Seals > Holy Power

[roboscorcher]

Playing TBC classic has made me realize a simple truth:

Seals are actually pretty great.

When set up with a swing timer that shows the twist window, seal twisting has been the most fun I've had playing Retribution in a long time. When paired with a DST, the haste procs are so fun to play around. The rotation is super-simple, but every button matters and mastering the timing is so rewarding. 6 crits gonig off at once, nothing feels better!

With holy power, all the excitement is gone. Weapon speed and haste procs don't factor in. Crusader Strike barely tickles enemies. Judgement too. And then you go back to TBC, CS is an absolute CHAD spell! It does crunchy damage AND refreshes all judgements on enemies. How did this spell fall so far?

I'd really like the retail devs to take a good look at the TBC seal system. It aint perfect, but it beats our current watered-down combo point system easily.

Some improvements could be made to make seals work in retail. I'd liek the swing timer to be important, but I'd like a bigger twist window. Or no window, jsut have AAs eat an old seal if you have 2 up when you swing. Also, I'd add another trigger type to seal procs: finishing a casted heal. This way, seals could be useful for healers, and not just when theyre hitting a boss.

HoPo has always been boring. The seal system was close to being great back in the day, but certain visibility and knowledge problems caused the devs to go with HoPo...the safer system. It's time we go back to what made Paladins actually unique and cool!

[Gestopft]

Wait, was this when Judgement still consumed the seal? Because that was like the worst class mechanic in WoW's history imo (or at least tied with having to drop a bunch of totems every single pull).

[Versatia]

Swing timer won't work anymore on retail, the game is way too fast to be able to keep an eye on that.

I do agree, CS is butt.
I think they should add like an AoE holy power builder that shares cd with CS . And make it apply an effect of a seal , and 3 diff seals orso.

Judgement should still apply an effect to increase effect of a holy power spender

[Athorha]

The spenders for holy power always seem to fall short when compared to other classes. Never quite as hard as a warrior but not as controllably spammy as a deathknight. Judgment would make more sense / feel better as an execution sentence type ability for ret. Removal of seals was a flaw, having them as cast and forget would be fine so long as they have an impact on desired throughput. Enhance has done a decent job of keeping windfury although without doomwinds you forget about it. For a while I've wished ret was more similar to shadowpriest, you have decent hitting builders, hard hitting spenders, and then the ability to go full blown seraphim and nuke people within a window.

[Alanar]

It made the rotation a bit deeper, more to do.

The way it plays now is pretty fast paced and this will just become an annoying thing to keep checking.

They could however make it more tied to your resource, with maybe 1 or 2 more keys, but being more visible for example would help alot.

Aoe gainer we have in the form of 45sec cd. You would need to adjust the damage and cd for that to work.

[roboscorcher]

Wait, was this when Judgement still consumed the seal? Because that was like the worst class mechanic in WoW's history imo (or at least tied with having to drop a bunch of totems every single pull).

I used to think it was a bad mechanic too, but I think the seal twisting meta makes it an interesting rotation. There is a timing-based skill ceiling that doesn't really exist in retail. Mind you, I have DST which is what adds in the haste randomness. I'd like to see that haste effect more baked-into the class, instead of only being available via super-rare trinket.

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Swing timer won't work anymore on retail, the game is way too fast to be able to keep an eye on that.

I do agree, CS is butt.
I think they should add like an AoE holy power builder that shares cd with CS . And make it apply an effect of a seal , and 3 diff seals orso.

Judgement should still apply an effect to increase effect of a holy power spender

Maybe. I just think that Holy Power is just super bland as a resource. Managing mana, seals and timing/haste procs is far more rewarding than the 'build 3, spend 3' system we have.

I think that in Cata, the devs once talked about removing white damage altogether. I think retail still overlooks the potential of auto-attack builds, a new expansion would be a good time to revisit this. We don't need a piano to have a fun, deep rotation.

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It made the rotation a bit deeper, more to do.

The way it plays now is pretty fast paced and this will just become an annoying thing to keep checking.

Implementing seal-twisting on top of HoPo would definitely add bloat to an already-bloated system. That's why I think HoPo should go. Seals that can power up autos and heals would hopefully make the class more distinct and interesting than the build-spend system.

Implementing twisting in retail would likely require a built-in swing timer, as well as UI to show 1-2 active seals. The twist window would likely need to be broadened, perhaps to the entire swing or castbar window. For healers, we could maybe allows seal to be used while mid-cast. No interrupts.

