Where to begin.
First, Seal of Command is STILL bugged. How Blizzard plans to obtain accurate testing information when JoC is dealing 50% more damage than intended when within 5 yards of the target, but 50% less damage when beyond 5 yards makes little sense to me. Especially when Justice is our "gap closer" intended to be used at ranged to close gaps. Speaking of which, it is not a gap closer. A gap closer is something that puts you in melee range of the target on demand. Death Grip, Intercept/Charge, Feral Charge/Leap, Shadowstep. All these abilities allow you to close a 25+ yard gap with no setup and no 10 yard range requirement to apply. JoJ's closest analogy is a weak snare, potentially on par with other snares when applied to movement increasing effects.
Second, the Seal of Vengeance change to have it only apply the DoT on autoattacks/HoTR is poorly thought out. Why waste development time implementing this band-aid that is clearly ridiculous from a fight mechanics point of view? Many fights, old and present, do not allow for SoV to be the "PvE" seal. Four Horsemen, Yogg Saron, Mimiron, etc all require sustained DPS on relatively high health adds that require full PvE DPS capability to make you worth your raid slot. A FIFTEEN SECOND dispellable setup time is unsuitable for any fight where you must avoid AoE or have timed target switches on high health targets. SoV has certainly been removed from PvP, which was one of the accomplished goals, but its purpose as the PvE seal has been completely gutted as well. Suffering a 30% DPS penalty for the first 15 seconds of a target swap is not acceptable.
Third, the ever present "Skill Cap" has not been raised. Exorcism vs FoL is barely a decision. Facerolling damage is still the same. All that changes now is Paladins must choose somewhat between supporting their team with Cleanse globals or the additional Crusader Strike globals we need to pay to maintain roughly equivalent PvP damage.
Fourth, Paladins still lack sustainable ways to escape or enter combat. Walking around to every target with no sprint/charge type ability makes Paladins a liability against kite heavy teams that play properly, as well as ranged heavy teams that can put a Paladin at dangerously low health before they have a chance to deal any damage back. This was especially true in Dalaran Sewers, since you could not mount in.
Fifth, Paladins with damage on par with other DPS specs in arena means they are relying on their defensive utility to defeat an opponent. Keeping your teammates alive rarely leads to a kill. At best you will save your healer some mana, at worst you set yourself up for a target swap in taking the damage. Supportive ability is not sufficient to justify the lack of Interrupt or Gap Closer/Creator Ret currently must deal with.
Sixth, Judgements of the Wise not working on Damage Shields. Blizzard was fairly clear that "hard counters" are not fun, yet insists on allowing the Priest class to be able to completely control Ret. Double Magic Dispel, Mass Dispel, and of course denying mana regeneration through shields, plus mana burn. This is a quality of life concern for any class the Ret paladin fights but a priest. In that case, it is just a disaster, as a Ret paladin has no choice but to rely on Divine Plea(dispellable) for mana, gets kited(and becomes unable to judge as a result), or uses up more mana trying to open a hole in a relatively low cooldown damage shield so that they can attempt to judge for mana.
Seventh, Free Expertise. Most melee specs come with a bit of free expertise to reduce the occurence of RNGing. This is especially devastating to Retribution as seal attacks DO NOT WORK unless the originating attack deals damage. The seal attacks roll AGAIN for avoidance/miss, and so are double penalized. Ret needs a free expertise talent and Glyph of Seal of Vengeance, even if it stays, is not a viable solution.
Eighth, and possibly the worst : "We will monitor the situation and make adjustments as necessary." This makes little sense. PvE damage is obviously going to be great on dummies/test patchwerks but poor in actual use. PvP we're still required to attach an interrupt/ms/snare capable class to our hip in order to perform. Shadow Priests and Frost Mages have already been given some of these tools to make them more viable without someone covering these roles. It should be fairly obvious now that Ret PvP damage has been toned down that it too will need additional tools. This is to say nothing of PvE where interrupts are required.
