Ret RATED PVP: Analisys and Ideas to FIX IT

[Cronosmash]

Posted on Blizz forum:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7592802082

Here's the thing:

As we can all see, Ret got 1 main problem:

Not desirable on RBGs/Arena for the lack of some flavour/utility.

People bring DK for Grip and amasing damage, rogues for smoke bomb/stunlock, mages/locks/spriest for great AoE damage and control, boomkins for dot cleave, hunters for reliable control and good burst, etc.

If someone think HoP/HoS/HoF/Devotion is really important, they just bring Holy, there's no reason to take a Ret other than want a 80% DPS and 10% healer. Not interesting for rated PVP. There's no "It's OK, Ret is here, nobody will die - his utility will keep everyone alive" nor "Here comes the Ret (not bursted) now we gonna make some pressure" or "Ret is comming to peel you out of trouble" or "Ret's here, let's chain CC someone".

So, Ret bring a lot of good things nobody want. They're just not good enough.

On blue answers we had "Ret heals are down for about 20%, is that really the reason why nobody wants Ret anymore?"

My answer is: weak heals are about 30% of the problem. Nobody wanted Ret for Rated PVP in Cata too. Nobody have been wanting Ret for a LONG time.

And don't come talking that not enough people want to play Ret or nobody can play good enough. Thats a LAZY LIE. It's the same as Enhancement: most people already know that is a under performing class and then AVOID IT. Some people insist but then the RESULTS SHOW and then just reroll or like me, get to the foruns to complain. Or just leave the game.

Fact is there's 30 other DPS spec player for every 1 Ret.

Fact is there IS NO WAY a Ret can pug an RBG and arena teams are only with friends.

Fact is that I bet my HAND, I CUT OF MY HAND RIGHT NOW if you ever seen an "LF Ret Pala for Arena/RBG" ANYWERE for over a YEAR. While you can see it for almost every DPS spec exepct for Enh. People take almost any DK just for being DK and a Ret must be well recomended, geared, etc, etc so people take it for pity.

---

So how is Ret now?

Mobility: I think it's OK and I se nobody complaining.

Single SUSTAINED DPS: I think it's OK too - just take Divine Purpose if you want more sustained. Maybe rework it to be more reliable, less random and there: sustained DPS.

Utility: LOT's of utility that still doesn't help. We have it, but it does NOT make us desirable/usefull enough.

Burst: OK here too.

AoE DPS: Some small changes can get this better. Make Hammer of the Righeous don't need a target and give a nice Seal of Righeous buff and it's fine.

CC: NOT OK. We need CC/Peel - I'll get to that.

Survivability: Not OK too. Out of bubble we're sitting ducks.

So we need:

1) Usefull/Desirable Utility (something better than Sacrifice/BoP/Freedom and off heals)

2) CC for peels at LEAST.

3) Survivability.

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1 - Utility

What we have? HoP, HoS, HoF, Devotion and some off heals. Why they're NOT ENOUGH?

- HoP makes melee stop DPS.
- HoP only protect from physical.
- HoP is easily dispelable.
- HoS is easily dispelable.
- Devotion WAY long CD.
- I think off heals will be OK after the ~25% heal PVP Power fix.

Most important: all that Holy bring. Why bring a Ret if it's not exclusive and not that amasing?

2 - CC

This goes with utility. I can BoP/HoP someone and if it'll just stop physical damage and if it's melee will not be able do deal damage. But a SPriest can just get close and Area FEAR and get ~6 secs PEEL takes off the pressure and on given situation is WAAAAY better than BoP. And 30s CD not 5 min. CC IS UTILITY - CC is DEFENSIVE and CC is OFENSIVE.

Have you not realised that the more CC the more desirable a class/spec is? Rogue, Mages, Lock, Spriest. DK make up with grip/damage for RBGs and that's it. This is a Enhance/Elemental problem too.

One CC can open up the time/space for:

- Take pressure of = BoP/Sacrifice
- Give time to heal

So a 1 min CC work almost as good as our 2 best utilities.

