Hello, all

Tharvolde here.  A while back I laid out some predictions for Season 8.  The intent of this post is to talk through these predictions, see where they stand now that the season is well under way and provide additional observations.

Prediction 1) If you thought Warriors and their LOLBLADESTORM was bad this season, just wait…

The prediction speaks for itself and so does the fact that Warriors scale extremely well with gear.  Even with the resilience buff, I’ve already noticed the prevalence of 2Healer/Warrior and TSG at higher ratings.  Warriors with 100% Armor Penetration are now showing up and it’s rather scary to think of my Tree-form Resto Druid getting hit like an unshielded Mage.  For an example, check the following guildmate of mine (he has two Warriors):

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Mal’Ganis&cn=Maydayz

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Mal’Ganis&cn=Maydayx

At the time of this post he is in PvE gear on both Warriors but his Armor Penetration, completely unbuffed and without any procs is at 76.38 and 85.88% respectively.  What’s more is that this does not even include the 10% Armor Penetration given by Battle Stance or the 15% available from Mace Specialization (I don’t know if he uses Maces or not in PvP).  Regardless, it’s scary and I’ve already witnessed Warriors of this calibur thrashing our Resto Druid, by themselves, like a machete through wet looseleaf.

Prediction 2) Retribution will still fall well short of being competitive at higher ratings

Thankfully, I think the strength of Sham/Ret/MM has made my prediction inaccurate.  What’s more is that Ret does appear to be out-performing ProtRet:

Retribution (3v3):  http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/player/3/all/23/all/all/

ProtRet (3v3):  http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/player/3/all/22/all/all/

This is great news for the Retribution community and I’m very happy I’m actually very happy I turned out wrong here.  Don’t get me wrong - I do really enjoy ProtRet - but I am sincerely excited to see so many Retribution Paladins performing well if only in a couple very specific comps.

Prediction 3) Protribution or “ProtRet” will continue to outperform Retribution in all brackets but won’t be quite as strong as it was this season

We’ve already covered the first part of this prediction and I turned out to be flat wrong.  As far as the second part, however, I believe that if no real PvP changes were made between seasons then it would have held true.  One of the greatest strengths of ProtRet is, quite simply, the survivability and utility of it.  When this prediction was made, I was banking on the fact that gear was going to take a big step forward with Season 8 and that the incoming damage would increase by a greater amount than survivability.  Blizzard no doubt foresaw this and implemented a change to double the flat damage reduction effect of resilience.  The net result is that ProtRet now has even more survivability than last season and, because of this, seems even better in fulfilling its role in given comps.

Take for example the comp I play of ProtRet/Arms/Druid.  For all intents and purposes, this comp is considered “faceroll”.  However, there is quite a bit that goes on under the hood to make it work.  I’m confident that any comp with the right players, good gear and lots of time can faceroll and tunnel-vision their way into the 2000s.  To get beyond this however, takes some fine-tuning and lots of practice.  As the ProtRet on this comp, I am a cleanse bot first and a damage dealer second.  The speed at which I cleanse and the timing of things such as Hand of Freedom ultimately determines the outcome of our games.  To be able to do these things effectively, I need to be able to survive extremely well as I’m not of much use if constantly locked down or on the bring of dying.  This season,

I have definitely noticed a significant increase in my survivability thanks to the resilience change.  I have consistently seen teams such as RMP and RLS hard switch to me after training our Warrior but failing to get the job done.  Although I may dip below 10,000 health at times, it seems my opponents simply can’t seal the deal - which usually means they’ve expended all their available CDs for the moment and I’m now free to return to my utility role.  All in all, I think this prediction was 1/3 right and 2/3 wrong.  The incorrect 2/3 would be that Ret is definitely outperforming ProtRet right now (according to statistics) and that although ProtRet’s damage has definitely increased (as to be expected with new gear), the resilience change has caused our damage output to not be, proportionally, as strong as it was last season.  The correct 1/3 would be that our survivability has gone through the roof and, in that sense, I feel we are in an even better place this season under this particular role.

