We Win

In this post on the WoW Paladin boards, Drysc says:

The season 3 retribution set has been changed. We're removing the Armor Penetration and Spell Damage that was being added to season 3, and moving those stat points into Strength. Those changes should be visible in an upcoming PTR build.

Good game.

[Vaelin sits down, takes off his bloodstained helm, and breathes freely for the first time in nearly three years.]

The Last Great Obstacle: Itemization

Retribution Paladins in WoW have, much to my great surprise, come a long long way. Several months ago, I would never have dreamed that the tree would get so much positive retooling - particularly in the realm of DPS/PvP. There was even talk from Blizzard of reducing Ret's last remaining hope - burst damage. I cancelled my subscription (complete with frustrated letter to Blizzard), took many months off, and played around with several different games. I came back out of boredom (and after hearing about the Death Knight), vendored almost all my healing gear, and set out to spec and play how I wanted to play - the rest of the WoW community be damned.

All I can guess now is that I wasn't the only one. Warhammer Online began putting out a tantalizing alternative, and I'd venture to say a great many other Paladin players followed suit and deprived Blizzard of more funds than even they expected. Now here we are, months later, with Retribution on the verge of becoming endgame-viable. We've conquered many foes thus far - from an ill-conceived notion that Ret was nothing more than a leveling/grinding spec, to the most recent triumph which resulted in the addition of passive threat reduction. One great demon, however, still remains - our itemization.

We know that Blizzard is (or at least was) aware of the, "itemization pitfalls" associated with Retribution. Much of this is their own doing, having designed a tree that incorporates dual-scaling abilities (SoC/JoC/CS scale with both weapon damage and spell damage, the latter poorly). Before, I would have said that this was an intentional attempt to hamstring Retribution and keep it at a sub-par DPS level. The apparent delay in addressing this gives me reason to believe that this may still be the case to a certain degree. My evidence - the Season 3 Retribution set: Vengeful Gladiator's Scaled Armor. Yes, we finally got a healthy amount of resilience like every other class/spec. Unfortunately, we also retained a large amount of spell damage and actually LOST strength. We were even granted a certain amount of armor penetration - something completely unnecessary for a class that deals a mix of physical and magic damage (the latter already ignoring armor).

What, then, is to be done? Some have suggested we receive a talent, just like Shaman Mental Quickness, which grants spell damaged based on a percentage of attack power. Others, including the author of the now infamous rumored additional changes, have advocated a complete detachment from spell damage altogether as Retribution, and a reworking of SoC/JoC/CS to scale exclusively with melee stats. Whether the solution is an AP->SP talent, or a reworking of our Ret abilities, something certainly needs to be done.

I'm aware that the Paladin is a hybrid, and that we need a bit more than a "pure" class like the Warrior. Intellect alone should be sufficient in this regard. Ret gear should thus look like this, IMO:

Stats needed in descending order of importance:

Uncommon Quality Items
*Strength
*Stamina
*Intellect
*Crit in some cases (though rare for uncommon)

Rare Quality Items
*Strength
*Stamina
*Intellect
*Crit rating (much more prevalent on rare items)

Epic Quality Items (PvE)
*Strength
*Stamina
*Intellect
*Crit rating (more prevalent than rare)
*Hit rating (moderate amount)
*MP/5

Epic Quality Items (PvP)
*Strength
*Stamina (somewhat more than PvE)
*Intellect
*Crit rating (plentiful)
*Resilience
*Hit rating (small amount)

Things Retribution gear should not have at all, with either a melee->spell damage conversion talent or a retooling of certain abilities:

*Spell Damage
*Armor Penetration

With this issue dealt with, barring any horrible re-nerfs or excessive "adjustments," I would actually consider Retribution to be "done" (for the most part, nothing ever ends up perfect).

Well I'll Be Damned...

Someone at Blizzard actually plays a Paladin. I think I just saw a pig fly past my 2nd floor window. Meet Verrith.

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We interrupt this post to bring you a link to a 2.3 Paladin Talent Calculator. I was getting tired of looking for one, so I headed over to an Unleashed Gaming builder and made one myself. I've got a post up on the Paladin boards with people helping me fix errors (their "default" Paladin tree was several patches/nerfs behind). The link shouldn't change as I fix things, though. I didn't even have to refresh my browser to have the revisions reflected.

Original post resumed.
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Here's what he says, in a new post he elevated to sticky status in the Paladin forums:

Ok, for real now!

It took so long because it was buried and I had to go all Indiana Jones on it.

