Are you satisfied with the current iteration of Ret in the Legion beta?

[Deleted]

I figured out what they are trying to do with Judgement. It makes sense, provided that Judgement has a shorter cooldown and we have faster Holy Power generation. Basically, the spec doesn't really function well at all without Blade of Wrath and Fires of Justice. With those two talents, everything feels more or less okay, even with very low level gear. As far as I can tell, the playstyle is entirely built around unloading every bit of Holy Power you have into the Judgement burst window. Which suits me fine. I actually quite like that. However, I'd rather both the HoPo generators and Judgement itself be much more responsive.

Either Crusader Strike needs to be much faster and much more on demand, or we need a third HoPo generator. Getting on PTR made the world of difference.

[TeeZed]

I was going to main ret but after playing on the PTR, screw that

My other choice was enhancement, and they're worlds apart in both fun and choice

Enhancement talents can change how you play, tempest, for stormstrike spam, hot hand for another proc, stormbringer? for lightning bolt finisher, ascendance for an entirely new DPS cooldown, as well as 3 different mobility tools and vastly different CC options.

Ret gives you almost identical versions of the same ability,
Crusader strike gives you a proc that for the most part you can ignore and carry on your rotation or zeal, a slightly aoe version of crusader strike.
Blade of justice crits harder vs blade of justice is now a bit stronger and a dot.
2 mobility tools or an auto bubble? How are these even on the same row

Overall ret is boring to play and even the artifact is dull as fuck,Templars verdict and divine storm are mimicked for 10% damage? Is that a joke or what, that's literally garbage for a capstone and an auto CC breaker on anything over 2 seconds? I mean it's gonna get used in PvP on stuff like dragons breath, gouge, etc, not great.

Again compare it to enhancement, where even some of the normal artifact traits are more impactful like +50% stormstrike damage on proc, 10% haste, stormstrike chains into more.

[Exedore]

I got a chance to play on the PTR (no beta). After that experience, I vote "no".

What I liked
- Melee and weapon-based combat is more prominent. It feels less like a spellcaster.
- I disliked how much of our skill use was procs for free abilities. That's now mostly gone.
- Choices for how to spend holy power (at least for PvE). Not just TV every time.

What I didn't like
- Combat movement just felt wrong. The big ranged snare on a cooldown just doesn't feel right thematically. And the gap closer talents are both bad.
- The new Judgment (and Ret's new mastery) feels really clunky. The cooldown/duration just don't fit well holy power generation.
- Greater Blessings are a fail. They'll be a nightmare to balance. Alone, the paladin can use all on himself/herself, making the paladin a lot more powerful solo. To maintain balance, their impact has to be limited, significantly reducing their impact in group play. It's also a pain to change them; you need to re-cast them all again to change one because each new one clears the oldest.
- The last talent tier seems like left-overs. Divine Purpose has always been annoying because of the random factor. Crusade seems weak except for boss fights with a high gear level. Holy Wrath is just all-around fail. It's the type of skill where the balance is just so different between PvE and PvP that you can't have it in both.
- Healing to allies is a lot weaker. Group support is always what helped to differentiate paladin from warrior, and that's mostly missing now.

[Lucetia]

- Choices for how to spend holy power (at least for PvE). Not just TV every time.

You do realize it's the same as before. TV on single target, Divine Storm on aoe. That's it. The only way you get "options" is via talents. Choosing Execution Sentence (Uses HP Now) over TV/DS Damage Boost or Consecration I found to be a dps loss. Then you have your healing ability that costs HP. So yeah, it's still back to the TV every time except 3+ targets then Divine Storm. What exactly did you have a choice on?

- Greater Blessings are a fail. They'll be a nightmare to balance. Alone, the paladin can use all on himself/herself, making the paladin a lot more powerful solo.

Not really sure how it makes the paladin powerful solo. You get a X amount of shield (doesn't negate much in the grand scheme of things), the 10% chance to 30% holy damage, and the third is 1% HP/Mana every 15 seconds.

To maintain balance, their impact has to be limited, significantly reducing their impact in group play. It's also a pain to change them; you need to re-cast them all again to change one because each new one clears the oldest.

They don't need to be limited anymore than they are already on. You can only have 3 Greater Blessings active TOTAL. Not 3 per each, 3 altogether. Luckily they persist through death.

