Disable holy strike in battlegrounds?

[Kalocsa]

This spell is ignoring armor. So it's a big + feature in pvp for paladins.

Also Plainsrunning is disabled in battleground, so why holy strike should work in BG?

My only question is to take care of an unbalanced thing.

I my advice, both should be disabled OR enabled.

[Roxanneflowers]

This spell is ignoring armor. So it's a big + feature in pvp for paladins.

Spell damage bypasses armor.
Who knew?

I my advice, both should be disabled OR enabled.

I am Scissors.
Paper is fine.
NERF ROCK!!!

[Kalocsa]

This is not about paper rock scissors. Because in fact, this is the nature of vanilla in 1.12.

Warriors got rekt by frostmages.
Shaman enhancement are useless agains't hunters.
Rogues are destroyed by 8sec dps warriors etc etc.

The fact is just: this dispell ignore armor. And then, that type of things happens.

i got holy striked at 1k2 with a r14 gear/weapon and it also got crit with a 1k7.

This spell is just not okay for pvp, even if it changes the nature of a paladin in pve. This holy strike is like plainsrunning.

It has no goal to stay compared to the problem it occurs.

I mean a mortal or heroic strike could crit more than 1k7, anyway, it's physical damage.

This spell is just outpassing all armor in a melee situation influenced by the weapon damage.

If no one are seeing what is wrong. It's maybe because 50% of the population are playing paladins at the moment. And the others are not checking their combat log apparently.

I mean, rogues have cosmetic useless disguise, taurens have disabled plainsrunning in BG, Mages have the ability to sustain the utility of a rogue in lockpicking. And paladins are outplaying everything plated better than a shaman enhancement with this new feature. Alright!

[Balake]

I think the problem is it gives paladins instant burst which goes against their identity. Reckbombs can oneshot too but they need preparation to do it, they can't just run up to you and hit you like a truck every few seconds. Being holy damage is not the problem in itself, it's being able to deal this holy damage immediately at the start of the battle that shouldn't happen on a battle-of-attrition class. Maybe if Judgement of the crusader was reworked to ramp up, starting much weaker than it currently is to nerf paladins in leveling and pvp, but eventually stack up to higher than it currently gives to give them a buff in long pve fights.

[Roxanneflowers]

Paladins are melee monsters.
Paladins cannot equip ranged weapons.
They can equip ranged Engineering items, but those have long(ish) cooldowns.
Judgement range is 10 yards.

If you're in melee range of a (hostile) Paladin in PvP, that's kind of your fault for being within reach of them being able to hurt you.

Or to put it another way ... your tears are delicious ...

[Balake]

Paladins are melee monsters.
Paladins cannot equip ranged weapons.
They can equip ranged Engineering items, but those have long(ish) cooldowns.
Judgement range is 10 yards.

If you're in melee range of a (hostile) Paladin in PvP, that's kind of your fault for being within reach of them being able to hurt you.

Or to put it another way ... your tears are delicious ...

But paladins are not a juggernaut that crushes everyone in range, that's not their identity. That fits death knights and warriors more in my opinion. It's true that paladins should have decent damage potential if they can reach you forcing you to kite them, but their damage is extremely front-loaded while it should be more spread out or ramp up. I'm guessing that's also what Blizzard was going for during the beta with Crusader Strike having to be stacked up for Holy Strike to shine.

[Mac]

There was another thread on the topic. I think the biggest part of the problem is Horde not having access to Holy Strike. There definitely is a lot of griping in battlegrounds over Holy Strike on the Horde side. Personally, I'd like to see battlegrounds have mixed teams (so if 3 Alliance and 1 Horde are queued for Warsong Gulch, you get a WSG with two Alliance on one team and one Alliance one Horde on the other). That would also help with queues. Horde and Alliance can already group together, so it's not that far out there. Only Alterac Valley would be a problem.
I'd also like to see Horde get Paladins and Alliance get Shaman. Again, Horde and Alliance can already group up, so why not? In fact, I think a good paid feature would be letting people play whatever weird race/class combo they want for turtle coins, so if you want to play a Night Elf Warlock, you can. Putting it behind a paywall will keep the race/class combos fairly rare.
Basically, if Horde also had Holy Striking Paladins, I think a lot of the complaints would go down. But who knows, maybe there'd be more complaints when the Alliance started getting Holy Struck.

