Ret loses Spiritual Attunement. Opinions?

[shoju]

I'm trying not to be doom and gloom about the loss of Spiritual Attunement, but GC's Comments really have me confused:

We think Protection needs Spiritual Attunement for obvious reasons, so we are making it a deep Prot talent.

We don't actually like Holy and Ret having SA. It makes their mana regen depend too much on the encounter specifics. On fights like Patchwerk, they have no mana from SA. On dragon fights, they have a ton. That makes it hard to tune on our end because they are either starved in the first case or drowning in the second case.

We want to tune Holy through Illumination and Ret through Judgements of the Wise and let Prot use SA. All 3 can Divine Plea, but Prot can do it more often. (Source)

Spiritual Attunement
Spiritual Attunement is a great mechanic for a tanking paladin who needs the mana and gets it from taking damage. For other paladins it just complicates balance. On Patchwerk you get no mana from it as Holy / Ret and on Sartharion it gives you just a ton of mana. So you're either bone dry on one fight or drowning in mana on another, totally depending on raid damage.

The best knob we have for tweaking Ret mana return is to up Judgements of the Wise from 15% to 20% or whatever it needs to be. (Holy has Illumination.)

GC... you do realize that everyone in the paladin community is taking this as a promise you will buff jotw, right?
Such is my lot in life. We need to get some numbers for Ret mana after all of these changes and make a call at that time. I was just pointing out that we have plenty of knobs to tweak to balance the class without SA.

Remember, the goal here is not to nerf Ret mana. It is to make it more stable instead of varying wildly depending on the encounter. While encounters will always be different to some extent, when you look at the mana provided by SA on different fights, it can be pretty extreme. Ulduar balance is going to be tricky because we want the normal encounters to still be accesible to most raiders while the hard modes need to be balanced on a knife's edge. Having so much variation is just going to get in the way of that.

The Seal of Blood glyph will most likely have to be changed to accomodate this change. (Source)

He says that he doesn't like Ret and holy because it relies on encounter specifics. Um.... Has he not read Seal of Blood? I hurt myself with that ability the last time I checked, and I'm fairly confident that I can rely on that damage.......... oh, Every fight? I know that on Patchwerk, I'm going to hurt myself, and I know that I'm going to get mana back from heals. Sure, on Patch I still have to be a little conscientious of mana usage to make sure I'm not OOM by the end. And in 10 mans on Saph, I have had to be even more conscious because I'm normally the only paladin, and I'm judging light, not wisdom. I Have LOH'd myself on that fight just to get mana back, not because I needed the health.


It may not be intended to nerf ret mana, but it really is kicking it in the pants. Buffing JotW to get the mana return back "could" be a valid way to fix it, but it seems very band-aid ish.

I also wonder why ret has to manage it's resources so tight anyway? Warriors and rogues have a resource pool. They get it refreshed from being in combat. Hunters have a way to get mana back. I assume Shaman are somewhere in there as well, as I don't see shaman screaming about their mana problems. Why does it feel like Ret Paladins are getting the short end of the stick?

I can see it from the holy side of things. I understand that Holy paladins never go OOM, and that they need a mana nerf. But I have to wonder if this is the right thing?

I also understand that this is still the PTR and that things can be tweaked, but I'm really not happy with the direction this is heading. Now, they will either need to nerf the recoil from SoB which kills Seal of Command and makes us a little OP in PVP, or buff SoC so that it is at least competitive.

They also need to fix the Seal of Blood glyph. If they use this as the way to get rid of the recoil, then they are again just making a band-aid. It's yet another required glyph that takes away from the idea of glyphs being used to customize the way you play. I'm falling out of love with glyphs a lot lately, because they are becoming "You will run these glyphs or you will suffer" instead of augmenting game play, but that's another debate for another time.

I've been watching the WWS parses from the PTR, and since the changes went through, Ret Damage is WAY down. Like I said, I'm trying not to be doom and gloom at this point, but I'm starting to level my mage just in case they ruin ret again.

Anyone else have some insight? I know, I need to chill, watch the PTR and wait for the changes. I just hate that they inplemented the first part of the change without the second. Sure, maybe they needed more data, but by doing it this way, how am I not supposed to feel that they didn't have an idea how to fix it before they broke it?

