Dragonflight Alpha - Retribution Paladin Feedback

Classes Paladin
41

Would be more appropriate to copy the Mark of the Wild buff.
At some point they did the same thing… or maybe i’m remembering wrong.

So 3% of whatever stats it will give in DF and 3% move speed as Kings.

Tell Blizz that, they did the same by putting Ret Aura up top. They consider AW just an effect at this point i guess.

I like this… and it makes sense, they did it for some classes, the first 20 points you navigate the trees to pick utility properly. Last 11 points for dmg on the last gate, i’ve been thinking they need to do the same for the Paladin Class tree.

1 Like
42

Huh, curious. Didn’t realize that in the original tree. I guess my point is invalid then.

43

This was the case in the previous tree, as well. There are many examples throughout other classes where you can apply an effect without having the active ability learned, similar to Retribution granting Avenging Wrath.
For example, Hunters can apply Serpent Sting without taking the Serpent Sting talent.
I don’t view this as a problem.

Re: Blessing of Kings
I agree that it could use a different name. I want to keep the flavor of it being a Blessing, though, so I would not name it Sacred Shield.

44

Let’s have both back… Kings = Mark of the Wild effects
Have Sacred Shield in the middle with your shield effect(add Flash of light crit while under it like the old Sacred Shield), keep on the sides the blessings.

1 Like
45

I really don’t like LoH and Turn Evil being in the talent trees at all. Those very niche gameplay nodes don’t really warrant a talent point investment and you can easily see situations where you have “pre-load” builds where there will be 1 talent point difference.

It just doesn’t feel good.

Also, if every Paladin spec is going to have Divine Toll, than that should simply move into the Class tree cause clearly they want it as a class defining ability.

Ringing Clarity and the Legendary buff need to be merged into one.

(Just for comparison’s sake, here’s one I threw together quick the other day.)

Imgur

1 Like
46

We already have Devotion Aura for our “raid buff” effect, and I think Devotion Aura is more iconic than Blessing of Kings

47

We don’t know if Holy is going to retain Divine Toll.
Even if Holy does get Divine Toll, there are reasons not to put it into the Paladin tree. Divine Toll works very differently for each spec, and is valued differently for each spec. It will compete with different choices in a specialization tree than it would in the Paladin tree

1 Like
48

Did some work on my own version of the talent trees, link here, taking some inspiration from the warrior tree. I know Seals are a somewhat-controversial topic for Paladins, but I would like to see a version of them return; that being said, the ones I have in the tree now need work (I haven’t played Holy in forever, so its Seal is particularly poor).

For the general tree, I had two goals: to add more paths, and to remove many of the throughput talents and replace them with utility. To go along with this, all Auras, Blessing of Freedom, Lay on Hands, the Judgment debuff, and the complete version of Avenging Wrath has been moved baseline. I still want to rework Retribution Aura but I haven’t found a version that I like that isn’t terribly underpowered.

Unchanged Talents (currently on the official tree)

Hammer of Wrath
Cleanse
Rebuke
Crusader’s Reprisal (Previously Seal of Reprisal)
Golden Path
Judgment of Light
Repentance/Blinding Light
Turn Evil
Path of Mercy (previously Seal of Mercy)
Fist of Justice
The Mad Paragon

Updated Talents

Holy Aegis

  • Now decreases damage taken by 3%/6% instead of increasing Armor and Critical Strike Chance.

Divine Steed

  • Has a 5 second duration baseline, and suppresses slows/snares over its duration. Now a choice talent with Turalyon’s Might (see below).

Clarity of Light

  • Previously Seal of Clarity, adjusted to be a 2 point talent.

Divine Purpose

  • Now a choice talent with Seraphim.

After Image

  • Now requires 12 Holy Power rather than 20 Holy Power.

Blessing of Sacrifice

  • Now a choice talent with Blessing of Salvation (see below)

Blessing of Protection

  • Now a choice talent with Blessing of Spellwarding.

