Paladin talents 5.0

[The Good Captain]

Keep in mind guys, it has been said these aren't set in stone. The xpac is still months away, plenty can change with things like these in that time. Don't be the stereotypical paladins.

Well, y'see, the issue is that we've heard and repeated that dialogue before. Twice (didn't hold m'breath over BC), actually. The only hope I have is that it sounded like Chilton and Street implied their team'd be listening this time. It always seems to me that they don't listen because they believe everyone just wants to be made Overpowered.

[Jonuts]

Repentance (awesome for PvP)

Except, who would choose repentence over HoJ for PvP? Stun doesn't break on damage, Repent does. Ergo, that's certainly the PvP choice between the two. But SoJ looks almost useful now. Duration is shorter than I'd prefer, but since it cuts move speed in half, means being snared for .0001 second won't let them get away from you.

I'm hoping for some serious changes to these talents though. DP is still here? Blargh. Hope Sanctified wrath is a better (or at least comparable) talent choice. Long Arm still our gap closer? Fail. PoJ meaning you have to stack holy power? What? Why the hell would we get a speed boost when we need it least? Obviously I'm maintaining time on target if I managed to actually stack my Holy Power.

[Handsylton]

The whole point is we already have a bunch of shit, without any focus whatsoever because it's all over the place. This is an attempt at giving us a choice in utility, which is awesome I might add, as well as not having us have everything in every spec. The specs having stance mechanics built into them (they said although all paladins learn all abilities, specs will only have certain ones available) allows for finer tuned balancing in PvP and PvE. Also, the sixth tier is amazing, because as a ret pally, it allows us to choose between higher burst dps, better sustained dps, or more RNG if we like a more erratic playstyle.

First tier - Do I want a big sprint on a cooldown, a mini sprint I can have up periodically, or a run speed increase for the majority of the time?
Second tier - Do I want a long duration stun, a CC, or a snare?
Third tier - Do I want a anti-CC HP builder, a auto procced low duration damage cooldown, or a controllable damage cooldown that has a save-death mechanic?
Fourth tier - Do I want a predictable increase in healing ability, a better but RNG increase in healing ability, or an absorption shield?
Fifth tier - Do I want an anti-CC mechanic on a long cooldown, an anti-CC cleanse and lower cooldowns on utility spells, or an Oh Sh*t refresh on utility abilities?
Sixth tier - Do I want massive improved dps on a long cooldown, improved dps on a shorter cooldown, or improved dps through an RNG mechanic?

This is a lot of choice, with a lot of utility built in. The building blocks for solid paladin specs is already there in every class, what has been missing is better utility. The sixth tier of talents goes as far as removing the RNG factor from Ret dps almost completely. Art of War by itself is just the right amount of RNG for a dps class. These talents will cater better to individual playstyles, and by giving choices in utility, as well as the pseudo stance mechanics through specs, they can balance the specs on baseline, which means we will all be better off.

[The Good Captain]

The sixth tier, following, bothers me:


If it's as it seems, and Zealotry has been rolled into the Guardian via that talent, we're in a bit of a spot. That needs to be addressed, because it only exacerbates our primary issues in Cataclysm by making us literally choose betwixt our antagonizers; we either become CD Clowns or RNG Rollers (but much fairer).

By the way, I've a thread with all tiers' images listed, posted here.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...4#post13773844

[zcks]

Underwhelmed by many of the talents since many of the other classes got allot of completely new ones. That being said a couple of the new versions of old abilities are nice like Pursuit of justice, fist of justice & seal of justice. There are also nice possibilities with any spec being able to access any talent.

If they make holy power generation more consistent with these changes, make the rotation better & instead leave procs to boost damage the damage of abilities or guarantee critical strikes then it could be nice.


The one thing I'm worried about is that we will be forced to specialize allot more in our role & loose more flexibility.


All that being said there could be allot of good changes here if implemented properly, however when has blizzard ever known to put much thought into how ret or prot are designed/developed.

[Fredzilla]

While there have been disappointments (upon disappointments upon disappointments...) in the past, you know what they say:

Hope springs eternal.

