Lately I've been thinking of what characters I should solo up to eventually see some end game content. I'm sure we've all heard that the pure classes are what is wanted there. However, lately I've heard that paladins and druids also do well in end game content which is unusual, and nice, to hear about hybrid classes. The one class that I haven't really played much has been the Shaman. From what I can tell they have alot of promise but would it be worth levelling a shaman only to find that he has no place when I get there?

What are your opinions?

First, by end-game, I assume you mean raiding.

All classes have a place in end-game raiding. Blizzard has gone out of its way, from what I have seen, to make encounters that cater to the use of each class, at times. I know we missed having a Paladin for quite a while in Karazhan and I have seen similar uses for basically all types of classes, as well.

That said, not all specs are equal. From my reading it sounds like there are some class talent builds that are not necessarily frowned upon by many, but are less welcome. Generally, it sounds like elemental shaman, protection paladins, and perhaps some others are often left out (or relegated to a sub-optimal role) when it comes to raiding. Also, it is important to note that most end-game tanking ends up getting done by warriors (since the mechanics favor them heavily) and any class that can heal tends to get stuck healing due to shortage of players who are willing to heal. The usual exception to the healing thing is shadow priests (who melt fases).

Actually, you're going to be finding more elemental shaman lately. They've recently had some nice changes made and, iirc, they're going to be getting some more boosts with the next patch.

That being said, you're going to have to specialize until you get geared up for whatever you are running at the time as your end game. Once you get a certain level of gear, then you can spec to a more hybrid role. Until you hit the next gearing plateau and then you'll have to specialize again.

I guess us folks on Terenas are just messed up once again then.

Our one pally is prot with some holy and he tanks in Kara.

Of our 3 shaman, 2 are elemental and 1 is resto and they both destroy stuff in Kara. Our sister guild who is a little larger and a little bit ahead of us in terms of hitting the 25 man content uses elemental, enh, and resto shaman. The pally is deep in prot as well and gets to tank at times as well.

Our feral druids are called on to heal, occasionally but not very often, they get to tank a lot as well. Our shadow priest gets to melt faces a lot mainly because the extra healing from VE is more valuable than the pure healing but that isn't always the case.

But then again I'm used to things on Terenas being different from "the norm" and us still being successful.

My general impression from the posts I have read is that they are getting nerfed and they run out of mana really quickly. But I don't really know any elemental shaman that I play with a lot so I'm just relating second hand info here, so take it with a grain of salt.

The elementalists that I run with generally don't run out of mana very quickly at all, unless they start throwing heal spells around. Just pewpewing, they can last quite a while right now.

And general impressions from the vast majority of folks on the wow boards just convinces you that the sky is constantly falling and every change is a horrible one.

Retribution paladins is probably the spec that has least use in raids. It has some, but just not enough.

I don't know anything about shamans, though... Been Alliance since release, and when I tried to switch to Horde, I was soloing all of the time, so I switched back. At least back on Alliance, I knew people.

I looked at the PTR patch notes this morning and the only thing the elementalists are having toned down is "Elemental Focus": This talent now reduces the cost of the next damage spell by 60%. It will also now trigger from bonus spells cast by "Lightning Overload". So instead of 100%, it's 60%. If you have an elemental shaman in with a shadow priest or a pally puts wisdom on the shaman, right now, they can last like you wouldn't believe. I don't know if 60% is too much of a reduction or not, but I do know that one of our elementalists last night kept pewpewing his heart out in Karazhan without much need for drinking at all when we had the shadow priest in with the casters. We didn't have a pally along, but running out of mana was definitely not a big concern. And he only pulled aggro a couple of times. *splat*

I'm going to put the whining of other elementalists in with the whining of the hunters - if you don't know what you're doing with the class, the sky is falling with every change. If you do know what you're doing with the class, the changes make sense and you'll work with the game mechanics in place to truly shine. I doubt I could play an elementalist, but I'm really, really glad we've got two good ones.

