Honestly, while it could have been done more elegantly I've got to join in on calling the people arguing that this kills ret pally tanking whiny dorks.

The only times I get asked to tank is when it's a guild run through a normal 5man, and it's like "well you'll have aggro on everything anyway and we've got loris to heal so I guess you're 2h tanking the instance". I get asked to heal about 100x more than I get asked to tank.

I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm gonna cheer and move right along to speculating about how they can change scaling on JoC/Command to make ranking up worthwhile in terms of mana cost.

I'm not going to argue with you point for point for point, and I understand the normal behavior for EJ threads is strictly by the book.. but the truth is, this thread has long been more a Ret Paladin post dump than simply discussing retribution paladin raid dps vs. utility, and comparing it to other classes. It's more of a intervention and safe zone for discussion all things ret - personally I think the Topic should have changed long ago.

As for the threat reduction, I can definitely see why some people are confusing the discussion of mechanics as qq'ing - but that's not at all what it is. There's a very real difference in complaining about a very welcome change, and simply looking at the mechanics of the change and going "huh?" That's all that's really going on here, with the change to Fanaticism. Back in the day, there were gross inconsistencies in the prot, and to a lesser extent to the holy and ret tree. No one wants that to happen again.

The discussion isn't "is the 30% worth it", or "is it enough", or even "is it warranted". The discussion is simply why would they make threat reduction always on, when our threat producing ability isn't. I definitely see the validity of that question, and it deserves a nod, if you ask me, from the developers as to the reason. It doesn't make sense that at 40 talent points spent, I'm arguably worse at something than I would be at 35, or even 0.

EDIT: Truth is, it doesn't matter to me. I spec to tank, and I heal as my ret off-spec.

It's a good theorycraft post, and I suggest you move/copy it to the Class Mechanics thread:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17193-p...s_theorycraft/


For further analysis, I think it'd be helpful to create a table of coefficients for various ranks of Consecrate/Exorcism/Judgements to recognize mana efficiency sweet spots.

Rank 4 Consecrate, as you pointed out, is great because it has a very tiny downranking penalty. R1 Consecrate also has its moments, as it can trigger JoW and various other "on spell cast" effects, costs the least amount of mana, and gets full JotC scaling.


With the reduced mana cost of Exorcism/HoW, those are also worth a look of if/when they are appropriate for a DPS cycle.

It doesn't make sense that someone should be able to competitively tank, heal, and DPS with one build, either. And before the "But Druids can!" comment comes in - we'll see in 2.3, but I don't think feral DPS is quite at the top end competitive level, and ret pallies certainly heal better than feral druids.

I dont know about the healing bit. I can keep lifebloom and various HoTs spammed on a tank pretty damn well in my healing gear while being feral. A good use trinket to keep it running does fine. Clearly Im nowhere near a resto at healing but I suspect I can heal just as well as any off-spec healer (provided appropriate gear).

With the Feral DPS fixes/rescaling of gear, I really see them being top of the line dps in full dps gear/appropriately grouped. Realistically any non-spec healer is terribad, with Paladins being some of the worst due to 0 innate longevity without Illumination and the talents to increase throughput.

Isn't Blessing of Light getting nerfed?

Did you fail to see that ret pallys wear warrior gear, in other words we have a max of about 6000 mana buffed?

No, it is finally being fixed. Right now it is broken in that all downranks get the same benefit from BoL, which isn't how it was ever intended to be.

Retribution isnt competitive tank. Nor does this change reduce the tanking capabilities, it only cripples the threat reduction. Cant you understand the difference? They can tank exactly the same, only that their instances will last 30% longer due them needing more time to generate threat. Ok, maybe not perfect analogy. But the fact remains that it is nothing but unnecesary debuff that serves absolutely no purpose to anyone. There is no logical explanation why the debuff must be applied as permanent shadow form.

Oh, you got me good there!

Here's my paladin's profile: The World of Warcraft Armory

I haven't been past SSC. My schedule these days just doesn't permit me to maintain raid attendance in any top-end guild on my server. My pre-TBC raid experience is enough to convince me that I could function well in a Hyjal/BT guild were it not for overriding obligations, and in spite of that, I'm pretty sure that I'm still allowed to enjoy the game to the extent that I can participate in it.

It's certainly relevant to the argument that you're putting forth, which is "I don't care about tanking in a pinch, so therefore it's fine that my spec doesn't allow anybody with my spec to tank in a pinch." We're not talking about tanking Archimonde, and we're not even talking about tanking Prince or other raid bosses. We're talking about maintaining some marginal ability to perform a hybrid role where it's convenient to do so, without taking as much damage as a clothie and without losing aggro to healers. Which exactly what the choices are going to be if this change goes through in its current form.

I haven't been Ret since shortly after I hit 70. I've only been Prot for short periods of time. I've briefly encountered the issues that both specs face, and I agree their problems are major, and that they need the changes they're being given (although Prot could still use some slimming). There's no question that Ret needs some mechanism for threat reduction, and these days nobody is arguing that they don't need it, but it's hands-down MORONIC to think that Blizzard is going to say "aww geez fellas, we can't figure out howta make this here talent stop working when pallydins got a shield on, so we're just gonna go ahead and take back that whole threat thingmabob", which is somehow the scenario that some people here seem to be afraid of. Can you seriously feel that Blizzard developers are so shallow that they're going to rescind a threat change as a result of somebody on the EJ forums saying "hey, this is great but it could be a little more elegant"?

