I have noticed that the grand majority of players who play these specs need to improve the way they play, and I am not talking about your ability to deal damage, because meme specs can deal damage, they can contribute in burst, and they can be useful in PVP.
So what am I rambling on about? Meme specs can be good and very much competitive with more traditional specs in PVP as long as the player really does use the potential of the class in PVP, but if you don’t then you are crippling your self and your team, and that is why people get upset with meme builds like Shadow, Ret, feral, balance and enhance.
So what is a so called meme build to do? Use your damn abilities, if you are a Shadow priest use dispel magic and power word shield, and utilize your buffs on team mates, or if you are a Ret paladin use repentance in a smart way, HoJ in a smart way or Cleanse and Freedom and BoP in smart ways and try and at least keep your 5 min blessings on near by friendly targets, as they are very powerful. Are you playing Enhance use purge, drop totems and even throw a heal, there is a reason why you are classed as a hybrid, are you playing a druid non resto? No problem, but use Bash, feral charge to interrupt casts, cast roots on warriors, faerie fire on rogues, and other druids, keep mark up on friendly targets, throw out a HoT here and there.
The point is, if you have tools and just ignore that they exist because you are hyper focused on dealing damage then maybe its time to play a different class that does more and better damage than your hybrid.
Getting a ‘meme’ spec in a BG is no different than getting another dps class. What’s the difference in a 15v15 pug of getting a ret paladin or a mage? Both are going to put up a lot of burst damage.
The reason people don’t like these ‘meme’ specs is because they see a paladin and they expect the paladin to be their own personal pocket healer.
Just because someone isn’t here to buff you, and make you feel better about yourself, doesn’t mean they’re not contributing.
Actually its very different because in most situations vs your parent class you are less effective. Ret can deal tremendous burst with the right gear, but your sustained damage and mobility are not comparable to that of a warrior. 50% of the strength of your class build is your CC, and utility that warriors do not bring in that measure.
Repentance, cleanse, freedom, bop, hoj, sac and so on are massive contributions to your team, and many of you guys do not use these regularly enough.
indeed, and while its totally awesome when people play a meme spec well, most tend to ignore the real strength of these builds and that is where they get mocked.
Same, and its awesome seeing them go and be effective, I just wish more of them would use their kit rather than ignore some really powerful and useful team play abilities. Legit the fastest I ever lost a duel was vs a Deep ret, I got deleted in a HoJ, and no warrior or Ele shaman has ever duplicated that kinda of utter destructive power, but he had GM gear and weapon so, yeah.
Meme specs arent as effective as other specs and normally much harder to play to full effectiveness so most people in meme specs greatly hinder thier teams. So the stigma against them are ingrained by exoerience.
really they are not all that much harder to play, its just that the skill floor is slightly higher than the more traditional specs like and Arms warrior that’s very easy to play but also has a reasonably high skill cap also.
Specs are actually more situational, verses an overall meta. Are you referring to specs for PvE? Then yes, there are proven Meta’s for this.
Are you referring to PvP? Then no, there isn’t a set Meta.
When it comes to PvP, I find that there’s no meta - but different specs work against different classes. You can’t blanket one spec for PvP as “the best”.
Happy to provide examples, but mine will be based on a Rogue’s perspective
This is actually something of where I think we have a more unique point of view than other traditional pure classes because to win a lot of fights its more about cunning, control and creative solutions than brute force due to the tissue paper nature of our health pool.
I’m not saying meme specs are bad, I’m also not thinking about it on a class vrs class or spec v doec basis and more of a general overview. Getting all you can out of a ret pally or enhancement shaman is much more difficult than holy or ele.
I dont think its more difficult, just less well established as a play style so people have not yet adapted or copied the play style of the good players yet.
Think about things from a different perspective. Overall gamers have NOT improved, but only have more information and more guides. This does not make them better gamers, it only makes them better informed gamers.
The point is, overall skill level has not improved, but the information saturation has.
Well, in the case of hybrid specs like Retribution and Shadow, I think there is a lot of information on the play style that could be better established, more guides on how to PVP a hybrid, and more guides on how to PVP gear classes in general.
There are tons of guides on how to PVE, but really the PVP side of things in this game is seriously lacking. The PVE side of the game has loads of great sources for information, some better than others, but all are damn decent. PVP, well no, its all still back in 2005 and to me that just feels bad.
They aren’t necessarily worse overall but they absolutely are worse in many areas. Rets can do good burst if everything lines up but compared to a warrior they are severely lacking. They can heal and support decently but compared to a priest or holy pally they are terrible.
The problem is that these specs have their power spread out into many areas. This is a horrible flaw in pve where its more important to be strong in your pure role. It is also a flaw, albeit a lesser one, in pvp due to the increased difficulty of having to do multiple different things to get maximum effectiveness. Even then, the maximum effectiveness is often not preferable to a pure class, but it is close enough.
It becomes a huge issue when they play in pvp like they play pve where they ignore or misuse the power that was spread among different parts of their kits. The number of times I’ve seen a ret with a freedom on hopelessly chasing a mage or healer while their arms warrior is sitting in a nova right next to them is staggering. Many watch their healers get trained without using BoP or let a teammate sit in a poly/fear without a cleanse.
Obviously it is a skill issue brought to light by the spec’s kit but it is extremely prevalent and noticeable. A good warrior, mage, lock, or rogue is often unnoticeable compared to an average one but a good ret can usually be identified incredibly quickly. Its a shame that they are rare.
It also doesn’t help that rets, likely due to their reputation as a bad class and the abuse they get because of it, seem to be absurdly defensive about their spec and often refuse to listen to any criticism.
Also idk what it is about ele shamans but they often seem exempt from this issue. A lot of ele shamans I see are perfectly fine with throwing out their chain lightning/shock combo and then sitting back and supporting or doing more damage depending on the team’s needs. It is actually infuriating as alliance that so many of them actually heal and support after their burst while our spriests and rets just run around trying to pve people down.
A good ret pally needs to provide well targeted dispels , cc, and bofs while catching up to his target to apply his burst. While enhancement and ele both do about the same job enhancement need to be in a position that let’s them hit a high value target while not getting blown up. Both ret and enhancement have no gap closer outside a slow or long cds. Thier main specs are back liners
If you get a warrior instead of a pally you don’t get any of those. So what’s the difference? Let’s call a spade a spade. You want pocket healers to boost yourself.
If you get a warrior instead of a pally you get better peels and significantly higher and more reliable damage.
If I’m going to get a ret pally I want them to actually play like a pally instead of a hobbled arms warrior. Paladin is a primarily defensive class. Being an offensive spec doesn’t remove the defensiveness of your kit.
Adamantly refusing to use your supporting skills properly is just as dumb as a fire mage refusing to use counterspell, poly, or frost nova.
Actually no, I dont expect a Ret paladin to heal much, I expect a Ret paladin to use Cleanse, Freedom, Repentance, Hammer of Justice, BoP, and Heal if he’s not smashing someones face in. Retribution can flat delete players, I know that for a fact, so its not their burst holding them back, its the fact that they dont use the rest of their kit enough to be worth bringing most of the time.
Those that do use their kit, are just godly and are worth 2 warriors because the friendly targets live longer because the ret paladin was able to peel, stop an enmy caster or enemy rogue or enemy warrior from doing his job.
Basically that…
Also this, but I temper this with their defensive skills are better used in a semi offensive way, its like using Sap and blind as a rogue, if you dont use these then you are bad.
Just want to echo Dustywood’s sentiments in that I dont think there is a real basis for set specs in rando pvp. There are theories and opinions of course but it depends on what the individual player feels like doing.
