You’re taking away my dispel?
In our previous post, Tharvolde mentioned how Blizzard is taking away our dispel mechanics, and also we mentioned how Blizzard is going to give Paladins some stuff. What do we do now? Speculate how we will become overpowered in the beginning of the expansion until they nerf us two seasons later? I think so.
First, let’s look at what taking away our dispel does;
Lowers the skill cap even farther! Being on top of such a defensive mechanic while trying to play offensive took multitasking, something that adds a bit more challenge and fun into the game.
Having no dispel hurts our mobility, a lot! This puts a lot more pressure on Hand of Freedom, and makes us more prone to be locked down. Right now, our mobility can be questionable at times, now, we are looking more and more like enhancement shaman, something which everyone agrees with, isn’t a good thing.
Less synergy in arenas; with no dispel it’s just another reason not to bring us. Being a second dispel really helps in something like Ret/Rogue/Priest. One of the comps greatest strengths is that. In 5s, a Ret paladin can be quite viable based on this fact alone.
So what can we expect to see?
Well they say big changes again are coming our way. I’m hoping for a bit more of a combat healer. Already, divine storm adds some, while trivial, healing into our combat mechanics. In a lot of games, paladins do normally have heals tied into their offensive attacks. This would be interesting, and add a very distinct taste to us.
We might see our damage get a bit stronger; the less mobility we have, the more likely we are to get better damage.
We also might see some interesting defensive moves, granting movement freedom for the entire party, or even snaring the target on judgement.
So now we know what they are taking from us, let the speculation begin for what they are giving us. Let this be your chance to set in stone your predictions so that when Blizzard announces what they are giving us, you can say “I CALLED IT!”
-Slayton
Update by Tharvolde: OH NOES! Leap of Faith (Priests) and Heroic Leap (Warriors) are both taken now! Paladins will get neither! SOMEBODY CALL THE AMBERLAMPS. I can’t wait for the 16th 
.
April 7th, 2010 - 3:04 am
No idea of how there going to compensate for it, it better be big… more damage would be nice i guess but whats the point if your stuck in a frost nova when hand of freedom is on CD?
April 7th, 2010 - 3:10 am
I actually think it’s about time they made the brave move of splitting these core skills away from the different specs. It cuts down on the QQing about being a one-man-army, being “easy”, and allows focus on the specs as they stand on their own two feet without worrying about hybrid taxation. These kinds of moves can only serve to improve the core specs for hybrid classes moving forward, and I have a feeling that Ret will do well out of Cataclysm.
April 7th, 2010 - 7:12 am
I can come up with a lot of ideas of how to compensate us but feel that I am probably wrong on each of them.
What I do feel a need to point out is that they have said that they want to change the combat system for us so that we have “more opportunities to screw up”. Perhaps they will do that by making it so that we have to manage our mana in some ways. Mana gain vs damage so to speak. This would affect pvp but it does not give us a compensation for the cleanse loss. But such a system may cause us to simply not have time to cleanse all the time and therefore the compensation may not be something you need to constantly attend to, but abilities you simply have to time right that have a bit of a cooldown.
I really do hope they give us some way of dealing with mages. No cleanse magic and mages makes me have nightmares
April 7th, 2010 - 7:22 am
Ret will be a gimp warrior in Cataclysm.
April 7th, 2010 - 8:33 am
THIS JUST IN:
Divine Storm is being revamped as follows:
- Cooldown increased to 30s (up from 10s)
- Damage increased by 125% of weapon damage (up from 110%)
- Range increased to 15 yards (up from
- Base healing done increased to 40% (up from 25%)
- Your Divine Storm now pulls any targets it hits to you
- Glyph of Divine Storm changed as follows: The range of your Divine Storm is now increased by 5 yards and the healing done is increased by 10%
Crusader Strike is being revamped as follows:
- Each time your Crusader Strike successfully hits a target, you are granted a “Mark of the Crusader”. Each Mark of the Crusader increases the effectiveness of your next Flash of Light or the healing component of your Divine Storm by 5%. Stacks up to 10 times. Flash of Light or Divine Storm will consume all Marks of the Crusader
April 7th, 2010 - 8:54 am
Tharvolde, you had me scared for a second there. :V
April 7th, 2010 - 8:56 am
<3
April 7th, 2010 - 11:18 am
We’ll get our coveted burst back for a few weeks, then people will cry foul. Expect the stealth-nerfs, re-tooling of talents and Mastery, wild adjustments of coefficients, and some tomfollery before we’re settled down on a boilerplate for each of our roles in PvE and PvP.
