So far haven’t found a build where you are balanced at both ends, either you are ST or AOE, getting both is hard and when you do it’s not very competitive. If anyone has suggestions I would love them. I did a key today and specced heavily into AOE since it’s fort week, well my AOE was alright, but my ST damage was BAD, like 10-15k lower than the next person and they were doing just as much AOE as me. I think we need more sustained damage in between CDs, because even though they are down to 1m, they are still most the damage.
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I’m no expert and not totally sure but somehow I have the feeling something got lost in the rework. Still can’t point at what it is, but the transition from a more bursty spec to a more sustained one didn’t go too well. As I said, not sure what the problem is but something seems off for me and it really bugs me that I can’t seem to find what it is.
Then again I hate changing talents for different occasions and it seem that the old tree while not perfect was better suited for “allround” builds.
Not too happy at the moment with my main spec.
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My warlock has the same problem.
My hunter has this problem in Beastmastery, but not as much in MM.
My feral has a similar problem.
I think this is intended.
As to the burst, I’m confused. We had a profile for almost the whole PTR where Final Verdict/Divine Storm were our top damage, but only by like 5-10% over the next source, and it all felt very steady. Then, the Friday before the patch, with no notes, they nerf builders and buffed spenders, but the combined result was a nerf. Then the night before the patch, they give us an aura buff and a few tweaks that put us right back into the bursty spenders.
Why they want us this way, I don’t know, but this is CLEARLY intended.
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Enhancement shaman is the same way. 4 builds, 2 being ST (elemental/physical), and 2 being AoE (elemental/physical). UH DK seems to be the same way, and frost to an extent (obliteration vs breath). I’m pretty sure this is how they want it, especially since it’s so, so easy to switch builds.
Except in M+ where you have to commit to one or the other, which is where I’m sure the OP is having the issue.
As to the builds. The Wowhead build does work. Yes, it is lower on ST than we were before, all things being equal, but it’s not as bad of a loss as most AoE builds.
If you find you’re not getting that build to perform, here’s one I made.
BYEAS+uMNo6HaxL/ztTZBhrdcCAAAQAgIUKtSSr0OQiSSSKEAAAAAAApBJJEIBRaRQCRaJaRCJIiShGA
- Feel free to swap cleanse and blinding light into HoJ cd depending on your needs.
- No VoJ, so it will play into your muscle memory better with 3 HP spenders.
- CSAA, so you will have some downtime, but if you use things like FoL to keep yourself or others maintained, or any of your utility, there shouldn’t be THAT much downtime.
- Since this build has downtime and you’ll get HP from auto-attacks, you DON’T want to prioritize builders like we have since HP was a thing. Spend at 3 or 4 so you don’t overcap.
This build is not quite as high dps. For me, it’s a little better on AoE (130k vs 122K) and a little worse on ST (50k vs 52k). BUT, just in terms of actual performance, I did better overall with this build until I built more muscle memory with the wowhead build. Feel free to see how it feels to you.
This is true on many classes. I regularly play bm hunter, elemental shaman, havoc dh, and all of them feel like you gotta focus a little harder to do either better st or better aoe. You can do a little of each and be good at one or the other, but yeah I kinda think that might be what they are going for.
Ive also seen this complaint for frost mage. So the real issue isnt that this isnt thr intent but that some classes have more access to impactful aoe builds than other classes. Like my MM build spends just a few points to add in solid aoe and only sacrifices a small amount of st but bm cant seem to do that.
I also do well with this simple tweak. Take the point out of VoJ and put it into Highlord’s Judgment. Back to a 3HP spender with the rest of the build being the recommended
In terms of pvp i like the build diversity. Lot of cool things you can do for each comp you face.
For pve you can kind of get a mix of both aoe and st, you dont have to go full into aoe. You can get a lot of good cleave talents+DS talents, and can also get plenty of good ST talents too. You -can- build for each one individually, but you can build for both too.
I think every pally I spoke to wanted consistency. They wanted some burst, but not where it’s the only way you can DPS. Blizz talked about consistency, but that wasn’t followed through. There would be fewer complaints about PVP due to high burst damage.
Even with that being said about the high burst damage, Ret Paladins are in line with other classes in PVP after the nerf on Thursday/Friday. I remember it was going to be changed Tuesday, but it was nerfed immediately because of the complaints.
