Cataclysm: The Ret Paladin- AKA Multi-Box Burst PVP Machines.

Introduction
I've been on the beta/alpha since the beginning and I've been closely watching the retribution changes. Over the course of the beta there have been quite a few things that have made me HATE myself for rolling paladins but that has changed. Ret is NOT what it use to be... it is NOT faceroll... OR IS IT?! Retribution has become the single highest damage dealing class on beta at the moment(with the exorcism being effected by master) BUT that is changing to only effect templar's verdict (from what I've read). A main problem for us as boxers was not the lack of healing (even shaman take the time to cast a heal during combat on those whom they need it, chain heal doesn't always work too well) it was the lack of "buttons" to push for damage to make up for the healing lost from art of war.

I start school tomorrow and I can't seem to sleep so i figured i would take the time to ease the tension that has come up.

I'm going to go through a rundown of all of the changes and exactly what it means for us as multi-boxers whom want to do nothing more than PWN noobs. The damage is so high that I am highly considering dropping my DK for another paladin... who knows.

Rundown of changes
1. Exorcism has no cooldown (big one)
2. Holy wrath can hit ANY target... 15 second cooldown. Pure holy damage. No longer affected by attack power (glyphed it has no cooldown at the moment!)
3. Rebuke (talented interupt)
4. Hammer of wrath usable when using wings
5. Judgement of the wise: no longer instant 20% base mana BUT gives 50% over 10 seconds (this is important) talented does another 1% per 5 seconds for 15 seconds for a total of ~53% over 10 seconds
5. Templar's Verdict (up to 225% weapon damage attack effected by attack power)
6. DoT seal increased damage by quite a bit (30% talented)
7. Divine storm no longer a free cast. (costs holy power to make it do good damage)
8. 40% chance to generate holy power from; Judgement, Exorcism, Holy Wrath, Inquisition, Divine Storm & Templar's Verdict.
9. Power word glory: instant cast, no mana cost heal that is based on your spellpower/attack power but also scales based on holy power (requires at least one)
10. Seal of command now works for ALL seals, and makes all weapon attacks worth 107%
11. Selfless healer... (the answer to our prayers) this allows for anyone we heal with our power word glory to get an additional 100% bonus healing(calculated before crit)
12. The Art Of War: ALL melee attacks (including crusader strike and divine storm) can proc an instant cast 60% reduced mana cost and 60% increased damage EXORCISM
13. Inquisition (increased holy damage done by 30% for... 30 seconds talented)
14. Guardian of the ancient kings... 2 minuet cooldown but a pet comes and attacks with you for 30 seconds. The pet CANNOT be killed. Hits like a gimp at the moment though >_>
15. At the moment seal of truth hits like a fucking TRUCK... like for real. upwards to 5k per tick.
16. Zealotry... Our.. 15 seconds of "you die."
17: Radiance: healing stream that is effected by spell power... can crit, lasts 10 seconds... on 4 paladins it heals for somewhere like 40k over 10 seconds.

What do the changes mean exactly?
We are even more unstopable now than we were before. Even fully decked out in gear a tank with 120k life will die in a single shot. Ret is really OP right now. Obviously there will be some nerfs but lets be serious... they've taken a lot of time and effort into balancing ret and they feel they've done a good job. Honestly they have minus the one hiccup of all things effected by holy damage getting huge buffs.

People were like "omg healing is gone!" well... NOPE. With the ease we get holy power (everything we use either giving 100% or 40% chance to give us holy power... even moves that COST holy power) it is very efficient to heal as well as DPS. It also heals OTHERS for 100% extra onto what it normally does. So this means with 3 stacks of holy power it starts out baseline at over 10,000 non crit ON OTHERS. With two stacks it's about 7k and thats non crit... meaning we can effectively heal for approximately 1/3 of one person's health every 3-5 seconds. That is a bit ridiculous. Yes it involves luck of getting some extra holy power to spare. But even at 1 stack It does about 3.5k non crit... so about 15kish non crit and 30k crit... thats not OP? 1/3 of your life if you crit? Which we have about a 30% chance to crit with it anyway.

