The Light and How to Swing It: Refreshing the retribution utility toolbox
by Dan Desmond 
Mar 14th 2012 at 7:00PM
I have always been a staunch supporter of the Ret Paladin DPS Equality movement. Ever since my male blood elf first picked up a two-hander and started swinging, I've been quite fixated with the entire meter-chasing DPS subculture that manifests itself in at least a small handful of raiders in each and every guild. There were a few tricks that felt too dirty to use (I'm looking at you, agility gear during Wrath), but for the most part, I have enjoyed the process of milking as much delicious damage from my character as possible.
Lately, however, I have found myself examining this philosophy in a wider scope. Sure, battling for the top spot on Skada has been fun, but is that truly what we should be aspiring to? Is there more to being a ret paladin than golden combo points and a big weapon? Clearly the answer to this question is, "Of course, Dan, are you mental? We have so much utility -- get the net!"
Well ... chyeah, right! Actually, you are right -- our utility spells are among the things that set us apart from other classes and keep us from being just better-looking rogues. But is their mere existence enough, or should our playstyle involve some form of active utility? What would this look like, and is it even feasible?
How not to do it
Believe it or not, Blizzard tried this for the very briefest of moments. Back when patch 4.1 was working its way through the PTR, Blizzard decided to alter Selfless Healer in a small but meaningful way:
Selfless Healer: The damage bonus from this talent now has a 30-second duration, up from 10.
The sleeping dragon was thusly poked. Within hours, the forums became inundated with speculation and complaints alike. Sadly, I had almost missed the entire debacle; I had pushed the possibility of even speccing into Selfless Healer so far back in my mind that I had almost forgotten the talent was there. Luckily, a friend brought it to my attention, and the next day I took fiercely to Blogger with my outrage.
For the unaware, as stated plainly on the Elitist Jerk's ret paladin thread, using Word of Glory when buffed by Selfless Healer in order to generate the buff is always a DPS loss, provided that you had the option to use Templar's Verdict instead. However, the proposed 4.1 change meant that less damage had to be sacrificed in the short term to maintain the damage buff from the talent, resulting in an overall increase in DPS (as much as 5% by some estimates).
While some of you may think it's counterproductive to be complaining about an increase to our damage, there were a few basic problems with this change. First, we already had a buff to our damage that required that we spend holy power to maintain it -- Inquisition. Having to maintain two separate, nearly identical buffs with what precious little holy power we had to spare would have been a disaster for the spec and would completely derail any potential smoothness to our rotation.
Second, it took the "selfless" out of Selfless Healer. It became apparent that having a macro set to heal a specific target (a tank would make the most sense) would be the most efficient way of disseminating the buff by preventing the need to stop what you're doing, decide who needs a heal the most, and hit WoG. Sure, that's not a whole lot to do, but given that you would need to repeat this process every 30 seconds, it's easy to see how it could add up over the course of a fight. What this amounts to is no meaningful decision-making, no truly game-saving moment, because you feel like you're just maintaining some mandatory aura.
How can Blizzard fix ret utility?
Let it be on record that I don't think Blizzard needs to completely remodel our utility toolbox. There is plenty of usefulness in dishing out Hands and heals already, and a good ret paladin can turn a wipe into a kill through the clever and timely use of these implements. My contention is with how these tools are presented to the player and integrated into gameplay (or, in this case, how they aren't).
Essentially, I feel like the Selfless Healer change wouldn't have worked because it was just another damage bonus; as much love as I have for Inquisition, I really don't want another one! So what can Blizzard do to get rookie and veteran ret paladins alike excited about being one of the best support DPS specs out there? Here's one of my ideas:
I'm willing to negotiate with the numbers, but this is a change that would make an impact felt by both parties. Unless you have a tank willing to stand in some fire (they're doing it to build Vengeance, they swear), seeing people at 30% health or less won't be too common that it could be unceasingly abused. Of course, this has the potential to be "overpowered" in PvP situations, but what doesn't these days? /rimshotAny attack immediately following a Word of Glory cast that heals a target at less than 30% health will deal double damage.
What say you, readers? What are some of your ideas for making our utility a more central component of our gameplay? Is there something that needs fixing, or should Blizzard leave well enough alone and let our Hands and heals be the unsung heroes of our spellbooks?
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, Analysis / Opinion, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
RetPallyJil Mar 14th 2012 7:32PM
I am perfectly OK with being a "rogue in plate!"
(I was known on occasion to wear mail bracers and belts in original WoW just to get my crit up.)
AltairAntares Mar 15th 2012 10:50AM
And you wondered why you weren't invited to many groups.
RetPallyJil Mar 15th 2012 5:11PM
Actually, the crit helped my DPS a great deal in those days of No Ret Gear. I did just fine - got into Naxxramas many times. Did you?
No?
Then go siddown and shuddup.
Brouck Mar 14th 2012 7:45PM
I'm happy with our hands, and our heals, I don't think I would want anything too much more than that, except for the possibility of shorter cd's and re-tooling HoP to affect all incoming damage. A talent that makes holy radiance without a cast time would be nice for rets, I think you'd see us use it more then. As far as chasing meters go... ehh, it's nice to push that extra 2-3k dps out of your rotation, but I'd gladly give it up to save a guildie doing 25-30k dps on their own.
