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Ghostcrawler talks about Spiritual Attunement
If you've been keeping tabs on the Paladin changes lately, you might've noticed one thing that jumps out -- Spiritual Attunement will no longer be a skill but a talent deep in the Protection tree. Essentially a mechanic designed to help Paladin tanks keep their mana up, it was also key to Retribution Paladins' mana regeneration as it works synergistically with Seal of Blood / of the Martyr, the primary Retribution Seal.Of course, if Spiritual Attunement being removed from trainers, the self-damage of Seal of Blood becomes little more than a gimmick and an inconvenience. It also tended to invalidate one glyph, which was the Glyph of Seal of Blood. If Spiritual Attunement is deep in the Protection tree, then the glyph becomes aimed at tanks... who don't use the seal. When players pointed this out on the forums, Dresorull replied to test it out in a future build (I still had Spiritual Attunement as a skill on the PTR) and locked the thread.In a related post, Ghostcrawler lays out Blizzard's intentions for Paladin mana regeneration, saying that Spiritual Attunement is critical to Protection, but they "don't actually like Holy and Ret having (it)". He explains that such a mechanic depends too much on the encounter and gave Patchwerk as one example where SA won't return mana to anyone but a tank. He notes that Blizzard would still like to tune Paladin mana regeneration -- Holy through Illumination and Retribution through Judgements of the Wise.
Are Paladins going to get nerfed?
There's a cloud of gloom hanging over our collective Paladin heads over here at WoW Insider, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that Divine Plea still works. Even with the 50% healing penalty, Divine Plea is still a critical spell that's used without much of a second thought. Now it's just used a tiny, tiny bit less. Of course, Ghostcrawler also mentioned in his explanation of the new mana regeneration changes that they're going to nerf Spiritual Attunement for "non-tanking Paladins," too. So yes, there's that cloud.Here's the thing, though... that change will hurt Retribution Paladins more than it will Holy Paladins. Retribution Paladins rely on the synergy of Spiritual Attunement and Seal of Blood / of the Martyr in addition to Judgements of the Wise, Replenishment, and Divine Plea. We'll probably have to see exactly what the incoming nerf looks like before we panic, but considering how Paladins have a history of getting beaten by the nerf bat, it's not an altogether rosy proposition. In fact, I think Paladins are probably going to get nerfed beyond the current Divine Plea and the future Spiritual Attunement. My thoughts after the jump.
The Queue: The spirit of betrayal
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Today, I'll cut the crap and not pretend to be funny, for your sake. Tomorrow, though? Tomorrow, the gloves come off. I will pretend to be absolutely hilarious until the cows come home.matthew asked... So I did a quest in Sholazar to kill Artruis and accidentally changed from Oracle to Frenzyheart. How exactly do I change back to oracle because I want to get the egg?
Patch 3.0.2 primer for Holy Paladins
This was supposed to go up before the servers did, but as you probably already know, Patch 3.0.2 wasn't quite what we all expected. Now that servers are starting to go back up online, I can better write up this handy guide for the brave new world. Let's try to get as much of this right as possible. If you were as excited as I am -- and you should be -- you probably logged on as soon as your Realm went up, picked out all those cool talents you've been drooling over these past months, and went off reveling in your newfound power.Good for you. Even though Patch 3.0.2 had a few hiccups, most of the important class changes made it through. I had to delete a lot of my macros and change a few. For one thing, Judgement and a Seal can no longer be cast within the same macro. This is because Seals aren't consumed by Judgements anymore, so they now share the same GCD. If you have macros for your Blessings of Freedom, Protection, and Sacrifice, you should edit them to cast Hands instead of Blessings. Lots of little things. I'll probably talk about that in The Light and How to Swing It. For now, we'll take a look at the talent trees and how we'll settle into the 3.0.2 world.
The Light and How to Swing It: For the love of all that's Holy
With all the love that Protection and Retribution has gotten, a lot of people might feel that Holy has fallen behind. To a degree this is true. It's important to understand, before anything else, that for the longest time Holy was the only truly viable tree for the class. Protection has come into its own in The Burning Crusade, while Retribution needed a lot more work. Now that Blizzard has done its homework and tweaked the trees to scrumptious, tempting playability, it's time for us to revisit the Holy tree. Exactly how good will Holy be in Wrath of the Lich King?The answer isn't a simple one. For one thing, Holy is still an incredibly powerful tree and Holy Paladins are still the best single target healers in the game, with Holy Lights critting for ludicrous amounts in the Wrath Beta. It is also now more capable offensively, with ranged Judgements, better coefficients, and a lowered cooldown on Holy Shock. Even then, there are many indications that Holy has fallen behind on many respects, and many Paladins are considering speccing Retribution or Protection because of it. That's not a good thing at all.
