Figured I would boil my last post down some. Essentially, I broke down our problems that prevent hybridization: the constant attention that must be paid to our combat system these days, especially with 6 sec Crusader Strike coming up, the hit-it-and-forget it buffing system we now have, and the relative unimportance of our auras were my basic notes I touched.
My suggestion to fix our class to make us melee-oriented hybrids is to break down our combat system, make it simpler and reduce the time and global cooldowns we deal with in maximizing our damage. That, alongside offering instant cast, short duration buffs we can offer every 15 seconds to a group and making our auras oriented to different groups (an AP buff, one, a healing one, mana regen, etc) will allow us to get into the group we prefer, whether it be the buffed to hell-and-back melee group, or the shadow priest group for regen.
We can't do anything while we're banging our head on GCDs, and heals are limited due to the fact that auto attack is so important. If we want to see some offhealing thrown in, a new healing spell with an instant cast and a low mana cost (and a 5-sec CD to make sure that all it is is an offheal) we could see some real hybridization going on.
Long story short, I'd like to see variety in the class, and I don't want it to be just melee, or healing style, or tanking. In my opinion, our variety should be in how we support our group, and giving us the time and the tools to do it would be what makes the class interesting.
Of course, that might suck for soloing, so my suggestion is have self-buff only skills that would share the CD with our group buffs. Boost our personal skills when we don't have anyone else around and all that.
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3 comments:
Nice posts!
While i appreciate what it is that you're saying i think making those sort of changes would do 2 things.
1 - Make solo'ing impossible.
2 - Scare people off playing Paladins.
If you were to over complicate things like that we'd loose a lot of good players.
Last night at gruuls we had:
2 holy priests.
1 Resto Druid.
4 Holy Paladins.
How are we going to replace the Paladins? No-raid group i've ever been in has that many priests/resto druids available at any one time.
This game relies on Paladins to spam heal people.
Paladin tanks OWN in 5 mans.
Blizzard have moved so far away from that model from the beta's that it would be difficult to justify that sort of a change.
Right now as a retribution paladin raiding I do all sorts of thing that i class as hybrid.
In 5 mans/kara i off tank.
During battle if i notice a team member getting low on health i'll chuck him a couple of heals till the healing team top him up. I've saved many fights in my time by chucking Lay on Hands on a tank!
Thats what a Paladin should do to be a hybrid. We can DPS, but we should never forget that we're here to support every other class in the game.
And i'd like to think we're the only true hybrid. We offer individual buffs to all raid members. Shamans dont. Druids do to some extent, But not as well as having 4 or 5 paladins along.
I think that the increase to blessings of 30 mins was a god-send. It was so annoying having to rebuff every 10/15 mins. If i had to rebuff people every 30 seconds i'd go nuts. when would i have time to heal? when would i have time to dps? I wouldnt! It would take 50 seconds to buff the whole raid group. (instant cast, with 1s cool down) And at 30 seconds into your buffing you're already behind, becuase the first people you buffed, their buffs have run out!
Having to juggle that would drive me to insanity!if i was still expected to dps or heal.
(oh dear i didnt mean for that to be this long!! hehe)
Keep in mind, my idea is to allow us to do MORE support. Our blessings are nice, but their total lack of interactivity is what bothers me. I'd like to see us being able to have some decisions mid-battle.
The soloing point I added at the end that we can have a skill to buff us just while solo-ing, but that it would share a CD with the group buffs. I.E. it'll be great for when you're by yourself, but is clearly underwhelming when you're in a group.
You bring up an important point though - I don't know how we could manage to replace that many healers, so I suppose pure melee support is honestly out of the question.
Really, my idea is well beyond the point of implementation. It was more of a thought process as to what could be done to make us actually feel like hybrids in the game, rather than the specialization that many decry. The problem with ideas like this is that once a class is solidified in its playstyle among many players, and depended upon by raids to handle their class in a certain fashion, any alterations with the mechanics would wreck a lot of raid progression.
It might be do-able during the expansion when people are just working on 5-mans again, but I'd be amazed if they do anything, I think they're pretty happy with Paladin design now.
I see your point.
But here's something else to consider.
On a big 25 man Boss fight like Gruul or Hydross in SSC, there is so much to think about for me as a retribution paladin NOW while the encounter is going.. Lets give you an example:
Gruul!
Start of the fight tanks runs in, dps all wait 5-10 seconds for aggro to be high enough, cos no-one wants gruul slappin them in the face!
As a melee support class i then have to run in start hitting gruul, the whole time running away from the cave ins, paying attention to my health, and the health of my party, then he does that freeze thing so we all have to run away and hide, then get back in once i've self healed or bandaged etc...its a lot to do, and i'd not want to have more to do in a big fight like that!
Just too much to do right now as it is without having to juggle group buffs on the fly..not to mention OOM Much?
I only have a 6-7k mana fully raid buffed. and that runs out quickly unless the other paladins are judging. Which of late they're not.
But i do see what you're trying to say...but i know it'd put me off playing the class if things got too complicated.
I think thats the job of this game! its not overly difficult to pick up the game and start playing!
My friend lets me play on his 70 hunter sometimes...talk about EZ-Mode....
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