6.2 Retribution Theorycraft & Discussion

[Vintersol]

BTW, had a look in the other class forums today, and it seems like a very popular notion WE should have gotten a glad stance talent this expo over warriors. The only ones not agreeing with this is (surprise) the selfish warrior community (with a bunch of why is arms not viable in PVE! threads, or why is prot not the strongest dps threads)
shit even monks and priests were talking about it too and that shocks me quite a bit.

RIP prot paladin dps in any form. the community has shouted it wants something for paladins, meaning we will never get it :/

I've said that since i heard the first time about this talent. Warriors have the most diversity in terms of weapon choices, so it would had been nice to have a second dps option for paladins....

[Jackielope]

I'd rather a viable shockadin spec so I can fuck off out of melee on bosses that bite us on the arse hard.

*claps* I'm all for this. The little window between WotLK and Cata where we could do good DPS was quite the fun time.

[aokiki]

I'm starting to dislike the negativity in this topic.

Doing bad on sims > wow sims dont lie we suck at anything not single target

Doing well on sims> wow there must be a mistake somewhere here

So many people cynical and jaded.

I don't think it's as much negativity as skepticism.

When we do well on sims, we raise eyebrows due to how inconceivable the result may be (Found and Reghame gave compelling arguments above). Do we wish it fervently to be true? Of course we do.

When we do badly on sims, we have hindsight bias. This has been the state of Ret for the entire expansion (with the exception of the first weeks when the PvP 4-set was fantastic).The question here is to ask, "do we actually suck at anything INCLUDING single target?" as of now? That's usually a definite yes no matter how you look at it. If 6.2 sims corroborate this data, it's rather natural for most players to be frustrated for even thinking of being in another mediocre tier for Rets.

Yes, a lot of Rets are cynical (although jaded may be the wrong word to use), and with good reason. That being said, as Sol stated, we should take these sims with a large grain of salt. All of us want the best for the class after all, and all of us hope the most current sims to be accurate.

[Ruxe]

I'm done with this thread. A negative attitude leads to bad analysis. I refuse to be part of the martyr complex circlejerk that happens every time we see a nerf. Is it that hard to be fair and even minded? The end is not nigh. Ret paladins will see play in normal heroic and mythic raids. Thanks to Solsacra and everyone else that put in an effort to sim numbers and show us all.

Best of luck in Hellfire!

[Phyrra]

I'm done with this thread. A negative attitude leads to bad analysis. I refuse to be part of the martyr complex circlejerk that happens every time we see a nerf. Is it that hard to be fair and even minded? The end is not nigh. Ret paladins will see play in normal heroic and mythic raids. Thanks to Solsacra and everyone else that put in an effort to sim numbers and show us all.

Best of luck in Hellfire!

You sound like you belong on the battle.net forums.

[sexybeast]

I'm done with this thread. A negative attitude leads to bad analysis. I refuse to be part of the martyr complex circlejerk that happens every time we see a nerf. Is it that hard to be fair and even minded? The end is not nigh. Ret paladins will see play in normal heroic and mythic raids. Thanks to Solsacra and everyone else that put in an effort to sim numbers and show us all.

Best of luck in Hellfire!

Kthxbye
/10char

[Monoroth]

It's hard not to be skeptical when for last 3-4 expansions we see the same pattern regarding our class. WoD is first expansion in long time where we started realy good at start of expanison. Obviously once BRF came out all of that fell apart.

The pattern I was speaking and some of you guys mentioned is, we start below middle pack at start of exp and then receive enough buffs, usualy SoL, to perform in upper middle of the pack in last tier. Same thing with items, how many times they overnerfed us due to our seals procs trinkets/weps. How hard is it to find a middle ground instead of completly nerfing seals procing trinkets/weps why not try to balance it and say seals have X% chance to proc the trinket. This time around it's even worse with Fel Burn due to MS, we do so many attacks in a single hit and on top of that we get MS procs obviously trinket is gonna do up to 20% of our total damage.

I assume for DKs dissease proc Fel Burn aswell. They should see some crazy output from it aswell, considering their class trinket is Wandering Plague for UH, basically extra dot. So with extra dot which can also MS I wonder how blizz will handle that.

