Ret and PvP - GC giving us the middle finger.

[Ryanlol]

I don't think the problem is how bad ret is, but how good a number of classes are in comparison. Once Warriors, Mages, and perhaps Ferals get toned down, people will notice Rets doing quite well. Coming from someone who plays RBGs and 3s with a Ret on their team.

[Tangra]

I don't think the problem is how bad ret is, but how good a number of classes are in comparison. Once Warriors, Mages, and perhaps Ferals get toned down, people will notice Rets doing quite well. Coming from someone who plays RBGs and 3s with a Ret on their team.

Umm maybe, but Ret really needs something new/interesting/powerful in PvP... it's been the same old stuff for like 5 years, other classes are getting major new abilities every xpack while we just get out abilities shifted around and cleaned up a bit... the spec is not moving forward like everyone else, it's just getting a tune-up every xpack, but spinning its wheels in the grand scheme of the game. .

[Deleted]

So because Repentance is a cast time, which means you risk being locked out makes it not a form of CC? Ok ...

We used to have instant repentance and a 30 second stun once, now we can pick either or a ranged snare, while most other classes have only gained Crowd Controls with Mists

[Deleted]

I don't know what kind of information he pulls out of his ass, but as far as I know most ret paladins I've spoken (including myself) aren't pleased with the current state of PvP, yet GC is trying to keep his ground with the same answer he has given us for the past couple of months.

I'm playing Ret myself and have done so for the past 6 years and I personally think Ret is just fine if not OP dmg wise.. The only problem is that other classes such as mages, warriors and hunters are way too strong atm, if they get fixed I'm sure we'll do just fine..
Sacred Shield works wonders

[Reith]

I'm playing Ret myself and have done so for the past 6 years and I personally think Ret is just fine if not OP dmg wise.. The only problem is that other classes such as mages, warriors and hunters are way too strong atm, if they get fixed I'm sure we'll do just fine..
Sacred Shield works wonders

No. Enhance is better than Ret and it's not OP like those classes you mentioned, so there is still going to be a disparity.

[Riptide]

Ret really needs reliable defense and utility and our sustained could use a boost as well. The only big burst we have is with wings + ha up and any good team will lock you down during that and divine purpose is still better for sustained pressure. And generally the players that would use both HA and SW that are skilled would stagger those abilities. Anyway I'd rather be balanced like a warrior than them penalizing us for potential utility which doesn't work against skilled players.

Another complaint about ret is that Monks are in a better spot RIGHT NOW. They just aren't popular yet. With them being buffed next patch, it's only going to make rets look even less compelling.

They have better survivability and mobility for avoiding damage, and most of their utility isn't countered. They have touch of karma which is significantly better than ret's bubble, since it instantly alleviates pressure and actually puts out (some) pressure. The funny thing is it's a retribution type ability, one that ret doesn't have.

Anyway their high speed burst mobility, blanket silence built into their interrupt, sustained pressure, aoe stuns and after 5.2 paralysis is better than rep. Though both are limited to CDs. They also have ranged disarm, on demand root, zed med which would absorb a FULL shatter combo + a chaos bolt if the monk is not melee'd. The only thing they lack is BIG burst, but being able to put out 30 seconds of 20%+ dmg every minute isn't too shabby. Granted they build up to it rather than open with it.

Their weak points are roots (not snares) and no big burst cds.

[Requital]

I'm playing Ret myself and have done so for the past 6 years and I personally think Ret is just fine if not OP dmg wise.. The only problem is that other classes such as mages, warriors and hunters are way too strong atm, if they get fixed I'm sure we'll do just fine..
Sacred Shield works wonders

Just fine where? Just fine in the 1800, 2000? 2200? Where is it just fine? Random bg's that are cesspool of bots? Dueling in front of SW? Without saying where they are fine just saying they are fine is pointless.

There are sooo many issues that they face, We got a snare cleanse how useful is that not much I can cleanse 4-5 times and I'm oom while the mage just keeps snaring me. Now my healing and my utility is gone. We're broken on so many fronts I have just given up on PvP it's easier to just ignore it then fight the uphill battle and be disappointed every week when you can't find a way to cap points or when you get replaced in RBG's by some mediocre caster.

They really need to look at Ret PvP just like they did at Ret PvE back in TBC. Once upon a time only the best Rets were raiding because the spec was in such bad shape that they weren't wanted. Back in TBC you could count the Raiding Rets on 2 hands and from that aspect it's much like people today saying XYZ is viable because 123 is doing it. Just because a very small percentage can make it work doesn't mean it's viable and in good shape.

