Ret Pally DPS and scaling

[Gerege]

Hi guys, how well does Ret pally scale with gear and how is their DPS compared to other Melee DPS? Also are they good in ST and AOE in mythic+ and normal/heroic raiding?

Thanks

[Melkorr]

Yes we're gucci. If you know how to optimize your Holy Power usage while your judgment is applied on targets and use your CDS/Pots properly and remember that your AoE is now directional, you'll be gucci.

One more time, gucci.

[Wutangrza]

Our AoE DPS is incredible. ST we're kinda meh'ish, but if you want to see how we're doing overall in mythic, check out:

75th percentile mythic NH parses: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=75

and


99th percentile mythic NH parses: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=99

[Consanesco]

Our AoE DPS is incredible. ST we're kinda meh'ish, but if you want to see how we're doing overall in mythic, check out:

75th percentile mythic NH parses: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=75

and


99th percentile mythic NH parses: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=99

AOE is in a good condition, not incredible. Don't use such words, they never are helpful.

[xxcloud417xx]

Yeah, our Single-Target kinda levelled off from start of expac and has hit a bit of a plateau. It isn't bad, but it's not nearly a top Single Target spec. AoE is strong, Blizzard has seen fit to continue making our AoE very competitive. The new traits are consistent with that as well, particularly the new Gold Trait.

AoE fights are very good for Ret, Mythic+ is as well since our trash AoE clear is also strong.

One big thing about Ret is that we are burst machines, our entire kit rotates around Crusade uptime and maximizing output during Crusade. I usually hit roughly 1.3 to 1.5 million burst DPS on pull (more if there is cleaveable stuff) with pre-pot, flask, bloodlust and Crusade. Then I fall off after 35secs of Crusade is over. (This is in 906 ilvl of gear, 4-set T19, only one BiS Legendary and missing Convergence of Fates, just so you have a reference point)

Armory link for reference as well: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Zalein/simple

You're a mid-pack DPS, but your utility and CDs are really nice, highly survivable for a DPS.

This is Ret in a nutshell.

Edit: I didn't really fully answer your question, so here's a bit of extra info for you.

Gear scaling is pretty good, honestly Ret without enough Haste (my comfort zone is minimum 20%) is slow and feels just bad. Crit makes your Templar's Verdict show really nice big flashy numbers and vers is just good (vers and crit are roughly equal stat priority after you hit your ideal Haste percentage). You feel a lot more powerful and your whole rotation feels a lot smoother with gear, so yeah I would say we scale well.

As far as raiding goes, my experience is with a Mythic guild and I keep up well. So for your purposes of Normal/Heroic, I'll be honest your choice has little consequence (I think each class can be competitive enough to complete lower raid content) so don't worry so much about it, just play Ret if you enjoy it.

[Deleted]

Yeah, our Single-Target kinda levelled off from start of expac and has hit a bit of a plateau. It isn't bad, but it's not nearly a top Single Target spec. AoE is strong, Blizzard has seen fit to continue making our AoE very competitive. The new traits are consistent with that as well, particularly the new Gold Trait.

AoE fights are very good for Ret, Mythic+ is as well since our trash AoE clear is also strong.

One big thing about Ret is that we are burst machines, our entire kit rotates around Crusade uptime and maximizing output during Crusade. I usually hit roughly 1.3 to 1.5 million burst DPS on pull (more if there is cleaveable stuff) with pre-pot, flask, bloodlust and Crusade. Then I fall off after 35secs of Crusade is over. (This is in 906 ilvl of gear, 4-set T19, only one BiS Legendary and missing Convergence of Fates, just so you have a reference point)

Armory link for reference as well: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Zalein/simple

You're a mid-pack DPS, but your utility and CDs are really nice, highly survivable for a DPS.

This is Ret in a nutshell.

Edit: I didn't really fully answer your question, so here's a bit of extra info for you.

Gear scaling is pretty good, honestly Ret without enough Haste (my comfort zone is minimum 20%) is slow and feels just bad. Crit makes your Templar's Verdict show really nice big flashy numbers and vers is just good (vers and crit are roughly equal stat priority after you hit your ideal Haste percentage). You feel a lot more powerful and your whole rotation feels a lot smoother with gear, so yeah I would say we scale well.

As far as raiding goes, my experience is with a Mythic guild and I keep up well. So for your purposes of Normal/Heroic, I'll be honest your choice has little consequence (I think each class can be competitive enough to complete lower raid content) so don't worry so much about it, just play Ret if you enjoy it.

What is this nice utility? Wisdom? Cause any spec that has an AoE stun is more useful than us.

Also, our AoE is good sustained AoE. We have no burst unless we got crusade running and wake of ashes.

Seriously.. just... we really an AoE stun.

