Ghostcrawler on Ret PvP

[nyc81991]

GC is an idiot if he thinks ret is in a good place. But hey, no surprise there.

I'm pretty sure he doesn't play any type of serious PvP. If he actually tried playing a Ret paladin in Arena he would know something is wrong.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty sure he doesn't play any type of serious PvP. If he actually tried playing a Ret paladin in Arena he would know something is wrong.

GC is cutting costs. If the majority think that ret is fine then he'll leave it alone. If they were suddenly useless in PVE, however, you can be damned sure that GC would hot fix the spec.

So I don't expect any changes. I am just going to stack as much crit for PVP as I can and hope that all my heals crit all the time. Even then they won't be that good.

[Deleted]

Is he serious... How ignorant does one have to be in order to be a Blizzard employee.

[Nairobi]

Given this little gem I'd wager that their "sweet spot" is ON the bottom of the barrel.

DK - Glass cannon with some notable burst and few/negatable defenses.
Ret - Glass cannon with notable burst and few/negatable defenses. Heals gutted.
Enh - Survival and heals gutted, moderate burst.

How those are supposed to contend with warrior, mage, feral, spriest is beyond me; calling them in a "good place" is laughable and insulting.

[Freia]

Rogues are excellent FCs as well,

No. A rogue might grab the flag to take to the real FC but their survivability is horrible and no decent team would have a rogue FC.

Then again I tend to like unbreakable spirit and all the LOH in bg's it allows.

LoH does not belong in any discussion about paladins in competitive pvp.

[Vash The Stampede]

GC hasn't been playing his own game then. If you really wanna know how bad Ret is in PvP then he should try to put together an RBG team with one in it. People will immediately question his judgement, and threaten to leave unless the Ret either goes Holy or is removed from the raid.

I'm over 1600 in RBG rating and I got denied going into a low mmr rbg group. It's really that bad.

[Deleted]

When's 5.2 coming? https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...50421527142400

[Nairobi]

When's 5.2 coming? https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...50421527142400

So...GC is like the villain from "The Incredibles", but in reverse...

"When everyone is nerfed, then NO ONE WILL BE!" [insert evil laugh]

[nyc81991]

When's 5.2 coming? https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...50421527142400

Problem is 5.2 is still at least 2 - 3 months away. That is a long time to be underpowered and a crazy amount of time for classes to be Op.

[kosechi]

So...GC is like the villain from "The Incredibles", but in reverse...

"When everyone is nerfed, then NO ONE WILL BE!" [insert evil laugh]

which i think is actually really good. once everything is nerfed to the ground, everyone will be on an even playing field.

i think some of the GC hate is unwarranted, its his influence in wolk that turned ret from a joke and a gimmick in to an actual usable spec.

[Tangra]

which i think is actually really good. once everything is nerfed to the ground, everyone will be on an even playing field.

i think some of the GC hate is unwarranted, its his influence in wolk that turned ret from a joke and a gimmick in to an actual usable spec.

And then back to a joke and a gimmick once WotLK ended. But, I agree it might not be Ghostcrawler's fault. Ultimately I fear that Tom Chilton still has a great deal of influence, my theory is that GC was hired in order to give WoW a new face, since everyone hated Kalgan (Chilton) so much. However, once Wrath made PvP a bit more fun for everyone, and so the community calmed down, in many ways we are back to Burning Crusade elitism, in which the game is divided between haves and have-nots, ridiculous imbalances are ignored for months, and devs display ludicrous ignorance in every other post they make.

Overall, I don't see Ret getting better until Blizzard's entire philosophy on the spec changes, we keep being balanced around our off-heals, but they consistently fail to realize what a heavy price we pay for those off-heals, as well as the fact that the only difference between Ret and pure dps healing is that Ret can heal others; many pure dps can basically heal themselves as well as Ret can. We lose CC, powerful offensive tools, versatility in our damage, and many other things just so that we can throw a gimmick heal to our teammates once in a while, this is a model that just can't work. We were doing okay for a while. and then the horrible curse called Selfless Healer entered the game in Cata, and since then we have virtually no survivability; all you have to do to win against any Ret comp is to train the Ret until his team becomes "exhausted" due to incredible effort needed to keep a Ret alive.

Ret also suffers from a horrific Catch 22: some of our most powerful tools, and abilities we are balanced around, are mainly for others only, like Hand of Sacrifice, Hand of Protection, and Selfless Healer. The problem with this is that we are a glass cannon that most teams want to focus. So, we face the frustrating combination of being a dps that can help others greatly, but rarely get to because we are the ones who usually need help. Selfless healer needs to go so badly, Ret PvP has sucked since it was introduced, it's the most idiotic idea ever; the only way to keep it in the game is to give Ret survivability a serious boost.

[Chimaera]

Something people need to keep in mind is that the top specs are always stronger than the target Blizzard has for them. GC's statement is not necessarily a lie, or disingenuous, or oblivious. It just means that the other specs are too strong. When and how Blizzard gets around to balancing those is another matter. At the end of the day somebody is always on top and somebody is always on bottom.

