the paladin class as a whole should be reworked

[Rennegadelawlz]

I've played a paladin and all of its specs since the burning crusade and I've always thought it and now I think its more realevant this season than ever before, pally bubble down hardswap dead.

I feel paladins lack utility and design more than any class in the game. I have played every class in the game as well and from a developing stand point. Bubble is an old spell and the only credible defensive spell in the paladins spell book.

Looking at how other classes use defensives most have mobility or several defensive cds on low cool downs.

The paladin holy and ret are purely balanced on their offensive and defensive cool downs. Low mobility now dmg rotation modifier, and a lack of cc breakers.

The spells are there but the control isn't. Hand of sac, dprot, dshield, freedom, bop, and self vs off heals.

Some of you are about to get really defensive at might next statement.. but hear me out.

Lets look at holy, probably the easiest healer to be bad at, and maybe the highest skill cap positioning based healer in the game for arena.

But what also makes holy a succesful healer is good procs. And healing modifiers in rotation. Ex eternal flame heals the paladin by 80% more on him/herself.

But again holy's other abilties are balanced around divine shield, a 5 min cd that can be dispelled by 3 classes, otherwise talented for 2.5min giving up clemency which is a far stronger talent..

Bubble alone makes other spells in the defensive tree dumb down because of an 8sec immortality buff. Which I understand, doesn't mean it works in todays pvp. Or pve.

Avebging wrath for holy is working as entirely as intended.

Now for ret, the spec that needs no nerfs for season 15 to be the worst melee in pvp. Granted its healing spec is also probably the worst as well.

Ret has similar problems to holy except sustained dpsvshps is unbelievably PATHETIC. While holy pallies can manage a skillset without depending on cooldowns makes it the go to spec for this class now, it is undeniable that as ret outside of their stacked cooldowns woth inq up, their dps is sub part to everyclass I'm the game in pvp excluding healers or tanks. Every dps spec in the game has some time of steadily available damage modifiers, whether its stricktly pvp or pve based buff example, necrotic strike or the energy buff from rogues when slice and dice is up. Inq is a fairly week modifer thus it only buffs 3 baseline spells and 1 talent. However nothing is ever temporally buffed ex frost dk oblit or FS guaranteed crits, colussus smash, stun debuff via rogue, ice lance, fulmination, haunt, 3stack moonfire and lunarsolar spell shifts in boomies, chiburst and tigers eye, insanity via devouring plague, the list goes on.

The worst passive spell in game is the art of war, relies on auto attacks and resets a cd on rets 3rd most powerful spell. Since exo became basline for ret only, it should be a guaranteed crit on all sources like it was to undead for the last 4 veesions of the game. And that's the least that they could do to buff our sustained.

One thing here is the ratio of deffensibes to offensives, mage vs ret. Its no t cata but mages still have the uppee hand on the switch via arena or 1v1. And everyone knows rets are tunnel gods and can also be tunneled easily.

No physical damage defensives unless glyphed and bubble (same problem lies here as the same with holy) the class needs to be redesigned to a huge offensive and defensive extent. Yet no one sees how every other spec is doing in comparisons to ret. They all have more than 2 defensives, leaving ret to be the squishiest of them all.

As ret stands right now: outside of offensive cooldowns rets are extremly terrible healers.

And I'm sure everyone can agree that out side of offensive cds and with the lack of self defensives and utility, the paladin class needsa total overhaul.

[Deleted]

I hope we don't have to wait for next 6-9 months until Blizzard decides to look at Paladin PvP design ...

[foxHeart]

I feel paladins lack utility and design more than any class in the game.

What. Double Freedom? Double BoP? Double Sacrifice? Devotion Aura? Lay on Hands and Double Salvation for PvE? I mean, if you wanna somehow argue they don't have good utility, okay. But to say they have the worst out of any class...

[DiscoGhost]

ret - i would agree they are clunky, awkward, and heavily rng based. but so say they have the least utlity is false. for reasons already stated by foxHeart above.

as far as Holy goes. i primarily play healers in arena, only one i havnt played is MW this expansion. and ive gota disagree by saying that holy is the highest skill cap when it comes to positioning. probably the easiest. only hot to keep track of is either eternal flame or sacred shield. they have no channeled spells so you just pop in and out from the pillar. nothing fancy, no casting while moving. either hard cast while standing, or instant cast.

