~Retribution & How it can be Improved Going Forward~

[Marsc92]

Before I get started, This discussion is for Retribution ONLY

My Intentions here are solely to discuss my thoughts on how Retribution can be improved from in terms of fixing quality of life issues and address ability bloat without hurting the spec's depth. Keep in mind, none of my criticism's are related to balance itself, I don't believe Paladin's are imbalanced, so when I refer to something as weak, its more feel rather than realistic numbers.[/I]

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GCD:
Reduce our GCD down to 1s. At current, I feel the GCD issue hinders your output (Talking from a design perspective rather than balance) too much during CD phases where several damaging abilities are available. I feel its simply bad design to put players in a position where all their strongest spells are available at once but can't be capitalised on. It feels bad and isn't justifiable. If balance is an issue, then numbers deserve to be tweaked elsewhere.

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Seals:
At the moment they don't feel good. Whilst this issue isn't specific to Paladins (DK Presences are in a similar state), it doesn't mean it shouldn't be addressed.

I propose that the seals are reduced to 3, one for each spec. The 2 seals not assigned to your spec become semi powerful cooldowns.

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Seal of Insight:
Holy:
Increases casting speed by 10% and restores X mana on crit.

Protection/Retribution:
1 Minute Cooldown
Removes the Paladin's current Seal to empower the Paladin's damaging spells to heal for x% of all damage dealt for 15 seconds.

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Seal of Truth:
Retribution:
The Paladin's attacks and damaging spells apply Censure, dealing X damage over time and stacking up to 5. Censure also increases holy damage taken by Y%.

Protection/Holy:
1 Minute Cooldown
Removes the Paladin's current Seal to empower all single target damaging abilities to deal X% increased holy damage and restore Y% Mana for 15 seconds.

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Seal of Righteousness:
Protection:
The Paladin's attacks and damaging spells deal X% additional damage to all surrounding targets.

Retribution/Holy:
1 Minute Cooldown
Removes the Paladin's current Seal to empower all single target damaging and healing spells to deal additional x% holy damage or x% healing to surrounding targets for 15 seconds.
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Crusader Strike:
Whilst mentioned in the previously linked thread already, this spell should have its CD removed entirely, even if it means lowering its damage. With melee specs already experiencing more downtime in fights than ranged (as a result of having to move out of fire, etc), I feel there is less reason to leave our non-burst phases in such a slow, boring and plain weak state.

Hammer of the Righteous:
Just remove this spell and leave it for Protection Paladins. I don't think many Ret Paladin's like it and its not very exciting or interesting.

Holy Wrath:
Give it (Back) to Ret. Is worth casting at 3 or more targets. Short CD, generates Holy Power ONLY if it hits 3 or more targets.

Consecration:
Give it back to Ret. 15s CD, 8s Duration, let it not actually be strong itself but debuffs the target allowing Divine Storm to deal increased damage.

Divine Storm:
Let it cost 1 Holy Power and apply 1 stack of Censure to all targets (Regardless of whether Seal of Truth is active). (Allows a SoR > Cons > HW > DS > CS > DS > CS > DS type rotation.

Judgment:
Give it a higher CD, when damaging targets with 5 stacks of Censure the target becomes 'Damned' receiving increased holy damage. (This feels nice in terms of class favour, Censure is an expression of disapproval, so when its stacked and you judge the target, they become damned, its a concept that makes sense gameplay wise and thematically)

Exorcism:
Let it replace Denounce (The holy only spell) and become baseline for all paladins. Give it a cast time AND remove its CD/Holy Power Generation whilst buffing damage a bit, (allowing for ranged spam if needed to retain some DPS when you can't be in melee range).

Allow this to also replace cleanse. When casted on friendly targets, it doesn't have a cast time and if it dispels something, it triggers a CD (Much like dispels do already)

This way the spell now feels really cool and situational on all classes as a damage tool but also functions as a cleanse. For holy, it will help address ability bloat too and lets the spell do more of what it says it does.

