3.2 PTR - Retribution Discussion - Page 3

Bunnyhat · 06/24/09, 7:11 PM

Originally Posted by Baklava09

Just to let you guys know Hand of Reckoning does not work at all in PVP. I tested it on multiple pets that didnt have me targeted and it did no damage but still applied the taunt.

As for using it in PVE, I can think of quite a few current encounters we can use it on.
-Razorscale when he is grounded but before kite phase
-Hodir mobs
-Thorim Arena on the lesser targets
-Maybe XT-Decon Heart?
-Malygos when he goes into the air

It's still nothing great for us, but atleast we can play around with it.

The damage doesn't happen if the taunt effect doesn't go off. That means on boss's that are immune too taunt, it will not do any damage.

There might be a couple use's for it, but I think we need to just let this topic die for now and go back to testing more relevant changes.

Ok. been trying out the new changes myself. Love SoV. I have a feeling it's gonna work out great in Pve raids.

However, trying some pvp was frustrating. We have no more burst and with the res. changes I found myself not going anywhere against anyone with a decent set. Healer's you can just forget about killing. Command isn't great, but the only way to get decent numbers from Sov is for the stacks to get up and so you can just about forget target switching with it.

Baklava09 · 06/24/09, 7:23 PM

Originally Posted by Bunnyhat

However, trying some pvp was frustrating. We have no more burst and with the res. changes I found myself not going anywhere against anyone with a decent set. Healer's you can just forget about killing. Command isn't great, but the only way to get decent numbers from Sov is for the stacks to get up and so you can just about forget target switching with it.

I completely agree, and truthfully I am a bit upset about how things are going. Healers feel like complete god modes in a duel. Ret lacks the tools to take a healer down and now we especially lack any way of making them go oom. Battlegrounds are going to be destroyed by 1 healer training 5 players that can't kill him, arenas are going to last forever, and the fun factor is going to be destroyed.

I'm not trying to complain, because even now I have problems with druids, and some disc priests on live, but man a freaking premade ptr noob just stood there and outhealed me for 15 minutes before I eventually gave up. I usually try to do a HOJ + Wings + Repetance + Arcane Torrent combo to take a healer down. It works on live, on PTR good luck getting them to half health, even using exorcism...

Rej · 06/24/09, 8:12 PM

It seems like the lack of burst almost goes well with using SoV for PvP, since we're not going to be killing anyone quickly - rather, with all our defensive abilities (some that are actually improved a tad) we feel like an "outlast" DPS class now meant for steady DPS pressure. I guess it follows a similar idea to how Rogues accumulate combo points on their target? Unless SoC sees significant boosts, I don't think many Rets will want to take the DPS hit just to be able to do better target switches, especially given our reduction in burst.

The SoV stacks might also protect HoJ from being dispelled (unless the whole stack is dispelled with one cast? Hopefully that's not the case, maybe someone can confirm...), which can aid us in pressuring our current target. Unfortunately it will break Repent, so we'll have to be careful about who we choose to attack in the first place. The biggest concern is that without much ability to control our target and with reduced burst, we'll have to team up with Mortal Strike abilities in order to get anywhere with our damage.

Herzak · 06/24/09, 9:19 PM

Hoping to not to distract too much from the more important Game Mechanics, I was wondering if anyone has had a look at the new buffs to the professions?

HamSlammer · 06/24/09, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by Herzak

Hoping to not to distract too much from the more important Game Mechanics, I was wondering if anyone has had a look at the new buffs to the professions?

Your general crafting professions just gained enough to equal them to what BS will yield with the new epic gems. Engineering is about the only non-traditional profession, in terms of DPS buffs. Here's what has changed w/ Engineering:

- Nitro Boosts now give +12 Hit and Crit along w/ the 5 second speed boost.
- Hyperspeed Accelerators still yield 340 Haste but over 12 seconds.
- Springy Arachnoweave gives +27 Spell Power
- Flexweave Underlay gives +23 Agility
- And the Hand-Mounted Pyro Rockets are 1684-2020 damage.

