Beta released, R.I.P Paladin

Classes Paladin
43

Yeah, I want us to have meaningful utility, but I also want our underlining themes to be represented clearly in the Class Tree and builds to be clearly represented in the Spec trees.

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These are hard questions, but they should/need to be answered.

  • Is Divine Purpose, Seal of Alacrity, Seal of Might and even Sanctified Wrath captivating that idea of being a “Guardian?”
  • Do these talents really double down on that Guardian play style?
  • Why does a Crusader have Hallowed Ground, a stationary themed spell?
  • How do we emphasize you are a “Knight?” Do we give all Paladins a 2hander and a shield? Do we give Ret Paladins a 1hander and Shield? (Single Minded Fury)

Reduce our output talents by like 3, and give us more solidifying utility.

11 Likes
44

I’m not clinging to anything they said because… our utility isn’t front and center, what utility exactly? I’m looking at this through a Ret PvE point of view. I realize it may tickle Prot/Holy and even PvP Ret in the right places, but someone else should do an assessment on them.

Auras? We have them already, they pretty much are unnoticeable. But imagine not giving what you can , 3% dmg reduction, wait… we won’t need to imagine.
Retribution aura isn’t an aura and them making it better in DF means that we’ll be “forced” to switch to Devo if there are no other paladins in our group. Or we can ignore that and just stick with Ret aura in the “hopes” that the boss will take some heavy shots on someone in the party/raid. Imagine as a Paladin hoping that your team mates get hurt badly… or even die.
So it will feel bad no matter what we chose to use.

Lay on Hands - we have this already
Freedom - situational, we have this already
Cleanse Toxins - situational, we have this already
Fist of Justice - useless in lots of cases, we have this option already, will be mandatory to waste 2 points if we want or not
Repentance/Blinding Light - both situational, we have these options already

What did i do here? I didn’t take Cleanse Toxins and Freedom. I’m forced to take Fist of Justice to reach the Judgment talent.
I can only take Cleanse if i sacrifice Devotion Aura, nothing else is expendable. Since the path required for it Lay on Hands and Rep/Blind need to be taken. - this is just an example, i’m not saying Cleanse is particularly useful in most cases.
I can take Freedom only if i sacrifice Rep/Blind or Devotion Aura.

As such only 1 point at a time is truly free to gain something, be it Freedom or Cleanse in the above scenario.
Or we could sacrifice Devotion Aura and Blinding Light for 2 seconds more on Divine Steed! Because we just love to lose more utility just to get a nerfed version of our current Live mobility.

After reaching the 2nd gate we need to take every throughput talent, so i’ll just take them directly.

We have 3 points left, but are they truly left? No they are not.
The most useful ones… or should i say the most powerful aren’t contestable.
Unbreakable Spirit for better defensives, through lower cooldowns, why would anyone pass it up? For what? Judgment of Light? Let’s not joke too much. Afterimage is a joke itself with how low it is, so that’s out of the question.
Blessing of Spellwarding is basically a Divine Shield every 3 minutes. Can anyone tell me they would rather not spec into a lower cooldown Divine Shield? One that can be placed on others to boot! It requires 2 points as we need to pass through Blessing of Protection, which is situational.

Done.

Now we’re at the last gate and we got to pick what exactly on the way here?
Before the first gate if i take Blinding Light or Freedom? 1 point variance? Maybe 2?
Absolutely nothing before the 2nd gate? Everything was predetermined by throughput and strength of the options, which are mandatory at this point.

At the last part of the tree i think it’s mostly fine, but Obduracy has no place there, it needs to switch with some throughput talents from above, so we pick between whatever comes and 10% Consecration.

Your post is good, really good but to me it feels like putting the cart before the horse.
Before they can offer us variance based on theme.
I wish they’d offer variance through options, any options regarding utility and the opportunity to get it.

