Anaxie's Totally Revolutionary SoO Retribution T16 BiS & Theorycraft

[Sandrillan]

Regarding the debate between going full haste vs 40% haste and then into mastery, is there anyway I could get someone to show how with the T16 2pc more haste = more auto attacks = more Art of War procs = More uptime on 5% flat damage buff would or would not be as beneficial than going for the heavier mastery approach.

To me this seems very logical but seeing as how I'm very young in the game I'm not well versed on how to do all the theorycrafting maths...Also if the answer to this question lies somewhere buried in a thread I don't mind reading where this has been answered.

I mostly just ask this so I can answer questions with a why instead of "uh...cause someone said it was better"

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

I'm not 100% sure what your question is but here goes.
more haste = more auto attacks = more attacks that can trigger 2set.
No it does not make haste better than mastery for that reason, the reason why haste and mastery (and crit) is so much alike after 17k haste (40%) is partially because of thok's trinket and how it works with crit but mainly that haste increases the number of mastery attacks (DS, TV, CS, HotR and HoW) you can push out per minute. Now with 17k haste and T16 (SoO) 4set you'll use so many mastery attacks that the value of mastery climbs up to where haste is, the difference with going more haste after 17k rating is that your global cooldowns will be smaller which means you'll get a few more attacks in which means more damage. Mastery makes your mastery triggering attacks hit harder so you rely (slightly) on having good 4set RNG to cover the 10% haste you otherwise would've gone for if we didn't have 4set.

Look at it this way, when we fight you go HoW (mastery) - CS (mastery) - HoW (mastery) - TV/DS (mastery) - HoW (mastery) - (maybe 4set) CS (both mastery) - HoW (mastery) ----
Mastery is just king because nearly every single gcd we use triggers mastery, granted this is during cds but with the CD reduction trinket you're basically having 30% uptime on SW and then there's execute range and refreshing Inq, using ES and such that also takes up some room.

We don't go haste because of 2set, in fact we don't particularly care much about the 2 set because we can't control it. The haste you could get simply doesn't outweigh everything else, 2set for us is just a passive that we more or less ignore.

Or did I misunderstand your question?

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I mostly just ask this so I can answer questions with a why instead of "uh...cause someone said it was better"

Our goal as ret paladins is to get as many mastery attacks out as we can, with enough* haste and T16 4set (SoO) mastery gets to a "equal" state with haste. The reason for that is that nearly every global cooldown we end up doing is triggering mastery which means mastery gets strong.

*"enough haste" is debatable, some say 17k (most people) and some people go for 19k. Some people go for 50%, the truth is that the difference is very, very small for single target but since SoO has a lot of cleave/aoe situations mastery is regarded as the safer/stronger choice. That doesn't mean crit or haste builds are worse, they just have different strengths. It's complicated, if you're new to it then I suggest mastery. It's the "safer" option, if you lag or whatever haste might not be the best benefit to you.

[Serani]

Don't think I've ever encountered being capped on holy power during SW spams, I regularly go to 4-5 but always spend them.
Even if you get lucky and get 5x 4set procs in a row it should be obvious when to spend holy power.

And yes, 17k haste is the point where secondary stats (if you got thok's trinket) begin to equalize, haste is X% stronger on single target, Mastery is X% better on aoe/cleave and crit is crit.

Bear, do you ever get tired of saying the same stat priority over and over in several different posts? Because I totally would.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Bear, do you ever get tired of saying the same stat priority over and over in several different posts? Because I totally would.

if people have questions I'll answer, I don't get any more bored of this than farming SoO for 15 months.

[Swaglordyolo]

Retribution is in a good place design wise, but their numbers are a little low. This will be addressed in a later tuning pass.

My body is ready.

[Swampmoose]

This blurb on the frontpage asking questions we have wanted for a long time.

Step 2 of beta. Denial from blizzard that ret will be fine =/.
Yay! We are on track to have a normal ret style beta! :'D

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Sadly the people asking questions never just bluntly asked. Can we get some baseline haste?

What do you need baseline haste for?

[anaxie]

To be functional and play correctly. No matter how close they want to balance stats its laughable for "stats to be closer then ever" Crit isn't changing in any way and we are losing the lightning meta and and cloak procs AND AmP crit damage isn't going live three things that boosted crits mediocre value.

If the functionality of ret doesnt change we REQUIRE haste. Except they took way majority of avenues to obtain haste. Yet they tack 10% baseline crit on agi classes because "it feels right" Ha.... HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.......

