Hopes for Midnight Ret - Reverse the brainless paladin! (FIXED! <3)

Classes Paladin
1

With the arrival of 11.2 and related class updates, I want to share with you all some of my secret dreams that I would like to be realized… but I doubt it will arrive in a patch… it will probably arrive with a new expansion.

Anyway! I don’t lose heart and start with this reflection by good Bolas, curator of the guides on Ret Paladins and mod of the Hammer of Wrath discord server, which read like this:

Tuning
Although it makes up around 50% of casts on single-target, Final Verdict only directly contributes about 20% of Ret’s damage on average.

This is the opposite situation to how resource spenders normally work - for most specs you need to spend a while to generate the resource, and then consuming it contributes high damage as a result. Ret used to have a major issue where the only spells that contributed any meaningful damage were spenders, and although we had a happy medium for a while, the opposite problem definitely exists now where spenders can be cast constantly and contribute barely more damage than generators per cast.

The strength of Hero Talents also play a role, where the increase they provide is extremely large and dominate native effects. This is a tricky problem to solve since there are many moving parts and there isn’t any straightforward or easy solution, but when you have a tier set that essentially allows you to cast 10 spenders in a row and the main reason that’s useful is to proc more Empyrean Hammer and extend Divine Hammer rather than the damage itself, something needs to be reassessed. Link

And it is precisely on the central part that I put in italics that I would like to reflect…

“…you need to spend a while to generate the resource…”

This is the core of my feeling of my desire for change. Currently, the Ret pala has lost a lot of its identity on the control and management of the Holy Power.

Since the time of Cataclysm we build Holy Power having full control over them and we have always spent them with great gratification, we have always been the players who controlled the rhythm and the generation of them and the consequent consumption…

Now it is no longer like that, the paradigm has been totally inverted for a long time! Now we have become a very fast machine that produces HP by itself and the player finds himself having to behave in response to all this… it is as if everything has been inverted, now only the automatic HP, and the continuous procs (AoW x5, auto EP x5) to induce us to have to react to what happens and not the opposite. (and in a way too “Brainless” if I may…)

We no longer have control over it! It is the HP that now control us! LOL

I would like a more classic gameplay to come back into fashion (or at least not inferior!) I would like a “Manual Paladin” to become competitive again and not overwhelmed by an “Auto Paladin” continuously facilitated in various choices of the developers…

Summary

A couple of examples:

A Bonus set could have been conceived in 11.1 instead of refunding HP for X seconds, it could have done it for X times so as to allow TS builds not to short-circuit…

Or a DH extension could have been conceived not “to infinity” but “finite” and reachable quite easily with any talent choice

Anyway, what do you think? Am I really the only one who likes a more tidy and classic gameplay more??

I’ve been playing only and exclusively Ret Paladin since TBC, and I’ve always thought that over the years this class and spec that I LOVE has evolved for the better, reaching its peak of complexity in Shadowland (gameplay that I loved!) and then changed course a bit in Dragonflight simplifying things a bit but WITHOUT BETRAYING the core “philosophy” of the ret pala… but paving the way for what it has become now in TWW…
A Gameplay that for the first time in all these years I personally don’t like at all :disappointed_relieved: and unfortunately I say this with great bitterness…

9 Likes
2

Its over brother. Ret has been labeled the selfplay spec by whoever is in charge.

You picked on a point that nobody here wants to ever aknowledge. Hp generation is too high, you flood in hp and just spam spend it pretty much gcd locked the entire time.

And because we are flooding in resources (abd have MASSIVE amounts of haste built in the tree and hero trees) spenders feel like trash.

Anyways there is no fix for this sadly. Its over

7 Likes
3

But there is. Just axe all (or some) talents that give abilities extra holy power generation (Holy Blade, Boundless Judgement, Vanguard, etc). Or give us a much larger pool of Holy Power, and increase the cost of spenders.

Now sure, both of these changes are too big for TWW. But come Midnight, I don’t see why they could mix things up.

Hell, a bigger pool of holy power and much harder hitting spenders could be a selling point of a new hero spec.

3 Likes
4

That would never happen. Its a patttern now that has gone too long. Too many “ret mains” here and ingame love their selfplay spec. Its literally over.

1 Like
5

it’s felt bad for a hot minute and clunky too. Frost dk with the way runes and runic power interacts has much more fluidity than this spam verdict/damage windows that templar (the only viable hero tree which is stupid) gives us. With the new set it feels even worse. They’re giving other classes constant reworks and we get stupid trash like “hey guys we buffed final verdicts damage by 20%” while they ignore the hammer procs targeting immune enemies etc etc.

I play this class because i legit enjoy it for better or worse it would be nice if they could level the playing field with herald and templar because a whole season of playing around firing off clunky hammers is not it.

4 Likes
6

Yes, technically there are a thousand ways to fix everything… what is missing, I fear, is the will to do it…

Hehe I know very well! That’s the reason that pushes me to continue writing posts like this :yellow_heart:

this is the thing that makes me the most angry ever!!! How is it possible that he doesn’t get disgusted like I do!

