Beta released, R.I.P Paladin

Well, that’s it I guess guys. Nail in the coffin, zip it and ship it.
Paladin is going to beta and most likely to live without communication in the abysmal state that it is in.
Good job Blizzard :clap: :clap:
You’ve out done yourselves this time.

Maybe I’ll be back for 11.0 if you actually get a Paladin dev that plays the class and fixes what has been done.

R.I.P Paladin.

Edit -
Yep, no real changes and confirmation that design iteration is over.
No beta feedback, no nothing.

Thank you Blizzard for failing the Paladin community. Guess I’ll be sitting this one out.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/dragonflight-class-design-progress/1346916

67 Likes

The updated general tree looks better but I still think needs improvement. Fist of justice being in the way to get your interrupt feels like a massive waste of talent points. Either move it out of the way somewhere else or drop it down to 1 point to compromise.

I’m personally not a fan of “The Mad Paragon”. I really hate the idea that paladins have 2 capstones that revolve around avenging wrath. It’s boring. I would like to see that replaced with something else but that might just be my opinion. Come on Blizz use your imagination.

The developers have got to be kidding with leaving 4 talents for divine steed. Like why is that even a thing. There’s so many cool things you can do for paladins and using 4 talent points as filler for divine steed feels like such a waste.

And please reverse the decision regarding avengers shield and holy power.

16 Likes

Looks bad, but there’s still time to fix it
A good 2nd pass on the Ret tree and then a 3rd pass on class + spec tree will probably put us in a good spot

Really wish we had the Shaman/Hunter/Priest designer instead :confused:

11 Likes

Probably a bit too early to say “it’s over” but it has to be done this month. They’ve clearly been doing the whole Dragonflight alpha differently from previous alphas. I believe the general sentiment is that we’ve never had such a condensed Alpha cycle before with so much stuff being updated every week, so Beta could go differently too.

4 Likes

Given that they’ve been trying to make our reliance less and less about wings it’s really weird to make our capstones revolve around it right?

Also big agree about the Holy Power and Avenger’s Shield.

5 Likes

I think it’s more that we’ve had no communication, Holy was delayed being released but got no communication afterwards about feedback. There has been quite a bit and the only thing they’ve done is shuffle around the tree. We have bigger concerns than just tree flow.

Maybe they’ll respond more now that it’s beta and they’ll get more testers. But I’m not optimistic. It seems like other classes are still their focus.

2 Likes

I’m actually kinda okay with them not communicating if they’re really listening anyway and implementing things accordingly. They can’t really expect us to know all of the things they’re thinking about if they don’t talk about them with us. We can only infer based on actions (and inactions). Having said that, it doesn’t feel like they are listening enough.

I don’t expect to get everything I’ve requested; not even close. Comparing between specs is a bit difficult but it needs to be done to at least attempt to make it more fair for everyone.

2 Likes

I think my biggest wants atm is Divine Protection being placed in the Shared Tree and Vanquisher’s Hammer added to the Shared Tree. I would hate it a lot less if we also got our Greater Blessings back and Retribution got a talent to grant Replishment or some sort of Resource Regen for group / raid option. The Battle Rez is great but it doesn’t give ret a huge reason to be added. Something beyond another classes ability added to our toolkit would be a lot cooler. Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian were 2 major utilities we used to bring and it fits well with our niche of being the protector.

4 Likes

I think Divine Toll should be the class tree spell, and Exorcism should be turned into the Vanquisher Hammer clone in the Ret Tree. Ideally, I would like to see both these changes brought to the class tree, but I think Ret revolves too much around these 1 min cooldowns for most of our spec’s capstones.

The diversity of our final talents is:

  • 1 Min Executions Sentence
  • 1 Min Divine Toll
  • 1 Min Final Reckoning
  • Vanguard’s Momentum (Which doesn’t feel great either)

It makes Paladin dps predictable and boring, and the 1 min build should be more of a choice, imo.

1 Like

They haven’t said we’re done like other classes. So there’s still a glimmer of hope. Aside raid testing and bug fixes there is still time. Not much, but some.

2 Likes

Yeah we’re still 8 weeks away from the rumoured 10.0 prepatch date, and 12 weeks from the rumoured release date. There is time to fix this… if they care to fix it.

1 Like

Imgur

47 Likes

Yeah we haven’t had a development post like basically every other class, but that seems like wishful thinking.

They have made slight changes to the talent tree and still haven’t addressed simple things which makes it a concern.
Like how hard is it to make the duration increase baseline or 2 charges for pony? Or reduce the duration increase to a single talent point?

The impression that I get based on the lack of feedback and the very slight adjustments is that they don’t plan on substantially changing anything, despite the playerbase opinion of how bad the class looks.

