Combine Ret and Prot

Classes Paladin
1

I have not played Ret in much PvE content but I have in PvP. I know the class has had its ups and downs across expansions, and given that I missed the last 2 (basically 3) I do not have personal experience with its state lately but I know what legacy problems it has had and what the overall issues with the spec have been. Reading all the negative feedback about the spec going into SL got me thinking about what I would do to fix it and the more I thought the more I gravitated toward the idea of essentially merging Ret and Prot, making a single tanking spec.

Why do this? Here are the issues I see at the heart of Rets eternal problems.

  1. Paladin class fantasy/flavor is built around the image of plate-clad juggernauts who use the Light to protect the innocent and combat evil. “Hard to kill” is a feature that flows from this. For tanks this works fine, and even for healers it works, even if it gives a strong advantage in PvP but balancing can make it work. This does not really fit with dps. Strong survivability is almost universally balanced by less damage output. That just makes it fair. Balancing a dps class that is supposed to have both will always be a nightmare because it inevitably means you will be a jack of all trades or you will trade off on one part of that vision. Which leads to…

  2. Poor mobility. Arguably the solution to the insane survivability of the Paladin. This definitely helps balance Holy in PvP, but it is the bane of Rets existence because an immobile melee dps loses a lot of uptime on a target and that works directly against their purpose. The poor mobility trade off across all specs might be meant to balance for survivability, but it impacts Ret more severely in all cases.

The solution that makes the most sense to me is to effectively remove Retribution by rolling it into Protection. Again, let me lay out the case:

  1. Paladins are generally portrayed as being averse to violence. They fight out of necessity or to protect. Removing a pure damaging spec makes sense from a flavor standpoint, but this is far from the best reason to make this change, it just happily works with the class.

  2. Removing Ret removes the onerous task of having to balance a juggernaut class that is supposed to have powerful healing capabilities with a damage dealing spec. I think this would allow balancing of the class as a whole to be much more sensible and would hopefully see improvements to both Holy and the new Prot (which should probably have a new name).

  3. DKs are the antithesis of Paladins. As Unholy is the antithesis of Holy (I realize this is not a perfect analogy) Blood will be the antithesis of this new Prot spec. I think the new Prot should use two handed weapons, so Paladins do not lose access to weapon types and to share that rudimentary comparison to Blood.

  4. Bringing Paladins to 2 specs would put them in line with DH. I don’t know if Blizz had plans to add a new spec to DH but I suspect they don’t. So there is already a precedent for a two spec class (and obviously one for 4 specs) so this is not a radical proposal… at least entirely.

  5. Paladin is a pretty popular class, removing its dps role would require players still committed to the class to make a choice between tank or heals and this would be a good thing for the game player base (thinking mainly of pugs).

So, that is the pitch. I know there are a lot of reasons this would not be popular at all, the first and most obvious being that a lot of people love Ret.

I am interested in genuine feedback and discussion. If all you feel is revulsion at the idea, rather than pouring it out here or toward me, I would be genuinely interested in what your ideal version of the spec would look and play like and how that is balanced with the game at large. As I see it, Ret seems destined to forever battle the same basic problems and it’s survivability right now seems really poor compared to other classes and that is a sacrifice that I hate.

Thanks for reading.

1 Like
3

See the last paragraph ha ha

4

Sorry but no.

3 Likes
5

No need to be sorry friend!

I would be interested in what you think the ideal version of Retribution would be.

6

Somewhere between Cata and WOD.

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7

I do not hate the idea of making paladins into a 2 spec class:

Holy / Templar

I think that with the right tuning it could be a rather unique class fantasy.

However, I would rather every class get a 4th spec (druids depending) that would make the game feel fresh and exciting for everyone.

Holy - Prot - Templar - Ret

With this line of thinking, getting a 4 spec for every class, I would also suggest limiting the talent trees from what we have. Basically cut out the “dead talents” no one takes and simplify each spec in ~14 talent options. (7 “rows” of 2 talents)

My ideal version of “Ret” is more inline with what they have designed in Heroes of the Storm’s Yrel and Tyreal.

I really wish Ret had a secondary resource system that could “charge-up” an ability before it’s use. Kindof like selecting a Seal before casting Judgement.

“Divinity”
Consume X Holy Energy to amplify your next ability.

Divine Storm - 3 Holy Power
Unleash a whirl of hammers dealing X holy damage to 5 enemies within 12 yards.
Divinity:
Project a whirl of hammers in a straight line for 20 yards, dealing X holy damage to all enemies hit.

Divine Steed - 45 second cooldown
Hop upon your trusty steed for 4 seconds, increasing movement speed by 60%.
Divinity:
Hop upon your trusty steed, instantly charging your target for X Holy damage and knocking them down.

Auras would then be more offensive, like Aura of Reckoning (PvP Talent) in shadow lands, but be more team centric.