[Warrians]

There was another thread on the topic. I think the biggest part of the problem is Horde not having access to Holy Strike. There definitely is a lot of griping in battlegrounds over Holy Strike on the Horde side. Personally, I'd like to see battlegrounds have mixed teams (so if 3 Alliance and 1 Horde are queued for Warsong Gulch, you get a WSG with two Alliance on one team and one Alliance one Horde on the other). That would also help with queues. Horde and Alliance can already group together, so it's not that far out there. Only Alterac Valley would be a problem.
I'd also like to see Horde get Paladins and Alliance get Shaman. Again, Horde and Alliance can already group up, so why not? In fact, I think a good paid feature would be letting people play whatever weird race/class combo they want for turtle coins, so if you want to play a Night Elf Warlock, you can. Putting it behind a paywall will keep the race/class combos fairly rare.
Basically, if Horde also had Holy Striking Paladins, I think a lot of the complaints would go down. But who knows, maybe there'd be more complaints when the Alliance started getting Holy Struck.

And how are you going to deal with the "class x faction" quests, and the npcs they point to ? Are you goin to rewrite them all ? Have you tried a shaman without the totems ? When draenei got shaman class, they got every single quest to fix their situation in the world. So, should turtle wow "fix" that by just letting every class have every spell without a quest ? That would turn VANILLA into WTOLK+, and I, for one, would quit.

[Mac]

And how are you going to deal with the "class x faction" quests, and the npcs they point to ? Are you goin to rewrite them all ? Have you tried a shaman without the totems ? When draenei got shaman class, they got every single quest to fix their situation in the world. So, should turtle wow "fix" that by just letting every class have every spell without a quest ? That would turn VANILLA into WTOLK+, and I, for one, would quit.

Make Alliance shaman class quests and Horde paladin class quests that mirror the pre-existing quests, because it’s not like this server doesn’t have custom quests already. In fact, there’s at least one custom quest for the Alliance that is a mirror of a Horde quest in-game.

[Balake]

I don't like the idea of every race being able to play as any class. Some combinations will just never make sense no matter how they try to make it work. Not to mention needing to add class trainers and quests in every starting zone for every possible combination and how this will reduce variety instead of increasing it as one of the factors stopping humans for example from dominating too much is that there are some classes that can't be human.

[Mac]

Not to mention needing to add class trainers and quests in every starting zone for every possible combination and how this will reduce variety instead of increasing it as one of the factors stopping humans for example from dominating too much is that there are some classes that can't be human.

Would you? Let's say you make a Gnome Druid. Instead of starting out in the Dwarf/Gnome starting area, you start out in the Night Elf starting area, and are able to do the quests and use the trainers there, with no need to add any class trainers or quests. It'd make logical sense, too. It'd be like studying abroad. If it's behind a paid feature only, not everyone will access it (you could make it costs more turtle coins than you'd earn from hardcore mode).

The only ones you'd need to add trainers and quests for are the faction specific classes (Paladin/Shaman). You could just keep those classes faction specific if you don't want to add trainers and quests.

I just think it'd be a good, fair way for the server to get some more donations. I've talked to a few people who said they wanted to play weird race/class combos, and when I asked if they'd be willing to donate for it, there definitely was interest.

[Balake]

Being for turtle coins makes it mesh even worse with me... It could be P2W As a certain race that's normally inaccessible to a class has racials that are more suited for it than the other races. Like horde warlocks would go Troll for the casting speed racial.

[Mac]

Being for turtle coins makes it mesh even worse with me... It could be P2W As a certain race that's normally inaccessible to a class has racials that are more suited for it than the other races. Like horde warlocks would go Troll for the casting speed racial.

