Thoughts and Feedback on 7.1 Talent Changes

[Deleted]

NOTE: This is a copy of my thread on the WoW EU Paladin forums, reposted for visibility.

With the recent changes to paladin appearing in the 7.1 patch notes I thought it would be a good idea to reflect on these changes and why (in my own personal opinion) they would damage the play-style of Retribution right now in WoW.

Now the first skill change, that to Blade of Wrath, is very reminiscent of the reset on Exorcism. Now it's important to note that, right now, Retribution has absolutely no way to influence their attack speed, with the exception of Crusade due to it's haste buff but that's being changed. The current blade of wrath is highly favourable in single target due to it's consistent holy damage and lower cooldown compared to it's current competitor in that tier, Virtue's Blade. While it was arguably not as good against squishy mobs due to them dying before the end of the DoT's duration it was still more versatile for target switching and made the extremely plodding Ret rotation a lot smoother and quicker. The new one doesn't do this due to the inherent nature of procs. Now I actually like procs, but I do understand that they are inferior to more consistent abilities, especially since, while it is fun to get a proc, it makes not getting one feel much worse.

The change to Blade of Wrath doesn't incite me as much as the one to Crusade though. There are multiple reasons for why blizzard could have changed this. The first is a PvP related nerf as, right now, both Crusade and Holy Wrath (which is being nerfed) are the biggest contributors to Retribution's damage in PvP, particularly 2v2 arena. The second possible reason is to bring Mastery to the forefront of our stat priority, which I will go into further detail in a paragraph down below. Finally it might be to try and return the Sanctified Wrath talent to Ret, with Judgment being the new Hammer of Wrath. Whatever the reason it may be though, the result drastically harms Rets damage and play-style within their burst window.

For the next bit I'll be going in-depth into Crusade, which I always play in the following way:
Building up 5 Holy Power
Popping Crusade
Casting Justicar's Vengeance for 5 stacks
Casting Wake of Ashes with the Ashes to Ashes trait
Casting Justicar's Vengeance to go up to 10 stacks
Continuing standard rotation from here

Currently Crusade is the optimal choice for Retribution in instances (provided they have taken the Ashbringer trait which increases the duration of Avenging Wrath) as it allows them deal extremely high burst damage to bosses, which makes up for our currently lackluster AoE. Currently the damage on the PTR Crusade is nowhere near the damage of the live version. Paladins are already considered undesirable for mythic dungeon content compared to other melee due to their AoE. If they are so severely outranked by other melee on Bosses they lose all reason to be brought along for mythics. Their utility isn't better than other classes and they have to spec so heavily into AoE that they lose most of their single target damage just to even have similar numbers on mob packs.

I like to think there are two types of Paladin. Those who are using Crusade and those who have yet to use Crusade, probably because they don't have the traits which are important for it in their artifact yet. Those who are using it would probably agree that while it isn't actually changing our rotation (the same skills are still being used in the same order after all), it DOES impact the feel of the paladin rotation due to how highly impacted it is by haste. With the right talent setup, once you have enough stacks you are pretty much GCD locked, and with your GCD reduced to it's minimum that means your rotation is FAST. Very very fast. The PTR version is significantly less fun to play, for less damage, as it simply becomes Judgment+Next ability constantly for the whole duration with a meager damage buff every time you cast Judgment, which is, admittedly, a lot of the time. I should point out that the live version of Crusade also makes judgement get cast extremely frequently due to it's cooldown being affected by haste. When you realise that Judgement is still cast frequently with a much better stacking buff on live you can see why the PTR Crusade pales so significantly.

At this point I'd like to touch on secondary stats, as I mentioned earlier. The changes to both abilities (Crusade more prominently) hugely changes our stat priority which then changes our gearing... in the middle of progression. Many Retribution Paladins felt the burn of our stat priority changing in the pre-patch to Legion, where the stats were reversed completely, although the effect was a lot less severe as the content was coming to an end. Changing stat priorities in the middle of content is HUGELY detrimental to a spec, and as Ret has no other DPS offspec and their talents don't change their stat priority that much currently so they can only really build in one or two specific ways. Reversing our stat priority again during content would be so tough on the Ret's gearing process they'd have to throw out all the gear they just spent acquiring in Emerald Nightmare and Mythic+ because it's now junk to them. Not every spec needs Mastery to be a good stat.

In addendum, with the current state of Retribution as is, changing two of the most highly regarded talents merely creates more problems than it tries to solve. Other talents, like Virtue's Blade, are pretty much ignored right now and would be in a better need of an overhaul.

[Kisuke42]

I respect that

[Deleted]

I second op. Nothing to add that wouldn't be salty AF anyway.

[Morally Grey Storm]

If they wanted to add a proc to Ret rotation, they could've done it on the baseline level.
Like the other, normal, good classes have.


As I see it now, this is just a way to destroy the most viable talent on that tier, and slow rotation down.
Which is sad. What is even sadder, though, is that we will pick it.

[Deleted]

If they wanted to add a proc to Ret rotation, they could've done it on the baseline level.
Like the other, normal, good classes have.

you are getting greedy. Bad storm! bad! Always wanting the toys the other kids have. be grateful to be allowed to play with your pet rock.

As I see it now, this is just a way to destroy the most viable talent on that tier, and slow rotation down.
Which is sad. What is even sadder, though, is that we will pick it.