After looking through, for example, the druid trees, I do hope they spice ours up some. It is a bit lackluster in comparison, but only time will tell. Maybe they'll actually get it (somewhat) right this time.

[The Good Captain]

First tier - Do I want a big sprint on a cooldown, a mini sprint I can have up periodically, or a run speed increase for the majority of the time?
Second tier - Do I want a long duration stun, a CC, or a snare?
Third tier - Do I want a anti-CC HP builder, a auto procced low duration damage cooldown, or a controllable damage cooldown that has a save-death mechanic?
Fourth tier - Do I want a predictable increase in healing ability, a better but RNG increase in healing ability, or an absorption shield?
Fifth tier - Do I want an anti-CC mechanic on a long cooldown, an anti-CC cleanse and lower cooldowns on utility spells, or an Oh Sh*t refresh on utility abilities?
Sixth tier - Do I want massive improved dps on a long cooldown, improved dps on a shorter cooldown, or improved dps through an RNG mechanic?

You must also note, however, that this is happening to all classes, in some fashion. I'm mixed over it. Still thinking.

[Tatsu]

The whole point is we already have a bunch of shit, without any focus whatsoever because it's all over the place. This is an attempt at giving us a choice in utility, which is awesome I might add, as well as not having us have everything in every spec. The specs having stance mechanics built into them (they said although all paladins learn all abilities, specs will only have certain ones available) allows for finer tuned balancing in PvP and PvE. Also, the sixth tier is amazing, because as a ret pally, it allows us to choose between higher burst dps, better sustained dps, or more RNG if we like a more erratic playstyle.

First tier - Do I want a big sprint on a cooldown, a mini sprint I can have up periodically, or a run speed increase for the majority of the time?
Second tier - Do I want a long duration stun, a CC, or a snare?
Third tier - Do I want a anti-CC HP builder, a auto procced low duration damage cooldown, or a controllable damage cooldown that has a save-death mechanic?
Fourth tier - Do I want a predictable increase in healing ability, a better but RNG increase in healing ability, or an absorption shield?
Fifth tier - Do I want an anti-CC mechanic on a long cooldown, an anti-CC cleanse and lower cooldowns on utility spells, or an Oh Sh*t refresh on utility abilities?
Sixth tier - Do I want massive improved dps on a long cooldown, improved dps on a shorter cooldown, or improved dps through an RNG mechanic?

This is a lot of choice, with a lot of utility built in. The building blocks for solid paladin specs is already there in every class, what has been missing is better utility. The sixth tier of talents goes as far as removing the RNG factor from Ret dps almost completely. Art of War by itself is just the right amount of RNG for a dps class. These talents will cater better to individual playstyles, and by giving choices in utility, as well as the pseudo stance mechanics through specs, they can balance the specs on baseline, which means we will all be better off.

Blizzard said they wanted to get rid of boring talents. Tell what is fun for holy paladins in these?

[Pivotpony]

The sixth tier, following, bothers me:


If it's as it seems, and Zealotry has been rolled into the Guardian via that talent, we're in a bit of a spot. That needs to be addressed, because it only exacerbates our primary issues in Cataclysm by making us literally choose betwixt our antagonizers; we either become CD Clowns or RNG Rollers (but much fairer).

By the way, I've a thread with all tiers' images listed, posted here.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...4#post13773844

I don't think they are removing zealotry. But GoAK gives the zealotry effect as well for 10 seconds.
Zealotry will most likely be in the retribution specialization, and learned while lvling. At least I hope it will be.

[Deleted]

While there have been disappointments (upon disappointments upon disappointments...) in the past, you know what they say:

Hope springs eternal.

After looking through, for example, the druid trees, I do hope they spice ours up some. It is a bit lackluster in comparison, but only time will tell. Maybe they'll actually get it (somewhat) right this time.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha /evil laugh mode off

Sorry but when was the last time they did something properly for ret and pallies in genral ??? You honestly believe that after quite a few years, Kalgan GC and Furor changed? I'm honestly surprised that no one came up on stage to punch those two in the face.

