Hi, all. I have already participated quite a bit in Dragonflight paladin threads, but I wanted to collect my thoughts one last time and in my own place before our talent trees come out. So without further ado…
What is missing in the paladin aesthetic?
Thor says to Odin, “She’s too strong. Without my hammer I can’t…”
Odin replies, “Are you Thor, the god of hammers?”
The overemphasis on hammers is almost comical at this point, the most egregious example being Judgment, Hammer of Wrath, and Vanquisher’s Hammer: the red 30-yd range hammer, the blue 30-yd range hammer, and the green 30-yd range hammer. I think Judgment should return to its original animation where it dropped on top of the target’s head (it was changed to mimic HoW when HoW was removed from the game during Legion). It would still be a hammer of course, but at least we would have a variety of hammers. As for Vanquisher’s Hammer, this is a covenant ability that I don’t think needs to be brought back. It’s kind of fun in PvP, but that probably has more to do with its power than its mechanics.
When Divine Storm was first introduced, it had this sick lightning aftereffect that made it feel like, well, a storm. Now the animation is solely a storm of hammers, one that personally I find a little cartoony. Whoever designed crusaders in D3 really captured the divine judgment aesthetic that I feel is lacking in modern WoW paladins.
I also think the Holy aspect is missing a little bit from modern Ret. When I think Prot, I think lots of hammers (and shields obviously). When I think Ret, I think strikes with a big 2H. When I think Holy, I think about taking the Light and just blasting the target with it. What I’m getting at is I really miss Exorcism. My paladin would pull his weapon back in his left hand while he extended his right to swing the Light. I feel like that class fantasy, that we’re not only part warrior but also part priest, is somewhat absent from paladin DPS abilities right now. I also miss obliterating warlock pets in PvP.
Our anti-evil fantasy could use some work
I mentioned Exorcism from an aesthetic standpoint, but it would also add a lot to our class fantasy. There are so many different ways it could be brought back: talenting into it replaces BoJ, separate rotational ability, separate ability but it only works against demons, undead, and aberrations… But whatever the approach, the important thing is seeing that automatic crit and hearing that howl made me very much feel like a paladin. (It also dates back to WC2 paladins.)
One more quick note on Exo and aesthetics before I move onto the rest of our anti-evil kit. Imagine a talent (that you don’t necessarily have to take) that greatly increases the radius of Consecration and makes it so when you stand in it, BoJ hits multiple targets. So you get that Holy vibe I was talking about earlier by sanctifying the ground, which in turn enables a bunch of blades of Light to erupt from said ground to impale your foes. Then there would be a follow-up talent that replaces BoJ with Exorcism — now when the ground is consecrated, you instead perform a mass exorcism.
That idea is hyper specific and not important in and of itself. What I’m really getting at is it’s cool when abilities have synergy with each other and when there’s a lot of class fantasy involved.
Moving onto Turn Evil, this ability makes me a little frustrated. It was brought back in the name of unpruning, but an outdated version was used (similar issues with auras btw). Every other situational CC (not usable on humanoids) has a 30-yd range and is spammable. Turn Evil used to be spammable, but had a 15-sec CD tacked onto it during this weird era when there was a talent that let it be cast on humanoids, which included players. Seeing as how that talent doesn’t exist anymore…
Another issue with Turn Evil is it’s not useful when it should be. Hunters can fear druids whenever the druid is in a form, but you’re telling me it’s not allowed for me to fear a Lichborne DK? Even though the whole point of TE is an ability that works against a creature type immune to normal fears? Even though a priest can still counter Lichborne with Shackle? Honestly this nerf to TE was probably an oversight, but that’s frustrating too. On top of this, the Shadow Priest PvP talent Psyfiend was changed from an aberration to…a totem, which means it’s immune to all CC. Look, Shadow has a bunch of good PvP talents. Maybe in arena they just shouldn’t take this one against paladins, or they could try using cross CC? A much more subtle change would have been to make Pysfiend immune to stuns and regular fears, but susceptible to abilities like Turn Evil and Cyclone.
Anyway, it’s time to be moving on to the next section. But first: add aberrations to the creature types that get stunned by Wake of Ashes, and when a creature does get stunned have the snare be applied after the stuns ends. Then add flavor abilities Sense Demon and Sense Aberration to go along with Sense Undead. I could see these being used in a paladin quest or challenge one day (warlock green fire, mage tower, that sort of thing).
