Retribution Dragonflight Talents

[Eon Drache]

Holy Aegis is a slight buff to DPS, yes, but it requires FAR too much investment to consider getting. Even before the change, our core tree had so many DPS increases down the middle/right paths, that investing past Rep/Blinding on the left side lead to significant loss of more valuable DPS nodes.

Basically, the Holy Aegis/Cleanse swap really didn't change anything beyond giving us the option to swap out situational talents like Seal of the Templar for Cleanse. Most Ret's would have avoided the left tree at all costs prior to the swap, and they will continue to do so after. Honestly, having Cleanse swapped for Holy Aegis allows us to be more flexible with our current ridgid utility offerings, so it was a positive change in my opinion.

I'd be very interested to see your talent tree build for the class tree. Atm we either take Seal of the Templar, Freedom/LoH (Whichever wasnt your first pick), Seasoned Warhorse, or Cleanse once you get all the dps talents. You have to take one of those to get into the last section of the tree. That also assumes Recompense is a higher dps increase than Holy Aegis. From what Im seeing is you either take Holy Aegis or Recompense.

[Fight4Fun]

Another expac ret gonna enjoy sitting in the wheelchair

[Celvira]

My current does have, cleanse, yes. But granted, I am going for an "all around" build that can feasibly accomplish raids, M+, and pvp reliably. This means Recompense isn't selected, but from the information I've gathered from Ret alpha players is that Recompense ultimately doesn't add terribly much to your overall DPS, and poor timing of BoS can even kill you at higher difficulties if you mindlessly toss it on the tank and damaging mechanics happen to target you before you get healed.

Holy Aegis is simply far too down into the tree to consider right now, especially considering it has 2 ranks to get the full value from the talent. Cleanse has some niche applications, and Blinding Light can come in clutch in certain M+ affixes.

Here is the tree though, and I am open to switching to Recompense for raiding once we have more solid info on a talents practical DPS numbers. - https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...58/unknown.png

[Kalisandra]

So, no LAotL any more, and instead if you stay in Consecrate you don't get slowed as badly. Gee, thanks, Blizzard.

They say they want Paladins to not so much be fast as hard to slow/stop, yet it's the DKs that have talents that reflect that. Freedom on a 25s cooldown does not an unstoppable force make.

[Celvira]

Wow, Blizzard with the omega cocktease. I mean, seriously, why even bring old skills such as LAotL back if you are going to immediately remove them? Well, I guess they hear our feedback about Paladin, but choose to not care in the slightest. I assumed Blizzard was going to work extra hard with DF to move away from the recent controversies by showing they can respond and implement solutions given by fans to address class concerns, but clearly they are going to continue to ignore us like they have for the past 4 expansions. I shouldn't be surprised by this, but here we are.

Hilariously, Ret's identity was forged around DnD's "Oath of Vengeance" paladin, yet the DnD version of Ret paladin has a kit/spell list nearly entirely comprised of movement speed increases and ranged CC. Plus, their wings actually get to let them fly! Not saying Ret needs to fly, but its still an amusing thought.

[Unholyground]

Wow, Blizzard with the omega cocktease. I mean, seriously, why even bring old skills such as LAotL back if you are going to immediately remove them? Well, I guess they hear our feedback about Paladin, but choose to not care in the slightest. I assumed Blizzard was going to work extra hard with DF to move away from the recent controversies by showing they can respond and implement solutions given by fans to address class concerns, but clearly they are going to continue to ignore us like they have for the past 4 expansions. I shouldn't be surprised by this, but here we are.

Hilariously, Ret's identity was forged around DnD's "Oath of Vengeance" paladin, yet the DnD version of Ret paladin has a kit/spell list nearly entirely comprised of movement speed increases and ranged CC. Plus, their wings actually get to let them fly! Not saying Ret needs to fly, but its still an amusing thought.

I miss the old long arm of the law that gave a speed boost after you used judgement.

