I bet you have had the honor of hearing that phrase before. It’s fairly common, and when it comes down to it, it’s a pretty true statement. I’d like to apply it to Ghostcrawler’s remarks about looking into the Paladin combat system once again. but part of me is tired of waiting, even though I understand that these things don’t get sorted out over night. I understand that the developers don’t want to go in and recode the game for paladins on a ground up basis, however I can’t help but have it cross my mind; would it have just been easier if they entirely re-wrote our combat system from the ground up the first time they started patching things up?
My next question is; what are they thinking about changing? I understand they want to move us away from the FCFS (first come first serve). If you aren’t familier with what first come first serve means it’s basically just attacking with whatever comes off of cooldown first. Ok, well I’m happy we are moving away from such a thoughtless rotational strategy, but how do they plan on going about this? How much more thought process do they want to go into the rotation?
Being who I am, I would love a very complex combat system, however most other paladins on our forums and who I have talked to have respectfully disagreed. Two of the strongest points that they bring up that would prove that it can’t become very complex are;
1. This game is simple. It was made that way so that everyone could enjoy this game. A very good selling point, while they do add some complex concepts into the game to keep the more avid players hunger for complexity at bay. I commend them for their ability to do so, however this would stop a combat system for being complex.
2. We already have so many other things to watch out for. If you play with tunnel vision, your team just can’t win against skilled players. We choose when to freedom over cleanse, when to BoP and when to divine sacrifice or just throw a sacred sheild on. It’s true, we have a wide array of support tools. This means that we have to be careful how complex our offensive system becomes, otherwise you are going to have people that aren’t as serious about this game be very unhappy at having to put forth much more effort then other classes.
What a shame too. I would kill for a complex battle system but they are right, the changes that Blizzard makes to the paladin combat system will more then likely be small changes. What kind of changes?
Some ideas I had; (possibly mentioned by other paladins)
Re-work Divine Storm. The talent for a 51 point talent, while it isn’t lack luster, feels very dull. Press the button “wooosh” and 2 seconds later it didn’t do anything to let me remember it by. The heal isn’t anything that I go out of my way to screenshot and that damage is far from breathtaking. Let’s even consider removing the heal. Haing divine storm do something different and interactive could be a nice and easy alternative. What if it puts a debuff on your target that Crusader strike or judgment consumes and then has an additional affect. Like “Divine Light; (A debuff that is created when you land a Divine Storm on the target(s)) Your next Crusader Strike causes the target to take an additional 10% spell damage for the next 5 seconds.” Now that causes you to want to put Divine Storm ahead of Crusader Strike in a variety of situations, esspecially in PvE.
Re-work Crusader Strike. Try ideas like “All physical attacks made on your target for the next 2 seconds ignore armor.” Yes, I know, overpowered for PvP but I would still love it!
I don’t know though, my mind races with ideas, and my hands are tired. I’m curious as to your ideas though. I want to hear some outside of the box thinking.
Oh, and good luck to everyone on your finals that are creeping up!
-Slayton
May 7th, 2009 - 8:46 am
Although I would love to see some additions to our offensive abilities, I really don’t think Blizzard will make that kind of “fix” at this point. It’s too large of a change. I enjoy reading these everyone’s ideas, though, so keep em coming! Maybe the powers that be will read them.
Also, did you mean “Patience”?
May 7th, 2009 - 9:00 am
Although not really related to pvp i’ve been wandering if they wish to say..lower the burst damage but keep the pve damage, why not make Consecration(Like say Death and decay, other AOE spells, even dots can tick and it works something like that) able to crit based on your own critical, you don’t find yourself standing on it that often in pvp.That aside, retribution feels rather dull in pvp lately, and the fact i often feel as if we’re balanced too much around Divine Shield..True a powerful spell, immunity for 12 seconds(which can be removed but still) and yet on a big enough cooldown to make it too good, once every 5 minutes.
May 7th, 2009 - 9:13 am
Patience?
May 7th, 2009 - 10:22 am
Ya lol, patience. Stupid Firefox auto corrected it wrong.
May 7th, 2009 - 10:40 am
I prefer the idea of CS doing the debuff, maybe even a double debuff? what I mean is the idea Blizz had a while back was nice, but add a second debuff that makes your next DS on the target holy damage? or reduce the damage of DS, but make it holy…. then have CS do the old effect of stacking a debuff to increase holy damage by X amount. Dis-spell able of course, but being effected by Stoicism.
I really don’t know how they will limit the burst. If they do cut the burst by a decent chunk I personally want to see something in return. An MS effect would be ideal, but they have stated they don’t want anymore MS’s in the game. Really I think the CS’s ability the showed us earlier should be what the glyph does.
