6.2 Retribution Theorycraft & Discussion

[ujx]

Also to people who talk about "short pulls 3 wings". You can apply wings wherever in fights. The fact you don't even consider it when dissecting what i've said shows that you should think things more through before posting.

What? You made a counter argument that you did well on a 6 minute fight. I guess we'll have to trust you on this one because no logs were linked nor do we even know what fight you are talking about. Going off what limited information you gave us, how could anyone dissect what you said? Let alone draw any kind of conclusion about how or why you delayed wings.

Of all the fights I've tested, I haven't found one where delaying wings was a good idea when you start with 2 charges.

[Deleted]

I know not many liked Cata ret but I prefer it over mop and wod just because we hade a niche and it was that we brought very strong burst / CDs. I was absolutely fine with that even if we were lower outside of CDs. The only thing that I wanted changed in Cata was to give 3 second cd on CS like prot had back then

[Reghame]

a fight where the 2 charges on wings might be useful is when you have a mechanic that will come in at around the 5 or 7 minute marker. this is because you will be forced to use them so you dont waste potential charges because you have to use them at the start, at the 1 minute or 2 minute marker (or both) and precede from there.

now if theres a mechanic that makes you hold your second wings so you can have one at the start, 2 minutes and 3 minute markers, then the rest of the fight will be offset anyhow and unless it then lines up perfectly it wont help you anymore.

we have one other scenario where holding wings can be good and its by using them when you can but then having to wait for a boss invulnerability phase in which waiting 30 seconds wont kill you since your just gaining time on your other wings. but this wont really net you an extra wings unless this happens A LOT.


as for dakeshi, i really dont understand where hes coming from but if a majority of the people here (even more respecable ones) say we might be in trouble, im more inclined to agree with them than someone who, since i have at least been here has tried to be a hipster and say everything is just perfect and how only godd rets (aka only himself) can do well on progression.

another point on this is i cannot take this current patch seriously since melee have had a big boost in their output since the current BiS trinkets for ALL melee (yes all atm) is both the broken fel burn which stacks way too high currently and the cleave trinket which is doing about 10% of all melee's damage and sometimes more.

once both of these trinkets get brought in line with their ranged competitors, it might be easier to see a problem.

another thing to note is that ret seems to have a niche finally, but even if they are good at it ( short term burst from 1-3 minute marker) it does not really matter all too much. the current set up for this tier is basically all cleave as we know. but unlike last tier which was an AOE/cleave tier as well, the cleave next tier actually matters a lot. not being able to cleave might be a big detriment. theres only i think 2 fights where our kind of damage matters but we still also dont excel on the fights as a whole in general.


an a general note, i dont think its just us having problems ATM. im currently active in the prot thread as well and everyone over there are hopping ship quicker than we are. im also beginning to see people worried about holy paladins as well even with that new buff to flash. im not even sure what to think about the class as a whole atm.

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The counter argument was for people claiming we'll drop and how we're shit outside of wings, which isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

The fights (Iron Reaver and Mannoroth) showcase the strengths of ret like I said. If you didn't personally see it during your testing, you may have done things differently.
It's not really difficult to apply what i'm talking about to the different fights going off of these (Iron Reaver is pure single target, Mannoroth has doom lords every ~66 seconds depending on how well you deal with the debuff).

you have to realise that dealing with the doomguards every minute will only be effective for us during the first 2 minutes of the fight. sure you can hold A charge but it will only help you out later than sooner ( delaying your first use is just stupid. dont do it with the new 2 set folks) the fight is also around what 7 minutes or so if i remember? so after that first 2-3 minutes of the fight, you then drop like a stone in water for the complete other half. on top of this manaroth is indeed going to get cleaved in some form during progression i assure you. being ret on this fight will be less useful than you think.

- - - Updated - - -

I know not many liked Cata ret but I prefer it over mop and wod just because we hade a niche and it was that we brought very strong burst / CDs. I was absolutely fine with that even if we were lower outside of CDs. The only thing that I wanted changed in Cata was to give 3 second cd on CS like prot had back then

people hated cata ret because the start was absolutely trash and then the rest of the tier was like it is now, good RNG results in average dps. bad or decent RNG means bad dps or shit dps.

