#0 - Oct. 12, 2010, 6:56 p.m.
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Long Arm of the Law: Designed to give Retribution a means of closing gaps quickly, it unfortunately fails rather spectacularly in actual PvP combat situations for a variety of reasons.
1. Giving no other effect other than a speed increase, it can be completely countered by any simple snare or root which is a rather common occurence in any PvP environment.
2. The forementioned ease in which snares/roots can completely negate it necessitates the use of Hand of Freedom simply to allow it to work for it's full 4 seconds, which is exceedingly detrimental to Ret surviveability by forcing the expenditure of a vital defensive CD that remains the Ret's only means to remain relatively mobile. In combat situations, offensive dispels have proven to be rather prevalent, and HoF ends up being dispelled a large percentage of the time, which further weakens the spec against the very kiting the ability in question was designed to combat.
3. The speed increase remains too negligable and gives opponents too much time to CC/dispel/spellsteal which can easily counter LAotL even with HoF being used to allow it's full uninterrupted duration of 4 seconds.
Blizzard has acknowledged the mobility problems inherent with this fortunately, and is considering adding utility to help counter snaring effects so HoF can be divorced from LAotL's viability, which is absolutely necessary. While this will undoubtably be immensely helpful in solving some of these issues, it leaves one problem with LAotL that is not solved by such implementation: it is still too slow. Therefore, whenever the developers decide to implement the snare counter solution they have discussed with the Retribution community, they should consider allowing the PoJ talent to stack with LAotL at the very least.
Rebuke: The talented interrupt for Retribution, Rebuke works just fine in a PvE environment where melee uptime is not difficult to achieve. In PvP however, it is rendered almost completely ineffectual as a result of the large mobility problems inherent with the spec. As a melee range ability, the currently non-existent target uptime in PvP gives it no real opportunities to actually interrupt casts as it relies more on opponents being foolish and ignorant of their own mechanics as opposed to timing.
While the solution discussed by Blizzard regarding mobility in conjunction with a more powerful LAotL might improve melee opportunities in PvP slightly when implemented, Rebuke will still be rather more difficult to use effectively than most other interrupts as a result of lag issues and the necessity of getting right on top of their opponents to enable use. These coupled with the fact that as a talented ability it is no better than most any interrupt that melee generally get free seems to imply it is underpowered.
With these in mind, perhaps the developers should consider buffing the ability by virtue of giving it a ranged application as opposed to the currently required melee range. This would help combat the inherent lag issues and also make the talent point expenditure more justifiable. Granted, it would be taken regardless as it is so necessary, but allowing it to be a step above baseline interrupts would be justifiable by virtue of other melee interrupts generally not requiring talent expenditure to attain. Take Arms Warriors' Throwdown for example. Essentially a clone of the baseline Hammer of Justice available to Paladins, it has a 45 second baseline CD as opposed to HoJ's 1 min CD and is undispelleable whereas HoJ is dispelled by magic dispels, making it superior to a baseline ability another class has. This would also give Ret Paladins a better counter to the kiting that is currently almost crippling them, in that it would prevent most casters from being able to leisurely continue casting at range with almost no worries of retaliation.
Zealotry: The Retribution 31-point flagship talent, it basically fulfills a burst CD role by allowing Crusader Strike to generate 3 HoP as opposed to it's normal 1 per application. The problem is testing continues to show use of the talent actually gives no real DPS increase.
Essentially turning the rotation into CS, TV, CS, TV for it's duration, it clashes with the Divine Purpose talent as well as the Hand of Light mastery of the spec by causing wasted HoP procs as well as dumbing down the rotation in a manner that still provides no noticeable DPS increase, bringing the necessity of the talent into question and basically forcing Ret Paladins to take a talent that essentially gives them no benefit simply to get the mastery.
There have been many suggestions as to how to correct this problem and allow it to be a defineable DPS increase, as Blizzard is no doubt aware of. However, there are some, myself included, who wonder whether another burst CD is truely necessary when we have Avenging Wrath and Inquisition to fill these roles already. Personally, I think it would be better to make Zealotry a unique form of utility since testing has shown something like that to be more of a benefit than another burst CD. One good suggestion has been the 'Holy Form' advocated by several that is similar to the Shadowform given Priests that many think would allow more opportunities to balance out damage properly among other things. I personally like the idea, but it's really up to Blizzard to decide how they want to fix the talent to make it beneficial.
Inquisition: Essentially the Savage Roar of the Paladin class, it expends HoP to increase Holy damage by 30% for 4 seconds per HoP charge.
While added to increase the complexity of the Retribution rotation, it is rather detrimental in that so much of the Ret Paladin's damage viability is tied to this one CD. Feedback has shown it to be greatly unfun and tedious to maintain as well, not to mention the rather large drawbacks this ability presents to the spec in a PvP environment.
With the very low mobility of the spec well documented in this aspect of the game, and HoP generation largely dependent on melee range, Inquisition represents a large problem for Retribution in PvP by hamstringing a large portion of it's damage potential because of the great difficulty in generating sufficient HoP in this environment. Essentially, low to zero melee uptime makes Inquisition unsustainable, greatly limiting Ret damage potential in PvP as a result.
With regards to this ability, many, including myself, are advocating it be scrapped because of the large problems in both maintaining it's duration and tying so much of Retribution's damage potential to it. Considered a very unfun ability that is uncomfortably reminiscient of Feral mechanics that players hated, most agree that damage potential should be better spread out thru the spec instead of largely confined to one buff. Considering that ramp up already consists of almost 9 seconds of uninterrupted melee uptime as it is, putting so much importance on one buff that requires frequent melee range in a spec with admittedly very low mobility seems excessive and unnecessary. A return of an ability such as stacking Vengeance would probably work better by helping to improve damage slightly without requiring HoP and require skill to maintain by working to keep in melee range.
Seal of Justice: Revamped to take into account the removal of Judgement of Justice, SoJ now applies the Justice debuff via melee application to slow opponents to 100% movement speed for 5 seconds.
A big problem with this ability is the general obsolete nature of the ability in comparison to other classes snare effects as well as the greater proliferation of dispels to counter it. 50% less effective than ANY snare effect in the game, the only quarter in which it traditionally made any noticeable difference was with regards to Druid's inability to counter via Shapeshift like traditional snares. Unfortunately, the effect has traded it's previous range mechanic for melee application which again is very hard to achieve currently with Retribution in a PvP environment. The duration has also taken an almost 50% loss for only 5 seconds on an ability many classes and specs can afford to ignore. Not only that, the Druid Restoration tree now has access to a magic dispel that further detracts from the weak usefulness of the ability in regards to the class it has traditionally countered the most.
Additionally, the weak damage of the Seal and the formentioned necessity of maintaining frequent melee range to generate HoP to be able to deal effective levels of damage all comes together to show SoJ as an ability so weak it is almost completely obsolete and greatly in need of buffing if it is ever to be considered for use over a regular damage Seal as Blizzard intends in a PvP environment.
In the opinions of testers and the Ret playerbase, the damage of the Seal needs to be increased enough to warrant using it over a regular damage Seal, and more importantly, the snaring effect needs to be increased significantly to bring it up to par of other snaring effects. The reason this is so necessary is that even with the potential addition of utility to help counter snares and increase of LAotL's speed, frequent melee uptime will be a requirement to generate sufficient HoP to allow the Ret to be dangerous, and an actual snare will absolutely be a requirement if Retribution is
