Paladin Talent Suggestions

[Thorgaaz]

Alright, im still Lowlvl so i might be wrong. If so please correct me, but so far i have some Points i want to bring up here.

1st.
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The final Talent in the Protection tree seemed Awesome to me, until i start thinking about it. Feeling more and more like an non-Talent to me. Reason: well if you are really Tanking in Raids and the Boss hits you while having less than 25% Life left... would you even survive it? It reads more and more like "if Boss needs only half his strength to kill you, he uses 3/4th of his Strength instead. "

Result: You are still dead. So i would change that.

Suggestion: Once per Minute if your HP reach 0, it is set to 1 instead. You get Invulnerability for 1.5 seconds. (to prevent instant dot kills) ---> Now this Talent feels similar as with the old Talent, with the Difference that this one Works.

another Suggestion would be an active Ability. Reflect half of all dmg dealt to you, as holy dmg back to the source for 10 seconds. Cooldowm 5 min. ----> This Talent works like shieldwall helping Palatanks to survive a lot, or it can get used to quick-build Aggro.
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2nd
Crusader Strike. Very nice, but i would increase the Cooldown and the effect. Like giving it the full Weapondmg as Holydmg and the Debuff is increased. But the Cooldown is also increased to 10 seconds.
In short it would feel more like an Mortal strike instead of rend Armor. And i say, i would prefer that. Could also be in the Skilltree
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Speaking off, 3rd

Some Dmg-Ability as Final for Ret. For example some ranged weapon Attack like a Swordbeam would be cool. (the now existing CC ability might go to holy or become a Questline- reward instead).
Trade Divine Shield with Conversion (tank get conversion, Holy gets Divine Shiekld)
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And Finally:
Buff Duration like all other Classes. 30 minutes normal 60 for Raids. Why is that not a Thing jet? It is completely harmless and increases quality of life tremendeous.
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So the Result would be:
Tanks can Tank without need to skill in holy. Holy can protect and clear Aggro on themself without skilling protection.
(the Conversion, Divine Shield swap)
Tanks get ether an interesting and cool active ability, or an actually working but not broken Life-saving passive.
You need to click crusader-strike less often, but you feel more awesome doing so.
Ret is actually for dealing dmg, while CC becomes part of holy, or is a general ability.
No annoying rebuffing all 5 minutes.

Paladin wouuld feel great. It would be an real option for Tanking, DD and even Heal. But he would still be very balanced (whirlwind Warrior is still top DD) and the Gameplay would improve. By a lot in fact.



Overall

[Novola]

Regarding your opinion on crusader strike, and giving it more dmg + cooldown. Imagine this scenario: Your run to the mob, Holy strike ready, stun, SoC procs, Judgement, Crusader strike, and 99% of mobs are instantly dead. And you can do that every 10 seconds,apart from stun. That would give Waaaaay too much burst dmg to paladin, who is already bursty enough. And you can do same to the players too.

I rarely even use CS, still judge SoC and auto attack away, easier on mana.

[Thorgaaz]

Ok, first; Is killing a single Mob using your Abilities smart really such an big Deal?

Second, lets try the Math for a somewhat blue equipped Retpala, wielding 2h Weapon. I admit theese are Guesses based on my Experiance in the original Game. Holy Strike 500 dmg, (ca.350 attack +150 bonusdmg from abiity didnt look it up)
+ Suggested Crusader Strike 350 dmg. + proc maybe 200 dmg, + Judgement while stunned 500? dmg. I dont know.
So its 500 +350 +200+ 500 dmg. a Total of 1550 Dmg. Lvl 60 Mobs have 3500 to 4000 HP. In my Opinion thats acceptable. And the Difference from Crusader Strike is only 350. Not such a big deal i would assume.

third... honestly, the Crusader Strike i suggest here is very close to the one we got in the original Game in Burning Crusade. So im suprised that you consider this Problematic. Its the one and only extra-attack for Paladin.

forth: Well if you dont use Crusader Strike right now... isnt that a Sign that the Ability should be changed?

And Finally: Warrior, simple charge (Stuns) , enrage, Mortal Strike and whirlwind (via Bloodrage) + first autoattack is pretty equil on Burstdmg. And it doesnt even need any procs. And dont get me started with Rogues or Mages.

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However, if the Burstdmg is really that concerning, how about that? Crusader Strike still 10 sec. Cooldown. Deals the same Dmg as it does now, but it doesnt Stack. Instead it gives your Oppoment a Debuff equil to 5 Stacks of Crusader Strike at once. Debuff lasts 20 seconds and doesnt override seal of Crusader.

Now that version is still better in the Mana/Value department and more useful as it is now. No Burst and no permanent Buttonmassage/Manasink required.

