What does Retribution Need for Legion?

[Bad-apple]

The thing is, giving us that ability would make Rets an essential part of raids on every fight. It's a major blot on the developers' record that rets can be left out of rosters entirely but I don't think making us mandatory is the right answer either, even though it might suit us on a personal level. Lack of utility is the reason we aren't brought, and as much as Blizzard might like to say that our utility is great, the very best guilds in the world (who know what they're doing) say otherwise. It seems to me that the only reason guilds in the next tier down (say the ones who have now killed Mythic Archimonde but were never in the world race) sometimes take them is because they snagged particularly exceptional players who made it work. So, we do need utility that makes us effective on fights beyond just what DPS we bring to the table, but not so much that we absolutely have to be taken on every fight if we are otherwise not performing well.

What if it applied a debuff that lasts 3mins like lust to prevent you from stacking? Essentially limiting it to one use every 3mins? In fact, that's really all that Fox was missing to balance it, in my opinion.

[Deleted]

What if it applied a debuff that lasts 3mins like lust to prevent you from stacking? Essentially limiting it to one use every 3mins? In fact, that's really all that Fox was missing to balance it, in my opinion.

It's more that it's a cooldown that would be considered essential but only brought by 1 out of 36 specs in the game. We want a good raid cooldown, but also one that others bring too. We just need to have the same utility worth as other DPS classes and then being chosen is just down to class balance and how good we are as individual players.

[Leolis]

- Change Art of War to proc a free Hammer of Wrath that does not trigger the CD on the non-proc one AND doesn't require HoW cd to be ready.
- Remove Empowered Divine Storm and the Divine Storm buff from Final Verdict and tune Divine Storm to be a reliable source of aoe damage.
Make Divine Storm also work with our seals, if you're using Righteousness you'll do 10% more damage with Divine Storm (better for burst) if you use Truth then it's better
for sustained damage.
- Make our talents more distinct in what they should do, example would be Holy Prism - Light's Hammer - Execution Sentence. All of those have very different results and if
they're balanced properly then they will give us different results on our overall performance, meaning if there's a AoE burst fight we can go Holy Prism, if it's sustained AoE
we can go Light's Hammer and if it's single target we'll go with Execution Sentence.
This is NOT the case with our current level 75 and 100 tier talents.
75 tier
- Holy Avenger is problematic for tuning because it increases our burst so much, makes it harder to balance our finishers- especially problematic because of PvP. Would be
nice to see it change in some way but it's unlikely to happen.
- Sanctified Wrath is fine- clear cut single target choice even if it's a tad boring.
- Divine Purpose is part of the problem with our AoE design, it's "okay" in the long run because things will average out but how "long" is that? We kill bosses in 1 pull, if you
wipe you reset the "average". I would like it to change to increasing our AoE damage potential, maybe move Seraphim to its place and have Seraphim be free to use but a
set CD so you'd have to time it for your choice of burst.
100 tier
- Empowered Seals was a massive fail in my eyes, didn't work with warriors, didn't work for paladins. Makes no sense what so ever to use for ret paladins because we're a
fast paced build and spend combo point (holy power) dps spec and the entire talent slows that cycle down A LOT.
- Seraphim as an idea was fun- store up power to unleash when you need it, however it's way too expensive and in many cases it'll slow you down too much. If moved to lvl
75 tier it would be better.
- Final Verdict just further increased the problems with our weak finishers, Final Verdict is what Templar's Verdict should be in the first place. Ret lvl 100 talents in general
were way off for this expansion- creating more problems than giving us options.

Level 100 talents should be like our lvl 90 talents, distinct choices for different situations- one for Single Target, one for AoE and one for burst of some kind.
It really shouldn't be as it is now where the "choices" we have are so close to each other in what they do- because they all give you a similar outcome but only changes
how you play. That's extremely bad since we only have 1 dps spec and can't change do "Shockadin" or "Spellbreaker" to go into a different "dps niche" like pure classes can

Big things we need. (IMO)
- Devo Aura back. Hybrids should be the specs with raid CDs (along with healers) part of being a "hybrid" is that we can support as well as dealing damage, mages, hunters,
DKs, Warriors and Rogues having raid CDs really really hurts the viability of hybrids...
- Better designed talents that change our overall dps niche- already covered.
- Mastery, I think it would be cool if mastery rating also reduced our CD on all 1 minute cds and above by a % based on your mastery. Would make us scale better into end
game of expansions, obviously wouldn't work with trinket procs for obvious reasons. But the idea of shorter time between burst periods fit our class well I feel, keep the
increased holy damage part as well.


