WoTLK Retribution Paladins... how are they really?

[kohakx]

lolwut?

So, basically... you want to be able to spec retribution and deal as much DPS as a pure class, but still be able to tank and heal when you need to.

Yeah, see, here's the problem: what Blizzard thinks a hybrid should be is what a hybrid should be, and that's a class capable of holding its own in any of its playstyles without being the best or on par with the best - so-called pure classes, in terms of DPS - at it (situationally, i.e. tanking). What you want retribution to be able to do is DPS as well as any DPS-only class, but oh, right, you can also tank and heal when need be.

lolwut?

Exactly, that is what a Paladin is, he is a Warrior + a Priest. Warrior = DPS/Tanking, Priest = Healing, hence Paladin = DPS/Tanking/Healing. Ofcourse for Balancing issues a paladin can't be great in every single one of those things at the same time, but the flavor of the paladin is that he has to be able to do every single one of those things. So some people ask, why pick any other class then? The answer is flavor, you pick a class because you like the image of the class, you like the animal druid, you like the archer hunter, you like the raging warrior, you like to be a powerful mage or an evil warlock. The world is not fair, and warcraft is a world.

Otherwise they might as well not have all these classes. 4 would suffice, 1. Tank 2. Melee DPS 3. Ranged DPS 4. Healer

[mrchee]

first of all, paladin was a crap melee hero in WC3, just like death knight. Those were support heroes with heals, auras, resurrects, but with melee attacks. The melee heroes were Mountain King, Nathrezim, Demon Hunter, Blademaster and Tauren Chief (not counting TFT heroes and neutrals). If you used a paladin or DK in melee instead of spellcasting you were wasting it.

As for PvE Ret, it makes no sense for it to be on-par DPS with warrior/feral/rogue/enhancement because the raidwide universal buffs that ret brings outclass all of them. Rets should do about 80% of the DPS of an arms warrior in fairness. Currently that is the case but in WOTLK they are getting too many buffs.

However, Rets should do literally the highest DPS in the game against demons and undead, like 25% more than rogues/locks. This isnt as small of a thing as you may think, because nearly everything in kara, hyjal, BT, and Sunwell is undead or demonic

[Seraphk]

How are they really?

Well, they're definitely a little over the top at the moment. Watch beta videos of any other class killing anything else and you can immediately tell that a Ret Paladin taking down Elites as fast as people take down normal mobs is a little much. However, to be fair, the only time in which that was a case is in the Ret Paladin video versus demon elites -- In which multiple people have stated they should be doing ultimately the best DPS on. But, still, they're soloing 4 mob pulls in Utgarde Keep -- granted one is in Repentance, 3 elites bashing on something and it not dying or going below 40% HP is a little wonky.

Those of you that defend such DPS and survivability. If you say, "wait until 80 to see if it's balanced", then you are basically using the Feral Druid argument from TBC. In which, they started off really high but had poor scalability. Thus, to say, "wait until 80" is to say, "We're not going to scale equivalently at Level 80". As a Feral Druid, I can assure you that you'd rather have that scalability rather than think, "We're just powerful 70 - 79."

Other than that, the damage has been nerfed a lot. This mostly due to them taking out the talent that caused their judgements to sometimes do 2x the damage -- Which is where the 20 k judgement crits were coming from. Those are no longer in existence. However, you still have 8 - 9 k judgements every 10 seconds, that alone is 900 DPS without any consideration for white damage, or SoC/SoB procs. Also, one of the smarter Ret Paladins has been using Seal of Corruption and stacking it to 5 on elite mobs, then switching over to Seal of Command for 15 seconds and seal twisting it back in before the duration is up... The amount of sustained damage is simply incredible.

In conclusion, combined with merged stats and the new scalability of all Paladin Seals/Judgements/Spells, you can expect that they will definitely scale. However, right now they're scaling far too well. I expect nerfs on % damage coefficients on the judgements (45% additional damage on judgement is like, "WTF?") -- Nothing too drastic, but enough to tone them down.

One last thing, for those of you that say you've played a Ret Paladin and it hasn't felt like a hybrid. The Ret Paladin and Enh Shaman are going to be the epitome of hybrid gameplay in WoTLK. Everything they've done between the merged stats, scalability of abilities with AP/SP, scaling in SP with AP, improving spell utility despite a primary melee orientation, and basically making it where everything they have has both scalability/utility in their gameplay -- Makes them fully functional hybrids. Now I'd just like to see a ranged/spellcaster oriented hybrid that also has decent melee capabilities, though Hunters are getting pretty close to it. All they need are some heals and they're set.

