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Bornakk
Blizzard Poster
  • 0. Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:15:51 AM PDT
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Community Team: In this segment, we will be talking with Greg Street about the paladin class and discussing where this class started and where we feel they are going, as well as covering an assortment of topics relating to itemization, buffs, abilities, and other cool stuff.

Q. Where do paladins fit into the larger scope of things currently and where do you see them going from this point forward?

A. The paladin is an iconic class from fantasy role-playing, and one which Warcraft has been able to put its own stamp all over. Obviously they figure prominently in the lore, up to and including the Lich King himself.

The paladin started out as a defensive buffing class. Early on, buffs were pretty much the entire reason you’d want to group with a paladin. (And if you want to put a fine point on it, it took about all of the paladin’s attention to keep those buffs up).

End-game paladins in vanilla World of Warcraft were pretty much healers, which was disappointing for some players to discover once they reached level 60. As most of our readers probably already know, the paladin class was exclusive to the Alliance. We realized that we kept pushing the paladin and shaman abilities closer and closer together to solve faction imbalance issues, and that process was hurting the classes, so we’d be better off just having paladins and shamans on both sides. In Burning Crusade, paladins gained the ability to tank and could do so quite well in some situations, but were still positioned more in an off-tank role. In Wrath of the Lich King, we finally embraced all three specs of paladins: Protection paladins can tank anything. Retribution paladins are a legitimate dps spec in both PvE and PvP. And of course, paladins could still heal.

Q. What is it that makes them unique compared to all other classes?

A. Despite our design changes to share buffs around among more classes, we still kept several abilities unique to the paladin in order to keep a hint of their original role. Thus paladins have everything from their powerful Blessings to their bubbles like Divine Shield, the ability to dispel multiple kinds of debuffs, and utility abilities like Blessing of Freedom or Hammer of Justice. Paladins can wear plate armor in all three roles, which is particularly powerful for a healer. Finally, the Seal and Judgement system is a unique mechanic that works like no other class.

Community Team: We’ve received quite a bit of feedback concerning the current itemization for paladin tier-set gear and the importance of other stats over MP5.

Q. Specifically, how do we feel about the healing itemization for paladins thus far? Do we still feel MP5 is as important as other stats such as Int, Crit, Haste, and Spell Power? Are there plans to incorporate more of these other stats in later tiers of paladin healing gear?

A. In Lich King up until now, MP5 has not been as valuable to most paladins as say Int, Crit, or Spell Power, and really it wasn’t intended to be. It is particularly relevant that you are hardly ever choosing between Int and MP5. However, we also think that MP5 became undervalued as a stat and as most of you know, we are buffing it for 3.2. Furthermore, we think we have allowed paladin mana regen through Int and Crit to get a little out of control. We don’t want to force paladins to care only about MP5, but we also don’t want them viewing it as a total junk stat, like say Agility, either. Crit is just too beneficial to be strictly a regen stat.

From the 3.2 PTR testing so far, it seems like some Holy paladins are taking a second look at Haste and MP5 possibly instead of Crit. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out, and we will adjust as necessary, but it’s nice to see paladins at least consider the stats now before making a gear decision.

We have also hinted before that we’ve had trouble developing distinct niches for MP5 and Spirit and are considering collapsing those two stats in the future. This would be a change with a lot of ramifications though -- we wouldn’t just replace MP5 on gear with Spirit and call it a day.

Community Team: Paladins provide a slew of powerful buffs and spells that help all classes with tanking, healing and damage-dealing.

Q. How do we feel about raid-wide paladin buffs instead of limiting the buff applications per class, only?

A. We think it works out fine. It’s a different buff mechanic than other classes and helps to ensure that the second or third paladin is still considered valuable instead of letting a single one buff everyone.

Q. Blessing of Sanctuary is designed around providing buffs for tanks; are there plans to re-work its design to provide added benefits for more than just tanking?

A. No, we want it to be a tanking Blessing. However, we want it to be a superior tanking buff than Kings for the Protection paladin. In the 3.2 patch notes, we indicated that Sanctuary will also provide the same Stam buff as Kings, but will not stack with Kings (though Kings would still provide bonuses to the other stats).

