We need to see the new trees before seeing what to do about any nerf from losing some SA mana.

I suspect the devs don't want Ret getting 15% more int, so if mana is an issue JotW can be buffed.

It's way too early to theorize how to spend talent points without kings; remember that if/when kings goes baseline, they will need to either replace or restructure talents accordingly (I do not see them just giving us free talent points, they'll find something to fill t1 prot). I'm excited to see the exorcism change but they must be careful about it from lots of angles... heavy exo usage in pve (combined with a possible SA nerf) will mean we may have mana issues in pve, while pvp will have to be balanced around paladins using the glyph to get an interrupt (which I fully support, as healers are gearing up they are becoming unkillable without an ms/interrupter helper again). I find it interesting that they are attempting to break the pvp cycle of holy going from dominant to suck by giving the class an earthshock (think of holy representation in 2's for s1, vs s3/s4, and you can see where s5 and beyond is headed), while helping ret and even prot.

AFAIK, sheath has been rolling like that since 3.0.3, cann. It's pretty easy to miss because how often do you really crit heal yourself as ret?

There's many possible ways they could handle Retribution PvE vs PvP balance, without buffing Holy or Prot in the PvP arena. For example, increase the cost or cool-down on Exorcism at the base level, but provide a deep Ret talent that would reduce the cool-down and cost -- something wholly inaccessible for Prot or Holy to consider. Perhaps roll it in with Crusader Strike since it's a fairly boring talent as it currently stands. This keeps the Glyph viable as it is and doesn't create the potential for Holy Paladins to becoming the one, dominant force in the PvP spectrum.

I have a question regarding ARP, with the upcoming changes to Sunder and FF, does it increase the DPS gain from ARP?

If armor has been globally reduced, Armor Penetration will actually be weaker.

On another topic, if I understand the recent arena gear post by Kalgan correctly (World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Arena Matchmaking System FAQ), the Deadly libram will require only 1300 rating in season 6, meaning that most everyone will be able to get it. Of course it's possible that Ulduar will have a better PvE libram, but we know how likely that is.

I'm sorry, could you provide the math on that? Everything Ihave ever read has said the more armor penetration you have, the stronger it becomes, so by inference we would assume the less armor the mob has, the stronger armor penetration would become.

Nevermind

The goal of the new rating system is that 1500 is an average player. New teams will not start at 1500 rating.

Anyway, since 1500 is average (so at least 50% of players can get there), 1300 means over 50% of players can reach that rating. Since raider are usually above average, most people that read this thread should be able to reach that.

Ulduar will likely have a new libram, however the new Furious Libram will give more than 120 AP. Their track record is very poor for Ret, but they were decent with Holy and Prot.

Important clarification: 1500 is an average *arena playing* player. If all level 80 characters participated in arena, I would agree that most raiders should be above the 1500 rating average. But if arena is less popular, and raiders & professional pvpers are the only people who participate, the average raider will actually be lower than 1500.

It remains to be seen if the changes will encourage more casuals to participate in arena.

Hello, did someone already do the math with [Potion of Speed] ? How good is this (combined with Wings/Hero) and how big is the difference to the old [Insane Strength Potion] ?

Not according to the Warrior section on EJ Warrior changes in 3.1: Buffs or nerfs?

I have also talked to a guildy stating atleast for him (a warrior), that ARP might even outscale Str, and if that were the case, for us pallies, could it outscale crit?

Never compare Warrior and Paladin mechanics for Armor Penetration. A large majority of their damage is physical (more so in 3.1 with the nerfing of Deep Wounds) while a goodly portion of our damage already ignores that armor.

DK's are closer, though still not exactly the same depending on spec.

Sorry for the miscommunication, what I meant was if ArP, the stat itself, is becoming higher dps for wars, is it for us pallies getting better as well. Just comparing to pre 3.1 armor/sunder/ff changes to post 3.1 change.

Not trying to compare warriors to pallies.

