[7.0] New Paladin Abilities and Talents

[Teleros]

Raiding is PvE but PvE is not necessarily raiding. I don't want Equality locked behind PvP.

Well, raiding and mythic dungeons then. I'd have a fit if I as raid leader etc saw a Ret with Equality in either.

So that leaves heroic dungeons, regular dungeons, world content, and old raids etc. And in all those... well you're not going to be getting much out of it in dungeons unless your group is really quite poorly geared or you're doing it for laughs. I'm not sure any spec should have talents designed for the latter :P .

Anyway, then there's world content. Okay, some use here I guess, except that again it's encouraging bad (ie "stand in fire for haste buff") gameplay. And ranged gankers :P .

For old raids etc... well maybe if you're doing WoD content in pre-raid gear it'll help. Not much pre-WoD content that'll get you low though by the time you're L110 and with 1.5M health.

It just seems far too situational for a L100 talent in PvE.

Of course Equality won't make it impossible to hit the Ret in PvP, which is good.

My point is that as a defensive tool I'm not sure it's that great.

It's also quite dangerous from a balance point of view, because there's nothing to warn the enemy that you have this talent. So a couple of enemy melee are trying to burst you down as per usual... now, do you have DP, SW or Eq? Oops, you have Equality, and now two of them are dead with no warning etc. I really dislike mechanics that let you blow people up with little chance for them to do anything about it.

I hope every spec in Legion has clear strengths and weaknesses instead of the current design where everyone feels sort of similar (e.g. why has mage been so tanky these past few years).

I agree that there's been too much homogenisation, but (eg with mobility) I also worry the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the other direction.

Players are definitely gonna complain about Rets killing them while immune, but maybe that's okay if we're very easy to kite.

Kiting a Ret pally requires a modicum of skill*, whereas hitting bubble and/or Equality and blowing people up does not. I can't see it staying like that for long. And if you believe Reghame and some of the others in the alpha, Ret mobility isn't even a problem, so... yeah I dunno.

*Be quiet Storm :P .

[Morally Grey Storm]

Kiting a Ret pally requires a modicum of skill*, whereas hitting bubble and/or Equality and blowing people up does not. I can't see it staying like that for long. And if you believe Reghame and some of the others in the alpha, Ret mobility isn't even a problem, so... yeah I dunno.

*Be quiet Storm :P .

No.

[Hofflerand]

The main gripe I (and some others probably) have with Equality is that it's taking up a talent spot without offering anything close to fun or functionality, in a talent tree that's already desperately low on both of those concepts. If it was baseline and we had an interesting talent in its place, I don't think anyone would complain about having equality.

You don't think either Divine Purpose or Sanctified Wrath are functional? Equality is unarguably situational, but whether or not it's fun is subjective. I think it fits much better as a talent because this way we're not forced to take damage when it truly hurts the raid. I'll only take Equality when it makes sense, and when it doesn't I'll choose another talent.

@ Teleros
When I find use for Equality in a mythic dungeon I'm gonna use it and you're gonna like it!

I think it's fine that our opponents in arena don't immediately know whether or not we have Equality. We may and therefore it's a deterrent.

I don't agree Ret PvP will revolve around Equality, I'm sure there will be other things to make us skillful, and WoW has moved too far over the years towards balance, too far away from flavor. This is supposed to be an RPG for God's sake. Wrath and even TBC to an extent found that happy medium between the player and the class, while from Cata onward the developers really went all out on this bullshit design of bring the player, not the class. Paladins are supposed to be about immunities and if sometimes that winds up being a little derpy then so be it. If you ask me that's part of our charm.

[Teleros]

You don't think either Divine Purpose or Sanctified Wrath are functional?

No, I think he's saying that there's not much fun or functional in the talent tree as a whole, rather than saying there's none at all.

@ Teleros
When I find use for Equality in a mythic dungeon I'm gonna use it and you're gonna like it!

I think it's fine that our opponents in arena don't immediately know whether or not we have Equality. We may and therefore it's a deterrent.

To an extent. It just doesn't sit well with me that you can't tell until you suddenly lose say 40%-50% of your health in one fell swoop.

