Remove auras from the game. They are all quite literally useless except Devotion and that provides such a negligible effect that it might as well be useless. Crusader Aura doesn’t even affect dragon riding speed so i’m not even sure what its purpose is anymore.
6 Likes
Devo was the number one reason holy paladin was in the face to world first, not ganna happen
5 Likes
I mean, sure 3% is useless. While were at it let’s look at all the other “useless” percentages.
Mark of the wild gives 3% Vers, shhh, useless, put it on the remove pile.
Magic/physical damage increase from DH and Monk, 5%, ehh that’s only 2% more than 3 and since we established that 3% is useless, 2% more has to be useless to. Put on remove pile.
Battle shout, 5%? See above and remove pile also.
Arcane intellect, 5% also, REMOVE PILE.
All jesting aside.
The real problem with aura is that they are part of Paladin “identity” but not it’s design in general for WoW.
Only Holy expands on the aura power.
This stems from when they were reintroduced in a half-a**ed way.
Then we had DF and the return of talent tree where it could have been re-imagined but alas they didn’t.
Aura could have been a core focus of the class tree capped with aura mastery as a capstone. (For people saying “but that’s holy raid CD” well there are ways to make it so that it still is and doesn’t overlap with the other spec).
Instead of breaking abilities in 3 talents (Hello Divine steed), have useless talents like “Faith armor” and “Strength in conviction” that only does something for 1 spec or underwhelming effects like incandescence and touch of light.
The challenge in this is, aura being mainly passive, it’s difficult to create an engaging gameplay with it. Solving this might mean a deeper delve into the class than they wished given they reworked both Ret and Holy already.
Nonetheless, the class tree needs to be reworked, lets hope something interesting comes out of it.
4 Likes
Honestly they need to rework all the tree’s. They are a mess as it is. (Although slightly better then they where at launch)
3% perma damage reduction is quite strong. The passive from devo is stronger than the aura mastery active throughout any boss fight.
6 Likes
I think they got a good thematic with Ret with the duality of Holystrike and Radiant.
As many noted it’s not normal that we lose soo much ST/AoE shifting from 1 to the other.
I think they can still keep their theme while alleviating this issue.
For example, they could make it so that FV also becomes Radiant when “burning crusade” is talented and it could get a % of it’s damage applied as a DoT to benefit from Penitence.
And if you hit again while the DoT is up, the damage left is applied immediately and you put a new dot on it.
This would pretty much solve the ST issue with the AoE build, while still maintaining both build in their current niche of excelling at 1 over the other.
They could tinker with the splash effect (don’t remember the name but it dealt damage around us on Spender usage in wings) with FV so that we have some kind of funnel to prioritize a mob without completely abandoning aoe/cleave.
Like, it would be the Holystrike AoE aspect, “you strike so hard that light reverberates around your target hitting nearby targets for X amount of holystrike”.
Or make DS holystrike to, reduce damage by 45% but hit twice when used.
Having a multihit vs DoT mentality.
I can’t talk about holy, I’m not a healer and I tried making builds and heal but I don’t get what I’m supposed to do.
Prot has to get looked at in next expac along with class tree.
I think they should re-think the end talents for the holy-strike/radiant builds also. I think they should be an active skill alternative with their own effects/graphics rather then an automatic wake of ashes but weaker or automatic final reckoning but weaker.
Then there is the odd choice talents that goes with utility vs dps as a choice node, the forced fv (not everyone liked fv qnd choose not to use it pre-talent tree) and the odd feeling of making our st’s into cleave skills rather then them being seperate spells. (Which goes into your aoe vs st builds mention) i also feel there is a few talents that seem to be “trap talents” in the ret tree.
They just made a rework where they effectively removed 3 buttons, I don’t see them adding more again.
Beside, the rotation and gameplay feels pretty good and solid as it is (crusading strikes aside).
It just needs some talent tuning and replacement, such as the consecration slow. It should be in the class tree if anything but in ret tree no one is gonna pick non-dps talent.
1 Like
Crusader Aura definitely should do something for Dragonriding.
I also feel like the Paladin should personally benefit from all auras they know at all times, and extend one to the rest of their party/raid when active. That would give people incentive to actually spec into the auras they don’t get automatically as part of their spec.
6 Likes
Dude, no.
Jesus y’all want to make the game so damn boring for others all in the name of endgame convenience. You do know new people play the game all the time right? Lol. And we WANT them to. WoW’s existence is predicated on subs. Which means you should prioritize new players.
And they have a leveling experience to get through. They pick paladin (without knowledge of meters) due to class flavor, themes, lore, etc. And you would see every single ability just stripped for the sake of “it doesn’t help my meters D:”
Bogus.
Also 3% on every single raid member is nothing to laugh at. Also with Merciful Auras, you get healing, and while active, even more damage reduction.
So… .no.
10 Likes
Excellent take above @Mercator.
