Saturday, December 22, 2007

Sigurd's Suggestions

Siguard from Greymane made some fantastic suggestions that can seriously give Paladins an easier time in 2v2 and 3v3. You can view the post in its entirety here. Otherwise, I've done a memo of the key points thrown out.

• Purifying Power (2 Points):
Reduces the chance your Cleanse and Purify abilities will fail by 5%/10% and allows your Cleanse and Purify spells to dispell an additional poison and disease/poison, disease, and magic effect.

    Cleanse is becoming closer and closer to being worthless. With most classes that apply debuffs having talents that prevent us from dispelling them, our ability to remove them has diminished. Not to mention the additional misc. debuffs classes don't actively apply - Winter's Chill, Misery, Shadow Weaving, Shadow Embrace, Stacking Wound Poison, Snake Trap/Scorpid Poison. This talent gives Paladins a chance at actually removing debuffs again.

• Improved Judgement (2 Points):
Decreases the cooldown of your Judgement spell by 1/2 seconds. It also allows your Judgement spell to interrupt spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 1/2 sec.
    This change basically gives Retribution Paladins a spell interrupt similar to Earth Shock. This is actually less effective, because it requires a seal to be active and requires 7 points in Retribution. Holy Paladins wouldn't be able to pick this up unless they lose Improved Conc. Aura, Stoicism, and Imp Righteous Fury. This change also helps Protection Paladins.

• Improved Blessing of Might (5 Points):
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 6%/12%/18%/24%/30%.
    Just giving Blessing of Might a little bit of love. Increased max additional AP from 44 to 66.

• Avenging Wrath:
Increases all damage caused by 30% and all healing done by 15% for 20 sec. Causes Forebearance, preventing the use of Divine Shield, Divine Protection, Blessing of Protection again for 1 min.
    Currently, Avenging Wrath is next to useless for a Healing Paladin, especially in a raid. Sacrificing survivability for extra healing power - just as other paladins do for extra damage, doesn't seem like an over-the-top idea.

• Sanctity Aura (1 Point):
Increases the critical strike damage of your party members by 5%.
    Here's our Raid Viability. Currently, Sanctity Aura effected us in the group, and only increased ~30% of our damage by 10% (Seals/Judgements/Consecration etc). Our damage shouldn't go down, and we've gained some useful group utility.

• Valorous Judgements (from Improved Seal of the Crusader):
In addition to the normal effects, your Judgements that leave a debuff will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 1%/2%/3%.
    I felt having the 3% crit tied just to JotC was harmful, especially with the change to Crusader Strike since the spell damage isn't as useful. That, coupled with the fact JotC isn't always the best Judgement to have up (an example is a 10-man, or farming/leveling if you want Wisdom).

• Seal of Command:
6% Base Mana (~177 mana at level 70). Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to 80% of normal weapon damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts 30 sec. Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing [AP*0.2] Holy damage, [AP*0.4] if the target is stunned or incapacitated.
    Judgement of Command now scales! Because of this, there are no longer different ranks of Seal of Command and the ability was changed to 6% Base Mana. Neither the proc nor the Judgement benefit from spell damage anymore.

• Repentance made Baseline. Duration reduced to 4 seconds:
    Let's face it - Repentance didn't work as the 31 point Protection Talent and it doesn't fit well as the 31 point Retribution Talent, especially when compared to other abilities of the same tier. Making it baseline helps all specs, mainly in PvP. The ranged, 1 minute cooldown gouge isn't incredibly powerful, but it could allow Holy Paladins a chance to get a heal off in smaller arenas.

• Fist of the Heavens (1 Point), to replace Repentence
10% of Base Mana (~295 at 70) 1 min cooldown. Calls down the power of the Light on a target you have Judged, granting an effect.
    Judgement of Wisdom - Grants [JudgementEffect*10] mana to your party members.

    Judgement of Light - Instantly heals party members for [JudgementEffect*10].

    Judgement of the Crusader - Increases your party's melee, ranged, and spell casting speed by 10% for 15 sec.

    Judgement of Justice - Immobilizes the enemy for 5 sec.
    I wanted 4 different things from this talent, which I think I've succeeded in doing. First, I wanted it to be viable in PvE, which it is. Second, I wanted it to give group utility, which it does. Third, I wanted to make it useful for PvP, which it does. Lastly, and what I felt was a key thing, I wanted to make it useful for leveling. The mana back option really feels like I did it. The thing to remember is this ability requires a Judgement to be on the mob and has a 1 minute cooldown. You're not getting 740 mana, 950 healing, 10% speed increase, and an immobilize each minute - you have to choose. I don't feel any of the uses make the spell overpowered.

Bravo!

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