Seeing as how Blizzard seems to be doing a wholesale redesign of paladins as tanks, I was wondering if anyone had brought this suggestion up. Currently, holy shield reads: http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=27179
Holy Shield
280 Mana
Instant cast 10 sec cooldown
Requires Shields
Increases chance to block by 30% for 10 sec and deals 155 Holy damage for each attack blocked while active. Damage caused by Holy Shield causes 35% additional threat. Each block expends a charge. 4 charges.
Also, it is possible it is being changed to 6 charges baseline. ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents2.html#none )
I was thinking about it, and with the shield block changes and Tankadin design seeming to hinge so much on our shields ( Divine Strength, Redoubt, Shield Specialization, Blessing of Sanctuary, Holy shield, Improved Holy Shield, and Shield of Righteousness all directly or indirectly have to do with our shield, and Ardent Defender stacks VERY well with blocks), we are intended to be the tanks who block everything/AoE tank (compared to warriors having the best innate mitigation and the tricks to call on, druids having very high dodge, armor, and health, and Death Knights having very high parry chances and the best tools to tank casters).
Now, if Holy Shield is intended to remain our core ability, it'd be really nice if it scaled smoothly through content. I would propose that with the general class redesign and the change of many of our skills to one rank (seals, judgements, etc), now would be a good time to change Holy Shield to something such as:
Holy Shield
4% of base mana
Instant cast 8 sec cooldown
Requires Shields
Increases chance to block by 30% for 10 sec and deals 50% of shield block value as Holy damage for each attack blocked while active. Damage caused by Holy Shield causes 35% additional threat. Each block expends a charge. 6 charges.
and eliminate all coefficients . This would make Holy Shield scale directly and comparably with our other threat abilities (since str is intended to be the main threat stat, and now noticeably increases block value) and keep all cooldowns in a MT rotation useful through all content, instead of becoming a laughable single-target threat generator after a tier and a half.
*edit*
My subscription is dead until WOTLK is available, so I can't post this on the official forums. Please transport it to the beta forums if you support it.
*Further edits including my calculations on this have been moved to my first reply*
Vesstair
Wed Aug 13, 2008 3:13 pm
