Retribution
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The Light and How to Swing It: The Retribution solution
A while back I wrote a short post pointing out to the community that now is a pretty ripe time to see how Retribution can be improved. Ghostcrawler and the devs have taken an interesting direction with the Retribution tree, and although they've recently mentioned that there will no longer be big changes throughout Wrath of the Lich King, it's still a good time to examine the spec. It's come a long way since the launch of the game and 'lolret' is arguably a term now only used in spite and no longer with genuine ridicule. Ridicule and some fear and loathing, maybe, but no longer just ridicule.Despite the statement that there'll be fewer changes to classes in the foreseeable future, Ghostcrawler did say "there will be some (changes)" in addition to "tweak(ing) numbers up and down as needed". So don't despair, Fury Warriors, you'll be swinging those two-handers once again in glory one of these days. I'm also dead certain that Paladin tweaks aren't quite done. For one thing, we know that Crusader Strike is in line for some coolification. Another is that Exorcism was quickly hotfixed not to work on player targets as precursor to what Ghostcrawler calls "a little more tweaking" to the class. So while I asked the community to share their thoughts on how to improve Retribution, it's taken me much, much longer to ruminate. Humor me for today as I go share my own thoughts on the matter.
An opportunity to change Retribution
As embarrassed as I am to admit it, the truth is that Retribution has a pretty low skill cap. This is an old accusation, but one that has quite a bit of weight in it. Although it used to be primarily an auto-attack class in PvE, things changed with the introduction of Divine Storm and now Exorcism in Patch 3.1. Still, many Retribution Paladins can faceroll their way to good DPS because, well, the class design is really easy to play. There are buttons that you press to do damage, you wait until cooldowns are up... rinse, repeat.Because you can pick up all talents that contribute to DPS even before you hit Level 80, it becomes a matter of gear scaling after that. In most cases, similarly geared Retribution Paladins in a raid will put out nearly identical numbers with few exceptions. Unlike other DPS classes where the spread can be wide owing to particular talent choices, differences in rotation, gear, and play style, Retribution Paladins have the relatively simple task of resolving priority when an ability comes off cooldown. There are no combo points, no freeze effect bonuses, no procs to wait for.This isn't to say that Retribution is one-dimensional. It's not. Particularly in PvP, Retribution can reach deeper into its bag of tricks with stuns and incapacitate effects, instant Turn Evil, and a plethora of survivability and anti-cc abilities that you often won't bother with during raids. That said, there isn't anything particularly creative about how Retribution Paladins kill their opponents. It pours on damage. Prior to 3.1 that meant quite a lot of burst. For one glorious week, that meant ranged burst with Exorcism, too.
The Colosseum: Butteslol of Gorefiend
The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.A new season is on us, and new breeds of compositions are rising to the top. The first Colosseum interview of Season 6 is with Butteslol, the Discipline Priest in the team "idk im just so furious." Along with Retribution Paladin Carboncopy, Butteslol has blazed a trail to high ratings very early in the season.Retribution/Discipline has been a technical player's favorite for a little while, thanks to the vast toolbox the composition can bring to bear in several situations. Affected by the recent Replenishment nerf, however, it's going to be interesting to see what happens for Butteslol in the future.Check out what he had to say behind the cut.
Replenishment hotfixed, changed for arena play
The developers are continuing their hotfix spree, this time targeting Replenishment in the arena. While in an arena, any class that procs Replenishment will only proc it for themselves. It does not apply to the entire party while in an arena. This is something that a lot of people have expected would happen eventually, and it's good to see that they didn't wait for another major content patch for something like this. It had to be done, so they did it. I'd love to see that trend continue.The arena community has been asking for this for awhile, and if you want to know their reasoning, Serennia discussed it just the other day. I strongly suggest giving it a read. Replenishment is a game changer in the arena, and in a format with teams so small, you can't really expect every team to find a Replenishment to slot like you can in 10 and 25 man raids. Replenishment essentially being a requirement in the 3v3 format would be a disaster, and it's been made pretty clear that teams with a Replenishment have a severe advantage over those that don't. A post-Patch 3.1 world seems to be one where broken things get fixed quickly, rather than just sit there broken for months until the next content patch. As long as that holds up for more than these few weeks immediately after the patch, I'm a fan of it.
