Also if you heal more than is ideal as its not your roll, Ret will oom quickly, then cant Brez anyone right away if it is needed.
The best players in the world finishing some keys without a healer is due to their exceptional skill. Yes, spec tuning made it possible while remaining impossible at that M+ level for nearly all players. The lower keys can be stacked with near max geared players and steamrolled without a healer, but who cares, most tanks can solo the lowest M+ so it is no feat to do it without a healer but 4 dps.
Agreed, the Gladiator Stance situation makes me think that the odds of a tanky DPS thing happening for ret are really low. As much as I would love it, I just donât see it happening. They do have the tools now to balance better than when they were trying Gladiator stance, but I have no faith they actually could use them to do so before the community lost their minds over something.
I have a bit of a gripe with the way they let people doing silly things in the game dictate stuff. The entire approach to M+ and the extent to which it is balanced around a competitive level is kind of problematic IMO I get that it is necessary to an extent, but if you are that worried, you can just make it so that only groups with the desired comp from start to finish get rating. Same thing for raids and any other content, give the competitive group their safe space where only the desired meta counts for the clout and let everyone else do whatever wacky stuff they want. The way they have managed to scale and maintain difficulty in stuff like the Mage Tower makes it clear that they have the capacity to make a competitive sandbox environment for those that are so worried about competitive integrity. But I strongly believe that many of the greatest games are great because they give you freedom to do absurd and sometimes game breaking things (think Morrowind, Diablo II, PoE, and MTG). It can be a symptom of lack of polish and other things, but it is often what makes them fun too, and that balance is important to find and maintain.
I get this is more difficult in a PvP context but try speccing as a prot paladin and jumping into PvP, it is a nightmare how bad it feels. Blizz has made it pretty clear that they have decided that they are ok with making entire specs essentially unplayable in chosen environments. They could do the same with Tanky DPS specs, just nerf their durability and healing to the point that it feels squishier than the full DPS spec like they did with prot.
All of that said, I am absolutely in love with the idea of Templar tree capstone being a 2h/shield setup. That combined with the new transmog system would have me farming appearances all day long. I donât even care if it was ultimately just aesthetic and didnât really change our damage or defensive profile. For ret this really wouldnât be an issue given that the shield really just benefits you with some block chance that you would never use outside of a world/solo environment. For prot there may be some tuning concerns with respect to attack speed, holy power gen, and damage. They could also make it a holy/ret thing instead to avoid concerns with prot. I donât really care, I just love the idea of the fantasy and transmogs even if (or maybe especially if) the differences from baseline are negligible
Also if they do this, they should absolutely bring back gladiator for warriors with a similar 2h/shield idea. It doesnât need to be exclusive and I think both classes have sufficient thematic capacity for it to work. Paladins empowered by the light, Titanâs grip and warriors just being a beast. As a true sin, Iâd also be fine with DKs getting a Titanâs grip clone (DK and Shields just donât feel right).
Yeah, if we look at the WoWhead article about Warriors:
Q: Why did you wave away from themes like Blademaster and Gladiator that are already built into the lore of WoW that players have been asking for all these years?
A: Gladiator has a lot of history in WoW, but it goes against the core philosophy of hero talents, which is not introducing new roles. There would be an expectation that it would enable Protection as a DPS spec, but thatâs not something theyâre really looking to do with hero talents. Likewise, any kind of departure from the history of Gladiator wouldnât feel right either.
With this philosophy in mind, honestly I donât think Templar is going to ultimately get a 2hander+Shield, as much as I would enjoy that aswell, I think that Blizzardâs intentions are to simply make these talents feel as if they are just another branch from our current existing talents.
I just think that our current existing talents are not up to par for branching off of and why I think itâs so important to revamp the Class Tree first.
I suggested before that it would be a unique concept to allow Ret/Templar the ability to equip a Shield in their Cloak Slot, and for Prot to get the 2hander+Shield effect. Just for the added fantasy and armor of it, while opening up the possibility to add in a Templar Shield âimbueâ for the Hero Spec.
Obviously, that would put Prot in the situation of being a âDPS Tank,â but considering it doesnât have the same background as a âGladiatorâ they could possibility make it work.
In terms of the Lightsmith Hero Talent Tree, it does not feel like an extension of the class as say the Mountain Thane does for Warriors, but itâs own stand alone build.
You get a new talent, new spell to your action bar, and an isolated tree that almost completely revolves around it.
I think this is going to make Lightsmith feel like bloat rather than a core customization.
And to a lesser extent, I think this will carry over to the Templar. Personally, I donât think there is this common, unanimous theme/spell fantasy within the Paladin Class that everyone would agree feels âTemplarâ in nature. That shared, core class trait, to expand off of.
