Retribution Dragonflight Talents

[Stabbyfists]

This is some really cringe victim mentality and conspiratorial thinking. There is no "class bias" in the way people think. Developers aren't sitting around with a raging hard-on waiting to fuck over the specs they don't like.

Also, it is not like the same developers are making these choices every expansion. Few people who worked on this stuff in GCs era are even at the company anymore.

The reasons the spec tends to struggle are mostly structural, which I guess you are at least getting at near the end of this screed. There's very little institutional knowledge, because developers change all the time - that's a big reason mistakes get repeated. But there are also way too many specs in this game and it's not possible to make them all good, since good is relative to what other specs can do.

That, combined with the sacred cow mentality inherent in all long-running products (meaning, you can't change too dramatically or there will be a massive backlash from existing fans) means design options are pretty limited.

There WAS class bias against Paladins during Vanilla but this bias existed for all hybrid classes hence why druids got it the worse (no REAL res ability!) the class designer at the time thought that if you were capable of multiple jobs like healing, tanking and dps, then you should not excel at either. Its why all the tier sets pigeon holed you into 1 job. Paladins, Druids, Shamans, all were forced to heal via their tier sets and the fact their other specs just did not function properly. Hell Ret paladins HAD crusader strike in their tool kit in the WoW Beta, but it was removed before it went live because it would have made them a somewhat viable DPS spec but the designer wanted them to heal. I thought this was all common knowledge.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

There WAS class bias against Paladins during Vanilla but this bias existed for all hybrid classes hence why druids got it the worse (no REAL res ability!) the class designer at the time thought that if you were capable of multiple jobs like healing, tanking and dps, then you should not excel at either. Its why all the tier sets pigeon holed you into 1 job. Paladins, Druids, Shamans, all were forced to heal via their tier sets and the fact their other specs just did not function properly. Hell Ret paladins HAD crusader strike in their tool kit in the WoW Beta, but it was removed before it went live because it would have made them a somewhat viable DPS spec but the designer wanted them to heal. I thought this was all common knowledge.

That was like 18 years ago tho lol. LK forward more or less tried to ditch the hybrid tax thing

Then again they do seem super unwilling to let healing hybrids function in that role for the most part, which has kinda hurt identity a bit. Like ret as the warrior/cleric hybrid has worse overall healing in keys and raid bosses than most people heh

[Kalisandra]

That was like 18 years ago tho lol. LK forward more or less tried to ditch the hybrid tax thing

Then again they do seem super unwilling to let healing hybrids function in that role for the most part, which has kinda hurt identity a bit. Like ret as the warrior/cleric hybrid has worse overall healing in keys and raid bosses than most people heh

What really hurts is when you're in a m+ run and the healer dies for some reason, and you realise that the Fury Warrior is getting to do 100% DPS while self-healing better than you can with you diverting all your Holy Power into WoGs. My guild does m+ with whoever turns up and it's common to have a Warrior tank and a Fury DPS, and if things go bad they're usually the last two standing (assuming 'goes bad' wasn't one of them standing in something they shouldn't have for too long).

And it's not like Ret can emergency tank usefully either - Shamans do a better job of that by popping their Earth Elemental.

[FAILoZOFF]

That was like 18 years ago tho lol. LK forward more or less tried to ditch the hybrid tax thing

Then again they do seem super unwilling to let healing hybrids function in that role for the most part, which has kinda hurt identity a bit. Like ret as the warrior/cleric hybrid has worse overall healing in keys and raid bosses than most people heh

all healers are hybrids

[Wrecktangle]

What really hurts is when you're in a m+ run and the healer dies for some reason, and you realise that the Fury Warrior is getting to do 100% DPS while self-healing better than you can with you diverting all your Holy Power into WoGs. My guild does m+ with whoever turns up and it's common to have a Warrior tank and a Fury DPS, and if things go bad they're usually the last two standing (assuming 'goes bad' wasn't one of them standing in something they shouldn't have for too long).

This annoys me so much. My brother plays Fury and I Ret, we're both pretty elite players. His on demand burst is insane, requires 0 ramp up, his self healing eclipses mine even if I troll and spec into JV and WoG healing. His durability in general is just higher, his mobility is higher, like what is the downside?

And this is for Fury, not even counting the actual top tier specs.

[Donkeywing]

This annoys me so much. My brother plays Fury and I Ret, we're both pretty elite players. His on demand burst is insane, requires 0 ramp up, his self healing eclipses mine even if I troll and spec into JV and WoG healing. His durability in general is just higher, his mobility is higher, like what is the downside?

And this is for Fury, not even counting the actual top tier specs.

