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.
Friday, April 10, 2009
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?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Ranged Attacks & You, Paladin Edition
Blizzard has rescinded their old methodology of not allowing Paladins to have ranged attacks.
So far on the list as of 3.1 -
Exorcism
Holy Shock
Judgement(Holy)
Avenger's Shield
Hand of Reckoning
The logic of this never made sense to me, starting from the early days of trying to farm Elemental Fires for FR pots. How was I supposed to gather raid materials when everyone could beat me to the tap? "Class Flavor" decisions vs practicality in gameplay did not seem well explored.
So much change after years of adamant refusal to allow Paladins to strike from range. Much of the early buzz around Avenger's Shield was "wow we'll finally be able to pull trash packs by ourselves instead of body aggroing!!!!" To me this showed a lack of actual testing and play, how can anyone expect a tank spec to body pull caster packs when the said tank has no intervene type ability to quickly move away and LoS? How could anyone think "niche" tanking roles of TBC would have any sort of use in a half decent raid? Paladins with the least effective health of all the tanking classes at the time had great AoE aggro and practically nothing else going for them, and a mana regen mechanic centered again around requiring a resource to get a resource. Paladins made trash easier for brain dead raiders, but were by no means anything close to Warriors in raid situations that actually mattered. With no panic buttons, no armor/aspd debuff, and a lower EH, there really was no reason to have a paladin MT. Blizzard claimed that it was simply a matter of player perception, yet the numbers didn't add up. Feral druids were the kings of Tank for now, dps when my add is dead, and thus secured a few spots in a raid tank array. In TBC we had mana drain mechanics everywhere and were the ONLY mana dependent tank class. Silence abilities locking out a majority of our threat related moves, and exposing us to potentially lethal burst situations from crushing blows.
A phased "rebuild from the ground up" seems to be whats happening to the Paladin class. Practically every core philosophy for Paladins has been uprooted since WoTLK. The changes have been good, that is no doubt, but lots of "fun" elements still need work. Paladin healing is still boring, the ability to use hots/aoe heals during trash is much nicer than sitting around waiting to heal someone. Constant button presses against low incoming damage versus a few hots and letting it ride. Protection is in a good spot, still damaged by mana drains and silences, but a majority of prot threat has been moved to physical abilities(HOTR SOTR), Ret still has mana issues and has its main damage ability locked out by silence mechanics which is going to either limit ret damage or limit encounter design in the future. Furthermore, Ret is hurt on certain fights as a result of the damage feedback mechanic that makes it unsafe to use its maximum damage seal.
So far on the list as of 3.1 -
Exorcism
Holy Shock
Judgement(Holy)
Avenger's Shield
Hand of Reckoning
The logic of this never made sense to me, starting from the early days of trying to farm Elemental Fires for FR pots. How was I supposed to gather raid materials when everyone could beat me to the tap? "Class Flavor" decisions vs practicality in gameplay did not seem well explored.
So much change after years of adamant refusal to allow Paladins to strike from range. Much of the early buzz around Avenger's Shield was "wow we'll finally be able to pull trash packs by ourselves instead of body aggroing!!!!" To me this showed a lack of actual testing and play, how can anyone expect a tank spec to body pull caster packs when the said tank has no intervene type ability to quickly move away and LoS? How could anyone think "niche" tanking roles of TBC would have any sort of use in a half decent raid? Paladins with the least effective health of all the tanking classes at the time had great AoE aggro and practically nothing else going for them, and a mana regen mechanic centered again around requiring a resource to get a resource. Paladins made trash easier for brain dead raiders, but were by no means anything close to Warriors in raid situations that actually mattered. With no panic buttons, no armor/aspd debuff, and a lower EH, there really was no reason to have a paladin MT. Blizzard claimed that it was simply a matter of player perception, yet the numbers didn't add up. Feral druids were the kings of Tank for now, dps when my add is dead, and thus secured a few spots in a raid tank array. In TBC we had mana drain mechanics everywhere and were the ONLY mana dependent tank class. Silence abilities locking out a majority of our threat related moves, and exposing us to potentially lethal burst situations from crushing blows.
A phased "rebuild from the ground up" seems to be whats happening to the Paladin class. Practically every core philosophy for Paladins has been uprooted since WoTLK. The changes have been good, that is no doubt, but lots of "fun" elements still need work. Paladin healing is still boring, the ability to use hots/aoe heals during trash is much nicer than sitting around waiting to heal someone. Constant button presses against low incoming damage versus a few hots and letting it ride. Protection is in a good spot, still damaged by mana drains and silences, but a majority of prot threat has been moved to physical abilities(HOTR SOTR), Ret still has mana issues and has its main damage ability locked out by silence mechanics which is going to either limit ret damage or limit encounter design in the future. Furthermore, Ret is hurt on certain fights as a result of the damage feedback mechanic that makes it unsafe to use its maximum damage seal.
Monday, February 9, 2009
About damn time, +History
3.0.9/3.1 Notes :
BoK Baseline - 31 Ret(LOLRETUTILITY)->11Prot(...)->0Prot(ACCESSIBLE!!!)->Present Day
Seals - 30 Seconds Dispellable Consumed on Judge-> 2 Mins Dispellable not Consumed on Judge -> 30 Mins Undispellable.
Judgements - Seal Dependent, pitiful damage, some useless debuffs, did not refresh on hit->Refresh on Hit->Refresh on Crusader Strike+on originating paladin's hits->Cannot be refreshed-> Split into 3 spells that don't refresh.
