Cerakona

I was glancing through the next build patch (from WotLKwiki website), and saw that Surefooted is getting changed to giving +10 crit rating (Replacing the snare effect) and +10 hit rating. If that sticks, I think that it will be more desirable over the +12 agi enchant for boots, even if you have the hit cap as 10 Crit Rating is worth about the same as 12 agility for crit values.

 

Rasputin

I think this is the only plausible reason for them nerfing the racial. While double expertise racials don't help when you're using any particular weapon, it does open up a larger variety of weapons. That flexibility in considering weapons to use without a shadow 5 expertise bonus could be a consideration in the power of each bonus. That said, I think it would make more sense to have a single bonus for a single weapon type, as you suggest.

 

Saltycracker

[Legplates of Unending Fury] are a good fit for 3.0 as well if you are using the Bloodboil legs and need a blue gem for your meta. Haste, Hit, Gem Slots. I will be using them until Brut stops being stingy.

 

• Avitus

Yep, seems most understand the reasons, but don't agree with the outcome. I've already submitted on beta and I can only urge people to use those feedback buttons and/or other channels (forums?) to get this issue resolved.

I'd much rather have to take a few suboptimal weapons along the way if I know I'm getting the maximum benefit eventually for the weapon I'm aiming for.

Hell, swords for humans, maces for dwarves would add some flavor (isn't that what they always push for?).

Edit: Rating removed, it's 16.4 rating.

 

Lunkhedd

Hasn't that burden just shifted to Judgement, though? You need to hit with Judgement in 3.0 in order to keep Replenishment going, so hit should presumably still be weighted more heavily to take that into account.

 

Arthaal

I'll trade you your 3 expertise for my 2% chance for spells to miss, ok? No, but snarkiness aside, humans still have possibly the strongest collection of racials of any race, so yes it's bad that to be losing 63 expertise rating worth, but it's still better as it is than what a lot of other races have to make due with.

 

• Avitus

Arthaal this is not an issue about comparing racials in general (I'll leave that for another thread), this is a simple fact of:

2x 3 expertise is NOT worth the same as 1x 5 expertise when you can only gain from one of the "3 expertise" bonuses at a time. Their logic is flawed, it's not "ok". I've posted about it in the EU beta forums, I'd appreciate it if someone can copy it over to the US beta forums (or start a thread of your own about this).

 

joypunk

Avitus, I've started the discussion on the US forums. I don't play Alliance, so it doesn't really impact me... but the thread has been started.

US Beta Forums: [Feedback] Human Expertise Racial

 

Borna

Agreed. Personally have no issue with this and am perfectly aware not all tastes can or will be taken care of with the upcoming racials changes. As is these racials seem to be meant to add some specific racial flavor to the game, rather than a strong buff similar to a profession one.

 

Fqubed

I dont know if this has been comented on but I was looking at the nax retry set bouni and was a bit suprised. The 2pc is 10% bonus damage on DS so fairly nice, especially if there is any AoE situation. The 4pc is a -1second cooldown on Judgement. Now this either cements the first come first serve "rotation" or can anyone come up with something (or free up talent points)

 

Rasputin

Ghostcrawler just posted a nice confirmation of where our dps is supposed to lie:

Source

 

Borna

Some more nerfs underway:

Thoughts?

 

Pitbuller

Avitus: From Combat rating level 80 thread

Expertise(-1% Dodge/Parry) = 32.78998947 ratings.

You messed expertice with -1% Dodge/Parry. 1 expertice is worth -0.25% Dodge/Parry. So 2 expertice lost is only 16.4 rating loss.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Stardusty

Slight slowpoke question, but does Two handed weapon specialization still only affect white dps? If they are reducing the ability to 1% per point it should increase all damage as per their "1 talent point per 1% dps increase" target.

Edit: After reading the main WotLK Paladin thread it affects all weapon based abilities. Point still stands though, they may as well make it a across the board 1% per talent point increament.

 

• Avitus

My bad, you're correct. Though I have to say that table is a bit misleading if you're not paying perfect attention, as all other stats are converted in single stat to rating.

This makes the whole issue a bit less dramatic, however the principle remains the same to me: Actual bonus > versatility with a weaker bonus.


First initial thought was to look at the identical Arms Warrior talent and notice it's still 2/4/6% for 3 talent points. This is not the case of "look what they have", but I expect them to use the same "1 talent point = ~1 dps" logic on all classes/talents.

Looking at the warrior patch notes from only 2 patches ago:

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Tier 4) has been reduced to 3 ranks. Now increases damage done with two-handed weapons by 2/4/6%. (Previously 1/2/3/4/5%)

What's the deal here?

 

Rasputin

My response is that that post about budget per talent point is, to put it politely, bunkum. I can't imagine they balance on a per-talent-point basis, but rather on a class-specific basis, given that talent points affect classes differently despite being similarly allocated and being spent in similar talents. That post almost has to have been simple appeasement with a facade of math, since it barely makes sense once you think about it; many talents provide no direct increase, or increase raid dps, or cause utility effects, etc.(heart of the crusader certainly creates a lot more than 3% personal dps increase, for instance).

