What are your end game hopes?
A 94% parsing ret paladin has their dps almost doubled by a 25% parsing rogue.
You may wish to check out this person’s thread:
And some of the comments:
Will it be possible to play as a Ret Paladin in a Raiding guild? Probably.
Will you be anywhere near the damage levels of the other melee classes, Warriors and Rogue? No, not anywhere near.
You will have a very easy time finding a raid group as a Holy Paladin.
False, a ret paladin who got gud does very respectable dps
That’s literally based on a 94% parse. Do you have any evidence to back up your blatant lie?
We had a ret paladin, even had a Nightfall and 8p t2. He got sick of not really helping that much and decided to go holy on his own.
My guildie literally did 600 dps on baron last Saturday… generally does 350-400…
All I care about my parses as warlock is that they are purple overall with the couple oranges in there
because this guy is a dad elitist on a alt posting on a spec he doesnt understand
I am not elitist. If you want to play Ret, and you have a great group of friends in your guild who you play with that supports that, and/or doesn’t min/max everything and doesn’t care, then that’s awesome! Good for you!
But, when people lie about Ret to people who are genuinely asking, because they don’t know if Ret is viable, then you can let them know that you will do incredibly poor damage compared to Rogues or Warriors who you may be competing for loot with.
If you are OK with that, go ahead and play Ret. Paladins are great classes, but their optimal role in a raid setting at the moment is as a healer.
Look, for context, here is a Ret paladin parsing 94% on Vaelestrasz: https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/reports/QCLZbgAmHGcRYFWd#fight=4&type=damage-done
That’s 94%. You can’t really do much better. Compare the dmg to the rogues and warriors. Also, feel free to look at any other fight and/or link any other parses that support the claim:
My point is, if you know what you’re getting yourself into, go for it. If you are hoping to raid as anything other than a dps-disabled spec, then you’re in for a shock.
Good info. Thanks. My Paladin is only 36, but the couple dungeon groups where he tried to tank didn’t do well. He does okay as ret, and of course he buffs and helps out with healing. But you confim my idea to not try tanking.
I don’t link parses cause I’m no tryhard.
I try low and still parse gud tho
Tanking instances as a paladin is like cheating! Try contrasting it with a warrior for reference.
Righteous Fury and consecration are excellent for AoE threat. How are you specc’ed at 36? I ran a bunch of ZF runs, healing a ret paladin who had never tanked before, was using Retribution Aura, and wielding a 2 hander. The only issues we had was that the lock would pull threat if going ham.
In raids, spamming Greater Blessing of Kings on the Warriors (because there will be a lot), for example, generates a lot of threat. The issues around tanking as a paladin are generally due to a lack of taunt, which would require threat coordination, and is more complicated than just having a warrior or druid taunt.
Assuming you’re planning a 20/31/0 or 21/30/0 spec for end game, with a focus on healing raids, and being able to solo farm, at 36, if you are focused on tanking, you could be specc’ed something like this:
https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/055001-0532003
Which would give you unparalleled AoE tanking capability at that level.
Until you remember that they use a shallow mana pool and expensive spells. There’s really no defending it. It’s legions better in TBC when they get mana from being healed, and even better in wrath when they get mana for being hit, but paladin tanking in vanilla is a pure meme.
Sure, but if you use keybinds, downrank consecration, and use your Seals and Judgements appropriately, they are amazingly great instance tanks.
Try it! You will change your mind.
100% fake news. The fakest of news.
Nope 100% true news
Of the raids that have uploaded logs to Warcraftlogs, the highest Ret DPS for Baron is 517. If you compare that to rogues (1,121) and warriors (1,663), even your friend, who does better DPS than any Ret paladin on record for that fight is low.
https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/1000#boss=668
Well yeah he died cause he forgot to bubble but he peaked at 600 dps.
As I said if you’re gud you’ll still pull the deeps as ret
Even if you are the best, your damage will be worse than a well below average rogue or warrior.
True but I’m comparing rets to real dps like warlocks and mages not those ragers or gankers
They are not competing for gear with warlocks and mages, so it’s not as apt of a comparison, imo, however if you take a look at the same data, where the highest performing Ret paladin is doing 517dps, the highest performing warlocks are doing 1,084, and the highest performing mages 1172.
It’s fine to prefer to play Ret in a raid setting, if you are OK with doing sub-par DPS, and the raid group is OK with that also. It isn’t fine to pretend or lie to others about Ret being good DPS, if you’re good. That is demonstrably false.