Also, the BE racial is OP. Most top parses are from belf. The racial allows you to stack crusade faster unless you are really lucky with procs. Atm is also not a good time to watch parses as we got a new patch in the last 2 weeks. Lots of new traits rolling in at different paces.
Our sort of blessing of might trait will lose value as the xpac goes on because it doesn't scale.

[xxcloud417xx]

What is this nice utility? Wisdom? Cause any spec that has an AoE stun is more useful than us.

Also, our AoE is good sustained AoE. We have no burst unless we got crusade running and wake of ashes.

Seriously.. just... we really an AoE stun.

Also, the BE racial is OP. Most top parses are from belf. The racial allows you to stack crusade faster unless you are really lucky with procs. Atm is also not a good time to watch parses as we got a new patch in the last 2 weeks. Lots of new traits rolling in at different paces.
Our sort of blessing of might trait will lose value as the xpac goes on because it doesn't scale.

Wisdom is not utility. We have blessing of Freedom, BoP, Bubble and Wake of Ashes (which stuns demons and undead and has been useful many times for myself and I'm sure many other Ret Paladins). Utility isn't just providing a buff. You have such a narrow view of utility if you're only talking about wisdom. Utility is the fact that Ret can be called upon to cheese mechanics and/or allow someone else to do the same since we can either survive it or give a person BoP to do the same. That's real utility.

Take Blinding Light, and you have an AoE disorient, next best thing to a stun.

Also, your comment about Crusade is exactly what I said... Crusade is your burst, so you do have burst.

[Deleted]

Wisdom is not utility. We have blessing of Freedom, BoP, Bubble and Wake of Ashes (which stuns demons and undead and has been useful many times for myself and I'm sure many other Ret Paladins). Utility isn't just providing a buff. You have such a narrow view of utility if you're only talking about wisdom. Utility is the fact that Ret can be called upon to cheese mechanics and/or allow someone else to do the same since we can either survive it or give a person BoP to do the same. That's real utility.

Take Blinding Light, and you have an AoE disorient, next best thing to a stun.

Also, your comment about Crusade is exactly what I said... Crusade is your burst, so you do have burst.

How much of this utility have you used this tier?

You got a single target stun that isn't worth the GCD. Blinding light is ok but the mobs will probably be immune to the disorient, so, it gets one interrupt at best. Wisdom is the only thing that is marginally useful.

You are selling what i consider to be a lie here. It's not about my view of what utility is, it's about if that utility actually has a use. Go ahead and try to cheese any mechanic of note and you will find it pierces your immunities. So, the only thing you will be cheesing is a fel injection or bonds. Theres your utility. Awesome sauce.
Also, don't forget that prot and holy are a thing, freedom is not something you will be called to do, not that it has any use this tier.
Wake of ashes is rotational aswell, though i'd be happy if it stunned everything rather than just demons and undead.

Conclusion here is: No, no one is gonna take a Ret for his utility, as far as raids are concerned (unless they are trying to cut on healers). You bring your damage, wich will be compared to other DPS. Thats it. If the raid needs an AoE stun, you will be benched or your raid will wipe trying to make up for it. Yaay! Ret utility guyz!

[SilenceRedo]

You got a single target stun that isn't worth the GCD.

What? If a stun is needed it's ALWAYS worth the GCD.


Being an offtank is also utility. The tries I saved in M Aluriel taunting frost elemantals or solo tanking the Annihilate with bubble... In fact, back in December, our first M Odyn kill I tanked like the final 15 seconds. But hey! Ret has no utility at all...


PD: I do want Sacrifice back.

[Deleted]

What is this nice utility? Wisdom?

Yes

Wisdom is not utility.

Excuse you

[xxcloud417xx]

What? If a stun is needed it's ALWAYS worth the GCD.


Being an offtank is also utility. The tries I saved in M Aluriel taunting frost elemantals or solo tanking the Annihilate with bubble... In fact, back in December, our first M Odyn kill I tanked like the final 15 seconds. But hey! Ret has no utility at all...

PD: I do want Sacrifice back.

This is precicely my point. Your utility as Ret is being not fucking dead and getting rid of otherwise deadly mechanics or helping. Soaking Mythic Spellblade annihilates comes to mind for me too.

And I agree, Blessing of Sacrifice would be wonderful to have again.

Also for Treeqt's comment, utility is being helpful during shit hitting the fan scenarios or avoiding them entirely to me. Wisdom is a buff and it ends there for me. I'm not saying it's not good but I find Wisdom/Kings to be just a shadow of the former buffs we used to have and as a class that was designed as a buffer at earlier stages/expacs of this game they could really bring more to the table other than "class fantasy buttons" with little impact... but I digress and I have more I could say on it and I'd rather not derail this thread.

