Well, not speaking on the divided community aspect of the post, the rest I do agree with. Just last night I was thinking the biggest problem with paladins is that changes to balance one tree have massive ramifications for other trees (ex. reducing SoV/SoR coefficients made ret more balanced, slightly effected prot, and really hurt holy DPS).
I am a firm believer that the paladin class should have the baseline tools to do every job built into their class, and each spec should add strength to that. Tanking as holy/ret should be possible, at least in 5 mans, maybe in 10 mans too as an OT for trash.
Baseline Abilities:
1) Make Crusader Strike a baseline ability.
2) Make Shield of Righteouness a baseline ability.
3) Make Holy Shield a baseline ability and remove the charges.*
4) Make Avenger Shield baseline. Possibly change the slow to a silence.
5) Turn Righteous Fury into 'defensive stance' - 10% reduction, X% threat of all types boost. **
6) Replace Blessing of Sanctuary with Hand of Sanctuary, same spell except now I can cast Kings on myself AND Hand of Sanctuary. Problem solved.
* You will see why below.
** Preferably, non-dispelable self-buff that lasts until we remove it and persists through death.
I do not mind amazing cool talents deep in a tree (ex. Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Devestate). Crusader strike lost its unique 'strike'ness and now feels like a talented Heroic Strike. In my opinion, it should be available to all specs and potentially modified by the spec to feel like a MS, BT, etc. a powerful tool to use that adds interesting fun stuff, while still doing damage. A change in a trees specific ability, does not effect the other trees, making balancing slightly easier.
Protection:
1) Righteous Crusader Strike - Extra 1h damage, hits multiple targets - replacing Hammer of the Righteous.
2) Spell Shield - Allowing a X% of block value to apply to spell damage.
3) Absorbing Shield - Holy Shield now has 3 charges, reduces all spell damage by 30% per charge until all charges are diminished. *
4) Replace Imp. Righteous Fury with Redoubt since the DR should be baseline, and Redoubt is good for off-spec AoE tanks.
* A Paladin themed 'Spell Reflect'. Not as awesome for a single spell, but can effect more spells, charges and % could be modified. Could also applied to "Sacred Shield" instead, allowing it to be cast on other single targets at a time. Could also potentially prevent silence/fear 'if necessary'.
This keeps protection paladins as a holy warrior, and adds some of the abilities they can still use/'need' to the spec. It allows us to also have some form of spell mitigation besides 'auras'. Protection is mostly solid [mitigation and itemization issues aside].
Retribution:
1) Give Retribution Vengeful Crusader Strike. Add some utility or other interesting effect(s) to it (ex. interrupt, the vindication talent, reduced hit, holy 'hemorrhage', holy 'stormstrike', etc, or something new and cool).
If rets DPS is good... I can't think of much else. They have mana and hp regen to party members, do solid damage, and provide CC. Sounds like every other DPS class in the game. ^5 Blizzard.
Holy:
1) Mark of Light - Marks the target as the reciever of the light causing your abilities to heal the marked target.
2) Regenerating Crusader Strike - gives CS X% spell power counts as weapon damage, and causing the next 'damaging ability'* to heal the target(s) for the amount of damage dealt by the Crusader Strike.
3) Shield of Holy Light - Shield of Righteousness damage treats X% of spell power as block value, and heals your Mark of Light for Y% of damage dealt by Shield of Righteousness.
4) Improved Sacred Shield - has X% chance to refresh Shield of Righteousness cooldown and increase the healing dealt on next use by Y%.
5) Regenerating Consecration - X% of damage dealt heals all friendly targets within the consecration.
6) Field of Light - Increase healing done by consecration by X% and increase its AoE by 300%. Y min cooldown.
7) Enlightened Judgements - Your judgement spells heal your Mark of Light for X% of damage dealt.
Judgements of the Pure - Your judgement spells cause X% of damage dealt by Seal of Righteousness to heal your Mark of Light.
9) Sacred Avengers Shield - Your avengers shield applies sacred shield to as many raid members as it deals damage too. **
10) Inspiring Light - Critical healing effects cause your target to have +X% armor.
* read ANYTHING that can deal damage, especially AoE abilities. Gives holy a nice AoE healing spell that isn't a clone of chain lightning, tranquility, etc.
** Lowest HP first of course.
I like the idea of us being 'holy warriors'. If blizzard wants us to heal, why not let us be interesting and unique? We heal our friends by beating the hell out of our enemies.
The idea would be to tune the damage to be about 2/3 of a DPS class - like they are attempting to do for tanks. Then, allow our abilities to heal for a X% of our damage, whatever is generally equivalent of an actual healer, perhaps a bit lower. [As for PvP, a lot of stuff could be dispelable and things to prevent it from being too over powered.]
This really opens up healing making it quite interesting. As for MT healing, we'd be constantly be using 1 CS / 1-2 ShoR every 6 seconds, leaving us time to weave in Judgement, AS, maybe FoL or instant Holy Light. Maybe consecrate if there is enough AoE, and when AoE goes wrong wings + tranquilicrate.
We would then have a ton of things to do. It would be button mashing healing goodness with lots of awesome flavor and face smashyness.
We would also likely be the only healer that WANTS to be in melee range.
I also enjoy the fact that the 'best aoe tank' would actually be a good aoe healer for a change.
On a side note: the holy idea really does kinda go back to the old idea of talents completely changing how you play the class... but still, it would be 100x cooler than FoL spammage.
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