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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Edit: Beaten by Babathong.

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.

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.

What do you think?

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.