In Vanilla versions of WoW, Salvation is a long term blessing that applies threat reduction flat for the entire period.
In Wrath, Salvation turned to a “hand” ability (which btw are superior to Vanilla’s versions as well) which is a single target quick buff that progressively reduces the threat of one target. It has a two minute cooldown.
This means paladins will be actively managing their co-raiders threat with a well placed Hand of Salvation every 2 minutes, instead of the entire raid just getting free 20% threat reduction no questions asked.
Salvation is one of the largest PVE advantages the Alliance has, and reducing the blanket effectiveness like this creates a much more level playing field for both factions.
Before you go saying I’m a horde main trying to sabotage, I’m maining Alliance in SOD and have been maining Alliance since Classic 2019
PS: Hand of Freedom/Protection/Sacrifice/etc are far better versions of the spell than Blessings.
Pasting my response from your original thread here…
Both end up in the same place, Horde would just have to “wait for sunders”. That’s where the management happens. You’ll always be butting up against that threat limit as Horde. I’d imagine skillful play is managing your resources so you don’t end up over-capping on anything and wasting potential, while still walking that line.
Alliance work differently… they can start damaging sooner and don’t have to monitor as much, but will do less damage overall.
Like I said, that’s the intent and assuming they were prefectly balanced in their respective approaches, it would be. I’m not saying they’re perfectly balanced though, just pointing out that as a game design mechanic, I like this… a lot.
For the WotLK Salv to work as it does, a lot of things have to change… a lot of things that make WotLK so very different from Vanilla. I realize SoD is also a different game, one not yet defined, but it’s branching from the Vanilla version of the game and not WotLK.
Agreed, and so I would expect Horde to get a Salv equivalent. I just don’t like the idea of homogenizing the two factions. I think there are other approaches!
You and I agree on this point. Once they gave druid Wild Strikes it completely fubar’d the original balance vanilla had. I’ve said this before but they need to give horde the TBC version of Bloodlust and make totems give players a 5 min buff when dropped to alleviate the positional requirements. Alliance would still be ahead but not by near as much.
You mean instead of Grace of Air? Also, what happens to the tank or can that group just not use it? I’m sure you can see why Traquil Air is not equivalent to Blessing of Salv.
I’ve often pondered how to make totems more effective and yet still distinct. Part of the core problem is that a single Paladin can buff an entire raid but you need a Shaman per group to provide something similar, but still inferior.
I think you’re on to something here though and I’d like to propose an addition…
What if a greater totem option became available that applied to the entire group, lasted 15 minutes, but cost a significant portion of the shaman’s mana (ie, 50%) to cast. Only one buff per Shaman.
This would allow the Shaman to choose one group-wide buff and then use their regular totems to provide additional buffs to just their group.
Yea this exists but as Yevon pointed out, you have to worry about it hitting the tank too. It’s very range dependent and hard to use effectively. Easier in raids but still a challenge. It also takes the spot of Windfury totem.
Blessing of Salvation is much easier to use and it’s also more effective (30% vs 20%).
If you look at that idea from a balance standpoint, my question would be why the large mana cost? I’m not aware of a similar mechanic pertaining to paladins but I could be overlooking something. Regardless, I like where you are heading.
I threw that in there so it would be cost prohibitive to rebuff during the raid and a counter-balance to being able to buff the entire raid with the click of a button… something a Paladin can’t do (only every player of a given class).
So the large mana cost puts the buff heavily in the camp of pre-pull prep and it would not be intended for mid-fight use, but they still have access to their standard totems so those buffs would remain.
It’s just a thought I had to try to balance it a bit, but lean into the asymmetry. I’m not saying it’s flawless haha.
I think you are missing the point. Traqui is not equivalent to Blessing of Salvation. Also, paladins now have a rune called Horn of Lordaeron that gives the equivalent of Grace of Air and Strength of Earth, furthering the advantage of the Alliance.
Oh thanks for explaining. I was stuck in totem thoughts thinking you would cast in combat. Makes a lot more sense now lol
Horde do have the same thing in the form of totems. Granted, it’s not typical that it will be dropped when there are better totems for that slot and would ease a lot of the issues in Classic with threat. I am hoping that with all of these changes we’re seeing to tanks and their abilities that threat will be more manageable across the board. Not sure Salvation needs to be changed, but it would be nice for Horde to have a better option than very limited totem that competes with better options.
Thoughtless rebuke. Tranquil Air is a garbage and unwieldy solution compared to salv.
If anything, Blessing of Salv should give less threat reduction than Tranquil Air to make up for the difference in ease of use and then reduce the threat reduction over all.
I agree with the second part because that’ll help a lot, but my problem isn’t having the classes for both factions. It’s a nice flavor thing for sure, but I’m not sure if it adds that much value to have the factions unique by just 1 class difference at the cost of impossible balancing without destroying the flavor. It is very much unlikely to balance something like kings without also giving the other faction kings. At some point the different buffs will also favor certain classes and roles more than others so the chain reaction of balancing becomes difficult. Like would bloodlust balance out kings? Idk, might need to increase kings, bloodlust is extremely strong and that’s hard to match. I’m okay with wildhammer dwarf and maybe kul tiran shamans and blood elf paladins, even furbolg shamans can join the alliance. I think it’s more weird if we got undead or tauren paladins or whatever shaman that doesn’t fit the lore. It’s weird but there are human shamans from the twilight hammer. I just dislike it. Lastly, Draenei are just too specific to tbc and outlands to be brought into classic.
No worries, and honestly, thanks for the inspiration. I’ve been mulling over ways to address that imbalance while still maintaining that cool asymetrical approach that I’ve actually come to enjoy and I couldn’t really think of anything until your post gave me the idea.
I’m not saying that it’s absolute best but at least, personally, I’ve gotten past a mental block
Plluuuuuuuusssss, imagine how fun a “greater totem” quest line could be for Shaman
How the implement this will be key I think. Currently shaman have tranquil air totem, but since its a totem it has a myriad of flaws that renders it almost useless.
