Retribution definitely feels weird, it can burst high numbers and risk ripping aggro from tanks but when cooldowns drop it becomes quite low dps compared.
It takes a lot more setup and often it has a hard time staying above Protection in damage.
Meanwhile Protection usually is Tank and Spank, does more healing, is tankier, rotation makes sense and is rewarding and can easily be only around 25% worse on DPS.
Druids have multiple dps specs. If you rank classes by dps paladin comes last.
Dps isn’t ranked by class - it’s ranked by spec. Look at any rankings list.
I do have sympathy with ret players. It isn’t a spec I play (the only pally spec I’ve played is prot), but I know it has problems and those problems have been neglected by the devs. However, the suggestion that feral players don’t have it as bad because their class has another dps spec is hardly different from saying ret players don’t have it bad because there are other classes they could play. Suggesting a feral player switches to balance is rather like suggesting a ret player switches to a mage or a warlock. They are so utterly different that it would mean learning everything again from the beginning.
Im sorry, but that’s categorically false.
Holy Paladin and Prot Paladin were S tier all season 2, their DPS alone would instantly bring up the class dps.
Retribution DPS is fine, its the fundamental problems with Raid utilities and other stuff that make it bad.
Not true at all. Prot hasn’t been S until close to the end. It was druid and DH before that.
Do you REALLY compare changing spec to litterally leveling a class from scratch and gearing them?
That is Just horrible way of comparing.
Changing specs even going from melee to range is far less work then learning a new class fundamentally from the ground up.
Feral is NOT fundamentally different then moonkin and if you belive it is you have not played it enough.
I say this as someone who only like feral of the druid specs.
But if you think feral druid is horrible raider io has The top 3 feral druids in the world in m+ inside the top 10 retribution paladins in the world.
The highest feral score would put them as number 3 ret paladin.
And unlike ret paladin feral HAS another dps spec that has a negative impact on the score as the high achievers will be playing boomkin and not feral.
So the score of feral is artificially lower then it would be if feral was the only dps spec.
How much lower is pure speculation but it is easier to say ret is about the same as feral but unlike feral ret has no secondary dps spec to go into when ret is not picked for stuff.
When I last looked before today it was over two months ago now the highest ret was lower then the highest feral though.
Well, levelling from scratch is easy (and most people already have multiple alts at max level, so also usually unnecessary). As for gearing from scratch, that’s mostly necessary if switching from feral to balance because the stats and gear requirements are different.
Going from melee to range (or vice versa) is actually the most difficult part. I started playing a rogue a couple of weeks ago and got KSM a few nights back. I decided to do the same thing with a mage (frost, the so-called easy one) and I consistently did less damage than the tank. Didn’t know where to stand, when to move and in what direction, I even struggled with standing still. I’m used to gluing myself to the backs of the mobs, and moving with them. Being at range just made no sense.
My druid’s name is Nylendis (on the same realm as the character I’m posting with). Feel free to look up her rio page to see how much I’ve played feral. But you’ve honestly revealed how little you know with this claim. Saying a melee spec that is constantly moving is ‘not fundamentally different’ from a ranged spec that has a 2.2 second cast time on its main cleave ability gives that away.
So, you’re saying there are 10 ret pallies with a score of above 2760 and only 3 feral druids with a score above 2760 and that puts ret in a worse place than feral? You should sue your maths teacher.
And here you are getting mixed up between specs and classes again. Feral IS a spec; it can’t HAVE another spec.
So you’re implying that, if Blizz decided to remove balance from the game, current balance players would start playing feral instead? Can I have some of whatever it is you’re smoking?
If balance was removed, current balance players would play another ranged spec. They might switch to mage (most likely) or warlock or priest. They wouldn’t switch to a melee spec (and especially not one that’s been neglected for at least the last 2 expansions) because ranged and melee are fundamentally different styles of play.
And like I said before, I have nothing against ret, I know it needs work to make it competitive in mythic plus. But by making false claims that ret is the worst dps spec in mythic plus, you’re putting me in a position where I have to defend the spec that’s actually in that position, and not enabling me to express my support for fixing ret’s real problems.
You will have gear with different stats already there are items you need to get but if you are smart you would already be getting gear for offspecs anyway.
Just because you have alts does not mean everyone else has.
Leveling from scratch is not fun if you just want to play your class not everyone likes to play different classes either here you are making assumptions based on how you play the game and think others should play like you.
And yet you claim it is easier to change from ret to a warlock than switching feral to moonkin.
Good job on not understanding.
The fundamentals is the class the utility the extra abilities you have that you are not understanding this tells a lot.
You are trying to build a strawman here.
I literally said
Either you did not read that or you willingly are trying to misinform.
