PTR Patch: Might removed, 12% skill buff except to TV!

[Morally Grey Storm]

I didn't condescend there..

Which is exactly why I put the verb "try" in my post.
You tried, you failed, now you're backing away.
But please try some more, you might yet amuse me.

I said that I don't PvP, and that now that they have a separate place for PvP adjustments, that is the appropriate place to fix problems unique to PvP.

Yeah, because our Dragonslaying talents are not used or taken into consideration regarding PvP.
Get a clue, please.

Because I mistakenly assumed that, posting in the Paladin forum in a thread that wasn't unique to PvP, where many people (yourself included) were discussing PvE, where the people you were specifically responding to were not talking about PvP specifically, you might actually have been speaking about the class as a whole, instead of how the class behaves in only a subsection of the game.
.

If you were any credible, you'd check the person I originally responded to with my list of absent abilities.
He was not talking specifically about Dragonslaying. he spurted some nonsensical crap about Ret being the greastest ever compared to tBC and WotLK.
But hey, gotta try(and impeccably fail at) undermining my points.

The current auras that Holy talents into have no relation to the old auras. They're target limited (save during Aura Mastery), and serve as additional healing power or utility, instead of raid buffs. To say they're the same thing is to reveal your ignorance (deliberate or otherwise). They might have the same name, but take up a very different spot in the toolkit and game design; saying we lost the auras is simply mislabeling the situation, which is more accurately described as "they removed all raid buffs/debuffs, which included auras, but gave Holy back a new aura-themed mechanic as part of their new toolkit."
.

Oh dear Emperor do I love the way you're playing with words.

Same thing as renaming shellshock into PTSD - exact same thing, different wording.
Ofcourse Auras did change, they gained interactive moment, which is great.
These are not "new aura-themed mechanics", these are good old Auras alright.
Wording doth not change the ability.

As for the number of heals we have, my point was that it's not the number of heals that matters. I mained as Holy during WotLK, when I did the vast majority of my work with Holy Light and Beacon of Light. You ignored that point in favor of citing numbers again; I'm not sure if you missed the point, or simply chose to disregard it because you didn't like it but didn't have a more factual rebuttal (though given your tone and the content of the rest of your post, the latter seems eminently more likely.) Either way, I've never found a need for anything beyond Flash of Light.

Could it occur to you, that we, as Paladins, are not to be confined solely to be damage dealing bots?
Oh, what am I saying, of course it could not.
Ret was a fantastic support in WotLk. Yes, our damage lacked. Severely. Our utility was tremendous, our offhealing was glorius, we were the literal backbone of arena comps. But you wouldn't know that, hence your "never finding a need for anything beyond FoL" masterpiece of a comment.

And the reason a "systems change" is a relevant distinction is because it matters. It's not something that "Retribution" lost, it's something that was changed in the game; that means in order to give meaningful feedback, you need to demonstrate how the game would benefit from reverting the change, as opposed to crying about what "your spec lost". The latter is a point they can try to remedy without changing the underlying systems. The former would require a major shift going forward. Identify the proper cause and problem, and you can give better feedback and hope for better solutions going forward.

Going forward...
Gutting all of the utility is going forward?
Gutting ALL mobility into nothing is going forward, too?
Deleting Ret offhealing potential is still going forward, I guess?
How about we nerf Ret defensive in the next patch so we could move a little bit forward yet again? Oh wait, it's already happening.
Seems pretty forward to me.

Does it take a rocket surgeon to figure out Ret is struggling regarding movement and dispel-protection wise ?
Do we need to post tons of feedback about it?
Do you believe it will do us any good?

Let me tell you a story about that little Beta Legion Ret Feedback Thread on Bnet forums.
It had 148 pages or close to it.
It had 1 blue responce. One.
The one that stated that thread limit is being increased.
That's how they cared.
That's how they listened.
That's how the remedied voiced concerns and issues.

