[7.0] New Paladin Abilities and Talents

[Deleted]

Anyways, I'm not sure exactly how Blizzard can properly tune our AoE if they're hellbent on keeping Judgment (mostly) single target. If they keep Judgment spreading, then it will be the best AoE option since it will directly scale Divine Storm's (and Judgment's) damage. If they remove Greater Judgment and just tune Divine Storm to hit harder, then as mastery increases, the difference between TV and DS will decrease.

GJ will on scale Divine Storm's damage on a maximum of three extra mobs, and even then only if you have time to apply it before everyone else blows the adds up with their on demand AoE. Various abilities are going to scale out of whack come what may. For example, when to use your divine purpose procs on JV and when DS in an AoE situation? It will depend on your gear - no set number as most people will want.

[Alindra]

GJ will on scale Divine Storm's damage on a maximum of three extra mobs, and even then only if you have time to apply it before everyone else blows the adds up with their on demand AoE. Various abilities are going to scale out of whack come what may. For example, when to use your divine purpose procs on JV and when DS in an AoE situation? It will depend on your gear - no set number as most people will want.

That's true - but for short lifespan adds the other options are of even less use (Fires of Justice's CD nor proc will really help, and Zeal adds would need to be up for a longer period of time to have an effect). Zeal, I think, is the weakest talent in that row because it's just a raw damage increase on a generator. Fires at least will help us us TV more often and Judgment will deal more damage than Zeal and doesn't need to be stacked to hit maximum targets.

In some respects, I think we should worry more about cleave damage than AoE. Right now, we're completely unsuited for it (damnit Judgment) - especially short burst AoE. Cleave, at least, we will have time to benefit from our AoE talents.

[ruiizu]

That's true - but for short lifespan adds the other options are of even less use (Fires of Justice's CD nor proc will really help, and Zeal adds would need to be up for a longer period of time to have an effect). Zeal, I think, is the weakest talent in that row because it's just a raw damage increase on a generator. Fires at least will help us us TV more often and Judgment will deal more damage than Zeal and doesn't need to be stacked to hit maximum targets.

In some respects, I think we should worry more about cleave damage than AoE. Right now, we're completely unsuited for it (damnit Judgment) - especially short burst AoE. Cleave, at least, we will have time to benefit from our AoE talents.

Zeal only suffers from initial adds or if you can't attack for a while. Once the stack is up, it'll stay up the whole fight. It may not hit hard enough though to be really competitive. But I doubt the stacking aspect is going to matter. How often will you not refresh the stack? Seems unlikely.

Fires of Justice proc is nice though because it shortens the time needed to prepare a Divine Storm. Really right now what we're suffering from is periods where adds pop up and none of our short CD skills are ready (Wake of Ashes, enough HoPow to Divine Storm). Divine Hammer feels weird too because it's a big loss to take unless you've got plenty of targets to hit.

[Taeldorian]

That's true - but for short lifespan adds the other options are of even less use (Fires of Justice's CD nor proc will really help, and Zeal adds would need to be up for a longer period of time to have an effect). Zeal, I think, is the weakest talent in that row because it's just a raw damage increase on a generator. Fires at least will help us us TV more often and Judgment will deal more damage than Zeal and doesn't need to be stacked to hit maximum targets.

In some respects, I think we should worry more about cleave damage than AoE. Right now, we're completely unsuited for it (damnit Judgment) - especially short burst AoE. Cleave, at least, we will have time to benefit from our AoE talents.

That's the point of judgement being a self buff rather than a debuff on the target. We hit judgement and cleave both bosses or whatever is there for us to cleave, it makes it so much smoother. Having our mastery only benefit single target is ridiculous, especially when there's the option for it to benefit cleave/aoe/single target all in one. Not necessarily making us extremely powerful in each scenario, but at least competitive.

We should currently be advocating for this and forget about equality for now. Judgement being a buff would smooth out so many things it's insane how this small change will make everything better, but Sparkly dragon guy is going to need some convincing.

