Great post. Ok so bring the player not the class would mean that every class has the same components or the classes are all homogenized?
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It simply means you shouldn’t have to have (insert specific class here) in order to complete something.
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I was a pretty hardcore PVE holy paladin between Dragonsoul and Hellfire Citadel. Unfortunately, I did not agree with the shift in design philosophy for the spec in Legion, and I especially hated the removal of holy power. That is when I ended up quitting raiding altogether.
Shadowlands holy paladin, at least as of right now, feels like a good middle place between what I found was a superior spec in Mists of Pandaria, and the trainwreck (for me) that was Legion hpal gameplay. However, hpal still feels like a slightly nerfed version, most likely because of the slow, clunky cast times which Infusion of Light addressed in the past.
My greatest fear is the class reverting back to Legion gameplay in Dragonflight. While not perfect, I can accept the current iteration of hpal. It feels like old times and I haven’t felt that joy for healing as my main class in 5 years. That is my biggest concern right now. I also prefered LoD when it was just an aoe, not a frontal cone, and I can see how these spells, talents and the new mastery ‘encourages’ the class to be in melee, which feels pretty forced imo.
I agree that the paladin class utility should be brought back, blessing of kings, wisdom, etc. Also, why does Aura Mastery have so spell effects whatsoever anymore? Very underwhelming, it was cool to see everyone have the spell effect so I knew for sure they were being affected.
Those are my two cents. I have never been a fan of the melee hpal healer, but right now it is ok. Legion was disgusting, I honestly, truly depised the Legion hpal redesign.
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Lots of interesting ideas in this thread already, I hope we get a decent rework, but we’ll see.
One of the biggest problems I see with pally is how our utility is so narrow and is consistently an issue when being compared to other classes.
BoF, BoP, LoH, SoC, HoJ, HoH, Repentance, WoG - that’s a lot of utility, but . . . they’re all single target. This narrowness of utility contribution is one of the big thing that hold’s pallys back.
A Monk will bring Leg Sweep and Ring of Peace and those two abilities alone are worth more than our entire utility kit. Specifically because they’re not narrow in application. AoE stun and a highly flexible mob control ability which offers a potential for high level play because of the tricks you can do with it.
Other things like binding shot, typhoon, ursol’s vortex, chaos nova, gorefiend’s grasp, stampeding roar, lust, piercing howl, rallying cry, intimidating shout, shockwave, etc etc.
Blinding light is one of our best abilities for group play. It could stand to be baseline for all pallys and be reduced to 45sec/1min cd instead of 1.5min. And I think we could stand to have something else added (or exchange a utility ability or two for) so that we could get another wide-use utility ability for all pally specs.
Another big thing we could use is a threat management tool for Ret. It’s kinda ridiculous that just a few specs get aggro so easily and nothing has been done to address it. Destro locks can fart out 60k dps on pull and it’s fine, Ret pally does one Divine Storm and literally every mob ignores the tank and turns to punch the pally.
That said, I really miss seals and wish the class had gone more into Seals and Auras gameplay than just Combo Points, but they’re called Holy Power. But I have pretty much zero hope that Blizz will go in this direction.
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To this day I find it ridiculous that monks have all that plus a ranged incap and we cannot have a ranged kick, more range on HoJ, HoJ being physical or at least HoH being spammable. Beyond me.
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To some extent, yeah. All healers need a way to aoe heal, to single target heal; all tanks need to be able to taunt, etc. Similar things need to happen to utility. It doesn’t need to be that every single dps has the same utility because in every form of content, be it M+ or raids, you bring more of those than you bring of the healers/tanks. There’s 1 tank in a M+, there’s 1 healer in an M+, but you have 3 dps. So that means you can spread out the utility and still expect the group to have what they need.
There shouldn’t be unique (to a class) utility. At least 2 or 3 classes should offer the same base utility, but it can be flavored slightly different. For example, warlock gateways could be given to monk except the monk has to target a location like the venthyr teleport and the ability would have say a 2s cast. When casting it the monk has a circle around them that anyone in the monk’s party/raid standing in the circle goes with the monk. Group transcendence, if you will. That’s similar enough at it’s core for what it’s doing, but would still feel slightly different. Mages, perhaps just arcane mages even, could have a group invis that works like shroud. If needed, add debuffs like the heroism/bloodlust debuff that prevents users from benefiting from similar affects for whatever duration.
If they can’t give everyone -useful-, unique utility, then give nobody unique utility and share them across at least a few classes.
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Great point! You just hit the nail on the head. A support class that has only single target buffs is not a support class. The paladin is or should be a support class.