[Kwayver]

Ok, first; Is killing a single Mob using your Abilities smart really such an big Deal?

Second, lets try the Math for a somewhat blue equipped Retpala, wielding 2h Weapon. I admit theese are Guesses based on my Experiance in the original Game. Holy Strike 500 dmg, (ca.350 attack +150 bonusdmg from abiity didnt look it up)
+ Suggested Crusader Strike 350 dmg. + proc maybe 200 dmg, + Judgement while stunned 500? dmg. I dont know.
So its 500 +350 +200+ 500 dmg. a Total of 1550 Dmg. Lvl 60 Mobs have 3500 to 4000 HP. In my Opinion thats acceptable. And the Difference from Crusader Strike is only 350. Not such a big deal i would assume.

third... honestly, the Crusader Strike i suggest here is very close to the one we got in the original Game in Burning Crusade. So im suprised that you consider this Problematic. Its the one and only extra-attack for Paladin.

forth: Well if you dont use Crusader Strike right now... isnt that a Sign that the Ability should be changed?

And Finally: Warrior, simple charge (Stuns) , enrage, Mortal Strike and whirlwind (via Bloodrage) + first autoattack is pretty equil on Burstdmg. And it doesnt even need any procs. And dont get me started with Rogues or Mages.

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However, if the Burstdmg is really that concerning, how about that? Crusader Strike still 10 sec. Cooldown. Deals the same Dmg as it does now, but it doesnt Stack. Instead it gives your Oppoment a Debuff equil to 5 Stacks of Crusader Strike at once. Debuff lasts 20 seconds and doesnt override seal of Crusader.

Now that version is still better in the Mana/Value department and more useful as it is now. No Burst and no permanent Buttonmassage/Manasink required.

Your ideas aren't bad, but they also won't be implemented for many reasons.

Killing a mob in 1 hit will be perceived by other classes an unfair/unbalanced. Their voices will drown out the ret minority, and devs won't change it.
SoC procs hit harder than a white swing. Your math doesn't factor for that. It also doesn't account for a paladin using shadow oil or WF.
It's a bigger problem in PvP to have the capacity to either global a clothie, or get them to Hammer of Wrath range in 1 hit. People will complain, devs won't go for it.
The reason CS didn't 1shot people in tbc and worked in that expansion is because HP values were booster up by the margins in new gear. Twow are working with HP values designed around vanilla, and damage outputs tuned according to that figures.
(As a bonus fact, the original CS design for tbc was holy damage, which bypassed armour completely. This did 1shot people in tbc. They complained. It was changed to physical. Wow devs had to deal with the same thing)

Most importantly, you've compared CS to operating like mortal strike. The devs have said many times over that they don't wish to turn retpal into 'warrior-lite' so attempting to move ret in that direction will never happen.

A more detailed breakdown of considerations to make when suggesting retpal changes can be found here:
viewtopic.php?f=41&t=3700

[Zulnam]

I agree that Ardent Defender and Crusader Strike feel rather underwhelming.

For Ardent Defender the solution seems simpler to me: Make it an active skill, 3 minute cooldown. Reduces all incoming damage by 25% for 10 seconds.

Perhaps some of the paladins tanking on raids on this server can confirm if that would be useful; certainly seems so to me.

Crusader Strike is a bit trickier. It's criminal, however, that Retribution finally gets an active offensive ability... and there are no talents to affect it directly.

I'd look at changing Vindication to somehow affect Crusader Strike. That's a talent that is generally agreed on being worthless. I'd personally go for something like this: Increases damage of Crusader Strike by 5/10/15% and reduces it's mana cost by 10/20/30%.

Kind of like Repentence, as in PvP CCs are pretty important, and it has a decent range so you can catch fleeing enemies.

[Juozukas]

Id say just merge holy strike with crusader. Make it like a mortal strike with holy dmg increase effect instead of heal reduction.

[Thormenius2004]

Yeah merge Holystrike with Cs and then you succesfully made ret weaker gj !
The Argument with to much burst in pvp is laughable Command is rng based , Paladin has no gap closer or mobility spells so if you get killed by a ret as caster its your own fault .... balacing specs based around 1v1 in pvp is also the dumbest thing I've ever heared . Fact is a ret is still only a supporter in group based pvp and still worse then simply going shockadin , so yes for pvp ret needs more sustained dmg or a gap closer .
For pve there are two routes that cna be taken buffs or more dmg . For more dmg to be viable imo you could add a passive for SP-> Ap to make more of the tier sets littel bit more viable and also to stop warrior loot drama (not my idea )
Make exo useable against all targets but nerf it against players .
CS isent usless and also dosent need to be replaced by tbc cs , but all paladin should feed into the same stack

[Kwayver]

