[Retribution] WoD Alpha/Beta Info & Discussion

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

So uh...
No one is going for the empowered seals?

Having a nearly permanent 15% attack power boost with NO impact on gameplay seems good.

15% attackpower is good, not good enough to compete with Seraphim or Final Verdict though.
throw in the 10% haste and Empowered Seals is about equal to Seraphim and Final verdict.
..... except it drags a full Templar's Verdict (or Final Verdict) every ~18 seconds and completely messes up your rotation if you get procs and such you want to use asap, simple fact of the matter is that EmpS drags way too many GCDs for us to use- same problem as Protection has with it. Yes it's great (the buffs) but the actual way to get them needs to change, cutting the GCD triggered by swapping seals is one of the suggestions I've made- pulling them off the GCD would remove any play from the talent and might as well be turned into a passive.

[Deleted]

Final Verdict did get nerfed by from 280% Holy Damage to 185% Holy Damage (Same value as TV, bear in mind TV does physical damage). FV was way to OP we all knew that the nerf was bit to much and we either expect nerf to Seraphim to bring it down in line with other talents or they'll buff Empowered Seals and FV up to the lvl of Seraphim, or third solution would be nerf Seraphim a little and buff other two talents to the lvl of Seraphim.
Bear in mind if they nerf Seraphim to bring it to lvl of FV and Empowered Seals they'll prob, atleast they should, nerf other specs/classes aswell, to keep us balanced in line with them.

As Fredzilla said, this guy missed it big time with his statement. Seraphim due to it's massive stat gain is highest dps gain early into tier. In it's current state Empowered Seals might beat Seraphim in end tier where we have more stats so ES can outscale Seraphim, but even then it still might be the weakest due to tier sets, unless they specificly made a tier set that pushes us to use Empowered Seals.

So FV is bad now? Kinda hoped it to be a viable option even for single target DPS, since balancing Seraphim is kinda annoying since you have to spend 5 HoPo's, thus meaning the time you have the 15 sec uptime gets minimized by the fact you have to build up new HoPo's. But then again with the holy avenger talent that makes you stack HoPo's faster, I can see why it would be stronger (:

But I'm really sadden about the FV nerf since FV and TV doesnt really have any DPS difference. Or am I wrong ? I know FV is Holy Power and TV is physical? But they still scale with the same amount of % weapon damage, 185%

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Did Final Verdict get nerfed? This one guys wrote this to me:

"Seraphim is the weakest of them, and will fall even more behind, very quickly. Final Verdict got a massive nerf recently, and is really only going to be useful on AoE fights, in conjunction with Divine Purpose. Empowered Seals is easily the highest single target DPS gain of the 3 talents"

I havent been able to find any patch notes with this Final Verdict nerf but since I do not have access to the beta, I do not know whether or not it is true? And also, is Seraphim really that weak? To me it seems really good early on but may fall off later in the expansion. Empowered Seals to me seems like the worst PVE talent but somewhat the better PVP? However I am no Ret Paladin expert by no means (: I seek someone with greater knowledge

At the moment:
Holy Avenger + Seraphim = highest burst.
Avenging Wrath + Seraphim = highest sustained (and will be better with 4set T17- assuming the bonuses don't change)
Divine Purpose + Final Verdict = highest sustained AoE (although it's RNG based like we have in SoO, made slightly better with T17 set bonuses)
Holy Avenger + Final Verdict = Highest AoE burst.

At the moment AW + Seraphim (or potentially AW + FV) is looking like the two main setups for PvE with the odd aoe encounter changing things.
For PvP you can go a couple different ways, Holy Avenger + Seraphim provides insane (borderline OP) burst at the moment though.

