[7.0 Retribution Paladin] Guide and Discussion

[Teleros]

I'd be doubtful, I've noticed no change in the amount of Mastery rating equating to 1% on beta.

If you have (effective) 100% uptime on the Judgement debuff, then that might make sense if all your finishers are getting buffed from it. At least on a single target fight, of course.

[Solsacra]

Simcraft(July 27 release)! I've been simming with 30% and the priority went to Mastery>Versa>Crit>Haste. I didn't update the OP yet because I'm not entirely certain about the accuracy.

I've some updates coming to the Simcraft APL that should handle a bunch of stuff, especially at higher haste levels, much better.


One of the issues with the current release is WoA and its judgment interaction. That has been reworked to execute more or less on CD (also has the added benefit of improving Crusade). As a result, the priority has shuffled a bit, E.g; Judgment no longer occupies the highest point in the priority, but now lands somewhere in the middle to better accomodate Blade and capped CS/Zeal charge usage.

Anyway, once this is done I'll probably pop back in to lay out my findings with the haste / mastery shenanigans. Haste is most definitely our preferred stat, but to what extent I don't think anyone can say for certain atm.

[Deleted]

If you have (effective) 100% uptime on the Judgement debuff, then that might make sense if all your finishers are getting buffed from it. At least on a single target fight, of course.

I was testing with effective uptime and when I added on the benefit of a further 1000 mastery rating or 1000 crit rating, I was getting more return for crit (with and without VB). But that was before 7.0 patch went live. I will be doing some more testing tomorrow so I'll see then.

[Ulthane]

@Thete would popping Crusade and using JV and then WoA with JV again for instant 10 stacks be a thing later or no? Thoughts?

[Deleted]

@Thete would popping Crusade and using JV and then WoA with JV again for instant 10 stacks be a thing later or no? Thoughts?

Apparently in terms of overall damage, it doesn't seem to make much difference whether you fire out two JVs or a series of TVs. Given that, when you take Crusade, there's isn't much of a DPS role for even having JV (compared to say WoG with current numbers) on a boss fight, it might be as well to go for the latter. Though you certainly want to pool 5HP before popping Crusade and then probably spend, CS, spend, WoA, spend more.

[Snegovik]

Snegovik, i all but simpathize with your struggles. PvP may be worse, i don't know. But PvE is pretty bad.

I got way frustrated playing my Paladin again last night that i'm pondering changing main again for legion. The lack of burst AoE (and mostly just simple burst on weak adds) and mobility are beyond infuriating (i was running around in assault and when getting to the mobs everything was dead already). What is the use of a melee who can't burst, can't move and only has single target? I can see what feral druids have felt for ages. I wonder how it will be in legion because then we won't have the 3 stacks of wings, so i don't even know if the single target will hold up anymore. I really don't think Wake of ahes will be enough. I need to level up more on legion beta. Just haven't had the time.

Most of all i wish we had lvl110 scaling graphs for all classes like simcraft used to have for all tiers before. It will be imperative to see how things will scale at high level because i predict pretty nasty stuff. Ergh... like we needed the legendaries on top of that. -.-

I am sincerely sorry to hear it mate, i was hoping at least PVE fellows will not get a short end of the stick, you know? Since Rets is doing a some what decent dmg.

Yeh you right about 3-charges of wings. It bothered me in WOD how Blizzard instead of fixing our spec, just applied a bandage simply making Ret's pve tier gear powerful, that is one lazy and bad design in my book.

For me personally it not the issue with numbers, as you pointed out lack of mobility is infuriating, and to me Ret was one of the best mobile classes, you could not snare us, we had perma 50% slow, we had freedom, we had range attacks, i loved the design, but current design of being a vanilla warrior without charge is just making me to hate my main of 9 years >.<. I plaid ret all these years not because it was OP but because i found this spec most enjoyable because of the game style it provided and now i feel like i do not even recognize it =(.

I really hope that you will enjoy playing Paladin as a class since you mentioned that you enjoy Holy and you may heal =) so i hope you will keep on having fun with Paladin as legion comes. personally i will try DH and see if i enjoy it and go from there.