[Frag]

Anyone else have some insight?

We want to tune Holy through Illumination and Ret through Judgements of the Wise and let Prot use SA. All 3 can Divine Plea, but Prot can do it more often.

The best knob we have for tweaking Ret mana return is to up Judgements of the Wise from 15% to 20% or whatever it needs to be. (Holy has Illumination.)

Remember, the goal here is not to nerf Ret mana. It is to make it more stable instead of varying wildly depending on the encounter

The Seal of Blood glyph will most likely have to be changed to accomodate this change.

And on that note, what are you fretting about? Warrior changes and mage changes aren't even in and yet they're being compared to the classes that have had their changes in. This is with the background downloader running, indicating they're still on track for the April week 1 release they hinted at.

Cheers,
~FragB)

[Lissa]

indicating they're still on track for the April week 1 release they hinted at.

Cheers,
~FragB)

If they release April week 1 they're high. Too many of the encounters in Ulduar are still bugged and several of the bosses have not been tested yet. Two weeks is not enough time to test and stabilize things. Try mid April at the earliest.

[Kevin]

Without addition tuning in place I'm a bit worried about ret mana and damage. But I'm trying to be patient as well.

I do understand why they want to change it. Ret mana does vary. There are fights with enough AoE damage that I don't have to use divine plea. There are other fights that I use divine plea and a pot and am running on fumes. That is an imbalance issue. I would rather have most every fight be one where I can sustain, but have to be smart, as opposed to some fights I don't think about mana at all and others I don't really have a way to get through the whole thing nicely. And as mentioned it was doing odd things to holy as well. I get the tuning thing.

I'm not sure JotW is the best way to address ret mana, but there are ways they can do it.


I've never liked glyphs, because they've pretty much always been just another thing you have to have and not flavor at all. I'm giving up about 50 DPS with Girly's glyphs because there are a couple of glyphs that I really like for heroic healing as ret and for emergency healing as ret in raids. But it bugs me. Dual spec will help with that, though it will remove some of the flavor. I'm worried about the glyph of seal of blood being required as well. Just like glyph of judgement is required.

I'm being trusting that they'll get the balance right and I don't think it's a bad move. Spirtual Attunement was implemented for pally tanks in the first place, what it did to holy and ret was always a side effect especially when alliance didn't have seal of blood anyway and it wasn't always the best seal for horde ret spec either. So yeah we'll see.

[shoju]

These are in response to frag, apparently I fail at being able to quote quotes.

The flaw in his divine plea statement is simple. Melee swings will be refreshing D.P., and thus be permanently up in combat, allowing for another 3% damage reduction through glyph

JotW has been buffed and nerfed several times. I just see it as a way to fix it, without really addressing the problem. JotW was too good before (on the replenishment side, and in beta it was 20%) so it got canned. I don't have a lot of faith in returning an ability to what it was as a way to compensate.

I have a hard time buying into the 'not nerf ret regen' theory when they aren't even tweaking at this point. I feel like they have performed surgery with a sledgehammer, and then plan to go back and sew it up to make it not so ugly. Yes, it's the PTR, Yes, I know there is still time. I don't have much faith in a 2week time to make a stable fix after such a huge blow to the core of the way the class consumes and refills mana.

The Seal of Blood Glyph is a sticking point to me. Fixing this glyph needs to be more than a band aid. If they 'fix' the problems through the glyph, then they really haven't fixed the problem, they pulled out the first aid inscription kit.

I'm not fretting, I'm just irritated. You know me, I don't like gutting something without the fix in hand. It's the way I program databases, and build sites. It might be a little slower, but I know when it goes live, there are far fewer problems.

[Mordekhuul]

I'm not too worried. They haven't screwed over ret yet, despite all of the whining and crying every time they made a major change in preparation and after wrath of the lich king, and they have stated they don't intend to, even providing an answer to how they might tweak ret to make sure they can still kick ass if their mana is running dry too fast in 3.1.

I haven't noticed an analysis yet, but assuming mana isn't a limitation, will exorcism become part of the standard ret rotation?

