DF Ret Needs More Cleave

Classes Paladin
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To put it simply, DF Ret is looking too ST focused again and the modern game doesn’t usually favor specs that are pure ST, especially when they’re not even the best at that small niche. Looking at Frost DK for example, nearly every part of their kit cleaves: Breath of Sindragosa, Howling Blast, Glacial Advance, Chillstreak, Remoreseless Winter, Obliterate with the new DnD talent, etc.

Ret on the other hand is very ST focused. In the current patch, tanks can outdamage a Ret with no cds which is not great. I think Final Reckoning should be used as a model in DF and most of the pure ST talents should be changed to incorporate some AoE.

Blade of Justice

As an ability that’s heavily modified by talents, it would be nice to have an option to cleave with it. My personal preference would be to allow Exorcism to modify/replace BoJ and DoT cleave in consecrate.

Execution Sentence

This ability is now smack in the middle of our tree, emphasizing it’s importance. However, it doesn’t provide any benefits in multi-target situations. This could be rectified by allowing it to damage all enemies in range when it explodes.

Also changing Executioner’s Will to pulse AoE damage while ExS is active would be nice. Another idea would be debuffing enemies with each pulse so they take some additional damage from our abilities, sort of like a weaker mass Judgment.

Templar’s Vindication

It would be great if this applied to Divine Storm as well, like the Echo of the Highlord trait did in the Legion artifact.

Final Verdict

All of the other capstones provide some benefit for both ST and AoE, except this one. I would propose combining it with Tempest of the Lightbringer. If it’s too powerful, we could drop the HoW interaction or move it to a different talent.

Judgment

Timely Judgment’s 1s CDR talent might be numerically okay, but feels like a pretty bad pick. It’d be nice if Judgment’s cooldown was set to an appropriate number (~8s) to begin with and a slightly buffed Boundless Judgment (50% chance for Judgment to chain) put in its place.

Light’s Decree / Sanctified Wrath

Please consider giving the AoE component back somewhere. Liadrin’s Fury might be a good candidate since it’s a very bad capstone right now.

5 Likes
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I’ve been saying this for ages too, ret needs more passive cleave. Even looking at wrath ret, the spec had more passive cleave than currently. Seal of Command makes single target spells cleave nearby targets, you didnt need to choose between ST and AOE with divine storm like now.

Legion had the best middle ground of passive cleave with divine hammer AND mass judge AND zeal cleave. We need to be looking more at things like this instead of having DS VS TV be the entire spec, its so boring.

It doesn’t just make the spec perform poorly on average in cleave, it makes it unfun.

Edit: For the judge bounce talent, I’d honestly go as far as saying its unplayable until 100% chance to bounce. We don’t need more rng, we need CONSISTENT cleave.

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Lets not mention the current shadowlands conduints turned into “talents” becayse they are bad and boring even when playing fully st.

They could do it so empyrean power porcs from ALL attacks.

They could have an upgrade for hammer of wrath that turns it into vanquisher hammer. It would make it usable at all% maybe. Maybe have vanq hammer a buff and make it chain of itself with divine purpose?

Imho execution sentence needs to go, it keep pushing the degenerate gamrplay of dealing damage a few seconds every min. At least they could make it when execution sentence is active, your attacks proc a lights decree aoe around it maybe.

Boj doesnt deserve a single spot because its white damage that scales with nothing.

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At the very least I’d like execution sentence OUT of the middle of the tree. We need something less split on ST vs AOE in center.

I think a massive issue is that so much of our damage is spnders, even if they buffed generators by 100% CS and BoJ and judge would still feel terrible to press, the FEEL of ret paladin has been bad for a long time. If they want consecrate to be a big deal they would need to buff it by multiple 100s of % for it to feel good.

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Definitely unfun and I’d love it to be 100%, just wanted to be conservative with my suggestions since I doubt the devs would go higher.

Definitely need more spice as I mentioned.