[roboscorcher]

Wow, Blizzard with the omega cocktease. I mean, seriously, why even bring old skills such as LAotL back if you are going to immediately remove them? Well, I guess they hear our feedback about Paladin, but choose to not care in the slightest. I assumed Blizzard was going to work extra hard with DF to move away from the recent controversies by showing they can respond and implement solutions given by fans to address class concerns, but clearly they are going to continue to ignore us like they have for the past 4 expansions. I shouldn't be surprised by this, but here we are.

Hilariously, Ret's identity was forged around DnD's "Oath of Vengeance" paladin, yet the DnD version of Ret paladin has a kit/spell list nearly entirely comprised of movement speed increases and ranged CC. Plus, their wings actually get to let them fly! Not saying Ret needs to fly, but its still an amusing thought.

Can't believe they took away Long Arm. No one likes Steed: it's disorienting, it's too big to use in small dungeon rooms, and it puts a big target on our backs in pvp. This often leads to using Freedom mid-Steed. And freedom requires a whole GCD to use, so a simple movement ability often costs 3 seconds of GCDs.

[ipoststuff]

- Ringing Clarity should replace Divine Resonance.
- Damage increase talents on builders seem a bit too weak. I don't see myself picking them and there are many of them.
Condemning Blade
Highlord's Judgment
Expurgation
Sealed Verdict
Truths Wake

[Kalisandra]

I think a lot of the problems with the tree are to be seen in the talents that just give +2% of a stat, and talents like Ashes to Ashes, where it takes two points to get all of 4s of Seraphim.

[Eon Drache]

I like these versions of the trees more for ret. Rip Long Arm, though. A few changes I'd like to see done:

Spending 5 talents to maximize Divine Steed is awful. Consolidate this a bit. Merge Cavalier (2 charges) and Seasoned Warhorse (2 points for 2 seconds). Increase the range on Seal of the Templar.
Remove Obduracy. Put Seal of the Templar or anything in its spot.

For the ret tree:
Swap Divine Storm and Improved Crusader Strike.
Let Exorcism grant Holy Power.
Swap Hand of Hinderance with Exorcism.
Remove Justicar's Vengeance.
Remove the once every 30 seconds on Empyrean Endowment.
Long arm of the law, 20-30% increase in movement for 5 seconds after you Judgment.

Some of my wish list items:
If we are to keep Divine Steed, let us pick any of our ground mounts within reason (No AH mount allowed is fine for example).
Give us a talent that lets us use a shield and 2H. Even if it does nothing its cool flavor. Plus ret defensives suck, specially later in expacs where everything breaks SoV in 1 tick.
Give us a talent that would make it so that consecration moves with us. Sanctifying the ground we walk on.
Update the graphics for Consecration.

[ipoststuff]

About Paladin tree:
- Improved Blessing of Protection seems weak compared to Blessing of Spellwarding. I think it should reduce cooldown to 3 minutes.
- Consecration talents seem undertuned.
- Seal of Clarity is just a (much much) worse Divine Purpose. If you use 1 spender every 6 seconds
Divine Purpose gives you 1 hp every ~11 seconds.
Inner Power gives you 1 hp every 12 seconds.
Seal of Clarity gives you 1 hp every 120 seconds per point spent. Per point this talent is 10 times worse and it doesn't even reduce hp of damaging abilities.
- Seasoned Warhorse needs to change. I think adding cooldown reduction to it might work. Increased duration is too situational to be worth a point on its own.
- Auras of Swift Vengeance should merge two auras into one. Both auras are underwhelming or too situational on their own. Merging them would make one reasonable aura.
- Overall i think ret needs more party utility. I suggest making Blinding Light a viable aoe cc. Make it root the target or reduce targets physical damage/chance to hit.

