Siawn

That is what we have been told. My concern is whether there is no mention of the changes in the notes because they have decided to make even more drastic changes. Three weeks away from LK release. I'd say it isn't too late for Blizzard's customary obliteration of Ret viability.

 

Fqubed

Wasnt it commented later on that the macro would cause problems? Anyway you are better off using a manual rotation its not that complicated.

Cant anyone in your guild take kings instead of you? You gain 15% strength if you can spec out of it, if you go with a holy or prot pally they really should be the spec that grabs it.

 

Nisall

Blue post

 

Fqubed

Thus it is possible we get nerfed into oblivion or just slighly tweaked. It could also be that the nerfs are the changed to RV etc that are for beta but not live (yet)

One also has to remember that many of the blue posts are replying to some question, so sometimes an answer to something has already been posted before, and thus gives the impression that blizzard intends to double nerf someone.

 

Sterlin

So, its been a week and what is the conclusion about HIT

seems from earlier posts that there might be some internal 3% or some other mechanic working.

So, after this week of mowing through content what is the conclusion

1) How much hit do we really want to shoot for 95 - 105 - 115 - 125 - 135 ? Lets get some results from experience

2) What rotation is working best to maximize dps - as I read above some have suggest Start with Judgement, CS, DS, etc... Maybe a concecration or Wrath or Exercism when appropriate?


Maybe someone should edit the 1st post to share all of our ongoing conclusions.

thanks so much!

 

watersrog

I do agree we were pretty overpowered for level 70 and I don't mind the nerfs as long as they are carefully thought over and we get another review when Wrath of the Lich King hits the stores and players are level 80 with 20-25k HP in PVP gear.

However, Divine Storm nerf looks anything but thought over, it's more like an emergency solution to cut some of our burst pushed on live in a big hurry. There are plenty arguments for that, I'm afraid:

- doing physical damage is not consistent with the name and the animation of the spell, by both of them is clearly intended to be Holy. I know, I know it's a little thing but doesn't feel right at all;
- as it stands now it's just a glorified Warrior Whirlwind, but as a 51 pointer instead of baseline;
- compared to other Paladin abilities, now it's arguably the least useful, both in PvP and PvE. Yes the AoE might prove useful sometimes but no more than situational, or, it should be one of the best;
- healing component remained unchanged and was low to begin with. Now, with its damage reduced with 20%-50% depending on target's armor, it's negligible;

Changing Crusader Strike Glyph to a totally useless one also points out to the fact that changes were rushed.
Also, stating that we were a class based on big crits and then taking away all the +critical damage doesn't fare well either.

I am aware we are a pretty complicated spec to fix and balance, and I hope that at least Divine Storm change is a temporary solution and we'll see it reversed or changed into something better in WotLK.

 

Original Look

I'm confused as to what the optimum seal would be to use as an alliance paladin after patch 3.0.2. I have been holy for the entire duration of playing my paladin at 70, so am rather clueless when it comes to Ret. This thread has helped a great deal, but I am still slightly confused.

As I understood it, pre-3.0.2 SoB gave horde paladins a DPS advantage over their alliance counterparts using SoC. However, now Alliance have SoB (SoM) many people still seem to be recommending the use of SoC for Alliance paladins. Is this true? If so, why is it?

Or does it depend on gear? I understand SoB scales very well with Haste, does SoC scale better with another stat?

 

Foxconfessor

Yep, it's not usable now when dpsing all-out. However, I've created a mouse-over macro for it like I've had with cleanse for a long time (and the hand spells) so that when it hopefully is fixed I can throw heals without changing target.

 

Prinsesa

I don't think the Crusader Strike Glyph change necessarily made it 'useless'.

Yes, we can run full blast without fear of ever going OOM in a raid situation, but that isn't quite the case in a PvP situation where a variety of factors can come together to prevent us from leveraging Judgements of the Wise. In those cases, a mana cost reduction in one of our key DPS/burst abilities can help us claw our way back from a mana-starved position.

Original Look:

Seal of the Martyr is still going to be your go-to Seal for DPS. Seal of Command is currently neck-and-neck with it for single-target DPS, but only due to a spell power coefficient change that may or may not be intended.

Even then, SoC's internal cooldown cripples it in an AOE situation since you won't be able to get more than one SoC proc per Divine Storm.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Fugazor

9% but gem for STR only?

Based on test pre-DS nerf it does not really matter. After DS nerf I would rather push it last, maybe even after Consecration.

Rotation is quite simple: spam CS, DS, Judgement and Consecration; keep seal up; use Wrath and Exorcism if you can - you should not run oom (but rather with JoW).

 

Bismar

Pre-3.0.2 SOC suffered from two drawbacks:

1. The low proc rate made it do less damage on average then SOB.

2. Since it kept it's PPM no matter what, it didn't scale with Haste at all.

3. The Judgement was a base damage plus spell dmg, and didn't scale with strength or weapon damage at all.

Now it scales with haste, the Judgement is completely reworked, and the proc rate has been increased (including the new Glyph, that is).