Main point: Judgement being a buff that applies to ourselves helps in aoe/cleave scenarios, rather than just single target. Doesn't have to be extremely powerful, but it will at least allow us to remain competitive on more than 3 fights (thats the most I've seen in the current raid tiers in each raid). Greater judgement is nice but doesn't address this issue of cleaving/aoeing. It might help if the adds are already spawned by the boss, but if they're more than 10 yd away or enter the fight at a separate time it gets clunky. This is an easy fix, needs to happen.

[Alindra]

Zeal only suffers from initial adds or if you can't attack for a while. Once the stack is up, it'll stay up the whole fight. It may not hit hard enough though to be really competitive. But I doubt the stacking aspect is going to matter. How often will you not refresh the stack? Seems unlikely.

Fires of Justice proc is nice though because it shortens the time needed to prepare a Divine Storm. Really right now what we're suffering from is periods where adds pop up and none of our short CD skills are ready (Wake of Ashes, enough HoPow to Divine Storm). Divine Hammer feels weird too because it's a big loss to take unless you've got plenty of targets to hit.

Zeal: True, not that likely, but not impossible either. It'll depends on encounter design - but at least it's more forgiving than our class trinket (12s vs 10s duration, no target swap penalty).

Fires of Justice: Again, true, but that won't help for adds that need to be burst down because they'll die before the proc can have a large effect. Besides, if they're that important we'll likely want to be pooling 5HP before they spawn anyways, a la Xhuul and Mannoroth. In that case, we'd go from DS -> builder -> DS to DS -> DS (if it procs, which is only a 25% chance).

For groups of adds that last longer than a handful of GCDs, sure.

That's the point of judgement being a self buff rather than a debuff on the target. We hit judgement and cleave both bosses or whatever is there for us to cleave, it makes it so much smoother. Having our mastery only benefit single target is ridiculous, especially when there's the option for it to benefit cleave/aoe/single target all in one. Not necessarily making us extremely powerful in each scenario, but at least competitive.

Oh trust me, I certainly understand the benefits of it being converted to a buff. The point is Blizzard has said it is designed to be mainly single target. So our options are to either provide feedback within that framework or get them to completely change their design intent. I know which I'd prefer - and I doubt it's the most likely outcome.


I'm just really frustrated because Ret has so many design decisions that feel mutually contradictory (for PvE anyways).

1) Immobile - Should be be compensated with either DPS, survivability, or utility, but...
2) Greater Blessing of Might - ...our personal damage is balanced lower because of GBoM
3) Greater Blessing of Kings/Wisdom - Extra utility that we won't use because we're locked into GBoM. Worse, they're all combat locked.
4) Class flavor - They want us to feel distinct, but then they burden us with an ability and mastery that functions just like Arms Warriors. On the main forums @Solsacra made a very good point about removing what has historically been the Retribution playstyle.
5) Single Target - Judgment and Divine Judgment certainly implies we should be single target or cleave monsters (Greater Judgment), but again, we can't be because of Greater Blessing of Might.
6) Utility - Our non-Greater Blessing utility is far more situational and also shared with Holy and Prot.
7) Equality - I don't think I need to further beat this horse.

We're in a better spot than what we have been in the past, but it's still a mess. I just don't understand it (or really like it).

[Taeldorian]

@Alindra I love it honestly, the only thing that needs to change is equality but that won't happen so forget that, and our mastery. That's it. Greater blessings works fine, it's just a boring mechanic. The rotation is fun, and would feel so much better if our mastery worked with aoe/cleave as well. I don't understand why our mastery has to focus solely on single target, and honestly it would be okay that way if greater judgement made up for it, but atm it doesn't. So unless they make greater judgement work better in cleaving/aoe situations our mastery needs to be reworked as a buff. I'll be standing by that until Legion is over or until this change/a change to greater judgement happens.

