Seriously asking honest opinions about how ret is doing pve wise, I’ve read a lot of negative things in the past year on ret and I like the class itself but I do want to enjoy it and get invited to raids and such…
Is it still the class with low numbers and no invites to raids or has it been changed in the last patch?
Also what is the best proffesion to pair with ret?
Thanks in advance
Well, ret was good, between wrath and legion. Imho, the negativity towards ret pally was legit during Vanilla and TBC, since well, ret was not needed. But not in the following xpac, where we had great damages, good gameplays and raid utility. That was so great.
For BFA, we just suck. Or should I say : You can out DPS meta DPS spec as a ret, but you’re going to minmax more than a DH, for example.
Regarding utility, our kit is only the shadow of what it used to be. Imo, ret’s bad reputation is sadly legit for BFA.
For professions, blacksmithing is good for crafting decent gear, if you can raid. Otherwise, herbo and alchi is a great option.
Ret right now is totally fine, we’re middle of the pack (maybe on the lower side a bit), we bring good damage and utility, have like the best instant burst in the game which makes us good for bursting down priority targets in raid (like the small adds on Azshara for example), although after that burst our damage really drops off and is mediocre at best.
Only tier where ret was really bad this expansion was Uldir (and maybe Crucible of Storms if you count that, but I haven’t progressed through it).
If you’re a good player you’re not gonna have any problems getting good dps or getting invited to raids or guilds progressing mythic.
Pretty much every guild nowadays has at least 1 ret paladin so it’s not as bad as some people say.
About professions, it depends on what you want to do.
Do you want to make a couple of maybe bis pieces then Blacksmithing is good, if you want to make a bis ring then Jewelcrafting is good.
Other than that it mostly doesn’t matter unless you don’t want to spend gold on raid consumables and want to have that sweet sweet 2 hour flask duration then Alchemy is perfect.
Legion and bfa ret are not great, wod base rotation was way better.
legion ret was slightly better than bfa.
We’re talking about viability, not about rotations. Sure, legion was slighty better designed than BFA, but compared to cata/MoP/WoD, yeah, it’s meh.
It’s a mistery how you can call this being totally fine.
We have no real utlity for m+ or raid aside the bubble to save something (rare), our burst is good but too short, our sustain is terrible and we have no mobility.
And on top of this, every upgrade has to be simmed to make sense, and we are stuck in a single build that makes you lose dps to buff the future damage.
To be worse than us, you have to be a poor frost dk.
I’m gonna have to disagree with utility when it comes to M+ .
Retri brings decent utility in M+, Bubble, BoP, Freedom, Word of Glory, Remove Poision and Decease, Blinding Light/Repentance, HoJ, LoH, Blessing of Wisdom, Blessing of Kings, Taunt.
Every little bit of utility adds up a lot in the M+ environment. Retri is the healer best friend during Bursting and Grievous weeks. He can instantly clear Necrotic from a tank or completely nullify certain boss abilities for himself and one of his teamates, on top of everything else.
Thanks for the detailed information guys 
Think I’m going to play ret anyway and just having fun with it, hoping it will get better in SL…
About proffesions, I was hoping someone would advice something that would not only benefit ret but also makes gold…
Thanks
Viability i think it’s middle of the pack, for dps, but good utility, so i would say, in the high medium.
We’re fine because that burst is really good on high priority targets, and if we don’t spec for that but instead spec for single target and focus on boss dmg our single target is totally fine.
Our utility is pretty good, without it we probably wouldn’t be brought in so much.
We have wisdom, we have freedom, we have a BoP (which is extremely useful on Azshara for example), we have bubble, we have LoH and Jazoolka mentioned we have Word of Glory and poison removal.
We also have a stun for Undeads and Demons in the form of Wake of Ashes.
Sure our utility has been heavily pruned but saying out utility sucks is really wrong, you just need to know how to use it.
This is pretty much every dps spec in the game so I don’t understand why you bring this up as ret is the only one affected by this.
So you mean playing correctly?
If you’re gonna get 5k dmg by sacrificing 1k ofc. you’re gonna do it.
It’s just how the build is, you’re welcome to play something different.
There’s plenty of melee behind us, ret is actually pretty good in both raids and m+ right now even though I agree that the spec isn’t as enjoyable as it used to be in the previous expansions.
Wisdom - Single target. Hardly comparable to the raid wide buff others have.
Freedom - Useless in this raid, there isn’t a single slow/snare mechanics in the whole palace.
Bop - Hardly used, you should not need it unless someone screws up and most of the time in raid has no use since very few things are physical dmg, 90% of the abilities on others than the tanks are magical
Bubble - Good, but it’s on ourselves only. Good to avoid screwups and to cheese few mechanics, but it’s hard to call this more important than things like 5% extra dmg of a monk if you don’t have the need to soak or bubble tank something.