And the answer there will depend very heavily on how exactly they balance the sunder armor modifications with the overall reduction in boss armor levels. My guess is the sunder change is mainly to address a PvP issue, so the overall difference on a fully debuffed raid boss will be close to nil and ArP will remain roughly identical in value as it currently is.

The Sunder Armor change's implications are a little weird.

As we all know, ArPen used to ignore a straight amount of armor. Because of how armor works, this makes each point of ArPen more effective than the last as you get closer to 0 armor, such that it works best against lightly armored clothies yet barely makes a dent against plate-wearers.

By changing ArPen to ArPen Rating that ignores a percentage of armor instead, the system was turned on its head: It's now more effective against highly-armored targets and less against cloth. As well, there is no hard-cap to ArPen Rating, and from a PvE-perspective can be treated as a percentage increase in all armor-affected damage.

Sunder Armor's armor reduction was left as a straight amount even after the ArPen Rating change, which let it retain its power against clothies. What I don't quite get is how these two statements from the Warrior preview come together:

1. "Creature armor has been globally reduced ..."

2. " ... so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change."

All raid bosses currently have 13083 armor. 5 stacks of Sunder Armor is currently a 2355 armor reduction, which would leave a raid boss with 10728 armor.

If Sunder Armor is changed to 4% less armor per stack (20% less armor fully stacked), and boss armor is left unchanged at 13083, then post-Sunder boss armor is 10466, which is lower than current.

On the other hand, if boss armor was to be changed to keep the post-Sunder level at 10728, then pre-Sunder armor would have to be INCREASED to 13410, for the 20% number to line up with a 2355 reduction.

Unless I'm missing something with my math, it doesn't add up. If creature armor is left alone, Sunder Armor becomes better. If Sunder Armor is supposed to remain relatively the same, creature armor has to go up, not down.

Ok, so there is this news on MMO-Champ wich states that with Patch 3.0.9 all Seals will be on 30 min duration and can not be dispelled. Not the kind of buffed i would like to have, but it will spare me a few GCDs in most of the Fights.
Read for yourselve:
Patch 3.0.9 on live servers this week

What concerns me, there is no PTR for this Patch, it comes totally out of nowhere, and it doesn't stand on the Official Homepage, so we can't be 100% sure thats for real.

Could someone, who is more familiar with the seal mechanics please describe if seal of righteousness might be an interesting option for ret with 3.0.9 if we would

- spend our 5 free talent points to seals of the pure to improve our seal of righteoussness damage by 15% and
- additionally put the glyph of seal of righteoussness in our glyph composition to buff our seal of righteoussnes another 10%.

Could it be possible that at some point it will ouperform seal of blood?

we would loose some mana out of SA of course but this is going to be nerfed nevertheless, so it could be simply even better to stop ourselves from damaging ourselves?

the question is how much worse is the scaling of SoR in comparison to SoB/SoM after this buff?

Sunder Armor is actually 785 per stack, or 3925 total. That means that currently Sunder Armor brings a boss to 9158 armor, which is less than what it would be if it were changed to 20%. To be equivalent boss armor would need to be 11447 base with the change.

This is failing to take into account Faerie Fire though, which currently brings bosses down to 7898 armor. If I calculate from there, with the new version of both Sunder and Fearie Fire, and assuming that those stack multiplicatively the new base armor would have to be 10392 to be equivalent. Fearie Fire is being nerfed relatively in fact, as it's currently closer to 33% of the effect of Sunder Armor, and will be 25% of the effect after the patch.

Afaik Seal of Righteousness can't crit, so it will be useless for PvE, as SoB can crit, to clarify, the Seal itself, not the Judgement.

Ppl should probably be waiting for a test realm to go up before they start asking all these weird and wonderful questions about paladin changes as I doubt anyone here has the real answers beyond their wild speculations. Those that do, are probably not allowed to tell us anyway

As far as I read, there will be no testrealm this time.