I would certainly trade in some burst for an MS, and an interupt. while its been mentioned a distance closer would be nice to, but I can live with out one. The MSish effect they were going to put on CS is perfect, now if they would make hand of reckoning also work as an interupt with a glyph…. then you can force a nice wind up on my burst.
May 7th, 2009 - 12:08 pm
I have been on retpaladin.com for quite some time, have however not been readily involved in any discussion that were going on. It has very much improved my gameplay and through your insights has made me become a ret lover.
Regarding the combat system…i have to be honest i am in a bit of a split decision. Though i would very much like a total new combat system i am at the same time afraid of them ruining the class that have fallen for so much ;). I really like Slaytons ideas about making mini changes that would eventually lead to breaking the good old FCFS rythm. Pretty much every other class has moves that are interdependent on eachother which gives some room to play with. Pallis however judge first and that is mostly it.
but i like the direction slayton was heading.
In summary i am not really good at thinking of new moves or changes
PS:I like the fact that Turn evil is now instant through a glyph, sadly it is major
lol
PPS: I am german so please pardon me for a rather awkward diction and wrong spelling
May 7th, 2009 - 1:23 pm
I’d personally like Divine Storm to be a Finishing move, as if it were a paladin Eviscerate (pardon the rogue comparison). It just seems like a move that would freakin hurt somebody, not just set them up to get hurt eventually somewhere down the road by something else…
May 7th, 2009 - 1:25 pm
Ideas:
Glyph of Crusader Strike: Your critical crusader strikes now reduce the current cooldown of your repentance ability by 15 seconds.
Glyph of Divine Storm, Redone: Your divine storm deals additional damage when striking a single target.
Glyph of Art of War: When your art of war ability procs, you may cast exorcism on a Player Target. This will consume the art of war effect.
Glyph of Seal of Command: Your seal of command has a 25% increased chance to proc, the seal AND judgement deal 25% additional damage to stunned targets, AND seal of command no longer has an internal cooldown.
New Abilities:
Redemption: Pulls the target to your current location, ***may only be used on a repented target.
Holy Burst: Consumes your stacks of vengeance to seek retribution upon your enemy.
1 stack does a moderate amount of holy damage.
2 stacks does a moderate amount of holy damage and causes a knockback effect.
3 stacks does a moderate amount of holy damage, causes a knockback effect, and dazes the target.
May 7th, 2009 - 1:55 pm
I hope they make our combat system as complicated as Mages.
And Boomkins.
And Warlocks.
And Warriors.
And Hunters.
And Enhancement Shamans.
And…
May 7th, 2009 - 2:16 pm
LOL@Ferraro
As I have stated I would like an MSish effect, and a spell interupt if our burst gets knocked down. This is of course coming from a purely PvP perspective.
May 7th, 2009 - 2:47 pm
I was thinking more of a reverse rune system. Where the DKs have their runes refreshed evenutally we would apply different “debuffs” to the target to use different things.
Example- Your crusader strike applies a Retribution debuff, name to be determined later that allows you to use judge of justice Judgment of light and judgment of wisdom on the target for an added bonus effect. (couldn’t think of any sweet sounding names ATM
) This could be the new 51 pointer and work similar to the druids talent master shape shifter that does different things depending on what form the druid is in.
Judge of justice now slows movement by 30% but imbues the target with the spirit of justice with 5% more damage and healing. ( or something to offset us getting an actual snare because I can hear the QQ already if they were to give paladins a snare)
Judge of wisdom burns (x)% of mana on the target while the “retribution” debuff is up
Judgment of Light heals the Paladin for 15% of the damage done by the judgment.
Then they could make divine storm apply a different debuff and have judgments do different things.
You could also make it so after CS the debuff is spent if you judge but it can stack up to 5 times of somthing to make you hold out and unleash some controlled burt or snare or mana burn.
Just something to break the CS > DS> Judge repeat melee.
May 7th, 2009 - 3:36 pm
Been palying ret paladins since pre-BC and I gotta say, we are far FAR better off these days in comparison to way back. Yes, our combat system is as you put it “FCFS” But I think that kind of scatteredfight style IS our individual style, rather than just being another class that has an MS, a DoT, A bunch of weapon damage attacks, when you’re fighting a ret pally, who knows whats gonna hit you next. What I dont agree with was the SoMartyr nerf/debuff/sideways move.. I didn’t mind that the seal portion did bugger all damage, but i want my 10k judgement crits back!
May 7th, 2009 - 4:15 pm
It is difficult, if not impossible, to get excited about the concept of a more complex DPS system. Mostly because Blizzard has not be clear with exactly what they want Paladins to do.
