Ret feels really bad outside wings no matter the build unfortunately. Our base abilities are just weak, everything is balanced around the wings, but wings are often not powerful and long enough to make up for pretty bad base.
Ret is immobile melee and modern game requires lots of movement, some time on the wings is always wasted. For immobile melee burst should be super spiky to get over with it in like 10 seconds at most (like Fire Mage), but then Ret would be even more ridiculous in PVP. So I guess instead of even more vertical damage spike Ret needs to be able to pull it’s burst more often - even if it’s not exactly full power.
Funny thing is that Blizzard probably is aware of that, because Vision of Perfection effect from BFA decreased CD on wings AND also gave us free 8 sec windows to blow some burst from time to time - they incresed Ret uptime on wings because baseline was just nowhere near enough to keep up with garbage sustain. Apart from buffing HP loaders like Judgement (CD 2 sec shorter to fill the rotation gap), CS and BoJ (both can use dmg boost, they are not scaling with mastery anyway) I personally think that Seraphim for Ret should be baseline small burst skill and should cost no HP - just press it on CD or once a minute for DT and choose another talent in that row.
I’m also not sure if Wake of Ashes doesn’t actually have too long CD, because Ret has literally one cleave skill to press. But with changes I proposed above it could be too much.
Yes I agree, I also thought about Seraphim as a free small burst skill before. I would have also no issue if they take some power away from wings and distribute it more into our base. In regards to mobility, I liked Long Arm of the Law or even Pursuit of Justice more than the 45sec cd that is Divine Steed, which can still be rooted and stuff and in this case has to be combined with BoF - an other GCD.
What I also dont like is that you always have to take PvP Balancing in mind when solving issues in M+ or Raid…
I really doubt you need to take any power from wings, because Ret is weak with current state of the wings. Ret needs to be given more power, not to shift balance.
And I don’t think Ret should have high mobility - that’s kinda “class fantasy” thingy. Ret has many ranged options, but it’s burst just doesn’t cut it. It’s very strong in PVP when Ret literally spits everything he has within like 3 GCD (well, this spec has like 3 truly damaging skills anyway), but after that there is huge hole of nothing that is not going to be filled.
Ret needs to stay on target for 20 sec straight to pack it’s damage. Any mechanics that happen in that time that require moving away are HUGE damage loss. Ret is bursty class that has pretty much one bursty skill as baseline (WW monk has 3 burst charges as baseline) and that burst is not super powerful and vertical like Fire Mage (10 seconds and you are done).
Ret is just outdated. It needs to be a little bit closer to WW monk with dosed bursts to be able to do the job better. Because WW not only can run away and return second later, but also can decide if it goes all out or not - normal Ret build has only wings, it’s all or nothing. Ret’s burst is damn long and if other people also use their bursts (in M+ for example) - it’s going to be half-wasted because mobs will be dead after 10 seconds… And in single target this burst is just not enough to not suck, even if you applied damage through whole 20 seconds while sweating to stay on target.
Also Ret is a slave of stacking multiple modifiers. It’s base skills are so weak that to do mediocre damage in single target (over longer period of time, because at first it’s significant spike) you need to stack so many modifiers to pump true damage even for a moment. And even if you do everything perfectly - it’s still probably not going to be enough to top damage charts unless you are being fed with PIs.
Ret needs access to more burst windows AND probably also numerical adjustments on HP loading skills.