The Light and How to Swing It: Patch 3.1 and you Part III
by Zach Yonzon 
Apr 12th 2009 at 7:00PM
RETRIBUTION
What was that term again? To the ground, was it? Well, my Retribution brethren, Patch 3.1 sees a bit of nerfage but not in the ways that we feared. The theory is, things will actually improve for us in PvE. On the other hand, PvP has gone to the crapper, but we'll talk about that later. For now let's look at what happened to Retribution.
Divine Purpose was moved a little bit deeper into the tree, supposedly as a nerf to Holy Paladins who took their Beacon of Light and ate it, too. Not such a big deal for the Retribution spec and absolutely makes no impact on raiding Retadins. What does make an impact is that Divine Storm's damage has been increased, which sounds great in theory, then you realize that Blizzard actually nerfed Fanaticism and Righteous Vengeance. Fanaticism was beaten down to an 18% crit bonus to Judgements from 25%, while Righteous Vengeance was watered down to 30% from a respectable 40%.
On the other hand, Crusader Strike will now also proc Righteous Vengeance, which should theoretically improve its uptime. If you had respectable crit (and in a raid situation, you probably do), uptime wasn't a problem, anyway, so the only good this does is if the rolling DoT actually ticks for more. Overall it's an unremarkable change that's intended to keep Retribution DPS in check, not to improve it.
However, there are two very big overall class changes that affect Retribution playstyle specifically -- one is the removal of Spiritual Attunement from trainers and two is the change in Exorcism to affect any target. The first is a balancing change intended to make Retribution mana regeneration or conservation consistent regardless of the fight. To compensate for the extremely painful loss of Spiritual Attunement, which worked synergistically with Seal of Blood / of the Martyr, the instant return of mana from Judgements of the Wise was buffed to 25%. On paper, everything should remain status quo.
Everything changes with Exorcism. This now becomes a premiere spell in our rotation, as vital as Crusader Strike or Divine Storm. In fact, Blizzard not only encourages us to use it, they dangle it in our faces like a hot light Krispy Kreme glazed donut. Take, for example, the renamed Sanctity of Battle (formerly Sanctified Seals), which increases the damage done by Exorcism and Crusader Strike by 15%. These are straight up single-target DPS buffs, and both intended to drive home the point that these are our primary tools for dishing out pain.
Another critical change that shouldn't affect damage throughput is the nerf to the damage of Judgement of Blood. It's a very painful nerf considering that Judgements are usually our top 1 or 2 sources of DPS in raids. However, the change is aimed squarely at Paladin PvP burst (and perhaps a way to encourage the use of the nerfed-so-many-times-it's-merely-a-shell-of-its-former-self Seal of Command), and Blizzard increased the damage of Seal of Blood itself. This should see Paladins dealing more consistent damage (but will suck in high mobility fights) but demands more Expertise -- it's Holy damage but acts exactly like a melee strike. I mean, you're already Hit-capped right? Of course you are. Now get that Expertise.
The long and short of it is that Retribution burst is dead. Blizzard sent its hitmen and they chopped Ret burst's head off like a racehorse and put it on our beds to scare the living crap out of us, reminding us that PvP is the domain of healers and, well, the now almighty stun-gods, Protection Paladins. Farewell burst, long live consistent damage.
Retribution glyphs
The fact is that there's only one real Major Glyph that all Retribution Paladins use, and that's Glyph of Judgement. Everything else is discretionary. Patch 3.1 gives us a few more glyphs to make our decision-making a little more complicated. Let's start with the snicker-inducing Glyph of Seal of Blood, which was reworked to grant mana that scales with our damage. It's great on paper, but it becomes silly when you consider that if we don't glyph for it, we take self-inflicted damage for no reason whatsoever. It's a crude solution to the small complication of moving Spiritual Attunement to the Protection tree. If mana proves to be a problem in Ulduar, then this should be the third Major Glyph.
Note that I said third. What's the second? The second is actually a no-brainer -- the reworked Glyph of Exorcism is a flat 20% increase to one of our key DPS spells. It's the first major glyph since Glyph of Judgement that directly improves our DPS. Since we're graduating from Naxxramas, the Glyph of Sense Undead minor glyph is no longer as important (yes, we were always that desperate for every damage boost we could get). Another new glyph that can compete for that third Major Glyph spot is the Glyph of Divine Storm, which heals for 15% more. Again, it's not a DPS increase, but should be decent raid utility in the hurtfest that is Ulduar. After all is said and done, however, it falls back to old choices -- the Glyph of Consecration or the Glyph of Avenging Wrath for the best DPS increase. The former should conserve mana and clean up rotation a bit, while the latter should provide a significant boost if you can time the use of Avenging Wrath.
Tier 8
Before anything else, I just want to say that I hope that Tier 8 pants are skirts, and not pants. It just looks so much better with a skirt. But skirt or not, Tier 8 seems off kilter (see what I did there?) with only two Red slots, two Blue slots, and the same number of Yellow slots as Tier 7 (three). The less blue gems, the better, but this is part of Blizzard's attempt to push us towards creative choices.