Aura of Reckoning
When you or allies within your Aura are critically struck, you gain Reckoning.

At 50 stacks of Reckoning, gain Avenging Wrath for 6 seconds, inspiring all those within your aura. Granting their next attack a 100% chance to critically strike and deal 10% increased damage.

But on Live, overall, I don’t think Ret paladins have anything that’s not beyond saving, I just believe that Ret is way to self centered of a design to be labeled a “paladin.”

Holy (in BfA, Shadowland is yet to be seen) is a pretty well designed spec.

Prot is an amazingly well designed spec that has clear strengths and weaknesses.

Ret is just a clash of defensive and offensive abilities that feel more “barrowed” from Holy and Prot without the extra step of making it feel like their own.

I truly believe, if you make:

  • BoJ apply Hand of Hindrance baseline
  • Change Fist of Justice to a physical Stun (“Ashran jailer stun”)
  • A more unique and interesting gap closer/opener
  • Better offensive Auras for Ret
  • Replace BoSac with a Ret Aura Mastery

You’d actually have a pretty decent and unique spec that shares the similarities of successful melee tools all the other melee have. :smiley:

2 Likes
8

I would rather have more Prot talents be available to Ret than this, honestly.

3 Likes
9

What was the balance of Ret like in this time? I remember we had Exo in Cata and Inquisition was baseline. I think Long Arm of the Law was as well. More mobility, less bursty, more ranged options… does that sum it up?

I really liked your comment as a whole but I wanted to focus on this. I think a gap closer on a cd similar to charge would be everything we need. I really don’t want to see movement speed increases return, because I think the juggernaut part of the class fantasy is a key element the design team is focused on. Divine Steed works thematically as a long cd movement burst and since they seem to enjoy borrowing from Diablo 3, give us a Falling Sword ability, similar to warriors heroic leap.

Just to touch on something else you mentioned that I think is important: I think more specs would be really sweet, but I think it would be approaching impossible to implement. Not because of the work involved, but because it feels like most classes already have the most rung out of them. Just thinking about Paladins, the only thing I would think to do would be to add a ranged dps option (which would be nice for a Holy offspec) because anything else I would think to do would belong to one spec already and it seems it would exacerbate a lot of already existing issues to add more.

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Well my line of thinking would be to rework the Talent tree systems completely. To make selecting a “spec” feel more like a choice of how a character is built, rather than having 21 talents to choose from.

Kindof like Classic Talent Trees, all “Holy Paladins” would have Holy Avenger. It wouldn’t be a talent choice between 3 options but just a tree you worked down.

Reasoning is because I do not believe the 21 talent tree we have now is successful. I believe most people take the “cookie cutter” build 90% of the time and talents are just an illusion of choice.

Example being, Light’s Hammer. I have not seen a paladin take that ability, ever. And if I did, I would kindly explain to them that they were “doing it wrong.”

We all know there is a mathematically a “Right and Wrong” talent to take, so remove the ability to take the “Wrong” one.

But-- make sure the class is interesting with those fewer talent choices.

Then, once that is complete, look at the abilities and talents you removed and see how you could incorporate that into a new spec.

Keeping Light’s Hammer as an example. Now that that talent has been “removed” from Holy, look at what you can do to include that into the Templar’s toolkit.

How can Templar’s Light’s Hammer be equivalent to Ret’s Divine Storm?

(You keep those “baseline abilities” that every class has, such as Crusader Strike, Sinister Strike, Charge, Blink, Frost Nova, etc.)

“Pure DPS Class” such as mage or rogue could gain the ability to get other specializations too, or just stay pure dps.

Priest - Archer Cleric (Tyrande Style Bow class) or Bard
Mage - Lighting Sorc or Alter time Healer
Warlock - Ranged Void Tank

Monk - Shadopan Trap Assassin
Rogue - Poison Potion Master or Healing/Elixir Potion Healer
Demon Hunter - Demon Stalker (Bow class)
Druid - Warebear

Shaman - Earthwarden (Tank)
Hunter - Javelin or Archer Cleric

Dk - Disease and Curse Necrolord
Paladin - Templar
Warrior - 1h Axe thrower (Single minded fury) (Troll Warlord from DotA2)

11

I agree with this that ret & prot should get combine into a 2h tank spec; but I think it should be ret that is the tank spec & prot be remove. Retribution will be a better form of tanking for pally, similar to how the old ret aura was like; that it dmg people when dmg is done back to the attacker.

So with this fantasy in mind, retribution tanking will mean that ret doesn’t do a lot of dmg on their own rather it relies on countering enemies. So it’s main dmg should be a secondary aura that is active whenever we have an aura active that 25% of dmg receive is reflected back at the enemy & generate high amount of threat for the pally; also 25% of dmg receive by allies are redirected to the pally inaddition to the dmg reflection.

