3.2 PTR - Retribution Discussion - Page 26

• frmorrison · 07/15/09, 1:53 PM

Originally Posted by TheEnder

@Glutton
The SoV glyph should be a great starter glyph for most rets; or a glyph to keep in the bags in case you have to ever DPS from the front of a boss for whatever reason. With the amount of expertise on gear in Ulduar (and presumably more in 3.2) there shouldn't be a huge need for the glyph once you get geared out... unless you use it to balance out your expertise when you sub in better itemized gear.

Perhaps ret is just going to be in a position now to change glyphs based on the encounter if we decide to min/max completely. In the Anub'arak situation I'd probably sub out the consecration glyph;
@ffmorrison
Do the judgement numbers account for the increased damage of SoV-Judge vs SoM-Judge?

10 expertise is a lot of itemization points (over 100) that you could save once you start to swap out your 3.1 expertise gear. However, the mana/dps provided by glyph of Cons is huge, since the spell is so expensive (22% of base), so you save 4.2% each time and GCDs are important to save.

Judgement is better in 3.2 than now, but the other two provide more dps (assuming you needed 4+ expertise).

Gearhack · 07/15/09, 6:48 PM

Thanks, another question

This is for personal use. What changes should I make come 3.2 to the Gear, Talents, Glyphs, Enchants, Gems, ect. The Works.

Also what will seem to be the main rotation for us?

Heres my Armory Link : The World of Warcraft Armory

Haven't been raiding for a few months, on vacation in Florida

just watched the Space Shuttle Launch.

Also what are some good addons, if any of you know, that could help with remembering your rotation?

I know this is a bit to ask, I want to make sure that I am ready for the patch. I do around 5.6 dps

sounds low now, consider the gear -.^

Anyway, going to grab some pizza, bbl.

And in 3.2 will Div Int in Holy be something to fetch? and grabbing SoC with SotP be a double victory or a no no?

Aura Mastery? sorry to even ask that, just been on my mind as a talent filler....

• frmorrison · 07/15/09, 7:13 PM

Originally Posted by Gearhack

Crap load of questions

These have been answered before, but perhaps not recently.
There aren't many gear changes, if you need expertise get the glyph, and 20 strength gems will be available.
Same first come rotation, just HoW is the best attack.
Serious Help in Timing is great to know what button to hit.
Divine Intellect is worthless now, and will be even more worthless in 3.2 (only 10% int).
5.6k dps isn't bad, but certainly room for improvement (6k is what you could get with Potions and better button hitting).
Aura Mastery may be useful, but you would loss Divine Sacrifice (I vastly prefer DiSac).

Jackinthegreen · 07/15/09, 8:33 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

These have been answered before, but perhaps not recently.
There aren't many gear changes, if you need expertise get the glyph, and 20 strength gems will be available.
Same first come rotation, just HoW is the best attack.
Serious Help in Timing is great to know what button to hit.
Divine Intellect is worthless now, and will be even more worthless in 3.2 (only 10% int).
5.6k dps isn't bad, but certainly room for improvement (6k is what you could get with Potions and better button hitting).
Aura Mastery may be useful, but you would loss Divine Sacrifice (I vastly prefer DiSac).

Finishing off the answers though:

Seal of Command is Crap, and might as well be called Seal of Crap unless they buff it. Depending on gear though, Seals of the Pure will be a good talent to take for DPS.

These should be in the Simple Questions, Simple Answers thread.

cordelliia · 07/16/09, 2:16 AM

Originally Posted by Jackinthegreen

Given how often AOW will proc, Exo should be instant virtually every time everything else is on CD. But yes, it is very underwhelming.

As far as glyphing goes, I'd probably drop Exo too since we'll be using it even less now that CS has a lower CD.

So considering that Blizzard promised a mechanic change in the ret rotation to get away from facerolling, and this AoW --> Exorcism mechanic doesn't do that, has Blizzard acknowledged that this is inadequate? I expected a significant change to 3.2 after I heard this, but it looks like Blizzard seems content to leave it as is, which is the exact same mechanic as ret had in 3.1.

