[Prot] WoD/Legion Alpha Discussion

[Demsi]

Why last defender is still in the talent tree is beyond me, i've seen vanilla talents more interesting.

and Salvation?! is threat a thing in legion? if not, i cant see anyone taking it

[Shieldi]

Why last defender is still in the talent tree is beyond me, i've seen vanilla talents more interesting.

and Salvation?! is threat a thing in legion? if not, i cant see anyone taking it

Threat in most situations is not a thing

however, iirc there is an affix in mythic+ which effects aggro generation

Last Defender got a damage increase component with this build, but i'm curious as to the diminishing returns on it as well as if there will ever be a time when it would look more appealing to take than either Righteous Protector or Seraphim

[Shieldi]

Half the talents in that SS are wrong.

that was how they were when i logged in the new build "wrong" or not the point is to show where they are now placed, not which ones will be used

[Komanchi]

and Salvation?! is threat a thing in legion? if not, i cant see anyone taking it

you can also look at it as a MD you can control.

[Shieldi]

you can also look at it as a MD you can control.

i don't understand what you mean by this

[Deleted]

i don't understand what you mean by this

Beta Salv both clears threat and transfers all threat generated during it from the target to the Paladin.

[Shieldi]

derp i didn't notice that it transfers threat. I miss Righteous Defense :<

[OGXanos]

This is gonna be dumb but where did that quick self heal go? It's not on my bars or in my book? Did we just loose that?

[Shieldi]

Light of the Protector? I still have it

[OGXanos]

Nevermind stupid patch changed my talents so it was set to hand and I didn't recognize the icon. Wasn't looking hard at it cause it's a "Hand" spell.

[Gallahadd]

bubble/taunt talent is actually in row 75, Final Stand.

Last Defender tooltip says

"Each enemy within 8 yards reduces the damage that you take and increases the damage that you deal by 3%. This effect has diminishing returns."

Oh... well that's nowhere near as good as. The competition. I'll probably run with Righteous Protector for the lower heal/AW cd and swap to Seraphim once I'm a bit more geared.

Good to know Bubble/Taunt will always be available.

[Rewyn]

Light of the Protector? I still have it

Does Hand of the Protector Replace Light, or is it a new power? I presume cannot be self cast.

[Shieldi]

Does Hand of the Protector Replace Light, or is it a new power? I presume cannot be self cast.

Hand of the Protector does indeed replace LotP, but it CAN be self cast, however it looks like it does not receive the healing component from standing in consecration

[Gallahadd]

Bah... If the front page is to be believed, the new placement for talents is his build only. That sucks...

[Shieldi]

it's confusing

Celestalon says "Example: data mining this build will show DK talents shuffled around. You'll find they're not moved in-game." on Twitter.

The paladin talents are in fact moved in-game, so perhaps they were intentional and will stay?

[jsantana2418]

it's confusing

Celestalon says "Example: data mining this build will show DK talents shuffled around. You'll find they're not moved in-game." on Twitter.

The paladin talents are in fact moved in-game, so perhaps they were intentional and will stay?

The changes are intended except for DK. Another interesting blue post is the following:

The last two Beta builds have included a number of changes to talents for many specs, most of which involved rearranging the talent trees, and/or tweaking some talents to be useful in more situations. I'd like to give a little context about those changes, and discuss the further implications of them.

Goals and Obstacles
One of the goals of talents in Legion is to provide more meaningful choice than before, with a focus on customizing your gameplay to suit your tastes. More than ever before, there are options to add or remove complexity, skew what your spec excels at, or opt into alternative rotation styles.

We've moved away from talent rows containing 3 flavors of the same thing, to choices that are impactful in completely different ways. We're not going back on that, but trying out differences as extreme as we were has revealed some new problems. In many cases, the difference between talents was so stark in common situations that it became more of a 'test', and less of a choice.

