Retribution DPS Theorycraft - Page 112

Prinsesa · 03/12/08, 11:54 PM

Ok, mechanics question - and maybe I've missed the answer in these pages - but, I've read several different takes on Hammer of Wrath and it resetting/pushing back the melee swing timer... IE, the poster just below flyingtoastr referred to it as a swing reset, but flyingtoastr referred to it as a melee pushback.

It's a swing timer reset.

If you have a 3.60 speed weapon, this is what autoattacking looks like if you never touch anything:

T - 0.00: Autoattack
T + 3.60: Autoattack
T + 7.20: Autoattack

This is what autoattacking looks like if you cast Hammer of Wrath 0.5 seconds after your autoattack:

T - 0.00: Autoattack
T + 0.50: Start casting Hammer of Wrath
T + 1.00: Finish casting Hammer of Wrath, swing timer resets to 0
T + 4.60: Autoattack

This is what autoattacking looks like if you cast Hammer of Wrath immediately after your autoattack:

T - 0.00: Autoattack, start casting Hammer of Wrath
T + 0.50: Finish casting Hammer of Wrah, swing timer resets to 0
T + 4.10: Autoattack

Keep in mind that the third scenario would require the reflexes of a Mongoose coupled with a computer that's situated right inside Blizzard's server farm, and it STILL wouldn't produce even a marginal DPS increase, if at all.

First, can we get a clarification on this, and second, under what hypothetical situations/changes to the talent (Besides making it instant, as I doubt blizz would be that generous) would make it viable in PvE settings? If you're using a slow enough weapon is it possible to work it in as you would with a Slam rotation for Warriors?

Slam can work for Warriors because the lost swing time is returned as a proportion of their weapon's damage anyway, especially since Slam is unnormalized. Assuming they don't make it instant, other options would be:

1. Simply, to make HOW not be a DPS loss, increase the damage! Like the Judgement of Command and Judgement of Blood, Hammer of Wrath is barely hitting for more than its base damage, because it's still scaling off non-existent spell damage.

2. Make the set bonus apply to something else - even the T4 Protection set bonus would be better than this (although it should also include Seal of Command, obviously).

flyingtoastr · 03/13/08, 1:32 AM

Originally Posted by Rodimus Prime

Ok, mechanics question - and maybe I've missed the answer in these pages - but, I've read several different takes on Hammer of Wrath and it resetting/pushing back the melee swing timer... IE, the poster just below flyingtoastr referred to it as a swing reset, but flyingtoastr referred to it as a melee pushback.

As Prinsesa said, it is a complete reset. I only use the word pushback for aesthetic reasons (it sounds nicer). Also *technically* if you did want to use it it would be directly following an autoswing so it would act the same as a straight up .5 second pushback.

Everything else above is spot on.

Antiock · 03/13/08, 8:43 AM

Originally Posted by Nhul

Yes I agree, our first shot at him I underestimated the impact the mark would have on my mana pool and nearly killed the tank and have never been close since. Tonight I dont think I dipped under 3500 mana or so, and was able to maintain decent dps but was wondering if there is something other then stacking shadow resist that I could do personally.

Last night I forgot my shadow resist gear like a dumbass and ended up switching to my 1h tanking weapon for about 30 seconds, which attacks much faster, and turned on SoW. It gimped my dps somewhat, but nobody blew up.

Kazekan · 03/13/08, 8:33 PM

Thanks a bunch for the replies guys, especially Noth with the WWS reports and group layout. I really appreciate it.

I just picked up my TotD last night finally (yay!) so now I have an even better chance of performing how I want to. It's good to know that Rawr is pretty close to in-game #'s at least on non-gimic fights. That'll help me to know what I should be putting out abouts.

With my gear right now, with full raid buffs and debuffs on the mob (save FF and CoR...*sigh*), I sit at about 1250 DPS on Rawr. One of the officers said that if they ever saw a Ret pally do 1200 DPS they'd take them in a second... so it'd be pretty hilarious to get even close to that number with my limited time playing as Ret. If nothing else it gives me hope!

Cheers.

P.S. - No word yet on the T6 4-piece bonus, however I'll be seeing my buddies tomorrow in person so I'll ask them then.

Nhul · 03/13/08, 10:22 PM

Thanks for the idea's on Kaz'rogal folks, the 1h/SoW trick and BoS sound like something to try so I can squeeze a bit more dps out. :]

Lïnk · 03/14/08, 1:56 AM

So i've been using rawr to help me compare what gear would be the best upgrade. But i saw this topic on cromfel's forum Cromfel.Battlefield.fi Forums-viewtopic-Cataclysm's Edge vs. Torch of the Damned
But no matter what kind of gear setup I have or if i have over 500 armor penetration mongoose is still the best main hand weapon enchant according to Rawr. I'm just curious what u guys think about that and if mongoose still is superior enchant to executioner with my gear setup. Hopefully its updated to my ret set i had to go holy today =O

Anarkii · 03/14/08, 2:31 AM

I'm satisfied overall with the mongoose vs executioner comparison in Rawr and I think its pretty accurate. For Blood Elves, executioner will be about equal to mongoose at low boss armor and stacked ArP gear.

