Retribution Dragonflight Talents

[Celvira]

Haven't seen a thread for this, so I thought I'd start one. Outside of a few grievances (such as needing to be level 26 to unlock an interrupt and an inability to buff the defensive aspects of Shield of Vengeance) I'm actually pleasantly surprised at the possible options presented to us. Being able to spec into Blessing of Spellwarding, a potential proc-heavy playstyle with Ashes to Dust, Divine Purpose, and Blade of Wrath, tons of improved utility given to underwhelming spells such as Consecration, and LONG ARM THE LAW IS BACK.

Long Arm of the Law, along with the passive movement speed increase bundled with Blessing of Freedom and the talents to buff Divine Steed with an additional charge and a 5s duration, will hopefully kill the stereotype of Paladin perpetually being one of the, if not the, slowest classes in the game. This last point alone is such a monumental victory for the spec that words cannot hope to describe the levels of euphoria every ret main will feel upon discovering such a cherished talent has been returned to us.

Anyone else cautiously excited for the Retribution tree shown so far?

https://www.wowhead.com/beta/talent-...ibution/BBEAAA

[Stormdash]

I won't lie, seeing Long Arm of the Law back made me smile

[Kalisandra]

It's so incredibly weak though. +20% move for 2s is pathetic (yes, it was the MoP version's bonus) - I'd rather the old PoJ (a flat +15% increase), or even better than MoP PoJ (+15% +5% per Holy Power, though HP capped at three back then).

As for us being really immobile, that's entirely on Blizzard killing our mobility in Legion and at the same time killing our ability to do any real damage outside of melee range. Ret from late-Cata through MoP and WoD was not low mobility. Not very fast, but hard to stop, and not super-slow either. Hell, even in BC and WotLK Ret wasn't that slow thanks to the good sustained movement Pursuit of Justice gave, especially combined with Freedom in a time when roots and snares weren't ubiquitous.

We're slow now because we have a stupid pony on a longish cooldown that's on the GCD and has no snare suppression (unlike DK and Enhance abilities, for example), meaning it usually needs two GCDs to use as you have to hit Freedom as well. Even now with two charges and 6s or more from that conduit it's mostly useful for quick movement in dungeons when out of combat. A hate the thing so much, and having to spend four talent points to get full value from it in the current DS talent build is pretty bad.

Actually, there are a number of talents like that in the Ret and Pally trees, where you have to spend a lot of points to get value from something. They should probably be consolidated so they cost 1-2 points all up rather than 3+.

There's a lot fo good stuff in the Ret tree, but there's a lot of stuff that feels like Torghast powers, where they just amp something a little bit and it's not until you have a full run's worth of them (or in this case the full tree) that they feel at all good. The other classes talents stand on their own more, or add something cool to an ability. There's some of that in our tree, but it need more of that and less filler.

[Stormdash]

It's so incredibly weak though. +20% move for 2s is pathetic.

Being completely disinterested in PVP in basically every context, though, I've always missed it because I was able to make very effective use of it in movement heavy raid encounters. I find DS a bit "much" visually, but I do love getting to have both.

[Kalisandra]

Being completely disinterested in PVP in basically every context, though, I've always missed it because I was able to make very effective use of it in movement heavy raid encounters. I find DS a bit "much" visually, but I do love getting to have both.

Oh, it was nice, but the MoP version was weak. The Cata version (+45% speed, 4s, only triggers when 15+ yards away from the target) was much stronger, if a little harder to use.

Again, I miss the MoP/WoD mobility talent row - you could have your sprint (basically the pony without the sfx), have your LAotL, or your PoJ as you chose. Sure we can have two now, but making the pony not suck totally is a lot of talent points.

[Stormdash]

I don't know if it's enough for me to buy DF or just let my re-sub lapse again, but the talent trees definitely had some potential to mess around with.

[Demsi]

Ret is still a wheelchair spec, Long arm is 20% ms with 2 sec duration and divine steed needs 4 points for it to be useful

[threads]

long arm sucks atm lol. in wod it had 50% uptime because judgement was a 6 sec cd AND it was 45% speed for 3 sec. now its 2 sec at 20% and jugement is 12 sec so its barely noticeable.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Haven't seen a thread for this, so I thought I'd start one. Outside of a few grievances (such as needing to be level 26 to unlock an interrupt and an inability to buff the defensive aspects of Shield of Vengeance) I'm actually pleasantly surprised at the possible options presented to us. Being able to spec into Blessing of Spellwarding, a potential proc-heavy playstyle with Ashes to Dust, Divine Purpose, and Blade of Wrath, tons of improved utility given to underwhelming spells such as Consecration, and LONG ARM THE LAW IS BACK.