[ujx]

The counter argument was for people claiming we'll drop and how we're shit outside of wings, which isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

The fights (Iron Reaver and Mannoroth) showcase the strengths of ret like I said. If you didn't personally see it during your testing, you may have done things differently.
It's not really difficult to apply what i'm talking about to the different fights going off of these (Iron Reaver is pure single target, Mannoroth has doom lords every ~66 seconds depending on how well you deal with the debuff).

Iron Reaver p1 is just a single target burn, which is great for the Archimonde trinket and ret in general, but in p2 there are bombs spread all over the place, which is really bad. We didn't get very deep into p2 but from what I could tell, that phase is not going to be very good for ret.

[Reghame]

Iron Reaver p1 is just a single target burn, which is great for the Archimonde trinket and ret in general, but in p2 there are bombs spread all over the place, which is really bad. We didn't get very deep into p2 but from what I could tell, that phase is not going to be very good for ret.

that fight screams hunters and mages. warriors are not that bad either due to leaps and what have you. we are possibly the best for the phase 1 but after that all bets are off

[TKTank]

This argument has always confused me, especially when we're comparing one melee spec to another within the same class. A ranged to melee spec comparison is a little more tangible because that truly does introduce flexibility.

It's not like we can't switch between AE or ST for different fights. The choice is just a little different (talents instead of specs). Its pretty well known that UH AoE is too good and frost ST is also too good. So that's probably not a good comparison, its just the two extremes. Look at the averages instead. The differences are really not that bad.

I do consider you a much better ret than I am, so it could be your pov but I sincerely don't get how you can be confused or not share this view:

A Sub will deal more ST than a Ret focusing on ST and a Combat will deal more AoE than a Ret focusing on AoE...
A Feral will deal more ST than a Ret focusing on ST and a Boomkin will deal more AoE than a Ret focusing on AoE...
An Arcane will deal more ST than a Ret focusing on ST and a Fire will deal more AoE than a Ret focusing on AoE...
At this point I believe (might be wrong here) both Marks and BM deal more ST then a Ret focusing on ST and at Marks deal more AoE then a Ret focusing on AoE...
A shammy will deal comparable ST and enhance will deal more AoE then a Ret focusing on AoE...
A UH currently deal more ST AND more AoE and will keep doing more AoE while Frost being the new ST, then a Ret focusing on each...
A Lock can switch talents and deal more ST then a Ret focusing such or deal more AoE then a Ret focusing such...

Looking the logs is like that...at my raid is like that...talking with other Rets is like that...so, yeah.

Also, people might bring the argument of a whole different set of gear needed to do that and that simply isn't true for almost any of them. Certainly for specs like Feral/Boomkin there's a gap in gear, but with the current design allowing the switch of main stat in set pieces and alike, it's basically a matter of trinkets and weapon needed and even then, most of the time once you get something crucial like a weapon you can make the switch and already be worthwhile.

Heck...even in the case of your raid not distributing loot for offspec like that or progression being so fast you can't get your second pieces you can simply check the instance and see the encounters and gor for the spec that most favor the raid overall.
Even on a perfect distribution, let's say 5 ST and 5 AoE of 10, if you spec for one of those with these other classes you'll be superb on 5 fights and very good on other 5 while as Ret you'll be mediocre to good on all 10...and I can't fathom why would anyone choose the later!

[Daystone]

"We have not yet done a final numerical class/spec balance pass. Many of initial changes in the first PTR patch notes were aimed at correcting stat weighting imbalances. Feedback isn't being ignored; it's just being supplemented with lots of useful data from PTR testing that we're continuing to gather, and then numbers tweaks will follow." - Watcher

Source: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/3...real-response/

I really enjoy the discussion in here, but it seems some need to be reminded of this.

[Deleted]

Source: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/3...real-response/

I really enjoy the discussion in here, but it seems some need to be reminded of this.

