Retribution Paladin will be receiving a serious set of nerfs on live WoW: Dragonflight servers, Blizzard has announced. The spec was completely reworked in Patch 10.0.7, and has turned into a DPS juggernaut in both Mythic+ dungeons and raids ever since.
Retribution Paladins will be receiving a flat nerf to all of their damage, with a baseline reduction of three percent to all sources of DPS. Instrument of Retribution—which gives the Paladin a free use of Avenging Wrath whenever an allied party member dies—will have its buff duration decreased from 12 seconds to nine seconds.
Retribution Paladins (and Protection Paladins, for that matter) have been extremely popular in recent days, as WoW players have begun to realize the class’ strength as an effective self-healer. Retribution has seen plenty more playtime since its rework, especially since four-DPS Mythic+ compositions that feature the spec are becoming more popular. With the combination of a slightly overturned rework and players acquiring more gear, Paladins are rising to the top of the meta effortlessly.
To counteract the spec’s tankiness and healing throughput, Blizzard are also applying a handful of nerfs to Retributions’ defenses. Lightforged Blessing will now heal for two percent instead of three percent of your maximum HP, while the absorb shield from Fading Light – Blessing of Dusk has been hit with a seven percent decrease.
The biggest nerf to Retribution Paladins’ durability will come to their Aegis of Protection/Shield of Vengeance combo. Moving forward, Aegis of Protection will only increase the absorption and damage of Shield of Vengeance by 10 percent instead of 20 percent, while the overall duration of Shield of Vengeance will be decreased by five seconds.
“One of our major goals with the rework of Retribution Paladin was to give them a significant boost to their survivability, as this was an area where they were previously underperforming,” Blizzard said in a developer update. “We overshot the mark here and Retribution Paladins are proving to be more durable than we intended.”
These nerfs to Retribution Paladins are expected to go live later today.
