Penny, He didn't need to add Elemental shaman or Balance Druid to the equation for the simple fact they both have a scaleing mp5 talent built into their tree (10% of int to mp5).

This is in addition to any other (moonkin form, innervate, mana totem, water shield) ways in which they can regen mana during combat. The tree has built in scaling manaregen.


Also, JoW/SoW being PPM rather than the percentage based it is now means that at some point (preferably 3.0 and slower) a weapon will proc it every hit.

Slow weapons (the only kind a ret paladin uses due to mechanics) have a horrible rate of proccing JoW/SoW specifically because they *aren't* ppm.

Mana spring totem may not scale, however the other trees of shaman barely care.. one has cost reduction from critical spell strikes and the other has melee strikes conversion into mana. Both of these will scale with +crit/+hit respectively as well. Paladins have -nothing- that scales mana regen in this aspect.

As someone who has also levelled and played several classes/specs at 70, I also feel that retribution paladin is indeed the least efficient in killing the most amount of mobs before having to break in the least amount of time. My feral druid keeps going with just a heal and an innervate, dont even need to stop. My lock drains when on low health, darkpacts/lifetaps/soul drains when low on mana, indefinitely. My warrior is a bandage making machine.

For sure, a retribution paladin could throttle back the abilities used to conserve mana so that they may kill more before needing to drink. Although, auto-attacking mobs to death isn't anywhere near efficient and the more you leave a mob alive, the more damage you will take and you'll need to either heal via spells which depletes your mana or bandage which you probably didn't need to if you just whooped the crap out of the said mob.

Problem with retadins is that there is very little middle ground to find in regards to damage vs time efficiency. You either do more damage and sit out for a while.. or you do damage for a while and sit out every so often.

Oh, in that case I retract what I said.

Thanks for doing some math I can respond to. I'll cover it in a second.


You made the first claim, which is that Ret paladins grind poorly, and then followed up with numbers with minimal context. Why does it take a full page of discussion before you're willing to use math to back up your claim? This is a theorycraft forum, and math is the primary proof for any claim.


The post I responded to talked about "no manaregen" for pallies, which is flat out false. Paladins have SoW/JoW/BoW at the baseline, which are (in-combat) mana regen abilities. 2 of them are applied once and give a passive (in-combat) bonus for a long period of time.

If you simply said we had limited, non-scaling manaregen, your post would be truthful and I'd have no beef with it.


Okay, you counter that SoW/JoW are no good in grinding, so they might as well not exist. Let's look at the actual numbers.


First off, you say that you do 900 DPS self-buffed, and that you can kill a 5.5k life mob in 7 seconds. You might do 900 raw DPS, but the 72 mob in question has armor, and at least half of your damage is not Holy.


Using your numbers
309 character sheet DPS
CS does 1116 damage per hit (no JotC, 112 DPS@10 seconds now; 186 DPS@6 seconds)
SoC adds 93.1 DPS. (unbuffed melee hit * 70% damage procs * 7 PPM / 60 seconds)
JoC adds 430 damage (using your values without JotC; this is assuming 219 JotC, since you don't specify)

(At full burn, these abilities would yield 570~ DPS on a 30% AC target)


Adjusted damage with 30% crit and 30% AC factored:
281 white DPS
1038 damage per CS
93 121 SoC DPS
430 559 damage per JoC

EDIT: Oops! Forgot crit damage bonus for SoC/JoC. Unfortunately, I don't have time to update the math below, but I think the math gets my point across.

How long does it take you to kill an Aether Ray (5.5k hp)?

Using 1x CS + 1x JoC + SoC + white:
Kill time: (5.5k - 1038 - 430) / (281 + 93) ~= 11 seconds;
Mana Use: 236 + 130 + 280 = 646 mana
Mana Regen: 140 mana from SJ, 79.2 mana from BoW, 39 mana from spirit (2 seconds) = 258.2 mana
Net Mana Use: 427 mana


Using 1x CS + 1x JoW + SoC + white:
Kill time: (5.5k - 1038) / (281 + 93) ~= 12 seconds;
Mana Use 236 + 130 + 280 = 646 mana
Mana Regen: 135 mana from SJ, 86.4 mana from BoW, 209 mana from JoW, 78.5 mana from spirit (4 seconds) = 508.9
Net Mana Use: 137 mana


Using 1x CS + 1x JoC + SoW + white:
Kill time: (5.5k - 1038 - 430) / (281) ~= 14 seconds;
Mana Use: 236 + 130 + 270 = 636 mana
Mana Regen: 140 mana from SJ, 100.8 mana from BoW, 427 mana from SoW (assume 12 PPM, includes CS average proc rate), 117.6 mana from spirit (6 seconds)
Net Mana Use: -149.4 (Net mana gain!)


