Disclaimer : Everything written in this post is from a pure Retribution point of view!
I’ve seen a lot of sites out there stray away from Paldadin news, and frankly I don’t visit WoW sites to learn my fair share of life lessons. I thought it would be a good idea to keep up the announcement post so a lot of discussion could come out of it, and lots did! I’m extremely proud! To continue the wave of on-topicness, it’s time to update the front page on my take when it comes to the Paladin announcement. Blinding Shields (level 81) :
Blinding Shields (level 81) : Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure’s ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.
Verdict : Thumbs down.
This ability hardly benefits a Retribution Paladin. If you’re facing opponents that fall for a spell with a two second spell cast, then chances are that you’re either charging into a group of fifteen people while joking around, or are trying to annoy your undergeared buddy and make him cry “overpowered!”. On the fipside, I can see a few scenarios where this might come in handy – such as fleeing in terror from an RMP while pole humping or.. charging into a group of 15 people in AV with a healer to “hold them off”. Again though, when was the last time that you were able to cast an entire Holy Light at any point in arena when you had a Rogue and a Mage chasing you down tearing apart your poor armor?
Healing Hands (level 83) : Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.
Verdict : Maybe?
It really depends. Is it going to be as bad as a Feral Druid attempting to heal with his Rejuvination? It might not actually be bad when stacked ontop of Divine Storm healing – we’ll have to see if it even makes a difference (such as forgetting to cast FoL when it gave you that crazy HoT!). I think that they are going to make the spell Fantastic for Holy, and just another button for us to remember to press in the middle of PvPing, if it’s even worth the potential huge % of base mana that it might cost.
Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85) : Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
Verdict : Not too shabby!
Sure – It’s a glorified Death Knight gargoyle. I still feel that this is just going to be a fun skill to use at all times, and the first of the wave of changes that adapt to the spec that you are! Though it’s only just an idea currently, it’ll be an interesting ability that probably won’t disappoint as long as it adds some damage. Sadly thoug, there isn’t much else to add!
- Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack. Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.
- Cleanse is being rebalanced to work with the new dispel system. It will dispel defensive magic (debuffs on friendly targets), diseases, and poisons.
- Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.
- Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins.
Crusader Strike is a core ability? Yep. Who woulda thunk that auto attacking for 50 levels was an uninteresting way to level up.
It might not seem it from these notes – but defensive Cleansing (taking magic debuffs off of yourself and allies) is going to be taken away from Protection and Retribution Paladins. It’s a bit too early to jump to conclusions and shriek about the nerf train, but if these changes came into the game currently Ret would have suffered a huge slap.
BoM + BoW : Okie dokie?
Holy Shock being a core healing spell might be quite fancy as Retribution, again it depends if we are going to drop down heals that are wet noodles or giant fists of great healing justice.
Final verdict : Meh?
Paladins didn’t get giant bones thrown at them like the other classes have so far. It’s just ideas – a gargoyle, a medeocre heal for Ret (probably), and a nigh-useless blinding ability that is probably more of a parlor trick that’s going to get an overexxagerated amount of zoom-ins in PvP videos. It’s still healthy to discuss changes and voice concerns however! Thoughts?
- Megaphone
April 23rd, 2010 - 8:01 pm
Thoughts?
Bring on Beta.
April 23rd, 2010 - 8:02 pm
Afraid I’m going to have to ban you for not adding ” /thread ” at the end of that reply.
April 23rd, 2010 - 8:08 pm
i wonder if the guardian will benefit from avenging wrath. regardless, having two ‘angels’ (AW + guardian) rip apart your enemy will definitely be a sight to see.
April 23rd, 2010 - 9:05 pm
All garbage abilitys, we will be ping ponged with nerfs and buffs for MONTHS into the expansion.
April 23rd, 2010 - 11:03 pm
It can’t be worse than S2, I’ll probably stick around. Getting an interrupt will be great, but like Slayton has said before, we need to figure out if we can keep 5 yards on any target, not to mention those pesky pesky mages which are getting what? Oh yeah, more control and more kiting abilities. I would really like to keep on the Ret, but in the same sentence I really don’t feel like helplessly chasing down mages for another expansion.
