3.2 PTR - Retribution Discussion - Page 7

Exemplar · 06/26/09, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by Zurm

I strongly believe you should post this in the suggestion/PTR forum. It can't hurt, and might give devs an idea they hadn't thought of. Best to get these things in early, so there's time left on PTR to develop and test them.

Also, is everyone who's tried raids (please not target dummy tests, those have so many exceptions and issues that they don't have any real accuracy) on PTR noticed a *massive* dps increase? From what I hear from Endoscient, Rawr is showing minimal DPS increases (~350-400 dps atm) on a single target, some people however are noticing increases of over 1k in practice, such as this guy on MMO-champion forums. While I obviously take such posts with a grain of salt, it seems his methodology is sound. He does state that hes hitting an undead target, which gives automatically more weight to exorcism... but it's so low compared to our other sources I just can't help but feel there is more going on here than we know. He's also using the new, bugged libram. With 100% uptime, its like a 300 DPS increase. Even so, he shows 7015 dps with BELOW expected crit on PTR, while seeing 5.8k on live under typical circumstances. That's more than just a minor increase.

My spreadsheet modeling (similar to Endo's Rawr tests) showed a few hundred DPS increase in my current gear. Around 300-400. For "massive" increase, I blame the Libram. It looks to be about 260 DPS better than Furious Glad.

1 item purchased with badges - 260 DPS more than best avail in 3.1.
Or in a vacuum, about 360 DPS just from 1 item.

So, sounds right. A huge swing of 600-700, maybe a bit more.

Edit: That's running numbers on things not getting added benefit from Crusade. Undead would get extra Crusade scaling, plus Glyph of Sense Undead and Exo auto-crit. Therefore the changes would scale significantly compared to what we're pulling in Ulduar. I think I could see ~1k more DPS in Naxx with Libram compared to live in Ulduar.

Pruf · 06/26/09, 11:33 AM

I apologize in advance if this was mentioned earlier in this thread, however I'm just making a quick post from work while i was reviewing some data i forwarded to my IPhone (lol).

I ran 10 man OS and Nax on PTR with a premade Pal while awaiting my actual character to be transfered. While the numbers look good on dummies, they are not as good in the field so to speak. Yes our single target damage does seemed some what improved, however, our AoE damage on trash and during certain boss encounters is tremendously lowered as we aren't getting the old SoM/B procs on our Divine storm with the new SoV because as we all know it requires 5 stacks of our dot. I found this quite disheartening to say the least as a significant amount of my value (and more importantly fun) came from the astronomical numbers i could put out while clearing trash or clearing adds during boss encounters.

I'm not sure if it warrants it alone, but I'm seriously considering using one valuable point and specing into SoC so that I can maintain this lost dps on trash. I realize this may seem a bit petty, however i feel it almost necessary. It was quite disheartening for me to feel like the raid was carrying me through trash.

Please post your thoughts about this. I realize that what really counts are the boss fights where our single target will shine, however it does sacrifice the awesome aoe dps we once promoted. Thanks again.

• zeidrich · 06/26/09, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Pruf

Our AoE damage on trash and during certain boss encounters is tremendously lowered as we aren't getting the old SoM/B procs on our Divine storm with the new SoV because as we all know it requires 5 stacks of our dot.

Just don't forget that the DoT deals damage too, and Divine Storm applies the DoT. This is a problem on mobs that last for less than 15 seconds, but anything longer and I'd have to take a good look at the numbers to consider that a foregone conclusion.

There's also the option of using tab-targeting to build the stack on adds that require high longer term DPS. Then maintaining the 5-stack and causing the 30% damage every 10 seconds really wins out over just 48% damage per 10 seconds.

Yes, we'll lose some efficacy on packs of 4 or fewer micro adds that need to die very quickly. We'll gain a bunch on long term fights where we can hit multiple targets. (Say something like Kologarn for instance)

Pushurluck · 06/26/09, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by Telumehtar

Been thinking about how to make the AoW proc mechanic more compelling for us, and more "interesting" as a game mechanic.

I doubt we are going to see AoW refreshing Exorcism cool downs, because as people have pointed out, we can quite often average 2 to 5 procs per 15 seconds, thus we could potentially exorcism anywhere from 2 to 5 times more often in the same time period. That solution returns us to the Very bursty, and very boring situation we see currently, only with just a small shift in our priority.

