i was going to post this in another thread but it got rather long so i figured i would just start a new discussion just to **** off all the forum *****. ^.-
im really excited about all the changes i see comming for ret, but the biggest buff to Ret's raid viability i think is the raid wide aura, and the buffs to Ret Aura.
sure they took our 10% holy damage buff, but the math has been done enough to know that it only added about 2-3% to our total/overall DPS. as holy damage is roughly 25% of our total damage (as low as 20%) and +10% of 25% is 2.5% to total DPS. our 3% haste to ret aura not only makes up for that for our personal DPS, but it adds another 3% of something actually usefull to our entire raid. Prot pallies wont miss the +10% now that they have a stam to SD conversion talent.
overall, its a wonderfull change, even if we just break even on personal DPS. +5% to the raid instead of only plus 2% to the group.
the next big buff is that our Angel Wings is our new bread and butter. no forberance, reduced CD to equall that of most trinkets, and half the damage you do will by pass mitigation. looks like ill have to change that Exicutioner enchant on my weapon, but over all, HUGE buff in both PvE and PvP. even if they reduced the total damage increase from 30%-20%.
another thing i noticed. having alot of Mana will actually nerf Ret DPS . . our main DPS ability/abilities, now take a percent of our total mana. However, the talant that returns mana is based off our damage. so the less mana we have, the more effective healing pots will be, and other MP5 effects. a lower the better for PvE i think. most of our mana will come i think from Judging.
and the last thing im really excited about is that Devine Str in the Prot tree is huge, and far more usefull then if it was in the Ret tree. it lets us get deeper into the prot tree for nice PvP buffs for free. and the fact that its now 15% instead of 10% is just that much more AP.
and on the PvP side, having yet another intant attack is simply overpowered. this will make many people very angry i think, as i can/have already one shot people with crusader strike + auto swing + SoComm Proc combo (all with only one button press, and very intant). now after that you can simply stun > storm > CS > judge to make any 1vs1 a complete tragady for the other guy.
and the question of the day. do the effects of Heart of the Crusader stack with other pallies? cause i'd imagine that alot of Prot pallies will be going for that talent, and maybe some holy builds. just with the tank alone + ret pally thats +6% to raid crit, but now that SotC is gone, that leaves only JoW, JoL, JoJ to apply the +3% crit, for 9% total if it does, maybe more if it works with vengance. with the ret pally refreshing with CS.
Edited, Jul 18th 2008 3:12pm by RuenBahamut