Ret...the 3.x Blues

[Basutai]

...pun intended.

I've been out of the game for a while, hearing only what news my brother has on the state of the game, thanks to a hefty semester. So, when I see...

I started with "That's a fair point" because the OP mentioned that paladins have more to contend with than just maximizing damage. They do have heals, bubbles, cleansing and similar mechanics going on. That is why I said we can't take something as complex as a rogue's combat system and shoehorn it in for Ret.

But we can (and most likely will) change up the basic Seal, Judge, DS, CS, Exorcism buttons so that they can't all be brought to bear at once AND to make pushing those buttons a little more interesting from the paladin's point of view.

The model of "I bring burst" is not a good one for the game. You can counter stuns and bubbles and heals and even people running away from you. You can't counter someone unloading five digits of damage within just a few GCDs. That makes the combat shallow and frustrating. We're not convinced that is all Rets are about (because they do have heals, bubbles, cleansing and similar mechanics), but if we think the damage mechanics are too easy to counter, then we will compensate in other ways.

This isn't anything you will see get hotfixed in next week. I am more trying to explain our thought process so that the Exorcism change makes a little more sense in context. (Source)

I panic a little. With an inactive wow account, though, the best I can do is take the advice of my hitchhiker's guide, and post here where public scrutiny and input might get attention going, and/or better develop the suggestion.

To make a long spew shortish, I got to thinking about ways they can mend the situation...it culminated in a 6-page word document, summarized:

"Stun:

Hammer of Justice: Stun effect ends prematurely once a total of 25% of the target’s maximum health has been dealt while the effect was active. This means that HoJ can still perform its intended purpose – to stun opponents – without locking them into certain demise and without being nerfed in more illogical ways.

Distance Closer:

Acting as a charge-like effect, Path of Justice offers paladins with a needed distance-closing effect as well as a slow.
Divine Purpose trades the reduced chance to be hit for a (2,5)-second drop in PoJ’s CD.

Bubble Issues:

Because damage output is proportionally greater than back at 60 when full immunity was more tolerable, Bubble’s effect is no longer balanced or acceptable. By classifying it as a simple absorb, the paladin still receives decent protection, but will lose that protection faster when facing better, or more, opponents: a logical conclusion that rebalances a presently powerful spell. With a static amount of damage absorbed, the ability offers no bias against bursty or non-bursty classes/pets. (If damage were handled as a charge system, a cat pet would be far superior to an ms warrior in removing the shield, for instance).
A possible conclusion for this is to have the shield hold for a total of (??% base health, +??% of total stamina), allowing it to scale properly for differently geared and differently talented paladins (intuitively you expect a tankadin’s defenses to hold longer than a ret or holy paladin)
Paired with this is another change, to spread the defense out: Sacred Shield costs far less when cast on oneself, meaning that the former defensive abilities of divine shield are distributed between the (assumed to be almost always-up SS) and the reduced CD, reduced effect new version.




Ret’s Interrupt woes:

Purgative Blow is statistically equal or inferior to kick, pummel, and mind freeze. It is parallel to those abilities by not being on the GCD. If balance issues arise from its present suggestion as baseline, perhaps it would be effective to place it in Ret, using a similar setup to that of Feral charge (2 spells, 1 point), allowing the devs to pair it with another ability deep in the tree (Ret Strike, for instance)



SoC gets baselined to allow room for the changed system, but also because its dps is now very comparable to SoB/M...."

However, these basic suggestions only address the half of what GC and possee are saying; the frequency of our abilities needs tweaking, and frankly, the only way to do that is with complicating our simple system...
and so, I present part 2; the combat system:

"The whole picture:



The details:

First and foremost, regen is handled differently in thuis system, by a 3-point “path of wisdom” (requires jotw):



This spreads the regen out, and is less difficult when paired with low hit ratings. Furthermore, because it come paired with higher ability costs, the Ret’s mana will jump up and down more like energy, but only for attacks – heals take upwards of 3 minutes to recover fully from.

Paired is:
, a changed JotW.



CS is the most altered of the existing attacks;



The wording on this was difficult but basically: strike hits. Physical debuff appears. Physical debuff puts up CS stacks automatically, once per second. CS stacks last 25 seconds. Physical debuff lasts 3 to 5 seconds, depending on implementation.

The CD on this, paired with the remaining aspects of the system, require CS to be off gcd under this setup. It also requires that its debuff only apply for the paladin – kinda like seal/vengeance does now – so that each paladin has a separate pool for their abilities to scale from.


-reverts to holy damage.
-damage scales entirely off CS debuff count.

