PvP

Seeded from the first three days of #forever-pvp (310 messages, September 12 to 15). Everything here is read from BlizzCon demo footage, stream screenshots and secondhand relays of the panels. Nothing has been tested; the beta opens September 17 with a level 30 cap.

Where PvP stands

• One PvP mega realm, no war mode. Hardcore characters that die can continue on the PvP realm. (Relayed from Blizzard, no source link posted.)
• Ranks are an honor bar. The PvP pane seen on a stream shows rank progression as a plain experience bar (“0/250” on hover). Ranks go to 14 purely on honor and reset each season, with seasons tied to new raids.
• Seasons are on the roadmap. A “Season 1 PvP” date was mentioned at BlizzCon; the channel did not capture it.
• No arena expected. An arena queue NPC exists in the demo but only queues Warsong Gulch. Legacy-screen tooltips mention battlegrounds and not arena. The channel’s working assumption is battlegrounds plus seasons, no arena or rated battlegrounds.
• Faction balance is unresolved. Blizzard mentioned faction imbalance and “some kind of faction balance”, and the channel cites the Season of Discovery faction lock as precedent. Nothing concrete about a lock on the PvP realm.

Current builds

All are drafts from the channel, none tested. Splits are Holy/Prot/Ret as read from the link encoding.

The Holy channel’s own Arena Vigil (31/18/2) is the healer-side PvP build: Vigil burst, 30 seconds off the bubble cooldown, 45-second Hammer of Justice, skips Illumination.

How the channel expects it to play

• Twist of Light (Ret talent): equip a slow weapon, alternate rank 1 Seal of Command and Seal of Righteousness every swing, weave Holy Strike, Judge while in Righteousness. Works in either direction. Max-rank Command plus Righteousness goes out of mana in about ten seconds, so rank 1 Command is assumed, which also makes judging Command on a stunned target unlikely.
• Classic-style twisting without the talent did not seem possible in the test (September 15, supersedes earlier hope). Reckoning plus twisting also does not work.
• Burst combo: big two-hander auto with Command, Judgement off cooldown (preferably on a stunned target) and Holy Shock in the same global. The argument is that about 1,400 up front beats building Righteousness damage to the same total over ten seconds.
• Light’s Vigil combo (one person): Judge Crusader, Light’s Vigil, Holy Shock, Holy Shock, melee with Command.
• Shockadin: Shock and Judge on the same global, then again next cooldown. Reckoning plus Holy Shock is viewed as “ridiculous” if both can be reached.
• Eye for an Eye (one theorycrafter’s framing): kiting no longer removes paladin offense. Opponents have to control the healing, time burst around the reflect, force the bubble, and lean on DoTs, mana denial and healing reduction. Not expected to reach Wrath prot-warrior damage-shield levels.

Key talents and how the channel values them

• Holy utility is the reason Ret/Holy beats Ret/Prot. A Holy talent grants 6 seconds of silence immunity, another reduces fear and disorient duration, and the heals are big. The later caveat (September 15): 6 seconds is very short and easy to get stunned or feared through.
• Twist of Light: disliked. No timing skill, weaker twists than Classic, “seal busywork”. One person argues twisting was gated on purpose so Shock and Prot stay balanceable and swing timers stay out of it.
• Holy Shock: roughly the same damage as twisting for far less complexity, plus range and healing. This is the community consensus, not a measured result.
• Holy Strike (Ret): does holy damage, so it bypasses armor. Read as a 12-second cooldown. Whether it scales with spell power is suspected but unconfirmed. Whether it is normalized is disputed (see below).
• Eye for an Eye: near-mandatory for PvP per one theorycrafter, “if it still has 100% spell power scaling”. Uncertain.
• Reckoning: confirmed not to work with twisting. Whether it still stacks 4 charges is open.
• Prot’s early tree: a 6% damage reduction talent competes with a one-hander damage talent (from a screenshot). Reaching the 3-minute Blessing of Protection costs 7 points and the same route adds about 6 seconds of Freedom and 10% armor.
• Block mana talent (Prot): claimed by one person as 7% max mana every 3 seconds on block. Not verified. Value is disputed: blocking rarely matters in PvP (only unstunned, not casting, hit from the front) versus strong against rogues and in battlegrounds.
• Stun removal: cooldown unknown. One guess of 2 minutes.

