Shadowlands paladin changes

[Jowany]

Divine plea would be super awesome

[Lurker1]

What's wrong with holy power?

I think it's because you can't really play ret paladin like a hybrid anymore gameplay wise.Its either burst dam or heals.

[Good ol Stroggylos]

Aegis of Light that is currently a prot talent makes no sense. In the end of the day why would a tank use a channeled spell .... It fits the class fantasy quite well though so i would expect it to be shared with other specs of the class (i got ret in mind obviously).

[Wrecktangle]

Are you sure it's not the fact that ICC Ret was OP?

ICC Ret was probably my 2nd favorite iteration (and a portion of that was definitely how strong it was, top 20 US raider at the time). WoD was by far the most fun for me, despite it's inconsistency. ICC or Legion was probably second though.

My enjoyment tends to revolve around the impact and frequency of Divine Storms. Wake of Ashes and Blade of Justice being the other 2 key elements I like (one for its mechanics, the latter for its aesthetic, FFT ayyy).

[Alanar]

Again, for PvE empowered seals was considered an annoying, messy and unnecessarily overly complex talent.

It was, for a time, the theoretically highest parsing talent, but even then no one used it because it was so convoluted. When the group of people most concerned about finding a 0.1% increase turn down a theoretically higher talent, you know something is seriously fucked up.

There's a reason why it was the only max level talent that got removed for Legion.

You are wrong there for example I and many pvpers and also pvers were using it 50% of entire wod. When you dont like it doesnt mean you speak for everyone. I didnt care for pve much that time, but you only realy needed the extra haste lol and once again it was a very satisfying talent when you know how to use it.

Overy complex? Dont think we are playing the same game.
It was extremely powerfull..and very easy to use. It were basically extra finnishers, you had a choice. The healing and haste was realy strong for example.

Collecting holy power and using a finnisher is the basic, adding something extra is realy needed to make the spec atleast somewhat fun..

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What's wrong with holy power?

Questioning this myself...

It seems we have many wrath players here who were probably using 1 button macro which was active full of wrath without any big nerfs. Wrath was lolzors for ret and I get it.. but this is not a good example to look back to.

The only good thing in rets rotation was divine storm single target/animation.

[Sigxy]

Questioning this myself...

To me: Holy Power is boring and not satisfying. You spend time using weak abilities (keep in mind, your crusader strike is weaker than your auto attack. At least in WotLK, it triggered the Seal) to get the Holy Power up, can ONLY be used with 3 Holy power for spending abilities, and the spenders are... really not fun at all. WoG when it crits on all members can be amusing - but for Divine Storm and Templar's Verdict damage? They are so not worth it. What we had before were less button pressing but they all felt -good- to use.

And no, I didn't raid back then so I didn't have the ICC set to spam DS all the time (though amusingly, that's exactly what you can do now with azerite traits). And I still enjoyed it the most. Give me as many buttons you want, make it as "complicated" as you want - it's not going to be fun if it doesn't feel satisfying.

[ExiHext]

it's not going to be fun if it doesn't feel satisfying.

Ret in a nutshell...although I cannot point at what the problem is for me. Perhaps it's just me and not the mechanics.
On the other hand, one of the things I really miss the most since it was taken away is our mobility row. I really miss Long Arm of the Law...although I know it only really works with Emancipate (in PvP that is). It is so frustrating to see the mage blink away/warri leap away with 2% health and you can't do anything because of sh*tty mobility and Judgments long a** cooldown.

[protip]

I feel like the real issue with empowered seals was just that there were so few free gcds, so you had to choose buffs over damaging abilities. If a new version of it was introduced, slowing down the rest of the rotation and allowing it to hit a bit harder could make it much less complicated to manage. It could even replace a core ability like Blade of Justice, for example.

I'd still really like to see that sort of gameplay come back, because it put a focus on otherwise overlooked abilities and allowed you to make interesting decisions with your gameplay. If you wanted healing and haste instead of damage, that option was available to you. If you wanted to have your best damage seals active for wings, you needed to plan for it. All of the buffs were noticeable, and while the optimal gameplay didn't yield much higher dps than the brainless options, (primarily because Divine Storm procs benefited from the 100% DS damage from Final Verdict) the utility it provided was still very useful in certain situations. It was one of the few talents ret has ever had that had a major impact on the rotation.

[ExiHext]

I feel like the real issue with empowered seals was just that there were so few free gcds, so you had to choose buffs over damaging abilities. If a new version of it was introduced, slowing down the rest of the rotation and allowing it to hit a bit harder could make it much less complicated to manage. It could even replace a core ability like Blade of Justice, for example.

I'd still really like to see that sort of gameplay come back, because it put a focus on otherwise overlooked abilities and allowed you to make interesting decisions with your gameplay. If you wanted healing and haste instead of damage, that option was available to you. If you wanted to have your best damage seals active for wings, you needed to plan for it. All of the buffs were noticeable, and while the optimal gameplay didn't yield much higher dps than the brainless options, (primarily because Divine Storm procs benefited from the 100% DS damage from Final Verdict) the utility it provided was still very useful in certain situations. It was one of the few talents ret has ever had that had a major impact on the rotation.

