After hopping on the ptr and smacking my way around Atamal terrace for an hour or so, I have a few observations to make.
First of all, ret is going to take a nerf. I was fighting groups of 16-30 mobs (levels 69-70) without actually losing health or mana, and they were dying *fast*. Those are prot numbers, but with ret dps. Our dps isn't far from where it should be, if it needs a change at all, but the scaling of our self-healing is a little wacky; in ret gear, my healing numbers were beating my live (holy) paladin in holy gear. SoL and JoL were getting a little crazy (and the reason I could take such large numbers) - hitting for 650 and 400 respectively - and with 600 spell power, my FoLs (every 5-6 seconds) were hitting for ~1200 each.
My HL were hitting for 3500, in ret gear, and with a couple pieces of holy gear (legs and gloves), I could spam it continuously by judging every 8s. I would have been very comfortable healing a heroic, and would never have had to drink. Now, I think that a healer that plays this way would be a *great* idea, and if they took most of the current ret tree and made it the holy tree, I'd be pretty happy about it,, but balance-wise it won't fly to merge a dps tree and healing tree like that.
If the devs are understanding our issues, the coefficient for SoL and JoL will be reduced, JotW will have to scale on base mana, and the sheath coefficient will be reduced (by about half, I'm guessing). But we'll still rock. If they don't... well, you all remember how that goes.
3.0 will be capped at 70 for at most a month, Season 4 will come to an end before 3.0 hits and once Wrath hits we'll be levelling anyway. Because of this I really don't want to see calls for nerfs based upon Ret's state on the PTR. If we are over the line at 80 in the Beta then knocking us down a notch or two would be fine, but balancing around lvl70 output at this stage could easily cause those abilities to scale inadequately at 80.
Ret Paladins of course caught the nerf bat before 2.0 was even on the PTR, but had to wait a very long time before the tree reached the stage it is on Live. I'd hate to see the same happen in 3.0 because of overzealous calls from the PTR which is not, it has to be said, a particularly controlled testing environment for balance purposes.
We're a bit OP at 70, but we're most definitely not at 80.
As to the healing numbers, that's largely because of the amplified coefficients and the way Blessing of Light has been rolled into all healing spells. You can't compare 3.0 Retri healing to live Holy healing, you'll have to compare it to 3.0 Holy.
After hopping on the ptr and smacking my way around Atamal terrace for an hour or so, I have a few observations to make.
First of all, ret is going to take a nerf. I was fighting groups of 16-30 mobs (levels 69-70) without actually losing health or mana, and they were dying *fast*. Those are prot numbers, but with ret dps. Our dps isn't far from where it should be, if it needs a change at all, but the scaling of our self-healing is a little wacky; in ret gear, my healing numbers were beating my live (holy) paladin in holy gear. SoL and JoL were getting a little crazy (and the reason I could take such large numbers) - hitting for 650 and 400 respectively - and with 600 spell power, my FoLs (every 5-6 seconds) were hitting for ~1200 each.
My HL were hitting for 3500, in ret gear, and with a couple pieces of holy gear (legs and gloves), I could spam it continuously by judging every 8s. I would have been very comfortable healing a heroic, and would never have had to drink. Now, I think that a healer that plays this way would be a *great* idea, and if they took most of the current ret tree and made it the holy tree, I'd be pretty happy about it,, but balance-wise it won't fly to merge a dps tree and healing tree like that.
If the devs are understanding our issues, the coefficient for SoL and JoL will be reduced, JotW will have to scale on base mana, and the sheath coefficient will be reduced (by about half, I'm guessing). But we'll still rock. If they don't... well, you all remember how that goes.
There will be no int on lvl 80 ret gear so your comment about base mana on JotW is unfounded. Before you object to being able to kill lower level mobs without downtime I must ask whether you have ever leveled a feral druid, hunter or warlock because that is exactly how they work. What is it about the paladin class that makes leveling in this manner unacceptable?
