Honestly, I'd like to see Exorcism get a reliable cooldown in a 8 or 7 second range. I find in many cases I can't use Holy Wrath, because of CC, and without HW or a 3 second Crusader Strike I find that I don't have enough buttons to push most of the time, and when you get back to back AoW procs it borderlines on the OP. Make Exo a reliable spell and adjust the numbers accordingly.
Divine Storm also needs a change to how it generates HP. Either it needs to be a guaranteed 1 HP upon use or it needs to regain it's old ability to generate multiple procs of HP. I find our AOE to be woefully lacking, and without the HP generation to back up DS I just find it hard to justify using it unless there are a lot of mobs. Do we even have an idea on how many mobs makes DS more valuable than Crusader Strike?
Hand of Light is a very fun spell, but it should really be a talent point and take the place of Art of War.
I know what I just said may possibly count as wish-listing, and I don't want to derail this thread into that direction, but it's just an evaluation of running heroics and running Bastion of Twilight.
I believe the thread says it is optimal to switch to an AoE rotation at 5 mobs or more. Most pulls in 5 person dungeons are less than 5 mobs if I recall correctly. Individual mobs also tend to survive long enough for SoT to stack to 5 and then some.
I think ret DPS is a bit low right now in general. World of Logs posts show that paladins tend to peak around 15-16k DPS in 25 person raids while other specs are performing in the 20 thousands. This could be caused by a weak mastery, greater sensitivity to capping hit and/or crit, or just player error. We are not, however, the only spec in this situation and I expect that changes are forthcoming.
Blizzard's statement about our Mastery is also completely offbase for other reasons. If they want to make Mastery desirable they don't have to change the functionality at all - just double the % bonus we get per point and all will be well. Mastery at that point will still be very different from other classes but it would definitely be competitive with haste and crit, which is honestly all that we are concerned about. As long as we benefit reasonably in terms of overall dps I don't see any reason to overcomplicate the problem. Clearly there are a million and one alternate implementations that could also work fine but the current one can be entirely workable with a simple increase to the rate of return.
I totally agree. I actually like the mechanics, although they should really bring it off the GCD and make it so it doesn't fade until out of combat, so you don't lose if you are CC'd for some seconds.
But other than that, I like the proc itself and the fact that it lets us literally do more: we can use it to keep Inquisition up most of the time, or land another hard-hitting Templar's Verdict, or maybe even heal with an unexpected Word of Glory...Someone should toss the idea to Blizzard, although I'm not sure they would listen.
I am wondering what the your reasons/maths are for this rotation Inq > HoW > Exo > TV > CS > J > HW > Cons. First of all Tv hits for almost twice as much as HoW. Tv does 18k non crits and How does 23k crits and about 12-11k non crits. This is with inq up.It really doesent make senes in my eyes at all. Also Tv hits as hard as exo. I am in full hc gear and some raid epics. I also would suggest to drop cons. out of your rotation because it cost too much mana. Instead i would use holyradiance in aoe dmg situations (incoming) to help healers. You cant do both with your mana and cons. dmg is pathetic. My Rotation would be Inq>Tv>exo>how>cs>J>HW and occasionly holy radiance.
Couldn't that then cause problems in later tiers, where we perhaps have too high mastery such that the frequency of procs begins to cause more problems? I've not seen (nor looked for) any information on how much mastery is reasonable on raid gear now, and none of us know how much will be present when 4.3 comes around, but it does seem like a concern Blizzard may have with just ramping up the conversion rates.
If we have too much mastery, it will begin to stop consuming "spare" GCDs and cuts into other abilities, reducing it value. Too much mastery also has a higher risk of back-to-back procs eating one another. I guess one could simply reforge off any excess mastery they have, but that just means mastery is undervalued which brings us back to the original problem and due to the RNG facet is a very hard choice to make (It could be almost completely wasted on one lucky fight and almost overpowered on the next, depending on DP and AoW procs - making it practically impossible to model).
Just my comments on the suggestion, although I have no suggestion of my own.