They want more interactive than auto attack, but 3.1 makes auto-attack more than half of a Paladin’s raid damage. They want us to make choices about DPS abilities, but then make all the DPS talents available with more than a dozen points left over to spend where ever with no impact what-so-ever. They want us to be more well rounded in a raid so they give us abilities that make us want to do other things. For example, healing in a raid something worthwhile - but now they want to get us to turn our focus away and instead focus on a DPS rotation.
As a long time Retribution Paladin, I was not jumping for joy with the FCFS system we have. But it made sense. You could spend a GCD and drop a well timed heal or Hand spell in a raid and not be able to pick back up where you left off. Extra abilities made it a bit more interesting than DPS in early BC, and being more well rounded made the whole raid more interesting.
Blizzard has been very contradictory when it comes to Paladins. Until they get a firm grasp on what they want it should come as no surprise to anyone that what they deliver is constantly in flux.
May 7th, 2009 - 5:05 pm
Anyone played Runes of Magic? The Knight class in that is basically what our ret pally should be.
May 7th, 2009 - 5:34 pm
Ok, lets go a completely bizarre route, just for a change of pace.
Remove the cooldown from DS. Deals 110% weapon damage like now, but it also places a debuff on the target that reduces damage taken from DS by 50%. Every 2 seconds, the debuff loses 10%, making it’s effective cooldown 10 seconds like now to get normal damage again.
NOW. The second half of the debuff.
After the first 10 seconds tickout, the debuff changes. It now begins to count UP, and lasts until your next DS hits the target. Now, you could let the damage add up, like add some % extra damage for each interval of time you let it sit there, like 10% per 10 seconds, or whatever number you like. Rewards you with bigger burst the longer you wait, but you have to actively NOT hit the button and give up general DPS to get it.
OR.
You could have the second stage of the debuff start adding EFFECTS to the target. As it ticks up, the effect gets stronger and stronger, till it hits whatever cap has been set, and then it just sits there, undispellable and unremovable until you hit them with DS again. Now, keep in mind, you would essentially be completely giving up one of your attacks to get the effects, so the effects could be VERY strong. I mean like 60% snare or a 50% spell power penalty, increased cast time by 50%, reduce outgoing damage by 50%, stuff like that. Hell, even a combo of effects, like a snare+spell power nerf in one.
Either one require a choice be made. You can have your normal damage, or you can nerf your damage and be rewarded in another way.
May 7th, 2009 - 7:31 pm
I’ve always been an advocate of Crusader Strike applying a special debuff depending on one’s current Seal, causing the current seal to lose it’s effects for X amount of seconds.
For example:
Seal of Light: Grants the Paladin “Mark of the Lightbringer” causing the next Crusader Strike to heal the paladin for a X% of his life over a period of Y seconds
and
Seal of Wisdom: Afflicts the target with “Light’s Condemnation” causing the next ability to cost X% more to use.
Seal of Justice: Afflicts the target with “Inescapable Justice” reducing the target’s movement speed by X% and increasing the paladins speed by Y%
Seal of Righteousness: Imbues the Paladin with “Gift of Fordragon/Bloodwrath” causing the next Divine Storm or Crusader’s strike to deal 10% damage as holy. Stacks 3 times.
May 7th, 2009 - 8:27 pm
1) I honestly do not believe that Blizzard will change Divine Storm to be Holy Damage. This would undervalue armor penetration as a stat for ret paladins, and really really screws with goals for streamlined itemization of plate dps items as well as Blizzard’s efforts to make haste and armor pen more viable for plate dps classes. I really think this would be the only reason why Blizzard would keep DS physical (Holy but lowered damage I would personally like, but I don’t think that would happen).
2) To be honest, the best ideas I’ve seen relate to CS doing some form of debuff and/or CS doing an extra effect dependent on the judgement that’s active. This lets us do more interesting things with our judgements and possibly be more willing to change them up more often (especially if they do offensive things to the enemy, as in PVP if JoW and JoL just do more healing or give more mana you’re probably going to stick with JoJ still).
I really, really do somewhat enjoy my dps ‘rotation’ itself being rather boring. I don’t think it’s that much more boring than other classes and specs (see Ele Shamans for instance, or Enhancement Shamans aren’t much more exciting), and being able to watch for tossing out instant FoLs/HoPs/HoFs/SS/LoH/HoS/Divine Sac etc. etc.
That same sentiment also applies for pvp, although I’m distinctly concerned that we won’t get appropriate melee tools for the burst they will probably seek to reduce from us (or we’ll have the burst, but it will be complicated to set up, meaning controllable by us yet stoppable by the opponent). And in PVE, we’re not that fantastic either. I’m doing fine, and it doesn’t help that we have like 4 mages and 2 warlocks running with us to eat all our faces in on the dps charts, but I still don’t feel impressed with Ret PVE DPS.
