Friday, September 17, 2010

Prot Pallys . . . The Next Generation

Just in case any of you don't know, the PTR for patch 4.0.1 (a.k.a the pre-Cataclysm patch) is available. This is the patch that will bring all of the class mechanics changes, as well as, the new talent trees that we have all been so fervently debating since the NDA was lifted.

A small aside

There has been a considerable amount of "sky is falling" sentiment on the forums over the way HoPo (Holy Power) has been shoe-horned in and how Grand Crusader procs conspire to destroy the protection paladin's beautiful and elegant 969 rotation. I have mostly tried to avoid commenting on how the rotation felt because I wasn't in the beta, so I didn't really know. I didn't feel there was any reason for me to just regurgitate here what other people were saying. I have made a post or two about how we can map out the "rotation". But have tried to spend my (often infrequent) posts on things that were not opinion, but were hard dataz.

Also, I do really like the new "power auras" that Blizzard has added to the game, but they need to add one for when paladins are at 3 HoPo (more about this in a moment).

What it is

For those who have been living under a rock, Paladins now have a secondary resource called Holy Power (HoPo) and here is how it looks in the UI.

HoPo

HoPo UI

How it feels

Between my raiding schedule, and other, real life, issues, I haven't been able to spend as much time on the PTR as I would like. However, last night, i got to spend about an hour beating on taget dummies in trying to get comfortable with our new "rotation". This is all in reference to the single target "rotation". I'll have a later post to discuss the AOE "rotation".

My initial thoughts . . . it is mostly okay.

It doesn't feel as "clunky" to me as it first did. And it certainly doesn't feel as "clunky" as it looks on paper. It mostly feels awkward when you get the rare two GCDs in a row with everything on cooldown and without a Grand Crusader proc.

I have a couple of ideas that could go a long way toward fixing this spec, though.

First, as I mentioned above, Blizzard have added a ingame "Power Auras" functionality to the game. I think this is great! But they need to add a "Power Aura" for whe you get 3 HoPo. The one big drawback to the way the "rotation" works now, is that you really have to watch your action bars to know which button to push when. As a result, you can easily miss the fact that you are at 3 HoPo (since the default unit frames are nowhere near the default action bars).

Next, either Grand Crusader needs to proc more, or one of our 15 sec cooldown abilities need that cooldown lowered. I think adjusting Grand Crusader is the better way to go. I found that I never remembered to cast Avenger's Shield unless I:

a) hit a patch of two GCDs with nothing to do, or

b)had Grand Crusader proc

When Avenger's Shield would just come off cooldown naturally, I found I would forget to use it right then (even though I probably should just to reduce the chance that a Grand Crusader proc is wasted.

There are two ways Blizz can go about this:

1. Increase the proc rate from 20% to 30-35%

2. Leave the percentage at 20%, but add Judgement to the list of spells that can proc Grand Crusader

I prefer option 2 above.

That is all for now. Comments?




Tuesday, September 7, 2010

PVP -- Alliance versus Horde and the Vengeance Battlegroup

Months . . . I mean Years Behind.

I spent pretty much all day Sunday and part of Monday PVPing in battlegrounds and Wintergrasp.  It is the first serious PVP I have done in the entire expansion (I am years behind, I know).  The last time I PVP'd this much, was around the end of BC, when I was PVPing like crazy on my druid.  Most people will tell you that many things have changed in PVP from the end of BC until now, but I argue that it is really just "more of the same".

Every Battlegroup is different.

Now, I know that every battlegroup is different, but on Vengeance Horde owns all battlegrounds except Alterac Valley (Alliance wins about 85% of AVs, don't ask me why).  On Monday, I did Random Battlegrounds for 4 1/2 hours straight (yes I played WoW most of the day on Labor Day), and still hadn't won one . . . single . . . battle.  It was pretty pathetic.  So pathetic, in fact, that I had to log off for a little while just to get away from it.  I came back a few hours later and finally won ONE battleground (and barely at that) to get the daily random competed.  One thing that I noticed that boggles my mind is the fact that Horde is just more organized than Alliance.  They run together, work as a team, generally have good healers, you know, all the things it takes to win in group play.

The family that stays together, OWNS! 

Why is it that, on my battlegroup anyway, Horde are very good at staying together and moving as a cohesive unit, and Alliance just run around looking for something to hit?  It is not uncommon to see Horde players split up into sub-groups and move together all over the battlefield.  I haven't rarely seen a solo Hordie in a battleground.  I never run into one, but generally 4+.

Go for the Healers first!

A lot of people don't like to admit this, but healers are the key to winning in organized PVP.  In the Vengeance battlegroup, it is not uncommon for Alliance to queue up for a Battleground and very have few healers.  I got a Warsong Gulch yesterday with literally NO healers in it.  Where as the Horde had three very solid heals.

Another thing I need to know is why, more often than not, do I witness Alliance players blindly pounding away on a prot warrior, instead of his pocket healer?  In my experience, Horde players do not have this same problem.  Kill the healer, kill the team.

The law of averages.

It just boggles my mind that there is such a difference in mentality between Horde and Alliance when it comes time to PVP.  I mean, there are sensible, intelligent people playing on both sides, right?  Some people may say that the more mature people gravitate to Horde side, but I know that is not always the case, as I know several people on Alliance side that are good PVPers in their own right, and plenty mature (and I am ,of course, not one of them).  But everything that I learned studying Anthropology tells me that if you take a group of people as large as a WoW battlegroup is, and divide them into two groups, there should be a pretty even split between the two in ability to perform a specific function, unless you divided the group based on the ability to perform said function.

I think an Anthropologist or Sociologist would have a field day trying to explain the phenomenon that I witnessed over the weekend.