Anauel

Hmmm, well, I was completely outraged by the changes. They hit us hard. It's like a kick in the balls. We've been a sub-par DPS that offered very little utility pre-Wotlk (compared to any type of shaman/shadow priest for instance). And I think this has really made most of us (at least myself) a little reluctant to understand the changes that they have pushed in this build. I was mostly worried about our sustainability. I would rather lose the burst and have a solid dps that is sustainable. It seemed to me that now we have nothing. No burst, no sustainability, and no solid dps, but let's be honest. The changes were severe nerfs to the state we were in live. The changes overall, are still a massive buff from where we were pre-Wotlk.

I'd been reading silently through these pages because I swung wildly to one side. I've been reading the same for the past 5 pages or so: "They fucked us pretty hard!" "We're fine at 80" "We're still competitive!" "No we're not!" and I just couldn't make up my mind until I downloaded Redcape's spreadsheet. If it is right (and I do believe in Redcape's numbers) then we're really QQ'ing over something that's not worth our time.

Everyone (including me) has to really take a step back and look at what was happening. We were destroying everyone in PvP. I cannot speak on PvE DPS at 80 because I don't have a beta account, but I know I was doing a seriously broken amount of damage at 70. This is not a CSS complex. It's a rational (albeit anecdotal) view. You may discard it, because it does not provide numbers, but you cannot disregard the spreadsheet itself. Go ahead, check the spreadsheet, find a mistake. If you do, then we can all rejoice that GC was wrong and that we have the numbers to prove it. If you don't, then we can all rejoice that we are still competitive DPS.

Really, in the end the most important thing to have in mind is that even though we might not be where we want to be right now, we aren't designed to lag 30% anymore.

 

Amera

When the dust settles, you are basically going to have two camps, split between ret PvE and PvP. I don't think there is much reason to believe at this point that they won't keep us competitive in PVE DPS and allow us to maintain our damage cycles, even if that means making more additional changes. The sky won't fall, and damage will be fine. The only real loss will be play-style, because you won't really be able to fulfill the melee-healer as well as some people probably hoped.

The PvP camp will remain disappointed because there is no real reason to believe Ret will be any better off than it was in S3-S4 (which is to say, playable but decidedly sub-optimal). And I think the Holy camp will likely swing this way as well, since I think we'll end up being decent or better healers in S5 and then drop from there just like in TBC*.

*The big variable is whether or not the meta-game will be different this time due to people's experiences. Paladins were good in S1 because of good baseline survivability plus the fact that people were bad at the game. Now that people are dramatically better at the game, the first reason may not be enough to expect S5 success. There is really no way to know.

 

Milou

Redcape, I'm not sure what to say about your statement of doing double a 'skilled' warrior's damage but in the last two weeks our arms warrior has been doing near hunter dps (who's way at the top). Depending on the fight I'm either slightly above or slightly below our rogues who're varying between muti/combat. Maybe it's different in T5, and honestly when you consider how stats change from T5->Sunwell I could see it paladins not getting that much of a boost anymore, but in Sunwell ret was doing balanced dps on all fights except Felmyst and maybe M'uru. By balanced I mean just behind hunter/rogues/warriors (though I don't agree we should be behind warriors since they are also a hybrid). Felmyst is a gimmick fight, as is the nerfed M'uru so our dps there can't really be considered valid.

 

Stardusty

I think the PVP camp can be satiated with a couple of tweaks:

1. Replenishment seems to be balanced around the caster mana pool, thus effects paladins the most since even shaman and hunters will have some intelligence on their gear. While the answer might not be Int on our gear again, perhaps a str/armour->int conversion might be appropriate? Tweaked enough to bring us on par with hunters and shaman. This will also help in pve where we will scale in mana pools as we gear for higher tiers and allow for more abilities in our dps cycles, which I believe will add to the sense of progression as you move up through the tiers.
2. Divine plea suffers from the same issue, it is balanced around the holy mana pool. What if one of the high retribution talents increased this amount? The main issue is that that do not want an endless supply of instant mana, with plea on a cooldown it would be much easier to balance. Considering that plea is dispellable, and on a one minute cooldown, it would add a great dynamic to paladin pressure like Divine Shield, BoF and BoP.
3. Mana drains again are balanced against a caster pool. This is where it hurts in pvp the most, and should be changed to a % like most other abilities, especially since regen is now all % based. There is no other way to balance it for both caster and non caster pools.

