In response to Kalgan's Retribution posts - Compilation of Retribution Issues v2.1.0

Edit: Added IRC answers from Kalgan & Co.

[Core Problems]

Retribution tree is very close to being viable in 25 man raiding environment. But theres huge problems in small scale gameplay and 5man group activity. Retribution Paladin should have few unique obvious group based support tools to compensate lack of personal damage. Increasing raw damage would create balance issues, hence its not good option. Instead the Retribution Paladin role as support player should be encouraged. Retribution Paladin with low dps output should cover the performance issue by offering great support utiltys while meleeing. Retribution support tools currently scale to almost reasonable state in raiding environment (Not to appealing degree, barely acceptable). But because of that the singleplayer and 5man grouping benefits scale down to nonexsistent. Judgement of Wisdom/Light cant be fixed when they only contain Raid focused beneficial component. If they had group beneficial components, Retribution could turn into more appealing party member instead of just being low damage and low support. Word impractical is key factor in small scale gameplay.

[Talents]

The Retribution tree has no clear role. It is Melee based DPS tree with mediocore Raid supporting toolset. Its partly supposed to be solo/grinding tree, where the tree performs extremely badly due no manaregeneration and PvE survivability additions that the tree would offer. Partly the tree is supposed to be raid tree, with few 25man raid supporting tools, what are extremely lacking in any small scale gameplay. The tree is seen as nothing but Low DPS offering tree by community, as there are no group based buffs that could work instead of making them scale to overpowered in 25man content. Retribution tree completely lacks tree defining unique purpose and toolset. Judgements and Blessings are all available to other specs, and even Sanctity aura as fix to our raid viability is encouragin aurabot instead of encourage meleeing Paladin (See Suggestion for Vengeance).


1) Seal of Command

Melee tree, but Judgement of Command check on Resist. Instead of melee avoidance. This conflicts and generates itemization problems where 1 specific talent (Seal of Command) would require Melee stats + spellcaster stats, and both melee and spell hit rating.

2) Vindication

This talent is extremely lacking, and is too good to work in raid purposes. Almost all bosses are immune to this talent. Suggestion: Make it something that debuffs target and scales equally in small and raid scale gameplay. Additional Suggestion: Rework this to be more defensive ability and change with Precision.

3) Improved Seal of the Crusader

Is considered to be pointless. The effect is extremely minimal to Paladins own performance. And it really should be, like all Retribution talents, group/party supporting tools. Suggestion: 20/40/60% from your Judgement of Crusader damage modifier is applied to all spell damage.

4) Pursuit of Justice

Another pointless talent. Why turn talent tree slot into ”Do you want to use runspeed enchant?” Nothing unique utlity. Just enchant replacement. Suggestion: Make this "Improved Crusader Aura: 5/10% runspeed increased when Crusader Aura is active"

Your Blessing of Freedom will also increase the target's speed by 5/10% (stacks with other effects). In addition, the speed increase effect of your Crusader's Aura is increased by an additional 5/10% (Making it +30% speed). (Thanks to Clangeddin for this suggestion).

5) Improved Retribution Aura

Just like all other Paladin tools. This is not scaling at all with your gear. Suggestion: Your Retribution Aura gains 5% damage bonus from your spell damage. And this really should be more of Protection talent than Retribution.

6) Sanctity Aura

This is basicly self buff aura. Give base aura some group beneficial utility.

7) Improved Sanctity Aura

Removing the 6% healing bonus basicly annihilated Retribution raid viability, and replacing it with 2% damage modifier was very thin replacement. Suggestion: Consider making this 2/4% (Or read Vengeance notes).

8) Vengeance

Great talent, but problems of retribution tree lies within the scaling in raiding environment. And the lack of small scale party specific buffs removes our place from small scale gameplay. Suggestion: In 2.1 this stack 3 times. Each stack will increase damage of party members by 1%.

9) Sanctified Judgement

Insufficient to improve Retribution solo/grind. Suggestion: At current state theres 2 options. Either prolong running oom by changing this talent to effect all offensive abilitys. As current gear and itemization offers 0 (zero) mana per 5sec, this would make the combat duration slightly better and would leave room with average manapool to heal your self once to full health before drinking (To let Paladin use hes own skills). Other option would be to turn this to similiar to Shamanistic Rage, to have 1 cooldown for regaining some mana every now and then.

10) Crusader Strike

Based on lvl 60 gameplay issues, where Retribution Paladins were considered as lethal enemy, this talent was nerfed from 6sec to 10sec. But, in TBC with lvl 70 stamina and gear the talent scaled extremely poorly, and Paladins dropped back to the bottom when it comes to PvP and being feared enemy. Even when the lvl 60 gameplay would have justified nerf to this talent, the outcome of 10sec CrusaderStrike cooldown rendered Judgement refreshing extremely impractical. Suggestion: Please consider lowering the cooldown to 8sec just for the sake of saving Judgement system.