April 23rd, 2010 - 11:41 pm
Only thing that from this changes i really like is base line Holy Shock.Garg for ret and flying Stone Claw Totem for prot are quite meh but it woudl be fun if that pet coudl only heal.But still new ability to dps is better than nothing.
April 24th, 2010 - 1:18 am
You never know what will happen. Maybe they will do away with our Divine Protection once and for all, so they can stop using it as a scapegoat.
April 24th, 2010 - 5:30 am
I’m not a huge fan of some fo the changes. I’m still reserving judgement until we see some more concrete information. The Crusader Strike change is the only change that has my hopes up.
The ‘Whirlstorm’ change has me skeptical, and I hope they find a way in Cataclysm to keep our single target DPS competitive.
I don’t know, I’m not sold on anything yet. I like to be viable as DPS, and hopefully future Ret information will reinforce our current insecurites.
April 24th, 2010 - 7:13 am
Divine Shield has been our bane since the beginning. No matter what ability, talent, buff, or nerf other classes get, everything always winds up coming back to “paladins have Divine Shield”.
I like the spell. I like hitting it and charging into a mass of Horde in a BG, and having my teammates either spam heal me or follow me into the fray (I don’t arena). But the ability is too significant and a constant source of ire from other classes.
It could be worse–in WC3 you could almost have it active indefinetely.
April 24th, 2010 - 8:40 am
Divine Shield is a red herring. It’s not nearly as powerful as so many players and even some developers make it seem. It gained power in WotLK because of the faster pace of PvP and more instant attacks. But half of that is a problem with PvP overall.
Ret will be a gimp warrior for most of Cataclysm, except for a brief period when they overbuff Ret.
April 24th, 2010 - 9:26 am
I never thought ret shields were that great. When ever I use shield, it’s to brake a cc, need to help a teammate, or I am about dead. When fighting Pallys on my other toons, I see them bubble, so I just change targets till that bubble is gone, and as soon as the bubble is done, I nuke them. I was never that great on my pally in arena, but I was damn good on my druid,hunter and priest. But sense my main was a pally, I knew just how to handle them and never had a problem fighting them. So I’m kinda sick of the qq from people about the bubble cause it’s kinda sad when my Disc priest can take a ret down faster than any other melee without dispelling their bubble.
April 24th, 2010 - 10:00 am
http://www.retpaladin.com/warcraft/2008/12/an-interesting-proposition-live-streaming-and-site-updates/
Had to dig that up!
Been a hater of Divine Shield for a long while.
April 25th, 2010 - 5:14 am
As far as pvp is concerned, if blizz doesn’t give us the ability to be a serious threat to healers then I think it’s not going to matter what the changes are. As far as pve is concerned, I think we are going to be some damage dealing machines with decent utility and staples in any raid.
April 25th, 2010 - 10:38 am
I think we’re getting nerfed the first week our Holy Damage Mastery goes live.
April 25th, 2010 - 6:32 pm
Nerf’s or buff’s aside, some of what GC has hinted towards almost seems like they are taking the class as whole serious now instead of just making us a “tank” healer. I’m pretty sure he is hinting towards ret & prot for that matter getting a rotation and making it so mistakes can be made in that rotation. Ret’s mindless fcfs rotation got REALLY old, real fast.
The main thing I’m looking forward to is the talent trees. Once I get a look at those, I might decide whether or not to play the game again. But until then I look at these “previews” with a “shrug” and see them as only a marketing ploy like the ones for wrath were.
April 25th, 2010 - 11:21 pm
I demand in the place of the crusader strike talent we get a talent that makes our CS do holy damage!
I DEMAND IT!!!
April 26th, 2010 - 12:05 am
Let’s not get crazy.
April 26th, 2010 - 2:24 am
The Guardian of Ancient Kings was my idea that I offered up to Blizzard around the time of TBC. The only difference here is that Blizzard’s version of Guardian of Ancient Kings doesn’t allow interaction with the pet bar.
The conspectus is pretty much the same. If you are Holy. The Guardian of Ancient Kings will resemble spells/abilities you would expect to see with a Holy Paladin.
