[7.0] New Paladin Abilities and Talents

[Teleros]

Looking at the Ashbringer, the weapon speed is ludicrously high. 3.60? I get it's the Ashbringer but statwise I think it would at least be way lower. I was thinking maybe 2.90 would be nice, it's an artifact weapon and such.

Nah. Remember weapon speed affects weapon damage per swing, so a faster weapon deals less damage per swing, which is very much not Ret's thing (or any 2H spec's thing). Now, IRL a two-handed sword had a pretty high "attack speed" because it would only weigh a few pounds and there were proper techniques involved rather than "swing it very hard", but game mechanics > realism.

Also, don't forget in all this talk of weapon damage & speed that most of our attacks are normalised - meaning the damage is based on a 3.3 speed weapon.

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I don't get this hate for Divine Steed. Why do people hate it, talking to you and anyone in here that hates it. Is it because after going a foot or so with the charger we can just get deathgripped by a dk right back to where we were and then have no way to escape? Or does it feel gimmicky to some people? I personally think it's a cool fit and helps somewhat with the mobility issue (although not much at all). No idea why it can be slowed though, for the short amount of time we have it we should be able to be free of slows since that's our only option for mobility. That's one of the only reasons I could see the hate for this talent, other than that I think it's pretty cool.

In and of itself, I think Divine Steed is fine mechanically, and aesthetically is very cool indeed. I would buff it to make you immune to movement-impairing effects whilst it's active (remember the short duration too), but that's all.

The problem is that as a mobility tool for a class with nothing else, it is really, really bad. The cooldown is too long for most purposes, and the duration is too short. The fact that you can be snared/rooted etc whilst it's active also means it's unreliable.

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from what i keep seeing and playing for myself, for PVP its not an issue at all really. if targets run from me i can either ignore them and fight someone else, heal myself, or eventually get on them and they die. PVP is not like it was in the past were everyone had spammable high damage instant spells and could all run at mach 5 speeds. Many videos of 3v3 arena has been posted in this forum for quite some time and its pretty eviddent that yes, reti s slow. but its not like they are incapable of catching people OR being able to kill them either.

I'll be honest, watching Bajheera's (mostly) 3v3 videos, he's not done bad at all as Ret in the Alpha to date.

Then again, you have to consider the quality of the opposition. Bajheera is a RBG Grand Marshal, an Arena Master, ended in the top 0.5% in WoD season 1 & 2, and the same in seasons 14 and 15. In other words, he's a good PvP player. How many of his opponents are as good?

I mean, good players can very often take an under-performing class or spec and do very well against mediocre or bad players. Just to give one example, I recall seeing a warrior bladestorm Bajheera's ret paladin whilst Shield of Vengeance was up and he was sitting on the warrior's mage ally (who didn't dispel / spellsteal SoV). Shield of Vengeance broke, and the mage died.

Now, what happens if you factor in all the usual PvP addons and better players to this mix? If the mage doesn't just spellsteal SoV, he and the warrior can move away to let it fizzle. Instead of focusing on Bajheera's team members, they can focus on him, seeing as he has only one defensive ability that can't be purged or interrupted (and the latter will mess up his other Holy abilities).

[Lunavale]

Anyway I'm not sure why you guys love procs like Emp DS so much... remember in Mop before T16 our DS did 135% weapon damage! For an aoe wave (like an imp wave on manno or xhul) you would pool 5HP and do DS, generator, DS for hard hitting reliable aoe.

The thing people like to forget, is that our AoE used to be tuned higher as a whole. DS was a gain to use at 2 targets in MoP, and thus was of course higher than WoD. We also had the exact same emp DS proc in t16 and I'm moderately certain DS wasn't nerfed (at least not substantially, my memory is foggy though).

[Deleted]

The thing people like to forget, is that our AoE used to be tuned higher as a whole. DS was a gain to use at 2 targets in MoP, and thus was of course higher than WoD. We also had the exact same emp DS proc in t16 and I'm moderately certain DS wasn't nerfed (at least not substantially, my memory is foggy though).

