Ret paladin viability

I work with what is given to me rather than assuming that the person is either competent or not at what they’re trying to do.

To be blunt I imagine even if I ran tests you’d dismiss it anyway, because you seem offended by the mere suggestion that you might have done something wrong. Every time I’ve come to you with evidence that you might not have been right about something, you find some excuse to dismiss it.

I’m not against you being right but I am against not verifying that, and am all for questioning if private servers that are half guesswork to begin with actually got things right too.

I literally copy pasted that from the you linked me to about Nightfall tests. I’m pointing out that there’s nothing to back up Keftenk’s claim of that.

This is like the 10th time I’ve reposted the Nightfall thread in this thread where all of our evidence and testing is laid out for all to see…

Keftenk may have said that at the very beginning of our testing parses, but I never did - in the future you would be well to post quotes to the appropriate person before laying accusations out.

To be clear, this is the full paragraph of what he wrote (again at the VERY BEGINNING of our test efforts):

“I am going to go out on a limb here and say that an Alliance Hunter is going to have an upkeep with Nightfall somewhere around or slightly below Retribution Paladin. They should realistically probably be pretty close. Again, Haste is the key here. Then abilities afterwards, which Seal of Righteousness from what I can tell is the most reliable in applying NF.” - Keftenk

TLDR - he is making a PREDICTION - not final test results.

Never mind the fact that he goes on to say this as well regarding his first round of test using a Ret Paladin with SoR/JoR:

Keftenk - Today at 2:34 PM
so, i actually just did a sor/jor 5-minute test. fairly good numbers
Keftenk - Today at 2:34 PM
68.33% upkeep
Keftenk - Today at 2:35 PM
but do note…this was a 5minute test
it could be skewed
Keftenk - Today at 2:35 PM
but i think it warrants an hr test
seeing a number like that

But I digress, as I think you are confusing total number of procs with EFFECTIVE DEBUFF UPTIME.

We do not count the sheer number of procs that any class/spec can achieve but rather their ability to maintain effective uptime for the debuff.

These are the two macros you need in order to do so (on top of the Super Macro addon):

Macro 1
/in 1+ /script for i=1,16 do local texture = UnitDebuff(“target”,i); if texture and texture == “Interface\Icons\Spell_Holy_ElunesGrace” then NfCount = NfCount + 1; DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(NfCount) end end

Macro 2
/script SM_INFRAME:Hide(); NfCount = 0

Use Macro 2 first to clear your chat frame, then use Macro 1 - at the end of the boss fight combat press Macro 2 again to stop counting then refresh your UI to clear it.
for example

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/484066218911727618/484066527721684992/double_nightfall.jpg

see the count in the chat window

the macro checks every second

to see if spell vulnerability is on the target

it yes, it adds +1 to the count

if no, it doesn’t

so in that PW example

i was swinging nightfall using SoR/JoR along with a melee hunter

and combined we got 150 seconds of total debuff uptime

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/484066218911727618/484066529030438912/patchwerk_nightfall_uptime_two.jpg
that was me solo nightfall swinging

and got 89 seconds of total debuff uptime

make sense?

It is not my first intent to get into a fight with you or anyone else - but if people misquote me, or say that I skew test results or worse yet go and spew outright lies, then of course I am going to defend myself.

But if you want to have a calm and rationale discussion then I am all ears - all I ask is that you look at ALL of the data before making any rash/final thoughts about our results as they are legit.

Yes, it is selfish to require or want someone to sacrifice for others. It’s the definition of it. Just being a part of a collective means that you take responsibility equally for any action. You might be thinking of altruism which is not the same thing.

What does a melee hunter bring besides maybe 30% more uptime than a paladin? Practically nothing. A paladin brings a lot of utility.

You seem confused no one is asking the ret to respec… people just aren’t going to bring the selfish clown who specs ret and wants others to carry dead weight because he wanted to be a snowflake.

Your mental gymnastics to justify one dude holding 39 other people back and then call the 39 other people out for being the selfish ones is absurd to the maximum degree.

