What happened to Ret Paladins?

[Goldenboy1]

If they gave us back Hammer of Wrath, some sort of passive movement, and Seraphim (the hfc cookie cutter) the spec would be so much more fun.

[Ooshraxa]

I really don't understand why they removed HoW. I loved throwing those damned hammers...

[Deleted]

Its so stupid. Bring HoW back even as a talent to open when opponent is below x% and tune it in a way that it will give prio to it (either as a ranged hopo generator or a ranged spender or w/e as long as it is ranged and is strong).
I don't care about seraphim ( never liked it much only thing it gave me was quite some homework to review fights and timers to make calculations to get the most use out of it).
But what can u say. They removed pets from hunters. Would they stop from removing HoW from pallies ?

[Deleted]

Granted i'm no pro raider, but even in a casual level i'm not digging ret. Even with legendaries i think it's a rather boring gameplay with nothing really making it stand out.

Builder/spender waiting for cooldowns with a 30s CD cool button and a 2min BOOM button is not realy all that amusing after all this years playing the game. Heck, i even pick Divine purpose in solo content just to get a little spice in my pizza, but even then it gets old realy fast.

Major culprit is indeed the judgement mechanic that is just a nuisance and makes everything else just not interesting enough to make the whole gameplay compeling.

I was actualy much more entertained in the whole "casino gameplay" of previous expansions... i know that hardcore raiders were moaning it was too RNG and a spam fest but... at least i was awake while playing it.

[Kuriyama]

Hammer of Wrath will never come back. It's gone. RIP. Blizz said they wanted Warriors to be the kings of execution (yet they let Hunters keep Kill Shot...). We're not an "execution" class.

Well my Paladin had a nice final night raiding. We finally got HC Gul'Dan down, then one shot HC Helya (she gave us so much trouble during progress). So got both curves. Not a bad way to finish a character's life.

[Deleted]

You may turn your back to light but the light will not abandon you. Sooner or later when the need comes you will pick up your mighty Ashbringer and help push evil away...

[izayoi80]

Different people are different. I've been retting since TBC and I'm enjoying it more than ever.

Sure the talent tree is ridiculous with plenty of completely worthless talents, but other than that, the spec is, in my opinion, great fun.

[Vintersol]

The only spec i think is more worse than ret is arms warrior. Idk, i played ret since deep vanilla and to be honest, this spec was never really exciting (except some weeks in WotLK). The lore/looks had carried me most of the time. Currently ret feels so unrewarding and bland, i can't stand to it anymore after playing protection warrior and demonhunter.

[Rhonen]

Looks like I'm on an island, but the WotLK Ret play style was and still is my fav. It wrecked on trash, and was highly competitive on boss fights. We still had our execute, and it just felt really good to be Ret during Wrath (not including 3.0 ������).

And I find it funny that they think Warriors should be the "execute kings", when all I hear are Wars complaining about their "baby" executes.

[Matthias]

The only spec i think is more worse than ret is arms warrior. Idk, i played ret since deep vanilla and to be honest, this spec was never really exciting (except some weeks in WotLK). The lore/looks had carried me most of the time. Currently ret feels so unrewarding and bland, i can't stand to it anymore after playing protection warrior and demonhunter.

I play an Arms Warrior and I disagree. I'm not sure if Ret was changed much since Legion's launch, but I've played WoW since Vanilla, a Warrior and a Paladin. Ret in Legion is thee worst spec I have ever played in my entire life. I mean if I mained a Ret Paladin I would literally quit, there is nothing exciting about the spec at all. Arms you can at least get crazy RNG strings and go on a high as you start relentless bashing skulls in with CS > FR > MS > CS > FR > MS repeatedly.

My Paladin alt was always my healer, but I would do his offspec as ret if I had time, but the spec is so awful I'd rather just run around holy shocking things. (I also hate that I have an Ashbringer....that everyone else has )

I'd rather play a Vanilla Ret Paladin....at least Seal of Command Procs were exciting.

[Cazz17]

Played ret since end of Wrath. Enjoyed it a lot, and like the holy power system. They ruined it with the implementation of the Judgement window thing, sucks big time

[Monzsterr]

I agree with adding back Hammer of Wrath. It's nice that jugment kind of looks like a hammer to the face but I appreciated having a different rotation during AW or execute.
I'm not a hater of the current design. Not the biggest fan of the judgment window but I do appreciate having something other than the wack-a-mole we had in mists and mop. I'm also happy that our rotation emphasises good use of finishes for top damage and generates generally don't make up a significant portion of damage (exception for divine hammer). If they were to get rid of it I'd ask it to be replaced with something else that effects HP spenders, making it a buff would turn it into a brain dead maintenance buff which we got away from with the removal of inquisition. I don't know, maybe it's not so bad.

