Is ret actually that bad

[Acidmetal]

Ret is pretty fine right now, enjoying it.

[Kill Broccoli]

Demon Hunters have a mandatory raid debuff that increases the DPS of almost everybody in the raid by 2-5% (depending on the proportion of magic damage done). They can drop Darkness, which is a good raid survivability cooldown, they have an interrupt with double the range of any other melee, they have insane mobility, they have an immunity (on a two minute cooldown) and great dps. And that ranged interrupt gives them two thirds of their resources instantly.
How does that compare to giving a healer enough mana for a dozen extra heals over a 6 minute boss fight and a tank a 6k absorb every third melee swing (assuming there is no other damage), a once-per-fight immunity and Blessing spells that see one use in the entire instance, if you're lucky?

It doesn't. Trouble is if we get something more, then we will likely be too powerful outside the raid scenarios.
I still wonder why blizz won't give players zone specific spells to player.

[SilenceRedo]

Ret DPS will always be a little bit below the pure DPS classes simply to balance up the utility that the class has. Whether that utility is really called upon in modern raid settings is what is questionable.

This has to be the biggest BS and myth of all time. EVERY "pure" dps class (to call them that after the 'choose a spec' era begun on cataclysm is already bs) has more meaningful utility than ret. Our so called utility is utter useless.

[saltynuhts]

I know this is anecdotal, but I just pulled 18k dps over an entire Underot 10 ( 390 ilvl, with good traits). No really big pulls, was a pug. Not amazing, but I feel like my ret is in a good place when you consider the offhealing, bop, and wisdom we bring.

[Kaver]

This has to be the biggest BS and myth of all time. EVERY "pure" dps class (to call them that after the 'choose a spec' era begun on cataclysm is already bs) has more meaningful utility than ret. Our so called utility is utter useless.

Dead players do no dps. Ret can’t die.

[CptEgo]

This has to be the biggest BS and myth of all time. EVERY "pure" dps class (to call them that after the 'choose a spec' era begun on cataclysm is already bs) has more meaningful utility than ret. Our so called utility is utter useless.

Lol whaaaat. We have some pretty cool stuff bro. I think this is a case of the neighbor always having greener grass.

[Kill Broccoli]

Lol whaaaat. We have some pretty cool stuff bro. I think this is a case of the neighbor always having greener grass.

We have good stuff for ourself. Raid wise, not so much.
I mean, if i have to choose who to bring with equal dps number, by buff and utility ret is my last pick.

[Niwes]

ret is not bad.
ret performs ok.
ret numbers are fine.

ret is just slow and boring as hell. thats all. imo.

[Bonkura]

ret is not bad.
ret performs ok.
ret numbers are fine.

ret is just slow and boring as hell. thats all. imo.

Yeah Ret pretty gutted in BFA after losing so much from Legion. At least Crusade has come back with Light's Decree but outside of wings the spec is extremely slow.

[Kill Broccoli]

Yeah Ret pretty gutted in BFA after losing so much from Legion. At least Crusade has come back with Light's Decree but outside of wings the spec is extremely slow.

With Dp and staking haste traits you can have most of the time a fluid rotation with no holes at the cost of some burst loss.

[SilenceRedo]

Lol whaaaat. We have some pretty cool stuff bro. I think this is a case of the neighbor always having greener grass.

The only REALLY GOOD utility we have, the absolute single thing we have as dps spec no other has that's an amazing utility is Word of Glory, and that's only for mythic plus, which is still not enough to be a wanted spec.

Plus, I only like raiding, I don't give a single f**k about having something strong in mythic plus. To me is just the weekly ten to get the chest.

[Good ol Stroggylos]

Dps is not there.
Utility is not there.
Gameplay is barely there.
Only plus for some guild to bring a ret along during mythic progress is the ability of the player to switch to tank or healer if needed. But then again if your guild is struggling with that is only if your officers are doing a lousy job.
The guys saying that if you raid below top 50 every comb is viable they are just hallucinating due to energy drink overdose. Someone could reiterate that u can farm with all combos but that's irrelevant. It's like saying that you can progress with 18 people in comb since many boosting communities do it.
Basically if u are interested in dps only paladin class is the worst pick. Let's admit it and see how the devs can be forced into fixing it

[CptEgo]

The only REALLY GOOD utility we have, the absolute single thing we have as dps spec no other has that's an amazing utility is Word of Glory, and that's only for mythic plus, which is still not enough to be a wanted spec.

Plus, I only like raiding, I don't give a single f**k about having something strong in mythic plus. To me is just the weekly ten to get the chest.

1. Flash of Light / Glory
2. Lay on Hands
3. Divine Shield
4. Blessing of Protection
5. Shield of Vengeance
6. Wisdom, Kings

Basically, Ret can stay alive forever. If this is not enough utility for you, you're not going to like any other dps class buddy.

[SilenceRedo]

The only utility that's worth it is that useful for the whole group. Plus, if you don't have enough raid awareness to keep yourself alive without having to lay on paladin cds I for sure do not want you on my roster. 9 out of 10 times I use Divine Shield is to cheese mechanics not to loose uptime during wings. You only use it to keep yourself alive if either you a) are bad, b) very niche scenarios, like G'huun on phase 3.


