I know I've said in the past that once the patch comes, I'd spec 0/17/54 for Divine Guardian/Sacrifice and all the ret damage talents (aside from Seal of Command). I've been rethinking that position.
I'm now considering going 11/5/55, grabbing the new Aura Mastery along with Healing Light and Unyielding Faith from the holy tree. I'm undecided about whether my first 5 points in holy will be in Seals of the Pure or Spiritual Focus. If Seal of Righteousness ends up being competitive damage-wise with Seal of Blood when glyphed and talented, I'll grab Seals of the Pure. If not, Spiritual Focus for healing in the clutch. The extra point in ret (55 instead of 54) is for Seal of Command, since I happened to have a point left over.
The new Aura Mastery is the key here. I can use it to add damage to an encounter. If a boss flurries, pop Aura Mastery for increased Retribution Aura feedback damage during that time so he kills himself quicker. If a boss has a silence, which will prevent use of Judgement, Aura Mastery will break it. I can still use Divine Shield + Hand of Sacrifice on the tank for my Divine Sacrifice/Divine Guardian effect, it just won't be group-wide. Plus, Healing Light will make those Art of War flashes I do that much better. Unyielding Faith is always a nice little bonus too, I hate getting feared.
Still waiting on some official patch notes, but I think that sounds like a good plan to me.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Specs in 3.1
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I wish Blizzard would give us Paladins some of the cross-tree synergy they gave Druids. The best example to me is Natrualist:
"Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch spell by 0.5 sec and increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%."
The two effects of the talents have NOTHING to do with each other. Yet Blizzard added a physical DPS increase to a healing talent so that Feral Druids have a REASON to go into the Restoration tree.
So where's the side-effect to early Holy Talents that give a benefit to Retribution or Protection Paladins? It doesn't have to be much, but SOMETHING that appeals to the other specs.
It's an interesting idea you got for the spec, mind using the current 3.1 talent trees so we can see what you got in mind?
I think the aura mastery also increases the effectiveness of the dmg multiplier applied by Sanctified Retribution, so that could be an added ability to pop along with wings, a haste potion and whatever on use trinks you have.
@Dallanna
I put a link in the post to a MMO Champ talent calculator for you.
Hey EfaE! My 3.1 spec, at the moment anyway, is similar to yours - my points in Holy went into Seal Damage (maybe our tank is new and I don't wanna pull aggro, so I'll use SoV for a bit? though I'm thinking of switching that) and Divine Intellect, since more mana is always good and with the upcoming loss of SA it might be even better. Divine Strength as always, I did pick up Seal of Command along with the rest of the cookiecutter ret raid DPS spec, and I threw the leftover points into Pursuit of Justice (for fights like Sartharion, where hauling ass is a good thing) and one point into some improved hands of freedom and protection - just because they offer a bit more raid usage than any of my other options.
Mandatory break to prevent wall of text crits.
Aura Mastery sadly looks to be rather subpar, at least not worth it for ret to grab it - Holies should probably nab it, but its just not worth it for us.
@Peregrine
Yea, it's a small boost. But, it's a boost. It's more damage than anything you'll get from the prot tree outside of Divine Strength.
What would you do instead? I guarantee this spec has more personal damage, even if the SotP points get wasted and Martyr/Blood are still preferred.
Maybe so, but is the goal of the Retpally exclusively personal damage? It's never seemed like it to me.
Granted, it IS a boost, but not very much of one at all, and I'd personally rather have the added utility from where I stuck that extra point. Maybe its just a matter of personal preference at this point.
I tried that build a few days ago and while it seems like a bad idea it got poo-poo'd on the blizzard forums.
http://retribution-paladin.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-31-talent-build-idea.html
http://retribution-paladin.blogspot.com/2009/03/ok-so-that-didnt-work.html
Besides I think blizzard will add something to the ret-tree - at the momment you can put all your points in Ret and you have a lot of points left over. Something is missing somewhere...
Hmm that too firelight... I did notice that our tree is looking actually kind of strained now, I used to be able to go all the way to 51-pt talent without picking up any pvp talents, now to get past a certain tier (I think its the vengeance tier) I need to throw two points into something pvp-oriented.
Sorry, guess we're usurping your post Josh ;)
@Alex
The response on the WoW official forums would not concern me. Don't go by what they say there.
As for the 0/19/52 spec that's being floated around, it doesn't grab Pursuit of Justice, which is a major sticking point for me. Time on target is important, and any fight with any movement would make Pursuit of Justice's extra movement speed worth it.
Divine Sacrifice seems a lot like it'll turn into Divine Suicide, and Aura Mastery can double the Ret Aura damage reflection for a little bit. It's a damage increase.
A small increase is better than no increase.
In the unlikely event that we're seeing the final trees there, I might go with this (this was my plan prior to the addition of Divinity) for what looks like a pretty potent hybrid killer/healer build.
It gives up Pursuit, but I'm normally raiding with one or more DKs anyway. I've saved wipes before by switching to heals when we've lost healers, and those builds add a lot of healing ability compared to what I have now. I'm currently running with Circle of Holy Light for my third major glyph because of the weakness of the current Ret options for that spot. Divinity would reduce the healing load we add, assuming we continue to have reason to hurt ourselves.
At this point, it's just idle speculation, though. I seriously doubt they're finished with the talent tweaks.
3rd Glyph options are there and well worth using
Consecration or Avenging Wrath both increase DPS, consecration by making rotation easier to handle or AW which will considerably add DPS during the execute phase.
Drak
Hi guys. Very informative blog.
By the way Josh, I linked your blog to mine http://paladinsjourney.blogspot.com/ that's if you don't mind :D
For the Light!
Having to switch to conc aura, then hitting aura mastery seems like something most people will be too lazy to do to avoid a silence. Also, it might be difficult to predict an incoming silence 2 globals before it actually happens.
I'm thinking of http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sxhZVMZVfbxbIuGdIfsu
It gives me more utility for the raid, which I think is important because since ret damage is on the lower end of dps class spectrum, ret pallys have to have utility that makes them more appealing to the raid leader.
Lower BoP cooldown, ability to break stuns, having that AoW FoL heal you more, + tick more with Sheath, longer time on HoF + Pursuit for more contact time on a mob.
@RJ
Link away, I don't mind. A note, though - I'm only known as Baelor on Maintankadin nowadays. I'm known as Cathmor to my realm and Josh to the blogosphere. It's probably safest to just entitle the link "Eye for an Eye," since that's a catch-all for all my various names.
@Kenneth
Good point, I didn't think about the fact that I'd need Conc Aura up for the silence immunity to be available. However, all the aura buffs a ret brings will be attached to any aura he/she runs in 3.1, so I could feasibly run Conc Aura for the fights that have silences and only need to stay 1 GCD ahead of the silence while losing nothing except the reflective damage on the tank.
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