@Blizz, this is the HONEST Ret paladin Review by SAVIX

So, Dear Blizz, this is the link to the last video by Savix, 1 of the (if not THE) best Ret paladins in the wrold. While he plays ret pally mainly in pvp, alot of what he says in his videos is also valid for pve. I would have alot of things to tell you, but I’m quite enraged by you throwing poop to our faces and calling it “unpruning”. Honestly this forums are FULL of good suggestions on how to make paladins (and Ret paladin specifically) not op, just viable and FUNNY, you should just start reading what we are saying. So I want you to see this video and learn. Btw Savix’s opinion and decision on ret pally is also shared by alot of other players, including me. Start listening who actually really played ret pally for 15 years, and watch ALL Savix’s videos.

Here the link to the video:

Please, I ask every1 who got access to the US forum and Beta forum to link this video there too. Share the video as much as you can, please. Devs must ear this.
They have started to rework the paladin class, just a little change for now, but atleast they’re reading now. If you can share this do it. This is our only and last hope.

Thanks you all

28 Likes

im really worried over pally in general, but this video was spot on for ret.
just by removing steed and bringing back the old talent for movement would be a good first step… i dont understand why tf they wont listen to the players that do play paladin as a main.
Sad timed, auras are just a jebait and the spec looks lame overall, big rework needed.

9 Likes

i dont understand this comment, holy and protection are amazing right now. both are really op and seriously need nerfing.

my prot paladin can keep 13 secs of SOR up perminatly with free wogs regularly enough to out heal my healer

and my holy paladin can flatten any incoming dmg in seconds with barely any prep.

The fact that holy and prot means for Blizzard that ret does not need anymore love, because the class performs well.

3 Likes

well yea, ret is awful but its issues are fundamental to the design. but 1 spec being broken dosent mean the class is. it really isnt unusual for each class to have a dead spec.

the reason ret gets f’ed on movement is because its too bursty, if they catch you, you die, no 2 ways about it, and as long as that is true blizzard wont change rets movement out of fear of making them too strong.

although my take away from those videos is flesh craft needs a nerf and the warlock perma slow is probably a bit to op regardless of who you are fighting.

i dont really put much stock in not being able to break the shield because numbers tuning still needs to happen.

if you played ret from the start you should know that blizz always hated us despite being the iconic “arthas” arch type paladin :stuck_out_tongue: or maybe thats why they hate us

1 Like

They won’t do anything. Greed and incompetence took over the company long time ago.

12 Likes

I just saw the video and this is so depressing…I was afraid that the stat squish and new shadowlands talents would mess everything up (more than it already was) and it did :frowning:

When an amazing player like Savix who I think is the best ret ever is saying that ret will be his alt and he can’t beat other players on it…what do you think a normal player like me is gonna do?

This is sad…completely sad because i love ret and i’ve mained it since 2007 :frowning:

I really hope things change, but I pretty much know that blizz hates ret anyways so nothing will change… Wheelchair class ftw… :sob:

3 Likes

then I see this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ6sWi6_awQ&lc=z221f5mavoyst3ujh04t1aokggdxmd0zojwdvpjmo3dhrk0h00410 and am just super confused in what to think?

You should think tuning still hasn’t occurred yet.
Though no matter the tuning… they won’t tune our movement speed. :sweat_smile:

Also they have no issues nerfing ret abilities in pvp only… like how TV hits for less now in BFA on player targets.

2 Likes

Op in what way, the healing it does and numbers in beta? Dont care about that really, i want fun class design, they could do so much better with that

So currently there were two builds that are viable. The first one plays very much like a traditional Paladin. using a legendary that gives you two charges of infusion along with the conduit that replicates 20% of your healing from Holy light onto all targets around the initial target (seems like it’s meant to be about 10 yards but they keep changing it right now it works at 30 yards which is a bit mental). This plays a lot more like a traditional Paladin, very little need to be Melee. No requirement to deal damage and lots more flexibility and it’s play style. Unfortunately cos it doesn’t bring that damage component it probably won’t get used in the world first race.

The second build is very similar to the existing glimmer however the introduction of spending breaks up the glimmer gameplay into a very satisfyingly feeling big payload at the end of each one of your gameplay loops

Generally speaking and this applies to both specs the feeling of building in spending your holy power is amazing right now word of glory feels like a supercharged light of the martyr and you can really feel the healing it does on both your target and your beacon target. Light of dawn Feels like it could probably do more. if you haven’t got the legendary it can be a bit lack laster. But with both holy light cleave or glimmer to fall back on it works really well

There’s a lot of diversity in the talents to. obviously if you’re speaking glimmer it’s fairly locked. But because the other builds are competitive you have the ability to instead speck out of glimmer in situations where it makes sense to have something like beacon of virtue without feeling like your gimped in your play style. this is because glimmer has become the side dish instead of the main course where your core rotation is about building and spending on those super powerful word of glories or light of dawn’s

On top of that our cool downs feel super good to use. Each one able to stand in its own space without relying on others to make it viable. In addition the attachment of holy power on things like hammer of wrath provide an extra skill element that rewards clever use of those damaging abilities to further your healing through extra holy power.