Oh, and there should be just a little bit of that Scarlet Crusade flavor somewhere in the Ret tree. I don’t want it to be the entire fantasy, but there is that fine line that paladins and Ret in particular walk between justice and vengeance, between devotion and fanaticism. Avenging Wrath popping when an ally dies is sort of that, but not exactly…
Improving the rotation
Wow, those last two sections, with all that really important stuff like Turn Evil, took a lot out of me. I’m gonna try to keep this one short and sweet.
Crusader Strike feels really bad to press and I would argue it hasn’t been a satisfying ability since TBC. It feels fine for Holy because it’s the only strike in a thin rotation, but there’s a reason that for Prot it’s replaced by HotR. I suggest BoJ do the same for Ret. In its place we could have Hammer of Wrath as a regular rotational ability that is empowered during Wings and execute phases, or Exorcism, or just shorter cooldowns on our other generators.
Beyond that, the most important issue I see with the rotation is that Art of War is pretty dull at the baseline. The proc is normalized, if that’s the right word, and all it does is allow us to not run out of buttons to press. I think our current 2pc and 4pc would make for some great talents in the new Ret tree. Just have the 4pc only apply to Wake of Ashes, and rather than reset the cooldown, the proc adds a charge. Same thing but better basically.
Issues with Divine Steed
First of all take it off the GCD. Just feels bad and arbitrary. But even then, some paladins simply don’t like this ability. Personally I get a much greater high from using Unbound Freedom along with movement speed stacking via gems and whatnot: 1/3rd of the time I run at over 50% movement speed and am unimpaired by movement impairing effects. I just like how this looks more too than the goofy horse. It feels more graceful.
My ideal solution to Divine Steed is from the new druid tree: after spending 8 points, a choice between Wild Charge and Tiger Dash is unlocked with no prerequisites. Do the same thing with paladins and have it be between Divine Steed and something else.
Pants on head idea: Divine Steed now has a cast-time, but no cooldown (or a shortish one when used in combat) and lasts until you use another ability. So basically paladins get to actually mount during combat. I suggest such a wild idea only as a follow-up to the previous one that lets us choose another talent.
Third idea: a talent deep in the Prot section of the general paladin talent tree that either adds a knockback or lets us drag enemies along with us. I might like Divine Steed more if it earned its obtrusive graphic, if it felt like the horse was actually doing something other than making me look silly when I’m snared. Sprint, which is basically a dude running, is a better ability than the knight on a horse.
Fourth idea: any ground mount can be used for Divine Steed. I would totally use a mechanostrider.
Auras… 
These feel a lot like Turn Evil where it’s like, “Hey, Classic had some cool fantasy and stuff. Let’s bring back some of these abilities without putting a whole lot of thought into it.” First of all, I personally had a stronger attachment to blessings like the original Might and Kings than I did to auras. Second, what would we lose by making them passive? Third, if they’re here to stay then what improvements can we make?
In the interest of time, I’ll skip why I preferred blessings and outline how passive auras could work. Prot and Holy bring Devotion Aura, or 3% reduced damage taken to the raid. Ret brings Sanctity Aura, or 3% damage increase when in a party and 1% increase when in a raid (similar to how Tranquility works).
Alternatively, all paladins could just bring Devotion Aura.
Concentration Aura can be removed or made into a passive PvP talent for all paladins: interrupt, silence, fear, and horrify effects on allies within 40 yards are ~30% shorter.
Crusader Aura should be passive as well and can even be rolled into Dev / Sanctity Aura. Make the movement speed increase multiplicative rather than additive (as Heart of the Crusader was in Legion and BfA) so that our class mechanic is stronger than mount equipment. (Last I checked, granted it was a while ago, the death knight equivalent On a Pale Horse was still multiplicative.)
Rename Retribution Aura to Retribution and have it occur when an ally dies within one of your other auras. Since we get this for free again, rank 2 can be removed so that it only lasts for 8 sec. Or split the difference and have it last for 10.
Now, what if auras weren’t removed? I don’t think there’s any way you can make constant swapping between Devotion and Crusader exciting gameplay so I’m not even going to try. But I do think some cosmetic improvements can be made such as when you swap auras it lights up the entire raid as other raid buffs do. And then periodically paladins see their aura pulse under their own feet (removable via glyph for those who find it annoying). Lastly, Conc and Crusader are nearly invisible when mounted. Have them show at waist level like Dev and Ret Aura.
