I won't bore you with links to dps parses (that you probably wouldn't visit anyways) and the like, but it's a known fact that Paladins are struggling in the single-target dps area at the moment. Granted, you can find parses where Paladins showed fairly well on the surface, but if you look deeper, you can see that our effective single-target damage is abysmally low.

It's also a known fact that our dps cycle consists of a spastic, keep-everything-on-cooldown button-mash-fest, where even rigidly adhering to a set skill prioritization will likely only eke out a few extra percent dps (that could be barely noticable when you factor in RNG). This makes it relatively easy to hit the theoretical dps cap for a Retribution Paladin, which means less-progressed guilds may see it as a powerful dps spec, while more-progressed guilds will see it's obvious flaws.

Since we can come close to our maximum damage without a terrible amount of effort, while other classes can continue to push better and better numbers as their skill increases, many Paladins are frustrated with the current state of the class.

To use an analogy here, I don't mind getting paid slightly less for the same amount of work as the next guy, because I could take a different job more easily than he could (re-gearing/re-speccing vs. re-rolling). I mind getting paid significantly less than the next guy for the same amount of work, and knowing that I'll never be able to make more no matter how hard I try. Get the picture? If I'm just as skilled as that Rogue, for instance, I should have a reasonable chance of catching up to his output, say if he misses a few times and gets unlucky with crits, while I have a lucky fight and get more crits than normal. Generally, he should do better, but not to the point that we're seeing now.

There is little that can be done to increase Retribution's damage potential (through skill or otherwise) without making some fundamental changes in the way things work for us. Keeping our combat system the way it is currently (unleashing cooldowns one right after another) really limits the changes that could be made, because increasing the effect of any of these abilities just creates more burst potential. However, if you browse some WWS/WMO parses (particularly isolating damage done to the main boss NPC being fought), you can see that our single-target damage potential is lackluster at best. What's the best way to fix this problem?

Our passive aoe effects are sometimes helpful, but sometimes a hindrance. Adding extra cross-threat can be dangerous in certain fights (Thorim's arena or Guardians on Yogg phase 3 for instance), and not having a choice to use a single-target ability to fill that slot in our 'rotation' can be crippling if we need to avoid the extra threat. It definitely feels like we should be able to somehow channel our aoe abilities to gain more single-target dps. A focused DoT could take the place of Consecration, and a single-target version of Divine Storm would be extremely helpful, especially if they somehow increased damage potential.

In fact, we could come up with a method to reduce Divine Storm's baseline damage, and increase it's effect against targets who have been afflicted by a debuff generated by Crusader Strike. This would reduce excessive cross-threat, but increase damage against the main target. This idea combined with a higher-damage single-target version of Consecration could create great results. Our initial burst and AoE damage is tapered off somewhat, but our sustained, single-target damage is increased.

Another idea that Paladins have been toying with for some time now is the concept of letting Crusader Strike refresh a Seal of Vengeance stack on the target. So the first few seconds of single-target combat are spent building up this stack, then the seal can be swapped to Blood and we can continue to keep the damage-over-time from Seal of Vengeance rolling throughout the fight. Perhaps Crusader Strike could refresh the stack, but reduce the damage slightly (say ~5% per CS), forcing us to re-generate that 5-stack at some point during the fight in order to maximize damage. Queue oodles of theory-crafting on how many CS's to use before rebuilding the stack =D

Unfortunately, none of the suggestions I've made here (except for maybe that last one) would really make our damage more difficult to achieve for the average player, or increase our damage potential through skillful execution. I'm just hoping that the developers really look closely at the data and realize how far behind Retribution is when it comes to single-target dps, and that it doesn't seem like this is something that could be completely fixed with just a "minor tweak."

Hopefully we'll get some insight as to their thoughts on our damage method in the near future, but in the meantime, what suggestions can we come up with as a community?

