[Prot] WoD/Legion Alpha Discussion

[Fusoya]

DK's are looking particularly strong with their recent changes

Are you being serious

[Marrilaife]

Are you being serious

Someone missed the "world is ending" from blood DK community when they saw nerfs to rapid decomposition and many other commonly used talents. It's always funny when you go to x class forums it's "oh no we got nerfed we'll suck" but if you go to another class forums it's suddenly "oh class x looks better".

Anyway druids just got another round of nerfs, this time to ironfur.

I'm glad paladins so far went unscathed except the blessed hammer nerf (everyone was picking it for extra damage anyway and they didn't touch that).

[Sepelio]

No they weren't, everyone was picking it because it shat all over the other choices lol

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a 15% DR tahts up for 90% of swings is pretty godly

[Masternewt]

We just had a tank podcast with sunnier, sloot, and inconspicuous bear and we basically talked about how far Bears are from other tanks even in nigthold

Is there a link to this, I'd love to listen to this podcast, lots of good names there. Thanks.

[Hellkung]

Is there a link to this, I'd love to listen to this podcast, lots of good names there. Thanks.

http://www.theincbear.com/podcastgen/

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Will haste be harder to come by in 7.1.5? Looks like only one of our tier pieces features haste as its primary stat. Is this Blizz's way of keeping our throttle down a bit for another tier, to keep us from powering up too fast? Or will the haste be less important in 7.1.5?

[Sepelio]

The tier pieces are 3 of every secondary spread across the 6 items, just blizzards regular level of retardation. Haste is still everything.

[Deleted]

The last time I checked the sum of sec stats were like this:

This also includes the back.

[Veyloris]

7.1.5 is going to be a net gain for any given secondary stat assuming you have that stat on all your jewelry for at least 50% of the budget, and all the jewelry is above 870 ilvl.

[Sepelio]

Whilst it s a net gain its technically a loss across the board because of the point-% changes, you'll notice a fairly significant loss in all your secondaries next patch, roughly 17-18%

[Hellkung]

I've always wondered what the reasoning was behind the low base HP of paladins. I have 3 alt tanks that I actively play and they're all pushing or over 4 mill HP unbuffed whilst my paladin is the best geared (my main), has 36 traits and is sitting at 3.7 mill.

Anyone remember the reasoning?

[Sepelio]

We have the best AM in the game - We've always been high risk tanks. But if you slapped another 25% hp on us we'd be in a more retarded position than Druids.

[Veyloris]

I've always wondered what the reasoning was behind the low base HP of paladins. I have 3 alt tanks that I actively play and they're all pushing or over 4 mill HP unbuffed whilst my paladin is the best geared (my main), has 36 traits and is sitting at 3.7 mill.

Anyone remember the reasoning?

Class fantasy.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I've always wondered what the reasoning was behind the low base HP of paladins. I have 3 alt tanks that I actively play and they're all pushing or over 4 mill HP unbuffed whilst my paladin is the best geared (my main), has 36 traits and is sitting at 3.7 mill.

Anyone remember the reasoning?

It's all about balance. Not that the classes will ever be perfectly balanced without making them all the same, which would be bland. Blizz will always be tweaking balance, but that is the goal.

Think of it like having an item budget: if you add more of one stat, you get less of another.

Factors that scale up or down for various tanking specs:

• Armor
• Health
• Self Healing
• Active Mitigation
• Cool Downs

Paladins are excellent at all of those other than Health, and arguably have the very best CDs. We can't have everything. Besides, if you're going to sacrifice any of those, health isn't a bad one to choose. It's a weakness that largely fades as we gear up. I'm 885 equipped now, with 45 ranks in artifact, and have 4 million health.

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Class fantasy.

No (see above).

[Hellkung]

It's all about balance. Not that the classes will ever be perfectly balanced without making them all the same, which would be bland. Blizz will always be tweaking balance, but that is the goal.

Think of it like having an item budget: if you add more of one stat, you get less of another.

