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Q u o t e:
First, Exorcism has a cast time of 1.5 seconds but can be used on players again. This will let paladins use it in PvP, but not while moving towards a target.

Second, we are changing The Art of War to make not only Flash of Light instant, but also Exorcism. Choose healing or damage. Paladins will have to watch for this proc and use Exorcism when it happens. The spell itself is still ranged, but the proc will only occur when the paladin is already in melee.

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so... will you guys remove the cooldown of exorcism?

If only you could lock replys to ONLY pallys. Its annoying to have other classes jump into our purposed changes to say its not enough when it hasnt even gone live yet.

I think the changes are good. I LOVE the new Art of war, it will change my PvE DPS but make PvP a little more fun.

Im scared for the Seal of Blood change tho. If Command can be made viable it would become Rets Seal at all times. Im just worried it wont scale as well as blood did and be a DPS decrease, which we deff dont need.

I really like the Holy changes, its like a birthday present. Your giving me a hot for the main tank, do I have to pay you or something cause thats awesome.

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Q u o t e:
Holy

We like that Holy paladins have a niche as single-target healers. The problem is we think this niche is a little too narrow at the moment. Furthermore, paladins don’t have a wide arsenal of healing spells so it’s important that all of them are being used.

First, we are changing Flash of Light so that it places a heal-over-time effect on any target with Sacred Shield on them (the effect will be similar to Sheathe of Light). This should make Flash see a little more use.

Second, and more importantly, we are changing the way Beacon of Light works. Currently, it does not count over-healing on the target. We are changing that. In other words, if you place Holy Light on a rogue who is already at full health, it will still have the full effect on a tank with Beacon of Light on them. This is a huge buff, particularly when you consider the Holy Light glyph which allows for a small amount of “splash” healing. This effect isn’t common when you use Holy Light on a tank because the tank is often standing alone. But if you heal the melee, you are likely to get a lot more total healing from this effect (while still healing the tank through Beacon of Light). We are also going to try to allow a target to have more than one beacon (i.e. from different paladins) on them.

Many players may surmise that this change would make paladins far and away the best healers in the game. This is partially because paladin mana regeneration is so potent. That isn’t an issue when the paladin can generally only heal the tank. With the Beacon of Light change, the paladin can provide a lot more raid or party healing. To adjust for this, we are going to reduce the amount of mana returned by Illumination. If you use Holy Light too recklessly (such as on targets who don’t require that much healing) you do risk burning out of mana too quickly. Of course, they will still have Divine Plea and other mana regeneration mechanics.

As a footnote, we are also likely to slightly adjust Replenishment and buff the amount of MP5 on gear.

These changes should lead to healing as Holy being more dynamic – you are going to be targeting a lot more group members than just the tank, while still providing massive healing on the tank. However, you won’t be able to just constantly spam your biggest heals, at least not on the more challenging encounters. There is an opportunity here for skilled players to really do some outstanding healing as paladins, but it’s going to take a little more effort. This is something a lot of players have been asking for so we hope that it delivers without completely changing what some paladins enjoy about their healing style.

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Ugh. This changes absolutely nothing. A smart Holy Paladin ALREADY DID THIS. Sure, it's a buff, but it DOES NOT in any way, shape, or form, make Holy Paladin healing dynamic. At all. In any way.

Give us Sacred Shield back on multiple targets, and I will be content with these changes. As it stands, this gift of a "HoT" is laughable. Yay. Another main tank heal, only this one actually can't be used on anyone else at all, because you won't want to waste Sacred Shield on anyone else.

All in all, depending on how much you nerf Illumination, this could turn out to be a general nerf to Holy Paladin healing. If Flash of Light's new HoT component only works on a Sacred Shield target, it's pathetic amount of healing will still not be sufficient to use, and we will instead be forced to use Holy Light less since we will be less efficient.

Frankly, I'm *really* interested to hear from the developer's why they think this makes Holy Paladin healing more dynamic. Because I know you guys have played Holy Paladins, and I know you play them well. And if you play them well, you already do what you're saying this change will 'allow' us to do. Because a good Holy Paladin already drops heals on the raid using Beacon of Light. This just takes even more skill out of it, since now you don't have to worry about overhealing not proccing a Beacon on the tank. So you can just drop your HL anywhere or spam FoL on the raid until your fingers go numb.

This doesn't expand our repertoire of spells, and actually removes a measure of thought from our healing game. We're still gonna gear for massive regen through Int, and we're still gonna find a way to spam HL. Only change is now we have another gimmicky spell like Sacred Shield, in FoL. One of those "Well, it doesn't help much at all, but it also doesn't hurt much, so why not? I've got a spare GCD." Another cast-and-forget spell that requires a lot of setup and can only be used on one target at a time.

