Paladin 4.0.1 - Do you like it?Follow

So now ladies and gentlemen, patch 4.0.1 is out and our class has been almost completely reworked. Lots of new things, mostly holy power points (HPP). I'm interested in what everyone's opinions are? Let us know your complaints and compliments on the newly reforged Paladin class.

Personally, I enjoy the changes to paladin. Its going to take a few days of playing to get used to all the changes of course, and we don't seem to be the gods of AoE tanking anymore. I noticed a little difficulty with consecration, i have it glyphed and the CD is pretty long, and doesnt really do an awful lot. However Hammer of the righteous and holy wrath seemed to make up for this loss once i get into a decent rotation with it, and Avenger's shield on a shorter CD with chance to reset CD also helped out extensivly. I like the changes in that my class is completly new to me again, but still has all that i loved and more.

[poll]
[question]How do you like the new paladin?[/question]
[choice]Love it. [/choice]
[choice]It's ok. [/choice]
[choice]Hate it. [/choice]
[choice]Rerolling because of changes. [/choice]
[/poll]

I only got to play my pala for about 3 hours, but it was very interesting to say the least. Alot of changes...

Likes:
Holy power is a cool concept. I like that my pala buffs are rolled together and work raid wide instead of class by class. I play mostly prot, so didnt mess with ret yet. I really like the changes to HoR and SoR. my SoR hits for like 15k crit w/ avenging wrath up. Holy wrath working on anything is oh so nice. MY single target threat has sky rocketed, whereas my AoE threat has fallen a little bit (might be cuz i dont have a priorities list setup yet), but i guess that gets us rdy for cata, when AoE isnt the #1 way to clear EVERYTHING.

Dislikes:
I dont really like some of the glyphs for paladin. The consecration glyph made the spell nearly worthless imo, and the patch made it pretty useless. The dmg is too low for the CD on it imo. I dont like being able to see how much dmg most of my attacks do, i dunno if its a glitch or not, but just has the skill description in the tooltip.

Overall, the changes are ok with me. I was starting to get pretty bored with paladin, but this patch made it interesting for me again, its new and fresh yet still the class i rock with.

It is both new and exciting. The ret and prot rotations will take a while to get used to, but i used to be teribad at wrath mechanics too.

I don't mind as much as I thought I would. I haven't healed in a raid environment yet (and won't until both Grid and Clique are fully online), but it seems like the new style is pretty similar to how I was healing heroics with WotLK mechanics - so it's just a matter of translating that to be useful when I'm being stretched. I think I'll adjust to the new healing spell mix easier than I will to the changes in utility spells (SS, raidwall, beacon).

Ret is better than I'd feared. AoE is no longer a strength, of course, especially on Waves-O-Skeletons, but trivial trash is trivial. My boss DPS might actually be up relative to pre-patch, since fully-charged TV hits like a truck. The priority system is an unholy mating of the 3.3 FCFS system and feral druid John F. Madden, but I'm one of those strange guys who /likes/ playing kitty DPS... And I'm pretty sure that experience with my cat is helping my learning curve.

Personally, I am not liking the new Holy Power at all. I'm all for mixing up the rotations and giving us something to do other than hit everything we have as soon as we can, but this feels too much like Combo Points to me. That's one of the biggest reasons I haven't leveled a Rogue much is I hate Combo Points. Also, it seems that Prot hasn't been compensated enough for the nerf to its AE threat generation (combined with DPS getting buffed). I haven't tanked in instances yet myself, but that's the word from others as well as what I have witnessed from Paly tanks I have run with since the patch. Going to take a trip to some Heroics as a tank soon, if not tonight then probably tomorrow.

Most people I've talked with aren't too happy with the majority of Paladin changes. I'm actually thinking of changing my main to my Shaman for Cataclysm because of these changes. That's something I never thought I'd say =/

History: My first toon was a prot pally. Lvl'd prot. Started April of '07 (sometime into BC). Still my main.

Honestly, I was getting bored of pally tanking. The worst thing we had to worry about was hitting Divine Plea not to run out of mana. I'm sitting with a gs of just over 5400 and had been into ICC once (for the first 4 bosses) so I haven't seen all the WotLK content, but really? 69696969696969696969696 meh.
I built a Enhance shaman over the past year and what fun she is! NO REAL SPELL ROTATION! Built on a priority instead of button mashing the next spell out. You actually had to watch which spells were up and when because of the Maelstrom Weapon proc would throw things off just that one beat. So after your first proc, it was off, and that second proc you were now on the off beat... kept you on your toes. Pally tanking? I could watch play after play of the 49'ers getting pounded and the worst that would happen was I would have to pop a mana pot cause I forgot to hit DP.

