The ret problem and larger paladin implications
I will preface this by saying that I am not even a ret pally. I spec ret maybe once a month to do a couple BGs and maybe a few arenas with whichever random person in the guild is around at the time. I did not even level as ret like most paladins, I did a prot aoe grinding routine. I raid as prot and my secondary is holy. However as some of you may be able to tell I am a little OCD about knowing everything I can even if I do not plan on doing anything with it. I have collected a full ret set that is gemmed and enchanted properly and learned my rotations even if I rarely use them.
That being said as someone who has been around since the original beta I have witnessed a roller coaster in the paladin class that is rivaled only by druids in vanilla. I remember at launch when seal of the crusader increased you attack speed by 40% but did not lower your damage per swing and pallies of all specs were running around taking names and eating babies. Though that was more of a general paladin problem rather then a ret issue so I digress. Ret was originally very strong and probably overpowered in the initial beta and got nerfed into uselessness on the eve of launch, an issue that was exacerbated by the crusader issue which allowed any spec to do the damage of ret.
More to the point there were only a couple brave souls that even bothered with the spec and that was only to get Kings which used to be the end ret talent. The game was still in a stage where classes did not know what there roles were and the community at large reached the conclusion that every class had 1 role and for paladins it was healing. Paladins in fact made very good healers and great dispellers(something that was needed much more in vanilla then currently) and coupled with the miserable ret tree and the even more laughable prot tree this was easily reinforced.
Then came the BC beta where Blizzard decided to salvage the ret tree(along with all they hybrids) and from playing in the BC beta I can tell you that they were in no way over powered at 70, even a little. They then released the lvl 70 talents for 60s and this went nuts. As you know stam increased exponentially going from vanilla to BC...but with the new crusader strike paladins were killing people within 1 hoj in ways more gruesome then what happened these past weeks(not to mention hunters and mages were doing the same thing). Blizzard caved to the QQ and nerfed crusader strike and ret became a joke once again when they hit level 70 and it was months until they got the previous nerf reverted but by then it was too late. Ret maintained is status as lolret and the few guilds that carried one did it for the 3% crit and refreshed judgments and these few brave souls got through raids by chain chugging mana pots every cooldown.
Now we are at the Wotlk beta and things are repeating themselves for the thrid straight time. Ret got buffed a little to hard for level 80 and the second the talents were released at 70 ret was killing things way to fast and Blizzard panicked, again. WWS after the nerfs show one of the top ret paladins in beta having to chug a mana pot and SEVEN dark runes to have enough mana to finish #11 on dps in a naxx fight where he does bonus damage as the target is undead. The thing that scares me is that the community seems to be happy with this. Not to mention that other classes were bursting just as ahrd as ret and still are and there are virtually no complaints. Arcane mages are still untouched and they can do pre-nerf ret burst from range and no one says a thing. Boomkins are critting starfire for nearly 7k from range and often kill me before I am in range to stun them. But ret paladins do damage for 2 days and it was hotfixed.
This brings to my main point which surprisingly has nothing to do with balance. I tank in raids and when I am not tanking I am healing, yet I have taken more crap these past few weeks then at any point in my wow career. I have people bitching to me constantly about ret. I even get blamed when not enough healers log on to raid even though i am there ready to go in my tanking gear and both the guilds holy paladins are there specced accordingly. But still it is out fault.
Even on this site which I consider my safe haven from this abuse I have been taking it. Even cider who is usually an even keel has acted agitated about paladins and has responded to people in ways I have never imagined. The problem has more to do with the fact that holy paladins are essentially the exact same healer they were from day 1 of the beta. The only new heal they have received is beacon which is an extremely disappointing attempt at group healing. Holy paladins have sat there and gone from kings of healing and watched every other class get new hots and group heals and even stronger single target heals. Yet blizzard has refused to do anything to alleviate problems of holy paladins for probably the same reason that ret gets bounced around so much.
