Retribution: Time to talk utility!

So, I just remembered another dream I had last night... and, it inspired me to make this post. So, here we go!

So, there's been a lot of focus on Retribution lately, and our performance in PvE and PvP. Now, in Retribution: A New Combat System, I discussed the possibilities for giving Retribution control over their burst, damage, and mana--so this post I'm going to be discussing utility.

Here's the catch: I'm not going to ask for, or make any reference to Paladins having, a snare, Mortal Strike, an interrupt, or even a distance closer. I'm going to focus entirely upon new and creative ways to implement further defensive utility into the Paladin. This will open up the doors for many new teams and create opportunities for classes and specs that would otherwise avoid the arena, as being a glass cannon often leads to the enemy exploiting the 'glass' before you can fire the cannon.

So let's give glass cannons a way to survive, give the Retribution Paladin additional utility for a raised skill cap, and introduce something new to the arena rather than homogenizing the Paladin for the sake of balance.

Something that Paladins could use is another ability to use as a 'peel', which is done by pulling an enemy off of an arena partner. This can be done with Hammer of Justice or Repentance -- but the cooldowns on these two abilities are extremely restrictive, as they are currently used as a peel, an interrupt, a distance closer, CC chains, an opener for burst, etc. Having two long cooldown spells being responsible for so many different uses means that they are never available often enough. But, enough of that ranting -- back to ideas for a peel.

Think Death Grip, but reversed.

The Paladin reaches out with holy, grabbing his ally and pulling them to safety, removing all movement impairing effects.

Just think of the options it opens--I'm getting giddy just thinking about it. ~♥

It could be used to save the idiot standing in the fire in PvE, it could be used to pull a partner up in Blades Edge, or out of LoS of a CC/Burst/Etc by pulling them behind a pillar... it'd be an amazing spell. If it proves to be too much, it could share a cooldown with Hand of Freedom, forcing better decision making rather than just mashing the button whenever an arena partner runs into trouble.

Anyway, another possible idea -- what if the Paladin could instantly transfer all current debuffs on his targetted ally to him/herself? It could be a one shot deal, or could have a continued effect of transferring the debuffs for X seconds. It could be used as a peel, a guard agains burst (removing all diseases/DoT's/etc before the big finale lands), etc. It would have to be used carefully though, because if used carelessly -- the enemy team will just switch targets and blow up the Retadin.
"Oh? You stole my diseases huh?"
"SCOURGESTRIKESCOURGESTRIKESCOURGESTRIKE!!!11!1"
"loluded?"

Sadly, those are the only two ideas I could come up with off the top of my head. But, I ask you my wonderful readers, what are some ideas you can come up with?

Challenge yourself, though. Try to follow the following criteria:
Defensive utility -- no mortal strikes, interrupts, incapacitates, snares, etc.
Unique -- Try to think of spells or abilities that other classes or specs don't have yet. It can mirror an offensive ability, though, I.E. my 'reverse death grip' idea.
Make sure it's balanced. Ask yourself, "If this was given to another class, would I consider it fair?"

So, that said, what are your thoughts? Do you believe that Retribution Paladins could be successful, and possibly bring success to our squishy caster friends, by bringing so much powerful defensive utility to the table?

So, I'm Rolling a Mage...

Okay, so I was rolling a mage anyway, but I had a dream last night that I solo'd a 5v5 team. Was a Disc Priest, Rogue, Death Knight, Retadin, and a Warrior.

The Priest was afk, though.

Blew up the Rogue, then the Retadin, and played pillar hump with the Warrior and the Death Knight until my cooldowns came up and I did it again.

Then I killed the Priest.

;D

Retribution's Combat System

You can find the condensed version on the Damage Dealer forums under the thread titled, "[RETRIBUTION] 3.2, The Skill Cap, and YOU!"

Everybody wants their class to do well in Player versus Player scenarios. It's a lot of fun, and a great way to compete -- the best can even find it a good way to make money on the side as well. But when we look at different classes, we find many perform far better than others, even when the low representation classes have 'overpowered' moves.

Why is this?

Well, let's look at some of the successful classes, and try to find that which makes them a successful class in PvP.

Rogue: This is one of the all time favorite classes for many players for PvP purposes. This class has been successful from the early days of World of Warcraft, so what better class to discuss for success than the Rogue?