I'll be honest I'm looking at my raid comp and the amount of class utility in each class is pretty low when it comes to DPS anyway. Particularly melee. Nemmar makes a comment about not taking a ret for his utility and I can't really think of any of our melee dps that were taken for their respective utility anyway. So the point is still just moot. Melee utility isn't a sought after thing (Rogue being maybe the one exception, and even still, the utility was not the main reason we got one), but Ret has some good cheese at least so that's their edge. I'll still just reiterate my point from before though, OP is asking about M+ and Normal/Heroic raiding so just play what feels good in your hands and if that's Ret, then so be it and enjoy yourself. I'm not here to argue about it, just telling him what's in our kit and what he can expect.

[dartanon]

solo tanking the Annihilate with bubble...

That ability does damage through bubble, you are taunting for a stack of the debuff and your tank is taunting back and taking the following damage.

[SilenceRedo]

That ability does damage through bubble, you are taunting for a stack of the debuff and your tank is taunting back and taking the following damage.

Exactly. When I get the debuff and the tank taunts back I can still mitigate that damage with Eye for an Eye.

[xxcloud417xx]

Usually I take the first few hits with Shield of Vengeance + Eye for an Eye with the tank to alleviate healer burden. But yeah concept is the same.

[Lucidterror]

I think retribution overall has quite a bit more going for it than some realize. It all depends on your playstyle. If you are only worried about ST damage then this isn't the spec for you. 2 target cleave is better, but where we shine is anything over 2 targets. Another thing to take into account is our off-healing capability. I use word of glory, and judgment of light on a lot of healing intensive fights. You may lose a little bit of dps due to using WoG, but the healing can be the difference between a kill and a wipe. I use BoP on a lot of fights and I also use my flash of light to spot heal a dying teammate. Lay on Hands is always appreciated and we also have Kings/Wisdom.

People can underestimate Wisdom, but that gives quite a bit of mana over the course of even a short fight. It is a matter of how you play your class rather than the class itself. So does ret have utility? I would have to argue it does in spades. Are we the best pure damage dealer? No, but we bring a lot of other things to the table. On the question of item scaling I would say we start low and finish fairly strong. At low haste levels our rotation feels clunky and slow. Once you can get haste over 20% it seems to work out a lot better. Critical Strike and Versatility are also very strong. The best thing to do is Simcraft with scaling factor stat weights with each piece of gear. If you don't like that maybe try Askmrrobot.com's new Machine Learning process. It's more for the lazy min/maxer.

[Bonkura]

Ret is in all aspects except mobility either really strong or where it should be. Complaining about anything is asking for it to be OP or just pet peeves regarding playstyle.

[Bormec]

Basically, on a fight like Tichondrius or Elisande, you'll probably be in the middle (this is from my personal experience). On a fight like Spellblade and Gul'dan though? You'll wreck shit if you know how to maximize your DPS once adds come in. Your DPS will always shift dramatically when Crusade is on cooldown and/or you have to move. Demon hunters and rogues will have better trash DPS than you more often than not, especially when Crusade is on CD. Crusade is the Ret paladin albatross we must wear.

But to answer your question, with the right gear and tier set and the right Legendary(s), you'll do well.

[SilenceRedo]

Ret is in all aspects except mobility either really strong or where it should be. Complaining about anything is asking for it to be OP or just pet peeves regarding playstyle.

There is only ONE thing I can't get over and I will cry forever to have it back: Hammer of Wrath.

Fuck the "class fantasy" of "Warriors should be kings of excecute" when they give us in our mastery a copypasted warrior mechanic.

Warriors always did the most damage in excecute phase, that's what made them "kings" of such moment in the fight. But our hammer of wrath was our most iconic ability ever. Only judgment would be more iconic but for the whole class, as Ret specific, our thrown hammer was the signature. And it should be back.

[Bonkura]

There is only ONE thing I can't get over and I will cry forever to have it back: Hammer of Wrath.

Fuck the "class fantasy" of "Warriors should be kings of excecute" when they give us in our mastery a copypasted warrior mechanic.

Warriors always did the most damage in excecute phase, that's what made them "kings" of such moment in the fight. But our hammer of wrath was our most iconic ability ever. Only judgment would be more iconic but for the whole class, as Ret specific, our thrown hammer was the signature. And it should be back.

Class design is a different topic.

[Morally Grey Storm]

Claiming Ret has strong offhealing is anecdotal at best.
Claiming our so-called offhealing passes for utility is strawman at best.
Gbok doesn't matter.
Gbow is not an utility, it's just a fire-forget buff which eases mana issues for a few healers.

HoF, BoP - these are utility oriented spells indeed.
The problem is, they see next to no use thus expansion and are provided by different paladin specs aswell, not to mention other paladin specs have more blessings, which are actually useful :hosac, bospellwarding.
Did I mention Holy Paladins can use blessings more often? Now I did. Sane thing regarding prot.
Do I have to mention both Holy and prot can use lohands a lot, lot more often than we?

Warriors have commanding shout, DH have darkness, monks can karma, etc. These are examples of exceptional utility.

But hey, we gave good aoe.
Disregard come tomb of surgeries there will be close to no aoe.