Benediction truly sucks

[Magnusharkov]

Now, I know this is a completely obvious post but I thought I would bring it up anyway.

Benediction is in my opinion the weakest link in the current paladin tree, its truly terrible and something really needs to be done to make it less appalling.

Warriors get access to parry in T1 of arms, yet we have to spend 5 points on an exceptionally weak skill to get to it. 3% less mana per talent point on a skill that is at best a third of our total mana consumption is pretty crappy. Unfortunately we have no real choice in taking it if we want to take the full set of core tanking talents.

The other option is to take the now heavily improved BoM instead of benediction. However its now looking like holy pallies will no longer have easy access to Kings so we will be picking that up instead, making improved BoM pretty useless.

Benediction is even complete crap for ret too now, as their mana regen has been heavily increased in Wotlk, this is just a talent that shouldn't exist and definitely should not be a required choice on the way to parry.

/endrant

Anyway, I know this was a pointless post and its been this way all the way through TBC but I strongly feel we have to make some noise about benediction, its a waste of 5 talent points which compounds our already heavily bloated prot tree. Picking a spec would be so much easier if this talent was replaced by something useful, or just directly swapped in position by something like divine strength or seals of the pure.

[Dorvan]

You could always take Imp BoM and not take BoK....AP certainly seems something of value to us in WotLK, especially now that Imp BoM is a 50% boost.

That said, your reasoning behind it being bad seems to be "because I said so".

Let's flesh it out a little more and see if we can make a compelling argument to Blizzard. A prime candidate for the argument seems to be the judgments now no longer consume seals, which means that we're spending less mana resealing, reducing the value of the talent. Weighed against the is the idea the mana is going to be a little tighter in WotLK, making mana efficiency talents that much more useful.

[moduspwnens]

It's not a complete waste, but it is yet another bloat in an already bloated spec.

[Spectrum]

It's just another one of those talents we don't take because it's particularly good, but rather because it's the best of what's between us and what we really want.

I don't think our mana will be much tighter in WotLK. I'm pretty sure something will balance it out, and in raid tanking we practically have infinite mana anyway.

I wish Improved SoR was down there but, alas, it is a holy-tree skill.

[Magnusharkov]

Ok, I'll bite. The problem with trying to get any more substantial data on why benediction sucks is that I don't know the mana costs of any of the abilities at lvl 80.

Anyway, lets assume a max threat spell rotation like the one mentioned here http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... hp?t=11139

In a 60 sec window, the following abilitiex will be cast

Judgement of Wisdom (imp judgement) = 7.5 times
Seal of righteousness = 2 times
Consecrate = 6 times
Holy shield = 6.66 times
Shield slam = 10 times
Hammer of the righteous = 10 times

Ok, these are some ballpark mana consumption figures, some are fairly accurate some aren't

Judgement of wisdom = 5% base mana = 37.5% base mana per min
Seal of righteousness = 5% base mana? = 10% base mana per min
Consecrate = 20% base mana? = 120% base mana per min
Holy shield = 6% base mana? = 40% base mana per min
Shield slam = 6% base mana = 60% base mana per min
Hammer = 6% base mana = 60% base mana per min

So total mana consumption 327.5% of your base mana per min

With 5 ranks of benediction this is reduced to 320.4% or an effective reduction in mana consumption of just over 2%. Hence why I don't think it is worth a full 5 talent points. For comparison if you spend 2 points guarded by the light you reduce your mana consumption by around 11%.

With regards to taking improved BoM. As I said you will very rarely get to bless it, as I cannot see holy paladins speccing into prot anymore. Meaning you will be the one blessing kings. However lets assume you are blessing it.
The only abilities that I know of that scale with pure AP are seals, judgements and to some extent hammer of the righteous. To me this just isn't a big enough proportion of our abilities to warrant an improved BoM, if BoM was changed to be an equivalent Ilevel of strength then it could be viable, but right now I just fail to see how it could be.

[Dorvan]

White damage, seals, and judgments already combine to form a large portion of our single-target threat. Take out consecrate and throw in HotR and AP looks to be a pretty solid threat stat for us....the only single target abilities that *don't* benefit from it are ShoR and Holy Shield.