The rate and ease at which holy power is generated combined with the amount of damage some things do is absolutely rediculous... as it stands now here are some of the numbers (after the patching of 200% extra damage from ret aura)...all below this are the highest crits i've seen on my own toon.

All are under the effects of inquisition.
Templar's verdict(3 holy power): 24,700
Templar's verdict(2 holy power): 12,000
Exorcism: 24,000 (will go down after the change to mastery)
Judgement: 12,000
Crusader Strike: 13,000
Holy wrath: 11,000 (will go down after the change to mastery)
2 holy power divine storm: 10,000
3 holy power divine storm: 15,000
DoT from seal: 5,000 (though using this is prob not going to happen)
Seal hit: 4,000
White (lvl 83 blue wep): 8,800

Now if you think about things here... Assuming we have 4 paladins...this is what you are looking at
DoT that hits EVERY second for 500-5,000 per (depending on stacks)... you COULD technically tick away 20,000 life on someone who has 5 stacks... but that's not likely to happen and we'll end up using another seal light righteousness or something.

Assuming exorcism gets nerfed in say... half? That's still a 1.5 second cast that does 25% of your opponent's life from afar NON CRIT.

4x Full templar's verdict WILL kill anyone... PERIOD if they crit... and if they don't it's still more than half their life.

So you could technically have something like this happen...

Far exorcism > Judgement> crusader strike> holy wrath> templar's verdict (two-3 white hits in there somewhere)

Crit damage = ~10,000(assuming here)> 12,000> 13,000 > 11,000 > 20,000

Multiplied by 4 = ~40,000 > 46,000 > 52,000 > 44,000 > 80,000 and 2-3 swings for upwards to 10k (assuming 80 starter BS wep) So technically you would have killed one, and templar'd the second and likely killed them too.

Even if you divide those numbers in half (not critting etc, bad luck w/e) its still about 1/2 their life in a global cooldown. + autoattacks and such...the damage is INSANE.



Seeing as it is 5am I should really attempt to sleep... i'll update this more when i get on tomorrow.

All you need to know is... dk+rets = OP as hell.

Happy to see your not gone m8 :)

I can see using the heals to heal eachother round-robin style and then the heal aura being a LOT of heals for a 5 DpS group which demolishes anything in melee range. And a silence? good-bye clothies.

Well there are some things I see that are going to change quite a bit, but number one by the end of the first tier people will be rocking close to 175k hps in pvp gear, exorcism is bound to get changed again, lower dmg and you can't really spam it on a target running away.

I really wish they'd change it to castable while mobile lol that would solve some pvp issues, curently its possible for people to run out of range in the time it takes to cast it.

Not sure where you're getting your templars verdict number from but the biggest i've seen mine crit with a 333 ilvl mace was 16 k and my exorcisms were hitting for 12 k with inquisiution up. 25 k crits on exo. But expect that number to fall much lower soon.

That and most of your numbers with inquisition up are too inflated, perhaps you are assuming that all of them were crit values? I know they need to add holy dmg to both crusader strike and templars verdict as well as divine storm if we're really wanting to use it, other wise it ends up just as a dps filler buff that only affects our filler attacks like holy wrath and exo, judge and dot ticks. I hope they change it because unless you,re spamming exo its kinda not worth the 3 hp it takes to put up. It needs to affect all our dps to be worth the holy power spent imo.

Also need to keep in mind that pally rotationa are going thru a lot, and that ALL of these numbers you're crunching are going to change when they do the final number tuning, right now as bliz has stated several dozen times they're main goal right now is to get the mechanics right, worry about numbers later :).

