This is probably the biggest issue I see affecting retribution, and paladins in general, going into shadowlands. Divine steed is probably one of the worst mobility options out of any class, with its long CD and the fact it can be slowed, gets clipped in doorways, etc.
It seems as though blizzard hasnt addressed any of the feedback in a few months. This either tells me that they are outright ignoring the issues plaguing paladins, or they are actively working on a rework regarding certain talentsâŠcall it a gut feeling, but I could be wrong.
Some will argue that the mobility issue will be alleviated with covenant abilities and conduits, but these options seem mediocre at best, and are available to every other class as well. The legion rework seems to have gone in the absolute wrong direction, as for now two expansions Paladin mobility has suffered greatly, and not much has been done to fix it.
Possible solutions I could think of are a return of pursuit of justice to increase base movement speed, as well as 2 charges of divine steed as baseline. Or, have a movement speed increase based on mastery, sort of tying in pursuit of justice into our mastery, although this option could lead to some potential issues, such as mastery stacking becoming mandatory to be viable, etc.
Hopefully the devs actually take into consideration the feedback they are gettingâŠshadow priests got a complete rework after feedback regarding how awful the voidform play style was. and In the Paladins case, I dont even believe most of us are asking for a complete rework, just a fix to some core issues that could be done rather easily.
what are your opinions/suggestions as to how to improve paladins going into SL? what are your ideas for a mobility fix, as well as any other areas paladins are currently suffering in?
7 Likes
Iâve said this before, and Iâll say it again. There are fundamental tools that melee bring (especially in PvP) that all melee need in order to be successful. Without these tools, we are destined to continue to be a 1 trick burst pony.
In PvP our comp options will continue to be selective at best and we are the only melee class to not have these basic pvp tools for no apparent reason.
Snares:
- Law and Order (PvP talent) should be baseline for latency reasons alone. Every melee has some form of undispelable snare, or one that is easily applied with little to no cooldown.
- Warrior - Hamstring - Physical can be spammed
- Death Knight - Chains of Ice - Physical can be spammed with runes, but ranged
- Druid - Infected Wounds - baked into rotational ability
- Rogue - Cripple - baked into rotational abilities
- Monk - Disable - Physical can be spammed, refreshed by abilities
- Demon Hunter - War Glavie toss (talent, arguably bad ability)
- Hunter - Wing Clip - Physical can be spammed (currently high Focus cost)
- Enhance - FROST SHOCK! Frost Brand Weapon (Arguably a bad ability)
Paladin - Hand of Hindrance - 30 second cooldown and is a magical debuff, it can be dispelled.
Stuns:
- HoJ or FoJ talent should be a 5 second physical stun . (Every melee has one- itâs a required melee tool)
- Warrior - Storm Bolt
- Death Knight - Asphyxiate
- Druid - Maim + Bear Bash
- Rogue - Kidney + Cheap shot
- Monk - Leg Sweep
- Demon Hunter - Fel Eruption
- Hunter - Pet intimidation
- Enhance - Sundering (Arguably a bad ability still)
Paladin - Hammer of Justice - 1 Min cooldown and is a magical debuff, it can be dispelled.
Every single melee that has been successful (mainly PvP) has an undispelable stun. Coincidence?
- Self instant mobility tool
- Warrior - Heroic Leap
- Death Knight - Death Grip
- Druid - Feral Charge
- Rogue - Shadow Step / Grapple
- Monk - Roll / Teleport
- Demon Hunter - Fel Dash / Felblade (talent) (The Hunt - SL)
- Hunter - Harpoon
- Enhance - Feral Lunge (Arguably a bad ability still
)
Why are paladins the only one without an instant gap closer? Homogenization?? Give me a break.
- 1-2 self mobility tools
- Warrior - Charge
- Death Knight - Deathâs Advance + Wraith Walk
- Druid - Sprint + Stampeding Roar (SL)
- Rogue - Sprint
- Monk - Flying Serpent Kick (+Roll)
- Demon Hunter - Fel Dash
- Hunter - Aspect of the Pack
- Enhance - Ghost Wolf + Spirit Walk
- Paladin - Divine Steed
This is the only tool that paladins match other melee on a basic level.
Why are paladins excluded from these basic quality of life features that every. single. melee. have?
1) Our PvP Talent, Law and Order, should be baseline.
- Paladins should not be forced to sacrifice a talent to fight latency. We are talenting into a snare while others get abilities, itâs absurd.
2) Divine Steed is a stupid pony. But Cavalier should be baseline if it stays.
- Paladins should have (x2) 4 second sprint one a 1 min cooldown, while rogues and druids have (x1) 8 second sprint on a 2 min cooldown.
3) Fist of Justice should be a 5 second physical stun for Ret only.
- All melee, every single one, has a form of physical stun, itâs so all healers cannot dispel it and it gives melee the ability to peel. Either change FoJ or change at least 6 of the other specs to be magic stuns too.
4) Make an instant gap closer talent in place of cavalier.
- All melee, every single one, has a form of instant gap closing. Even if it comes through a talent, it should exist for ret.
14 Likes
Reduce Judgement cd to 8 sec, unprune Emancipate and Long Arm, replace pony with Speed of Light and have them stack. Simple and easy fix for everything mobility related, imho.
4 Likes
Keep fighting the good fight. #FixRetAura
1 Like
Great breakdown!
This is mostly from a pve perspective but itâd be great if they scrapped pony, I have never liked it.
I do like using BoF though so I wouldnât mind it if they baselined the unbound freedom pvp talent so that freedom increases movement speed and returned Turalyonâs might as well. They could maybe increase the movement speed bonus for BoF, but nerf the cd a bit.
1 Like
IDK if you know this, but paladins are getting a conduit which increases their movement speed by 30% for 8 seconds when they freedom, which is a huge bump to our mobility.