Blizzard needs to wake up to that sooner or later.

[yurano]

Poly can be cast really fast but ok I'll give you that one for high end arena.

Poly can be really fast 1 time every 90s with PoM.

The 30 second HoJ is simply better than repentance because you don't need to cast the former whereas the latter can be easily shut down.

I'm not saying repentance is better. I'm just laughing at you guys complaining about getting interrupted.

Rofl, do you have any idea how much Flash of Light heals for? 5-8% of our health maybe. A CC maneuver that let's you heal your self for maybe 15% of your health every 2 min is barely worth mentioning.

At the very least, it gives you 1-2 seconds of breathing room to get heals. Blinding Light is exceptionally powerful in BGs. Rated arenas, not so much.

all these abilities come with instant cast variations. repentance does not.

Instant poly is once every 90s.

Instant fear sacrifices 10%.

Instant cyclone/root is Feral only. Insta-cyclone for Ferals is getting nerfed into the ground come 5.2. Balance and Resto must cold cast both spells if when NS is down.

Instant CC isn't as powerful as you guys make it out to be.

depends on the dk actually, my dk is perfectly capable of ccing while silenced because his cc is based on his pet. i'm fairly sure feral druids can cyclone while silenced

DKs cannot Strangulate, Mind Freeze, CoI or Death Grip while silenced. This is a big deal when you're trying to hump a healer. The upside is that these spells penetrate Hand of Protection.

Feral druids cannot Cyclone while silenced. Cyclone is a casted spell. Just because you're a cat most of the time doesn't mean your Cyclone becomes an ability (non-silencable).

Please get YOUR facts straight first.

silencing ret paladins is a very good way to counter their defensives as it locks them out of their snare breaks and their defensive cooldowns. if you can't land a CS on a healer, but are trying to pressure a ret silencing them is a very viable stratagy.

Silencing a Ret Paladin is effective for all of 4 seconds. Silencing a Ret Paladin means there's no silence/interrupt on your healer. DKs especially can't fight back while silenced (cough AMS), this is no different from a Ret Paladin.

just because i can HoF up to a healer doesn't mean that healer isn't going to pillar away from me, have me cced, ground it, ect...

And how is this any different from what a healer can do to a DK or any other class for that matter? The so-called 'anti-Ret' counters you guys are whining about don't single out Ret paladins.

Like I said before, Ret paladin's damage and CCs are fine. They just need a little bit more defense because they're pretty squishy, more so than DKs when their bubbles are down. Think about Warriors, without Second Wind they're crap. Likewise, Ret Paladins just need a gimped Second Wind at 1.5% health/s in exchange for reducing of their crazy burst to bump up their sustained and they'll be powerful. Another way to accomplish this is to give them 10% reduction in damage taken.

[Deleted]

I'm not saying repentance is better. I'm just laughing at you guys complaining about getting interrupted.

There are so many ways to interrupt casting that it's simply not viable for ret. We can run down the list again if you want.

[yurano]

There are so many ways to interrupt casting that it's simply not viable for ret. We can run down the list again if you want.

Because interrupting melee is such a great idea right? In no form of rated team play should an interrupt be wasted on a Ret Paladin.

[Deleted]

Because interrupting melee is such a great idea right? In no form of rated team play should an interrupt be wasted on a Ret Paladin.

You would if it was a 6 second CC on your healer.

Besides, a ret paladin is silenced and stunned to death so much that he wouldn't be able to cast hardly anything now anyway.

Watch some of Vanguard's videos. Enemy teams even silence him to stop him healing his healer. There is just too much CC.

[Divineknight13]

rets are suffering now cuz of all the rogue butt raping we did in wrath of the lich king...

*rogue opens* cs > freedom to remove the stun then proceed cut that rogue in half lol

the class is completely worthless now compared to what it used to be... we are 15 second hero's when are cds are up ... and no pressure inbetween

sad i put 5 years of work into my ret to have it now as my healing alt

[Cybran]

it's because GC's anal virginity was taken by a paladin.

So much win!

[Tangra]

Ret really needs reliable defense and utility and our sustained could use a boost as well. The only big burst we have is with wings + ha up and any good team will lock you down during that and divine purpose is still better for sustained pressure. And generally the players that would use both HA and SW that are skilled would stagger those abilities. Anyway I'd rather be balanced like a warrior than them penalizing us for potential utility which doesn't work against skilled players.

