The 10.0.7 rework was a massive improvement, but it wasn’t enough to hold my interest (DF is the first expansion I almost totally skipped). I resubbed to post suggestions that would make Ret, in my view, more fun to play.
General
(1) Auras don’t need to be active abilities. They are a passive system masquerading as an active one. Holy and Prot should get Dev Aura, Ret should get Ret Aura, and Crusader can be baked into both as a secondary effect. It would benefit us if when a group wants Ret Aura, they have to bring Ret.
(2) Spellwarding’s implementation is messy as hell. It should simply share a node with and replace BoP as originally intended. Holy probably shouldn’t have access to it, Ret should unless this would destroy the entire raiding scene, and whatever spec doesn’t get it should instead get BoP on a 3-min CD.
(3) If Ret had Spellwarding and Holy didn’t, Ret Aura wouldn’t even need to exist. The devs created work for themselves.
(4) Paladins should be extremely convenient outside of combat to make up for inconvenience in combat. Roll Divine Steed and Summon Charger into one ability that swaps back and forth based on combat status (won’t swap when indoors), and make Summon Charger instant and able to fly.
(5) Update the human and blood elf chargers. Add gnome paladins already so that I can blaze into combat on a holy mechanostrider.
(6) Steed talents could be more interesting, like that rune from D3 that lets you drag and reposition mobs.
Talents and combat system
(1) ST vs. AoE has always been lazy talent design. I want multiple things out of a talent tree including overarching playstyle choices, smaller individual choices, and fantasy. It is incredibly difficult to do all three well, and nearly impossible when the limited space is wasted on ST vs. AoE.
(2) Holystrike / radiant is an interesting concept that doesn’t live up to its potential.
(3) Holystrike should prioritize Hammer of Wrath, crit, and burst damage. To get this design underway, first buff Divine Purpose and make it a class capstone talent. Then move Vengeful Wrath to the Ret tree, and give it an additional effect: crit increases HoW’s damage (like Chaos Bolt).
(4) Exorcism should be a radiant-side talent that replaces Blade of Justice. Radiant should prioritize Exo, DoT damage, and mastery. Exo didn’t work well at the start of the expansion not because it can’t work well, but because it was implemented poorly. It should deal a little more upfront damage than BoJ, automatically crit against demons and undead and aberrations, have a 20-yd range (30 with Jurisdiction), and apply Expurgation.
(5) Replace Divine Arbiter and Searing Light with Vengeful Wrath and Exorcism, or with follow-ups to these. Essentially I’d prefer to build on our core kit.
(6) Penitence should be a lot stronger. It might be worthwhile to redesign our mastery into some sort of DoT. Penitence could be a capstone talent if the number were high enough and there were enough sources of DoT damage. Capstone talents don’t have to be flashy, they just have to be defining.
(7) Delete Consecration (for Ret, but maybe for the whole class if you want to get into it). Delete Divine Hammer as well, and move Empyrean Power here as an option against Consecrated Blade. Should be a decent choice with some tuning.
(8) Crusading Strikes should generate holy power on every auto-attack because it was more fun that way. Try balancing it with a negative effect, e.g. it reduces and limits attack speed.
(9) Templar Strikes should generate 2 holy power on the second attack.
(10) Crusading Strikes / Templar Strikes should replace something in the first three rows so that it’s impossible to skip because Ret with baseline CS is weird.
(11) Vanguard of Justice should also be a mandatory talent, but modified in a few ways. First, it should apply to all holy power spenders including Word of Glory. Second, it should allow spenders to be used at 3, 4, or 5 holy power rather than strictly at 4. Third, it should increase the holy power cap to 7. I think these changes would make the rotation more fluid, and differentiate Ret a bit from Holy and Prot.
(12) Holy power generators blur together in their identity. Judgment is the last ability that should have multiple charges or generate additional holy power because it already has a unique purpose: to debuff the target. Let other generators do that other stuff.
(13) If Ret had a mechanic like Blade Flurry or Meat Cleaver it would help design the tree away from ST vs. AoE, and ideally HoW wouldn’t get left out. A revamped seal system could help here, but that has risks.
(14) Execution Sentence and Final Reckoning should be merged into one ability (remove the increased damage from holy power spenders). This is part of the ongoing effort to get rid of ST vs. AoE.
PvP
(1) I don’t enjoy expansions where hybrids have bad healing. I like being able to play double DPS in 2’s and sort of play the healer role, you know, like a hybrid. I’d also love to get magic dispel back, but I suppose that will never happen.
(2) Ultimate Retribution should be redesigned: Mark an enemy for retribution after they kill an ally within your Retribution Aura, causing them to take 15% increased damage for 12 sec. Retribution Aura activates or refreshes when an ally dies. Replace the current graphic (which is hard to see) with a sword looming above the target’s head, and if Instrument of Retribution were ever removed from the baseline kit like some paladins suggest, this would be a good home for it.
(3) Lawbringer and Luminescence should be replaced because they’ve been used one too many times as balance knobs. Aura of Reckoning has been used that way as well, but at least the mechanic is sort of interesting.
(4) Ret’s PvP talents in general need an overhaul. Think about what would be useful in each: 2v2 (with and without a healer), 3v3, solo shuffle, random battlegrounds, and rated battlegrounds. Get creative!
Minor and miscellaneous
(1) I don’t like what’s been done with Lay on Hands. I don’t think it should be usable in arena (I suspect the rest of our healing suffers because of it), and I wish it would go back to feeling like an ultimate spell.
(2) Turn Evil should be useful in PvP. Make it baseline with no cooldown, and replace the talent with Imp TE which adds a cooldown but makes it instant.
(3) Light’s Celerity is poorly designed because it makes the mana bar entirely meaningless. Instead it could, off the top of my head, add the evoker empowerment mechanic to FoL.
(4) Judgment of Justice should increase movement speed by 30% for 3 sec. Ten percent that’s not permanent and doesn’t stack with Unbound Freedom is so sad. It’s Long Arm with a value lower than the TBC version of Pursuit of Justice.
(5) Justicar’s Vengeance should also heal for 25% more against stunned targets, and Jurisdiction should increase its range to 12 yds.
(6) Adjudication should spawn Blessed Hammer at the target, not at the paladin.
(7) Burning Crusade is a bad talent name because even the Scarlet Crusade didn’t intentionally follow a dreadlord. I’d sooner have a talent themed after the Scarlet Crusade because at least they have paladins. Obduracy is a bad talent name because it’s sort of like naming a demon hunter talent Edgelord. Rename it Stoicism, like we had in TBC and Wrath. Seals of Mercy, Alacrity, and Order are all bad talent names. “Seal of” talents should relate to auto-attacks in some way, like Seal of the Crusader. Respect the history of the class.
Ret hero talents
It’s hard to comment on these as they’re likely already well underway and we have no info. I agree with the minor point I read somewhere that Herald of the Sun should be renamed Lightbringer. Beyond that, I hope we don’t get holystrike and radiant 2.0 because the Ret tree needs to do a better job of 1.0, and I wouldn’t mind one of our hero trees being used to test out a support spec design.
Closing thoughts
I quit during the DF beta because our new talent tree was that bad. I was impressed when the devs remade it from scratch and vastly improved it, but I think they stumbled in key areas such as ST / AoE and holystrike / radiant. These are difficult to fix with minor adjustments, which is why I didn’t try to be surgical with my suggestions.
I put a lot of time into this post so I hope someone gets something out of it. I’ll be around for a while if anyone wants to discuss these ideas or any others, such as how splendid the day will be when we get to be gnome paladins.