Agreed. That's the way I read it also. Though, in my experience if they're commenting on ret dps it's usually not really a good sign for us.

Do you seriously think Blizzard will purpotedly make Retribution Paladin's DPS better than Death Knight's one? It makes far more sense to read it like "it's way too high, up there with Retadin(which is also way too high)", implying necessary fixes/nerfs.

Since both classes give a lot of utility (DKs via Auras and various buffs that each tree has), they should have similar dps.

I think Ghostcrawler is saying both classes need a dps drop.

Dunno. I think that Paladins have three trees devoted to three roles - and I think that Deathknights have three trees, all of which they want to be viable for two roles each. So ... my answer is "maybe". Feral Druid could do either very well with different gear and the same spec, in this exact same situation. Until I know how they're going to handle the dual-spec concept, I'm going to go ahead and say I don't think it's terribly unreasonable for me to spec into a dps tree and get more dps out of it than someone who tanks into a potential tank tree.

Now, that said, if it's a freaking toggle, and I can prot or I can dps anytime I'm OOC, then a) That's probably overpowered and b) then my answer is no. But I don't see that being any kind of fair, so I'm going to stick with maybe.

Edited: Because I didn't talent Imp Grammar.

I sincerely hope 3% raid haste and bigger mana returns from JoW/JotW (over holy spec) will make us desirable, as many here seem to think.


Ultimately, until end numbers are known (raid DPS at 80 for all classes) this is a matter of opinion, everyone weighs things differently for now. Personally I'll continue to have my doubts and hold out for a relative personal DPS increase (more towards 100%) or a utility boost/talent reshuffle.

The holy light glyph looks cool and all but those seal of light and wisdom are downright overpowered, you have to get both of those. Shame really those mechanics don't add anything to play experience. Could anybody explain the flash of light glyph to me? There should be more too, there has to be one for holy shock.

I never claimed that Swift Ret was a 3% dps boost for all, or even most classes, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from. It's a boost to caster nukes with a cast time, it's a boost to white dps for melee/hunters, it's a slight boost to secondary effects like rage generation and on-crit abilities, and it's a slight reduction in the GCD, with all the benefits that entails. And yes, it does work for heals. It's a very significant buff for the entire raid. Even better, it doesn't count as a haste effect, which means it will stack with all other haste effects like WF and WoA. And as I've said, a 3% haste buff for the entire raid is far greater utility than CS ever brought.

400 hp restored every 10 seconds is 800 restored every 20 seconds. Call it a Flash of Light, which means it saves a holy paladin 1.5 seconds out of every 20. Conveniently, that's about the same time investment required for a Holy paladin to keep his own judgement up. So yeah, it's extra convenience on par with the CS utility.

As for the hunter analogy, it's already been pointed out that Hunting Party is deep in the low-dps hunter tree. If we just look at the mana return function, it restores 2% of total mana to 5 people (as I'm reading it, anyway). So if the hunter's in a party with 5 mana users, it returns effectively 10% of their average total mana every 8 seconds. JotW returns 60% of Judgement damage as mana to the raid. We'll have to learn more about the exact dynamics of JotW to draw conclusions, but from a total-mana-returned standpoint, JotW has the upper hand.

I guess it depends on whether you think Ret paladins are raid-viable right now.

I think they are. As I said earlier, we had a good Ret paladin for awhile, then we didn't, and now we've started auditioning a good one again. We're fine either way. Progression has hummed along smoothly since BC came out, and we're now at 3/6 Sunwell. Not the most bleeding-edge guild by any stretch, but we do okay, and whether we have a Ret paladin doesn't seem to have much effect on our overall performance. To me, a good Ret paladin is an asset to the raid, and a mediocre Ret paladin is not. And I think that's the way it should be. Nobody should get a free ticket to a raid based solely on their class or spec; it should be up to the player's skill and performance to earn a raid slot, and I think Ret sits in about the right place that way.

If you think Ret isn't viable in raids right now, then we're coming at this from different premises, so naturally we're not going to agree about what Ret needs in WotLK. But coming from where I'm coming from, I think Ret will be fine if it keeps the same level of relative dps and the same level of relative raid utility. Other classes are of course getting more of both, so Ret should too, but if the overall relationship comes out in WotLK the same as it did in TBC, then I think Ret's just fine. (The end of TBC I mean; the beginning is obviously a different matter.)

I think Swift Retribution is part of that progression in utility. It's more utility than Ret had before (I consider CS to be just about negligible utility most of the time) which is good and necessary. It adds something to the raid without being so strong that you can't raid without it, and I think it'll help keep Ret in the spot it's in, which is a good spot. (This is obviously pending final balancing at level 80.)

