Seal twisting will not be possible in 3.3 unless you are doing it during extended breaks in a boss ((P1 and kite phase of anub for example)). otherwise, with us loosing even more GCD windows, it will simply not be possible without a severe drop in DPS.
Currently we loose DPS on sealtwisting already since you'll either be using a less than ideal libram if you aren't 'libram twisting' as well, or incur the ICD on Libram of Valiance if you are.
The new libram at least means we'll keep the libram in place for both SoV and SoC and carry the buff with us 'always'. Even with using the GCD to swap a seal (and back), that may mean seal twisting in 3.3 will be slightly better than it is now. I don't have the math on that handy though.
The new libram at least means we'll keep the libram in place for both SoV and SoC and carry the buff with us 'always'.
Do you think so? I've been giving it some thought, and I'm unsure. The current libram we use has a 96% uptime but procs very quickly. We've established that it currently takes 10-12 seconds of DPS time with SoV to outpace SoC/SoR. The new libram reads as follows: "Your Crusader Strike ability grants 44 Strength for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times." (Source) It's not that hard to imagine a fight where your stack would fall off. With an effective CD of approximately 4.5s under ideal circumstances, this libram would take 18s to stack, assuming you open with CS.
I suppose this puts our current libram into a kind of niche, with very specific parameters. Yes, the new stacking libram is vastly superior for SoC/SoR (even when compared to the PvP librams). I guess I'd have to agree, with the stipulation that there could potentially be a fight in ICC where we might have to use our current libram. What I'd be interested in seeing (and will try to math out this evening when I get home if I don't get beaten to it) is at what point in time does the new libram beat out the old. This would help us identify what fights, if any, we would still want to use the old libram.
It *IS* worth mentioning that the new libram only beats our current one by a small margin (220 str versus 200 str). Given that the initial set of Tier 10 pieces are purchased through badges (and you'll need these for the upgraded versions), and the power behind the t10 bonuses, I'm fairly certain the new libram will be one of my last purchases.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
I suppose this puts our current libram into a kind of niche, with very specific parameters. Yes, the new stacking libram is vastly superior for SoC/SoR (even when compared to the PvP librams). I guess I'd have to agree, with the stipulation that there could potentially be a fight in ICC where we might have to use our current libram.
I did some napkin math over in the 3.3 PTR thread almost two weeks ago - right here.
"Stacking" T10 libram takes longer to equal "instant" T9 libram in average damage boost. About 40 seconds is the magic number on a napkin. If we figured out what other attacks land where in that timeline it could be anywhere from 5 seconds sooner to 5 seconds later.
SoV - if you can guarantee consistent uptime then 40+ seconds of T10 libram is win. Risk of loss of stack (heavy movement) and T9 is safer.
SoC - T10 should always win.
Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."
I realise that we won't always use the new libram because of the stacking time. But if you are in a situation where you do need to 'seal twist', it's pretty obvious you would want do that with the the new libram. Under that assumption, I do think that seal twisting will be 'better' in 3.3 than it is now and not worse (or even impossible as Terryn suggested).
There's enough fights where we change from boss to add packs already. In 3.2 the penalty for switching seals is rather big because of how the librams work, so we tend to stick with a seal for most of the fight, maybe swapping only once or twice. The new libram will make changing from boss to adds and back to boss a bit more flexible. Running to adds and back to boss would be 0-dps time anyway so that's your ideal dead moment to swap seals. I think there will be a niche for both the Valiance libram and the new libram. It's pretty safe to say that the PVE niche for the deadly PVP libram will be the trashcan.
I don't pvp enough to valuate how good/bad the PVP libram will be for pvp/arena compared to the new one.
The PvP librams will at least be good for trash and heroics (and PvP). Assuming ICC will be chocked full of undead, we might be using HW a lot more, and seal swapping a ton could cause mana issues, plus you'll have even fewer free GCDs if you use that.
As far as seal/libram twisting goes, I'm just more looking at it as, were already fairly GCD locked as it is. With 2p t10 equipped, we will have quite litterally no free GCDs because every one used when DS is off cooldown is going to be a SIGNIFICANT dps loss unless its for something such as 3+ mobs coming near the boss for aoe. I can see if SOC will proc a new DS, we might end up doing chain DS at times.