May 7th, 2009 - 10:06 pm
My only true concern about overhauling the Ret Paladin rotation and making it more, ah, “complex”, is that it’s really just a slightly more winding road leading to the same destination. Fast forward a year from now and let’s pretend we have a kick ass new system that’s fresh, original, engaging, and still just as powerful. The same problem we have now will still surface; Once all the theory-crafters (that’s me!) get a hold of the numbers and spreadsheets, it’ll all be broken down into priorities, a fixed rotation, maximizing DPS by casting spells in a certain sequence, etc. So instead of how chaotic it is now (6, 2, 4, 7, 1, 3, 5), due to certain spells being dependent on other spell’s debuffs and cooldowns, it will be laid out even simpler (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). It’ll actually end up being more boring than the FCFS we have now.
The trick to reconstructing a combat system so that it’s not as “easy” as it is now is to do so without organizing everything too much. If C gets a boost from B, and B gets a boost from A, then there’s no excitement in going A-B-C, whereas currently there is. This is what the majority of the talk and discussion is about around the Irvine offices right now. It’s extremely difficult to find that fine line between fun vs. boring, complicated vs. simple, yet elegant and balanced. Especially for Paladins, who are always on the cusp of being either overpowered or useless with the flick of a hotfix.
May 7th, 2009 - 10:42 pm
When will you ever call it quits? I mean, reworking the entire paladin rotation is just flat out a kick in the twigs and berries. And even when it does get an overhaul, lackluster if anything the way blizz works things out, what’s to say that won’t be taken away without reason like exo in pvp. That made me quit the game in general. I still read up on my fellow rets and see their ideas… some good, and some just, /sigh. But when is enough to realize you have been screwed for to long? I wish you all the best. But, I for one… i’m done beating my head against a wall.
May 7th, 2009 - 11:30 pm
Theyre just going to nerf us..
Remember, everytime they promise us a ‘buff’, they just end up undoing it and nerfing our class even harder than if they hadn’t done anything at all..
Don’t get your hopes up guys…
Long live the paladin class in Diablo II…
May 7th, 2009 - 11:31 pm
*The only place they cant nerf it anymore cause of noobs who like to QQ.
May 8th, 2009 - 12:01 am
New 40 point talent.
Retribution of the Damned: Range of retribution aura extended to 50 yards. All enemies affected by this aura have their healing spells comverted to dps spells.
May 8th, 2009 - 3:28 am
My concern is that we will get a new slightly more complicated system that allows us to do the same DPS we do now. We really do not have a nitch to separate good rets from great ones. And if I hear one more person talk about us as a dps support role I am going to find a way to punch you in the mouth through this screen. Your 2-3k AoW FoL heals are not saving the raid, and if they are your strategy/healers suck major hairy/sweaty balls. End of Story. A warrior uses his charge to get to a boss first to get in a few more hits than me. I use my HoF to keep my ass mobile on Hodir. I am not going to keep a watch on our raid meters or install Healbot so I can use my utility spells when I should be concentrating on staying alive and DPSing my heart out. Now that doesn’t mean you have to avoid them entirely. A well placed HoF on a tank may save his ass from his own mistake or a cleanse may save someone from a negligent healer, but if you are in a raid as ret you are there to motherfuckin DEE PEE ESS!
May 8th, 2009 - 5:27 am
This one by is a good beginning:
by Xinv
Holy Burst: Consumes your stacks of vengeance to seek retribution upon your enemy.
The negative aspect is, that we hat to wait for 3 stacks to unload our big burst.
Maybe combine CS or DS with an spellinterrupt of 1 second?
May 8th, 2009 - 7:37 am
One of the ways they could do it is have some attacks with shared cooldowns. Something that ties in with Consecrate and could be used on single target that applies a DOT to the target. It would have the same damage potential as Consecrate, but would not suffer the same penalty if the target moved out of the AoE. So you get better damage on a single moving target, but zero AoE. With a shared cooldown, it would at least give Pallys some options.
I would also like to see some talent that has the ability to reset cooldowns on certain abilities. Since everything is so static, it would be interesting to periodically have the ability to reset your cooldowns on certain attacks.
Since everything about the Pally system revolves around cooldowns, I think they can make some easy but effective improvements with those types of changes.
Some other ideas would be to make separate debuffs for holy and physical damage that are consumed when the target takes that type of damage. That way you would prioritize some attacks over others and not just mash what is off cooldown.
Lastly, how about a Blessing of Spellpower?
