First I am going to talk about Ret, why? because I was doing Deepholm as Ret so probably am the most experienced with the new mechanics.
At first I was like, yes this feels like a good change, I mean what you essentially have is a static DO THIS ON CD ABILITY (C.S) which you will always do on cooldown and then everything else having a priority in the free globals with this being Inquisition -> Templar's Verdict -> Judgement -> Exorcism -> Holy Wrath for single target and Inquisition -> Divine Storm -> Holy Wrath -> Judgement -> Exorcism for Multi-Target.
To comment on a few things, that sort of lead me turning on this system: a) I have played feral druid (mostly this) and rogue (a little) extensively enough to know their dps systems inside out b) I really hate the standard UI, maybe I will do a post on what I hate about it. c) I always thought Paladins were about some sort of burst.
Now, I'll deal with each of these points separately. Firstly we have the fact that Inquisition is basically a Savage Roar/Slice and Dice Clone, it is basically the only ability you would use with less than full holy power and if you miss keeping it up you lose a fuck tonne of damage. Now, whilst I don't mind these mechanics I think it's laboured: Do we really need 3/6 melee dps classes feeling very samey when it comes to the dps rotation. Holy Power also seems to basically be combo points in disguise, theres nothing interesting and new about Holy Power C.S is just a new sinister strike or shred and Templar's Verdict is the new Eviscerate/Ferocious Bite and Inquisition is the new Savage Roar/Slice and Dice. It is kinda like you split the rogue aspects and thought " We will give energy to hunters but make it more like runic power, and we will give combo points to paladins but limit them to 3". I just think its a laboured mechanic, I would much rather see a clone of say the DK rune system that a clone of combo points which is already used on 2/6 of the melee classes.
Secondly, the standard UI is attrocious for Holy Power, maybe you can argue that "eventually it will be on the main frame" but that makes me cringe really, the problem with both of these is you need to know how much Holy power you have at any one time. However, this is actually a minor problem, at the moment on the beta this is very annoying, but if Crusader Strike got reduced to 3 seconds this problem would be far less intrusive.
Finally, the point about Wrath and why Holy Paladins were "overpowered" in pvp early on in the expansion was because they could blow all their cooldowns and knock somebody over without fear of dying. Paladin burst was pegged back with emphasis placed on talents like righteous vengeance and Spells like Seal of Vengeance becoming prominent. Whilst the core of the Paladin fcfs rotation remained intact. Come Cataclysm I just feel that Paladins have lost pretty much all burst. Note: I am not a PvP and never will be a PvP fanatic, I am talking mostly about PvE burst.
From my Experience as a dpser you have 2 types of Dps: Controlled Burst Dps and Sustained Dps, the definition of the difference between the 2 is obvious and best described by say choosing between an "on use trinket" and an "on proc trinket". In wrath useful "On use" trinkets went away (something I am very annoyed about personally) so basically you only had proc trinkets as a dpser, so there was no choice between increasing your damage in a 30 second period or over a 5 minute period, it was always the latter.
As a Ret Paladin in Wrath you have ways to choose between Controlled Burst and Sustained Dps, mostly these revolve around your use of Avenging Wrath, but also in a minor way seal usage. You can use your Avenging wrath on cooldown to increase your sustained dps or you can use it at specific points in a fight to increase the dps where it matters, with seals it is mostly switching to command on Valkyr's so that they die, even if that means you might lose your vengeance stack on the boss, since we want to increase our dps in that timeframe rather than the long run.
Personally I was always a fan of increasing dps in the short term, I hate people who blindly look at spreadsheets and go HUH A>B must be an upgrade when actually, especially early on in wrath, keeping a trinket like wrathstone (NEVER DROPPED (Seriously :<)) which was a reasonable on use trinket was something I would always do so that if the encounter required burst, say Valkyr Shield Popping on Twin Valkyr's that I would have guarenteed dps increases in that small time period. For the Same reason I don't tend to favour crit beyond 50% since crit works like a normal distribution curve, it becomes less and less bang for buck in a short term window past the critical 50% number, obviously in Cataclysm Crit will be much more valuable with the lower combat ratings, but I digress...
The point is that the new system is very "RAMP-UP-ESQUE", similar to how feral druids/Rogues work you have to spend a good 10-15 seconds of ramping up, on the beta this is obviously amplified by the fact C.S has a 4 second cooldown, but the problem is still there with a 3 second cooldown, it takes a long time to ramp up damage, I feel like Paladins don't need 2 mechanics to ramp up: Seal of Truth and Inquisition (Holy Power), it means your damage is very poor at the beginning of a fight for a good 10-15 seconds, this can be horribly taxing on a player who is looking out for his survival as is being advocated alot recently and I feel the Paladin should only be having to worry about 1 ramp up ability.
