And here are the Ret changesFollow

I should probably clarify for Gaudion here the fact that almost no-one here thinks ret is perfectly balanced at the moment. We're all aware that it needs more work done before it's genuinely competitive rather than just overpowered. What I personally disagree with here is what you think needs to be nerfed. Our mana return or our off-healing ability are very minors factors in our superiority in PvP at the moment, and several of the elements of survivability you're mentioning like LoH and bubble are class elements. Nerfing them would directly and negatively affect the other two specs. Survivability isn't a ret thing, it's a paladin thing.

I think Blizz is on the right track. Smoothing out a ret pally's burst makes them less one-sided in PvP while retaining their sustained DPS in PvE situations. Nerfing JotW is uncalled for, because at the moment it's a stable mana return which is ideal for PvE. If I was going to nerf anything it would be the high amount of unmitigated damage we can put out when wings is up, and the high critical strike damage which that's based on. The new dot we're getting will hopefully be the same overall damage as the burst we currently have, but spread out over six to ten seconds rather than in one GCD.

And really, if you want to convince the people here to agree with you you'd stop treating them like a piece of sh*t you found on your shoe. You can't walk into someone's house, slap them in the face with your ********* and then expect them to agree with you, regardless of what point you're trying to make.

Edited, Oct 26th 2008 6:09am by zepoodle

well they have been. thats the point of this whole thread. they will rebalance when the mojority of the population gets to 80.



outside of a 5-man this doesnt really apply. in a raid, if a Ret pally's heal is required chances are it is futile. a Ret pally switching to healer may benefit if a healer goes down, but your 2k on the MT prob wont change the outcome. save that 1.5s and get to a place where you can DI.

if you start messing with HoProt and HoSalv you may be causing more harm than help. leave the aggro management to your MT, unless called for.



is there any class now that DOESN'T offer utility. name the class, i will give you 3 combat raid functions outside the primary role.

not the best choice for raids or boss fights. but, aside from CC traps and shots, dmg debuffs, raid buffs, and a minor pet tank. you can also consider:
-Hunting Party(Replenshment)
-Side effect from having snakes out(more targets)
-Improved AOE effectiveness
-Add control
-Misdirect
-Viper Sting
-Tranq Shot(should they make it viable again)
-Silencing Shot

one would argue their primary role would be single target dmg, but they offer raid utility as well. next.

In a raid? Yes. Pre-3.0.2, nobody was downing Brutallis with their Ret Pally "throwing clutch heals". By and large, the theme of raids in TBC was specialization. You brought the "utility" classes along as were necessary--one Ret Pally, one Enhancement Shaman, a Spriest or two so they could give the other casters mana--and the you went to the number generators. There is a reason why Hunters, Rogues, and Warlocks made up all DPS spots--yes, literally, all of them after the functional pre-reqs were met--in the hardest end-game raids, and it sure as hell wasn't their utililty. Likewise, you had a Warrior tank without question, and you had your Resto Shaman on raid-healing duty, not as tank-healers.


Because they gave you those tools specifically for PvP and soloing. Not all talents/spells/abilities are meant to be used in all aspects of the game at all times.

Edited, Oct 27th 2008 2:36pm by Gaudion

You're not getting an obscene damager nerf. You're getting a very reasonable damage nerf and a very much needed longevity nerf. You'll still be perfectly viable in every facet of the game as DPS, you just might have to actually pay attention to your mana now. Which is horrible, because, I mean, like... no other class has to do that, right?

It's also quite possible you'll now be killed by things not starting with "A" and ending in "rcane Mage" in PvP. Which, again, is just... horrible. Horrible.

You must not have a dps wpn then as HotR should be doing more threat than SoV. In my MT gear a full stack of SoV ticks for 270 or 90dps. My HotR noncrits for 897 every 6sec, factoring in a 15% crit rate, HotR is doing aproximately 172dps nearly double that of SoV. Tps is the same as they are both holy dam.

In threat gear I'm seeing 110dps from SoV and 198dps from HotR. I haven't seen a warr yet that can touch my threat and have been consistently pulling off of them without trying hard.

But you are correct this is a very poorly aimed nerf and almost makes it necessary to spec SotP to get back 15% of the seal/judgement dam.

***If you meant Sov+JoV then yes you are correct, together they do slightly more dps than HotR(JoV - 5%crit rate, noncrit for 654 in MT gear - 86 dps when judged every 8sec), 176 SoV+JoV vs 172 HotR.

Seems to me all you’ve done is outline why balancing around pvp in a pve world fails. It’s a real shame that a pve game made classes and their dynamics to play in pve just to have everything turned upside down and have to deal with issues that arise in balancing a pvp game. It’s kind of like there is a basic class design flaw when it comes to this balancing. Every time they try to improve it in one area they mess it up in the other. I’m sure there’s a place to look this up but I wonder just what the ratio is for people that play arena and those you do not (I might even let you throw BGs in there too because I know that ratio is going to be lop sided even though we all know balancing has nothing to do with bg’s).