Latest EVE Online Chronicle a moral tale of sabotage and retribution
EVE Online differs from other massively multiplayer online games out there in that it's as much a setting as it is a game; its galactic setting of New Eden isn't divided across shards. This helps the game's lore creators conjure up a sense that the stories of New Eden echo throughout and define a single expansive galaxy, at least for those who choose to get into the game's backstory.EVE's lore has been building up for years as short Chronicles and even in novel form, creating a substantial yet growing body of work that fleshes out the gritty setting. We don't cover all of the Chronicle releases at Massively but we do tend to highlight those that have a direct bearing on the game's lore, rather than those that add flavor. Still, now and again a story comes along that really stands out. That was the case with this week's Chronicle titled "All These Lives are Fit to Ruin" by CCP Abraxas, the description of which was one simple word: "Sabotage". This caught our interest and, in this writer's opinion after having read the Chronicle twice, "All These Lives are Fit to Ruin" may be one of the best stories Abraxas has written thus far.
Exorcism can no longer be used on players
As an unannounced change in this morning's patch 3.1.1, Exorcism can no longer be used against players. The stated rationale for this change not being announced ahead of time was that they were "trying to get the tooltip changed at the same time to reduce confusion," which doesn't quite seem to hold water for me - wouldn't it be less confusing to tell the players, and not leave them to find out for themselves the next time they tried to PvP? Anyway, that's a relatively minor issue. Recall that in patch 3.1, Exorcism was changed to be usable on all targets, and to automatically crit against demons and undead (before, it could only be used against demons and undead). Evidently Blizzard feels that it's just too much burst damage for Ret pallies in PvP, especially given that it means they can start up their combos from range. Edit: Just to clarify, the functionality of Exorcism in PvE is unchanged. Ghostcrawler also promises that they're working on making Pally DPS "more interesting and also less bursty" instead of just using all your skills on cooldown, and that once they figure out how to do that, you'll be able to Exorcise other players again. He gives Conflagrate, Brain Freeze, Rip, Overpower, and Arcane Blast as examples of the kind of more interesting mechanics they might be going for. He invites feedback on ways to make Pally DPS more reactive, so go make your thoughts known in the thread if you have any ideas.
TalentChic updates for patch 3.1, introduces GlyphChic
TalentChic, the site that displays the most popular talent specs based on Armory data, has updated to reflect the most popular builds for patch 3.1. They've also added glyph functionality via GlyphChic, which should help those players that choose their glyphs just by checking what's on the auction house at that particular moment. Good glyph resources are pretty hard to find, so we'll see how this turns out!TalentChic won't be incredibly accurate for another few days considering the patch only hit two days ago, but it's pretty fun to see what the current most popular builds are. An Elemental Shaman build (57/14/0) seems to be the most popular spec overall right now, which is odd because Elemental glyphs aren't even the most popular Shaman glyphs right now, let alone overall most popular. Glyph of Chain Heal and Glyph of Water Mastery (which would be used by Elemental, I suppose) are tops for Shaman.
