Wrecktangle's lunchtime Ret Build (Long Post, but read it fully before commenting)

[Wrecktangle]

Alright so I decided to put one of these together. I, like a lot of you am a career Ret. I love the spec, the fantasy, the idea of a warrior blessed by the light who can channel it to strengthen him/herself. I welcome all criticism and comments. Tell me what you like, why you like it. Tell me what you dislike, and why you dislike it. Offer alternatives if you feel obliged.

Next I'd like to define my thoughts on what a Retribution Paladin is (thematically):
A Retribution Paladin is someone who has watched endless suffering and said enough is enough (see my signature). They are skilled warriors that focus on destroying foes with both steel and magic. They are not the most mobile of warriors, but they often command and inspire. A Retribution Paladin never gives up. The power of the Light reaches even the darkest corners, and the flames of Judgment burn brightest in that darkness. I feel that being a buffbot or having a ton of utility is not the best approach. The utility that I propose is in the form of healing. A retribution Paladin is strong alone, but their presence inspires allies to fight as long as possible and as hard as possible. This ability to heal should have no impact on our competitive PvE DPS.

With that said there are a few things we need to get out of the way up front:

1) The % WD (Weapon Damage) values are not tuned. They are strictly for comparison against other skills. I did not put a ton of effort into mathematical balance. So please refrain from bashing the damage listed etc. I imagine that my build is significantly harder to balance that live or even legion, but I did this for fun, not for anything else, so accept it as that.

2) I did not take into account artifact stuff. So please pretend like it doesn't exist. If I get more free time (1hr a day at work doesn't go very far) I'll consider adding it.

3) I excluded some abilities, simply because I didn't feel like that were all that relevant to the discussion. For the sake of the argument, pretend we don't have them. If you feel it's a problem we don't have them, mention it.

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Retribution
The core of my build changes almost everything about the specialization of Retribution. One thing I want to add here is that I feel Blizzards direction on Ret is wrong. One of the major things seperating us from other Melee is that we have magic at our disposal. My build really keys in on the use of our holy power in battle and gives us much more range than traditional melee.

Resource:
Holy Power is gone. It's a bland mechanic that has absolutely no real game-play impact. It's literally identical to combo points. My build uses Mana. Mana is both spent and regenerated rapidly by using various abilities. Mastering the flow of Mana, the timing of regenerating CDs is integral to ensuring you're not running on empty. With that said I understand people make mistakes and that an encounter may throw things awry so there are ways to replenish your reserves generally at all times.

Mastery:
I always felt that we had an incredibly bland Mastery. It's just a passive damage knob to be turned up or down. I wanted something that was unique to us and fun, but offered scaling; something I felt as though we tended to lack. I suspect many of you will think that my new Mastery is overtuned etc, but bear with me.

Mastery: Rending Light – Your weapon radiates boundless light causing all attacks to deal holy damage instead of physical. Your attacks cause enemies to suffer from Rending Light, which is a 15s DoT that stacks to 30 and is consumed by using certain Seals.

The goal behind this is that We should be very good at picking apart high defense targets and classes that rely on barriers in PvP. Doing Holy damage to a Rogue, or a Warlock is not as strong as it is against a Death Knight or a Mage. In PvE, this is just another knob to be tuned. Realistically you'll rarely see maximum stacks as you'll want to use them sooner, but there is room for error so I had it stack to 30. The DoT portion deals very low damage, I even argued for just being a flat debuff that stacks to 30. The actual damage comes from Seals, as we'll see later on.

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Offensive Abilities:
Below are the abilities I've devised for our general rotation. You'll see some very dramatic changes and new mechanics.

Crusader Strike

"A bold strike that renews fervor, granting Zealotry."

Zealotry – Your unparalleled fanaticism empowers your next attack, ends on next attack or after 4s.

Under Zealotry – Crusader Strike becomes Holy Strike.

• Melee Range
• Single Target
• No Cooldown
• Regenerates 10% Mana
• 100% WD

Obviously a huge change here. The change to Mana definitely warranted us to have a no cooldown regenerator. Crusader Strike is also very important because it grants Zealotry, one of my builds core mechanics. Under Zealotry refers to if you have the buff, using that attack will add this effect to the original ability.

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Holy Strike

"A sacred strike that summons hallowed blades of light to purify foes. Generates 3 Rending Light stacks and consumes Zealotry."

• Melee Range – then 10yd circle
• AOE
• Places Crusader Strike on a 6s CD after using
• Regenerates 10% Mana
• 390% WD

A completely new ability. I wanted to prevent CS spamming to regenerate Mana. I also wanted to develop a powerful on-demand AOE skill. The skill factor here is in managing the cooldown it places on CS. To offset this it does regenerate a small portion of Mana.

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Exorcism

"Blasts targets with divine force."

Under Zealotry – Exorcism has a 40% chance to reset the cooldown on Templar's Verdict.

• Melee Range – then 12yd cone behind
• AOE
• 9s Cooldown
• Costs 20% Mana
• 260% WD

Exorcism is now melee range with a cone effect behind it. I wanted to give us a cleave type of ability to help with multi target sustained encounters. I also wanted to find a few ways to make scaling work well. I.e. more haste, more abilities used, more cooldowns reset -> etc.

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Judgment

"Calls down righteous fire from the heavens. If Judgment critically strikes, you gain Righteous Fire."

Righteous Fire – Your body is bathed in light of the fire granting your next attack 50% increased damage. Ends on next ability or after 6s.

Under Zealotry – Your next ability is a guaranteed critical.

• 20yd Range
• Single Target
• 7.5s Cooldown
• Costs 10% Mana
• 150% WD

Judgment is an important ability for a few reasons. Again I wanted to address our ability to scale. I needed something that works with crit and felt that it could impact which ability we use next. I.e. if Judgment crits you really want to make sure that your next attack is a hard hitting one (and not CS, especially if you managed to have Zealotry active.

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Blade of Wrath

"Conjures a sword of brilliant light to abolish evil."

Under Zealotry – Generates 3 stacks of Rending Light and does not consume Zealotry.

• 10yd Range
• Single Target
• 3s Cooldown
• Costs 40% Mana
• 360% WD

I chose this ability as our "TV". It's designed to hit hard, and has a very short CD. I really went back and forth on the Mana cost on this ability. I wanted to do 30%, but I felt that 40% was more appropriate. Another interesting feature is that using it under Zealotry does not consume the buff. It adds a nice touch to up the burst, but the Mana cost does prohibit spamming it.

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Templar's Verdict

"A true and just strike that invigorates the most hopeless of crusades."

Under Zealotry – Reduces the cooldown of Judgment, Exorcism, Blade of Wrath, and Holy Strike by up to 3s if they're currently on cooldown.

• Melee Range
• Single Target
• 12s Cooldown
• Regenerates 50% Mana
• 290% WD

TV here is a hard hitting close range attack that is our short CD Mana regenerator. Under Zealotry it acts as a tool to bring other CDs up more quickly. Ideal usage would be ensuring you get the full Mana back, don't leave it sitting on CD for too long, and have other abilities on CD when you use it.

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Divine Storm

"A shining storm surrounds you smiting those who tread too close."

Under Zealotry – Generates 2 Rending Light stacks per hit.

• 10yd Range
• AOE
• 14s Cooldown (starts when toggled off)
• Costs 10% Mana per second – press again to cancel or turns off when OOM (toggling off is off the GCD).
• 80% WD per second

I made a pretty drastic change to DS. It's now a toggle on a CD. I actually wanted no CD toggle (given it's fairly extreme Mana cost, but felt that some of the talent ideas I came up with would make it tedious to manage. One of the most important issues facing Ret is our lack of on demand AOE. This is intended to alleviate that. Under Zealotry it just helps stack Rending Light a little bit quicker.

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Supporting Abilities:
These are some abilities that are used to supplement the general rotation, or our general utility.

