Paladin class preview hype.

[Demsi]

i kinda like what they have shown, but you guys are forgetting one thing, it's just a preview, we have only seen one of the many talents that we are going to get, not to mention only the core spells have been shown, the world isn't ending.

[Deleted]

These are literally my thoughts as I read through it. I have to say that I'm not impressed so far. As usual, I'll reserve final judgement (get it?) until I can try it out, but I have grave misgiving about Conviction in particular.

Gameplay philosophy
We’re making several tweaks to Retribution to amplify their character. In particular, we’re refocusing most of their core abilities on short-range combat. So many of the Retribution Paladin’s abilities were ranged spells that they started to feel more like a caster than a melee crusader. A new ability, Blade of Justice (along with several new talents) will impact gameplay significantly, bolstering the inherent Retribution themes. Separating them from the other types of Paladins, Retribution Paladins continue to use Holy Power, serving as a strong mechanic for building interesting gameplay.

Amplify? Could mean anything. More short ranged combat means that we’d need closers then? Melee DPS that don’t have much in the way of medium range abilities tend to have a charge type mechanics, whether it’s actual charge, shadowstep, wild charge, roll, etc. Will we be getting that? Is that what Lothar's Might is supposed to do?


Abilities

Crusader Strike
Melee Range, Instant, 4.5 sec cooldown
An instant strike that causes moderate Physical damage and grants 1 Holy Power

No change here.

Blade of Justice
12 yd range, Instant, 12 sec cooldown
Strikes an enemy with the Blade of Justice, dealing strong Holy damage and generating 2 Holy Power

So, assuming this is the full list of damage abilities, it looks like this is replacing exorcism. On the one hand I’m not happy about losing a ranged ability, but Exorcism was always weak anyway. This sounds like a powerful strike. I’m not opposed to this, though it doesn’t help us predict if our overall damage will be fine in Legion. My main concern is the two holy power that it generates, meaning we need to be careful to avoid using it with 4 holy power banked so as not to waste it.

Judgment
30 yd range, Instant, 12 sec cooldown
Judge an enemy, dealing moderate Holy damage and causing the target to take 30% increased damage from your Holy Power generators and consumers for 6 sec.

Now this is a bit more interesting. I wonder if haste will still reduce the cooldown on our abilities. If so, haste becomes a strong secondary stat again I think. As it stands, you’d be able to keep about 50% uptime on this. It also has some interesting gameplay in that you’d want to make sure the debuff is active before using Blade of Justice and our holy power finishers.

One concern I have, however, is that it reads like a debuff on the target rather than a buff for us. That means that it isn’t very helpful for mobs that die quickly or useful in AoE, except on the primary target. Good for single target, complete non-entity for AoE in fact. If it was a buff, however, then this could be very interesting, as long as there aren’t too many other balls to juggle. Let’s see.

Templar’s Verdict
3 Holy Power, Melee Range, Instant
A powerful weapon strike that deals massive Holy damage.

So this is now effectively Final Verdict with the buff to Divine Storm made baseline. No complaints here, the more abilities that deal holy power, the easier it is to balance us across all types of boss.

Divine Storm
3 Holy Power, Instant
A whirl of divine energy, dealing strong Holy damage to all enemies within 8 yds.

No change here, depending on the damage it does.

Conviction
Passive
Your Crusader Strike and Blade of Justice have a 20% chance to generate 1 additional Holy Power.

RNG, oh I do love my RNG. Thanks Blizz. I cannot believe they’re doing this. The added problem is that the additional holy power may well be wasted. Let’s say you have 4 holy power and use Crusader Strike, or 3 holy power and use Blade of Justice, a Conviction proc could then be completely wasted. So do we avoid using those abilities if the proc could happen and be wasted? If so, that’s being fiddly for no good reason. This could be a pain in the arse on the same scale as empowered divine storm.

Mastery: Hand of Light
Your Crusader Strike, Blade of Justice, Divine Storm, and Templar’s Verdict deal 45% (with Mastery from typical gear) additional Holy damage.

Fine, no problem.

Edit: What I want to know most about is our utility. That's what causes us problems in raids.