[Saberstrike]

Honestly, there are bigger issues than paladins right now. Holy is really tanky vs warriors everyone likes to bitch about so it's in a very good spot with all the loose utility, armor and all the other bs healers have this expansion. Ret may not be as epic and awesome as people would like but it's functional and it does what it's supposed to do, with some of the most evil / unstoppable burst in the game. Pair up with a lock / a boomkin / a mage, support / heal them and collect points. Oh, you want to carry? I'm sorry but paladins are inherently made to be a support class, and to that end they're excellent.

[Demsi]

Honestly, there are bigger issues than paladins right now. Holy is really tanky vs warriors everyone likes to bitch about so it's in a very good spot with all the loose utility, armor and all the other bs healers have this expansion. Ret may not be as epic and awesome as people would like but it's functional and it does what it's supposed to do, with some of the most evil / unstoppable burst in the game. Pair up with a lock / a boomkin / a mage, support / heal them and collect points. Oh, you want to carry? I'm sorry but paladins are inherently made to be a support class, and to that end they're excellent.

The problem is that Most classes can do that too, or better, If you were a healer, would you choose a ret over a warrior, dk, mage, rouge, lock, shaman or any other dps spec?

[lunchbox2042]

What. Double Freedom? Double BoP? Double Sacrifice? Devotion Aura? Lay on Hands and Double Salvation for PvE? I mean, if you wanna somehow argue they don't have good utility, okay. But to say they have the worst out of any class...

So you're saying that designing a class's utility around one talent that someone may not even take is good design?

[Rennegadelawlz]

What. Double Freedom? Double BoP? Double Sacrifice? Devotion Aura? Lay on Hands and Double Salvation for PvE? I mean, if you wanna somehow argue they don't have good utility, okay. But to say they have the worst out of any class...

Looks like someone didn't read the whole post.

If you read further down, you will see I state clemency is the strongest talent. Freedom is best to use on your partners. Emancipation is a sad excuse for mobility blessing of protection the same for teammates, considering you have bubble and bop can be dispelled by and class with a dispell. Or the fact it also shares a debuff with bubble. Lol hand of scarifice is ONLY USEFUL FOR TEAM MATES. And hand of salvation is so useless its being removed in worlords.

Devo aura is garbage, why give us two magic defensives? I mean devo aura works but again its more for your partners cause melee can just stun you instead of interrupt and oh ya devo won't stop their dmg.

I'm not even gonna throw out ideas for them, cause they just need a total rebuild. Bubble and dprotection are terrible excuse for survival. and rets heals while great if you can be peeled hard enough and get away and have battle fatigue drop. Then ya self heals are great. But like all other spells, you should heal your partner more.

- - - Updated - - -

ret - i would agree they are clunky, awkward, and heavily rng based. but so say they have the least utlity is false. for reasons already stated by foxHeart above.

as far as Holy goes. i primarily play healers in arena, only one i havnt played is MW this expansion. and ive gota disagree by saying that holy is the highest skill cap when it comes to positioning. probably the easiest. only hot to keep track of is either eternal flame or sacred shield. they have no channeled spells so you just pop in and out from the pillar. nothing fancy, no casting while moving. either hard cast while standing, or instant cast.

I disagree 100% the easiest healer to hard swap, are holy pallies. Even cc them to force bubble, then hard swap. If a pally doesn't understand how weak they really are its easy to kill them even at 2k, I do it. And all the other healers have much more tools and attributes for them selves that make them less viable to hardswitch too. I love seeing pallies, my favorite class to destroy because it is a quick kill.

- - - Updated - - -

Honestly, there are bigger issues than paladins right now. Holy is really tanky vs warriors everyone likes to bitch about so it's in a very good spot with all the loose utility, armor and all the other bs healers have this expansion. Ret may not be as epic and awesome as people would like but it's functional and it does what it's supposed to do, with some of the most evil / unstoppable burst in the game. Pair up with a lock / a boomkin / a mage, support / heal them and collect points. Oh, you want to carry? I'm sorry but paladins are inherently made to be a support class, and to that end they're excellent.

They are a support class you are right and no its not about wanting to carry, its about poor design. Rets have the best party utility in game, but just because you are a support class doesn't mean you aren't allowed to survive as well.