As far as the new libram is concerned, i really don't see too much use for it for some time with as long of a wind up time it has, espeically on aoe fights where i would immagin seeing CS having such a low priority over DS thanks to the changes, and personally i'll be picking it up last with my badges specifically because of it. The windup time combined with the fact that it will drop pretty quickly on fights where you have running to do with no boss attack time as shown already.
* Lay on Hands can no longer be cast on yourself.
* Sacred Shield: The damage absorption effect from this ability now triggers only once every 30 seconds.
Holy
* Infusion of Light: This talent now also reduces the cooldown on the effect of Sacred Shield by 12/24 seconds.
* Aura Mastery now lasts 6 sec. (Down from 10 sec)
Protection
* Divine Guardian: This talent no longer increases the amount of damage transferred to the paladin from Divine Sacrifice. Instead it causes all raid and party members to take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active. In addition, the duration has been changed to 6 seconds, however the effect does not terminate when Divine Sacrifice is removed before its full duration.
Yay. Doesn't really think it will negatively impact pve besides /byebye self-saving LoH, which is usually saved for tanks anyway, but as for pvp it's a pretty big kick in the ass. I really hope that we will be compensated some way.
EDIT
Played a little with talent calculator. There's NO WAY to get Divine Guardian without sacrificing dps. So it's a NERF for ret perspective. A really really hugh nerf on support side.
I really don't understand the LoH change. It couldnt be used in arena, and is on a 20-minute cooldown which hardly affects BGs. This is akin to making army of the dead unusable in PvE because some DK killed someone in an AV this one time.
Divine Sac is also unusuable in a serious 25-man ret build because you arent going to be able to afford to go up to Divine Guardian, and the party shield is lack-luster at best. The raid utility of that tool is gone for ret and it will be a holy and prot tool only.
Aura Mastery taking a hit hurts the alternative to the Dsac spec, but it will still be the superior PvE build if things go live as is.
It might be to prevent Protadins having an amazing self-save button. Rather annoying for us though - I actually like using it on myself from time to time, not only to save my own skin, but to give me back a good chunk of mana if I'm out for some reason (doesn't happen often these days, but you never know..).
It's also nice when levelling (80->85) if you solo elite quests. Usually not needed, but again, better safe than sorry.
Not a huge issue in any case.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." - Sun Tzu, Art of War
It might be to prevent Protadins having an amazing self-save button. Rather annoying for us though - I actually like using it on myself from time to time, not only to save my own skin, but to give me back a good chunk of mana if I'm out for some reason (doesn't happen often these days, but you never know..).
It's also nice when levelling (80->85) if you solo elite quests. Usually not needed, but again, better safe than sorry.
Not a huge issue in any case.
I just wonder if this means the life discrepancy between Rets, DPS DKs and DPS Warriors will be neutralized since we no longer have any of the defensive tools left which justified it.
Probably not.
This got me pondering btw, with both SA and SS requiring deep talenting we can count the new base abilities we've gotten with TBC and WotLK on one finger, thank you Crusader Aura.
As you can see, we are trying some different things with some paladin mechanics.
The Aura Mastery change (to 6 sec duration) is one we think is appropriate. If I had to guess, this one will stick.
We are trying some things with Sacred Shield to make it more of a Holy tool and less useful for Ret and Prot (without being totally irrelevant). I don't have a lot of faith that the implementation on the PTR is the one we'll go with for a couple of reasons, but our overall goal is to make Ret less tanky and the Holy tree feel like it's the right one to focus on for healing. I would expect a Sacred Shield change of some kind though.
I wouldn't worry too much on the Lay on Hands change at this point. I don't want to promise we won't change the spell for 3.3, but our intent was to revert the others only change before it went out to the PTR, which is why we didn't patch note it. We have already changed it back on our local builds.
The paladin class isn't just supposed to be for support anymore, but at the same time, the original intent for many paladin abilities was to help the group. Over time however they have contributed into making the paladin into a "one-man army," able to play offensively, defensively and heal without say the stance changing or shapeshifting or sometimes event talent specialization required of other classes. Many of the LK balance problems we've had with the class are because of that core issue.
With that said, we're just not sure a Lay on Hands change really accomplishes much from a balance perspective, while it feels bad to lose such an iconic ability. We just don't think the bang for the buck is there on this change, which is why we reverted it. But I'm not going to promise we won't touch it.