To me the kicker is the multiple times GC has talked on other healers beta boards talking about giving them tools like a flash heal(to druids) and making sure priests had exceptionally strong direct tank heals. Ok so every healer gets a flash and a greater heal...but paladins are the only class that dont get hots and group which every single other healer has now? Paladin healing is boring unless you like whack-a-mole and has not changed ever...everything we have other healers can cover yet we can't get a even a taste of what they have. It is maddening to be so frustrated with the spec only to turn around and get yelled at because someone just got owned by a ret pally.
The reaction from the community has resulted in a constant feeling of being besieged even in my places of refuge and is really pushing me to just stop playing as I see no hope that Blizzard will ever relent on paladins of any spec as it has become obvious to anyone who has watched their history that they are willing to cave to the community and cave fast and hard. I do not care how much reassuring words GC offers his actions speak to me much louder. I should have known better before I trusted that this time things would be different.
Edit: The fact that ret was too strong at 70 was more then obvious. The fact that ret was op at 80 is less obvious but plausible...they were not top dps but they were near the top and ahead of some "pure classes". A reasonable nerf for 80 would have been warranted at this stage. It is simply way to late in the beta for changes of this magnitude to be entered...this is not just a dps rebalanced but a fundamental change in the way ret needs to be played taking away nearly everything they had earned in finally being able to use mana for more then just barely keeping your rotation going. In fact ret can not even keep their rotation going anymore as a full rotation means oom in under 2 minutes and 3 weeks from launch there is little hope to get things where they need to be, if blizzard will even admit there is a problem now. The same exact thing has now happened in every wow beta and it would take an idiot not to start connecting the dots. Barring major new developments ret is going to suck for a few months after launch after which it will get some tweaks to make it a little better until the next beta where they will again promise to fix us and screw it up yet again.
How much damage ret does however is not the reason for this long rant. I do not need replies about how ret pallies destroyed you and so forth. This post is about the communities perceived anger towards anything unique about pallies. Holy will continue to be good tank healers who suck at everything else and the same people who enjoy whack-a-mole will prob continue to do it. Prot is actually looking good but even there Blizz seems to be intentionally keeping them slightly behind in terms of panick abilities, single target damage(not threat) and hp/gun slot...even if none of those are needed at all it is still annoying that they just don't fix it and remove all doubt. What is more annoying is that classes are pisses off that we got this much let alone the grief I take about ret pallies every day. I can't count the number of locks/mages/hunters that kill me before I can even get in range to stun yet that is fine. One person gets blown up by a paladin and the world has ended. The community seems to want paladins to be in a stage where any class can beat them...we seem to be supposed to counter no one. We have lost our identity as great healers with long staying power, are only just starting to gain an identity as tanks and our identity as dps has a bad case of schizophrenia.
That being said as someone who has been around since the original beta I have witnessed a roller coaster in the paladin class that is rivaled only by druids in vanilla. I remember at launch when seal of the crusader increased you attack speed by 40% but did not lower your damage per swing and pallies of all specs were running around taking names and eating babies. Though that was more of a general paladin problem rather then a ret issue so I digress. Ret was originally very strong and probably overpowered in the initial beta and got nerfed into uselessness on the eve of launch, an issue that was exacerbated by the crusader issue which allowed any spec to do the damage of ret.
More to the point there were only a couple brave souls that even bothered with the spec and that was only to get Kings which used to be the end ret talent. The game was still in a stage where classes did not know what there roles were and the community at large reached the conclusion that every class had 1 role and for paladins it was healing. Paladins in fact made very good healers and great dispellers(something that was needed much more in vanilla then currently) and coupled with the miserable ret tree and the even more laughable prot tree this was easily reinforced.
Then came the BC beta where Blizzard decided to salvage the ret tree(along with all they hybrids) and from playing in the BC beta I can tell you that they were in no way over powered at 70, even a little. They then released the lvl 70 talents for 60s and this went nuts. As you know stam increased exponentially going from vanilla to BC...but with the new crusader strike paladins were killing people within 1 hoj in ways more gruesome then what happened these past weeks(not to mention hunters and mages were doing the same thing). Blizzard caved to the QQ and nerfed crusader strike and ret became a joke once again when they hit level 70 and it was months until they got the previous nerf reverted but by then it was too late. Ret maintained is status as lolret and the few guilds that carried one did it for the 3% crit and refreshed judgments and these few brave souls got through raids by chain chugging mana pots every cooldown.
