Ok, so ret paladins are in a pretty sorry place right now. I don’t think Blizzard knows the meaning of retribution nor do they know what the spec should be. I have some suggestions. Some people may agree, some may not. When I think of a retribution Paladin, I think of a holy warrior that is pissed off. He or she will most likely be enraged increasing the speed at which they attack and do damage. With that said, shouldn’t they be more like fury warriors, except without titans grip? Shouldn’t retribution paladins have zero downtime, just like fury warriors? Think about it, if you’re angry, you’re most likely going to keep attacking until your enemy is destroyed. A retribution paladin should literally be smiting people. I think taking some mechanics from fury and implenting them into ret and reducing some of our cd’s would work very very well. I know some people will talk about homogenization, but in this case, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to take some mechanics from fury and implement into ret. Enrage, which increases haste and damage done(so we’d have passive haste baked in, so we wouldn’t need to stack a bunch of haste) and templars verdict could be our rampage. Fury warriors have very little buttons and yet, they have zero downtime. Why can’t Ret be like that? Ret and fury should be very very similar as they are both similar thematically.
Make our spenders cost 2 holy power and we would be gcd locked.
While I do agree ret/prot paladins needs to show some more of there warrior side. I don’t think ret has the same kind of fury that a warrior has. I see ret as a holy avrenger kinda deal, “you have done wrong and I will make it right with your downfall” feel.
If you need help; fury is more of a barbarian brutal rage;
Ret paladin is more of a vengence rage.
That being said, I don’t think enrage effects fits any paladins, but I do think a sort of titan grip can work, sheild and 2-hand, hitting hard but slow for example.
Well, they don’t have to name it enrage. I don’t care what they name it, they could name it Uncle Bob’s vengeance for all it matters lol. Maybe something similar to a passive version of wings? Idk how to describe it. But if you think about it, our toolkits are very very similar with just different names, except Ret doesn’t hit half as hard. But I mean, rage is rage isn’t it? Aren’t you still going to attack with a flurry of attacks?
There is different kinds of anger other then blind rage that fury has.
Still Retribution is about avenging your allies fallen or hurt in battle. Bringing instoppable justice to the wrongful. Bane of the evils.
And the gameplay is like candycrush compared to the description of the spec.
I think you should look into Paladin: Oath of Vengeance from dnd 5e.
The Oath of Vengeance is a solemn commitment to punish those who have committed a grievous sin. When evil forces slaughter helpless villagers, when an entire people turns against the will of the gods, when a thieves’ guild grows too violent and powerful, when a dragon rampages through the countryside – at times like these, paladins arise and swear an Oath of Vengeance to set right that which has gone wrong. To these paladins – sometimes called avengers or dark knights – their own purity is not as important as delivering justice.
Tenets of Vengeance
The tenets of the Oath of Vengeance vary by paladin, but all the tenets revolve around punishing wrongdoers by any means necessary. Paladins who uphold these tenets are willing to sacrifice even their own righteousness to mete out justice upon those who do evil, so the paladins are often neutral or lawful neutral in alignment. The core principles of the tenets are brutally simple.
Fight the Greater Evil. Faced with a choice of fighting my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil, I choose the greater evil.
No Mercy for the Wicked. Ordinary foes might win my mercy, but my sworn enemies do not.
By Any Means Necessary. My qualms can’t get in the way of exterminating my foes.
Restitution. If my foes wreak ruin on the world, it is because I failed to stop them. I must help those harmed by their misdeeds.
I blame holy power mechanics, too close to rogue, and the lack of ret utility.
This all sound pretty damn awesome, and that’s how ret were from vanilla to cata.
Legion stripped all the awesome evils and undead identity as part of the bane of evil and wicked to just be a basic battle knight.
I loved the archetype of the Justicar / Bane of the wicked. Now ret is just a justicar battle knight and it’s so bad.
Just because you don’t like Holy Power doesn’t mean it’s the problem.