April 7th, 2010 - 11:30 am
@Tharvolde
I liked Ferraro’s suggestion of instant Hadokens IRL better =)
Sadly guys, suck it in, and be ready for a disappoint.
Look at all the Dev time spent on Paladins in Wrath Beta
Look at all the attention given Paladins throughout early Wrath
Look at all the flak Blizz took from the other 9 classes for spending so much time on Paladins (who are still universally hated by the community)
It won’t happen again.
If you don’t believe that Blizzard caters to QQ then you are a retard of the highest caliber, and you probably believe everything your politicians tell you.
All you can expect from here on in will be fixes and modifications. As far as ‘fun’ and ‘viability’ goes, Wrath will remain the highpoint for all 3 specs. Come Cata, expect huge nerfs to Lolholy and Prot, while Ret will probably remain clunky and full of stupid mechanics that contradict the rules that the other 9 classes get to live with.
Cataclysm will be the expansion of Shamans, Hunters, and possibly Rogues.
If you don’t like how Paladins / your spec works in Wrath, I’m fairly sure you won’t all of a sudden love it come Cata. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Blizz will regress to the point of making any spec of Paladin non-viable. But Enhancement Shamans have been viable throughout Wrath; you should ask them of their opinion of this expac – maybe query a Boomkin here and there too, as that should give you a fair indication of what you have to look forward too.
Every expansion has specs that struggle. I just seriously doubt that come Cata, Blizz will expend tremendous efforts to ensure that none of the Paladin specs aren’t one of them.
This part is my favorite: “Instead of giving a preview that would be potentially less comprehensive than the other classes we made the decision to post it when it’s ready, IN ORDER TO PROPERLY HONOR THE PALADIN CLASS AND THOSE THAT PLAY THEM.”
I swear, Blizz must have hired Obama’s campaign staff and speech writers; i doubt they could have concocted that pile of goblin refuse unaided.
TL:DR – don’t wait for Cata to make the Paladin class more ‘fun’ for you. It won’t happen. Reroll or quit now.
April 7th, 2010 - 1:01 pm
Let’s see, in BGs as it stands, the only reason Rets can surivive against Locks & Hunters is because of our cleansing. I emphasize survive, not win.
We don’t have any closing moves, we don’t have traps and our stuns are tepid at best, and now they take away this?
*head-desk*
I realize that Blizz won’t balance every class to be viable in 1v1 vs other classes, but the fact of the matter is that what little survivaility we have against ranged classes is getting reduced even further.
Blizz can bite me.
April 7th, 2010 - 1:04 pm
Yay, cynicism and doom predictions and conspiracy theories and bias.
I’m gonna go out on a leg and say something good will come on April 16th.. Something very good..
And if I’m wrong, well, I guess I’m eating some words.
April 7th, 2010 - 4:40 pm
What Turkeyspit said
April 7th, 2010 - 6:22 pm
From my post:
“With Retribution’s cleansing abilities going away, our PvP viability is going to be at an all-time low. We’re currently king… of the bads. Meaning, Ret is amazing for lower bracket Arena, but surviving in the middle brackets is tough, and cracking the top echelon is virtually impossible. We’re the worst scaling class in the game: Our burst was taken away, we have no distance closer (JoJ doesn’t count since you need to already be in attack range to use it), Freedom gets nerfed more and more all the time, Divine Shield that comes from the Holy Gods in the heavens themselves can be simply wished away or popped by someone throwing something really, really hard, and now our ability to dispel magic, poison and disease debuffs is being taken away. Which leaves us with… being a liability in arena. Will Blizzard let that be? Nope. Remember, the changes we’ll see in a week are just the initial batch and broad, sweeping changes. More specific mechanics and class idiosyncrasies will be unveiled as the expansion draws closer. So just because you don’t see something that says:
“New Talent: Uther Norris
“1/1: Instantly win everything and you can now Hadoken in real life.”
“…don’t freak out. As always, wait till PTR, play around, voice concerns, repeat as necessary.”
April 7th, 2010 - 9:31 pm
Why won’t paladin still be fun? As long as I can go down to 20hp, bubble, divine storm to finish off some nubs ina bg because vindication takes away half their health and then lay on….shit they changed that didn’t they? Well to be fair HoW did pretty much one shot everyone.
April 7th, 2010 - 10:02 pm
I like Bacon’s take.
April 8th, 2010 - 12:45 am
”
Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or “Life Grip”) is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can’t seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.”
Priests just got this. I don’t know about you guys, but I think every time the topic of some sort of Paladin distance closer has bee brought up on the official forums, someone has proposed a Leap of Faith charge style ability. Even if they just get the name, this makes me rage.