Prediction 4) Prepare yourselves for the return of the S3 Rogue

Wrong, wrong and wrong.  Once again, I think the resilience change had it’s say here.  It seems that most of the top Rogues are actually wearing significant amounts of resilience this season.  Take for example Rexsteele (recently race-changed and shortened his name) who is considered to be one of the top Rogues in the world:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Mal’Ganis&cn=Rexst

Or how about Reckful, also considered as one of the top Rogues in the world:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Blackrock&cn=Reckful (He’s in S4 gear right now in armory lawl)

Both are 1000+ resilience in their normal PvP gear sets.  Do they hit like trucks?  Yes.  Are they stacking PvE gear?  Only a few pieces here and there.  Either way, I’m a bit relieved Rogues went this route as opposed to reverting  to S3.  That said, I did get hit with a 9.5K Envenom on my under-geared Warrior last night during 2s.  That was fun.

So there you have it.  The predictions have been revisited and it appears as though most of my original thoughts were misguided in light of the resilience change (undoubtedly among other things).

Oh and btw:

There haven’t been any Paladin updates in a long time and it looks like there won’t be any upcoming either.  Good to know (/sarcasm)!!

I was trying to hold off posting until there was some more juicy changes coming from 3.3.5, but there hasn’t been much other than a few Battleground tweaks and “side buffs” to some classes. I’ll definitely be checking every day to see if there is anything new coming out, but at the time of making this post, there isn’t even a single thing happening for us Palotins!

After being relentlessly pestered in Strands of the Ancients by a Paladin in (near) full Retribution gear surviving with upwards of 5 DPS on him, and having a friendly chit chat afterward regarding his spec and success in arena, I’ve decided it’s about time to make a post to see what some people think about Retribution specs that are built around extreme support. Usually not even taking Divine Storm and being able to pump out high amounts of damage while delivering heals near equivalent to Holy Paladins, as well as increased survivability.

Curious, indeed.

Retmed (I swear I’ll be the one to crown that name) isn’t something new - some Paladins have even been playing it ever since Burning Crusade rolled around. The idea here is to deliver pressure (somewhat) close to a normal Retribution Paladin, while tossing out heals like a Holy Paladin, hence the Retmed dub. Since Shield of Righteousness is virtually the same as Crusader Strike, and Judgements will usually deal more damage thanks to wearing a +SP Mace / Shield, the damage is quite comparable when bursting time comes around.

Odinsblade of Silvermoon tells me that is has had an extremely high amount of success fighting against teams ranging up to 2450+ MMR in 2v2 and 3v3 with this playstyle. I am extremely curious as to what the Ret community thinks about these kind of shenanigans - since it seems like the Paladin class isn’t able to achieve Gladiator without some type of extreme luck and gimmick these days (such as Prot Warrior as your teammate in 3v3) (inserts another splash of sarcasm here).

- Megaphone

Yay!

Normal mode ICC was cleared last week - and even though we’re in our first week of Heroic ICC, it has already been spanked up and down the block making what I label as “pathetic” (or a “Fandanglery” if you prefer) attempt at making the bosses more challenging. Though, Blizzard has seem to at least nail the correct difficulty for what a final boss should be, though I’m very interested in the thoughts of top end guilds who’ve completed Yogg +0 prenerf (by guilds, I mean guild!) when comparing the two encounters.

Overall, Icecrown definitely wasn’t a disappointment. As thick as my sarcasm might be, the hardcore 24/7 raiders still have difficult content that they should have take a little bit of pride in after defeating. All eyes are on LK-H 25 at the moment, and it would be a terrible terrible thing if we see the news this Tuesday on MMO-Champion that our best friend Arthas is dead after finally achieving SSJ2. It is just as you all expect, will he be the Trunks that did nothing but make his muscles grow and look fancy, or the prodigy Gohan that perfects his powers and is still useless when future arcs come around? Only time will tell.

I’m also very curious to see what top PvERetadins that have done heroic encounters so far, especially LK.

What rotation is right for me!

One of our most active forum-goers Requital recently posted a little gem that I thought might help both the experienced and inexperienced Retributers find their most optimal priority with FCFS. Though Rawr isn’t anything new (especially around these parts), this mini-guide is extremely helpful if you don’t know or are just plain curious to what you should be using. You can find a link to it right on our forums! : http://www.retpaladin.com/warcraft/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4152

(or just click the giant picture, I know you will anyways!)

-Megaphone

Oh herro

This is Tharvolde. I’ve returned from my absence and am ready to kick things off. For those that are interested my absence was due to the passing of Lexi, my 5 year shepherd mix. My girlfriend and I rescued her in December of 2007 and she was very much like a child to us. She was killed by a speeding driver in our apartment complex after slipping out the front door while attempting to take our other rescue outside. So if you’re ever driving through a neighborhood or otherwise residential area, please take it slow! Children and companions are at play.

