righteous-fury
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Cataclysm: Reaching uncrittable
For those of you who don't know much about tanking, we're going to talk quickly about a stat that won't exist in Cataclysm. This lowly stat is called defense rating, and it's something that tanks need quite a bit of. The nice thing is that it's on just about everything that tanks wear, which means at higher gear levels, we've got it coming out of our ears. The primary point of this stat is to reduce the critical strike ability for incoming melee hits from the standard of 6% to 0%. Druids currently don't need this stat, as they've got a talent called Survival of the Fittest, which means that bosses don't need to drop defense leather. All in all, the stat is kinda boring, as while it does still do nice things after you reach the defense cap of 690 rating (or 540 skill), most people don't bother with it and stack stamina or other avoidance. So Blizzard decided that they're going to get rid of it. Around BlizzCon 2009, we were told that the crit reduction we formerly got from defense rating was going to be tied into things that were available to all members of each tanking class. Examples used were baking it into Bear Form for druids, Righteous Fury for paladins, Defensive Stance for warriors and Frost Presence (or rather, Blood Presence in Cataclysm) for death knights. That means that if a retribution paladin or arms warrior wanted to tank, all he'd need to do was swap to vaguely appropriate gear (or just over to a sword and shield), pop his respective abilities, and away he'd go. That's not how it appears things went down, though.
The Light and How to Swing It: Tanking stat changes in Cataclysm
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. Since paladins are last on the list for the upcoming Cataclysm class previews due to how Blizzard ended up doing the development schedule, we've got another week and a half to wait for our details. I'm not picky as long as it gets done, so there's no reason to really grumble other than having to wait an extra week. However, I thought I'd go over some of the things we do know about Cataclysm for tanking. Blizzard has mentioned that they're going to rethink tanking cooldowns and has previously asked for feedback on some of the abilities we currently have -- but to what end, we're unsure at this time. What they have told us about thus far is how some of the avoidance stats will be working in the coming expansion. Essentially, the only avoidance stat that isn't changing is dodge, with the others either being overhauled or removed. Let's take a look.
The Light and How to Swing It: The low level tank part 1
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. For the next couple weeks we'll be taking a look at low level dungeon runners. Cross-realm instancing is coming in patch 3.3 and along with it will be the ability for low level characters to finally find those level appropriate groups for old world dungeons. Being that those parties will need tanks, we thought we'd take a look at what an up and coming paladin needs to know about dungeons as well as what types of gear and stats to be on the lookout for. We're going to start with tanking and then move on to healing and damage-dealing in the weeks to come.
The Light and How to Swing It: 3.2.2 means re-balancing... again
While I'm not one to whine about incoming nerfs and changes for any of the classes I play, it sometimes gets a little annoying to see the developers tweaking things here and there trying to get the balance just right. Ghostcrawler recently said that in comparison to other classes, "... paladins (all 3 kinds) have been a bigger headache to balance this expansion, usually in the favor of the paladin." While we might not always think this is the case, there are several times since the moment 3.0.2 hit to start the expansion off where things just felt too easy. From ret pallies in substandard gear out performing all other classes to holy pallies being able to chain cast Holy Light with little regard for mana, the class has been a little off at times.
World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.2.2 Paladin changes
In unsurprisingly quick fashion, the Patch 3.2.2 notes went up along with the PTR today, barely two weeks after Patch 3.2 went live. We already knew that this minor patch was on its way, with the special re-tooling of the Onyxia encounter to celebrate the World of Warcraft's fifth Anniversary. What do Paladins get in this minor patch? Expectedly not much, but still more balance fixes brought about by -- wait for it -- Arenas. Alright, admittedly, not everything is caused by Arenas, but the biggest changes are. Let's go through the ones aren't borne from Arenas:Righteous Fury: The bonus threat from Holy spells caused by this talent has been reduced from 90% to 80%.First of all, Righteous Fury isn't a talent but a baseline ability, so the patch notes just might be worded weirdly (wouldn't be the first time). Second, the nerf is probably just to bring Paladin tanking threat more in line with other tanks' threat generation. With only a week or so in to Patch 3.2, I'm not certain it was too palpable, but the changes to block value and Judgements must've pushed Protection DPS and consequently TPS a little above the threshold.
