With the big expansive talent trees coming in dragonflight, I think it would be cool if ret pallies got a talent that lets them wield a two hander in one hand, like with the crusader’s passive skill Heavenly Strength in diablo 3. Thus allowing the ret paladin to also wear a shield.
The first and most important reason for this is that it would look very cool.
Secondly, I just think it would be neat to add an option for a bit more of a defensive playstyle.
Thirdly, we’ve got shield of the righteous sitting there not being used. It would be cool to include that in our play.
Fourthly, it kind of fills the hole left by gladiator stance’s absence but without causing the problem they cited for its removal. That being a tank spec wanting to play dps. This would still be dps spec, intending to play dps.
Fifthly, it would still look very cool.
Obviously balance would be an issue but that can easily be handled with some kind of damage reduction. In the case of Heavenly Strength it reduces all damage done by 20%. So they could start there.
Crusaders from Diablo 3 use a shield and 2H Flail, I can totally see it happening with Paladins, they already have a stolen Crusader ability, Divine Steed and Blessed Hammer.
It was just cool and different. The only class that came close to using a shield for dps are Shamans but like I said, they didn’t count but their shields are just a stat stick.
As a paladin main since cataclysm this would be amazing and cool. However Paladins are the most defensive based dps class in game. They have 1 baseline defensive cool down, one talent based defensive cool down, one invincibility to melee that can be swapped via talents to magic immunity, a divine shield that prevents all damage. On top of these defensive abilities don’t forget the aura’s like Devotion Aura that reduces damage by 3%.
On top of the defensive based utility options to them that have a good amount of healing for a dps based spec. Holy word for healing, Flash of light for quick spammable casting heals, as well as Lay on Hands which is the strongest healing spell in game. Not including any talents that may provide more healing or defensive based abilities.
Due to this high suvrability spike and our amazing burst damage with decent sustain damage as well as decent aoe damage our only fall back is mobility which compared to death knights and warriors it isn’t that bad. We can slow our enemies, we can stun our enemies, we can increase our movement speed in a short span while being on a mount which is the quickest form of non mount movement though the shortest span of a mobility buff.
Blizzard already struggles balancing this class. Giving them a base line shield will allow them to use shield of righteousness which isn’t charge based like the protection spec allowing them to reduce damage, recover health, and dish out damage at will with the 3 holy power charge.
If this was to happen as you want Blizzard would continue to nerf our sustain or potentially burst damage or something else on the surviable side. This doesn’t seem like a good compromise when a simple macro could swap between 2h weapon and 1h weapon and shield at will with the click of a keybind.
Ummm…I don’t know, sure ret can use shield of the righteous but I would argue it’s more of a vestigial ability that doesn’t do anything(well it does but not something meaningful or maybe I just suck at ret) So if it is not really effective then it’s not really utility or mobility, which is what rets needs desperately. I say give them ability to dual wield 2h weapons and some utility, hell just for compromise you can skip the mobility if you want.
We have a lot of utility for ourselves and our allies as Retribution paladins. We lose out on mobility due to having the best survability as a dps spec.
I’m 202 item level, my armor is at 1,158. Shield of righteousness does 654 damage (barely nothing) for 1936 armor for 4.5 seconds. Perhaps if increased to 8 seconds it would be worthy to use. But thats like 1.5x amount of armor on top of what i already have.
Before my break a ret paladin burst could insta kill any range player within half of the duration of their 5 second stun, Kill a melee in the full duration of their stun.
All DPS classes have one weakness(some more) that people can work around. Can you imagine juggernaut coming at you at mach 5?( Some might think “you mean warriors?” no they have weakness too.) No, terminators with more mobility will be nightmare.
As for ret being able to use shields, I honestly never thought about it. Hell I never thought that was even on the table. If someone asked me “what do rets need the most?” My answer wouldn’t be shields.
My problem with that is giving an option for an additional piece of equipment will make that talent mandatory as that would be a huge increase in primary and secondary stats, not to mention adding a little bit of block value as well. It would be a stat stick.
If you were wanting ret to have a sword and board option, then it would need to be a talent that let them perform their abilities with a 1h and shield.
