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wherein mah pally throws caution to the wind…
well, i feel a bit better about the emerging new and improved holy paladin, after reading this:
I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t expecting this. With the release of the new 31-point talent trees in the latest beta build of Cataclysm, I immediately realized that the paladin trees were woefully out of date. It was simply another cycle of news without any real information about what was in store for holy paladins. We were promised a major redesign, but it felt like Ghostcrawler, lead systems designer, was simply playing as the Wizard of Oz. We were told that big things were happening but that we shouldn’t look behind the curtain.
A seemingly innocuous developer chat on Twitter changed all of that. While their informal Q&A sessions on Twitter often provide unique pieces of insight into the minds of the developers, they very rarely served as a source for any sort of serious information. Last week’s BlizzChat broke that mold, and some revolutionary paladin information was shared with the world. Paladins are gaining a new resource in addition to mana: Holy Power. While my fellow paladins argued between the names “Holy Powah” and my submission of “HoPo,” the fact is that this is the most major change to paladin design since we were introduced into the game.
though i still plan to switch to horde, come cataclysm, so that i can level up through the new and improved vanilla wow, i’m unsure what will become of my little pally. i’m torn on whether to move her horde side or leave her where she is. my current plan has me leveling my horde shaman to 80, so that i have at least *one* level 80 on the horde side and then leaving the paladin where she is. it’s good to know, whichever i choose, though, when i do play her, she’ll be rockin’ with her new talent tree.
The holy power mechanic further cements paladins as the “melee healer,” especially when we look at restoration shaman.
i’m really liking the “melee healer” aspect, too. back in the day, i was most comfortable being on top of the tank in melee range. for one, it became clear to me very quickly that the smartest move was to always follow the tank. if i stay with them, i’m much less likely to pull wandering adds and, if i do, it’s much easier for them to pull them off me, if necessary. (secretly, i like tanking adds while healing, but i absolutely *hate* dying while doing it.) also, it’s much easier to just run in with the tank, rather than waiting to see where the tank is going to be and then positioning myself at range. i suspect this was born of 2-manning and 3-manning a gabillion instances (something i miss doing. a lot. see: my pally now soloing half of bc, just because.).
over time, my play style changed to a more cautious approach and i began standing at range more and more often - (usually to be out of the way of cleaves or *ahem* other players who drag all sorts of nastiness on top of you, which isn’t exactly helpful if you’re the main healer) and that’s okay, too! but with the new changes, it appears that my natural inclination to ~throw caution to the wind~ and rush in won’t be a bad thing and just may be most beneficial. ~yeehaw!~ 
*reminds self to not out run the tank* been there, done that, have the deaths to prove it! ;o
warcraft cataclysm - *proposed* paladin changes
wowhead posted the proposed paladin changes and, though i’d read over them, i hadn’t had time to post about them. i’m only concerned about changes affecting holy paladins, so if you’re a tankadin or lolret, you’ll want to go read the full listing of pally changes.
new spells:
Blinding Shield (81)
Damages and disorients nearby enemies, possibly only the ones facing the paladin’s shield (similarly to Eadric’s Radiance). Holy paladins will have a talent to increase Blinding Shield’s damage and critical strike chance, while Protection will have one that makes it an instant cast. 2 seconds cast. Requires: Shield.
ok, that sounds like fun and a bit of added dps is always a good thing!
Healing Hands (83)
The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. The spell has a short range, but also relatively long (compared to the instant healing spells) duration, which should allow paladins to use this when they expect to see AoE damage and continue using their good ol’ heals.
in theory, i like the idea, it sounds similar to the “glyph of holy light”: “Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 8 yards of the initial target.” it remains to be seen how short a “short range” is. it’s hard enough to keep myself standing amidst everyone else (i like to stand off by my lonesome), so now i’ll need melee or ranged (whichever group i’m closest to) to stack themselves near me.
Guardian of Ancient Kings (85)
Summons a guardian that works differently depending on the paladin’s spec (it also looks like the winged angel-like creature from WarCraft III’s Resurrection spell). 30 seconds duration. 3 minutes cooldown.
o Holy: Heals nearby wounded targets, preferring the ones with lowest health.
o Protection: Absorbs some the incoming damage.
o Retribution: Attacks nearby enemies (like Summon Gargoyle).
that actually makes me laugh. i can remember, when i was a little paladin, joking about all the cool spells that paladins should have: “gateways to heaven” - allowed the paladin to port, “manna from the gods” - special paladin food, and “the light’s avenger” - a paladin pet, among others. so YAY, i get a pet :D (hey, blizzard, i remember requesting moving sidewalks, as well, cuz running all over azeroth made my pally feet tired. get on that, will ya?)
warcraft cataclysm healer changes - more stress, moar fun?!