Even if you nerf it, give us Sacred Shield back on multiple targets. And why not change our T8 set bonus to have some interesting synergy with this new FoL?

PS- To the above poster, don't forget many people have multiple raiding 80's. I have a healing Priest and Druid starting Ulduar 10-man, and a healing Paladin who is working on Ulduar 10 and 25-man.

My comments are:
1) I hope this means I can live through a Ret attack in more than 4 button pushes.

and

2)

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Q u o t e:
As a footnote, we are also likely to slightly adjust Replenishment and buff the amount of MP5 on gear.

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IF this means replenishment is being nerfed, I hope survival hunters get some compensation, such as an additional mana recharge buff, because one attraction to the spec is that mana did not run out really fast.

Im not one to normally cry, or flame on these forums, but I just wanted to ask blue:

You do realize that is you remove Martyr/Blood while lowering CS's damage, you will completely shatter Ret representation in arenas right? Especially in 2s. If you dont replace Martyr/blood with some sort of quasi-martyr/blood seal that 100% procs of most attacks, You have broken Ret.

I play in fairly high brackets. I grasp the concepts of switching, ccing, outlasting, so on and so forth. I dont care what anyone says, in any brackets, the success of Rets right now, and their only real tool of gaining said success, is through their timed burst. Bubbles, freedom out of snares etc are tools to live and change the field in your favor. burst is the "only" tool we have for scoring a kill.

I have honestly never walked up to someone in a high brackeet and 2 shot them. No one is that undergeared or stupid. I have never killed anyone in 1 stun. It took communaication and coordination of locking out their partner and assisted dps from my healer. Now you are taking away the one tool that we have? These changes were made, for all the low geared, low skilled people who are crying about ret, again.


Let me ask you this blue, am I still going to be hit by 10k Chaos bolts? 10k Conflags? 8-9k Lava bursts? 7k Frost strikes? 7k Starfires? 9k Arcane blasts? Am I still going to be fully dotted by a lock and priest after a trinket is blown, and eat 3 MCs while I cant be healed, but the dots still tick and Its an auto death with my healer fear spammed. (how much sense does that make anyway?)


What is the goal of this over there behind closed doors? Because it sure as #*!! isnt for the sake of balance. If you are going to so drastically alter a class, you should offer a refund of arena and honor gear. I, with probably thousands of other people, didnt sacrafice my time to farm honor and save arena points just to wake up one morning and have it all thrown away.

I applogise in advance for the complaining. I hope through the negativity there is some points of interest you find. I, like many others, are just tired of such sweeping changes not in our favor. It just seems like each set of patch notes come out, we all think before reading "ah, lets see whats been nerfed today." Not a good feeling blue.

Want to hear about the CD on Exorcism please GC!

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Q u o t e:


The problem with this is without SOB/SOM knockback damage, all you're basically doing is making exorcism instant cast and giving rets more burst since they will no longer need to heal themselves from the knockback damage.. The crusader strike change is one step forward, then effectively making exorcism instant cast everytime art of war proccs is one GIANT step backwards though =(.

Holy and prot changes look nice though.

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Remember that CS is being nerfed. And the big problem will be the exo CD, if it is kept at 15 seconds then it nerfs us in PvE, we lose exo when needed, and lose CS damage, and possibly seal damage.

But for exo to be worthwhile in PvE it will be OP in PvP.

And further to this, like the vindication hot nerf it is another change that will make use stronger in low end PvP, where there is less resilience and so more AoW procs, but weaker in high end PvP where we will have fewer chances to use it, and have to decide between heals or DPS with no compensation like a distance closer or snare to cover the defensive utility loss.

Well, I feel disappointed by the ret changes. I was hopeing ret would be a lot different than it currently is, but instead it will be about the same. And holy seems to have a nerf, no matter how you try to hide it, how dynmic can 3 heal buttons be anyway? and 1 of them you will be punished for using (HL). Holy will still be stuck for tank healing, this doesn't change that. Why HL melee for a little aoe heal splash when you can have a druid, priest or shammy do it far better? (not saying holy should be on par, but not as little as this)

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Q u o t e:
We are really happy with the overall changes to the Seal and Judgement system from Lich King

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You mean by removing though process into using them? It was far better than the current push 3 buttons to make them go on CD that is WotLK.

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Q u o t e:

Seal of Command
OLD: Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage.

NEW: All melee attacks deal additional Holy damage.