The other small difference here is that the Guardian of Ancient Kings would of came with 3 types of spells/abilities and depending on your spec the strength of those abilities would have a healing, mitigation(aka defensive utility) or a new attack or buff for Retribution’s damage skills/abilities.
As I am pleased that another thing I mentioned will be implemented into the game. I fear for Retribution Paladins overall effectiveness in Cata.
The spec stills works off burst damage for the most part.
We keep seeming a decrement in defensive utility and different things being implemented either by
Debuff
Other classes spells/abilities
Our right punish the player for using a ability that is a base spell/ability.
Since there isn’t any real talk as to how Retribution well be seeing offensive utility and only talk about the changes to a Retribution Paladin using defensive utility. If you passionately enjoy Retribution as I once did. I would worry more about your time being invested into this game then you have done in the past.
Seriously evaluate the history of Retribution changes and if you still have faith after you have given real and I mean real thought about the development process that has taken in the past and now and still feel confidant that Blizzard will come thought. Then by all means tell me to QQ more.
However for me when I recive and direct indirect comment from GC himself explain what I should keep in mind about my own idea. It’s time to looks elsewhere for that Retribution Paladin I am after to play.
April 26th, 2010 - 7:12 pm
I don’t think the Guardian is a good idea for Ret. If you have no control over it then what happens if you want to change targets and repentance your current one? If it doesn’t follow your target then it will break it. Realistically why not just make it a self buff? Get rid of Avenging Wrath and have this instead. So the Ret transformation would have an extra Holy dmg proc tied to all attacks. The Prot one would get an absorb shield. The Holy one would spew heals like a autoLightwell.
April 26th, 2010 - 9:22 pm
Hearing people ‘excited’ about these changes makes me laugh. Hard.
It’s a completely junk preview relative to the other classes.
Fortunately, I’m not shocked in the slightest.
April 27th, 2010 - 11:20 pm
@Dodge
I concur,
April 28th, 2010 - 3:00 pm
Paladin being given a pet is 100% fail! So that pretty much sums it up we got a buncha useless shit
April 29th, 2010 - 3:39 am
Woe is me, for everyone else had a better preview!
Seriously guys, we haven’t seen beta yet. Don’t jump on the bandwagon yet.
April 30th, 2010 - 1:57 pm
Paladin being given a pet = stupid, lazy development.
April 30th, 2010 - 5:00 pm
@Vindictus
I’ve been around for quite sometime. It’s always the same deal. Talk about awesome change. Paladins get excited. Paladin see great changes and finally don’t feel held back. Then all the patches after revamp every spell/talent under the sun for Retribution. It’s pretty safe to say we are not “Jumping on the bandwagon”. We have been already on the wagon since patch 1.9.
@Doucard
My point exactly. This is why I mention in my idea they are using that I thought up in less then 30 seconds to use the pet bar because, of this reason alone. Personally, I rather see a better interaction with seals and offensive,Defensive and healing utility be better in tune with them then they are now. Either that or just give us back Reckoning bomb and call it a day. There will be so many snares, so many magical effects that only bubble will be able to deal with and I doubt Retribution’s mana pool will be optional for healing through all that damage.
Cleanse was the single most useful spell a Retribution Paladin had as a form of defensive and mostly directed towards magical offensive utility to prevent being nuked down faster then a the GCD takes to come back on Crusader Strike. Then they changed the mechanics in TBC where it would not target snares or cc effects but, debuffs and harmful dots first. Where before we could heal that off. Then Blizzard implemented fail cleanse where it would never hardly remove what we needed it too when we needed it.
This is just going a bit too far imho. Yes they will give us something back but, in the end Retribution is over taxed as a hybrid dps spec to the point of “wtf do I play this class or let alone this spec anymore?”.
Like I mentioned to Vindictus. It doesn’t matter. Those new spells have a pretty good chance to get nerfed right out the front gate.
April 30th, 2010 - 8:29 pm
There’s a group of people that do this every time they touch the class. I spend more time telling people to stfu and stop being cynics than I do discussing actual changes.