[Seraphk]

45% damage decrease nerf to Ret ? Ok maybe they are doing a bit too much dps... maybe, however how do you explain 1/3 of the paladins on demand spells not being all that viable for Ret ? The trade off was "lose some viability in your on demands spells and let other classes combat them with new spells and you can have dps".

No, it's judgement coefficient is currently a 45% damage increase from the seals base damage. It will be lowered to more like 35 - 40% if they decide to nerf anything. I'm not saying that they should decrease the damage of them by 45%, that would be quite silly.

Lets look at this in a different light. I am not a Ret paladin atm i am Rogue. All my gear scales my damage and all my talents scales my attacks with a crap load of on demand utilities and most of them are survivability utilities and i only do melee damage.

Now lets look at me being a Ret paladin. i only do melee and spell damage my talents scale my crit on both of these and i only have a couple that scale my base spells. I can't heal very well or for very long and i do not use the same gear as a tank so taking damage isn't something i can do for very long. All my on demand spells that don't do damage don't do much for me as a Ret paladin and i rely heavily on divine shield, Hoj and first aid to survive because healing as Ret is like whipping my ass with butter it sucks that much.

Now in wotlk healing might be a bit better but i have to wait to end game to see how well it is going to scale while being Ret. I'm not saying that i can do what i did back in BWL days and go in as Ret with healing gear and be viable. I mean being viable as a hybrid that is spec into a dps tree. It's a wait and see till end game because as we all know Resto Druids are 110% better healers then what they started out to be in the beta for TBC.

Rogues and Paladins cannot even begin to be comparable in terms of scalability with gears/talents. Enhancement Shamans and Rogues are much more similar -- Likewise, the Warrior and Paladin are much better to compare.

Though, I see where you're going. In terms of not having tank gear, you still have more survivability than any melee oriented class. The reason being Ret Paladins have less mobility than any of the melee toons. At the same time, JoJ completely removes the mobility of anyone relying on movement speed increasing effects which is something completely unique. But, I digress -- You have more survivability than you give yourself credit for. While you rely on Divine Shield, HoJ, and First Aid *which is smart and mana efficient for the moment in BC*. Rogues rely on stealth, CoS, Evasion, etc. etc. Every class relies on certain CDs for increased survivability -- However, Ret Paladins in plate gear and magic dispels are a lot better than most. Of course with dispels, this costs mana and you can't be spamming it in TBC -- But this changes in WoTLK.

This bring me to Paladins in WoTLK though. They're nothing like you describe above with +healing. It will most definitely be viable and is shown in very few of the YouTube videos since most people focus only on the damage they're capable of. The fact that +crit is being merged with melee and spells means that your spell crit will be around 25 - 35% (rounded out numbers due to OCD). The 60% of a crit over time is amazing and will be highly reliable and most paladins showing their Ret videos that decide to heal are critting in 1/3 heals. Wings also increases healing by 25% while it is active which is a rather large increase. I mean, aside from simply having all the +healing on their gear, the thing that actually scales heals better than anything else are a pure % modifier on the total amount healed. Going Holy, you get one thing -- 12% more on the total amount healed. So, with Avenging Wrath alone, you'll gain awesome scalability with your heals -- However, this will cause you to waste time dealing damage, but it depends on what utility calls for at that moment -- It's the luxury of being a hybrid.

All you have to do is pop wings and simply equip a +healing weapon/shield (which is currently anywhere between 20 - 25% of the +healing for any healing class) and combined with your AP to SP -- You'll temporarily have the healing power of an undergeared Holy Paladin as your AP to SP isn't going to make up for the 75% of healing that healers get from the rest of their gear -- But, it'll get you around 30 - 35% more within range. So 50 - 60% of the healing coefficient of a Holy Paladin then 25% boosted healing from Avenging Wrath and a high chance to crit with +crit rating then a talent that grants you 60% of that crit over time. Your healing for personal survivability isn't going to be a joke. You now have it better than any of the other hybrid classes that dream of being able to heal themselves effectively. Shamans almost had it but they changed Maelstrom Weapon to only work with damage spells rather than healing (instant cast healing spell every 5 crits would have been awesome for them). Druids are 2nd best only Nuturing Instinct rather demotes the desirability of casting Nourish when we should be going back into Kitty form to get 20% more healing from the HoTs we cast on ourselves (sorry if I refer to it personally I play a Feral Druid like I said).

