At level 80 using only CS, DS and Judgement on cooldown you're using ~851 Mp5. Assuming base mana is still around 4300 a fully raid buffed ret pally will have roughly 6000 mana. That means Replenishment is going to give a total of 150 Mp5. That means SA regen and JoW have to make up more than 700 Mp5 for ret pallys to break even doing a bare minimum cycle. It wouldn't be "nice" to get the blue rage bar back from JotW, it is flat out required or ret is not a sustainable spec.

What do you guys think about the current or slightly-toned-down Judgement of Wise (solo) effect becoming part of the baseline Judgement? I.e. Judgment becomes our version of Lifetap.

Essentially, mana-using classes are designed to gear for Int and Spirit/MP5 in order to increase their longevity. However, 2 of 3 Paladin specs no longer gear for any regen. And the third spec (Holy) consumes mana at a far higher rate (ignoring Consecration for the moment).

I propose that Judgement return enough mana to sustain a Judgement/HotR/HS/CS/DS cycle (~30% of base mana, adjust costs to match). Extra abilities can come out of the mana bar or any mana regen.

This way, both Prot and Ret become self-sustaining to a degree, which they need because they cannot gear for longevity. Holy does gets some extra regen, but that can be balanced with the cost of Holy spells and Illumination/talents.

They said it was smart - will pick lowest mana. Probably % of total. So if you need the mana you'll get the buff.

Blessing and judgment of wisdom are still unrivaled. Look for those coming to a class near you. They might give JoW to a hunter pet.

- CS costs 8% of base mana
- DS costs 20% of base mana
- JoW returns 9% of AP + SP (or 11.7% of AP w/ SoL)


Over 10 seconds, you'll get 1.67 CS, 1 DS, and 2~2.5 JoW.
Outgoing mana: 1.67 * 8% + 20% = 33.36 % base mana per 10 seconds
Incoming mana (4 sec JoW): 2.5 * 11.7% = 29.25% of AP per 10 seconds.
Incoming mana (5 sec JoW): 2 * 11.7% = 23.4% of AP per 10 seconds.


If we say AP value = base mana value, and just assume JoW averages out to 25% of AP / 10 seconds, then we have a 8.36% base mana deficit. With raid buffs, it might be sustainable. (larger mana pool to increase JotW returns, mana tide totem, AP buffs) Otherwise, reducing DS frequency can make it sustainable*. (Which isn't that much different from how DPS warriors use whirlwind before they're geared enough to hit infinite rage.)


At a minimum, CS + Judge is infinitely sustainable. DS is a "mana dump" when you gain excess mana from JoW + JotW. (Exorcism may be a better use of mana than DS on single targets)


Edit:
*To match 25% base mana/10 seconds, DS frequency should yield a mana cost of 12% base mana/10 sec, which corresponds to every 17 seconds.


Right, but it's better if we get the mana regen 100% of the fight, instead of only on the last 30% of the fight when we're almost OOM. With the number of non mana using classes likely to be present in a 25 man raid, we'll have somewhere around 90% uptime at least.


I don't know if BoW/JoW are going to get equivalents. Certain buff categories still have no analogue. (MotW, BoK, PW:F) Did they want to completely remove unique buffs/debuffs, or just reduce the number?

If I was Blizzard, I would have made it so a couple of buffs/debuffs were still unique to allow for a new class to have those (or similar) buffs that don't stack.
Look at how many of the buff/debuff stacking includes Death Knights. I can see the next hero class(es) having a different version of MotW, BoK and/or PW:F.
Granted, when (if) the next hero class comes out, druids, paladins and priests will be screaming "They took our jobs", but quite a lot of that is going around right now, so I probably wouldn't come of too much of a surprise if that's the route they are going.

I could go for this.

Whatever the outcome, the "damage creates mana" effect really needs to remain a part of Ret, at least. An intellect conversion from gear or a deep-ret talent to reduce mana costs could balance things, but those talents wouldn't be cool. Getting a chunk of mana back every time you judge is cool. For that reason alone, it needs to be part of the spec.

I don't quite get your meaning there; could you clarify that?