Basically what I'm trying to say, it would be nice if Blizzard could find a middle ground for us. We can see same problem with current trinkets, they overnerf them and now buffed them to much.The next follwing fix for trinkets is either nerfing classes that benefit to much from it or nerfing item itself. It's playing with fire I know but still there are ways to fix this in appropriate way and not just shooting blanks and hope one hits the right spot. I guess enough with the rant.

What are you thoughts on legendary ring combined with our SW + Sera. I'm primarily thinking how we should approach it by using our AW's. SW+Sera is best setup atm with T18 + LoV. There's 3 different approaches we can take with using SW+Seraphim in the fight.

1st approach
Burn AW off CD to line it up with 3 Seraphims in a row for max burst at start. 0,0:30,1,2,4,6...

2nd approach
Use AW at 0,1,2,3,4,6 etc. This way we max out damage of ES.

3rd approach
Use AW at 0,2,4,6 and use other 2 stacks when there's a burn phase or some mob needs to die fast.

Now looking at legendary ring which has 2min CD. Best case scenario for us would be using the ring off CD which would line up with our CD's every single time. Taking that into account best scenario of using AW would be 1st and 2nd approach dpending on the fight. Most of the time 2nd approach should be the best.

Lets say your guild wants to delay usage of legendary by 30-60 sec to line it up for burn phase ( example Gorefiend > after depleting his energy he'll take 100% more damage for 60 sec). Best scenario to use AW in this case would be 2nd and 3rd approach. 2nd scenario should be best most of the time unless burn phase appears at start (in first 3 mins) and then once again towards the end of the fight ( around 5 min mark), in that case 3rd approach is the best.

So my conclusion is on average we are looking at using AW at 0,1,2,3,4,6 etc to max out damage of ES if ecounter allows it. Obviously charge of AW gives a room to breathe and delay stack of AW later into the fight if we are unable to use it eariler (example 0,1,2,4,5,6).

Do you agree with this or should we use AW differently? I know ecounter mehanics and guild specific tacts are gonna influence usage of AW alot, but this is based on most ecounters being close to patchwerk style.

[Found]

I assume for DKs dissease proc Fel Burn aswell. They should see some crazy output from it aswell, considering their class trinket is Wandering Plague for UH, basically extra dot. So with extra dot which can also MS I wonder how blizz will handle that.

I don't believe they do, nor that they have any particular history of proccing on-hit effects. Note that Censure does not proc Fel Burn, only the original Seal of Truth (or SoR) proc (that is, the instant damage on every hit) does.

[Solsacra]

What are you thoughts on legendary ring combined with our SW + Sera. I'm primarily thinking how we should approach it by using our AW's. SW+Sera is best setup atm with T18 + LoV. There's 3 different approaches we can take with using SW+Seraphim in the fight.

1st approach
Burn AW off CD to line it up with 3 Seraphims in a row for max burst at start. 0,0:30,1,2,4,6...

2nd approach
Use AW at 0,1,2,3,4,6 etc. This way we max out damage of ES.

3rd approach
Use AW at 0,2,4,6 and use other 2 stacks when there's a burn phase or some mob needs to die fast.

....

So my conclusion is on average we are looking at using AW at 0,1,2,3,4,6 etc to max out damage of ES if ecounter allows it. Obviously charge of AW gives a room to breathe and delay stack of AW later into the fight if we are unable to use it eariler (example 0,1,2,4,5,6).

Do you agree with this or should we use AW differently? I know ecounter mehanics and guild specific tacts are gonna influence usage of AW alot, but this is based on most ecounters being close to patchwerk style.

The 1st approach is how Seraphim is handled within the sim, largely due to the presence of bloodlust at t=0. If bloodlust is used at any other point, like in reality, we would use the 2nd scenario, sync'ing ES, AW, and Sera. 3rd approach is the intent behind the design, for example, Iron Reaver ground phases (where we can start heavy with a CD each time) or Kilrogg's vision of demise.