AND EVEN MORE:

- CC can give the time needed to cap a node on RBGs
- CC can hold a healer to land a kill

So our Utility is only defensive, weak and shared with Holy. And CC is more reliable, lower CD, plus usefull for RBGs and great ofensive.

-> Long story short: we need more CC or we need to kinda bubble every one every minute absorving 100% damage. More or OP defensive group Utility will not be interesting or fun so -> we need another CC <-.

An into that: INSTANT. We have NO TIME TO CAST. We stop to cast: the pushback from damage double/triple the casting time. We get interrupted we're as good as dead. We are MELEE - if we stop to cast we stop hitting, we lose the range, we get instant CC'd to interrupt our cast. Since we are MELEE (REMEMBER THIS PART) we are in the MIDLE OF THE BATTLEFIELD not as Holy that can LoS and show up to cast a CC, if we start casting, everyone will see it, and everyone will be able to do something about it. Blizzard just took a CC from Ret and gave it to Holy as if Holy was weak and not desirable and Ret instant 1 min Repentance was OP.

Just make the math with the Amount/CD/Duration/Area/Breakable CCs that every class/spec have as baseline and talented and compare to Ret. If I get into this here I'll end up making a HUGE post. Don't make me. If needed, I WILL. So just acept that Ret need at LEAST one more not easily breakable instant maybe area CC, that HOLY WON'T HAVE with a decent 1 min CD. Or 2 CCs with 2 min CD, maybe one breakable and one not. The fact is that it IS NEEDED and Ret won't be desirable on ANY RATED PVP until it gets it.

Ret utility DOES NOT make up for the lack of CC/Peel.

3) Survivability

As it's designed our survivability goes with: Divine Shield, Divine Protection and heals. Bubble is overrated FIVE MINUTE CD that our survivability revolves arround. Divine protection is way weaker than every other classes version and our heals won't be OK even with the ~25% PVP Power fix.

Here is the thing:

We sacrifice DAMAGE to heal with WoGs and we sacrifice about 70k damage TV to make 45k healing full malevolent (55k after buff/fix) WoG that can be done if we get to hit someone 3 times - it takes us 4 GCDs not CC'd to TRADE 70k damage for a 50k heal. That's how Ret trade damage for survival and if we don't hit because of any CC, it afects not only our damage, but our already slow way of healing.

And Warriors heal 10k/sec just for being under 35% life - plus get some rage when CC'd with Second Wind.

Dark Regeneration heals for 120k, increases healing over 12 secs with a 2 min CD at the cost of ONE GCD. Sacrificial Pact absorvs more than a Spirit Shell with a 1 min CD - than lock can fear and res the pet.

We can self heal 60k (will be 75k) in 30 secs with 2 FoL SH (Selfless Healer) giving that we hit the 6 Judges needed in this time. If we get CC'd or can't hit we will take longer to heal that.

SS (Sacred Shield) absorvs about 95k in 30 secs, but it takes 6 secs to start absoving - it's stealable, dispelable and absorv 1 melee swing every 6 secs. With burst as it is, there's no point.

EF don't stack. We have a HoT to be like a Second Wind on ourselves, but if we need to WoG again with the HoT up, we waste it.

OK, SH can heal now (full Malevolent) 30k (37k after fix/buff) instant on myself, 60k (75k) on a ally, and maybe crit for 120k (150k) on a ally. The way it scales may make it OP, but my point here is that Rets can heal other OK (since it's not that fast/easy to stack SH x3 and crit) but at the cost of our survivability.

So anyone looks and a RET IS HEALING FOR 150k INSTANT! WTF OP! But outside of bubble we're dead meat.

In Cata we had it better because our WoG healed for MUCH MORE even with a 10s CD. If you make it back as it was, It'll be better: 10 sec CD to a heal that it's WORTH it. Not so many GCD spend for a weak heal.

---

OK, too long already. Let's get to the ideas and WHY it's needed.

First let me explain: pic a combination of it, some are MUST and some are just ideas. This is the direction to solve the problem that makes Ret not OK for PVP. And most important: this is RET ONLY.

BLIZZARD MUST STOP BALANCING RET ARROUND HOLY.

