Post #100: ZOMG Ret!
I was trying to think of an interesting and exciting topic for my 100th post but my brain is total phail this evening. So instead I give you a thread Ghostcrawler has posted on the beta forums addressing the apparent issues with Ret Burst Damage:
Since these threads seem to be proliferating, I figure'd I'd just start a new one. Here is a quick Q&A.
Q: Is Ret OP?
A: Perhaps. We think Ret's dps isn't abnormally high in PvE, and may not even be high in PvP over the course of a long fight. Where we are worried is how much damage Ret can do up front. It's also Holy damage, which isn't a big deal when you're considering a fully sundered mob, but can turn into a lot of damage in PvP.
Q: Are we going to nerf Ret?
A: TO THE GROUND BABY. Okay, not really, but sometimes I can't resist. We'll see how much that quote comes back to haunt me. We will probably be making some changes soon, perhaps even hotfixes. We want to be very surgical about what we do. We don't want to overdo it, and we don't want to hurt their sustained PvE damage. When we've decided, I'll make sure you all know.
Q: Why did it take us this long to admit there was a problem when EVERYONE knew about it?
A: A couple of weeks ago there were some bugs with weapon equipping that caused some problems that of course were being exploited. We didn't want to nerf Ret TO THE GROUND BABY only to discover that the weapon problem was causing 90% of it.
Q: Enough about Ret. Unholy death knights are worse!
A: That wasn't a question, but we think we have Unholy in a better place now. We made some changes to a few deep talents (that the DK community is already aware of, so don't fret) to get Unholy's dps more in line. Also, you aren't going to see any PvP DKs for a long time, so we need to focus on paladins for now.
Q: Hi. Thanks for the update. While you're here, can I ask you all these other offtopic questions about paladins or the game in general?
A: ...
(Source)
Worryingly, this comes off the back of a bugged Live patch version. I hope Blizzard are very careful with this, but I'd be lying if I didn't recall with trepidation the long-term PvP and PvE viability issues because of lvl60 nerfs to TBC talents. So, mechanics changes abound in the next few weeks I think, most likely as hotfixes to stop to QQing.
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7 comments:
I was having a discussion with my brother about this earlier this evening. I really hope they don't nerf us super hard. I will be the first to admit that my damage is a little high right now. However, we are not unstoppable killing machines in PvP, we are just as vulnerable to everything we have been before, ie Kiting, Range, Fear, Silence, etc. Without high burst in PvP, we will be kinda worthless, again. The only class I feel bad for right now are Warriors. They don't stand a chance because they have to stay close to deal damage, and they cannot stunlock me like a rouge. That being said, our burst could come down a little, but hopefully not too much.
PvE, well I can't say I feel bad for anyone in PvE. For once in the history of the game, I got an invite to a Heroic, and they specifically wanted a Ret Pally. It felt great! We need to stay OP for a while to build some cred back up. Then they can balance us down a little on the output, but hopefully they won't remove our sustained dps capability, and hopefully we will be on par with similarly geared melee DPS classes/spec.
My final concern is what happens when we hit 80? Right now things seem crazy, but what are Naxx Rets doing for damage in relation to other DPS classes? On par? OP? If its on par, then things should not change, even with all the QQing. If we are OP still at 80, then a little re-balance may be in order. You've done good so far Blizz, I am enjoying the love, and I have faith that they will do right by us.
Well the nerf came down. I am really anxious to get home now to see what happened to my beloved spec. The change doesn't make much sense, but I see some potential for a positive outcome if it was done right. Look here for the scoop. And my initial QQ.
http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/2008/10/crusader-strike-syndrome-ii.html
Thanks for the heads-up Ryukyu.
Right now, Ret seems to be doing okay in Beta Naxx, but is has to be said that the real min-maxing hasn't taken place. Naxx is, by any reasonable standard, a pretty simple series of encounters to those people who have experienced BT and above (or indeed Naxx 1.0).
The change to DS, if it goes ahead, will probably reduce Paladin DPS by something like 200-300 DPS on single-target encounters. It also means that DS is flat worse than CS for single target encounters, and doesn't change Paladin PvP burst damage all that much except against Warriors and Druids (and perhaps Shaman). If this is the extent of the 'nerf' then I'm okay with it for now pending lvl80 raid DPS testing, especially given that it will now definitely be useable whilst silenced. Unfortunately it put pay to Ret Off-tanking aspirations, which is a shame.
That said, I'm sure that there are many more fixes to come, not least of which is a fix to the JoL and JoW debuff proc rates. It will be interesting to see how things roll out of the next few patches.
When was the nerf applied?..
When I was playing last night, I noticed things dying faster, than pre-3.0, but not by a huge amount. (I might not be setup correctly however, just learning a new rotation).
If we are worse than where we were at with 2.4.3, then I'll simply drop my pally again for my hunter.
And if the chat fills to OMGRet back to LOLRet, then I may just quit this game.
I'm sick of playing a class that everyone else hates, and either QQs about or LOLs about.
Just and update. I played around with my Pally this morning. She is doing right around 100dps less on a practice dummy in SW. Sustained DPS loss doesn't seem to be huge.
How about we just roll SoB/SoM into SoComm and remove the self damage. Bye-bye burst damage. Because really, it seems to be the SoComm procs that are causing a ton of the damage. If it was just smaller, more reliable chunks, that would fix both PvE sustained DPS and PvP burst DPS.
I was playing around on my pally over the past two days on Live.
I'll admit, it was a rush on day 1 when I could get to 1k sustained DPS (and never running out of mana, got to love judgments of the wise).
So last night I decided to see if the changes would affect me. (Was doing 1k dps @ lvl68 with in 60 blues and ~25% crit) I noted that I was still decent so that it wasn't terribly obvious that I could kill anything but I felt the nerf. I lost about 200-250 overall DPS. (even now at 70 with still crap blues and the season 2 sword) I can barely hope to keep up to ~800 DPS.
So while I am inclined to QQ over the whole thing, my roommate on his hunter (beast, lvl 68 in blues) is about 50-100 DPS behind me and expects to out DPS me at 70. That kinda pissed me off, but he reminded me that in his case all a hunter is good for is damage and he should be doing more.
So overall, I am glad that I can at least do some DPS in PvE, though PVP is kind of meh again.
I kinda wish I hadn't been given a taste of 1k DPS, because now I want it back.
If you want to see that 1K+ dps, find a good tank that is comfortable with AOE. Then you can go to town. Just make sure that you are judging immediately at the start of the fight to get as much crit as possible. From there just use all of your abilities as they come off of cooldown. Priority should be CS->Judge->Conc->DS, but you won't really be able to do a rotation like that, so just which ever one is up. You will have a lot of dead time between damage ability cooldowns. I suggest getting Healbot and top off people when you get Art of War procs between your damage rotation. That part is tricky and I am still working on it.
I am sitting at about 1300-1400 dps right now with some new gear. Most of it is easy to get now with Heroics and raids being detuned. Check out MaxDPS.com. They have yet to steer me wrong as far as what to upgrade. At that, I am still wearing 7 Blues and 1 Green. So I have 50% more gear to get to purple before I can really see what I can do. You will get there, don't worry.
Oh yeah, on your gear make sure your priority is Hit->Strength->AP->Agility/Crit->Stamina->Haste->Armor Pen. Getting hit capped is a big thing. Worry about everything else later. And don't stack int, mana should not be a problem, so its not really needed. I only have like 3800-4100 mana and I don't really have mana issues.
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