Paladin changes in WoW Patch 3.1 PTR build 9733
A new build was pushed to the patch 3.1 PTR yesterday, and while the list of changes wasn't huge, there are a few significant ones for paladins: Seal of the Martyr/Seal of Blood now add 48% of weapon damage, up from 22%, to all your melee attacks as holy damage. However, the Judgment was changed from 16% of AP + 25% of spell power + 26% of minimum weapon damage to 11% AP + 18% SP + 26% min weapon damage. In other words, the bonus damage per attack was roughly doubled, while the coefficients of AP and SP on the judgment were cut by 30% (approximately). The general expectation is that this will keep overall damage pretty much the same, while reducing burst damage. This makes the seal play a bit differently in PvP – it's no longer going to hit like a truck when you judge, but you'll get more consistent damage out of it (edited). A benefit of the change is that you won't see quite as big hits on your health when you judge the seal: more survivability in PvE, which is something the blues have shown concern about with respect to this seal. There was one other change: a new talent called Divine Guardian was added, at tier 4 in the Protection tree. Note that this is not the same as the old Divine Guardian, which was reworked and renamed Divine Sacrifice. I do really like the icon, so I'm glad they're reusing it, but the naming is slightly confusing. Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
Paladin changes in Patch 3.1 PTR build 9722
A new Patch 3.1 PTR build went up earlier and while there aren't any official patch notes, our data-mining friends over at MMO-Champion have dug up some goodies as usual. There aren't too many changes for Paladins in this build, but there are interesting stuff in there, not least of which was the unintended revelation of the internal testing on Crusader Strike. The more down-to-earth changes are as follows:HolyDivine Plea - now only reduces the amount healed by your Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Holy Shock spells.This properly reflects Blizzard's intention of nerfing Divine Plea for Holy Paladins. The change allows healing from Seal of Light and Judgement of Light to go unimpaired, the latter particularly useful to Protection Paladins and Retribution Paladins. Considering that Protection is now designed to have maintain a 100% uptime on Divine Plea, this is an important distinction.Aura Mastery - tooltip has been modified to properly reflect its 10 seconds duration. The excellent new ability confused a lot of players who thought it was a permanent, passive ability. Don't freak out, people! It's an activated ability that lasts for 10 seconds and has a two minute cooldown. The tooltip should help dispel the cloud of confusion.The rest of the changes after the jump...
New Crusader Strike is in the works
I've said it before -- Crusader Strike is the most boring key talent out there right now. It's vanilla 110% weapon damage strike, a 41-point talent that all Retribution Paladins pick up. It's simply not optional. Despite its lackluster nature (its original seal-refreshing feature was utilitarian but ultimately boring), it has held a firm place in every Retadin's arsenal since its inception. Imagine the elation of Paladins everywhere when the latest PTR patch notes revealed a shocking change that made me run for new boxers: "Crusader Strike is now An instant strike that causes 110% weapon damage. In addition, if you strike a player while they are casting, their magical damage and healing will be reduced by 50% for 6 sec."The bad news is that this change isn't going to happen. Ghostcrawler was quick to prevent mass hysteria by saying that this change will not make it into Patch 3.1. This thankfully saves the world from an epidemic of Retribution Paladin players dancing naked on the streets in ecstatic celebration. He says that they are merely experimenting and that they wish to make Crusader Strike "more exciting," but ultimately feel that some sort of reverse Mortal Strike wasn't the way to go about it. Crushed Retribution hopes and dreams aside, the good news is that Crusader Strike is going to be improved. Blizzard is working on it, and the change sneaking unintentionally into the PTR gives players a sneak peek into the developers' thought process. Even if we don't see the change happen in Patch 3.1, I think it's safe to say that Retribution Paladins have something to be excited about. The rest of you who play another class, you can put down your pitchforks now.
Ghostcrawler talks some more on Retribution DPS
I'll be honest with you. Retribution DPS has made me a rather sad panda lately. It wasn't my DPS exactly, but I sat down to watch my brother-in-law farm Valkyrs in Valkyrion with his three-week old Level 80 Death Knight. He pulled about five mobs and proceeded to demolish them. With Cinderglacier and Killing Machine proccing, he hit all mobs with a Howling Blast for about 6-7k each, and topped things off with a 7k Frost Strike. It made my jaw drop. Mind you, my brother-in-law is an excellent player, so this probably isn't your average Death Knight. But then, he was only equipped in heroic gear, with his best loot being a Wraith Spear. He hadn't even hit his peak.I know anectdotal stories like these are plenty and tangential to the issue, but if you've raided as a Retribution Paladin with equally geared and skilled players, you'll know exactly what I'm trying to say. So it was a major surprise in Patch 3.1 that the slimming down of the Retribution tree hit our DPS hard with a nerf to Fanaticism (reduced to three ranks for an 18% crit, down from 25%) and Righteous Vengeance (reduced to three ranks for 30% damage, down from 40%). Was it to balance out the fact that Exorcism could be used on any target? Certainly not. At any rate, Blizzard was aware that Retribution DPS on the PTRs wasn't where they want it to be.