Perhaps limiting the buffs to two max would have helped the talent. Althought there were only two you wanted in pve. I really don't know why I disliked empSeals, I guess it was the clunkiness of changing the seals.
In a way we still have an empowered seal: Zeal. Quite a watered-down version of course.

[Sigxy]

Some people don't seem to much like Auras because they are just passives (Part of me understands that it might be a disappointment if that's -all- you get. It's just that it fills the role of a paladin being around to encourage their allies). Could be fixed if you had some Aura Mastery button to make use of them though. Let's say the ability lasts for 10 seconds:

Devotion Aura: Rather than just bonus Armor (provided it's just armor and not damage reduction), for the next 10 seconds, using AM causes it to reduce -all- damage for everyone.
Retribution Aura: For the next 10 seconds, each second, all enemies in your aura radius (that is aggroed by you or your group) takes damage. Your targetted enemy takes much higher damage.
Concentration Aura: For the next 10 seconds, you are immune to 1 type of CC or interrupt (exception would be some kind of important boss event where they need to stun you and then move over to the next phase).
Crusader Aura: For the next 10 seconds, you either A: Allow everyone in the aura to fight on their mount (would be so fun to see that in AV when people clash in the center! Even if that rarely happens...), or B: Increase movement speed by 20% on foot, too.

This way I feel that you actually have reasons to swap auras around to fit different situations that you wouldn't normally use. If you're a Ret paladin but there's already a Prot paladin using Devotion aura, you might find that the boss you're fighting does some nasty AoE damage once in a while. That way you can coordinate with the tank so after he used his AM, you swap to Devotion Aura and use your AM. Potentially, the Prot paladin wants to use AM for Ret aura to gather up aggro easier. Or maybe you have a lot of casters in your group on a boss that likes to AoE interrupt, you switch to concentration aura and prepare for it.

[protip]

Perhaps limiting the buffs to two max would have helped the talent. Althought there were only two you wanted in pve. I really don't know why I disliked empSeals, I guess it was the clunkiness of changing the seals.
In a way we still have an empowered seal: Zeal. Quite a watered-down version of course.

I can kind of see what you mean by that, but what I really miss was the opportunity to make decisions and plan ahead. Zeal doesn't really provide that aspect, although it does increase the value of Judgment.

Some people don't seem to much like Auras because they are just passives (Part of me understands that it might be a disappointment if that's -all- you get. It's just that it fills the role of a paladin being around to encourage their allies). Could be fixed if you had some Aura Mastery button to make use of them though. Let's say the ability lasts for 10 seconds:

Devotion Aura: Rather than just bonus Armor (provided it's just armor and not damage reduction), for the next 10 seconds, using AM causes it to reduce -all- damage for everyone.
Retribution Aura: For the next 10 seconds, each second, all enemies in your aura radius (that is aggroed by you or your group) takes damage. Your targetted enemy takes much higher damage.
Concentration Aura: For the next 10 seconds, you are immune to 1 type of CC or interrupt (exception would be some kind of important boss event where they need to stun you and then move over to the next phase).
Crusader Aura: For the next 10 seconds, you either A: Allow everyone in the aura to fight on their mount (would be so fun to see that in AV when people clash in the center! Even if that rarely happens...), or B: Increase movement speed by 20% on foot, too.

This way I feel that you actually have reasons to swap auras around to fit different situations that you wouldn't normally use. If you're a Ret paladin but there's already a Prot paladin using Devotion aura, you might find that the boss you're fighting does some nasty AoE damage once in a while. That way you can coordinate with the tank so after he used his AM, you swap to Devotion Aura and use your AM. Potentially, the Prot paladin wants to use AM for Ret aura to gather up aggro easier. Or maybe you have a lot of casters in your group on a boss that likes to AoE interrupt, you switch to concentration aura and prepare for it.

Aura mastery would make auras interesting for me again, but auras themselves are pretty flat in my opinion. There's a bit of opportunity for gameplay in raids, if you don't have enough paladins to cover every aura, but without AM they are likely to be very low impact. My real concern about ret is for the lack of complexity in the rotation. Back in WoD there were several ways to finesse more damage out of your rotation through procs, talents, and timing abilities and buffs like Execution Sentence with the Hellfire Citadel 4pc bonus, and even Glyph of Double Jeopardy if you wanted to get the absolute maximum from cleave. All of that depth is just gone. We have a flat damage increase window with Execution Sentence, and that's about it.

[tankbug]

I didn't play Paladin until it was available for cows, so I never played a mana-pally I suppose.

[Coldfrostzero]

Things i do NOT want back for ret
- Seals
- Inquisition
- Consecration

Things i want back for ret
- Auras
- Blessings
- Exorcism

I think Seals and Consecration are iconic for paladins. Consecration should be the mass AOE spell and seals should be like they were in BC. Seal twisting was the most fun I've had as a ret paladin. Granted, I liked the changes in Wrath when seals became 2 minutes (and advocated for it), but I didn't realize how engaging seal twisting was until it was gone. Blizzard tried it again in WoD, but made it a complicated juggling act that was a bastardization of it's former self.

