2552 io Ret pally here trying to push keys…this community is toxic and rather brick keys than invite a player that does dps and stays alive, but takes an S tier class that dies every other pull. tired of how this works. Dont like playing any other class and can out dps/ out survive meta classes but still cant key cuz of the way this game is weighted extremely out of balance.
obtain friends to play with, problem solved.
or i guess wait til the 21st with the rework when people might want ret aura and some divine storm group healing.
community perception has been and always will be an unfortunate reality of pugging. survival hunter became meta with tier+double legos in SL, trying to join any keys even around 10-15 as bm/marks was getting people booted from groups
I mean lets assume you are right and you are indeed much better than the other 30 DPS players at around 2.5k IO that sign-up for the key… How do you expect a group leader to know hey this specific Ret pally is actually great and won’t die and will do more damage than the rest?..
Only thing people can see to make their choice is your IO score/profile, your item level, and what class/spec you play… And sure maybe you are better than the others, but there’s no way to tell, it’s equally likely that it’s the Monk who is better, or the Shaman, or whatever…
But there’s a solution though… Run your own key… I know people get tyred of hearing this but that’s really the solution and makes playing a non-meta spec A LOT better. This is what I did and the quality of my M+ experience improved so so much when I started doing this.
I’ve been playing Prot Pally and Disc Priest since week 1 and while the Pally didn’t had as many issues being a tank, absolutely no-one wanted a Disc Priest early on in the season, even now many still don’t want Priest healers… I mean I can get into keys if they are like 1 or 2 levels lower from what I’ve done already lol but for pushing, nah that’s very unlikely I just run my key and it’s 10x better.
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I PUG heal a lot, on my priest I get invited to 80+% of the keys I apply for. My fresh lvl 70 Pally on the other hand cant get accepted into a single M0 key. So I am running him in Guild runs instead. My Guild is awesome, btw, I am just running a ton of stuff with pugs to relearn my classes.
Im on a normally very relaxed server too. Was blowing my mind a bit.
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I recommend the ‘wow made easy’ community and discord. It’s more or less a community dedicated to non toxic play.
It’s meant to be a place to learn, but there are players running higher keys and people have generally been honest about their experience levels.
It’s worth checking out if you’re looking for something better than random pugging.
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You know at a certain key level this is false right?
There’s a reason world first keys have 0 ret paladins lol
What does this have to do with LFG?
No AoE stun, no damage buff, no group heal, no purge/dispel, no sooth, no lust, mediocre damage, no misdirect/trick, no shroud, no AoE slow. What do they want us in the party for ? For charity ?
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I dont see a lot of the “it must be meta or its trash” stuff, most players are fairly relaxed. The toxic stuff just doesn’t appear as often. I was not prepared for the “ignore” I got on my pally, when 2 months ago I was running low lvl m+ at a lower ilvl on my priest with little to no issues.
This sentiment is a large part of the problem… While technically true, comparing 3200+ io content to 2500 is not really fair. At the io level the op is playing there is virtually no difference in potential performance between specs.
It’s nor pratically needed to be meta. But it needs to bring something to the table to be attractive. The current ret bring none other than brez. Which means if the party has at least one of DK, druid, prot/holy paladin, or engi brez, they don’t want to bring a ret with nothing particularly useful to their keys.
A well balanced party needs a lust, a brez, 1-2 AoE stuns, soothe/purge/dispel/displacement depending on dungeons and weekly affixes. Once they fill one better class with brez, ret is sealed away from that key.
Moreover, the rise of prot palas = the decline of ret. Majority of parties avoid stacking one class.
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Servers do not matter in looking for group is what I’m getting at
Yes, but to say “meta specs” as if it means anything at the level they’re playing at is also ridiculous. Meta specs are in the world first level of keys. They are not doing world first level, so why are they trying to compare themselves to meta?
This is not a ret issue. This is a community issue surrounding io. As a bear druid I commonly have to run my own keys to climb, so I have gained a lot of exp in building groups from lfg. If you are in the 2500 range you are most likely looking to do more 20s.
Unfortunately, I’ve been berated by groups for not inviting all 2850+ players when I personally want to invite people around my io (2650ish) instead to climb. 2720 is all 20s timed, so a lot of people have that as their cutoff, just like aotc is required to get aotc now…
All people want is a carry anymore, so breaking into the 20 barrier is going to require you to either get really lucky or also do the same. Start your own groups, invite enormously above the key level. Get enough rating to be invited. Most rets I invite absolutely go to pump mountain if they are rarely highly enough.
To piggyback off of this, this isn’t JUST a WoW thing, either. In ANY competitive medium where there isn’t an identical kit/equity, this will ALWAYS occur in SOME capacity.
Why? Because math.
We can use M+ as a solid example for this. OP is a ret paladin and is wishing to lean on skill over being a meta choice, which is a valid point…for casual play. If OP’s skill level DOES reflect this claim, then if OP was playing at such player skill on a meta class, OP would be contributing more.
And at 2500+, this starts to matter more and more. Up to 20s, you’re up against the law of averages; an average meta class player is largely going to outperform an average non-meta class player, given relatively equal skill. Thus we can only really determine who gets a slot by a few criteria. First, there is a set of utility that is core to a group, being list and Brez, then others based on dungeon or affix specific utility. OP has a core utility, so then the next metric is some measure of capability.
With players we don’t know, that’s IO. IO isn’t perfect, but it does function somewhat as an indicator when referring to ranges. For example, a 2500 level player HAD consistently played around an 18s level, whereas a 2700 player HAS played around a 20s level. Now, that doesn’t mean the 2700 is better, just that they HAVE done the targeted content already.
The problem with OPs score is that 2500 is the STARTING point for most anyone serious about M+ play. Any class can land timed 20s with tight play and gear, but I mean if 20s are your goal, you’ll eventually get there by just pugging anyway.
If you’re aiming above 20s? Well, if you’re filling with randoms, you’re back to the law of averages only now the value of class differences compounds.
So how DO you stand out on SKILL rather than simply MERIT? By not being a random.
For OPs desire, the answer HAS TO BE to “play in preformed groups” OR “play the numbers game”. It doesn’t matter what the meta is, as long as there is ever a meaningful difference or distinction between classes, this will always be true.
FF14 tried to fight this, and they have greater balance than before …and people are now lamenting the homogenization of classes and their identities, which turns out is more critical for an MMO, anyway.
Even beyond WoW, the ONLY way to mitigate this issue that has ever worked long-term has been to either normalize the game entirely, which doesn’t work as a blanket in MMOs, or to…make/join a community of like-minded people to play with.
Only, M+ communities at the level OP WANTS to play with tend to either be a social group that sticks together with tight play OR a legitimate push group where members aren’t afraid to reroll and play meta classes/specs
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This is an excellent post, especially the last paragraph.
I’m sure Ret pallys have a great personality 
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Blizzard needs to make new rating indicator of “personality” so others can know ret better
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