This thread is the home for Cataclysm discussion about the Ret tree and dps specs in general. I'll keep this post updated with relevant links to blue posts and other previews as they become available. Constructive criticism is fine; whining will be infracted.
Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure's ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.
Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.
Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack. Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.
Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.
We want to ease off the defensive capabilities of Retribution and Holy paladins slightly. We think the powerful paladin defenses have been one of the things holding Retribution paladins back, especially in Arenas. One change we’re considering is lowering Divine Shield’s duration by a couple of seconds. Having said that, Retribution does pretty well in Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds will be a much bigger focus in Cataclysm since they can provide the best PvP rewards. Furthermore, the healing environment of Cataclysm is going to be different such that a paladin may not be able to fully heal themselves during the duration of Divine Shield to begin with, so this may not be a problem.
We feel Retribution paladins need one more mechanic which involves some risk of the player pushing the wrong button, making the rotation a bit less forgiving. In addition, we want to add to this spec more PvP utility. Right now the successes of the Retribution paladin in PvP seem to be reduced to either doing decent burst damage, or just being good at staying alive.
Q: What is the goal when re-designing the paladin class? How do you plan to change rotations, talents, etc?
A. All of the paladin specializations will make use of a new resource called Holy Power. Holy Power accumulates from using Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and some other talents. Holy Power can be consumed to augment a variety of abilities, including:
An instant mana-free heal: Word of Glory
A buff to increase holy damage done: Inquisition
A massive physical melee attack for Retribution paladins: Templar’s Verdict
Holy Shield’s duration is now extended by Holy Power
Divine Storm’s damage is now increased by Holy Power
Q: Can you give us a sneak peek at one or two of the new Retribution abilities or talents?
A. Templar’s Verdict: An instant weapon attack that causes a percentage of weapon damage. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase damage dealt:
Paladin - Retribution
A righteous crusader who judges and punishes opponents with weapons and Holy magic.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
Divine Storm
Sheath of Light
Divine Purpose
Divine Storm is a big deal because Retribution paladins get it at level 10. You'll get a new bottom o' the tree talent.
After further reflection, we don't think Divine Storm makes a good level 10 Ret ability. It really wants to be an AE attack, and it's just hard to make an AE attack a signature ability usable in as many situations as a signature attack deserves to be.
Divine Storm will probably go back into the talent tree. It won't be the 31-point though. Both the 31-point and the 10 ability need to have more single-target use. That means something like 3 new abilities for Retribution and several new or modified talents on top of that. Crazy.
It's okay in practice, but really we're trying to have different rotations for single vs. multi-target fights, so it doesn't really help with that problem.
Since the NDA has been lifted, here's a comprehensive list of Retribution relevant changes in the Cataclysm closed beta that I've been able to observe so far. Retribution's proper Cataclysm talent and ability revamp hasn't occurred yet, although I would expect it within the next month.
Consecration
Can now crit at 150% damage. Uses spell crit table.
Damage calculation (per tick) has been decreased from 4% of AP and SP to 2% of AP and SP.
Duration has been increased from 8 seconds to 15 seconds. Cooldown remains 8 seconds.
Crusader Strike
Crusader Strike is now a baseline ability.
Damage calculation has been increased from 75% to 100% of weapon damage.
Improved Crusader Strike increases the damage done by 10%. Presumably a placeholder; the talent is broken/bugged and no effect on Crusader Strike damage when talented.
Divine Storm
Damage calculation has been decreased from 110% to 55% of weapon damage.
No longer procs seals.
The target cap of 4 has been removed; now can hit an unlimited amount of targets.
Exorcism
Damage calculation and cooldown are unchanged relative to live.
Hammer of Wrath
Damage calculation and cooldown are unchanged relative to live.
Hand of Reckoning
Damage calculation and cooldown are unchanged relative to live.
Can now proc seals. Presumably a bug.
Holy Shock
Holy Shock is now a baseline ability.
Damage currently scales with 43% of SP and 0% of AP; 6 second cooldown.
Healing Light (Tier 2 talent, Holy tree) now increases the damage of Holy Shock by 4/8/12%.
Sanctified Light (increases Holy Shock critical strike chance by 5/10/15%) has been moved from Tier 5 Holy to Tier 4 Holy. At level 85 it may be a viable DPS talent if the Retribution tree remains bare bones.
Holy Wrath
Damage calculation and cooldown are unchanged relative to live.
