I looked at one of my guild's mostly-epiced paladin healers, and most of her gear seemed to have spirit (and wasn't reforged away from it either). Mostly int gems, as well. So her philosophy seems to be to get plenty of both int and spirit. This doesn't seem like a bad idea, because if you get enough int+regen, you can probably use Divine Light a lot more.
It doesn't look like you can really avoid spirit on caster plate, generally speaking.
For example, the Retribution mastery, Hand of Light, is fun, but it doesn’t contribute enough damage. To make it contribute enough damage, the proc would need a very high chance, which then can cause paladins to devalue other sources of Holy Power. Instead, we are redesigning Retribution mastery to add a percentage of the damage of Templar’s Verdict, Crusader Strike, and Divine Storm as Holy damage (which also plays better with Inqusition). Because Hand of Light is fun, however, we are going to change Divine Purpose as a chance to proc Hand of Light instead of a chance for extra Holy Power (which will also remove a little of the randomness from the rotation).
I will gladly take some less randomness in ret dps. As nice as it is to bust out 12k dps in pretty piss poor heroic/pvp gear on Argaloth it's not something that you can rely on with any consistency and it's freaking infuriating to sit there on a pull doing like 5k dps because all you can fucking do is autoattack and wait for CS to come off cd because you're not getting any procs of anything.
I'm going to be dead honest: I think EJ offers some really, really bad advice for healers.
I think it's mostly a problem of not a lot of updates for the new world of Cataclysm raiding. Max throughput was so important for Wrath, but now it is way more about efficiency and longevity. Hopefully they will catch up.
(I don't heal on my paladin but I do on my Shaman, I assume they have the same issues on EJ)
If I'm reading EJ right, they value spirit low because it isn't effecint for its item value.
Also, there is this whole sitting in melee and sneak a couple of Insight procs during boss ability cooldowns and whats not, also, judging on cooldown (make a foucs macro to avoid Holy Shocking the boss) on less intense periods can add quite a heafty chunk to your mana.
On the TV issue though, yeah it hits less then exo and HW, but it scales with AP and wep a lot faster, I think we'll see it become a priority with better weapon selections.
I haven't added any glyphs yet, and what's there are just the ones that didn't get cut in the expansion.
Keep in mind, I'm only leveling right now.
Now, am I doing this right?
I run in and judge a mob, CS and then TV. Should I be waiting for 3 Holy Power? I'm making sure to use the instant Exo's and HoW when it's up. But... basically it's just CS>TV>CS>TV>blahblahblah. That's super boring and must mean I'm doing it wrong. Because I've read that people think it's not a face roll like WotLK, but I'm doing a lot less.
Also, I seem to run out of mana much faster now.
Also also, it seems to take forever to kill anything now.
Also the 3rd, what seal should I be using while leveling?
I just started dicking around on the game again, and my new Paladin is level 15, but I'm pretty sure it's never worth it to hit Templar's Verdict unless you have 3 holy power. It's not even as strong as a crusader strike with 2 Holy Power.
Oh cool, so were back to the days of auto-attack marathons with one ability. Except now we get to throw something else in the mix every once in awhile.
CS, judge, holy wrath are the skills you can use without holy power. Each of these has a 20% chance to generate holy power, and each autoattack has a chance to proc an isntant exorcism as well as a free 3 hp skill. You also want to keep up inquisition while not wasting an exo or free 3hp TV procs. You also have 2 separate cooldowns that shouldn't be used at once, Avenging wrath lets you use hammer of wrath for it's duration, which you also have to use on cooldown, while zealotry is used separately and changes your rotation to CS>TV for 20 seconds.
This leads to ret currently having nothing to do now and then, and having 4 buttons to push at the same time at other times. It takes a lot of skill to play one well at the moment, and I find it amazingly frustrating.
Oh cool, so were back to the days of auto-attack marathons with one ability. Except now we get to throw something else in the mix every once in awhile.
If you ignore things like Judgement and Holy Wrath, sure.
It's actually probably one of the more interesting dps specs in the game atm. It's grown on me considerably since Cata went live.
Plus it's not like crusader strike is the only way to gain holy power, as opposed to Prot. Talented correctly virtually every attack you have as ret has the potential to produce holy power making getting 3 hopo's to use TV (never before using Inquisition though!) almost too trivial. More often than not you find yourself sitting on 3 hopo's "unable" to use them because Exorcism/HoW keep proccing and they take priority. In fact ret is all about priority now, whereas before it was more of a first come first serve "rotation".
