I recently downloaded the PTR and wanted to share my thoughts:
- Seal of Order has been removed, meaning we no longer get the additional buff from Blessing of Dawn.
- Seal of the Crusader now heals nearby allies, which feels misplaced. As a DPS spec, it made perfect sense for Seal of the Crusader to deal extra Holy damage. Why would it heal? This change seems more appropriate for Holy or Protection specs. Who asked for this?
- Seal of Alacrity feels like a downgrade. On live servers, my Judgment cooldown is 9.1 seconds, but on the PTR, it’s 9.5 seconds. While the cooldown reduction for Judgment has become passive, losing so much haste makes gameplay feel slower and worse overall.
- There’s a upcoming 15% nerf to Dawnlight, which raises concerns. Instead of making Templar more viable, you’re nerfing Herald. It seems like the development team is overly focused on nerfing Retribution, which is frustrating.
- The talents are overwhelmingly focused on random healings: “Cleanse an ally and heal them,” “Auto-attacks heal nearby allies,” “Next 5 attacks heal the attacker,” “Allies are healed when you cast blessings,” “10% of healing done to you is distributed to nearby players,” and more. These abilities seem better suited for Holy or Protection. Meanwhile, our damage is being reduced, haste is being taken away, and gameplay is slower, turning the class into a semi-offhealing support role, which doesn’t even feel viable.
It feels like there are multiple development teams working on Retribution without a cohesive direction. One week, we get a buff; the next, it’s a nerf. Sometimes, a “bug” makes our spells work as the tooltip describes, only to be “fixed” the next week, making the build less viable or fun. After testing in the PTR, the loss of haste is painfully noticeable, and the spec just feels worse to play.
This is a very popular class. I’ve mained it since the original Burning Crusade, playing through its highs and lows. But the constant rollercoaster of tuning over the past few weeks is exhausting. Please tell your developers to settle on a clear vision or path for Retribution and work toward it—rather than continuously buffing, nerfing, and retuning us. And please, we do not want to become passive healing buffers at the cost of our core role as DPS.
Thank you.
9 Likes
The slow reduction in damage and increase in utility, is Ret being redesigned to sit with Aug as a support, but for healers?
They’ll have to rename it from retribution to something else at this rate.
2 Likes
i dont see why there would be an intention to break ret paladin on developer side.
But paladin is currently the most played class as far as i saw the statistics. So maybe they want to force players to move to other classes again. 
If that was the intention then hey congrationlations blizzard, it worked for me.
They are definitely deliberately breaking this class to force people to play other classes. None of the three specs are doing very well, and while Retribution wasn’t top in DPS, we were fine. But now, they’ve turned us into a healing buffer class? I’m really not sure what kind of community feedback Blizzard is listening to with this decision because nobody who mains Retribution wants it to become a healer buffer class.
It’s honestly time to think about whether I want to keep playing this game, I have spent weeks gearing my paladin for nothing, and now I have to gear another character before the reset so I can arrange for it to replace my ret in the raid…
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there is timewalk next week. so probably better to just wait for this instead of pushing now 
Honestly at this point they need to just forget hero talents and put us back in the place we were in in season 4.
At level 70 with 510 gear I was doing more damage and more off healing then I do now at 80 with 596 gear, and it seems like 11.0.5 is going to make it worse.
Happy 20th anniversary paladins
You should try the PTR. I cleared a normal raid on live yesterday with Herald at 604 ilvl, and it felt great. I did decent damage and had good support utilities like Freedom, Dispels, BoP, BoS, etc.
Going into the PTR, I immediately noticed that my base haste without buffs had dropped from 20% to 15% making everything feel slower, and overall, the damage felt weaker.
Honeslty I have no need to try the ptr. My damage is already weaker than it was in df. Despite gaining almost 100 ilevel, 10 levels and 10 new talents.
PTR making that worse doesn’t seem like a fun time to me
Sounds like the classic paladin experience the roller coaster of buffs and nerfs
2 Likes
I actually think this kind of stuff is what makes Retribution stand out as a cool class. It’s not just a dude running in swinging a sword around and screaming holy phrases.
It’s utility, it’s support, it’s a hero!
<Hit that enemy! Then heal that guy! Blessing for her! Shield for the mage! Freedom the dwarf out of the lava! Back to blasting the enemy!>
They’ll save you, not just beat your opponent over the head with a big stick.
That is the essence of a Paladin.
I will say though, I prefer deliberate healing actions (example the dispel one), rather than just passive ones like the new seal.
To actually choose to support and make those plays, rather than healing people just by being there, with no input.
Holy damage on hit did feel nice and on-theme for the spellsword side of things.
As of right now, our healing is horrible (at least in PvP). I’d gladly sacrifice damage to feel more like the awesome, hybrid support, heroes of battle we are… And less like a “boring yellow warrior” as my friends call it.