You're right tho, pallys are lookin good :). Let's just hope we get some defensive help soon because currently we're like a glass cannon in plate lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ghonosyph

Well there are some things I see that are going to change quite a bit, but number one by the end of the first tier people will be rocking close to 175k hps in pvp gear, exorcism is bound to get changed again, lower dmg and you can't really spam it on a target running away.

I really wish they'd change it to castable while mobile lol that would solve some pvp issues, curently its possible for people to run out of range in the time it takes to cast it.

Not sure where you're getting your templars verdict number from but the biggest i've seen mine crit with a 333 ilvl mace was 16 k and my exorcisms were hitting for 12 k with inquisiution up. 25 k crits on exo. But expect that number to fall much lower soon.

That and most of your numbers with inquisition up are too inflated, perhaps you are assuming that all of them were crit values? I know they need to add holy dmg to both crusader strike and templars verdict as well as divine storm if we're really wanting to use it, other wise it ends up just as a dps filler buff that only affects our filler attacks like holy wrath and exo, judge and dot ticks. I hope they change it because unless you,re spamming exo its kinda not worth the 3 hp it takes to put up. It needs to affect all our dps to be worth the holy power spent imo.

Also need to keep in mind that pally rotationa are going thru a lot, and that ALL of these numbers you're crunching are going to change when they do the final number tuning, right now as bliz has stated several dozen times they're main goal right now is to get the mechanics right, worry about numbers later :).

You're right tho, pallys are lookin good :). Let's just hope we get some defensive help soon because currently we're like a glass cannon in plate lol

---

I did state i was working with all crit numbers. I was working off the numbers for the new sword from tol'barad. Those are all numbers i've seen myself, I'm not saying you aren't right about things being toned down...but at the moment they do stupid high damage. As a single boxer... those numbers are pretty good in my opinion for the work a ret paladin will need to do. But that's just me. (minus the ~30k exorcism hits)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ghonosyph

Well there are some things I see that are going to change quite a bit, but number one by the end of the first tier people will be rocking close to 175k hps in pvp gear, exorcism is bound to get changed again, lower dmg and you can't really spam it on a target running away.

I really wish they'd change it to castable while mobile lol that would solve some pvp issues, curently its possible for people to run out of range in the time it takes to cast it.

Not sure where you're getting your templars verdict number from but the biggest i've seen mine crit with a 333 ilvl mace was 16 k and my exorcisms were hitting for 12 k with inquisiution up. 25 k crits on exo. But expect that number to fall much lower soon.

That and most of your numbers with inquisition up are too inflated, perhaps you are assuming that all of them were crit values? I know they need to add holy dmg to both crusader strike and templars verdict as well as divine storm if we're really wanting to use it, other wise it ends up just as a dps filler buff that only affects our filler attacks like holy wrath and exo, judge and dot ticks. I hope they change it because unless you,re spamming exo its kinda not worth the 3 hp it takes to put up. It needs to affect all our dps to be worth the holy power spent imo.

Also need to keep in mind that pally rotationa are going thru a lot, and that ALL of these numbers you're crunching are going to change when they do the final number tuning, right now as bliz has stated several dozen times they're main goal right now is to get the mechanics right, worry about numbers later :).

You're right tho, pallys are lookin good :). Let's just hope we get some defensive help soon because currently we're like a glass cannon in plate lol

---

I saw a druid in bear form a few days back that was sitting at 163k health and just had blues at 85. I could see tanks at 200k ++ once the pvp tiers start coming out.

Although lava bursts were hitting for 33-38kish so that was pretty cool, I could see them hitting for 45k once I get better gear.

Edit; I wanted to add that I think the mechanics of the game are for sure going back to a BC style. For pvp this really benefited the muti-boxer since focus fire was so important. Since back then it was really only 4 ele that could burst/blow anyone up. Most 5s back then were drain comps and with mana in cata I could see drain comps coming back in force.
I am wondering if ellay will make a come back to his shamans once cata comes esp with the introduction of rated bgs.

