If you were making ret, and you had the entire history of ret to pull from, how would you design the spec? What spells and abilities, what passives, what play style would you want? I think with the history of ret, there is a sweet spot. There is a combination of past and present that could make ret, at least its basic function, stable. Not having a complete overhaul every other year. I tried this on the official forums, but it went down a road I didnt think was constructive, so here we are on MMO-C, lets see what ya'll have to say.
TL;DR This is my thoughts on ret design. Tell me your combination of old and new that you would like to see.
I'm of the mind that pvp and pve in WoW are almost entirely incompatible, so all my suggestions are in the vein of pve only. Here is what I think would be best for ret:
1) I think the best change to ret, that really worked out well, is Holy Power. I would keep Holy Power at 5, and our most powerful abilities would consume 3-5 HP. Final/Templar's Verdict fits here as baseline. Justicar's Vengeance is something that I think fits good as a talent choice. There is room for it. Word of Glory also fits as a talent. It should be a strong heal.
2) I think Divine Purpose is a baseline ability. It has synergy with all the different HP consumers we have. Its integral to having HP as a resource. It is the main proc we have.
3) I think Seals are a part of paladin. I think there is value in having an AOE seal and a ST seal. Seal of Vengeance with a Censure dot for ST, and Righteousness for AOE. I think some form of seal swapping can separate average rets from good rets. Not the seal swapping talent of WoD, but there should be a payoff for good seal swapping. Censure would stack with auto attacks, CS, and Judgement. This also allows for good rets to separate themselves from average rets. Being able to run multiple stacks of Censure thru good Judgment use, obviously Judgment doesn't have a facing requirement. This allows for the decision making with what seal to use. Do I have time to make use of multiple dots, or is a quick AOE cleave in order?
4) I think having a talent choice for a Judgement is also good. A debuff that buffs melee dmg, or one that buffs caster dmg, or one that heals attackers, or something more creative like a Judgment of Sacrifice that redirects some aoe dmg off the raid onto the pally. IDK, get creative here. I think there is an interesting choice to be made their that fits your raid best. Obviously the tuning needs to be good on this, but I think its mainly a choice on who's in your raid. I think soemthing like this, soemthing that doesn't necessarily directly benefit the paladin, but helps the raid overall, fits with being a paladin.
5) Blessings or Hand spells are good paladin tools too. Sacrifice, Freedom, Protection, Might, Wisdom, Kings,...and some old ones too, like Sanctuary, and (in my ideal world threat is a bit more of an issue than it is today), Salvation could be useful. In fact, I think they should be situational. You don't buff and forget. But that all of these would have the function of Hand spells. Cast them when needed, not just as a passive. Call them what you want. I think there is room for creativity here in regards to turning the old school blessings into Hand-like spells. Maybe they never get used by most people. Maybe they don't have the biggest impact, but again, I think based on the fight, based on your raid comp, there are interesting choices to be made using Hand Spells...but they have to exist first in order to use them. I want to be able to help out my raid in a way more than just dmg. The fights are so different these days, often having times of no dps whatsoever, allow us to pitch in during these times. We are hybrid for a reason. We can't carry anything, but we can help out...and I think these spells allow for that.
6) Avenging Wrath is our defining trait. As ret, I think our niche is burst dmg. Sure, maybe we suffer on a fight or two where we can't make optimal use of our CDs. But on average, it will work itself out to be a solid dps spec. This is where Hammer of Wrath makes its comeback. When wings are up, HoW is useable and generates HP. I think having HoW as an execute is fine too, put it at 20%, 15% whatever you have to for tuning purposes. 2 minute AW means for most fights we get 3, some fights more. I think AW is another good spot for talent choices. I think this could be based on stats. Buffs you dmg and a secondary for the duration. Maybe youre a crit monster, maybe mastery is best, maybe its like Crusade and haste is best. I can foresee that maybe the choice for this row might not be incredibly interesting once we find our best secondary...but what I think it does is give room for change. Maybe from raid tier to raid tier, and from gear choice to gear choice, a different secondary will be better than the previous tier. It also allows for tuning. Easier to change one row of talents that are similar than to have to blow up the whole spec.
7) Big 5minute CD. This is another talent choice. It could be Guardian of Ancient Kings, or Seraphim, and something else. This is part of our burst niche. Again, its important for these to be competitive. GoAK gives a strength buff for a time, Seraphim gives a butt load of secondaries, maybe the third choice is a buff given to raid members. It could be cool that the paladin and a random dps get a cool buff at once. Something powerful, but its a long CD. 5min CD means most fights you get it once, the occasional fight you'll get it twice.
8) Standard rotation would make use of these standard spells: Judgement, Crusader Strike(generates 1 HP), Blade of Wrath (generates 2 HP, can proc resetting its cd through an Art of War passive) HoW(execute or thru AW, generates 1 HP), a ranged spell something like Holy Wrath or Exorcism (doesn't generate HP), and Consecration. Finishers are F/TV, JV, or DS...depending on the situation. This is a 5-7 button rotation. Not incredibly complex, but has some variation with procs and such.
9) Medium CDs. I think Execution Sentence, Holy Prism, or Hammer of Light is a good talent row to keep. Somewhere between 20-60 seconds on these. Use them based on fight/situation, adds a little something extra to the rotation but doesn't clog it up too much.
10) Movement. Pursuit of Justice baseline. Talents are things like like Divine Steed, or maybe a passive that can proc speed from Judgement, or one of those other ranged spells. A Long Arm of the Law type talent that would proc if you are out of melee or something. From an aesthetic perspective, maybe they change Divine Steed to a Falling Sword type spell, or a Tyrael's Sword spell...that could be really cool. Its the difference between a targeted spell or not. Pick three for the row!
This is not a comprehensive list. Plenty of things I left out. Like Mastery. What's our mastery do? Hand of Light seems too passive, tho I like the idea of doing extra Holy dmg to things. Our current mastery is obviously garbage and wouldnt fit in this world either. Plenty of discussion about passives and defensive cds can be had. Divine Protection, Shield of Vengeance, incentive to hurt ourselves to gain something? Other passives.
I'll stop here. Thanks for reading this far if you did.