You know, Maergoth is a respected paladin. We can argue endlessly about what needs to change and that they shouldnt change. As for me, the list is very brief and justified: its our ward and manawall, no one would ever argue about the need for these changes because even a blind man sees the importance and necessity of this. As for the divine aura, my position is that if we compare reflexes and divine aura, the reflexes have reuse time 90 seconds, while divine aura 150 seconds. Reflexes will protect against any physical hits while divine aura still has quite a strong restriction. Reflexes restrict the use of combat arts, but with new taunts stupid to consider this as restriction. Devs are trying somehow to balance abilities, for example if a class X has ability that will absorb 2 hits and has reuse time 60 seconds, then the class Y has ability that will absorb 3 hit, but reuse time is 90 seconds, I hope my example is very clear. I believe that its right to drop reuse of divine aura to reflexes or increase max hp threshold or give stoneskin on a few hits for more than 50% of maximum health. P.S. Of course it would be great if they also corrected the problem with scaling of values for our healing spells (I mean short-term increase of hp), but I understand that they have a lot of work, so this is only a dream.
Pretty darn accurate. I would still rate Guards as the "lowest" MT class. Since our Defense-Monk is doing good DPS and still just, not dying. Sure he calls for a cycle every once and awhile (and I probably can tank just as well as him once I actually do the fights) though tools wise Guards still are lower, though they do buff Raid Survival if they have their Mythcloak. Correct me if I am wrong Maergoth but only the Group-Damage Proc was changed. The Paladin themselves may still reflect unlimited amounts of damage. Personally I agree Manawal and Demostration of Faith need work. So could Dragoon's Reflexes, a number of trigger mechanics for Stoneskins and a few other things to give Guardians more control of how much damage they take (since they cannot heal). Just as I would also say some Monk abilities could use some quality of life updating. For now, the 3 "MT Classes" are pretty well balanced.
I've had 10 mil hits with the group proc in perfect situations, and those procs apply 3 times to every person in the group. The paladin reflect will never do more than 9x the group proc, but it does provide some dps.
And guardians have a lot of useful tank utility that functions whether they are tanking or not, whereas paladin needs to tank to use reflect. So why would you have the guardian tank instead of the paladin?
I hope that devs are reading this topic and notice that there is a problem with the scaling of regenerating ward on blessing of the paladin too. Currently the amount of ward is 1200.
The devs are well aware of all points brought up in this thread so far. Even if they were necessary, the reason conventional fixes aren't viable is because HP ramps up considerably after level 80, and again at 90+. To make the ward powerful at current 95, it would be absurd at level 75. Everything needs to be handled on a per-ability basis and the best bet would be to add an effect to it that would be useful at all levels (Damage reduction, stoneskin, etc.) . That's where the suggestions come in. That's the kind of stuff you'd see with expansions, new AAs, or on gear. Which is coincidentally when balance gets thrown off anyway.
Well, what can I say. We (and other classes) havent received any, even the tiniest edits that were important. But the next thing made me angry. Crusader, Soulclaim should apply more reliably when striking a death blow with an ability or while the crusader is in the middle of an action. You have time to fix unnecessary ability, but couldnt fix what is really necessary and important for raids. Come on, guys, why?
Soulclaim is far from "unnecessary", and fixing a bug is completely different from rebalancing abilities which, despite what you say, are not necessary or important for raids.
Soulclaim plays a role only in heroic content, and it wasnt completely broke , but often didnt trigger - a fact. Manawall is created for survival, but today it doesnt work (tiny damage that it absorbs any way will not help you). All other tanks have ability to absorb damage in their heroic trees and these abilities work great. Crusaders worse than warriors and brawlers ? If devs wanted, they would have spent one day to fix manawall. I believe that its absolutely justified complaint .
Soulclaim plays a role in raid content just fine also. Especially since it is now raidwide. It's a must-have for offtanks for a lot of fights. Manawall, on the other hand, is much more limited in usage, even if it WAS absorbing more. I haven't run into a single situation in which Manawall would have definitely saved my life. Not one this entire expansion. We have plenty of tools for survival, but fixing our utility is awesome. Manawall is not a bug.
Maergoth, you surprise me. You yourself wrote about the problem and the problem is due to scaling of mana power. You mean to say that if manawall absorbed several hard hits, then you wouldnt have used it?
I think what he's saying, and what I'll go ahead and say as well, is at no point in my Paladin's existence in raid or heroics have I ever said "man I should have speced Manawall". And, due to what was already pointed out about increasing a spell @ 95 but forgetting the butterfly effect it has down on the lower levels, simply "making it absorb more" isn't a solution. +1 for updating, or introducing, thoughtful Paladin Utility.
Correct, I wouldn't have used it regardless, because we have the tools to handle everything already. When they start putting one-shots in that aren't mitigated sufficiently by damage reductions, I'll reconsider. Until then, it's not necessary. Yes, it should be adjusted eventually, but there is no need to do it right now. There are PLENTY of abilities in the game that need the same attention as Mana Wall.
