Cataclysm: Stat and system changes for retribution paladins
by Gregg Reece 
Mar 2nd 2010 at 7:30PM
Well, the devs have recently announced the stat changes for all classes in Cataclysm. Surprisingly, retribution paladins are going to be the model to which some other specs are being changed. Being the model for something like this also means that not much about our spec is changing as far as gear goes.
Overall, the ret paladin gearing method has worked fairly well in Wrath. We no longer worry about wearing things like spell plate, we don't worry about intellect, and we get to wield big two-handed weapons just as Uther intended. Occasionally, we run into gearing issues where a couple pieces of attack power leather end up being better for us than what our plate gives us, but generally that's not the case.
Let's take a look at some of the specifics after the break and see what changes there are.
Let's take a look at how some of our existing stats are going to change.
EyonixHaste - Haste will become more attractive for melee classes by allowing them to recover resources such as energy and runes more quickly. Our intention is for Haste to let you "do stuff" more often.
...
Mastery - This is a new stat that will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. It's directly tied to talents, so what you gain from improving this stat is entirely dependent upon your class and the talent specialization you choose. We'll talk more about specific Mastery benefits in the future.
...
Resilience - This will only affect damage done by players and critical damage done by players. It will not impact crit chance, mana drains, or other such effects.
Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating - These will all still appear on gear as well. Aside from situations mentioned elsewhere in this list, in general these will function similarly to how they do now, though the details -- such as how much Hit Rating you might need to effectively combat high-level creatures (more on this below) -- are likely to change.
...
Mastery - This is a new stat that will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. It's directly tied to talents, so what you gain from improving this stat is entirely dependent upon your class and the talent specialization you choose. We'll talk more about specific Mastery benefits in the future.
...
Resilience - This will only affect damage done by players and critical damage done by players. It will not impact crit chance, mana drains, or other such effects.
Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating - These will all still appear on gear as well. Aside from situations mentioned elsewhere in this list, in general these will function similarly to how they do now, though the details -- such as how much Hit Rating you might need to effectively combat high-level creatures (more on this below) -- are likely to change.
Haste, however, will supposedly let us hit our abilities faster than before. We're not sure what this will mean for ret pallies as we don't have rage or energy to worry about. They've mentioned allowing haste to meddle with our cooldowns, but at BlizzCon they were attaching that to the Mastery stat.
Speaking of the brand new Mastery stat, we're going to get some on our gear in Cataclysm. Mastery is a new stat concept which allows the developers to put what is essentially a 'generic' stat on gear. If an unholy death knight picks up a piece of armor with this stat, they might get more damage from diseases. If a retribution paladin picks up this same stat, they'd get something like shorter cooldowns on abilities. Essentially, it lets you be better at the types of things you like to be better at. This also allows the developers to tune specific trees a little easier. If one spec is falling behind, they just up the returns from the mastery stat or another of the three stats you get from having talents in your chosen tree. Please note that the Mastery stat on gear only changes the third stat (Crit Heal for holy, Block Amount for prot, and Ability Cooldown for ret paladins in the picture).
Resilience is changing again with some of its current properties being removed. However, it is now specifically against players which means using resilience to get a little bit more uncritability starting out against creatures will be going away for those of you who are also tanks.
Strength, Hit, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating are all going to essentially be the same. Things like hit and expertise caps might end up scaling higher as your move up raiding tiers though. This is one of those things that the developers are still discussing and would make it so that reaching the hit cap at tier 11 would be one number, but the hit cap against bosses in tier 12 would be a little bit higher.
Eyonix
That's right, Attack Power on items is going away. It'll still be on some cloaks and jewelry (rings, trinkets, necklaces), but otherwise, you'll not see it on gear. We'll be getting all of our attack power from Strength like we are now. Oh, for those of your who are grabbing leather items in raids right now for clearing content, you might want to grab a few plate items from badge vendors for leveling in Cataclysm.
Armor Penetration is also going the way of the dodo. We didn't really get that much benefit from it anyway (attacking with mostly magic does that). This will be added to those classes that need it via the mastery stat or through talents and skills.
Spell ranks are going away as well. This means you'll have one version of Devotion Aura, one version of Retribution Aura, one Blessing of Might. As you level up, all of these abilities just get better like the Heirloom gear does now. This will help prevent those sudden bursts in character strength as you suddenly catch up to your abilities. Also, with as quickly as people are leveling through old content, it's sometimes hard to make enough money to buy new ranks of everything.
Also, all of those various weapon skills are going away. No more training two-handed axes on low level mobs for a day or two in order to use that new legendary item you finished the quest for. Also, this probably means that all of those weapon skill achievements will become feats of strength when they become retired. So, if you want to get them, you'll have to do it before the Cataclysm patch hits.