Now we are at the Wotlk beta and things are repeating themselves for the thrid straight time. Ret got buffed a little to hard for level 80 and the second the talents were released at 70 ret was killing things way to fast and Blizzard panicked, again. WWS after the nerfs show one of the top ret paladins in beta having to chug a mana pot and SEVEN dark runes to have enough mana to finish #11 on dps in a naxx fight where he does bonus damage as the target is undead. The thing that scares me is that the community seems to be happy with this. Not to mention that other classes were bursting just as ahrd as ret and still are and there are virtually no complaints. Arcane mages are still untouched and they can do pre-nerf ret burst from range and no one says a thing. Boomkins are critting starfire for nearly 7k from range and often kill me before I am in range to stun them. But ret paladins do damage for 2 days and it was hotfixed.
This brings to my main point which surprisingly has nothing to do with balance. I tank in raids and when I am not tanking I am healing, yet I have taken more crap these past few weeks then at any point in my wow career. I have people bitching to me constantly about ret. I even get blamed when not enough healers log on to raid even though i am there ready to go in my tanking gear and both the guilds holy paladins are there specced accordingly. But still it is out fault.
Even on this site which I consider my safe haven from this abuse I have been taking it. Even cider who is usually an even keel has acted agitated about paladins and has responded to people in ways I have never imagined. The problem has more to do with the fact that holy paladins are essentially the exact same healer they were from day 1 of the beta. The only new heal they have received is beacon which is an extremely disappointing attempt at group healing. Holy paladins have sat there and gone from kings of healing and watched every other class get new hots and group heals and even stronger single target heals. Yet blizzard has refused to do anything to alleviate problems of holy paladins for probably the same reason that ret gets bounced around so much.
To me the kicker is the multiple times GC has talked on other healers beta boards talking about giving them tools like a flash heal(to druids) and making sure priests had exceptionally strong direct tank heals. Ok so every healer gets a flash and a greater heal...but paladins are the only class that dont get hots and group which every single other healer has now? Paladin healing is boring unless you like whack-a-mole and has not changed ever...everything we have other healers can cover yet we can't get a even a taste of what they have. It is maddening to be so frustrated with the spec only to turn around and get yelled at because someone just got owned by a ret pally.
The reaction from the community has resulted in a constant feeling of being besieged even in my places of refuge and is really pushing me to just stop playing as I see no hope that Blizzard will ever relent on paladins of any spec as it has become obvious to anyone who has watched their history that they are willing to cave to the community and cave fast and hard. I do not care how much reassuring words GC offers his actions speak to me much louder. I should have known better before I trusted that this time things would be different.
Edit: The fact that ret was too strong at 70 was more then obvious. The fact that ret was op at 80 is less obvious but plausible...they were not top dps but they were near the top and ahead of some "pure classes". A reasonable nerf for 80 would have been warranted at this stage. It is simply way to late in the beta for changes of this magnitude to be entered...this is not just a dps rebalanced but a fundamental change in the way ret needs to be played taking away nearly everything they had earned in finally being able to use mana for more then just barely keeping your rotation going. In fact ret can not even keep their rotation going anymore as a full rotation means oom in under 2 minutes and 3 weeks from launch there is little hope to get things where they need to be, if blizzard will even admit there is a problem now. The same exact thing has now happened in every wow beta and it would take an idiot not to start connecting the dots. Barring major new developments ret is going to suck for a few months after launch after which it will get some tweaks to make it a little better until the next beta where they will again promise to fix us and screw it up yet again.