Seal of Light

"A glyph of golden light radiates from below the Paladin absorbing holy energy to bolster their vindication."

Passive: "The cooldown of Avenging Wrath is reduced by 1s every time you use an ability empowered by Zealotry."

Activation: "Consumes all Rending Light within 40yd dealing 5% (+x% of Mastery) per stack."

• 40yd
• Single Target
• No Cooldown
• No Cost
• Off the GCD

For my build I wanted Seals to be the defining Ret mechanic. Seals are basically a stance with an active component. Seal of Light is designed consume the Rending Light on all targets dealing damage. This effect can critically strike as well (making it useful to use after a Zealotry empowered critical Judgment). Under good circumstances you'll want to be in Seal of Light as often as possible to reduce the CD on Avenging Wrath. Mastery stat will directly increase the damage of this ability. I imagine somewhere around 22% Mastery stats in entry level raid gear so it's worthwhile to know the break-point of when stacks > say Blade of Wrath. (UPDATED: Lowered base damage significantly 20% -> 5%). Removed Mana Cost. Intent should be able to switch between stances when needed.

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Seal of Wisdom

"A glyph of azure light radiates from below the Paladin to help sustain their vigor."

Passive: "Your auto-attacks regenerate 10% Mana."

Activation: "Consumes all Rending Light within 40yd dealing 5% (+x% of Mastery) per stack. In addition, abilities that would cost Mana do not for the next 4s."

• 40yd
• 4s Duration
• 24s Cooldown
• Regenerates 10% Mana
• Off the GCD

The counterpart to Seal of Light is designed to be used when you want to regenerate Mana, or want to dump a lot of Mana rapidly and not have it cost Mana. AOE, Cleave, CD Burn phases are ideal for this. You can switch into the Seal at any time, but the activation effect has a 24s cooldown.

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Blazing Light

"Blesses a target with a warm amber light restoring lost health."

• 15yd
• Single Target
• No Cooldown
• Costs 60% Mana
• 1.5s Cast
• Heals for 25% (+x% of Mastery)

Our only healing spell. It's costly, strong, short range, but scales of Mastery as well as being generally potent. The purpose of this is I thought it would be cool to have mastery do more than just influence damage, now that our damage is based on our Mana, I feel that having a powerful heal that costs that Mana as well is fair.

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Divine Steed

"The Light grants the Paladin a brief reunion with a most faithful steed in dire circumstances transforming the Paladin into a Divine Steed increasing move-speed by 70%."

• 4s Duration
• 30s Cooldown
• No Cost
• Off the GCD
• While transformed you cannot use any abilities. Pressing the ability a second time while active will remove the effect.

Our only mobility spell. It has a medium cooldown, it's not a click target gap closer, and has the downside of being unable to use abilities while transformed. I feel that given our stronger defenses and healing and damage, this is a fair trade off. In the talent sections I did develop an alternative to this for those that want more of a traditional gap closer and liked the idea of Turylons Might.

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Divine Shield

"A Paladin is protected by a barrier of Divine Light that defends them from peril."

• 8s Duration
• 5 Minute Cooldown
• No Cost
• Off the GCD
• Immune to all damage and CC.

Our very powerful defensive CD. Not much changed.

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Avenging Wrath

"A burst of righteous Light empowers the Paladin in combat."

• 20s Duration
• 2 Minute Cooldown
• No Cost
• Off the GCD
• Increases all damage and healing by 20% and generates double Rending Light stacks.

Our very powerful offensive CD. I really wanted to spice this up a bit, but I felt that the rest of the kit changed so dramatically that this was the best I could come up with without being too excessive.

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Divine Protection

"The Light is a veil that surrounds the Paladin shielding them from mystic forces."

• 8s Duration
• 1 Minute Cooldown
• No Cost
• Off the GCD
• Reduces magical damage taken by 30%.

Our moderate defensive cooldown. No real changes here.

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Hammer of Justice

"The full weight of justice staggers even the mightiest enemies."

• 10yd Range
• 6s Duration
• 1 Minute Cooldown
• No Cost
• Off the GCD

Our main CC. I think I reduced the range from live given our new damage/durability. Talents will change this a bit.

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Talent Tree:
So here is my talent tree. I used a completely different philosophy than what Blizzard does. For me, having to talent to AOE is completely unacceptable and that talents should EMPOWER existing abilities in different ways. You may notice some tiers have a theme, i.e. mobility, range, seals, defensive, etc. One last thing is that I feel our final tier should be a finishing attack. Similar to our old 1 minute cooldown execution sentence/Lights Hammer, etc. I want you to choose between 3 completely awesome attacks depending on your situation/needs. I am aware that this doesn't quite fit the WoW model, but hey why not? I did my best to make all 3 choices meaningful, not always DPS related, and fun to use. One other thing, I did not put ANY real thought into what tiers were at what level. I probably should have, but I didn't think about it.

Level 15

Long Arm of the Law

"Empowered by the divine laws of the heavens your Judgment spell has its range increased to 30yds and increases your move-speed by 45% for 3s."

Pursuit of Justice

"As long as the Paladin has faith in the Light, justice will be delivered swiftly. You gain 60% move-speed when above 50% Mana. Does not stack with any movement increasing effect."

Ride the Lightning

"A Paladin can harness the speed of light, instantly moving forward 20yds. This effect costs 10% Mana and has a 30s Cooldown, and replaces Divine Steed."

This is the mobility tier. I wanted to created 3 choices that were fun, and useful. LAotL is relatively unchanged from live. It is designed to have an uptime of somewhere around 40%. Pursuit of Justice to me seems mediocre in a raid environment, but really shines in open world, or in PvP. Considering we do a lot of burst damage, it lets us get in range, unload, slow down, then try to catch back up again when we're able to restore our Mana. Ride the Lightning is intended to be a gap closer similar to blink. it has a medium cooldown, happens instantly, but has a small Mana cost tied to it. I can see this useful in all different types of content. PvP talents will enhance all of these abilities, which we'll see later.

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Level 30

Blessed Blade

"Imbued with the Light, Crusader Strike releases a torrent of holy fire increasing its range to 20yds dealing 110% WD."

Final Verdict

"A Paladin can channel the light to summon a mighty weapon increasing its range to 20yds dealing 330% WD. Replaces Templar's Verdict."

Holy Wrath

"The Light's reach empowers Exorcism increasing its range to 20yds (and 15yd cone) dealing 280% WD."

This is the range tier. I wanted to supplement the fact that Retribution is about Might and MAGIC. That to me implies attacks of a magical nature therefore having access to range. All 3 abilities improve the damage of it's specific ability, and increase its range. Crusader strike is obviously used much more frequently than the others therefore its damage increase is very small, but it also gets a large range increase. I can see this being very valuable where you need access to Zealotry, but are at range. Final Verdict is similar to live, gets a very healthy range bump for our primary Mana regenerator. Especially useful in PvE where our regenerators are mostly melee ranged. Holy Wrath empowers Exorcism to have range, and increases the width and length of the cone effect. This is especially useful in cleave/add fights and in open world or PvP.

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Level 45

Seal of Justice

"Your basic attacks in Seal of Light have a 20% chance to grant Zealotry." In addition Zealotry can now stack up to 2 times."

Seal of Command

"While in Seal of Wisdom your attack speed is increased by 100%, and critical hits regenerate 20% Mana."

"While Seal of Light your attack speed is increased by 20%, and critical hits generate 1 additional Rending Light stack."

Seal of the Martyr

"Your basic attacks in Seal of Light have a 20% chance to deal 50% additional damage. You suffer 10% of the damage dealt from these attacks."

This is the seals tier. I wanted to have a nice throwback to all our old past seals in here. I also wanted to find a way to empower them by basic attacks (think Art of War). I like that you can choose between additional Zealotry, faster Rending Light stacking and Mana regeneration, and the burst of Martyr. I think the damage received will be nicely offset by our improved healing.

