I absolutely understand where you are coming from (plus have seen and agreed with your feedback in the alpha thread mostly). It is just very frustrating to see build after build with no changes and I am at this point where I think we have to be vocal constantly. Otherwise we will go again into this vicious circle “oh, it’s just alpha…oh, it’s just beta…whoops, now it’s live.”
But I totally understand that other people are not as impatient as I am. It’s just I’ve seen ret being thrown under the bus in alpha one time too often. I wasn’t really satisfied with Legion ret and absolutely am not satisfied with BfA ret, mostly talent-wise, so I’d really like to see some changes there. So please don’t mind me stumbling in one thread or another voicing my concerns.
I think Ret should get two PvP talents baseline: Sanctuary and Jurisdiction. Dispels and increased HoJ range defined Ret for years before they were torn away to create the PvP talent system. Unprune us.
Hammer of Wrath deals low damage and is near the bottom of the rotation. Get rid of it, and in its place make Judgment work like Reaping Flames: halved cooldown during Wings / against low health targets. If you all really want Hammer of Wrath back for the nostalgia or whatever, perhaps it should be a regular rotational ability that works like Reaping Flames. All I know is that HoW is currently a low priority attack only available in specific circumstances and made to artificially feel good by Judgment and BoJ having abnormally long cooldowns, and from the fact that CS hits for less than an auto-attack. It feels good to have because everything else feels bad.
Retribution Aura does not feel like an aura and I don’t find the gameplay appealing.
Replace Shield of Vengeance with Divine Protection so that the class is more cohesive and so Ret no longer has to stand in the fire to maximize damage. Replace E4E, which has been mostly useless for two expansions, with a talent that improves Divine Prot.
Okay, so that covers my primary feedback. Here’s the rest: nerf TV by a small amount, change BoJ from physical to magic so that Ret has a generator that feels really good to press, increase Crusader Strike’s AP coefficient to 100%, replace JV with a talent that improves WoG, take Steed off the GCD and reduce its cooldown to 40 sec, reduce Hindrance’s cooldown to 20 sec, reduce Flash of Light’s mana cost (at least for Ret) to 15% of base mana, and allow Ret to use the Prot PvP talents Sacred Duty and Guarded by the Light.
And two very minor suggestions to cap it all off: Wake of Ashes should stun aberrations, and Turn Evil should have no cooldown, a 1.7 sec cast, and a 30 yd range.
Could someone please post some feedback like this on the alpha forums? Maybe some of my feedback is too specific, and it’s clearly geared towards the aspects of the game that I’m personally interested in, but at least I’m trying.
I forgot to say what I like: unifying the class around the same resource system, baseline Sac, the return of auras and Turn Evil, and the removal of greater blessings.
I’m indifferent about BoSanc and Jurisdiction, but, man, I really like the rest of your suggestions.
I personally LOVE Hammer of Wrath, they just need to turn it back into a true execution… It should feel meaningful to press when a target is LOW hp. And if that means taking it off the “wings rotation” and changing something else. YOLO
Other than that, I liked your opinions about the game.
I agree it should be returned to a true execute.
Thanks guys. I regard to Sanctuary and Jurisdiction, it’s just stuff Ret used to have that was taken away to create the PvP talent tree. I never want to talent out of Sanct, but sometimes you gotta unless you want to shoot yourself in the foot, and there’s just never enough space for Jurisdiction. It wouldn’t be a big deal to have either of these in PvE, but it’d be cool. I thought that was the sort of ability we’re supposed to be getting back in Shadowlands.
But yea, as for the stuff most paladins care about, holy damage BoJ would make resets super fun, and HoW needs some sort of buff or change. TV damage should come down a little bit. The rotation should obviously revolve around big TV’s, but not so much so that our generators feel like piss.
That’s about all the feedback I’ve got. If anyone’s on the alpha, please bring up these sorts of issues: fun abilities or mechanics the devs missed in the paladin unprune, dead talents, dead PvP talents, and the sad state of our holy power generators.
Seems like Hammer of Wrath got buffed to 120% AP (was 92%) in the current build. Not much, but at least something.
As stated in another alpha related thread: it would be nice if the devs at least would acknowledge where they want to go with classes/specs, what they want to keep and what they intend to change. This radio silence (AGAIN) is disheartening. Didn’t Ion say they want to improve communication or something along those lines?
