Newsworthy?

Hey guys.

Not much to report of late from in-game Retribution related stuff that hasn't already been covered elsewhere.

I moved my Death Knight who's now 70 to Silvermoon-EU - He's now called...oh...err...I forgot what I called him!! I'll check tonight and update this!

The Reason? Well my mum's new Boyfriend has 2 level 80 characters on here, and my sister wanted us to play together! Sounds wierd I know, so I created a paladin and started leveling him up before realising he was seriously lacking gear and money! So off my DK went - with his 750g on him from questing.

Rage have changed their rules regarding raiding and dkp and attendance. A lot of people have not been raiding much, due to RL issues I imagine. This includes myself. But they have also opened up Naxxramas to alts - so I hope to get my Druid in there for some Boomkin love!

I ran some more tests on the PTR - checking out the new changes to SotM and I'm impressed.
At a test dummy I managed a sustained 3.3k DPS with just self buffs (BoM, 180AP Flask, +40Str Food) and was still able to not run out of mana too fast - with raid mana-regen we should be ok I think.

Also has anyone noticed they've added a nice Yellow Lightning effect to Divine Storm? It only happens sometimes, but I think it looks really nice. Subtle.

I'll grab a screenie later and post it.

I've just completed my Protection set - made up of mostly 25-man naxx items - which is really nice! I finished enchanting it and gemming the gear up and in Ret spec i'm running at 27k health with Kings. Very Nice! Now when 3.1 comes out I can try some tanking! I'm a bit out of practise so will need to do some normal runs before I jump into heroics!

Practise Makes Perfect!

Mana Regen In 3.1 PTR

Hey guys.

Just wanted to pop a quick post on here to tell you all about an experiment I ran last night on the PTR.

So armed with the new changes, but no dps meter, I ran myself to the glyph vendor in dalaran and picked up the new Exorcism Glyph and the Seal of the Martyr/Blood Glyph.

I only applied the Exorcism Glyph.

Off I ran to Stormwind and to the test dummies, buffed up and started plugging away at the helpless wooden object.

For 5-10 minutes I stood there - spamming everything that wasnt on Cool Down, including concecrate and didnt really run out of mana. If I got to 50% of mana left I popped Divine Plea and I was back up to 90-100% mana again.

Its good to remember that the new Judgements of the Wise returns 25% of base mana now. Which unless you have a lot of Int gear is pretty much 25% of our entire mana bar. Judgements are now almost back to how they were when 3.0 first came out (33% returned back then IIRC)

So I think with the added re-gen from buffs like improoved Blessing of Wisdom and other sources we shouldn't have any problems with mana regen.

Which is good news!

The only thing we have to work out now is our rotation. It seems that we can still spam consecrate but is it worth it now we have Exorcism?

I'm guessing our priority should remain roughly the same, but I was getting almost 5k Crits with exorcism in there.

Judgement > Crusader Strike > Exorcism > Divine Storm > Consecrate.

Does that look OK? Or is the Judgement going to off Cool down before DS or Cons? Its not really a big deal - just remember to punch Judgement over anything else!

PS - In naxx on Monday night i managed to get a 484k Judgement of the Martyr Crit on the adds after Razz died! LOL! I literally Crit myself to death!! Next time I'm gonna go in guns blazing full on! (read my Avenging wrath was on cool down!)

PTR Changes - Build 9722 - Ret Changes..

OK so Blizzard have started to talk about our up-coming changes...

Divine Storm now causes 110% of weapon damage to up to 4 enemies within 8 yards.

Is this a nerf or a buff? The tool tip in game doesn't give a percentage figure for the damage.

Righteous Vengeance now also affects Crusader Strike.

This is a nice buff. Straight up.

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.

Crusader Strike has been nerfed by 11% to make way for this extra PvP ability. Not sure I'm completely happy about that - Unless we think it'll work in PvE? (Just checked the talent tree's on the Blizzard page - it says it should be 110%....so why does my in game one say 121%? Am I being thick?) ......Wait a minute...is that a mortal strike effect? /facepalm

Judgements of the Wise now immediately grant you 25% of your base mana. (Up from 15%)

There's our mana return increased. Will this be enough? As soon as the EU PTR is up I'll take a look.

