Sartuk

This JotW nerf really bothers me, as I'm sure it bothers everyone else here as well. For awhile now, they've been saying we're supposed to be a mana-using class that isn't supposed to have very many mana issues. With this, a lot of that changes. Consecrate now goes out the window as a DPS rotation move, which I think is very disheartening, even if we're talking about a 1 mob situation. Without using consecrate when possible, it's really going to feel like I have too much empty space between cooldowns of other moves, and I just don't see this as being a very fun mechanic, in the least.

I had high hopes for the Righteous Vengeance change, and from what it sounds like, it's doing pretty good. But if Consecrate gets taken out of our DPS rotation, that gain from RV is also knocked down a big, big way. Wouldn't the best solution here to just move JotW farther down into the ret tree so it's not practical in the least for a Holy/Shockadin to get? As far as I can tell, that was one of the big reasons they nerfed it. Honestly, it's the only logical reason to nerf it I think, and even then, why couldn't it have just been moved down the tree? I really don't understand this.

I'm happy about the HoW change. 35% was insane, and was really one of the reasons Ret PvP at 70 was so insane. I don't think the 35% was too awful at 80, but I don't see it being a bad change in the least there either. As is though, the rest of these changes are really making me consider not playing my Retadin come Wrath. I just can't see them being as enjoyable. I'm fine with them being "fixed" into not being OP, but this just seems like a hit for Ret PvE, which I don't believe needed a hit.

Edit: Couldn't JotW simply switch places with a talent like Swift Retribution? I'll admit I don't know a whole lot about Holy pally specs, but I'd think this would send JotW deep enough into the Ret tree to not be obtainable, and no Holy Pally is going to really want to get Swift Ret.

 

Mearis

I doubt they did this to nerf holy paladins, they most likelly did this to nerf ret paladin sustainability and limit the amount of utility they can sustain while outputting a dps cycle. What surprised me is that they didn't lower the amount of mana that offensive abilities costed at the same time.

<manly> then my sister calls and proposes the one thing that has never before occured in my entire life

 

watersrog

Although it was quite obvious we were over the top at level 70 and some nerfs were required for that level, what I didn't get was why they intend to keep those to level 80, where our burst would have been way less powerful against people with 22-25k HP. A logical approach would have been to nerf us on live to keep some balance, then revert it all at 80 and go from there. Nerf us again if needed, leave us be if not.

I was outraged by Divine Storm change and all our +critical damage gone (for a spec admittedly based on big crits) that hit us one day after 3.02 went live and continued to be so listening to confused GhostCrawler explanations of us having too much burst etc and that our changes will be 'surgical'.

However, this is all in the past now. After last changes (~20% Seal and Judgement damage reduction across the board, HoW usable at 20% and especially a 55% plain nerf to JotW) I just had enough. I'm not even mad anymore (and believe me, I was VERY mad after any of the last nerfs), I just given up. It's way too much even for me, who had a Paladin as my main since I started playing and I just love the class.

So, to conclude, just changed my sig to something appropriate and decided to roll a Death Knight when WotLK hits. At least my wife will be happy about it, as my endless complaining about how we are being screwed over and over started to upset her lately.

Of course, I'm still hoping for improvements to Paladins so I have a reason to come back (it's by far the class I like the most), but playing it in the current state it's starting to feel like a bad joke.

 

Mearis

The ' at level 80 burst will be smaller ' argument relies on a few assumptions:

- The ratio of offensive stats to stamina changes
- Resilience increases
- The increase in damage that people will gain from extra 10 talent points is smaller than the increase in survivability people will get with 10 talent points.
- At 80 people get new defensive abilities that offset the new offensive abilities they get.

Which of those is true exactly? Sapp pointed out that the arena gear has more stat spread, but that's the only thing I believe changes between now and level 80. If anything, resilience will decrease, and having 10 more talent points makes several classes a lot more scary - like having a 30 second hammer in a divine storm spec, or mages having imp CS and deep freeze, arcane mages having pom pyro and barrage....

The reason burst decreased from 60 to 70 was that stamina was made cheaper and resilience was introduced. Here stamina stays as expensive and resilience decreases.

<manly> then my sister calls and proposes the one thing that has never before occured in my entire life

 

Sartuk

You're on target with a lot of that, but the thing is (besides the 30 second Hammer of Justice point), Retadins *don't* scale all that fantastically well when we get to 80. The burst we do, in terms of overall health percentage of the people we fight, is much weaker. This isn't completely true with all classes, I don't think. Some scale better than others from 70 to 80. But I can promise you that a 70 ret pally against an opponent with 12k hp is going to kill them a LOT faster than an 80 Ret pally against the same opponent at 80 with 20k hp. Offensively, Ret pallies do not scale at the same rate as overall defenses do. And this isn't a bad thing, but it's something that needs to be kept in mind when nerfs start hitting at 70. I say this with (some) beta experience under my belt as a few different classes. Obviously, with all the changes going on, nothing stays the same for too long, though.

For what it's worth, I do think Imp Hammer should be changed in such a way that it's not so accessible to Retadins. I think they need to give Ret some sort of snare-like ability and start having us rely on stuns less and less. A 30 second stun on a 6 second cooldown is pretty insane, IMO.

