To the newly converted Retadins out there...Follow

So far I have been lucky in the groups I have had with Ret Paladins, mainly because the ones I have grouped with have been Ret since before the Patch. They know how to be of maximum use to the party while still being at or near the top of the DPS charts.

I am certain that at some point in the future I WILL run into the Retnoobs though. Too bad most of them probably don't visit this site much. The important thing about ANY spec of Paladin is they SHOULD be providing buffs, cleansing, healing, using DI and RD, etc.

Even as a Prot, if I am near full health and I have good threat, I will throw out a FoL if I see someone in my party/raid is in trouble... it usually doesn't even mess with my normal rotation since it only takes 1.5 seconds. I most CERTAINLY have used my LoH on someone else in a party or raid when absolutely necessary, I know how to cleanse others even while I am tanking, etc.

I play with a lot of Holy Paladins, and they know enough to keep judgements up on a target and if no-ones health is an issue they will even throw in a little dps just to prevent boredom and get trash down faster.

EVERY Pally spec has better DPS ability now, and improved utility. Anyone ignoring the utility IS a Retnoob (or Holynoob or Protnoob).

Edited, Oct 24th 2008 11:46am by jeromesimina

thankyou... I hadn't thought about putting this up in a separate post, bit this as a great idea. I really wish all the recent FOTM rets would come here and read this.. i'll prolly put it in a macro now to spam to any rets I play with... lol.

and honestly, this is far from old-school thinking. this is what a pally is to me. its why I loved ret so much before. everything I loved about my ret spec has been buffed amazingly and I feel like a fat kid in a candy store... I did za last night. I used my instant FoL aalmost every time it was up. I even cast some regular heals when the healers either died or were just having a hard time... my dps suffered a little bit, but I felt more like the pally I thought I rolled than I ever have. It sickens me to see rets (especially since the patch) that won't heal, cleanse or any of the other things we can do as a ret pally. if i'd wanted to play a rogue I wouldn't have deleted it...

agan thankyou for posting this. very smart move.

and here is an example of someone that should have rolled a rogue.... lol. ret has more than dps. why limit your contribution? i bring a mage for his aoe dps. does that mean he should sit back and do nothing on the single target boss? or not put down a table? or not sheep? seriously, think about what you're saying. have you looked through your spellbook lately? theres a lot there that you can do as a ret that will have only slight impact on your dps. your instant cast FoL isn't there to be an extra buff you watch blinking in your list. your spell power isn't just there to add to your dps. with everything scaling on both SP & AP they would have just boosted the AP coefficient if thats all it was there for. they don't like copying abilities. they compromised and copied that from enh shammies for a reason. no, i don't expect you to heal the entire time. but you can afford one GCD once in a while to throw out a FoL that honestly will hit about as hard as many holy pallies FoL. buffed i have 800 SP on my ret. buffed i have 1000 SP on my holy pally (about 1800 +healing pre-patch). so 800 may not be 1k, but it's not 0 like it used to be. my heals will help smooth things out at very least.

And almost all fights it's not bad dps that puts a strain on healers and tanks. it's stupid dps. pulling off the tank puts extra strain on the healers and extra work for the tanks. not moving out of aoe effects puts extra strain on the healers. not keeping up cc puts strain on healers and tanks. not watching out for cc and using DS (or consecrate or whatever other aoe you feel like mentioning) puts extra straing on healers, tanks and the poor cc'er that has to now try to recontrol that mob. ret used to have a bad rep because it's dps was low, yes. it was brought to many high end raids BECAUSE of its utility even though it's dps was lower. now a ret pally can dps and his utility is MUCH better (even if almost none of it is unique anymore). now more than ever it's the ret pally that thinks he's a rogue purely that will continue to get ret a bad name. most fights low dps only means a slightly longer fight. when i'm healing on my holy pally a slightly longer fight is MUCH prefereable to having to heal stupid dps. i'll bring a guy to a raid that does a little less dps as long as he's smart and does what his class is able. i will refuse to group with that t6 geared jerk that insists it's the tanks responsibility to hold aggro against his dps when he won't watch it. or that insists he died cause he didn't get heals even though it's because he he wasn't moving out of some fire or a void or whatever. and come group w/ me. i'll through that heal out there and still have yet to be beat in dps since the patch. some decently geared hunters have given me a run for my money, but when i can step out and heal for 15 mins in za because a healer went afk and STILL be top on the damage meter overall i don't think i'd say i'm gimping my dps that badly....