Right so the first phase of the Ret-tree fixing has started - all in all it seems positive - some extra pvp abilities and more mana back and a seemingly nice buff as well.

Edit: They've added a Glyph change as well!

Glyph of Seal of Blood -- When your Seal of Blood, Seal of the Martyr, Judgement of Blood, or Judgement of the Martyr deals damage to you, you gain 11% of the damage done as mana.

More Mana! Very nice - So Martyr is no longer less appealing. 11% seems a bit much given the increase on Judgements of the Wise.

Edit 2: The Crusader Strike Debuff isnt coming to the game in 3.1 - Ghostcrawler
Thanks to Tim @ Suicidal Zebra for letting us know.

Ghostcrawler Brings the Love....Maybe....

Morning people! So Ghostcrawler decided to answer some questions last night...Check it out!

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

“I know Ret pallies have made many posts outlining their potential or realized problems. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to answer those. We can only answer a very few a day.

“But here is what I can tell you:

“There is a bug in Righteous Vengeance that caused its damage to be too low (even accounting for the reduction in ranks). That bug has now been fixed. Note that even though the dot is Holy damage (which is normally not-resistable) mobs that are higher level than you can still resist some of the damage. This was not the actual bug, though some players made that assumption since they noticed RV had dropped (again even accounting for the rank reduction).

“Spiritual Attunement could provide as much or more mana as Judgements of the Wise on fights with a lot of raid damage. To account for this, we are likely to buff the instant mana from Judgements of the Wise.

“The glyph of Seal of Blood is reasonably nonsensical now, so we will probably change it to something similar but actually useful (e.g. you get mana back as if you still had SA for purposes of Blood).

“When all that is said and done, Ret’s PvE damage is still probably a little low. Buffing Divine Storm or allowing RV to benefit from Crusader Strike are two possible places to add more damage.

“Note that I made no promises. These are all just things we are discussing. The eventual solutions could end up different. ”

So interesting stuff eh...

Righteous Vengeance is bugged and is gonna get buffed and fixed at the same time - will this bring us inline with pure dps classes in 3.1? Time will tell.

It'll be interesting to see - maybe I'll resurrect my PTR session and go have a looksee when its all said and done.

It does sound interesting though - but I bet we still have mana issues while solo'ing. Seal of Wisdom FTW I suppose...

At least Blizzard have given us a glimmer of hope - a chance that we wont be broken again.

Solidarity Brothers and Sisters...the Light will Deliver us from Evil....

Ding! 2nd 80 - Time to level up the 3rd!

Hey guys!

Spent the weekend focused on getting Gwindle to level 80. Somehow even though I wanted to level my mage up first, I was always going to level her up before any of the others.

So I have to decide what to go for next - aside from getting into heroics and naxx-10 with Gwindle - Who do I level next?

The Mage, The Warlock, or burn through the TBC content again with my 65 Death Knight.

Its a fairly steady income for my raiding from selling all the greens/greys and AH'ing all non soulbound items.

In Achievement news - Firelight is up to 81 out of 100 Mounts for the Mountain of Mounts Achievement - which is pretty mental when I think about it!!

Rage continues to work hard on Sartharion with 3 Drakes up. With 2 we clear it first time. But with the 3rd we're having problems when the 3rd drake lands - key members of the raid are getting killed fast and its kinda frustrating.

I'm not sure where things are going wrong here but considering how simple Sarth +2D is why is +3D such a big step up? I'm guessing its cos of the debuffs, but we can usually take Tenebron down really fast so he's either dead or almost dead when the 2nd Drake joins the fray.

We'll be going there again tonight to give it a try if we have the raid members present.

This week I've also been playing a bit of Warhammer. Created a Warrior Priest (of course!) called Firelight and I'm currently level 5. Will be doing a bit of a report on it later maybe. First impressions are OK, its very much a WoW Clone, with a few things different here and there.

Ok so that didnt work...

So I posted my idea on the WoW Forums this morning and it wont work. So my 11/5/55 is out the window. (but it appears it will be nice for a ret-pvp utility spec)

So I'm left with 11 points left to spend.

Now unless Blizzard add some stuff into the Ret-tree I really dont know where to put those 11 points for a pure PvE build.

With the dual spec thing coming in I really don't see a need for a pve/pvp joint spec.

So what are my options?

