Ret paladin viability

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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So I know ret paladin isn’t optimal in any raid in any circumstance, because everything it brings a holy paladin brings and every bit of dps it does a warrior or rogue can do better.

So that raises the question is ret really even viable? In a complete casual guild I guess it is. But in a non hardcore but still pushing progression not on farm just yet guild is it just a worthless spot?

I am trying to find the justification for ever bringing a ret paladin to a raid, Nightfall is good but a hunter and warrior both have similar if not better uptime on the weapon, there dps is pitiful and anything useful they bring a holy paladin brings.

Am I missing something or? I really want to be proven wrong.

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Ret paladin is pretty much the worst DPS in vanilla. They’re good in PvP due to reckoning and their amazing survivability. But in PvE they’re pretty much trash.

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Alliance raids can take a ret for the following reasons.
-Aura coverage.
-Buff coverage.
-If debuff slots are spare JoW or JoL without annoying a holy pally to do them.
-Extra dispels.
-They can be relied on to show up.
I don’t see too many serious guilds taking 5 holy pallies every night in addition to 5 healer priests and a couple of healer druids so ret’s can cover what they need too without soaking up a healer spot.

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I would say that DPS paladins are “more viable” in some aspect of the game than in other aspects of the game.

DPS paladins could function well in PVP and could do reasonably well in 5 man dungeons.

DPS paladins will likely not be seen much in raids among those cutting edge progression guilds aiming for server firsts.

If a player plays well, and is willing to perform roles other than DPS when needed, there will likely be guilds that will welcome him.

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Blessings, bop, nightfall, cleanses, judgement of light or wisdom, etc

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Said it a few times and will say it again, with engineering and coming to raids with a plethora of consumables, Ret does fine. It isn’t outstanding in any capacity. If you take a full raid of 100% tried and true knowledgeable min/maxers, Ret will sit below most of the DPS. But they offer unique utility and as stated above, can be relied on to show up.

Part of being a hybrid is being versatile. When you’re trying to progress in a raid, sometimes you need to bite the bullet and heal. Sometimes you need a little more DPS. Sometimes having a clutch Lay on Hands or a BoP or an extra body to dispel can be helpful. Ret fills all of these roles. If you are a raiding Ret Paladin, you are prepared for everything.

Now, the fun part. Not every guild is cutting edge or conquering content at a server-first pace. In an ideal setting, you have every Fury Warrior and every Rogue in nearly identical gear, completely BiS-geared, fully world-buffed, with hundreds of gold in consumables ready. This is almost never the case.

Being a guy who takes himself seriously, but not so seriously, a Ret can show up and take 2-handers that might go to waste. They can help heal when a Paladin has to stay late for work or has to take care of his kids. It is a luxury to be a Ret, so should you get the opportunity, you should try hard. Don’t be a Ret that shows up in PvP and Valor gear and expect the first Bonereavers. Be the Ret that rallies the raid. Be a benchmark for the lowest DPS. If there are Rogues and Hunters and Mages below you in DPS, those guys are probably playing wrong. Ret provides a floor for your raid DPS. Sometimes, in rare occasions, Ret might get an insane string of procs and actually top the DPS during trash. Being in the middle to the top of a total raid damage done does help with times. Not every player in a casual guild tries hard. This is where a good Ret will be ahead. A great Ret might actually top the meter on a fight like Nefarian where other classes are constantly disadvantaged by class calls. Not to mention the fun on Nefarian when the dragonkin adds respawn as undead. Launching a salvo of holy wrath and consecrate with a goblin sapper generally spiked my DPS to the ~500 range, pulling ahead of AQ40-geared Rogues and Warriors. People laughed. This was a win/win. Not only did I totally contribute to a kill, I eased the dramas and gave people something to smile about.

When you reach Naxxramas and still get to continue as Ret, you are relatively “decent”. You might put the raid at a disadvantage on a fight like Patchwerk, so you just take a seat and let a Rogue fill in. Yeah, it sucks. You are playing Ret though. You shouldn’t take it as an insult to your manhood. Just be above it. Then when you get to Noth, you’re actually wanted. Because you burst undead adds very fast. Or Gothik. It’s nice to get the nod and watch a Hunter take a seat because you’ll be more beneficial.

And perhaps the best part of being a Ret? Sulfuras.

Every guild needs a banner carrier. Sometimes Warriors will get the call for it. But if you’re a good dude who helps farm consumables, PvPs a lot, brings repair bots, and generally plays hard to win, your odds of getting Sulfuras are pretty good. I’ve gotten it twice as such, so this is just my personal opinion and personal experience.

If you suck it up, don’t complain, and play to win, you’re an asset to any raid, even as Ret.

But that’s not exactly what you’re asking is it?

Viable yes. Meta or necessary? Not at all.

If you’re going to be in a guild with 20 guys who are ranking to 14, and whose goal it is to speed clear MC in 20 minutes, you are going to have a hard time being Ret. You’ll watch their Holy Paladins rank to 12+ with them and wield that beautiful claymore and they will be drenched with tier.

But if you’re in a guild of good souls, who just need someone to make them laugh, and who keeps the drama in check by memeing, and surprisingly does well on certain fights? Well, you’ll get your full T2.5, maybe a Dark Edge of Insanity, and you’ll be a legend.

Take it all with a grain of salt, and don’t let anyone tell you what you can’t do.

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Wow just wow, I thought I would get a couple explanations but you blew the toppings off the cake.

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A raid that only used hybrid “meme” DPS specs for non-tank/healer spots, if geared and played properly, could meet the required DPS for every raid fight in vanilla thus all of those specs are “viable” in terms of DPS.

