Rasputin

While everyone is going on about the mana changes and they are important, has anyone done any rigorous math on the actual DPS changes we got this build? Namely, is a 10% damage increase to DS and CS being added to RV enough to bring us back in line with the rest of the hybrids enough to be competitive? My rough napkin math puts those two changes at maybe 5% more DPS from previous PTR builds, which doesn't seem like enough to counteract what we've lost. Maybe my calculations are wrong( I make no claims to mathematical genius), but it still seems like a big enough gap to worry about, given early calculations of our DPS loss from live sitting at ~10-12%.

 

Alukard-Z28

Thankyou, i was starting to second guess myself about that issue. And yes i do realize that we wont be using consecration in pvp, however there are other things that you need to dump mana into such as heals, hand spells etc. You also have to worry about mana drains and the like.

I realize this isn't a pvp thread I am simply suggesting that if JotW does not work on absorb effects, this may also affect us on certain pve fights. (Think Sartharion 3 drake, when he becomes immune. You aren't attacking him during that phase, however the mechanic is still there and is possible to be on any boss in ulduar?)

 

• Arikah

Despite all these little changes we are still ~4% behind our live damage output. If I got this stuff right...

> 11% initial loss from RV, fana, crusade, sense undead ->
> ~2% gain from sanctity of battle ->
> ~4% gain from CS triggering RV, basically offsetting the RV nerf ->
> 1% gain from DS going to 110%

...we're about 4% behind our live dps levels. Surprise surprise, crusade and sense undead glyph just happen to give us 4% damage to undead only. The quickest bandaid would be to remove mob-type requirements from crusade and sense undead, but that probably won't happen; another easy fix would be to have RV trigger off of all criticals, not just our strikes/judgements (a change like this might actually push us above our live levels by a few % ).

If you are going to be on the PTR please post some parses both here and in GC's thread (link is in the OP).

 

Tyrova

beta4life, nothing effects the ppm except the glyph. PPM=Proc Per minute. That may be one of the reasons you were unable to concoct a formula to describe it. Haste reduces your proc rate per attack but the ppm remains stable. Though the effect of haste on that would be unnoticeable at best.

 

Musclebound

One thought I had was to tack on Giants as another mob type we benefit from crusade with. I can't imagine how this improvement to PvE could off-set anything in PvP (any giants in battlegrounds or arenas I should have considered before posting?), and it would fall in step with Blizzard's desire to keep Retribution damage on an even keel as we segue from Naxxramas to Ulduar. Maybe the change is too linear for their liking or there's something I haven't considered. I just recall thumbing through a WoWhead talent calculator and slapping my forehead like I should have had a V8 when I thought of it.

 

Rasputin

At that point we're still missing Beasts, Mechanical, Dragonkin and Unspecified, so why not just make it a clean 6% instead of saddling us with odd mob-specific DPS fluctuations? Is there anything to be gained by giving us an uncontrollable DPS penalty utterly beyond our control on some fights, not because of fight mechanics but simply because of an entirely meaningless mob type? I guess they could just keep adding mob types as they become relevant to raiding but I don't see the harm in simply making it a flat damage increase across all mobs, instead of some inane "flavor" where we're balanced as having a 6% increase from the talent but only get an effective 3% against certain enemies.

 

Cevil

It's things like this and recoil that have me really concerned about hard mode fights. If anyone here did 3 drake sarth early on, the push to get Tenebron down before the second wave of whelps was key. I'm 3% less DPS than in naxx. I also shoot myself in the face. These are two compelling reasons to bring ANYONE OTHER than a Ret Paladin for that fight, especially 10 man.

I made a post about it on the forums, that Ret is not intended to be a hard mode DPS class.
World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Ret is not a Hard Mode Spec

 

• Daler

Making it a flat 6% would be a 3% increase to our PvP DPS. And I'm fairly certain that's not really a direction they want to go at this point.

 

Piiqo

It feels weird that they would want to balance our dps without changing crusade, because it means that we're just going to be that much higher on the next undead instance...

 

• Kelevevick

Humanoids already get the extra 3% from crusade. It wouldn't be a pvp change at all.

