GC's announcement as to our nerfs

[ziggyunderslashone]

It's a similar situation to HotR in soloing. HotR with SoL is like omg

Between that and BoSanc, I really think it makes up for any dps differences between us and the physical tanks when people talk about solo viability. Who wants to kill one at a time?

/karabor

[Worldie]

It's a similar situation to HotR in soloing. HotR with SoL is like omg

Between that and BoSanc, I really think it makes up for any dps differences between us and the physical tanks when people talk about solo viability. Who wants to kill one at a time?

/karabor

Sometimes you just have to.

Plus, casters still are casters.

[Snake-Aes]

/seethe

[ziggyunderslashone]

Very true, but given the choice I'd prefer the immensely abuseable aoe gig and bad single target over subpar dps generally.

As I've said though, I'm an efficiency whore, so I wouldn't try to grind solo mobs as prot even if it was viable.

[Elsie]

If they changed Divine Storm to 8s, and Seal of Mana to a % gain based on AP per swing (say 5% per swing given naxx retribution level AP), then you'd gain 20% mana back if there are 4 mobs every 8 seconds.

Just throwing that out there. I was grinding and switching to Seal of Wisdom some and noticed the returns are pretty substantial from Divine Storm. The only real problem is seal damage is a huge portion of our DPS and returns are slow to come in a single mob situation (not to mention the chance not to proc the seal).

It's a similar situation to HotR in soloing. HotR with SoL is like omg

The same situation applies to SoL with Divine Storm, except DS hits 4 opposed to HotR's 3.

[fafhrd]

A several class are coming to us and talking about "mana management". They say since you got a mana bar you have to manage our mana pool. And this mana needs to go oom along the fight.

I'd say: False
Healers and casters usually go with 9K-12K mana. Intell also contribute to critical spell, which is actually mana sparing. For Holy it contributes to spell power. It is their power source and also a constraint. It gets even in the balance.

Now Protect/Ret won't get Intellect from gear and it doesn't give any additional power than the ability to cast spell. Our primary power source is Strength/AP. If we have to manage mana, then give us more power from Intellect. Juste give us a Mage bar!

For me that's why the class is always struggling to get balanced, beside Holy. The design is flawed since the start. While Blizzard was about to find the solution, they have to fallback due to public reaction.

Some are already thinking about gemming, enchanting and offesetting with Intellect gear.

While I sympathise with the mana concerns in the rest of the thread, you're missing something here. Comparing to healers and casters is incorrect, since ret are not healers or casters. Compare to enhancement shamans and hunters, since they're much closer to ret - non-caster DPS that depends on mana. Neither have any regen from spirit/mp5 which is where all the actual casters get a lot of their mana. Until 3.0 talents neither had any use for INT other than an increased starting mana pool - both ended up wearing leather, since the extra INT on mail didn't do anything other than increase TimeTillOOM by 10-20 seconds (for reference, my hunter spent most of TBC in leather, and the only reason he's not in full leather now with a 3k mana pool is that the 4pc bonus on mail is very good - I'm in 5 pieces of mail now, but that 5th piece was only worth equipping because it was itemized with 0 INT). In 3.0 blizzard gives up trying to balance their mana/gear, and just gives them talents to make INT give AP, so that they're motivated to wear mail, and make things like JoW and Replenishment scale off total mana, so that regen also increases with INT on gear.

Both Hunters and Enh Shamans currently gain most of their mana from JoW - when JoW isn't available, they have class based mana regen tools which aren't as good, but are still available (in the hunter case it still very undesirable to have to use this - those 5-6k dps hunters would not be up there if they were actually switching to their -50% damage regen too). Ret however attacks so slowly that it doesn't get back much mana from JoW, and apparently Ret's class based tools (Divine Plea, JotW and the mana-from-heals things?) aren't very good.

On this note, all the comparisons to warriors and rogues are interesting, but also a side issue, since whatever the properties of being a rage/energy class vs a mana class are, ret pallies are not the former, and complaining about issues they have which rogues/warriors/DKs don't is pointless. If you want to make such comparisons, compare to enhancement shamans and hunters.

[honorshammer]

Not sure if this is where this goes but here's my ancedotal evidence on the Seal nerfs from tanking all of BT last night.

I didn't notice them.

[halabar]

Not sure if this is where this goes but here's my ancedotal evidence on the Seal nerfs from tanking all of BT last night.

I didn't notice them.

Probably as they intended. But what about soloing?..

[honorshammer]

Not sure if this is where this goes but here's my ancedotal evidence on the Seal nerfs from tanking all of BT last night.

I didn't notice them.

Probably as they intended. But what about soloing?..

I did the Scourge Invasion before the Raid. Pulled 6 or 7, BoSanct, JoL, SoV. Finished usually with over 80% mana and health.

[Karock]

That might be because the only seal that had it's nerf hotfixed in was SoC *wink*

[Bobness]

That might be because the only seal that had it's nerf hotfixed in was SoC *wink*

beat me to it...

[Dianora]

That might be because the only seal that had it's nerf hotfixed in was SoC *wink*

And good PVE retribution paladin should be using Seal of Blood/Martyr instead

[Karock]

I'm at a loss as to your point?

[ziggyunderslashone]

In 3.0 blizzard gives up trying to balance their mana/gear, and just gives them talents to make INT give AP, so that they're motivated to wear mail, and make things like JoW and Replenishment scale off total mana, so that regen also increases with INT on gear.

This is the crux of my concern when they approach mana management for retribution. They made everything run off base mana and built the class around the zero int plate model, and then suddenly decide it should be a managed resource, leaving the forms of synergy and management scaling that every other mana class delivers remarkably absent.

Maybe something as clumsy as a str -> int talent would cover it.

The maths I posted before showed its not a vast concern in raiding situations (but I do feel they've balanced certain fields of activity in detriment to others), but it does feel very wrong to be asked to manage a resource without the standard tools.

[Ruxpin]

Well, I tried soloing some invasion mobs last night as ret with my poor gear (blue pvp rep gear). I had to use Exorcism to tag mobs if I wanted any runes at all, and eventually pulling up to 4 mobs at a time with that and wrath. It was completely impossible to move from one mob to another without running out of mana unless I used BoW, SoW and judged wisdom. This made it doable, but also made it much slower and dps much lower overall since I couldn't use SoC or BoM.

With all mana replinishment items ticking, I still had enough mana to HL when I got low, and with 25% crit the sheath hot triggered reliably and would bring me up to almost full health in a couple of gcds. I did have to autoattack occasionally when I got too low on mana until I had enough to judge again. Judging twice brought me back to a place where I could comfortably use a special attack again.

Overall, soloing wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be, though I worry how much slower it will be with further dps nerfs. It's hard to compete on those spawns if you have to sit and drink. Meanwhile, a warrior was running around TCing a dozen mobs at once while his mage friend aoed them down (adding to my tagging woes). I need my mage friend to come with I guess.