There will be no int on lvl 80 ret gear so your comment about base mana on JotW is unfounded. Before you object to being able to kill lower level mobs without downtime I must ask whether you have ever leveled a feral druid, hunter or warlock because that is exactly how they work. What is it about the paladin class that makes leveling in this manner unacceptable?
yes, I have leveled a warlock, and no, that's not quite how they work.
Warlocks have very little down-time, due to the "Pet takes the damage" ability. Same with hunters. Druids have almost no downtime because they have seperate rage/mana bars. What they do with one doesn't affect the other.
There's nothing wrong with being able to go forever, mana-wise, or being able to top yourself off while heading to the next mob. Taking on absurdly large packs of mobs, in a spec that should be less effective at doing so vs. Prot, is slightly askew.
Prot is made to reflect a ton of damage, and absorb/mitigate a ton of damage. AOEing down large groups of mobs should work for them.
Ret is made to deal Large amounts of damage to small amounts of creatures. AOEing down large groups of mobs should *NOT* work for them. Just as you wouldn't see a warrior doing the same thing (They have health-restoring abilities) or druids doing the same thing (they can heal), you would not expect to see Ret doing the same thing.
Would I be correct in assuming that the ability to do this is based off of 2 things? JoL/SoL returing large amounts of health. Instant-FoL's being able to top off whatever you don't get from JoL/SoL.
If so, The problem seems to lie in the fact that DS can proc seals on all targets, yet SoL does not have an internal cooldown. Even .5 a second would be enough to negate this 'over-powered' healing from DS. It heals on Damage. It heals on SoL from every target. It heals on JoL (1 to 2 targets, most likely. 4 is possible).
Do any of these healing abilities have an internal cooldown? I don't believe so. And i assume we will be seeing one on them shortly, just like JoW.
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<zyl> Actually, I do like my paladin. He's fun to play, but don't tell Chaith.
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<zyl> ....
<zyl> I pressed enter half a second after you logged on.
3.0 will be capped at 70 for at most a month, Season 4 will come to an end before 3.0 hits and once Wrath hits we'll be levelling anyway. Because of this I really don't want to see calls for nerfs based upon Ret's state on the PTR. If we are over the line at 80 in the Beta then knocking us down a notch or two would be fine, but balancing around lvl70 output at this stage could easily cause those abilities to scale inadequately at 80.
Ret Paladins of course caught the nerf bat before 2.0 was even on the PTR, but had to wait a very long time before the tree reached the stage it is on Live. I'd hate to see the same happen in 3.0 because of overzealous calls from the PTR which is not, it has to be said, a particularly controlled testing environment for balance purposes.
I was predicting, rather than 'calling' exactly.. I agree that they shouldn't balance us entirely around level 70, I just don't think they can pull that off. If I were talking about scaling at 80, I'd have posted in the wotlk thread (well, I did, but deleted it). It is totally necessary that they balance us both at 70 AND at 80. One month of people not enjoying the game because their character is basically worthless compared to another one is two months too many (including the anticipation time).
As to the healing numbers, that's largely because of the amplified coefficients and the way Blessing of Light has been rolled into all healing spells. You can't compare 3.0 Retri healing to live Holy healing, you'll have to compare it to 3.0 Holy.
I basically was. There are no great gains for holy in 3.0 so far, unless the 'double healing on the tank' issue with beacon doesn't get fixed. A holy paladin would *definitely* trump a retadin's healing output, but being able to never run out of mana is too powerful. And the advantage scales with fight length.
here will be no int on lvl 80 ret gear so your comment about base mana on JotW is unfounded. Before you object to being able to kill lower level mobs without downtime I must ask whether you have ever leveled a feral druid, hunter or warlock because that is exactly how they work. What is it about the paladin class that makes leveling in this manner unacceptable?
I have all three, actually. And yes, they can all kill with little or no downtime. The warlock can even kill as many as *two* at a time that way. My retadin was killing them in groups of 24 by the time I was used to the abilities, never losing health or mana. 24 mobs in ~60 seconds. That's what makes leveling in this manner unacceptable.