Q. Do we feel Flash of Light and the changes in store for it will allow for additional diversification for the existing healing spells available? Aside from Holy Light, Flash of Light, and Holy Shock, are there any plans to provide paladins with other interesting healing spells later down the road?

A. Later down the road most likely, but it won’t be for 3.2 and it won’t be with something that looks like Prayer of Healing or Wild Growth. We do think paladins will have more of a use for Flash of Light now with the extra benefit to Sacred Shield. The changes to Beacon of Light in 3.2 should make paladins an exceptional dual target healer.

Community Team: Now that we’re on the topic of paladin buffs and spells, dps and versatility has been a topic of concern for many players with respect to both PvE and PvP.

Q. All classes vary in dps from one encounter to another; however, some paladins may feel their dps can be less competitive at times in comparison to other classes, more so in straight stationary single-target dps encounters. How do we feel paladins are doing in terms of dps across the board?

A. Retribution dps is too low in PvE in 3.1. We are buffing it in 3.2 through the new way Seal of Vengeance / Corruption will work. This Seal is designed to really deliver damage once the paladin gets five stacks up, which will make it the Seal of choice for boss fights. Seal of Command will be used in PvP or PvE for short fights. We expect overall for Corruption / Vengeance to be the “go-to” Seal much of the time, perhaps even in PvP, provided you can keep the buff up.

Q. Exorcism will be usable in both PvE and PvP once more which is great; aside from allowing this ability to be used against other players, what were the reasons to go down this route in redesigning this attack?

A. Exorcism never did a ton of damage to players, but it was an instant attack which meant paladins could use it while closing with an enemy. It was essentially just free damage and never a decision of any kind. The new approach to the spell prevents it from being used while closing, and also makes Retribution paladins have to pay a little more attention to their combat rotation -- you want to use Exorcism when Art of War procs, and generally not at other times.

We understand this is a small adjustment to Protection paladins, which is why we improved Hand of Reckoning. The 3.2 patch will be pretty good for paladin tanks overall so hopefully they will forgive us.

Q. Consecration seems to utilize a sizable portion of mana per application of this spell; do we have plans on making this a bit more mana-efficient?

A. We think the mana cost is appropriate. Retribution and Protection paladins have enough ways to earn mana back that it doesn’t seem to be slowing them down much.

Community Team: Specifically with the various spells and abilities that paladins have in a PvP encounter, there have been questions concerning regarding survivability and utility, let’s get into some of these.

Q. Do we feel Divine Shield is fine in its current rendition versus other abilities such as Shattering Throw and Mass dispel?

A. Divine Shield is just a very powerful spell, so game-changing that we thought it needed a counter. The problem is that only one class has access to Mass Dispel, which we feel makes priests too much of a “hard counter” to paladins. We understand that classes will to some extent always have other classes they are better or worse against, but we want to avoid extremes. Shattering Throw is an attempt to let someone other than a priest have the chance to break the bubble. We implemented the ability as a ranged attack to help discourage warrior “tunnel vision” in just always unleashing all their attacks on the same target rather than having to switch targets on occasion.

[ Post edited by Crygil ]

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Bornakk
Blizzard Poster
  • 1. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:15:58 AM PDT
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Q. Will it be possible to prevent Avenging Wrath from being dispelled as well? This ability is the means to allow for on-demand maximum dps output for a brief period of time and only affects the paladin.

A. It’s possible but not probable. Really this is symptomatic of a larger problem, which is that the dispel game has become too important in PvP. If the other team has a dispeller, then abilities like Avenging Wrath get totally shut down. If the other team lacks a dispeller, then they may be in trouble. This leads to junk buffs and inconsistencies on which abilities can be dispelled or not. We are going to redo the entire system, though not for 3.2. One direction to take dispelling is to give magic dispel to all the healers (since 90% of player spells are magical), but to prevent offensive dispelling of any kind, or at least prevent dispels for “your-class-is-supposed-to-have-this buff” like Arcane Int or Fort.

Q. Do we have plans to introduce a stand-alone interrupt ability for paladins?

A: We would like to add this kind of utility to paladins. First we have to get the burst damage under control so that Ret paladins are not winning PvP encounters by blowing players up. When we accomplish that, we’ll look at finally giving them more tools.