The Current Situation
There are no hard and fast rules to what makes a good talent row or talent tree, and there are legitimate exceptions to nearly every idea about good talent design, but one of the biggest sticking points is around multi-target damage. Talents can have a huge variety of impacts on damage, falling on a spectrum that ranges from purely increasing single target damage (such as Pyromaniac), to being awesome in mass-AoE but having no value at all against a single target (such as Fire and Brimstone). The majority of talents are somewhere in the middle, offering solid value in most situations.

In many cases, we had talent rows that pitted talents at opposite ends of the spectrum against each other, such as the Arcane level 15 row, where you had the choice of two purely single-target talents against a talent that offered only a little against a single target, but massive value in AoE. This wasn't an interesting choice, it was just a test of whether you could pick the right talent for the situation, and the difference was so strong that you felt punished for having the wrong one.

The Solution and Further Implications
However, we don't want to go back to a world where a talent row is about picking which slightly different flavor of AoE you want. We've opted to rearrange things such that you have more choices that mix generally useful talents vs the more specialized talents. Hopefully that line between the theoretical best talent and the others will be a bit more blurry now, and the talent you do choose won't feel like a wasted talent point in many situations.

As you may have guessed, these changes are going to require a cascade of other related changes, mostly around tuning. Not every talent row is equally valuable (nor are they intended to be), and with new talents competing with each other, adjustments will have to be made. Talents that moved, and their competition, will have to be retuned to become viable choices. Additionally, the overall strength of some specs in common situations will be adjusted to account for talents now offering more or less in those situations. An example of this is Assassination Rogues, whose baseline AoE damage was low, but had an extremely strong AoE talent in Blood Sweat, creating one of those obvious 'test' problem cases. We opted to remove Blood Sweat, adding choice to that talent row, and will be improving their baseline AoE capabilities instead.

We'd love to hear your feedback about these changes, and what you think about talent choices in general at this point. Thanks!

I like this approach regarding how talent choices as someone puts it in the wow forum: "I've said many times before that talents should enhance the spec, not enable it. They should add tools which help the spec perform better, but not be necessary for it to function entirely, or else you become locked into choices with no alternatives. On this note, I personally am a big fan of abilities that add functionality to basic abilities (Trauma), replace basic abilities (Ravager), or otherwise add gameplay enhancing bonuses (In for the Kill)."

Yeah, of course some tuning still has be to adjusted in some talents choices, too many passive talents, and/or provide some improvement in the prot pally boring playstyle.

[Gallahadd]

The changes are intended except for DK. Another interesting blue post is the following

Awesome! Because I much much prefer the new layout.

Now if they could just increase the CDR on judge or add some to GC I'd be hyped.

[Rewyn]

Hand of the Protector does indeed replace LotP, but it CAN be self cast, however it looks like it does not receive the healing component from standing in consecration

Man...if it worked with the conc bonus and other talents, that would be pretty interesting, however without either of those in play (it seems like its own unique effect) it really dulls this a lot.

[Deleted]

A word on the expression "passive talents" - and before I get into it, please note that this is not aimed at anyone in particular so much as it's a diatribe looking for a victim:

"Passive talents" is overused. Wildly so, and most often by people who couldn't spot the difference between a talent that is truly passive (i.e doesn't change the way you play at all) and something that changes the way you play by subtly altering the balance between abilities in some way if it bit them square on the arse. A talent that, say, simply makes AS hit 20% harder and doesn't change your rotation in any meaningful way is fucking wank and does not merit a talent slot. A talent that makes Judgment hit 100% harder or passively generate an extra HoPo and thus incentivizes its usage over, say, Crusader Strike, is still a talent that changes your rotation in a meaningful way even if it does not actually give you a new button to press.

The former type of talent is a valid target of criticism for being a "passive talent." It is truly passive. It neither adds to nor detracts anything meaningful from your gameplay experience. The latter type of talent is not a valid target of "passive talent" criticisms. You can have have all sorts of issues with this sort of talent (e.g. you may not like the interaction it creates), but criticizing it for being a "passive talent" just because the talent is a passive and not an extra button to press is essentially suggesting that you are only interested in shiny new buttons to press because you have the attention span of a fucking gnat.

[Fusoya]

Yes sure but is Holy Shield a passive talent?

Please explain in 500 words or less.