Exactly a rng proc based mastery will run into these types of problems, especially one like ours. We'll see what happened with Armor Pen in BC, for most tiers it was just bad for us, but in the last tier if we stacked it to a high enough level it was the way to go. I assume they want to avoid this mentality. Avoiding a stat completely until the toon can stack up enough of it to make it OP.
They only way, if they keep the Mastery as it is with Hand of Light, for it to be desirable imo is if they made it act like a WF-like proc, in wich the HoL Templar's Verdict would have an increased AP % or damage and that % would increase the more mastery you stacked along with the chance for the proc to happen.
Another way I see it being worth, would be for the Hand of Light proc be an auto-out of the GCD-Templar's Verdict. That would make the mastery a lot less skill dependant as it wouldn't be reactive to the player noticing the proc and hitting the key, but as it would be extra damage on top of the normal rotation, it would be more desirable.
On another note, considering there should still be many Engies here from Wrath, have anyone tested the Elementium Dragonling? IT seems the pet stay if you take the trinket out, but I'd like further confirmation if possible.
They only way, if they keep the Mastery as it is with Hand of Light, for it to be desirable imo is if they made it act like a WF-like proc, in wich the HoL Templar's Verdict would have an increased AP % or damage and that % would increase the more mastery you stacked along with the chance for the proc to happen.
Another way I see it being worth, would be for the Hand of Light proc be an auto-out of the GCD-Templar's Verdict. That would make the mastery a lot less skill dependant as it wouldn't be reactive to the player noticing the proc and hitting the key, but as it would be extra damage on top of the normal rotation, it would be more desirable.
On another note, considering there should still be many Engies here from Wrath, have anyone tested the Elementium Dragonling? IT seems the pet stay if you take the trinket out, but I'd like further confirmation if possible.
I'm for skill-dependant, generally. Anyway, a WF like-proc would be nice: for the next TV, you do an extra attack with increased AP or maybe additional holy damage. Kinda like good ol'SoC, I really miss it!
For Zealotry, I was thinking that maybe during the buff, all offensive abilities by the Paladin would yield 1 HP. The duration could be extended, from 20 seconds to 30. Right now if you want to pop Zealotry, Inquisition becomes downright useless in that timeframe since CV and TV, the only two skills you want to hit, only deal physical damage.
If all of the offensive abilities granted 1 HP, the rotation would be mostly normal, involving the usual holy damage abilities buffed by Inquisition.
Right now if you want to pop Zealotry, Inquisition becomes downright useless in that timeframe since CV and TV, the only two skills you want to hit, only deal physical damage.
If all of the offensive abilities granted 1 HP, the rotation would be mostly normal, involving the usual holy damage abilities buffed by Inquisition.
Doesn't the increased priority for HoW/Exo, especially combined with a 4+ sec CS CD (only just reached 85 so I don't know what our haste might be in basic raiding gear), mean you'll still want to use those between each round of CS->TV if they're available? Combined with Seal/Censure damage Inquisition still seems worth it.
I am wondering what the your reasons/maths are for this rotation Inq > HoW > Exo > TV > CS > J > HW > Cons. ... I would appreciate some feedback on my ideas.
HoW nearly always crits due to talent bonuses. Crit HoW are superior to hit TV. Overall average damage means HoW wins.
Exo should hit similar to TV or for more, so you need to dump it immediately to permit another AoW to proc.
The currently available tools should make details clear. My spreadsheet organizes attacks based on overall average damage (including Holy Power generation).
Trying to perform healing in a Ret spec (Holy Radiance) is a waste of a GCD (our true resource) and a waste of mana - hybrid is dead, you perform your role or you do not. Our role is DPS. You should have the mana to Consecrate whenever you have nothing else to perform if you're not performing extremely low healing instead.
Not that we can HW or Cons too much in 5man dungeons due to CC necessity, as noted above by Charmin.
Originally Posted by Danath
Right now if you want to pop Zealotry, Inquisition becomes downright useless in that timeframe since CS and TV, the only two skills you want to hit, only deal physical damage.
