The Light and How to Swing It: Retribution of patch 4.1
by Alex Ziebart 
Mar 2nd 2011 at 5:00PM
Before we get started here, I'd like to include a disclaimer: Yes, we're about to talk about patch 4.1. However, it is still extremely early in the patch's life cycle, so anything and everything could change before the patch hits live realms. We are going to talk about the patch because I feel the few changes to retribution currently on the PTR are significant, and talking about them is a good way to gain an understanding of them. If you like (or dislike) a change but don't understand the how and the why, what good is it?
With that out of the way, it's time to render judgement upon the patch 4.1 patch notes.
Word of Glory now has a 20-second cooldown. Ouch. My gut reaction to this change included a lot of profanity, but I took a step back to let the concept percolate through my mind. I'm not so upset anymore. Largely, I think PvE retribution paladins are getting caught up in a mess created by other areas of play. Protection paladins manage to do a lot of self-healing with Word of Glory, far above and beyond the other tanks (except possibly blood death knights).
Additionally, retribution in PvP has been inching in the direction of not great for dealing damage, but has a ton of survivability. The developers have never been happy with retribution filling that role in PvP. Retribution ended up that way previously, and they've specifically tried to move us away from that. If you do damage, you should do damage, not soak it up all day long. The reintroduction of Sacred Shield made that problem even worse, which is part of the explanation for a change we'll get into shortly.
Word of Glory's cooldown for non-holy paladins will bring protection paladins back in line with other tanks and will reduce the PvP survivability of retribution paladins. That might open up an opportunity to give retribution some other tool to use in PvP -- an offensive tool, not another defensive one.
In PvE, retribution just needs to deal with it, I suppose. It was a nice ability, and I've done a lot of clutch healing with it, especially when my guild was first learning heroic 5-mans, but we have other survivability tools that we can rely on besides one that uses up all of our holy power. I will certainly miss using Zealotry and spamming Word of Glory on myself in a tight spot, though.
The cooldown on Word of Glory brings up another concern, however. The talent Selfless Healer was always a DPS loss for a min-maxing raiding ret paladin, but now it's even more lackluster. Word of Glory with a 20-second cooldown reduces the worth of Selfless Healer significantly. At this point, I'm highly in favor of Blizzard's removing it and replacing it with something else. It was nice for clutch healing/saves in PVP and early Cataclysm progression, but it simply doesn't have a role anymore. Then again, if a ret paladin in PvP is still trying to use Word of Glory every cooldown, maybe they want those once-in-awhile heals to be as effective as possible. It might still be extremely popular in the arena and rated battlegrounds.
Sacred Shield's internal cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds, up from 30. I see this as primarily a PvP balancing move, but it wasn't exactly balanced in PvE, either. Every 30 seconds, the retribution paladin triggered an absorption shield equal to 30% of maximum health, in addition to a +20% healing received buff. Add Sacred Shield to tools like Divine Protection and retribution was pretty tough to kill, both in PvP and PvE. Not many other DPS specs have that sort of survivability. Retribution's DPS is quite a bit more competitive since the implementation of our new mastery in patch 4.0.6, so it's hard to justify that sort of survivability.
Sacred Shield is still an extremely good talent in both PvP and PvE. The new cooldown is most certainly a nerf, but it brings it more in line with other defensive cooldowns -- it also now matches the cooldown on Divine Protection (which you really should have glyphed if you're a raider).
Now, for the change you've all been waiting for ...
Shifting between single-target DPS and AoE DPS is an essential part of a player's toolkit, and I'm a firm believer that players should all generally be on equal ground in that realm. It isn't acceptable for a DPS spec to have truly terrible single-target DPS, so the same standard should be applied to AoE. The developers seem to be on the same page now, considering this change and the significant changes to shaman AoE.
One step forward ...
Two nerfs and one buff. That isn't a winning score, but it fits the vision that the developers have described to us in the past. Retribution paladins shouldn't have strong defensive capabilities in exchange for lackluster offensive viability. It might be good flavor, but it's not good design in a game like WoW where your class's DPS determines whether or not you get to participate in raid content.