[Fazer]

That Holy paladin mastery... jesus christ it's going to be mega-annoying, but I guess it synergizes a bit to the LoD changes back into the old flashlight -model (which is something I actually like). Depending on how mandatory Beacon of the Lightbringer is going to be from the tier of talents and wheter or not Holy Paladin is considered melee for mechanics, this might be real pain to play :/.

Kudos on removing Holy Power though. Always thought that to be a tedious mechanic for Holy Paladins.

[Deleted]

That Holy paladin mastery... jesus christ it's going to be mega-annoying, but I guess it synergizes a bit to the LoD changes back into the old flashlight -model (which is something I actually like). Depending on how mandatory Beacon of the Lightbringer is going to be from the tier of talents and wheter or not Holy Paladin is considered melee for mechanics, this might be real pain to play :/.

Kudos on removing Holy Power though. Always thought that to be a tedious mechanic for Holy Paladins.

They might end up just being ranged healers if melee gets too overcrowded with the additional two melee class choices we're having as well. The talent reads like it could keep you back out in ranged and still heal tanks and melee without penalty - so going completely against their design philosophy. Back to hiding behind the priest's skirt it is.

[Deleted]

Must I state the obvious? A LOT can change between now and release. People are making judgments (lol) based on very little information. Just wait and see what happens. Don't throw your toys out of the pram just yet. It's not like Legion is being released tomorrow and this is what you're getting, full stop.

Just relax.

You're absolutely right, but on the other hand it does make sense to vocalize thoughts and concerns about the upcoming changes. This can also be valuable information for Blizzard and they have stated in the past that they are also reading these forums. Sure, they won't read everything here, however I could imagine that they take great interest in threads like this one.

[thilicen]

Like what I'm hearing for all 3 tbh. More distinctive specs all over!

[Deleted]

Must I state the obvious? A LOT can change between now and release.

Actually, what most people recognise as obvious is that if no feedback is provided, no changes are made. This is the first step of that process; people will discuss the implications amongst themselves and then people will direct considered feedback to Blizzard who may or may not act on it. But if no objections are raised then you're stuck with them.

[Nightcrwler]

I don't get the joy about the removal of holy power for Prot. Guess different strokes for different folks.

[Garkanh]

awesome, ret paladins will be like Chaac from Smite -.-'

-chasing an enemy, throwing lothars might - "ah crap, he dodged it and changed diretion" - keep chasing, accidently hit the key again - "damn, now i teleported even further away!"

i know that will probably not happen in wow, since the gameplay isn't quiet as intense, but i can still imagine it happen.


-it is good to see ret paladins get their gap closer though

[Deleted]

-chasing an enemy, throwing lothars might - "ah crap, he dodged it and changed diretion" - keep chasing, accidently hit the key again - "damn, now i teleported even further away!"

i know that will probably not happen in wow, since the gameplay isn't quiet as intense, but i can still imagine it happen.

Yes it will.

[Noore57]

See a lot of negative feedback in here
The concerns are ok I guess, but I will just wait until I get more information.

Right now all I can say is, that I will reroll back to my Ret Pala from Rogue in Legion

[TKTank]

Sometimes I don't get Blizz, sadly...

If they want Holy to be more melee...why not make them attack stuff in the likes of Fistweaving that many people seemed to like? I mean...is there a more direct and immerse way to make someone stand in melee...than requiring them to melee stuff?!

Also...I believe their vision of "Warrior of Light" might be different from what people might expect, sadly.

[Ryethe]

With Conviction you'd basically be forced to spend at 3 HP as you would otherwise risk wasting HP. This defeats the purpose of the adding the 5 HP cap as it was supposed to allow up to pool up to nearly 2 spenders. The problem could be alleviated slightly with a higher HP cap. Why not 10 or 15? Storing up 15 HP and then firing off 5 judgement-ed TVs on a priority target would be pretty neat. Regardless 5 seems too low for the new RNG hopo.

What I really want to hear about is seals. They've been ineffectual all expansion. The gameplay concept is fine and very paladin or ret-like but they need more oomph. Just tuning up the single target damage from SoT would do. Or maybe something crazy like making them a CD Aura mastery style.

Still have major concerns with on demand damage. We've floundered all expansion due to our hopo wind up and EmpDS dependence. Would be nice to meet in the middle in terms of on demand damage.