You're not wrong but, to be fair, it works both ways. They often say that and then the shit still gets made live with the issues untouched. I don't believe we will be weak going live, however, but I do think there is a serious danger that it's going to be one of those tiers where we have to put in the extra miles to be useful. I also find it annoying that I may not really know how I need to play until 6.2 is already live.

[Daystone]

You're not wrong but, to be fair, it works both ways. They often say that and then the shit still gets made live with the issues untouched. I don't believe we will be weak going live, however, but I do think there is a serious danger that it's going to be one of those tiers where we have to put in the extra miles to be useful. I also find it annoying that I may not really know how I need to play until 6.2 is already live.

Yeah I know, another tuning might be in our favor, or not, or not happen at all. All I'm saying is there's still hope As holy warriors we can't give up on such things now, can we

[ProphetNoata]

Yeah I know, another tuning might be in our favor, or not, or not happen at all. All I'm saying is there's still hope As holy warriors we can't give up on such things now, can we

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[Hofflerand]

I was looking at my spellbook and at some logs last night and got the urge to write some words about our specs. Then I started to think about what could be changed. (I even wrote my own thread, but in the end it may have been better to show my thoughts in this thread) What do you think?

Seals: To be honest, I don't feel that our seals make any real difference. They are boring, and then I think of Seal of Truth and Seal of the Righteousness. Can't you make them affect your playstyle in a much greater way? For example, when using the talent Empowered Seals your Seal of Truth adds a 20% haste buff while your Seal of the Righteousness adds a 10% attack power buff. What about making these seals apply these buffs when not using Empowered Seals, but you can't apply both? This invites you to choose between more kinds of playstyles; fast or hard-hitting (or you could choose to play with Empowered Seals). I think this could make seals a bit more interesting.

T90: Give us something more powerful. Holy Prism is at the moment a dps loss, Light's Hammer's duration is too long and it's too stationary, while Execution Sentence doesn't really execute. Give us an ability for AoE which turns us into a being of light that radiates light around us and does some serious damage to our enemies. Give us a cooldown for single target that empowers our weapon with light to do some kickass damage to the big, fat boss in front of us. Cmon, can't we have anything badass? While Warriors in this lvl get Bladestorm and Avatar, we get some boring abilities.

Exorsism: Why do we have this boring spell? It's lowest in our priority (and is why you love using this with our tier bonuses), and it's a reason why it is. Just get rid of it, and replace it with a strong version Holy Wrath (or something) which actually does decent ST-damage and AoE.

Hammer of the Righteous: When do I use this ability in a raid? Rarely. Either buff it or make it give you an additional holy power when it hits 3+ targets.

Divine «Storm»: This ability doesn't really hit how it should hit like. Please, give it a little bit of love, and instead remove our Empowered Storm proc.

Hand of......: I don't really care about them. I want to be chosen because of my damage, not my shiny toolkit of Hands. Let the Holy and Protection Paladins do this job and let us handle the killing. How Blizzard describes the retri paladin: "A righteous crusader who judges and punishes opponents with weapons and Holy magic".

What makes us do good damage at the moment is a lucky procageddon in multi-target fights. Why can't we have more reliable damage?

I agree seals should be more interesting and important at the baseline but I'm not sure how attack power vs. haste would really be a choice. You'd just go with whatever is mathematically worked out to be higher DPS.

It's been suggested before that tier 90 grant holy power. Could be cool, but for starters it'd be nice if Holy Prism wasn't totally unviable and Light's Hammer did the same amount of damage it currently does but with half the duration.

Can't delete Exo without other changes like 3 sec CS or Hammer of Wrath part of the baseline rotation. Unless I hear an idea I really like I think the best solution is to keep Exo around and to find a way to bump it up in priority. This can be through more damage, Exo gives 2-3 holy power + you can store two charges to not waste Art of War procs, etc.

I'd straight-up delete Hammer of the Righteous. It's just an AoE replacement for CS, nothing remotely interesting about it.

I understand the problem some Rets have with Empowered Divine Storm and I think it was Solascra who said the charge system could work well here, too. I'm not going to delve deeper into that right now, but I'd like to throw out a fanciful idea that's been around for a while: Divine Storm should have a duration and you feed the storm with holy power. Could be the whole ability or an after effect of the direct attack. This wouldn't really solve any problems, just think it sounds cool.

