Hello Nerf ForestFollow

the nerfs to ret where needed. even PvE side. (although the nerf to JotW is alittle much, i expect it to get a bump up to 20% base)

for instance. i ran kara with my guild 2 weeks ago. i was 23% of the total DPS . . .

i pulled over 1900 DPS on Illhoof, but, thats a AOE fight with demons and ret has alot of AOE now, so maybe thats a bad example. however . .
i then pulled over 1800 DPS on Shade, which, even though is a undead, was still Single target fight. so lets look at Nether Spite, No Blue beam . . .
i did +1700 DPS on Nether Spite with no blue beam, non undead/demon, single target boss fight.

at first i was kinda sad at these nerfs, but now that i think about it. i like to be recognized for my skill and knowledge, and not the speed of my face roll.

Edited, Oct 28th 2008 12:36pm by RuenBahamut

I don't understand. These changes are so big. I thought Blizzard tested stuff out before they changed it? Having to nerf things this bad makes it look like they didn't test anything at all.

We're all wondering o.O

You think of the crap people were seeing in BGs on patch day, and it really makes you wonder if the testers on the PTR do any testing.

from what i understand it was 10 time worse on the PTR, so i believe they actually did test alot. Ret was just THAT broken.

i mean, 17k judgments anyone?

blizzard makes an effert to make sure that talents dont get worse with gear.

if the DOT doesnt stack, then that would fall into that catagory. if for some reason it doesnt stack, expect a fix or a change.

I don't follow your logic at all... they're not doing anything to your white damage dps. except at 80 on raid bosses in particular where their armor will be increased by 10%. this won't even be a 10% nerf though. as ret we'll only notice it a little.

the nerf going on now is 20% to our judgements and seal only. the 2 crit damage nerfs are both supoosed to have a positive or no effect. the change to all damage is really a positive sustaned dps buff while being a burst nerf. the DoT may be a small nerf depending on how it's implemented, but its intended to be a sustained dps buff, not a nerf.

all in all if you continue using SoC or SoV/SoCor you will notice aprx. 6% overall damage reduction. this is based on SoC/Judgement being roughly 30% of your total damage. if you use SoB/SotM you'll notice about a 4% drop overall. with the crit damage changed to all damage I think you'll only see about 5% reduction with SoC and about 3% with SotM/B overall. my numbers may be off, but this is what it seems like it will be for me. also the DoT is supposed to happen in such a way that its a buff. if it does then your bursts will have effectively been reduced substantially, but sustained dps will actually be right around where it was before the nerfs. they want to being us down a little in dps though so they probably won't make the DoT that much of a buff.

either way the dps you see on your character sheet is only showing you your weapon dps modified by AP, both of which will be completely unaffected by these changes. AP is actually getting a 1AP buff from Blessing of Might... won't likely notice it on your character sheet, though lol... it just means your BoM won't be overwritten by battleshout unless their BS is improved and you don't have imp BoM. but in that case you'd want theirs anyway.

Tool, I know that is the theory, but the current implementation of Righteous Vengeance is frustrating. A crit bonus that was applied immediately is now applied over 8 seconds and doesnt stack, meaning you get less benefit from the actual crit.

If it was 4 seconds I could live with it, 6 seconds wuold be ok, as it is it's just a bit poor.

It has a longer duration (and therefore less effectiveness) than either Ignite or Deep Wounds, is a much more difficult to obtain talent and unlike those talents (which are basically 'supplementary' DPS) it is replacing a primary DPS talent. I actually don't like claiming that the sky is falling in, but I cant come up with a single theorycraft scenario where the new RV comes close to the old one in sustained DPS unless you drop all crit gear and focus entirely on AP.

EDIT: Horribly rough statistical approximation follows
It's easy; if the DoT procs only on Divine Storm and Judgements like the old one, it'll be alright I guess, because per 8sec DoT (at 30% crit) you will have a 91% (58% judge + 33% DS) chance to proc a DoT, and therefore approximately (statnerds suppress your burning vigor please) a 19% chance to get two crits in one rotation with those two attacks alone. I get that it's a rough number, but the full statistical treatment doesnt deviate much and this isnt EJ.

Since the two cooldowns are asynchronous and precess by 2sec every rotation, the overwriting should occur (over a long fight) at an even spread between 0% and 100% of the DoT duration, for an average of 40-50% effective reduction. Applied against the previous number, we arrive at a 8.5-9.5% reduction in overall talent effectiveness due to overwrites, although in reality this number is higher as Judgement (weaker) will overwrite DS (stronger) a lot more often than the other way around, but modelling that statistically is a *****.

This will also get significantly worse as you increase in crit%, and every raidbuff you get will also reduce the effectiveness of the talent. In an endgame raid at 70 I've seen Retadins with 40% crit before no problem, which would give us the depressing figure of -15% effectiveness. If they reduced the duration to 6sec this problem would be cut in half, as the number of 6sec windows occupied by DS AND Judgements is a lot smaller.

What's ironic is that if they hadnt nerfed Judgements it would be around the same damage as the old talent setup as they intended. Post Seal nerf it does quite a bit less, as the Judge overwrites are so poor.

If they make it stack up like Deep Wounds does (applying old damage to new ticks) I'll be completely happy. Oh and unlike Deep Wounds / Ignite, not only does it scale backwards with crit it also doesnt scale with Haste at all.

Edited, Oct 30th 2008 11:40pm by Sinstralis

I'll be ok with the new talent as long as it sets people on fire. I want to see flames coming from them as long as the DoT is ticking.