tayedaen

It's not only SA, but Sunctuary that helps a lot.
Generally it depends on the fight.
Many mobs or fast hitting boss: No Problem.
Caster Mobs or slow hitting boss: Sometimes very problematic.


Not as long as prot and ret are also using SP.
That's why I think: No SoL, no Touched by the light -> easy balancing via spellpower.

 

Xequecal

But this isn't true. With raid buffs, you can use Consecration even with 15% JOTW. It's been pointed out several times. In 5-man content you're not sustainable with it, but this doesn't matter, because 5-man fights last two, three minutes max anyway.

 

Palados

They unnerf Seal of Blood/Martyr according to GC. This way PvE single-target shouldn't be really affected by changes (assuming that dot from RV will stay rolling).

 

flyingtoastr

PvE DPS is still lowered drastically.

HoW, Consecration, and Exorcism made up close to 19% of our damage output. The change to JotW and the complete lack of Divine Plea means we flat out can not use those abilities without dropping to a gimp DPS rotation. Either way we're losing PvE DPS except on the odd fight where you get unlimited mana from SA.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Khh

i dont have a beta account so i cant test it myself for now

so im very confused, theres a lot of very divergent posts about the jotw nerf in raid dps
from "you won't feel the diference" to "completely crippled raid viability"

whats going on for such divergent opinions?

 

Cevil

Is it really the odd fight where you gain mana from SA? I know not every fight damages you, but at 70, I'm getting Seal of Blood Judgement crits for 3200+, hitting me for 1000 damage. That 1000 damage is in turn 150 mana back from a third party healer. All the parses I've seen for Naxx post nerf put SA at 40% of our mana regen in a fight. With Seal of Blood not getting nerfed, it is clearly, far and away more damage than Seal of Command, so we'll have pretty consistent Seal of Blood damage.

Problems arise, actually, because of Spiritual Attunement, and Consecration. As many have pointed out in this and the theorycraft thread, there is a gap in our rotation if we don't use Consecration, and it feels counter-intuitive to not use a DPS ability in that space. However, if they balance us for using Consecration in a raid setting, they'll end up buffing our mana regen back up to support it in a rotation, making the "going infinite" problem in PvP a reality. If they balance us for not using Consecration, but don't factor in Spiritual Attunement mana regen, then SA could be used to overdrive our DPS by dropping Consecrates. If they do balance us with Spiritual Attunement in mind, our PvP potentially becomes unsustainable. All the while this SA balancing is dependent on using Seal of B/M, and there is a good potential for fights mimicking Kara Prince where Seal/Judgement damage is lethal. At this point we could go to Seal of Command, but post-nerf, the damage gap on these is huge: My JoB/M hit for ~1200; JoC hit for ~800.

The secondary effect is as they buff or nerf Seal of B/M, they're buffing and nerfing Spiritual Attunement mana regen, causing dual losses or gains. They chose not to nerf Seal of B/M; that means they didn't nerf the self damage and our SA mana regen. How many extra consecrates is that compared to a nerfed B/M? Maybe it's significant, maybe not, but it's going to be awfully hard to balance something like that when a single move gives double gains or double losses.

The solution really is to find some way to fill the cooldown gap in our abilities; the most obvious is some sort of Slam/Steady Shot clone. Blizzard wants us skill to factor into our rotation, and I agree. The problem is, as someone pointed out on the wow forums, Blizzard's idea of skill is to simply use or not use Consecrate. While I don't think it's quite that simple (the effective sporadic use of consecrate might be the goal here) I think the choice should be between something in that slot for mana efficient damage (a slam-like ability), and something in that spot for time-efficient damage (consecrate.) Leaving a gaping hole in our rotation, and calling the choice to not use Consecrate because of mana "skill" doesn't seem right.

 

Russta

If they put Seal of Blood more or less back to where it was, what was the point of the recent Seal and Judgement nerf anyway? If their aim was to just tone down Ret's PvP burst, surely a nerf to Seal and Judgement of Command was all that was needed. Instead, Holy's DPS is now abysmal rather than pathetic and Protection's TPS took a hit both of which they've said they're happy to offer compensation for. Even if they left Righteousness and Vengeance slightly better than Command, the first can't crit and the second is almost impossible to generate burst from with a two-handed weapon so neither will ever be used in PvP by Ret.

