“Stances” coming in Cataclysm?
Spoketh the crab:
It’s too early for us to have a ton of confidence in how this will play out, but I suspect it will more likely be something like [defensive stance, bear form, frost presence reduce crit chance by 6%] than talents or mastery.
Paladins would use Righteous Fury.
This works even better if resilience does not reduce crit chance. :)
So, how would this work exactly? There’s a lot of churning in that thread, because many are assuming that RF would stay as is and just have the crit chance reduction tacked on. Obviously that’s not how it’ll play out in Cataclysm because then Holy or Ret could use it as well.
Rather I expect to see RF get a damage and healing penalty added on to it if this is true and just the simple application of RF makes one crit immune. Which in turn would make a rudimentary stance system for Paladins.
Let’s not do half-measures though, GC, let’s go whole hog. Cataclysm is the perfect opportunity.
What do you all think about this development?
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@Orthien
17 February 2010 at 1:55 pm #
I really do hope they take the route you sugested in your older post and give us our own kind of stance in the Aura system.
Its different enough that its not copying Warriors or Death Knights while adressing some major problems the class has had since the beginging.
Hearing statments like this from Blues gives me hope that Cataclysm will finally bring about that era where Paladins can be strong without being “Over Powered”.
Orthien’s last blog ..Return to Ulduar
Even adding crit immunity to RF right now would not seriously imbalance things, I think. Unless a lot of top-geared Rets tanking heroics is imbalanced – and I’m sure a few people are doing that already. See also: DPS DK’s in Frost Presence.
I think it comes down to where they want the balance point to be. Trying to tank as Holy means trading off between your mana or health pool and always putting out crap TPS. Maybe there’s a bigger problem with Ret tanks, though they would have to trade off output for a larger health pool as well. Maybe the health pool updates in Cataclysm change this perspective?
I agree with your older post. I don’t see why they can’t adjust our auras as stances. I mean technically they are a stance in a fashion.
It would take some adjusting and it would really hurt some things when you have 3 ret paladins and you can no longer provide 3 different auras for the same dps they would put out. But I mean it’s cataclysm and it’s the time to make a change like this. Enough bandaid solutions to buffing and debuffing talents and spells we have had for years to adjust for a system that doesn’t function as well as it could.
oh also in regards to squaring away the resistance auras they could still function as a separate entity. How I don’t really know.
@Rhidach
17 February 2010 at 2:58 pm #
@Joe Ego: I think the bigger concern would be in pvp suddenly having every Healadin and Retadin being crit immune regardless of how much resilience they have. I can’t imagine Blizz would commit such an oversight though. You’re right, there has to be some kind of tradeoff.
@Senet: I’d like to see auras be handled like presences as well, but not sure how to square the resistance auras in with that, other than some deep-tree talent like the various Improved DK presences that give you some of the benefit of one presence while in another–so you could go Frost Resist Aura but remain crit immune, but not have the extra armor of Devo, for example.
That would be interesting, especially considering how often I forget to select an aura after swapping specs!
I would like to see Paladins moving back to more of a support roll. Using their blessings and auras in a support roll instead of a Stance roll.
I’m really in favor of just adding the crit immunity to RF. The reason I love playing a paladin is the lack of those stances. Every tanking class has it’s own thing, and not needing a stance is one of the paladin things. Making all tanking classes more homogeneous is the easy way out, removing all the enjoyment out of playing a specific class. Therefor the idea of lowering damage/healing with RF on is not a bad solution at all. It’s a (small) trade of damage vs survivability, that sounds like tanking explained in one sentence. In my book, it’s still not remotely a stance then, because it doesn’t change play style.
@Ridach – Remeber that “crit immune” in PvE is -6% crit. “Crit Immune” in PvP is much, much higher. Feral Druids already PvP with a “crit immunity” talent, so I don’t think that’s the problem.
Personally, I don’t want to have Stances on my Paladin.
What made Stances interesting for Warriors was the need to balance the cost (loss of rage) with the benefits (new abilities). Sadly, Blizzard has moved most of the benefits to either be usable in all stances (Berserker Rage, Charge via talents), So now, in PvE*, my Warrior virtually never changes stances. And if you never change stances, what’s the point?
*Yes, I still swap stances a bit in PvP, but even that is less than it used to be.
Give us crit immunity in Righteous Fury, with no downside. In PvP the buff can still be dispelled. In PvE Blizzard has said they aren’t opposed to allowing DPS spec Warriors, DKs, Druids, and Paladins the ability to tank heroics in Cataclysm. So if a Ret can drop a few points into improved Righteous Fury, he has already covered the biggest “I can tank this” cap.
@Orthien
18 February 2010 at 1:18 pm #
@ Daxlim and Dorgol
The point of switching us to a “stance like” system with Auras isn’t just to help out with Prot but it also helps Ret and Holy by having them mix less which is alot of why other people deem us overpowered and why we are always nerfed so quick when were on top of something. They would help greatly to fix the imbalance that was created in TBC when they gave a class that was only designed in their admition to only heal, the abilitys to tank and dps with no drawbacks.
@Rhidach
I really like that idea of a deep Prot talent to keep the crit immunity with the resistance auras. Ret and Holy would then probibly have a similar talent to allow then to keep there damage and healing bonus’s when they switch.
Thats If those Auras don’t work simultaniously with the 3 “Stance” Auras.
“but it also helps Ret and Holy by having them mix less which is alot of why other people deem us overpowered”
This makes no sense. Holy can only get over 1k DPS with t9 gear and effort. Ret might be able to heal better than Prot, but nobody is ever going to mistake it for Holy in output or longevity.
@Orthien
19 February 2010 at 1:20 am #
The issue is that paladin have strong healing and its improved far less specing Holy then and other Healing class is. This means that you end up with Tanks that can do decent damage and mild heals, DPS with strong heals and can tank adds with a strong healer. Some kind of stance system you stop that cross mix. Makeing lower damage and healing at the base level that are enhanced by specs and stances means we dont that crossover.