Unless you're like level 10 I can't imagine a situation where ret is just "auto attack marathons with one ability. Even in the worst case of RNG situations you still have Judgement and Holy Wrath (and HoW below 20%) to pop on your GCD's to build hopo.
Well, I don't have Inquisition yet as I just started playing again. And have mostly been flying around checking out all the changes. It just seems like I don't ever have holy power. I took my spec off EJ, so I'm assuming it's the right spec. Maybe it's a gear/level thing that changes at 85? Because I'll sit there not getting HP from auto-attacks/etc. So it feels like I'm really just waiting to CS over and over.
Well, I don't have Inquisition yet as I just started playing again. And have mostly been flying around checking out all the changes. It just seems like I don't ever have holy power. I took my spec off EJ, so I'm assuming it's the right spec. Maybe it's a gear/level thing that changes at 85? Because I'll sit there not getting HP from auto-attacks/etc. So it feels like I'm really just waiting to CS over and over.
The big ones that play into what you're talking about are Art of War (level 29+) which allows your auto attacks to proc a free, instant, double damage Exorcism. That's huge. Then at 39+ you get Sanctified wrath that lowers Avenging Wraths cooldown and makes HoW always be up when you use AW, and you can bring the cd to 2m which means you can have it up all the freaking time. Once you get further down the tree you get Divine Purpose which gives pretty much every single ability you have to give you 20/40% to gain a holy power. You get that as early as 49, and really anything below that level (and some time above it) will be dying so quickly that hopo isn't even ever an issue anyway because you don't need it.
The next big change for ret dps is unlocking mastery at 80. that gives you the ability Hand of Light which gives your auto attacks a chance to give you 3 "free" holy power that don't overwrite your already obtained hopo; giving you a lot more flexibility and makes you able to have "free" 3 point TV's or Inquisitions (or WoG's, which is sometimes more beneficial than extra dps, but is hard to model).
By 80 you have virtually all of your tools of "things to do". Inquisition is just a flat DPS buff you want to keep up 100% for the most part. By 50 or so you have most of your tools, except Zealotry at 69, but even that is just a CD that while helping the hopo situation; isn't something you'll use in normal circumstances.
The EJ build is about as good as you'll get for ret dps. The extra point you get in that build is well spent in either Acts of Sacrifice (nice pvp, sometimes raid buff) or Eternal Glory, particularly if you're still doing heroics with inexperenced tanks/healers to sometimes get a "free" WoG heal.
If you're above level 49 and you're not getting hopo from anything other than CS check your build. you might not have Divine purpose.
Well, I don't have Inquisition yet as I just started playing again. And have mostly been flying around checking out all the changes. It just seems like I don't ever have holy power. I took my spec off EJ, so I'm assuming it's the right spec. Maybe it's a gear/level thing that changes at 85? Because I'll sit there not getting HP from auto-attacks/etc. So it feels like I'm really just waiting to CS over and over.
The big ones that play into what you're talking about are Art of War (level 29+) which allows your auto attacks to proc a free, instant, double damage Exorcism. That's huge. Then at 39+ you get Sanctified wrath that lowers Avenging Wraths cooldown and makes HoW always be up when you use AW, and you can bring the cd to 2m which means you can have it up all the freaking time. Once you get further down the tree you get Divine Purpose which gives pretty much every single ability you have to give you 20/40% to gain a holy power. You get that as early as 49, and really anything below that level (and some time above it) will be dying so quickly that hopo isn't even ever an issue anyway because you don't need it.
The next big change for ret dps is unlocking mastery at 80. that gives you the ability Hand of Light which gives your auto attacks a chance to give you 3 "free" holy power that don't overwrite your already obtained hopo; giving you a lot more flexibility and makes you able to have "free" 3 point TV's or Inquisitions (or WoG's, which is sometimes more beneficial than extra dps, but is hard to model).
By 80 you have virtually all of your tools of "things to do". Inquisition is just a flat DPS buff you want to keep up 100% for the most part. By 50 or so you have most of your tools, except Zealotry at 69, but even that is just a CD that while helping the hopo situation; isn't something you'll use in normal circumstances.
The EJ build is about as good as you'll get for ret dps. The extra point you get in that build is well spent in either Acts of Sacrifice (nice pvp, sometimes raid buff) or Eternal Glory, particularly if you're still doing heroics with inexperenced tanks/healers to sometimes get a "free" WoG heal.