Summary : Poorly thought out changes are going to devastate Ret for 3.2. We're still reliant on others to do our work for us, and the "skill less" portions of the class remain the same. Bad players will still be demolished by Retribution, but good ones will just laugh even harder. PvE looks grim as glyphed SoR could potentially outperform fixed SoC in DPS, while SoV remains complete garbage except for tank and spank fights.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Seal of Blood/Martyr 3.1 and Weapon Speeds
SoB is an unnormalized attack because it procs on "next swing." Since it is not by definition an instant attack, the damage it deals is directly related to your weapon's speed. This makes faster but higher DPS weapons marginal upgrades at best, since Seal damage has been buffed to be the primary damage dealer instead of the judgement. Remember that this seal applies to crusader strike AND divine storm. This unnormalized damage, when attached to normalized instants, creates a damage disparity that makes a significant number of weapon upgrades unattractive or sidegrade at best.
A paladin with a Sword of Justice and 10000 attack power will only be a little over 2% behind in DPS than a Paladin wielding Rune Edge with the same stats. This is perhaps an unrealistic gear level in this current content patch(it is likely achievable with a few trinket procs, though). The fact that a very slow Blue weapon can even compare to a Faster high end Epic due to Blood not being normalized is absurd. Given 30% armor mitigation, you expect a Crusader Strike to deal 3800 damage with the Rune Edge, and 3622 with the Sword of Justice(noncrit). However, their blood hits will amount to 2073 and 2163 respectively. The totals? 5873 for Rune, 5785 for Sword of Justice. That is an extremely small difference given the ilvl difference of the two. If sword of justice were 3.4, the damage difference would be over 400 for a crusader strike+blood hit.
The issue here is that a normalization of all SoB damage would reduce the effectiveness of haste/haste effects for Paladins, haste being a fairly low priority stat to begin with. This comparison is understandably skewed, but even standard situations such as Sword of Justice Naxx10 weapons become sidegrades, such as Demise vs Sword of Justice. The heroic HoL axe becomes a downgrade. This is a huge problem with itemization as it may end up forcing Paladins to wait on extremely low drop rates of the slowest two handers, as the others simply cannot compare. It would be a repeat of the 1.0 MS warrior and the arcanite reaper.
A paladin with a Sword of Justice and 10000 attack power will only be a little over 2% behind in DPS than a Paladin wielding Rune Edge with the same stats. This is perhaps an unrealistic gear level in this current content patch(it is likely achievable with a few trinket procs, though). The fact that a very slow Blue weapon can even compare to a Faster high end Epic due to Blood not being normalized is absurd. Given 30% armor mitigation, you expect a Crusader Strike to deal 3800 damage with the Rune Edge, and 3622 with the Sword of Justice(noncrit). However, their blood hits will amount to 2073 and 2163 respectively. The totals? 5873 for Rune, 5785 for Sword of Justice. That is an extremely small difference given the ilvl difference of the two. If sword of justice were 3.4, the damage difference would be over 400 for a crusader strike+blood hit.
The issue here is that a normalization of all SoB damage would reduce the effectiveness of haste/haste effects for Paladins, haste being a fairly low priority stat to begin with. This comparison is understandably skewed, but even standard situations such as Sword of Justice Naxx10 weapons become sidegrades, such as Demise vs Sword of Justice. The heroic HoL axe becomes a downgrade. This is a huge problem with itemization as it may end up forcing Paladins to wait on extremely low drop rates of the slowest two handers, as the others simply cannot compare. It would be a repeat of the 1.0 MS warrior and the arcanite reaper.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
"When it's ready" - 3.1 Paladin stuff that STILL doesn't work
Holy Wrath still only hits demon/undead. Tooltip seems to imply that it would deal the damage, and additionally stun demon/undead.
Divine Storm tooltip/ability(?) still 100% instead of 110%.
SoC still proccing at 5 yards on Judgement, but not at any greater range.
Judgements still being "lost" when CC'd at the same time.
Divine Guardian does not stack with Blessing of Sacrifice and vice versa. Not an issue with one spell being more powerful, they simply consume each other and cannot be overlapped.