Using 1x JoC + SoW + white:
Kill time: (5.5k - 430) / (281) ~= 18 seconds;
Mana Use: 130 + 270 = 400 mana
Mana Regen: 140 mana from SJ, 129.6 mana from BoW, 436 mana from SoW, 157 mana from spirit (8 seconds)
Net Mana Use: -462.6 mana


Note: Ignored Benediction for seal costs; Judgement cost is a guess, since I can never remember how much it costs with and without Benediction; Forgot to include Vengeance, but it shouldn't affect results too much; spirit regen numbers are deliberately under-estimated to generate more of a worst-case scenario


CONCLUSION:

Looking at this simplified math, you could chain together Combo 2 and Combo 3 for net mana GAIN, killing 2 mobs every 26 seconds and ignoring travel time (which adds more spirit/mp5 regen, meaning you can afford to be more liberal with your mana -> use more DPS abilities). Using JoC + SoW (Combo 3) only loses 2 seconds of kill time versus 1x JoW + SoC. (Combo 2)


If you used the mushroom trinket, Combo 2 becomes a net gain in mana, and you can start sprinkling in Combo 1 into your grind rotation liberally. Also note that I've ignored SoC R1 as a potential combo. SoC R1 has borderline retarded efficiency (until Blizzard"fixes" it), which is highly useful for grinding (aiming for highest sustained DPS possible; mana efficiency == double plus good)


13 seconds to kill a mob on average and you're gaining mana. How is Ret grinding horrible? It doesn't match what a warlock can do with fear + DoTs on multi-targets (due to DoT +dmg scaling), but it's certainly respectable - though that really depends on *your* expectations.


What do you consider to be a reasonable grind rate for a Ret paladin?



EDIT Note: I forgot to add in the crit rate damage bonus for SoC/JoC. However, I think that the math still shows how SoW/JoW can be weaved into a rotation for better sustained grinding. Since the math ignores travel time, the reality is that you'll have more mana to do Combo 1 for higher DPS - as long as you're willing to abuse spirit regen in between mobs.

You're still missing the point.

Point is, I don't have to pick every single spec/class, but it's sufficient to pick "one" spec per class that shows scalable downtime reduction (read regen based on gear), expecting this from every spec is ridiculous.

Similarly, not every single regen ability has to scale with gear, however at least "one" has to (or at least enough to make a difference with improving gear).

All those specs/classes have some form of regen that is improved based on their gear, as illustrate in my previous post.

Ret does not have this.


A green geared paladin can run around killing things for 5 mins for example before he has to sit down and drink to full.

An epic geared paladin? Same.


Now do this comparison (green geared vs epic geared) for any of the other classes (using their grinding specs obviously) and you'll see that they have to spend less time regenning the better their gear is.

Can you deny this?


How exactly is it your prerogative to define what a correct measure of grinding effectiveness is?

Of course it matters what your downtime is, it's part of the grinding process.

Grinding is broken up into two things: The speed you kill things (your DPS) and the speed you regen back to be able to kill more things (your downtime).

Almost every class has at least one grinding spec where it receives both a buff to their DPS as well as a reduction to their downtime as their gear improves, as I illustrated in my previous post.


Ret does not get reduced downtime as gear improves. You're still stuck drinking to full for 30 secs every 5 mins (example), whether green geared or epic geared.

I am genuinly at a loss how you went from serious concerns that were adressed like threat reduction, increased damage, etc, that anyone sensible agreed with, to demanding increased mana regen when solo play.

A paladin in full tier5 probably grinds at least 2x as fast as a raid spec'd healer of any class even in full t6 gear. Grinding in wow is incredibly easy, complaining about that really makes you look petty.

Your "Mana Efficient" Grinding rotations:

Using SoC 1x + 1x CS + 1x JoC + SoW + white:
Kill time: (5.5k - 1038 - 430) / (281) ~= 14 seconds;
Mana Use: 280 + 236 + 130 + 270 = 916 mana
Mana Regen: 140 mana from SJ, 100.8 mana from BoW, 427 mana from SoW (assume 12 PPM, includes CS average proc rate), 117.6 mana from spirit (6 seconds) = 785.4
Your Net Mana Use: -149.4 (Net mana gain!)
Real Net Mana Use: 130.6


Using SoC 1x + 1x JoC + SoW + white:
Kill time: (5.5k - 430) / (281) ~= 18 seconds;
Mana Use: 280 + 130 + 270 = 680 mana
Mana Regen: 140 mana from SJ, 129.6 mana from BoW, 436 mana from SoW, 157 mana from spirit (8 seconds) = 862.6
Your Net Mana Use: -462.6 mana
Real Net Mana Use: -182.6 mana

You are grinding 100 monsters in average of 1600 seconds, while using your zero managain/manaloss rotations that would keep your grinding infinetely up mana wice. But you still have to heal from time to time. Lets say you spend 1 HL every 2 monsters (about 2800 healed monsters dealing 87 dps to you) thats 131 mana consumed for healing. Meaning you would still need to drink 4 times giving you extra downtime of 105 seconds.

