What do you think of the CURRENT Ashbringers talent tree/skills??
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/17610921306
Looking at the artefact abilities of other weapons makes Ashbringer feel pretty dull. Considering how much back story there is to this weapon, you would think they would have come up with a lot more exciting stuff than what they have. I generally don't like how many Ashbringers spawn from this weapons abilities. This weapon has never been known for making copies of itself. There is only ONE Ashbringer. Ultimately the abilities don't fulfil its "fantasy" and considering how much there is to work with in comparison to other weapons who mostly have no back story, its very disappointing that all they have come up with is spawning more and more ashbringers.
Wake of Ashes is not even remotely impressive. The effect itself is "useful", and the holy power generation can be placed elsewhere but the actual animation is boring and very unfitting. The Ashbringer weapon makes you THE ASHBRINGER and should make you feel that way. Just as Frostmaune makes Frost DK feel like the Lich King (summon Sindragosa etc). No previous Ashbringer wielders have ever make a copy of their sword fall from the sky and hit enemies for AoE damage. The Ashbringer has been known to burns enemies to ashes, maybe work something with that (post suggestions for new ability below plz thx).
Ashes to Ashes is borderline stupid, not because of what it does but the fact that mini-ashbringers striking you opponent looks ridiculous. Ashbringer has had many associations with "fire/holyfire". Make it do that instead. Or simply make it strike for holy damage. Stop trying to make us pure melee damage dealers, Were the holy equivalent of a frost DK. Most of our damage should be holy.
Echo of the Highlord should change its animation. Instead of spawning yet again more Ashbringers, make it so the power of the highlord infuses your sword with light (make it glow with holy energy) when using your finishers, making them deal double the damage as holy. That's something more fitting to the blade itself. Getting physical help from the previous users' ghost don't make YOU as the Retribution paladin feel powerful. Being EMPOWERED by their power does.
Divine Tempest is the most creative ability in the list. Make its animation "holy" themed. Maybe a full on divine storm moving forward at speed. Right now all it does is cause a gust of wind...lol
Other talents that effect abilities generally feel too weak (not the +damage ones). The likes of Deflection (15 secs off a 2min cd at 3/3) and "Protector of the Arshen Blade" (30 sec cd off 5min cd at 3/3). Firstly if you want us to have a lower CD on Shield of Vengeance, make it have one passively. Its a Retribution only ability. If you want a talent for it make it do something special, like reflect the next 3 spells cast at you. That feels good. Not just a boring CD decrees. As for HoP, since its not ret-specific i accpet a CD reduction though the ahbringer tree but it has to be a lot more than 30 seconds for us to waste 3 points on it. Holy gets its CD lowered by 50% though Ubreakable Spirit talent and another 15% to all blessing spells though a talent in their artefact tree. On top of that, they get 2 charges for blessing spells in PvP tree. for eg, thats a significant gameplay change. This does close to nothing. If you want Blessings to be important to us make our talents make them change significantly or simply leave them as default.
IDEAS:
An idea of mine is to have an ability in form of Tirion's leaping strike he does on the Lich King after breaking free of the Hungering Cold.
Another talent should be to make hand of freedom break free of stuns. If I recall correctly it did this in WotLK and fitted the spell well. Mages have immunities to stuns too its not something unheard of.
I hope we will see drastic change soon to this weapons abilities because right now its very unimpressive compared to what it could be. It feels like very little thought has been put into it.