Kaernya is correct. Even under Zealotry you should hit HoW or Exo if they are available. This weakens Zealotry even beyond the lost DivPurp single-holy-power procs that Zealotry eats. It's really a lackluster final talent. Yes, it is more DPS, but it's extremely weak compared to AW or GoAK.
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."
Right now if you want to pop Zealotry, Inquisition becomes downright useless in that timeframe since CV and TV, the only two skills you want to hit, only deal physical damage.
Given the priorities on our abilities, and how it's a DPS gain to use two fillers even with a lower CS CD, Zealotry actually doesn't change much aside from "guaranteeing" TV is one of the fillers. It's barely even a guarantee since HoW and Exo are ahead of 3HP TV, so we'd really end up with three, four, or even five fillers if AoW procs back-to-back or refreshing Inquisition would be a gain.
Even if Zealotry made all of our abilities guarantee a 3HP gain, we're still stuck with the fact that a few abilities are ahead of TV. Unless TV actually comes out ahead of Exo and/or HoW, Zealotry is almost not worth using.
Edit: For those doing math on why TV comes out behind, it's worthwhile to note lowered damage from boss armor. Boss armor is 11977, so according to the formula found on Combat ratings boss armor should provide 26.88% damage reduction, or in other words all physical attacks Ret does will only do 73.11% of normal damage.
Trying to perform healing in a Ret spec (Holy Radiance) is a waste of a GCD (our true resource) and a waste of mana - hybrid is dead, you perform your role or you do not. Our role is DPS. You should have the mana to Consecrate whenever you have nothing else to perform if you're not performing extremely low healing instead.
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The combination of using a few paladins' holy radiance at the same time, especially while grouping up for big incoming raid damage, is a very useful tool, and has proved to be worth using on cooldown if necessary. There are multiple fights that require this type of clumping, and I don't see how you can say that it is a wasted gcd if it helps the raid kill a boss. I won't go into specifics about certain fights, but there is no way that ret's and/or a class like an enhance shaman shouldn't be using skills like holy radiance and healing rain at this point in progression.
Trying to perform healing in a Ret spec (Holy Radiance) is a waste of a GCD (our true resource) and a waste of mana - hybrid is dead, you perform your role or you do not. Our role is DPS.
I think that's a very narrow way of stating things. Yes, the priority is ultimately DPS and a binary one at that (either you do enough or you are worthless), but extra utility should not be disregarded.
Since you specifically mention Holy Radiance, think of a fight with phases, something like Kil'jaeden where you have everyone bunch up in specific intervals. Surely two or more (ret) paladins using Holy Radiance will be significant enough to warrant wasting 1 GCD each. It's not unlike asking a Shadow Priest to pop Hymn in Wrath, just that the mechanics (supposedly) have now changed to be much harder on healer mana, so every bit of extra healing helps.
In smaller groups (5 mans/10 man raids) I would not disregard the power of Word of Glory either. I'm running with 2/2 Selfless Healer and with HoL up, I can frequently get back to back 30k+ WoG crits on a party member (or the tank in heroics) when things get tricky, guaranteeing that person will survive and the fight will go on. In heroics especially, this feels the closest Ret (or a Paladin spec in general) has ever been to true hybrid play since the (granted very primitive) days of vanilla.
A different issue I'd like to see some discussion on: Has there been anything said regarding the logic behind how melee cleave/AoE is panning out in the different classes? I know the general design decision they went with for WoW 4.0 was to remove the so called "free damage" cleaves were giving, but I don't understand in that case why there is such a gigantic discrepancy between classes.
I find that with this change too many of our abilities have become near worthless: Holy Wrath is useless damage wise (5-7k total, regardless of number of adds) with the only reason to use it being a 3 second AoE stun on some mob types and a potential point of Holy Power, Consecration has too long of a cooldown (30 sec) and is again too weak damage wise (~5k-7k per mob over 10 seconds) to be realistically useful in getting rid of packs and we all know the the issues with Divine Storm barely qualifying as a damage increase on anything less than 5 mobs.
