That is true but Retribution, luckily, isn't a PvE-only tree and AoW was imbalanced for DPS purposes as it was. We should still see how will be our damage with Imp Bom, Righteous Vengeance and AoW-lack changes...Also, remember that Divine Plea will clearly help us in PvE dps.
Imbalanced, you say? Paladins finally did decent DPS.
Decent DPS? There were 18k JoC screenshots and videos, come on, how can you say that was balanced?
Fairly easily actually. Depends on if we're talking about a sustained DPS or a burst damage scenario. It was very strong as a burst of damage certainly, but in a sustained scenario it only averaged out to a ~20% increase to Judgement damage. The talent could fairly easily have kept it's sustained increase while getting rid of it's high burst by tweaking the proc rate and damage bonus.
buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of
Fairly easily actually. Depends on if we're talking about a sustained DPS or a burst damage scenario. It was very strong as a burst of damage certainly, but in a sustained scenario it only averaged out to a ~20% increase to Judgement damage. The talent could fairly easily have kept it's sustained increase while getting rid of it's high burst by tweaking the proc rate and damage bonus.
Ok, that is more reasonable. I would have loved something like "When you hit a critical strike with Judgement spells, you gain 10%/20%/30% melee haste for the next 3 swings", but still...Yes, we lost DPS here but we gained a powerful PvP talent...And we gained some DPS with other skills/talents. So, I maintain the assumption that Ret Paladins are in a good position for WOTLK.
I have to say I really don't care about pvp. I'm reduced to wearing pieces of leather now to boost my dps. I'm squishy in pvp and don't enjoy it a whole lot. There needs to be enough to satisfy BOTH PvP and PvE paladins without either being forced to take stuff that is irrelevant to their given goals.
This may be off topic but it seems that paladins are becoming less hybrid and more like every other class. I'm not in the beta but here are some observations from the outside. WoLK is giving us mimic talents of other classes:
-A targetable tranquility (Druid)
-A party/raid mana restore (S. Priest)
-An Evocation (Mage)
-A Healing Ignite (Mage)
-A Shield wall with a shorter cooldown (Warr)
-A Shield Slam (Warr)
I guess a lot of the things we have been whining for are coming true, but it seems like these abilities are just ripoffs from other classes.
I am still not sure how Divine Guardian will work if the paladin is tanking something unless the boss channels raid aoe while untargeting the paladin etc.
Ret looks like it still might get nerfed, but I am really exited about the changes to the spec, especially Divine Storm. I already have a pally tank lined up to run with to 80 =)
One more thing which hasn't been mentioned: While it sucks to lose a pve talent for a pvp one, depending on whether the new AoW works with making Hand of Freedom make you immune to stuns (or just remove it), it might be an added raid utility for retadins (retadin = can remove stuns from tanks).
This is a great point that seems to be overlooked by most people so far. It's obviously a very situational DPS utility, but for those PVE situations where the MT can be stunned by hard hitting bosses, this talent would be extremely powerful. Depending on how Blizzard designs PVE encounters in WotLK, the new Art of War could very well end up being an absolutely mandatory PVE talent.
I would say though that if they are going to leave it with its current function, that they should increase the damage reduction to 6%. The immunity to stuns is powerful but very situational, and the passive effect of only 3% reduced damage is pretty weak for a 9th tier talent.
I can't see the devs making encounters that require a ret paladin to remove stuns from tanks. It opens too many problems for all those raids that don't take a ret Paladin. To force them all to do so just because of one little mechanic will just cause way too much disruption. Yeah it might seem nice when you look at it in the way of "only we can do it". As we have learned though, that helps to exclude classes, not include them. It's a pvp talent, and that's it.
I can't see the devs making encounters that require a ret paladin to remove stuns from tanks. It opens too many problems for all those raids that don't take a ret Paladin. To force them all to do so just because of one little mechanic will just cause way too much disruption. Yeah it might seem nice when you look at it in the way of "only we can do it". As we have learned though, that helps to exclude classes, not include them. It's a pvp talent, and that's it.