Now it's up in the air, with small differences based on each player's choice. Would you like higher Judgement damage (SOC) or slightly higher average Seal damage (SOB)? Do you worry about the 1 second cooldown on SOC? Are you worried about the health damage that SOB does to you? Do you like the damage is does for the sake of Spiritual Attunement? Do you want the burst of SOC or the stability of SOB? Do you want to skip grabbing the 1 talent point it takes for SOC?

These are now legitimate questions that every ret paladin can answer on their own (Blizzard's intention I imagine), and not just an obvious arrow pointing in the direction of SOB called "haste and strength scaling".

Edit: Added point 3. Wow, was really bad.

 

watersrog

Ok, nearly useless. I can see a situation once in 10000 fights when having 100 extra mana from this glyph will help you finish off someone but that's about it. I really doubt that anyone will use it if it's not changed.

 

• Avitus

At least for the moment, "alliance JoB" (JotM) is doing a lot less damage than regular/"horde" JoB. For alliance it's only scaling with 0.25 * weapon damage, vs 0.45 * weapon damage for horde.

Besides all the buffs to SoC you mentioned, this is the reason most alliance paladins are advised to use SoC until this bug (I assume) with JoB is fixed as it's believed this lower judgement damage closes the gap in favor of SoC.

 

• Zurm

As a horde pally, JOB is hitting considerably harder than JoC. I know it's different for alliance, but I just wanted to clarify.

 

Anauel

Is this true even accounting the new SoC (unconfirmed) coefficient? I'm wondering if anyone has calculated the SP coefficient that SoC is getting (and how it applies to JoC). Last person that mentioned it was Redcape, I think, but he didn't post any numbers.

I'm curious as to whether SoB (SoB+JoB) outdamages SoC (SoC+JoC). I'd test it but with the gimped SoM it's useless.

 

• frmorrison

JoB > JoC is true for Horde. However, due to the buff to SoC, for me at least on a single target, SoC > SoB. This is even more true for Alliance until JotM is fixed.

However, I should be using SoB on AoE pulls due to the 1 second cooldown on SoC.


I am curious about the hit issue. I have 99 hit rating and I had 0 misses on Brut, but I did have some parries due to the Burn casting. I think I should let the premade autoattack the Boss dummy for a while to try to see what is happening.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Anauel

I hope that SoC stays this way, then. Personal preference mostly, but I'd like to see our talented seal as the one providing the most dps. My assumption as to why this is happening is that they'd rather buff SoC's damage, but keep the ICD so they gave it an SP coefficient. Or it was a bug. You never really know with Blizzard.

--

Regarding the hit rating, there's been some tests but as far as I can tell none of them specified if they were using ret aura or not (I was). GSH did an untalented run with 0hit/expertise that showed pretty much the same results so unless Ret aura gives a hidden 3% hit, I'd assume Precision is a passive for us now. Once we're sure if it's either a class passive or an aura passive we can ask for a confirmation that this is not a bug.

 

Khaelarys

On the 70 hit dummy I hit around 1500 white swings and I had a 5.2 % miss rate, wearing nothing but Ret aura and a smile.

Not a huge data set, admittedly. I'll do the same to the ??? dummy tonight.

 

Suicidal Zebra

If you have an opportinuty to test the miss rate don't forget to mention the Race of Paladin and weapon class you're using, just in case the Weapon Specialisation racials are playing silly beggers.

 

• frmorrison

The class passive idea of 3% hit seems like a good theory, since I am getting dodges. I know I am getting the normal 9% miss and 6% dodge on bosses with my DK.

I will try tests with Devo and then Ret aura as Holy, then do the same tests with Ret.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Hidden

Just an idea... could it be that everyone who had specced Precision when the patch hit still has the 3% hit?
There have often been bugs with people keeping talent bonuses of removed/reset talents after patch related talent resets.

Edit: According to some quick tests the Human Paladin I created on patch day doesn't have 3% additional hit.

 

Caggy

Also with Blood/Martyr (Which should share the same coeff since they should be the same spell) you could also be using your Art of War procs to cover blood damage. Course that's a gcd you could be spent consecrating.

 

Anauel

Hmmm, well that would mean that they didn't really remove Precision, but hid it. If any holy paladins (that didn't have precision) want to do a couple of tests that'd be awesome. I'm going to try it on my rogue on live, see how that goes.

 

Hidden

I have a 70 Blood Elf Paladin that was holy pre-patch, I'll do a quick test and edit my results in then. Equipping 2-3% hit and hitting the 70 target dummy should be enough, shouldn't it? If i have 3% additional hit, I shouldn't ever miss.

Edit: My Blood Elf Paladin doesn't have the 3% additional hit, had one Melee and Crusader Strike miss each after only ~50 attacks with 2.47% hit against the level 70 target dummy.

 

Milou

Also remember that target dummies are level 70 and not 73, unless there's others that I have not found yet. This lowers the hit rating required to 5%.