Antishekka · 03/14/08, 11:05 AM

ok, my guild is currently progressing in bt, with me as ret palladin, and on some bosses, we need 1 more healer, gortug for example, due to taking in 8 healers. then my question really is, is off-spec healing as retri worth it? or should i just spec holy for the boss..? (witch really aint in my mind)

bomzix · 03/14/08, 1:10 PM

Assuming you do have good healing gear, you can spam FL/HL on the MT for nice HPS. However they better not count on you to save the day. I'd try for mana regen gear if you have a choice since crit isn't doing anything for u without the talents.

Antishekka · 03/14/08, 1:54 PM

an off healer shouldnt be needed for that with a tree in the raid.. they set me to heal raid..............

xellos · 03/14/08, 2:05 PM

You can do Gurtogg fine with 7 healers even on progression. You'll probably have to chug mana pots even just FoL spamming if you ret off-heal during Gurtogg. I'm not sure that's worth the dps loss. Basically it comes down to how good your healers are or how much confidence your raid leaders have in them. We did it with 7 and I was dpsing...not off-healing.

SomeoneRandom · 03/14/08, 3:51 PM

Whenever I offer to off-heal in raids, I usually slap myself on a tank and put on my maximized +heal and mp5 gear and just spam FOL on a tank =\ I can still output good enough HPS as ret that its not an issue... My only real problem is that after raiding as a healer for so long even when I am not spec'd holy I don't trust people and I end up having to chain chug from using HL and what not. :P The new Alch Stone will help my healing set tons

Too bad I wont be getting the melee one hehe

As for Gurtogg.. hes one of the fights where dps isn't an issue especially on your first kill... sure you could take 7 healers, but your risking losing a fel rage target and having shit go to hell... personally I would rather he live for 20-30 seconds longer and just bring 9 healers (or have me + a feral druid heal) and have no chance of wiping :P

♦ Theras · 03/14/08, 4:10 PM

I'm not a big fan of healer stacking, even on fights where it's possible to do so. On Gurtogg, for example, you absolutely stand a better chance of keeping Fel Rage targets alive if you bring ten healers or something equally ridiculous, but when it comes at the price of having the fight last 25% longer you end up with 25% more chances for somebody to screw up Bloodboil, or stand in a wall during Fel Rage, or pull aggro and get all of the casters Malowned. You absolutely do stand to have soul-crushing wipes even when you stack the deck on your healing team.

Aggro pulling is especially dangerous on Gurtogg, since the tanks pretty rapidly threat plateau from the Knock Away, and as the fight goes longer a lot of classes (all DPS Shaman, Paladins, Warriors, Priests, and Druids) are forced to either stand there with their thumbs up their asses or risk the deaths of them and everybody else. You're really better off encouraging your healers to perform on the healer check fights than coddle them and put all the burden on your DPS and tanks.

Khaelarys · 03/14/08, 5:15 PM

Question about RAWR. <Fantastic tool, btw. thank you, for it and for the spread sheet.>

I couldn't find anywhere in the app where I could easily view the formulas you use, but I had a question about expertise.

Do you calculate the value of expertise for a given item assuming that it prevents both parries or dodges, or does it calculate assuming you're behind the mob like a good monkey and it only calculates dodge? Would this be an option you might add in a future release?

Astrylian · 03/14/08, 5:48 PM

Ah, cool, didn't know you had released a beta of Rawr.Ret yet. Looks like it's coming along well!

Let me know if there's anything missing from the framework that ya need me to add.

Ragnor · 03/14/08, 5:53 PM

Originally Posted by Antishekka

ok, my guild is currently progressing in bt, with me as ret palladin, and on some bosses, we need 1 more healer, gortug for example, due to taking in 8 healers. then my question really is, is off-spec healing as retri worth it? or should i just spec holy for the boss..? (witch really aint in my mind)

Healing as ret as just retarded, just respec. I respec at least twice a week between holy and ret depending on availability of good healers for the harder or more healing intensive fights.

You can cover the cost of respec'ing very easily with 30-60min of farming motes of air in nagrand (woo engineering), normally 60min will give you at least 5 primal air, which sell for 20g each at least on my server aka a quick 100g.

Ragnor · 03/14/08, 6:02 PM

Originally Posted by Theras

Aggro pulling is especially dangerous on Gurtogg, since the tanks pretty rapidly threat plateau from the Knock Away, and as the fight goes longer a lot of classes (all DPS Shaman, Paladins, Warriors, Priests, and Druids) are forced to either stand there with their thumbs up their asses or risk the deaths of them and everybody else. You're really better off encouraging your healers to perform on the healer check fights than coddle them and put all the burden on your DPS and tanks.

