A short blog post about ... blogs

I just wanted to share some blog/podcast I've discovered recently and got addicted to.

For those of you who don't know Mr. Total Biscuit, I warmly recommend you to listen to his podcast named Blue Plz! He's surely not for the youngest ears, but at least I've found someone who dares to say what he thinks about the game, without taking gloves.
You can find his new blog page here, and the podcast archives on WoW Radio here. Btw, there are numerous interesting shows on WoW Radio, try them, you could like them :P

Now, Underground World of Warcraft (UWOW), an interesting website listing all the WoW podcasts when they are released (very cool) and giving critiques about them. If you're new to WoW podcasts and in search for the ones that would fits you, try to give a look to their blog, that could very well be your gold mine.

To finish with my "new wow loves", everyone should now know that Phaelia, the druid healing guru of Resto4Life is leaving the blogsphere for a more intense life. I happened to listen to one of the last Twisted Nether podcasts recently where another cool druid was invited (author of Treebound Cat), and he pointed me there : Nerf this Druid. If you're interested about healing theorycrafting, this will be a site for you.

Another finish finish, if you've not yet noted, there is a nifty new tool in the blogsphere called WoW Headlines. You can find there about all the blog articles published each day, for all class driven blogs. And so most of the articles you read here :P
A big hug to Nance for doing such an awesome job. Very convenient to say the least.

Ok, I've done enough linking for a month, at least. But sometimes, I just feel like sharing :P

Paladins & the Dreadful Patch 3.1

Ok, rant post again, for all Holy and Retribution paladins sake (not that I don't like prot paladins but they look fine in this patch).

I'm just going to list all the wonderful changes that I do really fear in patch 3.1. Don't tell me I'm not posting the "good" ones, I won't cover protection here, and this is the only branch receiving buffs in patch 3.1.

I've covered already several points in earlier posts :
Patch 3.1 Patch Notes updated (13th), yet more sad paladin changes
More on Paladin state in 3.1
Enlightened Judgements Nerf, why so much druid love ?

I'll try to sum-up all the changes for Holy Paladins here.

Official Patch Notes: (see post below)
Divine Plea can once again be dispelled.
Spiritual Attunement: Removed from trainers. It is now available deep in the Protection tree for 2 ranks at 5/10%.
Blessed Hands: Now reduces mana cost of Hand of Freedom, Sacrifice and Salvation by 15/30%, and improves the effectiveness of Hand of Salvation by 50/100% and Hand of Sacrifice by an additional 5/10%. Moved to tier-4.
Additional Undocumented changes: (World of Raids)
Enlightened Judgements: No longer increases the range of Judgement of Justice. Moved to tier-10.
Infusion of Light: Now increases the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead of reducing cast time. Moved to tier-10.
Blessing of Sanctuary: Now only grants mana on dodge/parry/block. In addition, will only grant mana if that is the active power type of the friendly target (Bears and Cats won’t gain mana).
Mana Spring Totem & Blessing of Wisdom: (World of Raids)
We are making a change to these spells so that their benefits are exclusive in patch 3.1.0.
earlier Builds: (MMO Champion, MMO Champion)
don't let forget the earlier changes, even if they are not included into the latest patch notes
Sacred Shield now cannot be on more than one target at any one time.
Hand of Sacrifice now lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transfered 100% of their maximum health.
Glyph of Holy Light can no longer crit.
Righteous Vengeance (Tier 10) is now a 3 point talent. When your Judgement and Divine Storm spells deal a critical strike, your target will take 10/20/30% (down from 40%) additional damage over 8 sec. (Previously a 5 point talent)
Fanaticism (Tier 8 ) is now a 3 point talent and now increases the critical strike chance of all Judgements capable of a critical hit by 6/12/18% (down from 25%) and reduces threat caused by all actions by 10/20/30% except when under the effects of Righteous Fury. (Previously a 5 point talent)

Ok this is it, not exactly all the changes, but all I want to discuss, and seriously way enough to stop playing a paladin if all of these go live for patch 3.1.

