also paladins in general are trash in pvp whereas classes like shamans dominate so much that 50% of horde bg teams are shamans. thoughts on pvp class balancing tho?
1 Like
…An “Extra attack” that cost them 1/4 of their mana, on a 20 second CD.
Yes, such kit.
Much wow.
And HoJ
And Judgement
And Repentance
And Hammer of Wrath
The priest you stunned isn’t going to Dispel themselves.
The pally I frost shock can just dispell themselves, they don’t even need to use BoF.
They weren’t meant to be serious.
Adding book whole abilities was bad in the first place. Adding more of them would be worse.
Your class was given about the same number of abilities than the Shaman in the first place.
Shaman: Lava Lash or Lava Burst or Molten Blast (All on the same rune)
Earth Shield or Shammy Rage, or Ancestral Guidance
And Riptide.
Paladins got Crusader Strike
Exorcism or Avenger’s Shield (same rune)
Divine Storm
Holy Wrath or Hammer of the Righteous
Paladins already had the best defensive kit in the game, they had an offensive CC kit bested only by Rogue. (Nobody else can CC someone for 11-12 straight seconds on instant casts.)
Paladins got a bit more defensive kit, and a LOT more offensive damage kit.
Shamans had basically zero kit in either direction, and they got a MASSIVE boost to their offensive damage kit, aggression based self healing for defensive kit, and still nothing for CC kit.
All of this to say, there are some tweaks that could be made to the paladin kit. (Something that gives them a bit of sustain damage without increasing their burst. Their burst is absolutely fine for a class that has so much defensive kit too, but their sustain PvE could use a bump in engagement.)
BUT NO MORE COMBAT ABILITY BOOKS.
I would say the ONLY thing that Paladins deserve a skillbook for currently is Rebuke, having to choose between our Cornerstone DPS rune and an interrupt is kinda strange.
Crusader strike needs a buff. Change the cooldown from 6 seconds to 4 seconds so we can cast it more often and get more mana return for our really costly abilities like Consecrate which are neccessary to cast on any AoE encounter and is practically our only AoE ability we can use consistently with 2h equipped. Weapon swapping to use HotR is fun but not really ideal.
Divine storm needs a major buff, probably increase its weapon damage from 110% to 150% weapon damage, or increase the amount of targets it strikes. Currently its just a better option to choose SoM if you plan on doing any DPS as a paladin, Divine storm will quite literally hold you back and there is a better alternative which is using a 1hander with HotR.
1 Like
I really hate that Blizzard™ added a cooldown to HoJ. We used to be able to spam it like sheep, or fear.
Wait we didn’t? Where am I? What year is it?
I don’t really know either. I just don’t like it when mommy and daddy are fighting over who’s class sucks harder. I’m really hoping Sunwalkers end up being a thing. Ret looks like fun, and 90% of the threads in here are all about how angry people are someone’s class looks better.
Is ret supposed to be top of the heap PvE damage? PvP? CC? Hpally/Prot, things look OK - I just wanna know what is a Ret pally supposed to do better than anyone?
Most of what I see are really great moustaches and people on both sides telling others how awful their classes are. I like warrior and druid. Even when it’s P2, and the only hit you can find on wrists has 58 armor and 8 spellpower on it, and everything’s swinging at crotch height.
shrug
-Horse
I don’t know, but I would like to not be relegated to meme-tier in raids for not having two specific hyper-fast two handed weapons.
If I wanted Ret to be the low-mobility, NPC buffer, bottom of the barrel DPS spec I would have just stuck to ERA.
The identity is definitely messed up right now. I don’t mind the fast 2h meta, though I can see why people wouldn’t like it. I think it’s gone too far with HotR making 1h+shield do the most DPS.
OP is completely reasonable asking for Crusader Strike to refresh all judgements on the target- I’m not sure why this isn’t a thing already. I can see why people would jump on the other stuff since there are PVP implications, so I’ll avoid talking about it.
