Post 11.0.5 Talent Thoughts (Ret/PvP)

Classes Paladin
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Big fan of the talent rework overall. The Paladin talent tree itself feels much more thematic and interesting than what we had prior. Overall I would give it a solid 8.5/10!

Played all night last night and hit over 1950 in Solo Shuffle! Also played around in a few BGS and BGB games.

I have to say, Eye for an Eye and Inspired Guard are surprisingly good and I also enjoy the new Spellbreaker PvP Talent.

Empyreal Ward, Holy Reprieve and Light’s Revocation are stealing the show. Great additions!

My one “complaint” is just that I wish I had 1 extra flex point to spend.

My only “critique” is that Cleanse and Turn Evil should be removed from the talent tree and made baseline. Or at least just one of these two abilities, most likely Turn Evil.

To suggest one change to the PvP Talents, I would love to see Blessing of Spellwarding and Spellbreaker combined into one talent. Or, I would personally really just like to see Aura of Reckoning removed. With the addition of Radiant Glory, there really is no value or need to proc wings from this talent.

The biggest elephant in the room? Steed of Liberty/Divine Spurs/Blessing of Freedom choice node.

I can tell you, in battlegrounds, Steed of Liberty is fantastic! The playstyle completely works and it’s the most fun I have had on Ret in ages. The mobility/maneuverability is perfect, especially as Templar with the additional +30% speed boost to Steed. Essentially, we have an instant gap closer.

I played Steed of Liberty in Arena and its pretty obvious that you shouldn’t do that. Having the freedom to use Blessing of Freedom at will is critical and I’m sure Ret will always run with it. I suppose, this isn’t necessarily an issue.

I have the feeling that Holy would never run this talent in PvP under any circumstance.

So it seems Steed of Liberty, is most likely really only here as a major QoL improvement for Ret in BGs settings. Again, I suppose this is fine.

My serious suggestion here, would be to alter Divine Spurs if Steed of Liberty is ever going to see more play and stand the test of time as a talent.

A 36 sec cooldown on Steed of Liberty is not going to be enough. Divine Spurs should be improved to just flat reduce the cooldown of Divine Steed to 25-30 secs while also reducing its duration by a flat 3-5 secs, instead of these percentage based augments. Steed of Liberty should end up lasting for about 3.5-5 secs.

I do also believe that Divine Spurs should be merged with Steed of Liberty as it’s clear these talents go hand in hand.

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I really wanted to try the auto sac but I would have to lose out on too many important nodes. Disappointing.

I am experimenting with the selfless healer node combined with lights celerity so that my flash of lights heal enough to be almost a wog. Means I can save my hopo for damage.

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Agree that Steed with Steed of Liberty needs a shorter cooldown. Thirty sec might work.

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I’m currently torn between Steed of Liberty being a 30 sec cooldown or a 25 sec cooldown. It does replace Blessing of Freedom after all and that was a 25 sec cooldown. But to be fair, we do have access to 2 charges of Divine Steed as Ret and haven’t had the ability to have 2 Blessings of Freedom for awhile.

Steed of Liberty is a really fun twist on Ret Paladin mobility. I’m liking it more and more each time I play. It seriously functions as a pseudo gap closer but somehow, its sometimes more enjoyable than Heroic Leap. I love surprising healers in Solo Shuffle by essentially charging them out of no where to drop a Hammer of Justice on them.

The trick is finding the right cooldown to where we have access to it just a bit more frequently, but not so much that we can always use it or never feel penalized for spamming it off cd.

30 secs is probably the right call with 2 charges. I like your idea on your thread to specifically move Lead the Charge to where Divine Spurs currently is in our new class tree. Doing this while also merging Divine Spurs with Steed of Liberty should really cement this talent!

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I think 30 sec is fair due to Cavalier, as you pointed out, and I like Steed of Liberty for the same reason as you: it’s not so televised what we’re about to do. It’s still more televised than a rogue or warrior doing the same thing, but that’s fine.

And thanks! I think Lead the Charge should also be redesigned to something more noticeable, but that’s so far down my list of priorities right now. Having it replace Divine Spurs gets it out of the way of Stoicism and puts it in a great spot to be ignored (or picked by weirdos).

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Funnily enough, back in Legion they had a talent like this named Knight Templar when they had introduced Divine Steed as a new mobility option, where it reduced the CD of Divine Steed by 50% (also per recharge, it was still a 1 min or 45 sec CD down to 25 sec) and gave 20% damage reduction while it’s active (it was eventually changed to 15% or 10% in PvP if I recall). It was really great for Prot Paladins running Cavalier and Steed of Glory (PvP Talent). This is much superior than the half-baked version we have currently in our talent tree.

I don’t remember or understand why they removed that talent, but I feel like they should have brought it back instead of Divine Spurs. It feels bad to have a shorter usage timer unless you can get 9 sec of Divine Steed down to 6.5 sec by running Unrelenting Charger through Templar and Steed of Glory (Prot PvP Talent) but sadly it only lasts 7 sec and with Spurs it’s back down to 5.2 or less which in my opinion wouldn’t make the choice worth it when Divine Steed (before nerfs) would last 9 seconds in PvP (without Divine Spurs) which is just as long as the original version of Steed of Glory back in Legion.

They should have made Divine Steed baseline at this point (it was baseline since Legion until DF Pre-patch talent trees launched) and bring back Knight Templar while also giving and tweaking Steed of Glory as a PvP talent for all 3 specs (maybe no knockback but idk). I’m all for the steed but it really isn’t fun to run the shortest divine steed in the world as any of the 3 specs and waste talent points on something else that it can go towards for better damage reduction, healing or utility.