Patch 2.1 is out today. A Eulogy for Pally Illumination..

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 22, 2007, 10:38 am

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 6890&sid=1

Holy Paladin Single-Target Healing Efficiency died today, on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007, at approximately 6am PST. Holy Paladin Single-Target Healing Efficiency was in it's home, and doctors say it died peacefully in it's sleep during the early morning hours. Cause of death is believed to be complications from a wound incurred from a Nerf stick, but the bleeding couldn't be stopped by a content patch.

There are no plans for a wake, and no new additions will be made to the Paladins limited healing repertoire to accommodate for the reduction in overall staying power.

Holy Paladin Single-Target Healing Efficiency was 2 and a half years old at the time of it's death. Holy Paladin Single-Target Healing Efficiency had a wife, Shadow Priest Synergy, who also passed away early this morning.

The following is an open letter to Illumination

It's been nice these last 3 years buddy. I mean, sure you're not going anywhere, you'll still be around just as much, but what, with the new wife and kid and all, you'll be about 40% less awesome.

It just kinda sucks man, you know? It's like... for these last 3 years you were pretty sweet, then out of nowhere, BAMF, someone says you're OP, and that's the end of it.

I guess that's how life is though, you know? One minute you're balanced, and then you're imba. You gotta roll with the punches though.

Take care of yourself Illumination. I'm sure we'll all still see you around, but it just won't be the same.

Pretty funny if you ask me. I'll stick with my Holy build for the time being and see how things go. I'll be paying much more attention to the tank armor peices I do get through quests and squirreling those in the bank instead of DE'ing them for mats or vendoring them from now on though.

miir · Post by **miir** » May 22, 2007, 10:52 am

drama

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » May 22, 2007, 11:39 am

I really appreciate Pallie healers, and this nerf changes nothing in my eyes. It just means pallies will have to actually use a mana pot once in awhile now.

Pallie tanks on the other hand, are just so rare and untested in the majority of people's experiance, that I can't get used to the idea. The few that I've been with (in PuGs, no guild pallie tanks), can't hold aggro for shit. It's probably bad players, not a bad spec, but it still leaves a bad taste. The Pallies out there that want to tank will really have to work for that respect, just like druids did.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 22, 2007, 12:02 pm

I've been in a group as a tank once and it wasn't pretty let me tell you.

The problem in this particular group was that I was with an enhancement Shaman loaded up to the gills in crit gear and laying down such DPS that it was scary.

Even with my Holy damage +30% aggro, giving him a -30% aggro Blessing AND using my insta-aggro draw I couldn't get aggro off this guy.

It would be an interesting experience to test out pally tanking though. I've seen a lot of posts from people claiming they can tank most end-game instances and saying they can tank everything in those normally except the last bosses.

Personally most of my gear is +spell damage/+healing but I'm going to start a collection of tanking gear as well.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » May 22, 2007, 12:41 pm

Another thing is that the Pallie has to want to tank, not feel forced into the role. Although judging by my server, you'd think true tanks are the most underplayed class in WoW.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » May 22, 2007, 1:02 pm

the major flaw w/ paladin tanks aside from gear (which can be improved) imo is that their aggro is their mana pool which runs out pretty quickly, and even faster in gear that trades mana pool for tank points. A stark contrast from rage bars where tanking shit fuels your ability to tank more shit, until eventually your only limiter is GCD. The difference is that paladins are always at the GCD limiter, until they are OOM. Blizzard may or may not have penalized their threat abilities because of that, but they don't make enough threat regardless.. its not as big of a problem as going OOM though.

theyre kinda in the same boat that druids used to be in.. you can tank or DPS but both are so weak in comparison to their healing abilities, and in comparison to the tanking/dps of other classes, that there is no practical flexibility. As far as tanking goes, they should be granted a 'tanking-form' that either makes their mana bar mimic a rage bar, or just gives them a damn rage bar. Blizzard TRIED to give them a rage-bar like mechanic with the +mana they get from heals, but it just doesnt even come close to cutting it. Anyway, the form should replace Righteous Fury and increase the +threat effect.. (righteous fury is arguably mildly exploitable in its current form anyway, ie Nightbane) and being in that form should disallow any spells that aren't tanking related. Switching into the form should cost mana, just like with druids.

my 2c

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » May 22, 2007, 1:07 pm

Fairweather Pure wrote:Another thing is that the Pallie has to want to tank, not feel forced into the role. Although judging by my server, you'd think true tanks are the most underplayed class in WoW.

Any kind of tank is limited on my server... "LFTank" is the most common phrase on general and trade. Closely followed by "LFTank+Healer".

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » May 22, 2007, 1:44 pm

I'm just happy to have new stuff I can do solo to work on when not raiding. Nether drake, here I come~!

Psyloche · Post by **Psyloche** » May 22, 2007, 2:41 pm

Animalor wrote:I've been in a group as a tank once and it wasn't pretty let me tell you.

The problem in this particular group was that I was with an enhancement Shaman loaded up to the gills in crit gear and laying down such DPS that it was scary.

Even with my Holy damage +30% aggro, giving him a -30% aggro Blessing AND using my insta-aggro draw I couldn't get aggro off this guy.

It would be an interesting experience to test out pally tanking though. I've seen a lot of posts from people claiming they can tank most end-game instances and saying they can tank everything in those normally except the last bosses.

Personally most of my gear is +spell damage/+healing but I'm going to start a collection of tanking gear as well.