I'll discuss these changes in two parts, first retribution nerfs and then holy bad design choices.


Retribution pitiful state

I honestly feel sad for our dps branch. The thing, as always recently with Blizzard, is that they are overdoing changes. Paladins were given big boosts in 3.0, they decided to nerf retribution "To the ground !" and got it very low, it seems it's not even finished sadly my dps brothers and sisters.

The problem with retribution is PvP, and more precisely the Arena. The tree was build around crits, big crits, and to crit often. This was a relatively bad design from a PvE point of view, and before the huge buff of tank aggro with 3.0, retribution was often too uncontrolably bursty for it's own sake (and survival). But let's say it gives retribution dps something unique as a close combat dpser.

Now read these ptach notes over here:
Righteous Vengeance. When your Judgement and Divine Storm spells deal a critical strike, your target will take 10/20/30% (down from 40%) additional damage over 8 sec. (Previously a 5 point talent, now 3 points)
Fanaticism now increases the critical strike chance of all Judgements capable of a critical hit by 6/12/18% (down from 25%). (Previously a 5 point talent, now 3 points)
Clearly these changes are done to reduce the burst damage of retribution paladins in the Arena, were they are still considered as too high. But this also directly nerfs their PvE damage without any sort of compensation.

I advise you to read a very good post from Andarin on the wow PTR forums that MMO Champion copied on its Blue Tracker here.

Current parses from the PTR are confirming what Ret Paladins have feared will happen regarding 3.1 changes. With our consistent damage being nerfed in addition to the large DPS loss from mob changes, Ret Paladins have gone from second lowest PvE DPS to rock bottom DPS. Our DPS has taken a whopping 10%+ drop in PvE damage, and frankly, Exorcism is not compensation at all in this regard.

Ghostcrawler's answer about that is (on the same page):

Retribution dps, especially in PvE, is lower in 3.1 than we want.

Cool ... they know retribution dps is too low (in PvE note that). What did they do since ? Nothing ... it's even going worse with the Spiritual Attunement nerf (see below).
I do cry for you retribution paladins, the sure thing is now I know I won't go retribution for my second spec, it's going to be hard for any retribution paladin to find a spot for an Ulduar raid.


Should Holy paladins cower in fear ?

This is probably a bit strong, but future for Holy Paladin does look grim.

First of, the Arena nerf bat:

Divine Plea can once again be dispelled.
Blessed Hands: Now reduces mana cost of Hand of Freedom, Sacrifice and Salvation by 15/30%, and improves the effectiveness of Hand of Salvation by 50/100% and Hand of Sacrifice by an additional 5/10%.
Enlightened Judgements: No longer increases the range of Judgement of Justice.
Infusion of Light: Now increases the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead of reducing cast time.
Sacred Shield now cannot be on more than one target at any one time.
Divine Purpose moved to tier-6.

For Arena play, the loss of judgement of Justice hurts, it was a very good tool against several classes, helping your dpsers to catch opponents. It was said by the blues to be something that "hurt the druids too much", ok let's save the druids ... as if they were needing it with the other 3.1 changes.
Divine Plea was made undispellable when it was nerfed to 50% healing reduction, well, let's make it dispellable again.
The Hands nerf is that their cd is not reduced anymore, I think we won't see any paladin taking this talent anymore.
Infusion of Light Holy Light 0.8s healing bombs no more, ok that one was perhaps needed for Arena play, these ones were really overpowered.
Sacred Shield nerf ... it won't have such an impact on the arena, but it was a nice prevention tool, active even when you were stunned.
Divine Purpose move is made to force Holy Paladins to go deeper into ret, and they will probably do, because it is such a necessary tool in the Arena. But they will lose healing potency, yet another "hidden" nerf for us.

