Getting Blizzard out of the Seal/Judge Hole

[Daeren]

The essential problem also lies within scaling. Excluding sheath of light the stats would look something like this

Retribution paladins have 3-4k AP
Protection paladins have 1,5k-2k AP and 400-500 spell power
Holy paladins have around 1-1,4k spell power.

This is something you can scale seals to. The damage of a seal that was balanced with spell pwoer and ap would be not that different between the different specs.
Also add in the fact that retribution has stronger white damage and more and stronger instant attacks. They will deal more damage even if base seals deal the same amount of damage.
And even then, they have talents such as crusade that adds up to 6% more damage, vengeance 9%, 2% retribution aura + nameless talents that affect judgements and critical damage. Ret would STILL do more damage with seals.

Yet, they have a talent that totally unbalances this entire equation. For the other specs, the seals and judgements is an even greater share of their damage abilities, and that's why this hurts so bad.

[Lore]

I agree that Sheathe adds some extra confusion to the mix (and is probably a little more complicated than I made it out to be in my previous post), but I don't agree that nerfing it is the only or even the best way to fix the class as a whole. I see no reason why Holy and Prot damage can't be bumped back up in some other way if it ultimately means that the game is better off.

Sometimes the more sweeping changes end up better in the long run.

[Daeren]

Why?

It's a simple soloution, and allows for better balancing of the trees. If they just made sheathe of light increase healing by 50% and let crit heals for an amount over time, it would still be an awesome talent.

Then buff the seals and judgements so that they're not so sickly more powerful for retribution that prot and holy.

[Obrimos]

Why?

It's a simple soloution, and allows for better balancing of the trees. If they just made sheathe of light increase healing by 50% and let crit heals for an amount over time, it would still be an awesome talent.

Then buff the seals and judgements so that they're not so sickly more powerful for retribution that prot and holy.

If you change ShoL to just a healing talent, no one would take it.

[Elsie]

Why?

It's a simple soloution, and allows for better balancing of the trees. If they just made sheathe of light increase healing by 50% and let crit heals for an amount over time, it would still be an awesome talent.

Then buff the seals and judgements so that they're not so sickly more powerful for retribution that prot and holy.

If you change ShoL to just a healing talent, no one would take it.

I would for pvp... but rephrase healing by 50% into healing spell power.

[Obrimos]

Why?

It's a simple soloution, and allows for better balancing of the trees. If they just made sheathe of light increase healing by 50% and let crit heals for an amount over time, it would still be an awesome talent.

Then buff the seals and judgements so that they're not so sickly more powerful for retribution that prot and holy.

If you change ShoL to just a healing talent, no one would take it.

I would for pvp... but rephrase healing by 50% into healing spell power.

Why? It'd be a waste of talent points for Ret's purpose; killing things.

[Daeren]

Point is:

1. Remove ShoL spell power, leave healing ability the same in some way.
2. Buff coefficient for those things that recieve bonus from both AP and SP.
3. Everyone wins.

It's not hard to do it. Honestly, compared to try to balance seals and finding new ways for holy and prot to deal damage, it's really not a big problem.

You can actually buff seal AP coefficient to increase to the identical amount of damage increase as you would have done if you got spell power as well, or whatever. But holy and prot gets BUFFS. And ret stays the same. Maybe they can even unnerf JotW.

[Obrimos]

Point is:

1. Remove ShoL spell power, leave healing ability the same in some way.
2. Buff coefficient for those things that recieve bonus from both AP and SP.
3. Everyone wins.

It's not hard to do it. Honestly, compared to try to balance seals and finding new ways for holy and prot to deal damage, it's really not a big problem.

You can actually buff seal AP coefficient to increase to the identical amount of damage increase as you would have done if you got spell power as well, or whatever. But holy and prot gets BUFFS. And ret stays the same. Maybe they can even unnerf JotW.

Again, if you change ShoL to just be healing, no ret paladin will take it.

Ret's designed to hurt people in the face until death. Healing talents are, therefor, a waste as in high-end PVE or high-end PVP, the Ret Paladin should only heal in an emergency. The Art of War instant FoLs are nice, but to paladin will focus on those as a winning strategy by taking a deep retribution talent that only increases the amount healed by heals they almost never cast.

It's like putting a tanking talent at the bottom of Assassination.

[Daeren]

Then, noone will take it.

I don't care. Remove the talent and rebalance then. Ret paladins lose nothing then. And if they wanted healing power back, leave them a healing talent or something.

Much much better than nerfing the seals into the ground.

[Trueth]

How about this instead?

Grants 10%/20%/30% of your AP as mana. Your critical heals HOT.


Now all damage and healing buffs are removed, BUT you can last a bit longer in both PvE and PvP.

[Sabindeus]

I disagree that Sheathe makes Seals hard to balance. For the purpose of Seal DPS, it is the equivalent of Ret having a talent that grants them 15% extra Attack Power. Would you begrudge Ret extra attack power?

[Snake-Aes]

I disagree that Sheathe makes Seals hard to balance. For the purpose of Seal DPS, it is the equivalent of Ret having a talent that grants them 15% extra Attack Power. Would you begrudge Ret extra attack power?

It is different because scalings between ap and sp are different. Ret having more sp than prot(and tieing with holy i think) makes it so balancing a seal around holy soloing, for example, will make it too good for ret, unless you remove the ap scaling, so it sucks for prot.


It's oneo f these argumenst I held together with Dorvan: It makes the scaling balance needlessly complicated. THe proof is there. anything balanced for ret is too feeble for prot and specially holy.

[Daeren]

I disagree that Sheathe makes Seals hard to balance. For the purpose of Seal DPS, it is the equivalent of Ret having a talent that grants them 15% extra Attack Power. Would you begrudge Ret extra attack power?

Now comes the problems:

1) Seals can be more powerful than prot and holy if it's balanced with the rest of the tree output. Then it's no biggie if seals are a bigger portion of their DPS, but people playing ret doesn't want seals to be a big part of their DPS and letting instant attacks getting nerfed for that sake (and I understand them for that)

2) Scaleable judgements and seals such as wisdom and light (obviously not judgement of wisdom, but the rest).

[Bobness]

So change SOV
From
Seal of Vengeance now deals [ 15% of AP + 8.8% of Spell Power ] additional Holy damage over 15 sec.
To
Seal of Vengeance now deals [ 5% of AP + 5% of Spell Power + 13.8% stamina ] additional Holy damage over 15 sec.

Add in Sotp + 1Hws this now becomes the defacto tanking seal

So change SOR
From
Seal of Righteousness now grants each melee attack [ 2.2% of Melee Weapon Speed * AP + 4.4% of Melee Weapon Speed * Spell Power ] additional Holy damage.
To
Seal of Righteousness now grants each melee attack [ (2.2% of Melee Weapon Speed * AP + 4.4% of Melee Weapon Speed * Spell Power) + 20%intellect ] additional Holy damage.

Hey presto holy has a Grinding seal...

seems pretty simple tbh

[Levantine]

SoR, SoV = 1 Hand Weapon only

SoC, SoB = 2 Hand Weapon only