In fact, I'm not going to promise anything with this post. Please don't dredge it up later to try and argue against any upcoming changes. I'm just trying to clear up some confusion.
This got me pondering btw, with both SA and SS requiring deep talenting we can count the new base abilities we've gotten with TBC and WotLK on one finger, thank you Crusader Aura.
Avenging Wrath, Seal of Corruption? Plus a whole bunch of abilities now available at lower levels but making it into the game after vanilla or completely revamped.
Avenging Wrath, Seal of Corruption? Plus a whole bunch of abilities now available at lower levels but making it into the game after vanilla or completely revamped.
Ok I forgot AW but SoV I won't count as it does exactly what SoR does, only with more V in it.
As for stuff being useable at lower levels I can't even begin to imagine why you'd think that's relevant.
The point remains, Blizzard giveth and Blizzard taketh away.
Since vanilla ret has seen a MASSIVE makeover. You probably don't remember how it was in vanilla. We didn't even have CS and DS. Exo usable on udead only (with cast time), HW with cast time.
And lets not forget about talents like getting spellpower from AP, AoW, ... And lets not forget the biggest and needed one of all... Threat reduction.
Saying that a paladin these days equals a vanilla paladin + crusader aura is a gross understatement.
Maybe we haven't got a whole lot of love (left) in terms of usable new abilities since TBC, but there have been plenty of changes for the good as well, and lets not forget finally getting relics that are good... So good even that classes without them are now envying us. Thing is, we're all balanced around the relics and ranged slots available to us.
What's good (or bad) about a classe doesn't equate to "X amount of new abilities since the last expansion".
Very interesting post Teleros. I certainly see GCs point - we are the only hybrid capable of doing "everything at once". My standard Ret UI currently consists of a full Holy UI (for healing, buffing, Hands, cleansing etc), full Ret UI (swing timer, gcd clash resolving, debuff timer) and various Prot tools (taunt abilities, aggro meters, and so on), in addition to standard raid tools (DBM, Recount and so on and so forth).
My DK UI, in comparison, is so clean it's redicilous, with so few tasks to worry about. While I enjoy playing a hybrid, I do see the need to seperate our roles a bit more, like GC stated. If we are going to continue to do top notch DPS, we can't be the best support class as well (at least not 24/7). It's fairly obvious that such a situation would cause balancing issues.
Will be interesting to see how they solve this issue.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." - Sun Tzu, Art of War
I can't really see much use in a 1 proc per 30second SS. You could try to use it to get a better FOL. But by the time the GCD on the SS cast is over, the shield can already have procced and got consumed. At least on any content that matters. I can understand the desire to take it away from ret/prot however, but they can just as well turn the ability into a (deep) holy talent rather than having a near useless baseline ability that needs you to spend talent points to make prop it up to being worthwhile.
Anyone else see a need or worthy use to even have SS on your castbars/keybinds and waste the mana/gcd on getting it up as ret under the 1 proc per 30sec condition ?
Since vanilla ret has seen a MASSIVE makeover. You probably don't remember how it was in vanilla. We didn't even have CS and DS. Exo usable on udead only (with cast time), HW with cast time.
And lets not forget about talents like getting spellpower from AP, AoW, ... And lets not forget the biggest and needed one of all... Threat reduction.
Saying that a paladin these days equals a vanilla paladin + crusader aura is a gross understatement.
Maybe we haven't got a whole lot of love (left) in terms of usable new abilities since TBC, but there have been plenty of changes for the good as well, and lets not forget finally getting relics that are good... So good even that classes without them are now envying us. Thing is, we're all balanced around the relics and ranged slots available to us.
What's good (or bad) about a classe doesn't equate to "X amount of new abilities since the last expansion".
I tried but can't make a reply to this that doesn't break the ToC, but I'll say that maybe you should read what I actually posted instead of putting words in my mouth and commenting on something I didn't say.
What I said is that they have made most of the baseline abilities they gave us with TBC/WotLK spec specific now, and that the defensive tools which made up for Rets life discrepancy are being phased out or severely limited. (I now know they pulled the LoH change but still based on GC's post it's obviously in that directing they want to head).
