Seals Reworked to Function as a Resource

[grimmhammer]

Despite that developers have stated that they are happy with what WoTLK has done for Paladin seals, the player base has been seeing this system as inherently flawed since they were released in 2005, and find that the latest expansion has not resolved the problems with the mechanic.

Essentially, the largest problem with seals is that there is far too much empowerment given to a 100% passive mechanic. When added damage on attacks comprises 40% or more of a class' damage, it should be a red flag that something is wrong. Not only does it make the class uninteresting, it makes it difficult to balance.

To a lesser extent, the Paladin's combat suffers from being only moderated by cooldowns and mana. Many players in recent months have brought this to the attention of developers, who have also acknowledged this issue, and attempted to address it to a certain extent in patch 3.2. There are a lot of suggestions for secondary resources for Paladins in order to help with this problem. This post is a list of ideas that turn seals into an active 'resource' mechanic. (NOTE: this is only addressing the Retribution spec of Paladins, I realize these changes have wide sweeping ramifications to both holy and prot as well. If a system such as this were introduced, talents in holy would be modified to accommodate the acquisition of seals from outside of melee combat, perhaps by allowing different heals and judgment to apply different seals or something.)


[SEALS]: All seals have been reworked, they are now instant cast attacks with no cooldown that cost 2% base mana and deal 30% weapon damage as physical damage and place an undispellable no-duration buff on the Paladin. Seal buffs are now used as quasi resources for certain Paladin spells, making use of a mechanic similar to a combination of Rogue combo points and Death Knight runes. These spells consume the seals specified when cast.

To see which Seals are consumed by which Paladin abilities, please refer to:

http://s952.photobucket.com/albums/a...rent=fileg.jpg

- Judgments have been changed to always deal damage equal to current JoC damage, and do not require a seal to be cast -

Seals:

*All of the following include 'instantly strikes the current target for 30% weapon damage as physical damage, placing a seal on the paladin that...'

Seal of Vengeance: * increases weapon damage by 1/2 the Paladin's current level.

Seal of Justice: * increases movement speed by 15% (does not stack with other movement speed increases effects).

Seal of Wisdom: * Grants MP5 = to the Paladin's level

Seal of The Crusader: * Lowers the global cooldown on seal abilities by .5 seconds.

Seal of Righteousness: * causes all melee attacks to deal additional holy damage = to 10% of the damage dealt.


[DIVINE STORM]: removed
[HOLY WRATH]: removed

[EXORCISM]: reworked

Instant cast costs 10% base mana Seal of Vengeance, Seal of Justice.

10 second cooldown

Causes [1028 0.15 * SPH 0.15 * AP] to [1146 0.15 * SPH 0.15 * AP] Holy damage to up to 5 enemy targets within 10 yards, and heals up to 3 party or raid members totaling 25% of the damage dealt.

*New Spell*

[HOLY STRIKE]:
No Cooldown
On next melee, melee range
5% base mana, Seal of Wisdom, Seal of Justice.

Causes your next melee swing to deal damage as holy damage.

*New Spell*

[TEMPLAR STRIKE]:
no cooldown
instant, melee range
5% base mana, Seal of Righteousness, Seal of The Crusader

Instantly strike the target and his two nearest allies for weapon damage + 1 per 100 armor.


[TALENTS]:

Talents for Retribution have remained largely the same. The talent tree for these proposed changes may be found here:

http://www.war-tools.com/t65796.html?b=9z

Notable changes:

Pursuit of Justice Removed

New 11 point talent*

Hallowed Pentangle

1.5 minute cooldown

The Paladin calls upon the might and wisdom of the original five knights of the Silver Hand, instantly activating his Seal of Vengeance, Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Justice, Seal of The Crusader, and Seal of Wisdom

New 31 point talent*

Seal of Command

Instantly strikes the target and for 30% of weapon damage as physical damage, placing a seal on the Paladin, increasing the effect of all seals by 10% while active (excluding the GCD reduction of SoTC). This Seal counts as Seal of righteousness, Seal of Vengeance, Seal of Justice, Seal of Wisdom, or Seal of The Crusader.

Art of War changed:

Increases the damage of your Judgement, Crusader Strike and Exorcism abilities by 10%. In addition when your Holy Strike, Templar Strike or Judgment abilities critically hit, there is a 100% chance that your next Crusader Strike cast within the next 20 seconds will require no seals, or your next Flash of Light spell will be instant

Crusader Strike changed:

Requires: Seal of Wisdom, Seal of The Crusader (no cooldown)

An instant strike that causes 75% weapon damage as physical damage.

new 51 point talent:

Repentance

15 second cooldown Requires Seal of Vengeance, Seal of Righteousness, Seal of the Crusader

Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 1 min. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Usable against Demons, Dragonkin, Giants, Humanoids and Undead.

Repentance has been changed in this manner as a means of allowing it to be used more often to interrupt casts, or stay in range in exchange for requiring a bit more set up and a considerable DPS loss.

Hammer of Justice

Requires Seal of Vengeance, Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Crusader, Seal of Justice, Seal of Wisdom

[Sylreick]

Sounds good. This could be a step in the right direction, I would like at least one other attack to use while leveling 1 - 41 on my "Holycow" (even if the damage of each individual move were reduced to compensate).