It generally won't for prot, on progression bosses at least, except when off-tanking, but some analysis shows that punching exorcism every cooldown is a massive threat increase for prot, despite it meaning a reduction in holy shield uptime, so I imagine we'll have a fun toy to mix in on farm encounters or when off-tanking.

[Taelas]

Regardless of Seal of Blood, it is still encounter specific. The more damage you take, the more you're healed, and the more mana you get back through SA.

So yeah, losing SA affects you more than it does Holy, but you will still see some pretty big changes in mana returned depending on the encounter.

Mordekhuul, what analysis is that? How can it be a massive threat increase? Remember, you have to drop an ability to cast Exorcism in the 969 rotation.

[shoju]

I'm not too worried. They haven't screwed over ret yet, despite all of the whining and crying every time they made a major change in preparation and after wrath of the lich king, and they have stated they don't intend to, even providing an answer to how they might tweak ret to make sure they can still kick ass if their mana is running dry too fast in 3.1.

I haven't noticed an analysis yet, but assuming mana isn't a limitation, will exorcism become part of the standard ret rotation?

It generally won't for prot, on progression bosses at least, except when off-tanking, but some analysis shows that punching exorcism every cooldown is a massive threat increase for prot, despite it meaning a reduction in holy shield uptime, so I imagine we'll have a fun toy to mix in on farm encounters or when off-tanking.

Yes, Exorcism gets smashed every 15 seconds for ret. Numbers on the ptr pre-mana smash had it as a worthwhile addition. the 15 second cooldown makes it a little easier to fit into the ret priority list. I have seen it as

{H0W} - judge - strike - ex - storm - cons


on a single target non-undead priority deal. I'm going to try and make use of it, as best I can. I wish I would have been able to copy to the ptr pre-SA removal so I could get a feel for how it works with it and without it.

[ryan4nayr]

It generally won't for prot, on progression bosses at least, except when off-tanking, but some analysis shows that punching exorcism every cooldown is a massive threat increase for prot, despite it meaning a reduction in holy shield uptime, so I imagine we'll have a fun toy to mix in on farm encounters or when off-tanking.

I am looking forward to adding a cheaper yet high damage spell to the 9696 rotation, however with a 15 sec. cooldown I'm not sure how often I can remember to punch it:whistling:

As for the ret mana regen changes... I'll wait and see. PTR is still in progress, after all.

[WimpySmurf]

Mordekhuul, what analysis is that? How can it be a massive threat increase? Remember, you have to drop an ability to cast Exorcism in the 969 rotation.

I think what Morde is suggesting is that you "add" Exorcism before every other HS cast. This results in a small amount of time without HS, but ups your threat. Ie. HS->6->9->6->9->Ex->HS->6->9->6->9->HS->6->...

-WimpySmurf

[Mordekhuul]

Not quite. When fitting in exorcism you have a lot of options to think through.

You could sub it for one of the 969 abilities every time the cooldown is up, such as substituting exorcism in place of holy shield whenever exorcism is up and its time to punch HS, meaning you don't hit HS that time around at all. This is referred to as HS substitution, as an example, in a thread I'm going to link.

You could also do your full 969 rotation but delay it whenever exorcism is up to make sure you punch exorcism every single cooldown.

Here is a breakdown of both threat and DPS for each of the exorcism rotation options and for various tanking specs: http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintankadin...p=382613#382613

This thread is linked to from a master thread on the matlab analysis done by the author, and many other links are of interest there, though off-topic here: http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/v...hp?t=20823

Finally, here are the conclusions from the exorcism analysis, if you want to skip the graphs:

Some take-home thoughts from this:

* Consecration substitution, which looked advantages from a mana expenditure point-of-view, always lags a standard 969, regardless of what spec you pick. As such, it's never the answer, even glyphed.
* Neither of the 6's-substitution schemes ever hold a candle to standard 969, because HotR and ShoR are two of our biggest threat moves, so replacing either with a weaker one is always going to trail a rotation that keeps both of those skills on cooldown.
* Judgement substitution can boost both DPS and TPS as long as Exorcism is glyphed - without it there's no noticeable gain.
* Exorcism on cooldown is always the best DPS and TPS output, and performs best when Judgement and Exorcism are both glyphed. I haven't tested without the SoV glyph yet, but since we've narrowed down the rotations we're interested in, I can look into this a little further in a later post.
* Holy Shield replacement is by far the best DPS and TPS boost, at the expense of Holy Shield uptime. This is likely to be our new prot-dpsing rotation, as well as the rotation we should use against casters that do not melee (or at least, not hard).
* Note that all of these graphs assume the 1% Sense Undead bonus, but don't assume Exorcism is automatically a critical. I should have taken off the Sense Undead modifier, but frankly I forgot, and since it's a flat 1% bonus, it won't change anything except the final numbers.
* I intend to test with some version of Exorcism auto-crit later on to see if that helps either of the 6's replacement strategies. However, they're so far behind in most cases that it may not be enough to save them.

[Lissa]

Not quite. When fitting in exorcism you have a lot of options to think through.

You could sub it for one of the 969 abilities every time the cooldown is up, such as substituting exorcism in place of holy shield whenever exorcism is up and its time to punch HS, meaning you don't hit HS that time around at all. This is referred to as HS substitution, as an example, in a thread I'm going to link.

You could also do your full 969 rotation but delay it whenever exorcism is up to make sure you punch exorcism every single cooldown.

Here is a breakdown of both threat and DPS for each of the exorcism rotation options and for various tanking specs: http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintankadin...p=382613#382613

This thread is linked to from a master thread on the matlab analysis done by the author, and many other links are of interest there, though off-topic here: http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/v...hp?t=20823

Finally, here are the conclusions from the exorcism analysis, if you want to skip the graphs:

Not sure I agree with the author about dropping HS for that set of 9s rotations, I would agree more with Wimpy in delaying the HS would probably be the better choice. HS provides more than just threat, it also provides you with longevity by making a smaller window for getting an unmitigated hit in. With the amount of Block Value most Prot Pallies are throwing around, mitigating up to 5% to 10% of a bosses hit is significant longevity.

[Mordekhuul]

Not sure I agree with the author about dropping HS for that set of 9s rotations, I would agree more with Wimpy in delaying the HS would probably be the better choice. HS provides more than just threat, it also provides you with longevity by making a smaller window for getting an unmitigated hit in. With the amount of Block Value most Prot Pallies are throwing around, mitigating up to 5% to 10% of a bosses hit is significant longevity.

I don't think he is proposing that its a great idea to drop it, he's just looking at a few possible ways to fit exorcism in, and even indicates at one point that the downside to the HS Sub method is your HS uptime drops to some 53% - not good on bosses you have any concern over dying to.

Using exorcism only before HS, and then punching HS, would be a good middle ground between "HS Sub" and "Exorcism every cooldown" I bet. I still won't do even that on progression bosses. I like my HS uptime, particularly since getting my BV set to around 1800 unbuffed.

I'm also both excited and worried about being able to use exorcism in place of HS when off-tanking and trying to be second on threat....I already pass any of our other main tanks on threat if I try to off-tank without having another high threat move to use:P Guess I'll have to continue my selfish "I'll just MT unless someone else cares" line.

EDIT- Ok, I'm not sure where I got that 53% HS uptime number from, perhaps the EJ thread where I was first linked to the maintankadin thread, but, well, what percentage of all statistics are made up again? ;)

[Lissa]

I'm also both excited and worried about being able to use exorcism in place of HS when off-tanking and trying to be second on threat....I already pass any of our other main tanks on threat if I try to off-tank without having another high threat move to use:P Guess I'll have to continue my selfish "I'll just MT unless someone else cares" line.

Well, as BV soars, so doesn't the threat generated through SoR. It's not unusual for me to get huge leads in threat on people. As I charge in, I HS, Judge when in range, and then hit with SoR, that right there gives a nice initial threat boost since I have the Libram of Obstruction.

[Taelas]

Delaying abilities isn't smart. The 969 rotation isn't a priority rotation, it's a CD rotation. If anything comes off cooldown simultaneously with another because you've delayed it, you have to judge on the spot: Which is more threat? Is it worth breaking the rotation for a small threat boost right now? Is there a secondary reason aside from threat why I can't choose to replace this?