If there is a broken race/class combination, they could just balance around it or disallow it, but I don't see anything massively overpowered. I don't think Troll Warlocks would be any more OP than, say, a Troll Mage. I don't even think Troll Warlocks would be better than Undead or Gnome Warlocks. They'd be better than Human Warlocks I guess, but isn't that a good thing if you're anti-too many people playing Humans? It just doesn't seem Pay 2 Win to me, but rather Pay 2 Be Different. I suppose there will be people who are going to think different is better, though. Grass is always green and so on.

[Balake]

Pay 2 be different is fine, people like to stand out and donating is a good way to support the server but I think something as important as class and race choice should be kept out of the donation system. Pay 2 be different as long as the difference does not affect gameplay.

[Mac]

Pay 2 be different as long as the difference does not affect gameplay.

I just don't think it'd affect game play that much, let alone be pay to win where you're suddenly an untouchable killing machine because you're a Troll Warlock or Gnome Druid or whatever other goofy combo people would want to donate to play. Heck, I'd argue stuff like portable mailboxes and banks and such affect game play more (and yet still aren't pay to win).

But what about this: what if it were purely cosmetic, like a skin or illusion, that didn't affect racials? So if you want to be a Troll Warlock, you could make an Undead Warlock and then turn on the illusion to be a Troll Warlock, but you'd still have your Undead racials?

[Balake]

Pay 2 be different as long as the difference does not affect gameplay.

I just don't think it'd affect game play that much, let alone be pay to win where you're suddenly an untouchable killing machine because you're a Troll Warlock or Gnome Druid or whatever other goofy combo people would want to donate to play. Heck, I'd argue stuff like portable mailboxes and banks and such affect game play more (and yet still aren't pay to win).

But what about this: what if it were purely cosmetic, like a skin or illusion, that didn't affect racials? So if you want to be a Troll Warlock, you could make an Undead Warlock and then turn on the illusion to be a Troll Warlock, but you'd still have your Undead racials?

That would then create clarity issues, and it then defeats the entire purpose of the suggestion of unlocking all race/class combinations which was initially proposed for balance.

[Mac]

That would then create clarity issues, and it then defeats the entire purpose of the suggestion of unlocking all race/class combinations which was initially proposed for balance.

What would those clarity issues be?

I also didn't propose the all race/class combos for "balance." I proposed it as a neat means of getting donations. Letting Horde have Paladins (and Alliance have Shamans) was proposed for balance issues, but that's a separate suggestion entirely. I also proposed mixing teams in BGs for balance (and also as a way to shorten queue times).

[Boostacow]

Personally as a Horde, Resto/ Shaman player I don’t think it is necessary to disable holy strike during Pvp. I enjoy having to rethink on how to approach a Ret/Pally player now. Yes they do pack a punch now with Holystrike. But a disable would bring it back to the same old ways in the past of ignoring the pally and just purging all the time. Maybe the real issue might be just a slight increase to Mana cost by maybe 10%. I don’t know though since I am not a Paladin player. But as far as outside PvP in 5 mans I don’t see a bit of increased mana usage on holystrike hitting the Paladin too hard. PvP I have really only got Bombed by a strong 2H..by the Pally. But I’ve always played shaman so I’m used to the perspective of luck in the burst damage happening and folks not liking them just go hit hard when they shouldn’t have. All and all, I think Holystike is fine in PvP. If anything maybe just a bit of mana cost increase. A well geared, Engineering Retbomb Pally is gonna hurt just like any class that builds them self well for PvP.

[Kalocsa]

I still don't understand why it's not yet disabled. The problem is just it has too much advantages, like the plainsrunning when it was not entirely scripted (like spells weren't disabling the plainsrunning, the funny fact is now, the plainsrunning is well scripted and can be re-enabled in battleground, but it seems the paladin class will be the best class on turtle wow until a new spell they decide to introduce to outplay again the game and its usage in PVP.

Every melee classes are influenced by armor. Even the hunter have dps scalled on the armor of his target.