I can't wait for beta to start, there's so many things that should be changed with Ret- at this point a full rework looks better than just changing specific things. Going to be a good couple months of worrying and cheering, I doubt the end result is going to be what we want/need but I hope they listen to people with the experience more than the likes of people who suggested Empowered Divine Storm and Final Verdict buffing Divine Storm- WORST IDEAS EVER!

Agreed

The only way I saw a few things changing would be the following.

-Holy Avenger: 1 Minute CD, replaces Avenging Wrath and cakes in abilities.
-Sanctified Wrath: It's fine, if it needed ANY tuning just make HoW off CD
-Divine Purpose: Needs to find a way to get away from the RNG factor. Maybe make it to where your finishers generate a free finisher but the one that consumes Divine Purpose doesnt proc one.
-Holy Prism: Either needs to proc on attacks and be passive, or have it affected by mastery or off gcd, perhaps make it generate Holy Power. Right now its bad design and clashes with our spec. A radical idea I heard was make it replace Exorcism, dealing more damage less CD and generates either 1 - 3 Holy Power.
-Light's Hammer: Only gripe is how adds can leave it, or pulled from it. Either have it centered on us at all times or keep as is.
-Execution Sentence: It's fine
-Empowered Seals: Either put the Seals off GCD or have them interact with the seal you are on in a new way that feels like you are EMPOWERING the Seal.
-Seraphim: As you said
-Final Verdict: As you said. TV should be straight holy power, FV should have range, increased damage or some new type of mechanic NOT what we see now. Maybe bring back Righteous Vengeance into it or something. Could be anything.

Divine Storm: Cake in Final Verdict effect into it, give us stable cleave AoE.
Empowered Divine Storm: Either cake it or find a new way to have it interact. An idea is that Final Verdict or Templars Verdict could auto proc it.

Exorcism: Makes no sense, the entire thing is just vomit and doesnt fit in fantasy or iconic. Art of War doesnt make sense either. I felt much more could be done with it.

Oh and the Seal ideas as seen above from other posters and Aura posts fit here to but you guys said it first.

[Arrent]

My quick and dirty suggestions:

• Scrap the L100 talents. Create new ones.
• Make Templar's Verdict deal Holy Damage and have a 10 yd range.
• Make Seraphim into a 1min CD that makes your next 3x Spenders free and deal X% more damage. Move to L75 and scrap Holy Avenger.
• While SoT is active, TV and CS cleave to 1 additional target for 30-50% original damage
• While SoR is active, gain X% Auto Attack haste
• While SoJ is active, you can't be reduced below 100% movespeed
• Rework/delete Seal of Insight for Ret
• Bake EmpDS damage into default DS

And then revamp/improve most of our other talents, because there's no real choice in them.

[Leolis]

My quick and dirty suggestions:

• Scrap the L100 talents. Create new ones.
• Make Templar's Verdict deal Holy Damage and have a 10 yd range.
• Make Seraphim into a 1min CD that makes your next 3x Spenders free and deal X% more damage. Move to L75 and scrap Holy Avenger.
• While SoT is active, TV and CS cleave to 1 additional target for 30-50% original damage
• While SoR is active, gain 50% Auto Attack haste
• While SoJ is active, you can't be reduced below 100% movespeed
• Rework/delete Seal of Insight for Ret
• Bake EmpDS damage into default DS

And then revamp/improve most of our other talents, because there's no real choice in them.

^This works to.

Pretty much general consensus is nothing makes sense right now X'D

[Arrent]

Pretty much general consensus is nothing makes sense right now X'D

Optimistic me thinks we're not that far off from the mark right now, mechanically. Beyond AoE issues and Exorcism being anus, we're alright.