I understand that people do not like it when blizzard uses borrowed power to fix issues, but it seems like that is what they are doing for SL across the board so we kinda have to live with it.
Itâs after BoF ends, which doesnât really matter in PvP because a snare will instantly be reapplied, almost negating the buff.
I despise the Pony, I think itâs obnoxious and doesnât thematically fit in WoW. I hate half of my screen being consumed by Kodos, causing important boss mechanics to be covered up.
And it doesnât make sense to see a Pony just randomly spawn in the middle of a dungeon, or middle of a fight because a tank miss clicked.
It shouldâve been removed.
I think unbound freedom would be too strong baseline, but I think it would be great to place it in the talent tree, in place of Healing Hands. I think that row should be tied more to support strength.
Improved FoL healing - Improved Auras - Improved Blessings (BoF)
I just donât think paladins can exist without an instant gap closer when covenants are increasing everyoneâs amount of gap closers.
Paladins will be forced to go either a Venthyr or Night Fae in order to try and keep up.
Ret is behind now, imagine playing a Necrolord Ret Paladin vs a Venthyr Frost mageâŠ
How do you ever plan to land a single attack?
4 Likes
Who else is a proud members of the Wheel Chair class?
I feel like paladins have everything so not being very mobile is a good thing.
I mean, youâre not wrong. We do have a little bit of everything, but weâre not good at anything either.
All our tools are washed dumbed down version of others.
1 Like
False, nobody has Bubble hearthing skills anywhere close to paladin. If itâs a wipe, that FD hunter might still be dead. But a paladin can yeet out of there and save their 78g repair cost.
But also generally agree. Paladin is like pretty good at everything with no specific best thing. But hey with Blessing of seasons theyâll be the best at giving everyone else the benefit of their covenant choice! lol
1 Like
Thatâs just how class design is nowa days. You guys still have wings and stuns and kicks and bubbles on bubbles. There are a lot of classes with a lot less
Even as holy I hate paladin mobility and much preferred pursuit of justice years ago when we could have +15% baseline speed + 5% more per holy power (up to 3). I wish theyâd bring that back as a talent or conduit. You basically had ghost wolf whenever you had 3+ holy power (now gw can be buffed even further so it wouldnât even be that good anymore).
What will be even more sad is that if priestâs levitate conduit goes live (20% speed on levitate at rank 1, 35% at max rank if we are able to do that, currently not clear how conduit ranks will work), priests will not only have better personal speed than paladins, but theyâll be able to give it to others as well at low cost with no cooldown (though obviously with the big negative of not being able to be hit to keep it). If levitate speed stacks with feathers and body and soul, that means theyâll also be able to have bursts of 60-75% speed on a low cooldown as well if theyâre not being attacked (20-35% from levitate + 40% from the other).
Priests were considered bottom of the barrel for healer mobility, but in shadowlands I think thatâll be Paladins by a large margin. Echoing blessings has the advantage of not being removed when youâre hit, but even so it will have much lower potential uptime than levitate.
2 Likes
Youâve been a wheelchair for what, 4 expansions now ? itâs your class identity.
Always the same thread before a new expansion âmobilityâ and always the same answer, identity.
2, Shadowlands will be the third.
itâs your class identity.
No, it ainât, this was not Paladinâs âidentityâ before Legion happened. All we want is to go back to before Legion screwed everything up and turned us into something we werenât.
and always the same answer
The answer they give is irrelevant (and theyâve never actually given us one, just silence). Low mobility melee is concept that is flawed to itâs very core, and we will never stop trying to get this fixed.
So, how about you go back to worrying about your class, and weâll worry about ours. Instead of trying to keep others down, go ask for the parts you donât like about yours to be fixed.
3 Likes
Everyone has dmg cds, all melee have more stuns (we only have 1 btw), all melee have kicks. We only have 1 bubble on a 5 min cd as a real defensive, there are classes with a lot more.
We have more âburstâ than many melee but that is only a problem to unexperienced players who think nothing will happen if they tank it.
Not sure if weâre playing the same game.
3 Likes
Pursuit of Justice (which was a base movement speed talent since vanilla) eventually became the holy power speed talent and was a talent still in WoD, not removed until Legion added the Diablo 3 steed clone after a number of Diablo 3 developers joined the WoW team, which seems to coincide with an overall push towards moving away from the 12 years of prior paladin history into the Legion+ vision. That was also when they pushed holy paladins into the short ranged/melee identity which they had not really been in for 12 years prior.
Long arm of the Law was also a talent until it was removed in Legion because of steed. Steed also is basically just a worse version of speed of light, which was probably the least popular of the 3 mobility paladin talents. So basically they stripped the two most popular options and forced a worse version of the third into the class baseline because they liked it thematically.
Itâs only been like that for two expansions (Legion and BfA). Shadowlands will likely be the third unfortunately.
4 Likes
and the one that we have can be dispelled.
2 Likes
Back when Hand of Justice was an outstanding stun, many melee specs did not have stun and was âbalancedâ by Paladins not having a kick. Then they started giving other melee more stuns and CC. Then they gave Paladins a kick. Since then theyâve removed much of Retâs CC, and nerfed some other meleeâs stuns a bit, but theyâre still generally physical while a Paladinâs isnât (and back in the day not all healers could remove magic). Overall, Paladins have lost a lot more CC than other melee, and in recent years weâve lost mobility and ranged attacks and resilience as well. What have we got to make up for all this? A dispelable snare on a long CD (ever so useful in PvE), and a PvP-only talent that makes it suck a little less (in PvP).
Thatâs why we always bring up our cruddy mobility, etc.
3 Likes
Who else wants to sit around a camp fire and swap ghost stories about Shattering Throw?
3 Likes