Oof. Bad take Sosari. Somebody please post that chart Limit Max made of Class Averages: Time Spent Above Average lmfao.
Retribution’s performance over the last 4 expansions (8 years) has been egregious. Ret is dead last in overall. Ret comes in a 1.43% and the next spec is Survival at 17.60%.
It’s not only about numerical performance either. How the spec feels to play matters too but others have explained that.
I don’t play Holy so I won’t speak too much on it, but I’ve seen the many complaints. Thing is, Holy has been mandatory in bleeding edge content for a while so I don’t have much sympathy for those of you who simply don’t like how it plays. It’s been meta multiple times
I main ret and also tank often. Between all three specs, Prot Paladins are the only ones who should be excited as far as I can tell. Their current issues in higher keys have been worked on in DF. Sentinel looks insane.
Ret on the other hand? A battle res is not enough. It’s going to come down to tuning ONCE AGAIN and as that chart and logs show (smh I wish I could post pictures), it’s probably not going to happen. Our concerns are more well founded than literally every other spec.
The way I see it, Blizzard has earned all the vitriol they’re getting.
From what I can tell, both Protection and Holy is in a good spot. Ret I think will be in a better spot with Battle res. You might think it won’t make an impact, but one of the biggest reasons ret is least represented is because of their lack of utility compared to other melee dps. Ret does comparable DPS, in keys at least, but why bring them over a DK or Rogue, or w.e if they don’t bring useful utility?
Yet, people are complaining about the state of Protection too, mostly from people who don’t play protection or have the relevant experience to even have an informed opinion.
Like I said, feedback is good. The hyperbolic complaints that are unbased is what I am referring to.
Oh no it will definitely have some impact. But I’ll lock in my guess that it’s not gonna be anything major. I hope I’m wrong.
I’ve said this many times but Retribution has more group utility than most specs in the game. Biggest issue with them (IMO) are these vanilla style cooldowns…
BoP 5 minutes, Spellwarding 3 minutes, Bubble is 3 and a half minutes and you need to take a talent to get that… I guess Blizzard is too scared to shorten these a bit?
Shield of Vengeance is…pretty weak as a defensive. After that, we often have nothing because again, bubble has an insanely long cooldown. Give us 1 minute divine protection already ffs.
Divine Storm still has this abysmal 5 target cap too. Damage takes a nose dive outside of cooldowns more so than other specs. This has been rets problem since…Wrath I think???
I don’t PvP anymore so I can’t speak on that, but Ret does not have the best burst in PvE. Other specs can burst just as well or even better, yet they don’t have to deal with this huge fall off. This is not fair.
If we’re in steel plate armor, why do we die more often than the classes in cloth and leather? It’s because of that dumb**** I mentioned earlier. We need more. Ret and DK should be the most durable dps (now obviously, this is just my opinion ).
We still bring nothing to raid that your Holy paladin (this spec is still mandatory) isn’t already bringing.
Ret has serious issues that have not been addressed. Just make a post saying you hear us. It would go a long way.
I do hear the concerns and there have been genuine feedback. Again, my issue is not with the feedback, it’s towards the baseless hyperbolism specifically. Like we discussed, Prot and Holy seem to be in a good spot, but it doesn’t stop people from saying it isn’t viable anymore. I think ret could use more work.
I can’t speak on the theorycrafting side of things, but jumping on ptr and playing around with paladin I found ret to feel really nice to play tbh, especially the consecration loadout on an aoe. Final Verdict also felt really good for a single target as well. I’m content with what gameplay flow I’ve got to try, it’s just a matter of numbers tuning at this point.
Even if the numbers were good enough, a class can still feel off, or janky or awkward. This melee iteration of hpal is just extra work to continue the usual whack-a-mole single target heal playstyle that hpal was always known for (holy power was always instant except WoD). When dpsing is not possible, the class feels naked and vulnerable, thats how I would describe it. But sure, at all other points of a raid fight where you are comfortable, and can do your mandatory melee work, and face most of the raid for LoD, its fine enough, and the numbers will probably look fine enough if you are good at the spec.
The only reason we’ve been getting good changes at all over the course of shadowlands was because of players letting the devs know our frustration. If we arent being vocal about wanting more/wanting a different approach to our class we simply wont get anything because the devs will think we’re happy with the direction its going.
While I agree people go overboard with the doomsaying, I’d much rather have the feedback and complains in here, especially when it’s founded on concepts (and not just something needing better numbers).
I think doomsayers are actually detrimental, making devs waste their time and be less inclined to suggestions, but some of it is kinda justified because they provide no feedback compared to the other classes’ communication.