If you're above level 49 and you're not getting hopo from anything other than CS check your build. you might not have Divine purpose.
Yeah that's what I'm not getting, I'm 80 right now. So I have everything but Inq at my disposal. So I'm not understanding why I just get stuck with judgements and CS a lot of the time. I get instant Exo's, but that's proc based. And I'm not using AW while I'm out questing. (should I be?)
Does it come down to what Orange said about Wrath gear being crappy on mastery?
Well, Master is kind of bottom of the barrel for Ret right now; typically you reforge out of it to more useful stats; however its hard to avoid some reasonable level of mastery on Cata gear.
It could be playing into it yeah.
Also, since its auto attack based; like many things with ret, haste is ace.
Yeah that's what I'm not getting, I'm 80 right now. So I have everything but Inq at my disposal. So I'm not understanding why I just get stuck with judgements and CS a lot of the time. I get instant Exo's, but that's proc based. And I'm not using AW while I'm out questing. (should I be?)
Does it come down to what Orange said about Wrath gear being crappy on mastery?
You should be having nothing to do half the time, and a ton to do half the time. Judgement, HW, TV, HoW, exo all have a 20% chance to proc holy power, unless you skipped that talent (which would be really really bad). So sometimes you CS, judge, CS, HW, twiddle thumbs, CS, TV repeat.
Sometimes you CS, Judge, CS, TV, CS, HW, TV, exo proc+hand of light proc which both proc more holy power and you get another hand of light proc as well as another exo proc and suddenly there are 5 things to press. Then nothing to do again.
There is no reason to not use AW/zealotry while questiong, they are short cooldowns meant to be used every encounter in a dungeon pretty much, so might as well get used to popping them fairly often. Just remember to not use them at the same time, due to AW adding HoW to your rotation, and zealotry making TVs basically spammable.
EJ calls selfless healer an overall dps loss and recommends not taking it.
Personally I find it useful but ymmv. If you're not really quick on yoru feet then it'd probably end up going unused entirely for many.
I've found that at best, i can break even.
EDIT: I took Selfless Healer instead of Eye for an Eye.
How is it a DPS loss if you're spending the discretionary point(s) on it that don't otherwise go into anything that increases DPS?
It's not a dps loss in that manner.
Well, it is a bit; that discretionary point could go into eye for an eye which has shown to be a dps increase in very specific situations.
But what I meant about the dps loss is that using WoG at all while DPS'ing is an overall dps loss, as the dps buff you get from selfless healer doesn't make up for the damage loss from using the hopo on TV or Inq.
EDIT: I should clarifiy that I'm not against Selfless Healer. As I said before, I personally take it instead of Eye, because in the current gearing situation in Cata, helping out a healer a bit and taking a bit of a dps dip is more important to me than the very moderate dps increase you can get on very few specific encounters. I'm just relating EJ information.
EJ is good but should never be taking as the unquestionable bible. I often modify builds I find on there for various classes to better fit my personal playstyle; I just make an effort to keep what is usually the "core" of a build that is the bare minimum to be competitive.
It was requested of me to go holy for one of my specs and I figured "why not?" I spent a ton of money building a modest holy gear set but can't decide which of my current specs I want to drop. I have spent the vast majority of my time in cata as ret as our guild is fine on tanks atm; but I know that once we get moving and start raiding and break into our two 10's, they're going to need me as a tank again. At that point I'd probably end up dropping ret and being prot/holy but right now I'm probably best off going ret/holy and just keeping my prot gear up to date.
But I've never played holy, ever. I haven't played a healer since vanilla, on my priest. I've read the EJ thread but it is light on instructions for actual play; but I'm not 100% sure what could really be delved into other than, keep people alive and do it efficiently.
Now I just need to pick up a few things from heroics and/or JP to make myself viable, gear-wise and I'm ready to take the leap.
The nice thing about holy pally gear is that 9/10 times when it drops in heroics it just gets de'd/vendored anyway. Might as well take it!
Oh don't drop the tanking spec while gearing for holy, the qeuing advantage alone is worth it.
As for play style, believe it or not, its very VERY close to retri;
- Stay with the melee, this provide a lot of advantages, your radaince heal better the closer your targets are, you get to sneak in some melee swings to get some mana, and to a lesser extent self healing.
- Holy Shock on cooldown is a priorty, its mana efficent, it give HoPo and you just plain feel like a bad ass using it.