Holy Vengeance
Can now crit at 150% damage. Uses melee crit table.
Damage calculation is unchanged relative to live.
Judgement
Seals of the Pure now increases the damage of Judgement of Command/Light/Wisdom/Justice.
Sanctified Light (increases Judgement critical strike by chance 5/10/15%) has been moved from Tier 5 Holy to Tier 4 Holy. At level 85 it may be a viable DPS talent if the Retribution tree remains bare bones.
The Judgement of Light healing debuff has been decreased from 2% to 1% of maximum HP.
Seals
Seals of the Pure now increases the damage of Seal of Command.
Divine Storm no longer procs seals.
Righteous Vengeance
Can now crit at 150% damage. Uses melee crit table.
Damage calculation is unchanged relative to live.
General
All partial resists on spells have been removed.
Swift Retribution is now identical to Windfury or Icy Talons (20% melee and ranged haste.) All 3% haste buffs have been eliminated.
Vindication and all other AP debuffs now decrease physical damage taken by 10%.
Heart of the Crusader and all other 3% crit debuffs are slated for removal.
Blessing of Might has been merged with Blessing of Wisdom. All static AP buffs have been eliminated. Provides 10% AP and 249 MP5. One cast now buffs all party/raid members.
Blessing of Kings now increases AGI, INT, STA, and STR by 5% and all magical resistances by 214. One cast now buffs all party/raid members.
Fire, Frost, and Shadow Auras have been merged into a single Resistance Aura. Doesn't stack with Blessing of Kings' resistance component.
Retribution Aura provides 40% melee haste while all other auras provide 20% melee haste when Swift Retribution is talented. Presumably a bug.
Dragonkin has been added as an additional race for the conditional portion of the Crusade talent.
Interesting that they are effectively making ret 2piece t9 baseline. Since this was a fairly substantial boost to the value of Crit, I'm curious how they end up balancing it from a stat-valuation standpoint.
It's more than just the 2pc t9 bonus tho, it should be a really boon to the relative value of crit, ceteris paribus, of course. But I doubt everything else will be the same.
Seems like they're just doing it across the board for all spells/abilities for all classes. This could easily be countered by a larger amount of critical strike rating needed per percentage of critical strike, relative to stat values.
Sanctified Light (increases Holy Shock critical strike chance by 5/10/15%) has been moved from Tier 5 Holy to Tier 4 Holy. At level 85 it may be a viable DPS talent if the Retribution tree remains bare bones.
This is going to be unlikely with the recent announcements regarding 31-point trees. I would imagine the 31 point talent in Ret will be worth going for which will only leave 14 points for another tree (at the very most), which isn't enough to get a 4th tier talent in another tree.
This is going to be unlikely with the recent announcements regarding 31-point trees. I would imagine the 31 point talent in Ret will be worth going for which will only leave 14 points for another tree (at the very most), which isn't enough to get a 4th tier talent in another tree.
Baring changes on how the trees will work to announced (see the 'Getting down to the grit' post, under the 'to recap' heading): You will HAVE to spend 31 points in ret before you can even spec into the other trees. So unless the 31pointer is really 'meh', there is no reason not to take it. Part of the new design it to move away from hybrid/split specs, Such as some of the weird 20/20/21 or 36/25/0 or so you can find now.
Since we'll have 41 points at 85, this means that after spending the mandatory 31 in the ret tree, you'll have at most 10 points to spend anywhere you want. You can spend those in more ret talents, or some points in holy and/or prot.
For the Consecration change, what happens if you cast 2 Consecrations (same player) in the same spot? Will enemies take 1x or 2x damage?
Only one can be up at a time. If you recast it, it will remove the original. Also of note, as I mentioned in the now-locked Cataclysm thread, there is a consecrate icon next to your character frame with a timer in beta. If you right click this icon, the consecrate disappears (this isn't properly implemented currently in beta; right now the graphic disappears but the damage/effect remains).
Originally Posted by Fiola
For BoK's resist component - I'd assume the resistance value scales with level? Or did they change how resistance works?
Like all spells in Cataclysm, this ability will scale with level. It will be equivalent and mutually exclusive with Mark of the Wild.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
Thanks for the quick response. Sorry for duplicating a question from the other thread. Cataclysm Paladin Changes
Haven't read these forums for a while, and didn't think to look for another thread on Cataclysm Paladin changes.
I like how with the current talent changes (Healing Light, SotP) it seems Ret/Holy might be the raid DPS spec and Ret/Prot would probably be the PvP/utility spec.
