Honestly they should just switch how Paladins deal damage at this point. I’d be willing to go with a high DPS DoT burning build.
4 Likes
Pretty much my opinion as well. If anything I believe the theme suggests more of a building of fervour than the current burst it deals.
Like as the enemy persists our retribution should become more relentless.
Relentless Inquisitor is currently the only thing that thematically does this (despite very minor and flat), which is also funny because the rest of the current design doesn’t really synergise with.
It’s like somewhere along the line instead of thinking about what a Retribution Paladin should be they went “ah yes Seal of Command. RNG burst damage. That’s our theme!”
Then they just ran with it for a generation.
Cata-WoD are the only times this hasn’t really been significantly the case, and those were all the best Ret designs. (Despite WoD’s pruning)
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The 1 minute build, imho, has the right idea.
We know what feels bad:
- Buff Nannies
- Large, excessive GCD gaps
- No spenders
- GCD locked
We also know what feels good:
- Stacking buffs to a combo climax (NO class is more about buff stacking than Paladins)
- Dynamic buff combinations (ex. Crusade feels better than basic avenging wrath)
- Fluid abilities
- Few to zero non-damaging GCDs (Seraphim is fine since it’s every 45 seconds.)
1 Like
The 1 min build is part of the problem. You should start by saying “I really enjoy the 1min build” instead of “the 1 min build has the right idea” because it doesnt.
Ret, because of the way it worked for so long before SL always had the potential to be a more sustained damage dealer in both pvp and pve. It was SL that turned us into fire mages and made the glaring issues the spec has worse. Because of the 1min cheese we cannot have actual defensives, mobility and support. So no, in an ideal world es fr seraphin and dt should never be picked or used together but here we are.
We’ve had an entire expansion to see that the bursty cheese build doesnt work in the long term, and because of it our DF trees are handicapped hard.
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There are other builds that could potentially have it, but the 1 minute build has one thing that really, really works.
It’s. not. a. buff. nanny.
It builds up towards a heavy-hitting combo that you have to complete. You have to have the feeling of successfully completing a combo.
If you take that idea and scale it down to 45, 30 seconds, it’s still the same idea.
Personally I disagree. There is very little fun or interesting with the 1min build.
It reinforces an already bad damage profile that Ret suffers from and further doubles down on the negative interaction it has with RNG.
I can somewhat agree with these, although I’m not quite sure what you are referencing as “buff nannies” as we haven’t had any buffs for a long time, which is actually a really big issue as currently we don’t provide anything to a group.
The current spec already suffers from being GCD locked with minimal haste (assuming you use Consecration) and is looking to be over GCD capped in DF with additional spells being added to the rotation.
I personally think this is a weird thing people seem to get hung up on. If everything is just “an attack” and you have 5 abilities that are just “an attack” I feel it really reduces the overall potential of abilities that be introduced into the game.
I’d rather be open minded about what abilities have potential and what can be interesting rather than dismissing everything that simply doesn’t do damage.
Seraphim suffers the same fate as Blessing of Summer, there is nothing interesting with an important buff with a cd longer than it’s duration.
There are very little decisions to be made really as you can’t afford to waste the cd due to the overall loss over an encounter, so it very rarely has interaction.
Beta Blessing of Summers was much more interesting as the cd was shorter than the duration, so you could “waste” cds to cycle the buffs to line up better with your other cds etc.
I’d rather have more control and less reason to press, than less control and you simply always press.
1 Like
I feel bad for you because as a DK player I thought the original talent trees were pretty bad but they’ve gotten a lot better with a huge drop of iteration recently. With paladins it really feels like one person is in charge and they are incredibly stubborn and still stuck in 2016, they will not let the class change and be better. I don’t see much indication that they are even willing to take out some traits, make new ones, etc. They just don’t want to put in the effort it seems.
8 Likes
You’re making two mistakes.
#1:
This is just another form of a buff nanny. If your job is buff maintenance, and you lose damage by poor maintenance, this is simply a nanny rotation.
The c/d has to be longer than the buff, with one exception.
Expendable buffs.
If the buff can be consumed before the c/d, but the duration of the buff lasts longer than the c/d, this is an acceptable alternative.
#2.
You are missing the key word; GCD.
GCDs should be dedicated to damage or healing when talking of intervals of less than 30 seconds.
The reason why is because you don’t want to cast a whole bunch of abilities before you can actually start dealing damage.