Ok, so bringing all this together.. Basically on its current state on Beta, the dps rotation is hideous. C.S going down to 3 seconds will do wonders for this though, it's already been posted that this change is in a build and let me be blunt: It needs to be 3 seconds if you intend to stick with Holy Power being a Combo Points system, if it is 3 seconds it makes the rotation feel totally different from a rogue and a feral druid, if it is 4 seconds it feels like a bad clone.
Let me Elaborate on that a little.. At 3 seconds you will never run out of something to do: It is always C.S move C.S move C.S move... etc with the move based on a priority system of 5 abilities (lets ignore the fact that this keeps us gcd locked because I feel like a gcd locked class is better than a non gcd locked class that only has specific windows where they can use something, also move could be used for dispelling and every 3 seconds is easily often enough to dispel or use freedom/protection... this sort of thing).
This is cool because you don't have downtime and it is both monotonous and non-monotonous in terms of C.S and the move part of the rotation respectively.
At 4 seconds you have C.S move move C.S move move C.S move move, this means that the cooldown of C.S actually becomes 4.5 seconds, you also run out of moves real fast so you end up doing nothing for the vast majority of the time, this is dull and boring and although gives you freedom to move around also means you are punished severely when having to move and you need to use an ability. Also it means you are going to be forced into 2 stacking inquisition I feel instead of 3 stacking because of timings.
At a 3 second interval your rotation looks like this:
C.S -> Inquisition -> C.S -> Judgement -> C.S -> Exorcism -> C.S -> Inquisition -> C.S -> Judgement -> C.S -> Holy Wrath -> C.S -> Templar's Verdict -> C.S -> Judgement -> C.S -> Exorcism -> C.S -> Templar's Verdict -> C.S -> Judgement -> C.S -> Holy Wrath -> C.S -> Inquisition... etc
I am not sure of the current Holy Wrath cooldown on Beta, but obviously with a 3 second C.S it needs to be around the same cooldown of Exorcism: I.E 15 seconds, so you just alternate between the 2 in the rotation, meaning that an aoe rotation swaps exorcism/holy wrath and swaps Templar's Verdict with Divine Storm.
Now obviously this does not take into account the extra holy power procs from the talent Divine purpose, which is basically a clone of a rogue talent I forget the name of, regardless the fact that it is so lovely without them only means that with them it is more lovely since you get to hit T.V more often which is always fun. With a 4 second c.d C.S you just had so much downtime it was really boring.
I am obviously not even talking about Zealotry or Avenging Wrath at the moment, Zealotry is actually a really lovely spell, however it seems pointless: Why? because you would always use it with avenging wrath, there is no time where you would use Zealotry without Avenging Wrath, so you might aswell just bake them into the same ability in my mind. The only time I can think of where you would separate them is if you have events that are say a minute apart in a boss fight and you need high dps for both, so it's better to use a cooldown on each rather than both on one and then fail at the other. Like say Lich King Valkyr's, spread cooldowns over waves rather than blow them all on one and then struggle on the next few.
So ye I feel like if C.S goes to 3 seconds and Zealotry is baked into Avenging Wrath, i.e the talent adds the functionality to Avenging Wrath, then I feel like Ret Paladins are going to be in a great place.
If we talk about my experience on beta with ret I would say that there are a few other concerns 1) Choice between Seal of Truth and Righteous is very Urgh, I couldn't really choose between them when levelling, I would think Righteous should be my seal of choice but it just feels weak at the moment. 2) I don't like that Divine Storm is usable without Holy power, it means if you accidentally press it twice you ruin your rotation, I feel that Consecration is a "Constant aoe" that you don't need a spammable Divine Storm, Divine Storm should obviously be ideally used at 3 stacks of holy power and not before.
3) I also didn't know whether to use Inquisition on mobs or just use T.V, although i have the same problems when levelling ferals/rogues so I feel thats less of an issue.
As a minor point: I don't like how the ICC gear doesn't have the extra stamina baked into it, I know you obviously want people to take the new gear in the new zones, but I feel that if I have 264/277 gear I should only be taking the blue quest rewards in the first 2-3 zones and whilst that is true for dps, I am losing around 10k-20k hp I feel of where I should be because I am not taking the quest rewards, which means some of the damage of mobs is overly high.
I'll do another post on Holy Paladins O:.
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