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#0 - July 28, 2009, 7:52 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Ret will be underpowered or overpowered in PvP until such time as we are able to threaten an opponent with something besides pure damage. This discussion has been done 12 million times so I won't dwell on it too long, but adjusting damage numbers in PvP will never result in a balanced Ret PvP experience. Either you will do enough damage to threaten the life of an opponent, in which case you are overpowered since you can do that with only damage, or you will not be able to do enough damage to threaten an opponent, in which case you are underpowered because you are not a threat and can be ignored.

So once again, adjusting only damage numbers will never balance PvP for Ret. Ever. It's been done in various ways for several years, and it will not work. You can either burst someone or you can't, and neither situation is desirable from a balance perspective.

That said, our damage is low and our utility is high in PvE. We bring a large number of buffs to PvE, as well as a Blessing and a Judgement. Our damage on live is lacking on many fights. This situation very honestly feels like Sunwell again, as someone who was there for it. We're there for JoL, Blessings, and 3% damage, crit and haste. This is very much counter to the proposed design scheme. It is not particularly enjoyable.

The changes on the PTR for 3.2 are extremely underwhelming to disappointing. Crusader Strike was made even LESS interesting, despite my belief that it was already as boring as a talent which gives us our first melee attack could possibly be. The Seal changes will absolutely cripple us on any fight which is not a pure tank and spank. The number of those style of fights in Ulduar is between 2-5, depending on your raid's strategy(Ignis, Kologarn, Auriaya, Hodir, Vezax). Every other fight will be a significant DPS loss due to constant add switching or forced time away from the target. We will be far less viable in PvE than we are now, and with the additional loss of scaled JoL, Ret seems like a very mediocre choice to fill out a raid with. I say this as my own raid leader.

So to recap. You have fixed PvP, in that Retribution will not be a viable spec for any competitive level of PvP, and so the complaints about Ret will cease in short order.. You have failed to fix PvE, in that Retribution will be an undesirable spec for any fight which does not involve smashing a single target for upwards of 2 minutes straight. In addition, Ret is even LESS fun to play, when it is already very mind-numbing in 3.1. Watch cooldown timer mod of choice, smash whichever ability is off cooldown first. This didn't change, except that we have to do it even more often because of the Crusader Strike change.

The Ret changes on the PTR as of the latest build are flat out bad. They do not balance the spec for PvE or PvP, but rather overnerf the spec in both areas of play. I await the promises of buffs in 3.3 with great trepidation.