[7.0] New Paladin Abilities and Talents

[ruiizu]

Yeah but that is way more likely to happen if its up all the time. With a cooldown you can plan it's use to gain maximum benefit.

Theres no fight that has constant AoE, so constant AoE's rarely have a good use.

Constant AE has a use because it's always up when you need it. CD AEs tend to do enough damage that you might reasonably want to use them in single target, even if your rotation is pretty full (a good example is Wake of Ashes). But we already have Wake of Ashes, so it seems like overlap to have another CD AE.

There are other benefits to Consecration too. If you look at Prot, they have all sorts of cool tools that go along with it. They have one that makes it Snare and heal (and by extend triggers Purity in PvP, to remove poisons/diseases), and another that makes it remove movement impairments when activated. It's just a cool mechanic and Prot seems to have the monopoly on that. I don't so much mind I guess, but it's crappy that we just get a watered down version.

Anyway, I think we need on demand AE regardless. Something that you probably wouldn't use unless there's a bunch of targets and can have ready to go any time. Consecration could reasonably fit that bill, but at present in its talent, it doesn't do that.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Sanctity Aura would be a good on demand AOE. It's not Consecration, and it functions different(This is based on what Ruiizu described).

[Deleted]

damage per Holy Power is still so huge that it's an irrelevant point to talk about except when targets are stunned (and if they were stunned by you, you're also trading 1 GCD as well, which is a net DPS loss).

Divine Purpose doesn't care about damage per holy power, so it's better to use procs on JV than TV. Also, with my current gear, JV does 2.6 times the damage of TV on a stunned mob, so that more than makes up for the gcd used for the stun. That's with Final Verdict and a small boost to TV from Ashbringer traits; with a different talent the difference would be much more pronounced.

[Found]

It is true that weapon damage abilities also scale with ability power - in fact TV, which has a 390% weapon damage ratio (before Sword of Light, artifact traits or FV) should have roughly a 386% AP ratio (factoring in Sword of Light) on top of its scaling with base weapon damage (~491% with Final Verdict and 3 points in Might of the Templar). In general the reason people say that weapon damage abilities scale differently from AP ratio abilities is that your pure AP-ratio abilities don't care at all about your weapon damage - so an increase in weapon ilvl only matters for the additional strength and secondaries. Meanwhile, weapon damage abilities will gain from the strength, secondaries and the weapon damage increase.

In general I think this question is pretty academic, though - I doubt we'll end up living in a world where JV is intended to be a full replacement for TV unless you're in a really wacky gear scenario.

[ruiizu]

Sanctity Aura would be a good on demand AOE. It's not Consecration, and it functions different(This is based on what Ruiizu described).

For sure, I always thought it would be cool to have a damaging aura. In general it feels odd that in an expansion that focuses on class identity, Ret got no Auras for PvE, 1 utility Seal, and a focus on Judgment (but only one effect). Our thing is Blessings, but it seems mostly they are not loved.

I'd be so down for a cool Ret only Aura. It probably should have been Retribution Aura, but Protection already has that, hence the reason I went for Sanctity Aura as a name. Honestly grasping at straws though. Consecration isn't bad, but if Prot is going to be the one that goes heavy into that, I'd be happy to go heavy into a damaging Aura just for flavor sake (and it certainly wouldn't have a bad impact on damage).

I imagine it as a talent that's just like:

Sanctity Aura
Damages all targets within 10 yards of you every 5 seconds. Passive.

If needed they could add an activation that temporary amplifies the Aura as well. Just so we'd have something unique but also useful. It allows us to not waste GCDs on a skill that's otherwise outside of our main gameplay as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Divine Purpose doesn't care about damage per holy power, so it's better to use procs on JV than TV. Also, with my current gear, JV does 2.6 times the damage of TV on a stunned mob, so that more than makes up for the gcd used for the stun. That's with Final Verdict and a small boost to TV from Ashbringer traits; with a different talent the difference would be much more pronounced.

That's a fair assessment, as 2 TVs would consume 2 GCDs (and 1 extra Holy Power), so it certainly adds value to JV if those are the actual numbers with a stun. I'm sure a lot of us will be running Divine Purpose/JV if we aren't using one of the other max level talents, as that setup makes the most sense.

