The Reckoning: Cataclypinion: Protability
WoW Blogs - The Reckoning Paladin Blog
Well it’s come to my attention that we’re stuck in a time paradox, where the class I hold dear keeps going back and forth back and forth. I mean, look at Protection, you gain ground you lose ground. They’re completely decimating our ability to AoE tank while reading the funnies, watching our favorite shows and messing around with the misses. Choo choo it’s time for us to put on our life jackets, we’re boarding the failboat again for this week’s edition of The Reckoning.
Looking forward we do have a lot to… look… forward… …to. I mean, we’re getting a crusader strike, more of that overpowered nukes that made Prot so special in the first place. Prot Ret, get out of the way. Just go straight Prot and let’s see how much the tears flow when my 15k shield of righteousness crit sends your Warrior to physical therapy. Let’s see how much your Orc Bro-storms in that wheelchair. Too much? Crap. We’re getting a lot of just outright buffs to burst. Hammer of the Righteous is seeing a massive buff. We’ve got Crusader strike, Shield of Righteousness, and Holy Wrath? Any more just straight damage and my pants aren’t going to be able to contain the absolute glory that is Protection and that wasn’t a joke about prophylactics, though you’ll need one after playing Cataclysm Protection. Listen up, because it only goes downhill from here.
Now that I have your attention, let us take a look at the facts. I better start with the defense aspect before someone cuts me. It’s happened before.
Ardent defender’s changing. Going from an passive instant resurrect to an active. Not a big jump there, but I really hope health is what they say it’s going to be, and that healing relative to the tank is going to be more of a concerted effort rather than if the healer takes a few seconds off and it becomes the midnight shift at a 24 hour diner bathroom on a Sunday morning. Not the most beautiful sights and someone’s regretting trading the grill for mop duty. But there is hope, the ability is being buffed substantially. A flat 20% damage reduction no matter what your health is at, plus the resurrect while the ability is active. Although, I don’t know if it’s a “Press x to not die” button, or in fact just going to resurrect you once, then a big middle finger while you instantly die afterward. I’ve seen the old ardent defender take a tank up to half health, but it might end up being a glorified whack-a-mole and your character begging just to die after being turned into a nail that just won’t go in by a Gronn named “Smackyu the Defiler of Sisters.” No, that club wasn’t made of wood.
Holy Shield, that’s changing. Imagine that, an ability that closely resembled a warrior technique only better being gutted. Really? Remember that split second in Wrath when they gave Paladins Mortal Strike? Now look at it, Crusader Strike is about as bland as a cheese sandwich. Made of cardboard. Kept together with bits of gelatinous acting from MadTV. Back on topic. Holy shield is becoming a passive- Wait, I really should keep on these things. It’s back to active, only as a triggered ability off of Shield of the Righteous and Inquisition, lasting 20 seconds. So now it’s been made WORSE than Shield Block, a passive ability given to warriors at what? 12. I thought the trend was to make abilities BETTER talented vs. other classes’ baseline. Seems like Blizzard threw us a bone here, but not quite the bone we were hoping for. Like an giving an orphan a watch just so he can count how long he DOESN’T have parents. But again, it’s a beta, so you can put your pitchforks away for now. Leave out the torches though, my failboat always seems to head some place dark.
I think the last thing I’m going to touch up on today. (I’m going to have an addendum as a parachute out of covering holy for another week) Is just the general feel for the spec. Look at it this way, it’s a beta, and I have no idea what’s going on until Blizzard mans up and gives me a damn invite. I was in the wrath beta, but it seems maybe I just didn’t praise the developers for a fine job making me feel overpowered for half of it. Hell, I soloed half the starter dungeons at 70, blew through it all like a weekend in Vegas with a roll of 100’s and a kilo of blow. It all went too fast, and when I awoke 3 days later I had to buy a shovel and one-way bus ticket to Juarez, but I digress. It seems pretty solid if a bit clunky with every ability and their bastard child requiring some form of Holy power, yet all the holy power generation is in Ret or Holy. Good going there, I’m sure we’ll rest so much easier knowing that’ll we’ll have to be strung out of drugs to hit the required billion and one crusader strikes it’ll take to get decent threat.
Any of you have any questions, comments, or hatemail(Again the most likely) address it to My contact page. I’m sure my secretary will be right on it.
Last Updated on Friday, 27 August 2010 13:33 Written by Drekai Thursday, 26 August 2010 04:07