Now the PvE nerf bat:

Spiritual Attunement: Removed from trainers.
Enlightened Judgements: No longer increases the range of Judgement of Justice.
Infusion of Light: Now increases the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead of reducing cast time.
Mana Spring Totem & Blessing of Wisdom are exclusive in patch 3.1.0.
Sacred Shield now cannot be on more than one target at any one time.
Glyph of Holy Light can no longer crit.

Very strong nerfs here too, you could consider my words are strong themselves, but the Sacred Shield nerf is a huge nerf for Holy Paladins in PvE. Try to think about fights such as Loatheb, and the soon to be Hodir, and think about the amound of raid damage in these fights. The only effective tool of Holy Paladins has just been removed to them.

Now read what Ghostcrawler has to say on the Sacred Shield nerf:
(source)

However, you shouldn't need to do a ton of group healing in raids, and in PvP or heroic dungeons, you should still have enough tools to manage: fast heals, the HL glyph, Beacon, etc.

Let say that Holy Paladins are only good for tank healing, let just take only one of them in a raid from now. Anyway, two blessings is way enough with the Blessing of Protection (only usefull for paladin tanks) and Blessing of Wisdom nerfs (exclusive from Mana Spring totems). And Holy Paladins are bad for raid damage/healing even more with this nerf, overhealing too much (even more with the change to Infusion of Light), and just low on the healing meters (I know I should not look at that, but think a lot of raid leaders use them to judge healer efficiency).

I won't go as much details for the other nerfs, but they all affect holy utility/efficiency a little.
Spiritual Attunement is a clear mana nerf.
Enlightened Judgements removes the possibility for a Holy Paladin in a raid to Judge Justice if there are already a protection and retribution paladin in a raid (who should judge Light and Wisdom).
Blessing of Wisdom nerf is a utility nerf.
Glyph of Holy Light nerf, even if small, and even if it was a bug, is a healing power nerf in aoe healing our worst point.
Infursion of Light nerf will result in more overhealing and less predictable utility, I just see it as dumb as it is now.
Small details add and this patch ends being the strongest nerf to Holy Paladins since a long time.

Seriously, with all these gifts for Holy Paladins, I would not take more than one in a raid from now, even in heroic 25 men. As a raid leader myself, if I ever have a choice between a Holy Paladin and any other healer, I will not take the paladin ... sad isn't it ?


Now For the joy of everyone, the Spiritual Attunement nerf !

Spiritual Attunement: Removed from trainers. It is now available deep in the Protection tree for 2 ranks at 5/10%.

Wow Insider has published a detailed article on that and I'm encouraging you to read it.
Rohan on Blessing of Kings also has an interesting article on that nerf. Though he's not ranting on a pure raid efficiency side as I am, he's seeing in this nerf the end of the hybrid tanking for paladins.

As I said in an earlier post, the problem with Spiritual Attunement is that from fight to fight, the amount of mana given to a retribution or holy paladin changes a lot, depending on the quantity of raid aoe damage. And I can understand it makes fights hard to tune for Blizzard regarding paladin mana gain.

But this is a core skills for paladins, for several reasons. As Rohan says, without it retribution and holy paladins just can't tank anything, so it will be the end of "hybrid tanking" forcing everyone to dual-spec prot if they want to ever thank anything. The reason is simple : a paladin without mana can't tank anything, as a warrior without rage, and for any paladin tanking, Spiritual Attunement is mandatory to have enough mana (unless we talk tanking instances ridiculously under your level).

Now, from a raiding point of view, this will lower the mana of Holy and Retribution paladins. For Holy that will only really affect them during strong aoe damage fights (read Hodir changes below !). I'll say that we can probably manage, even if it's yet another arrow into an already strongly nerfed spec in patch 3.1.
But Retribution paladins were always using Seal of Blood in raids, to get more healing on them, and hence more mana to dps more. The mana consumed in Ulduar will be the same, as exorcism is going to affect all mobs, but Retribution paladins will have less mana, and I already often see them going oom in the longest fights. If Seal of Blood / Spiritual Attunement is not here to help them with mana regen ... I do feel even more sorry for them.

