Ret DPS Rotation is... Terrible?

Classes Paladin
1

I’ve been playing Retribution since vanilla so I’ve played every paladin build WoW has seen. My favorite build was almost certainly end of WotLK. The worst was the beginning of Cata. Until maybe now.

I’ve been working on a rotation addon – well, I’ve had my own I used privately since WotLK, but I shined it up some for release – and as I’m going through all of the talents and making sure various rotations work I can’t escape the feeling that this may be the most boring DPS rotation ever for Retribution.

Using rotation strategies from either icy-veins or noxxic results in long periods where there is no DPS skill that is off of cooldown. And by long I mean you can have 3 to 4 second gap where all of your Holy Power generators are on cooldown and you have less than 3 Holy Power. You can just watch your DPS meter dropping. It almost makes me cringe when this happens.

There are some talents you can take but most of them don’t help this problem at all:

  • Execution Sentence: not recommended for most builds. I’ve personally always considered this the most boring Ret spell ever, and (correct me if I’m wrong) it doesn’t even do the thing where the damage increases over time like the original spell. At least that was different. There’s not a lot of reason to choose it, but if you do… well it’s a Holy Power spender, so it doesn’t count. It basically fills in that “I need to use my HoPo” slot. It does at least give you one other choice for HoPo usage.
  • Hammer of Wrath: you only get the extra attack at enemy <= 20% health (or AW/Crusade) and it reduces your chance to get an extra attack from Blade of Wrath. Nevermind it hits like a wet noodle. It’s an “execute” skill that has a higher DPS than Judgment due to its shorter cooldown, but doesn’t actually hit any harder and doesn’t apply the 25% damage buff. I was excited to have this skill back but it’s absolutely underwhelming in BFA.
  • Consecration or Wake of Ashes: these are really the only viable skills that give you an extra attack and if you’re not just AoEing the crap out of stuff, you choose Wake. But it’s nearly useless at filling in your rotation because – 45 second cooldown.
  • Justicar’s Vengeance: I kinda like this one in certain situations, but really, it’s not what you want to be using most of the time, and it’s Holy Power spender, anyway, so it doesn’t help with the dead spots, since if you had HoPo you could fill with TV or DS anyway.
  • Divine Purpose: at least you get to hit TV/DS a little more often than before, but this is so RNG it’s not likely to fill up any dead spot in your rotation and it doesn’t make things much more interesting. It’s effectively a boost to HoPo generation.
  • Inquisition: you may not get that extra chance to TV, but at least you can hit a different button every 30 seconds or so.

And that’s it. The rest of the time we’re using Judgment, Crusader Strike and Blade of Justice, if we’re lucky, because one of those is partially RNG-based.

Of course we have other things we can do, but they’re not DPS and they’re all situational. It’s not particularly fun waiting 3 seconds for DPS cooldowns while hoping my target casts an interruptible spell just so I can hit a button.

Sometimes the rotation feels OK for a bit… but it almost invariably ends up in a complete dead zone. The only way I’ve felt some relief from this is picking Divine Purpose and having Empyrean Power – both RNG-proc’d exta attacks so by nature you can’t depend on them to fill in gaps.

One of the things I recall liking about the WotLK paladin was the choices I had in my rotation. Some people called this faceroll but I always felt those options meant you had constant choices to make and those choices separated good players from bad players.

I’m getting old and currently my main choice is whether or not to close my eyes during my DPS cooldowns and nod off.

Am I missing something here?

19 Likes
2

No, you are not missing anything, as far as I can see. For PvE rotation, RET is much worse than when I last played in WotLK/Cata. For PVP, I spec into ES, HoW, and WoA for the ranged attacks and burst. However, even in that respect, they lack what a melee DPS really needs in PvP: mobility and effective slows.

I believe the reason why comes from some of the basic principles the devs adhere to for paladins, noteably our “support” role. Because we have heals, blessings, and other defenses, the offensive abilities for RETs are minimal (as far as DPS specs go) leading to boring/gap-filled rotation.