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Level 60

Divinity Barrier

"Reduces the cooldown of Divine Shield and Divine Protection by 50%."

Domain

"The Paladin consecrates the land they stand on, healing Party Members who walk on it by .5% (+x% of Mastery) per second." The effect is approximately 8yds. In addition your Divine Protection also reduces Physical damage taken by 30%."

Stay of Execution

"Mark a target to be saved. For 10s, every instance of damage the target receives they are instantly healed for 30% (+x% of Mastery) of damage received. 1 Minute Cooldown. Off the GCD. Regenerates 10% Mana."

This is the defensive cooldown tier. As I mentioned earlier I really wanted to focus on healing as our defensive party utility. Divinity Barrier is your basic choice. Effective and simple. Domain is similar to my definition of Retribution. They command and inspire. Their domain empowers allies to fight to the last and never give up. I also had it scale with Mastery to give it some additional oomph. Stay of Execution is a neat idea I came up with. It doesn't protect you from burst, but it makes sustained damage significantly less threatening and acts as a small Mana regenerator.

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Level 75

Unrelenting Storm

"30% chance upon toggling off Divine Storm (or upon running OOM) to automatically cast again for 4s with no Mana cost."

Indignation

"Indignation can be placed anywhere within 40yd instead of being centered on You. Replaces Divine Storm."

Swelling Squall

"Every 1s Divine Storm is active it gains 3yds and 5% additional WD."

This is the DS tier. It's my favorite ability in the game so I gave it some love. Unrelenting Storm is like a free proc. This talent is the reason why I gave DS a cooldown. Indignation is a cool idea I thought up. Basically I thought of scenarios of where this could be useful. If you're focusing a priority add, you can place your DS on adds across the room to help contribute damage, in PvP throw it right in the middle of a group of casters, force them to move. Swelling Squall is a simple and effective increase to range and damage based on duration. The PvP talents have a lot of interaction with DS.

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Level 90

Stand Tall and Shake the Heavens

"Can instantly resurrect with 20% Health and 20% Mana. This effect can be used on other players, mimicking other battle res abilities and subject to their rules."

Ascension (Formerly Fallen Angel)

"Upon dying, you're resurrected for 10s with Avenging Wrath activated regardless of its cooldown; you are immune to all movement impairing effects, damage, and gain 100% move-speed."

Divine Intervention

"Upon taking fatal damage, your Divine Shield spell is automatically used (unless it is on cooldown), regenerating 100% Mana, and increasing healing received by 50% for the next 10s." The cooldown of Divine Shield is reduced by 50% if it's used this way. Does not stack with Divinity Barriers effect."

Utility tier. As I mentioned before Retributions defensive utility is healing. I wanted Ret's to be able to battle res, but I felt it would be even one better if we also had the ability to reincarnate, giving us the unique ability to stand up on our own, or bring an ally back. In a raid environment, it would be identical to other battle res rules (again as a career Ret I'm not that intimate with them, but I know they're accrued based on time). Fallen Angel is unique in that it doesn't have the huge impending cooldown of being resurrected. A Retributions last stand should be a terrifying sight to behold. I can see this being used in raiding, open world maybe not as much, but definitely in PvP. Divine Interventions intention is to protect you from a mistake, basically hitting the reset button. It definitely has value in both PvE and PvP. I removed the synergy between Divinity Barrier and Divine Intervention because I felt a 75 second cooldown on Divine Shield was not balanced.

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Level 100

Angelfire

"Unleashes a super-sonic white-hot wave of holy fire at a target. Upon contact it explodes dealing AOE damage and stunning for 2s. If the primary target is already stunned the effect deals double damage to all targets hit, but no longer stuns. Deals 800% WD to primary target, and 400% WD AOE in a 10yd radius. Generates 5 Rending Light stacks. Requires Zealotry. No Cost, 40yd Range, 1 Minute Cooldown."

Execution Sentence

"Marks a target for execution. For the next 10s the target takes 10% additional damage. After 10s the Paladin will crash from the heavens onto the target, stunning them for 4s, and dealing 350% WD plus 100% of the total damage done to the target by the Paladin during the effect. Generates 10 Rending Light stacks total, 1 per second. No Cost, 20yd Range, 1 Minute Cooldown."

Wake of Ashes

"A Divine strike that rends the sky asunder dealing 1100% WD to a single target, generating 3 Rending Light stacks. Regenerates 50% Mana, 10yd Range, 1 Minute Cooldown."

Ultimate Attack tier. What I envisioned here are very powerful offensive cooldowns on a 1 minute cooldown. Angelfire is basically FF7's Cloud Strike Bladebeam, but made of holy fire. It has a stun component for both PvP, and for add fights in PvE. Given its large AOE, range, and damage it does require Zealotry. Execution Sentence is both a gap closer, CC, and a damage nuke at the same time. It doesn't have very large range. This is definitely more of a PvP oriented skill, but in a single target encounter with little mechanics or movement to disrupt the stacking mechanism it can certainly deal a lot of damage, Thematically think of it as Falling Sword from D3. Wake of Ashes is basically a column of light obliterating a single target for a large amount of damage, with small range, but regenerates 50% Mana.

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PVP Talent Tree
Very similar to the traditional talent tree I did not spend any time developing costs or anything. I generally ignored the filler stuff like take x% less damage, do y or z, etc. Functionally what I did was augment PvE skills to have PvP benefits, and let you choose which would be best given your team/enemy composition, or if you were solo.

1

Jailer's Realm

"Hitting an enemy with Exorcism, Judgment, Divine Storm, or Seal of Light causes chains of shining light to burst and tether to the ground. These chains root the target for 1s and slow them by 25% for an additional 4s."

Law of the Land

"All enemies within 8yds of the Paladin have their move-speed slowed by 60%."

Weight of the Righteous

"Any enemy suffering from Rending Light has their move-speed slowed by 35%. Successfully interrupting a target inflicted with Rending Light doubles the slow to 70% and generates an additional Rending Light stack."

This is basically the slow tier. These talents are design to impair the enemies movement. Jailers Realm has a lot of synergy with the Indignation talent. This talent is especially strong against ranged targets or comps that run multiple ranged. Given their AOE nature they work well in RBGs. Law of the Land is designed to inhibit close range combatants from feeling you once you're on them. It also flows thematically with the idea that Retribution Paladins have a presence that inspires allies and demoralizes enemies. Weight of the Righteous is designed to make it so anyone tagged with Rending Light is generally just slowed by a fair amount with a high uptime. Rending Light can be dispelled (not entirely, but by the stack, so 1 dispel 1 stack or 1 dispel multiple stacks pending other classes dispels). Unsure if it should have a % of dispel protection. I opted for no.

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2

Unstoppable Vortex

"Divine Storm costs 50% less Mana per second to maintain. In addition while it is active any allies inside the storm take 30% reduced damage unless enemies are inside the storm's center."

Mirror of Vengeance

"While Divine Storm is active all harmful effects are reflected at their casters (Note that direct damage will go through, but effects such as Frost fever, Polymorph, etc. will be reflected). Effects cast from inside the storm's center are not reflected." Reflected attacks also generate Rending Light stacks."

Revitalizing Tempest

"Your Divine Storm heals you and your party members for 100% of the damage it deals."

This tier empowers DS. I wanted it to be both a defensive ability and offensive. Given it's cost to maintain it needed to have very strong effects.The static 30% damage reduction gives incentives to make sure that melee targets are tasked to dispose of the Paladin instead of ranged. Mirrow of Vengeance is great because it really punishes spellcasters for blindly throwing debuffs at the Paladin. it gives a risk vs. reward to get close to get meaningful effects off before retreating. Revitalizing tempest is designed to bolster your allies desire to stay in the fight. This is especially effective against melee cleave comps where debuffs or ranged attacks are a non-issue.