Thanks for reading,
Meth

Well it looks like long, drawn-out posts aren't really very effective, so I'll just put my ideas here in a nutshell and see what you guys think.

1-Exorcism Changes

Exorcism deals ~50% of it's damage up front, while the rest is spread over ~15 seconds, and will be unleashed on the next Judgement (in addition to the Judgement's normal effect).

Art of War procs can be used to cast Exorcism regardless of cooldown (base Exo cooldown stays 15s).

Benefits: Increases single-target damage and adds a way to increase dps using a more creative rotation at the cost of some utility (instant FoL's), all without affecting the current state of PvP (although the reduction to front-loaded burst with this method would probably allow the use of Exorcism in PvP again).

2-Divine Storm/Crusader Strike Changes

Divine Storm base damage reduced significantly.

Crusader Strike now adds a debuff to the target that increases damage dealt by Divine Storm by a significant amount (a stacking debuff that is not consumed).

Benefits: Increases single-target damage while reducing excessive cross-threat/'cleaving' and up-front burst. This comes at the cost of reduced AoE damage.

3-Single-Target Consecration

Add a short-range (~10yd) single-target DoT spell which shares its cooldown with Consecration and does slightly more damage.

Perhaps the base damage remains the same, but this version of Consecration is allowed to crit? Likely based off the melee hit table since a miss would mean wasting the entire 10s cooldown.

Benefits: Slightly increases single-target damage and prevents situations where significant damage is lost because Consecration cannot be cast or the target cannot be kept stationary.

4-Righteous Vengeance
Allowing this ability to critically strike or increasing the coefficient would also help our dps without increasing burst.

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From Post #8, below

If a full damage rotation revamp is not out of the question, the Crusader Strike/Divine Storm synergy proposed above could be changed thus:

Crusader Strike

Damage reduced significantly, cooldown removed, now applies a stackable debuff to the target which greatly increases Divine Storm damage. Debuff stacks 3 times.

Divine Storm

Base damage reduced significantly, deals extra damage against targets with the CS debuff, and consumes the debuffs.

This proposal assumes the changes to Exorcism and Consecration listed above as well.

The new rotation could look something like this:
Cons=>Exo=>Judge=>CS=>CS=>CS=>DS=>Repeat

Ability Effective Cooldowns:
Single-target Consecration DoT: 10.5s
Exorcism: 10.5s
Judgement: 10.5s
Crusader Strike: N/A
Divine Storm: 10.5s

This type of rotation would make a whole lot more sense than what we have currently, but obviously it would take alot of work to balance. Unfortunately, it may not actually raise our skill cap unless something else was added...but maybe if it didn't throw the damage out of whack, we could make it so Divine Storm actually refreshes a Seal of Vengeance stack, perhaps with the stacking damage penalty requiring eventual rebuilding of the stack =D

It's just a bad situation. Ret needs more choices to make during a fight, but already has a full bar of abilities.

I think blizz is pretty happy to have an "easy" class though.

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Q u o t e:
Lol he used skill and ret in the same sentence.

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Being an easy class is little solace when you lag behind badly. A warrior should know that better than anyone.

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Q u o t e:

I think blizz is pretty happy to have an "easy" class though.

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I don't mind being the class known for being most easily approachable by new players. The problem comes when we reach the skill cap so easily and then there's nowhere else to go.

If a full damage rotation revamp is not out of the question, the Crusader Strike/Divine Storm synergy proposed above could be changed thus:

Crusader Strike
Damage reduced significantly, cooldown removed, now applies a stackable debuff to the target which greatly increases Divine Storm damage. Debuff stacks 3 times.

Divine Storm
Base damage reduced significantly, deals extra damage against targets with the CS debuff, and consumes the debuffs.

This proposal assumes the changes to Exorcism and Consecration listed above as well.

