Major AoE tanking paladin Seal of Insight Nerf!

[Cybb]

While lacking in many other areas, this mechanic/bug (Whatever you want to call it), allowed us to compete with other tanks in AoE. This change (While was needed in my opinion) was handled terribly. I feel there wasn't any testing done on this hotfix, while their intentions were in the right place, it went way too far. A 50% reduction in healing from Seal of Insight when using HoR, or a target cap on it (3-4 mobs) would correct it, while still giving us a place in AoE content. As stated above, single target encounters (Most of this teir) haven't really changed with this hotfix.

The current state of Paladins in challenge modes are basically crap. While it is possible to "finish" a challenge mode, the ability to get gold with a paladin tank after this change is a "low, non-zero chance" (Thanks for the quote blizzard).

I can see another hotfix to paladins to make up for this change soon.


To allow the people of this thread to relate to me, I will now go on a QQ spree about how Paladin's suck and Death Knights are OP.

"QQ nerf DK, paladins suck, DK's are too good, DKs have lots of damage a heal and a bubble in one GCD QQQQQQQ" I think I nailed it.

[Simulacrum]

It's not a nerf. It's a bug fix. If our self-healing drops below what they deem is the appropriate level, they'll tune it back up in some way. The only problem is that the bug has skewed their numbers, so they need time to gather data that isn't corrupted by the bug.

Nerf and bug fix are not mutually exclusive; being obtuse to annoy someone is pretty duchy.

SoI was extremely strong in 5 mans, but in spite of that paladins still ranked equal to or below other tanks. Why was it necessary to change this alleged bug, and why do it *now* rather than when it became apparent, before the entire prot paladin community became accustomed to it? Especially when, in context, monks and DKs still both do just as absurd amounts of healing while tanking, while bringing more damage, and (at least in the case of the DK) utility.

[Mushedcow]

When I realised it had a chance to proc the heal from every target using HotR it was quite clearly a bug. HotR has 1 physical component and the rest is holy damage, and seal of insight clearly states in the tooltip that it gives "melee attacks a chance to heal you".

Will probably be compensated eventually but right now on AOE packs, the only reason to even have a seal it seems is to give you the ability to use judgement, because the heal from insight or extra damage from righteousness are so insignificant now.

[Thyranne]

When I realised it had a chance to proc the heal from every target using HotR it was quite clearly a bug. HotR has 1 physical component and the rest is holy damage, and seal of insight clearly states in the tooltip that it gives "melee attacks a chance to heal you".

Will probably be compensated eventually but right now on AOE packs, the only reason to even have a seal it seems is to give you the ability to use judgement, because the heal from insight or extra damage from righteousness are so insignificant now.

Melee attack != Physical attack.

[Noviskers]

I am going to have to agree with Thyranne. When I think of melee attack I don't think of physical damage, I think of an attack that you need to be in melee to use and is usually based off of weapon damage.

[Deleted]

Remember that this is also a nerf to single target HPS, not only AoE hps. Alot of people did not utilize this before however, but using HoTR provided alot more HPS than CS since HoTR both procs nova on the main target aswell as seal application, meaning before HoTR could actually proc twice on a single target. One of the procs being guaranteed. So this lowers our self healing potential on single target aswell. Used this alot for soloing.

[Kanadei]

Remember that this is also a nerf to single target HPS, not only AoE hps. Alot of people did not utilize this before however, but using HoTR provided alot more HPS than CS since HoTR both procs nova on the main target aswell as seal application, meaning before HoTR could actually proc twice on a single target. One of the procs being guaranteed. So this lowers our self healing potential on single target aswell. Used this alot for soloing.

Always gotta kick a guy when he is down don't you FF?

[Deleted]

Yeah, want a help with that shovel?

[Noxina]

I love it how people always whine about changes.
Seriously, today you have all the tools you "need". You also get to do decent damage. It's not like "go holy or go home" anymore, like it used to be. Same thing with mages, they are in a good spot for 6 years in a row but when they get a nerf each and every single one of them cries on the forums.

Guess now you will have to rely on your skill, instead of facerolling challenge modes, right?

Oh mate, I've been playing my paladin since Vanilla. I know perfectly how we're placed now. And I also know that we get hit by the nerf in the start of every expansion, because they cant seem to figure out how to balance us propperly... Well, I'll stick to him trough this expansion aswell I guess. Enjoying Holy in PvP atm, and Ret PvE aint all to bad either - except the dmg aint all that good when I'm done with my burst. But I manage.