[-aiko-]

I'm not a fan. It feels the same to me.

Not a big deal I guess, but when all the other classes I've played have had such drastic changes it's kinda meh.

[Exedore]

You do realize it's the same as before. TV on single target, Divine Storm on aoe. That's it. The only way you get "options" is via talents. Choosing Execution Sentence (Uses HP Now) over TV/DS Damage Boost or Consecration I found to be a dps loss. Then you have your healing ability that costs HP. So yeah, it's still back to the TV every time except 3+ targets then Divine Storm. What exactly did you have a choice on?

I mean for single target. Numbers may be different in beta and by the time it goes live, but on PTR this week, Execution Sentence seemed like a clear winner (about 4x the damage of un-talented TV). Justicar's Vindication had about the damage damage per holy power as un-talented TV.

When all is said and done, it may just be TV again for single target. Have to see how the numbers end up, but at least it looks like Blizzard is trying.

Not really sure how [stacking Greater Blessings] makes the paladin powerful solo. You get a X amount of shield (doesn't negate much in the grand scheme of things), the 10% chance to 30% holy damage, and the third is 1% HP/Mana every 15 seconds.

That's kinda my point. They don't do a whole lot because they need to be balanced for stacking them all on yourself. Most beta players are saying only Might is worth using, which means the others probably need buffed. If the others are buffed, paladins are stronger when they can stack them on themselves.

[Super Kami Dende]

100% satisfied? Nah.

More satisfied than unsatisfied? Yep.

[Tumble]

I've never felt more helpless in pvp than I do now. I know beta is beta and tuning and all that, but the actual game play of ret is off. Self healing is terrible, and I mean terrible, our only option is the stop and cast flash heal, that is unless we spec for word of glory. I'd like to know who down at blizz hq thought that spell needed fixing, and giving it a one minute recharge with a 2 charges, uses holy power, and heals for sweet fuck all, was a good idea. Gap closer, oh you mean if we spec into steed with a 45 sec cd, that unless we use freedom first is totally useless. The current ret on live is so much smoother, and that's saying something.

I'd like to know what people think about ret from a pvp standpoint. Am I alone? Am I doing something wrong? Is ret actually a juggernaut in pvp and my judgment is clouded by all the changes and it's a LTP issue? I'm curious.

[TS26]

voted no. Now I dont have beta but i spent some time on the ptr. Ret just feels unfun. I really dont know what they did but its awful. What sucks is that everytime I use avenging wrath I try to use hammer of wrath..
I was so hyped for ret. Turalyon's might or whatever it was called? Amazing! and they took it out. Fine, a new spell that makes you ride a steed in combat? How great is that..the spell effects must be great. Oh wait, its just a regular mount just sped up? Sigh


then I tried my enhancement shaman. The spell effects are amazing

[Teleros]

I mean for single target. Numbers may be different in beta and by the time it goes live, but on PTR this week, Execution Sentence seemed like a clear winner (about 4x the damage of un-talented TV). Justicar's Vindication had about the damage damage per holy power as un-talented TV.

When all is said and done, it may just be TV again for single target. Have to see how the numbers end up, but at least it looks like Blizzard is trying.

ATM it looks like you want to use Execution Sentence over TV (obviously so long as you can time it right too), and use JV over TV when you get Divine Purpose procs, but use TV the rest of the time. So yes, rather more stuff to do for single-target purposes.

[Deleted]

From my short ptr experience (most of times hitting dummies to get a 4-5mins feedback and a couple of dungeons run) seems a bit underwhelming in numbers since it does like 15% less damage. Maybe its the stats picked throughout the final stages of the expansion as well as better muscle memory .
Not using ring and just copied the char so stats are like mastery>>>>crit/multi/haste (on ptr it is like mastery>>crit/haste) , running with current 4set, libram and manno trinkets single targetin a dummie with BOM on.
Picked left talents and experimented a bit with ES vs FV on tier1.
Tried to get 5 hopo judge and then use as many finishers as possible.
Prioritized VB over CS whenever 3hopo or less.
Tried to go for JV>ES>TV or JV>FV.
Should the numbers look that underwhelming ? Am i doing something completely wrong? Any feedback would be welcome .