Long Arm of the Law, along with the passive movement speed increase bundled with Blessing of Freedom and the talents to buff Divine Steed with an additional charge and a 5s duration, will hopefully kill the stereotype of Paladin perpetually being one of the, if not the, slowest classes in the game. This last point alone is such a monumental victory for the spec that words cannot hope to describe the levels of euphoria every ret main will feel upon discovering such a cherished talent has been returned to us.

Anyone else cautiously excited for the Retribution tree shown so far?

https://www.wowhead.com/beta/talent-...ibution/BBEAAA

The ret tree is okay but the base paladin tree is a disaster. WAY too many dps talents!

To get all the dps increases, you will miss out on cleanse/bosac and possibly others. It's crazy! these are core paladin abilities.

They need to scale back on the DPS boosts in the core tree and make it more about functionality.

- - - Updated - - -

Ret is still a wheelchair spec, Long arm is 20% ms with 2 sec duration and divine steed needs 4 points for it to be useful

Related to my above comment, you can't even take the extra points in horse without missing out on dps lol

I really hope this is a first draft because the core tree needs a LOT of work

[Demsi]

The ret tree is okay but the base paladin tree is a disaster. WAY too many dps talents!

To get all the dps increases, you will miss out on cleanse/bosac and possibly others. It's crazy! these are core paladin abilities.

They need to scale back on the DPS boosts in the core tree and make it more about functionality.

- - - Updated - - -



Related to my above comment, you can't even take the extra points in horse without missing out on dps lol

I really hope this is a first draft because the core tree needs a LOT of work

Oh yeah i'm well aware of it, there's so many mandatory talents that there's hardly any points left to spend on utility

[Celvira]

A blue response mentioned Divine Steed’s base tooltip forget to include the CD reduction so it’ll be 45 seconds when the expansion launches. As others have pointed out, we’ve had better mobility in the past, but these are promising steps in the right direction.

[Palapop]

I'm disappointed tbh. Even tho I expected pretty much what we got.
My HOPES tho were:

1. remove Blades of Justice and replace it with Exorcism (yeah, I know we got Exorcism back, but it's not the same)

2. remove Wake of ashes and replace it with HOLY WRATH (would grant 5 holy power, dealing dmg in all directions. more like arms artifact ability (forgot actual spell name)) - still stuns demons and undead

3. remove Divine steed COMPLETELY. Just please, finally remove that GCD "sprint" which is beyond useless. instead, give us talent which will give us +60% movement speed when using Hand of Freedom + make us immune to movement impairing effects (would work the similar way monks Tiger's lust works now)

4. Crusader strike just 1 charge and 3.5 sec base cd. add: empowered Crusader strike talent (2 pts): lowers CD of crusaders strike by 0.5, 1 sec and increases its dmg by 10, 20%

5. lower judgement cd to 4-6 sec MOST

these top 5 changes are just ones that came from "tip of my thoughts".
Basically, I'd like to have MOP (5.4) ret back with few slight differences.

our spec feels soooooooo damn same since Legion.... its not even fun to play it anymore


Also, about people saying that we have exorcism back and stuff like that....
I mean... talent tree looks punishing AF. and our rotation seems to have MANY buttons...

crusader strike, judgement, blades of justice, wake of ash, execution sentence (MUST play), templars verdict, final verdict.... etc, etc, etc....

looks a bit clunky tbh.
ah and yeah- divine toll is crap now (I'll remind you that we don't have "empowered" divine toll by conduits. it's just base ability we got on lvl 50 now).

seems like we're back to 1 min cannon which requires 15ish GCDs to setup 5-8 sec burst window. sadness

[Zergy]

3. remove Divine steed COMPLETELY. Just please, finally remove that GCD "sprint" which is beyond useless. instead, give us talent which will give us +60% movement speed when using Hand of Freedom + make us immune to movement impairing effects (would work the similar way monks Tiger's lust works now)

Instead of removing it completely, I'd make that talent a choice between Divine Steed(with it having either having 2 charges or extra duration by default) and Pursuit of Justice then on the next line one talent makes you free autocast BoF if it's available when you use DS and a second talent for PoJ's old extra speed from Holy Power.

