I miss the old ret playstyle.

[draco_nite]

Back in the TBC, Retribution had a really unique playstyle that took a bit of knowhow to play. Back then, it wasn't just a spec that you could pull decent DPS with by just button mashing. (The fact that our seals last pretty much forever these days is a sign that Retribution has really gone downhill.) And who could forget Seal of the Crusader! Getting the hammer from Manual Crowd Pummeler + Fishliver Oil+ Seal of the Crusader were some of the funnest days of my life.

I don't miss everything about it though. The crappy itemization for the first half of TBC wasn't fun, nor was the possibility of going OOM. And, of course, the fact that everyone expected you to go heals; this wasn't completely unfounded though, since ret DPS was gimped for most of TBC.

The following changes would be my wet dream for Cataclysm:

-Make seals cost little to no mana.
-Make seals last 30 seconds again.
-Only one Judgement spell.
-Keep JotW.
-Bring back Seal of the Crusader, and make Heart of the Crusader affect only Judgement of the Crusader.
-Make Crusader Strike a Judgement Refresher again.
-Keep Divine Storm: It's not a bad idea.

TL;DR make ret a not-faceroll spec please.

[Requital]

Seal Twisting will always be the best Ret ever had, The ability to use multiple Seals based on proper timing was how good Rets would shine over bad. I will forever miss those days.

[Munk]

You do of course realize that reverting back to bc-esque form or following your reccomendations will do NOTHING to remove the face roll component to ret.

The only way for ret to stop being faceroll is to lower the base damage of attacks and implement a +damage situation for casting a certain spell next.

[RawgleMonsta75]

I loved the old playstyle of ret. Everyone in my guild had the whole "lawlret" mentality until I showed them all the buffs i brought and my dps was up with the top 5. A few weeks after raiding as ret, no one in my guild wanted me to go back holy.

Seal twisting was the shit. Everyone loved the judgements that i always kept up. And our melee group kicked ass.

Once WotLK came out, I leveled ret and hit 80 and realized how ret easy had become, so i switched back to holy. Once dual spec was released, went Holy/Prot. Tried ret everytime they had a decent change to see if it was worth it again, it wasn't.

[Strykewrath]

-Bring back Seal of the Crusader

GIEF NAO.

On topic, I would agree with you that it may somewhat benefit our spec to return to what it was. I can honestly say, back in TBC, the only thing I really wanted was a distance closing ability like charge, and perhaps a small damage increase. Sure, things like inadequate itemisation were a pain, although I personally did mainly PvP stuff. (Or the occasional Kara or Gruul raid with my nice guild, when Ret paladins were really quite a rarity!).

However, I can also imagine that even with your ideas implemented, there would still be a lot of FOTM Ret Paladins. I would agree with Munk in that the lowering of damage and making more situational procs and spells would make the class less 'faceroll'.

[draco_nite]

You do of course realize that reverting back to bc-esque form or following your reccomendations will do NOTHING to remove the face roll component to ret.

The only way for ret to stop being faceroll is to lower the base damage of attacks and implement a +damage situation for casting a certain spell next.

Old Art of War imo.

Though, you couldn't press random buttons and do DPS as TBC ret. As WotLK ret, you can. Now, I know that if you want to do GOOD dps, there's a priority system, but it's still nowhere as unique as the old ret.

[kailtas]

The only way for ret to stop being faceroll is to lower the base damage of attacks and implement a +damage situation for casting a certain spell next.

No, that would make Ret even more predictable

[Deralte]

-Bring back Seal of Skill your weapons faster

oh... good times.

[deathnes]

I rly miss the old ret too. I never had it at max level but that was much better judgement system than it is now... they couldve lower the mana cost by a lot or give us some talent that would do that but no. they made it last 20 times longer, instead. that was the unique of the class and now, its uniqueness is that its uniqueless. (i dont know if these words even exist) oh, and sry for bad eng, its not my primary lang.