My suggestion would be to first reduce the reset time of Exorcism to 10 or even 8 seconds. Then I think a reasonable change is to have AoW's first proc make FoL/Exor turn into an insta cast, and then subsequent procs add a buff to us that gets consumed upon using either FoL/Exor. This buff would be stackable (say up to 5 or something) and for each charge of the buff we get a percentage increase in the effectiveness of the FoL/Exor we use to consume it.

By doing this, it adds a some decision making to our FCFS priority system which now has a fluid element to it. An exorcism with no AoW charges is our lowest priority attack. An Exorcism with 3 charges might be worth prioritizing over Judgement, but perhaps not CS. An Exorcism with 5 stacks might be our first priority. In conjunction with the lower cool down we also are running the odds that we won't have 5 AoW procs within a 10 second period so we most likely can't count on having a maxxed Exorcism every time it's off cool down. So we have to decide... delay it to build up more AoW buffs or fire with what we got.

Sidenote: If the feeling is that having a 5 stack buffed Exorcism is too bursty, change the mechanic to instead apply the base Exorcism damage on cast, but then have it apply a dot which has an effectiveness tied to the number AoW stacks we had when we Exorcised.

The powering up to the FoL piece also adds a fun dimension. We could drop a life saving, pretty substantial heal 1 time but we do so at the cost of DPS because we just blew our buffed up AoW stack.

As for the mana issues we are seeing, returning to the idea of Blue rage, I think a deep Ret talent that returns mana based on some percentage of our SoV's dot tick could be interesting. We'd get more mana back the higher we stack the dot. It's a mechanic that harkens back to the SoB mechanic which was nice and has a Paladinish flavor to it.

Now granted this is probably stepping into wishlist land a little, but one other area I think they have failed to differentiate us in is AE vs Single Point(STILL). I still see no seperation of this and thus we have 1 and only 1 playstyle regardless of the tactical situation we are faced with. One thing I would like to see is a better distinguishing of the playstyles along the AE vs Single Point line.

Very interesting! please do post this in the suggestions sections for the PTR.

• frmorrison · 06/26/09, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by Elamahpla

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> GC: Too much to ask for?

With 3.2 coming sooner rather than later, I made a post in regards to paladins not having an interrupt, if possible, I'd like to see the Paladin community voice its' opinion on the matter. I will edit the post later to provide more concrete details about the reasoning Paladins SHOULD have one. In the mean time however, I, as well as many others I'm sure, would appreciate some feedback of on the matter at hand.

In 3.2, the BE racial Arcane Torrent will interrept PvE mobs. It has a long cooldown (2 min), but it is something new for the Horde.

Angel of Wrath · 06/26/09, 1:17 PM

Originally Posted by Telumehtar

My suggestion would be to first reduce the reset time of Exorcism to 10 or even 8 seconds. Then I think a reasonable change is to have AoW's first proc make FoL/Exor turn into an insta cast, and then subsequent procs add a buff to us that gets consumed upon using either FoL/Exor. This buff would be stackable (say up to 5 or something) and for each charge of the buff we get a percentage increase in the effectiveness of the FoL/Exor we use to consume it.

I support this idea and I think it should really be postet in the PTR forum.

On a different note: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Ret DPS Comparison - Live vs PTR: WWS data

Seals of the Pure seems to not work properly with Seal of Vengeance. It is not applying properly to increase the damage done by the weapon-damage component of Seal of Vengeance, specifically. In my first PTR test without SotP, my average SoV hit is 740. In my second, the average is only 749, a 1.2% increase. It did work properly with the DoT (Holy Vengeance) portion (no SotP: 705 average, w/ SotP: 832 average), as well as the Judgment (no SotP: 1943 average, w/ SotP: 2252 average).

Due to still downloading the PTR patch (which is going to take a while), I can't test it myself - can anybody confirm this claim? Almost 5% more weapon damage per Seal proc does seem significant.

Ranjurm · 06/26/09, 1:44 PM

SoV's DoT portion is affected by SotP but not the 33% of weapon damage on hit. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not working as intended as it would be an incredibly strong dps talent if it affected both portions. Time will tell.