I dislike the feeling of our mastery being a copy/paste version of the arms warrior mastery, but if they made judgement into a buff it would somewhat take away that feeling as that already is pretty different from the colossus smash gameplay. It solves both mechanical and thematical problems.

[Alindra]

@Alindra I love it honestly

Then you have irredeemably bad taste. Good day, sir! :P

Kidding aside, I can accept that different people find different mechanics enjoyable. I can understand why a "moment of opportunity" would be enjoyable. Heck, I very much enjoy the current T18 gameplay because it allows me to open up at critical moments during a fight - especially with charges since it's at the very core of giving me that flexibility... which the Legion design lacks.

Changing Judgment to a buff would absolutely make a big difference if Blizzard can be convinced to make it. If not (which I'm not hopeful about), well...

I certainly agree about Greater Blessings being boring.


Full Disclosure: I don't have alpha access, my thoughts are extrapolations based on what I've seen and read.

[Taeldorian]

Then you have irredeemably bad taste. Good day, sir! :P

Kidding aside, I can accept that different people find different mechanics enjoyable. I can understand why a "moment of opportunity" would be enjoyable. Heck, I very much enjoy the current T18 gameplay because it allows me to open up at critical moments during a fight - especially with charges since it's at the very core of giving me that flexibility... which the Legion design lacks.

Changing Judgment to a buff would absolutely make a big difference if Blizzard can be convinced to make it. If not (which I'm not hopeful about), well...

I certainly agree about Greater Blessings being boring.


Full Disclosure: I don't have alpha access, my thoughts are extrapolations based on what I've seen and read.

Lol

I like having charges on things which we do have in Legion, that's one of the main reasons the rotation hardly has downtime. The only reason we have downtime is due to the judgement mechanic. I'm not saying I love that (I don't, at all), I love the rest of rets design. The judgement/colossus smash gameplay is probably the worst decision they've made with ret, not enough to make me not main the class as I've stated before, but after trying it out I can see the problems it poses with aoe/cleave fights.

If the mastery is going to be aimed at single target only, then greater judgement needs to be made powerful. There are far too many cleave/aoe fights for us to only be useful for single target. Let's go through WoD for a sec. Highmaul: 2 ST fights, BRF: 2 ST fights, HFC: 3 purely ST fights, 4 total semi ST fights. All of these raids have 11+ bosses, meaning not even half of the raids are single target, leaving us in a weird spot if our mastery or greater judgement isn't fixed. I've tweeted them, wrote in the alpha forums, etc. Other people have done the same, just need to convince them. If anything, the least they need to do is make greater judgement useful.

I just don't understand why they aren't addressing the fact they literally copy/pasted the arms warrior mastery over to ret. Do they think we haven't actually noticed? At least admit the lazy design choice >.> Either way waiting for the next build to see if anything regarding this issue gets addressed.

[Morally Grey Storm]

I just don't understand why they aren't addressing the fact they literally copy/pasted the arms warrior mastery over to ret. Do they think we haven't actually noticed? At least admit the lazy design choice >.>

Blizzard(or any sane company at that) openly admitting they fethed up?

You what mate?

[Taeldorian]

Blizzard(or any sane company at that) openly admitting they fethed up?

You what mate?

They've admitted that they made mistakes with WoD, specifically Ion. I don't think this is as big of a deal as WoD being shit though, so I doubt it would happen, I said it because I want them to acknowledge the fact that they took the arms warrior mastery and replaced the paladin mastery with it, but I do know that won't happen. If it worked mechanically with everything instead of making it clunky I'd be less annoyed with it, but both greater judgement and our mastery need fixing, it can be one or the other if they do it right, but we'll have to see.

[Morally Grey Storm]

They've admitted that they made mistakes with WoD, specifically Ion. I don't think this is as big of a deal as WoD being shit though, so I doubt it would happen, I said it because I want them to acknowledge the fact that they took the arms warrior mastery and replaced the paladin mastery with it, but I do know that won't happen. If it worked mechanically with everything instead of making it clunky I'd be less annoyed with it, but both greater judgement and our mastery need fixing, it can be one or the other if they do it right, but we'll have to see.

