Shockadin Rework to Dual Wield

In Development Season of Discovery Phase 4 PTR
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Shockadin Rework

This is a long one, so either just read the block quotes or TLDR and bullet points to save time.

Shockadin has been becoming more viable in SoD lately as an actual form of DPS. Before SoD, they were mostly just seen for pvp, able to burst, then having to wait for their cooldowns as they would typically heal and support. This of course wouldn’t make a good dps role. To make shockadin DPS would require more attention and redirection to actually come alive and differentiate itself from being too similar to a retribution paladin and the other roles.

The current PTR changes regarding shockadin are pointing us in a new direction for the playstyle and gearing with the changes to Art of War, Infusion of Light and Sheath of Light. Understandably so, many paladins, prot, ret and shockadin were all relying on basically the same runes and being able to utilize a similar playstyle to get SP scaling from sheath and exorcism procs from Art of War.

I’m not sure what they have planned or if there is something planned to continue supporting shockadins, but I wanted to propose another option for shockadins becoming a legitimate form of paladin DPS. So, heads up, keep an open mind, see the big picture, don’t focus too much on details, the numbers are not perfect at all. For some this idea is as groundbreaking as mage healers and rogue or lock tanks, but in reality, it’s just rounding out what’s always existed.

Dual Wield Shockadin and Why

  • Unique, Novel, Dual wield Holy DPS instead of 2h Ret DPS Paladin or 1h+Shield like Holy Heals/Prot Tank
  • Spell Damage gearing based, not pure strength
  • Plays differently - SoR, not SoM/SoC, very fast autos, won’t look/play nearly identical to 2H ret
  • Zealot class fantasy and holy battlemage
  • Doesn’t conflict with smite priest, paladin not designed for ranged hard casting DPS
  • We can add a few more runes, we’re at 34 total now, while shamans have most at 37, even warrior at 36
  • Scarlet Avenger NPC: https://www.wowhead.com/classic/npc=4493/scarlet-avenger
In depth about why dual wield

Some might advocate for a holy ranged caster, a counterpart to elemental shamans, hard casting 1.5 second exorcism or maybe a new holy bolt spell, with holy shock, judgement and hammer of wrath thrown in the mix.

Paladin’s first ability is a seal, we all use seals, which enhance our melee attacks. Shockadins use them, then, Holy Shock/Judgement for big burst. Throw down a consecrate, seal and auto, wait for CDs or execute with Hammer of Wrath. Plus, exorcism in SoD.

Even though I don’t mind this idea of a holy caster DPS at all, I don’t think this fits for the plate armor paladin. Hard casting, especially in vanilla, requires being ranged and having mobility and/or more CC, creating another issue for the immobile juggernaut paladin class. Paladins were never designed from its foundation as a ranged DPS class, this would require more work than. This is like adding another weapon type option like enhance shamans getting DW.

This holy DPS caster idea also steps on the toes of the smite priest, where the smite priest has plenty of tools to work with to make that a reality (surge of light rune, smite, holy fire, penance, holy nova), especially if they double dip into some shadow abilities (SW:P, mind blast, void plague). There really is no need to have both a ranged shockadin and a smite priest as ranged holy caster dps. They overlap way too much and it fits the priest more.

Making shockadins a distinct playstyle will also put more emphasis on designing shockadin as a whole. Otherwise, 2H shockadin and the 2H ret will look virtually the same, more like an afterthought using the same ret gear with a strength to SP conversion rune like it has been.

DW shockadin will fulfill two iconic class fantasies. A fast attacking holy zealot dual wielding weapons and a holy battlemage. Similar to a spellhance shaman, but using a specific school of magic and focusing more on the magic side through seals and spells instead of physical damage and attack abilities (no SS, lava lash, WF physical damage)

Plus, we already have 2 other paladins who use a 1 hand weapon and shield, why does shockadin have to be the same? We don’t need the shield for defense like a healer or a tank would.

Why should we use a 2 hand weapon? Shockadins don’t use our two handed weapons to do damage, we mostly deal it with holy magic and up close, unlike elemental shamans.

At the end of the day paladins use seals to empower and buff our melee attacks. Buffing dual wield with seals will be very interesting and novel.

If you need an in-game dual wielding paladin reference, look at the Scarlet Avenger, NPC https://www.wowhead.com/classic/npc=4493/scarlet-avenger, an obvious paladin themed name and they are wearing plate and dual wielding maces.