Either way, WoTLK is granting you unlimited mana offensively. This mana in turn is going to be able to be used for all your utility abilities including your heals, which will be more effective than any other hybrids especially when you decide to throw up Avenging Wrath. The fact that you can bubble and do it is even better now that AW no longer causes forbearance.

[Shuji1987]

Retribution will get 2 instant attacks and even a shield bash which when powerfull enough could be macro'd to equip shield/cast spell. We also get more utillity to heal, tank and deal damage in any spec which at first was quite impossible since we were and still are a talent heavy base in order to utilize our potential.

All of the tree's have currently improved alot and we're finally getting along with for example druids in terms of utillity.

Though we do need a bit more polish but we are defenitely getting there and I'm really excited to play my Paladin again in WotLK.

[Gerbill]

Personally I think they kick ass right now.
My first impression of Ret was pretty much like this smiley -->

I went off to Northrend and killed some mobs.
CS and white hits/crits did the same damage obviously.
I did have a whopping 690 spell damage from my AP.

So I tried some judgements first.
I love the new judgement system since well you keep your seal on you while you can just judge every 8 seconds, which makes it a lot more worth it.
On top of that you can simply choose what to judge wisdom/light/justice and you gain a shitload of mana in return trough judgement of the wise. Which can really keep you going for ages and ages.

Divine Storm is a really nice skill it deals nice damage especially when it crits (righteous vengeance) and the heal you gain is decent but nothing major. it is nice for when you're in a group where a rogue or shaman gets healed from it aswel during boss fights. And well the animation makes it look really impressive, which it is.

The damage on judgements is pretty neat. To give a comparison :
in live my damage on JoC is about 600 and 1k crits .. on stunned targets. If I remember correctly.. I hadn't played my paladin on live in a while
But the JoC damage on Beta is quite insane. I've had 2500 hits and 7500 crits on stunned targets (with wings and trinkets popped mind you)

I figured this coefficiency might go down.. since well I've tested my rogue and druid aswel and they gain nothing as major as this in damage... yet. Although Druids (feral) got some really nice issues worked out aswel, during their Berserk buff you can almost spam Mangle faster than that you lose energy... which is quite the upgrade.

And when I tested my paladin as holy and noticed how easilly I get holy shock crits and can instant holy light. I wondered if perhaps the damage would be staying anyway since healing will most likely be a lot stronger and it would be more about MS debuffs which the paladin doesn't have and shouldn't have as long as they have this kind of damage.

On a side note. You can actually throw a few heals as Ret. You gain mana back trough your judgements so that's really nice. But your heals especially with sheath of light are a lot more powerfull.
I healed for around 2300 hit and 3100 crit in live with holy light. And on Beta I heal for around 4000 hit and 6000 crit with Holy light and when I crit for 6000 I get about 850 sheath of light ticks on me.. which is pretty impressive for a Retridin I'd say.
But then again Sheath of light will be available for a holy paladin who skips out on Beacon of Light aswel. which will make their heals insanely powerfull due to the high amount of crit.

So all in all at the moment they're probably working on the coefficiency for Judgement damage and besides that I think they are pretty damn nice for as far as I've tested that is.

[Seraphk]

Personally I think they kick ass right now.
My first impression of Ret was pretty much like this smiley -->

I went off to Northrend and killed some mobs.
CS and white hits/crits did the same damage obviously.
I did have a whopping 690 spell damage from my AP.

So I tried some judgements first.
I love the new judgement system since well you keep your seal on you while you can just judge every 8 seconds, which makes it a lot more worth it.
On top of that you can simply choose what to judge wisdom/light/justice and you gain a shitload of mana in return trough judgement of the wise. Which can really keep you going for ages and ages.

Divine Storm is a really nice skill it deals nice damage especially when it crits (righteous vengeance) and the heal you gain is decent but nothing major. it is nice for when you're in a group where a rogue or shaman gets healed from it aswel during boss fights. And well the animation makes it look really impressive, which it is.

