Tell you what though - can you include some links here so I can see the settings you use so I can fiddle with it a bit?
-Horse
Not at the trust level that I can post the WoWsims link, wish I was 
Just hit the gear and put it in as preformatted text.
One of the things I try to do when I ref a webpage is instead of saying “on WCL X is Y of 14” I try to say “For item level” or post a link. Again, don’t want that to sound rude, but before I had to retire, I worked with a lot of data, and some of my posts aren’t just long-winded. They’re long-winded and involve a bibliography.
So saying “we’re 10/14 right now”
https://sod.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/2009
I gotcha
Me saying “Here’s what ret looks down the line with a semi-geared raid (51-53)”
https://sod.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/2009#aggregate=amount&bracket=8×pan=1000
Saves a bit of “HERE IS A NUMBER I FOUND FROM ‘CONVENIENT THEORIES FOR HORSE MAGAZINE’ - 7 - NO, YOUUUUU GO GOOGLE IT.” Which you see every now and then. Samples are samples and saying “NURCENARY WARRIOR NERFED INTO THE GROUND END OF SOD” week 1 (That is the official name of the April Fool’s Warrior healer spec - the real Top Secret Warrior Healer Build is actually called ‘Harmacist.’”) I try to be able to show some perspective.
Having someone come in and say “Yeah, y’all don’t need a buff” is almost never helpful. Saying “your premise is incomplete” or “I don’t get this part” you might learn something. Or make a friend.
Seeing the big picture - or at least a bigger one in forums is hard - 2/3 specs of shaman aren’t doing great right now - I love resto shammy as a tank healer, and I don’t see it, and the 10/14 rank for pally ret dps? That’s over ele shammy. Ret still needs a buff, but moreover they need an “extra spec” is what I hear from this thread more than anything - that’s the real thing shaman got that paladin didn’t. And I can only speak for myself when I say “you’re not going to hurt your case with me saying Ret paladin should be 2h - even with it being bigger DPS I hate using a shield”
I would love to see a warrior style “2h slow specialization” rune on paladin. And have the four specs be kind of Hpal, Prot, Ret, and Command Stance where a lot of the utility got moved but less damage so Rets who want to sacrifice their bubble can do so for a 2h buff.
-Horse
Because you think the seal&judgment system is better?
Does HoJ deal damage?
Judgment can’t work without a seal so seal of command then.
Does Repentance deal damage?
Hammer of Wrath is a 1 second casting ability and doesn’t fit well for a melee fighter (ask to warriors if they want a 1 sec casting time execute).
What you’re saying is so ridiculous.
The rogues/mages/hunters you frost shocked aren’t going to dispel themselves.
See how out of context your answer is?
Of course they weren’t meant to be serious neither do I.
Seriously you think having a 30-40% dr on a 1 min cd + mana back would be core ability?
Shaman already have a kit to work with and without runes while Paladin hasn’t.
The way the runes are displayed for paladin is a mess and as I said before we can see the limits of this system.
You read my answers but you don’t even understand what I’m saying.
You said it yourself shaman choose between 3 offensive abilities on its gloves rune.
Blizzard did not give this luxury for the paladin.
As an enhancement do you sacrifice lava lash/lava burst/molten burst for your taunt? That’s what I thought.
You can list all the runes Paladin has it doesn’t change the fact that it starts without tools to fulfill its 3 roles and the offensive ability runes are in competition with utility ability runes.
Of course Paladins received a bit more offensive than others because they had nothing.
Is it so hard to understand this simple fact?
Zero kit in either direction?
Look again then.
Yeah such as changing some runes to core ability and create some new ones in their place.
The issue is fearward which was used to sort of balance against Wotf is being given to horde while alliance gets another dot.
Yes this dot will help alliance shadow priests in PvE on Wcraft logs, unfortunately they are still like 2nd to last or last if you count the healing arcane mage on the bottom.
Also Desperate Prayer is being given to horde.
Alliance gets touch of weakness which will help shadow priests in 1v1 against melee. Which to be fair they need against undead rogues.
However defensive cooldowns like desperate prayer and fear ward are much better in group pvp with the current extremely bursty meta.
If everyone was struggling to kill eachother in pvp then devouring plague and touch of weakness would be stronger as people would live through CC and desperate prayer would be a fart in the wind.