Wait. Until. Beta.
April 30th, 2010 - 8:34 pm
There’s a group of people that do this every time paladin changes are previewed. The preview falls far short of what’s needed or expected and the blind optimists say “wait for the test realm/beta”. And in the end, the changes still fall short.
May 2nd, 2010 - 3:17 am
No one says that, Exe. It’s always ‘blind’ negativity. Especially in this case; mostly baseless complaining of abilities we haven’t even seen used yet. I’m targeting the silly posts going around, not comprehensive ones.
At the end of the day, it’s still just a game.
May 2nd, 2010 - 6:17 pm
Exedore’s been playing since Vanilla, I’ll take his word for it if he says things fall short when a preview is lackluster. I’m more concerned about the fact that they couldn’t even give one hint as to what ret’s new combat system will be, especially after allowing themselves more time, not weither or not it will suck. The fact that it took a Q&A for them to say “ret will get an interrupt” when something that simple can be put in a preview isn’t very good.
May 2nd, 2010 - 7:49 pm
“There’s a group of people that do this every time they touch the class. I spend more time telling people to stfu and stop being cynics than I do discussing actual changes.”
/yawn… Because things have turned out SO AWESOME over the last 5 years hey!
You belong to the sky is blue crew despite hellfire dropping down. You’re FAR worse than the group you mentioned as you seek, and achieve the goal of keeping retribution oppressed.
Do you see mages, and rogues and priests talking about how awesome is everything 24/7 even despite them being far more capable in both pve and pvp… No, they seek improvements, dare I say justice which apparently self flaggelating – ‘ill pay my monthly fee regardless’ douchbag paladins don’t care about.
I FAR prefer people being overly critical than just maintaining the status quo… We’ve had years of that.
May 3rd, 2010 - 6:47 pm
Missing the point of what I said. I had a go at the one post wonders that are lurking around; spewing their “OMGAWD THAT SUKZ” opinions then leaving, without any reason as to why. They seem to be everywhere whenever new information is released.
Things did turn out pretty good come Wrath, if you played retribution in BC. There were ups and downs along the way.
@Badpaladin
I agree, they didn’t even entertain the idea we would get an interrupt in the preview. Maybe they forgot we don’t have anything to compensate for the loss of cleanse.
I’ve also been playing retribution since vanilla, not that it really matters.
May 3rd, 2010 - 7:01 pm
@Vindictus
WotLK was bad for Ret overall. They buffed damage way over the top at the start instead of buffing it slightly and giving us utility or an interesting combat mechanic. When the damage got scaled back to a realistic level, we were left with okay damage, but nothing to back it up and a rather boring and clunky damage system. Not to mention, constant changes to mechanics.
Now in cataclsym, ret paladins are losing more of what makes them unique and gaining new abilities to homogenize them with other DPS classes so that 10man raids and PvP are easier to balance.
May 4th, 2010 - 2:12 am
Personally, I enjoyed being viable. Even if it meant playing a convoluted and simplistic rotation. Regardless, it was far better than Vanilla and BC.
You don’t know what’s happening in Cataclysm as it hasn’t happened yet
May 6th, 2010 - 12:56 am
Has anyone checked the MMO champion alpha info (I’m sure you have)? Apparently Swift Retribution is equivalent to improved icy talons, and the crusader strike ‘placeholder’ increases CS’s damage by 10%.
May 6th, 2010 - 2:01 am
I don’t mean to be overly pessimistic, but jesus fuck those are some boring, lazy, easy swaps.
I hope to christ they actually do more than this garbage
May 6th, 2010 - 2:25 am
CS talent HAS to be a placeholder (right?).
I also didn’t notice the vindication change. That’s pretty cool.
June 28th, 2010 - 2:03 am
So, with ret losing cleanse. I’m afraid we will become the most kiteable and laughable melee class in the game and have 0 chance at competitive PvP. So during the time that HoF is not on the paladin (AKA when it is purged,dispelled, or spell stolen or on CD) We have absolutely no way to move closer to our target, except to turn tail, mount up and switch to crusaders aura…. Yea baby crusaders aura makin a comeback in Cata?!