The talents are lackluster, very underwhelming and plainly boring. They will fuck it up yet again mock my words.

[Maelle]

As a ret PvE dps that does not pvp I got to say I'm really unimpressed. A lot of defensive/healing and PvP talents very few choices for dps and as for raid utility there are some things that are ok, but not exactly needed on quite a lot of fights anyway. There is one tier when I can choose betweena buff on 2 healing spells and a sheild with a HP cost attached, of course I would use the sheild if needed but not thrilled about it costing HP for mitigation :<

So basically wading through 5 tiers of stuff I am totally indifferent about, picking the things that will probably get the most use over what is utterly useless, but really won't be used a huge amount anyway or are variations of the same choice to get to the one tier I give a fig about.

I realise they might change it and spice it up a bit, lets hope so because for me personally as pve only ret these changes don't hold much interest or even a huge choice.

Also - Fist of Justice? really?

[Fredzilla]

I don't think they are removing zealotry. But GoAK gives the zealotry effect as well for 10 seconds.
Zealotry will most likely be in the retribution specialization, and learned while lvling. At least I hope it will be.

The way I read it is a bit different from zealotry. Instead of CS -> TV, it seems more just TV spam (or similar HP finishers)

---------- Post added 2011-10-21 at 11:50 PM ----------

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha /evil laugh mode off

Sorry but when was the last time they did something properly for ret and pallies in genral ??? You honestly believe that after quite a few years, Kalgan GC and Furor changed? I'm honestly surprised that no one came up on stage to punch those two in the face.

The talents are lackluster, very underwhelming and plainly boring. They will fuck it up yet again mock my words.

If you have no hope that ret will get better in the future (ever), why play it at all?

[Rhonen]

Reading is hard for some people. Most people seem to be acting like what everyone else sees paladins as, aka qqqqqqqqqqqq

Listen you. All some of us want is for 'them' to address our problems. Some of us couldn't care less that you're making (eg) Repentence available to all three specs. Some of us couldn't care less that they've simply taken talents that we already have, tiered them, and made them available to all specs (and apparently combining some talents from the looks of things). And this doesn't just apply to Paladins.

It's a new xpac we're talking about, not a mid-xpac patch. It's going to take much more than the addition of a PvP snare to keep me playing. Wow me in the Q&A Blizzard. Otherwise, I am disappoint...and done come December 20th.

[Deleted]

The way I read it is a bit different from zealotry. Instead of CS -> TV, it seems more just TV spam (or similar HP finishers)

---------- Post added 2011-10-21 at 11:50 PM ----------



If you have no hope that ret will get better in the future (ever), why play it at all?

Couse I want to get my Samurai Set rolling

[Valamivan]

It MUST be pointed out that this is just a fraction of information, so don't judge just yet. Talent trees gonna be - as it looks - used to choose the style of how you want to play. But if you read the posts again you'll see that we get abilities based on the spec we choose (spec =/= talent tree anymore). So let's say you choose Holy at level 10 you gonna get Holy Light, Divine Light, etc as you go and level, while also grabbing the talents in your tree every 15 levels which shape the style. In addition there will be abilities which are given to every spec in the class.
In short: talent tree isn't everything you get. You get talent tree PLUS class abilities PLUS spec abilities.... and who knows what else they might pull out of their hats in the next few days.

[Fredzilla]

Listen you. All some of us want is for 'them' to address our problems. Some of us couldn't care less that you're making (eg) Repentence available to all three specs. Some of us couldn't care less that they've simply taken talents that we already have, tiered them, and made them available to all specs (and apparently combining some talents from the looks of things). And this doesn't just apply to Paladins.

It's a new xpac we're talking about, not a mid-xpac patch. It's going to take much more than the addition of a PvP snare to keep me playing. Wow me in the Q&A Blizzard. Otherwise, I am disappoint...and done come December 20th.

If you've had such an aversion to these problems (that have, in one way or another, persisted since vanilla), why are you still playing (a paladin)? I've literally gone through all the shit for ret (and prot to a slightly lesser degree) and if I didn't see any possibilty of a bright(er) future, I wouldn't come back to the game, blizzcon or no blizzcon.