There’s also the Scarlet Inquisitor, typically most inquisitors are akin to paladins in fantasy, but this one doesn’t really look the part when it comes armor, yet they are also dual wielding one hand weapons.

Here’s what I’ll be covering in this post:

  • Goals
  • Gearing, Stats, and Weapons
  • Shockadin Runes
  • General Rune Changes and More Options
  • Conclusion

Goals

The ideal playstyle of a dual wield shockadin utilizes caster weapons for max spell damage, which typically have fast attack speeds, and our seals, primarily Seal of Righteousness, will do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to auto attack DPS. We’re not building strength for physical damage. Here’s the abilities we have at our disposal to tweak:

  • Seal of Righteousness
  • Judgement
  • Holy Shock
  • Exorcism
  • Crusader Strike
  • Consecration
  • Hammer of Wrath
  • Holy Wrath (sort of)

So imagine a dual wielding paladin, attacking as fast as dagger rogues, with seal of righteousness dealing damage, lots of crits, some DoTs being applied, Crusader strike potentially being our only melee ability, and the rest of our rotation being filled holy magic ranged abilities from melee range with Judgement, Holy Shock, Exorcism, Hammer of Wrath and maybe Holy Wrath. Maybe another ability to be more of a stim, Righteous Indignation

Seals

Seal of Righteousness is the first choice and it helps that it can crit now. This has always been the iconic shockadin Seal. Not Command. Preferably not Martyrdom, but I could see it in T6 “seal twist” even if our weapon damage is low. There is an argument for switching to command for Judgement, especially when the target is stunned or if the damage could be dealt as if the target was stunned similar to how fingers of frost works for mages.

The one seal SoD has not added yet is Seal of Vengeance, which is traditionally a tanking seal applying a DoT, but this could be a good tool to add for shockadins due to scaling to spell power and more consistent dps.

Gearing & Stats

When I think of a shockadin and their gear, I think primarily of the TBC shockadin pvp sets which had:

  • Stamina
  • Intellect
  • Spell Damage
  • Crit
  • Plate Armor
  • Spell damage Weapon

Some shockadins would opt for even caster cloth gear, but ideally we should be in plate.

Besides just being tacked onto retribution strength gear and sets and using sheath of light’s AP to SP conversion, the alternative option is holy healing gear. I’d rather not take healer’s gear as a dps even if there was some clever conversion. Neither of those will truly feel like a shockadin.

Weapons

Some might have concern with weapons and loot competition. What kind of weapons would we use? Ideally, as we are trying to avoid retribution strength and agility gear, we would use caster weapons. It is unfair though to take two caster weapons, when every other caster just needs one.

One simple solution would be a caster weapon in the main hand and a fast melee weapon in the off hand especially if it has a chance on hit effect that scales with SP (I thought these chance on hit effects also proc a 2nd seal of righteousness, but I may be wrong)

There are very few caster weapons labeled as one-handed (3 at end game and 2 are in naxx). Turning them all to one hand is unnecessary, and that’s loot drama.

Taking melee weapons is also definitely going to be drama when we’re caster oriented. That’s why dividing the two could work.

The other solution is a bit more creative:

You gain dual wield specialization. You gain the ability to conjure a sword or mace of divine light to be wielded in your offhand with the same attack speed and damage as your main hand weapon. When wielding this weapon, you gain double the stats of your main hand.

More info about this implementation
  • First, I’m curious if we should allow paladins to dual wield just any weapon, which is why I opted for conjuring a weapon of pure light method. Maybe making it so that this conjured weapon is the only weapon the paladin can wield in the offhand.
  • May end up with a meta where two fast weapons with chance on hit effects with sp scaling is better than having a spellcaster weapon.
  • The stats being doubled should be restricted to SP, stam, int, crit, hit. No healing. No healing or other unique passives. No double chance on hit effects or else we might end up with dual wield thunderfury shockadin.
  • Part of this idea stems from the Lightsmith hero talents from TWW as well as An’she (Tauren paladin sunwalker’s Sun God who uses twin blades). This could go further where it’s almost something like unlocking a light version of runeforging and enchanting chance on hit effects to the shockadin caster weapons, but unnecessary.
  • Can use the model of [Teebu’s Blazing Longsword or Argent Avenger]
    https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/78845-teebus-blazing-longsword.jpg, but change the color to yellow/gold/orange. Mace option could be nice.
  • This also fits thematically, because in your main-hand you wield your spellcaster blade or mace. In your offhand, a weapon forged of light, to physically attack and also be used to instantly cast spells of holy magic to your enemies. You could even make this offhand not deal physical damage, but purely holy damage or both weapons.

