Suggestions - Paladin

[Nurvus]

- Read all, please, or don't bother starting.
- This is not some buff or nerf request - Please mind the concepts, numbers are just a guideline.
- Lastly, although I'm familiar with all paladin trees, I play mainly Retribution, and therefore it is natural that I have more ideas for that tree, yet not in detriment of the others.

I'm always aiming at improving gameplay, therefore here I present ideas that make the Paladin have more stuff to use, but not necessarily a spam.

Here's a link to the talent trees.
http://www.war-tools.com/t60203.html?b=9zyxm
Note: Abilities on the bottom-right of the trees represent the new/newly Baseline abilities.

[Holy]
Baseline
- New - Holy Strike - Lv30. 4% Base Mana, Next Melee, 6 sec cd. Causes 80% weapon damage as Holy damage.
Note: Meant mostly against well armored opponents.
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[Protection]
Baseline
- Hammer of Justice - 45 sec cd, 4 sec duration (max rank)
Note: Less cheesy but more reliable.
- Divine Shield - Also reduces the paladin's movement speed by 50% for the duration.
Note: With the upcoming change to reducing 50% of all damage instead of just attack speed, the movement speed change is not necessary.
Note: Meant for defense, not cheesy offense.
- Forebearance - Duration reduced to 1 min.
- New - Divine Guard - Lv60 - 12% Base Mana, Instant, 1 min cd. Increases your chance to parry by 50% and allows you to parry attacks from behind. Lasts 5 sec.
- New - Justice Strike - Lv50 - 6% Base Mana, Next Melee, 6 sec cd. Can only be used after a block, dodge or parry. Causes 120% weapon damage as Holy damage. Cannot be blocked, dodged or parried.
Talents
- Improved Hammer of Justice - Cooldown reduced by 5/10/15. (from 10/20/30 - considering the Base CD was reduced from 1 min to 45 sec).
- Reckoning - 3 pts (from 5) - 4/7/10% chance (from 2/4/6/8/10%).
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[Retribution]
Baseline
- Seal of Command - Lv20.
- Avenging Wrath - Does not cause nor is affected by Forebearance.
Note: With the upcoming change to Divine Shield, causing 50% of all damage while active, Avenging Wrath does not need to apply or be affected by Forebearance.
- New - Grand Judgement - Lv40 - 15% Base Mana, same range, same shared cd. Unleashes the energy of a Seal spell to judge an enemy and all nearby enemies, refreshing your target's Judgement on all affected targets. Refer to individual Seals for additional Judgement effect. Only one Judgement per Paladin can be active at any one time.
Note: It does not place a Judgement debuff, but does the Judgement damage. It simply refreshes and spreads your already existant Judgement debuff on your target. You must use a single target Judgement first before you can spread the debuff. (if it is not dispelled)
Talents
- Seal of Command - Baseline Lv20. Replaced by Divine Manifestation.
- Improved Retribution Aura - Changed to 3 points and merges Swift Retribution - Your Retribution Aura also increases casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 1/2/3% and causes an additional 17/34/50% damage.
- Repentance - 45 sec cd.
- New - Vengeful Light - All heals you cast cause Holy damage equal to 7/14/20 5/10% of the healed amount to all enemies near the healed unit.
Note: Offers a new dimention to Holy Paladin, as it combos well with Beacon of Light. Encourages to heal effectively while also trying to catch the maximum amount of mobs near the healed target.
Furthermore, damage is based on healing done - overheal does not count.
- New - Divine Manifestation - Replaces Seal of Command - Instant, 30 sec cd. Restores 6% mana to you and causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
- Crusade - Down to 2 points (from 3) - Same effect (1% increase to all damage, and an additional 1% damage increase against undead, humanoid, elemental and demons.)
- Vengeance - Down to 2 points (from 3) - Same effect (1% increase to all damage for 30 sec after a crit). Stacks 5 times (up from 3).
Note: Instead of quickly increasing by 3/6/9% in 3 crits, it increases 2/4/6/8/10% in 5 crits.
- New - Divine Wrath - Replaces Swift Retribution (see Improved Retribution Aura) - Increases your chance to hit with all attacks and spells by 1/2/3% and your Crusader Strike, Judgement and Divine Storm abilities have a 33/66/100% chance to grant you Divine Wrath for 15 sec. This effect charges up to 5 times and by consuming 3 (respectively 5) charges, allows the use of Exorcism (respectively Holy Wrath) on Humanoids and Elementals.
- Crusader Strike & Divine Storm - Normalized to do X times the weapon's Damage Per Second - I suggest about 4 times. Essentially they hit just like Hammer of Righteousness - as if you had a 4.00 speed weapon.
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Conclusion:

The changes and additions are meant to make the paladin less about cheesy 20 seconds of godlike burst, and more about controlled, reliable gameplay.
The Divine Manifestation offers some control over the melee surroundings, Divine Wrath offers some consistency between Undead/Demon and other encounters, Divine Shield becomes more defensive and Hammer of Justice becomes less prohibitive.

Chaining abilities like Divine Shield, Hammer of Justice and Repentance becomes less "overpowered", while the Paladin becomes less of a dummy while Forebearance is up by having lower cd on the - now smaller - CC.

This causes the Paladin's Burst Damage to become less of an issue in PvP, by allowing the opponent to take action.

[Deleted]

- This is not some buff ... request

- Avenging Wrath - Does not cause nor is affected by Forebearance.
- Divine Shield - Also reduces the paladin's movement speed by 50% for the duration.
- Divine Manifestation - ... reducing (enemy) movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.

Conclusion:

- Divine Manifestation (new Retribution talent) allows the paladin to keep melee opponents nearby, without granting the combat mobility of an Intercept/Charge.
- Divine Shield slows your movement, becoming more defensive and making the Paladin's burst damage less overpowering.

Sorry, but those 3 "talents" combined and then claiming not asking for a buff made me just lol. What's the difference in slowing yourself down while bubbled when you can slow your opponents in the same fashion AND can "cheese combo" DS and AR again for burst damage? Oh, and your new "holy strike ignores armor" on top of it, too. ^^

[Nurvus]

The duration is less and most classes have reliable means to remove slow effects (earthen power from enhancement shamans, druid's forms, blessing of freedom, racials, etc), but still you got a point.

I'm cancelling the Avenging Wrath suggestion, and instead suggesting a reduction in the duration of Forebearance.

As for Holy Strike ignoring armor, considering it does 80% weapon damage, it's usefulness is against heavy armor.
Maybe the % of weapon damage could be 70% - the numbers I show are guidelines.
In that light, even the Divine Shield's movement reduction could be 60% or more. The concept remains.

Thanks for the reply, yet I'd appreciate if you could avoid implying motives - I'm not making hidden buff/nerf suggestions coated in something else.

When something new shows up that makes the class cooler to play, often needs some tuning in numbers. That's no surprise.

[Astray]

Alright, now this is the post i register for.

You say your goal is to make the pally less "bursty" ... by making Divine Storm and Crusader Strike hit like a train + giving them another two very good burst talents.

Suggesting DS and CS to do 4 times the DPS alone is madness.
Not seeing what a Ret-pally can do with the stuff you imagined for holy and prot is...insane?

[deafmute]

Holy Strike and Crusader Strike should share a cooldown. Giving the pally too many instant skills will just make us seem more like face rollers.

Justice Strike is really Rune Strike in disguise. I don't think pally tanks feel they need a rune strike atm, and this would really be more of a Ret Benefit.

Crusader Strike and Divine Storm doing 4 times MH Weapon Damage? Hammer in prot does 4x MH DPS, not weapon damage. That's seriously OP. You're moving from 100%/110% (what they currently do) to 400% with that.

Vengeful Light even if it's only 7% of the amount healed, would make holy pallies even stronger than they are. Buffs to Holy Pallies like that would probably outrage most arena players who are concerned about the abundance/popularity of Holy Pallies on top rated teams.

[Nurvus]

Alright, now this is the post i register for.

You say your goal is to make the pally less "bursty" ... by making Divine Storm and Crusader Strike hit like a train + giving them another two very good burst talents.