Yes, they admitted to some lesser mistakes, and made sure to choose the correct, discreet language to do so.
I would have shared your thoughts and hopes if I were not slightly dissatisfied with Blizzard.

[Taeldorian]

Yes, they admitted to some lesser mistakes, and made sure to choose the correct, discreet language to do so.
I would have shared your thoughts and hopes if I were not slightly dissatisfied with Blizzard.

I'm pretty dissatisfied with WoD as a whole, I don't really have hope for our mastery even being touched, but we also haven't heard the "we're mainly focusing on tuning for ret now" speech yet. Until that happens I'll be tweeting them, asking on alpha forums for either greater judgement to work well in cleave/aoe situations or our mastery to be a buff. Definitely don't have much hope that they'll fix it, but until they directly say no I won't stop bothering them about it. We'll have to see what the upcoming builds have, but I'm more on the pessimistic side of the "we're listening to feedback" thing.

[Snegovik]

I think the main failure of new Judgement design, is that Blizzard forgot to give us a tool that actually makes Arms' CS viable in PvP = mobility, arms has a pretty good mobility and can stick on a target after they apply CS, for Rets? I find it hard to believe Ret will be able to stick on target for a full judgement duration after applying the debuff vs proper 3s comps: RMD, LSD, LRS, God comp, frozen chicken, thug clv and it goes on, actually any team that consists of an rogue + range dps, Ret can forget going on that Range dps class or Healer for that matter.

[PaladinBash]

I actually miss Turalyon's Might. Remember that guys?

[Morally Grey Storm]

I actually miss Turalyon's Might. Remember that guys?

It's Lothar's Might you silly.

[Deleted]

They've admitted that they made mistakes with WoD, specifically Ion..

Being open about past mistakes is one thing, especially after sustained criticism, because it allows you to suggest you've learned and the same mistakes won't happen again. You don't admit to mistakes that you are currently making, especially when you intend to persist with it.

[Teleros]

they are just like politicians: always tell people, what they want to hear.

Not sure how you can justify that to be honest. I mean, Kalgan on Equality... :P ?

[Taeldorian]

Being open about past mistakes is one thing, especially after sustained criticism, because it allows you to suggest you've learned and the same mistakes won't happen again. You don't admit to mistakes that you are currently making, especially when you intend to persist with it.

I know, that's why I said they wouldn't. I don't understand how they can copy/paste an already used mastery that's literally an exact copy of the arms warrior version especially during an expansion where their aim is to make sure classes feel different. Either way, this needs to be fixed with judgement as a buff as I've said already or greater judgement improved. We can't be competitive on only single target, the buffs we bring won't make it worthwhile to take us if we can only do decent on one type of fight that happens to be one of the least types of fights in raids.

- - - Updated - - -

they are just like politicians: always tell people, what they want to hear.

That's wrong though.They are doing the exact opposite of telling us what we want to hear. Equality? Being okay with arms/fury?

[Teleros]

Had all those Blizzcon announcements in my ear, where everything is "awesome", "gorgeous" or "terrific".

That's just standard PR stuff to be honest. Then again... well while I'm sure I'm in the minority, I've actually rather liked garrisons. It's nice to be able to have a little place that's my own, the missions and such are fine (with Master Plan :P ), and so on. I'm actually in the position of sitting here wondering if order halls will be as good :P .

[Taeldorian]

That's just standard PR stuff to be honest. Then again... well while I'm sure I'm in the minority, I've actually rather liked garrisons. It's nice to be able to have a little place that's my own, the missions and such are fine (with Master Plan :P ), and so on. I'm actually in the position of sitting here wondering if order halls will be as good :P .

We can never be friends now. /s

Garrisons would've been wonderful if they were optional rather than required. Order halls are pretty damn awesome (required too, though) but at least we get to see people of our own class in there.