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The only way to bring them closer in line is they literally have to cut the rating requirement in relation to Crit per 1% in a spec by spec basis. That is LITERALLY the easiest way to perfectly balance stats without changing class functionality. I find the likelihood of them doing that 0

[Swampmoose]

Define "play correctly." What does that even mean?

How much haste you have or how much crit a rogue has is irrelevant. If the goal is to have all dps classes within 10% of X damage, what matters at the end of the day is if you are within that 10%.

If it requires 50% haste or 1% haste for a paladin, or 75% crit for a rogue, it doesn't matter. It is a combination of stats, abilities, and the interactions between the two. Giving you 50% base haste doesn't matter if the interaction with all of the other stats and spells is completely off. If they fail to get you within that 10%, it isn't because you didn't have baseline haste. They failed to get the interaction of all things right.

As everyone does at expansion time, you are living in the now.


Edit: And if they gave agility based classes 10% crit just because "it feels right" I would be quite surprised, even though that's what they are telling you.

[Maegor]

That's what he's saying about crit though. Right now there isn't any baked interaction with crit other than inq providing +10%. There also isn't any indication of crit being tied to anything to help boost its value, the only thing that boosts its value now is the amp trink. Conversely, haste has a huge built in interaction with our class because of SoB.

He is talking about the now, because the devs have stated they like where ret pallies are mechanically now, and haven't been specific if they are talking about "now in alpha" or "now in live". If they mean in alpha, then we haven't seen any datamined info that makes any of us think there are new, unique mechanics to the class, that makes people see how they can make the stats "equal", other than what he said and individualizing all conversion factors for the stats by spec, which seems an artificial way to make stats "equal".

[Fredzilla]

And if he's talking about live, barring any changes to the scaling of SoB with haste, or them just throwing a haste buff at us, we're going to slow down a bunch back to where we were in t14, which wasn't particularly fun or engaging. I don't have problems, per say, with how we are right now in this tier, but losing a bunch of haste and our 4pc with nothing to replace them with is going to hurt us. They can talk about making all stats equal all they want, but without doing what anaxie said and changing how much rating = 1% for crit, for example, or putting in some new interaction with it (say, the idea that CS crits would proc a use of HoW, or what have you), crit will be just as useful to us in t17 as it has been the rest of the game outside of having a thok trinket. That is, not at all really.

And their stated goals for awhile now is to bring all classes in lime with each other, theoretically, and they may be getting better at it, but the difference between the top and bottom specs that people actually raid as now is still quite noticeable. I don't know that trying to balance 2 more stats between all the specs will necessarily make that difference any smaller come WoD.

[Swampmoose]

That's what he's saying about crit though. Right now there isn't any baked interaction with crit other than inq providing +10%. There also isn't any indication of crit being tied to anything to help boost its value, the only thing that boosts its value now is the amp trink. Conversely, haste has a huge built in interaction with our class because of SoB.

He is talking about the now, because the devs have stated they like where ret pallies are mechanically now, and haven't been specific if they are talking about "now in alpha" or "now in live". If they mean in alpha, then we haven't seen any datamined info that makes any of us think there are new, unique mechanics to the class, that makes people see how they can make the stats "equal", other than what he said and individualizing all conversion factors for the stats by spec, which seems an artificial way to make stats "equal".

The same thing I said about above applies to everything you talk about in your first paragraph. It is irrelevant how haste interacts with SoB now or how much crit you have or if it is baked into something. If haste is drastically reduced and they want SoB damage to stay the same, then they change SoB or how it interacts with another stat or stats. What matters is the end result, not the manner in which it is achieved.

"Retribution is in a good place design wise, but their numbers are a little low. This will be addressed in a later tuning pass."

They have stated this recently and in the past so it is safe to assume they mean live, especially given the fact that they have not changed much going toward the alpha. "Design wise" means the spells you use, your cooldowns, holy power use, etc. Doesn't mean they can't add something to the design to alter how spells deal damage on their own or in conjunction with other spells. It just means they like the abilities we have. If haste goes down and haste is a big contributor to those numbers, then they have to tweak their base damage or how strength affects them, etc, to make up for that loss. Aka, tuning phase.

I want to know what all of you care about more. Do you care that you do good dps, or that you have baseline haste?

[anaxie]

Changing SoB would change our mechanics they have no current plans to change anything of ours rather then tuning ability damage up. THUS. We use haste. Not to be condescending or anything Moose but you have very minimal experience with ret in PVe for the last 2 expansions.

