Outsiders view.

[deathtakes]

Hello there paladins,

I don't play a paladin on live so you can take my opinion with a grain of salt if you like. I've seen MANY threads of paladins voicing concern about there class in all aspects. Some of them well written, some angry, some scared, some ignorant so I made a premade 85 pally in the beta to see what all the hub bub was all about.

Disclaimer:

Now before I get into it, all I tested was pretty much the rotation for prot and ret on target dummies in Stormwind. I didn't do any dungeons or any pvp.

Rotation:

I've seen all kinds of posts regarding the rotation and how there are points where you're just standing there watching white swings. This is rarely true (some CDs could be tweaked a bit) and unless you're the instigator (ie: screwing up your rotation) it happens for only a short time. It's no different than being rage starved, energy starved, runes on CD etc. Thats what happens when you have a resource that you actually have to manage.

I find it very fun. Very unforgiving mind you. But very fun. If you time all your abilities around crusader strike it flows pretty good (ie: only using your other abilities when CS is down to fill the gaps). And having the RNG of the art of war and hand of light not only adds burst (sometimes a lot if inquisition is already up. Free TV) but also add GCDs which help the rotation rather than hinder it surprisingly.

In an aoe situation its the same rotation except you sub out TV for divine storm. I don't think divine storms cost of 3 holy power is far off because of the fact that it group heals as well as does 150% weapon damage at max holy power. It also benefits from rets mastery which can provide some killer AE burst.

RNG:

RNG is a harsh mistress. Sometimes the planets align and you can't press buttons fast enough to spend your new buffs and sometimes nothing happens and you hate your life. Love it or hate it its probably here to stay and you definitely are not the only class with it so we all just have to suck it up.

One thing that is based on rng that kind of concerns me is rets mastery, hand of light. As of now on beta I have and 11% chance of this proccing. Definitely not enough as sometimes it takes forever to proc. But that makes me wonder what it will be like at better gear levels. There almost has to be a built in cap for this. Because if you could get it to say 50% proc chance then the rotation is lost and you're pretty much just spamming TV not to mention doing insane damage.

Prot AoE:

The prot rotation is very similar to rets and also felt nice. However it's going to be a very tough pill to swallow for some prot pallies not having consecrate as an aoe tanking crutch. They still have the tools to do so, it just wont be nearly as easy. Whats the deal with consecrate anyways? What a piece of crap that turned out to be. (almost 13k mana cost, 3400 damage over 10 seconds and a 30 second cooldown!)

Inquisition:

I never really found inquisition hard to keep up. You might take a bit of a dps drop applying it the first time and reapplying it or you might not, depends on how much mastery and the luck of the draw. Even still if you apply a fully powered one chances are you'll get at least enough hand of light procs to negate the lost dps at the beginning if not surpass it, even at lower mastery levels. I can't argue the "takes a bit of ramp up time" but its no different from dks or arms warriors.

Note: inquisition should not be susceptible to effects like dispell or spell steal. It should act as an enrage imo. It costs too much to be that easily negated. Avenging wrath mind you should still be fair game for those abilities however.

Final thought:

The rotation is smooth if you can execute it properly. If you mess up, your dps will suffer. The rng isn't predictable but it isn't hard to manage either. Art of wars proc may need to be raised but the wild card right now is the hand of light mastery. Its nice but it need to be kept under controlled or it could prove to be way too powerful.

I tried to keep this thread based mostly on the rotation as I could as I do not have enough experience with the class to comment on the actually workings or theory crafting of abilities and talents regarding the paladin class.

Thanks for reading and keep your chin up!

[Requital]

Good job you can maintain a rotation standing at a dummy some can't and some won't try, I respect that you gave it that much effort. Now go try to run an instance and come back here and say it's fine. While sitting on a dummy takes literally no effort at all being active in an instance is far more involved.

Since I have a Warrior and know the difference I can't figure out where you are coming from with Inquisition and comparing it with an Arms Warrior. Maybe you can compare it with a DK I wouldn't know I have never played one but there is nothing related to an Arms Warrior that even comes close to Inquisition.

