The Retribution Paladin Thread (Wrath/3.0) - Page 107

rldolph79 · 02/25/09, 3:32 PM

Originally Posted by Kinmaul

No offense but this is complete speculation on your part unless you have some kind of inside source.

Ghostcrawler has stated on numerous occasions that they intend our damage to be on par with with we're doing in Naxx. We are not yet on par with what we're doing in Naxx, so there have to be more buffs in the works. There's no way around it.

• Zurm · 02/25/09, 3:43 PM

Originally Posted by Kinmaul

No offense but this is complete speculation on your part unless you have some kind of inside source. I don't think running around screaming "the sky is falling" is appropriate yet, but saying "oh well Blizzard has changes in the works" isn't either. Logic would dictate that they probably have more changes to impliment, but that doesn't mean they are coming.

I'm going to have to agree with Dolph here. Classes are all sorts of broken on the PTR... DKs are doing 20-30% more damage than they already do, and half of the talents for some classes don't do anything at all. Blizzard also stated there will be numerous iterations, and ALSO keep in mind that the MMO-Champion "undocumented changes" are undocumented because they aren't offical. Datamined stuff is often incomplete or flat out wrong, and you should really wait until the PTR stabilizes. Avoid hitting the panic button until 3.1 goes live (because often changes will occur between PTR going down and a patch going live).

kharen · 02/25/09, 3:58 PM

Originally Posted by Kinmaul

Source? I looked all over and couldn't find anything about it.

The patch notes:

* New Talent Divinity:Tier 1 protection talent, increases healing done by and to you by 1/2/3/4/5%.

Kinmaul · 02/25/09, 4:14 PM

Ugh kharen I'm an idiot; I think I was too busy looking at the Ret changes and skimmed over it. Thanks for pointing that out.

As far as the changes go like I said before I agree they are probably in the works. I guess I just always keep my expectations as low as possible so that way any news is good news. Right now we are looking at 12 'dead' talent points for our PvE spec which is pretty rediculous. Maybe they are planning on letting Seals of the Pure effect SoB and Command which would explain the changes to RV and Fanatacism.

Raencloud · 02/25/09, 4:57 PM

Originally Posted by Kinmaul

Ugh kharen I'm an idiot; I think I was too busy looking at the Ret changes and skimmed over it. Thanks for pointing that out.

As far as the changes go like I said before I agree they are probably in the works. I guess I just always keep my expectations as low as possible so that way any news is good news. Right now we are looking at 12 'dead' talent points for our PvE spec which is pretty rediculous. Maybe they are planning on letting Seals of the Pure effect SoB and Command which would explain the changes to RV and Fanatacism.

I certainly hope that is not the route that they choose. RV was a great way to normalize Ret DPS in PVE without making them too powerful in PVE (they might already be too powerful in terms of burst). If they were to make Seals of the Pure effect SoB and SoC (or even just SoB) then it would just give Ret more burst and there would be more people complaining about it.

I think there are several things they need to do to the ret tree:

1) Conviction and Sanctified Seals - why do we need 2 talents that do the exact same things? Surely there has to be a better and/or more interesting way to give us damage buffs than generic talents like this.

2) Crusade - as mentioned dmg to specific mob types is dated and should be removed completely or changed to a way similar to how they changed Exorcism to interact with undead.

3) Swift Retribution - needs a self buff component similar to druids (their imp moonkin gives the haste buff and 15% spirit as damage). This is a great place to put an armor to AP conversion if that's how they want to take it. I would prefer something different however (armor doesn't really flow with ret paladins like it does with DK).

4) Heart of the Crusader - same as above, needs a self buff component to it. Perhaps something that increases the damage of Crusader Strike.

Exemplar · 02/25/09, 5:06 PM

Just actually crunched the numbers. We haven't been overall nerfed, we've been buffed. We were so busy talking and noticing the drawbacks that we didn't look at what has been gained and come to a net gain/loss.

Undead/Demons: Exo auto-crit, loss in Judgement Crit and RV damage. Net loss of about 1.5%*.
Humanoid/Elemental: Add Exo, loss in J Crit and RV damage. Net gain of 2.3%*.
Other types: Add Exo, loss in J Crit and RV damage. Net gain of 2.5%*.

