Now that the Lich King is out and with guilds actively working on Heroic mode Lich King in 25s, people are starting to look ahead with more urgency towards the impending Cataclysm release. We have already been hearing rumors and tidbits for weeks now. The complete overhaul of stats, talents and class balance changes stand to reinvent WoW for the 3rd time over.
The question is: Will WoW players like it?
Everyone and their mother have their own opinion on what types of changes should be made and what should not change. Here is my take on it, though for holy paladins since that is the particular class I am concerned with =P
I. Changes to Existing Talents/Glyphs/Spells
It is completely understood that holy paladins only have 3 direct healing spells in their repertoire. They are FoL, HS and HL. None of them are AoE healing spells unless JoL count, which they don't really because all paladins can do it and none better than the other as JoL is now based on target hp rather than previous iterations.
My suggestion is to delete HL glyph and actually make it in to a talent worth 1 talent point. Make it deep in the tree so that ret or prot can not abuse it. As for the rumored paths of specialization we can take, have us be able to power up the aoe component of HL a little.
FoL Glyph is unbelievably unexciting. Why would 5% extra crit chance matter when you are healing a SS target? Change it so either gives back a HoT component or powers up the spell coefficient.
It's also annoying to have to SS and then have someone else override your SS even if your SS would've been more powerful because you had more SP or if a 1 min SS can be overwritten by a 30 sec one! Make it so the stronger or talented SS can not be overwritten.
II. Cleaning up the Holy Tree
Take away Purifying Power and move it to ret where it belongs. Cleanses should not be taking a ton of mana in Cataclysm and Holy hardly ever needs to worry about Exorcism or Holy Wrath CD time.
Change Blessed Life to a better PVP talent for holy or remove it completely. I suggest making it into a self-only CD that will give us 2/4/6 seconds of halved damage from all attacks.
III. New, New, New!
Give us a DP glyph that allows us to remove the MS component but halves the uptime of DP so it will ultimately give us back 1/8 our mana pools instead.
Give us a glyph or talent for SS allowing us to put it on 5 targets instead. If 5 is too much, then make it 2-3 targets. Make this talent deep in the holy tree and make it required for our new 56 point talent (I'm assuming there will be a new 56 point talent instead of 61 points since max level in Cataclysm is only 85 rather than 90). Also, where is our SS glyph??
I know I suggested removing the HL glyph and just having it be talented but HL should get a glyph! I think a glyph for HL should not entail powering it up as it is supposed to be our nuke but making it less mana intensive, perhaps 5% less mana so holy pallies will be able to part with the libram.
And really, we need a new heal sorely. I understand that it is hard to contrive a completely new spell that doesn't raise suspicions of acquisition from other classes but come on, 2 expansions with 3 direct healing spells?
I suggest a new 56 point talent that is a new healing spell.
Holy Shell: Instantly heals target for 500 over 6 seconds and can be stacked up to 2 times. Holy shells can not be stacked by multiple holy paladins on one target. Can only be cast on a maximum of 5 targets.
Make a glyph that lets us halve the healing time or have the stack go up to 3 or 4 perhaps. I suggested this type of healing spell because it is sort of like JoL mechanics but with an actual way to direct that incoming heal.
I didn't suggest a complete AoE spell because that is treading on CoH/WG domain a bit too much. Perhaps there is still a way to give holy paladins a paladin flavored AoE spell but it will be hard for the other aoe healers to take and I'm so afraid of Blizzard nerfing our single target healing to high hell.
As for my suggestion for a real aoe healing spell? Here goes...
Holy Consecration: Channels an area of effect spell that does 3000 healing over 6 seconds.
I say channeling so that way holy paladins aren't tempted to keep spamming like CoH/WG before the nerf. If not channeling, then the spell should be on a CD like CoH/WG of course.
or
Pillar of Light: Summons a beam of light that heals allies for 800-1000 healing with an addition 500 healing over 6 seconds. (2-2.5 second cast time)
As for our new class spells available to us at level 75 just like how Avenging Wrath was at level 70 and SS at 80, allow us to be able to transfer 10% of incoming damage on a target to our mana pool but causes forbearance when cast on ourselves and the effect stops when we are at 30% mana or 6 seconds, whichever one happens sooner. I would call the spell Divine Transference. Let us talent so that the transferred amount is higher, like say, from 10% to 15/20 with a 2 point talent.
IV. Specializations
There are new gated pathways we can take to improve our character. The details are not clear but it seems it's one way to make our characters better at what they do, not sure how this affects dual speccing though.
I'm really fuzzy on how it will work but here are some of my suggestions anyway.
Allow us to specialize in SS. Maybe we can make it cost less mana or work to increase HL or HS crit chance as well.
Allow us to specialize in HS by making it cost less or adding a HoT component to it (yes, I know it's a set bonus).
I already suggested being able to power up the aoe component of HL but HL can also be made cost less mana.
Maybe some of my suggestions are horrible and break game balancing but the point is, address some of the core issues plaguing holy paladins! Please!
I know some paladins are resistant to change but change is necessary in our evolution forward as a class!
Blizzard already is planning on removing mp5 after buffing its stat allocation on items like I had suggested in a previous post. So, here's hoping that Blizzard has some good ideas on addressing our lack of mobility, aoe healing and relative inflexibility.
P.S. I know, I know, I am horrible at names.