All in all it’s a very solid spec right now that’s very easy to get started in in with some very interesting choices those in its rotation and in its talent tree with a lot of different answers for the problems in dungeons

Say example if we look at something like grievous almost every spell in the paladin spell book will remove one stack of grievous so you get to make the choice between beacon of virtue or light or dawn to heal it off quickly. You can even use spells like holy prism which will get rid of five stacks. Or with the aforementioned holy light conduit and clear them with cleave healing. Not to mention faith and glimmer both also being viable

And this is before we get to covenant abilities and soul binds. So at its core the holy paladin plays very well in a fun and satisfying way before we even get to the covenant choice meaning that regardless of which covenant you choose you’re not looking for the covenant to fix the spec the way a lot of other classes are.

That said divine toll is incredibly fun to play. It works really well with any of our final row talents not just glimmer and it is a very satisfying spell to press. The ashen hollow rework looks interesting. And fill the role of a strong aoe healing CD. It remains to see see.how viability is after the numbers tuning however for some people who miss things like tranquility it’s a really nice option. Vanquishers hammer looks to be ok. A lot of our power is in our spenders so the bonus light of dawn particularly if you take the light of dawn legendary works quite well. Again numbers tuning will determine how viable it is. And thankfully blessings of seasons has been nerfed because frankly it felt terrible to play with

So we’re in a position with three covenants provide viable healing play styles with 2 unique and distinct builds to choose from both of which compliment paladins historic play styles. So for people who aren’t in the top 1 percent of the player base paladin is in a really f****** good state at least as far as holy is concerned. Almost every criticism I have seen of glimmer is either addressed in the new glimmer build or catered for via the alternative holylight build. Frankly I’m not sure it could get better for Holy unless they scrapped blessing of seasons entirely or perhaps if they rework to the mastery. But neither of those are significant complaints in my mind

I know you asked about protection as well but I decided to focus on holy here because it’s the spec I’ve spent the most time playing over the years and it’s where I’ve spent most of my time testing alongside the paladin discord to see what works and what doesn’t. So it’s the one I feel the most qualified to talk about

And as this post is about retribution. That should be the last I say the subject. Apologies in advance to the people who came here for juicy ret gossip

eh, good for you i guess

Did you know that they want to limit the secondary stat gain in shadowlands, by making it so after certain threshold each point of a secondary stat gives you less up to 40 % less secondary stats gained.

Like honestly. Wtf. Instead of improving the game they actually remove things that make it better because they can’t be bothered to find better solutions, i am not liking this zenimax online studio approach. You should be better than them.

And also the point about auras, is this what you wanted people? You wanted auras that were already PASSIVES, be made into auras so now you have to choose between having one or the other? Auras are basically like battle stances, just make them passives.

2 Likes

That is pretty much what happened with Justicar’s Vengence at the start of Legion. It was awesome… for a few weeks(?). Now maybe not even 1% of paladins use it.
It’s an interesting design, but the cost and the numbers don’t make up for it.

2 Likes

The only thing you can do is keep posting good suggestions and hope Blizzard takes some of it to heart. But the latest build did have some Ret things in it and I would guess more is to come. So before giving up totally wait and see where the spec lands. Paladins has voiced quite abit concerns so I would be surprised if Blizzard didnt add some more changes before Shadowlands go live.

Round 2 guys.
Again, please share this as much as you can on beta/ptr/US forums. Let’s make Blizz listen to us.

5 Likes

with regards to paly self healing it’s just a matter of tuning here not a prob, regarding mobility i’d say dump the cavalier talent and give rets long arm of the law back in it’s place that would make the class much more fun.

In fact just give ret LAoTL baseline and replace the cavalier talent with blessing of spell warding instead that would solve rets woes and make a lot of people happy.

and also give ret double freedom back with the PVP talent ?

6 Likes

Hopefully they listen, regarding ret burst one day it will be nerfed and we will be stuck with a class that doesn’t have a burst.
Holy being op i tried it only on ptr and its so annoying to play compared to other healer ur relient on holy shock and word of glory while crusader strike drains ur mana like crazy if used on cd so thats worthless.
Didnt try prot but i assume it will be fun. Prot has always been fun before but there were always better tanks even less fun tanks as druid were more viables at times cause it was never enough…
Other thing to note is if prot and holy is the way to go and they don’t want to fix the ret spec or deal with the issues it has then just delete the spec all together and make the pally a tank healer spec…but we all know ret has its fun lore and theme which is unique and no other class gives. The viability of the healer and tank while dps is non existant just means most of ur playerbase will leave the class cause there r more dps than healers and tanks combined imo.

For all who say we’re gonna be fine because we have OP burst with the new talents and OP healing cause of Healing Hands… i present to you patch 8.1:
https://www.wowhead.com/news=289122/tides-of-vengeance-8-1-official-patch-notes

Retribution

  • Execution Sentence damage reduced by 25% when engaged in combat with enemy players.

  • Wake of Ashes damage reduced by 25% when engaged in combat with enemy players.

  • Word of Glory healing reduced by 40% when engaged in combat with enemy players (was 20%).

Also TV has a nerf as well… too lazy to look up when that got nerfed.

As you can see, Blizzard has no qualms with nerfing ret in PVP only via dmg and healing nerfs against player targets… unlike how mages and locks are treated.

So… there is zero chance in my mind that anything that’s an outlier won’t get nerfed for ret.
Mobility and damage outside of wings should be what we get… not soon-to-be-nerfed burst and healing.

4 Likes