I don't agree Ret PvP will revolve around Equality

I don't think it will revolve around it either, I just think it's too gimmicky for my liking. It has absurd potential against melee opponents who are at all unprepared for it ("quick, the Ret's below 50% health, pop defensives in case he has Equality" etc), but is wasted if the enemy is >10 yards from you (ohai mages spellstealing my Shield of Vengeance :P ...). It potentially lets you take four people from ~40% health each to zero in one button push, yet unlike with Holy Power abilities there's no real setup: you just play normally, then push the big red button when low.

I'm sure there will be other things to make us skillful

Getting into melee :P .

and WoW has moved too far over the years towards balance, too far away from flavor.

It has, but it's also a multiplayer game, and that changes things somewhat.

This is supposed to be an RPG for God's sake.

A singleplayer experience (maybe with optional MP for those who want an all-PC D&D party) would be far easier to balance without losing class flavour etc.

Wrath and even TBC to an extent found that happy medium between the player and the class, while from Cata onward the developers really went all out on this bullshit design of bring the player, not the class. Paladins are supposed to be about immunities and if sometimes that winds up being a little derpy then so be it. If you ask me that's part of our charm.

I agree they went too far (FWIW my favourite expansion is WotLK), but I think a big part of the design process for each class/spec was flawed from the start as well. I'd have done something like the following:

Melee DPS Core Requirements

• Interrupt, on a 15sec CD with a 4sec duration. Adjust a bit for flavour (eg shamans).
• Offensive CD, on a 2-3min CD, useable on demand.
• Defensive CD, on a 1-2min CD, useable on demand. Circa 20% damage reduction.
• Instant gap closer, on a 15-30sec CD, useable on demand. Charge, Shadowstep, Death Grip, etc.
• Proc, designed to shake up the rotation without being too important.

Once every melee DPS spec has those tools, then I'd start looking into all the flavour stuff. You can still get a ton of differentiation whilst using the above template, but you also ensure that no spec is gimped. I mean, as much as I liked WotLK, I also remember being zero use when a boss needed interrupting (HoJ was on a 40sec CD at best IIRC, and was on the GCD).

[Deleted]

I mainly disagree with him on Equality, that's it.

Fun fact, I'll be in Beta Thursday. Yay ish

Correction, you'll be repeatedly logging in on Thursday

[Bolt66]

No, I think he's saying that there's not much fun or functional in the talent tree as a whole, rather than saying there's none at all.

Yep!

I agree they went too far (FWIW my favourite expansion is WotLK), but I think a big part of the design process for each class/spec was flawed from the start as well. I'd have done something like the following:

Melee DPS Core Requirements

• Interrupt, on a 15sec CD with a 4sec duration. Adjust a bit for flavour (eg shamans).
• Offensive CD, on a 2-3min CD, useable on demand.
• Defensive CD, on a 1-2min CD, useable on demand. Circa 20% damage reduction.
• Instant gap closer, on a 15-30sec CD, useable on demand. Charge, Shadowstep, Death Grip, etc.
• Proc, designed to shake up the rotation without being too important.

Once every melee DPS spec has those tools, then I'd start looking into all the flavour stuff. You can still get a ton of differentiation whilst using the above template, but you also ensure that no spec is gimped. I mean, as much as I liked WotLK, I also remember being zero use when a boss needed interrupting (HoJ was on a 40sec CD at best IIRC, and was on the GCD).

I wish someone would frame this for the Devs and put it in each of their offices/cubicles. Taking away essential tools that we should all have and calling it class fantasy is ridiculous. Our spec right now is just random ideas thrown together. Changes made were none were needed and whenever they get into trouble, they just bring back something we already had and we're supposed to be excited? I know other specs suffer from this as well but I think Ret design is definitely one of the worst offenders.

[Morally Grey Storm]

I wish someone would frame this for the Devs and put it in each of their offices/cubicles. Taking away essential tools that we should all have and calling it class fantasy is ridiculous. Our spec right now is just random ideas thrown together. Changes made were none were needed and whenever they get into trouble, they just bring back something we already had and we're supposed to be excited? I know other specs suffer from this as well but I think Ret design is definitely one of the worst offenders.

when you hear devs state such things as, per quote: "a Paladin may feel his mobility is on the low side when Hand of Freedom is on cooldown." - you know these guys are pro at what they do.

