3.3.5 Releases Today

Patch 3.3.5 was released earlier on Live servers today.

No new Ret news, but please know this:

Sharpened Twilight Scale, while a Melee DPS trinket and is BiS for us, is MUCH more beneficial in the hands of a Warrior, Deathknight, Rogue, Druid, or Hunter! PuGs, you have been warned!

Peace.

~Ron

More Blues, E3 tomorrow

A couple of interesting Blue posts have been popping up. While not directed toward the paladin class, we can infer some things from them.

Mental Quickness is something Enhancement and Retribution need in order to be a mana-using spec without mana on gear. In general you won't see stat conversion talents, though warriors and DKs might keep their armor conversions. We'll see.

It looks like we won't be seeing an increased mana pool any time soon. Depending on how specific mechanics work (see JotW absorbs, Mana-drain effects like in Dreamwalker) this could cause an issue later down the road.

We may need additional mana restore mechanics than we have now for Enhancement, but that will take some more testing.

Arguably, Shamans have better mana-resoting mechanics than we do; Alongside point one, we might see something else as well.

There are going to be some hard choices in all the trees. It's not our design intent that you scoop up every single talent in your tree.

Protection and Holy might have some more "interesting" talents in them at some point.

The Whirlwind caused by Bladestorm is a different spell effect. We can adjust it independently.

Could mean that Divine Storm is similar, in a way that it is also a different mechanic.

If you find a build that avoids 51 points in one tree but picks up something really awesome instead, you will still be fully functional.

Most classes have baseline abilities to handle not having additional abilities- A Warlock without Shadowfury or a Warrior without Titan's Grip still have the tools they need to DPS. A Priest can heal fine without Guardian Angel. However, I'm sure that a Paladin tank would be in trouble of being viable without Holy Shield or Hammer of the Righteous, or a DPS without Crusader Strike or Divine Storm (currently).

Hopefully this leads to an expansion of our talented abilities into baseline abilities (like they are already doing with Crusader Strike and Holy Shock).


The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) also begins tomorrow- Hopefully this will lead to more Alpha (or even Beta!) information on Cataclysm.


~Ron

Beta Release? Soon (TM)

As the contests for Guild entrys and other Beta-related events going up (and with E3 right around the corner on June 14th), its VERY likely we'll see a new Beta version pushed out! I can say for us all that I'm very excited about this change, and hope to have some fresh info about the class.

Grab your popcorn, and hang on lady, we going for a ride!

~Ron