How to not go squish as ret?

I’ve been taking a break from tanking this week out of lazyness. I’m not really even that geared and I’ve had a problem ripping threat off the tank when cds are ready.

Like the tank grabs 3 or more packs and I pop wings my vers trink and divine toll, unless the tank is a pally with his own Dr ready… I’m going to be tanking soon. At least in sub 10 keys I’m farting around in.

I’ve started bubbleing before going off just because I know what’s about to happen. I’ve tried waiting but it doesn’t seem to help.

Any advise?

Shield of vengeance pre-pull, if it pops quick get ready for divine shield or BoP to drop aggro. Sometimes it happens so fast you’ll be on gcd and insta die. If tank is undergeared, just hold up for a few seconds before going super Saiyan. You’ll probably still pull some off but it won’t be the whole group.

Also if you’re having to bubble more than you’d like, drop the double steed for the bubble reduction and run conduit that reduces cd when taking dmg. It’ll be up multiple times during dung for you.

You have to give the tank time to get threat. In higher keys this becomes mandatory because the melee attacks become one shots.

You can do this without wasting effective damage by building your holy power first and using seraphim to buy yourself more time.

With an opener like this:

blade of justice
judgement
crusader strike
crusader strike
seraphim
blade of justice again (if art of war)
or crusader strike
wings
then holy spender or two (first real threat starts here)
divine toll
spend holy power

there really is no way around it. You cannot pop off right as the pull starts or you’re gonna pull threat. Which will then kill you and ruin your dps. this gives your tank roughly 8-9 seconds to get threat. I have safely timed a 24 doing something very similar

we dont go serph talent anymore its divine purpose now so we go like this:

build 5 hp
wings with spender
wake of ashes
spenders
divine toll
procs and more procs
you had good procs? you should probably bop or bubble
no bubble or bop? your probably dead now
didnt get procs? you lived but it sucks no procs
you had good procs and lived? you have a great tank profit

threat mechanic is the worst thing as a ret paladin, dunno why they brought it back things were great in legion when tanks had massive threat modifiers going back to that would also make tanking easier therefore more ppl would actually want to learn it

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I really hope they make Blessing of Salvation baseline for Retribution in Dragonflight… let us play around it somewhat.

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you just have to accept that prot is the only playable pally spec in keys.

Eh if you tried Seraphim you might not have the problems you describe later in your “rotation”

Yes melee dps threat is whack right now but if you’re running higher keys in this regard rets are not horrible

Still waaaay better to play prot I agree.

Wowhead and icy veins are targeting the 15 keystone level crowd btw. They offer a lot of great advice but most people make the mistake of treating that advice as gospel

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Still rip aggro with ret regardless because our burst is nasty. Ripped anduin off two tanks 20s into pull because the divine purpose was flowing. And you don’t go seraphim with tier and good haste. The 15s window of talent, roughly 5-6 spenders and not accounting the gcd and hp loss, is not even close to the continual procs and squeezing 2-3 spenders each window with divine purpose. It’s easily a 2k difference single target at low ilvl and 2 pc much more for aoe

As ret you just have to be ready for it and react accordingly, BoP, bubble, or stun and run.

I’ve tried, but yeah, it’s stupidly painful, especially the ZM casters and ones with bleed effects. WoG and the free FoL heals are great, but anything more than 3-4 mobs tends to pound on Ret compared to Prot.

Rather trade some damage for survival

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I simply don’t have to do this because I let the tank get threat first before popping off. I target what the tank is targeting while they build threat. It’s simple. In a high enough key you don’t have time to bubble when pulling threat. You’re just dead