Paladins were not melee monster, except the famous 8/9 t3 holy paladin spec, with mor than 9K armor, and can heal himself instant everytime. barely impossible to kill in melee.

Now on turtle wow, paladins are melee monster because this "holy strike" was orginally created because there was no seal and no judgement for this (hybrid) melee class during the beta. And on a vanilla 1.12 timeline it changes absolutely everything.

How can you say paladin is a melee monster when originally on an early timeline the dps of a retladin in not beyond 135DPS without consumable (without endgame gear ofc) and is just the worst dps class in the game.

The real problem is holy strike. You guys just seems to be restricted to "lol it's pure and your tears are delicous"

So your recommendation to fight a paladin is to flee like a mage as a warrior? Because you gonna take the same numbers than a f*ckin 300 armor mob lvl 15? C'mon, this is bullshit.

[Gilgarosh]

Every melee classes are influenced by armor. Even the hunter have dps scalled on the armor of his target.

Just to nitpick, Arcane Shot ignores armor because it is an ability that deals elemental damage instead of physical damage, just like Holy Strike. That's working entirely as intended.

[Balake]

Serpent Sting is nature damage too, immolation trap is fire damage. Hunters might be the class with the most variety in damage types. Those still can be resisted though, holy damage cannot be resisted.

[Xerron]

Serpent Sting is nature damage too, immolation trap is fire damage. Hunters might be the class with the most variety in damage types. Those still can be resisted though, holy damage cannot be resisted.

holy damage can be resisted
holy strike can be dodged/parried like any other melee attack

[Roxanneflowers]

Holy damage can be resisted, as cited above.
It's just unlikely to be resisted since there is a decided lack of Holy resistances to be obtained on gear. However, Alchemists can craft potions of Holy Protection which will absorb Holy damage for you. Note that an argument could be made that higher ranking potions of Holy Protection might be warranted, but that's a separate conversation.



Having given this subject some more thought over the past week or so, I've been thinking that there may be some merit to the objection of having Holy Strike available at ANY TIME without restrictions other than the mana cost and 10s cooldown (and being within melee range of a target you can attack, obviously). That lack of a conditional trigger event to enable use of Holy Strike is then what makes it possible to use the spell as an opening alpha strike ... and THAT is the real objection being raised here.

Which then in turn leads me to think that placing an added conditional onto Holy Strike may be warranted. Basic idea is to move Holy Strike into the response/counter category of activated spells ... like Mongoose Bite (can be used only after dodging), Counterattack (can only be used after parrying), Revenge (can only be used after a block, dodge or parry) and even Riposte (can only be used after parrying). Another option for a conditional would be if the Paladin takes a critical hit, such as the conditional for Reckoning. There's even the conditional for Overpower (can be used only after target dodges) as possible precedents to follow.

The whole point of these types of conditionals is to prevent an attack from being available for use AT ANY TIME so long as resources (mana, rage, energy) are available to spend and the spell cooldown is complete. That lack of a conditional trigger to enable Holy Strike is what then turns Holy Strike into an alpha/opener attack in both PvE and PvP that can be "locked and loaded" until taking a melee swing at something/someone. And it is that lack of a conditional trigger that enables the kind of front loading of Holy damage on a Paladin that is being objected to here, because when used as an alpha strike it's Too Good™ of an attack, especially in a PvP context (where opponents don't have millions of HP).



So if the means to "rein in" the overwhelming usefulness of Holy Strike in PvP is to place a conditional trigger on Holy Strike ... what should that conditional trigger be, in order to change Holy Strike from an opening/alpha strike spell into a response/counter spell?

My immediate thought is to combine the conditionals for Revenge and Reckoning ... such that Holy Strike can only be used after the Paladin blocks, dodges, parries or receives a critical strike. If any of those additional conditions are met, Holy Strike is enabled for use for 10s (if cooldown is complete, naturally, since cooldown is a separate timer).