I don't believe they do, nor that they have any particular history of proccing on-hit effects. Note that Censure does not proc Fel Burn, only the original Seal of Truth (or SoR) proc (that is, the instant damage on every hit) does.

Yeah, Fel Burn is not procing from NP, or any other disease for that matter. EDH may be extremely strong for us due to its ability to proc from all attacks, seals, and mastery. But its another order of magnitude for Warriors, specifically 1H fury, absurd APM rates on top of Mastery scaling.

[Deleted]

hi guys,

can anyone of you share your profile file ? and also your tci file?

i am playing around with simc and can build it and enable it (ptr=1 right?)

and its somewhat not giving me good results. I can run a sim, it is showing me the Build 20141 etc but main_hand=calamitys_edge,id=124389,bonus_id=567,enchant=mark_of_bleeding_hollow is not recognized as the mythic version in the sim, just normal.

what i am doing:

build cmd simc from git with Visual Studio

here my tci file:

F:\SimCraftDev\src\simulationcraft\profiles\Tier18M\Paladin_Retribution_T18M.simc
ptr=1
iterations=1000
html=F:\SimCraftDev\output\003_RetT18MSim.html

so i just run a simple sim of the T18M Ret profile from the defaul SimC profiles and just ptr=1 enabled. and the result gives me just "37k".

are there more things i have to do to run a ptr sim, adding more options to activate stuff in the tci file? thx

[Bad-apple]

What I'd like to know is do we have an updated BiS list for the new sims that are showing us near the top? Or is the list that we got earlier, this one still the one we want to go by? I'd like to know for the sake of letting my guild know, though I suppose I'll probably ask again when the patch is actually released to be sure at the time if that's the list of items I want to be aiming for.

[Found]

What I'd like to know is do we have an updated BiS list for the new sims that are showing us near the top? Or is the list that we got earlier, this one still the one we want to go by? I'd like to know for the sake of letting my guild know, though I suppose I'll probably ask again when the patch is actually released to be sure at the time if that's the list of items I want to be aiming for.

I don't know that I would necessarily call it a BiS list (the whole concept of which is a bit odd with how warforged/sockets exist and the presence of ilvl gaps within the same difficulty), but the sims are using:

Head: Helm of the Ceaseless Vigil
Neck: Choker of Sneering Superiority
Shoulder: Doomcrier's Shoulderplates
Back: Cloak of Incendiary Wrath
Chest: Cuirass of the Ceaseless Vigil
Wrists: Breach-Scarred Wristplates
Hands: Gauntlets of the Ceaseless Vigil
Waist: Annihilan's Waistplate
Legs: Greaves of the Ceaseless Vigil
Feet: Treads of the Defiler
Rings: Loop of Beckoned Shadows and Thorasus, the Stone Heart of Draenor
Trinkets: Single-target: Libram of Vindication and Empty Drinking Horn.
Trinkets: AOE (speculative, but likely): Empty Drinking Horn and Discordant Chorus
Weapon: Calamity's Edge.

Solsacra's post about how he chose this list is here. Given that the weapon, shoulders, cloak, boots and one of the trinkets all drop off of Archimonde, however, you'll be looking for alternatives during progress.

[Bad-apple]

Solsacra's post about how he chose this list is here. Given that the weapon, shoulders, cloak, boots and one of the trinkets all drop off of Archimonde, however, you'll be looking for alternatives during progress.

Awesome, good to know. Thanks.

[Reghame]

BIS is basically whatever is warforged, socketed if its a shitter piece like ring or something.

[Solsacra]

Alright, calculation and head scratching time. Since 6.2 development is winding down, we've a much better picture of where we're sitting. On a personal note, I can say i'm pretty pleased. I don't think Ret will have started a new patch cycle this strong since, like.... Icecrown? Granted, that relies on Trinkets and Set Bonuses, but given the numbers, no other conq class can boast such gains and applicability through these mods. Personal feelings aside, i do have some concerns with DPS outside of single target and broad AoE. We've this hazy middle ground where we arn't top tier DPS -- Cleave.

