8.0 Paladin Hopes, Fantasies, Guesses?

[Eurytos]

Well what mostly changes is the healing requirement. Soft enrages are about a final phase that is designed to overwhelm you. The encounters I mentioned all have a final phase that either is supposed to overwhelm you mechanically, overtax your healers or in Argus, just scale to the point that targets cannot be made (you cannot kill all the modules in time). But yes, Blizzard did change execute to make it a theme of very few specific specs. I don't mind Ret not having an execute; I'd like for Hammer of Wrath to replace Blade of Wrath during AW so you still have that spell, your rotation changes even if you don't pick Crusade and you can apply some pressure during wings even from range (if they snare you instead of hard CC).

I've mentioned this frequently. Bring it back as a non-execute, possibly a proc of some sort. The spell itself is important to Ret, I think. More so than many other spells we no longer have. Holy Wrath, Exorcism, Consecrate, Divine Intervention, Divine Protection, Seals even...all of which I have great affection for having played this class for so long, I still think for Ret specifically, Hammer of Wrath tops them all, in my opinion.

What frustrates me the most is that I think there are so many ways they could make Ret better, that would actually appease quite a large percentage of the players(not everyone of course, but I do think most), and they could do this with a solid set of base abilities, and broaden the talent selection pool to allow individual Ret paladins to choose their desired playstyle through those talents. I mean, this already does exist, there is a whole other pvp talent sheet. Much of it just augments spells, but the template is there is my point. More talents doesn't seem to be a real obstacle.

Or just get those Legacy servers out quicker so we can just choose the expac we want to play in, and stay in our nostalgia forever!

[Exac]

Batter scaling towards high gear-levels.

[Nuniqt]

Ive seen a bunch of threads about a new class coming after BFA (which is already getting way ahead of itself). But Id like to see better ballance between what we have before given new new options. Also, if this is a pipe dream wishlist, new specs would be more welcome before new classes offering different comvat styles and roles to current ones. Rogues getting a ranged spec, give shaman their Earthwarden tank spec, but also let us not forget the shockadin. Make it the first plate ranged option, then pallies can be the new druids and tank/melee/ranged/heal. We dont have a holy based ranged class (not counting disc because theyre a healer and it doesnt help my argument).

Plate. Shields. And big bursty shocks of vengeful smite. Its like an ele shaman but better. Replace the lightning with golden flames or bolts. Replace the lava with vengeance...

[Sormine]

Personally, I'd like to see Retribution actually have a fun rotation for once.

[Eurytos]

Ive seen a bunch of threads about a new class coming after BFA (which is already getting way ahead of itself). But Id like to see better ballance between what we have before given new new options. Also, if this is a pipe dream wishlist, new specs would be more welcome before new classes offering different comvat styles and roles to current ones. Rogues getting a ranged spec, give shaman their Earthwarden tank spec, but also let us not forget the shockadin. Make it the first plate ranged option, then pallies can be the new druids and tank/melee/ranged/heal. We dont have a holy based ranged class (not counting disc because theyre a healer and it doesnt help my argument).

Plate. Shields. And big bursty shocks of vengeful smite. Its like an ele shaman but better. Replace the lightning with golden flames or bolts. Replace the lava with vengeance...

I think additional specs is the way to go, but new classes are just too hyped I think. Everyone loses their minds at Blizzcon and the excitement is just way higher when a new class is announced. Would they be adding a new spec to every class...to get everyone hyped? Or just a few classes and only those players get hyped? Idk what Blizz people think these days.(I dont mean that pejoratively either, I just have no idea what they think.)

But for the life of me, I've never understood the appeal of a Shockadin. If there was to be a new pally dps spec, I'd like to see something with a shield and a 2h, or 2 shields(who saw Captain America in the Infinity War trailer with those two small shields on his arms?!! that was dope). Though, with Holy Prism, and Holy Shock, and Judgment, and Crusader Strike, and Consecrate...youre pretty much there already. I mean, its not good, but thats basically a Shockadin.(Though, I did top dps in a random 5man I did the other day with this exact rotation...presumably I was with a bunch of noob boosted 870ilvl characters, :P)

Ranged rogue makes absolutely no sense to me. Like a Genji type assassin? Throwing stars and shit? Idk, there was at least some old school spells that lend credibility to the Shaman tank, like the melee hunter too...but ranged rogue??