Increases the damage done by your Exorcism and Hammer of Wrath abilities by 10%.
Did I say creative? I meant predictable. Blizzard wants us to use Exorcism. They've spray painted the proverbial wall in garish pink (it is our favorite color, right?). This bonus even pushes the Glyph of Avenging Wrath slightly ahead of Glyph of Consecration as far as DPS boost is concerned. Oh, and Blizzard called to remind us all that we're best for single targets.
Increases the critical strike chance of your Divine Storm and Crusader Strike abilities by 10%.
In a small concession to our ability to AoE, there's this token set bonus. Of course, it increases Crusader Strike crit, too, but that's besides the point. I'm guessing the dev in charge of this bonus also designed Crusader Strike... because it's boring as hell. Sure it's a straight up buff and DPS increase, but it's also inferior to 7 second Judgements. Can't complain, though. It's a DPS buff, and we Ret Paladins take what we can.
The skinny
As excited as I am to use Exorcism, which should be a significant addition to our small set of tools, it's a spell. It relies on spell hit rating, and it will only crit for 150%. It's still going to be fun and will be one of the few burst tools that we have, but it will take a bit of adjusting to. PvE DPS has been criticized on the PTR as being too low, but Blizzard is already aware of this and should hopefully have tweaked the numbers (particularly with Seal and Judgement of Blood) to keep Retribution DPS competitive with other hybrid classes. I suppose I'll see for myself when we venture into Ulduar.
Another curious thing is that Blizzard has freed up talent points but gave nothing to invest in. None of the talents in the upper tiers of Protection nor Holy provide actual DPS increases except for the old staple Divine Strength. You can pick up every DPS-increasing talent available and still have talent points to throw around. In fact, you can raid without using up those talent points and perform at the same level as another Retadin who used up all his points. As imminent as Patch 3.1 is, the Retribution tree still feels unfinished and crude.
My other concern is with Retribution PvP, which has been gutted. Ghostcrawler said that there were some classes that they equipped purely with burst, and admitted that this was "not fun for the burster and the burstee". This makes a lot of sense. The problem is that with the removal of burst, Retribution has nothing else. Without any true interrupts or Mortal Strike effects, healers will have an even easier time healing through Retribution damage than before. For now, if you'd like to PvP as a Paladin, you're probably better off speccing Prot.
The Light and How to Swing It tries to help Paladins cope with dark times. Read Zach talk about raiding as Retribution, Tanking for Dummies, or Tanking for Dummies Again. Elizabeth also teaches us to use our better Judgement.
What was that term again? To the ground, was it? Well, my Retribution brethren, Patch 3.1 sees a bit of nerfage but not in the ways that we feared. The theory is, things will actually improve for us in PvE. On the other hand, PvP has gone to the crapper, but we'll talk about that later. For now let's look at what happened to Retribution.
Divine Purpose was moved a little bit deeper into the tree, supposedly as a nerf to Holy Paladins who took their Beacon of Light and ate it, too. Not such a big deal for the Retribution spec and absolutely makes no impact on raiding Retadins. What does make an impact is that Divine Storm's damage has been increased, which sounds great in theory, then you realize that Blizzard actually nerfed Fanaticism and Righteous Vengeance. Fanaticism was beaten down to an 18% crit bonus to Judgements from 25%, while Righteous Vengeance was watered down to 30% from a respectable 40%.
On the other hand, Crusader Strike will now also proc Righteous Vengeance, which should theoretically improve its uptime. If you had respectable crit (and in a raid situation, you probably do), uptime wasn't a problem, anyway, so the only good this does is if the rolling DoT actually ticks for more. Overall it's an unremarkable change that's intended to keep Retribution DPS in check, not to improve it.
However, there are two very big overall class changes that affect Retribution playstyle specifically -- one is the removal of Spiritual Attunement from trainers and two is the change in Exorcism to affect any target. The first is a balancing change intended to make Retribution mana regeneration or conservation consistent regardless of the fight. To compensate for the extremely painful loss of Spiritual Attunement, which worked synergistically with Seal of Blood / of the Martyr, the instant return of mana from Judgements of the Wise was buffed to 25%. On paper, everything should remain status quo.
Everything changes with Exorcism. This now becomes a premiere spell in our rotation, as vital as Crusader Strike or Divine Storm. In fact, Blizzard not only encourages us to use it, they dangle it in our faces like a hot light Krispy Kreme glazed donut. Take, for example, the renamed Sanctity of Battle (formerly Sanctified Seals), which increases the damage done by Exorcism and Crusader Strike by 15%. These are straight up single-target DPS buffs, and both intended to drive home the point that these are our primary tools for dishing out pain.
