[Ret Ideas] Reworking Retribution

[Vathius]

After all the changes to ret so far there is still see no real reason that I can see to bring one to competitive PVP.

Raising DPS and our healing isnt the fix that were looking for ( it is very much welcomed however ). Classes that are 'demanded' in pvp are classes that have unique abilities that other classes dont, eg Deathgrip, Solar beam, Powerful ranged dps, long lasting survivability eg Our biggest gripe as ret is that our holy brothers have all the tricks we have plus healing which is highly sought after.

Adding a utility to our empty belt to remove stuns would greatly improve our popularity in groups and give our spec line a niche on the battlefield. We once had this great ability and it was taken from us. Rets suffer enough from gap closing and to be stunned only further cripples us on the battlefield as a strong melee support class.

Ret paladins should be a class that if played correctly should ensure an easy victory through supporting others however if one chooses to go solo they can still excel on the battlefield in casting all there supportive spells on themselves instead.

I fail to see how giving this to ret paladins could break pvp when there are other broken classes running around with far superior abilities.

[KennyBoi3]

Light of the Battle Healer
Instant. 2 minute cooldown.
Empowers your weapon with the Light, causing your offensive special abilities to heal 2-3 party or raid members within 30 yards of the paladin for 50% of the damage dealt. This ability always prioritizes members with the lowest health. Lasts 15 seconds.

This ability would be the ideal answer to our toolkit. It basically ensures that we can protect our healers getting focused if we don't overextend, and also heal any melee that overextends. It would actually make many melee comps depend on us too to survive against a caster heavy setup.

[Guyviroth]

Very interesting patch note today.

Ret Paladins will now have Avenging Wrath as a 2min cooldown as baseline and not as a set bonus.

That's.... very nice. I like it coupled with Holy Avenger.

[DeathOfRa]

Very interesting patch note today.

Ret Paladins will now have Avenging Wrath as a 2min cooldown as baseline and not as a set bonus.

That's.... very nice. I like it coupled with Holy Avenger.

Did they revert back to our current 4-set bonus on the PvP set?

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Cata - AV 2 min.
MoP - AV 3 min.
Sorry guys we fucked up, AV back on 2 min cd.

Blizzard in a nutshell.

[truevalon]

Looking at the most recent patch and how classes that are already above ret paladin in damage get significant buffs to damage overall while paladins get what seems to me a dps increase of about 1.7% compared to the old AV I really have to ask if Blizzard are taking the paladin dps issues seriously at all. What they should be doing is increase the scaling of censure and SoT, increase the damage of crusader strike, have TV increase/reset the duration of inquisition, increase sword of light to 15%. All or any of the above would been to implement and help ret paladins greatly.

As someone that has played ret paladin since TBC it is sad to look back and see how rarely ret paladin has been in a good position and that the future really does not seem to change that perspective.

[dzomighty]

They should give us a passive thingy which reduces dmg taken while stunned and feared since it doesnt break in this game anymore.

[Nairobi]

Sigh. So apparently Fhi wants me to post this here. Even though the thread title was regarding Ret, it really applied to the entire class, as it was a Glyph suggestion, but whatever. Hopefully it gets some attention.

I was browsing the PTR forums as usual and ended up spinning an idea into something that I think could work well to help address some of the survival issues of Ret (and Prot) in PVP. The post is here but I wanted to run it by you folks to see if I was totally off my rocker, or if this would be desirable to you.

Unless you're a Holy Paladin, Divine Shield aka Bubble is largely useless, at least in PVP. Let me say that I play as Prot with a Ret OS, and I still find tons of uses for it in PVE as prot and ret, but outside of the PVE world it's lackluster. It's an antiquated ability that's somehow hung on for 8 years and drug the class down each expansion. It's been nerfed over and over, and become easier to counter, all while still being a cornerstone that the class is "balanced" around.

The fact that Holy can heal to full inside a bubble makes it "OP" to 1300 players. Any meaningful PVP sees bubble/HoP dispel'd nearly instantly. Even if you're facing a team that can't dispel it, as a ret you can heal for MAYBE 75k (2 FoL's) before OOM inside the bubble. Bubble works great for Holy, and I'd like to leave it in for them, but it really falls short for Prot/Ret.

What I wouldn't give to have a REAL defensive CD as Ret. What I wouldn't give to be able to use an iconic ability as Prot without dropping the flag. Bubble has been holding the class back in terms of balance, as you admitted to with the "we want to move away from full immunity abilities" comments. Well, here's a way to do just that...

