Retribution Paladin question

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Can someone who has played Paladin as Ret in classic tell me if it’s just me or are Ret paladins are really bad for PVP and somewhat only viable as a dps in raids if they have the gold and time to farm up or buy a lot of consumables to include melee buffs and caster buffs because concencrate is spell damage. I have been PVPing as a holy paladin and the gear I get seems hybrid. (My tier 1 healing gear is better for healing so I decided to respec Ret just to test out my gear. I’m rank 8).

So to test myself out. I decided to pick several fights. I beat a Shadow Priest in Arathi Highlands who was farming fire elementals by himself. It made me think I was strong so then later on today. I flew to Azshara and picked a fight with a hunter and lost. I couldn’t use my trinket to break his trap that I couldn’t avoid because he used scatter shot, ran up to me and feign death to drop a trap right under me. He ran a distance away and pretty much just killed me from a far before finishing me with some autos and wing clip.

I heal as a Holy Paladin in raids but sometimes go Retribution for fun (When weekly raiding is finished) and because I’m too lazy to level up an alt. I’ve seen some popular paladin streamer say that Ret paladins aren’t a meme class, but it sure seems meme to me if they try to go Retribution for end game content.

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Can’t speak for PvP, but PvE is a yes.

I raid as ret, haven’t played the healer role since 25, and it’s not something you play in hopes to be competitive. It’s something you play because you genuinely enjoy it for all the struggles and quirks it entails. Like sure, I could’ve just played a warrior, but where’s the fun in that? I’d probably just raid log every week because the class and gear would play for me - anything on top of that is unnecessary, whereas for retadin such things are mandatory(not all of them, but still a lot.)

Really all you need are a few consumes. You need mongoose, elemental sharpening stones, arcane elixirs, sunfruit, oils of immolation, juju power, firewater/juju might, and plenty of mana pots and demonic runes. The runes are the most annoying to get.

Everything else, such as supreme power flasks or ROIDS help, but I find them too much effort/cost to be worth the return. Flasks are a luxury for the wealthy.

What’s more important than consumables, however, are world buffs. Most important is ony/nef head buff, followed by songflower, then DM buffs. Throw DMF buffs into the mix for a little extra something. You could also try some tricks to get warchief’s blessing, but that’s an unrealistic headache for a player like myself.

Finally, the weapon makes the ret. Unlike warriors, it does not matter how good you are or how good the rest of your gear is if your weapon sucks. It’s just not going to work. There’s also some other finnicky matters as to whether you’re allowed to use consecration/jotc on raid bosses.

Even after all of this being checked off the list, however, you can still end up doing poorly because retribution is entirely RNG as to how well it performs. You are not in control of how many SoC procs or crits you get; your gear and consumes are all efforts to weigh this “coin toss” as much in your favor as possible, but it doesn’t always work. There will be times where that boss will 2 of your attacks in a row, and you only get a single crit, even with a high crit chance. That’s just how it is.

Once again, you play ret as a passion, not to compete with others. Then again, competing outside of your class in a game as unbalanced as vanilla, with so many variables outside of player control more than any iteration of the game, is a fool’s errand. Parses are incredibly skewed for everyone one way or another for this reason, relying on luck and/or very strange and sometimes self-destructive strategies just to game wclogs.

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If you spent all that effort getting consumes and played nearly any other dps spec in the game you would do better dps. So why play such a gimped spec?

Jammerdin, from my point of view in pvp/pve Ret can win duels vs some classes. They lose BGs and take up space in raids. But wow is about people and if you like the guy playing the character have him along for funsies.

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Because I don’t play the game just for meter PvP.

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You play the game to spend tons of time farming consumables (as a garbage farming class) only to still have terrible damage with one of the least interesting rotations in the game?

I guess taking loot from the best performing specs might be pretty fun.

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I appreciate all the feedback!

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They are a meme

Ret Paladin if you don’t include mana is probably the strongest class in the game in mid size group pvp ~10/5 man.

But once u include mana, they drop to the very bottom. Because while yes when you have mana to cast you’re a god. But you will go oom before EVERYONE else. Even the shadow priests if ur doing your job right.