Talents on their own?
Empowered Seals - Will always struggle in it's current form unless buffed heavily or some set bonus or trinket change how we play, it drags way too many GCDs to be considered usable for damage reasons (PvE)
Seraphim - While the 5 holy power cost is insane and IMO should be reduced it's fine for the first tier- a bit too strong imo, for future tiers it's going to be weaker and weaker because it doesn't scale like the other two talents do. I think the raw stat increase should be taken down to 750 or 1000 rating and then add a 30% (or higher) increase based on stats on gear.
Final Verdict - A talent that increases one of your single target abilities that itself buffs one of your AoE abilities to hit harder than Final Verdict itself? Design-wise FV has been thrown around and lost it's original purpose- which is okay. What's not okay is how insanely dominant it can end up being for any sort of cleave/aoe encounters and for any future patch if Seraphim/EmpS doesn't change (or FV can change, also an option).

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FV and TV doesnt really have any DPS difference. Or am I wrong ? I know FV is Holy Power and TV is physical? But they still scale with the same amount of % weapon damage, 185%

The "benefit" of taking Final Verdict now is that every single time you hit FV you buff your next DS to insane amounts and because we have Tier 16 (siege of orgrimmar) 4set bonus as a passive in WoD that makes FV very strong, your aoe is going to be FV->DS->FV->DS which might not be 100% ideal though. You'll probably require an addon (weak auras) to tell you when you have the FV buff (that buffs DS) active so you don't waste DS procs on weaker DS's. Then you also throw in Divine Purpose...
Confused? Yeah, that's one of the issues- it's damn close to impossible to play properly with it on the beta right now unless you got addons to track all the things you need.

[Lumineus]

Doesn't using FV with Empowered DS up also "waste" the DS proc? Or at least have a 25% chance to. Cata DP all over again.

[Jackielope]

So FV is bad now? Kinda hoped it to be a viable option even for single target DPS, since balancing Seraphim is kinda annoying since you have to spend 5 HoPo's, thus meaning the time you have the 15 sec uptime gets minimized by the fact you have to build up new HoPo's. But then again with the holy avenger talent that makes you stack HoPo's faster, I can see why it would be stronger (:

But I'm really sadden about the FV nerf since FV and TV doesnt really have any DPS difference. Or am I wrong ? I know FV is Holy Power and TV is physical? But they still scale with the same amount of % weapon damage, 185%

TV is direct physical damage, meaning it's lowered by the opponent's armor. FV is holy damage (not holy power) thus it ignores armor entirely and does more damage than TV even if they scale the same from weapon damage.

[Deleted]

At the moment:
Holy Avenger + Seraphim = highest burst.
Avenging Wrath + Seraphim = highest sustained (and will be better with 4set T17- assuming the bonuses don't change)
Divine Purpose + Final Verdict = highest sustained AoE (although it's RNG based like we have in SoO, made slightly better with T17 set bonuses)
Holy Avenger + Final Verdict = Highest AoE burst.

Since Avenging Wrath is a baseline ability and Holy Avenger a talent, doesnt that mean that the Holy Avenger + Avenging Wrath is the best combination, or will a talent like Sanctified Wrath be better for a longer AW and more frequently Hammer ? I've never really seen the benefit from Sanctified Wrath but can understand the longer AW + more frequent Hammer could potentially be a dps gain. However to me Holy Avenger just seems overall stronger.
Also since I havent played Paladin since TBC I cannot wrap my head around Divine Purpose :/ As to me it seems more like a healing talent than a DPS talent. The 2 other talents just seems more DPS oriented and giving a higher amount of DMG.

@Jackielope:
Yea that was that I thought (: Thank you for clearifying that for me. FV to me just seems like a good solution to Paladins overall lack of DPS. However I wish it was a bit harder hitting now since they nerfed the AOE bonus. I dont know if the state it was in before the nerf was that broken, but I kinda feel Blizzard should have given it a bit more single target dps in compensation tho. Also on the same note; can the proc still trigger off Divine Storm itself? Or did they change it so it couldnt procc off Divine Storm anylonger?

