Rets, calling all rets - pvp/pve buffs? thoughts? ideas?

Classes Paladin
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My main focus for balance is PvP. As I understand it Ret happens to do quite well in Raid and has a pretty solid hold on being top tier in M±. TWW talents seem to help it even more so in M+.

For PVP, a few issues will arise in nearly all PvP encounters.

Some of these can remain but having all possible in the same match feels bad.

Rets off healing and self healing is so low I’m not sure it can be considered a hybrid for PVP.

4-5min defensives that if allowed to remain last 8 seconds, but usually are removed early by 2 seconds casts, sometimes by 1 min CD dispells.

Those dispelled defensives still applied Forbearance so enjoy your added vulnerability for up to 28 seconds while up to 3 other defensives cannot be used on you.

Lacking tools most melee have is apparent and a large hindrance to success while still doing less damage at range than in melee range, and less damage than a lot of specs if you were to be ignored. Ret cannot possibly bring to the group:
Disarm
Lust
Instant mobility
MS effect
Spammable CC or multiple instant cast CCs that won’t break from damage
Effective self healing from doing damage
Fall protection outside of Bubble or BoP which are required to use to live for a bit fighting almost anyone
Blessing of Spellwarding protects who has it active from exactly 0 magical CCs
Blessing of Freedom is dispellable and stealable with Blessing of Spellwarding active so mobility is slower than normal running speed during most combat instances.
Invisibility.

There’s not necessarily a thematic reason for Ret to gain most of the above tools it lacks, but neutering it’s healing, armor, AND damage was made worse due to it’s tool kit having these gaps, and it is also one of the most visually telegraphed specs. Countering what a Ret is doing effectively requires no add ons or weak auras. You just know what you have to do to prevent what Ret is doing because your eyes are open.

Since it’s tier set for two consecutive seasons revolved around buffing DoTs that are dispelled in PVP, Ret hasn’t been in the best place. Ret has nearly all offensive abilities and PvP talents and defensive and healing talents nerfed in PVP so seeing a Ret crushing the meter in M± doesn’t translate to good damage or survivability in PvP.

When Ret, with all of the other weaknesses were still present, was tuned to do threatening damage, I was happy, that lasted 3 days. Recently I stopped being stubborn and rerolled to MM hunter and my BG and Blitz experience greatly improved, and long time hunters swear MM is terribly designed and need a total rework. If MM is garbage and needs a rework like the Hunter thread suggests, but it is leagues above Ret for a good portion of the PVP content, Rets gotten a pretty bad rework/follow up tuning.

On the positive side, TWW looks great for Ret. Lots of specs got new cool additions to their kit, instead Ret got, more damage including more cleave and AoE. Unfortunately if they leave Ret overtuned it won’t be intentional to counter it’s weaknesses, and will be responded to with unreasonably harsh nerfs since Ret isn’t allowed to be a strong contender.

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258

I’m just a regular player, not a theorycrafter or anything, but I’d like to see Divine Steed gone and replace it with group/raid movement buffs based on “inspiration” in combat. I don’t know exactly how it would need to be designed, but instead of the horse something like Mass Freedom/Unbound Freedom or spending X Holy Power or doing X damage or whatever boosts movement speed shortly, bake in LotL into Judgment, that kind of stuff.

I’ve always liked the idea of Rets having group buffs based on ability usage. Employing your full toolkit (in a non-degen way, does that even exist in WoW?) helps out the group. Maybe instead of Retribution Aura, it’s Inspiration Aura, buffing different aspects of gameplay as your abilities are used. Obviously it couldn’t be OP, but something a bit more proactive yet thematic.

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259

In raid and M± where the enemy isn’t removing your utility/defensives and they aren’t nerfed heavily, being able to protect others with Blessings and emergency heals is right up there with some of the Augmentation defensives for usefulness. For PVP you using utility just gifts enemies a reason to press their buttons that negate it. Lots of folks have complained that a Ret can just pop bubble and send damage, but it can’t. The Bubble, BoP, or BoS is just removed 2 seconds into your 20 or so seconds of burst damage and you are back to needing to spend GCDs pressing your other two defensives and hopefully survive until wings ends, and wings is nerfed in PVP too, it is just sad.

