Avalanche already procs off of spells (including Exorcism) and Censure ticks. This is probably just a tooltip update.

I really like the new mastery design, but somehow Holy Power generation feels really random now. It feels like I spend most of HP to refresh Inquisition and only rarely I have chance to use it for Templar's Verdicts. Then suddenly I get to spam TV 3 times row - when Divine Purpose gets crazy. Is this how it should work, or am I just missing something (not really missing, I'm hit and expertise capped) or just unlucky with HP gen?

HP generation is not random at all, its completely fixed. The only way to generate it is via Crusader Strike. So it's not random, it's just abysmally slow. I don't understand where you'd be seeing any randomness.

I think the issue here lies in the fact that as we get more Mastery, Crit's value will go up some, in proportion, cause a crit on a CS or TV transfers more damage into the Mastery payload.

And since reaching the 3sec Haste goal is near-impossible without a likely DPS hit with the new mastery, I don't think stacking Haste too high will be beneficial. We are liking looking at a relatively even balance, with a slight preference towards Mastery.

Indeed, but as I pointed out on other forums, after trying the PTR it becomes clear that as of now the result is too low sustained HP/damage and too high burst HP/damage.


As the others pointed out, the gaps are just too many and unnatural. Sometimes (aka when DP - old HoL - procs) we can spam TV, Inquisition, Zealotry one after another if we are lucky, for very high burst damage (thanks to new Mastery); other times, possibly too often, we are left with only CS generating HP with boring and slow gameplay, not to mention subpar damage since TVs happen a lot less in these periods.

I believe it's both. As I said above, the HP generation process is indeed abysmally slow on average but can get to abysmally high when the procs, or stars if you want, align with Divine Purpose - and this is indeed quite random.
When that happens, especially with Inquisition and Zealotry undispellable and the possible addition of Hammer of Wrath under wings, our damage can skyrocket leading to nerdrage cries in PvP and possibly sudden threat issues in PvE - but of course, when that doesn't happen we would be left with incredibly slow generation and mediocre damage at best over a sustained period.

That's why I previously said I agreed with Aviendha about the chance of Judgement generating 1HP, after discussing the same treatment for DS (which should be even more obvious, since it is linked with CS now). Those two changes could be enough to help lessening the DP random burst HP(damage) whilst increasing the consistent HP generation(damage), for a more balanced and fun gameplay.

I believe the lowered Holy Power generation on the 4.0.6 PTR is intended for a few reasons.

First and foremost, the Mastery change. We're gaining an effective 30%+ increased damage on Templar's Verdict and Crusader Strike (which is also getting buffed) and without major mechanical changes, they really can't tinker with the rate at which we use CS, so throttling HP lowers our TV numbers. For me personally, this is about a 50% drop in secondary (IE not CS) HP generation which cuts my number of TVs cast by roughly (surprise) 30%.

Secondly, the Seal of Truth change effectively gives Exorcism, HoW, and Judgement a free boost in damage and an incredibly good scalar mechanic for future tiers. The increase acts as a sort of DPS stabilizer since we're gaining on abilities we're going to be using anyway at relatively constant intervals. As to the scalar portion of the these spells, they have a weapon damage component on them all now provided you're using Seal of Truth. All in all, this change increases DPS and damage contribution from our fillers, meaning less burden is placed on TV to compensate, and therefore less HP generation is needed.

In the end, if 4.0.6 is a sufficient enough increase in DPS to bring Retribution to the Blizzard's desired point, a lowered HP generation by comparison to 4.0.3a doesn't necessarily matter, as it's more a departure in gameplay style than gameplay effectiveness. For a terrible example, a forklift and a bugatti both can move you from point A to point B, just one makes it a bit more fun.

What does concern me is how this design change decreases Haste's impact on Holy Power generation and how disproportionately bad Haste is for Retribution in terms of resource generation compared to the other melee specs. At least in terms of basic tangibility. I couldn't tell you how impactful 5% Haste (640~ Rating) on our HP generation whereas a Rogue could just plug it into a formula and tell me it yields X more energy over Y seconds. I guess my point is that Haste effects our generation in such a fashion that it requires player action whereas basically every effected spec gets it passively, and this patch is just bringing that to the forefront for me. Just an observation.

I redid my sheet and calculations for the newest patch information. The results:

1. Zealotry and AW can be combined, or not. The difference in dps varies from -30 to +40 depending on the exact timing and shows no consistent trend either way. I suspect the best possible use is to combine them during the last 20 seconds of GoAK and then to just use on cooldown after that.

2. Hurricane is still by far the best trinket from normal modes and slightly better than hardmodes, even after the nerf. It's proc should still be worth 450 dps after the patch (into 20k dps) which is over 200 str, much better than any other trinket. It is BIS until the next raiding tier comes out as far as I can tell.

3. The best rotation I could find was:

Inq
TV
CS
HoW
Exo
Judge
HW
Cons

However! The difference between moving HoW/Exo up and down through TV/CS was virtually nonexistent. Into 20k dps the difference between those rotations was less than 30 dps, which is so far below the margin of error that is can be safely ignored. Basically the different rotations are closer together than ever before so just make sure you use all the good attacks (HoW, Exo, Inq, CS, TV) before the bad ones (HW, Judge, Cons) and you are playing optimally. More precision than that isn't possible due to variances in gear/situation and modelling limitations.