Other than that even with current haste it seems kinda more entertaining and fast (specially in terms of aoe where u clearly got more buttons to hit and prio) even if we lost some hopo generators seems like u got stuff to do to fill your time. Mobility seems a pain but reckon will be able to work around it ...

[Lucetia]

ATM it looks like you want to use Execution Sentence over TV (obviously so long as you can time it right too), and use JV over TV when you get Divine Purpose procs, but use TV the rest of the time. So yes, rather more stuff to do for single-target purposes.

Maybe at the start. If you choose Final Verdict at my current level it adds 20k damage to TV and ES does 177k. I can fit in about 5, possibly 6 TV's in during the cooldown of a ES. Once you get Rank 3/3 of the TV buff that's another 6% which will probably cause TV to win over ES especially if you rank it up.

Other than that even with current haste it seems kinda more entertaining and fast (specially in terms of aoe where u clearly got more buttons to hit and prio) even if we lost some hopo generators seems like u got stuff to do to fill your time. Mobility seems a pain but reckon will be able to work around it ...

More buttons to hit in AoE? Where? You could change Blade of Justice to Divine Hammer, but you lose out on a lot of damage. Could choose Consecration, but again lose out on a lot of damage.

[Teleros]

Maybe at the start. If you choose Final Verdict at my current level it adds 20k damage to TV and ES does 177k. I can fit in about 5, possibly 6 TV's in during the cooldown of a ES. Once you get Rank 3/3 of the TV buff that's another 6% which will probably cause TV to win over ES especially if you rank it up.

Hmm.

Sounds like ES will be a bit like JV, in that it's based on AP rather than weapon damage, so how quickly you gain iLevels on Ashbringer will be a big issue. I mean, I think I'd go with FV anyway, simply because it's so much more flexible than ES or Consecration, but hey ho.

+ + +

Numbers for those interested (3/3 Might of the Templar included):

106k x 4 + 177k = 601k

vs

127.2k x 5 = 626k

And without 3/3 Might of the Templar:

100k x 4 + 177k = 577k

120k x 5 = 600k

(I'm ignoring Judgement, but for those interested it will benefit TV more because TV has other %-based multipliers whereas ES has none)

+ + +

'scuse me, got to go bang my head against the wall for a bit. GG Blizz on making the single-target talent less effective at single-target damage than the mixed target one...

[Renedric]

Oh wow. Did not expect so much "no," even if these tend to invite that.

This is the first time I've enjoyed Ret in years, personally.

That's because minority is always the most vocal

[Lightfist]

That's because minority is always the most vocal

There are 71 pages of feedback for the Retribution spec on the Beta forums. The response has been almost universally negative, with reasoned and explained thoughts provided as to WHY people don't like it.

So, while you might be right that unhappy folks speak the loudest, there are an awful lot of unhappy folks.

[Deleted]

As long as we are tuned for greater blessing is our compensation for us not having movement I think ret is overall fine. I don't mind the rotation too much (it gets quite decent with 20%+ haste and full artifact). The judgment windows is a bit annoying, but all specs have annoying stuff.

[Teleros]

As long as we are tuned for greater blessing is our compensation for us not having movement I think ret is overall fine.

What on Azeroth makes you think this is the case?

[Deleted]

Well the thought behind the specc is kinda like build a combo pool , open a window and try to unleash finishers during that time.
Thats the basic thought and everything outside using finishers during the judgement uptime hits like watered noodles.
If am happy with that i would say no but that brings back the debate over hopo mechanic or a more proc oriented mechanic and i wouldnt like to go into that.
Numbers on the other hand are kinda disappointing.
I dont see how the current design can help the class survive either in raid environment or in high end pvp.
Numbers and utility are weak in the pve setting.
Utility/survivability/mobility/cc/burst are quite weak for high end pvp environment.
So although the gameplay may be intriguing/fun or w/e , in a pve environment it is still a weak peak for every raid team and for sure it is rather annoying in pvp terms.
So the answer for me is no.

[Deleted]

No, I fucking hate the colossus smash playstyle that Ret is now stuck with. If I had wanted to play a fucking arms warrior I would play a fucking arms warrior.

This. The rest of the changes I can live with but I don't want to play a bloody warrior.. Reason I voted No.

[Thontor]

After an admittedly short time in the beta, i don't get what all the fuss is about. Ret is different, sure.. but it didn't take me long to get the hang of it and it feels no better or worse than before.