Ret Arena Viability in 2.3, Gear

Happy Halloween, or is it Hallows End? Anyway, with 2.3 fast approaching paladins of all kinds (specifically ret ones) are shitting all over themselves in anticipation. What I haven't really seen discussed at length is the future viability of ret in arena.

If you're smarter than half a stick of gum you know that ret isn't entirely non-viable. Check some of the arena teams on the Armory Links to the right and you'll see some ratings that aren't ludicrously low. Of course it's no MS warrior or SL/SL warlock. With a hefty load of skill and the right selection in gear one can progress respectably in the arena ladder. Since my short break I recently dropped out of my teams as holy and joined some close friends on a 3v3 for fun. I haven't played much but I hope to get some more practice in before 2.3. Although, 2.3 will be a new game for ret paladins in arena. No more spam dispelling seals, hunters will dominate us (even more) and we'll be able to catch up to even the quickest of targets (given enough time). If people open up to the idea of having a ret paladin on their team they might find out that its not as repulisive as they initially thought.

What a ret paladin brings to a 3v3 or 5v5 (2v2 is justified in its own right) is what a holy paladin brings. Defensive dispel, BoF, BoP, JoJ and his personal bubble. If you've got 2 healers already but no defensive magic dispel a ret paladin is an awesome choice. The amount of burst a ret paladin can bring to the table is almost on the level of a rogue or warrior. In the right situations I'd go so far as to say that ret burst can't be matched against certain targets. However, taking both the roll of dps and defensive buffer is a tough one and shouldn't be taken lightly. Look at hunters in top arena teams currently, they are the best of the best and they don't need a ranged dispel or MS shot. They're job can range from keeping poisons up on a target to protecting viper sting, wound poison or drain mana to taking out totems and killing pets. It's not an easy job and that's why you don't see a ton of hunters in the top end of arena. Ret paladins would be required to do that same amount of micro management. BoP isn't a task to be taken lightly; it can easily be the deciding factor between a win and a loss. BoSac is a way to keep ourselves from being CC'd and take a bit of the healing burden off a single target if used at top rank. BoF not only for ourselves, but if we're running with a warrior, rogue or hunter that might need it. It's impossible to overstate the usefulness of JoJ in arena, especially when taking out a dr00d or other runner. We too can debuff spam with low rank judgements (at the right times) and vindication. Not only all that but we can still heal. It might be a laughable amount, but sometimes a laughable amount is all it takes to turn the tide in our favor. Through combinations of bubbling and throwing BoLs there's no end to how useful that little bit of extra healing nudge can help. Even if we go oom, there's always arena water. Dispeller, buffer, healer and burst damage extraordinaries, ret paladins shouldn't be the lolfreekill they've been made out to be.

One of the reasons that ret has gotten a reputation for being a squishy is the utter lack of resilience gear available. In case you didn't know all of the current ret gear has no resil budgeted onto it except in socket bonuses. Veteran's Scaled Bracers, Merciless Gladiator's Scaled Helm, Merciless Gladiator's Scaled Shoulders are currently the only ret paladin specific pieces that have any resil on them at all. Beyond that we can pick up the usual melee necklace, rings and trinkets but we're certainly not reaching the cap by any stretch. We can still do the mix and match S1 and S2 set bonuses but that'll change next patch. What else will change next patch is our lack of resil on individual peices. S3, aka Vengeful (fitting, hu?) Gladiator gear will have resilience on the Gladiator's Vindication (the ret set). Rejoice! There's a catch though, it's having all of its spell damage removed and our gear looks like the warrior stuff with intellect added. Is this a good thing? It's still yet to be seen whether or not we will receive an AP to SD talent or not but I'll get into that later. What's important is the addition of resilience on every piece of gear available. (Source) In that screenshot it hasn't been updated that the Vindicator's Scaled pieces from honor have also been adjusted to lose their SD in favor of str (Source, thanks Sigurd!). PvP tanks inc. This change is leading everyone to the assumption that we will be getting the fated AP to SD talent similar the shaman's Mental Quickness. Let's take a look at the pros and cons of that.

Resil is great but I don't think anyone will argue that a portion of our survivability and group support comes from our ability to heal. By removing all of the sd from S3 gear we're left with only BoL to bump our heals past base amounts, but BoL is a base ability so this is a moot argument. Even without looking at the coefficients that SoC/JoC and CS get from sd there's a gap in both damage and survivability. Sure, the extra str makes up for that dmg but what if we did get an ap to sd talent? Disregarding that S1, S2, T4, T5, and T6 gear may need to be reworked around this concept (assuming the difference in dps from str vs. sd would be enough to justify it) it's a very attractive offer. An ap or str (more likely it would be ap as to not limit gear choice, but knowing Blizzard...) to sd talent would need to be deep in the tree, hopefully linked to something we're already forced to take to avoid talent bloat. Two-Handed Weapon Specialization has been brought up as a prime candidate for the tack-on. This is due to it's location out of reach of a shockadin and completely unattractive to any reasonable prot build. Also I believe there was a lot of talk of sticking threat reduction here too, but we know where that ended up. It just makes the most sense. However any talent deep in the tree would do, like Sanctified Judgement. What would that mean in terms of gearing? S3 becomes redonk. Alliance paladins can easily take more warrior oriented plate without looking back and melee specific accessories become even more valuable. Would this break the class? No. Would it bump us to the level we need to be at in S3 gear to be completely viable in the arena. Yes. Ret paladins everywhere are twiddling their thumbs in anticipation of some fresh PTR patch notes.