Just because a boss stuns the MT doesn't mean you would be REQUIRED to bring a Ret Paladin. For example, you can easily do Vashj without a shaman in the MT group, but it sure makes things alot simpler if the MT has a grounding totem (which equates to stun immunity in that fight). There are a handful of other TBC fights where tanks get stunned, and face a significantly higher risk of dying. Unless they drastically change the way they design PVE encounters, being able to remove stuns from a MT is going to be a very powerful (although very situational) tool. I agree that it's extremely unlikely that Blizzard would design encounters that require a Ret Paladin in order to beat them, but that doesn't mean that the talent is purely for PVP and useless in PVE.
There have always been bosses that can stun the tank, and I don't see any reason to expect that to change. Stunned tanks always face higher risk of death, since they can't dodge, parry or block. So the ability to make the MT immune to stuns is likely going to be a very powerful utility on certain PVE fights.
Re: HoF removing stuns being relevant to PvE... I doubt it'll be a talent worth taking for PvE if they give you anything else remotely worth it, but there already is an example of how it could be PvE-useful... Sathrovarr. (edit: Oh, yeah, Vashj too)
Given the load of points a ret paladin ends up with after filling in all available pve damage talents, there's really no reason to not pick up AoW, no matter how marginal the actual raid utility it provides is. It will still be more useful than EfE or Vindication in PvE, so you might as well sink some points in there. Not to mention the added DR, for fights like the Eredar Twins or any other heavy raid damage encounter.
Given the load of points a ret paladin ends up with after filling in all available pve damage talents, there's really no reason to not pick up AoW, no matter how marginal the actual raid utility it provides is. It will still be more useful than EfE or Vindication in PvE, so you might as well sink some points in there. Not to mention the added DR, for fights like the Eredar Twins or any other heavy raid damage encounter.
3% less damage is nice, but Vindication is now 20% less stats and procs more often. At least it affects Muru's adds health, so it can be useful in PvE if a boss has adds and helps on trash if it has a ton of health.
3% less damage is nice, but Vindication is now 20% less stats and procs more often. At least it affects Muru's adds health, so it can be useful in PvE if a boss has adds and helps on trash if it has a ton of health.
Get em both! I just threw together a build including full benediction and every other dps and longevity talent available and was left with 5 floater points. If SoC turns out to be good damage I guess you might be left with 4, but we don't know enough about intended mana gains/losses at 80 to determine whether Benediction will be necessary either. There are plenty of points to toss around.
Reality: Divine Storm cost me something like 684 mana when I used it last night. Costs are not fixed. Since JotWise is broken and only giving me mana, it's hard to tell what the end situation will be mana-wise while I'm sharing it with two others.
Divine Plea - great idea, but channeled? That helps nobody; maybe ret. Tanks can't. Healers can't. Ret can at the cost of dps time.
Judgement GCD seems to make Holy spell haste on judgement worthless. You're trading one GCD for two, basically.
Tonight I'll see what my dps is looking like. In live I was at around 750-800 (kara gear). Initially in Beta without using bugged JoJ I was doing 1100-1200, using JoJ I was doing 2000-2200. If I do around 1000 tonight I'll be pleased. It means we got enough of a DPS buff to be competitive.
JUICE! Aww I'm sorry. Did... did anyone want some juice?
It is now in Enlightened Judgements (40 Holy Talent that gives 20 more yards on Judgement) giving 4% melee/spell hit. I thought Judgements never "miss" so adding hit there may have been a mistake.
Perhaps it was intended so a Holy Pally can dps decently in healing gear, not having to worry about as many missed attacks.
I thought Judgements never "miss" so adding hit there may have been a mistake.
