The Future for Retribution

[Rio]

Ive been thinking the last few weeks about possible changes that would significantly increase AoE viability and make certain skills useful. Note that this is NOT a QQ thread, I love where Retribution (Paladins in general) are in the beta/live. These are just suggestions.

First up, Divine Storm needs some love. Sure, it's our go-to spell for AoE... But I think it could be much more useful and provide a bit more "umph". Also, I think Holy Wrath needs to be removed from our single-target rotation for numerous reasons (much like how they 'removed' Fire Nova from Enhance Rotation). Here's a few ideas:


1. Make Holy Wrath's damage based on Holy Power. (How DS is now)
2. Remove HP damage from DS, and instead make it generate Holy Power. (Like Crusader Strike)

This would, in my opinion, greatly increase our AoE capabilities. This would also require DS to generate ONE holy power per cast, instead of gaining multiple HP at the same time from more than one mob (would be wayy too OP otherwise). Now, you're probably wondering "ZoMGzOrZ now we need another attack to fill in for HW"... no worries.

Celestial Strike - Does 100% weapon damage and causes your next critical strike from Exorcism, Judgement, or Hammer of Wrath to cause an additional (20-40%) damage over (4-6) seconds. (Obviously the current dot from Exorcism on Beta would be removed)

Of course this would need some tweaking, and I would love for some thoughts/opinions! Happy judging.

[Floross]

Cata design - Reduced AoE capabilities , more cc , more single target vs aoe.

[Admincougar]

and finally an interrupt! dont forget the interrupt!~

[Floross]

Oh yeah ^_^.

[Ciah]

I hate Holy Wrath in the single target rotation. Switch Holy Wrath and Divine Storm. Maybe make the stun last longer based on HP in addition to upping the damage or something.

I just want my spammable swirly DS back! D:

[Admincougar]

i miss not really paying attention but still toping the meters =/

[ragingsoul]

put DS as a HP generator like cs with something like "if your DS hits more than 1 target, you gain 100% chance for a HP proc."

- acts like Heroic stike and cleave, for single target and aoe and doesn't cost so much single target dps.


The problem I see more and more, is that prot is almost like a dps spec, with the difference that the boss is hitting on you.

as ret you would do CS or DS as HP generator ( or CS and Hammer for prot) and holy wrath, judgment, exo as filler ( compare to HW, judgment and avenger shield for prot).

It's just too similar already, this would put them even more alike.

[USMValor]

Ele shamms, they have lightning bolt and chain lightning, our combo points are random and take longer to stack to the highest amount,9 instead of 3, chain lightning hits for slightly less then lightning bolt and gives us a chance to proc a stack on each jump, it can be glyphed to hit more with each hit a proc chance, why couldnt divine storm hit for less single target and give holy power?

[Rio]

put DS as a HP generator like cs with something like "if your DS hits more than 1 target, you gain 100% chance for a HP proc."

- acts like Heroic stike and cleave, for single target and aoe and doesn't cost so much single target dps.


The problem I see more and more, is that prot is almost like a dps spec, with the difference that the boss is hitting on you.

as ret you would do CS or DS as HP generator ( or CS and Hammer for prot) and holy wrath, judgment, exo as filler ( compare to HW, judgment and avenger shield for prot).

It's just too similar already, this would put them even more alike.

Exactly.

[Lothaeryn]

I love how blizzard has either removed every single ability we have acquired from BC up to wrath or has made them almost completley useless to us in relation to pvp/latest raid content.

If you dont know what i mean:

BC:

-Seal of Vengeance/Corruption (now Truth), probably the ONLY seal that is still used that was not originally from Vanilla WoW
...
There was another ability that was added to the game, but I cannot remember what it was ?_?

Wrath:

-Seal of the Martyr/Blood: was removed in patch 3.1 due too making retribution too bursty, was not redesigned and was considered too clunky and awkward to use in PVE/PVP situations (30% of my damage recoiled back at me! hooray for killing myself when i kill a mage with 10% hp left)

-Divine plea: First nerfed in 3.1 to reduce healing by 50%, up from 20-25%, further nerfed in Patch 4.0 to only give 10% mana (glyphable to 15%) and have a CD of 2 minutes instead of 1 (like it really was THAT OP by the time it was even needed, when druids easily regen almost 100% of their mana whenever they popped the ability to generate mana whenever they were hit)

-Divine Storm: Originally nerfed in 3.0.3 for causing too much unmitigated holy damage, all damage converted to physical. Patch 4.0, redesigned to split all damage done to all targets in range of the AoE, now consumes holy power to increase damage (why not just replace holy wrath with this, seriously this was a retarded move imo)

I bet you come cata one of our abilities (most likely Inquisition) will be remodified to be even more useless or removed all together because of some stupid reason like all of the other abilities i have shown above

Its just plain stupid to think that every ability we have acquired since vanilla has been either nerfed or removed... -_-

EDIT: If you can remember the other ability added in BC, please say it, thx!

[ragingsoul]

Ele shamms, they have lightning bolt and chain lightning, our combo points are random and take longer to stack to the highest amount,9 instead of 3, chain lightning hits for slightly less then lightning bolt and gives us a chance to proc a stack on each jump, it can be glyphed to hit more with each hit a proc chance, why couldnt divine storm hit for less single target and give holy power?

the problem is, there is absolutly no talent that increase DS dmg, not a glyph, not a talent. yet, TV have both. DS without at least 6 mobs is a dps loss at the moment, compare to single target. A fight with 3 target, ret dps is the same as single target, while almost all classes can do more.