Pessimistic me sees how there's a plethora of easy ways to buff PvE Retribution without vastly affected PvP Retribution (which is bad anyway) and just feels Blizzard is content with keeping us mediocre.

[Leolis]

Optimistic me thinks we're not that far off from the mark right now, mechanically. Beyond AoE issues and Exorcism being anus, we're alright.

Pessimistic me sees how there's a plethora of easy ways to buff PvE Retribution without vastly affected PvP Retribution (which is bad anyway) and just feels Blizzard is content with keeping us mediocre.

I just wish things made sense. I personally do decent damage and im fine with that. I have my hands which I use quite often. But the rotation makes no sense. Exorcism is just... well how?!? In pvp how are you doing to be using it on a Draenei!?

[Bolt66]

Seems most people are thinking along the same lines. I would like to see:

• Offensive Utility: I'm a Retribution paladin, give me some teeth! This ties into more damage outside CDs but also I DON'T want Devo back. I want a raid utility that ties into doing damage. Leave Devo to Holy/Prot. I like the reflective damage idea. Maybe something that scales with how much damage the raid takes and then giving everyone a % damage buff based on that so that timing matters.

• Better mobility: Currently I feel like any class has better mobility than us, in and out of combat. It was better before the new talent system when we had
  PoJ baseline and LAotL on top of it. I would love to get an actual gap closer that is FUN to use but I'd settle for having that back.

• Better Exorcism: I think Exo is iconic and a spell I'd like to keep. I'd just love it to actually do something interesting or at least do decent damage.

• Seals: I think seal dancing to switch between single target and AoE mode is a great idea.

• Talents: Current talents feel like crap in terms of function and fun compared to things that other classes get. There is literally not one of them that I'm ever excited about taking since half of them are things that we had baseline and then sold back to us as shiny and new.

• More damage outside of cooldowns: Yes please! More holy strikes or debuffs that make people take more holy damage. Also better scaling.

• PVP: I'm a very casual PVPer (and so I don't have PVP buddies who will just take me based on the fact that I'm a super awesome person) but the fact that getting into RBGs is incredibly hard for Ret is a major downer.

Basically I wish the developers would stop capitalizing on the rich lore and nice aesthetics of the class and actually allow me to enjoy its functionality too.

[Sett]

I want to see better visuals and animations. I'm not asking to crap hammers out like a D2 paladin, but a lot of our abilities are not on par with what they could be. Also want rebuke to have the kicking animation back. Give us a holy boot or something.


Less RNG would be nice but it feels like that's been glued to ret by now.

[Leolis]

Seems most people are thinking along the same lines. I would like to see:

• Offensive Utility: I'm a Retribution paladin, give me some teeth! This ties into more damage outside CDs but also I DON'T want Devo back. I want a raid utility that ties into doing damage. Leave Devo to Holy/Prot. I like the reflective damage idea. Maybe something that scales with how much damage the raid takes and then giving everyone a % damage buff based on that so that timing matters.

• Better mobility: Currently I feel like any class has better mobility than us, in and out of combat. It was better before the new talent system when we had
  PoJ baseline and LAotL on top of it. I would love to get an actual gap closer that is FUN to use but I'd settle for having that back.

• Better Exorcism: I think Exo is iconic and a spell I'd like to keep. I'd just love it to actually do something interesting or at least do decent damage.

• Seals: I think seal dancing to switch between single target and AoE mode is a great idea.

• Talents: Current talents feel like crap in terms of function and fun compared to things that other classes get. There is literally not one of them that I'm ever excited about taking since half of them are things that we had baseline and then sold back to us as shiny and new.

• More damage outside of cooldowns: Yes please! More holy strikes or debuffs that make people take more holy damage. Also better scaling.

• PVP: I'm a very casual PVPer (and so I don't have PVP buddies who will just take me based on the fact that I'm a super awesome person) but the fact that getting into RBGs is incredibly hard for Ret is a major downer.

Basically I wish the developers would stop capitalizing on the rich lore and nice aesthetics of the class and actually allow me to enjoy its functionality too.

The problem is they have not been capitalizing on the lore or aesthetics of the class :< the ret toolkit doesn't make sense right now.