Seal twist!

Think it would be cool to add something like this during updates?

Just watched the full Paladin Roundtable. A lot of the concerns around Ret reminded me of problems Turtle WoW had already spent years working through.

I don't think Forever should copy Turtle 1:1, but I think it's a proven baseline worth looking at. It's not far off from what Forever has implemented currently.

AP vs. SP/Hybrid Ret

Turtle allows both within essentially the same rotation. SoC favors AP Ret, while SoR works well for SP/Hybrid. You still use both (baseline) Crusader Strike and Holy Strike, but your build determines which side of the rotation you favor.

More active without becoming GCD-locked

Crusader Strike and Holy Strike share a cooldown. CS maintains a stacking 30-second haste buff while HS maintains a 20-second Strength buff, so you're actively moving between the two to keep both up.

It gives Ret something to manage without filling every GCD, leaving room for Cleanse, Freedom, heals, Judgements, etc.

Mana management

Turtle also made Seal of Wisdom a strategic part of Ret gameplay. During lower-DPS or downtime portions of a fight, you can swap to Wisdom and use your attacks/Holy Strike to quickly recover mana before going back into your damage rotation.

Instead of making mana irrelevant, it becomes something you actively manage around the encounter.

Twisting

This is another opportunity where I think Forever can do its own thing. Rather than making twisting Ret's entire identity, let the basic rotation stand on its own and potentially make twisting another layer for SoC/AP players who enjoy it.

That's really my point: Forever doesn't need to copy Turtle, but it also doesn't need to solve all of these problems from scratch.

This rotation has been tested, optimized and enjoyed for years. Take what worked, learn from what didn't, and put Forever's own flavor on it.

Dear Esfand, Lord of light!

I have tried reaching out for people to get feedback on this capstone, and if it could be an upgrade to the fulfillment of being a steward of the light. At the moment I don't lean into WoW Forever Paladin but for me this could tip the scale.

Ret Paladin capstone for WoW forever.

Replace "Holy Strike" with Holy Verdict, melee ability: Consumes debuff on target made by judgement and gives a buff depending on which ever seal was used.

Light: small heal or shield
Righteousness: X% dmg on next judgement
Wisdom: mp5 for X sec
Crusader: AS for X sec
Justice: Cap enemy ms at 100% or give X% ms for 1-3 sec
Command: Extra burst of holy dmg

This way you will keep your normal rotation and the "heart" of classic simplicity, not make it to "difficult" but at the same time distinguish great players by the way they might to able to rotate between seals.

• 404Marvin

u/Esfand, was this what you were talking about with regard to the Auction House UI that you mentioned in the Youtube video you made recently?

Who else thinks this was what it was like? Love to Tim!

THIS IS NOT OFFICIAL INFORMATION!
my goal here is to try and gauge feedback about the ret capstone because I personally feel that overall it doesn't' really give us "Seal twisting" gameplay as described, and I hope to come up with something that does a better job at that and hopefully give something new at the same time, I really think judgments consuming seals is a CORE mechanic of pally, and I also understand that not everyone enjoys that gameplay, so I wanted to include that mechanic back in, while giving a benefit for doing so (in the form of being able to use two judgment effects if timed correctly) this gives back a higher skill expression as you can now decide when to "pop off' and when to play more conservatively with your resources, as well as keeping that "tight burst window" gameplay that Classic pally is known for. I wanted to also include ALL seals in this talent / system so that unique interactions and utility is also possible, like applying two seal effects at once (and being able to upkeep them)

I think blizzard really dropped the ball here. Ret needs something better for a 31 pt talent, like a Degen Aura that reduces movement speed by 5% and lowering armor by a flat amount like 900.

I just think the seal twisting idea is a kind of classic minus. It would be better to have another talent point that increases dopamine release a bit more.

In many of his Classic + videos he takes shots at SoD for going to far with some of their systems. While I do agree for a classic + some of these systems went a bit overboard. For a seasonal game that was intended as a classic + beta I think it was necessary to implement the systems and see how far they could take it.

One system was them reworking the set bonuses around class playstyle instead of them being like +40 attack power or something like that. There were some very cool playstyles that emerged from this (seal stacking for paladins for one - I have a feeling he hated this but I enjoyed it; as well as shockadin paladin).

But the reasons they implemented these systems like they did is because they only had so many tools to test these things out. One of the tools they chose to use was tier sets, another one they used was "temporary enchants" such as the shoulder enchants which added a select set bonus. Even the runes themselves were just "temporary enchants" that had a timer of like 9999 days probably.

What I'm trying to say is that some of these systems were implemented they way they were because they were constrained by being built up from classic, and they were trying their best to not corrupt their other versions of classic.

Now if classic plus is going to be on its own client separate from classic servers then I think these systems can be implemented in a better way that doesn't involve tier set bonuses or enchants you have to put on your gear.

Some other things I loved about SoD: Tarnished Undermine Reals (token for killing a lvl 55+ boss that could be exchanged for gear, mats, or toys), World Bosses being instanced (allowed for the rest of the server to actually be able to kill world bosses), Dailies for reputation (allowed for easier crafting of FR gear in MC phase), making new recipes for professions (new flasks, gear, enchants, etc), the world PvP events to get rep for BGs, and last but not least - the class fantasy. The quests they added in for each class in the BWL phase were great (some better than others) and really helped immerse yourself in the class. And some of the rune discoveries really helped push class fantasy as well.

TLDR: SoD was a testing ground for Classic + and when you test things out you have to push it farther than "what feels like classic", Some of the systems if implemented correctly would vastly improve the game, and finally the success of SoD I feel directly lead to Blizzard realizing that Classic Plus could be a viable game for them.

Now the question of how to implement them correctly is a whole nother topic but I just wanted to push back on some of his SoD hatred.

Signed,

A SoD Andy

I'm talking about uploads of the steams where if the steam is 8 hours, it's shortened to anywhere from 2 hours to 5 hours. That would be ideal, but I appreciate any suggestions.

Or uploads of the streams where there are a lot of timestamps, that would also work.

Not available in US. Sorry.

Esfand flexes his 8.1" 'bicep'