I'm a bit curious if JV will work on bosses that get stunned by raid mechanics. If so, it'll be a niche damage boost on select fights.

[Ulthane]

@Teleros so just now got home to go on beta. JV went down back to normal numbers. Was a bug.

[Biral Sunherald]

I imagine it as a talent that's just like:

Sanctity Aura
Damages all targets within 10 yards of you every 5 seconds. Passive.

I was thinking they could make it a cooldown, rather than a passive ability. A talent we can take in lieu of Consecration/Divine Hammer/Greater Judgment that takes the place of what Holy Avenger would have done to our DPS.

Sanctity Aura 2min CD
Generates 5 Holy Power and reduces the cost of your damaging Holy Power abilities by 1. All allies within 40 yds deal 15% additional damage as Holy. Lasts 12 seconds.

This damage would function exactly like Blessing of Might, attributing that damage to the triggering Ret Paladin. Obviously we don't need to have the Ashes to Ashes HP gen in it, or the tFoJ cost reduction, but both effects would go with the theme of the aura.

[ruiizu]

I was thinking they could make it a cooldown, rather than a passive ability. A talent we can take in lieu of Consecration/Divine Hammer/Greater Judgment that takes the place of what Holy Avenger would have done to our DPS.

Sanctity Aura 2min CD
Generates 5 Holy Power and reduces the cost of your damaging Holy Power abilities by 1. All allies within 40 yds deal 15% additional damage as Holy. Lasts 12 seconds.

This damage would function exactly like Blessing of Might, attributing that damage to the triggering Ret Paladin. Obviously we don't need to have the Ashes to Ashes HP gen in it, or the tFoJ cost reduction, but both effects would go with the theme of the aura.

I just don't think we need more cooldowns. And we especially don't need another 5 Holy Power generator. The days of "increases everyone's damage" are long behind us as well, because they know for sure it'll mean stacking or at least always 1 Ret Pally.

The only reason I went with passive damage aura was because it's different. Those other effects are already described by many other abilities. The other reason I went for the damage aura was because people are always saying "we're not support," so why not have an offensive aura? Something that isn't just another buff.

[Ciric-Wildhammer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb3rH5nV6mk Is this how Ret will be but, with a lot lower dmg after tuning?

[Ulthane]

@Alindra http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...21?page=49#967 Here you go.

The goal from this would be
-Charges on Judgment
-Talents swapped and tuned to make everything more competitive.

[Ciric-Wildhammer]

@Alindra http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...21?page=49#967 Here you go.

The goal from this would be
-Charges on Judgment
-Talents swapped and tuned to make everything more competitive.

That seems to be one of the best ways to simi fix the train wreck we got now. It would require minimal effort to fix if they are willing to, or even reading the forums. Most likely they find Ret fine where it is at.

[Ulthane]

That seems to be one of the best ways to simi fix the train wreck we got now. It would require minimal effort to fix if they are willing to, or even reading the forums. Most likely they find Ret fine where it is at.

It's not fine : / like the entire concept is sound but poorly implemented. I did a follow up post to elaborate on my thought process with each row and what not. But yea it really is the quick best fix. The only "complicated" thing may be the Blessings of Justice idea but if any talent were to come back it would be that one.

- - - Updated - - -

I really wish there was a way to see what they are thinking lol wtb mind reading abilities.

[Alindra]

Oh, you meant the characters on the PvP realm. No, I don't think you can do any PvE on those atm, but this is one from the PvE realms.

I didn't realize there was a difference; that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the clarification, @Thete.

@Alindra http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...21?page=49#967 Here you go.

The goal from this would be
-Charges on Judgment
-Talents swapped and tuned to make everything more competitive.

Thanks, @Uthane! It feels good to have my thoughts in the official feedback thread.

If I could ask one more favor, would you mind reposting my "No CS cooldown" post (link here) in response to Bryiah? I know it's not a 1:1 response to her post, but it covers what would happen if the CD was removed (namely, that it wouldn't increase our dps from Fires of Justice at all).

I'm not sure they could make it baseline (it would pretty much eliminate the most important perk of Fires of Justice) and it would make Zeal much stronger... then again without it the cooldown reduction of Greater Judgment is only there for flexibility and AoE, it wouldn't provide any real benefit to single target (we'd just barely generate enough HP for 2 TVs per Judgment every 12s - not for 10s).