[ruiizu]

when you hear devs state such things as, per quote: "a Paladin may feel his mobility is on the low side when Hand of Freedom is on cooldown." - you know these guys are pro at what they do.

When Blessing of Freedom makes us sprint at +70% runspeed, then we can talk about it being a mobility skill. Frankly, I think all Blessings should do "something extra special" if you use it on yourself. Freedom makes you run faster, BoP reflects physical attacks, etc.

Honestly with all the talk about Equality, you'd think everything else is fine. Equality is a tiny issue of the many that exist, mainly:

- The rotation is actually not very smooth despite having no "procs" built into it; it feels very cumbersome
- Whether you agree mobility is good enough or not (it's not), it's no fun having nothing baseline. Rolled a Demon Hunter on alpha and...hahahaha.
- Judgment is still not compatible with a resource system like Holy Power and even worse that it's tied to our ranged attack
- Talents do not necessarily work together
- Wake of Ashes secondary effect (5 holy power) often gets partially wasted because of the Judgment system

To name a few, at least. Btw, if I was going to switch talents around, I'd put Equality into PvP and bring Hammer of Reckoning in its place. It would give motivation to put Blessing of whatever on the tank, because you could convert his damage taken into a nasty Hammer of Reckoning hit (it scales with damage taken at an unknown rate).

[Hofflerand]

I agree they went too far (FWIW my favourite expansion is WotLK), but I think a big part of the design process for each class/spec was flawed from the start as well. I'd have done something like the following:

Melee DPS Core Requirements

• Interrupt, on a 15sec CD with a 4sec duration. Adjust a bit for flavour (eg shamans).
• Offensive CD, on a 2-3min CD, useable on demand.
• Defensive CD, on a 1-2min CD, useable on demand. Circa 20% damage reduction.
• Instant gap closer, on a 15-30sec CD, useable on demand. Charge, Shadowstep, Death Grip, etc.
• Proc, designed to shake up the rotation without being too important.

Once every melee DPS spec has those tools, then I'd start looking into all the flavour stuff. You can still get a ton of differentiation whilst using the above template, but you also ensure that no spec is gimped. I mean, as much as I liked WotLK, I also remember being zero use when a boss needed interrupting (HoJ was on a 40sec CD at best IIRC, and was on the GCD).

Can't say I agree with this. I like when Avenging Wrath was a fairly unique ability, certain utility I prefer to be based on class rather than role, and there are times when what you want simply works out very poorly. Consider Combat Readiness or Elusiveness - rogue should not be a tanky class. The only thing damage-dealers absolutely need to share with each other is we all deal competitive damage.

Class fantasy has a corny ring to it, but I'm genuinely happy the devs realized bring the player, not the class is just the opposite extreme of Vanilla design philosophy. The correct approach is to balance the two, to remember WoW is a both an MMO and an RPG.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

When Blessing of Freedom makes us sprint at +70% runspeed, then we can talk about it being a mobility skill. Frankly, I think all Blessings should do "something extra special" if you use it on yourself. Freedom makes you run faster, BoP reflects physical attacks, etc.

Honestly with all the talk about Equality, you'd think everything else is fine. Equality is a tiny issue of the many that exist, mainly:

- The rotation is actually not very smooth despite having no "procs" built into it; it feels very cumbersome
- Whether you agree mobility is good enough or not (it's not), it's no fun having nothing baseline. Rolled a Demon Hunter on alpha and...hahahaha.
- Judgment is still not compatible with a resource system like Holy Power and even worse that it's tied to our ranged attack
- Talents do not necessarily work together
- Wake of Ashes secondary effect (5 holy power) often gets partially wasted because of the Judgment system

To name a few, at least. Btw, if I was going to switch talents around, I'd put Equality into PvP and bring Hammer of Reckoning in its place. It would give motivation to put Blessing of whatever on the tank, because you could convert his damage taken into a nasty Hammer of Reckoning hit (it scales with damage taken at an unknown rate).

Equality isn't something to focus on I'd agree. Rotation is as usual clunky and not smooth. Talents well they're 50/50.