Despite the negative score, I remain positive. We've already come a long way since Cataclysm's launch, and this is a step in the right direction. From here, I'd like to see two things happen.
First, retribution needs a new PvP tool -- specifically, an offensive tool, not another survivability cooldown. I'm not much of a PvP player myself, so my contributions to that kind of discussion might not be effective, but I think it's an important discussion for the PvP community to have. If you go to the PTR forum tonight, don't argue for the return of Word of Glory spam or the 30-second Sacred Shield. Don't argue for more defensive capabilities. Discuss alternatives. What offensive tools would round out the retribution paladin's toolset? Talk it out and be creative -- don't just cry for Mortal Strike.
The second thing I'd like to see happen is the removal and replacement of Selfless Healer. I like the talent -- I kept it far beyond the point it was "correct" to do so -- but the Word of Glory nerf renders it largely obsolete. Perhaps that could play into the new tool for retribution PvP, as Selfless Healer was much better received in the PvP community than the PvE community. It would be a painless transition.
The Light and How to Swing It teaches you the ins and outs of retribution paladins: the changes introduced by patch 4.0.6, how to gem, enchant and reforge your ret, and more. We even have something for holy and protection paladins, too.
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
John Mar 2nd 2011 5:04PM
Can we for once get a Prot article...
Aalokor Mar 2nd 2011 5:33PM
No, no no
we need a Holy article
Angus Mar 2nd 2011 7:56PM
The downvoting of the holy comment shows a lack of humor.
Come on folks, about a quarter of the posts in the Holy column for a month were asking for ret/prot articles.
I have a prot article all ready to go.
Step 1: Get mastery.
Step 2: If the itemization has a defensive stat(not mastery) + threat stat, reforge threat to mastery.
Step 3: if all defensive, reforge whichever is most on your toon after all otehr reforges are done to mastery.
Get pursuit of justice, use Divine plea to have 3 HP(B!) on a pull and judge running in. Hit bad guy in face with full powered shield while wings are up, follow with 939 rotation and substitute word of glory as needed for cushion. (This last part getting nerfed at a new patch near you)
Ellesmere Mar 2nd 2011 5:09PM
Just for clarification:
"Divine Storm now generates 1 point of holy power if it hits (i.e., successfully lands on) four or more targets."
It still generates HoPo on single target, yes?
Revanel Mar 2nd 2011 5:18PM
No. It doesn't.
Alex Ziebart Mar 2nd 2011 5:20PM
It does not and it never did.
Bapo Mar 2nd 2011 5:26PM
it doesn't, and it's still meh to me. Idk, I just don't like the new version of DS all that much.
Thundrcrackr Mar 2nd 2011 5:54PM
I see a huge problem with this.
How often are we actually AOEing more than 3 targets? And the few times we are, we're going to be hitting DS expecting to get holy power and half the time we're not going to get it. Because either that 4th mob JUST died right as we pressed it, or that 4th mob was JUST out of range and didn't count. Or one of the casters pulled agro on one of them for just a second...just long enough to pull them slightly out or range right when we hit our DS. Or one of the mobs does some charge/jump thing out to one of the ranged right as we press it.
I see a ton of ways this will be pissing me off because i'll be wasting a CD on DS and not getting any HoPo for it. If it only required to hit 3 mobs, i'd be much more optimistic about it.
Alex Ziebart Mar 2nd 2011 6:25PM
Thundr: If there are less than 4 targets you shouldn't be using Divine Storm anyway. Not ever. It's more effective to single target them in those situations.
You should only be using Divine Storm on legitimate AOE packs, and those are extremely easy to notice -- the troggs in Halls of Origination, the adds on Maloriak, etc.
Carr0t Mar 2nd 2011 6:27PM
I'm assuming not. People have done the maths on EJ and such and worked out that Divine Storm is only effective as DPS over Crusader Strike if you're hitting 4/5+ targets anyway, so on less than that you should be single targetting with Crusader Strike to get your Holy Power.
