3.2 PTR - Retribution Discussion
 

Note - this thread is to discuss/theorycraft 3.2 Retribution Paladin mechanics on the PTR before they go live. It is not intended to be a 3.2 master thread. I trust Arikah can either update the other thread's title or start a new thread when 3.2 goes live if we need to re-invent the wheel due to changes.

There's been some comments about resetting the cooldown on Exo from various procs - remember, if something does reset Exo, we also need a fresh AoW. Exo off cooldown and 1.5 sec cast is still useless - we need cooldown reset plus instant cast.

I'm sure we can continue the good discussion without veering into wishlist land.

So let's discuss 3.2 on the PTR. I have some questions to start the thread:
What are the JoV coefficients (are they different than 3.1)?
Can SoV DoT application (first 5 hits) be dodged or parried?
Is SoV DoT application still on spellhit (vs melee hit)?
Can SoV procs (33% weap dam after 5stack established) be dodged or parried?
Can SoV procs (33% weap dam after 5stack established) crit?
How do we see priorities changing? I think HoW becomes #1 in the queue when available, not sure beyond that so far.

I am doing some testing on the PTR currently. With some interesting results. This is all with my Holy gear that has 0 hit and expertise.

When your seal procable attack lands, then it attempts a seal attack which uses melee combat mechanics (i.e. can be dodged/parried), if it is avoided then SoV doesn't gain a stack or is refreshed. If you are at 5 stacks anytime a seal proc happens, regardless of if it was dodged/parried/missed, it will proc the extra weapon damage which I have yet to see miss.

So hit/expertise reduces the time it takes to get a 5 stack, but it does not have any effect on the 5 stack damage proc at the moment (besides that the initial hit needs to land to proc a seal).

The DoT itself seems to always land once its up there regardless of miss chance.

Did a few short runs on the PTR earlier today;

Both hit and expertise capped - did not observe any misses or dodges on the initial application or on the DoT afterwards. The run was fairly short due to time constraits so will try to do some more when time permits.

The 33% seal proc can crit, just like SoB. Did not see any dodges on the 33% weapon damage proc either. Will have to try do a run where I'm whacking the dummy from infrot to see if the parries are there.

Does Seals of the Pure still scale SoV damage? If so, which damage component(s)?

I does not seem like Seals of the Pure effects the 5 stack proc. I got a 57 proc, when my minimum weapon damage was 168 and I had no other talents or modifiers besides SotP. Which is possible if SotP did not effect the proc, but is not if it did.

It works on the Judgement, and the DoT effect as expected.

The JoV coefficient is the same as it is on live too.

Few minor additions from my very non-scientific testing before getting DC'd:

Everything for SoV is still partially resistable.
JoV crits at 200%.

Two questions:

1) Is anyone testing seal twisting? My PTR is still DLing, so I havent had a chance to test. I would like to know if it is possible to get a full stack of SoV and switch to SoC and still have the +33% as holy, perhaps for some massive numbers. If this does work, will it be possible to weave this into the new rotation?

2) The rotation. Again, I will try these myself as soon as the PTR is on here, but I would like to see other results. Will the standard rotation be

CS, Judge, CS, DS, CS, CS, Judge, etc

as to not make the 4 sec CD on CS into 4.5? Would it be possible for someone to post one of those bar graph things that shows attacks and GCD timer with the most efficient rotation?

Will return in a while with my own results.

Until 5 stacks you will want a prioritized CS and DS to get them up as quickly as possible. After 5 stacks are up the old priority system falls back into place.

The most efficient rotation is still FCFS, without waiting for any cooldown. Pushing CS to a 4.5 eCD isn't great, but its a lot better than 1 second of inactivity when 4 other abilities aren't on cooldown.

Libram of Valiance is currently available from the Emblem of Triumph vendor for gold (as is everything) and in 15 minutes, it has yet to fall off from me just auto-attacking a level 80 Target Dummy. It generally refreshes in 1-2 ticks of Vengeance.

