Ret paladin on PTR

[Abandon]

NEVER using our "finisher" when soloing sounds like good design. /facepalm

How do you believe that attempting to solo a three-man quest is an accurate description of how often you will use your "finisher" in regular PVE? If you are playing more defensively because you are attempting to solo something which has been designed to be done by two or three people you can't really say that having to rely more on your defensive or healing abilities is a big shock, and the person you quoted mentioned that they completely forgot to use any cooldowns.

[Reefiis]

I wanted to try ret's survivability by killing elite dragon in icecrown which is used in arget tournament dailies.

Live: im able to kill dragon and end up with 100% hp

PTR: i blow every CD and im barely able to down dragon but theres no way to kill dragon and adds too. -i end up dead

Ret suffered a lot on PTR in terms of survivability - no more passive healing from judgement, seal of insight kinda sucks, word of glory is useless atm and art of war nerf is critical. Also we've lost sacred shield.

On the other side i like new dps mechanic - its finally challenging and more interesting.

But this questing survivability really bores me, i dont like getting people to kill stupid elite mob or something, and im not sure about soloing old content anymore

Thats why this game has a lot of its focus set around group work, if you don't like working with people at all, then i guess an MMO may not be the best idea. However the spec is really clunky in some spots, which is kind of disappointing.

---------- Post added 2010-09-21 at 10:43 PM ----------

You see it as merely flaws in a generally good direction. I see it as part of the design and part of the direction.

"More complex" is not a direction in my eyes, especially considering that the "complex" part is very much arguable. Once you grasp the basics I don't believe it will be any harder, and once the addons are updated/designed to assist with it all, it won't be different at all in skill level except the tunnel vision induced by starting at your screen for procs like a zombie staring at raw meat.

If the design was not achieved, the "direction" does not exist, merely an unrealized intention which, let's face it, matters little. All you are left with is a system that isn't any harder, just impairs your ability to react to the environment because you are watching a specific area of the screen for your proc animation.

As to pvp - I never said the playing field was even. Only a child or a person with no knowledge of arena history would say that. My point was that most classes have had their time in the spotlight of FotM or generally successful comps and even if they didn't, they enjoyed moderate viability, whereas the ret paladin has been under the proverbial rock, barely ever making it into high ratings.
I'm not asking for the ability to always be viable as ret in top ratings, but is being viable in them at least a season or two and decent in the rest of the seasons too much to ask? I'm not even aiming for glad or smth. Just don't want to be roflstomped into the dust by other people simply because of class choice.

And please don't make me link teams that aren't "RMP, Druid/Warrior, DK/Holy Pally" from the armory that are above 2k or even 2,2k rating. Because I have seen them, they exist and I will link them.

So even if it turns out that I myself don't have the skill to get my decent-in-competitive-pvp (all I'm asking for) class into 2k+ ratings, I would still enjoy the thought that it's generally possible.

>implying the new rotation is the same as hitting the same 3 buttons, sometimes 4. :|

But i do agree on the pvp, ret with its changes are suckin' it, it is still fairly doable, but other classes seem to surpass it sometimes, a viable snare would be nice, SoJ isn't gonna cut it at all with it's changes. What were they thinking? you apply a snare in melee range, and the sprint only applys at a range, it's a weak sprint too. How can you keep a snare on a ranged person when all of your snare are restricted to melee range (a snare that restricts them to a whopping 100% of normal speed), and our snare is only 45% less that that of any snare there currently is being 50% or more, its just dumb. Yes we have HoJ but lets see how people do if their only "snare" is on a 1 minute CD. Don't know very many ranged who will stay in range for the duration, so that they could let you kill them easier.

[zealous]

Thats why this game has a lot of its focus set around group work, if you don't like working with people at all, then i guess an MMO may not be the best idea. However the spec is really clunky in some spots, which is kind of disappointing.

---------- Post added 2010-09-21 at 10:43 PM ----------



>implying the new rotation is the same as hitting the same 3 buttons, sometimes 4. :|

But i do agree on the pvp, ret with its changes are suckin' it, it is still fairly doable, but other classes seem to surpass it sometimes, a viable snare would be nice, SoJ isn't gonna cut it at all with it's changes. What were they thinking? you apply a snare in melee range, and the sprint only applys at a range, it's a weak sprint too. How can you keep a snare on a ranged person when all of your snare are restricted to melee range (a snare that restricts them to a whopping 100% of normal speed), and our snare is only 45% less that that of any snare there currently is being 50% or more, its just dumb. Yes we have HoJ but lets see how people do if their only "snare" is on a 1 minute CD. Don't know very many ranged who will stay in range for the duration, so that they could let you kill them easier.

