Plaisted

With the improvements to JoW and JoL it seems like it will almost be necessary to bring a ret pally for raiding. The mp5 to casters/hybrids will be huge (was significant in TBC also). Do you think we'll see a slot reserved for ret paladins in 10 mans (would assume in 25 mans there will definitely be one).

I like what I'm hearing about ret pally and mana problems. It always made ret pals subpar in my opinion because in long fights they'd be sure to run out of mana (more pvp, guess you can chug mana pots PVE).

random question..

What armor set is that in your avator, Avitus? Looks like s4 or sunwell sword, the armor though?

edit:
checked armory link... guess it's just sunwell drops mixed with t6 (can't see the t6 though).

 

Ellerain

Even if it could be better than DS - prot still does not have all the talents to support it. With DKs, Warriors and Druids all having nice soloing ability in tank spec it would be nice for prot to have something other than reckoning - the talent one will offspec from the moment one moves to serious content. If 2-spec rumors will turn to be true than it is probably less of an issue, but still...

Chaos, panic and disorder - my job here is done!

 

• Chicken

Hammer of the Righteous and Shield of Righteousness seems like they'd both be pretty big boons to your average Prot Paladins soloing capability. Ret Paladin gear along with a one-hander and shield really seems the way to go grinding in WotLK as a Prot Paladin.

It won't compare to an actual DPS spec for soloing of course, but it should be a big improvement over now regardless.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

• Avitus

In 10 mans, fight requirements tend to be a lot less demanding (at least this has been my experience) so I don't doubt good ret paladins will have a problem getting a spot. There won't be a spot "reserved" for a ret paladin since you only have 10 spots and many more classes/specs, but you should have equal opportunity to any other melee DPS.

Regarding mana, at the moment for soloing you get the full 60% of judgement damage mana back from Judgement of the wise. How this will work in a group/raid where this 60% is split over 3 people (making it 20% each) as well as whether the paladin will be always one of the recipients of the mana return is still very unclear.

Additionally with Judgement damage being bugged on beta atm, it's not an accurate representation of how good judgement of the wise will be.

The jury is still out on whether ret is "mana fixed" or not in a raid situation, it can go either way depending on how the uncertainties I mentioned above play out.

What I can say for sure at least for now is how good the scaling SoL/SoW is. You can stick up one of those seals up for a few hits and get massive health/mana returns by doing a few white/CS/Divine Storm hits on some mobs (as high as 700 hp/400 mana per hit, soloing, unbuffed), then switch back to a damage seal.


The armor in my avatar is the sunwell dps plate set. I'm using some leather atm since it performs better and yea my T6 pants suck, but should be changed as soon as my luck turns. *fingers crossed*

 

HamSlammer

I've been working on a graphical representation of our Wrath DPS rotation for the past two days mostly to find out HOW to work in JoV/C into the rotation and so far... it's been hell.

However, the DS priority rotation looks very promising and tight.



A couple things to note.
- Judgement is assumed to stay off cooldown
- Consecrate is given a higher priority because it's not restricted by mob type. Additionally, it should prove to be a larger portion of damage when compared to Exorcism because of it's +Damage coefficient and Sheath of Light

I've graphed out a CS priority rotation using the same guidelines for priority (CS>DS>Consecrate>Exorcism) and it doesn't repeat itself until the 48 second mark. Also, I've devised a somewhat primitive weighting system based off AP, Haste, and Crit% that displays the DPS values per rotation according to the percentage of time spent on cooldown during the rotation.

For example, in the DS Rotation, Crusader Strike is used every 6.66 seconds (on average) so it's on cooldown 90% of the time. Likewise, Consecration is used every 10 seconds so it's on cooldown 80% of the time.

Here's a link to the two rotations accompanied by a brief summary and mana usage (max rank Consecrate and Exorcism used)

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...spriority2.jpg
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...spriority2.jpg

Edit #1: Just wrote up a CS rotation that's CS>DS>Exorcism>Consecrate that's simpler in terms of sealing and scale (36 second rotation). However, it falls in DPS compared to R1 and R2.