This is true i was on my phone of course i did mean druids who play feral has another dps spec option called Balance and you know it
This is 100% provably FALSE historically we can look at Shaman because they have a melee and a ranged spec the people who like Melee shaman still players shaman if they have to play ranged for a time.
Or they stick to the melee shaman even if it does bad, but the competitive shamans will switch.
I literally only said that ret was the worst when i looked over 2 months ago and when i looked ret was worse than feral at the time.
Feral is worse than ret right now but you are not factoring in the FACT that druid has balance and feral as dps specs making the competitive players choose whatever does the most or has the best utility not the one they like the most to play.
The number the highest feral would be is unknown without balance but it is known that it would be higher than it is right now and you have to understand that fact.
Again we do not know if that would be enough to top ret but we can categorically say the number would be higher than it is today because there are historical data to show this is the case.
Let’s remember that I didn’t want to get into a fight with anyone here. I just corrected something untrue that was claimed as a fact: that ret is the worst performing spec in mythic plus. It wasn’t even you who said it, look:
You, Ayellin, have chosen to pick a fight with me because I corrected someone else’s false statement. So, to continue…
If I was ‘smart’? Well, in order to do this, I would have to switch my loot spec to balance when running keys, killing raid bosses, or opening the vault. By doing that, I would prevent myself from looting items for feral spec, valuable items such as weapon upgrades or the phial of putrefaction trinket. Your definition of ‘smart’ is clearly not the same as mine.
Fair point, although everyone I’ve ever played with has alts, even if they’re mostly neglected and played rarely.
That is something we can definitely agree on. It isn’t fun, but it doesn’t take very long nowadays.
I’m not, but you’re making some massive assumptions about me and how I like to play the game. I’m forced into playing different classes because the spec I’ve fallen in love with has been trashed and stomped on by the devs to the point where it’s unviable in my favourite type of content and barely viable in my second favourite type. I’m angry about that. I think everyone should be able to play whatever spec (not just class - spec) they want to play and it should be viable in all forms of content. Of course there will always be some specs that are on top, but we should never have a situation where some specs are so undesirable that they can’t even get accepted to 15s.
Feel free to find where I actually said this and quote me. (Although I’ll make it easier for you and say I didn’t say it, so you won’t find it.)
It’s a fair comparison, though. Telling someone who only plays feral to play balance instead is like telling someone who only plays ret to play a warlock.
I understood. I just disagreed with you. I mean, if it’s about the fundamentals of the class, ret players could just switch to prot or holy and tank or heal instead of dps.
But you’re arguing with me because I corrected something that someone else said. It has nothing to do with what you said. If I’m ‘building a strawman’ (you may need to look that up, by the way), what you’re doing is the equivalent of walking up to two people in the street who are having a disagreement, and punching one of them.
Actually, I don’t know it. All I know is what you post here. I can’t read your mind.
Where is this proof you speak of? I don’t see any data to back up your claim.
Well, you’re correct in one thing. The competitive feral players are choosing whatever has the best performance. That’s why they’re switching to other classes that have a viable melee spec. I can’t say this for certain because I haven’t spoken to them personally, but I’ve heard that both Scritch and Psybear (1st and 3rd M+ ranked in the world) are not planning to play their druids in 9.2.
More claims of ‘facts’ and ‘data’ without any actual data to back up your arguments.
If you’re going to pick a fight with a random stranger you need to do better than that.
You should just ignore that fella. When something comes into his head he believes its a fact.
I haven’t even replied to you before this…
Just zu chime in.
In the new wowhead article about ret :
“While they do gain an okay amount from a second legendary, their 4-set is pretty anemic at best leaving them in the dust. Their lackluster single target projection for this tier holds them back mightily.”
It’s not like paladins are telling blizz almost 3 months how garbage the 4 pc is.
holy diver, when will you catch up to me, your stuck can’t you see
Not something I want to see when I’ve changed main to a holy pally 
I always feel we are punished in PvE because of issues in PvP. They need to make the two types of gameplay work separarately to each other.
They already do that, ret is nerfed in PVP for several spells/talents.
They just don’t care to make ret in PVE do more dps.
In regards to mythic plus…
“Ret Paladin is feeling similar to Feral Druid this patch. Tremendous pain from no borrowed power gain, terrible 4 set, and no real sustained AOE are some of the problems that plague Ret Paladin. A lot of what has landed them in D-Tier is the just lack of solid AOE as the Paladin utility suite is typically one of the most desirable ones. They are quite difficult to bring and make work effectively in most situations just due to this tremendously low tuning on their AOE DPS.”
Didn’t know paladin had combat ress or bloodlust
But we do have them!
Blizz is so generous.
I also like to give Freedom to any class that has oil!
as a paladin I just want another mobility option and im happy.
would gladly receive heroic leap or something similar.
but yes ret damage is bad outside wings. and it should be fixed
Ye, we do have them indeed…