Retribution Redesign Discussion

[Reith]

I want to know more, because I wasn't here for the beginning of the redesign, but even I can see that the design has felt seriously off after experiencing the "new ret" for enough time. I can elaborate more if people ask me specifically what I think about this ret vs MoP's version, but I am totally in the dark about Warlords of Draenor tbh. What are your experiences?

[SnorlaxJeng]

Judgement debuff window
Mastery scaling
Low APMG ratio on skills
Bad talent and artifact relationship
Crusade.

[Deleted]

Can we just revert it to WoD please? No more redesigns... :/

I really enjoyed weaving FV DS procs with TV.

[Kelemar]

As Nymrohd said, the Judgment mechanic is just poorly designed, and next to absolutely undertuned and/or badly designed talents Legion Ret just doesn't feel as fun as it used to. Our visuals even received a downgrade compared to what Templar's Verdict/Final Verdict were, only Consecration and Divine Storm look the part (and to an extend Divine Hammer), everything else is just "golf swing with a golden trail" now. The sounds aren't much better either. And visuals and sounds of abilities play a large role of the enjoyment of your class.

The complete removal of Seals and the replacement of Exorcism with Blade of Justice was a wrong move that hurt the class identity as a whole. Why not just change the mechanics of Exorcism, but keep the spell in itself? Also, the actual visual of Blade of Justice is too small for bosses to notice it, and it isn't unique either. The sword you see is just a reskinned Fang of Twilight. Very lazy on Blizzards part I feel. The same argument can be said for Templar's Verdict.

To bring the spec back to a more enjoyable level something needs to be done. Either a complete redesign again (but who's to say that Blizz won't screw it up again), turn back changes you made during Legion or a complete return it to MoP/WoD.

• Judgment Debuff mechanic removed entirely, along with its mastery. Currently it doesn't feel rewarding, since for pure single target you can mostly ignore it entirely, and it hurts our AoE and target switching capabilities immensely. Personally I feel it's more hindering than Inquisition
• Hand of Light Mastery returned
• Shield of Vengeance replaced with old Divine Protection (damage on utility spells is a very bad design decision, since you will face the scenario of not having the utility spell ready when you need it since you used it for damage some time before, as for SoV's case, it's also possible that it won't do damage at all which is garbo)
• Arator's Leap ability added, perhaps remove Divine Steed for it (Divine Steed isn't a good ability in PvP since it doesn't brake/ignore snares). With DKs, we are the slowest moving melee spec in the game, and being so damn slow compared to everyone else jumping around is just not fun. Also, Tirion charged and leaped about with Ashbringer, and Arator's able to do it too. It's so disheartening to see your companion have more moves than you. Either that or LAotL.
• Consecration baseline (it's fine if it is dead last on priority or doesn't even go into <4 target priority damage wise, but an instant AoE without Holy Power cost should be returned. Also makes no sense for the other specs to have it baseline and Ret needs to talent into it)
• Repentance instant cast with a longer cooldown
• Hammer of Wrath readded (either as a "real" execute or with AW interaction
• Blade of Justice replaced with Exorcism in name+animation (the spell in itself can still be the same, but losing Exorcism really hurt the class identity in my opinion)
• Blade of Wrath talent (the old Art of War) baseline
• Desperately needed QoL stuff to increase the fun of the spec, e.g. Freedom can no longer be spellstolen, Retribution passive either removed entirely or the damage component removed, Judgment returned to where you don't have to face the enemy to cast it etc.

Some of this has been more or less asked for by the Paladin community over the course of Legion, but changes like that won't be done during an expansion. One can only hope that the devs will listen during the next alpha/beta phase when it comes to Ret's concerns.

[Dalamian]

As Nymrohd said, the Judgment mechanic is just poorly designed, and next to absolutely undertuned and/or badly designed talents Legion Ret just doesn't feel as fun as it used to. Our visuals even received a downgrade compared to what Templar's Verdict/Final Verdict were, only Consecration and Divine Storm look the part (and to an extend Divine Hammer), everything else is just "golf swing with a golden trail" now. The sounds aren't much better either. And visuals and sounds of abilities play a large role of the enjoyment of your class.

