How is ret right now in pvp?

[Illana]

triple dps with ret as offheals doesnt work anymore with healing reduction and pvp power

before you could top someone from 10-100% with a buffed wog and that's why triple dps worked in s11.

[brandonsurge]

Considering my full prideful ret routinely gets kicked out of RBG's if i manage to actually sneak into one, yea. They aren't useful at all. Just don't play ret if you want to take pvp seriously at all.

[DrMcNinja]

It's the least viable DPS class. HOWEVER. A good Ret, surrounded by good teammates, can pull off a lot.

See:

[Demsi]

It's the least viable DPS class. HOWEVER. A good Ret, surrounded by good teammates, can pull off a lot.

See:

You are very correct about that, however there are very few comps that goes well with a ret, also that is mostly in 3`s, RBG and 2`s, not so, and not to mention those that enjoy doing normal Bgs

[Deleted]

I've watched some ret/hpriest/mage 3s at 2600 mmr with arguably the best ret out there - Vanguards (Venruki was on his mage and iirc Fusion on priest). Considering all of them are multiglads on multiclasses and generally accepted among the best WoW players, it was obvious to see how difficult ret is to play on high ratings.

They did exceptionally well against some comps (like shatterplay and godcomp), but when they reached affli/resto shaman tier (around 2700 mmr), every single match was a loss. Without any chance of winning as well.

Granted Vanguards, Venruki and Fusion are among the top 0.01% PvPers and shouldn't be taken as a measure, but it clearly shows all of rets weaknesses.

[Anium]

Ret is still ok in 2s, maybe 3s, but not really. Rbgs forgetttttttt abouuuuut ittttttt.

[Lolretadin]

Dk's are the least viable melee class. Retribution is a spec and its impossible to balance. Keep it a duel/random bg hero spec. I am getting sick of all of these fucking Ret threads.

I'm going to apologize right now, but if you are a DK and think that Ret Paladin are more powerful than you, you're a very bad player.

Yeah and just imagine if Battle fatigue didn't exist how powerful Retribution paladins or any melee hybrid is. You can fix Ret. You either buff its damage and give the "fuck you" to Rogues, DK's and Warriors or you ignore it and leave the melee role for pure melee classes.

Not to mention, buffing Ret just promotes fucking triple dps and melee cleaves. Nobody wants that shit. If there was only one thing wrong with my favorite season (season 11) it was the fact that Ret was viable and shit like Ret/Ret/DK, Ret/Hunter/Rogue existed. Keeping Retribution bad is good for balance and keeps the skilled classes like wizards in power.

1) There was a time when Battle Fatigue was not as heavy a penalty near the start of the expansion, Ret was still one of the worst melee when they were doing full healing + PvPPower.
2) Buffing Ret wouldn't be unfair to any of those classes, or anyone really, as long as the class is balanced around said utility properly.
3) At this point I'm not sure if you're trolling or are just really bad at the game. No class needs to be globally worse to ensure balance.

[Skarssen]

Keeping Retribution bad is good for balance and keeps the skilled classes like wizards in power.

I'm not sure if I should be angry or laughing hysterically right now.

[Ktperry]

Unless, you're Vanguards you're better off with a Warrior.

[Yvaelle]

Personally I think the biggest issue for Ret is their defensive cooldowns. If Rets had a 1m defensive cooldown that was strong enough to deter a kill cycle if used proactively by anticipating enemy burst - the situation would be completely different: unrecognizably so to most players right now. It's that simple. Bubble is an extremely potent defensive - but it's way, way too potent for the current meta-game. Burst cycles come once every minute or less, with strong burst cycles being every ~3 minutes generally.

The classes which do well right now are the classes who have defensive cooldowns that meet or exceed the burst capability and frequency of the best comps (1m pokes, 3m murderdeathsprees).

Examples:

Warrior:

Warriors accomplish this with a mixture of 1m cooldowns (Die By the Sword, Mass Spell Reflect) and 3m cooldowns (Shield Wall) - meaning they have just enough cooldowns to always have defensive cooldowns available when needed (that is actually good design for Warriors in MoP). Warriors become problematic because through the combination of stuns and defensive stance - they can sometimes survive cycles without needing their cooldowns at all - which is why people complain about their survivability.

Hunters:

Hunters have deterrence for every 1m burst cycle an enemy team is going to throw out - but similarly become problematic when they can survive burst cycles entirely through good use of disengage, mobility, roots, and instant CCs. Defensives are not particularly a strength of hunters - but their incredible mobility and control makes them viable in MoP because they can meet or exceed the burst cycles of enemy teams.