Every single modern MMO I’ve ever played has players that love to min/max and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Most of them have very good reasons for the changes they want but fail to accept that there are many, many more players who look at the game through a different lens and develop their own playstyle.
If you want the auras, then you as an individual player have the option to get all the auras if you so choose. That’s what I did. I really didn’t see much of a difference in leveling having the extra 2 seconds of Divine Steed that Seasoned Warhorse gave me so I took Auras of the Resolute. It fits thematically and points out the glaring “elephant in the room” which is that Paladin has always been and probably will always be a unique utility class.
If players are worried about topping the DPS meters in end game then there are plenty of pure DPS only classes that are much better at that job and are probably much easier to min/max. Personally I just have never understood why players are content with playing a cookie-cutter, min/max, Flavor of the Month character in a fantasy RP game but to each their own.
Cheers.
3 Likes
But what do they add as active abilities? Crusader doesn’t work with dragonriding, which I almost consider a blessing as I never found it fun having to swap to it whenever I mounted up. It’s a quality of life ability that makes makes quality of life worse. Dev and Ret Auras, meanwhile, are both useful, but they would be just as useful if they were passive. By removing this sort of bloat, it frees up space to add something else, like perhaps a new take on the seal system. Classes and specs have limited design space, which is why we had to suffer through borrowed power for a few expansions.
I don’t think Auras need to be removed from the game as I think that’s a core aspect to the class, but I do think that all Auras should provide the 3% DR baseline.
Baseline:
Divine Presence - Passive
All Auras now grant 3% damage reduction.
Devotion Aura
Party and raid members within 40 yds are bolstered by their devotion, increasing Armor and Avoidance by x%.
Crusader Aura
Increases mounted speed by 20% and major movement ability speed by x% for all party and raid members within 40 yds.
Talents:
Concentration Aura
Interrupt and Silence effects on party and raid members within 40 yds are 30% shorter.
Cleansing Aura
Poison and Disease effects on party and raid members within 40 yds are X% shorter and you are cleansed of one poison or disease effect every 6 sec.
Retribution Aura
When any party or raid member within 40 yds takes more than 30% of their health in damage in a single hit, each member gains 5% increased damage and healing, decaying over 30 sec. This cannot occur within 30 sec of the aura being applied.
Defiance Aura
Duration of all Blessings are increased by x% on party and raid members within 40 yds.
2 Likes
I mentioned my own spin in another thread but i do believe more can be done with auras. For example, when a paladin is using Crus aura, in addtion to the current passive effect, when he use steed, it becomes a group/raid movement CD at half the duration. (tied specifically to the crus aura paladin.)
So if the paladin has a 6 sec steed, then group has 3.
This mix of passive and active effect does allow auras to shine a little bit more and actually interact with them in a meaningful way.
Of cos there might be concern that 1 single paladin will have to aura twist, to which we can always apply the current ret aura restriction.
This also allows Aura Mastery to remain unique to Holy as their CD.
2 Likes
I’ve seen some dumb requests but this takes the cake. 
7 Likes
I like this one. Maybe call it Sanctity Aura, but Cleansing Aura is fine too.
2 Likes
I don’t think I’d want auras removed. Devo is not the only useful aura.
Concentration aura gets used in pvp alongside Devo aura for Holy paladin
Ret aura gets used by ret or prot paladins in raid while devo is used by hpals
Hpal swaps between Devo/ret aura in m+
Multiple auras are used in every form of content. I don’t think they need to be removed at all, I like them just adding a bit of flavor to the class, however I do think more could be done with them overall.
4 Likes
This. The game has always been about incremental changes over time. 3% increase off the rip is amazing when you know every little bit helps in the long run. Ret needs a tune up as far as cleave/st but tinkering with aura isn’t the way to start with that.
2 Likes
But it does work in battlegrounds and other areas where ground mounts are still in use. It has it’s uses still even if the fastest form of travel in the game isn’t(unnecessarily) affected by it.
1 Like
But not in rated battlegrounds, and that doesn’t answer the bigger question whether it’s fun to manually switch auras every time you mount up. Why wouldn’t anyone want this automated? Is this some deep form of skill expression that I’m too noob to understand?
The rest of the aura system is sit in Dev Aura / sit in Ret Aura. These could share a talent node with Prot and Holy getting the former for free and Ret the latter, Crusader baked into them somehow, etc etc, and there would be very little change in gameplay.
But there are also fine ideas to improve rather than streamline the aura system, for example Zaim suggested that all auras provide the damage reduction raid buff, which creates space for them to actually have interesting effects such as a periodic dispel. I’m not entirely sold on each of his auras, but that’s just details…
It’s a more interesting take on resistance auras. With resistance auras, if you knew a fight would have a lot of a certain damage type, you’d swap to the corresponding aura beforehand. Where is the decision making in the current aura system? Maybe Holy still does it in PvP with Conc Aura, but it’s largely gone.