I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, Foxy. I think there would be space to bring back the seal system if auras were made entirely passive, but that it would be tricky to do right. I’d respond to more of your suggestions, but I just burnt myself out writing a long post of my own. So in short, strongly agree with you on honor talents, but not sure I want GoAK back. 
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I feel like this is the hardest part of it.
Maybe it should be simpler.
Templar strike:1 cast, Does radiant, always crit, crit stat further enchance crit damage, generate 1 HP, place it back on the normal GCD.
CSAA: AA replacement, does HolyStrike, generate 1 HP every 2 swing
I feel this would be much easier to balance.
You are the one who doesmt understand. Do you play ret? We are literally flooding with hp, csaa is a must because of the free gcds. Removing 1hp from boj wont do nothing and will generate more gcd bloat because of the two charges.
Csaa needs to be nerfed it is the reason why we are balanced around dropping spenders nonstop
Crit increasing its damage wont compare to csaa constant hp. Not even close. Ts would have to be one hit two hp at least or two hp per hit
We are not stacking crit and nobody will stack crit because of ts
i vmean its not a “hopo bloat” its a “no reason not to cap hopo” you run boj one hopo but two charges with csaa, then you track csaa and dr from dt. you can and should play with 0 hopo waste in pve. but the difference between 0 hopo wasted and 30 hopo wasted is so minimal in parse than it means literally nothing.
so its not really a hopo bloat or gcd issue. its a skill one that has no purpose beyond personal flow of the spec
It’s more about removing constraint while keeping the spirit of it and making sure it doesn’t loose scaling VS CSAA.
Normal CS is behind CSAA in sims but not by soo much that a straight up improved version in a new TS wouldn’t claw it’s way back.
There’s less hole in the rotation right now because of our tier set making us pick 2 charges of BoJ and the inherent interaction that haste has with AA and our AoW proc.
So even if they were competitive in a vacuum, current set would off-set our results.
But another set could have favorized us going another way leading to a much less busy place.
You just said it yourself, it’s biggest problem are the 2 wasted GCD compared to our CURRENT situation.
Its second biggest problem is that it has diminished scaling compared to CSAA.
CSAA scales fully with
- Haste
- Vers
- Crit
- Mastery (Blade of light selected)
TS scales fully with
- Mastery (regardless of BoL)
- Vers
Scales partially with
- Crit
Doesn’t scale with
- Haste
If its biggest problem is cut in half and its second problem is resolved, there’s no reason we can’t balance them somehow.
And we can actually test this and make scenarios to see where would TS fall.
Since what I proposed makes it quite literally an improved CS, we can sim CSAA and CS, compare both damage, HP generation and GCD count.
(Interesting sidenote, CSAA reduces your melee attack count by 29 over 5 min ST which negatively impact seal of the crusader in the class tree, which by differential for my character, put CS ahead purely speaking in damage.)
Make no mistake, CSAA will come out on top still but the point isn’t necessarily to make it better, it’s to make the choice comparable.
For me, at my gear level, with my stats and supposing TS crit at 35k everytime with 30% crit rating to further enhance damage…
I end up with a 0.82% difference between it and CSAA.
And I’m geared with CSAA fully in mind.
So it’s possible through some interaction to actually balance them without having to give TS an obscene amount of HP generation.
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I think another problem that ts has is that it scales with both the radiant 5% damage increase talent and DA holystrike damage increase.
I am even unsure if turning templar strike into a holy strike ability lets it proc searing light at that point also. My tests had been negative on it so far.
I enjoy CSAA and dislike TS due to the amount of HP builders we already have available to press. Having Ret auto attacks have a purpose and be strong feels good. Along with Crusader’s Reprieve (Leech) and Blessed Champion (Cleave), it’s well rounded situationally.
With that being said FV does feel awful as a spender even if modified. It’s so behind and needs to feel meaningful to press. Whether it’s up-front damage, cleave, or an extra effect… it needs love. We should not get lost in bottlenecking all of our damage in FV/DS however, we should still be a threat without spenders and still a contender without major CDs.
In a similar situation lies HoW. An “execute” that lost it’s purpose since last season. The only reason it’s viable is Vengeful Wrath and to get there we dump 2 talent points into Seal of the Crusader, an awful node that should be 1 point (that’s generous). In doing so at least we’d be able to pick up Divine Purpose even though it sucks right now.
