Fixing the Ret Paladin post 4.0

I've been dinking around on the PTR and I'd like to fix the Ret Paladin DPS problem. I think that if you can get their DPS sequence down to 2-3 buttons then they'll continue to be awesome in Cata. The amount of healing you get out of Word of Glory is actually really really good--When you use it on someone else you get the extra 50% healing from Selfless Healer plus get a 12% damage bonus. With Protector of the Innocent you're also generating a lot of extra healing on yourself. So, the problems as I see them:

1. No-cooldown Exorcism that's completely proc-based is a nightmare. This is one of your hardest hitting abilities and it's completely random. The (only, heh) upside is that the Art of War proc lasts 15 seconds.

2. We need a mod that shows us how many Holy Power each other person in the party has. I think this is a must-have.

I think if we can somehow solve these two issues the DPS sequence will work. Here's the best I've come up with:

One button that Judges and Crusader Strikes--You spam this until you see (Via Jamba) that you have 4x Art of War procs. Then you spam your Exorcism key. Then you have one key that Templar's Verdicts. The DPS loss of potentially missing a few seconds of these is worth what you gain by having 4 of them hit all at once. Then you have one final key for Hammer of Wrath when the target hits 20%.

Thoughts?

Additional info found with more testing:

/stopcasting does indeed reset the swing timer, no questions. However, if you're MOVING while you try and cast Exorcism without Art of War up it doesn't reset the swing timer. I'm not sure how to incorporate this into a DPS macro--For PvP it's pretty cool since you'll always be spinning around the target. It doesn't really help for instances where you're hopefully not.

Given my team has 3 paladins in it, I think I will be building something to track holy power across the team. (Obviously I'll extend it for other classes as well.)

Awesome Jafula, I was hoping you'd post something about this :) I'm not sure what you're looking for as a UI element, but having options would be nice I think. IE, a mini-default Holy Power UI element you could move around for each other character, or maybe just a big 3d number for each one. That's what I'd prefer at least :)

More on topic:

Using ISBoxer you can replicate a /clicksequence with commas for Judgement, Crusader Strike, and Hammer of Wrath. That fixes like, 60% of your rotation. That basically leaves Templar's Verdict and the torture that is Exorcism.

Basically I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing you can do for Templar's Verdict macro-wise. You *need* to only be using it at 3 Holy Power. With the system Blizz added to "save" a Holy Power that you would have generated (because you're at 3 already) for a couple seconds, I think it'll work if you just have a "Burst" button for doing your Templar's Verdict. Sure, infrequently you might be in a situation where you've got 2-3 guys at 3 HP and then the rest at 1 or 2 HP... Which sucks. You're going to lose DPS. Period. But the overall loss is going to be fairly minimal.

This puts you at two buttons--One spam button and then one that does Templar's Verdict when you hit 3 HP on each character. What sucks is that this doesn't fix the Art of War/Exorcism problem. Sigh. As I stated above I found that if you're circle-strafing the target you could just have Exorcism be the fallthrough ability and it'll cast whenever it's up... But it depends on your characters always moving.

Anyways, thoughts?

If moving is the way to cancel exo cast without resetting swing timer then why not use Isboxer to build in a strafe tap or a jump tap to your dps cycle?

ie. step 1 = crusader strike
step 2 = judgement
step 3 = exorcism
step 4 = jump

If you spam this macro at even 5 clicks per second (relatively minimal going by people's click macros), to activate on up and down press you will only lose 0.1s trying to cast exorcism before it cancels?

As indicated before you could either just have a TV key for all to hit at 3 holy power (once Jaf builds us an UI) or build it into a sequence which goes off once you have hit CS 3 times. Of course this does not take into account the bonus procs you will get from 40% of judgements, exorcisms and TVs but hopefully these will queue up for the next round.

The problem I am having is coming up with something to allow for the mastery procs which give you the free 3HP TV. These are going to occur much more randomly on each individual toon and probably aren't going to last long enough to have them queued up on all at the same time.

With TV I guess the only thing you're going to lose out on is the free HP you can pickup from all your other abilities. I think it's going to be a not-insignificant DPS loss.

I actually setup a key last night that moved forward and interacted with target while also doing an ability. No matter how I set it up the movement would cancel the IWT. So "fixing" exorcism that way is right out.

I totally forgot about Paladin's mastery. I really don't want to, but I've accepted that just giving up might be a totally reasonable solution. As a community we've gotten used to being able to melee box effectively and we might not be able to recognize when we have to move on.

Anyways, 4.0 goes live tomorrow. Once more people are working on it maybe they'll figure something out haha.

just as i was switching over my melee from dk's to rets.....

im now at the crossroads...

Funny, I just got my DK's to 80 a week ago and decided I'd rather make the Rets work.