Incidentally, the benefits of TBC Ret as I see them, roughly in order:

• Personal dps (don't have any WWS's of Ret paladins handy, but seem to me to be on the level of an Arms warrior)
• Extra paladin (all classes/specs benefit from a 3rd blessing, and some even a fourth)
• 2% dps buff for melee group
• Nobody else has to spec for Imp.SotC (generally not a big deal, esp if you have a prot paladin)
• Judgement refreshes (higher on some fights, but down here for most)

And for WotLK Ret:

• Personal dps (relatively higher than TBC? Lower? Don't know yet.)
• 3% raidwide haste
• Stronger JoW than other specs (could change)
• Extra paladin (somewhat less with no BoSalv and raidwide auras, but still nice, especially as the 3rd paladin)
• Greater spec freedom for other paladins (your holy paladin can go 20-prot and get another Divine Guardian, for example)
• Raid mana return through JotW
• Small health return through DS

So in comparison, it's a longer list in WotLK (which it should be, since other classes are also getting longer lists), and both lists have some good stuff and some stuff that won't be terribly missed if you don't have a Ret paladin. Overall I think Ret paladins are getting what they need to keep pace.

EDIT:

And about the Ghostcrawler quote, he's saying that DKs do too much dps. That's all.

The only thing we can prove from his mention of Ret paladins is that the developers think Ret does a lot of dps in beta right now, which shouldn't be surprising because it's true.

And by logical extent, either Ret paladins are supposed to do more DPS than DK(and more than many other classes...) or our class will be somewhat nerfed similarly to DKs. So, which is more likely?Err....

Urgh. The exact quote is:

"Our preliminary tests show that DK dps is way, way too high (up there with Retadin) so I suggest trying to distinguish between "this is fun" because it feels right and "this is fun" because you see titanic numbers flying off of mobs."

It does not say "our preliminary tests show that DK and Ret dps is way, way too high". It says "DK dps is very high, up there with ret pallys". You can go ahead and sub "ret pally" with any other DPS class and get the same conclusion. Saying "DK DPS is way too high (up there with Warlocks)" doesn't mean warlocks do too much damage, it means DK's do as much damage as warlocks. All he is stating is that Ret Pallys are doing a lot of damage and DK's are currently at the same level, which the devs feel is too high for that class.

Are you people so pessimistic that you are starting to read quotes incorrectly because the evil dev is trying to bring ret down? Come on.

I do too. I guess I just think it's barely raid viable.

I'd like to see the source, because there's a very good chance they're referring to the obscenely broken state ret Paladins are in on beta and not simply making a dps class comparison as you claim.

Whine? All I did was ask the context of the post because for some reason you quoted it rather than give the url as you did now. Thank you for the link.

I believe the whine portion of your post was: Also, if you had read all of 17 posts back( and the very previous page) you would have not only seen the blue post quoted, but also a link to the post: Post 1822

As for substance, I've gotten a bit more of a chance to play around on the beta server, and I gotta say that prot in ret gear with a sword a shield is really quite fun. Mob that right now either take forever for me to kill, or leave me completely out of health and mana after 4, I can grind through with basically no loss in health or mana. It's quite refreshing, and I don't see myself speccing away from prot unless something significant happens.

It wasn't intended as a whine, just a reflection of the buggy state on beta. The CM's use of wording like "titanic numbers" still seems like it is comparing the DKs to the buggy Ret state, not actual ret dps. But as has been mentioned, it's a DK thread and hardly relevant to Paladins so it isn't worth mentioning further. Sorry for the slight derail.

With all due respect, this is probably the origin of all the miscommunication between us. I hope this doesn't sound arrogant, I really don't intend it to, but it's pretty much a core point that the further into the casual scale you go the more relaxed desirability becomes. The further the opposite side you go, the more rigid and calculated setups become.

Now before anyone starts pointing out the dangers of throwing around such terminology, I'll state that I think any way of approaching the game is valid no matter how casual or how hardcore, each at their own pace is fine. However it's vital to this that we accept that "desirability" is a very relative term.

To me, given the less than stellar utility offered, unless a retadin in WotLK is going to be bringing close to prime raid DPS personal DPS, he's not going to be desired when stacking up a progression raid setup to beat a new boss.

The logic goes: You won't fill a DPS spot with something doing only 75% unless they bring something you can't get any other way.

In a more casual approaching guild or during farm, raid setups are not as rigid and I can see a good retadin can be desired without breaking it down fully.


