By: GMP
Part One: Arena, Burst and Ret
Here we go again. Burst, burst, burst. It’s been the joy and torment of every retribution paladin since we had more than 2 buttons to press. And yes, like Jennifer Aniston, it’s old news but yet always remains a popular topic somehow. Why? Beats me considering it’ been, water downed and nerfed, nerfed , and nerfed again, ‘to the ground’ to some. And what makes it worse, Blizzard thinks it’s now cured us like we were some WoW pandemic version of swine flu. Fine, take the burst, I never expected to ass stomp someone within 3 GCDs but for god sake give us something that makes at least 50% as useful as a Holy Paladin in PvP/Arena (or at least 10% annoying as Protection Paladin).
Ok . I’ll admit that Paladins, as a whole, are probably in better shape than they’ve ever been. Two of our trees are now respected viable specs. Protection paladins are godly by their own right as tanks and Holy Paladins have their place in both PvE and PvP. And I will also admit, Ret Paladins, properly geared, can begin to piss off some of the mages and rogues on the dps charts (oh Recount…). However, as a pvp paladin & a former Grand Marhsal, I’m left wanting. Every dps class has been balanced PvP against the massive PvE healing output needed for Heroics and 25s. Look I’m not looking for Mortal Strike, the unimaginative solution that Blizzard has considered fit to give every dps and their dog but at 11 million subscriber ( a lot of them paying 15$ a month) surely the can pay someone who can come up with creative ‘no bursty’ solution. Something that would help give Ret paladins some utility so not to passed over for rogues and warriors in arena time and time again.
Look I don’t expect us to get something for nothing but since we’ve been reduced from ‘ZOMG Ret Pally! HELP!’ to ‘Ummmm target the Ret Pally last’, we do need some help. If that means sacrificing some of our defensive skills (ie DS) or healing skills to put bring the hurt I’m all for it. Give us a ret talent that makes us unsnarable and unfearable while AW is up (ie Beastial Wrath - It might actually convince me to press it before Divine shield for once in PVP). Moreover, we could have a talent that allows us to attack a healer’s mana pool or even extend a casters cast time with a stackable debuff. Shadow Form whatever. I don’t care. There are tons of good suggestions out there. I don’t have the answers but I can only pray Blizzard does.
Part Two: Don’t bring a Knife to a Gun fight,
Alright, ok don’t get me wrong, I’m not writing about how we’re absolutely broken, that our DPS is too low or that we can’t pownzors someone within 3 GCD’s anymore. My problem specifically with Ret Paladins is their effectiveness or lack off in Arenas. I’ve narrowed it down to a one specific thing. Range.
That’s our achilles heal. It’s not that we don’t have DPS, we do, it’s just that before we get to apply it to anything we’re CC’ed, snared, feared or that damn stupid ice chain thing that DK’s do. Yes I know, we have blessing of freedom, we have dispell, but it’s not doing us much good when we have 10+ effects on us before we get 10 feet across the arena . We can bubble but then we’re not really doing damage are we? Anyhow, who blows their trump card 5s after the match starts.
Warriors can charge, rogues and ferals can stealth up to targets, DK have that ‘get over here’ thing. We ret paladins well…not so much. Holy paladins don’t have a range problems because well they get ‘ranged’ heals. Imagine if they had to be 5 yards away from their target. It wouldn’t be pretty.
Once an arena match starts, it’s all about a good start to the match which usually determines it. As it stands we really can get into the fight effectively without facing a myriad of CC’s and snares to which we suddenly have to blow all our trinkets and CDs to counter. Yeah learn to play, yadda yadda, I hear ya but give a arena a good reason to take a ret paladin over a rogue, warrior or DK? We use to have the burst to do some real damage when we finally got in range. Then the nerf bat came down hard where Blizzard said it was too easy for a ret paladin to kill someone. Fine. Just give Ret Paladin some sort of nitch where we could be at least 40% as useful as a holy paladin. We’re just woeful against healers.
A interrupt. A charge. A snare. Fricken rocket roller skates. Anything. I don’t care. I don’t care that were not geting mortal strike Blizz, you’ve already played that card way too much (And no we don’t have anymore questions).
