Hey guys, if you could pick different features from different expansions, which one would you pick to make your perfect Ret paladin version?
Mine was taking ret paladins from MoP as a base, new fighting animations from Legion, old Final Veredict animation and sound effect from WoD.
you?
Final Verdict
Really liked its animation with the hammer smashing down. It gave a unique way for gap closing, by shortening the distance needed to close with its 10yard range.
Also its synergy with Divine Storm was an extra bonus.
Blade of Justice
Mostly due to its animation, but I also like its snare capability when talented with Law and Order. I like holding on to proc or using it in conjunction with Hand of Hindrance to maximize the snares duration.
Hand of Hindrance
A strong ranged snare that serves as a good replacement for Seal Justice and Glyph Burden of Guilt snares.
Shield of Vengeance
Thematically suits the paladin as a defensive, exploding with a vengeance. Much better than the previous flate damage reduction of Divine Protection. My only gripe is its CD, which is in my opinion is too long, even when talented.
Wake of Ashes
Good damage, AoE, ranged, snare, animation and a full holy power bar.
Personally feel this should be a baseline ability.
Unbound Freedom
This is primarily due to the latest version. Having Hand of Freedom not be dispelled is nice. But being able share the snare and root immunity with the 30% speed increase, has been quite an enjoyable experience. Being able to help an ally an yourself hunt down an enemy is fun. But the biggest boon is using it to aid a retreating ally in escaping, while also benefiting too.
I do wish this was baseline and not just a pvp talent(or essence).
Word of Glory
Not its current iteration, though I do like that it effects up to three friendlies. I’m referring to when it didn’t have a CD. As you had a choice between playing offensively or defensively.
Eternal Flame
I know for many they won’t comprehend as to why. But for me being a solitary player it was good for world pvp and duels. Being a HoT meant that CCs wouldn’t reduce your HPS output as much.
Sure being dispellable was a negative in its own way. But for dueling this actually worked out. As classes that could dispell it, only ended up wasted many GCDs of potential damage to you trying keeping it down. As it didn’t have a CD and you where going to be using it consistently for its instant heal anyway. Mages on the other hand were a different story.
Selfless Healer
Not its current iteration, but one from Mist. (Actually there was a version early on during Mist beta that I liked the most. It only took two Judgements to make Flash of Light instant but it still costed mana.)
While not the best for duels or solo world pvp. It was great for team play, arenas and bgs. Turning the tide of battle with a decisive life saving heal or heals on team mates, certainly felt rewarding.
Pursuit of Justice(MoP/WoD)
It was fairly consistent, not easily counted by a simple snare or root. Was great for pillar humping or catching those that did. And good for escaping, when used with Emancipate. Combined with Final Verdict it gave good up time too.
Divine Purpose
Nothing like back to back procs to lay down the hammer, turning a divine tornado or popping someone back up with heals. Previous iterations where the most fun, even though they may have been a little too RNG for some.
Empowered Divine Storm/ Empyrean Power
While they both work differently, they’re functionally the same. And like Divine Purpose help to turn you into a divine tornado for AoE.
Glyph of the Battle Healer
Its original version. It felt rewarding to drop a little bit of dps switching to Seal of Light to take a bit of the pressure off healers. It may have only been mainly used in LFR, but there were still some pvp moments. It was also fun using it to Ret tank and heal dungeons too.
Holy Prism
Pulling rogues out of steath, sometimes.
Symbiosis/Wrath
Not because of any real active rotational gameplay, but more for shenanigans. Attacking players just out of the guards aggro radius on Timeless Island. Going toe toe with a hunter using this and winning hehe. Or just sniping people out of melee range.
I would it base off of WoD. I feel like WoD version was a good iteration over MoP version with Inquisition being removed, and little things added like Flash of Light passives, final verdict finisher, divine storm buff. Maybe bring some things from MoP like Consecration.
I would for sure the Divine Storm animation from Wrath
I would take all the major node passives from Ashbringer from Legion. It was too fun to send Divine Storms ahead and see it do it again, while producing all the numbers.
I would also like to have Divine Hammer from Legion. I think it was fun mechanic and useful in old content farms as continuous AoE.
They got rid of seals in Legion. I do miss having seals and not having to deal with holy power
Edited to fix bad information
omg how could i forget those features from Legion!!
Divine Hammer was so awesome.
They got rid of seals. in wod
I would love to see the return of Seal of Blood for ST, Seal of Righteousness for AoE, and Seal of Comand for PvP.
Pretty sure we had seals in WoD…Legion killed seals.
Thank you for correcting my information. Yes seals was removed in Legion I would love to see them return.
Pretty much just WoD Ret again.
One can dream.
I would like the return of exorcism, just change it out for blade of justice. Seals would be fun, but seal of truth would load too much dps into auto attacking and mean that time off target would drop our dps until you could get stacks back up. Maybe a seal that instead increases your holy damage done. Combined with a seal like old righteousness, that could make seal twisting required.