That is a sad change. Perhaps it is necessary, but it really needs some sort of compensation, especially for Retribution paladins.

Patch 3.1 Ulduar PTR testing, part 12, a healing paladin view

Now for some updates of the PTR, from a healing paladin point of view.

Several new bosses have been tested this weekend, that were delayed before. And the Flame Leviathan was submitted to more testing too.

Hodir

Hodir Testing - World of Raids, MMO Champion

Hodir seem to have been tuned down (sigh) since the first tries on him, he was downed by several guilds both on 10 men and 25 men, and even on hard mode. He has a 9mn enrage timer. The hard mode is to kill him in 3mn ... don't tell me a 9mn fight is tuned well if it can be done in 3mn !

The friendly adds encaged at the beginning of the fight seem not very useful, frozen in ice at each Hodir's Flash Freeze, they seem to be roughly worthless (sad mechanic, I hope more tuning there).

Overall I'd say I'm disappointed in Hodir, he seems to be too easy, and the friendly adds were an interesting mechanic but end being not worth dealing with ... tuning Hodir up and changing the adds to be effective would be much more interesting. It's a little harder on the adds AI, is Blizzard not able to do it ?

Now things I hate as a raiding Holy Paladin. Frozen Blows (the switch of Hodir to frost damage on the tank) was changed to that:

Physical damage reduced by 70%, but attacks deal 40000 additional Frost damage. In addition, all enemies suffer 3000 Frost damage every 1 sec. for 20 sec. This is cast randomly now rather than it being predictable.

I guess you can see what I don't like there. "In addition, all enemies suffer 3000 Frost damage every 1 sec. for 20 sec." That means a lot of raid damage, just not a nice mechanic, which is the reason for the nerf of spiritual attunement
for paladins (more on that in another article). Raid damage is bad for a healing paladin, greatly increasing the utility of other healers again over us. Add that "This is cast randomly now rather than it being predictable." That is just bad, unpredictability for damage pushes healers to be spammy to prevent this unpredictable aspect to kill anyone. And spam healing is just a bad thing, no brain, just power.
Let us play a game, and not mindlessly push aoe healing buttons ...


Auriaya

Auriaya Testing - World of Raids, MMO Champion

After some delay she was finally tested this weekend for the first time.
This seem to be a strong adds fight and will most probably require at least 3 tanks (one for Auriaya and two for the adds, at least in heroic).
I like the Sonic Scheech mechanic, but I hope it won't be too buggy. These original positionings are fun gimmicks that make a boss encounter different one from another.
Let's see what this fight becomes with further builds.


Mimiron

Mimiron Testing - World of Raids, MMO Champion

This is a 4 phases fight, where we will have to fight Mimiron big robot construct. Phase one is the legs, phase 2 the body, phase 3 the flighing head and phase 4 the whole robot.
The thing I found the most interesting is one of Mimiron's achievements:

Force Mimiron to combine the parts of his greatest creation within 20 minutes on Heroic Difficulty.

This will be a long fight, yay for that !
There will be some aoe raid damage in this fight too sadly: Hand Pulse: Deals 7069 to 7931 Fire damage in a 5000 yard radius (pretty much unavoidable). But only during the last phase at least.
According to MMO Champion, Mimiron could loot his aerial combat unit as an epic (310% speed) flying mount. That would be sweet.

Patch 3.1 Patch Notes updated (13th), yet more sad paladin changes

The official patchnotes for Patch 3.1 have been updated on the 13th, you can find them there :
Patch Notes 3.1 - World of Raids, MMO Champion

I won't discuss everything, and keep it to what changed for Paladins in this notes (not yet all implemented into the last PTR build).