For example, you have seal of wisdom on for mana return and cast Holy Light. Mid-cast, you press Seal of Shields. The heal goes off, and you get some mana back while the target got a small shield on top of the heal. Seal of Wisdom is consumed upon cast, because it was the oldest seal.

[shise]

Wait, was this when Judgement still consumed the seal? Because that was like the worst class mechanic in WoW's history imo (or at least tied with having to drop a bunch of totems every single pull).

Well, it could be an improved seals mechanism.

It certanly beats the current state. A retri paladin is only a retri paladin because of the name... otherwise, it plays like some generic browser game character really. No character at all.

Seals the class a true wow paladin feel.

[Schmilblick]

I always liked seals, screw holy power build / spend mechanic.

[enigma77]

Yeah I think this is true for many other classes as well. The older design being better, that is.

[Tyris Flare]

Seals are awful. Holy power has existed far longer than it didn't at this point, this is one of those things I can't believe people haven't gotten over.

That's said, crusader strike is obviously garbage, and ret aura is absolute s*** compared to the passive from BFA.

The biggest thing that needs is actually useful utility, like perhaps making repentance a soothe and/or agro range reducer like imprison so the spec can actually fill needed rolls in a dungeon group.

Blessings are cool and all, but they are probably the most overrated utility in the game (for pve). No one is building a group for a +25 with blessings in mind (made worse by the fact that holy is pretty much always dominant, and how prot is good too)


Edit: I think that the one minute Kyr build is the best the spec has probably ever played, but it's going to feel horribly gutted again once we lose all the covenant stuff

[ThelorenEntarus]

Playing TBC classic has made me realize a simple truth:

Seals are actually pretty great.

I stand with you O.P.

I remember being somewhat heartbroken when they changed the judgement and seal system in Wrath, and even more so when they added Holy Power in Cataclysm.

It's probably just nostalgia, but that was my first experience of ret and I LOVED it (even if I was garbage) BC was divine ret. I loved it so much I went holy /prot in wrath despite Ret being a powerhouse.

W.O.D had a very interesting lvl 100 which was the closest we've had since. I insisted on playing it, even though I played with a track pad https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Empowered_Seals

[Gestopft]

I think the seal twisting meta makes it an interesting rotation.

You also described it as "super simple," so... I mean, I'm glad you're having fun pressing buttons in accordance with a swing timer, but I personally wouldn't qualify it as "interesting."

There is a timing-based skill ceiling that doesn't really exist in retail.

There are plenty of timing-based ways you can demonstrate skill; they just aren't based on the swing timer.

Maybe. I just think that Holy Power is just super bland as a resource.

That's fine. I like that the rotation doesn't have so much downtime. Or ramp-up. (Although the Cata version of HoPo was awful and waaaaay too slow).

Managing mana

Or as DPS specs have traditionally referred to it "down time" :P

seals and timing/haste procs is far more rewarding than the 'build 3, spend 3' system we have.

I do hope for the sake of any groups you are in that this is just shorthand and you aren't actually hitting TV/DS the moment you hit 3 HoPo...

I think that in Cata, the devs once talked about removing white damage altogether.

As far as I remember this was an experiment they were going to try only with Monks, to give it more of a "marital arts arcade game" feel for the class, but they abandoned that before even demo versions of MoP because it was really awkward.

[roboscorcher]

It's probably just nostalgia, but that was my first experience of ret and I LOVED it (even if I was garbage) BC was divine ret. I loved it so much I went holy /prot in wrath despite Ret being a powerhouse.

Exactly! I am honestly not too excited about Ret changing in Wrath. Everyone's always like "man you must be excited for Wrath" but if I had to choose between twisting and Divine Storm, I'd choose the former.

Maybe classic+ will happen one day, and we can have twisting and DS. Or maybe a 'Seal of the Storm' and 'Seal of Zeal' for AoE options.

[rulk]

I think that the one minute Kyr build is the best the spec has probably ever played, but it's going to feel horribly gutted again once we lose all the covenant stuff

Much like Wake after Legion, they need to turn Divine Toll into a core ability for ret after SL. It's become too big of an ability of our rotation.

[roboscorcher]

You also described it as "super simple," so... I mean, I'm glad you're having fun pressing buttons in accordance with a swing timer, but I personally wouldn't qualify it as "interesting."