However as people are dropping every 5 seconds or less CC makes or breaks battles since in a 15 second fear you can kill maybe 2 people and turn a 3v1 into almost a 1v1, if they dont have counterplay.
And when people are dying so fast people with desperate prayer an instant cast 1.4k heal + or - depending on gear(everyone has some spellpower) is the difference between someone living and dying alot of the time so the next heal has time to land. Since in any battle bigger than 1v1 there will be more damage and coming fast. Having that player still be alive can alone turn the tide of a group battle at many a critical juncture.
The way I understand the weapon skill to work is that its only 2 can be active at one time and you have to go to town to change it. And since you can change it to any weapon type humans have the same weapon choice as anyone else when they started with a racial that gave them a bonus in it.
Agreed it does basically nothing in pvp.
The only weapon skill point I’m really arguing is Arms/Fury Spec’d Human warriors using Swords and sword spec was only way to compete with Orc’s bloodlust or troll’s berserking to parse on alliance as a top warrior in short fights (which are all parse fights since long fights water down your cooldown’s impact on DPS).
And warrior was the top dps class in Classic and now will be the top Dps class in SoD.
Yes everyone hates parsing, but as the faction that is supposed to be superior in PvE what should they do after they have the current raid on farm?
Raids will stack warriors as they did in vanilla and horde will have better speed runs and boss kill times and higher parses over all dps classes as the best dps class in the game they will have the biggest advantage on.
This also applies less so to orc/troll rogue and even less so to orc/troll hunter.
Alliance shadow priests which are on the bottom will not carry raid dps by getting devouring plague.
Alliance will from an elite perspective be worse in PvE and PvP and players seeking to to be competitive on the top end should go horde this is just another brick falling in the dam of high end alliance players and it wont affect anything instantly but player frustration will mount and elite players will leak out. Its demotivating for big elite guilds in their attempts to advertise. Eventually these big elite guilds will leave as well, even thou in entirety it might take months of the situation getting worse. And if there arent big elite guilds on alliance then what is there to aspire to, to be able to get into. Your going to be in guilds that are casual and ultimately wont try to compete as they wont have the motivation for it. You’ll get geared and be able to look at a cool character but you wont have a shot at the stars. Who wants to be in an unfair fight?
The +5 sword skill being available to horde isnt going to make or break the alliance. The problem is horde has many advantages and making them have the best dps in the game which is the most critical metric for parsing, speed killing and speed running makes them better in the catagories that most care about on wcraft logs, hence “elite”.
And this point of horde getting more advantages to the point where they are eclipsing the alliance’s forte of pve expertise is more annoying than a number other advantages they may have.
The real point here is horde will eclipse alliance in PvE which is a slightly heavier blow and just another straw on the camel’s back. It might not break the back but someday it will, look back at 2019 classic stats, more people played horde then just for the PvP racials since PvP has more replayability.
If SoD were to continue for a cpl years and keep giving horde benefits we’d be at 30-35% alliance to horde ratio conservatively. This is not a concern for SoD but a concern for classic + if it doesnt listen to the idea that both factions need unique strength incentives to keep them interesting.
With the threat that warlocks and shamans are putting out and the Strength of Earth and grace of Air totem + Feral for WF their dps will eclipse that of might.
Strength of earth = 36str = 39 Str (with lion in raid) = 78 attack power
Grace of Air = 43 agility = 47 agi (with lion) = 47 ap for rogues and melee hunters.
But talking just warriors 20 agi at 60 is almost 1% crit. 47 Agi at 50 is likely 2.5% ish crit which makes up for blessing of might’s (115 attack power (135 Talented)) 57 attack power advantage as the synergy of how warriors feed into their rotation with crit’s bringing flurry and more rage and enabling other abilities. However hit is the most important until you hit cap (which is great from weapon skill).
So might and salv, or really just 57 attack power arent going to save alliance from losing their PvE top dps status.
Hyad -
Long reply, it was a long message. Apologies.
Is this statement based on any design documents that say that these have a relationship to each other? Just kinda how you balanced it yourself?
Is there a source you can cite? Because we move from one issue, that this wasn’t your racial, and suddenly it’s fear ward being given to the horde that’s the problem. Or we talk about that if +5 weapon skill were OP now that we’d be seeing faction DPS imbalance across classes that are cross faction, like warrior. Are we?