Art of War:
Let it remove the cast time on Exorcism and allow it to generate holy power on the next cast. Allow AoW to proc off Censure and auto attacks though at a reduced rate when Censure is active on several targets.

This means when spamming Exo at range, they can stack Censure and still allow for some AoW procs.

Inquisition:
Remove it. We have an AoE Holy Power spell, a Single Target, and a self healing spell. We don't need a 4th holy power consumer. It doesn't feel good, Censure should feel like a ramp up mechanic, we dont need this.

Avenging Wrath/GoAK:
Next patch, both spells will have a 3m CD and will be stacked by all specs. Its unnecessary. Just combine them into one spell.

Vengeance of Ancient Kings:

Essentially it summons the Guardian and gives you wings as well combining and consolidating the two spells visually.

It should however function like the Holy Avenger talent generating 3HP per HP generating spell.

Single Target Rotation simples becomes: CS > TV > CS > TV > CS > TV replacing CS with HoW (when off CD below 35% HP) or Exo (during AoW procs)

AoE Rotation becomes: SoR > Cons > HW > DS*3 > CS/Exo/HoW > DS*3 > CS/Exo/HoW > DS*3


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Talents:
Tier 5 should be removed entirely due to the above changes.

The talents should be simple, and all competitive, but all change the spec's rotation considerably.

Some suggestions for replacement talents:

Crusader's Conviction:
Allows every second Crusader Strike (Ret), HotR (Prot) and Holy Shock (Holy) to generate 2 HP (This is naturally a big deal for everyone, downside is that it will not function during the VotAK cooldown)

Judicator's Judgment:
Reduces the CD on Judgment by 3s (to 12s CD) and causes Judgment to always generate 2 additional holy power (Justified by the CD, thats 5HP during VotAK though) and allows AoW (And Prot/Holy procs) to occur more frequently.

Vindicator's Vengeance:
Templar's Verdict, Divine Storm, Shield of the Righteous, Word of Glory and Light of Dawn all have a chance to consume no holy power whilst all holy power generating spells have a chance to generate an addition holy power.


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Conclusion:

This essentially adds depth to Ret spec without adding extra buttons. The AoE rotation is VASTLY different to the single target rotation and during the suggested VotAK cooldown, the rotations change further temporarily.

It removes frustrating aspects such as Inquisition and adds extra skill into the increased need to make decisions and absolutely optimise time spent in melee range (due to CS spam) whilst offering better players ways to mitigate DPS loss via Exorcism.

The rotation will feel more fluid and the level 75 talents offer differing playstyles that make you choose between high theoretical dps, higher realistic dps and potentially higher DPS if you can react quickly to RNG.

Being a discussion thread, post what YOU want to see done to Ret Spec.

[Shelly]

Prot and Holy would be against combining GoAK with Wings.

The deal with CS having a CD associated with it is:
1) It generates HP.
2) It makes Haste a more worthwhile stat
3) Melee already have auto-attack on bosses so we don't actually lose all that much in the way of DPS when moving as long as we remain within melee range.

Really dislike cleanse being boiled into exorcism. Maybe you love making macros but I kinda dislike it and being able to just cleanse myself or a teammate quickly and often without changing targets is important.

I kind of like your seal idea but you're creating ability bloat with it.

As for getting rid of inquisition, everyone's in agreement.

[Aeula]

I'd like to see GoAK turned into a perminant pet whose attacks cause inquisition to be applied to the target, making them take up to 30% more holy damage this ofcourse gets rid of our current inquisition.

His damage would replace seal of truths censure, and seal of truth and that seal that slows enemy speed are merged into seal of retribution which increases holy damage dealt by 15% and decreases the speed of enemies hit by the paladin by 50% but without censure.

The pets attack would also heal the player for 50% of the damage dealt.
Also he will get a short range teleport allowing him to teleport short distances to the target.