Another complaint about ret is that Monks are in a better spot RIGHT NOW. They just aren't popular yet. With them being buffed next patch, it's only going to make rets look even less compelling.

They have better survivability and mobility for avoiding damage, and most of their utility isn't countered. They have touch of karma which is significantly better than ret's bubble, since it instantly alleviates pressure and actually puts out (some) pressure. The funny thing is it's a retribution type ability, one that ret doesn't have.

Anyway their high speed burst mobility, blanket silence built into their interrupt, sustained pressure, aoe stuns and after 5.2 paralysis is better than rep. Though both are limited to CDs. They also have ranged disarm, on demand root, zed med which would absorb a FULL shatter combo + a chaos bolt if the monk is not melee'd. The only thing they lack is BIG burst, but being able to put out 30 seconds of 20%+ dmg every minute isn't too shabby. Granted they build up to it rather than open with it.

Their weak points are roots (not snares) and no big burst cds.

That's a good point, Ghostcrawler and his naive staff seem to be balancing around representation at mediocre levels of PvP; they see a bunch of Ret paladins and think it's fine. This is dumb on so many levels:

First, Ret is a very popular spec lore wise, people who played any type of Warcraft mmo or rts, know of really awesome Ret paladins like Uther and Tirion, and many others, and so they want to be Ret. The idea of a holy warrior also simply appeals to a lot of people. The box to burning crusade had a Ret on it, and the intro movie had a dranei Ret destroying things, wrath of the lich king was of course all about paladins as well.

Ret is a beloved spec for many people for countless nostalgic, role-plaything, and lore reasons, and so there are always quite a few of them around. Blizzard however foolishly misinterprets that as the spec being good, because they can't wrap their heads around the fact that Ret's a cool fucking concept that may people love.

Indeed, of course there are very few monks, what competitive player wants to spends the first few days of the expansion leveling from 1-90 when you can do 85-90 and be raid and arena ready days earlier. People also had no clue what monks would be like, so there was a risk element involved as well. Windwalkers are already better than Ret as you mentioned, and next patch they will be amazing.

Ignorant Blizzard developers think of spells like Hand of Protection and think that paladins are just as good as it gets, when in reality all of our utility is dispensable and often on long cool-downs. Our cc has stood still for 6 years, we haven't gotten a major new utility move in ages, other than silly things that every melee should have had since launch such as an interrupt or a snare. The spec is stiff as heck and painfully predictable, nothing about us introduces any element to the arena that makes people sweat. Brust on a 2-3 minute cooldown is a dinosaur by today's standards, every competitive spec can burst every 30-45 secs.

---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 12:23 PM ----------

Poly can be really fast 1 time every 90s with PoM.



I'm not saying repentance is better. I'm just laughing at you guys complaining about getting interrupted.



At the very least, it gives you 1-2 seconds of breathing room to get heals. Blinding Light is exceptionally powerful in BGs. Rated arenas, not so much.



Instant poly is once every 90s.

Instant fear sacrifices 10%.

Instant cyclone/root is Feral only. Insta-cyclone for Ferals is getting nerfed into the ground come 5.2. Balance and Resto must cold cast both spells if when NS is down.

Instant CC isn't as powerful as you guys make it out to be.



DKs cannot Strangulate, Mind Freeze, CoI or Death Grip while silenced. This is a big deal when you're trying to hump a healer. The upside is that these spells penetrate Hand of Protection.

Feral druids cannot Cyclone while silenced. Cyclone is a casted spell. Just because you're a cat most of the time doesn't mean your Cyclone becomes an ability (non-silencable).

Please get YOUR facts straight first.



Silencing a Ret Paladin is effective for all of 4 seconds. Silencing a Ret Paladin means there's no silence/interrupt on your healer. DKs especially can't fight back while silenced (cough AMS), this is no different from a Ret Paladin.



And how is this any different from what a healer can do to a DK or any other class for that matter? The so-called 'anti-Ret' counters you guys are whining about don't single out Ret paladins.

Like I said before, Ret paladin's damage and CCs are fine. They just need a little bit more defense because they're pretty squishy, more so than DKs when their bubbles are down. Think about Warriors, without Second Wind they're crap. Likewise, Ret Paladins just need a gimped Second Wind at 1.5% health/s in exchange for reducing of their crazy burst to bump up their sustained and they'll be powerful. Another way to accomplish this is to give them 10% reduction in damage taken.

