The only issue with /startattack is it selects the closest mob to attack (with no target), so that may break CC at times.
Also, all Judgements start up autoattack, but Crusader Strike and Divine Storm do not.
I'm certain Crusader Strike does as well. The main use for the /startattack macros is for when your current target dies, and CS/Judgement are both on cooldown.
Is there a way to figure out where we stand compared to other classes on dps meters, GIVEN equal gear and skill.
I looked at different WWS logs, but it is difficult to account for skill, gear and latency. (Can anyboody post their best (and recent) attempts on Pathcwerk?)
Is it that we can compete for the first places on dps meter, or are we stuck with 5-10ish positions?
It's pointless to figure where we stand compared to other classes, cause in the end of the day, it's not class in ideal setting you are competing with, but the player and his connection behind it. I mean, we have 2 dps warriors with equal spec and very similar gear. Yet they tend to end up in 500dps difference bracket.
I personaly weight my own performance not based on charts, but on my feeling of how I did. Numbers will vary from raid to raid, boss to boss. Yes, you can figure rough bracket, but even that will screw you time to time. I am running in bracket 3,5-4,2K dps on non-buff bosses like Loatheb or Thadd.
Regarding Patchwerk, I don't know about rest of community, but I don't like the fight much. I tend to go oom halfway to the fight or sooner if I keep everything possible off cd. This issue is even worse in 10 men.
About best in slot gear:
The main difference in going for 4T7 and offset is that you can freely replace anything in offset, while keeping up same dps standard. If 4T7 gives you huge dps increase, you won't compensate it with replacing one of the items and breaking the -1s bonus. That's the main drawback I see there.
About Berserking:
As on last few pages some people were asking again, let's place a refresh here so they might actually notice it. Berserking is the most superior PvE enchant atm. Even with some estimated proc rate it gives more than Massacre. It has no cooldown, so it can refresh itself. It's RNG enchant though, so you may see it not working time to time, but then chain it for 40 sec straight. And if the armor decrease change is still valid, it's very great enchant. Bear in mind that although now it is pricey, it will get a lot cheaper when people will actually mass shard things.
About Loatheb:
Few pages back I saw someone saying that they can't use SotM on Loatheb cause of the big recoil - don't know about this. I crit there in same numbers you mentioned, but our healers have no problems healing it back in the window, using insta FoL is really rare for me. Only thing that comes to my mind is to use priests fully - weakened soul debuff has 100% uptime on me. And that saves a lot damage in. It's actually the only thing where I beat our tank in damage taken by 1%
Save the dolphins or something please. They are in more danger than Ret pallies
-Golden quote from those wild days around 3.03 release-
Is there a way to figure out where we stand compared to other classes on dps meters, GIVEN equal gear and skill.
I looked at different WWS logs, but it is difficult to account for skill, gear and latency. (Can anyboody post their best (and recent) attempts on Pathcwerk?)
Is it that we can compete for the first places on dps meter, or are we stuck with 5-10ish positions?
5266 dps on Patch (without the 4set bonus or CS libram and before I picked up Belabored Legs) so only about 100 dps out of the top spot and plenty of room to improve. The top 5 people recorded on the list include a war, 2 hunters, a lock, and me (I ended up 3rd). I'd rank all of us as equal in terms of skill, class knowledge and latency (none of us ever lag), though I would rank the war and top hunter as superior to me in gear at the time this fight was recorded. (The war in particular is almost perfectly geared). The hunter and war can usually best me by a very small margin in an ideal setting with no deaths or heavy movement, but I find I can push it and get close. I also tend to lovingly trash talk in order to 'motivate' them to whip me (and kill the boss faster), so they tend to have max focus on a fight like Patch. (I think this night I actually said "I have a boat load of whoop ass and I ain't afraid to use it" which prompted the hunter to get his game face on)
For my money, I'd say retri scales very well at this point. Some of the top players in other classes can push well into 5600+ on Patch, but even then, cracking well into 5kdps would never put us at the bottom of the dps charts and would often be (at least) in the top 5. (I see quite a few wws reports where a hunter/rogue, etc gains 5800 dps in the number one spot followed by a huge drop off in dps in spots 2-5 where they do 5300 or so). In general, I'd say that the highest end numbers put out on patch are the work of individuals with extraordinary skill and not an issue of class disparity. Most people with good skill and setup are sitting somewhere around 4800-5000ish if they get the gear they need/want. There are always exceptions to this rule, ofc.