I actually like the BFA Ret as a baseline (I may have said the same about Legion Ret, but DAMN, when they changed the mastery and Judgment, it made a BIG difference to me, BFA’s Ret is better in that regard…if only we still had Ashbringer…also having talents like Inquisition that can compete with Crusade is amazing, I didn’t like the Crusade playstyle, I prefer the consistency of Inquisition).
The mastery is the same as WoD and with a better array of talents than Legion or WoD (overall).
BUT
I would take things from previous Xpacs and bring it back.
Rather than just Seals for Seals sake — bring back Seals and the Empowered Seals in one talent — basically if you take that talent, you change your entire playstyle. The other 2 talents on that row would be similar playstyle talents (one that keeps us on the ‘BFA’ track if you will…and then a third that mimics WoD or Pandaria closer).
Bring back a LOT of spells and passives (Long Arm of the Law, Speed of Light, etc.).
Also — the gold traits from Ashbringer + Emancipate coming back in some manner. Healing with divine storm and launching it forward is pretty neat (they don’t need to be baseline btw — can be a talent or as part of some post-max level progression)
The original Blade of Wrath from 7.0 Legion – low damage, low cooldown, holy damage
As for animations:
Final Verdict at least as an option via glyph (same for its sound effect)
Same for most spell animations
WoD with a lower or no cooldown Crusader Strike.
I think I enjoyed Ret the most during ICC, I really miss Divine Storm being used in our ST rotation and doing extra damage to demons/undead. I also miss things like Turn Undead, just made me feel very Paladin-like.
Isn’t TV already using the Final Verdict sound? They changed the sound effect not long ago (together with the new holy animations, I guess?) and I was always convinced that it was the Final Verdict one.
TV is using the FV sound - you’re correct.
Oh boy I hope you guys are ready for it. Incoming best seller novel.
Ok let’s jump into it, since I do both raiding and pvp i’ll have a huge pvp perspective about the iteration I dreamed of.
For the base of the spec I would use Cataclysm 4.2 and hear me out on why.
Nowadays people see Cata and feel nauseus just thinking about it because it brang with it the holy power rework. The first iteration of the new ressource system. Obviously it was a shock to everyone, but to myself made ret pretty enjoyable and way less braindead to play like DH is.
So we are in Cataclysm 4.2. What’s good about it?
First, sactified wrath that allow hammer of wrath to be used while avenging wrath is active provides 60% crit chance to HoW. And it hits really hard.
Secondly it’s right after the big nerf to wog cd that was jumped to 20second in 4.1 and it did bring a buff to instead 10second cooldown on wog. Which is pretty good because wog by itself allowed you to live more than 10second without needing to spam it like in 4.0.6. So it forces you to play offensively since you can’t use it for 10second.
We are a REAL hybrid spec. WoG is insanely powerful on allies, using it on allies have 50% increased healing and buffed your damage by 6 for 12seconds.
It also had a talent from holy that increased its crit chance by 60% when used on people below 35% max health. Now that synergized pretty well with the new iteration of sacred shield. When we would be bring down below 30% max health, a big absorption shield would proc with a 1min internal cooldown. Among 30-45k shield, and also increased healing recieved by 15 or 20% during the duration. So you could top yourself with a single wog because it was boosted by that amount and also had 60% crit chance for being below 35% max health. What was also pretty good, it scaled with strength, so using a badge pvp trinket right before it triggered meant 50-70k absorb shield. On 150k health. Which was super good for our survival.
Also Cataclysm was a good expansion for ret, we never really got nerfed except for the 30sec increased to sacred shield which bring it to 1min and the increased cooldown of wog to none to 10sec. Damage wise, we even got buffds in 4.1 or 4.2 on templar’s verdict and hammer of wrath.
Thing to remember are; only crusader strike generated holy power. We had a talent that whenever we were suffering from a cc we gained a holy power, 8 sec idc. Divine purpose had a 15% proc chance from every ability we had and could proc off itself, numerous time. Easily done 8 times in a row every 20min of gameplay, even happened on a single boss fight where I was chaining 5-9 procs in a row multiple times. We had repentance instant cast and hammer of justice. Long arm of the law required 10 yards between our target to gain the bonus speed. Cleanse removed all poisons, disease and one movement impairing effect, prioritizing root.
So in pvp our damage was really good, and if i’m not wrong top middle of the pack in pve.
Now where it becomes interesting is when we had all the quality of life changes of the more recent expansion on top of an already solid base.
TBC
The aura that increased holy damage from the ret talents would be pretty nice to have, but that’s just tuning at this point.
Wotlk
I liked judgement of justice to prevent people to run above 100% movement speed.
Also freedom removing stuns on ourself.
