burghy

You should really forget about intellect on ret paladin gear.

 

Rasputin

In order for your idea to work, Blizzard would have to start sinking points into int on our gear. Until they do that, we absolutely require JotW as it is now to be anything more than useless. As for the worrying about mana, there is a marked difference between melee classes and ranged classes. Melee abilities cost a large amount of a resource which is quickly replenished: rage, energy, runic power/runes all fit this. Ranged/caster abilities cost a much smaller amount of a resource which is in much greater supply, and regenerates more slowly. We cannot combine these two without disaster; one or the other must be primary. If you want us to worry about mana, fine. Reduce all our abilities to small fractions of their current costs, and allow our single mana pool to last us for a long time, while also giving us a powerful regeneration method to use when we run low. Trying to do one without the other is a disaster in waiting.

 

Anauel

I know I'm not supposed to compare different classes, but the most similar classes to ret (warriors, enh shamans, dks) have infinite cycles. If we didn't what would be the point of being a ret pally then? Why not just roll a rogue/warrior/dk and have a full infinite rotation?

*I am not certain about enh shamans, I admit I don't have any info about them - only my personal experiences - but the point still stands for rogues/warriors/dks.*

 

Helot

JotW should be changed, if deep holy is not going to be.

As other posters have suggested, a change to be based off of melee strikes (CS/DS) for mana-regen/free attacks/w.e rather than straight mana-return.

Yes, hunters have to worry about mana. And then they switch thier aspect, hit the target for 10 seconds, and are back up to full. Ok, 10 seconds may be a bit short, but they don't lose (what was it? 25% damage from seals?) by swapping to a different aspect. There is a loss: AotV vs. AotH does mean thier DPS drops slightly.

Re-Sealing to Wisdom, hitting the mob, and then re-sealing to SoC/SoM/SoB is like going to a restaurant, ordering dinner. Then once it arrives, changing your mind, sending it back, and re-ordering. And paying for both.

It's not something you want to do, or would do at all. Why should we be forced to spend significant amounts of mana to be able to gain minimal amounts over a long period of time?

Is SOW based off our damage? AP? SP? And if it is, will using it for 10 seconds bring us back to full from 0?

I remember that pre-nerf JoW was returning large amounts of mana. So much so, that my first thought was "Yes! i won't have to worry about mana, whether I'm Prot or Ret! And my raid will love me for my scaling mana, the better my gear is, the more they get back!". JotW wasn't really needed in that situation, because the mana-regen (while not enough to sustain a full cycle) was a significant boost to what we have now on live.

I don't want to go to how Live is now, where we chain-chug pots for mana. Especially since you won't be able to post-3.0.

Chaith logs on
<zyl> Actually, I do like my paladin. He's fun to play, but don't tell Chaith.
<chaith> Looks like i logged in at the right time
<zyl> ....
<zyl> I pressed enter half a second after you logged on.

 

Fiola

It hasn't been proved JotW is the optimal spec now, now has it? To make it work, you're tethered to be within 10 yards of a judge-able target. It assumes that you can judge every 8 seconds, which ignores the reactive time dependent nature of healing. It also assumes that the extra mana from JotW can be sunk into useful healing. If there's a "rest/deadtime phase" in a boss fight, (such as Nightbane, Netherspite, RoS), that extra mana regen may not be needed.


Yes, having JotW is better than not having it - but is it strictly superior to having BoL and the deep Holy talents leading up to it? I don't think so, and there's still some changes down the road.

 

Antmanton

Which is exactly what I just advocated. In the not-to-distant past, Ret gear actually did have Intellect (along with Spell Power and MP5) on it. Adding it back on wouldn't be a hardship.

Seal and Judgement of Wisdom are now both based on your maximum mana, as are Divine Plea and Judgements of the Wise. Given a decent mana pool, I can't see a Ret pally staying OOM for any length of time even if he doesn't use Seal of Wisdom (and for the record, I am completely for eliminating the mana cost of both SoL and SoW - if you actually need to use them, it's probably because you are already out of mana and/or are about to die). I reiterate: nerfing JotW is not something that would be done in a vacuum; you'd get some Intellect itemized on tier and badge gear to offset the loss and get some of the recent Seal and Judgement nerfs reverted, which would equate to more burst DPS - but only at the cost of running yourself OOM.

 

◊ Cathela

I don't think anyone objects to the concept having multiple viable specs for the same role. The problem is that it looks pretty difficult to square it all up that way in this particular case.

In its current form, it's a monstrously powerful regen talent for anyone with a large mana pool -- if you take the rather conservative assumptions of a 15k mana pool and being able to judge every 15 seconds, then JotW brings in 1000mp5, which is an extremely large number even at level 80. If it's left the way it is, then the developers will have to (a) come up with something for deep holy that's competitively attractive, and (b) find some way to ensure that a deep-Ret spec doesn't become overly powerful in a healing role with a gear swap.

