Retribution Paladin Design in 10.0.7

Classes Paladin
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Well met!

We’re doing a substantial rework to the Retribution talent tree in patch 10.0.7. Rebuilding the Retribution talent tree from the ground up means significant changes ahead. However, the talent tree itself will not be available in our first PTR build(s), so initial testing on the PTR will be missing important context.

Nonetheless, we’d like to share our major goals for Retribution with you.

Button bloat: Retribution Paladins currently have a fairly large number of abilities, and some of these feel unnecessary and inefficient. We’re working to tone this down and have a more focused set of abilities and cooldowns.

Stacking modifiers: There are currently several talents and abilities that provide stacking bonuses, which can make for a confusing and messy playstyle that deals extreme burst damage, but in return leaves your core abilities feeling unsatisfying and under-tuned. We intend to significantly change this. We want your core abilities to feel good and powerful when used in all situations. This doesn’t mean we’re reducing all elements of burst damage, but we do want to make burst more purposeful and deliberate, while also allowing options that provide sustained damage.

Survivability: Retribution Paladins currently have one of the highest death rates across all forms of content. For a plate wearing class with hybrid healing, this doesn’t feel right. We’re looking to strengthen them through a mixture of passive bonus and improvements to active abilities and cooldowns, while keeping the degree of challenge that results from being a melee-based spec.

Maneuverability: We recognize that there’s an issue here and we hope to make some improvements. However, we want to set clear expectations. Retribution Paladins should not expect to gain the mobility of Rogues.

Utility: The changes that Dragonflight brought to Retribution have caused some conflict for players, forcing the Ret Paladin to choose between providing benefits to their groups or benefiting themselves. This choice can be interesting, but due to the way this has historically worked for Paladins, it hasn’t felt right in Dragonflight. So, we’re looking to make changes here that allow you to feel good and improve your own damage while also providing the group benefits that you’re used to. We’re also looking into additional utility improvements for Paladins during the 10.0.7 test cycle.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback on the points above, as well as anything else about Retribution that you’d like to share. Thank you!

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Excellent! I’ll now start to level my Ret from 60 with the good news and hope its delivered upon!

Any chance we will have a Mage Rework? And Unholy DK’s with Superstrain would LOVE it if Frost Fever/Blood Plauge would work with Ebon Fever if talented into both. As is it feels bad.

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Good! The Ret beta forums still has EVERYTHING you’ve touched there. If devs actually listen to the feedback this time.

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But the plate wearing warrior having rogue like mobility is ok…

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AT LAST ! it only took almost 5 years since Bfa release.

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Bruh… Why are you asking for feedback now? There’s like 30000 posts on ret feedback over the past 4 years of these forums already that you havent responded to, you have TONS to work with.

Having said that, this news is better than nothing. Ret deserves this after being beaten down on the pve world for so many expansions in a row.

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This is an awesome announcement! Very nice!

Not to hijack this but maybe it would be a great time to look into the paladin general tree too? There’s a lot of issues with it that affect all specs, like dusk and Dawn being frustrating for holy. It would be really cool to see some changes there, this announcement is great though.

Some changes to holy like changing awakening to remove some rng away from the spec and maybe adding another spender (aoe) and generator would be really nice. A single target dps spender would be great too. Overhealing into full health targets to fish for awakening procs has been an issue with the spec since SL, really hoping holy gets some love too but awesome announcement!

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Hopefully they finally go back to being a leveling spec

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I play Prot, but I am happy that Ret is getting the rework they’ve been asking for (and hoping that Prot sees a similar treatment before too long). I’ll second the person above me, the paladin feedback thread from beta had tons of feedback that’s just as valid now as it was 3 months ago. Feedback that saw no response, I might add, which has really soured me towards an otherwise very fun expansion.

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Please please consider the interplay between holy and retribution. There’s so little healers available and the way forebearance works really kneecaps any ret/holy comps.

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Anything you dont want? I mean all the healing and utility and ret babies still cry about a complete rework lol

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Can we look into this in general for pvp balance. Seems to be the culprit more times then not when a spec is doing to much in a short time.

With that said I’m happy for my ret brethren.

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if you remove final reckoning and dont remove seraphim, i unsub

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hpal next please :slight_smile:

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Well since warrior always had better mobility I would say ya, it is ok.

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Great news.

Removal of Retribution Aura, or at least being made passive is essential to me.
Along the same lines, I think changes need to be made to SoV and Recompense.
We shouldn’t have to prioritise poor use of our utility in order to try and compete in our primary role.

I don’t think anyone really wants Rogue mobility, but horse just doesn’t work well.
It’s too much mobility for any situation it is required, for too short duration, on too long a cd.
Also well as being on the GCD which is a real issue.

This also lends itself towards people feeling bad against paladins in PvP who (when unable to be stopped) have no way of escaping horse without vertical mobility. Which in combination with burst damage is not a good combo.

Edit: Also in regards to mobility, if our thematic is supposed to be more implacable (which I thought was more DK) we need higher base movespeed to compensate.
This is what Pursuit of Justice did for us previously by bringing us above most classes, and in line with faster classes whilst making us more resistant to CC and slows.

There is no point in being unable to be slowed if you are already 15% slower than every other class baseline, before even taking into account their mobility tools. Especially when it is expressed through talents that still allow us to be slowed to 70% and in a limited area. It just doesnt work

Divine Protection really shouldn’t be a choice against SoV I feel either, we practically need that as our only off GCD defensive option, despite it being extremely low DR.
Having it be baseline with Holy’s base 1 min cd feels for reasonable, if it’s an issue for Prot simply have one of their current defensives identify that it replaces it (so they don’t feel like they just miss out)

Rotation cohesion is also important as Exorcism/Consecration not falling in to the actual builder/spender rotation design can be counter-intuitive.

I also feel we need our own unique generalised utility, something that doesn’t fall into a niche category like BoP or BoF. Other classes provide things like 5% Attack Power or 5% increased magic damage done, ontop of external raid defensive cds which make them desirable, meanwhile Ret cannot even take Devo Auras 3% DR.

We literally used to be the buff class, known for providing the largest amount of raid utility in the game, auras, blessings, judgements, ontop of additional raid wide buffs from our talents.
Providing the worst general utility in the game is not a position we would have expected to find ourselves in 8 expansions later.

I would advise you to take a look at the Ret forum as well as even the DF beta Paladin feedback.

There have been many people who have put in a ton of effort to provide solutions, suggestions, and identify problems so it is worth taking a look.
It’s hard to get everything out in a good format without making ridiculously long essay posts.

I second this.

Honestly I feel it’s a complete package, and if we take a look at the situation other specs like Holy are also unhappy.

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traditionally ret paladin had better mobility than most.

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Please, bring back baseline Crusader Aura. It was one of my favorite utility spells. It feels weird as Holy to only have 2 Auras. Having it as a talent is really frustrating.

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Ret paladin mains everywhere: DIAMOND HANDS!

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