Rogues:

Depending upon the enemy team, rogues have a panoply of cooldowns to match enemy burst cycles: Evasion, Combat Readiness, Cloak of Shadows, and Vanish. This can make them very problematic kill targets for comps that rely heavily on physical damage (re: hunter and warrior comps), but means that they are relatively good kill targets for wizard comps who only contend with Cloak and Vanish (which rogues often use offensively, which can be a mistake vs wizards - but overall this trade-off is good design).

Shamans:

Elemental and Enhancement have a 1m CD that clears magic effects and reduces damage by 30% - this alone is enough to end most 1m kill cycles in their tracks (if used when cooldowns are activated, not once they are already low), they can further counter longer kill cycles with combinations of Astral Shift, Stone Bulwark, or ridiculous 30s health nonsense thing I forget the name of. Generally speaking, Shamans are well designed for cooldowns in MoP - they have just enough cooldowns to respond to burst cycles if they can pre-empt them, but not so much survivability that they can't die if they use cooldowns incorrectly or fail to use them. This is how things should be.

Rets (and Shadow):

Ret suffers from having a cooldown which is entirely too powerful for what they need - you don't need to shutdown all damage entirely with an immunity - you just need to shutdown enough damage to deny the kill. Bubbles are generally too strong, and have too long a cooldown - giving Rets something more akin to Shamanistic Rage and perhaps a 3m cooldown, would pretty much fix them overnight in MoP PvP. Shadow similarly (to a lesser extent) runs into the same problem with Dispersion - a 1m dispersion (with less damage reduction) would 'fix' Shadow's survivability in PvP.

You might immediately protest to Ret and Shadow heals in the wake of 1m cooldowns - but the presence and potency of our heals are the result of devs not knowing how to properly address us - they feel clunky and kind of wrong - but they can't be nerfed without butchering the class: because our cooldowns don't match the MoP meta. Fixing our cooldowns could go hand-in-hand with redesigning our healing utility (to which I would suggest potent singular heals on a 30s or 1m cooldown, rather than spammable shitty heals).

Windwalker:

Windwalker has entirely too many cooldowns for the current meta: Fortifying Brew(2m), Diffuse Magic(90s), Touch of Karma(90s), Zen Meditation(3m?). They also have some not-terrible self-healing - along with a variety of stuns, silences, disarms, and paralyses. They're a weird breed that exceeds the current meta too well - but due to clunky pvp DPS mechanics aren't exactly broken - they probably should have fewer defensive cooldowns, but should also have an easier time managing their offensive burst in PvP: it's a mistake to balance them around the assumption they will not set up their burst correctly (even if it is overwhelmingly common right now).

[apepi]

Windwalker has entirely too many cooldowns for the current meta: Fortifying Brew(2m), Diffuse Magic(90s), Touch of Karma(90s), Zen Meditation(3m?). They also have some not-terrible self-healing - along with a variety of stuns, silences, disarms, and paralyses. They're a weird breed that exceeds the current meta too well - but due to clunky pvp DPS mechanics aren't exactly broken - they probably should have fewer defensive cooldowns, but should also have an easier time managing their offensive burst in PvP: it's a mistake to balance them around the assumption they will not set up their burst correctly (even if it is overwhelmingly common right now).

You are tying to count meditation as a cooldown? It is pretty weak.

[wintex]

Rets don't do enough to justify not picking a different character class.

[Yvaelle]

You are tying to count meditation as a cooldown? It is pretty weak.

Zen Meditation is an extremely potent cooldown, the issue you are identifying isn't potency - rather that Zen Meditation is situational.

Against wizard teams Zen Med is a 90% damage reduction straight-up that also shuts down group-wide pressure (ie. dot cleave or swaps). That makes it arguably one of the strongest cooldowns in PvP in the game. Against a melee team however (like KFC), Zen Med verges on entirely useless. However, against a well-rounded comp like RMP or RPS/Daggerplay - CCing the enemy rogue before popping Zen Med makes it match the full potency it has against wizardcleaves.

It's absolutely a defensive cooldown, it's even an extremely potent cooldown - but situationally (vs. melee and meleecleaves) it requires combination with CC to be effective: but that certainly doesn't de-list it from cooldown viability.

[Skarssen]

SNIP

Interesting post, but why do you think DK's (unholy in arena, frost and unholy in RBGs) are relatively successful and desired while ret is not? In comparison to the classes you listed, DK defensive ability is pretty weak (particularly frost...which I agree is what makes it undesirable for arena) and their healing isn't sufficient to survive any sort of burst. Frost and ret have very strong burst damage, weak defensives, and poor mobility, yet I have no problem finding RBG teams at 1900 on my DK, while it is nearly impossible to get a RBG team on my ret alt even at 1500. DK's have great anti-CC abilities, but ret has vastly superior team support abilities.