Q. With the slew of options to either "jump into" or "jump out of" PvP encounters for either offensive or defensive purposes many classes receive, do we have any plans to incorporate special abilities for paladins to either help them escape tough situations or quickly get into pvp battle (i.e. Deathgrip, Typhoon, Summoning Circle, Disengage, etc.)? It seems paladins are the only class without a short cool-down ability on the same scale.

A. Players are pretty good at detecting problems, but for solutions they tend to just look around at what other classes have that is working for them. Homogenization is something we fight as much as we can, which is the reason not every class has Death Grip and not every class has Charge. Judgment of Justice is intended to be the gap-closer for paladins. If it becomes a huge liability, we’ll evaluate, but at the moment paladins are doing extremely well in PvP without it.

Q. Ranged attacks are extremely limited for paladins and are not considered a primary form of dps. However, players feel they would like an ability that will aid them in bridging the gap between melee vs. ranged. Do we have any plans to implement something to this extent?

A. We’ve already changed the “no ranged attacks” philosophy on paladins already and don’t feel the need to continue making them better at range.

Community Team: We’re on our last set of questions here, so let’s switch it up a tad and talk a bit about Librams and aesthetics.

Q. Do we have plans to incorporate a larger variety of Librams?

A. We try and make sure the three main paladin roles have their Librams covered. As these are special items that no other class can use, we have to make sure we don’t drop them too often in PvE encounters, but we have no problem putting more on badge vendors. Usually it’s just a matter of time because a new tier of content, like the Call of the Crusade patch, already involves making literally over a thousand new items.

Q. Do we have plans to incorporate Librams as a more prominent aspect of the paladin class? Also, can we expect to see Librams as a physical aesthetic item on the paladin? Much like the quiver is for the hunter (except only the hunter can see their own quiver mounted on their back).

A. This is something players suggest a lot, and honestly something we’d like to do. It’s a pretty iconic image from Warcraft, especially Warcraft III, to have the paladin toting around their libram. Someone at BlizzCon last year asked if they could beat on people with it. This is a big task to put on the art team though so we would want to make sure we do it right. The same answer would apply to shaman totems and hunter quivers. On the other hand, it took a long time to finally update the druid cat and bear art so don’t look for this in 3.2.
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  • Durotan
  • 3. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:24:24 AM PDT
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Sweet, thanks Bornakk, this looks very insightful!

[ Post edited by Silvpaladin ]


There is /2, and then there is General.
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  • 4. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:25:16 AM PDT
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Looks good!

I didnt see tauren in the lord of the rings!!! 0_o
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  • 5. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:26:27 AM PDT
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Interesting, but this prompts more questions from me. =(

1) Regarding homogenization of the classes, you stated here that it's something that you're trying to avoid. Yet you're also considering giving all classes the ability to dispel magic on their allies, something currently only Priests and Paladins can do. Since you must therefore consider this change unavoidable, will Paladins and Priests be given the ability to dispel curses as well?

2) Do you consider it an acceptable mechanic for Retribution and Protection Paladins to consider Consecration as part of our "rotations"? I understand the mana-cost of a high-damage unlimited-target AoE ability, even if it is stationary - but against a single-target was the expectation that we'd be using this ability as much as we currently do?

3) For multi-target healing, the new mechanic for Flash of Light+Sacred Shield is interesting for providing an HoT. However, this limits us to a number of targets proportionate to the number of Paladins in the party/raid. What other options are being considered?

4) You refer to Judgment of Justice as a gap-closer; however, this spell has an 10 yard range, just like Judgment of Wisdom or Light. Obviously we must have been in melee range to apply it. Is there any thought to boosting the range of this specific Judgment then?

5) Related to adding an interrupt or other utility for Paladins, you've stated that getting burst damage under control is part of the process. Tied to that, much of that for PvP has to do with the lack of synergy between many of our abilities. Crusader Strike, Judgment, Divine Storm, Exorcism, Seal of Command, and Seal of Righteousness all provide direct damage, and do not have any affect on one another (exception is SoCommand procs on all those attacks, as well as auto-attack obviously). Are there any thoughts to providing some links between these abilities?