Unbreakable Spirit

  • Adjusted to be a 2 point talent.

Aspirations of Divinity

  • Adjusted to be a 2 point talent.

Judgment of the Crusader

  • Previously Seal of the Crusader. Adjusted to be a 2 point talent.

New Talents

Seal of Wisdom

  • Casting Holy Light Flash of Light, or Word of Glory reduces the cast time of your next Holy Light by 0.5 seconds. Critical strikes have triple the effect. Lasts 15 seconds.

  • Judging this Seal increases your haste by 3% and mana regeneration by X%

Seal of Justice

  • Passive: Reduces damage taken and damage dealt by 10%, and increases healing received by 20%.

  • Judging this Seal reduces the target’s attack speed and cast speed by 20%.

Seal of Truth

  • Passive: Your melee attacks apply Censure to the target, dealing Holy damage over time. Stacks up to 5 times.

  • Judging this Seal causes the Shadowland’s version of Zeal.

Divine Protection

  • Reduces damage taken by 20% for 8 seconds. 1 minute cooldown.

Emancipate

  • Removes one slow or snare. No cooldown.

Turalyon’s Might

  • Leap to target location and apply Consecration in the area. 30 second cooldown.

Unbound Freedom

  • Current PvP talent.

Divine Vision

  • Current PvP talent. Does not include the Aura Mastery cooldown reduction.

Consecrated Ground

  • Current Protection/Retribution talent.

Evil Denied

  • Reduces the cast time of Turn Evil by 50%/100%, and cause the target to cower in place.

Blessing of Salvation

  • Reduces the damage taken by an ally by 20% for 10 seconds. If the target is below 30% health, they will be healed for a percentage of their health every 2 seconds. Effect ends after the target reaches 50% health or the duration ends. 3 minute cooldown.

Sole Slough

  • Current Soulbind. Will need to be renamed.

Oath of Sacrifice

  • When an ally affected by your Aura drops below 50%, instantly sacrifice a portion of your health to heal them. Effect will not trigger when at or below 20% health.

Divine Plea

  • Your Flash of Light has 60% increased critical strike chance on targets below 40% health.

Clemency

  • Warlord’s of Draenor talent.

Long Arm of the Law

  • Increases the range of all melee attacks by 3 yards, and the area of Divine Storm, Shield of the Righteous and Light of Dawn by 5 yards.

Oath of Vengeance

  • When an ally affected by your Aura drops below 50%, gain the Vengeance buff, allowing Hammer of Wrath to be castable on any target for the duration.

Shielding Words

  • Current Conduit.

Aura Mastery

  • Current Holy paladin ability.

Greater Blessing of Wisdom

  • Legion spell. Target regenerates 0.2% of their maximum mana and life every 2 seconds. 30 minute duration, can be active on a maximum of two targets at a time.

For the Retribution tree I had a specific layout in mind when setting it up. The center of the tree should be core mechanics, abilities, and utilities; doesn’t mean you HAVE to take them, but I wanted them easily accessible no matter how you pathed along the tree. I also wanted to get away from the sides of the tree being AoE on the left, single target on the right. Instead, I wanted the choice to be between more Melee-focused combat on the left side and mid-range combat on the right.

Unchanged Talents (currently on the official tree)

Improved Crusader Strike
Divine Storm
Tempest of the Lightbringer
Selfless Healer/Healing Hands
Last Rite
Wake of Ashes
Execution Sentence
Deemed Unworthy
Executioner’s Call
Liadrin’s Fury
Crusade
Relentless Inquisitor
Final Reckoning
Vanguard’s Momentum
Divine Resonance
Final Verdict

Updated Talents

Exorcism

  • No cooldown, 1.5 second cast time, deals Holy damage and generates 1 Holy Power. Now a choice talent with Blade of Justice.

Boundless Judgment

  • Judgment deals Holy damage to up to 2 targets around the initial target, and applies the Judgment debuff.

