9.1 Ret Paladin Honor Rework Suggestions

Since Blizzard is asking for feedback for the 9.1 honor talent overhaul id like to share my ideas for Ret Paladin.

At the moment we can break Ret Paladin PvP talents into 3 categories:

  1. Never Run/ not practical
    -Cleansing Light
    -Luminescence
    -Ultimate Retribution

  2. Hardly Run/ very rarely used
    -Jurisdiction
    -Divine Punisher

  3. Mandatory/ cookie-cutter
    -Blessing of Sanctuary
    -Aura of Reckoning
    -Lawbringer
    -Vengeance Aura
    -Unbound Freedom
    -Law and Order

I go over the suggestions in my video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajt6n0g09LQ&feature=youtu.be

TLDR(watch) We can put several of the damage talents on the chopping block. Things like lawbringer are non interactive/do nothing for gameplay. Lawbringer is an example of a passive boring talent that feels mandatory because it adds guaranteed damage. Running something like divine punisher is more interactive/ adds depth as a talent however is objectively worse due to the nature of target swapping in PvP.

Rets need more mobility options. Reworking something like lawbringer into the long sought over Long Arm of the Law makes sense. Its game changing/ adds something Rets need.

Other talents that could come back for Ret that I would love to see would be Emancipate (could add emancipates function to consecration similar to Holy and Prot talent) Pursuit of Justice (passive speed increase based on holy power) and a variation of a magic dispel (something that Ret used to have for several expansions).

I would also like to see a rework of ultimate retribution. Essentially we have 3 paladin ability/passives filling a similar role - Retribution Aura, Ultimate Retribution, and Aura of Reckoning.

These three abilities all proc avenging wrath and Ret aura and ultimate retribution are really too similar. Its near impossible to take advantage of ultimate retributions rez in even a mildly skilled/competitive environment, someone will stop you.

Would love to see some sort of rework to ultimate retribution or aura of reckoning where instead of proccing avenging wrath it instead reduces the CD on it by X amount, whether that is from someone dropping to a certain % health, getting Crit (my least favorite option) or spending holy power something needs to change here to differentiate the strengths in these abilities.

(Ret aura itself is hardly ever run too)

4 Likes

Honestly, I think it would be interesting to get the torghast ability, the one that reduces the CD of Divine Steed by 5 seconds whenever you procc Art of War. Giving us more access to our one dash would be an interesting improvement to our mobility, if not receiving Long Arm of The Law as it was once upon a time.

I’d also like to see blessing of spellwarding being made available if not a talent which reduces damage taken while affected by Shield of Vengeance, or maybe something that empowers Eye for an Eye.

Giving us Blessing of Sanctuary baseline would also open up our talent options.

3 Likes

I would love sanc baseline

Just give us long arm of law back and I’ll be fine. We have such sht mobility It’s a pain to go against anyone with constant up time slows or kite masters.

1 Like

Nothing wrong with Lawbringer, gives us % HP damage.

Besides that, one of the big issues is that Law & Order / Unbound Freedom are mandatory. Free up the talent list by making Law & Order baseline for Retribution.

In addition, Blizzard needs to give us a talent where Retribution Paladins can use 2her + Shield, this will allow us to use Shield of the Righteous, and give us some bonus armor against physical damage classes, which we are supposed to be strong against.

If they make this a PvP talent, then Blizzard doesn’t have to worry about “Retribution PvE Tanks”.

1 Like

Long Arm of the Law in PvP is worthless without something like Emancipate, you will be slowed nonetheless.

Yeah you’re right on that… maybe have it to where it works like death knights death advance and can’t be slowed to a certain point?. Idk might be considered op

I think this Talent could be changed to, When healing an ally up to two additional nearby allies will also be healed. This can only occur once a minute.

That would make it substantially worse.

If it reduced AoE damage to everyone including the paladin inside of it by like, 15%, it would be good.

Would have to be Retribution only though.

Honestly, giving our empowered cleanse talent the ability to dispel magic would be amazing on ret!

2 Likes

Tbh I dislike sanc and magic dispel in general. Would rather have better tools (like mobility or divine protection back).

it would make it so its like BFA’s Word of Glory, except work with Ret’s other heals.

Luminescence is really good in RBGs (and in arenas against some spread pressure classes), and Ultimate Retribution is extremely fun in random BGs/low mmr RBGs.

And in reality Cleansing Light is really good against some classes, but you never have a free PvP Talent slot for it.

Only if you have a healer actively healing the Ret, which isn’t always feasible. That’s why it isn’t good talent, because it’s an extremely niche talent. As it requires specific specs to be healing the Ret. Every other talent ret will actively benefit from.
This is why I suggested it be changed. Even if it was just so it worked with Rets healing too in addition to incoming heals.
I’d still much prefer a talent like how BfA Word of Glory worked, without changing the current Word of Glory.

There are a few pvp talents from the other two specs that Ret would also benefit from having, such as

Guarded by the Light
Your Flash of Light reduces all damage the target receives by 10% for 6 sec. Stacks up to 2 times.

Which would give Selfless Healer some play over Healing Hands Potentially.

Others are Inquisition(it replaces Hand of Reckoning Taunt), Judgements of the Pure, Sacred Duty Hallowed Ground, Steed of Glory, Blessed Hands and Ultimate Sacrifice.
Though I do believe perhaps some things should remain unique to their Specs.

Some pvp talents I feel should have been baseline, Unbound Freedom and Law and Order, Hallowed Ground. As some feel mandatory to function. They’d also be great additions for pve content.

Ret is the target very often in every PvP scenario, so you will almost always benefit from it. I don’t think it’s niche in RBGs. Even against shadowplay in 3s, it can be extremely good. Just hard to pick because we are stacked on PvP Talents.

P much summed up how I felt about a lot of these. They’re boring and not very intuitive. Also ret aura, ugh. It was talked about to death in beta and they let it go live still. Hoping for some big changes in the honor talent rework coming up.

2 Likes

That is the definition of niche. See every other talent is useful without a healer carrying you.

Tbh I’m strongly against anything that is healing related. How do you guys have fun by casting heals as Ret? I don’t get it.

WTB melee tools to be a melee, was so hard for us to even get a kick (never forget Hoff and Tharvolde walls of text pleading for rebuke).

I really like playing ret because of the support aspect of the class. Truth be told I don’t want healing in my pvp talent.