Did you know they didn't want to give us Derpony baseline? It was supposed to be a talent.
And so on and so forth.
They got tons of feedback regarding GBlessings yet decided to push shit in. Look where we are now.
They got tons of feedback regarding Equalolity yet decided to push shit in. Look where we are now.
That's how they care and listen. And they do care and listen, as Kalgan came unto us this one time, and told us to STFU and get used to Equalolity despite all the feedback, all the explanations, all the pleas and all the general disgust of Ret community towards this shitstain of a talent.

Pretty much every other point you made is either saying the same thing over and over again, or something I disagree with.

Way to lead a discussion.
Got to wave your points this way next time.

If you had said at the outset that you were talking about PvP with your list, I wouldn't have bothered responding..

If you were any good at Ret , you'd known I was talking mainly(not completely though) from PvP PoV.
Who cares about dispel protection while Dragonslaying? WHo cares about Turn Evil? Isn't it a dead giveaway? For a Dragonslayer I guess it isn't.

In the future, I'll know that any post from you might randomly change the topic or perspective in order to better suit your position and better insult the person you're talking to, and be sure to structure my comments accordingly.

Yeah, randomly change.
How about you stop ingesting random concoctions and engage yourself in a little bit of brain activity.
Or is it too safe and sound inside your "We no PvP" haven?

Oh, last but not least - I haven't even started insulting you.
Had no need nor reason or urge to.
But the best is yet to come~

[Beazzles]

The only shit tht is pointless here is assuming there can be a proper discussion with you.

Not sure why you even bothered posting this response. Only goes to show that everything I stated completely dismantled and destroyed your arguments. But keep working on that post count tho

[Morally Grey Storm]

Not sure why you even bothered posting this response.

We do what we must because we can.

Only goes to show that everything I stated completely dismantled and destroyed your arguments. But keep working on that post count tho

Yeah right, dismantled and destroyed. But keep telling it to yourself tho

- - - Updated - - -

Allow me to highlight some of the greatest dismantles and destruction you unleashed upon my humble self:

LOL more than half of that shit was pointless and bogged down the class, auras? What a joke. Seal system? LOL

typing "lol" in Caps indeed is a sure sign of utter destruction.
But let us continue.

HoW, ya I miss this shit. But again with our judgement system, plus the range on a lot of our spells (not casting range obv, but further than a lot of other melee) plus our increased damage to match everyone else, I personally feel if I had an execute still, again, our class would be broken.

Having 10/12 meter range on a few a bilities indeed does make Ret incredibly strong compared to other classes and completely neuters the loss of HoW.
Yet again you utterly destroy me while skillfully dismantling my points.
But there's more:

Healing spell, we do have more than one. Word of Glory plus the healing coming from divine storm. We are damage dealers, not dealers any more healing utility than this and again our class would be broken (like monks!)

Listing WoG and especially - DS heals absolutely proves how utterly wrong I am.
One more brutal strike to my pathetic attempt at forming a single argument.
DS "heals" matter. And totally should be counted as such.
Please spare me more of your dismantling.

Crit heal hots, see above

Not seeing anything of cohenerent thought, but I'll just assume you're dismantling me here yet again.

Sacred shield, he have a shield that works as a better defensive CD instead of some garbage dispel protection absorb

Sure as sure it's better.
Disregarding mages/priest/shamans
How can you be so wise and relentless?

Seals, LOL

Auras, LOL

Turn evil, lol

Typing "lol" in Caps once again, flawlessly executed.
Your rebuttals leave me speachless.

instant repent? lolol, how about blinding light or HOJ reduced CD talent which is even better

Ofcourse Blinding Light is better than old Repentance.
You don't even have to add arguements to your statements it's clear as day that you're right here once more.

Shall I continue?

By all means, please do.
Amuse me.

You might yet walk your Thunderground.

[Snegovik]

-snip- dump shit

Sir, not sure what game did you play during Wrath but that def was not wow.