Spiritual Attunement: Removed from trainers. It is now available deep in the Protection tree for 2 ranks at 5/10%.

That is a sad change. The problem with Spiritual Attunement is that from fight to fight, the amount of mana given to a retribution or holy paladin changes a lot, depending on the quantity of raid aoe damage. I can understand it makes fights hard to tune regarding paladins, but without this skill, retribution and holy paladins just can't tank anything. I'll discuss this more later.

Infusion of Light: Now increases the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead of reducing cast time. Moved to tier-10.

Another badly implemented change. This one obviously targets arenas, but in PvE Holy Light already often is a lot of overhealing, it will just make that worse, adding more random aspect to paladin healing. Spam > Skill for Blizzard these days.

Blessing of Sanctuary: Now only grants mana on dodge/parry/block. In addition, will only grant mana if that is the active power type of the friendly target (Bears and Cats won’t gain mana).

This is a prot change, but it clearly turns BoS useless for any non paladin tank. With this change, I'd say that we only need two paladins in a raid now, one for a Blessing of Kings, and one for a Wisdom (and that is not even true if you have shamans) and Might. Yest another reduction of paladins utility, are we so OP right now in PvE ? ... sad panda

On a brighter side-note, read that:

Badges and Emblems looted off of any dungeon bosses by a member of the party or raid will automatically be given to all eligible party or raid members. Party or raid members must still be inside the instance to receive Badges or Emblems.

Isn't it a nice change, and about time :P
No more waiting 5mn for coffers loot (Karazhan Chess or 4 Horsemen anyone ?).
An additional effect will be that none will forget to get his badge now, and that will speed up runs a little.

Patch 3.1 Ulduar PTR testing, part 11 (build 9684), Ulduar date "announced"

What's happening on the PTR lately ? A lot of things :P

First, some boss tests were canceled on Wednesday night, you can have the details and the new schedule on this post from MMO Champion. Auriaya and Mimiron were postponed. You can find the new updated test schedule on this post from World of Raidsa and this one from WoW Insider.

And the big news is : expect patch 3.1 in something around 3 weeks ?
As Tom noted in Blessing of Might, patch 3.1 is probably not far away. Quoting Kisirani (source):

The current plan is to delay Noblegarden should the testing process run long.

As Noblegarden is scheduled for the 12th april, we can probably expected patch 3.1 at this date, or not far from it. It seems the blues are not going to delay it to test Noblegarden much, as Ulduar testing is going strong but a bit longer than expected lately (see the delay just before).
Wow Insider seems to think otherwise, for Mike Schramm, the announce of the delay of Noblegarden means that patch 3.1 testing will last longer than the 12th april, and that Noblegarden will happen later, when it has been tested properly.
So if we can be sure Noblegarden will probably not happen on the 12th April, will they release patch 3.1 around then without it, or will they wait longer to test Noblegarden fully and release it with patch 3.1 at a later date ?

Now a new build has hit the PTR too, build 9684.
There are a lot of things concerning loot & items in this build:

• New Wintergrasp items : MMO Champion, World of Raids,
  
• Update on Ulduar loot : MMO Champion (same link as above),
• Argent Tournament New Weapon Graphics : World of Raids (same link as above),
• Protodrakes for the new achievements : MMO Champion,
• Build 9684, new talents, new crafts, T8 set bonuses : MMO Champion,
• Ulduar & Argent tournament achievements : MMO Champion (same link as above), World of Raids (same link as above).

What's about healing in WotLK ?

Ok, you're getting used to it, yet another rant ^.~
I could been seen as a grumpy person, it's not the case, but when things don't go right, I just want to say it. Anyway, off with the mundane talking and let us get on topic. Be careful it's going to be a long post.

An introduction to the problem.

If you've healed in WotLK, and especially if you've also healed before in classic WoW and TBC, you can feel a real difference. Let me stress out the main differences:

• mana issues have nearly disappeared;
• damage is very spicky, and that is the only reason for someone to die;
• there is a lot of aoe damage;
• mobility can be a real issue.