On a side note, yes, I am a Paladin. I have two of them – a level 70 Dwarf Paladin and level 24 ish Blood Elf Paladin (but he's on his way up!). I love Paladins. Love the class and the people who play them. So it hurts my inner Pally pride to see this type of behavior. I know it's out of frustration, but 2.3 has given Ret new life and it's just a step in the right direction. I'm sure that over the weeks and months to come, the Paladin community is going to get the attention it needs. We'll look into the possibilities. We'll follow up with the outcomes. This is why we have a PTR so that we can all go there and test the effectiveness of a particular new environment or mechanic. We just all must remember one thing, change takes time and every change has to be evaluated in every possible light. We're working to make this game (and this class) as fun and as awesome as we possibly can!

Have patience, my Paladin brothers and sisters. Good things come (like the Ret buffs) to those who wait. Feel free to give constructive feedback, but try to avoid spam and the like because that just makes the job of the people who have to filter your information back to the proper liaisons that much harder. Believe me, we knew two nights ago that you, the community, were interested in a passive Paladin threat reduction.

WoW 2.3 on the PTR

Blah, still no WAR beta invite. Nothing new on that front that I can tell, so here we are with another look at the developing WoW "Paladin."

It turns out, as finally confirmed by an official CM, that the "rumored additional changes" were fake. Too bad, really, as they were pretty nice. Reaction to the legit changes was swift, and in many cases full of anger and frustration. The biggest point of contention bar-none was the total absence of threat reduction. Now that I'm finally rolling in almost all epics, this is something I will fully admit the spec needs most in PvE. Those saying it's not a big deal, or that they haven't had a problem or seen another Ret Paladin have a problem with threat are playing with undergeared n00bs. There's no other way around it.

Personally, I'm not that phased by this omission. From what I've seen, all the (documented) Paladin changes are straight-up buffs in their own right (ignoring, for a moment, the buffs to Hunters in the way of a dispelling Arcane Shot, a potential Disarming Shot, or the impending removal/reduction of their deadzone). Having decided to resume playing and refusing to respec to something boring (I.E. Holy), I've become an almost exclusively PvP oriented Paladin. I've felt the drawbacks of the spec, even while well geared. The changes in 2.3 are going to help me tremendously. My run-in with a purge-happy Shaman last night in AV reminded me how nice it will be to finally have undispellable seals. I'll be smacking harder, running faster, and critting a little more often. I'll also be piling on a nasty trash debuff of my own in the form of new and improved Vindication.

On the PvE scene, things aren't so rosy. Overall, Ret will be doing substantially more damage than before with no additional threat reduction. N00bs pointing out "ZOMGBoSalvLAWL" don't seem to understand that when everyone else in the DPS pool has Salv on, combined with their inherent/talented additional threat reduction, the Ret Paladin is still sticking way out in front on the threat meter. Blood Elf Paladins will continue to have the upper hand on the Ret PvE scene, since their Seal of Blood provides somewhat more consistent and less spikey DPS (as well as hurting them just enough to draw healing and thus help keep their mana up). Vindication will bring some nice utility in lower-tier and small scale content, but I seriously doubt it will be allowed to proc on raid bosses or even most raid trash. CS back at 6 seconds should finally ensure that all judgments stay refreshed, but you'd almost be better off throwing on a shield and using a 1H for this as well as adding Vindication.

Paladins unsatisfied with the changes should approach 2.3 rationally. Get your character(s) copied to the PTR when you can (I've been trying for two days, when the queue wasn't full, and keep getting errors - still no luck). Run some dungeons. Pull aggro even after waiting to engage and holding back during the fight. Wipe horribly, and take screenshots. Submit feedback via the built-in UI elements on the PTR that allow you to do so. Blizzard will no doubt be keeping a close eye on many of the changes they're trying out, including the changes to Ret. With regard to additional issues that were brought up at Blizzcon (I.E. spell damage dependency), I expect these things to be sorted in time.

Patch 2.3 brings many other additions and changes that I'm excited about. As an engineer, I'm looking forward to building my flying machine. It will become much easier to work on my Blood Elf Paladin as well (he's 43 now, specced Ret of course) with the increased leveling speed from 20-60. There's a hot new Ret libram hitting the heroic vendor for just 20 badges (Libram of Divine Judgement - Your Judgement of Command has a chance to grant 200 attack power for 10 seconds. I hear it has a high proc rate - around 40%).

We're not there yet, but we're getting there. If we never get there, we have Death Knights and Warrior Priests. In the meantime, go and strike faces. Bring QQ posts to the Paladin boards about something other than how OP and overrepresented Holy Paladins are in arenas. Laugh at that Shaman who still thinks he can purge your seals off. See you in game.