Making this as of the class change preview posted on 07/4/20. While its nice to see some abilities come back or be made baseline i’m very disappointed with the focus on holy power. I was hoping that we’d finally see holy power get the boot and return to mana as a resource for all paladins. The return of auras is great, however retribution aura might be useful in pve, it will be almost completely useless in pvp. specifically arena.
Doing Damage:
what i’d like to see for retribution is a focus on proc style gameplay, Divine purpose/ Empyrean Power and Art of War are the best examples of this.
I’d like to see abilities like exorcism, crusader strike, consecration, divine storm, hammer of wrath and Wake of ashes be baseline abilities that Ret paladins have. In the past and present Ret paladins have had passives that allowed exorcism and divine storm to proc on auto attack damage/crits. Removing the combo system of holy power and replacing it with these proc style passives would be a much better improvement and what i feel a lot of other paladins my self included liked about the class from the beginning.
Seals:
I understand that seals don’t really fit into the current game but if there was one seal i’d like to see return its seal of command. Seal of command is an iconic ability for the class and for ret specifically. I’d love to see this seal come back with its old lil jump animation just for the hell of it, you know we all loved it. Perhaps it could be worked into the retribution aura as a passive effect of the aura?
PvP:
There a many issues with Ret when it comes to pvp in both battlegrounds/arena, primarily with movement and gap closers.
Judgement:
Long Arm Of The Law - Successful Judgments increase your movement speed by 50% for 3 sec. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=205279/long-arm-of-the-law
This was a talent that was removed in legion, i’d like to see it return as a baseline passive of judgement to help with gap closing and general movment of the class.
Divine Steed:
Steed Of Glory - Your Divine Steed lasts for an additional 2 sec.
While active you become immune to movement impairing effects, and you knock back enemies that you move through. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=199542/steed-of-glory
This is currently a protection paladin pvp talent, this talent would do wonders for rets movement in arena and battlegrounds, the immunity to movement impairing effects should be the baseline of what divine steed does with the knockback staying a pvp talent.
Hand of Hindrance:
Hand of hindrance is a 30 second, dispellable (15 second with a pvp talent, when dispelled) cool down slow. This ability should be made physical given that it has such a long cool down and its the only slow that ret currently has, abilities that remove slows/roots should still remove it of course.
Hammer of wrath:
I’d like to see hammer of wrath return to its former glory of being the “hard” hitting ret ability, when you active wings this should be the go to ability for that large burst attack ret is known for.
Divine shield:
For years divine shield has been one of the longest cool downs in the game, 5 minutes, currently there is a talent to reduce the cooldown on it to 3 mins. For Ret specifically i’ve always wondered why this ability wasn’t on 3 min cooldown as the baseline, rets biggest issue in arena is the lack of defence it has and having such a long cooldown on this ability is one of the main reasons that rets struggle to make the cut for most setups. many other classes in the game have immunity spells with way shorter cool downs and this would bring ret in line with them.
The main problem for paladins:
Holy power. Holy power This system has driven many players away from playing paladins, with the recent switch that shamans have had, i don’t see why paladins can’t receive the same treatment. I hope my fellow paladin players will join me in calling for an end to holy power and a return to Mana
These are my thoughts on paladins, Ret specifically going into shadowlands. thanks for reading