Or is it that the majority of the population is paladin/ret that are bad at their spec?
I started a new pally to get a sword only available in the ghost lands. Playing as ret was the most fun I’ve had while leveling in a long time, which is why I’m going to hold off until I get ztrolls to level another one.
I’m also maining ret right now. It’s more fun to me than enh.
2 Likes
It’s a simple rotation that a fair amount of players tend to screw up from time to time. I learned that the hard way back in Legion, though my parses in ToS started to improve.
Ret Pally is great in AoE situations, certainly not the best, far from the worst. Ret pally weakness lies in single target fights. If you’re fighting a cluster of Horde, or trash packs in raids/m+, you’ll do fine. If fighting 1v1 against a class your slightly weaker against, you better hope your the more skilled player. Luckily the majority of the endgame experience PvE wise, revolves around m+ (beyond heroic/mythic raiding of course). You’ll be taken to +10s because of your ability to cleave down reaping mobs fast, and because of your kit. As long as you have your rotation down and a clear understanding of your kit/capabilities to help out your group, you’ll go far!
Its ok at best, most of the top tier rets have stopped playing Ret or quit the game. It can be fun at times if the RNG gods are with you. Ret is more of a bottom tier spec than anything. Ret is decent at destroying under geared scrubs and bad players in PVP though.
To be fair every spec has a simple roation…
The reason ret will not get better in PvE is due to retribution. In bad raids you will have this buff but in a good raids it’s doubtful, ret dps is balanced with this in mind. They are average tbh and in Arena they lack critical mobility and the loss of divine protection has made ret even weaker vs wizards.
Also unlike a lot of specs in the game ret has no healing reduction debuff. So to compensate their burst is rather high in pvp… it’s a catch 22
5 Likes
Not bottom tier but certainly not top tier when it comes to pvp or pve.
But I can tell you one thing, I’ll give you a run for your money in both content.
2 Likes
I just switched to Paladin. Like others have said it’s not top or bottom at anything. If you like the fantasy or the play style do it. Purge heretics !
4 Likes
Please don’t purge me!
15 Likes
First off, any class is viable below a 10 key. But when you talk about pushing into higher content like 13 or 14+ keys, their are a lot of factors that come into play. And a lot of it is based on your overall group comp. Does Ret pally work in high keys? 100% yes. They destroy reaping and have some of the highest AOE damage in the game. Their wake of ashes is a group stun for reaping. They have word of glory for bursting weeks and high group damage situations. Cleanse toxins for dungeons like UNderot and Kings rest. BOP is huge in any mechanic that does high physical damage. (Like nettles in Waycrest or the bleed on King’s Rest) Rets do typically fall lower on the table, and won’t compete with a demon hunter or rogue in dps. But like I said, they do work in the right comp. Reaping has kinda made ret more viable.
4 Likes
Think a majority of ret’s tend to be bad. I can’t count the amount of ret’s in BG’s that keep wisdom/kings for themselves instead of the healers. It should be pretty easy to figure out that more survivability/mana for the healer helps the entire team as opposed to keeping kings/wisdom on yourself. Plus the amount of times I can recall I’ve been blessed/healed by another ret is pretty low unfortunately.
Ret is easily one of the better melee specs in the game and doesn’t hurt your fingers by the end of every raid lol. I really dont get all the whining when you have a spec thats a 8/10 at every aspect of the game.
5 Likes
First off, any class is viable below a 10 key. But when you talk about pushing into higher content like 13 or 14+ keys, their are a lot of factors that come into play. And a lot of it is based on your overall group comp. Does Ret pally work in high keys? 100% yes. They destroy reaping and have some of the highest AOE damage in the game. Their wake of ashes is a group stun for reaping. They have word of glory for bursting weeks and high group damage situations. Cleanse toxins for dungeons like UNderot and Kings rest. BOP is huge in any mechanic that does high physical damage. (Like nettles in Waycrest or the bleed on King’s Rest) Rets do typically fall lower on the table, and won’t compete with a demon hunter or rogue in dps. But like I said, they do work in the right comp. Reaping has kinda made ret more viable.
QFT - this is exactly the case.
With ret’s utility, it’s actually incredible how many deaths you can save in dungeons and raids.
With BoP, freedom, wake of ashes stun on reaping, high personal defensive cooldowns allowing healers / smart heals to target other people, Lay on Hands, cleansing debuffs from anyone, bubble taunting, and also the highest burst aoe damage that I have seen…
Anyway, to answer OP’s question regarding ret - in PvE it is amazing. If you are perceiving ret as bad, you are playing with people who aren’t utilizing it to it’s fullest potential.
