For a priest to out DPS a retribution paladin they’re going to seriously invest into damage stats; it’s not even remotely imaginable for a +healing allocated priest do enough damage for a DPS meter to even notice that they did something outside of the shadow word pain DoT.
Not only this, but the use of Mind Flay, mind blast, and such are expensive. Mana cost and threat are what hold shadow back; it’s the same issue that Elemental and Balance also have. It’s not that they cannot do damage, it’s their mana management that’s problematic just like any other “healing” capable class.
It is possible to work around those problems with stats like MP5 / Spirit and chugging mana pots on cooldown, but by doing so you’re keeping up with Retribution on actual Vanilla.
I love to make fun of Retribution, but in addition to Enhancement and Feral are actually darn decent if played and geared correctly.
Shadow also suffers that two of their three tools generate debuffs, which is a no-no. SW:P and Mind Flay take up a slot each and that just doesn’t work, on top of applying Shadow Weaving. The Shadow isn’t there to deal damage (especially since they’ll run OOM as you said), they’re there to support the Warlocks and to offheal if necessary.
Explain how you have video evidence of Spelladins pulling competitive DPS, then. They’re doing more than the Hunters at the very least.
I found Classic Ret to be among the most fun. Your DPS was bursty and inconsistent. Damage done was never spectacular… but I never cared about topping meters. Tossing random heals, maintaining buffs and using your blessings to aid party members made things a lot more interesting. PvP was also great (getting a hold of a mage or warlock and bursting them down with crits was a lot of fun, too!)
Ultimately, play what you want. Have fun. Other people might criticize your choices, but you’re the one paying the sub fee.
The debuff for Mind Flay is just the slow effect. The damage still goes even without the debuff icon appearing. SW:P is still a no-no.
As for Spelladin Rets, the damage comes from stacking the deck for spell power instead of attack. After all these years, Paladins have finally figured out how Blue Rage works.
The gains from Spirit are nice if you’re a healer but they’re hardly worthy of mention when you look at the actual spell damage gains, they’re very small, it’s more a scaling bonus that makes it a stat worth of stacking not only for the bonus it provides but the PVE side of it where you don’t OOM in the first minute of an encounter.
If I remember right it’s only 20% of your total spirit (stat) that in turn goes toward damage and healing could be 15%?? It’s been 14 years.
If you go deep enough to get the spirit gain, and you get shadow weaving you’re giving up the 1 talent (5 points) in disc you’re going to regret not taking and that’s your passive threat reduction…
If the player is geared for +healing then the gains from the spirit scaling talent are nice only if you’re healing…
If the player is geared for +damage and healing, the gains from spirt scaling are great, but you’re giving up roughly 50% of your bonus healing to go with damage gear, and that’s massive.
Another option exists and that’s gear for damage, but also bring a +healing weapon… This is what I did in arena because not a lot changed in TBC regarding this stuff until 2.3 or so when they polluted the +healing stat with a bonus of 30% damage because bad players were bad and could not be bothered to play with friends or UTILIZE the dual-spec that was present in TBC, or be bothered to just equip different gear. All because questing was some kinda horrible burden.
25% for 5/5
And you could just not get 5/5 shadow weaving if you want the threat redux in Disc. However, the whole point of stacking spirit kinda loses it’s attraction because you cannot get shadow weaving, spirit->spell power, AND mana regen while casting all in the same build. So in order to regen any mana, you would have to stop casting for extended periods of time.
Yeah it’s been ages since I played Classic to remember the talent tree, but I do remember that you had to make some hard choices regarding the talents, and that was indeed the point I was trying to make, the desired goal they were going for there was not possible as I remember it.
Sounds like you’re remembering it the same as me. I thought it was a lower gain on the spirit bonus, but I do believe you’re right, it’s been forever.
Their calculator functions pretty well.
And I don’t see all the hate on them. People say they use a lot of ads but I don’t see that much. I see more on other sites.
It’s how poorly their website runs and in the past I have had some really bad experiences with their “popups” being blocked would cause a number of issues and browser crashes…
If you did not block their popups you would endup with loads of malware.
Thta’s why I feel safer on a sketchy russian site than their page.
Best part about going the spell power route is the multitude of gear available to us. Group with a tank and rogue/hunter dps, watch all that spell damage cloth/leather/mail and plate come your way. Especially if you keep running BRD, lots of spell damage gear in there. Get the gear by healing then go dps with it if you can get into a raid that way.
I healed my way to the gear i wanted back in vanilla, probably do the same this time around. Judgement all has + spell damage and a lot of the accessories you need you get get from item quests etc.
Shockadin was a fun spec to play in pvp. Looking forward to playing it again as well as spell damage prot and holy reckoning.
The issue here is you are comparing a “healing” holy priest spec and a “smiter” build.
Might as well compare it to a +healing ret pally lol.
The issue is if a holy priest specs for it they’ll still pull out better DPS than a ret. Ret’s are just that bad in Vanilla. They are right down there with Balance druids.
By no means am I saying smite priests are “good” dps either. I’m just say they are as good or better than ret in most situations.
I really find that hard to believe. I have seen good retribution paladin in Vanilla, and I am not claiming they’re as good as warrior, but they’re better than a smite build priest by miles. The only reason I know how good / bad priests are is by means of actually playing one as an alt in Vanilla. Shadow was remarkably good, but required you gear for PVE meaning you’re kinda harming your DPS output a little so that you can sustain a whole boss fight. The real issues for Shadow as Mana use and threat generation; both were not the end of the world, but both were holding shadow back from mage levels of damage.
As for a holy smite built, there is no good way to make it viable on its own; not with out help from a retribution paladin, because they supply the aura and judgement needed to make it even slightly a practical concept.
That’s the whole idea behind the All Holy Raid. Rets plural give off Sanc Aura and improved Crusader (all ranks) for the Paladin tanks (who use all ranks of Light for melee healing and healing threat), Shockadins (Wisdom ranks), and Smite Priests.
You can add Warlocks if you run with one Shadow Priest.
Paladin JoL/W ranks don’t stack. We’ll have to wait and see for JotC; I remember that stacking for the longest time even beyond the JoL/W nerf, but I don’t have any real definitive evidence for it.
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They are right down there with Balance druids.