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New beta patch has been released today. There are some nice buffs, like Eye for an Eye buff which allows the talent to work like Reckoning somewhat. Note this might encourage more players to spec into Retribution/Reckoning Hybrid hmm. There are also some nerfs, most notably the Art of War nerf. The nerf is sad. No more pew pew, but everyone saw it coming. Personally I think they overdid it a little.

Anyway, here are the changes.

And for the undocumented changes I read around the forums:

While browsing through Wotlkwiki.info, I noticed that they listed a new trainable spell called Divine Plea. Most likely a new spell added due to the new beta patch being released today.

In short, it’s an Evocation-liked spell that regenerates 50% of Paladin’s mana over 6 seconds, with a 5-minute cooldown. Obtainable only at level 71. This is a small addition but an awesome buff in pve and pvp seriously. No more begging for water from mage boo yah.

On a side note, Hunters are also getting a new regeneration spell too, called the Roar of Recovery. Looks like minimizing cooldown is the new direction for Blizzard, which is good because it’s much more fun that way. :) Could also be an adjustment to the new Potion Sickness being introduced into the game, preventing people from drinking potions every 2-minute now on.

Oh yea,I just realize that now we can bubble + mana regen now, plus throwing in a few heals. AWESOME! I smell more ownage for Paladins in pvp now.

There have been numerous complaints that the new talent trees are too bloated in WotLK, effectively forcing most players to specialize in one tree. While it’s not necessary a bad thing for most classes, being a hybrid class, a lot of Paladins prefer to maintain their hybrid-ness. For that reason, a lot of Paladins are not happy about the bloatedness of the trees.

However, are the trees really that bloated? Let’s us have a look.

In Wrath of the Lich King, each of the trees require these many points to be filled up entirely.

• Holy - 74 points (Effective level is 83)
• Protection - 80 points (Effective level is 89)
• Retribution - 79 points (Effective level is 88)
• Total - 233 points

As compared to in The Burning Crusade:

• Holy - 62 points (Effective level is 71)
• Protection - 69 points (Effective level is 68)
• Retribution - 66 points (Effective level is 65)

For a 10-point increase, which is 16.4% increase for talent speccing; each tree’s total points fillable have increased by:

• Holy - 12 points (19.7% increase)
• Protection - 11 points (18.1% increase)
• Retribution - 13 points (21.3% increase)

We know that, despite having 10 extra points to spec in WotLK, most of us will not put in all the 10 points in the same tree. Other trees have some equally attractive gains in the upper tiers too! However, you may note that each of the new talent tree, have an increase of points that are beyond the rate of increased usable talent points. Now, not only that you have to decide on whether it’s a good idea to invest into an upper tier of a sub-tree, you also face the decision if you should take up more of your main tree’s talents too because it sure is sinking your new 10 points pretty easily.

Yes the trees are pretty bloated as we see. The next question is however, are we the only class that got it bad? A quick look at other hybrid classes reveal that… not quite.

Shamans:

• Elemental - 73 points
• Enhancement - 79 points
• Restoration - 78 points
• Total - 230 points

Druids:

• Balance - 76 points
• Feral Combat - 73 points
• Restoration - 77 points
• Total - 226 points

If you think that it’s not conclusive, let’s look at Warriors. Looks like they have it worse than us.

• Protection - 77 points
• Arms - 81 points
• Fury - 81 points
• Total - 239 points

My opinion is that, Blizzard intently adjusted all the talent trees to sink your usable talent points. Is it a bad thing? Yes it is because you can’t be as good as you wish you are due to the lack of talents. Is it a good thing? Yes it is too because there will be a lot of different builds popping out in WotLK. Will cookie cutter builds still exist? Somewhat I think yes. But diversity will be the key in WotLK, much like how some Holy Paladins may pick up Beacon of Light and the others may opt for Sheath of Light. Both equally viable and attractive; yet unable to be obtained by just one person.

WotLK has gift-wrapped and delivered quite a bit of reason for excitement amidst the Retribution community. In addition to reworking some of our existing abilities such as Hammer of Wrath (it no longer resets your swing timer and can be used starting at 35% health rather than 20%) Blizzard as offered us a new weapon in our arsenal: Divine Storm.

The presentation of a new attack is a double-edged sword (pun intended) that presents both advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages would be that we now have another GCD-triggering ability to juggle. Clearly, however, the advantages of giving us Divine Storm far outweight the detriments. We simply have to adapt to a new DPS cycle that, after a bit of investigation, proves to be substantially more complex than our existing one.