[Fredzilla]

Since Avenging Wrath is a baseline ability and Holy Avenger a talent, doesnt that mean that the Holy Avenger + Avenging Wrath is the best combination, or will a talent like Sanctified Wrath be better for a longer AW and more frequently Hammer ? I've never really seen the benefit from Sanctified Wrath but can understand the longer AW + more frequent Hammer could potentially be a dps gain. However to me Holy Avenger just seems overall stronger.
Also since I havent played Paladin since TBC I cannot wrap my head around Divine Purpose :/ As to me it seems more like a healing talent than a DPS talent. The 2 other talents just seems more DPS oriented and giving a higher amount of DMG.

@Jackielope:
Yea that was that I thought (: Thank you for clearifying that for me. FV to me just seems like a good solution to Paladins overall lack of DPS. However I wish it was a bit harder hitting now since they nerfed the AOE bonus. I dont know if the state it was in before the nerf was that broken, but I kinda feel Blizzard should have given it a bit more single target dps in compensation tho. Also on the same note; can the proc still trigger off Divine Storm itself? Or did they change it so it couldnt procc off Divine Storm anylonger?

He meant Sanctified Wrath. Silly Bear.

[Monoroth]

Doesn't using FV with Empowered DS up also "waste" the DS proc? Or at least have a 25% chance to. Cata DP all over again.

It does waste you also can waste potential DP proc but end result still stays it's worth using it as it's higher dps gain. I did 2 comparisons 20-30 pages ago even more prob by now I'll do one in the future aswell just waiting for next patch notes. Either way take a look at this http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post28984607 ignore logs they are outdated. You can see even if it's comaprison about AoE still it applys to ST aswell as dps gain is same in both scenarios, using FV before using EmpDS even with wasted procs is dps gain, unless the adds are gonna die in next 2 sec and you wont be able to push out 2 GCD's.

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Just to give some comparison for people who seems to struggle with TV vs FV.

They both are doing 185% weapon damage but difference is FV does holy damage (ignores armor) and TV does physical damage get's reduced by armor.

Bosses armor is ~30%. (mybe 32% now in WoD beta but I'll use 30% in this comparison)

TV 185% Physical Damage reduced by armor = 129.5% Physical Damage
FV 185% Holy Damage, not reduced my armor = 185% Holy Damage

TV does 70% of FV's damage, in order words FV does 42,86% more damage then TV.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

He meant Sanctified Wrath. Silly Bear.

Yes sorry, a lot of wrath and divine to keep track of :P

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Doesn't using FV with Empowered DS up also "waste" the DS proc? Or at least have a 25% chance to. Cata DP all over again.

That's the thing, where do you draw the line between taking a chance on RNG and where to stick to your "rules". In SoO now I can go with DP build and always, always, always use a mastery attack when I can (which means I try to ignore exorcism even if I'm at 4 holy power) so that my TV (or DS) has a chance to proc DP or EmpDS (4set)- when it pays of it pays of good. When it doesn't it drags dps.
Same thing in WoD with FV-DS buff, if you have a DS proc and you're running with DP- do you chance on your EmpDS to proc a DP and/or EmpDS- or do you build 3 holy power and do a FV (chance to proc another EmpDS+DP) and 100% get your FV buffed DS out? Afaik the simc are run with the latter for single target throughput.
Cata DP? Well no, we have a better chance of things to line up- also with set bonus(es) we can "reset" our chance fairly often. Still though, it's a really high demand playstyle that atm requires 2-3 weak auras (at least for me) to get the UI to give me the info I need in a "neat" way. There's supposedly some UI changes inc to show EmpDS procs in the basic interface but you still won't see the FV buff- not that you need that if you're a bit aware of what you're doing.
Needs to be said though, doing all that leaves little room to watch raidframes to throw out our single target tools. Take that as a positive or negative, up to you (I think it's both).