• Under this system, there would be a 5-second gap between RS and DS hitting at max power (thanks to both scaling off CS, which takes 5 seconds to place them at full power), minimizing the frequency of clumped, 5-digit bursts…still possible, with exo and such, but not as heavy-hitting, and now without more setup time.
• DS Damage by CS charges dispelled:
o 1 Charge: 25.5% Weapon damage/6.38% WDG as healing
o 2 Charges: 52% damage/13% healing
o 3 Charges: 79.5% damage/ 19.88% healing
o 4 Charges: 108% damage/27% healing
o 5 Charges: 137.5% damage/34.4% healing

o Ret needs a unique equivalent to MS. Solution: Retribution Strike. 10s CD, causes 60% WD plus a % of AP as Holy, and causes a MS-comparable debuff:


• Ret Strike calculated damage then follows:
o 30% 0 charges
o 48.9% 1 charge
o 68.6% 2 charges
o 89% 3 charges
o 110% 4 charges
o 132% 5 charges
• The APCoefficient for RB and RS (Linear differential relationship):
o 4.18% 1 charge
o 6.25% 2 charges
o 9.65% 3 charges
o 15.3% 4 charges
o 25% 5 charges


Role: Some burst, more effective long-duration damage increase. Essentially a personal, holy hemo.
• The APCoefficient for RB and RS (Linear differential relationship):
o 4.18% 1 charge
o 6.25% 2 charges
o 9.65% 3 charges
o 15.3% 4 charges
o 25% 5 charges



• Role: Improves base DPS with only a miniscule effect on instantaneous damage (burst)
• 51% 1 charge – 5.1% per second
• 104% 2 charges – 10.4% per second
• 159% 3 charges – 15.9% per second
• 216% 4 charges – 21.6% per second
• 275% 5 charges – 27.5% per second


WS acts as a bolstering effect that pairs with the regen talents to make a Ret fully sustained. And yes, my claim that it takes 3 minutes to recover from a holy light DOES take this attack into account.


Simple 2-point talent that allows the paladin to cast a 40/80% power exorcism at the victim of their judement debuff regardless of racial type.
This serves the purpose of improving overall dps, but requires A) that the paladin judge first, and B) that only the judgement target be hit, limiting target population in time.

• 100% 0 charges, all immediate (normal)
• 123% 1 charge (normal D, plus 1.53% per second)
• 145.6% 2 charges (normal D, plus 3% per second)
• 169.6% 3 charges (Normal D, plus 4.6% per second)
• 194.4% 4 charges (Normal D, plus 6.3% per second)
• 220% 5 charges (Normal D, plus 8% per second)
--keep in mind that this is all dropped by 20% of its value against judged, non-demon/undead opponents (i.e. pvp opponents)

Judging Blow (Baseline, 77, 4.5% BM/S): Next-melee attack with a cost that scales based on weapon speed. Judging blow causes a secondary effect based on the seal the paladin has active. Ex: command: deals an additional 9% of weapon damage as Holy damage. Requires that the target be affected by a Judgement.

This is mostly a loose-ends knot; perhaps a pvp paladin prefers the slow and stun pair offered by SoJ with JB, while a raiding paladin prefers the dps boost from seal/blood and its paired JB effect. However, as a baseline ability, it also then offers a solution to other possible problems. For instance, it can offer extra threat for a prot paladin, or a grinding tool/pvp assist tool for holy paladins. (speaking from my @$$ on those with no recent intel on their needs of those)

And finally, just as an S&G addition that sounded like a good idea when I typed it, Path of Righteousness:



For those that stayed awake or on the page long enough to get to this point...first, go get yourself a cookie. second, speak your mind, though I must ask that, regardless of whether you like or dislike it, you say so maturely and explain rationally WHY you agree or disagree.

[spleeze]

There's some good ideas in the beginning. But I think you went wrong introducing more strikes on cooldowns. The class has too many of them right now.

[Myzou]

The stun would remain 6 seconds... 8 second stun, even if it can break prematurely would be abused in PvP by Pally/Pally combo. 8 sec stun > break at 75% > 4 sec stun > break at 50%, would be just as bad :P

And... Path of Justice is Heroic Leap, which was removed. The only classes that would get that would be warrior or warlock (Warlock had demon leap).

I stopped reading after that, TBH, the ideas are good, but at the same time it helps pallys get more balanced, it also OPs them.

[Dyo]

give loladins ms or ms alike attack and you can delete warrior class from pvp

[archform]

why nerf the bubble even more?

[Gzilia]

A: hate paladins in general

I hate paladins somuch.

but this is a nice post.

/support

[Deleted]

There are some realy cool ideas in your post (such as the charge-like ability, the old system of stacking debuffs with crusader strike then consuming them for maximized damages), these are realy good ideas, but i think you went too far by adding too much instant strike and abilities. Just some of your ideas alone could make it in game, but not all of them, it would be a too big change to Paladin mechanic.

Give us 1-2 utility abilities and Paladin would be fine.

My opinion.

[kailtas]

this is 10 times bether than all the other ideas where it looks 90% like rogues combo point mechanic

*thumbsup*

[archform]

i thought bliz didnt want to do it like rogue combo point?