Some of the most fun I’ve had on ret is being able to fight head on, but also support/heal my allies and keep them alive. Really makes you feel like a god. When I play warrior I basically ignore my team and just chop stuff up (awesome fun too, but fills a different niche than what I think makes Paladin special)
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The definition of retribution is “ punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act.”
That suggests it’s more about damage than much else to me.
The specs name suggests it’s more in relation to solving injustice.
We judge and deliver verdicts. (Spell names). Holy paladin is more about healing.
Thus we have the three schools of the holy knight.
Protection: tank, protects from evil.
Holy: healer, undoes harm caused by evil.
Retribution: dps, causes damage to evil.
3 Likes
I dont mind the healing stuff if its decent self-sustain (though most of it seems pretty bad for that) nor do I mind being a bit of a support class, but these heals are just… microscopic. It will be barely noticable most of the time in M+ or raids. You’ll be doing maybe 2-3% of the healing output of the healer?
It is in the general tree and needs to serve all 3 specs, not just ret…
However… there is also the issue that none of it really looks all that optional. You can just not take it and take more stuff at the top of the tree, but would be nice to get some half decent output stuff at hte bottom of the paladin general tree.
Blizzard’s approach to class balancing, particularly with Paladins, reflects imho a larger issue in game design where repeated nerfs push players away rather than fostering diversity. Instead of relying on nerfs to force class changes, Blizzard should focus on making other classes more appealing through thoughtful design and lore.
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Why Paladins Are Popular:
Paladins are popular for a variety of reasons, including class fantasy, ease of play, and familiarity. Players often gravitate towards them because they like the identity of the class, and it’s been consistently easy to pick up.
Rather than constantly nerfing Paladins to bring them in line with other classes, Blizzard should ask why other classes aren’t as attractive. Why not use lore, storytelling, or more unique mechanics to elevate them the same way Paladins have been?
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Attachment to Main Characters:
Many players are deeply attached to their mains, and no amount of nerfing is going to convince them to switch. If anything, heavy-handed nerfs can breed resentment among players who feel their class is being unfairly targeted.
If Blizzard continues this strategy, it risks alienating a portion of the player base, driving them to frustration or even causing them to leave the game if they feel their favorite class is repeatedly “dogged on.”
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Ease of Play vs. Complexity:
One reason Paladins remain popular is their easy-to-learn rotation and their toolkit allowing them to get out scotfree out of any situation , which has stayed relatively unchanged over time. This consistency gives players a sense of comfort and mastery.
If Blizzard’s concern is that Paladins are too easy, why not make their rotation more complex and rewarding for skilled players instead of leaving them as they are while simply nerfing their power?
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Balancing Classes the Right Way:
This is again subjective but i think Blizzard’s habit of forcing class diversity through nerfs suggests a larger issue with balancing. Nerfing Paladins over and over again because they’re popular doesn’t fix the real problem—it just creates another.
Instead, Blizzard should be focusing on balancing the game properly by improving other classes. Make them as fun and rewarding as Paladins, and players will naturally explore different options.
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Forced Class Changes and the Impact on Players:
The idea of forcing players to switch classes through repeated nerfs feels like an admission that Blizzard can’t balance the game effectively.
Pushing players to other classes through negative incentives, like nerfs, is a poor way to handle diversity. A better approach would be to incentivize diversity through interesting and balanced class design , not by weakening what players love.
Happy 20th annihilationversary paladins ...
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i cannot use hammer of wrath during wings anymore, it’s a bug or a new “feature” ?
Not having any issues myself
They need to revert the changes on removing Avenging wrath might and buff it imo.
I dont like the sound of losing it unless they are going to make crusade and our base damage much stronger
I like the changes. Overcapping HP to get two stacks of Dawn was a pita so not sad to see that go at all.
But more to the point: paladins are not just warriors with holy dmg. Having support elements has always been a part of the class fantasy and the reason paladin players don’t just play warrior instead.
On a more meta scale, the much-maligned Augmentation evoker now exists and people have been endlessly moaning about it, telling Blizzard to add more support to the game or " just delete Aug lol".
With this context it makes sense to me that Blizzard would want to add more support elements to the game where they can and paladin is a good fit for it.
Doesn’t mean our damage should be in the dumpster by no means, but there does need to be some differentiation between arms warriors and ret paladins.
Why should there be a difference between Arms Warriors and Retribution Paladins in terms of damage? That makes no sense. Warriors have one tank spec and two DPS specs to choose from, while we only have one, and it’s constantly being changed. No Retribution Paladin main wants to see the spec becoming an Augmentation-style support role with weak damage and some extra raid healing. If they want a support role, they could add a 4th spec for that. Retribution should remain a high-damage class competing against any other dps class.
3 Likes