Art of War

  • Your auto attacks have a 12% chance to grant a free use of Blade of Justice or to make the next Exorcism you cast instant.

Empyrean Power

  • Now has a 15% chance to proc off of all attacks.

Swift Crusader

  • Now grants 3% Haste (small change, I know).

Righteous Cause

  • Previously Righteous Verdict. Now includes Divine Storm.

Blade of Wrath

  • Now includes Exorcism (will need to be renamed).

Eye for an Eye

  • Now a passive. Every time you take direct damage, there is a chance that the damage is reduced by X%, and the mitigated damage dealt back to the attacker as Holy damage (capped at Y).

Consecrated Blade

  • Now includes Exorcism (will need to be renamed). No longer has a separate limit for Consecration. Instead, if Consecration is active, it will explode, dealing its remaining damage to all targets in the area.

Templar’s Vindication

  • Now includes Divine Storm.

Expurgation

  • Now includes Exorcism.

Hand of Hindrance

  • Reworked. Now costs 1 Holy Power, slows the target by 50% for 10 seconds. No cooldown, 30 yard range.

Truth’s Wake

  • Now reduces the cooldown of Wake of Ashes by 15 seconds along with its current affect.

Zeal

  • Causes Crusader Strike to deal Holy damage to one additional enemy, and grant the Zeal buff. Each stack of Zeal increases the number of targets hit 1, stacking up to three times.

Ashes to Ashes

  • Now 1 point, when Art of War procs gain Seraphim for 4 seconds.

Virtuous Command

  • The Holy damage from judging Seal of Truth is increases by 25%/50%, and cleaves to two additional enemies.

Sanctified Wrath

  • Reverted to the Shadowlands version.

Divine Toll

  • Now throws a minimum of three Judgments. Any extra judgments are thrown at your primary target.

New Talents

Pursuit of Justice

  • Increases movement speed by 15%.

Sanctified Retribution

  • Wrath of the Lich King talent. All allies empowered by the paladin’s auras deal 3% increased damage.

Masterful Crusader

  • Increases your Mastery by 3%.

Holy Strike

  • Strike the target with righteous fury, dealing Holy damage and immediately procing Art of War. Melee range, 8 second cooldown.

Greater Blessing of Retribution

  • Blesses the target ally, promising retribution to those that harm them. The ally gains the benefit of your Eye for an Eye passive. 30 minute duration, can be active on a maximum of two targets at a time.

Divine Eruption

  • Divine Storm now has a 12 yard range, and occurs at your target’s location, rather than on the paladin.

Fanaticism

  • You can have two charges of Art of War at a time.

Righteous Brand

  • Replaces Crusader Strike. You blast the target with holy flames, dealing Radiant damage and generating 1 Holy Power. Righteous Brand has a 15% chance to reduce the cost of your next Holy Power spender by 1. 30 yard range, 6 second cooldown.

March of the Crusade

  • 2 point talent. When Avenging Wrath ends, your strength is increased by 5%. This buff lasts 0.5/1 second for each Holy Power spent during Avenging Wrath (basically stole this from Frost Death Knights).

Judication

  • Strike the target, dealing Holy damage. If the target is afflicted with Censure, they will flair with divine light, dealing Holy damage to up to two nearby enemies and apply an equal number of Censure stacks to those enemies. Melee range, 3 Holy Power cost, 25 second cooldown.
  • I’m probably going to rework this to be a single-target spell, to mirror the single-target focus of Final Verdict.

Divine Punishment

  • After Final Reckoning expires, you’re next three auto attacks trigger Final Reckoning’s passive, and the debuff stacks up to three times.
6 Likes
49

:thinking: If I understand correctly, Alpha didn’t include any raid level content. So remember. . . :thinking:

  • Leveling your character will throw a talents effectiveness askew.

  • Expected Primary and Secondary stats amounts from raid level gear is unknown.

  • Stat levels, gear, and encounter mechanics can change talent choice. We don’t know any of these yet.

Playstyle is the most discernable aspect of the Alpha. That is where our focus should be during early testing.