Ranged classes get to be at.... here it comes, the big reveal... drum roll.... AT RANGE!!! Polymorph has a cast time because a mage doesn't have to be in melee range to do his job, a Ret paladin has to almost constantly be in interrupt range of his opponents, and so virtually every repent can be interrupted.

You have no clue what you're talking about, you obviously don't PvP as Ret in any serous fashion so stop making an ass of yourself with this pathetic grasping at straws you have been doing for this entire thread. There are virtually no high rated Rets currently, and even the most famous Rets like Vanguards are playing around with specs like Enhance; Vanguards has also stated that Ret was mediocre even before the healing nerfs, and now is below average.

You've been spewing the same repetitive naive nonsense that Ghostcrawler does, in fact most of your statements are virtually copied from his various idiotic analyses that usually lack any sort of realistic context, and are instead based on craptastic theory-crafting and general spec design philosophy rather than real PvP facts. You're literally reading off the Ret spellbook and trying to concoct a realistic PvP experience based on reading tooltips; you're comments, just like Ghostcrawler's, sound reasonable on paper, but turn out to be complete gobbledegook when you actually step into arena as Ret.

[Deleted]

Umm maybe, but Ret really needs something new/interesting/powerful in PvP... it's been the same old stuff for like 5 years, other classes are getting major new abilities every xpack while we just get out abilities shifted around and cleaned up a bit... the spec is not moving forward like everyone else, it's just getting a tune-up every xpack, but spinning its wheels in the grand scheme of the game. .

Completely agree with this.

[yurano]

You have no clue what you're talking about, you obviously don't PvP as Ret in any serous fashion so stop making an ass of yourself with this pathetic grasping at straws you have been doing for this entire thread. There are virtually no high rated Rets currently, and even the most famous Rets like Vanguards are playing around with specs like Enhance; Vanguards has also stated that Ret was mediocre even before the healing nerfs, and now is below average.

You've been spewing the same repetitive naive nonsense that Ghostcrawler does, in fact most of your statements are virtually copied from his various idiotic analyses that usually lack any sort of realistic context, and are instead based on craptastic theory-crafting and general spec design philosophy rather than real PvP facts. You're literally reading off the Ret spellbook and trying to concoct a realistic PvP experience based on reading tooltips; you're comments, just like Ghostcrawler's, sound reasonable on paper, but turn out to be complete gobbledegook when you actually step into arena as Ret.

No, the real PvP fact is that Ret Paladins are underpowered. What everyone else in this thread seems to be doing is harping on nitpicky crap like "oh I hate getting silenced", "repentance is shit", and "FoL doesn't heal for shit" when other classes face the same exact challenges.

What if Ret Paladins couldn't be silenced? If repentance was instant? If FoL healed for more? None of those changes would make Ret paladins more balanced because they don't address any of the critical weaknesses of Ret. Instead, those changes would make Ret incredibly imbalanced (only good in certain instances like 1v1) which would end up with Ret getting nerfed into the ground as they are now.

Almost everyone posting in this thread has missed the big picture problem with Ret. Its not that Ret damage is weak or that Ret CC is poor. When balancing a spec, you must look at its entire toolkit as a whole, not focusing on its nitpicky and stupid points. The main weakness of Ret is its lack of defenses. Ret is exceptionally powerful when they're on the offensive, but when they get trained, they're just straight up screwed. This problem can be addressed in a variety of ways: second wind, shadow form, or an additional form of CC break (eg. bring back the stun removal effect of HoF).

A large part of why Blizzard won't fix Ret defense is because Ret's damage is too high. People who think Ret damage is fine are quite misguided because they have never been on the receiving end of Ret burst. Ret burst is on the same level as Frost Mage and Arms Warrior burst pre-nerf. The only reason Ret burst hasn't been nerfed yet is because Ret paladins aren't considered overpowered. If you give Ret more defenses without reducing their burst (at no cost to sustained damage) then Rets will become vastly overpowered (back to the first LK days). Whether or not Blizzard actually implements a change to trade some burst for defense is highly dependent on their bias.

