Paladins get to "heal" threat now?

[Aurorawind]

Beta patch notes, verified by multiple sources. http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=10360.0

Paladin:
Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.

No word on cooldown, if it can be chain cast, or anything.

[benseac]

Beta patch notes, verified by multiple sources. http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=10360.0

Paladin:
Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.

No word on cooldown, if it can be chain cast, or anything.

That, to me, sucks. Now not only do paladins have to watch health bars we have to watch everyone's hate level?

However, the raid-wide aura change is pretty darn hot.

[Aurorawind]

Well I'm noticing things like...

Shadowform now gives 30% threat reduction.

The "Hand" spells seem to be emergency/reactionary in theme.

I wonder if they're going to let people spec into permanent reduced threat status eventually and let Paladins be the "OH CRAP!" saviors for the mage who gets 18 crits in a row or something and has a sudden threat spike. I think that would at least be alot better than constantly healing threat, if not the most enjoyable task.

[Etrigana]

Im glad they did this. Now people will stop halting the raid for 10 minutes because Paladin X didnt get Salv up. My heart is singing with happiness.

But really, Blizz has said they are going to revamp the agro system for this expansion. They have mentioned putting in a threat monitor with the stock UI and changing shit so that raids have more flexibility with classes. As it is now, a raid is really hurt if they dont take three paladins because of blessings. With raid wide totems, auras and them removing salvation, there is just going to be much more flexibility in terms of raid composition.

It also seems like this is a glorified pain suppression. Id be amazed if you wouldnt just get around to using this instead of your bubble when people pull agro or get close.

-Etri

[Wenge]

This is basically a targetable version of mage invisibility

[benseac]

Im glad they did this. Now people will stop halting the raid for 10 minutes because Paladin X didnt get Salv up. My heart is singing with happiness.

But really, Blizz has said they are going to revamp the agro system for this expansion. They have mentioned putting in a threat monitor with the stock UI and changing shit so that raids have more flexibility with classes. As it is now, a raid is really hurt if they dont take three paladins because of blessings. With raid wide totems, auras and them removing salvation, there is just going to be much more flexibility in terms of raid composition.

It also seems like this is a glorified pain suppression. Id be amazed if you wouldnt just get around to using this instead of your bubble when people pull agro or get close.

-Etri

If that's the case (revamped agro system, built-in hate meter, etc.) then the new spells wouldn't be too bad. The only problem I see is if players decide that since paladins can lower their threat via the hand job, they don't have to worry as much about managing their own threat and, therefore, don't.

[Nortibiry]

It looks to me like blessings as full raid buffs are gone, and everything is going to be used on the fly like blessing of freedom is currently. Which should make playing a paladin a little more interesting I'd think? The new blessing of sacrifice looks like it'd be great on say Brutallus timed with stomps.

[Assault]

It looks to me that come the expansion, threat for dps will not be an issue. Warriors in defensive stance do 45% extra threat. That's a big boost. I guess that doesn't address druid/paladin tanks, but hopefully Nort's not going anywhere.

[Aurorawind]

*locks the door*

No, no he's not.


I'm a little worried on Druid threat. They specifically state that Warrior's are getting increased threat generation in Def stance, they specifically state that Paladins are getting Righteous Fury getting the old Imp talent rolled into it for more threat, and with druids......

They state that they've removed the +15% threat from our talent and make no mention of additional base threat.

[Nortibiry]

It looks to me that come the expansion, threat for dps will not be an issue. Warriors in defensive stance do 45% extra threat. That's a big boost. I guess that doesn't address druid/paladin tanks, but hopefully Nort's not going anywhere.

This isn't actually a change. Right now defensive stance grants 130%, and a talent adds 15% on top of that... in WotLK, it's 145% and there is no talent.

That said they are definitely mucking around with the fundamental mechanics of tanking so we'll have to wait and see how it actually plays out in raid settings.

[edit] I'm an idiot it's currently 110 + 15 so 125 talented, going up to 145.

[edit] I was right the first time. And it might actually be multiplicative which would be higher than 145% currently, more like 149. But honestly they're changing so much stuff with tanking I really don't know what to think... going to have to wait to see how the numbers play out at level 80.

[Etrigana]

It looks to me like blessings as full raid buffs are gone, and everything is going to be used on the fly like blessing of freedom is currently.

It seems to me like they are trying to diversify a paladins roll further by giving them two tiers of buffs. They have blessings (wisdom, might, sanctuary, etc. are unchanged from these patch notes) and they have 'hands'. So a paladin can bless wisdom on someone and if the person is in trouble, they can hit them with hand of protection and not have to worry about re-blessing wisdom on the player afterwards.

Whatd really be cool is if they were to add buffs that got synergies from stacking a blessing and a 'hand of X' buff on top of each other. For instance, "blessing of might and hand of sacrifice on player increases maximum health by X and reduces damage taken by Y for the duration of blessing of sacrifice." Then youd get the forbearance debuff which would limit it and maybe it could consume the paladins blessing buff at the end.

-Etri