Angel of Wrath · 07/16/09, 7:01 AM

Originally Posted by cordelliia

So considering that Blizzard promised a mechanic change in the ret rotation to get away from facerolling, and this AoW --> Exorcism mechanic doesn't do that, has Blizzard acknowledged that this is inadequate? I expected a significant change to 3.2 after I heard this, but it looks like Blizzard seems content to leave it as is, which is the exact same mechanic as ret had in 3.1.

To quote the Paladin Q&A:

Q. Exorcism will be usable in both PvE and PvP once more which is great; aside from allowing this ability to be used against other players, what were the reasons to go down this route in redesigning this attack?

A. Exorcism never did a ton of damage to players, but it was an instant attack which meant paladins could use it while closing with an enemy. It was essentially just free damage and never a decision of any kind. The new approach to the spell prevents it from being used while closing, and also makes Retribution paladins have to pay a little more attention to their combat rotation -- you want to use Exorcism when Art of War procs, and generally not at other times.

To me, that sounds like they simply redesigned Exorcism to make it only useable in PvP after you critted on a player before, with little to no change in PvE.

Along with lowered CD of CS and the lack of other changes in the last few PTR builds, I don't think we're going to see any mechanic changes that makes our rotation more skill-based and less faceroll anytime soon. They do seem to be quite happy with the SoV change to boost our single target DPS.

However, the question is: How could they make our rotation more skill-based? Changing our CDs, so it's easier to make rotation macros? Making our combat system highly random, based on procs, like Moonkins? Or having our skills connected in a very complex system (like Ferals), something we would probably not going to see anytime soon due to the amount of work and testing required?
As much as I'd like to see changes to our "rotation", we also have to be aware these changes could bring different problems along them.

Meecs · 07/16/09, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by Angel of Wrath

However, the question is: How could they make our rotation more skill-based?

I'm getting tired of the assumption that Ret requires little or no skill. After watching a Fraps'd video made by a mage guildmate of mine, I absolutely disagree with the idea that we take less skill or awareness to be competitive. This mage basically kept up scorch and living bomb, then spammed Frostfire Bolt the entire fight. How is this skill so much more difficult that a Ret's 'rotation'? He had to keep track of three things, keeping scorch up, keeping living bomb up, and using Pyroblast when Hot Streak proc'd.

In our rotation, yes we can be seen as 'facerollerzlol', but I am arguing that the skill involved with being a great Ret Paladin requires constant attention to detail. There isn't any amount of time that we can sit back and think "Okay I've got my debuffs up, I'll just spam FFB until I proc something." We always have to be vigilant and paying attention to what's coming up. I think most people here can remember when they stopped 'facerolling' and started planning 3-4 GCDs ahead what they were going to do with their spare GCD. Do I Divine Plea? Do I refresh Sacred SHield? Do I freedom the rogue stuck in Sif's Frost Nova? Do I BoP that Priest who had an add headed straight for her? Do I Salv the Warlock during Vezax because he can't time his Soul Shatter?

Sorry to rant, but I get sick of the insinuation that I'm a less skilled player because my class is only restricted by cooldowns. I've seen a million shitty Ret Paladins, and the difference between good and great is larger than most people realize.

Exemplar · 07/16/09, 11:44 AM

Originally Posted by Meecs

I'm getting tired of the assumption that Ret requires little or no skill. After watching a Fraps'd video made by a mage guildmate of mine, I absolutely disagree with the idea that we take less skill or awareness to be competitive. This mage basically kept up scorch and living bomb, then spammed Frostfire Bolt the entire fight. How is this skill so much more difficult that a Ret's 'rotation'? He had to keep track of three things, keeping scorch up, keeping living bomb up, and using Pyroblast when Hot Streak proc'd.

In our rotation, yes we can be seen as 'facerollerzlol', but I am arguing that the skill involved with being a great Ret Paladin requires constant attention to detail. There isn't any amount of time that we can sit back and think "Okay I've got my debuffs up, I'll just spam FFB until I proc something." We always have to be vigilant and paying attention to what's coming up. I think most people here can remember when they stopped 'facerolling' and started planning 3-4 GCDs ahead what they were going to do with their spare GCD. Do I Divine Plea? Do I refresh Sacred SHield? Do I freedom the rogue stuck in Sif's Frost Nova? Do I BoP that Priest who had an add headed straight for her? Do I Salv the Warlock during Vezax because he can't time his Soul Shatter?