[Deleted]

I am sincerely sorry to hear it mate, i was hoping at least PVE fellows will not get a short end of the stick, you know? Since Rets is doing a some what decent dmg.

Yeh you right about 3-charges of wings. It bothered me in WOD how Blizzard instead of fixing our spec, just applied a bandage simply making Ret's pve tier gear powerful, that is one lazy and bad design in my book.

For me personally it not the issue with numbers, as you pointed out lack of mobility is infuriating, and to me Ret was one of the best mobile classes, you could not snare us, we had perma 50% slow, we had freedom, we had range attacks, i loved the design, but current design of being a vanilla warrior without charge is just making me to hate my main of 9 years >.<. I plaid ret all these years not because it was OP but because i found this spec most enjoyable because of the game style it provided and now i feel like i do not even recognize it =(.

I really hope that you will enjoy playing Paladin as a class since you mentioned that you enjoy Holy and you may heal =) so i hope you will keep on having fun with Paladin as legion comes. personally i will try DH and see if i enjoy it and go from there.

Thanks man. but i am totally not going holy haha. My decision has always been between Ret and Fury. Fury feels alot like the WoD Ret i loved in terms of damaging abilities (my beloved empowered divine storm <3), but i love my Paladin (like you i have mained him for the longest time. Since in TBC Ret was first viable in raids).

[Snegovik]

Thanks man. but i am totally not going holy haha. My decision has always been between Ret and Fury. Fury feels alot like the WoD Ret i loved in terms of damaging abilities (my beloved empowered divine storm <3), but i love my Paladin (like you i have mained him for the longest time. Since in TBC Ret was first viable in raids).

Yeh fury is nice, but atm its survival is total crap, and i dont touch melee classes who survival 1v1 is crap, i may dust up my war when legion comes out to lvl him and see if i like Fury (That is if DH and Prot Pally fail for me). But its good that you enjoy holly, personally i hate healing, even when i used to play Disc in s3, i was a hybird Shadow/Disc spec for Mind flay, and in BGs i would actually DPS 100% lol as disc and only heal myself =)

Edit: Finally got my hands on some Beta Prot Game play testing...did a BG as Prot Pally, the pvp templates really nerf prots in pvp Instances, the dmg is very low, you present no danger to anything that can heal or off-heal. So i guess the only hope for me left is DH :P

[Doombringer]

but current design of being a vanilla warrior without charge is just making me to hate my main of 9 years >.<. I plaid ret all these years not because it was OP but because i found this spec most enjoyable because of the game style it provided and now i feel like i do not even recognize it =(.

I really hope that you will enjoy playing Paladin as a class since you mentioned that you enjoy Holy and you may heal =) so i hope you will keep on having fun with Paladin as legion comes. personally i will try DH and see if i enjoy it and go from there.

It's stuff like this that really gets me. I'm also playing Ret not because it is top-shelf/flavor of the month, but because it has been a fun spec AND my original warrior main had an RP storyline that lined up perfectly with a re-roll to Paladin. To see the spec now, where it feels like it isn't completely finished and is even less fun than a Classic warrior... sigh.

When I get up close and can hit something, I don't mind the rotation or the judgment 'window.' But it's those periods in between where I literally have nothing to throw at a target outside of melee range... and I can't get up close to them very quickly. Divine Steed doesn't cut it.

[Snegovik]

It's stuff like this that really gets me. I'm also playing Ret not because it is top-shelf/flavor of the month, but because it has been a fun spec AND my original warrior main had an RP storyline that lined up perfectly with a re-roll to Paladin. To see the spec now, where it feels like it isn't completely finished and is even less fun than a Classic warrior... sigh.

When I get up close and can hit something, I don't mind the rotation or the judgment 'window.' But it's those periods in between where I literally have nothing to throw at a target outside of melee range... and I can't get up close to them very quickly. Divine Steed doesn't cut it.

Amen to that brother, and I feel like it will get even worse when players who play range will adapt to Ret and will just kite u or play tag ball with another range using u as a ball. I honestly think blizzard needs to either fix our mobility or give us tools similar to DK, so that we can stick to a target.