If you blindfold yourself while playing whack-a-mole, chances are you'll still hit one eventually.

Edit: Val summed it up pretty well. You're envisioning the entire picture based on the bottom-left corner of it. We have no idea how these talents will affect or work with what class or spec abilities we have, or how they will interact in the long run with other classes.

[Tatsu]

It MUST be pointed out that this is just a fraction of information, so don't judge just yet. Talent trees gonna be - as it looks - used to choose the style of how you want to play. But if you read the posts again you'll see that we get abilities based on the spec we choose (spec =/= talent tree anymore). So let's say you choose Holy at level 10 you gonna get Holy Light, Divine Light, etc as you go and level, while also grabbing the talents in your tree every 15 levels which shape the style. In addition there will be abilities which are given to every spec in the class.
In short: talent tree isn't everything you get. You get talent tree PLUS class abilities PLUS spec abilities.... and who knows what else they might pull out of their hats in the next few days.

Spec and class ability was the boring things. The things that everyone has. Talents were suppose to be fun hard choices. For paladins it feels like we get choices that don't matter. There isn't any fun in them.

[Handsylton]

What's fun? Alright,

First tier - Utility movement choice, which sounds better? OooOOooOooo I dunno, toughie!!
Second tier - OMG I can has either CC OR STUN, or kiting tool as a healer?? YAY!!!
Third tier - Do I want more HP to heal if someone CC's me? Or maybe a passive damage cooldown... or maybe one I can control, that's a toughie too!!
Fourth tier - Do I wanna have instant FL's, a chance at WoG not costing me anything, or a damage shield I can put on someone? Which works for my playstyle??
Fifth tier - Do I wanna have an anti-CC tool for me and my buddies, a sweet anti-CC cleanse and better utility spells, or the ability to reset all my utility spells? Toughei!!
Sixth tier - Do I want no cooldown spam on WoG and Light of Dawn? Do I want to be able to spam HS during Avenging Wrath for huge burst healing with tons of HP? Or do I want a 15% chance that my Light of Dawn or WoG will give me a free one right after???

That's the fun, you get to choose your playstyle, and what works for you. Stop looking at this from a min/maxing perspective, and start thinking about how YOU would like to play, not how EJ says you should play. That's when you'll see the fun in this talent archetype.

[Tatsu]

What's fun? Alright,

First tier - Utility movement choice, which sounds better? OooOOooOooo I dunno, toughie!!
Second tier - OMG I can has either CC OR STUN, or kiting tool as a healer?? YAY!!!
Third tier - Do I want more HP to heal if someone CC's me? Or maybe a passive damage cooldown... or maybe one I can control, that's a toughie too!!
Fourth tier - Do I wanna have instant FL's, a chance at WoG not costing me anything, or a damage shield I can put on someone? Which works for my playstyle??
Fifth tier - Do I wanna have an anti-CC tool for me and my buddies, a sweet anti-CC cleanse and better utility spells, or the ability to reset all my utility spells? Toughei!!
Sixth tier - Do I want no cooldown spam on WoG and Light of Dawn? Do I want to be able to spam HS during Avenging Wrath for huge burst healing with tons of HP? Or do I want a 15% chance that my Light of Dawn or WoG will give me a free one right after???

That's the fun, you get to choose your playstyle, and what works for you. Stop looking at this from a min/maxing perspective, and start thinking about how YOU would like to play, not how EJ says you should play. That's when you'll see the fun in this talent archetype.

None of those are fun or really useful.
15 oh boy you took away from my speed boost and nerfed it. Now I get to choose something that doesn't really matter
30 Oh boy who cares. I dont PVP
45 Again I don't PVP So Blessed Life no real choice
60 Now this is interesting choice First one in our talents
75 Meh again I don't PVP so dont seem fun to me
90 Possibly interesting choices.
So If I dont PVP then 2/6 talents are choices. Other wise I could just pick any and go with it.

[Gorehowl]

i liked how we get to have 1 cc as pvp ret instead of 2.