April 8th, 2010 - 1:05 am
With abilities like Leap of Faith and succubus knockback it seems that ranged teams will become a lot stronger. Some classes just seem to get a too big advantage in arenas such as the circle of blood.
The melee classes are next on the list to give information about and I think this will be interesting reading that can hopefully give us a clue as what to expect.
April 8th, 2010 - 5:38 am
Still waiting for the Original Bacon to make a return….
April 8th, 2010 - 7:46 am
I am trying to stay optimistic, but the cleansing issue for RET is going to be huge in PVP. DK/Priest/Hunter teams are going to be hysterical. Good luck getting to someone against that make up. DK pulls you away, Hunter uses a disengage, Priest pulls Hunter out of range. All the while you can’t cleanse anything…
Good players will find ways to succeed and bad players will complain that whatever the good ones are doing is OP. As far as RET goes, an offensive distance closer will be great, some effect applied to CS (idk what at this point, just something), and something done to help HoW. If you don’t want it to hit for a bigger number, make it apply a slowing effect, or a light dot of some kind. It should be a finisher and it just hasn’t been in a very long time.
April 8th, 2010 - 8:48 am
Adding to what Luxlusis said (and combining it with my previous post), it would be nice to see Ret’s being able to further specialize within their tree to be either more offensive or more defensive. Between Mastery and Talents, it would be nice to see something attached to our moves that, over a course of a fight/build up of “combo points”/condition of enemy target health, that we would be able to perform finishers that would tailor to an offensive or defensive build.
A CS charge (X number of strikes, ect) will allow either an offensive or defensive ability tied to DS (for example), to either cause X extra AoE Holy Damage or Y extra AoE healing in a short radius.
April 8th, 2010 - 9:55 am
Added to all this, it seems like all classes are getting some form of distance closer, while Paladin abilities are getting spread around (Like HoF went to Shammies). This good for us since they’ll probably give us something to use other then moar damage, right?
Right?
April 8th, 2010 - 10:09 am
Well MS is going to he changed to 20% for everyone that already has it. So if we get to keep our little flash of lights they might be able to squeeze out some healing now.
April 8th, 2010 - 10:47 am
Oh man, Tharvolde is right. Welp, guess that means we’ll just have to settle for our wings letting us fly around like a jet. I can live with that.
April 8th, 2010 - 1:09 pm
Divine storm will get the same treatment as whirlwind.
Whirlwind will hit an unlimited number of targets, but only for 50% of weapon damage. The intent is for this ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not on single targets.
April 8th, 2010 - 6:58 pm
@ Jerion
“The intent is for this ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not on single targets.”
Warriors have that luxury (currently), because in the worst case, they can spam HS. Ret Paladins just don’t have enough attacks to withold any on Single-Target fights.
If they change that by adding an attack (or two!), then yes, I could see DS or even Consecration be omitted against single target fights.
April 8th, 2010 - 9:11 pm
They already said they don’t like us using consecrate as part of our single target, so that’s almost certainly being dropped. I hope you’re right and DS stays the way it is, but usually when Blizzard makes changes like this, they change all similar spells as well.
April 8th, 2010 - 9:37 pm
Blizzard goes back and forth on consecrate. In WotLK, we were supposed to rarely use it for single target. Then it should be a big part of our rotation. They’ll probably make Divine Storm match whirlwind though.
April 9th, 2010 - 2:35 am
Wow. Some of these class previews are looking really good (despite the QQ).
My expectations are getting to the unreasonably high point
April 9th, 2010 - 5:30 am
@ Jerion
“They already said they don’t like us using consecrate as part of our single target, so that’s almost certainly being dropped. ”
That they did…and the Paladin community said “U Mad Blizz?”. Later on, they admittied (I believe in a blue post, not sure) that they were indeed wrong, and conceded that both Consecrate and DS would be required on single targets.
I’d be fine with Divine Storm being restricted to only 4 Targets, as we also have Consecrate (which has unlimited targets and does, I believe, more damage than Tclap), so long as they just add an additional attack or 2 to the Ret toolbox; baseline attacks that start at LV 5 or so I might add. Leveling a paladin is cruel.
April 9th, 2010 - 5:46 am
I would be extremely surprised if they made Divine Storm match Whirlwind. Whirlwind is a trainable, AoE strike whereas Divine Storm is our 51 point talent. If they do make it match Whirlwind then I would expect it to be removed as the 51 point talent and perhaps removed as a talent altogether.
April 9th, 2010 - 7:35 am
@ Tharvolde
Blizzards approach to the Talent > Trainable is pretty unpredictable.
Blizzard feels that a Talent should have more of an impact on a trainable ability….except when it shouldn’t and doesn’t.