With that off my chest, I thought I’d open with a bit of off-topic humor. Yes, yes I have plenty write about with respect to Retribution and I’ll have new posts up very soon after this one. You see though, we here at RetPaladin.com receive a rather sizable helping of spam via comments. For those of you who run or have run a site with blogging and commenting capabilities you may already be accustomed to this. Now typically Megaphone and I just give a quick cursory glance through the comments awaiting moderation and mark them as spam.  This time around, however, I decided to take a stab at making something out of, well, something annoying.  I present to you, with all links and otherwise “outside” references removed:

The Absolute Best of RetPaladin.com Spam

1) nice to see your site is back up today, when your post didn’t work yesterday I was worried something terrible might’ve happenend

It’s truly nice to know so many of our fans care.  If it weren’t for dedicated site-goers such as our concerned poster here, we might be off on some other blog writing about a video game we enjoy and the particular class therein.

2) Hi, I applaud your blog for informing people, very interesting article, keep up it coming 

Why thank you, Jewelry_Magazine!  I’m glad we can be of service.  Now go get me a killer price on my girlfriend’s engagement ring…

3) Hello! eekdffd interesting eekdffd site!

Hey there, Pharmb825.  adwtweq to you as well.  fhqwhgads der sit amet doler lorem @#%^^@# ipsum.

4) Talk about lucky, I was watching the Oprah show earlier today and they were talking about a new skin cream that helps with age spots. I jumped on the web and did some searching and found they are doing a promotion. They are giving away free samples. Like usual just need to pay the shipping…Enjoy

I know exactly what you mean, Reynalda_Probst!  Why just the other morning I woke up with terrible puffiness about my eyes.  I trudged out of bed and to the vanity only to find that I was completely out of my Oil of Olay.  Damn the luck!  If it weren’t for people like you to bring us timely updates of various, mildly-useful skin care products the lot of us would be destined to a life of dry skin and cucumber melon-less lives.

5) umm… I am no

Actually, I am no too.  No so much that no one can know just how no I am.  If you were as no as me you would know what no feels like, you know?  No, you don’t know.  Because I know you could never know what no feels like.  You know this.  I know this.  Know what I mean?

6) We hold thousands of the hottest movies you’ve been waiting to protect! And they’re stylish nearby in Hi-Def!  These movies are playable on most viewing devices including iPod, PDA (HandHelds), PC, DVD & DivX players.  There are categorically no limits. Download as much as you penury with incredibly high speeds. No additional software is required!  Simply click on a link, download a movie and guard it on your favorite player.  (Abridged Version)

Well Snapeplug, you’ve really hit the proverbial nail right on the head here.  I recently purchased a time-lock safe just for the purposes of protecting my DVD collection.  Whenever I’m feeling like a movie night I simply open the trap door at the back of my apartment and descend into the underground storage compartment.  While there, I set the lock to open.  It takes only a half hour to complete the opening process (it’s one of those safes that gas stations use) which is plenty of time to hop back on WoW and get sucked into 2v2 matches with someone who doesn’t know what #%^! “switch” means - at which point I log off in disgust and am no longer in the mood to watch Gladiator for the seventy-third time.

7) Да уж, это конечно же нелегко. 

I have no idea what the hell this means but I’m going to assume it’s the same as #2 but in Russian.

8) Rampage’s powerbomb slam

This one actually caught my interest - not because I gave a @#%! about what this dude was saying but rather because I know exactly what “Rampage’s powerbomb slam” is.  For those that are MMA fans, you probably do as well.  If you don’t, and are interested in seeing one of the crazier moments in MMA history I would check out the follow video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpzKZOpe4 (If MMA isn’t your thing or if you’re against any form of combat then just take my word for it that the video referred to by the link is @#!%ing awesome.  Then again, if you’re against any form of combat I suggest you give me all your character’s stuff and close your account).

That’s all for this time, folks!  I hope you’ve enjoyed The Absolute Best of RetPaladin.com Spam.

All

I apologize for my delayed absence. I have had a personal tragedy take place in the loss of a loved one and am working through it. I have plenty to write about and will be back before long.

Swing ‘em hard!

~Tharvolde