I have been unsubbed off and on over the years, SL was my first full xpac running m+, I hadn’t played it prior to this expansion.
It quickly became my favourite game mode, unfortunately I had to leave my favourite spec, the Ret behind.
Performance wasn’t that great in M+ and there’s a big Ret Paladin stigma which was mainly the issue.
I’d love to actually main the class I love in DF,
So my question is - has Ret ever been good in M+? Or am I getting my hopes for atleast A/B tier Ret pala for m+ DL for very little chance.
Obviously we don’t know what the new talent trees will bring, I’m just hoping and praying.
(Yes I know Ret is currently capable, I’m sure there are many many rets above 3k rn, but as someone who exclusively pugs due to my erratic schedule- trying to be a Ret in LFG wasn’t worth the time investment to try to get a group. If Ret performs well in the eyes of LFG it’ll be so much easier to play, rn rets don’t get many invites over the other, we’ll performing, plentiful dps specs)
Tia
For pve ret is not in a good place rn… but id say for pvp ret is pretty good
Can’t tell you the future, but historically Ret hasn’t been one of the go-to meta classes the same way Hunter, Mage, Rogue and DH are.
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At any given time there are typically only 5-6 dps specs that are viewed as “meta” by the general playerbase.
Ret is perfectly fine in keys.
Pugging as a dps in general is just rough because 73893993 dps apply for 2 open spots.
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I hear that,
Ret has some unique utility though, how were they in BFa/Legion?
Reta rn are currently shunned by LFG, is this how it’s always been?
Always been this way, and Blizzard intends to keep it that way. Paladins are supposed to tank or heal, not DPS. They’re allowed to DPS in PVP though since tanking is banned in PVP
It’s hard for ret to get into groups, mostly because people prefer a lust slot and battle rez slots. Ret pallies can’t do either of those so ideally they get third dps slot, and they can be outclasses very easily.
On my ret pally I have turned to prot tanking and it can be fun and do plenty of damage with the same-ish gear.
I don’t try and pretend that if I saw a 274 Ret and 268 warlock …I’d pick the warlock.
So ive been here since m+ existed and always been a ret pally never swapped mains, what i can tell you is the following ret has always been middle of the pack in m+, the problem is that from middle to top in the past the difference wasnt that much so we were a fair replacement of any of the meta classes although with a little less damage, currently the difference from middle to top is huge outliers like destro locks and surv hunters are just miles ahead of the rest heres my summary
Legion: Ret was actually great everyone had uncapped aoe for the most part on top of having multiple choices of defensive and offensive setups (you could swap any gear while in m+ dungeons) good sustain and burst aoe/st, we were not meta but could get the job done no problem with good gear management in the dungeons.
BFA: Ret started horrible here our azerite traits were garbage rough first patch, after that ret was great essences gave us visions of perfection massive for us after that corruptions just made us monsters in burst damage with mastery stacking, we were a fair replacement of any of the meta classes, ret here wasnt meta because it lacked the damage its because we cant be Night elfs and we dont bring utility that the meta classes did shadow meld was op for skips (still is but to a lesser degree) we ended bfa on a good note still had unccaped massive burst and sustain damage
Shadowlands: The many changes that shadowlands introduced made ret a very undesirable class in m+:
-AOE cap
-Melee unfriendly affixes pre nerf storming/pre nerf spiteful
-Terrible sustain damage losing borrowed power for us was massive from bfa to shadowlands more then other classes
The one i want to emphasize the most is the aoe cap this one hurt the most out of all of the others, one of our niches on past xpacs was massive burst damage that is great when you can pull lots of mobs, losing that niche made us a meh spec with nothing special to bring to the table even after the “reduced after x” patch it feels really bad to still have for example wake of ashes reduced after just one target and i feel divine storm should be reduced after 8 not 5 like it is atm i wish they could just go back to aoe and single target without any “reduced after x” it would be easier to balance stuff , we are currently middle of the pack but as i said before the middle is just too far from the top currently
Ret is never the top choice, though it is also never as bad as people perceive it to be. Right now ret can do really good damage, outside of the extreme outliers that are destruction + survival.
Usually, either holy paladin or protection paladin is really great, sometimes both. Ret is usually B-D tier.
Ret needs some help. I would probably run my ret pally as a main if they weren’t so hit or miss in every form of content
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They really dont, sac is just an inferior version of AMZ or Intervene.
“But they have Blessings” is a meme from Vanilla WOW, everyone already got their own utility that is much better than Ret at this point.
A save from death long cd heal and immunity isn’t great utility when you compare it with battle rez or hero
Ret actually has a very similar damage profile to Survival, it just has difficulty bringing it to bear because it doesn’t have Misdirection and thus is forced to play too cautiously to take full advantage of excessive trash pulls. Upcoming buff to tank threat might help with this, but then there’s also the issue of taking up the Lust slot, so you have to adjust the party for that. And overall Ret suffers from having healer-specialized utility on a DPS, which isn’t terribly useful.
It’s not a bad spec you can do any content with a ret paladin…
Only problem I had playing one was pulling aggro because I was doing 90% group damage.
I remember we had Diablo 2 style Blessed Hammer around us in Legion and it was so much fun but then they took it away from us in BfA. Big sad. Didn’t play BfA much cuz it sucked. Legion Ret was very good and fun with the correct legendaries.
That’s the dumbest thing i ever heard? Why not let us DPS?!?!?
I hear ret is doing fine right now and its also fun.
But a good ret doesnt forget to use his supportive skills and not just be a dps zombie.
Ret’s currently one of the strongest raid dps specs in the game, has an extremely valuable utility suite, and is the most popular melee in high M+ keys.