As far as int on gear is concerned, I couldn't spam HL with no int. That was my point. I had to put on two pieces of holy gear to do it. Scaling on base instead of total wouldn't hurt the retadin much while dpsing, but it would keep us from being able to main-heal better than a holydin.
If so, The problem seems to lie in the fact that DS can proc seals on all targets, yet SoL does not have an internal cooldown. Even .5 a second would be enough to negate this 'over-powered' healing from DS. It heals on Damage. It heals on SoL from every target. It heals on JoL (1 to 2 targets, most likely. 4 is possible).
Do any of these healing abilities have an internal cooldown? I don't believe so. And i assume we will be seeing one on them shortly, just like JoW.
I guess I wasn't breaking down where the healing was coming from very well (I assumed that SoL and JoL already did have internal cds). If it works like you've described, then your assessment is mostly likely correct. Another possible solution would be to have DS not proc seals (much easier to code and balance). Bit of a damage nerf, but they do still say they haven't 'done the numbers pass'..
Prot is made to reflect a ton of damage, and absorb/mitigate a ton of damage. AOEing down large groups of mobs should work for them.
Ret is made to deal Large amounts of damage to small amounts of creatures. AOEing down large groups of mobs should *NOT* work for them. Just as you wouldn't see a warrior doing the same thing (They have health-restoring abilities) or druids doing the same thing (they can heal), you would not expect to see Ret doing the same thing.
Would I be correct in assuming that the ability to do this is based off of 2 things? JoL/SoL returing large amounts of health. Instant-FoL's being able to top off whatever you don't get from JoL/SoL.
If so, The problem seems to lie in the fact that DS can proc seals on all targets, yet SoL does not have an internal cooldown. Even .5 a second would be enough to negate this 'over-powered' healing from DS. It heals on Damage. It heals on SoL from every target. It heals on JoL (1 to 2 targets, most likely. 4 is possible).
I think you're missing a few key things here.
What does Protection have that Retribution does not when it comes to AoE damage? Holy Shield. One ability. It wouldn't make sense that one ability makes or breaks being able to AoE. What does Retribution have that Protection does not? Art of War. I would think the damage mitigated by block value/avoidance more than makes up for the healing done by AoW.
Protection isn't more specialized to AoE farm, they just have higher avoidance. I used to farm Demon Hunter supplicants as Holy spec in full healing gear; obviously Holy Paladins are overpowered because they can keep themselves alive with Holy Shock and still AoE.
Also, I can't see why you're saying being able to AoE farm is a problem. Have you leveled a Frost Mage at the WPL Cauldrons? Hell, one of my guildies had an alt Mage that was solo'ing entire packs of Scourge during the Naxx invasion (50+ mobs), and he was in greens!
I heard Sigurd scored an infinity on Rock Band and ascended to heaven.
DS proc'ing seals on all targets means that given 4 targets, all 4 take 2 sources of damage from one attack.
ie. 8 sources of damage.
Holy Shield vs. 4 targets means that all 4 are likely to take all the charges off of Holy Shield.
ie. 8 sources of damage
The difference is that Holy Shield is far weaker that DS, and suitably so as a 31 pt. talent, but DS has innate healing capabilities, when combined with JoL, can enable them to survive large amounts of AOE/multi-target damage.
Other than those 2 talents, neither prot nor ret has any difference in abilities they would use at 70.
Given that Consecrate now scales off both AP and SP, they are likely close to the same damage.
Seals will be close to the same damage.
Heals will be better for Ret, since they are insta-cast. (And add a HOT effect. perfect for multi-mobs, since none of it should be wasted)
Damage will be better for ret, since CS/DS > HS/HotR.
I don't have an issue with Ret taking down 2-4 mobs easily. It's when they can take down 24 mobs easily that I have to wonder: What is making us this powerful?
Understand though, i'm not crying "Nerf! Nerf!", but rather questioning the methodology and mechanics that are allowing this rather unusual behaviour from a class that previously could not AOE as Ret.
Going from taking a few mobs, to taking a few dozen mobs is a rather large leap.
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<zyl> Actually, I do like my paladin. He's fun to play, but don't tell Chaith.
<chaith> Looks like i logged in at the right time
<zyl> ....