It was nerfed. I´m just not sure if it was directly at the launch of MoP (there were so many things they nerfed right at the launch) or right before t16 has gone live.

On another note I look forward to and dread the next build coming up at the same time. Hope, that they will start addressing our issues, born from desperation and fear, that they will go down the route they choose no matter what, born from experience.

If nothing else beta fopr ret has always been like a well written drama or trash novel, depends on who you ask.

[Morally Grey Storm]

My favorite beta was pre-cata.
Ret was soloed by hunter's pet

[Deleted]

My favorite beta was pre-cata.
Ret was soloed by hunter's pet

to be fair hunter pets were at times over tuned.
but yeah it´s always nice to to level my twink hunter and see how much easier it is for him in greens compared to level as ret in in "highend" gear.

[Ulthane]

So limited target switching, limited aoe, limited movement.. no rets in the top 10+ guilds

Anyway I'm not sure why you guys love procs like Emp DS so much... remember in Mop before T16 our DS did 135% weapon damage! For an aoe wave (like an imp wave on manno or xhul) you would pool 5HP and do DS, generator, DS for hard hitting reliable aoe.

In WoD you have to have FV buff, 5HP and you need an EmpDS proc up <12sec before adds adds because our DS weapon % was heavily reduced (currently 86%) to allow us to have this bonus/perk and FV.

Bad rng is super punishing (love all those DS procs when there are no adds) and our aoe is unreliable out of our control. Divine Purpose has basically the same problem as EmpDS/Divine Crusader too so I'm not sure it's a good solution.

Lets work on the real problems which are:
J debuff should be a buff on the player, baseline mobility and lack of short cd damage reduction (TV glyph gone, DivProt gone, Sacred Shield gone).

The concept I keep throwing for Emp DS is a 100% proc.

Divine Tempest: Your Holy Power consumers cause your next Divine Storm to be free, deal more damage and have a bigger radius and deals radiant damage instead. (Animation adds another whirl of Holy energy to it).

This way you always have aoe regardless of Judgment debuff and a fun filler mechanic.

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Where Echo acts like old Hand of Light, and sends Holy radiant bolts on TV and ds. ST and AoE buffed due to this and dt.

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As I keep putting, if the aoe is Buffed enough we won't need Judgment synergy with it.

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Though yes in the past I have said Judgment should buff us and I agree but they way Blizzard is the best thing to do is take their concepts and make it work regardless.

[Camaris]

if targets run from me i can either ignore them and fight someone else, heal myself, or eventually get on them and they die

god fucking damnit reg.

My thought was actually "He must not do any arenas," but the general sentiment is the same. Retribution's PvP situation will not improve until we are designed to counter players other than the ignorant and the undergeared.

[Reghame]

teleros, i assure you most top end glads end up in closed testing. Same with streamers and the like. Its kind of silly to think that he would be the only "good" pvp player testing alpha ATM. There are also other ret streamers and glads out there posting vods about how ret preforms. I have looked at a decent number of them and just like i mention, if your not an idiot at ret, they seem very strong.

And yes DS was nerfed and was substantially weaker because we had access to DP and EMP ds in MoP. On top of this this was a tier set meaning that unless the fight was AOE based, we lacked a decent chunk of damage because we no longer had a acceptable tier set.
The reason why DS got WORSE in warlords was because it was given to us baseline, meaning things had to be weaker overall. That resulted in the 50% ds damage we had for quite some time and was only recently buffed to the 60% numbers as it is now ( still fucking trash)

Also, lynx rush was stupid....... and we had zero damage healing and defensives after they tried to bamboozle us with a completely different rework towards the end of cata beta.

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You don't need no selfdefence, selfhealing or mobility becuase you can hit hard!