How much damage ret does however is not the reason for this long rant. I do not need replies about how ret pallies destroyed you and so forth. This post is about the communities perceived anger towards anything unique about pallies. Holy will continue to be good tank healers who suck at everything else and the same people who enjoy whack-a-mole will prob continue to do it. Prot is actually looking good but even there Blizz seems to be intentionally keeping them slightly behind in terms of panick abilities, single target damage(not threat) and hp/gun slot...even if none of those are needed at all it is still annoying that they just don't fix it and remove all doubt. What is more annoying is that classes are pisses off that we got this much let alone the grief I take about ret pallies every day. I can't count the number of locks/mages/hunters that kill me before I can even get in range to stun yet that is fine. One person gets blown up by a paladin and the world has ended. The community seems to want paladins to be in a stage where any class can beat them...we seem to be supposed to counter no one. We have lost our identity as great healers with long staying power, are only just starting to gain an identity as tanks and our identity as dps has a bad case of schizophrenia.
Total Comments 29
Comments
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I suspect a BIG part of the problem is the attitude of self pity that is part of being a palladin in wow. I've never played one but the amount of qq is *amazing* - here, on mmo-champion, wow forums.
I have a well geared shaman healer and I think folks know they were like the healing gods of BT and SWP, the wotlk basically bumps them right back into the pack with sligtly weaker heals and a mediocre hot vs the really interesting 51 point talent we had in beta. So sure there was dissapointment and some bitching but not the firestorm of outrage that comes out of the pally community.
Some classes are tough but what I heard from the 10 or so PVP'rs the Ret Pallies are just insane in PVP - its not "some people" complaining - its the entire PVP community (minus the pallies) screaming OMFG They are just pwning everything.
I think the fault lies with Blizzard, the Pally community feels like they were treated like crap for an entire expansion, maybe since the start of vanilla - and for a few shining moments everyone wanted to be a pally - now that moment is over and all thats left is the dark bitter taste of empty rage
If Blizzard wont balance the class so that Paladins can tank/heal/dps competitively you have a basis for the rage, if they can do their jobs and keep going on raids then its wasted effortPosted 10-28-2008 at 09:33 AM by loquatious 
- No clue what the above poster is trying to say, but don't let the ignorance of the masses kill your fun man. Play how you want to play, and just ignore the idiots who have nothing better to do than attack other classes, whether its 'ZOMG THEY ARE OP" or "ZOMG THEY SUCK"
Posted 10-28-2008 at 09:55 AM by Tatt 
- I watched a ret pally solo in 3v3 before the nerf, so yeah even our now raiding ret agreed they needed some nerfing. our holy paladins are now griping a bit about not being at the top of the healing meters but I think that will be resolved during the grind to 80.
Posted 10-28-2008 at 09:59 AM by Shadevarr -
Paladins carry a heavy burden not unlike hunters and rogues as having a significant portion of your class played by players that make alot of noise. This is unfair and biased but it is the general perception many people have of paladins and I don't see it changing.
Blizzard has done a huge disservice by radically swinging back and forth on where the appropriate damage/healing out put and tanking ability should be and because of the nature of the paladin class, lots of procs, scaling damage, a reasonably complex rotation in some respects, and a faceroll in others, they have been largely unable to accurately predict how pallys will shake out on live.
I would also submit that there is an inherant bias ingrainged against the class on multiple fronts. There are alot of emo kids that play wow and the paladin class represents, in theory, the disciplined, stoic holy warrior in shining armor. There's a base attraction to eviscerating him with an undead rogue. Additionally, in a more RP fashion, its a tougher standard to live up to. You sorta expect a rogue or a hunter to have an idiot name like "Snipaxx" or "Ikilldyou" and pollute the trade channel with a fair amount of "lol" "gay" and other assorted leetspeak drivel. But when you see a paladin named (and these are real, heh) "Deathdrizzt' and 'Twofacedkilla" they earn a little extra helping of 'what a tard' Not that its fair but perception is important.
Currently, it appears all of the holy paladins I am used to seeing have gone to ground, either specced ret or switched to another alt. They aren't the only class to have experienced this (think ferals right as BC was released) but have probably endured it the most often.