Alright, MM opened on me from Narnia while I’m in combat at the objective. Pop Bubble or BoP to chase the Hunter, need steed to get there, press steed as Bubble or BoP is dispelled, enemy applies slow, root, or snare, or even several of them. Cast Freedom on my healer granting it to myself as well to get a few seconds of my steed, mage steals Freedom or it is dispelled, slowed, snared ext again. CC ends, healer spent all their CDs on me so I survived getting kited this long, lets steed again and catch the MM, then I get feared, now I’m fast in the wrong direction, die while Forbearance from the Bubble or BoP I casted 20 seconds ago is still active. Get called a noob while I was previously told “just kill the Hunter” was the solution to MMs range and damage advantage.

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Me and my friend played a bit last night.

It’s pretty much feels like DF Ret. A lot of the stat changes were good, but they aren’t really noticeable gameplay differences, just better scaling.

Mainly, this is just my opinion;

Class:

  • Visuals have been slightly updated, but a majority remain lackluster.
    • No update to Auras, Blessings, Mounts, and FR, Searing Light and Hammer of Light all pretty much look the same
  • Class Tree saw very little changes, with really only the nerf to HoW and the removal of Crusader’s Reprieve
    • Losing the range on our Interrupt, along with the ST Self Healing Crusader’s Reprieve provided feels bad. The talent needed tuning, not a deletion. (Yet JV still remains, lol)
  • Our Capstones remain pretty underwhelming, don’t reflect the spec they are designed around, and being able to get all 3 still feels like there’s really no interesting choices.

Ret:

  • Our Builders are still stagnant, all feeling like clones of one another
    • I think this is why a lot of players express they feel like something is missing with the spec, but can’t really pin point what it is, and ultimately what leads to that repetitive gameplay.
  • Our Talent Builds can feel very cookie cutter, with a majority of talents being spent on QoL things like Blessed Champion, Blade of Vengeance and Jurisdiction.
    • This is usually more of a problem for Mythic+ players than Raiders/PvPers tho
  • The update to Judge, Jury and Executioner and Vanguard of Justice feel pretty underwhelming
    • Idk how much you care for these things, but Paladins do have synergetic talents, like Inquisitor’s Ire and Empyrean Legacy but they feel “hidden” within the spec and aren’t encouraged more as an apparent gameplay style. These talents feel very similar.
  • Divine Hammer feels pretty undercooked. It needs a capstone and 2 support talents to work, but it’s still pretty degen button smash gameplay.
  • Radiant Glory is degen gameplay, makes the class even more simplistic and braindead… zzzzzzzzzz…
    • There’s zero reason why this isn’t the choice node of Wings, especially considering Wings is just a stat stick cooldown. It’s pretty boring.
  • Ret Capstones are pretty much the same, default into the WoA ones, ignore the FR/ES ones, then take whichever passive is more valuable for your content.

Hero Talents:

  • Herald of the Sun is fun, but feels like it makes you default into a lot of Radiant/DoT talents for the synergy. Removes some choice.
    • Doesn’t add a whole lot of gameplay, but also doesn’t pump with visuals, so it’s w/e.
  • Templar is pretty underwhelming imo. I think a lot of the hype blinded people to the underlining issues, much like the Ret and Holy revamps have, lol.
    • Hammer of Light just feels like Final Reckoning 2.0 and does almost nothing for high content tanks

PvP:

Don’t think anything’s changed? Still 8/10 dead talents

So, for everything I’ve tested so far, it has felt one step forward, 2 steps back. =/

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261

Thanks for the detailed update.

It’s sad to hear not much is changing and if anything, it’s becoming more reductionist.

We can only hope that our dead talents are visited and given some flavor. There are too many useless talents that aren’t remotely viable in both trees that need to be erased.

