Any chance Paladins can get an update to some of their animations and spells?
Human and BE Charger
Consecration
Hard for newer tanks to see the perimeter of this on the ground in mythic+
Judgement and/or Hammer of Wrath
These abilities feel like clones, only made worst by having extremely similar animations
Any chance the Vanquisher’s Hammer (Shadowlands) animation could be used for one of these abilities?
Divine Toll is still a lame ability
Auras
It would be cool if these got visuals, similar to Shadow Form and Lightning Shield.
Aura Mastery (Hpal)
For being Hpal’s big AoE ability, this has such a terrible animation and visual. The visual doesn’t even reflect which Aura is active. =/
Blessing of Seasons
Who got Spear of Bastion renamed into Champion Spear? Could they pull some strings for Paladins?
Blessing of Spellwarding and Blessing of Sanctuary[PvP Talent]
The visuals of these Blessings don’t even last for the duration of the buff. =/
Searing Glare animation and graphic is extremely bugged, would be nice if this had an animation and ground targeting effect similar to Evokers Firebreath.
Final Reckoning and Searing Light (Ret) share the same animation. =/
Guardian of Ancient Kings looks… ancient. (maybe that’s on purpose though lol)
Holy Prism (Holy)
Sense Undead
This would just be cool if it had that Demon Hunter Spectral Sight effect, but golden and for Undead.
Shield of the Righteousness
Justifcar’s Vengeance
This has no added animation, even Templar’s Verdict (not FV) has the little angle wings on the back.
Avenging Wrath vs Crusade/Avenging Crusader/Sentinal
It’s great these abilities no longer merge, but it would be kindof cool to get slight variants in the animations so it was more visually understood what type of Wings a Paladin is running.
The Searing Glare visual bug bugs me a lot. It works fine on the first cast, but if you juke / fake-cast it then the animation is invisible for the next cast. I think I like the idea of giving Searing Glare a ground targeting effect as well, but I’d have to see it first to be sure.
Definitely want an updated Charger for humans and blood elves.
First is also the appearance of Blessed Hammer (Prot) and Divine Hammer (Ret).
Blessed Hammer is obviously an iconic Prot ability, but the animation for these two abilities is beginning to look a bit dated for WoW’s modern aesthetic.
If you compare the OG tier2, to the new updated model, it’s kindof similar for how Blessed Hammer looks and feels.
The Hammers are very yellow, bulky and ‘cartoonish,’ which made sense in 2010, but not so much in 2024.
Compared to the Diablo 2 Resurrected Hammerdin
Lightsmith - The appearance of Holy Bulwark and Scared Weapon both feel really underwhelming.
Holy Bulwark would be cool if it gave us a slightly bigger version of the Reinhardt Shield effect from the Hpal Legion Artifact skin from Legion.
I’ll post this here as well as I think it’s an interesting topic that doesn’t get a lot of discussion.
Ret feels like it has this weird clash of spell identity going on right now with BoJ and Crusader Strike.
Essentially, Holy vs Radiant : Swords vs Hammers.
Hammers:
Hammer of Justice
Hammer of Wrath
Judgement (Divine Toll)
Templar’s Verdict
Final Verdict
Divine Storm
Divine Hammer
Hammer of Light
Empyrean Hammers
Divine Arbiter
Execution Sentence
Swords:
Crusader Strike
Templar Strike/Slash
Blade of Justice
Wake of Ashes (Ashbringer)
??:
Justicar’s Vengeance
Blade of Justice Questions:
In terms of the animation, why is Blade of Justice a sword animation and not a Hammer?
Is there a significance to Swords = Radiant and Hammer = Holy, and if so, should BoJ be a radiant type spell?
Why does it come out of the ground and not from the sky above?
Would it make more sense for this to be Exorcism?
A different type of animation?
How many Hammers are too many and does this highlight something else should change animations?
Templar Strike/Slash Questions:
What does it mean to be a Templar and how do you factor it around these pre-existing abilities?
Templar
Templars stop at nothing to bring Justice to the wicked. They call down hammers of Light and unleash devastating combinations of Physical and Holy attacks to vanquish their enemies.
Templar Strike slashes an enemy for (121.993% of Attack power) Radiant damage and gets replaced by Templar Slash for 5 sec.
Templar Slash strikes an enemy for (225.01% of Attack power) Radiant damage, and burns the enemy for 50% of the damage dealt over 4 sec.
While the combination of attacks hold true… baseline Templar Strikes is Radiant Damage.
There’s no Holy, Physical, or Hammers anywhere within the spell.
Just out of general curiosity, how do you as video game designers, keep the consistency throughout the spec?
Is there a worthwhile value in consistency?
Or does this do the opposite and maybe highlight the need for some other abilities to become “Sword animations” as well to give a better balance?
It feels like Paladins have so much of these conflicted themes condensed into the spec right now, is there any better ways to separating the two and creating more fun and engaging playstyles for both?
Rebuke has no distinct signal to indicate that it was used. Almost no sound, character animation or spell effect playe when pressing it.
This is most important for PvP, because the lack of feedback makes it harder for casters to realize Rebuke was used and play accordingly.
For instance, look at how Death Knight’s Mind Freeze has a way louder sound effect with a snowy spell effect; and Warrior’s Pummel does a shoulder bash animation and sound.
The lack of feedback also makes the skill less satisfying to press, even for paladins.
Impactful Blessings not having a longer Visual Effect
It is like Zaim said, very impactful spells like Blessing of Spellwarding and Blessing of Sanctuary don’t have spell visuals that last for the duration of the buff (despite being relatively short).
They are both very impactful in PvP and should have spell visuals like the gold standard set by Blessing of Protection (A big, tall and giant crown), since they aren’t simply buffs but provide magical resistances.
The lack of this visual feedbck aggravates the know issue with WoW PvP: You need plenty of custom set addons to get basic information about your enemies.
Yeah, in addition to this, and that frustrating aspect of lacking visuals in PvP… two other spells that currently have pretty poor visuals are Blade of Justice and Final Verdict.
I understand that Paladins have a very convoluted identity right now with range vs mid-range vs melee, and hopefully Blizzard will get around to taking another look at that “problem.”
But in the meantime, it would be nice if Blade of Justice and especially Final Verdict got slight animation changes so that you know that a Paladin is attacking you from 20+ yards away.
Currently, and you can go on live and test this now, Paladins can be 20 yards from a target, turn their Character a solid 90 degrees, and still swing at a target with a Magical Hammer that kindof appears out of no-where.
World of Warcraft has probably the best spell → targeting system that’s ever been in any MMO, but Final Verdict does not do a good job of indicating where the ability is coming from.
(Compared to Windstrike during Enhancement Ascendence, for example.)
Multiple times I’ve played with real life friends in PvP that had no clue which target I was attacking, because the range on Paladins spells and abilities and how they are indicated in game.
Edit:
Again, I’d really encourage anyone to log on a Ret Paladin if possible, move 20 yards from a target dummy, turn your character 90 degrees and do your attack rotation.
Just experience how silly it looks, but also how uninformative. =/
Blessing of Sanctuary’s cast animation still uses the original blessing cast animation. It should use the new one all of our other blessings use. Should be a simple fix.
Besides that, the only thing that really bothers me is the buggy Searing Glare animation where when we stop casting it and start again the animation disappears. And I agree that HoW should have its graphic updated as it looks dated compared to Judgment, and that Final Reckoning and Searing Light should have different animations.