Sorry to rant, but I get sick of the insinuation that I'm a less skilled player because my class is only restricted by cooldowns. I've seen a million shitty Ret Paladins, and the difference between good and great is larger than most people realize.

In 3.2 - what free GCDs? Planning ahead to non-existant free GCDs is moot. I'll also dispute your planning 3-4 GCD in advance. "Hmm, will I BoP the priest in 30 seconds on my 3rd free GCD?" I think not. Ret utility was purely reactionary and what set Great from Good. Good is 100% possible via faceroll. With no free GCD our utility abilities are more or less unusable in the patch without directly sacrificing DPS.

Also comparing our utility spells to the mage's DPS rotation is apples and oranges. Rather ask if the mage needed to pop a Frost Nova to keep an add off someone, sheep an unexpected add, or evo/invis for mana/threat purposes (the equivalent of refresh Sacred Shield).

Ret: Is any button off cooldown? No - wait for one. Yes - press it.
Mage in your example: Is Scorch up? No - reapply, Yes - Is Living Bomb up? No - reapply. Yes - did Hot Streak Proc? No - FFB spam. Yes - Pyroblast!

Bad Ret tend to have the wrong priority or ignore some abilities entirely. Often they're in the "wait 1 second for <ability> to come off CD rather than hit <other ability> right now" school. I.e. not facerolling - they're trying to wait for what they (mistakenly) think is more important. So you might say the bad Ret does not faceroll and is penalized for it.

A G15 programmed (against the rules - please do not do this) to press 5 buttons in rapid sequence (our priority from top to bottom) will provide optimum DPS if you just spam that key. The mage could not program a G15 to do the same with a single button press.

We are faceroll. You don't have to be happy about it, but stop the denial. The first step to a fix is always identification of the problem.

Meecs · 07/16/09, 12:21 PM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

In 3.2 - what free GCDs? Planning ahead to non-existant free GCDs is moot. I'll also dispute your planning 3-4 GCD in advance. "Hmm, will I BoP the priest in 30 seconds on my 3rd free GCD?" I think not. Ret utility was purely reactionary and what set Great from Good. Good is 100% possible via faceroll. With no free GCD our utility abilities are more or less unusable in the patch without directly sacrificing DPS.

Also comparing our utility spells to the mage's DPS rotation is apples and oranges. Rather ask if the mage needed to pop a Frost Nova to keep an add off someone, sheep an unexpected add, or evo/invis for mana/threat purposes (the equivalent of refresh Sacred Shield).

Ret: Is any button off cooldown? No - wait for one. Yes - press it.
Mage in your example: Is Scorch up? No - reapply, Yes - Is Living Bomb up? No - reapply. Yes - did Hot Streak Proc? No - FFB spam. Yes - Pyroblast!

Bad Ret tend to have the wrong priority or ignore some abilities entirely. Often they're in the "wait 1 second for <ability> to come off CD rather than hit <other ability> right now" school. I.e. not facerolling - they're trying to wait for what they (mistakenly) think is more important. So you might say the bad Ret does not faceroll and is penalized for it.

A G15 programmed (against the rules - please do not do this) to press 5 buttons in rapid sequence (our priority from top to bottom) will provide optimum DPS if you just spam that key. The mage could not program a G15 to do the same with a single button press.

We are faceroll. You don't have to be happy about it, but stop the denial. The first step to a fix is always identification of the problem.

Maybe I didn't explain properly, or maybe you misunderstood me. I'm not denying that we faceroll, nor did I say I wish we didn't. I simply do not like the fact that we are viewed as less skilled because we use our abilites when they come off cooldown. I know that keeping track of 5 DPS cooldowns isn't the toughest thing in the world, but neither is keeping up 2 debuffs and watching for one proc (mage example).

Furthermore, 3-4 GCDs is not 30 seconds. I did not say I plan on BoPing someone on my 4th free cooldown, I meant it to mean that in the next 5 seconds, I'll be using CS, Judge, DS, and then I have half a second to use a non-attack ability before my attacks come back up. Sometimes this is used for cleansing, BoP-ing, DP-ing, Freedoming, etc. A great Ret will keep an eye on his surroundings and recognize the need for our utility in this time, a bad one simply waits for the next cooldown to come up.