The damage output and utility on SoM (when the mana regen gets buffed tomorrow) makes it non-negotiable if you’re going to be brought to the raid. Command is kind of a meme in comparison, when you look at consistent damage output. This means that Divine Storm is pretty much off the table.
There’s also the elephant in the room, HotR. I’m sure people won’t like me saying this, but it’s obviously overtuned, which is part of the reason the Ret Paladins are using it. This rune probably needs a nerf to its damage output.
The other issue is that competing wrist runes are literal garbage. Instant cast Hammer of Wrath for 300 mana- it’s the same issue that the original art of war rune had. We go OOM almost instantly when you reach that 10% phase and can spam it. The Holy Wrath rune isn’t any better, since there’s still a cast time interrupting weapon swing and rooting you into place.
I propose 4 possible fixes:
-
Move Divine Storm to the wrist rune slot.
-
Allow HotR to be used with a 2h for a damage or cooldown penalty.
-
Rework Improved Hammer of Wrath. Keep the instant cast and remove the 10% hammer spam. Replace it with a Sudden Death type PPM that lets us throw a free hammer regardless of target HP.
-
Remove the cast time when using the Holy Wrath rune, allow Art of War to reduce remaining CD on Holy Wrath when it procs. Probably need the rune to reduce mana cost on Holy Wrath, too.
Any of these changes could potentially get Ret back to 2h gameplay. Maybe there are better ways to do it, but something needs to change.
2 Likes
I feel bad yall have to deal with fast attack speed memery, that crap is bunk.
1 Like
Overwhelming community response asking for Slow 2h gameplay back
Blizz: Buffs Seal of Martyrdom and fast attack speed gameplay again. “Yeah this is what they want.”
4 Likes
At the end of the day, its still just lolret we’re talking about here…
-
You have a stunning moustache, sir. Seriously, I think all night elves without exception are breathing apparatuses for creepy eyebrows. Way better.
-
At all percentiles, ret pallies are 9/14, 50% 13/14, 75% 9/14 again - Archon has you guys listed up top at 7/14. All within 100 damage of 10 specs a week of open. I wouldn’t describe you as “meme tier” damage, I think there seem to be a pretty rigid playstyle constraints I know for sure those weren’t fun for me P2. Sounds like I’m hitting a little closer? Why do you think there’s a dip in the curve there like that? Is it just the weapons? Is it the weapons and the interactions with other parts of your kit?
-
You guys were 7/14 at the end of P2 - was that OK, or do you think that ideally you should be higher on the boards than that at the end of a phase? I am legitimately asking. If you tell me you should be able to give everyone in your raid their USRDA of Vitamin D and me a creepy mole that changes shape every time you cast HoW, I want to understand.
-
Looking at the logs I definitely see some favorites, including SulThraze and ACP which aren’t to y’all’s liking because of RNG. I also see some things that won’t work for everyone Parasomnia (too slow at 3.4s), Flurry Axe (BoE epic) - is there a reason that Whisper (paladin quest 2h mace), thrash blade (Maraudon sword), or Inventor’s Focal Sword aren’t options to retribution paladins? I saw this post…
Which goes back to the class identity bit.
It’s OK - Aggrend bought everybody a pair of Blankmaster’s Handguards and a fear ward, and you woulda thought it was the killer bees coming our way. Thanks for bringing it up.
I would love to see Paladin - especially Ret, and Druid given less of a “rune slot per armor piece” and more of a “Wrath style glyph board” - if there are combinations that needed to be blocked out, so be it, but for hybrid classes like you guys, I love the freedom Warrior’s just gotten and it kinda makes me sad to see that the fact that you can play as 1h+shield or fast 2h means one has to be wrong. I get that you’d rather lay the smackdown with a 2h rather than a 1h + shield, but, OTOH, I’m kind of at the mercy of the gear that’s available to me sometimes too. Like Phase 2. Which… …sucked.
This definitely sounds less spastic from a third person point of view.
