Is the state of Retribution Paladin really that bad?

[tomten]

Stating such falsehoods disqualifies you in any serious discussion regarding ret. We don't even have spellwarding and you can't equate freedom to parts of death's advance, also acting as if bop is a substitude for bubble is ridiculous. Your lack of knowledge regarding ret is a major problem because this stuff is very technical and doing a toolkit or even ability comparison of powerlevel is complicated and requires at the very least a basic understanding of what the fuck you're talking about.

One other note



Don't frame that opinion upon me when my post litteraly includes the following;

when in reality bubble is such a long cd you probably only bubble out of 1 mechanic

That is not the definition of 'useless' by any means. It's extremely disrespectfull to insinuate that to be my opinion.

What is so technical about it? What is so complicated about it? And what is the difference on freedom and that component of deaths advance? Both prevent moving impairing abilities, it functions the same? If not, explain the difference.

Its bit ironic because you seem to lack basic understanding of what the fuck you're talking about but trying to hide behind "ohh, its so complicated and technical", like no, no it isn't.
If you can't explain it yourself to others? you dont understand it yourself.

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Honestly, in PvE content like World Quests, Ret takes a ridiculous amount of damage. My Paladin isn't amazing at the moment (about 391), but it's decent. And taking on 2 or 3 enemies can kill me if I don't constantly heal myself over and over.

But flipping over to Prot (with the exact same gear, obviously) I can take on 15-20 enemies in about the same amount of time without even getting close to 75% of my health.

I've never had this issue in any expansion since end of BC. Not sure what it is right now, but we're bizarrely fragile.

Are you confused why a tank specialization can tank more mobs?
Its a change to how the game works, its not a ret/prot thing, its a dps vs tank thing.

[Eon Drache]

What is so technical about it? What is so complicated about it? And what is the difference on freedom and that component of deaths advance? Both prevent moving impairing abilities, it functions the same? If not, explain the difference.

Its bit ironic because you seem to lack basic understanding of what the fuck you're talking about but trying to hide behind "ohh, its so complicated and technical", like no, no it isn't.
If you can't explain it yourself to others? you dont understand it yourself.

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I like how you just skip over the fact that you didn't know Ret doesn't have spellwarding at all. Death's Advanced does more than Freedom does. Steed is now off the gcd on the ptr so clearly blizzard agrees on that part. Anti-Magic Shell is arguably WAY better than BoP and unlike BoP it does actually prevent most movement impairing effect. And to your original statement BoP and DS do nothing against movement abilities currently for fights like raz or the spider.

[Jester Joe]

But why should ret have 2 movement immune abilities? On top of their already huge utility?
That would be bit OP, no?
Having freedom baked into divine steed, while still keeping freedom?

I can agree with removing steed being on the GCD but giving them essentially 2 freedoms, bubble, bop, spell ward etc. Like, cmon? What are you advocating for here, really? Every class can't be the best at everything?

You sound like you're not even here to actually acknowledge or discuss if ret has issues, and to just poke at people.

As already pointed out, spell ward doesn't exist for Ret. And ret doesn't have huge utility, all we bring to the table really for utility is hand of sacrifice.

Which we don't even have the defensives to live through using in high damage situations. Either way, it's not exactly up for debate whether or not Ret needs help because even Blizzard has acknowledged on all fronts ret is falling short. So no, having 2 movement immune abilities wouldn't be OP since it seems like even having 1 wasn't enough to make ret decent.

So they are removing GCD from Divine Steed. Quite sure I did read that a few days ago, so werent sure why you argued that its still on GCD so had to check it up myself again xd

Because it is, on live. Which is what was being talked about at the time. Removing it from the GCD is just a step in the right direction.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Death's Advance and Freedom seems like one of those tests where you can tell if people know what they are talking about lol. DA is just dramatically better in nearly all real situations in PvE.

[Kalisandra]

This isn't a comparable situation.

Death's Advance does more than Freedom does, there's been so many raid abilities they can ignore with Death's Advance, like Raz's knock back.

Bubble is on a 3.5m CD with talent reduction, and BoP is a talent point that is only situationally taken on a 5m CD. Which uh...neither are used for mobility really.

You do realize Steed is like, the only mobility in game actually ON the GCD still, right?

Ghost Wolf and Gust of Air are both on the GCD. However, Shamans have quite a few mobility and control options, so it's not as bad for them these days. I don't recall if Astral Shift is on CD or not.

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The person I quoted talked about not having immunity from movement impairing effects, which freedom gives? The talent for movement speed on freedom also carried over from sl or no?

We're getting that talent (currently it's a PVP-only talent). As for not having immunity - Freedom doesn't work vs a really irritating number of snares in instanced content.

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I Just want to point out that ret actually can't talent into spellwarding and bop is, in fact, useless this tier for anything.

It should block Terros' Concussive Slam, which is physical damage. You'd think getting rocks hurled at you would be physical damage, but in fact everything but Concussive Slam (and presumably his auto-attack) is nature damage.

