Information in this text might be all over the places, but I’m sure you’ll understand it fully.
When someone hears of this class that person usually thinks about how great it is in M+ and raids, and OP in PvP. People usually think about how great the rework is and how everything just sits right with this class.
Someone who hasn’t been playing ret, someone who only watches performance in specific encounters, and someone who’s been playing ret ignoring their own performance and not pushing high end can’t tell you what is actually wrong with the class in this patch.
First and the most important false image is stat priority. Lots of people will tell you ret has no stat priority and it won’t be affected too much even if you prioritize something totally different than other ret paladins. That is absolutely wrong. Ret has a stat priority and is actually the most sensitive stat wise out of all specs in the game. To maximize your gameplay, the best stats you should be aiming at (according to rank 1 M+ player and the best rets in the most successful guilds) are Critical Strike (not more that 34% > Haste ~ Mastery (these should be close to each other but Haste has to ne slightly above whjch means mid 20s) > Versatility (should be less than 15%).
Now, this applies for keys above 20, and Mythic raids. For anything less than this, you should be following online guides.
When it comes to online guides, not even those paid to do their jobs do them right. The problem with these sites is that they like to follow people’s mass single directed opinion from the past. As a ret paladin, you might notice that Versatility is not near what most of the rets currently have, or what these sites suggest.
Versatility was made important after rework, when almost all of the holy damage was halved by abilities that deal either Holystrike or Radiant damage, totally replacing Mastery (which in that case has been made to be 50% of its former glory). With the new 2p tier set, (Wrathful Sanctions), rets need more Mastery since it deals Holy damage, hence the correct stats corresponded.
The sites like WoWHead, IcyVeins, u.gg, and all the other ones have a different philosophy which I personally believe is lazy since they haven’t changed at all. They were lazy to test it and update it and yet again ret players are unaware how much they would suffer listening to those. Their opinion is Haste-Versatility (for Crusading Strikes) and Critical Strike-Versatility (for Temllar Strikes). We all know the reasoning for this, but since Holy Power is easily obtainable, having less Haste on Crusading Strikes, and less Critical Strike on Templar Strikes (which every second cast is always critical) won’t hurt dps by almost any noticable point. Note that Haste is still very important to have because of Crusadong Strikes, but not as much as Critical Strike. Also note that having Templar Strikes, even in raids is less efficient, since they are mostly critical by their own.
There are a few ret streamers painting the eyes of people proving ret is fine, but people fail to realize they are playing for pure marketing and money. Watching the streams carefully, you can either see their stats, exactly the same as mentioned above, or yoy can’t see them at all, hiding their knowledge gathered from the ptr and hiding the fact they’ve been farming specific items that would provide them with those stats. That is perfectly normal, and that is what you shouldn’t be praising, instead you should play for your own FUN, and research things like they did on your own, since unfortunatelly, you can’t get this information nowhere at the moment (and it’s been 3 weeks since launch!). I’m just typing this to spread awareness and help with the gathered information.
Now that we’re done with why Haste is less valuable than before and Mastery is more valuable, I’ll move on to a Critical Strike - Versatility relationship and scale. Ret paladins din’t crit much, every Divine Storm on packs or Final Verdict on a boss feels like it’s like you’re beating them with wet newspapers, and not with your new legendary axe (or soon to be yours). The previous solution to that was Versatility, since Mastery wasn’t as good as it was, since it’s pure and only damage and defensive passive you get. Unfortunately, it seems like it took a whole season to learn about this new rework rets got, and that is the fact that Versatility gives you damage, but not as much as Critical Strike does. For some reason Critical Strike damage dealt to enemies is almost the same with or without much Versatility. Maybe it’s intentional, or a bug, but you can see Critical Strike BIG numbers don’t change in value either way. That’s why having more Critical Strike and prioritizing it, while lowering the low-value Versatility is the way to go. Defensive nature of Versatility is valuable for rets, but since rework, defensives from stats are less important to have.
In conclusion for stats, the correct way the high end playera suggested above is generated from the reasoning explained in the text.
The second thing to talk about is damage. The pure illusion of people is that rets have huge damage when it comes to all PvE and PvP content. It’s actually opposite. Stripping it naked or having the same gear as all the other specs, rets belong to the 6th place (out of 10 places proportionally). That is below average. The numbers aren’t just thought of, they are simmed, tested and published multiple times. Are we still going to ignore that? The damage you see from rets from time to time is only their burst sin e the class is designed to deal damage every 1 minute on Avenging Wrath, while dealing little to no damage in the period without it. Sustained damage is affecting it more than it is affected by their burst. That’s why you’ll see ret paladins shine better in M+ than in raids (and only in some dungeons, while other dungeons just kill them completely dps wise). Ret paladins also lack single target damage. Ret paladins also have to choose between doing ST or AOE with almost no middle ground. It’s their spec weakness but with wrong stats and gear its impact is huge and unforgiving
Simulating different ret paladins, their gear, stats, weapons, trinkets, talents, proves how sensitive the class is since the difference in dps is enormous.
There also isn’t much of a choice a ret can vary in the ret talent tree, yet the largest percentage of the same talents used by rets across all servers is only 17% (my personal guess is they are trying to figure out how to deal more damage).
The popular opinion of the ret’s lack in damage is that they are already tuned down to balance them with other classes when they get their legendary weapon. That’s not the case since that wouldn’t be fair for most of the ret community. Furthermore, that weapon wouldn’t make much of a difference with the suggested guides online.
The true indicator of a weak class is when you can see trinket damage overwhelming its main damage abilities. This is true for ret paladins that wear Smolderon’s and Fyrakk’s trinket. So besides all the problems rets have without the existance of these these trinkets, with their existance they lost every chance of progress without certain compositions in PvE when they don’t posses them over those who do. They also lose a spot in many PvE places to other classes that use those trinkets (having them or not) unless those groups need CR or other paladin utilities.
It is unsure whether or not this class will receive fixes (rather than buffs) on current design, but this specific issue proves that “buff other classes, don’t nerf meta” mentality will always be wrong.
This season seems like it’s okay for ret pallies, and it is in some ways, but it’s very difficult to catch on quickly since there are unfinished things overall, tuning and LUCK in drops (which is the unfortunate part of this MMORPG, since it’s unfair for a few classes while fair for other ones).
I hope this huge and boring text helps you a bit on how to move forward. Best of luck.