[Deleted]

Am I the only one who thinks Paladins single target DPS is lagging behind other classes? We have fine cleave but our single target dps seems lower? Im not in the beta so i cannot speak for sure ofc. But from what ive seen it just looks like Palas are behind. Also can the FV proc still trigger off Divine Storm itself? Or did they change it so it couldnt procc off Divine Storm anylonger?

[ruiizu]

Yes sorry, a lot of wrath and divine to keep track of :P

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That's the thing, where do you draw the line between taking a chance on RNG and where to stick to your "rules". In SoO now I can go with DP build and always, always, always use a mastery attack when I can (which means I try to ignore exorcism even if I'm at 4 holy power) so that my TV (or DS) has a chance to proc DP or EmpDS (4set)- when it pays of it pays of good. When it doesn't it drags dps.
Same thing in WoD with FV-DS buff, if you have a DS proc and you're running with DP- do you chance on your EmpDS to proc a DP and/or EmpDS- or do you build 3 holy power and do a FV (chance to proc another EmpDS+DP) and 100% get your FV buffed DS out? Afaik the simc are run with the latter for single target throughput.
Cata DP? Well no, we have a better chance of things to line up- also with set bonus(es) we can "reset" our chance fairly often. Still though, it's a really high demand playstyle that atm requires 2-3 weak auras (at least for me) to get the UI to give me the info I need in a "neat" way. There's supposedly some UI changes inc to show EmpDS procs in the basic interface but you still won't see the FV buff- not that you need that if you're a bit aware of what you're doing.
Needs to be said though, doing all that leaves little room to watch raidframes to throw out our single target tools. Take that as a positive or negative, up to you (I think it's both).

There's already a default aura for EmpDS in the beta. What they need is some kind of visual indicator for FV's buff to Divine Storm (and a better aura name, preferably something that isn't just called Final Verdict). I suggested the Vengeance/Inquisition pompom hand lights, since it would at least allow us to keep those in one talent specialization.

That, or they could make a minor glyph that causes combat to trigger them.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Am I the only one who thinks Paladins single target DPS is lagging behind other classes? We have fine cleave but our single target dps seems lower? Im not in the beta so i cannot speak for sure ofc. But from what ive seen it just looks like Palas are behind. Also can the FV proc still trigger off Divine Storm itself? Or did they change it so it couldnt procc off Divine Storm anylonger?

Our Aoe is crazy at times. Single Target not so much(This is barring Seraphim which I am tempted to get cause of the bloody animations). How do I know this? Well I even have issues freaking taking leveling stuff on and I'm at level 100 >.>

Bloody Saberfangs.

[solvexx]

Are we a top tier in melee and PvP yet? In the beta that is.

[Ramiell]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiRkuEhDRKM

6:38 the nerfs are so inc. I suggest getting all the bitching about it out right now.

[Arkhu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiRkuEhDRKM

6:38 the nerfs are so inc. I suggest getting all the bitching about it out right now.

I think most people are prepared for Seraphim to take it on the chin. I definitely believe there won't be as much of an uproar about Seraphim as there was about FV. That's because a Seraphim nerf is actually needed. It was buffed to the moon in order to get people to take it over FV. Now that that's not a problem anymore, it'll be coming back to the ground with the rest. I have trouble understanding what the devs were thinking when they decided to give ret paladins yet another short, burst CD that is stackable with the host of others we already had. Other than making the talent useless by nerfing the stat bonus, the only solution I can think of is making some combination of Seraphim/HA/AW cause Forbearance and/or not be usable with Forbearance in order to limit stacking.

I still think, even after the enormous nerf, FV will end up being the most desirable level 100 talent for most PvE situations by release. That's saying more about how lackluster the other two talents are than the strength of FV as a well-designed talent, though.