Look at Shadow Priests for instance: They have a 45s CD Silence, a 45s CD Disarm/Horror and 2 min Dispersion that works like a Ret bubble + freedon that can be used holding orbs and flags. And don't say that Spriests can't self heal while dispersed - Ret self heal for almost nothing on 8 secs and bubble is on 5 min CD. Right now Dispersion is WAY better than Divine Shield, trust me.

The thing is that Shadow has it own thing. Own better survivability, own better CC and utility to compensate the lack of self heals/survivability that only healers have. Nerf or buff Pain Supression and healers heals and Shadow is OK. Blizzard have to look at that and fix it for Ret NOW.

1) Utility

- Ret Hand of Protection don't stop the target from DPSing
- Bring back Glyph of Hand of Protection as MAGIC (MUST DO)
- Ret Hand of Sacrifice must NOT BE dispelable from Ret (MUST)
- Ret Hand of Sacrifice makes 50% of the damage taken be SHARED between Ret and target (so this is a defensive CD too)
- Ret Devotion Aura on 2 min CD
- There's some ideas for Ret only auras that gives Mastery and Haste besides Devotion, that share a 2 min CD from Guyviroth I think it's a great idea.

2) CC

- Ret area Fear/Stun/Silence on 1 min CD.
- Ret Repentance as baseline and instant on 30 secs CD (MUST HAVE NOW) - LOOK AT monk 15 secs baseline Paralisys for peels on demand, WTF.
- Ret Blinding Light on 1 min CD.
- Ret Silence on 45 secs CD

Look on those things for Shaman DPS too. Remember that CC brings Utility, Defense and Ofense to the game.

It stops enemies from hiting alies, yourself, from healing themselves, from healing other enemies and bring EVERYTHING to RBGs. Keep people out of the cars on Silvershard, combo CC to cap a node on Arathi/Guilneas/Eye that's more than half RBGs that win/lose are defined by CC.

Only an stupid OP amount of utility like mass bubble on a 2 min CD can make up for an area not easily breakable CC that sends everyone 20yd away out of LoS on a 30 secs CD. I think it's easier just give a CC than something like that, but it's one or them. Or else there's no reason to bring Ret.

3) Survivability

- Ret Hand of Sacrifice with 50% damage shared (as utility too)
- Ret WoG heals for 30% more on self (on top of the ~25% PVP Power)
- Ret WoG get a 10 sec CD and heal for 50% more
- Ret Divine Shield CD on 3 min CD
- Ret Divine Shield makes it heal for 100% more
- Ret Divine Protection goes for 25% all and glyph to 50% magic
- Ret Divine Protection remove/prevent Silence (remember Icebound and Berserker Rage)
- Ret Selfless Healer heals self for 50% more and others for 25% less (self sustained 45k noncrit selfheals, 110k crit selfless heals)
- Ret Sacred Shield start absorving instant
- Ret Sacred Shield absorv double for half time or works like a PW: Shield.
- Ret Eternal Flame HoT stack up to X maximum so it's not completely wasted with another WoG.

Remember these are all ideas - DIRECTIONS. Pick a couple of each, use it to inspire solutions. These are knobs that MUST BE TURNED in order for Ret become a PVP viable spec.

Tnx a lot - I think a lot of this comes from people from MMO Champion, Arena Junkies and some from Blizz forums. New ideas and perspective are always welcome.

[mosu332]

Finaly 1 paladin that have time and patience to write all shortcomings of retri, I totally agree with you, like iv sayd in ather threat there is no ret in top arena team.... why??... well read all what Cronosmash post, this whay....

[Regen]

Giving up fist of justice might suck, but the 50% slow on judgment talent is fantastic.

The biggest problem with being undesired is really with having no uniqueness from holy. No reason to bring a ret when you can have a holy paladin do it.

Another problem is being so easily kited/CCd during burst it feels to me. If we could just get a snare/stun reduction (even small like 20-30% not complete) while wings are active would help immensely but not be game breaking.

[Cronosmash]

Tnx Mosu!

Regen, every class have to have its problems. Being kited/CCd while bursted is part of the game. Imunity to it, is the same as when War's Avatar gave it a "Hand of Freedom" plus the Berserker's Rage trink - gets OP and gets nerfed.