Part of it also, guys, and I hate to be the one to tell you this, is if you look at the sod logs for the raid tier that’s been out for a week? The difference between DPS Paladin at 42-44 item level and 51-53 item level is 9 ranks. So it may take a week or two to gather some gear. I hope you get the buffs you want, no matter what, but, coming from a warrior? Sometimes you have to work a lockout or two before the raid engine works the right way.
And I’m a big dumb animal, and it’s OK to yell at me. But I think you guys need some gear in addition to whatever needs to change.
-Horse
PS: Thank you Smoff and Easygoesz - that was a helpful read. Thank you for helping me “get it” a lil bit.
1 Like
The heal is 1.5 seconds that is relevant in pvp and heals for about 1100 damage on crit which if you are spec’d into divine favor you can get ever 2m.
Otherwise its 550 reliably with some + spell damage gear to boost our pvp damage.
550 is one swing from an enhance shaman(running dual windfury) on plate and just over two dot ticks from a shadowpriest.
1100 can keep you up for abit longer but what caster at this point doesnt have a hardcasted ability that can crit at least for that much?
If your using holy light then you better be backline since everyone has an interrupted and even with 5/5 spiritual focus and concentration aura(100% pushback) you will have someone use an ability on you to stop that cast.
Occasionally if the horde are bad and its a huge battle at blacksmith and they arent paying attention you can heal while being in the middle of the fight but its rare and the 1400-1600 heal is about enough to keep someone up another 3-4 seconds in this pvp meta.
Meaning you probably have to spam it to keep someone up and if your team isnt overpoweringly strong and running the horde off of blacksmith in 5-10 seconds then people will notice and interrupt it.
You can however do good healing if your healing someone or people who arent being focus fired from bubble.
Blessing of Freedom with the priest shaman meta is only good to get someone out of a roots or snare initially, its usually purged within a cpl globals, so you might get lucky an absorb a frost nova in that time or a frostbolt frost shock if the opposing horde were for some reason going to drop another snare ontop of someone who already had a snare.
Generally I dont freedom people who have 1-2 seconds left of a snare on them, unless one of the two parties is less than 10% and it looks like it could tip the balance.
But freedom isnt the ticket to ride against all snare/roots that people think it is.
Bubble is a gimmick, can be clutch once every 5m and allow you to chase someone down if your ontop of them, or do some healing in a group setting for 12 seconds. If you see the bubble be reasonable and dont be near them.
Also if the guy bubbled to kill you and both of you were at 10% hp, realize he probably did that bc he thought he didnt have the upper hand and he wont again if you see him for the next 5m.
Damage reduction on a party member. Divine sacrifice is the version that is the best variant of this and theres so much better on legs, exorcist, rebuke, avengers shield, inspiring exemplar.
Also even if the paladin is running divine sacrifice(which cant be used with bubble), its generally only maybe workable if its a 2v2 and the opposing classes dont do that much damage which generally doesnt happen in SoD pvp. Nobody has the healthpool to be using divine sacrifice.
Also blessing of sanctuary 13 damage reduction, with rune is 26 damage reduction per hit. This is nice against locks/spriest sometimes a rogue if they jump a plate user. But it isnt going to save someone, and also can be purged. But it likely wont bc the damage reduction wont be noticeable.
Blessing of Sacrifice, 45 damage transferred to caster. This is good if your on the backline and expecting to be sheeped, sapped, or wyvern stung. Otherwise 45 damage a hit in this meta wont reduce the damage people are taking by more than 10% unless its a rogue on plate or priest/lock.
Cleanse is definately good however in large scale pvp you cant cleanse and heal with how much damage people are taking.
Also cleanse if you want to use it effectively in group PvP needs to be spammed against any caster otherwise you will probably cleansing hoping to get the debuff off you but gambling you get the right one out of 5. This means global locking yourself at least for various parts of the fight and your probably running around just auto attacking at best and draining your mana.
Your basically telling people using the Dps version of this class to not dps. (Which is their point they want to do damage in PvP.) The support abilities listed can do alot but arent dominating broken game winners and have severe limitations.