you don't sacrifice 1500 dps to throw an instant cast heal ever 16 seconds... you sacrifice maybe 50-100 dps for that global cooldown... oh, and one spec doesn't "halfass do em all". ret's cleanses are just as good as holy's. rets HoP is just as good as Prot's. Ret's heals are maybe 80% behind holy. an 80% instant cast heal on a tank that's going down because you lost one of your 2 healers is worthwhile wouldn't you think? prolly more so than the 2k damage you'd do in that GCD on the boss that's about to kill your tank and rape your party... that FoL can give your healer the time to cast that big heal and maybe be ahead enough to keep the tank alive till you can now kill the boss... play as you'd like. i can't stop you. however, don't come here talking about how ret is meant to be DPS only. look at the stinking talent tree and tell me there's nothing but dps there...

i think as a ret pally you should be smashing Judgement, CS and DS (and consecrate, exorcism, HoW, etc) every cooldown when practical. dps should be your most obvious contribution. I won't argue there. Noone might notice your Instant cast FoL. the healer might just think he got lucky and got his heal off in time. who knows. who cares. if you saved the party and killed the boss you succeeded. if you decided to hit the boss instead that GCD you might have put yourself even farther ahead of the rest of the dps. they'll say "wow you did some great dps... too bad we didn't kill that boss though, huh?" does that really make you feel successful? roll a hunter. at least then you can FD and not cost yourself a repair bill for that attitude.

and before you say that's just one situation, i could give you numerous examples where you could use your skills as a truly good ret pally to make things go smoother for your group, but i am long winded enough as it is... imagine how long my post would be if you want more than just one situational example lol...

Where in here did anyone limit what makes a good Ret to high-end raiding??? When sh!@ hits the fan, if all you do is pick your nose and swing your axe, I'm sorry, you fail. If you throwing that emergency heal is the difference between a wipe and a recovery, and you don't, you fail. If you can Cleanse yourself but don't, putting unneeded strain on the healer, you fail.

Yes, you were brought to DPS, and the majority of the time, that's what you should be doing: just DPS. But if you are needed to do something extra, and you don't, you are a bad Ret.

I did, but merely to differentiate my opinion from ToJ. Anecdotes from 5mans/10mans i could really care less about as you could half *** heal, half *** tank and half *** dps any of them prepatch and still be fairly successful(timed event to 4th chest in za being an exception). Now they all can be done by 5/10players simultaneously face-rolling their keyboards every 3-4sec.


Agreed. I just feel that currently ret is not a hybrid spec, its a pure dps spec with amazing raid buffs. As prot and primarily an OT, i'm expected to have a healing set, resist sets, aoe threat set and MT/avoidance set every time I raid. I know about having my bag full of situational gear and i love the new divine guardian, imp devo talents, and new BoSanc, makes me feel much more useful when not actually tanking. But with ret actually holding its own and then some in the dps department, enjoy it, go nuts as more nerfs and lvl 80 balancing are coming fast.

When they make Ret similar to a Moonkin in that it limits what spells you can cast while in Ret spec, then and only then will it be ok to be a selfish Rogue wannabe and just DPS regardless of the current situation: 5 man, 10 man, or 25 man. We're not talking just pre patch raids, not just post patch content, not just PvP. In all content, level range, patch version, Ret has the ability to be so much more then pure DPS given certain conditions that will inevitably occur. Even the top guilds on each sever are going to have times when things go wrong, and Ret being part of a hybrid class is in the perfect position to help change the tide of battle when things don't go your way.

You say mahlerite and I agree: ideally a Ret shouldn't have to use their other utilities. The fact remains, and I think is what the others here as well as myself are trying to get across, that there are times when things go wrong. If you don't use what tools you have, you fail.

I was in a Heroic group with my Enhancement Shaman. We had a runner go and pull some adds, and the healer wound up pulling aggro and dieing. I could have 1) kept DPSing and hoped that we pulled through or 2) stepped back and started to heal. I chose number 2, and guess what? Instead of a wipe we recovered, rezzed the healer, and moved on.