Joystiq Review: Resistance: Retribution (single-player)
If only Resistance: Retribution hadn't been on the Playstation Portable. A game with such high production values that's a direct iteration of one of the PS3's flagship franchises could have been a downloadable episode for Resistance 2 -- and about five hours shorter. That's not even getting into the pacing issues, which are exacerbated by a number of dramatic difficulty spikes throughout. %Gallery-27792%
Retribution should branch out
After admitting that Retribution DPS isn't quite where they want it to be in the current build of Patch 3.1, Ghostcrawler illuminates us a little bit about the direction they wish to take with the spec. He explains that the Retribution tree is one tree where players would go 0/ 0/ 71 if players could (if they put Divine Strength in the Retribution tree, he might even be completely right!). Blizzard would like to increase Retribution's DPS but are looking into making talents in other trees more attractive, essentially forcing the spec to branch out somewhat. This would be akin to how they slimmed down the Warrior's Protection tree, which turned out to be a good thing for the class. He feels that most trees in general are "too thick," making it hard for players to put points in another tree. Hopefully, we'll see some changes in the PTR that should reflect this design direction in the near future.
Retribution DPS too low
Ghostcrawler had one line to say about a flood of complaints from Retribution Paladins who are feeling the pinch of a restrictive tree, effectively ending the argument: Blizzard feels that Retribution DPS, particularly in PvE, is lower than how they would want it in 3.1. This comes in light of the changes in the upcoming patch, which on the surface seems like a good thing because of the slimming down of the tree and freeing up talent points.What many players should understand is that unlike pure DPS trees or even other hybrids, Paladins simply don't have any room to be flexible. Retribution Paladins can pick up every damage-boosting talent already with points to spare, and there's just a DPS ceiling that simply can't be broken through. Whether Ghostcrawler's statement indicates that they'll be reversing the 3.1 nerf to Fanaticism and Righteous Vengeance remains to be seen.
Changes coming to Paladins in patch 3.1
As I'm sure you've seen already, Eyonix dropped more class changes, Paladins being amongst this latest batch. Not many Holy changes, only minor Ret changes, but a whole crapload of Protection changes. Delicious, delicious Protection changes. A lot of the Protection changes serve a dual purpose- the changes are pretty good steps toward making Protection Paladins PvP-viable like Protection Warriors are becoming, but those same changes make the tree even stronger in PvE than it already is. It's beautiful. Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins. This is very, very awesome. It's a wonder this didn't happen earlier, actually. I think many of us expected this to happen back in the Wrath beta, but instead it was turned into a 5 point talent in the Protection tree. The unanswered question is whether or not we'll get the full 5 talent points baseline, or if we'll still need to spent talent points to improve it. Personally, I'm going to assume we'll get the 10% BoK baseline, it's the only way this would even remotely make sense.
Replenishment: What are the odds?
There was a recent flurry of interest surrounding the Replenishment mechanic due to Ghostcrawler's statement that "we assume that you have Replenishment available to your raid." He said that it doesn't mean raids will be undoable without it, but that they're tuned assuming you have it, and if you don't, you'll need to out-gear or out-skill the raid, or else you'll have problems. In this post, I'd like to look at just how easy it is to get Replenishment in your raid. There are three Replenishment specs: Retribution Paladin, Shadow Priest, and Survival Hunter. As you can see, they're all DPS specs. Historically speaking, these specs were probably selected because they had been viewed as suboptimal for raiding (in the case of Survival and Ret), or because they had been valued for their mana regeneration (in the case of Shadow), although at the moment all three of these specs have competitive DPS and don't really need group utility to prop them up. Unfortunately, GC never clarified whether he was talking about 10- or 25-person raiding, so I'll examine both. I will make the simplifying assumption that the 30 specs are equally distributed in the raiding population: any given character is 1/30 likely to be of any given spec. Put another way, each spec enjoys a 3.3% share of the character base. I know this is not actually true, but it's a very helpful simplification and I don't think it will distort my numbers too much. Edit: Yes, I'm also assuming every Survival, Shadow, and Retribution raider has the relevant Replenishment talents. I think this is a pretty safe assumption.