The only thing that is really strong that is borderline broken in 1v1, is bubbling with a stack of 5 reckoning and using swiftness pot(1g) and chasing down some caster spamming their dps runes.
Thats only useful if your vengefully going after someone and not caring about the broader battle. And in fairness whats to say they dont have a swiftness pot also? There’s rules about using potions in duels.
Even if their damage is buffed the class is so bad they will just be cc’d even with bubble.
Something an orc warrior doesnt know much about with their FAP, berserker rage and occasional use of Skull if they are trying out fury
The weapons are a symptom, the kit is a disaster. Most of it is residual effect from how Paladins were created in Classic.
There is a bunch of stuff happening that just kind of sucks, and I’m not saying everything needs to be addressed because I don’t have the answers.
From a Ret perspective:
Spell Power coefficients are only attached to Seal of Command (Seal and Judgement Damage), Consecration, Exorcism and Holy Wrath… and the coefficients are extremely poor. The highest of which is 0.46% (aka 100 SP = 46 bonus damage).
Seal of Martyr is normalized to 3.3 weapon speed, essentially being a steroid for any weapon quicker than 3.3 speed. It procs Art of War which makes this seal required but somehow it doesn’t have a Spell Power coefficient attached to it at all.
The Seal of Command/Divine Storm setup drains mana in 3-4 rotations, and in general the damage is extremely low. We can’t buff Divine Storm damage without serious PvP implications.
Our only self-defense is Divine Shield, the bane of the average casual Warcraft player. “Plate” armor means pretty much nothing in SoD when rogues and enhancement shamans can shred you in seconds.
Using an x/14 ranking is slightly misleading since many classes have 3 dps specs in their arsenal, and in a raid usually players will move toward the highest of them. Also it’s too early to make that call. We saw the same situation in P1: Pallies got their high-end/BIS weapon early, looked good on paper then fell off a cliff as soon as the other classes caught up in gear.
1 Like
Right now on wcraft logs we’re 10/14 for dps.
I dont even mind being 14/14 for dps but having a top end that can theoretically be within 5% of 1-3 on the meters is all that really needs to happen to be invited to raids, otherwise you are gatekept or running in a dad roster that probably wont clear the last two bosses and might take so long that people bail after 1.5-2 hrs.
Also in PvP the class should really be restructured away from the fast attacking idea. If someone is healing the person the paladin is fighting its pretty easy since there isnt burst, unless your saying screw the exorcism spam and running reckoning and also conveniently have a rogue stabbing your backside.
Compared to an overload lava burst for an easy 2k or a chaos bolt or a hot streak spamming mage. (Arcane surge is a meme)
The thing with Blankmaster’s Hand guards and fear ward is that alliance had those advantages and they were given away for nothing in return.
Aggrend’s justification is that the rep bonus that humans kept is strong enough reason to play alliance since they can get ahead on the rep grind. This shows that Aggrend views alliance as a faction for more casual players that arent interested in parsing and more interested in finishing their repgrind so they can do something they are interested in irl.
People who want to jump rogues in duels and priests in raids will be the only people playing human seriously.
I’ve noticed I can handle myself better just running Paranoia and SoM in PvP, instead of Sul’Thraze or ACP. It’s also ideal to use the slower sword to prevent you from killing yourself from a shamans lightning shield (balanced).
1 Like
According to aggrend there is a “Narrow” gap between using SoM and using DS/SoC.
Someone please show this man the actual numbers and show him that there’s about a 200DPS difference between the two playstyles, which is a MASSIVE gap by any standard.
DS/SoC = 950 Dps in WoWSims
SoM = 1150 Dps in WoWSims
1 Like
I think it’s perfectly ok for SoC/DS to be the pvp build. The rotation itself leaves alot to be desired since it provides no mana regen and DS is costly. and then you ahve the open GCD’s where you’re just standing there not even doing anything…
Both builds have their own issues that would well served by a new ramping/stacking type of attack that can fill in those empty GCD’s and give something to build up to press that feels good. pressing a “Zeal” as I described in my original post, would feel very similar to landing a sweal twist, all the swing popping up and critting. but it also works like a builder/spender which is what a lot of the cata/retail players lean towards.