[Lumineus]

Yeah, watched it, if Seraphim is OP then Euphoria is super fucking OP. That Druid played so badly, should have killed Savix like six times, just by pressing each HP advantage he claimed with Moonfire spam. The Hunter runs away from his own ice trap. The Warrior fails at rage pooling and should have never let him heal up in HoP. I don't want to be balanced around bad PvPers.

[Deleted]

I think most people are prepared for Seraphim to take it on the chin. I definitely believe there won't be as much of an uproar about Seraphim as there was about FV. That's because a Seraphim nerf is actually needed. It was buffed to the moon in order to get people to take it over FV. Now that that's not a problem anymore, it'll be coming back to the ground with the rest. I have trouble understanding what the devs were thinking when they decided to give ret paladins yet another short, burst CD that is stackable with the host of others we already had. Other than making the talent useless by nerfing the stat bonus, the only solution I can think of is making some combination of Seraphim/HA/AW cause Forbearance and/or not be usable with Forbearance in order to limit stacking.

I still think, even after the enormous nerf, FV will end up being the most desirable level 100 talent for most PvE situations by release. That's saying more about how lackluster the other two talents are than the strength of FV as a well-designed talent, though.

well FV at least represents (currently with its DS form) the more interesting rotation, but TBH;
ES is crap because we shouldn't have to talent to make our "stances" have a purpose to begin with.
FV is garbage because (beyond its DS aspects, especially now when its the same modifier) should be baseline to begin with.
And seraphim is garbage due to A, its another burst CD, we need more?, B, its a pool and play ability, but we don't have a resource to pool, so the talent makes no sense.
so really the entire last tier is beyond lacklustre, its the whole gamut of its synonyms:
uninspired, unimaginative, dull, humdrum, colourless, characterless, bland, insipid, vapid, flat, dry, lifeless, listless, tame, tired, mundane, spiritless, lustreless, apathetic, torpid, uninteresting, boring, monotonous, dreary, tedious, wearisome

[Deleted]

I like both the designs of Seraphim and Final Verdict. Though I hope they buff FV again to bring it on an equal level with Seraphim - then I have 2 awesome lvl 100 talents to choose from.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiRkuEhDRKM

6:38 the nerfs are so inc. I suggest getting all the bitching about it out right now.

The funny thing? that's the burst we do with HALF our duration, from ONE player! it's too strong even if you can CC or kite the ret it's going to be insane.

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I like both the designs of Seraphim and Final Verdict. Though I hope they buff FV again to bring it on an equal level with Seraphim - then I have 2 awesome lvl 100 talents to choose from.

It's pretty damn close for sustained dps- only difference (atm) is that Seraphim and HA is such a strong burst combination, once Seraphim is nerfed FV is the only choice again- just wait for it...

[Johnmatrix]

Yeah, watched it, if Seraphim is OP then Euphoria is super fucking OP. That Druid played so badly, should have killed Savix like six times, just by pressing each HP advantage he claimed with Moonfire spam. The Hunter runs away from his own ice trap. The Warrior fails at rage pooling and should have never let him heal up in HoP. I don't want to be balanced around bad PvPers.

My take from the video was a bit similar, the ret wasn't that good, neither were the opponents. We have to remember that warrior has to glyph shattering throw now, so he might not have had it on that duel. However the biggest fail was from that rogue that almost got gimped in a stun. Seeing as he didn't trinket the first cc of a duel, a rogue like that would have died before the stun ends in live. It is still noticable, that seraphim does add one more stackable cd that makes burst over the top. A better ret would have done even more damage with all cd's up on that rogue. I didn't get that spinning he did when his target was stunned or stationary.

One thing that distubed me was, that for me it looked like using seraphim without AW and HA looked like a total waste of HoPo. It looks as clunky as you would think to spend 5 HoPo on small burst buff (when used alone) when he could/should have healed himself or just finished off his target. Basically that makes seraphim have only one real purpose in PvP: Stackable cd with HA and AW to grant more burst every 2 mins. It's pointless to use it alone. Such a bad design in so many ways.