Everyone is making a big deal about the Vindication change (Rets complaining, and others rejoicing) when in reality it's not. Vindication was applied after the hit so this mythical burst caused by Vindication never happened.

False Assumption #1: "Vindication's proc was like an extra attack"
How people thought Vindication worked (INCORRECT)
You have 23k life.
Ret paladin hits you, Vindication procs which puts you at 20k max life (estimate on my part used for this example).
You are now at 20k/20k life.
The hit dealt 3k damage to you.
You are at 17k/20k life.
This looks pretty rediculous and people complained a lot about it this "extra attack" from Vindication. In truth the ability did not work like this at all.

How Vindication used to work (CORRECT)
You have 23k life.
Ret paladin hits you for 3k, putting you at 20k/23k life.
Vindication procs which puts you at 20k max life (estimate on my part used for this example).
You are now at 20k/20k life.
Vindication lowered your max life by 3k, but it didn't add an additional 3k worth of damage on that first attack.

False Assumption #2: "Vindication + HoW was overpowered"
Hammer of Wrath is activated when a target is at 20% life. Vindication lowered a target's maximum life...hmmmmm. Using our previous example:

Target has 23k life before Vindication procs thus HoW could be used when the target reached 4600 life.
Target has 20k life after Vindication procs thus HoW cannot be used until the target reaches 4000 life.

With it's high crit rate, and Holy damage ignoring armor, being able to use this ability 600 hp sooner is actually a buff to HoW in PvP. Also the more stamina your target has the bigger this buff is.

Conclusion
Why is everyone freaking out? The only thing that scares me about this change is the fact that Blizzard is glaringly clueless sometimes when it comes to balance decisions.

You make some excellent points (now if we could just get the rest of the wow community to think the same way).


However, I think the main point of concern is that we basically beat a target (in competative arena play) by bursting down our targets. Yes, our burst was reduced from last season, but the idea is still that we get our target to use his trinket, get him to about 70-80% with all our CD's up, CC the healer, stun our target, and burst him down before the healer can get out of the CC. Depending who/what we're fighting, we aren't able to put out quite enough hurt to make it work.

If they have 20% more health, it's an extra several thousand health to burst through. And that also means that HoW (although able to be used sooner) now has to go through more health to kill our target. I've had a target live through hammer more than once.

I'm with many others here in hoping that they are reducing Vindication so that they can replace some of our offensive utility with another ability.

For reasons Kinmual pointed out, the impact of vindication on burst and damage were probably overrated. Lets not forget it also reduced healer mana pools by 20%, and as health and mana scale up this talent would have become even more powerful. Percent stat reductions are bad for PVP and the nerf is understandable on these grounds. However, I hope Blizzard realizes the talent is now close to useless and will add some other utility or effect to it.

Because Vindication lowered Stamina and Intellect by 20%, the loss of health and mana was not 20%, but more like 15%. Thus, assuming a healer is casting heals on the target of your team's attacks, and succeeding (if they're not the effect on their mana pool is irrelevant) it can be considered a type of Mortal Strike with an effectiveness of about 1 - (0.85 x 0.85) = 0.2775 -> ~28% assuming both healer and target are under the effects of Vindication for the entire combat. Vindication was not a very strong effect before this hotfix, but it's even weaker now.

What I could see them doing with regards to Consecration against single targets is tying its cooldown to Exorcism (our unique snowflake PvE-only skill) and changing Exo to a DoT and/or a powerup for our other attacks. Black Arrow - Spell - World of Warcraft has a functionality not much unlike this. Exo feels a little lost to me as it stands now and could do with some looking at. Changing existing abilities is an easier sell than making new ones from scratch as well. Just floating the idea but our options for buffs in PvE (especially single target) seem very limited by burst considerations in PvP, and complaining about Ret burst is the height of fashion these days. If we get some backloaded dps boosts that reward coordination a bit more than mashing a /castrandom macro I think we'll be in fairly good shape. The spec works, it could just be a bit more fun.

Originally Posted by Blue
We felt this change will help balance the ability out, especially in the lower arena brackets where they are very prominent, while not being a negative impact on a Retribution Paladin’s PvE dps.

yeah I red the post, my Question is what impact should it have on PvE DPS anyways.
It had no positive impact, and it has now negative impact now, because no one is skilling it, so whats the matter to point out it has no negative impact on PvE if it isnt used in PvE?

The difference between 21 agility w/Kings and 21 crit rating (comparing the Metas) is about 1.5 dps. 1 strength is worth about 1.7 dps.

Unless you feel you need more stamina, you only want one blue gem. In your case, the second blue socket bonus isn't stronger than straight strength gems.

The only time I see a 2nd socket bonus worthwhile is if they make an item with Red/Yellow gem slots and strength bonus (assuming non-JC).

So your question is if 2 str and 21 agility is more or less dps than 21 crit rating. The bold storm jewel should have no effect on your decision since you will be able to acquire one with either choice.