Edit: sorry to shit on your thread shodokan. I cant comment on dk ret since melee boxing wasnt around in BC. I always enjoying theorycrafting though. I could see ret being the s5 version of DKs though. ymmv

Lol I love that sig fattire

Yea unfortunately horde don't have tol barad vendors yet so I'm still using the mace from hoo
:)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ghonosyph

Lol I love that sig fattire

---

Dont fuck with benny the cop :P

This sounds really neat, i really like my paladins in Wotlk hope they will be good to box in Cata, hope holy power wont be to hard to use good..

I think that both powerhouse teams are going to be awesome... i also highly think that for BGS that spriest and warlock are going to be a blast... but yeah.

I'm looking forward to paladins and shaman both :)

Sweeet. this team could be a real player in battlegrounds, even more so than it is now. It's the only group I've played that I can say for certain I carried BGs with, did well even in WSG, and held my own (at least similar to what a pug would have done) against partial premades or just good groups... and now it's getting stronger. Can't say the same for the shaman, they can be pretty fail in smaller BGs and against any partial or full premade they are shut down so easily and made fools of.

163K hp on bear tank in blues >.< that's 6-7 times more than a similar geared bear in Wotlk.
What will it be by the time they release Exp4 .. 1M hp i guess

i can see it coming already:
- "nub don't queue for heroics when you only have 1.2M hp!" *leaves"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shodokan

I think that both powerhouse teams are going to be awesome... i also highly think that for BGS that spriest and warlock are going to be a blast... but yeah.

I'm looking forward to paladins and shaman both :)

---

That's where my hesitation resides if I'm coming back to Cata, what to level first:

Tank+4 Shaman
or
DK+4 Pala

You see any pros and cons if you had to compare them as far as your Beta experience goes?
I mean among other things, instance survivability too.

Thank you and great work on this thread mate.

A.

Yeah I agree, paladins are looking nice. Not even sure if you need the DK any more either. DK was mainly there for the death grip and easy snare and the 10% AP buf and 20% melee haste which is no longer possible. Long arm of the Law talent gives a 50% run speed boost after using a Judgement which means we shouldn't really have too much trouble catching kiters. There are no more of the stupid 30% dmg reduction when stunned talents which means that with 5 Hammers of Justice you can sprint to and lock any target down in melee range with ease (except maybe mages and hunters).

The other neat thing is the instant aoe HoT skill which although on 1min CD will be pretty handy from a situational point of view. The other addition to our healing/ranged dmg armory is Holy Shock. I didn't see too much mention of this stuff Shodo and as I am only really reading about it on mmo-champ, I'm interested to hear if it is actually proving useful at all in Beta?

Cheers

PS: Forgot to say, in planning my combos for Cata, I am very keen to get a heal debuffer into the team also. I feel this has always been a weak point of the pally/shammy combos and would be interested on what others think. With the bigger health pools in Cata I think the heal debuff (although reduced to 25%) will be even more powerful. I sort of like the idea of having a warrior leading my team of pally's given they have a nice set of melee buffs as well as in combat charge and the new leap skill etc and possibly shadow priest to lead my shammies.

Holy shock is holy only, and the dk provides some healing de buffery in necrotic strike. Overall I think it would probably be stronger to run 2 dk and 3 pally but time will tell :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by heyaz

Sweeet. this team could be a real player in battlegrounds, even more so than it is now. It's the only group I've played that I can say for certain I carried BGs with, did well even in WSG, and held my own (at least similar to what a pug would have done) against partial premades or just good groups... and now it's getting stronger. Can't say the same for the shaman, they can be pretty fail in smaller BGs and against any partial or full premade they are shut down so easily and made fools of.

---

Question for you.

How big of factor do you think the loss of cleanse is for this team?

Edit: For all you DK-Ret fans here is a video of DK's Dark simulacrum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bcWny7Gw2Y

Dark Simulacrum looks insane. Can you imagine x4?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mosg2

Dark Simulacrum looks insane. Can you imagine x4?

