Is Ret worth leveling for right now?

[Snoman]

Hello, my title is basically my question. I was Ret from BC till Cata when I quit. I always loved the look of the gear, the spells, the class lore; but when Cata ruined the play-ability of the spec for me I left the game. I came back 2 months ago and have been playing a Boomkin/Resto druid. I want to pick up Ret again but fear that if I put in the effort to level and gear my paladin it won't be worth it. The sims show it doing well in single target, but I have no clue about the multi-target.

Basically...did today's ret hotfixes make it a viable option in Mythic+/raids?

[Progressiv]

Imo they are viable in Mythic +:
We've cleared +8 with 2 rets and 1 WW and we cleared them without having too much problem. They have alot of sustain abilities and they are good at AoE for short fights.

We have one in our raid group and hes not doing well so i can't tell you about raids.

[Lochton]

I'm doing quite well in HC EN. With 400k dps burst at 840 ilvl. 150-250k stable (Without flask/rune)

Quite fun, really.

[Gurg]

Adding kinda positive comments on top of Progressiv's and Gehco's

I too was Shockadin/Ret player back in BC after which i abandoned pink crusade ship and swapped it for red ice breaker, then changed to light green cruiser since MoP.
TBH i havent found class since i enjoyed since i abandoned, so, with Legion i decided to give pinkies one more go.

So far.. i love IT! im i850 without any legends so far. Ill be honest.. Ret is atrocious boring and mind numbing at low haste. Really boring and slow. So much that i considered paid boost to try new survival, but i didnt wanted do give up. So i pressed on. And let me tell you, i was glad that i persevere.

As soon as you get ~25% Haste retri becomes more faster and fun. Nothing actually changes in rotation it self, its same rotation since lvl 100, it just goes a lot faster.
As for mythic-raids...

In mythic were strong on AoE fights and decent on ST fights, but mainly we have A TON of utility and on not so many times i saved fight, tank/healer with well placed LoH, BoF or simply BoPing that Rogues/DHs ass when they end up in bad stuff on the ground.

Raids.. Well, as Progressiv said, were getting butt hurt in fights with target swaps simply because our damage is depending on that Judgement window. And were slow melee. Slow as hell. But, when we start hitting we hit hard and good.

On top of that im seeing more and more paladins around, far more that i used to see them in previous expansions.

Hey.. if nothing works out.. you can always do something like this xD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEDjGUYlCVw

[wellsdaddy]

First, my personal point of reference as I started playing the game and raiding on Cata's launch, and I loved the game play back then. You just had to understand, it was going to be retarded burst damage every 2 minutes and starving in between, but it was quite relevant and fun. It always seemed to me back then that the people who quit (or quit Ret) simply did not keep up with the changes made, or were mildly to drastically offended by the changes from faceroll-central in WotLK. I think if you love Ret, you adapt and typically it works out.

All that aside, this expansion itself has been my favorite since Cata ( as it was new to me). The questing, gearing via dungeons, and now in to mythic plus and raids, all quite enjoyable, and with the latest buffs to Ret, I certainly think they are worth leveling if you once enjoyed it. And if all of this is not enough, I will leave you with a final one-word selling point: Ashbringer

[Deleted]

You really have to start by defining "viable". It is a very broad term, hence Yes we are viable in both mythic + and raids. But so are all speccs in the game. Heck, you can even go Holy dps and being "viable.

I don't know what terrible AoE dps some of you have played with, but ret is nowhere near other classes like DH, Monks, Mage, Rogues in mythic + AoE nor single target. In fact we are one of the worst AoE classes right now. It is really our Single target that stands out. Target switching is a nightmare and even bossfights that usually favors us (Ursoc, Nythendra) can really screw with DPS output if we have to run away when building our crusade. In that sense, it is just not "viable" for higher level of raiding.

You will for sure be the last pick in mythic + dungeons. No sane group leader will invite a Ret over a mentioned above classes in his mythic 6+ or higher groups. If you try to find groups you will soon see the pattern and be declined in 9/10 times.

But hey, if you are casual then for sure go for Ret! It can be fun at times. Atm it is VERY strong with the buffs for single target. But the incoming nerfhammer is inevitable.

I would not recommend Ret before (or if, rip) they change our mastery and put Divine Steed off the GCD.

[ehxy]

Is it better to level in prot spec?

[Snegovik]

If you are a PvP junkie like I am, or have an interest of pushing for Title/mount this season, Ret is a very good pick. Our ST dmg is one of the best in Arena (after Arms), we are hard to kill and we provide our healers with nice survival toolkit, the only down side it is easy to kite us, but if you grp up with a rogue, it should be easy wins as Ret.

Also a down side from PvE where our judgement window has a very low duration time, hence switching and running off and back is a big issue and a dps loss, in PvP we have honor talent that increases duration of our judgement debuff making it 100% uptime even if u get peeled and cced for a bit, also 30% increase speed on freedom is sure nice mobility buff.

Hence while in PvE our AOE is crap, our ST is decent but not the best, in Rated Arena Rets are in a very very strong spot atm compared to what we were in cata/mop/wod, i think it is 2nd best pvp season for Rets since Wrath.

P.S. we still suck for RBGs :P

[Deleted]

Is it better to level in prot spec?

Yes it is. Same goes for almost every class that has a tank specc.