As of right now on beta, the AoW proc rate is bad. About half the time that I need an Exorcism to fill a gap it is unavailable. Hopefully the proc rate will increase or HWs damage will get a buff.

Source

The thing about it though is I don't feel as if things are unpredictable as they currently stand. On a single target, we'll be watching for that extra HoPow proc on Inquisition or TV. We'll know to be looking for it only when we cast those 2 abilities.

Exemplar hit the nail on the head up above. Unless there is some sort of a truly random HoPow generator, it will take a minimal amount of effort to start responding to our procs automatically and without thought. I'd like to see them change Divine Purpose to proc an extra charge on white swings instead of TV/INQ, similar to 2PT10. It would also make haste an attractive stat for us to pursue.

Zalinda - I have no problem with free GCD. I think it's a good design to have free GCD on a regular and ongoing basis. It allows for thought, consideration, and utility (the new DK tweaks look great from my armchair quarterback, non-participatory perspective). The current Ret design effectively has no free GCD, and the Cata design has them only at random times when Cons and HW are on CD and AoW didn't proc (or Exo is oalso on CD). Usefulness of HoP, HoF, a spot heal, or such are high, but the chance of needing one exactly when you have that random free GCD is extremely remote. Also... what instant heal? We're not going to use Holy Power on Word of Glory unless it's absolutely imperative for survival (ours or MT to prevent wipe).

Juggling procs to perform our job (DPS) better = good. Juggling non-procs that are free GCD to perform utility = bad. The good Ret can throw out some Hands, while the bad does equal DPS? Ouch.

If they want us to have free GCD, I'd actually argue to remove some attacks, somehow. If we literally could not Consecrate or Holy Wrath, then we would indeed have regularly free GCD. Or at least would not use them - they could get plenty of leverage from Holy Power, have Cons/HW eat 1 stack, etc. Blizzard has another neat mechanic and always shows they have plenty of ideas for use. Sadly this would minimize AoW: more free GCD to use if you missed the proc, so a miss is more likely simply a delay, which is less lost DPS.

The Blizzard blurb really reinforced my comment from yesterday. In refutation:
1) Other than during Zealotry, using Judgement is simple between all the CS. The hard part is having the other abilities off CD (and AoW procced for Exo).

2) Holy Power is pretty darn predictable since the "unpredictable" element is the finisher and you have 6-9 seconds before you could again reach 3 power. I've never heard Ruthlessness called a proc that requires much (any?) management.

3) AoW procs are simple. A very tiny mod can tell you whether or not to press AoW during that gap, or not. clcRet is less than 150kb, and it does a heck of a lot more, besides. This management is a no-brainer in today's world. In Vanilla it may have been hard, but the average player is far more sophisticated and has more such quality of life mods available.

Glad they're reducing seal damage (like poison damage). If our total DPS remains equivalent to other classes, and a lesser percentage is from autoattack (i.e. seals), then more is from us pressing our buttons. This emphasizes pressing those buttons and makes pressing the right ones more valuable. It helps set the good apart from the mediocre. Although it definitely sends haste into the trashcan (unless there's some other nifty on-autoattack proc mechanic).

I would even be surprised if you used it then. I actually tested WoG out already on Beta, and I was very dissapointed from a Ret perspective. I went ahead and spec'd even in a gimpy way to get the deep ret talent and the 8 points in the holy tree I needed to beef it up. See the results for yourself...



WITH the talents (but not gaining the +60% from healing another target), a 3HP WoG hit for just shy of 15k when it crit, which would be under 10k on a hit (keep in mind at level 83 with INCREASED crit rating from live, I only have 9.99% crit, so this is the exception rather than the rule). If I'm at 51k hp at level 83 in half greens (and half level 80 epics), one can only imagine we'd be raiding with 80-90k health. Since spells aren't increasing in potency very much simply from leveling and Blizzard seems quite set on preventing stats from spiraling out of control again, I don't see an expected 16-18k heal at level 85 meaning all that much, especially when you think about how much time we actually spend sitting at 3HP if we are doing proper DPS (the answer: approximately 1.5 seconds of every 6-9 seconds, or 16.7%-25% of the time).

I'm not saying it's TOTALLY useless, there are certainly situations where it would be help, and it's always better than nothing. I just don't see very many opportunities for the clutch heals that people think they will get with WoG.

EDIT: And before people start saying how I have less AP than I do on live, that's not because I'm retarded and dropped a whole bunch of stats for green downgrades. Items have fundamentally changed just from transfering to the beta. Compare the following to their live counterparts:



-19 STR
+49 STA



-27 STR
+70 STA
+11 min damage, +16 max (3.6 DPS)
Haste replaces ArP

The above, but to EVERY item. Although I might still be using the AGI version of the ICC ring, I should probably go check to make sure I made the swap on this copy.

It isn't too early at all to write off an ability that requires 9 seconds of ramp up, costs a massive amount of damage to use, and will only be usable once every 10 seconds. I don't see why people think there is any chance we will ever cast WoG in a raid, the chance that some NEEDS a heal during the 1.5second GCD we use to get our third stack of HP is just so insanely small, and even if they do you have to react extremely quickly to not lose even more damage than simply the TV, and you risk your heal being completely useless anyways as a healer could very well have seen the same thing you did.

Unless WoG gets a pretty ridiculous (and extremely unlikely) buff, it will not be worth the cost in a raid, even in PvP it will only see scarce use because of the huge cost.

Divine Purpose is currently showing a 40% chance to generate additional Holy Power via our Judgement, Exorcism and Holy Wrath abilities. Is this an old iteration or a new one? Doesn't mention TV anymore.

If it is a new version then it will make our Holy Power generation a bit more random then just having it generate additional HP off of a finisher.

New build up with some consolidation tweaks. We should now be able to get all our DPS and utility talents (no more having to choose to lose communion/repent/rebuke) with two points left over. It would look like this. Last two points look to come down to a choice of acts of sacrifice (shorter hand of salvation cooldown), divinity (+healing for/on the paladin), or the protector of the innocent if your raid is missing the +heal aura effect.

And as mentioned above, divine purpose now works on judgement, exorcism, and holy wrath, making for much more interesting holy power generation.

It did for the previous few builds. I haven't been able to get on for this one yet but I'll check at lunch.

Also, did anyone else notice they removed swift retribution? While they slapped the 3% extra damage into another talent, it seems we lost our windfury effect (at least, according to the mmo-champion datamining).

I just noticed here that DS has dropped from +225% at 3 stacks of HoPow down to +90% with 3 stacks of HoPow. Was DS trumping TV at 3 stacks the reason it was lowered?

I'm pretty sure it was always 90% weapon damage at 3 stacks. 225% weapon damage at 3 stacks is TV.

I see, I was operating under the foggy recollection that tooltip on the mmo-champ talent calc from a previous build listed DS as +225% at 3HP. Thanks for the clarification.