---

Why take it x4? The uses are very limitless but it's on a 1 min cooldown. Unlike spell reflect though it does not do the damage back it does to you, it uses your coefficients.

For raiding you can go dual-wield and end up with...
Seal + 2x wind fury on weps + your normal crap.... pulls like 18k on dummy (tested by a friend of mine) rediculous.

Is Hand of Glory still off the GCD?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ghonosyph

Holy shock is holy only, and the dk provides some healing de buffery in necrotic strike. Overall I think it would probably be stronger to run 2 dk and 3 pally but time will tell :)

---

Ahh righto, I thought I read somewhere early on they were going to be making it a base skill. Thinking back that was probably prior to the whole 31 point talent tree change that included giving a spec defining skill once you start allocating points.

I thought initially that necrotic strike looked interesting for the healing absorb aspect, but when I started applying it to estimated numbers I thought it looked fairly weak next to the mortal strike type abilities. The other thing I have tried recently is running a MM hunter as my main and sending the 4 rets in like uber pets. Quite an interesting play style and a fair bit different to what I have tried before with either pure melee or ranged teams. I like the MM hunter for the 10% AP buff, healing debuff but also chimera shot healing 15% for the hunter every 6 seconds should make them fairly hardy I would think.

Do you find the AoE HoT for the pallies useful at all or does the 1min cooldown make it fairly situational?

Hmmm. I'm trying to figure out if a DK or a Warrior would be better to lead the Rets with in Cata. With the nerf to Chains of Ice all the DK brings that the Warrior doesn't trump is Death Grip. Charge/Intercept and Improved Hamstring I think are better in the sense that they allow the Warrior to stick on a target better.

What do you all think?

Edit: Ebon Plaguebringer is a not-insignificant amount of damage that the DK would add vice the Warrior. The 4% increase to physical damage that the Warrior adds just isn't even close. In any case, discuss!

so it wasnt a waste of my time lvling my dk rets woot

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mosg2

Hmmm. I'm trying to figure out if a DK or a Warrior would be better to lead the Rets with in Cata. With the nerf to Chains of Ice all the DK brings that the Warrior doesn't trump is Death Grip. Charge/Intercept and Improved Hamstring I think are better in the sense that they allow the Warrior to stick on a target better.

What do you all think?

Edit: Ebon Plaguebringer is a not-insignificant amount of damage that the DK would add vice the Warrior. The 4% increase to physical damage that the Warrior adds just isn't even close. In any case, discuss!

---

You could grab rampage with the warrior I guess for 5% crit in a fury build. Not qute the utility of Arms with stuns and charge, but improved intercept, self heals and potentially higher single target burst?

Its funny but I had never really considered ebon plaguebringer for rets before given the 10% AP and 20% melee haste were buffs you could get in the same build. I think the 10% AP buff from blood would still probably trump EP for dps boost overall though.

Well in Cata Blood won't work because it's a tanking spec. So Frost gives you 20% haste for the party, Unholy gives you 8% magic damage, Arms would give you 4% physical damage and Fury would give you 5% crit.

Mmmmm. I think the MS effect is going to be worth more for PvP, BG's or Arenas, than either of the DK buffs. Thoughts?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mosg2

Well in Cata Blood won't work because it's a tanking spec. So Frost gives you 20% haste for the party, Unholy gives you 8% magic damage, Arms would give you 4% physical damage and Fury would give you 5% crit.

Mmmmm. I think the MS effect is going to be worth more for PvP, BG's or Arenas, than either of the DK buffs. Thoughts?

---

Heroic Leap now has a 8-40 yards range, up from 8-25 yards.