Some ideas I've thought of to help improve the spec:
Replace consecrate with light's hammer because it looks way better.
Make greater judgment apply debuff to all targets within 8 yards so jugment actually matters for big crowd AOE
Add a % speed buff to movement during crusade (and baseline AW). Honestly I'm sad when I don't have aggramar's stride on as much as those boots are userful on very few fights. Would be nice in BGs and arena to have baseline speed bonus during wings. Probably OP as hell though.
Add better visual indicators for the are of effect on a divine storm.
Return selfless healer in place of WoG
Fix mastery, all it needs is a buff to the TV bonus it does and to auto spread to AOE targets (he says with no math to back him up)
Replace Holy Wrath with some version of sanctified wrath. Let Judgment generate 2 holy power,auto crit, and have really short cooldown while wings are up. That would kind of capture the old SW feelings.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Not a fan of Legion's design but I adapted to it. Ideally Mists was the best experience for me. WoD was good to, just slightly below mists.

[Aeula]

They made it boring. I miss MoP/WoD's version of ret. That was the spec at it's height. This new idea of turning judgement into a shitty colossal smash is what ruined the spec outside of PvP where you can talent it to last longer.

Won't be going holy or prot since I'm terrible at tanking and healing, decided to go havoc demon hunter instead. More fun.

[Evangeliste]

I don't get the removal of Hammer of Wrath either. Their design choices that stayed like... Judgement is throwing a hammer, Light's Hammer is well a big hammer thrown on the ground... Even Holy Paladins get even a big hammer essentially. It's like the biggest contradiction going with their reasoning in my eyes. Sure it maybe relating to the execution thing but at the end of the day, fire spec and balance spec both have Meteor/Full Moon, I play Balance so you cycle to get to the spell and use when it's there, from what I can see Meteor is just hitting the spell when available as much as Full Moon but apparently they don't match, yet are similar? If you don't want things to be the same... why add things that are the same? Anyway!
The current form of Retribution is alright but I feel sometimes that over the years, the crisis on how Ret Paladins should act, look, play like has been there nonstop so lurking therefore the constant changing have kept rolling in.
The Judgement window would be fine if it wasn't so small, in PvP using the Judgement extending talent it helps and feels less pressuring to force everything in a window-like mechanic. I understand it's trying to create some sort of choice or excitement but I don't think it wholly works with the length of time given standard in PvE.

[Deleted]

Not only removed HoW which is a major downgrade. There are situations where even their "breakthrough" mechanic of judge window becomes irrelevant. Cause with the amount of mastery we get to use I don't see the reason to spare a gcd to judge targets in a heavy aoe situation (unless I run with greater judge but not the issue usually). Judge was marginally better than the cloak buff before nerf as well if I am not mistaken ... So not only have they taken out an iconic pally ability but the key mechanic introduced (which is fine lore/class wise , I mean judged opponents receiving punishment not that bad overall) is not as rewarding as it should and doubles the complexity of ES. If they don't plan to do something more drastic to the effect of ES (adding a healing, silence,slow component) then to be honest I cannot understand why they don't add the judge effect and cd to ES so at least we don't have to consider a bazillion of things before engaging with it.

[Highlord Clemery]

Aside from leveling up, I've been Holy for most of my WoW days. It wasn't until very recently (when I came back to Legion) that I switched over to Ret. I'm really enjoying it but I'm having a problem gearing up (or even getting a legendary to drop) and it does seem a little stale in terms of excitement in some situations.

[Zance]

They're great

[oraz4000]

Different people are different. I've been retting since TBC and I'm enjoying it more than ever.

Sure the talent tree is ridiculous with plenty of completely worthless talents, but other than that, the spec is, in my opinion, great fun.

How exactly is the spec great fun? im curious

Judgement playstyle is awful, the whole spec is designed around Crusade which is a awful talent for other reasons then add the annoyance of Divine hammer and Blade of Justice situation.

Its only been tolerable cause it was high performing now its just a middle of the pack spec with tedious and awful playstyle.

[Krekko]

Not a fan of Legion's design but I adapted to it. Ideally Mists was the best experience for me. WoD was good to, just slightly below mists.

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of Legion's design, but I have admittedly gotten used to it. I still feel that it feels too much like a Warrior and not enough like the Paladin class fantasy that I'd built and that had been built up for years.

I'd love to see things kinda push back in a terms of visuals and fantasy in the direction that they were previously taken. I'm still confused as to how Blade of Justice's visuals fit into our new class fantasy though. Super weird to me, even still.