Enh Shaman shaman that throttle past my 700-900 Threat per second and constantly bitch about my tanking is annoying. Maybe I'm not doing something right, which is a definite possibility, but I don't think more than that should be necessary in 5 mans. In Karazhan (yes I'm behind on raid curve big deal) I do 900-1100 Threat per second easily, but unless it's at least heroic, I just don't have the rage to really punch those beefy numbers out. Especially when half the fucking shaman drop grace of air cause they already put windfury on their weapons.

I just have a very fucking sore spot from Enh and their agro even though they do ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMG dps.

This is a paladin thread and I'm sorry for the derail, but I can't post a rant on this on any WoW board because it'll be quoted with TLDR, less QQ more pew pew, and various others. Having said that, I'm sure somebody is gonna be that guy who puts up those exact quotes, WHO WILL IT BE!?

On the actual subject... I've never had a good paladin tank, but I play Horde side so perhaps it's because for a lot of them, the class is 3 or 4 months old and they don't know shit.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 22, 2007, 2:49 pm

Nah this is a patch thread. No worries about the derails.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » May 22, 2007, 3:26 pm

Psyloche wrote:Enh Shaman shaman that throttle past my 700-900 Threat per second and constantly bitch about my tanking is annoying. Maybe I'm not doing something right, which is a definite possibility, but I don't think more than that should be necessary in 5 mans. In Karazhan (yes I'm behind on raid curve big deal) I do 900-1100 Threat per second easily, but unless it's at least heroic, I just don't have the rage to really punch those beefy numbers out. Especially when half the fucking shaman drop grace of air cause they already put windfury on their weapons.

I just have a very fucking sore spot from Enh and their agro even though they do ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMG dps.

This is a paladin thread and I'm sorry for the derail, but I can't post a rant on this on any WoW board because it'll be quoted with TLDR, less QQ more pew pew, and various others. Having said that, I'm sure somebody is gonna be that guy who puts up those exact quotes, WHO WILL IT BE!?

On the actual subject... I've never had a good paladin tank, but I play Horde side so perhaps it's because for a lot of them, the class is 3 or 4 months old and they don't know shit.

TLDR
Less

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erm

Wulfran · Post by **Wulfran** » May 22, 2007, 3:43 pm

Story of a real paladin tank.

Some of you might remember Mawafu from EQ, he messed around with rogues and a priest before rolling up a paladin. When BC came out, he specced as a tank and kicked royal ass. He had the spec that you regain mana from heals cast on you, so as long as his healer was awake, he had mana to spare. His gear was as good as any other tank (I had slightly higher mitigative stats as he did have a couple items that were mana/spell friendly). As a warrior I could tank single mobs more efficiently (i.e less healing required) but I had to work for aggro against him and on multiple mobs there wasn't even any comparason.

Its all in the mindset and utilizing the tools at your disposal.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » May 22, 2007, 3:51 pm

Wulfran wrote:Story of a real paladin tank.

Some of you might remember Mawafu from EQ, he messed around with rogues and a priest before rolling up a paladin. When BC came out, he specced as a tank and kicked royal ass. He had the spec that you regain mana from heals cast on you, so as long as his healer was awake, he had mana to spare. His gear was as good as any other tank (I had slightly higher mitigative stats as he did have a couple items that were mana/spell friendly). As a warrior I could tank single mobs more efficiently (i.e less healing required) but I had to work for aggro against him and on multiple mobs there wasn't even any comparason.

Its all in the mindset and utilizing the tools at your disposal.

Oh, I have no doubt that there are excellent Pallie tanks out there, I've just never met any

The gear and skillsets are there for a Pallie to tank very well, but there are very few Pallies that even desire the role they've been offered.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » May 22, 2007, 3:56 pm

Wulfran wrote:He had the spec that you regain mana from heals cast on you, so as long as his healer was awake, he had mana to spare.

Thats spiritual attunement- every paladin gets that. Its the paladin's answer to the rage system.. and like i said before.. it doesn't measure up.

Sargeras · Post by **Sargeras** » May 22, 2007, 4:44 pm

What sucks the most is Spiritual Attunement was nerfed in this patch and no longer grants mana on overheals/full health. That in itself is a huge bitch slap to paladin tanks than it is to holy, no matter how many healbitches cry about the mighty holy paladin/shadow priest combo. Back in beta, quite a few of us saw this coming. We knew the moment a hybrid was getting free mana back from any source (hi Mark of Vindication

), it would get canned. I'm surprised it took them this long.

Adela's point on OOM is dead on, and as of today it's much worse.

Last night I read the Stratics IRC chat log with Kalgan and Tigole in regards to ret and raiding.

Brannoc: *little3* Retribution specced paladins are not seen as a viable raid choice as their DPS is 'low' and the support they bring could easily be done by another DPS class. Will retribution be made into a viable end-game raiding spec through either DPS increases or support increases?

Tigole: but then who will save the hunters, kalgan?

Kalgan: Yes, I'd like to see ret become a bit more raid viable in terms of dps and overall utility.

Kalgan: the ret pallies will save them!

Kalgan: next patch'!

Kalgan: ok, maybe not

Kalgan: or maybe...

Kalgan: Right. At any rate, something we've noticed in our testing is that ret pallies are in kind of a jam where their dps isn't enough to get the put in a dps group in a raid.

Kalgan: ... which makes their dps suffer even more.

Kalgan: Hopefully we can get that solved in a way that doesn't cause ret pallies to rule the pvp universe.

I can say I'm happy that they acknowledge the issue and are looking to resolve it, but I won't hold my breath on whatever that resolve brings.

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » May 22, 2007, 8:45 pm

Sky
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