Pally Power: Two Cut Abilities and One Reintroduction

[Moon]

Going to skip the usual preamble and just say that I love Paladins, I love vanilla WoW, I love unused and cut content in games.

Blessing of Reckoning
https://classicdb.ch/?spell=5580

Places a Blessing on a friendly target that lasts 30 sec. Every time the Blessed character strikes an enemy, the Blessed character gains 50 health. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.

A nice little bit of passive healing to a melee partner in PvP it seems like, rogues especially. Cooldown exists as mentioned in the Patch 0.7 patchnotes.

Seen ingame: Fineous Darkvire (Blackrock Depths). Removed from Paladins at the release of Vanilla.

Blessing of Righteousness
https://classicdb.ch/?spell=1052

Places a Blessing on the friendly target. increasing attack power by 370 against undead enemies. Lasts 25 sec. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.

Will give double the attack power provided by Blessing of Might for 25 seconds on an ally only to undead enemies. This feels strong enough to be a neat addition to situational blessings Paladins already have (Sacrifice, Protection, Freedom) without being outrageously strong. Cooldown exists as mentioned in the Patch 0.7 patchnotes.

Seen ingame: Nowhere, but the items to teach it exist in the game files with level requirements.

Seal of Fury
https://classicdb.ch/?spell=20423

Fills the Paladin with divine fury for 30 sec, allowing melee attacks to cause additional threat. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. More effective than Seal of Fury (Rank 4).

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy for 30 sec, causing Holy damage spells cast on that enemy to generate additional threat. Only one Judgement per Paladin can be active at any one time.

Should be reintroduced and have its judgement effect do the following:

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy taunting the target to attack the Paladin, but will have no effect in the target is already attacking him/her.

OR

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy for 30 sec, causing additional casts of Judgement of Fury to taunt the target to attack the Paladin, but has no effect if the target is already attacking him/her. Only one Judgement per Paladin can be active at any one time.

What this means for Paladin tanks:
Reliable Taunt on a 10 second cooldown (8 seconds with Imp. Judgement talent in Retribution tree and sacrificing a little bit of damage, some GCDs, and a fair mana cost to get access to a tool not previously in their toolkit. Also, the additional threat generation on melee swings lets spending the GCD to cast the Seal does not drop all the aggro otherwise gained by a swing of the weapon with SoR casted.

Seen ingame: This was a Seal that existed on release of Vanilla meant to be able to help Paladins tank (it didn't), and was removed & replaced with Righteous Fury. Reintroducing the spell in this way would give Paladins the one thing they lack to tank raid content.

[Darkraggs]

These seem like neat little additions, keep up the good work!

[Velite]

I would love to see these added ingame. Would definitely give paladins a viable tanking path in early content, and even in later content since there are trash that require taunt.

[Roxanneflowers]

Seen ingame: This was a Seal that existed on release of Vanilla meant to be able to help Paladins tank (it didn't), and was removed & replaced with Righteous Fury. Reintroducing the spell in this way would give Paladins the one thing they lack to tank raid content.

Righteous Fury was the right idea matched with poor execution. Righteous Fury causes bonus +60% (base) threat from Holy attacks, and with 3/3 talents that increases to +90% threat (a +50% increase over +60%).

The problem with this is that Righteous Fury is only increasing the threat of Holy attacks ... it does nothing for threat of Holy healing(!). Broadening the effects of Righteous Fury from Holy attacks to basically ALL Holy spell effects ... including the all important Seal and Judgement of Light(!) would make an absolutely incredible difference in Paladin threat generation potential.

This is one of those situations where I'm of the opinion that Blizzard made the right choice in switching over to the current implementation of Righteous Fury (a half hour self-buff instead of a Seal/Judgement) since that doesn't lock you in to using ONLY Seal of Righteousness when tanking, allowing Paladins to be more versatile in this role (because they can use a variety of different seals to meet the moment). However, at the same time, I think they screwed up the implementation of Righteous Fury by limiting the bonus threat to Holy (damage) attacks only, rather than implementing the bonus threat on every Holy spell effect the Paladin produces (so include damage and healing instead under Righteous Fury, so basically all Holy spell effects that generate any threat at all).

[Moon]

The problem with this is that Righteous Fury is only increasing the threat of Holy attacks ... it does nothing for threat of Holy healing(!). Broadening the effects of Righteous Fury from Holy attacks to basically ALL Holy spell effects ... including the all important Seal and Judgement of Light(!) would make an absolutely incredible difference in Paladin threat generation potential.

This is one of those situations where I'm of the opinion that Blizzard made the right choice in switching over to the current implementation of Righteous Fury (a half hour self-buff instead of a Seal/Judgement) since that doesn't lock you in to using ONLY Seal of Righteousness when tanking, allowing Paladins to be more versatile in this role (because they can use a variety of different seals to meet the moment). However, at the same time, I think they screwed up the implementation of Righteous Fury by limiting the bonus threat to Holy (damage) attacks only, rather than implementing the bonus threat on every Holy spell effect the Paladin produces (so include damage and healing instead under Righteous Fury, so basically all Holy spell effects that generate any threat at all).