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3

Vengeful Weapon

"Your Blade of Wrath purges 2 beneficial effects from enemies."

Vorpal Weapon

"Your Blade of Wrath reduces all healing the target receives by 15% for 6s."

Hallowed Weapon

"Your Blade of Wrath heals for 50% the damage it deals."

You choose based on your team needs or the opponent you are against. A mortal strike effect is especially handy on a non-mobile healer, whereas purging beneficial effects is stronger against spellcasters who stack those types of effects. Hallowed weapon grants additional healing to outlast opponents.

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4

Guided by the Light

"While under the effects of Divine Steed you are immune to CC and regenerate 5% Health per second. Passing through an ally removes any CC on them."

"Ride the Lightning regenerates 20% Health."

Lightning Rend

"Ride the Lightning is empowered so that if you pass through an enemy they suffer 300% WD and are stunned for 3s."

"Divine Steed stuns any target you pass through for 3s."

Cavalry's Momentum

"Activating Divine Steed regenerates 20% Mana per second and the Paladin takes 50% reduced damage while transformed."

"If Ride the Lightning passes through an enemy it places 10 Rending Light stacks on them. In addition your Ride the Lightning no longer has a Mana cost."

Mobility enhancing tier. I made sure each talent offered upgrades to both mobility skills. Guided by the Light is nice for regenerating health to outlast opponents and also helps allies by removing any CC effects on them. This is a more defensive mobility upgrade. Lightning Rends turns Ride the Lightning into a hard hitting CC move. It does require you to pass through an opponent which would not be easy if they were moving erratically. Divine Steed lets you stun multiple targets if they're closely grouped together. Cavalry's Momentum is a Mana regenerating theme if using Divine Steed, which it helps rapidly stack Rending Light if you chose Ride the Lightning.

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5

Hammer Time

"The cooldown of Hammer of Justice is reduced by 2s for every stack of Rending Light on the target when it is cast."

Harsh Sentence

"Your Hammer of Justice spell has its range increased to 30yds; in addition the cooldown is reduced by 20s if it successfully interrupts spellcasting."

Law and Order

"Your Hammer of Justice now stuns all enemies within 10yds."

CC enhancing tier. This is designed to improve your main CC spell depending on your enemy/team composition. Hammer Time is great if you're able to stack a lot of Rending Light. Hard Sentence is designed to punish spellcasters for reckless casting. Law and Order helps prevent focus fire on the Paladin.

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6

Bastion of Hope

"Every 3s you and all allies within 8yds are purged off up to 2 harmful effects."

Bastion of Glory

"As long as a single ally is within 10yds, all damage your allies within 10yds would take is reduced by 10%."

Bastion of Vengeance

"Attackers suffer 3% of the damage dealt to you reflected back at them as Holy damage."

More thematic domain buffs. Designed to empower you and your allies against specific threats. One for debuffs/DoTs, the other for focus fire, and focused AOE.

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Conclusion
That's what I came up with. Basically goes back to being a commanding presence on the battlefield and exacting wrath and vengeance with might and holy magic. Feel free to give your thoughts and criticisms.

EDIT: Got rid of the tables. Looks cleaner now.

[Deleted]

This build is allot to swallow because it completely overhaul Retribution gameplay-wise.

It was fun to read and the more I read, the more I liked it.

This whole resource mana-mechanic thing is very unique and it raise the skillcap immensely, but it concerns me (just a little bit) that it will make the class to complicated and loses it funfactor to it because of how it requires to be continues thinking, handle/manage your abilities with your resource. After all, Retribution is well known to be "simple" class and that's why it is so much beloved from players. Nothingless that it sounds absolutely interesting and it deserve to raise the skillcap or make it mechanic more interacting. I wish I could test/play with this build, to feel how smooth, fun, hard,... before I make conclusions like that.

Your Mastery provide great synergy with those abilities and that is very important for me to have a meaningful Mastery that cause allot of interacting with abilities.

The Zealotry thing build in the basic-abilities is another great idea to make this class more interesting and interactive. It can make this class really fun to play with, but same as above "concerns".
Just one small note and mostly just my personal opinion. I dislike Divine Steed in general and you made it worse for me the idea to 'transform' into a horse? I just can't place it in the fantasy of Paladins, sorry about that.

Now with the Talents.

Ride the Lightning: same as above with Divine Steed. It is a basically just another "Blink" and only Mages should have it. (Make something unique only for our class.)

The lvl30 Talents, adding such a high range on melee abilities will be (PvP-wise) unbalanced. (It will change our playstyle into a "kite melee classes to dead" and defeat the purpose of range classes to give them the change to run away from melee classes.)

The lvl90 and 100 got great ideas but beware that the class fantasy is not tend towards a "Angel".

I must say that I love allot of your PvP Talents. Jailer's Realm was something I had familiar on my mind and I like it allot.

Reading the Divine Steed PvP effects makes me consider to like Divine Steed which I otherwise dislike. So yeah, really great job on this row making me consider about liking Divine Steed.

Conclusion:

You put really hard work into it and you made really thoughtful ideas into this class, especially the synergy and adding allot of ways to interact with our abilities that can provide allot of fun but as stated above i got small "concerns".
So overall i am positive about this build and i wish i could play/test it myself to give a real conclusion about it.

Greetings, Baltimus(bruh).

[Wrecktangle]

This build is allot to swallow because it completely overhaul Retribution gameplay-wise. It was fun to read and the more I read, the more I liked it.

This whole resource mana-mechanic thing is very unique and it raise the skillcap immensely, but it concerns me (just a little bit) that it will make the class to complicated and loses it fun factor to it because of how it requires to be continues thinking, handle/manage your abilities with your resource. After all, Retribution is well known to be "simple" class and that's why it is so much beloved from players. Nothingless that it sounds absolutely interesting and it deserve to raise the skillcap or make it mechanic more interacting. I wish I could test/play with this build, to feel how smooth, fun, hard,... before I make conclusions like that.

Agreed, but I think that now is the perfect time to shake up everything. The difficulty increase is intended , because although we're pegged as a simple class, we have very deep gameplay that easily sets the greats apart from the averages. My build hopefully will continue to do that, but with more clarity.

Your Mastery provide great synergy with those abilities and that is very important for me to have a meaningful Mastery that cause allot of interacting with abilities.

The Zealotry thing build in the basic-abilities is another great idea to make this class more interesting and interactive. It can make this class really fun to play with, but same as above "concerns".
Just one small note and mostly just my personal opinion. I dislike Divine Steed in general and you made it worse for me the idea to 'transform' into a horse? I just can't place it in the fantasy of Paladins, sorry about that.

Agreed, I really liked the mastery and zealotry changes.

I too was torn between Divine Steed, but I imagined it similarly to D3 Crusader. Transforming may not be in your definition of class fantasy, but in mine, the power of the Light lets Paladins do things normal warriors cannot do. A normal warrior can mount a horse, a Paladin can channel the light to embody the celestial horse. It's ok though, I PERSONALLY don't even like the ability, but I see its value.

Now with the Talents.

Ride the Lightning: same as above with Divine Steed. It is a basically just another "Blink" and only Mages should have it. (Make something unique only for our class.)

The lvl30 Talents, adding such a high range on melee abilities will be (PvP-wise) unbalanced. (It will change our playstyle into a "kite melee classes to dead" and defeat the purpose of range classes to give them the change to run away from melee classes.)

The lvl90 and 100 got great ideas but beware that the class fantasy is not tend towards a "Angel".

It's true that it's very similar to blink (i'll add in that we cannot go through objects), but like above, we harness the speed of light to rapidly move forward. It all goes back to my theme that the light is our magic and we used what the light is known for. Speed, warmth, penetrating darkness, etc.