 

watersrog

The ' at level 80 burst will be smaller ' actually relies ONLY on Paladin's damage and opponent's HP so the list you made there is void and useless.

With HP increased around 80% or so and a damage increase significantly smaller, the burst IS smaller, no point arguing about. If now you need 6 seconds to kill someone and at 80 you will need 10 seconds, it's a BIG difference. It gives people a larger time frame to outheal it or to CC the paladin and increases the time he must stay on target to make a kill. Hence, burst at 80 IS smaller.

 

Sartuk

Right, and this is something anyone with a beta key could find out in under 15 minutes. Burst in general is smaller at 80, but Retadin burst is *MUCH* smaller at 80, since we scale very poorly compared to a lot of other classes from 70-80. One of the things we had going for us, specifically in Arena's, was that we could also turn to more of an outlasting scenario with the heals we have. Now, that's not going to work even if you're NOT facing a team with a drainer. And if you are? You'll be OOM'd TO THE GROUND BABY faster than you can say "lolret."

 

Vhex

It seems my argument for abandoning mana as a resource limiting mechanic grows stronger every day.

I said it 5 freaking years ago during original beta. Energy is an amazing mechanic. Use it for all classes. Then use rage/combo points/balance/focus/zealotry/arcane flux/soul points/etc...as an enhancing mechanic for various abilities, unique to each class.

It would have been glorious.

But oh no....it'll be fine they said. It worked so well in EverQuest they said.

Fools. I'll show them....I'll show them all!

 

• Avitus

Great, it's one of those days again.

Rather than rehash everything I've posted elsewhere, I'll just point towards the somewhat lengthy comment I made on the other thread: WotLK talent trees/abilities discussion

A few more specifics related to this thread in particular:

-I've been in the process of writing the new Ret thread, trying to sum up how everything works. Unfortunately it's on an almost day to day basis that some new core mechanics bug is discovered or some new bulls^H^H^H^H^H changes come sliding down the blue pipe that debunks half of what I've written down.
With all the edits and re-edits it's starting to look like a joke, it's impossible to write any generalizations or rules of thumb that people can rely on considering everything is changing all the time.

So for now, if the thread will be remade anytime soon, the OP will be in a much reduced state of a Q/A and list of things we need to examine and figure out rather than what I had originally in mind (a full guide about ret 3.0). The unknowns are just too many and things are changing too frequently to do otherwise.

Hopefully this can be edited into a full guide by the time the devs decide to settle things down again (WotLK launch or shortly after? We can only hope).



It was actually "Victory", but it sure does sound hollow now. You hit the nail on the head: Do to our mechanics what you will, but leave JotW intact. If even an ounce of all that "we want the game to be fun" talk is true, they will see that constantly oom retadins is not the way to go. You said it better than most of us can, nice work.

 

◊ Kaubel

Paladins:

Enough whining. This thread has quickly turned into a giant pile of suck.

 

Naaribula

I was just doing some testing on a target dummy in Stormwind (level 80 dummy since I'm only 77, so take it as what it's worth)

But using just JoW/CS/DS no Plea, I was going OOM in about 6 minuets. If I used con I went OOM in about 1:12, con with plea it was around 2:10 (first was 2:09, second was 2:12)

Used JoW/CS/DS with plea, didn't run out. It was over 12 minuets and I stopped testing since I was still above 75% mana.

Then I tested Jow/CS/DS/ with Con every 30 seconds (I thought it would simulate exor quite nicely) with plea, and while I didn't have a stopwatch running, I lasted quite a while before OOMing, maybe about 5 or 6 minuets.

And since I only have 16 hit rating, if I missed a judgement, I was out of luck. This really seems more like a case of "give to much, take to much, settle in the middle". Seems almost like a 25% return would give nice damage while still having to manage mana which seems to be the goal of the nerf (but I'm an artist, not a math guy, so take the 25% at what that's worth :P) Has anyone raided with this yet?

 

Dantos

I agree with all the Paladins here who are upset over the JotW change. However, I think there may be hope. Assuming that Seal of the Martyr is our ideal DPS seal for most situations, perhaps the small amount of damage you take will actually help out via spiritual attunement? Lately the bonus has been moot, but with the change, it may favor the use of Martyr. In addition, at 80, we get Divine Plea, which has a short CD and should help us sustain our mana pool even with the JotW nerf.

Plus, they could always readjust it. I think 20% base mana would be more than fair. There's always hope. We're still better now than we ever have been.

 

• frmorrison

Paladins get Plea at level 71.

I just did 700 swings on the 80 dummy with the normal Premade.

Note due to the mechanics of the dummy (has 1 health) RV tics will only do 1 damage. I attacked both dummies to try to simulate the damage potential RV tics.

