I'm just posting this to get some feedback/suggestions from others, but as a Ret Pally, SotM recoil is getting ridiculous. We are the only class that has to hurt itself (insert Emo Pally comments here) to do respectable DPS. Even then we aren't close to being top or even really good, even with us doing 2k dps to ourselves. I can 2-3 shot myself on gimmick fights (Thaddius/Malygos) which isn't very fun. I could switch to Seal of Casino, but why should we have to sacrifice our already mid-low dps for even lower (alot lower in most cases) DPS just to keep myself alive.

I really think that the mechanics for SotM/SoB should be looked at. I realize the possible pvp aspect, but most pallies use Blood in pvp anyways, so I'm not sure how solid that would be. There's 3 pages in an EJ post about this very issue, and it's a real possibility that Ret won't be brought to raids just because we're a huge liability. On some fights I take almost as much damage as the tank, which is ridiculous. It might have been a decent mechanic when judgements hit like a limp noodle, but now a judgement taking off 10k life makes us a severe sore spot on healers when the upcoming content is looking like it'll be tougher on healers anyways, especially with our self dmg sure to go up with gear upgrades... with the increase in AoE type fights on PTR, it'll only get exponentially worse...

There have been several suggested changes in this Thread:
- Get rid of recoil, and buff JotW to compensate for SA. Remove SA from Ret and it'd be infinitely easier to balance our mana to what the devs have always wanted, rather than OOM on some fights and too much mana on others.
- removing self-damage entirely, making JoB cause us take 10% more damage for 10 seconds, and rebalancing JotW to make us better self-sustaining be a way to keep us non-suicidal in PvE while still having SoB be unappealing for PvP?
- Remove recoil, Allow our critical holy attacks to give us mana back much like the Illumination mechanism on critical heals in the Holy Tree. When we crit, we get mana. This idea is already a part of the paladin class, why not use it in the Ret Tree as well?
- You can make decent arguments either way, however i feel the easiest solution would be to make SoC baseline at level 20, the low level DPS seal and make SoB its replacement at 64. Can leave the mechanics the same basically. If SoB without a penalty is too strong in its current form then can simply move a portion of the judgment damage into the seal damage (at greater than a 1:1 ratio in order to make up for the lost RV damage, or move it 1:1 and add seal crits to RV). Then to make up for the lost SA mana can either buff JotW or do something with DP similar to prot as suggested.
- replacing consecration and DS in our single target "rotation" with abilities that cost ~250 mana means we don't have any need for SA. And hey, they could be a great way of buffing our lackluster single target dps
- New Seal of the Martyr
All melee attacks deal X to Y additional Holy damage, but the Paladin sacrifices 10% of his armor for 4 seconds. this effect can not stack with itself. Lasts 30 min.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing XX to YY Holy damage at the cost of 33% of the paladins armor for 10 seconds. this effect can not stack with itself.

New Judgement of the Wise
Your Judgement spells have a 100% chance to grant the Replenishment effect to up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of their maximum mana per second, and to immediately grant you 15% of your base mana. In addition, your Seal of the Martyr will replenish 1% mana based on damage done, and your Judgement of the Martry will replenish 3.3% mana based on damage done.

There are others, but not enough time to copy paste them all :)

Thanks for your time.

P.S. Please don't beg for Blue responses. It does nothing to further the point of this thread, which is to get ideas out there so this issue can get fixed.

Here we go again

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Q u o t e:

Did EJ fall into QQs?

As a healer, I don't see how Martyr is any different than Lifetap. If these are such a liability that your healers can't keep up... something's wrong...

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Lifetap is not constant SotM is big difference especially when think about things like twilight torment being thrown into the mix A pally can very easly kill themselves in order to stay competive in damage

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Q u o t e:
Did EJ fall into QQs?

As a healer, I don't see how Martyr is any different than Lifetap. If these are such a liability that your healers can't keep up... something's wrong...

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Lifetap you can control and not kill your dps. The Judgement aspect of Blood takes off significant amount of health(absurd amounts on gimmick fights), and is also our largest DPS ability. It'd be like a FFB mage not being able to FFB, because if he does, he'd kill himself(not a mage expert, just used it for example). I'm also not talking about this cakeass content where everyone in the raid is at 100% health 99% of the time. Fights on PTR so far are much harder on healers aoe damage-wise. Now which would you have in a raid, a Ret pally and his designated healer (because thats what it could come down to) or 2 extra dps? Try and look to the future a bit and not focus so much on the candyland that is Naxx.

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Q u o t e:
As a healer, I don't see how Martyr is any different than Lifetap. If these are such a liability that your healers can't keep up... something's wrong...

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You're looking at it in a current "content is so easy you can run Naxx with 4-healers" mindset.

AoE damage in Ulduar is intense. Ret Paladins, thanks to being a "hybrid", already are aiming at bringing less damage than a "pure" class with no special utility (due to this whole fascination with "player not class"). As such we're the only class that brings lower DPS and causes healers to eat extra GCD's and babysit just to be competitive. That isn't fun.

Also, if your Warlocks have to lifetap every 7 seconds there is something massively wrong with your raid setup.

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Q u o t e:

Did EJ fall into QQs?

As a healer, I don't see how Martyr is any different than Lifetap. If these are such a liability that your healers can't keep up... something's wrong...

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At the moment in a low healing stress environment that is fine. But in ulduar healing is expected to be more intense, and to have more mana issues.