I explained why it was a mess. It’s the way the spells given to it actually work. They are very poor at actually dealing with the damage patterns as they are. Short of making big single target hits a more common thing or well more ideally a reversion of mastery, this kit was always going to be clunky.
Holy was meta for one reason and one reason alone: it did an obscene amount of damage. This too was only in organized groups. You actually had to pull around hollow for it to actually do that degree of damage. This was its own kind of problem because the damage was so high that it forced out using other healers. (Something about the combo of DR+immunity+massive damage makes it so that even other high damage healers eventually get forced out. And there were other viable damaging healers in the form of Kyrian Disc priest and Kyrian Shaman which is still viable today)
I did acknowledge this. If they actually do fix the sustained damage issue alongside this, which I believe they should do by implementing something like what righteous protector is for prot, they could keep class identity without necessarily breaking the class. This would make ret feel really good to play where with the addition of brez on top of blessings, it would enter the absolute top tier of melee and be competitive with the other melee likely in a meta state similar to the current tank meta state.
You’ll notice I never mentioned prot. I actually completely agree with you that prot’s been in a great state throughout the expansion. Even when it’s never designated top tier it’s never far off either. Like the variance between whatever is top and everyone else has never been high for most tanks and prot’s been solid middle of the pack the whole expac.
And yea I understood this. I wanted to take a stab at qualifying what has most people upset. The issues with the base kit that aren’t really addressed. So my thing was more addressing playfeel and general enjoyment and practicality of builds as they have been and are currently in beta rather than theory crafting or something someone said on youtube. These have been recurring issues that have been bandaged rather than addressed, rehauled or given a direction. So I responded to more one part of your statement but I understand its sentiment and do agree that people should actually play the game and do their research properly rather than just complain to complain or with little actual exploration of what can be done with the tools we’ve been given since the reworks post legion.
Edit: Holy in raids was arguably even easier to do when it was meta: use your DRs, use devo when asked, dps. You rarely actually brought a hpal to heal in a serious guild. They were there for the CD and for the damage. It wasn’t dps level damage tbf but it was tank level damage.
honestly I’d be good with just two things even with this clunky set of spells we have:
some form of Aura of Sacrifice. So that we could convert our ST heals into raid heals
reversion of mastery to become the absorb version again. It wouldn’t be busted and would actually give some purpose to the amount of overhealing our spells do by being direct heals instead of HoTs. A direct heal that crits the amount ours do is generally always going to overheal.
Not quite but saying that is a bit short and bit rude.
I was using a broader definition of organized group that I should have qualified tbf but assuming that is rude when you could have expanded the conversation and asked me to qualify what I meant
By organized group I meant any group competent enough to understand how hollow works. Or are you suggesting that holy paladin ashen hollow was amazingly effective in pulls done 2-5 mobs at a time? In fact how about you qualify this:
What do you mean specifically by it so I’m not assuming
I understand that. And acknowledged that the way I was using it was obtusely broad. There’s no word for what I was trying to say that describes it well though. Competent groups? I mean any group where everyone in the group relatively understands intuitively how all the mechanics and damage reqs will scale on a per pull basis vs pug kinda describing a wide variance of understanding of exactly how dungeons work.
Regardless, this mini conversation is a moot argument. Idc if I need to look stupid for it to end. I am dumb and that’s fine. I’d rather not take away from your thread here and sorry that it happened.
Ret is pretty fun to me. Our support is really good especially with the new B rez. We do kinda lack in the buff department I agree. And as for builds, seems to be some variety here but not really sure how good builds will be until we get some end game data.
-You will use sac on cd on the tank on because recompense.
-You will use spellwarding on yourself (mostly) since sov alone doesnt cut it and dp at 2 mins is useless.
-Each wog you give out is one tv less worth of damage.
-If you manage to get loh yea, you got a heal every 7mins. Good I guess
What build variety?
Class tree YOU WILL PICK
-First gate: fist, BoF, steed, cavalier, loh, Gjudgement.
-Second gate: AW, rebuke, holy aegis, sac,recompense, BoP, spellwarding, unbreakable spirit, reprisal and you are left with 1 free point.
-Third gate: DP, aspirations, dusk dawn, seal or order. You have 5 points left to decide your second capstone, both uninteresting, both about AW. Math will determine which one goes.
Spec tree YOU WILL PICK
-First gate: BoJ, AoW, DS, improved cs, holy blade, BoW, zeal.
-Second gate: WoA, A2D, seal of wrath, crusade, HH. 7 points to fill either st or consecration/ds talents.
-Third gate: ashes to ashes, virtuous command, FR. 5 points left to grab your second capstone. Again math will determine which one goes.
In pvp there is even less variety because half the spec tree is nerfed including AW and its upgrades.
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