[Raidoser]

Hilariously, Ret's identity was forged around DnD's "Oath of Vengeance" paladin, yet the DnD version of Ret paladin has a kit/spell list nearly entirely comprised of movement speed increases and ranged CC. Plus, their wings actually get to let them fly! Not saying Ret needs to fly, but its still an amusing thought.

Pigs will fly when blizzard will make wow classes as interesting and unique as most DnD classes, they just lack too much imagination, sometimes it seem they don't even remember the thematic of the classes/spec they modify (Affliction the dot rot spec becoming a burst spec like destruction in BFA and it's burst came from a pet like demonology, WTF ??) or never bothered creating a clear identity for certains spec like Arm or Holy Paladin.

But to come back to ret paladin personally i think that as long that the class use holy power like a rogue use combo point it will feel bland, it would have been better that holy power serve to cast different seal/short duration aura that you can put on ally to buff them to go with the thematic that paladin are champions empowering their ally to the way to victory while also providing Healing, dps or keeping the enemy on you depending of the spec.

[Wrecktangle]

But to come back to ret paladin personally i think that as long that the class use holy power like a rogue use combo point it will feel bland, it would have been better that holy power serve to cast different seal/short duration aura that you can put on ally to buff them to go with the thematic that paladin are champions empowering their ally to the way to victory while also providing Healing, dps or keeping the enemy on you depending of the spec.

Classic gameplay wasn't good let's not go back to it.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I really dont care about the wheelchair thing as long as you hit like a truck when you are in range. That is supposed to be the tradeoff, and in live if is reasonably close (as seen in ret pvp where its very threatening).

My biggest issue is still needing to give up at least 2 and possibly 3 abilities we have right now just to get basic dps talents in the core tree. Not taking LOH should not be a DPS gain, that's terrible design. Having utility stuff should be encouraged!

[Kalisandra]

I really dont care about the wheelchair thing as long as you hit like a truck when you are in range. That is supposed to be the tradeoff, and in live if is reasonably close (as seen in ret pvp where its very threatening).

My biggest issue is still needing to give up at least 2 and possibly 3 abilities we have right now just to get basic dps talents in the core tree. Not taking LOH should not be a DPS gain, that's terrible design. Having utility stuff should be encouraged!

It's only true in live to a certain extent in PvP - Ret's A tier in rated BGs, but only B tier in 3v3s (and F tier in 2s, if anyone cares), which shows that it only functions when there are other players there to enable the 'close to contact and burst' kill phase.

In PvE it's just not, being average or worse in all serious content. There are some boss in Nathria (fated), a couple of bosses in Sanctum (fated), and one (Architect) in where you might say "The Rets bring nice DPS", but there are rather more in each instance where you'd be saying "Ew, Ret".

So, the model of a wheelchair made of trucks isn't working even from a raw damage perspective, let alone from the perspective of a functional, well-rounded melee spec.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

It's only true in live to a certain extent in PvP - Ret's A tier in rated BGs, but only B tier in 3v3s (and F tier in 2s, if anyone cares), which shows that it only functions when there are other players there to enable the 'close to contact and burst' kill phase.

In PvE it's just not, being average or worse in all serious content. There are some boss in Nathria (fated), a couple of bosses in Sanctum (fated), and one (Architect) in where you might say "The Rets bring nice DPS", but there are rather more in each instance where you'd be saying "Ew, Ret".

So, the model of a wheelchair made of trucks isn't working even from a raw damage perspective, let alone from the perspective of a functional, well-rounded melee spec.

So I dont think ret's issues in pve are mobility related. They are utility related, as we've discussed: poor defensives, not a single S tier or even A tier utility button, mass competition among other melee specs, etc

Like long arm of the law isn't fixing any of that is all I'm getting at. And looking at the new talent trees, it seems like ret will lose some of it's B/C tier utility and be completely reliant upon damage tuning, putting it in an even worse place in DF unless it is numerically overtuned.

