wow Retribution Paladin Rework Coming in Patch 10.0.7

[Staff 1,488]

Blizzard have announced some big changes coming to Retribution Plaladins with the next content patch, with a rebuild of the talent tree from the ground up! Check out all the details below:

Retribution (Source)

Well met!

We’re doing a substantial rework to the Retribution talent tree in patch 10.0.7. Rebuilding the Retribution talent tree from the ground up means significant changes ahead. However, the talent tree itself will not be available in our first PTR build(s), so initial testing on the PTR will be missing important context.

Nonetheless, we’d like to share our major goals for Retribution with you.

Button bloat: Retribution Paladins currently have a fairly large number of abilities, and some of these feel unnecessary and inefficient. We’re working to tone this down and have a more focused set of abilities and cooldowns.

Stacking modifiers: There are currently several talents and abilities that provide stacking bonuses, which can make for a confusing and messy playstyle that deals extreme burst damage, but in return leaves your core abilities feeling unsatisfying and under-tuned. We intend to significantly change this. We want your core abilities to feel good and powerful when used in all situations. This doesn’t mean we’re reducing all elements of burst damage, but we do want to make burst more purposeful and deliberate, while also allowing options that provide sustained damage.

Survivability: Retribution Paladins currently have one of the highest death rates across all forms of content. For a plate wearing class with hybrid healing, this doesn’t feel right. We’re looking to strengthen them through a mixture of passive bonus and improvements to active abilities and cooldowns, while keeping the degree of challenge that results from being a melee-based spec.

Maneuverability: We recognize that there’s an issue here and we hope to make some improvements. However, we want to set clear expectations. Retribution Paladins should not expect to gain the mobility of Rogues.

Utility: The changes that Dragonflight brought to Retribution have caused some conflict for players, forcing the Ret Paladin to choose between providing benefits to their groups or benefiting themselves. This choice can be interesting, but due to the way this has historically worked for Paladins, it hasn’t felt right in Dragonflight. So, we’re looking to make changes here that allow you to feel good and improve your own damage while also providing the group benefits that you’re used to. We’re also looking into additional utility improvements for Paladins during the 10.0.7 test cycle.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback on the points above, as well as anything else about Retribution that you’d like to share. Thank you!

[Yehqq 0]

Because the season is limited time.
best done before the season starts

[Yridaa 490]

2 hours ago, Staff said:

Plaladins

Best typo ever. Was that you, Stan? Why is IV staff anonymous nowadays? 😞

[darkgreenwax 412]

I have a buddy who has been a ret pally since burning crusade. This *filtered* has switched from alliance to horde, horde to alliance, and alliance to horde, server jumps with guilds, but has never ever strayed away from ret pally for 17 years.

 

I hope he will be okay mentally.

[TihiTheDivineborn 0]

5 hours ago, Staff said:

Blizzard have announced some big changes coming to Retribution Plaladins with the next content patch, with a rebuild of the talent tree from the ground up! Check out all the details below:

Retribution (Source)

Maneuverability: We recognize that there’s an issue here and we hope to make some improvements. However, we want to set clear expectations. Retribution Paladins should not expect to gain the mobility of Rogues.

You just need to make normal Blessing of freedom same like one in PvP: 

•  Unbound Freedom turns your  Blessing of Freedom into a 30% speed increase, helping you get around slightly faster when questing and leveling.

[Morninglory 0]

RET for LIFE <3

[ArthasStormrage87 52]

OMFG! They noticed how squishy the plate wearing Ret pally is, but have done nothing to super squishy mail wearing classes. Tell me how all the cloth classes are way tankier than all the Mail classes? That so out of the RPG element. The cloth classes can live through any hard hitting mechanic, but the shamans and hunters die if a mob farts on them wtf blizz? I really don’t understand how this has went on this long, all the talks about the RPG elements of the game and that’s been like that for how long?

Edited January 28, 2023 by ArthasStormrage87

[ArthasStormrage87 52]

I just don’t understand how shamans haven’t gotten a little something added for survivability, we are the master of earth magic but can’t make a rock shield that gives us a extra coat of protection in dangerous times. I see these earth shield being casted in game by npc’s that give them some absorb shield, why can’t we get one on a 1.5 or 2 min cd that gives us a absorb shield for 20% of our health? That way it’s not too strong but just enough to let us barely survive a hard hitting mechanic that won’t kill all the other classes.

[ArthasStormrage87 52]

Let us sacrifice our earth ele for the shield or something, or he’ll make the earth ele give us it when it’s cast. That would help so much but not be overpowered in pve or pvp.

[VictorVakaras 83]

Ret seems like an odd first choice for a rework when Survival Hunters exist. 

[Monkeydubj 0]

Have mained ret since Mists and I am pretty excited about most of this. The one thing that gives me some pause is the burst vs. sustained thing. I don’t want ret to be a sustained damage spec. Yawn. Ever played Frost Mage? Do you ever feel very powerful? No. I am fine with ret’s sustained being sub par and wings continuing to be amazing. It’s never going to be exciting to press Blade of Justice, trust me. I would rather ret retain its longtime identity as a burst spec. 
 

Also, in terms of button “bloat,” I agree to an extent but I hope they don’t go overboard with this. Ret is perhaps the simplest spec in the game. Only one proc, easy math: 3+2=5-3=2+1=3-3=0. It doesn’t need to be dumbed down. Abilities like crusader strike should stay, as a filler, otherwise you are going to be spending a lot of time on auto-attack… furthermore, the abilities that line up with burst like final reckoning and divine toll are actually the fun ones. They are infrequent and don’t crowd the rotation at all. You perhaps use them 3-5 times over the course of an entire raid fight. They should not get rid of those. If anything, get rid of Exorcism and Consecration.