I was just thinking how would it be to implement a secondary resource for retribution and how would it look like. My thoughts were about a resource similar to rage/runic power but still with a different feel to it. It would be called......yea u guest it "ZEAL"!!! I know it's not original but still it's very paladinish so it doesn't have any love-wise contradictions. I was thinking about "FAITH" as a resource but that sounded too much priest-like.
Anyways about it's mehanics: It would be a base scale ranging from 0-100 and it would start at 0 just like rage and RP. It could have some talents that would increase it's max amount just like RP and Energy for rogues. Magical attacks such as exorcism, consecration, holy shock and some other that might be implemented in cataclysm would still use mana but would generate Zeal for a fixed amount. Zeal would be also generated by autoattacks and partialy special physical attacks would give a small zeal refund if they managed to land on paladins target(just like rage oriented attacks).Auto attack Zeal gain would only depend on weapon base speed and not the damage dealt. In that way it is much easier to balance it for all levels of gear. Paladin would not gain Zeal when being hit. Attacks such as Crusader strike, Divine storm,Avengers Shield, SOR, HOR and abilities like Avenging Wrath would use Zeal as a resource. All other spells would still use mana, but with the introduction of secondary resource judgements of the wise would have to be scaled down since the new resource puts down the strain from paladins mana hungry dps rotation. Judgements would also generate zeal by default and would have no cost(just like warriors charge). Some hand spells might have some talent options to use Zeal instead of Mana but it that way they would become physical buffs. Also with the new resource introduction some physical attack cooldowns would have to be reconsidered and maybe Crusader strkie could be turned in to something more interesting(yea i said it....so clishe i know). Many other thing would have to be considered but i got tired of typing for now so i would like to hear your thoughts about it.
I never said Ret was "broken", it's just that i think it's not perfect. The problems i see with the ret are an uninteresting PvE rotation wich is FCFS oriented and requires almost no knowlege of the class meaning that someone who never played paladin could do almost the same dps like someone who has been playing it for years.
I am not beeing an elitist and calling people ZOMGNOOBZ and ZOMGPROZ but i just find it frustraiting that i am doing around 5.2k dps in raid and the guy that clearly has no clue about paladin class and seems semi retarded can do 5k dps. Ret NEEDS some synergy between its attacks and i thought that introducing the secondary resource that would work in a similar way other melee classes resources do would alow that kind of newly intoduced synergy. Ret needs more Attacks but with having mana and cooldown based non spamable attacks i doubt it can ever be done without having some other resource other than mana. SO to summ it up i don't think ret is broken i just think that mana resource makes it much harder to balance it's offensive utility and i feel it is holding the class development back.
I never said mana has to go, holy still needs to heal, i just said having a secondary resource which would be used for most offensive abilities and maybe some hands spells could be benefitial to the class.
On the other hand there is a question of the increased complexity that would appear if we consider PvP. Would having a real situation oriented DPS rotation with more procs and bigger attack diversity like other classes AND having a really big toolbox of the support spells, like you have now, that you would need to use to max out your PvP performanse be overpowered or just too hard to use?
I don't want ret to have other classes abilities i just want it to stop being a one trick pony with it's offensive toolbox. I just hope you realise this is not a post about class being broken, it's just a post about improving a class in the way of making it a bit less newbie friendly and giving it some more choices in it's offensive arsenal. And by doing that without a secondary, faster expendable and faster rejuvenable resource that you would have to watch for it would be just a spam-whatever-is-not-on-CD fest like it is right now. So in the end the entire point of the secondary resource would be to make class a bit more interesting and a bit more difficut to manage with a chance to differentiation of good and not-as-good players and not just to make it more flashy, cool, faceroll and what not.
Please be so kind to ignore my dreadful spelling and grammar since english is my third language and i am feeling a bit sleepy as i am writing this post.