I certainly agree that comparing dps on patch is subject to all kinds of variables that make it hard to judge. No single "dps number" should be the mark that everyone should automatically get. I don't, however, find it pointless to talk about it and post numbers. At the very least it motivates some to work out if there's something they can do better.
5266 dps on Patch (without the 4set bonus or CS libram and before I picked up Belabored Legs) so only about 100 dps out of the top spot and plenty of room to improve. The top 5 people recorded on the list include a war, 2 hunters, a lock, and me (I ended up 3rd). I'd rank all of us as equal in terms of skill, class knowledge and latency (none of us ever lag), though I would rank the war and top hunter as superior to me in gear at the time this fight was recorded. (The war in particular is almost perfectly geared). The hunter and war can usually best me by a very small margin in an ideal setting with no deaths or heavy movement, but I find I can push it and get close. I also tend to lovingly trash talk in order to 'motivate' them to whip me (and kill the boss faster), so they tend to have max focus on a fight like Patch. (I think this night I actually said "I have a boat load of whoop ass and I ain't afraid to use it" which prompted the hunter to get his game face on)
For my money, I'd say retri scales very well at this point. Some of the top players in other classes can push well into 5600+ on Patch, but even then, cracking well into 5kdps would never put us at the bottom of the dps charts and would often be (at least) in the top 5. (I see quite a few wws reports where a hunter/rogue, etc gains 5800 dps in the number one spot followed by a huge drop off in dps in spots 2-5 where they do 5300 or so). In general, I'd say that the highest end numbers put out on patch are the work of individuals with extraordinary skill and not an issue of class disparity. Most people with good skill and setup are sitting somewhere around 4800-5000ish if they get the gear they need/want. There are always exceptions to this rule, ofc.
I certainly agree that comparing dps on patch is subject to all kinds of variables that make it hard to judge. No single "dps number" should be the mark that everyone should automatically get. I don't, however, find it pointless to talk about it and post numbers. At the very least it motivates some to work out if there's something they can do better.
Looking at your WWS log and comparing it to mine has me rather confused. I understand your increase in damage somewhat as some of your gear is better than mine (weapon by a good amount) and I'm sure my rotation is not as tight as it could be, our shaman usually bloodlust at the beginning of the fight so I don't get the benefit of bl + wings at the last 20%
However, you guys defeated Patchwork almost a minute faster than we did, yet somehow you got ONE MORE melee swing in than I did. How is that possible, considering your weapon is slower (though you do have more haste)
Am I reading these WWS parses wrong? What is the underlying difference?
I have the 4 piece bonus though my gloves are still t7,
I go oom quite quickly on Patchwerk as well but what i've found works wonders is jumping in the slime. I ask the tanks to tank him fairly close to the slime so i can take a dip without stopping my dps. The slime halves your mana and health but if you're already at 50% or less mana you don't lose anything. Then when you come out you're at half health ready to get some heals and mana from it.
Looking at your WWS log and comparing it to mine has me rather confused. I understand your increase in damage somewhat as some of your gear is better than mine (weapon by a good amount) and I'm sure my rotation is not as tight as it could be, our shaman usually bloodlust at the beginning of the fight so I don't get the benefit of bl + wings at the last 20%
However, you guys defeated Patchwork almost a minute faster than we did, yet somehow you got ONE MORE melee swing in than I did. How is that possible, considering your weapon is slower (though you do have more haste)
Am I reading these WWS parses wrong? What is the underlying difference?