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I am hesitant to ask this on the forums, because people usually freak out about it, but in my experience, with talking to a friend who has played a DH since Beta Legion, we agree that Ret is just a less exciting version of DH. (which was a personal critique I had during the revamp)
- CSAA = Demon Blades
- BoJ = Felblade (even resets on Demon Blades)
- Blessed Hammer = Immolation Aura
- Wake of Ashes = Eye Beam
- Final Reckoning = Essence Break
- Avenging Wrath = Metamorphosis (gaining haste and leech)
While a lot of abilities are indeed similar in the game, the Ret revamp to me felt bland because it was just DH abilities without the extra “oomph.”
- When you use Blade of Justice, you just do damage to your target. When you use Felblade, you actively charge to your target.
- When you use Wakes of Ashes, you just kindof do damage. When you use Eye Beam, you summon a demon, turn into a demon for X seconds, and increase your haste by 10%.
- When you use Avenging Wrath, you just get a dmg, healing, and stat increase. When you use Metamorphosis, you leap to the location, stun/daze mobs, turn into a demon, reset all your cooldowns, and greatly empowering your 2 abilities.
- Then obviously Final Reckoning and Essence Break are just AoE damage abilities that increase damage done, and it’s probably too hard to compare The Hunt to Divine Toll…
Now, whether you believe DH and Ret Paladins are similar in design is beside the point, this is just for context.
- Do you guys think that the Paladin abilities do “enough” bonus effects?
- While not wanting to copy DHs any more than they already are, would you be interested in Wings modifying finishers?
6 Likes
Your post mirrors most of my concerns/feelings.
Forbearance is a gotcha period of time that pvp enemies know to exploit every time. The same defensives causing forbearance/locking out other defensives, are being removed early by mass dispell with 1/5 the cooldown time while the priest is interupt immune because someone missed a kick.
Overall rotation/priority is simple enough while staying interesting enough for me with brain power being spent on team utility, but Id like to be able to do other dps specs levels of damage
Pvp specific nerfs to abilities and talents as well as the mastery nerfs did make Ret the black sheep of melee. Ret already didnt have mortal strike, knockback, instant movement, invisability, disarm, or as much CC as other melee, so if Ret has less damage than the specs with tools for success, it’s set up to fail.
RET abilities telegraph what they are like no other spec. Use Wings = you are cced or LOSed, use steed = you get slowed, use freedom with the steed you get stunned/feared. Steed does nothing in pvp without BoF, and those used together does nothing without at least a trinket or bubble, and bubble just gets removed early by 5 popular pvp specs and one less popular one. Pre-nerfed rework Ret was great, 3days after the rework it was tied with several specs for “feels great and does damage” 5 weeks of heavy handed nerfs and Ret damage and survivability is terrible.
4 Likes
15+ year ret player here, used to queue alot bgs/arena every expansion and now after the rework i barely play the game at all. The rework has significantly reduced my enjoyment of ret paladin, and thus, the game.
My 3 main gripes:
#1 Crusader strike auto attack. This talent is extremely boring but playing anything else is not possible due to the power of this ability and the specs design as a whole. Being able to finesse crusader strikes on totems/psyfiends (and immune targets just for hp) while you’re building into damage makes a tiny button like crusader strike feel soooo rewarding in pvp and that has been completely lost.
#2 We have way too much holy power generation, we don’t even play or need divine purpose. Constantly trying to hit 5 hp for the bonus damage while simultaniously not wasting hp above the cap feels horrible. There will be so many situations where im at 4hp and next global should be divine toll but it just feels bad to press because I know im wasting hp.
#3 Self healing completely guttered in favor of lay on hands feels bad in all pvp content.
2s was extremely fun as double dps because of rets powerful healing. Now I can be standing behind a pillar with nothing but a demo pet hitting me and despite trying to heal im watching my health go down. This makes me want to logout every single time it happens.
In 3s using avenging wrath defensively to spam heal or just getting a word of glory crit to heal a teamate through a setup or healers interupt lockout felt amazing and was an iconic part of the gameplay. This is completely gone now that we have lay on hands which i hate pressing because of forbearance. Healing just feels bad and is usually a wasted global.
I have other gripes but i’ll leave it at those. I keep coming back and trying to play because im reminded how much fun i’ve had in the past playing my paladin but im always left disappointed and frustrated which is an emotion I should not be experiencing playing this game, so I just logout.