Edit:
Example for reference:
Some Hero Talents do require you to take certain talents in your class or spec trees to access their powers. This is often because those talents fit the flavor and theme of that specific Hero Talent tree. The Mountain Thane warrior tree enhances Avatar and Thunder Clap , Templar paladin gives extra power to Wake of Ashes , and Eluneâs Chosen druids can cast a particularly strong Fury of Elune.
This was from the Early look post, which may be a typo, but noting that the Templar Paladin gives extra power to Wake of Ashes, and not Herald of the Sun, it brings up the questionâŚ
How many people associate Wake of Ashes with being a âTemplar?â
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I have a feeling they should just focus on an existing spell for each hero spec instead of trying to bring new ones. Prot/Holy could have been focused around blessings, Prot/Ret around judgement and Ret/Holy around WoG. Otherwise my fear is that youâll be right when you say:
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Paladins (prot and holy) are defensive warriors, allow us to defensd our allies through our offense.
Maybe give holy a reason to taunt mobs, that would be interesting gameplay if done well.
Anything besides these crappy options and place on the ground nonsense
Honestly, probably no one. Hell iâve even seen some people in complete disbelief that they are associated in any fashion. Even after reading the article.
I think the vast majority of people thought Templar was going to be more about the physical side of being a Paladin. More like an âArms Paladinâ, if that makes any sense. Iâve even seen people bring up the old non-canon RPG Templar. Personally i thought it was going to revolve around Divine Pony.
But after giving it some thought, i donât think Templar being associated with WoA (as opposed to Herald of the Sun) was a typo on Blizzards part. Because Templar Strikes does Radiant damage, and it is the only Paladin ability that naturally does so besides WoA.
Ret almost had 2 sub specs, a Physical build and a Radiant build. Similar to how Enh has a Physical build and an Elemental build. I think Templar is going to be Blizzards attempt at bringing the Radiant build back for Ret. They even been tinkering around with giving Prot fire damage lately, so it is definitely on their mind.
The question is wtf Herald of the Sun is going to be if Templar is going to be the Radiant build.
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templar the to go paladin type name and title, wake of ashes by far the most paladin fantasy theme spell we have used by tirion the OG templar. come on yall.
i know wake of ashes also as fire themes and thus can fit in the herald of the sun hero tree, but it also has equal amount of templar based theme based on its lore. the ability can fit in both hero trees without any issue. idk why people in this entire thread are making such a big deal about âthemesâ and the ânameâ of the hero talent as if it matters. cause frankly it doesnt? the hero names and the themes they have match the spec to a T
The only reason peoole want dladiator stance back is because it was broken. A powerhouse in pvp and outdpsing actual fuy and arms warriors during highmaul launch.
Blizzard nerfed the glyph and its damage and everyone stopped playingit. There is nothing to glad stance that people miss in terms if fantasy or âloreâ. They wanted an op spec and once said spec was nerfed they just abandoned it
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In regards to feedback it would be nice if you released the other two hero talents trees so we can see what your idea is for the spec (ret) as most people play ret.
Considering they released only 4 last time, I donât think theyâll release the other 2 for paladin soon, much less at the same time.
Now that being said, they did release these before the holidays so they might accelerate the pace now that everyone is back at work.
Because, from their own timeline, War Within could release this summer so there isnât that much time to get feedback, especially if there are trees such as Lightsmith that requires to be completely re-thought and remade.
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Yeah when I first saw the names previewed at Blizzcon, I thought that Herald of the Sun would be the Ret/Prot sub spec as Prot actually has had more âHoly Fireâ talents and Radiant set bonuses, than Holy has. Although Holy does have a lot of talent names associated with the Sun, they still never did radiant things.
Personally, I think it would be kindof disappointing if both Templar and Herald revolved around our radiant themed abilities.
While itâs unlikely, I am somewhat hopeful that this does allow Blizzard a chance to step back and look at talents such as this, and where they fit into the bigger picture of Paladins.
- vast majority thought templar was going to be more about the physical damageâŚ
- Templar strikes does Radiant damageâŚ
The themes and the concepts of Paladins feel a bit scattered right now, and that plays a big role in the design of these Hero talents as thatâs usually the basis to get started.
Design Process
Q: What was the process behind getting this system going? How did you get to picking things like Lightsmith or Herald of the Sun or Templars?
A: Very fun, but difficult. Sat in calls for hours to decide what makes sense. If we pick Lightsmith for this combo, what makes sense here? A lot of teams working together. Ultimately the 39 we sent in at Blizzcon are the ones we felt good about. Good to start with. Lightsmith you get that youâre going to make something out of light. Sanâlayn, very much Blood Death Knight. What are fun and cool design hooks for unholy as well? Fun, difficult process but also really fulfilling.
So yeah, legit questions are:
- What talents/spells in our Class should be associated with Lightsmith?