As a player that just picked up his ret again since legion, i have to disagree with you. Ret is one of the most fun and well balanced melee specs there is. Good damage, decent survivability, and decent group utility (going into SL).
Its in a way better position than say… feral.
Honestly, I am not excited about SL Ret at all. I think there is a lot of potential with the class, but nothing is being done to capitalize on it.
Ret just doesn’t flow well, Holy Power has always been a clunky mechanic with limited options and issues of holy power generation. Compared to Fury Warriors or Unholy Dks, the combat has always felt lackluster. (Not saying those two specs are perfect, but the combat is a lot smoother than Ret)
When you Death Coil on a DK, you feel the impact of increased Rune regeneration, Fury warriors have amazing animations and rage is a simple straight forward mechanic.
Blade of Justice never felt good to press, the combat often feels clunky and sluggish at time. I’m not looking forward to continuing using Holy Power or it coming back for Prot and Holy. Personally, I’d rather it be done away with completely.
(Maybe 6 Holy Power, with TV/DS costing 4 Holy Power, could feel better, but having 5 Holy Power always makes BoW feel awkward when you “over cap.”)
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As for baseline abilities, talents and covenant abilities, these all feel awful.
Baseline Abilities
Getting HoW and Consecration back is nice, but where are the good Blessings, Seals and Auras?
Devo Aura feels bland for Ret, and Retribution Aura is no something that benefits the raid group. Other’s don’t feel empowered while in the presence of a paladin and that’s an issue.
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Talents
Talents feel like a mess, with a lot of redundancy.
Tier 15 - Mostly fine, but Righteous Verdict could use some tweaking, maybe 10% buff for 8 seconds.
Tier 20 - Fires of Justice feels like a dead talent still and Sanctified Wrath should be in it’s place. Maybe tweaked so that while standing in Consecration causes you to explode with Holy Damage.
Tier 30 - Blind Light is a dead talent.
Tier 35 - Eye for an Eye feels weak, compared to Unbreakable Spirit but too strong vs melee. Blessing of Spellwarding should be in it’s place so paladins can stand a chance vs mages/locks.
Tier 40 - Holy Avenger always causes Holy Power generation to feel awkward. Overcapping Holy Power never feels fun and having 5 holy power with (3) holy power spenders just makes this ability cumbersome.
Seraphim feels redundant with Inquisition and Execution Sentence. “Press button for 3 Holy Power, passively increase damage/stats by X”
Seraphim and Inquisition should combine and be a Holy Weapon/Shield buff that increases damage done.
Tier 45 - Unless WoG is changed to be AoE again, Selfless Healer will feel better than it because it doesn’t sacrifice Holy Power (aka damage) to use. JV is still a dead talent due to cost.
Healing Hands is a freakin’ meme. I hope that’s an out of season April fools joke.
Tier 50 - Sanctified Wrath increases AW duration, but Crusade does the same thing in a more interesting way, again this should be moved to tier 25. Inquisition and Seraphim again feel redundant.
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This is what it should be:
Tier 15: Zeal - Righteous Verdict (Buffed) - Execution Sentence
Tier 25: Sanctified Wrath - Blade of Wrath - Empyrean Power
- Sanctified Wrath changed to make you explode with Holy Damage while standing in Concecration
- Talents renamed into Seal of Vengeance, Seal of Command, Seal of the Crusader
Tier 30: Fist of Justice - Repentance - Blinding Light (Buffed)
Tier 35: Unbreakable Spirit - Cavalier (Buffed) - Blessing of Spell Warding
- Divine Steed is an abomination to World of Warcraft Paladins and should be purged.
Tier 40: Divine Purpose - New Talent - New Talent
- Holy Avenger is just to cumbersome. Maybe change it to increase your Holy Power to 6? Seraphim merged with Inquistion
Tier 45: Selfless Healer - Justicar’s Vengeance - New Talent
- Healing Hands is a complete Joke.
Tier 50: New Talent - Crusade - Seraphim
- Seraphim and Inquisition merged.
-Seraphim - 3 Holy Power - 45 second cooldown
Call upon the Light to Bless your Weapon with Righteousness, increasing all secondary stats by X% and increasing the Holy Damage you do by Y% for 15 seconds.