[Morally Grey Storm]

Can't say I agree with this. I like when Avenging Wrath was a fairly unique ability, certain utility I prefer to be based on class rather than role, and there are times when what you want simply works out very poorly. Consider Combat Readiness or Elusiveness - rogue should not be a tanky class. The only thing damage-dealers absolutely need to share with each other is we all deal competitive damage.

Class fantasy has a corny ring to it, but I'm genuinely happy the devs realized bring the player, not the class is just the opposite extreme of Vanilla design philosophy. The correct approach is to balance the two, to remember WoW is a both an MMO and an RPG.

so having no mobility at all is a good thing?
as it preserves "class fantasy"?

Just like having no interrupt for 3 expansions ?

[Deleted]

Class fantasy has a corny ring to it, but I'm genuinely happy the devs realized bring the player, not the class is just the opposite extreme of Vanilla design philosophy. The correct approach is to balance the two, to remember WoW is a both an MMO and an RPG.

Tell me Hofflerand... Do you think Legion will grant ret a possible spot on RBG ?
Because from what I tested during Alpha I can clearly state this : Ret won't be able to play in this pvp environment once again (hey it's only 4 expansions in a row, we should pray Blizzard... Maybe they'll think about it for the 5th one... ).

[Fargus]

Ret will continue to be in the doldrums as long as Kalgan remains at Blizz HQ overseeing things.

[Hofflerand]

@ Cyrion

Well, we have some strong tools like Vengeance Aura, Lawbringer + Greater Judgment, WoG + Luminescence. On the other hand I won't believe in Ret RBG viability until I see it with my own eyes.

[Ulthane]

@Taeldorian reasons why I'm waiting for my beta invite. Those forums gonna get hammered on feedback.

- - - Updated - - -

Ret will continue to be in the doldrums as long as Kalgan remains at Blizz HQ overseeing things.

^Number 2 has a point to here

- - - Updated - - -

so having no mobility at all is a good thing?
as it preserves "class fantasy"?

Just like having no interrupt for 3 expansions ?

Sure as sure

[Reghame]

When Blessing of Freedom makes us sprint at +70% runspeed, then we can talk about it being a mobility skill. Frankly, I think all Blessings should do "something extra special" if you use it on yourself. Freedom makes you run faster, BoP reflects physical attacks, etc.

Honestly with all the talk about Equality, you'd think everything else is fine. Equality is a tiny issue of the many that exist, mainly:

- The rotation is actually not very smooth despite having no "procs" built into it; it feels very cumbersome
- Whether you agree mobility is good enough or not (it's not), it's no fun having nothing baseline. Rolled a Demon Hunter on alpha and...hahahaha.
- Judgment is still not compatible with a resource system like Holy Power and even worse that it's tied to our ranged attack
- Talents do not necessarily work together
- Wake of Ashes secondary effect (5 holy power) often gets partially wasted because of the Judgment system

To name a few, at least. Btw, if I was going to switch talents around, I'd put Equality into PvP and bring Hammer of Reckoning in its place. It would give motivation to put Blessing of whatever on the tank, because you could convert his damage taken into a nasty Hammer of Reckoning hit (it scales with damage taken at an unknown rate).

having bop not stop my attacks is good enough for me honestly. makes it a proper defensive CD (its also like a 3 min CD with artifact traits).

As for ret mobility, yes ours is limited, i personally like seal of light in conjunction with the PVP hand of hindrance talent, nothing stays away from me too long.
As for Sanctified wrath and "what kind of noobs must i play with to hit them to get it working" let me remind you you can spec WoG and get 6 stacks that way too, if your even in melee range you can get more because theres a damn good chance you have tons of holy power in your pocket awaiting to be used. i simply dont understand the mentality that all alpha players are shit and how any testing that is done is just hogwash. If your so damn concerned about it yourself, get good enough to get into alpha and then start bitching about it (or get extremely lucky, alpha testing is not like beta, most people in it are FNF, rated pvp gods, streamers, ECT. Most of these people will not be total shit)