I’m going to get this out of my system before I get back to the part where I go back to listening and attempting to be supportive:
Hot take here, but humans with maces and humans with swords aren’t the only kinds of humans there are out there. There are plenty of caster types who aren’t priests who are going to enjoy Wand Specialization, which was never a racial - it was a talent - or orc’s axe and fist weapon spec which wasn’t even an option to orcs this expansion, and polearm spec, which wasn’t ever a thing to anyone period. And humans keep their sword and mace spec same as they did before and it is still just as worthless in PvP. Everyone gets the same +3% to hit/crit end game raiding they de facto enjoyed in level up raiding, and almost everyone - including the vast majority of humans - gets a buff.
Weapon skill does not, and has not ever mattered in PvP content. +0.2 hit/crit may sound like something better than a stick in the eye until one one realizes five defense negated it.
Fear ward was not a human racial and humans are not owed anything in return for it being given to them, but please enjoy it and Devouring Plague, Shadowguard, and all the other priest goodies if you’re a priest enjoyer. Humans got “feedback.” You’re getting it now too.
So I’m not taking any of the “giving humans’” racials away” seriously. Too many humans use wands or daggers or axes and everybody here can share and we can balance the game based on how our kits work not what kind of weapon happens to be BiS this week.
Weren’t you guys just complaining about having to get FotM gear or farm Bull’Fraise the Elector and you’re asking for more restrictions or I have to acknowledge some vague human grudge?
4 static weapon specialties is your racial. Remains unchanged. Enjoy having weapon mastery with virtually anything you can equip until you can get back to town at which point it becomes anything you can equip as a paladin.
I welcome counter arguments, but unless your arguments for “human racials” include the words “which wasn’t really our racial,” “I can see how a lot of healers and casters could benefit” and “you know, come to think of it f ar ward would be nice to have on human priests who minmaxed for Human Spirit, good for them.”
I am happy for all of you who take advantage of this system. For those who do not, and don’t at any time touch an axe or a polearm, please let me know where you are, I will come over, and hug you, and you will stink like hay and a guy who used to repair antique watches recreationally (cavendish, coal tar soap, and justice).
Honestly, if you want to fast forward, click the “average item level” group. It looks really good.
I am 45 and never know if meme is good or bad.
Warrior. This I know. Makes sense. Doesn’t sound fun. And while I’m glad there is a way to play ret in Vanilla that isn’t dreadful, it sounds like 1h/shield would be the way I’d go if I were playing PvE
I think he’s using his idealized crystal ball of gear frustration which assumes you win rolls. This can be intensely frustrating as it calls in the category of “armor I’m not wearing doesn’t help me” which I am sympathetic to.
That said, my husband brought me a printout of that tweet to my desk as I am recovering from the Worst Flu Ever, and I cheered.
So I’m hoping there’s some divine light at the end of the tunnel here. PvP, I’m just going to have to play paladin, which I will not unless Sunwallers are a thing.
That’s not what he balances by. And I was happy for this just like I was happy for the “Just Kiddin’” nerfs a while back that didn’t go in for pally.
-Horse
Waiting to see some changes for Holy Wrath.
The spell is basically not utilized at all to my knowledge, even with the Purifying Power rune.
The 2 sec cast is just unsustainable with paladins current fast swinging gameplay, both for 1h and 2h.
I made a separate post about it but my suggestion was that AoW should proc Holy Wrath to be instant cast, Albiet still with its normal CD, don’t want it to be OP, just want the ability to be able to be used.
1 Like
I think that would be cool, especially in the open world. One of the things I wonder about is what Rey feels like to farm, how much downtime on S,M,L foes and the stuff between.
I low key hate the “gaxe “ and wish you guys had a nice belf style instant pull tool with a horrible dad joke flavor text entry.
Hammer of Hammer - 2 mana - nailed it.
-Horse
1 Like