Somewhere, in some dark corner of Blizz HQ, there is a mission statement printed where it says:
“We at Blizzard have a vision for our product, and you will play that vision and LIKE IT!”
April 9th, 2010 - 9:09 am
Ka-meh-ha-meh-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! That is all…
April 9th, 2010 - 9:19 am
@Turkeypit
Name an MMO that hasn’t been that. :V
April 9th, 2010 - 9:57 am
@ Typhron
Well the only other MMOs I’ve played were D&D online (which I only played for a few months) and Runes of Magic (for like a week), so I’m hardly an expert in MMO Design Philosophy ^_^.
I’m simply saying that you can’t cling to the notion that a choice will be made because it’s ‘logical’; Blizzard has a history of flying in the face of logic and consistency whenever it suits them (often seen in ‘shoot-from-the-hip’ bad-aid fixes). I haven’t done the math, but I’d wager that Crusader Strike (41 point talent) does less DPS than a Warriors Heroic Strike (which you start the game off knowning!) in a situation where resources are equal.
Logic and Paladins (Retribution especially) just don’t mix.
If Dr. Ian Malcolm played WoW, he’d play a Ret Paladin……..
April 9th, 2010 - 10:28 am
im just hoping that they have us listed as last to see whats comming our way cause its going to be really good. So good in fact that they want to let the other classes to have time to understand what they will be getting as so not have a flood of QQ’ers crying nerf on us.
or
its going to be so bad that they want us to see what class we might want to re roll as for cata.
April 9th, 2010 - 3:28 pm
“New Talent: Uther Norris
“1/1: Instantly win everything and you can now Hadoken in real life.”
I want this so bad…. or maybe..
“New Talent: Blizz Slap
“1/1: Every time Blizz stealth nerfs your currently played class, a ghostly hand reaches out and slaps you in the face….in real life.”
Lot of red faces in the near future I think…
April 9th, 2010 - 4:56 pm
what fallstaff said.
April 9th, 2010 - 7:45 pm
Seeing the changes in the shaman class, I belive that they will give us a weaker equivalent of crusader strike for leveling (maybe make it baseline)
And…. they are giving feral druids interrupts… there is hope for us ret paladins
!!!
April 9th, 2010 - 8:53 pm
or make CS a low level trained ability like it should be, and give ret a beefed up version =P
interrupt? maybe
distance closer? probably.
snare? we can only hope..
now if only we didnt need to lose cleanse to get all those things. still, i know a lot of people who would take some more offense in our damage tree, even on the defensive class that is paladins.
April 10th, 2010 - 2:26 pm
I’m saying Rets will definanlty get an interrupt, otherwise we’ll be the only melee spec without one (Since Feral just got theirs). And Blizz said that no other classes are really in the works for an MS, but we may get something a bit more unique like what DK’s got.
All in all, I would expect CS to go baseline ( or a watered down version…Can you get more watered down?) for low level paladins, something similar to Primal Strike that enh shammies got. And a few more on demand attacks with maybe a little more depth to them (Different affects depending on the current judgement maybe).
On a side note, the sky is falling for shamans, my GMOTD was changed from ” Don’t worry Pallies, in a week, all your tears will be what sustains my healing rain” to ” Mages get bloodlust, all shams are being gkicked”
April 10th, 2010 - 3:43 pm
Bleh. So far its the same tripe we have seen every time they have been claiming to fix our class. We’re last on the list, everything about the changes are hushed up, and every awesome change we have proposed for the last year or so is being given to other classes. Life Grip, spell copying, heroic leap, hell I wouldn’t be surprised to see rogues get that feedback ability I suggested adding to vindication.
Blizz is going to have to pull out some mad genius stuff for me to be satisfied come the 16th. I think half the reason they take so long is because they have to think up new abilities for us after giving everything but our bubble away. I wont say it cant happen, I have been wrong before. But right now, I see clouds rolling in and the weatherman still saying were gonna have sun.
April 10th, 2010 - 4:28 pm
Amagah, they stoled our abilities we didn’t have yet and gave the name to Priests and the ability to Warriors!
Time for a crusade, my brothers (and sisters)!
April 11th, 2010 - 2:06 pm
If moonkin got the balance bar, there could potentially be some interesting stuff in the works, since it looks like they aren’t afraid to tweak with sub-UI elements it seems… holy rage perhaps? =O
April 11th, 2010 - 5:19 pm
“We haven’t torn up the paladin talent trees in earnest yet, so the preview will likely be heavy on design intent and light on details. One of the changes we’ll continue to emphasize with Retribution is trading more defenses for offense. A defensive dps spec just doesn’t work really well in WoW.”