Is there any source you can cite that lists times, or win rates for battlegrounds? Any kind of logging available? Where does your 5 second number come from?
Can. Does it? Do you have any data about this?
Greenfield: "There will be an ability to unlock two + 5 bonuses at once. " I believe by “unlock” that means you will be able to add two additional +5 bonuses of your choice that do not stack with your innate bonuses. No one said anything about you losing your innate bonuses. If you were a human with 4 WS bonuses (1h, 2h mace, 1h, 2h sword) you would unlock two additional, dynamic weapon specializations. That’s my reading. Here is the link with time stamp to the presentation:
https://youtu.be/vDRuPJkGp_I?si=voz1e-E1Dr0u1B2J&t=1306
In addition there are very many instances of Aggrend et al. saying “we suggested not to rely on this long term, but to select races based on aesthetics or other bonuses.” Here is the link to that part of the presentation:
https://youtu.be/vDRuPJkGp_I?si=bPfLFCLuyl_8vYoD&t=1281
Here is a link to an interview 5mos before:
Greenfield: "I think the problem isn’t necessarily the racials but the lack of weaponskill from other sources. No promises or specifics, but I think it’s safe to say we have a lot of opportunities… …items arent the only vector for said opportunities as well.
It’ll be interesting to see where we end up as we get closer to 60, but I think it’s pretty safe to say you’ll be just fine if you pick, say, a Dwarf or a Tauren for your warrior for Season of Discovery."
Link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wowSoD/comments/17r0zv2/aggrend_on_weapon_skill_and_itemization/
So, I need you, Hyad, to understand:
- This was never your racial. A lot of these weaponskills aren’t racials at all, but items, or rogue or priest talents, or simply didn’t exist. I need you to get that part.
- Out of all the crazy stuff that’s happened, this is about the clearest thing to a warning we’ve gotten. And if you didn’t see this coming out of ALL the weird things that have happened, I don’t know what to tell you.
- You have included no data with any of your post. No links. Nothing. Your predictions are based on your feelings and experiences, which aren’t bad places to get them, but you and I don’t work for Blizzard and they don’t work for us.
Even your population data about Alliance players bleeding out is based on what?
This:
https://sod.aotc.gg/top/realms
Shows no servers with a Horde population surplus of more than 2%
Ironforge pro:
https://ironforge.pro/population/sod/
Shows at most a Horde surplus of 3.6% on some servers.
And on PvE? Wild Growth US, I’m outnumbered 65:35%.
Apparently, you.
Do you have top PvE DPS now? Should you?
Can you show me anything that said that Alliance was promised top-dog PvE status?
Does Alliance not get benefits? Are there any disadvantages to playing Horde? Would you rather things kept getting balanced so ret got some love in Vanilla-esque content, and was a really great DPS spec, or should we go back to the conventional wisdom of era where ret was not in great shape, nor were 1/2 the specs “raid viable.”
Wouldn’t that be better? If we could achieve similar goals through different means?
Where was this in any presentation? Are the stars you reach brighter because the other faction was handicapped? Are we playing a difficult, social video game together or outrunning a bear?
I love it. And I work hard for my numbers. But parses are symptoms of good runs and good raids and good calls, and damned good preparation.
But I’m playing against myself. And I’m a tank. I play for threat. I play to see how hard I can get my team to push themselves in PvE. I play to see how hard I can get you guys amped up because I know I get the best side of that balance at the end of the day.
It’s really hard not to read this and feel like the only thing we have in common is you’re playing against me too.
Is that what you wanted to say, or do you think you could try again with some links and numbers and data to back your assumptions?
I’ll be here. Congratulations on your ret buffs and mana changes. Those sound like they’ll be helpful.
-Horse
Make Exorcist Rune baseline. It is unbelievable that such a basic elements of RET would require a rune to be available while havin to compete with other useful runes.
So what rune combinations for Retribution does that prevent?
Also, can’t that lead into a stun combo?
-Horse
Who cares it is the same thing every expansion release whatever.
The game is on autopilot they have never balanced the game and never will.
On top of that pvp you will see everyone dies to some class. My spriest just disappears whenever a rogue appears haha.
This community is insane just the same stuff over and over and nothing changes.
You want change unsub for longer than a month if not enjoy wow as it is never changing.
Long reply sorry!
