[Prot] WoD/Legion Alpha Discussion

[Lysozyme]

Is there consensus yet on Holy Shield vs. Consecrated Hammer? For DPS? Survivability?

Blessed Hammer for DPS; not sure about Holy Shield vs Consecrated Hammer for survivability on non-magic fights (Holy Shield better on heavy magic fights)

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Blessed Hammer for DPS; not sure about Holy Shield vs Consecrated Hammer for survivability on non-magic fights (Holy Shield better on heavy magic fights)

Thanks!

As for the 4881 question, let me re-phrase. Obviously 4881 is already up significantly from 1500. I still haven't played with Seraphim in WoD. I only leveled my paladin recently, and am still using Holy Shield on live. What I'm wondering is how this holds up over time? For example, surely 1500 was more potent in Highmaul than it is in HFC. How will 4881 hold up through the various patches of Legion? Does it scale in any way?

[Alihu]

So as Im sure this has been asked thousands of times so far. How is everyone liking pally tanking? On paper or just seeing their abilties, it seemed gutted to me. I really loved my pally on live, was thinking of maining it in legion, but so far undecided. Does the loss of holy power and SS make the class as dull as it seems, or does it feel pretty good/strong still?

[Deleted]

So as Im sure this has been asked thousands of times so far. How is everyone liking pally tanking? On paper or just seeing their abilties, it seemed gutted to me. I really loved my pally on live, was thinking of maining it in legion, but so far undecided. Does the loss of holy power and SS make the class as dull as it seems, or does it feel pretty good/strong still?

Loss of SS hasn't impacted me at all, if anything I'm happy it's gone. I never liked the trickle-down healing involved with Prot.

It feels kind of pointless to press anything at the moment, but I've not messed around much on alpha (I blame my lack of access). SotR charges are a bit wonky at first but don't require much thought-process, and overall the loss of HoPo makes me wonder why exactly I'm pressing any button outside of J and Consec. I will probably play mine for the first tier and take it from there, though.

EDIT: The SotR/WoG catch-22 is gone, but instead of making it an interesting choice to make they've simply removed it all together. I think it could have made for more engaging gameplay to re-purpose the conundrum into a meaningful choice that has pros and cons on both sides. Survival feels flat without drawbacks or opportunity-cost-ish effects.

[celinamuna]

Blessed Hammer for DPS; not sure about Holy Shield vs Consecrated Hammer for survivability on non-magic fights (Holy Shield better on heavy magic fights)

wut

On non magic heavy fights you still take blessed hammer, cuz cons is trash tier talent.

[Skarzog]

I posted this on the Prot Pally feedback thread as well. Has anyone noticed LotP healing for less than it is supposed to? I was messing around with a dummy on the PvP realm with full traits unlocked. It felt like sometimes LotP was healing for less than it should. I took a closer look and it definitely was healing for less than it should.

I know consecrate still does not provide the 20% additional healing its supposed to, so ignoring that with the trait LotP should heal for 32.5% missing health. Here is an image of a situation where it healed for less than it should.

http://i63.tinypic.com/2jd1enc.jpg


So LotP healed for 280k, meaning I was previously at 23k. Since I was missing nearly 1700k health, LotP only healed for ~16%. I can replicate this bug quite reliably.

[celinamuna]

Afaik the artifact traits that buff LotP also don't work.

[Sepelio]

The artifact traits 100% work, consecrate is another story though, running 3/3 and getting just under 1/3 of my hp back per cast.

[celinamuna]

The artifact traits 100% work, consecrate is another story though, running 3/3 and getting just under 1/3 of my hp back per cast.

No idea then, i know that pvp has diff lotp values, so maybe blizzard forced "pvp - on" interaction on pvp server ?

[Skarzog]

No idea then, i know that pvp has diff lotp values, so maybe blizzard forced "pvp - on" interaction on pvp server ?

I can't replicate the bug on the PvE realm. Most likely its like you said, some sort of pvp scaling issue. I also don't have any of the LotP traits on the PvE realm either, so I can't single them out.

[Lysozyme]

Re Seraphim scaling over time within a particular expansion, it's actually the other way around. Assuming all the stats it gives you are valuable (e.g. they don't put you over some kind of cap, like the haste cap on live), a flat stat increase is more valuable later in an expansion than earlier, as regards DPS. The more total stats you have, the more absolute DPS gained by an increase in stats.

The question of how it will scale in comparison to its competitors in Legion, though, I have no idea.

[OrcsRLame]

So idiotic question, but does Avenger's Shield lag on beta for anyone else? I never lag on live, and I only have like 30 ms and 100 FPS on beta, but my Avenger's Shield cast always feels kind of janky on beta. It's almost like there's something wrong with the animation and it doesn't want to start right away, and it really fucks with me. Some times are worse than others but it's always present to one degree or another.

[Deleted]

So idiotic question, but does Avenger's Shield lag on beta for anyone else? I never lag on live, and I only have like 30 ms and 100 FPS on beta, but my Avenger's Shield cast always feels kind of janky on beta. It's almost like there's something wrong with the animation and it doesn't want to start right away, and it really fucks with me. Some times are worse than others but it's always present to one degree or another.

yes, been like that for a while.

[Deleted]

Hey!

Haven't played Prot since late Wrath (before they ruined HotR animation!) but gave it a shot on PTR and I see what you mean, it's very DPSy!