Another question for someone in the Cata beta: How does Ret off-healing feel with the changes to FoL/HL and the new slow heal? Am curious how the HPS/HPM per cast compare to a Holy spec, and whether the dynamics of Ret healing have changed much from WotLK.
I like how with the current talent changes (Healing Light, SotP) it seems Ret/Holy might be the raid DPS spec and Ret/Prot would probably be the PvP/utility spec.
Another question for someone in the Cata beta: How does Ret off-healing feel with the changes to FoL/HL and the new slow heal? Am curious how the HPS/HPM per cast compare to a Holy spec, and whether the dynamics of Ret healing have changed much from WotLK.
Yah, "boring" talents like 15% strength/10% int are likely going away, so holy will likely have the outside Ret dps talents. Early Prot is likely going to keep the PvP talents.
FoL is less efficient in Cata, so Ret will not be able to throw as many heals as before. SS is 30 minutes, so that is nice to help out with tank healing (assuming no other Pally). I think the new healing spell (Divine Light) is going to be a Holy talent. It is going to be the slow, mana efficient big heal.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Yah, "boring" talents like 15% strength/10% int are likely going away, so holy will likely have the outside Ret dps talents. Early Prot is likely going to keep the PvP talents.
FoL is less efficient in Cata, so Ret will not be able to throw as many heals as before. SS is 30 minutes, so that is nice to help out with tank healing (assuming no other Pally). I think the new healing spell (Divine Light) is going to be a Holy talent. It is going to be the slow, mana efficient big heal.
FoL is very mana heavy, but I actually like it a lot more. Basically takes the place of what Holy Light does now for us except that we can instant cast FoL. Very, very handy for me so far. Even though the other classes I have come across while leveling have way more burst and damage potential using FoL in conjunction with AoW and Holy Shock have kept me up long enough to get a kill.
I really just can't wait until the next build. It can't come fast enough.
Looks like they're going really full-bore with the "DS becomes an AoE ability only".
After further reflection, we don't think Divine Storm makes a good level 10 Ret ability. It really wants to be an AE attack, and it's just hard to make an AE attack a signature ability usable in as many situations as a signature attack deserves to be.
Divine Storm will probably go back into the talent tree. It won't be the 31-point though. Both the 31-point and the 10 ability need to have more single-target use. That means something like 3 new abilities for Retribution and several new or modified talents on top of that. Crazy.
As you can see, we're still iterating a lot on paladins. Our lack of communication is because things are changing quickly, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to share it all until things feel a little more stable.
General
* All partial resists on spells have been removed.
Does this apply to all spells? All classes? Or just holy damage (since Holy Resistance is not an actual stat, and level-based partial resists are quite a mess in many regards)? Or just paladins? And has that been verified with mobs above your level and orange mobs as well?
It does sound like a large change and I haven't heard anything else about that at all, hence I'm asking.
Regarding the DS thing, I was right but for the wrong reasons... (old thread) Cataclysm Paladin Changes.
This is a great change. It's a shame that it still is a talent but on the up side, two new single target dps abilities! I'm guessing that this is the end of consecration and DS in our single target rotation.
3 new abilities?? So the 31 point talent is one, the specialisation is another, what's the third GC! I hope that he's not talking about Guardian of Ancient Kings or the interrupt.
Given that we'll now have an actual AoE rotation, maybe they're going to change/remove SoC. The current design feels very cleavy (making it more likely that they're going to remove it in my opinion). DS definitly feels like it should be a 11 or 21 point talent. Maybe this new ability will be other one. I like that design, 1 new attack every 20 levels (one at 10, 30, 50 and 70).
3 new abilities?? So the 31 point talent is one, the specialisation is another, what's the third GC! I hope that he's not talking about Guardian of Ancient Kings or the interrupt.
I would imagine that GC is referring to Holy Shock.
I don't see it anywhere else on the thread, but I believe it has been stated that they plan to have haste lower the CD of retribution paladin abilities.
I don't see it anywhere else on the thread, but I believe it has been stated that they plan to have haste lower the CD of retribution paladin abilities.
What you are talking about is what the ret mastery was supposed to be in earlier preview of the mastery system. However the mastery got changed in +% Holy Damage.
It has been supposed that if haste in cata should somehow affect resouces regen (eg rage, energy, mana), it may affect the CD of judgement, as Judgement of The Wise is our main regen ability. But that's pretty old story, much has changed since then.