World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 Paladin Guide
WoW.com has covered patch 3.2 extensively. Everything from the surprising changes to flying mounts, to the latest and greatest loot, and all the changes in between. In our patch 3.2 class, raiding, and PvP guides we take a look at exactly what changes and how the changes will affect your playing. More than any other class, I think, Paladins underwent significant changes in Patch 3.2. There were changes across all three specs that palpably impact gameplay and challenge players to take a different approach to the way they play their class. I went through most of the changes in detail in an older post, and many of those initial thoughts still hold true, albeit tempered with some experience on the PTR and changes over the past weeks.There are buffs and there are nerfs, but the main thing to keep in mind is that this is Blizzard's constant balancing act. As the game progresses, I feel that they're finally honing in to the proper vision for the class. We won't go through all the changes here, but we'll break them down according to what impacts the class in general and according to spec. Let's bathe in the Light after the break...
The Light and How to Swing It: Patch 3.2 and the Paladin
Ok, we've got quite a bit of information on Patch 3.2 now, and even though this major content patch isn't introducing too many new things to the class, it does shake it up a bit. Nothing too big, but it should keep everyone on their toes. But first we'll talk about one thing that isn't related to class skills or nerfs or anything like that... first I'd like to encourage everyone to get chummy with the Argent dudes. Do their mind-numbing daily quests and all that, get the Crusader title if you want... and along the way collect 100 Champion's Seals. According to the PTR, the new Paladin-exclusive Argent Charger is available on the Tournament Grounds for a mere one hundred seals. Of course, Blizzard is also giving away Tier 9 gear for free during the testing phase, so that cost could still change. Still, here's that pony that Ghostcrawler promised all of us. It's a fitting item for an entire faction run by Paladins, right? Anyway, enjoy that pony because not everything in Patch 3.2 is as nice a ride.
The Queue: Sometimes you just want to be a superhero
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Preambles are for suckers. Let's get this party started.Anarax asked..."Okay well, I have a bunch of friends and apparently they think City of Heroes is 10x better than WoW. How can I get them to change their minds over to WoW? The main reason I want them to play is because I plan to make a reroll Hardcore Raiding Guild, in June, and it's always good to have a small group of players to start with. The problem is though that one of them tried out WoW and is actually influencing the others, telling them that WoW is "too repetitive, too serious, and full of rage." He is the one telling the others to play CoH."
The Light and How to Swing It: The Tankadin for Dummies Again
Where were we? Ah, yes, tanking. Last time, we took a look at some basics of Paladin tanking, namely a few things about survivability. That's just the tip of the iceberg. When I said tanking was the most technical play style in the game, it's because tanks have to look at more factors and study more things than healers or DPS. Aside from working towards important gear requirements, a tank more than any other player must understand how a fight works. While many encounters are survivable with a few DPS not knowing too much about the fight ("get out of the void zones!"), a tank who doesn't know anything about a boss is likely to wipe the group or raid.In many ways, a tank is the most important member of a team. The cornerstone, so to speak. Because even though healers are indispensable, there's never really a 'Main Healer' position the way there is a 'Main Tank'. That's why a tank's responsibility goes above and beyond what players in other roles have. We've already examined for a bit how to build up your survivability. Today we'll look at three things: generating threat and the tank spell rotation.
The Queue: That's a lot of J names
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.Last time on The Queue, I answered a question about potential hero classes. Zoidberg asked about Archdruids, but there wasn't a whole lot to say. It's a rumor, and a rumor without much weight behind it, just an interview comment taken out of context as the WoW community (yes, even WoW Insider sometimes) likes to do. Since answering that question, I've been thinking about it a little myself.Do I, personally, think Archdruids will be the next hero class? Nah, I don't think so. Just the name is the big issue for me. Archdruid suggest Druid+ or Druid 2.0 and that's just not cool. You can differentiate them from Druids as much as you want, Archdruid still suggests that it's a better Druid. That's pretty awful. Even if the new hero class (if there is a new hero class) has all of the features we'd expect from an Archdruid, it'll probably be called something else. Maybe a Keeper or something like that.
Wrath Beta patch notes: Paladin part II
When Ghostcrawler mentioned on the closed Friends & Family Alpha that Paladins were the last to receive changes because the entire class was being majorly reworked, he wasn't kidding. The patch notes from the recently opened Wrath of the Lich King Beta revealed massive changes to spells and abilities as well as a shuffling of talents among the three trees. I covered an overview of the changes as well as the new Hand nomenclature for old Blessings in the first part of our beta analysis. It's now updated with the new Paladin talents in all three trees, so be sure to check it out.Before we get into the really juicy things, namely the new Wrath Paladin talents, we'll take a look at the changes to baseline spells and current talents. In some cases, these were totally reworked, and in others they were significantly improved. The first spell that leaps out with a huge buff is the change to Avenging Wrath, which no longer causes Forebearance. Its damage increase has been reduced to 20% (down from 30%), and now increases healing done by 20% (up from 0%).