A class that brings low end DPS AND stresses the crap out of healers is potentially not going to be wanted.

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Q u o t e:
Here we go again

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It's sad that it does, but it will continue to be an issue even after it is addressed.

Hitting myself for 3k, and and soon to be more, every 7 seconds is no longer a form of 'unique separation of PvP and PvE abilities.'

It's a sizable damage taken deficit which I can only assume is considered in part of our Mana Regeneration.

The recoil is a dangerous PvP mechanic, especially since it is tacked onto our #1 DPS ability.

I agree, remove it against PvE targets.

But there needs to be a clause that will still cause recoil damage when judged on PvP targets.

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Q u o t e:
I agree, remove it against PvE targets.

But there needs to be a clause that will still cause recoil damage when judged on PvP targets.

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We can't just straight remove it from PvE targets or our mana regen will be destroyed.

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Q u o t e:
We can't just straight remove it from PvE targets or our mana regen will be destroyed.

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Remove the recoil, balance our regen around something other than abusing a tanking mechanic.

Problem.

Solved.

Our current state on the PTR is terrible.

In live we are doing OK. Why? because the content is so easy it can be done with one's eyes closed.

But we are not discussing live, we are discussing 3.1, where All of our DPS (including our mana regen for DPSing) is based on SoB, an ability that will be nothing but useless in high AOE damage dungeons like Ulduar.

Combine this with Healers needing to watch their mana more carefully due to recent/upcoming healing changes, and gone are the days of getting healed immediately after every time you take a self-inflicted 3/4k hit.

So far I've noticed that in Ulduar All fights but one have massive AOE raid dmg

Take XT-002 where after you explode and you take an earthquake, you are left with 3k health, all other DPS (yes including Hybrids like Moonkins, DKs and Warriors) can go back to DPSing and get healed through it... meanwhile the Ret pally must stand there and get a heal or heal him/herself, 'cause if he'd go back to DPSing, he'd die from a self inflicted 3k judgement recoil - and this is not taking into account dmaage multipliers like torment, or better gear where that recoil will only grow and grow

For those who argue that we should use SoC in such fights, yeah and what should we do when we are asked to step out because we are barely above the tank in DPS, and are the biggest liability to the raid?

BLIZZ has to give us a glyph/talent that will reduce/cap the recoil we take from SoB, and increase the mana regen we get from SA, I'd say eliminate all recoil, but if they do that we'll be OOM in 1 minute, so we need a recoil, just cap it... or as an alternative, give us some other mana regen mechanic to compensate for this.

Stop gimping our PvE DPS because stupid PVP reasons.

Last thing I remember was GC stating that hybrid DPS should be balanced to 5% behind full DPS classes... this certainly doens't seem like it!... or are Ret paladins considered to be a third tier of DPS that should be 'below' the other hybrid DPS classes?

self dmging seal of blood/martyr should be gone now. it's old and archaic.

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Q u o t e:
I agree, remove it against PvE targets.

But there needs to be a clause that will still cause recoil damage when judged on PvP targets.

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While I generally frown at solutions like this because they seem gimmicky and artificial... this would be a nice change. Our mana regen would need to be tweaked though.

One thing that's going to come up if Blood recoil is removed is that Command is going to go from being useless to being even more completely useless. Having two Ret dps seals is silly, since one will always end up dealing better damage than the other. If Blizzard wants people to actually use Command again, its damage needs to be buffed (cook the glyph into the seal, for example) and some kind of utility needs to be added the seal. Something useful when soloing and doing PvP, but unnecessary in raids. Perhaps give it a self healing or mana regen component (i.e,. wrap some sort of Seal of Light/Wisdom effect into it). Or some kind of debuff that would be useful in a PvP environment. Or make Sacred Shield scale with Sheath of Light when SoC is active... LOLOL.

Or perhaps it should just be removed completely, and Blood/Martyr should be go in its place on the talent tree rather than be baseline (it's not like Prot/Holy use it).

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Q u o t e:
self dmging seal of blood/martyr should be gone now. it's old and archaic.

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old AND archaic? That word is way overused.

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Q u o t e:
old AND archaic? That word is way overused.

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whatever it is, they need to take that debuff off.

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Q u o t e:

And you guys are looking at Ulduar like you are looking at Naxx.

Naxx is being done with 2-4 healers. You will probably want to bring a lot more for Ulduar, which will easily cover it. And it's not like Pallies have abilities and talents to heal themselves, right?

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I'm gonna suggest you try running Ulduar on the PTR and tell me how many GCD's you have free to babysit a ret pally.

Those "abilities to heal ourselves" cost us GCD's and mana, which in layman's terms is DPS. Again, we're in the position of doing less DPS, in which case you're better off taking anyone else in that spot.

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Q u o t e:

There have been several suggested changes:
- Make Judgements smaller and seal hits bigger to make our inc blood dmg more streamlined
- Make blood damaged capped to set % of your health
- get rid of recoil period, since they're talking about changing SA anyways for pallies. I wouldn't mind if SA went away for ret, as long as JotW was buffed to compensate
- Various others were mentioned

Thanks for your time.

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1: They already nerfed our Righteous Vengeance, and now you want it to do extremely less?
2: Thought it already was. I know I can kill myself but I don't seem to do more than 3k damage to myself with 22k judgements on Thaddius.
3: Agreed about the SA going away for ret if JotW got buffed, but the recoil is an integral part of the seal. Don't expect SA to be completely phased out for ret because a JotW buff would probably make people whine.
4: Were they?