[Abysal]

I'm not really sure why this is that big an issue. The majority of AoE situations are trivial. I doubt this costs any Prot tank their spot on a raiding team.

[Fhi]

I'm not really sure why this is that big an issue. The majority of AoE situations are trivial. I doubt this costs any Prot tank their spot on a raiding team.

Read the previous posts. It doesn't affect raiding save for a couple of bosses.

[Deleted]

Read the previous posts. It doesn't affect raiding save for a couple of bosses.

Actually as I explained above, it affects every single raid boss as this is a single target nerf aswell. However, it affects AoE more than single target. This is a minor raiding nerf except for said couple of bosses. The major nerf here is soloing, questing, leveling, 5mans, at which paladins were already crappy at, so they just nerfed our weak side even more.

[Kanadei]

Actually as I explained above, it affects every single raid boss as this is a single target nerf aswell. However, it affects AoE more than single target. This is a minor raiding nerf except for said couple of bosses. The major nerf here is soloing, questiing, leveling, 5mans, at which paladins where already crappy at, so they just nerfed our weak side even more.

While were on this topic... I'm still cool to single tank windlord normal tonight right?

We might not have one of our mainhealers so it would be one strong healer and one mediocre (or two strong and one mediocre, cant remember if we 2 heal or not).

Last time they didnt really need to heal me during phase one, so I'm guessing they can probably handle it as long as they do more of an active job?

[Deleted]

This change wont affect raiding at all. It will however affect challenge modes as a lot of people already mentioned. In challenge modes (gold times anyways) pretty much every single pull consists of 10+ mobs with very few exceptions. Prior to this change prot paladins were one of the worst tanks to use for gold times due to their lack of mobility and control.

In comparison DKs have a slow, an aoe stun and most importantly dot damage such as frost fever and blood plague which is spread by pestilence. A good DK can kite 20 mobs in a challenge mode dungeon and use his cooldowns to go in for a pestilence and bloodboil, get hit a few times with cooldowns up to stack vengeance and then do 100k dps. Add in army of the dead for bosses that takes a little bit of extra dps and a DK will in most cases be the best pick for a tank.

The heals that DKs do and the heal that paladins used to do in itself is not that important but when its all you really had as a paladin it is very important.

[Deleted]

Well, time to level up the warrior for challenge modes then

[Dragonwing]

Why don't they just go ahead and put this in the patch notes, assuming they can man up to admit the change and not leave it at stealth-nerf status:

Protection Paladins were almost as good as Blood Death Knights in tanking PvE content, and almost viable in Challenge Modes. This was never intended

This is a class design travesty, and Blizzard should be embarrassed over this. Did they seriously look at the tanking specs and think that protection paladins were the ones that needed such huge nerfs? Pathetic.

[djtravitrav]

Just finished 9/9 gold on my prot paladin last night, and I didn't even notice a change. So, all of you are crying about nothing.

[hugsofdeath]

I just started tanking in the last couple days and I solo tanked wind lord in LFR and did 330k dps and 45k hps. Which was top heals by alot, would it have been even higher before this nerf if so tthat probably needed a nerf

[Deleted]

I just started tanking in the last couple days and I solo tanked wind lord in LFR and did 330k dps and 45k hps. Which was top heals by alot, would it have been even higher before this nerf if so tthat probably needed a nerf

Well, in 25hcs dks are pulling 80k hps, you can not look at a fight where the numbers are so skewered. All tanks pull huge numbers on that fight.

[Deleted]

This change wont affect raiding at all.

Sadly this isn't true. HotR was actually a self-survivability increase over CS at the cost of less raid healing via Battle Healer. Theck calculated it at around ~3,000 HPS if I recall correctly. It also hurts a little more than I would like on heroic Wind Lord and Empress.

Our Wind Lord kill last night was actually pretty painful, here's a log comparison: http://raidbots.com/comparebot/50d2d...000c1e#healing

I'm sure that there are areas in my play that I can improve on but after looking at my damage taken in comparison to other similar logs I don't see any glaring differences. That said, while it made the fight a lot more difficult it's clearly still doable.


On the topic of challenge modes, this "nerf" is completely overboard. We were already the worst tanks for both mobility and utility (this is mostly due to our lack of AOE stuns and slows, our utility spells which are fantastic in raids are mostly useless in CMs). There's really no reason to bring a Protection Paladin to CMs now, we're categorically bottom of the barrel. It would be nice if Blizzard lowered the cooldown for Blinding Light, it's not like it's a particularly useful ability even in raids.