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.