Retribution Question (No more Hope Thread)

#0 - Oct. 6, 2010, 11:09 p.m.

Yes, another thread. Sorry to annoy, GC.

So I've been going over your past posts and thoughts on Ret and general damage dealing. (I know, overreacting stalker pally wants his op spec to stay op. Move along.) Been trying to figure out the best way to word my concerns over the PVP abilities of Cata Ret. No, I do not have a beta account. The problem is these concerns will not be fixed by Resilianceâ„¢, 85â„¢, or a Damage Passâ„¢.

It's the over-beaten twitching horse known as MobilityÂ®.

Now I'm concerned due to patterns that I've seen over many years. Devs trying new ways to make Ret "Exciting". Pally hopes dashed and gnashing of forum teeth. Wotlk was good times, to be honest. Will be sad to see it go, but happy to have new skills to master from here on out. Of course these new experiences came at the cost of nearly a dozen defense losses to retribution. Five years worth of pally-saving abilities gone or nerfed. Some I agree needed to go, some not. Key of these is the ability to remove magic debuffs. Of course we are told we were fairly compensated with a sorely needed interrupt and a "Gap Closer" of some sort.

The interrupt is, I'm sure, exactly what we wanted. A melee interrupt. Of course, we wanted a melee interrupt when we could Get In To Melee. To do so we would generally simply run after the individual with our superior base speed as we cleansed our self of any spammed magic snares or roots. We would use HoF in case of a stun or a non-magic root/snare. This worked well throughout all of Wotlk, and we could power through nearly any CC attempts. Fear was our only real bane as it sent is fleeing far far away from our targets and into perfect kiting range. We would have to hope our Repent 60 second cooldown was not ticking to hope to catch up. But every class needs SOME weakness, right? Not that dispell or spammed mana drain didn't totally ruin our days. (They did).

But soon it will no longer be Wotlk and we are going to be in a state of constant fear, in more ways than one. Ranged have been given an extra 10 yards to do with us as they see fit. This is a melee problem in general, but especially devastating to paladins. Why? No real gap closer. DKs have deathgrip, warriors have leap, charge, and intercept, shamans have wolves to keep the little bugger still, rogues have stealth and a difficult to remove snare. These classes have options to get into range rapidly or at least stay there.

Paladins have no CC past 25 yards (Repent) Judgement can grant us 145% move speed at 30 yards. Problem is any applied ranged snare will bring us back down to 105% or even 95% with the effect up. Every other melee's Gap Closer is not effected in the slightest by snares. Why are snares the main focus? They are spammable, generally attached to main damage abilities and aoe abilities. Roots break with enough damage, stuns have a DR of their own. Snares, on the other hand, can be forever. (Cont--->)

#8 - Oct. 7, 2010, 12:55 a.m.

Q u o t e:
The interrupt is, I'm sure, exactly what we wanted. A melee interrupt. Of course, we wanted a melee interrupt when we could Get In To Melee. To do so we would generally simply run after the individual with our superior base speed as we cleansed our self of any spammed magic snares or roots. We would use HoF in case of a stun or a non-magic root/snare.

We think there is a risk that Ret is overly susceptible to spammed snares or roots. One idea we are trying (standard no promises) is to let Cleanse remove snares or roots when a Ret paladin uses it on himself. That implementation would keep one of the most important uses of Cleanse, without letting Ret strip away buffs and debuffs, which is something we're really trying to clamp down on (for everyone).

We also discussed the oft-suggested idea of making Freedom not dispellable when used on yourself, but our concern there was a Ret would never ever Freedom anyone else and face the dispel risk, so something that was once group utility just becomes a self buff. (As I have referenced before, one of our goals around Ret PvP is to make the spec more of a team player and less of a guy who has an answer for everything.) We still think undispellable Freedom, even for Ret only, is just too powerful.