I think that is also why RETs are generally ignored in RBGs. The support toolkit we bring is already covered by healers (holy paladins in particular), and the offensive toolkit we bring is outshined by practically any other DPS spec. The only thing we bring to RBGs is our burstiness, but because we can be kited and dispelled/spell-stolen so easily, we don’t really get to shine on that front either.

Until Blizzard changes it’s thinking that RETs should be a support DPS (or as I like to think of it, a player controlled pet/sidekick for a warrior or dK), then we will be stuck with abilities that are great for solo leveling, but simply not desired/needed in raids and RBGs.

5 Likes
3

We need one single ability to be an instant holy power builder that can be spammed. Make our Judgements spammable anything to generate holy power. I do not care about the damage from it but the ability to generate holy power.

The current issue is that gap where you are praying for a proc to give you something other then auto attack. Sometimes you get back to back procs. This current RNG fest is not fun.

1 Like
4

If you have been playing Ret since Vanilla I would of expected more insight in this post. I understand some things are opinions and everyone has a right to them but some are more concerning and potentially misleading to others that might assume you have strong knowledge of the class because you stated you have played since Vanilla.

First, Noxxic is a universally horrible resource. The information they provide is almost always wildly inaccurate and unfounded. They have been a laughing stock of a resource since WotLK and only exists to make money from ad revenue.

As far as 3-4 seconds gaps this was definitely possible before we received the new Light’s Decree and Empyrean Power Azerite traits. It shouldn’t of been a super common occurrence but you could expect it to happen once or maybe twice on an extended Boss pull. You seem to have both of these traits so it should be greatly benefiting your overall downtime.

Execution Sentence is certainly in a position where almost everyone suggests that it should not be used in PvE. It potentially had use on Mythic Fetid Devourer before nerfs if your group struggled with corpuscle damage. And it is more than just a Hoy Power spender. It also applies a debuff that increases the Holy damage done against the target. Theme wise I and many others think it is a very good fit but lacks in execution.

Hammer of Wrath does not reduce the chances of getting a Blade of Wrath proc. They’re both on the same row so you have to decide for yourself which one is more valuable to you. If you meant Art of War which we have baseline, it also does not reduce the effectiveness of that passive. We would still get the same amount of procs. The strength of this talent is not only its damage. It’s the fact it is an additional source of HP generation. Combine this on a fight where Execute damage is extremely important such as Mythic G’huun and it is an incredibly powerful ability. Hammer of Wrath has never provided a damage buff or debuff so I don’t see how that is relevant to the discussion. It is also a powerful tool for reducing overall downtime and became stronger with the Light’s Decree Azerite traits providing an additional 5 seconds of Avenging Wrath/Crusade.

Consecration and Wake of Ashes are the only viable options in this row. Divine Judgment does have 0 use currently as it is tuned way too conservatively. I don’t see how you have come to the conclusion that Wake of Ashes is useless in the rotation due to its 45 second CD. It does a very strong amount of damage and generates 5HP as well which lets you follow up with a HP spender, a HP generator and another HP spender. Both talents go a long way to reduce downtime.

Justicar’s Vengeance is actually the worst talent in this row. It has no use for PvE or PvP. It does less damage than a TV and has a very mediocre heal. This makes it a DPS loss to use even if you are fighting a stunned target for the 50% damage bonus. As it is a damage loss and does an underwhelming amount of healing the other choices of Selfless Healer and Word of Glory are much stronger overall. JV is a trap talent.

Divine Purpose is the most effective talent in the T100 row to reduce downtime. Yes it is percentage based so it should not be considered reliable. But it a given encounter it goes a long way to reduce overall downtime unless your fights only last as long as AW/Crusade or you just kill World Quest mobs.

I’m not entirely sure why you mentioned Inquisition. You didn’t expand on if you had an issue with it or not. It does cost HP so it will be used in place of a spender. It should not be considered lost or wasted damage though. Inquisition provides a Haste and Damage increase that outweighs the damage of a single spender.

