Our time has come, too long have we been suppressed by other overpowered classes. The moment retribution paladin is a viable, actually horrifying avatar of the Light, other members of Azeroth feel the need to rise up and preach to the gods above us, to take away our power, our glory that we give to the Light in honorable combat. These classes have a false belief, one that Retribution Paladin is the worst class in the entire game, in historically that has been the case. Every single time the developers buff our class, or give us a usable, actually well balanced, thought-out ability, players automatically, the moment these changes are announced start crying about how their own classes are unplayable, and that Retribution Paladin is overpowered and has been “S tier” since the beginning of the game.
“NERF RET!”, they cry, desperately, so that Retribution Paladin players can have no salvation in these fast metas that pvp has found itself in, in the recent era. Yet, these same delusional players will either partake in one of two activities when a Retribution Paladin is bursting on them.
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They will either have a mental breakdown and use every single cooldown available on their actionbars and wonder how they died even though that happened. “OH MY GOD DUDE, THE RET PALADIN JUST ONE SHOT ME MAN1111!!!” Yet, these types of players do not realize or have a high enough intellect attribute to notice that when a Retribution Paladin waits out their defensives while wings are up and then attacks them OR goes to cc the healer off their trinket before a “go” that they most certainly die.
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They will use NO CDs at all and sit a full hoj with every single cooldown on the planet + trinkets and or racials (if they are human, for example), sometimes even while lining their healer completely, and then wonder how they died. LIGHT FORBID Retribution Paladin can kill someone in their stuns like every other single class in the game. Delusional, if you ask me.
These recent buffs are not broken, in fact, they are incredibly easy to outplay if you are not the Retribution Paladin and are the target of the Light’s Wrath. Yes, Retribution Paladin has received a PLETHORA of wonderful buffs and new design to the class, but that does not mean the class is in its own tier, such as the mythical and delusional “S+ tier” that players like to slap on classes that are either legitimately overpowered, or just simply annoying to fight. Retribution Paladins have 1 minute wings now, we have 1 minute sac, we have 1 minute divine protection with a 30% reduction to all damage (which can also be used in a stun), however, for those that are not involved with the Light’s grace I beg of you to ask yourself one question. Are other classes really all that different?
Warriors:
-Fury has insane uptime on their burst, not to mention their mobility as well. For awhile, going into Dragonflight, they actually had more mobility than Retribution Paladins, and almost the same if not higher burst and survivability on a WARRIOR spec, one without healing, immunities, not to mention they also have shatter and did have bladestorm for a brief while.
-Arms has a far more oppressive burst than ret, and I’d even go as far to argue that they are far more “unkillable” than ret currently, due to parry, enraged regen, defensive stance holding up the ENTIRE game if they wish to, and they have MS and 1 minute spears with bladestorm as well. Not to mention executes hitting more than someone’s entire health bar if they are 20% hp. They also have disarm on a 30 second cooldown.
Druids:
-Boomkins. Don’t even get me started on how people cry about Ret doing 70k dps “the whole game.” That is a blantant lie, and it sits around 45-50k without wings and only climbs up to 70-85k dps with wings actually up. Pure delusional lies in hopes to get our class nerfed so you don’t have to try when fighting Ret paladins. That being said, the ironic thing is that Boomkins are doing far more than this the entire game, without needing to use any sort of burst cooldown, since their starsurges hit so hard. It must be nice playing a boomkin, since you have far worse utility and offensive cds than we do as ret paladins.
Rogues:
-Assassination is a class that will really only lose if they play horribly or if their healer isn’t offensive enough with their healing, and cc usage. There are rare exceptions, but the point with the current state of assa rogues (even post nerf) is that unless you win the game fast, you will lose against them every game/round because the class is far too overtuned. I’d rather have Sub rogue be good, which is in a questionable state right now especially going into season 2 with the lack of cc, and the loss of sapping after blind. The point is, Assa has damage the entire game and even if you get rid of their poisons, they instantly reapply it and can just 100-0 anybody (except tanks) when they feel like it.