May 8th, 2009 - 8:13 am
We could have our attacks modify our stats, such as offering more crit, more str, or stam etc. with out attacks decreasing or consuming those buffs. Personally, I’ve always viewed the paladin class as an unskilled fighter, but incredible buffer. Before you flame saying I just called paladins facerollers, relax.
Take the warrior, warriors should have attacks such as hamstring, MS, disarm, those are combat abilities that demonstrates a warriors combat prowess. A paladin should be a straight “nail? Meet hammer” and through their combat, they grow stronger and stronger making their attacks hit harder and harder. So while we don’t have abilities to “disable” or debuff our opponent, our opponents should not allow us to build ourselves up. Just my perspective on the paladin class. What our toons lack in ability (physical) we make up for in buffs.
To that effect, I think if we had attacks to buff stats and attacks that consumed our buffs or “unleashed” (similar to how our seal system worked earlier BUT NOT OUR SEAL SYSTEM AGAIN) that would be a plus. Mostly because a “rotation” could be dependent on your gear. You may go through naxx with a specific rotation for your gear level, and then when your gear’s stats change, maybe you want to do less of one particular attack in favour of another particular attack because the buff granted by the other attack grants a buff that complements your stats better than the previous one you used in the previous tier of content. Granted this could end up being completely gamebreaking or unbalanced or impossible to balance on blizzard’s part, but I think it’s worth exploring.
I agree with ferraro though, you can’t just make CS increase the dmg of judgement, which increases dmg of DS. Our rotation is already CS > judge > DS/consec > consec/DS. What’s the point?
And the biggest negative I see for the paladin class is whatever combat system blizz institutes, it is definitely going to need some protection against offensive dispels. Vanilla WoW was utter and total horseshit when priests and shaman could keep me running around with only an aura up.
Personally, I’d love to see a hell of a lot more utility brought in for the paladin class to prevent us from being CC’d a lot, and buff our team much much more. But that’s garbage for pve and doesn’t help ret in pve. So.. can’t really go that route. In pve you could increase ret’s dps and get a simplified rotation going, but then it translates into “lawl facerollers” in pvp. So aggravating.
May 8th, 2009 - 9:55 am
LOL @ Ferraro’s first comment. I also thought a few of Xinv’s ideas were pretty interesting.
Personally the first thing that comes to me in this situation is to look at other hybrids. Who else has to worry about when to back up heal (or tank.) or has to worry about throwing out protections, while worrying about maintaining a solid but intense rotation. My first thought is shadow priests. They have to keep an eye on a lot of the same back up responsibilities we do (PW:S vs SS, backup healing, removing debuffs for example) but must keep up a fairly complex rotation. Not that the rotation itself is that complex, but the perfection of it is.
Since we’re a melee and we have more mobility requirements, and instant attacks, it won’t bet to that degree, but I think for the more hardcore rets wanting something more intense, that level wouldn’t be too much to ask for. However, for those of us who enjoy how simple it is and find it a relaxing toon to play, I think maybe a middle ground between what we have now and something on the level of Spriest complexity might be somewhere to aim, while still maintaining our ability to change the tide of a fight with well used utility.
I mean before we go trying to make changes, its probably a good idea to know where we want those changes to fall in terms of complexity, otherwise we’ll just end up with a big clusterfuck of a spec.
May 8th, 2009 - 11:56 am
There are mathematical reasons for having a more complicated system for ret paladin dps. Bear in mind complication doesn’t mean that anything we DO is more complicated, it might just mean our abilities are more powerful if used in a handful of specific ways, and that those people who do not do this will be doing less dps/burst damage.
I can say without a shred of egotism that I mentioned they’d have these problems if they persisted with the design they have so far. The Seal/Judge system currently ingame was something I came up with nearly two and a half years ago, as well as the current concept of Hands (of which both Salvation and Sacrifice are more or less direct rips of ideas I posted about the same time).
There was logic behind the design of those abilities and Blizzard have not followed it through. That likely means they arrived at similar conclusions independantly without personal input from myself, but I am somewhat disappointed that the consequences of those decisions weren’t taken into account. I can’t say I’m amused by the prospect of them rejigging the class again but I am glad that over two expansions since I suggested most of these changes, Blizzard have finally caught up and realised that they are having problems with their design.
If they had listened earlier maybe this could have been done in TBC.
May 8th, 2009 - 12:27 pm
Some quick ideas….
Seal of Command removed and replaced with Seal of the Martyr. Seal of Command is useless now, get rid of it.
As much as people don’t like the recoil damage on Seal of the Martyr, I think it is acceptable now, and fits with the idea of a Paladin defending justice even if it hurts him. The base damage done by this seal and its judgement will need to be decreased, because of the new functionality added from the other skills. Also, the glyph of SoB should be rolled into the talent.