TL;DR - Ret's weakness isn't because they get silenced and all the other crap like as everyone's been complaining about in this thread. Ret's primary weakness is their lack of defenses when getting trained. In exchange for additional defenses, Ret must give up some of their burst. People who blindly recommend a straight Ret buff without considering whole toolkit balance (especially offensive burst) is missing the big picture and largely the reason why Blizzard won't consider only a Ret buff.

[Divineknight13]

No, the real PvP fact is that Ret Paladins are underpowered. What everyone else in this thread seems to be doing is harping on nitpicky crap like "oh I hate getting silenced", "repentance is shit", and "FoL doesn't heal for shit" when other classes face the same exact challenges.

What if Ret Paladins couldn't be silenced? If repentance was instant? If FoL healed for more? None of those changes would make Ret paladins more balanced because they don't address any of the critical weaknesses of Ret. Instead, those changes would make Ret incredibly imbalanced (only good in certain instances like 1v1) which would end up with Ret getting nerfed into the ground as they are now.

Almost everyone posting in this thread has missed the big picture problem with Ret. Its not that Ret damage is weak or that Ret CC is poor. When balancing a spec, you must look at its entire toolkit as a whole, not focusing on its nitpicky and stupid points. The main weakness of Ret is its lack of defenses. Ret is exceptionally powerful when they're on the offensive, but when they get trained, they're just straight up screwed. This problem can be addressed in a variety of ways: second wind, shadow form, or an additional form of CC break (eg. bring back the stun removal effect of HoF).

A large part of why Blizzard won't fix Ret defense is because Ret's damage is too high. People who think Ret damage is fine are quite misguided because they have never been on the receiving end of Ret burst. Ret burst is on the same level as Frost Mage and Arms Warrior burst pre-nerf. The only reason Ret burst hasn't been nerfed yet is because Ret paladins aren't considered overpowered. If you give Ret more defenses without reducing their burst (at no cost to sustained damage) then Rets will become vastly overpowered (back to the first LK days). Whether or not Blizzard actually implements a change to trade some burst for defense is highly dependent on their bias.

TL;DR - Ret's weakness isn't because they get silenced and all the other crap like as everyone's been complaining about in this thread. Ret's primary weakness is their lack of defenses when getting trained. In exchange for additional defenses, Ret must give up some of their burst. People who blindly recommend a straight Ret buff without considering whole toolkit balance (especially offensive burst) is missing the big picture and largely the reason why Blizzard won't consider only a Ret buff.

^ i lawled a little when i saw this rets never had alot of defensives cuz our defensive was our healing ... you know the idea of a "holy" warrior guided by light on the path of justice and whatever other fluff u wanna throw in

TV just hits like a wet noodle straight up ... compare that to humm MS which now has no reason not to be spammed off cd or any other ablitity that is ment to be the *big hitter* from any other class

what really ruined us also is the lack of option ret has ... u cant 2 pt tv now you HAVE to wait for 3 holy power ... ever been caught on that healer at 1% life and had your entire action bar on cd ...

our sustained damage is actually laughable ... there is no reason not to train the ret paladin in most situation ... it used to be possible to survive this by playing smart kitting and healing ... now u just need to bubble straight up before u get globaled ... then what ... NOTHING

our burst is a little too over the top id gladly trade some of that for more sustained damage rather then 15 seconds of bind every cd to 1 macro and pray for leet crits and a lucky kill


ret cc is ok in the place ofremoving repent and giving us a AOE blind was really nice but the cd is kinda long would have liked it at 1.30 mins since rep was 1 min

[Deleted]

Every time I check up on ret PvP, the same issues are around. We're a squishy, cd dependant burst machine, easily ccable and snareable, conditional offhealer.

Save yourselves some hair loss and stop caring. I PvP as ret in vanilla, arenaed in TBC and gave up on Wotlk when we got badly nerfed. Once in a while I give it a try but it's pretty easy to realise even if we get one or two polishes, we're still held back by class design. This hasn't changed in 8 years and (sadly) it never will.

Just do what I do. Blame Kalgan :-)

[Fhi]

I'd like to remind folks to please only attack arguments, not other posters.

~Fhi

[Palatinus]

Just fine where? Just fine in the 1800, 2000? 2200? Where is it just fine? Random bg's that are cesspool of bots? Dueling in front of SW? Without saying where they are fine just saying they are fine is pointless.

Just fine around 1700. That's "where they should be"

Extremely OP at 1000 mmr. Really good at BGs too, not rated of course, how would that be competitive?