Durinix · 06/24/09, 10:05 PM

JC + Blacksmithing is still going to be superior to all other professions, even with the prismatic change, because we can get our bonus in strength rather than AP.

• frmorrison · 06/24/09, 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by Herzak

Hoping to not to distract too much from the more important Game Mechanics, I was wondering if anyone has had a look at the new buffs to the professions?

Non-JC/BS get 80 AP (used to be 64 AP) while JC/BS just get a 40 strength bonus (BS bonus assume two epic gems). Not a much of a change for professions, adding epic gems is a huge change though, since that is 4 strength more per gem.

Rurahk · 06/24/09, 10:44 PM

I was curious to see if Blizzard decided to use the new SoV mechanics to improve Armor Penetration for rets, specifically the buffed Seal portion of the damage, but it looks like SoV remains unaffected by it.

Pre-made ret gear with 167 ArmP, untalented, buffed with Might and 20 stacks of FotFF, and [Giant Mace] equipped vs level 60 dummy (to remove resist variance):

Holy Vengeance (DoT) - 469-470 damage
SoV - 318-323 damage
JoV - 790-791 damage

The damage remained identical when I socketed all my gear with armor penetration gems:
5X16 ArmP + 3X34 ArmP = 182 ArmP

I suppose that this is unsurprising since SoV follows resist mechanics, but Bliz has done stranger things.

Barogorn · 06/24/09, 11:06 PM

I agree that using HoR as ret is just a plain bad idea, but there is an easy solution to the taunt portion of the ability. HoR can be changed so it only applies the taunt while Righteous Fury is active. Although this would allow the use of HoR as a dps spell, it gives no real dynamic to our class and is just a Exorcism-like spell based off of our ap but also on spell hit table.

With regards to the AoW procs and Exo use, I see it as a fix to pvp usage of Exo by ret. In no shape or form was this Blizzard's attempt at making our class more skill required. Exo is still available every time it is off cd as ret.

I would like to know where Blizzard came up with 4sec cd on CS why not 4.5sec?

Fiola · 06/25/09, 12:34 AM

Making a taunt (that doesn't trigger the GCD) a staple DPS ability is simply asking for unnecessary balance issues.

One thing about the 4 second CD on CS is that it benefits from haste, since we have abilities that are spells.

ie: DS + Exo would take up 2.8 seconds instead of 3 with 15% haste; you get to use CS after 4.3 seconds instead of 4.5.

It also allows you to do more CS damage if you can only fit one spell in between. (you idle for 1 second instead of 1.5 seconds)

Hamartia · 06/25/09, 12:37 AM

Originally Posted by TheEnder

It seems like there are alot of reports of both increases and decreases in PVE DPS based on the changes made. (The current consensus being the PVP Ret is hurting fairly badly right now unless able to stack SoV on a PVP target... which eliminates target switching in most cases. Edit: SoC damage is just pathetic.)

Does anyone have any comparable parses in actual PVE encounters for comparisons? I've managed to work out some basic math (completely based on current numbers) that puts the FCFS rotation to:

Prior to 5 stacks:
CS > DS > Judge >Exo > DP (Concecration used when there is an open CD)

After 5 stacks (sustained DPS):
Judge > CS > DS >Exo > DP (Concecration used when there is an open CD)

After 5 stacks (burning DPS):
Judge > DS > Exo > CS > DP (Concecration used when there is an open CD)

The change to CS makes it hit paltry compared to other abilities when burning a target; however always having it on CD means you're hitting more often. The problem is; it's also eating up mana at a horrid rate. Thus the Judgement priority. The rotation isn't so much more complex as it is just utter chaos. Use what is available but with so many GCD clashes it just seems like the chaos is going to hurt us more than Blizzard hoped the 'buffs' were going to help.

These are all basic numbers; will try and formulate some better stuff once I get home. Will try to post any numbers I devise.

The new priority is great, netted me a huge DPS improvement over anything I tried to figure out (and over 3.1). Only problem seems to be that using consecration is hardly viable for more than a couple times. Just curious, why has exorcism's priority increased over cons? Is this purely to sustain mana?

