would you stop playing ret if emp seals was significantly better in t18

[Sarenas]

Emp seals as prot? as in "sit in righteousness"? Cause thats all u need...

And on topic, I would probably atleast consider rerolling for the tier.. Reluctant after 6 years on my pally, might never happen haha..

Oh well you reroll every 2 mins anyways :P

OT: Emp Seals is a boring spell bringing back what I really hated with this spec up to Wotlk. Yet another "buff" to track..

[Deleted]

This is a weird question. Assuming you don't like Emp. Seals, why wouldn't you just play with FV or Seraphim instead?

The difference between talents is reasonably gonna be in hundreds of dps, possibly a couple thousands and that's stretching it. Meanwhile the difference between paladins and strong dps classes such as mages is around 5k on single target.

I don't follow that logic at all. What sort of person would I be if I expected to raid whilst deliberately knackering my DPS to the tune of 2k DPS? I also fail to see what the comparison with other classes has to do with anything. Do people in your raids really say 'well I can't do as much as a mage so my DPS doesn't matter so I may go afk now and then, but that's ok'.

[Grognard]

The difference between talents is reasonably gonna be in hundreds of dps, possibly a couple thousands and that's stretching it.

If we were still in MoP, I might agree; however, since we're in post-squish WoD and aren't creeping up on the 1m DPS mark, 2k is a helluva lot of DPS to be out just to be able to play by talent preference. Especially if in any sort of serious/competitive progression situation.

[ujx]

Fun is subjective. We get that you dislike the talent but stop forcing your opinion on people.

Spoiler, I prefer SW/Empowered Seals over any other talent combination.

You also think ret is fine every patch, including our utility and numbers. I get you like being the odd one out, but the majority dislike the talent.

To cite my sources, every ret I know and the plethora of EmpS hate threads on this and official forums.

[Grognard]

the majority dislike the talent.

The vocal majority. Not everyone speaks their minds on public forums like this. That's not to say, of course, that the actual majority is in favor of the talent, simply that there is an important distinction being neglected.

[Marrel]

I actually enjoy empowered seal in prot :/

That's because you don't need to twist in prot.

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Is it a waste if it keeps up a buff which in turn increases your DPS?

The whole point of DPS is to maximize DPS. If switching stances gives you a buff which increases your DPS, then that's not a waste. It's doing your job.

What he was getting at was that spending GCDs on twisting seals feels like a waste because switching seals does not deal any damage, which feels like a waste when your job is to do more damage. It just makes the spec more bursty + require more ramp-up time.

OT, I think it would really suck if EmpS was the de-facto best 100 talent all across T18 like it is for FV with T17. As long as some talents are better than others on different fights in HC I'll be happy.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Yeah, can't stand the playstyle.

[Grognard]

As long as some talents are better than others on different fights in HC I'll be happy.

This should be an important thing to keep in mind that most people seem to be ignoring. BRF has been AoE/cleave heavy, which naturally favors FV as the only real AoE-boosting L100 talent. EmpS and Sera have both only been really competitive thus far on ST encounters - and the T17 set bonuses have forced us into FV, anyway, on the one real ST encounter in BRF. So even if T18 set bonuses favor EmpS/Sera over FV in sims, a lack of strict, low-movement ST fights will probably still favor FV in the long run.

[Gollyday]

I am not a fan of seal twisting. Never will be. If it's the best DPS by a large enough margin I will probably go holy. Then again, I may do that anyway since we don't have a holy paladin currently.

[Reghame]

The vocal majority. Not everyone speaks their minds on public forums like this. That's not to say, of course, that the actual majority is in favor of the talent, simply that there is an important distinction being neglected.

to be fair, although it is just a vocal majority, you can safely assume that theres a direct relation between the amount of people who hate and dont hate it across the entire paladin populace. if 70% of people who cry on forums hate something and the other 30 dont care or like it, you can also say that 70% of the player base in general dont like it.

Sure its not 100% science, but its a good estimation of how something is/is not working in this game.

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I was one of the very few people that tried getting our utility changed during warlords beta and the only thing we saw was hand of sacrifice going off the GCD. Meanwhile people were complaining left and right about number tuning >DURING BETA<. You can call me odd all your want, but get your facts straight before you do

p.s, we've been fine number-wise from T15 (which is when I started playing ret) up until Blackrock Foundry. I speak from my own point of view during progress, not farm and not from however ret was in the past tiers.

you also later said that hand of sac/bops are enough to warrent a raid spot regardless of damage and how people should just play better.

