Community Manager
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As I understand it, the first change to turn Holy Shield into 5% block chance was just the first half of what they wanted to do. Imagine that the second half was giving diminishing returns to block chance, which would mean Holy Shield would be rather valuable as a source of undiminished block. This was very well put, and leaves me with little more to say.
Without a doubt. It bears repeating that game designers, producers, developers and executives read threads like these. When a conversation steers away from discussion about the game and into assertions about motives, that can cause them to move on to another thread. |
#61
6/22/2011
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Edited by Percarlo on 6/22/11 1:39 PM (PDT)
Perhaps it is time for Blizzard to stop providing secondary justifcations for their changes (nerfs) to classes. I mean, are they really that thin skinned that they need to justify a change that they felt was necessary by saying "some" players requested the change in some indirect and convoluted way? Sure, some players may have told Blizzard that they would like more challenge to playing a protection paladin....and somehow that became a request for a "more dynamic" feel to playing a protection paladin....personally I dont see how adding another defensive cooldown to a class with a sufficient number of them already makes the class more "dynamic". It just seems like a nonsequittur to me. The change does NOT make pally tanking any more dynamic, it merely renders the use of holy shield more tenuous.
How does making a revised defensive cooldown active rather than passive make the class more dynamic to play when the EFFECT of the new version of the ability is HARDLY noticeable? Seriously....I really believe someone is evacuating into the wind and telling us that is it raining. It strains credibility. Just make the changes and dont try to sugar coat them with meaningless drivel. |
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Edited by Feandel on 6/22/11 1:56 PM (PDT)
Yes Mith, they were/are completely unrelated at this point. The point of the current Holy Shield change is to add some additional level of "thinking" to the paladin tanking dynamics. Holy Shield was "auto-pilot" before, as was a large portion of the class. Now you can think about how/when to use Holy Shield and maximize its DR capabilities.
That being said, even in the optimal usage scenario, the outcome is pretty much exactly what paladins have now, meaning that for most paladins who don't adapt the HS change will end up being a minor nerf to over all damage taken metric. And I do mean minor...as in on a level that is bordering on statistically irrelevant. |
If you think the majority of players wont be doing Firelands you are sorely mistaken. The majority of players may not kill Rag or do hard modes, but will they at least try Firelands.
The average player wont notice a 4% damage taken difference, top tier players will. |
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You misunderstood on two levels. The first part is in reference to the DK "active" tanking method that they much prefer over the completely auto-pilot Paladin tank. This is what Holy Shield has become, an active tank defense ability for paladins. The second part is about why they chose not to follow through with their grand mastery revision plan. Too much testing, too much reworking, and ultimately a lot more work on the part of the community than they were willing to invest in for a "future" problem that hadn't even arrived yet in full. Finally if you'll re-read my post you'll notice that three word caveat: at this point. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess. Holy Shield may become an entirely different animal come 4.x or it may be exactly what it is now. What I can tell you is that it doesn't do ANYTHING about the problem with Paladin's and their mastery. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. At this time these two are completely unrelated. |
The "different but equivalent" version of critical block was probably intended to be shifted directly into our mastery until it didn't make the cut for 4.2. As far as the "copy of Shield Block" and homogenization arguments, keep in mind that there's not a lot of design space to work with there. If the goal is "short-cooldown mitigation tool," that basically means it has to buff armor, block, or damage reduction. As a shield tank, block is the most thematically appropriate; an armor buff would make more sense for a bear. Since warriors already have one variety of block (increased chance), we get the complement (increased amount). It's hard to think of any better way to differentiate it. The cooldown has to be about 20-30 seconds to be effective; any shorter and it's spammy, any longer and it gets lumped in with the long cooldowns. You could change it to armor or flat damage reduction like Divine Protection, but you don't want to for thematic reasons. The one thing I do wish they had done with it is include some of the old Holy Shield flavor. It'd be neat if it had charges and did reactive damage. As a simple example, if Holy Shield read: Holy Shield - Increases block value by 5% per charge for 20 seconds and deals X Holy damage for each attack blocked while active. Each block expends a charge. 4 charges. 30 second cooldown. It'd still serve the purpose of "short-cooldown mitigation tool" while maintaining a little more of the paladin flavor. X could be tuned to be small but relevant (or even a percentage of the amount blocked); 4 charges is probably way too powerful, but the number and value per charge could easily be tuned to get the desired effect (maybe 3 charges with 6% each or something). The downside of that implementation is that the benefit decays pretty rapidly if you're blocking a lot, and it would be weak in AoE. The upside is that you still get a tangible benefit if you get a lucky avoidance streak during its effect. But it's a little more distinct from Shield Block, if that's something that really bothers you. |
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Edited by Aribeth on 6/22/11 2:53 PM (PDT)
Prot Pally Mastery now also increases the healing done by your Word of Glory by the same percentage that it does for Block when used on yourself....? I meant Prot Paladin mastery. Don't be an ass because I mis-typed. So -- Right thread, wrong spec mentioned. Edited the original post and the quote. I know quite a few Prot Paladins who wish that Word of Glory had a bit more function, not that of a Blood DK's level, but at least something worth jamming 3 Holy Power into once in a while. A larger "absorb" because of perhaps an over-heal, or just a larger heal, scaling off the mastery at the same ratio that the block does - would make Paladins more Paladin like and not like Warriors. Which would accomplish Blizzard's goal while also re-adjusting "block cap" Say your mastery granted you +24% block chance or whatever - then when you use Word of Glory on yourself, it would be further buffed by the same 24%. However this is limited of course by your 20 second cooldown on Word of Glory making Prot Paladins able to throw in a few heals on themselves but nothing close to the level of a DK. |
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Thanks for the response Kaivax, these past few days we've gotten a lot of interaction with developers and we all miss that.
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Edited by Cphor on 6/22/11 3:18 PM (PDT)
Using his example: (though has been pointed out by several in the other thread that these damage numbers are woefully inaccurate) Before the HS change, and assuming you are keeping near 100% HS uptime Using DP along with the baseline block would prevent [1-(.6*.8)=.52] 52% of the physical damage and 20% of the magic = 36800 damage. Using Glyphed DP along with the baseline block would prevent 48000 damage. After the HS change Using DP by itself will prevent [1-(.7*.8)=.44] 44% of the physical and 20% of the magic = 33600 damage. Using Glyphed DP will prevent 44000 damage. Using HS plus DP [1-(.5*.8)=.6] 60% of the physical and 20% of the magic = 40k damage Using Glyphed DP plus HS = 52k damage So you'll take ~4k more damage than you do now any time you don't combine HS with another cooldown for a special attack Any time you do use HS before a special, you'll take ~4k less damage than you do now. 4k. That's even assuming you don't dodge/parry! And yet there are people arguing that this is a buff to our survivability during burst damage scenarios? Just face it. They wanted to nerf our static mitigation because they were afraid of exactly the kind of discussion that's happening here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2674642652 And that's fine, I just wish they'd tell it to us straight rather than trying to hide nerfs. |