Things are a bit hard up for elemental shaman right now on ptr. Thankfully they seem to actually be listning to us, as clearcasting has been upped o a 70% reducytion on the next spell. It's not quite enough yet for balance, but they are moving int he right direction for sure.

The real problem is that the four piece bonus for elem shaman is broken right now and will actually result in mana going up instead of down when the proc is up.

Yes, because all those hunters on the EJ forums and other places in the end game (which Kara is not) clearly don't know anything about playing their class, or how to work with their class mechanics and hunters clearly have nothing wrong with them at all and everything is perfect.

Yeah, right. Hunters have some problems, and do need some help. The sky is not falling, but hunters are a lot of work for a little return, and right now need some help/Blizz lovin'. Most of us are just tired of waiting for Blizz to help out, and are playing other classes and having fun doing it.

Keeping this on topic: With the groups I've run with, I've never known a shaman of any spec to be turned down a raid spot. They are usually in high demand, no matter the spec, and are often wanted.

Definately, why wouldn't shamans have a place in 'endgame' raids?
As long as you meet your minimum required quota of classes, healers/capable-tanks/dps it matters little in what way you fill the roles.
There are different degrees of efficiency, thats true but a skilled and dynamic player > a specific subclass.

Chain heal still dominates anywhere there is environmental damage, and earth shield is still solid healing that transfers aggro to the tank.

One enhancement shaman is a great addition to a melee DPS group. The buffs more then make up for your lack of damage relative to a rogue. KTM is practically a requirement for that though.

Elemental shaman are tough to fit into a group. (blah blah standard play how you want). To chain cast for any reasonable period of time you need a s-priest, but those groups get very crowded with mages and hunters. IF your goal is DPS in an end game raid, I'd advise against planning on an elemental shaman.

Pretty much spot-on. The only thing I'd add is that Elemental isn't as hard to fit as it seems. A 41+ point elemental shaman with a solid minor in Resto (down to Healing Focus) can be fit into a caster group and make up for the lack of damage gained from shadow priest by laying down Totem of Wrath and Wrath of Air, along with providing key spot heals to casters against environmental damage.

Obviously this is only meaningful where there's significant environmental damage to be taken, and so you can expect that the elemental shaman's ability to swap to healing (unlike Enhancement, since Elemental gear is significantly less gimp for healing than Enhancement gear) will come in handy. Elemental shaman still are not doing competitive raid DPS in real end-game, but their boosts to the rest of the group and flexibility combined with lukewarm damage just make up for it. This is in direct contrast to the Retribution paladin, who sacrifices nearly all of his healing capability for virtually no return (although changes intended to address this are in 2.1.0).

I'm glad to see that some understand what I've seen with elemental shaman for a while. It's not just about the shaman's numbers. It's also about the numbers of the people in the group. Shaman make groups better. How much better is partly skill on the shaman's part, and also partly up to the raidleader to use them in a complimentary way, and not just stick them in a corner alone, and then say they're not good enough on their own.

No, my elemental shaman won't top the DPS meters against well-geared mages and rogues, etc. But I may *help* them top the meters while adding quite a bit of my own damage, and tossing some heals while I'm at it. It really depends on the mindset of the players you're with.

This would be the point/purpose of a hybrid, would it not? Not the best at anything, but very flexible and useful in a variety of roles that the 'pure' classes aren't.

But, it's not always seen that way by some less open-minded players. 'tis a shame.

Well, let's be honest. A lot of the "hybrid" classes in the game aren't really hybrid.

Resto druids are pure healers - heal leather is worthless for tanking or kittyscratching. Tank druids are pure tanks, covered in +sta/+agi/+dodge and incapable of actually shifting out while tanking (or they get splat). Balance druids in theory have the same kinda-ok-itemization overlap as Elemental Shaman except that they can buff the group OR heal (not both at the same time) and their damage is terrible. Enhancement Shaman are rogues with buffs: their Str/Crit/Hit gear isn't healing anybody. Holy paladins are pure healers, ret paladins wear all Str/Agi/Crit, so on and so forth. Hybrids with the actual ability to hybrid within a fight are rare.

