Yay, 3.2.2 Bug Fixes!

The Test Realm Patch notes have been updated to include a couple of crucial bug fixes for Paladins.

Seal of Corruption and Seal of Vengeance: These seals will now only use the debuff stacks generated by the attacking paladin to determine the damage done by the seal and by the judgement.

Seal of Vengeance is currently quite a bit buggy. Individual debuff stacks are accumulated for each SoV user, but size of the damaging proc isn't determined properly. When there is only 1 stack on the target the damage of the weapon proc is scaled by the size of this stack, which can cause some rather interesting effects with Divine Storm when you have a Prot and Ret Paladin in the same raid. Great huh?

Well, not so great. You see, the flip side to this bug is that when there are two or more debuff stacks on a particular mob the size of the proc is determined by the smallest stack size. This isn't so bad for the Ret Paladin as long as he is the only Ret Paladin in the raid as he's always the slowest at accumulating stacks anyway, but it can serve to throttle the threat generation of any Tankadins in the raid.

So, rejoice! A useful bug fix. But wait, there's more!

Paladin Tier-9 DPS 2-Piece Set Bonus: Now grants the correct chance for Righteous Vengeance ticks to be critical strikes.

Not many people have two pieces of Tier 9 as yet, but those cool dudes at Elitist Jerks discovered that the 2-Piece Tier 9 wasn't working properly. Here's that bonus:

2: Your Righteous Vengeance talent now has a chance for its' damage to be critical strikes.

After a number of exhaustive tests on target dummies and raids it was determined that the current chance for your RV dot to crit is 3-4% with this bonus. Clearly, this is blinking low, and makes 4* Tier 8.5 a little better than 2*ilvl 232 Tier 9. It's presumed that the 'correct' crit rate is your melee crit rate, which should be upwards of 40% raid-buffed. Even if, for some idiotic reason, spell crit rate was used the crit rate for the DoT would only be ~5% less. With a crit rate in this ballpark Tier 9 2-piece is a must have.

This may also impact on the optimum FCFS rotation. Currently Crusader Strike takes priority over Judgement, especially if you have the Tier 8 four-piece bonus. The two abilities have always been nip and tuck though especially in the age of Tier 7, and as gear level increases so Judgement has closed the gap. Because Tier 9's set bonii tends to benefit Judgement more than CS, prioritising the former over the latter may result in a higher DPS. This is especially the case in encounters which involve a lot of target switching.

Eeek, I may have to update that chart soon.

Two Piece Tier 9 also increases the relative value of Crit Rating. You won't be stacking it in favour of Str, Hit or Expertise, but you may want to consider a +10 Str/+10 Crit orange gem if it grants you a socket bonus of more than +4 Strength.

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There is one slight disappointment, but it still counts as a bug-fix (or exploit fix) I guess.

Libram of Obstruction: The buff to block value from this relic is now exclusive with the buff to block value from Libram of the Sacred Shield; it is impossible to have both buffs at once.

Libram of the Sacred Shield: The block value buff from this relic has been increased to match its item level.

Relics: All buffs provided by relics (idols, librams, totems and sigils) now share an exclusive category such that gaining a buff from one of these items will remove all other buffs gained from items in this category.

No more hot-swapping Librams for damage or mitigation any more, not that it was ever a huge issue on the damage front because it also reset your swing timer and activated a GCD.

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No-one knows when 3.2.2 is due. The more cynical amongst us may be of the opinion that they're using it to bridge the gap to Icecrown Citadel (otherwise known as 3.3), and a delay in the Dev cycle for 3.3 will tempt Blizz into releasing 3.2.2 later. On the other hand, this is the first major patch since 3.2 and so warrants sorting out all the bugs and exploits that patch created as well as the additional content. Whatever the reason may be we shouldn't expect 3.2.2 next week, and it may well be October before it hits live.

The More Things Stay The Same - Ret Changes For 3.2 Distilled

With 3.2 due out in early August and some stability in class mechanics over the last few builds it's time to start nailing down the impact of 3.2 on gear and playstyle. This is the first part of a 3.2 Retribution Paladin Primer.