What follows is a screenshot of a spreadsheet I threw together which is intended to delve deep into the first minute of the potential Retribution DPS cycle come WotLK:

On the left, we have a Retadin DPS cycle that prioritizes Crusader Strike over Divine Storm. The results of this cycle are detailed out within the tab at the top backed by light grey. On the right, we have a contrasting Retadin DPS cycle that prioritizes Divine Storm of Crusader Strike. The results of this cycle are revealed within the tab at the bottom backed by a dark grey. In between both DPS cycles is a legend explaining the color scheme and acronyms used. The first “whole second marker” represents the 0 second mark and the last “half second marker” at the bottom represents the 59.5 second mark. To begin, I would like to clarify the following:

• Judgement of Wisdom could just as well be replaced with either of the other two Judgement types.
• Seal Twists can only take place under the following circumstance
  • No other GCD-triggering ability is ready to be used between auto-attacks
• Time on GCD represents the total amount of time during the DPS cycle that you would be within a Global Cooldown
• Time off GCD represents the total amount of time during the DPS cycle that you would NOT be within a Global Cooldown
• GCD Conflicts represents the number of times that using either Crusader Strike or Divine Storm will force you to delay the use of the other due to triggering the GCD
• The lighter shade of colors below each used ability within the DPS cycles simply represents the cooldown of the respective abilities
• The order of usage for abilities is of a left-to-right order meaning that Judgement should always be used first once off cooldown since it does not trigger a GCD

What I found most interesting about these two DPS cycles is that although the differ only by one assumption (the prioritization of Divine Storm and Crusader Strike), the results yielded were substantially different DPS-wise. In short the following proves true for the first minute of the proposed DPS cycles with a 3.0 swing speed:

• Prioritizing Divine Storm over Crusader Strike:
  • Yields 2 Seal Twist opportunities compared to 0 when prioritizing the other way
  • Results in the exact same time both on and off the GCD
  • Causes only 1 GCD conflict compared to 2 when prioritizing the other way

One of the most important points to note is that because prioritizing Divine Storm over Crusader Strike yields the opportunity for Seal Twisting, you can now take advantage of this fact to refresh your Seal of Blood/Martyr accordingly instead of having to do so by itself with no twist. Since you will be refreshing your seal in coordination with a Seal Twist, you are increasing your DPS in two different ways:

1. Refreshing your seal is done as part of a Seal Twist which could result in more DPS (if SoC procs)
2. The GCD required to refresh your seal by itself at some point during your DPS cycle is no longer necessary because of 1 above thus allowing you less GCD time and therefore more opportunities for DPS (i.e you can use the time you would have needed to refresh your seal for a Consecration or Exorcism instead.

As of the moment, I’m going to conclude this post here as to let the above sink in and receive some constructive criticism. Stay tuned for further WotLK updates, mechanic clarifications, talent discussions and the like.

This is Synovia, taking her leave.

Recently Blizzard has made some changes to a few talents secretly without announcement. These changes were noted on the official WoW WotLK Talent Calculator hosted by Blizzard, and can be found here. Here in this post however, I’m going to show and compare to you what I have managed to dig out so far.

Feel free to let me know if I’m missing anything. :)

This article was submitted by Ghmou from Darkspear-US . Please leave him a feedback via comments if you like his article. If you would also like to submit an article, please email your article to wowpaladin@wowpaladin.org.

TL;DR version: Make rewards commensurate with the effort put forth. Reward players not simply for the win/loss - reward them for their efforts.

Surely you’re all familiar with “losing premades”. You know, a group of people getting together to lose 3-0 in WSG, or get 5 capped in AB, or to just sit at the spawn point in EotS. These aren’t /bad/ people - they are just players who want their marks, but realize that sometimes it’s not worth it to drag a battle out for 30+ minutes for a single mark and paltry honor. Why not just lose and get your mark asap?

Eye of the Storm, Arathi Basin, and Warsong Gulch need improved incentives to make players want to actually /play/, rather than lose. That means essentially one thing:

A player must feel that the reward for trying - even if they lose - is greater than the reward for losing outright without trying.

What does this mean? It means that marks must no longer be an “all or nothing” reward.

Rather than awarding three marks to a winning team and one to a losing team, why not do the following:

1. Award 1 mark per flag cap in WSG. Even a losing team could potentially score TWO marks.
2. Award 1 mark per 500 points (max 4) in EotS. More marks for longer BGs like EotS.
   (thanks Eurisa!)
3. Award 1 mark per 500 points (max 4) at the end of the game. A team is more likely to struggle to hold on to a point or two - or three, or four! - if they know that the rewards are better. (thanks Eurisa!)
4. Award 1 mark per 200 enemy reinforcements that you deplete. Even a losing battle where you bring the enemy to 100 would net you two marks. Hell, make it 1 mark per 150 to bring it in line with the above ideas. (thanks HP!)

A side note: As to AV - I’m Alliance. We have little trouble winning, but I think that awarding marks to the losing team for completing objectives - capping towers, killing Balinda/Galvangar - might be helpful. It might even compel afkers to do/something. Who knows.