It creates a negative cycle where pallys get defensive and other classes pile on. No, they don't deserve God mode. No one does (not even warlocks) but they should be able to be competative. This is one aspect where damage meteres suck for the most part. No, you can't do as much DPS as a rogue. Every caster in the raid is getting mana back on thier casts and everyone stabbing the boss is getting a little healing. Everyone is hitting harder and everyone is stronger for your aura, let alone buffs. The problem is, there is a large contingent of players who see them unable to catch an arcane mage or a combat rogue and it "WTF!?? I want to be DPS, this is bullshit!" And the QQing begins. Recently, this was not the case, pallys could do the damage as well as do all those other things but it was simply too much. Sure, should never have gone live like that but FFS, that's insane.
I fully admit, I am biased. The paladins I have some into contact with, been guilded with over my 3+ years of Wow have not been the most reasonable people or enjoyable to play with. I have met a few decent ones, though, who give me hope.
Another thing I don't know if Paladins understand or not is that frankly, DPS specced warriors are more quietly viewed the same in some ways. It traditionally has been the path of least resistance, throw off all real responsibilities and go faceroll your way through a raid. I have alot of respect for an arms/fury warrior who will pick up a shield when needed and do some dirty work. And by the same token, I giggle when I see "LF2M need tank and healer" uttered by a paladin.
In the end, I judge people on my interaction with them and I think most people do as well, leaving class discussions at the back of the queue. At least I hope so. My sole reason for leading a raid and making myself the MT as opposed to a paladin who may even outgear me is simple. It has nothing to do with him being a paladin, its just that I am in fact Horacio and he/she is not.Posted 10-28-2008 at 10:03 AM by Horacio -
I added this to the original post as well but wanted to add it here in case someone who already read it misses it.
Edit: The fact that ret was too strong at 70 was more then obvious. The fact that ret was op at 80 is less obvious but plausible...they were not top dps but they were near the top and ahead of some "pure classes". A reasonable nerf for 80 would have been warranted at this stage. It is simply way to late in the beta for changes of this magnitude to be entered...this is not just a dps rebalanced but a fundamental change in the way ret needs to be played taking away nearly everything they had earned in finally being able to use mana for more then just barely keeping your rotation going. In fact ret can not even keep their rotation going anymore as a full rotation means oom in under 2 minutes and 3 weeks from launch there is little hope to get things where they need to be, if blizzard will even admit there is a problem now. The same exact thing has now happened in every wow beta and it would take an idiot not to start connecting the dots. Barring major new developments ret is going to suck for a few months after launch after which it will get some tweaks to make it a little better until the next beta where they will again promise to fix us and screw it up yet again.
How much damage ret does however is not the reason for this long rant. I do not need replies about how ret pallies destroyed you and so forth. This post is about the communities perceived anger towards anything unique about pallies. Holy will continue to be good tank healers who suck at everything else and the same people who enjoy whack-a-mole will prob continue to do it. Prot is actually looking good but even there Blizz seems to be intentionally keeping them slightly behind in terms of panick abilities, single target damage(not threat) and hp/gun slot...even if none of those are needed at all it is still annoying that they just don't fix it and remove all doubt. What is more annoying is that classes are pisses off that we got this much let alone the grief I take about ret pallies every day. I can't count the number of locks/mages/hunters that kill me before I can even get in range to stun yet that is fine. One person gets blown up by a paladin and the world has ended. The community seems to want paladins to be in a stage where any class can beat them...we seem to be supposed to counter no one. We have lost our identity as great healers with long staying power, are only just starting to gain an identity as tanks and our identity as dps has a bad case of schizophrenia.Posted 10-28-2008 at 10:42 AM by Meeks
Updated 10-28-2008 at 11:01 AM by Meeks - Meeks, I have to agree with you that paladins are being given far to much crap, even the non-ret paladins. I even admit that I may have been guilty of some undeserved pally bashing (none that I can remember, but I'm not going to remove myself from the problem).
I know for a fact that I have given a rough time to a couple paladin friends of mine who ranted at me how ret was entirely balanced and how all the changes were needed to make it fair.