What you are talking about is what the ret mastery was supposed to be in earlier preview of the mastery system. However the mastery got changed in +% Holy Damage.
It has been supposed that if haste in cata should somehow affect resouces regen (eg rage, energy, mana), it may affect the CD of judgement, as Judgement of The Wise is our main regen ability. But that's pretty old story, much has changed since then.
What I'm referencing is fairly recent. Let me see if I can find the source.
Edit: I can't find it, but I swear I'm not crazy!
They've said that they want haste to let you "do stuff faster," and just getting more mana regen would fail to accomplish this. Logically, the only way for a ret to "do stuff faster" is lower our cooldowns... I know I saw some sort of official post on it somewhere... eh...
Haste - Haste will become more attractive for melee classes by allowing them to recover resources such as energy and runes more quickly. Our intention is for Haste to let you "do stuff" more often.
<snip>
Our plan is to make haste good for all classes, even warriors. The goal is to make all the stats that appear on your gear attractive.
Considering these two quotes (page 1 and 57, they will do something with it I imagine. Granted, the posts are from march, but I believe their intention is to make the 'extra' stats about as attractive. In the case of warriors and rogues(fdruids), having more resources directly converts into doing more damage. As this is not the case for retribution paladins, we are CD-limited, they will -at least try- to make haste worthwhile.
Last edited by Entropie : 07/12/10 at 7:52 AM.
God bless our good and gracious king,
Whose promise none relies on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.
One thing that they've said they have wanted to do for retribution is give us a way to lower our cooldowns based on haste. I'm not talking about our global cooldown, but our actual ability cooldowns. This might be a way to bake it into the spec without it being available to either protection or holy.
Quite apocryphal. The writer is obviously conflating things (s)he has read, possibly on these EJ forums. Blizzard has yet to state anything regarding Ret Paladins and Haste. Nothing.
They have mentioned Rogues and Druids explicitly regarding Haste->Energy conversion (as energy->damage). We have theorized here on EJ that for Warriors it would involve Rage (as Rage->damage) increases via Haste (possibly faster autoattack with normalized Rage would alone solve their "problem"). We have theorized that for Ret it would be one of two things - either mana will become a tight resource and Haste would mobilize Haste->Mana (and Mana->damage), or mana remains relatively easy with a JotW mechanic and the next logical option at the time was reducing cooldowns so Haste->More attack (and More attacks->damage, naturally).
With the addition of new abilities to Ret (namely HS and possibly 2 more damaging abilities) I would label reduced cooldowns unlikely. If you have up to 8 buttons to press, and not enough time to press them, you focus more and more on the best attacks. Reducing cooldowns means those "best" attacks are used far more frequently and the "bad" attacks are shouldered out. A side effect is "ZOMG, ability X sucks, we never use it, why do we have it" forum posts. Cue the rollercoaster as it is (unnecessarily) buffed and nerfed over multiple patches.
To explore, I just modeled in my spreadsheet a pretend scenario where haste reduced ability CD in Wrath for my character. I wouldn't use Exo at all and Consecration would be used ~every 40 seconds, simply because CS, DS, and Judge are spammed so frequently. CS is literally every 2nd attack (less than 3 seconds). It's not a great gameplay decision and doesn't add "fun."
Closest cooldown option I could see would be reduction in GCD (not just for spells). I won't even conjecture whether that could find a happy balance point.
Blizzard will unveil some useful mechanic for Ret haste when they have one that works.
Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."
Well, I'm putting my money on DS and Conc being taken out of our single target rotation. I haven't a doubt that with the two new single target dps abilities they're adding - the level 10 ability and the 31 point talent - they will attempt to create an actual rotation for retribution rather than having this FCFS system we have now.
I highly doubt they'll make mana an issue unless you have enough haste, as that does not reflect the goal for haste that blizzard has stated ("doing stuff faster"). That scenario would just add another stat we would have to cap like hit and expertise, so overall we'd be forced to have less mastery/crit.
Considering they did have reduced cooldowns as the mastery bonus for a time, I wouldn't write it off. Especially because we don't know the 2 new dps abilities we're getting.
Make haste affect Cons tick time (faster ticks in the same duration) and make it affect the SoV dot (faster ticks). I haven't kept entirely up to date on the caster changes, but I do believe that faster ticking dots is how they planned to make haste attractive for SP's and affli locks. This may actually be the reason they decided to bake in the T9 bonus ( make SoV dot crit). With faster ticking dots, this would make haste quite a bit more attractive.