Before Holy Power you had the FCFS based rotation and you had as much if not more downtime.
The main problem is that they never gave flavor, synergy to holy power within the spec, talents or baseline. Holy Power can be easily fixed if they just made the damn changes.
Like everytime you achieve 5 holy power you gain 15% haste, 30% movement speed for 8sec.
Passive or talent that makes every holy power spent reduce the cooldown of crusader strike, blade of justice, hammer of wrath, wake of ashes, judgement and avenging wrath.
The alternative is a blue rage bar or we just hit buttons when they come off CD which the equivalent to binding all your abilities to your scroll wheel on your mouse and rollin’-rollin’-rollin’-rollin’.
Ooh I like that idea. Pretty much every other melee class has the cd reduction mechanic.
Agree in principal that the Ret Paladin should show more of the Knight-side of the Paladin equation (they’re not all priests taught to fight, they’re also plenty who are knights that were taught holy magic).
This.
I prefer some of the prestige class options from 3rd edition to the 5th edition stuff.
The Fist of Raziel for Retribution (Book of Exalted Deeds).
The Defender of Sealtiel for Protection (Book of Exalted Deeds)
The Martyr of Illmater for Holy.
Also Morninglord of Lathander (Forgotten Realms Player’s Book), the Justicar of Tyr (Forgotten Realms Player’s Book), the Triadric Knight (Heroes of Faerun? or Heroes of Valor?), and such.
The Vassal of Bahamut and the Platinum Knight (one is in the Warrior’s Handbook, the other in the Draconomicon…and one may also be in the Book of Exalted Deeds) are also great options.
General ‘flavor’ can be from bits of the Purple Dragon Knight.
If you want Dragonlance — then look no further than Metzen’s own favorite character Sturm Brightblade — a Knight of Solamnia — basically Dragonlance Paladins.
And what the initial Knights of the Silverhand were based on.
Actually its just like monks. Basically they are turning us into plated monks
we had holy power before monks existed though… just holy/prot is returning to it.
Your righteous fury comes from being unable to reach that pesky mage jumping around while you’re trying to make your wheelchair move, 100% genius design.
No undispellable freedom soon, can’t wait.
This is true. But Monks have been the class that has had the combo points for all 3 specs.
It is like they do not know what to do with paladins. So they throw stuff at a wall to see if it sticks. Personally I hate hp and think it has no places for Prot and Holy paladins. That is my opinion on the matter.
This sounds like it’s leaning more towards dragoons, which I wouldn’t mind at all.
“Vengeance cannot be a part of what we must do. If we allow our passions to turn to bloodlust, then we will become as vile as the orcs.” — Uther
Fury, revenge, hatred should not be paladin things. I like the idea of removing downtime from the spec, but I don’t think having us be that similar to fury warriors is a good thing for the spec.
Paladins have a level 40 one, made one during bc, and trashed them during wraith with my DK. Anyways on to the point on hand.
Holy power I do not believe is the problem. As the years have gone by paladins animations have become more and more I guess out of focus. Not really something you look at and say wow this looks paladin worthy.
I believe crusader strike should generate holy power but possibly give it the mortal strike damage of the warrior, without the bleed, and without the reducing incoming healing to the target. Use the warriors mortal strike animations. Blade of justice really should be a melee ability that hits hard. FYI mortal strike right now hits like a wet noodle so no chance of that becoming op on the above suggestion.
I like what the Dark Iron dwarf suggested about making divine steed a uninterrupted/unhindered ability when activated.
The other thing reading this thread, I tossed around was something unique for ret, but given what happened with titans grip it could have a negative effect. Shield plus two handed weapons? Too much? I got the thought from Diablo 3, which auto gets people going for some reason. Just a thought.
Lastly as other have said in other paladin threads. Exorcism really needs to make a return. It really needs to do extra damage to all undead player or otherwise. Its not like it was ever a spam ability, as far as I can remember.