To clarify, the interesting part is mostly related to gear and managing haste. If your swing speed is too fast, you cannot twist or have to spread it out. Haste also doesn't affect the GCD, so stacking haste can be playing with fire. Same with using DST and haste pots.

The other interesting part is the RNG of twisting. There is no better feeling than getting 6 crits on a single swing. While retail has big burst moments, it just doesn't feel as satisfying to me. I think that's because TBC Ret always has crazy burst potential on every successful twist (assuming there's a WF totem), even outside of wings. In retail, when the CDs are down, you know your DPS will be lower because damage is pretty static.

[Gestopft]

Much like Wake after Legion, they need to turn Divine Toll into a core ability for ret after SL. It's become too big of an ability of our rotation.

Oh man, I am hoping that either a) dead talents in various classes/specs get replaced by covenant abilities, or b) a new talent row with three of them gets added.

[Kehego]

"I prefer relying on windfury rng than actually playing"

[Stickiler]

Oh man, I am hoping that either a) dead talents in various classes/specs get replaced by covenant abilities, or b) a new talent row with three of them gets added.

Every time they've ended one of the modern expansions they've taken abilities from the expansion system and added it to the base class, removing some un-used stuff. It's half the reason the systems exist. I don't see any reason they wouldn't continue that pattern in to the future.

[StrawberryZebra]

Seals are actually pretty great.

No they were not.

Remember that in the none-classic version of TBC that only Horde Paladins had Seal of Blood - Which basically left Alliance Paladins up a creek without a paddle. Seal Twisting was a mechanic that wasn't really known about until years after the fact with Private Servers becoming popular. It wasn't something that was routenely done with any kind of intentionality.

Further to that, Seals were a complete mess for Prot Paladins and forced them to spread their stats across defenses, melee stats and spell stats in order to be effective. That often led to their stats being either highly focused on one of those area, which led the others to suffer, or to spread themselves thin on all of them for more rounded effectiveness. Combined with also needing to hit uncrushability it made gearing up as Prot a complete headache. Thats before you even factor in the gameplay considerations of which seals to use at any given time.

Holy had pretty much zero use for any seal outside of very niche Shockadin builds which, while fun, were a very degenerate playstyle and only really viable in 2v2 Arena.

Why do I bring up the history lesson? Because the gameplay you're describing never actually existed in Vanilla or TBC. It's a modern construct for an old game.

It couldn't exist in the modern state of the game, backend changes to the servers would prevent seal twisting.

It shouldn't exist in the modern game. Its a straight up knowledge check for a hidden mechanic - that's at the heart of bad design.

Seals are awful. Holy power has existed far longer than it didn't at this point, this is one of those things I can't believe people haven't gotten over.

That's said, crusader strike is obviously garbage, and ret aura is absolute s*** compared to the passive from BFA.

The biggest thing that needs is actually useful utility, like perhaps making repentance a soothe and/or agro range reducer like imprison so the spec can actually fill needed rolls in a dungeon group.

I'm really not sure why people are clamouring for an out dated, broken system back either. I do agree that Ret could use some improvements, but rewinding the clock back to the very begining isn't the way.

The biggest issue, as I see it, is that Templars Verdict hits so hard that it needs the rest of the class to be balanced around it. That invariably means that everything else needs to be weaker to compensate. It leads to very high highs when TV crits, but very low lows when you're waiting to use it again. Shuffling some of the damage around would make things much more even.

I say this in full knowledge that some people are only going to be satisfied when every single skill Ret has crits so hard mobs explode into mushroom clouds.

In terms of extra utility, I'm not sure it's the answer. Most of what Ret has is situational, but extremely powerful already to the point of invalidating mechanics. It needs it's utility rebalanced too. Like it's DPS its got highs and lows which leave it with an unsatisfying power curve. Evening that out more so that it's got more universally applicable utility would be best here too.

Which, of course, is going to have people crying about "Homogenisation!". They can be unique and unwanted, or homogenised and desirable. There's no way to reconcile the two.

[capri sunset]

'build 3, spend 3' system we have.

I don't mean to be rude but this is the most glaring thing you can say if you want to make it clear you haven't actually engaged with the rotation since Cata. I completely understand a preference for different playstyles, many people enjoyed the empowered seals talent from WoD even with holy power and broader options would always be nice, but you really need to understand the playstyles we've had for the last 8 years if you want to make a proper critique on this.