Review of the Retribution Paladin Changes in Patch 11.0.5 - Guide Writer Feedback

While initially underestimated at the start of the War Within, Retribution Paladins have made a strong showing in Season 1, but how do the the class talent reworks in Patch 11.0.5 affect them? Our Retribution Paladin Writer, Bolas, breaks down the changes in Patch 11.0.5 including base talent changes, Hero Talents, utility, and more.

Retribution Paladin Guide

Our Class Writers share their expert opinions based on rigorous testing and theorycrafting in hopes of contextualizing the changes coming in future patches of the War Within. Check out all of our released editorials in our new Editorial Section.

Wowhead Editorials

Patch 11.0.5 has brought a number of changes to the Paladin Class Tree, although the Retribution Tree and its Hero Talents have emerged relatively unscathed. These changes won't have a huge impact on Ret's rotational playstyle, but they do have some important implications that are worth exploring before they go live.

Removed Talents

The previous Paladin Tree was bloated with a ton of miniscule DPS increases that basically only existed to eat up talent points and space in the tree, like Touch of Light or Justification. Most of these have now been either removed or condensed into single nodes, like Holy Aegis. However, some of the removed talents have a much more significant impact, like Seal of Order, which is a loss of 10% increased cooldown reduction on all of Ret's generators — this is clearly going to be a substantial DPS loss, but in terms of gameplay I think that increasing generator cooldowns is probably a positive change, since I think that managing generator cooldowns should be the core of Ret gameplay and it's really become a second priority recently. Some talents have also had the opposite treatment — Vengeful Wrath, which is a very watered down version of the older talent that gave Hammer of Wrath a 100% crit chance, is now becoming a 2-point node despite being fairly underpowered, especially for Templar.

Overall I think the Read more on wowhead.com