It seems to me Blizzard wanted to spice up the Ret tree by making the gap between 'good' and 'great' a bit wider. I predict that this gap will shrink with the 3.2 changes. With the reduced cooldown on CS in 3.2, the opportunity to use our utility while keeping a great awareness of our surroundings and what is going on will be very rare. Since we will be spamming CS and by extension our DPS abilites so much more, that spare GCD will be few and far between. One could even make the argument that the great rets (those who use their utility in times of need) will do worse at DPS than those that tunnel vision and DPS only.

• Zurm · 07/16/09, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Meecs

Furthermore, 3-4 GCDs is not 30 seconds. I did not say I plan on BoPing someone on my 4th free cooldown, I meant it to mean that in the next 5 seconds, I'll be using CS, Judge, DS, and then I have half a second to use a non-attack ability before my attacks come back up. Sometimes this is used for cleansing, BoP-ing, DP-ing, Freedoming, etc. A great Ret will keep an eye on his surroundings and recognize the need for our utility in this time, a bad one simply waits for the next cooldown to come up.

While I admire your drive to excell, I think your point of view may be skewed. In easier content (which from my inspection of your achievements seems to be what you primarily do), sure you can probably predict 5 seconds out when someone might need a HOP or HOF. In hard modes, your reaction time has to be much quicker, and there is much more individual accountability. Generally speaking, if someone messes up on a hardmode, they die. And more often than not, there is no cooldown you have that could save them.

As for cleansing, this is a topic I've seen beaten to death over and over, but as someone who has completed most of the hard modes (almost got alg-25 last week :/), I can say that if you are excessively cleansing, your healers are failing. Yes, there are exceptions, but in most cases, the healers should be cleansing. For example, on Thorim or Hodir when you get nova'd, you may occasionally have to dispell yourself or a nearby melee... but generally speaking it's the priest's job to mass dispell the melee. In Yogg P2, you might have to cleanse other melee when you take the portals to the brain room, but healers SHOULD have virtually everyone cleansed.

I'm going to make a slight shift and address Exemplar's concern of about the lack of GCDs. Again, I'm going to go ahead and say if you are really using THAT many GCDs, it means you are doing more healing and cleansing than you probably should. While it's great and all to be an all-star, it's your job to DPS, and my guess is that you aren't doing very well on meters even now with all of that utility use. I'd go and argue further that the mark of a bad ret paladin is not even his priorities, as those shift dynamically during the fight depending on how much you have to run out, your mana, or even your hp. Plus, there's a mod out there that takes all the skill out of priorities! The mark of a bad ret paladin is poor use of cooldowns such as AW and potions... almost without question. Also, a good retadin will be aware of their surroundings, and position/time consecrate and ds to maximize the effective damage (as in, NOT to specifically pad on mobs that are going to heal anyway) while minimizing the chance to die (for example by not DSing a passing guardian on Yogg p3).

I strongly feel that the 3.2 changes are in the right vein. I think we SHOULD have to pick between utility and dps... currently there is not enough of a damage penalty for ret pallies who excessively cleanse/heal themselves. You're trying to pick up slack that your healers are supposed to cover.

Sorry for the rantish post, just a few things that have been lurking in the back of my mind.

Meecs · 07/16/09, 1:29 PM

Originally Posted by Zurm

While I admire your drive to excell, I think your point of view may be skewed. In easier content (which from my inspection of your achievements seems to be what you primarily do), sure you can probably predict 5 seconds out when someone might need a HOP or HOF. In hard modes, your reaction time has to be much quicker, and there is much more individual accountability. Generally speaking, if someone messes up on a hardmode, they die. And more often than not, there is no cooldown you have that could save them.

We all can't be all-stars, or in a guild that is on the cutting edge at all times. What we all can do however, is try to be the best we can be regardless of where we are progression wise. Not everyone is in the position you are in when it comes to Hard Modes, and I like to think EJ is a site that people visit to improve their play, not just those who are the best of the best.

