[7.0] New Paladin Abilities and Talents

[Doombringer]

What would be really nice to see is more interplay between our abilities, and talents that are more interesting.

Honestly, "Cavalier" is so bare-bones it hurts. It's adding a stack to a talent that is ALSO dull. In either area, they easily could have added another bonus, no? i.e. 'Cavalier - Divine Steed now has two charges, and breaks snares and roots on use.'

It is really depressing to go over to other melee classes and see all this harmoniousness with their talents and abilities. I can, without any AOE talents, hit up my Fury warrior and use Whirlwind all day long, which also innately buffs my next Bloodthirst or Rampage to also do a cleave. If I want more AOE I can take certain talents... but inherently, I have some fun interplay happening here with base abilities.

On Ret, it's "Divine Storm and that's it." Not only do I have to blow 3 Holy Power to use DS, I also have to spec to get a cleave or other AOE. Our Passive abilities consist of a flat, boring damage boost when using a 2hander and a more interesting damage boost .... that requires people around us to DIE.

I'm not saying we need class/spec parity... but come on, this is just one example of two melee classes where it is very clear that one has more flavor and more interoperability between its abilities and talents than the other.

[ruiizu]

What would be really nice to see is more interplay between our abilities, and talents that are more interesting.

Honestly, "Cavalier" is so bare-bones it hurts. It's adding a stack to a talent that is ALSO dull. In either area, they easily could have added another bonus, no? i.e. 'Cavalier - Divine Steed now has two charges, and breaks snares and roots on use.'

It is really depressing to go over to other melee classes and see all this harmoniousness with their talents and abilities. I can, without any AOE talents, hit up my Fury warrior and use Whirlwind all day long, which also innately buffs my next Bloodthirst or Rampage to also do a cleave. If I want more AOE I can take certain talents... but inherently, I have some fun interplay happening here with base abilities.

On Ret, it's "Divine Storm and that's it." Not only do I have to blow 3 Holy Power to use DS, I also have to spec to get a cleave or other AOE. Our Passive abilities consist of a flat, boring damage boost when using a 2hander and a more interesting damage boost .... that requires people around us to DIE.

I'm not saying we need class/spec parity... but come on, this is just one example of two melee classes where it is very clear that one has more flavor and more interoperability between its abilities and talents than the other.

Maybe they should have done something like "Divine Storm detonates your Wake of Ashes DoT, causing them to be Judged and take x holy damage instantly." That way there's some additional interplay between Wake and DS. There's a lot of cool things Divine Storm "could" have done. The whole Divine Tempest and Echo of the Highlord things leave a lot to be desired. Divine Storm shoots forward and...so what? Should have made it consecrate the ground, healing, damaging, increasing runspeed, etc for x period of time over the blessed area.

Lots of possibilities with Echo, but given our current ability synergy, should have been a "chance to x" instead of just 10% more damage. Maybe like 10% chance to auto-fire an additional Templar's Verdict, Divine Storm, or proc a Judgment on the target.

[Wrecktangle]

So I FINALLY took a look at some of the other classes talent trees and so far I wasn't terribly impressed with DPS DH's tree (feels only marginally better than Ret's), but looking at Frost or UH DK's I was like um can we trade developers?

Also, I am looking at Monk and I am wondering did the developer of Monk not get the same memo the Ret designer got? Because unless I can't read or I am blind it looks like they have a very clear, defined theme in each tier.

1) Damage/Healing Hybrid skill row. You can choose between a long CD, short CD, or passive damage/healing change. Why don't we have anything like that?

2) Mobility row. Literally you can choose between a double charge blink with a MS attached, or a long CD speedboost that breaks snares/roots and can be used on friendlys? Um ok that's cool. Then you can choose between a passive roll charge increase and CD reduction in one. Yeah.

3) Chi mechanic row. You have a long CD reset button, a passive increase on a rotational ability, or a gameplay change that increases max chi and recovery rate. Cool.

4) CC Tier, not going into more detail.

5) Defensive cooldown tier. You have 3 choices. 2 long CDs or a heal with a moderate cooldown. Yep. Why didn't they put a DPS ability in this tier or a mobility one?