Not to mention playing perfectly as a melee while also supporting perfectly, using each global correctly is very difficult. Streamers like esfand act like they don’t even have raid frames lol, which alleviates some mana problems. But also makes them much worse than a warrior with mortal strike

I love the idea of ret paladin as a support god, in reality tho you just have no mana and it’s useless

Stay hpala for group combat.

The smaller the scale the better ret pala will be cuz the less likely the fight is to drag on and on. Time is teh enemy as ret. Cuz as time adds up ur mana goes down

edit - and a hunter may get u as hpala, but it gonna take him 15 minutes. You have to abuse LoS and force them in close if u wanna kill huntards no matter ur spec as pala. U could go ham as ret and try…But it’s a much riskier play than it needs to be

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This same logic died 14 years ago with Vanilla. By this same logic, you should be running nothing but DPS warriors in BWL, with rogues only brought along for suppression room then ditched?

Being perfectly optimal is not the goal of the game. Having FUN is. And jackwagons that think like you are the reason people DON’T have fun.

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You too. You’re a ROGUE, why are you taking crit gear away from the fury warriors? Right?

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In PVP don’t gear like a warrior, wear your tier 2, and some +crit neck/ring/back, get to ~20% crit, mana should be at least 3.5k, need to last in a fight going OOM after just a couple casts is bad, the blue PVP gear is trash. Also you need to play selfishly, you’re a damage dealer, casting a heal in a fight is fine but don’t try to be the healer unless you’re 21/0/30 spec with your healing gear on.

This morning i hit a priest for 4k with a HoJ proc, and regularly sit near the top of KBs, its possible just do the work.

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There is a difference between 5% behind the pack 50% behind the pack, even after that effort.

If your guilds ok with it, have fun, but I can understand guilds not bothering with people playing suboptimal specs, you save alot of money for the entire raid by shaving hours off of your clear time.

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It is well known ret is as useless as enhance shaman. They were trash 15 years ago and they are still trash now. Anyone saying something different is delusional. There is a reason no top pre made allow enh sham or ret paladins same goes for top raiding guilds. Don’t believe me? Check warcraft logs. Should have done your research before choosing ret.

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Good luck on your low tier guild or pugs, because no serious guild would take a ret. Ret = dead weight and replacing that useless person with anything would make clear times faster. Ret just wastes time for the rest of the players because all they care about is “mah fun”

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Yawn. Ya know, you’d think after 15 years people would have become adults. Seems not. But hey, you do you. If being a jerk and a (insert whatever curse word you feel fits you best) makes you happy, go get your jollies off. Nobody cares. :stuck_out_tongue:

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More like, after 15 years you’d think people would have become smarter and finally realize ret is trash. Stop being selfish and roll a class that doesn’t need to get carried through content. But but but MAH FUN!

And why would I care anyway? I rolled horde just to avoid idiot rets thinking they contribute something in PVE or PVP. There are way less enh shamans than there are ret paladins. And I have ZERO in my raids and ZERO in my wsg premades so yeah, I don’t care.

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Would you look at that… a UD mage all up on his high horse trash talking a class.

You know, because pressing Frostbolt in raids is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH SKILL AND HARD WORK that we definitely deserve the gear over ret paladins/boomkins/spriests etc

My back is so sore from “carrying” all these trash dps classes like ret or boomkins as I single button my way through content.

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carrying terrible dps specs isnt fun for 39 other people sometimes.

don’t be selfish.

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Now, as for the OPs question.

Yes and no.

For PVE, the analogy I like to use is that of a car-mod enthusiast. You are intentionally picking a sub-par dps class and through gearing/consumables and playstyle seeing how much juice you can squeeze out of it.
You are doing to Top Gear Sh*tbox Challenge, and thats the fun of it.

For PVP, Ret can be pretty powerful if the proc-gods are on your side. I have deleted many clothies before they even had the chance to get off their mount, but you need to utilize your entire toolbox if you want to stand a chance against anyone that knows their class well. Closing in on a hunter will almost always result in a scattershot/feign+trap combo. Either repent him early and get an opener, or bubble it off once the trap goes off

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In most cases, the class choice is doing the carrying, not the player per se

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Ret is 100% a meme, and will never ever be remotely competitive if you are playing with competitive and competent melee dps.

I beat Ret as Resto. Through LoH and Bubble and a Mana Pot.