What’s the point of introducing auras to the class as a baseline if you take out two of the three interesting auras, make one of the three “new” auras useless, and make the second incredibly niche?
It feels silly and really crappy. It’s not like we really deviated from Devo Aura, but the ability to have multiple auras thanks to maybe the prot or the ret also having auras seemed exciting and fun, except now all it means is that one of the unique things I bring to the raid or m+ group - devo - is just baseline and I have nothing in exchange?
I mean at this point, why not just make Devotion Aura a baseline passive in our spellbook?
Auras were a big mistake. Maybe we asked for auras, but not like this. Not for the price of our Heart of Crusader passive, not for the price of Ret Aura not even being an aura: in group play it only benefits the casting paladin, in solo content it does NOTHING, Conc Aura is gimmicky at best. And Devo Aura? As if Blizzard won’t design at least mythic encounters with that in mind, it’s going to net exactly nothing.
SL auras missed the mark by miles At this point, I feel the ret class designer needs to explain himself at length. He needs to defend all his decisions like he’s defending his doctorate thesis. If he fails, the decision gets cut. Someone brand new needs to come in an pull Excalibur from the Sword, with the ability to disrupt all the main class designer’s goals. They need a fresh pair of eyes to come shake Blizzard out of its lethargic complacency and groupthink.
blizz dev team is just very lazy, or they simply lack the man power to do the job with so many people either leaving or were fire. They could had merge both auras & seals with this 1 tool, but sadly they took the easy route so we got BS while classes like warriors got actual good tools. what I mean by merge is something like this:
Retribution Aura - reflect 3% damage for pally & allies.
While the Paladin[Caster] is under the effect of Retribution Aura all melee attacks do additional damages over 15 sec and healing abilities heal for additional amounts over 15 sec.
Blizzard in the last few expansions has been more focused on secondary systems than investing in class design. This isn’t just a Paladin issue its across the board.
The auras as they are absolutely worthless, why would I even waste my time to change off of Crusader Aura for 3% armor or .3 secs off a 3s interrupt? If there was choices like 20% damage reduction or double passive mana regen, or literally anything of consequence I’d care, but this? 3%. I wouldnt pick 3% up if I saw it laying on the sidewalk.
Least you have that as Holy, Im Ret offspeced to Prot, I couldnt careless about any aura but Crusader on Ret and Devo on Prot, I might as well just block that section of the UI cuz if this is what their shipping with I’m never touching it again after turning it on.
Yeah, it’s really terrible. There’s pretty much an infinite number of interesting buffs they could have given us through auras. They could have even just given everyone the HPal auras we already had!
I see Auras (in the current state) as a slightly better version of a Raid buff that some classes bring, for example I’d say 3% DR is overall better than 5% increased health that Priests bring with PW:Fortitude.
The other Auras are definitely more niche, but I mean better than nothing at all. Comparing it again to a Raid buff that provides no benefit if you have (let’s say) a 2nd Priest, I guess the little niche benefit is still a bit better.
I do think Retribution aura makes no sense though, they are supposed to be group benefits not a personal gain.
I think the biggest problem I have with auras is the amount of potential blizzard had to really bring some really cool effects to the table and use them to fix the issues that paladins have. I just hope these are place holder auras and the real ones are waiting in the wings.
I’m talking about Auras vs class buffs, for that scenario nothing is the right comparison because that’s what a class buff does after the first person that brings it.
You are making a different comparison, you are comparing BFA Paladin vs SL Paladin, in that context, when talking about Ret (the other specs didn’t had those passives) then I agree.
For Ret I think you are correct. For the other two specs this is better.
The Crusader aura one I think it’s not too bad, I have it macro’d to my mount and seems to work out decently well (not exactly the same but manageable), it does nerf Divine Steed for Ret so I wish they would buff the spell to compensate.
Auras need to affect the party (not just the pally) and they need to provide an in combat benefit (e.g. crusader aura is stupid because you just remember to click it when mounting; there needs to be meaningful choice here).
My favorite suggestion is the following:
Ret Aura - the party gains +3% critical damage
Crusader Aura - the party gains +20% mounted speed and +5% movement speed
Make the concentration aura reduce fears baseline.
Now we have meaningful choice between them all within combat, and they do what an aura should do without promoting toxic gameplay. Also helps with the pally’s slowness, which used to be buffed baseline (now fulfilled with crusader aura if activated)
At this point, I feel the ret class designer needs to explain himself at length. He needs to defend all his decisions like he’s defending his doctorate thesis. If he fails, the decision gets cut. Someone brand new needs to come in an pull Excalibur from the Sword, with the ability to disrupt all the main class designer’s goals. They need a fresh pair of eyes to come shake Blizzard out of its lethargic complacency and groupthink.