Ret Paladin Smash!

Ret abilities which could use a little love

2012-02-18T06:35:00.004-05:00

I'd like to explain why I complain so much about the seal and hand systems. Pretend I'm someone who wants to try a new class and has just rolled a Ret.

Crusader Strike, Judgement, Exorcism, Hammer of Wrath, Templar's Verdict, and Inquisition are all part of my rotation and therefore pretty fun. Inquisition could be more interesting, but at least it gives me something to do. Hammer of the Righteous and Divine Storm sort of fit this mold and it's great to have an AoE rotation, but it's a little disappointing they're just AoE versions of CS and TV. Anyway, the combat-system is much improved and therefore this set of spells gets an A+.

I'm a damage-dealer who gets to do some off-healing, woo! Word of Glory and Flash of Light fill distinct roles -- if I had rolled my Ret in Cata, I would've had to sift through a bunch of near-useless casted heals. Word of Glory is more or less useless in raids, but all in all these two spells are great.

Reckoning and Righteous Fury are meh. I suppose these could be cool to someone who's never played a tanking class before, but Ret rarely uses them in PvE. If there's a stray mob, I have more efficient tools (as in not tanking it with my face) to deal with it. I guess Reckoning and RF are good if a tank leaves midway through a low-level instance run, but if I want to tank an entire instance, there's dual spec.

Rebuke is fun, but every melee has an interrupt and therefore this spell doesn't exactly wow me. Redemption might be cool occasionally if everyone didn't have a superior version through a guild perk. Cleanse is too rarely useful to appreciate.

I love Hammer of Justice because it's one of two 6 sec stuns in the game. As the signature paladin ability, I'm overjoyed when I learn Divine Shield. Lay on Hands falls between cool and gimmicky -- it's great at first, but leaves me with mixed feelings.

Divine Protection is useful, but a flat damage reduction is a little boring. It doesn't, for example, have the secondary effect of AMS. Avenging Wrath is pretty cool because it has one of the best graphics in the game and adds to the rotation. Guardian of Ancient Kings is nothing more than eye candy and disappoints me greatly. Blinding Light is bland and its cooldown is too long -- it'll probably have a cool graphic, but paladins have so many cool graphics that I'm not fooled into enjoying BL based solely on this.

That leaves seals and hands. Seals have very little interactivity. I reactivate Truth once every 30 min -- hoor...ay...*yawn*. I guess Righteousness is a very minor part of my AoE rotation, but it's uninspired. Switching to Justice and then back to Truth for a snare feels clunky and leaves me unhappy. The snares of other classes are much more smooth -- hell, I'd even take Hamstring back. Insight is totally useless.

Hands are a mixed bag. If I had just done my first bout of Ret PvP, I'd enjoy them very much. Unfortunately, the only hand spell Ret uses much in PvE is Protection, and that's only in 5 mans.

Phew, it took more words to get here than I expected. What are my thoughts, in my assumed role as a fledgling Ret? My rotation is great, but that's something every class/spec should have. The off-healing aspect -- Word of Glory and Flash of Light -- doesn't do Ret any favors in large, organized PvP (aka RBG'S), but it's neat and fairly unique. I'll give the devs props from a flavor perspective.

Hammer of Justice, Divine Shield, and Avenging Wrath are all great. Reckoning, Rebuke, and Divine Protection are alright, but generic. Redemption and Cleanse don't see much use. Lay on Hands makes the game feel like Vanilla, but not necessarily in a good way; it used to be cool, but in the current environment it feels out of place and the wow factor wears off after the first several uses.

Seals are filler. They're interesting until you learn 'em all and realize they offer little interactivity, and when they attempt to, it feels clunky and poorly implemented. Hands are utility unique to paladins and therefore cool in PvP, but of limited use in PvE.

My conclusion is the only strong baseline/Ret specialization abilities are -- not counting rotation abilities as I explained above -- Word of Glory, Flash of Light, Hammer of Justice, Divine Shield, and Avenging Wrath. I'm on the fence about Reckoning, Rebuke, and Divine Protection -- they're useful, but the first two are generic and the third is a little flat.