I broke Humanoid/Elemental from other types because Crusade still affects at the 3% level.

This is not counting Exorcism glyph (okay, before posting this I ran it only for Undead/Demons, puts us back into buff territory of 2.7% gain). That should increase the gains. However, my personal worry is that having Exorcism a part of every combat and loss of a mana reduction glyph to Exo glyph could drive mana issues. Remember, our mana regen was balanced around Judgement, Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, and Consecration (I recall them stating this explicitly around 3.0 release). It was also explicitly not balanced around Exorcism or Holy Wrath - we were to use these when we have the mana for extra damage. If we have Exo on every single fight, our balance is below our expected regular usage. Some sort of mana tweak (+% on JotW?) would be hoped.

* - Note, all comparisons are in my current gear. Your mileage may vary.

cleeeeeeeeeetus! · 02/25/09, 5:14 PM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Just actually crunched the numbers. We haven't been overall nerfed, we've been buffed. We were so busy talking and noticing the drawbacks that we didn't look at what has been gained and come to a net gain/loss.

Undead/Demons: Exo auto-crit, loss in Judgement Crit and RV damage. Net loss of about 1.5%*.
Humanoid/Elemental: Add Exo, loss in J Crit and RV damage. Net gain of 2.3%*.
Other types: Add Exo, loss in J Crit and RV damage. Net gain of 2.5%*.

I broke Humanoid/Elemental from other types because Crusade still affects at the 3% level.

This is not counting Exorcism glyph (okay, before posting this I ran it only for Undead/Demons, puts us back into buff territory of 2.7% gain). That should increase the gains. However, my personal worry is that having Exorcism a part of every combat and loss of a mana reduction glyph to Exo glyph could drive mana issues. Remember, our mana regen was balanced around Judgement, Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, and Consecration (I recall them stating this explicitly around 3.0 release). It was also explicitly not balanced around Exorcism or Holy Wrath - we were to use these when we have the mana for extra damage. If we have Exo on every single fight, our balance is below our expected regular usage. Some sort of mana tweak (+% on JotW?) would be hoped.

* - Note, all comparisons are in my current gear. Your mileage may vary.

Excuse my idiocy... but how is it adding just exorcism into our rotation giving us a net gain of ~2.3% DPS on humanoids/elementals? What kind testing did you do to come to this number?

Arthaal · 02/25/09, 5:18 PM

Originally Posted by Raencloud

1) Conviction and Sanctified Seals - why do we need 2 talents that do the exact same things? Surely there has to be a better and/or more interesting way to give us damage buffs than generic talents like this.

2) Crusade - as mentioned dmg to specific mob types is dated and should be removed completely or changed to a way similar to how they changed Exorcism to interact with undead.

3) Swift Retribution - needs a self buff component similar to druids (their imp moonkin gives the haste buff and 15% spirit as damage). This is a great place to put an armor to AP conversion if that's how they want to take it. I would prefer something different however (armor doesn't really flow with ret paladins like it does with DK).

4) Heart of the Crusader - same as above, needs a self buff component to it. Perhaps something that increases the damage of Crusader Strike.

I agree with you regarding Conviction and the now identical sanctified seals. The same point can be made for 2HWS/Crusade assuming they remove the mob type conditional. Overall, the tree is skinny and overflowing with +crit%, +dam% modifier talents and very few truly interesting ones. If they really are looking to add a prot 11 pointer and maybe a few new ret talents following the thinning done so far, now would be a great time to consider adding more interesting DPS mechanics along the lines of what's available to DKs (where all the good ideas seem to have gone of late), rather than the usual +%.

