So, can we call Legion a bust for anyone who played Ret, and what's in it for 8.0?

[xxcloud417xx]

I can't find this change you're talking about. It's definitely not on PTR yet.

The 4pc on the front pag; something like "Judgement reduces your next HP spender by 1" I seem to remember a different 4set bonus. Could be wrong, my other questions still stand though, curious about our Antorus performance.

[gioderpington]

SO happy to see a thread like this with so many actual points with minimum flaming.
I have to admit Tier 20 wise, ret felt to strong on some bosses and is quite fun to play. I love being the guy who can bubble taunt, do a full absorb alone, or straight up outdps anyone on multi-target fights (mythic harjtan was a dream for me, i literally felt so OP). But (and blizzard has admitted this!) ToS boss fights mostly worked around classes like ret (soaking w/ low mobility needed for melee) and we had a tier 4 set that drastically boosted our dps and made the class feel less clunky, but oh my god. Antorus looks like a nightmare for ret players. Between the subpar tier 21 4 set and boss mechanics that rely on mobility and burst, I feel like I should just reroll as an arms warrior. They literally are a mobile (slightly less utility) ret pally with higher base dps. Though,I 90% certain that about a month into antorus raid, we are going to get a huge buff, as this is what happened to other specs in similar situations. They will probably give us the tier 20 4 set as baseline or as a talent.
For 8.0 my money is on them keeping holy power, but dropping our mastery for something less restrictive. ATM they literally cannot improve our dps w/o boosting judgement/verdict. They seem very keen on giving each spec a unique power source while they whittle away at mastery. I also bet they will move the blessings to prot or holy. They do not make sense on ret from a class standpoint, just a balance one.

[Reith]

The 4pc on the front pag; something like "Judgement reduces your next HP spender by 1" I seem to remember a different 4set bonus. Could be wrong, my other questions still stand though, curious about our Antorus performance.

That's the crappy one that T21 has always had. I'm not using that over T20 for single target.

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Though,I 90% certain that about a month into antorus raid, we are going to get a huge buff, as this is what happened to other specs in similar situations.

They'll give us a tiny buff and that's it. Ret is "overrepresented" so Blizzard thinks they have to make it less appealing to play to "balance it out" lol. Social engineering in class balance? Yeah, I don't get it, either.

[gioderpington]

They'll give us a tiny buff and that's it. Ret is "overrepresented" so Blizzard thinks they have to make it less appealing to play to "balance it out" lol. Social engineering in class balance? Yeah, I don't get it, either.

True, then the opposite is happening for DH. They keep buffing demon hunters even though they are heavily represented and overtuned; all just so people play them more (was the same for death knights in wotlk). However I have noticed less pallies in general. The hall feels empty and I dont come across them in raids/dungeons anymore. I am only one person though, perhaps I just dont happen to see them outta chance alone. Hopefully they buff us a bit more than a "tiny buff", its not like we switch to a different spec to dps.

[xxcloud417xx]

True, then the opposite is happening for DH. They keep buffing demon hunters even though they are heavily represented and overtuned; all just so people play them more (was the same for death knights in wotlk). However I have noticed less pallies in general. The hall feels empty and I dont come across them in raids/dungeons anymore. I am only one person though, perhaps I just dont happen to see them outta chance alone. Hopefully they buff us a bit more than a "tiny buff", its not like we switch to a different spec to dps.

It's funny because at Legion launch, Ashbringer was statistically the most unlocked Artifact by players. Curious what the stats look like now in terms of people who were playing Ret consistently then versus now... or at least who's still maining it.

[Kalisandra]

I don't see as many Paladins the class hall as I used to either, and most of the loss is in Rets. I'm one of the one who swapped off a Pally, too - my Pally was my main from when I started mid-BC (and Ret mainspec from late BC onwards) until T20 in ToS. I just couldn't stand the lack of mobility any more, especially combined with the lacklustre damage, the need to respec for ST vs cleave vs AoE fights to have any showing at all, and on top of it all my Shaman alt had vastly better loot luck (4pc T20 before my pally got 2pc).

So, I swapped to Elemental (my shammie being my 2nd oldest toon and my best geared alt). It's not the top spec by any means (barring mass AoE pulls, of course), but I often heal and I prefer Resto healing to Holy, and ranged is so much easier than melee it's silly, even for a turret spec like Ele. Besides, my raid tends to run short on ranged.

I really hope I can go back to my Ret in 8.0.

[Wrecktangle]

Wrath is Holy Power.

Nah, Holy Power is combo points. While Wrath would fit, it's definitely not the main 1 to 1 comparison of resources.

Paladins are in a pretty good place resource-wise, their rotation is fluid and you can talent to make it more interesting too.

Which talents can you pick to make your rotation more interesting? I didn't see anything of the sort when I was playing. Mind clarifying?

I personally didn't mind Ret's rotation. It wasn't bad, but it def had room for improvement, especially with DH talented.

[Duckypoo]

At least make an attempt to move away from holy power. The spec feels like it is rolling around in molasses unless we have Crusade up. I also dislike the CS-style thing we have going on as well.

I've been saying this ever since crapaclysm smeared it's shit stain on paladins.

[gioderpington]

It's funny because at Legion launch, Ashbringer was statistically the most unlocked Artifact by players. Curious what the stats look like now in terms of people who were playing Ret consistently then versus now... or at least who's still maining it.

According to stat sites, paladins at 110 are middle of the pack in sheer numbers. But it doesn't say currently activate or not. I'm gonna guess we have dropped to below the half mark of activate mains across the world

[Morally Grey Storm]

Nerfing something popular makes as much sense as adding swine ejaculate to bread.