I have the 4 piece bonus though my gloves are still t7,
The OP outlines the reasoning behind a FCFS rotation - as soon as you get off the GCD you hit the next ability, giving preference to Judgement over all other abilities. As such, you maximize your dps (Judgement is a heavy hitter), your benefit to the raid (replenishment), and your own mana longevity (Judgements of the Wise). CS is rather "eh" as an ability in Wrath given the removal of the judgement refreshment portion, although it is important in the dps rotation nonetheless. CS does not *have* to be after judgement, however very often it tends to end up that way due to clashing cooldowns.
OK, thanks, but I wondered exactly for the reasons for «Judgement is a heavy hitter» statement :)
So I eventually made a sort of diagram to calculate DPS of JoW-CS pair with different priorities in clashing points. It led me to the following expressions (left sides are for CS>JoW and right ones are for JoW>CS):
(3CS + 2JoW)/18s vs CS/8s + JoW/8s (without 4t7 bonus),
(5CS + 4JoW)/30s vs CS/7s + JoW/7s (with 4t7 bonus).
In the case of 4t7 expression states that simple «cycle» with preference of Judgment is superior to its opponent when <average JoW damage> is greater then or equal to 5/2 * <average CS damage>.
I go oom quite quickly on Patchwerk as well but what i've found works wonders is jumping in the slime. I ask the tanks to tank him fairly close to the slime so i can take a dip without stopping my dps. The slime halves your mana and health but if you're already at 50% or less mana you don't lose anything. Then when you come out you're at half health ready to get some heals and mana from it.
Maybe I'm completely missing something, but how are people having mana problems on Patchwerk? I find that as long as I use Divine Plea the moment I hit 75%, and then every minute after, I have absolutely no problem at all. If I do, I use a mana potion, or LoH. I don't know if it's a gear difference or a lack of buffs, but I've never had to go to any extreme like jumping in the slime, or casting HoSac on the tank.
Are people using the Concecration glyph? This actually saves a decent amount of mana. For example, on a 3 minute fight you will save about 4300 mana from casting concecration less (but getting the same amount of ticks.)
It seems well known that the 4 piece is becoming a favorite due to the 1 second off of judge. If we follow a strict FCFS rotation it seems CS will be pushed to a 7 second CD for most of the fight due to judgment popping off CD .5 seconds before CS. I'm now assuming Judge>cons>CS>DS, assuming I have plenty of mana.
EX) some time in your encounter you should end up with this:
J: at 0 sec.
CS: at 1.5 sec.
J: at 7 sec.
CS: at 8.5 (delayed 1 sec.)
J: at 14 sec.
CS: at 15.5 (delayed 1 sec. again)
etc...
I've seen this mentioned but without a clear "rule of thumb" for this specific part of our rotation.
It seems that this constant 1 sec CS pushback will happen the majority of any fight if we just use FCFS
Does anyone have any math on this? Should we keep CS on a 7 sec CD always prioritizing judgment for this particular case? (FCFS)
Maybe I'm completely missing something, but how are people having mana problems on Patchwerk?
Poorly stacked raids (no buffs), no hit (poor JotW return), or incompetence (what's divine plea?) are the only answers I can come up with. Even before they fixed Judgment I had trouble running out of mana, and we do not heal melee at all so no spiritual attunement returns... Now it's just a joke.
I go oom quite quickly on Patchwerk as well but what i've found works wonders is jumping in the slime. I ask the tanks to tank him fairly close to the slime so i can take a dip without stopping my dps. The slime halves your mana and health but if you're already at 50% or less mana you don't lose anything. Then when you come out you're at half health ready to get some heals and mana from it.
You should not be receiving heals on Patch 95% of the time, so jumping in the slime will do little more than keep resetting your mana down to 50%. The "slime bath" was originally designed as a way for melee to keep their health % below the OTs so they wouldn't get hatefuls. Using it to get heals is counterproductive in the long run.