Also - Blizz should do something about the honor from these BG’s. Why do you think people grind AV all the time unless they need marks?

I am a consultant in the IT industry. For those of us whose workdays pass in front of a workstation only to relocate to a different one when they arrive home, the concept of “testing” is often met with a collection of barely audible grunts followed by a symphony of lethargic sighs. It’s okay. I’m right there with you and can both empathize and sympathize. The fundamental shortcoming of “testing” as a concept is that its enjoyability (I made that word up) is limited by the enjoyability ((c) Synovia, 2008) of the system being tested. Fortunately for us, the bandwagon for World of Warcraft testing has many seats and the ride itself is not at all uneventful.

As with any large-scale beta testing, changes can be assumed, tweaks can be expected and deviations from original intention should not arrive unconsidered. World of Warcraft stands as no exception and in Blizzard’s latest round of fine-tuning they have kicked off a game of musical talents.

Let the music begin!

Recent Beta Updates

What I’m going to do here is present the recent changes factually and without explanation but then follow it up with my take on the changes and their effect on the Paladin. As of this morning (although I don’t claim these changes to have been implemented “this morning”), the following updates have been made:

1. Divine Strength now increases Strength by 3% per rank (up from 2%)
2. Vindication now only has 2 ranks with each rank reducing the afflicted player’s statistics by 10% for a total of 20% reduction (down 1 rank but up 5% in reduction)
3. Pursuit of Justice now only has 2 ranks for an 8/15% movement and mount speed increase. However, it now only provides 1/2% chance to not be hit by spells (down 1 rank but down 1% chance to be hit by spells)
4. Improved Blessing of Might now increases the effectiveness of your Blessing of Might by 10% per rank (up from 4% per rank)
5. Guarded by the Light has been simplified to now give a 15/30% mana cost reduction Consecration, Holy Wrath and Avenger’s Shield (changed from 10/20% chance when you parry or dodge and attack to cause your next Consecration, Holy Wrath OR Avenger’s Shield to cost 25/50% less mana)
6. Holy Shield now has 6 charges inherently (up from 4)

The Change to Divine Strength

Without a doubt, this change was implemented to equalize it with “Divine Intellect” from the Holy tree which was already set to be 3% per rank. Whereas Intellect is the Holy Paladin’s primary base statistic, Strength is the Retribution Paladin’s base statistics.

The Change to Vindication and Pursuit of Justice

With respect to both of these talents, I believe they were adjusted to receive a maximum of 2 talent points each in attempt to free up 2 talent points out of a seemingly bloated Retribution tree. Concerning Vindication specifically, however, I believe a secondary point of logic behind this change was an attempt to make this debuff a bit more potent given the absence of any healing reduction effects in the Retadin’s PvP arsenal. I, personally, have never been a supporter of the “let’s give another class a healing debuff” movement and as a result, I am happy to see this well-deserved buff to an ability to gets little mention in the PvP community.

The Change to Blessing of Might

I’m going to be completely forthright with you here: I haven’t the slightest idea what motivated this enormous buff to an already excellent talent. Well, perhaps claiming lack of even a “slightest” idea is misleading given I can somewhat understand the motivation to assign it more effectiveness. However, this is a first-tier talent and although I’m not at all complaining about its recent update, I was content with the 20% increase it gave to the blessing.

The Change to Guardian of the Light

This high-tier Protection talent was initially yet another proc in the Paladin arsenal (or should I say “pain in the Paladin arse”) but since has been reworked to be a static 15/30% mana cost reduction to three of the Tankadin’s aggro-generation abilities. I believe this was done as part of Blizzard’s stated effort to usher the Paladin towards less reliance on procs and chance (i.e. Seal of Command supposedly moving to a fixed 50% proc rate as opposed to 7 procs per minute). All in all, I feel this is a solid change for this talent and now results in a respectable bucket in which to place talent points.

The Change to Holy Shield

Holy Shield is already one of a Tankadin’s proverbial “bread and butter” skills but at only four charges it has assisted in sending quite a few Paladins to the back of the tanking bus when it comes to solo-tanking raid bosses. This is due to the fact that since Holy Shield is a very large source of a Tankadin’s overall mitigation, their cause is hurt by the fact that even against a single-targetting raid boss their cooldown for Holy Shield would still be ticking at the time its final charge came off. This left the Paladin somewhat susceptible to extra damage during these small intermissions and thus assisted in the decision of many raiding guilds to lean the way of Druids and Warriors for solo-target tanking. I believe the intent of this change is to not only strength the Tankadin’s “niche” (niches being something Blizzard has clearly stated they desire each tanking class to have) but also give them more viability with respect to raid boss tanking.

