Devs Favourite Spec: Ret

Classes Paladin
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Yet again theyve made this spec way too strong. Now you got acccess to Hammer of Light every 20secs and 2-3times after the use of Wake.

No other spec gets this kind of inane buffs season on season.

Outside of class buffs there is no point not to just bring Ret Paladins over all other Melee. They are, yet again, just given too many tools to cope. 20y Range, superior burst on ST and AoE. Its comical that devs cant see it.

Atleast you’re making it obvious. You WANT 15% of playerbase to play this spec for some unknown reason.

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You should have known, when they have turned Anduin from a Priest into a Paladin.

The signs were there all along.

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Not to defend ret players but I don’t think they’re playing ret cause it’s highly tuned, people play ret cause of its simplicity and easy of play just like bm hunter.

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Probably, still doesnt really make sense that one spec alone gets this much attention and others are left to dry heave in the sun for years. =)

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Fun, easy, and strong. I’d play other specs if they made them fun, easy, and strong. Most of the times classes are fun and strong, but hard, fun and easy, but weak, strong and easy, but not fun.

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Link some logs from PTR 11.2 testing. Please show me that the spec you consider is “too strong”

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So Dmg is all that matters for you it seems, something that is very fleeting and in the long run, never lasting.

Ret is the spec with least ammount of hard CC in game - 2
The worst slow debuff and is non spammable

The design on the spec is so barren they insert 2 new kinds of holy dmg to fill the tree, none of them doing anything diffrent from normal holy dmg (other then Holystrike dmg being unable to dmg a player with BoP on them).

Type in “Speed” in the talent search bar and 10 talents lights up on a ret Templar, EIGHT of them are about movement speed and NONE of them stacks! (btw 2 of the 3 divine steed talents are not counted in those)

Then we have 2 turn evil talents… well 3 as one of them is a choise node. Our melee interupt is a talent that many classes just learn when lvling… even has a talent that buffs it with the power of a crusader strike (an AA on demand)!

There are several talents that adds negligent heals ranging from 400 to 20000 when we are at a point where 300k heals means nothing.

Lets not forget talent like Justicars Vengeance thats never been selected yet will never be removed. Came in Legion 9 YEARS ago!

Then comes the utility that a paladin brings, its worse then what paladins started out with and over these 21 years they have only added ONE new utility spell for rets and its in pvp.

And it also falls into another issue with the design of the class. They cant give Paladins anything new or unique so they buff the old with lowering the CD of say LoH, bubble, BoP and lowering the debuff they give.

From 10-5 min CD and 2 min debuff to 3.5 min and 30-20 sec debuff and bubble usuable with debuff up. It is not fun to face someone with immunities and its constantly getting more frequent use, its a design in the wrong direction!

Either way they are building themselfs up for yet another Ret rework as they work the spec into a corner with 0 growth potential. What can they add to the rotation at its current form without breaking it in the next expansion? The HP generation is out of hand, thats why we have this moronic 2 resource thing with mana to limit our heals. Bandaid solution to fix a problem that shouldnt be in a build/spender spec.

But Rets sure are the “Devs Favorite Spec”. To me this seems more like “meh, they are popular enough either way so why bother”

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Ye sure if you ignore double freedom, one minute sac, poison/disease immunity for sacced player, 4min bop. Ret’s off healing is pretty decent too.

Sure it doesn’t have insane CC but does have above average group utility.

But ye most of the off healing nodes in class tree have to piss off specifically A Just Reward, Holy Ritual, Golden Path and Seal of the Crusader. Lightforged blessing, Lightbearer and Healing Hands are decent tho.

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Every single one of those Paladins have had since vanilla, that was kinda my point. The only thing they have done over the years is lowering their CDs and debuff duration and as ive stated later on, its designing the class in the wrong direction.

In my book 21 years of stagnation is bad!

Edit: Having charges of a spell doesnt add much of innovative design of a spec. For example, would you rather have charges of a spell or would you want it on half its normal CD? As a talent choise node maybe? But it doesnt add much for the design imo.

Edit 2: In vanilla we had magic cleanse on 0 CD, it also took away 1 disease and 1 poison i think. How many buffs and auras did we have? Yhea, i hated them with a passion and still hate that we have Auras in our talent tree today but utility wise we are far bellow what a vanilla paladin brought.

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you did not have double freedom or poison/disease immunity back then. CD reductions are massive when it’s a piece of utility that’s good in general use(sac primarily, 1min cd on that is REALLY busted). Like sure you could’ve had 2 charges of blessings in mop but that cost you unbreakable spirit and 2 charges or sac is weaker than 1min sac in 90% of situations.

Auras are boring pieces of junk. You’re 100% wrong on rets being worse than in vanilla utility wise.

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Nor do we have that now… Will you count in Sacred sheild that we got in Wotlk or Cata (cant remember when) as a utility we have aswell?

Original cleanse had no CD in vanilla

Original Sac had no CD in vanilla, they didnt like that Palas could be semi CC immune VS poly and blind etc so they added a CD in vanilla.