Here's the reason why I think the lv30 talents are PERFECT. You have 3 decisions. Increase the range of your ability that grants Zealotry. Increase the range of the ability that regenerates Mana, or increase the range of your AOE move. All 3 are incredibly useful. You have to pick one. That to me is fun, and balanced. It also fits in my with my definition of fantasy because we should be the quintessential melee spec that uses magic to deal ranged damage.

Lastly, I think Angels are very important to Paladins both functionally and thematically. That said, they are just names of abilities, and as you can imagine coming up with this many naming conventions is rather difficult! If you had an alternative let me know!

I must say that I love allot of your PvP Talents. Jailer's Realm was something I had familiar on my mind and I like it allot.

Reading the Divine Steed PvP effects makes me consider to like Divine Steed which I otherwise dislike. So yeah, really great job on this row making me consider about liking Divine Steed.

Thanks, I put a ton of effort into them! I greatly appreciate your feedback.

[Wickedsage]

A long read indeed i think changing the name of Fallen angel to Avenger along with angelfire to conviction or even Divine Retribution would fit "class fantasy"

only thing i didn't like was Divine Intervention and Divinity Barriers they don't help each other i get one just reduces cd's the other is cheat death.. i can see Divinity Barriers do something like you can put divine shield on a target and keep the cooldown reduction for divine protection then you don't have to fear of i can't have both or one or the other.

last idea i can think of just keeping both is DI works as a cheat death for anyone can work on the paladin but u can put it on say tanks healers or dps but they wont lose aggro keeping in mind a raid mechanic it won't remove tank debuffs like shred armor ur immune to the white hits or even the hard hitting attack but it wont stop debuff applacations.

pvp wise divine shield works as normal they have to shattering throw or mass dispell.

loved reading things like this ty for the post

[Felrane]

I personally love it. I wish Blizzard would have done more with Seals rather then just gut them down into worthlessness and then just remove them. I would love to see the level 90 talents more of Aura cool-down teir instead of Resurrection. Having talent row that is only useful upon failing I do not like. Perhaps have them somewhat like the PVP teir 6 talent row but with active ability's on top of the passive auras.

Seems that with blizzards way of doing things you would make the rotation to complex for the average Joe. Just the fact that rending light effects EVERYTHING is a bit over the top for blizzard standards. They have also mentioned before that alot of people don't bother to read detailed tooltips. Most players have no idea how anything works unless it just says does high/medium/low damage.

[lightofdawn]

pretty sure holy power isnt gone for ret

[Teleros]

pretty sure holy power isnt gone for ret

You do realise Wrecktangle is designing something from the ground up, right :P ?

[lightofdawn]

You do realise Wrecktangle is designing something from the ground up, right :P ?

had no idea

[Wrecktangle]

A long read indeed i think changing the name of Fallen angel to Avenger along with angelfire to conviction or even Divine Retribution would fit "class fantasy"

only thing i didn't like was Divine Intervention and Divinity Barriers they don't help each other i get one just reduces cd's the other is cheat death.. i can see Divinity Barriers do something like you can put divine shield on a target and keep the cooldown reduction for divine protection then you don't have to fear of i can't have both or one or the other.

last idea i can think of just keeping both is DI works as a cheat death for anyone can work on the paladin but u can put it on say tanks healers or dps but they wont lose aggro keeping in mind a raid mechanic it won't remove tank debuffs like shred armor ur immune to the white hits or even the hard hitting attack but it wont stop debuff applacations.

pvp wise divine shield works as normal they have to shattering throw or mass dispell.

loved reading things like this ty for the post

Appreciate the words. I'll think some more on your input.

I personally love it. I wish Blizzard would have done more with Seals rather then just gut them down into worthlessness and then just remove them. I would love to see the level 90 talents more of Aura cool-down teir instead of Resurrection. Having talent row that is only useful upon failing I do not like. Perhaps have them somewhat like the PVP teir 6 talent row but with active ability's on top of the passive auras.

Seems that with blizzards way of doing things you would make the rotation to complex for the average Joe. Just the fact that rending light effects EVERYTHING is a bit over the top for blizzard standards. They have also mentioned before that alot of people don't bother to read detailed tooltips. Most players have no idea how anything works unless it just says does high/medium/low damage.

Thanks for the input. I can see why a talent tier for "failure" isn't well liked, but I do believe from a fantasy and gameplay perspective there's definitely room for a tier that focuses on that. I also think having the unique utility of reincarnation and battle-res built into one talent is a cool one to have.

I agree fully that my rotation model would be considerably more difficult and I'm ok with that. I think that a mediocre player would easily learn to hit CS every other GCD as a general idea, and press Seal of Light when they see stacks get high. I think that if anything my build has a ton of fun built into it so even at the cost of complexity people would enjoy it.

You do realise Wrecktangle is designing something from the ground up, right :P ?

Indeed - mind sharing your insight as a fellow builder? I think I commented on yours, if not link me the post I'll give it a read through. While we're at it, let's get some more going.

had no idea

Haha, not sure how that point was missed. Did you read any of it? If so what are your thoughts?

[gratax]

Zealthory pretty cool reminds me a little of Shamans ascendance where all abilites becomes empowered

[Teleros]

Can do .

For the record, if it's not mentioned below I didn't have a problem with it .

= + =

Righteous Fire seems a bit scary with Holy Strike - 390% WD becomes 780% WD, which in PvP is almost 300k non-crit (and before damage reduction effects). CS => Judge (auto-crit) => Holy Strike = ouch. Double ouch if you can combine it with other damage increasing abilities. For example, the above could end up like so:

Avenging Wrath => CS (88k) + J (132k) + HS (720k)

That's 3 abilities critting together for 940k - I doubt you want to go much higher than this figure at least . However, this could be a problem if you have a high Mastery build consume lots of Rending Light debuffs on the target.

= + =

Divine Steed I notice does not suppress snares etc like Wraith Walk - is this intended?

= + =

Divine Shield I think really needs a reduced CD, though at least you have it off the GCD. That said, if you did this then I'd replace the Divinity Barrier talent.

= + =

Pursuit of Justice... not sure about this one. It's powerful when chasing people, but then it could be hard to remain glued to them once you drop below 50% mana - especially if you can't regenerate it quickly out of melee.

Blessed Blade... should this buff Holy Strike too? Given what I said above as well... hmm.

Swelling Squall sounds like a resto shaman talent :P .

Fallen Angel I can see being awkward in some situations. Suppose you're the last one on your arena team left, but you die, res as a Fallen Angel, and kill the last enemy player. Who won the match?

As a personal thing, I dislike the auto-bubble mechanic ofLegion's Divine Intervention. Given how powerful Divine Shield is as a defensive CD, I think it should be up to the player to use it.

Angelfire can't deal 1600% weapon damage to the primary target, that's just too strong (see above). I used a figure of 36,755 damage for 100% weapon damage, so 8x and 16x that is 294,040 and 588,080 respectively. And these aren't crits. A 1600% WD crit with Avenging Wrath is 1.4M, which is if not a PvP one-shot vs clothies, then pretty close to one.

Wake of Ashes would do 970k damage if it crit during Avenging Wrath.

Playing around with my own Ret stuff, the biggest hit I had was an ~820k one, which included bonus crit damage (225%) and a stronger Avenging Wrath (+25%), not using it during Forbearance, and draining your entire resource pool.

= + =

First note re PvP talents: All plate melee get the same first two rows (or near as damnit), so you have to consider where Rets will get their PvP trinket effect from if you're replacing the first row with your own talents.

Anyway...

As a personal thing, I actually dislike giving Ret snares, and you've given Ret some quite strong ones in the first tier. You also have to consider how snare-removing effects will interact with Law of the Land.

Bit worried that the Divine Storm tier is too strong, especially as it has no real cap on the number of units it can affect. Divine Storm's traditional heal was always capped at 3 targets and 25% of the damage, for example.

I like the third row, but I would have something other than a Mortal Strike debuff for Vorpal Weapon. Exactly what I don't know, but MS is THE warrior debuff, and I think should remain as such. Vengeful Weapon should probably also just remove one (magic?) buff, given how few there will be now in Legion with all the raid buffs going the way of the dodo.

