I dont know if this is a bug or this is working as intended, but abilities like crusader strike and divine storm do not contribute to the 5 stacks of seal of vengeance you can put on a target. the weapon damage occurs but not the stack contribution. Only regular white melee hits will add to the stack.
Below is a clip from Cdew’s stream from what I was talking about. I was asking him about it and he confirm this is currently how it is but I don’t remember it being like this. I thought abilities contribute to the 5 stacks and thats how it was in original wrath.
Can anyone confirm or verify this is working as intended or if this is a bug?
By my recollection, that is correct (as in that is how it worked in the day). Seal of Vengeance was forced on Ret (by losing Seal of Blood) because of Ret blowing randos up in BGs. SoV ramps up slow to remove the massive up-front alpha strike Rets had with Seal of Blood. Also, it makes mutli-dotting difficult, and that was probably also intended.
Yes, that’s right - Rets were balanced for casual content vs random players in PvP.
This is intended. Only your white swings actually contribute to the stacks of SoV as Ret. Feel free to look up some ret gameplay from back then, you will see the same behaviour.
Prot on the other hand, Hammer of the Righteous does actually add a stack of SoV, but your question only seems to be concerned with Ret.
Yep, pretty sure it’s consistent with vanilla WotLK.
If spell hits counted it would basically be a non issue stacking SoV on multiple targets through DS, however this was never the case and multi-dotting always required actively hitting the other targets.
Thank you for the feedback everyone. I feel my ST damage is lacking as ret and I’m trying to explore all options to make it better or understand why it’s lower than most classes.
As WotLK counts as ‘Classic’ I can’t see your armoury (even though LK had armouries visible, so far as I recall), so I can’t really offer any exact advice. All I can suggest is to make sure you’re talented and glyphed like the guide wowhead guide recommends and follow its advice on rotation, seals, buffs, etc.
You need to get in there right with the tank and ride the tank’s threat without going over and pulling, and Salv yourself as late as possible (it’s effect is stronger the more threat you have). Don’t let anyone else talk you into giving them your Salv - if someone needs help because they’ve pulled aggro they can have a BoP (and tough luck with what that does to melee DPS’ output).
Basically, you need to be very aggressive. Cap your Hit and Expertise, stack all the Strength you can find.
you wont ever have aggro problems as a ret in the current wotlk classic game.
The only class capable of potentially having aggro problems is a demo warlock with prepot all cds insta meta meelerange.
Since a good protpally can deal close to the dps of a ret pally whilst having ~2,5 aggro multiplyer vs rets 0,7, aggro as a ret is quite impossible to get.
Well, it’s not a very good version of Wrath then, because I used to ride tank threat even in Trial (when they forced the DoT seal on us), and so did the Warriors, as I recall, and that was the lowest point for Ret threat (and easiest as threat was least bursty then).