Factors that scale up or down for various tanking specs:

• Armor
• Health
• Self Healing
• Active Mitigation
• Cool Downs

Paladins are excellent at all of those other than Health, and arguably have the very best CDs. We can't have everything. Besides, if you're going to sacrifice any of those, health isn't a bad one to choose. It's a weakness that largely fades as we gear up. I'm 885 equipped now, with 45 ranks in artifact, and have 4 million health.

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No (see above).

I agree with most of your points and this is arguably an issue that will be solved come NH when we have more artifact traits and more gear. But right now a 15 trait difference for 300k HP give or take is a far cry from balance.

People always mention how paladins are the tanks most susceptible to getting globalled when their AM is down and the underlying cause for this is the low HP in my opinion. If it isn't it certainly exacerbates the problem.

And with the current trend of certain tank mechanics that Blizzard can't seem to shake (Volatile Rot, Stormforged Spear) the only thing paladins can rely on is CDs and HP.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I agree with most of your points and this is arguably an issue that will be solved come NH when we have more artifact traits and more gear. But right now a 15 trait difference for 300k HP give or take is a far cry from balance.

People always mention how paladins are the tanks most susceptible to getting globalled when their AM is down and the underlying cause for this is the low HP in my opinion. If it isn't it certainly exacerbates the problem.

And with the current trend of certain tank mechanics that Blizzard can't seem to shake (Volatile Rot, Stormforged Spear) the only thing paladins can rely on is CDs and HP.

Not sure I understand your concern. Is there any current content you feel paladins are ill-equipped to tank? I started a poll in the Dungeons & Raids forum to ask healers which tank they preferred. Healers Favorite? Paladins came in 3rd, which is a good place to be. Bears were #1 of course, but they're getting nerfed in 715. We've largely ducked the nerf bat.

We laugh at Stormforged Spears - bubble the first, AD the 2nd, bop the 3rd, all while 'cavalierly' riding away from the ones we don't completely ignore. My warrior off tank struggles more with such things than I do. I usually throw him a Blessing of Sacrifice to help him out, and he would do the same for me, except only paladins have that awesome utility.

We're also great for the variety of challenges from M+ affixes. Skittish? We make loads of threat. Necrotic? We have SO many ways of dropping stacks! Teeming? With Last Defender, the more the merrier. On top of all that, we can compete with DPS for DPS to help beat the timers.

The one thing I will say is that paladins require a more proactive playstyle than most other tanks. We aren't built to absorb a hit unawares and react after; we're meant to anticipate what will happen and use protection. But with DBM and Weak Auras, that's not so hard to manage. If you're finding Odyn challenging, I can share a WA that makes his cast bar for the spear really huge on your screen so you know exactly when to bubble or bop.

It's a great time to main a prot pally.

[Marrilaife]

People always mention how paladins are the tanks most susceptible to getting globalled when their AM is down and the underlying cause for this is the low HP in my opinion. If it isn't it certainly exacerbates the problem.

We also have the trait that gives extra armor at low hp. Ok, it doesn't work against magic damage but not every tank can be a druid (just spam mark of ursol).

Tbh I tanked mythic guarm together with a demon hunter OT and he was the one getting globalled. To the point we had to do a switcheroo and ask a boomkin to go bear and the DH to log his alt so we can kill the boss. That was just before xmas (past the nerf) but I don't think they nerfed any of the guarm's tank damage abilities (only headlong charge aoe and flame lick). Also yea, I know, it's not the days of solo tanking guarm when you needed a bear or maybe really good monk / warrior.

Paladins are not OP but I would say far from being the worst tanks. Obviously if you check progression near the world top ranks, guilds will pick THE best class so it doesn't matter if you're the worst or the 3rd best, because you're not the top one.

I like the idea of having many cds, you want a tank that doesn't use many cds there are always monks out there, I heard they'll be good in NH.

In m+ it's mostly a question of coordinating the tank with the rest of the group, if you communicate well to spread aoe stuns in between tank cds there shouldn't be much issue. Many paladins run m+ with seraphim for extra dps and then you have to be even better with lining up the stuns and cds because you'll have less uptime on active mitigation. But if you checked the world first m+20 it was with paladin tank (seraphim much dmg such wow), but they had a group with 3 aoe stuns (dh, shaman, hunter), 3 blood elves for aoe silence, etc.

