Did Ret get nerfed?Follow

I was reading over the patch notes and I just wanted to get a plain answer if you guys think Ret Pallies got nerfed. Typically I'd pop Seal of Command, Hammer of Justice, use judgement of light, Exorcism, rinse and repeat to mob is dead.
I read the patch notes and it sounds kinda nerfed now.

Yeah my Seal of Command judgements were popping 900+ damage crits, (I'm currently lvl 48) now they crit for only 350ish.

I feel insignificant now T_T

come back and ask this question again when you get your 4 sec Crusader Strike.

The 10% boost number from EJ seems reasonable. On dailies, without respeccing (hell, I didn't even have SoV on my actionbar at first), I was maybe 10% below 3.1 killing speed. After respec, on a target that takes some killing and isn't just bursted down before SoV can get into full swing, 3.2 damage will have to be at least somewhat ahead of 3.1.

I'll need to configure Power Auras to remind me only to fit in Exorcism if there's an Art of War proc. Admittedly, that's 90+ percent of the time, but it feels funny (and is probably counterproductive) to reach for instant-cast Exorcism and have it not be there.

Ya... or he used Martyr...

But, how would I know, I'm playing Horde. ;)



And to the topics question, no.
As it feels right now, it's on the same level as before the patch. At least for me.

You shouldn't be "casting" exorcism, there's a good loss of dps time each time you cast right there as your comment states, (sans Art of War) makes it insta-cast and it is almost always up in my experience so far.

Additionally, particularly in heroics, and I tried this for the first time today which has been suggested, to use seal of righteousness for trash and vengeance for bosses. Trash dies too quickly to gain the full benefit of the vengeance stacks. I tried both through three straight heroic farms and my dps was definitely better with SoR on trash and SoV for bosses. You'll gain dps in trash with divine storm and consecrate as per the usual anyway.

Ironically, two bosses in H-UP that disengage for a time while you fight adds lost the vengeance stack, but I continued with vengeance on them anyway. Overall my dps in heroics had been around 2.8k or more prior to 3.2, and today overall it hovered around 2.7k - not too bad I guess. Should improve on longer raid bosses. Also I had no buffs other than my own and the other dps GAINED buffs from me.

I believe I tried SoComm for a minute but got scurred and went back to SoR. Will still have to continue testing. Just remember to swap seals on bosses, I forgot a couple times mid boss lol.

IN a way, the changes "feel" a little more like we have to pay attention and I can see more of a divide from retlol's and good ret players even though its still basically a fcfs facerollish if you will.

EDIT - Just a side note -

on trash tab target is your friend, and when I see my current target getting close to the hammer of wrath mark, I start spamming it to ensure it gets off and quickly tab target to do the same on other trash. MAkes a difference, reaction time.

Sacred shield and flash HOT is a nice little bonus too.

Only time will tell on raids, since I havent gotten in since the changes, but I am holding my breath, as I can ramp up my damage on dummies, its great with SoV, but then again I can just do it for ten minutes, most stuff dies too quickly. We shall see.



Edited, Aug 7th 2009 7:17pm by spicyoctopusroll

Sub-standard healers in Dungeons?

Oh f---ing YES, I used SoComm.

There were Heroics I did, where the Healer was _barely_ capable of keeping the Tank alive (and the tank was barely geared for the dungeon too).

Not only was I pulling too much threat with Martyr, but I was also hurting myself HP-wise, and the healer wasn't able to heal me. And Art of War wasn't giving me enough HP back through FoL (not to mention I was near running out of mana on many fights).

I switched to SoComm, yes, my DPS dropped a little, but at least I wasn't dying in Trash Pulls because the Healer/Tank couldn't handle it all.

In Solo PvE, Martyr was a mana-sink. I had to keep stopping to heal myself after battles, or blow FoLs during battles (extra keys to hit) when SoComm killed non-elites just as quickly, with no healing required at all!

So yes, I used SoComm in PvE.

Now, if we had a GOOD healer and a GOOD tank, then I used Martyr of course. But I wasn't gonna rack up repair bills just to wave my epeen recount scores. It just isn't worth it. And for that matter, a couple of the dungeons, I topped the chart, except for a Naxx-25 geared hunter, while using SoComm, at 2200 DPS with no Naxx gear at all.

Edited, Aug 7th 2009 11:15pm by Zariamnk

In theory, ret seems to have been nerfed by c30% on first glance (see many other threads why c30%)but I personally don't 'feel' that is has been nerfed quite as dramatically as it appears at first glance. Ret now has practically zero burst but SoV can be quite devastating when ramped up - I slaughtered Chillmaw(tm) much easier than before using it for instance.

SoC is a bit lackluster, its 36% of WD is how SoB used to be when it was Horde only and its judgement damage is now.....unimpressive, SoR's damage per hit is smaller but its judgement damage is better than SoC, by a little.

Mobs still die alarmingly quickly when soloing

Spicy:

After two more days of playing I've gotten over most of my initial mistakes/timing issues/etc. The one thing that does still bug me every now and then is when I still do get the "casting" time for Exorcism (i.e. I've blown Art of War, and don't realize it in my sequence). At least now I'm aware of it and can react accordingly.

After grabbing the ilvl 226 ret libram, and 3x Naxx10 upgrades, I'm now at a constant 2450-2500 in heroics.

BTW - thanks for the idea on SoR. I'll have to give that a go later!

-Muadiab

Someone already answered that:

Frankly, even if it wasn't bugged you would still use Righteousness for pvp. An extra seal proc (which can't crit) every 8 seconds isn't godly, it's only 600-800 extra damage. Seals of the Pure turned righteousness into a decently powerful seal. You've probably notived the judgement is really powerful, usually over 5k. Doesn't seem much compared to 10k conflgrates flying about, but ours hits at the same time as a melee swing and two seals. I'm having a lot of fun in pvp atm.

I've tried command, the seal proc is nice but the judgement is godawful. Corruption is fine if you are chasing around a healer trying to chop them down, it builds up to a ton of damage. With stoicism (and the fact a priest has to *spend global CDs to remove a single stack of the DoT*) it's godly against healers. But for general smashing, righteousness is great.

Very nice! Gratz on the deeps and the sexy libram. Sounds like you are about where you should be heroic dps current gear wise. A tip on exorcism, if you hit it and it starts to cast, cancel-cast (basically just move your toon a smidge forward or back or side to side to stop casting if that makes sense, cant recall but I think jumping works too) it and quickly hit the next thing that is up, if its aoe trash - DS, crusader strike or judge (hammer of wrath if target is about to die). Every little bit helps :D

EDIT - I also try to make sure wings are up every time I can have them up even on trash. Then again in my old age I have tended to forget from time to time in heroics :(

You probably are aware of all of this, but you never know.

Edited, Aug 10th 2009 2:22am by spicyoctopusroll

Thanks I couldn't remember.



Excellent point. Thank you for adding that. I find that that some, unfortunately, do not realize or think of things like this.