I'm actually not entirely certain how it works now with the new mechanics, and haven't heard of any testing on the subject. Currently on live debuff Judgements never miss, but damage dealing Judgement do miss*. In Wrath of the Lich King however, there is no more separation between these Judgement types; all debuff Judgements are also the damage dealing Judgements, and even if used with a non-damage seal the Judgement effect still deals damage.
I've not heard of anyone having misses on their Judgements in Wrath of the Lich King, but rumors say that it's now possible to completely get rid of misses with spells just like with melee abilities, so it could just be because all testing Paladins have enough hit in their gear to get rid of it's miss chance.
* Excepting Judgement of Blood for some odd reason.
Last edited by Chicken : 07/29/08 at 7:03 PM.
Reason: More consistent capitalization.
buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of
Reality: Divine Storm cost me something like 684 mana when I used it last night.
Divine Plea - great idea, but channeled? That helps nobody; maybe ret. Tanks can't. Healers can't. Ret can at the cost of dps time.
Judgement GCD seems to make Holy spell haste on judgement worthless. You're trading one GCD for two, basically.
Your quoted poster was looking at rank 1 of each ability, so that is why the costs were so low.
Healers can take time to use Divine Plea (although they may not get the full use of it) since Holy has 3 instant heals. If the tank is off-tanking the boss he can fully use it, and even tanking can use it to get at least one tic at the cost of losing avoidance.
Judgement takes a GCD, but the 10% haste is for 30 seconds. Again, a healer can stop for the GCD once in a while.
Even if you have to put up a Seal before using Judgement, Seals last for 2 minutes so you only need an extra GCD a few times.
I used blessing of freedom on the tank at Vashj, and having a shaman in the tank group (for WF and or GoA) giving grounding totem beats this talent every time.
I'm actually not entirely certain how it works now with the new mechanics, and haven't heard of any testing on the subject. Currently on live debuff Judgements never miss, but damage dealing Judgement do miss*. In Wrath of the Lich King however, there is no more separation between these Judgement types; all debuff Judgements are also the damage dealing Judgements, and even if used with a non-damage seal the Judgement effect still deals damage.
I've not heard of anyone having misses on their Judgements in Wrath of the Lich King, but rumors say that it's now possible to completely get rid of misses with spells just like with melee abilities, so it could just be because all testing Paladins have enough hit in their gear to get rid of it's miss chance.
* Excepting Judgement of Blood for some odd reason.
Someone speculated it's for Holy Shock, etc. in PVP for nukes, etc.
JUICE! Aww I'm sorry. Did... did anyone want some juice?
I used blessing of freedom on the tank at Vashj, and having a shaman in the tank group (for WF and or GoA) giving grounding totem beats this talent every time.
You're missing the point by a mile. Grounding Totem on Vashj was just an example of a fight where it is useful to give the MT a stun immunity. Use of the current version of BoF on Vashj is meant to deal with a completely different mechanic (the roots), and is irrelevant. In WotLK, HoF with AoW would achieve the same thing as Grounding on Vashj, except it would work against other bosses that stun, such as Sathrovarr's Corrupting Strike.
If you're hung up on the grounding totem comparison, just think of how useful AoW would be right now on the Kalecgos fight. Liberal use of HoF on the demon realm tank would prevent countless MT deaths when learning the fight and give you a very powerful edge, but obviously the fight would not "require" a Ret Paladin, seeing as everyone is able to still beat the fight now by healing thru the damage - and even with AoW, you would still be required to often heal thru the damage on a stunned tank, since the Ret Paladin can't be in the demon realm full time.
Before more time is wasted on discussing stun immunity, I posted about this in the other thread, seems HoW does not make you stun immune, it just removes stun if you cast it on a stunned target (including yourself). Pretty underwhelming.
I think the hit for Holy was to give them a bit of a reason to:
A) Melee a boss for JoW procs in downtime
B) Allow them to use some sort of offensive Judgement while keeping up their haste buff reasonably effectively
It really doesn't have much to do with ret though.
07/29/08, 11:23 AM