Strength, Hit, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating are all going to essentially be the same. Things like hit and expertise caps might end up scaling higher as your move up raiding tiers though. This is one of those things that the developers are still discussing and would make it so that reaching the hit cap at tier 11 would be one number, but the hit cap against bosses in tier 12 would be a little bit higher.
EyonixBeing Removed from Items
Attack Power - This stat will no longer be present on most items as a flat value, though it will still show up on some process. Strength and Agility, which will be present on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power per point of Strength or Agility) depending upon which stat a particular class favors. Agility may provide less Crit than it currently does.
...
Armor Penetration - This stat will no longer be present on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities.
Going Away Completely
...
Spell Ranks - Spell ranks will cease to exist. All spells will have one rank and will scale appropriately with level. The levels at which you can learn certain spells are being changed in order to fill in some of the gaps, and we will be introducing some new spells to learn along the way as well.
Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.
Attack Power - This stat will no longer be present on most items as a flat value, though it will still show up on some process. Strength and Agility, which will be present on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power per point of Strength or Agility) depending upon which stat a particular class favors. Agility may provide less Crit than it currently does.
...
Armor Penetration - This stat will no longer be present on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities.
Going Away Completely
...
Spell Ranks - Spell ranks will cease to exist. All spells will have one rank and will scale appropriately with level. The levels at which you can learn certain spells are being changed in order to fill in some of the gaps, and we will be introducing some new spells to learn along the way as well.
Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.
That's right, Attack Power on items is going away. It'll still be on some cloaks and jewelry (rings, trinkets, necklaces), but otherwise, you'll not see it on gear. We'll be getting all of our attack power from Strength like we are now. Oh, for those of your who are grabbing leather items in raids right now for clearing content, you might want to grab a few plate items from badge vendors for leveling in Cataclysm.
Armor Penetration is also going the way of the dodo. We didn't really get that much benefit from it anyway (attacking with mostly magic does that). This will be added to those classes that need it via the mastery stat or through talents and skills.
Spell ranks are going away as well. This means you'll have one version of Devotion Aura, one version of Retribution Aura, one Blessing of Might. As you level up, all of these abilities just get better like the Heirloom gear does now. This will help prevent those sudden bursts in character strength as you suddenly catch up to your abilities. Also, with as quickly as people are leveling through old content, it's sometimes hard to make enough money to buy new ranks of everything.
Also, all of those various weapon skills are going away. No more training two-handed axes on low level mobs for a day or two in order to use that new legendary item you finished the quest for. Also, this probably means that all of those weapon skill achievements will become feats of strength when they become retired. So, if you want to get them, you'll have to do it before the Cataclysm patch hits.
What's going to happen to our current gear?
EyonixIf you are a melee DPS class, druid tank, or hunter, expect to see:
- A lot more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a result.
- Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
- Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina.Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
- No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won't need Intellect since they will no longer use mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will get mana and spell damage in other ways.
Essentially, plate is going to become our only real gear choice as the attack power on some leather gear we've been grabbing is going to be disappearing. Don't fret too much as we'll also get a small bonus for wearing that plate.
There's a wee bit more about stats you're going to want to know. These mainly involve the ability to reforge items and gem colors.
EyonixWhat Else You Should Know
Combat ratings - All ratings will be much harder to "cap out" at maximum gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.
Reforging - While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don't want more Hit Rating on your gear or you'd rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you'll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won't be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.
Gems - We are changing the gem colors of a few stats as a result of these adjustments. For example, Hit is likely to be blue instead of yellow. We'll have more details on this in the future.
Combat ratings - All ratings will be much harder to "cap out" at maximum gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.
Reforging - While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don't want more Hit Rating on your gear or you'd rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you'll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won't be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.
Gems - We are changing the gem colors of a few stats as a result of these adjustments. For example, Hit is likely to be blue instead of yellow. We'll have more details on this in the future.
We're not going to do this section in order, because it's a little easier that way for the flow of the article.
Some gems are going to get their color changed to make sure things are still filled out for each gem type. This is due to the fact that they're getting rid of several stats and some of the gem colors already weren't very well balanced in how needed they were versus how common they were. We don't really have much info on where this is going, but I'm sure that we'll have a lovely article about it when we do get that information. However, if after the Cataclysm patch hits, you suddenly don't meet your meta-gem requirements, this is probably why.
Reforging is a way to alter items to have more of the stats you want. They're a bit like enchants, but instead of just adding more stats, they remove one stat in favor of another. Each type of item will have a different profession which can reforge it (and they've mentioned that these can be put onto scrolls, so you'd be able to sell them on the Auction House instead of lurking in Trade channel). Engineers get trinkets, jewelers get rings and necklaces, leatherworkers get mail and leather armor, and blacksmiths get plate. I think tailors are in charge of cloaks as well as cloth armor, but I could be wrong as there isn't much information out right now. If you see a new item, but it's got extra hit on it and you'd rather have crit which it is missing, then you just apply a scroll of hit to crit and viola, you get 50% of that amount of hit as crit instead.