Shield of Vengance it's used as a dps increase not as a defensive, besides, since fucking when do we call "utility" the soft defensive (or a somewhat defensive like shield of vengeance) cooldown every single damn class has utility?. Wisdom is an annoyance and Kings is useless. The only time Blessing of Protection brought utility to the group in Uldir was on Zul to BoP the tanks so the drop the blood on the floor without dying.

I can stay Alive forever with any class, that's the mindset you need to have in order to play. If you need those Ret's tool to stay alive... At least do not call them utility. For a progress guild enviroment, from Method until the last guild which will barely get Cutting Edge on next Monday Night, utility is something else. Something that benefits the group as a whole during the fight, not something to keep a bad healer from running out of mana or a bad player in general alive.


If you say Ret paladins have utility raid-wise, you simply haven't raided in this game at the highest level you are able to play. To justify my spot on my raid, I need to always perform better than most, if not all, melee, otherwise the first axed is me. That's the life of a Ret paladin and has always been. Even if I have good logs, better than every single melee on my guild, show up on time every day, do mechanichs, and never miss a raid, I still get the "you should reroll" talk every now and then. "Why don't you main your rogue?" To me playing ret paladin got almost personal, to proove and revindicate the spec against the prejudice of the people. If I can't raid as a ret, I look for another guild. To me, getting kills on another spec doesn't mean anything.

At least we once used to bring mana regenfor the raid and an external CD for the tanks, now not even that.



I have capped: Rogue, Mage, Warrior and Monk. Even the monk outshines us in raid utility with their debuff and mobility. To compare us in such aspect with Rogues, Mages, and Warriors, would be a low quality bait.

[Jester Joe]

1. Flash of Light / Glory

Balance druids can offheal too, so FoL is basically a moot point when Balance also has roots/knockbacks/aoe silence which are far more useful in M+.

WoG is what they said.

2. Lay on Hands

Is basically just a glorified reverse brez, except it's still stuck to a 10 minute CD and requires far faster reaction. It's also brought by both prot/holy which are more useful overall. (GIVE RET BACK HAND OF SACRIFICE TOO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD)

3. Divine Shield

Utility generally helps the group more than the individual. You can use DS to cheese some mechanics yes, but generally anything that it's used for, Cloak of Shadows can do better.

4. Blessing of Protection

Only really comes in handy for grievous.

5. Shield of Vengeance

Is a defensive (and as pointed out, an awkward dps increase). This would be like calling feint utility. Which mind you, is better too.

6. Wisdom, Kings

does absolutely nothing to help the ret stay alive, and doesn't even do that much to begin with for M+.

Basically, Ret can stay alive forever. If this is not enough utility for you, you're not going to like any other dps class buddy.

No one cares if ret can "stay alive forever". Rogues can too, while bringing a mass invis to skip trash.
DHs have a good amount of leech on demand, making them hard to kill while also bringing purges, aoe stun, and a group CD.

Honestly this list is just pointless.

I have capped: Rogue, Mage, Warrior and Monk. Even the monk outshines us in raid utility with their debuff and mobility. To compare us in such aspect with Rogues, Mages, and Warriors, would be a low quality bait.

Monks also have an aoe stun which is generally really good on any fight with adds, an baseline instant CC, and better defensive in the form of Touch of Karma.

[Kaver]

ret is just slow and boring as hell. thats all. imo.

This is a pretty common description for most classes in BFA. I'm not sure what happened to Blizzard. How could we god from the "godlike" feeling we had in Legion with Legendaries and Artifact weapons (Ret had the freaking Ashbringer) to the slow boring specs we have now...

[siskokid21]

I want to level a Zandalari pally in 8.1.5 but a lot of the stuff I've heard said about ret in BFA makes it sound apocalyptically bad. Will I be okay at 120 or should I consider myself permanently banned from m+ and raids?

Historically ret is a "bad" class to play, and tends to underperform. Currently it's fotm and worth playing in raid, but i don't see that lasting much longer than a tier.

Also how is prot in m+?

It's viable, but it tends to be squishier than other tanks. Warrior is the fotm tank, due to how much damage it puts out. Blood DK has been the OP tank all of BFA so far, due to grip utility and self-healing. Prot pally has good defensive CDs, and the extra kicks definitely helps out in certain dungeons. Ultimately you can manage high keys with it, but it's just not as strong as the competition.

[Jester Joe]

Historically ret is a "bad" class to play, and tends to underperform. Currently it's fotm and worth playing in raid, but i don't see that lasting much longer than a tier.

Uh, I'm not sure what raids you're in, but pretty sure Ret is anything than FotM.

[SilenceRedo]

Monks also have an aoe stun which is generally really good on any fight with adds, an baseline instant CC, and better defensive in the form of Touch of Karma.

Don't forget ring of peace. Which they don't usually talent it because of Good Karma, which again, makes them useful for the group to cheese mechanics.

We can only cheese one mechanic every 5 minutes, and that's if we don't need DSh for something else.

[Kill Broccoli]

Historically ret is a "bad" class to play, and tends to underperform. Currently it's fotm and worth playing in raid, but i don't see that lasting much longer than a tier.

Tiny fix.
Historically ret is perceived as a bad class to play.

On numbers,we are on pair with lots of other classes. We shine in Aoe and in Pvp, and to solo various content we're much better than many others.

We just need good old blessing of might back to grant us more raids spots and be viable as anyone else.