Righteous Vengeance DoT breaks repentance. Two patches and counting on this introduced regression that still remains unfixed.
Who knows what else. Apparently all these bugs can simply be swept under the rug until the "next patch," Blizzard certainly is not going to hotfix these issues in. Thx Blizz.
Divine Storm tooltip/ability(?) still 100% instead of 110%.
SoC still proccing at 5 yards on Judgement, but not at any greater range.
Judgements still being "lost" when CC'd at the same time.
Divine Guardian does not stack with Blessing of Sacrifice and vice versa. Not an issue with one spell being more powerful, they simply consume each other and cannot be overlapped.
Righteous Vengeance DoT breaks repentance. Two patches and counting on this introduced regression that still remains unfixed.
Who knows what else. Apparently all these bugs can simply be swept under the rug until the "next patch," Blizzard certainly is not going to hotfix these issues in. Thx Blizz.
Friday, April 10, 2009
3.1 Ret PvP Specs
So far for 3.1 I see two likely specs.
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sxhdZVZVfMxbIuGdubsu
11/x/5x, for Fear/Disorient reduction, incredible team support through aura mastery+conc aura, and added support healing ability through Spiritual Focus and Healing Light. Obviously this is more suitable for larger brackets where you will most likely have a healer. Remaining points would likely go toward finishing off Ret, possibility Divinity but it doesn't seem worth the points.
Alternatively there is :
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sxhdZVZVfMxbIuGdubsu
0/19/52, nearly the same as your classic 3.0 0/20/51. 6% healing is tempting but I'm of the opinion that 1min SS with 20% more absorb and SoL scaling will probably end up doing more with so much MS flying around these days. Improved Divine Guardian is just a minor boost.
In either case, I consider Vindication essential to any Ret build. 20% stamina greatly increases your team's ability to kill a player while CCing another, especially with the limited duration/long cooldown nature of Paladin CC. Seal of Blood/Martyr will likely be the go-to seal for PvP, though most Ret paladins already did use SoB in PvP. Damage moved off the Judgement into the Seal means skipping Fanatacism is not as big a deal, and SoB now behaves like SoC but with a 100% procrate, no internal cooldown, a slightly weaker Judgement, and some minor feedback. Things honestly look good for Ret in 3.1. Added utility, more reliable damage, and far less bloat.
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sxhdZVZVfMxbIuGdubsu
11/x/5x, for Fear/Disorient reduction, incredible team support through aura mastery+conc aura, and added support healing ability through Spiritual Focus and Healing Light. Obviously this is more suitable for larger brackets where you will most likely have a healer. Remaining points would likely go toward finishing off Ret, possibility Divinity but it doesn't seem worth the points.
Alternatively there is :
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sxhdZVZVfMxbIuGdubsu
0/19/52, nearly the same as your classic 3.0 0/20/51. 6% healing is tempting but I'm of the opinion that 1min SS with 20% more absorb and SoL scaling will probably end up doing more with so much MS flying around these days. Improved Divine Guardian is just a minor boost.
In either case, I consider Vindication essential to any Ret build. 20% stamina greatly increases your team's ability to kill a player while CCing another, especially with the limited duration/long cooldown nature of Paladin CC. Seal of Blood/Martyr will likely be the go-to seal for PvP, though most Ret paladins already did use SoB in PvP. Damage moved off the Judgement into the Seal means skipping Fanatacism is not as big a deal, and SoB now behaves like SoC but with a 100% procrate, no internal cooldown, a slightly weaker Judgement, and some minor feedback. Things honestly look good for Ret in 3.1. Added utility, more reliable damage, and far less bloat.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Parity and well tested changes.
Seal of the Martyr is still broken on PTR. They're receiving very little feedback as a result of the bug and posters are being told to wait for the next PTR patch. Business as usual except 3.1 is planned to go live in 2 weeks. Well tested changes? Focus on class parity? Really? This reminds me of the phantom judgement bug which made unlucky RNG a huge mana problem for Ret. Supposedly Blizzard tested it internally and "did not oom." They declined to state any other details besides L2P.