- Fear Ward in Vanilla was an alliance staple. It may have been
dwarf only but it was more powerful since it could be applied to
your entire raid. Instead of relying on your raid to be all Undead,
like on horde for some mechanics. This made parsing in pve easier
for allaince since the first fear could be completely ignored from some bosses.
In PvP it could once again go on all the members of your premade versus
having to rely on your whole team to be undead.
This probably made alliance stronger in bgs during the initial clash if they had a dwarf priest in their roster.
So this going to horde makes them even more un cc’able in bgs.
I never have seen a document saying this was put on alliance as a counter
balance to forsaken.
What I’m talking about is fearward being given to horde to make them more dominant in bgs. Bc they have racials that are anti CC, which is what PvP revolves around.
(My data is a guess that people dont want to play when
they are losing and thats why horde que times are so long.)
Also desperate prayer going to horde will make them more overpowered as they
will have more tools to survive. That they didnt have before.
And +5 to onehand swords is the last thing I’m complaining about.
- My number for 5 seconds comes from me playing my elemental shaman in phase 2, I cast a lava burst 1400-1500 damage(no buffs)
autocasted overload 50% damage (700-750) and if they are not dead then
elemental mastery earthshock for 650-700 damage.
Thats 4-6 seconds of 2750-3050 damage depending on when you start counting.
Or without ele mastery, earthshock for 320-340
making the total damage 2320-2700 with no buffs and no cooldowns,
just need to not be stunned and able to get off one 2.5 second cast.
If I got a powersurge I was killing elite mobs on the next global.
The lower end of these numbers didnt always oneshot someone but usually did 70-90% of their HP, unless it was a warrior with shield wall or bubbled paladin (lol)
“ht tps://im gur.c om/a/fsfyFGH”
-
Yes it can turn the tide of the battle. I do not have data on this.
I’ve played a decent amount of pvp and when someone scores an early kill
(often in SoD with the lack of stamina and bursty meta) it tilts the battle
in their favor and snowballs to being huge since that factor is multiplied by how long the battle lasts. -
Greenfield said only 2 +5 bonuses at once, I read that as humans can change sword and mace spec out for others, hence the ‘only’.
-
It was the human racial that is given away to others for the option to use different inferior weapons. Nothing beats +5 to one hand swords for PvE dps arms fury warriors.
-
I saw it coming from the beginning. Same when I played alliance on skeram. The alliance playerbase was at a larger majority in phase one when paladins came out the gate with verigan’s fist and a bunch of runes that brought them closer to other classes in DPS until they fell to lower middle of the pack. The idea is paladin dps can never be good since they bring
too much utility. Why not have rogues or even warriors bring more utility
from their runes than they currently do or give warriors more PvP runes to
help them from being lit up like a circus in PvP.
Nothing happened on Skeram, the horde danced on everyone’s corpses, yes the server was outnumbered from the beginning and I raided with cuddy kwoo the last remaining alliance guild on the server(until a few months before TBC) as our guild member Kirm was doxx’d by the “best” guild in north america, Onslaught and our raid trying to sneak into BRM was camped by them on numerous occasions.
“It’s a part of the game” “Get over it”
Yeah people got over it and they got over the entire game and left, the server died, there were never any changes Cuddy Kwoo transferred at TBC and then Skeram as a whole itself died since there were no alliance playing on it. However horde botting to sell max level characters eligible for PvP
server transfers did become a thing I witnessed.
Queing into a 3v3 arena with 2 players is what that server was and will become the moment people stop being inspired to play alliance for any interesting advantages they might have.
- Yes my experiences and things feeling bad and watching them fall apart over time. On passionate no changes Pservers elite players play horde as well
-
Of course I dont want to be in an unfair fight, this is why I am one of the few voices on here complaining on the alliances behalf.
-
A warrior with their maxxed out arms/fury sword spec, crit spreadsheet perfected, hitcapped, fully buffed dual wielding sword warrior with thrash blade should be approaching the top and given how this class scales will be at the top.
-
Can you show me anything that said Horde was supposed to be this overpowered in Pvp?