[Support] - Retribution and Judgements

We are again facing the scaling problem in raiding environment for Judgements to be viable addition in small scale gameplay. For Soloing its just plain stupid to judge any of the seals instead of damaging ones due monsters dying in relatively short time (Judgement cooldown wasted and mana waste). This skill offers mediocore support in raiding environment. Cant say its useless, since it aint. But the fact that its impractical to make other Paladins from healing job to come aply new judgements when from time to time they will drop off (See Crusader Strike for reference). If these Judgements are kept as they are, some high Retribution talent should enable judging of multiple seals into target. This would not create any imbalanced issues as the Judgement scaling in small scale gameplay is extremely thin, and in pvp combat duration is very short to even consider judging many 8 sec cooldowns to aply multiple seals.

Suggestions:

Sanctified Crusader and Judgements

- In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement of the Crusader spell will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 1/2/3%.
- Each point spent to this talent allows Paladin to aply 1 extra Judgement to target (Total 3 additional Judgements).

Judgement of Light

All Attacks and spells used against target have a chance of causing the attacker to be healed for 95.
Paladins critical melee attacks against target heal party within 15 yards for 10% of the damage.

Judgement of Wisdom

Attacks and spells used against target have a chance of restoring 74 mana, 1 energy and 1 rage.

Retribution Paladins should offer some unique support role what is very obvious and why the low damage they offer should be considered as sufficient because they bring the good support tools. Another Paladin scaling problem with judgements comes in mind also. Where Shadowpriest regenerates more and more where their gear improve, Paladin support doesnt scale at all in form of Judgement of Light and Wisdom with gear improvements.

Healing when meleeing would be desired Paladinish way of playing. Again we come to brainstorming viable ability to supportheal while being in melee combat. Shadowpriest is great example of passive healing when dealing damage. But turning Paladin into similiar would propably be bad. Instead there could be alternative unique support methods that Paladins offer. Damage reduction or haste increasing effects.

[Itemization]

Total lack of caster/melee combined "Paladin items", exceptions are 1 neck and 1 ring. Lack of plate items that fulfill Paladin itemization needs. Currently for example Retribution Paladin needs following stats. Melee crit %, Mana / 5sec, Stamina, Int, Spell hit % (Stun/Repentance and see reference to Judgement of Command issues), Melee hit %, Str, Agi, Attack Power and Spell damage. With current itemization and lack of "Paladinish" items (unlike Druid items) it is plain impossible to balance your stats even close to reasonable minimum % of hit etc what other classes have as quaranteed from their gear.

It truly is our curse for having combatsystem that is 50% caster and 50% melee based. And that should be taken into consideration when thinking budget cost of all the needes stats. There should be reasonable way to get bare minimum of needed stats to be achieveable without completely negleting 1 aspect of our combat system. There is something deeply wrong in itemization where Warriors equip Rogue gear and Paladins equip Warrior gear.

Suggestion: Give us talent that converts melee stats into spellcasting stats (Spell damage, Manaregeneration, Spell hit or Int). Or fix the itemization to allow Paladins equip the gear they want instead of taking 1 item from casters and another from pure melee classes.

[Set and item issues]

1) The T4 set bonuses are quite Good.
2) The T5 set bonuses. 2 piece bonus trying to fix core talent tree problems and 4 piece bonus being ridiculously low proc change to be considered as any addition.
3) The T6 set bonuses. 2 piece bonus trying to fix core talent tree problems and 4 piece bonus being on skill that is extremely rarely used due its cast time. in 99% of time its way better to let your autoattack do the job instead of wasting time for Hammer. This is more of pvp bonus. And even in PvP you very rarely can or should use Hammer of Wrath.
4) Retribution Gladiator Glove Bonus. Again this old pathetic 20 dmg to judgement of crusader. Its just very old and pathetic bonus. Make this bonus reduce Hammer of Wrath cast time or make 50% change to resist interupt when casting Hammer of Wrath.
5) Ashtongue Talisman of Zeal. Uncontrollable damage over time component is completely useles for Retribution Paladins as the DoT will always break repentance and hence destroys Retribution Combat system when using this trinket. Pretty useless to Protection Paladins also?

Edit: Latest information about future of Retribution

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=285172648&postId=2987757551&sid=1#482

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Q u o t e:
Ommra: Hello again, I just wanted to let you know that the developers have taken part of your suggestions, and are looking into improving the retribution paladin spec. You can probably expect something along the line of more sustained DPS in a raid and more raid utility, but we are not ready to reveal any details. This is still work in progress, so please be patient :)

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Current feedback related to Retribution Tree from developers.

*** Question #1 ***

<Brannoc> *Jazzelle986* Some Points were brought up about tuning shamans in upcoming patches, but very little specifics were given...is there anything that can be elaborated on at all?

