Gonna be honest here, they definitely over did it this time. It would’ve been fine if they had decided to nerf just avengers might or just nerf execution sentence and wake of ashes, but both seems a bit excessive. I guess it seems they don’t really want ret having the super bursty play style it’s had this season and want it to go to more of a cleavy consistent damage build. So this doesn’t really mean that ret is dead, but the play style is completely different from last patch. I kinda with we had the option to choose between burst or cleave, sorta like legion, but I guess we’re just gonna be forced to settle for cleaving for now. Now I haven’t really tested how good the damage is with the new cleave spec, however we’re gonna struggle against casters a lot more probably. But who know, maybe ret is still gonna end up super strong like it seems to be. Every time I feel like we get gutted. there always seems to be some way to make the spec work still.
I tried a build utilizing both of the new traits: 2x Light’s Decree for aoe damage on holy power spenders and Emperial Something (the one that gives free procs of Divine Storm). I figured this build would really shine against double melee comps. Unfortunately it works EXTREMELY well outside of arena, but since they already nerfed Lights Decree by 50% effectiveness in arena before we even got to use it, our cleave still feels terrible and is completely outhealable.
The biggest problem I seemed to face yesterday is large nerfs to our burst, but no additional sustain improvements to compensate. Couple that with nerfs to Word of Glory and the removal of Azerite Fortication and our survivability is just horrible. We’re more susceptible to being kited and shut down then other melee and yet it seems we have no dps, sub par healing, and struggle to just keep our terrible sustain going. Any class that would normally play with us will benefit from playing with any other dps. Feelsbadman
damn bro you guys can’t chunk someone for 80% hp in 3 globals anymore? sry for ur loss
Doesn’t bother me at all they decided to remove the potential 2-3 shot we had to setup by blowing every cooldown and praying to RNJesus. The issue is we didn’t receive any buffs to our already lackluster 3 button rotation. We need higher damage % across the board to smooth out our dps if they want to take out the “lol burst” combo and allow us to have any sort of kill potential.
yeah abou that, you realize that combo was all of the rets damage right? God forbid a healer uses a defensive CD to counter act the 1 minute go rets had.
Pretty much like saying: omg that destro killed me with 2 chaos bolts… that’s so OP. Heaven forbid if you kick or stun one of them 
So I think runnign double or triple empyrean power along with battlefiel focus -“unless it got nerfed and I missed it” is gonna be super good. With only 2 370 pieces with empyrean power it makes my judgment procs hit for 20-30% more than my templars, so I feel like with 3 that could be super strong. It’s even gonna be pretty good single target damage since it hits hardre then templars so if you line it up right you could still chunk someone for a decent amount of damage randomly. Also I’ve been testing out divine punisher, it ends up hitting for doulbe a templars damage with 15 stacks and it’s pretty easy to get to 15 stacks before your judgment cd if you get any type of procs and are cleaving. I feel like if we go for this type of build it could be decent.
As for wog, ya that hurts. We’re kinda forced to go selfeless healer now since it heals more than wog. Wog is kinda just gonna be like it was in legion and only really against stuff that’s gonna cleave your entire team.
I haven’t gotten to play much since the patch, but i feel like we’ll still be decent at least.
Yeah bro if you died to a ret it’s because you didn’t use a cd to counter the moronic damage output
I mean, thats exactly it. any form of defensive destroyed the go. Earthern/ any form of wall/ peels. It wasnt really hard to negate the go. Especially since its so choreographed.
No it didn’t, you can try a new reply, but I played with a ret to over 2800 cr this xpac.
Side note, RMP setups are incredibly choreographed too, doesn’t mean they aren’t hard to negate.
Earthen did not stop Wake + ES + Wings from killing you.
yes it did. 2.8k? LOL grats. Im 3k bud. I’m the wrong ret to try and flex on.
Edit*
I don’t care about what rating you played to, you’ve been glad before, I’m stating I’ve played with your class to 2800, I understand how the damage comes out and what stops it. Earthen does not stop it.
Weird, your angel cleave went 0-3 in a series vs our Destro/Fire team, which has insanely telegraphed setups.
You can be a 3k ret and be horrid at the game, which is probably why you think 60k Wake in to 60k Execution sentences was fine. Thinking that EST stopped that damage from happening makes you more of a joke than being a budget ret losing to 3 min infernals 3 times in a row.
You obviously dont understand the damage if you’re thinking we are supposed to win that… Angel has 1 ranged kick…the healers. WoA and ES wasnt the problem, check the previous posts. AM was the problem.
I can guarantee you aren’t supposed to die 3 games in a row to infernals being dropped in the opener when your entire team has every CD available and giant pillars next to you.
You stood there and ate infernals 6+ stack Chaos Bolts to the face.
That isn’t the point though, the point is, those all have telegraphed damage, yet your team dies to it on repeat.
I understand very well that the trait was the issue, my problem is you sitting in this thread acting like 60k in to 60k was an okay thing to have because the healer should just hit a cooldown and its “telegraphed”
try to stay on topic here bud.
I’ll be real. Ret damage was dumb, but they did overnerf the spec. This constant seesaw of viability in WoW PvP is pretty lame.
RMP / MLS etc have utility to ensure their set up. Rets dont . It had to crit to do 60k to 60k and it was very inconsistent.
Explain MLS to me and how we’d effectively get our setup against Angel Cleave, I want to hear it from a god like yourself.
How do you not…is that a serious question. We have 1 ranged kick with a Ret. The most immobile class. You have nova/ coil/fears/ infernal stun. Again… how do you not?
Really, you think Ret is less mobile than a destro warlock? Thats interesting, don’t worry I know you have absolutely no idea how the comp works and you’re feigning by dodging the question.
Which healer are you playing with, feel free to toss me that information real quick.
ooh is that a trick question? Doesn’t mls just press bolt and gpyro after the rsham kicks and grounds? Or like do something super easy like sheep the rsham and fear the spriest then just cast?