Ret Pallies, how's 2.3 treatin ya?Follow

yeah, i've been busy getting ready to go to Iraq, but i did have time tuesday to run blood furnace on my 61 ret pally. we had a 60 BM hunter, a 61 rogue (didn't look at spec) and myself as DPS. the hunter was talking trash the whole time about how pallys can't dps... meanwhile i was nearly doubling his dps. the rogue stayed ahead of me by about 1% the whole time. actually ending about 2% ahead by the end. at first i was running with BoW to keep my mana up, but about halfway through i had to switch to salv. 30% threat reduction is good, but 51% is better. overall i was pretty happy with the changes.

Just a hunch, but since the guy was tanking before that, did he actually click off RF?

Ret Pally vs Raid Mage.

2 heroic dungeons, Heroic SP and Heroic Crypts the mage topped out the Ret pally by about 14% total damage. There is a gear difference to take into account, but the damage was nothing phenomenal from the ret pally.

I thought about pre-empting the new and improved "Retribution fever" before the scores of "oMfG rEt Iz TeH pWn NoW" posts showed up, but then I realized it probably wouldn't do any good and would be a colossal waste of time.

Make no mistake about it, 2.3 is a huge improvement for Retribution Paladins, but there are still several crippling issues they face that keep them from being as good as they have the potential to be.

1. Bad itemization. This is the biggest problem currently and is not at all their fault. Retribution Paladins need very nearly every stat in the game to some degree for offense, making their gear extremely hard to budget and leaving no room for defense unless you start taking other stats away, as was the case with S2 arena gear and the loss of spell damage on the shift to S3. I'm told Crusader Strike actually hits for less than a 3.6 speed auto-attack in S3 gear.

IMO, this could be solved easily and immediately by removing all +spell/healing aspects from both Retribution gear and talents, and letting the abilities draw extra spell damage from the Paladin's melee attack power in exactly the same fashion as the new and improved Mental Quickness gives Enhancement Shaman +spell/healing. Problem solved.

2. Many of their talents are still poorly conceived and executed. I recall one thread in particular reporting a bug during 2.3 that wasn't even addressed by a blue. JoC is apparently functioning on +spell hit, which works out fine for most of the game, but impairs the Paladin in end-game raiding. They really can't afford (and shouldn't have to) to stack +spell hit in addition to regular +hit.

3. They still fail in PvP due to a lack of mobility.

4. Perhaps more than any other spec/class, a greater portion of their player base is retarded. =/

i haven't experienced ret pallies post-patch yet. but to compare an arcane mage to a ret pally in a 5 man is...why?

gimme melee vs melee or dont compare at all. my last SL run my mage topped the rogue by almost TRIPLE! we had an aoe tank with no CC, nuff said.

bottom line is i was kickin out 500 dps on my ret pally(1400 AP, 26 crit, 89 hit UB w/ Thunder) pre-patch in Kara. im guessing at least another 100 dps now with same gear. i might switch back to ret soon, cuz i need to smash something...just need a tank to hold it in place for me.

Actually, if you spec arcane as a mage.... then you don't need a bunch of +hit and your raid gear can be your instance gear without a problem. Plus, raid gear usually has a ton more spell damage, stamina and int than gear you get from instances (thus the purplez vs bluez).

....Now... back to trying to figure out how to play my newly-retified-pally by reading these posts...

I've been retri for a couple of levels now (just respecced back to prot since I love tanking), and they do put out some pretty good damage - not compareable with real dps classes, but still a-okay. I think what ppl fail to see is, that a retribution paladin ain't a dps class. It's a suport class, just like shadow priests. They can do some damage, but where they shine is theire ability to make the run smooth, with off healing and offtanking (when needed), further more they now come with some buffing ability + 3% critt for the entire party.
From lvl 60 - 63 I have mainly been running instances with my pala, and I have only heard positively words from my fellow wow'ers.

I can give a couple of exampels:

Our tank made a nasty pull - getting 3 groups instead of one. Had I been a rogue we would all have died. Instead I fast equiped my healing mace and shield, throw out BoL and started assinting our healer. Result: We survived

Our tank died at the second boss in BF. Instead of wiping I equiped my sword and tanking shield, throw on RF and tanked the boss. We made it

our entire dps group died due to bad pulling (and maybe bad tanking :|)... The healer tried to keep the tank alive, and so did I. but with to many mobs, and no dps we lost the tank (we could not heal him enought to keep him alive and kicking). So instead of wiping, I DI the healer.

Further more it's nice to have a dps who can throw down a huge heal on the mt, should it be needed (LoH).