Btw… 1 min CD is not busted now? Weird

You have yet to name one utility we have now that we didnt have back in vanilla.
Other then sacrad sheild that ive mentioned I can name one other that we no longer have, there was a time when freedom could remove stuns and could be used while stunned.

But that wasent the point as my main point was retail VS vanilla.

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Brotherman double freedom is unbound freedom = you give someone freedom together with yourself.

Irrelevant as it was a trade off(0 cd 1 poison 1 disease removal vs 8s cd remove all poisons and diseases) and cd is pretty short

It also had a hard amount of dmg that it transferred vs current one being 30% of dmg taken, current sac is much better at preventing one shots which are rampant.

Ye tbf Sacred Shield being removed kinda stinks for all paladins, but kinda w/e due to 6s base tick rate on absorb and frequent reapplying

I’ve never heard of freedom affecting stuns and being usuable while stunned

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Sure, count a buffed version of the same utility as “new” utility

But that wasent the only tradeoff now was it? It was 1 poison 1 disease AND 1 magic removal. You know like Nova, Root, magical slows, sheep, fear etc etc. We didnt need to use freedom for every single little thing that slows us.

Ok?

Ok?

So, no. You cant mention a single new utility we have today that we didnt have in Vanilla. So buffs we no longer have - Kings, Might, Wisdom and Light. 3+ judgment debuffs that increased mana regen, healed and increased dmg done and auras for deff AND dmg.

So yhea… a vanilla paladin brought a whole lot more utility wise and im sure i even forgot to mention some.

That some of those buffs are irrelevant in todays game design is besides the point. Shamans got totems reworked to function in todays gameplay yet not a single real change for Paladins toolkit.

“ooh i can now cast on another player AND myself” Such a big leap! Came in DF i think, 19 YEARS for that development?

Fairly sure it came with WotlK, have memories of duels VS a rogue friend outside shattrath during Wotlk prepatch with that. Was removed somewhere mid or end WotlK i think.

Edit: Found it, was original divine pupose that added stun removal to freedom.

Cataclysm Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Redesigned. The following attacks have a 7/15% chance to cause your next Holy Power ability to consume no Holy Power and to cast as if 3 Holy Power were consumed: Judgement, Exorcism, Templar’s Verdict, Divine Storm, Inquisition, Holy Wrath, Hammer of Wrath. Moved from tier 6 to tier 4.

Old: Reduces your chance to be hit by spells and ranged attacks by 2/4% and gives your Hand of Freedom spell a 50/100% chance to remove any Stun effects on the target.

Changed with Cata
Freedom could be used while stunned up until WoD

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Oh no raid buffs that you had to reapply per person every 5mins with half of them being useless in current game as they were raw amounts and not % or the fact that mana is not relevant for like 6 or 7 expansions now for healers.

Double freedom is REALLY powerful when it applies in mythic raid, freeing a person that has no root break while also doing it yourself was massive in p1 ansurek. Do not underestimate this effect

damn pretty busted on the stun removal.

Auras/buffs aren’t real pieces of group utility to me. They are NOT plays that can help save someone from certain death like clutch LoH, smart sac or root break on highly intense movement fight is.

Still at worst you’re even if we’re counting in freedom removing stuns and sacred shield from wotlk
And you’re much better off in sense that you don’t have to reapply minor increases per person in raid lol.

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No matter how you feel about them, still counts as utility we no longer bring. I myself disslike buffs in general because if there is a buff to have, game designed to have that buff. Meaning having all the buffs is the standard and whenever you dont have the buff you are doing less then intended,

For example a mage without int buff does less then intended if the buff is purged in pvp. Matters less now when its just 5% but used to be 10%.

Buffs like them just brings players to the BASE dmg/health intended for an encounter, not having them is a self nerf.

Yhea sure, its a buff to an existing talent we had since vanilla but you know what we could to from vanilla up untill the end of WoD? We could cast freedom on others and emancipate/cleanse ourselfs. Sure, its 2 GCD instead of 1. Still same effect as you described. Emancipate was what we got when cleanse no longer removed magic and you know what, it didnt even have a CD! So we could cast it on MORE ppl needing it.

Freedom was just an glorified emancipate, screaming to instantly get purged.

So not only is it not a new utility that we gotten over these 2 decades, its not even a skip over what we used to have!

So you do count things we USED to have as an argument against me when discussing utility now VS retail? … sure that makes sense, feels like arguing in bad faith to me.

Yhea you deffinitly are, that sure as hell wasent the point and you know it. As you also know they changed that to class buffs in vanilla itself and also with longer duration.

So yhea, kinda pointless to go further with this.

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Ret has been a outlier since the rework , they received ALOT of damage(they were allowed ~2-3 weeks of actual godhood imediatly after the rework before being toned down abit) and didn’t loose any of its utility.
Furthermore , Ret kept its range on all abilities contrary to all the other melee classes that received range nerfs (some lost their range completely) all the while being having access to some of the best defensive buttons available in the game a complete immunity to mechanics , complete Immunity to physical damage , and a regular -20%dmg taken on a 1 min CD its crazy its gone for so long to be honest, it really puts to shame all other melee classes…

It has no ramp up , all dmg is upfront , you dont lose anything if you have to run and do mechanic because all attack are ranged anyway , they have a resource thats called MANA which might aswell not be showing since it never goes bellow the half point mark.
Holy power gets generated out of thin air(jk jk jk its generage from auto-atacks LOL)

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This was what, 3 years ago? A fleeting dmg buff that never lasts but ppl sure likes to hold that against Rets for some reason and still think thats the dmg we currently have.