In response to your meters and DPS statement. I was referring to the times when we aren't DPSing to use our utility. I agree that the healers should pick up most of the slack when it comes to cleansing, dispelling, etc. I think you inferred that I sacrifice my DPS to use my other cooldowns, but on live, this is untrue. It is nice to be able to use those when a free GCD comes available especially if it is needed, and I also agree that free GCDs will be hard to come by in 3.2. Going forward: I am excited that our DPS is being brought more in line with other top hybrids. I feel like we are all accepting of the fact that we will have to sacrifice DPS to use our 'Active' Utility in 3.2, just like the other hybrids do.

My original point was to try and shed some light on some people's defeatist attitude about Ret and the general consensus that Ret is soooo easy and even a retard monkey can do it. For the most part, this is true, and some can do it adequately. I simply wanted to point out that our DPS abilities (faceroll) require just as much 'skill' and awareness as many other DPS specs' rotations. I added that ours requires more concentration and attentiveness than some other specs as well. I did not mean to start another Utility vs. DPS discussion. I know we've had those ad nauseum around here lately.

• Vinsent · 07/16/09, 4:25 PM

I believe that the problem with retribution dps at the moment is that there is no choice. There is never a point where NOT pushing a button results in a dps gain, because there is no reason ever to not push a button (because waiting for a proc, debuff, other cooldown, etc) to line up it makes our rotation simplistic.

What I think we need, is some mechanical change where by waiting to hit one of our DPS buttons until X time = a dps increase over button mashing, I don't think we will see much "skill" in the rotation until a change like that is made

Dorvan · 07/16/09, 5:28 PM

Originally Posted by Vinsent

I believe that the problem with retribution dps at the moment is that there is no choice. There is never a point where NOT pushing a button results in a dps gain, because there is no reason ever to not push a button (because waiting for a proc, debuff, other cooldown, etc) to line up it makes our rotation simplistic.

What I think we need, is some mechanical change where by waiting to hit one of our DPS buttons until X time = a dps increase over button mashing, I don't think we will see much "skill" in the rotation until a change like that is made

I disagree. "Do nothing" doesn't make for particularly exciting gameplay. The problem isn't that we're always pressings something (that's the case for all DPS), but that our decisions are completely static. We've always got the same abilities on the table (except for the addition of HoW at 20%), and our ability priorities are static. If A > B, you just press A when they're both up, end of story. One thing that could make play more dynamic would be a proc that buffed one or two of our lower priority abilities, causing them to become top priority while the proc is up. This would provide a mechanism for rewarding more dynamic and responsive play.

Proudmoore · 07/16/09, 6:05 PM

That can have its own repurcussions though. Say, hypothetically, that critting with CS buffed your next Consecrate by 500% (or whatever number makes it so that you want to hit it as soon as possible) - how does this work with cooldowns/duration? To reward dynamic gameplay, it would have to be a short duration buff (say, 4s), that requires you to change your rotation to take advantage. If it's a 10-15s buff, there's no point, you take advantage as a matter of course. But what if you just used Consecrate, and its got 8s left on cooldown? Tough. The alternative then is cooldown resets - although this then risks going right back to sqare one re burst. DS cooldown reset? PEWPEW!

The cloests example I can think of off the top of my head are Laser Turkies - Eclipse. They have a spammable "filler" spell that goes from "meh" to "good". I'm certain that the many intelligent folks around either here, or Blizzard where it matters, could find an alternative to this (such as GC's off-the-cuff suggestion of no cooldown, nerfed CS), but I just cannot see how such a concept can function within a purely cooldown limited combat style. And with a non-CD-limited filler spell, you can say "byebye" to utility totally.

Mist · 07/16/09, 7:14 PM

When you really break it down, very few classes have a very interesting combat system/rotation. Boomkins have an interesting gimmick, but I wouldn't call it fun. Slam timing for Arms takes skill, but again, it's not very intuitive needing to rely on a 3rd party addon with dubious accuracy to achieve high DPS. Fury is just like 3.2 Ret for the most part. Death Knight rotations are interesting because of the resource management, but they get rather robotic pretty fast. Mages and Elemental Shaman rotations are pretty laughable. Rogue was always the most interesting for me, because I enjoyed the idea of having a 'primary' attack plus a bunch of options to finish the combos, but it failed to scale in complexity as the game aged.

I hope when Blizzard makes their next game, the combat system is more reactive/interactive.