Oh magic dispel, how I miss thee
I’m really not liking the implementation of magic dispel with these new talent trees. A lot of people don’t seem to get why interrupts are being implemented well in the new talent trees. For death knights, Mind Freeze is very early in the tree. God forbid Unholy has to pick up Chains of Ice in order to reach it — it’s practically baseline. But I suppose you could skip it in certain situations, which is good.
For druids, Feral reaches Skull Bash very naturally, while Resto has to go out of its way to get it but can get it now. The entire rogue class simply gets Kick baseline, which makes sense for the most disruptive class in the game (the 5 sec duration may have been a hint). And so on and so forth.
A similar approach should have been taken with magic dispel. I think every healer should have access to it, but that some should get it easier than others. For example, Disc and Holy Priest could get it baseline without any investment whatsoever while druids and shamans would have to spend a point somewhere in their healing spec trees. Then paladins, as a nod to the defensive nature of the class, could have Cleanse in the class tree. It would be on the Holy side of the tree, just as Rebuke I expect will be on the Ret side. So if Holy wants an interrupt or Ret wants a dispel it will cost them, but the possibility would exist. That’s what I’m looking for with these new talent trees, to express my creativity with the class. If I can’t do so then what’s the point? If healers now have access to their class interrupt then why can no DPS access their class magic dispel? It’s so damn arbitrary.
Improvements to current talents
I think if Turn Evil is improved a bit, it may be okay to let Repentance die. If Ret continues to have access to it, it really needs to be instant, obviously with additional changes to its cooldown and such. And I think it would be fitting if Repent worked like Sap and Imprison where the mob doesn’t aggro to you later if you pass too close. They’re repenting after all.
I don’t think Eye for an Eye should be brought back because 1) the eye for an eye part of the talent sucks, 2) it’s hyper situational in PvE, and 3) it’s too strong in PvP against certain specs and useless against others. I just don’t see the point when Ret used to have Divine Protection. I think we should have access to DP again, probably at some cost.
By the way, while I’m on the topic of defensive abilities, Shield of Vengeance damage was recently nerfed in PvP by 40%. I guess this was fine to weaken it in low-target situations, but what about when it gets neutered by pets? I think SoV should work like Cosmic Gladiator’s Resonator where the damage is split, but also increased somewhat the more targets there are.
Moving on, rather than be a separate ability, talenting into Seraphim could somehow replace Avenging Wrath. This would give Ret a way to set up a different sort of damage profile.
Selfless Healer and Healing Hands should continue to compete against each other, but SH could use a small bump. Any of these three would do: instant at 3 stacks, also reduces mana cost, or after a killing blow your next Flash of Light crits.
PvP talents
I have a feeling these won’t be looked at until 10.1, which would suck.
Divine Punisher and Lawbringer could probably be combined in some way.
Jurisdiction: I really, really want 20-yd HoJ, but in arena this talent just doesn’t feel competitive with other options (and propping it up in battlegrounds is a covenant ability we likely won’t keep). Perhaps it can just increase the range of HoJ and Rebuke. A ranged interrupt would be no joke.
Kind of a crazy idea for an already good talent, but maybe Blessing of Sanctuary can be used while incapacitated (Sap, Paralysis). If a paladin could Sanct a teammate out of a Kidney while the paladin is Sapped (as was the case with Freedom back when it used to break stuns) that would help even the scales a little against RMP. I used to enjoy playing against RMP but now it feels pretty one-sided.
Vengeance Aura is passive (boring) and relatively weak. Maybe if we had important mechanics based off crit, but we don’t.
Judgments of the Pure feels bad to use for a variety of reasons. Dumpster it for Holy and Ret.
Ultimate Retribution is bad even in casual PvP. What, I’m gonna invest in a PvP talent because I expect my team to be slaughtered? And while they get slaughtered I’m going to manage to trade kills within 8 sec, and do so often enough to make this talent worthwhile. Sure.
As for new talents, I don’t want to get wildly inventive here. Guarded by the Light is a Prot PvP talent that would probably be good for Ret without rocking the boat too much (as Steed of Glory surely would). The legendary Uther’s Sanctuary would also make for a great PvP talent. And Ret — really paladins in general — could use a talent that’s powerful in 2v2 as we tend to suck there. Just not sure what that should be.