wowhead has it’s cataclysm class changes guide put together, though paladin changes won’t be released until april 16th.
as my main is a paladin, i’m really only interested in those changes; however i read through changes to druids and priests to see what the overall philosophy behind any healing changes might be. it should be noted: i hate changes to my class. always have. i just get it figured out and they go and change the game on me. some changes have, of course, definitely been positive ones (ask me about leveling as holy without consecration, etc - *shudder*), so while i’m resistant to change, i’m open to the ~possibility~ that the changes might not completely suck…
This is what we’re trying to do. On live today, druids are balanced around healing in tree form, meaning they give up a lot of utility just to be as good as other healers. When Tree of Life is a cooldown, then you’ll be balanced healing in night elf, troll, worgen or tauren form, and then you’ll be more powerful when in tree form. The nice thing about cooldowns is the difference can be pretty significant while active.
I’ve said this before, but we don’t think giving up everything (hyperbole, but you get the idea) to go into a dps form is that big a sacrifice, because you’re being compared to and presumably want to fill the role of classes and specs that do nothing but dps. It’s not a big deal for a druid to give up healing to dps like a mage, because the mage can’t heal.
But giving up abilities to heal is tough when priests, paladins and shaman don’t have to. If this was a single player game, we’d probably do something like say druids have to fully commit themselves to healing, but if they do, they’ll be 10% better at healing than any other class. In an MMO, it doesn’t feel fair to do that. So instead you make sacrifices just so you can heal as well as everyone else. But that ends up feeling unfair, so we give you most of the abilities you’d typically ever want to cast, and pretty soon the Tree of Life talent is just changing your visual. If it was super compelling gameplay, we’d probably be talking instead about ways to keep it.
well, ok. honestly, i hate druid healing for 3 reasons: 1) i’ve 5 years of playing a paladin healer, so druid healing is hard to switch to, because i’m just not comfortable waiting on a hot, 2) i HATE loltree form, because it’s ugly, and 3) you can’t do anything in tree form BUT heal. so okay, i’m good with removing that form. yay.
but 2 things:
1) druids are struggling “just to be as good as other healers”? really? i’ve been outhealed by almost every single druid healer that i’ve been in a raid with. and blizzard wants to boost that more? seriously?
2) i ran with a druid healer in a group tonight who never used their tree form. not only were they able to keep the group healed, but they were pushing out over 1500 dps on almost every mob fight. yes, i’m aware that’s low for dps; however, it made my inner-paladin cry. for tbc, holy paladins had received a dps boost that made me weep with joy. then came wotlk and i’m lucky to do 800 dps if i try *really hard*. ya think we could even that up a bit, perhaps? as a healer, obviously i don’t expect to pull the same dps as a dps class, but it’d be nice to do something more than give a mob a hangnail.
the thing that concerns me the most, though, when reading through the druid and priest guides is this: blizzard wants healing to be more FUN! so they are increasing the cost of healing spells (along with dispells) and decreasing mana regen bonuses, so that healers will have to play *smarter* about what spells they’re casting.
i gotcher phat lewtz…
How are loot-based games like World of Warcraft, Torchlight, and Borderlands related to slot machines, chemical bliss, and evolution? Read on for the answer.
...
To answer that question, let’s consider slot machines and a type of brain cell called “dopamine neurons.” The latter are the bits of your gray matter responsible for monitoring levels of the pleasure-inducing chemical dopamine in order to regulate behavior and figure out how to get more of a good thing. It’s these cells that light up when something nice happens in your life (say a delicious Hot Pocket or a fuzzy puppy belly) and triggers a gush of the neurotransmitter dopamine. But what’s more, dopamine neurons play the role of trying to predict the rush from nice things, and they may fire before you actually encounter them. Given a couple of chances, they’ll learn to light up when you hear the microwave timer beep that precedes your delicious Hot Pocket. This is a pretty useful thing as far as evolutionary advantages go, since it clues you in ahead of time that something good is in the vicinity.But this is only part of what makes loot-based games work so well.
Read more at Phat Loot and Neurotransmitters in World of Warcraft.
I WON A FROZEN ORB, FUCK YEAH!
... it’s the little things
~teh guild~ r0xx0rz!
web series: the guild
it’s *just like* WoW. sorta. in game, of course, none of us is this nerdy.
at all.
STOP LOOKIN’ AT ME!
watch this:
“you can’t log off from your own life.”
“like my helm? it’s a plus 5 sexterity. get it? it’s like dexterity, but sex…in the front. like a prefix. i’m kind of a linguist.”
“you use your real name for your avatar…interesting.” “yeah, well i tried an alias on another game, but my kid picked it up and started callin’ me mominatrix. my husband got pissed.”
“don’t corpse camp that idea, it’ll never rez”
arin stuff:
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