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.
Indeed. Another issue I personally find very disturbing is the fascinating inclination of a significant part of retribution community to yell "NERF" on themselves as loud (or even louder at times) than other classes about them whenever and wherever they get buffed by Blizzard.
Since been owning several top level toons throughout the game span and consequently read many relevant forums, none of those classes (as far as i could tell) were so critical to their own possible (temporary) imbalance at any given point. I remember when there were issues with Adrenaline Rush being incorporated in all pvp builds (consequently chopping people to pieces easily) and a handful of rogues voiced the resulting imbalance - they were all shushed (and worse) by the vast majority on their class forums. Same goes, say, for elemental shaman back in the days of Lightning Overload imbalance or priests' Prayer of Mending which featured a much less self-critic community approach.
Paladins in general, however, tend to yell "we're OP now, lol" in one way or another the minute a certain buffing to retribution class occurs. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying a generous amount of self criticism is bad - far from it. The strength of constant re-evaluating one's own class is clear from this and similar threads. However, it seems to me this particular class/build in general is only too prone to do it constantly. If I were to stretch my imagination far enough I'd say that some weird legacy of guilt burdens our beloved retadins (curse of Arthas anyone? but i've strayed far enough...)
This is all purely a personal opinion of course...
This is all purely a personal opinion of course...
Don't worry, I share your sentiment and I think I voiced it somewhat recently on these boards and more than a few people seemed to agree. Masochists? No idea. But it seems to be a byproduct of being a 2nd class spec for so long.
It's very evident whenever changes are suggested by the ret community, everyone always comes up with 5 concessions and sacrifices before asking for something that should logically come for free, for example the mana regen change.
Anyway, I'm hoping WotLK will do for us what TBC did for shadow priests, feral tanks and enhancement shamen and this habit you mention will be a thing of the past.
In kara fully pot'd spriests were doing 1000 dps in frozen shadow weave, 3 tiers later in Sunwell priests are doing 1400 dps full pot'd. Their scaling is terrible I certainly hope we're not like spriests were in tbc in wotlk. Compare to rogues and hunters who went from 1000 dps to 2500-3000 dps.
The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.
I think Avitus was more referencing the way those specs went from oddities with no raiding use to accepted and needed raid specs than the specifics of their DPS.
I have another version of the level 80 paladin dps spreadsheet available for download. It is updated for the latest beta push, and a number of small errors/bugs were corrected. Mostly these were things that were really kind of strange and hard to notice, but there were a few straight up mistakes on my part.
The gearset supplied is a naxx10 retribution set, 5 pieces of set and a reasonable set of plate dps offset gear.
Corrected metagem and crusade crit implementation
Corrected normalization to 3.3 from 3.4.
Updated numbers from push 8970
Corrected implementation of Judgement, DS, CS, SoB, HoR, SotR to reflect new data.
Does anyone know the miss behaviour of Shield of the Righteous exactly? I estimated it as using the ranged hit table for the moment. Damn only having the PTR to work with!
Props to Sigurd, Cathela and FlyingToaster for supplying data and corrections for me.
I've thrown together a very quick spreadsheet of some example rotations for 7- (4pc T7), 8-, and 9-second cooldown Judgments. The general rules of these rotations are: 1) Judgment has the highest priority (due to JotW self-mana returns), 2) other skills are prioritized as follows: Divine Storm > Crusader Strike > Consecration, 3) it's okay to utilize Crusader Strike over Divine Storm if the GCD only adds .5 seconds to the cooldown. For the 9-second rotation I utilize Crusader Strike over Divine storm to prevent an early GCD contention, but return to the normal priority rule afterwards.
The spreadsheet I made follows 60 seconds of each rotation, and counts the number of times each skill is utilized (counting Consecration as ticks). The grey melee bar along the top shows a 3.5 speed weapon, though it doesn't effect the rotations any. Unfortunately, I'm no good at cropping down nice pictures, so I've just thrown a copy of the spreadsheet up on Google Docs. You can view the aforementioned spreadsheet here.
For those who don't want to click the link, here are the results of my three theoretical rotations:
7-second Judgment: 9 Judgments, 6 Divine Storms, 9 Crusader Strikes, 42 Consecration ticks
8-second Judgment: 8 Judgments, 6 Divine Storms, 8 Crusader Strikes, 48 Consecration ticks
9-second Judgment: 7 Judgments, 6 Divine Storms, 10 Crusader Strikes, 46 Consecration ticks
Remember that these are all over a 60-second period. They also do not account for Exorcism against undead or demon bosses, nor do they account for Hammer of Wrath after the 35% mark.
