Without Fear of Retribution: The Rise and Fall of the Ret Paladin

[Jeremiah]

WITHOUT FEAR of RETRIBUTION

Associating the Retribution Paladin with the Wrath expansion is the kind of thing that invokes insults, arguments, and even theory. When you think of Wrath and Ret in the same sentence, what probably comes to mind if the unholy reign of the Ret Paladin in the first few weeks of Wrath, when they were unchallenged on the battlefield. Ret Paladins cleaved through lines of enemy forces without even taking lethal blow. With player who had been working with the Ret spec through BC, it sometimes took a dozen or so enemy players to take them down.

Eventually, the Ret Paladin was adjusted to a level playing field with the other classes, or so Blizzard intended. The Ret Paladin continued to dominate Arenas and Battlegrounds, challenged only by the Shadow Priest. Inventive players during the Relentless season created a modern "Pret" or "Protret" spec, making the Paladin class almost entirely invincible in high-end PvP situations up all the way into the Wrathful season.

Blizzard took a lot of time putting the new Paladin trees through their passes. The reason that Blizzard took so long discussing the nature of the class was not because of their particular love for it, but because the Paladin was not on a level playing field with the other classes in Wrath. Adding new dynamics like Holy Power would serve two purposes: To create a more interesting class for the Paladin community, and to add in a substantially restrictive dynamic to put them on level with the other classes in the game.

It is safe to say that theorycraft has led to a resoundingly unanimous conclusion regarding the Paladin class in Cataclysm: It is balanced. While other classes like the BM Hunter, Feral Druid, and Arms Warrior may become the new behemoths on the battlefield, it is in Blizzard's best interest to create a fair PVP environment to entertain their customers. Some critics will disagree and argue that the Paladin was only made "OP" because the class held the largest demographic of players in the game. While I once believed this opposing theory to be false, I have not completely ruled it out for Cataclysm either. If we see a substantial number of players rolling Druids, Warriors, and Hunters when we really find out if they are "OP" in PVP or not, then we can say, by observation, that the argument that Blizzard makes classes "OP in response to the demographics is a cogent and wholly sound argument.

Comments, questions? Leave them below!

Aphel - News Chief

[Messages]

Great read, and yeah, they should have "fixed" Retribution Paladins earlier, even in TBC. Even so, Warcraft was originally designed for PvE; PvP didn't hit before 1.4, and the first Battlegrounds WSG/AV came out in 1.5. Classes will never be balanced speaking of PvP. Then again, I really hope they figured out something this time (expansion), as all their work by adjusting back and fourth during TBC/Wotlk is pretty much thrown in the trash.

Too bad the developers makes their own ideas and screws up, rather than listening to the community, who got suggestions that are ten times better.

I hope the PvE aspect will be more focused on; as it seems. Changes in the AE trash raid farming, and so on. Perhaps we'll finally meet a challenge that is more like how it was in vanilla/TBC.

Playing a Retribution Paladin myself as an alt, and with the standard rotation it's not really challenging. We'll see!

[Jeremiah]

I'm not really a fan of the PVE myself. I wouldn't play WoW if there wasn't PVP, but instead of people crying about mechanics, they should learn to counteract classes.