Can this be done? Perhaps. Certainly the devs are capable of being very clever when they have to be. But it's not going to be a trivial task.

On the other hand they, if they simply rework it to give 35-40% of base mana, then they retain its power for Ret builds doing dps, keep it as a useful but not overpowering mana regeneration tool for healing Ret paladins, and make the task of balancing it against deep holy a lot easier.

Doesn't that sounds a lot more likely for a dev team that's probably already rushing to reach the ship date?

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Rasputin

Sure, but go ahead and address the rest of my post where I describe the differences in ability costs and resource pools between ranged and melee classes, which would also need to be dealt with if your idea were to be used.

 

Spenda

I don't disagree with your point, but the hunter example is a bad one as they have significantly changed AotV to reduce damage output by 50% while active. Using it now is a huge hit to damage throughput. That said I think the mana issues vs. infinite cycle split is really intended to address the issues of melee vs. ranged.

 

Anauel

But having int on our gear makes absolutely no sense at all. They're moving away from it. Why are they moving away from it? Because we had too many stats to stack. A pally in BC can benefit from (in no particular order): AP/SP, Crit, Str, Int, Haste (if you're horde), hit and expertise and armor penetration.

What doesn't make sense from this list? SP and Int. All of the others I mentioned are melee attributes. With SoL and JotW we're now scaling on all melee attributes. This is good. We don't want to go back to scaling off caster and melee attributes.

EDIT: Yes, the stat consolidation makes some of them (like Crit and Hit) not melee only, but the point is the same, since you're not going to be picking up items that are not itemized for a melee role.

 

Spenda

It would be a hardship. They intend ret paladins to share gear with dpsing DKs and Warriors. They don't want int on their gear. That said, if you personally want to gear for int, you could wear DPS mail as enhancement shaman/hunter gear is itemized for it, but you won't be seeing any strength on it.

 

Arthaal

Except hunters never have to worry about not being in range to do damage... I'd argue that the reason melee classes have infinitely maintainable DPS is because range is such an issue for them. Casters (and hunters) can do damage at any range if LOS isn't involved, so something should be in place to temper that DPS over time. For melee classes this is range. As it is now, my DPS takes a huge hit in PvP against anything not trying to kill me in melee range: read frost mages/smart hunters/warlocks/etc.

 

tarja

Blizzard has made it VERY clear that they don't want us to rely on having Intellect on our gear, because then they have to make separate gear for Ret Paladins and for Warriors/Deathknights. So advocating any ideas that rely on putting intellect on Ret gear is a waste of time. We can say with certainty that it won't happen.

 

Antmanton

The comparatively greater costs would be subsumed in your larger ability pool. The difference I'm trying to illustrate is roughly that of 20% regeneration of a 5,000-point mana pool versus a 12% regeneration of a 8,333-point mana pool. Both examples yield 1,000 mana, thus not disturbing anything - provided you gear in a balanced fashion. If you choose to instead ignore Intellect and put the itemization budget towards more AP, then great, you'd do more DPS, even more than you might now - but it would come at the price of being useless after 60 seconds.

It makes perfect sense, you're supposed to be a paladin, not a warrior. Your Hand and heal spells don't disappear the moment you put that first point into Benediction, you're intended to keep casting those spells, this change just reinforces that. As for why paladins failed in TBC, it wasn't because of stat dependancy, it was due to the arbitrary design decision of putting hybrids 30% or so behind pure classes. That philosophy is gone now, according to numerous posts by Ghostcrawler and Koraa. Besides, even if adding some Intellect so cripples your AP that you can't compete with other classes, your AP coefficients can be tuned up a notch in a couple keystrokes to bring you up to parity.

That's why I specified tier loot and selected badge gear. Warriors and DKs won't be wearing those pieces, and so shouldn't care about what's on it. Again, no problem.

[e] Edited to add a few more replies:

I was mostly aiming at PvE content with my comments, but to address the concern, most of the mana problems I've ever seen in PvP are a result of mana burns. I'm not suggesting removing JotW regeneration entirely, just shifting the model to encourage better stat distributions and more judicious use of things like Consecration. Now, if you're arguing you have trouble even reaching people trying to kite you around, that's a different kettle of fish, but it's not dependent on your mana regeneration.

Not too much work, no. If they're willing to reuse models and textures (and why not, they'll all look alike anyway), bashing out a new item probably requires no more time to implement than it takes to think up a new name. As for tuning, it does require some work, but its work they have to do regardless after every single patch they fiddle with coefficients.