The Light and How to Swing It: Raiding and the Retadin
I mentioned it the last time, but more than ever, it's a good time to be a Paladin. We're not perfect yet, and indeed the class needs a little more tweaking, but it's incredibly playable right now and is a lot of fun. We've always had traditional roles of tanking and healing for Paladins, but in this day and age, Retribution Paladins are a more than welcome addition to any party or raid. So for today, we'll talk about that. I know a lot of Paladins have specced for Retribution or have a spare Retribution set in their banks, and the spec is more popular than ever. Considering that Replenishment is considered a mandatory raid buff, a Retribution Paladin's raiding slot is pretty secure.Next week we'll talk about gearing your tank up for raiding, and after that we'll see how Holy Paladins are a beacon of light in this dark age. Alright, it's not such a dark age, but Holy Paladins are downright awesome anyway. Today, however, is a day of Retribution. So pick up that 2-hander and head on over to Naxxramas or beat down on those big bad dragons. First, we'll take a look at a good raiding build after the jump.
Replenishment is mandatory and other buff discussion from Ghostcrawler
One of the major overhauls heading from Burning Crusade into Wrath of the Lich King was the consolidation of buffs and debuffs. In an attempt to keep raid groups from thinking they had to bring one specific class to get one specific buff or debuff, Blizzard switched some spells up, gave buffs to more classes, and made them unstackable, the result being that one can take one of a certain handful of class and specs to get the buff or debuff they desire, in theory giving a raid more choice about who they bring. Still, the buffs and debuffs remain, and Ghostcrawler has been having some pretty interesting discussions about them in the past few days. To start with, he came out and said it pretty plainly: Replenishment is Mandatory. Blizzard will balance fights under the assumption you have Replenishment much as they do under the assumption you have a tank. In the short term, this means your raid is probably going to want to find a Shadow Priest, Retribution Paladin, or Survival Hunter if they haven't already.
WoW Insider's gearing up in Northrend guides
We probably have at least an hour (or seven) of maintenance and downtime before realms start coming back up, so this is as good a time as any to make a nice list of the Wrath of the Lich King gear guides we've done so far. Not every class and spec is complete, but progress is progress, right?If you don't see the spec/role you're looking for in our list below, never fear! Our columnists are always working on these things, and the best inspiration for all of our writers is knowing what everyone is looking for. Don't see what you're looking for? Just let us know. Don't be afraid to look at guides for similar classes, either. They might just have the information you need. For example, the Shadow Priest spell hit guide will work for most casters.But enough talk, on with the show!
The Queue: That's a lot of J names
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Last time on The Queue, I answered a question about potential hero classes. Zoidberg asked about Archdruids, but there wasn't a whole lot to say. It's a rumor, and a rumor without much weight behind it, just an interview comment taken out of context as the WoW community (yes, even WoW Insider sometimes) likes to do. Since answering that question, I've been thinking about it a little myself.Do I, personally, think Archdruids will be the next hero class? Nah, I don't think so. Just the name is the big issue for me. Archdruid suggest Druid+ or Druid 2.0 and that's just not cool. You can differentiate them from Druids as much as you want, Archdruid still suggests that it's a better Druid. That's pretty awful. Even if the new hero class (if there is a new hero class) has all of the features we'd expect from an Archdruid, it'll probably be called something else. Maybe a Keeper or something like that.