I think pally should still have 3 spec, but the third spec should be Justice; the opposite to frost dk, but instead of being slow & bursty, Justice should be fast with sustain dmg without any burst. So it should be a dual wielding class with a few gap closers, & focuses on slowing & CC; a combo of monk & rogue.

1 Like
12

Would we call it rot or pret? :stuck_out_tongue:
Na but in all seriousness, imagine taking away RET. how many hundreds of thousands of people losing their spec. oh wait we don’t have to, lets look back to glad/survival, yea the community was PISSED. I am sorry my friend but no just no, you can’t just say I don’t play content with this but i have a great idea, lets get rid of it

there are simple ideas that could fix this spec, in my forum post I talk about consecrated assault which would simply cast consecration on the target and increase our speed by x-% for x-Seconds. this would make this new/old pointless button bloat of an ability have a point and fix our mobility issues. No need to delete the spec with this idea.

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Very good point. I agree and I would love to see this not be the case. I’m not sure there will never be a meta, but so long as talents don’t contribute more than a 5% swing in efficacy, any choice should be valid. And to that point, you are right that certain talents are just no gos, but there is a little play with others. It is largely gear and content dependent, which is not fun having to sim and theory craft to figure out the optimum. It would be better to have that not be the case.

A talent rework would be great to make classes function like you describe but I think WoW design has hit the state that physicians operate in: the enemy of good is better.

This is how I envisioned the new tank working. Again, when I wrote that initial post, I probably worded some of my ideas poorly. I did not really mean remove as much as I meant fuse one into the other, because I think all the elements of Ret are thematically important to Paladins. I love retribution as a concept and I would not want to see its loss, but I would prefer that if Paladins lose a role, it be damage.

I was hoping for something even better! Warriors can keep the protection moniker ha ha.

I understand that completely! My first post was pretty long but I did address this at the end of it and I am honestly not keen to get rid of Ret either. I have mained Holy, and I enjoy it the most I would say, but I usually got into the healing role because I did it well and it was something my guilds always needed. I like to dps, maybe prefer it, and retribution class fantasy is right up my alley.

I definitely felt outgunned whenever I PvP’d, which is where I used the spec most. I also cannot remember a time where I played this game and frequented these forums where Ret was not being bemoaned as having some fundamental problem. Maybe most people who play Pally are whiners, but I think I’ve got a decent filter for that, and I see genuine issues with the spec.

I only proposed this idea as a solution because it seemed like it might be the resolution to a suite of problems that have plagued Ret for as long as I’ve known. I recognize there are a lot of different solutions and I am not necessarily even pulling that hard for mine. I just wanted to see how the community would respond and see what kind of ideas and discussion would shake loose.

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I think this is one of the major design downfalls of Torghast, honestly.

While I know it isn’t every aspect of the game, I feel like torghast would have been a lot better if it allowed access to all of your classes abilities so that you could “customize” your character as you go through the tower and have more dynamic and different play styles.

One of the things that I DESPISE on my paladin, is that when I equip a 1hander and Shield, I lose the ability to press 5 of my buttons.

They are not weaker, stronger, or just different, they become “inactive.”

And I really believe that to be a huge downfall of the class design.

Imagine if you could go into Torghast as Ret, but eventually have a “build” that’s heavily Shield of the Righteous and Avenger’s Shield based.

Yes, you’re a “Ret Paladin,” but that doesn’t prevent you from hitting Avenger’s Shield and Blades of Justice. While Blades of Justice would do less damage as a 1hander, the extra ability damage from Avenger’s Shield would make up for it.

Same thing with Holy paladins, why can’t I make a “true” 2hander centric healing paladin, one that dps’ with Templar’s Verdict, but also has Holy Shock.

(MM hunters specializing in (BM) Pet moves, combat rogues with better poisons, etc)

That was a huge blunder to the aspect of Torghast, that I think could’ve opened the gate way for better and more dynamic class design as the one you’re suggesting. =/

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15

WoD Ret, with less ranged abilities and more defensives, so that we dont end up ranged kiting as a melee.

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I definitely don’t want to be using a freaking shield as a DPS, no thanks. Protection also has its own problems, it’s mastery sucks and is probably close the worst of all tanks.

17

No. No way. No how. Still think MoP ret was the best.

18

you should read what he post & not just go off the title, I know you are use to how click baits are nowadays but sometimes its better to slow down a bit & read the context 1st.

What he is saying is to remove dps, not to have a shield wielding dps; rather a 2h tank.

I have to somewhat agree with him tho, as i said in my previous post that but I think ret should become the tank spec & we should get Justice as our dps spec so we can actually get what we need & not be this bursty dps spec that gets nerf the moment a new expansion comes out.

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I skimmed over his post cause I thought it was a bad idea to begin with, he’s suggesting something drastic for a spec that needs very little effort to fix. Improve our mobility or ability to stay on a target and pack in some sustained damage, Ret fixed.