First let's convert 21 agility into crit rating
21*52.08/1.10 * 45.91 = 20.36 crit rating.

This makes the question:
Is 2 str more dps than .64 crit rating. The answer to that is yes. So you shouldn't use 2 blue gems unless you are a JC or can get 2 +8 str bonuses from blue sockets.

So the only time this could occur is if [Plated Leggings of Ruination] is the best legs you own for your current gear set with at least 1 hit gem and a helm with a blue socket and a bonus of 8 str or greater ([Guise of the Midgard Serpent] is a rare greater).

With the socket bonus +6 and [Sovereign Twilight Opal] x2, I was coming up with 4 str. But since 2 str is greater then .64 crit rating, makes 4 a no brainier.

I will make the necessary change

You would end up gemming one purple gem anyways so there's only a 2 str difference between your normal set up and what you were proposing.

Concerning the talent 'Vindication', this statement from GC sounds interesting:

Source: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> When will the "fix" come to the poor retadins

While CS/DS are physical attacks, they always proc a Seal of Blood magic hit, and if they crit a magic DoT. Hammer of Wrath would be the top attack to use on Hodir though. Because you have to move Hodir, Exo may be better than Cons, but CS/DS are above those.

Yeah but still, the only reason CS is first in rotation over Judgement, is that CS+SoM and RV procc > Judgement damage.
But the equation now changes to (CS+(SoMx1.5)+(RVx1.5)) > Jx1.5... Is this the case? And if so does it apply to DS aswell? I could take your word for it but mathematics are better so I don't doubt my rotation every time my raid faces Hodir.

If they go the route of a homogenized debuff, as that's basically what it does now. If it goes the route of a unique debuff that only helps us (ala Judgement of the Crusader), I imagine it'll be something mundane like another +%.

The part that does intrigue me is GC saying they want it to feel more like a debuff than it currently does, as it doesn't take conscious effort to apply it, meaning we'll probably see it be an applied by a specific ability or a unique setup.

I'll use the averages from my last Vezax kill in your formula. This is something you could have done yourself though. WWS or not; you should be able to remember about how hard your abilities hit.

SoB: 3837
JoB: 7241
CS: 6224
DS: 5992

(CS+(SoMx1.5)+(RVx1.5)) > Jx1.5

(6224+5756) > 10,862

11,980 > 10,862

This is without RV being factored in. I am not willing nor am I sure my math skills would allow me to calculate it correctly. Clearly CS is still above JoB.

(Somone care to check my math? >.>)

Righteous Vengeance does not gain a modifier from Singed.

Regardless, it still all comes down to effective cooldowns. Pushing back CS by only 1 second is a loss of 14.3% of the ability's DPS. Unless your Judgement is worth that much more damage (even with Singed I'm pretty sure it isn't) CS will still be prioritized by simple fact of cooldowns.

You could've tested this with a macro.

I used to Libram swap back in TBC, but now it causes you to reset your Swing timer and causes a GCD (however, you can swap during any GCD). It is not viable now for a dps or healing.

The only viable use of relic swapping is perhaps a tanking DK (who can swap the heroic badge defense sigil and the Ulduar dodge sigil).

I have tried using Libram of Discord on DS and Deadly/Furious on CS (to get the AP buff), but as frmorrison said it doesn't work. It's been a few weeks since I tried it, but nothing has changed since then. Here's what happens:

Let's say Deadly/Furious is the default.
Hit CS. Nothing happens (obviously).
Hit DS. Libram is switched, and additional damage added. Neat!
-Rest of the rotation-
Hit CS. Libram is switched, but CS is not triggered. You have to hit it twice to first switch the libram, and then trigger the CS.
Hit DS. Same as above. You now have to hit it twice: First to switch libram, then to actually trigger DS.
-Etc-

So the first switch is perfect, but then the extra GCD it takes to switch back will make it a huge DPS loss.

Sorry to change the subject a bit here but I noticed something in an arena game and then tested it on a rogue friend.

I was fighting a Muti/prep rogue 1v1 and I missed a seal of blood, he did not have evasion up. I looked later and I had 6.5 hit in the set I was wearing at the time. I found my rogue friend and swung at him for a while, I got a few misses until I went over 9% hit where it stopped.

The rogues both had the heightened senses talent, so I figure that both seal of blood and judgment are considered ranged attacks, I always figured the seal was a melee attack.

I don't know if this is worth changing in the start of the thread where it says the Seal is a melee attack, it's not really a big difference. All I can think of it effecting is the pvp miss talents that are out there for spells (Rogues/Mages/Paladins).

Judgements are ranged physical attacks dealing holy damage, similar to a hunter's arcane shot (with less range, obviously). The opening post states it too:

So yes, you will have judgement misses against ret paladins and rogues when wearing the normal 5% hit, due to them having a 9% chance to be missed by ranged attacks.

I think you misread, I know the Judgment itself is ranged, but the seal itself is what I was referring too.