-
I dont know many disadvantages to playing horde but they do seem to lack the defensive capacity that some long cooldown abilities paladins have and the anti rogue stoneform that dwarves get. I tend to PvP on alliance and have had to live through horde being closer to the middle of AV (playing classic), Having LM,Farm,BS trio closer to their side, Lm just floats down to BS. Being able to speed boost noggenfogger off of the alliance tunnel to bypass where some of the alliance team might be, 007 style. Also being able to jump around on their tunnel so they can LoS virutally any angle or stand ontop of their cart so melee can’t hit them. Being 25% resistant to all stuns, breaking fear every 2 minutes, stunning a team of alliance for 2 seconds every 2 minutes. I am suprised by none of these things and annoyed by all of them.
Paladins trolling around in bubble or using LoH at the perfect time are on such long cooldowns that it feels like a gimmick to use them in the conversation. Just heal whoever he’s attacking and if hes keeping you off the flag at blacksmith just wait out his sheild or come back to his base when the team has been baited somewhere else. That play of a paladin using bubble to defend a base in AB is the strongest alliance play I know of.
-
We are playing a game where all aspire to be heroes and we’re told we were heroes so its unfair to handicap anyone by telling them they cant have a fair shot at the stars. Horde getting +5 weapon skill is fine if it was balanced and alliance got some kind of offensive racial to keep up like horde races have.
-
Im not here to play against you. I’m here to even the playing field bc if the field doesnt have a chance at being even then it will become onesided and die like my last server.
I want warriors and rogues to have more utility to bring to a raidwide scene, like some kind of buff, so you always get at least one and perhaps make it party only so you get 4-8 of em. They shouldnt be there just for damage and be the kings of it for eternity
I dont want the raid to be 15 ret paladins even if they were the 1 best dps in the world by a mile bc I dont want gatekeeping at raids for “only this class or only that class” or “none of this class cus it sucks” that is horrendous design and causes more people to quit than keep playing.
Ret I think needs a rework to have the class not just be all about trying to spam as many 500 damage spells as possible while swinging with a 2hander for 200 damage. Or having the PvP version of the spec rely on having a wimpy rogue critting your butt so you can drop as many reckoning stacks as possible or diving a horde group bubbling and hoping your reckoning stacks can oneshot some horde who isnt getting healed. I dont like using a gimmicky strat that is once every 5 minutes and horde hate reckbomb bubble pallies as well, as they either should run or need heals.
I want balance. Of course perfect is the enemy of the good but oneshot mechanics or long cooldown abilities being the meta is bad for general gameplay and with green jesus Thrall being the maincharacter for Chris Metzen, its the horde’s world and we only live in it.
And remove bubble and bop as soon as you put points in ret or prot. If damage out put is high bubble breaks pvp, and tanks dont need it.
No thanks, pallies are already aids in PvP lmao.
1 Like
What stun combo?
The Exorcist Rune essentially make all other runes on leg slot irrelevant if RET ever wishes to do any serious damage, and it is considered a must-have.
The effect of this rune is so fundamental to RET’s rotation, but at the same time, so basic comparing to what other runes have to offer.
You are a terrible player, no one should listen to your suggestions until you get better.
Yall are op in pvp thats literally all that matters
Says the guy who plays the only class that can heal, immune to damage, freedom, cleanse, not go out of mana, instant full heal, immune to damage some one else, have crazy reckoning burst, did I forget anything?
There is a reason you picked paladin, cuz its an auto I win and you are garbage and you know it.
1 Like
All PvPers are better in PVE by definition. If you suck at the endgame raid content, you cannot talk about PvP. If you cannot 1v1 a Ret Paladin in PvP, you are bad at the game.
Play a warrior and 1v1 a ret paladin, then come back and see me. Until then shut up.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
Honestly I don’t think you are either. Your counter argument to everything said is that shaman is more busted than pal.
That doesn’t mean pal is not already busted. I agree with someone proposal saying that if you want more damage in raids, a good compromise would be giving up bubble and instant full heal. You do not need it in raid anyway, do you?
To clarify: shaman is busted, paladin is busted, both have the luxury to have all 3 roles available to them. you should not get more free damage without any drawback, and yes shaman last batch of buffs is absurd.
You know what I would really like to see though? More classes having more role options (looking at hunter still getting nothing not DPS), lowest performing specs being buffed intelligently so it is relevant in raid, but not in PVP.
Funny, would say the same of Lion for hunters. Difference being that Lion is mandatory if your are not selfish, while exorcist is only there for personal reason.