Shockadin Runes

I mostly created these runes as additions to current ones. The main idea is still there. These could be shifted around and of course the names are just things I made up on the fly. Definitely could just create new runes. instead

Feet Rune - Holy Crusader
You gain dual wield specialization. You gain the ability to conjure a sword of divine light to be wielded in your offhand with the same attack speed and damage as your main hand weapon. When wielding this weapon, you gain double the stats of your main hand.
While dual wielding, you gain 10% hit with melee and spell abilities and permanently gain the effects of your Seal of the Crusader.

If the Rune is in Hand Slot competing with Crusader Strike:

In addition, your auto attacks restore 1% mana on hit and 2% on crit.

Options for Rune Slot Discovery:

  1. The Art of War or Divine Storm rune discovery could reward this DW Crusader rune above. A 2 for 1 discovery.
  2. A new rune discovery

Concerns to Tweak:

  1. Can reduce healing, threat, and physical damage output on this rune
  2. Can require holy shock casting to gain benefits.
  3. Increased AP from SotC and -40% dmg +40% attack speed giving more SP through Sheath of Light

Waist Rune - Infusion of Light
Increases the damage and healing done by your Holy Shock by 50%, reduces the cooldown on Holy Shock to 6 sec, and your critical strikes with Holy Shock reset the cooldown on Holy Shock and refund the cost of Holy Shock. ***In addition, dealing damage with holy shock gives you Holy Guidance, increasing your spell damage by 35% of your Intellect for 60 sec. ***

  • Can consider increasing range of Holy Shock here as well as Holy Shock crits resetting Exorcism. If not, another more shockadin dedicated rune to increase the use of Exorcism. Also, the original talent, Holy Guidance, increased healing, as another option.

Helm Rune - Fanaticism
Increases your critical strike chance with Holy spells by 18%. Your critical healing spells heal the target for 60% of the healed amount over 12 sec. In addition, whenever you deal damage with holy shock while dual wielding, you gain the Fanatic Zealot buff, increasing your attack speed by 30% and giving your melee attack’s seal of righteousness’ bonus damage a 30% chance to occur to twice for 4 seconds.

  • Now this rune gives 2 things for shockadins and 2 things for healers.

Cloak Rune - Righteous Vengeance
When any of your Seals, Judgement, Holy Shock, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Holy Wrath Hammer of Wrath deals a critical strike, your target will take 30% additional damage over 8 sec until cancelled. *In addition, Seal of Righteousness from your offhand now provides a stacking debuff, Holy Vengeance, dealing 100 damage over 15 seconds, stacks up to 5 times. Seal of righteousness and its Judgement does 10% increased damage per stack of Holy Vengeance. Casting judgement instantly causes 120 Holy damage per application of Holy Vengeance.

  • Holy Vengeance DoT is from Seal of Vengeance
  • Still not sure if this is the best choice, this was traditionally a tanking seal, but it felt fitting to combine seal of righteousness and seal of vengeance in the Righteous Vengeance rune.
  • This rune does already include all the spells of the first half, the current tooltip doesn’t match in PTR. The only exception being SoR crits, probably a bug due to it being a new SoD addition.

Chest Rune - Hallowed Ground
Your Consecration now also heals party members within its area for 200% as much as it damages enemies. ***Standing within your consecration makes holy shock and judgement ignite for 20% of its damage in a 10 yd radius around the target. Any allies standing within consecration will be cleansed removing 1 magic, 1 disease, and 1 poison effect every 4 seconds.

  • AOE synergy for shockadin. It’s heavy mana costing and the original hallowed ground reduced mana cost and increased damage. Added utility to pvp and pve with cleanse mechanic like a cleansing totem. Restrictive in pvp by being forced to be in consecration to gain its benefit.

Similarly for melee:

Cloak - Vindicator
When your Vindication talent is triggered, it also decreases the target’s Attack Power by 70 per talent point and increases your Strength, Agility, and Attack Power by 5% per talent point. Vindication duration increased to 30 sec. Your divine storm also recasts for 50% of the damage and casts cleanse on 3 party or raid members within 8 yds if there is anything to dispel.