Then you also said if ret does bad damage you would simply reroll monk. I dont take anything you say serious enough to even warrant a glance.
(btw fine in one person's point of view does NOT mean its fact. if you follow to what i said earlier, if a majority of people, even if its just a vocal majority say something is wrong. there might just be something wrong (with out damage)

But then you also have logs and sims which say the same so i have no idea why you always figure we are "fine"

EDIT! also believe your the one that says selfless healer is a good raid utility spell if im not mistaken. if so, really glad rogues are getting buffs next patch because they sorely need to be more competitive with rets am i right?

[derpkitteh]

no, because i play how i want to, and don't try to go for the perfect build.

[Meiffert]

I don't follow that logic at all. What sort of person would I be if I expected to raid whilst deliberately knackering my DPS to the tune of 2k DPS? I also fail to see what the comparison with other classes has to do with anything.

If we were still in MoP, I might agree; however, since we're in post-squish WoD and aren't creeping up on the 1m DPS mark, 2k is a helluva lot of DPS to be out just to be able to play by talent preference. Especially if in any sort of serious/competitive progression situation.

My point is that today you are 10k behind on average compared to the strong classes. If that's not reason enough to reroll (you are still playing a paladin after all), the 1k extra from using a different talent is not that significant in comparison.
The question in this thread is "would you reroll because of the choice of changing your playstyle or losing 1k dps"? My answer is: I didn't reroll to gain 10k dps, I will not reroll to gain 1k in case I really dislike the best talent.

Do people in your raids really say 'well I can't do as much as a mage so my DPS doesn't matter so I may go afk now and then, but that's ok'.

No, they rerolled mages and hunters.

[Deleted]

My point is that today you are 10k behind on average compared to the strong classes. .

I'm not 10k behind anybody; not even close.

[Deleted]

Honestly, seems they've been trying to do the opposite, really. If this is, in fact, they're design goal, though, then why have they intentionally broken one-button rotational /castsequence macros? Why did they kill Warriors' stance dancing as it was in Cata?

Because they are removing dmg through passive gameplay... like i said Only class that has such gameplay now are paladins and are even getting more of it.

Also easy way to fix set forcing problems... redesign ret completely... so they are actually fun to play and have options that work better in different situations... and then make set bonuses for core things class does, like all other classes get! we are the only spec that is so damn horrible by default and have to wait for set bonuses for any form of fun or engaging gameplay... and usually its all centered against worst ability as they are trying to force us into using the horrible designed shit that they dont want to change by default... the same ability tied to worst and most useless proc in entire wow...

yet, some still claim paladin design is ok etc... as they think set bonuses are a given and core of part of spec... lol

edit: Indeed Reghame, indeed would also add Thete in there too... at least when it comes to talking about ret

[Matt0193]

This forum has been over this again and again. This is not Stance dancing it is (I'll be it poorly designed) SEAL TWISTING, which MANY Paladins ASKED FOR. Is this the best version of Seal Twisting? Nope, but that still does not make it stance dancing.

Yet as far as Seals go now they are essentially stances. The only difference between Seal Twisting and Stance Dancing is that ST only has Judgement as a modifier while SD had a couple of abilities per stance unique to that stance. In essence, it's an simpler SD mechanic. What I want is for Seals to actually matter, as it stands you could go in Righteousness instead of Truth and barely notice a difference since the result is what, less than 1% overall damage between them?

If we are "forced" to go down the EmpS route I want Seals to be more than just a trigger for a buff. I want them to matter, even if it's just recreating Judgement of Light/Justice/Wisdom effects from Wrath. Like I'd want to see Righteousness being able to trigger a 5 stack of Truth to pulse, I'd want to see Light giving us a stacking buff that Truth could consume for more damage and heal allies, I'd want to see Justice give us more movement speed (Since we won't get a charge) when it hits a target that's been marked by Righteousness and so on. I want seal gameplay to matter beyond setting up a macro like [/castsequence=reset 15 Seal of Righteousness, Judgement, Seal of Truth, Judgement, Judgement] to do it for me. At least with FV/DP you have to press the buttons and you can't castsequence it.

I want Seal Twisting, this isn't it. This is a hollow shell of what it could be.

[Meiffert]

I'm not 10k behind anybody; not even close.

All right, let's have a look.

These are your results compared to the results of Rikh (first mage that came to mind, since I watch his stream every now and then).