I can tell that your post comes purely from PvE POV, but guess what, there is a thing called PvP.

Dispel Magic: by far the best arena ability we had to date. dispel your healers from CC, dispel shadow/ua dots of urself, dispel frost nova so that mage does not SS your freedom.

AW absorbs were amazing in PvP, esp cuz disc was so popular/high represented in pvp during Wrath, did you ever killed a R1 RMD back in Wrath as Cupid under 20 sec? I doubt you did, but a lot had to do with our pvp toolkit.

Back then Ret would go OOM in PvP, and in duels vs Disc priests Rets would lose UNLESS they judgement dance for mana/hp rejen. I dueled a multi R1 priest Billian on my Ret multiple times and never lost to him a single time, cuz i knew how to properly judgement dance.

back then SS was insanely OP, do you know why? Cuz Wars did not get rage from their attacks that were absorbed. Currently our SoV can be dispelled just as easy and if you are referring to kings being a better defensive, you are delusional sir.

"turn evil" i guess you forgot how DK's garg could solo mages, so turn evil instant cast glyph was a MUST when facing dks, same for Lock's pets who would chain cc you and stop your opener unless you insta feared them.

Our auras were not amazing but it was a core of our class fantasy since vanila

[Super Kami Dende]

Back then Ret would go OOM in PvP, and in duels vs Disc priests Rets would lose UNLESS they judgement dance for mana/hp rejen. I dueled a multi R1 priest Billian on my Ret multiple times and never lost to him a single time, cuz i knew how to properly judgement dance.

I very rarely went OOM ever in Wrath. Apart from spamming FoL or getting Manaburn from Priest or Viper Sting from Hunter my Mana was consistent basically all the time. Then again I knew how to Judgement weave so that likely was just always a non-issue.

I miss WrathRet.

[Morally Grey Storm]

People here can't take you seriously because you are being outrageous & whiny

Couldn't care less if said waste of genes can't take me seriously.
Don't mistake being outrageous and whiny with being slightly upset with losses sustained by spec over the years of glorius, finely tuned tuning.

You ask for cleanse even though no other hybrid class can cleanse "except for priest"

How can I take you seriously if you are reading my posts with your backside instead of your eyes?
I never even implied that I'm asking for Magic Cleanse, but you somehow imagined it, and skillfully toppled what you imagined.

The list you provided are full of nothing but BS tbh. I stopped reading the moment you mentioned seals & auras.

Of course it's nothing but BS.
What a great way to sum up all the past abilities Ret had had.
Nothing but BS.

[darkwarrior42]

Which is exactly why I put the verb "try" in my post.
You tried, you failed, now you're backing away.
But please try some more, you might yet amuse me.

Your arrogance really doesn't know any bounds does it? I said I wasn't condescending because I wasn't. I wasn't dismissing PvP is something not worthwhile, I was saying that I didn't participate and thus wasn't going to address that side of the game. It really is just that simple.

I didn't wave the remainder of the points off, I deliberately chose not to respond because your attitude is, quite frankly, exhausting. It's like trying to debate with a religious zealot; it doesn't matter what I say, because my words are simply an excuse for the other side to begin ranting. But, I could be wrong. Regardless, it's safe to say we obviously disagree on quite a bit, and you seem a bit too angry to actually discuss the situation.

As for them ignoring feedback.... to be very blunt, who the hell cares? Yes, they did a godawful job with feedback when it comes to ret. Greater Blessing of Might is, yes, a terrible design, one that I'll be glad to see the backside of come 7.1.5. I do not use the same name for Holy Wrath that you do, but only because I do not wish to dignify it with that much attention; as far as I'm concerned, we have two bottom tier talents, one that serious players take and one that people who like RNG take, and Kalgan saying "STFU and learn to like it" just meant that I didn't care what he thought. None of that means you don't try to make sure your feedback is accurate and on point. If your feedback is crap, there is zero chance it will work. If your feedback is good, it still not might not work (see: everything you and I said), but at least it has a chance, and if it doesn't work, the fault lies squarely at the feet of Blizzard devs who ignored it.