Most of these points were not as strong, or even not existing at all before.

Spicky damage is obviously very bad from a healer point of view, it stops you from thinking, reduces your choices of spells and encourage you to constant healing spam. Even if your tank is full life, you will precast a heal, because if you wait for him to be half-life before you start casting a big heal, he could well be dead before your heal land.

Aoe damage is bad as a mechanism, it promotes spells like Circle of Healing that are no-brainers (no harm intended to the priests). It encourages behaviours such as Holy Light spam to get some raid heal (thx the glyph), which is the worst thing I've ever seen on the side of mana efficiency. It also promotes all the "fast" or "aoe" healers over the other ones on the charts, and I know you should not pay attention to them but too many people do. I've already discussed about overhealing and healign meters in a previous post.

Mobility can be interesting in fights, even if it's sometimes gimmicky, it adds variety to simple tank & spanks. Now ... mobility is very bad for some healers, especially paladins and shamans. And fights such as the end boss of the Nexus (don't say me Hodir, it's going to be worse) are very bothering (I don't say hard, I say bothering) for a "static healer". Promoting this kind of fights just tend to ostracize some classes.

Now the biggest point : where did the mana go ? Do you even see your mana bar going dry ? Ok, paladins are the best at mana endurance, so I'm not the best to tell, but seriously, every healer I've talked to or read is saying the same. Mana started to be a non issue at the end of TBC, which was a clerly pointed when Circle of Healing spam started to be something you can do. And now the "problem" is even worse. To the point that Blizzard is nerfing mana regen, but only out of casting (see this post on WoW Insider).
Going out of casting was a "trick" for priests and druids to get a few full mana regen ticks from time to time. Was is still used a lot ? Is it going to change much of the mana regen state ? I think not !
They buffed all the regen while casting with talents, making these ones even moer mandatory than before (if they were not enough already). All in all the net result is the end of this little trick which was often a sign of a good player. you can now spam your heals without thinking about timing at all (or nearly). Your mana regen won't change much.

Some discussion over the web.

Before going further, let me point you to a few other blogs, with very good articles I sincerely encourage you to read if you're interested into healing:

• a general post of Tobold on the state of wow healing : Has healing changed ?;
• a very nice post from Tobold on his blog about why long casting heals are out of the scope right now : Goodbye, Greater Heal;
• a good most about the mana-regen "nerf/change" in 3.1 by Sydera, from a druid perspective with lots of arguments on why it is bad design : A Druid’s Response to the Upcoming Change in Mana Regeneration;

So what are Blizzard answers ?

First, the mana regen nerf announced for patch 3.1(see this post on WoW Insider). I'll refer you to Sydera post just before who discusses that in depth, for a class much more affected by it than mine.

And now for my paladin and shaman friends let's grin with this piece of news on WoW Insider : Blessing of Wisdom and Mana Steam totem go exclusive. Some of the best mana regen buffs out of Replenishment are nerfed to not stack anymore. Even if it's another step to address the infinite mana problem, it's a bad step if you ask me. Why ? Because it's yet another nerf to the worst healing class right now ... A word of Lodur on that same point on World of Matticus. Yes, it's a really sad thing and another step towards reducing diversity between classes.

Are these changes going to the right direction ? I think not !

The nerf of the mana regen through spirit, and the removal of the Blessing of Wisdom, Totem of Mana Stream, are steps to go even more towards int over spirit. Intellect is already a much better stat for Paladins, but it wasn't for tree druids and holy priests up to now.
These changes are obivous nerfs for tree druids and holy priests, if that will perhaps reduce their strength, and make other healers less pitifull in comparison, that is not the right way to go.
Holy priests will just be replaced by discipline priests in raids if they start to have too much mana issues (Disc Priests already stack intellect over spirit). And tree druids will have to use mp5/int over spirit ... which will just be a nerf for them in the end, going against the design.