- Staying in melee means you need to aim your cone to make sure you get all 5 targets when spending HoPo
- Either becon the main tank and heal the raid, or becon the off-tank and heal the main tank, or -and this is strictly for aoe fights- becon the main tan kand heal him, this will generate HoPo fast enough to let you aoe heal every 8 seconds or so; leting the becon drop is a massive waste.
- Stick with Holy Light as your filler, and don't be scared to stop using a filler during a calm in an encounter to get mana; when a boss enrages, its time to whip out the divine and ignore mana, chances are its either a kill or a wipe, no point saving mana.
Thats what worked for me so far, it require you to have a functioning pinky finger, because there are a lot of buttons to push.
EJ calls selfless healer an overall dps loss and recommends not taking it.
Personally I find it useful but ymmv. If you're not really quick on yoru feet then it'd probably end up going unused entirely for many.
I've found that at best, i can break even.
EDIT: I took Selfless Healer instead of Eye for an Eye.
How is it a DPS loss if you're spending the discretionary point(s) on it that don't otherwise go into anything that increases DPS?
I believe the argument is that the holy power you're spending on WoG should, instead, be spent using Templar's Verdict or Inquisition or Zealotry. Thus, you're doing less damage overall (the 12% buff to damage for 10 seconds from a maxed out Selfless Healer proc does not overcome the average damage gained from doing an extra TV, etc.).
However, I find that with the Holy Power-gaining talents I have and the Hand of Light mastery, that I can reliably toss a few WoGs during every major fight and save some people's asses, which that the healer really appreciates. So, I keep SH talented.
I've been toying around with holy pvp in group settings (mainly Tol Barad at this point, but I plan on branching out into battlegrounds at some point).
My gear sucks and all (alot of the crafted stuff, rep gear to fill in where possible), but healing in large group pvp really feels like pissing in the wind.
EJ calls selfless healer an overall dps loss and recommends not taking it.
Personally I find it useful but ymmv. If you're not really quick on yoru feet then it'd probably end up going unused entirely for many.
I've found that at best, i can break even.
EDIT: I took Selfless Healer instead of Eye for an Eye.
How is it a DPS loss if you're spending the discretionary point(s) on it that don't otherwise go into anything that increases DPS?
It's not a dps loss in that manner.
Well, it is a bit; that discretionary point could go into eye for an eye which has shown to be a dps increase in very specific situations.
But what I meant about the dps loss is that using WoG at all while DPS'ing is an overall dps loss, as the dps buff you get from selfless healer doesn't make up for the damage loss from using the hopo on TV or Inq.
Well, right. I don't think anyone expected to integrate WoG into a ret rotation with Selfless Healer to increase DPS. Blizzard even came out and said during beta when SH was given the damage buff that it was not intended to be worth using WoG to increase your damage. But if there are situations/encounters where it's going to be very helpful for you to throw out a WoG (on someone else, obviously), it's far better for it to be a lot stronger and hurt your DPS only a little.
I think you made a good choice taking it, because the EJ theorycrafters live in an ideal world that isn't even close to how Cataclysm actually plays.
EJ calls selfless healer an overall dps loss and recommends not taking it.
Personally I find it useful but ymmv. If you're not really quick on yoru feet then it'd probably end up going unused entirely for many.
I've found that at best, i can break even.
EDIT: I took Selfless Healer instead of Eye for an Eye.
How is it a DPS loss if you're spending the discretionary point(s) on it that don't otherwise go into anything that increases DPS?
I believe the argument is that the holy power you're spending on WoG should, instead, be spent using Templar's Verdict or Inquisition or Zealotry. Thus, you're doing less damage overall (the 12% buff to damage for 10 seconds from a maxed out Selfless Healer proc does not overcome the average damage gained from doing an extra TV, etc.).
Except there's 0 argument there. No one is saying they're expecting to increase their DPS by using SH'd WoGs.
However, I find that with the Holy Power-gaining talents I have and the Hand of Light mastery, that I can reliably toss a few WoGs during every major fight and save some people's asses, which that the healer really appreciates. So, I keep SH talented.
Correct. Also, every time someone is kept alive by an occasional ret paladin heal when they otherwise might have died, that's a far bigger DPS increase than any single ret talent would provide.
Ok so things aren't so bad now. I have a better grasp of what's going on. I still hate the randomness though.