Mana cost reduced for core abilities.
Divine Plea trainable earlier.
New Talent, Contemplation, 2 ranks - Increases Divine Plea by and additional 15/25% (so 45% mana restored each time it runs its course) and gives Divine Plea a 50/100% chance to not be dispelled.
Fanaticism, 3 ranks - Increases melee haste by 2/4/6%. Stacks up to 3 times on crits.
Sanctity of Battle also affects Consecration.
Pursuit of Justice - Instant 50% speed increase for 5 seconds. 1 minute CD. Also, increases your movement and mounted movement speeds my 15%
Divine Storm - 60% of weapon damage as holy damage to 4 targets. Heals up to 4 party members for 50% of the damage caused.
Exorcism - Interrupts spellcasting and silences target for 3 seconds. 30 second CD.
Crusader Strike moved to baseline abilities.
Sanctified Wrath reduces CD on Avenging Wrath by 60/120 seconds. (up from 30/60 seconds)
New Talent, Holy Strike - After a successful critical attack, Holy Strike becomes available. An Instant attack that strikes for 50% weapon damage as holy damage to target and restores some mana.
New Talent, Uther’s Zeal - Increases the Paladin’s strength by 10% and Holy Damage dealt by 10% for 10 seconds. 2 minute CD.
Judgements of the Wise - Refreshes Divine Plea’s duration and no longer restores 25% of mana immediately. Still grants replenishment.
Swift and Sanctified Retribution are combined into one talent.
Another idea I had that would be a substantial change would be to allow judgements to stack on the target (wis, light, and justice) and then have CS or DS do more damage based on the number of judgements on the target.
May 8th, 2009 - 12:39 pm
I still say they should roll vindication into Crusader Strike. However, compared to before; it will have the following effect:
-4 stack potential
-Each stack will take 5% stats off of the other player.
-Each stack will give 2.5% stats taken from the other player to the paladin
Now, the paladin has the choice between two things:
1. Playing with the vindication stack, giving them a consistent dps increase.
2. Unleashing the vindication energy through something, maybe exorcism.
They can also modify Divine Storm in the following way:
-Base damage does 80-100% of standard damage.
-Each judgement cast on the target without a divine storm stack will add 25%-50% damage once the Divine Storm is cast on the target.
-The flip side is if the target dispels the judgment off of themselves (JoL, JoW, JoJ), then the bonus damage is never applied. (along the lines of a frost mage combo).
And…..I’m all for moving Reckoning over to the retribution tree, with the addition effect of:
1. Still has the extra attack bonus on it.
2. Additional effect of: If you use your hand of freedom while recknoning proc is up, the paladin’s speed will be increased by 30%, using up the reckoning extra hits and lasting a duration for how much time was left on the Reckoning buff. This gives the paladin reduced damage potential in exchange for some closing power.
May 8th, 2009 - 1:59 pm
Doesnt anyone get it! Blizz and non paladins dont give a rats ass about Retribution. They love there warriors and locks though…for example..crittable dots..in combat charge and a FREAKIN 75% heal reduction..
Yea they didnt want to give another ms effect but they added to the warriors ability. In arena my priest got off a 700 heal and warriors right now in pvp are doing incredible dmg. Bubble bursting….might as well let warriors cast an angry spell or some bullcrap.
With 3916 ap imma freight train from hell in pvp. If it wasnt for Insta-FoL and or our absorption shield i would kill myself. Im so angry right now I cant even think of the name. That damn shield should absorb and then after about so much dmg should kick crap right back at the enemy.
You want spells that dont even do like other classes..lets see..its not hard.
A spell that pulls someone outta harms way and reduces dmg done to them by 20% and heals them 10% of there health instantly.
I think that Judgement of Justice is crap. At least put a 10 20 or 30% slow effect and if the judgement crits if stuns for .5 (half a second). Internal cooldown or DR
Seal of Command- Im one the lucky paladins where it crits all the time for me but why does something have to be lucky.
What about say for pvp like a redirected heal. Similiar to a ms effect but say a Tree druid rolls hots or w/e on his partner(enemy) there should be something where you recieve/share 50% of the healing. Last maybe 10 secs. Activates when the target is at or below 45% health
They shoulda kept that damn interrupt with CS..if they actually though about it you would be doing less dmg cause ur waiting for CS to be up. And God knows there is too much fake casting goin on. I always hammer on casts esp on arcane mages cause then they cant blink when casting an arcane spell.
PvE..