2 Likes

[citation needed]

Seal twisting != Spam sitting either. You can link as many posts as you want that say that they exploited the server lag back then, it doesn’t mean that it should be in Classic now. You just want the game to have the same bugs as it had back then so that it benefits your class LUL.

Imagine doing mental gymnastics to the point that you call gimping your raid “altruism”. Then again, I guess it is altruism to bring along a useless ret paladin that wouldn’t see content otherwise since they can’t be bothered to heal.

2 Likes

The one thing you’ll never find a shortage of is bad Rets, and entitled Warrior DPS who use guilds as stepping stones to acquire gear.

I think should you want a truly optimal raid, you probably don’t need a Ret. But those truly optimal raids are rife with drama, lots of flexing over logs and parses, and lots of turnover.

Method and some historically good guilds in the retail scene have such a stranglehold on talent, and their players are so skilled, that many have numerous alts, and they have farm guilds and trial guilds.

I’m Vanilla WoW, just the sheer amount of time it takes to level makes this a heck of a task. Many of the top tier guilds on private servers have players with alts, but at most, 1 or 2. And funny as it is, these alts are specifically for everything that is not optimal. Meme specs, testing Druid tanks, a random Elemental Shaman, etc.

Initially during progression, and with your goal being server first, you won’t see many Rets. But they’ll be there shortly after content is on farm and as more gear and content is released. And by the time AQ40 is out, you’ll see far more due to their tier set there giving them a noticeable power spike.

The whole point I’m driving at though, is that these Rets are lifers. They know the struggle they bring to a raid that has DPS issues. But they are family. They tryhard and farm consumes and legitimately play with passion. They will heal when need be and enjoy the luxury of getting to DPS at times. They will use Nightfall and will farm consumes and keep the raid happy.

A lot of Warrior DPS are so primadonna, they are arguably soulless. Trading everything they can for more gear to parse higher. Some cutthroat mentality is good, but with it comes an ego that you don’t find on a Ret. People may argue that it is selfish for a player to go Ret, but in my subjective opinion, I’ve seen much more selfish play from incredible Warrior DPS who feel shafted over getting Onslaught Girdle 3rd or 4th, and walk away with a bunch of T2 and other stuff.

Due to the small number of Rets raiding, I have yet to see any of them walk away, because they understand where they are on the totem pole and table.

I remember when I was on Nost with Theo and Smiter and both told me, “good luck getting Onslaught Girdle or Flameguard Gauntlets” and they were right. I waited and waited and as different Warriors joined, I continued to wait. I never got it. Nost got shut down and then our characters had new life breathed into them on Elysium and I kept going. And I kept waiting. But when we got to Naxx and all 14 of the Warriors we had played with had Onslaught Girdle, Girdle of the Mentor dropped, and every single one of them was happy for me to take it first.

It never “gimped” the raid. I had funneled over 10,000g through the hands of raiders due to Devilsaur Mafia farming, and my Armor smithing generating me tons of gold from crafting Lionheart Helms. I used to hand them out to new Warriors and Warrior alts who attained a core raiding spot.

Everyone is right that Ret DPS = not Warrior DPS. But people sleep on Warrior DPS = bigtime drama and constant turnover. There is a reason guilds that run AQ40 in 45 minutes on private servers constantly recruit Fury Warriors over everything else. Their DPS is so good that gear becomes a problem. And people, especially in this day and age, are far more entitled than they used to be.

When and if Classic launches well, Luuni said it best; the private server all stars will be scattered to the wind, and you’ll have smaller servers with more working class NA people who can’t afford to spend the rigorous amount of time it takes to farm for end-game raiding. This is where you will see Rets take up slots.

Warriors require an absurd amount of gearing. Lionheart Helm, Edgemasters, Devilsaur Set, Battlechaser Greaves; that is at minimum going to cost you 1000g or so just for a baseline. Prot is even worse. Stockade Pauldrons, Medallion of Grand Marshal Morris, Stonegrip Gauntlets, Alcor’s Sunrazor, Myrmidon Signet. 500g. 500g. 250g. 1000g. 250g.