Hand spells: are you saying Ret shouldn't even have them? Can't agree with you there having grown up as a PvP Ret. They can already be a bit useless in raids assuming you have multiple paladins, which is usually the case. Actually I think Ret should have access to more utility than it does now. Tier 45 in general is pretty useless in raids, with Eternal Flame being a real stinker, and tier 60 would benefit from taking Hand of Purity off the GCD. Not sure why this was done for Sac but not Purity.

[Herjeee]

I agree seals should be more interesting and important at the baseline but I'm not sure how attack power vs. haste would really be a choice. You'd just go with whatever is mathematically worked out to be higher DPS.

It's been suggested before that tier 90 grant holy power. Could be cool, but for starters it'd be nice if Holy Prism wasn't totally unviable and Light's Hammer did the same amount of damage it currently does but with half the duration.

Can't delete Exo without other changes like 3 sec CS or Hammer of Wrath part of the baseline rotation. Unless I hear an idea I really like I think the best solution is to keep Exo around and to find a way to bump it up in priority. This can be through more damage, Exo gives 2-3 holy power + you can store two charges to not waste Art of War procs, etc.

I'd straight-up delete Hammer of the Righteous. It's just an AoE replacement for CS, nothing remotely interesting about it.

I understand the problem some Rets have with Empowered Divine Storm and I think it was Solascra who said the charge system could work well here, too. I'm not going to delve deeper into that right now, but I'd like to throw out a fanciful idea that's been around for a while: Divine Storm should have a duration and you feed the storm with holy power. Could be the whole ability or an after effect of the direct attack. This wouldn't really solve any problems, just think it sounds cool.

Hand spells: are you saying Ret shouldn't even have them? Can't agree with you there having grown up as a PvP Ret. They can already be a bit useless in raids assuming you have multiple paladins, which is usually the case. Actually I think Ret should have access to more utility than it does now. Tier 45 in general is pretty useless in raids, with Eternal Flame being a real stinker, and tier 60 would benefit from taking Hand of Purity off the GCD. Not sure why this was done for Sac but not Purity.

About what the seals give, it was just an example. How they are now, well, I don't find them very interesting. If not making them give EmpS buffs without the talent, then go with something else that is a bit more different and game changing.

Having a charge system on our procs could make things a bit more easier to control. It's just too random what happens when a pack of adds come and you either proc or not proc your Emp DS.

Removing Hammer of the Righteous wouldn't make me fell tears of sadness. Instead they could make a glyph that make Crusader Strike cleave a great amount of it's damage to a 2nd target or just don't do anything about it. Buff Divine Storm maybe?

Also, when speaking of our Hand spells; I find them boring because they are defensive oriented, and as a damage-dealer I rather say that our other specs should have them and not us. In PvP I understand you (I rarely do PvP with my paladin). If we as Retribution Paladins could have some offensive Hand abilities, then it could get more interesting. How that would affect us and our raid, I don't really know.

[wellsdaddy]

It has been mentioned before, but I like the idea of Lights Hammer radiating from the Paladin versus a targeting reticle lying stationary on the ground. I also agree with the above critique that having the bonus from Empowered Seals without using Empowered Seals won't be a choice, the higher damage output will always be chosen, and one will certainly be a defined winner. Overall I just personally don't feel we need major overhauls as I rather like the rotation for the most part. I wouldn't mind being a little less proc-based to garner high damage and feel just a few small changes could achieve that. Buff seal damage slightly, make censure more than non-existent again, bring back the DoT Exorcism applied pre-MoP, scale our finishers slightly higher. Any combination of some of these would bring us up to a plenty competitive spot in my opinion and not require game-breaking re-tooling.

[Hofflerand]

@Herjeee
I'd say cut seals for being useless if we hadn't already scrapped auras for that reason. This system could use a little more non-talented depth, or perhaps just a little more damage.

