Before i start with what i consider to be issues with the spec i want to recognize the fact that an overtuned spec with issues and a low performing spec with issues are completely different things.
A strong spec’s weaknesses are often just average compared to other specs while their strengths can often be raid defining.
Pressing your rotation knowing that you have a chance to top damage vs pressing your buttons knowing that if you press everything perfectly you might be able to snag the 8th place on the dps meter are worlds apart in terms of how it feels pressing your buttons
I have also played balance druid, and i have to argue against other druids a lot that s2 SL balance druid was the worst spec design in balance druid history (35s of burst into 2m 25s of afk), but the spec blasted HARD so it felt great to a lot of people
With that said let’s talk about current tuning:
The 3% buff we got yesterday, while welcome, wont change either the feeling of pressing our buttons (still wont feel impactful), nor will the community’s perception of us change in a meaningful way. We’re still going to be undertuned, and prob wont move up in rankings due most of the specs surrounding us in rankings also getting buffed (some a lot more).
In the coming weeks more and more ret paladins will be getting their hands on the legendary. This will help, but it feels so weird to rely on a legendary to be average or slightly below average (realistically). It lowers the impact of getting the legendary from “Now i can pump!” to “Now i wont be trolling my raid…”
Rotational problems:
passive holy power generation:
Crusading strikes… I know it’s a rather polarizing issue in the ret community atm. I will say though that if it were optional to play then it’d be a fine choice for people who like it vs don’t, BUT that’s just not how the game is atm. People look up what to play, they will squeeze out every 1% they can out of the talent tree even if it means losing survivability, and esp losing out on a slightly preferred playstyle
I’ll reiterate why it’s not liked:
- Empty globals happen several times each pull
- Can’t reliably tell when you’re going to generate holy power OR have to use a WA to track it
- Passive generation of holy power removes skill ceiling (see next point)
Why that matters:
To me this lowers the skill ceiling too much. This is due to almost all of our damage coming from either CDs or spenders. Pressing wings, ES, DT, and WoA on CD, and the majority of your holy power comes in passively from crusading strikes and Divine Resonance so you just press TV when you can and a random generator when you can’t.
The spec has historically (for as long as i have played it) always been around getting as many spenders out as possible, due to them being the main source of our damage, but it was always a question about finding the most efficient way to generate holy power. Now this largely happens passively, and with no variance from good to bad players. The biggest tip I gave new ret paladins at the time was not to focus on getting TVs out, but instead focus on keeping generators on CD while not overcapping holy power. This felt way better to play (imo).
Right now the spec half plays itself, and you’re trying to keep up with its holy power generation
Too much loss of ST (single target) when going AoE
I currently sim 219k ST and when i go m+ AoE talents that drops to 176k (~20% loss). This is one of those cases where it would be fine if i were blasting ST in ST talents and doing average ST damage when I’m in AoE talents, but with current tuning it’s so noticeable. Our AoE in AoE talents is average but then our ST goes from bad to horrible. This means that if we’re ever on a hard tyrannical boss we’re just gonna fall behind to a degree where we’d be trolling
4 holy power spenders
I’m not a fan of the 4hp spenders. That’s obvious a subjective take, but it does ruin the flexibility of the rotation, and causes you to either overcap holy power, or sit on judgement for extra gcds