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

[remanz]

Well, I played quite a bit with my rets.

The good:

The burst is up from pre 4.0. Mainly due to we are able to throw hammers with wings. But I don't think this burst offsets the resilience and HP buff. TV hits really hard. I have yet to find a good way to sync 4 (3 holy powered) TV together. At level 80, landing those 4 TV together will mean death to any class. Judgement has a longer range now. So we get some damage while being kited.

The bad:

Pretty much anything defensive and healing. We are the suicide squat now. Kinda like arm warrior. Divine storm is not worth using anymore. and Missing that "free heal from attack" is quite large. Stand there and heal or use WOG mean less damage. Art of war procs a lot less. And it rarely procs together on all 4. Again, I have no good way to sync exorcism. All my defensive stuff are gone. No sacred shield. No sacrifice. Bubble shorter duration.

Conclusion:

Hate to admit. But I only got one way to beat someone in arena. That is to global a target right off the bat. In order to do that, I have to sync my attacks. Unlike shamans + healer, I don't have the staying power to hange with a group of 5 individual players.

[Zappy]

I've noticed it's a heck of a lot harder in heroics now, part of that is my DK needs better avoidance as I see he's taking crushing blows all the time now. 50k HP and gets melted rather quickly. I only did a few instances yesterday FoS, PoS, and old kingdom. On PoS, I wiped badly on the final boss as my tank got melted in what seemed like 3 hits.

My pallies DPS has gone down from ~6k on the target dummies to ~2.5k, so I know I have a lot of work to get my macros optomized, but I think even after better macros, I don't think they'll ever push 6k dps again @ 80. What's really sad is that I ran a heroic with my 5 shammys and it was so much smoother and easier. Both teams have the same gear (1800 pvp gear).

I really need to figure out a way to put zealotry and avenging wrath in a some sort of nuking macro as you can cast crusader strike, templar's verdict, hammer of wrath in a nice sequence.

Are there any addons that can show you the holy power in raid frames?

[remanz]

Are there any addons that can show you the holy power in raid frames?

Not that I know of yet. If someone know please. Or maybe Jamba would be nice enough to add it. HP is like combo points. If a raid / party frame is capable of showing combo points, it should be able to show HP as well.

Right now, I am just guessing it. "Oh, I 've been spamming CS for a while now. Let me spam the TV key". and some pallies got 3 HP, some got 2 HP. It is not in sync. 2.5k is low though. Do you have Holy Wrath in your rotation ? It hits normal non-undead now.

edit: the opt rotation seems to be

• TV (3HP) > HoW > CS > Ex > Judge > HW > Cons
  

[Zappy]

I screwed around with this team for a while last night. Reglyphed and respec'd slightly and a few interesting things I found:

by using:

/castsequence .......
/cast Exorcism
/cast Hammer of Wrath
/stopcasting

vs

/castsequence ......exorcism....
/cast Hammer of Wrath


My dps was about 500 higher on the lateral one. Watching jamba, I was missing a few free procs of exorcism, but one big difference I noticed is when popping wings. Hammer of Wrath would only fire if you had a free exorcism up, so between losing Hammer of Wrath and resetting the swing timer, I'm convinced th second macro is a little better. In this scenerio, the 2nd macro added ~2k dps while wings was active.

I'll have to dig up the huge castsequence I created last night, but it's something along the lines of:
/castsequence reset=combat Judgement, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Divine Storm, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Exorcism, Holy Wrath, Judgement, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Exorcism, Holy Wrath

Then with each paladin, I move the divine storm further in the sequence, so that each rotation I have 3 doing Templar's Verdict, and one casting Divine Storm. After running a few heroics, I noticed that I rarely ever had to heal my paladins, and now on the boss fights, I was seeing ~6.5k DPS. By watching jamba procs, almost every time that it got to the exorcism in the cast sequence, it was a free/instant cast.

Now if I could find a good way to put Zeolotry in all of it some way.

[Multibocks]

I've noticed it's a heck of a lot harder in heroics now, part of that is my DK needs better avoidance as I see he's taking crushing blows all the time now. 50k HP and gets melted rather quickly. I only did a few instances yesterday FoS, PoS, and old kingdom. On PoS, I wiped badly on the final boss as my tank got melted in what seemed like 3 hits.