- What talents/spells in our Class should be associated with Herald of the Sun?
- What talents/spells in our Class should be associated with Templar?
And are the ones that were previewed in the Lightsmith build, fitting that description?
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I donât disagree that gladiator as it existed wasnât healthy but I donât agree with the idea that people only played it because it was OP. If there was a viable sword and board DPS spec plenty would play it as long as long as it did competitive DPS and they would do so long as it was at least somewhat competitive with their other available DPS specs. Plenty of players are willing to eat a few % DPS loss in exchange for fun or quality of life. I do it by not taking Vanguard of Justice unless Iâm really trying to parse, it just feels clunky to me.
It isnât surprising that when they nerfed it to the point of being worse than all other options, people picked other options. There is a reason that classes like Hunters and Rogues consistently have a huge disparity in spec selection when one of the three options is in the dumpster. I think, for the purposes of WoW, it would work but would have to be essentially another DPS spec with similar durability, the shield canât really be adding a significant amount of durability otherwise it causes issues. Realistically this shouldnât be a huge issue because block isnât particularly useful unless you are the target and aura buffs make things like the added armor manageable. Gladiator had a big flaw in that they added it under the prot umbrella rather than under fury or arms so they had to deal with trying to turn a prot warrior into a DPS within the prot talent tree. I think it would work much better to just make Arms or Fury 2h abilities work with a 1h weapon, then give them a talent that tunes their damage when using a 1h and shield. They wouldnât be able to queue as a tank or anything, they would still be a dps, just with a shield.
This isnât to say I think blizzard would be willing to do it, but I think the idea that they canât balance it or that it is some wildly challenging thing to make happen is not true. I just donât think blizzard is willing to dedicate the effort needed to make it happen under current leadership, theyâd rather focus on making something new for the store to maximize value extraction.
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Not really a fan of the whole picking stuff up off the ground idea - especially not as a core part of ALL of our hero talents!
If I had to give a suggestion for an alternative route to go, I would say something like modifying our existing healing talents to be more convenient to use (light of dawn Iâm looking at you)⌠maybe so we didnât have to gather everyone in our party/raid into one tiny little cone in order to heal them as one of our main aoe healing abilities.
Or hereâs a more creative suggestion - use an ability on hot key to place a âholy armamentâ around each person in our group which automatically adds holy damage to all their attacks/spells and heals them for x% of the holy damage dealt by them. Lasts y seconds duration. Cooldown - whatever, etc. etc.
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Maybe it was wishfull thinking but I thought they said beta was going to be live and testable in the spring. If so we are almost there. In interviews it was said that the foundations of all hero talents would be testable âearly in betaâ, so we should have more information soon. Iâm very excited to test beta, especially Paladin hero talents. Will they fix core gameplay like allowing Protection paladins consecration to follow them? Will Ret get a skill that includes instant mobility like Shadowstrike or Shadow Step like all the other melee have, maybe even a mortal strike like most specs have? The public cant know until the other hero talents are ready for testing. Hopefully they are not done tuning/moving/adding class and spec talents. Many talents either feel manditory for all content and might as well come baseline, or require too many talents to make one ability to feel good. I think some talent consolidation is in order. Combining talents that augment the ability w/ the ability just makes sence. If I need to spend a whole talent to have an interupt, why is there another whole talent point spent to give it a 3 yard range, the 3 yard range can be part of the base ability. Why are there 3 talents spent to make Steed still be the least effective mobility for pvp, remove steed modifiers and replace with instant mobity or at least make the 3 talent point version of steed cost 1 talent point if Steed will continue to not clear snares/roots/slows. It feels bad to use steed and catch a slow, then Blessing of Freedom the slow just to be stunned for the rest of the Freedom and Steed duration. Too many buttons pushed for too little movement. BoP or Divine Shield shouldnt be reqired just to walk at a normal pace or benefit from pressing Steed.
If I want to use Blessing of Spellwarding in pvp as Ret with a 4min CD I need to spend 2 class tree points AND a pvp talent, and If I use it, BoP is also put on CD for 4min AND Iâm still getting feared through Blessing of Spellwarding. Too many talent points spent to get too low of a benefit. Un-nerf the pvp talents we have, make them funtion like the tool tip suggests, or design some useful new ones.
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At this point in time, I would expect them to really ramp up the release.
Itâs fine to release them 4-5 at a time to focus attention on them and let all trees be digested by the community but time is running out to do that in a healthy way.
I fear they will release them all in 1 go and it will then be a cluster f*** of feedback.
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No.
No.
/10chars.
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If they have a team of people per specâŚit would maybe work. If they are as understaffed as the internet thinks, it was going to be a cluster anyway.
Fill me in WT* is 10/chars
I do not think they will come with mobility.
I do hope that we get a 2-hand/sheild hero talent though.
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