<zyl> I pressed enter half a second after you logged on.
I'm sure it'll be different with different types of mobs. The only reason this seems overpowered is because of how weak the mobs you mentioned hit for. Add actual higher damage, silence, interrupt, kick, knockback or whatever and it'll be prot > ret again for AoE grinding.
Understand though, i'm not crying "Nerf! Nerf!", but rather questioning the methodology and mechanics that are allowing this rather unusual behaviour from a class that previously could not AOE as Ret.
Going from taking a few mobs, to taking a few dozen mobs is a rather large leap.
I was mirroring DS and Hammer of the Righteous, actually (hits multiple mobs, proc's seals, etc).
I can only explain what you're seeing as the result of Seals that actually scale. Before, the static healing was incredibly low, and made up very little if any respectable healing.
On another Prot v. Ret note, Protection Paladins get 3 SoL procs from HotR, and then 2 procs every white swing because Reckoning would surely be up the entire time. Not to mention infinite mana from BoSanc. All Paladins are inherently good for AoE, Retribution just has a way to sustain itself now.
I heard Sigurd scored an infinity on Rock Band and ascended to heaven.
This morning I was playing around on the PTR, experimenting with DS and testing out rotations of my own. The first thing I noticed is that the Scaling element of Seal of Light and Seal of Wisdom needs some kind of adjustment... because as it is, it is somewhat overpowered.
I had read a QQ post about a retribution paladin taking 10+ mobs at once in Ramparts normal, and thought since I was on the PTR, I'll try that. And it worked. Here's what I saw:
Divine Storm struck four of the 7 adds I had on me - one of whom was the first boss. Struck well, scored one crit (of around 3.4k, not bad for not using AW), but i received 3.5k health back from that hit. Each blow proced SoL for 700 (average) a piece, then DS gave me 700 (average) on top of that. 5x 700 = 3500. The crit meant i could throw out a near instant Flash of Light as well which healed for another 1200 non-crit. So, in the space of around 2.5secs (DS, GCD, FoL), i gained 4.7k health back. Along with dropping a FCFS CS, Consecrate and JoL, i managed to take all 7 down with still over half my life, even though my mana was about two-thirds drained.
I wanted to see Ret paladins getting some serious improvements, because I love the spec, and raiding with it gives me a warm bubbly feeling inside. But, as much as I love the changes, I think that being able to AOE farm mobs with that kind of ability is a little OP. Maybe they should change the scaling of SoL/SoW so they scale less with AP, balancing it a little, but I am not sure - all I know is, that being able to do that kind of personal healing in that kind of situation is a little ridiculous. There have been alot of QQ posts about OP retadins, but i think this is the first real problem i think is currently needing to be resolved.
Well, if it works in max level instances yes, I'd agree there's a problem. Being able to solo some of a lvl 61 instance doesn't strike me as being really game breaking. Druids have been able to do stuff like this for ages.
Just something to note as well, earlier today on the PTR i ran in to Mana Tombs (levels 64-66 range for those of you who haven't been in there in a while like me) and attempted to solo the instance.
Now i know rogues solo this place all the time for the chests, but it involves sapping a target, blinding a target, and focusing down a target on the 3 man pulls.
with roughly 2300+ attack power(with might) i was easily able to solo the entire instance, including all 3 bosses, with little to no trouble. 3 man elite pulls, 4 man elite pulls, casters, melee, fearing mobs, exploding, everything. Running Seal of Light and judging Light on the Nexus prince at the end, making sure to use your (for some reason instant cast) FoL's when Art of War procced, and i had no problem.
Now, while i think that was the most fun I've had in this game short of seeing Illidan die, it does seem to be a little off balance to be able to take on multiple pulls in a level 65ish instance, never dropping below about 75% health or mana.(i was judging the spiders/rats in between pulls to get my mana back).
take this how you want, I was just going to give some more information regarding our ability to solo certain instances at this time.
Well, if it works in max level instances yes, I'd agree there's a problem. Being able to solo some of a lvl 61 instance doesn't strike me as being really game breaking. Druids have been able to do stuff like this for ages.