Firiun123 Mar 14th 2012 7:47PM
I think all paladins should be able to use divine guardian. Even if Blizzard increase the cd for non-prot palas.
RetPallyJil Mar 14th 2012 8:15PM
I think you're missing the point of a "unique spec ability" there, champ.
Turtell Mar 14th 2012 8:10PM
I thought about it, and I actually love your idea. If it was made to only function in PvE encounters somehow, it'd be totally great, but otherwise, PvP would get it nerfed in a heartbeat. I'm all for anything that removes rotation and priority system memorization and replaces it with a reward for situational awareness and teamwork.
yocraigst Mar 14th 2012 8:35PM
I am perfectly NOT ok with being a rogue in plate. We already have Slice and Dice....now you want to give us Recuperation. No thanks!
RetPallyJil Mar 14th 2012 9:57PM
So go be something else. Go ahead - run along. Shan't miss you.
Shogan Mar 14th 2012 8:45PM
I have always thought that our hand spells could do more to help us live up to this ideal of being a 'support' class. They would still be buffs on a player that would aid them in their task.
Healer - placing a hand on healer would increase their single target or AoE heals during a particularly intense healing phase. If cast on the Paladin it would reduce Holy Radiance CD, cast time, mana, or even Holy Light increase from the Crusade talent. Something to give a slight advantage but not as much as if used on an actually healer.
Tanks - work in a similar fashion to Sacrifice/HoP so as to act like an adsorb or once the hit has been taken a percentage is returned to the target as a health all at once or over time. If cast on the Paladin it would act the same but to lesser effect, we have our own bubble after all.
DPS - Would be like a mini wings or zealorty (increase rage/Combo point etc regen) for a period of time. No effect on casting paladin because we have Wings/Zealotry.
Reduce their CD to 1min so that we can use these abilites more often and to greater effect throughout the duration of the fight. If we are a support class then give us the means and oppurtinity to do just that.
Give others a reason to take us not just as tanks or healers but as a worthwhile DPS investment. In that we can still bring a suitable amount of dps to the table but more importantly we also bring a little added extra to others ;)
Diatenium Mar 14th 2012 8:46PM
I'm not sure it's appropriate right now to do a purely speculative article regarding MoP when we have a lot to talk about already through the Talent changes currently shown. Most of this article talks about a potential change to selfless healer that is now entirely irrelevant (They eventually changed the buff into something that's actually very useful in pvp).
But it doesn't really explore the new selfless healer and it's problems (Namely that it's too good for a ret paladin when faced with the other choices in regards to both pvp AND pve) or the implication of clemency and the ability to "Bubble wall" (Or bubble sac wall) a caster cleave in 3s, or how Hand of Purity isn't strong given our heavy reliance on Freedom and our inability to have two hands on a player at a time (And it's usefulness being entirely dependant on encounter mechanics for PvE).
Of course, you could talk about it -next- week, but by then it's entirely possible that a mountain of new info will come out and some of that data will be out-of-date.
clundgren Mar 14th 2012 9:03PM
Yeah, ditto this. I was really looking forward to a ret column discussing the new MoP talents when WoWInsider was running one for all the other specs.
Dan Desmond Mar 14th 2012 11:50PM
This column is biweekly, unfortunately, so I'll have to miss out on all of the post-press week news. However, unless something super spectacular comes up before my next column is set to air, I promise I'll do a MoP talent / press week wrap up type of post. Sound good?
clundgren Mar 14th 2012 9:00PM
This is a subject that is absolutely fraught with peril for us old-time rets. We remember all too well how we spent years being told that because of our utility, it wouldn't be fair for us to do competitive damage. But I'm here to tell you: unless you can do competitive damage, it is almost impossible to get a raid spot, and no matter how good you are, you will endure constant mockery. Even in pvp, where ret was okay, I was constantly mocked for my spec as soon as I zoned into a bg.
Hell, at launch our top tier talent was a buff (BoK). That had to be individually cast. With a 5 minute duration.
The price of being allowed to compete dps-wise was to lose much of that utility. At this point, it is debatable whether we have more utility than pure specs (which is more vital to your raid: an extra lay on hands, or Time Warp?). And I'm fine with that, because at least I get invited to raids and am treated with respect.
So, while Isupport more utility for our spec, I do so with a huge caveat: I only want it if it is balanced with what other dps specs have. Otherwise, we will pay a price in our dps.
Antsterr Mar 14th 2012 9:26PM
I'm really digging the level 90 talents as they are right now (I'm assuming they are powerful enough to be worth using but not enough to be class breaking) for the reason that mixing a bit of off healing with some dps is really fun. So long as these abilities are instant cast I'm happy, give them a casting time and it's as good as gone. Does anyone ever pop off a Holy Radiance anymore? I used to toss those in when the group was taking AOE, but now it's just not worth the 3 seconds.
However, I think your "less than 30%" idea is really where it's at. The ability to step up when healers are falling behind but not at the expense of of too much DPS sounds like a good avenue to explore.
Tapukimastra Mar 14th 2012 11:33PM
I feel like double damage after a WoG would be really annoying. There'd be too much pressure to make sure you used the hardest-hitting ability available, i.e. TV. I could see WoG being shunned into only being used with DP procs.