Suggesting DS and CS to do 4 times the DPS alone is madness.
Not seeing what a Ret-pally can do with the stuff you imagined for holy and prot is...insane?

a 3.40 speed weapon does 3.4x weapon dps, a 3.8 weapon does 3.8x.

This would be a slight increase for DS and pretty much the same damage for CS (wich is 110% weapon damage atm).

I think the paladin's problem does not revolve around CS and DS damage multiplier, but rather around the amount of damage that is being multiplied.
The various % damage increase talents are what needs to be looked at.
I pretty much rather play Retribution as a class with plenty skills to use, than a couple skills and alot of % boosts to base damage.

If the problem is indeed with those 2 moves, then it could be 3.6 times the DPS, or something like that.
NUmbers can be adjusted.
It's the concept here I'm trying to relay.

As for the rest, the numbers can be adjusted. Just like Holy Strike could be 70% instead of 80, so could Justice Strike be 110% or 100%. ANd they're not Instant, they're On Next Swing. They add a little dmg to your swing, mostly from ignoring armor, wich means the ones most affected are not the cloth/leather, wich are precicely the ones with most issues with getting bursted down.

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Holy Strike and Crusader Strike should share a cooldown. Giving the pally too many instant skills will just make us seem more like face rollers.

Holy Strike - Lv30. 4% Base Mana, Next Melee, 6 sec cd.

Seriously? Are you even reading?

Justice Strike is really Rune Strike in disguise. I don't think pally tanks feel they need a rune strike atm, and this would really be more of a Ret Benefit.

It is indeed a Rune Strike, but not in disguise. It's quite obvious.
The difference is that it uses mana and paladins lack a reactive ability.

Crusader Strike and Divine Storm doing 4 times MH Weapon Damage? Hammer in prot does 4x MH DPS, not weapon damage. That's seriously OP. You're moving from 100%/110% (what they currently do) to 400% with that.

Crusader Strike & Divine Storm - Do 4 times the weapon DPS instead of X% weapon damage.

Seriously? Are you even reading?
I even stated in the suggestion that it works JUST LIKE Hammer of Righteousness... on top of wording things right.

Vengeful Light even if it's only 7% of the amount healed, would make holy pallies even stronger than they are. Buffs to Holy Pallies like that would probably outrage most arena players who are concerned about the abundance/popularity of Holy Pallies on top rated teams.

Numbers can be adjusted. And the AoE dmg would be small in area, as well as in quantity.
It would be an optional talent.

The 7/14/20% means the 3 ranks. It could be 4/7/10% or less, or a X% chance to do Y% of the healed amount.

[Nurvus]

With the upcoming change to Divine Shield, causing 50% of all damage while active, Avenging Wrath does not need to apply or be affected by Forebearance anymore, and the suggestion of reducing the Paladin's ability while bubbled isn't needed either.

I changed the Original Post to reflect this.

[sillverhair]

purely out of curiosity, im pretty sure i know the answer but im asking anyway

why not post these things on wow forum, im afraid i dont understand most off this, but im a pretty good dps without theorycraft (tho ive been told that if i would understand these things i may be better)

[Elementium]

I thought Paladins were in a good place right now.. cause I mean.. everyones a little bursty at the moment. anyway good post, must have taken awhile.

[monalin]

It is indeed a Rune Strike, but not in disguise. It's quite obvious.
The difference is that it uses mana and paladins lack a reactive ability.
Seriously?

I'm guessing you don't play prot then. The last thing I want is a reactive ability. I'm perfectly happy with the amount of threat i get from my current arsenal. Also 120% weapon damage would not be enough for me to want to use this ability. All my other skills generate more threat than this, and we have enough spells in our rotation to always be hitting some button. Specially in naxx, our undead spells are very handy.

I'm sure you had fun coming up with new talents for paladins but really... but just face it. Blizzard will not make these changes. If you think that ret pallys are boring then just pick another class. Pallys have plenty of abilities to use in PvP i think you're just not utilizing them all or you think that pvp is all about the offensive. Every spell you added was an offensive spell, you failed to realize that pvp is not about offensive.