DS needs to do a LOT more dmg for it to be used, so a little less than single target wouldn't work. TV isn't 225% weapon dmg, it's 225*1.3*1.15=336% weapon dmg.
so ofc at the moment, CS with it's 150% weapon dmg is weak, even at 200% weapon dmg it would be a lot weaker than TV, due to no talent glyph.

[Palegod]

i miss not really paying attention but still toping the meters =/

How bad are your warriors, mages, cats, warlocks, hunters, rogues, and DKs?

Not sure what there is to pay attention to now that there wasn't before either. There's a couple more buttons to use but all that does is add a bit of tedium; CLCRet will still tell you exactly what to press next as well as track all your cooldowns.

DS without at least 6 mobs is a dps loss at the moment, compare to single target. A fight with 3 target, ret dps is the same as single target, while almost all classes can do more.

Mage and Moonkin AEs aren't worth using without at least 5-6 targets either. Shadowpriest AE is basically *never* worth using because Mind Sear was gutted so badly; it's pretty sad when I can do more damage by dropping Shadowform and spamming Holy Nova. Seed of Corruption was ok the last time I played my lock but it just took a major nerf this week. Not sure about other classes, those are just the ones I play. The ones I didn't mention aren't exactly known for their robust AE to begin with, however.

Other classes have an advantage over paladins for AE pulls because of DoTs, not because of actual AE abilities right now.

[ragingsoul]

Mage and Moonkin AEs aren't worth using without at least 5-6 targets either. Shadowpriest AE is basically *never* worth using because Mind Sear was gutted so badly; it's pretty sad when I can do more damage by dropping Shadowform and spamming Holy Nova. Seed of Corruption was ok the last time I played my lock but it just took a major nerf this week. Not sure about other classes, those are just the ones I play. The ones I didn't mention aren't exactly known for their robust AE to begin with, however.

yeah, but those are casters, with channeled aoe.
Look at other melees, a fury warrior have 2 different talents to increase their cleave dmg, a DK with howling blast can also do a lot of dmg (with talent like rime), the problem is that ret only has talent to buff single target dps, while anything else is left out. Things need to change, but it's not as simple to say "DS now does more dmg" as the spec would need to look at all the talents yet again, and change a lot of things.

[Palegod]

Oh I agree, but I long ago gave up on Blizzard listening to such things. Ret should be doing the same single target dps as fury too, given that both classes are hybrids, but good luck with that. Hell, think how the rogues must feel, since they're pure dps...

[ragingsoul]

Oh I agree, but I long ago gave up on Blizzard listening to such things. Ret should be doing the same single target dps as fury too, given that both classes are hybrids, but good luck with that. Hell, think how the rogues must feel, since they're pure dps...

we are farming ulduar 0 light at the moment, because ICC raid lockout are buged, and since Ulduar is pretty much 3 or 4 mobs aoe all the time (look at razorscale,korogan, auraiya, freya, thorim) + all the trash, it's so fustrating doing it as ret, omg. I was about to smash my computer tonight, as you feel worthless for almost all fights.
I gave up a long time ago too on seeing something decent for the release. Sure, they will change things for the next bigger patch, 3months after cata is out, but I'm not gonna be around when they will come for sure, as someone that was on alpha, beta, that saw all the problems, reported those problems, only to see that nothing is done and GC responses with "l2p issues still".. sad.

I just hope some of the ideas here or elsewhere can be taken so that people that will still play can enjoy the class more.

[Rio]

Switching Holy Wrath for another Single-Target ability is what I hope Blizz aims for in the future. Frost DK's also have Howling Blast (which is basically the old Ret t10 DS proc).. It's a bit of a pain for both classes since the devs are trying to focus on CC so much in Cata.

Also: Change our mastery to increase holy damage? Puuwweeeze?

[ragingsoul]

Switching Holy Wrath for another Single-Target ability is what I hope Blizz aims for in the future. Frost DK's also have Howling Blast (which is basically the old Ret t10 DS proc).. It's a bit of a pain for both classes since the devs are trying to focus on CC so much in Cata.

Also: Change our mastery to increase holy damage? Puuwweeeze?

no, it's not, it's a free single target OR aoe.

Your Obliterate has a 45% chance to cause your next Howling Blast or Icy Touch to consume no runes. Howling Blast is on a 8sec cd, so it's shorter than our old DS, but this talent makes a single target spell or aoe spell free, so CC isn't a problem even if it procs.

[Mugurama]

I really agree that our mastery is the worst mastery atm. needs to be modified to do something more useful than give a hopeful if random free TV.

Also We arent supposed to be AoEing anymore just single target and youll do fine.

[ragingsoul]

I really agree that our mastery is the worst mastery atm. needs to be modified to do something more useful than give a hopeful if random free TV.

at lvl 81 mastery is more than a free TV, it's also a way to refresh inquisition (or another way to see rng when trying to reset a buff).

Also We arent supposed to be AoEing anymore just single target and youll do fine.

yeah, then I suggest you remove recount and the likes if you do, only palas are not suppose to aoe anymore :P.

[Palegod]

I really agree that our mastery is the worst mastery atm. needs to be modified to do something more useful than give a hopeful if random free TV.

Ret mastery is bad and not something I would ever gear for intentionally--sadly L85 gear is going to be swimming in mastery for all classes whether you like it or not and the best you can do is reforge it away--but if you want to see truly awful go look at shadow priest mastery.

Also We arent supposed to be AoEing anymore just single target and youll do fine.

That's not what the design is like at 85 at all. Most AE abilities are junk now but that doesn't mean that people are going to only ever dps one target at a time. Ragingsoul is correct that ret paladins are among the very few specs that cannot do any sort of competitive multi-target damage at the moment.