CS+DS+Consecration+Judgment+Exo+HoW(execute range) = 5 buttons, sometimes 6 (HoW).
And I'm not counting the countless times I used SS and AoW FoL to help with raid damage.

Now I'm gonna be using:
Inquisition(30 sec duration)+CS(main spam ability, boring repeated use)+HW+Judgment+TV(only each 13,5 seconds)+Exo+HoW(execute range and under AW) = 6 buttons, sometimes 7 (HoW).
And in this case I seriously doubt I'm gonna be healing anyone with any consistency, considering how much dps WoG is gonna cost me.

So now tell me, beyond staring at the same spot on the screen like a retard waiting for procs (not seeing what's happening around me) and managing a clunky buff that is bound to fall off on movement fights, what has "improved"?

Every time people talk about HoJ, which has a 1 min cd, I remember blink, which has a 15 sec cd.

[Swampmoose]

You see it as merely flaws in a generally good direction. I see it as part of the design and part of the direction.

"More complex" is not a direction in my eyes, especially considering that the "complex" part is very much arguable. Once you grasp the basics I don't believe it will be any harder, and once the addons are updated/designed to assist with it all, it won't be different at all in skill level except the tunnel vision induced by starting at your screen for procs like a zombie staring at raw meat.

If the design was not achieved, the "direction" does not exist, merely an unrealized intention which, let's face it, matters little. All you are left with is a system that isn't any harder, just impairs your ability to react to the environment because you are watching a specific area of the screen for your proc animation.

As to pvp - I never said the playing field was even. Only a child or a person with no knowledge of arena history would say that. My point was that most classes have had their time in the spotlight of FotM or generally successful comps and even if they didn't, they enjoyed moderate viability, whereas the ret paladin has been under the proverbial rock, barely ever making it into high ratings.
I'm not asking for the ability to always be viable as ret in top ratings, but is being viable in them at least a season or two and decent in the rest of the seasons too much to ask? I'm not even aiming for glad or smth. Just don't want to be roflstomped into the dust by other people simply because of class choice.

And please don't make me link teams that aren't "RMP, Druid/Warrior, DK/Holy Pally" from the armory that are above 2k or even 2,2k rating. Because I have seen them, they exist and I will link them.

So even if it turns out that I myself don't have the skill to get my decent-in-competitive-pvp (all I'm asking for) class into 2k+ ratings, I would still enjoy the thought that it's generally possible.

You can have direction without reaching a destination. Example, people go to school with the intent to get a degree and drop out along the way. There was originally direction, but they never reached the destination. Same applies. Direction is a goal in mind, destination is a goal achieved.

If you think staring at 1 proc will cause less focus than having to stare at 6 or 7 abilities trying to judge which is coming off CD next, you are sadly mistaken. FCFS means stare at all of your abilities all the time, or you stare at CLCret. Now you can simply set up a power aura/warning/icon or whatever so you clearly know to hit TV or INQ without having to stare at anything.

And I don't need your armory links for PVP teams, you clearly missed another point. They were overpowered comps in some seasons. That does not mean they were the only teams to exist in high end play.

I'm beginning to think you are just replying for the hell of it and not really reading anything anyone says. Quoting "improved" in response to the person above as if he was speaking of improved rotation when he talks of nothing more than PVP problems. Same with this contradiction nonsense and other rambling about things never said.

[zealous]

You can have direction without reaching a destination. Example, people go to school with the intent to get a degree and drop out along the way. There was originally direction, but they never reached the destination. Same applies. Direction is a goal in mind, destination is a goal achieved.

If you think staring at 1 proc will cause less focus than having to stare at 6 or 7 abilities trying to judge which is coming off CD next, you are sadly mistaken. FCFS means stare at all of your abilities all the time, or you stare at CLCret. Now you can simply set up a power aura/warning/icon or whatever so you clearly know to hit TV or INQ without having to stare at anything.