I do kind of have to wonder how your pally is having a mana surplus in your fictitious pvp set up you keep complaining about. I mean to have to kill a pally three times and him not use holy light is hard to imagine and last time I checked HL still eats up mana rather quick. Not to mention all those cleanses, blessing changing, flash heals, blah blah blah is far from an ideal, mana conserving rotations. Does LoH burn your mana pool still? Are these battles going to last long enough this day to use both bubbles? Have you fought a boomkin lately (mmm they perfect anti-pally)? Do you know how to kite? We are still pretty ranged limited no?

It kind of seems to me that they want us to be able to throw out small flash heals while fighting like they did in warcrafts before WoW. Or they did…now not.

PS. I’ve been reading these boards a while now (at least a year, maybe two) and I would like to see Gaudion post something that wasn’t about mocking ret. Seems like the only time you post is to talk negative about ret. It wouldn’t even have to be something positive, just ANYTHING other than a ret bashing. What is your thing with that? I hope I’m wrong but I’m having a hard time remembering any positive constructive post from you….about anything, at least on the pally forums.

...And I think their dps is a bit high in pve. A ret in blues shouldn’t be able to out dps a “tradition” dps class in epics.

Yes, everything does scale with sp, but only judgments scale better with sp than ap. Every other ability scales equally with ap. So with the upcoming nerf to judgement dam, it makes it even better to find a real dps wpn.

Easy sailor, with all respect to Gaudion I don't think his was the deciding vote in the Great Internet Debate which finally convinced Blizzard to nerf Retribution.

I concur the nerf-bat was badly aimed. It is a knee-jerk reflex which on top of the crit damage reduction is a real kick in the teeth. If they base their new Righteous Vengeance talent on Deep Wounds then it will be a six-second duration, and since I crit more often than once every six seconds on my Ret it will be a substantial DPS nerf, mark my words.

Retribution will end up spanked into crapness at 70, just before WotLK hits so it doesnt affect too many raiding weeks. This is what will happen if they pursue their current development line, crit damage will end up overlapping with ~50% of other crit damage and that's a big deal.

As a result, expect Ret DPS to take a firm and unjustified nosedive just before Wrath and get a rebalance upwards in about three to four months after the devs have all gone down to Tijuana for a month, doing body-shots off hookers after 'crunch-time'.

I dont really care if Ret 'deserves' a nerf or not, but mathematically speaking it isnt possible for Ret to keep reasonable DPS with the proposed changes, and I'm talking safe, PvE, sustained DPS here.

It's typical reactionary mistakes again without much devtime to sort out the mess, and once again Ret will have to wait a substantial length of time for the un-nerf. Tis life.

Gaudion, we all know that it's overpowered. We're just concerned that Blizzard is going to nerf the wrong things, which they seem to be doing. Reducing our mana supply isn't going to make us less dangerous in arena matches, and reducing seal damage unfairly affects the other trees.

We're not gnashing our teeth because we got a nerf everyone here saw coming, we're gnashing because it's a sh1tty nerf that won't solve the problem.

Yes, you do. But admitting you're overpowered doesn't make you magnanimous if you're subsequently unwilling to weather a nerf in order to balance you.


I have a wild theory that the Retribution community as a whole would be unwilling to accept any nerf aimed their way. That's not to say I'm picking on you; I'd expect most players of any class in any game to react the same way, but you've hardly done a service to yourself by even pretending to be objective in this thread.


No, but nerfing, by necessity, works the same way as buffing. They have to start somewhere.


I don't think the problem the Bliz devs have with the Paladin at 80 is their damage in PvE. I haven't heard anything like that said concerning the incoming nerfs. The problem with Ret at 80 was their unlimited resources and heavy burst damage in PvP.


Again, the problem with Ret in PvE at 80 is their resources. Blizzard has stated time and again that they want resource management to be a bigger part of this game. However, Ret got buffed in the complete opposite direction. Without going into unnecessary detail about the other two mechanics (I'll assume everyone here understands their limitations), the limitation of the mana mechanic is that it is a finite resource that will eventually run out, and it is the challenge to the player to stretch that resource for the duration of a single battle.

Ret wasn't facing that limitation in any situation. Not soloing, not in PvP, not in parties nor raids. Not at 70 nor at 80. They're limited only by the GCD and cooldowns of their abilities.

As for damage, a nerf to DPS anywhere will inevitably affect both the PvP and PvE aspects of the game. Blizzard's challenge is to attempt to find as acceptable a medium as possible that will allow Ret to do enough sustained damage to be viable in PvE and enough burst damage to be viable in PvP, and they need to be able to do said damage with sufficient resources that are still finite. Maybe the round of incoming nerfs won't accomplish that perfectly, but neither was the current state of things perfect (for anyone other than Ret Pallies).

You and zepoodle claim the nerfs are poorly aimed and poorly implemented. Alright. Fine. I'll entertain that notion for a while. But you tell me: how should they nerf Ret Pallies in order to balance them? The issues are burst damage that's too high and too much efficiency, so obviously the areas that need to be addressed are damage done in time allotted and efficiency. So you tell me what adjustments you think should be made and would be willing to accept as reasonable.

