My first question is regarding the Retribution changes coming. I figure we have been more then patient in waiting for this since very little has been said at all. Is there any update on this and what is happening with the changes?

I for one am becoming for bored with the retribution playstyle, the PvE damage is sub-par and hard to sustain due to having all our GCD's free at the beginning to unload and then only goin downhill and there is very little that can be done to improve i. I remember a while ago that GC mentioned that any class should be able to top metres if they are skill enough, but I don't see this happening with a retribution paladin unless they are over-geared or the other classes do not play well.

I know that there is meant to be this 5% DPS tax because we play a hybrid class, but I dont choose to do DPS in a raid to be lower. After there are 2 paladins in a raid, the buffs arent so important anymore, the buffs a ret paladin brings arent that unique, the only thing is JoL which works pretty well.

Thats my only concern really.

Will Paladins ever get a real snare, gap closer, or interrupt?

Would the class developers ever consider changing the resource that paladins use away from mana?

I think the majority of the questions will pertain to Ret.

Here's a couple more.



Right now, for a Ret to kill a healer he needs to catch him off guard and burst him down. If you remove or limit a Rets potential to burst, do you have any plans to compensate him with another ability to help kill a healer? This doesn't mean we need a MS type ability, anything that could slow or stop heals. The problem is that even an interrupt wouldn't solve most problems, because most healers can now stay afloat with instant cast heals or shields for the most part.



Our DPS in Pve fights varies greatly on any adds in the fight. On pure single target bosses, we lag behind greatly, while on any fight with add's we do really well. Any plans to normalize that some?

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Q u o t e:
Will Paladins ever get a real snare, gap closer, or interrupt?

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Questions about upcoming changes or just questions about live things?

Why does JotW not proc when the damage is absorbed? Honestly. I don't understand why this would be considered a balancing aspect.

Why does repent still break when Righteous Vengeance ticks, even though in beta it was clearly stated that it was not going to break repent (And there was a period of time on live where it didn't break repent)?



Also, why do weaker JoLs overwrite more powerful JoLs on the boss target? In my raid, I cover JoL, our protadin covers JoW, and our Holies are a bit out of luck- often judging Light to get their haste, but lowering the raid healing temporarily by my JoL.

It isn't a big deal, but I'd like to see the ability for holies to judge and get their haste, but leave the most powerful JoL on the target...Perhaps theirs would simply refresh mine. *shrug*






I'd like to hear more about the new combat system and to what lengths Blizzard intends to redo retribution.

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Q u o t e:
I think the majority of the questions will pertain to Ret.

Here's a couple more.



Right now, for a Ret to kill a healer he needs to catch him off guard and burst him down. If you remove or limit a Rets potential to burst, do you have any plans to compensate him with another ability to help kill a healer? This doesn't mean we need a MS type ability, anything that could slow or stop heals. The problem is that even an interrupt wouldn't solve most problems, because most healers can now stay afloat with instant cast heals or shields for the most part.



Our DPS in Pve fights varies greatly on any adds in the fight. On pure single target bosses, we lag behind greatly, while on any fight with add's we do really well. Any plans to normalize that some?

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Q u o t e:
As a part of our class Question & Answer series, we are looking for any questions you may have concerning the Paladin class and ask that you post in this thread. For more information on our Q&A series, please click here http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17223094467&sid=1

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I have a question regarding the Holy tree.

Specifically, are there any plans to give the Holy tree better synergy with the Protection and Retribution trees?

I mean...right now, Holy has good reasons to spend extra points in either Protection or Retribution. Protection has good reason to go into Retribution and no reason, aside from Seals of the Pure, to go into Holy. Retribution has good reason to go into Protection but absolutely no reason to go into Holy.

So...question is...are there any plans to give Protection and Retribution Paladins a reason to put more talent points into Holy? Talent changes or rearranging?

when will prot PvP be taken seriously


there has been a TON of progress, but there are still major gaps, such as the lack of gear


yes the ret set works for the most part but resilience stam ap crit necks etc gimp ShoR and the lack of libram or glove bonus just keeps it from feeling right.

1. All our offensive 'anti-kiting' tools (JoJ, HoJ, Repent) have considerably short ranges. Repentance is only 20 yards, not the 30 people think it is. They are also all vulnerable to dispel and HoJ and Repentance's very long cooldowns exacerbate this issue. Additionally, Repentance cannot be used on shapeshifted players which means half of our CC is useless against druids and shamans, this is problematic given both can be healers and Ret already lacks ways to stop or reduce healing. Is any of this being considered as a problem for the spec?

2. Are there any current plans to add more ways for Paladins to close the distance, do damage at range, or keep targets in range? Right now we have strong defensive utlity, but barely any offensive utlity and we lack ways to close range fast or apply pressure at range the way other melee classes can via charges, speed boosts, snares, and ranged attacks.
We have low target uptime which, in a way, necessitates high burst to balance. This leads to all-or-nothing fights where you are either kited and die before you can touch the target, or get in range and quickly kill them. Neither is enjoyable. More dynamic play with more ways to respond to changing circumstances and apply pressure to opponents would be great. So, if our burst is reduced, can we expect higher target uptime to compensate?