Should I have had to use my utility? No, I shouldn't have needed to, but something went wrong. I did the responsible thing and stepped up to be more then DPS. I would expect any Ret to do the same thing in such a situation.

Edited, Oct 24th 2008 11:25pm by Maulgak

When you or your tank is dead, you can't do ANY DPS.

If the healers look like they're having some trouble keeping up the tank, I take 1.5 seconds out of my rotation (Which is probably at a break anyway where my attacks are all on CD) to throw an instant FoL at him. If it keeps up, I'll do it a few more times, or even throw my LoH at him. If he dies, I'm next on threat, and I obviously can't tank something he dies to.

It also doesn't take any extra time to put HoP or HoF, or even HoS on someone that needs it. Especially someone that keeps attacking too early. "No, rogue, you can't tank. Here, now you can't even attack for 10 seconds. Like it? No? Good." But I usually end up using Salv on myself..

So in a raid, if a healer dies and the remaining healers can't keep up, the Ret shouldn't throw some heals to help out? Yea, makes sense to me.

mahlerite, I can see your point however I disagree.


A retnoob has the same thinking as you do, that is that they play a spec - DPS = DPS only and is more of a rogue mentality as they cannot offer anything else( as far as I am aware)

A retpally thinks the same way as ToJ, Tommy, Me, Arthoriuss, Maulgak and others. We play a class, not a spec and will do lots of behind the scenes stuff such as cleansing/BoF/BoP/FoL and doing it all in our stride. There have been quite a few cases where a run has gone smoothly due to me.

A good ret pally will prob carry multiple sets of gear (I carry 3 sets) and will have a sword(or mace) and board set for quick swapping. Many times I have successfully gone from DPS to main healer when the healer went down, I have also jumped in the place of the tank when he folds.

Its a sort of a 'Those who can, do' thing. If you want to dps, and just dps then go for a pure dps class don't go for a pally just because you think that they are FOTM

i'll chime in. pre-patch i would have agreed 100% with the OP. i even agree to this in terms of pvp. but for the revamped Ret spec i will say: keep it simple.

WotLK is not just an expansion, its a whole new way to play. they are undoing the class/spec deviation that they made in tBC. they are fixing the gearing mish-mosh that had evolved on its own. bottom line is that they are giving you a shell the play in, you just need to add your pieces.

chances are if someone places your Ret piece in a raid spot, it is for dps...and as much as you can give. you have as much utility as the next guy.

the last thing a raid needs when the MT goes down is for all the plate dps'ers to switch to sword n board and scream over Vent "I can tank him!". sure you can. but why dont you leave it to the guy that the raid invited to act as OT. or watch the battle-rez happen.

same thing applies to emergency healing. ya, you can heal. so can half of your raiders. let the raid leader figure it out. until then do what you were enlisted to do. i would rather see a wipe because we were unfortunate, than to see a wipe because a Ret pally was busy overhealing instead of taking off that last 1% of the boss' hp.

Everyone wants to be the hero, that's fine, just keep your feet on the ground Superman.

My new Ret Paly is running in cloth and tanking with a sword and board...


Serious note:
Who cares what they wear. I've jumped into a mail pair of gloves when they dramatically increased my Ret stats over my current plate stats. Should a 70 be satisfied with Leather/Mail --- No. But don't give people BS over their temporary or leveling gear.

If a good blue drops and it'll carry you a few levels - take it. Don't go looking for them, but your goal is DPS... Don't needlessly cast aside good plate, but if you get a better DPS mail or a much better dps leather - go for it while leveling...

When you get to 70 you want start to really get rid of that non-plate stuff...

I think I was mixing instancing/dungeons with raiding in my post, and yes, that could be confusing.

Reading over your post and the post from another thread by Toolofjesus today, I think that I would agree that in a 5-man or in a BG, Ret needs to be adaptable, but in a 10-man raid they should be sticking to DPS except in extreme circumstances, and in a 25-man raid they should be just going for all-out DPS since the raid has plenty of participants that should be taking care of everything else just fine.

Mana regen will now be an issue again after the most recent nerfs, which is just one more reason that the Ret will have to be strictly DPS-focused.