The long and short of it is that all the regen capabilities apart from BoW are all % based and disproportionately penalize paladins for switching to warrior gear which has 0 int.

 

Nicki

This was the biggest thing I liked about the talent before the patch after a few trash mobs id have to drink and that takes alot of time...

The question is why did it take them so long too decide jotw was overpowered when infact they buffed it during the beta. It was visible from the moment the first jotw that restored a % of total mana was introduced that you could not and would not go oom. The second incarnation of the talent was even better! Im sorry but it doesn't take any patchwerk fights too find out that paladins with this talent wouldn't go oom.

And as such the community gets fooled into thinking they were finally given the tool they needed to be competitive dps. Most melee dps do not go oom enh shammies were dependant on JoW for this and their dps is good.

In short this jotw change shows how big their spreadsheets are it took them over a month too figure out that it was too powerful.

I hope blizz has a serious look at arms dps as that is hardly balanced pve wise..

 

Prinsesa

At first, it seemed as though Blizzard was taking the opposite tack to this: No progression on our mana returns, but make the progression unnecessary by giving us considerable slack on the margins and keeping it balanced across all gear levels (which makes sense).

Now it seems they want us to both "worry about our mana" yet at the same time work with mechanics that don't really let us do anything no matter how worried we get besides "welp, time to stop hitting buttons".

At this point, I don't think it can work both ways. Either give us some more rope to hang ourselves with if JOTW/Ret's max mana remains static, or give us the ability to gear for efficiency.

I have nothing against having to switch to different sets depending on if its a 15 minute vs. a 5 minute fight, but only if we can actually do it.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Anauel

They've already mentioned that we will not be gearing for int. I'm assuming they're not going to give us a talent for it, since that would be a band-aid to the whole issue.

Now, I see your point, but, for raids, I don't think its that big of a deal if Redcape's numbers are right. For PvP, Solo, 5 man we'll have to see.

 

Corronach

I just want to agree, you have a pretty solid assessment. You can check Arena Junkies, but the PVP camp is also laughing at using Battlegrounds as an excuse for balance. Sure they want BG's to matter down the road, but they don't yet.

 

djkillingspree

Also, just a question - are you guys considering glyphs in the picture? What if we use a 10 second consecrate rather than an 8 second consecrate? As the Consecrate glyph should be a significant increase in Damage/Mana for the ability, it seems like either it or the Crusader Strike glyphs would be a good buy in the new world of ret.

Additionally, in PvE, is glyphed Seal of Command better than SoB/Martyr? Because, if not, the glyphs you'd realistically want to use would include:

Crusader Strike
Consecrate
Seal of Blood/Martyr
Judgement
Maaaayyybe Avenging Wrath

Obviously there's some optimal pick there, but would we really have mana/rotation problems if we glyphed for CS, Consecrate and Judgement? Also, is it just me or is the AW glyph pretty awful for PvE? It seems like it's basically spending a glyph slot for 1 or 2 extra HoWs during a fight, unless most fights spend more than 2 minutes where the boss is <20%.

 

merdolin

The Glyphs to go at 80 will be: Crusader Strike, Consecration, Judgement.

 

aylen86

Not my WWS, but I found it by evaluating some statements:

Wow Web Stats


The paladin mentioned that he was mostly in trouble with mana although he was using divineplea, lay of hands, mana potions and even dark runes for compensating this issue. Thephoenîx himself is member of in Harmony (2nd place @battle of the best before FtH and SK-Gaming), so I have no doubt concerning his play skill.
It saddens me that we have fallen behind so far in a dungeon full of undeads. It remembers me of BC where place 10 to 12 was our "area".

