Ret may have needed a buff in P2, but the stated goal of the buffs was not to make ret competitive with the highest output specs in PvE. Now it’s P4, and the buffs have made ret competitive with the highest output specs in PvE. Both feral and ret buffs should be tuned.
In like… several months?
It’s not, unless you get a legendary.
Legendary weapons SHOULD break the mold.
So ret simply deserves a 10% damage buff, and other classes don’t. I see! It just makes sense!
Lego is guaranteed btw, it’s legitimately easy to get if you’re actually trying. I’m still using a 258 weap in my main hand and we’re about to hand out our 2nd SM.
With the 10% damage buff and no legendary, they are middle of the pack.
lmao and? Wherever they are without their inauthentic buff is exactly where they should be.
No.
I think blizzard should be more heavy handed with balance throughout all of classic. because the game launching in it’s final patch state will never capture authenticity anyway.
Ok, then buff shamans, rogues, and other classes falling way behind due to not receiving buffs in Classic.
I’m cool with it lol.
If data shows they need buffs bring em up. I actually think this is the path they are taking in Cataclysm as well, so at least there is that.
Yeah, but that’s also in the context of having a legendary weapon, and I’m not a fan of classes being baseline tuned based on legendaries.
Without it, paladin isn’t particularly competitive with the top specs in damage.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting buffs, but none of the other specs ever were struggling as much as ret was in phase 2 (and if they were close, they had alternative choices performing much better in damage).
Fury was never a spec that needed buffs (well, maybe it could have been reasonably argued in phase 1) because any changes to them would have absolutely needed to be rolled back.
Classes shouldn’t be balanced around what they do with a legendary, but they certainly shouldn’t be on top before they get one. Both warrior and paladin are in a pretty reasonable place pre-shadowmourne, and I don’t think that the classes should be tuned so that they feel bad to play without the legendary.
There’s some legitimacy for asking for a slight rogue buff to close the gap between them and the other pure DPS. I don’t think blizz will just given the fact Cata and SoD is their main development focus, but I do think it makes sense.
I’ve only ever been anti-fury buffs. For the exact reason that the spec was going to take off, it’s playable without shadowmourne and any buffs would just be absurd.
I mean, they made it easier to acquire, most regular raiders WILL have it. My rogue is using a 258 main hand while our warr has SM and our ret will have it next week. So I don’t necessarily agree that they can’t be tuned because they’re too weak without SM. I’ve never been on the buff fury train.
By the time most have it, the phase is essentially done with anything that matters.
I’d feel pretty bad for any 10m only rets that don’t get either shadowmourne or Tiny Abom to get nerfed because fully decked out shadowmourne rets were too high.
And even with it, it’s not like ret is a crazy outlier. It’s like… 4th best? Considering it took a legendary to get there, I’m not too upset. It’d suck really hard for the spec to need to get a legendary weapon in order to reach say, where rogues are now. At that point you probably just don’t bring rets, because they would have been bad during progression and why give it to a ret in the first place when warrior exists?
It’s kind of rough to be balanced to be middle of the pack only AFTER you get something that takes at minimum 5 weeks to get, especially when you are creating a massive gap between warrior and paladin by doing that, basically ensuring that the ret won’t get that item for a minimum of 10 weeks, and more realistically 12-14. That’s end of phase ranges of time.
Not to mention that it’s still significantly better for your raid to just bring a second fury warrior and give them shadowmourne 2 in that environment.
The real oddity is that they didn’t even partially roll back feral, which is actually crazily over performing.
Their utility makes ret utility look weak, and they got buffed above shadowmourne warriors.
I don’t care about the very few people doing 10m only doing less dps because they “can’t” get 25m items lol, it’s not anyone else’s problem if you handicap yourself like that 
10m only warriors can’t get SM or DBW or Glorenzelg, oh no!
I agree, feral should have been tuned.
The difference is that in 10m only content, your entire group is adjusted and properly tuned because the gear is relative. Fury in 10m only guilds still gets 2h weapons that keep them reasonably competitive with their group. They don’t get to top tier craziness, because they don’t get shadowmourne, but they stay plenty viable.