You can wear hybrid gear, but in my opinion, that just makes you suck at two roles at once.

While the bit about shaman and paladins might be correct, your section on feral druids isn't. I was healing a Botanica run with my resto druid for a druid tank with a druid cat DPSing on Warp Splinter. Though the cat was doing good DPS, our PuG warlock and shaman were sucking wind and we were having to wear Warp Splinter down (through the heals from the adds*) with just the cat and bear. Here's what happened:
1. I run out of mana and use my innervate.
2. I run out of mana again and get the cat's innervate.
3. I run out of mana a third time, so I trade the bear for a mana potion and the cat heals so I can regen.
4. I run out of mana a fourth time so the cat becomes a bear and taunts off the real bear
5. The real bear innervates me, heals himself and the cat-bear back to full, then taunts off the cat-bear.
6. Warp Splinter finally dies.

It's absolutely true that the cat and bear had none of my resto healing power--their healing was a stopgap. It's a fallacy to expect a druid to shift from 'rogue dps' to 'holy priest healing' (and if they have iLoTP you might not want them to shift). But that doesn't mean a cat can't come out and drop a clutch heal, innervate, or rebirth and still have mana to go back to cat or bear. In fact, that's really the definition of hybrid, isn't it?





*Yes, I know you're supposed to kill the adds, that's what we had the warlock and shaman trying to do. They were barely successful enough that we were winning, just very slowly.

Erm, I'm not so sure I agree with any of the comments here about shaman damage/longevity in live. I am by no means especially well geared but on the last three khara runs I've been on (two lurker and one keeper) I've been top dps and even withouth a spriest or a paladin I've only been using the average consumables that a mage uses on long fights.

In regards to endgame, some of the encounters aren't that good of a measure (Gruul being nature resistant half of the time), but the top raiding elem shaman I know (Ezareth for example) more than pull their weight in the meters while being a value-added totembot.

Ptr is a whole new cookie though, and could really shake things up. They've changed it again so clearcasting is a 70% reduction but I still feel that's not enough. I've already been pigeonholed into raid healing once, and if it doesn't change a bit more I'll probably just end up turning my enh shaman into my main for a while *shrug* That's the way these things go though.


The only problem I find these days is that I can be an aggro monkey. With good tanks *love you Tiga and Geld woo* it's not so much of a problem unless me and Xarhud are trying to get GG dead in Khara, but it can be a huge problem since with a crit or two and a trinket I easily break 800 tps.

Every class has a place in end-game and the most important thing is gear not class. If you play a shammy at end-game I think you have the following options

- warm welcome in many raid guilds as a healer by speccing Resto
- welcome in most guilds as melee/melee support by speccing Enhancement. Most 25 man raids can see the virtue of bringing one Enhancement Shammy. Shammy, dps Warrior + 2 Rogues + other meleer clearly outdamages that same group with a Warrior or Rogue in for the Shammy
- welcome in very broad-minded guilds as nuker with Elemental spec. It's basically preceived as poor for raiding but some guilds let members play however they wish then work with that
- welcome in some guilds as Elemental/Resto nuker/off-healer hybrid. One of the better choices for a hybrid dps-healer build i think since nuking gear and talents to some extent suports healing too

- accepted in 5 mans as a main healer if Resto specced although not so sought after as Priest (which could be nice if you don't like being bombarded with whispers)
- accepted in 5 mans as dps although lack of crowd control is a drawback

- borderline for arenas/pvp teams

- pretty good at grinding or killing in pug bgs if not resto

Overall it's a decent package but like all hybrids there seems to be more fun from 1-69 when you get to shine in multiple ways than at end-game where specialisation is king

I'm talking about real end-game, where mobs aren't tauntable and bears in cat gear get one-shot, since that's the context this thread was headed in. Five man examples (especially NORMAL MODE five man examples) don't mean a whole lot in respect to the topic of this thread. You can do any normal mode instance with a hunter pet tank; that doesn't mean one can tank in raids.