Note: buff shield of righteousness prot rune

Wrist - Ricochet of Wrath
Hammer of Wrath is now instant cast with a 12 sec CD and has no health state requirement. Hammer of wrath bounces to 3 total targets reducing damage by 30% each jump.

Melee Option:

Helm Rune - Wrath
Hammer of Wrath is now instant and the cooldown on Hammer of Wrath is reset each time it damages an enemy below 15% health. Your melee critical strikes have a 10% chance to trigger Execution Sentence, allowing you to cast Hammer of Wrath regardless of health state and refunds 50% of the mana cost

or

Wrist - Improved Hammer of Wrath
Hammer of Wrath is now instant and the cooldown on Hammer of Wrath is reset each time it damages an enemy below 15% health. ***After casting Hammer of Wrath, your next melee attack will restore 5% mana and have 10% increased damage and crit chance.

General Rune Changes and More Options

This won’t be about shockadin as much, but more for paladins in general, ret and maybe prot a little, they all need buffs, so these changes aren’t in a vacuum. Mana problems, magic defensive for prot, finding ways to improve talents for pve like reckoning, maybe even eye for an eye.

Feet Rune - Art of War
Reduces the cooldown on Exorcism and Holy Wrath by 50%. Your melee critical strikes reduce the remaining cooldown on Exorcism by 1 sec, and the mana cost of Exorcism is reduced by 80%. Exorcism critical strikes makes your next flash of light within 3 sec instant, deal 50% more healing, but cost 100% more mana.

Exorcist - Baseline skill
Exorcism can now be cast on any target and Exorcism has 100% increased critical strike chance against Undead and Demons. Holy wrath now stuns Undead and Demons for 2 sec.

Divided purifying power into Exorcist and into Art of War. Might not be necessary, if ret can get hammer of wrath in wrath rune, DW shockadins get a new improved hammer of wrath rune and art of war stays same on 15 sec exorcism, pushing DW rune to hands slot.

Mobility, CC, Utility, Repentance in PvP/PvE

Rebuke - Baseline

Mobility Options

Divine Charge
Summon a Divine Steed to ride and charge at your target, dealing holy damage, stunning them for 2 seconds. Enemies caught in the way take damage. 60 sec CD. 25 yd range

Repentance

Penitent One
When repentance breaks, the target is silenced for 2 seconds and slowed by 50% for 8 seconds. Additionally, repentance now causes the target to take increased 10% increased holy damage for 8 seconds regardless of immunity to incapacitate.

Could be a rune to replace repentance to have some PVE use like wyvern strike.

Bring Horn of Lordaeron back, maybe change how it works, the yell animation ability is good. Also, maybe shockadin should get another ability using the roar animation call it “Inquisitor’s Indignation” or “Righteous Indignation”. Shockadin will might need diversity of animation spells/attacks. Edit: Maybe shockadin exclusively have access to windfury, give more windfury options to alliance. Won’t be as crazy as 2h arms, 2h ret, or 2h survival having baseline windfury

Conclusion

Thanks for reading, these are just some ideas about how to go about it so when the shockadin’s abilities are down, we’re still doing some damage, also adding a bit of aoe and little more utility to bring into raid.

There are concerns of making sure this rune for dual wielding wouldn’t be used by healers, tanks or retribution paladins, thus probably abused and maybe hurting those original gameplay. Can do something like reduce threat under the rune, gain 15% holy but 15% less physical damage and does not stack with vengeance or just every shockadin rune requiring holy shock interactions.

Also, many people like vengeance buff, animation and its crit interaction - there should be some type of crit interaction for shockadin too when it comes to melee attacks/SoR. These rune changes cannot be the only changes to paladins, they’re not made in a vacuum. Prot paladins, ret and even holy have issues that need to be addressed and I won’t cover them all here, whether its mana, magic damage reduction for tanking, and the runes themselves. So, if something seems strong for another role it might mean the other rune options need a buff or the rune needs a limitation when used by other roles/specs like Guarded by the Light.

Plus, spell power scaling (sheath of light), prot needs their own version (Touched by The Light - Wrath Talent) just like Holy Guidance. I just wanted to share a full idea about one way this could actually look, had a blast thinking about this and writing it. I know others probably imagine it going full on the Art of War -1 sec and gearing like ret with SoL, but I want to see a different outcome besides becoming ret but now with DW and holy shock.

Let me know what you think, what you like or dislike, any problems and criticisms, how you would you improve it and if you would even play a dual wield shockadin instead of a 2 hand shockadin or would you rather use a 1 hand weapon with any shield or offhand. If people like the idea they might consider it, so express your support and feedback please!