Numbers from the demo

All from one theorycrafter’s estimates on September 14 to 15 unless noted, assuming about 800 spell power with Sanctity and Vengeance-type buffs up. Treat as back-of-envelope.

Other reads: the demo calculators show 51 talent points at level 60. Judgement no longer consumes the seal. If the stat squish is real and raid two-handers deal about 35 DPS, spell power scaling matters more for paladins than for warriors or rogues.

Gearing, stats and races

• Both Strength and spell power. Relayed from Blizzard by one theorycrafter; lots of gear carries +spell damage. Melee being less gear-dependent than casters is one person’s opinion.
• Human is the racial pick on Alliance for several people. Undead is the only Horde option.
• PvP vendor gear (demo screenshots, September 13): labeled “Premier”, bought with honor. A weapon showed lower DPS than its vanilla equivalent (vanilla cited at 64.6 DPS) and was called underwhelming. One theory is that it is deliberately low so seasonal upgrades have room. Items are “supposedly” upgradable.
• Healing set pieces are named “Lamellar”. No spell-power PvP set was seen. Glove bonuses and an epic set are unknown.
• Tank gear for a Prot/Holy shock build: asked, not answered.

What Blizzard has said

Every statement below was relayed secondhand in the channel. No direct link or timestamp was posted, so none is verified against a VOD.

• One PvP mega realm, no war mode. Hardcore characters that die can continue on PvP realms.
• A Season 1 PvP date exists and PvP seasons are on the roadmap.
• Paladins will want to gear both Strength and spell power.
• Twisting is not mandatory (“losers can pick Holy Shock” is the channel’s paraphrase). “Twist of Light is our answer to your love for twisting” was quoted from the stage.
• Faction imbalance was acknowledged with “some kind of faction balance” promised.
• Transfers: one person recalls PvE-to-PvP transfers being allowed, another recalls only Hardcore characters being able to move realm types. Unresolved.

Consensus versus disputed

Consensus

• Ret/Holy over classic Ret/Prot. Holy talents look strong.
• All three trees look good and Ret self-healing is back after a poor Season of Discovery showing.
• Twist of Light is a chore. Holy Shock does about the same job with less complexity.
• Rank 14 is an honor grind that resets each season. No arena or rated battlegrounds expected.
• Wish list: Hand of Freedom and Hand of Protection instead of Blessings, TBC Sacred Duty and Sanctified Seals, seals made non-magic so they can’t be purged.

Disputed or one person’s theory

• Reckoning at 4 stacks: one says it is already nerfed enough without twisting; several say 4 stacks would one-shot.
• Seal interaction: one says Command can proc Righteousness (one way); another says no interaction at all.
• Holy Strike normalized: one theorycrafter’s math assumes not; another leans normalized.
• Eye for an Eye as near-mandatory: one theorycrafter.
• Block mana talent value: one-versus-one.
• A new max-level or level 40 seal to twist with Command, as in Season of Discovery: one person’s wish.
• Melee is less gear-dependent than casters: one person.

Open questions

• Cooldown of the stun removal ability.
• Does Seal of Justice slow like TBC?
• Are seals and Righteous Fury magic (purgeable)?
• Can Reckoning still stack 4 charges?
• Can Holy Strike proc Command or Righteousness? Does it scale with spell power? Is it normalized?
• Are dishonorable kills still in?
• Faction lock on the single PvP realm? PvE-to-PvP transfers?
• Arena or rated battlegrounds at all?
• PvP glove bonuses, epic set, spell-power set?
• Holy mana sustain in PvP.
• When Blizzard will detail the updated PvP systems.

What the channel is arguing about

• Whether Twist of Light is worth taking at all, or whether Holy Shock makes the whole twisting question moot.
• Reckoning: dead talent or one-shot machine.
• Holy Strike normalization, which decides whether slow two-handers matter.
• Whether the “Premier” vendor gear is bad or just season-one bad.
• Whether the PvP realm gets a faction lock.