Observations:
Ghost hit is removed and Draeni Aura is working, I had 1.7% hit on gear (1% racial) and had 2.3% miss
Judgements can miss now, so when your Judgement of Wisdom/Light/Justice misses, it shows under that Judgement instead of Judgement of Command/Blood/X
I did the normal three attacks and hit Divine Plea on cooldown. I only used Cons when I had over 3k of mana and never ran out of mana. JoW isn't too great for Ret (1% of total mana every 4 seconds, about 70 mp5), so it didn't matter to me which judgement was up, since I rarely used Cons, about 2 per Divine Plea.
I had 4 of the PvP gear which gives 7 second Judgements, so that set bonus is quite powerful for mana regen and damage. Judgement of Command was my highest damage attack

I had 1350 dps, last time I did it was 1600 dps (20% Seal/Judgement loss and fewer Cons), adding to an overall 15% sustained damage decrease.


I hope now that the ghost hit is removed, burst damage is reduced a lot (weaker Seals, HoW at 20%, and longer Hammer of Justice cooldown) GC can turn those gears for 80 balance.

Recommendations:
Buff RV to 50% damage
Give a talent the ability to make Cons cheaper or buff JotW to 25% to base mana so it can be used in a rotation

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

 

Bloo Driver

This does make me wonder if GC was aware that Ret's PvE damage was partially due to this "ghost hit" and the fact that Judgements never missed. I'd hate to think they were still adjusting numbers in light of DPS done due to bugs that they possibly weren't even accounting for. Was there ever any Blue post regarding these issues that I didn't see?

 

Prinsesa

Here's a question: From what we know of how our damage breaks down, would it have been possible for SoR or SoV to become a better Ret DPS Seal if they were left alone while SoB and SoC were slashed by 20%?

I acknowledge that Prot threat is still quite solid even with the 20% reduction, but a hit to Holy's soloing seems excessive when it wasn't being used by Ret and blues were already talking about improving Holy's performance when not healing.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Dantos

I am aware of the former. What I had meant to say was, by 80, we would have it for use in raids. Pardon.

Though I agree with both of your suggestions. I think the question really is in the end; with Divine Plea, how much mana return do we need from JotW to maintain our mana pull while going all out?

 

Mountie

I had to delete my beta account so I could install the 3.0 patch, so apologies for not doing it myself. Do you feel you had the mana available to not use consecrate but still use HoW, Exorcism or use the AoW proc?

 

• frmorrison

Cons is about 900 mana (usable very 8/10 seconds), HoW is about 500 mana (only usable below 20%), so there is big difference in mana between the two.

I could add HoW in the rotation, but then I couldn't use Cons below 20%. There is no way I could do Exorcism and Holy Wrath with the other abilities on a boss, mana is too tight. I could add another 1 or 2 Flashes a minute to the rotation, that is it.

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

 

Anauel

Bolded the important part.

If things don't change then hit will become THE stat to stack until capped. Your priority will be to stack hit until the cap so that a judgement never misses, because if it does you're going to lose a good chunk of dps.

 

Rasputin

Under the assumption that this JotW change will not be reverted and we'll be sitting on 15% base mana return, would it be worthwhile to start looking into hunter gear? The gear generally has a decent stat spread and while it won't have strength on it, it will have int which will improve our Replenishment and JoW mp5. There has to be a point of inflection for the mana pool where enough int will give us the mana we need to maintain Consecration or HoW.

 

• frmorrison

JoW and Replishment are 1% total and 0.25 total for eights seconds respectively.

With the lower dps (because you don't get the 15% modifier to str), I doubt the slightly larger mana returns to cast Cons more would be worth it.

One Cons costs almost 900 mana at 80, which requires 60 int to get that mana (without buffs), so you would need a lot of int to give enough regen for more Cons.

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

 

Hidden

Some maths:
Assumptions:
JoW procs every 4 seconds for 1% mana.
Replenishment is permanently active.
Divine Plea used on cooldown.

1 Intelligence:
JoW: 0.15 Mana / 4 seconds = 0.0375 MpS
Replenishment: 15 Mana * 0.0025 / 1 Second = 0.0375 MpS
Divine Plea: 15 Mana* 0.25 / 60 seconds = 0.0625 MpS

Total: 0.1375 MpS per 1 Intelligence, 0.15125 with BoK

With 900 mana per Consecration, you'd get an additional Consecration every 5950 seconds, that's 1 hour and 36 minutes.

 

Kuthumii

What is the current hit cap? I keep reading about some ghost hit we are getting?

 

Hidden

Some people are reporting an additional 3% hit, however not everyone is getting them so I'd suggest just testing it for yourself against the target dummies. Just add 4% to the hit you need not to miss the 70 dummies.

Nothing really important, but there really are weird bugs with talents now. My now level 48 Paladin was never getting Replenishment from JotW, the first GM told me some crap about my interface being the cause, the second GM after watching me fight and look up things for nearly 3 hours came to the conclusion that Replenishment isn't working until level 50. So there are still other messups than the 3% ghost hit as well.

 

Xavias

Disregarding the recent nerfs, based on what I've seen in Beta and live, Ret at level 70 and 80 are extremely similar (as in they are just as bursty as they are at 80 than at 70).

This is based on me tanking on my Resto Druid against Ret Paladins.

I think that people who keep using the "it will even out at level 80" argument should actually go play the beta before drawing such conclusions.