[Deleted]

While I do raiding in a semi-casual/hardcore setting, whatever you wanna call it, I do pick my choices based on class fantasy, lore etc. I personally am now at a point I will only play plate classes. Ret is on my Legion shortlist because I like Paladins a lot.

What bugs me is the insane amount of salty people in this subforum. If you read all the screaming and anger, your first impression would be to stay far far away from here and paladins, it seems to be that bad. But thankfully I know that vocal minority is a thing on game related forums.

Torn between Frost DK and Ret Pala. Leaving my vanilla Warr behind for good.

[Taeldorian]

While I do raiding in a semi-casual/hardcore setting, whatever you wanna call it, I do pick my choices based on class fantasy, lore etc. I personally am now at a point I will only play plate classes. Ret is on my Legion shortlist because I like Paladins a lot.

What bugs me is the insane amount of salty people in this subforum. If you read all the screaming and anger, your first impression would be to stay far far away from here and paladins, it seems to be that bad. But thankfully I know that vocal minority is a thing on game related forums.

Torn between Frost DK and Ret Pala. Leaving my vanilla Warr behind for good.

Just play ret if you want to. Dont let opinions of others get in your way. I wont tell you if its bad or good since thats not what your looking for obviously, but I will say paladin class fantasy is better than edgelord class fantasy.

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Thanks man. but i am totally not going holy haha. My decision has always been between Ret and Fury. Fury feels alot like the WoD Ret i loved in terms of damaging abilities (my beloved empowered divine storm <3), but i love my Paladin (like you i have mained him for the longest time. Since in TBC Ret was first viable in raids).

Eh, if you have mained paladin for such a long time I dont see why you would switch. We may be shit as it stands but it WILL get fixed. No, we shouldnt have to need band aid fixes and all that, but we will get them eventually. Ive played my paladin for over 2145 hours in WoW and I dont plan on switching, no matter how bad it gets. The only class I seriously enjoy in WoW is paladin. Ret may not be good now, but they might fix it later, and no you shouldnt have to wait till later, it should be good right now, I get that, but still. If its a class youve played for a majority of WoW you might as well stay with it. Unless your going for Blizzcon tournaments and such I dont see a reason you cant reach glad in 3s. It may be harder to get a comp, but it wont be impossible.

I main holy and have for a really long time, but no matter how bad it gets Ill be sticking with it. I love the class, the fantasy, and I have so many hours on my paladin as I said before. Some people in here already said they plan on sucking it up, so its up to you if you want to or not. We will most likely see band aid fixes later on in the expac if ret really ends up being garbage tier. As for pve, it isnt that bad. There are some people saying its good and proving it through logs, and vice versa. We will not be top dps, but we are top middle of the pack, or lower middle of the pack if you arent min maxing.


TLDR- If you have played paladin since vanilla, then theres no reason to switch. The class has been in an absolutely awful spot before. I dont know how you feel about this kinda thing, but if its your main you should stick with it. If you arent having fun with it try a different spec like prot (which btw is really good in pvp}. If thats not working for you, then I guess you should switch, but thats a rough decision to make man. I would just suck it up and wait for the band aid fixes (and yes, we shouldnt need those band aid fixes, but thats inevitable now anyway}. Its up to you either way, and i hope you enjoy whatever you choose!

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Yeh fury is nice, but atm its survival is total crap, and i dont touch melee classes who survival 1v1 is crap, i may dust up my war when legion comes out to lvl him and see if i like Fury (That is if DH and Prot Pally fail for me). But its good that you enjoy holly, personally i hate healing, even when i used to play Disc in s3, i was a hybird Shadow/Disc spec for Mind flay, and in BGs i would actually DPS 100% lol as disc and only heal myself =)

Edit: Finally got my hands on some Beta Prot Game play testing...did a BG as Prot Pally, the pvp templates really nerf prots in pvp Instances, the dmg is very low, you present no danger to anything that can heal or off-heal. So i guess the only hope for me left is DH :P

If thats what your choosing, try the comp that we talked about before. Havoc/arms/hpal is insane.