Palette · 06/25/09, 2:14 AM

Originally Posted by flexbutt

Just a quick question to those testing rotations on the PTR and noticing mana problems. Are you also attempting to keep Sacred Shield up every 30 seconds or does the mana negativity occur without it? If the latter, then I imagine Sacred Shield would cause some trouble as well.

I ask this not for the sake of keeping it up on ourselves, which is not as much a necessity anymore, but if there is only one holy paladin in the raid and two tanks, it would be possible to macro our shield to the offtank so he can receive HoTs from the holy paladin's FoL.

No i do testing without Sacred Shield
2 Reasons:
1. No Mana to have it supported (using JoW, DP ect. on cooldown). I have also to drop Cons often out of the "rotation"
2. No really good time to get it up. I find myself have no time to do something else the dps or my dps is suffering bad

Killmour · 06/25/09, 2:52 AM

It seems like It's still a "mash buttons when they come off cool down" system rather than something complex.

In PvP I'm not sure how my damage is going to be that useful. Most of my time spent in 3s and 5s is cleansing and using hand spells etc. I don't get too many global cool downs to do damage. If more of my global cool downs are needed to be spent on damage, then it's going to be difficult to find a niche. Also Using SoV is going to be hard in CC setups due to the duration of the dot. The numbers from SoC are pretty abysmal so that does not seem very viable either.

It would be nice to see a deep ret talent reduce the global cool down of our cleanse by a bit, make it a half second or something so that I can actually free people from CC without losing a ton of dps time. Seems like this fits the defensive hybrid ideal anyway.

Arikah · 06/25/09, 3:21 AM

I don't often complain about PTR's (because they are in testing phase after all), but after playing around on it myself for about 2 hours I have to say I don't like where ret is going. The "rotation" is somehow messier than it is on live and requires no more skill, AoW effectively changes nothing for pve, mana becomes a huge issue again even with raid buffs and so on. Even running with the horrible CS glyph I was still quite mana negative beating on the dummies - we simply cannot afford to keep SS up on anyone in pve now.

So what needs to change?
- CS needs to either go back to its' original cooldown and damage, or be lowered to a 3s cooldown with its' mana cost reduced; 4s just does not work in any way and feels extremely clunky, since our GCD is still 1.5s
- Mana being a problem again can simply be fixed by lowering CS and Exorcism mana costs. You'll note that on live we are mana negative, but can last between 7-12mins (vs 3 mins on the ptr).
- AoW has to do something more than just make exo instant. It needs to also reset the cooldown of exo / increase the damage of your next one; for both pvp and pvp purposes there has been no decision making introduced, you still hit exo every 15s.
- We still don't have proper offensive tools, and will certainly need them in pvp now... the resil change is quite noticeable.

As has been said by many of you, SoC is just utterly useless for anything on the ptr. You won't even see it being used in pvp because the judgement hits for so little and no longer autocrits stunned things - it won't be used for pve trash either, because if your damage actually matters on trash, it means the mobs are alive for more than 15s each anyways. I'm pretty sure we've given them almost every idea imaginable for ways to make it viable or desired (from debuffs to damage to ms ect).. perhaps we should take the hint and just give up on SoC ;p

It's just not that fun to be saying "man, I hope 3.2 doesn't go live like this", because that's pretty much where we are now :|

Maylander · 06/25/09, 4:49 AM

I can live with the messy FCFS system (even worse than it currently is), but I can't live with these mana issues. Among other things, Concecration is practically impossible to use right now, as is most of our utility. I wouldn't mind ditching Concecration by reducing some other CD - that would solve quite a few issues:
- We'd have an extra glyph slot.
- Easier to solve the "mana puzzle".
- No more long lasting AoE that happens to aggro anything that steps into it unless it's already being tanked (i.e P3 on Yogg).

Sure, we can always skip Concecration to solve those issues already, but it's such a significant amount of DPS (even single target), we end up doing rubbish DPS. If they simply squeezed it out of our rotation by reducing CS/DS/J/Exo CD (either one), we'd suddenly have a high-cost optional AoE (which is great) instead of a mandatory high-cost spell that is currently destroying our mana bar.