There is no “pure” dps specs anymore. Everyone is hybrid like it or not. Everyone kept crying for healing etc. so from rogues to warriors to mages everyone has actualy self-healing abilities or multiple was to become immune to damage or significantly reduce it.
While absorbtions like for example lock have not healing spells but they function as such since instead of giving them back a portion of their health it prevents them a huge portion of damage taken in so the end result is even better because you push preventatively an absorbtion instantly - that is usually off the GCD - instead of having to cast or use instant heal that is on GCD.
On top of that lock can drain life, mages depending on specs/build can cauterize, jump back in time etc.
The healing for warriors is insane compared to what you were as a warrior in classic or in BC. The class fantasies are gun for pure dps classes in the sense that they can heal and they can heal a lot.
Ret paladin can be actually very much viewed as a support class because 9 out of 10 people takes them for their healing potential and immunities for party members that can save the group from wipes. The problem is no one is planning on wipes. If you go into a high mythic key you expect everyone to excell and dont die to the mechanics which is very much an easy task if you know what you are doing and the others know it too. So if you have a decent team who knows what to do that pretty much negates the need of life saving abilities from others like ret paladin because you shouldnt and wouldnt get into a situation where you need saving.
With that “requirement” out of the window ret has medicore dps to offer. Its aoe is okay and its single target is simply bad compared to most of the other dps classes.
When I say its dps is medicore it means its pretty much in the middle of the pack of dps classes …so its not terrible but no one wants the medicore dps when they can grab a top dps class and you have plenty option to choose from over the ret paladin.
My opinion btw comes from experience because I play with multiple classes including ret paladin in 442 itemlvl.
I have the 2.5k achievement and earned it early in this season and got everything 18+ timed. The only reason I didnt finish the all 20s for portals is that I usually wait with that until the end of the season so I can get better geared and more experienced groups waaay easier. Portals are just a bonus and not that amazing at all so im not in a rush to get them …but I could easily do all 20s within two weeks especially now with the changes around the affixes.
Sadly ret paladins got the same treatment for 6-7 years now. They will get strong buffs usually toward the end of an expansion or towards the end of a patch for 2-3-4 weeks only to be nerfed back to be medicore again.
This is what they did during the latest “rework” they allowed at the end of the season ret paladin to be strong …they knew people will complain but this is the time when it doesnt matter because by the end of the season every "serious people already achieved whatever they wanted pvp or pve wise.
Now ret paladin are back. Over a few short weeks into the season they were nerfed week after week …they got even some last second nerfs as usual or shadow nerfs that the devs put into the logs a day or two after the release so for most people went unnoticed. This is an awful and detestable practice from the blizzard dev team.
I dont know what is their problem but we know there i no paladin dev assigned to the class. They have warrior dev for example and once they are finished with their stuff they are thrown at the paladin class to do something.
Blizzard promised after shadowlands they will pay attention to feedback …this was a lie for some classes like paladin. They ignored every single thing ret paladins asked for …like the resolution for the mobility issues. If you are familiar with ret paladins and their forums you know that ret paladins never asked for damage buffs …there are bigger issues that we wanted to see resolved.
During the development phase we barely got a page and a half notes and communication about the spec …meanwhile you could scroll the notes on warriors for literally minutes - no joke -. Its still all there on the feedback forum you can see it for yourself.
The same treatment applies to the paladin class as a whole. They went against the wished of prot paladin and holy paladins all the time and ignored any and all feedback. Prot paladin ended up okay but not better. They baked in everything into 1 ability and 1 mechanic making the gameplay of prot extremely boring and making the holy power pointless as a resource when you spending it on pretty much one thing defensively …take healing out of the equiation here. So holy power is pointless and the gameplay has no variety and its simple as hell.
On top of that they put a talent on the paladin class tree instead of ret paladin tree for ret paladins to buff their armor and hp …and to compensate for this they nerfed the prot paladin scaling twice! by a huge margin. Later in this season prots will fall of a bit because of this …that is why you see 4% damage buff already to give them something but defensively they are getting into a worse position because hp scaling was nerfed from 50% to 30% and armor scaling was nerfed from 30% to 20% and more.
Now that we get a new tier and item lvl rises prot paladin scaling will be worse compared to all the other thank we didnt get this nerf so in a month or two you will feel the effect of this nerf if they dont balance it out somehow.
And the joke on top of this is that soon after they created this new talent for retri and forced down the throat of all 3 specs - sanctified plates - they nerfed ret paladin survivability back within weeks so its almost at the same crappy level as it was …and they nerfed its damage too so the rework was pointless and ret paladin are crap again.
The devs clearly hate the paladin class. But its not a surprise when warrior or rogue devs are assigned to work on it …ofc they will nerf the other class they dont play with to the ground. There should have been a paladin dev for the class but apparently Bobby boy needed 2 more yacths so they didnt had the money to hire someone to be a full time paladin class dev.
The devs clearly dont know what are they doing.
This applies to the content too. The story is boring and crap …we have a bunch of dragon we suppose to hate but they are actually the original denizens and true children of Azeroth …and the titans manipulated and poisoned them …so why would I side with our Aspects when the og dragons are the good guys apprently… But also I dont care about the og dragons because they are new characters that I know pretty much nothing about or their past or their conflict so who cares?
Also Wrathion and the others ignore the fact that their former home is filled with void and faceless ones …while they were actually there in the raid fighting with us. The complete disconnect is awful.
And the features? Zskara vault? A throwaway content that was boring already after the first week …same applies to that island too. I only kept doing it for like 3 more weeks because there was a mount reward with time gated mats you had to gather to make it.
After I got the mount I didnt go back and never will because I have no reason to.
Zaralek cavern? A couple week of content …quickly becoming obsolete if you are semi-active raider or mythic+ player. The world bosses are clearly bugged since the release because I have never seen any drops from their loot table in any of my raids …and I play multiple classes so done them multiple times each week and the whole raid got 0 loot drop all the time.
The “invasion” point is the same …pathetic lowlvl reward with boring quests.
And with the release of the new patch its obsolete content again.
No wonder that the player base shrinking constantly to a new all time low. The devs deserve it for the awful job they made. Sure the idea of dragons and og Azeroth was appealing but they failed to deliver quality work on every front except for the art team which always delivered top-notch work.
I always loved the game but recently I started to feel like it should die just to give the devs a wake-up call because they didnt get it after BFA and Shadowlands. Sure they said they will change their stance toward the playerbase and make a better game but it was all for the show …they said what we wanted to hear to lure players back to but the game again but they just keep failing.
They want to cater to the hypercasuals or the boosters. They made this new gearing system too only to cater to boosters. Now boosters have one more tier of gearing they can offer so more casual can buy more boost for mythic level gear. This is just pathetic. They are so keep on boosting wow token sales they are willing to kill the game for it. Sure the casuals will return for a month in the patch and buy everything then quit …but you make the game pointless to the rest of the people who wanted to actually work for their gear and achievements. Now that everyone can buy anything at a fairly cheap price nothing worth anything.
And when a hypercasual who bought boost runs and has amazing gear and scores joins a grp and dies within 1 minute twice because they have no knowledge of the dungeons or raids they leave or curse at other blaming them for their own failiures.
This creates and increasingly toxic environment for all making more and more ppl quit.
You devs made the decision to push wow token sales knowing full well its spiraling down faster and faster and you will eventually reach a point where only casuals will play the game …and once there is a new shiny thing they will just move on and you will have no player base. Then you will make the game free to play and have it running for a few more years until its all dead. GJ!
I have to admit, I never liked the playstyle ret pala until now. But for sure should be good some BUFF instead of debuff always.