50

The Paladin Tree and Ret Tree have some worrisome patterns mainly

  1. Wasted Points
  2. Underpowered Talents
  3. Diminishing Returns
  4. Lack of Real Class Improvements

1: Talents such as Seal of Alacrity (2% haste) , Obduracy (2% speed) Timely Judgment (1sec red Judge cd) and more all feel wasteful and underpowered, to be taken just to meet req for next tier or to branch, don’t impact gameplay at all and other classes have much stronger per point (ie War Tree Siphoning Strikes: 5% leech, Armored to the Teeth 10% of armor as STR)

  1. Many Talents we have in live are present in Tree but in Extremely Underpowered Versions , such as Expurgation (at present in live hits for 68% of dmg vs on Tree 20% of dmg, Truth’s wake on live hits for 28.6% of Dmg vs Tree version at10% of Dmg) these nodes have to be buffed comparable to live to be attractive choices.

  2. There are massive Diminishing Returns in both trees and what I mean is, many points have to be used just to achieve our current live version of abilities ( ie 3 Points into Avenging Wrath to get our current live version, 4 points into Blade of Justice Talents to get our current live version, 5 Points into Steed to get it comparable to our live version) , this feels absolutely horrendous to waste so many points just to get our baseline retail version of the same ability.

  3. There are abilities Paladins have been asking forever to get back. Now there is real opportunity to reintroduce them especially with so many potential choices.
    a) Long arm of the Law, the WOD version 40% speed boost with 5 sec Judgement cd,
    b)Speed of Light, move faster per point of Holy Power (from WOD)
    c) Emancipate!!! WOD version
    d) Double Blessings ( again from WOD),
    E) Guardian of Ancient Kings, as an Offensive CD like back in Cata,
    f) Steed of Glory, Give ret the option of the Prot Steed talent (immunity to roots and slows, we don’t need the knockback) just give us movement component, mounting a steed and having to freedom just to make it effective feels horrible!
    G) Divine Toll is useless without Ringing Clarity, Please introduce Ringing Clarity or have that node Split to where we can take Divine Toll or Vanquisher’s Hammer , the majority of PVP rets are Necro atm there is a reason for that.

PS: GET RID of the DEAD Talents Justicar’s Vengeance hasn’t been relevant in 5 years NO ONE takes it not in PVE, Nor PVP, Remove or Buff it back to it’s original value to make it attractive, Fires of Justice another Dead talent.
You guys have the Data you can look and see what Talents people use, why are you re-introducing talents that the entire Paladin community ignores there’s a reason we don’t take them, remove or buff to make them appealing.

10 Likes
51

Amen to ALL of your suggestions.

Also, I feel like at this point, it’s just pure laziness with Justicar’s Vengeance and talents like this. How can there be any other explanation? They couldn’t find the time in 5 years to buff it, make it worth using, or replace it? That’s impossible.

2 Likes
52

For what it’s worth, this would have been my first rendition of the Ret Tree.

Imgur

Fill in the lines where needed, but I’d assume most of it is easy enough to figure out.

BoJ and Exorcism would just be a flavor choice for the most part, with Art of War buffs adjusting to whichever talent was chosen. Maybe BoJ would have a shorter range, with more crit, while exorcism had a further range with more haste. idk.

Empyrean Endowment would just change Hammer of Wrath into Vanquisher’s Hammer, with the added synergy of Vanguard’s Momentum.

The idea is to make the left side follow a Judgement path, and a bit more ranged Paladin style.

The middle would be more mid ranged focus, with Divine Toll and Final Reckoning being a bit more targeted towards 12-20 yards. Final Reckoning upgrading to Falling Sword.

The right side would be more about Consecration, BoJ, and ending with HoW turning into Vanquisher’s Hammer. ~15 second cooldown or so, maybe 2 charges.

(Divine Protection, Speed of Light, Unbound Freedom and Pursuit of Justice would be in the Class Tree as previously shown.)

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