My suggestion is this:

Create a glyph that replaces Divine Shield as a cooldown with something remiscent of Cata's Sacred Shield.

Glyph of Divine Shielding: Passive; when an attack reduces your health below X% max health, you gain an absorb shield equal to Y% of your AP/SP, and healing received while shielded is increased by Z%, lasting for W seconds, or until the shield is consumed. Replaces Divine Shield. ICD of 90-120 sec.

This would give an actual PVP defensive for ret/prot. This would be a meaningful choice that alters a key and functional ability of the class. This would be an interesting and situationally useful Glyph (in a sea of ones that are not).

You could make it so that the max value of the shield is capped at some amount (to prevent Vengeance cheesing in PVE), but this would make for an amazing CHOICE ability for the non-Holy folks out there. Intelligent use of WOG/FoL during the shield allows for recovery after being trained. Obviously, W, X, Y, and Z are knobs you can turn to tune the strength of this, but I'd strongly request that the effect be undispellable to make it usable/functional as intended in PVP. You could even keep the "reduced damage by 50% while effect is active" penalty and Forbearance proc if you want. We just want options.

Any thoughts or feelings? Would you use this option, and if so, as what spec and in what situations?

[rafaelslx]

Amazing new glyph

Glyph of Magic Protection (Retribution Only )
Hand of Protection is now immune to magic attacks instead of physical. You can not use magic attacks instead of physical.

[Valedus]

I would use that a million times over instead of Divine Shield, assuming the shield was actually a good amount. No more getting the only real defensive CD shattered, it'd be passive so proc in stuns, and could actually go off while flag carrying.

[Vanderhuge]

Despite being out of the game for some time now (can't really devote the time to raiding or PVP to keep up right now), I'm still going to stick to my old ideas and keep saying that DP needs to be a baseline Paladin ability (adjusting the numbers for each spec), and just replacing it with a cooldown. Since nobody ever wants GoAK to be dropped and made into a talent, here's another suggestion:

Empowered Judgments - Grants an additional effect to Judgment, depending on the currently activated Seal. This ability also forces a 20 second CD on Seals when used. Empowered Judgments has a 30 second cooldown.

Seal of Truth: Applies 5 stacks of Censure to the target. If the target is at 5 stacks, Judgment will deal additional damage.
Seal of Righteousness: Judgment's damage will be applied to all targets within 8 yards of the initial target. For each additional target hit, the cooldown of Empowered Judgments will be reduced by one second.
Seal of Justice (Current): Judgment will root the target in place for 6 seconds.
Seal of Justice (PTR): Judgment applies three stacks of Justice to the target.
Seal of Insight: Judgment applies Focused Insight on the target, healing any allies who hit the target with attacks and spells. Lasts for 5 seconds.

As they stand right now, Seals and Judgments are fairly boring and straightforward. As some have said, it's probably just best to scrap the idea, but this takes it in a different direction to give Paladins some form of uniqueness in the game.

[Valedus]

Despite being out of the game for some time now (can't really devote the time to raiding or PVP to keep up right now), I'm still going to stick to my old ideas and keep saying that DP needs to be a baseline Paladin ability (adjusting the numbers for each spec), and just replacing it with a cooldown. Since nobody ever wants GoAK to be dropped and made into a talent, here's another suggestion:

Empowered Judgments - Grants an additional effect to Judgment, depending on the currently activated Seal. This ability also forces a 20 second CD on Seals when used. Empowered Judgments has a 30 second cooldown.

Seal of Truth: Applies 5 stacks of Censure to the target. If the target is at 5 stacks, Judgment will deal additional damage.
Seal of Righteousness: Judgment's damage will be applied to all targets within 8 yards of the initial target. For each additional target hit, the cooldown of Empowered Judgments will be reduced by one second.
Seal of Justice (Current): Judgment will root the target in place for 6 seconds.
Seal of Justice (PTR): Judgment applies three stacks of Justice to the target.
Seal of Insight: Judgment applies Focused Insight on the target, healing any allies who hit the target with attacks and spells. Lasts for 5 seconds.

As they stand right now, Seals and Judgments are fairly boring and straightforward. As some have said, it's probably just best to scrap the idea, but this takes it in a different direction to give Paladins some form of uniqueness in the game.

I really like that idea. I always miss the old system of seal/judge and kinda wish we could have a more modern, updated version. This looks like the basis for that.

[Shelly]

Really to Blizz paladin DPS is fine because our utility is very high. Not really our off-heals but our utility, hand of sacrifice, talents like hand of purity, lower raid damage CD all that stuff.