Of course, you can adhere strictly to the 969 rotation, but that isn't optimal.

[Quark]

I'm not fretting, I'm just irritated. You know me, I don't like gutting something without the fix in hand. It's the way I program databases, and build sites. It might be a little slower, but I know when it goes live, there are far fewer problems.

Fret. Fret early, fret often, and start talking about what is wrong right now. Unless you want to get told, like Rogues, that "We just think that magnitude of change isn't appropriate for a content patch."

[TheDragoon]

If anything comes off cooldown simultaneously with another because you've delayed it, you have to judge on the spot: Which is more threat? Is it worth breaking the rotation for a small threat boost right now? Is there a secondary reason aside from threat why I can't choose to replace this?

So basically the same sort of choices that many other classes are given. :)

[Lissa]

Delaying abilities isn't smart. The 969 rotation isn't a priority rotation, it's a CD rotation. If anything comes off cooldown simultaneously with another because you've delayed it, you have to judge on the spot: Which is more threat? Is it worth breaking the rotation for a small threat boost right now? Is there a secondary reason aside from threat why I can't choose to replace this?

Of course, you can adhere strictly to the 969 rotation, but that isn't optimal.

I'm not sure I would say that it isn't optimal. The thing about the 969 rotation is it setups so that every single CD is used optimally for threat generation/damage mitigation. The problem that comes about is that there isn't a whole lot of things in that rotation that you can drop to keep your threat up or your mitigation up. Dropping or delaying HS to me is big no-no, it builds threat and gives you more mitigation. Judgement is damage and gets you either health or mana back. SoR and HoR are your big threat moves. Consecrate gives you a good amount of TPS due to it sitting under the boss in question (for 8 to 10 seconds depending on glyph). While Exorcism may give you more threat than HS, Exorcims lowers your mitigation, it's not going to equal the threat of Judgement, HoR, or SoR, and Consecrate may be the only good choice to it to be put in due to the mana cost of Consecrate.

More as a point, if you (general you that is) have two things coming off cooldown at same time with 969, you're doing something wrong. As you've (specific) said, it's a cooldown rotation, but if two things are coming up, you (general again =p) either hit two of the same cooldown length items back to back (either two 6s or two 9s) or you're mashing buttons.

Even though the original author quoted by Mord states Exorcism is a DPS boost, I only see it being of use where you're either off tanking to maintain threat for somekind of aggro drop for the MT (like Archavon) and times where you can skip HS cause you're not taking direct hits.

[ryan4nayr]

Judgement is damage and gets you either health or mana back.

Additionally, due to the talent Judgements of the Just, it is a sort of mitigation as well. Due to the nerf to seals+judgements dmg not so long ago, JoW/JoL is among my top considerations to drop out of my rotation on heroic bosses (half the time at least); but due to that talent, I loathe doing so.

I only see it being of use where you're either off tanking to maintain threat for some kind of aggro drop for the MT (like Archavon) and times where you can skip HS cause you're not taking direct hits.

Indeed. Unless Exorcism's cooldown is adjusted to fit the 9's part of the 9696 rotation, I'd have a tough time fitting in a 15 sec. CD. Some sacrifice would be in order.

[Mordekhuul]

Yeah, we're all on the same page here, from what I can tell.

Right now, honestly, I'd use the HS-sub rotation on every boss I tank except Sarth+3 kills or Malygos25, just because I take so little damage already that I don't care if I get hit a bit more often. Oh, and I wouldn't use it on Loatheb10 because it is hilarious to block 100% of her physical damage and take so little damage over the course of the kill that I could go with zero heals.

I'm sure things will be different in Ulduar though, and then it'll be back to 969 for me unless off-tanking.

More choices = fun though. Its one reason I like pally tanking already. Tanking whelps/blazes on our first heroic sarth+3 kill last week and tanking the 3 drakes tonight on a whole bunch of near-kills in 10 man was the most fun I've had in a long time, so here's looking forward to hard modes in Ulduar.