6) Damage increasing tier. You can choose between a cool stacking mechanic if you optimize use of mastery, or a raw dps cooldown or an additional rotational ability to change gameplay. Cool.

LOL someone explain to me how this isn't a complete travesty that they're not beholden to the new design paradigm... I also noticed that Frost doesn't follow the new paradigm either. UH does have a part where you have to choose between say defense or mobility (i.e. Spell Eater/Corpse Shield vs. Linger Apparition), but that's the only instance I could find. I'm out for the day so I'll look at the rest next week.

[Morally Grey Storm]

So our primary stat pvp template is 85% and JV template is 60% damage and healing.
Remind me why would I use it in PvP?

- - - Updated - - -
@Wrecktangle, ain't it funny?

Other classes and specs look a lot more fleshed and thought -out.
Others have actual talent choices. Yet we get scraps and leftovers, after months of groveling and begging pretty please. At best.

I can't help but draw 3 conclusions out if it.
It's either:
1 intentional
2 they just don't care for Retribution
3 we're dead last on their priority gauge( not like it would be the first time Retribution being last to be worked upon and left unfinished, leading to a certain pattern there)



Care to wager which one it is?



Please tell me I'm just negative and bending things out of shape and proportion.

[Morally Grey Storm]

Honestly, there are so many ret paladins, even when the spec just doesn't perform, that I think they don't feel like they have to care as much.

That would be a very sound reasoning.

There are so many poor people, governments should not be caring as much.
Feth, I could become a solid politician.

[Taeldorian]

Honestly, there are so many ret paladins, even when the spec just doesn't perform, that I think they don't feel like they have to care as much.

The quote that someone linked in here from Ghostcrawler back in mop shows that their design philosophy revolves around that. He said something like *There are 5x as many ret paladins alone as there are monks as a whole* or something like that. I never actually knew about that tweet until someone in here linked it. Dumbest thing Ive ever read, but we at least know how they think when it comes to class balance and design vs class popularity.

[Vanderhuge]

The major problem with Ret is that it was drastically changed halfway (or so) through the alpha/beta cycle - pretty sure this same thing happened during the Cataclysm beta (you can correct me if I'm wrong there). You can't just start something from scratch and expect it to be done in half the time of other specs. As far as DPS mechanics are concerned, if they feel the change is needed - it's going to be made a few weeks into the first real raid push.

I'm sure some of us still remember the disaster that was the Divine Purpose mastery. The Judgment mastery has its weaknesses, but it'll never sink that low. If the overall performance of Ret's entire playerbase is lacking, it'll be fixed.

[Morally Grey Storm]

That's a nonsensical comparison.
Players have many different options when it comes on what to play

It can fething well be a nonsensical comparison(which I draw for the sake of argument anyway), but so is the reasoning behind leaving Retribution with little to no attention.

I could just as much say poor people have many different options when it comes on what to be:
they can pull their shit together(aka git gud), they can commit suicide(aka reroll), they can engage themselves in illegal activities for living(aka change of spec) and so on.

It's not as much as class balance and design vs class popularity as much as it is development resources vs class popularity. A class that has sustained high popularity even when given very little development time is obviously a class in which development time is ill spent.

then we can safely conclude time spent playing a class or spec that was given very little development is just as much ill spent.

[Taeldorian]

@Nymrohd Im not sure if we are even right with saying that. I mean druids are above us in class popularity and they got really good attention in terms of balance and guardian. Hunters are ahead of us as well, but I cant say I like any of the specs current design so I cant really say they got more/better attention than ret.

If what we are saying is actually true, druids would be in the same boat we are in terms of their dps specs and such, but thats not the case.

