First, let me start by saying I completely understand the whole theme around ES and where it is placed. You want ST (ES) or do you want AoE (FR)?
That’s great. However, Ret might be the one of the very few melee specs currently that sacrifices so much AoE for so little ST gain.
Meanwhile, there’re a plethora of other specs that are allowed to do ST and cleave perfectly fine with the same build, like for example Outlaw Rogues, Subtlety Rogues, Havoc DHs or Fury Warriors.
To have to take that choice when other specs don’t just feels unfair, specially when those specs do the same ST damage than a Ret.
Second and lasty, ES doesn’t feel fun to press. It does nothing when you press it, and only after its duration has expired it does damage, but it still doesn’t feel good to see it pop off (partly because ES barely has an animation to show it popped off)
Among other issues that I find are:
- It’s ST burst but sometimes you can’t even use it properly because if the target dies before those 10 seconds, all the damage that ES would do is gone, which makes situations like for example the adds in Echo of Neltharion extremely odd.
- CDs that lock you onto a target are generally disliked gameplay wise. Vendetta from Sin Rogues wasn’t liked. Nemesis from Havoc DHs wasn’t liked before it got removed in BfA.
- Delayed damage from CDs is also generally not an enjoyable thing. FR doing direct damage when you press it is already miles more impactful and fun to press than ES will ever be.
- ES on a 30 seconds CD turned the ST profile of Ret into something extremely flat, and all burst that Ret originally had, it’s now gone. Ret still has burst, but its peaks and valleys, and your burst will never feel impactful because Ret is balanced around 30 second ES windows.
My suggestion: Remove ES and keep FR there. Add new talents to modify FR so it gives a bigger ST boost so Rets can still choose whether they want their FR to be ST oriented or AoE oriented.
For example, add a new talent that increases the damage of Single Target spenders on FR debuffed targets by 50% instead of 25%.
Feel free to talk and communicate.
10 Likes
Yeah I feel this in M+. I blow up packs in AOE but fall behind in ST while other classes blow up packs AND do amazing ST.
2 Likes
The difference between ES and FR on single target isn’t as much as people make it out to be. My character only sims 5% higher with ES over FR.
The problem with Ret is that too many talents are either single target or AoE. Very little cross over. In some cases talents even lower your single target dps. Like with Blade of Vengeance.
2 Likes
Can CSAA please go with it? Horrible gameplay
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5% is a substantial amount
1 Like
You shut your filthy mouth!
CSAA is the best thing to happen to pallys in years!
10 Likes
Agreed. Awful gameplay that lobotomizes an already oversimplified spec.
Please no, I absolutely love the auto attacks replacement. Crusader Strike was originally pretty much just an auto attack button whose only purpose was to give you something to press and another chance to proc/apply a seal. I really don’t enjoy melee “filler” abilities like that. The CSAA talent and Demon Blades (or whatever the passive Havoc DH talent is) are my bag.
For the topic, I don’t mind having to choose like that. As long as your overall damage at the end of the dungeon is high it doesn’t really matter when you did it unless you have a really bad comp that is overwhelmingly AoE focused or something. Different specs have different strengths and that promotes diversity.
4 Likes
I think a bigger issue is that we dont scale at all atm we have to use so much external power to do decent single target its not funny like look at this list: anvil+beacon+frostfire belt+ the dumb onyx ring + the eranog ring and even the shadowflame patch thing, i miss having our damage scale with mastery and just raw stats, also not a fan of the csaa build. My suggestion would be get rid of ES and buff either Final reck back to its old 50% spender buff power or buff templars/final veredict and pls rework our mastery its just worse vers lol
They honestly just need to rework our Mastery. Tuning a few talents could help for sure but Mastery is a dead stat.
4 Likes
Its trash and degenerate, TS should just be buffed to make it the better choice
1 Like
it is literally why i went back to maining ret
CS was the worst button to press in the game
fillers like CS in general need to go
4 Likes
In a purely mathematic sense, yeah. But in practise it only shaves off a few seconds off a boss fight. Sure there are going to be times where those extra seconds lead to a wipe. But realistically not that many.
Edit: This does not apply if we are talking about the entire group and/or raid. Then 5% is indeed substantial both on paper and in practise.
Weirdly though, FR sims worse then ES for me in AoE. In both “Hectic Add Cleave” and “Dungeon Slice”. Intuitively that makes no sense. Because FR’s direct damage on ~5-6 targets is close to the damage ES does, before you even factor in the increased damage of Holy Power spenders.
Either i am doing something very wrong with the sims or the fact that FR has double the cooldown makes it borderline worthless.
Hmm, think i need to do some in game test runs.
There isn’t really much you can do with TS. It barely scales at all with secondary stats due to its design and would need to be buffed every patch to make it work. Make it hit too hard and you’d turn Ret into a 1 button spec.
I think i saw some math which suggested that regular CS will outscale both TS and CCAA eventually.
1 Like
A good idea would be:
If the target is at 15% hp, and youve accumulated the same amount of damage with Executioners Sentence it will consume it early and do that damage to the target.
It will also make its name more meaningful, becuase it will function as an actual excecute.
Or
Make it usable like Hammer of Wrath was supposed to be, at 15% hp make it do instant 1 time damage and hugh damage to try and execute like warriors execute.
3 Likes
i like this but i would amend it like this
“a hammer slowly falls from the sky upon the target for 12 seconds. if the target drops below 20% hp, or when you deal 20% of the target’s HP in damage, the hammer falls attempting to execute your target”
or something like that.
so it’s triggered early if the target drops below 20% hp, or if you do that amount in damage
1 Like
if your goping to do that logic then anyone can play anything for raiding, which you can in heroic content but not as much in mythic and endgame content.
thats because hectic add cleave isnt supported for ret and dungeon slice is at best decent. patchwerk 5 target 40sec-1min usually yields better
on the nose
but ya trying to fix somethign that isnt broken isnt the way to go, i feel like as soon as thev erse bug on es is fixed alot of the strain of ES will disappear. keep in mind paladin is a boss spec, you have to rely on your cleaver specs to pad while you go zug zug on the boss. if if anything you can slap es on main target and DS to padd echo adds, which should die fairly quick with a decent dh or enchan shammy so frankly no point
If Execution Sentence is going to remain in the game, please for the love of all things, GIVE HOLY BACK STAY OF EXECUTION! 
1 Like
I also get the original intent behind giving Ret ES (smoothing out burst potential) but it is one of the least fun abilities to press in the game. I will always run Final Reckoning because it feels like it actually DOES something. Even if it is significantly numerically superior a major cooldown that provides so little feedback and doesn’t actually do anything for 12 seconds is majorly un-fun.
2 Likes