40 yard range-holy shit! warriors, come out and playyyyyyyyyy

Lol yea I might level warriors now just to see 4 of them leaping through the air lol. Now to comment on the so called nerf to chains of ice, its not really. It works great how it is now! The aoe hot works well, and I can see it being good with firing it off two at a time per ret to give a good chunk of heal buffer, and of course I can see it working well also poppin it * 4 and popping all cooldowns to try and burst zerg someone down quick. I think I may end up going holy on my pallys for an offensive style holy shock build for bgs given how fun holy is to play now, but I'm still on the fence on that for now

I'm completely unimpressed with Heroic Leap. If you're boxing War+Rets you don't really want your Warrior 40 yards away while the Rets run to catch up, even with the 45% run speed increase once they Judge.

I'm most interested in MS and party buffs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mosg2

I'm completely unimpressed with Heroic Leap. If you're boxing War+Rets you don't really want your Warrior 40 yards away while the Rets run to catch up, even with the 45% run speed increase once they Judge.

I'm most interested in MS and party buffs.

---

well go with a hunter- MS and they get blood lust now. :D With Aspect of the fox (wohoo!) and the slower pace of the game I might go back to my old 3s hunter team.

Mmmmm I guess that's something to consider. I guess you lose your snare though. Hmmm. The playstyle would be totally different though.

I'm not saying I'm anti-Warrior for this team, just that Heroic Leap is nothing special imo~.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mosg2

Mmmmm I guess that's something to consider. I guess you lose your snare though. Hmmm. The playstyle would be totally different though.

I'm not saying I'm anti-Warrior for this team, just that Heroic Leap is nothing special imo~.

---

I am with ya, its a 2 min cd on leap anyways, but for a solo war it will be fun.

Edit: in my own personal opinion casters/range will rule rated bgs- Unless you are the tank or druid flag carrier along with your 2-3 healers, melee are just going to be mass CC'd to keep their fc moving along unabated. In twin peaks* cata wsg its sooo much wider than the wsg of today.

Dont say shaman fc anymore GW got nerfed to 30% atm

I don't know man. If you look at the killing potential of melee vs casters in general for BG's I think the melee is just plain going to win out. Shrug.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mosg2

I don't know man. If you look at the killing potential of melee vs casters in general for BG's I think the melee is just plain going to win out. Shrug.

---

If only killing mattered in Bgs. I have held the mine node in AB on my druid solo for 3 mins against 5 opposing players and I didnt kill a single one. I like to think that I helped win that game. Just moonfire the clicker and run (heal) run back and moonfire/hurricane the clicker/s, rinse repeat until help arrived. Even though I died when help did finally arrive ><

I must have missed it where melee were better killers than range in bgs. The only Bg where killing matters is the fc in wsg. You can win all the Bgs conceivability without killing anyone.

If your talking about just yourself boxing, then thats cool, but that is a pretty generalized statement. I am not saying you wrong, however. (dont wanna start any dramalama) :cool:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mosg2

Hmmm. I'm trying to figure out if a DK or a Warrior would be better to lead the Rets with in Cata. With the nerf to Chains of Ice all the DK brings that the Warrior doesn't trump is Death Grip. Charge/Intercept and Improved Hamstring I think are better in the sense that they allow the Warrior to stick on a target better.

What do you all think?

Edit: Ebon Plaguebringer is a not-insignificant amount of damage that the DK would add vice the Warrior. The 4% increase to physical damage that the Warrior adds just isn't even close. In any case, discuss!

---

Frost
1. The sheer amount of burst potential from a deathknight roatation is scary... 3x frost strikes + 3x obliterates HURTS.
2. It has anti-fear so even when your paladins are ya know...feared you can continue with some pressure.
3. Lichborne = ability to heal oneself with deathcoils
4. Howling blast no longer has a cooldown
5. Pillars of ice = not able to be thunderstormed, knocked down etc.
6. 50% snare for 10 seconds AFTER chains is over.
7. 20% increased attack speed for paladins
8. Can use desecration as a 50% snare on the ground near you.
9. 4% increased physical damage taken.
10. Hungering cold.



