#1 - Oct. 31, 2011, 8:34 p.m.
*Note: all this analysis is taken from an end-game point of view, not benefits while leveling.
*Other Note: I'm a PvE player, not a PvP player so I'd love to get a perspective from someone who PvP's at high ratings. I mention some PvP, but only in the really obvious PvP tiers and only in small amounts. I really do want to hear the PvP perspective on balance and things.
level 15 - I really like this tier of talents! I think this is exactly the kind of thing they should be trying to achieve on all 6 levels. You get to choose between 1) a CD with slightly higher run speed and a utility heal 2) medium speed increase with 50% up time (or whenever a healer needs) 3) or a flat 10% per holy power. This totally fits their "whatever play style you prefer" goal.
level 30 - Now we start running into a little problem. This tier is somewhat the illusion of choice. This is a PVP tier pretty much. There are interesting choices for PVP players here. Do you want CC, stun, or slow? That's very good. But for PvE, it's not as dynamic. Seal of Justice is a PVP talent, completely. No PvE player would take that over having another CC for your group or a 6 second stun because of the DPS loss of switching to that seal. So now the choice is really 1 of 2 instead of 1 of 3. Then you just need to think about whether your group needs another CC and if the mobs you'll encounter in your playstyle will be stunable. The choice is made for you by the situation, not you get to make the choice.
-- My best suggestion to make this a little more dynamic of a choice for PvE would be to give Seal of Justice some PvE utility. Perhaps it makes consecrate slow targets instead of white damage. If that's imba, perhaps a slow to hammer of righteousness for prot, divine storm for ret, and conc for holy. Either way, you have to give some kind of slow that's useful in PvE in exchange for the damage/healing/mana we lose by switching seals.
Level 45 - This tier is pretty strange to analyze. Obviously sacred shield and Ardent defender are both awesome talents for prot and that provides really great choice. However, again, it's kind of a choice of 2, not 3 (unless they remove the CD on word of glory in which case Holy power becomes much more useful for prot survivability. If that's the case, all 3 are interesting choices. Regardless, blessed life is at least useful for the damage increase on farm content and DPS races. Not to mention questing, etc.) Really it's a good tier for prot. But what about ret and holy? Well the only time I could see ret or holy taking AD is on a fight with an Algalon style mechanic where the group needs someone who can live through a massive hit, or to eat a cleave off domo heroic. Sacred shield is one of those things that as a DPS or a healer, you really shouldn't need. It could be great for a fight like Chimaeron, but that's about it. Really, 90% of rets and holy players will take blessed life for all the situations where the extra holy power provides more dps and more healing.
-- perhaps make ardent defender do 20% reduction for prot, 20% dmg for ret, and 20% healing for holy. this makes it a choice between, extra holy power, survivability, or an extra CD. This just seems more interesting for ret and holy than it is now.
level 60 - This tier is AWFUL. Does "friendly target" mean not self? If not, that's prot's only sane choice. If so, there's no good talents for prot here. Eternal glory is basically the only option and it's pretty crap unless word of glory's CD goes away like it used to be. Using our holy power to shield others means less survivability/threat/damage from us. It's not our job to heal the group. And selfless healer is out of the question because there's no cast time reduction. For ret, I have to wonder why templar's verdict isn't included in Eternal glory (even if you have to reduce that spell specifically to a lower percent for balance). Ret won't have light of dawn and they won't be wasting holy power doing word of glory. Again, selfless healer is out because of the cast time. So they're stuck with holy shield which is a waste of damage doing something that's not their job. Holy is the only spec that has an interesting choice here. Selfless healer is great, but requires frequent judgements. That's a good trade and an interesting talent. Or they can have the 30% chance to get Holy power back or they can get another spell that does shields instead of heals with their holy power. This is a great tier of choice for holy, but completely crap for ret and prot.
-- I just think this tier needs to be completely rethought with all 3 specs in mind, not just tweaked.
level 75 - This is a pretty lackluster tier for PvE. ESPECIALLY, this late in the tree!! Again, it's an interesting choice for PvP. Do you want a group hand of freedom, shorter CD and an OP cleanse, or the paladin version of Preparation? All could be useful for PvP, but it's not much for PvE. I'm not completely sold on how useful veneration will be because consecrate can't move with you the way hand of freedom can. True, it's raid wide, but it just seems lackluster. Cleanse removing movement impairing effects isn't really something that comes up much in PvE and having a 4 minute CD on BoP instead of 5 is meh. Clemency seems to be the only sane PvE choice for all three specs unless there is a specific fight where veneration will be useful. But again, this isn't the type of dynamic choice this new talent system was intended to create.
-- Make these have better PvE viability so it becomes a choice between three things we really want, not three things that if we didn't have any wouldn't be a big deal.
Level 90 - This is a pretty decent tier worth of choice for two of the three specs. Holy avenger turns guardian of the ancient kings into an even bigger CD allowing us to spam our holy power dump like crazy. The weakest I'd say would be prot as we only have a damage ability and a heal with a CD to spam. Plus, it's already our shield wall, our least vulnerable time, I'd like more survivability elsewhere, not when I'm my strongest. Sanctified Wrath seems really good making avenging wrath even more powerful for holy and ret, but again, prot is not as simple because we're not a dps or a healer and so avenging wrath is just a nice spell on the pull and a nice little dps/threat booster. It's not one of our best CD's because it's not related to survivability and this talent doesn't improve that. Making judgement spamable sounds really good in a situation where I need to pick up a lot of adds fast, but with misdirect, tricks, and the changes to threat, that's not really a big deal anymore. So it's basically just another dps increase like Holy Avenger was and once they theorycraft which is more, that's what I'll take. I just don't like that this is the last tier and there's not a single talent which improves survivability for prot pallies yet all three provide dps increase for ret and an HPS increase for holy. Divine purpose suffers the same flaw as Eternal glory, it's RNG. Also, does it stack for the healers with eternal glory, because 45% chance not to use holy power sounds a bit imba.
-- My suggestion is to give prot a survivability spell that uses holy power (hint: New Holy shield!) so that Holy Avenger fits in line with the other two specs.
I know this thread was long and I thank anyone who read all the way through. I'm not pretending to be the begin all, end all of paladin knowledge. This was just general analysis of the new talent trees from a long time veteran. I'm sure there are areas where I'm very right and areas where I'm quite wrong. Please feel free to rebut, critique, or make suggestions about these talents and how they can be improved. I really do like the potential of the new talent system. I just don't think they're not there yet with 3 useful talents for all 3 specs in all 6 tiers.