[Celvira]

execution sentence (MUST play), templars verdict, final verdict.... etc, etc, etc....

ah and yeah- divine toll is crap now (I'll remind you that we don't have "empowered" divine toll by conduits. it's just base ability we got on lvl 50 now).

seems like we're back to 1 min cannon which requires 15ish GCDs to setup 5-8 sec burst window. sadness

It is too early to say if Execution Sentence is going to be mandatory. Hell, even Icy Veins right now suggests using Zeal over ES due to how our tier set functions, and all of the tier sets bonuses are available within the new tree, meaning the relative DPS for each playstyle should more or less be the same. Granted the new talent to buff ES's duration could prove to be a huge game-changer, but Blizzard loves to nerf ES when it is powerful, which is something to keep in mind as the alpha continues.

And Divine Toll's tooltip isn't final according to a blue tweet - https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic...back-paladins/

[Palapop]

Instead of removing it completely, I'd make that talent a choice between Divine Steed(with it having either having 2 charges or extra duration by default) and Pursuit of Justice then on the next line one talent makes you free autocast BoF if it's available when you use DS and a second talent for PoJ's old extra speed from Holy Power.

That's still 1 extra GCD which is a bit over the top for our current play-style. ESPECIALLY in pvp.

At least that's my opinion. Having talented HOF would give you same effect as steed + make you immune to movement impairing effects.

And just 1 click.

It is too early to say if Execution Sentence is going to be mandatory. Hell, even Icy Veins right now suggests using Zeal over ES due to how our tier set functions, and all of the tier sets bonuses are available within the new tree, meaning the relative DPS for each playstyle should more or less be the same. Granted the new talent to buff ES's duration could prove to be a huge game-changer, but Blizzard loves to nerf ES when it is powerful, which is something to keep in mind as the alpha continues.

And Divine Toll's tooltip isn't final according to a blue tweet - https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic...back-paladins/

You can't consider their opinion now because in DF we will have our tier set knitted into talent tree. We still dont know whats our next tier set bonus.

Ty for Divine toll link I didnt know that. And tbh... I really, REALLY wish we could leave that 1 behind

[Snowfunk]

I'm super excited about the end result, of the two combined tree's.
The sheer amount of Legion/Shadowland Legendary effects/Conduits/Talents we can stack now, is just beyond exciting.

I love Divine Toll, such a fun button, so I was happy to see it on the tree. Sad to see the Conduit gone, but it's still decent, and only 2 points for the full package.
And the baseline 100% increased Judgement damage is decent, but still, glad someone linked a blue saying it is not final.

Obviously, at this point, nothing is final.

What doesn't feel good?
Spending 4 points on Divine Steed, and still feeling like a wheelchair spec.
Spending 2 points on Judgement? The fact that a baseline Judgement exists, without generating HP or having the debuff is just sad.
All these +2% of X stat are not particularly exciting.

The fact that I will potentially not have (All of them) Cleanse, Lay on Hands or Blessing of Freedom on my bars is a strange feeling indeed.


What's interesting?
Seal of the Templar, doesn't seem like much, but Outlaw has this talent, and it's quite noticeable in my opinion.

Verdict still out on?
All the Consecration stuff, will it deal any worthwhile damage? Can you stack two of them?
Judgement talents on the right edge of Ret tree, seem very underwhelming, surely not final form.

[Eon Drache]

The Ret tree is ok, there are a few things I'd change, but the class tree is absolutely atrocious.

Cavalier, Seasoned Warhorse and Seal of the Templar should be 1 talent. At most 2. At this point there would be no reason to take Seal of the Templar for any spec for any reason. Obduracy is horrible, 2% speed and avoidance on the ret side and is mandatory to get to the bottom. Replace it with anything else. Holy Aegis is horrible. To get to it ret has to spend 5 points and its mandatory because its 2/4% crit. You actually have fewer choices in the class tree than the old talent trees. That's... impressive in a bad way. Because of all the dps talents ret will lose out on either freedom or LoH, Sac, Cleanse, and part of Horse. Ret is losing almost all of the utility it had before. Assuming Recompense is a significant dps increase we get to choose Freedom or LoH. Thats it.