On trash packs or even encounters where you need to kill a bunch of smaller mobs quickly (poison blobs, crocodiles, stone shards, take your pick) you're less useful than a warrior tank with vengeance stacks using shockwave. It's gotten to the point where I've opted out of speccing Divine Storm in favor of 2/2 Selfless Healer and 1/2 Acts of Sacrifice for the root dispel.
I would be fine to coming to terms with the fact that melee classes have been turned into single target only, if it wasn't the case that at the same time DKs are still able to Howling Blast crit half a dozen mobs for ~20k each at 10 yard range at a spammable 1 frost rune cost, I don't see the logic here. I know DPS Warriors are in a similar boat as us and I think rogues as well, which makes me wonder if there will be some adjustment up (or down in the case of DKs), since at the moment melee classes that should be roughly interchangeable are not, due to almost non-functioning AoE abilities.
I hope this doesn't come off as whining, it's not supposed to be. I'm just pointing out a current issue with the spec and gathering feedback.
Howling Blast is an outlier that hasn't been brought in line at the moment. As far as I know no other AoE is that powerful anymore, aside from a DemoLock going all out with cooldowns I suppose. But yes, I also feel our AoE is significantly behind the average between classes, though we're probably not the only ones.
You got me pushed to drop Divine Storm for now, WoG is getting a lot of use in 10man for me at the moment (and the same goes for Holy Radiance) but I wanted to keep at least 1 point in Acts of Sacrifice if I were to go for Selfless Healer.
HoW nearly always crits due to talent bonuses. Crit HoW are superior to hit TV. Overall average damage means HoW wins.
Exo should hit similar to TV or for more, so you need to dump it immediately to permit another AoW to proc.
The currently available tools should make details clear. My spreadsheet organizes attacks based on overall average damage (including Holy Power generation).
Trying to perform healing in a Ret spec (Holy Radiance) is a waste of a GCD (our true resource) and a waste of mana - hybrid is dead, you perform your role or you do not. Our role is DPS. You should have the mana to Consecrate whenever you have nothing else to perform if you're not performing extremely low healing instead.
Not that we can HW or Cons too much in 5man dungeons due to CC necessity, as noted above by Charmin.
Kaernya is correct. Even under Zealotry you should hit HoW or Exo if they are available. This weakens Zealotry even beyond the lost DivPurp single-holy-power procs that Zealotry eats. It's really a lackluster final talent. Yes, it is more DPS, but it's extremely weak compared to AW or GoAK.
That just reinforces my statement: since HoW and Exo are so powerful and Zealotry is currently designed only with CS and TV in mind, it definitely has to change. Right now I don't even know if I'd better spec into Acts of Sacrifice at L85 for more utility.
P.S.: I hate hybrid being dead, I really do. I levelled a Paladin because I love that role. Anyway, some very situational offhealing shouldn't be mana taxing at least when you get the Crusader proc.
I too am finding myself using WoG and Cleanse in heroics far more than I had to in Wrath, especially with the brutality of mana consumption on healers now. So, like most of you, I'll be dropping DS for Selfless Healer to smooth this process over some more. Also, as others have mentioned, I've rarely been using Zealotry myself, and Inquisition feels very clunky with exception of reapplying it during a 3 HoPo + HoL situation.
On the plus side, I'm pleased with GoAK's damage output so far. In dungeons, at least, as I've not raided yet. I've been seeing 9-10% damage from him on 3-4 minute fights which is surprising considering Beta testers appeared to be quite dissatisfied with the ability.
My main curiosity at this point is whether or not people are noticing the clunkiness of the spec decreasing with entry level raid gear? I'm finding myself waiting out the entire 4.2s CS quite often with no GCD's to spend, and it's frustrating.
I too am finding myself using WoG and Cleanse in heroics far more than I had to in Wrath, especially with the brutality of mana consumption on healers now. So, like most of you, I'll be dropping DS for Selfless Healer to smooth this process over some more. Also, as others have mentioned, I've rarely been using Zealotry myself, and Inquisition feels very clunky with exception of reapplying it during a 3 HoPo + HoL situation.