[Nurvus]

Retribution has been slowly dismantled since Vanilla.
Seals could've been improved to become active parts of our rotation, instead they were made boring and then removed entirely.
Auras became a Holy thing.
Greater Blessings are a joke.

I like Retribution Mastery in concept, but dislike its implementation.
They made it a high damage window only to encourage us to nullify its downtime. Might as well make it a passive.

Execution Sentence is another poorly implemented cool concept.
Divine Purpose is completely overshadowed by Crusade.
Divine Steed is the only Dialo 3 concept I hoped would never come to WoW.
I still hope we get an alternative like Pursuit of Justice or Long Arm of the Law (Judgement grants movement speed boost).

Justicar's Vengeance started out as a cool combo potential with Divine Purpose, but Blizzard made sure to kill it off alongside all other active Talents by making sure the Traits don't affect them.

[Kobor]

I have stopped playing wow, mainly because what Blizz saying about Retri is in a good place (if bottom is a good place, then fuuuuck of Blizz) and have good enough Mobility.

I am always feeling like our armour are a ton weighted related to my DH and always running well beyond after raid between bosses.
Not speaking about numbers, awful and checked the logs when 2 weeks passed since Belt Hotfixed?

[Maudib]

What are you talking about? We got the Ashbringer! That means we can't complain ever again

Rets weren't bestowed Ashbringer... Ashbringer was made into a common, uninteresting item. Blizzard used to understand the importance of rarity and earning something. Now the game truly is developed by socialists. When everything is given to everyone, nothing is worth having, at least certainly not worth working for.

[Lens Hunter]

Rets weren't bestowed Ashbringer... Ashbringer was made into a common, uninteresting item. Blizzard used to understand the importance of rarity and earning something. Now the game truly is developed by socialists. When everything is given to everyone, nothing is worth having, at least certainly not worth working for.

Lol, sorry about your life.

That said, I just switched my main to my Paladin last week and am having a blast honing my Ret skills in Tomb. Hoping to lock down Prot and Holy too, going forward into 8.0. Loving the class fantasy.

[Morally Grey Storm]

Loving the class fantasy.

Which is..?

[Talvindius]

Ret is simple and fun, if you don't like it then that's great for you man.

Remember that your opinions aren't fact.

[Shelly]

Nah, Holy Power is combo points. While Wrath would fit, it's definitely not the main 1 to 1 comparison of resources.



Which talents can you pick to make your rotation more interesting? I didn't see anything of the sort when I was playing. Mind clarifying?

I personally didn't mind Ret's rotation. It wasn't bad, but it def had room for improvement, especially with DH talented.

While they may not be a 1 to 1 there's really no difference between combo points and any other stored resource that you then spend to do your heavy abilities. I'd say HP is distinctly NOT combo points simply because it's not tied to your target.

Divine Purpose is the big one, but you can also pick Blade of Wrath - though I don't care for it since when it procs it speeds things up too much and you cap resources faster than you can spend them and are always losing procs if you have DP.

Also the choice between Fires of Justice and Zeal is an interesting one since one gives strong cleave and the other speeds your rotation up.

Although the biggest benefit to our rotation is our current tier set. I'm guessing they will be baking in the 3 HP generator with 8.0 if not 7.3.5. (Really hoping for 7.3.5.)

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I like Retribution Mastery in concept, but dislike its implementation.
They made it a high damage window only to encourage us to nullify its downtime. Might as well make it a passive.

I'd suggest you learn to time your rotation around having a specific 3 second window of dead time actually. That will allow you time to rebuild to 5 combo points as judgment is coming off CD and opens up a large chunk of your haste budget to invest in crit and mastery.

And I know a lot of folks hate mastery but I do think the sims are getting it wrong by my "feely math."

Ret feels like it hits harder than any of my other plate classes and part of that is high mastery crits of 1.5 million plus. If I was in better gear than LFR those would be 3 million plus crits. Once T21 comes around my judgment will be hitting for almost a million damage in and of itself.

[Morally Grey Storm]

Ret is simple and fun, if you don't like it then that's great for you man.

Remember that your opinions aren't fact.

having no pvp viability outside very few specific comps is fun?
having painfully lost all that made Retribution unique is fun?
having surgically dissected all that made Retribution an actual Paladin is fun?

Remember that my facts are not opinion, they are facts.

[ComputerNerd]

having no pvp viability outside very few specific comps is fun?
having painfully lost all that made Retribution unique is fun?
having surgically dissected all that made Retribution an actual Paladin is fun?

Remember that my facts are not opinion, they are facts.

If you are going to describe something as "fun", then you are as far away from facts as you can get.
I am not familiar enough with the class to dispute actual mechanics on a performance measure, but "fun" is entirely subjective and down to personal opinion just like "immersion".

You not finding something fun is fine to say.
Saying that it isn't for anyone else because it isn't for you, that is just a complete lie.

[Morally Grey Storm]

If you are going to describe something as "fun", then you are as far away from facts as you can get.
I am not familiar enough with the class to dispute actual mechanics on a performance measure, but "fun" is entirely subjective and down to personal opinion just like "immersion".

You not finding something fun is fine to say.
Saying that it isn't for anyone else because it isn't for you, that is just a complete lie.

some people find fun in molesting children
some people find fun in smearing themselves with shit
and some people find this castrated, sodomized, brutalized and mistreated spec to be fun.
So yes, this "Retribution" can be fun for some people, and I don't blame them for it. After all these are the times for tolerance and acceptance, right?