Based off of current tuning we do the following at varying levels of targets
-Divine Crusader's priority is bumped up at two targets.
-Cycle Judgment between two targets (glyph)
-Roll Censure on two targets.
-Swap from Truth to Righteousness at three.
-Swap Templar's Verdict to Divine Storm at three.
-Swap Crusader Strike to Hammer of the Righteous at four.

Which, when using this gearset

Spoiler: 

head=helm_of_the_ceaseless_vigil,id=124333,bonus_id=567
neck=choker_of_sneering_superiority,id=124219,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_mastery
shoulders=doomcriers_shoulderplates,id=124343,bonus_id=567
back=cloak_of_incendiary_wrath,id=124144,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_mastery
chest=cuirass_of_the_ceaseless_vigil,id=124318,bonus_id=567
wrists=breachscarred_wristplates,id=124353,bonus_id=567
hands=gauntlets_of_the_ceaseless_vigil,id=124328,bonus_id=567
waist=annihilans_waistplate,id=124349,bonus_id=567
legs=greaves_of_the_ceaseless_vigil,id=124339,bonus_id=567
feet=treads_of_the_defiler,id=124322,bonus_id=567
finger1=loop_of_beckoned_shadows,id=124199,bonus_id=567,enchant=gift_of_mastery
finger2=spellbound_runic_band_of_elemental_power,id=118305,enchant=gift_of_mastery
trinket1=empty_drinking_horn,id=124238,bonus_id=567
trinket2=libram_of_vindication,id=124518,bonus_id=567
main_hand=calamitys_edge,id=124389,bonus_id=567,enchant=mark_of_bleeding_hollow

We get these values:


Obviously the gains, as posted below, would be greatly increased if we used Discordant Chorus. The above sheet is intended to show how poor our cleave really is, and how that costs single target DPS. As a side note, using Seal of Righteousness at two targets is a thing with Empty Drinking Horn.

In which scenarios would you use either Seraphim or FV? It's definitely pretty hazy, pure numbers dictate that like before, FV gives us some Cleave output where we don't otherwise have much of it. But, as can be observed in the spreadsheet pic, FV doesn't actually yield any additional overall DPS because Seraphim is simply ahead of it with single target applications. Is FV straight up dead? Does FV's usage rest in ranged benefits? That's not exactly something that can be quantified (simply) in a mathematical sense. I'm curious as to other peoples opinion on this, as it can truly go either way.

----

Trinket balance is kind of bizarre, but not at all unexpected. -- Get your hands on LoV, DC and EDH ASAP.

Single Target
http://i.gyazo.com/28d7961713f365e497225e1c3feeff3a.png

Two Target
http://i.gyazo.com/2962ae79c57c062ae50f772d6d5d74e7.png

Three Target
http://i.gyazo.com/d9e671ac4fce75b74d0bd9441827f09b.png

Four Target
http://i.gyazo.com/f96bda96c773bb3794d0b2d09206970a.png


----

As for Set bonus usage, that's going to vary massively. It's all about control within the context of any given encounter. As noted earlier we want to Sync charges with ES/Sera (or HA) @ : T- 0, 60, 120, 180, 240, 360, 480, etc. For a basic answer, this is probably the way to go in a cookie cutter 'how to use the charges' sense.

[Eternallord]

Solsacra: How does our standing look if the Empty Drinking Horn is scaled way back. Currently it seems to be way over-performing.

[ujx]

Last I heard, the fel cleave was overperforming, but according to these sims, EDH is the one overperforming. EDH is that high above fel cleave on multiple targets? That doesn't seem right. Fel cleave was doing ~11% of my total damage on Tyrant.

So going off this list, fel cleave is pretty much even with LoV single target and ahead of it on multi-target. So why even use LoV at all?

[Solsacra]

Fel Burn: Your attacks cause the target to burn for 420 > 1665 Fire damage over 15 sec. Successive attacks do not refresh Fel Burn's duration, but instead add an additional stack of Fel Burn.