Boss	Thete	Rikh
Gruul	45k	55k
Oregorger	39k	56k
Furnace	53k	75k
Hans/Franz	34k	63k
Flamebender	57k	93k
Kromog	48k	53k
Beastlord	55k	74k
Thogar	58k	76k
Maidens	39k	83k

So you can see that you are in fact 10k or more behind on 8 out of 9 bosses, on average you were behind by 22k.


Before you argue that this comparison isn't too fair since Rikh had more attempts and plays in a higher level guild getting faster kills etc., you are right.
That's why in my original statement I didn't say paladins are 22k behind fire mages, I said 10k which is in line with the difference between 95th percentile ret paladin and fire mage averaged over all bosses. If you allowed the mage to go arcane on single target bosses, the difference would be even slightly higher.
The logs don't lie, if you are topping meters in your guild, that's good for you, but it only shows that you are a better player than your other guild members, for the balance of the classes such anecdotal evidence isn't relevant.

[Deleted]

All right, let's have a look.

These are your results compared to the results of Rikh (first mage that came to mind, since I watch his stream every now and then).
.

A mage that's not in my guild. As such, they don't have the same boss times, strategy and (in all probability if you're picking a famous mage) is a far superior player to me. Compare like for like or not at all.

[Meiffert]

Did you at least finish reading the rest of my post?

[Deleted]

Did you at least finish reading the rest of my post?

Yes, but I didn't want to detract from the main point by disagreeing with that too. But if you want my take on your thinking it is that the very top percentiles, and especially the very top ranks, are invalid with respects the usefulness of damage classes. Top ranks achieve their scores by cheesing mechanics. They don't focus priority targets, they are likely even to have the consent of the raid to achieve high numbers whilst others chill a bit. As such, you need to look at your own numbers within the context of your raid group (allowing for errors made due to skill level).

The other point I would make is that no Ret Paladin should expect to top meters on a regular basis (I think I average one first kill per raid tier where I top damage). It is the unwritten rule that Paladins, going right back to AD&D, are utility damage dealers. Now, is our utility good this tier? No, it stinks; but that doesn't detract from the fact that RPG lore never has Paladins as all out DPS, WoW history doesn't have us as all out DPS, our single DPS spec compared to pure DPS classes means we can't excel on all fights and Blizzard keeps telling us that we justify our place because of our great utility (stinky as it is). Nobody, anywhere ever told you that if you play Paladin you would be topping damage meters so why the expectation to do so?

[Meiffert]

But if you want my take on your thinking it is that the very top percentiles, and especially the very top ranks, are invalid with respects the usefulness of damage classes. Top ranks achieve their scores by cheesing mechanics. They don't focus priority targets, they are likely even to have the consent of the raid to achieve high numbers whilst others chill a bit. As such, you need to look at your own numbers within the context of your raid group (allowing for errors made due to skill level).

These are some valid points, thanks.
An argument could be made that top ranks are mostly padding for all the classes, but you are right that it would only prove that some classes are better padders.
That being said if you look at fights where paddind is not really an option because they are either single target or the adds present are actually the key part of the fight and should be focused (Flamebender) or cleaving is good in general (Maidens), you will still see paladins way behind. These are 95th percentiles on some of these fights.

Boss	Paladin	Mage
Gruul	45k	51k
Hans/Franz	45k	56k
Flamebender	53k	69k
Maidens	50k	70k
Blackhand	45k	60k

Paladins are still behind by 6-20k depending on the fight.

If I look at my own guild, I am not topping the meters, even though I achieved a couple of top 10 parses here and there, I still can't compete against other good players in my guild who are playing stronger classes.

The other point I would make is that no Ret Paladin should expect to top meters on a regular basis (I think I average one first kill per raid tier where I top damage). It is the unwritten rule that Paladins, going right back to AD&D, are utility damage dealers. Now, is our utility good this tier? No, it stinks; but that doesn't detract from the fact that RPG lore never has Paladins as all out DPS, WoW history doesn't have us as all out DPS, our single DPS spec compared to pure DPS classes means we can't excel on all fights and Blizzard keeps telling us that we justify our place because of our great utility (stinky as it is). Nobody, anywhere ever told you that if you play Paladin you would be topping damage meters so why the expectation to do so?

Well I never said that I expected that. On the contrary, my position from the begining of this discussion is that paladin being a pretty weak class is clearly not being played by people who would reroll just to get a bit higher numbers.
That was my answer to the original question: I don't expect people to reroll because of a talent. If they really dislike emp. seals, they are more likely just taking FV/Sera instead than rerolling.