If HotR were removed I'd probably buff Divine Storm a bit. Or Seal of Righteousness could cause Crusader Strike to cleave? I'm not a big fan of glyphs, or talents for that matter, being the obvious choice for a fight. I believe the goal should be players choose these based on preference rather than encounter (even if realistically this often won't be the case).

Hand spells are pretty much fine imo. Ret is a paladin spec which means defensive utility. If anything I'd like to move back towards our roots - for example, it's difficult to argue interrupts and magic dispel must be based on spec rather than class now that mythic is locked at 20 man and you usually have those sorts of tools in abundance. I sorely miss when classes felt unique. I'm glad mage and hunter are losing their raid cooldowns as these felt very forced.

@wellsdaddy
Agreed that we probably don't need any more overhauls at this point. Mostly fine-tuning and polishing of existing mechanics.

[Jekuto]

From what I've tested on the PTR so far it seems that FV will still remain the best Level 100 talent choice due to most fights in HFC having adds to cleave/AoE down.

Hell, even in single target (SW+FV) I was still doing more DPS than Seraphim or Empowered Seals; could just be me, though.

[Herjeee]

From what I've tested on the PTR so far it seems that FV will still remain the best Level 100 talent choice due to most fights in HFC having adds to cleave/AoE down.

Hell, even in single target (SW+FV) I was still doing more DPS than Seraphim or Empowered Seals; could just be me, though.

I like FV, so I will just stick with it for most fights if it's in a short range of the other T100s.

[Jekuto]

Agreed! Not worth giving up something I'm used to and enjoy like Final Verdict for Seraphim. Don't even get me started on Empowered Seals.. >_>

[Reghame]

From what I've tested on the PTR so far it seems that FV will still remain the best Level 100 talent choice due to most fights in HFC having adds to cleave/AoE down.

Hell, even in single target (SW+FV) I was still doing more DPS than Seraphim or Empowered Seals; could just be me, though.

empowered seals and seraphim both preform better than FV in a pure single target scenario, HOWEVER!!!!

both seraphim and EMP seals require leagues more attention and ability to produce said numbers. this is due to #1 FV being passive and 2 that both seraphim and emp seals require perfect timing of your abilities to optimally play to beat FV.

With this, add on the fact that while using the archimond trinket (which i automatically will assume is BiS for everyone by the time this beta ends for obvious reasons) you now have another thing to track which is ALSO on a low duration.

on top of this, cooldowns are back for ret! however they are now so important that messing them up will result in absolutly crushing your damage output should you do it slightly wrong ( for example, not getting the last tick of ES with the 50% damage mod of wings WILL result in thousands of dps in loss if you continue to do it!)

ret will indeed require a lot of skill in order to preform very very good but at what cost. we now require a very high mastery of the spec but where will we be? most notations say middle of the pack AT THE BEST! worst case is we are low middle pack when played perfectly and absolute shit with bad rng or some mistakes.

Such demanding gameplay usually rewards players with greater ability with the output but right now i just dont see it.

- - - Updated - - -

"We have not yet done a final numerical class/spec balance pass. Many of initial changes in the first PTR patch notes were aimed at correcting stat weighting imbalances. Feedback isn't being ignored; it's just being supplemented with lots of useful data from PTR testing that we're continuing to gather, and then numbers tweaks will follow." - Watcher

Source: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/3...real-response/

I really enjoy the discussion in here, but it seems some need to be reminded of this.

they said that about cata launch too for ret. we all know how well that was

We also heard that statement as well and more specifically ret will be GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREAT! and now we see where this has landed us currently. if not the fact that highmaul allowed us to use a pvp set to boost our total output by 9% constantly and with optimal ( or close to it) stats, i dont think ret would have ever been decent so far this expansion.

[Butosai]

Calm down bro ret is not hard at all to play perfectly

[Solsacra]

@reghame

The only thing that allows FV to compete next tier is the cleave it provides. Empowered Seals is so much better thanks to its interaction with trinkets, and the complete inability to stack mastery to prop up FV; due to its absence on higher item level gear. It isn't a stretch to say that you could just sit in Truth while using EmpS and see comparable numbers. The extra Haste is just gravy.

FV is dead, let it have its niche cleave use.