TLDR - Read the quote blocks of runes

  • Dual wield, faster attack speeds and weapons due to being caster weapons (1.8-2.4 before modifiers) rare cases of 1.4 and 2.7 caster weapons.

  • Spell damage focus gear/weapons

  • Seal of Righteousness adds a DoT debuff, Holy Vengeance (from Seal of Vengeance) for 15 seconds. Stacks 5 times. Seal of Righteousness and Judgement does more damage per stack.

  • Holy Shock now provides an attack speed buff for 4 seconds and allows seal of righteousness to proc twice per hit

  • Exorcism spam option could be added to Infusion of Light or CD reduction from another rune like Art of War (differentiating between 1h/2h)

  • Holy Shock procs Holy Guidance for 60 seconds (Increase SP dmg by 35% of Intellect). Holy shock spam can be fun, but I think for the sake of balance it might be better to give this a limit. We also can’t be a class that hits for nothing when we don’t have Shock/exorcism or judge up. That’s just the old shockadin.

  • New Hammer of Wrath (12 sec CD as chain lightning)

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Didn’t read everything yet will update once I do but from what I’m reading is you want to keep the exo spam ret alive? I dont get why people want the shockadin melee focused. I just want it to be différent from ret. I want it to be more close to ele shaman then anything else honestly

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I don’t really want exo spam either ideally. Id want a rune that competes with art of war though. I think the current change is enough for 2h but with fast dw will be crazy. I want more caster abilities like a more magical version of spellhance, not relying on physical damage or physical abilities like SS but seals instead, autos, and spells instead. I did copy ele chain lightning into hammer of wrath. At its core its a fast attacking dw shockadin instead of 2h shockadin. More ranged abilities than a ret pally. Less physical damage and abilities than enh shaman or ret

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The proposed spec here is more DK then anything. Shockadin won’t work in melee cause the set we all want for it is focused around sp and int. If we ever went melee were gonna hit like a wet noodle. And going melee will always feel bad cause we get so much more in the ret tree for that.

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Would rather the sod team focus on not meme specs lol

2 Likes
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Stop trying to make fetch happen.

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DK from what version? I’m not familiar with all of them, but maybe you could say frost DK, but none of my suggestions are about adding more strikes like frost strike obliterate and whatever other abilites. Though they did tease a howling blast rune.

Well, first shockadins, have always been melee but we just had long cooldowns that we used to burst in pvp, and then would seal of righteousness + auto + consecrate, or heal/cleanse. In TBC they gained more viability and SP dmg and in wrath they would go a much more hybrid build to go deep ret to get vengeance and most importantly art of war for exorcist resets.

The reason it can work is because our goal is not to do physical damage, but the magical damage coming from our seals along with holy shock, judgement, etc. There is a difference between melee and physical, melee just meaning being in melee range while physical meaning damage from a weapon, a white, scaling off weapon damage + AP.

You can have a melee paladin, doing 80% or more of their damage through seals and magical attacks. SoR scales off of SP and so does Seal of Vengeance’s Dot (Holy Vengeance). Adding some more modifiers and spell components to our attacks will beef this up to feel better. Yes our physical attacks will do little when it comes to melee auto attack like 100 dmg, but Seal of Righteousness will be dealing 200, critting for more, plus seal of vengeance dot and modifiers (random numbers). This isn’t the only way to build this out, this isn’t a ret paladin, seals relying on spell scaling are doing the work. Also keep in mind this isn’t trying to make all the damage come from auto attacks. Our spell casts, holy shock, judgement, hammer of wrath, consecrate, maybe holy wrath or even a new ability would be essential.

This is where it needs to be choices where you are disincentivized from going into ret tree because of what you would give up or placing hard restrictions. Such as requiring holy shock to gain the benefits like with Holy Guidance added to Fanaticism, therefore you can’t go deep ret and get the benefit from that rune. You can’t even get sanctity aura if you need holy shock. Reduction in physical damage is another option. Lastly, also providing buffs that just don’t stack with deep ret. The main reason you go deep ret is Vengeance. Providing DW shockadin their own vengeance buff that doesn’t stack fixes that. Sanctity aura now being a utility, I don’t think they need that

I get that sentiment for sure, but I wanted to toss an idea as feedback. Plus, SoD is kind of the season of meme specs. Shadow priest, melee hunter, ele and enhance shaman, tank shaman, ret pally, tanking pally in raids, warlock tank, shadow priest, honestly even resto druid is the meme healer of vanilla, that’s just the start of it. So I don’t view it as a good argument to not do it, it all just depends on their time and effort and if they have plans already set. Plus, they’ve already committed time and effort to shockadin by creating specific gear and tier sets and runes to accommodate it.