But I’m making a topic here for this very reason. I would like a portion of Ret pala players who think like me… (or rather like US since we’re commenting here! :yellow_heart: ) to make their voices heard and make the Devs understand that it exists… I don’t care if the simplyfybrainless pala remains the favorite, what I would like is that the more classic pala remains on track even if it’s 3% behind, who cares, and that it doesn’t get set aside/neglected/or cancelled altogether…

Reading on the forum of players asking “but what is the passive that gives 2 charges to crusader strike? what is crusader strike?” Makes me shudder… Trampling on 20 years of history of Ret pala…

PS. I didn’t quote that part of Bolas’ article by chance, he also criticizes this very situation… maybe there is a glimmer of hope…

1 Like
7

Hope tier set that is better then this garbage one we have now. So if anyone knows post pls I dont do PTR so dont have a clue but havent seen much on if its good tier or not.

8

Paladin

Holy
    Herald of the Sun
        (2) Set Bonus: Dawnlight’s healing and damage is increased by 30% and you gain Solar Wrath after Avenging Wrath fades causing Sun’s Avatar’s effect to linger for an additional 10 seconds.
        (4) Set Bonus: Solar Wrath increases the effectiveness of your Holy Power spenders by 15% and grants you 2 Dawnlight.
    Lightsmith
        (2) Set Bonus: Hammer and Anvil’s healing is increased by 15% and it can also be activated by Crusader Strike at 100% effectiveness.
        (4) Set Bonus: Hammer and Anvil also grants a stack of Masterwork, causing your next Holy Armament to cast one Lesser version of itself on a nearby ally for each stack.


Protection
    Lightsmith
        (2) Set Bonus: Hammer and Anvil’s damage is increased by 15% and it can also be activated by Blessed Hammer at 100% effectiveness.
        (4) Set Bonus: Hammer and Anvil also grants a stack of Masterwork, causing your next Holy Armament to cast one Lesser version of itself on a nearby ally for each stack.
    Templar
        (2) Set Bonus: Your Empyrean Hammer deals 20% increased critical strike damage and its critical strikes have 50% chance to grant an additional stack of Light’s Deliverance.
        (4) Set Bonus: Hammer of Light deals 35% increased damage to its primary target, strikes 3 additional secondary targets, and can now be cast 1 more time after Eye of Tyr.


Retribution
    Herald of the Sun
        (2) Set Bonus: Dawnlight’s healing and damage is increased by 30% and you gain Solar Wrath after Avenging Wrath fades causing Sun’s Avatar’s effect to linger for an additional 10 seconds.
        (4) Set Bonus: Solar Wrath increases the effectiveness of your Holy Power spenders by 15% and grants you 2 Dawnlight.
    Templar
        (2) Set Bonus: Your Empyrean Hammer deals 20% increased critical strike damage and its critical strikes have 50% chance to grant an additional stack of Light’s Deliverance.
        (4) Set Bonus: Hammer of Light deals 35% increased damage to its primary target, strikes 3 additional secondary targets, and can now be cast 1 more time after Wake of Ashes.
1 Like
9

I hope this step here can break the use of RG as a talent preferring Crit Aw rather than Crusade … Certainly RG also works with AW (left after a recent fix) but making different tests I find that without Crusade RG it is much much less effective … RG is one of the managers of the degenerated current situation …

2 Likes
10

thanks for info

1 Like
11

Probably. Crit has always been important to us but now with this new set, it’s probably going to be more important. So, yeah, I can see us using Crit AW.

Again, this may change because of the new tier set.

My pleasure, fellow warrior of the Holy Light.

12

Yes I really hope that at least this bonus set can bring back some more “classic” dynamics.

Another interesting question is whether the second HOL that gives the 4 tier set costs 5Hp or is free… who knows which build will suffer more if Hol extra is not free

1 Like
13

No thanks. Any change blizzard do to ret is going to be a nerf. you already have a ton of other melee class complaing ret can do full damamge rotation while at a distance and they can’t. The change is going to nerf ret even more.

We are not mages any change will make us worse.

14

Was thinking the same thing.

(Two fingers pointing to my eyes) We’re here, bruh.

15

But the problem is always the same… as long as with Csaa a reset of AoW multiplied x5 is allowed… and the same thing for EP (even if they had the decency to lower it to at least 5%x5… but it’s full passive with Csaa even if you have less %proc you have MANY more hits while remaining substantially Afk…) As long as this is allowed to Csaa we will always remain there…

In my opinion after thinking about it and thinking about it, also thanks to topics made on this forum not long ago, I am of the opinion that the talent that allows Csaa to be multitarget should be removed, or that Blessed Champion should increase the hits only on Judgment. So as to be able to tune Zf at will, and to remove the x5 multiplier also on EP (if you are fast even 5% is more than fine)

On the other hand I would put baseline TS that hits 5 targets as now while maintaining EP at 15%x5. Having a higher % on a button to PRESS and managing the EP proc well in my opinion is something that should be rewarded (a mistake would be to press TS twice and waste a second possible EP proc, with a bit of luck it’s a TS-EP-TSlash-EP)

But unfortunately I already know that the Paladin community after the big mass Reroll on Pala in DF is now even more full of people who really like to press a single button in a row… so sad…