My general take is that rigid balance is only really necessary at the highest levels; content prior to that point is generally easy enough that you don't need a hyper-optimum class balance (some guilds will always seek a hyper-optimum balance anyway, but I don't think anything can be done to avoid that) so long as things aren't totally out of whack. (But a factor of two difference in dps with similar utility would qualify as out of whack though, so I'm curious what you're referring to there.)

I was going to mention the same thing, JoW is just ridiculous now to remain a single class ability. Either they're giving it to someone else or they're going to nerf it. I can see blessing of wisdom as the unique perk, but at the same time you just know the bleeding edge guilds will stack innervates battleresses and soulstones now.

That was just an example, but the idea was that relative dps changes during progression,
and there are far more guilds working through Kara and SSC than there are in Sunwell.

Obviously these numbers won't be relevant at 80, but if they simply balance the top tier,
and ignore the effect that rebalancing has on the lower levels,
the problems being solved at the leading edge are being created for raids that aren't up there yet.

I don't know dps ratios in sunwell, but I've usually heard feral dps as being some fraction of rogue dps - 70%?

If you'd consider a 10% difference in dps between two classes (neither bringing any new raid buffs) to be 'in whack', I'd understand it - I just disagree. I think Blizzard will be keeping all levels of progression in mind while balancing, and that makes it a much tougher problem.


The 'factor of two' was referring to warriors and druids near opening TBC,
when a druid in greens would outdps a warrior in greens by 30-40%,
but a warrior in epics would stomp all over the same druid in epics..
I haven't worried about it since then, and I doubt the math is the same.

'content prior to that point is generally easy enough'
Really? Didn't seem like it when the guild was first learning it..
If I could squeeze a few hundred dps in for free by bringing a different character,
I've no doubt I would've.
When your guild was *first* learning SSC, did it seem easy?

I think this solution would solve A LOT of our problems.

Lets assume the follow change, Judgments instead of doing the base damage they are doing in beta they return X mana (scaling with AP & SD as well). Still at lower values than SoW so it still works as a mana recharge.

The overpowered bursting from Retri became almost fixed with this change, but without taking the mana reg from the old JotW.

Protection gets a stable mana incoming for offtanking, trading some agro (from the base judgment dmg) for longetivity.

Holy gets a way to get mana giving even more reasons for Holy Palas to judging. (more synergy with the new talents)


With the right numbers this would not be overpowered comparing with others dpsers, healers and tanks who already have tools to acomplish this.

The damage loss comparing with Beta (that doesn't exist in Live) should not compromise Prot threat generation neither Retri dps but giving a lot more utility for a base spell for all specs that is Judgment

Then what would a ret damage rotation be? CS and DS. That sounds pretty exciting. It would also ruin Ret paladins for pvp. Without a healing debuff, we need burst to be successful.

If these changes hold think of how Brutallus 3.0 might look.

Warrior tank (Commanding), Feral tank (LotP)
Shaman healer (WF), Druid healer (Tree of Life), Priest healer (Grace), Paladin healer (Blessing of Kings/Might)

Depending on setup you can bring a 6th of any healing class really so probably another shaman for two blood lusts (first on the pull and second at 5 minutes if the fight even lasts that long which it probably won't).

And now the kicker, right now hunters tend to be highest dps on Brutallus and this raid comprises all the buffs available to them. So bring 17 hunters and you've got a well balanced, well synergized raid.

If this seems completely ludicrous it's because it is, basically instead of fixing the problem of raid stacking they're just changing the reason to do so. Namely you can now stack your dps to be made up of the fotm top dps class. Balancing each class to do the exact same dps while taking mobility/aggro/etc issues into consideration is not something I believe Blizzard capable of doing.

Judgments would still "unleash" the seals, just not having the base judgment damage implemented in Beta

Regarding the comments made about "JoW coming to another class near you", remember it's not a spec specific talent, but baseline. As such it doesn't need to be shared, since I believe their goal is to make "specific specs" interchangeable, but not "classes" in their entirety.

You would expect any 25 man raid to have at least one paladin.

The other obvious consideration is that you can't directly compare JoW to the other "mana battery" abilities out there, since it doesn't help healers at all. Roughly assuming 7-9 healers per raid and 7-9 non-mana users in raid, JoW is only useful to a third/half of the classes that gain from the other mana battery abilities (all classes).