In practice, this would mean that Holy Strike still cannot be used more often than once per 10s, so no change from current functionality ... but because of the conditional trigger to enable the spell it could only be used as a response/counter to being attacked, rather than as a front loaded "holding one in the tubes ready to fire" alpha striking spell akin to Raptor Strike or Heroic Strike.



Would a staffer care to comment on the notion?

[Balake]

If Holy Strike needs to get activated, it must be by something that doesn't force the paladin to be tanking the mob. It exists to help out ret paladins in raid dps, making it require getting hit makes it useless in the only content it's well balanced at.

I'm for gating it behind something to make the class a bit less simple and to stop the frontloaded burst paladins have in PvP. At first I thought of enabling it after the paladin hits an enemy with a critical strike. Ret paladins already have talents that increase their critical strike as well as damage bonuses from critting so it synergies well with the usual ret paladin build PvE build. But unfortunately making it like that would make it a lot less useful on prot paladins that have gotten used to it as an initial threat generator similar to Sunder Armor for warriors.

So, I thought of another activation criteria that doesn't hurt tanking paladins and PvE dps paladins, but stops PvP ret paladins from dishing out all their damage instantly. Holy Strike can only be used within 10 seconds of proccing a seal effect. Basically, the typical pvp paladin burst combo is seal of the crusader, judgement, then cast another seal and activate holy strike then auto. Because of this restriction, the paladin first has to autoattack with that seal and proc its effect, then use holy strike. Since paladins prefer slow weapons, the holy strike has to happen on the 2rd swing of combat with the enemy so after at least 3.5 seconds, 4 seconds at most.

Prot paladins use faster 1-handed weapons so they're not affected by it as much, just 2 seconds on average. At 2 seconds into the fight prot warriors would still be on their 2nd sunder stack anyways.

PvE ret paladins will have constant uptime on their holy strike and can still use it on cooldown so they won't be affected.

[Roxanneflowers]

At first I thought of enabling it after the paladin hits an enemy with a critical strike.

Could set up the conditional to be either a critical strike taken or critical strike dealt (spell or melee, so as to include Holy Paladins talented for spellcasting). That way it's weapon agnostic and shield agnostic, while also being attack/heal critical agnostic, thereby accounting for all three talent trees. Also note that such a formulation would incentivize investment into Agility in the attribute budget so as to increase critical hit chances with weapons, along with investment into Intelligence to increase critical chances with spells.

Spell crits would accrue mainly (although not exclusively) to Holy spec.
Critical strikes taken and dealt would accrue mainly to Protection spec (when they have aggro).
Critical strikes dealt would accrue mainly to Retribution spec (and Protection when they don't have aggro).

Of course, doing that would then enable a perverse incentive to fish for critical heals to self prior to engaging, but that would cost mana for all the spellcasting that doesn't crit (especially if not Holy spec), so ... pick your poison on that score.

Tying the conditional to casting a Seal would be too low of a bar to clear, I'm thinking, since Seals can be cast at any time and for any reason, without restriction (other than the global cooldown). So tying the enabling conditional to casting of a Seal doesn't provide the necessary "reactive" opportunity adjustment that is desired here. You'd still be able to Seal+Holy Strike all too easily prior to an alpha strike at the start of engagement.

[Balake]

My proposed condition is not casting a seal, it's proccing a seal effect. Which is the on-hit that you get when you auto while buffed with a seal (for some seals its not guaranteed, but seal of righteousness is a way to guarantee a Holy Strike activation.) Critical strikes make it too rng based for prot paladins. It's taking away their initial sunder armor threat generation equivalent because they don't always score a critical strike or get hit by one.

[Warrians]

And how are you going to deal with the "class x faction" quests, and the npcs they point to ? Are you goin to rewrite them all ? Have you tried a shaman without the totems ? When draenei got shaman class, they got every single quest to fix their situation in the world. So, should turtle wow "fix" that by just letting every class have every spell without a quest ? That would turn VANILLA into WTOLK+, and I, for one, would quit.

Make Alliance shaman class quests and Horde paladin class quests that mirror the pre-existing quests, because it’s not like this server doesn’t have custom quests already. In fact, there’s at least one custom quest for the Alliance that is a mirror of a Horde quest in-game.