Hunters:
-Marksmanship as a community, though not all of them, is probably the worst offenders in this whole instant “NERF RET!!!1111” outcry. The moment a much needed retribution paladin rework was announced, marksman hunters specifically would go onto wowhead and type down into the comments about how THEY need a rework, and thats far from the truth. Even without double tap, the class was buffed in other regards, such as arcane shot now being able to hit people for nearly 70k a button press if it crits, and its an instant cast ability, which is only going to do MORE damage, when it gets buffed later down the road. Insanity. They might not have the survival that other classes or other hunter specs have, but they can just as easily burst someone down in seconds, just like ret can.
Mages:
-Frost is also another absurd case where they can easily pressure an entire team the whole game, have 2 ice blocks, and get pretty much full tap healed every time they use shield, while being able to teleport out of most hard stuns in the game, having sheep ring of frost, along other highly offensive and oppressive cc at their disposal. I am not saying any of this should be removed, but, I am saying that just because ret is hitting hard, that doesn’t mean other classes aren’t either, just as easily.
Warlocks:
-Affliction is probably one of the most broken specs in the entire game. If you kill them, its because you’re probably playing Unh dk, another warlock, or warrior. It’s almost as if its sheer luck, or a skill difference, when you kill them. Their soul leech sometimes heals more than healers on their team have to directly heal them, and drain life will erase players health bars, but that’s alright? What about when they soul rot and the entire team has to struggle to try and get their health bars back up while losing all the pressure they had? Or coiling into a fear into a succubi sleep and then they port away and fear you again. Very balanced. They also top meters in almost every match, even post nerfs that they had gotten. Shall I mention shadowfury?
-Destruction. Oh boy. Take what you hate about affliction, add chaos bolt, add infernal, and you have an even more oppressive class. Do I really have to go into depth about this one? It’s alright when 1 bolt is a quarter+++ of someone’s health bar without cd usage, but its not okay when ret uses every single cd and does the same thing. Hmm. Why is infernal stun off the DR list?
Monks:
-Windwalker. Any actual good windwalker should never die, first of all, because you can’t even catch up with them and when you do, they might as well be healing as much as a mistweaver. It’s insane how fists of fury parries and slows at the same time still, and the fact that they still have iconic and extremely powerful abilities such as RoP, ToD, disarm, incap, rolling across the arena at mount speeds, ports, healing off of energy instead of mana (which regens far faster than mana does), I have no idea why some of you are even complaining. I’ve witnessed windwalkers obliterate ret paladins from sheer outplaying.
Shamans:
-Ele can burst far harder in a global than ret ever could do in a global, simply because the bs where they can instantly (or sometimes repeatedly) hit someone for well over 200k still exists for some reason in the game. They also have far more self-sustainability and better defensive cds than ret does even now with the rework and heal themselves to full every button press, which is how WoG was in season 1 of shadowlands. But that’s alright, I guess.
Death Knights:
-Unholy was a spec that I witnessed people getting 2500+ rating on in solo shuffle the first WEEK of the season, and it might as well be considered immortal because you’re never killing one, while they melt your whole entire team after using cds with little to no effort, because there’s really no kiting one either, with few exceptions. I’ve yet to see anyone complain about this, or request nerfs, and the ones that were given to them were not enough. Guess its only ret that can’t be good at the game.
The Lizardmen:
-How has envoker not gotten a huge nerf yet? They have still been able to one shot people throughout the entirety of season 1, and I understand the class just came out, but its absolutely absurd how there has been ZERO attention towards this class, and no major outcries. It’s almost impossible to outplay them too, due to cc immunity as a pvp trait. Incredible.
Historically, any time Retribution Paladin is even remotely decent, people immediately run to the forums and cry for nerfs. Would it be too much to ask for blizzard to keep the class at a highly competitive level like every other class in the game? Would it be too much to ask to get the class out of the horrible feeling and one shot playstyle it had before? It really only one shots in circumstances I mentioned above, what ret needed and had gotten in the rework was sustained damage, and because of that I truly do not think people know how to counter the class just yet because even without wings, ret can do pretty good damage. Instead of trying to nerf the class to the ground, why don’t you actually use your brain?
- TLDR - Ret is fine right now, and got a very welcomed rework. Other classes are no different, or are even worse with their bursting and survival and some even have far better cc and utility for options.