Hammer of Wrath- reworked to be usuable at anytime much like a arms or fury warriors Execute if talented on chance or some ability or when ur tank dodge, blocks or parries. Consumes no mana
Corruption should be used and kept up by CS and and reworked into Divine Storm to increase DS dmg. Call it “Calm before the Storm”
See all this came out my A**..I have no more damn guts left. BYE
May 8th, 2009 - 2:26 pm
If our abilities looked like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va7I02GrRb8&feature=related
or lol this one…:27 and 1:54 mark..us-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzpUfPoQptc&feature=related
Runes of magic here I come.
May 8th, 2009 - 4:02 pm
@Imperator
I honestly do not believe that Blizzard will change Divine Storm to be Holy Damage. This would undervalue armor penetration as a stat for ret paladins, and really really screws with goals for streamlined itemization of plate dps items as well as Blizzard’s efforts to make haste and armor pen more viable for plate dps classes. I really think this would be the only reason why Blizzard would keep DS physical (Holy but lowered damage I would personally like, but I don’t think that would happen).
All they gotta do is make Armor Pen a conversion of spell pen for holy dmg. And I still wouldnt even gem that. We already have AP to spellpower it could work off that.
May 8th, 2009 - 4:32 pm
Pasted this in both Damage dealers and suggestions. Please troll and cut all my idea’s to crap or whatever.
Alright I dislike the other idea’s i’ve seen so far. But at least some of us are trying to help the developers come up with something. Playing Ret in Bg’s right now is just judgement , Cs, DS , AoW flash heals , some HoF, some HoP, Stun, Repent…yadda yadda boring oh and autoattack 60% of the time.
I have a few idea’s off the top of my head that some may think are copied or just stupid and perhaps OP. I really dont care but its different from what I’ve seen thus far.
Redeeming Strike - After 3 unsuccessful crusader strikes this ability lights up and allows you perform this attack at 100% weapon damage all Holy damage. If parried or blocked half of the damage it would have dealth still goes through. (notice I did not say consecutively unsuccessful)
Sanctified Strike - Attack that causes 50% weapon as holy dmg and stacks up to 5. Each stack reduces the mana cost of consecration by 20%. (Not sure of a cooldown or mechanic to allow this attack)
Spear of Light - A ranged attack performed from 30 yards away that can only be used when the paladin’s current target is more than 25 yards away from them? Instant and causes minimal damage but dazes the target for 3 sec.
Also a mechanic to reduce the cooldown of repentance somehow…Perhaps a talent in deep ret that every time an enemy is dealt damage from consecration the cooldown on Repentance is lowerd by 1 sec (Consecrate lasts 8 sec) This ability would homogenize well with Sanctified Strike.
These are just some idea’s so please troll my thread and post useless garbage like 90% of the stuff on here.
*Edit*
More things to add…
For Sanctified strike 5 stack free consecration add “This spell may be cast directly on another player(any player that is not just ally). My reasoning for letting it cast on anyone is to help damage enemies attacking your friends or force enemies to move from where they are standing currently.
May 8th, 2009 - 4:50 pm
@Brock
Fantastic ideas all of it! Blizzard should hire you
May 8th, 2009 - 6:39 pm
So Uh Ferarro,
I would like to remind you, ya know in case you forgot for 2 seconds. That you are our champion in Irvine for (Divine) Falcon Punch. I look forward to seeing this in the 3.2 notes due to your insistence.
May 9th, 2009 - 12:12 am
Yawn.
They change how burst works with the Paladin they will have to change how some of our utility works.
What i mean by this is our whole dps combat system on live right now is supported by our on demand spells like
Divine Shield for example. We live longer we have a chance to do more burst damage. Keeping dot up on a target or keep stacking debuffs with say divine storm or CS is just as boring when you don’t have the utility to support it.
With Retribution there isn’t a balance between our on demand spells and our offensive attacks like Crusader Strike.
I feel they are making a serious mistake by putting everyone on the same combat system just as a failed attempt to balance damage.
My to cents worth.
May 9th, 2009 - 4:47 am
What if they had an effect for pvp where you cast something where on your target during a certain times healing spells cant crit and HoTs roll slower?
Or a reactive ability to where if you have a slowing effect your target recieves the same debuff. Like work that into a Hand of Reckoning Glyph.
Someone answer me on this one…in my mind it isnt OP at all..after all Retribution is
: the dispensing or receiving of reward or punishment especially in the hereafter
: something given or exacted in recompense
And Recompense means-
:to give something to by way of compensation (as for a service rendered or damage incurred
:: to return in kind
May 9th, 2009 - 7:43 am
The only problem Illnadi is that they are changing our PvE rotation, burst is the only thing they care to keep an eye on in pvp, as our ratings aren’t suffering too bad at the moment.