Now if only I wouldn't lag so much, each mob wouldn't be a life and death struggle.
Yeah I would back up heal all the time if it felt necessary. I don't get why so many Retadins don't do that.
Because DPS meters are the devil. Well...maybe just a lesser demon with GS being the devil.
Every class has a few core skills that allow you to pinpoint whether or not a player is actually good or not. For most hybrid classes it's whether or not they're willing to sacrifice topping meters to help the healer in an emergency; or if they'd rather let the group wipe because they're either too far up their own ass to heal or too oblivious to even notice.
When I saw Selfless Healer it was borderline erotic to me and I can't imagine why you would roll a Paladin and not want to at be able to toss out heals. I really love the idea of DPS Paladins being part time medics and all around helpful dudes. The class has always felt like it was designed with helping groups out in mind and Selfless Healer is an embodiment of that beautiful, fragile idea.
Too bad everything else about Retribution does not jive at all with how I like to play the game. Oh well, there's still time to shape them up a bit.
I'm about to get into the Cata zones and I'm excited to be able to start proper tanking again. One of my favorite tools was a macro that let me cast Righteous Defense (I think that's the name, the "taunt" that you cast on a player instead of the mob?) on my target's target. Does anyone have that macro or one like it so I can get that set up again? I know we have a single target taunt now, but it's nice having another one that I don't have to worry about selecting someone and then casting it.
Another question, are there Cata quests that give tank loot? Because I noticed in Northrend all the regular quests give either healing or DPS plate and only a few rare "group" quests (also instance quests) actually give tank gear.
EJ calls selfless healer an overall dps loss and recommends not taking it.
Personally I find it useful but ymmv. If you're not really quick on yoru feet then it'd probably end up going unused entirely for many.
I've found that at best, i can break even.
EDIT: I took Selfless Healer instead of Eye for an Eye.
How is it a DPS loss if you're spending the discretionary point(s) on it that don't otherwise go into anything that increases DPS?
Because altruism and empathy directly decrease your attack power. Only selfish players fully utilize a DPS spec. Check World of Logs and you'll notice that all of the top DPS players are Randians :P
I'm about to get into the Cata zones and I'm excited to be able to start proper tanking again. One of my favorite tools was a macro that let me cast Righteous Defense (I think that's the name, the "taunt" that you cast on a player instead of the mob?) on my target's target. Does anyone have that macro or one like it so I can get that set up again? I know we have a single target taunt now, but it's nice having another one that I don't have to worry about selecting someone and then casting it.
Another question, are there Cata quests that give tank loot? Because I noticed in Northrend all the regular quests give either healing or DPS plate and only a few rare "group" quests (also instance quests) actually give tank gear.
Righteous Defense works when you just use it on mobs iirc, no need for target of target macro.
Posts
It doesn't look like you can really avoid spirit on caster plate, generally speaking.
Now I gotta figure out if I want the gull more than that trinket.
I should probably get the trinket first but I love pets! :P
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
I will gladly take some less randomness in ret dps. As nice as it is to bust out 12k dps in pretty piss poor heroic/pvp gear on Argaloth it's not something that you can rely on with any consistency and it's freaking infuriating to sit there on a pull doing like 5k dps because all you can fucking do is autoattack and wait for CS to come off cd because you're not getting any procs of anything.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I think it's mostly a problem of not a lot of updates for the new world of Cataclysm raiding. Max throughput was so important for Wrath, but now it is way more about efficiency and longevity. Hopefully they will catch up.
(I don't heal on my paladin but I do on my Shaman, I assume they have the same issues on EJ)
Also, there is this whole sitting in melee and sneak a couple of Insight procs during boss ability cooldowns and whats not, also, judging on cooldown (make a foucs macro to avoid Holy Shocking the boss) on less intense periods can add quite a heafty chunk to your mana.
On the TV issue though, yeah it hits less then exo and HW, but it scales with AP and wep a lot faster, I think we'll see it become a priority with better weapon selections.
This is me.
I haven't added any glyphs yet, and what's there are just the ones that didn't get cut in the expansion.
Keep in mind, I'm only leveling right now.
Now, am I doing this right?
I run in and judge a mob, CS and then TV. Should I be waiting for 3 Holy Power? I'm making sure to use the instant Exo's and HoW when it's up. But... basically it's just CS>TV>CS>TV>blahblahblah. That's super boring and must mean I'm doing it wrong. Because I've read that people think it's not a face roll like WotLK, but I'm doing a lot less.