Is that enough to make someone want to roll a Ret? It's hard to say, but I know if Mass Resurrection didn't exist, Divine Protection broke stuns via a Ret specialization, GoAK, at the baseline, affected the rotation in an interesting way (or had a utility effect), seals were useful like rogue poisons and mage armors, and hands were more useful in PvE (this includes leveling, 5 mans, and raiding), Ret would be fuc*ing awesome. Ret's baseline and specialization abilities could use a little love.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4063008143?page=7#126

On the February 15th MoP paladin talent calculator

2012-02-16T12:05:00.005-05:00

Baseline

Boundless Conviction and the update to Exorcism/Art of War are great additions to an already strong set of changes to the Ret combat-system.
Hammer of the Righteous and Divine Storm are too similar to Crusader Strike and Templar's Verdict. I appreciate the separate AoE rotation, but HotR and DS are very bland. They are just AoE versions of single-target attacks -- without Divine Storm's healing component, they aren't even different in flavor!
Suggestion: normalize the duration of hand spells to 6 or 8 sec and reduce the cooldown of Hand of Sacrifice to 1 min 30 sec and Hand of Protection to 3 min (these are their talented CD's in Cata).
Hand of Salvation needs a complete rework because tanks now hold threat with ease.
The seal system needs work: us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4063167954?page=15#285
Blinding Light is a little bland and the cooldown is a minute too long.
Avenging Wrath is too loud a graphic and long a cooldown to be dispellable. It probably needs a reduced duration to be undispellable, but I'm okay with whatever it takes. This is a major PvP issue which has been around for multiple expansions and must finally be addressed.
The reduced cooldown of Guardian of Ancient Kings is great, but it's a little annoying to not be able to macro clicky trinkets with this and Avenging Wrath.
Minor suggestion: GoAK is a single-target cooldown which should do purely single-target damage. Meteor effects are just frustrating and this one randomly breaks CC -- I can't predict if an enemy will be CC'd nearby 30 sec down the road.
Minor suggestion: don't reveal the holy power bar until level 9 when paladins learn Word of Glory. It feels stupid to have a full holy power bar for eight levels before being able to spend it. Warlocks don't have soul shards until they learn Soulburn at level 10.

Talents
Tier 15

Speed of Light is better, but needs a 45 sec cooldown before it rivals Long Arm or Pursuit of Justice.
Long Arm scales with haste and will improve as the expansion progresses. That isn't good design because it should stay static and equal to the other two choices.Question: does Pursuit of Justice work with Boundless Conviction stored holy power up to a maximum 60% increased movement speed?
All of these talents are countered by snares. It seems silly to me Ret will be forced into a major glyph for Acts of Sacrifice -- and, considering Cleanse is now on an 8 sec cooldown, will AoS even remove all movement impairing effects? Ret may forever be denied an instant gap-closer, but its gap-closer has to be somewhat effective, certainly not countered by something as trivial as a snare! Freedom is dispellable and doubles as group utility. While something like full snare immunity for the duration of Long Arm may be overpowered, tier 15 needs to be effective on its own accord or Ret will require a specialization passive which helps deal with snares.

Tier 30

I'm still concerned about Prot and Ret having to cast Repentance. No other melee will be forced to cast their CC in MoP, and with good reason. Furthermore, it's on a very common diminishing returns category. The DR system needs to be reworked and simplified. Repentance's cast-time, DR category, and vulnerability to dispels makes it a poor man's Cyclone -- something's gotta give for it to be a competitive choice for melee paladins.
I don't like Burden of Guilt because snares applied without effort reduce the game's skill-cap and enjoyability. That said, this is now commonplace and if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Tier 45

The updated Selfless Healer is a major improvement.
Eternal Glory and Sacred Shield are neat; however, Inquisition plus one of these makes for six holy power spent on maintenance every thirty seconds (at least in PvP). Suggestion: increase Inquisition's duration to 45 or 60 sec.
Suggestion: change Sacred Shield's secondary effect from 30% increased Word of Glory crit chance to 30% increased healing. Down with WoG RNG!
Holy power, aka damage, is too precious to spend on utility when everyone is expected to min-max. I'm glad for more holy power abilities, but won't all raiding Rets choose Selfless Healer?