The damage on judgements is pretty neat. To give a comparison :
in live my damage on JoC is about 600 and 1k crits .. on stunned targets. If I remember correctly.. I hadn't played my paladin on live in a while
But the JoC damage on Beta is quite insane. I've had 2500 hits and 7500 crits on stunned targets (with wings and trinkets popped mind you)

I figured this coefficiency might go down.. since well I've tested my rogue and druid aswel and they gain nothing as major as this in damage... yet. Although Druids (feral) got some really nice issues worked out aswel, during their Berserk buff you can almost spam Mangle faster than that you lose energy... which is quite the upgrade.

And when I tested my paladin as holy and noticed how easilly I get holy shock crits and can instant holy light. I wondered if perhaps the damage would be staying anyway since healing will most likely be a lot stronger and it would be more about MS debuffs which the paladin doesn't have and shouldn't have as long as they have this kind of damage.

On a side note. You can actually throw a few heals as Ret. You gain mana back trough your judgements so that's really nice. But your heals especially with sheath of light are a lot more powerfull.
I healed for around 2300 hit and 3100 crit in live with holy light. And on Beta I heal for around 4000 hit and 6000 crit with Holy light and when I crit for 6000 I get about 850 sheath of light ticks on me.. which is pretty impressive for a Retridin I'd say.
But then again Sheath of light will be available for a holy paladin who skips out on Beacon of Light aswel. which will make their heals insanely powerfull due to the high amount of crit.

So all in all at the moment they're probably working on the coefficiency for Judgement damage and besides that I think they are pretty damn nice for as far as I've tested that is.

Exactly what I said only I'm not in beta. Thanks for confirming through actual beta experience.

But, omg you play a Feral Druid too? I'm having a hard choice deciding whether I want to level my 70 Druid, Pally, or Shaman to 80 first. Which would you choose based off the impressions you're getting in beta? I understand you may prefer one due to personal playstyle and choice, but I was just wondering.

I'm quite bias when it comes to my Feral Druid since I've been playing one since pre-BC, but Paladins are looking mighty awesome with all the changes. I'm still expecting some changes though especially for Druids. Imp LoTP should be changing since a dev stated: "What if it were to heal for as much as Shadow Priests or Death Knights?" If they changed that, at least I could ignore the fact that Paladins can heal a lot easier/better than Feral Druids whilst engaged in PvP.

[Gerbill]

Exactly what I said only I'm not in beta. Thanks for confirming through actual beta experience.

But, omg you play a Feral Druid too? I'm having a hard choice deciding whether I want to level my 70 Druid, Pally, or Shaman to 80 first. Which would you choose based off the impressions you're getting in beta? I understand you may prefer one due to personal playstyle and choice, but I was just wondering.

I'm quite bias when it comes to my Feral Druid since I've been playing one since pre-BC, but Paladins are looking mighty awesome with all the changes. I'm still expecting some changes though especially for Druids. Imp LoTP should be changing since a dev stated: "What if it were to heal for as much as Shadow Priests or Death Knights?" If they changed that, at least I could ignore the fact that Paladins can heal a lot easier/better than Feral Druids whilst engaged in PvP.

Well.. I have just transfered my level 70 hunter over to the Beta aswel, unfortunatly you can only transfer 4 characters since I will soon have 2 more level 70 classes.
Hunter seems quite appealing aswel, especially Chimera shot gave me the idea that you have your options open when either PvPing or PvEing.

But as it seems now I will most likely start off with my Paladin, mainly because I enjoy the retribution playstyle and now it´s even better. I do think that the judgement coefficiency will go down like others have said in this thread. But it shouldn´t go down by too much in my opinion. And with the rumour that you can possibly get 2 talent specs and swap between them. I will be even more sure to level my Paladin since I enjoyed the new holy changes aswel.

[mrchee]

Looks like the War of the Walls of Text over here

Madness?? THIS.... IS.... BETAAAAAAA!!!!!!

[mrchee]

You don't read novels do you ?

I have probably read more novels than have most people's entire families.

And thanks for making your post slightly more readable, now I can flame it easier

[Deleted]

I dont understand why you're saying this. Paladins have always been the most useful class in a ton of setups. Sure they are not the best 2v2 healer, but they do run well with Rogues. Sure they arnt the best 3v3 healer, but they run extremely well with another healer in 3v3. They are above par, if not the best 5v5 healer. Ret can put out sick damage in 2v2, yes i have seen multiple gladiator retpal+mage teams... Cleave is good in 3v3 and 5v5 also. Ret Pallys can pump the deeps in raids, prot pallys are very good tanks and needed in multiple fights, holy paladins are the best tank healer in the game. I dont understand why people believe their class needs to be able to do everything in this game. A ton of classes lack, but why should paladins excel in everything?