Also, I seem to run out of mana much faster now.
Also also, it seems to take forever to kill anything now.
Also the 3rd, what seal should I be using while leveling?
This leads to ret currently having nothing to do now and then, and having 4 buttons to push at the same time at other times. It takes a lot of skill to play one well at the moment, and I find it amazingly frustrating.
It's actually probably one of the more interesting dps specs in the game atm. It's grown on me considerably since Cata went live.
Plus it's not like crusader strike is the only way to gain holy power, as opposed to Prot. Talented correctly virtually every attack you have as ret has the potential to produce holy power making getting 3 hopo's to use TV (never before using Inquisition though!) almost too trivial. More often than not you find yourself sitting on 3 hopo's "unable" to use them because Exorcism/HoW keep proccing and they take priority. In fact ret is all about priority now, whereas before it was more of a first come first serve "rotation".
Unless you're like level 10 I can't imagine a situation where ret is just "auto attack marathons with one ability. Even in the worst case of RNG situations you still have Judgement and Holy Wrath (and HoW below 20%) to pop on your GCD's to build hopo.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
The big ones that play into what you're talking about are Art of War (level 29+) which allows your auto attacks to proc a free, instant, double damage Exorcism. That's huge. Then at 39+ you get Sanctified wrath that lowers Avenging Wraths cooldown and makes HoW always be up when you use AW, and you can bring the cd to 2m which means you can have it up all the freaking time. Once you get further down the tree you get Divine Purpose which gives pretty much every single ability you have to give you 20/40% to gain a holy power. You get that as early as 49, and really anything below that level (and some time above it) will be dying so quickly that hopo isn't even ever an issue anyway because you don't need it.
The next big change for ret dps is unlocking mastery at 80. that gives you the ability Hand of Light which gives your auto attacks a chance to give you 3 "free" holy power that don't overwrite your already obtained hopo; giving you a lot more flexibility and makes you able to have "free" 3 point TV's or Inquisitions (or WoG's, which is sometimes more beneficial than extra dps, but is hard to model).
By 80 you have virtually all of your tools of "things to do". Inquisition is just a flat DPS buff you want to keep up 100% for the most part. By 50 or so you have most of your tools, except Zealotry at 69, but even that is just a CD that while helping the hopo situation; isn't something you'll use in normal circumstances.
The EJ build is about as good as you'll get for ret dps. The extra point you get in that build is well spent in either Acts of Sacrifice (nice pvp, sometimes raid buff) or Eternal Glory, particularly if you're still doing heroics with inexperenced tanks/healers to sometimes get a "free" WoG heal.
If you're above level 49 and you're not getting hopo from anything other than CS check your build. you might not have Divine purpose.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Personally I find it useful but ymmv. If you're not really quick on yoru feet then it'd probably end up going unused entirely for many.
I've found that at best, i can break even.
EDIT: I took Selfless Healer instead of Eye for an Eye.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Yeah that's what I'm not getting, I'm 80 right now. So I have everything but Inq at my disposal. So I'm not understanding why I just get stuck with judgements and CS a lot of the time. I get instant Exo's, but that's proc based. And I'm not using AW while I'm out questing. (should I be?)
Does it come down to what Orange said about Wrath gear being crappy on mastery?
It could be playing into it yeah.
Also, since its auto attack based; like many things with ret, haste is ace.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
You should be having nothing to do half the time, and a ton to do half the time. Judgement, HW, TV, HoW, exo all have a 20% chance to proc holy power, unless you skipped that talent (which would be really really bad). So sometimes you CS, judge, CS, HW, twiddle thumbs, CS, TV repeat.
Sometimes you CS, Judge, CS, TV, CS, HW, TV, exo proc+hand of light proc which both proc more holy power and you get another hand of light proc as well as another exo proc and suddenly there are 5 things to press. Then nothing to do again.
There is no reason to not use AW/zealotry while questiong, they are short cooldowns meant to be used every encounter in a dungeon pretty much, so might as well get used to popping them fairly often. Just remember to not use them at the same time, due to AW adding HoW to your rotation, and zealotry making TVs basically spammable.
It's not a dps loss in that manner.
Well, it is a bit; that discretionary point could go into eye for an eye which has shown to be a dps increase in very specific situations.
But what I meant about the dps loss is that using WoG at all while DPS'ing is an overall dps loss, as the dps buff you get from selfless healer doesn't make up for the damage loss from using the hopo on TV or Inq.
