Because apparently beta testers don’t.

The topic flared up earlier, and I made a quick post about it when some of the Mage spells moved to a % of base mana cost. Since then, virtually all spells in the game cost base mana, making down-ranking useless.

After many utterly newbish comments, I thought we’d moved on from the naive belief that base mana = unbuffed mana pool. Apparently we haven’t, and the Paladin beta forums are abuzz with stupid comments.

Base Mana, Blessing of Sanctuary, and Rage

I was browsing through a thread on the new Blessing of Sanctuary, and I couldn’t keep quiet about all of these statements. Since I can’t respond on the boards (no beta account, doh), I’ll just have to write it up here.

Our abilities cost a percentage of our base, and granted, with tanking gear we don’t get much extra mana…

Actually, with no gear, we get a decent increase over base mana. At level 70, a Paladin has a base mana of 2953. A level 70 Human Paladin with no gear has 3917 mana. That’s roughly a 30% increase. Add in minimal Int on gear (T4/T5, Badge items), Arcane Intellect, Mark of the Wild, and BoK and raid buffed I’m usually sporting over 6,000 mana. Not alot, but roughly double base mana for a level 70 Paladin.

The argument then arose… do Paladin or Warrior abilities cost more, relatively, of the rage/mana bar? Someone said that Paladin abilities are cheaper, and someone else replied…

Not really, the only difference between Pally and Warrior is the Pally has their “rage” at 100% when they start and it regens poorly. Warrior starts with 0% and fills quickly.

Since Prot is moving to Warrior gear their mana pool is pretty much close to base. Sunder Armor is 12 rage, Devastate 15 rage, Shield Slam 20 rage, Demoralizing Shout 10 rage.

Consecration 22% base, Holy Wrath 20% base, Shield of Righteousness 6% base, Judgements 5% base, Avenger Shield 26% base, Hammer of Righteousness 6% base, Holy Shield 10% base.

Let’s compare for a moment.

On the Warrior side, we’ll look at four basic abilities - Devastate (15 Rage), Shield Slam (20 Rage), Thunder Clap (20 Rage), and Heroic Strike (15 Rage).

On the Paladin side, let’s look at Holy Shield (10% Base), Consecration (22% Base), Judgement (5% Base), Shield of Righteousness (6% Base) and Hammer of the Righteous (6% Base).

On the face of it, the Paladin abilities might look roughly on par with the Warrior abilities. Until we adjust “base mana” to mean “percentage of mana pool.” Remember, base mana for a level 70 Paladin is 2953. Let’s assume a small buffed mana pool of 5,000.

That brings the abilities to - Holy Shield (6% Mana Pool), Consecration (13% Mana Pool), Judgement (3% Mana Pool), Shield of Righteousness (3.5% Mana Pool), and Hammer of the Righteous (3.5% Mana Pool).

Consider that every major warrior ability costs 15% more of their rage bar, while only one Paladin ability (Consecration, on an eight second cooldown) costs more than 10%. The mechanics of Rage and Mana are different in a lot of ways, but Paladin abilities certainly cost less of a full mana bar than do Warrior abilities.

Will be nice to have this talent in raids or instances to help us out.

However Soloing having this Blessing up as it is gimps Protection Paladins DPS a bit. Almost all of our spells with some exceptions now scale on AP and benefit from it. Before the patch I was using BoM which was also before the Judgement of Wisdom big nerf. I could do more DPS and scale my spell abilities by having BoM up while using a damage seal then. That also scaled up Judgements at the time for mana, but has since being nerfed.

No shit. We have to trade out a DPS buff (Blessing of Might) in order to get unlimited mana while grinding? I’ll gladly make that trade, kill ten guys at a time, and not have to drink before I move on to the next pack.

BoS is certainly a trade-off with Kings (Str/AP, Agi/Crit, Stam/SP, Int/Mana) or Might (Raw AP). However, while solo-ing, I think it’s a trade well made. In many cases, it will also be a great trade off in raids/dungeons, unless you’re taking so much damage that mana is not an issue.

There was also this sad note for Warriors and Druids and them getting 10 rage…

They don’t.

It’s a typo. Test it

Warriors gain 1 rage.
DKs gain 2 RP.

If that’s true, I feel sorry for them. 10 Rage may have been OP, but 1 Rage is certainly UP. It doesn’t compare at all to 2% mana, if the blessing is indeed returning that to Paladins.

And finally, to the OP…

Blessing of Sanctuary changed to give all members of the raid or group that share the same class with the target the Greater Blessing of Sanctuary, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 30 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 10 rage, 20 runic power, or 2% of maximum mana.

Seriously… I should have heard the squeals of joy from across the boards at this change, why have I not?

Because we don’t want Blizzard to smack us with the nerf bat…! Duh.

/endrant