 

GSH

I wonder if it would be worth having Divine Storm drop to 9s (with corresponding decreases in damage and mana costs). This would make Crusader Strike and Divine Storm line up nicely in a 4/6 GCD rotation. Then you could fit all the other abilities in the gaps around those two abilities.

Edit: Actually, does melee haste affect the GCD? With the new haste combined in one stat, is the GCD of melee abilities reduced as well?

 

bellator

HamSlammer,

Nice charts. One minor thing though, since these will be possible rotations at 80, you may want to include level 80 mana costs. You have Exorcism and Consecration listed as 340 and 660 respectively. Howvever at 80, exorcism is going to be 430 and consecration 1475. I find it more likely exorcism will be used and consecrate wont be due to it's staggering mana cost.

 

flyingtoastr

Given that we don't know how big our base mana pool at level 80 is I wouldn't quite jump the gun yet. Using the level 70 numbers that we are at least able to calculate is better than randomly guessing.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

HamSlammer

Agreed. I was more or less trying to illustrate a Divine Storm DPS rotation at level 70. Without knowing the exact strength of JotW and our base mana pool, it's hard to illustrate mana consumption for level 80.

I don't even wanna get started on R8 Consecration though >.<

 

bellator

Using the lvl70 numbers if fine for the abilities based on base mana, but the point was more aimed at the exorcism/consecration usage whose mana costs aren't based on % base mana but are fixed values not guessed at.

With the cost of consecration being 921mp5 (when spammed on cooldown) whether it's used or not will be almost independant of mana pools, but far more based on our mana regen. (unless of course they suddenly tripple our mana pool)

Yeah consecration has gone a bit crazy. I get the impression that the sudden jump in cost coupled with the prot paladins talent to reduce it's mana cost is Blizzards subtle way of saying this is a tanking not dps ability (unless you have hordes or murlocs to slay :p)

 

HamSlammer

It's honestly all dependent on how Judgement of the Wise works. For instance, say we get a fat 5000 JoB crit which'll restore 3000 MP (assuming there's no damage going to an overkill) and the Paladin is sitting with a bigger mana deficit than 3000... will all 3000 go to the Paladin? Will 1000 only go to the Paladin? Will none go to the Paladin if there's a healer in range sitting around 0% mana.

If JotW prioritizes us 1st, attempting to bring us to 100% MP every time we Judge, we'll be able to spam every ability. If it doesn't, I'm not sure.

Yar. If downranking doesn't get borked, then R6 might be an amazing ability. Only 288 base damage less but for 815 less mana. Time will tell.

 

DonGuapo

I was curious how the new retribution aura's damage will be calculated. It could be calculated by the person's own spell damage meaning that a warrior tank would have a weaker return on the damage dealt than someone who does have spell damage or it could be based off of a tree of life way and is based on the paladins spell damage to determine the damage returned. I'm more inclined to believe the former, but if someone has beta access to confirm this, this will help me get a better look at the value to the Improved Retribution Aura talent.

 

flyingtoastr

The problem is that abilities like CS, DS, Judgement... hell even Seals are going to cost more at 80 than 70. If you use the level 70 numbers for one set (CS/DS/Seals/Judgement) you should use it with the other set of fixed costs (Consecration/Exorcism) or else you're skewing the data by comparing unlike values.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

bellator

Agreed, it we are priorotized then yeah mana will be a non issue, if we are not, i've done some calcs and i believe going on average judgement damage restoring mana + jow assuming sunwell kinda gear then yes there should be enough mana to sustain us theoretically.

The problem being that a) there will be lots of overregen where we are at 80-90% mana and get a crit judgement, but not fully benefit from it, and b) there will be times where we some judegment resists in a row and with consecration being about 25% of our mana our mana will plummet and we will be struggling waiting for judgement of the wise to restore us, and messing about with our cycle

 

bellator

I think we are talking at cross purposes here. I havent been comparing judgements to consecration. I've just been talking about consecration and exocism skills whos mana cost we know at 80 and discussing whether their mp5 costs (particularly that of consecration) will be viable in a rotation such as those stated by HansSlammer. It would be pointless using consecrations level 70 mana cost to do this.