I have to say I agree with this. I will try to keep an open mind, maybe, just maybe they can pull it off, but it seems to me like they just dug themselves a balancing nightmare that will be almost impossible to get out of. This will so easily backfire unless they can "somehow" manage to equalize DPS potential of so many classes to be identical (not very likely).

I do agree that the balance Blizzard is seeking may be impossible. But, I love that player skill, and not class, will be a bigger determinate of success. If the best rogue in the world can out dps the best ret by 10% I'm fine with that. As long as a very good ret can out dps a mediocre rogue. As it stands right now that just isn't possible. I don't mind being the buff/debuff bot, but I would prefer the skill ceiling to be raised allowing an exceptional player to compete.

I'm not a fan of chicken littles but does this change seem poorly conceived to anyone else?

It reminds me quite a bit of the combat mechanic changes to Starwars Galaxy right before it completely tanked.

The meta-game of raid make-up is going to be exacerbated. Blizzard will make a "best effort" attempt to balance dps which will result in a rolling series of flavor of the month classes in between buffs and nerfs. SO you'll need 11 classes to provide the core buffs and begin stacking from there. In todays game it's limited to stacking 5 or 6 depending on the encounter.

Part of this response is likely just dissapointment with the direction retribution is headed. Each time blizzard decides to change the class it floats some great changes and then invariably hamstrings it so effectively and from an unexpected direction as to take the joy out of it.

I liked the idea that our mana regen would increase with gear, and that a well played retribution paladin would outperform a mediocre one, in both damage AND utility. This change dumbs down the utility and puts all of the focus on the damage meter.

This homogenization is taking all of the flavor out of the classes for me personally. Maybe I'll feel differently after some more feedback. As was pointed out earlier, JoW will either be mandatory for a raid(and by extension a retribution or protection paladin will be mandatory for any complex fight) or will be changed drastically, or at least assigned to another class.

Keep in mind the changes to wands. GCD is triggered once, then the wand continues to fire and can be interrupted at any point after. If everyone's theories are correct about a change back to reactive healing you're looking at priests at least having a "regen cycle" where someone else is picking up their healing assignment while they wand back mana inside the 5SR.

IMHO The WoW Energy mechanic and associated balancing around cooldowns for more powerful abilities, is the way of the future, not the mana mechanic we inherited from EQ and previous.

I believe that WAR is running with this.

I am balanced on the head of a pin with JoTW. I anxiously await some kind of blue response on if replenishment is the full effect or a secondary. The answer will shape my WoTLK plans, personally.

Well, JoW doesn't apply to healers for the most part unless they're taking time out to wand/melee/etc. It's also not the only class-specific piece of raid utility. Only druids can battle-rez. Only shamans can bloodlust/heroism.

Now I don't know if it's balanced or not, but I don't think there's any basic objection to classes having unique abilities.

Okay, in that case (warrior/druid) I would agree that's way too much variation. What I'm saying is that if the ultimate top-gear balance has a druid doing 70% of warrior dps, and a druid at the kara level can do 80% of warrior dps, I don't think that's a large enough swing to be worried about.

I absolutely agree they'll keep all levels of progression in mind for balance, and they should, because every level of progression is "endgame" to somebody. What I'm saying though is that balancing things at the non-peak gear levels doesn't need to be as precise; it needs to be good enough that every class is viable, but it doesn't need to be so tight as to make stacking unfeasible, because stacking isn't as necessary at that level.

At the time, no it didn't seem easy. But it was certainly easier at that time than Sunwell is for us now, and I know that our guild hasn't gotten less skilled over the last year.

Understand, I'm not talking about the difficulty of learning the fight -- that is, learning to control and manage things properly to keep the raid alive. If you're talking about difficulty as in "don't stand in the fire", that's the same no matter what classes you have in your raid.

I'm talking about the difficulty of reaching the numerical targets necessary to kill a boss: primarly having enough dps, but also being able to put out enough healing to keep your tank and the raid alive. That's where having a sub-optimal raid composition hurts you.

And what I'm saying is that while Sunwell and SSC both have "get out of the fire" difficulty (I'd argue Sunwell has more of that, but it's beside the point), the real difference is that Sunwell has a whole lot more numerical-optimization difficulty than SSC.

