[PvP] Disable Holy Strike in Battlegrounds

[Pawpaw]

Salutations!

As the title suggests, I would like to propose the paladin class' Holy Strike be disabled during battlegrounds. Holy strike is an unbalanced custom feature and is simply too powerful in PvP. I dont want it removed, just disabled during battlegrounds. I understand this was done to the Tauren Plainsrunning as well.

It has become a pretty severe problem recently as easily 50% or more of the alliance team is composed of paladins.

Paladins were already balanced for PvP in patch 1.12. This ability is too favourable, and it is making our paladins lazy.

I appreciate that paladins got the ability, its a godsend in PvE. Just not in PvP.

I welcome any opinions people may have on this topic.

[Kazgrim]

I think for the sake of consistency it shouldn't be disabled in certain scenarios, such as in PvP. I would prefer it be removed in that case.

I suggest an increased CD on the ability. It just needs some nerfing.

[Heroclastus]

I have to agree with Kazgrim here, I also think one should be consistent about having abilities.

In that regard - just a thought - but would re-enabling Plainsrunning even the odds again? It's a shame such a nice feature can't be used in PvP.

If there's a way to program said abilities to work differently in bgs/pvp (e. g. having holy strike only deal 50 % damage versus other players or humanoids in general) - I have no idea if that's possible - that could be an option too IMO.

[Qixel]

Plainsrunning was disabled in battlegrounds because it would break Warsong Gulch (and no one seems willing to queue for the other two). Imagine a flag carrier moving at 100% increased speed. With luck and coordination, you might be able to catch him, but that's a huge bonus to have as a racial ability.

Holy Strike is not that. It's as much damage as a shaman's lightning bolt on a 10 second cooldown in melee range. Is it powerful? Certainly. But if you ban holy strike from BGs, there are plenty of other abilities that should also be on the chopping block. Polymorph, Fear, any given CC that can take someone out of the fight and not even let them rez is brutal in the meta here. A shaman can delete you in two hits before you can close the distance.

PvP is, at it's core, unfair. It's about exploiting every advantage you have over your opponent as far as you can get it. That was the case before Holy Strike, and it's the case now. There's no need to do anything.

[Sinrek]

I would increase the mana cost and make it scale off AP only.

[Pawpaw]

PvP is not unfair at its core. That is why classes were being balanced. It is true its about exploiting advantages, and right now Paladins have a HUGE advantage compared to all other classes that they are simply not balanced for.

In vanilla a warrior could go head to head with a retribution paladin, and win if he successfully interrupted heals. Here? No way. Try to be on the receiving end of a 2.3k crit holy strike. That is more than half of my HP gone in one swing. Compare it to Mortal Strike which cost 30 rage and does ~350-500 damage on people with 2.5-3.5 armor, crits for around 800-1000. These numbers are from people with blue pvp gear and lower tier MC weapon.

My current strategy on my warrior is to charge, hit, hamstring and run away to lure them to my team so we can 2v1 or 3v1 them. Because even with use/summon trinkets, potions, cooldowns, I can only barely manage to take down a paladin who has divine shield off CD (5min), if he does not have the bare minimum of intelligence to heal himself, or have Lay on Hands off cooldown.

The strategy against paladins used to be about preventing heals from being cast, right now most dont even bother casting heals, because we are dead before they have to worry about this.

The paladin has become a hero-class, one-person army that can be severely difficult to defeat even 2v1.

Yes its possible for some classes like warlocks and hunters to kite/perma cc paladins. But the rest of us are getting demolished by this ability.

[Pawpaw]

As I see it, there is no way to balance this ability without crippling it, which would ruin it for PvE. The problem is not that it is too cheap or does too much damage. The problem is that it is there, added to a pre-balanced PvP scene.

Increasing the mana cost would not rebalance pvp, since the worst paladins to play against are holy paladins (Yes it still does huge damage from a one-hander with +SP gear). Rebalancing it to only scale from AP would make a lot of paladin raiding gear useless, and drive retri paladins towards warrior gear.

I dont think consistency is worth a whole lot compared to fun and viability. If an ability was added to shadow priests that allowed them to increase their dps to match other classes in raids, it would be great - because it could add to more colourful raiding, but I would not expect this ability to be available in pvp either. For obvious reasons (shadow priests are bloody powerful in pvp already, just like paladins).

[Justice]

As a Paladin I have to say that HS is OP when it critics specially if I am in a BG, but I don't think it has to be removed. On the set I use for PvP (Stamina is very important in pvp, so I don't prioritize critic or agility, otherwise if I'd die quickly) I have like 16% - 18% critic. As you can understand most of the time HS hits about 700-900. I understand the frustration when a critic happens, but it is the same as I feel when some good procs skill.

I really think some regular wsg players like Drakk get frustrated at losing, but that's normal. It would be great to get an analysis of how many times the Alliance wins and how many times the Horde. I'm sure it's balanced in terms of win rate.