Melee glass cannon spec which can't take a hit for shit and has no means to catch up to people more the once in a minute, is an greatestest design of them all.
Sure as sure.

so on live we have technically stronger healing, defensives, and mobility for pvp.
I still dont see ret ANYWHERE near the top end of PVP with all those tools. know why? because our damage suffers for it and its unreliable to boot.

ret on alpha is MUCH stronger in terms of defensives, healing and damage compared to the others ON ALPHA. the low mobility is offset by this.

Stop comparing live ret and alpha ret in terms of being viable because we lost stuff. If you dont take into consideration of other classes and specs and their tools they bring this conversation is not only one sided, but its so wrong its not even acceptable.

[Morally Grey Storm]

ret on alpha is MUCH stronger in terms of defensives, healing and damage compared to the others ON ALPHA.

so having literally nothing but bubble/BoP is MUCH stronger than others?
Healing? What healing ? Hardcasted FoLs?

God fucking damnit reg.

[Deleted]

teleros, i assure you most top end glads end up in closed testing. Same with streamers and the like. Its kind of silly to think that he would be the only "good" pvp player testing alpha ATM. There are also other ret streamers and glads out there posting vods about how ret preforms. I have looked at a decent number of them and just like i mention, if your not an idiot at ret, they seem very strong.

And yes DS was nerfed and was substantially weaker because we had access to DP and EMP ds in MoP. On top of this this was a tier set meaning that unless the fight was AOE based, we lacked a decent chunk of damage because we no longer had a acceptable tier set.
The reason why DS got WORSE in warlords was because it was given to us baseline, meaning things had to be weaker overall. That resulted in the 50% ds damage we had for quite some time and was only recently buffed to the 60% numbers as it is now ( still fucking trash)

Also, lynx rush was stupid....... and we had zero damage healing and defensives after they tried to bamboozle us with a completely different rework towards the end of cata beta.

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so on live we have technically stronger healing, defensives, and mobility for pvp.
I still dont see ret ANYWHERE near the top end of PVP with all those tools. know why? because our damage suffers for it and its unreliable to boot.

ret on alpha is MUCH stronger in terms of defensives, healing and damage compared to the others ON ALPHA. the low mobility is offset by this.

Stop comparing live ret and alpha ret in terms of being viable because we lost stuff. If you dont take into consideration of other classes and specs and their tools they bring this conversation is not only one sided, but its so wrong its not even acceptable.

I couldn't agree more. From what I've seen so far RET Paladins are in a better spot now than it was/is the case in WOD!

[Taeldorian]

I can't agree with ret being viable at the moment on alpha. Reg, you've got a pretty good mindset, but I can tell you right now the only thing we have to heal is bubble>>>>hardcast FoL until bubble wears out or you're full HP. Once bubble runs out, what's left? BoP, sure, but teammates are going to want you to save that for scary moments or a moment when the healer can't get to you, but wait, scary moments happen quite often for ret.

Nobody is going to let you hardcast flash of light, ever, and if they do they're not that good. Bubble and BoP are our only true defensives atm and bubble is the real only one that we can safely use on our selves, because teammates might depend on you for BoP and ask you to save it, but if you can't then what is BoP really worth?

Other classes that don't have that much healing that you're comparing to ret (I'm going to assume mages, warlocks and the like) have a crazy amount of mobility (mages) or a crazy amount of damage absorption and defensives (warlock). No classes have bad healing, bad mobility, and bad defensives.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I'm not convinced at all and the damage will only be temporary IMO. I expect nerfs will come along and yes buffs but how long it will last is another matter. Let's also note having bad mobility for the sake of balance in PVP and PVE taking a hit isn't cool either.

[ruiizu]

I can't agree with ret being viable at the moment on alpha. Reg, you've got a pretty good mindset, but I can tell you right now the only thing we have to heal is bubble>>>>hardcast FoL until bubble wears out or you're full HP. Once bubble runs out, what's left? BoP, sure, but teammates are going to want you to save that for scary moments or a moment when the healer can't get to you, but wait, scary moments happen quite often for ret.

