Just a reminder: DR on taunts is 20s.

That means if you spam your HoR on Razor for the final grounded section, tanks won't be able to taunt off once she is grounded permanently so be prepared to tank her yourself for 20s...

use it for the first grounded section by all means!

Testing with a boss doll showed that HoR does indeed trigger the damage if the mob is taunt immune (here caused by the DR):

HoR Test

Can we make a compiled list in which situations we could/should use HoR? Correct me if I'm wrong somewhere, but so far I have:

- Razorscale ground phases before final grounding
- Ignis' adds in the water (assuming HoR can crit for 5k)
- XT heart phase
- Kologarn's arms
- Hodir's ice blocks
- Freya's trees
- Thorim's arena
- Mimiron P2 and P4 chest
- General Vezax
- Yogg-Saron (tentacles, brain room, Yogg-Saron)

Looks quite versatily for me. But I expect a hotfix incoming soon.

HoR damage is buffing one of our weakest points during 3.1 (on demand burst fights like XT heart, yogg brain etc), but sadly, i'm not sure it is intended Although i don't see it ruining the balance in any way.

I doubt it's intended and fully expect it to get changed to how it should be working soon™.

It pretty much boils down to how the state with exorcism was when it was still undead/demons only.

On undead/demons we were doing 'good' damage, and on all other mobs we weren't. Balancing it the other way around. So we do good damage on any mob, then on any undead/demons we'd be OP. So Exorcism got changed to being usable on any mob with guaranteed crits on undead/demons. That still makes our damage on undead/demons higher, but that's already the case due to the glyph of sense undead. In any case, the damage difference between undead/demon and other isn't as pronounced.


Now we get the exact same situation with HoR. On any mob that we can use the taunt on, we'd do good/op damage, and on any other mobs we'd be performing (considerably) less.

It doesn't solve burst need... it solves burst need on mobs that we can safely use a taunt on without risking getting turned to mush.


HoR is a taunt. The damage is intended provided the mob also turns it's angry face towards you. It's not supposed to be part of the repertoire of a DPS rotation. And I fully expect it to get changed. And yes, that still means it'll have occasional use, such as Freya lasher packs, Thorim adds etc.

I could be proven wrong, but it just doesn't feel right. And it again puts us in the situation of our DPS being balanced with or without the extra "sometimes available" damage ability.

I agree wholeheartedly. On Yogg 0 attempts yesterday it felt extremely awkward (as did using SoR for half the fight, but that's another matter), and with crits as high as 10k on the brain I just don't see it as intended. I was talking to endoscient about it, and he was telling me that being able to use HoR on CD would yield a 700 dps increase for me...that seems way over the top, considering how much of a boost we got already.

Its fun for prot tanks being able to HoR whenever a boss targets a raid member and casts something though. Not sure if that's indended either(since you are 100% agro the whole time, just not the target) Adds a bit of skill to the otherwise macro-spam able prot threat rotation.

That would be an amazing spec, too bad it adds up to 73 points.

For tanking it's intended. That's why it got changed in the first place. Taunt the mob, and at least give it "some" extra threat so that it doesn't peel right off to the overaggroing caster (melee never does amirite ) before the GCD is over to do more TPS.

HoR doesn't have a "locking" debuf component to it as warrior taunt does. Instead of copying that over, blizz decided that extra TPS would more or less end up doing the same without making the tanking abilities accross all tanks identical in mechanics.

This is wrong, HoR still has its 3second fixate in 3.2

Just some speculation, but the Proc for Prots when using Judgement of the Just... Could it be that the JotJ debuff is being considered a melee attack in its own right? Thus if Judging were to proc also, they would in fact get a "double" proc?

Perhaps, but it seems like a moot point anyway. It would require 35 points in prot just to get there, at which point you can't get any of the talents that really mark you as a ret pally. There's no point to discuss it further in the retribution thread, IMO.

I've been doing some testing on target dummies, with the understanding that it's not the best place at all to test some numbers, so I pose this question to the group. I believe I read a few pages back that SoC will actually outpace SoR at higher gear levels. My two questions are does this still hold true after numerous people have tested both Seals in actual PvE raid scenarios (heavy AOE and quick target switch fights, since SoV is vastly superior on single target, unchanging)? Additionally, if true, what gear level is needed for SoC to outpace SoR? Are we including Glyphs?

I cannot answer your question about when SoC outpaces SoR... I can't figure it out with the napkin math available to me. However...

Generally, seal usage is as follows:

SoR - Burst single target and AOE.
SoC - Pure AoE only.
SoV - Single target with at least 15-18 sec on the target.

I do seal twist a bit during fights depending on the situation. For instance; SoR during Yogg and brain room; -might- be worth it to switch to SoC for icecrown and the 3 mobs grouped up. Then switch to SoV for the brain if you'll have more than 15-18 seconds on it. I've noticed substantial increases in numbers for single target; AOE is of course lower. Less residual damage in all cases.

It's somewhat interesting to note that most of the rets that correspond with me have reported losses in numbers. Mostly due to a failure to use the proper seals in the correct situations. So perhaps that small bit of skill can come into play for the class now; albeit a bit clunky in nature.

Modeling this in my spreadsheet I don't find this occurring at any reasonable level of gear if you have Seals of the Pure. The only time SoC is superior to SoR is with a high DPS weapon and low attack power on gear. If they continue to scale similarly (logical), then SoR stays in the lead. If your AP (therefore Spellpower, too) increases more rapidly than your weapon it causes SoR to pull further ahead.