BoP is an aggro management tool for trash pulls that go bad, and that's about it.

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Honestly, in PvE content like World Quests, Ret takes a ridiculous amount of damage. My Paladin isn't amazing at the moment (about 391), but it's decent. And taking on 2 or 3 enemies can kill me if I don't constantly heal myself over and over.

But flipping over to Prot (with the exact same gear, obviously) I can take on 15-20 enemies in about the same amount of time without even getting close to 75% of my health.

I've never had this issue in any expansion since end of BC. Not sure what it is right now, but we're bizarrely fragile.

Cataclysm. It had the same issue until Ret was heavily re-worked, and for similar reasons - no passive damage reduction, terrible mobility, and lacklustre damage (to be fair, Cata DPS was far worse initially than it is now)

I agree with you though - we take tons of damage from routine 2-3 mob pulls out in the world. My Shaman, far worse geared than my Ret, doesn't suffer as much. To be fair, they're elemental and everything's normally half dead before it reaches them but, even so, they should be able to just drop a Healing Stream, keep DPSing and kill 4-5 guys with less health loss than my pally takes from 2-3 when the Pally is in better gear.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Biggest issue with astral shift is that you can't use it while stunned like barkskin etc

[Kalisandra]

What is so technical about it? What is so complicated about it? And what is the difference on freedom and that component of deaths advance? Both prevent moving impairing abilities, it functions the same? If not, explain the difference.

They might have similar or the same descriptions, but mechanically the game treats them differently for whatever reason. Freedom just plain doesn't work on many things you'd expect it to.

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Biggest issue with astral shift is that you can't use it while stunned like barkskin etc

Yeah, it blows when it comes to PvP (especially) for that reason. Shaman get stunned, Shaman go "squish".

[Ashana Darkmoon]

There's not much rhyme or reason behind survivability in a lot of cases. Traditionally you'd think it would follow armor types, but that hasn't really been the case in forever. Leather melee (except feral) have had insane defensives forever and warlocks are immortal.

It's a difficult balance to strike without homogenization but it's wild to me how rogues - the traditional fantasy archetype of high damage, super squishy - end up as more survivable than plate classes (while also typically doing more damage since they have 3 specs)

[Jester Joe]

Ghost Wolf and Gust of Air are both on the GCD. However, Shamans have quite a few mobility and control options, so it's not as bad for them these days. I don't recall if Astral Shift is on CD or not.

Astral Shift is not.

Ghost wolf I didn't include honestly because it's closer to a shapeshift in fairness, but it does at least come with a tack in slow immunity pretty much (Or at least, can't be slowed below 100%).

Gust of Air I didn't realize because it's newish at least.

[Kalisandra]

Astral Shift is not.

Ghost wolf I didn't include honestly because it's closer to a shapeshift in fairness, but it does at least come with a tack in slow immunity pretty much (Or at least, can't be slowed below 100%).

Gust of Air I didn't realize because it's newish at least.

I only know about GoW being on the GCD because I tested it the other day. OVerall it doesn't worry me much when I'm playing my Shaman - I see it as the price for having the options they do. If you know you're going to need to move and cast shortly, you have Spiritwalker's Grace. For a quick move you have Gust of Wind. For sustained movement you have Ghost Wolf. The only thing that isn't covered is an unexpected sudden need to move, which is more a PvP thing (and last time I checked Shamans were doing pretty well in PvP, so it's not a deal-breaker there either). They also have a spammable ST snare, and AoE snare, and possibly an AoE root, plus maybe a knockback. Not lacking for tools to manage distance.

Paladins, on the other hand, do not have all those lovely options, so having Steed off the GCD will be very nice. Having Divine Protection baseline and off the GCD will also be very nice. Dying inside a GCD because there's nothing one can do gets old fast.

[Delever]

There's not much rhyme or reason behind survivability in a lot of cases. Traditionally you'd think it would follow armor types, but that hasn't really been the case in forever. Leather melee (except feral) have had insane defensives forever and warlocks are immortal.

It's a difficult balance to strike without homogenization but it's wild to me how rogues - the traditional fantasy archetype of high damage, super squishy - end up as more survivable than plate classes (while also typically doing more damage since they have 3 specs)

Thats because class fantasy has been murdered in favor of balance.

[Nymrohd]

Base Freedom provides immunity to snares and roots and dispels existing ones. That's it. It does not protect from forced movement, it does not increase your speed. Unbound Freedom increases your speed; it used to be a pvp talent and now it will be available as a choice.
Divine Protection and Blessing of Protection and their relation with forced movement was always unclear. Up until Cata, Bubble really was a reliable immune. I know cause I solo tanked a fuckton of encounters by using them to ignore tank swap mechanics. From MoP onward, more and more abilities ignore Bubble. Forced movement in particular very often did. 10.0.7 expressly adds that component to both abilities.