The complete removal of Seals and the replacement of Exorcism with Blade of Justice was a wrong move that hurt the class identity as a whole. Why not just change the mechanics of Exorcism, but keep the spell in itself? Also, the actual visual of Blade of Justice is too small for bosses to notice it, and it isn't unique either. The sword you see is just a reskinned Fang of Twilight. Very lazy on Blizzards part I feel. The same argument can be said for Templar's Verdict.

To bring the spec back to a more enjoyable level something needs to be done. Either a complete redesign again (but who's to say that Blizz won't screw it up again), turn back changes you made during Legion or a complete return it to MoP/WoD.

• Judgment Debuff mechanic removed entirely, along with its mastery. Currently it doesn't feel rewarding, since for pure single target you can mostly ignore it entirely, and it hurts our AoE and target switching capabilities immensely. Personally I feel it's more hindering than Inquisition
• Hand of Light Mastery returned
• Shield of Vengeance replaced with old Divine Protection (damage on utility spells is a very bad design decision, since you will face the scenario of not having the utility spell ready when you need it since you used it for damage some time before, as for SoV's case, it's also possible that it won't do damage at all which is garbo)
• Arator's Leap ability added, perhaps remove Divine Steed for it (Divine Steed isn't a good ability in PvP since it doesn't brake/ignore snares). With DKs, we are the slowest moving melee spec in the game, and being so damn slow compared to everyone else jumping around is just not fun. Also, Tirion charged and leaped about with Ashbringer, and Arator's able to do it too. It's so disheartening to see your companion have more moves than you. Either that or LAotL.
• Consecration baseline (it's fine if it is dead last on priority or doesn't even go into <4 target priority damage wise, but an instant AoE without Holy Power cost should be returned. Also makes no sense for the other specs to have it baseline and Ret needs to talent into it)
• Repentance instant cast with a longer cooldown
• Hammer of Wrath readded (either as a "real" execute or with AW interaction
• Blade of Justice replaced with Exorcism in name+animation (the spell in itself can still be the same, but losing Exorcism really hurt the class identity in my opinion)
• Blade of Wrath talent (the old Art of War) baseline
• Desperately needed QoL stuff to increase the fun of the spec, e.g. Freedom can no longer be spellstolen, Retribution passive either removed entirely or the damage component removed, Judgment returned to where you don't have to face the enemy to cast it etc.

Some of this has been more or less asked for by the Paladin community over the course of Legion, but changes like that won't be done during an expansion. One can only hope that the devs will listen during the next alpha/beta phase when it comes to Ret's concerns.

It's almost like we just need to hit the rewind button. Blizz seems to want to change the class/spec into the Diablo 3 Crusader. If they're going to continue that trend I would love to see them implement a version of the Falling Sword ability into Ret and Prot, its a cool movement ability and its visually impressive too. Pop the Avenging Wrath wings on our back when you activate it too, cause why not.

I agree with the judgement point as well. My only issue is the spell itself has been around since vanilla and while its changed a few times over the years I feel like it shouldn't get the Exorcism treatment. Maybe it could just be changed to the "new" Hammer of Wrath ability?

Speaking of Exorcism, I actually don't mind that it's gone. I'm also in the camp that like Blade of Justice I just want it to be more visually impressive. I don't mind the Divine Hammer effect, but if you are using the standard Blade of Justice spell I feel like it should have a melee strike visual, instead of just some lame magical sword popping out of the ground.

Finally I feel like the last talent row should be the Avenging Wrath row. Divine Purpose should just be a baseline ability for all the specs. Im not creative enough to think of other ways to modify or change Avenging Wrath with a talent but im sure there are people out there who can.

[Deleted]

Can we just revert it to WoD please? No more redesigns... :/

I really enjoyed weaving FV DS procs with TV.