Some Clarifications

Recently, I made a post on the official Paladin forums requesting clarification on various WotLK Paladin mechanics. What I got in reply was a collection of steadfast, definitive answers to a few of my questions and a collection of wavering assumptions regarding some others. After some research of my own and some conversations with folks currently in the WotLK beta, I have arrived at a concrete (as of the moment) list of things I would like to clarify:

1. Contrary to my previous post about the new Seal/Judgement system, casting any one of the three Judgement spells does NOT trigger the GCD
2. A Judgement spell (any of them) cannot be cast unless you have a Seal up
3. Although the 3% raid-wide crit granted by Heart of the Crusader applies to any of the three Judgement types, it is NOT stackable
4. Retribution Aura now scales with AP/SD (whichever is greater) and currently, for Retadins in Beta, hits for around 130-150 per proc
5. Spell Power is replacing both “+damage and healing” as well as just “+healing” effects on items. What this means is that a Shadow Priest and a Holy Priest, for example, may both have the exact same amount of “Spell Power”. However, the coefficients for healing spells are being increased to compensate. The net result is that, say, 1300 Spell Power will “feel” as though it were somewhere around 2500 “+healing”

No doubt further changes will come necessitating further clarifications. Beta testing within the World of Warcraft is an exciting time. It allows us theorycrafters the opportunity to whet our enormous appetites for the science behind our passion. As updates are made and changes are implemented, you can expect to hear about them promptly right here on WoWPaladin.org.

This is Synovia, taking her leave.

No doubt you’ve heard of the recent overhaul to our Seal system for WotLK. However if you’re like me, the explanation of these new mechanics came with a side of confusion and a sprinkling of doubt. As a result, I’ve decided to investigate and demystify that which has been clouded by the random interjections of myriad forum trolls.

First and foremost the spell “Judgement” is no more. In its place are actually three different spells. They are as follows:

• Judgement of Wisdom
• Judgement of Light
• Judgement of Justice

The seals we know and love today are still in tact with the lone exception of Seal of the Crusader which has been removed altogether. In its absence, the effects it provided have been rolled into the applicable skills.

An important thing to note is that the three Judgements listed above have two purposes:

1. Determining which debuff will be applied to the target
   1. Judgement of Wisdom applies the Wisdom debuff
   2. Judgement of Light applies the Light debuff
   3. Judgement of Justice applies the Justice debuff
2. Dealing damage based on the Seal you are using at the time of judgement
   1. All seals now deal base damage (yes, even Light, Wisdom, etc)

The debuff being applied to the target is the same as it is now with a lone exception: The effectiveness of the Light and Wisdom debuffs now scale with AP and SD. Additionally, the act of judging does NOT consume the seal you have up. You can officially bid farewell to the days of having to judge and reseal promptly before your next auto-attack. As a downside, however, all three of the Judgement spells activate the GCD - a change from the current Judgement spell which does not.

Now that we’ve covered the basics of the new Seal system, let’s give an example as to better understand it:

1. I cast Seal of Command (thus putting Seal of Command up on myself)
2. I target mob “Ferocious Bunny”
3. I cast Judgement of Wisdom on mob “Ferocious Bunny”
   1. “Ferocious Bunny” is afflcted by the Wisdom debuff (chance to restore mana on hit)
   2. “Ferocious Bunny” takes damage from my “judgement” of Command
      1. When you judge, it doesn’t matter which of the three judgements you pick to cast - it will deal judgement damage based on the Seal you have up. The only thing that is different between the three Judgements is what debuff is applied

One thing you may be wondering is “if Seal of the Crusader” was removed then does that mean my 3% raid-wide crit I used to give out is gone too?”. The answer is no. The talent that added the 3% critical strike chance to your Judgement of the Crusader has been reworked so that it now provides that same 3% critical strike to ANY judgement you put up on the target.

With these changes to the Seal system, including the fact that Judging will now trigger the GCD, the Retadin DPS cycle then becomes a button mash of one’s abilities as soon as they are available to use. As it stands, you can expect the priority of ability usage during the DPS cycle to go as follows:

• Crusader Strike > Divine Storm > Judgement (of whatever you want) > Consecration / Exorcism

As of the moment, it does not appear that Seal Twisting will be a viable part of the Retadin DPS cycle given the large quantity of time that we’ll be in a GCD.

Noteworthy is the fact that currently there is, what is presumed to be, a bug in the WotLK beta such that having Judgement of Justice on a target not only deals the judgement damage when judged but also redeals it every time the target is hit while the Justice debuff is on them. Blizzard has not yet commented as to whether this is intended functionality of this particular debuff or if it is, in fact, a bug.

I hope you’ve found this guide helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments and I’ll respond promptly.

This is Synovia, taking her leave.