Tuesday, July 19, 2016

So It Begins: Legion Pre-Patch Messes

So It Begins: Legion Pre-Patch Messes

I intended to talk about protection paladin changes, but that has to wait as my addons have all gone belly up. Logging in crashed battle.net, and Blizzard changed my window type without my knowledge. I then had to change passwords to find a way to log back in, and now the pre-patch is being patched until further notice.

So, a half hour later I managed to log back in successfully with my new password and I'm looking at the vanilla view of my screen. I feel so lost without my addons. So I opened all the default action bars just so I could see some buttons. With additional effort I got Dominos (my go to addon) running. Now I can get all my spells set up again. I had nine offensive spells before the pre-patch. Now Java has only six. I haven't tried any combat yet. Six spells. Makes me nervous. Anyway, here is what has been done to the Paladin.

Protection Paladin Changes

Changes to the protection paladin in Legion could spell the end of the "hybrid" paladin that selects protection but fights and gears up more like retribution. Like Javajoo.

 Gone are offensive spells Holy Power, Crusader Strike, and Word of Glory. All paladin Seals have been removed from the game.

Consecration has been twisted into a healing spell - Paladins are encouraged to stand inside the area of consecration to get additional healing from two new spells, Light of the Protector (self healing) and Divine Bulwark, a multipurpose, passive spell that combines the affects of Shield of the Righteous, Bastion of Glory, and improves melee blocking while increasing attack power.

Another new spell is Divine Steed, which auto calls your mount and gives a 100% increase in speed for 3 seconds.

Icy Veins hasn't set a spell rotation yet, but it appears that things will be simpler. I suspect there will be more standing around waiting on cooldowns to finish. It also appears that killing things in prot spec will take longer than before. That probably works out ok for Java and I, but I wonder how well it will be received by those who believe this is all a dumbing down trick.

On another related subject Blizzard now allows players to switch specs almost at will without going to the trainer. The catch? It costs gold to make the swap - 100 gold is the number that keeps popping up. I don't understand what Blizzard thinks they are making better by this idiotic idea.

Bottom line is more heals and loss of some offensive spells. Standing in consecration increases healing - a gimmick to get pallies to stand closer to melee, which Blizz wants pallies to do more of. Best guess on what that will do to the spec is the pally will be even harder to kill, but killing things may take a lot longer. Blizz doesn't seem to want the prot/ret hybrid to succeed.

But, hey, its still only the first day of the pre-patch.

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