This is a pretty massive change, one that could potentially make or break Ret dps and pvp. Yet its likely only going to get one week of feedback/analysis, if even that. You could argue that they could simply amplify the values of a given parse by the percentages given and call it a day, but GC has said repeatedly that they employ well versed players to run these tests and greatly value that avenue of testing. "Mere theorycraft" is not useful. I'm not seeing it.
Conspiracy theory points toward the relatively COMPLETE resolution of the glyph of backstab change. Altering/fixing a bug and then understanding possible ramifications and immediately rectifying the problem. Meanwhile Paladins remain the red headed stepchild.
Bugs still outstanding :
Martyr not doing the right amount of damage.
Judgement not working but consuming cooldown when CC'd a the same time of casting.
Judgement of Command having a 5 yard range requirement to proc the seal, but a 10 yard range. Same may be true for divine storm.
Unfixed and Unloved /wrists
This is a pretty massive change, one that could potentially make or break Ret dps and pvp. Yet its likely only going to get one week of feedback/analysis, if even that. You could argue that they could simply amplify the values of a given parse by the percentages given and call it a day, but GC has said repeatedly that they employ well versed players to run these tests and greatly value that avenue of testing. "Mere theorycraft" is not useful. I'm not seeing it.
Conspiracy theory points toward the relatively COMPLETE resolution of the glyph of backstab change. Altering/fixing a bug and then understanding possible ramifications and immediately rectifying the problem. Meanwhile Paladins remain the red headed stepchild.
Bugs still outstanding :
Martyr not doing the right amount of damage.
Judgement not working but consuming cooldown when CC'd a the same time of casting.
Judgement of Command having a 5 yard range requirement to proc the seal, but a 10 yard range. Same may be true for divine storm.
Unfixed and Unloved /wrists
Thursday, March 26, 2009
3.1 DPS Implications
By any guess, Ret raid DPS is going to improve 20-30% from 3.0.8 to 3.1. This is a huge increase, far beyond the scope of "minor tweaks." Is ret playing with a handicap in raids right now? GC has always said they'll tweak the numbers if X class falls behind. Ret has only been "tweaked" down and is now getting huge sustained damage buffs, if it needs a "tweaking" of over 20%, shouldn't this have been addressed much earlier?
Seems like we're back to the buff/nerf rollercoaster.
Lets look at recent changes to Ret DPS from the PTR:
Buffs:
SoB/M going to 46% Weapon Damage, with a minor nerf to JoB. This is huge as it is a large increase to CS/DS/White.
Haste/ArP - Benefit increased.
Divine Storm - 100->110%
Exorcism - Glyph 20%, now works on all types, 15% from Sanct Seals
Holy Wrath - All types.
Crusader Strike - 15% Sanct Seals, now procs RV.
Nerfs:
RV - 40%->30%, no longer double dips from damage modifiers.
Fanatacism - 25->18%
Fanatacism change is minor as a majority of SoB's damage is moving to the seal.
RV change also has less impact as judgement becomes a smaller contributor to DPS, the addition of CS to RV as well as the improved DS/CS weapon damage coefficients greatly offset the reduction.
The question at hand is whether or not these changes are made to turn consecration into a cooldown active/mana dump move as opposed to a sustained damage ability. A reduction in blood recoil, even paired with the glyph, may result in insufficient mana for a full damage rotation including consecrate.
In any case, Ret will be far more competitive in 3.1 than it has ever been. I would seriously expect nerfs after 3.1, especially to the most recent SoB change. Huge implications to controlled burst in PvP as it adds near SoC-equivalent damage to all attacks with no internal cooldown.
Seems like we're back to the buff/nerf rollercoaster.
Lets look at recent changes to Ret DPS from the PTR:
Buffs:
SoB/M going to 46% Weapon Damage, with a minor nerf to JoB. This is huge as it is a large increase to CS/DS/White.
Haste/ArP - Benefit increased.
Divine Storm - 100->110%
Exorcism - Glyph 20%, now works on all types, 15% from Sanct Seals
Holy Wrath - All types.
Crusader Strike - 15% Sanct Seals, now procs RV.