+1

/10char

[Deleted]

Rofl wod. Spent too much time in last patch getting spoiled by 2-set, 4-set and class trinket.
To me it is obvious that their proffessionalism is not enough and they ar egoing to let retribution without redesign this expansion despite what the community says. And they wonder what goes wrong with subs

[Gracin]

Yeah I keep seeing this argument that WoD ret was amazing. WoD ret was OK, the Ceaseless Vigil 2 piece was amazing (and the 4-set and class trinket were also very good). I know we spent a long time with those on but they were essentially fixes to the spec that was largely boring otherwise (same thing happened for half the specs; they got gear in HFC that made them fun)

And that's been the underlying problem with Ret since it became 'somewhat' viable. We go through an entire expansion as lame ducks, get amazing 2/4 piece during the last tier as band-aids. Then during the redesign cycle it seems the devs go, "Well hell, Ret did decently in Tier (X). No reason they shouldn't be good once we take away that gear and change everything about their class design AGAIN.

This next redesign worries the fuck out of me. I love this game, even after all these years playing, but the devs tend to fuck up a lot of specs during the prepatch, simply by changing how each spec works. Now let's couple that with the more-than-likely loss of our Artifact weapons, and with such the roughly 36 points worth of dps increasing artifact traits, not to mention the 3 relics.

[Anardel]

Yeah I keep seeing this argument that WoD ret was amazing. WoD ret was OK, the Ceaseless Vigil 2 piece was amazing (and the 4-set and class trinket were also very good). I know we spent a long time with those on but they were essentially fixes to the spec that was largely boring otherwise

The history of ret since Cataclysm. We got Judgement giving HoPo in DS tier. Next expansion? we got it baseline. The in MoP we got that DS tier bonus. Next expansion? we got the bonus baseline.

It's somewhat dissapointing when you see the Tier bonuses and trinkets not as damage/performance improvements, but a set of "hotfixes" that fix the spec to make it more or less viable or fun.

[Omaski]

I didnt mind losing exorcism for blade of wrath but i did HATE losing hammer of wrath or whatever our ranged finisher was...that pissed me off.

[Swalload]

I miss vanilla when ret did not exist.

[ovm33]

I think the main problem in my eyes is the lack of "flavor" of ret. I feel that ret should shine on single target encounters. We're here to serve "retribution" to a bad guy and the longer it takes should makes us more... er... wrathful (higher DPS.)

I'm probably not explaining that well. I'm just saying the class fantasy and what ret actually does do not jive in my book.

[deadmau]

This next redesign worries the fuck out of me.

What "next redesign"? It's already been redesigned for Legion.

[Ulthane]

If they wanted to keep the Judgment mechanic it would have to be done about in a certain way: old Vengeance mechanic from Vanilla. In this event they stole the wrong warrior spec and should have went for Fury.

-Judgment: Now grants you Vengeance for X seconds increasing Physical and Holy damage by %
-Mastery: Now lowers Judgment CD and increases the % Vengeance gives you.

Talents that need to be baseline
-Final Verdict
-The Fires of Justice
-Blade of Wrath
-Consecration

Abilities that need reworked
-Avenging Wrath/Crusade: Crusade effect needs to just be removed entirely. Avenging Wrath needs to give us Haste baked into the damage and duration increased to 30 seconds. WoTA no longer affects Duration.
-Blade of Justice: Needs to have Blade of Wrath baseline. Either needs to stay as it is OR be transformed into Exorcism. Or maybe a glyph. Who knows.
-Judgment: Given mastery change there would be no need for it to spread to different targets.
-Hammer of Wrath: Needs to make a return.

Talents that need addition or rework
-Final Verdict (NEW): Old effect from WoD, higher damage on FV%
-Execution Sentence: Now deals damage immediately and/or no longer costs Holy Power.
-Turalyon's Might: Charges at the target dealing holy damage and granting 3 HP.

