You’re going to ultimately end up balanced. “Bigger numbers” are literally zero-sum. What you add to generators, you take from elsewhere*.
(Such as from your spenders, thereby nerfing your Holy-damage-buffing Mastery to the point that you need bloat talents to change your generators into Holy[strike] damage, which then defeats the point of Mastery compressing its damage bonus towards just your burst tools and turns it into Versatility-but-without-defense, etc., etc.)
At most, you get to choose your damage profile:
How finnicky do you want your spec to be? The more it relies on exact sync, the higher your burst potential can be to help speed-wipe low-HP adds, but your total damage will increasingly fall behind the more that mechanics don’t naturally align with your CDs, thus leaving their tremendous value on hold.
And that difference available to you to help cheese priority adds, being essentially group utility (through its option to drop some total damage for greater value when it matters most), may be subtracted from other forms of utility available to your spec.
What complexity are you actually getting from combos?
What complexity would you lose if you removed the ability to bank TV/FV, DS, WoG, such that you instead just had to hit TV on CD every 10 seconds, DS every 15 seconds, and could use WoG only every 20 seconds, etc.?
I essentially answered the first already — it’d give only greater required foresight, because the opportunity cost for using your 1st GCD of filler has increased.
(That assumes a skill perfectly balanced to not force out or degrade other mechanics. Else, you would at least as likely end up with a net loss to complexity.)
Now, if your interest in TS is primarily just aesthetic… consider also what your DS-on-TV talents do already (in applying a DS animation atop TV), or what a ramping FV talent might do, such that multiple applications of FV’s empowerment could exist simultaneously and FV’s animation would vary accordingly (growing bigger with each application active), etc.
Getting that variety of animations doesn’t require reducing Ret’s agency / “freedom of rotation” / openness to nuance (or to recovery after mistakes).
I understand your reasoning but from what I’m understanding, TS no more overpowering than other classes’ filler. There’s no reason for Blizzard to touch TS other than the haters from other classes calling for our nerf (which, unfortunately, there are plenty of).
Other classes calling for Ret nerfs aren’t going to give a damn, or likely even be aware of, Templar Strikes specifically. Those who would want it gone or nerfed as to be less often taken are all solely Ret players who prefer the greater flexibility of original CS and don’t want to be forced to use TS (nor likely Crusading Strikes, for that matter).
Not datamined. Templar Strikes was a 3-hit combo when it was first introduced. But was cut down to a 2-hit combo in the second to last (or last) PTR build before the patch went live.
There was a lot of people that speculated that Holy Power might be going away in the future because of how problematic Holy Power turned out to be during the rework.
Half of the cool things Blizzard attempted couldn’t be realized because it couldn’t fit in due to how rigid the Holy Power system is. And Blizzard struggled with HoPo generation for the entirely of the 10.0.7 PTR cycle. Every build would bring a slew of nerf/buff to HoPo generation.
I don’t think it disqualifies people wanting depth. The problem with Crusader Strike was always that it literally did negligible damage and was bland mechanically. It was our filler. It needed to be fixed in SOME way, and they chose to keep it shallow, but make it feel better to press by having it do meaningful damage. That’s a healthy change.
It doesn’t mean we don’t want depth. I still want depth. A LOT of players want to be GCD locked. Me personally, I getting older and slower so I don’t mind Ret having a few small breaks here and there.
Well, I’m definitely one of those players who want slow characters but every attack to be powerful.
It’s good that new players are looking for something faster. Almost all games nowadays are like that.
But I’m almost 20 years older than when I started playing and I want something slower.
The important thing is that the pace of the rotation, whether slow or fast, should be a player’s choice. Neither should be better or worse than the other, not by a large margin at least.
And thankfully, the Rework has built those elements in just fine. You can select Crusading Strikes, and Consecrated Blade to reduce button input considerably.
crusading strikes is far too weak to take even over base crusader strike. It’s too much of a damage loss to take lol.
It does not benefit from windfury
And the damage it gives auto attacks does not equate the loss of crusader strike press + auto attack, even with the holystrike talent choosen.
As an avid PvPer, in my opinion Crusader Strikes is the way.
The raw damage and controlled Holy Power generation of Templar Strikes is prime in PvE; however, Crusader Strikes gives consistent healing with every auto attack (without using GCD), gives far more GCDs for non-offensive usage (such as Flash of Light, Blessings, etc), synergizes better with 2 charges abilties (as opposed to making those abilities generate two Holy Power instead), and works far more smoothly with “Crusade” than Templar Strikes (you will be GCD-locked while @ 30% Haste due to Crusade, and Crusader Strikes saves your CGDs for better usage other than Holy Power generation).
Templar Strikes absolutely has a place in the meta; it may even be the meta option in PvE, and against select comps in PvP.
However, as a long-time PvPer, I see so much value and utility in Crusader Strikes that it would be hard for me to give that up. Having two charges of Blade of Justice and Judgment offer a lot of power and utility in PvP – and frankly, using Templar Strikes over Crusader Strikes synergizes more with BoJ/Judgement generating 2 Holy Power as opposed to having 2 charges.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Templar Strikes is a great alternative to give Ret coverage and options in PvE and in PvP. But it’s not the end-all, be-all PvP talent by any stretch of the imagination.
If I were stacking Crit and Vers as a Ret, I think that build clearly favors Crusader Strikes. If I were stacking Haste and Vers, I think that caters more equally to both builds (faster GCD vs faster auto-attacks).
Long story short: neither are “better” in an overall sense, each are situationally more powerful. Experiment and enjoy!
You never had to take Exorcism to begin with. Instead of keeping it for players who wanted more buttons, they removed it to appease people who weren’t playing it anyway. There was no “bloat” imo.
I hope Blizzard learns from Template Strike that adding a bit of spice instantly improves the feel of the spell. I feel like it was a part of why MoP class design felt so good, because there were these small things in each ability. Then later they kind of dumbed everything down because they though it didn’t matter, but it did. I hope it will be a lesson for them on how to design abilities in the future.