[Somewhatconcerned]

Seals

And a better judgement animation.

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I think Seals and Consecration are iconic for paladins. Consecration should be the mass AOE spell and seals should be like they were in BC. Seal twisting was the most fun I've had as a ret paladin. Granted, I liked the changes in Wrath when seals became 2 minutes (and advocated for it), but I didn't realize how engaging seal twisting was until it was gone. Blizzard tried it again in WoD, but made it a complicated juggling act that was a bastardization of it's former self.

The WoD seal talent was actually quite fun, just really underpowered.

[paxen]

I wonder if there's room for a full-on mana-dependent Ret spec, complete with some sort of regen mechanic like Evocation (maybe Avenging Wrath sets your mana bar to full), that could also just spam Flash of Light if they wanted...

Probably too flexible.

[Toijin]

Please remove holy power and put in something more innovative and feels fun/good to play.

(Played a pally since vanilla)

[Zmagoslav]

How about they let me ditch the holy pony, to get a weaker, but propotionaly longer "Speed of Light" buff? Much like we had it back in WoD

[Coldfrostzero]

Seals

And a better judgement animation.

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The WoD seal talent was actually quite fun, just really underpowered.

It wasn't underpowered at first. Blizzard realized it was stupidly complicated and made it worse. Had it been a return to form, it would have been fine. Twisting Seal of Command into Seal of Blood was fun. Then it became set it and forget it. Then it just became the mastery caused Holy damage. Now paladins are just Rogues with 2 hand weapons.

[Rhozul]

I think what Blizzard needs to do is look at various talents that help make the different specs unique from one another and make those talents baseline, then add in stuff around that core gameplay.

Some examples:
—Protection should get Holy Shield baseline. Not only is that talent so powerful that it's not even a choice for it's row, but it's one of the few abilities that Protection Paladins have that is distinct from every other tank spec. Warriors have Critical Block baseline. Brewmaster Monks have Stagger baseline. Paladins should have Holy Shield baseline.

—Retribution should get Divine Purpose baseline. That talent is SO much fun from a gameplay perspective; the Legion era gameplay where the Grand Crusader ring gave you Divine Purpose for free was among my favorite times to be a Retribution Paladin because getting long chains of Templar's Verdict / Divine Storm is FUN. Along similar lines, Wake of Ashes should be baseline. Considering that Retribution has trouble sustaining Holy Power in general (especially compared to Legion's gameplay), nothing has competed with that talent for all of BFA. Plus the fantasy of a frontal cone-slash that shoots Holy Fire everywhere is AWESOME.

—In short, if a talent is so good that there's never a reason to not select it, it should either be removed or made baseline.

I also think that Blizzard needs to really deep-dive into some of the abilities they've pruned and figure out ways they can make them feel good. For example, auras were iconic to paladins in Classic and Burning Crusade, sure, but they were pretty much fire-and-forget. As Protection, you used Devotion Aura for personal defense and Aura of Light for threat (in Wrath especially, there was a weird interaction for a bit where healing from Aura of Light generated threat so you could toggle it on, heal the raid, and watch all the enemies try to punch you for no effort). What I'm saying is that I don't want auras back as things I choose between if there's no actual choice. Rather, I'd like to see Blessings come back as a thing for all specs (rather than be Retribution exclusive). I think that if buffs were handled on a class-by-class basis (like how all monks bring the physical damage debuff) we'd be encouraged to bring every class, but have flexibility in which roles we brought.

[Pigglix]

Honestly i just wish they cut the holy power generators cd by half or at least make crusader striker either without cd or make it be a 3 sec cd baseline.

I hope with consecration being baseline, it keeps the 1 holy power generator and im curious to see what will replace the talent, same for hammer of wrath baseline, but still..with a 20 sec cd on it, it wont help to speed up the spec rotation.

Even with 22% base haste + inquistion, there are periods of time where i just sit there waiting for a good 2-3 secs without nothing to press.

making fire of justice be baseline would be awesome too. And that charge paladins had in the earlier Legion beta(alpha?)

I think, ret paladins are the only melee without a real gap closer.

So basicly, my wishes for Ret shadowlands are:

- Remove the cd from crusader striker or make it really short or bake the fires of justice on it baseline

- Wake of ashes baseline

- A charge ability (like the legion one)

- Maybe reduce the cd from the others Hpower gen too?
- Would love to see Divine Purpose as baseline aswell, imo WoD ret pally was the best interaction of the class, it was proc everywhere, the spec didnt felt slow. MoP was really great too pace wise once you pumped the haste.

- Since consceration and hammer will be gone from talents, maybe make the free divine storm proc into a talent? Would hate to lose it once we get rid of the azerite neck...but...if blizz speed up ret rotation, i may be alright to not have that talent/ ability from neck anymore

- Remove the "divine steed" spell and give us the "speed of light" spell, it was so much more cooler than the horsie imo.

And i think that's all i wish for ret. Prot and Holy i cant speak much since i dont play with them, but i would love to see holy shield baseline for prot and the old sound of hammer of the righteous back.