Paladin Sandbox

[Moozedude 47]

My -hope- is that the seal-twisting mechanic is primarily designed for Ret usage, to add an additional dimension where Inq was lacking.  But, alas, I haz no beta, so I will not be testing this out first-hand.  /cry  But I know they also want ALL talents to be mostly equally viable in each tier, so therefore seal-twist should "Never" be "Mandatory".  *cough cough*  Plus, it's just barely beta, and I don't think any of the max-level mechanics have seen any serious balancing yet, so my fears are (somewhat) lessened.

[Geoda 253]

I got the Beta so I'll install it later this week and check it out. I'll mess around with Ret and Holy to see what's going on and might do some recording or archiving on my twitch. 

 

By the way.. we hit 100 posts on here! Woo! Keep up the sand castles in our playground!

[Moozedude 47]

I love it.  I've wanted to find a way to contribute more to the community for a while, and this laid-back thread really helped.  I've dabbled with the Locks, and I read the Warrior stuff, but Pally is kind of a passion.

 

Also, reread the talents for the first time in a -while-.  I like Holy Shield.  Blocking spells?  Yes please!  teehee

Edited July 16, 2014 by Moozedude

[Boltt 28]

Hey everyone, I remember seeing this thread when it started up and never got around to posting to it...until now.

 

Personal Stuff:

My name is Zak and I am 22. I very recently graduated with an MEng in Mechanical Engineering. I suppose my first achievement to mention is that I got an award from the IMechE (accrediting institution for mechanical engineering in the UK) for 'best mechanical engineering finalist', similarly I was awarded 'outstanding performance in year 4' by my University department. I was very happy to receive these awards and my degree on the same day. Right now I'm looking for a job in engineering and my only experience is 4 years part time as a cashier so it might be a long road haha.

 

WoW Timeline:

I started playing WoW classic in 04 as a Night Elf Hunter, my first 1-60 was the besting gaming experience I've ever had, dat nostalgia. My friend started playing in 05 and I leveled a Priest with his Warrior and this became my new main, we raided in 2 different guilds doing ZG, MC, Ony. In TBC we joined 3 different guilds throughout doing most of the raids excluding Sunwell, SSC, TK. Our 2nd to last guild in TBC had members who weren't happy with management and some of the players, so we broke off and formed a new raiding guild, Lockdown, my most memorable experiences in WoW occured with this guild, the people were awesome, made friends, had so much fun, the raiding was awesome. The guild always tried making 25man raids but we didn't have enough 'good' players for it to be at a pace I wanted, we made a 10man core group that me and my warrior friend were a part of and we did a lot of the Ulduar 10man Hard Modes, best raiding I've ever done and we were competitive on WoWProgress for our realm. When ToC came out the core started to fall apart with people leaving, the guild kept going into ICC but it was no longer the guild I loved. A month prior to Cata release I formed a new guild Haze with enough the old core Lockdown players to make a 10man group (with some non-core players), we ran ICC while we waited for Cata and this is when I switched to Paladin Main. At Cata release me and 6 other core players moved to Horde to join the guild of another old core player from Lockdown. In this guild Devious we raided T11 and were competitive on our realm with progression, after we cleared T11 normal we lost too many players (not a large roster) and bringing in new players didn't work for us, we managed 1 heroic boss and then disbanded. I haven't raided in a proper guild since this time. I skipped Firelands and did Dragon Soul LFR then took a break. I didn't come back until 5.4 and leveled another Paladin on the new server my warrior friend was on (didnt wanna pay for transfer). For about 8 years I mainspecced healer, for ease of PuGing I went Prot (my friend is a tank too), we've done LFR, Flex and are moving into PuGing normal.

 

Future:

In WoD I hope to get into guild progression raiding again as either Prot or Ret, I enjoy both these specs so much, and I feel like I've outgrown healing which is sad in a way considering how many years I did it for.

Since I started tanking I've been reading Thecks blog on sacredduty and am really interested by theorycrafting. I feel like if I did prot theorycrafting it would be pointless because Theck's stuff is already advanced and easily accessible, however I've noticed that Ret theorycrafting is not as well published, what do you guys think about me doing some basic theorycrafting for Ret? I've never done WoW theorycrafting before but I've used MATLAB and Visual basic for mathematical modelling during my degree extensively. I'd also be interested in using this forum as a platform for discussing that type of stuff with the knowledgeable contributors here.