LoH - Again, a screwup saver. It’s a real helpful thing on 1 boss of 1 m+.
WoG - Solid heal for m+ emergencies, but costs you way too much dps
Poison removal - Good but situational, like curse removal or magical removal.
Overall, our utilities are mostly to save our screwups in pve rather than buffing the group.
Nope. Sim to get the absolute best is a thing, sim just to know if an item is an upgrade or not is a ret specialty.
It’s not a mistery that ret has no clear bis stats or item aside azerite where we have 2 mandatory traits.
Other classes has a much more simple to understand stat priority.
No it’s not playing correctly, it’s the nonsense of being a build/spend spec locked by cds that has to spend your resource not on damage but on a regulr buff refresh, making you lose dps while doing it.
Afaik, there is no other spec with such a mechanics. I wonder why.
Like what, enha shaman? fdk?
The only one really behind us is the fdk due to the breath that hardly aligns with fights mechanics. Every other melee is on par, or better, or brings much more solid utilities.
Very useful, might not have the same effect as raid wide buffs but healers will love you for it.
There is a snare on the first boss, when the boss casts inversion you can freedom it and just go to the opposite side of the boss.
Fairly big on Azshara, also cleanses you of your decree on Court, very useful in m+ when you need to burst and when you take aggro.
Always useful, used to click the console on Azshara as well as to pass the beam without dying. Pretty much useful on every other boss tho.
Also always useful, can be used on every boss ever to save someone, I don’t know how you can not think that’s good.
Better to lose 2% of your dps than for 2-3 ppl from your group die, dead dps does no dps.
Helps the healer a lot.
I mean that’s as good as it’s gonna get, every class with a removal has something different, paladins have poison.
Still they are very useful for what they are and whole strategies can and were built around them in various fights throughout wow, and as long as we have them it will remain so.
Sim is the absolute best thing for every class and every spec, doesn’t matter your stat priority.
Every raider sims their gear after they get a potential upgrade, every raider sims when they get a socket on their gear, every raider sims enchants when they get a new ring, etc. etc.
It’s not just ret related, and I actually like that we have no clear bis stats, that simply means that every item can be an upgrade instead of just fishing for specific stats.
But then it is playing correctly, of course you’re gonna lose some dps by keeping Inquisition up instead of pressing your main finisher but then you’re rewarded for the next 45 seconds with 7% more haste and dps which means you’re doing more dps.
Because they took them out, I think that nobody wanted Inquisiton to come back, no one wants to sacrifice dps to keep a buff up but that’s what Blizzard did, but if it is the best talent it will be taken and people just have to deal with it.
Like shaman, druid, monk, dk, arms warrior, survival hunter, all of those specs are in a much worse position than us and melee overall are much worse than ranged atm.
And no, every other melee are not better than us, most other melee are worse and do not bring better utility abilities.
Monk buff is covered by tanks so ww monks aren’t brought in, warriors by fury warrs and dhs by havoc, that’s it.
Only other melee dps that brings good utility really are rogues but other than that we’re totally fine on utility.
In terms of pure DPS output, well :
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/23/#aggregate=amount it’s pretty bad.
We deserve a buff, but Blizzard religeous refuses to give ret a needed buff. 10% up on each spell seems fair for me.
I also wish they are getting rid off retribution passive.
It’s not all about the dps, it’s about using your tools correctly, we’re really good for high on-demand priority target burst and if specced pure single-target we’re really good on boss dmg.
Where you only see dps I see representation, we’re the 5th melee spec by popularity and 4th on both Azshara and Za’qul, arguably the only 2 hard and important bosses in EP.
That is a huge deal and shows how much ret is actually brought in to those fights.
Only fury, havoc and rogue are actually a little better than us but that’s to be expected with their buffs coupled with dmg output, but we’re much closer to them than you think, take away any utility from those specs and we’re basically equal.
I agree it can always be better, but so many other melees have it so much worse than us that it’s baffling to see Blizzard not react to it.
10% is a little overkill, that’s like asking for a quick nerf into the oblivion, I’d much rather they fix the rotation and make the spec better to play than any number tuning then can do (but I won’t say no to a small buff).
I’m kinda torn on the passive, it’s awesome when you get it at the right time but with us being so burst dependant and with it only lasting 10 seconds those two rarely coincide so it mostly doesn’t give any huge benefit to dps.
It’s probably better as a defensive for when you are close to a kill or something like that.
Paladin is the most common character to have as an alt in the game this makes ret kinda by default a lot more represented than other classes. Also when looking at specs you have to remember to add all the warrior all the dk all the rogue specs into one as ret paladin is the only dps spec of the class and when looking at numbers that makes those classes look like they have a lower number then what is actually the case.