My pallies DPS has gone down from ~6k on the target dummies to ~2.5k, so I know I have a lot of work to get my macros optomized, but I think even after better macros, I don't think they'll ever push 6k dps again @ 80. What's really sad is that I ran a heroic with my 5 shammys and it was so much smoother and easier. Both teams have the same gear (1800 pvp gear).

I really need to figure out a way to put zealotry and avenging wrath in a some sort of nuking macro as you can cast crusader strike, templar's verdict, hammer of wrath in a nice sequence.

Are there any addons that can show you the holy power in raid frames?

Crushing blows? I thought those only happened if mob was more than three levels above you or you weren't crit immune. Are you spec'd for tanking?

[Zappy]

Crushing blows? I thought those only happened if mob was more than three levels above you or you weren't crit immune. Are you spec'd for tanking?

Spec'd for tanking, however it was late, so there's a chance that i was facing the mob. I know if you're not facing the mob, all bets are off.

[remanz]

I screwed around with this team for a while last night. Reglyphed and respec'd slightly and a few interesting things I found:

by using:

/castsequence .......
/cast Exorcism
/cast Hammer of Wrath
/stopcasting

vs

/castsequence ......exorcism....
/cast Hammer of Wrath


My dps was about 500 higher on the lateral one. Watching jamba, I was missing a few free procs of exorcism, but one big difference I noticed is when popping wings. Hammer of Wrath would only fire if you had a free exorcism up, so between losing Hammer of Wrath and resetting the swing timer, I'm convinced th second macro is a little better. In this scenerio, the 2nd macro added ~2k dps while wings was active.

I'll have to dig up the huge castsequence I created last night, but it's something along the lines of:
/castsequence reset=combat Judgement, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Divine Storm, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Exorcism, Holy Wrath, Judgement, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Judgement, Templar's Verdict, Crusader Strike, Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, Exorcism, Holy Wrath

Then with each paladin, I move the divine storm further in the sequence, so that each rotation I have 3 doing Templar's Verdict, and one casting Divine Storm. After running a few heroics, I noticed that I rarely ever had to heal my paladins, and now on the boss fights, I was seeing ~6.5k DPS. By watching jamba procs, almost every time that it got to the exorcism in the cast sequence, it was a free/instant cast.

Now if I could find a good way to put Zeolotry in all of it some way.

Good stuff Zappy. I will try to put everything into castsequence instead of just guessing the TVs.
But with Ex in it. Wouldn't it be kind of risky ? If it gets to exorcism, and you don't have art of war. It will start to cast. And if you move, you lose the cast. Now you are stuck with exorcism until you can get it out. Just a thought.

Oh and I tried the scourge lord too last night in POS. He hits super hard now. Pre 4.0, I can just eat the forceful smash after he bounces me away. Now I have to run, and kite him a little bit. Pre 4.0 was easy for us because we can rotate divine sacrifice when Rimefang marks one of my paladins. Now I have to move them individually. Combined with DK getting murdered, this fight is not that easy anymore.

Start with army of dead. and burn all wings in the beginning. With some luck on kiting, I got through with 1 paladin and dk alive at the end. Also, somehow I could not see the ice patches on the ground. Walk into it means death for sure.

[remanz]

I don't know guys. I might be throwing in the towel with dk + rets. Or at least not leveling them first for the initial PVP race. Played a bunch of bgs last night. It is kind of discouraging.

no cleanse, no kill. 1 frost mage can kite my team forever. and there is not much I can do about it. and without defensive skills, I am just sitting there and getting nuked (at least arm warrior get to spin). I am no longer face rolling. Burst doesn't mean much when I can't touch them.

[Firstcow]

I don't know guys. I might be throwing in the towel with dk + rets. Or at least not leveling them first for the initial PVP race. Played a bunch of bgs last night. It is kind of discouraging.

no cleanse, no kill. 1 frost mage can kite my team forever. and there is not much I can do about it. and without defensive skills, I am just sitting there and getting nuked (at least arm warrior get to spin). I am no longer face rolling. Burst doesn't mean much when I can't touch them.

Can you elaborate a little? Can't you deathgrip the mage after he blinks? And what about chains of ice?

[heyaz]

i don't know how you could accomplish much without cleanse anymore.. I had to spam it constantly against frost mages and a lot of other classes, not only to prevent kiting, but to recover from fearbombs and dots everywhere.