Would i like to have the opportunity between some worthy talents?
I can barely consider Judgment of Light one and i’m not sure Golden Path qualifies.
I can’t spare a point to get Judgment of Light, even though it seems to be somewhat useful.
What would i need to sacrifice to get it? Unbreakable Spirit or Blessing of Spellwarding are the only non-throughput talents available to sacrifice a point on.
But i’d have to be crazy to pull out from one of them.

Druids (well deserved), Shaman and Hunters got some nice posts tonight, maybe we’ll get some too.

I’d offer more feedback on the Alpha forums, but it feels like talking in the void so far.
I don’t know what their direction is, if they have any, so best to stay clear for now.
Maybe i’ll reword the analysis from above and post it later, idk.

15 Likes
45

Seeing how Druids: Feral & Resto, Hunters, and Enhancement all got dev posts today I hoped we would’ve been in the running to get some communication. But the silence continues.

6 Likes
46

At this point i think we’re the only class to not receive a post where they state their intentions/design for paladins and what changes they made towards that.

14 Likes
47

Paladins are a two-dimensional class that needs another hook. I think we need Seals and Blessings to come back to give us more flavor and allow for more thematically and aesthetically appropriate talent choices.
I posted my thoughts on how to bring back Seals in another thread How to bring back Seals in Dragonflight
You can see how adding back these core mechanics would increase the design space for cool and interesting talents

6 Likes
48

I’m starting to think we don’t have a class dev. The decisions, tuning, and development have felt very slapped together. It would be nice to be a class that actually received communication and development. It’s not like we are one of the most notable classes in WoW and warcraft lore or anything.

19 Likes
49

How the living frick is dusk and dawn still in the class tree? It should be divine toll as it’s in every single spec tree. Who is responsible for paladin on the dev team? They need help!

Horse for 4 talents is insane
Dusk till dawn existing is ridiculous
Consecration ret is the worst idea out of blizzard in a long time
Avengers shield not generating hp???
What are they doing?

I can’t fathom how a company that makes this much money is this stupid.

Design philosophy should be about character / spec fun. Why is blizzard obsessed with making as many unfun choices as possible?

While I want to support the design choices announced in df (no borrowed power, bring back talent trees, etc.) the sorry state of some of these classes (and trees) mean I won’t be playing.

Here’s hoping others show they’re as upset and make it known so that someone wakes up on the dev team and does something. If you feel this way, scream it, show it with your wallet.

18 Likes
50

Its why I haven’t preordered and won’t until I see positive changes.

18 Likes
51

It’s possible.

But what we don’t have, are clever mechanics, something different than more dmg, more healing. Those 2 are tuned in the end to fit a goal, so it doesn’t matter if we have 5 or 25 throughput talents.

If we look at the Class tree we have new stuff:

  • 4% armor and crit, throughput.
  • Afterimage… more like afterthought, after spending 20 HP, we do a little extra healing on the side? literally? So throughput… again.
  • Recompense… after use use Sac, this time not just to burst our bubble (lol), we get an increase of dmg… or healing, throughput talent, whoopee?
  • Seal of the Templar - this one is the only interesting one, but why not make it bad, right? Cling it to having Crusader Aura on… because we don’t run Ret or Devo? Idk what to say. Also planting it on our Charger is so weak.
  • Seal of Clarity - at 3hp is 10% chance… i think, it;s basically just like Divine Purpose, coincidence? To reduce WoG/LoD/SotR by 1… so a 3 times weaker and also limited in spells… where is TV/DS? But in the end, another throughput talent, weak one at that.
  • Seal of Might/Alacrity/Order/Reprisal/the Crusader - ALL of them throughput.
  • Judgment of Light is throughput in the end again. (new to Ret)
  • Touch of Light/Incandescence/Hallowed Ground… throughput.
  • Blessing of Spellwarding - this one is the bomb though. (new to Ret)

I’m getting bored just listing them. So basically everything but Seal of the Templar, which we will take only if we don’t take Rebuke, else we don’t have points for it and Blessing of Spellwarding.