Exactly, I used to solo BRD with my druid at 60 in dungeon blues and greens... I also find it amusing that an earlier poster thought it was unimaginable to be taking on 20-30 mobs at once and not dying. I agreed, until I re-read and realized he was talking about the demon hunter supplicants. I can do those as holy at 70 with current talents. So can protection paladins. So can mages. The fact that ret can finally manage this as well simply indicates that the spec is coming into its own and scaling paladin abilities to where it needs them to be. Retribution always felt so fragile while questing before: no heals, no mana and squishy... I never would have taken on Supplicant farming, but if I could do it as holy why couldn't I do it as retribution? There really was no reason.
Edit: In regards to soloing mana-tombs. I'll concede that SoL scaling might be a tad high if JoL/SoL double procs heal for about 1000 at 70. My true concern is whether it will still be useful at 80 with the current scaling. It might simply be a case of too high now, too low later. In particular, those numbers at 70 indicate later raid gear or arena gear, which is not what the ability should be balanced around.
Edit: In regards to soloing mana-tombs. I'll concede that SoL scaling might be a tad high if JoL/SoL double procs heal for about 1000 at 70. My true concern is whether it will still be useful at 80 with the current scaling. It might simply be a case of too high now, too low later. In particular, those numbers at 70 indicate later raid gear or arena gear, which is not what the ability should be balanced around.
yes this was in T6/T6 equivalent or better gear that i did this in, so the numbers are a little skewed as compared to say, a fresh level 70 retribution paladin running the same instance and performing the same. Just throwing out that information that in the gear I'm currently in on PTR, due to SoL/JoL/DS/Art of War, it is completely possible to heal yourself through the entire instance without ever "stopping" to heal(due to the insta-FoL's). As far as scaling with JoL/SoL goes, the real problem i see coming from this would be in the PvP aspect. If it is indeed possible for you to be healing yourself for 3500 with multiple people around you, while doing damage to them at the same time, then this will obviously create imbalance.
I'm good at pointing out the forecoming complaints/problems, not solving them though sorry. Hence why I'm an avid reader of this thread, since you guys seem to take care of that quite well.
I'll try to keep some tidbits of information such as the mana tombs encounter updated with you guys to see what you think.
I soloed Shadow Labs Monday night all the way up to Murmur who I could have beaten, but was too tired after I died the first time.
Mostly what makes it possible is Art of War, but the amount of healing I would generate on every Divine Storm was a little absurd with Seal of Light on top.
I'm feeling like adding seal procs to strikes wasn't really necessary, and if our DPS output was a problem, they could find another way to increase it.
I don't see why it's so horrible that a ret paladin in high raid gear can solo non-heroic TBC instances, all of which will be left and forgotten in a couple of months. Now if a ret paladin in quest blues can solo Utgarde Keep, that's a different story.
Exactly, I used to solo BRD with my druid at 60 in dungeon blues and greens... I also find it amusing that an earlier poster thought it was unimaginable to be taking on 20-30 mobs at once and not dying. I agreed, until I re-read and realized he was talking about the demon hunter supplicants. I can do those as holy at 70 with current talents. So can protection paladins. So can mages. The fact that ret can finally manage this as well simply indicates that the spec is coming into its own and scaling paladin abilities to where it needs them to be. Retribution always felt so fragile while questing before: no heals, no mana and squishy... I never would have taken on Supplicant farming, but if I could do it as holy why couldn't I do it as retribution? There really was no reason.
Edit: In regards to soloing mana-tombs. I'll concede that SoL scaling might be a tad high if JoL/SoL double procs heal for about 1000 at 70. My true concern is whether it will still be useful at 80 with the current scaling. It might simply be a case of too high now, too low later. In particular, those numbers at 70 indicate later raid gear or arena gear, which is not what the ability should be balanced around.
You didn't solo BRD with a druid in blues and greens preBC. It was difficult with a *pair* of druids in epics. Are you just meaning the first part, maybe?