The Light and How to Swing It: The shocking truth in Beta
Ok. So Paladins rock in Beta. There are a whole slew of abilities and talents that make life a whole lot easier and a lot more fun. One popular request on the comments has been to test drive the new Wrath Shockadin, with improvements like a 6 second Holy Shock and ranged judgements from Enlightened Judgements, it really does seem like the spec has finally come into its own. Of course, what looks good on paper doesn't necessarily translate into actual gameplay. With the reshuffle of talents and the consolidation of spell and melee crit, what used to be a fringe off-spec with a loyal following might actually turn into the spec of choice... for healing Paladins. Before anything, though, let's make one thing clear -- this is Beta, so everything we'll be taking a look at today might (and is likely to) change by the time Wrath of the Lich King is live.
More Class Changes on the PTR: Lifebloom fixed?
MMO-Champion has found some new changes in the latest PTR patch. It looks Blizzard has turned their focus away from Shaman and Warlocks for a while in the wake of the recent total rollback of the Life Tap and Flametongue changes, and focused on weaking Restoration Druids some more, perhaps in the wake of the recent revelation that Druids are the most overrepresented class in arenas according to Blizzard's Internal metrics. We'll look at the specific changes after the break.
Philips wants to bring copy-and-paste to interior lighting
We'll be straight with you -- we've never actually waltzed through the rooms at Engadget HQ and had the urge to reproduce the exact output from light A with light B. Evidently, we're the exception and not the rule. According to a lingering patent application from Philips, it's seeking to create a system in which sensors could be used to detect "light attributes" from one location and paste them over to another location in order to produce perfectly uniform scenarios throughout the home / office / etc. Heck, it even details a memory bank in order to easily set the mood of the entire building when necessary. Can't say this is where we envisioned the future of copy-and-paste going, but we suppose it'll do.[Via NewScientist, image courtesy of Fusion Lighting]
Build Shop: Paladin 40/0/21
This week on Build Shop I've got another Paladin build for you all to digest -- Shockadin (aka 40/0/21)! I like this build because it's all purpose, allowing you to act as the main healer for an instance if necessary, but giving you the freedom to go grind or farm or what have you without needing to respec. It's also got the potential for some great burst damage, if used properly.This build picks up most of its talents from the Holy tree, but goes into Retribution for some nice support talents, as well as Sanctity Aura, which is what you'll be using if you're in DPS mode.Alright, let's dig into this build and see what's going on!
PTR Notes: Fixing illumination
Over at Blessing of Kings, Coriel has a great explanation of how the paladin's to-be-changed Illumination talent -- which has been happily residing in the holy tree since the game's release -- became such a thorny problem. The talent (as it exists now) returns the base mana cost of a healing spell to the paladin when the healing spell crits. (It costs 5 talent points to bring it to this level of effectiveness and requires 15 points in the talent tree. So a fully maxxed illumination will cost you 20 talent points in the holy tree.) The end result is that, overall, the paladin receives a mana discount on their healing spells equal to their spell crit rate. Prior to patch 1.9, a paladin could boost his or her holy spell crit rate by 5% through talents (priests have a similar talent that boosts holy spell crit), but it was difficult for paladins to get any other spell crit gear. The plate itemization simply didn't exist and there was heavy competition for generic items that a paladin could use like the Azuresong Mageblade.
Jacket cuff lights create illumination on demand
Flashlights have certainly found their way into unusual locales, but a recent invention places light in a place that could prove handy to nearly anyone out on the town. The aptly-named jacket cuff lights add bright beams of white light to both of your sleeves, and since they're wired up in a series, you aren't apt to activate your high beams without intending to do so. Relying on ten white LEDs, a pair of small PC mounting boards, four small pushbuttons, a couple of 10-ohm resistors, a bit of cabling, rechargeable battery pack, and the usual handyman skills with a soldering iron, this project doesn't look too intense for the amateur to handle. Still, the creator has certainly made things easy on those of you who'd rather pay someone else to get things going, as you can pick up the kit of necessary items for a smooth $20 if you so choose. Alright, you know the drill, hit the read link for a detailed video demonstration.[Via MAKE]