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Also Baseline haste goes directly into good DPS sorry to say. our Core design is built around it. No haste No attacks

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And sad to say with ultility pruning and leaving things like Smoke bomb and raid healing CD's on Pures a 10% delta isn't acceptable nor is being grossly unplayable from core mechanics built around a system which no longer exists in the game <gems / Reforge>

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Do you think warriors would have a dps raid spot currently in the game if gems and reforging didn't exist in SoO. LOL no

[Swampmoose]

Changing SoB would change our mechanics they have no current plans to change anything of ours rather then tuning ability damage up. THUS. We use haste. Not to be condescending or anything Moose but you have very minimal experience with ret in PVe for the last 2 expansions.

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Also Baseline haste goes directly into good DPS sorry to say. our Core design is built around it. No haste No attacks

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And sad to say with ultility pruning and leaving things like Smoke bomb and raid healing CD's on Pures a 10% delta isn't acceptable nor is being grossly unplayable from core mechanics built around a system which no longer exists in the game <gems / Reforge>

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Do you think warriors would have a dps raid spot currently in the game if gems and reforging didn't exist in SoO. LOL no

No where, from what I have seen, has anyone stated that there are no current plans to change anything. Please point me to that quote. I quoted above, "Retribution is in a good place design wise" but being in a good place does not mean there cannot be changes made to the abilities that constitute that design.

However, I will play along and assume no changes made to design. Tuning is changing the output of abilities and spells, SoB included, yes? This doesn't have to be "up" as you said, for all abilities. They could very well decrease SoB damage, and increase the damage of other abilities. And just like that, haste loses value.

This isn't a case of needing experience. This is math and design. You don't need an account to discuss it or to see the same overreactions on forums every time a change is announced. This also isn't paladin specific. As much as Paladin's like to think it, you aren't the only class going through change with the stat overhauls.

10% was a number I pulled out of the air. Everyone is going to have an opinion of what is acceptable and what is not. Blizzard will dictate what they think is acceptable, whether you agree or disagree. However, "grossly unplayable" is nothing but fear mongering which is all you ever see.

[anaxie]

No where, from what I have seen, has anyone stated that there are no current plans to change anything. Please point me to that quote. I quoted above, "Retribution is in a good place design wise" but being in a good place does not mean there cannot be changes made to the abilities that constitute that design.

However, I will play along and assume no changes made to design. Tuning is changing the output of abilities and spells, SoB included, yes? This doesn't have to be "up" as you said, for all abilities. They could very well decrease SoB damage, and increase the damage of other abilities. And just like that, haste loses value.

This isn't a case of needing experience. This is math and design. You don't need an account to discuss it or to see the same overreactions on forums every time a change is announced. This also isn't paladin specific. As much as Paladin's like to think it, you aren't the only class going through change with the stat overhauls.

10% was a number I pulled out of the air. Everyone is going to have an opinion of what is acceptable and what is not. Blizzard will dictate what they think is acceptable, whether you agree or disagree. However, "grossly unplayable" is nothing but fear mongering which is all you ever see.

SoB doesn't do damage. It's Called Sanctity of Battle and It's rets core design structure that makes holy power work.

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Rets have a right to fear monger looking at the past and the current present.

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And sorry math holds little water when you clearly have a minimal grasp on the cornerstones of the spec and why we don't desire haste but REQUIRE it.

[Fredzilla]

No where, from what I have seen, has anyone stated that there are no current plans to change anything. Please point me to that quote. I quoted above, "Retribution is in a good place design wise" but being in a good place does not mean there cannot be changes made to the abilities that constitute that design.

However, I will play along and assume no changes made to design. Tuning is changing the output of abilities and spells, SoB included, yes? This doesn't have to be "up" as you said, for all abilities. They could very well decrease SoB damage, and increase the damage of other abilities. And just like that, haste loses value.

This isn't a case of needing experience. This is math and design. You don't need an account to discuss it or to see the same overreactions on forums every time a change is announced. This also isn't paladin specific. As much as Paladin's like to think it, you aren't the only class going through change with the stat overhauls.

10% was a number I pulled out of the air. Everyone is going to have an opinion of what is acceptable and what is not. Blizzard will dictate what they think is acceptable, whether you agree or disagree. However, "grossly unplayable" is nothing but fear mongering which is all you ever see.