[Deleted]

Something people need to keep in mind is that the top specs are always stronger than the target Blizzard has for them. GC's statement is not necessarily a lie, or disingenuous, or oblivious. It just means that the other specs are too strong. When and how Blizzard gets around to balancing those is another matter. At the end of the day somebody is always on top and somebody is always on bottom.

Yes, but in the past more specs have been viable. Some classes/specs have just been more viable than others.

If Ghostcrawler hotfixed ret now so that our heals were effected by 25% of PVP Power, we'd be balanced right now. Right now. Instead we have to wait 3-4 months.

That's unacceptable.

I cannot believe how slow he has been to fix rogues as well. That's one of my fav classes left to die and rot for 33% of an expansion.

That's unacceptable.

And since Blizz like to change things to keep things fresh every expansion, someone will have to suffer this nonsense again next expansion.

[Nairobi]

And then back to a joke and a gimmick once WotLK ended. But, I agree it might not be Ghostcrawler's fault. Ultimately I fear that Tom Chilton still has a great deal of influence, my theory is that GC was hired in order to give WoW a new face, since everyone hated Kalgan (Chilton) so much. However, once Wrath made PvP a bit more fun for everyone, and so the community calmed down, in many ways we are back to Burning Crusade elitism, in which the game is divided between haves and have-nots, ridiculous imbalances are ignored for months, and devs display ludicrous ignorance in every other post they make.

Overall, I don't see Ret getting better until Blizzard's entire philosophy on the spec changes, we keep being balanced around our off-heals, but they consistently fail to realize what a heavy price we pay for those off-heals, as well as the fact that the only difference between Ret and pure dps healing is that Ret can heal others; many pure dps can basically heal themselves as well as Ret can. We lose CC, powerful offensive tools, versatility in our damage, and many other things just so that we can throw a gimmick heal to our teammates once in a while, this is a model that just can't work. We were doing okay for a while. and then the horrible curse called Selfless Healer entered the game in Cata, and since then we have virtually no survivability; all you have to do to win against any Ret comp is to train the Ret until his team becomes "exhausted" due to incredible effort needed to keep a Ret alive.

Ret also suffers from a horrific Catch 22: some of our most powerful tools, and abilities we are balanced around, are mainly for others only, like Hand of Sacrifice, Hand of Protection, and Selfless Healer. The problem with this is that we are a glass cannon that most teams want to focus. So, we face the frustrating combination of being a dps that can help others greatly, but rarely get to because we are the ones who usually need help. Selfless healer needs to go so badly, Ret PvP has sucked since it was introduced, it's the most idiotic idea ever; the only way to keep it in the game is to give Ret survivability a serious boost.

QFT, printed and framed. Ret has been BASED around its ability to provide those "clutch" offheals, which in this era of homogenization has essentially rendered our own survivability to be a shell of its former self.

Old Sacred Shield is gone, and we are still "balanced" around our bubble. Which was great up to BC; 12 sec of immunity, during which time you could use your non-gutted heals to top yourself off and reset. Now, we get 8 seconds to cast 2 (two) FoL's for 40-60k hp, and take all of our mana...unless there is a priest or warrior (which happen to be among the most highly represented classes atm) within 100 yards of us. WOG spam at the start of Cata was a bit out of control, but throwing around 30k WOGs which take 8-12 seconds to build up is utterly laughable. In terms of self healing there, let's compare:

Word of Glory (3 HoPo) takes a Judge, CS, Exo to build up. All of these abilities have cooldowns, but are part of our normal damage priority, so...fair enough. Ignoring the 4pc set bonus, and assuming 100% time on target (can't CS from range), we can assume that a WOG would be available every 8 seconds. In PVP, in deadly/malev gear, a typical WOG heals for ~30,000. That's 3750 HPS.

Second Wind requires no resources, no GCD, and persists through stun/fear/cc. It can (and is) used in conjunction with Def Stance, as well as other defensives (DBtS, SWall, demo banner, RC, disarm, fear...). It ticks for 3% HP (minus BF) every second that the warrior is below 35% HP. SO, assuming a similarly geared warrior to the above ret, 370k hp would give ~8k ticks kicking in at ~130k HP assuming battle fatigue. That's essentially 8000 HPS.

But wait, there's more!

While WOG requires HoPo, meaning that the ret is now sacrificing his damage in a futile attempt to keep himself alive, Second Wind is passive and robs no GCDs. Not only that, it actually GIVES the warrior resources (rage) to do MORE damage. This is even on top of the fact that they have around 2-3x the defensives that we do.

But everyone knows that war's are top of the melee food chain (perhaps sharing that title with feral) and second wind/def stance combo needs fixing. Just making an illustration.

The fact is, we are weighed down by our antiquated, dispellable, nerfed Divine Shield. It is our albatross. HoP isn't much better in terms of affording us more self-centered survival and/or power. I get it. I really do. We are a support class, and making yourself and/or someone else invulnerable (even if your 5min CD is immediately negated) is pretty damn powerful. The problem lies with the fact that we are still shackled to that as our iconic ability and role, and balanced around it, even though other classes now have the same or better abilities (looking at you mages, warlocks, druids, priests...hey, godcomp!...and to a lesser extent hunters) while still retaining their original balance paradigms of damage and survival abilities from their original toolkit.