Anyway, just thought I'd toss that out there, in case anyone finds it useful. Of course, I'm sure that I made at least one mistake that I haven't caught, so don't take it as a definitive theorycraft by any means.
A while back there was a good deal of discussion on WotLK professions as they pertain to Ret PVE DPS, and I believe it was concluded that Inscription pretty much did absolutely nothing for us other than provide a little extra versatility when respeccing often (due to 1 extra glyph slot). I haven't seen any new discussion on this topic recently, but I noticed that wowhead lists BoP shoulder enchants (Master's Inscription of the Axe/Crag/Pinnacle/Storm) which are much better than the epic shoulder enchants for non-scribblers from the Sons of Hodir.
The epic Sons of Hodir melee DPS enchant is 40 AP, 15 crit, while the Inscription melee DPS enchant is listed as 104 AP, 15 crit. So if those go thru and Inscription gives a bonus 64 AP plus the versatility of 1 extra glyph slot, that is much more competitive with what other professions are offering. It's probably still not one of the top 2 professions for min/maxing DPS, but you won't be totally gimping yourself if you wanted to take the profession for fun and convenience.
Psychosomatic, I'm not sure JotW self mana return should force a priority as a general rule as we're almost full mana most of the time regardless if you stagger judgement a bit. You're probably better served doing your calculations simply based on damage.
They got rid of the extra inscription slot. The perk is now the better shoulder enchants and access to off hand items.
The shoulder enchants are 50% better than the one non-Scribes get and you get craftable off-hands (fair if you want to heal without a Shield).
Edit: Glyph bonus was removed, my mistake
Last edited by frmorrison : 09/22/08 at 6:43 PM.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
A while back there was a good deal of discussion on WotLK professions as they pertain to Ret PVE DPS, and I believe it was concluded that Inscription pretty much did absolutely nothing for us other than provide a little extr
As a paladin that tanks and DPS's I think Engineering and Enchanting give a lot of flexibility. After all, the Paladin is one of the most flexible characters in the game.
Helms and ring enchants are very nice for all specs, plus the haste rating on the gloves is very nice for melee DPS.
Has anyone tried to theorycraft the best ret rotation on Brutallus in 3.0? It seems to me that we are going to be one of the best dps classes to use on him due to all the anti-demon, armor-ignoring abilities we have. Main question I have is if Crusader Strike is going to be bumped down in priority in favor of Exorcism (and HoW after 35%). Tossing in a Holy Wrath every 30 seconds?
Basically I'm thinking something like DS > Judgement > (HoW at 35%) > Exorcism > CS/HW/Consecrate.
Has anyone tried to theorycraft the best ret rotation on Brutallus in 3.0? It seems to me that we are going to be one of the best dps classes to use on him due to all the anti-demon, armor-ignoring abilities we have. Main question I have is if Crusader Strike is going to be bumped down in priority in favor of Exorcism (and HoW after 35%). Tossing in a Holy Wrath every 30 seconds?
Basically I'm thinking something like DS > Judgement > (HoW at 35%) > Exorcism > CS/HW/Consecrate.
Can you explain why you'd be thinking that rotation is a good one?
I've been looking at CS>J>DS>Con (using other abilities during free slots) as a general purpose rotation although I recognise that this probably isn't suitable for every boss and leaving off Exorcism does potentially lower damage somewhat. I'm not sure why I decided this was a good idea, I think it was due to performing DS>J>CS results in a collision on the very next cycle that I believed it was worthwhile looking at something else. In reality I know collisions are impossible to avoid but it's still an interesting area of discussion.
Compared with the results that Psychosomatic was getting I "trade" a loss of 1 Judgment for the gain of a Crusader Strike assuming 8 second Judgment cooldown. Divine Storm remains at 6 applications per minute despite it being 3rd on my priority list. The interesting thing was that I appear to be getting 51 consecrate ticks in that minute compared with 48. This means 1 minute I was getting 9 Crusader Strikes, 7 Judgements, 6 Divine Storms and 51 ticks of consecrate.
