No, blizzard opened a door they shouldnt have.
Thatās arguable, but I think that ship sailed once blizzard started messing with raid tuning beyond the final patch.
Messing around with Naxx (still a joke, but that just made it take longer to clear each week), titan rune dungeons, pre-nerf Ulduarā¦
If you are going to make the content harder, it puts a larger focus on the individual balance. When DPS checks are harder to make, specs like ret get shafted.
If classes are in their final states, the raids should also be.
At least ret has some very valuable utility. Bm, feral, warriors in general, exc. Dont have nearly as much valuable utility.
None of it mattered for Algalon representation, and thatās a fight that theoretically highly supports the main utility ret brings (DSac) as a DPS.
None of the specs have a lot utility in 25 mans due to how the buff/debuff system is designed in Wrath, to the point where it basically has to be ignored when balancing the DPS.
No amount of utility would excuse how much lower on the meters ret was. You basically only brought them if you didnāt have holy/prot paladins (which you likely do)
Buff ferals
Wrong. Ret was bad in 3.1.
Replenishment is a pretty sweet stacking utility that ret has.
The specās damage is fine. You just only need 1 shaman per raid and thereās no reason in particular for that to be an elemental shaman.
Yeah, and shadow priests bring it too, with more overall DPS in Ulduar, so you can also stack those.
And you only need 2 paladins in the raid, and thereās no reason in particular for that to be a ret.
I mean, you can. Nobody is doing that though.
You need at least 3.
The particular reason would be that you want more raid CDs and also replenishment. But sure. Iām just explaining why ele doesnāt have many players (especially in top guilds) even though the dps is decent. Thereās simply no reason to have multiple shamans in your 25m.
You really donāt, but thatās still covered by 2 holy and a prot.
Ret doesnāt come with any notable benefit for being a paladin that you stack when you could get the only thing you actually care about (DSac/aura mastery) out of holy and prot paladins without taking a spec thatās worst in the role.
How do you not need 3 paladin blessings?
Replenishment + raid CDs is a combo not brought by any other spec.
Iām not here to argue with you about ret, though. This is my main point. Ele doesnāt need a buff despite being āunderrepresented.ā The dps is fine. Thereās just one shaman spot for all three specs in many raids.
Depending on raid comp kings and wisdom can be overridden by other buffs just like might can be with battle shout. The buff system in wrath is annoying.
Kings has no replacement except the inferior drums and (improved) wisdomās only replacement is a resto shamanās mana spring, which Iām not even sure is raidwide.
What 3 do you need?
Kings, yes, definitely.
Might? If you use physical attackers, yes. Also can be covered by a warrior.
Wisdom? If you use Mana, yes. Also covered by Mana spring totem (which is raid wide)
Sanctuary? If you are the prot pally I guess. 3% damage reduction is covered by a disc priest. The stats donāt stack with kings.
So thereās really only 1 single blessing you need a paladin for. The rest are covered by other classes/specs. Even if you arenāt using them, you only need 2 to get everyone their 2 important blessings. No one particularly needs Kings, Might AND wisdom.
Do shadow priests not have Replenishment + Hymns?
Divine Hymn is not even worth mentioning in 25m, but I guess Hymn of Hope is decent? Nowhere near the usefulness of paladin raid CDs.
Going to stop responding to you about ret paladins now. I already told you Iām not here to argue about ret.
Incorrect. Ret was nerfed later because of their icc set bonus.
But then again from your comments I doubt youāre unbiased.
Touch grass.
Itās a choice that should be respected.
Show me the patch notes where ret was nerfed because their ICC set bonus. Please.
h ttps://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic/eu-en/9942037355-class-qa-series-paladin/
(Fix the https for it to work)
3.2 paladin Q/A where they specifically and directly say that Retribution was too weak in terms of DPS in 3.1 (Ulduar) this spec needed band aid fixes for PVE after itās launch nerf just to get it to the point itās at now, they were always a weak spec, the tier bonus was just that, a bonus reward at the end of the expansion where they finally got a little more power, they didnāt need to get nerfed for it, they were already falling behind.
Hereās the quote
"Q. All classes vary in dps from one encounter to another; however, some paladins may feel their dps can be less competitive at times in comparison to other classes, more so in straight stationary single-target dps encounters. How do we feel paladins are doing in terms of dps across the board?
A. Retribution dps is too low in PvE in 3.1. We are buffing it in 3.2 through the new way Seal of Vengeance / Corruption will work. This Seal is designed to really deliver damage once the paladin gets five stacks up, which will make it the Seal of choice for boss fights. Seal of Command will be used in PvP or PvE for short fights. We expect overall for Corruption / Vengeance to be the āgo-toā Seal much of the time, perhaps even in PvP, provided you can keep the buff up."
h ttps://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic/us-en/15864849919-ret/
(Fix the https)
"Gc, this is not calling you out, but it is painfully obvious that you are paranoid about buffing Retribution in any form. While we have seen āover the topā buffing on other classes, surv hunters for one, whatever rare buffs rets get are always gets minor and often insignificant.
In PVE, there is enough data to show that rets are 15-2-% lower than most pure and some hybrids in 3.1, you provide a minor buff to Divine storm, which in itself makes up for a very small percentage of overall Ret dmg. We are still waaaaay lower than most DPS classes, and 3.1 is very close to release."
(Response below)
"Iām totally paranoid about buffing Ret.
We had to nerf Ret pretty quickly after Lich King launched, and it was pretty devastating to a lot of paladins, who let us know that in no uncertain terms.
If there is a spec we want to avoid over-buffing so that we donāt have to nerf them, itās Ret.
Please donāt take that to mean that we will keep you down on purpose. Thatās not what I meant."
Ret was bad in 3.1 (Ulduar patch).
Fake news.
Iām not going to read your links from the mainstream media.
I get informed by trusted sources like the paladin discord, my gut, and my fresh memory of retail WOTLK.
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Some of the perceptions of Retās historic power came from the fact that play was far less optimized back then, so Ret, which has a relatively lower skill ceiling, was easier to look good on.
Itās kind of funny seeing old Ulduar videos with the top DPS players dealing around 4k DPS.
And thatās the environment a bunch of the buffs/nerfs were decided based on.
Kind of like how vanilla constantly buffed fury warriors because the common āwisdomā was that 2h was stronger, so they just kept buffing itā¦
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Stick to your guns king
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