Any thoughts/help on this will be really grateful cos right now I have no idea what to do...

My 3.1 Talent Build Idea...

Hey peeps. So as we all know 3.1 is just a few weeks away (probably) and as most of us also know that the Ret-tree has had a few tweaks done to it leaving us with a lot of spare points to play with.

To that end I've put together a couple of possible specs and wanted feed back on what people thought.

1 - 11/5/55 - My idea with this one is to spec deep enough into Holy to get Aura Mastery. This will give our retribution aura 100% more effect. Increasing damage done by the aura by another 50%, increasing raid wide damage by another 3% and increasing attack speed and spell casting by another 3%. (That's provided it does in fact increase ***ALL*** effects) This also gives us 15% extra mana to play with - which is always nice.

2 - 0/10/61 - The Ret PvE/PvP Build - Gives us all the nice stat related pvp stuff in Ret and a few prot pvp related talents.

While I'll put my hand up and say I'm no pvp expert, these seem like nice buils to go for in the patch. I'd have put a nice PvP build in there to, but I'll leave Josh @ E4AE to do that. He knows his PvP way better than I.

Obviously people will be playing with talents a lot when 3.1 comes out, due to dual-spec's - personally I'll be going RET/PROT for my dual specs. Been picking up some nice tanking gear from naxx 25 that people don't want - should be nice for heroics.

I'll leave you today by telling you a dream I had last night.....

In an upcoming patch Blizzard will add "Epic Difficulty" to the 5-man Dungeons. This setting will increase the difficulty in 5-man Dungeons only to EPIC! Bosses will drop the Valor Tokens that currently drop in naxx25 and drops will be all epic 226-229 level items.

These instances will be insanely hard - completing all of them will grant, by way of an achievement, a special 310% Puce Armored Proto-Drake. There will be no hard mode achievement's as the dungeons themselves will be hard enough to test even the Leetest among us!

Bring It On!!!!!

Ask Firelight: Peregrine on Ret

Hey peeps! I've had another email from Peregrine over at Divine Storm:

Peregrine here (aka Divine Storm). I like to think of myself as an old-school pro, but I recognize a good player when I see one. So let me ask you a few questions that have been nagging at me:

1) Do you use Seal of the Martyr for every fight?

2) What is our hit cap? I hit 8% and I'm still being dodged quite often.

3) What Major Glyphs do you use? I'm personally rolling with Glyph of Judgement/Glyph of Seal of the Martyr/Glyph of Lay on Hands. Basically, it's all for Mana efficiency - I can consecrate every single cooldown and never go below 50% Mana. But is this overkill, and is my DPS suffering for it?

4) How long do you wait to blow Avenging Wrath for the first time? I usually blow it along with Hand of Salvation as soon as I start DPS'ing, I'm pretty sure this is the right way to do it, but is there a better way?

Ok so lets start with this:

/target Peregrine
/blush

Now that's over with lets see if we cant help you by answering some of your questions:

1 - No. In some fights its just not practical (read safe) to use Seal of Blood/Martyr. Fights like Loatheb in Naxx, and as you reported today on your blog Raz in Naxx once he's dead.

You just have to remember that sometimes its a good idea to use Command when the healers are stretched and the last thing you want to do is give them more healing to do! I know usually this will mean running out/low on mana - especially on longer fights, but it really is good to be consider the healers.

2 - Currently I'm sat at 289 Hit Rating - That's 8.81% You have to remember that on some fights you will get misses. Dodges are not affected by Hit Rating. In order to remove dodges you have to stack expertise gear. My Expertise Rating is currently 91 (2.75%) but the cap is 214 Rating. Once I get that up my dps will go up a bit.

3 - I use the following Major Glyphs;

a) Glyph of Spiritual Attunement - Increases the amount of mana gained from your Spiritual Attunement spell by an additional 2%.
b) Glyph of Judgement - Your Judgements deal 10% more damage.
c) Glyph of Avenging Wrath - Reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Wrath spell by 50% while Avenging Wrath is active.

I will be dropping the first one for Glyph of Exorcism when 3.1 comes out (+20% more damage on Exorcism) for the extra damage buff. As long as your using Seal of Blood/Martyr then you're never going to run out of mana cos of all the extra healing you get that gives you mana from your Spiritual Attunement. (PS get the Spiritual Attuement Glyph - its better than the seal of blood/martyr one you're using)

With my setup I never run out of mana - unless I'm using Seal of Command - and even then I just pop Divine Plea and/or a potion if it gets really low.

