Its been a few years since this topic was brought up and I feel after the feedback we have been given and the talent trees we have so far, It’s a good time to revist this i feel.
I admit I have not done alot of a PvP in awhile, so my thoughts are from a PvE perspective but i would love people who are active in PVP as that is part of the discussion.
Reading across the many many posts in this forum, the general thought is that the iterations of Paladin (BFA to Shadowlands with a tentative on Dragonflight) has issues with Identity, Utility, Damage, Defensives and that its just not exciting to play. Yes there has been exceptions to this with Holy and Prot, but Ret has suffered the most from this.
I don’t have any new idea’s that hasnt already been put forward in other posts recently but as more of a question to the collective:-
Do we feel that the class as a whole needs a Rework, i mean a full redesign to get back an identity, to create 3 specs that are engaging to play and what idea’s would you draw on?
As example, someone (sorry im bad at names) put forward the idea of a 2h + Shield playstyle, take glad stance and build a class around it, a holy warrior like we are in the established lore. The Crusader from D3 is a solid foundation to build off in this regard.
I want to hear your thoughts and while we wont all agree on what others post, hopefully we can have a discussion and know their is an understanding that we all just want the class to be fun to play and not seen as a detriment.
5 Likes
I think Protection and Holy overall are fine, but the devs have lost their direction on ret, even if they had it to begin with. Have been hoping since Legion for a rework.
8 Likes
I’d happily take a full rework on Retribution. While the core components shared across the class are fine, everything else could use a good go-over. If their intent is that Holy, Prot, and Ret should be able to provide the same core utility spells then there is some serious reconsideration needed on how to make Ret to stand on its own.
4 Likes
2h and a shield, no thanks, hard pass. Class doesn’t need a rework it needs a dev that actually cares about it, lots of problems easily fixed with minor changes.
8 Likes
This is also true, but do you think those changes will have the long term effect of making the spec fun to play or will the same issues exist but just be less annoying?
1 Like
Yeah it’s a mixed bag kind of jack of all trades and you have to be very familiar with the class to even make usable. Our auras should be based on helping a certain spec like protection aura 3% dr. Give us a dps aura 3% extra dmg and healing aura 3% extra healing received, this way we aren’t worthless if a prot or holy in group as protection only beneficial one to party.
With ret being more damaged focused, possibly remove some of our healing and bubble for something more dps focused. Bubble only utility is for taunt ST boss, dropping aggro or cheesing mechanics. Hate to see it leave but would trade it for more dmg.
1 Like
I think HoPo has been one of the most embarrassing class designs I have ever seen in a video game like this, and scrapping the seal/judge system was one of the biggest mistakes they have ever made with Paladin.
They were so close to perfection in Wrath and rather than take the time and effort to do the necessary work, they said F it and made them into rogues so they could get drunk and harass their coworkers more.
8 Likes
(HPal) Our mastery needs a rework, everything else is just QoL changes.
1 Like
The class no, the talent trees yes.
The talent trees are on iteration 2 of the Alpha cycle, while Shaman, Warriors, Evoker, Warlock and Hunter appear to be on iteration 6.
We are at the point DKs were a month ago and our talent pathing is awful with very, very lack luster cap stone talents.
Compare the pathing, compare what you gain from the capstone talents of Of Dusk and Dawn to Spear of Bastion, to Lightning Lasso, to Shadowdance, to Time Spiral, to Abomb Limb…
5 Likes
Absolutely Hpal needs a rework.
PEOPLE !!
We’re a pathetic mix between melee and ranged. We have zero direction (literally when Im crusader striking then running to an ally for a heal then running back for more crusader strikes)
Seriously, Holy pally should not be crusader freaking striking to heal.
Make a 4th spec for this melee healer people supposedly want and give us our tradition Hpally back.
3 Likes
Or they could just go back to Wrath/MoP/WoD Ret that was enjoyable and felt good to play.
Between class changes, the GCD increase and the AE cap… It’s just not much fun to play anymore.
And it’s been such a fun class/spec at many points in the past, so they have templates for what works well.
3 Likes
Holy needs a rework; bring it more in line with BFA Holy + add a seperate “path” in the tree for a ranged build (with Denounce, btw!).
A Ret gladiator? While I don’t want to see it happen, the Warrior community reaction would almost make it worth it.
2 Likes
That’s funny, because as someone who has mained a holy/prot paladin since TBC, both specs feel awful to me now and I can’t remember a point in which the specs felt worse than they currently do. I don’t even cast spells and feel like a light-weaving beefy healer as holy now, I’m just some broken/clunky ret paladin masquerading as a healer. As prot I stare at all the empty space on my bars and wonder how people can still find this enjoyable and then close the game. It’s embarrassing.
3 Likes
Ret since it’s rework in legion has had 2 very good pvp xpacs (legion and shadowlands, while being very meh in BfA, you could say bad idc).
In shadowlands our number 1 complaint comes from the pvp talent aura of reckoning being broken and likely props up our classes entire viability. This talent gives us our major offensive cd randomly on rng which isn’t liked by anyone, but gives us some pseudo sustain damage which we have been asking for since like mop.
It seems that talent will remain, along with our tier set which while is meh for pve, borderline broken for pvp.
It is hard imo to satiate both the pvp only rets and the pve only rets.
1 Like
At the least Ret needs a significant rework in my personal opinion. The current version of the spec, and especially Divine Steed can burn in a fire for all I care and DF is just looking to make it worse.
It’s really not. They just don’t seem to want to put the minimum amount of work required. Numbers can be tuned independently between PVP and PVE. Long Arm of the Law could have just been disabled in PVP entirely for all I care. There’s ways to have one be fun without the other being broken.
2 Likes
The part that sucks is that while our burst makes us a threat in PvP, our lack of utility harms us in all content. If they could fix that we’d more or less just make it work from there. There are definitely PvP talents that could stand to become class or spec PvE talents.
2 Likes
Blessing of Sanctuary and Unbound Freedom are so much of a tease being PVP-only, it’s really disheartening seeing decisions like that, seeming to reinforce the design intent that PVE isn’t much of a consideration for whoever is working on Retribution.
3 Likes
i would also be ok if during wings we hit a bit less but our builders and spenders hit bit harder outside of wings for a bit more stabilized sustain and damage profile.
I think HPower needs to go. Id rather see a charge system where our abilities have a chance on hit to reset the cd of TV/DS/WoG.
This is apparent with prot where we need more than just SoTR to hit. They complain about the uptime of SoTR, give prot TV and/or DS and make SoTR be on a charge system with the same proc chance if they want to keep HPower on the spec.
Probs not a great idea to some but an idea based on the observation of the things ive enjoyed about pali over the years. Hahah thinking about these past iterations made me remember popping wings in Wotlk and 1 or 2 shotting ppl with HoW in Wintergrasp with the faction imbalance buff xD
(This message is a jumbled mess and I apologise to anyone reading it but its been a day and i have no brain power left to restructure it :D)