On the plus side, I'm pleased with GoAK's damage output so far. In dungeons, at least, as I've not raided yet. I've been seeing 9-10% damage from him on 3-4 minute fights which is surprising considering Beta testers appeared to be quite dissatisfied with the ability.
My main curiosity at this point is whether or not people are noticing the clunkiness of the spec decreasing with entry level raid gear? I'm finding myself waiting out the entire 4.2s CS quite often with no GCD's to spend, and it's frustrating.
I actually enjoy those short breaks with nothing to use. As long as it doesn't mean our performance will be subpar, of course.
As for GoAK, I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed it sometimes just..standing there, doing nothing. it seems to happen every now and then when there are several targets nearby.
I agree Inquisition feels "clunky" when you have a really bad streak with Divine Purpose procs, but overall I like it. Getting constant back-to-back HoL and AoW procs randomly while you're still working on using up the previous ones does feel a bit overwhelming, but it's very different from any other class.
My main issues with the spec is still the reliance on autoattacks and Seal of Truth & target switches - especially the latter feels like a relic of past burst balancing that they just didn't bother take another look at. Early in the beta they did change the tooltip to state "causing single-target attacks to Censure the target..." from "causing autoattacks..", but it's still only stacking up from autoswings.
I *just* hit 85 and I'm wondering what to do with the spec. I too feel Zealotry and Divine Storm aren't competitive right now, even in the very levels before 85 it was already clear.
However, with such spec as this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft , I'm wondering if I'd better put a point into Eternal Glory instead of the usual An Eye for an Eye. If we have to lay some WoG onto others, a 15% chance of not wasting HPs doing that sounds interesting to me.
I *just* hit 85 and I'm wondering what to do with the spec. I too feel Zealotry and Divine Storm aren't competitive right now, even in the very levels before 85 it was already clear.
However, with such spec as this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft , I'm wondering if I'd better put a point into Eternal Glory instead of the usual An Eye for an Eye. If we have to lay some WoG onto others, a 15% chance of not wasting HPs doing that sounds interesting to me.
What do you think?
Honestly I've gotten a lot of use out of Selfless Healer, but it's definitely mostly for random groups - when I'm doing dungeons with guildies I trust the tank/healer enough to not bother. Whether you get that or Eternal Glory depends on your priority I guess - Eternal Glory will help your self-healing, but Selfless Healer is more healing for half the GCD and a damage boost at the cost of not healing yourself. I also frequently use Holy Radiance in rotation gaps/instead of HW if there's a lot of damage going around (unless I can't afford to spare the dps).
Honestly I've gotten a lot of use out of Selfless Healer, but it's definitely mostly for random groups - when I'm doing dungeons with guildies I trust the tank/healer enough to not bother. Whether you get that or Eternal Glory depends on your priority I guess - Eternal Glory will help your self-healing, but Selfless Healer is more healing for half the GCD and a damage boost at the cost of not healing yourself. I also frequently use Holy Radiance in rotation gaps/instead of HW if there's a lot of damage going around (unless I can't afford to spare the dps).
Well I was actually saying that assuming one gets Selfless Healer, then Eternal Glory (1 point) instead of An Eye for An Eye (1 point) would have stacked better; so at least 15% of the time, your WoG either on you on others doesn't waste HPs.
By the way, I too noticed the weirdness of the Guardian...It seems to stop attacking when you switch target. We should send some ticket packs.
I too am finding myself using WoG and Cleanse in heroics far more than I had to in Wrath, especially with the brutality of mana consumption on healers now. So, like most of you, I'll be dropping DS for Selfless Healer to smooth this process over some more. Also, as others have mentioned, I've rarely been using Zealotry myself, and Inquisition feels very clunky with exception of reapplying it during a 3 HoPo + HoL situation.