I hope that the paladin changes get balanced in the end, but I'll admit its not looking good.
On a seperate note, I dont think consecration belongs in a typical rotation for a ret pally, and they should be able to pull their dps from elsewhere, thereby maybe freeing up some more mana. I realize it might be better for dps, just saying from my personal opinion of how it works.
Either way, I hope that the paladin abuse doesn't kill your WoW experience entirely, and you can keep taking hits with the rest of us.Posted 10-28-2008 at 10:47 AM by Parah - I don't play a paladin (but I do live with one), but the level of paladin bashing is definitely annoying. I do worry that they are changing things now at 70 that will badly hurt the class at 80.
My guild has always been somewhat oddball I guess in that we've included at least one ret pally in our raids for a very long time, well before this patch. I pretty much get fed up with any sort of comments like "lolret." I've always wished that damage meters did a better job of accounting for all the buffs that classes bring (I've mentioned this idea before...if only they credited the extra damage the rogue did due to the buffs to the person doing the buffing...)
On the other hand, right now, every single paladin in my guild except one has gone ret. The one I live with, thankfully, has stayed holy and has no interest in ret (she leveled holy from about level 30). It HAS been frustrating to see toons who have received healing gear in our raids suddenly going dps. But that is a social/guild issue and not the fault of the class.
I hear you with this statement. I spent far too much time in the official forums during the last couple arena seasons reading the constant stream of druid-hate due to resto being particularly good in ONE bracket of ONE form of pvp and I know how frusterating it is. Never mind that it was the least significant bracket, never mind that it was just one spec of the class and it required certain pairings with other classes, never mind that the nerfs intended to lessen resto's power did more to hurt the other two specs (which were way underrepresented as it was). We were all horribly overpowered and should be deleted from the game. /sigh. It would be so nice if more people in this game could manage to have some perspective on things.Quote:One person gets blown up by a paladin and the world has ended. The community seems to want paladins to be in a stage where any class can beat them...we seem to be supposed to counter no one.Posted 10-28-2008 at 11:23 AM by MontanaTaur - In PvP it always comes down to one thing:
"But you got bubble!"Posted 10-28-2008 at 11:49 AM by Oneiroi - "Paladins are a defensive class designed to outlast their opponents." -Blizzard's class description of the paladin class.
I think we can all agree the post-3.0 anger and frustration is *not* from people who have been "severely outlasted" by paladin opponents... It stems instead mainly from consistently witnessing & falling victim to some of the highest burst dps currently in the game, unleashed by a class that allegedly is a "defensive outlaster."
It seems to me that Blizzard needs to decide what they really want Paladins to be before any balancing efforts will succeed. I like what they seem to be attempting with the ret tree (melee-oriented offensive group support, supportive healing, reflective damage) and I'd love to see *these* assets brought into balance, but in order to balance them a ret paladin cannot also be dishing out personal burst dps that rivals more fragile "pure" dpsers such as rogues and mages, classes that also offer less group support.
Part of this problem, of course, is that the player community has always had a very hard time quantifying the value of supportive buffs/abilities in groups. Until a spec like ret earns "credit" for all the extra damage other party/raid members are dealing as a result of its talents and abilities, it will be undervalued by most. Even then, use of certain abilities will always go unacknowledged; how do you quantify a life-saving BoP and compare it to damage dealt or healed?
If Blizzard compensates for this by empowering the personal performance of highly-supportive specs to make them look good on the meters, it will overpower the players who fully-utilize the support potential of said spec; if Blizzard does nothing, the support players continue to go largely undervalued and complain that they need buffs.
Blizzard's solution so far seems to be "give every class support utility AND give them competitive damage/healing output"... Which is OK I guess, though class heterogeneity is part of what has made this game so great. I'd love to see ret paladins remain as unique as rogues AND become balanced in power, eg by buffing their supportive assets, but perhaps this is simply not possible with balance expectations as high as they now are.
my 2c.Posted 10-28-2008 at 12:31 PM by phenk -
I don't understand how paladins are never happy.