One of the things that made the early Rogue successful in PvP was the ability to always catch their victim off guard. The first strike is extremely important in a fight, and when it's a surprise, it will often times leave your opponent reeling for a second or two before being able to react. By taking control of the fight out of the gate, the Rogue was able to hunt down and destroy a target before the opponent had enough time to realize what was happening and fight back. Rogues were THE damage class too, with the ability to do absurd levels of damage, and there was no such thing as "PvP Gear". All gear was PvE oriented with an emphasis on damage, so killing a target within a few seconds wasn't astonishingly rare. This made the Rogue even more dangerous.

Fast forward two expansions and six arena seasons, and the Rogue is still doing phenomenally well. What has allowed the Rogue to keep through the massive paradigm shifts that have occured and the alterations to the game that followed?

A massive toolbox that allows for a wide variety of actions that can be taken for any given situation. Because of this, the Rogue is an incredibly adaptable class.

The class has many defensive cooldowns available which allow them to escape and re-open, unloading heavy damage while throwing off their opponents flow at the same time. The Rogue also has powerful offensive cooldowns, which allow them to capitalize on these disruptions that they create, allowing them to move in for a kill.

What makes the Rogue so versatile is that many of their cooldowns are both offensive and defensive. Vanish can be used to escape from a dangerous situation, or re-open on a target for a second time in the middle of an attack sequence unloading a powerful and sudden burst. Kidney shot can be used to open a target up for burst from the Rogue and/or his partner(s), or to stop an enemy's flow of combat and interrupt a burst attempt. Blind can be used offensively on a healer to CC during an assault on their partner, or defensively to, again, interrupt an attempted kill on the Rogue or his teammate. This means that when a Rogue sets a goal in combat, that Rogue has multiple methods of accomplishing that goal.

This large toolbox also allows the Rogue to synergize well with most classes and specs, allowing for a wide variety of options in team composition, which means even if one partner is turned on their head -- the Rogue still has a couple dozen other options.

All of this summed up means that no matter what a Rogue wants to do, there is always an option available to that Rogue. This makes the Rogue an extremely dangerous enemy, and a powerful ally, who's lethality lies within his or her flexibility in and out of combat.


Now, when we look at other successful classes, we will see varying levels of flexibility within the class and the compositions they run in. Sometimes the class may not rely on the flexibility of themselves, and instead on the flexibility of their partners, while using their highly focused strengths to supplement the flexibility of their partner, both covering each other's weaknesses. Now, let's focus on some classes that -- while potentially dangerous, are only dangerous to a limited extent, which limits their ability to compete in the higher levels of competition.

One of these classes is currently the Warlock. As Affliction, the Warlock has high damage output -- but it's a slow burn for a kill, and while the Warlock is tough to kill -- simply eliminating the Warlock's pet will eliminate their 'Cleanse/Purge', a substantial portion of their damage, their silence, and increase damage taken by the Warlock by 20%. This is HUGE, especially considering the average life span of an Affliction Warlock's pet is three to four global cooldowns--and that's being generous.

Outside of their pet, an Affliction Warlock can teleport... to a location known by the enemy... once every thirty seconds.

Warlocks also have CC in the form of fear, but... Warriors can break fear every thirty seconds, Rogues can become immune every 60 seconds with Cloak of Shadows, Death-Knights can become immune every 45 seconds with Anti-Magic Shell or with Lichborne every 3 minutes, Feral Druids can break fear and go immune every three minutes, Beast Mastery Hunters can become immune every two minutes, Shaman have Tremor Totem, everybody has a trinket and two have cleanse.

Long story short, the Warlock has very a very limited toolbox, and those few tools in their arsenal are heavily countered by a multitude of classes. Add in other factors such as being able to cleanse crucial DoT's or Line-of-Sight the Warlock's casts on top of the Warlock being very vulnerable to gibbing, and it makes being successful with a Warlock extraordinarily difficult.

DISCLAIMER: The following will probably sound like QQ to some, but is purposefully pessimistic to further emphasise the points being made.
Now, when we look at the Retribution Paladin, what do we see? Which area does 'The Ret' fall under? The Retribution toolbox consists of RNG reliant burst damage, an extraordinarily limited set of tools for control, moderate healing power, and a relatively small number of cooldowns -- all but one geared towards the defensive nature of the Paladin. Note, however, that every cooldown can be cleansed.

