I have spent the last week thinking about the dev feedback for protection paladin, in regard to Avenger’s Shield, SotR, and Holy Power generation.
After spending that time, it has become evident that the protection spec does not work in a holy power constrained play style. Almost every meaningful talent is built around either using holy power or using Avenger’s Shield. The problem with this play style, is that it doesn’t make since. This direction forces Judgement to be the central Holy Power builder in AOE, which is going to feel terrible to play. Players are going to have to choose between SotR or Avenger’s Shield, and this is going to relegate shield to a filler ability. One of the most fun aspects of playing pally tank, is the synergy of everything working together to make the player feel strong and allow them to help their group. It also makes Divine Toll a fairly useless ability.
The solution is very simple:
- Avenger’s Shield NEEDS to generate holy power
5 Likes
The alternative, of course, is that Blizz removes the HP cost of SoTR and reworks it to be like it used to be: a short-lived but readily available defensive.
1 Like
If they choose that route, then blizzard will need to rework several other talents. Blizzard choose for every Paladin to be on the Holy Power system, and in doing so they made protection a high AM up-time spec. If they want to go back, then they need to completely rework the class and spec trees. Since that’s not going to happen, they need to lean into the strength of the SL Prot paladin with high SotR up-time.
1 Like
I’m okay with it not generating Holy Power “IF” and only if they actually make Prot Pal Tanky passively again. Prot Pal is supposed to be a Block tank but there are ZERO Block value nodes. So even if we do Block in DF we aren’t going to Block enough damage. Then with our low armor and HP it’s just bad from there.
Compared to Prot War that has Shield Specialization again 12% block and a big FAT 30% Block value. With Brace for impact Shield Slam increases dmg and Block value by 10% can stack. Also Prot can Crit Block so they will be dmg capped on Blocking.
I think Prot Pal design is just in between where it needs to be. Give Prot Pal some more Armor and Stam nodes. Give Prot Pal Shield specialization. I actually think Prot Pal mastery could maybe use a rework if they can’t do more for Consecration like have it follow the Prot Pal around and consecrate the ground beneath them.
TLDR - I’m not nearly as worried about HP generation as the design of Prot Pal to be so squishy when they don’t have Holy Power. I just want Prot Pal to be tanky standing there as they should be. They should be Tanky without active mitigation up like the other Tanks or even more so as a Shield Tank.
2 Likes
Would be great if SotR was reworked but would like an Absorb instead of Armor and buff up Prot Pal base Armor/HP and Block value. They should be a avoidance mitigation tank at base without active mitigation. Then use Absorbs to smooth things out.
If SotR is an Absorb then you don’t need uptime and the other talents that work when SotR expires makes sense now. Having SotR be Armor is just stupid and doesn’t work with what the Devs want to do.
1 Like
The entire talent system is built around building and spending Holy Power. They already have an answer to ‘feeling tanky’ by using talents like Sentinel. The talents simply don’t work together without it as the talent tree is built around building and spending Holy Power. If you push Mythic+, you fully understand how incredibly clunky the spec will be when you have buttons that you don’t press.
1 Like
When you don’t push buttons you should still feel fine though. I really hate how the game has been since the introduction of active mitigation and needing 100% uptime.
Realistically when they moved to the Haste model is when Tanking got worse. Haste shouldn’t reduce the CDs of abilities. Haste should have NOTHING to do with Tanking unless they want it to effect Dodge.
Active mitigation should have a 30% uptime and you only press it when you need it. However Prot Pal isn’t designed that way.
I also don’t like the you need to press a button every GCD. That also isn’t fun. I don’t need a 100 BPPM (button press per min) build. Like it’s okay if we only press a button every couple secs.
Tank design needs to get back to Mastery/Crit and having high avoidance mitigation Dodge/Parry/Block without pressing buttons. Some things should be free to use not costing HP in the rotation.
Prot Pally has a lot of work. Need big Armor/Stam buffs. Need Block value/Parry/Dodge buffs.
There is reason Method has put Prot Pally last on it’s priority list and doesn’t include them in raids. They need something beneficial to the raid at this point. Buff, something.