People will have Google and a ton of knowledge available and the cost of getting to play Fury but being forced to tank, and spending 5,000g to do all that is going to burn out Warriors. When they don’t get their item and are burned out? We haven’t even touched enchants, epic mounts, or consumables.

Rets will be taking some of these spots. You just have to understand it.

5 Likes

Do you have a guild in mind or a community link?

Once we get a solid release date I’ll start looking/forming properly. Just putting some non-solid tentacles out now.

It’s all about being the token Ret Paladin, not bringing viability.

A lot of guilds still had at least one Ret back in the day.

Seal Twisting during TBC was a much larger issue in the grand scheme of things than being able to mash your X button to gain Reck charges due to server lag during Vanilla - it literally gave Horde Paladins a 20-30% DPS boost over Alliance Ret Paladins.

It became the de facto PvE DPS rotation for BE Rets - or are you suggesting that every single BE Ret Paladin should have been banned for abuse of game mechanics during TBC?

Seal Twisting was discovered by Slayton - and this is what he wrote about it:

[How to Seal Twist]

May 3rd, 2008
After my movie that I released a bit ago it has become a hot topic. Many people have been watching that video front to back over and over to try to figure out how to do it. It is actually 10x simpler then what some of you are making it out to be.

You swap seals when your swing animation, of any sorts, happens. Even if it isn’t a seal of command proc you can swap seals and still have SoJ proc off your white attack with this method. Seal of Command MUST be your starting seal, from there you can swap seals to any of the other seals that are procs. However, the only ones that would serve a high benefit is Seal of Justice, and for those lucky souls, Seal of Blood.

Seal of Command has a 1 sec internal cool down, also the reason it wont proc off of windfury or reckoning twice. These mechanics where put in place because before you could swing with a white attack and then your seal of command could be out of range, so they put them closer together, and this was their method.

Exploiting or creative use of mechanics? No one knows except Blizzard, but this is a make-shift substitute for a spell interrupt that is long over due.

TL;DR:

  1. put on seal of command

  2. right as your swing animation happens (normal, socomm proc, or crit) swap seals to SoJ or SoB

  3. Profit

Practice on mobs first, it helps if you are binding SoJ to a simple key bind. Also know that because of GCDs it will be very hard to juggle your seals with your Crusader Strike up, so prioritize carefully.

-Slayton
http://web.archive.org/web/20080706232318/http://www.retpaladin.com/warcraft/2008/05/how-to-seal-twist/


What exactly is seal twisting?

It’s using 2 seals at one time per swing.

What combination of seals can you use per seal twist?

Anything that has seal of command with it (works effectively with seal of justice and seal of blood specifically).

Note: It’s not a 100% proc rate, it’s only when seal of command procs.

How do you do it?

First you need to get a swing timer mod, I personally suggest Quartz ( but any mod with one will work)

Second… You must have seal of command up before you attempt to do this.

Third… Right before you swing ( about .1 seconds before you swing) you activate another seal such as blood or justice and you will get an extra seal proc if your seal of command procs

Basically it’l go like this Seal of command -> Right before swing cast Seal of (whatever) - > seal of command procs + an extra seal procs.

You must have command up in order to do this, you cannot twist from seal of justice to seal of command or seal of blood to command… it has to be command to blood or command to justice.

The thing with this is, it uses alot of mana but it’s definantly worth if your horde and you get it to proc.

