Always Remember: A Thread

[Luthorion-stormrage]

Creating this to serve as the permanent reminder of how close we were.

And for the fact that many still would love to see it.

This is how it began…

Why can't Blizzard admit no one likes Divine Steed?

“No one” is hyperbole, but it’s still the majority sentiment. Can Blizzard at LEAST admit to Paladins they are selling what no one wants? Paladins don’t care what the excuse is, “Doesn’t fit the Paladin vision”, isn’t a reason to implement something almost universally despised. Paladins want different things, I want better defensive cooldowns and snare removal, some people want charges, other people want sprints, dashes, teleports, leaps, you name it. You know what they have in common? They…

I remember seeing this thread first. I would occasionally hop on to the Paladin forums to see what players were discussing. Of course, you frequently would see a thread outlining complaints with Divine Steed. Whether it was the wrong mobility option, the animation or the theme itself, a common trend was building.

This thread in particular, seemed to gain the most traction…

Ultimately, that thread led to me finding this next one.

So, I watched the new hearthstone trailer

Liadrin uses wings to leap slash at Arthas. Why do they keep doing this? If summoning a horse out of nowhere for a split second of movement would be lame in a cutscene. Why is that what you give us in wow for our gameplay? Why is it that tuns of major lore paladin such as Tyrion, Turalyon, Yrel and now Liadrin have a leap. Even lesser knows characters such as Captain Fareeya do a major leap as their movement or attack. If I drag up cross universe stuff like D3 Tyrael, Imperus, and crusaders al…

Now, everything had changed for me. Not only was I not a fan of Divine Steed myself, I could not help but be mind blown about seeing Liadrin leap in an OFFICIAL Blizzard cinematic. How cool is this?!

This is exactly what was missing from Paladin, especially, Retribution.

After reading through endless comments in threads like these, I was inspired to make my own. And this is where things started to get interesting…

Avenging Leap - The Fix for Paladin Mobility 10.0.7

Avenging Leap - Call upon the light to leap to your enemy target at an attempt for reckoning, consecrating the ground beneath you upon landing or leap to your friendly target in an attempt for salvation, consecrating the ground beneath you upon landing. 25 yard range. 45 second cooldown. Only castable to a target. New talent choice node alongside Divine Steed. The branching talent options when selecting Avenging Leap are for an additional charge of Avenging Leap and the other is to apply the c…

This was my best idea at the time to really get the ball rolling. “Avenging Leap”. This post would eventually to go on to receive 54 likes. It all had become so clear. Many players were not fans of Divine Steed and many would happily trade that spell for a Paladin leap.

Then, the rework was announced! This was the moment. How could Blizzard launch a Paladin rework and not remove Divine Steed? Divine Steed has to be one of the most unpopular abilities to date in all of WoW.

Early announcements did not seem too promising. This was the first official comment from Blizzard after the rework was announced that referenced our mobility.

@Kaivax

Maneuverability: We recognize that there’s an issue here and we hope to make some improvements. However, we want to set clear expectations. Retribution Paladins should not expect to gain the mobility of Rogues.

As you can see, not very promising in the hopes of removing Divine Steed for a leap. But hearing Blizzard say they at least hoped to make some improvements was enjoyable enough.

Then sure enough, Wings of Liberty had surfaced on WowHead out of nowhere after a few more blue post updates walking through all the ongoing changes during the rework through datamining! The ability was a direct copy of Heroic Leap for Warriors.

Here was the tooltip!

• NEW Wings of Liberty
  Retribution:
  Leap through the air toward a target location, slamming down with destructive force to deal (23.5% of Attack power) Physical damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and resetting the remaining cooldown on Taunt

Finally, it felt unbelievable that Blizzard would go this route! While keeping in mind this was only a tooltip and not an ability that was live in the PTR, the following Blizzard quote followed this finding…

Maneuverability
We aren’t done with maneuverability yet; we have a few ideas we’re currently exploring internally and will have more to share here in the future.

This was it! We have up to this point now had countless threads arguing for Divine Steed’s removal. We have had a few threads created to develop the idea of what a Paladin gap closer could actually look like in game. And now, we have an announced rework, with a datamined leap and a promise from Blizzard claiming they weren’t done with mobility yet!

Sadly, those ideas they were exploring never materialized. The door was left so wide open that even Towelliee was encouraged to ask Morgan Day on a developer interview, if Paladins were in fact going to get a leap during their 10.0.7 rework. The final response we received regarding this topic was from that very interview.

We were left at, “The direction was to look at what their ranged options are, versus basically giving them a warrior ability”.

Truly heartbreaking as a lifelong Ret Paladin player.

This was the ending forum at the time to the Wings of Liberty journey.

Final Thread on Paladin Mobility (Wings of Liberty/Avenging Leap)

For anyone who has not seen, a recent interview with Blizzard developers has them stating that they are in fact NOT adding a leap or any other mobility improvements for this rework in 10.0.7. I want to first say thank you to everyone who passionately fought for this ability over the past 3-4 months. We put up an amazing fight to finally put Retribution and hopefully all Paladin specializations on a more even playing field that is fun and thematically appropriate. Way back in December, before t…

So where do we go from here?

I hope Blizzard truly does go back on this decision. As a lifelong Ret Paladin player, this was the most exciting news I have ever looked forward to in Wow. It is clear that many players would have preferred this direction. I hope that many still would.

Only time will tell…

Many times, a Paladin has been showcased leaping.

Lady Liadrin, in the Hearthstone cinematic. “March of the Lich King”.

Turalyon on Argus. “A Strike at the Heart”.

Tiron Fording vs Arthas in the final encounter in ICC.

Yrel in Heroes of the Storm.

Light guide you all, fellow crusaders!

Edits: A few formatting errors due to links and bolding.

[Arahgon-maiev]

its a reminder why people shouldnt always look at internal spell data mining because theres hundreds of examples of people overhyping themselves for something thats never gonna make it in the game and thus hurting themselves in the process. the moment i saw that leap had 4 different variations, two of which are direct copies of pvp spells from other classes. i knew it wasnt gonna see the light of day like the datamined chaos blades

[Luthorion-stormrage]

Hopefully this time, Blizzard has made a mistake of letting something get out of the bag that will not want to stay back in it forever.