 

Prinsesa

Besides Judgement of Justice's unleashing damage being dealt on every melee hit refresh, just what is bugged about Judgement damage?

The 15k-20k figures we've seen match up neatly with the estimated JoC coefficients and all of the multipliers (AoW, stunned, 2.15x crit, etc.)

Yes, it's a lot of multipliers and a lot of damage, but nothing to suggest that anything is programatically wrong.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

◊ Cathela

I'd be surprised if it didn't split the mana three ways whenever possible. Maybe even to the point that if you have three possible targets at full, full, and empty mana then the mana will be split among all three with 2/3 of it being wasted on the guys with full mana.

But in groups and especially in raids you'll have a good bit more AP/SP (battle shout, unleashed rage, etc) as well as other mana sources (spriest, totem, etc) so it may not be a big problem to close the gap if the mana is split.

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

 

Rasputin

What we really need is some controlled testing in a group on how JotW splits, if and when the AI on it is fixed. I wouldn't be surprised if it just used the Chain Heal AI, chaining mana to the 3 people with lowest mana in range who are eligible targets. If so, it could be easily fixed to require the paladin to be the initial target by making him the "target" of JotW, with the next two targets chaining off the paladin, with a given range for anyone in raid/party.

 

Nutron

biggest problem i can see with picking lowest mana targets near the paladin is it would most likely pick enhancement shaman, hence wasting mana return since they realy dont need it...

So the only way to make it work would be to make it random to any mana users realy..

 

Vasala

For those in the beta how is paladin healer mana efficiency looking? I know that normal 5 mans are not a great model to see how we will hold up but guessing not much testing in the tbc raids going on currently. I am just wondering if we are going to be even more dependent on the mana potion timer or if we will need to be in melee swinging away to get the mana from judgement of wisdom, etc.

I am definitely excited that Holy Shock is finally going to be useful but still worried that holy paladins may have serious mana issues.

 

bellator

It's a little too early to tell. With the increased downraking penalty, using lower level heals will probably be less efficient, meaning the higher more costly levels will be needed. If end games bosses are in a similar vein to TBC with HL spamming needed I think there could still be mana issues. However if they are tuned more around vanilla style allowing FoL & HS to be the main heals with HL the costly (instant) big heal, then we will probably be ok. Until we see heroics/10/25 man etc and see what Blizzards philosophy to healing is in wrath it's hard to tell.

 

• Avitus

The point is that you can bet they won't let ret paladins go live doing 15-20k judgements. My "average" judgement crits are 6-8k at level 70, without art of war procced, enough to 1 shot or 2 shot most people. As cool as it is, I'm pretty sure that's not how they intend to balance the game.

As such I don't think we can directly base JotW expectations on what we're receiving on beta.


You bring up an interesting point. With Battle Shout, Auras and Totems going raid wide, we can maybe start being put in the Spriest group or with a resto shaman for mana tide, there's no benefit in bunching melee together.

On a side note (and as a long shot), any idea if Mana Tide Totem is going to be raid wide too (doubt it)? What about vampiric touch (highly doubt it)?

 

Altirias

I think I read somewhere that everything was turned raid wide, including vampiric embrace & touch, all totems, all buffs, etc

 

Smurrf

Out of curiousity, how exactly are paladins getting their mana pool in the Beta? I've only heard that all tanking gear is optimized for Str/Stam (which is okay, given the conversion to SPWR we have). That doesn't leave room for Int, and I can't see Warriors getting any kind of Int to XXX conversion. So are we picking up the odd piece of gear that's supposed to go to Ret/Holy, is our base mana pool beefed up, or what?

(I realize that JoW will allow you to sustain your mana pool...just wanting to know what people are using for starting off, especially with cost-intensive spells.)

 

Shalcker

But there is no indications of tools that'll allow Ret to be decent in small-scale PvP in any other fashion then "one-shot".

Lack of "snare", "mortal strike", "charge", or "pull" (like DK) mechanics anywhere in trees, as well as "immunity piercing" on Avenging Wrath seems to indicate intent to make Ret Paladins PvP into "Align procs, Stun/Repent as needed, and Kill through Healing/Before any heal can finish casting".