From what I have gathered SoC is used when you have a slow weapon, arcanite reaper, Ashkandi, corrupted ashbringer, dark edge of insanity, might of menethil. All those you would use soc. If you’re using nightfall then SoR due to the chance to double proc nightfall and other stuff like crusader.
But yes if your guild allows you to judge seal of the crusader always judge it. A lot of guilds I would believe wouldn’t want you to.
-Sinclaire -Torch-
This is so ridiculously incorrect im not going to bother rofl.
IMO you should though, because this thread needs to turn the corner from “is ret viable” to “how to optimize ret.”
PLEASE DO correct me if I’m wrong. I’m not here to sound smart, and if my analysis is wrong I don’t want to misinform others.
I just looked at Theloras’ guide and at no point does he recommend SoR (although you would use it if you’re the nightfall bot). He advocates for SotC os SoC as the active seal depending on weapon speed.
Firstly I have played on servers with Theoloras and he is not a good paladin, he posts alot on the forums but in actual game he lacks timing skill and the ability to execute, the majority of his posts have been created through plagiarising the ideas of other theorycrafters while the ones he actually created and advocates for are based on broken private server mecahnics and gimicks e.g while he played on nostalrius he intentionally abused the bug of a broken seal of crusader which on that server lacked the damage reduction mechanic, in conjunction with stacking AP over a proper stat priority because it abused the broken mechanisms of consecration which scaled with AP on that server (alongside the broken SoCR mechanic); I would definitely advise taking any comments he posts with a huge grain of salt (furthermore he was a part of zero actual progression guilds during his time there got carried into bwl by a few guilds already clearing it but that was the extent of it).
Secondly your Pre-Raid BIS is Blackhand Doomsaw, this is because not only does the proc of this weapon proc off both melee and seal of command hits but it also has a slow speed generating higher rates of seal of command procs due to its proc per minute based nature and finally the proc of Blackhand Doomsaw crits based on melee critical chance and is affected by the vengeance talent leading to even further dps output, this would be enchanted with life-steal as mobs in MC are resistant to fire and thus the Firey Weapon enchant, with these high proc-rate enchants having the ability to crit and therefore rolling vengeance which would lead to higher dps overall.
Seal of command undisputedly has a far higher dps output, and while SoR does offer a higher up-time for nightfall it would definitely not be your seal of choice when looking to maximise your damage.
If you’re swinging nghtfall your damage is mostly just icing on the cake so you may aswell use SoR to be more useful to the raid.
Thanks Archeon! I have to admit I’m still a little puzzled as to how to make numbers reflect what you are saying, but I’ll crunch some more. Is there a swing speed point at which SoC is no longer optimal?
It would depend on a few factors, but from running a few numbers the only real way I can make SotC keep up at 3.x or 4.0 swing speeds is to give it the very early bug where it didn’t reduce damage properly and was basically a 40% IAS on top of a massive increase in attack power.
Which is not something that’s going to be in 1.12.
Even ignoring that SoComm can proc the Doomsaw, it being holy damage that is based on weapon damage gives it a fair bit of advantage. It benefits from melee crit, melee attack power, and spell damage plus gets a nice 25% damage bonus from Vengeance and Sanctity Aura.
Ret does not need to be “optimized”, though. It was not “optimized” in vanilla.
But you can optimize Ret. That doesn’t mean you change the tree or the coefficients or anything, but you gear properly and learn how to play the spec to the utmost.
Not everything is some change slipping in past your no change guard.
I would not refer to “gearing properly and learning how to play the spec” as “optimizing ret”. I would call that putting yourself in a position to get the most out of your play style.
Far too often these days when the word “optimize” is used in reference to a class or spec, it is used as a synonym for making that class or spec “equal to the top performing class filling that role”.
The poster to whom I responded could have meant something different, of course, but that was the way I interpreted the “how to optimize ret” comment.
I meant it this way.
I apologize for misunderstanding.
No worries. I wasn’t offended, just clarifying. Ty though.
At least ret pallys won’t have to put up with Furor and Tigole - Google is your friend if you don’t know who these guys are (hint: hated hybrids with a passion, ret pallys most), former EQ lead raiders and developers to be for Blizzard.
You can also search MMO Champion for “the-man-who-nerfed-paladins-before-the-game-even-came-out.”
Good luck.
Holy cow this thread is still going. Amazing. Just gonna keep sprinkling in the bumps. Long live the Retbrothers.
Yeah. They wanted warriors to be the only tanks. They hated like hell that pallies and SKs could tank in EQ. They hated hybrids. They’re the reason the game had to be redesigned in all the class patches.
They fixed a lot that was wrong in EQ but brought their own baggage.
But players found ways, pushed back, and got our patches.
The problem with this theory is that Alex Afrasaibi(Furor) was a quest designer while Jeff Kaplan(Tigole) was a world designer.
Neither were in charge of nor even linked to class design.
On top of this, a few people who actually played the beta version of Paladin in WoW noted that they weren’t exactly the height of tanking or damage dealing before the revamp.
Ret Paladins were not kept down because two people on a team of hundreds didn’t like hybrids.
Clerics are intimidating in 5e as a class choice you go from “let’s try being the healer and support” to “oh my god there is 18 different paths what do I choose?”