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The latest patch 5.4 newsThe Light and How to Swing It: Retribution paladin feedback
by Dan Desmond 
Oct 5th 2011 at 7:00PM
Before we begin, let's have a quick overview of our snazzy new tier 13 armor, complete with set bonuses!
Aesthetically speaking, I really like the look of it. Sure, the helm is a bit gaudy, but I think the color scheme and overall design really fit the concept of paladin well. Blizzard stated that it based the design off of Guardian of Ancient Kings, but it obviously went beyond that just a tad. Also, for those of you not keen on plate dresses, this set should be right up your alley!
As for the set bonuses:
Quote:
Retribution, 2P -- Your Judgement ability now also generates 1 Holy Power.
Retribution, 4P -- While Zealotry is active your abilities deal 12% more damage.
The two-piece, recently changed from its 50% proc chance iteration, should increase our holy power generation by anywhere between 40% to 50%, depending on your amount of haste. I imagine this set bonus will bump Judgement's priority up a few notches as well as smooth out our opening sequence.
The four-piece is your typical 2% buff (12% damage increase during an ability with a 16.67% uptime), but it comes with an increased emphasis on our cooldowns. We have long considered ourselves a cooldown class, a very burst-centric melee DPS spec, and it seems Blizzard is giving us a reassuring nod with this bonus.
Anyway, this week I thought I'd deviate from playing catch-up with the Firelands guides and answer Blizzard's call for class feedback. I've spent a fair amount of time browsing the paladin class feedback thread on the official forums, comparing others' thoughts on the state of the retribution paladin against my own. I have to say it has been an enlightening experience, and I recommend that those comfortable enough with posting on the forums go ahead and fill out Blizzard's questionnaire.
What are your biggest quality-of-life issues?
A lot of the quality-of-life issues I read from posters had to do with Inquisition. I'm going to try to contain my disappointment long enough to type this out:
Having to maintain a 36-second buff to our holy damage does not mean we have a lot to micromanage.
If you want to see an actual example of micromanagement, talk to someone with a feral druid. Blizzard heard our initial pleas to roll a part of our tier 11 four-piece bonus into the spec and dutifully fulfilled that request by buffing Inquiry of Faith. I know that refreshing a buff once every 30 seconds or so can be slightly annoying, but trust me -- it could be worse. Imagine if we didn't have Inquisition, and all you had to spend your holy power on was Templar's Verdict and the occasional Word of Glory. I don't know about you guys, but I would hate to see our spec lose some of the complexity it gained this expansion.
The next most common quality-of-life concern involved seals. Some want Blizzard to remove their duration, similar to what it did with Righteous Fury in patch 3.2. Others (myself included) want Blizzard to remove seals from the GCD to make seal-swapping less punishing. A few even suggested that they need more fish and open water for recreation.
Get it? Seals, as in both the paladin mechanic and the seaborne mammal ... bah, forget it.
The seal duration complaint is very minor, similar to the calls of rogues for an end to poison duration. Truthfully I would be fine either way, but I think we have bigger fish to fry.
For instance, taking seals off the GCD. Having to burn two global cooldowns just to switch between AOE and single-target scenarios is unnecessary and quite cumbersome in practical use. Keeping mana costs of seals restrictive (even after minor glyphs reduce their cost) would help prevent seal-swapping from getting out of control. If Blade Flurry is off the GCD, our seals definitely should be off the GCD.
What makes playing your class more fun?
This section is highly personal and varies from post to post, but I'll try to summarize the many opinions I have seen on the forums.
Utility Having one of the most impressive sets of utility abilities for any DPS spec is what draws many people to play a ret paladin, and it's hard to blame them. Reducing threat, transferring damage, protecting friends against melee attacks, freeing others from slows and snares, healing injured allies -- the sheer amount of game-changing abilities we have at our disposal is truly awesome.
Burst damage Have an enemy that is only going to be vulnerable for short periods of time? Ret paladins are uniquely suited to maximize these weak points by combining cooldowns such as Zealotry and Avenging Wrath. Toss in Guardian of Ancient Kings and a Golemblood Potion and you become a holy wrecking ball.
RNG This is truly a double-edged sword. The "fun" edge of the sword is when RNG works in your favor and blesses you with a Divine Purpose proc right when you need it and Art of War procs when you are wanting for fillers.
What makes playing your class less fun?
RNG The "not fun" edge comes when you just don't get any procs, and your DPS suffers as a result. More importantly, your enjoyment suffers because you are left adrift in a sea of longing, waiting for your next big and shiny ability to come off cooldown.
Aside from that, I am having trouble finding much else that I consider not fun about the spec. Do not, however, take that to mean that we only have one small issue. Our reliance on procs, namely Art of War and Divine Purpose, makes our DPS extremely variable, even leading some in the theorycrafting community to conjecture that "player skill" takes a back seat to RNG in determining our damage on any given fight. I have always relished the fact that if I spend time honing my skills and truly learning how to play, I am eventually rewarded with higher returns. As it stands now, I am more inclined to agree with the theorycrafters as I watch my damage fluctuate week after week without any changes in gear or skill.