 

It feels like I wrote too much, if you read it all then I'm impressed.

[Geoda 253]

I read the whole thing! I think it would be great for to join the community and use IV as a place of open discussion. Fouton and I are really trying to make the Paladin discussion informative, engaging and fun. I believe we are easy enough to talk to and enjoy talking about anything Paladin.

 

Retribution is definitely poorly published spec in comparison to the other specs in the game. We are hoping in WoD to make this a competitive source for theorycrafting and discussion in min/maxing the DPS aspect of the Paladin class.

[Oreoxd 165]

Sadly you're intensely boring geo :( ofc some wow time might change my mind ;D

 

And Welcome Zak. It's always nice to see new faces especially new ret, because all we have are poopie holy and prot around here it seems.

[Maplefire 37]

Future: ... I feel like I've outgrown healing ...

 Oh, darlin', you NEVER outgrow healing

[Moozedude 47]

Hey Zak, welcome to The Sandbox!  Glad you decided to join us!

 

Ret theory is interesting.  Prot gets so much work because the class requires mitigation and dps maths, which are not only challenging in their own right, but then interact with each other because they share resources to an extent.  Ret just has to blow things up, hard.

 

Anafielle, co-author of Sacred Duty, IV official guide reviewer, and generally awesome Ret pally, has done a lot of work on both simcraft and live to establish and verify the current accepted trends in Ret.  Ability priority, cd usage, talent and glyph preferences...  A lot of this work can be seen in the RetCon over at Elitist Jerks.  She actively contributes over there somewhat regularly when stuff is actually happening.

 

I am in no way discouraging you from theorycrafting.  Last thing I want you to think.  But I think it would help if you knew where to find the work that has already been done, so you can compare your findings, or even build further off of them.

 

6.0 is going to change the landscape completely.  Theory will be hot when it drops, and you will have ample opportunity to crunch new numbers then.  I look forward to seeing your work.

[Boltt 28]

Thanks for the welcome guys.

@Mooze sorry to make it sound like I think there's no Ret resources out there, There's great guides on elitistjerks (one of the first places I ever started reading guides), MMO-champ, maintankadin (for prot), and of course the class guides here on IV. For me half of my interest in WoW is actually external to the game tiself, I love reading about it and how to play properly and make gold and run raids, love researching WoW.

My point was more that I hadn't found a resource like Thecks posts on sacredduty for Ret, here he talks about the simulation and the results, most guides focus on the results.

[Oreoxd 165]

look what I found 

[Moozedude 47]

So, random update.  I saw someone post in the forum thread of my guild about Ret advice, and I decided to poke my head in.  I gave some tips, and left it at that.  About two weeks later, the OP came back and was like "holy tauren, my DPS went way up, thankyouthankyouthankyou."  A couple other people have chimed in by this point, and it's reached a juncture that they are asking me directly for assistance.  

 

I feel kinda honored and happy, but I have to pass the credit on to you all here at IV, who have taught this young (ish) padawan all that he knows.  Thanks for empowering me to become a resource for my whole community.  You all rock.

[Fouton 266]

Yeah this community turned me into a never-played-ret kind of guy to knowing a lot about it, even if I still havent played it. It's nice to have learned so much about something even if I wasn't going to play it

[Geoda 253]

I agree. The open discussion that we have here has helped us all become more cognizant of our class. I'm happy to hear the great news Mooz!

[Boltt 28]

Just ran my first normal raid in MoP in a PuG.

Went through a fresh run with my RL friend and we tanked (paladin/warrior).

We 1 shot every boss and the raid took just over 3 hours.

I was not expecting a run anywhere near that smooth, nice way to get the achieve.

Got about 6 pieces of loot for prot/ret too so that was awesome.

 

I made some funny mistakes:

• Didn't have Righteous Fury on until Norushen (Imm went down quick and I built up enough threat on He without the buff)
• Was using Seal of Truth instead of Seal of Insight until Siegecrafter
• Went Ret on Thok and used Divine Purpose + Light's Hammer
• Went Ret on Garrosh (fixed talents) and stayed in prot gear

I'm easily confused when changing spec constantly haha

[Moozedude 47]

*pokes head in.  walks to center of stage, taps mic*

 

Hello?  This thing on?  Got quiet in here...

