Updated 2/8/2011! Patch 4.0.6 notes are out, and just about everything in the related to Paladins is affecting Retribution Paladins.  I am liking the changes, and we’ll see how they evolve in the develop/mental stages of this patch.  Retribution is doing some decent DPS, but I think Blizzard does want us up a little bit more.  You can see them tweaking this very carefully with the Crusader Strike change.

• 7 Major Retribution Paladin Changes in Patch 4.0.6

Let’s take a look at the Patch 4.0.6 Notes in their current state, and I will try and update this as often as possible.  Here are the Patch 4.0.6 Retribution Paladin specific notes: [Source]

Retribution Paladins Patch 4.0.6

• The mana costs of Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings have been increased by approximately 217%, making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.
• Crusader Strike weapon damage percent has been increased to 135%, up from 115%.
• Divine Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Divine Plea now lasts for 9 seconds, down from 15. It grants 4% mana per tick, instead of 2%, for a total of 12% mana, up from 10%.
• Flash of Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Forbearance
  • The duration has been lowered to 1 minute, down from 2.
  • Lay on Hands now causes Forbearance on the target. It used to only cause it when cast on the paladin. This was an old design from when Divine Protection caused Forbearance and the paladin didn’t want to prevent a tank from using their defensive cooldown.
  • Lay on Hands cannot be a critical effect and will not be affected by most abilities which modify healing (such as Beacon of Light).
  • Since only Divine Shield, Lay on Hands and Hand of Protection cause Forbearance, the tooltips have been adjusted to better explain the mechanic.
• Holy Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Holy Wrath no longer counts nearby critters when dividing damage among its targets.
• Inquisition is no longer dispellable.
• Lay on Hands cannot be a critical effect and will not be affected by most abilities which modify healing (such as Beacon of Light). In addition, Lay on Hands is no longer on the global cooldown.
• Rebuke can now be trained by all paladins at level 54. Existing characters will need to visit their trainer, even if they had talented Rebuke before.
• Seal of Truth: All single target attacks (including Judgement, Hammer of Wrath, Exorcism, and Templar’s Verdict) can now trigger this seal.

Retribution Talent Specializations

• Act of Sacrifice will no longer cause Cleanse to remove movement impairing effects from vehicles the paladin is riding.
• Divine Purpose: The chance for applicable abilities to generate Holy Power has been reduced to 7/15%, down from 20/40%, but instead of generating 1 Holy Power, the next applicable ability used consumes no Holy Power and acts as if the paladin has 3 Holy Power.
• Divine Storm weapon damage percent increased from 80% to 100%.
• Hand of Light (Mastery): A percentage of the damage done by Templar’s Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm is done as additional Holy damage. This Mastery now grants a 2.1% increase to Holy damage per mastery, down from 2.5%. (Default 8 Mastery yields 16.8% increase in damage, down from 20%)
• Repentance is no longer broken from damage done by Censure (Seal of Truth).
• Seals of Command will no longer trigger twice on each swing with Seal of Truth.
• The Rebuke talent has been replaced with a new passive talent, Sacred Shield. Paladins who had Rebuke before will automatically have Sacred Shield. Sacred When reduced below 30% health, paladins gain the Sacred Shield effect. The Sacred Shield absorbs X damage and increases healing received by 20%. Lasts 15 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds. Undispellable.
• Zealotry is no longer dispellable.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Divine Plea now adds 6% mana, for a total of 18% over 9 seconds.

Bug Fixes

• The Silence debuff from Avenger’s Shield was using the Dazed visual effect, and its Daze debuff did not have a visible effect. This has been remedied.
• The damage bonus from Communion is no longer applied even when the paladin has no paladin auras active.
• Divine Storm no longer incorrectly highlights when Hand of Light procs.
• Exorcism automatically re-targets whomever it does damage to when it finishes casting.
• The healing amount in the buff tooltip for Holy Radiance is now accurate.
• Pursuit of Justice is now providing Holy Power when the paladin gets stunned by the Fire mage talent Impact. Conversely, Pursuit of Justice is no longer granting Holy Power when the Paladin is hit by Holy Wrath.
• Repentance tooltip now states that it does not break Censure damage.
• Rank 1 of Shield of the Templar was reducing the cooldown of Guardian of Ancient Kings by 45 seconds, which is inconsistent with the scaling of ranks 2 and 3. This has been adjusted.
• The tooltip for Tower of Radiance indicated that Holy Light would generate a charge of Holy Power. This has been fixed.
• Word of Glory no longer resets the swing timer.

Glyph Fixes

• The damage-over-time effect of Exorcism added by Glyph of Exorcism is now correctly affected by Exorcism’s damage.
• The tooltip for Holy Wrath is now updated to reflect changes when Glyph of Holy Wrath is active.
• The Glyph of Light of Dawn is now updating the tooltip for Light of Dawn.
• The Glyph of Seal of Insight now requires level 32 to be consistent with when Seal of Insight can be learned from the trainer.
• The Glyph of Templar’s Verdict is now updating the tooltip of Templar’s Verdict.

Blessings Change

Nothing really special here.  I guess they are just balancing this with Mark of the Wild?  Didn’t know there was an outcry from the Druids on the mana cost of buffs, but oh well…

Crusader Strike

This should help our DPS a little.  The boost to 135% isn’t gigantic, but it should provide some decent extra damage output.  This will also help tanks in maintaining threat, and dishing out a little punishment on the side.

