What to Play with a Ret in Shadowlands 3v3

[Blk]

After many years of frustration, my buddy insists on continuing to play a ret paladin. I am looking for a safe pick for a second dps class (3v3) to play with a ret that will make up for their weaknesses that isn't going to end up being fotm and get nerfed into oblivion. I am not looking to be the top of the rankings, but we have typically been able to easily get 1800 and end somewhere between the 1900-2100s before getting groups with a ret paladin becomes near impossible. We both quit bfa early on.

I have played boomkin, feral, dh, dk, warrior, ele shaman, hunter, shadow priest, rogue, and warlock with him in different expansions. Generally I have to pick up most of the cc responsibilities, set up, and of course snares.

I was thinking making a ranged might be good, but I am not great at juking and I don't see any ranged classes that stick out as having good synergy and shore up the weakness of ret. I would stick with a hunter, but it seems like BM always gets pvp nerfs quickly into the season and I do not enjoy the new mm (survival is a no for me). However, I am not completely against playing any class except a paladin.

My current thought process is I want something that remains viable through nerfs and has a decent track record without being useless solo. Arms warrior for example looks amazing for 3s with MS and shattering throw combined with mobility and utility, but the lack of self healing and sustain makes me think it would be very frustrating in bgs and wvw without a healer as it always has been. I worry the new 2h frost dk will end up being nerfed because Blizzard hates big hits like obliterate, combined with the low mobility and lack of cc / mortal strike might not be able to make up for ret.

Any recommendations for a class and spec along with details on how they would work with ret?

[Ezzet]

Nothing, tell him to listen to Savix.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Watch Vanguards. He's far and wide the best ret ever in WoW. Vanguards cleave is probably the way to go, ret/dk/healer.

[Blk]

Nothing, tell him to listen to Savix.

I have been linking him videos and telling him not to since Cataclysm. Our highest rating we ever got (2201) was as hunter/disc/prot paladin because prot was even better than ret (I think it was wotlk, don't remember now). He doesn't care.

Every expansion ret starts off doing tons of damage with great off healing and gets nerfed in both.

[Gotural]

The tuning is not done.

It's obvious that Rets are too weak at the moment on the ptr, they will be buffed before arenas start.
Also, I think you should be doing fine playing a spec with access to Grievious Wounds, WW Monk should be a a great choice.

[Blk]

The tuning is not done.

It's obvious that Rets are too weak at the moment on the ptr, they will be buffed before arenas start.
Also, I think you should be doing fine playing a spec with access to Grievious Wounds, WW Monk should be a a great choice.

Regardless of where Rets end up damage wise, their problems are still going to be there. Poor mobility, all their utility is dispellable, and their wings are easy to avoid.

Thanks for the suggestion - I was also considering WW just have to figure out if I enjoy the play style (only character I have not leveled). Their mastery seems like work with very little reward but they have a solid toolkit.

[Gotural]

Numbers are enough to carry a class if they are high enough.

Most expacs (not all of them it's true), DKs have zero mobility / utility and yet through sheer damage / pressure manage to win games.

We shall see

[ipoststuff]

Numbers are enough to carry a class if they are high enough.

Most expacs (not all of them it's true), DKs have zero mobility / utility and yet through sheer damage / pressure manage to win games.

We shall see

Saying DKs have zero mobility is stupid as they have the best gap closer in the game. Remove death grip and see how viable they become.

[Gotural]

Saying DKs have zero mobility is stupid as they have the best gap closer in the game. Remove death grip and see how viable they become.

Death Grip is one of the weakest gap closer in the game because it has a 25 secs cooldown and because it doesn't apply any soft or hard CC when you use it.
Charge has been superior for so many years for example, when it stunned + had a 15 secs.

There is a reason Death Grip has been used a lot as an interrupt over the course of the game, especially when we had the PvP set giving us a second Death Grip for 3 seconds after using the first. Especially since it can interrupt through interrupt immunities.

Plus as I said, numbers can carry the game if they are high enough. Remove Death Grip from the DK but increase his overall damage / heal absorb by 100% and I can assure you that it would becomes the best class in the game.

[Zogarth]

Death Grip is one of the weakest gap closer in the game because it has a 25 secs cooldown and because it doesn't apply any soft or hard CC when you use it.
Charge has been superior for so many years for example, when it stunned + had a 15 secs.

There is a reason Death Grip has been used a lot as an interrupt over the course of the game, especially when we had the PvP set giving us a second Death Grip for 3 seconds after using the first. Especially since it can interrupt through interrupt immunities.

Plus as I said, numbers can carry the game if they are high enough. Remove Death Grip from the DK but increase his overall damage / heal absorb by 100% and I can assure you that it would becomes the best class in the game.

That argument is just silly. Holy paladin would be the best dps if they made Holy Shock oneshot everything lul. We all know they won't make the damage that extreme that they can kill people fast enough for it to matter.

Also, Death Grip is not just a gap closer. It is a repositioning tool. By far one of the most OP and useful tools in any pvp situation. You moving to your target still allows them to choose their position, be that in the back of their group in RBG or hugging a pillar in arena. Death Grip fucks that up.

Ret paladins have had so many issues for so long. And the fact that their numbers 'look fine' is what fucks them over most of the time. Numbers are only half the story.

[Gotural]

@Zogarth

My point was more that numbers are always a tuning knob available and that they can solve any balancing issue. But a spec being able to kill people in 2 hits to compensate its lack of utility / mobility, while it could be balanced, won't be fun for the players playing it or against it. Arms Warriors have a 4.2% representation in 2.2+ 3v3 arenas at the moment for example, if you buff their damage by 10% they would go up to something like 7-8% representation. If you buff them by 30% instead, while they won't be able to oneshot people, their pressure would allow them to most surely be the most represented spec in arenas.