That said, I don't think that this change is a reason for us to go blitzkrieg the forums with posts about how warrior talents are better than ours and why isn't our dps where it needs to be and all that. I don't really know what the solution is to be honest; I don't see any consistency in their direction with Ret. Our talents keep going all over the place: AoW up and down, Vengeance down, Crusade up, 2H spec down, and on it goes. It just seems like a lot of shifting numbers around with no real order, and minimal change in the actual end result. I wish we could get some insight into what they're trying to do with us beyond the nebulous "make us competitive dps with rogues and hunters".

 

Rustik

I'm still hearing reports of pallies annihilating people in the span of a HoJ. It seems our burst damage is a bit too high, but so far they haven't really done much to address that, except nerf judgements. Truthfully, if you think about it, where's our burst damage coming from? 2 swings that are armor piercing, 2 swings that proc seals (which are armor piercing).

If they're going to nerf our burst damage, they're either going to have to nerf seals procing on strikes, or nerf the bursty abilities. They've already nerfed judgements. Perhaps DS needs a slight toning down? Nerfing our sustained dps abilities in tiny percentages isn't going to do crap about 3 shotting people, unless they survive by 3%, which just makes it a 4-shot anyway.

Of course, on a complete reversal of ideas, a coworker plays wow, and one of his ret guildies reported getting pounded by a fury warrior. Fury may end up with the same issues: Decent to moderate sustained damage, but way too much burst (Hello DW-2h-WW+BT+Instaslam).

 

Rasputin

I honestly think the concerns about our burst are overblown. As I play around in beta I see my friends and guildies giggling over 8k Ferocious Bites and instant pyros. I'm not sure why people think that pvp in level 70 gear and stamina levels with level 80 spells is balanced or should be. Does nobody remember the gibfest of 2.0? Hell, has anyone tried PvPing in level 70 non-PvP gear at level 70 with level 70 spells? You die just as quickly. This is the type of thing that quickly equalizes once everyone is PvPing in PvP gear and arenaing with proper teams and support. That's not to say there are not issues that have been and will be addressed: original Art of War for instance. But to balance around people with a setup that is guaranteed to explode people is just asking for imbalance once everyone is PvPing appropriately.

 

CaptBooyah

I can imagine the easy way to fix the bursty dps in pvp would be to nerf the armour penetration ability to half as much and only for pvp. Assuming the 3 shots really are coming from this talent procc'ing...

Either that or an internal cooldown or longer if already in place... I personally like the idea of some bursty dps every now and then, lucky roll of dice and all. Big numbers are kinda cool and fun to watch pop out to surprise you and your target.

 

• Avitus

Oh I agree. However they should be held accountable for the information they give out to players. If you're going to come up with some excuse for a change, that excuse should hold across all changes, especially when we're talking about identical talents for very closely related play styles.

Ret Paladin: Spend 3 talent points, gain 3% damage to 2h. (Tier 5 talent)
Blood DK: Spend 2 talent points, gain 4% damage to 2h. (Tier 2 talent!)
Arms Warrior: Spend 3 talent points, gain 6% damage to 2h. (Tier 4 talent)

Not only are our talent points giving half as much, it's much higher up the tree to boot.
No matter what they come up with, sorry something is not right here.

Not saying we should go "blitzkrieg the forums", but when something is very obviously not right, we shouldn't just sit there and take it either. At the very least, I expect some valid explanation or any sort of comment regarding this (similar to when they nerfed Vengeance and we were told Bloody Vengeance would receive the same treatment).

In a game with so much cross class competition to do the same job and especially with a spec that has a history like ours, "equality" is always going to be a hot topic.


I think one of the main problems we have at the moment is the amount of people spreading 2nd hand information. As I've posted in the other thread, my experience now at 80 has changed considerably. Where as at 70 it felt like we outburst most other classes, at 80 this is not the case anymore, you can read the full post here: WotLK talent trees/abilities discussion

 

flyingtoastr

The other thing people still fail to remember is that all we have is our burst. We have no snare, no interrupt, no healing debuff. Nothing else. So if you take away our burst we're pretty much useless.

If they want to balance ret pallys they either have to clone the warrior abilities or just accept that our burst damage is going to be higher than other classes because we don't have all the tools they do.

 

Rasputin

You're forgetting that we have that most dreaded utility, the overpowering, unstoppable, class-defining, battle-turning HEAL. For whatever reason, the ability to press ANY heal button regardless of its effectiveness has always been perceived of as more powerful than any other ability or most combinations of them. Even the healing we do on live(which is laughable) is constantly cited as a reason we can't do more damage or have more melee-based utility. The developers seem to buy into this school of thought, because we got healing buffs and no melee utility buffs. As much as I dread it, I fear that our role is going to turn out to be hybrid melee dps/healer, which is just terrible design. We don'' have enough mana or healing tools to do the one effectively, and doing it at all hampers the other into mediocrity. I certainly do not doubt that our burst is going to be brought way down, and the AoW heals and Sheath of Light will be given as the reason that we are balanced. I made a thread in the Paladin beta boards expressing my confusion at the current situation we are in, and it's true. I have no clue what we're supposed to be when it's all said and done, or how they plan to get us there.

