What was your favorite xpac for ret?

[threads]

Now that shadowlands is pretty much over and DF and wrath classic are both coming this year I was curious what everyone's fav version of the spec has been.

[shise]

Obviously Wrath. Not only the numbers were decent but playing one (even as alt) felt so related to the expansion

[Varaben]

I mean viability-wise, Shadowlands has been pretty great for Ret. I'm not sure we've ever seen the sort of ret-presentation on the arena ladder in the past, much less to see Rets in AWC.

I really enjoyed Ret in TBC because if you got to judge light and you were really pumping, you could be top 1-2 on damage AND top 1-2 on healing. So that was always a fun thing to see. Not sure if you ever really see that on TBC Classic or not, but I remember those days (and this was before seal-twisting was a thing on Alliance).

I also really enjoyed Ret in WoD, it felt like the toolkit was there, the burst was there and long arm of the law was so much fun. I didn't really play that much in Legion or BFA, so I can't really speak to those. Obviously Vanilla Ret was a total meme spec (although my casual raiding group had TWO rets, so they were normal to me lol).

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Depends if you mean being effective or having good gameplay. People have a hard time separating the two sometimes!

Personally I think Shadows ret is probably the best gameplay the spec has ever had overall. Having DT and 1 min CDs plays much better than only doing dmg during wings. In 8.3 in BFA, I think i literally had over 350% mastery during wings and did 0 damage outside it.

I just hope the trees give us more meaningful utility for m+. It's still very difficult to pug compared to other melee; I end up tanking way more than I enjoy.

Other hopes:
-better survivability CDs outside of bubble. Shield of vengeance is awful
-As a hybrid healer, we should do way more healing than non-healers imo, yet I've gotten 99 healing parses in dungeons despite doing the lowest healing in the group (a lot of this is because we have no baseline leech)
-old retribution buff back, not the stupid aura which is terrible
-make Templars Verdict have the good animation baseline without the legendary!

[Celvira]

Other hopes:
-better survivability CDs outside of bubble. Shield of vengeance is awful

I really love SoV for thematic reasons, so hopefully it stays as a permanent fixture to Ret's kit. A simple, flexible fix would be to lower its CD to 60s, adjusting DPS as necessary.

But to answer the topic, Wrath leaned very hard into the class fantasy of a divine warrior that could inflict severe punishment upon the forces of evil while sustaining allies, and gave Ret some much needed thematic identity. Purely gameplay wise its a toss-up between MoP for the fun abilities such as Long Arm of the Law and Legion for introducing a fast, but fluid rotation that gave Ret a "machine gun" playstyle that was a blast to play.

BfA was terrible for me personally, as Blizz removed the speed Ret gained in Legion and made the spec absolutely unbearable to play without a significant amount of haste, and even then. SL made a decent attempt to address the agonizing wait between GCD's, and the playstytle did feel better, but I remember having more enjoyment during Legion.

[Demsi]

WoD ret was a lot of fun but it was very dependent on procs.

Legion was great too since it added wake of ashes and you could have crusade and divine purpose at the same time with the leggo ring

[Rexxgrim]

I did not become an altoholic before Cata but the first alt I ever did raise to cap was a Paladin in WoTLK due to how multiple in-game buddies of mine would not shut up about how strong they were, they also kept being called "The Game Master Class" so I capped one and while I did enjoy the addition of Holy Power and especially how they have played for the last few years - It never came close to the feeling of RAW power they had in WoTLK. It also came as a result of how I felt on my main - A Blood DK who I had this REALLY cheesy build on that made me damn near immortal (Tho yes I did not deal much damage in return) and Ret Paladins was the one thing I never could beat.

They never ran out of mana. Had healing comparable to healers. Could deal damage beyond the melee distance which put some classes to shame, and when they first got into melee you were demolished, they could never be kited, could remove debuffs and then you top that with Bubble, Lay on Hands and a Hammer of Wrath so strong that it made me question my life choices once I noticed how much damage it dealt even trough Icebound Fortitude + AMS.