EDIT: I should clarifiy that I'm not against Selfless Healer. As I said before, I personally take it instead of Eye, because in the current gearing situation in Cata, helping out a healer a bit and taking a bit of a dps dip is more important to me than the very moderate dps increase you can get on very few specific encounters. I'm just relating EJ information.
EJ is good but should never be taking as the unquestionable bible. I often modify builds I find on there for various classes to better fit my personal playstyle; I just make an effort to keep what is usually the "core" of a build that is the bare minimum to be competitive.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
It was requested of me to go holy for one of my specs and I figured "why not?" I spent a ton of money building a modest holy gear set but can't decide which of my current specs I want to drop. I have spent the vast majority of my time in cata as ret as our guild is fine on tanks atm; but I know that once we get moving and start raiding and break into our two 10's, they're going to need me as a tank again. At that point I'd probably end up dropping ret and being prot/holy but right now I'm probably best off going ret/holy and just keeping my prot gear up to date.
But I've never played holy, ever. I haven't played a healer since vanilla, on my priest. I've read the EJ thread but it is light on instructions for actual play; but I'm not 100% sure what could really be delved into other than, keep people alive and do it efficiently.
Now I just need to pick up a few things from heroics and/or JP to make myself viable, gear-wise and I'm ready to take the leap.
The nice thing about holy pally gear is that 9/10 times when it drops in heroics it just gets de'd/vendored anyway. Might as well take it!
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
As for play style, believe it or not, its very VERY close to retri;
- Stay with the melee, this provide a lot of advantages, your radaince heal better the closer your targets are, you get to sneak in some melee swings to get some mana, and to a lesser extent self healing.
- Holy Shock on cooldown is a priorty, its mana efficent, it give HoPo and you just plain feel like a bad ass using it.
- Staying in melee means you need to aim your cone to make sure you get all 5 targets when spending HoPo
- Either becon the main tank and heal the raid, or becon the off-tank and heal the main tank, or -and this is strictly for aoe fights- becon the main tan kand heal him, this will generate HoPo fast enough to let you aoe heal every 8 seconds or so; leting the becon drop is a massive waste.
- Stick with Holy Light as your filler, and don't be scared to stop using a filler during a calm in an encounter to get mana; when a boss enrages, its time to whip out the divine and ignore mana, chances are its either a kill or a wipe, no point saving mana.
Thats what worked for me so far, it require you to have a functioning pinky finger, because there are a lot of buttons to push.
I believe the argument is that the holy power you're spending on WoG should, instead, be spent using Templar's Verdict or Inquisition or Zealotry. Thus, you're doing less damage overall (the 12% buff to damage for 10 seconds from a maxed out Selfless Healer proc does not overcome the average damage gained from doing an extra TV, etc.).
However, I find that with the Holy Power-gaining talents I have and the Hand of Light mastery, that I can reliably toss a few WoGs during every major fight and save some people's asses, which that the healer really appreciates. So, I keep SH talented.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
My gear sucks and all (alot of the crafted stuff, rep gear to fill in where possible), but healing in large group pvp really feels like pissing in the wind.
I think you made a good choice taking it, because the EJ theorycrafters live in an ideal world that isn't even close to how Cataclysm actually plays.
Correct. Also, every time someone is kept alive by an occasional ret paladin heal when they otherwise might have died, that's a far bigger DPS increase than any single ret talent would provide.
Now if only I wouldn't lag so much, each mob wouldn't be a life and death struggle.
Because DPS meters are the devil. Well...maybe just a lesser demon with GS being the devil.
Every class has a few core skills that allow you to pinpoint whether or not a player is actually good or not. For most hybrid classes it's whether or not they're willing to sacrifice topping meters to help the healer in an emergency; or if they'd rather let the group wipe because they're either too far up their own ass to heal or too oblivious to even notice.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Too bad everything else about Retribution does not jive at all with how I like to play the game. Oh well, there's still time to shape them up a bit.
Another question, are there Cata quests that give tank loot? Because I noticed in Northrend all the regular quests give either healing or DPS plate and only a few rare "group" quests (also instance quests) actually give tank gear.
Because altruism and empathy directly decrease your attack power. Only selfish players fully utilize a DPS spec. Check World of Logs and you'll notice that all of the top DPS players are Randians :P
Righteous Defense works when you just use it on mobs iirc, no need for target of target macro.