[Eon Drache]

So I dont think ret's issues in pve are mobility related. They are utility related, as we've discussed: poor defensives, not a single S tier or even A tier utility button, mass competition among other melee specs, etc

Like long arm of the law isn't fixing any of that is all I'm getting at. And looking at the new talent trees, it seems like ret will lose some of it's B/C tier utility and be completely reliant upon damage tuning, putting it in an even worse place in DF unless it is numerically overtuned.

My favorite part about Ret defensives is how 1 tick of any dot completely removes SoV. And that's for PvE.

[Kalisandra]

My favorite part about Ret defensives is how 1 tick of any dot completely removes SoV. And that's for PvE.

That tell you something about just how much pulsing AoE, splash, and DoT damage fights have these days, too - SoV soaks 30% (plus Vers) of your max health.

[Arai]

Fact is that both the class and the spec tree of ret is hot garbage. Especially the class tree is horrendous with stuff like Seal of Templar (most clunky weird talent ever, wtf?), extreme damage boost talents (Seal of Reprisal) that you could never leave out and just weird mechanics like Seal of the Crusader. I barely see the so praised utility in any tree of ret.

As a matter of fact the amount of group/raid wide utility buffs a DPS Shaman can bring is around 11. For ret its 3, counting the crappy Judgement of Light and Golden Path which are both undertuned as hell and also limited. The last is Aura of Devotion which is fine but completely obsolete once you bring another Paladin like Holy which is usually present in a raid. Ret is a complete and utter mess and needs heavy work on its talent tree or a complete rework.
However its also the other stuff like the holy wheelchair, terrible self defensives, bad animations like Blade of Justice. So many issues all rets can agree should change. Legion ruined ret and has only gotten worse over BfA and SL. Give me my WoD ret back if you can't iterate properly over the last 6 years to make it even close to what it was.
Justicars Vengeance still not removed? WHAT? How incompetent are these devs? How do you get this job? I could instantly hop into this position and create good, fun, balancable specs for half the classes in the game. Maybe even all of them if I played a more of them for a few months. Imagine getting paid for such a mess.

To me it feels like they picked random Johnny out of the dev team and put him on a class/tree. Little instructions, just do a class tree similar to our general mockup. Nobody checks anything for consistency between classes. Just look at Shamans, Warrios and Paladins. What is going ON? Classes are so important to this game and they fail over and over and over since Legion.

[Wrecktangle]

Fact is that both the class and the spec tree of ret is hot garbage. Especially the class tree is horrendous with stuff like Seal of Templar (most clunky weird talent ever, wtf?), extreme damage boost talents (Seal of Reprisal) that you could never leave out and just weird mechanics like Seal of the Crusader. I barely see the so praised utility in any tree of ret.

As a matter of fact the amount of group/raid wide utility buffs a DPS Shaman can bring is around 11. For ret its 3, counting the crappy Judgement of Light and Golden Path which are both undertuned as hell and also limited. The last is Aura of Devotion which is fine but completely obsolete once you bring another Paladin like Holy which is usually present in a raid. Ret is a complete and utter mess and needs heavy work on its talent tree or a complete rework.
However its also the other stuff like the holy wheelchair, terrible self defensives, bad animations like Blade of Justice. So many issues all rets can agree should change. Legion ruined ret and has only gotten worse over BfA and SL. Give me my WoD ret back if you can't iterate properly over the last 6 years to make it even close to what it was.
Justicars Vengeance still not removed? WHAT? How incompetent are these devs? How do you get this job? I could instantly hop into this position and create good, fun, balancable specs for half the classes in the game. Maybe even all of them if I played a more of them for a few months. Imagine getting paid for such a mess.

To me it feels like they picked random Johnny out of the dev team and put him on a class/tree. Little instructions, just do a class tree similar to our general mockup. Nobody checks anything for consistency between classes. Just look at Shamans, Warrios and Paladins. What is going ON? Classes are so important to this game and they fail over and over and over since Legion.

I like the blade of justice animation, but all other points very reasonable.