The other "interesting" thing is that from the 44th second this priority falls into a 34 second Cycle. Which you can observe from the 44th second till the 78th second (obviously).
I've attached the reasonably simple cycle I was looking at, I apologise if it doesn't appear correctly in Excel as I'm using OpenOffice.
I just thought that CS would lose some value on Brutallus due to being a physical attack vs high armor, and no more need to keep up judgements.
I was aware of it being a priority as opposed to a rotation. If you'd opened up the spreadsheet I'd attached you would have seen that I'd followed a FCFS priority rather strictly. I apologise since I used the word "rotation" merely as a convenience.
I guess that since I've been playing mostly at 80 I've been wanting to use Crusader Strike as often as possible to maintain the buff from Hateful Gladiator's Libram of Fortitude (106 attack power) which isn't really a concern for a level 70 paladin.
Main question I have is if Crusader Strike is going to be bumped down in priority in favor of Exorcism (and HoW after 35%). Tossing in a Holy Wrath every 30 seconds?
I will still put Crusader Strike over exorcism/HoW since CS does proc seals, so while the Crusader Strike damage itself might be lower CS + Seal will be higher.
About auras: Does it makes any sense to be 30 yards for Paladins (40 for Holy with 1 talent point, Prot and Retri can hardly afford spending points there) while all the other auras (Trueshot, Moonkin, Tree of Life, Leader of the Pack, all Death Knight's auras) with identical mechanics have 45 yards range by default? Even Warrior's Rampage have 45 yards.
As it is now with auras affecting all raid, 30 yards is unlikely to be enough in many fights. I really hope the explanation is that Blizzard just forgot to line up Paladin's auras with others, as I can't see no logical reason for having only Paladins with 30 yards and rest of classes with 45.
Posted this on Paladin WotLK forum and got no feedback, posting again here since I see it as a pretty important issue which can diminish Retribution raid utility by quite a lot, depending on the encounter of course.
Edit: can someone with access to WotLK forums post this there please? Just to remind them.
I just read that they will be resetting honor/marks when expansion comes out. There will be some new gear to use them on. Two new items caught my eye but I'm not positive how they fit with the ret scheme. There's The Gladiator's Resolution vs my current Razor-Scale Battlecloak. Also there's Battlemaster's Resolve vs my current Darkmoon Card: Crusade and Bloodlust Brooch. I can see the possible advantages and disadvantages of the trinkets for sure but which of the gear is best for long run? For simplification, I've listed the two new items below me.
The Gladiator's Resolution
Binds when picked up
Back
130 Armor
+42 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 26 (1.18% @ L70).
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 20 (0.51% @ L70).
Equip: Increases attack power by 56.
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 18
Battlemaster's Resolve
Binds when picked up
Trinket
Requires Level 70
Equip: Increases attack power by 120.
Use: Increases maximum health by 1750 for 15 sec. Shares cooldown with other Battlemaster's trinkets. (3 Min Cooldown)
Depends how soon 3.0 is released. I have this feeling delays will cause 3.0 to be released very near to wotlk release, perhaps even at the same time.
If that happens new 3.0 level 70 honor items like the Gladiator's resolution will be irrelevant. Who's going to stay at level 70 and farm honor when they could be leveling.
The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.
I didn't realize that blizzard had changed armor penetration values to work on a rating system and after some quick math i determined that 1 arp rating is approximately 7 current armor penetration. I'm not 100% sure on the conversion, but I did the quick math comparing items such as leggings of divine retribution, Cataclysms edge, and Crown of Anasterian and the numbers matched up. I just took the current rating and divided it by the new ratings and the result came up as 7 for those 3 items. However, Dory's embrace is off a little bit, 112/7 is not 17, rather its 16. However, the 3.02 dory's says 17 arp rating but i digress...
comparing the new gladiators resolution to dory's embrace it is about 7 more arp, 10 ap, and 6 crit rating.
Considering these, it outstrips any of the pre sunwell cloaks according to rawr but that is only taking into consideration my current gearset. (I changed the boots in rawr and a gem to meet meta requirements and to be hitcapped.) Also, this is not considering the loss in hit from precision disappearing so if you are hitcapped without the cloak come 3.0, it is a welcome upgrade.
Anyone else upset/disappointed that the talent/skill homogenization door swings both ways when it comes to skills we've conceded were "necessary for competitive play"?
09/20/08, 5:27 PM