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Covenant Abilities
The covenant abilities feel awful, is a lot of situations. Additionally, the opportunity to add in blessings, seals, and (better) auras was completely missed, why?
Divine Toll:
Divine Toll has issues with Holy and Ret. Mass judgement doesn’t feel great since it’s already an ability we have and in single target play it’s almost useless. 1 min cooldown judgement, yay?
For Holy, if you play Glimmer talent, it just randomly assigns Holy Shock to 5 people! yay for playing well, keeping Glimmer of select melee/targets. Again, horribly designed.
Ashen Hallow:
4 min cooldown, huge concentration? I mean, I guess? But again, it just feels like an ability we already have. To use HoW is fine, but nothing to exciting.
Vanquisher’s Hammer:
They took HoW, again another ability we already have, and combined it with Empyrean Power. Again, it’s so REDUNDANT. Cannot wait to have Hammer of Wrath, Vanqusiher’s Hammer and Hammer of Reckoning on my action bars!!! WEEEE!!!
Blessing of Seasons
Finally, an aura! This ability is actually cool since it’s an aura you can notice being in your group, but it will probably be nerfed into the ground or be something you have to manually activate every 15 seconds. That would remove the “aura” feel to it and feel more like an AoE buff cooldown. Almost more like a totem. This has great potential but needs to be done correctly.
(Sadly, it’s tied to Night Fae, but it’s pretty much the only thing SL Ret I’m looking forward to)
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-paladin-class-changes/490700/45?u=belerian-aegwynn
This answer is so damn unsatisfying. Nothing about our talents.
WoG buffed only for holy? Fine, why does it exist for ret? Our healing gets nerfed, FoL heals for less in alpha, WoG next to nothing and to compensate CS gets a mana cost so we can use even less FoLs? Not cool.
Seraphim and Inq? “Yeah, we invented both but now we don’t know what to do with it.” Great job.
SotR: “We are ok with it if you don’t put it on your bars.” Cool, thanks for the unpruning of a useless ability.
How about unpruning things that will really come to use? Divine Protection perhaps?
Nothing about ret in general… still based on the alpha testers my opinion stands extremely weak feedback.
Not accepting that ret has issues and there has to be things off the GCD.
Baseline inquisition or make seraphim cost no holy power.
I’m still worried that there’s no redesign for ret for covenants… I’m slowly starting to lose some hope at this point… sure we’re at the mid of alpha but for the first answer from a dev and it feels like “yeah we buffed this, ok dont add it to your bars but it’s still unpruning so yeah we did it”
nothing about the 2-4 second window where you’re playing the casino rng with procs to go back to your rotation.
praying for people to die? Lol enter LFR and you’ll never lose your buff >_>. anyways to add two cents to this thread i like everything going on with rets in shadowlands except that Divine Purpose (sorry) is still not baselined. Now its competing with talents i actually want on that row 
I dont enter lfr anymore… unless the transmog is good.
It’s terrible way to design something and call it “unpruning” regardless.
i’m not saying its a great way to design something but only one paladin in the group needs to use it, its not had to aura dance stance when you notice one of your party members about to die and paladins are popular my current raid group has 6 already and they wont allow me to use mine cause of it
My issue with Paladin remains the same: Screw auto-attacking. Remove the cd on Crusader Strike in exchange for reducing the damage.
It already hits for less than an auto attack. And you cannot scrap auto attacks when they give us AoW proccs.
Just remove the cd on CS, increase its damage and compensate by reducing TV damage. Can’t be rocket science.
I need buttons to press! * twitch *
You know, i’m neither for or against removal of Auto-attacks, but I’ve nver actually understood them in the game.
I mean think about it, why would you secretly be attack when you're not actually attacking? If that makes sense. When I'm not pressing special abilities why am I just randomly slicing my opponent? It never made sense to me.
Casters don't randomly keep casting miniature frost bolts in-bween casts, or something of that type. Was it just added into the game for flavor?
Can you calm down? I want ret to be the best it can be too. But if I were a community manager I would just ignore all of your posts at this point. I eagerly await the second pass of classes
I think even keep the damage the same but let it be a holy power generator that doesn’t have a cool down. it does so little anyways and unless they’re going to buff it I feel like the gameplay could be made more interesting by taking it off the charge system entirely