I'd like to see rotations updated overall, many classes need help there.

[grimmhammer]

I'd like to see rotations updated overall, many classes need help there.

It's important to note that even though a 'rotation' would be established with these changes, it is still at its core a priority system that changes based on a number of factors; including procs, necessity to use certain utilities, and single target vs. AoE situations.

[blackedout]

Couple questions;
First is Vengeance intended to be a fixed quantity that scales with haste and low weapon speed, or a increase in weapon dps that would not be worthless on slow weapons?
Second do the spell seal requirements mean that it requires all of those seals to be active and consumes all of them or am I misunderstanding it?
Third do the on next strike abilities mean that the cause an immediate second strike when you swing normally or do the function as instant attack that reset your swing timer?
Forth would Seal of the Crusader effect it's own gcd?
Fifth would spells that consume Seal of the Crusader benefit from the gcd lowering effect?

[grimmhammer]

Couple questions;
First is Vengeance intended to be a fixed quantity that scales with haste and low weapon speed, or a increase in weapon dps that would not be worthless on slow weapons?

It merely increases the listed weapon damage on your character sheet based on your level. It is unaffected by haste.

Second do the spell seal requirements mean that it requires all of those seals to be active and consumes all of them?

Yes, that is correct.

would Seal of the Crusader effect it's own gcd?

Only if it is already active when you cast it.

Fifth would spells that consume Seal of the Crusader benefit from the gcd lowering effect?

No spells consumed by SoTC will ever benefit from its GCD reduction. The GCD reduction only applies to Seals.

The reduction would work like this:

If SoTC buff is active and a seal is cast, the GCD that follows will only last 1 second. If anything other than a Seal is cast, the GCD that follows will last 1.5 seconds.

Seals are on the same GCD as all other abilities, but casting them would activate a reduced GCD as long as the buff is active.

[blackedout]

Ok, based on your response Vengeance seems awfully weak, +40 damage on your listed white damage does in fact scale, as I said, with faster weapons and haste indirectly in that it forms a larger portion of your dps when used with a fast weapon than with a slow one and it does scale with haste in that the additional damage is done more often though not to a significant degree.

The strikes being instant and resetting the swing timer, and I presume to go with being instant triggering the gcd, seems like a bad idea and over punishing to lag and those without a mod or personal ability to judge swing timers. It would make them function like slam did when it was a button that you wanted off your cast bar all together so that it didn't kill your personal dps.

Last note, if you want repentance to be used as an interrupt than it should gain the "acts as interrupt on mobs immune to stun" tag like hammer has, and I am a bit concerned about the degree of crowd control it puts into the hand of ret paladins in both pvp and pve, but that may be my paranoia.

[Firecrest]

So, uh, sucks to be a Holy Pally?

[blackedout]

Well, his post started by saying it wasn't covering the Holy and Protection systems... however if you were to implement something like this than I imagine that you could alter Judgments of the Pure into Judgement of Light, Causing Judgment to give you the effects of Seal of Wisdom, in this system along with the glyphed effects of seal of wisdom and seal of light current version along with the current effects of Judgments of the Pure and it would become a buff so long as you didn't need to use exorcism.

[WorldTree]

Why fix something, if it isn't broken. ???

Stop pulling # out of your a$$.

Essentially, the largest problem with seals is that there is far too much empowerment given to a 100% passive mechanic. When added damage on attacks comprises 40% or more of a class' damage, it should be a red flag that something is wrong. Not only does it make the class uninteresting, it makes it difficult to balance.

http://wowwebstats.com/sk4e6h1e33w61...000000033e771c

Just a random Pal, DPS on webstats.

The Top dmg abilities:
Swing: 21%
Seal of corruption: 20%
Judgement of Corruption: 13%
Blood Corruption: 10%
Crusader Strike: 9%

Where the fxxx did you get 40% from? (even if you add up seal + blood corruption is 30%.)

Judgement is in itself another ability. (as it can be used without seal of corruption.. Righteous does more dmg...)

So, It doesn't add 40% dmg. (Since you can use SoR, SoCom... and those are ~20-30% depends on fight...)

Why trying to fix something that's not broken again?

[Myzou]

Although I hate that Ret is pretty much "BOOM, I win!" in complication, I don't think it needs to be changed, at least not before cataclysm, or at the cataclysm launch. I'd be all for it afterwards.

I already have to teach myself how to play my warlock again when the soulshards change happens, and god knows how much I'll have to relearn when hunters switch over to focus. Another class, and I'd just quit WoW, because I'm not relearning 3 classes :P

[Hethor]

Although I hate that Ret is pretty much "BOOM, I win!" in complication, I don't think it needs to be changed, at least not before cataclysm, or at the cataclysm launch. I'd be all for it afterwards.

I already have to teach myself how to play my warlock again when the soulshards change happens, and god knows how much I'll have to relearn when hunters switch over to focus. Another class, and I'd just quit WoW, because I'm not relearning 3 classes :P

[Saintphoenix]

This is a BAD idea as blizzard have already stated they dont like on next swing attacks and are potentialy removing them as of CATA so y would they go n make 2 of them for pallys when they hate them???