We will pick it since we like the pain. Random Idea the lead ret designer who is playing ret as well is a secretly a masochist and lives his fetish through the ret design.

[Morally Grey Storm]

you are getting greedy. Bad storm! bad! Always wanting the toys the other kids have. be grateful to be allowed to play with your pet rock.

Yeah, greedy.

All that is theirs is rightfully ours, and ours it will be.

We will pick it since we like the pain. Random Idea the lead ret designer who is playing ret as well is a secretly a masochist and lives his fetish through the ret design.

We will pick it because even after such a wonderful work bzzd executed upon it, it's still the best talent on tier.

[Fudge]

The change to blade of wrath should serve as an overall buff to that tree, since with 4ppm, it would have more attacks per minute than current BoW. Hitting for more damage (though no dot holy dmg) and generating more HP.

[caervek]

Don't like it.

I don't use BoW just because it's a DPS increase, I use it because it's a much better designed and functioning ability than BoJ is.

I don't just like Crusade because it's a bigger buff than AW, I like it because it's a bigger buff than AW and doesn't require any change to the play style. Having said that if the nerf to crusader makes DP/JV more viable then I'm all for that as I prefer it.

[Gloriandus]

Does this mean that Mastery will be a good stat, again?

I may weep bitterly for all my 7/7 Obliterum "Fireflash" pieces if so.

[Deleted]

Does this mean that Mastery will be a good stat, again?

I may weep bitterly for all my 7/7 Obliterum "Fireflash" pieces if so.

I didn't even consider crafted gear when writing that post. This makes the change even worse if gear players spent thousands of gold on become wasted immediately.

[Deleted]

I didn't even consider crafted gear when writing that post. This makes the change even worse if gear players spent thousands of gold on become wasted immediately.

wouldn´t be the first time. Maybe in terms of gold yes but in terms of effort we had that a couple of times were we geared towards a certain goal but got changed so we could throw away all this gear.

[Deleted]

And again repeating myself major retribution concerns not addressed.( tier1 talents still not working well with the specc, no niche, proper execution missing to name a few)
New concerns arising: HW and tier bonus nerfs. Proccs that are next to no use during damage CD period. New stats prio plots arising bringing even more frustration. Artifact traits getting new light and importance after major mechanics changes that make certain routes nonviable and no free respecc offered/proposed.
TLDR still living on a prayer that somehow blizzard developers will listen for once the retribution community before washing their hands getting ready to cripple the crippled.

[Gloriandus]

I didn't even consider crafted gear when writing that post. This makes the change even worse if gear players spent thousands of gold on become wasted immediately.

It may be a moot point since afaik there aren't plans to let players upgrade crafted items beyond 850, and 7.1 is far enough off that it may not matter at least to those steadily running Mythic dungeons and doing any level of raids. Anyone like me who'd acquired a lot of Haste/Crit crafted gear will have gotten the use out of them by then anyway.

[General Guderian]

Maybe they are making these changes on purpose to prepare the players for the merging of the priest and paladin classes into one single class (Delas Moonfang?) with 5 specs while cutting the retribution spec entirely (long shot?)

[Deleted]

Someone more into the lore can shed some light here but if am not mistaken Delas is not the first character to switch between priest and paladin class. Priests and paladins coexist in the majority of rpgs so no they won't merge them.
Making retribution paladin as a subspec suitable only for leveling and casual playing is what they been trying and have partially achieved almost on every expansion.

[Sunfire]

Someone more into the lore can shed some light here but if am not mistaken Delas is not the first character to switch between priest and paladin class.

The first paladins were actually priests and knights who got trained to be paladins by Uther and the then High Priest of Stormwind. So the transition between both has traditionally been a fluid one.

[Vuagnon]

Here is what I'd do for 7.1

1) Judgment hits only one target.

2) Level 30 Greater Judgment talent is changed.

Greater Judgment: Your Judgment always deals a critical strike and increases your holy damage by 10% for 12 sec.

3) Divine Hammer is redesigned and made baseline for Ret: Hurl a divine hammer at your enemy for 3300 holy damage, ricocheting upto 2 additional enemies. 12 yd range, 3 sec cooldown. Generates 2 holy power. Stuns undead and demons.

New Ret Passive, Divinity: If Divine Hammer hits at least 3 targets, you are infused with Divinity for 9 seconds. During Divinity, your Divine Storm will cost 2 holy power and cause additional 6800 holy damage over 3 sec to all targets within 8 yards.

4) Level 60 Divine Hammer talent is changed and renamed as Divine Justice.

Divine Justice: Your Divine Hammer now jumps to one additional target and deals 75% increased damage against enemies above 50% health.

5) Level 60 Virtue's Blade talent is also changed.

Virtue's Blade: Your Blade of Justice generates 3 holy power and has 20 yards range.

[Merie]

I wish we could get Pursuit of Justice back in the place of Seal of Light. Constantly feeding the latter holy power for 20% speed seems pretty awful compared to 15% always on speed with a potential for 30% depending on holy power. But then again a part of me just feels really burned for having 145% passive movement speed in WoD between talents and cloak enchant, only to go to 100% in Legion. I don't feel my dps was adequately compensated in Legion for all the losses to aoe, mobility, support abilities and utility.