How do you feel about your rotation?
The favorite adjective among feedback posters is "clunky." Again, this comes back to the RNG nature of our rotation. You can either be busily pumping out TVs faster than Samsung, or drumming your fingers on your desk waiting for Crusader Strike to come out to play. I believe this variation was by design, however. I remember some discussion about a number of specs being "GCD-locked" and how this was leading to tunneling, among other things. Not being GCD-locked means we can take a moment to survey the battlefield for potential dangers, help our allies in need, or even just admire the scenery.
For ret paladins, these lulls in the action are intended to be ideal opportunities to spend a global on a Hand spell or a quick heal, but we all know that these moments rarely intersect with when these utility abilities are most needed. So in the end, the rotation only becomes clunky when the player refuses to use these downtimes wisely. Personally, I really like our current rotation. Sure, it could stand to be improved in certain areas, but I generally enjoy myself while playing my paladin. The rotation isn't so involved that you miss out on what's going on around you, but it also isn't so mindless that you're playing a game while you're playing a game (might want to turn down your sound for this one).
What's on your wish list?
First, give us another single-target filler ability and/or get Holy Wrath out of our single-target repertoire. Blizzard hinted that it's considering toying with Hammer of Wrath, redistributing its damage to other abilities to even out damage between cooldown cycles. Here's a way to kill two birds: Lower Hammer of Wrath's damage when not in execute range or under the effect of Avenging Wrath and make it available all of the time. If the improved HoW has a short enough cooldown, we can take Holy Wrath and the occasional Consecration out of the single-target rotation entirely.
Second, turn Consecration into an AOE holy power finisher. The HP-dependent functionality could be folded into a talent (might as well be Sanctity of Battle for all the good it's doing right now), so it wouldn't break Consecration for the other specs. Make the damage significantly lower than TV on a single target, but scale it so that the damage over four or more targets results in higher DPS overall. Naturally, moving Consecration over to the holy power resource would remove its mana cost and prevent us from going OOM on AOE-heavy encounters.
Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with retribution. Going into Cataclysm, I wasn't expecting much out of our new resource system, but it has grown on me. Refreshing Inquisition at the right times has become a sort of minigame. With the changes to Divine Storm and Seal of Righteousness, our AOE DPS is back to being competitive, and it is pretty fun to boot. Having to use Holy Wrath as a filler on single-target encounters is a mere inconvenience, and not having an AOE finisher just makes our AOE rotation a bit of a bore. Of course we would all like to do more damage, but let's wait and see what 4.3 has in store for us before we grab the torches and pitchforks!
The Light and How to Swing It teaches you the ins and outs of retribution paladins, from Ret 101 and how to gem, enchant and reforge your retadin, to essential ret pally addons.Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
eel5pe Oct 6th 2011 12:57AM
pumping out TVs faster than Samsung- i laughed pretty hard. props.
RetPallyJil Oct 6th 2011 2:22AM
Heh you clearly didn't read MY comments in that thread ...
Durenas Oct 6th 2011 3:01AM
I agree with everything you have said.
Budokan Oct 6th 2011 9:15AM
Inquisition = the old Hunger For Blood (Rogue's Assassination tree)
Mut rogues used to have to maintain a buff called Hunger For Blood that gave them a flat, across the board, damage increase. Blizzard decided it was "clunky" as an obligatory self-buff, and too punishing to the playstyle, and in Cata they got rid of it entirely, rolling the buff into the rest of the spec.
It blows my mind when I think about this because they turned around and gave THE EXACT SAME MECHANIC to another spec.
.....why??
loli.gigis Oct 6th 2011 12:09PM
For one I don't think our rotation is clunky as it is just inconvenient. I have a change that I hope will happen but realistically never will:
Either let Divine Storm work with Zealotry or take it off the shared cool down. I hate the shared cool down. It makes AOE more cumbersome and makes us choose between AoE the group or continue single target when there is less then four targets as using DS on less then four with make us have a dip in DPS by not using our cool down for holy power generation.
I have strongly also believed that consecration should be a Ret ability. Before the recent threat changes I understood why it was a prot ability, they needed the extra threat from consecrate for packs of mobs. But that point is moot now. Currently on Rag fights the mana sucking AoE abilities I have to use makes me switch seals so I can regen mana (which if they keep the change to Seal of Insight I won't be able to do that anymore) quickly.