As for the final talent tier in total, as it stands, DP is unusable because of the judgment thing, you can get some milage out of it and it still has some use for AOE, but overall the talent is too unreliable and does not work when you need it to. Sanctified Wrath is a damn good talent, its a supplicant for wings which negates our weakness in the PVE rotation (build up times and judge window) and makes us hit damn hard. Eqaulity however, is a mix. Currently it does it does the same job as SW, but within a shorter period, and on a longer cooldown. The talent actually DOES work. the problem is in how you get it to work however. as it stands equality is for sure a viable talent, but nothing is more irritating when you try to game the damage of it just to be passivly healed by something thus lose out on damage, or something hits you because someone else didnt do their job and you die before or just after equality. the talent's damage is not an issue sure, could it be higher or less? sure. It all depends on how strong they want it to be. The problem it has is that its way too risky to ever use it because you HAVE to min max it to get the full use out of it (remember, scales from 1 hp to max, this is BADDDD) this means that your damage is not REALLY in your hands when you use this talent AND that at any time you try to use it you can quickly become a hindrance to the entire party or yourself.

BTW we all know this, no talent can be completely optional, it just never works that way. You will use which talent gives you the most mileage in the situation at a time. So if equality does the same job as SW, and DP sucks ass anyhow, you then have to question which does more damage. if equality does enough damage to surpass SW, you will be forced to use it. If it does the same or less, no one will use equality. This is why i like the BoJ tier of talents, they all do different things for the spell and thus means they can preform different roles. one is for burst single, one is sustain, and the other AOE.
Again we had this problem with the old talent tree where we had talents directly competing with one another and it all boiled down to numbers.

Also, agree with thete, dont even try to log in on thursday, you wont. Alpha itself gets hard to log into every new cycle, a beta with more players will be disastrous.

[Taeldorian]

Ret will continue to be in the doldrums as long as Kalgan remains at Blizz HQ overseeing things.

Isn't Kalgan new? Rather than "Developer" It has "Blizzard Employee" which is something I haven't seen in a while. Usually they have a different tag. Not saying this for his benefit though, he's new and already fucked up ret. I haven't seen him before anyway and I've been playing paladin for a long time now.

If our hopes don't pull through and we 1. Get no mobility, 2. Get no fix to our rotation (CD decrease duration increase to judgement to smooth the mechanic, judgement charges, increase in holy power, etc) and 3. Get nothing to help us with the no mobility problem if we aren't getting that (gap closer, extra CC, better interrupts, insanely good damage) than I'll be going holy or maybe prot in the normal/heroic raid group rather than the mythic one. Still, don't want to have to do that, so I'm hoping Kalgan will remove whatever is up his ass and start doing some real work.

[Lunavale]

Isn't Kalgan new? Rather than "Developer" It has "Blizzard Employee" which is something I haven't seen in a while. Usually they have a different tag. Not saying this for his benefit though, he's new and already fucked up ret. I haven't seen him before anyway and I've been playing paladin for a long time now.

Kalgan is Tom Chilton and has been with Blizzard since about 10 months before vanilla WoW launched. He doesn't post on the forums much, from what I can remember. He's definitely been around occasionally though, and usually not to tell us anything good

[Lumineus]

DP is unusable because of the judgment thing, you can get some milage out of it and it still has some use for AOE, but overall the talent is too unreliable and does not work when you need it to.

Is this a PvP critique? If so just take Lawbringer if you want to use DP. Otherwise, are we just assuming that Final Verdict is required now because it makes every TV hit as hard as ExS? I don't expect it will stay like that, so just take ExS if you're concerned about "wasting" ExcesS (heh) holy power outside of Judgment. Or you can just go full-on haste and build FV+GJ+DP and not be too bothered about the one time out of ten things don't line up right. You're probably going to start raiding in the class hall set which is pure haste+mastery anyway.

[Deleted]

I'll only take Equality when the fight is favorable for it and there's very little danger thanks to Divine Intervention. I like the Ret theme, I like trying to use it at the lowest health possible, and I like the huge spike of damage. I'm aware it's situational but fortunately we have two other great tier 100 talents.

I would also like a skill that would blow up every enemy around me. But alas, this is not about what we ourselves would like. It's about what is balanced and mechanicly useful for the class. By accepting Equality, you are saying you are ok with only having 2 useful talents at 100 while every other class has 3. It is ridiculous to accept such a limitation for what is a talent that will never be reliable.
But whatever, its your opinion.