May 9th, 2009 - 12:24 pm
Yea but what about the burst of warriors right now..juggernaut? An insanely free crit and ms to go with it. Was it really needed for warriors? And on top of that you still have DK’s doin large amounts of dmg with disease. I mean my priest takes a pounding. I can help keep him alive for maybe 5 mins. He cannot even afford to go offensive and the only time this happens is with Tree Druids. I cant take them down for crap. Maybe armeggedon(weapon) is not a big enough weapon?
May 11th, 2009 - 5:07 pm
I just want to tell you, “Slayton” You’re an idiot.. A lot of people recommend this site to me to check up on my class and what not, but every time I do it’s just you spewing a bunch of crap.
Divine Storm is an AoE to have it stack a debuff that benefits a single target strike would be unnecessary and stupid.
I don’t understand why you are yelling about how you want all of these changes. Paladins just got a huge change. Why the hell would you want a standardized rotation? I think that makes classes more mindless than anything. You hit the same numbers in the same order for everything. It’s redundant. Maybe Blizzard doesn’t want to move us into a rotation because it would make us just like every other class.
I agree our Talent tree is a little broken(All the extra points) but as far as our mechanics go, I’m happy with what I have. Compared to how we used to be, I’d say we’re doing fantastic.
May 12th, 2009 - 11:02 am
Supernads;
I don’t think you fully grasped an idea that I threw out there. The idea wasn’t something to be put into the game, more of something to work with. Sometimes people need to see something out of the box to think out of the box. However, if you think about it, you could get 2 Crusader Strikes off with the Divine Storm debuff, not just 1 single target Crusader Strike.
Overall, I just wanted to do what was asked by Blizzard, come up with a way of mixing things up with our rotation. I don’t want to add too much or make it too complicated, so the simpliest thing I could think of was changing one of our exsisting abilities. The buff doesn’t need to be huge, which is why the buff I suggested seems rather (for the lack of better words) “meh”. However, I feel Blizzard will take the same steps in correcting what they see as a problem.
Again, this isn’t my idea, it’s Ghostcrawler’s. He’s that guy who works for Blizzard who makes a lot of these things come off paper and into the game. So I feel you might be pointing your finger at the wrong person for the suggestion of disecting what you like about your paladin.
It seems to me you jumped to conclusions, coming here, or anywhere with a negative attitude and the thought of “I’m not going to learn anything but I’ll look” usually results in you finding exactly what you are looking for.
My recommendation is that you take a look around this website a bit more. There is a reason we have several people making posts on the front page, as we understand not everyone will agree with how we see our class/spec. If you still feel this site is not for you, then I am sorry, however, I would like to say that this is one of the first complaints I have seen in quite some time, and that I recieve multiple thanks for this website a week, if it helps support my case.
-Slayton
May 22nd, 2009 - 1:35 am
honestly with the way ret are now, unable to do anything to resilience using healers…
they should just bring back the ret from patch 3.0, holy damage divine storm and all that
May 24th, 2009 - 2:12 am
(Disregard the above imcomplete response please, damn laptop auto submit the incomplete form…. *cough* anyways….)
Ok so i know everyone is on edge in some way or another concerning the promises to change and possibly further complicate the ret rotation in a way that strives from the FcFS rotation (and it’s about bloody time)
I can see that they won’t make it too complicated when taken into consideration that we must constantly be using our various utility spells as well as dealing damage.
I would like to see some things done with Divine Storm and Crusader strike, But most of all i feel like the seal system has alot of potential for re-designing or re-working purposes. A form of stacking debuff sounds nice, As i feel ret is more a sustained DPS class.
What I really want, is a form of Desperado distance closer.
Glyph Of Sacred Wrath: [Major glyph] When you use avenging wrath your movement speed is increased 70% (doesn’t stack w/ PoJ) And any attacks made within 3 seconds of activating AW cause an additional 15% damage. (roughly enough time to get off one attack or one judgement with the bonus assuming you use AW when you are in range and not to close the distance
If a blueposter is reading this and wants to go cheap, how about a minor glyph that increases AW duration by 3 seconds. I would totally use it over glyph of the wise…. As it is canging seals is way to mana intense and does not yield a great enough reward to be worth the switch most of the time. In other words take an entirely useless minor glyph, make it slightly fun but overall not game breaking. (this would likely be more of a PVE slight damage increase, but one i could see logically being implemented)
I think this would be a fun glyph to replace the glyph of avenging wrath as it is, Has it’s advantages and would certainly make the spell more tempting to use… At what cost of course, possible vulnerability to CC/ Quickswitch damage without the bubble. I personally really like AW and feel like it should have different circumstances which it can be used, and when used poorly could spell doom for the paladin.
I got a billion and a half ideas on how to change retribution, alas this is all for now. Love and peace and im looking forward to 3.2