Im a warrior and this poster is the most retarded i seen so far.......

Palas in 2vs2 has to be carried by either a rogue or a frost mage, 3vs3 they have to do WF totem to be successful. 5vs5 ok HOLY nothing else.
Not many palas getting above 2000 rating and thats a shame having suck favorism classes like rogues, druids, locks and ehrm warriors. I almost facerolled my 2200(not exactly but i could run multiple setups as it.

How do i know? My buddy was kicked from his arena teams and replace just bcos his class didnt cut it. He had all the gear and skill to show for it but he rolled the wrong class. Now he plays rogue and just got the Brutal shoulders. Ironic.

[Deleted]

I have probably read more novels than have most people's entire families.

And thanks for making your post slightly more readable, now I can flame it easier

It must have been pictures in those novels because your grammar and spelling is as viable as a feral druids dps.

[Merin]

Every class and spec will be viable, that's the goal. Hybrid specs and specs with more utility will take a shot in sustained DPS compared to the pure to balance it.

Retribution Paladins and Paladins in general gained alot more utility, smoothed out systems and interactivity. Class stacking is dead, Warrior is no longer the sole tank.

Blizzard is finally realizing EQ-logic doesn't sit so well with people who actually have lives and play video games for fun. EQ has been the downfall of the genre ever since it usurped UO back in the day through OSI's stupidity and through the sheer virtue of being (fucking ugly) 3D.

I'm personally looking forward to healing my SO's Ret Paladin in a new 3v3 when we change our style in LK. I'm also looking forward to see interesting raid setups and strategies other than the utterly moronic.

I'm sure this absolutely enraged a few people but hey, there's always suicide.

[Function]

From what I have seen thus far, in the 130ish quests I've banged out in Borean is that a ret paladins mana bar behaves more like a rage bar because of Judgement of the Wise.

It allows us to cycle a rotation with good numbers each round. It also gives us the option of tossing a heal here and there without worrying about never getting that mana back.

That being said, the generalized critical strike rating is a thing of beauty for rets, because of our "battle-priest" sort of style. Melee and spells tied together into one role, enhancement shaman will benefit from this as well. The crit really helps with talents such as sheath of light, wear the critical strike causes the HoT to tick away, which makes that mana go a lot further. PvP focused pallies will go enjoy this change a lot.

The new addition of Divine Storm is pretty sweet too. It isn't insane damage or anything, pretty much on par with CS, give or take some crit damage increases. The little group heal it provides is quite nice. 20% of the damage done really isnt a big deal, but it's something. It's one more reason to keep a ret in raids, or in arena team/bg premades or whatever.

Tossing the Sanctity Aura wasnt a bad idea either, especially when you think about the utility of ret aura for targets who take a lot of damage. The damage scales based on our stats, so it's a static damage source. Couple that with the talented haste effect you can snag, which will mainly be for pve due to needing points elsewhere for pvp, and 2% increased raid wide damage and it makes up for any loss in Paladin only damage.

All of the other various abilities that were more of less sidelined due to lack of spell damage are now pretty decent because of Sheath of Light. I've used consecrate and exorcism in a few different questing spots just to see the numbers and it wasnt bad, and again the hefty mana costs are kind of negated when I can fill my mana bar in a few judgement casts.

After hitting 71 I checked out the new skills from the trainer and I picked up Divine Plea, 50% mana over a 6 second period. It's a channeled spell, which I would imagine can be interrupted but it still gets a huge amount of mana back.

I noticed a pretty sizable change in Repentance as well, it lasts for a minute on a single target. That's long enough for someone to have to blow their trinket or for a raid to get that loose mob under control or whatever. It could even act as a viable CC in instances, every other minute. Again, more reasons to let us join up and such.

Some random things I noticed, they may be on live too but Summon Charger benefits from haste effects and costs no mana. Not much of a buff, but that .1 second decrease in mounting could save your ass sometime, you never know.

To sum it all up, from the time I've spent so far up north. Paladin fits perfectly to the pvp/pve balance blizzard wants and feels so right for the attack on the lich king, I mean who better to take our a fallen paladin but another paladin?

Function~