3 tanks and 8 healers is a good balance for the fight imo.

I find on gurtogg if you drop exorcism and consecration out of your rotation for most of the normal phase you should be fine threat wise and do ~1000dps for those phases. Then during fel rage phases use everything, pop avenging wrath + haste potion + with heroism/bloodlust. Overall for the fight you'll end up at over 1200 dps.

♦ Theras · 03/14/08, 7:09 PM

Originally Posted by Ragnor

3 tanks and 8 healers is a good balance for the fight imo.

I find on gurtogg if you drop exorcism and consecration out of your rotation for most of the normal phase you should be fine threat wise and do ~1000dps for those phases. Then during fel rage phases use everything, pop avenging wrath + haste potion + with heroism/bloodlust. Overall for the fight you'll end up at over 1200 dps.

Hey, I drop Exorcism from my rotation on Gurtogg, too!

But seriously though, I was talking more about Gurtogg strategy in general, than specific Ret Paladin strategies for the encounter. But that's some pretty good advice for staying not dead on Gurtogg. It unfortunately doesn't work for a lot of other classes (DPS Warriors in particular, and Shadow Priests to a lesser extent) which makes the threat plateau a real concern if you're dropping a fifth of your DPS for healers. Three tanks and eight healers is a pretty decent balance.

flyingtoastr · 03/14/08, 7:57 PM

I did Bloodboil for the first time as ret last week, so I was a little worried about threat (and held back a lot). It is excellent to be able to blow AW ever other Fel Rage though.

I was thinking about threat generation though, and would it be a good idea to have the ret pally grouped with a prot pally for the fight? Assuming the tanking group and the melee group both have shamans for Windfury (which they should), would the other smaller losses of personal DPS be balanced by the higher threat ceiling?

• Chicken · 03/14/08, 8:01 PM

Speaking from my own experience tanking the fight as a Prot Paladin, the last thing I want in it is even more aggro. Gurtogg's effective "Dual Wielding without the miss rate" makes Holy Shield threat extremely high, and makes it so I have to hold back unless I want to get way too many stacks of Acidic Wounds.

Myul · 03/14/08, 8:47 PM

Originally Posted by flyingtoastr

I was thinking about threat generation though, and would it be a good idea to have the ret pally grouped with a prot pally for the fight? Assuming the tanking group and the melee group both have shamans for Windfury (which they should), would the other smaller losses of personal DPS be balanced by the higher threat ceiling?

If you have aggro sensible melee classes on this fight and an enhancement shaman is avaible, he should really twist wf/tranquil air totem. Without it our fury and our arms warriors had serious aggro management problems and hold back for most of the fight. Now it's very doable for both, shouldn't be very different for you retadins.

If you have only restoration shamans avaible, tranquil air totem for the bloodboil phase and wf in the fel rage phase (rogues should get poison on the mainhands) could be the way to go.

Buliwyf · 03/14/08, 10:38 PM

During Gurtog is the only time I heal, and even then it's only during rage when the squishies attract attention, the rest of the time, I never heal. It's a waste of a raid slot to have a ret paladin heal, Either swap in a proper healer, or let the Ret Paladin fight.

flyingtoastr · 03/15/08, 6:18 PM

BAH!

The Season 4 Sword was nerfed slightly. Plugging it into the spreadsheet is giving me a few DPS lower than Apolyon. Still, with the lack of hit rating and the slower speed I'm still personally leaning towards grinding out an 1850 on my 3v3 again.

EDIT: For those of you who can't look at giant pictures I'll rip off Theras' pretty little code. Old stats from last version are in red.

Brutal Gladiator's Greatsword
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand           Speed 3.60
(140.3 damage per second) (144.4)
+66 Stamina (69)
+50 Strength (52)
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves your critical strike rating by 50. (52)
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 33.
Equip: Improves your hit rating by 19. (21)
Equip: Your attacks ignore 98 of your opponent's armor.

Buliwyf · 03/15/08, 6:29 PM

Bad news for some, Good news for others I guess. I'll never make 1850 Arena rating, but I have a realistic chance of getting Apolyon. I'm not good with the math but I was under the impression that Apolyon was some way ahead of the S4 sword no?

flyingtoastr · 03/15/08, 6:39 PM

Originally Posted by Buliwyf

Bad news for some, Good news for others I guess. I'll never make 1850 Arena rating, but I have a realistic chance of getting Apolyon. I'm not good with the math but I was under the impression that Apolyon was some way ahead of the S4 sword no?

For Blood Elves Apolyon destroys the S4 sword. This really only applies to those of us who hate fast weapons stacked with haste.