 

Hylo

That is effectively the same than saying that knowing when to use HS as a fury warrior is a sign of skill. Both are resource dumps that have poor damage / resource ratio but are viable sources of extra dps if you have resource surplus.
Those fights already exist in Naxx. I wouldn't use SoB when fighting Gluth or Loatheb. You can easily insta-gib yourself with juicy, badly timed JoB just after Decimate and using SoB on Loatheb is just building unnecessary pressure on your healers.

 

Cevil

But this is actually a good example of the discrepency between Rage and JotW. A string of white crits will put you at a rage surplus, at which point you can say "I should HS to dump some of this rage into the target." That's when it becomes a reactive choice to make based on dynamic conditions.

The only analog to this on Paladins is Spiritual Attunement, but that's only assuming we aren't balanced in raids around Spiritual Attunement. IF SA is indeed surplus mana, then maybe consecrate does become our Heroic Strike Dump, as poorly designed as making Consecration such a skill is. If we are balanced around SA, then it becomes a choice of "if I Consecrate now, will the mob be dead before I'm OOM?" No Judgement crit will ever change that.

Bring back Holy Strike yes?

 

Xequecal

Eh, so Ret will be underpowered for two weeks on really easy raid content. It's not big thing to be concerned about.

 

flyingtoastr

It is a HUGE thing to be concerned about. Ret was "underpowered for two weeks" at the end of TBC beta, and look what happened to us. We have to show right now that our class is broken and get it fixed before Wrath goes live.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Gaizen

Honestly with with the recent Righteous Vengeance change, it should be doing the damage in place of consecration. Its always going to be stuck to a mob and we don't have to spend extra mana in order to have that happen. I think we are going to be stuck with the tedium of a boring rotation. We wont be the only class to have to do so.

I can see the argument of being on cooldown and not having anything to do to keep the damage up in between. The only thing i can think of that blizz needs to do is to just make Divine Storm Holy damage again. And maybe even Crusader Strike. If Blizzard wants us to stick to that rotation, then they have to make that rotation effective enough to the point where we wont have to worry about dropping to low on the meters while waiting for our abilities to come back up.

In a raid situation your healers will heal you. You will get mana back from JoTW as well as replenishment and any other outside mana regen that comes our way. Mana isnt an issue there.

PvP though, I can see the concerns. I thought about just running around using SoL or SoW up the whole time and just using the judgement on those to just damage people, playing the outlast game, switching to whatever seal i needed to keep whatever i needed up.

 

• Arikah

Lots of blue posts to wake up to huh :\ Also, completely agree with russta - why nerf protection and holy seals when neither are desirable for ret pvp usage? If they are willing to go back on the blood change for the sake of pve, perhaps they might consider going back on vengeance/sor as well.

@gaizen: the RV change isn't a consecration replacement at all, it's a straight up trade for our current 25% critical bonus modifier. We don't have to spend any extra mana on the omgadhoogecrits right now, and those are responsible for a good chunk of our pve dps (pvp as well)...

For the mmoc challenged:
So we can assume the jotw change is here to stay, unless we provide them mountains of data to look at that show us having mana problems again. So let's do what we do best and go raid, and report back with numbers.

 

Darian_TruBlade

Are you taking enough damage on Gluth or Loatheb to potentially have the mana to Consecrate more? That could offset being unable to use SoB.

"A man's IQ, yearly income, sexual prowess, ingenuity, physical appearance and generally every other aspect of his character can be condensed down to four digits: his Arena rating." - Zechsy [70 Rogue - Skullcrusher (EU) - 10/23/2007]

 

Endoscient

That happened because we were still underpowered at 70 for a while, we didn't really get any new ability that offset the change like Divine Plea will.

 

Questioner

Depending upon how you look at it, this is either a side comment or a response.

There is one FACT when it comes to paladin taunts. The paladin taunt mechanic (RD) is bugged, and has always been bugged. If the intended hostile switches targets just prior to the paladin casts taunt (I'm talking within lag time here) the taunt will just completely fail. This puts RD on cooldown, and the mobs are still loose. This is a race condition that the paladin has no control over.

All other taunts work off a different mechanic whereby a debuff is directly applied to the mob that forces said mob to attack the taunter. It is the indirect mechanic of the paladin taunt that causes problems.

I had been prot all of TBC, but after one night of Brutallus attempts I had this happen to me 6 times in 10 attempts. I've been Retribution ever since. It was ridiculous.