Unholy
1. Again... the burst of say 6 scourge strikes in a row HURTS. The main attack also puts down desecration.
2. It has anti-fear so even when your paladins are ya know...feared you can continue with some pressure.
3. Lichborne = ability to heal oneself with deathcoils
4. Desecration = AOE snare
5. Autoattacks can make you get free death coils (more damage)
6. Summon gargoyle does a pretty significant amount of damage
7. Anti-Magic Zone = lol @ boxing shaman... or any caster.
8. Unholy blight makes it so you can keep pressure on someone who you aren't attacking via pestilence + death coil.
9. Pet + pet stun + Damage if you transform it
10. 8% extra damage from your paladins since holy = magic damage
11. Autoattacks hit harder due to 30% of the overall damage being added and done as shadow. With the new rune system this is kind of important especially since your autoattacks don't generate runic power unlike with frost.
12. 15% extra str = more ap = takes longer to heal through necrotic strike + damage to autoattacks and such.



All death knights
1. Chains of ice (yes it got the nerf bat but it's still good)
2. Death grip
3. Ranged silence
4. Interupt.
5. Anti-healing strike
6. Strike to make diseases last longer.
7. its a freaking deathknight.
8. anti-magic shell (helpful)
9. Defensive cooldown (icebound fort)
10. dark simulacrum (at least as of now you can steal seals... so duel one of your paladins and give him the seal before doing arena bgs or w/e)
11. Pet sac to get life back in a tight spot
12. Runic empowerment: When you use your Death Coil, Frost Strike, or Rune Strike ability, you have a 45% chance to activate a random fully depleted rune.


Arms warrior
1. Mortal strike
2. Colossal smash
3. Throwdown
4. Charge, intercept... and talented charge hits multiple targets
5. Gets 6% extra healing
6. Overpower does a lot of damage and with your bleed on them you get it every 6 seconds.
7. 4% increased physical damage taken when under a bleed effect
8. Extra damage executes etc after mortal strike.
9. AOE fear.
10. BLADESTORM

__________________________________________________ _____________________________

They are both great classes... but i feel that the frost deathknight brings the most to the table.

1. 20% haste to paladins (yes please)
2. >110% weapon damage as frost attacks (frost strike) and can string up to 3 of these together
3. reliable runic power, dont need to keep track of random procs as much unlike the autoattack proc from unholy.
4. Obliterate talented and glyphed does [(1.6 x weapon damage + 1054) (.30)] (.25) = ~ 2.8x weapon damage + ~2500
5. Hungering cold!
6. Anti-imparement and such
7. THREE snares.... chibilians, desecration AND chains of ice.

The damage of a frost strike is more than double that of a death coil... so yeah. Utility wise i think frost is better, especially now that it can get desecration if you really need it from plague strike.

Frost > Unholy > Warrior IMO. But it all depends on how you play. The DK is FAR more benificial to the group and has better survivability since you won't be intervening healers and such and you are better off pulling stuff TO you or slowing it reliably than spamming attacks to do so.

Frost

@Fat Tire:
I do understand that killing isn't everything but at the same time I think you're post comes across like you're underestimating it. Yes, smart play can be/often is better than just plain killing but smart play+being able to steamroll through people is better imo~. /shrug

@Shodokan:
I appreciate the points you make. I'm going to continue to think about this :) The MS effect is pretty huge.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mosg2

@Fat Tire:
I do understand that killing isn't everything but at the same time I think you're post comes across like you're underestimating it. Yes, smart play can be/often is better than just plain killing but smart play+being able to steamroll through people is better imo~. /shrug

@Shodokan:
I appreciate the points you make. I'm going to continue to think about this :) The MS effect is pretty huge.