4.0
Pro's? Well, even though they have killed Defence, and made block a K, we still basically rely on the same stats. Our theorycraft shouldn't be too hard to figure out as far as that goes. The new display for your stats makes it really easy (mouseover your hit to see lvl 80 and up miss%). Same with other stats. Kinda cool for us that don't crunch the numbers and have loved EJ and all their work.
Our spell rotation? Out the window. Some say there is one, but I've yet to find it. My first instance was Anub. We ripped through that in about 15min, taking in all bosses. I lost agro a few times and had to hit up a target dummy to get a basis for a rotation. Then it was on to FoS (random runs), and we went through that in something close to 15 min also. I lost agro 3 times the whole run. Was pretty happy about that. Now I've been running a guildie through Ramps and BF pulling as much as I can and trying to keep agro on 15 to 18 mob pulls. FUN! In all, I start with AS, Judge, CS or HOR (pending on #of mobs and if I have aoe dps in group) Holy Wrath (loving the changes there) and Cons. Our single target agro is crazy with the CS/4pt SoR! Aoe is fairly easy to keep up with if you pull them all in with HW, Con and AS (love the shorter cd and extra proc!), though I don't like the 30 sec cd on Con. It does enough damage that between that HW and HoR you can keep the mobs on you even with a 6k/gs mage raining down Blizz, but it throws me off as I'm used to the cd being the same as the duration. I seem to hit 30k threat quickly and stay ahead of the dps as long as they are doing their job right, eg not pounding on the caster in the background. Though it reminds me like early Bear tanking in that I have gotten into the habit of tab targ to make sure I'm on top of omen on all my targets. If not I hit that one for a 6k (13k crits aren't uncommon) 4pt/SoR and I'm in the lead again. My guild/friends are doing a 10man Naxx run monday to test things out in a raid. We'll see how that goes. Easy Justice pts and learning (or re-learning) our classes.
Holy Power? It's what has made our class fun again IMO. Very much like a shaman and it's Maelstrom Weapon proc, it can throw off our rotation. The extra boom in SoR is hot! 13k crits are common, and build nice agro on the main target. The quick heal is ok... better on Ret if you spec into it as it provides a little added heal to say your MT and 4% damage for you. A nice dps increase. The chance to proc a quick AS is always nice. I tend to pop that off everytime the cd is up or it procs.
Holy Wrath. So cool. So many targets. I really should put that in the front of my opening spells as it hits mad targets and get's that inital agro to pull them in for the HoR hit (and it's wimpy aoe range). Casters are pulled in by our AS. So if you really want a 5+ mob pull, start with your HW, drop a Con and then HoR.

Con's? Well, I'm finding that even a spec'd Consecration is kinda lame. Low damage and high cd make it.... well lame. A glyph to help either of those negitives would be nice. HoR, well 8yrds is OK. I think I liked the 4 target bounce better though. You could hit targets outside of that 8yrd circle and bring them in to you. Making Holy Wrath hit everyone was a nice swap up for it... but a glyph to expand that 8yrds would be nice.

Don't understand? I never, and I mean NEVER run out of mana. I don't think I've seen it drop below 65%. Where is this mana balance thing that they have been talking about?

Over all I really like the changes. Going to take a little more time to get used to, but I like 'em. It keeps you on your toes, forces you to wait till most of your mobs are inside your "inner circle" (8yrd) to pop that HoR, and watch your agro on all targets so that a well placed SoR keeps that mob on you instead of the rouge who is cranking out the dps on a target you're not focused on. Off timed cds to make sure you're not burning that Con on the last 2 targets, or hitting that HW when you have a big pull coming up in 6sec and still keep the flow moving (like in CoS). Keeping agro means I miss a lot of the 49'ers game, and with Holy Power there is a flux in the spell rotation. Good stuff.
I know that we are OP for WotLK stuff, but that happens with every new release. Remember when you went from Vanilla to BC and the greens were way better? Or better gear in WotLK ment getting up to lvl 77 and we really started to see the difference? Blizz has been learning, and doing a better job.

Hates? When can we get a company to release a product that isn't broken? So many glitches. I'm not in a guild, but I'm the GM! Freezing on a loading screen, getting kicked in BG's to log back in and have a debuff for deserting? I spent 90 min getting that last 5pts in unarmed skill, and lost the Achiev! Pts and all! Something for my time would be nice!
"Mage, Shadow Priest, Destro Warlock, and PvP DPS is too high. Fury, Arms, Feral cat and Retribution DPS is too low." Via Ghostcrawler.... didn't you guys test it? Honestly, if it's not ready....don't release it! Higher more players to test, sponsor top guilds, give out more beta keys. We know it's going to change with the final release! I don't buy a TV with a broken black filter knowing that in 3 weeks I'll get a new one in the mail...
STILL, way less glitches than WotLK. Getting better guys. Looking forward to when all the bumps are ironed out, and then we can get pissed 'cause we can't log in with the release of Cat, and it will be fixed at 2pm pst.... I mean 4pst....LOL!

I don't think I'll be raiding much anymore, but in heroics the playstyle was fun but of course we're all overgeared for it now. My main focus will be PVP and I like how they gave us a spammable damage spell and crusader strike for totems. I'm pretty happy we can help out on kills now. I've watched so many arena videos and if you were watching say a disc priest or resto shaman they usually chipped in significant DPS on a burst attempt.

Now a better CC would be amazing, HoJ sucks as a form of crowd control compared to everything else, but at least we have some form of spammable DPS now so I'll keep playing holy pally, I might even level as holy with some of the DPS oriented glyphs and talents.

Playstyle felt smooth to me, I looked at mana costs for each spell and really have had 0 issues with mana yet so I'm still enjoying the holy paladin. Too bad my game is crashing faster then I can play anything.

From my experience with Retribution all this night, I can say that the problem Ghostcrawler sees with DPS is the spiking that takes place with the pop up buffs. There's points in time where you'll hammer two free, three point Templar's Verdicts in a row, a full 3 point TV, Art of War Exorcism and just for ***** and giggles, a Holy Wrath. Then ten seconds later you're starved for Holy Points as all you've got going on is Crusader Strike.

I... I don't even want to talk about Protection. I really don't. My Paladin is like five years old, and she's been Protection since level 10. She's been Protection since you leveled Prot because the reactive damage in Prot dealt more than your melee ever could. A part of me died in that patch as I lost a beloved friend.