All in all its taken 3 years for Blizzard to finally attempt a real FIX on their Paladin combat system that was put together right before release with very little testing.
SoTC was garbage, the judgement was mostly garbage.
SoJ mostly garbage, judgement was bad except in rare pve situations(made the judged ENEMY immune to fear, which also made them unable to flee). Only useful because paladins had no snares and did extremely poor damage, thus a fleeing mob would certainly live to aggro more mobs.
SoC LOLRNG, terrible judgement effect(miniscule damage when target gets stunned). Constantly tweaked as gear scaled out. 5 PPM -> 7PPM, 70% MW-> 50%MW-> 45%MW.
SoR rofldps, broken scaling but SP was nowhere to be found minus JOTC that didnt refresh on hits. Pitiful judge damage.
SoL/SoW - useful judgements, retarded refresh hassle. 10 yard range when the game revolved around 40 yard+ dancing heals to avoid AoE, on a class that had no repeatable instant healing moves.
tldr = changes were LONG overdue, I don't know what was so overpowered about seals being undispellable like shaman weapon enhancements, or giving them longer durations.
BoK Baseline - 31 Ret(LOLRETUTILITY)->11Prot(...)->0Prot(ACCESSIBLE!!!)->Present Day
Seals - 30 Seconds Dispellable Consumed on Judge-> 2 Mins Dispellable not Consumed on Judge -> 30 Mins Undispellable.
Judgements - Seal Dependent, pitiful damage, some useless debuffs, did not refresh on hit->Refresh on Hit->Refresh on Crusader Strike+on originating paladin's hits->Cannot be refreshed-> Split into 3 spells that don't refresh.
All in all its taken 3 years for Blizzard to finally attempt a real FIX on their Paladin combat system that was put together right before release with very little testing.
SoTC was garbage, the judgement was mostly garbage.
SoJ mostly garbage, judgement was bad except in rare pve situations(made the judged ENEMY immune to fear, which also made them unable to flee). Only useful because paladins had no snares and did extremely poor damage, thus a fleeing mob would certainly live to aggro more mobs.
SoC LOLRNG, terrible judgement effect(miniscule damage when target gets stunned). Constantly tweaked as gear scaled out. 5 PPM -> 7PPM, 70% MW-> 50%MW-> 45%MW.
SoR rofldps, broken scaling but SP was nowhere to be found minus JOTC that didnt refresh on hits. Pitiful judge damage.
SoL/SoW - useful judgements, retarded refresh hassle. 10 yard range when the game revolved around 40 yard+ dancing heals to avoid AoE, on a class that had no repeatable instant healing moves.
tldr = changes were LONG overdue, I don't know what was so overpowered about seals being undispellable like shaman weapon enhancements, or giving them longer durations.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Delicious Paladin Tears
Divine Plea is being nerfed to -50% healing done in the upcoming tentative patch.
Why are paladins the only healers with an active regen mechanic that has a penalty?
Druids : Innervate - No Penalty
Priests : Shadowfiend - No Penalty, it actually deals damage and scales with SPELLPOWER. Can be blocked with shielding effects, but priests have dispel to manage that issue.
Shamans : Mana Tide - No Penalty except eats your water totem for a bit. Water Shield - Precludes Earth Shield, closest thing to an actual penalty, but not really on the same caliber.
Nearly all healing specs have some sort of illumination mana return now, so that argument is even more bunk than it used to be. Cost-based mana refund mechanics are NOT a replacement for regen mechanics until gear reaches impossible levels. High Efficiency with no regeneration is vastly different than Good Efficiency with Good regen. Priests have Rapture/Serendipity + Holy Concentration, Shamans have Imp Water Shield, Druids admittedly don't have anything exactly similar, but Omen+ToL is somewhere along those lines.
Is it too much to ask for no penalty but have it scale against Base Mana + some small coefficient of Int/MaxMana? Why are holy paladins the only healing spec forced to gimp their healing abilities while regenerating mana? By nature of the limited toolset paladins are given, excessive overhealing is mandatory to keep up with heavy AoE encounters. Thx Blizz.
Why are paladins the only healers with an active regen mechanic that has a penalty?
Druids : Innervate - No Penalty
Priests : Shadowfiend - No Penalty, it actually deals damage and scales with SPELLPOWER. Can be blocked with shielding effects, but priests have dispel to manage that issue.
Shamans : Mana Tide - No Penalty except eats your water totem for a bit. Water Shield - Precludes Earth Shield, closest thing to an actual penalty, but not really on the same caliber.
Nearly all healing specs have some sort of illumination mana return now, so that argument is even more bunk than it used to be. Cost-based mana refund mechanics are NOT a replacement for regen mechanics until gear reaches impossible levels. High Efficiency with no regeneration is vastly different than Good Efficiency with Good regen. Priests have Rapture/Serendipity + Holy Concentration, Shamans have Imp Water Shield, Druids admittedly don't have anything exactly similar, but Omen+ToL is somewhere along those lines.
Is it too much to ask for no penalty but have it scale against Base Mana + some small coefficient of Int/MaxMana? Why are holy paladins the only healing spec forced to gimp their healing abilities while regenerating mana? By nature of the limited toolset paladins are given, excessive overhealing is mandatory to keep up with heavy AoE encounters. Thx Blizz.
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