Like they added talent links from the additional horse talents…does that mean they are staying as 4 talent points? Did they really think not being able to branch from there was the problem? (Despite us still requiring to take the original path because we can’t just not have AW)

At best the rearranging of talents allows us to actually get most of our old utility back. Still doesn’t address anything else, and still leaves us with a bad horse.

4 Likes

We’re not done quite yet. We must embody our class at moments like these; dedicated, stalwart, united. We still have time for some adjustments. We knew we were not going to get everything, the hope was just that we’d receive the things we need. We’ve made progress, and when the Beta drops we’ll descend upon The Beta Forums and make them regret forcing the horse unto us as they are trampled under hoof.

Do not give up hope, my brothers and sisters. We will stand against the encroaching darkness until the last bit of hope is snuffed out.

9 Likes

TBH I don’t understand why such a big emphasis is being placed on Execution Sentence. It’s literally a tier 1 talent for us that’s now being hoisted up to a top tier but it still is terrible without Final Reckoning. So I really don’t see the draw to it at all.

Ideally they move Divine Toll into the Shared Tree as its currently taking up space in every single specialization tree. DTs place could be taken by Vanquisher’s Hammer in both Retribution and Holy trees. At least then Ret and Holy could have a good option since it didn’t require a conduit to make the ability good, just the ability and its unity.

I think Seraphim needs to be moved lower in the Shared Tree, we are trying to reduce the emphasis and reliance on wings and putting our other good CD in the top makes it very restrictive to developing more playstyles. I also think they need to restore Ashes to Ashes to its live bonus. It’s very underwhelming to see one our top tier talents be 50% of the original. I don’t see other classes being restricted this way.

When I look at the healing trees for other healers: monk, priests, resto sham, resto druid… They all have great cohesiveness. They offer differing playstyles. For example Mistweavers are able to focus on melee healing or ranged healing and their choice nodes specifically reflect that choice. It seems like most of the other healing specs are forced to choose between a focused single / few target healing or heavy focus on mass healing. Paladin doesn’t really fit that design style and we should be developed a lot like Mistweavers. We are given 2 styles of healing; ranged or melee. But the first issue is our Mastery needs to be versatile to be able to do ranged healing. Reverting the mastery back to a percent of our healing done produces an absorb shield on targets would be the first step. After that it’s developing the left and right of the tree branches to be more focused towards one style or the other and leaving the middle for our shared abilities / CDs etc. When getting to the top tier of the tree giving us a capstone for each specialized healing style and then two that meet in the middle.

Our trees need so much work. I really hope they are listening to our feedback.

4 Likes

So… you understand Beta is the time for people to test this stuff and submit reports, correct?

Tell them what works and what doesn’t?

This is the time to give them good feedback to correct things.

3 Likes

I just posted this in another thread, but its still relevant to this, and so important.

Before we can work on trees, we need Blizzard to define what strengths Paladins are “double downing” on in DF.

The “utility front and center” is yet to be seen…

Shamans double down on Totems, a lot of their class tree revolve around different types of totems, ghost wolf/mobility, and a few niche “mandatory” talents like purge and kick here and there.

DKs really double down on snares, anti magic and this great class fantasy of “tankiness.” I am super excited to play my DK because I have an abundance of tools at my disposal to make a really exciting spec.

What would you say Paladins’ are “doubling down” on? To me, there’s just no direction on Paladins in any of the specs. :frowning:

2 Likes

Alpha is the time for big changes not beta. We don’t need things tested, we need dramatic changes.
Changes that almost every other class has received except paladins.

“Lmao have a battle rez. Paladin finished” is not good enough, sorry.

Doubling down on talent points required to be left with the worst mobility tool in the game.

13 Likes

Right? lol

Developers’ note: With the Paladin talent trees in Dragonflight, we wanted to embrace the class’ knight heritage and the full breadth of its group stewardship. In the class tree, Paladins will see your utility front-and-center, and whether you prefer the fantasy of the crusader or the guardian, we hope that new options such as Seal of the Templar, Recompense, and Afterimage will help you lean into your vision.

Seriously, what the heck does any of this even mean?

  • we wanted to embrace the class’ knight heritage
    • Okay? What is the Knight Heritage? Am I a Knight? A Paladin? A Crusader? A guardian?
  • “Full breath of its group stewardship?”
    • I have no AoE Buffs…
  • “Fantasy of the Crusader?”
    • Is this Diablo3?? What crusader? What about fantasy of the Paladin?
  • “Fantasy of the Guardian?”
    • Am I suppose to have shields for allies? Or what? I have a 5 min cooldown Blessing…
  • “we hope that new options such as Seal of the Templar, Recompense, and Afterimage”
    • How do any of these spells help with the fantasies mention above?

I am so confused on the direction of Paladins…

30 Likes

And one thing I’m seeing as classes get done is that it feels like the other classes are moving into a new era and we’re being left behind.

22 Likes