You can also just burst through the healing and ignore the adds completely. That's the way I usually kill him (though I haven't tried it on Heroic mode).

Even in real end-game, cat druids can shift out to add support healing, innervates or a rebirth. Bear druids, not so much.

Yeah, I do agree that bear druids pretty much lose all hybrid options and I'm not sure how many cat druids will end up in a 25 man. Though I will say that a beastmaster hunter pet can off tank in heroics and Karazhan on the trash as I've done it. 12-13K armor, 9-12 K health (depends on what buffs I can get), 10% dodge, 5% parry, 5% block seems to be enough to off tank most of the trash in heroics and Kara. This will get even easier in 2.1 with some of the hunter changes as well. But I also acknowledge that those are not the end game. I don't expect to do that in Gruul's Lair. I doubt it will be able to OT trash in SSC either. And I'm assuming you're "real end game" means SSC at this stage.

Pretty much.

Resurrection for a pet peeve of mine...

They put in all this synergy, then they make it pretty much impossible to take advantage of it. Assuming a 3x7 2x2 class balance (and 3 of each healing class), if everybody specs a different tree you only have 5 healers, which really doesn't cut it.

If they had all this synergy back in the 40 man days (well I guess they did for a month or so, but 95% of people spent most of that month doing PvP anyhow) and had 5 of each class, it would be much easier to get an elemental and dare I say a oomkin or a retnoob into a raid. 25 is just too tight, you have to look at what are the "best" hybrids, which are probably ferals and shadows. The rest of them find a hard time get a spot unless you are really stacking that particular class.

We have a little bit of everything in our guild. Of our 4 level 70 shaman, 2 are elemental, 1 is enhancement and the final one is Restoration. While the Resto shaman has the most obvious utility, the elemental and enhancement shamans offer enough buffs (Wrath of Air/Totem of Wrath or Unleashed Rage) to make them worth including.

Plus certain buffs to the group are shared amongst all shaman: totems and Bloodlust/Heroism, which is probably one of the best single buffs in the game. (30% faster casting and attack speed? For 40 seconds? Gimme!). Plus even non-Resto shaman can spot heal when the situation demands it which can be enormously useful.

So yes, there will almost always be a place for shaman in end game raids.

Taking a look at some of the other hybrid classes in our guild: We have a mix of resto druids, feral druids and 1 moonkin. Throwing the Moonkin and Elemental Shammy in the same group makes for some crit-happy casters. I'm not sure how frequently the druids shift between one role and another.

Of the hybrid classes, paladins seem to be able to shift most easily between different roles. One of our paladins is 41/20 Holy/Protection. He's main healed and off-tanked in Karazhan, and healed and main tanked in Heroics (obviously not in the same set of gear). On the other hand, he finds his build frustrating for solo questing and grinding.

Of all the possible talent builds, Retribution paladin is the one I can't see an immediately obvious role in raids. (Any ret paladins out there care to enlighten me?). It seems like almost any other option would be preferable for a DPS slot. (Obviously ret paladins have the same blessings everyone else does, but I don't see a unique buff equivalent to Unleashed Rage).

Chris

Actually this is something that both myself and my guild lead have been wondering - we were randomly lurking the guild recruitment forums, and it seems quite a few raid teams are looking *specifically* for ret pallies. Is there some sort of gimmick fight that necessitates ret pallies? Because they don't seem to bring enough synergy to the table to be worth bringing, when as oldmandennis said the slots are already valuable with only 25 available.