4. Stat ranking. As best as I can tell, using the rotation described above, our stat weights:

Str - 222
Crit - 82
Haste - 80
Mastery - 82

Mastery goes down a little if you push Exo/HoW above CS/TV in priority, but only a few points. Haste is, as always, variable and changes noticeably with small tweaks to the model so the value for it is very challenging to set with any precision.

But are we actually CSing on cooldown? Other classes have passive resource regeneration; ours requires us to use a certain attack precisely on cooldown in order to reap the benefits of haste on our resources. And, unless something has changed, we only get to CS on cooldown when a- there was only one filler available after the previous CS or b- we use two spell fillers after the previous CS (neither of which is all that common).

This does seem a little bland, both playstyle and decisionwise. It basically comes down to this:

All secondary stats are equal - doesn't matter what you stack it's all the same
Our procs and abilities have the same place in the priority list - doesn't matter what you hit first it's all the same.
Cooldowns can be used separately or together - doesn't matter what you do it's all the same.

Where's the decisionmaking in this new incarnation of retribution?

Although what I'm a bit curious about is how we best utilize our 4P bonus now. Since we will run into a lot more deadspace in our rotation, the opportunity cost (1 GCD) of using Inq more often is almost eliminated. So both 1P and 2P inquisitions might actually become better, since they more efficiently take use of our holy power, with very limited cost. Is this possible to model yet? Regardless of of what the best option is, it would seem that 4P will become very useful with our limited HP generation, since you won't have to spend as much HP on refreshing it, which results in more TVs. Atleast in my limited testing on the PTR, I found dpsing without 4P completely horrible, compared to with it (the benefit is much more pronounced with the PTR system, than live).

A bit weird results. I'd like more difference between rotation as skill separating factor, but whatever. Anyway, with this "new" best rotation it would appear that, since CS & TV are above HoW and technically those are to be chained strictly under Zealotry, we should forgive HoW even during AW(+Zealotry) and just spam those two. Is that right?

I completely agree. It seems Blizzard lost where it was going with the new Retribution system, and the skill floor is rapidly approaching the skill cap now. As long as we're using 3 TV's and keeping Inq up, our rotation is becoming hit the blinky thing with less and less to show between perfect rotation and button mashing again. It's not quite as bad as Wrath, but it feels we're going backward now.

I do personally believe that the next tier will show higher disparities though. I might be overly optimistic, but I'm hoping that right now, in this tier, Ret's skill cap/floor will be closer, and as the tiers improve, our caps/floors will move apart as well. Unfortunately, as I test different secondary stat values myself, I become more and more discouraged. I had hoped there were sweet spots we had been overlooking with some ratings, but it seems more and more unlikely.

I tested very quickly Seal of Righteousness on the PTR and observed that none of the newly-SoT-proccing-and-Censure-stacking-attacks procced it.

I pondered that fact and concluded that SoR now loses greatly in importance (which was admittedly not that big before) and I don't think that it will be used much anymore, not even in heroics.
It's maximum efficiency is reached with 2 additional targets, grouped up close enough together. It's prime attribute and advantage over SoT was the lack of a ramp-up time, it's primary drawback not being able to crit and not scaling off weapon damage.
With the ramp-up of SoT now close to 3-4 seconds, the fact that it procs off nearly everything in addition to Censure damage in itself and finally the free expertise (which we all include in our calculations for the cap) and its innate ability to crit, I don't see many scenarios, where SoR might me superior to SoT.
It would have to be 3 targets that die very fast, not too high in level, or else, the damage combined of Censure and the many possibilities of SoT to proc and crit will pull ahead of SoR very fast.
If the adds live long enough, it would perhaps even be more intelligent to stack Censure on each of them.

I concede that all of this is not backed up by math, but I couldn't get appropriate conditions on the PTR (i.e.: 3 targets close together) to really go into SoR damage, nevertheless I wanted to primarily express my thought on this matter, as it wasn't discussed before.

The discussion of Holy Power and the rotation's "feel" has run its course. If you have further concerns or feedback, take it to the official forums. Let's get back to the math.

Actually, one point from the discussion that would be nice to see expanded upon: given that Holy Power is now considerably more scarce, what's the new break-even number of targets for Divine Storm? How would that change if Divine Storm did generate 1 HP? How does that picture change if we're able to have some HP in advance to put up Inquisition?

Where is Hit/Exp/AP sitting in your stat ranking now?

I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been any discussion about the Fury of Angerforge trinket. I'm new, so I apologize if I'm missing something extremely obvious, however an on-use trinket that has a cooldown which aligns with our DPS cooldowns (AV/Zealotry) and provides the same amount of strength as a ICD proc trinket (Heart of Rage, etc) makes it seem like a competitive trinket. I do not have the trinket and cannot test it, but has anyone on PTR been able to get their hands on it ever since the ICD on the stacks were lowered?