What I said is that they have made most of the baseline abilities they gave us with TBC/WotLK spec specific now, and that the defensive tools which made up for Rets life discrepancy are being phased out or severely limited.
While this is true, you have to look at what we got in return. Most of these changes that decrease utility have come at the cost of GREATLY increased DPS. I've played ret since early in BC, and I can tell you that the shape we are in now is fantastic compared to what we had then. It wouldn't be fair if we obliterated meters (like we do now) and had the full utility we once had. We are, for a good number fights, the absolute highest DPS class out there... being edged out on fights that favor ranged or pure AoE (more targets than cleaves can hit) only. And that's not likely to change, since our advantage on UD/Demons will continue (and be even further enhanced) by ICC, which should have virtually all undead or demon bosses. And yes, we are losing a lot of tools put in place specifically to counter Seal of Blood (such as a powerful SS), which are overpowered now that we don't cut ourselves.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
It seems like the SS change is yet another veiled attempt at shutting down PVP Protection healing, rather than a slight at PVE. The easiest way of achieving that end would be to remove the +30% Crit portion from Touched by the Light and alter (or remove) the Avenger's Shield glyph to add an extra target instead of providing +% damage.
If these changes mean that we can do more DPS, then hallelujah. Bring on the utility nerfs.
What I said is that they have made most of the baseline abilities they gave us with TBC/WotLK spec specific now, and that the defensive tools which made up for Rets life discrepancy are being phased out or severely limited. (I now know they pulled the LoH change but still based on GC's post it's obviously in that directing they want to head).
To be fair to other hybrids, Ret atm outclasses them in potential. In addition to being top 5 dps, you give 5 useful raid buffs, and have good healing potential via SS, JoL and LoH. The SS only is mostly useful if no Holy is around (SS is mainly a tank/PvP spell with how it works), but at least LoH/Judgements are staying around so you can use it to help others or yourself + extra mana potion.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
If these changes mean that we can do more DPS, then hallelujah. Bring on the utility nerfs.
I doubt these changes in particular mean we'll get even bigger DPS. I'm pretty sure it's a flat out nerf, mainly to ret's in PVP. Don't expect any compensation for this.
I doubt these changes in particular mean we'll get even bigger DPS. I'm pretty sure it's a flat out nerf, mainly to ret's in PVP. Don't expect any compensation for this.
Well, we will get more dps. Since nearly all mobs will be Undead in 3.3, that means more use of 1% damage and more Holy Wrath uses. However, that "buff" was already coming in 3.3, but the point is when 3.3 hits with the same gear you will have more dps potential in ICC.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Well, we will get more dps. Since nearly all mobs will be Undead in 3.3, that means more use of 1% damage and more Holy Wrath uses. However, that "buff" was already coming in 3.3, but the point is when 3.3 hits with the same gear you will have more dps potential in ICC.
Not to disagree in substance (no new buffs), but 3/5 fights in ToC involve undead and demons. We're already running on all cylinders on many fights there. Twins and Anub even leverage our % multiplier friendly nature and natural AOE atop the 1% Detect Undead.
That said, we're definitely not slouching in 3.2, nor expect to fall in 3.3. While your spot on a meter has a lot to do with personal skill and the quality of your other raiders, it should typically be on the high end.
Utility nerfs are reasonable, though I hope we end with a more balanced nerf. Untalented SS suddenly becomes egregiously weak for the mana cost and duration - with a proc every 30 sec, maybe a 2-5 minute duration would make more sense. Especially with two different talents to boost SS - even worse that IoL and DG are in two separate talent trees. Moving base functionality to talent is the opposite of what Blizzard has been striving for quite some time, so it feels illogical.
Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."
That said, we're definitely not slouching in 3.2, nor expect to fall in 3.3.
Minor nitpick here, if you will. While I entirely expect a strong presence again in ICC, I think it's important to note that we simply don't have the scaling that dual wielding melee do. We're better off than casters, but I wouldn't be surprised to see rogues and fury warriors get a step ahead of us in ICC. While we aren't going to fall in absolute terms, I would honestly be quite surprised if we didn't fall in relative terms.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
10/26/09, 7:06 AM
Please don't dredge it up later to try and argue against any upcoming changes. I'm just trying to clear up some confusion.
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