You have more or less 2 options: 1) wait for the OTs to have sufficient aggro by counting to 4 before you start dps. Aggro is not the only factor in receiving hatefuls, but many will tell you that staying below tanks on aggro means 0 hatefuls come your way if you and the tank end up with the same % of health. 2) jump in the slime well before the pull and drink a mana drink to top up mana, leaving health at a lower %. At the very least, stop resetting your mana to 50%. Even if you "don't lose anything" more, you are still gimping your mana.
If you're going oom even though you start at 100% mana, then there has to be something wrong with your setup or rotation.
1) are you using Consecration glyph and CS glyph? Quite a lot of mp5 there.
2) are you judging wisdom? I've lost track of the number of rets who go oom on Patch who also don't want to judge wisdom because they feel it's not what they're supposed to do. JoL is nice, but if you're going oom and not adapting to JoW, then that's the likely culprit.
3) are your prioritizing judgment in your FCFS rotation?
4) are you throwing everything at Patch that you can? including holy wrath? (i.e. blowing through your mana)
5) are you saving LoH and a mana pot separately for when things get shaky? Only use your pot when you're down to the bottom of your mana supply to get the full benefit of it.
Some of this will be dependent on how fast you down Patch. For a fight that goes quite long (almost to the enrage), a lot more adaptation will be required. People with fast kills (less than 3 minutes, say) have less to worry about. But even when our first Patch kills went long when we were undergeared, I was only running oom in the last 20% and was able to use pots or LoH. I have almost never used Divine Plea during the fight to save GCs, also. My guess is that no ret should be going oom.
You should not be receiving heals on Patch 95% of the time, so jumping in the slime will do little more than keep resetting your mana down to 50%. The "slime bath" was originally designed as a way for melee to keep their health % below the OTs so they wouldn't get hatefuls. Using it to get heals is counterproductive in the long run.
You have more or less 2 options: 1) wait for the OTs to have sufficient aggro by counting to 4 before you start dps. Aggro is not the only factor in receiving hatefuls, but many will tell you that staying below tanks on aggro means 0 hatefuls come your way if you and the tank end up with the same % of health. 2) jump in the slime well before the pull and drink a mana drink to top up mana, leaving health at a lower %. At the very least, stop resetting your mana to 50%. Even if you "don't lose anything" more, you are still gimping your mana.
If you're going oom even though you start at 100% mana, then there has to be something wrong with your setup or rotation.
1) are you using Consecration glyph and CS glyph? Quite a lot of mp5 there.
2) are you judging wisdom? I've lost track of the number of rets who go oom on Patch who also don't want to judge wisdom because they feel it's not what they're supposed to do. JoL is nice, but if you're going oom and not adapting to JoW, then that's the likely culprit.
3) are your prioritizing judgment in your FCFS rotation?
4) are you throwing everything at Patch that you can? including holy wrath? (i.e. blowing through your mana)
5) are you saving LoH and a mana pot separately for when things get shaky? Only use your pot when you're down to the bottom of your mana supply to get the full benefit of it.
Some of this will be dependent on how fast you down Patch. For a fight that goes quite long (almost to the enrage), a lot more adaptation will be required. People with fast kills (less than 3 minutes, say) have less to worry about. But even when our first Patch kills went long when we were undergeared, I was only running oom in the last 20% and was able to use pots or LoH. I have almost never used Divine Plea during the fight to save GCs, also. My guess is that no ret should be going oom.
Throwing everything at Patchwerk you can shouldn't even be a factor. I spam my abilities including Holy Wrath without issue. The Spiritual Attunement part rests on the competence of the healers. I usually see that one of the healers finds the GCD to throw a HoT or a holy shock on me. As for avoiding Plea, I find somewhere after my second rotation starts that I have a GCD available. That's when I Divine Plea.
The speed at which one can kill Patchwerk is a definite factor, but I have never seen one last longer than 4 minutes, which is why I didn't consider it.
I've seen some people mention [Libram of Radiance] as being a situational item to use over the [Venture Co. Libram of Retribution]. What are these situations? Being the ONLY raiding Ret Paladin my guild has, I obviously have this, but the instant I put it on I noticed my DPS went down, and ended up switching back to my Venture Co Libram.