And I don't need your armory links for PVP teams, you clearly missed another point. They were overpowered comps in some seasons. That does not mean they were the only teams to exist in high end play.

I'm beginning to think you are just replying for the hell of it and not really reading anything anyone says. Quoting "improved" in response to the person above as if he was speaking of improved rotation when he talks of nothing more than PVP problems. Same with this contradiction nonsense and other rambling about things never said.

Ok maybe I overdid the wordplay with "direction". Was posting at 2 am. What I meant was that good intentions/directions matter little when they go bad and stink up the place.
I see those flaws as a part of the general picture and them not getting addressed by neither word nor action from the devs only reinforces that point of view for me.

If you read my post you should have seen that I agreed that the pvp playing field was uneven and that FotM comps existed. I only stated that that wasn't all there is to pvp, and I could have enjoyed it even if my class was moderately competitive and not at the bottom of the barrel, with at least next-to-decent chances against both ranged and melee opponents.

I am not replying "for the hell of it", and the quotes on 'improved' were air-quotes, if you know of such a thing. They were not meant as a citation but rather as my sarcastic take on what some people (thankfully - the minority) generally call an improvement of the class.

My goal is not to spite anyone or to rage at anyone. While realizing that it's a video game and isn't probably worth any sort of even moderately strong emotions, I am merely somewhat peeved at how this class and ret spec specifically has been treated by the dev team over the almost 4 years I've been playing it, albeit as offspec in Wrath.

After spending TBC struggling to perform at the level of rogues and warlocks, grinding for gear more than them (OH DEAR HEAVENS I HATE YOU BLADE OF HARBINGERS!!!!!), while they may as well have smashed their fist continuously in the WASD area to perform well enough to get raid spots. I'm pretty sure that, being a newbie to the game, had I not been a GM, I wouldn't have even gotten past or even quite possibly into Karazhan. At least as ret.

Seeing this horrible (in my very biased opinion) class design direction reminds of that time and reading "haha the RL is a lolret" when pugging new people into t4 25 mans or in merged guild raids in t5. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter or anything, I've enjoyed playing with friends for these years and I'm quite happy with my prot spec atm.

Just ticks me off that this class has seen so much bad design choices and indifference and has been the whipping boy for so long, while getting precious little in return. I think my non-optimistic outlook is understandable.

My somewhat confused "contradiction" argument derived from the fact that you seemed so adamantly sure that the direction the class is heading is good while simultaneously telling some people that what they thought of as fact may be the opposite for others.

[Swampmoose]

Ok maybe I overdid the wordplay with "direction". Was posting at 2 am. What I meant was that good intentions/directions matter little when they go bad and stink up the place.
I see those flaws as a part of the general picture and them not getting addressed by neither word nor action from the devs only reinforces that point of view for me.

If you read my post you should have seen that I agreed that the pvp playing field was uneven and that FotM comps existed. I only stated that that wasn't all there is to pvp, and I could have enjoyed it even if my class was moderately competitive and not at the bottom of the barrel, with at least next-to-decent chances against both ranged and melee opponents.

"And please don't make me link teams that aren't "RMP, Druid/Warrior, DK/Holy Pally" from the armory that are above 2k or even 2,2k rating. Because I have seen them, they exist and I will link them." was what I was replying to.......you've stated your opinion and outlook on PVP a dozen times.

I am not replying "for the hell of it", and the quotes on 'improved' were air-quotes, if you know of such a thing. They were not meant as a citation but rather as my sarcastic take on what some people (thankfully - the minority) generally call an improvement of the class.

Air quotes are used when speaking. I believe they are called scare quotes when written. You used them in a sentence in which you begin rambling and request a response from a poster by asking a question directly to him/her. You use these quotes to emphasize your sarcastic take on them and imply by directly asking the person you are quoting, that they spoke of said "improvements." They spoke of nothing but trouble and problems, not a single mention of anything decent or "improved." I am lead to believe you didn't read anything they said as your use of scare quotes implies they spoke of such improvements.

My goal is not to spite anyone or to rage at anyone. While realizing that it's a video game and isn't probably worth any sort of even moderately strong emotions, I am merely somewhat peeved at how this class and ret spec specifically has been treated by the dev team over the almost 4 years I've been playing it, albeit as offspec in Wrath.