 

eclipse212

I´m not sure if it even still exists as I´m not in the beta but I´d pick glyph of seal of blood instead of crusader strike (for pve purposes obviously).

on the mana shortage topic in pve dps as a whole -
admittedly it´s been fun to be at full mana in any raid situation at all times unless I miss the judgement button on a faceroll, but at least to me, playing ret like that turned out to be pretty boring quite fast as there was no resource management involved at all. even tho the mana nerf is a big loss in efficiency and versatility I rather feel like I accomplish something by doing competitive dps than having it easy mode - of course, pve ret dps in general has to stay competitive for that.

once a bossfights´ mechanics and its estimated duration are known, one can adapt his mana throughput to that. just like for healers, there is no point in sitting on 90% mana after an encounter if it could have been put to good use (read: dpm). short fights promote mad consecrating while really long ones, well, don´t - but is there even an encounter that requires constant high dps over a very long period of time? the mana pot has been my friend in tbc and will replace haste potion slots in my inventory again I guess. as long as it´s not required to use glyphed lay on hands on yourself to have enough mana for an encounter, so be it. I´d love to see a change to exorcism and holy wrath to make up for the effective loss of our "omgpwnundead" trait as we´ll likely spend all our mana anyway, no matter on what target.

so the grass could be still green - if it wasn´t for all our "great utility" to cut down our potential damage output, quite a lot depending on what you do, beyond the loss of a gcd and a resetted swingtimer. oh well

 

Xavias

Depends on what bracket your talking about. You certainly won't be seeing Ret + Healer in 2's anymore, that's for sure.

I think there is some space for Ret in 3's. They should still have higher upfront damage than any other Melee class, combine that with say a Warrior or Rogue, the cleave comp will be very popular.

So in a way I agree with you that Ret will still be very "selective", but I think they will continue to do what they do best pre 3.0, just better. Fundamentally, their PvP role won't really change much. I guess that is a big bummer for a lot of Ret Paladins out there.

Brutal Gladiator

 

Valerys

First of all, thanks to Redcape for testing. I'm probably one of the more optimistic ret paladins around, and I've always believed that Blizzard would not leave us intentionally bad. Glad to see there is still hope.

A got a couple of questions about your testing to get a better picture on how we will operate.

1. Were you using JoW now? Or is JoL still usable as ret's "standard" judgement without concern?
2. Did you have BoW? Would you say that it will now be better for soloing than BoM, or can we still use BoM while soloing and still grind fine without having to drink very often?

Basically, although ret may be fine in raids with all the mana regen going on, I'm still concerned about soloing ability. I would not want to return to the hell that was ret solo-grinding before 3.0...

 

Starfox

According to wowhead comments
[Glyph of Seal of Blood]
10% + 10%*10% = 11% => 1% net win
[Glyph of Spiritual Attunement]
10% + _2%_ = 12% => 2% net win

But i don't think that this is intended, because GoSA is 1. double the bonus of GoSoB and 2. always active, without restrictions.
Kinda makes GoSoB useless

Hello.
Light the fuse.
For all my homies.
Do not run, we are your friends.

 

eclipse212

uh doh my beverage made me misunderstand the glyph to having 20% instead of 10% SA return my mistake

 

Cevil

For PVP, you say it yourself: no way Ret + healer is doable in 2s; we're going to need a rogue for wound poison just like now. In 3s, we'll have a role, but it will be the same War/Ret/Dru or similar permutation, where we are the assist DPS. A sad state of affairs in PVP, for sure.

---

This Naxx parse is somewhat encouraging, as it seems to show Hunters as outliers (which we already knew), and Paladins very tightly middle of the pack:
Wow Web Stats

What I find encouraging about this is the size of the RV ticks: average of ~750. If this is the case, perhaps RV is adequate compensation.

Her mana regeneration is top heavy with SA and JotW, at 382k and 300k respectively. It would seem SA is making up for the bulk of the mana gain lost by the JotW nerf. Divine Plea, by contract, is around 80,000 mana. There is no use of mana pots, that I can see.

The discouraging thing is to see the SoB hits for an average of ~300. I'm pretty sure on live that's what it hits for now, and it represents the extent of this latest round of nerfs.