Oh, sure. I'm not saying that throwing everything at Patch is wrong. I use everything but HW and have no mana issues. Just that occasionally, I'll notice that mana is going a bit too quickly (even if it's just a 'sense' that it's going fast) and I'll adjust and throw one less exorcism in the next cycle to ease up the throttle a bit. My point was more about those who use everything as often as they can and never consider being more flexible.
Before judgment was fixed, a miss JoTW + a string of 'extra' attacks such as HW and Exorcism was brutal. It's less of an issue now.
Oh, sure. I'm not saying that throwing everything at Patch is wrong. I use everything but HW and have no mana issues. Just that occasionally, I'll notice that mana is going a bit too quickly (even if it's just a 'sense' that it's going fast) and I'll adjust and throw one less exorcism in the next cycle to ease up the throttle a bit. My point was more about those who use everything as often as they can and never consider being more flexible.
Before judgment was fixed, a miss JoTW + a string of 'extra' attacks such as HW and Exorcism was brutal. It's less of an issue now.
If you're not using Holy Wrath then you should have plenty of available GCDs open to Divine Plea. Without Holy Wrath in my rotation, 3 Divine Pleas is plenty for a 3 minute Patchwerk. With Holy Wrath in my rotation, 3 Divine Pleas and 1 mana potion is more than enough. I find it better to find a GCD to Plea rather than hold back on my rotation.
OK, thanks, but I wondered exactly for the reasons for «Judgement is a heavy hitter» statement
So I eventually made a sort of diagram to calculate DPS of JoW-CS pair with different priorities in clashing points. It led me to the following expressions (left sides are for CS>JoW and right ones are for JoW>CS):
(3CS + 2JoW)/18s vs CS/8s + JoW/8s (without 4t7 bonus),
(5CS + 4JoW)/30s vs CS/7s + JoW/7s (with 4t7 bonus).
In the case of 4t7 expression states that simple «cycle» with preference of Judgment is superior to its opponent when <average JoW damage> is greater then or equal to 5/2 * <average CS damage>.
You are still missing the other factors that call for Judgement being preferred over CS. Judgement keeps your mana up as well as your raid's, keeps your debuff on the target (despite it probably not missing), in addition to causing significant damage itself and with RV. Judgement should always cause more damage than CS on a one to one basis (pulling a WWS, average judgement = 2606 = 325.7 DPS 8 second Judgement, 372.2 DPS 7 second Judgement, average CS = 1964 = 327.3 DPS), and the added benefits OF judgement should be more than enough to emphasize the priority of it over CS.
In addition, you have other skills all with their own cooldowns that you need to watch, which lead to more clashes. Might you eek out a slight bit more dps with avoiding clashes with CS and Judgement? perhaps, however you lose significant MP5 yourself, which in turn my prevent you from casting mana intensive consecrates, or hammer of wrath, etc which would affect you more than a few more CS attacks. It is my understanding that the debate of what comes first was plotted out a number of times, and as the OP stated, it settled on FCFS to maximize dps.
If you do believe CS> JoW is viable, get a pally to whack a dummy for a good period of time and compare. Hard data would be nice to look at, especially adding in the other skills and see what you miss in a given time slot.
edit: Thanks flexbutt! You're right (I thought that number seemed a bit low). That increases DPS by a significant margin...sitting at more 488ish with quick napkin math. So, you're looking at a significant damage loss by delaying Judgement from its damage, in addition to all the added benefits *of* Judgement.
Last edited by Jaydin : 01/15/09 at 11:26 AM.
'...but making us fight the same boss 30 times with new "exciting" changes like doing it with our pants below our ankles for one kill, tying one hand behind our back for another, and blindfolding ourselves for the next kill...loses its "epic"ness for me.'
"Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me."