Fel Cleave: Your melee attacks have a chance to trigger a Fel Cleave, dealing 8799 damage to all enemies in front of you. (Approximately 3.00 > 6.00 procs per minute)

Spell data values are consistent with in game performance, EDH is crushing everything. The nerf from two builds ago was reverted, then buffed by 45%. Fel Burn also stacks just as fast on secondary targets as it does primary, thanks to HoTR, DS, Mastery, and SoR procs flying everywhere. Fel cleaves proc rate doubled. Interestingly enough both trinkets still scale with secondaries, would've thought a buff of this magnitude would at least come with that additional tidbit as it devalues our mastery spectacularly.

Also, Yeah, LoV really is questionable at this point, i'm not sure it's meager increase really justifies its use in a greater sense, even in its intended single target niche.

- - - Updated - - -

Solsacra: How does our standing look if the Empty Drinking Horn is scaled way back. Currently it seems to be way over-performing.

Well, 'way back' could go anywhere, i don't want to start playing developer, but if i were to bring it down to a sane level? Probably half of what it is now (in line with DC and LoV). Maybe they're totally OK with this trinket being insane for us?

[Reghame]

Fel Burn: Your attacks cause the target to burn for 420 > 1665 Fire damage over 15 sec. Successive attacks do not refresh Fel Burn's duration, but instead add an additional stack of Fel Burn.

Fel Cleave: Your melee attacks have a chance to trigger a Fel Cleave, dealing 8799 damage to all enemies in front of you. (Approximately 3.00 > 6.00 procs per minute)

Spell data values are consistent with in game performance, EDH is crushing everything. The nerf from two builds ago was reverted, then buffed by 45%. Fel Burn also stacks just as fast on secondary targets as it does primary, thanks to HoTR, DS, Mastery, and SoR procs flying everywhere. Fel cleaves proc rate doubled. Interestingly enough both trinkets still scale with secondaries, would've thought a buff of this magnitude would at least come with that additional tidbit as it devalues our mastery spectacularly.

Also, Yeah, LoV really is questionable at this point, i'm not sure it's meager increase really justifies its use in a greater sense, even in its intended single target niche.

- - - Updated - - -



Well, 'way back' could go anywhere, i don't want to start playing developer, but if i were to bring it down to a sane level? Probably half of what it is now (in line with DC and LoV). Maybe they're totally OK with this trinket being insane for us?

i highly expect a nerf to both trinkets honestly, especially drinking horn.

You know theres a problem when the baseline normal version of the tinket is literally more than 5k ahead of a mythic last boss trinket on literally everything. not to mention that a seemingly single targetish trinket like it is is also beating a seemignly pure AOE trinket at all points.

that being said, one of three things will happen to libram and cleave.

#1 libram buffed significantly
#2 cleave trinket nerfed
#3 both 1 and 2

and if the burn trinket DOES make it live, expect nerfs to not only the trinket, but ret as a whole. we all know how items can be very strong just to end up nerfing ret, see any strong STR item ever made.

that being said, i expect the values of seraphim to also drop qutie a bit when drinking horn goes down since the bursted secondaries effect it quite nicely. even more so for AOE as well.

as for the FV vs seraphim debate for AOE/cleave/w.e. i think this might be due to the drinking horn's power ATM and this could change. FV is indeed handy to use though if there would only be a slight loss in damage anyway because of less preparation to use on cleave and AOE and the range is also a possible increase depending on target placement.

if nothing changes however, seraphim would be the next king of all talents. at least we would dodge the empowered seals bullet right?

- - - Updated - - -

btw sol as your post stating maybe there ok with a trinket being insane for us, its not JUST us though, its miles above every trinket for ALL strength users ATM and i would not doubt if it was for the agi counterparts as well. its just that much better for us because seals proccing it.

[Solsacra]

btw sol as your post stating maybe there ok with a trinket being insane for us, its not JUST us though, its miles above every trinket for ALL strength users ATM and i would not doubt if it was for the agi counterparts as well. its just that much better for us because seals proccing it.

Well, yeah, that's kind of my point; here is a trinket that is absolutely mandatory for everyone. This leaves the 2nd trinket slot as something that's totally flexible, stat stick, class trinket, cleave trinkets, and RNG trinkets. Maybe that's not the intent, it probably isn't, but seeing as every other trinket is completely niche is it truly that unreasonable of a statement?