Blizzard haven’t commented much on class changes or their reasoning, however from the very first buff they made:
(https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/upcoming-adjustments-to-retribution-paladins/1511714)
- Not a Goal – Embark on an effort to provide ongoing balance to all classes phase over phase. We think its very important to WoW Classic that classes behave largely as you’d expect them to throughout the current expansion without constantly worrying about major design changes altering the feel of the class. This includes having them scale mostly as you’d expect them to. Warriors are a great example of this, and in almost every early expansion of WoW, Warriors start weak and scale exceptionally well with gear. This is especially true in Wrath where Armor Penetration becomes more prevalent and available around the midpoint of the expansion, and gear in the later tiers is more tightly optimized to allow Warriors to lean into their strengths and shine. This sort of ebb and flow feels right for classic and we do not want to change this paradigm, and feel that these adjustments will allow Retribution to stay more relevant now without creating a massive new imbalance or placing them well above where we’d expect them to be relative to other classes and specs during this or future phases.
Two classes have received major buffs in WotLK classic, Feral and Ret. These classes are now simming at #1 and #2 melee dps in P4 gear. There are all sorts of arguments back and forth about what balance should be, however it seems reasonable to assess it using the reasoning behind the original adjustments.
While Warriors are mentioned in this post, the key theme is about ebb and flow and classes scaling “as we expect them to”. Feral and Ret buffs are too much in P4, these buffs were implemented in P2 where both specs were struggling and that’s simply no longer the case in ICC, the tier that Ret and Feral were balanced around (amongst other classes).
Simply put, having Feral and Ret at #1 and #2 due to buffs received with no later adjustments is not in keeping with Blizzard’s stated goals, nor would I say it leads to a positive experience for the playerbase outside of these specs. Blizzard correctly identified that expectations are important and that they simply can’t balance every class. One key theme to classic is that while balance is not the best, it simply it what it is and players have general expectations going into an expac. Making changes for the sake of balance breaks this and should only be done if Blizzard commits to balancing every spec, rather than just the two that happened to be chosen in Ulduar.
The substantial buffs both specs have received should be undone for P4, Feral will still be top tier and Ret will drop down to where they actually were in original WotLK. Both specs will be plenty attractive to bring to ICC and it would be in keeping with actual WotLK.
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let me guess, a Ret pally got first pick for Shadowmourne in your guild and you just can’t stand it right?
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I mean weren’t ret and feral expected to be good in ICC, so is it really that crazy if they’re the number 1 and 2 melee dps? Serious question here.
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Feral was expected to be very good, and with a dps-neutral glyph of omen they’d be up there with the other top specs instead of being the top.
Anyone who expected Ret to keep up with Fury/Aff/Spriest in ICC before these buffs would have been having you on. For reference they get ~1.3k from their changes and are at the upper end of the top pack. I would also note here that in the same post I linked Blizzard acknowledged the strength of Ret’s utility (and Feral absolutely has similar strengths).
Simply put when both classes are absolutely fine in ICC without buffs, why should these adjustments exist when it makes them #1 and #2? While Ret tends to take a lot of heat Feral is the worse offender as it’s actually ahead of the pack. Blizzard got their numbers wrong initially and then tried a poor way to nerf it (Naturalist change).
I would also note that no one is complaining about how fire mages are simming, but rather arbitrary buffs don’t sit well with a lot of people.
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Fair enough. I have no problems with the buffs ret and feral got, I mean they were doing VERY badly. If they need a counter nerf now then fine as well.
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I think this is important to note, we’re not playing a new retail expansion here. If fire comes out ahead of everyone for the rest of the wrath no one would be bothered since that is expected by blizzard’s plan for Wrath Classic.
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One issue though is that with classic we’ve been starting on the final patch. This can often have many ramifications for classes who in original wrath might’ve started out strong but then received numerous nerfs throughout the expansion. Not trying to turn this into a warrior whine thread but if I remember right that was the case with warriors, they were nerfed throughout original wrath but because it was done over time it didn’t hit them quite as hard at any one point maybe. With classic wrath and starting with the final patch warriors started in the nerfed state but didn’t have icc gear and stats to make up for it. I think something similar may have happened with ret paladins?
This tends to be overstated for both warriors and ret pallies, however this was a reasonable point in Ulduar (arp rating nerf sucked for a lot of phys classes).
We are going to be on the ICC patch, so it’s no longer a factor. Even if you accept that’s a big impact on balancing, we’ll be on the patch that has the gear and tier bonuses that classes were originally balanced around.
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Imagine reading a long and well-written post and having this as your first thought in response.
Ret was truly awful. Feral was not.
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i’ve read plenty of “well-written and thought out posts” from warriors complaining that other classes got buffed and it all boils down to either they want to get buffed so they can have prio on shadowmourne, or they want the buffs to be reverted (or nerf the class in a new way) so that they can have prio on shadowmourne.
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The taunt glyph and SoV-stacking changes would have next to no impact on the dps Ret gains from Shadowmourne. Those abilities have no weapon damage scaling and are purely based on the user’s attack power. Aka, no impact on how much they get from Shadowmourne.
That being said Shadowmourne is an end game legendary, a lot of guilds will have ICC on farm by the time the first one is crafted. It’s a prestige item for a lot of guilds and it’s use in ICC may be secondary to this.
My post had nothing to do with Shadowmourne prio (and feral isn’t even an option?) but rather using what information we actually know about Blizzard’s buff philosophies and how they hold up in P4 gear.
Edit: Not gonna lie, I completely forgot about the Strength proc on Shadowmourne. This would certainly impact SoV/Taunt damage. That being said I’d expect Ret to still be gaining equal amounts of damage as Fury or slightly more (although 100% feelscraft).
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We don’t care. Its time for hybrids to be number 1. 
This is a paladin expansion.
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Taking the ret buffs away will make every paladin play miserable and put them all the way back on the bottom until they get 2 set tier 10, Tiny abom, AND shadowmourne. And then they will be middle of the pack, only IF they get all 3.
Removing the buff is not a solution.
Only sim numbers that matter are the ones in TOGC bis, because this will determine if you are brought to ICC prog or not.
ICC bis sims mean nothing because by the time you get bis we are heading into cata.
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Feral got buffed by making them more simple to play.
Ret should have been stronger early on than they were, so it’s not really a buff.
Both didn’t get any “substantial” buff, we’re talking 2-3% at best.
Ret and feral aren’t too much, if anything class balance is pretty close outside of the “wrong”/pvp specs.
Ret and feral are supposed to be top tier and really strong in ICC.
We’re still gonna way more damage than people were back then, damage will not be a huge issue in ICC.
Maybe the proper adjustment, if any, is slightly nerfing Tiny Abom for Ret.
wat
Free shred every 6 seconds, “not a substantial buff”
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Because you could get the same results by doing the different weaving. They made it more simple by making you get free shreds. It also cost you a glyph slot.
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Who told you it was 2-3%?
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Bearweaving and the OoC glyph are not close to dps-neutral. It was a substantial buff. You are trolling.
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