I was looking at Ret raid log representation not that long ago, and Ret is the most played class by miles. Several thousand players under Ret was BM Hunter, then several thousand was Shadow Priest, then the rest of the classes.

Now would be the time to cash in on one of the most attractive specs in the game.

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262

Continuing the discussion from The War Within Beta Development Notes:

Sadly they’re removing even more skill from Paladins for the sake of Mythic+. :frowning:

Now we’ll have to deal with breaking CCs in PvP, and losing out on the skill cap of getting and keeping enemies out of stealth, and using Hallowed Ground when fighting DKs.

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CC is the way of the coward. Paladins fight with honor and glory, not underhanded tactics such as “CC”.
As a glorious warrior of light, you should gracefully help break your enemies free of such foul trickery. We roll our faces across our keyboards and let fate decide the outcome, as the Light intended. Not use “tactics” or “strategy”.
Zug zug on my friend, zug zug on, for the Horde had the right idea all along.

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I can deal with being the only melee with dispellable CC, being the only melee with dispellable defensives, being the only melee without Z-axis movement on Mugambala, being the only melee without purge or MS in 2s, having the weakest slow in game, and always being the kill target.

But allowing a NE Hunter to Shadowmeld Camouflage and literally walk away from me because I have 2 Holy Power and am the only Melee without the ability to hit an AoE button…

The line has got to be drawn somewhere!!!

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265

I like this guy. :grinning:

Okay, now you lost me. :rofl:

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Looks like this thread needs to come back.

The amount of bugs that need to be fixed in our talents/honor talents/hero talents is disgusting.

How this went live is insane.

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I’ve come to Nero this post as is it still relevant. I do not Mythic raid or lead the pack in the highest of M+. What I do is enjoy or suffer from whatever pvp design and tuning imbalance exists. Lately the former as I have been willing to reroll off of Ret in early Dragonflight.

Pvp perspective. I’ve played Ret as a main many expansions but not TWW, but I have tested it on Beta some and fought against it in pvp often enough to have opinions on its performance.

Some Ret players are able to perform to a mediocre level, even though design and tuning currently does not favor Ret at all.

The main reasons I cannot consider playing Ret are.

It is tuned to output much less damage, healing, and has less effective CCs compared to other specs. That matters in pvp as it is not a team effort Vs AI normally, facing better tuned and designed to do the pvp job specs as a choice would be handicapping myself.

The design disparity comes from others having what Ret lacks like, MS, Knockbacks, Disarms, Instant mobility, multiple CCs that dont instantly break to damage, multiple CCs that don’t cleanses enemies DoTs, Multiple CCs that are instant cast, invisability, area denial, silences, dispells.

Specs that are not a Paladin also do not have Forbearance, a punishment for using a defensive. This is a problem because Rets main defensives are long cooldowns removed early by short cooldown dispells. A otherwise good defensive removed early from a dispell cannot be replaced with another due to Forbearance until a while after the Ret is dead.

A unique to Paladin issue remains where if anyone receives a BoP from a paladin, the same paladin cannot Blessing of Spellwarding anyone for 4 or 5 minutes, and a thematically incorrect problem exists where BoP can remove or prevent physical stuns, but its magical counterpart Blessing of Spellwarding wards 0 spells that are CC. Even if BoS lack of interaction with magical CC is intended, it makes no sense to have that be intended.

Lastly, paladin as a whole class has WoG tuned very poorly in pvp, and it costing both holy power and mana is a feel bad situation every time it is pressed. WoGs shortcomings are not reduced by using Flash of light instead. There are no talent combinations that make FoL or WoG heal for adequate amounts.

With all of these design shortcomings, while Ret is also tuned less than favorable to do damage, I cannot consider playing the spec in PVP.

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268

As a bonus, Templar was temporarily doing ok damage, but Blizzard hot fixed it so now you can press Hammer of Light 80% less often. Fun detected, HoL was doing what the tool tip said it should do.

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Yeah, Templar felt like a real hero talent tree when you built HP back to 5 to spend within a window of time after Wake of Ashes.

It made too much sense. Had to go.