For the record, SoB reduces the CD and GCD of several of our abilities (CS/Exo/Judge/HoW...). With low levels of haste (as we saw at the start of MoP and can reasonably expect in the start of WoD), our rotation is very slow, boring, and clunky. We're at an acceptable place now, but that's with 40%+ haste, which, without any changes to SoB scaling (unlikely) or a flat haste buff (probably equally as unlikely), we'll go back to being slow, clunky, and boring. That's not a good design mechanic.

[anaxie]

For the record, SoB reduces the CD and GCD of several of our abilities (CS/Exo/Judge/HoW...). With low levels of haste (as we saw at the start of MoP and can reasonably expect in the start of WoD), our rotation is very slow, boring, and clunky. We're at an acceptable place now, but that's with 40%+ haste, which, without any changes to SoB scaling (unlikely) or a flat haste buff (probably equally as unlikely), we'll go back to being slow, clunky, and boring. That's not a good design mechanic.

Freddie is nicer then I am but yes. What he said essentially.

[Swampmoose]

SoB doesn't do damage. It's Called Sanctity of Battle and It's rets core design structure that makes holy power work.

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Rets have a right to fear monger looking at the past and the current present.

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And sorry math holds little water when you clearly have a minimal grasp on the cornerstones of the spec and why we don't desire haste but REQUIRE it.

Sorry, old habits die hard. Start thinking seal as soon as I see So_. I called SoT SoB a long while after SoB was long gone. Maybe it has been a long time since I've played.

Either way, it goes straight back to math. You want to keep sanctity of battle in a similar place while taking a lot of haste away, you decrease the amount of haste it requires to decrease the CD/GCD by X amount.

People will cry and fear monger regardless. It's pretty much standard amongst wow players. If Ret is so bad, why is this thread 350 pages and why is the Ret MOP thread 3-4 times larger than either the prot or holy thread? Why don't you all go play warlocks? It's because people just want to complain about something. It's in their nature.

For the record, SoB reduces the CD and GCD of several of our abilities (CS/Exo/Judge/HoW...). With low levels of haste (as we saw at the start of MoP and can reasonably expect in the start of WoD), our rotation is very slow, boring, and clunky. We're at an acceptable place now, but that's with 40%+ haste, which, without any changes to SoB scaling (unlikely) or a flat haste buff (probably equally as unlikely), we'll go back to being slow, clunky, and boring. That's not a good design mechanic.

Can I borrow your crystal ball that shows all of these things unlikely to change? And if you expect Sanctity of Battle to remain as is and still affect the CD/GCD in a similar manner, you are going to have to deal with slow, boring, and clunky at the start to allow for stat increases across tiers of gear. Unless to avoid that altogether, they start feeling generous and make Sanctity of Battle a flat decrease to the CD/GCD to keep things more fast paced.

[anaxie]

I was thinking you thought Seal of Blood.

Oh the Glory days of TBC and 3.8 2handers /dream

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Actually many rets have abandoned the spec or quit WoW. It just so happens that ret is my guildty pleasure but I'm a little tiered of the same old show of how Beta goes horrid as fuck for ret while people chime in that it will get changed and beta is beta or I guess in this case Alpha.

What does bitching do? Well for one it lets them know how angry we are going to be if we do not have access to haste and have a slow clunky design. Hopefully this influences design decisions over the course of Beta.

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Fred is perfectly reasonable in his claims until blizzard proves themselves capable of figuring that design out and adding it.

[Zabannith]

Actually many rets have abandoned the spec or quit WoW.

This is a unfortunate fact , think of all the great rets that have quit since wrath and cata, or change classes , like Requital did. I could probably think of at least 5-6 great well known rets that have quit or changed classes since then without much effort , that you just don't see around anymore

[Maegor]

Sorry, old habits die hard. Start thinking seal as soon as I see So_. I called SoT SoB a long while after SoB was long gone. Maybe it has been a long time since I've played.

Either way, it goes straight back to math. You want to keep sanctity of battle in a similar place while taking a lot of haste away, you decrease the amount of haste it requires to decrease the CD/GCD by X amount.

They've been asked about this and basically laughed off making an adjustment to SoB.

People will cry and fear monger regardless. It's pretty much standard amongst wow players. If Ret is so bad, why is this thread 350 pages and why is the Ret MOP thread 3-4 times larger than either the prot or holy thread? Why don't you all go play warlocks? It's because people just want to complain about something. It's in their nature.

This thread is 350 pages because we argue about the weights of stats all the time (I'm super guilty of this). The other reason is there are quite a few good ret in here that are active about helping people even if they are answering the same question they did 5 pages ago.