After spending TBC struggling to perform at the level of rogues and warlocks, grinding for gear more than them (OH DEAR HEAVENS I HATE YOU BLADE OF HARBINGERS!!!!!), while they may as well have smashed their fist continuously in the WASD area to perform well enough to get raid spots. I'm pretty sure that, being a newbie to the game, had I not been a GM, I wouldn't have even gotten past or even quite possibly into Karazhan. At least as ret.

Seeing this horrible (in my very biased opinion) class design direction reminds of that time and reading "haha the RL is a lolret" when pugging new people into t4 25 mans or in merged guild raids in t5. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter or anything, I've enjoyed playing with friends for these years and I'm quite happy with my prot spec atm.

Just ticks me off that this class has seen so much bad design choices and indifference and has been the whipping boy for so long, while getting precious little in return. I think my non-optimistic outlook is understandable.

Many people share your frustration, as have I. Your opinion has been noted many times and is understood.

My somewhat confused "contradiction" argument derived from the fact that you seemed so adamantly sure that the direction the class is heading is good while simultaneously telling some people that what they thought of as fact may be the opposite for others.

I really hope you are not still attempting to make sense out of your argument that there is anything contradictory to what I said. Last time I'll try to fix this, you are starting to make my head hurt with this.

FACT 1: "the fact that you seemed so adamantly sure that the direction the class is heading is good" - This is fact. I (and again, this is purely my opinion) believe it is heading in a good direction.

FACT 2: You do not think this is a good direction.

FACT 3: "simultaneously telling some people that what they thought of as fact may be the opposite for others." Fact: Some people share my opinion, some people share your opinion or in other words "what I think may be fact (FACT #1), may be the opposite for you (FACT #2) and for others."

I feel stupid for having to justify myself to such ridiculous posts but you make me sound like I am speaking out of my ass when you are pretty much making absolutely zero sense in regards to this non-existent contradiction.

[Chareoss]

My toon helped kill the Lich King, the maw of an old god, several Titan Helpers and took down Naxx. Now you're telling me a group of boars will kill me? Lame.

You obviously haven't seen The Princess Bride

[Swampmoose]

Time to rench this thread away from arguing and back towards "Ret paladins on PTR"

Managed to get up to 5.8k, so now only 200-300 DPS behind my live dummy test. Realised without the jar I was a long way off hitcap so found some alternate gear and did a bit of reforging. I was up over 6k for about 3 minutes but gradually slipped back down to 5.8 and stayed there for another 4-5 minutes. Stupid RNG .

Tightening up on the rotation too, keeping track of mastery procs a lot better than I was. Still not entirely happy id be able to replicate that on a real boss, but still much happier than I was yesterday.

Messed about with reforging but didn't make any improvements. Most of my gear now has haste on it so I tried reforging crit into mastery, but without talents my crit is already way down, so it didnt help at all.

I was doing about 6300 on the dummy on the PTR last night. It would vary between 6800 and about 6000 depending on RNG and CDs but it was over the course of about 3 million damage.

Something happened where my white swings were hitting for like 35 damage and yellow ticks were hitting for 3 and 5 damage so I stopped. Was odd but it was time for bed so I didn't bother looking into it.

[Swampmoose]

There is a bug where some debuffs (I think it was a warlock curse) massively reduce spell damage, I had 25-50 damage on judgement and similar on exorcism. I have yet to see this with white damage but its certainly plausible there is a similar bug for that.

Would be funny if that made it to live!

Heh, can you imagine the rage?

[jenseits]

Heh, can you imagine the rage?

TBH it wouldn't shock me, so i couldn't get that mad

[Lothaeryn]

holy shit, i just noticed you live in Timonium Swampmoose, I live down in Elicott city.

But as for this whole issue of the numbers being shown from the PTR I'm just hating the whole feeling of the 'red haired stepchild' effect that pallies and ret in particular is getting in recent events. It feels like everywhere we get thrown to ppl complain about the spec (either other classes or rets ourselves) and no one can really figure out wtf they want anymore for the spec as a whole. I know there are VERY simple changes that many people have posted on this website over the years that could easily solve the imbalance issue that many people continue arguing about.

But tbh what ive seen with rets balancing since the opening of wrath and into the PTR is this analogy:

A dad(blizz) has about 9 children, and one step child that he kinda cares about, and the majority of the 9 kids make fun of the step child for being different.