There's a lot more I could say in response to your points, but honestly, at this point we're not really discussing the class but just arguing with each other, so I"m going to stop here. If you're actually interested, I'll respond to PMs, but I'm not going to carry on further derailing the thread.

[Morally Grey Storm]

Your arrogance really doesn't know any bounds does it? .

That's me being humble, calm and collected.

I said I wasn't condescending because I wasn't. I wasn't dismissing PvP is something not worthwhile, I was saying that I didn't participate and thus wasn't going to address that side of the game. It really is just that simple.

As a gesture of good will, shall we skip this point now?

I didn't wave the remainder of the points off, I deliberately chose not to respond because your attitude is, quite frankly, exhausting.

Good. That's idea when debating with someone hostile and rude, and you came at me as one.

Regardless, it's safe to say we obviously disagree on quite a bit, and you seem a bit too angry to actually discuss the situation.

We can always agree to disagree so as to salvage what's left of this thread indeed.
You may be lacking certain degree of knowledge regarding Ret, which is why we clash so much.
It's PvP obviously, and it's utter clusterfeth.

As for them ignoring feedback.... to be very blunt, who the hell cares?

Sure as sure they do not.
But we do. We seek their attention. We crave their responses. We get nothing.

Yes, they did a godawful job with feedback when it comes to ret. Greater Blessing of Might is, yes, a terrible design, one that I'll be glad to see the backside of come 7.1.5. I do not use the same name for Holy Wrath that you do, but only because I do not wish to dignify it with that much attention; as far as I'm concerned, we have two bottom tier talents, one that serious players take and one that people who like RNG take, and Kalgan saying "STFU and learn to like it" just meant that I didn't care what he thought.

and suddenly we are speaking same language now.
It would be pretty hypocritical to try to sell these new GBlessings a "step forward".

If your feedback is crap, there is zero chance it will work. If your feedback is good, it still not might not work (see: everything you and I said), but at least it has a chance, and if it doesn't work, the fault lies squarely at the feet of Blizzard devs who ignored it.

Which brings us back to the remark about them not responding.
They show their level of care this way.
Making us caring less, removing any and all desire to be polite and restrained from rudeness.
is it healthy? Is it great? Doubt it.

There's a lot more I could say in response to your points, but honestly, at this point we're not really discussing the class but just arguing with each other, so I"m going to stop here. If you're actually interested, I'll respond to PMs, but I'm not going to carry on further derailing the thread.

I am always up for a bit of coherent chat.
So, feel free to PM if you feel like it

[Snegovik]

I very rarely went OOM ever in Wrath. Apart from spamming FoL or getting Manaburn from Priest or Viper Sting from Hunter my Mana was consistent basically all the time. Then again I knew how to Judgement weave so that likely was just always a non-issue.

I miss WrathRet.

In Pve (only did full naxx and 1st wing off Icc) I don't remb going oom either but in PvP or duels vs disc those mofos would mana burn you and the slowly watch you die from dots lol. I mean I miss mechanics the most, cool things that would.annoy ppl lol freedom out of rogs stuns, fear lock and dk pets, no rage to wars cuz of ss, dispelling all cc and magic debuff lol good days, even though I think rets st is better now, let's hope blizz won't f up ret too much in 7.1.5 lol

So question for any1 on PTR or who is good @ math crunching, after recent pvp templates nerf for rets, especially JV nerf for extra dmg on stunned target from 50% to 25%, is it worth using JV on a stunned target when you use pop your crusader or is it a dps lose? like pulling 5HP -> Hoj -> Crusader -> JV ->A2A -> JV (given enemy did not trinket), or is it better simply using FV after recent ptr pvp-template nerfs?