From MoP, all our ability now generate a holy power. Also, we may now reserve up to 5 holy power. Made the rotation pretty fluid and smooth.
Clemency, hand of freedom, bop and hand of sacrifice have 2 charges.
Execution sentence, the way it dealt damage but wod mechanism for the way it did the burst healing instantly.
Seal of justice making all our attack apply a 6sec 50% slow.
Glyph of burden made judgement apply a undispellable 60% slow for 2seconds.
Holy Avenger to replace Zealotry, instead of requiring 3 holy power to use Zealotry, it is now free and increases the damage of your holy power generators by 15%.
Hammer of Rightheousness, aoe holy power generator.
Pursuit of justice available as a talent since many people enjoyed it.
Long arm of the law to apply the soeed bonus without yards requirement.
And pretty much done for mop.
Next up is wod.
Final verdict was an amazing ability making your templar’s verdict deals holy damage, gave it 10 yards and made your next divine storm used 16yards and 100% additional damage.
Divine storm empowerment was a wod perk making your abilities a chance to make your next divine storm free of holy power consuming and 50% additional damage. Coupled amazingly well with final verdict.
Hand of sacrifice dispelled all magic effect on an ally when used. Was pretty good.
I have a blank and completely forgot the name of the seal twisting talent for those who liked the playstyle. It was pretty strong it pvp by making you pretty durable, increased haste by 15%, healing you for 3% max health every 2 seconds, 10% attack power, 20% bonus speed.
I think that’s pretty much it for wod.
For legion, now.
Wake of ashes, 30sec cd, generates 5 holy power, leave a 6sec dot and snare. Pretty good. And the dot was nice.
Forgot the name aswell but the gold trait that made divine storm travel foward by 10yard was pretty good.
Judgement cleaving people around your target and Greater Judgement to cleave 2 additional enemies and garantee crit on people having more than 50% of their max health.
Blade of justice is a pretty good replacement for exorcism. I would keep it with a talent to change it to Divine Hammer so we have a chance to keep it single target or aoe as we please. Blade may not be a 30yard exorcism, but it still 12yards, generate 2 holy power, allow for an aoe choice and we are still very mobile from cleanse removing roots, snare, double freedom, long arm of the law or pursuit of justice, hammer of wrath being a powerhouse of damage, final verdict being 10yards and divine storm being 16yards. So we are able to connect way easily to someone only by having abilities having greater than melee range.
Hand of hinderance, 70% slow on 30sec cooldown for 10sec.
Also the pvp talent that makes blade of justice applies it for 3seconds.
Shield of Vengeance is pretty neat, but with the 30% of max health shield quality of change from BFA.
Not sure if i’m missing stuff from legion.
BFA
The mastery, although boring, it is the strongest we’ve gotten. I liked the additional damage from hand of light in Cataclysm though. Maybe if it affected every damaging abilities and wog healing then.
Hammer of reckoning would help ret in pve to bring wings more frequently into fights. Would also help crusade so we stack up crusade with hammer of reckoning then use crusade before it falls off to keep the current stacks.
Expurgation, I like the fact a single trait is completely changing the way our stat priority becomes all around crit to take advantage of this trait. It’s like the talent from legion that made blade of justice critical strike dealt 300% damage instead of 200% but it wasnt good enough on its own to be built around it while expurgation is. And I like ret having dot so when we are not on target we still have damage going on.
Light’s decree is an amazing trait, pretty strong to gain 5 seconds on wings but the way it affects holy power is what Ret is missing in current wow. Holy power feels unflavorful because nothing synergize with it, hense, make this trait so amazing and flavorful how every holy power consumed while avenging wrath splash holy damage, and it is very good for aoe when stacked 2 or 3 times. I would really like this trait to stick around as a passive or some sort of other ability making holy power flavorful.
I don’t know if there’s anything else I would like from bfa. So i’m stopping here. That’s how I would merge abilities and passive through out ret’s iterations into one ideal ret spec.
I have many other ideas out of wow iterations to bring ret back into a real purger of evils and unstoppable lawful justice but that thematic has been removed from the spec sadly with legion. It’s now just holy abilities with random hammer or holy name without thematically being tied to either justice or evils mechanics. Which would be fun. I could elaborate if anyone is interested!
I have enjoyed any worf of your novel. with the exception of Hand of light mastery, it was just like a multistrike, and I really prefer big numbers on the screen.
I dream for once that they could combite the best of the best of every expansion. For me class design and gameplay is the most important thing, cause at the end, they could add even new features and content to the game, but if your class feels boring, I wont matter.
End of wrath was the best, no competition. /endthread
Bring Auras back. Duh “They should be returning in SL as baseline”
A GOOD close gap of some kind. “I’m looking at you Turalyon and Arator”
Remove Holy power and put in a Focus like stamina. Think like Rouges/Hunters.
Give 3m range to some of our Strikes.
For all that is holy: NOOOO!