On DPS Ret is outputting low to bad middle of the pack dps in eternal palace with only monk being lower then ret without having a dps spec doing better. (mythic) Same story in heroic but there it is even lower on the list with WW, 2 mage spec and then a lock spec as the only specs lower.
A 10% buff would make the spec go from some of the lowest dps in the game to high mid tier it would still not be top.
There is only 1 melee spec doing worse then Ret paladin and that is WW monk according to logs in heroic and in mythic the survival hunter (barely see any play) Unholy dk and then there is WW monk is the melee specs lower than ret Survival hunter in raids are not taken much simply because you could be ranged and do better and you do not take a melee spot, unholy dk is there but frost dk is one of the best dps specs in mythic the number 3rd best melee dps spec, this again means people will play that over unholy.
This is using logs right now and on mythic on heroic those 2 specs are doing better than retribution.
The retribution passive is something ret are stuck with thanks to some of the higher-ups at blizzard really liking it. (in the beta to legion it started at 1000% it is now in bfa 10%)
Should note that the placements and numbers are using see all %
And it is aggregated using normalized score. (and all bosses)
With dps, in heroic there is no melee dps spec in the game that is lower then ret at the moment.
In mythic you see sub rogue survival hunter, WW monk and unholy dk lower but note all of them are doing better with different dps specs then ret paladin exception being WW monk.
Where do you see ret as the 5th?
Maybe, but I’d guess that’s not the case for top 200 or so guilds and that was going by the last 2 bosses in EP where really only the top 50 guilds (if even that) are bringing alts for.
If ret was so bad as you say maybe so many people wouldn’t have them as alts and play them for alt mythic runs.
Spec doesn’t really matter that much because someone can do a boss as assassination and then next week do the boss as outlaw so just adding them up is not correct.
As I’ve said before, it’s not all about the dps, it’s about the player, about the spec’s utiilities, their strengths and playing to those strengths.
There is a reason why ret was brought into the world first kill, there’s a reason why almost every top guild has a ret in its roster that is actually in for a lot of kills.
A 10% buff would make us way too good, so good that Blizz would just instantly nerf us and maybe make us even worse.
I wouldn’t say no to like a 5% buff but probably only on certain abilities, like making Crusader Strike not actually hit like a noodle.
Heroic logs don’t matter, when it comes to balance, popularity and general tuning of the classes only mythic logs matter.
And yet, ret is still taken more for the last 2 bosses, and especially on Azshara, as I’ve said, it’s not all about the dps.
Ret’s toolkit is very useful on Azshara especially, it’s what brings us ahead of a lot of other specs that can potentially do more damage.
Our burst just destroys the p2 adds, it also destroys the p3 adds, bubble allows us to click the console without dying, bop clears beckoned players and dispels the debuff.
That is all that makes the fight and progress on it easier and faster which is all that matters.
On the number of parses.
Ret has 563 parses for Azshara, making it the 4th most played spec for melee on that fight.
Azshara is one of 2 or 3 raid fight this expansion where BoP has any use. it is a fight where ret utility is very strong and yet there is Monk and dk that is taken less for the fight then ret.
What you are Ignoring is that Those other specs that have lower representation HAVE ANOTHER SPEC that has MORE representation they can be then what ret has. And that is ON a fight where Ret Utility is Really freaking good.
Where are all these specs you are talking about that needs a buff over ret?
If we add frost and unholy togheter they have a higher representation then Dps paladins do that leaves WW monk as the only class that does not have a another dps spec that has higher representation then what ret has.
This is Mythic Queen Azshara only btw
But the same story is on Za’qul when it comes to parses.
Do the math yourself i am tired of people not doing it there are web pages that can do it for you if you do not know the formula to use.
It’s hard to accept that the class we love is sucking hard. It took me 6 months to accept that fact.
BoP uses may come in rarely, but when the opportunity comes it’s really good, like it is on Azshara.
Yes monk and dk is taken less.
But they don’t, if you look at the parses all of the classes that are above us (other than dh) have other dps specs, rogue and warrior.
Every other class that has a melee dps spec has less parses than ret.
Well there’s monk and druid, those are the two big ones.
Other classes are pretty close so they don’t really need a big buff.
Not on Azshara though, sure dk has like 80 parses more than ret on Za’qul but ret has like 150 more on Azshara.
A flat 10% buff would just make our burst way too good, we’d have the strongest burst in the game by far.
I’d rather them tone down our burst a little and make sustain dmg better.
I mean it doesn’t, I’ve played ret in ToS where it really sucked and this is like 20 times better than it was back then.