I have played most of my playing time without HS, I must say that it is great to be able to choose to be Dps with a class that was pigeonholed to be supportive. I think there are people with too square minds

Using the time you spend complaining (which is a lot) to find a way to win a paladin would be really OP. Many players already know how to do it, and I think it's the fun of a game, learning how to win when you don't. Don't make excuses.

[Pawpaw]

Of course paladins will defend this ability that makes the game easy for them. Cant beat ranged classes? Its a team game, you are not supposed to solo every class easily.

Here are some of the things I use regularly in my attempts to survive, or even kill paladins:

Grenades, Thorium/TheBigOne(Engineering): small dps increase, short cc
Arena Grand Master(trinket): 750-1250 damage absorb shield - 30min CD
Barov Peasant Caller(Trinket): Summons 3 servants that do 20-40 damage each every 2 seconds for ~30 seconds. 10mins CD
Arcanite Dragonling(Eng. Trinket): does ~70 damage and occationally breathes fire. Low hp. 1hour CD
Dense Sharpening Stone: adds 8 damage to weapons.
Horned Viking Helmet: Incapacitates target for 30 seconds (good for running away). 1hour CD.
Major Healing Potion: heals for 1050-1750
13 points in Protection talents to get a total of 30% stun resist and Last Stand.
Recklessness: All attacks become crits for 15 seconds, but I take 20% more damage. This is easily countered by a stun or bubble though. 30mins CD.

Even with the combined efforts of potions, grenades, and trinkets, it only adds an advantage that is greatly overshadowed by holy strike every 10 seconds. The most useful items in my war against Holy Strike Paladins are the ones that can allow me to escape them.

[Heroclastus]

Hello,

I'd like to repeat my suggestion to either cut holy strikes damage against humanoids by 50 % which (would mean almost all pvp opponents and wouldn't affect raid performance too much as not too many raid bosses are humanoid) or if possible cut damage by 50 % against other players (if that's possible to program).

Main concern seems to be the high damage (from what I read about two times too high) coupled with the paladins inherent resilience which could be alleviated by this a bit and still give them a strong ability.

I also suggested returning plainsrunning to bgs but was said 100% speed would be too much and I have to say I agree. Perhaps letting it back into bgs but only make it work up to standard mount speed would be fairer.

It seems just a bit hypocritical to me to allow one seemingly very strong advantage for alliance and not allowing another advantage for horde.

[Vasyan]

Paladins were already balanced for PvP in patch 1.12.

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAH
OH WOW

[Qixel]

If we're to seek "returning" to "balance", I would recommend removing all changes from pvp. Plainsrunning, Holy Strike, 2v2 WSG, and the modified honor system. The game was not designed with any of it in mind.

[Chlothar]

First of all i have to say....paladin dmg on pservers is way lower than it was back in retail vanilla...ive beaten r13 warriors in blue dungeon gear back then with 2k SoC procs....the dmg is nowhere near to that in p-servers. HS is powerful and playing a horde toon on pvp makes me cry out sometimes when i get hit for 1.5k.....not 2.3 - that was probably Aurelian with his legendary hammer. Paladins are in huge advantage to warriors, very true, especially with the HS+reckoning combo. But warriors are in a huge disadvantage vs a frost mage aswell.

Comparing HS with MS seems to be fair but keep in mind that MS can be used whenever you have the rage for it. HS replaces your next auto swing.

I understand why people are complaining but being chain cced from a mage, rogue or warlock isnt fun either. Also i wonder why is alliance getting so few wins in wsg compared to horde? looks like the paladins are not too op.

HS is a unique feature and i often question myself if the paladin was better balanced like it was w/o HS.

[Aurrius]

No

[Justice]

most of the time HS hits about 700-900 , thats double what warrior MS/HS hits for non crit
most i can expect from a non crit is about 500 max ,and thats not on plate , plate is more like 300 max non crit , so vs plate its 3 times the dmg a warrior gets
but hey im making excuses right? u do triple the dmg but im just making excuses yup
seems legit

I don't understand why you try to compare you class with paladins, they are different warriors have his pros and cons as paladins do.

Something is broken when it allows to win every game (or high winrate). I'd like to share with you my winrate from yesterday. I won 2 games, and I lost 4 games (vs Sixtyfivetwo is very difficult to win, like Trepp). I think this is not broken.

[Pawpaw]

Arguing holy strike isnt broken because you dont win battlegrounds is not a valid argument. It is not "broken enough" to let you win every battle, but if you improved it probably would be.

Here are some ways to deal with mages:
Ice reflector: Eng Trinket, reflects all frost spells for 5 seconds
Flame Reflector: Eng Trinket, reflects all fire spells for 5 seconds
Ice/Flame deflectors: absorbs 500 points of fire/frost damage
Recombulator: Removes polymorph effects from an ally (But as a paladin you dont need this, because you got Cleanse)
Free action Potion: Makes you immune to slows/roots/stuns for 30 seconds
Greater Frost/Fire Protection potions - great absorb, if you cant win with this, start playing with both your hands....

Think its too much to farm for all of this? Some of us are farming these things and more daily in order to deal with paladins and their bloody holy strike

[Justice]

Arguing holy strike isnt broken because you dont win battlegrounds is not a valid argument. It is not "broken enough" to let you win every battle, but if you improved it probably would be.