[Nuniqt]

To me its more about giving classes different role options. Dark ranger has been thrown around a lot because of sylvannas and forsaken lore. Im not saying its a perfect fit but take the stealth and shadow aspects of something like subtlety and apply them to ranged combat. Use the gengi archetype. To me it can be fudged in lore to fit but from a gameplay perspective you take a class like rogues who only fill melee and give them a ranged option. Now all the pug groups or guilds recruiting *only ranged pl0x* have another class that can fill that niche.

Giving mail classes a tank option would be awesome too for similar reasons.

Earthwarden has roots that go way back but what if survival hunters had a tank? Blizz is clearly unhappy with them and are probably going to rework them so why not try to figure out a way to make a hunter tank. Bring out a retooled spirit bond to share % damage with your pet. Use things like the old monkey aspect to have high dodge and stam as a tank stance and bleeds that reduce damage to you the way frost dk debuffs worked a way back when. Go straight vyrkul in lore about using massive spears and VALOR to hunt big game and wear it down while *tanking* with early man's best friend.

My point is i think pidgeon holeing classes is archaic and were running out of room for full fledged 3 spec classes. Even the DH only had 2. Lets worry about spec and class balance first. Maybe throw a few iconic pieces out there to add some flavor and hype but when I see the what class is next idea im already thinking... we have most of them. Necromancer? Well thats damn close.to warlock/unholy dk/spriest depending on your interpretatiin. Tinker? Maybe... but i think there are more good ideas out there for specs than necessarily full fledged classes.

Also shockadin dps is so fun. Its pretty much only single target but if i dont have to heal i can easily keep up with a dps while my cds are running. Gotta parse them 99s.

[infinitemeridian]

I'm new to paladin, and am not understanding why ret is so hated - I personally find it pretty fun. What do you guys dislike about it besides the immobility?

[Eurytos]

I'm new to paladin, and am not understanding why ret is so hated - I personally find it pretty fun. What do you guys dislike about it besides the immobility?

It's a matter of comparison. There were previous iterations of Ret that many long time players enjoyed more. Some want to go further back than others, some would like to see a combination of past iterations. For many its a nostalgia for the past. For others we just miss certain spells we thought were iconic enough to not be removed. Its a lot of that.

Though, in regards to this particular iteration, I think many dislike how judgment works these days. Colossus judgment as we have started to call it, because its basically a crappy version of Arms warrior's Colossus Smash. Crappier, at least in part, because Arms has enough talents/artifact skills to reset the CD on Colossus Smash enough to have near 100% uptime. Crappier still because it causes our rotation to be clunky.

Its a play style that Ret has never had before, and its presumably one of the reasons many of us chose to play Ret over Arms, because we desired the playstyle of the Rets of the past, and this change in Legion wasn't fun for us. Personally, I've never disliked Ret more. Even in the past when many of my other long time Ret players disliked new changes, I never really had a problem with them. Ret still felt good to me. There is always complaining, every class complains. But I've been on these forums and played wow for almost 10 years now, and I've not seen this type of dislike for Ret playstyle before from other long time players.

[Sigxy]

I'm new to paladin, and am not understanding why ret is so hated - I personally find it pretty fun. What do you guys dislike about it besides the immobility?

I think Eurytos covered it all pretty well. I guess in addition for me, this is the expansion where we feel the -least- like a paladin.

Retribution has no aura, while Holy gets to pick 1 out of 3 as a talent row and Protection, if they want, can pick a talent called 'Retribution Aura'. Ouch. We know we're getting Devotion Aura in BfA as a 10% armour thing, which is a step in the right direction, but would be nice if we got a few more to pick from again (Devotion for armour, Retribution to damage attackers a little, Resistance for higher resistance to spells... And as nice as our Heart of the Crusader passive is for 20% mount speed, I actually miss having it as an aura to give it to all my allies around me).

We also lost our seals that used to empower our attacks in some way and with our old judgment, they caused different effects - some caused nice damage, some put a debuff on the target. Now granted, Retribution were the ones who got to keep the Blessings but, yikes, at launch they were just a mess since we had to rely on other people to do our damage by putting Blessing of Might on them. That was stupid.

[Deleted]

I'm new to paladin, and am not understanding why ret is so hated - I personally find it pretty fun. What do you guys dislike about it besides the immobility?

Main reason is because past iterations were more fun to play. I personally loved the WoD version because we had all sort of tools to use.

In Legion we have one set of talents we are locked to. Colossus smash is not very interesting or fun to use, Equality/Holy wrath was an exercise on stubbornness from the devs. Execution sentence was more interesting as a 1m CD. The current CD and how it works makes it super clunky to use. The same goes for consecration. The talent tree is a disaster. Theres no interesting choices. This expansion was Fires or Zeal? It was extremely boring.They are making Wake of Ashes a talent that will compete with DP and Crusade. I don't see how it can compete without a huge damage buff. Crusade will probably go back to being utter crap when we lose the extra duration on Avenging wrath.