Truly, there is more than one mirror quest, but im not sure you counted how many quests would have to be re-made. I am just pointing to the fact we saw smaller requests than this being pointed to the "staff is busy" sign. Besides, if I ever see a night elf warlock OR a forsaken paladin in here, or anywhere else, im out.

[Mac]

Truly, there is more than one mirror quest, but im not sure you counted how many quests would have to be re-made. I am just pointing to the fact we saw smaller requests than this being pointed to the "staff is busy" sign. Besides, if I ever see a night elf warlock OR a forsaken paladin in here, or anywhere else, im out.

There's a lot fewer class quests than listed when you account for duplicate class quests and class quests that you don't need to add because the existing ones use neutral NPCs. Making quests is a task the staff can offload onto the player since there's a custom quest maker, so it's not nearly as much work for them as it seems. I also take suggestions as people suggesting it when they have time to implement it, and not "do this now, right now." At least, that's how I mean it.

I think changing the ability to be less front loaded like Balake and Roxanneflowers are suggesting is interesting, and might be a good way to take it.

Holy damage can be resisted, as cited above.
It's just unlikely to be resisted since there is a decided lack of Holy resistances to be obtained on gear.

Maybe bringing back Holy resist as a stat on gear is a possible solution. It apparently existed in beta until patch 0.7. Holy resist is on the item creator. I think I remember seeing a Holy resist potion in the database that got removed as well. You'd have to change the character sheet so Holy resist displays, but with an upcoming custom patch, that is doable.

[Roxanneflowers]

Maybe bringing back Holy resist as a stat on gear is a possible solution. It apparently existed in beta until patch 0.7. Holy resist is on the item creator. I think I remember seeing a Holy resist potion in the database that got removed as well. You'd have to change the character sheet so Holy resist displays, but with an upcoming custom patch, that is doable.

N.
O.

NO.

Holy is deliberately designed to be the one damage type that is explicitly meant to not have +Resistance available for it. This was an intentional design choice by Blizzard that should NOT be mucked with. It's basically the reason why Holy does less raw damage than Shadow ... because there are resistances available for Shadow but not for Holy. There are a LOT of interconnected pieces and design choices that you will upset if you make it easier (through itemization) to resist Holy.

So I repeat ... NO.
HARD NO.

[Sinrek]

We'll have it fixed in the upcoming patch. Balance is required for the Holy Strike indeed, no doubts there.

[Mac]

We'll have it fixed in the upcoming patch. Balance is required for the Holy Strike indeed, no doubts there.

That's great to hear.

[Khazeig]

As long as the PvE aspect of the ability doesn’t get gimped for the sake of a handful of pvpers. It’s nice to be able to tank and hold threat on a boss as a paladin, that ability alone is a draw for the server

[Balake]

As long as the PvE aspect of the ability doesn’t get gimped for the sake of a handful of pvpers. It’s nice to be able to tank and hold threat on a boss as a paladin, that ability alone is a draw for the server

Yep. This is why locking it behind a seal effect proc is good. For prot pallies, they use seal of righteousness and can use it after the first auto, for pve pallies seal of command procs often enough that it's always usable, but in pvp the first hit might or might not allow for holy strike because seal of command does not always proc.

[Gilgarosh]

ah good to get validated finally !
guess we complainers were right all along and you "your tears are delicious"ppl are just trolls
good to have that cleared up

didn't you get banned for cheating in pvp?

[Unangwata]

I don't see reason to disable the Holy Strike. It doesn't give you extra strike, only makes actual autoattack holy type plus little bit of damage. The result is you don't even get that much damage that would equal extra strike. Completely no valid reason to complain about this mechanic.

Holy Strike is only bugged when used together with Judgement of Crusader that grants way too much damage, and people exploit it. But Holy Strike alone is nothing big, actually it makes Pal complete.

What devs need to address is broken damage buff from Judgement of Crusader and that's what Paladins actually do here, and unaware players complain about.