Seal of Vengeance / Corruption
OLD: Fills the Paladin with holy power, causing attacks to apply Holy Vengeance which deals additional holy damage over 15 seconds. Holy Vengeance can stack up to 5 times.

NEW: Fills the Paladin with holy power, causing attacks to apply Holy Vengeance, which deals additional Holy damage over 15 sec. Holy Vengeance can stack up to 5 times. Once stacked to 5 times, each of the Paladin's attacks also deals 33% weapon damage as additional Holy damage.

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Hotness. TYVM

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Q u o t e:


Yeah, I'm a little disappointed about the Exorcism change.

It's a big part of my overall rotation when tanking. Plus it's a great opening pull ability when I want to get threat on just one target. (Like pulling Steelbreaker...I'd rather Exorcism him, than shield pull and put threat on the other two bosses.)

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I use it as an opening pull too. So, either I switch to something I can cast on the fly (Hand of Reckoning?), or stand there for my opening pull. Maybe I haven't done enough tanking, but that sounds reasonable. Use our single-target taunt/pull as a single-target taunt/pull.

As a healadin, I'll miss instant Exorcism too... but, maybe it'll pan out in the PTR. I for one intend on testing thoroughly.

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Q u o t e:
We know it's hard to evaluate the Retribution changes without understanding how the Seals now work. Here is how they work.

Seal of Command
OLD: Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage.

NEW: All melee attacks deal additional Holy damage.

Seal of Vengeance / Corruption
OLD: Fills the Paladin with holy power, causing attacks to apply Holy Vengeance which deals additional holy damage over 15 seconds. Holy Vengeance can stack up to 5 times.

NEW: Fills the Paladin with holy power, causing attacks to apply Holy Vengeance, which deals additional Holy damage over 15 sec. Holy Vengeance can stack up to 5 times. Once stacked to 5 times, each of the Paladin's attacks also deals 33% weapon damage as additional Holy damage.

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OMG sounds awesome, But CG, are you reducing the CD of exorcism or removing it at least now that it will have a cast time?

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Q u o t e:


First, we are changing Flash of Light so that it places a heal-over-time effect on any target with Sacred Shield on them (the effect will be similar to Sheathe of Light). This should make Flash see a little more use.

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LOL, I guess the developers still do not understand how a holy paladin works. We can only put Sacred Shield on one target and that target is usually the tank since that is the one taking damage. This is worse than the old flash of light glyph. At least with that glyph we could put a hot on each of the DPS that we are healing.

Give us back the old flash of light glyph, let the hot tick on a fully healed target and with the beacon of light change now we are talking. I can then hot up each of the raid members and with the beacon keep the tank healed.

Adding a HOT to a flash of light only on the target with sacred shield will not cause flash of light to be used more, it is a bad joke from someone that does not understand class mechanics. Give us back sacred shield on multple targets and it might work.

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Q u o t e:
Um, how is lowering the damage of Crusader strike going to lower the upfront burst damage?

The upfront burst damage was from: Seal Procs + Divine Storm

Are you guys going to remove the capability for seals to proc off of hits with divine storm? Because that's the real problem right now with the upfront burst. Divine storm itself isn't really the problem... It's the seal procs when a paladin uses divine storm.

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Crusader strike and seal where harder hitting the divine storm and seal btw. Crusader was our hardest hitting melee at 148%, while DS was at 110% weapon damage.

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Q u o t e:


Fourth, we are removing Seal of Blood and Seal of the Martyr. The damage recoil increasingly felt like a liability in PvE, and wasn’t serving to offset the massive burst damage capable in PvP. We are buffing Seal of Vengeance / Corruption and redesigning Seal of Command with the expectation that these are now the seals of choice for PvP and PvE. Righteousness can remain a tanking seal.

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It's good that there's communication, and I think Holy and Protection have some stuff that may excite them. As for Ret, I don't know. So much hinges on the above Seal change and how it works. I would hope with the openness you showed in discussion Holy/Prot ideas, you guys would seriously expand on the above quote for RET, because so much hinges on it if we are robbed of Seal of Martyr/Blood.

Its like "Hey, we are taking away your core damage seal because of PVP burst. Sorry. But cheer up, we plan on doing ...something...with Command, and something with THE most unspectacular TANKING Seal in your arsenal (Vengeance/Corruption).. but we aren't sharing what those ideas might be...but say goodbye to Martyr/Blood Seal."

Again, I'm glad for the amount of openness in other paragraphs, but for Ret, everything hinges on the specifics of this vague paragraph.