Barring any changes to the Libram (which I'll bank on), this relic is a whopping +506 static AP, self-buffed, making it head, shoulders, chest, and knees above the upcoming Relentless Gladiator's Libram.

Seal Twisting has been pretty much dead since 3.0 hit. The mana costs alone would be astronomical and the GCDs required would make everything else a nightmare.

From what I understand, it's better to push CS to an effective 4.5 second cooldown than it is to waste a second every 4 seconds.

Seal twisting is a bad idea, since with 4 second CS you have fewer free GCDs. The only use for Command I see (besides PvP and leveling) is it may be better to swap to Command for AoEing trash (I haven't tried it yet).

We don't have a rotation, just FCFS. Anyway HoW appears to be the best attack (of course sub-20%) in the FCFS listing.

A couple things of note

- Judgement of Command is proc'ing Seal of Command provided you're in melee range with your target (this used to occur on Live, not sure if it does now and I can't test since I'm on a 72hour ban >_<)

- Divine Storm and Seal of Vengeance interact a bit oddly once fully stacked on multiple targets. Redcape detailed this a bit back when the Paladin preview was released, let me go find the post...

Interestingly enough, it gets stranger. The targeting coding of the SoV direct damage appears sends the DD to whatever you have currently targeted, regardless of range, SoV stacks, etc. I was able to send the DD across a 40~ yd gap at the Silvermoon target dummies.

Here's a visual:

So could one hit another player in PvP across a battleground as long as they had the stack still active? It might be a slim chance but it could bring up balance concerns.

Here are my observations and opinions from testing on the PTR

Using normal PVE gear with JC + Enchanting professions (my meta is not in use atm because I wasnt able to obtain correct gems at the time so I am missing out on 21 agi +3% crit dmg) I also did use the Libram of Valiance during these tests.

Testing done over 2,667,317 dmg done to Heroic training dummy. Time lapse of ~11 minutes.

* On a heroic training dummy using priority systems of CS > Judgement > Divine Storm > Hand of Reckoning > Consecration > Exorcism I was able to pull 4200 self sustained dps.

* Since I did have mana problems I found myself skipping Consecration several times and basically using it if my mana was in good shape. With so many cooldowns I found Exorcism to hardly get used and was more of "if i have nothing else to push" button.

* Hand of Reckoning hit normally 3488 dmg with a max of 4612 non crit. It crit averaged 5438 with a max of 7555 damage. I noticed 3 misses with 8.66% hit.

* Seal of Corruption was my #1 damage source at 17.5% with melee being second at 16.8%

* Judgement of Corruption hits pretty freaking hard if you have 5 stacks up - my max crit was at 8805

* Crusader strike max crit was at 4654, normal crits averaged 3387 (this made me want to cry)

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Testing same exact setup with Seal of Command my conclusions are -

* Over the span of 5 minutes doing 751411 damage, I was able to do 3150 dps. :(

* Seal of Command was my #1 damage source at 28% averaging 992 damage a hit, with a max crit of 2694. (My max Seal of Corruption hit previously was 2736, and average was 967)

* Judgement of Command max crit was 4012. Average hit was 1629 damage.

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Testing Seal of Vengeance without hand of reckoning in the rotation -

* My dps over 8 minutes doing 1,876,524 damage was 3800 dps self buffed.



- My only questions are if we are going to be able to use Hand of Reckoning in PVE at all on certain taunt-immune bosses?
- Why does Seal of Command suck so badly? and how can they possibly expect us to pvp with it?

A single comment while I await my PTR patch download: while Hand of Reckonning may be usable on target dummies, it will seldomly be usable in PvE encounters with the taunt effect and, if someone is already tragetting you (sometimes in PvP, sometimes not, it won't do any damage?).

On live, Judgement of Command is procs Seal of Command. In PvP Command sounds good with the mana return.
Anyway, it seems our dps Seals need some damage parity.

Hand of Reck uses spell hit like all other taunt spells. 8.6 melee hit is about 11 spell hit, so 6% miss rate on a boss. Most if not all bosses can be taunted, so using that in a raid is a bad idea. Nice for grinding though.