Up until now, Alliance Retribution Paladins have had to balance spell damage along with other stats to optimize Seal of Command while Horde Ret Pallies happily picked up, um... *cough* Warrior gear. If the changes in 2.4 push through, the removal of spell damage severely gimps Seal of Command for PvE and consequently, raiding Alliance Retribution Paladins (yes, such things exist, believe it or not). Tamerland says that the writing is on the wall, and from the lore-shaking changes glimpsed on the PTR, his claims don't seem too far off. The chained up Naaru in the Blood Knights' basement is gone, and the lovely Lady Liadrin (I had to editorialize that. We swore these blood oaths, you know.) comes to Shattrath City to pledge allegiance to A'dal, who welcomes the Light-stealing, Naaru-shackling, demon-blood using Blood Knight matriarch in a totally WWJD moment. The stage really does seem set for such a change, and it wouldn't be the first time that Blizzard has shaken things up in order to balance things out. Paladins were formerly an Alliance-only class once upon a time, after all. Personally, I'm stoked at the possibility. I'm not too thrilled about the Alliance getting Seal of Blood ("my... precious..."), but if it does happen, it means Blizzard is actually listening to its community -- even if they don't say anything most of the time.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
2-19-2008 @ 2:06PM
Balasan said...
"I'm not too thrilled about the Alliance getting Seal of Blood ("my... precious...")"
My thoughts exactly.
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2-19-2008 @ 2:10PM
brittwilson said...
yeah, god forbid raiding horde and alliance ret paladins to have class abilities that are equal. Racials are fine, but come on.
2-19-2008 @ 2:21PM
Balasan said...
Alliance had the upper hand in BGs in pre-TBC WoW with paladins generally superior to shamans in terms of raid support. In fact, it's one of the main reasons I took to playing a paladin: the fact that I watched a lone paladin holding back 20 horde players from capping the AV GY flags on every other AVs I went in.
It's not the same, now, of course. But the fact still remains: alliance are in awe of the awesomeness of SoB like I was in awe of the paladin pre-TBC. Blizz will end up balancing it in the end anyway. For the time being, I'm enjoying the other side of the fence this time. Give us a few more months of this enjoyment. :)
2-19-2008 @ 2:16PM
Goo said...
ROFL? "Not too thrilled". R u hordes used to getting everything on a silver plate and not interested in sharing?
I don't play a pally...well...I am lvl'ing one, eventually...but, if this only affects pve I don't see the big deal about both ally and horde getting it. If it would also affect pvp as much, well...about time! Ally having to even out stats while hordes just stacking up str and ap?
Well...use your brains (that squishy thing inside your heads), horde...and see what is most fair. Sharing or going "mine mine mine".
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2-19-2008 @ 3:40PM
Matt said...
as opposed to alliance who get everything they want and if they dont they bitch and complain till it gets changed? example being...oh i dont know AV!!! there are plenty of alliance that win AV, but the ones who dont cry and complain and now were on like the 5th change to the system this year...complain more already gimme a break! oh can i have stoneskin, and find treasure please? thanks that would be great!
2-26-2008 @ 7:59AM
Duendelstein said...
Horde getting everything on a silver plate... you mean like... paladins? Which I'd like to point out that we DIDN'T HAVE when they were at their best... you know, wandering into AV and bubbling, then capping a flag, and no one could stop it. And I won't go in to any detail about life before the Forsaken were considered Forsaken instead of Undead for the sake of Paladins OWNING them.
Then Horde got pallies... suddenly bubbles got nerfed, 100% mana return from crit heals was too much, the Alliance did nothing but QQ about how OP pallies were...
LESS QQ, MORE PEW PEW. The Horde has seldom had anything "handed to them on a silver platter." Everybody works for things; I promise you, having 70s on both sides, the grass is always greener...
2-19-2008 @ 2:19PM
Kal said...
Horde getting Seal of Vengeance would be excellent. The best part about this change is that it would go well with the lore too; having the blood elves joining the silver hand (or at least renouncing Mu'ru's captivity and getting their light from A'dal) would open up the option of both sides getting it too.
And while belfs have been tanking fine with SoR, SoV is an upgrade in a lot of fights to the tune of about 20% more threat.
