Repost: Paladin Talent Trees Frustrate Me
This thread from Beta forum is a rather good read. Check it out.
Ok, I love some of the things that have been done with paladins. We have seen tons of baseline changes that are very beneficial to the class. We have had some key issues addressed that make the paladin better to play and hopefully headed to a more balanced situation in both PvE and PvP environments.
One thing that has gotten to me though lately is the Paladin talent trees, they don’t FEEL anything like the other talent trees. I have a 70 Paladin, 70 Hunter, 70 Mage, and a 64 Shaman on live. I am going to avoid words like bloat, because honestly they aren’t “bloated” when it comes to talent points, but they are actually THIN. Yes, I use that word because it feels like I am getting a whole lot less from the trees for my talent points. Instead, I will use words like fair, fun, and useful. I am going to itemize points with numbers since that is easier to respond to.
1.) Paladins are the ONLY class in warcraft who have only 5 point talents at their first tier. Why? When you are leveling a new Paladin (I made a new paladin on beta), you cannot put a talent point anywhere that will feel like you are gaining anything. Many of the talents just seem like such small upgrades compared to what other classes have. Other classes have a feel to them. Tier 1 Talents that I feel should really be 3 points include: Spiritual Focus, Seals of the Pure (5/10/15), and Benediction. The buff to improved BoM was great, which I always felt should be 2 points but 10% per level accomplishes the same thing. Ultimately, a few new talents at T1 to compliment the 3 point talents that are useful to more specs would GREATLY improve both hybridization and entry into secondary trees.
You could also switch Anticipation and Stoicism as neither Ret or Holy Benefit from anticipation but might benefit from Stoicism.
2.) Fundamentally, I think most players feel like early tree talents should be useful to multiple specs while deep talents should be the fundamental talents that define the spec itself. Why is Touched by the light so deep? Shouldn’t it be about as deep as Sheath of Light? Other classes suffered from this too and are being alleviated so that there are more options for the secondary tree. Look at shamans. There was very little reason for resto to go into elemental. Now Elemental Focus works with healing spells. Holy is for the most part a good case of how it should work. Before there was NO reason to go Holy/Ret. Everyone was Holy/Prot. Now there is reason. Even now though both T1 prot talents are terrible for Holy PvE or PvP, and Ret T1 talents aren’t much better (Benediction is NOT a PvE healing talent and neither is Improved Judgment).
Holy/Ret – Great for PvE and PvP
Holy/Prot – Marginal for PvE and Great for PvP
Prot/Holy – This spec is Non existant. Nothing in Holy for Prot in PvE.
Prot/Ret – The only option for Prot. Benediction and Imp Might are both Marginal Entry Talents
Ret/Holy – Again, there is NOTHING here for it. Nothing. Unyielding faith doesn’t offer much.
Ret/Prot – Great for PvP. Marginal for PvE. Most Ret PvE will go almost all in Ret, none in holy.
3.) The other classes seem to get more out of their talents. Hybrids get more dual utility out of their talents. Mages: Incineration, Spell Impact, Winter’s Chill, Imp Scorch, Chilled to the Bone. They all do lots of things. Look at hybridization on a druid: Nature’s Reach, Naturalist, and Master Shapeshifter, all have dual spec utility. If you look at talents that are fairly unique to a paladin, most do one thing, and usually not even very well: Unyielding Faith, Blessed Hands (long cooldowns), Sacred Cleansing, Vindication, Improved Judgments, Crusade, All 2-3 point talents that are OK but really should have dual functionally to entice multiple specs value. Talents like Stoicism, Imp Devo Aura, and Pursuit of Justice are about all you got for doing multiple things in the utility range of trees.
4.) There are certain talents that EVERY one still get no use of. Blessing of Sanctuary and Improved Retribution Aura. Honestly, you could kill 2 birds with one stone if you rolled BoSanc effect into another ability (Aura, Blessing, or Righteous Fury) and made it return mana. I think it would be much better if it returned mana to the paladin based on how much damage it mitigated. (right now it would be 80 mana per 80 damage mitigated would feel about right). Imp Retribution Aura is worthless to a ret paladin who doesn’t wanna get hit much anyway. It should be Tier 1 or just rolled into Swift Retribution and Sanctified Retribution.
5.) Deep Prot doesn’t feel like it does anything. Guarded by the Light and Shield of the Templar modifiy talents that you have to get anyway, why not make the bonus they provide baseline (does avenger’s shield really need 2 talents to reduce its mana? Why not just reduce the baseline and put in some decent talents? Damage?
6. Judgment s of the Pure doesn’t Jive with raid healing or with PvP healing. Maybe you want paladins judging more and thus removed refresh, but that doesn’t really work without Enlightened judgments meaning you are spending 7 points for 10% more haste and additional lost time every 30 seconds? Enlightened Judgments is a great PvP talent, but for raiding it makes no sense… unless you are forced to get it for JotP. The reason every holy paladin is jumping to Sheath of Light is not Beacon of light… it is that nobody wants to go into JotP.