 

Piiqo

already posted

 

Nicki

Many have suggested this and honestly its not a great idea with latency between client and server this check is going to be hard to do. Its also not the point of the whole recoil situation (which is getting nicely brushed under the carpet by SoB glyph) the point is we shouldn't be risking our lives while DPSing.

The number one rule of any DPS class has been to date; Do not die. With retribution unlike every example class with self damage they have a choice as to what they use. Currently on live retribution is not as competitve as other hybrids (Shadow priests and elem shammies?) and its only able to do its current damage with one seal so when does ret get penalised by the next gimmick where all your damage is increased by 100% or you take additional damage = to damage dealt mechanics or random aoe that takes you to 10% health? It is inevitable that such encounters will exist.

Sadly it seems recoil is here to stay despite it becomming increasingly dangerous especially as gear increases. As said why is there a need for the recoil now that its being used in PvP regardless? Why isn't command brought up to scratch instead of penalising ret PVE with this mechanic?

Id like to point out too that shadow priests aren't dependant on shadow word death and they have a talent to reduce the backlash by 30% its also on a long cooldown and the priest can shield if they need too. The point isn't that recoil is wrong its that it isn't a choice its entirely necessary that you mash judgement every cooldown.

 

• Daler

Wow. Let me add It's been so long since I read that tooltip I just assumed it didn't include humanoids.

I guess they don't want to change it for some RP flair kind of thing? But if that's so, why would a holy crusader do more damage to an elemental than an ill-tempered sea bass?

 

Musclebound

Well in general you have to consider the idea behind the talent from a lore perspective, but it is typically an awful argument on why we are restricted to a few mob types on DPS (and if you'd like to get really technical, anyone who opposes you while you're on your crusade is someone you need to purge anyway). I think the issue is that they're trying to get really fancy and create some diversity in the way we dps from one tier to another. But in all honesty, there's nothing to lose by making it a flat increase. Instead of making it based on mob type, retooling it to work like Abomination's Might would be both a dps benefit and a change in the way we DPS.

Nerd Blender engaged!

 

Exemplar

Rasputin - my calcs show 3.1 maximum possible damage is still below 3.0.9 maximum possible damage. Arikah's ~4% is pretty correct. Although I'm finding we're 4% behind on Undead, too. (Edit: Clarify and update, DPS on undead/demon is still higher due to HW, but it's below DPS on demon/undead in 3.0.9 by ~6%)

Banka - from your above. My spreadsheet models JoW procs based on the thread in this forum (mostly with data provided by Durinix, I believe). I just realized I still had a 25% proc chance on a definitive PPM setup.

So I figured out exactly how many attacks would proc - then took 1/4 of them. In short my JoW procs was devalued by a factor of four! I go from ~8 mps to ~35 mps.

I retract my last posts regarding mana in a raid. I show a time to OOM of 18 and a half minutes with Holy Wrath and infinite otherwise. Mana is definitely better than "good enough" at 25% JotW in a raid. 10man or 5man may still be an issue.

JoB glyph is entirely unnecessary - keep your DPS glyphs!

Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."

 

jgRnt

Seems like DS is bugged on the PTR atm, 229 to 230% weapon damage. Crits unbuffed for over 6k.

 

Havok

That would be the Venture coin Libram bug which is modifying DS damage by 80%(!) as opposed to it's stated +80.

 

EvilNuff

One other item to consider that's just a comparison of us Live to PTR. That does not account for other dps classes being changed. As a broad hypothetical if we were buffed +10% dps over our Live dps, but every other dps spec in game were buffed +25% more dps than Live we'd be in a pretty bad shape.

IMO the more important comparison is how does our PTR dps compare with the other dps classes dps. I have not yet seen any parse data since this patch, but some napkin math on the premo guild's data from previously leads me to believe these changes are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

 

Fiola

Where does the 11% loss value come from? Crusade and Sense Undead are 3% and 1%.