As GC insinuated, some classes suspect they're OP and have escaped nerfing; the parses say Hunters should watch out. Hunters should still be the topline, but perhaps once they're fixed, our numbers won't seem so out of line.

Bottom line is these changes hinge on what happens to other classes now. I can deal being 200-300 DPS below other classes; I think everyone can.

 

Redcape

Is your warrior abusing the DW bug? If so, throw his results in the bin, they aren't going to continue. I was playing with a t5 geared warrior using TG who really knows how to play and I was destroying him by an immense margin. Comparing yourself to currently overpowered hunters and buggy warriors isn't particularly useful. When I played in 5 mans with single target dpsers it was a joke, they weren't even making 50% of my damage due to insane Consecrate/DS AOE.

Glyph of Spiritual Attunement is probably worth 2 mana / sec. Glyph of CS is worth 8 mana / sec. 8 mana / sec isn't blowing my mind, but it may well be our next best Glyph. If seals aren't proccing off Judgements anymore then Righteousness and Vengeance just stepped up to being real contenders for top dps, so the third Glyph slot may be a little more interesting that was previously thought. I will post my thoughts and numbers for Glyph use once that fact has been established.

I don't have a beta account, I can't test the changes. I can look at raid buffed numbers and calculate mana returns, and I can crunch numbers on soloing mana viability. While soloing I currently spam every ability on cooldown, including Consecrate, DS and HoW. I fully expect to pare that back a bunch and hit CS, Judgement on cooldown and use DS, HoW sometimes. You can use JoW for more mana JoL for more healing, both have their benefits. Ret paladins will do tons of damage while soloing and hardly ever need to stop as long as you don't blow mana on Consecrate and DS on the cooldown. We will be more like other classes, in that for soloing our best option is a good, mana efficient routine that has us killing reasonably quickly but with almost zero downtime. If your standards are 3.02 ret you will likely be sad, but if your standards are 2.4 ret you will be ecstatic with ret soloing in wrath, I guarantee it.

I don't think you will see those. As far as I am aware Warriors still have the outrageous DW bug that raises their dps by 1000 or so, Hunters are still completely OP in general, and there are other bugs not tamped down yet. Just because ret isn't currently posting top numbers doesn't really mean much, there are other dpsers who are going to get the nerf/bugfix stick soon enough.

 

Sapp

He's not that far behind if you look at individual boss fights in the larger WWS.

I think its true that the mana curve is just too tightly tuned right now though. The best example for that is the gothik kill:

Wow Web Stats

His DPS just fell out the floor because of the constant low level AOE required, without anything living long enough for him to benefit from JoW.

What I find most telling isn't what he had to do to be where he is, its what the other people didn't have to do. He ate 8 mana potions, used Divine Plea on cooldown, used 7 Dark Runes, and even LoH'd himself three times for the mana. He's also wearing t6 2pc for the mana, which is as strong as JoW is now due to the nerfs.

In fact, he got something like 30% more mana out of JoW than Wisdom, but that's partially -because- of the t6 he was wearing. The int from those pieces boosts the power of replenishment and JoW by a not-insignificant amount. Without that extra int like an 80-geared level 80 would be, I wouldn't have been surprised to see the theoretical mana restoration from Wisdom match or exceed whatever was recieved from JoW.

On Ret paladins:
<Fyr> its like they went from sniffing powdered sugar for 3 years, got real cocaine for 2 weeks, and are pissed that they're going back to the sugar again

 

madmardigan83

So, this is a little out of left-field here... but what about the possiblity that this was all done on purpose? I know it sounds a little like 1984 here, but it's interesting to think about.

Think back to pre-3.0. Ret was the laughing stock out of all the classes, and had been for quite some time. Granted, they were better than they used to be at 60 certianly (and smart guilds used us)... but by the general masses, Ret was generally the red-headed step-child.


How do they get rid of that bias and have the rest of the WoW community respect us as a class? If they just made us "even" with the rest of the group, there would still be a mass of people that would say "lolret" and ignore us the way they used to.