But its all down to personal preference. If you are really worried about running out of mana the keep your setup, but ask yourself one thing: Do I really need to keep above 50% mana for 100% of the fight?

4 - I usually have different times when I pop my wings. Most of the time I will use it right at the start of the fight, unless the fight is really really quick - like Patchwerk - then I'll use it when the boss gets to 20% health so I can use my Hammer of Wrath every 3 seconds due to my Glyph - Which is just IMBA.

I never ever blow it right at the start of a fight for 2 very good reasons;

1 - You might draw aggro from the tank - especially if he's positioning the boss.
2 - Your Vengeance wont be at full power, nor will other similar things like trinkets that build up your attack power over a number of swings.

You really should wait for the Raid leader to call for heroism if you have shaman's in your raid to pop it on long fights.

Avenging Wrath is a very situational buff, but needs to be used as much as possible.

I hope that helps!

Ask Firelight: Voldor on Ulduar Changes.

Hey guys - Got an interesting email from Voldor @ Emeriss EU today;

Hi Firelight

I was wondering if you could take some time to reflect on the upcomming
changed to the Retribution talent Tree - and if you share my concerns about
Paladin dps in Ulduar?

Well this is a rather interesting question!

Having been playing on the PTR a little I've not had a chance to get into a raid into Ulduar, but There are a few things that are interesting.

1 - The change to exocism. This will increase our dps against non-undead targets a considerable amount. Now I think it might be reasonable to say that this could do with the Cooldown dropping a bit - maybe to 10 seconds? Or maybe the cooldown is just fine? I suppose it doesnt really matter - We all know by now there is no spot on rotation for Ret-Paladins, just so long as you prioritise your cooldowns available. (Judge -> CS -> DS -> Conc) Just gotta figure out where Exorcism would fit in. Also remember that Exorcism is now a guaranteed crit on Undeads.

2 - Glyph of Exorcism: +20% damage increase to Exorcism. This is just plain lovely!

Now Ghostcrawler has said that Ret-DPS as it stands in 3.1 is too low. What does this mean exactly? Yes that's right - we all remember a few months ago those immortal words:

"...TO THE GROUND BABY...."

A sad day indeed it was. So they're going to have to buff us again to get us in line with other DPS classes/specs. I've seen screen shots here and there of Hunters doing over 6k sustained dps in Naxx on the PTR - that's insane!!! Will we come in line with them? Maybe. It'd be nice!

The main thing to remember is we are a hybrid class - if we get buffed too much all the pure dps classes with be QQ'ing like crazy (Mages/Warlocks/Hunters) Even now I'm out DPS'ing the Warlocks in our raids.

So it does make you wonder what sort of things they're going to change/add to Ret to give it that boost.

I'd like to see Divine Storm become holy damage again personally. That was a big nerf.

Another thing maybe could be to increase the damage further of judgements and Crusader Strike.

Can I ask for Titans Grip as well? ( I can dream can't I?)

But seriously - until we see more info from Blizzard with regards to what they plan to do with us all we can do is speculate on things...

Worrying about it now is not going to help things!

Everything Blizzard does on the PTR is as predictable as the weather: - You know roughly whats supposed to be coming but predicting it accurately is impossible.

So to sum up Voldor, from a personal stand point I'm NOT worried at all about our DPS in Ulduar.

Maybe when Blizzard announce the changes for us then I'll think about it some more.

Sartharian + 2 Drakes DOWN!

Hey guys! Time for a raiding update! Rage managed to down Sartharian with 2 drakes tonight, and on our 2nd try!

I got the Obsidian Greathelm! The best helm in the game for Rets!

Obsidian Greathelm
Head Plate
1908 Armor
+98 Strength
+145 Stamina
Meta Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +8 Strength
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 76.
Equip: Improves your expertise rating by 59.

Well happy I am!

So we're currently in Naxx clearing the Death Knight wing, and i noticed this:
Yeah thats a 26k Consecration tick on Razz..... W T F!

Anyone care to explain? Also a sustained 4.2k DPS!