7. Deep Ret feels a bit gimpled. Righteous vengeance only affects 2 abiltiies. Most classes have a talent that affects ALL abilities. Sure they are dps classes, but their talents are VERY shallow in their trees. Art of War feels Very PvPesque, but most Ret PvP are going into Prot anyway to get stoicism and imp HoJ. Why get this? And now that Crusader Strike doesn’t refresh seals, it doesn’t feel like … anything.
All in all. The trees are much better than they used to be. As other classes are getting reductions in talent cost point wise, you might want to also consider: Reckoning and redoubt besides what I mentioned in Tier 1.
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Painolympics said,
August 21, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Paladins need to stop crying, they’ve gotten consistent buffs to dps as of late. Now they can judgement of command crit for like 7-9k.
That’s more then most pyroblast crit for. Those are a 6 second cast too, not instant.
Robert said,
August 22, 2008 at 12:49 am
As a self appointed whiner, it’s hard for me to totally agree that we are getting screwed. Remember that the mana reductions help in grinding and in tanking for a tankadin. I have not seen a 3rd rank of spiritual attunement, so it might be argued that we are in danger of OOM. Any mana reduction talents are greatly appreciated. Granted with the new judgement system and divine plea, we may not need it, but tankadins are loved for their ability to fly through 5 mans, and most of the abilities we are getting will make us better main tanks. There isn’t too much to be upset about there. Our mana makes our tanking abilities dependent on what we start with, not with what we can create, and blizz, since spiritual attunement, seems to be putting a focus on that.
The comments about touched by the light being so deep are interesting. As a tank, i never even thought about sheath of light and its availibility. Throw in that you could get divine strenght and sheath of light and you are getting the percentage modifier when if you went for say BoK and touched (if it were higher up), you wouldn’t get the stamina bonuses avail to a true tank. Maybe blizz needs to evaluate where they put both of those talents and make one available but not the other if you are going to try a holy build w/o beacon.
There are things in the tree that I don’t particularly like, like thedevotion aura, the complete refusal of blizz to recognize that redoubt should be unlinked. They would find that that cute little talent they gave us would be passed by most devoted tanks. Rememeber, we are spending 8 points in prot to get 30% absorbtion and a prot warrior can get the same return on 3.
I don’t understand why I feel like I’m one of a few people who likes BoS. I BoK up in an instance, but when you are aoe grinding, BoS is better since you can use ur seals of wisdom and light. If we are indeed not going to have mana problems with the new judgement system then BoS is even better when you are soloing since you wont need that mana boost from the intel you get from BoK.
If you want to evaluate bloat or thinness or whatever word you think should be applied to the trees, you should look at the druid resto tree. Yes, there is going to be a serious look by pvp’ers at the best resto build for arena, but in pve the resto druid will eb changing the way he heals since it will be viable to use ht and flourish in tree. If you have a resto druid or know one that plays, ask them to look at the new tree and see what talents they would sacrifice for other talents in the other trees. Do some of them seem redundant like a mana cost to this spell but if you want a mana cost reduction to this spell, you need ot take another talent? Absolutely, but thats the point of the talent points. Every class gets one point a lvl and you should treat them like you do your epic gear. They are a valuable commodity and soaking up every possible advantage out of them should be your goal.
Ultimately, I can’t complain, if it means thats you dont have an extra talent point to blow on an ability that is nice but not essential to the overall effectiveness of tanking for one that hands down makes you a better tank, then spend it accordingly and thank blizzard for finally listening to our plight.
Etrur said,
August 22, 2008 at 12:10 pm
You make a lot of good points, however, the Crusader Strike “nerf” I see as a good thing. First and foremost, refreshing judgements is relatively easy, since you are judging one of the 3 debuffs every 6 seconds, and Crusader Strike now procs seals.
Prior to this change, as it is on live, Crusader Strikes refresh mechanic is pretty lackluster in PvP, matter-of-fact, if you aren’t even playing with a paladin who is going to judge, it’s worthless, because melee attacks refresh judgements.
Neither do now, but you are always judging that debuff, be it justice, wisdom or light. I can understand how this MAY be frustrating in PvE, but that isn’t the only aspect of the game, and CS became a much better PvP ability.
Proudfoot said,
August 23, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Well now that all specs of paladin will be judging most of the time there’s no need to refresh judgements in PVE. We only have 2 judgements in PVE and a Ret and a Prot or Holy pally can keep those up very easily. The change to crusader strike allows it to proc seals which increases DPS alot. Also Divine storm procs seals right now and that is certainly very nice.
Jessica said,
November 1, 2008 at 9:20 am
One key to all of this is the ability to adapt. Do that instead of whining.