Edited, Oct 29th 2008 12:12pm by Gaudion

Actually, a blue post (namely, GhostCrawler) on the o-boards actually mentioned that specifically. From what was on the front news page on alla a few days ago:

"As I tried to explain before, we concluded a couple of weeks ago that Retribution was doing too much damage in PvP. We tried to nerf the burst damage through the previous changes to Divine Storm etc. Unfortunately, those changes didn't prove sufficient. Not only were paladins still destroying other classes in PvP, but we also found their PvE damage, even at level 80, was too high. Many classes were concluding they were too weak based on comparing their numbers to paladin numbers (and to be fair, hunters and in some cases mages and warriors). "

Here's the link if you want it:
http://wow.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=15629



Granted, I agree 33% was too high for JotW as with a basic rotation of Seal, Consecration, Judgement and Hammer of Wrath when the mob's heal got low (my ret pally is only level 44) I basically would never go OOM. HOWEVER, 15% is far too low. I did some math and from what I'm seeing, and what some other people are seeing, JotW isn't even giving us back 15% right now, it's somewhere more in the neighbourhood of 12%. A Seal costs me about 12.6% (13% if you round up, which I'll start doing from now on), Judgement costs 5%, and Consecration costs 24%.

Other classes certainly have to worry about mana management, but at the same thing they have "luxuries" we don't. MP5 gear, INT on gear which helps with regen, talents that offer mana regeneration even while casting. We don't get that. Sure, if we were fully raid buffed with things like Arcane Brilliance, Gift of the Wild and Blessing of the Kings, working off of Judgements of the Wise, Judgement of Wisdom and you have Shamans along with Mana Springs totem and a Shadow Priest with Vampiric Touch, mana probably won't be an issue. But what about in 5-man groups, solo play or things like BGs and arenas. I'm sure classes will really be afraid of our auto-attacking powers when we get Mana Burned twice and have no way to restore it (considering Judgement spells cost mana too).

Alright. The primary issue is that a ret paladin deals the majority of his damage in the first four seconds of combat, usually with judgment, white hit, DS, CS, and a white hit, not including SoC procs. DS has a long cooldown and no longer deals a vast amount of damage, and more importantly is now subject to regular avoidance talents, so it can be dodged/parried whatever. Importantly, the judgment ignores armour, so at this point in time it's actually our hardest-hitting ability. Also noteworthy is that DS currently procs seals, namely SoC. The massive numbers people were reporting post-patch were due to unmitigated DS damage, with a bonus crit chance, also proccing SoC. With RV the way it is the critical hit damage was pretty gigantic.

Two major things changed with the expansion: we gained essentially another instant attack with DS, which is just as worthwhile against one target as against four, and we gained a buttload of spellpower from Sheath of Light. The importance of the spellpower change is that it affects our judgments. A retadin could open with a stun or incapacitate, then get an instant crit with the ensuing judgment. Now that we're packing about 800 spellpower each, the judgments hit pretty hard, especially considering that they ignore armour. This can't be changed without altering Sheath of Light. I'm open to that, so long as it isn't made worthless. A quarter of our attack power seems more reasonable, or even 20%.

The other point, which I'm surprised has gotten very little attention, is the change to AW. It no longer causes forbearance, opening us to the situation where a retadin simply bubbles (oh no he's invincible), pops wings, and does the damage rotation described above, now with a 20% bonus. Not only that but with Sanctified Wrath, a two-point talent, it has its cooldown reduced by a third and ignores 50% of a target's mitigation, which means his armour - this is hell for disc priests. Not only that, but the critical strike chance of HoW - which is important to a retadin, as I'll get to later - is increased by 50%, making 3k-4k HoW hits the norm.

The reason why HoW was vital was because the damage rotation I described above will not, barring extraordinary gear differences, actually kill someone. It will deal a ******** of damage but if you've got 10k-ish health and a decent amount of resilience you'll weather it. The problem there was, for the first few weeks, weathering it wasn't enough - you had to weather it and stay above 35%, which was a lot harder. Ret pallies do almost all their damage up-front. Then they have to wait a little while for stuff to cool down. All they really had to do before this patch was get you to 34%, and then they could chuck off a 4k ranged execute that bypassed armour. This is why people were dying so fast. Not only that, but if you could pop wings, you could conceivably kill someone in that ten seconds, not because of the bonus damage but because all your damage ignored mitigation. ****, you could even make yourself invulnerable just for laughs.

They've changed HoW back to its original position at 20%, which is pretty much the only good thing about this patch. It does make a massive difference. What needs to be done next is that Sanctified Wrath needs to be either split into two separate talents or removed entirely. This talent isn't necessary. It makes an already mean ability hit even harder. It's a straight up handjob to our burst DPS, and people were complaining about our burst DPS, so I think nerfing this is the right place to start.

Secondly, our judgments are hitting incredibly hard. I honestly think SoL should be scaled back. Instead of doing this, Blizzard has blanket-nerfed the seal system, which had the same effect but unfairly hurt the other two trees.

Anyway, if anyone wants to point out any problems with the above they're welcome to. This is just my reasoning from a few weeks playing the tree.