6 Likes
I had this exact thought when I came back to try out the rework. I didn’t stay for long. Lay on Hands shouldn’t be usable in arena, and the rest of our healing should be buffed.
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Nr 1 creates the nr 2 problem the most… i’m sorry for any that actually like CSAA, but it has to go.
Hopefully next Alpha/Beta it gets cut/gutted to not be the best option for DPS.
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Normal CS is not that far behind in sims considering that by not picking it, you get something else.
If you don’t want to play it don’t, it won’t affect your performance much.
That being said, it’s a horrible problem to balance around I agree.
Because it was nerfed to a 10% proc for 10% additional damage and the other class tree nodes are stronger.
It has nothing to do with “too much” HP generation.
In fact it was most likely nerfed for Ret because of Vanguard of Justice.
If there’s any culprit for it not seeing play, its VoJ.
It might make a comeback in the last seasons depending on how much Crit we end up with and if it devalues Vengeful Wrath enough.
And let me add something else, our damage doesn’t all go through our spenders anymore. (Whether your someone who likes that or not)
So regardless of HP generation, since the spenders aren’t as important as they were before, it also has the effect of devaluing DP on top of the nerf.
Read your tooltips, it’s not how it works anymore, you’re restraining yourself on something that was removed.
If Blizz doesn’t want DPS to be able to heal efficiently, they won’t.
There’s nothing else to add really.
That’s a philosophical stance they took for PVP apparently.
Keep saying it feels bad on PVP forums, maybe they’ll change their stance at some point.
I’d expect to be nerfed in other area if I were you if they ever change their stance.
2 Likes
This just shows how checked out I am lmao
1 Like
Hey it happens 
The issue I thought it was, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the problem with TS vs CSAA was that Blessed Champion doesn’t make your auto attacks cleave as well as CS.
(Like Crusader’s Reprieve)
When you got into those prolonged multi target scenarios,(higher keys) TS+Blessed Champion wouldn’t cleave auto attacks/SotC and that is what caused that gap of damage?
Obviously I think the whole CS/BoJ/Blessed Champion system need to get revisited, but CSAA was the least problematic playstyle I thought.
As for Finishers needing to do more damage, I think that just stems from HoW and things like Greater Judgement and SotC.
2 Likes
I’m mostly taking about ST differences, but yes, that’s also an issue with AOE discrepancy.
And one of the biggest “wins” with CSAA is that it opens up gcd’s, so you can actually get in more HoW/Judge/BoJ without delay, TS would just replace those, so the dmg difference is between that as well.
To balance CSAA they would have to nerf its damage more, something like:
Crusader Strike replaces your autoattacks but only does 75% dmg, or something like that.
Along with a TS buff, and by that i don’t mean making it simply do more dmg than Judge/BoJ, or you end up spamming that at a certain point.
But firstly TS should actually scale properly with crit, so the auto-crit part needs to be made to have its dmg increased by your crit %.
Currently TS is so low that it can’t even keep up with base CS, because the extra point you have to spend, can go to one of the other lower dps talents, but those lower dps talents are innately better than TS.
So CSAA is a lot more powerful than other single point talents as a comparison as well, that’s why it probably needs to be nerfed some, and have ret buffed for TS and other low increase talents as well.
Removing a button from your rotation, so making it a passive, shouldn’t be a greater dps increase than an active ability.
2 Likes
i mean thats exactly why a passive rotational ability is stronger than a a ctive one. the amount of gcds saved especially when said ability is filler. even if you completely gut csaa more than it was, it’ll still end up being stronger than ts or cs with moer ilvl. there is no way to balance it without outright removal.
personally im all for the removal of csaa, but frankly i dont mind it staying either
2 Likes
No thanks, I like how active Ret is now vs SL and Season 1, if they buff TV too high they will just create downtime by making builders long CDs and you won’t have any buttons to push while you stand there auto attacking like we are back in Classic.
What actually needs to go is Vanguard of Justice, 4 HP spender feels bad no matter how much you use it. ES really should be off GCD and that would do wonders, VoJ talent could be replaced with something that makes FV and ES cleave up to 3 targets. Would solve some problems we have with 2-3 target fights.
I would also like to see Blessing of Dawn and Dusk return to their pre-work maintenance buff. It wasn’t bad at all after they buffed the duration and it makes building and spending HP correctly more important.
3 Likes