How do you beat a comp that has a ret? Simple sit the ret.
How about holy? Force bubble tbrough pressure via cc or damage, hardswap.

Enhance, ele, boomkins, spriest, ferals, are all support (hybrid) classes too. How come they have way more defensive capabilities?

[Saberstrike]

I'd argue that it's two different cases of bad design. Druids / shamans / priests are in one pool because while all hybrid heals are comparative in strength it takes a lot less toll on them due to them having caster-sized manapool, a stupid cooldown like heart of the wild or a bunch of totems that do the work for you.

In all fairness I think ret paladins should be reworked to be an int / spell power based class since current model of warrior-with-heals just doesn't hold up and makes little sense. It'll always be either inferior or superior to warriors. Give them a caster-sized mana pool but also make it so they have to actually manage their mana between utility / damage / healing. But that's also precisely why you shouldn't compare ret to warrior / dk / rogue / melee - they're meant to occupy a different niche.

On to holy... Honestly, it's problem is that it's an anti melee healer. Armor, freedoms, kiting - that all works well until you realize this game has for the longest time been dominated by casters, which is what makes paladins in general weak. So a solution is not to buff holy, solution is to tone down silly things like locks and frost mages who plainly and simply have it too easy. Still.

[Rennegadelawlz]

I'd argue that it's two different cases of bad design. Druids / shamans / priests are in one pool because while all hybrid heals are comparative in strength it takes a lot less toll on them due to them having caster-sized manapool, a stupid cooldown like heart of the wild or a bunch of totems that do the work for you.

In all fairness I think ret paladins should be reworked to be an int / spell power based class since current model of warrior-with-heals just doesn't hold up and makes little sense. It'll always be either inferior or superior to warriors. Give them a caster-sized mana pool but also make it so they have to actually manage their mana between utility / damage / healing. But that's also precisely why you shouldn't compare ret to warrior / dk / rogue / melee - they're meant to occupy a different niche.

On to holy... Honestly, it's problem is that it's an anti melee healer. Armor, freedoms, kiting - that all works well until you realize this game has for the longest time been dominated by casters, which is what makes paladins in general weak. So a solution is not to buff holy, solution is to tone down silly things like locks and frost mages who plainly and simply have it too easy. Still.

Fair point, and that. Being said, I never compared them to other melee, however they need to be able to hold their ground, I mean they aren't even competitive to the other melee classes. They need to be however because that is what a ret pally is.

I wouldn't say they are anti melee cause rogues can end you just out of subterfuge, dks and warriors a like can force you down extremely quick as well.

And all of them can be kited less. To add to your caster sized mana pool, that not the only thing they have going for them when it comes to defensives esp for the feral and enhance.

I will agree with you that this game is caster dominated. However, war, dk, rogue, enhance are still competitive.

[Hand Banana]

I consider myself a pretty decent hpally (2420 in WOTLK, 2370 in cata, duelist level multiple seasons in 2s, 3s, and 5s), and I have to disagree with alot of what you are saying. First off, paladins ARE utility; I am fairly sure you don't know what it means. Holy has freedoms, Bops, devo aura is a team-wide silence break/immunity, they can provide a ranged slow, cc on multiple drs, crit prevention with denounce (warriors will hate you if you know what you are doing), and a melee interrupt. That is a ALOT of utility. Rets bring alot of that but additionally: Sac as a dispel for healer cc and poison(see wyvern sting)/disease dispel as a dps.

Pallys are fairly difficult to kill, yes they can be "swapped and dropped" but lets not forget a 40% magic shield wall (since physical is normally not a problem) thats usable while stunned. Freedom-> sprint -> pillarhump is immortality. Pallys hardly depend on procs anymore, our heals are huge and sacred shield is amazing (still have no idea why people run EF). Our cds are amazing but once they are gone we are just ok, so yes you are correct we are fairly CD dependent (but who isnt). Bubble is more of a cc break than a defensive CD these days anyway, I would say 90% of the time its used to break cc and save a teammate.

The only real problem pallys have as a whole is fears; locks hardcounter pallys. AOE fears are the absolute devil, and it forces pallys to play extremely defensive and run most of the game, its quite annoying. Mages are fairly strong against them too since they are the best at dropping pallys in a deep -> CS combo.