-The Fires of Justice: Crusader Strike now has 1 - 2 more charges.
-Zeal: As is, buffed inherently due to old TFOJ being baseline.
-Greater Judgment: Revamped to cause Judgment to generate 1 Holy Power and cause it to hit 4 additional targets. Crit factor removed.

-Repentance: Instant cast

-Virtue's Blade: Now causes Blade of Justice to always crit and deal Holy Damage instead.
-Blade of Wrath: New, passive/replaces Blade of Justice. You can no longer use Blade of Justice. Instead your attacks have a chance to deal high holy damage to your target and others near by and generate 1 - 2 holy power.
-Divine Hammer: CD lowered to match Blade of Justice. (Also follows baseline BoW rules)

-Justicar's Vengeance: No longer costs Holy Power, placed on a Cooldown anywhere from 25 - 60 seconds.
-Word of Glory: No longer costs Holy Power.

-Divine Purpose: Buff proc to 25% and/or causes your proc to increase your next finisher by % damage.
-Falling Sword: 60 second cd. Leap on target area dealing holy damage to all targets, leaves a lingering aura that causes targets within to take damage every second and for every target hit lower CD by 1 second.
-Holy Wrath: Redesigned. Replaces Templar's Verdict and Divine Storm. 3 HP. Deals massive Holy Damage to all targets in it's radius. (If you pick new Final Verdict it synergies)

Artifact traits
-Wrath of the Ashbringer: Now after it's duration is over deal % of the damage you dealt during it's duration to all targets split evenly.
-Ashes to Ashes: Effect is now baked into Wake of Ashes. Now instead causes your Blade of Justice to have a chance to strike again 1 - 3 times.
-Judge Unworthy: Your Judgment now hits all targets within 15 yards of the primary target.
-Echo of the Highlord/Divine Tempest: Would now sync as well with Holy Wrath since Holy Wrath replaces the two.

Legendaries
-Justice Gaze: Now always works regardless of Target Health.
-Ashes to Dust: Now also lowers the cooldown of Wake of Ashes by 50%.
-Scarlet Inquisitors Expurgation: Now triggers every 1 second.
-Aegisjalmur: Now also procs Retribution
-Whisper of the Nathrezim: Now lasts an additional 2 seconds.


This would honestly give us more of a choice with talents, legendaries, what we wanna do as a spec instead of being locked into mundane mind numbing choices as we currently are. All numbers can easily be tuned etc etc. But as a concept it's tons damn better than what we have now.

[Burgerberg]

Redesign discussion.

Haha, that's cute.

Problem is, Blizzard never listen. Even with the hundreds of pages of feedback in their own forums.

Considering they pretty much defended Holy Wrath, safe to say it's a lost cause. Paladins will never improve as long as this shit dev team are still running the shots.

[Eurytos]

As Nymrohd said, the Judgment mechanic is just poorly designed, and next to absolutely undertuned and/or badly designed talents Legion Ret just doesn't feel as fun as it used to. Our visuals even received a downgrade compared to what Templar's Verdict/Final Verdict were, only Consecration and Divine Storm look the part (and to an extend Divine Hammer), everything else is just "golf swing with a golden trail" now. The sounds aren't much better either. And visuals and sounds of abilities play a large role of the enjoyment of your class.

The complete removal of Seals and the replacement of Exorcism with Blade of Justice was a wrong move that hurt the class identity as a whole. Why not just change the mechanics of Exorcism, but keep the spell in itself? Also, the actual visual of Blade of Justice is too small for bosses to notice it, and it isn't unique either. The sword you see is just a reskinned Fang of Twilight. Very lazy on Blizzards part I feel. The same argument can be said for Templar's Verdict.

To bring the spec back to a more enjoyable level something needs to be done. Either a complete redesign again (but who's to say that Blizz won't screw it up again), turn back changes you made during Legion or a complete return it to MoP/WoD.