3. Currently very few people use Seal of Command at level 80. Many Rets don't spec into it due to it's obvious and apparent inferiority when compared to Seal of Blood. Command has a chance to due about as much damage as Seal of Blood is guaranteed to do. Is there any plan to either change the mechanics of this seal or drop it to baseline as a leveling seal and then give us a new 10 point talent?

4. Leveling as a paladin is boring. Much of it involves Sealing and then auto-attacking. Will the new upcoming changes add depth to all levels of play for paladins, or just high level ones?

Warning : Long Post Approaching.

My focus on questions will be on Ret Paladins. I will divide it into three sections , PVP PVE and Ally vs Horde Balance.

First Alliance vS Horde Balance. As you know there is only 1 choice for a paladin for the horde. In terms of PVE the balance: A Alliance Paladin Draenei get +1% hit not too bad, but still a nice thing to only need 7% hit ( most likely always present for 25 man raid half for 10 ). Humans if you use Sword or Mace you get 3 Expertise and Dwarves get 5 with Maces. Blood Elves get 6% mana every 1 minute. Mana is not an issue for standard ret paladins in Raids unless he has to AoW often, even then thats less dps. The Silence? over half the mobs are immune to the silence anyways. The alliance get 1% hit AND Expertise which was always harder to obtain in previous sets and still somewhat is without having to spam gems. with "Final sets" calculated via Elitistjerks and many other theorycrafters (this includes non hard modes and 10 man sets), the Alliance paladins all have about 100 ~ 200 DPS increase because of less Exp/Hit needed. my question is will this ever be consolidated to the Horde (mainly EXP for Ret Paladins) since We have primary PVP Racials? (Also Human Trinket is OP when they dont have to carry trinket and can get more burst in PVP, or simply free themselves from fears and such for more DPS.)

Second is PVE. I know there is alot of concern about Burst Damage. Frankly, I think Burst is great in many fights of Ulduar, even hard modes. Burst helps Razorscale, XT002 (and hard), Hodir (and hard), Mim, Thorim, etc. I am concerned that the removal of alot of burst might hurt slightly the success of the ret pally. Will we still maintain a couple burst mechanics that will leave us competitive as well as gain a bit more substantial dps? Also, is there a way to perhaps work SoV into our rotation or even give us Seal twisting to make thepaladin more interesting and perhaps a place for skilled rets to pull ahead? Its too clumpy I agree, and because of that we have so much bloated DPS on alot of ret paladins even in greens.

Thrid is PVP. Alot of rets seem to be interested in a Snare of some sort. I am fine with justice, So snare is not a big deal. I however again am concerned about burst. What plans are there to give us the ability to kill a healer while taking away some burst? Will we see something similar to the CS secondary ability we got in PTR? (Reduces Damage and Healing done by spells by 50%) That was a really nifty ability and requires us to watch who we CS.

Finally this pertains to both PVE/PVP. It is also the only mana issue I have seen. Currently the Talent "Judgement of the wise" is supposed to give us back 25% of our mana every time we judge. HOWEVER if the judgement is absorbed by ANY mob or Player (Specifically Mages/PRiests), we do not gain the mana. The other effects of the judgement, and other talents like Heart of the Crusader, all proc and are placed EVEN IF the judgement is absorbed. Is this intended or will we see this fixed?

Thanks

any hints on the new prot cooldown?

A large problem of ret in the upper pvp bracket is mana, and our inability to kill a healer.
i do agree that pvp isnt balanced around 1v1 but we shouldnt have to group with someone just to be able to kill a healer.... 2v1 isnt balanced either...

I run healer/ret and against any disc priest team it's almost an auto loose.

The fact that one penance(even on it's long cd) with a shield is enough to keep up a target against a ret paladin. Adding in the fact that i get 0 mana back when i judge because of absorbe and DP is dispelled almost as soon as it goes up, a fight that lasts more then 2 min turns me into a disarmed warrior with no rage.

any plans to fix this problem?

1.) Does the 5% hybrid tax make sense? You claim it is due to the ability to re-spec into a different role if the raid is full on DPS (NOT because of utility, which you are trying to give to all classes). But how different is it to just swap to an alt instead of re-speccing? How hard is it to level a DK from 55 to 80 for that ability? I'd do that for 5% more DPS, so would every serious hybrid. Also, how about an "I promise not to respec" button that gives us back the 5%? =)

2.) Have you given any thought to more interesting libram choices? Instead of "ability X does Y more damage or gives you Z attack power," how about a CD-based instant ranged attack or heal, + all stats, or something like the Ashtongue Talisman of Zeal in libram form? That would be a nice place to add "flavor." And why don't the best PvE librams come from... PvE?

3.) Is there still a reason (in PvE) for SoB recoil? It has been reduced slightly, and sacred shield helps, but I can still 1-shot myself on Gluth or some other fights, and it seems like an unnecessary penalty in the name of "flavor." In short, the flavor is bad. Like month-old-fish bad.

4.) Have you given any thought to using a talent like Crusade as a "knob" to tweak PvP DPS without affecting PvE? For example, you could make it work on all targets EXCEPT players. This would be more consistent than taking away abilities or changing durations in PvP vs. PvE (which I think is an OK solution, but one you seem to disfavor).

Thanks for your time.

PS: I second the plea to stop weaker judgements from overwriting stronger ones. The PvP-based JoJ range nerf made this more problematic.