As a long time world of warcraft paladin main I like many others, am not a fan of Divine Steed for the class’s mobility identity. I have given it a chance but in the end it simply does not feel accurate for the theme of a paladin in wow.
Here is my best idea for the replacement that checks off all the boxes.
Avenging Leap
Leap to an ally in an attempt for salvation, consecrating the ground beneath your target or leap to an enemy in an attempt for reckoning, consecrating the ground beneath you.
45 second cooldown
Much better thematically, replaces divine steed, make it targetable only to an ally or enemy target to differentiate it from heroic leap and it even includes consecration to help further amplify all the talents and pvp talents to give them more appeal.
Also most importantly, this would just feel more satisfying to press.
Thoughts?
What other replacement ideas are better than divine steed?
10 Likes
Overall there have been alot of people with the same idea, my only issue is that it needs to be on a shorter cooldown and have 2 charges ATLEAST. Being that they have now added a new class in the game that has a ridiculous amount of CC/Gap Closers/Leaps/Cast while moving/ ect. there has to be some way paladins can gap close the HUGE distances that other classes can create with the press of a button.
If this was added it would also replace the divine steed talents. So you talent into avenging leap, then you can gain another charge with another talent point. The other option is open for creative ideas.
Just get rid of the miserable +1s to horse talent in the general tree and replace it with Long Arm of the Law. Ship it.
2 Likes
Isn’t that just a worse version of Charge and Intervene in single button?
Agreed.
Shorter cool down and 2 charges.
Or shorter cool down and longer duration i.e 5 seconds
No. But it is a substitute for divine steed that allows for instant gap closing for either support or offense.
But requiring a target means it loses all value outside of combat. Yes, you can argue that Steed fails as an effective gap closer, but it’s fine at being a general purpose sprint. The ability you envisioned is fine on it’s own but it would need to exist alongside, and not as a replacement for Steed.
This is why Charge, Intervene, and Heroic Leap are three different buttons. They serve different purposes. One isn’t a replacement for another.
Not necessarily. You do not need to be in combat to leap to an ally. I disagree that this would need to exist alongside a movement increase general purpose ability as well for a few reasons.
It is clear that blizzard generally does not want paladins to have increases to their movement speed. This was confirmed by their blue post covering the removal of long arm of the law in the original paladin talent tree design for dragonflight. So with the class centered around the design of being harder to slow and lock down via blessing of freedom, avenging leap helps to get you from point A to point B. Instantly as well which is the key to help fit the design philosophy of ret.
In addition you do have access to a 30% increase in speed during blessing of freedom, however this is only a pvp talent option but it does still atleast exist as a potential.
And finally, there is hardly a reason that requires a class to need a movement speed increase ability outside of playing with or against targets. Ret’s historically never had anything to begin with and warriors did not always have access to heroic leap. Neither did death knights always have access to deaths advance, only death grip.
The purpose of avenging leap is not an attempt to make paladins warriors and somehow check all the boxes of charge, intervene and heroic leap all in one. It exists unique to the paladin class as a way of providing an instant gap closer, that feels satisfying to press, that interacts with other talents, fits class fantasy and attempts to differentiate from heroic leap since both are effectively very similar.
Keep the Divine Steed and add another node to Cavalier that allow players to choose to increase the number of charges on Divine Steed OR pick a 1min CD ability that the Divine Steed charges into a targeted enemy and puts short disorientated/armor reduction debuff on them.
Edit: Could make the ability a frontal cone similar to the mages Dragons Breath.
Paladin mobility needs to feel different from Warrior mobility.
Behold the Juggernaut.
A slow ramp up into an unstoppable charge that increases in speed to 100% movement speed.
There is nothing wrong with Divine Steed. If you want warrior abilities you should roll a warrior.
Considering the state Paladins started in where you could only heal and could do very little damage I feel like Blizzard has made vast improvements to the class. There is no reason to change Divine Steed.
The only thing that needs to changed with Divine Steed is more racial steeds by default. That and updating the ancient model of the default Divine Steed.
I much prefer an acceleration movement ability over one that is dependent on me having a target to use.
I also really don’t understand what you mean that the Divine Steen isn’t Paladin-y… It very much is in line with Paladins.
2 Likes
Divine steed is typically regarded as an unfun and rather lame ability to press. Not everyone will agree of course but I would venture to say that the majority of paladins would agree.
Avenging leap is not a warrior ability with how it was presented. You can leap directly to targets including allies. By this logic, a vengeance demon hunter should just roll a warrior as well then?