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Rets get a lot of negative press on these forums, and alot of it is anti-hype focussed on some of the limitations of the class at the bleeding edge of content.

For a majority of players the raiding meta is just not going to be a thing.

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Every spec is Viable unless you are trying to min max ne top guild pushing etc.

MC and BWL didn’t need 40 greatest heals tanks dps. just people who could follow basic mechanics for the most part.

most if not all people are way better at thier avatars now.

We had all specs welcomed once on farm status. it wast 30 druid tanks ret pallies etc. but theyed switch off every few weeks with each other. so they all got thier time.

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The problem is the bad opinion of rets stems from 1 of 2 things.

  1. bleeding edge guilds only taking the best dps no matter what (be cause you know, 14 years later and they still can’t get balance right and too guilds still stack anyway).
  2. lolret from rets who would solely focus on dps and not even try to contribute other ways, like bopping a high threat dps, or using a cleanse on someone nearby.

Every single fight in vanilla could be beaten with only hybrids doing dps. So anyone who says hybrids aren’t viable is being dumb.
Are they optimal?
No, but there is no reason to turn away a ret, shich brings great utility, over another rogue or warrior.

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Vael was called a guild destroyer for a reason. That was the fight that said, “No, you can’t expect to keep progressing if you’re bringing ret paladins / enhancement shamans, shadow priests, and other crap dps classes.” MC will be fine with just about anything, but BWL will be a hard stop for a lot of people if they think every spec is viable.

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at first sure but on farm no. we had a shadow pjeat a re5 pallie and feral full time. but others slowly got to play thoose specs too later on.

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You’d be competing for spots with all the other Hybrid DPS players. There isn’t really anything deep in the Ret Pally tree I’ve found that’s helpful to your raid. If you look at your mirror Enhancement Shaman, for example, there are buffed totems [namely windfury totem] which help the Melee DPS. Ret is kinda just stand-alone.

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I was in one of/the top guild on my server in vanilla. We had an enhancement shaman, a moonkin, a cat, and like 5 arms warriors. People are going to give you Word for excrement that it won’t let me say for playing a ret paladin, and yeah, their dps is pretty terrible, but it’s about the player, not the class. If you learn your class, learn the fights, pay attention, and min/max your gear, you’ll find a home. A good player trumps a good class. Classic was challenging, but very few fights were actually gear checks for dps.

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Funny thing about that, is Death and Taxes had a Ret Paladin named Ryujin, who wielded Sulfuras, during the time when Vael was the guild killer.

Right in the beginning of the video, you see him, as they begin the US 2nd kill. This was the bleeding edge of progression back when people were bad. He utilized 3pc T1 to judge light and proxy healed the melee via auto attacks. He also threw down the Sulfuras hammer to help burst dragonkin, and maneuvered through the fight, healing during fears and dispelling people.

As much as people bash the atypical meme Ret who is obnoxious and cries for Onslaught Girdle, there were handfuls of Rets who contributed in some of the best guilds in the world.

What you have now are superb players with a wealth of knowledge and 14 years of experience behind their Ret mains, who come into private server Vanilla and dominate.

Here is Oleboi. Another incredible Ret player who knew the limits of his class and actively ranked as Ret. This is on a private server. Admittedly, running around and Reckbombing kids is not indicative of skill, but this more than translates to the PvE setting in Molten Core where standard issue is to DPS as hard as possible within the confines of the threat meter. Rets do this well. Especially early when your Rogues haven’t acquired Cadaverous or completed their Dal Rend set.

There were definitely Rets in the great guilds. Even our beloved Theoloras will back me up here.

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This exactly is how I feel.

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Or just be utterly clueless like the rets that would bless might on priest healers in 5 mans (and I’m not talking about low level when it was the only buff they had available either).

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A ret healing at 50% of a healer’s capacity 50% of the time and then DPSing at LESS than 50% of a dps 50% of the time doesn’t equal a full actual contributor’s worth. It’s still just a half slot.

The only “reason” to bring one would be to round out buffs as needed, but they aren’t most of the time. It’s about as essential to have EVERY aura on as it is to have acces to another BOP, LOH, and DI (meaning it isn’t in the least and more optimal comps can be found).

They’re only slightly better than a warm body. If you’re in the guilds worth being in (the elitist snob ones that get stuff done) they won’t be seen. This will be private server elitism.

“I was in one of THE top guilds on my server”

Most servers didn’t even have more than one guild worth being in from an actual accomplishment standpoint. The high pop servers barely had 2.

Viable and optimal are the same thing as far as the community will be concerned, just like 1000+ io is the community standard for unreasonable garbage like+6s. Just because you can drudge your way through vanilla raids with only half the group being good and the other half being virtually non-existent until AQ40 and naxx doesn’t mean people will stomach that approach en-masse.

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Here’s the thing. 5 man content is so faceroll, I’m not going to do anything more than put one greater blessing on the whole group and that’s going to be the one that benefits me the most. You can clear the stuff without even putting a buff on.

If you’re elitist enough to demand completely optimal play from the ret as far as his passive boring buffs are concerned to do 5 man, you are elitist enough to not bring a ret to raids for not being optimal. Choose 1:

A) Rets aren’t optimal and I accept that, therefore I accept sub-optimal play in basically any form as long as we beat the content.

B) I don’t accept sub-optimal use of utility from people I group with, therefor I shouldn’t accept sub-optimal classes, either, since they cannot result in anything but sub-optimal play.

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