Nobody is going to let you hardcast flash of light, ever, and if they do they're not that good. Bubble and BoP are our only true defensives atm and bubble is the real only one that we can safely use on our selves, because teammates might depend on you for BoP and ask you to save it, but if you can't then what is BoP really worth?

Other classes that don't have that much healing that you're comparing to ret (I'm going to assume mages, warlocks and the like) have a crazy amount of mobility (mages) or a crazy amount of damage absorption and defensives (warlock). No classes have bad healing, bad mobility, and bad defensives.

How bad is the healing for Ret, though? I think a big change that's needed is making Flash of Light interrupt only Flash of Light and not our offensive skills. Interrupts have a CD longer than their duration, so it's not like we can never heal; it's just a question of is it worth casting vs. damage.

[Taeldorian]

How bad is the healing for Ret, though? I think a big change that's needed is making Flash of Light interrupt only Flash of Light and not our offensive skills. Interrupts have a CD longer than their duration, so it's not like we can never heal; it's just a question of is it worth casting vs. damage.

Depends on if you vs a good team or not. People can keep you from healing easily unless you LoS, don't forget non interrupts can prevent healing as well like cyclone (pretty sure that made a return), hex, polymorph, stuns, and then we have interrupts, so objectively speaking, interrupts aren't the only thing stopping us from healing, and any competent person will use all of those to prevent us from healing. Of course it works this way for all classes, but most have mobility that can help them LoS fast which is something we also lack, or they have enough defensives/sustainability to live through a burst, whereas we don't at the moment. No idea if it's going to change. We can get stunned, gripped, and slowed on divine steed, so that's not an option to get away either. Only thing we can do is bubble heal for guaranteed heals currently.

Edit: I'll give an example, although I dislike comparing classes to other classes, it's hard to avoid. Enhancement shamans at the moment (another class I've mained/main and am also testing) are in a pretty tight spot in terms of heals. They can make their heal instant at the cost of damage which is cool, but that's a question of damage vs heals, but they can also feral lunge into ghost walk (speed incease by 70%) and get behind a pillar really fast to get at least 2 surges off, and an instant if you run with enough maelstrom. We don't have any of that, we have to walk (assuming you're slowed) to the pillar to LoS and heal.

[Ulthane]

I'm not convinced at all and the damage will only be temporary IMO. I expect nerfs will come along and yes buffs but how long it will last is another matter. Let's also note having bad mobility for the sake of balance in PVP and PVE taking a hit isn't cool either.

^This is a point i've been trying to get at. The only way the current structure will be viable is if they really go ham on the tweaks and adjustments. Not saying what ive been posting is 100% how it should be but a general idea of how the tweaks need to be made to have the talent tree be competitive no matter what build. The BIGGEST problem right now is that it is cookie cutter. Especially at the 100 row where it shouldn't be.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

^This is a point i've been trying to get at. The only way the current structure will be viable is if they really go ham on the tweaks and adjustments. Not saying what ive been posting is 100% how it should be but a general idea of how the tweaks need to be made to have the talent tree be competitive no matter what build. The BIGGEST problem right now is that it is cookie cutter. Especially at the 100 row where it shouldn't be.

I just expect nerfs honestly. I'd like to think Blizzard will really make Paladins different in PVE to PVP but right now it's gonna be the suckage. I don't even like saying that.

[Ulthane]

Sadly it is a thing >< im just wondering what the next build is going to look like.

[Reghame]

so having literally nothing but bubble/BoP is MUCH stronger than others?
Healing? What healing ? Hardcasted FoLs?