Landos · 02/25/09, 5:27 PM

Just a quick slight off topic from the current conversation. I'm seeing a lot of patchwerk numbers over 5K, and even a couple over 6K. I'm not anywhere close (averaging around 4.5K), but that's not my point. When you look at the WWS and examine the jugements, it looks like people are getting judgements off at a pace of well under 4s / judgement. I got this number by taking the (number of hits (non-crit) + number of crits)/dps time (generally within 4-5s of total presence time).
Aylen86 Wow Web Stats 3.63s/judgement
greatrichie WWS Loading... 3.791s/judgement

AM I doing something retarded in reading their posted WWS, or is something weird? Even if you take the number of hits (non-crit) and divide by the fight time, you're still at around 6s b/t judgements. Thanks, and sorry for the silly question

Merovengian · 02/25/09, 5:29 PM

Originally Posted by rldolph79

Ghostcrawler has stated on numerous occasions that they intend our damage to be on par with with we're doing in Naxx. We are not yet on par with what we're doing in Naxx, so there have to be more buffs in the works. There's no way around it.

There is a very simple answer to it, just as they always have when concerning paladins, they hype up big changes and let us play with them for a while, then at the last minute, swing a nerfbat the size of a redwood at us.

Vanilla, BC, Wrath... all the same people, why expect different actions.

But, since we are spouting conjecture today, i have my fingers crossed for some type of non melee spell on a short cooldown, to fill in the rotational spot that Holy Wrath will leave open. Just running numbers in my head, this has to be in the works seeing as the recent nerfs would take up @ 7% below target (give or take, napkin)

That seems like a perfectly pheasable number for a new ability to take up. Either that or make CS cleave.

Raencloud · 02/25/09, 5:35 PM

Originally Posted by Landos

Just a quick slight off topic from the current conversation. I'm seeing a lot of patchwerk numbers over 5K, and even a couple over 6K. I'm not anywhere close (averaging around 4.5K), but that's not my point. When you look at the WWS and examine the jugements, it looks like people are getting judgements off at a pace of well under 4s / judgement. I got this number by taking the (number of hits (non-crit) + number of crits)/dps time (generally within 4-5s of total presence time).
Aylen86 Wow Web Stats 3.63s/judgement
greatrichie WWS Loading... 3.791s/judgement

AM I doing something retarded in reading their posted WWS, or is something weird? Even if you take the number of hits (non-crit) and divide by the fight time, you're still at around 6s b/t judgements. Thanks, and sorry for the silly question

I believe that WWS counts the recoil from your Judgement onto yourself as a cast, which is probably why they have so many more hits than crits (considering Judgement has higher than a 50% crit rate with all buffs/talents).

• frmorrison · 02/25/09, 5:42 PM

Originally Posted by Landos

people are getting judgements off at a pace of well under 4s / judgement.

at around 6s b/t judgements. Thanks, and sorry for the silly question

WWS is not the best combat log parser, so it counts Judgements mob hit and the personal hit together. So with 4s/judge means the average is a Judge every 8 seconds, which is good. Prioritize Judgement better to increase your dps.

kharen · 02/25/09, 5:44 PM

I'd say they almost certainly have to be working on some new talents to add to Ret - right now you can grab literally every single talent in the tree (including all the dubious pvp talents and deflection), and still have points left over to grab Divine Strength. That's gone way past "streamlining" the tree, to the point of starving it. Most classes seem to have around 75 points or so per-tree, so it's short about ten or so points short overall, and no other trees have less than 5 points in tier 10.

Amashandra · 02/25/09, 5:52 PM

Swift Retribution - needs a self buff component similar to druids (their imp moonkin gives the haste buff and 15% spirit as damage). This is a great place to put an armor to AP conversion if that's how they want to take it. I would prefer something different however (armor doesn't really flow with ret paladins like it does with DK

Berserker enchant will be useless in this case, imo

• frmorrison · 02/25/09, 5:54 PM

Just musing, perhaps making Ret have lots of free points was intended. Having so many extra points allows you to get some PvP or healing oriented talents for "free".

As an example, dps Warriors have to use up 13 points in Arms just to get Deep Wounds, so Ret would not be alone in having talent issues.

Originally Posted by Amashandra

Berserker enchant will be useless in this case, imo

Zerker is only a 5% armor reduction. In addition to being a small decrease, the code for adding AP from armor only goes off every 30 seconds or so, so you may miss any AP decrease.

Even if you were unlucky and always had Berserker proc when the code went off, it would still be better than 110 AP.