How is Ret Pally?

[Nachturnal]

Hey guys! Vodka here, hoping to get some insight about Retribution Paladins! At the moment, I have a 90 Elemental/Restoration Shaman, 90 Frost/Unholy Death Knight, and a 90 Destruction/Demonology Warlock. Oh and a 90 Hunter but that isn't happening lol.

So I really want to level another character and I'm choosing between a warrior, mage or paladin, all dps roles as assumed from my current characters. Now people would say "if you want high dps just go with a mage or warrior", however I love the concept of Paladins, Ret especially. Damage dealing healers with bubbles adding some survival aspects.

Now my decision is hard because since Wrath, I haven't seen ret paladins get much love and it worries me. I love being mostly DPS, even more I like DPS classes with self heals hence why I'm not leaning so much to mage or warrior.

So my question to the Ret Paladin community, how are you liking your Ret Paladin? How is your dps, how does gear scale with you? Does it take a really high iLvl to really make a difference? (i.e affliction warlocks) Do you like your survivability? Feelings of Blizzard toward your class/spec? All opinions and help are appreciated. Thanks guys!

[Deleted]

I only have a Ret OS, so I can't speak with authority. But Ret pallies have received and are receiving quite a bit of love in recent patches. For example, the CD of a major cooldown has been lowered, the last patch boosted base damage with 2-handed weapons and the next will give the option of a fear CC (to all palas) that may be useful in arenas.

I did try to do arena when MoP came out - twos with a Holy Paladin - and failed horribly, miserably. A lot of the failing was no doubt my lack of skill and bad comp, but I did find I lacked sustained damage; was too easily CCd during my infrequent bursts and did not have the survivability of many other dps specs. Those things have improved since launch of MoP but I am still a bit sceptical about how good they are in competitive PvP.

As far as PvE goes, my impression is that they are fine. Neither overpowered nor underpowered. But others can speak with more authority.

[Nachturnal]

Ah, thanks for the input nevertheless, its useful. Question though, wasn't the 2-handed damage boost just a tooltip fix?

Ah and forgot to mention, I'm mostly asking for a PVE standpoint!

[Aeula]

Ret paladins are pretty balanced as far as PvE is concerned, we've been slowly getting buffed each patch since MoP.

If you like bursty, bubble-hearthing, haste-stacking classes then you'll love ret paladins, but as far as self healing goes...it's not that good, at low levels one flash heal can put you at full health but at max level it'll send you OOM and only give you a small bit of health, hence why i use eternal flame if i ever need to heal.

But their burst is insane, i can take down a 2000k hp mob in ten seconds with all my CD's popped, and they keep a fair pace with non-burst damage too.

The burst is the main reason i play a ret paladin, makes soloing very easy and fun.

They're also the most fun class to level imo, i have a level 85 and a level 90 ret paladin.

[Ealyssa]

I play ret, and love it.

But really it's a very special spec that lot of people find boring. Try it, see if you match the pink awesomness (ret is especially boring low level since mop, can be hard to endure).

[Malthanis]

The class you play (or next class, as the case seems) is entirely up to you. As for your questions on the general state of Retribution, please read through the Ret-specific threads (I recommend the Ret guide and Anaxie's thread) to get an idea of where Ret stands at the moment.

Closing.