The new rotation could look something like this:
Cons=>Exo=>Judge=>CS=>CS=>CS=>DS=>Repeat

Ability Effective Cooldowns:
Single-target Consecration DoT: 10.5s
Exorcism: 10.5s
Judgement: 10.5s
Crusader Strike: N/A
Divine Storm: 10.5s

This type of rotation would make a whole lot more sense than what we have currently, but obviously it would take alot of work to balance. Unfortunately, it may not actually raise our skill cap unless something else was added...but maybe if it didn't throw the damage out of whack, we could make it so Divine Storm actually refreshes a Seal of Vengeance stack, perhaps with the stacking damage penalty requiring eventual rebuilding of the stack =D

Disregarding numbers, does anyone see any flaws in this plan?

How to fix ret in PvE and PvP:

Nerf seal damage/remove it proccing from either autoattacks or specials, one or the other.

Buff exorcism damage to compensate in PvE, bring ret paladins to ~5% below pures.


:D

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Q u o t e:
How to fix ret in PvE and PvP:

Nerf seal damage/remove it proccing from either autoattacks or specials, one or the other.

Buff exorcism damage to compensate in PvE, bring ret paladins to ~5% below pures.

:D

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I like my plan better personally =P

Reducing CS damage would likely also entail removing it's seal procs...all of my other proposals provide more dps and less burst as well. Let's make a deal though: nobody cries about current Retribution burst in PvP, and I don't start talking about the various offensive tools we would need if said burst was taken away. Deal?

If you want to talk about PvP, look at my proposals and think about how they would affect Paladins as well as other classes, and let me know what you think. Please note that I didn't really include any numbers, so don't go assuming that Exo=>Judge is going to nuke high-resilience targets for half their health or anything.

The name of the game is smoothing out our damage, providing more consistency, more synergy between abilities, and (hopefully) a more interesting an skill-based rotation that could more clearly delineate the good Paladins from the bads, all while taking away the mindless cooldown-mashing that we have currently.

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Q u o t e:
I think blizz is pretty happy to have an "easy" class though.

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^ This.

We are not going to get brand new abilities, new attacks, or new moves. They are simply going to make it so that we have to, for example, Judge a target before we can deal normal damage to it. Something like "paladin deals 20% less damage; paladin attacks against Judged targets are increased by 21%."

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Q u o t e:

^ This.

We are not going to get brand new abilities, new attacks, or new moves. They are simply going to make it so that we have to, for example, Judge a target before we can deal normal damage to it. Something like "paladin deals 20% less damage; paladin attacks against Judged targets are increased by 21%."

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Hopefully we can expect a more elegant solution than this...

I heard the 3.2 patch will be on the PTR soon (GC post). Figure within the month.

We'll get to see what they have in store then.

The Art of War-Exo proc is simple and my favourite idea I have heard so far. Kudos.

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Q u o t e:
TL"DR version

Remove the spec ----- All hybrids should be able to perform only 2 roles I am tired of endless QQ from Paladins/druids because one of there 3 or even 4 playstyles does not compare to the others.

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You can't have a class that only heals and tanks. All Classes have a DPS option and it's like that for a reason.

Methyldruius wow. A paladin that doesn't follow the Chris Crocker approach to paladin changes?

"Leave paaalaaadinnss alllonnneeee!"

"Weee're fiiineeee!! everyone elsee just succkss!"


I think you're onto something with that SHORT NOVEL you've written.

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Q u o t e:
TL"DR version

Remove the spec ----- All hybrids should be able to perform only 2 roles I am tired of endless QQ from Paladins/druids because one of there 3 or even 4 playstyles does not compare to the others.

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Why did you post this? Ask yourself some questions before you post next time.

Does my post pertain to the topic on hand?
Does my post add meaningful insight or an idea?
Am I posting because I'm frustrated that I got beat by said class?
Will my post be construed as a Trolling post?


Also, I agree that the exo/art of war idea is one of the best I have seen. Kudos. Actually makes it a decision on whether to heal or deal damage.