On beta, the latest iteration of ret build seems better. WoG and the aoe heal should be pretty good, there were several version of beta in which I really didn't want to play ret. So at 85 with ilvl 333 or higher gear it seems very likely that pally teams will do ok, but some instances will be tougher than others.

The DKs seem similar to the old style. The surprise to me was my warrior as dps with the self healing it had no down time. Not going to work as a team for boxing as only one of them would get the vistory rush heal.

Still not sure which tank I will be using on my main team, guess we will all find out soon enough.

I think that relatively the Ret healing actually went up--The problem is making their f'ing DPS rotation work with only one or two buttons.

Anyone made any progress on this at all?

its in the works on grim batol, also got eyes peeled on jafula progress

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mosg2

Awesome Jafula, I was hoping you'd post something about this :) I'm not sure what you're looking for as a UI element, but having options would be nice I think. IE, a mini-default Holy Power UI element you could move around for each other character, or maybe just a big 3d number for each one. That's what I'd prefer at least :)

More on topic:

Using ISBoxer you can replicate a /clicksequence with commas for Judgement, Crusader Strike, and Hammer of Wrath. That fixes like, 60% of your rotation. That basically leaves Templar's Verdict and the torture that is Exorcism.

Basically I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing you can do for Templar's Verdict macro-wise. You *need* to only be using it at 3 Holy Power. With the system Blizz added to "save" a Holy Power that you would have generated (because you're at 3 already) for a couple seconds, I think it'll work if you just have a "Burst" button for doing your Templar's Verdict. Sure, infrequently you might be in a situation where you've got 2-3 guys at 3 HP and then the rest at 1 or 2 HP... Which sucks. You're going to lose DPS. Period. But the overall loss is going to be fairly minimal.

This puts you at two buttons--One spam button and then one that does Templar's Verdict when you hit 3 HP on each character. What sucks is that this doesn't fix the Art of War/Exorcism problem. Sigh. As I stated above I found that if you're circle-strafing the target you could just have Exorcism be the fallthrough ability and it'll cast whenever it's up... But it depends on your characters always moving.

Anyways, thoughts?

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If blizzard took that functionality out, I think they'll REALLY dislike it if you use 3rd party software to emulate it.
Just like how you could emulate a castrandom like that if you really wanted.

Blizzard doesn't want something to be making decisions for you, like how castrandom and comma sequences were able to.

Optimal DPS is going to be tough for multi-boxers with most classes now with all the proc effects/power. For example, on pallies I will be leaning toward cast sequences that ensure enough holy power to pop TV with at least two power. It's not ideal but Bliz seems to be trying to make Cata more interactive for players (no more asleep at the wheel raiding?) I think most classes I will be playing will require at least 3 buttons to get decent dps, one masher and two situational proc based.

I have a feeling we will figure out enough tricks to get by until we can gear/outgear for PvE end game. I do fear PvP, arena in particular, will be tougher for the boxing crowd.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by offive

will be tougher for the boxing crowd.

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Well, consider that the things that make life difficult for boxers tend to make life difficult for casuals as well. I suspect if it's way difficult for us, regular players will be griping about it, too. And in that case, look for nerfs to follow shortly. ;)

Button 1 the clicker
/startattack
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/stopcasting
Button 2
/castsequence reset=combat crusader strike, judgement, crusader strike, divine storm or templar's verdict(i use both so i have an aoe button and a single dps button)
Button 3
/cast Exorcism

Full of win

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Toned

Button 1 the clicker
/startattack
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/stopcasting
Button 2
/castsequence reset=combat crusader strike, judgement, crusader strike, divine storm or templar's verdict(i use both so i have an aoe button and a single dps button)
Button 3
/cast Exorcism

Full of win

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see what goes down

I don't understand what you've described, Toned.

Create a spam key, the same as a Click Castsequence.

The first button called, calls a castsequence.
No commas for timing, just a straight looping sequence.

The second button is a simple /Cast Whatever.
Just a single spell.

Currently, the second spell casts whenever it is available.
And when it is not, the castsequence endlessly loops, as expected.

So, in his example, Ret's will endlessly loop:
Crusader Strike > Judgement > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm
But they will also: Exorcism whenever it is available, without needing to manage the proc at all.

I thought that only worked with a spell with a cast time? Or does it count Exorcism as having a cast time even when it's instant via Art of War?

Not sure on that.
Don't have a Ret spec pally to test it out.
But it seems to be working for Toned.

Hmmm. I'm playing with this right now. He does lose some white swings to the /stopcasting but it *does* do good dps. Downloading recount and will repost what I'm getting in a few.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Toned

Button 1 the clicker
/startattack
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/stopcasting
Button 2
/castsequence reset=combat crusader strike, judgement, crusader strike, divine storm or templar's verdict(i use both so i have an aoe button and a single dps button)
Button 3
/cast Exorcism

Full of win

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I think, based on other posts here, that you can do the above in a single macro if you use BindPad or another macro-extending program. I'll give the above a try tonight, though I think I had basically the same thing going with exorcism on a manual button. I wasn't seeing but 1800dps verus the 3900dps I normally put out on the boss target dummy.