On the plus side, I'm pleased with GoAK's damage output so far. In dungeons, at least, as I've not raided yet. I've been seeing 9-10% damage from him on 3-4 minute fights which is surprising considering Beta testers appeared to be quite dissatisfied with the ability.
My main curiosity at this point is whether or not people are noticing the clunkiness of the spec decreasing with entry level raid gear? I'm finding myself waiting out the entire 4.2s CS quite often with no GCD's to spend, and it's frustrating.
I am sure when it comes to random heroics we all have been using these abilities more. On a guild run things are more controlled but I also find a lot of use of WoG. I almost always run with a ele shammy and when things get rough his healing rain + Radiance usually save the day.
Actually the best use of Zealotry I have found is as a saving CD: CS -> WoG -> CS WoG has allowed us to kill bosses when we got bad healers or oom situations.
There is no doubt we are still in a great hybrid/helper position but remember that the objective in these forums is the min/maxing of our role which is DPS. That is the reason you will see statements like "Holy Radiance is a DPS loss and a wasted GCD" but never ever read them as "Holy Radiance is worthless and you should never use it" because it is not what we mean and I think we all understand that when a situation requires offhealing the player skill involved in using these abilities correctly create benefits for the group/raid that far suprasses a situation where the player only stuck to dpsing.
Now back on heroics trash topic:
I have found myself only using SoT to avoid any undesirable cleaves and CC breaks and for HW i sometimes move a little farther away where i know I will range the CC (Also i love when the cc is my friend's hex since it can take a HW before breaking) but I also feel our AoE right now is worthless, I can only hope to compete when there are 6+ mobs and they will be all tanked over a well placed consecration and that is not very often. Under the current situation honestly if it wasn't for the added "Seal of Command" damage on SoT i would also drop Seals of Command since the cleave has been so far useless.
Art of War does not increase Glyph of Exorcism's damage. You can easily test this by meleeing for a proc, use it, note the ticks, then back up and cast another Exorcism, and then compare ticks.
Similarly, Glyph of Exorcism does not roll. New applications overwrite old ones. Every other personal buff/talent/ability that you figure would increase the glyph's damage does (Inquisition, AW, both parts of Communion, BoM).
P.S.: I hate hybrid being dead, I really do. I levelled a Paladin because I love that role.
We actually have a higher capability to hybrid than ever before, so if you like hybrid play (like I do), now is the best time to be a Ret paladin. I find the combination of more complex rotation, 2 resource pools, having to handle interrupts and even co-pilot healing on occasion to have a fairly high skill cap and to be thoroughly enjoyable.
The statement "hybrid is dead" refers to raiding. It's something people say to dissuade new players from the mind set of "well I can dps 50% and heal 50%", that just doesn't exist (and never has really). However as long as our specs fulfills the primary role of competitive DPS, any extra hybrid abilities are icing on the cake, that SHOULD be used when needed.
Originally Posted by Rammurg
As for GoAK, I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed it sometimes just..standing there, doing nothing. it seems to happen every now and then when there are several targets nearby.
I've had that several times. I've also had it run off and go attack a mob behind me, rather the one I'm closer to/have targeted and am running to. The makeshift solution is to only use GoAK when you're in melee range and actively hitting a mob.
Another minor annoyance with GoAK to be aware of is that when it runs out and "explodes", that explosion (Ancient Fury) can actually break CC.
Originally Posted by Danath
I *just* hit 85 and I'm wondering what to do with the spec. I too feel Zealotry and Divine Storm aren't competitive right now, even in the very levels before 85 it was already clear.
However, with such spec as this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft , I'm wondering if I'd better put a point into Eternal Glory instead of the usual An Eye for an Eye. If we have to lay some WoG onto others, a 15% chance of not wasting HPs doing that sounds interesting to me.
What do you think?
Zealotry not being slam dunk amazing is no reason to drop it out of your spec, it's still a damage increase. And if healing is what you're moving your points to, just remember that with Zealotry up, CS + WoG spam is one of the most beastly healing any offspec can do, enough to keep a tank up in most heroics without a healer.
12/11/10, 10:18 PM
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