Seal Of Command must not be made into a virtual damage casino or anything similar. If it is yet again RNG based procs, then let the anger of the blood/martyr robbery begin, and welcome back to Lolret/TBC. So lets get that on the table right now.

Again, the news about Holy/Prot seemed very specific, but the news about Ret seemed unclear and vague at best. That's not encouraging given the dubious history of the devs handling of Ret. (I'm sure you devs don't want to hear that, but lets be honest with ourselves at the very least.)

Right now, with the exception of the shortened cool-down of Crusader Strike, and "exorcism against all mobs ..but with a casting time"... Its really hard to be hopeful for Ret without a bit more disclosure about the direction you are taking those two seals. (Particularly Seal of Command).

Can we get a bit more hint at WHAT you guys are thinking with Rets potential "core" Seals since we are about to get robbed of Martyr/Blood.

PS: I never complained about the self-damage of Martyr/Blood in PVE/dungeons/raiding. I haven't heard too many other rets who play the class well complain about it either. I'm thinking this is a serious PVP nerf with some weak PVE justification.

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Q u o t e:
Whoa! Gonna take some time to absorb all that.


Edit:


No changes to the instant-win Divine Storm? Can't wait to be steamrolled by an unskilled paladin still. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

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lol CS is the big damage you idiot, no changes to deep freeze + spam lance?

Based on the preview these changes are in the right direction. I know that this is just a preview but I expected more to be done to current arsenal of retribution's attacking/defense skills.

The Seals,Exorcism and Crusader Strike changes are an "okay" start to making the class more enjoyable and increasing the skill level required for the class so there will be a difference among a skilled player or an unskilled player.

I would still like to see our defenses become our offenses. We still lack much utility against players in pvp which make the class less stimulating. Utility such as a slow/interrupt (1min Hoj doesn't count!) / infamous Mortal strike affect. Now we do not need to be homogenized by copying other class skills to be given to us. You could make up new ones. instead of slowing our target with a poison/hamstring we could have exorcism drop a debuff that will SAP speed from our target to increase our own as well as slow our target. Obviously this would have a long duration and would not be over a 20-30% snare/speed increase because we do not have much utility verses long ranged classes who kite too exceptionally.

Instead of a mortal strike affect you could do something defensive as well as offensive as I stated before such as sapping healing done to our target by a % to be absorbed by the paladin thus giving us time to kill our target or increasing our defenses. This can be a long cooldown or short depending on such the % sapped would be altered based off that.

These are all ideas and I hope you continue to move into the right direction.

I haven't played holy since I was a pre-BC raider, so no comment there.

The prot changes sound very nice, looking forward to having reason to use BoSanc. Kinda worried that Blizzard sees Righteousness as a tanking seal though. No decent paladin above level 67 (or whatever level you learn Vengenace) still uses Righteousness for tanking.

Ret changes...I have to say, vindication is now useless. If you are going to nerf it that hard, roll it's effect in with another talent. Or, make vindication be our long needed healing debuff and place it deeper in the tree. The current changes outlined for vindication make it useless for fighting casters, something we already have trouble doing.

The exorcism nerf is huge, not just for ret, but all paladins. As a tank, I use exorcism as a quick pull incase there are adds and I don't want to waste my taunt cooldown. Don't even bring up the single target Avenger's Shield glyph and using that, not even sure why that glyph is in the game, mana cost on it is much too high. Also, ret uses exorcism in pve. Just banning exorcism from use on players was a decent change, we've dealt with it. Don't change what has become a core skill for all paladins just to mess with pvp, I'm tired of that happening.

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Q u o t e:
Seal of Vengeance / Corruption
OLD: Fills the Paladin with holy power, causing attacks to apply Holy Vengeance which deals additional holy damage over 15 seconds. Holy Vengeance can stack up to 5 times.

NEW: Fills the Paladin with holy power, causing attacks to apply Holy Vengeance, which deals additional Holy damage over 15 sec. Holy Vengeance can stack up to 5 times. Once stacked to 5 times, each of the Paladin's attacks also deals 33% weapon damage as additional Holy damage.

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This potentially pigeonholes prot into using slow tanking weapons, which are few and far between.

I like that. But I have this one bugging me:

If Exorcism is considered a spell and goes by the spell hit table, no sane Paladin will chose it over CS, DS or Whatever Else strike you come up with instead, because we REALLY don't feel like gearing for spell hit just because of a SINGLE skill.

We use exorcism now because of that time when we don't have any skills to use; so in reality, if we get to chose between spamming CS while throwing a DS and a Judgement inbetween or using a AoW proc to cast exorcism, if its a spell you can bet nobody will use exorcism.