For RV with 50% crit rate, Judgement as 25% total and DS as 10% total:

The percentage of Judgement damage that is crit damage is:
75% * 2 / (25% + 75% * 2) = 87%
For DS, it is:
50% * 2 / (50% + 50% * 2) = 67%

40% RV adds
25% * 87% * 40% + 67% * 10% * 40% = 8.7% + 2.67% = 11.37%


After 3.1, in the same gear, we'd end up with
Judgement:
68% * 2 / (32% + 68%*2) = 81%
DS is unchanged

30% RV adds
25% * (1.68/1.75) * 81% * 30% + 67% * 10% * 30% = 7.842%
(the 2nd term accounts for how the total judgement crit damage is reduced from the Fanaticism nerf. The Fanaticism nerf by itself is about ~1% damage)

Comes out to a 3.53% loss (with above average crit rates). So adding everything up, the total is 3% + 1% + 3.53%, around 7.5%. (I'm ignoring how those numbers are multiplicative for the sake of simplicity) Even allowing that RV was double-dipping some buffs, I don't think that it would change the difference by more than 1~2%. (9.5%)


CS benefiting from RV would add back about 2% DPS (10% * 67% * 30%), so the Fanaticism and RV changes are now around a net -1.5%. Your list also left out the Exorcism change. Since you're counting the loss of DPS from Crusade not affecting Ulduar bosses, you should count the gain in DPS from Exorcism being usable from said bosses.


Going with the 9.5% loss number, the net changes so far are
-9.5% (30% RV, 18% Fanat, RV double-dipped some bonuses)
+4% Exorcism usable on all bosses
+2% Sanctity of Battle ((10% CS + 4% Exo) * 15% )
+2% CS + RV (10% CS * 67% (crit damage) * 30%)
+1% 110% weapon damage DS

Total: -0.5%.

This includes RV double-dipping (which was probably unintended), and a very high 50% crit rate. 0.5% is so tiny that it's basically unobservable.

At that point, it'd be a carbon copy of the 2h weapon spec talent (It'd be better, actually, since it's easier to get and has no weapon restriction). Then we could complain that "it's boring", and write silly posts on how one talent or the other "needs" buffs.

 

Daeluin

There have been some interesting blue comments that stemmed from the Berserker Stance change and ended up dealing with why plate itemization is the way it is and the inherent problems therewith.

On the issue of leather being better BiS for plate wearers:
I don't entirely understand the logic for classifying this as "silliness" when Agility adds AP for most of the classes wearing it, and this is in addition to the gear having raw AP and crit rating on it as well.

 

whistler-z

1. For starters, rogues and druids only get 1 AP per AGI, as opposed to 2 AP per STR that warriors/DKs/paladins get. So the itemization is different.
2. Rogues and druids are theoretically balanced around the AP and other stats that appear on leather, just like warriors/DKs/paladins are also theoretically balanced around plate stats. Rogue/druid abilities may not scale at the same rate per AP that ours do, for instance.

 

Arthaal

Thanks for reinjecting some perspective with solid calculations Fiola. Correct me if I'm wrong, but 2HWS only affects strikes and melee swings (i.e. damage dealt with a 2H weapon, I believe Judgement is included), while Crusade affects everything (Consecrate, Exo, Seal damage). So strictly speaking, Crusade would be superior... but the suggested change certainly wouldn't do anything to help our very boring case of acute modifier-titis.

Percent modifiers R'US

 

Daeluin

Obviously, that is the whole point of the discussion on the topic. The fact remains, however, that since melee classes share melee stats, in many cases stat splitting is going to mean those leather pieces are better.



Yes, 2HWS increases anything that uses a weapon damage coefficient (physical damage range).

 

Rasputin

With regard to the DPS loss, Exorcism isn't a gain so much as a maintenance. We were using it in Naxx which is where we take our DPS baseline from, so being able to continue to use it is neither a loss nor a gain. I didn't see any specific numbers in your post where you addressed that, if I missed them I'm sorry. "Gaining" Exorcism when we already had it doesn't make much sense, and it would only make sense to add it in as DPS is you first subtracted it, leaving it a net zero benefit.

As for Crusade, sure it would be similar to other talents, but 3% is a distinct swing when we consider how closely tuned the classes are supposed to be. Either we get balanced around 3% and get a bonus on fights where the mob type matches up, or we get balanced around the 6% and get penalized on the fights where mob types don't match up. Neither makes much sense, and it doesn't really make the talent more interesting, since it is entirely out of the players hands.

 

greatrichie

I was under the impression 2h spec affected everything as long as you had a 2h equipped.