If Blizz had stuck to their guns and made paladin’s DPS more consistent, I think we all would have avoided all these complaints.
I know some like the extreme burst damage, but it hurts us more than helps us. I think it’s because of that energy rush people like. You get that hype feeling when you press the macro burst damage macro and get to chase someone down.
I meant to comment to you directly, Maxia. I agree with you.
Lots of good replies, and to anyone wondering I was mostly talking about M+, since you are locked into talents aren’t able to adjust on the fly you feel it the most. Maybe it just takes more getting used to. I just feel RD build before the rework was more balanced on both ends, right now it feels like AOE is good and more consistent but ST just lacking that little extra push.
I sim about 96k in ST build and when built for M+, Fortified at least, I only sim for 60k-65k, and that’s about what I can do. I don’t think 30% ST loss is really good, I would like to be around 15-20% difference, If I could do 70-75k consistently I would be happy.
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I agree, primarily because some other specs, like MM, Arms, etc can do this. They can keep up with me in AoE all day and still top me on single target at similar item levels. They may be a little less consistent on the AoE damage, e.g. in an actual key, I may pull 100, 80, 89, where they pull 110, 70, 77 or something, but they clearly don’t lose as much ST to get this build.
Trying to be objective, however, I’m ok with no spec being good at everything. If I have a good ST build for raids, and I’m still desirable in M+, then it’s not a high priority for me to demand “fixes”. It’s just the existence of those specs who do still do well on both at the same time that bugs me, because we used to be one of them. I don’t feel like the strengths we get really offset the weaknesses we get from building this way.
I don’t want to be like monk, where their AoE looks great, then they take an even harder nosedive than us on ST. I really don’t want to be like some lock builds that barely beat the tank on AoE, then murder the boss. So, it could be worse, for sure.
I completely disagree with this post.
My M+ build is fantastic on both ends and I am doing way more consistent damage than before. Check my armory to see it if you are interested OP.
Loadout: please test it.
BYEAS+uMNo6HaxL/ztTZBhrdcCAAAQAgIalSrk0KNJKJJpQCAAAAAAQaQSCBSCRKRQCRaJakDgQio0oBA
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Looks like it would perform better on Tyrannical weeks than Fortified, ST is probably better than mine but your AOE suffers. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Same, I haven’t had any issues with splitting between AOE and single target.
My ret pally is atm 416 ilvl. Using the ring with Storming, Prophetic and Desirous in all situations (will prob change storm with frostbolt/firebolt one for ST)
- For M+:
I use this build for Fort weeks:
Sim ST(Patchwerk): 69.953
Sim AOE(Hectic add cleave with 2 bosses): 157.172
And this for Tyra weeks:
Sim ST(Patchwerk): 77.240
Sim AOE(Hectic add cleave with 2 bosses): 137.487
- Also for raiding:
ST build:
Sim ST(Patchwerk): 87.852
Sim AOE(Hectic add cleave with 2 bosses): 123.194
AOE full build:
Sim ST(Patchwerk): 68.708
Sim AOE(Hectic add cleave with 2 bosses): 166.181
You can compare the % from what you have to see if they are %-wise better or not.
Since you’re higher ilvl and sim ST higher in general, you should do about 80k+ with Tyra build and 73k+ with Fort build easily on ST.
I kind of feel like every spec should have to pick between optimal AOE or optimal ST… With a hybrid not performing as well in either as a pure build. Having one single load out be best in all situations is imbalanced and against the idea of a talent tree.
Bear in mind, the rotation just got easier. What you see as an improvement may simply be better execution of the rotation than before the rework. This is true for me. My ST in M+ is UP, but it is down on the sims, because I am executing better, not because our design is actually an increase.
This is what Ret had before. We COULD build for more AoE, or ST, but the drop-off to the one you didn’t focus wasn’t worth it for a “balanced” M+ build so we used a happy medium. The difference now is how MUCH ST or AoE drops off in a “balanced” build. We’ve lost the option to have both be a little lower than “optimal” in a happy middle. Now our best attempts actually nerf one or the other pretty hard compared to before the rework.
Yeah I’m fine with that, I think that is best. However, I think the 30% drop is way too much, I’m even taking some of the ST talents. If my max is supposed to be 95k in ST spec, I would be happy in my AOE build doing 70-75k, instead of the 60-65k I’m stuck at.
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