The real reason behind all of that ? There is one !

Mana regen through spirit was too strong, so they nerf it. They decided to make Replenishment (which is based on your mana pool, so int) a mandatory buff for raids, so they nerf all other forms of mana regen (which was mp5, so independent from int).
In the end, your mana regen depends on the same stat as your mana pool : Intellect is the kind, and spirit disappear into history. This is a bad design choice, reducing player choices and classes diversity, even more...

Patch 3.1 Ulduar PTR testing, part 10

Lots of news from the PTR this morning, Ulduar testing is still going strong. As usual I'm linking specific news from the always top:

MMO Champion - Tier 8 Sets - Final Model Preview
with an updated gallery of the Tier8 armors, yay for paladin robe !

World of Raids - 3.1 PTR: Freya Testing, 3.1 PTR: Ignis the Furnace Master Testing
also on on WoR numerous great videos of most of the bosses tested up to now
Updated Ulduar Testing Schedule for March 10th, Ulduar Boss Videos

To finish, here is the schedule for Ulduar tests in the coming days:

On the North American test realms:

• Hodir - Tuesday Night, March 10 at 7pm EDT/4PM PDT.
• Mimiron - Wednesday Night, March 11, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
• Ignis the Furnace Master - Thursday Night, March 12, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
• XT-002 Deconstructor - Friday Night, March 13, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
• Kologarn - Saturday Night, March 14, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
• Flame Leviathan - Sunday, March 15, starting at 2pm EDT/11am PDT.

On the European test realms:

• Auriaya - Wednesday Night, March 11 at 19:00 CET.
• Mimiron - Thursday Night, March 12 at 19:00 CET.
• Thorim - Friday Night, March 13, at 19:00 CET.
• General Vezax - Saturday Night, March 14, starting at 19:00 CET.
• Flame Leviathan - Sunday Night, March 15, starting at 19:00 CET

More on Paladin state in 3.1

So yesterday I wrote a post on the evolution of paladins in the healing game (Arena & PvE) from the latest patch notes for 3.1.
I'm going to add a bit of weight to this post, just because in case some people read me, I'd be very sorry for all holy (and retribution) paladins if I see all of these change go live.

I encourage you to read these two post from The Suicidal Zebra:
*Sigh*
More 3.1 Commentary, or 'Because I Wasn't Very Rational Last Time'

The analysis is from a retribution paladin this time, so expect more on the ret talents. But nevertheless, the strong nerfs of holy are not forgotten, and I do share these thoughts.

The Sacred Shield nerf is a pretty hefty nerf to Holy PvE healing, and couples with the nerf to the Glyph of Holy Light (which cannot crit) and Infusion of Light (no more reduction to HL casting time) to make Paladin AoE healing much more difficult than at any time since 3.0 hit. This may well detrimentally impact on the viability of taking Holy Paladins to certain Hard-mode 10-man encounters in Ulduar, but the specifics of the encounter are important. Other raid healers in 25-man encounters should be able to make up for Paladin deficiencies.

Holy has been battered with the nerf bat this patch, and Ret will be dead for all intents and purposes. The fall in Paladin representation in Season 6 will be spectacular, and I doubt they'll reach even Season 3 levels thereafter. There's PvE to look forward to I guess, that is if they actually boost Ret's DPS and/or Holy are actually capable of dealing with the raid-wide damage.

These are very very valid thoughts, and this sentence does really frighten me, even if I can see the sad truth behind it: Paladin AoE healing much more difficult than at any time since 3.0 hit. This may well detrimentally impact on the viability of taking Holy Paladins to certain Hard-mode 10-man encounters in Ulduar

Keep faith my fellow paladins ... all hope is perhaps not yet lost.