And pallys are definitely not the easiest to be bad at, though I agree they are probably the most positioning-dependent. Druids are the easiest to be bad at, talk about getting caught and dropped...

As for a redesign, I think pallys design is fine. They can do some spell tweaks like making salvation useful (but I think they are removing it). I enjoy the pally design as a support role; I bg on my priest and all I can do is fear and heal for the most part with a life-grip here and there, my pally can freedom and interrupt and bop someone here and hoj -> fear someone there then denounce spam the mage who just blew orb. They have alot more support and utility.

[Deleted]

Paladins are indeed an interesting subject in this game.

Favored by most as a main class especially in pve, yet most of the time terribly underrepresented in pvp.

Both holy and ret are bottom of the barrel when it comes to preferred/viable healers/melee DPS in competitive pvp, respectively.

Last night I was watching the infamous vanguards play ret/hunter/rsham @ 2500/2600 rating, which everyone agreed upon to be the 'ret dream rating' in the current state of the game, since almost nobody else will even come close to let alone above this rating in 3v3 arena.

Each game was an absolute struggle from start to finish and the only reason for them actually being able to pull off wins at this level was due to the fact that all three players were multi glads and that they were playing the one comp that somewhat works with ret.

I myself am just a bg hero that enjoys glowing golden, topping KB's and supporting teammates, and ret for the most part works fine for this.

But seeing as almost no top tier player seems to be able to compete at a high level of play might be a signal that something is inherently wrong with the class, at least when it comes to pvp.

[DingDongKing]

Retribution is a very messed up spec in PVP. Lack of mobility, lack of pressure damage, lack of gap closers and lack of survivability. The changes to Resilience/Battle Fatigue is going to be very interesting in seeing how the survivability issue changes and maybe it could introduce a niche where we're viable as a utility spec in PVP. Not right now since we don't have enough damage and neither do we have enough heals so there's no reason to take us over a pure damage dealer or pure healer.

[Blithe]

Retribution's always been the specialization I pit up against my main's specialization: Enhancement and rightfully so, they were both melee hybrid specializations, where Enhancement would deal amazing damage but be unable to survive while Retribution had lesser damage but would be able to take a hit. It seems with all the homogenization, Retribution lost its niche as a defensive hybrid (no, they're not offensive hybrids, stop trying to be a warrior or enhancement shaman) and has just stayed in the same spot from the start.

I feel immunity dispels i.e ones that remove bubble, etc. should be removed. It really deteriorates the respect that bubble needs and takes away from the Paladin class. Paladins defend with the light and rightfully so, they shouldn't have their defense removed with one ability but on the other hand, they shouldn't go around 1-shotting people either. It's give and take.

[Omaski]

Ret Paladins are utility, but the problem is almost all of our utility is for other people, not ourselves. 9/10 in arenas, Ret will be the focus target esp. if they have a warrior or a dk. what can you do? selfless healer heals for shit when selfcast, hand of sac cant be selfcast, fear is our bane, and the offensive pressure we put out outside of wings is laughable.

Ret doesnt have an instant gap closer so when ever we're fighting a ranged class we take spells to the face while we hutt hutt towards them. Bubble is dispellable by the 2 most common classes in PvP.

[Gumboy]

Normal game against RM/X as holy: Opened on hard with partner sapped, bubble forced, other team turtles til stun/silence dr off, reopen with dance, paladin dead

[Rennegadelawlz]

See here is my point, some of you keep trying to tell me rets are utility pallies are utility, they are defensive utility, etc, etc , etc. I know they are a support class but the fairly good holy pally that's 2400 in wolk and 2300 in cata. Sounds like you don't wanna talk about your rsting in mop, or you just don't play. But the fact is you are wrong. Ret pallies are a DPS SPEC damage per second. Support classes keep you alive via Holy pally for ex. Ret is a hybrid support, but no matter how you see it when you queue up for dungeons or lfr or rbgs or arenas, as ret you click the sword. If you click the heals sign well then you are just stupid. So the point I'm getting at is ret is intended to be an offensive support class, because all of its utility is instant cast and cannot be used on yourself rather SHOULDN'T be used on your self. And you can't be offensive when your damage outside of CDs is like a pillow vs a truck. The other classes even our hybrid druids and shamans kill outside of their cds. And how can a ret pally be defensive when its defensives are garbage. As ret bubble in 3s is not a cc breaker. In 2s ya sure situational. 3's hell no its a shitty dispellabe defensive. Divine protection is good I like it for caster cleaves, but you are wrong most of the dmg isn't magic, thanks to kfc or thug cleave and tsg ret has no true self defensives against that.