I also enjoyed the T10 WotLK rotation. But I am not sure what you mean by having a choice in the rotation. WotLK used a FCFS (First Come First Serve) model where we would use our longer CD abilities first followed by the shorter ones and continued to use them as the came off of CD. It was not very involved. Someone could hit the buttons in a non-optimal order and do less DPS. The same is true now. There is no difference in that regards.

I’m not one to “progress shame” people but I did have a look at your armory. You have completed 0 raid content this expansion of any level, you have completed 0 dungeons of any level, you have not done any form of PvP as your Honor Level is still 1 and you have not done a single Island Expedition. So as far as I can tell the only relevant content you do are World Quests and Warfronts? If you base any classes combat experience off of killing mobs that die in a few hits with only the occasional extended fight that may last up to 1 minute you’re not going to have a great time. As far as rotations go they’re based off of Raid encounters that will last multiple minutes. You will not get to experience what the rotation can provide if you only run around smacking mobs that die after a few globals.

19 Likes
5

To be honest I have a hard time trusting anyone that says the wrath and cata rotations were good… like did you even play back then lol???

If anything ToT, HFC, and NH rotations were pretty fun imho. I dont have much XP this tier but I have played my ret and while I dislike a few things such as ret aura still being around and the judge change (along with gcd stuff) I’d say currently it’s still better than wrath and cata …

7 Likes
6

I think every Paladin spec needs one spammable ability. Even Holy has only CD based spells. Granted it’s less of an issue but it’s still clunky class design.

Edit: I think the easiest way to go would be to remove the CD on Crusader Strike and reduce the damage accordingly. Or they could just give us seals back and then we would get some use out of auto attack at least (maybe this would also make auto attack feel better, too).

1 Like
7

On your point about Wake of Ashes I definitely agree as a guildie had to explain this to me. I saw some people specced into Consecration and it generated power but Wake of Ashes has been more useful in multiple scenarios.

8

Correct me if I’m wrong.
Wasn’t crusader strike spammable last expansion? Why can’t we have that back?

1 Like
9

The cooldown was 4.5 seconds base. It was not spammable.

1 Like
10

I stopped reading at the bold. It was when I knew you are full of it. Ret was a buff spec in vanilla and if you think its bad now maybe you need to re remember.

Maybe properly enchant and gem your gear because ret needs a ton of Haste t ofix those dead zones or pace your abilities.

2 Likes
11

I really recommend not starting a thread with this, makes people not want to continue reading, like I just did.

2 Likes
12

i dont get how anyone plays ret and doesnt get an urge to hang themselves with how terrible it feels and performs

1 Like
14

I do wish they’d bring back the 4.5 second base Crusader Strike.

2 Likes
15

First, I know noxxic’s reputation, but I when was adding a way to customize rotations in my add-on I decided to try noxxic and use that rotation as a test. It’s very close to the icy-veins rotation except for the HoW priority and lacking the rules about using CS based on charge count. My add-on has used the icy-veins rotation since whenever it was I found icy-veins, and it still does now.

My point in bringing this up, though, was that following either rotation seems to result in the cooldown dead zones. I freely admit that I might be missing something here, which is why I started the thread and asked that question at the end.

Honestly, I don’t actually see how much of what you posted differs from what I posted and I think you’re taking some things out of context or missing my point entirely. The context was specifically about how each of these talents does or does not affect the DPS rotation.

I accept this is probably my fault for not being clear in the first post.

I wasn’t recommending any of these skills nor was I trying to describe each exhaustively. I was just going through skills that gave us extra skills to use during DPS rotation and pointing out that they don’t really help the rotation feel any better.

Execution Sentence: In the context of rotation, by saying “just a Holy Power spender”, please don’t take that too literally. I meant it doesn’t help with the dead spots because it just slots into a “spend Holy Power” rotation slot. The rotation is essentially the same except for the choice of what to hit for your Holy Power spender.