[Snorri]

I think OP is a troll that whines about retri being too easy and overpowered

[Iron Pigeon88]

Old ret, with old SoC, old judgement/seals, and DS would be a large step towards bringing me back to the game. But it still wouldnt do it.

[Extract]

Why get rid of seals? i like having 3 one for pvp one for raiding (JoTW) and one for farming/doing dailys

[Funky303]

Well actually switching seals is back up since the new SoCommand.

Using SoComm on 2 or more targets is awesome, since the new SoComm we're back in the top business in heroics and in raids.

I often have to switch seals (macro'd to Librams) in raids.

For instance SoComm on Anub with 2 adds pulled near him and the other 2 seals on him only and for the small adds.

The ability to switch seals within an encounter does indeed distinguish between average players and good players.

I play ret since release (with healing intermezzo during vanilla due to T1 and T2 just beeing healgear), i enjoyed AQ20+40 ret gear and weaponry. I certainly do NOT miss the need to recast a seal after judgeing it, nor do i miss beeing oom after 1min burst galore.

[Eversor]

Yes, juggling seals and drinking after every two mobs sure was fun. Bring that masochistic fun back, please. I want to go OOM in less than a minute. I want to have horrible dps unless I have high gear. I want to beg to be carried in order to start outputting optimal dps in a raid. I want to recast my buffs after every two minutes.

The spec is okay now. Not perfect, needs lot of work, but okay. Yet you want it reverted back into the laughing stock it was? Awesome.

[Paladin885]

The following changes would be my wet dream for Cataclysm:

-Make seals cost little to no mana.
-Make seals last 30 seconds again.
-Only one Judgement spell.
-Keep JotW.
-Bring back Seal of the Crusader, and make Heart of the Crusader affect only Judgement of the Crusader.
-Make Crusader Strike a Judgement Refresher again.
-Keep Divine Storm: It's not a bad idea.

TL;DR make ret a not-faceroll spec please.

1) we already do and it gives us like 2/3 the mana back once it is casted
2) I'd settle for 3min but not 30sec again
3) The 3 judgements are there to kind of allow a paladin to do our 3 major seal buff/debuffs without having to sacrifice our current seal to go into another seal (unless we want too). Its better time management as you know, oldschool ret dps took like 10sec just to start fighting lol
4) well since you want to keep JotW that kind of contradicts your first request doesnt it ??
5) I'd love to have SoCdr again. I loved that seal leveling but now a ret can only have haste if he/she is specced deep into ret tree . that seal + reckoning was hells of fun leveling up when I was doing SM a week after TBC launch. I had that sword of omen and I was doing 0.4sec hits omg the animation was awesome. Only example I can give was I was hitting like Spinal from Killer Instinct does with his sword.
6) since mana is not an issue anymore for all 3 specs this is kinda out dated a bit.
7) blizz never removes a spell/attack, only buff/debuff's it

[zcks]

All I really miss is the fact that if I beat someone in pvp it was considered an insult to their skill no mater how good I was.

[zcks]

On a side note for changes I'd like to see in cataclysm, I'd like if they reduced seal damage across the board then gave us allot more attacks with varied effects & some shared cool downs.
Possibly also have them apply some sort of mark on us say a "mark of vengeance" then have judgments consume these marks & do more damage per mark consumed & have different effects depending on which seal is active.

[Horn]

All I really miss is the fact that if I beat someone in pvp it was considered an insult to their skill no mater how good I was.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA omfg yes I remember this in vanilla.
*LOL that ret just beat you in a duel*
*dude stfu no he healed it doesn't count*
*lol you suck*

Better days... kinda.. not really... kinda... ehh... nah... maby... nah

[bluestaff]

i miss being the only retadin on my server rofl.. those were the days.. but yes, the old play style actually took skill

[Relinquish]

7) blizz never removes a spell/attack, only buff/debuff's it

What about Seal of Blood/ Martyr ?