If I have to cast 3 zero-damage buffs, THEN deal damage, that’s not fun.
The first part is a more accurate depiction of Divine Steed.
6 Likes
I will add, what I think is more in line with what you would like are resource management mechanics rather than anything to do with c/ds.
For example, if Holy Power wasn’t about TV, but instead was about various buffs, resource management could make it more entertaining on how you utilize your buff.
Number of talents in general trees for all classes for what its worth.
DK first row:20, mid row:15, last row:10, Choice Nodes:1 all:46
Pally first row:12 mid:16 last:12 choice nodes:6 all:46
DH first:16, mid row:12, last row:14, choice nodes:7, all:49
Druid first row:18, mid row:16, last row:12, choice nodes:3 all:49
Evo first row:16, mid row:15, last row:15, choice nodes:2, all:48
Hunt first row:12, mid row:14, last row:14, choice nodes:8, all:48
Mage first row:13, mid row:18, last row:13, choice nodes:4, all:48
Monk first row:15, mid row:16, last row:11, choice nodes:3, all:45
Priest first row:21, mid row:15, last row:13, choice nodes:6, all:55
Rogue first row:13, mid rw:19, last row:13, choice nodes:0, all:45
Shaman first row:22, mid row:14, last row:13, choice nodes:11, all:60
Lock first row:17, mid row:14, last row:11, choice nodes:5, all:48
Warr first row:18, mid row:14, last row:17, choice nodes:9, all:58
3 Likes
So your issue is you lose dps if you play the rotation poorly?
That is exactly how the beta version of Blessing of Seasons worked.
I never said that an ability that doesn’t deal direct healing or damage should always be on the GCD. That was your assumption.
Done properly I don’t see why you can’t have abilities either off or on the GCD that don’t deal direct throughput, flat buffs just don’t do that, which is what Blizzard has always been hung up on.
I agree. But again, I think that is simply a design issue, not a buff ability issue.
In a way, or at least resource management falls into the category. I simply like design with interaction and depth, even if there is only one “correct” way to play there should still be the ability to play differently, especially if beneficial in different circumstances.
Current game design is very shallow and lacklustre in that manner, and Paladin is a really good (or for actual gameplay poor) example of it.
They way I view it, is modern class design, and even overarching game design feels like it’s done to a formula.
Like they have a check list that they go down and tick to meet criteria. Builder? Spender? Cooldown? Mobility spell? 5 zones? 1 raid? Dungeon per zone? Borrowed power? Etc etc.
They don’t build the game, they don’t build a world, the don’t build a class, they simply meet criteria.
That’s why almost every spec has the same core design, that’s why many classes had specific spec resources added to fit the design.
The lords work 
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Dude, come on, a strawman?
“It’s not a sail issue it’s just a sailboat issue”, everything’s a design issue. These are the rules for making these designs.
It was literally all you gave me to work with.
Et al you lose damage by poor performance of your rotation. That was the issue you raised, hence why I asked the question to confirm that was your intention by the statement.
You can’t pigeon-hole all buffs as the same though, so yes it’s a design issue.
You generalised heavily so the only implications we can make is that you are referring simply to Blizzard’s overuse of flat stat buffs.
It’s a very broad statement to say “buffs are bad”.
You say it analogous to a sailboat, but your initial stance has basically been “boats are bad”, does that include all boats? Only sail/wind driven boats? Jetskis? Kayaks? All water-borne craft?
I can only respond on what is presented to me, and if that is only generalisation then that is how I shall respond.
There are nuances is design and I don’t think it’s that cut and dry, hence my statement it’s a design issue.
Haste does not change how locked or not locked our rotation is. All it does is change how long the gaps last for, but it does at the rate rate it changes how often they occur.
Being more likely to be GCD locked at times now is because we’ve got the 4pc proc and we also tend to spec into DP now, but mostly did not early in SL. Thus is the RNG goes our way we’re GCD locked now. If it doesn’t, we’re not.
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Well they just have balance druids a new mastery. Maybe there could be hope for us.
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Offt kinda lame change though. Nice they are getting significant changes though.
Basically said Balance suffers from the same damage profile of Ret having all the damage during cooldowns. Shame the new mastery is pretty boring though.
PTR is up now lol. It really looks like a november release… well
17 Likes
Lmao.
Meanwhile rogue gets one of their raid utility buffs made available to all specs, and Retribution aura is nerfed lol.
Bloody hell.
6 Likes