[Hellkung]

Not sure I understand your concern. Is there any current content you feel paladins are ill-equipped to tank? I started a poll in the Dungeons & Raids forum to ask healers which tank they preferred. Healers Favorite? Paladins came in 3rd, which is a good place to be. Bears were #1 of course, but they're getting nerfed in 715. We've largely ducked the nerf bat.

We laugh at Stormforged Spears - bubble the first, AD the 2nd, bop the 3rd, all while 'cavalierly' riding away from the ones we don't completely ignore. My warrior off tank struggles more with such things than I do. I usually throw him a Blessing of Sacrifice to help him out, and he would do the same for me, except only paladins have that awesome utility.

We're also great for the variety of challenges from M+ affixes. Skittish? We make loads of threat. Necrotic? We have SO many ways of dropping stacks! Teeming? With Last Defender, the more the merrier. On top of all that, we can compete with DPS for DPS to help beat the timers.

The one thing I will say is that paladins require a more proactive playstyle than most other tanks. We aren't built to absorb a hit unawares and react after; we're meant to anticipate what will happen and use protection. But with DBM and Weak Auras, that's not so hard to manage. If you're finding Odyn challenging, I can share a WA that makes his cast bar for the spear really huge on your screen so you know exactly when to bubble or bop.

It's a great time to main a prot pally.

I don't feel ill-equipped as a paladin at all, we have lots of utility and a very cheesy toolkit to handle almost any situation. I'm just having a discussion about what seems to be their most glaring weakness. Again this is a problem that will vanish further into the expansion and that's completely fine though I personally think the difference is still too big.

Stormforged Spears are a joke only because we can cheese them, which I get is the 'paladin' way but the specific reason I mentioned them is because our AM requires a target. Take our bubble/bop away (both a 5 min CD - only counting for 2 spears) and we're effectively one of the worst tanks to deal with them, bears and DH being at the other end of the spectrum.

I am totally not implying that paladins are one of the worst tanks, they're not. I play 4 tanks actively and my paladin is still my main. I enjoy it to this day and don't feel overly threatened by any encounter out there.

But that doesn't mean the class doesn't have weaknesses. We have shit HP, lack mobility and our AM requires a target.

Weaknesses that some raid bosses exploit and I guess you could argue this is more of a problem with encounter design that anything else but yeah, that's how I feel.

[Marrilaife]

But that doesn't mean the class doesn't have weaknesses. We have shit HP, lack mobility and our AM requires a target.

Well Blizzard had this idea let's make wow class roster like a MOBA where every "hero" has strengths and weaknesses. Only prob is in MOBA if your favourite "hero" gets countered / doesn't fit into team comp / falls out of meta there's very low cost of switching to another one, therefore it's fine and expected to switch constantly to suit current needs. Can't do that in WOW and especially not in Legion.

However I think Paladin tanks didn't end up so bad, check blood DK, worse mobility and their AM also requires a target, and lack of baseline CDs.

Tbh for Odyn after picking cavalier + knight templar I didn't feel lack of mobility. Actually our druid was the one hogging all the tiger's lusts and so on. Druid mobility is nothing to sing songs about, stampeding roar you want to save for raid utility (when raid needs not you yourself) and wild charge doesn't help you to get away from spears. DHs and Warriors with heroic leap (+ artifact trait + bounding stride) have it better in that department, yea, but DH were overall kinda squishy. Let's see how they fare after 7.1.5 buffs.

Monks were the hero for Odyn, because of stagger + transcendence + rolls, but tbh no one wanted to play them so them getting some spotlight is not so bad. Unless they roll into fotm status again where they were in MOP and WOD. So far that status is reserved for druids, but the incoming nerfs make many fotm rerollers look into new and shiny fotm past the druid, and monk could be one candidate.

[Sepelio]

Absolutely 0.