As we mentioned earlier, the amount of hit or expertise you'll need as you progress through each tier of content in Cataclysm will go up. Capping hit at tier 11 might not be capped out at tier 12. As you gear up, so do the bosses and this will help prevent things like Sunwell Radiance and Chill of the Throne as bosses will gain Expertise and Hit to blow through all of that extra avoidance your tank has. Bosses should gain more dodge, parry, and block which will make hitting them a bit more difficult as you progress from tier to tier and allow certain stats to still be relevant later on in the game. This should help add depth to a few normally boring stats as well as keep the theorycrafters busy trying to figure out how much of each stat you need for each tier.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Zhadruun Mar 2nd 2010 7:51PM
These posts are kinda homogenized. Not to blame the writer(s) of them, but I think the time and work could be spent better.
Dazaras Mar 2nd 2010 8:37PM
^ this
Not that the writers are doing a bad job, it's just that there is nothing in this or any of the other articles I've read that wasn't covered in the overview of the stat changes.
alpha5099 Mar 2nd 2010 10:06PM
I gotta second that. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, I love WoW.com, but the posts have been pretty repetitive lately. Like a dozen two paragraph articles spawned from last week's Twitter dev chat, none of the information new if you'd read the chat, and all these class specific stat articles retread what we've already seen in Blizzard's posts.
Gregg Reece Mar 2nd 2010 10:41PM
Generally, we do these articles for people searching from Google and other search engines. If you read the site religiously, a lot of these will feel like repeat info, but if you got here via a search engine you'll want info about your spec and won't really care about any of the others.
phaer Mar 2nd 2010 7:59PM
There are way too many of these posts with all of the same information on them. You guys need to coordinate the posts. I'd rather have quality over quantity.
Qazaam Mar 2nd 2010 8:23PM
Since I didn't stop to read the changes to the classes I don't play, I'm glad this article is full of information.
RetPallyJil Mar 2nd 2010 8:38PM
Yeah, ty for reposting it. I'm sure not going to waste my time reading about shamans and locks.
Quich Mar 2nd 2010 8:54PM
It's possible that if mastery is shortening cooldowns, haste will be needed to keep mana topped up.
I hope make haste useful to retri in some way though, it's incredibly frustrating at the moment as most badge loot or crafted gear has armor pen. on it and I'd hate for paladins to have to avoid haste as it could cause the exact same problems.
Jordan Mar 2nd 2010 9:01PM
:O Does this mean Ret has to -gulp- gem other than strength?
Probably not, but it's good to see a tad bit of variety in the Retribution gearing method.
Please note, we're a long way from the endgame of Cataclysm still. Patience.
Tirrimas Mar 2nd 2010 9:13PM
I hope they bring back uber gear designs again. Judgement plate was the best-looking set in the game, and I don't even HAVE a Pally.
My gods - a Tauren rocking Judgement...nummy.
Arkhill Mar 3rd 2010 12:10AM
They already have this to a certain extent.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27790#comments
:D
Stevocurrie@gmail.com Mar 2nd 2010 10:32PM
Is there gonna be one of these for protpallys? Cuz what it sounds like to me that every one will have pretty close health pools. Including tanks. That sounds like it totaly sucks. So.... A little help? Maybe one of you know.
Arkhill Mar 3rd 2010 12:13AM
I think it will end up more like:
Ret Paladin-85k
Prot Paladin-100-105k
It will be much closer relatively. Instead of having more than double the health of your dps self, you will have 20-30% more, but will keep your avoidance and armor lead.
Imapieceofgoo Mar 2nd 2010 10:38PM
I agree with the first few comments, I think you could have just made one huge guide, or at least just linked to the twitter chat, because this is all just...rehashed
Jay Mar 3rd 2010 12:42AM
Thanks for making a seperate guide, I wasn't really looking forwards to reading a huge assed article on all the classes i don't play and I am certainly not a twit or is that twat. Hmm, what do you call the people who use that thing?
clundgren Mar 3rd 2010 11:11AM
Gregg, in your article, you allude to several BiS pieces for ret paladins being AP leather. This is also true of our PvE cloak, ring, and several other pieces, where the combination of AP plus all the crit from agility outweighs the benefits a strength piece would give. What this indicates to me is that divine strength doesn't scale quite well enough. Any chance of it being bumped to, say, 20% so that ret paladins will always prefer strength gear?
Also, my Wrathful cloak gives me AP, and they don't make one with strength. Am I gonna be left with an agility cloak for pvp when these changes go through?
Vandell [XBL: Keazra] Mar 5th 2010 1:23PM
Reforging looks like a confusing mess.. if it's the way you're talking about it, reforgers would need a spell for every stat to every other stat.
I think they'll probably make it "Reforge target cloth armor item" or something to that effect, and let the customer take care of that part themselves.