6) On the PTR at the moment, Seal of Righteousness seems to be dealing equivalent damage to Seal of Command, but it's Judgment damage is much more significant. Is Seal of Command being considered for an extra PvP-oriented affect (debuff, buff, something) to make it more appealing?

Also, I forgive Bornakk for calling it "Healing Light." =P

[ Post edited by Gregthegreat ]


Apparently I'm "haughty."
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  • 6. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:28:00 AM PDT
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As a holy paladin I'm still hoping for some form of response on lack of:

-Paladin Mobility (current PTR HoT is too restricted and very underwhelming) + (reliance on cast bar)
-Paladin AoE dispel (or ticking dispel like Druids)
-Paladin AoE healing (4 GCDs to heal 5 people is not reliable in comparison to other classes)

As a caveat, I'm not looking to be as good as other healers in these regards. The issue for me at least is, almost every class can output as much HPS as a paladin when single target healing, the trade off is efficiency. Paladins just want their tools to be reliable, even if it costs 2x what a Druid / Priest / Shaman spends on AoE healing/dispelling.

I understand if Blizzard's design plan is to make Paladins insufficient in one or two areas of the three I've posted, but all three is definitely something that has bugged me since Vanilla-WoW.

Also, I am concerned that when every healer class can dispel magic debuffs, paladins and priests will be one under Druids and Shamans in dispels. Sorry if I misinterpretted.

[edit] Upon further reading my new understanding is that you want every healer to have a Purge but only useless buffs can be purged. Anything worthwhile will be considered non-magic.

[ Post edited by Linaewen ]

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  • 8. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:30:36 AM PDT
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Q u o t e:
Q. Blessing of Sanctuary is designed around providing buffs for tanks; are there plans to re-work its design to provide added benefits for more than just tanking?

A. No, we want it to be a tanking Blessing. However, we want it to be a superior tanking buff than Kings for the Protection paladin. In the 3.2 patch notes, we indicated that Sanctuary will also provide the same Stam buff as Kings, but will not stack with Kings (though Kings would still provide bonuses to the other stats).


The problem here, is the fact that kings is still a very powerful buff on top of the stam bonus, it increases threat significantly, and moderately buffs survivability through strength, and to a lesser extent, agility

Many paladins are wanting the sanctuary talent to simply slap the 3% migitation and mana return effect onto kings, that way it will give each paladin spec an "improved" blessing, as well as allowing tankadins to have both kings and sanctuary when there is only one paladin available.



Furthermore, Holy paladins are still significantly lacking in the area of multi-target healing, I can understand the concerns of giving us the ability to heal multiple targets because of Beacon of Light, but you could perhaps limit any sort of aoe healing to not heal, or heal the beacon for less.

In addition, there's the concern of homogenization, and I don't think paladins want a copy/paste of CoH or other aoe abilities. One thing that might make healadins happy, is perhaps an aoe that can be targeted on the ground, sort of a "holy flamestrike" idea.

One suggestion, is to allow sacred shield to be cast on multiple targets again, but give it a short cooldown, say, 4 or 5 seconds, this would help paladins be able to keep multiple people alive in 5 or 10 mans, where the need is more apparent, but in 25 mans, there's a greater chance of having healers more specialized in the area of aoe healing

also, it was mentioned that Judgement of Justice was intended to be the paladin gap closer, the problem is, it is a 10yd range ability, so all it achieves is keeping the target in range, rather than closing a gap.

[ Post edited by Arnock ]


Blizz seems to think that tanks only wanted some aspects of real tanks. This is unjust. I want a 155 mm cannon on my shield and I want to dual wield 50 caliber machine guns. Real tanks get all the fun
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  • 9. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:32:59 AM PDT
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that really didn't answer anything.

I smoke rocks.
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  • Burning Blade
  • 10. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:33:00 AM PDT
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Paladins not doing enough damage on boss fights? Whatever happened to that 40% damage lower than pure.