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2-20-2008 @ 4:15AM
Pzychotix said...
Except Seal of Vengeance is near worthless. The only good it would do is help with RP.
2-19-2008 @ 2:22PM
Michael Thorsen said...
Wow, finally! Too bad I leveled a Blood Elf paladin to compliment my Dwarf paladin so that I can get the best of both worlds. (Palm to face)
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2-19-2008 @ 2:26PM
Zark said...
Where's the thread that proves Alliance palas get SoB?
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2-19-2008 @ 2:33PM
jaxson_bateman said...
I see no proof of these claims at this point in time. While the alliance and horde should both have access to both seals (lets face it, Seal of Blood is the Fear Ward of the paladin world), again, I've yet to see anything official said to that effect.
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2-19-2008 @ 4:21PM
Starayo said...
Fear ward of the paladin world eh?
I hope you enjoy your seal you can cast every three minutes, then.
2-19-2008 @ 7:06PM
twh said...
Fear Ward didn't create a large gap between the Shadow Priests of the differing factions, so it's pointless to try and paint SoB as such.
2-19-2008 @ 11:17PM
jaxson_bateman said...
When did you start playing?
When it first came out, Fear Ward was very powerful. No cooldown, but could only be cast by cwarven priests (and I think draenai could too shortly before it was given to everyone). Basically, in terms of PvE, it was *the* racial for a healing priest to have, and back prior to 2.0, just about every priest was healing.
Seal of Blood is the same in that it is *the* paladin racial to have. Allies look upon it with envious eyes, just as the horde did Fear Ward.
2-20-2008 @ 1:34AM
twh said...
Seal of Blood enables paladins to competitively DPS in raids.
Fear Ward is a Get Out of Fear Free card.
There is a difference between the two and the fact of the matter is, Alliance should have gotten SoB in the first place, since SoC is so unreliable for raid DPS.
2-26-2008 @ 7:59AM
Duendelstein said...
I say they merely take as long to give Alliance SoB as they did to give Horde Fear Ward.
Sounds fair and balanced to me...
2-19-2008 @ 2:38PM
Rudolphe said...
If they dont do this, like he said alliance paladins are severely gimped losing all that spell damage for Seal of Command.
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2-19-2008 @ 2:44PM
Tridus said...
There's no real proof here at all, just speculation.
Hopefully its CORRECT speculation, though. Class based racials have been an unmitigated failure every time they've tried it. The Priest ones were laughably imbalanced forever, including after their first two attempts to fix them. They finally made progress by undoing it and giving everybody Fear Ward. Now its only moderately imbalanced (lol Feedback) instead of outrageously so.
The Paladin situation is no better. Seal of Blood is awesome for Ret DPS. Seal of Vengenace is... you know, honestly I haven't seen a real Prot Pally use it in months. It takes too long to get going, most Pallies use SoR so DPS can start almost immediately.
Just yet another case where there's imbalance caused by Blizzard's total lack of ability to balance class based racials. They should learn from their mistakes and stop doing this nonsense.
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2-19-2008 @ 2:55PM
Urthona said...
I use Vengeance a lot. I don't really have mana issues ever, so I do a lot of seal weaving. Kinda like totem twisting, only cooler. I still lead with Righteous, like he suggests, but I usually warm up a Vengeance stack on most bosses, while dropping Righteous hammers when i can.
2-19-2008 @ 2:59PM
Wolfkin said...
I may be in the vast minority, but I'm not sure what's inherently wrong with having some races (and by extension, factions) be better at certain things than others. I mean, Fear Ward was an un-balancing factor in both PVP and PVE and probably deserved to be looked at, but it was hardly game breaking.
Obviously with the spell damage reduction for pally gear in 2.4, something has to change for the ally pallies, since Seal of Vengeance scales with that stat. And if the Strength stacking continues, that aspect of itemization seems to favor Seal of Blood pretty heavily, it being based on melee attacks and all. But in general, I think I find myself very disappointed in moves that "equalize" the factions. Particularly the lore-breaking crossover of pallies to Horde and Shaman to Alliance. Seriously, how long is it until our factional differences are essentially only as deep as our character models?
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