[Super Kami Dende]

In Pve (only did full naxx and 1st wing off Icc) I don't remb going oom either but in PvP or duels vs disc those mofos would mana burn you and the slowly watch you die from dots lol. I mean I miss mechanics the most, cool things that would.annoy ppl lol freedom out of rogs stuns, fear lock and dk pets, no rage to wars cuz of ss, dispelling all cc and magic debuff lol good days, even though I think rets st is better now, let's hope blizz won't f up ret too much in 7.1.5 lol

So question for any1 on PTR or who is good @ math crunching, after recent pvp templates nerf for rets, especially JV nerf for extra dmg on stunned target from 50% to 25%, is it worth using JV on a stunned target when you use pop your crusader or is it a dps lose? like pulling 5HP -> Hoj -> Crusader -> JV ->A2A -> JV (given enemy did not trinket), or is it better simply using FV after recent ptr pvp-template nerfs?

Freedom removing stuns was the best thing ever. RIP.

[xalai]

I heard that Swarming Plague Hive no longer works without GBOM?

[Deleted]

SPH only activates on ranged spell attacks - that is Wake of Ashes and GBoM procs for Retribution.

Without GBoM, the trinket (and any similar trinkets, like Shock Baton and Aran's Ruby) will only have chances to activate from Wake and its Ashes to Ashes DoT, which is not a whole lot.

[Teleros]

Yeah we lost a spell, but so did almost everyone else.

That doesn't mean WotLK Ret wasn't better when it had those spells etc though.

Magic Cleanse? Even healers have a CD on magic cleanse. This is clearly not something that Blizzard wants anyone easily ridding of, let alone ret paladins? That wouldn't make sense

Give it to Ret with a CD like healers then :P .

AW absorb and CD bypass. This was a sad partial attempt to fix a broken pvp class. Very nice ability, but it was designed for when ret was garbage damage. This would be completely broken in our current state with the damage we can do.

It's also a nice mechanic on various bosses that have shields.

HoW, ya I miss this shit. But again with our judgement system, plus the range on a lot of our spells (not casting range obv, but further than a lot of other melee) plus our increased damage to match everyone else, I personally feel if I had an execute still, again, our class would be broken.

"A lot" of our spells? BoJ has a 12yd range, Judgement has 30, and... that's it, no?

The rest of this point just feels like it's down to numbers tuning TBH.

Healing spell, we do have more than one. Word of Glory plus the healing coming from divine storm. We are damage dealers, not dealers any more healing utility than this and again our class would be broken (like monks!)

Not sure Divine Storm healing counts given how (a) pathetic and (b) spread out it is.

Word of Glory meanwhile has a big old CD and high cost relative to its effectiveness. Assuming you take it, of course.

Crit heal hots, see above

Sacred shield, he have a shield that works as a better defensive CD instead of some garbage dispel protection absorb

The crit heal HoT was (a) a nice bit of flavour, (b) good sustained healing, given that Flash of Light back in WotLK was only instant if you consumed a proc instead of using it to cast Exorcism, oh and (c) didn't force us to stand still to heal, so we could continue to hobble around after people.

HoSac as ret would be awesome again, but with ashbringer plus adaptation, bubble, blessing of sanc, we are basically imune to CC as it is unless you're brain dead.

It'd be useful in PvE though. Ret doesn't really bring much group utility to fights any more - GBoK/GBoW don't count, GBoM is our own damage, and most of the time big nukes people have to stand in are either magic damage (BoP won't work) or ignore immunities (or ignore immune players).

Seals, LOL

Don't knock Seal of Blood until you've instantly broken out of polymorph a few times with it.

Now I admit that the seals were of mostly little utility, but that's a tuning problem, not a conceptual problem.

Auras, LOL

See last point about seals.

Turn evil, lol

Hey, flavour spells are nice. Also was fun vs DKs in PvP .

instant repent? lolol, how about blinding light or HOJ reduced CD talent which is even better

Back in WotLK you could have a reduced CD on HoJ *and* instant Repentance. The idea that Rets need to stand there to CC people... urgh. Holy I can understand, but not the front line spec(s).