Wotlk tanking & healing state (prequel)

I've written a post before on the state of tanking in WotLK and why shield block is currently a broken mechanic from the past.
I'll write another on healing soon, pointing at the problems I see in healing at the moment and why it has nothing to do with thinking anymore. As an appetizer, you can read a very nice post from Tobold on his blog : Goodbye, Greater Heal.

Enlightened Judgements Nerf, why so much druid love ?

This will be a bit of a rant on the evolution of the Holy Paladin class in both Arena & PvE.

Ok, so Ghostcrawler, our always favourite crab, came on the forums to calm a little bit of the druid QQ happening in Arean season5.

Judgement of Justice vs. Druids
We are concerned about JoJ vs. druids. We have a change coming up (or maybe it's out already) that will improve the situation from the druid POV, but it isn't shifting breaking JoJ.

"Are you talking about no 40 yard JoJs from holy paladins, or something else? The enlightened judgements nerf isnt on the PTR (I don't think...) but it is in your updated patchnotes."
Yes, that's it. We originally extended the range for Holy paladins so they could hang back to heal and still judge, but a 40 yard range JoJ is pretty brutal to druids. We think its is going to be a lot less of an issue when the paladin has to run up to snare you. This in turn should let druids run away and drink or heal. We don't think this change alone will provide the big buff Resto druids may be looking for. But we also think it will definitely be felt.

Ok, druids are not shining in season 5, but oh man weren't they the gods of the arena during season 3 and 4 ? I don't see them worse than priests by the way. It's just due to two simple reasons, that have nothing to do with class balance:

• damage is too high
• resilience is too low

If the first won't change, the second will with the incoming seasons, and will mitigate the first. I predict you the return of "invincible healers" relatively soon in season 6.

Now druids were so strong before that Blizzard partly designed a whole class to conter them, namely DKs.
With patch 3.1, DKs see their hot removal skill changed to s simple dps, so no more hot removal for druids.
Now holy paladins see the only skill preventing the "shapechange flee drink" nerfed too, so that druids can no longer be prevented to escape you unless you stun them.

If I agree that holy paladins are too numerous in the arena (but then, why hunters are not singled out the same way ?), this is not due to the fact they are too strong, it is due to the fact that they are the only healers not being smashed to dust in 15s by a 2 dps burst team ... but he, bubble removal added to the warriors, nerf of Sacred Shield and judgements, nerf of the fast Holy Light on a Holy Shock crit. Several of our mains tools for the arena are being strongly nerfed.
Ok, ok, you won't see much Holy Paladins in arena play again Blizzard, just lets repeat the same as during BC and we'll be nice and wait for the next expansion ... probably in another game, if you don't want us to play WoW.

To add salt to the wound, one of our best PvE skill gets nerfed badly too. Quoting our loved crab:

Sacred Shield
Sacred Shield was possibly only a problem in PvP on the larger teams (or for rage generation, but we fixed that separately). It was really a PvE problem because the damage prevention was really starting to add up in Ulduar. We know this was supposed to be one of the answers for how paladins can "group heal." However, you shouldn't need to do a ton of group healing in raids, and in PvP or heroic dungeons, you should still have enough tools to manage: fast heals, the HL glyph, Beacon, etc.

Yay ! Our only spell really effective when a lot of raid damage was going to happen is now ... limited to our tank.
Ok perhaps it was a bit too strong in Ulduar, but I really don't like that sentence "However, you shouldn't need to do a ton of group healing in raids". When aoe damage stacks, paladins are the less desirable healers. When fights require a lot of mobility (Hodir anyone?), paladins are the less desirable healers. Removing our single best raid tool is a sad thing. The only real strength of paladins right now is mana efficiency, and mana is a non-issue for the moment, so paladins are sadly the less desirable healers in WotLK up to now. Looking at such comments from a lead designer does make me grim for the future too.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate druids. But looking at how they are loved and we are nerfed (I don't want to use hated but that feels like that) doesn't make me a happy paladin.