[Aonix]

This is a BAD idea as blizzard have already stated they dont like on next swing attacks and are potentialy removing them as of CATA so y would they go n make 2 of them for pallys when they hate them???

Just what i was thinking

[grimmhammer]

Why fix something, if it isn't broken. ???

Stop pulling # out of your a$$.

http://wowwebstats.com/sk4e6h1e33w61...000000033e771c

Just a random Pal, DPS on webstats.

The Top dmg abilities:
Swing: 21%
Seal of corruption: 20%
Judgement of Corruption: 13%
Blood Corruption: 10%
Crusader Strike: 9%

Where the fxxx did you get 40% from? (even if you add up seal + blood corruption is 30%.)

Judgement is in itself another ability. (as it can be used without seal of corruption.. Righteous does more dmg...)

So, It doesn't add 40% dmg. (Since you can use SoR, SoCom... and those are ~20-30% depends on fight...)

Why trying to fix something that's not broken again?

Those numbers still support my point. Seal damage (DoT + attack) comprise the highest % of damage out of all of the Paladin's damage sources. You don't think it's broken when the largest % of your damage comes from a passive 30 minute buff?

[Darkheaven]

Those numbers still support my point. Seal damage (DoT + attack) comprise the highest % of damage out of all of the Paladin's damage sources. You don't think it's broken when the largest % of your damage comes from a passive 30 minute buff?

Auto attack from most melee?

[kaizokunoou]

before noticing that this was in the pally thread, i thought someone was trying to suggest seal clubbing as a secondary profession...

well, a guy can hope.

[grimmhammer]

This is a BAD idea as blizzard have already stated they dont like on next swing attacks and are potentialy removing them as of CATA so y would they go n make 2 of them for pallys when they hate them???

Just to clarify, this is the post you're referring to:

Heroic Strike
We have become pretty dissatisfied with the on-next swing mechanic. Come Cataclysm, we'd love to get rid of all of them. Obviously that will necessitate some pretty significant changes in how warriors generate threat or do damage (unlike Maul or Rune Strike, Heroic Strike gets a lot of use outside of tanking), which makes it too risky a change for 3.3. We think some of the other ideas like toggling the ability are also risky in the sense that they might require a lot of iteration to feel right, or worse, might mess up threat generation or damage dealt.

The original design of HS as a tanking tool wasn't that you replace every white swing with a Heroic Strike. You did it when you wanted to burn off rage. These days tanks (and increasingly dps warriors too) are rarely rage starved beyond perhaps the first few seconds of the fight. That turns Heroic Strike into a button you always push.

A couple of other ideas we have considered, as someone above referenced, were making Heroic Strike do more threat the more rage you have but also spend more rage. Another is that you somehow go into "high rage mode" at which point everything costs double but hits harder. This would work for dps warriors too. Those are just ideas at this point, not announcements. Please don't tell us in a few weeks that you were promised these changes for 3.3.

Here's the important part:

The original design of HS as a tanking tool wasn't that you replace every white swing with a Heroic Strike. You did it when you wanted to burn off rage. These days tanks (and increasingly dps warriors too) are rarely rage starved beyond perhaps the first few seconds of the fight. That turns Heroic Strike into a button you always push.

This is their reasoning for not liking the system. It is because for warriors and druids, the abilities become something that affect every swing, and the button is pushed before every auto attack.

Because the system I proposed is not based on rage, but rather seals, it would be impossible to use the on next melee attacks continuously.

They don't just fundamentally hate everything that on next melee stands for, they just don't like that the abilities have become completely un-situational and just added damage on every attack.

[grimmhammer]

Auto attack from most melee?

It's expected that auto-attack does the most DPS out of melee classes' abilities because it uses no resources. However, you'll notice that seal damage for Paladins is doing nearly 150% of the DPS of auto-attack based on those numbers.


Again, you don't see that as a problem?

[Lanigiro]

I don't see anything wrong with the way ret works in pve atm, I like the way seals work. And the only problem I have with rets in pvp is a lack interrupts, healing debuffs and closers. Now I'm not saying I would object to a change in the way seals work but this feels like it puts too much shit on screen to focus on.

[Seragan]

It's expected that auto-attack does the most DPS out of melee classes' abilities because it uses no resources. However, you'll notice that seal damage for Paladins is doing nearly 150% of the DPS of auto-attack based on those numbers.


Again, you don't see that as a problem?

I don't see it as a problem. As someone said earlier - it's how Retribution Paladins work, if you don't like it then change specs or re-roll. I praise your creativity and ingenuity for coming up with this system, but obviously this is not where Blizzard want paladins to be moving to or otherwise they would be on their way there :P.

Let's also not forget that wayyyy back in the past, judgements used to consume seals. This was annoying and the reason I decided to level a druid instead - it was the most retarded system ever. While yes, your system seems to require a little more thinking it just seems more annoying, then fun.

Note: Sorry if this post seems a little disconnected - spent the night at the pub .