[Zumor]

In a 60 sec window, the following abilitiex will be cast

Judgement of Wisdom (imp judgement) = 7.5 times
Seal of righteousness = 2 times
Consecrate = 6 times
Holy shield = 6.66 times
Shield slam = 10 times
Hammer of the righteous = 10 times

Ok, these are some ballpark mana consumption figures, some are fairly accurate some aren't

Judgement of wisdom = 5% base mana = 37.5% mana bar per min
Seal of righteousness = 5% base mana? = 10% mana bar per min
Consecrate = 20% base mana? = 120% mana bar per min
Holy shield = 6% base mana? = 40% mana bar per min
Shield slam = 6% base mana = 60% mana bar per min
Hammer = 6% base mana = 60% mana bar per min

So total mana consumption 327.5% of your base mana per min

Basemana is not your manabar! basemana isnt maxmana
basemana is the mana you have naked, without buffs
the number will still be high, but you wont need 3.275 times your manabar per minute, but around 2-2.5 times I think.

BTW: I read here alot, but never had to post anything. thats why I created the account here today

[Mortehl]

Repeat after me:

Base Mana != Mana Bar.

You can do it guys

[Magnusharkov]

Ok... you're picking a hole in a semantic difference there. All the mana consumption figures still hold true.

Dorvan : This is a glass full/empty discussion. You see everything apart from holy shield, consecrate, shield of the righteous (and to some extent exorcism and holy wrath) as scaling with AP. I see that everything apart from seals, judgements, white damage and hammer of the righteous as not scaling with AP. Regardless its not really relevant to the discussion.

The main issue I have with taking improved BoM is thatI cannot envisage a single raid composition where I will be best suited to blessing it. If there is only one paladin then Id say its a fairly safe choice that Kings is substantially better for the paladin and probably better than might/wis for the majority of the raid.

Assuming there is more than one paladin and also that a ret paladin isn't present then either a holy paladin or a prot will be on BoM duty. Kings is absolutely required as a raid buff so it should be assumed that BoK will have to be covered before BoM. If the holy paladin wants to get to kings he needs to spec 11 points into prot, picking up very little of worth. However the raid is much better served if the holy paladin goes into ret, picks up imp BoM and also gets 3% raid crit and 5% spell crit while he is there. Yes it is possible for he holy paladin to cover kings and the prot paladin to do BoM, but Id say its clearly more optimal for a holy paladin to go ret.

Anyway, I standby my opinion that benediction is exceptionally weak as it stands and that we really need to make some noise about it. I see people complaining about redoubt and shield spec a lot, but at least those are easily skippable, we really need to be doing something about benediction.

[enbee]

Repeat after me:

Base Mana != Mana Bar.

You can do it guys

Don't be so sure of that if we're sharing gear with dk/warrs

[Tiandelin]

Assuming there is more than one paladin and also that a ret paladin isn't present then either a holy paladin or a prot will be on BoM duty. Kings is absolutely required as a raid buff so it should be assumed that BoK will have to be covered before BoM. If the holy paladin wants to get to kings he needs to spec 11 points into prot, picking up very little of worth. However the raid is much better served if the holy paladin goes into ret, picks up imp BoM and also gets 3% raid crit and 5% spell crit while he is there. Yes it is possible for he holy paladin to cover kings and the prot paladin to do BoM, but Id say its clearly more optimal for a holy paladin to go ret.

Considering the revelation that Sheath of Light apparently doesn't affect healing, a lot more holy pallies will probably be going holy/prot instead of holy/ret if things remain as they are. There's plenty in prot that's quite useful, especially DG.

That said, Benediction does seem very weak even today, and it gets even weaker in WotLK with judgements not eating seals. Five talent points is such a waste for trivial mana savings.

[Lightbeard]

Without Benediction I find myself oom a hell of a lot on trash and bosses

[Snake-Aes]

It's still early to work on it's Wrath value. I want to first see it's lvl 80 mana cost, to then check if those 20% savings are worth it.
It does indeed lose some value with the whole judgment change, though, but it's that or improved BoM, which if Conviction works on heals, will definitely be a common holy talent.

[jere]

Considering the revelation that Sheath of Light apparently doesn't affect healing, a lot more holy pallies will probably be going holy/prot instead of holy/ret if things remain as they are. There's plenty in prot that's quite useful, especially DG.

That said, Benediction does seem very weak even today, and it gets even weaker in WotLK with judgements not eating seals. Five talent points is such a waste for trivial mana savings.

Honestly, I would expect the majority of them to go into ret to get conviction. Holy paladins will get a lot more utility/stat increases going ret than they will Prot, unless they are going prot for offtanking reasons.

[moduspwnens]

Honestly, I would expect the majority of them to go into ret to get conviction. Holy paladins will get a lot more utility/stat increases going ret than they will Prot, unless they are going prot for offtanking reasons.

Unless a Prot Paladin isn't present, in which case it will probably be an overall help to the raid to get Kings.