I suspect that he wasn't talking about supplicants. I couldn't pick up that many mobs at a time because of the absurd lag, but I could handle 10+ mobs and two drakonids at a time.. Atamal aside, I had no trouble killing the shadow labs groups up to the first boss, and I'm not even in raid gear yet. Those massive demons that stand outside the door to black temple? Yeah, I was taking those in groups of 5.
Originally Posted by Selenia
Strikes have always been able to proc our utility seals, mind. The only new thing is them also being able to proc the DPS ones.
The new thing is that we can now get in about 8 attacks per 10 seconds, if we have enough mobs to hit, with a 3.8 speed two-hander. It may not be a mechanical difference, but it's certainly a massive change.
The healing potential might be a whee bit high, yes, but that massive 3500 heal every 10 seconds is going to go away a LOT faster against something your level. Try soloing Shattered halls and tell us how you do.
As for PVP, if DS heals for a lot when blown in a group, people will quickly learn to not group up on a ret pally. They'll just attack at range. We also go back to the fact that in PVP, that 3500 heal is going to disappear in less than the 10 seconds it takes you to hit DS again. Any of the MS effects will certainly mean you cannot count on it to keep you alive.
The healing potential might be a whee bit high, yes, but that massive 3500 heal every 10 seconds is going to go away a LOT faster against something your level. Try soloing Shattered halls and tell us how you do.
As for PVP, if DS heals for a lot when blown in a group, people will quickly learn to not group up on a ret pally. They'll just attack at range. We also go back to the fact that in PVP, that 3500 heal is going to disappear in less than the 10 seconds it takes you to hit DS again. Any of the MS effects will certainly mean you cannot count on it to keep you alive.
Shadow Labs IS our level. Shattered halls would probably be harder to handle, but I'll give it a shot later tonight. Someone with real gear should go too - half of mine is leather, so I don't expect to get very far.
I can't speak for pvp, as I totally suck at it. I imagine the amount of healing you'd get from SoL/JoL would be way less useful than the extra damage you'd do with SoC.
First, hello everyone, long time reader in these forums , first time poster. I'm very excited about new retribution changes and have been trying to estimate new dps rotations, could you look at these and let me know what you think. I hope my abreviations are clear enough(note: using untalented 10 sec. judgements everywhere).
1. Short term fight (5 mans, quick-dieing raid trash)
This would do max dps in my oppinion with most auto attacks, CS and Ds getting SoB procs, and allow keeping SoW dot going with auto-attack refreshing it at 9.0-12.0s interval. Which requires hasted weapon speed to be lower than 3.0, attainable in most raids situations easy, for example with a 3.5 base speed weapon and 16% haste untalented windfury totem gives 2.94 swing speed.
4. Target bellow 35% (HoW spam with SoV/SoB twist)
(0.0 s) CS -> (1.5s) How -> (3.0s) SoV -> (4.5s) DS -> (6.0s) CS -> (7.5s) HoW -> (9.0s) JoW -> (10.5s) SoB; repeat every 12 seconds
5. Wishfull thinking (if they made CS 5s cooldown via base talent or glyph)
(0.0 s) CS -> (1.5s) DS -> (3.0s) JoW -> (4.5s) SoV-> (6.0s) CS -> (7.5s) SoB -> (9.0s) fgcd; repeat every 10.5 seconds or every 10 if last gcd isn't used.
Other things I wanted to ask about, possibly off topic:
a) how is global cooldown affected by new spell and melee haste changes?
b) I keep hearing about Hammer of the righteous normalization, but cant find numbers for it, please link if possible
c) questions about Blackened Naaru Sliver - Item - World of Warcraft, has anyone done significant testing wiht it on beta or PTR, which attacks proc the stacking AP buff( CS, DC, judgements, SoV or consecrate dots)
mhm, i'm worrying if the 3% missing hit from Precision could be a serious problem for ret-paladins, couldn't it?
No. From what we've seen of the naxx gear we'll be swimming in hit rating easily, and if worst comes to worst there's some Hit/Strength and Hit/Expertise gems to throw into sockets.
09/16/08, 1:55 PM
