It's curious that the 4 pc has no effect on Divine Storm, especially considering we lag so far behind most other classes in aoe anyway. I wonder how this will effect our choice of TV vs DS in aoe situations.

It's also interesting how they have commented on every class set bonus but ours. I can see changes incoming. I can see what they're trying to do here though - give good paladins more of an opportunity to outperform mediocre ones. Currently you can use pretty much any priority system you want and still end up with average dps.

It's almost like he answered the questions straight out of this thread..... including the commentary here on AE damage.

Very glad to see the mechanics clarified, particularily about the 4pc and whether the buff stacks. IMO, two paragraphs from GC carefully clarifying intended mechanics is a huge quality of life boost over sitting on a target dummy and extrapolating how the bonuses work. I like newstyle dev communication.

Anyways, it's very interesting that he commented at length on his thought process behind the single-target specific nature of this set bonus. I don't think I really have a problem with it. We aren't all that great at cleave anyways aside from very specific situations involving enough targets... seems to solidify our home in the single-target burst niche, particularily if our 4pc is purposefully made strong to counteract its lack of effect on ae.

One thing he did not comment on, was RNG. In other words, Exemplar's post a couple posts ago about how this will add a ton of variance back into our sustained damage. I'm concerned GC didn't comment on it since he clearly took care to address the AE concern - but the procciness complaint comes up so often; it was a quality of life issue for a lot of people in Cataclysm. I thought that some of the MOP changes, in particular the decision to allow us to spec in or out of DP, were made to help us feel less at the mercy of RNG. This seems like it's going back to that style of play with a vengeance. I personally never really minded it in Cataclysm and I don't have a problem with our bonuses, but I am sure not everyone agrees with that opinion. I wish he had shared his thoughts on that too.

He would've just said what he always does about RNG. They want a certain amount of "randomness" so that the game doesn't become too stale and predictable. That's understandable, despite how annoying it can be, as long as the RNG doesn't have a huge delta between the highs and lows.

It just sucks that we're losing the awesome T14 4 piece for something that in effect just increases the priority of one of our weakest abilities. 2min AW just seems to fit so many encounters perfectly that going back to 3min is going to be a bummer.

I got the t15 ret 4pc first implementation done in SimC today, still working on 2pc. It's freaking ridiculously strong. Without major optimization of the rotation with it, it's nearly as strong as the current 2pc/4pc combined with t14 heroic gear. Both t14 bonuses = 114k dps. T15 4pc only = 113k dps.

Waiting to push the changes to live SimC til I get the 2pc done.

I believe it was something like 8-10k dmg of that was from the bonus. I'll do the 0pc run again later to double check. Pain in the neck to get the 2pc implemented without the actual debuff spell id and associated data from ptr files to access. I may initially implement it as a buff on the player until that debuff is added, not sure yet.

Also note that about 10% of 4pc procs were wasted using SW in that test sim prioritizing CS > J at all times, standard TV usage. (Not prioritizing using TV with buff)

After reading GCs comments on the 4p, it raises some questions for me. He mentions the 4p procs as a buff on the player that is consumed by the next TV, but he failed to mention if that proc has a duration of any kind. I infer from his post that "wasted" procs would come in the form of having to use DS in heavy aoe situations or perhaps even in single target situations where you would be forced to cast two CS to get to 5hp and both CSs proc the buff before you are able to use a 5hp TV. Is my logic sound there?

So would that affect our TV usage relative to HP given the buff? For instance would it be better to use a buffed TV at three HP consuming the proc rather than getting up to 5 HP and possibly clipping it with another proc on your next CS? Furthermore, considering Balhales analysis of how SWs inherently wastes procs will this perhaps move HA into position as the talent of choice? As I commented some posts earlier, it woukd still seem DP would fall even farther behind than it does now . It seems like you would run into problems with wasting future DP procs by sitting on a proc yiu have now waiting for the 4p to come up. Moreover, if you didn't hold on to those procs and just used DP procs when they became available it seems like it would limit the number of CSs you would be able to cast in a given fight. Off base here?

New information from GC:

I'm having a difficult time trying to marry this post from three days ago:

"The Retribution 4pc does grant a self-buff that is consumed by the next TV, and does not stack. Wasting some procs is expected, and balanced around. Yes it is a single-target benefit that won't increase DPS on AE fights. We don't want to be in such a limited design space (we're talking about the 15th tier here after all) that every set bonus must be super generic and work in every situation. If anything, we'd rather the Ret bonus be even higher for single-target and paladins will just be stronger at single-target and weaker at AE once they have the set bonus than they are in other tiers. Set bonuses are one of the few chances we have to change what your character does (within reason) aside from all of your numbers just getting bigger."

With this change posted today:

"The Retribution 4pc set bonus has changed. It now has a chance for Hammer of the Righteous or Crusader Strike to cause your next Divine Storm to cause extra damage to your target. The idea being that you might swap from TV to DS when you get the proc, so that the RNG is something you can actually do something with rather than it just being RNG for extra damage."


Its just very confusing to me. In particular in that they say "you MIGHT swap from TV to DS when you get the proc". Shouldn't the design of a 4pc always want you to use it? Are they making the proc to DS so that it only affects your primary target? Because ultimately, they would have to make the proc buff DS to the point where it out damages TV for anyone to use it, and if they don't limit it to single target, then we may just go from one of the worst melee cleave dps to the best. And that directly contradicts their first statement from a few days ago.

I'm just very confused.

Well, that sucks. Much rather have the current bonus unless that chance is very high or the extra dmg is very high.

Cartavian is correct in their coverage. It does seem rather bipolar to say they're happy not to increase AOE, then within 24-48 hrs make it increase AOE damage.

I see two possibilities.

Possibility one:
4 piece performs as previously listed - CS gives 40% chance for buff. This buff is used up on your next TV or DS. If used on a TV that TV is all holy damage. If used on a DS that DS will 'cause extra damage to your target' beyond normal.

This means if you suddenly need to use DS, you are not penalized the bonus TV damage. On single target you'd still want that mega TV.

Possibility two:
4 piece no longer impacts TV. Instead when it procs you swap to DS because it does sufficient 'extra damage to your target' sufficient to be better than TV on a single target. Thus something to change the priority when it procs.

This possibility is worrisome, as if DS somehow does more damage than TV on single target then it would be rather crazy on multi-target. Also it would need to not just do more than TV, but enough more to be worth a 4 piece bonus (8-10k-ish bonus DPS?). That would be a mighty powerful DS.

P.S. To my last topic - RNG. If 4 piece is worth about 8k DPS, you could have variance from 0 (no procs, RNG nightmare) to 16k (everything procs, RNG dream). Up to 16k out of 113k is over 14% variance. Even a more reasonable +/-4k (8k total variance) is 7% of total damage. That's a hell of a lot of possible DPS difference from pull to pull.

I find the whole idea behind this entire change lacks any elegance at all. It's just so counter intuitive to use a set bonus to proc the prioritization of an AoE ability over your hardest hitting finisher for a single target. It would be like having a warrior proc uses of cleave instead of execute.

I personally don't mind the RNG aspect of a set bonus as long as the variance isn't so astronomical as Exemplar pointed out.