Several minor glyphs would change the guardian's appearance and a major glyph would cause his attacks to slow enemies movement speed by 30%.

[Marsc92]

Prot and Holy would be against combining GoAK with Wings.

The deal with CS having a CD associated with it is:
1) It generates HP.

In the Case of Prot, it replaces HotR on single target anyway, both generate it, its not an issue. It's a defensive CD due to being able to WoG and SotR more often.

In the Case of Holy, just remove the ability for CS to do this whilst in holy spec.
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2) It makes Haste a more worthwhile stat

Then tweak elsewhere. If we're getting a GCD reduction, then dont let haste further affect it, or alter the value of haste elsewhere. Alternatively make other stats worth more. I think its hard to really make a statement when I'm suggesting a change of function without numbers.
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3) Melee already have auto-attack on bosses so we don't actually lose all that much in the way of DPS when moving as long as we remain within melee range.

Plenty of fights incorporate mechanics where melee spend smaller periods of time not attacking anything. Regardless the fact that this cooldown ALREADY exists in the game and isn't even a good pick up is an example of the fact that the concept isn't OP. Especially during burst phases, you can almost always have access to a HP generating spell so the argument that a removed CD on CS would make it too strong is moot.
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Really dislike cleanse being boiled into exorcism. Maybe you love making macros but I kinda dislike it and being able to just cleanse myself or a teammate quickly and often without changing targets is important.

Fair point. I have no real love for macros though. I feel if you need/can macro stuff together then Blizzard needs to better their design. Just an opinion though. But yea, not necessary, this is more just to improve ability bloat whilst catering to class flavour.
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I kind of like your seal idea but you're creating ability bloat with it.

Not really. In ret on live, you still use SoI for self healing very situationally and SoR for AoE (sometimes), these changes may change the frequency you use those spells but both will remain situational and remove the need to switch back by turning them into CDs.

Considering we're dropping HotR + AW + Inq to gain Cons + HW, we've actually dropped 1 ability.

[Clash the DK]

@ Marsc92

I really wouldn't want to see Paladins given a 1 sec gcd. I have a DK and a Rogue and both of those already offer that type of fast paced gameplay. DKs specifically, due to their outrageous amount of abilities per second, are extremely hard on your finger joints. I'm not a young gamer any more and after a long raid session on the DK, my fingers are usually in pain. So, my first reason against it is the basic homogenization argument. And the second reason is preservation of my gaming future.

[Timmos]

As Ret paladin since 2.3. I would Fix up DS/HotR. It just feel weird for me. Going to CS on normal keybind to weird mod key binding for those two aoe.

[Nobleshield]

As Ret paladin since 2.3. I would Fix up DS/HotR. It just feel weird for me. Going to CS on normal keybind to weird mod key binding for those two aoe.

Ironically I never had this problem with Ret, perhaps because I had gotten used to Rift's Warrior (Attack Points are similar to Holy Power) and the idea of having a single target/aoe builder and a single target/aoe finisher. I originally had bound the keys like follows: CS = 1, TV = 2, HotR = 3, DS = 4 so 1/3 were builders and 2/4 were finishers (holdover from how I did my keybinds in Rift). I still use that but I ended up changing WoG to 4 and DS to a mod key because WoG is bound to 4 as Prot and it was harder to remember what I had put WoG on for Ret since I mostly played Prot. I ended up changing DS to Shift+D (Consecration as Prot) since my mind processed it as "An AOE ability that you use infrequently" since DS only gets used with like 3+ mobs.

But most of my keybinds follow that train of thought e.g. an ability that I use frequently is on an easy to reach key, something infrequent gets bound to a modifier key or something out of the way but still feasible like Z or X (as Prot, bound to Divine Shield and Ardent Defender, respectively).

[ipoststuff]

Id like to see inquisition baked into wog. Whenever you cast wog you gain inq for 20/40/60 seconds. We wouldnt be using 3 hopo and a gcd on just a short duration buff and i think it fits ret spec to heal in combat sometimes.