Ah, so much to say, so much room to say it in. 3.2 is close at hand and we all need to get a grip on the latest class alterations in the new patch. Having had a few weeks to ruminate and cogitate on the ins and outs of 3.2 here is my take on Talents, Seals and Retributions' DPS Rotation, such as it is.

1. Base PvE Talent Build

It would be easy to drone on and on and on about the talents to take, but come on guys this isn't rocket science. There's still only 59 talents which increase your DPS, and taking all the essentials (including JotW) only requires an investment of 62.

Baring a few points shaved here and there this is the cookie cutter talent build most Ret Paladins will be working from in 3.2:

5/5/52 + 9

The only change from the 3.1 cookie cutter build is 5 points spent in Seals of the Pure. Currently, SotP accounts for a little more than 5% increase in DPS as it increases the damage of the DoT, Judgement and Seal Proc of SoV by the listed 15%. Where you place those final 9 points will largely be up to you and your raid composition. Divine Sacrifice is the strongest of all available talents because of the raid-wide mitigation it allows when activated in conjunction with Divine Shield. Other talent choices will largely depend on your raid line-up, with Imp. BoM and Vindication registering as the strongest contenders. I'll be taking a more detailed look at these utility talents in a later post.

2. Seals

Seal of Vengeance/Corruption will be the Seal of choice in the vast, vast majority of cases. The DPS output of this Seal is significantly higher than any alternative, and four seconds to accumulate the 5-high stack requirement for its' direct damage proc isn't a hardship.

The jury is currently out on which of the other two Seals represent the best DPS in the blessedly rarely situations where SoV isn't optimal. Command has a much stronger melee proc whilst Righteousness deals painfully more damage on Judgement. Against AoE Instance Trash Command just about has an edge because of procs from Divine Storm, but otherwise Righteousness /w 5/5 SotP is so close to the damage output of Command that the additional talent point spent becomes somewhat unnecessary. If you're pressured into raid-utility talents ditching Command may be necessary, even if you have to hold your nose and sometimes run with Righteousness.

PTR testing currently puts SoV DPS output at ~25% of total, which may well be looked at closely as finer balancing takes place towards the end of the testing cycle. JoV also hits very, very hard (pre-nerf JoB hard) with AP trinket/libram procs and 5-stack Holy Vengeance, and that may well be dialed down because of PvP and the fact that JoV also procs the Seal.

3. FCFS Priority Rotation, or 'Hulk Mash Buttons!'

You'd be forgiven for assuming that Crusader Strike cooldown reduction and the 'Art of Exorcism' effect had changed our FCFS priority system for DPS. In reality it simply constitutes an increase of 1 GCD spent per 12 seconds and therefore a bit more key pounding but not much more thought required. DPS is generally higher than the 3.1 baseline, but making use of utility skills such as Sacred Shield come at a commensurate DPS loss.

More GCD's used means that the conflict resolution priority each skill has is more important than in earlier patch cycles. A skills position of priority within the sequence isn't down to a simple analysis of damage per cast or stand-alone DPS, a more rigorous methodology to assess the relative DPS cost of using one ability in preference to another is required.

If I prioritise Divine Storm over Judgement once every 40 seconds Divine Storm has an effective cooldown of 10 secs and Judgement 8.3 seconds. If I prioritise Judgement over Divine Storm once every 40 seconds Divine Storm has an effective cooldown of 10.375 secs and Judgement 8 seconds. If Judgement does J damage per cast and DS D damge per cast, which is greater: (J/8.3) + (D/10) or (J/8) + (D/10.375).

Of course, there are a number of potential permutations to go through with the possibility that each priority can affect another skills position in the priority listing. With that said, the following is a good rule of thumb:

Hammer of Wrath > Crusader Strike > Judgement > Divine Storm > Consecration > Exorcism

which of course is conditional on mob health and mobility. You'll crit often enough for Exorcism to always be instant cast unless you have a really terrible crit rate, so nothing has changed on that regard.

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Glyphs will be the next topic in this 3.2 Ret Primer.