Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsRet pallies to be improved
by Eliah Hecht 
Jun 27th 2007 at 1:04PM
Retribution paladins are in strong contention for most ridiculed build in WoW as today. Personally, I'm sure they don't deserve all the scorn that's thrown at them, but it's probably true that Ret is not as strong as many other trees. Well, Blizzard seems to have (finally) noticed this, and they're taking a look at it:Hello again, I just wanted to let you know that the developers have taken part of your suggestions, and are looking into improving the retribution paladin spec. You can probably expect something along the line of more sustained DPS in a raid and more raid utility, but we are not ready to reveal any details. This is still work in progress, so please be patient :)
Good news, eh? Or as one forum responder put it: "Hell, it's about time." So if Ret gets more sustained raid DPS and more raid utility, will you be happy with it? What would you change in the tree?
Filed under: Paladin, News items
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
Paw Jun 27th 2007 2:22PM
@13 & 14
Sorry...got two of his favorite toons crossed...he has a NE Priest and a Draenei Mage. That's what I get for running my mouth...
jsg Jul 11th 2007 1:46PM
Fixing Ret? I never even noticed they were broken.
That's fine, making my character even stronger just makes it even easier for me to pwn noobs.
E Jun 27th 2007 2:20PM
Obligatory "Shamans keep getting ignored" post.
I *loved* completing Terokkarantula (http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=10921)last night and seeing that 2 of the 4 quest rewards were Paladin rewards...
Vellon Jun 27th 2007 2:23PM
Just what rogues need, another melee dps guy contending for their melee dps spot. And this one can spot heal, bubble and wears plate!
jk, rock on pallies I'm glad to see ret become more functional. I'm kind of scared of what this will mean for the arena though, pallies are already scary enough! Hopefully the burst potential is low, but good sustained raid dps?
theRaptor Jun 27th 2007 2:26PM
@ 16
Who uses DKP in Kara? Lots of purple drops and the raid size means their is little competition.
Just join a non-stupid raiding guild that doesn't force people to respec for easy content (my guild hasn't cleared kara, but it is still easy content). Or force them to waste DKP on non-spec gear (I don't even know why they would take a prot pally to kara and expect them to heal)
We have taken ret pallies to Kara and they do good DPS on the undead bosses. They just generate ridiculous threat, and can't take a beating despite being in plate (prot pally dying on every trash pull to opera, is hilarious).
An easy way to give ret pallies better raid viability, but not OP them in PVP, is to add something similar to shadow form (maybe even disallow bubbles while it is on).
Becca Jun 27th 2007 2:38PM
Will I be happy with it? Meh, I probably wouldn't even notice...I don't think we have a single ret pally in the guild. I guess I feel bad for those out there that rolled a paladin to do 'massive damage' only to find out they DPS like a wet noodle, but I agree with poster #6: Go roll a rogue or warrior (or even feral druid) if you want to look good on the DPS meters.
There's a saying on Staghelm: You can't spell 'retarded' without 'ret'.
mattyt17 Jun 27th 2007 2:45PM
epic pally armor ret pve raid drops? never seen em.
theRaptor Jun 27th 2007 2:52PM
@22
Feral druids used to be like ret pallies before TBC. So were shadow priests. Heal pretty much anything that could heal sucked at doing anything else. Blizzard have shown they can fix the others, so they can fix ret if they want to.
Kaylek Jun 27th 2007 2:53PM
I agree with 16, even though I'm Holy (though that's mostly because I acknowledge that I don't really have an option). Until our tank and damage MATCHES every other available class for the role, we'll never be able to do it in a progressive raiding guild.
If you want to viability tank, heal, or DPS, you're only option is to reroll a druid.
rick gregory Jun 27th 2007 2:59PM
Hmmm... So you're a pally and you want to be viable in endgame, but you insist on being ret?
respec. I'm serious here - I can't spec my rogue Subtlety and expect a raid spot - I need to spec him to put out as much damage as possible since that's my utility in raids.
The idea that all specs for all classes should have raid utility is flawed. You want to be a pally and raid? Spec holy, or perhaps Prot. But to insist that, because you refuse respec, your favorite spec should be buffed so it is raid-viable seems off to me.
This isn't to say that ret shouldn't be changed... but the measure of the changes shouldn't be making it great for raids.