The main reason for the post is: Ret needs a DIFERENCIAL. A signature playstyle/skill that people WANT on PVP. Like Smoke Bomb, Death Grip, Area Fear, massive damage, high dot cleave. Needs to be strong, real and Ret exclusive. Or else, people will just have to reroll Holy.

[Palatinus]

They definitely need to take a long look at the paladin class.

They need to divide the specs a LOT better. Just look at the druid talents, all do different things depending on spec. Look at ours? All pretty meh for prot, ok for ret (too much choice - by this I mean sacrifices. Like want a snare? ok give up cc or lower your damage....err what, wheres that for every other melee?), and mostly all brilliant for holy.

Most of the changes here are great, and if any of them ever get used, they need to make a big point how these are ret exclusive.

[Cronosmash]

Yeah, that it man.

Gonna make a topic about Prot PVP for FC too.

[Regen]

Yeah that was my biggest point though, no reason to take a ret when holy can do it while keeping everybody healed.

[mosu332]

Yeah, that it man.

Gonna make a topic about Prot PVP for FC too.

This iv love most on pala, on burning crusade was one of the op hybrid class ever, holy/prot = u could not kill him. retri/prot = good dps and same taime hard to kill ( this was my favorite ) and holy/retri = one of beste dps/survival combination. Whi they dont let us be hybrids anymore??? was realy fun. Whi i must be a DPS, a Tank or a Healer... whi not a mixt of this...

[Palatinus]

Gonna make a topic about Prot PVP for FC too.

I can't believe how unbalanced FCing is in RBGs. It was warrior for the whole of cata expansion? They supposedly balance around RBGs, yet require a warrior to FC. Its probably a bit better now (I know that prot (pala) is still not viable but maybe feral/blood is), but its still annoying. Even fixing prots viability in RBGs would help 'non-healing' paladins a lot, then there would actually be a spot for them in RBGs other than just Holy.

[Tangra]

Good post, very nice detail. As we have been discussing in the other PvP thread as well, Ret is just a collection of stereotypes that the devs take too seriously, and any serious PvPer knows are blown out of proportion. As you mentioned our "amazing" defensive abilities are outdated and over-rated. As your example points out very clearly, who needs HoP on a 5 min cooldown, when an AoE fear on a 30 sec cooldown does the same, if not more. A melee that can't peel is also a complete joke, making a teammate immune to melee for 10 sec every 5 min is nice and all, but a root on a regular basis is much better and actually keeps your caster teammates from being locked down almost permanently.

As many people mentioned in this thread, and the other one. Ret is one of the only dps specs in the game that gets virtually nothing other than the baseline utility that every spec in the class has (this is no doubt related to the silly stereotypes that people believe about paladin utility, as do the devs sadly). Our only unique abilities are Seal of Justice and Emancipate, which are simply vital abilities that allow us to function as a melee dps, and don't make our utility stand out in any way. A dps has to bring something more than a healer, and as we have all experienced... Holy brings literally almost everything Ret brings and more. Holy even has decent damage, and can hit other healers with denounce, making them unable to crit, and thus effectively Holy does a lot of damage, albeit indirectly. Why in heck they though that Holy needed this extra utility while Ret, get's almost nothing unique is beyond any logic... if anything Ret desperately needs something like denounce (as an instant cast of course, and maybe on a cooldown), both to buff its survivability and to nerf enemy healing.

If there is any rationality behind Blizzard's designing of Ret, it is that they want us to be one of the best off-healers... but when our off-heals actually begin to make an impression, they get nerfed. Blizzard is unwilling to blur the lines between healer and dps, yet paradoxically they want us to be just that. The spec simply reeks of neglect and thoughtlessness, it's painfully blatant that they barely spend any time working on it. We might not be the only red-headed step-child, but we're one of the top ones along with dps shamans, and a few other specs that fall through the cracks.

The philosophy of the spec needs to change, and Blizzard needs to stop playing dumb and acknowledge the fact that the best defense is a good offense, the best specs in the game defend themselves and their partners very effectively by putting out serious and sustained pressure and through CCs and debuffs... Ret just delays the inevitable for a while and can can't do much to turn the tide of a fight.