Yeah merge Holystrike with Cs and then you succesfully made ret weaker gj !
The Argument with to much burst in pvp is laughable Command is rng based , Paladin has no gap closer or mobility spells so if you get killed by a ret as caster its your own fault .... balacing specs based around 1v1 in pvp is also the dumbest thing I've ever heared . Fact is a ret is still only a supporter in group based pvp and still worse then simply going shockadin , so yes for pvp ret needs more sustained dmg or a gap closer .
For pve there are two routes that cna be taken buffs or more dmg . For more dmg to be viable imo you could add a passive for SP-> Ap to make more of the tier sets littel bit more viable and also to stop warrior loot drama (not my idea )
Make exo useable against all targets but nerf it against players .
CS isent usless and also dosent need to be replaced by tbc cs , but all paladin should feed into the same stack

CS was never supposed to stack with JotC. we're going to be weaker anyway when they eventually fix that bug. also debuff where it is doesnt encourage raids to allow a ret paladin to take up another debuff slot. some raids group dont even let you CS.
I agree the balance in pvp already exists by the fact retpals are the most kitable class in the game. that is the balance. the burst is RNG based, so it's not fair to say "ret is overpowered 44% of the time". More sustain would be much easier to accomplish by allowing CS to actually scale with something, like % weapon damage.
I agree SP -> AP would be a good idea. Possibly even make it the 51 talent for rets.
Make exo usable in all situations, but hurt the paladin when used on a non-undead mob. That's the trade-off using it in PvP: you might get yourself killed.
I dont want a tbc CS either. I just want CS to scale with something.

[Juozukas]

Yeah 51 ret talent that allows exorcism to be castable on any target would be great. Reduce its base damage for balance

[Thorgaaz]

Well that Exorcism modification as final Retskill is a neat Idea, and actually very close to my suggested Swordbeam.
Difference would be, that the Swordbeam might work with Attack Power insteead of Spelldmg. For exorcism this at least is not logical.

However before it gets lost... We all agree on 30 minute buff Duration?
The Talent-swap Idea, Coversion (Holy Ground) for Prot, while Divine Shield Improvement moves to Holy also didnt get any comments.

[Kwayver]

Buff durations have their own thread. Also if all bugs in the game are 30 minutes it could result in people getting buffed up before venturing out to quest or world PvP which will feel unbalanced. Paladin buffs should be 10-15 minutes so people can get some limited use out of them if they receive them in a capital city then fly to somewhere like silithus and actually have some of the buff remain.

I've thought about the exorcism situation for a few days now and I've had a change of heart about it but for good reasons. Exorcism works from spell hit and spell crit. Ret paladins don't have much (or any) of these. A better idea would be a 51 talent with a dependency on vengeance, which modified y vengeance to make the paladins next hammer of wrath instant cast and exempt from target health limitations. It could be balanced by consuming vengeance when used. This ability uses melee hit and crit, and it scales with SP. It's actually a far better designed ret ability than exorcism.
One final bonus could be a visual effect like wings (avenging wrath) when it's active

[Thorgaaz]

The Venguence Hammer Idea is neat. Kinda Like it. And everything which grnts me Wings is welcome.

However the Buffduration is not really something i understand. So people get buffed before Worldpvp or Dungeons... so what? How is that such a big Problem? Worldpvp is kinda weired on this Server anyway and you can be really Happy if you survive 30min. in Pvp.
Also... The buffs arent really that much stronger than for example Priestbuffs or Druidbuffs. I really dont think thats such an big Issue. Especially since Horde has better Racials for PvP.

[Feomatar]

Regarding your opinion on crusader strike, and giving it more dmg + cooldown. Imagine this scenario: Your run to the mob, Holy strike ready, stun, SoC procs, Judgement, Crusader strike, and 99% of mobs are instantly dead. And you can do that every 10 seconds,apart from stun. That would give Waaaaay too much burst dmg to paladin, who is already bursty enough. And you can do same to the players too.

I rarely even use CS, still judge SoC and auto attack away, easier on mana.

Because not 100% weapon damage on CS and 10s cd, must be 4s cd with 40% of weapon damage and 3 stacks of debuff.

[Novola]

Because not 100% weapon damage on CS and 10s cd, must be 4s cd with 40% of weapon damage and 3 stacks of debuff.

I dont mind current state of crusader strike, really, from tanking perspective, i would just up its damage slightly and make it pure holy damage that scales with spell power for threat generation. You wont kill anything with it, but it sure would help keep agro on you.

Paladins biggest issue still is mana regen on longer fights. For prot and ret that is.

I also suggested that in other threads, for ret, make judgement restore at least 30% of mana, and for prot, spiritual atunement (mana when healed) and proper taunt.

I also suggested adding proper tier sets for all specs, read a bit if you are interrsted.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4101&p=24719&hilit ... ens#p24719