Uncle TomTom the Racist GPS Apr 15th 2008 3:01AM
Yea, because when rogues respec they have to get different gear with +healing and no str, crit, or hit bonuses. A rogue's only job is to do DPS, and maybe a little CC, and what changes when a rogue respecs? They use different abilities with marginally different bonuses between trees. When I respec as my paladin, I have to say goodbye to any shred of DPS I had before and do a wholly different job. Know something
Skrilla Jun 27th 2007 3:19PM
When I rolled pally I knew nothing of this game except from what I read on blizzard's official site (started 1-Apr-07). I went ret all the way from 1-70, simply because I wanted to kill things faster. I rarely went into dungeons on my way to 70, never played another character and rarely grouped with anyone. I had no idea how weak my pally really was until I started doing some dungeons and group quests after 70 (crusader stike was a huge letdown). I switched to the shockadin build for a weak or two, did some healing in groups and some soloing - but my healing gear was all AH trash. The damage dealt was not the much different from ret (which leads me to beleive ret is really broken). Switched to prot last week (since all my best gear is for prot) - can be fun for taking on a few mobs at once, but killing just one takes too long, if you don't want to use all your mana on one mob. Have tanked a few instances - lower than level 70 is very easy, in level 70 instances I have problem holding agro. I'll stay prot until I get better healing gear or they fix ret. I have grouped with lower level guys with all these builds and they can all out DPS me very easily, not what I was expecting when I rolled pally :(
Ken Lydell Jun 27th 2007 3:21PM
I have really enjoyed playing my human retnoob pali so far. She is at L42. I also have a BElf L26 pali who has also been great fun to play. As soon as the two palis reach the point where I must choose a raiding/instance spec that is nearly useless for solo PvE or a solo PvE spec unwelcome on raids I will park the toons and stop playing the class.
What I want is a pali spec that is competitive for raid slots AND adequate for solo PvE grinding and questing. Druids, Priests, Hunters, Warlocks, Rogues and Mages are to be envied in this regard.
I'm not sure the Pali class can be tweaked enough to improve it. A major rethink that also includes Warriors might be in order as both Warriors and Palis currently must become one trick ponies to be raid viable in end game.
rick gregory Jun 27th 2007 3:33PM
@Skrilla...
But... what WERE you expecting? There's no class that can be a top healer, top tank AND top DPS and there shouldn't be.
My guild has a pally who has great tank gear and a great healing set. He can MT Kara and heal it too with a simple respec. Sorry, but I don't think he should be able to get a 3rd set of gear and also be a top DPS class. Maybe ret needs a bump, but Blizz needs to watch things or they'll OP pallies. But then, I think they know that...
infection Jun 27th 2007 5:02PM
I have a pally and I agree that making them DPS monsters would be pretty rediculous. We have plate, bubbles, and heals. If they did increase our damage to "equal" dps to other dps classes, I would have to assume they would do something to the effect of a shadow priest and take a lot of utilities away. The only thing would be that we still could wear plate. But lets be honest, you click your shadow form icon and now you can heal, it would be the same with a pally. Click icon, bubble, heal, click back on icon to go back to "super duper ret damage form". So to say "take away their bubble" would be kinda stupid.
Krishan Jun 27th 2007 3:29PM
My Pally is ret and was going to be a tank for end game as I find warrior too boring...even as a DW fury ;).
However, I stopped playing him at level 40 and decided to get my current priest up to 70 after getting bored of my 70 hunter- and now even though when raiding Pallies make good healers, they're never treated as good tanks or definately not DPS. A paladin in my guild who wanted to go Ret was threatened with a /gkick :P
I really want to play my Paladin to 70 but I don't want to be seen as a healer- I want better tanking skills. Come on- if you rolled a Paladin to deal DPS and heal why not roll a Shadow Priest?
Just revamp the tanking abilites and make us a good choice for end game content along side warriors and druids.
Krishan Jun 27th 2007 3:33PM
Adding to my last post- Blizzard should rethink the whole respec thing too- it's not fair for healers.
I love my priest and I only want to Heal in raids, I Love it and I feel very important, however when grinding/questing I feel very vulnarable, but when I specc shadow to raise money for that god damned epic flying mount I become powerful, and grind much more effectively. Why not make respeccs much cheaper? It's not fair to pay 50g when Im saving up, as now I have to take a few days off raiding because im primarily a healer...
As a Paladin it is sort of the same- people spec Ret for grinding (even though it does'nt make that much of a difference) but then get screwed for raiding...
If blizzard made respeccs simpler or cheaper I would give them one big /hug :D
Rich Jun 27th 2007 3:38PM
Great... Retn00bs will be the new huntards...
Mehrunes Jun 27th 2007 4:15PM
@ Mad Cow
What exactly did you want an armory link for?
Dark Yoshi Jun 27th 2007 9:42PM
The other hybrids have three raid viable specs, Why cant we?
@32 At least we're not Night Elves.