Retribution paladins have very little to bring to a raid. They have Sanctity Aura and they refresh all judgements with Crusader Strike--that's pretty much it. As far as I know, there's absolutely no reason to ever bring a Retribution paladin. All other classes have better DPS trees, and the tiny amount of utility that a Retribution paladin brings (which is specific to Retribution and not just paladins) is just not enough.

The reason you don't hear much about shaman is they don't really bring anything unique that you need to the group. Resto shaman make excellent healers, elemental/enhancement shaman make excellent dpsers, but really if you don't have a shaman in your group you don't lose anything terribly important. This doesn't mean shaman are useless though. A well played shaman is still an asset to the group.

If your guild has excellent DPS, tanking and healing, but no pallies at all, then a ret pally brings a lot to a raid just in Blessings. It may be worth it to ask specifically for ret just to get people who are more dedicated because they actually found a guild that will support being ret, or perhaps even more far reaching in that they can get people willing to transfer servers just to be in their guild. It's always good to have not just raiders, but dedicated raiders... perhaps this is an attempt to get people who are more dedicated than Joe Average applicant.

That's an awesome point!

Theorycraft often assumes that a skilled and dedicated person will be available for each and every min/max role in the Theory-Raid. But the reality is that finding 25 dedicated people who will show up and go all out for each scheduled raid night is not a cakewalk. I'm not a serious raider anymore, but it strikes me as far easier to try and learn complex encounters with 25 dedicated and skilled off-spec players than 25 undedicated/unskilled perfectly min/max spec players.

Not to mention that skilled off-spec players can be quite smart about min/maxing their off spec*.

Maybe the answer to the original question about Shaman is that there will always be a place in endgame content for a dedicated and skilled player--regardless of their class or spec.

No, it isn't an awesome point.

Why on Earth would I use a talent build which, quite frankly, contributes almost nothing except for class skills and spells? Retribution paladins have two things: They refresh all judgements and they have a +crit aura. That's it. And if you're the only paladin in the raid, the first thing is useless.

I want to be useful and desired when I join a raid--and I want to be that based on the choices I've made, not just my base skills which anyone of the same class will have. If that's the only reason why a Retribution paladin is taken along, he might as well spec Holy and actually contribute something useful aside from buffs and cleanse.

I'm wonder if that is all they need. The buffs and the cleanse. They don't need the extra healing or the tanking. In that case a ret pally would be better because they do offer more DPS than the other specs.

While paladins stack well, when looking at buffs up to 4 (Might/Wisdom, Kings, Salv, Light) and a 5th can add a little buff value. 3 is generally fine to get all you need out of them because Light is only valuable of the paladin is doing a lot of healing. With consumable chaining the paladins longevity isn't really much better than a holy priests and if you are min maxing, you are chaining consumables. And a holy priest still brings more to the healing equation.

There are some things that a paladin tank does better (they can do really nice things on an AoE pull but a ret/prot build can do that job as well as full prot) than druids or warriors. But if you have solid warriors and druids than you don't really need the prot pally.

So if you really only want them there for the buffs and the cleanse since there are better healers and better tanks if you min/max or if you are adding a 2nd or 3rd for buffs and you have a holy and or prot paladin already, then yes a ret paladin offers more, because the extra layer of buffs makes up for the DPS that you lose by not bringing another pure DPS and having extra tanking or extra healing you don't need is more of a waste since they can't offer as much DPS as even the low DPS ret pally can.

If you figure that the 25 man is 2 of each class for a base 18 + an extra druid and priest for healing and you are just looking at what to put in those 5 other slots and if you figure both pallies are already holy pallies you are probably already covered on healing because you should have at least 2 of the priest, 2 of the druids and the 2 pallies and I'd figure at least one of the shaman has heal spec'd. That's 7 heal spec folks at least already. So if you want that 3rd buff layer from the pally then yeah you probably want a ret pally for it because they will actually add more than another healer or tank you don't need.

Have one of the healers spec DPS and ask the paladin to spec Holy. Much better management of your resources.