A 10m only ret doesn’t if tuned to be bad without shadowmourne. 10m rets, or non-raiding rets, are just never good enough because you made their base class assume it’s getting an overtuned item from content they aren’t doing. (Plus those rets get the double whammy of also not getting tiny abom, which also has no equivalent power spike in 10m or under to keep up)
When you start tuning a baseline class around an item specifically designed to be overtuned even relative to the content it is available in, that causes major issues all the way down.
At that point just don’t make shadowmourne. It isn’t adding fun, it’s now just a major hoop to jump through to be viable. One that if paladins needed to be mid tier, virtually ensures the majority of them will never see because warrior is top tier with it.
I don’t know of a single 10m only player so I have a hard time caring about that tiny minority of players. And everyone gains a lot of dps from 25m loot. Ret can also bring a lot of buffs in 10m. Saying ret can’t be tuned because 10m only ret paladins will be weak without 25m loot is just hilarious and absurd to me.
We’re talking about raid performance. Who cares about “non raiding rets???”
Update: Rets are about 1% away from overtaking mages and making hybrids the top 3 DPS in wotlk
… and if you were to measure DPS only using ‘target dummy’ bosses, Saurfang is the best one we have right now, and Ret has already taken 3rd place.
Homogenization in full effect, classic has finally become retail.
(also noteworthy is that DK’s tanking tree is now its best DPS tree smh)
There are plenty. You just don’t play with them.
Yes, but no other spec is balanced based on where they could be with a legendary.
It’s supposed to overpower those that get it, not bring them up to where you think ret is reasonable.
I’m saying it’s dumb as hell to nerf a class because of a legendary making them strong. That’s the item being too strong, not the class.
Just don’t make legendaries if you want class viability to be dependent on them, or you just make legendaries guaranteed for all, not something that puts you in a queue that only moves forward one step every 5+ weeks.
“Sorry ret, you have to be at arms level DPS because your guild might carry you for 5+ weeks and give you a shadowmourne, and we don’t want you to be too good with it” is really dumb.
They’d be caught in any nerfs.
That’s not exactly the direction that rets are trending. Mages are pulling ahead of ret. Ret isn’t catching up to fire.
Yes they are, because shadowmourne
https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/1020#boss=848&dataset=95×pan=60
The real question is why should the class who are the best tanks and arguably best healers… also do more damage than ALL pure damage classes?
Because balance is related to spec and not different roles with completely different gear sets and playstyles
“well feral is kinda good so we can’t buff resto druid”
“you could just play holy or prot” sure and i don’t have someone in my raid that already plays holy or prot? i guess just boot them then
i’m the main character obv
It’s a bit more nuanced than that.
Firstly, Classic is not a game that is conducive to perfectly balanced specs or classes. It preferences rp and flavour over balance by design.
So, when we talk about balance we have to address why there’s a need for it.
The need is class and spec diversity. The game feels more alive and interesting when there are more viable classes and specs to choose from.
So the first priority is viability. Every class should be viable in every role it is capable of performing. This is a bare minimum standard.
Next, population comes into the picture. The game seems more fun and lively and interesting if classes are roughly even in representation (or rather - where one or two classes don’t completely dominate the population). I say classes because the class is where a lot of the RP flavour choice comes from. Spec equivalence in population is lower priority than rough class equivalence. Class choice is also a bigger investment of time than spec choice.
So, specs (or roles) need to be viable, and classes should aim to have roughly equal participation. In as much as the relative power of a spec influences both of these metrics a case for balance changes can be made.
However - massive caveat - now is pretty much too late.
I don’t think its too late, the main bread and butter of ICC is at the end of it when everyone is fully geared, a buff to enhance/ele/rogue and certain others can still work, classes have went for sometimes a year+ being total garbage, the outscaling that feral/warr/mage/ret have done has literally happened in 8 weeks, it can be reversed
ruby sanctum patch would be the perfect time to do it