I guess the main problem is we feel Blizzard doesn't really put in an effort into making a complete class and we limb along. Lately it hasnt been so bad with BoW giving 3 HP and judgment giving essentially one. DP ring became BiS and it's fun to use. But now that all that will be gone, we will be back to the slow and clunky base class, and that still needs alot of work to be fun to play.

[Morally Grey Storm]

I'm new to paladin, and am not understanding why ret is so hated - I personally find it pretty fun. What do you guys dislike about it besides the immobility?

Because Retribution is anything but the spec we knew (and probably loved), and the new version feels the least paladinlike.
Becuase it's ridden with bad design decisions and flawed cheap carbon copied rip-off mechanics off off other classes and lacks any and all identity this expansion while sucking the beiggest shaft PVP-wise in WoW history and is literally helpless against kiters which is a somewhat new feeling for Ret players, because it feels slightly odd being an offensive spec with zero offensive tools while your defensive tools were removed almost in entirety.

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And because these profesional professional we know and love - the WoW dev team, didn't give a flying feth about our feedback both during alphabeta and the whole lifetime of expansion.

[Zerenty]

Overall i am happy with the design of the paladin in Legion, so i have just a small list of things:
- Give us Hammer of Wrath back, if only just for Ret. But it was an ability that really shouldnt have been removed.
- Overall change talent so it adds some choice back in, this is mainly for Ret, but applies everywhere else also, maybe to a lesser extent.
That is my list so far.

[Deleted]

Hm, i'd like to add my point of view on the "why retribution so hated this xpac".

In my case, I have to say I still have a good time playing my retribution paladin. The gameplay is pretty dynamic. So, yes, to me, retribution paladin is still good gameplay wise.

But, I played retribution paladin every xpac since WotLK, and this xpac is (with Cataclysm... Only 3 holy power available for abilities thats costs 3 felt really clunky to me) the one where it is the less fun to play.

The lack of mobility, to me is a real problem, because all the raids have been made with high mobility requirements. The gameplay is good and dynamic, but still a bit clunky due to the Judgment debuff.

The talent tree is a shame... And this is a problem for almost EVERY class in the game. Almost no class have real choice in there talent tree, and the luckiest have 2 talents setup, 1 for single target and 1 for AoE, the rest only have 1 talent setup that works, the others are crap.

But on the retribution side :
-Execution sentance is really clunky to use and have no synergy with our artifact nor with our legendaries (even counter synergy with the cloak)
-Concecration is here for the sake of being here but have no synergy with our gameplay whatsoever.
-Blade of Wrath + Virtue's blade is a nonsense, why do we want two talents in the same row that boosts the same ability in the same way (increase in single target DPS) even if one affect the gameplay a bit and the other not ? (and it is the same for Fires of justice and Zeal)
-Word of glory... I have used it a bit, on one fight during all the xpac... And a Tiny bit on M+ with friends that weren't exerienced with bursting to help them... But it is terrible.
-Divine intervention + Cavalier on the same raw is to me another big problem of this xpac : The balance between Survivability and Mobility is a complete nonsense to me, mobility will almost always be better, but Cavalier is a terrible mobility talent.
-Judgment of light is terrible as well... The only way that we are using it is on fights where Cavalier is useless AND Divine Intervention can be a problem (like on Mythic Argus where people NEED to die at some point and DI will not allow that).
-Crusade is too powerfull to not be taken right now, and absolutely useless in BfA without the Wrath of the Ashbringer trait.
-Holy Wrath is a joke.

And the Retribution passive is one of the biggest mistakes of this xpac...

So, even if I like my retribution paladin right now, this xpac leave me with the feeling that blizzard didn't have time to work on the retribution paladin, took a few ideas and gaved them to us (like Greater blessing of please do my DPS for me), and then completed the talent tree with copy / paste of talent we already have, only changing a single line in there or with ability / talent of other classes.

I really miss the time where I had the choice between 3 talents to improve my mobility. None was really that powerfull, and retribution was never known for it's mobility, but it was really better. I miss having the choice between Execution sentence or Hammer of light. I miss having the choice between Sanctified Wrath and Divine Purpose. I miss Empowered seal, that wasn't the best talent, but was strong enough to be usable without losing that much damage and was a really interresting talent to play.

