So what about Plate now?

[mogulkhan]

Blizzard state that with Cataclysm we're going to see casters have just almost as much health as a plate wearer and that they are going to increase the effectiveness of lower types of armor to bring it '' in line '' with plate.

Now i ask you, what's the reason to be a plate wearer then? Wasn't it to be better protected than a cloth wearer?

So now we're gonna have basically the same health and they are increasing the gains on lower armors and decreasing plate so what we have is just a large repair bill is that it?

Doesn't seem fair to me considering that plate wearers get no resistance to spells as we upgrade our gear while the other classes with lower armor do.

inb4 '' qq lol noob ''

[bigfoot1291]

I share this concern.

[MushroomBomb]

Well, let's see: reasons for being a Plate wearer. Oh yeah, getting to be a Paladin, Warrior or Death Knight. Plate will still have superior Armor compared to other item types, the gap will just be smaller. Paladins, Warriors and Death Knights that don't spec into tank talents were never supposed to tank or have more survivability specifically than anyone else. In their case, what makes them great 'emergency tanks' for 5-mans and the like is their tank cooldowns and auras/stances/their abilities to pop a shield and taunt.

[Panoramixe]

Let's give an example of early WoTLK pvp from the beta.
Two premade chararcters a ret paladin and a balance druid. The ret paladin had 21kish health in his pvp gear, while the druid had 18k or less. That's a 3k difference without an actualy gameplay reason for this difference, seeing as the paladin actually has better offense and defensive cooldowns (and at the time could heal even longer than the balance druid could). It's about damn time they read my report from the WoTLK beta saying it's completely stupid idea and it makes pvp imbalanced to begin with.

[Vidur]

Don't worry. Tanks will still be tanks and nobody is taking that role away from them. Are these other classes getting block? Dodge? Parry? No. The last time I checked a tank does not solely rely on armor. DPS will still be roflstomped by a boss if they pull aggro - only thing is now they (and you) will have more than 2 seconds to react. That's all.

[mogulkhan]

Well, let's see: reasons for being a Plate wearer. Oh yeah, getting to be a Paladin, Warrior or Death Knight. Plate will still have superior Armor compared to other item types, the gap will just be smaller. Paladins, Warriors and Death Knights that don't spec into tank talents were never supposed to tank or have more survivability specifically than anyone else. In their case, what makes them great 'emergency tanks' for 5-mans and the like is their tank cooldowns and auras/stances/their abilities to pop a shield and taunt.

What about PvP then?

Even if YOU don't care about it, it's a part of the game, and it's gonna bring issues.

Edit: And lots of tears.

[Panoramixe]

Let's see WoTLK first season who were the overpowered classes in pvp?

DK - plate wearer
Paladin (2 specs) - plate wearer

I just hope this change will help level the playing field from the start.

[kamilumin]

Yup exactly, nothing else is going to change come patch 4.0, every single talent and ability will remain exactly the same other than this new information they just provided us that's entirely vague and doesn't tell us exactly how large the difference in health and armor will be. Yup. Nothing will change from this very moment.

[mogulkhan]

Well, let's see: reasons for being a Plate wearer. Oh yeah, getting to be a Paladin, Warrior or Death Knight. Plate will still have superior Armor compared to other item types, the gap will just be smaller. Paladins, Warriors and Death Knights that don't spec into tank talents were never supposed to tank or have more survivability specifically than anyone else. In their case, what makes them great 'emergency tanks' for 5-mans and the like is their tank cooldowns and auras/stances/their abilities to pop a shield and taunt.

BTW being a plate wearer means at least for me, that you should have ''naturally'' more survivability rather than the guy in a dress casting arcane spells at you from a distance.

[Panoramixe]

PVP isn't about roleplay, unless the guy in the dress can one-shot you otherwise you don't have a point.

[MushroomBomb]

What about PvP then?

Even if YOU don't care about it, it's a part of the game, and it's gonna bring issues.

Edit: And lots of tears.

What about PvP? If your sole reason for defeating your opponents is staying 5K HP total above them, I'm not entirely sure you're doing it 100% right (although I'm very far from being an expert in PvP, so don't quote me on that). However, I'm sure Plate-classes survivability will be slightly increased (or having classes wearing other armor-types survivability slightly decreased) to similarize it to what we have today. If that is what is deemed good for the game. Which I'm not entirely sure it is, to be honest. Seems to me that PvP should be more about who manages to survive longest through smart gameplay and cooldowns, not who has the largest health pool (though there should be differences between a fully geared Wrathful player and a fully geared PvE player with equal skill).

BTW being a plate wearer means at least for me, that you should have ''naturally'' more survivability rather than the guy in a dress casting arcane spells at you from a distance.

Thing is, you'll still have. You can pop your Shield, your Defensive Stance, your whatever and live for a little longer. The gap is just being narrowed a bit.

[Wow]

The armor change i would hope make dmg alot easier to balance. So you don't say have a move that hits a mage for 7k but then only hits a pally for 3.5k.

[lilbandit]

unless something has changed very recently, repair costs are based off item level, not armour type.

oh, and /care

[dudedduu]

How about you wait and see how things turn out before u QQ?
And even if ur worst fear should come true, then Gz about being the new balance druid/enh shammy... It would only do u good to lie on the ground, being facerolled because ur spec/class is to weak to do shit. U had entier WotLK to fuck up ppl, now let others be able to hit back.