Elamahpla · 06/26/09, 2:09 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

In 3.2, the BE racial Arcane Torrent will interrept PvE mobs. It has a long cooldown (2 min), but it is something new for the Horde.

That is NOT a reliable interrupt. Granted, it's off GCD which I suppose is nice, however, what about Alliance Paladins? As shown in the thread I linked, you'll see some valid points made, while I still do need to add more to the overall statement, it's something that's needed. If you look at it like this, A BE Paladin on General Vezax has a one minute down time of no interrupts (Assuming they're using Arcane Torrent and HoJ to interrupt SF every time).

I'm sure as well as most that view this discussion, would agree that it's something NEEDED by Paladins.

Edited for clarification: I'm not saying that it's not a start or disagreeing, just pointing out that we as Paladins still have yet to have something simplistic as an interrupt.

vorda · 06/26/09, 3:35 PM

Edited for clarification: I'm not saying that it's not a start or disagreeing, just pointing out that we as Paladins still have yet to have something simplistic as an interrupt.

Together with druids, warlocks (unless they use a shitty pet) and priests. Considering prot palas do have an "interrupt", you can add hunter to the list above as well.
Putting HoJ off GCD would add some utility, but I do not believe every class should have the same possibilities.

Aranoa · 06/26/09, 4:03 PM

After a liitle bit of testing on the ptr, could it be, that the 33% weapon damage proc of the seal is not affected by sotp? The numbers seem to be right when I only added Crusade, Sanctified Seals, Vengeance and Two-Hand Weapon Spec.

edit: Forget about it, Endo wrote this at the first page .. Head -> Table ^^

edit2: What I still can't figure out is, why I just don't get on the right judgement damage. I am always missing around 5,9% in my math compared to ptr. But Judgement of Vengeance isn't affected by 2 Hand Weapon Spec, is it?

Xanndor · 06/26/09, 4:04 PM

In the 3.1 thread there is a Q&A as follows:

Q: What does weapon speed do to us? Do we want slow or fast?
A: Slow. Every .1 speed slower is equal to ~30 DPS due to SoB/JoB not being normalized; so given a choice between a 3.4 203 dps 2h and a 3.8 203 dps 2h, the 3.8 would win. Of course, weapon DPS means quite a bit to us so there is no real comparison between a 3.6 212 dps and a 3.4 226 dps weapon!

I haven't seen any discussion on this with SoB/SoM going away. I am assuming this is because SoV has a similar dynamic but I thought I would ask to make sure. It just occured to me that if the reason for a slow weapon being better was due to a SoB/SoM dynamic that things might change when it goes away.

So, my question is "Will the best weapon for ret still be the slow weapon with high max damage?"

Thanks,

Xanndor

• Zurm · 06/26/09, 4:18 PM

Originally Posted by Xanndor

So, my question is "Will the best weapon for ret still be the slow weapon with high max damage?"

Yes. Whether or not the value of weapon speed changes has yet to be definitively determined, but it's safe to say its at least in the same ballpark.

mrbreck · 06/26/09, 5:47 PM

I think that pretty much depends on whether or not SoV is normalized, which I haven't seen anyone test yet.

Telumehtar · 06/26/09, 6:06 PM

I went ahead and per the prodding here, posted my earlier suggestions to the PTR forums. If you would like to lend support or criticism feel free to do so in this Blizzard PTR forum thread. Hopefully with the PTR cycle still being early, we can get Blizzard to really give us a good look over.

They said they didn't want to revamp the class, but honestly, with the removal of a seal, and a restructuring of 2 more seals, and changes in the workings of AoW, and Exorcism, I think they are already sliding down the slippery slope of a revamp. Lets hope they take the time to be thoughtful about it.

padwicin01 · 06/26/09, 7:39 PM

I know this doesnt really count for anything I havent recorded any evidence but with high end Ulduar gear from Live to PTR Im seeing a DPS increase of around 600DPS single target Its also worth noting when DPS'ing trash it makes sense to stack SoR on as many targets as it only takes 3 globals for a stack, especially with lower CD of CS. But as others have reported above, I'm finding full abilities spam, only viable for 3-4 minutes before going OOM, still very interesting changes as of this minute.