[Ianus]

The quote that someone linked in here from Ghostcrawler back in mop shows that their design philosophy revolves around that. He said something like *There are 5x as many ret paladins alone as there are monks as a whole* or something like that. I never actually knew about that tweet until someone in here linked it. Dumbest thing Ive ever read, but we at least know how they think when it comes to class balance and design vs class popularity.

it was me https://twitter.com/occupygstreet/st...79017350631425 with this you know why their design philosophy is like that..and why they put kalgan again on paladins lol i had to

[Deleted]

The problem comes not only by the amount of people fascinated by the paladin fantasy as a whole but especially from blizzard development stuff introducing constantly new classes that are melee based on top .
Having said that last 2 weeks on archi mythic ret pallies counted 3.124 parses toppin only ww monks , dps shammies (although ele+enh together were more), feral druids (although doomkins were more) and various subspeccs of wars,dks and pure dps classes. And that comes only after archi mythic is on farm and nerfed. Situation was much much worse during archi mythic progress .... So tbh if this is blizzard's reasoning behind ret nerfing then i would say mission accomplished. (not getting into class/specc representation in ranked pvp or timed instances that gonna play a more active role coming expansion ...)

[Morally Grey Storm]

Announces an demon-fighting themed expansion infested with demons
Removes all demon fighting tools from one of the two demon-fighting -oriented classes
>scumbag bzzd <


Can't help but applaud.

[Morally Grey Storm]

Ashes to Ashes stuns all demons. Try again.

You mean like Holy Wrath used to do?
But does it Turn Evil or autocrit , from great distance to boot?


not to mention AtA requires some time to be acquired .
Try Again Bragg

[Morally Grey Storm]

Holy Wrath used to stun demons just as well. On a shorter cd, by the way. And didn't require no finicky Artefact to be usable and unlocked.

Okay then, AtA is a HW substitute.
What about Turn Evil and Exorcism , though?)

[ruiizu]

Holy Wrath used to stun demons just as well. On a shorter cd, by the way. And didn't require no finicky Artefact to be usable and unlocked.

Okay then, AtA is a HW substitute.
What about Turn Evil and Exorcism , though?)

Its kind of weird to see Exorcism go. It was a WC2 Paladin ability and a unique skill to us for a very long time. Somehow flinging hammers has become more "Paladiny" than slaying demons or undead.

Rather than introduce Blade of Justice, they should have just powered up Exorcism and given it a cool new animation. Or they could at least have kept Exorcism for Holy or Prot.

Turn Evil I won't miss as much. It wasn't really that iconic or useful in most situations. I mean, why would you want to have an ability that makes you into a Death Knight anyway?

[Alindra]

Rather than introduce Blade of Justice, they should have just powered up Exorcism and given it a cool new animation. Or they could at least have kept Exorcism for Holy or Prot.

I like Blade of Justice, and having abilities grant different amounts of Holy Power is a good change - but I'm really sad to see Exorcism go; more-so than Hammer of Wrath, actually (thematically, anyways). It just felt right for Retribution. The visual wasn't that impressive, but it had a very distinctive sound.

Turn Evil I won't miss as much. It wasn't really that iconic or useful in most situations. I mean, why would you want to have an ability that makes you into a Death Knight anyway?

I can't remember the last time I cast Turn Evil.... but that's partially because the relevance of CC in PvE is significantly lower than it used to be. (I remember using Turn Evil on one of the boss adds in vanilla Scholomance. The DK with the damage aura and two big undead adds.)

I disagree that it's a Death Knight ability - they would take control of it, not cause it to flee. I think of Turn Evil as a less forceful exorcism.

[ruiizu]

I like Blade of Justice, and having abilities grant different amounts of Holy Power is a good change - but I'm really sad to see Exorcism go; more-so than Hammer of Wrath, actually (thematically, anyways). It just felt right for Retribution. The visual wasn't that impressive, but it had a very distinctive sound.



I can't remember the last time I cast Turn Evil.... but that's partially because the relevance of CC in PvE is significantly lower than it used to be. (I remember using Turn Evil on one of the boss adds in vanilla Scholomance. The DK with the damage aura and two big undead adds.)

I disagree that it's a Death Knight ability - they would take control of it, not cause it to flee. I think of Turn Evil as a less forceful exorcism.

I think the joke went a bit over your head. =P

[Alindra]

I think the joke went a bit over your head. =P

Clearly!

(I still don't get it. ¬_¬)

[ruiizu]

Clearly!

(I still don't get it. ¬_¬)

What do you get when a Paladin uses Turn Evil?

[Deleted]

What do you get when a Paladin uses Turn Evil?

A gnome. Fortunately, it hasn't happened yet.