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270

This is what makes no sense to be. I think it used to just cost mana at one point did decent healing but u went oom fast. This change makes it so its a weak heal plus u go oom if u spam.too much.

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271

BfA word of glory started overtuned at 2 charges 1min cd. Ended up getting nerfed so everyone went back to selfless healer.

WoG right noe still has the mana tax. You would expect, it its ginna cost both HP AND MANA that wog moved healthbars… but it doesnt at all

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no it didnt make sense at all, it made 3/4th of the hero tree irrelevant and devlued our main spenders even more.

if it was made a feature then HOL would be nerfed to allow it to be spammed.

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You never cease to have the most garbage takes anywhere you post on the forum.

There are MORE talents in the Templar tree that benefit HoL which would encourage the ability, not the opposite. I understand that might be difficult to comprehend for you.

Herald is horrendously better than Templar and the “bug” made Templar relevant, competitive, and different than the DF snoozefest rotation which it currently is.

Anyone with a sensible mind would rather tuning to a HoL rotation than it being a mediocre spender every 30s. The latter could be the case for simpletons who need Ret to be brainless though, that might be where you’re coming from.

You are delusional and having any sort of opinion when you don’t push any relevant content where that information is based, is useless.

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He’s an @$$ and you’re not the first, second or third person to call him out on this.

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how many times do me and others have to explain this to yall, ill be nice and explain it again. inb4 i get replies like “its tunninggggg”

lights guidence, has no implication that hol is supposed to be castable permantely within a 12 second window. other specs have this wording and its always been " you use it once and its gone, but you can only use it within this amount of time"

zealous vindication becomes ridiculously op because your casting hol in mass, making about 5 empyrean hammers fall on your target every few seconds. which is about a 300% etra ap ontop of the 580 HOL has.

for whom, the bell toll: because of the increase of empy hammers, this talent becomes utterly irrelevant and pointless. why have the choice node

shake the heavens: becomes pointless because instead of having hammers every 2 seconds for 8 seconds, you effectively have hammers spawning forever. thus leading to empy hammer being nerfed to compstate. again this talent becomes pointless and op instead of being the actual window to try and extend

wrathful descent also becomes passive and op, because now you have a 5% dr forever on a spec thats already immortal

highercalling: becomes pointless cause shake the heavens lasts forever anyways, so theres nothing to extend

sacrosanct crusade, becomes passive and op cause your spamming hol and thus getting a TON of heals, and more nbarrier if you overheal. so again it has no purpose because it becomes passive and up 100% of the time

endless wrath becomes irrelevant and sanctification becomes op cause your spawmming hol and empy hammer, thus getting extreme amps on judgement. thus leading to it being nerfed to irrelevancy

hammer fall: becomes irrelevant because again empyr hammer is up all the time and your discouraged from using spenders because your saving hopo to use on HOL

undisputed ruling: becomes irrelevant and op and passive cause you have a perma 12% haste buff.

lights deliverance becomes EXTREMELY pointless, because instead of rewarding you with utlizing your highercalling and shake the heavens to get more empy to spawn another hol you can use, you just have hol all the time.

this last talent, is the reason why we know that hol isnt supposed to be spammable.

idk why you guys hate burst damage and want us to be a flat line spec, flat line specs like outlaw is just not wanted in any type of content

herald and templar are the same in pve, if this is a pvp thing then idc. pvp hol needs buffs and empy hammer needs to stop hitting poeoples pets or totems. thats it

thats unironic cause this bug literally made ret more brainless,. cause your just spamming hol without any care of your windows with higher calling or any other spenders or spender addition.

and yet, your the one posting on a level 10 alt? like yall like to io card and stuff when you have no argument. im sorry ret isnt easy enough for you to play while jacking it. im sorry that you can thrive in pvp without some spec breaking bug to hold your hand, im sorry your so bad htat you need these crutches to touch blue parse

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Ya having to sacrifice damage to heal should make the heal impactful. Even has herald its really low and only means to barely get by in a 1v1 of that person already used their burst. Any other situation and it doesnt make a difference.