[ujx]

No amount of number tuning can fix the shit class design. Only AoE is a 30 second artifact power or your 3 cost Divine Storm and pray for DP. You won't get brought in for any AoE fight. Your cleave is dog shit, you won't be brought in for that. Your single target is laughable, you won't be brought in for that. Your mobility is a joke. There is absolutely zero reason to bring a ret paladin to a raid.

You are right, ret has been in shit spots before. What ended up happening? Ret got moved up from shit tier to peaking at middle of the pack tier. That's the best you can hope for this expansion. I am not someone who takes rerolling lightly. I have played ret since Cata and have swapped to alts for fights that ret was garbage at (a lot). I gave up on ret a few months ago when it was apparent Blizz has lost touch with the community and their feedback. At this point, anyone who is sticking with ret is either a dreamer holding out for some crazy buff down the road, or just plain stubborn.

[Snegovik]

If thats what your choosing, try the comp that we talked about before. Havoc/arms/hpal is insane.

Oh i am so doing it 100%.
P.S. tod i ran Ret/Ret/Hpal with some randoms, we did actually very good lol we won vs teams like Resto/UA/UH Disc/Arms/feral Disc/UA/Arms Disc/Fire/Boomy lol all 3 of us just tunnel healer with chain HOJes into 2x JV hits, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm that was pleasing, i wish that all arena games were so easy

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No amount of number tuning can fix the shit class design. Only AoE is a 30 second artifact power or your 3 cost Divine Storm and pray for DP. You won't get brought in for any AoE fight. Your cleave is dog shit, you won't be brought in for that. Your single target is laughable, you won't be brought in for that. Your mobility is a joke. There is absolutely zero reason to bring a ret paladin to a raid.

You are right, ret has been in shit spots before. What ended up happening? Ret got moved up from shit tier to peaking at middle of the pack tier. That's the best you can hope for this expansion. I am not someone who takes rerolling lightly. I have played ret since Cata and have swapped to alts for fights that ret was garbage at (a lot). I gave up on ret a few months ago when it was apparent Blizz has lost touch with the community and their feedback. At this point, anyone who is sticking with ret is either a dreamer holding out for some crazy buff down the road, or just plain stubborn.

Or masochist

[seeltas92]

The salt in here is real xD

btt: Does anyone have like "good and reliable" simlogs? Noxxic is crap and like 3/4 of what is posted in here, too.

[Deleted]

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Eh, if you have mained paladin for such a long time I dont see why you would switch. We may be shit as it stands but it WILL get fixed. No, we shouldnt have to need band aid fixes and all that, but we will get them eventually. Ive played my paladin for over 2145 hours in WoW and I dont plan on switching, no matter how bad it gets. The only class I seriously enjoy in WoW is paladin. Ret may not be good now, but they might fix it later, and no you shouldnt have to wait till later, it should be good right now, I get that, but still. If its a class youve played for a majority of WoW you might as well stay with it. Unless your going for Blizzcon tournaments and such I dont see a reason you cant reach glad in 3s. It may be harder to get a comp, but it wont be impossible.

I main holy and have for a really long time, but no matter how bad it gets Ill be sticking with it. I love the class, the fantasy, and I have so many hours on my paladin as I said before. Some people in here already said they plan on sucking it up, so its up to you if you want to or not. We will most likely see band aid fixes later on in the expac if ret really ends up being garbage tier. As for pve, it isnt that bad. There are some people saying its good and proving it through logs, and vice versa. We will not be top dps, but we are top middle of the pack, or lower middle of the pack if you arent min maxing.


TLDR- If you have played paladin since vanilla, then theres no reason to switch. The class has been in an absolutely awful spot before. I dont know how you feel about this kinda thing, but if its your main you should stick with it. If you arent having fun with it try a different spec like prot (which btw is really good in pvp}. If thats not working for you, then I guess you should switch, but thats a rough decision to make man. I would just suck it up and wait for the band aid fixes (and yes, we shouldnt need those band aid fixes, but thats inevitable now anyway}. Its up to you either way, and i hope you enjoy whatever you choose!