Hammer of Wrath: if you take this instead of Blade of Wrath, your Art of War will proc half as often. Quoting icy-veins: “Blade of Wrath doubles the proc rate of Art of War”. However, when I said “reduces your chance to get an extra attack from Blade of Wrath” that’s not technically correct as it doesn’t give an extra attack, but reduces the time you have to wait between uses of that skill. My point about the 25% damage buff had nothing to do with whether or not Hammer of Wrath ever had one. The point is that you either have to take Blade of Justice or Hammer of Wrath and HoW, while giving you a new skill in your rotation, is not very attractive at the moment, partly due to it being so situational and partly due to BoW being so good. Both talents do increase the frequency of actions in the rotation to some extent but not by much.

Wake of Ashes: I don’t disagree with your points here, other than it doesn’t help the rotation very often at one use every 45 seconds. Consecration can be used much more frequently, but honestly I haven’t tried it because Wake is too attractive. I never mentioned Divine Judgment because it’s useless. Again, I’m only addressing talents that give you an extra skill to use. Divine Judgment doesn’t do that.

Justicar’s Vengeance: I absolutely agree with your assessment of this skill and I haven’t spec’d into it more than just to try it out. Again, absolutely not recommending it to anyone. The fun part was when it was first introduced and you could stun a mob and watch its health drop significantly with a JV. That doesn’t happen any more, iirc.

Divine Purpose: again, you’re confusing context here. I did not recommend against this talent, only point out that its RNG is not going to reliably help with cooldown deadzones. I did point out later that it, along with having Empyrean Power, helps the rotation feel better – it’s just not reliable enough to get rid of them.

Inquisition: once again – with respect to rotation – it is a talent you can select that gives you a button to press – sometimes – in your rotation, but it is effectively just a way to fill the Holy Power spend slot. I’m not commenting at all on its effectiveness in any other way.

WotLK FCFS: I’m just recalling from memory what I liked about it. I remember there being lots of comments about facerolling at the time. My recollection is that I had a lot more skills off of cooldown that I could choose from, and while FCFS was the normal rotation, I could make meaningful choices within that because the skills were available. This is just my recollection. It’s been a while. I’m sure there are differing opinions now just as there were then.

Progress shame: yet, here you are, progress shaming. :slight_smile: Maybe that’s not your intent and I see your point about mobs that die quickly, but I don’t really need that insight. I’ve spent way too much time on target dummies recently and in BFA dungeons soloing mobs so that things don’t die too quickly, just so I can test out rotations in my add-on. This was especially important for Prot rotation testing. Just because I don’t show any dungeons completed, doesn’t mean I haven’t been in them. And no, I don’t raid any more because of time constraints and, frankly, people with too many opinions.

I’m surprised you didn’t point out my talent build or gear. I don’t know what it is right now because I’ve been switching all of my talents (and Azerite gear) around frequently to make sure my add-on is working with all of them. Don’t read too much into people’s profiles.

On one hand, people freak out when I say I’ve been playing since Vanilla, and on the other hand, they chastise for not playing enough. Go figure.

I appreciate your feedback, actually. I just think you were taking some of my post out of context. I wasn’t trying to recommend talent builds to anyone, nor comment specifically on their usefulness in any way other than how they contribute to the rotation feel in general.

I’ve only really been playing BFA frequently since December. I played it at launch, but I did not find it very interesting until I came back and tried Warfronts, and frankly I’m not entirely sure why I like them.

16

I like Ret a lot right now. It flows pretty smoothly, performs well on both single target and AOE, the RNG factor is low (opinions may vary on whether this is a good thing, I guess), and we have a quite a few viable talent choices to push different strengths (sustained vs burst, single target vs cleave, etc.).

If you hate empty GCDs, don’t pick the talents that load all your DPS into wings (Hammer + Crusade). The other options are completely viable and give a more active rotation outside of wings.

5 Likes
17

My apologies. I did not mean this to be boastful, but just to make a point that I’ve experienced every Retribution rotation WoW has had, so I do have some point of comparison.

