconds) and when someone casts say a stun on a fear while HoF is up, that stun is also reduced.

[Boltt 28]

A moving consecrate will make picking up adds even easier, just run towards them and bam.

 

I see the Divine Favor glyph being useful in fights where longevity is more important than large heals, so a long fight with very steady damage as opposed to spikes.

 

Ardent Defender could be used to 'cheese' a lot of mechanics when our gear is still sub-par, mainly thinking of world first guilds that do heroic (mythic) raiding with barely any gear.

[Fouton 266]

Ah right, was thinking only of the things HoF could already remove, thanks for the clarification Auriel.

 

Yeah, Glyph of AD might go big on some of the heroic guild first kills, though they may benefit more from having the reduction for other times as well. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out!

[Fouton 266]

I'm very interested in the new stats however. Multi strike could be amazing for AoE threat, though I can't think of a way to make it a real prot stat.

 

I have been answered!

 

Shining Protector

 

Seems to be a nice bonus, but I'm starting to worry that were getting a TON of self heals, and it'll start to pile into overhealing...

[Boltt 28]

I'm not a huge fan of RNG based heals (in this case healing buff), of course over a fight the procs will roughly average out to the expected value but healing is about healing when it counts, or else as you said we get overhealing.

[Fouton 266]

Is there any word on how that's going to work with Glyph of Focused Shield? Hopefully, they'll change the wording of the glyph from "Strikes two fewer targets" to "Strikes only one target", especially since they're saying that Heroic dungeons will be more like Cataclysm Heroics. It was so useful in situations where there were casters that you wanted to interrupt and bring in closer to the group without risking hitting CC'd targets or having the shield fly off and pull other things if packs were close together. Hopefully the "perk" doesn't become a detriment.

 

It seems Blizzard has answered your concerns!

 

Glyph of Focused Shield

 

It's been changed to specifically hit only 1 target. The damage percent still says 30%, though I hope they change it to "15% per bounce removed" so that pre-perk paladins get 30%, and post-perk paladins get 60%. 30% isn't that bad even for removing 4 bounces though, since you won't always be running into 5 target fights. Either way, there's the change you wanted

[Boltt 28]

No specific details on it, but I think we'll see the Avenger's Shield perk hit upto 5 targets but with reduced damage each much like Shaman's glyph of chaning lightning, so will need a bit of maths to work out how strong that focused shield glyph should be pre and post perk

[Fouton 266]

There was a recent datamined formula change on Avenger's shield so that it has less of an initial hit (worse for lowbies) and it also scales much less with AP (worse for all classes). Of course, while it reads as a double nerf, it's also gonna depend on how the squish works out, its possible our AP is just going to be scaled down less than other stats, so all spells were scaled with it. (I doubt it, I think it was a small needed nerf).

[Boltt 28]

Avenger's Shield while leveling is absurdly overpowered, still very powerful at 90 with vengeance. I think lowering the scaling with AP will be counterbalanced with things like the mastery AP but a slight retuning (nerf) would be acceptable

[Fouton 266]

Yeah, I'm glad to see the initial damage change, though it will strengthen strengths value at low levels more than it already does (str being the best stat until like 70, when gear starts having strength innately)

[Fouton 266]

This was from the original post, however one of the items are being striked.

• Eternal Flame now deals 100% of the direct healing of Word of Glory (up from 70%), but only 50% as much periodic healing as before.

 

This is the change that is being scratched from the original post:

 

 

Final Class Changes:

 

For Paladins, we have a few tweaks in store. To compensate for the removal of Guardian of Ancient Kings from Holy, we merged its benefit into Divine Favor. We also raised the range of Denounce to be consistent with other spells. And for Hammer of the Righteous, we revised its functionality a bit, such that its performance is about the same, but its tooltip is much clearer.

• Divine Favor now also increases all of the Paladin’s healing by 100% for its duration.
• Denounce's range has increased to 40 yards (up from 30 yards).
• Hammer of the Righteous now deals 50% Physical weapon damage (up from 15%) to the primary target, but the primary target is no longer hit with the Holy damage.
• Seals no longer cost any mana.
• Stay of Execution (the Holy version of Execution Sentence) now deals its healing in a large burst at first, and then decreasing over time (reversed from before).
• Eternal Flame now deals 100% of the direct healing of Word of Glory (up from 70%), but only 50% as much periodic healing as before. Additionally, Bastion of Glory no longer affects the periodic healing.

 

These are some key changes for Prot and Holy paladins.

 

In terms of healing, Holy Paladins will get much less usage out of blanketing the raid with Eternal Flame, though a larger initial mastery bubble from the spell. Execution Sentence will also be more useful in tank healing, since you can now apply it as damage is going out, instead of trying to preemptively time the damage so that the heavy healing hits when they need it. Divine Favor will also become a standalone cooldown, since it has gained the capabilities of GoAK.

 

For Tanks, the biggest change is for self healing. Eternal Flame will be much less useful overall, since WoG will be as effective as Eternal Flame's initial heal, but the HoT no longer scales on Bastion of Glory, and is much weaker. This will likely mean Sacred Shield will take a big leap in usefulness, and become our primary talent choice. Execution Sentence will also be easier to use effectively, and might be considered a personal cooldown in terms of heavy damage intake.

 

 

That concludes the changes listed in the 6.0 Patch Notes, however it does NOT conclude all changes! The WoD Alpha 100 Talents have recently changed on Wowhead, and I will be reflecting those changes in the Level 100 Talents forum post on these forums.

 

With this change, it will be even weaker than before, but it shouldn't make too much of a difference.

 

Additionally, Mastery's baseline addition to Attack Power has been lowered from 12% to 8%, but that means nothing to us right now, its purely balancing purposes.

[Fouton 266]

 

Seal of Righteousness: Fills you with Holy Light, causing melee attacks to deal 7% weapon damage to all targets within 8 yards. While this seal is active, your Crusader Strike becomes Hammer of the Righteous.

Source: Wowhead

 

They better not be ruining AoE threat by making us have to use an AoE seal just to keep it =(

[Boltt 28]

Celestalon tweeted out on the 24th that this is being changed.

 

'RT: Hey Paladins: We're planning to revert the changes to Seals and Hammer of the Righteous. Thanks for all your feedback. Keep it coming.'

[Fouton 266]

Woo :) Good news from that, I hate switching between the two on my bars, but switching between self healing and aoe threat would be horrid. I already have trouble on AoE threat, dont need more trouble =\