Yay.
April 12th, 2010 - 12:14 am
Vindictus, that’s just…
Please tell me you’re just BS’ing us.
April 12th, 2010 - 3:37 pm
“We haven’t torn up the paladin talent trees in earnest yet, so the preview will likely be heavy on design intent and light on details. One of the changes we’ll continue to emphasize with Retribution is trading more defenses for offense. A defensive dps spec just doesn’t work really well in WoW.”
pretty much confirms we are getting an interrupt
at last
April 12th, 2010 - 9:06 pm
If you don’t enjoy a ret in bgs or pve, then you’re probably high on crack.
If you didn’t reroll another class for arena… Stay completely off the crack.
April 12th, 2010 - 11:49 pm
Waiting for the 16th is like waiting to be let down? Maybe, but if by some miracle things look good for paladins you can bet your life on the nerfbat being around the corner. Who was it that said “the more things change the more they stay the same” again?
April 13th, 2010 - 1:32 am
I predict that on the 16th everyone who does not play a paladin will think we’ll be OP in Cataclysm, while we think we have been nerfed.
This sounds familiar…
April 13th, 2010 - 5:40 am
Rejoice! It has been moved to the 14th
April 13th, 2010 - 10:30 am
[Blizzard HQ April 14]
Memo to Director of Marketing
cc: Programming Director, Art Director, CEO Blizzard Entertainment
Due to the shortcomings of the Paladin mechanics since release, it has been decided to remove the Paladin as a playable class from the game. Instead, we will be adding to the IceCrown Citadel loot table a trinket that will summon a Paladin, which will be under the player’s control similar to how a player pet is utilized. The drop rate of this trinket will be 0.01%. This trinket will be useable both in Battlegrounds and Arena’s. The Paladin’s abilities will encompass the same powers that certain players (read n00blettes) have been complaining about since the onset of Player vs Player combat. Due to the strength of this trinket, the cooldown has been set to 24 hours, with the Paladin being active for one minute.
Please adjust all marketing material to reflect this change. In the event that the trinket proves to be imbalanced in BG’s, we will go to our secondary plan; the removal of all Paladin’s from the game. A patch is already in place, and, pending Quality Assurance testing, will be slated for delivery within three weeks.
Thank you.
Character Development
April 13th, 2010 - 10:37 am
@Odin
http://www.wowhead.com/item=40492 :V
Also: Changes Tommarrow instead of the 14th…Just like Owro said.
April 13th, 2010 - 10:41 am
All kidding aside, we won’t know what we will see until it is posted in the proverbial black and white. Even then, veterans know that it’s all subject to change at a moment’s notice, even when others outside of the Ret community say that it’s fine.
Stay strong, take everything with a grain of salt, and adapt to the new changes. I am sure there will be a forum where we can all vent at some of the asinine changes if/when they do occur. |=)
April 13th, 2010 - 1:29 pm
Well, like GC said, it will be heavy on intent and low on definitive content. I don’t like the way that sounds, as design intent can be taken many different ways very easily..
April 13th, 2010 - 1:31 pm
And just to make this page longer, here’s another quote I thought I’d share
“I’m warning you now that we still have a lot of work to do on the paladin talent trees. The preview will have the new spells and passive talent tree bonuses, but we can’t provide many details yet on specific talent changes. We can discuss general goals, but not many of those should come as a huge surprise to regular forum readers.
As I’ve said recently, we didn’t go with paladins last because we were saving the best for last or because we want to punish them or because we were at a loss for what to do. We just like to focus on one class at a time, and someone was going to be the last one. It’s random.”
April 13th, 2010 - 5:30 pm
Oden, wasn’t there a trinket like that during the scourge invasion event prior to WotLK?
April 13th, 2010 - 7:56 pm
Exedore, yes, and the paladin bubble-hearthed away after the effect wore off.
April 14th, 2010 - 6:26 am
Yes, I know of the trinket, but that Paladin was pretty weak. This one has all of the supa-dupa powers that people QQ about in BG’s. You know, the multiple stuns, plate mitigating magical damage, bubble and heal to full while doing AoE damage to kill 4 people all in 2 GCD’s, drop 50K worth of damage in 3 seconds…. that sort of powers
. Hence the 24hr cooldown 
As for the changes, well, in the US, today is the 14th, and we’re waiting for the vague ambiguities and the inuendo’s, which will contain secret messages to locks and disc priests on how to win next season’s Arena’s vs Paladins of any spec. Either that, or we’ll get the “We said something for you guys, now you will have to wait for the meat and potato’s in a few months” speech.