My last two complaints have to do with the cool downs of Hammer of Justice and Repent. I strongly believe a minute is too long for both in PVE (although I would support them being a minute in PVP). If a target's cc is broken or just doesn't stick (I have had that happen soooooo many times. No one is near the mob and it breaks out of CC) and now I can't re-CC. Many times I am able to solve this with going over to them and interrupting their casts and using my racial ability Arcane torrent to silence them to keep the damage low but it is still a pain. I believe Hammer of Justice should only be a 30second cool down and Repent cool down should interact more with them. So if you keep a target in repent for one minute the cool down (or simply unavailable) should stay with them the entire time, if cc breaks it should become available to you again.
That is it.... it's a book, but when I went to put my thoughts on the Forums the thread was completely full and I got an error message after spending almost an hour typing out, revising and adding links to make my case. That is more frustrating then RNG.
Pliers Oct 11th 2011 3:38PM
I can't believe I read someone saying (paraphrased) "Ret was the easy, mindless dps spec, and people who didn't want to have to think gravitated towards it. It's unfair to all of us who dislike having to use our brains, now that it's slightly more challenging than literally mashing 1-5 on my keyboard as fast as I can. That's why Inquisition is bad."
Hunger for Blood was removed because keeping up Slice and Dice, Rupture, *and* a buff that couldn't be applied unless the target was bleeding, was indeed clunky. That's like having to keep up 3 different Inquisitions. Rogues still have 2 timers to watch that use the same resource, compared to our 1, but they can't "downrank" with fewer CPs like we can with HP.
If you're going to appeal to the past to complain about the present...
CS used to have a 10 second cooldown. Seals had to be refreshed more often than Inquisition does now. Judgement was off the GCD, and we had no other fillers except for rank 1 Conc, when mana (rarely) allowed, so you sat around hoping for SoC and WF procs, and kept up judgements for the raid. Even with 40 raid slots, you were barely worth 1.
CS was changed to a 6 second CD, and we gained raid utility, but our personal dps was still terrible. It wasn't until WotLK that it made sense to give a paladin gear over warriors, since an upgrade barely changed our dps, and buffs didn't scale, so a paladin in blues was almost as useful as one in full epics. Our damage in Sunwell was okay, but it was because we were part of the stacked melee group, not because we actually had good output.
WotLK took away some of our utility, but gave us actual damage. Our rotation was whack-a-mole, and had next to nothing to do with individual skill. A G15 could outperform any human, simply by mashing everything 100x a second, and using whatever was off cooldown. All you had to do as a player was move your character, and mash 1-5 as fast as you could. Watching t.v. while raiding might have been how you had fun, but it's not good class design.
The blizzard UI is terrible for inquisition monitoring, but the mechanic itself is perfectly fine. It's only relevant twice a minute when its duration drops into single digits. Its timer matches up almost perfectly with our HP generating cycles, meaning most of the time, there's not even a question about its timing. It can be applied with 1, 2, or 3 holy power, works with Divine Purpose procs, and using it a little early or late is a minimal damage loss, making it very forgiving. I really don't understand why so many people find it such an issue to have to choose between a TV or Inq at a set point in the rotation.
Including DP procs, only 1/6th of your holy power is going into its upkeep, while it accounts for almost 1/6th of your *total* damage. An Inquisition adds close to 4x the damage of a TV.
If you really do miss the not-having-to-look-at-the-screen rotation of the past, just make a cast sequence and consider the lost 15% damage a laziness tax.
All that aside, our rotation IS clunky. I've learned to deal with it, but it should be changed. However, that's mostly a function of our procs. A rotation that has 2 procs that account for close to 20% of our damage, which still leave noticable, unpredictable gaps between abilities, is a poor rotation indeed. Especially when we're so cooldown-based, allowing for the timing of the procs (not even the # of procs) to result in a swing of thousands of dps. In two kills with nearly identical proc rates and duration, I've differed over 3000 dps at the end of the fight solely due to the timing of procs *in the first 45 seconds.* That's ridiculous.
Teresa Oct 7th 2011 4:12PM
I miss the utility and being able to switch styles on the fly, were nothing like how it used to be.
For instance, the awesome looking Divine Storm was always used for either 1mob or more mobs. I could tailor that to be a sweet aoe talent combining it with Seal of Command. My party needs healing? Seal of Light/Judge Light. Casters out of mana? No prob, let me seal and judge wisdom. Raid taking damage? Got ya covered with shield wall. Give healers some breathing room? I got sacred shield, Cleanse, and mana free Flash of Light procs to keep me up, dont worry about me. That druid thinks he can dash away with the flag? Judge Justice and watch him "speed" away very slowly.
Shit hit the fan and a wipe is called? Intervene the closest (un)lucky fellow and save a few gold. Done pissed off enough horde while ganking in Orgimmar? Cast BubbleHearth and "See ya suckers!" (watch for warriors and priests b4 attempting)
On top of my awesome utility, I liked my RAWR SMASH rotation that gave big numbers. I actually liked ramping up Vengeance and having Judgement be my "finisher". If I wanted to watch combo points and boring buffs, Id play a rogue or druid. Give me back my Wrath pally and Wrath spells.