Ret has an insanely high potential to carry a group with ample use of all that utility. Any lack of pure single target dps is made up for by less healer downtime with wisdom, and the utility of saving lives / ignoring mechanics for the group overall. That pure single target dps isn’t even that far behind the top classes either, by the way.
2 Likes
As a ret pally I top dps charts, people need to actually keybind their skills and learn to play this easy class.
1 Like
Yeah because that determines how good or bad a ret is: what you have personally experienced with wis and kings.
Ret isn’t a bad spec. I know a lot of people think it’s too simple or boring. I have fun with it but I also really enjoy the fantasy element as well. Pvpwise they aren’t too bad if you can play them well, they lack mobility although they dish out a lot of damage. Check out savix on YouTube he does pvp content for Rey pally and he talks a lot about it. I mean if you’re in to pvp I’d check it out his vids are pretty good.
Was more fun in legion with the leggo cape and ring. Man, I miss the days of 5 to 6 procs in a row while wings were active. Yummmm. The damage was so juicy. Now, I sit and I have burst windows and then it’s pretty much arms warrior style dps rotation.
For M+, and some raid bosses, running DP brings back the same effect. I recall getting around 8-10 DP procs back-to-back in dungeons this season. Still the same feel, but I do agree on the end that Legion legendaries made the class feel better than how it is now.
1 Like
Ret damage is a lot better than the community’s perception of it - and it’s going to stay that way until it’s OP. Thats how fotm works. The class is not good unless its fotm… and no class goes from “bad” to “good” without an OP window inbetween.
Ret falls kinda into the same cart as Unholy DK. If the tank pulls in a way that plays into the classes strength, it’s extremely strong. If not, then it falls off. Utility aside, Rogue/DH (current meta) do great sustained damage in all scenarios, which makes them very strong. However, their damage will get shadowed by Ret/unholy when the tank is pulling around their CD windows.
2 Likes
Ret can be a lot of fun but you really won’t get too much excitement out of the class until you get enough haste, and even then you’re the most kite-able class in the game.
One of the biggest problems with the class in my opinion, and it’s been so since WoD if you like to pvp, is it’s mobility. The reason you won’t see too many rets on the ladder anymore is because of how outclassed we are, it’s one of the most frustrating classes to PvP with. Arenas are pity matches where you pray you don’t get a mage or druid so you don’t spend the whole thing waddling around spamming HoF, praying for a healer dispell, and wondering why your own slow has a 30 second CD and your second movement charge talent is still slowable and on the same tier as a vital support talent.
It takes a very skilled ret paladin to consistently close the gap, especially because we have well known burst with wings and we’re well known to be slow which makes us an easy first target, but it takes a mediocre druid or mage or priest or hunter or shaman to kite us around the arena for 10 minutes to chip us away and interrupt us, which in the end just isn’t fun or competitive gameplay. You essentially have to be perfect, and use all of your support/freedom CDs at the perfect time to get to your target and then you better be ready to do it all again with your burst, ints and stuns because if you aren’t perfect there it’s GG because you won’t have another chance for 2-3 minutes, but you also have to be lucky because if you don’t get your spending crits and get stuck waiting for charges then your damages is in thirds.
We need an ability to put us at an enemy, like most other melee classes have had since the beginning of the game. Even Hybrid classes get them. Druids can charge, rogues can appear behind you, warriors can charge and jump forward, DKs can pull you closer, and Surv Hunters can harpoon. The other classes without them, Monks, DH and Sham ALL offset this with way better movement, various ranged abilities, and slows with much shorter CDs (We have one on short range and 30 sec CD).
Our bubble has been meme’d so many times there isn’t a priest around who doesn’t know it’s mass dispelable and disc is so common now it’s lost most of it’s utility.
Currently we’re only useful in BGs as a decent hit-stick until the enemy wises up and starts focusing you.
3 Likes
They are literally gods in random BGs. you are pretty much guaranteed to be able to 1v1 some1 if u want to.
You have to basically kill a ret paladin 4 times to legit kill him once.
Bubble
BoP
Lay on Hands
they have great self heals and some of the best burst in the game.
i played one in legion and i thought it was pretty frikken OP. i would level one now but dont have time and i have 2 much fun on my dh. luckily my dh has a chance against ret because of things like purge and rain from above, but something like rogue is gonna have a very hard time fighting ret pal