God fucking damnit reg.

we also have much more health and armor than most classes on alpha due to PVP templates. We also do more damage BECAUSE of said templates. its much harder to kill a ret over a rogue due to how templates work. Dks and warriors also have this in their favor too but ret's template is not just a copy paste of theirs either.

i think people forget about this when factoring in PVP balance now as well. its not a case of well who can do 100 damage while also being safe.its that a rogue has to do 150 damage compared to a warrior who only has to do 100 or that a mage has to do 140 vs a ret paladin vs a paladin has to do 80 to a mage. on top of this its not like we are literally defenseless either. No one can sit there and do 100% free damage to you all the time without repercussions EVEN WITHOUT MASS MOBILITY.

can the templates be changed to not be in ret's favor? of course. But if this happens then whats to stop blizzard from just making ret shit in PVP in general? like i said, it does not matter what tools you have in PVP because at the end of the day if the tools you DO have is not sufficient at all then you will not be working at all.

TLDR if ret is intended to be high damage low mobility dps or a high mobility high dps no defensive spec. IT DOES NOT MATTER. if ret turns to shit because "the community will complain" then they will complain about whatever ret has anyway and thats just how it is. the only reason why im arguing AGAINST you needs to get all these tools is because your basically asking to have WoD ret back which was LITERALLY the worst ret has been in rated PVP in years. Your reasoning behind asking for the tools you want is all one sided nonsense which does not actually improve anything ret will or can have.



End rant. ill be back for next build officially now since its basically just turning back into nonsensical rants about whaaaaa we dont have X again.

[ruiizu]

Depends on if you vs a good team or not. People can keep you from healing easily unless you LoS, don't forget non interrupts can prevent healing as well like cyclone (pretty sure that made a return), hex, polymorph, stuns, and then we have interrupts, so objectively speaking, interrupts aren't the only thing stopping us from healing, and any competent person will use all of those to prevent us from healing. Of course it works this way for all classes, but most have mobility that can help them LoS fast which is something we also lack, or they have enough defensives/sustainability to live through a burst, whereas we don't at the moment. No idea if it's going to change. We can get stunned, gripped, and slowed on divine steed, so that's not an option to get away either. Only thing we can do is bubble heal for guaranteed heals currently.

Edit: I'll give an example, although I dislike comparing classes to other classes, it's hard to avoid. Enhancement shamans at the moment (another class I've mained/main and am also testing) are in a pretty tight spot in terms of heals. They can make their heal instant at the cost of damage which is cool, but that's a question of damage vs heals, but they can also feral lunge into ghost walk (speed incease by 70%) and get behind a pillar really fast to get at least 2 surges off, and an instant if you run with enough maelstrom. We don't have any of that, we have to walk (assuming you're slowed) to the pillar to LoS and heal.

I'm not convinced it'll be that hard to heal ourselves vs. other classes. If someone uses a CC to interrupt your heals, that just means they can't use that CC on you again (in terms of Stuns, Hex, Cyclone at least) for a little while. We may need to adapt by healing earlier.

I know it's a talent, but Justicar's Vengeance seems to be absent from the healing discussion. It's a pretty nasty heal considering it's basically 100% leech. I'm not sure about Word of Glory, my suspicion is that it might be okay in raids, but probably will be very situational in PvP due to the limited range.

[Ulthane]

I'm not convinced it'll be that hard to heal ourselves vs. other classes. If someone uses a CC to interrupt your heals, that just means they can't use that CC on you again (in terms of Stuns, Hex, Cyclone at least) for a little while. We may need to adapt by healing earlier.

I know it's a talent, but Justicar's Vengeance seems to be absent from the healing discussion. It's a pretty nasty heal considering it's basically 100% leech. I'm not sure about Word of Glory, my suspicion is that it might be okay in raids, but probably will be very situational in PvP due to the limited range.

I mentioned it should probably get the Victory Rush treatment, as it is the damage can potentially be too much and will be nerfed. It is expensive to get off and for a strike like that to be as it is needs to be an upgrade mechanic to Templar's verdict imo. But if they want that in the healing/defense row then maaaybe lower the Holy Power cost, remove stun interaction and/or give it Victory rush treatment. Then the other two could be tweaked to match it, Eye for an Eye could also mitigate and function off magic damage and Word of Glory remove the CD.