In vanilla Paladins generate only half the amount of threat per heal point that other healers do, I believe this design decision should be respected. Also, I don't think paladins have as big of an issue in generating threat both in general and especially on Turtle with the inclusion of Holy Strike, but their big issue is the lack of a taunt which some trash and bosses require, making the current version of paladins completely unviable to tank those encounters.

The idea behind this implementation of Seal/Judgement of Fury is to give them that tool in a way that stays fully in line with the feel and design of Paladins in vanilla without simply handing them a taunt button.

[Mac]

Honestly, I'd like to see Charismatic Aura added into the game. It's a neat ability that doesn't have any combat use but would help paladins out when they're running around and don't want to be dazed by every enemy they pass by.

[Roxanneflowers]

Honestly, I'd like to see Charismatic Aura added into the game. It's a neat ability that doesn't have any combat use but would help paladins out when they're running around and don't want to be dazed by every enemy they pass by.

+1

[Balake]

Charismatic Aura does not make thematic sense. Priests have Mind Soothe that has a similar effect that is related to psychological manipulation which is a shadow priest thing (like mind control), but paladins have nothing to do with charisma. Also, Mind Soothe affects only humanoids and must be casted at enemies unlike this one which affects allies. This means that Mind Soothe can always be resisted and causing the mobs to aggro, while Charismatic Aura will never fail, it's like permanent weak stealth for every party member in range, utility that paladins should not have as it will allow too many mob pack skips in dungeons.

Also, a lot of these were just placeholders that were removed and got reintroduced in a different way. Paladins had blessing of reckoning then it got replaced with seal of light and judgement of light. Adding back blessing of reckoning is too much. Same for Seal of fury being replaced with the self-buff. Adding it back on top of the other one is simply too much. Blessing of Righteousness is really nice though and I approve of it because it's not something that they removed and put back in a different way, just something that they removed outright.

[Mac]

but paladins have nothing to do with charisma.

The original definition for "charisma" is "a divinely conferred power or talent" or "special spiritual gift or power divinely conferred, talent from God" which definitely fits the Paladin class thematically. The original Warcraft 3 description of Paladins describe them as "loved and revered" which fits the other definition of charisma ("compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others"). Respect is one of the three tenets of the Holy Light that Paladins follow. In games that have Charisma as a stat like D&D, it plays a role in being a paladin. In an even broader sense, the whole concept of a paladin is a shining knight of virtue. In essence, paladins are charismatic in every sense of the term.

[Balake]

but paladins have nothing to do with charisma.

The original definition for "charisma" is "a divinely conferred power or talent" or "special spiritual gift or power divinely conferred, talent from God" which definitely fits the Paladin class thematically. The original Warcraft 3 description of Paladins describe them as "loved and revered" which fits the other definition of charisma ("compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others"). Respect is one of the three tenets of the Holy Light that Paladins follow. In games that have Charisma as a stat like D&D, it plays a role in being a paladin. In an even broader sense, the whole concept of a paladin is a shining knight of virtue. In essence, paladins are charismatic in every sense of the term.

Ah I see, I didn't think of it from this perspective. Would be funny seeing a paladin being all charismatic with orcs and trolls in his dungeon group though lol.

[Mac]

I think you brought up a good point with Mind Soothe. Charismatic Aura's spell description doesn't say how much it's supposed to decrease aggro range by, so maybe 5 yards (instead of Mind Soothe's 10) is fair. Also, its effect shouldn't stack with Mind Soothe.

[Balake]

Even with only 5 yards it's still got many advantages over mind soothe. Works on all enemy types, is a friendly buff on allies instead of a debuff on enemies, so cant be resisted and fails and pulls.

[Punchbuggy]

Make it affect only humanoids, demons and undead. Or whatever else it is that Paladins can Track in whatever xpac they get it. Maybe only things that have sentience.

Personally, I would rather it just give a slight buff to buy/sell prices, rather than a low key stealth field. A demon would be more likely to enrage that a holy beacon was in its domain, rather than shy away from it. Barring power level, that is.

Or, just a attack power buff, as the other members of the team are bolstered by the wonderfulness that is this beacon of light. But that steps on other classes abilities to buff same, like battle shout.

[Balake]

Making it affect only humanoids demons and undead still makes it very powerful in stratholme and scholomance for example. I can't imagine this not being exploited to skip a lot of dungeon packs or even bosses.

A buff to buy/sell prices that only paladins get is blatant favoritism ngl. Paladins already have an attack power buff, why also give them hunter's trueshot aura. It's straying too far from the charisma theme, might as well scrap it entirely.

[Moon]

The issue with the scrapped auras for Paladins is that they're way too strong for just being an always-active aura.

[Mac]

Making it affect only humanoids demons and undead still makes it very powerful in stratholme and scholomance for example. I can't imagine this not being exploited to skip a lot of dungeon packs or even bosses.

I think it would depend on what it let you skip and how much it let you skip.