<Kalgan> We do plan to do some more refinement of the shaman class in an upcoming patch. That being said, we're starting to settle in on a pretty good spot for elemental and resto specs. By and large it's the enhancement spec that we'd like to see become more than "just" a leveling spec (same can be said for the paladin retribution spec)

*** Question #2 ***

<Brannoc> *little3* Retribution specced paladins are not seen as a viable raid choice as their DPS is 'low' and the support they bring could easily be done by another DPS class. Will retribution be made into a viable end-game raiding spec through either DPS increases or support increases?

<Tigole> but then who will save the hunters, kalgan?
<Kalgan> Yes, I'd like to see ret become a bit more raid viable in terms of dps and overall utility.
<Kalgan> the ret pallies will save them!
<Kalgan> next patch'!
<Kalgan> ok, maybe not
<Kalgan> or maybe...
<Kalgan> Right. At any rate, something we've noticed in our testing is that ret pallies are in kind of a jam where their dps isn't enough to get the put in a dps group in a raid.
<Kalgan> ... which makes their dps suffer even more.
<Kalgan> Hopefully we can get that solved in a way that doesn't cause ret pallies to rule the pvp universe.

nice

Yeah i must say, I really like the amount and quality of the ideas you come up with (and the few others that have some REALLY nice ideas)

I find it relatively easy to stack up on +STR items. As a hybrid that, when specced for damage dealing, can't really tank, heal or do respectable dps nomatter gear, something is wrong. Druids have a talent in feral that increases healing done by 50% of their strength, and not only do they gain like 2,4 or 2,6 AP per point of STR, they also get this bonus.

Compared to druids, paladins just smell.
They are desirable as tanks and in same tree physical dps and support (5% melee crit and heal on crit), moonkin does a fair amount of damage and support(5% spell crit), and resto druids are VERY nice healers. Just the fact that a druid can go from insane cat dps to switch out, having full mana and healing to almost oom, then go back in form and continue makes them THE hybrid.

Retribution paladins' mana pool is low on its own, and it doesnt support a few holy lights or even flash of light ( 550 healed when boss hits 12k, NERF!!11 ).

What could be REALLY cool is having a talent equal to druids', giving X% of str in +heal and shamans' elemental talent, giving X% of intellect in mp5, also making intellect a bit more attractive than it is now. And something i read somewhere, that if you could use 1 vengeance application to throw 1 flash of light instant (and free?), that would be so awesome.. Also the ideas about judgement of light and of the crusader is really nice, with having x% of holy damage increase in "spell damage" for everyone, not stacking with the holy portion, and with crusader, x% of crit damage to heal party ( or maybe people standing near? they are the ones needing heals after all )

One of the best write-ups and suggestion to date. You've been careful not to overpower the bajeezus out of the soup and presented the problems with good and realistic examples. Your suggestions are thought through and indicate you know much about game mechanics.

In short:

Marry me.

Cromfel I love you,

now I just hope some blue will read this

Oh one thing:

Fanaticism: 5/5 Increase crit chance of all judgements capable of a crit by 15% and chance to hit with judgements by 5%

Eliminates the need for +spell hit and free to focus on int/str/ap/agi/crit/sta. woo

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Q u o t e:
Cromfel I love you,

now I just hope some blue will read this

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Most likely blues will read this. The point is that they just don't care.

Blizz give cromfel a job! ASAP

Very nice compilation of idea's and suggestions to improve the Paladin class to a standard at which it would be viable to play all three of the roles that it should be able to play.

However.. I think it would be a great idea for Seal of Command's proc to NOT be able to be dodged/blocked/parried IF the original auto-swing has hit. But also shouldn't be able to hit when the auto swing has been blocked/dodged/parried


Just another idea :D

The blues keep disappointing me, people have made a tremendous effort to improve this class in a balanced way, not only to make it more desirable but also more fun to play, and all we get is....

...check Aegis sig

Good work ole' fella.

Simply Fabulous!

I fully support this post in every way imaginable. I applaud the OP for taking the time to write this on the forums and putting it forward.

I hope someone, somewhere with any influence reads this and takes notes.

The paladin class has so much potential but I so often get the feeling that peoples irrational fear of the 61/61/61 build is holding it back.

- Richter, lvl 70 Paladin, Nordrassil.

I approve of this thread.
It's just wrong of the developers to say "you have a choice how to spec" when in essence you are pigeon holed down into healing because 2 out of 3 talent trees are poorly designed with respect to end-gaming.
Elegant solutions. I'd like to see this on a PTR :)

Still can't believed I got all the way to lvl70 and finally got my [Thunder] 2-h mace.. just to check in on the retribution tree and cry.
Hear that devs? My [Thunder] @ 105,7dps is rusting in my bank!

"viva la retribution!"

I still don't get it why did they give us party buffs if they want retri to be a 'solo' tree. Make up your mind Blizzard..

Reported!

(For sticky / fix!)