How do we have so many throughput talents that are new?
Something interesting, something tricky… yes, Paladins deserve to have interesting/tricky mechanics too.
If need be i can go and list fun/cool/new mechanics, but they won’t be used in the end… or at least not on us.

16 Likes
52

Well, I think it helps organize the trees that puts it a bit into perspective. And it’s not easy, by any means. There’s a lot of cross referencing all 3 spec trees and trying to make smart decisions that benefit all 3.

Creating this underlining pathing makes it so you know what it is you are looking for.

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If I were to tell you to design a talent tree, with 90% of the Utility being in the green box, and 90% of the throughput being in the Blue box. That’s pretty simple.

Well, take it a step further and design it with “intuitive pathing.”

  • Left side if the Holy Knight fantasy.
  • Middle is the Guardian fantasy.
  • Right side is the Crusader fantasy.

  1. What are the staple Knight fantasy talents?

  2. What are the staple Guardian fantasy talents?

  3. What are the staple Crusader fantasy talents?

  4. What are the occasional “filler talents?”

  5. What are the final throughput and cap stone talents?

When you break this down and you look at it as pieces you see how discombobulated the tree really is and how little each “fantasy pathing” really offers.

IMO, we are missing 6-8 more nodes of just “Stuff” that I’ve spoke about early.

  • Do we have too many throughput talents and not enough satisfying cap stone ones?
  • Is the “Crusader Fantasy” really being captivated in 5 talents?
    • Which throughput and capstone talents really hone in on that fantasy?
  • Is the “Guardian Fantasy” really being honed in on with 3 Blessings?
    • Which throughput and capstone talents really hone in on that fantasy?
6 Likes
53

And i agree with you and wish they’d take this approach.
But so far, we don’t even see enough utility spells in there, compared to throughput.

It’s like you’re wanting (with good reason) for them to work on their multiplication table, when they’re still having a hard time doing normal addition and subtraction. ( i don’t mean anything offensive by this, just a random example)

Hopefully they’ll do a good pass of our trees…

I’ve opened some of the blue posts for other classes, i think ours is the shortest one now with the replies from blues, shorter than Druid and Priest.
So it stands to reason that we’ll get some changes soon™.

4 Likes
54

Here’s hoping. Paladins really feel like the odd man out at this point. Still feel like we’re bringing sticks and stones to a fight and everyone else is riding giant death robots.

10 Likes
55

after almost 2 months the druid finally has changes. You guys came out later (I’m not saying that’s wrong), so you still have a good chance of getting change. So don’t worry guys, I know the paladin will get changes as much as possible next week ^^

PS: Don’t lose faith in the light

2 Likes
56

Identity

At its core, Retribution’s gameplay is about casting Judgement. Judgement is a mediocre Holy Power builder that can be used from range, to debuff your target with “Judgement” making them take more damage from your spenders. Additionally, a Paladin can cast Judgement to gain the buff Virtuous Command, which increases the damage you do from your spenders. But also a Paladin can cast Judgement to gain Zeal, which increases the attack speed of your Auto Attacks.

Judgement can also be used to apply Judgement of the Light to the target, so that you and your allies receive a bit of healing when hitting targets you just Judged. Because Judgement is such a core part of Paladin’s toolkit, we added another ability called Divine Toll, which casts up to 5 more judgements, along with 1 more Judgement following every 5 sec for 15 sec afterwards.

And if that wasn’t enough, Retribution Paladins can spec into Seal of Wrath and Boundless Judgement to give your Judgement ability a chance to cast an additional Judgement or to bounce to other nearby enemies affecting them with “Judgement.”

But wait! There’s more.

If you want even more modifiers to your judgement, Retribution Paladins can spec into Sanctified Wrath, making Judgement generate more Holy Power and Empyrean Endowment so your next spender does even more AoE damage!