So they make us overpowered. They make other classes fear us and go "Whoa! Ret is pretty good!" They made the changes so large that it pretty much left NO doubt that Ret was something to be reckoned with.

And the stigma of "lolret" is dissapears. (think about it... have you seen it lately?)

Once that is gone, they nerf us back to where they wanted us to be all along. And in the end... everyone benifits.

They knew it would cause some pain and suffering from us. The wailing and gnashing of teeth was something they were willing to deal with... because in the end, we still benifit from it. It was for our own good in the end.


Perhaps far fetched and a bit Big Brother-ish, but at the same time... that's pretty much exactly what happened... even if it wasn't perhaps fully intended.


Sorry for the off-topic switch... but my musings got the better of me. In the end, I agree with the dmg nerfs, but I was quite suprised to see more than half of our mana regen removed from JotW. 33 to 15? Seems a bit extreme imo, but I guess we'll see, and Redcape's math shows it's not that bad. Overall, my feelings are if you want me to worry about managing mana, give me int on my gear. Otherwise, make me like other melee classes.

 

Redcape

I have discovered something quite humorous. When updating things in my spreadsheet I decided to go and calculate the value of Int. With 100 Int you get 14.6 mana / sec, which is worth about 90 dps if you are dumping that mana into consecrate.

The only other stats we have that produce that much damage per 100 points are Str and Hit. Every single other stat is worse for dps. So assuming you manage to need more mana, the best stats you can stack in order are:

Str
Hit
Int
Exp
Crit
Agil

Yes, Int is better than Expertise, Crit and Agility. If you already have enough mana to do a complete rotation anyway (which unless you are using exorcism or HW, you do) this doesn't really apply. There isn't a good way to use your excess mana if you are already Consecrating, but in a situation where you find you are mana shy, stacking Int is an excellent source of dps. If you need mana to fuel other abilities that are more efficient than consecrate Int is actually a better stat than hit, and by a substantial margin.

How amusing.

 

Sapp

And is Consecrate even the most efficient source of mana--> DPS?

It looks like my original plan under the "20% max" JOTW is true again; steal hunter gear.

On Ret paladins:
<Fyr> its like they went from sniffing powdered sugar for 3 years, got real cocaine for 2 weeks, and are pissed that they're going back to the sugar again

 

Eiric

You mean rolling a druid and earn a title? How can you do that better?

Seriously Im afraid that Ret once again only will be in teams that dont play competitive arena =/. I find it really hard to understand why Blizzard fails so big in the classbalancing. Yes - Paladins was boosted way to much = Fail and then follow up with a too big nerf = Fail ... and it happens over and over again and not only to Paladins. Ive played my Paladin since release, most of the time as a raidhealer as its been the only spec that dont let your friends suffer in progress for a long time, but have from time to time been playing the other specs too. But Im about to give up, if we end up being a poor choice for dps in arena/raiding again I dont know if I shall take a chance rerolling (to something that might be non-viable a month later) or just quit the game. Since the release this is my first and only negative post on any "official" forum, thats how sad I am atm about Blizzards balancing skills after so much gametesting/experince =/.

Thanks though to Redcape and all you others out there that are testing and giving numbers ... very appreciated.

 

Havok

With your observation, I'm wondering how much more beneficial wearing mail becomes.

Maybe a talent like this will resolve that dilemma:

"Thick Headed" - Increases mana pool by 5% of armor.

 

Rasputin

Unfortunately, the thing Ret Paladins were good at pre 3.0 was being put on a team with a Warrior or Rogue to make up for our deficiencies, and then knowing the whole time that we still weren't as strong as putting another Warrior or Rogue in our place. This isn't something many of us were eager to stay with; I was so unexcited about it that I arena'ed for maybe a month of S4 before giving it up as an unamusing exercise that had me trying harder than everyone else for less reward. Sure, there's some space for us in cleave comps in 3s and 5s if those comps turn out to be viable, but I strongly doubt that those spots will feature Ret as a primary choice instead of a choice your friends make to let you come along to have fun in arena instead of recruiting some other melee.