Signing Off
Posts
27 comments:
There have been worse... but this is definitely not good. Poorly constructed sentences, bad grammar and misspellings plague this post. On top of the fact that this isn't really informative, it's basically a page long 'QQ blizz.'
Amen.
As PvE only Ret I'm not at all disappointed about our overall performance in raids... we have our moments to shine and also fights that don't suit to us at all. But I guess that's how it is for all dps and as it should be too.
I would still like to see some added depth to our combat mechanics. I've said that it's not needed to add new spells or abilities to our toolbox, everything that we need is already there... all we need is some creativity and attention from Blizz class designers to review some of our baseline abilities and modify them via Ret tree.
Seal of Justice is crying for to be modified and used in both PvP and PvE, Crusader Strike could really have secondary effect(s) that would interact with different seals, Art of War is nice resource and could be also used for something else than FoL's and Exo's, why is Reckoning not modified and moved to Ret's arsenal... possibilities are limitless and ingredients for change are already there.
I feel that Blizz (Ghostcrawler) is right when saying that Ret shouldn't be "tanky" or a potential healer. Ret should be all about dealing damage but in a different way than Warrior or DK. Next to that we should also be about offensive (not defensive) utility in PvE and PvP environment, in exchange of healing and tanking abilities that we give up while speccing to Retribution. At the moment I don't see any change to that direction, something is holding back the changes. Maybe it's the upcoming expansion, maybe it's lack of direction in Blizz's Retribution design, maybe it's something else... either way I'm very disappointed that the reason(s) why we are not "developing" is not informed directly and clearly to Retribution community.
Change is not coming before Cataclysm, but let's hope that it actually comes someday.
I cant find anything fresh or constructive in this post. It looks like a complaint summary of all the whiners on wow forums.
I'm pretty sure all those involved already know Ret's arena problems. There's no reason to be this repetitive about it while we know Devs wont do any major changes in 3.3 or before the new expantion starts rolling.
writing style needs a lot of work and some of the phrases come off as a writer talking to a bunch of whiners... erm no..
Honestly, this just feels like a "make my class better at arena." I do not see how this author can benefit this blog at all.
More rant, less actual useful information.
It like oh-so-many of them anti-QQ posts that you see smeared all over the forums these days; in tone, grammar, and content.
Side note: is posting vanilla ranking (Grand Marshal) really any indication of current experience and abilities? It doesn't indicate what you were then, has zero bearing on skill now, and really only shows that several years ago you had a lot of spare time.
I feel that most of this submission is incoherent and without focus. I get that the author is arguing that Rets need a better gap-closer than JoJ (a point in which I completely concur), but there is never really a convincing or valid alternative. Simply put, the author seems to be pleading with Blizzard, as if they read every WoW blog on the internet.
Add to this the numerous misspellings, grammatical errors, and missed punctuation, and I'd give it an emphatic thumbs down.
eh.... unfortunately too much QQ, and no info. By the way here's the link to the official forums, http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/ , i hear they like this over there.
HAY GUYS ALL I HAVE TO DO IS QQ ABOUT RETS AND THE MASSES WILL LOVE MY BLOG POSTS.
Seriously, grow up. This submission doesn't even deserve THIS air time.
Sorry to hit a guy while he's down, but please don't sign this guy up for the blog; he's writing at the middle of the quality range from the WoW Paladin forums, I want to read stuff someone at the top.
Thanks!
How is this a good application? To me, it just sounds like, "We are inferior in every way to other classes, cry cry cry." Seriously? On Paladin Schmaladin?
How about instead of crying about the problem for an entire article, you state the issues and list some workarounds. This really isn't the place to whine about your problems with the class, especially since a lot of us come here for information to better ourselves. We can't do that by whining. When someone kicks a Paladin from ToC because their damage is too low, they can't say, "It's not my fault - my class is just fail!" and expect to be invited back. Same goes for arena.
I don't like that this author is so pessimistic. I'm a 'glass-half-full' kind of person, so this doesn't sit well with me.
Anyways, pass.
Yet another Ret submission, while i get there isn't a lot of ret talk on this blog but it still is little frustrating that the majority of all these submissions focus solely on ret. Personally I want to base my opinion on who understands the paladin class as a whole not one spec as seems to be the case with these submissions. Just my thoughts.