Thundrcrackr Mar 2nd 2011 7:33PM
That's kinda my point though. How often are we dealing with more than 3 mobs? Not very often. And even then that first one dies so fast we'll get maybe, what, 1 DS off? Big deal. AOE is still dead. I'll stick to single target.
Ellesmere Mar 2nd 2011 10:53PM
God, I'm retarded. I mixed up spells in my head. I KNEW that.
Jenzrr Mar 3rd 2011 12:19AM
I foresee a lot of people breaking CC's trying to use DS.
Zubasa Mar 3rd 2011 5:29AM
@Thundrcrackr:
Its funny that people complains about everything.
DS has always meant to be an aoe ability.
Now that Blizzard makes it truly effective in AOE?
You are just complaining for the sake of complaining.
neogramps Mar 3rd 2011 5:45AM
This will help for soloing old content in ret spec- spamming DS on large packs will do decent damage and keep you alive while still giving you plenty of HoPo to play with (thinking of Magtheridon specifically, applies to others too)
Thundrcrackr Mar 3rd 2011 10:00AM
@Alex
I'm not talking about using it when there are less than 4 mobs. I said "more than 3".
@Zubasa
I don't think you read what I wrote. I'm arguing that it may still not be an effective AOE, because the times we have 4+ mobs (it has to hit at least 4 mobs for it to generate any HoPo, I'm not sure everyone is understanding that) are few and far between and there are too many cases where that 4th one will have just died or just moved out of range, etc so we waste our GCD trying to use DS when we would have been better off just single targeting. Does anyone else get what I'm saying?
Basically, this makes it a tiny bit better in the rare cases we actually have enough mobs, that are alive long enough, for us to not worry about whether or not its going to hit that 4th one. Like Alex siad, those cases where its a pack of like 8 non-elites. But those always die so fast anyway we'll still only get maybe one or two DS off before the pack is dead or down to 3 so its going to make little if any difference on our DPS. And that's just on trash which doesn't matter anyway. The only real advantage I see for this is what neogramps said, making soloing old content easier.
I am certainly not complaining for complaining's sake. I, like many, have thought DS is broken in Cata and have spent this whole time hoping for a change that will make it viable again and I just don't see this being it. Hopefully i'm wrong. Only time will tell i guess.
And i haven't done all the raid fights in Cata yet either, so maybe there are some out there where the new DS will really shine. I sure hope so.
TL:DR, I fear it will end up annoying us more than anything because of many cases where we'll use it expecting to get HoPo but won't, due to the 4th one not hitting for whatever reason.
RAGE Mar 4th 2011 12:22PM
Play RIFT. Forget WOW and all the nerfs and being locked into talent trees.
vloriggio Mar 2nd 2011 5:20PM
I wish Ret Paladins got more abilities like the ones we see NPCs use... Why couldn't we get a version of Eadric's Radiance or Hammer of the Righteous abilities?
Seems to me like maybe one of those could combo off Stuns or something. It would be useful against Undead and Demons (via Holy Wrath) and Hammer of Justice. Say... a Haunt-like ability which would heal for damage dealt if the target were stunned.
I dunno, just throwing an idea out there. Synergy between abilities always makes them more enjoyable and relevant to me.
Bapo Mar 2nd 2011 5:28PM
My question is this, (more aimed at ret than prot though). Instead of giving WoG a long CD, why not make it where Hand of Light (or whatever it is) not give WoG a free 3 point heal? Have it where WoG could proc it, just not benefit from it. Or would that just be the same thing still?
Although, I have to admit, I love my procs proccing off of procs. Greatest time is when you get like, 4 - 5 TV's in a row :D
Shadowkahn Mar 2nd 2011 5:31PM
Generally I would use Word of Glory to heal party members in a dungeon, be it dps or the healer. Hardly use it on myself as tank.