A fresh 80 in crafted gear who gets an Ulduar or Coliseum weapon could indeed find SoC superior to SoR, but it's a narrow lead. I show SoC 5 DPS better with crafted saronite gear and 25man (normal) [Justicebringer].

SoC only scales on weapon damage (which gets about a 25% coefficient from AP(AP/14 * weapon speed of 3.5 to 3.6)). 36% of 25% of AP is 9%. So 9% of AP + 36% raw weapon damage. JoC gets % weapon damage, small AP coefficient (8%) and small spellpower coefficient (13%).
SoR only scales from AP (2%) and spellpower (4.2%). JoR scales from AP (20%!!) and spellpower (32%). The 15% from SotP is nothing to sneeze at. These heavier Judge make up for the smaller Seal and the fact the Seal cannot crit.

TLDR: If you have SotP, SoC is only superior if you have a great weapon, but crap gear. Equal gear and weapon or good gear and crap weapon put SoR ahead.

I can confirm DiSac isn't breaking on XT, Hodir and Freya. However, on the Cat Lady it broke early (where cats hit someone for 30k+).
My guess is DiSac is coded to break if one single player would have taken 150% of health in damage or it is just lag.


Now that someone made a list of things to use HoR on, how about one for using SoR over SoV?
I would assume Yogg's brain room would be good.
Soloing

I actually made one in the 3.2 PTR thread and updated it after the SoV change. I've tested most of these but I'm sure there is room for improvement. Prior to the 7/30 change, I would have suggested SoR for the start and heart phase of XT, but SoV seems to do a tad better than SoR after 7/30.


Razorscale:
Phase 1: SoR should be used in this phase to maximize your damage with consistent AE and strong judgements. Switch to SoV when Razorscale lands since you'll have the time to surpass SoR.
Phase 2: SoV should be used when Razorscale is down for good

Ignis the Furnace Master:
Entire Fight: SoV should be the only seal you need in this fight under normal circumstances.

XT-002 Deconstructor:
Entire Fight: Use SoV

Assembly of Iron:
Entire Fight: SoV should be the only seal you need in this fight under normal circumstances for both normal and hard mode.

Kologarn:
Entire Fight: Same case as Mimiron Phase 4. Scroll down.

Auriaya:
Hard Mode: SoV should be used during hard mode since you will be on Auriaya at all times.
Normal Mode: Depending on your raid's DPS, SoR will most likely result in more DPS due to the many Feral Defenders that need to be taken down.

Mimiron:
Phase 1: SoV
Phase 2: SoV
Phase 3: SoR
Phase 4: SoR will deal more damage than SoV in this phase. However, if your raid is coordinated and require you to go all out on a specific section, use SoV.

Freya:
Phase 1: SoR should be used due to the dynamic nature of this phase
Phase 2: SoV should be used unless you're on Iron Roots duty.

Thorim:
Phase 1(Arena): SoR should be used to maximize AoE damage.
Phase 1(Gauntlet ): SoR should be used for the short fights. If it takes your group more than 20 seconds to kill the large giants, use Sov on them.
Phase 2: SoV should be used for this phase

Hodir:
Entire Fight: SoV should be used on Hodir at all times. However, if your raid requires melee to help free people during Flash Freeze, switch to SoR whenever you are freeing people and back to SoV for hodir.

General Vezax:
Entire Fight: Use SoV for this long and dull fight.

Yogg-Saron:
Entire Fight: This one is a little hard to call. It really depends on your raid's DPS and how many keepers are assisting you. You may have to do this one once or twice to get a feel for what your raid is capable of. If you find that you're never on any one target for more than 10 seconds or so, stick to SoR, otherwise use SoV. Don't OOM switching seals every 10 seconds. Be smart about it.

Would any of those change any if you had a Prot Pally putting HV on mobs? For instance, we run with a prot pally who tanked Kologarn and the Ret pallies in the raid both did around 7.5kish. I could see that being better for Mim P4 too.

Does SoC still suffer from 5+ yard range problems with Divine Storm? If it does, it wouldn't be too reliable for AOE.

With all this use of SoR my next question is whether it is beneficial on some fights to substitute the Glyph Of SoR (10% more SoR damage is no joke) in place of one of our current glyphs (concecration maybe?)

What are your thoughts?

I think it was said Glyph of Exorcism was first in line if you're thinking of substituting any of them...

Also about SoC, would [Libram of Reciprocation] be better than the old DS Libram?

With so many ways of removing the Iron Roots now - any movement impairing spell removal: pvp trinkets, human/gnome racial, improved fade, and most importantly, Hand of Freedom, theres really no reason to have melee DPSing roots except in unusual circumstances. We run with 3+ paladins and last night we were using HoF exclusively to remove roots without any issue at all. Its cooldown is short enough that you can get every application of roots with it.

Last night on Freya I was using SoV the whole time - the only time that I would suggest using SoR would be on the Detonating Lasher packs, but with our strategy all paladins do is consecrate (to ensure the adds are all at roughly the same hp).

SoV is in my mind superior to SoR on the Conservator as it takes ~45-60 seconds to die, and if your raids dps is split between the 3 adds (rather than zerging one and switching to the next) then I'd say it would be superior to SoR on the three pack as well.

Exemplar already answered this in a way. Scroll up to his post talking about the spreadsheet.


From my understanding of what he said though, even if you have the awesome weapon and crappy gear otherwise SoR would be better in a crit situation because its judgement hits like a truck and that can totally offset the fact that SoC can crit.