Holy **** >.>Follow

for real! i thought shadow priests were getting the uber buff up. but its Ret that will be the OP child for the 1st 3 weeks of xpac play.

Santified Wrath - HoW +50%, AW now 1 min cd and has 50% anti-shield on it(including PW:shield, ice barrier, armor, etc) and you can AW with bubbled!!! welcome to the pally bomb show.
The Art of War - 15% chance CS makes judgement deal double dmg!
Divine Storm - instant aoe Holy(melee powered) strike that heals party.

mix all this with the phat crit bonuses all over the tree and you have a pvp powerhouse.

if you choose raiding, imp Ret aura and impper Ret aura with Divine Guardian will make Ret the tankadin's BFF

they FINALLY gave ret paladins a crit strike damage bonus talent in deep ret. that alone will outdo whatever it is that sanc aura used to bring to the table.

i have a ret pally friend who did holy light in his pants when he saw these talents.

beacon of light looks friggin awesome too.

Edited, Jul 18th 2008 5:21pm by Quor

it pisses me off that they couldn't implement even half of this stuff before the xpac. its not just talents, its almost an overhaul of the spec and the playstyle. i've barked for a fix to AW and also the sharing of SoV/SoB since tBC came out, still waiting on my usable spell interupt.

Because the Alliance Paladins cried like little girls with a skinned kneee, that's why. Literally, you couldnt move on the Paladin forums for about six months without lvl69 Dranei Paladins crying that Vengeance was crap and Blood was some world-smashing megaspell.

The Holy Shock change, I agree, is designed to allow Paladins to heal on the move at last. That whole 'instant Holy Light' is a bit double-edged though, as Holy Light isnt the most efficient spell. Paladins will run out of mana faster with this setup. I do still think that Shockadins will be hugely more viable now, simply because you can now attack and defend at the same time. Spam Holy Shock to cause damage, hide behind a big shield for mitigation, wait for a crit and then bang, instant Holy Light yourself back up to full health. That Holy Light spell even reduces the casting time on your next heal...

All in all, solid changes. Im still sore about dropping Sanc Aura as it gave a real use for Retadins in the Protadin group (probably why they nerfed it tbh) but I agree that the improvement to Fanatacism (which now gives 25% crit instead of 15%...) and the crit bonus talent should make up for this.

If anything, Ret now suffers from Prot syndrome; too many essential talents. I can't think of a PvP build that allows me to take Sanctified Wrath for cutting through Priest shields...

Er, I'd say we agree completely, Maulgak.

I'm saying Alliance Paladins wept like frightened children to get Seal of Blood, and they got it.
You're saying Horde Paladins whined like unpaid hookers to get Seal of Vengeance, and they got it.

Our two arguments are the same, essentially.

Better stub out that "Disagreed with Sins!" victory cigar :P

giving Horde one seal and Alliance a different one was pretty drastic. its not like 1% hit increase buff or a 3 min pvp ability. these seals are our bread n butter. to deny one faction access to either one is prejudice. almost like giving Horde mages fireball and Alliance frostbolt, you can still play but you'll be nerfed at certain aspects of the game.

leave the faction/racials to minor stats or cooldown abilities and all will be well.

Given the way gear is itemized, it's like looking for a talent that turns 20 AGI into 1 SBV for Protadins. Have fun with that.

I am about crit my pants, with 15% more force.


We got some nerfs, and some buffs, I think Holy is a bit too OP, but I haven't played yet so I'll withhold my judgement. Also it seems like double melee zerg will no longer work with ret, too many healers have burst healing spells. I'd say this is the end of ret/rogue. We will have to wait to see if a healer/ret team to work. I do wonder what my crit chance would be with ret talents and good gear at 80.

I apologize for my tardiness. I have been REALLY busy and not been back to the board much since my post, but this is exactly what I was trying to get at. Why did they even give faction spells in the first place? They should have known (most) everyone was gonna cry about it, and just added the 2 spells to both factions right off the bat. I understand the need to make some differences between the Horde and Alliance Paladins from a lore standpoint, and it would have been ok if they just kept it that way, but now giving opposing factions the other's Seal ... Either give something different to each faction, and keep it that way, or give nothing different from the get go. Not hard.

I do have to say though that your description was a little much. Horde tank just fine with SoR (hell, I use it most of the time myself and I have SoV), and Alliance DPS just fine (as far as Paladins go) without access to SoB. I looked at them more along the lines of the Priest racial spells. After all it's not like Alliance got a HoT spell while Horde got another AOE. THAT would have been drastic.