Cataclysm Beta build 13221 is live on servers, and has brought about some more changes for our beloved Retribution Paladins. At first, looking at the notes, I was about to /facepalm, thinking Blizz was backtracking on our recent buffs. The more I looked at it however, the more I realized they are just doing some simple trade-offs.
Let’s take a look at the current notes relevant to Retribution Paladins. You can view the full list of changes at MMO Champion [Source]:
Retribution
- Templar’s Verdict now deals 235% weapon damage with 3 Holy Power, up from 225%.
- Hammer of Wrath base damage has been reduced by 22%. From 4890-5404 to 3814-4215.
- Seal of Truth now scales from 12.85% of Attack Power and Spell Power (up from 12.5%) but now deals 15% weapon damage when stacked 5 times. Down from 16%.
- Crusader Strike now deals 115% weapon damage, down from 150%.
Holy
- Holy Wrath now scales from 61% of SpellPower, up from 30%. Base damage reduced by 22%, from 3122 to 2435.
- Exorcism now scales from 34.4% of SpellPower or AP, up from 15%. Base damage increased by 15% from 2343 to 2741.
- Lay on Hands no longer restores mana.
- Flash of Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 5313-5961 to 6907-7750.
- Holy Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3202-3567 to 4162-4637.
- Divine Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 8538-9512 to 11100-12366.
Templar’s Verdict – 10% damage increase. Can’t complain there.
Hammer of Wrath – Understandable nerf. With this hitting harder than Templar’s Verdict after the 4.0.1 adjustments, it’s easy to see why Blizz wanted to tune this down. Not to mention all the one-shotting that was going on in battlegrounds!
Seal of Truth – More or less balanced out.
Crusader Strike - This one hurts, and is obviously my least favorite. 115% weapon damage is pitiful. Let’s hope we see this jump back up. Our most commonly used attack joins Hammer of Wrath in the nerf department. I’m really hoping this gets buffed again before Cata launches.
Holy Wrath – Lets hope we see some benefit from this spell power buff, as they nerfed the base damage down quite a bit. This was already pretty underwhelming in terms of damage, considering it is spread out among all targets.
Exorcism – Once again Exorcism storms ahead in our rotations. We’ll wait to see how this plays out on live servers, but expect this to cruise in behind Crusader Strike, as Hammer of Wrath falls in priority.
Lay on Hands – While we continue to not have many mana issues, this still hurts.
Heals – General healing buffs. Great for Holy Paladins, but good for Rets too, as self heals are going to be used more in Cataclysm than they were in WotLK.
Blizz giveth and they taketh away. That crusader strike nerf stings
HoW nerf is understandable but … Crusader Strike now deals 115% weapon damage, down from 150%. Really? seriously Blizz? oh just screw it
Go blizzard… Fail for ret.
Wow..the nerf hammer keeps coming.
Thanks god we have an OS. Right now I am currently Prot/Ret. I see me going Prot/Holy come Cata.
Guys, don’t exaggerate.
I’m playing a lot of bgs right now and i must say, the 4.0.1 changes have made us godly.
Some tradeoffs won’t revert that.
Not to nitpic, but be careful calling that a 10% increase to Templar’s Verdict. That’s a 10% increase to the weapon damage modifier. It actually works out to about a 4% increase to the ability.
I just want my seals and judgements damage back on track! :’(
It seems Ret is seeing more changes than I had expected. Nerf, buff, balance..ect. I just want to see some stability in what blizz is doing to ret. Alot of what there doing seems half baked & indecisive to me, but focused on 1 idea..to change our class.
I personally didnt think there was a need for a change prior to 4.0.x…did you? but we’ll have to see how it all plays out in cata. but for now most of us are making the best of it and its mostly thanks to this site! Thx for all the hard work Khor!
Tv works well, but our dps takes too long to get out.
I agree, if it only took a 2 holy power stack instead of 3 ,i think things would much better.
I hate my ret now! All these indesicive changes killed any desire I had to play warcraft any longer.
Imo cs should have a proc that gives you 2x HP instead of the standard one to make it worth while.
Hp should accumulate quicker. Should be for all judge, hw, ex, and heals on top of just cs.
I attending Blizzcon and literally they don’t like paladins in general. I loved it when that guys said “Thank you for nefing us again” in front of the world. This is absolutely ridiculous. CS getting nerfed is wrong.
They won’t be happy till we are completely nerfed. We are now so over complicated just to get reasonable dps. The 3 stack thing is a joke and almost unusable if there are other classes with high instant burst damage. For instance how many 3 stack divine storms has any ret got in since the patch (not very many I bet).
there is only 1 thing to say
PROTRET = UNBEATABLE
there is no way to kill a protret unless u are a resto drood or frost mage…