Death Grip is extremely good in RBGs that is true, because it allows a team to get line of sight on a healer to try and burst him. But otherwise it is pretty poor because of the long CD and because nearly any specs in the game can counter it by using a more frequently available mobility spell. Using a Death Grip on a DH, a WW, a Warrior, a Feral, a Mage, etc, in order to peel for your healer in 2v2 is 95% of the time a strategical mistake for example. They even put Death Grip on the GCD to reduce its use as an interrupt.

[The Butt Witch]

MM hunter works awesome with ret.

- - - Updated - - -

Nothing, tell him to listen to Savix.

Ah yes, the average ret paladin Youtube vid:

"Look at me wrecking people on my ret. Ret sucks so much, man".

And I'm not talking about Savix in particular. They all fail to show HOW ret sucks. They just get into some rare unwinnable situations and then they whine about it, ignoring the fact that such situations exist for all classes and specs, and also ignoring the fact that ret is among the best specs for pvp and have it way better than warriors for example. But yeah, rets have gotten so used to just winning in every situation that when the odd situation where they lose actually happens, you get rivers of tears.

"We don't have mobility". Rets actually have way more mobility than dks and even rogues, on top of immunities. Only type of mobility rets don't have is an instant gap closer, and they don't even need one considering they have hand of freedom (which unlike a dk's anti-magic shell, doesn't need to be cast before the cc hits), and 2 charges of horse, and 3 lives. Meanwhile no other class has such versatility.

But yeah, Ret sucks because Savix ran into an affliction lock in arena and realized he could never catch him, and then made a video about it, before rerolling sub rogue.

Someone should tell Savix that MM hunters eat rogues for breakfast in SL, even doing 1v2 vs. rogues. Then Savix will make another video and reroll to something else.

[Zogarth]

@Zogarth

My point was more that numbers are always a tuning knob available and that they can solve any balancing issue. But a spec being able to kill people in 2 hits to compensate its lack of utility / mobility, while it could be balanced, won't be fun for the players playing it or against it. Arms Warriors have a 4.2% representation in 2.2+ 3v3 arenas at the moment for example, if you buff their damage by 10% they would go up to something like 7-8% representation. If you buff them by 30% instead, while they won't be able to oneshot people, their pressure would allow them to most surely be the most represented spec in arenas.

Death Grip is extremely good in RBGs that is true, because it allows a team to get line of sight on a healer to try and burst him. But otherwise it is pretty poor because of the long CD and because nearly any specs in the game can counter it by using a more frequently available mobility spell. Using a Death Grip on a DH, a WW, a Warrior, a Feral, a Mage, etc, in order to peel for your healer in 2v2 is 95% of the time a strategical mistake for example. They even put Death Grip on the GCD to reduce its use as an interrupt.

So you agree that Ret is currently in a terrible state and needs other things than just tuning the knobs of damage? (This was my point).
Because as it is now, everything but their damage is crap... so in order to make them 'balanced' they need to make them able to do extreme damage during their burst. Which will lead to people complaining and it will be unfun, so they will nerf ret damage and just make them useless. We didn't even talk about how the damage is only high during Wings and a wet noodle in between, only worsening the entire situation.

Also, death grip is 25 sec cd... steed is still 45 sec cd in shadowlands. Even with two charges (which will require sacrificing another talent) it won't help much in prolonged fights. Freedom is still as easily dispelled as ever before. Which means that likely the only time a ret can truly stick on a target is during steed and stuns or when allies help lock them down, with them not having any proper gap closer themselves. And as you already mentioned, then every other class got better or equal mobility, meaning they can likely just get away.

[Nuciek]

Numbers are enough to carry a class if they are high enough.

Most expacs (not all of them it's true), DKs have zero mobility / utility and yet through sheer damage / pressure manage to win games.

We shall see

What the hell are you talking about? Yes, DKs have low mobility but one of the most prominent gap closers in the game and their toolkit is pretty solid. They are able to lock down a healer/caster better than any other class, they have one of the best slows in the game and are really hard to kill. DKs aren't op but their position in meta is often thanks to their unique toolkit and amazing sustain. They are mostly paired with high mobility melees like warrior, ww or dh because of their utility, not because of their damage. Saying Death Grip is weak is just a nonsense. Imagine playing The Walking Dead (with a WW), you go for a dps and use Death Grip on a healer to get them both stacked. Then Leg Sweep them both and then cleave, doing a lot of pressure, a lot more than you could if you had warrior's Charge instead of Death Grip. And that's just one simple example. Saying that DK is only about pressure is nonsense, they bring more utility than most other melees.

[Blk]

DKs are awesome and generally always will have a place j less tuned very bad. The question for this particular thread is will DK work well with ret even if both are tuned low.

Ret has the worst mobility on par with enhancement in melee though enhancement can talent a gap closer. If freedom was always undispellable then it would be a different story, but they can be snared on their horse and the most popular healers can easily negate a ret by dispelling freedom or cc'ing them.

It also doesn't help that HoJ is dispellable. Everything a ret brings to a team can be countered by dispel/spell steal except damage. Remember when wings used to be able to be spell stolen? Those were the good ole days. With the return of shattering throw, I don't see how having an immunity is better than having an undispellable damage reduction. Disc priest (always meta), shadow (looking really strong) and warriors will all be able to completely remove Rets defensive cool down. I don't see ret being good unless their damage is overtuned, which Blizzard generally starts them every expansion and 3 weeks into the season nerfs it down.