Ideas for support paladin spec

Classes Paladin
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Since the devs have visibly batted around the idea of a paladin support spec, I figure I should spitball some concepts that popped into my head about how a support spec could work—a spec that is to paladins what Augmentation is to Evokers.

Judicator would probably be a good name for it—and yes, I’m totally borrowing from D4 with that.

One of the first things that occurred to me was how, back during Classic and TBC, paladins had a whole slew of buff spells they could cast on allies in their Greater Blessings: Salvation, Light, Wisdom, Might, and depending on spec, Kings and Sanctuary. A support spec could bring back some of these, at least in name, again with the caveat that only one Greater Blessing per paladin could be active per target.

My first thought was that they could attach one secondary stat to each blessing, but then I realized: that’d be redundant with Mark of the Wild’s versatility effect. So my second thought was: Blessing of Might could boost attack power, Blessing of Wisdom could boost spell power, and Blessing of Light could boost healing received.

I had another idea that involved a talent that, if I’m being honest, I would’ve preferred to see the devs put out there for Holy—a talent that could allow Holy paladins to either be melee or ranged, and that would take out the current de facto requirement that Holy paladins wield shields and takes away Holy paladins’ freedom to wield 2H weapons: a very early mandatory talent choice node with these two options:

Libram of Strength: gain the ability Holy Strike, a melee attack with no cooldown that deals Holy damage and generates Holy Power, replacing Crusader Strike. Also gain the ability Shine of the Righteous, which replaces Shield of the Righteous and consumes 3 holy power, dealing significant damage to your main target and small damage to all nearby targets, and does not require wielding a shield to cast.

Libram of Wisdom: gain the ability Holy Bolt, a ranged hard-cast spell with no cooldown that deals Holy damage and generates Holy Power, replacing Crusader Strike. Also gain the ability Denounce, which replaces Shield of the Righteous and consumes 3 holy power, dealing ranged single-target damage.

The fact that Denounce remains a PvP talent and hasn’t been made a PvE talent is one of many things that makes me feel like the devs left Holy paladins’ kits half-baked now that the Midnight pre-patch is live, and I figure: making it a PvE talent for Judicators would likely be a good step in the direction of making it a PvE talent for Holy. The fact that Shield of the Righteous is our only damaging finisher also makes Holy feel half-baked; the ability to receive 2H weapons as rewards and passives in our talent trees both mean that requiring us to wield a shield is more than a little broken. Not to mention: Holy paladin players would be a lot happier if they had similar ranged-vs-melee talents, and implementing that for Judicator would again be a good step in the direction of getting it working for Holy, as well.

But I digress. A choice node like this would allow Judicator paladins to do their supporting either from the frontlines or from a distance, and I think that’d add a lot the fun-factor!

The blessing spells and these builder and spender abilities could be made to interact with each other, as well: imagine if each of the three blessings of might, wisdom, and light, each increase attack power/spell power/healing received by 3% by default, but after you cast Holy Bolt or Holy Strike, you gain a buff that lasts 5 seconds called Testimony that adds another percent to the effect of your blessings—a 4% boost to healing received/spell power/attack power instead of a 3% boost, as long as you maintain your Testimony self-buff.

Similarly, there could be yet another self-buff you get after casting Denounce/Shine of the Righteous that lasts 10 seconds called Arraignment that adds yet another percent to the effect of your blessings: a 5% boost to spell power/healing received/attack power instead of a 3% boost if both self-buffs are maintained.

I’d also thought of an optional talent called Key Witness where, if you cast Flash of Light to heal someone other than yourself, you gain a charge of Holy Power, and refresh the Testimony self-buff the same way Holy Bolt/Holy Strike would. Healing probably shouldn’t be out of the question for a paladin support spec.

One more idea was how Seals could make a comeback: imagine a variety of Seal spells like in Classic or TBC, but the difference is: they all share a 30-second cooldown and can be cast on others to have different effects. Seal of Light could be a powerful HoT. Seal of Command could provide cleave. Seal of Truth could provide a holy DoT when the ally casts spells on or autoattacks enemies—or HoTs when the ally casts heals on allies. Seal of the Crusader could provide a moderate haste buff. Seal of Righteousness could augment Mastery. Seal of Fury might reduce damage taken. The list goes on. This would provide a dynamic system of buffs to help other players in a variety of situations, kind of like our short-term blessings (Protection/Sacrifice/Freedom), only on steroids.

I don’t know if any of these are too complex or klunky as concepts, but I figure bringing these ideas up so they can be reacted to and discussed is better than not bringing them up.

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I do think, if they were serious about a Paladin support spec, they should lean hard into the stuff that already existed at one point. The current Blessings are the remnants of what became the “Hand” spells (Hand of Sacrifice, Freedom and Protection), but the many other old Blessings could be reworked and brought into the modern game as part of a support kit. I feel like Blessing of Kings would have to be the centerpiece, as that was probably the most in-demand overall buff, but salvation, sanctuary, might and wisdom could all be reimagined.