Nerfs:
RV - 40%->30%, no longer double dips from damage modifiers.
Fanatacism - 25->18%
Fanatacism change is minor as a majority of SoB's damage is moving to the seal.
RV change also has less impact as judgement becomes a smaller contributor to DPS, the addition of CS to RV as well as the improved DS/CS weapon damage coefficients greatly offset the reduction.
The question at hand is whether or not these changes are made to turn consecration into a cooldown active/mana dump move as opposed to a sustained damage ability. A reduction in blood recoil, even paired with the glyph, may result in insufficient mana for a full damage rotation including consecrate.
In any case, Ret will be far more competitive in 3.1 than it has ever been. I would seriously expect nerfs after 3.1, especially to the most recent SoB change. Huge implications to controlled burst in PvP as it adds near SoC-equivalent damage to all attacks with no internal cooldown.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Seal of the Martyr
This spell used to be the holy grail of paladin dps. Scaling with haste/heroism/windfury, it was the alliance dream, especially because paladins had nothing in the way of regen mechanics as ret back then.
Now the feedback damage is becoming a problem. Fights with damage amplifiers, extreme unavoidable aoe damage, or other gimmicks make use of SoTM tricky to use.
Gluth - If you do not have a decimate timer, its very possible to kill yourself with a single judgement.
Thaddius - You become a terrible burden on your healers if your judgements crit. Also possible self kill with a bad chain lightning+judge crit and low health/no priest.
Sapphiron - Constant frost damage, blizzards, throw in some feedback just to make ret a liability.
Loatheb - A trivially easy fight to be sure, but you become a healer attention sponge as you can do 10k+ in feedback to yourself between reflections.
The issue here is that the feedback will start to become a liability on harder content. Currently its not an issue because there is plenty of mana to go around, and plenty of globals to heal with. As damage scales out, both player and enemy, judging with martyr will begin to be a liability. Making martyr the "pve" seal and command the "pvp" seal needs work, unless Blizzard wants to try to balance paladin pve dps and pvp burst in one seal(unlikely). Also, I still don't see the reasoning behind a baseline ability being better for dps than a talent, but I'll accept that as long as martyr stops being a liability in raids. Being forced to use command will be a significant dps loss(though not as much as recount will show, as self damage is credited to the paladin doing the damage). This pushes paladin damage well below "competitive dps."
Summary : Martyr requires additional healer burden that is simply unacceptable as content difficulty increases. Why bring a ret paladin when someone else can provide the same damage with no health loss that could possibly contribute to a healer OOMing or a dead dpser?
Now the feedback damage is becoming a problem. Fights with damage amplifiers, extreme unavoidable aoe damage, or other gimmicks make use of SoTM tricky to use.
Gluth - If you do not have a decimate timer, its very possible to kill yourself with a single judgement.
Thaddius - You become a terrible burden on your healers if your judgements crit. Also possible self kill with a bad chain lightning+judge crit and low health/no priest.
Sapphiron - Constant frost damage, blizzards, throw in some feedback just to make ret a liability.
Loatheb - A trivially easy fight to be sure, but you become a healer attention sponge as you can do 10k+ in feedback to yourself between reflections.
The issue here is that the feedback will start to become a liability on harder content. Currently its not an issue because there is plenty of mana to go around, and plenty of globals to heal with. As damage scales out, both player and enemy, judging with martyr will begin to be a liability. Making martyr the "pve" seal and command the "pvp" seal needs work, unless Blizzard wants to try to balance paladin pve dps and pvp burst in one seal(unlikely). Also, I still don't see the reasoning behind a baseline ability being better for dps than a talent, but I'll accept that as long as martyr stops being a liability in raids. Being forced to use command will be a significant dps loss(though not as much as recount will show, as self damage is credited to the paladin doing the damage). This pushes paladin damage well below "competitive dps."
Summary : Martyr requires additional healer burden that is simply unacceptable as content difficulty increases. Why bring a ret paladin when someone else can provide the same damage with no health loss that could possibly contribute to a healer OOMing or a dead dpser?
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