Your total time now being 1705 seconds for 100 Aether Rays.

What would happen if we used normal grinding rotations?

Using SoC 1x + 1x CS + white + 1x JoC:
Kill time: (5.5k - 1038 - 430) / (281 + 93) ~= 11 seconds;
Mana Use: 280 + 236 + 130 = 646 mana
Mana Regen: 140 mana from SJ, 79.2 mana from BoW, 39 mana from spirit (2 seconds) = 258.2 mana
Net Mana Use: 387.8 mana

I am grinding 100 monsters in average of 1100 seconds, while using 387.8 mana per 5sec. Hence I would go oom every 77.4 seconds. I would need to drink 14 times. Every time spending 25 seconds to gain full mana bar, thats 355.3 seconds. I dont need to heal because I eat while I am drinking.

I have now used total of 1455.3 seconds to grind 100 Aether Rays.

Result?

I am grinding 15% more efficiently than you, by using normal all out damage rotation. While you are spending 4 minutes more time to the same grinding job than I would do. Where exactly is this efficient grinding and manaregen you speak of? You are only shooting your self to the foot by using SoW/JoW with rotations that you presented to be highly efficient and what "I am not trying hard enough to use". Even if we completely ignored health loss, you would be 10% more inefficient grinder than I am. Is it safe to agree now that we dont have any practical manaregen abilities? Did we really have to do all this, what you should have done in the first place, before starting to throw wild assumptions without any real testing or theorycraft?

You "think" that the math still shows how SoW/JoW can be weaved into a rotation for better sustained grinding, since when these forums are used to throw these wild assumptions as facts, even when the reality is different? If you dont know how it works, dont post. Calculate how things work and then post if you are sure about your results. Grinding is field test what has large margin of error. If you WWS logged your grinding periods, evaluated the results from your grinding periods. Calculated them and then double checked the theory by another testing period, then you should post your results. Just like I did. You havent done anything but "You think", that grinding experiment where your ingame results only give you rotation that allows you to grind infinitely without drinking, are "developed techniques". Thats only finding lazy way, thats not finding efficient way.

For reference: See above comment by flyingtoastr and other replies where people have evaluated Retribution performance between different classes. Dont think, know...

Have a nice day.

Why are we comparing Retribution specced Paladin to healing specced ones? Shouldnt we compare DPS specs to DPS spec? Feral druid, extremely good grind machine. No downtime (Dont want to post armory URL as some get offended by it). Shadowpriest, extremely good grinder. Ench shaman, godlike grinding machine, no downtime.

And where is our Retribution Paladin?

Because grinding is so incredibly imbalanced and Blizzard has zero intention of adressing it. A prot pala is probably the best AoE killing class in the game if you fight in the right areas.

If your most pressing complaint is that you are not able to grind as fast as an affliction warlock can you perhaps admit that that the battle is won and not whine about such incredibly petty issues?

It's not just grinding though, this is the same issue Ret paladins have during raids. Long bossfights = oom unless you have a spriest or resto shaman. neither of which should be in the melee group.

Mana regen which doesn't scale = bad.
Mana regen that scales = good.

No paladin mana regen abilities scale, not one bit. This can most easily be shown while solo which is why they are using grinding as a basis for comparison. Besides the fact that either the tanking or healing tree grinds more efficiently than the DPS tree.. which is just wrong.

You did see the healing -> SD going into 2.3 right?

That is put in there specifically to address healer's grinding issues. This would be Blizzards way of addressing it...

Actually an affliction lock will kill more mobs with less downtime than a prot pally, because the prot pally doesn't have any form of scaling manaregen either...

Using max rank skills? yes

using CS with r1 SoC and no judgement? normally no

edited for clarification:

With CS at a 6s timer thats ~40 mps.
Consecration is 82.5 mps.
R6 JoC with bene+SJ is ~30mps.

152.5 mps or 762.5 Mp5

JoW with a 2h proc's ~11.2mps or 56 mp5 (forgot to calculate in SoC + CS in the original)
pots are good for ~25mps or 100 mp5

yeah we go OOM much faster than pots+JoW can handle.