I doubt reducing ability CD's is going to happen. This was initially going to be our mastery bonus (as per the 2009 blizzcon screenies), and has been changed to holy damage bonus as per more recent posts.
We're close to being 'full' on CD's as it is, it's that small amount of "nothing" that"s actually causing us to have an erratic rotation which seems to be what blizz likes, they don't like anyone having fixed repeatable rotations (for top damage).
We would need only a very small amount of CD reduction to fill up the remaining gaps and effectively take us to a fixed rotation.
Edit: We also cast spells, whereas rogues/cats don't. So haste also affects the GCD on HS, Exo, Cons. Also actively changing the rotation (more stuff blizz likes) and allowingus to do more in the same time.
Given that Blizzard has repeatedly stated they like procs which break rotations, I doubt they'd try to move a class known for FCFS on to a strict rotation. Death Knights have been well known for their strict rotations. Part of the reduced number of runes is an attempt to shake up the rotation a bit with rune procs and runic power dumps.
Rotations are easy, not that FCFS is hard. Look at Rogues or Feral for more balanced design - priority based, but off of buff/debuff timers, not their ability cooldowns. The Feral "John Madden" flowchart is an excellent example of the decision structure. Press the button not on CD isn't much of a decision.
We have 5 attacks (discounting Holy Wrath) right now. That could increase by 3 (HS and the two you stated). Now drop Consecration and Divine Storm from a single target rotation. This still leaves 1 more attack than present. If my rough model was even vaguely accurate, haste currently would cause us to drop 1.75 of 5 attacks (no Exo, Cons 1/4 as often). Again, a haste reducing CD setup would cause us to entirely drop attacks from priority. No extra time/GCDs + more attacks = more attacks to entirely drop.
If Blizzard is taking the time to create new attacks, why would they want to make them (or CS or HS) unused as gear gets more haste (later tiers)? And we haven't even gotten into reduction of AW or GoAK CDs and how that would impact DPS, or have book length tooltips explaining exclusions to haste's benefits.
Blizzard will unveil a good plan for haste. Reducing ability CD is likely not it. It's always possible, just not likely at this point.
Haste in Cata isn't "doing stuff faster", it's "doing more stuff." Turning those GCD where the Rogue has no energy into a fresh attack. Not arguing for the following, by the way, I think it's a bad idea, but if mana is a limiter we can only put out so much DPS (self-throttling is horrible, reference BC) as you run out of resource. More haste becomes more mana resource, which allows more DPS. Again, it's a really bad design (especially since below 5% base mana you could not judge to regain mana), but it vaguely functions.
Zalinda is probably correct. If haste will speed ticks on HV and Consecration, it will be enough better than present to be a desirable stat (as opposed to the Wrath "at least it's not ArmPen" haste). As desirable as Str or Mastery? Unlikely, but closer and with a potential for points where too much haste makes crit superior and vice versa.
Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."
We won't have a rotation until either a) the cooldowns line up in a very easy way to manage (which would be extremely boring) or b) we get a mana dump ability (which would be a big change to our current design). Blizzard could keep us the way we are, however the only way that this would become an interesting design is if the FCFS changes mid fight. Even so, it's still spam buttons when they come off CD which gets boring. Blizzard got away with it during this expansion because a) we were not particularly viable or fun in the past and b) they added some nice tier bonus that changed things up. That won't work for the next expansion. Basically, the only way I can see us becoming more interesting is if it's not always worth hitting an ability on cooldown.
Another aspect to this problem is our passive damage. From the rogue class preview:
In PvE, even accounting for active modifiers like Slice and Dice and Envenom, a very large portion of the rogue's damage is attributable to passive sources of damage. Yes, they are using abilities for the entire duration of a fight, but we want to reduce the percentage of rogue damage that comes from auto-attacks and poisons. More of their damage will be coming from active abilities and special attacks.
In my opinion we're in the same boat. SoV/C is basically the same as Deadly Poison, SoComm/SoR is the same as instant poison and JoV/C is basically envenom (with the assassination talent). We get nearly half our damage from passive sources, which isn't quite as much as rogues (they are closer to 2/3 of their damage). I wouldn't be surprised if blizzard were aiming for melee swings to stay at about the same level and other passive damage sources to be about 5-10% of damage done.
07/08/10, 10:29 AM
in EJBSG 17 (soundtrack)
Similar Threads