Divine Plea

Shorter for more mana.  Sounds great to me.  This seems geared at healers, because let’s face it…not many tanks and Ret Paladins are finding themselves constantly out of mana.  Since the healing debuff on Divine Plea probably hindered healing intense fights, shortening this should help Holy Paladins keep up with high damage, and mana intensive fights.

Rebuke

This was a much needed change, specifically for Protection Paladins.  THose of us off-speccing as a tank desperately needed an interrupt other than Avenger’s Shield and Hammer of Justice.  Don’t forget to visit your trainer!

Divine Purpose

So Divine Purpose stays where it is, and gains the old functionality of Hand of Light.  Basically, it will be a flat 15% chance to proc 3 Holy Power (though not actually), and Templar’s Verdict, Zealotry, Word of Glory, and Inquisition will gain a free use.  Not sure how well the 15% will factor in, but I think it should function very similar to what it does now.

Hand of Light

This is the doozy.  Going to see some good damage here, and we will know more about how valuable Mastery rating is.  I haven’t seen any numbers yet, but the PTR should give us a good idea soon enough.  The question is, what percentage of the dmaage from TV, CS, and DS will be additional Holy damage…more to come…

Repentance

Good for both Protection and Retribution Paladins. That stray, “I don’t know how SoT wound up on the CC” should no longer be a factor.

Glyph of Divine Plea

Nifty mana boost, and may see more utility.

Patch 4.0.6 Khor’s Update 1/8/11

Alright guys, I got my first taste of Patch 4.0.6.  The usual resetting of talent points awaited me, and I scurried to fill out my Retribution Tree.  The first thing I noticed is that Rebuke wasn’t out of the talent tree yet, at least not at the time of this post.  I expected it to be gone, and see Sacred Shield in its place.

Second, the tooltip for Templar’s Verdict had gone from 3 Holy Power at 235% to 3 Holy Power at 270%.  That’s a HUGE change if it is true, but I want to verify that that isn’t a tooltip error.

Third, Crusader Strike up to 135% is a nice change.  I wasn’t seeing massive hits from the difference, but the increase definitely was there.

Mastery

Mastery now adds 2.5%  of damage done by Templar’s Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm as Holy damage per 1 point of Mastery.  So, by default, we start with 8 Mastery, giving us a flat 20% boost to the aforementioned damage sources.  This is HUGE.  For one, it should place Templar’s Verdict back above Hammer of Wrath and Exorcism on the FCFS list (we won’t even mention the 270%, if it is true).

Also, this Mastery change skyrockets its value WAY past Critical Strike and Haste, which still seem to have relatively equal value and importance.  I’m not sure on exact numbers, but the difference is significant.  We will see how much this changes over time.

Patch 4.0.6 Update 1/12/11

Added the updated notes.   The biggest change to me is the Seal of Truth changes, where Judgement, HoW, Exorcism, and Templar’s Verdict can now proc the seal.  This will allow for quicker ramp-ups to 5 stacks, and should help optimize DPS.

Also, Forebearnace going down to 1 minute is outstanding for every Paladin spec.  Jumping from 2 minutes down to 1 minute should be great, particularly for Holy and Protection Paladins.

In addition, from testing on the PTR, I have not seen the new Hand of Light damage from TV, CS, and DS result in any critical strike damage thus far.  I’ve seen some similar findings on EJ.  I’m curious if this is intended, and if Blizz intends to change this in the near future.  We will see.

Patch 4.0.6 Update 1/13/11

Seals of Command will no longer trigger twice on each swing with Seal of Truth. Just added this to noted.  Only change thus far in the most recent 4.0.6 note changes.

Patch 4.0.6 Update 1/15/11

Added:

• Divine Storm weapon damage percent increased from 80% to 100%.
• Hand of Light (Mastery): A percentage of the damage done by Templar’s Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm is done as additional Holy damage. This Mastery now grants a 2.1% increase to Holy damage per mastery, down from 2.5%.

The Divine Storm change is a welcome one.  Not sure it will pack enough punch to alleviate all those AoE concerns, but at least it is a start.

The Mastery change actually surprises me a little.  With other DPS classes putting out so much DPS, I thought the 2.5% would help us jump into the mix.  Maybe Blizzard has other intentions, or sees things differently.  I wasn’t noticing a titanic DPS boost, but it was nice while it lasted.

Still more changes incoming, I am sure, so we’ll have to wait and see what comes next.

Patch 4.0.6 Update 1/24/11

Added:

• Divine Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Flash of Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Holy Light mana cost has been increased by approximately 10%.
• Lay on Hands cannot be a critical effect and will not be affected by most abilities which modify healing (such as Beacon of Light). In addition, Lay on Hands is no longer on the global cooldown.

The big change here (if we can call it big) is the fact that LoH no longer crits.  These changes were pretty much aimed at Holy Paladins, though I’m scratching my head as to why our mana use is getting bumped up.  If anything, the other healing classes need to be brought up to our efficiency…but hey, I’m a Ret at heart.  I’ll leave the Holy arguments for another day!  I am sad on the Beacon LoH not transferring…that sucks.