Retribution paladin don't feel unique this xpac, it doesn't feel like it actually brings anything for the group / raid, the DPS is ok right now but nothing special, utility is almost gone, mobility is terrible and survivability... I'm sorry, yes we have Blessing of protection (usable on what ? 2 bosses this raid tier?), yes we have Divine shield, but our main defensive ability is a Shield that, with 968 item level absorb 1.5M damage? 2.5/3M when it crit?... but i does damage when it explodes!... Whait, monks have the same think, but that absorb 50% of their health and don't require to be fully "absorbed" to deal damage...

The balance this xpac is terrible and retribution paladin suffer from a lack of comprehension of the dev team I think (because NO, Blessing of freedom is not a mobility option in raid...). And this, is why retribution is so hated in Legion. Because all thoses problems are known since the alpha / beta by the players, but Blizzard didn't gave a crap. It took them way too much time to change Greater blessing of might... And it's one of the many issuer we have now.

So, yes, I love my paladin, but it's not what it once was. And I don't care about new talents, new gameplay or wathever. I don't really care don't having Hammer of Wrath (even if I really loved this spell and I miss it).

And what I fear for BfA is that it seems that the cooldown of Blade of Justice, Crusader strike and Wake of ashes are increased... But right now, we are playing with Crusade, Divin purpose (for those who have the ring) AND WoA, but in BfA we will only be able to pick one... And it scares me because the gameplay will be much slower.

[Ausr]

I'm new to paladin, and am not understanding why ret is so hated - I personally find it pretty fun. What do you guys dislike about it besides the immobility?

This is MMO Champ. All previous iterations of classes were so much more amazing and what you currently think is shit. That's basically what it boils down to if you want opinions.

[Whatever Dude]

If Ret got Hammer of Wrath back as a ranged finisher and 3 seals were introduced in a talent tier as short cooldowns, I'd honestly be 90% satisfied. Maybe a buff to Divine Steed to make it a bit better.

Certainly no revamp needed. I seriously hope Blizzard doesn't ignore us again.

[Kalisandra]

I could quibble about some of those you listed, but maybe I overstated how few soft-enrages there are. I still think it feels different than in the past, and its partly because these soft enrages don't really change what I do. I keep doing the same thing. Not having that change to a rotation, that one extra button to hit in execute range that can increase my damage, thats missing. And i think its a detriment to the gameplay for everyone. Certainly more so than the alleged detriment by allowing more than just warriors to have an execute, or whatever Blizz is saying is the reason.

They said that it should be a Warrior 'thing', but allowed SPriests to keep it as well. Of course Paladins had HoW for longer than anyone but Warriors had an execute, but we got to lose ours. If HoW being problematic because it worked during Wings was a problem, they could have simply removed that, and left HoW in as a pure execute.

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I'm new to paladin, and am not understanding why ret is so hated - I personally find it pretty fun. What do you guys dislike about it besides the immobility?

Let's start with being a healing hybrid that self-healing is behind that of a Warrior, and who can't effectively pinch heal.

Then there's the difference to how Ret was even in Warlords (which had already trimmed out a fair bit of stuff) - no mobility (it's lower than it's been since I started playing in Burning Crusade), CC worse than it's ever been, terrible survivability buttons, harder to do damage in both PvE and PvP because of having both no mobility and very few attacks that work outside melee.

[T33]

I am hoping that Blizzard decides to make Zandalari paladins playable.

[Taeldorian]

New ability for ret:

http://bfa.wowhead.com/spell=198036/templars-strike

It’s a ranged ability as well.

[Ryuji]

New ability for ret:

http://bfa.wowhead.com/spell=198036/templars-strike

It’s a ranged ability as well.

Yeah but...

"Templar's Strike
40 yd range
1.5 sec cast
Requires Paladin
Blast an enemy from range with a hammer of light for (22.94% of Attack power) Holy damage. Generates 1 Holy Power.

Replaces Crusader Strike."

Gotta cast to use it, gross.

[Taeldorian]

Yeah but...

"Templar's Strike
40 yd range
1.5 sec cast
Requires Paladin
Blast an enemy from range with a hammer of light for (22.94% of Attack power) Holy damage. Generates 1 Holy Power.

Replaces Crusader Strike."

Gotta cast to use it, gross.

It won’t be that big of a deal in pve. If it’s a really good ability it’ll be nice.

However we also have: http://bfa.wowhead.com/spell=217058/judgment-strike

Looks like we’ll have a CS modifier tier. Hopefully they add more ranged abilities, not a ton more but a few more.