And this is the perfect time to test it out in the PTR. Just add a dual wield rune to ring for paladins. Even using Fist of Forsaken x2 with SP gear could be interesting by itself. It’s hard to conceptualize the class dual wielding with seals since it has never happened

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aggrend will hear us, everyone.

we will get fetch to happen, and the rets will quake in their boots as they’re tempted to follow suit when its meta.

stick true to your resolve and be guided by the light, brother.

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I don’t really want Shockadin to be dual wield. I’ve been enjoying it with 1H + offhand quite a bit, though. Hell, I’d even be down for letting them dual wield a full blown staff in the offhand to full-send the battlemage idea, but dual wielding doesn’t feel thematic to me.

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wow brainwashed you into thinking thats the only option. other rpg / dnd-esque things have vindicators and other types of holy dual wielders ready to brand their enemies with retribution

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This is very true!

I’m a fan of the Warhammer Warrior Priests. A dualwielding fanatic sounds precisely like the kind of dps/support a Shockadin would align to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUnnOBZEJuE

Victory favors the faithful!

1 Like
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I’ll take this as blizzards unofficial confirmation and i’ll expect to see it in next ptr build

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Not trying to be rude, but what is a Shockadin supposed to be? I assume a ranged dps/offhealer. Shield in one hand, other hand open to cast spells like Holy Shock.

If you’re making a melee dps class with offhealing capabilities, isn’t that just Ret with Holy Shock?

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Not rude at all. Historically, in vanilla and tbc shockadins were a gimmicky battle healer in a way. Not because of desire but because of necessity. Some would mix their gear to be spell damage/healer, others would go full spell damage trying to get the most burst potential. Basically, they would HoJ, pop wings/trinkets, divine favor for 100% crit and holy shock + seal of righteousness judgement. This could basically 1 shot people or get people close enough to death to auto attack with seal, consecrate and then hammer of wrath. If you didn’t kill your target, you would then try to outlive them waiting for your CDs to come back up again. This obviously doesn’t make for a good PvE dps class or rotation.

In wrath, shockadins tried going a mixture of holy/ret to get holy shock as well as art of war to reset their exorcism CD and make it instant, I think exorcism was a 1.5 sec cast and 15 sec CD during wrath iirc. This is what shockadin has been currently.

A shockadin should be favoring spell damage gear, intellect and a caster weapon over strength, agility and a 2 hand weapon. It should be a dps able to use ranged magic abilities but still doing melee attacks, if anything, having more support to heal than something like ret or prot simply due to talents/sp gear. It is very similar to the idea of a spellhance shaman, but with less melee abilities like stormstrike and lava lash.

So it’s a melee dps, using spell damage. I mixed the idea of a fast attacking (permanent seal of the crusader) dual wield zealot or whatever you want to call it with their auto attack with an SP based seal (SoR/SoV dot) to buff the damage up when we’re not holy shocking/judgement and now exorcism. We could go the CD reset route or many other mechanics

15

you’re assuming is what i think is generating the disconnect. paladins are plate/melee class. shockadin is just heat of battle melee caster… even in pvp tbc etc. when it was first kind of a thing - you would be diving people as you judge and holyshock to hit a stun and drop a conce under them.

dual wielding is just opening up the viability for it to actually function within sod rune meta and be a legitimate dps instead of a gimmicky pvp burst once and wait 20-30 seconds. Ret can still be the str based 2h weapon seal twister, and shockadin could be dual wield machinegun instantcaster - 2 styles of dps is not necessarily a bad thing.

most of the pure dps classes are not happy that they are pidgeonholed into a singular spec either, this is not an uncommon theme. (look at the state of melee hunters right now on ptr and the level of dooming around having to play marks / tsa build)