---

If mortal strike is pushing you to play a warrior, then you are concerned about out-damaging a healer when you output up to 120k in a single hit and most "special" attack doing upwards to 50 or 60k per button press.... There is no way a healer can keep up with that in cata unless there is multiple healers. So the mortal strike becomes a moot point and the utility you get otherwise becomes more worth while.

The damage from an empowered pet = awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-aaAOEMeSE

remember, damage numbers are NOT yet tuned... blizzard's stated that several times already. The damage may seem awesome but the tuning phase of beta is still yet to come.

As for the MS debate, i think that health pools are going to be much larger than what we're thinking, mana will matter much more to healers as it is now, and being able to stress the healers by makin heals less powerful via MS = straining mana. Now we're not for sure gonna know until we get farther into beta, the numbers get tuned, and we see some of the first pvp gear. Mana matters a TON right now... it will continue to. Will our burst be able to keep up? Yes, it will in pve gear... where crit actually makes a damn. In pvp, our crit will get reduced and will be much less valuable due to the resilience reductions. As well crit rating is kinda bleh, as in we need a ton of crit, as the values got reduced due to level ranges... thats all a moot point tho, that gets fixed with gear over time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ghonosyph

remember, damage numbers are NOT yet tuned... blizzard's stated that several times already. The damage may seem awesome but the tuning phase of beta is still yet to come.

As for the MS debate, i think that health pools are going to be much larger than what we're thinking, mana will matter much more to healers as it is now, and being able to stress the healers by makin heals less powerful via MS = straining mana. Now we're not for sure gonna know until we get farther into beta, the numbers get tuned, and we see some of the first pvp gear. Mana matters a TON right now... it will continue to. Will our burst be able to keep up? Yes, it will in pve gear... where crit actually makes a damn. In pvp, our crit will get reduced and will be much less valuable due to the resilience reductions. As well crit rating is kinda bleh, as in we need a ton of crit, as the values got reduced due to level ranges... thats all a moot point tho, that gets fixed with gear over time.

---

The planned release date is november 23rd... the beta isn't THAT much longer. Yes there will be tuning, but as blizzard stated... MOST classes they are decently happy with. Yes resil will take some damage off, but it won't reduce our crit chance anymore only overall damage taken. The amount of damage being done will strain healers enough IMO. With the nerf to exorcism in this past patch it seems like it is at a decent place now... and with gear will still be hitting for upwards to 20 to 25k.

Also keep in mind that the bonus from t11 2 piece will be a requirement IMO for PVP. 10% extra damage makes it do a total of like 250% wep damage. Large increase.

dk is almost a must at this point, given they've fixed sanctity of battle = 20 % haste = faster crusader strikes = faster to 3 holy power for big dmg. i did some dungeons as dps just a little bit ago, and i'm still not pulling higher than 5 or 6 k dps, and in the same gear my dk does about 11k... not fair TUNE BETTER BLIXZZZOIMOMGOMGOMG lol

I'm not convinced about writing off a blood DK build for PvP. Sure it is not going to put out sustained dps like the other two specs, but PvP is not about sustained dps, its about burst. Blood has always been good for burst and with improved death strike and DRW it s still going to be good. The only trade off is that you will have huge survivability and miss out on a couple of the spec related snares. As a bonus, if anyone actually decides to attack you, you will start to generate stacks of vengeance which will put your damage on par with any of the dps classes. Again, all theorycraft here, but would be cool if one of you guys in Beta could look into it ;)

no, blood will only be good for tanking dmg, and most arena'ers wont be going for him anyway. Vengeance wont stack that much, and its not going to be "on par" with any dps, it will do a decent bit of sustained dmg but nothing like the new dps can do :)

New mastery...

Hand of Light: Your autoattacks have a 8% chance to grant Hand of Light, causing your next Holy Power ability to consume no Holy Power and to cast as if 3 Holy Power were consumed. Each point of Mastery increases the chance by an additional 1%.

Tested boxing on the PTR...

Unless you are hitting with TV... you do like no damage.