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Have other healing classes (except priest of course) been as reworked as the Holy Paladin? It feels like Blizz has a serious identity crisis with the spec…
I think mistweavers have been reworked more than holy paladins. Paladins really haven’t been that reworked, just the most optimal way to play them has shifted a slightly, but that wasn’t intentionally necessarily. Like Glimmer was just overtuned and turned out to be the way to go in BFA, and then people pushed to keep it as a way to play. I think the biggest rework was trying to jam holy power in, taking it out, and slamming it back in.
Mistweavers on the other hand were firstly a dps-to-heal spec with eminence healing, but jab/jab/uplift was so dominant, and then they had an renewing mist/uplift healing style, and then they had a playstyle that was carried by a tier set mimicked ever so slightly by a legendary they currently have tear of the mourning. There mastery has changed multiple times, I think holy paladin’s have only had 1 mastery change. Granted illuminated healing was awesome and should have stayed but been tweaked to be ‘effective’ healing and not include overhealing. I don’t think mistweavers have played the same between any set of expansions. Now granted, paladins have been around longer.
TLDR: Mistweavers probably have paladins beat, barely.
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I would not know. I have not healed as a Paladin since Legion.
Ranged kick? meh.
20yards hoj like before, yes.
Yeah idk why this isnt the case, or atleast applies to every enemies within 10yards of the target with a 15sec CD instead of 30.
Like someone said, Blinding Light could be baseline with a lower CD like 1min.
Wake of Ashes should stun all NON-PLAYERS enemies. When I’m doing NW or ToP, I feel like a god stunning undeads and really useful to the group, and its only during those dungeons that I always have that satisfaction because my ability can AoE Stun.
And as a support class, we literally bring the least group support among every class in the game. And all our CDs are way too long. Does BoP really need the 5min cd still? I’d argue it shouldn’t. Like how Blessing of Spellwarden is 3min, when its literally better than BoP. Is freedom really that good in pve content? No. Sac? Yeah you can always use it on the tank to gain value from it.
Or like you mentionned, we’re too narrow, it’s not always useful compared to an aoe stun, aoe root, or slow. Its not flexible enough.
As a class with a heavy Justice theme, I can’t believe we don’t have something similar to Ursoc Vortex, Kyrian Spear, Enhancement Shaman ‘‘you can’t get out of this 10yards zone’’ pvp talent. This is literally something out of a prison and we don’t have access to those type of spells.
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Imagine Spear of Bastion for paladins. That would be nuts.
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Well its kinda the point, It fits our theme so much, why we don’t have that? And we’re also lacking an aoe mob CC.
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Great, now I want that. Never thought about it before.
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Call it Radiant Chains.
Chains enemies in a 10yards radius to the ground For as long as the chains hold they suffer radiant damage and are tethered to the ground location for 5sec.
When they are broken, each chain deals 2000 radiant damage to every enemies in a 10yards radius. And take radiant damage overtime and are slowed by 50% for 6sec. For each chain broken this way, increase the damage by x%.
30-45sec or 1min cd.
And we can imagine golden chains with waves of fire fx pulsing going on. Would be aestetically pleasing!
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I have not seen the LKC paladin class build so I would not know what its current configuration is. I hope it is the pre-homogenization patch version.
If it is the pre-homogenization patch version, it would be the closest to what the Paladin class should be in DF.
Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by LKC
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LKC = Lich King Classic. IMHO, the LKC Paladin build is the best ever in WoW. That said, it is unlikely that the DF paladin will be a clone of the LKC paladin. However, the way that seals, judgements and blessings are handled in LKC would be a good start.
Here are the LKC Paladin Talents and Abilities:
That Paladin build is vastly superior in every way to the current Shadowlands Paladin build. The LKC paladin is a true hybrid support class. The SL paladin is a weak warrior or cleric with a holy blot-on.
Then im sorry no.
Numerically Ret is maybe strong, specially in Icecrown because of tier set. But beside that, you wait for 4.5, 6sec and 10sec and weave in exorcism every 15sec.
Thats not fun gameplay to me.
WoD was essentially perfection for Ret. Literally the apex of its design over the years. And Legion scrapped all that beautiful perfect design to ruin it ever since.
Shadowlands is the first time it’s been fun to play Ret, specially with tier set. But its far from perfect.
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I could accept the legion Paladin if we got our weapons or something very much like them back and kept holy power. That is unlikely. I agree that the WoD ret paladin was very good.
My favorites are:
- Lich King Prot
- WoD Ret
- Legion Holy with Melee healing and dps and the Artifact Mace
I think you missed the point of the LKC build. The LKC paladin is a group support class. The SL paladin is la single-target buff class.
If I could choose one single WoW Paladin build for all specs, it would be LKC before the massive homogenization patch.