Calvary is the wrong name for something not based on Christianity.

The fifth tier looks good, though I think Law and Order is probably the best in most group PvP situations.

Bastion of Hope is too strong versus debuff-reliant classes. One Ret paladin with it in the middle of a cluster in an RBG = enemy DoT classes may as well go home :P .

= + =

Final Notes

Feels a lot more offensively-orientated that Ret has ever been in WoW. Dunno if you're intending to keep BoF, BoP etc.

What else... the combination of tracking mana, Rending Light and cooldowns may be a bit awkward and over-complicated.

Lots of nice stuff in it though .

[Wrecktangle]

Righteous Fire seems a bit scary with Holy Strike - 390% WD becomes 780% WD, which in PvP is almost 300k non-crit (and before damage reduction effects). CS => Judge (auto-crit) => Holy Strike = ouch. Double ouch if you can combine it with other damage increasing abilities. For example, the above could end up like so:

Avenging Wrath => CS (88k) + J (132k) + HS (720k)

That's 3 abilities critting together for 940k - I doubt you want to go much higher than this figure at least . However, this could be a problem if you have a high Mastery build consume lots of Rending Light debuffs on the target.

Thanks a ton for responding. I'll clear up some issues: In the beginning I stated that WD% values were not absolute. They were simply designed as a reference to show how strong one ability is in reference to another. I.e. 1 Blade of Wrath is as strong as 3.6 Crusader Strikes. I also did not place any significant effort into mathematical balance so please forgive me on that.

Also - one thing to note CS -> Judge (auto-crit) -> Holy Strike would require 2 stacks of Zealotry. Which in a PvP scenario is possible through a talent selection, but would require an immense amount of setup. You'd need to land auto-attacks in melee range (approx 5), you'd need to have Zealotry up (so CS cast), you'd need to activate Judgment and have it crit, then dump your last remaining Zealotry stack into the auto-crit empowered Holy Strike, which also requires melee range. Remember that Zealotry only lasts 4s as well, which means that there's also room for counterplay there. In addition, now your Zealotry generator is on CD for 6s. I'd argue that setting that up is worth the damage you get out of it; however, with that said I would always err on the side of caution.

Divine Steed I notice does not suppress snares etc like Wraith Walk - is this intended?

Intended. My philosophy on this is for PvE. We need a way to move around quickly, or escape quickly. It doesn't need a ton of effects on the base ability. In the PvP talents you have the option to give it differing effects depending on which tools your team lacks or which elements you need to counter on the opposing team.

Divine Shield I think really needs a reduced CD, though at least you have it off the GCD. That said, if you did this then I'd replace the Divinity Barrier talent.

My build basically mimics live. I simply made it a hair stronger by removing the GCD stipulation, because I always hated that personally ). Why do you think it needs a reduced CD? Especially considering the rest of our defense in my build has been improved.

Pursuit of Justice... not sure about this one. It's powerful when chasing people, but then it could be hard to remain glued to them once you drop below 50% mana - especially if you can't regenerate it quickly out of melee.

Intended. It gives us the threat of catching and hurting someone. I felt that this was an excellent example of synergy and choice. Blessed Blade enables you to activate Zealotry from afar, increasing burst further. Alternatively, you could talent into Final Verdict to help quickly regenerate Mana to get back into a fast moving situation. This was exactly the situation I wanted to create. I designed our weakness to be regenerating Mana at range. Does my philosophy make any sense?

Blessed Blade... should this buff Holy Strike too? Given what I said above as well... hmm.

I chose not to have it buff Holy Strike as I felt that Holy Strike was already very powerful and didn't need to be augmented further. I also wanted HS to be melee range, as a reward for getting to melee range. Similar to above, I wanted to create a situation where you had 3 choices, and it wasn't an easy decision to make.

Swelling Squall sounds like a resto shaman talent :P .

Is it the name or the effect that you don't like? I'll tell you what coming up with original names for all these talents and abilities was incredibly difficult!

Fallen Angel I can see being awkward in some situations. Suppose you're the last one on your arena team left, but you die, res as a Fallen Angel, and kill the last enemy player. Who won the match?

That's an excellent point. Let's put it like this: If you're the last one alive and you die and resurrect and kill them, you still lose. Think of it like this, you go in, you realize the Ret is running Fallen Angel, that means it would be smart to kill him last. It's a deterrent for focus-fire. Let's say he's not running it and he's running the Divine Intervention talent, focus-fire him, force the cooldown, and then train them again to secure the kill, pretty similar to live IMO. If anything it adds a new layer of depth by changing the focus order of the enemy. I like that decision making scenario don't you?

As a personal thing, I dislike the auto-bubble mechanic ofLegion's Divine Intervention. Given how powerful Divine Shield is as a defensive CD, I think it should be up to the player to use it.

I absolutely agree with you, I don't care for it either, but I don't think its inherently bad design. I think that a lot of people will actually like it. I think all those choices being powerful effects make it a fun and meaningful decision.

Angelfire can't deal 1600% weapon damage to the primary target, that's just too strong (see above). I used a figure of 36,755 damage for 100% weapon damage, so 8x and 16x that is 294,040 and 588,080 respectively. And these aren't crits. A 1600% WD crit with Avenging Wrath is 1.4M, which is if not a PvP one-shot vs clothies, then pretty close to one.

Agreed, it is not intended to be a one-shot. It's just intended to be a hard hitting attack used every minute. I mentioned earlier the WD values and how they're determined. My vision for these abilities is that they absolutely do chunk you, but in no world should it come anywhere near a one-shot. Hope that helps.

First note re PvP talents: All plate melee get the same first two rows (or near as damnit), so you have to consider where Rets will get their PvP trinket effect from if you're replacing the first row with your own talents.

So logically my plan for that would be just adding those rows before my rows. I really didn't care for the passive things in those first 2 rows, so I created talents that I believed were fun and useful and completely pretended those others weren't there.

As a personal thing, I actually dislike giving Ret snares, and you've given Ret some quite strong ones in the first tier. You also have to consider how snare-removing effects will interact with Law of the Land.

Agreed, I wanted Ret to have very powerful snares. You have 3 choices that I felt synergized very well with other talents. All 3 are very strong in differing circumstances/gameplay situations. My intention for Law of the Land is that the only way to not be slowed is to be impervious to snares (by some effect), or to get out of range. Heroic Leap, Blink, etc. That's why I made the effect 8yds instead of 10 or 12, etc.

Bit worried that the Divine Storm tier is too strong, especially as it has no real cap on the number of units it can affect. Divine Storm's traditional heal was always capped at 3 targets and 25% of the damage, for example.

Intended to be very strong. I think that Melee need to be stronger than ranged. That's our reward for being in the front lines of danger. I had the strengthen the healing effect because it needed to be substantial. I'm sick of playing World of Rangedcraft and world of roguecraft. Remember that DS drains Mana fairly rapidly and is not easy to restore at range.

I like the third row, but I would have something other than a Mortal Strike debuff for Vorpal Weapon. Exactly what I don't know, but MS is THE warrior debuff, and I think should remain as such. Vengeful Weapon should probably also just remove one (magic?) buff, given how few there will be now in Legion with all the raid buffs going the way of the dodo.

I disagree on the only a Warrior should be able to reduce healing. However, a little independent research has shown me that Warriors MS effect is only 25%, my intent was to have a weaker MS effect, so I chose 25%. I'll gladly lower it 15% knowing what I know now.

Calvary is the wrong name for something not based on Christianity.

Intended to be Cavalry. Will update. Excellent catch!

The fifth tier looks good, though I think Law and Order is probably the best in most group PvP situations.

Agreed that a 10yd stun-all is very potent, but 10yds is not very large, and getting in range of multiple enemies is tough. It's an excellent tool if you're being focus fired by 2 or more melee for sure though.