Why? You will get 2 blood procs and one command proc… You get 1 seal of blood proc from your white swing and since your command proc counts as melee, you will also get another blood proc. So basically White swing + seal of command + seal of blood + seal of blood = pwnage (in one swing).`

Faptamerica
[June 20th, 2008 - 10:10 am]
20:53′52.859 Faptamerica gains Seal of Command
20:53′54.093 Faptamerica gains 1 Attack from Windfury Attack
20:53′54.093 Faptamerica’s Swing hits Brutallus for 1166 Physical damage (glancing)
20:53′54.453 Faptamerica gains Seal of Blood
20:53′54.453 Faptamerica gains Windfury Attack
20:53′54.546 Faptamerica’s Seal of Command hits Brutallus for 1661 Holy damage
20:53′54.546 Faptamerica’s Swing hits Brutallus for 1393 Physical damage (glancing)
20:53′54.671 Faptamerica gains 20 Mana from Mana Spring of Mana Spring Totem V
20:53′55.328 Faptamerica’s Seal of Blood crits Brutallus for 1858 Holy damage
20:53′55.328 Faptamerica’s Seal of Blood crits Brutallus for 1907 Holy damage
20:53′55.687 Faptamerica’s Seal of Blood hits Brutallus for 633 Holy damage (201 resisted)

http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/world-of-warcraft/world-of-warcraft-guides/153093-how-paladin-seal-twist.html

TLDR - I can get Seal Twisting to work on Private servers - does that mean I’m exploiting?

https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/4651925/3533242/ccac4500-07cc-11e4-85b9-029a86177c2e.jpg

https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/4651925/3533243/d0c3ea12-07cc-11e4-9cc4-32e56ac1e9a6.jpg

https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/4651925/3533244/dcb05928-07cc-11e4-9879-47879883a5b3.jpg

Thank god I’m rolling horde so I won’t have to play with entitled rets. Couldn’t care less about your documentary on Seal Twisting.

lol you make an accusation but can’t be bothered to read the reply back

gfg

or maybe you can’t handle the fact that everything I wrote is spot on and correct?

Are you rolling an “entitled” enhance shaman?

1 Like

i c wut u did thar

Doesn’t change the fact that the only reason you could force Reckoning/Enrage/Redoubt back then was by exploiting the servers being slow back then. No reason for that to happen today.

It being the meta to abuse that server delay back then doesn’t change the fact that it’s practically an exploit.

Everything you wrote is dodging my point and posting a novel about how Seal Twisting works. I can see why you have the reputation you have in the pserver community. I’ve never seen someone being as pedantic and typing so much to say so little.

[citation still needed btw]

No, enhances are gimped versions of retadins. Worse support, worse NF uptime, worse DPS, worse everything.

1 Like

cough TBC patches say otherwise bro cough

“Fixed an issue where spells that proc while a player was standing would not proc if they were sitting or lying down.”
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Patch_2.0.1

“Enrage: This talent can now trigger while the Warrior is sitting.”
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Patch_2.3.0

:stuck_out_tongue:

BTW I don’t need to cite any blizzard post for creative use of game mechanics for seal twisting - all I have to say (yet again for that matter) is that no Blood Elf Ret Paladin was ever banned for Seal Twisting during TBC yet every single one of them used Seal Twisting once it was discovered:

Faptamerica
[June 20th, 2008 - 10:10 am]
20:53′52.859 Faptamerica gains Seal of Command
20:53′54.093 Faptamerica gains 1 Attack from Windfury Attack
20:53′54.093 Faptamerica’s Swing hits Brutallus for 1166 Physical damage (glancing)
20:53′54.453 Faptamerica gains Seal of Blood
20:53′54.453 Faptamerica gains Windfury Attack
20:53′54.546 Faptamerica’s Seal of Command hits Brutallus for 1661 Holy damage
20:53′54.546 Faptamerica’s Swing hits Brutallus for 1393 Physical damage (glancing)
20:53′54.671 Faptamerica gains 20 Mana from Mana Spring of Mana Spring Totem V
20:53′55.328 Faptamerica’s Seal of Blood crits Brutallus for 1858 Holy damage
20:53′55.328 Faptamerica’s Seal of Blood crits Brutallus for 1907 Holy damage
20:53′55.687 Faptamerica’s Seal of Blood hits Brutallus for 633 Holy damage (201 resisted)

TLDR - Stop being bad plox

You’re talking about TBC changes and TBC mechanics on the Classic forum, stop moving the goalposts.

The “when crit” talents were only changed to be allowed while sitting in 2.3. The patch from 2.0.1 only worked for the “on hit” stuff.