Here are some ways to deal with mages:
Ice reflector: Eng Trinket, reflects all frost spells for 5 seconds
Flame Reflector: Eng Trinket, reflects all fire spells for 5 seconds
Ice/Flame deflectors: absorbs 500 points of fire/frost damage
Recombulator: Removes polymorph effects from an ally (But as a paladin you dont need this, because you got Cleanse)
Free action Potion: Makes you immune to slows/roots/stuns for 30 seconds
Greater Frost/Fire Protection potions - great absorb, if you cant win with this, start playing with both your hands....

Think its too much to farm for all of this? Some of us are farming these things and more daily in order to deal with paladins and their bloody holy strike

I knew about these items and I don't get what do you want to get saying that.

How do you think great games know that some character is broken? why 5% of the players make posts in forums? No. They get analysis related to the winrate, if it is above the rest then it is not balanced. I was just giving my example, as I am one of the paladins who plays the most in Wsg. Btw, yesterday was pretty balanced too.

I just hope they don't make a decision considering how many tears have left 4 or 5 players on the forums.

[Kaljilj1]

It is simple, Holy strike was not in vanilla. This is not vanilla we all get it. Holy strike is giving the Alliance an unfair advantage, regardless who is winning or losing. Plainsrunning was a game changer, Holy strike is also a game changer, it can turn the tides of battle. We `cry` about it when we win and when we lose, therefore the argument of Horde crying about losing is invalid.It has no counter play , holy protection potions are a joke. No nerfs will make the ability `balanced` in PvP. The problem is that it is there. Drakk explained how it works, they just didn`t mention the Beserk Buff in Battlegrounds. Chlotar, who has a paladin and plays horde,also added some info. Every Horde pvper has at least once complained about Holy strike being too powerful, or were just surprised at how are paladins doing so much damage. Keep in mind there will be new or fresh 60 who will want to pvp, that is who I got the previous info from, I dont remember all their character names so I will not mention them. Holy strike is an issue and it should be addressed.
On behalf of the Horde playerbase who pvps I ask the GMs to DISABLE Holy Strike ONLY IN BATTLEGROUNDS. It is a unique feature and it is a nice fantacy, RP ability for paladins that should not be taken away entirely.

Edit: we do win games and we lose games, we are aware of that. It should be taken into account that most of the time there a 2 paladins on Allaince in a battle ground, sometimes 3 when the games are 4v4, 5v5
I am sorry if I made some spelling mistakes, I hope I corrected all of them :D

[Vasyan]

Just remove 1-2 highest ranks of HS, it will be ok.

[Hejtr]

Ok, this thing is weird. I didn't mind HS in BGs that much but lately its been hell. The more I play, the worse it gets.

There is no counter to it.

If you can't keep palas away from you they will run you down. And since they are immune to slows and with bubbles even to dmg and cc, they are pretty hard to counter even on classic. Just priests and mages are a good option, they can sometimes outsustain them, not much of those in here though...

Bubble every 3 minutes, holding that "W" and everything dies. On classic you can at least use limited invulneraility pots, to mitigate that physical dmg, but here.. nothing like that. Their holy dmg is just stupid high and we have no counter to it.

Holy pots absorbs only like 400 dmg, there is no holy reflector, no holy resistance, no proper holy dmg mitigation. I can't even ground totem any of palas spells here! And added to that the dmg scaling is crazy high. Does it scale from melee crit or magical? Why does it crit so fucking often?

Geared retardins are pretty strong even without HS. And with HS, well let me repeat again.. it's hell.

At least since you added this crazy spell to pvp you could provide us with a helpful counter.


upload picture

[Sinrek]

We're getting some data on the spell and yes, you have already guessed it right - there will be a rework of the spell. As of right now, it scales from everything paladins have. We're investigating the cause of it. Once we'll find the initial problem and make sure we'll be able to deploy the patch for it we'll make an additional post on the matter.

This spell will be fixed eventually.

[Normanjudges]

I would like to say something to this Spell aswell.
As you have already seen, I've been playing a lot with my paladin in BGs. There were BGs where i couldnt do any big crits to my opponents because 1. they had massive CC that i couldnt reach them or 2. i just wasnt lucky enough to get some big crits.
If you would play as a paladin like me all day in BGs and get every class as a opponent you would see that this is a powerfull spell but as Chlothar said. it replaces your next auto swing and can be easily countered with some CC and keeping distance.
I think that the only problem people have with this spell is the "OP" damage in PvP. in PvE its really usefull to keep up to other dmg classes and have a opportunity to do more dmg as in other Private servers. So its nice to have something additional.
In the end its the choice of the GMs what they want to change or "fix" this spell.
I havent seen Trepp or Kigi complaining about Holy Strike. Maybe you ask them what you could do against Paladins? :)

And another hint to Krasz. Why did you uploaded a screenshot where Chlothar hits you with the Proc of Seal of Command with 1.6k? i didnt know that SoC is OP too now?.
Greetings.