You are still missing the other factors that call for Judgement being preferred over CS. Judgement keeps your mana up as well as your raid's, keeps your debuff on the target (despite it probably not missing), in addition to causing significant damage. Judgement should always cause more damage than CS on a one to one basis (pulling a WWS, average judgement = 2606 = 325.7 DPS 8 second Judgement, 372.2 DPS 7 second Judgement, average CS = 1964 = 327.3 DPS), and the added benefits OF judgement should be more than enough to emphasize the priority of it over CS.
I don't think you're accounting for recoil damage in the average judgement tab. My "average judgement" on wws is 3127, but after actually adding up my judgements and excluding recoil, it is 7595. This also does not include RV damage which further moves this above Crusader Strike.
I go oom quite quickly on Patchwerk as well but what i've found works wonders is jumping in the slime. I ask the tanks to tank him fairly close to the slime so i can take a dip without stopping my dps. The slime halves your mana and health but if you're already at 50% or less mana you don't lose anything. Then when you come out you're at half health ready to get some heals and mana from it.
Are you judging wisdom or light? Am I correct in stating that heals you receive from your own judgment of light don't return mana? I've found that if the paladin tank is judging light and I'm judging mana, I have zero mana problems. Of course, the better your gear and the more damage you do, the more mana you get back from SA.
Maybe I'm completely missing something, but how are people having mana problems on Patchwerk? I find that as long as I use Divine Plea the moment I hit 75%, and then every minute after, I have absolutely no problem at all. If I do, I use a mana potion, or LoH. I don't know if it's a gear difference or a lack of buffs, but I've never had to go to any extreme like jumping in the slime, or casting HoSac on the tank.
I think there might be something buggy still with Patchwerk and JotW - I think it was mentioned shortly somewhere earlier in this thread.
For example, in this Patchwerk WWS my guildmate (Oriax) and me (Thalassea) both have almost an equal Number of Judgements, however Oriax got almost double the ammount of JotW mana restores. The Judgements are not failing (like the old Judgement bug), but ocassionally there just seems to be no mana restored.
I have only really noticed this with Patchwerk, for example when you check the Loatheb fight, our restores are almost equal.
Edit: I was also judging light, which did not seem to give me lower SA returns, which are pretty marginal in this fight anyways (only about 1.1k Mana)
504 judgements for full night, and 413 JotW ticks. Meaning i lost 100-(413/504)= 18% of my ticks just due to it not happening.
And since people are saying it seems to happen on patchwerk more than anything, i'll compare mine for patchwerk as well.
34 judgements, 25 Jotw ticks, meaning 100-(25/34)= 26% of my ticks were lost.
So, yeah, comparing to full night loss on judgements, it shows that patchwerk does show a greater loss in mana gains.
But even with the 26% loss of mana returns, I had very little mana issues. Stacked raid buffs, bloodlust at start, 4pc bonus, and using divine plea whenever i could, I still had no mana issues. The only issues i usually have on patchwerk is if I throw Holy Wrath into the mix. Which i don't. So, I don't know how people can be having mana problems other than just forgetting divine plea, or not having the 4pc.
I think there might be something buggy still with Patchwerk and JotW - I think it was mentioned shortly somewhere earlier in this thread.
For example, in this Patchwerk WWS my guildmate (Oriax) and me (Thalassea) both have almost an equal Number of Judgements, however Oriax got almost double the ammount of JotW mana restores. The Judgements are not failing (like the old Judgement bug), but ocassionally there just seems to be no mana restored.
I have only really noticed this with Patchwerk, for example when you check the Loatheb fight, our restores are almost equal.
Edit: I was also judging light, which did not seem to give me lower SA returns, which are pretty marginal in this fight anyways (only about 1.1k Mana)
Hmm, that's interesting. I personally gave up JoL entirely weeks ago because, as my damage rose, the extra aggro from it all but ensured I'd overaggro in certain situations. Plus, as you mentioned, tanks (or at least holys) were always judging light, so I considered it unecessary. If this is an issue, it would explain why some rets go oom almost immediately and others say they almost never run out.
Someone may have more data on whether this is a known issue (or something else entirely), but next Patch fight you could test it and both JoW the boss to see if your mana gain is equal.
01/15/09, 12:05 AM
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