Man, you are really reaching on this one GG.

Standard player not the class blah blah. Unless you are really on the cutting edge, having a ret isn't going to kill you.

But as far as going out of your way to get one? First off, your hypothetical group is short a real tank (3 warriors + 1 druid). That would automagically make prot > ret.

Or if you didn't want to do that, a far superior solution would be to get a holy pally, and make one of the druids feral. The utility of trees drops off very fast after the first one, but unless the druid is a complete waste he should be able to out dps a ret, as well as pick up some of the tanking.

Another option would be to convert a priest to shadow. Not only would a mediocre shadow dominate a ret on the meters by himself, he would also fuel a bunch of damage in your 2nd caster group.

Ret is just really impossible to justify on its merits as a spec for raiding. You might be able to justify it based on a players particular merits. Ret probably needs a couple of things - a third judgment that is about as useful as wisdom, and crusader strike to reliably refresh them.

I know I'm reaching. Because I'm confused as to why I see people asking for them. I was also thinking 4 tanks was all you needed, not 5 that changes the balance as well. But yeah, making a druid go feral or even OOMkin over the pally being ret is still gonna do better for you on the DPS side. So I fail there, yeah.

The only other trick they bring is stacking them with a tree druid on the tanks and having them run sanctity aura to up the healing by another 6% so it's at 31% as opposed to just 25%. But even that only requires 23 points in ret and that would still let you go prot and get all the best tanking talents anyway. And that would put the 2 pallies in the tank group. What would that be? Tree, Tank, Pally for devo, Pally for sanctity, and I'm not sure. I don't see that as worth it.

You get 3% more crit for the whole raid (it affects spells too and it's not just the party, it's from the judgement of crusader, even still I'm not sure this makes up for the rest), 6% more healing for the tank, and you can make them use the Nightfall to up the spell damage more without hurting DPS more since their DPS sucks already? Is that what they are looking at doing? Making them the Nightfall bitch? I'm not sure they could keep the buff up well enough even if it can proc off SoC. And yeah I don't really count the other layer of buffing they add to the raid since you get that with any pally.

Again, yeah I'm stretching.

All Paladins bring Auras, Blessings and Cleanse. The more the better.

A Retribution Paladin adds 3% crit from all damage sources, regardless of group.

If there is a second Paladin judging Wisdom, Crusader Strike refreshing judgments can make a big difference, especially in longevity fights. If a second Paladin is a tank then Judgment of the Crusader further increases the efficiency and dps of the tank.

Sanctity Aura is currently being tested as +2% damage bonus to the group, instead of +healing. This would place the Retribution Paladin in a DPS group rather than the tank group.

A Retribution/Holy spec can heal very well.

A Retribution Paladin CAN do good DPS, not the best, but its good compared to all the other roles a Paladin can fill.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. There is no perfect build, you use what each individual brings to a raid and adjust to your strengths and weaknesses. Every class has multiple ways to bring valuable abilities to a raid and I refuse to pigeonhole any class into a "must have" build. Which makes me very happy to be in a guild that doesnt "make" people spec a certain way. Rather, we discuss our strengths and weaknesses and let intelligent players make choices that improve the guild as a whole. It also makes playing the game enjoyable and not a job.

Back on subject, yes Shamans and all other classes/builds have a place in end game content. But as always, you might have to find the right guild first.

I've already found the right guild.

And they aren't getting rid of me without a fight mwhahahahahaah

/gkick Vinniejones

I'll invite you back in, Vinnie!

Oh and the fight is on!

/gkick Durambar
/gkick VinnieJones



I guess Vinnie was right he isn't going without a fight! (Yay! )

Sure. Do note that all paladins bring this. There's no need to take a Retribution paladin.


Yeah... If they scrap the infinitely-more-useful Judgement of Wisdom. JotC sucks. How many classes deal Holy damage? Paladins and non-Shadow priests. Retribution paladins' DPS output quite frankly sucks, and priests only use their damage spells when soloing. That means it's useful for Protection paladins--who can judge SotC themselves.