Yeah it's absurdly bad, I didn't realise it completely untill I actually looked at all other melee specs how trash-tier the balance is atm, I'm legit not even bothering anymore. No interest sweating and tryharding for no reason. Almost all melee specs have significantly better defensibility, mobility and utility, it's not even close either. You take a look at lets say dh and they get 16% magic dr, 10% leech, 6% hp etc, vastly superior mobility and probably better general utility too. Fury warriors just get 5% leech and 10% flat dr with enrage, also better mobility and utility, etc. Dks just get 20% stamina, hilarious. This stuff matters. It's shamefully bad how they took away spellwarding from ret last minute, gave us 4% armour and called it a day. Zero fucking balance in this game.

[Gracin]

I've been "maining" Ret since late BC, with the exception of RL basically making me skip the entirety of SL. I picked up playing again a few weeks before DF launch, and just had the feeling that something was off with Ret. I ignored it, pushed through the questlines to get flying for SL, did some elemental invasions for gear and waited for DF. DF launched, and even questing to level still felt clunky, lackluster, and weak. And that was all without having any other playtime with other dps specs to compare it to.

Just messing around I decided to roll a new warrior on a different server to check out a potential new guild for my main. Leveling as fury even from the start felt better as a whole. By the time I made it to 60 after a couple days of playing, I couldn't believe how much better the spec plays compared to Ret. There's none of the clunkyness, and feeling of just being underpowered. Just a few days of playing a toon below max level even made it almost unbearable to do dailies as Ret last night.

[Donkeywing]

The designers at blizz probably do not even realise that this kind of destroys the experience of playing paladin. Instead of being usefull or helpfull to others, you're actually the weakest link needing to be cared for, most of the time, and our wog healing is trash. It's beyond absurd, because this is completely contradictory to the class fantasy and direction of the class. They gave us some of the worst defense, mobility, utility and they probably don't give a fuck. The times of divine shield/lay being considered overpowered are long gone.

[Wrecktangle]

Damage buffs incoming aside, I know what I'd really like to see:

Make Blinding Light an actual silence.
Give Ret a magic dispel
I think Ret having it's 45s-1M CDs helps it feel less anemic outside of wings compared to iterations past which is great, but it feels awkward having so much ramp up time while simultaneously also requiring enemies to stand in Consecration. I think one or the other would be more tolerable, not both IMO.
Don't even get me started on defensives, but at least that's on the radar.

[BeepBoo]

This annoys me so much. My brother plays Fury and I Ret, we're both pretty elite players. His on demand burst is insane, requires 0 ramp up, his self healing eclipses mine even if I troll and spec into JV and WoG healing. His durability in general is just higher, his mobility is higher, like what is the downside?

And this is for Fury, not even counting the actual top tier specs.

There isn't a down side. There's no reason for ret to be hamstrung like it is, but we're horrible across the board in absolutely every metric except long duration boss fights, in which case we're mediocre, but we still lack the tools other classes have that make those specs more fun, more mobile, and more survivable. It's ridiculous how ret is essentially always the redhead stepchild. I can count on one hand the number of times it's actually been top tier for anything since vanilla. It drives me insane.

[Grapemask]

At the end of beta, when Blizzard did that sudden across-the-board ret nerf, I posted then that this was the part of Blizzard's ret cycle of "buff, overnerf in a kneejerk reaction to limited data and anecdotal crying from other classes, buff when they realize it was a horrible mistake." I've posted something similar every single expansion since BC's CS nerf. Anyway, here we are now.

Developers’ notes: Some of Retribution’s main rotational buttons do not feel as good to press as we’d like so we’re making some changes to help improve these abilities. Additionally, their survivability isn’t where we would like so we’re making some improvements to their defensive kit as well. We are looking at Retribution as a whole and will have more to share in the future.

I've also posted every time about Blizzard's second favorite thing, which is to make the same mistake again and again and then fill blogs with their wise ramblings about the lessons they've learned (the same lessons again and again and again). Looking forward to it. Again.

[roboscorcher]

Yeah it's absurdly bad, I didn't realise it completely untill I actually looked at all other melee specs how trash-tier the balance is atm, I'm legit not even bothering anymore. No interest sweating and tryharding for no reason. Almost all melee specs have significantly better defensibility, mobility and utility, it's not even close either. You take a look at lets say dh and they get 16% magic dr, 10% leech, 6% hp etc, vastly superior mobility and probably better general utility too. Fury warriors just get 5% leech and 10% flat dr with enrage, also better mobility and utility, etc. Dks just get 20% stamina, hilarious. This stuff matters. It's shamefully bad how they took away spellwarding from ret last minute, gave us 4% armour and called it a day. Zero fucking balance in this game.

Fascinating. I'm a mid-tier player that only plays Ret right now, had no idea these other classes had 10% leech. That's crazy.

I like Ret's self-healing for the most part. WoG is decent when talented. JV kind of sucks as it's yet another button; I'd rather it be a healing upgrade to TV.