- I dont play balance or enh.

[Sulika]

What about PvP? If your sole reason for defeating your opponents is staying 5K HP total above them, I'm not entirely sure you're doing it 100% right (although I'm very far from being an expert in PvP, so don't quote me on that). However, I'm sure Plate-classes survivability will be slightly increased (or having classes wearing other armor-types survivability slightly decreased) to similarize it to what we have today. If that is what is deemed good for the game. Which I'm not entirely sure it is, to be honest. Seems to me that PvP should be more about who manages to survive longest through smart gameplay and cooldowns, not who has the largest health pool (though there should be differences between a fully geared Wrathful player and a fully geared PvE player with equal skill).

Thing is, you'll still have. You can pop your Shield, your Defensive Stance, your whatever and live for a little longer. The gap is just being narrowed a bit.

I don't think it is unreasonable to say that if mages / warlocks gained another 5k health in the game as it stands right now it would make a pretty huge difference to their survivability and success in pvp / arenas. 5k health is more than you gain by going up two tiers of arena gear. Acting like it wouldn't make any difference is being naieve.

It is way too early to worry about it though, everything will change with cataclysm, presumably the game will be rebalanced around the adjustments.

As for the armor change, I suspect the armor change is more likely to be a nerfing of the physical mitigation provided by mail / plate than it is to be an increase in the physical mitigation provided by cloth / leather. If that is the case then it is a survivability nerf for Pala / Shammie healers vs melee which is probably a good thing. Right now, if passive ArP wasn't so gainable they would be pretty much indestructible vs physical dps classes.

[Panoramixe]

Every talent tree will be completely reworked. Complaining about pvp before there's even a beta out is a tad ridiculous.

[zcks]

unless something has changed very recently, repair costs are based off item level, not armour type.

oh, and /care

Actually how much it costs to repair an item is based off of its durability, plate naturally has more durability then other armor types & thus costs more to repair.

I just hope they do class balance better this time around, because there are several hybrid classes that are very dependent on self heals & burst in pvp. Since burst is going to be much lower compared to health pools they will need something in order to be able to compete at all.

[cloister]

Well, let's see: reasons for being a Plate wearer. Oh yeah, getting to be a Paladin, Warrior or Death Knight. Plate will still have superior Armor compared to other item types, the gap will just be smaller. Paladins, Warriors and Death Knights that don't spec into tank talents were never supposed to tank or have more survivability specifically than anyone else. In their case, what makes them great 'emergency tanks' for 5-mans and the like is their tank cooldowns and auras/stances/their abilities to pop a shield and taunt.

Plate wearing warrior-type classes have never been on par with cloth/leather wearers, as far as hit point levels or "tankyness" (the ability to stand toe to toe with a mob and take a few hits before dropping), in any other game I've ever played. Not to say that I've played them all, but the "norm" is that plate-wearing classes are somewhat more tanky than their cloth-wearing counterparts.

"Paladins, Warriors and Death Knights that don't spec into tank talents were never supposed to tank or have more survivability specifically than anyone else"

They actually were, and have, for the past 5 years now; at least in some respects. Non-tank spec plate-wearers have, in my experience, been able to tank regular instances up until the mid to late 50's. Not only that, but one of the concerns someone brought up with GC recently is that there would be a severe shortage of tanks in the random LFG system come Cataclysm, as many of the tanks would be playing as their dps spec to level (personally I think that dual spec will eliminate this concern) and GC replied that their intent is to have DPS spec plate-wearers capable of tanking the regular instances by throwing on a a shield, shifting presences/stances/whatever and having a go. I will look for the link to this post.

One phrase people throw around quite a bit is "leveling the playing field". All this ever does is eliminate whatever perceived advantage one class has over another and takes us one step closer to total class homogenization. Aside from obviously overpowered specs/classes, the only thing that needs to be leveled is your skill.

And in S6, yes, the overpowered classes in pvp both wore plate. However, it wasn't the plate that made them OP, it was the fact that their abilities did too much damage, and their cooldowns were too strong and on too short of a timer. Look it up.

[Aureoloss]

The point is that plate wearers were not supposed to be able to do the same (or maybe even more) damage as everyone else, but have so much more health and armor. The way things are balanced at the moment relies on this problem. Things will be balanced around the new plate changes.

This is coming from a paladin.

[zcks]

And in S6, yes, the overpowered classes in pvp both wore plate. However, it wasn't the plate that made them OP, it was the fact that their abilities did too much damage, and their cooldowns were too strong and on too short of a timer. Look it up.

This is completely right, back then is was the fact that ret paladins & DK's could do so much damage so fast that made them good in pvp. Look at how many DK's and retribution paladins are in the top 100 teams since the changes to resilience & healing. You might find a couple death knights in there but you will be extremely hard pressed to find a paladin that is not holy or protribution because ret frankly does not have any offensive utility besides a magic sap & a stun on a 1 min CD, both of which can be dispelled or trinketed out of.

As for their defensive utility, it all depended on self healing or abilities that can be dispelled spell stolen or purged so they & other hybrid classes/specs with the same weaknesses will be screwed in cataclysm pvp unless something drastic changes with how defensive cool downs & buffs are handled when it comes to dispel effects.