And to all those who will say “Eh but that way they nerf us! NO NO they must not touch us! gna gna”

I answer that Gameplay>>>>>>> Dps

dps is enough to raise flat some damage here and there, gameplay no it’s a question of structure

2 Likes
16

My brother, I’ve also been a Ret since TBC (off and on). I like where we’re at now and I typically shred on the meters. I’m happy to see us moving away from spinnyhammer upkeep in 11.2 as a gimmick, meaning there’ll be a little more thought behind using FV when there’s a Judgment debuff present, but I confess we’re still generally going to be using the exact same rotation, especially given the love Blade of Justice has received in recent patches. The main thought behind our rotation is not wasting HP, which revolves around tracking Divine Toll and auto-attacks for both the +1 HP and Art of War procs.

While FV itself is not the massive contributor our spenders may have been in the past, I do find this happy medium nice. True, spending HP is a bigger contributor via Templar’s passives and keeping up Rush of Light, but it’s a comfy spot to be in. Thing is, I disagree with the foundation of your argument. We’re not the brainless spec we’re memed to be (and I often invite those who make the “one button” joke to roll Ret and do my damage–rapidly shuts them up). The flood of poor-to-mediocre Ret players is what gives us that selfsame reputation. Statistically, there are probably as many (if not more) bad Retribution players than there are good players of every other DPS spec combined. This has historically been the case.

As for the new tier set, the additional HoL does cost 5 HP. In practice, I can see this playing out in two ways: every other Wake rotation with Divine Toll, it’ll be easy to get in there. For the others, I could see fishing for a Divine Purpose proc or, at worst, building up to use it by the time wings evaporate.

Anyway, I kind of get where you’re coming from. It took me a while to embrace the change to Radiant Glory being BiS. I’ve always liked having that big ol’ Wings button to press when it was ready, which was also much less frequent. Raised the stakes on having a perfect rotation, blessed procs, good positioning, et cetera. Felt like going super saiyan. It being baked in to the rotation has always felt a little meh, and I’ve never been the biggest fan of Execution Sentence but I’ve had to embrace that too.

But after embracing these changes, I’ve taken the good with the bad and have little to complain about (though I wish our off-healing weren’t so gutted). There’s still a lot of thought that goes into the rotation, but it’s difficult for me to draw a comparison to other classes since, as mentioned, I’ve been playing it since Horde got the class (and do not play any alts competitively). It’s like riding a bike for me where no other class is. What I will say is, the “one button” meme is just that: a meme. There may be more mechanically complex specs to play, but this is a moot point when you factor in player fluency. That is to say, a Sub rogue who’s been at their spec for as long as I’ve been playing Ret burns the same amount of calories in brain activity as I do.

5 Likes
17

Ret is a brainless spec.

It plays by itselft. Its procs are active all the time, it has massivr amounts of built in haste. It is gcd locked. Ret gameplay its literally spam spam spam spam spam until you can HoL and then spam even more.

Rotation is too fast, we are flooding in holy power and overall its not enjoyable.

There is no ret rotation, just spam.

How to fix it?

Remove autoproc, autocleave, auto holy power talents like crusading strikes

Nerf the amount of art of war resets
Remove/nerf radiant glory and crusade
Remove two charge for boj
Remove execution sentence
Remove divine hammer

Then rebalance the spec output into spenders acordingly and burst cycles of 1minute.

9 Likes
18

All these complaints about final verdict or storm not doing enough damage are completely subjective

Yeah sure the damage is around 20% which is not a small number, but the actual damage contribution of spenders is a lot bigger than just 20% due to all the mechanics attached to it.

Which ultimately means you prioritize spenders over builders and you definitely want to avoid overcapping when you can, so the argument just kinda falls flat because there is no actual problem. Aside subjective design preferences, which are totally fine as an argument, but let’s not pretend it’s anything more than that.

And even then, using builders over spenders isn’t necessarily a make or break design problem, enhancement has this issue, especially with totemic in AOE during hot hand, guess what, it still feels great to play. Should they try to fix this issue? Yeah if they can, should they reduce resource generation to solve this issue? Absolutely no chance in hell.

This idea about making “spenders” feel better literally boils down to: just increase their damage and reduce resource generation which would result in a completely stale, boring rotation, probably with significant downtime

I actually quite enjoy how ret is now, there are some improvements to be made here and there but it is good, so no thanks, completely reject the idea

3 Likes
19

The same mental gymnastics you’re using to justify your point could be made about any other spec you don’t enjoy the gameplay of, with a slightly different dance. My point, which you are proving flawlessly, is that it’s players who are brainless. I would say “if you don’t like it, don’t play it,” but you don’t even seem to play it with enough regularity to speak from any authority on the topic.

We’re given the tools; it’s on us to use them.

5 Likes
20

All your yapping is subjective meanwhile what I said is not.

Reducing resources makes the spec actually interesting. Ret would have an actual rotation over spamming ds to not overcap.

Again, it olays by itself with the amounts of haste and multiple charges on boj and its resets its literally just spam try to fight the resource overload.

4 Likes