Lots of very similar defensive cooldowns with (talents considered) some fairly short cooldowns. So managing your survival with those can be quite rewarding. Lots of 20-25% DR abilities (ArD, Aegis, Horse, Artifact, LastDef, ShoR*) and a couple of bigger ones like Goak. Shame about LotP, though. Feels a bit pathetic under 50%. Perhaps they should have X amount as a baseline heal (regardless), and up to an additional 100% based on missing health--would need a new Elite trait, perhaps. So there's always (even at 99%) some tangible healing.

So far I've been rotating DRs along with AS (for eventual absorb) and stacking where needed. Despite my casual status, I do think there's something missing from Prot... some key defensive maintenance. All the CDs are just too similar for there to be any real 'skill' involved.

A few of the talents also seemed a bit... rough.

--Crusader's Judgement felt like AS was ALWAYS up in trash packs and kind of devalued the proc--to the point it was nearly annoying. I reckon they should change this to give GC a chance to fire the next AS and have it hit ALLL targets within 8 yards (up to 10). Or something. ST is covered with FA, and Bastion covers survival. So a cool AoE proc might be fun.

--Holy Shield could be a contender for an Active utility button, adding depth and strategy where it's been lost. To have it as an active ability with doubled power and % but lower uptime could be good. Perhaps in place of LotP, where incoming attacks heal you.

--Tier 60 is daft. I'm a firm believer that people should get to talent rows after 15 levels and be excited at the prospect of picking something potentially game-changing but definitely fun. T60 doesn't do that for me on any level, and I'm sad to see it still there. There are some solid Ret and Holy talents that would fit in as good replacements.

--I think Aegis of Light could look better, but more than that it needs to be castable while moving. For a 5-min CD with a 6-sec duration (regardless of power) it needs that QOL. Jol and Cons Ground are both disappointing and have such weak effects that they feel awful in practice. I think JoL healing should be smart, healing a wounded ally for 100% of the amount done in damage. That way it will retain value in 1-5-man content but also deliver equally in raids (from a numbers standpoint). Same for ConsGrnd... the amount healed should be more substantial if only the paladin is there, but it should meteor when allies are close.

Righteous Protector is just too much with Hand of the Protector. I like the CD-reduction idea, but I think ShoR and LotP should reduce the CDs of Goak/AW/Divine Shield/Lay on Hands by 2-4% per cast. Or something. So it feels like you're working towards a fun, beneficial cooldown. The reality is that you won't notice the LotP CD reduction and it only knocks 30-sec off wings at best. This could be better, IMO.

By far the biggest complaint is Seraphim. Here is feels like they've just slotted in an old cooldown without a thought for how they could improve it in light of the 'ease of use' changes for the spec. First of all, it should straight up share charges with SotR, like Balance Druids. Each charge lasts 8 seconds, overlapping adds the time on. This way, protadins can load up some extra damage at the start of the fight in exchange for some survivability in the first few seconds. The lack of control, with Sera taking 2 charges is horrible, and I sincerely hope the developers embrace the ability and improve its QoL. Being able to trade one charge of SotR for one 8-sec Seraphim (REGARDLESS of SHOR stacks) would be great for people who feel the spec is a bit too easy.

Looking forward to seeing it refined and seeing how it plays in September. I'm sorry to those of you that have lost something with the Legion changes. Perhaps there's still time to add that missing nuance through talent changes.

[Tazgoth]

Super subjective question, but how do you guys feel about the spec in general? I've played a prot paladin as an alt in multiple expansions.. I kind of liked the holy power system. How do you guys feel it plays now that it's mostly cooldown based?

[OrcsRLame]

I think a lot of people aren't too happy with it, but I love it so far.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Re Seraphim scaling over time within a particular expansion, it's actually the other way around. Assuming all the stats it gives you are valuable (e.g. they don't put you over some kind of cap, like the haste cap on live), a flat stat increase is more valuable later in an expansion than earlier, as regards DPS. The more total stats you have, the more absolute DPS gained by an increase in stats.

The question of how it will scale in comparison to its competitors in Legion, though, I have no idea.

Thanks! Hadn't thought of it that way.

- - - Updated - - -

wut

On non magic heavy fights you still take blessed hammer, cuz cons is trash tier talent.

Wouldn't Consecrated Hammer also be valuable on movement-heavy fights? When staying in Consecration wasn't always feasible?

[Ealyssa]

So idiotic question, but does Avenger's Shield lag on beta for anyone else? I never lag on live, and I only have like 30 ms and 100 FPS on beta, but my Avenger's Shield cast always feels kind of janky on beta. It's almost like there's something wrong with the animation and it doesn't want to start right away, and it really fucks with me. Some times are worse than others but it's always present to one degree or another.

Was willing to ask thr same thing. Wasn't sure if it was on my side (playing from EU, beta server are ~120ms compared to my ~23ms on live).
Especially when the reset procs, casting Avenger's shield back to back feels very lagy.

[celinamuna]

Wouldn't Consecrated Hammer also be valuable on movement-heavy fights? When staying in Consecration wasn't always feasible?

Idk how often you like moving, but considering that cons's cd is hasted, idk how much use it till see.

[OrcsRLame]

Idk how often you like moving, but considering that cons's cd is hasted, idk how much use it till see.

Isn't Blessed Hammer really good defensively anyway? I mean, it debuffs anything it hits to cause 15% less damage on its next auto attack. Isn't that a large percentage of our damage taken on any given boss fight? Seems way better than a sometimes buff to SOTR and LOTP to me.