And for the classes that can kill some one outside of cds: druids, locks, dks, rogues, mages, priest, warriors, monks, shamans, hunters. Not paladins. And that's 10 out of 11 competitive dps classes. Somethin is wrong with ret dps in pve and pvp, just look at the top post on mmos homepage, blizz even said they need to fix the numbers.

[Hand Banana]

See here is my point, some of you keep trying to tell me rets are utility pallies are utility, they are defensive utility, etc, etc , etc. I know they are a support class but the fairly good holy pally that's 2400 in wolk and 2300 in cata. Sounds like you don't wanna talk about your rsting in mop, or you just don't play. But the fact is you are wrong. Ret pallies are a DPS SPEC damage per second. Support classes keep you alive via Holy pally for ex. Ret is a hybrid support, but no matter how you see it when you queue up for dungeons or lfr or rbgs or arenas, as ret you click the sword. If you click the heals sign well then you are just stupid. So the point I'm getting at is ret is intended to be an offensive support class, because all of its utility is instant cast and cannot be used on yourself rather SHOULDN'T be used on your self. And you can't be offensive when your damage outside of CDs is like a pillow vs a truck. The other classes even our hybrid druids and shamans kill outside of their cds. And how can a ret pally be defensive when its defensives are garbage. As ret bubble in 3s is not a cc breaker. In 2s ya sure situational. 3's hell no its a shitty dispellabe defensive. Divine protection is good I like it for caster cleaves, but you are wrong most of the dmg isn't magic, thanks to kfc or thug cleave and tsg ret has no true self defensives against that.

And for the classes that can kill some one outside of cds: druids, locks, dks, rogues, mages, priest, warriors, monks, shamans, hunters. Not paladins. And that's 10 out of 11 competitive dps classes. Somethin is wrong with ret dps in pve and pvp, just look at the top post on mmos homepage, blizz even said they need to fix the numbers.

I clearly wasn't talking about ret at all in my post. At no point did I even say I played ret ever, I just mentioned them in the high utility and susceptible to fears part, which is true. Sorry I forgot to put the "h" in front of pally for mot of them. I mentioned my past ratings to make it clear I have played for a while and sort of know what I am talking about in terms of hpallys, I got low duelist last season which was only like 2080 on my pally running a subpar comp (hpally/boom/war) which shouldn't matter anyway.

[Rennegadelawlz]

I clearly wasn't talking about ret at all in my post. At no point did I even say I played ret ever, I just mentioned them in the high utility and susceptible to fears part, which is true. Sorry I forgot to put the "h" in front of pally for mot of them. I mentioned my past ratings to make it clear I have played for a while and sort of know what I am talking about in terms of hpallys, I got low duelist last season which was only like 2080 on my pally running a subpar comp (hpally/boom/war) which shouldn't matter anyway.

Ya, I understand, but if you read my initial post none of it is about team utility. Pally defensives period as a whole are terrible compared to any other heal/dps spec. Pallies also have the largest margin of error. Less defensives mean its way more situational. Devo, dp, and bubble are all pallies really have for them selves, look at resto shams which are the most trained healer. Go watch http://www.twitch.tv/cdew if he is on his shaman. You'll see how long he can stay up between and during cds. Pallies are far worse with this cause after bubble you really have nothing. And even you, using bubble as a cc breaker ***ding ding ding*** yo blizzard you gave pallies a defensive and they are using it wrong, in blizzs eyes the intention of bubble is to save yourself not your team mates. Utility doesn't necessarily mean its only for use on team mates, utility is what ever class has and every class has its pros and cons. Be the stuff pallies can use to help themselves aren't even mediocre, I'd rather dp be 30% dmg reduction from 40 magic or 20static with glyph.


I'm not saying its impossible to push as ret or holy but it is definitely the hardest class to push rating with.

[Deleted]

as ret you click the sword.

That's something positive to take away from this thread I guess Will put this in my sig if I may!