Since everyone would pitch the mother of all fits if they say got rid of wings or even guardian at this point, what utility would you be willing to give up - possibly just to the ret-spec - to gain DPS.

That said I'd like for either or single target dps to increase - pretty easy to tune that in with just buffs to sword of light or crusader strike, or TV or any of our other single target attacks. OR I'd like our AoE DPS to increase which would be even simpler - all they need to do is make censure spread with hammer of the righteous and make hammer a PBAoE like Divine Storm rather than a targeted one.

[iadamson]

I've been checking in on this thread here and there, and what I can say is it seems like Ret Paladin's need more then just reworking. It would seem it would need to be completely gutted and over hauled. With that in mind, I think that corresponds with GC's responses of "We don't know what to do about ret paladins" I'm thinking GC and his team realize they need to change the class but it's going to require a little more than simple reworks. I wouldn't expect to see anything to truly appease the ret community until the next expansion.

[nyc81991]

I've been checking in on this thread here and there, and what I can say is it seems like Ret Paladin's need more then just reworking. It would seem it would need to be completely gutted and over hauled. With that in mind, I think that corresponds with GC's responses of "We don't know what to do about ret paladins" I'm thinking GC and his team realize they need to change the class but it's going to require a little more than simple reworks. I wouldn't expect to see anything to truly appease the ret community until the next expansion.

See I think this is one the major things that is wrong with WoW at the moment. Blizzard has this thing where if a class isn't in a good spot and needs major changes for some reason they need to "wait" untill the next expansion to do anything.

With that mind state it could literally take 100 expansions before every class is in a "good" spot.

[Krekko]

See I think this is one the major things that is wrong with WoW at the moment. Blizzard has this thing where if a class isn't in a good spot and needs major changes for some reason they need to "wait" untill the next expansion to do anything.

With that mind state it could literally take 100 expansions before every class is in a "good" spot.

This statement reminds me of Elemental Shamans and their lack of dynamic appeal.


At first my thoughts were "Next Patch! We'll get some updates/fixes!" the next patch would come, then next patch and nothing. It soon became "Next Expansion We'll get fixed!" then we passed through WotLK and I thought "Cataclysm has Thrall at the center of it! Cata will be OUR Expansion!" Cata comes and goes and still nothing major, only baby steps. "MoP? Nope, not even hoping this time", once again baby steps taken because only thing that changes are with expansion release now.


This beckons the question.


If you were PROMISED an 100% Guaranteed overhaul of the Spec in the next expansion but off the premise you'd receive almost no attention throughout the current expansion, would you or would you not take the opportunity?

I guess what It'd better be is; Would you rather them put their resources into a complete overhaul using the current expansion time and resources otherwise allotted to band-aiding problems in addition to the next expansion's time and resources, or get them band-aiding through the current expansion and just giving you a chance of an overhaul the next?

Just a russian roulette question. Resource allocation is not managed in this way but if it was 1 way or the other I've always wondered what people would choose.

[catablitz]

Playstyle wise the class is in the best spot that it has ever been, at least in my opinion. No band-aid fixes are needed neither one more overhaul but rather some number tweaking. You dont't want to risk breaking what is now working.

Actually I don't quite get why would you have to choose one of these options. The resources management previous to any expansion are not extracted from those during the existing one for a serious company. This rule doesn't apply from patch to patch though.

[Neldarie]

^ What he said. I do feel however that changes to fillers could be made to have a 100% garanteed gain for using correct one that is up, which does not depend on the current set bonuses and does affect the dps outcome more than it currently does.

But ye AoE is very dire and we're prolly the only class outside of enh shamans maybe? that doesn't have any passive AoE buffers (diseases/dots/etc).

[Krekko]

You dont't want to risk breaking what is now working.

This is what I was most curious about. Semantically at least.

I believe that while things do need some fixing here and there, that the class is in the best position it's been in ever, in regards to playstyle and how it flows. As well as options. While I do miss some lost aspects, I won't let nostalgia blind now.

BUT

At the prospect of an entire overhaul of the spec/class (while maintaining the same trees/specs) I really think curiosity has got the best of me.

I think that if they were to start from the ground up and see what they could do they could pump something great out without several restrictions they have now, I personally would be willing to bet on that.

[Minaa]

so i want to ask 1 thing do u think whatever we will say here blizz will care

I'm not a negative guy or want to underestimate the Thread i am just asking

from the first day in wow and i played ret pally and i can't play with any other class

right now i dont play wow at all coz i know if i log in i will do nothing i can't join RBG coz ret is not welcome

so again do u think blizz care about us can we make something