Maybe if a Ret heals himself, he gets a 25% armor "Armor of Justice" buff for 5sec. This is Uther's passive in HotS, it fits the paladin theme well.

[Donkeywing]

I like Ret's self-healing for the most part. WoG is decent when talented.

Untill you start comparing it to the healing abilities of our direct competition. Wog cost 60% of our resourcebar to cast and deals zero dmg. Deathstrike is 35-40% resources for potentially more healing, but crucially it also deals a moderate amount of dmg, making it far more efficient and rewarding. Impending victory for warriors only cost them 10% of their resourcebar, heals for 30% hp (more than noncrit wog) and deals a little dmg too. Those abilities are just better tools for selfhealing than wog, which is abyssmally stupid when you think about it. Only upside to wog is that you can cast it on others, but why the fuck would you ever do that? We gonna wog our fellow warrs or dks so they dont have to death strike? Wog should be way more rewarding than it is, a 50% buff would not be misplaced. Especially if it is supposed to be a strength.

Also remember the class having access to death strike gets 20% stamina, 3% leech node, a perma 35% dr below 30% hp on top of other tools they can get. It is ridiculous when you put rets into perspective to shit like that. DHs are just as bad. It is unacceptable in terms of immersion that a plate knight-like class is such paper, and a complete failure of game balance that the worst mobility melee also has the shittiest defense by lightyears, with no pay-off for any of it. Meanwhile they competently ensure certain mechanics pierce our divine shield, aswell as it being dispellable/breakable as if we're npcs. They should just call it 'Dogshield' from now on because there's nothing divine about it.

The reduction of our personal cd is a good buff in itself, but will not fix the underlying issues.

[roboscorcher]

Untill you start comparing it to the healing abilities of our direct competition. Wog cost 60% of our resourcebar to cast and deals zero dmg. Deathstrike is 35-40% resources for potentially more healing, but crucially it also deals a moderate amount of dmg, making it far more efficient and rewarding. Impending victory for warriors only cost them 10% of their resourcebar, heals for 30% hp (more than noncrit wog) and deals a little dmg too. Those abilities are just better tools for selfhealing than wog, which is abyssmally stupid when you think about it. Only upside to wog is that you can cast it on others, but why the fuck would you ever do that? We gonna wog our fellow warrs or dks so they dont have to death strike? Wog should be way more rewarding than it is, a 50% buff would not be misplaced. Especially if it is supposed to be a strength.

Also remember the class having access to death strike gets 20% stamina, 3% leech node, a perma 35% dr below 30% hp on top of other tools they can get. It is ridiculous when you put rets into perspective to shit like that. DHs are just as bad. It is unacceptable in terms of immersion that a plate knight-like class is such paper, and a complete failure of game balance that the worst mobility melee also has the shittiest defense by lightyears, with no pay-off for any of it. Meanwhile they competently ensure certain mechanics pierce our divine shield, aswell as it being dispellable/breakable as if we're npcs. They should just call it 'Dogshield' from now on because there's nothing divine about it.

The reduction of our personal cd is a good buff in itself, but will not fix the underlying issues.

These are all good points.

I will reiterate that WoG would be better if it gave a big armor buff on top of healing, and JV would be great as an upgrade to TV so that it synergizes with all the other TV and spender talents.

[Donkeywing]

Unfortunately 95% of the dmg you take in dungeons and raids as a dps is magic dmg, even when it doesnt look like magic. When the dmg is physical it's usually a bleed not mitigated by armour. I don't know the armour calculations in pvp so can't say but obviously it would be situational on the comp you're facing. Upgrading TV is not a bad idea, but that sounds more like a qol change rather than a buff. Still not bad though.

[Gracin]

I'm going to keep playing my Fury Warrior for the remainder of the week to try and get as close as I can to ilvl matching my Ret, and I'll open world test the "buffs" during the weekend. I'm not holding my breath that the damage increases are going to change my mind. I haven't really raided anything beyond LFR for years, so while damage is important, the gameplay flow and survivability are both far more important to me at this point. And despite what was said by Blizz regarding the defensives, it isn't going to change anytime soon. And when it does it'll be some slap in the face like 5% armor.

[Donkeywing]

Well, ramblings aside, if you're here for information to min/max I'll share the following; the seal of might talent is massively bugged. If you spend only one point into it you'll get the full value of it. The 2nd point seemingly doesn't do anything. It has been like that for months. I know that because I submitted a report on it during beta (after they did some namechanging). This info matters for a bunch of builds. Now I haven't looked at the blueprints so don't fucking quote me on this, there's always a possibility of major interface bug/anecdotal data. Surprisingly however, I am still not reading about it anywhere, incl all the expert guides and whatnot, so there you go, you're welcome. I'm assuming this is going to be fixed quicker than our other problems however.