Patch 4.01 has been up for a while and I'm sure most retribution paladin lovers have taken their character for a spin or two. Nonetheless, here are some impressions from a layman's perspective. For those not familiar, I only play in 5-man heroics and never do raids.
I specced my post-4.01 paladin as follows: 3/2/31. It's not the most efficient build by far, just something I came up with. I'm not even 100% sure about the glyphs but they seem ok to me.
So far I've only had the chance to try out the new rotation on a training dummy and I ran a single heroic which happened to be Pit of Saron. Let me get one thing out of the way. I've heard many people say that ret has been nerfed to the ground. Well, unfortunately I didn't have my dps meter during that heroic, but I've never seen bigger hits from my paladin before.
I'm wearing the same equipment I was wearing before the patch. Yes, the stats have changed some, but overall they're in similar amounts. I was critting regularly for over 10K and once I critted for over 20K. That never happened before 4.01. Never. The most I crit was around 6K-ish. So my perception is that my damage had got a huge boost.
However - and that's a big however - when I asked if anyone had a damage meter, someone told me I was 3rd. Barf. Before 4.01 I was frequently top dps or in the top 2. So I guess my post-4.01 dps did suck.
As I said, unfortunately I only got the chance to run a single heroic ever since. I'm having too much fun leveling my mage to make time for the paladin.
In regards to the new rotation and mechanics, I kind of dig them. Holy Power (HP) is an interesting concept but it does make the paladin feel somewhat like a rogue with 3 combo points. What pisses me the most is the fact that I constantly have to stare at the top left of the screen in order to catch all 3 stacks of HP. There's very little visual cue to signify that 3 stacks are up.
I like the new Templar's Verdict and also Word of Glory. I've heard people complaining that Word of Glory is severely underpowered but again, I feel the opposite. At 3 stacks of HP it heals me for over 6K, which I feel is a decent amount considering ret is not a healing spec. But what do I know?
The 31st point, Zealotry, seemed lackluster but now since it doesn't consume the stacks of HP anymore it is slightly better.
Unfortunately Divine Storm seems to have been rendered useless. I didn't notice any noteworthy numbers coming from this ability and I've been trying to use it whenever there were more than 2 mobs. I shouldn't have picked it up in retrospect.
I definitely need to run a few more heroics before I can make up my mind on the new retribution paladin but tentatively I would say that I like it. There are a few things that need to be fixed but I think Blizzard is moving in the right direction with paladins. But don't take my word for it. I'm just an amateur.
Patch 1.0.5 commentary
12 years ago
5 comments:
Maybe you placing 3rd on dps meters is only because other classes are now hitting in the 5 digits for non-crits. Just a thought.
Yeah, Divine Storm is pretty much useless now. I'm thinking of spending the gold and respeccing so that I can free up the talent point for something else.
The individual hits are definitely bigger, but that's because Pally damage is spikier. We get 300, 400, 500, then 10k or 20k. Before, we'd consistently get 2k, 3k, 4k, 5k depending on gear, aura, etc.
Another thing I've noticed is that Art of War procs so randomly now that you can't rely upon it being available when it comes off cooldown. Having those Ashbringers appear is actually important now.
Darth - great site. I have similar talent spec to you and in the first few days also noticed damage way above what I was previously doing. I too am mostly a solo player but have been delving into dungeons/raids to get better gear as am sick of farming. I have a 3.8K gs and mostly epic gear purchased at great expense from the ah.
I was initially crit'ing 10k+ as well, although with some of the immediate post 4.01 'patches' this has been decreased somewhat. I remember Exorcism was crit'ing at 14k every time ! I now mostly see crits around 6-8k but the frequency is what is stunning me. I hardly have time in my rotation for the fillers cause I'm busy spamming the concurrent crits ! My rotations is CS->J->TV ... and by now I have either a crit in Ex, TV or HoW so then its back to the fillers. if I pop wings - I can get 3 x crits out of HoW which is till doing around 14k damage.
I too like TV but dont write off DS just yet. Its a great AoE on ALL enemies in 8 yards so works better with more local mobs - both heals and DPS. The more the merrier ! Try it on trash mobs in Strath !
Lastly (sorry for the long blurb) - I also got jack of eyes moving all over the place and got IceHUD - an addon you can get at curse that brings the HP display to immediately below your toon. Change its transparency so its not in your face and off you go !
You need to get your damage meter going and check it again....could be you got beat because now that everything drops justice points, more people than ever before are completing their tier 10 sets if they were still lacking it, so it could just be an issue of you need to buy the ilevel 251 and up gear like everyone else.
@Mike I'm sure others are hitting harder too.
@Redbeard I think you're right, the damage does seem spikier now. Still, I haven't noticed any issues with Art of War. It procced often enough for me. Bears more testing though.
@Anonymous thanks! Yeah, DS could indeed be useful in low level dungeons. I didn't think of that. Thanks for the IceHUD tip. I'll check it out.
@Lugnut Daffodil that is a possibility. I have decent gear, 232 and up. But yeah, if people are sporting 251 and up, they're sure to out-dps me.
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