Another critical change that shouldn't affect damage throughput is the nerf to the damage of Judgement of Blood. It's a very painful nerf considering that Judgements are usually our top 1 or 2 sources of DPS in raids. However, the change is aimed squarely at Paladin PvP burst (and perhaps a way to encourage the use of the nerfed-so-many-times-it's-merely-a-shell-of-its-former-self Seal of Command), and Blizzard increased the damage of Seal of Blood itself. This should see Paladins dealing more consistent damage (but will suck in high mobility fights) but demands more Expertise -- it's Holy damage but acts exactly like a melee strike. I mean, you're already Hit-capped right? Of course you are. Now get that Expertise.
The long and short of it is that Retribution burst is dead. Blizzard sent its hitmen and they chopped Ret burst's head off like a racehorse and put it on our beds to scare the living crap out of us, reminding us that PvP is the domain of healers and, well, the now almighty stun-gods, Protection Paladins. Farewell burst, long live consistent damage.
Retribution glyphs
The fact is that there's only one real Major Glyph that all Retribution Paladins use, and that's Glyph of Judgement. Everything else is discretionary. Patch 3.1 gives us a few more glyphs to make our decision-making a little more complicated. Let's start with the snicker-inducing Glyph of Seal of Blood, which was reworked to grant mana that scales with our damage. It's great on paper, but it becomes silly when you consider that if we don't glyph for it, we take self-inflicted damage for no reason whatsoever. It's a crude solution to the small complication of moving Spiritual Attunement to the Protection tree. If mana proves to be a problem in Ulduar, then this should be the third Major Glyph.
Note that I said third. What's the second? The second is actually a no-brainer -- the reworked Glyph of Exorcism is a flat 20% increase to one of our key DPS spells. It's the first major glyph since Glyph of Judgement that directly improves our DPS. Since we're graduating from Naxxramas, the Glyph of Sense Undead minor glyph is no longer as important (yes, we were always that desperate for every damage boost we could get). Another new glyph that can compete for that third Major Glyph spot is the Glyph of Divine Storm, which heals for 15% more. Again, it's not a DPS increase, but should be decent raid utility in the hurtfest that is Ulduar. After all is said and done, however, it falls back to old choices -- the Glyph of Consecration or the Glyph of Avenging Wrath for the best DPS increase. The former should conserve mana and clean up rotation a bit, while the latter should provide a significant boost if you can time the use of Avenging Wrath.
Tier 8
Before anything else, I just want to say that I hope that Tier 8 pants are skirts, and not pants. It just looks so much better with a skirt. But skirt or not, Tier 8 seems off kilter (see what I did there?) with only two Red slots, two Blue slots, and the same number of Yellow slots as Tier 7 (three). The less blue gems, the better, but this is part of Blizzard's attempt to push us towards creative choices.
Increases the damage done by your Exorcism and Hammer of Wrath abilities by 10%.
Did I say creative? I meant predictable. Blizzard wants us to use Exorcism. They've spray painted the proverbial wall in garish pink (it is our favorite color, right?). This bonus even pushes the Glyph of Avenging Wrath slightly ahead of Glyph of Consecration as far as DPS boost is concerned. Oh, and Blizzard called to remind us all that we're best for single targets.
Increases the critical strike chance of your Divine Storm and Crusader Strike abilities by 10%.
In a small concession to our ability to AoE, there's this token set bonus. Of course, it increases Crusader Strike crit, too, but that's besides the point. I'm guessing the dev in charge of this bonus also designed Crusader Strike... because it's boring as hell. Sure it's a straight up buff and DPS increase, but it's also inferior to 7 second Judgements. Can't complain, though. It's a DPS buff, and we Ret Paladins take what we can.
The skinny
As excited as I am to use Exorcism, which should be a significant addition to our small set of tools, it's a spell. It relies on spell hit rating, and it will only crit for 150%. It's still going to be fun and will be one of the few burst tools that we have, but it will take a bit of adjusting to. PvE DPS has been criticized on the PTR as being too low, but Blizzard is already aware of this and should hopefully have tweaked the numbers (particularly with Seal and Judgement of Blood) to keep Retribution DPS competitive with other hybrid classes. I suppose I'll see for myself when we venture into Ulduar.
Another curious thing is that Blizzard has freed up talent points but gave nothing to invest in. None of the talents in the upper tiers of Protection nor Holy provide actual DPS increases except for the old staple Divine Strength. You can pick up every DPS-increasing talent available and still have talent points to throw around. In fact, you can raid without using up those talent points and perform at the same level as another Retadin who used up all his points. As imminent as Patch 3.1 is, the Retribution tree still feels unfinished and crude.
My other concern is with Retribution PvP, which has been gutted. Ghostcrawler said that there were some classes that they equipped purely with burst, and admitted that this was "not fun for the burster and the burstee". This makes a lot of sense. The problem is that with the removal of burst, Retribution has nothing else. Without any true interrupts or Mortal Strike effects, healers will have an even easier time healing through Retribution damage than before. For now, if you'd like to PvP as a Paladin, you're probably better off speccing Prot.
The Light and How to Swing It tries to help Paladins cope with dark times. Read Zach talk about raiding as Retribution, Tanking for Dummies, or Tanking for Dummies Again. Elizabeth also teaches us to use our better Judgement.