- - - Updated - - -

I really wish there was a way to see what they are thinking lol wtb mind reading abilities.

Sadly mind reading (and control) is a priest ability, not paladin. :\

In all seriousness, right now I just want some feedback or response from the devs. I don't even care if they say we're just a bunch of whiners and everything is fine. At least that way I won't have to keep holding on to some hope that the next build will hold improvements. Shoot, if they told us what they were and weren't happy with, what they were willing to budge on and weren't, then we'd be able to at least provide focused feedback. Right now, we're just shooting blindly into the dark...

[Lunavale]

I'm getting really tired of reading "you can just macro your rotation" in the beta thread. Can someone with beta access please tell these people that they have no clue how macros work and that it is next to impossible (and if you can manage to do it, you are most likely breaking the tos) to macro several rotational abilities that are on the GCD together. Thanks.

[Deleted]

I'm getting really tired of reading "you can just macro your rotation" in the beta thread. Can someone with beta access please tell these people that they have no clue how macros work and that it is next to impossible (and if you can manage to do it, you are most likely breaking the tos) to macro several rotational abilities that are on the GCD together. Thanks.

I did ask him what macro he thought he was managing this with, but he sort of shot his load admitting that he didn't observe the Judgment window anyway.

[Lumineus]

/castsequence Crusader Strike, Blade of Justice, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Judgment, Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict

Obviously this is not perfect, but it's good enough to roast in effigy. Clearly, this will only work with Final Verdict and Fires of Justice, and not terribly well with Divine Purpose, but it is what it is.

[Ulthane]

@Alindra Got it on there, the big thing is you are 100% right with what you are saying. I've noticed it with my hands on the dang thing.

[ruiizu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb3rH5nV6mk Is this how Ret will be but, with a lot lower dmg after tuning?

That was not a great example of Ret, but you can see that we're still relatively durable. Both players seemed to play kind of badly, but the Ret should have been able to catch up better with well timed Hand of Hindrance. He also made a big mistake with his Pony usage in the beginning and got T-stormed in a poor position. Yet he won, which is kind of hilarious.

It does, however, show that Reg is partially full of it. That Ret was still perma-slowed the whole fight, there was definitely not a reduction in the "amount of snares" fighting that hyper-mobile shaman. It shows with some certainty that we should definitely have Divine Steed by default (but we already knew that; it's so absurd not to).

Incidentally, I was watching a Let's Play of Warcraft II (because reasons), and it's kind of funny. Paladins, in Blizzard's own games, are derived from Knights, and are actually the fastest ground unit. Footman and Grunts are much closer to Warriors, but they were actually less mobile than Knights/Paladins, our counterparts. Just food for thought.

[Snegovik]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb3rH5nV6mk Is this how Ret will be but, with a lot lower dmg after tuning?

Scary thing is that elem did not even kite properly. I know my glad elem buddies, would not even drop below 50-60%...XD sigh this is why we need immunity or punishment for dispels if blizzard Insists on giving us 0 mobility. Since all shammy did when Savix popped freedom is purge then frost shock and back to kitting.

- - - Updated - - -

-snip-

I feel like picking ES over FV is a must vs duels or even Arena games where ur KT will be able to kite u like that.

P.S. Not to sound like a broken record, but Prot has a much much better toolkit than Ret for pvp, Prot would not even have any issues (even if Prot deals 80% of Ret's dmg) in that duel, simply because of range silence, shorter cd on a pony, more range attacks, reduced dmg while on pony, instant heals (not even counting ability to block magic attacks if speced)

[Celebhil]

bear in mind wc2 is a strategy game with a lot simpler mechanics and limiting ui; so having an army of super vanguard soldiers aka the paladin was somewhat necessary to eventually win (which were merely the upgrade to knights, the counterweight to ogre/ ogre-magi). I suppose a more current analogy would be as if ultralisks could be upgraded to have the zerg queen's heal spell. Uther, arthas and the generic paladin heros in WC3 were much more accurate to the "fantasy" goal, but im uncertain legion has hit that mark, paladins being kited to death should be a tough ordeal; sure ...kite, but it should take work to down him.