Paladins really don't have any issues with threat generation.


Oh? This is on the PTR?


A full Holy spec can heal better.


...
Wow. So the Retribution paladin's claim to "good DPS" is that their DPS tree does more DPS than their non-DPS trees.

That's.... well... that's... good. Really.

The DPS of a Retribution paladin isn't bad, no. But it's the single worst DPS tree across all classes. It's almost a pure PvP tree. I mean, look at Eye for an Eye. Mobs can't even crit with spells!


You do realize that you're completely ignoring the possibility that the Retribution tree is simply not fit for end-game?

It isn't. You can ignore its shortcoming as much as you like, that doesn't change anything. The only good synergy a Retribution paladin has is with a Protection paladin.


Of course. Anyone can find themselves playing in end-game content.

While this is sort of a noble sentiment, it's important to recognize those occasions when different does mean weaker. Retribution paladins are underpowered for any form of end-game content right now, and it's because of people like GG who correctly understand that sometimes talents and talent trees are weak that Retribution is getting upgrades on test realms. The goal is for Retribution to be different-but-equal; we aren't there yet, and getting there is best served by a clear understanding of what's wrong, as opposed to a very simplistic "everything is fine only evil guilds force spec" view. (I'm not even sure how "right guild" got into the discussion. No one is talking about forcing spec, nor about making you or anybody else respec, and Retribution's insufficiency is objective, not merely a matter of opinion.)

(Emphasis Mine)

Actually, it is still an awesome point, it just isn't about why you should use any particular talent build. Theorycraft comparisons of talent trees depend on many assumptions: Primary among those assumptions is that every player is equally and perfectly willing to respec to another talent tree. But the real life is far from ideal and the availability of such 'ideal' raiders is limited.

If we take two non-ideal players:
1. A Retribution Paladin who dedicates himself to proving, night after night, that he can deal competitive DPS
2. A rogue who idly observes, each time the damage meter is posted, how everyone is double his damage.

Who do you take for a DPS role? The Paladin who never gets there or the Rogue who doesn't care?

We can play at Theorycraft all night, but the reality is that finding good people can quickly become the number one challenge of a raid leader. Especially in the increasingly tightly scripted events of TBC. It's true that a Retribution Paladin is not the best DPS that you can squeeze from a raid slot. But that player brings more than DPS (as enumerated elsewhere in this thread) and if they're dedicated they'll carry you further than any one of the many lollygaggers you might otherwise select.



Edit: I would direct those concerned with the etymology of 'lollygaggers' to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094812/quotes

As usual Alliera you totally missed the point(s).

I do realize the weaknesses of the Ret tree and I did not imply everything was fine. I was simply trying to point out that even with its current state they do if fact bring some value to a well balanced raid. If a raid was short a key class then it would obviously have to be filled with the most suitable choice. If all the bases were covered a Ret Paladin has its value and hopeful will have more value in the future. There were several references to forcing a respec and that Ret specs dont belong in raids. Hence my reference to the "right guild", which I apologize if that came off harsh. What I meant, was in reference to the OP's question of having a place in end game content. All classes/specs have value and if one guild (or one person) doesnt see that value it may not be the right guild for you.

Also the players skill and gear go a long way to making a spec valuable, as several have already pointed out, but thats not what the discussion was about.

Sharanna as a holy paladin does almost the dps she did as a full ret paladin with better survivablity and more mana efficient heals.

Just throwing that tidbit out there.

FWIW, Sango has a Ret Pally, and he can do some pretty nice damage. The problem with ret pallies is they need to be geared up. If they get the right gear, they can do some *nice* damage. Up until high levels of itemization, they aren't very good, but once they get their best gear, they can compete with other DPS classes who also have their best gear. Factor in the buffs and heals, and it's not necessarily a bad idea.