 

So, I just noticed Geoda has a Twitch channel, and will have to start tuning in occasionally so I can see how this whole Holy thing works.  I'm two pieces of gear short of being able to actually queue for stuff as a healer.  *cheer*

 

Tanking feat of the Week:  It's probably not actually that big a deal.  But I was running 10N Protectors on my Prot Warrior.  Just as Sun's second Desperate Measures starts, my cotank dies to He critting him in the back as he tried to move to the bubble.  Without missing a beat, I taunt He over, and start doing this crazy dance of spinning, getting stunned, not getting gouged, staggering every ounce of mitigation I could muster, and spreading enough damage to keep both bosses occupied during the burn phase.  I held for over two and a half minutes, at which point the bosses died and we won.  I credit the healing team with keeping me from getting obliterated, but I also know I had to do a pretty fine job to pull it off.  I will now pat myself on the back, if ya'll don't mind.  *pat pat*

 

In other news, 40-Man LFR Molten Core.  Yeah, that'll be a thing.  I'm trying to organize my guild to a point where it will be 40-Man without the LFR part.  :P  I'm really interested to see details of how this is going to work; mandatory composition (t/h/d), boss changes and ability tuning...  There are a lot of players who have never legitimately ran 40-Man (I being one of them).  I don't know if we can take the advice of those who have been there before, because what if the abilities are different?  I mean, max level now has way different abilities and spells and skills than it did back then, and I would expect Blizz to compensate, even if it is supposed to be "nostalgic."

 

All right, enough rambling.  Just wanted to freshen up the place with some new stuff to read.  Epic lewtz!

[Geoda 253]

HI! Yeah, this thread has been a little quiet.. glad it has awoken. I might not be streaming for a while but I know I have my Heroic Garrosh kill saved on my twitch.. might have my last raid or 2 but I'm unsure. Unlike some healers *cough* Gwen, I actually show my mouse in my videos ;) 

 

Nice work on tanking. Sometimes as a healer you forget that the tank has abilities to help us out. Usually it feels like we're the ones carrying the world.. it's definitely comforting to know that others participate in survivability. 

[Oreoxd 165]

I'm still looking for a group to get my mount but everyone just wants to sell it :/ on another note I'll be updating the WoD pally changes soon

[Oreoxd 165]

GUYSSSSS LOOOOOOOOK 

[Geoda 253]

762/762! Grats bro!

[Oreoxd 165]

It was pretty exciting :D

[Lothrandir 12]

Hello.

 

Introductions first: 42 year-old (yeah, I know) dane, having played pretty much all the healing classes (save for monk) in the game in a raid setting, and now settled on the pally, since I'm the GL/RL of my guild (4+ years of doing that), and the versaility that the pally bring is nice (it's either that or the druid ).

 

Started my raiding career in very late BC, which I regret to this day; back then I thought WoW was just some Warcraft spin-off, so my stupidity in that area held me away from classic and most of BC

Been raiding ever since on druid, priest and shammy, and now since the beginning of Mists on pally.

 

Posting now, since I had my finest healing moment for a while last night in SoO. On Norushen hc, my disc priest healing buddy disconnects and dies violently twice about 2 mins in. So I heal alone for around 4 mins (with the help of every possible raid cd ofc) and it's by far the most intense healing experience I've had for a while. Best of all, got it all on video to throw in face of the disc priest whenever he gets too cocky

 

By chance, it was also the first time I tried out SH build in a heroic raid, and you can say it came through for me.

 

Just thought I'd share this experience; even this late in the expansion, there's still some fun to be had ...

 

Rgds

 

[Geoda 253]

That's awesome dude! H Norushen is the best for SH. It's definitely an intense fight and towards the end, a well timed Devo will get you from 30% HP on the raid to full if timed well with an offensive CD.

 

Solo healing that fight is definitely fun, I do that often with my healing bro Gwenymph (also a disc priest)

[Gwenymph 414]

@Geo: I used to show my mouse just to prove I was a clicker.  Then you and the rest of the healers quit so I disable it now to give you all hope.

[Oreoxd 165]

Yay proven assailant done :D now geo, let's talk about you doing proven healer for me? huh??? HUH?!

[Geoda 253]

/slurp. I actually haven't attempted it before. I may try later today. :o