Bastion of Hope is too strong versus debuff-reliant classes. One Ret paladin with it in the middle of a cluster in an RBG = enemy DoT classes may as well go home :P .

In one single solitary talent I made the worst specialization in the game viable in RBGs. Sounds impressive to me.

haha, that aside the intent is that in PvP the Lock should call out, hey that Ret is running Bastion of Hope, I can't touch him, then the DK and the Rogue go in and crushes the Ret. Lock goes back to winning the long con. That to me seems like a perfect example of fun pvp. Maybe I'm wrong? Think of it like this, DK and Rogue go in, notice Ret is running Revitalizing Tempest, and a good portion of the damage their doing is being healed by his DS. They go, ok, peel out, and call the Frost Mages and Locks to focus-fire the Ret, and they switch to a different target.

Feels a lot more offensively-orientated that Ret has ever been in WoW. Dunno if you're intending to keep BoF, BoP etc.

What else... the combination of tracking mana, Rending Light and cooldowns may be a bit awkward and over-complicated.

Lots of nice stuff in it though .

Thanks again for your feedback, very much appreciated. My goal was to make Ret the offensive powerhouse a melee should be. However it needs to have some group utility so I designed that around healing. I don't think BoF, BoP, etc. are Ret oriented tools honestly (and I PERSONALLY like the support dps archetype) so I excluded them. I'm not exactly fond of the blessings either so I removed them.

I do agree that this build has a ton of things adding to complexity, but I wanted to include all the ideas I had come up with.

let's get some others in here: @Ulthane @Nuin @Reghame @Storm the Sorrow @Snegovik @Bolt66

[Teleros]

Thanks a ton for responding. I'll clear up some issues: In the beginning I stated that WD% values were not absolute. They were simply designed as a reference to show how strong one ability is in reference to another. I.e. 1 Blade of Wrath is as strong as 3.6 Crusader Strikes. I also did not place any significant effort into mathematical balance so please forgive me on that.

I forgive you my child.

...

Also - one thing to note CS -> Judge (auto-crit) -> Holy Strike would require 2 stacks of Zealotry.

Ah, I think I read it as Judgement benefiting from Zealotry but not consuming it.

My build basically mimics live. I simply made it a hair stronger by removing the GCD stipulation, because I always hated that personally ). Why do you think it needs a reduced CD? Especially considering the rest of our defense in my build has been improved.

Might just be me, but I think 5min CDs are kind of out of date these days. Same issue with Metamorphosis for Demon Hunters actually - personally I'd rebalance it as a 3min CD.

Intended. It gives us the threat of catching and hurting someone. I felt that this was an excellent example of synergy and choice. Blessed Blade enables you to activate Zealotry from afar, increasing burst further. Alternatively, you could talent into Final Verdict to help quickly regenerate Mana to get back into a fast moving situation. This was exactly the situation I wanted to create. I designed our weakness to be regenerating Mana at range. Does my philosophy make any sense?

Makes sense, just making sure you're aware of it really .

Is it the name or the effect that you don't like? I'll tell you what coming up with original names for all these talents and abilities was incredibly difficult!

The name - Resto shamans have lots of names related to water, storms and tides.

That's an excellent point. Let's put it like this: If you're the last one alive and you die and resurrect and kill them, you still lose. Think of it like this, you go in, you realize the Ret is running Fallen Angel, that means it would be smart to kill him last. It's a deterrent for focus-fire. Let's say he's not running it and he's running the Divine Intervention talent, focus-fire him, force the cooldown, and then train them again to secure the kill, pretty similar to live IMO. If anything it adds a new layer of depth by changing the focus order of the enemy. I like that decision making scenario don't you?

Oh yeah, things that shake up the decision making are good ideas - just have to make sure you're aware of how it works and might bug out a fight. Same problem with raid bosses I suppose - should the boss reset during the 10sec period because you're technically dead?

Agreed, it is not intended to be a one-shot. It's just intended to be a hard hitting attack used every minute. I mentioned earlier the WD values and how they're determined. My vision for these abilities is that they absolutely do chunk you, but in no world should it come anywhere near a one-shot. Hope that helps.

Yeah fair enough.

My DPS numbers BTW were from Animefreak3d, who's got alpha access and a tauren paladin on the PvP realm.

So logically my plan for that would be just adding those rows before my rows. I really didn't care for the passive things in those first 2 rows, so I created talents that I believed were fun and useful and completely pretended those others weren't there.

Fair enough. Personally I've always thought Every Man For Himself (as in, the 2min CD, PvP trinket version) should be a racial for everyone, but Blizz are doing it a different way.

Intended to be very strong. I think that Melee need to be stronger than ranged. That's our reward for being in the front lines of danger. I had the strengthen the healing effect because it needed to be substantial. I'm sick of playing World of Rangedcraft and world of roguecraft. Remember that DS drains Mana fairly rapidly and is not easy to restore at range.

Yeah. Still concerned though, especially give its AoE damage. Anyway, moving on...

I disagree on the only a Warrior should be able to reduce healing. However, a little independent research has shown me that Warriors MS effect is only 25%, my intent was to have a weaker MS effect, so I chose 25%. I'll gladly lower it 15% knowing what I know now.

Well, rogues can do it as well, but my main thing is that MS is a very iconic warrior ability / debuff, and whilst I'm happy nicking Charge from them I don't want to tread too much into their class fantasy territory.

Agreed that a 10yd stun-all is very potent, but 10yds is not very large, and getting in range of multiple enemies is tough. It's an excellent tool if you're being focus fired by 2 or more melee for sure though.

Think also of situations where you're piling in to defend / attack a flag carrier though.

In one single solitary talent I made the worst specialization in the game viable in RBGs. Sounds impressive to me.

haha, that aside the intent is that in PvP the Lock should call out, hey that Ret is running Bastion of Hope, I can't touch him, then the DK and the Rogue go in and crushes the Ret. Lock goes back to winning the long con. That to me seems like a perfect example of fun pvp. Maybe I'm wrong? Think of it like this, DK and Rogue go in, notice Ret is running Revitalizing Tempest, and a good portion of the damage their doing is being healed by his DS. They go, ok, peel out, and call the Frost Mages and Locks to focus-fire the Ret, and they switch to a different target.

In principle it works, but I worry as to whether it'll be too strong in practice. So long as that Ret is there in the middle of a bunch of people, they're all effectively immune to periodic damage, which is a big deal for quite a few classes.

Perhaps another way of looking at it (because I'm quite happy with Ret being good vs shadow magic users, thematically) is a damage reduction effect on each attack, but that's flat rather than %-based. For example, my idea reworked Shield of Vengeance: it was a passive effect that absorbed and reflected 20% AP from each attack made against the paladin. Now, 20% AP from a Mortal Strike hit is peanuts (~4.8k absorb/reflect vs what, 10x that in incoming damage?), but if against SW:P it's rather more potent. It also means the poor saps fighting the Ret don't have to keep re-applying curses and DoTs and such, which sounds like very frustrating gameplay .

Thanks again for your feedback, very much appreciated.

My goal was to make Ret the offensive powerhouse a melee should be. However it needs to have some group utility so I designed that around healing. I don't think BoF, BoP, etc. are Ret oriented tools honestly (and I PERSONALLY like the support dps archetype) so I excluded them. I'm not exactly fond of the blessings either so I removed them.

Yeah fair enough.

[Ulthane]

I'll follow up when I get home.

[Snegovik]

from PvP pov i really love some of those pvp talents (lvl 1,2 and especially 6-this would make Ret more desirable in RBGs), these talents will make Ret very strong in pvp which raises the dilemma: you have some very cool ideas which will put Ret in the top of the PvP food chain, which blizzard will never allow. However, even if Blizzard takes into consideration some of those pvp talents, it will be a right step to the "proper" balancing of Ret spec in Rated PvP, over all some very interesting/good stuff, i enjoyed reading it. well done.