One more thing: can anything go baseline? Unbound Freedom could partially be moved to the Ret talent tree. This would make Freedom more fun to use in PvE, and Unbound Freedom is so stacked that even if it lost some of its power it would still be a worthwhile PvP talent.
Improved HoJ range could be moved to one of our talent trees.
Very unlikely, but I would love it if Ret had Blessing of Sanctuary baseline. It’s the sort of ability that’s usually not useful in PvE, but when it is it’s really neat. And it’s hard to justify taking Sanct in battlegrounds, but if I did have it I would love using it.
The portion of Law and Order where Hand of Hindrance’s cooldown is reduced when it’s dispelled or otherwise removed earlier should be baseline. In PvE it would come into play when a mob dies, while in PvP a 30-sec CD dispellable snare is pretty whack.
Misc
Not only does Final Verdict need to stay, but Ret should have a talent like Acrobatic Strikes or Astral Influence (Balance Affinity). I hate having to run into melee just to auto-attack, as mentioned earlier HoJ range is pretty inaccessible right now, etc.
Fleshcraft is a fun ability that I think with a different graphic (Contemplation, or perhaps SoV could be redesigned to work more like Fleshcraft) would fit paladins pretty well. There could be a talent choice between “Fleshcraft” and something we already have.
Seeing as how Chains of Ice was changed some time ago to a 70% undispellable snare, maybe Hand of Hindrance can steal the original design where the snare starts at 90% and then decays by 10% every sec. You would have to design around this, like Law and Order would probably become OP, but overall I think the original CoI could be a good fit for Hindrance. Or, have it start at 50% and gain 10% every second — rename it Burden of Guilt. If there’s a root at the end, this may well be worth a PvP talent.
Rebuke’s animation looks kind of goofy without a shield. I honestly preferred when it was a roundhouse kick. It was hilarious seeing my character do this in full plate armor.
Possibly remove the shield requirement from Shield of the Righteous? Three arguments for this are SotR uses the Light rather than a physical shield, the holy power cost is pretty big, and Ironfur is useful for Feral. Yea, Feral needs to be in Bear, but they want to go in Bear sometimes while Ret is actively discouraged from ever equipping a shield.
For years, Ret could talent BoP down to a 3 min cooldown. Then in MoP and WoD, all paladins had Clemency (two charges on blessings, or as they were known then, hand spells). I think it’s fine that the latter is now a Holy thing, but I do miss BoP having a shorter cooldown. Maybe for Ret have Unbreakable Spirit apply to BoP instead of LoH. Or, if Uther’s Sanctuary is added as a PvP talent it can reduce Freedom and Sac’s cooldowns by 1 sec per holy power spent but BoP by 2-3 sec.
Why can’t Sac and BoP be cast on someone not in my party? You can’t even steal nodes anymore.
It would be crazy if Ret could get Blessing of Spellwarding. Probably crazy broken.
Probably not practical to bring it back, but I miss Divine Intervention. Nothing screamed paladin like straight-up dying for someone, and it was hilarious too.
I’ve read posts recently that suggest removing LoH, or that say blessings are outdated utility. I understand where these are coming from, but they get a hard pass from me. ST utility cast directly on allies is my favorite part of playing a paladin. As for adding some sort of zone control ability (another suggestion I read), Final Reckoning could have a ground effect that pulls enemies back in the first time they try to leave (basically Ursol’s Vortex without the snare). I don’t know whether or not Ret really needs this, but it’s fun to think about.
I believe HoJ is supposed to be the second best stun in the game, but as mentioned earlier it’s been left behind somewhat as a slew of ranged physical stuns were added to the game (and HoJ has since been nerfed!). I don’t want HoJ to be physical, but it really shouldn’t have less range than the likes of Storm Bolt, Fel Eruption, and so on. At least not for Ret (healers should have to get in the mix a bit to CC).
Blessing of Sanctuary uses the old blessings graphic rather than the relatively new one where you cast it out of your libram. Fix please.
Ret is starting to rack up quite a few abilities that are specifically nerfed in PvP. A new expansion is a good time to look at these and ask which still make sense. Execution Sentence was totally nerfed out of PvP during a beta. Word of Glory will probably need its nerfs scaled back a little once we lose the conduit Shielding Words.
Conclusion
And that’s that. I’m sure I’ll think of more later that I’ll wish I included, but this is already quite a lot. Thanks for reading, and I’ll probably be back when our trees are released.