= + =

Not a problem.

Very definitely a PvP issue though. BoF, BoP, SoV are all vulnerable to (usually quite spammy) offensive dispels.

Even if I did PvP this shouldn't be a thing.

It was a nice thing for various PvE bosses though (especially when solo'ing C'Thun ).

In its original form, I kinda miss this. In its "Avenging Wrath, now all you do is spam HoW!" form, not so much.

Agreed.

Are we healers now? We don't need a slow-casting heal, flash of light hits hard enough to let us fill in as off-healers in a pinch, and divine storm still has some splash healing it (quite a bit over the course of a dungeon). Word of Glory was nice, but hardly necessary.

I honestly do miss the WotLK healing model for Rets. A big, slow heal (Holy Light) plus an instant one (Flash of Light - with Art of War procs). WoG can GTFO though.

Even if we still had it, it would be nerfed into oblivion. Holy paladins lost their absorb mastery too, if you'll recall. All absorbs got hit hard. We still have the basic mechanic in GBoK, which will actually be something of an option next patch.

GBoK basically *is* the WotLK-era Sacred Shield, except it lasts for 60mins not 30-60secs :P .

Plus, for self-only, we have Shield of Vengeance, which doubles as defense and offense; much more appropriate for Retribution.

*Cough*Nodispelprotection*cough*

We're not healers, and we're paladins. Wrong role, wrong class. I'm glad Eternal Flame is gone for Holy Paladins too, for a very long time our strength was direct power, and I'm personally quite happy to be back to that as the main emphasis.

To be clear, the HoT worked like this:

1. Rets only.
2. Only on your SS (GBoK) target.
3. Heal has to crit.
4. HoT does 60% of crit heal over its ~12sec duration.

That's hardly OP, and would have almost zero impact in PvE. For PvP I imagine it'd basically be used on yourself as a Ret copy of Recuperate etc... though even then it wouldn't work as well as it did in WotLK, because Flash of Light still has a cast time ATM, whereas in WotLK it could be instant cast.

Now you're just repeating yourself, but since you are, I'll repeat myself as well: we're paladins, HoTs aren't are thing, they shouldn't be our thing. Absorbs got nerfed, and we still have a version of this in GBoK.

Yeah he's just repeating himself, as per above. The SS HoT and the crit heal HoT are one and the same. Been a few years though, so maybe he forgot the details?

Would be nice, but not a necessity for the spec. We still have plenty of utility options.

TBH I don't really see this. Most big bad nukes in raids etc are magical, so BoP is useless (and as above they're often coded such that immunity spells either don't work or don't count). Snares / roots are rarely used (and in dungeons are rarely important), so BoF is useless. That leaves GBoW & GBoK... lol.

Oh, and Lay on Hands. Every 10mins.

Woot.

If you want real group utility, go see how rogues can stand in big nukes and not die - whilst not being counted as "immune" the way paladins with Divine Shield (or mages with Ice Block, etc etc etc) are. Or how feral druids can boost everyone's movement speed, etc. Ret utility is very lacklustre by comparison.

Irrelevant unless we also bring back mechanics that interact with seals. I enjoyed Empowered Seals as a mechanic, and the original style of activating then judging wasn't bad, but just turning it on then forgetting about it means little. I mean, I suppose they could bring that back, but I'm not really sure what the point would be, other than to just have seals for the sake of having them.
(I wouldn't mind seeing a new form as a mini-cooldown, but that would be a substantial re-design and would be more "inspired by seals" than "the return of seals".)

I know people like to knock seals as "fire and forget" spells, and I guess in PvE they were, but in PvP you could actually get some good use out of Seals of Justice and Light (that is, Seal of Stun Proc / Seal of Snare and Seal of Heal-On-Hit). Not to mention Seal of Blood breaking soft CCs.