[iktankniet]

the point is, Blizzard doesnt want to redo the whole class yet again. this what you suggest is way too much.

you want to build it all around CS. but i dont know if its enough to do good dmg/dps. it requires alot of stacking CS debuff and its the only way to stack it? if you look at rogues they have multiple ways to stack combopoints.

and like they said, they dont want to implement a rogues CP system for a ret.

the effort is really nice though

nice to see you post again. its been a while mr numbercruncher

[Crazy]

Very nice

Overall I really applaud your effort here always good to see some new ideas. I really like the whole system of stacking from CS to enable us to use another spell. That will make ret much more of a rotation based class rather than just spamming everything we have. I also like some of the new idea’s however I think that the new tree, even though it’s cool for ret, would have huge impacts for Holy. I can see that some of the most important talents that blizz moved up the tree are right back down there such as Repentance and Imp HOF.

[Spamor]

i like the passiv mana burn of retibution strike, the rest to much like combo points

[Xs]

The bubble change would completely break it for Holy or any healing, as the whole point is that you can't be interrupted in any way while its active
Some nice ideas like changing the mana to be more like energy but theres still some big up front burst in there that is what they want to address really, similar to what they did for Blood DK's diseaseless spec

[Kaladarofsenjin]

You should post this on the actual blizz forum where they are asking for inputs from the retpally community. All the ideas may not be golden or the best. But it will hopefully give blizz a little better of an idea then making us into rogues. If I wanted to spend my non-raid pvp time as a rogue I would actually play my own rogue.

[archform]

You should post this on the actual blizz forum where they are asking for inputs from the retpally community. All the ideas may not be golden or the best. But it will hopefully give blizz a little better of an idea then making us into rogues. If I wanted to spend my non-raid pvp time as a rogue I would actually play my own rogue.

but why not be a plate healing rogue?

[insurgi]

but why not be a plate healing rogue?

u mean sorta like a resto drood?

do post this on blizz forums.tho some of this stuff sounded..hmm less good for balance maby blizz can do sumthing with the ideas

[archform]

u mean sorta like a resto drood?

do post this on blizz forums.tho some of this stuff sounded..hmm less good for balance maby blizz can do sumthing with the ideas

better then a resto druid

your not stuck in a animal form that looks the same

[Nanite]

As a former ret paladin I can honestly say some of these are amazing ideas, they would make the class much more interactive and make it require some skill to burst. Not only that but it allows rets to choose dmg vs. utility. Ret has always had the issue that it did not have enough buttons to click. You used stun,DS,CS,Judge if they were still alive you repentanced and did it again if they were still alive after that you bubbled and did it one more time. This new system that you thought of would take that aspect out of the game which has hindered ret for so long (Back in vanilla we had 1 clickable button...). However a few of these moves need their numbers lowered due to the fact that they will be hitting a little to hard (exorcism comes to mind), and also keep in mind people only have so many buttons they can fit on a keyboard. A class cant really have more than 14-17 buttons that need reactive clicking, and i feel you have passed this threshold adding in a few to many abilities.

basicly great ideas but trim the fat by removing a few of those new strikes (wisdom strike is not needed at all and would be OP for pvp). aside from that please post this on blizz forums because this seems like a great path for the paladin class to go down

[Nanite]

Actually a few suggestions:

first of all Wisdom Strike refunds to little mana to be useful I would suggest adding the 10% base mana return into exorsism it has the same cooldown thus allowing the mana return to stay the same without forcing the paladin to use another button which with this build their would be no room for.

2nd Righteous blow and Holy Strike are to similar also holy strikes dmg is to high by about 125%. if you want this to be taken serously i would suggest removing Holy Strike.

3rd CS's dmg is to high in that current state we would be doing almost as much burst dmg it needs to be knocked down to about 55%. 65% with a 3s CD would be equal to 130%dmg attack on live, paired with all these short duration buffs i think 55% is the highest we could hope for

this would form a basic rotation of CS->Judge->CS->exorcism->CS->DS->CS->RB.
That leads to a 12s rotation meaning the buffs given should be 15seconds to ensure that you can keep them up without the rotation being horrid.

12s rotations are very similar to a dk's 10sec rotation so i dont see any reason why this would fail ultimately i would love for you to edit the numbers a bit maybe cut out some of the OP/useless abilities and post this on the official forums because with a few modifications this could be exactly what paladins need to be fun.

[archform]

nooo my good ol simple ret pally is being taken away :'(

hm...hunters are still simple and i bet that isnt gonna change anytime soon

jk...?


ideas are nice but i think i rather see something a bit dif
my biggest problem is i can only hit so many buttons very fast
so give me too many spells and im forced to choose which is gonna be most useful
combining PvE and PvP
in like 10 keys
which will be very annoying
if there are too many useful spells
just wanna point that we were meant to be a lil passive and defensive