In a later alpha build we may rename Retribution to simply Judgement, because Paladins are about Judgement, so wear Judgement and cast Judgement!

8 Likes
57

I wish I could mail a copy of the DnD 5e phb to the paladin dev just to give the guy ideas.

3 Likes
58

Long experience has shown that once things hit beta, Paladins don’t get major reworks, or if they do they come right at the end and get inadequate testing. As the devs have been incredibly reluctant in the past three expansions to make major changes once an expac goes live, this does not bode well.

If we don’t see major movement soon, I’ll be surprised if we see it at all, and if there aren’t some major improvements I won’t be playing my Paladin as main - and that means I quite possibly won’t be playing at all.

6 Likes
59

I laughed out loud at this.

I think we’ve gotten to the point where the talents trees have a pretty basic underlining path or flow.

Warlock: Affliction - Left, Demo - Middle, Destro - Right
DK: Frost - Left, Blood - Middle, Unholy - Right
Shaman: Restro - Left, Ele - Middle, Enhance - Right

Paladin: Holy - Left, Prot - Middle, Ret - Right

Now it’s just a Listing Game.

We need 16-22 nodes in our first Tier, lets start with 15, so we can add more later.

Holy:

  1. __
  2. __
  3. __
  4. __
  5. __

Prot:

  1. __
  2. __
  3. __
  4. __
  5. __

Ret:

  1. __
  2. __
  3. __
  4. __
  5. __

What are 5 Holy, Prot, and Ret spells you wanna see in the first tier? Literally list them out. Could be theme’d however you (or Blizzard) wants…

  • Speed of Light, PoJ, LAotL?
  • Judgement of Light, Wisdom, Justice?

Next Tier:

We need 15 nodes in our second Tier, but some will over lap, so lets start with 12 and add more after, case we can shift one to the more Ret side or Holy Side, whatever makes sense.

Holy:

  1. __
  2. __
  3. __
  4. __

Prot:

  1. __
  2. __
  3. __
  4. __

Ret:

  1. __
  2. __
  3. __
  4. __

And it seems like a lot, but honestly you’re just making a list of 15 Holy spells you wanna see in the tree, 15 Prot and 15 Ret.

You take the base of most of the class and you already have 5 of them. (Fist of Justice, Repent, Freedom, Etc…)

60

In terms of choice nodes in the class trees (currently):
DK 1
DH 5
Druid 3
Evoker 2
Hunter 8
Mage 4
Monk 3
Paladin 6
Priest 6
Rogue 0
Shaman 8
Warlock 4
Warrior 2

Now obviously these numbers shouldn’t all be equal, but you’d expect classes with tons of options, and classes with very different roles to have many choices. Yet Hunters with three DPS specs have a huge number (though half are cap talents, so effectively it’s just doubling their capstone choices), and Rogues have none at all. Monks encompass the same three roles that Paladins do, but have few forced choices.

A quick look at some spec trees shows a similar variation - rogues have few or no choices, and as they seem to be keeping most of their stuff that means the choices are all in pathing and/or they are getting tons of stuff baseline. Likewise for Hunter specs. Meanwhile Ret has nine choice nodes.

3 Likes
61

I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe it just doesn’t work for Paladins to have a shared general class tree that is almost entirely the same between all specs. I dunno. They’re all very different from each other at this point and trying to balance all of them with actual good utility in the class tree sounds like a nightmare.

Dragonflight testing has been pretty different from all previous testing so far so they can still shake it up in beta if they really want to.

1 Like
62

Paladins have always had a lot of things in common as a base though - their group utility (and secondarily a lot of personal survival utility). That’s why we feel all hollowed out these days, as this is the thing that has been consistently stripped away as being ‘bloat’, and as Paladins had the most, they’ve lost the most. Shamans also lost a fair bit, but they’ve been getting it back in SL and now in DF.

1 Like