As for a central mechanic, I would love not only some new version of the Seal/Judgment system, but skill expression through intentional Seal Twisting, and a spec designed around maximizing the gameplay potential of that. To the point where your centerpiece major cooldown might just let you spam judgement with no cooldown for a short while so you could twist in your entire library of seals.

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give me a support spec with me and the damn horse pls. calavary or some crap. i love my horse and we’ll get the mobility we need lol.

:cherries:

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Honestly, I’d forgotten what a difference Judgment debuffs could make in Classic, TBC, and WotLK.

To make it work for a support spec, Seals would probably need to work either when you cast Holy Strike or when you cast Holy Bolt, so they could work either when you’re in melee or when you’re at range. Honestly, back during WoD, I was an advocate of making seals work with the Denounce spell we had at the time (which was a lot like Holy Bolt back then), hoping to make Seals relevant for Holy again. At the time, I figured Seal of Truth could apply a DoT when you cast Denounce, Seal of Righteousness could give us a then-sorely-needed AoE damage tool (Consecration wasn’t baseline then), and Seal of Insight could’ve had some other effect, like reducing the mana cost of Denounce to zero.

But here and now, for a support paladin spec, each seal would need to have some benefit for the group. Pulsing healing to them is the obvious one, but I feel like there’d need to be buffs strong enough to make one or more members of the group intentionally change something about what they’re doing in order for it to really be impactful for a support spec. Maybe the party or raid member you’re standing closest to would gain +7% Mastery while you have Seal of Righteousness, or +7% Haste while you have Seal of the Crusader. (I’m picking a relatively high number like 7 because it’s only one target you’d be affecting.)

Judgment debuffs would need to be impactful as well; Judgment of the Crusader would probably need to cause the target to be 3% more likely to receive critical hits—or, more likely, it’d buff allies who attack the target to gain a temporary +3% crit chance buff; that implementation would encourage healers to attack enemies at least once to gain the buff.

These are just spitballed ideas off the top of my head; I know that the game has changed so much that the Judgment debuffs of Vanilla won’t fly today. I mean, enemies don’t flee when they’re low on health, so Judgment of Justice’s “target won’t flee” effect has no place in the game. Resources like mana and energy are already carefully tuned by the devs, so Judgment of Wisdom’s mana restoration doesn’t have a place in the game. The Judgment of Light talent was recently removed, so it doesn’t really have a place, either. Powerful, game-changing, mutually-exclusive debuffs that would make a party glad to have a Judicator (or Cavalry) paladin along are possible, but they’d need to be very different from what they were in Classic.

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Support spec paladin should 200% involve preexisting blessings and auras. Get back to paladin roots and what the class is. Judgments, blessings, auras.

Wisdom, Might, Light (for the tanks) or Sanctuary. Empowered devotion aura with actual visuals. Judgements that enhance melee swings, mana returns, trickle heals, etc

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I don’t like the idea of a fourth spec, for ANY class. But I do admit it is quite tempting a Support Paladin. This would finally be the light-damned melee "support” that many paladin players cherish without affecting the intricacies of holy.

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And Kings!

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Once upon a time, Kings was the deepest and costliest talent in the Retribution tree. Patch 1.9 moved it to a shallow talent in Protection, even though it would’ve made more sense to move it to Holy and give Protection the Consecration damage-button that Holy got at the time. (It was honestly like the devs were trying to prevent Protection from tanking during classic!) Finally they made it a trainable ability in WotLK after much pushing and prodding from players.

If they do bring Kings back, I hope it’s in a form that’s different from what it was; it was simply a primary stat boost. While that could have a place in today’s game, I feel like a more dynamic system of buffs would be more fun. And at least it wouldn’t be redundant with Mark of the Wild anymore :slight_smile:

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Oh for sure. I’d want them to bring back all the classic abilities but completely rework them top to bottom. Our only template for a “support spec” so far is Augvoker, and while I’m sure they would be able to do a lot of neat unique things with Paladin, I feel like we’d have to start with the framework of Augvoker to get an idea of what they’d be trying to accomplish.

So firstly it would have to be a DPS spec, rather than a healer or tank spec, but it would do a good chunk of its damage by buffing party members. In my head, I imagine Blessing of Kings being the Ebon Might equivalent, sort of the iconic main maintenance buff of the spec that serves as their primary way of fulfilling their role.

Blessings of Might, Wisdom, Sanctuary and Salvation could (very roughly) map onto Prescience, Source of Magic, Blistering Scales, and Timelessness. Not that I’d want a 1/1 equivalent of Augvoker, but just in terms of general capability, we have main stat increases, crit increase, mana return for healer, damage reduction, and threat reduction.

I feel like these Blessings are a very good utility base for a support paladin. Add in a reworked Seal/Judgment system and you’re most of the way to a very complete class already.

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All of that sounds good; I’d hoped that maintaining maximum benefit from blessings by maintaining Testimony each time you cast a builder and maintaining Arraignment each time you cast a spenders would be conducive to being both a DPS-er and a buffer.

I also hope they manage to make it either a ranged or a melee spec; that kind of flexibility is what Holy really needs, and honestly, I think it’d be possible to build a support spec that’s either-or, too.

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