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Yeah I mentioned the idea of holding a tome in your offhand in this post I think, but when I really think about it this reminds me more of holy paladin. What’s the offhand there for? It also just makes for a bad or more tricky dps, there is no 1 hand empty offhand melee dps. It’s not impossible at all and I don’t hate it, but I think taking the opportunity to mix the idea of shockadin with the paladin class fantasy of a righteous crusader or zealot who attacks quickly using two one-handed blades or two maces like the Scarlet Avenger NPC https://www.wowhead.com/classic/npc=4493/scarlet-avenger is unique and making the role stand out more from other paladin playstyles is more interesting. Plus, I don’t know if they would want to force shockadin to play without a shield and use a caster offhand instead. They would really need to beef up our 1 hand seal of righteousness damage and shockadin/judgement and exo, or some other spells. Dual wield just adds consistent dps to a playstyle that’s always been bursty and now unpredictable with holy shock crit resets. Maybe if dual wield autos increased crit chance of next holy shock or exo instead of going down art of war.

Do you like the idea of the weapon being forged from light basically? Teebu’s blade just a yellow/gold/orange beam of light? I can understand not wanting to end up with two melee warrior/rogue looking weapons that’s why I want caster weapon + off hand with proc damage or the light conjured weapon, but I think a DW shockadin version of quel’serrar or another one of the elven prismatic blades would look sick with full T2

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I’m just not into a paladin dual wielding; however, I’m extremely bummed about losing the damage from Hammer of Righteousness and +Healing from Sheath of Light.

I loved doing decent damage melee (sword/board) while throwing the occasional heal. Was hoping for another quick heal next phase to build upon that… /sad.

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I can understand not seeing it or being it especially if you’re comparing it to like warrior/rogue or using melee abilities on CD, but you might like the dw gameplay if we could actually test it out. To me it’s the only paladin class fantasy not explored, dual maces, seal of crusader attack speed + seal of righteousness magic damage, a fast attacking zealous crusader.

Paladins took a lot big hits in changes/nerfs. I feel like this current set of patch notes are really undercooked in general though. If the phase came out with these runes as is, it would have lots of problems for several classes.

Ret should get a little bit self heal from what they lost in sheath of light imo. I could see it added to eye for an eye vs melee/ranged crits + a gap closer or like how art of war is in wrath where it makes your next flash heal or exorcism instant/reset CD. Since SoD exo is instant, it could be like crits allowing an instant flash heal for 100% healing/100% more mana every 10 seconds.

19

As cool as this sounds, it makes 0 sense lore wise for paladins to dual wield.
Also I am still very much in the boat that Blizz should not waste any of its precious time on the meme spec that is shockadin lol.

20

I would disagree. First, it’s logical that some paladins would be able to dual wield. Paladins are former warriors trained in the light, others being former priests trained in combat. If the game design was different, they would be a type of hero class, where you level a priest or warrior then at a higher level decide to become a paladin, a more dedicated warrior or priest at endgame like a job/class promotion system. Why would a former warrior forget to wield two 1 hand weapons? They don’t make a vow to that. Based on the class fantasy trope of paladin and original warcraft lore, we shouldn’t even be allowed to use axes, polearms, even swords, we’re mostly known for shields and maces 1 hand or 2 hand. Shields being there to protect others. A 2 hand mace as a more offensive tool, but also because Paladins in lore are not meant to be aggressors, a warhammer/mace has different symbolism like The Silver Hand than a sword that sheds blood. Arthas abandoning his warhammer for the sword frostmourne is an analogy to this same idea. Also, it’s not like we have to hold a libram to be able to cast holy magic in our off hand anyways.

Next, there’s two points of evidence of famous paladins in the lore dual wielding 1 hand weapons.

One was before WoW in Warcraft 2, with Turalyon and Anduin Lothar’s Sword, The Great Royal Sword which was a massive two-handed runeblade.

Doomhammer broke the sword and “Turalyon would later go into battle wielding the broken sword in one hand and his warhammer in the other.” A dual wielding paladin, not only that a titan grip one. (Let’s not go there)
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Royal_Sword

More recently, in a scenario in patch 9.0, Lady Liadrin, Blood Knight Matriarch and bloodelf paladin leader, is seen walking around with two one-handed blades https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/e5rm8t/dual_wield_paladins_90/

I don’t think lore has much weight when there’s already been inconsistency and it doesn’t conflict with major points to paladins being an aggressive crusader. That’s been obvious since turning Sunwalkers, which should be their own class, into a paladin. Gameplay and design just takes precedence sometimes. Arguably even before then if the original WoW devs were strict to original Warcraft lore, which I’m glad they didn’t. This video covers that topic more: https://youtu.be/4euy9_WWdl8?si=azQiLJTY9izgLtel