[Blazur]

I see way too much of this..

[Yvaelle]

Interesting post, but why do you think DK's (unholy in arena, frost and unholy in RBGs) are relatively successful and desired while ret is not? In comparison to the classes you listed, DK defensive ability is pretty weak (particularly frost...which I agree is what makes it undesirable for arena) and their healing isn't sufficient to survive any sort of burst. Frost and ret have very strong burst damage, weak defensives, and poor mobility, yet I have no problem finding RBG teams at 1900 on my DK, while it is nearly impossible to get a RBG team on my ret alt even at 1500. DK's have great anti-CC abilities, but ret has vastly superior team support abilities.

Remember that you don't need to have a bubble to stop a kill cycle - Shamanistic Rage is more than enough for Shamans, or Die by the Sword for Warriors, or the like - when used properly. DKs have AMS on a 45 second cooldown, less with Glyph of Regenerative Magic - as a Spriest and Lock player - that is usually enough to stop a kill cycle on any of my 3s teams: sure you still have the rogue or warrior or hunter on you - but my burst just got completely absorbed and now I can't reapply dots for 5 seconds - burst cycle over.

IBG is their 3m cooldown of course. They don't really have as much versus melee - but Conversion or Death Pact are both actually fairly effective heals despite what you say. Stuns should also not be discounted as personal defensive peels - namely Strangulate and Gnaw.

All told, DKs do have far better defensives than Rets. As far as utility goes - don't discount the utility of Necrotic Strike to score kills: it's a completely unique utility that greatly increases the ability of a coordinated team to score kills by shutting down any healing that may squeak through their CC - to have no effect on target - Rets can't do that (nobody else can).

It should also of course be mentioned that DKs out-pressure pretty much everyone - which isn't true for Rets - which matters in RBGs.

[Blithe]

SNIP

You forgot to mention that Shamanistic Rage dispelling magic effects is a Glyph. You also forgot to mention that Retribution is able to use the Glyph of Divine Protection to reduce all damage taken by 20%. Albeit lower, it's still comparative to Shamanistic Rage and should be considered.

If you watch Mystic, he/she was able to do completely fine, and maneuvered out of line of sight to keep Divine Shield active which is really smart play. That being said; I think Divine Protection and its Glyph should be re-evaluated (or buffed), and something (I don't know what) should be given to them for their group utility that can let them compete in Rated Battleground's. Fix those two issues, and they're already up there.

Watching the video also couldn't help me but think that Retribution's mobility is even greater than Enhancement's, which puts a hole in a lot of arguments I've been in.

[Gigana]

Gotta say, after getting full crit pvp gear with proc trinket (I'm tauren) and playing around a bit, that ret in s15 is better than it was in S14, namely because our burst is considerably stronger due to higher crits (I routinely get 80-90k TV/HoW crits during wings, and even 60-70k crits outside of wings). Even got 100k crits a couple times against cloth/leather.

Now, I'm not playing on high ratings (I'm 1700-1800, foolin around with rl friends) but playing hpriest/retri/hunter seems a lot more effective at killing stuff and surviving now, than it was in s14. The WOG buff is a small help, but it's noticeable.

Ret still sucks, but I think not as much as last season.

[Yvaelle]

You forgot to mention that Shamanistic Rage dispelling magic effects is a Glyph. You also forgot to mention that Retribution is able to use the Glyph of Divine Protection to reduce all damage taken by 20%. Albeit lower, it's still comparative to Shamanistic Rage and should be considered.

How is that Glyph of Shamanistic Rage is a Glyph relevant to its use as a defensive cooldown? I didn't think it needed to be mentioned. Whenever it is useful, it will be taken - whenever you fight a team that has no magic effects worth dispelling - you take a different glyph - but against every team where a Shaman would want to defensively dispel themselves - they take this glyph, so it's always active when needed.

Watching the video also couldn't help me but think that Retribution's mobility is even greater than Enhancement's, which puts a hole in a lot of arguments I've been in.

Ya definitely - while Enhancement has pretty strong mobility - it's hard to compete with Emancipate.

[Blithe]

How is that Glyph of Shamanistic Rage is a Glyph relevant to its use as a defensive cooldown? I didn't think it needed to be mentioned. Whenever it is useful, it will be taken - whenever you fight a team that has no magic effects worth dispelling - you take a different glyph - but against every team where a Shaman would want to defensively dispel themselves - they take this glyph, so it's always active when needed.



Ya definitely - while Enhancement has pretty strong mobility - it's hard to compete with Emancipate.

"Elemental and Enhancement have a 1m CD that clears magic effects and reduces damage by 30%"

You basically just said it as if it were a baseline effect, so I had to clarify that is all.