Tier 60

Hand of Purity is unique and cool. Yay for a new hand spell!
Unbreakable Spirit is a great mechanic.
Clemency is still dumb. Back to back Hand of Freedom does not warrant a 5 min cooldown, Hand of Protection cannot be cast on the same target twice due to Forbearance, and one paladin can't cast two hand spells on the same target at the same time. Hand spells are too restrictive for a Preparation-like talent.
The cooldowns of hand spells are a little long even if Hand of Sacrifice and Hand of Protection have their cooldowns reduced from 2/5 min to 1 min 30 sec/3 min. Suggestion: it's a little repetitive, but perhaps Clemency can be replaced with a hand spell mechanic similar to Unbreakable Spirit.

Tier 75

I don't really like this tier. As someone pointed out, moving it down didn't fix its problems.
The Ret version of Guardian of Ancient Kings is a long duration, stacking buff, but Holy Avenger turns it into a burst cooldown. That rubs me the wrong way -- HA should be in the spirit of Ret GoAK.
I don't like how Sanctified Wrath simplifies the rotation for 20 sec. This talent is problematic in PvP because it's usually going to be useless due to dispels, but when dispels aren't present Holy Shock -> Word of Glory spam for 20 sec is going to make me facepalm, hard.
I appreciate Divine Purpose because it adds spice to the rotation. Maybe something better can be in its place, or maybe it's fine.

Tier 90

Cheers to the developers for their creativity! I can't wait to try these out. How good they are really comes down to the numbers. I like the medium-length cooldowns.
Light's Hammer lasts 15 sec and had therefore better not break CC, at least not past its application.

Other concerns

I have a feeling players still won't want Ret for RBG's due to its inability to min-max. Damage-dealers are expected to bring offensive control which makes it easier to kill stuff. Sacred Shield and Holy Prism (for example) will be brought by a Holy Paladin. Even Repentance has better synergy with Holy, and why bring a Ret with Fist of Justice or Burden of Guilt when a rogue brings a superior baseline stun and snare? I predict Ret will feel fun and unique, but won't mesh well with a large, organized PvP group. I don't know how solve this aside from creating a specialization gimmick like Smoke Bomb or Solar Beam, something Rets can point to and say, "Bring me for this."
The new talents had better not be dispellable or, in PvP, paladins will avoid them like the plague, and that ain't fun.
Suggestion: please make Repentance, Selfless Healer, and so on not reset the swing-timer. In fact, cast-times resetting the swing-timer is an outdated mechanic which should be removed entirely.
With abilities like Temporal Shield and Alter Time, mages had damn well better be squishy.
The developers win at life for shortening Hand of Reckoning to Reckoning.
I find it odd that no paladin talents/abilities make use of the word honor. In fact, the only talent/ability in the game which does is a rogue talent...
Paladins could use an ability or talent which references the naruu, a paladin hero, or vanquishing a great evil. I wouldn't want the devs to overdo it, but one of these would be appropriate.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4063008143?page=3#44

Simple suggestions for Ret

2011-10-05T13:15:00.024-04:00

I wrote another one of my long posts on how to fix Ret PvP (in both the short and long term). Perhaps it being highly rated will get an ounce of developer attention. Ignore the occasional derailment and the discussion throughout the thread is quite good.

Judgement generates one holy power

2011-09-29T22:50:00.011-04:00

Set bonuses, especially towards the end of an expansion, allow the devs to play with mechanics they may implement at a later date. The Ret T13 2P should be applied to the S11 4P. One second reduced Judgement cooldown is weak and there should be an equal opportunity to test steady holy power generation in both facets of the game.

"We think melee DPS is fine in PvP,"

2011-09-29T07:40:00.037-04:00

If Ghostcrawler includes 3v3 in this statement -- one must assume he does -- I'm gonna have to smack a bitch. A more accurate statement would be leather melee and cloth casters are fine. Mail DPS just sucks whether it's Enhance, Ele, or a hunter spec. Moonkins are bad. As for plate melee, who thinks Ret is as good as Frost Mage in any aspect of PvP? Does anyone consider Arms equal to Affliction?

As usual, the developers are out of touch with PvP.

S11 sets

2011-09-29T04:36:00.004-04:00

I may have to return in 4.3 for this outlandish set. It's detailed as hell,
but if the RBG mount isn't a Harley (right pic) I'll feel gypped.

The rogue set: heading to the local dungeon
for a night of S&M, are we?