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Yeah it is rough. Some of my friends are trying to have me stick to Ret because its the class i always mained. I was decided to stick to it untl recently i was raiding HFC post patch and the lack of burst AoE and mobility frustrated me and made me feel like i would be more useful to the raid playing something else.
Currently i am undecided. In terms of raw fun, i enjoy the fury warrior more. The Ret rotation is a cavalcade of nonsense and i have played long enough to know what is the game Blizzard is going to play here. Its the "next expansion" game. I have been through it before.
So, currently i am leveling my Ret to 110 in beta. I want to see how it feels at max level. If i can't get enough info i will simply level both up in the first few days and play both specs until i see wich one i want to stick to.
It has been a terrible decision process indeed. I love my Paladin, but if i'm frustrated and not enjoying the raids it's best if i play something i can be excited about.

[Taeldorian]

Yeah it is rough. Some of my friends are trying to have me stick to Ret because its the class i always mained. I was decided to stick to it untl recently i was raiding HFC post patch and the lack of burst AoE and mobility frustrated me and made me feel like i would be more useful to the raid playing something else.
Currently i am undecided. In terms of raw fun, i enjoy the fury warrior more. The Ret rotation is a cavalcade of nonsense and i have played long enough to know what is the game Blizzard is going to play here. Its the "next expansion" game. I have been through it before.
So, currently i am leveling my Ret to 110 in beta. I want to see how it feels at max level. If i can't get enough info i will simply level both up in the first few days and play both specs until i see wich one i want to stick to.
It has been a terrible decision process indeed. I love my Paladin, but if i'm frustrated and not enjoying the raids it's best if i play something i can be excited about.

In terms of pve the numbers are pretty much there at 110. In my opinion as much as I hate ret I do find it a lot more enjoyable at 110, and with more haste I find it even more enjoyable. We still have no mobility, but there are a lot of raid encounters that don't require that much. As holy I don't even take divine steed, I take Rule of Law and I'm fine on mobility fights, I just have to pay more attention to what's going to happen when. It's all up to perspective, if it's a class you've played since vanilla I would suggest not leaving and either wait for the inevitable band aid fixes (if we actually do perform like shit everywhere).

But definitely do as you said, level to 110 and figure some stuff out.

We don't have burst aoe but we do have sustained aoe, our single target is a bit interesting since it could go both ways depending on what talents you take, and cleave depending on how far apart the targets are is good. Target switching isn't that bad since with more haste judgement is usually always up (or it has 1-2 sec left since your last judgement) so if you know a priority add is coming then hit judgement with enough time for it to be up by the time the add(s) come or just hold it for a sec. It's not as bad as it used to be.

Either way it's up to you, I find it a bit more enjoyable at 110 for sure. There are some obvious issues (where's our extra utility...) but eh. If you've played ret since vanilla might as well just stick with it, there's a few people in here who have played for nearly just as long and they are staying. Still though, all up to you so choose what makes you glad you play the game. For me, that's my paladin and always will be

[Deleted]

No amount of number tuning can fix the shit class design.

Yeah this is really it - I don't care what the numbers are, because the lack of utility, the shitty movement, and the shitty 'rotation' is shit.
If i want to play keep colossus smash on CD, I'l play my fucking warrior.

[Hashcrypt]

Ret was good when Blizz made good pvp templates after pre patch launched.

Since then Blizz went fucking nuts with damage nerfs and health inflation.

Now Ret is trash. Hope Blizz has better pvp templates at 110. When I get on a healer, theyre suppose to die. Instead they just tank my damage like I'm not there.

And of course we'll ignore the abortion of balance that are Locks. Jesus Christ how can blizzard be okay with unkillable locks?

Guess we'll all just have to cross our fingers and hope for better pvp templates.

[LordAmbrosia]

What bugs me is the insane amount of salty people in this subforum. If you read all the screaming and anger, your first impression would be to stay far far away from here and paladins, it seems to be that bad. But thankfully I know that vocal minority is a thing on game related forums.

That's literally every classes forums right now. Go ahead, check them out, you'll realize that everyone believes their class is garbage. People pretend to be more outraged than they really are, its just campaigning for buffs since they know blizzard factors in feedback from the community more than most developers.