Ret PvP for 3.2

Hey guys,

So I wanted to take a minute and address some of the PvP changes listed in patch 3.2 Some are pally specific others are general, but surprisingly no one seems to be writing about it. And frankly at least one of the points is huge....

Well I'm not going to dance around the elephant in the room.

• The newest season of Arena gear can only be purchased if you meet the requirements with your 3 or 5 player team rating. Rating requirements from 2 player teams can still be used to purchase the previous season of gear.

HOLY CHIT SENIOR ~ If you've seen my previous posts you know the current participation for 3's and 5's is at an all time low. So much that 5's is basically a dead bracket on my server and for the majority of players 3's is not much better in terms of it being where you get your rating from.

So come patch 3.2 if you want any Furious gear for the season your 2's rating will not be enough. 3's or 5's will be mandatory. I'm talking everything from the lowly furious bracers at 1400 to that sexy 2h weapon at 1750. If you're like a huge percentage of teams out there without a 3's or 5's you'd better get any gear you qualify for NOW. You've been warned... Sure at the end of the day it should increase participation in these dead brackets which ultimately will be good. But scheduling will be more of an issue, more fights will break out amongst teams and overall I think there will be less gear progression in PvP, that is not a good thing.

Moving on:

Dalaran Sewers

• The entire Arena has increased in size by 25%.
• Mounts can now be used in this Arena.
• The position and collision of the crates on the central platform has been modified.

Ruins of Lordaeron

• Alcoves have been removed from the starting chambers.
• Two line-of-sight tombstones have been added to the slime pool on the southern side of the map.
• The collision around the central tomb has been smoothed out to prevent players from becoming stuck on the terrain as often.

Well, hard to speak too much on the sewers, until I see it in action. as far as the Ruins go, this clearly is a bonus for people that know how to pillar hump, and a nerf to casters. LOS will be that much more important here.

• Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.
• Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant.

Ah, now a lot of Pallys are glossing over the return of Exorcism Not here. There have been PLENTY of matches where a healer is down to almost nothing and i have ZERO spells left. Nothing but auto attack. I'm not saying this will be huge again, but it's 100% better then what we had with the nerf which was unusable in PvP period.

There we go, there's a lot of other stuff, seal changes, wintergrasp changes, battleground changes. They're all being covered nicely at just about every other site. So I'll leave it to them for now. Plus you can be assured about half of it will be tweaked before the patch.

Upcoming Paladin changes for 3.2

Hey guys, looks like it's been a month since my last post (how time flies).

Seriously, it's not that I'm not updating the blog, it's that there hasn't been much to report. Arena is going slow, no crazy new content...just the occasional pally nerf...and who want to hear me go off about that!

There's a bunch of changes announced today, but I'm going to focus on the Pally changes... the general PvP changes will come later (hey I need something to write a new article about)

Below is the list... it's rather large but overall excellent changes for once. Believe me not everything is a "buff" per se. A lot of things are just swapping A for B if you know what I mean. But some clear buffs including:

BEACON OF LIGHT REWORKED
EXORCISM USABLE AGAIN
SACRED SHIELD BUFFED

I won't go into all the theorycrafting I know a lot of other pally blogs have done the work already.

Paladins

• Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
• Charger: Can now be learned at level 40.
• Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.
• Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.
• Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker's maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.
• Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target's armor.
• Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration or mana cost, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
• Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal over time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.
• Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage.
• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%.
• Warhorse: Can now be learned at level 20.
• Talents
• Holy
• Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
• Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
• Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.
• Protection
• Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin's health to 10/20/30% of maximum.
• Retribution
• Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant.
• Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4 second cooldown.
• Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.
• Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.