3300 dps running this macro, 4350 running manually myself. I'm not sure a 25% dps loss is acceptable :/ I'll tweak it a bit and see what I get.

Edit: 12k TV crits are really fun though haha.

Further edit:

Wow. I swapped from Seal of Truth to Seal of Righteousness and the difference is amazing. 4000dps with the macro, 4030 manually controlled.

An even further edit: This is without glyphs mind you. Just spec, train, dps on dummy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mosg2

I thought that only worked with a spell with a cast time? Or does it count Exorcism as having a cast time even when it's instant via Art of War?

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No it used to require a spell with a cast time in the /castsequence part but they made a change to the spell queue a few days before 4.0.1 which changed this behaviour. I expect them to fix this though as it seems to be an unintended change.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Toned

Button 1 the clicker
/startattack
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/stopcasting
Button 2
/castsequence reset=combat crusader strike, judgement, crusader strike, divine storm or templar's verdict(i use both so i have an aoe button and a single dps button)
Button 3
/cast Exorcism

Full of win

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I thought we can't use two /click in a row in a single macro now?

Click can call multiple buttons, but only one of those can be a castsequence, the other has to be a single spell.

So you go with a spam macro, which calls two buttons.
Put a castsequence on the first button.
And put a single fall-through spell on the second button.

You end up casting the fall-through whenever it is off of cooldown.

Yeah, I'm highly underwhelmed at this point. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. With about 4800ish GS on my rets, I'm only seeing about 2800dps on the 70 dummy, 2400dps on the 80 dummy and barely 2000dps on the heroic dummy with the macro noted above. It's about 40% off from where I was last week.

My rets are capped on hit/expertise, ~24% crit, 8.00 mastery, ~3500ap, 291 haste, 1550ish str. Suggestions welcome.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Toned

Button 1 the clicker
/startattack
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/click whateverbaryouuse1
/stopcasting
Button 2
/castsequence reset=combat crusader strike, judgement, crusader strike, divine storm or templar's verdict(i use both so i have an aoe button and a single dps button)
Button 3
/cast Exorcism

Full of win

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But, if Art of War is not up, Exorcism goes to a long cast, just like prior to the patch. I have always manually do it with Jamba proc. Jump instant cast, if not all Rets have AoW up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lightstriker

But, if Art of War is not up, Exorcism goes to a long cast, just like prior to the patch. I have always manually do it with Jamba proc. Jump instant cast, if not all Rets have AoW up.

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That's what the /stopcasting is there for, to keep it from doing the cast of it if art of war isn't up.

stopping non aow'd exorcisms with /stopcasting seems to cost massive dps (autoswingtimer resetting for every try to cast it) ... the fix should be to bind jump to your attack keys .. wich means 2 actions at once (baaaaaaad) or .. well .. spamm your attack + jump keys ;D

it wont start to cast the exorcism while your moving so no x00 ms "cast" until it realizes there is a stopcasting .

another problem is that is see no way to use the mastery "proccs" on 4 rets ...

Here's my Ret sequences. This is ONLY if you have Divine Purpose talent. Other wise you have to add in a CS for 3 Holy Powers. Consecration is done manually once per pull.

AoE
#showtooltips
/castsequence reset=combat/ctrl Holy Wrath, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, Judgement, Crusader Strike, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Divine Storm
/use 13
/use 14

Single same as AoE but with TV in place of DS
#showtooltips
/castsequence reset=combat/ctrl Holy Wrath, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Judgement, Crusader Strike, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Templar's Verdict
/use 13
/use 14

The last CS and Judgment will still be about 1 sec CD when they come up, depending on your haste. The Sanctity of Battle talent change haste from items for CS. The first CS and Judgment will also have some CD when it loops back for the second rotation. Its the best i can figure out after 2 days of testing. ITs like a jigsaw puzzle filling in the gaps between CDs.

Boss or Single With Zealotry
#showtooltips
/castsequence reset=combat Crusader Strike, Judgement, Holy Wrath, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Zealotry, Avenging Wrath, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Hammer of Wrath, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Hammer of Wrath, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Hammer of Wrath
/use 13
/use 14



The spelll id of Hand of Light for Jamba proc is 90174. I might write a Zealotry macro for this later. Its 2/3 of the above macro.

Still having low dps on my rets using the dps macro. Anyone else stuck around 1800?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oatboat

Still having low dps on my rets using the dps macro. Anyone else stuck around 1800?