The question is: Will WoW players like it?
Everyone and their mother have their own opinion on what types of changes should be made and what should not change. Here is my take on it, though for holy paladins since that is the particular class I am concerned with =P
I. Changes to Existing Talents/Glyphs/Spells
It is completely understood that holy paladins only have 3 direct healing spells in their repertoire. They are FoL, HS and HL. None of them are AoE healing spells unless JoL count, which they don't really because all paladins can do it and none better than the other as JoL is now based on target hp rather than previous iterations.
My suggestion is to delete HL glyph and actually make it in to a talent worth 1 talent point. Make it deep in the tree so that ret or prot can not abuse it. As for the rumored paths of specialization we can take, have us be able to power up the aoe component of HL a little.
FoL Glyph is unbelievably unexciting. Why would 5% extra crit chance matter when you are healing a SS target? Change it so either gives back a HoT component or powers up the spell coefficient.
It's also annoying to have to SS and then have someone else override your SS even if your SS would've been more powerful because you had more SP or if a 1 min SS can be overwritten by a 30 sec one! Make it so the stronger or talented SS can not be overwritten.
II. Cleaning up the Holy Tree
Take away Purifying Power and move it to ret where it belongs. Cleanses should not be taking a ton of mana in Cataclysm and Holy hardly ever needs to worry about Exorcism or Holy Wrath CD time.
Change Blessed Life to a better PVP talent for holy or remove it completely. I suggest making it into a self-only CD that will give us 2/4/6 seconds of halved damage from all attacks.
III. New, New, New!
Give us a DP glyph that allows us to remove the MS component but halves the uptime of DP so it will ultimately give us back 1/8 our mana pools instead.
Give us a glyph or talent for SS allowing us to put it on 5 targets instead. If 5 is too much, then make it 2-3 targets. Make this talent deep in the holy tree and make it required for our new 56 point talent (I'm assuming there will be a new 56 point talent instead of 61 points since max level in Cataclysm is only 85 rather than 90). Also, where is our SS glyph??
I know I suggested removing the HL glyph and just having it be talented but HL should get a glyph! I think a glyph for HL should not entail powering it up as it is supposed to be our nuke but making it less mana intensive, perhaps 5% less mana so holy pallies will be able to part with the libram.
And really, we need a new heal sorely. I understand that it is hard to contrive a completely new spell that doesn't raise suspicions of acquisition from other classes but come on, 2 expansions with 3 direct healing spells?
I suggest a new 56 point talent that is a new healing spell.
Holy Shell: Instantly heals target for 500 over 6 seconds and can be stacked up to 2 times. Holy shells can not be stacked by multiple holy paladins on one target. Can only be cast on a maximum of 5 targets.
Make a glyph that lets us halve the healing time or have the stack go up to 3 or 4 perhaps. I suggested this type of healing spell because it is sort of like JoL mechanics but with an actual way to direct that incoming heal.
I didn't suggest a complete AoE spell because that is treading on CoH/WG domain a bit too much. Perhaps there is still a way to give holy paladins a paladin flavored AoE spell but it will be hard for the other aoe healers to take and I'm so afraid of Blizzard nerfing our single target healing to high hell.
As for my suggestion for a real aoe healing spell? Here goes...
Holy Consecration: Channels an area of effect spell that does 3000 healing over 6 seconds.
I say channeling so that way holy paladins aren't tempted to keep spamming like CoH/WG before the nerf. If not channeling, then the spell should be on a CD like CoH/WG of course.
or
Pillar of Light: Summons a beam of light that heals allies for 800-1000 healing with an addition 500 healing over 6 seconds. (2-2.5 second cast time)
As for our new class spells available to us at level 75 just like how Avenging Wrath was at level 70 and SS at 80, allow us to be able to transfer 10% of incoming damage on a target to our mana pool but causes forbearance when cast on ourselves and the effect stops when we are at 30% mana or 6 seconds, whichever one happens sooner. I would call the spell Divine Transference. Let us talent so that the transferred amount is higher, like say, from 10% to 15/20 with a 2 point talent.
IV. Specializations
There are new gated pathways we can take to improve our character. The details are not clear but it seems it's one way to make our characters better at what they do, not sure how this affects dual speccing though.
I'm really fuzzy on how it will work but here are some of my suggestions anyway.
Allow us to specialize in SS. Maybe we can make it cost less mana or work to increase HL or HS crit chance as well.
Allow us to specialize in HS by making it cost less or adding a HoT component to it (yes, I know it's a set bonus).
I already suggested being able to power up the aoe component of HL but HL can also be made cost less mana.
Maybe some of my suggestions are horrible and break game balancing but the point is, address some of the core issues plaguing holy paladins! Please!
I know some paladins are resistant to change but change is necessary in our evolution forward as a class!
Blizzard already is planning on removing mp5 after buffing its stat allocation on items like I had suggested in a previous post. So, here's hoping that Blizzard has some good ideas on addressing our lack of mobility, aoe healing and relative inflexibility.
P.S. I know, I know, I am horrible at names.
I think you had some pretty good ideas in the post (and the name ideas weren't so bad, I liked some). Just hope Blizzard would read this and take some hints ;P
ReplyDelete@Sepelrastas: Apparently not =( I like to think that my names weren't terribad but Healing Hands, Blizz? Really?
ReplyDelete