[Cronosmash]

Amazing post, Tangra. Wish Blizz had this insight.

[Vathius]

Yeah that was my biggest point though, no reason to take a ret when holy can do it while keeping everybody healed.

Yeah this pretty much sums ups rets main issue.

Yes the other stuff defiantly needs work. eg self heals / survivability.

But ret needs something that ONLY rets have. Otherwise holy will just dominate.

Same reasons that no one brings a prot pally for FC, why bring a prot pally FC when you can have a holy pally and a BLood FC ?

[Valedus]

" Retribution now does 50% extra healing with Flash Heal. The Selfless Healer talent has been reduced to 20/40/60% bonus healing."

From the blue post in the blue tracker. This combined with 100% more self healing from Eternal Flame + 25% extra healing from PvP Power might actually make our heals worth something. Problem is, do you guys think this is enough?
We also now recieved instant Blinding Light, while Holy is required to cast - I would like to have seen a Ret only ability, not just a better version for Ret, but I'll take what I can get.

[Vathius]

" Retribution now does 50% extra healing with Flash Heal. The Selfless Healer talent has been reduced to 20/40/60% bonus healing."

wait what where?

[Valedus]

Look at the blue tracker on front page, top left. Read through last post by Ghostcrawler in that thread.

[nyc81991]

Yeah I totally agree. Ret needs something that makes people think "Hey if we bring a Ret paladin we get this!".

Maybe they could bring back something like Judgement of light and make it so any time the target takes damage from your Templars Verdict it heals everyone in 30 yards for 20k health. That would make it so we can still help with healing support while still doing some damage but it would be gated around using 3 holy power

One smaller thing I would like to see is them add a passive Silence reduction for Ret. If we get silenced we are pretty much useless, the only attacks or spells we can use are crusader strike and judgement.

[Cronosmash]

Yeah, I hope it'll get to that eventualy.

They rather buff our heals than our survivability CD (Divine Prot), as long it's balanced there's no problem with that. We get to spend more GCDs to recover rather than get a CD up. Not what I wanted but it's on the list (really nice to make a post, tweet to GC and next day it's on the PTR Notes ;D).

Still waiting for a Ret Glyph of Hand of Protection to protect from magic, Ret 30% WoG self heal buff and a new instant Ret Only CC - maybe a 1 min Blinding Light.

[ipoststuff]

A targeted blinding light would be nice. Blinding the target (if its an enemy) and the ones around them.

[Palatinus]

How does this work?

"Ret is fine, it can take some nerfs"

"Ret shouldn't replace a healer, its healing needs to be nerfed and you shouldn't be compensated for it"

"Ret is where it should be"

"We are going to buff pvp power for hybrid specs to 25% extra healing"

"We are going buff flash of light for rets (self), though we thought their survivability and viability were/are fine"

While a buff is nice, you only have to read this thread to know that it isnt more healing that we need, this will change very little, we still lack everything mentioned...just prolonging the inevitable.

Besides, if this goes live, looking forward to the hotfix in the first week "We feel ret got slightly above 1700, thats not where it should be, their survivability against 1300 mmr players is too high, we need to nerf it. You shouldn't be compensated for something that is OP and is making you remotely viable".

[Nairobi]

Not that I want to take a page from Blizzard's class/talent design book for the paladin class (which is basically take all the things from ONE spec, gut them, and give them to EVERYONE while not compensating the victim), I'd like to see the removal of denounce from holy paladins and give it as a debuff from using TV/DS. Basically, it would be a semi-passive bit of damage reduction for when we get trained, a small amount of pressure relief for when we try to peel (LOL), and a bit of utility for setting up a kill on a healer.

Besides, it's not like Holy needs more reasons to get brought to arena/RBG.

OR

If you want to be fair, make it so that ANY damaging HoPo ability causes denounce to the target(s) hit. This would allow prot to ShotR for the debuff, and holy could do it via Glyph of Harsh Words (since it's apparently fair to have your utility and/or dmg mitigation come from glyphs, i.e. TV glyph, DivProt glyph). Plus it would have ZERO balance effect on PVE.