[Krekko]

Just a personal suggestion to add to Consecration, before the damage on the ground starts, I'd have an outward burst, to break stealth so we have a targetless, HPless on demand AoE.

I'm definitely down for giving up HotR for Consecration, to me consecration just adds so much more interest to the class/spec than HotR does, and has so much more potential.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Really think they should add Consecration as a talent to paladins instead of light's hammer (make it do the same thing as lights hammer for holy paladins) but make it something you can keep up all the time if you want to, Light's Hammer is so fucking garbage for ret it's insane, not much better for prot...

[Krekko]

While I wouldn't mind it being talented, in theory, in Practice I'd still rather see it replace HotR.

I'd like to see Light's Hammer reworked, I find it a super cool spell and it looks great too! I'd hate to see it gone. I think there's a bunch that can be done with it.

[Deleted]

I am not sure how to improve retri, but inquisition needs to be removed or changed. Its generally bad design that there are spells that need to be there, but offer no choice or anything. Inquisition as it is, is just dull.

[Vash The Stampede]

For the most part, I don't expect Blizzard to go into 6.0 with massive changes for Paladins. I expect there to be a reduction in spell bloat, like most classes will receive. I expect there to be new spells, like most classes. But what I really expect is there to be massive talent changes. Especially for Paladins, since each spec seems to favor certain talents then other specs. For example, Holy Paladins love Eternal Flame while Protection likes Sacred Shield. A lot of these talents were really badly thought out, as it was for most classes, and I expect a major overhaul.

I don't expect too much in Paladin 6.0. I would really be excited if Blizzard went back to the old Diablo 2 talent system, but that'll never happen.

[nightfalls]

GCD: Honestly, the GCD is fine as is. Sanctity of Battle is a great compromise between 1.5 locked and 1.0 locked GCD, and I would prefer it stay that way.

Seals: First of all, your "removes current seal to apply new effect" is simply not fun. You pop a cooldown because it gives you increased power, not because it decreases your power here to increase your power there. That said both seals and stances are really a DPS thing. I don't get why Monk stances are the way they are, for that matter, because DPS monks do not have access to either the tank or heal stance, which defeats the purpose of having stances. So the seal system should really be designed around Ret only, with Prot and Holy fine being relegated to their seal (whether both are SoI or Prot goes SoR or something).

I don't know how I feel about Ret having a single target and AoE seal, I think it's a little bland especially with the GCD to switch making doing so not worth it very often. I do like Seal of Insight and think it can go farther as Ret's "defensive stance" Seal. Not sure where Seal of Justice comes in, but it could serve its worth as an instant damage/PvP seal... maybe?

Making the seals minor cooldowns is semi-interesting and a fuckton of ability bloat and micromanagement. Not sure how I feel about that (ideally I think one thing to fix Shaman ability bloat for instance is to make minor totems like HST just last 5 minutes again).

Tier 5 talents: Your T5 talents are actually quite interesting. I'd rather see each spec get HP generation tied to its unique abilities, so Avenger's Shield, Holy Shock, and Exorcism. Exorcism I think could use quite a facelist for Ret.

Bloat: One thing, I would rather just remove HoW from Prot and from Holy and make it Ret only. I am against removing most of the other abilities though at least not without substantial replacements for them.

[Vathius]

Lights Hammer baseline, tweaked to 45 sec CD plus the first impact of the hammer causes initial burst damage then X damage over the duration of the spell.

Consecration replaces Lights hammer as a chosen talent lasts 8 seconds with No CD. Heals party members but damages enemies for X amount in the area.

HOTR Prot only

Hammer of Wrath 3 seconds during Avenging Wrath as baseline.- Sanctified Wrath lasts X longer based on players Haste.

When activated - HA radiates healing energy to all players including the paladin within 30 yards for X amount.

hand of freedom removes stun effects once again.