Again, its the same utility we have had since vanilla.

All of them have instant gapclosers on short CD and most with several charges.

Hmm did melee loose more then the range of their interupt? Rets included btw. The current Ret semi range design is their very lazy way to avoid the instant gapcloser thing and its not the first time Ret has been a semi ranged class. Rets were very much on the same spot in WoD and suddenly in Legion they went

  • We feel that Ret has far to many ranged attack to be a “melee class” so in legion its now nearly compleatly melee, but you get a 3 sec pony! Dont worry, we will buff it a couple of sec every expansion! Maybe even add a charge.

Yes, the anchor for the class to ever evolve to an actual class. Balanced around an unreliable defence that can instantly be removed by 2 classes, the later one removed by half the classes AND a racial! That their only solution to buff Paladins defence is to shorten the CDs and debuff is bad design, unfun to play and even more unfun to face against.

Isent that a normal standard for most classes? Got it at 20% in late DF i think and was 10% for a long time. Ironically for the longest time the class with as you said “the best defence” has historically been the squishiest spec.

I agree with this, the HoPo generation is out of hand and they have designed the spec into a place of 0 growth. They cant add anything in the rotation for the next expansion, there just isent any room nor need for new attacks yet attacks is all they give for paladins.

Sigh… since Ret got Holy power in Cata, mana was only used when needing to spam hardcast heals, until mid DF when Word of glory now costs a huge ammount of mana and we no longer regen mana like other classes. They did this because as mentioned Rets recource system is out of hand, badly designed as the whole spec is. A new rework will come but im fairly sure it will be the same trainwreck as the DF one.

Tell me what for what does a Frost mage have mana for? Fire mage? Warlock?

Do other dps use 2 recources for heals? Do they need to play like a vanilla player and get out of combat in epic BGs and drink to stay alive?

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What are you trying to say here? ALL ret abilitys at this current expansion have 20 to 30yard range except interupt which is melee range(i am suprised it remained melee range ).

And the fact of the matter is rets kit is overflooded with utility while also bringin crazy damage profile, who dispels your Bop or freedom buff which you can also apply it to somebody else in PVE ? the mobs?the boss???Lay on hands?? Hello?

I dont have any instant gap closers ,no cleanse ,my Utility is debatable since lost a talent but got shorten grip which is highly situational in its self, half of my kit doesnt have any range on it so i need to suck it to the boss’s behind, my damage reduction button is on a 3 min Cd and my dmg profile its very punishing if for example i need to do a mechanic since i might loose all the debuffs i spent 10-15sec applying.
I am talking from a PVE perspective.

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Its very simple, with a single brainfart a dev can suddenly go “Its weird that Palas have so many ranged abilities, lets make them melee again”

Thats exactly what they did in Legion

  • FV/TV no longer had ranged like it did in WoD
  • They removed Hammer of Wrath and made Judgment have a hammer toss animation to still maintain the Blizz hammer throwing Paladin theme they got going.
  • Removed emancipate (0 cd slow/root removal)
  • Removed Long arm of the law (with 50% uptime) and the other choise speed of light and replaced it with 3 sec Steed

But hey, we got the AHSBRINGER!!!

This wasent their first brainfart over the years but the third

In Vanilla beta we had a holy strike system right until the end of it to be replaced with the AA attacker/buffer paladin

In Cata they were first working on the expansion on the talent tree system that we had from Vanilla - WotlK until mid Beta they went NAH and went with the new talent system and right about then they gave Paladins the unplanned holy power system that only had ONE holy power generator on a 4.5 sec CD, crusader strike… or was it judgment? In any case it was a horribly bad introduction for holy power.

Its prone to change at any time with the whims of a dev and often for the worse imo.

And for the 8th? time to the THIRD person, same utility we have had since vanilla. It has NEVER ensured a spot in a group or raid. If a Ret was a strong DPS that season they might get a spot like every other DPS. If they were weak that season they had a lesser chanse to get a spot… LIKE EVERY OTHER DPS that was on the weaker side that season.

HOLY paladins brings the same utility, far greater chanse they get a spot
PROT paladins … read above

Hi?

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LOL
This shows how little you know about wow.
It took blizzard 3 expansions to make Ret do ok damage and not be the worst spec in the game and die all the time. (this was also confirmed by blizzard as a reason for the rework in dragonflight)
6YEARS.
It is still statistically one of the worst things you can play if you follow history.

The reason the playerbase is so high on ret for season 2 of tww is for this Simple reason Both Prot AND Holy are BAD this season.
So all the players that would play prot or holy changed to ret as ret was doing decently good.