So in the future whatever I dps with my hunter or tank with my pala I will welcome loladins into the party :D

um, i know my ret isn't 70 yet and i'll have to get back to you when i am about ret dps at 70... but my ret is 64 and so far in outlands instances i've had one mage and about 40% of rogues beat me in damage done. most of the time that is when problems with the group require me to off-heal or off-tank. other than those in the top 2 dps classes noone else beats my dps. most don't even come close. if you were 61-63 and not keeping up with dps classes, then yes, please stay prot. i love a good prot pally about as much as a poor ret embarrasses me. like i said, things may change as i reach 70, but at these levels, ret still rocks the dps charts. my DPS this morning in underbog was between 350-400dps. the lvl 70 druid tanking in bear form came close. the rogue was a little behind him. the dps warrior with us was a solid contribution, but thats about all I can say for him. i'm sure if i spent some gold i could do better, but i've geared entirely with instance drops and quest rewards.



yes, i do agree with you here. while the personal dps is great, the lack of CC still would leave us a second choice over a rogue or a mage who in addittion to close dps can also keep an enemy out of the fight entirely for a limited time. fortunately dps isn't all a re has to offer. we are also pallys.... as such we still have the best buffing ability with our variety of blessings and auras and jotc on bosses (kinda useless on anything smaller)



again i agree with you here. and i ommitted your examples and yes that is another strength of the ret pally. the time the mage beat me it was cause we had an elemental shammy healing, so i had to cast quite a few heals. i still ended 2% behind her... so i didn't feel too bad. my dps set has a lot of rogue and hunter gear so i try to stay away from off-tanking. i keep it to off-healing if needed. if i can keep the tank alive i don't need to off-tank.

anyway, glad you at least gave it a try before discussing it. and prot pallys are my fav tanks, so thats a good choice too. oh, and for motivating your rets than join you... tell them they can't dps... ;) i love when another DPS'er (usually a hunter) tells me i can't DPS while i'm looking at the damage meters 10% or more ahead of them... feels good haha. i like letting them say that a could time and then posting the damage done in party... usually they don't say anything more. and if they do i don't have to say anything in my defense. the rest of the party usually does. especially when damage+healing puts me even farther ahead.

oh well. some will never get rid of old prejudices.

first i realize i'm badly outclassed here both in posting history and even end game content, especially on my ret. however, i'd have to say one guild pally isn't "experience with ret pallies"... thats just one pally. i'm sure if he has a vet like you then he probably does well as a healadin. however, going from holy to ret isn't the easiest to do. personal experience (as limited as it may be) is that holy pallys tend to look at ret as a caster dps. while our dps abilities uses mana, it seems most retadins who rely on +spell damage don't compete in dps. i have stacked str/ap and agil/crit and to be honest my dps is well above mages and above average compared to rogues. while its possible that in the remaining 6 levels till 70 a rogue or mages dps will pass mine, i'd have to say i have a hard time beleiving that i'd go from often being 10% ahead of mages and with or ahead of rogues to suddenly being "sub-par". i'll keep you updated of course. at this point i have all quest rewards or instance drops. as i get towads 70 i'll start investing more in really improving my gear.

on another note, i just got hatebringer today. made me happy.

i'll tell you this they have to be doing better dps than me as dps seeing i'm prot pally. got ST group lastnight i get there look at the other two pallies both are prot one 53 and one like 51 i'm only 45 so i backed off and tossed on a 2 hander. needless to say not haveing shield spike and mobs hitting my damage sheilds really showed how much i wasnt doing. other two pallies finished with twice my damage each. at least i got acouple upgrades. i should have needed on more but didnt wanna need the whole instance even though i dont think the others was gonna wear any of it. glad to say even though i was lower i still had more hp than the other two pallies 6+ lvls higher pays to be an enchanter and enchant your own stuff.

quick question when will dps start toping the tank. i out damage everyone in group like 19 times out of 20 still when i'm tanking. even on my warrior who was my main lvl 48 he was top damage then again he was arms.

Not necessarily true. I am still constantly putting out 20% minimum damage in Heroics because I use as little CC as possible based on healer's gear/skill and the types of mobs. Mobs that fear, MC, charge random people, or otherwise cause havor get CCd as possible/needed, but other then that, I just round them up and tell the DPS to go to town. Been as high recently as 30% in Heroic Sethekk Halls.

hmm, perhaps the tanks i've grouped with lately haven't been of your caliber. so correct me if i'm wrong. my understanding was as you boost your avoidance reckoning becomes nearly useless. and as you push block into a smaller chunk of the chart even a shield spike becomes minimally usefull... am i wrong? if i'm not where does your dps come from?

G, you beat me to it. tools' posts make sense, but they are cluttered with bits of misinformation or misconceptions, but still make for good discussion.

as for running heroics, you need to know that the mobs will be hitting you harder, therefor require more heals, which leads to more mana for the tank. this allows you to be more liberal with your spell rotation. for instance, i've been doing SV rep runs on regular. i don my 400 spell set and aoe tank everything w/o consecrations. i still take minimal dmg/minimal heals, thus need to drink after each pull. however, in Heroic Mech mana is not an issue. i can use minimal CC and unload the mana-hurt, even exocisms and consecrations, and still be full for the next pull. all this using max avoidance/hp set.

also note, a tankadins % dmg SHOULD be lower in heroics. by heroics the dpsers should be adaquatly geared to push the tank to the bottom of the dmg meter, though with the patch this is often not the case. but if you are holding aggro from 600 dps mages, then you are still doing some mean tanking dmg.