I don’t mind the playstyle as long as they support it better. In its current iteration, I’m not very excited about it. Giving it a Light’s Decree effect is along the lines of what I suggested with Executioner’s Will.

E X O R C I S M
Upgrade it Blizz!

The central position definitely suggests a more integral role, which is why it should have some sort of AoE component.

Generators definitely feel bad and contribute to Ret feeling bad outside of cds. Consecration is only going to contribute to this unless we see some radical changes.

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I think the central position could just be Divine toll with its enhancing talent below, that way it gives aoe and ST with the resonance procs.

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I disagree with moving DT into the middle. Considering that it now exists in every spec tree, it should be moved into the general class tree.

Looks like they were listening on the ExS front.

Executioner’s Wrath – Execution Sentence now instead deals 15% of the damage taken from your abilities to the target and nearby enemies within 8 yards.

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So… does it act as an AOE or does it take its damage increase to the main target from aoe-ing enemies around it?

I hope it acts like an aoe and not mega single target dmg.

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I think it’s the same as before (damage done to target) but at the end deals damage to main target and those around it. Albeit it’s doing 15% of the damage vs 20%. We’ll have to see where this ends up in the tree.

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If it’s aoe it’s an improvement.
The wording just seems a bit funny to me…

Also ret got Vanquisher’s Hammer:

Empyrean Endowment – Judgment empowers your next Templar’s Verdict to automatically trigger Divine Storm with 25% more effectiveness. This effect can only occur every 30 seconds.

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I actually don’t like this because we need passive sustained cleave not more burst. Out burst aoe is fine, what sucks is literally anytime we don’t have cds. No other class is as hamstrung in this regard and doesn’t have a way to get the big cd back faster.

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We do need more damage outside of cds in general, but burst is often a valuable damage profile. I was hoping a cleave effect for ExS would become a baseline part of the spell, given where it was placed previously.

What they added in with today’s update though makes no sense to me. In order to get cleave from ExS, we first have to talent into the regular ExS and Relentless Inquisitor. That feels like way too much of an investment, especially when you consider that you have to talent into HoH or Consecrated/Sanctified Ground to get there.

Personally I’d prefer to go FR, DT, DR, and Ashes to Ashes and grab more AoE talents in the middle part of the tree.

I’m honestly pretty disappointed in this update. The removal of Long Arm, addition of more RNG Judgment talents, and continuing to gate the bottom tier with undesired utility talents makes me think that they are just randomly sticking things in tree without a lot of though and consideration for feedback.

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REMOVE- uesless Justicar’s Vengeance
ADD- Divine Hammer

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Yes please, why can’t we have Mass Judgment and Divine Hammer somewhere!

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thats a very odd change would rather they leave execution sentence as a single target spell then making it aoe/cleave, compared to for example lights decree is pretty laughable, execution aoe version has a minimal range of 8yds around the target while lights decree explosions are centered on yourself making it so much better if for whatever reason your target moves away from the aoe clump or dies thats your damage going down the drain, while with lights decree you can just reposition yourself back where theres mobs and keep doing dam ignoring the mob that ran away.

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I really don’t see how you can claim Ret is too focused on single target.

Consecration
Divine Storm
Wake of Ashes
Calm Before the Storm
Consecrated Blade
Empyrean Power
Exorcism
Divine Toll
Final Reckoning

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Cleave doesnt mean aoe… it means good 2 3target damage without sacrificing st strenghts

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Notice I said absolutely nothing about cleave or AoE.

I criticized the OP’s opening statement that DF Ret is looking too ST focused with examples that offer the player plenty of options that are not focused on single target.

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You linked a bunch of aoe talents. Cons is not cleave. The only cleave there is empyrean power and is undertuned borderline useless.

So yes, df ret eeds more cleave.
Our talents are too focused on either st or aoe, completely locking us into one or the other.

We need cleave, yes op is right

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How about 100% chance at 25% damage? Theoretically same damage output but more consistent.

1 Like