Again, they are more FUN to play now, but the Wrath times was still my fave time with them.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

From what I can tell here people (surprisingly!) just liked the spec when it was OP and had no weaknesses. Big shocker :P

I really love SoV for thematic reasons, so hopefully it stays as a permanent fixture to Ret's kit. A simple, flexible fix would be to lower its CD to 60s, adjusting DPS as necessary.

It probably will stay, the issue is that it is really bad compared to many other melee spec's defensive CDs. It is instantly consumed by any meaningful raid/dungeon mechanic and since it isn't % based damage reduction it eventually becomes useless in high keys or mythic raid mechanics.


-

Anyway, WoD ret was fine, but by the end you were totally reliant on the 3 wings from the set bonus and the dot from that HFC trinket to be competitive, which is kind of crazy. It was fine overall though.

The big thing in Legion and BFA was having the Retribution passive, which was an amazing bonus for progression raiding, especially at the end of fights. Ret aura is total garbage by comparison. You have to give up the only unique buff you add to the group (devo aura) just to get a brief proc of wings. Terrible!

[Wilian]

Probably end of Cata. At start it was too RNG based but it was fixed out by the end.

[Hofflerand]

Probably Wrath, but Ret has had several cool designs. Maybe DF will be the best one yet.

[threads]

From what I can tell here people (surprisingly!) just liked the spec when it was OP and had no weaknesses. Big shocker :P



It probably will stay, the issue is that it is really bad compared to many other melee spec's defensive CDs. It is instantly consumed by any meaningful raid/dungeon mechanic and since it isn't % based damage reduction it eventually becomes useless in high keys or mythic raid mechanics.


-

Anyway, WoD ret was fine, but by the end you were totally reliant on the 3 wings from the set bonus and the dot from that HFC trinket to be competitive, which is kind of crazy. It was fine overall though.

The big thing in Legion and BFA was having the Retribution passive, which was an amazing bonus for progression raiding, especially at the end of fights. Ret aura is total garbage by comparison. You have to give up the only unique buff you add to the group (devo aura) just to get a brief proc of wings. Terrible!

tbh i expected wrath to be #1 but i also expected WoD to be 2nd lol. maybe a lot of people just didn't play wod as much or don't remember but i thought it was probably the best version of holy power ret.

[Snowfunk]

Definitely Legion.

[deenman]

Not surprised wrath is wining,it was the first time ret became really good,and unlike later expansions it was much simpler,heck you could 1 buton macro the rotation

[Palapop]

Definitely Legion.

Why Legion is I may know?
What you find "good" about Legion ret design?

[Snowfunk]

Why Legion is I may know?
What you find "good" about Legion ret design?

What is your opinion, and why?

[Palapop]

What is your opinion, and why?

You gonna answer to question with another question? Really? Is that kind of toxicity necessary?

[Nosnogard]

Wrath for me. I started playing a BE pally in TBC and had a pretty good time thoughout the expansion, but man did I love the synergy with Exorcism and FoL in Wrath when they were instant.

That said - I played Paladin so much in Wrath that I've become permanently tired of Retribution. I just can't get into it anymore

Also - I do miss Seal of Blood oneshotting me on Thaddius. Man the numbers on that fight was fun. Taking as much damage as the tank and outputting the most damage in a 25 man pug. Oh boy do I remember the raid leaders yelling at me when they looked at Recount.

[Snowfunk]

You gonna answer to question with another question? Really? Is that kind of toxicity necessary?

And showing up out of nowhere, and joining an ongoing poll thread, by questioning someone's opinion, is not toxic? Gotcha.

[Palapop]

And showing up out of nowhere, and joining an ongoing poll thread, by questioning someone's opinion, is not toxic? Gotcha.

Thats the very PURPOSE of PUBLIC FORUM.

Have fun with your toxicity.

[Snowfunk]

Thats the very PURPOSE of PUBLIC FORUM.

Have fun with your toxicity.

You haven't contributed with your own opinion, any reason for it. You haven't given any reasoning for why my opinion is wrong.

But, I need to justify my opinion?

I'm entitled to my own opinion, and am not really obligated to explain it to you.
But if you at least contributed something to the discussion, we could have talked about it.

But you are just rude.