I have had to tank 5-mans as a Holy paladin occasionally after spending upwards of an hour and a half trying to find a tank, and I'm very happy to have had that flexibility. All hybrid tanking classes should have the ability to perform that role so long as the group or raid is willing to make accommodations for it, particularly in light of marked tank shortages the game faces right now. And I suppose if Blizzard explicitly states that they want this to be some sort of decision that Retribution paladins have to make, then I guess we'd have to just deal with it (never mind the fact that their general attitude towards matters of that nature is typically the exact opposite). But it's hard to deny that this is probably just an oversight, and that there are quite a few reasonable solutions, to a problem that seems quite easy, that also happen to mimic mechanics that exist in other areas of the game.

But I just find it appalling that people who are happy to perform a single role in a single facet of the game are so willing to torpedo the hybrid underpinnings of the class for no good reason. It's no different than all of those "I WANT TO BE A SHADOW KNIGHT HERO CLASS WHO PERMANENTLY GIVES UP THE ABILITY TO HEAL IN EXCHANGE FOR 10% MORE DAMAGE" cries on the WoW forums. There's no way that a 30% reduction in threat on top of already very poor threat output is going to end up being anything except an inability to tank *any* content. And the game doesn't need more specialization than it's already gotten itself into.

Semantics. One man's fix is another man's nerf and yet another man's buff. It's simply a matter of what time-frame you're looking at: Is the "proper intention" of an ability based on how it works NOW, or in how it worked in the PAST? On what the tooltip says, or what the ability actually does, or what the player think it should do? Or is it the (sometimes unknown) developer vision?


BoL downranking was a known and used mechanic for the past 2+ years of the game. It probably was unintended, but left in as a class feature. With all the changes going in for 2.3, they probably thought that they could toss in the change and still have the buffs outweigh the change. (ie: free +dmg on healing gear)

(And hey, 35 mana -> 700~ hp healed *is* kinda silly)

Obviously. As a holydin between the change to the T5 bonuses and the change to BoL I'm sad that I'll be stuck using FoL instead of downranking HL (to a large extent, of course there is all the LG uptime maintenance and such to consider, but I digress). However the tooltip for BoL does say "up to 580", which makes it seem like the blessing has been broken. And as you said, its pretty OP to have a Rank I HL hitting for that hard.

Great example. Fury / Arms warriors can also do that I bet an elemental shaman could also do it. That still doesn't change the fact that a Holy Paladin tanking anything that is capable of delivering high damage crushing blows will get him killed.

I just don't believe that players who don't even raid the first instance of this expansion know a lot about tanking mechanics in raids.

As long as we're making ignorant statements based on incomplete Armory information, how does your healbotting make you any more of an expert on raid tanking mechanics?

I read combatlogs so I know what "Crushing blow" means, especially on low-armored Paladin tanks. It means "Dead tank", that's why Holy Paladins are not capable of tanking.

Okay this is just getting awful. At this point I need some really good reasons to not put this thread out of its misery

What an incredibly narrow view that demonstrates how thoroughly you've missed the point of the last three pages of discussion. Nobody ever claimed that they wanted a Ret paladin to be MTing relatively cutting-edge raid content.

This coming from someone who once complained that he could only farm 10g an hour as a holy paladin. Pot, kettle, etc.

Seriously guys, this is like reading the Blizzard Forums, not EJ.

Cut out the crap, stop attacking each other, and can we get back to the topic at hand, which is ret pallys in raids? Not whether your pally alt or your holy main knows more about tanking. Take it to PMs or something.

Who raids Ramparts? = )


The impact of the change has very little to do with raid tanking and everything to do with normal instance tanking in pre-raid instances. (for instance, leveling)


Yes, casual paladins who are Ret may have no clue about raid tanking. They're still within their rights to be concerned about how this change may affect their 5-man tanking ability, content which they see and play.


A paladin/druid/warrior can put 20 points in their tanking tree and expect improved tanking competence. Increased AC, increased threat, abilities with strong tanking application. (That you would not personally use such a build is irrelevant - the option is there, and there are hybrid players who utilize this aspect of their minor trees)

With the blanket threat reduction in Fanaticism, minoring in the Prot tree for tanking talents would help little, because the handicap actively reduces tanking (threat gen) ability in all situations, and far beyond what you can regain by speccing iRF.


If that's a sacrifice you're willing to make, you're completely entitled to that opinion - but at least recognize that there is a sacrifice in class ability here, just like no threat reduction talent sacrifices raid DPS ability.

As a non-paladin, I think that the paladin change to threat is very short-sighted. Its a good idea to give paladins threat reduction, but it could be done so much more elegantly.

We often have a ret paladin tanking adds for various bosses (ie at solarian and morogrim). Its nice to have the extra flexibility that allows. The intention should not be to *reduce* the number of tanks available, its already hard enough to find tanks sometimes

Someone in my guild mentioned a great idea for getting a guaranteed ret paladin into raids: improved salvation, deep into the ret tree. Would be something you could turn on and off, to help with tanking in a pinch, would also help with aggro issues (although not as much as the inherent 30%). Alternatively, perhaps you could instead package the threat reduction in with sanctity aura.

(if this was already mentioned here, I apologize, its a very long thread though ;-))

I think the ret tanking issue is ridiculously unimportant compared to the more serious issue of raid desirability being essentially unchanged, and possibly slightly worse than it was before. If you as a raid leader find a ret paladin worth bringing after 2.3, chances are you would have found one worth bringing before 2.3 anyway. For certain raids that did the trade-off analysis before 2.3 considering the 3% raid crit, 2.3 may cause them to actually stop bringing a ret due to the loss of the 3% as a uniquely ret addition, and calculating (correctly) that a 15% improvement in personal dps isn't going to offset it.