Realistically speaking, Bubble will be used to ignore 1-2 mechanics during a raid encounter (more on endbosses since they usually last so long). At higher difficulties they are almost always reserved either to protect you from overlapping mechanics or to protect cooldown usage (given that at least since Legion, Ret is entirely dependent on cooldown windows to do damage). It's CD is just not short enough to be used reliably

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Thats because class fantasy has been murdered in favor of balance.

That would imply balance.

[Delever]

Base Freedom provides immunity to snares and roots and dispels existing ones. That's it. It does not protect from forced movement, it does not increase your speed. Unbound Freedom increases your speed; it used to be a pvp talent and now it will be available as a choice.
Divine Protection and Blessing of Protection and their relation with forced movement was always unclear. Up until Cata, Bubble really was a reliable immune. I know cause I solo tanked a fuckton of encounters by using them to ignore tank swap mechanics. From MoP onward, more and more abilities ignore Bubble. Forced movement in particular very often did. 10.0.7 expressly adds that component to both abilities.

Realistically speaking, Bubble will be used to ignore 1-2 mechanics during a raid encounter (more on endbosses since they usually last so long). At higher difficulties they are almost always reserved either to protect you from overlapping mechanics or to protect cooldown usage (given that at least since Legion, Ret is entirely dependent on cooldown windows to do damage). It's CD is just not short enough to be used reliably

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That would imply balance.

Yeah that is the depressing part.... balance has not been achieved either. So in the end the fantasy murdering has been for nothing.

[Gorsameth]

Are you confused why a tank specialization can tank more mobs?
Its a change to how the game works, its not a ret/prot thing, its a dps vs tank thing.

Your focusing on the wrong part of that post.
Play a ~380 Ret and any other melee class/spec at ~380 ilvl and the ret takes noticeably more damage then others. Especially when your taking on an elite you can really feel just how squishy Ret is.

[Kalisandra]

Base Freedom provides immunity to snares and roots and dispels existing ones. That's it.

It doesn't work on all of them either.

[Verissaugh]

You sound like you're not even here to actually acknowledge or discuss if ret has issues, and to just poke at people.

As already pointed out, spell ward doesn't exist for Ret. And ret doesn't have huge utility, all we bring to the table really for utility is hand of sacrifice.

Which we don't even have the defensives to live through using in high damage situations. Either way, it's not exactly up for debate whether or not Ret needs help because even Blizzard has acknowledged on all fronts ret is falling short. So no, having 2 movement immune abilities wouldn't be OP since it seems like even having 1 wasn't enough to make ret decent.




Because it is, on live. Which is what was being talked about at the time. Removing it from the GCD is just a step in the right direction.

Then its my bad that I didnt rly read the context. But yes, its a great step.
And im quite sure tomten has been arguing on the basis of his imagination, I think hes done it quite a few times already in other topics aswell. Its hard to argue with ppl who have 0 facts and most likely never played a pally in his life.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Thats because class fantasy has been murdered in favor of balance.

Not really, nothing here has anything to do with balance lol

It's just a result of the game being 20 years old and design decisions compounding on one another. e.g. rogues getting stuff like cloak to compete in arena, then it just carries on in perpetuity

I would still rather have this version than any before imo. Balance has issues but it's better than it has been in a long time.

And the rework of ret is a great sign that they actually have time this expansion to change things since there's no stupid BP stuff wasting developer time

[Eon Drache]

It should block Terros' Concussive Slam, which is physical damage. You'd think getting rocks hurled at you would be physical damage, but in fact everything but Concussive Slam (and presumably his auto-attack) is nature damage.

BoP is an aggro management tool for trash pulls that go bad, and that's about it.

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To be fair no one but the tank should be getting hit by Slam, anyway. But I guess if you can't take 1 step to the side you can use a GCD and BoP. And yeah, it's kind of dumb that everything does magic damage. Guess Blizzard didn't want you to bring any rets for extra bops.

[TbouncerT]

Which we are not outside a few seconds of bubble-taunt..

This is Prot (Final Stand), not Ret.

[Kalisandra]

To be fair no one but the tank should be getting hit by Slam, anyway. But I guess if you can't take 1 step to the side you can use a GCD and BoP. And yeah, it's kind of dumb that everything does magic damage. Guess Blizzard didn't want you to bring any rets for extra bops.

Sure, nobody should, and the tanks should be able to deal on their own, but in the event something goes sideways BoP can, in this one case, actually be useful. I wasn't advocating planning around it, and I mentioned the slam so nobody would say I missed it - it being something that you can BoP through for that one fight doesn't somehow make BoP useful.

As I said, it's main use seems to be saving people when a trash pull goes bad, mainly by slapping it on a healer so they don't have to worry about healing aggro whilst the tanks salvage the situation when somebody facepulls an extra trash group or the like. If you raid is consistently competent and doesn't mess up like that it's basically useless. At least it's avoidable if we really don't need it.