I wanted to show that the problems are not forgotten. I understand that you guys are busy and that maybe changes will be made only to the release of the next x-pac, but I would like to have these problems before the eyes. All our problems are very easy to fix: 1. Our ward currently wards against ~15k points of damage and is considered as most useless ability. DoF should be based on % hp, especially with the current base reuse time (60 seconds). And DoF amount should be +- at least equal to 20% of paladins max hp. 2. Paladins healing abilities for a short time increase the maximum amount of hp, but at the moment the numbers are very outdated. I believe that they should be based on % health as a healing component. Here are the current numbers: devout sacrament (+1067 hp), group heal (+1131 hp), LoH (1454 hp). 3. Same story with scaling of regenerating ward on blessing of the paladin too. Currently amount of ward is 1200 points of damage. As I've said, it seems to me that this ability should be based on health % too. 4. And the most importantly I have to say about Manawall. With current ratio of mana power vs damage it cant absorb even one hit (this is crusader heroic tree endline ability). Do not misunderstand me, very, very frustrating when all other tanks (brawlers and warriors) have as a counterpart a great ability for survival in their heroic tree, while the crusaders didnt take manawall because it doesnt help in any situation and leave you without mana. Brawlers have ability in their heroic tree that gives them 100% dodging for next 8 seconds. Warriors have ability that will absorb next three attacks. Crusaders have ability that will leave them without mana power and never save from spike damage. There are many options for correcting manawall. For example, you can change the ratio of mana power vs damage or reduces all damage done to target by 50% for 12 seconds, but no more than 6 attacks. This is exemplary.
These are great points and I hope they're considered for changes in the near future. Currently there is little point to bring a Paladin on a raid in any role but the MT. Paladins unfortunately provide next to nothing to an off tank or mage group. I've never once heard someone say in vent, "YES! I get the pally in my group" mage or scout. Paladins just don't offer much in the way of buffs, debuffs or personal DPS to the raid to justify there place as anything but the MT. Spot healing, a rez, and aggro control with average survivability is about all you can offer to the raid. If you look at the tools in the Paladins kit most are rather outdated and in dire need of being updated so they can properly compete with other plate tanks. Now if you look at for a second what is really looked at when considering bringing a 3rd tank on a raid in a perfect world. 1. What benefit does a 3rd tank provide the raid? 2. What benefit does this tank provide to the group? 3. How much DPS are we going to lose by placing a another tank in raid vs. XYZ class? 4. Why have we not recruited more DPS classes so we don't even have to bring a 3rd tank on raids that don't require one? (which btw are very few) Out of all 3 of the srs ones, Pally's atm are near the bottom of the list when compared to all fighters. When not actively tanking the Paladins DPS is inferior to all other fighters; consequently, this hurts the overall raids performance. Paladins also offer only a divine resist debuff when compared to the 5 that an SK offer. (gotta help them Templars out on the parse!) By adjusting some already existing buffs, I feel the paladins could become more competitive in the future. A few ideas such as: 1. Add a 15% damage reduction to the group while Sigil is active. 2. Our group taunt debuff changed to all arcane (SK one of course to all nox) 3. Crusaders group proc buffs have never considered essential or valuable; however, many Crusaders are forced to place points into the enhancements for these buffs. This occurs simply b/c no other options in the AA trees are available due to 100% reuse being standard. Something in our AA's or on the Buff itself that add usefulness to our group proc buff, something along the lines of say Crit bonus/Reuse/Cast or even say 25ish+ % recovery speed. Similar to what the SK buff gets through AA's. 4. Future AA's to continue to improve the Pally's version of Crusader's Faith. This could be something such as, adds a bit of flurry/double cast for the duration. 5. An improvement on the buffs that divine territory provides when used in our prestige tree could be a short term band-aid fix until after the expansion launches. I feel this is major untapped potential right here that could provide the buffs suggestions listed. 6. Add a parry/defense or hell even just a plain stat debuff to our Power Cleave line like all other fighters have. 7. Heretic's Destruction is very outdated and is in need of a buff or changed to a % increase to CB and potency to the raid instead of the current 15 increase. Overall a Paladins personal DPS is the key, if the Pally isn't tanking in a raid he better be busting his *** trying to DPS, otherwise you might as well sit the pally and bring in another DPS until hes needed again. Sure the occasional numbers can be achieved via reflects; however, this is nothing compared to the sustained DPS advantage that all other fighters have over the Pally atm. An AA could be a easy fix to make a Reckless stance Pally on par with Zerkers/ SK's. This way it avoids any unnecessary increases to our primary tanking role. The key to getting more Pally's in raids in OT/3rd tank roles is directly related to the amount of DPS they put out. Why would you bring a Pally when a SK/Zerk provides many more advantages for either the OT or 3rd tank slot?An SK is has better group buffs + debuffs + better fighter DPS. Simple answers is you wouldn't. I've beatin the Pally war drum for as long as I can remember (since DoF) the imbalance currently is too great. I've been painted into a corner and I've committed the foulest sacrilege that any Pally can..... I like to think of it more as I play "Crusader" now and my sacrilegious choice is just a type of spec that can be changed with minimal effort.
Yes. Paladin is weak as an offtank right now, It's because all of our utility has aged poorly. With the latest changes to taunts and detaunts and aggro in general, even amends doesn't pack much of a punch. With that said, paladins are strong maintanks. If that's the role we are to fill, then we have to do it well. I would rather focus on improving our strengths as a main tank than buff our weakness as an offtank in regards to the new abilities. But there are some old offtank-related things that could use some quick attention.
Since it seems resists will become more important, I wouldnt mind getting our raidwide buff boosted up abit - 331 vs all is nothing - should be like 3310. And yes, our ward and manawall need a fix deluxe - minor adjustements are also welcome, e.g. getting a crit-modifier up from 1.3 to 1.5 like all other tanks.
Agree on the raidwide resist buff.. I could see bumping it up to 1000. Or work some AAs into adjusting it. It is basically ineffective at all levels.
I'll agree to an AA increase. Tbh Pally buffs (utility wise) have aged kinda badly. I still feel Crusade is "eh" due to the still obsolete Wisdom to anyone but the Priests in the Group.