As for an AE situation currently it's pointless to use Divine Storm in an AE situation the damage is was to low it doesn't compete with a tanks ability to AE. I don't mean anything directly negative to you or about your opinion on the matter but target practice on a dummy is nothing like running an instance.

[Deleted]

Allthough i do have to agree with what Requital is saying hiting a dummy doesint rly mean mutch, its nice to see a post made by some one that doesint play a pala not starting with the words "QQ pala is OP nerf nerf nerf"

[Talen]

I've seen all kinds of posts regarding the rotation and how there are points where you're just standing there watching white swings. This is rarely true (some CDs could be tweaked a bit) and unless you're the instigator (ie: screwing up your rotation) it happens for only a short time. It's no different than being rage starved, energy starved, runes on CD etc. Thats what happens when you have a resource that you actually have to manage.

The obvious counter here is that with those resource systems you are actually managing it. This is not the case with HP. The "skill" with HP is in noticing it and reacting fast enough to make use of it. You don't get empty periods because of messing up your rotation...you get them because your skills haven't procced. Theres also the fact that with rage, you know that your moves will be available in a ceratin timeframe. That isn't the case with HP...you just know that eventually your moves will proc. But if HoL doesn't proc, if DP doesn't proc and if AoW doesn't proc

And having the RNG of the art of war and hand of light not only adds burst (sometimes a lot if inquisition is already up. Free TV)

True...but its entirely uncontrollable and results in a wide range of possible DPS depending on procs and luck. In PvE it won't be so bad as the important fights will likely last long enough to even out. Still be bad to get kicked because your DPS was low when all that happened was a bad run of procs. The RNG nature, however, is much more problematic in PvP where fights won't last long enough. Success will depend not on skill...but on pure, unadulterated luck. if you get the procs...great. if you don't...too bad. And thats exacerbated in PvP by a relatively low time on target.

RNG is a harsh mistress. Sometimes the planets align and you can't press buttons fast enough to spend your new buffs and sometimes nothing happens and you hate your life. Love it or hate it its probably here to stay and you definitely are not the only class with it so we all just have to suck it up.

All classes have RNG and no, its not going. But there coems a time when there is too much RNG, where there is no structure and the ability to press buttons when they light up becomes more important than skill. Other classes have RNG but other classes have had RNG reduced because of these issues. That Ret is complaining of them before the system goes live is not an excuse to ignore the issue.

The prot rotation is very similar to rets and also felt nice. However it's going to be a very tough pill to swallow for some prot pallies not having consecrate as an aoe tanking crutch. They still have the tools to do so, it just wont be nearly as easy. Whats the deal with consecrate anyways? What a piece of crap that turned out to be. (almost 13k mana cost, 3400 damage over 10 seconds and a 30 second cooldown!)

Blizzard solution to a tool it doesn't like is to simply make it unusable.

I never really found inquisition hard to keep up. You might take a bit of a dps drop applying it the first time and reapplying it or you might not, depends on how much mastery and the luck of the draw. Even still if you apply a fully powered one chances are you'll get at least enough hand of light procs to negate the lost dps at the beginning if not surpass it, even at lower mastery levels. I can't argue the "takes a bit of ramp up time" but its no different from dks or arms warriors.

Neither of whom suffer from RNG the same way. Neithe rof whom have additional ramp up mechanisms also in place. And Inq is going to be one of those love it or hate it skills....a lot of people don't like not because it sdifficult or hard to keep up but because 1: the RNG nature of HP generation makes it much more problematic to be optimum with it 2: Rets don't seem to do enough Holy damage at times to make it worthwhile keeping up and 3: because its a chore to keep up rather than a boost. It doesn't add skill...it just adds a button press.

Note: inquisition should not be susceptible to effects like dispell or spell steal. It should act as an enrage imo. It costs too much to be that easily negated. Avenging wrath mind you should still be fair game for those abilities however.

Missing the point. Inq is a method by which Blizzard can easily knock X% off a Rets damage output in PvP. Making it undispellable works against that purpose.

You didn't think it was simply to raise the skill cap?

The rotation is smooth if you can execute it properly. If you mess up, your dps will suffer. The rng isn't predictable but it isn't hard to manage either.

How can you smooth out a rotation that it almost entirely random?

EJL

[Sindy]

Why did i read all of that? =(