Clearly it set some people off and that was not my intention.

I am not sure I understand the problem, other than maybe it was seen as a boast. Are some people just sensitive about not having been playing from the beginning, or is there are history of people using that in a way that has bad connotations or makes this bad etiquette?

I admit I have never frequented these forums that much, though I have posted here before, on this account and character, at least as far back as Cata, it just seems that history was wiped out at some point.

18

The occassional dead spot is rough least fury wars have whirlwind as a filler for example. Whirl isnt a nasty hitting strike yet its something to press. This is a guess but I feel haste numbers will rise in later patches and help close that gap? They could buff haste now but players will cry when its nerfed later.

19

I just came back to the game (I hate playing at the very start of expasions)

I’ve been playing Paladin since Wrath and it is my home class.

I’m actually enjoying Ret right now. It feels super rewarding when a TV crits for 38k or something like that, but I do agree… Ret is slow. If RNG is not on your side then HP generation dies and your DPS just nose dives. But when RNG is good, the pace of the spec picks up and becomes more enjoyable.

The new DS trait (that makes it free) has added more RNG to the spec, but I don’t really mind it and find it kind of like a pleasant suprise.

I feel like (similarly to Leigon’s iteration of Ret) the spec is based around wings, especially Crusade. The added Haste from the talent makes those 20 seconds of burst window SUPER fun in my opinion. I just really love being a DPS monster in that window even if I only get that chance every two minutes or so.

Overall, Ret needs some adjustment as HP generation is just too variable in most situations, but after reading Icy Veins, I feel like I’ve been able to minimize the amount of down time I spend waiting around for spells to come off CD.

1 Like
20

In my case it’s because compared to unholy dk, Ret is a blast. Grass is greener and all that stuff.

Empyrean, I will admit, has helped. Fun trait.

1 Like
21

I was a mythic raider for this ret paladin from WoD through most of Legion. I also started in Classic, but do either of those things make me more qualified then anyone else to judge (no pun) how good or bad a rotation is? No. Some people will like a rotation that others hate. I for one was very out spoken during the Legion beta as I felt Legion Ret was a shell of what we had in MoP and WoD. It is true that in later patches and with legendaries and set bonuses the spec was a lot better but the kew problems were never fixed. BFA has attempted to smooth out many of issues from Legion but created whole new problems in doing so.

From your posts it’s clear your experience with the spec is limited and as such it does make sense many of your assessments reflect that. Divine Purpose for example is a GREAT talent to fill in dead spots if you understand how to use it. You don’t want to use it right when it procs but hold it and use your holy power generators that are off CD THEN use the DP proc.

Inquisition is… Interesting. Many people wanted it gone but are much happier now that it’s back as a talent. It’s basic buff management nothing more and nothing less, same as slice and dice for rogues. The advantage of an ability like Inquisition is it makes everything else hit harder, so on times when you have HP and you have to run back to the boss resetting inquisition is a great idea if you don’t have inquisition then ANY time off the boss is a DPS loss you can never get back.

People love the make claims of how amazing Wrath Ret was, we still had all our flavor from classic and BC just with new toys to play with. However Wrath’s Ret was EXTREMELY spamming, as others have said it was a FCFS system and the difference between hitting the right buttons and the wrong buttons wasn’t that much. "Does this mean you had “choice?” No, not really there was still right and wrong buttons to use in the FCFS system just you weren’t punished on the meter is you didn’t know what you were doing. There is a reason we were called LawlRet in Wrath because we didn’t take any skill to do good damage. This doesn’t make it bad per say as some people like easy specs others don’t. In many ways the spec today is like the Wrath ret just with Holy Power you have to manage

To sum it up I’ll answer your last question “Am I missing something here?”

Yes, and no. Your missing context. Your looking at the older version of the game with rose tinted goggles, which happens a lot for us older players. When it comes down the basic numbers in the rotation not that much has changed since Wrath. The major changes Ret has seen is it’s flavor, it’s utility and unique abilities like seals, auras and blessings.

1 Like