 

Cevil

More discussion from GC today. One of the things he mentions is to lower the cooldown on Judgement, while also lower the effects, so that we have more buttons to push in our rotation. It led me to an idea.

Remove Cooldown from Judgement.

Instead, give seals a stacking buff, that stacks 1-10, 1 every second. When you judge, you consume this stack (but not the seal) and your judgement does a % damage and mana return based on how many stacks it has. This gives Ret the flexibility to throw Judgement into the rotation at any time it fits, while still making it the same power level. It also solves the burst damage issue, as you'd have to wait 10 seconds from sealing, or 10 seconds from judging, to hit with that kind of burst again.

 

Stardusty

This statement worries me. It shows that they do not get the point about drains. Changing from a fixed number to a percentage of base mana makes no difference to those most adversely affected; both options are interchangable. Drains on a fixed number or percentage of base mana are more lethal against classes/specs that rely on mana but do not have a mana pool comparable to casters, to which the drains have to be balanced to in order for it to make any appreciable effect upon use.

 

Solyna-Terenas

Unless I'm missing something, isn't this completely incorrect? If a Mana Drain is draining 2500 mana as a fixed value, that would cripple a small mana pool (like a Ret Paladin) and be a fair chunk, but much less % for a mage or warlock with a large mana pool. Meaning a small pool could be fully drained in 3-4 drains.

However, if it did 10%, then it would affect both of them equally percentage-wise (obviously) and it would scale with more/less intellect. So a ret paladin with 5000 mana would lose 500 mana and a mage with 15000 mana would lose 1500 mana. Either way it would take 10+ drains to drain someone fully.

 

Stardusty

This is where the discrepency lies: % of base mana. The easiest example is between ret/prot paladin and holy paladin. All three specs will have the same amount of base mana, but the holy mana pool is say 15k. Compared to a ret/prot mana pool of 5k, when any of them are hit for X% of base mana, they all lose the same quantity, ie Y mana.

This is exactly how JotW used to work before they realised holy paladins were abusing their 15k mana pools and regenning 33% of that, hence the change to 33% of base mana.

 

Sapp

He said base, not max, but yes... making Mana Burn "15% of current mana" would probably position it at about the same level as current over time, but with the advantage that you can't be completely shut down by it. Base Viper Sting off that model and the problem is mostly resolved.

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

 

Volrath50

He easily could have meant max mana, and accidently typed base mana. Anyway, I'm looking forward to testing out the JotW change tonight, seeing if it's really as bad as some predict.

"As surely as I live forever, when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgement, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me."

 

• Avitus

Not really. Righteous Vengeance dot is the replacement/conversion of "Righteous Vengeance the crit damage modifier talent". If they would offload the 250 or so DPS consecration does to the Righteous Vengeance dot it will open floodgates of pvp balance whines like we've never seen before.

One of the current ideas over at the ret thread is this:

New single target Consecration ability: Whether a new standalone baseline ability or talented (or even a Consecration conversion through Glyph as has been suggested) it would do the same damage as consecration does now, scale the same way, have the same cooldown, but cost less mana (manageable/intended to be used for PvE rotation) and be single target/no AoE effect.

As Prinsesa correctly mentioned, it would be the perfect place to offload more DPS for PvE while balancing everything else we have for PvP. Think end phase Zul'jin "pillar of flame" like dot, in PvP it would be pointless since people can move out of it (and it would have a cd so won't be spammable) and in PvE you could adjust any discrepancies by buffing this ability without fear of PvP imbalance (or too much burst). Also they should tie Consecration and "pillar of holy shizzle" cooldowns together to avoid spamming both.

I really think this would be the way to go, considering consecration with downranking "has been" part of the ret rotation for over a year and it would be a perfect answer to solving the "PvP burst" drama.

Edit: Posted about here, feel free to copy to US board (sometimes I really have to wonder about some people).

 

Fqubed

Should perhaps be coded so that the area burns the paladins current target as long as the paladin is on it. This avoids problems with multiple mobs and the ticks getting spread out, or eaten by trash. In PvP it also fixes any problems from CC breaks that the standard consecrate causes.

 

Dekkar

The exact reason they didn't remove seal procs from instant attacks is most likely Hammer of the Righteous. Prot needs it to proc seals.

It would have to be as a specific exception that Divine Storm and Crusader Strike didn't proc seals.