 

Trakor

Glyphs + Rotation

For 3.0, at lvl 70 and for pve, what do you think will be the best glyphs? I took glyph of consecration, glyph of judgement and glyph of FoL.

The consecration glyph adds another tick, increasing its dmg by that 1 tick (while also increasing its cd by 2 secs, probably resulting better cd menagement and mana saved). In regards to the FoL glyphs, just auto attacking lvl 80 dummies in SW (yes, lvl 80 now), here's what I got while having only BoM as a buff:

FoL - 710
GFoL - 249 x 5
Total = 1955

FoL Crit - 1065
GFoL - 373 x 5
SoL - 160 x 4
Total = 3570

My spell crit rate was 28.67%. If i didnt have the glyph, non crits would heal me for around 1420, while crits would hit for 2130 + 1278 = 3408. My conclusion is that the glyphs will net us extra heals, both when FoL crits and when it doesnt.

In regards to rotation, has anybody worked out a good rotation yet? It seems to me, the best rotation on a single target is, in order of priority, HoW (when target is below 35%), DS (1st on multi target), judgement, CS, whith consecration + exorcism + holy wrath (all instants) whenever we got everything else on CD. With the consecration glyph, consecration > exorcism > holy wrath for single target, while consecration > holy wrath > exorcism for multi-target.

 

Ragnor

It's the same problem as pre TBC....

Apart from divine strength all our main power increasing talents are in the single tree. Most other classes have strong dps abilities split over 2 different trees. With the current talents we will likely all be 0/5/56 at 70.

You can literally pick up every good damage boosting talent immediately at 70. This will always be too much power too soon and historically this has always led to over-nerfing resulting in weakness at 80.

Consider how little you gain from 70-80 it's 10 talent points spent where... all in utility stuff like vindication, eye for an eye, stoicism etc. Where are mid prot talents that are enticing dps increase to ret?

Have a look at what other classes will be spec'ing at 70 for 3.0 and then consider what power gains they can get with 10 more talent points in their 2nd dps tree. It's feeling like Deja Vu.

Blizzard fixing the blue rage bar problem with Jotw was significant but it was only about 1/5 of the main problems with the spec imo.

The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.

www.retpaladin.com

 

Arthaal

My post was mostly in jest. I agree that 3 expertise on 2 weapons isn't nearly as useful as 5 expertise on 1 since you can't have both equipped at the same (though dual wielders may find interesting combinations there if crafted weapons continue to have fun effects as in TBC). My point was that the justification may not have been the 2 weapon categories affected, but instead the racial was balanced around the Fall of Man, Every Man for Him(or Her)self, Passive Perception, Diplomacy and 5% spirit.

e.g. Every Man for Himself: assume you PvP and choose to sport a standard trinket, sacrificing the 0.9% resilience effect on the epic lvl80 PvP trinket. This racial now affords you 1 extra trinket slot, which you choose to equip with a JCer trinket and socket this trinket with your 2 of your 3 prismatic gems for 54 expertise rating. Add the other trinket effects and we're getting pretty close to this 63 ratings worth. It's a very specific example, I agree, but I'd respectfully argue that it's one case where everything sort of evens out.

This.

All we have is burst. No closing ability beyond a passive speed increase that requires a dispellable debuff (JoJ) and dispellable buff (HoF) to be kept up in order to allow us to close. No snares, no healing debuffs, limited CC on long cooldowns.

I described in an earlier post how easily a druid kited me along yesterday while in bear, popping out to HoT up. I diligently kept JoJ up, spammed all my abilities and used stuns to attempt to burst through his healing, but he was good... managed to gain distance, instant heal up, traded stuns with me to prevent more damage, even managed to make me waste most of my AW with clever direction shifts. I've had hunters do similar, frost mages as well. The BETA ret paladin can be devastating if allowed free reign, but most classes already have or will have (at 80) the tools to defend themselves.

Add to that the important stam increases on most WOTLK gear (it seems DPS stats are not going to increase quite so fast as stamina as we gear up at 80) - my premade paladin on Murmur had 20k with kings in the blue PvP gear - and suddenly our 1 tool, burst, isn't so dominant.

Rasputin is also right in pointing out that other classes are getting similar burst abilities: 8k Ferocious Bites, 10k cylcone-strafire-wrath-moonfire combos (yes you have to not trinket the cyclone for the wind up to work, but people are arguing the 100-0 through HoJ kills, so I thought the comparison appropiate). For that matter, has anyone ever sat through a rogue stun from 100-0? Let them close and they destroy you. Similar logic applies to us.

Burst is overrated and people routinely exaggerate ("this ret paladin just melee white hit me for 2500 non-crit" sound familiar?)