• Judgment Debuff mechanic removed entirely, along with its mastery. Currently it doesn't feel rewarding, since for pure single target you can mostly ignore it entirely, and it hurts our AoE and target switching capabilities immensely. Personally I feel it's more hindering than Inquisition
• Hand of Light Mastery returned
• Shield of Vengeance replaced with old Divine Protection (damage on utility spells is a very bad design decision, since you will face the scenario of not having the utility spell ready when you need it since you used it for damage some time before, as for SoV's case, it's also possible that it won't do damage at all which is garbo)
• Arator's Leap ability added, perhaps remove Divine Steed for it (Divine Steed isn't a good ability in PvP since it doesn't brake/ignore snares). With DKs, we are the slowest moving melee spec in the game, and being so damn slow compared to everyone else jumping around is just not fun. Also, Tirion charged and leaped about with Ashbringer, and Arator's able to do it too. It's so disheartening to see your companion have more moves than you. Either that or LAotL.
• Consecration baseline (it's fine if it is dead last on priority or doesn't even go into <4 target priority damage wise, but an instant AoE without Holy Power cost should be returned. Also makes no sense for the other specs to have it baseline and Ret needs to talent into it)
• Repentance instant cast with a longer cooldown
• Hammer of Wrath readded (either as a "real" execute or with AW interaction
• Blade of Justice replaced with Exorcism in name+animation (the spell in itself can still be the same, but losing Exorcism really hurt the class identity in my opinion)
• Blade of Wrath talent (the old Art of War) baseline
• Desperately needed QoL stuff to increase the fun of the spec, e.g. Freedom can no longer be spellstolen, Retribution passive either removed entirely or the damage component removed, Judgment returned to where you don't have to face the enemy to cast it etc.

Some of this has been more or less asked for by the Paladin community over the course of Legion, but changes like that won't be done during an expansion. One can only hope that the devs will listen during the next alpha/beta phase when it comes to Ret's concerns.

This is mostly on point. I've made suggestions similar to this. Obviously, the whole Judgement rebuff and related mastery HAS. TO. GO.

I would add to this list the return of a dot. The ability to put a dot on multiple targets through good judgement use is something that can separate an average ret from an above average ret. I understand why blizzard doesn't like the passive dmg of just having a seal do dmg, so maybe they come up with a different way to allow us to use a Censure type dot.

Hammer of Wrath is the other big thing. When they added the interaction with avenging wrath, that was a great move. No one had an issue with it as a pure execute, no one was really asking for a change, but when they added that new interaction, it really was a great thing. It makes us bursty. I happen to like that about ret, we are naturally bursty with wings. I like that we are bursty. We carry a giant two handed weapon, we aren't a dual wielder, sustained type of spec. Let us burst shit. They can make all the fixes to pvp ret they want to balance pvp, its a different game as far as I'm concerned.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm in the camp that thinks WoD ret was OK, but that Cata/MoP ret was better. WotLK ret was the peak, but I don't think we'll ever go back to that, which is fine. The addition of Holy Power made ret more interesting. Cata/MoP ret, with the changes to them made when tier bonuses became baseline, is the ideal ret I think. This all hinges on changing judgement debuff and related mastery. Even if they didn't give us back the great spells that we lost(HoW, et al), if they reverted the judgement and mastery changes...that would be a step in the right direction.

It seems unbelievable to even say that. That I would be satisfied with just that change. I've said this before, in 8 years of playing ret, this has been the least fun I've ever had playing the spec.

[rubenmsalles]

Oh the irony...
When legion and paladin redesign was announced, many paladins in this forums was so happy supporting the idea.
Draenor bring us a wacky-mole design, they bitched, we are supoort then a dps class, they posted. I no longer posted in this thread because was inpossible to post something different that "is new is better".
Now, you want a rewind?? With shitty and shoot-footed idea? (Charge with 1 minute cd?? You know, warriors have 2 in 20 secs and jumps, rogues almost infinites, even shaman have a better one)
Keep punish paladins with "fantasy of support role that cant heal or dps competitive because that is a paladin in any asian shitty game" and eat what devs give to you, you deserve it

[Eurytos]

Oh the irony...
blah blah blah

be gone! shoo shoo