Now all of the kids dont know how to properly ride a bike, but still want to ride one, so dad comes in with new bikes for everyone, but the step child (ret) gets a little bonus, a set of training wheels so he can get used to riding a bike since hes never tried riding one before (new rotation mechanics and gameplay style in 3.0).

Now, the stepchild knows its not gonna last long because hes gotta get used to riding it without the wheels (we all knew there was a nerf coming in 3.0, we just didnt know how far it was gonna go). But when the other kids see it, they all bitch at dad for not letting them have training wheels, even though they are old enough to not need them anymore (the massive bitching that all other classes QQed over for the imbalance of ret AT LVL 70, which it was not balanced for).

So what does daddy do? he takes away the stepchilds training wheels so he can 'fit into the crowd' like the other children, but because hes never ridden a bike before, he keeps falling down (nerfs that hit around 3.1) and all the other kids laugh at him for not knowing how to ride a bike, but still hate him because he once had training wheels (the continuous bitching I hear on a daily basis that rets are OP, even though that hasnt been the case in almost a year now compared to other classes balance).

So now a few years have passed, and the stepchild now sorta knows how to ride a bike, everyone else is riding high on their bikes because they now know entirely how to ride em and just pass him by all the time (arena ratings and comp rankings on live), and dad is brigning a few new presents for everyone (cata) but this time around gives the stepchild some awkward handmedown (Holy Power system) and considers it a gift, while all the other kids get some shiny new toy.

I'm sorry if my Analogy is rather long and a bit confusing, but its the only one I could think of that reflects retributions condition since the beginning wrath and up to date. Im not saying the changes were getting are entirely bad, but I just feel like were getting the short end of the stick compared to the balancing ive seen so far for other classes, again. Its just frustrating to see that our spec that already had balancing issues to begin with has lost a majority of its abilities that allowed for survivability with no true form of compensation when it comes to going up against other classes.

[Swampmoose]

Hey neighbor

[Fredzilla]

Heh, can you imagine the rage?

I imagine it would be similar to what we're seeing anyway.

[Unferth]

Blizzard said they were gonna make ret pallys more offensive and less defensive.

Really? Then the sure as hell need to double our DPS from what it is on the PTR. We are a weak as shit class, Word of Glory heals for NOTHING as Ret with 3 Holy Power and you have to build up Holy Power and decide wether to heal yourself with a very weak heal or use or only single viable DPS ability wich is Templars Verdict.

[Deleted]

Lothaeryn, you post is full of epic win! ^^

[Deleted]

Really? Then the sure as hell need to double our DPS from what it is on the PTR. We are a weak as shit class, Word of Glory heals for NOTHING as Ret with 3 Holy Power and you have to build up Holy Power and decide wether to heal yourself with a very weak heal or use or only single viable DPS ability wich is Templars Verdict.

Yup pretty much this and speaking of stacking HolyPower it never reaches 3 because your just spamming WoG every time it reaches 2 just to ensure you don't get Rolfstomped. And speak of seal damage, i mean when blizzard says "small percent of holy damage" they mean small.. The seal damage is puny, the hardest hitting ability is TV followed by Melee and CS... Hoping this improves and we don't just have to wait to get 85 before being able to kill stuff.

[Ronark]

Yup pretty much this and speaking of stacking HolyPower it never reaches 3 because your just spamming WoG every time it reaches 2 just to ensure you don't get Rolfstomped. And speak of seal damage, i mean when blizzard says "small percent of holy damage" they mean small.. The seal damage is puny, the hardest hitting ability is TV followed by Melee and CS... Hoping this improves and we don't just have to wait to get 85 before being able to kill stuff.

I like how most of our damage is now PHYSICAL after they remove Armor Pen.

Its like a giant middle finger.

[Deleted]

i still hope that they haven't yet passed paladin numbers yet. but we might be in for some bad luck and be worthless till 4.1, where we are brought a bit up to normal.

however, deep in my heart, i'm contemplating the merits of rerolling and playing my DK, my shaman, my rogue or even my goblin priest as starting 85. i know it sounds like treason, and it feels like that, but it will afterwards feel all the better when paladins finally get up to default.

[Billyzane]

I like how most of our damage is now PHYSICAL after they remove Armor Pen.

Its like a giant middle finger.

Yes...Yes it is...