Hell, in MoP, Blizz went so far as to REMOVE iconic ret abilities and replace them as talents available to all specs. That's cool. No, it really is; as a prot pal, I do enjoy having the option of a slow, or a repent, or 30sec hammer. The problem is, our class has to pick ONE, while nearly everyone else has all 3 of those (slow/snare, cc - tho most are instant, and stun) baked into baseline. After 6-8 years of crying about needing a snare, we finally get one...just too bad we have to give up cc and our short stun to get it. Just like it's too bad we have to give up our old sacred shield to pick between a weak HoT, a weak GCD-hungry shield, or selfless healer (which the class is based around now).

All of the improvements made with the talents we been provided have done nothing but set us back 3-4 years in the playing field. Add that to a class already balanced around an antiquated ability, and you have a recipe for mediocrity at best. A true shame, given the amount of player support for said class.

[Vash The Stampede]

Ret also suffers from a horrific Catch 22: some of our most powerful tools, and abilities we are balanced around, are mainly for others only, like Hand of Sacrifice, Hand of Protection, and Selfless Healer. The problem with this is that we are a glass cannon that most teams want to focus. So, we face the frustrating combination of being a dps that can help others greatly, but rarely get to because we are the ones who usually need help. Selfless healer needs to go so badly, Ret PvP has sucked since it was introduced, it's the most idiotic idea ever; the only way to keep it in the game is to give Ret survivability a serious boost.

Selfless healer is really bad, but probably not as bad as other choices for Ret.

Selfless healer --> Can be purged and spell stolen, but at least won't give any benefits to Mages when stolen. Heals team mates twice as much, but does nothing for the Paladin besides make an instant cast heal. This is really bad for Holy, really bad for Protection, and sorta O.K. for Ret

Eternal Flame --> Can be purged and spell stolen, but can benefit Mages when stolen. Costs precious Holy Power. Duration of 30 seconds is really nice for PvE but really bad in PvP, when a Ret Paladin will spam heals on himself to stay alive. This is really good for Holy, O.K. for Prot, but bad for Ret.

Sacred Shield --> Can be purged and spell stolen, but can benefit Mages when stolen. Has a delay before a shield actually pops up. Really good for Holy and Prot, but O.K. for Ret.

This entire Tier needs to be changed. So much of our survivability comes from here, and yet it seems to do mostly nothing for US. It's built around Holy Paladins.

[Deleted]

Snip

You should post this on the official forums.

[Nairobi]

You should post this on the official forums.

I'm afraid I wouldn't even know where to put it to be of any use. The devs (well, GC at least) said that they avoid class forums as they are just "echo chambers". I guess it could go into the PVP section, but let's not kid ourselves about how that would play out... Everyone who plays a ret or paladin in general knows their shortcomings. Everyone who doesn't will only say "LOLWINGSBURST ret is fine L2P" or "w/e brah you has bubble" while sitting at 1250 MMR.

I get that the dev's have their own designs, and trying to sift through the mountain of rubbish buff/nerf demands that are passed off as "suggestions" that most people post is a monumental task, so I'm not faulting the system here. I just am a bit cynical that anything comes from our feedback in any channel/avenue until Blizz comes to that same realization a few months later.

[Austilias]

Ret's been an entertaining montage in failure since the Holy Power implementation.

Step One: "Hey guys, this class is too proc dependent; why don't we implement a resource whereby Ret paladins don't have to depend solely on the stars aligning with Divine Purpose procs to do good in PvP? All agreed? Good idea? Fantastic"

Step Two: "Hey guys, this class feels too strong most of the time; why don't we implement a Slice and Dice mechanic wherein they have to waste some of their resources every 36 seconds to be at 100% potency, prior to this 30% damage buff being at only 70% potency. As well as that, why don't we pretty much make all their attacks do exactly the same amount of Damage so they can't be accused of being reliant on burst damage...but make it so that to be at their absolute best they have to use 2/3 DPS cooldowns and unleash a huge amount of burst damage? All settled? This sound good? Marvellous"

The entire progression can be summed up as trading off Proc-dependency for Burst-dependency; not a good trade-off, and thus not impossible to understand those Ret PvPers in the higher echelons of the rankings who rerolled to a different spec/class.

[Deleted]

I guess most specs are OP as hell, if ret is where it should be.

[Austilias]

I guess most specs are OP as hell, if ret is where it should be.

One of the big problems with Ret Paladins is that Blizzard has sold a huge amount of their self-sufficiency/self-heals in exchange for party/raid heals; which is fine, until you realise that other classes such as Warrior pretty much don't have to worry about anyone else in the party/raid at all while DPS'ing. Hell, they don't even have to worry about CC beyond stuns etc that are built into a few of their DPS skills anyway.