I hear a bunch of QQ from this.
No, paladin's and ret aren't perfect, and you pointed out the flaws that anyone who's played more than 2 days worth of BGs at a higher level already knows.
And to top it off offered no constructive suggestions.
I agree that ret is lacking in some aspects, but as a person who plays several classes to gain true perspective on a game, it's not nearly so bad as it is made out to be. (Try being a shadow priest for a day...)
Your writing style and grammar are lacking as well. Sure, for a quick trip to the WoW forums it works, but for a respectable news source like PS it's not nearly enough.
I miss Ferarro's posts.
what a crap
go QQ to some other place
bad article, and i dont care if you are a grand marshall
this article dont fit in ferarro's blog
Grand Mashal Phelan needs to take an English Comp class. No offense dude, I'm sure you're great at WoW, but this comes very short of the writing I expect from Paladin Schmaladin.
I mentioned this earlier, but can we get some Prot Paladin input anytime soon on this site? When I click on the Prot-Guide for 5-mans and raiding I see the same signs that pop up all around the Chicagoland area every June. I understand that all the advice you could ever need to be a Prot Paladin is on Maintankadin; but Paladin Schmaladin thrives on the succinctness of a 5-10 minute read that gives you a new perspective.
Besides if all these submissions are going to be either QQ about ret or guides on how to make ret more viable, you'd think a Prot Pally coming in here and letting everyone know how badass our spec is might score a few defectors to the Paladins most fun and useful role.
Duali gets props for reminding us that a lot of other classes have it worse than Paladins. I stopped leveling my Shadow Priest because it became so hopeless and I only stick with my Shaman because of all the crazy abilities they get. Lest we forget that Paladins are the class that wears plate, has awesome single target heals and 10 seconds of glorious immunity.
As others have said, it does come across as really just a "QQ ret needs PvP buffs" post. More suited to the WoW forums than this place really. Grammar could also be improved.
At the end of the day, regardless of the level of QQ in this submission, I'd still prefer one of our earlier PvPers writing for that part of the game, because they wrote better and included a lot more information.
raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage
This guy doesnt even know any of the skills the other classes have. Clearly he hasnt spent a whole lot of time really playing, beyond writing about his arena woes. Another yawner.
Why is this post even here? So bad and nothing absolutely no knowledge
i wouldnt consider this to be a contender. but i do sometimes feel his grief. my other grief is in pve. I really hate switch hitting to keep my dot up or watch my dps far flat on its face.
I liked the style, but as Anonymous said...
" I cant find anything fresh or constructive in this post. It looks like a complaint summary of all the whiners on wow forums."
I suspect I liked it because it is what myself and many others keep spouting in the forums, right down to the nerd rage breaking our grammar and spelling.
It was amusingly written. But, as has been pointed out there was nothing new and there are a surprising number of typos for a piece you are using to showcase your writing style for a major blog.
That and it is PvP orientated again, and I am not sure paladin schmaladin is a PvP site.
I am still going with Trajer as my first choice. Hoff is second, his writing style is more clinical and not as fun, but he took more time on constructing his article.
If I am honest I suspect that GMP is in the same boat as me in writing style and nerd rage but I deliberately did not apply because I am too sloppy with my grammar and spelling, and am too likely to jump on to the wrong band wagon or get overly excited about nerfs destroying my world.
Personally my vote is not going to GMP because he wrote the article I would have. And I didn't apply because I feel it is an article that doesn't help paladin schmaladin, or its audience.
Thanks all. I think when I wrote this I was coming off a terrible run of arena games. I was in a rant rage and it clearly showed in my ability to articulate as well as form coherent thoughts. I was MAD! I really do appreciate the feedback. Nothing motivates improvement then the truth served 'cold. Well back to the old drawing board.
I think I'll go back to writing my tennis blog. I'll hopefully make more sense there.
Peace and respect,
Phelan
Way too much bickering in this post.
I am so burned out on reading these submissions. Enough already, just pick someone.
This one made me smile at some points, but it still felt too much like just another QQ post I could read on the WoW forums.
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