Full Circle(?) a retrospective (long)

[Blinke]

Hi, I really don't like to start new threads, but I can't find any recent threads (or any thread for that matter) that really looks into the original paladin design and the concurrent Cataclysm design.

Okay, I am not terribly familiar with the vanilla-beta paladin, but from what I gather from both the Does Blizzard Hate Pallies vids and the abilities shared by npcs, paladins used 2 strikes, crusader strike and holy strike. Crusader Strike applied a stacking debuff that increased holy damage dealt to the target and holy strike packed a holy damage melee strike that pretty much did a lot of damage with all 5 stacks of cs.

For those that remember BC, it was similar in that you applied Seal of the Crusader to the target to debuff, and increase holy damage received. Which leads to the new system that was made, Seals and Judgements. Seals used to last 30 seconds if my memory doesn't fail me and was a buff, and thus could be dispelled. Said Seal was then clubbed-er-Judged with a singular Judgement spell, and the effect placed a debuff on the target. Wisdom did Wis, Justice slowed and prevented fleeing, Crusader increased holy damage received which most notably increased any holy damage, which includes priests.

They then raised the Seal duration to last 2 minutes, to allow for more leeway, but then made them undispellable baseline, and not just through talents. Okay, so basically we then go to this hap-hazard system of what is practically a 30 minute weapon imbue, as it cannot be dispelled. And the main 3 debuffs were split into separate spells called Judgement of the ________, and Crusader was removed entirely.

So, we kind of get back to the original 5-stack debuff with the redesign of Seal of Vengeance/Corruption, in that once 5 stacks are accomplished it deals additional weapon damage each swing, and also deals additional seal damage each swing per stack later. It's to note that they also did a similar thing with rogues Deadly Poison, in that the dot was nice, but all was needed was a 5 stack max to deal the dot, so they made it merely deal poison damage on swing as well, from opposite weapon to be exact, which seems lazy, but works in a way.

And now it seems to be a complete turnaround, and going to a melee strike, CS mainly, stacking a buff that increases other abilities. The differences are obvious. There is no debuff, but merely a buff, it only goes to 3 rather than 5, and it amplifies many other abilities as well. I for one, am ecstatic to have another resource to work around, I was always intrigued by the notion and the DK rune system solidified that for me (I also can't wait to try out the redo of that!)

So correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't they very similar?

I just realized that 'retrospective' is a potential pun in 'ret-rospective' in terms of the retribution spec.

Oh well.