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P.S. I also like idea of going back to Mana, generating HP both taxing in PvP as melee + personally a bit boring mechanic (we are not rogues as you said ) ), if Blizzard wants make us like DKs 0 mobility spec, then we should be able to deal dmg right away as DKs do, not sit and generate HPs once we got to the target, instead of simply bursting that fool down.

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Last thought: Level 3 pvp talent will never go life for Rets (the purge + MS) since Blizzard stated that only warriors should have Iconic MS ability among melee (rogue's poisons are a bit different i guess since you can cleanse it), and purge for Rets will make us 2 OP and will take Enh shammy's niche among melee. Don't get me wrong, i would love see Ret have those options to pick in PvP, but Blizzard will never allow it)

[Ulthane]

The big issue on the PvP trees to adress is that all classes have the same style of the first two rows.
-Gladiator Medallion row
-Basic shared row depending on spec.

As noted Zealotry is a unique mechanic. I just got home, read it through w/o doing any math or napkin stuff but the mechanic raises the skill cap a lot. The rotation would be very interesting and in a way it goes back to the old vanilla alpha roots of Crusader Strike and Holy Strike.

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Like the mastery idea, always felt that Retribution should be doing straight Holy damage, all numbers can be tuned around this easily. The dot itself feels like you took a concept from EDH trinket and added a mechanic to it which is interesting.

[Wrecktangle]

from PvP pov i really love some of those pvp talents (lvl 1,2 and especially 6-this would make Ret more desirable in RBGs), these talents will make Ret very strong in pvp which raises the dilemma: you have some very cool ideas which will put Ret in the top of the PvP food chain, which blizzard will never allow. However, even if Blizzard takes into consideration some of those pvp talents, it will be a right step to the "proper" balancing of Ret spec in Rated PvP, over all some very interesting/good stuff, i enjoyed reading it. well done.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate the comments, especially from a PvP perspective. My goal was to make Retribution viable and strong in areas where it is currently laughably weak. I felt that if I made each ability in every tier really strong it would help develop a situation where those choices were impactful and fun. IMHO PvP should be designed around execution mattering the most and what comp you run second. The fact that ranged completely dominate is just not fair, hence why I made the Paladin so strong. I imagine other classes would be similarly strong if they had a talent tree designed on the same principles.

P.S. I also like idea of going back to Mana, generating HP both taxing in PvP as melee + personally a bit boring mechanic (we are not rogues as you said ) ), if Blizzard wants make us like DKs 0 mobility spec, then we should be able to deal dmg right away as DKs do, not sit and generate HPs once we got to the target, instead of simply bursting that fool down.

Agreed completely. I feel that in both PvE and PvP this is a better way to go. it gives us a clear distinction between our survival and our output. Dumping our mana pool to do damage exposes us to reduced defenses and mobility (pending talents). I like that opportunity for counterplay.

Last thought: Level 3 pvp talent will never go life for Rets (the purge + MS) since Blizzard stated that only warriors should have Iconic MS ability among melee (rogue's poisons are a bit different i guess since you can cleanse it), and purge for Rets will make us 2 OP and will take Enh shammy's niche among melee. Don't get me wrong, i would love see Ret have those options to pick in PvP, but Blizzard will never allow it)

I was not aware of this, I knew about the execute mechanics, but didn't know they were the only ones who got MS effect (even though Rogues get it as you say). My philosophy behind this was that some homogenization is good. It's a simple fact that melee need certain tools to be competitive, and I think that having to choose between them based on enemy comp is an excellent way to tackle it.

The big issue on the PvP trees to adress is that all classes have the same style of the first two rows.
-Gladiator Medallion row
-Basic shared row depending on spec.
As noted Zealotry is a unique mechanic. I just got home, read it through w/o doing any math or napkin stuff but the mechanic raises the skill cap a lot. The rotation would be very interesting and in a way it goes back to the old vanilla alpha roots of Crusader Strike and Holy Strike.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, I appreciate it. Agreed, I should add them or whatever, but I really disliked those rows so I ignored them. Basically just pretend they are there haha.

Agreed, skill cap intended to be raised. Also intended to bring back a lot of old elements and names in refreshing ways. Zealotry as a new fun mechanic, Seals that are active, impactful, and fun, etc.

Like the mastery idea, always felt that Retribution should be doing straight Holy damage, all numbers can be tuned around this easily. The dot itself feels like you took a concept from EDH trinket and added a mechanic to it which is interesting.

I quit after BRF, needed to take a break. I am aware of the EDH trinket from HFC, but not intimately. I developed the new mastery thematically before I did mechanically. I wanted the image that a Ret uses the Light to purify its enemies, but needed a way to reclaim that light. I felt that Seals were the perfect avenue to explore this, then developed the mechanics behind them.

[Ulthane]

I also like the concept of abilities getting empowered. To be honest I'm not looking at damage value but concept. Concept itself is great.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I admire the passion, I'm just curious if it'll be overly complex while dealing with situational awareness. Points for creativity.


It's almost like a melee version of Arcane Mages of sorts just with the abilities being empowered and such. I'd have to play with it myself to know if I like it better then what we have in WoD. 8/10


The two points off are me not being sure if I'll like it or not. That and I still am not a fan of Divine Steed. 2cents here.

[Snegovik]

Thanks for reading. I appreciate the comments, especially from a PvP perspective. My goal was to make Retribution viable and strong in areas where it is currently laughably weak. I felt that if I made each ability in every tier really strong it would help develop a situation where those choices were impactful and fun. IMHO PvP should be designed around execution mattering the most and what comp you run second. The fact that ranged completely dominate is just not fair, hence why I made the Paladin so strong. I imagine other classes would be similarly strong if they had a talent tree designed on the same principles.



Agreed completely. I feel that in both PvE and PvP this is a better way to go. it gives us a clear distinction between our survival and our output. Dumping our mana pool to do damage exposes us to reduced defenses and mobility (pending talents). I like that opportunity for counterplay.



I was not aware of this, I knew about the execute mechanics, but didn't know they were the only ones who got MS effect (even though Rogues get it as you say). My philosophy behind this was that some homogenization is good. It's a simple fact that melee need certain tools to be competitive, and I think that having to choose between them based on enemy comp is an excellent way to tackle it.



Thanks for taking the time to respond, I appreciate it. Agreed, I should add them or whatever, but I really disliked those rows so I ignored them. Basically just pretend they are there haha.

Agreed, skill cap intended to be raised. Also intended to bring back a lot of old elements and names in refreshing ways. Zealotry as a new fun mechanic, Seals that are active, impactful, and fun, etc.



I quit after BRF, needed to take a break. I am aware of the EDH trinket from HFC, but not intimately. I developed the new mastery thematically before I did mechanically. I wanted the image that a Ret uses the Light to purify its enemies, but needed a way to reclaim that light. I felt that Seals were the perfect avenue to explore this, then developed the mechanics behind them.

Yes, i totally agree with you that casters have been dominating overall Rated-PvP forever, hence melee should be more powerful than casters to make up for being at range disadvantage and that casters will always land 1st hit vs melee (unless melee is stealth). Even though those pvp talents are a bit too powerful but i think if Blizzard implements even several of them, it will be a step towards right direction (with exception of MS+ Purge) i feel like a better version would be (similar to what it was in wrath) 50% of dmg from our special attacks bypass all absorbs such as priest's bubbles, DK's MS, and even Mage's Iceblock+Ice shield (since i hate mages lol). Also personally i miss Ret's auras the original ones that were actually powerful, I believe blizzard should bring them back with an updated version (to fit modern WoW) similar to your lvl 6 pvp talents, since they don't make Rets OP in 1v1 scenario; hence, nubs wont QQ yet we become suddenly desirable for RBGs/5s/even some 3s comps outside of Cupid.