Auras were not interactive gameplay, and they disappeared with every other raid/group buff. Trying to paint this as a ret issue is, at best, mind-numbingly ignorant. Holy got them back as talents, and the radically different form they take indicates what role auras would play for us... what would you have us get? A dps buff that means our own dps gets lowered? Defensive buffs that make us mandatory? Or do you just want to complain because they changed the game?

Nice flavour though. Obviously given the lack of raid/group buffs I can't really see a point in keeping passive buff auras around any more, but you could certainly do some raid CDs through auras for specs other than Holy.

Do you regularly have a need to apply double crowd controls personally to that many undead and demons? (Keep in mind my disclaimer).

Might be nice for some M+ dungeons, and in PvP...

Same place your auras did: no longer part of the game design.
And just so you're aware, we do still have Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Freedom. I would assume that you know these things, but if you're ignorant of the fact that the game no longer includes raid or party buffs, as you indicate here, I figure better safe than sorry.

I assume he means the great long list of buffs we had back way back when:

• Blessing of Might: +AP
• Blessing of Wisdom: +MP5
• Blessing of Light: +Paladin healing done
• Blessing of Salvation: -30% Threat
• Blessing of Kings: +10% Stats, talented
• Blessing of Sanctuary: -Damage taken, talented

This can only be a PvP concern, because I can't think of why I'd care in PvE. As such, I refer you back to my disclaimer.

Even in PvE it makes it easier to re-cast it, or to cast it just the right moment.

[Matrlx]

Seal of Truth and Seal of Righteousness i miss those

[Faesroll]

Seal of Truth and Seal of Righteousness i miss those

I also liked abilities I never used.

[Oopsmezedya]

GBoW is 10 seconds now and GBoK got a buff aswell, ret is not totally homogenized yet

- - - Updated - - -

If blizzard still want us to have wisdom, might and kings, to keep up the class lore or what ever.
I would like to see wisdom turn in to something like Innervate, to be used when it is needed, not just a passiv buff you put on every hour.
And i think Kings could be turnd in to Heroisem/bloodlust/timewarp, and give it to all 3 speccs
Not sure what to do with Might, since give a temp dmg buff to one player, has not worked out before, and can't think of any other fun stuff to do with it

no, you are not becoming a druid/mage....this is the problem with WoW right now

[Morally Grey Storm]

Yeah he's just repeating himself, as per above. The SS HoT and the crit heal HoT are one and the same. Been a few years though, so maybe he forgot the details?

No I am not.
It is you who forgot we had been introduced to a wonderful mechanic somewhere around S6 , where if you would cast FoL on a Sacred Shield-buffed target, it would instantly apply an all-different HoT, not the Crit Sheath of Light one.
For totally logical reasons it was removed from Ret later on ofcourse, but did stick with Holy for some time.

[Teleros]

Yup, my bad, forgot we had that effect .

[Yhcti]

Currently main Havoc DH with Survival/BM Hunter alt, looking to level up my Paladin as Ret/Prot... how are you guys feeling about 7.1.5 with Ret? I'm casual so Mythic+/LfR/Norm is majority of what i'll do... wanting a nice plate DPS (Ret/Prot or Fury/Arms) what's the opinion on Ret?

[Yhcti]

Both prot and ret will be very desireable in NH. You are not raiding Mythic or doing high M+ so not having the legendaries is not much of a problem
The thing to remember is, your AoE will suck until you have like 30 traits on Ashbringer. Which should not take long in 7.1.5 but don't be discouraged by low dungeon numbers early on.
It's easy to play and you should be among the last people in your raid to die.

As for Prot, prot pally is quite harder to play optimally than prot warrior but it's still easy and fairly fun.

Awesome thanks for the info I like fun more than being OP, at the moment Outlaw, Havoc and Survival provide a ton of fun but with this AK catchup in 7.1.5 ill definitely have room to make a few more alts haven't really tried Ret since wotlk either so will be nice to play it again