Their DPS and raid utility has been fine for over a year now, even in early TBC a ret paladin was a gain to RDPS, even if their personal DPS wasn't amazing.
Late in TBC they provided the same great RDPS gain but also did much higher personal DPS due to gear scaling.
WoTLK they can do significantly more personal DPS compared to other classe (from what the gap used to be), and provide as many great benefits as before.
No class is a unique snowflake anymore (or at least, not many anyway). But ret paladins are still a great asset to the raid.
Also, they can keep up their DPS rotation indefinitely, assuming they aren't doing UNNECESSARY things like healing. Healers will be healing; DPS will be DPS'ing.
The only thing that was out of whack was ret paladins prior to this most recent nerf. They were gods. Gods. It had to be made sane.Posted 10-28-2008 at 02:22 PM by Xav - I strikes me that you did not even read my post since the points you brought up have nothing at all to do with what I wrote. That being said I will address them anyway.
Have you even seen the new dps meters? The best ret paladins are not cracking top 10 dps even when using multiple dark runes and a mana pot. Ret CAN NOT maintain a dps rotation in its current state even with no heals. Even if you cut consecrate out of your rotation and take an even larger dps hit you still can not keep it going. But once again this post despite the large amount of time devoted to it is not about ret in particular.
Ret paladins now provide no unique buffs so there should be no gap between them and the other hybrids. The very fact that classes are not unique snowflakes is the reason that balance needs to prevalent. You can not nerf a classes dps and then claim it was made up through buffs like we used to do with arms warriors, enhance/elemental shamies and so forth.
The fact that you seem to expect ret to do worse damage then anyone else and are against balance has been made more then evident through our various conversations. Ret should not be out dpsing everyone but when one of the best ret paladins out there who is takign extreme measures to up his dps(dark runes every cooldown) then there are problems.
People like you are the reason I wrote this blog...you seem offended by the very idea that ret should compete in dps with other classes.Posted 10-28-2008 at 02:39 PM by Meeks - No, you're frothing at the mouth, for no reason. Ret isn't at the bottom of the damage meter, no where near it. I unfortunately can't find the post right now, but it had all the math laid out. Basically, a ret paladin can sustain a full DPS rotation in PvE and break even on mana, assuming they're (obviously) using Plea. Ret paladins aren't expected to be throwing out heals or Hand buffs while DPS'ing, since it's unnecessary.
Retribution is still very competitive on damage meters, you'll see it, you've already seen parses where they're doing just fine.
However, you seem to demand Retribution paladins put out the numbers of say, a Rogue or a Hunter. Classes that have three trees devoted to one thing: DPS. Because they're a DPS class.
A Rogue will never be able to pick up offspec gear and fulfill another role, yet a paladin can.
If hybrids were able to replicate what a purebred class can do equally well, then noone would play a purebred. It would be an entire raid of hybrids, looting every piece of gear, and being able to, on a whim, respec to fulfill any role at the best level. The raid would be exceptionally versatile and likely overpowered.
As for the other parts of your post, I didn't feel like addressing them because frankly I think you're part of the reason the paladin community is so negative and disrespected.
Holy paladins got significant buffs, utility, and new spells to play with that they were asking for. The reason it seems "pale" in comparison is because Holy paladins weren't able to go into a battleground and kill people in 4 seconds flat for a few weeks like Ret was, so noone was holy. Noone. Why care about the holy changes when you can simply go ret and live in blissful imbalance?
You're probably not aware of this, but my old main for years was a paladin, and I extensively raided and PvP'd on it for a very long time. I'm still very up-to-date on the paladin changes and the impacts it has on both PvE and PvP.Posted 10-28-2008 at 03:48 PM by Xav - Man, he specifically said that he does not want to be attacked when he logs on this site....wtf...
Posted 10-28-2008 at 05:11 PM by Tatt - The flip side of purebred>hybrid is that hybrids stay home, since they excel at nothing that matters in the fight.