In sum, I accept that my proposals would require some effort, but I maintain that it would be in our best interests to have that work put in now. I'm not willing to accept expediency as an excuse for shipping a broken class, regardless of whether it's too weak to be considered useful or so outrageously powerful that it requires a nerf after every new tier of content. Right now, various aspects of the paladin encompass both of these extremes, and without some kind of drastic measures, I have serious doubts that all three specs are going to be balanced raid-viable throughout the life of the expansion.

 

◊ Cathela

How about simply doing away with JotW and making self-mana return be the secondary effect on CS, and Replenishment on 10 people be the secondary effect on DS (or vice versa)?

Wouldn't it? They'd have to re-create a whole separate category of "Ret paladin gear" distinct from Warrior/DK dps gear. That's exactly the kind of thing they're trying to get away from. (EDIT: Okay, so you've responded on this point, but it's still going to be extra itemization work to create new ret badge gear, etc.)

And if they did want to add intellect to Ret paladin gear and use that as a means to nerf JotW, they'd have to add a lot. If you want to nerf JotW from 20% to 10%, then you have to double a Ret paladin's mana pool, which would require like 300 more intellect. That would come out of damage stats, so in order to avoid gimping Ret paladins dps-wise you'd have to re-tune them to do more dps with fewer damage stats on their gear. Like I said above about another proposal, it's not impossible to make it work, but it would take a whole lot of effort, and there are far easier ways to address the problem.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

• frmorrison

I don't understand why a few people want changes to Ret.

If you lost track of time, WotLK will be released in 39 days, and 3.0 at least a week before that, so it is too late to do any major changes like making Ret want Int.

What mechanics are there are set, however things such as HotR and JotP are very likely to be tweaked before release.

If you do not like JotW, cancel your account and tell Blizzard your concerns (while Blizzard employees did not read every forum post, I believe they read every cancel note) because I do not believe it will change.

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

 

Anauel

Yes, but hand spells and fol cost a relatively small amount of mana and all hand spells have a cooldown. You're not meant to be spamming them so their cost is negligible.

You're still a paladin but you're there to dps. That's your role. Ghostcrawler said that they will now be classifying specs as DPS, Tank or Heal, and even though we still have heals and utility, in the end we're there to DPS. Int does not help us dps right now. With JotW as it is, int is nigh-worthless. That's good. Having our basic rotation be infinite means that we can focus on damage stats, which is what dps is all about... doing more damage.

And what about dropped loot? Nobody wants to have a piece itemized for ret pallies in a 10 man when they have no ret pally. It's just unnecessary for us to have specific gear.

 

Fiola

Re-creating Ret paladin gear with int brings up another problem - is Ret DPS balanced around our tier items with Int, or with the non-set items with 0 Int? Either tier gear will be "weighed down" by un-necessary stats, or we end up not wanting the non-optimal "Warrior" gear.

 

Foofu

Unless they've changed the fact that spells made instant through talents reset the swing timer you will not be casting many FoL's in PvE as a dpser. Every time you cast it you lose dps, even timed with a swing (which won't always be possible due to your dps cooldowns having priority) you can't eliminate the impact, so you have to have a good reason to cast it (e.g. prevent a death).

 

Demonseedx

On the whole ret gear thing I do find it kinda ironic that with the change over to Spell power Ret and Holy paladins could have shared the same gear pushing Ret back to a melee spell damage build.

 

• frmorrison

Assuming CS and Divine Storm were changed to use spell power to scale, you still have the issue of balancing Holy Pally vs this ideal spell damage melee Ret needs, and it would cause additional headaches (since it would be the only spell power melee class, so they would have many issues balancing it versus the other melee classes).

In addition, many Players would be mad since Ret has used melee stats for four years and a Retadin's current gear wouldn't work well with this spell power melee class.

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

 

Demonseedx

I wasn't thinking of it in a balance sense, just on the goal of blizzard to have more overflow to the gear. As of right now only one class in one spec wants the Spell power plate and that seems counter intuitive to have one set of gear for one spec of one class.

On the other hand can't imagine it being that much different then the hoops its gone through to be balanced to melee dps. Certainly it would make it easier for Holy to sink up much better in terms of leveling/farming gear if all the paladin spell coefficients were balanced based on two sets of gear instead of three. Of course it would make Protection a pain to be competently balanced but when hasn't that been the case?

 

Anauel

I'd think that the rewording on Art of War from -1.5s to instant would make it so it doesn't reset the swing timer. The shaman equivalent doesn't. Anyone from beta or in the PTR that can confirm?

 

• frmorrison

An Art of War FoL when used will reset your swing timer.

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

 

Andrast

The difference is that shaman use Maelstrom weapon to continue their dps cycle. The most common use of a 5-stack of MW is to cast either Lightning Bolt or Lava Burst. While a ret paladin's main use of Art of War is to heal. It seems unfair to penalise shaman by resetting their swing timer for merely continuing their dps, while it doesn't seem quite as unfair to reset the swing timer for paladins since they are switching roles by throwing out a heal.