As long as hit/exp are more valuable than the other combat ratings and less valuable than strength their exact values have nearly zero bearing on gearing. Reforging lets you turn any extra into the combat rating of your choice, so they are basically worth the same as your best other combat rating (82 in this case).

AP's value is just another way of writing the value of strength. 1 strength give 1 * 1.05 *1.05 * 2 = 2.205 AP, so given a strength value of 222 you can easily derive the AP value (222 / 2.205 = ~101).

(Note: This is a very slight simplifications since it doesn't account for the extra boost you get from strength with GoAK, but I don't think either of the spreadsheets is currently modeling GoAK anyway).

Yes, but at the very least would these (slight, in the end) changes mean that 50 Mastery enchant is now better than 32 AP on Feet slot? Seems possible to me, taking for granted those stat weights.

I have this trinket and have tested it both on live and on the PTR.

On live it seems to be very restrictive and underwhelming regarding the ICD, the stacks regularly drop off since you have a 5 second window to refresh it (buff lasts 15 seconds and the ICD is 10 seconds). This becomes even more problematic on fights with any sort of break in damage dealing during those precious five seconds.

On the PTR, the ICD was lowered from 10 seconds to 7, which although better, is still not enough. You don't get the benefit of an on-use trinket that you can bundle with AW (unless the stars align), or a purely proc based buff that would be up for longer.

Assuming a stationary fight in which you always trigger the proc every 7 seconds, you can get this up 35 seconds into the fight but the on-use still shares a cool down with other on-use ones. The assumption that you can proc it every 7 seconds is pretty big too, since it only procs on melee attacks.

EDIT: I just logged on now and did a few rounds on the dummies and it seems the ICD is now 5 seconds.

IMO, the biggest problem about our damage output is the balance between our serious burst when all 3 cooldowns are used and the overal low level of damage after they fall off. Retribution paladin is actually able to pull some serious and competetive damage from cooldowns, especially from GoAK, on short high-damage phases, think of Magmaw's head or Ascendant Council 3rd phase; but just half a minute later our DPS can drop by 30-40%, especially if some movement or target change is involved.
The ptr' changes to SoT stacikng will address the issues with dynamic fights, I hope; however, i really don't see any positive changes to our burst/sustained DPS balance mechanics, and GoAK would be the best subject to such. There is no trouble with its design in general, but the difference between our damage with or without it is way too large.
Not to mention our aggro, which is somewhat high. Even though i don't put out as much DPS as other melee classes, aggro balance on burst phases can be very stressful even now, when tanks didn't (or can't yet) build enough agro on the target.

An obvious solution would be to nerf STR stacking from GoAK, but increase the duration (by some deep-placed Retribution talent) of the "pet".
Also, some passive reduction of our threat level would be fine, we don't have any since the 4.0.1 and the removal of Fanatism.

With the priority of CS moved up and the randomness in HP gen removed, should we still be using CS->2x filler->CS?
Otherwise we could have a sort of basic rotation with certain "soft" haste caps.
Unless my math is off, using a 3.5sec CS we could get away with using 2 3HoPw TV's during a 30sec inq (w/o 4pc T11) and then refreshing it right as it expires. This is, of course, assuming that divine purpose only procs when we'd be using a filler. (which isn't entirely impossible during several cycles)

For the people that are actually reading this forum gearing has always been trivialized. The Ret community here is robust and min/maxing is taken very seriously. Therefore at any given point the community knows exactly what stats/gear are the best and what is sub-optimal. Is it really such a bad thing that our secondary stats are relatively balanced? Hypothetically if crit suddenly became the best stat then everyone would gear/gem/enchant for crit to optimize their dps. However in truth the real determining factor for EJ ret paladin forum members wouldn't be their knowledge of the class, but rather the rng loot that drops week after week while farming bosses. If you didn't get your hypothetical crit gear drops then your knowledge of the class does nothing for your actual dps when compared to someone who got lucky with the loot table.

Making every stat relatively equal may lead to bland gearing choices, but given that every change to the spec is put to the mathematical grindstone it's not like there has ever been much of a decision (unless you count being at the mercy of a the rng loot table a decision). With the addition of reforging the individual stats of a piece of gear also lose a lot of importance when compared to previous expansions. The homogenizing of our dps rotation, like it was in wrath, is a much bigger threat to the difference of an average ret paladin and a great one then gear selection at this point in the game.

I'm unsure why you latched on to my post to create a semantic argument (or lecture me about a community I've been engaged in since SSC = day 1), it's one thing to know/understand the stat weights and cherry pick your items based on preferred stats (and reforge into superior stats if you get unlucky with drops) - read: "educated choice that makes an impact", it's another to be able to take ANY dps plate of a certain ilvl and being guaranteed that it's just as good as all the alternatives - read: "trivial gearing, choice has no impact".

"Is it really such a bad thing that our secondary stats are relatively balanced?" that's not what I said, maybe you should actually read what you quote.

As someone who used to juggle 4 different ranks of Consecration back in TBC, I agree that this is the bigger issue. I don't think being the bigger issue makes all other discussions taboo however.