It’s been a year, how is ret in raids?

[Surrender-mankrik]

@Phelios-baelgun

Was the prediction true that they are hot garbage or are they competitive on the meters (i.e not a meme spec)

It was never a prediction. IT was known.

People did get some things wrong about classic, but as far as the viability and strength of specs, it was never a question.

[Sithaela-bloodsail-buccaneers]

Most talent trees are garbage in Vanilla/Classic, once you pass the endgame dungeon content & enter raiding. You will have to wait for TBC Classic for a more class/spec-diversified raiding picture (& decent gear itemization).

[Azzuree-smolderweb]

All the warriors will start to hate you if you win something they want lol.

[Jedai-mankrik]

Kek lolret

[Lesslie-sulfuras]

I support you doing whatever with your toon- it’s your time and money, but why play ret when holy paladin is just SOOOOO good?

[Seemotoe-atiesh]

When you drop into Esfands stream and see him dealing 300 dps while the rogues, warriors and mages are 700+

Play what you want, but you’re going to have a much harder time finding groups and a guild that will let you play Ret, unless they are a friends and family casual guild. Holy is just infinitely more useful to everyone.

[Gadhafi-mannoroth]

Prot paladins get counted as ret so it’s even less

[Delmok-mankrik]

At least an enhance running with his melee group on Twin emps is redropping WF in range of the melee boss. A ret offers nothing by comparison.

[Seemotoe-atiesh]

Especially since Enhance shamans start to become pretty decent with AQ40 and Naxx gear. Ret is always worthless.

[Tigolbidies-kelthuzad]

Warrior is infinitely more fun than freaking ret.

Ret is the most boring thing I’ve ever experienced so far in this game.

[Smeet-sulfuras]

@Beautia-azuresong

Nightfall procs have a reduced effect (meaning fewer procs) on mobs above 60, including raid bosses. As well as needing an add-on to use it effectively with the crappy proc rate.

AND more Holy Resist, I am believing, has been strangely added to mobs.

AND Reckoning was nerfed to the ground.

AND the Barov sword nerf (but Diamond Flasking is totally fine).

T&F must be back on the Classic team.

Nightfall’s proc rate is fine, and not reduced by high level targets. It is however impacted by the GCD bug, so you need to make sure you aren’t on the GCD when your white hits or seal hits land. If you do that, nightfall will match private server’s 2 PPM. (Warriors/hunters need to not spam abilities as well to maximize procs, but carefully time them)

There is no holy resist, however bosses have an effective 15 “resist all magic” due to being 3 levels over you.

@Delmok-mankrik

A ret offers nothing by comparison.

The biggest raid utility rets bring is being a cleanse bot without really losing any dps or forcing healers to choose between healing and cleansing.

2nd best utility is being able to seamlessly swap between dps and heals depending on fight requirements, as some fights just dont need many healers and being able to gain an extra dps with a gear swap is useful.

3rd best utility is that we are still the best nightfall user if your guild uses one, now that we actually understand how to maximize it.

4th best is smite priest support, whom are reasonably potent when supported by a ret.

Not all guilds need or care about these things, but they are unique ret benefits. (On top of this we still bring basically every utility a holy paladin does)

[Mechadubad-heartseeker]

Plenty of good rets are healing on trash pulls and gear swapping for added dps on bosses. Looking at overall damage for an entire raid doesn’t represent that.

[Yloh-kromcrush]

@Lesslie-sulfuras

but why play ret when holy paladin is just SOOOOO good?

i’ve always wondered this too.
our ret ended up healing for hard fights anyway

[Nullite-grobbulus]

I do definitely agree that any time something is found that makes ret paladin good or even slightly better in classic, it gets nerfed into the ground.

So, honestly, if you’re ret, just Respec or reroll at this point. It’s not worth the effort.

[Delmok-mankrik]

Or just bring another holy which does only 200 less dps. That also works.

[Calignos-perenolde]

But the eternal question is “why Ret bro?” Just stay holy, or replace them with an actual dps. Yes an actual dps. The name of the game in today’s classic the best defense is a good offense. Kill times are everything in stress relief of your raid. Rets are a complete contradiction to that goal.

[Dreamsphere-windseeker]

I’m surprised there haven’t been multiple rets in here asking “what’s a raid?”.

[Smeet-sulfuras]

@Delmok-mankrik

Or just bring another holy which does only 200 less dps. That also works.

Why bring a holy that does 200 less dps when you can bring a ret that only does negligibly less HPS? (21/0/30 ret builds have less than a 3% difference in healing potential than full holy paladins).

[Fraudir-atiesh]

What people who understood the game said before WoW classic: they’re hot garbage.

What people who understand the game says now: they’re hot garbage.

Reality? They’re hot garbage.

They do nothing that any other class can’t do better, serve ZERO distinct function, and any spot you give to a retnoob means you’re preventing someone who can heal better, dps better, or do anything better from going.

You should only bring a ret player when:

1. They’re a much, MUCH better player than the worst player available.
2. They’re far more geared than your worst player available.
3. They’re not idiots (like 1% of ret players to start with).

[Abnoba-kromcrush]

Quite literally if they are only the top 5% of all ret players should they even be allowed to raid. Even then that is iffy.

However to the OP, they are the worst spec in the game. Balance and both shaman meme spec’s now do more damage. Elemental even does nearly twice the damage ret does.

All Percentiles
https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/1005

Trend follows every percentile bracket, you can change it on the tab on the link.