Posted 10-28-2008 at 07:34 PM by Finelle - Hybrids have always had a place and will always have a place. Druids are great in all 3 trees, Priest's are good in all 3 trees and so are Pallies. Damage meters have never mattered to me. It is threat meters I pay attention to. A good DPS is not the one that is dead from pulling off of a tank but on the top of DPS meters. A good DPS is one that works with the group and maybe has to throttle DPS to avoid pulling off of tank. For me the game is more about how the classes can combine and work togather using everybody's strong points. Yeah I'm not much for PVP your mileage may vary. Then again I have been happy to play "support" roles in RPG games for longer than I'd like to admit as my first RPG was played on a Commadore 64.
Posted 10-28-2008 at 08:34 PM by Gromblee -
I respond to people complaining about their class the same way, regardless of their class. I'd suggest you look at some of the posts regarding Sword and Board in earlier builds if you think I have it out for Paladins.Quote:Even cider who is usually an even keel has acted agitated about paladins and has responded to people in ways I have never imagined.
Blizzard does not hate Paladins. Balancing the class -- something that was sorely needed -- is not a sign of the apocalypse. I also don't understand why you, a self-stated Protection Paladin, take comments from other raiders personally, given that they really don't apply to you in any way.Posted 10-29-2008 at 02:27 AM by Ciderhelm -
Well, he said that he was getting blamed for some of it specifically in his blog.Posted 10-29-2008 at 06:01 AM by jere - Now that everyone has had a period to adjust after the patch, and now that everyone has had a chance to really get a good look at other classes besides their own, really, there shouldn't be any argument that SOMETHING had to be done with ret.
I am not in a high end raiding guild, I am in a small guild, we have kara on farm, hell, with the new patch kara is more like an excercise in how much crap i can throw at the group without us wiping, and is actually fun now (on vent someone made a smartassed comment about pulling the whole room, so i did =D, mad fun). And with the patch, we bulldozed through ZA like it was nothing.
That said, the first time we went into ZA after the patch we were a DPS short and brought in ret pally. People started bellyaching on vent because he was in all blues/greens, with the only epic he had was his weap. This guy was 3rd in overall damage and second on dps only behind the arcane mage, who for where we are tierwise is stacked gearwise.
This was not some fluke. That arcane mage happens to be my significant other, who quit playing her ret pally because it just couldnt compete with others at a level she was used to. After seeing that guy, she dusted her off, and started running her pally again. Every piece of gear brought a massive jump in her damage/dps. Last night, we ran kara just so she could get the axe off the seasonal boss in there and replace her Oathkeeper. Immediate 200dps jump. The amount of work she put into her mage far outweighed what she had to put into her pally to reach the same levels of dps. She is pulling almost the same amount of dps with less gear. And that I believe is where the problem lies, for a hybrid to outperform a pure class is not balanced.
As for pallies getting yelled at by everyone, you need to hang around a better class of people. One of our guild leaders is a holy pally, who also liked to tank from time to time. I cannot recall anyone ever giving him any shit about pallies being OP, or any other thing. He doesnt bitch about what blizz has done to the class, well, not much anyway, he wasnt thrilled about the changes in tanking.Posted 10-29-2008 at 09:07 AM by elbastardo66 - Finelle was your comment written in sarcasm? I truly hope so......
Posted 10-29-2008 at 09:23 AM by Tatt - I do not know how much clearer I can make this but after reading replies I obviously did not do a good enough job. This post is not even coming close to saying that ret was fine...IT WAS NOT...RET WAS TOO STRONG...there I said it for the 10th time and this time in caps so please understand this. I have a problem with the entire way the class was dealt with from original vanilla beta up until today which has changed surprisingly little and with the community in general.
I remember back in vanilla when I did not play a pally(I am a horde player) and people would complain that they fought a pally and he used his bubble, bop, lay on hands and still died and the complaint was that it was too hard to kill them. I sat there thinking...the pally reset his health 3 times in a fight and still lost what are they complaining about?
I realize things are not nearly in that state anymore but the attitude still remains and is alive, even in this thread.Posted 10-29-2008 at 11:19 AM by Meeks