For the spec tree, can we please get rid of Justicar's Vengeance? The only time it was good was when it was bugged, otherwise its never been used. I also wish we'd get away from Divine Storm and Templar's Verdict being seperate and just let us have passive cleave in our rotation like what other specs get. My favorite addition is BoJ causing Consecration to erupt from the ground. It is a cool idea, gives some passive cleave to a ST ability, and is flavorful.

[Tyris Flare]

The Ret tree is ok, there are a few things I'd change, but the class tree is absolutely atrocious.

Cavalier, Seasoned Warhorse and Seal of the Templar should be 1 talent. At most 2. At this point there would be no reason to take Seal of the Templar for any spec for any reason. Obduracy is horrible, 2% speed and avoidance on the ret side and is mandatory to get to the bottom. Replace it with anything else. Holy Aegis is horrible. To get to it ret has to spend 5 points and its mandatory because its 2/4% crit. You actually have fewer choices in the class tree than the old talent trees. That's... impressive in a bad way. Because of all the dps talents ret will lose out on either freedom or LoH, Sac, Cleanse, and part of Horse. Ret is losing almost all of the utility it had before. Assuming Recompense is a significant dps increase we get to choose Freedom or LoH. Thats it.

For the spec tree, can we please get rid of Justicar's Vengeance? The only time it was good was when it was bugged, otherwise its never been used. I also wish we'd get away from Divine Storm and Templar's Verdict being seperate and just let us have passive cleave in our rotation like what other specs get. My favorite addition is BoJ causing Consecration to erupt from the ground. It is a cool idea, gives some passive cleave to a ST ability, and is flavorful.

The class tree is horrible for many reasons yeah. Losing most of the already pretty mediocre utility the spec has, it's incredible this is even the alpha version.

Justicar's Vengeance is a neat idea but it ends up as dime store death strike. Costing 5 HP is absurd.

Anyway DS and TV being separate are completely fine, passive clear is a weird take!

[Varaben]

I'm super excited about the end result, of the two combined tree's.
The sheer amount of Legion/Shadowland Legendary effects/Conduits/Talents we can stack now, is just beyond exciting.

I love Divine Toll, such a fun button, so I was happy to see it on the tree. Sad to see the Conduit gone, but it's still decent, and only 2 points for the full package.
And the baseline 100% increased Judgement damage is decent, but still, glad someone linked a blue saying it is not final.

Obviously, at this point, nothing is final.

What doesn't feel good?
Spending 4 points on Divine Steed, and still feeling like a wheelchair spec.
Spending 2 points on Judgement? The fact that a baseline Judgement exists, without generating HP or having the debuff is just sad.
All these +2% of X stat are not particularly exciting.

The fact that I will potentially not have (All of them) Cleanse, Lay on Hands or Blessing of Freedom on my bars is a strange feeling indeed.


What's interesting?
Seal of the Templar, doesn't seem like much, but Outlaw has this talent, and it's quite noticeable in my opinion.

Verdict still out on?
All the Consecration stuff, will it deal any worthwhile damage? Can you stack two of them?
Judgement talents on the right edge of Ret tree, seem very underwhelming, surely not final form.

I really want to test consecration on Alpha because on paper it should provide some much needed sustain on aoe situations, but like everything in the tree, it’s a very high investment. The talent that makes art of war BOJ proc a second consecration combined with the holy power procs from consecration (which you’ll then have TWO of), could be insanely good in mythic+. Allowing you to spam DS and BOJ non stop. We might even be in a situation where we are severely gcd capped. All depends on tuning.

[Revamp Man]

I only mained ret in WoD but otherwise have had it set as a close second

I didn't look too much into the general tree and I'm going to assume the current trees are early design because of holy missing but I really like it so far.

Path of ruin looks like fun because while it doesn't hit as hard you'll hit more often and generate more HP for more finishers.
Exorcism being back is nice but without resource generation it's just another button to hit.
The talent adding crit to wings is something I have been wanting in the game for a while because a damage increase isn't too fun.

I will always hate any of the "increase X stat by Y%" nodes because they aren't interesting or meaningful