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I'm up to about 1900-2000ish but still pretty low according to Recount. Interestingly enough, my heroics are actually going faster than pre-4.0. /boggle. I'm sure something changed (like mob health or something) but I'm too lazy to go figure out why for the moment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lightstriker

Here's my Ret sequences. This is ONLY if you have Divine Purpose talent. Other wise you have to add in a CS for 3 Holy Powers. Consecration is done manually once per pull.

AoE
#showtooltips
/castsequence reset=combat/ctrl Holy Wrath, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, Judgement, Crusader Strike, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Divine Storm
/use 13
/use 14

Single same as AoE but with TV in place of DS
#showtooltips
/castsequence reset=combat/ctrl Holy Wrath, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Judgement, Crusader Strike, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Templar's Verdict
/use 13
/use 14

The last CS and Judgment will still be about 1 sec CD when they come up, depending on your haste. The Sanctity of Battle talent change haste from items for CS. The first CS and Judgment will also have some CD when it loops back for the second rotation. Its the best i can figure out after 2 days of testing. ITs like a jigsaw puzzle filling in the gaps between CDs.

Boss or Single With Zealotry
#showtooltips
/castsequence reset=combat Crusader Strike, Judgement, Holy Wrath, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Zealotry, Avenging Wrath, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Hammer of Wrath, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Hammer of Wrath, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Hammer of Wrath
/use 13
/use 14



The spelll id of Hand of Light for Jamba proc is 90174. I might write a Zealotry macro for this later. Its 2/3 of the above macro.

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Did alot better with these macros than the other one. about 2800 dps compared to 1500-1800

i think our problems with the white dmg issue would be binding jump during the dps spam, this should sort things out? look silly yes but what else is there?

i've done the jump trick (hkn user) .. the problem is u have to wait with dps spam until the rets stand still after a interact with target ... jumping through the target sucks sometimes ;D i use 3 macros now .. one cleave (divine storm) and one single target (tv) with jumping and fall through exorcism and a single target macro with hardcoded exorcisms after each tv for movement encounters. rebuke(triggers your seal)/the ae stun with 2k dmg is fallthrough in every makro.

dunno with isboxer id use short strafe left/right commands instead i guess.. this should be much less problematic with cleaving bosses .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lightstriker

Here's my Ret sequences. This is ONLY if you have Divine Purpose talent. Other wise you have to add in a CS for 3 Holy Powers. Consecration is done manually once per pull.
Single same as AoE but with TV in place of DS
#showtooltips
/castsequence reset=combat/ctrl Holy Wrath, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Judgement, Crusader Strike, Exorcism, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Templar's Verdict
/use 13
/use 14

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Tried this out on my pally with a mix of 264-251 ret and tank gear gemmed for strength with blue and epic gems, and got 3600 dps on the boss dummy.

Gemmed and enchanted correctly, I imagine this would work pretty well. Haven't tried to see if things are popping at the correct time yet, but there is certainly at least a good start here.

Thanks for the macro!!

i think best answer to this if you dont want to manually fire off verdict.storm etc is to get him on the dummy and follow the rotation without storm o verdict and estimate over time the most likley/often time 3 power is up, and do a average this way you will probably get good results and sometimes average.

ive done this with my enhancement shaman with MW, i need 5 stacks but i have been on the dummy working out the best time mw is usually ready so put lb in the rotation where its more likley to be able to fire off. i have tried with and without stop casting and both results are very much the same.

p.s if you change gear the proc times will change so you will have to start all over again, so gear up and spend good half hour getting a good accurate estimation.

i got a mix class group and handling ds,mw, and others from my team is tough to keep tabs on, it would work with i set them off manually with jamba proc but tbh i cant always keep tabs on wtf going on at times its better for me to do above.

maybe you guys can try it, so far i have got very good results.

im using these macros, managed by one button( its a single button spam).
note: my clicks are for Macaroon Buttons addon

/click MacaroonButton48
/click MacaroonButton45
/click MacaroonButton51
/click MacaroonButton49

Button 48 Macro:
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=combat/target Crusader Strike,Judgement,Holy Wrath,Crusader Strike,Templar's Verdict,Crusader Strike,Judgement,Crusader Strike,Templar's Verdict

Button 45 Macro:
/stopcasting
/castsequence exorcism
/stopcasting

Button 51 Macro:
/use Hammer of Wrath

Button 49 Macro:
/cast Avenging Wrath

It works decently for me. +4.5k DPS on HC Dummy, selfbuffed, gear=average level 248.
Zealotry management is a nightmare, same for Hand of Light Procs: atm no way to manage it.

PS: noticed i have issue with HW CD, my solution could be moving HW in another clicked button, and removing from main castsequence (button48)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Prega

PS: noticed i have issue with HW CD, my solution could be moving HW in another clicked button, and removing from main castsequence (button48)

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Try changing your reset conditions to just be a timer of not hitting the button, like 10 seconds. Since your current setup is bound to reset it at a bad time and get stuck on a cooldown.