Just forget it I'm going to stop QQing and roll a paladin and delete this lock.
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  • 11. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:35:23 AM PDT
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Q u o t e:
Judgment of Justice is intended to be the gap-closer for paladins


yeah....no. unless its range is boosted to a range where we actually need it (ie when the target is 15-25 yards away and blasting us) this cannot honestly be called a gap closer. 10 yards is not a gap, its a hop and a skip


Q u o t e:
Players are pretty good at detecting problems...


blizzard certainly makes it easy when it comes to problems with paladins, on both sides of the table


Q u o t e:
...but for solutions they tend to just look around at what other classes have that is working for them. Homogenization is something we fight as much as we can, which is the reason not every class has Death Grip and not every class has Charge.


perhaps you could stop letting the homogenization stifle your ability to come up with something unique, or hell, something that isnt "hit button, do damage". CS, judgement, DS, exorcism all have ZERO flavor and ZERO effect on anything else. this needs to change if you ever want this class to move past the faceroll/non-skill based damage zone

but overall this QnA was what i expected, generally useless.

[ Post edited by Stunning ]

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  • 12. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:35:30 AM PDT
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Q u o t e:
Paladins not doing enough damage on boss fights? Whatever happened to that 40% damage lower than pure.

Just forget it I'm going to stop QQing and roll a paladin and delete this lock.


The "hybrid tax" you're referring to, was supposed to theoretically be 5%, as stated my Mr. Street before.

Apparently I'm "haughty."
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  • 13. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:39:58 AM PDT
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Q: New healing spell?

A: You'll have to wait until 3.3 or the next expansion. Oh and it won't be CoH or WG because those really good ideas are taken and we flatly refuse to do the same thing twice. Ever.

Q: Interrupt?

A: Once we've nerfed your dps enough, sure. Maybe 3.3 or failing that, next expansion.



That's what I got out of the Q&A :(

[ Post edited by Charsi ]

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  • Dragonmaw
  • 14. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:39:59 AM PDT
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Q u o t e:

As most of our readers probably already know, the paladin class was exclusive to the Alliance. We realized that we kept pushing the paladin and shaman abilities closer and closer together to solve faction imbalance issues, and that process was hurting the classes, so we’d be better off just having paladins and shamans on both sides.


Actually, I've always thought you guys went the wrong way on that issue. Shaman should have just become the "paladins" of the Horde and vice versa. That way, we would maintain some of the flavor of differences between the two factions while not handicapping anyone. Plus, you would really only be balancing 8 classes instead of 9 (now 10).

[ Post edited by Manoftheyear ]

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  • Shu'halo
  • 16. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:41:55 AM PDT
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i think the question i was hoping would be answered was about the offensive seals..

i still think there isn't enough to differentiate the PVE dps seal and the PVP dps seal from each other. Various people on the PTR have reported that Vengeance has had some great changes but that its still probably going to be better in pvp than command.

I think Command needs some sort of radical change that will make it unique and not just second fiddle to Vengeance.
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  • Sisters of Elune
  • 17. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:43:34 AM PDT
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Q u o t e:

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



Wait, what?

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53407

This? This is our gap closer? Whoa whoa whoa, time out. You are telling me that a judgment, with a whole 10 yard range is a gap closer?

So, tell me, if a hunter comes up to me and begins to shoot me from 30 yards away, and he opens with concussive shot, i should just use Judgment of Justice to to close the gap? Ok, I'll try.

.................................................out of range.

Ok, ok maybe its against rogues....... wait, they don't kite, they are a melee class. Mages! That's gotta be who this is for...... wait, nope. They don't increase their movement speed, they blink, freeze me, and slow me down.

Alright, lets see what JoJ is good for. We can stop rogues from sprinting. Thats about all thats good for in pvp.

Blizz, we know you hate us, but you could be a little less insulting about it, and a little more subtle about your hate

All twinks must die.



Have a nice day
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  • 19. Re: Class Q&A Series: Paladin   07/09/2009 10:44:39 AM PDT
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/shrug

The only upside to this was that maybe we'll get visible Librams next expansion. Despite the broad nature of the questions, I still don't get any insight into the overall "vision" for the Paladin class. It seems more like a summary of the less positive aspects of the WoW forums opinion on paladins than anything else. Which makes sense now that I think about it, since that's where these questions were dredged from. Time to wait for another expansion for balance I suppose, since it's impossible to make comprehensive changes within a patch.

http://how-to-spell-ridiculous.com/  http://www.yorly.net/
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