Effects in parenthesis show the changes made by talents.

• Hand of Protection: Makes a target immune to physical damage for 10 seconds. 5(3) minute cooldown. Causes forbearance for two mintutes. CANNOT BE CAST ON SELF WITH FORBEARANCE ACTIVE.
  
• Hand of Sacrifice: Transfers 30% of the target's damage to the Paladin for 10 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
• Hand of Freedom: Makes the target immune to movement impairing effects for 6(10) seconds. (Breaks stuns on the target upon being cast, but does not make the target immune to stuns.) 25 second cooldown.
• Avenging Wrath: Increases damage and healing done by 20% (and causes damage done to bypass 50% of all damage reduction). 3(2) minute cooldown. Cannot be used within thirty seconds of Divine Protection or Divine Shield, or within thirty seconds of being affected with Hand of Protection.
  
• (Talent)Divine Sacrifice: Transfers 30(40)% of all damage done to any of the Paladin's party or raid members to the Paladin for 10 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
• Divine Protection: Reduces all damage taken by the Paladin by 50%. Causes forbearance for two minutes. CANNOT BE CAST WITH FORBEARANCE ACTIVE.
  
• Divine Shield: Makes the Paladin immune to all harmful spells and effects for 12 seconds. 5 minute cooldown. Causes forbearance for two minutes. CANNOT BE CAST WITH FORBEARANCE ACTIVE.
  
• Hammer of Justice: Stuns the target for six seconds. 60(40) second cooldown.
• (Talent)Repentance: Incapacitates the target for 6 seconds. 60 second cooldown.

That's it. Outside of those cooldowns, Paladins have heals (~2k Flash of Light, ~6.5k Holy Light) and Sacred Shield, which absorbs ~1000 damage per six seconds on average. (NOTE: THESE NUMBERS ARE AVERAGE ESTIMATIONS AND ARE AFFECTED BY GEAR.)

So, in essence: A paladin can force a fight reset every 5 minutes, has RNG burst which forces us to either kill a target instantaneously or not at all (which is not fun for either party), 7 cooldowns (four of which are tied together), and two which are used as our interrupt/stun/snare/distance closer/CC and are both on a sixty second timer; one on a 40s timer with talents. We can heal, but must use our heals carefully, as careless use of our mana will turn us into an auto-attack bot.

So, how can we fix this? Our damage is limited by our cooldown based attacks, as our attacks share the same resource as our heals--so limiting it via mana would be extraordinarily difficult to do. Having an infinite resource system makes our healing potential far too devastating, and short of introducing a second resource system to the Paladin which would be complicated and difficult to rebalance, there's no way to change this.

So, what can we change? The size of the toolbox. But how do we do this without becoming overpowered? Force these cooldowns to interact with each other so that decisions have to be made between them. Example: The Rogue's combat system uses a combo point and finisher system, meaning the Rogue can either unload a high burst attack, stun the target, reduce the targets armor, or haste the Rogue's attacks for heavier pressure on a target. This system also forces a build-up period where the target can prepare to some degree for what could be coming at them, and forces the Rogue to react to those decisions with their choice in finisher.

Example: Rogue uses Cheapshot on Paladin, Paladin casts Hand of Freedom and breaks the stun, Rogue uses Kidney Shot.

Can also play out as...

Rogue uses Cheapshot on Paladin, Paladin sits through Cheap Shot, Rogue uses Eviscerate for a powerful burst because the Rogue knows the Paladin has Hand of Freedom ready for Kidney Shot.

Another scenario: Rogue uses Cheap Shot on Mage and stuns the Mage for four seconds. Mage Blinks out of the stun at second 0.8.

Can also play out as...

Rogue uses Garotte on Mage. Mage is silenced for three seconds.

Now the Mage is forced to either use his/her 5(4) minute cooldown Ice Block to escape the silence, or suffer three seconds of unhindered damage by the Rogue.