Keep in mind the no.1 aspect in this: Relative personal DPS is an unknown. Maybe it IS comparable to prime raid DPS, in that case, we've achieved exactly what I'm hoping for to make us desirable. Or maybe I'm undervaluing the worth of ret JoW/JotW and setups become reliant on it for progression, that's yet to be fully broken down and compared (something I'd love to get to, rather than keep bickering over matters of opinion).



I don't think there's a point in arguing against such blind logic. Please consider practical case scenarios rather than just random theorycraft. If you want to believe ~133 HP restored to 3 random people every 10 seconds is worth mentioning, even in the fine print, be my guest. I don't think we'll agree here, so I'll just stop regarding this issue and simply agree to disagree

No offense taken at the comparison, but I don't buy the argument. We've killed the same Brutallus as any other guild, with the same hp, same enrage timer, etc, and the same gear pool to work from. If anything, we had to be even more mindful of proper group synergy than the elite guilds, because we only killed Illidan the week before Sunwell came out so we didn't have 6+ months to get everyone in full T6, optimal weapons, etc. We've done Brutallus with and without a Ret paladin and gotten a pre-enrage kill both ways. Sure, things aren't exactly the same at all points in the hardcore-casual spectrum. But I don't buy that they're that different.

I don't agree with your logic, either. For one thing, if a Ret paladin is "doing only 75%" that doesn't mean you need to bring something that nobody else can bring; it only means he needs to bring enough to be worth missing that other 25%. Second, I don't buy that Ret paladins only do 75% of your per-dps'er average dps. If you compare them to your very top dps'er on a given fight, then sure, a Ret paladin will only reach 75% of that number, but if that's your metric you've got a lot of other specs that are in trouble as well.

I agree it's not worth much. My point is that neither is the refresh effect on CS, since both effects can be replaced with about the same level of inconvenience.

Since, you know, that's what you were complaining about losing.

Back to numbers for a moment...

Apparently Blizzard has nerfed the damage coefficients on some abilities in the last patch. Can anyone confirm?

WoW Forums -> Sneaky Nerf

This guy does not seem like necessarily the best source, but a nerf to our scaling does not really surprise me. I do want to know the new numbers though to do some crunching.

His point was not so much that they do a max of 75% of your pure dps classes, it was more or less that you can expect them to perform at a level that is definitely sub par to a pure dps class, even more so as alliance because of the lack of SoB. While i can look at the wws from my guild as we were in BT, i can surely say that i did far more than 75% of our top tier dps, but then again it comes down to how competent your dps are and the group synergy that you have going for your raid.

If your ret paladin doesn't know what he's doing, you'll see that 75% of the top end dps. Av does have a point i'm sure, he's far more experienced in sunwell than i am, and i'm sure there are large gaps of differences in dps from what you're seeing when you're first killing brut to having KJ on farm for weeks.

However even if they do only do 75%, they bring more to a raid than one more pure dps could. I won't go into the specifics because i don't see a reason to insult your intelligence.

Lastly, having toyed with beta as well, i will say that Righteous Vengence needs to include cs, and cs needs to be more than just 110% weapon damage on attack. I don't care that it procs a seal, look at every other "____ strike" ability in the game. They all have a bonus to them of some sort.

I think one can reasonably interpret that quote to mean, "DK DPS is way too high, like Ret DPS is way too high". But if we're doing word by word analysis of a blue post, I think it's time to relax.


Changing the talent seems reasonable, but I don't see the justification for adding anything more to CS. If it can proc SoB, then it's not just a "110% weapon damage strike". It's a 145% weapon damage strike. Or, if you have a different seal up, it could be 110% weapon damage + x health/y mana/chance to stun, making it the most versatile of strikes in the game.

So far I haven't noticed a difference. Or if there is a difference, it's a difference that leaves Ret still absurdly fast and efficient for grinding, at least if you have T6 gear.

I agree that it doesn't need anything more, but having a 41-point talent whose description is basically "Hit bad guy with weapon" is a little unsatisfying. As someone above said, there really should be something more to it, even if it's something fairly minor and/or situational.

If they changed the tooltip on CS to be "An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage and proc's any currently active Seal." I'd like to think the fuss would die down a little bit. You could get a guaranteed 35%/70% weapon damage as Holy damage, 450 mana, 900 health, or a 2 second stun.

Now, tackling this quote:
I'm thinking he used Retadins as the example because they're the class that's most notoriously known for having high damage in WotLK, so I see it being used as just a reference point.

Change it to 110% weapon damage as Holy damage AND proccing Seals. That would make it a must...And please, redo the graphics/animation. Divine Storm is so much better in this regard