Here's the thing: If you're learning, say, Hydross, how important is it for your dps to be operating at peak performance? It certainly helpful, because the more dps they can put out the less time it takes to finish the fight and therefore the fewer opportunities there are to wipe. And obviously you need to reach some minimum level of dps to get all the adds down and still get a decent amount of dps time in on Hydross each switch. But if your dps is, say, 5% lower than normal because a few of your buffing/support classes are offline, does that make or break the fight for you? Not really.

You can do it with a much-less optimized raid. At the time we did Hydross, we didn't have a Survival Hunter, we didn't have Blood Frenzy, we often didn't have an elemental shaman (or very many shaman at all) but we were able to beat Hydross without really being close to the wire on dps. We did have some dps issues as we progressed through SSC and TK, but for the most part we were able to fix these by identifying individual players who were underperforming and coaching them to improve.

Compare that to Brutallus, where you really do need everyone operating at peak efficiency. Most guilds who start working on Brutallus have just about enough dps to get him down right at the six-minute enrage mark. Unless you've got the dps necessary to kill him 20 seconds early, you just can't afford to lose 5% of it. You might as well save your time and repair money.

That's the level where the game most needs to be balanced, because there's really no way for a raid at that level to "work around" imbalances: everyone already knows how to play their class at near-peak efficiency (if they didn't you wouldn't even be coming close to killing Brutallus) and the raid is already pretty highly stacked. Brutallus is obviously the most extreme example of a "check" fight, but the other Sunwell bosses don't allow you very much slack either.

Again, as I said above, I'm not disagreeing that balance matters at all play levels; it does very much, because the game is supposed to be fun as you progress through it, not just at the end, and also because every play level is endgame to someone. What I'm saying though is that there's a lot more "wiggle room" at the lower progression levels and so small-to-medium variations in class performance as you progress aren't a big deal, so long as they leave everyone viable and useful at every level.

Agreed completely - isn't this the a similar direction to what they're taking the Death Knight?

A power currency which doesn't renew itself isn't fun - it's even less fun when someone can take it away. I blame mana burn for the reason we've come to this. Energy + combo points is great. I'm tired of sweating longevity. I'd rather have to manage my abilities on 30 or 60 second cycles than have to wonder if I'm going to get to leave combat some time today.

As of now, I'm done hoping and I'm done sweating these changes until we get a little deeper into our class polishing.

I'll throw out another crazy idea here, mostly as a stopgap measure to help with mana issues.

1. Move the AP --> SP conversion to a baseline ability, and also,
2. Change Sheath of Light to instead increase Intellect by some fraction of Strength.

This helps out Ret both by directly putting more gas in the tank to start with, and also increases the benefit granted by Replenishment. Moving the AP --> SP conversion baseline solidifies Strength as a desirable Protection stat, fixes mid-level itemization gaps, and also freeing up a lot of leeway to fiddle with spell coefficients without crippling paladin leveling. Touched by the Light can also be redesigned to better fit in Protection, preferably slightly lower in the tree to ease bloat. Finally, Holy/Sheath builds can benefit more fully from crossover itemization in certain slots, increasing Holy hybridity and further reducing loot rot.

It would be a fairly big change, yes, but given the bomb Blizzard just dropped yesterday, they don't appear to be too averse to making big changes at this point in the cycle. Although I'm still holding out some hope that they'll tweak the stacking system to not make such a large number of talents and abilities effectively worthless in a raid group.

Antmanton, I'd go one step further and make strength -> int baseline as well so holy paladins would use pure "Warrior" gear and they could do away with SP plate completely. Holy Guidance could change to be armor -> SP solidifying the desire for plate gear.

If people are worried that the white attacks for the holy paladin would be too high, a talent could change strength to SP completely. It would convert strength so you don't also get SP, you get SP instead of strength. But I think this is moot since a holy paladin would probably get more benefit from a SP one hander with reduced dps.

I think ret would much rather have spellpower than int. They could change divine plea to an innervate type buff and either give it actual ranks for fixed amount of mana or scale it off armor or something. Lower cooldown as well. Armor seems like a fine idea, since it's mostly based off ilvl of crap you wear. All ret would have to do is switch to a shield once every 4 minutes or whatever and get more mana or stay 2h and get less.