This game of back and forth is what increases the skill cap of a class. It forces each class to make a decision, forcing their opponent to make a decision, which again forces the class to make a decision. Better players will make the right decisions, and make them faster, while poorly played characters will fail to react properly and die. Retribution Paladins currently do not have a variety of ways to react, and in most cases only have one or two possible ways to react when a situation comes around that the Paladin has a tool for. This means that the only decision to be made is often "Do this, or don't do it." which means that even bad players can excel as a Paladin, and exceptional players don't shine out above their badly played breathren.

The combat system needs to be continued to be reworked. Outside of Avenging Wrath every two minutes, Retribution Paladins still rely upon the RNG for crits in order to unleash their 'burst', and still have no way to control their opponents. While the Paladin does remove some of the control of the fight out of the opponents hands, the Paladin still needs ways to have a bigger hand in how their opponents act. This will force the Paladin to make decisions that can corner their opponent, rather than simply fighting off the enemy's control over the fight until the Mace Stun Gods smile upon the Paladin and his or her opponent instantly drop under the weight of three to four back-to-back crits.

Example of controlled burst(Off the top of my head, don't shoot me if I'm off, these are examples): Three stacks of Arcane Blast--> Missile Barrage + Arcane Missiles --> PoM Frostfire Bolt

Cold Blood+5pt. Eviscerate

Frost Nova-->Frostbolt+Ice Lance+Ice Lance+Water Bolt

Frost Fever+Blood Plague+Ebon Plague+Two Death Runes --> Scourge Strike+Scourge Strike+Scourge Strike

Hamstring-->Mortal Strike-->Sweeping Strikes-->Bladestorm

These are just examples of what Blizzard could do with Paladins, allowing our burst to be more controlled (Frost Mage, Arcane Mage, Unholy Death Knight, etc) or giving our burst more lethality by making it harder to avoid (Arms Warrior). This would force a set up period, allowing the enemy to prepare, while also putting a higher skill requirement into the Paladin to be able to set up this burst, and making it more lethal when used by skilled players, as they will be better able to pull it off.

So, I again call for the community to come up with ideas to balance Retribution.

What are some forms of offensive utility that Retribution Paladins would like?
Which utility would the community would be comfortable with us having?
How would either side want to see these implemented?

And remember, with any suggestions you make, the simpler and better balanced it is the more likely it is that both sides of the community will agree and the more likely we will all be to see Blizzed take notice and possibly implement some of the ideas. "Keep it simple, stupid!"


And for shits and giggles, here's some of my own thoughts revolving solely around how to fix our burst to require set-up, but also making the damage more lethal in the process.

Vindicator's Strike:
8% Base Mana
4s Cooldown
Melee Range
Requires Melee Weapon
Deals 20% weapon damage, decreasing the enemies attack power by 574 for 15 seconds.

Want to get something fancy for having to push another button Retadins?

Improved Vindicator's Strike:
Increases the damage dealt by 10/20%, and slows the target's movement speed by 20/40%.

New strike causes us to use mana for the debuff, but gives us a snare.

Maybe a change to Crusader Strike, too? I've grown rather fond of Arcane Blast to be honest, maybe Arcane Mages wouldn't mind me borrowing the idea?

Crusader Strike
5% Base Mana
Instant Cast
Cooldown removed.
5 yard range
Requires Melee Weapon
An instant strike that causes 75% weapon damage. Each time you use Crusader Strike, the damage of Crusader Strike and Judgement is increased by 20%, and the mana cost of Crusader Strike is increased by 150%. Effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 10 sec or until Judgement is cast.

Swift Retribution: Your auras also increase casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 1/2/3%. In addition, whenever you cast Judgement, you have a 33/66/100% chance for your next Divine Storm to increase holy damage dealt by seals and Exorcism to the target by 25% for 4 seconds.

Now, everything intermingles.

Minute:Second:Millisecond
00:00:00 -- Judgement
00:01:50 -- Vindicator's Strike
00:03:00 -- Divine Storm
00:04:50 -- Crusader Strike (+25% seal damage)
00:06:00 -- Crusader Strike (+20% damage) (+25% seal damage)
00:07:50 -- Crusader Strike (+40% damage)
00:09:00 -- Crusader Strike (+60% damage)
00:010:50 -- Judgement (+60% damage)
00:13:00 -- Divine Storm
00:14:50 -- Exorcism (+25% damage)