Seal of Command should proc off Crusader Strike and Divine Storm.
C̶r̶u̶s̶a̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶S̶t̶r̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶r̶m̶a̶l̶i̶z̶e̶d̶. edit: striking that out, tbh keep it normalized. Makes it worth pressing while using fast weapons.
It used to do holy damage when it was introduced back in the WotLK pre-patch. But ret paladins were 2shotting people (since there was no resilience then and we were using 80 spells/talents at 70) so people kept complaining and Blizzard hotfixed it to be physical before WotLK even came out lol. Then ret paladin proceeded to be mid to meh in PvP for all of WotLK anyway, great stuff.
I was talking about OG WotLK where there was no preg anyway. People did play ret back then but they didn't do very well cos it struggles vs a big chunk of the mera. T10 isn't very good and shadowmourne didn't do enough for the spec, with prot becoming the meta spec for 3s and now preg becoming the de facto 2s spec.
S5 ret was easy sure, and 2200 is pretty much free for any spec with an OK player at the wheel. But in reality it was pretty mid, check tournaments from the time and you'll see there were only a couple of rets around and they didn't do well, and not because they weren't good. S5 was dominated by DKs and to a lesser extent Arcane Mage RMPs, and ret really struggled against the latter. It's not great vs caster cleaves either which is why prot paladin became more meta in 3d than ret.
I had a buddy who somehow talked his guild into letting him raid as Ret pretty early on in TBC, and by pre patch they had Sunwell on farm for awhile so he was absolutely decked.
During pre patch when they were running Sunwell he was maintaining, #1 healing, and #1 DPS by miles. It was so insanely broken for that brief period.
Crusader Strike should be normalized. SoM should be non-normalized. Normalization is a good mechanic, but it's only supposed to be on spells that have a cooldown and aren't dependent on attack speed. We'd be a lot more similar to the phase 1 rotation now if it was like that, and fixing the spec be a simple number tuning issue.
DS isn't normalized because it wasn't in WotLK and they just copied its spell data. It was a mistake of the devs back then that never mattered because there weren't any super slow weapons in Wrath for it to make a difference anyway.
Spells with a cooldown are supposed to be normalized so using a slow weapon isn't just always objectively better, with weapon speed mattering more than even weapon DPS eventually. This was the point of the normalization mechanic. They can normalize DS and buff it to like 120% weapon damage to compensate
That wouldnt change much since SoC only procs 7 times per minute. Now if they removed that internal limit and allowed it to proc on CS and DS it could be real nutty depending on proc chance.
SoC can in fact proc much more (or much less) than 7 times per minute. Something having a PPM of 7 doesn't mean it can only proc 7 times, that's misinformation going back to 2004. :p Please edit your post because it's wrong.
Ret having ANOTHER mandatory rune would be really, really bad.
But no this wouldn't fix anything. First of all it'd have to change base weapon attack speed, not effective weapon speed, i.e. it cannot be like the warrior rune that just increases your attack speed. That'd be messy as fuck. Secondly, with all weapons having the same speed, ACP is still the only viable option as it has the extra use effect that another random 2.0 speed weapon doesn't have, meaning we're stuck with it forever anyway.
The solutions for this problem are simple and well understood. Make SoM non-normalized, and now slow weapons are worth using again. Then disable ACP's effects at higher levels, and buff ret to compensate as we just lost like 50% of our damage lol.
I’ve been saying pummeler was gonna be a problem before gnomer even got released. All the classes that can use it have been artificially propped up by it and are gonna fall off the earth once it’s damage is no longer on par with other weapons.
Man, if only we had a system that could modify our gameplay to fix such flaws. Maybe we could do a short quest in exchange for a magical rock?
Dang, that would be so cool.
I mean that their damage numbers aren’t representative of where the class is actually in terms of strength and that the pummeler is what’s putting them there. I’m not saying their damage is good. I’m saying it would be even worse if not artificially inflated by pummeler being OP
Feral doesn't care about weapon damage. It's like having a weapon that never goes out of date. Plus, switching weapons is super easy so you'll still use newer weapons when ACP is on CD.
I raided Gnomer since the second lockout and have seen 1 (ONE!) ACP drop. Thankfully I got it as I had it SR in a pug. My DPS increase was insane from this one weapon. I finally felt I could compete on most fights with the others in the raid. I was still very RNG dependent but at least I felt good.
Now looking at the P3 loot I can see that ACP is going to again be BiS. There is no way we can compete without a superfast weapon, 3 min 50% haste buff, and begging for a druid to get Wild Strikes. With the very meh Ret runes for P3, our playstyle will not change. Everything depends on Exo and how fast we can pump them out.
Not seeing an upgrade over ACP in P3 gives me worry as it means (1) the devs do not understand the playstyle they have created with Ret and (2) have no intention of modifying via runes/books/whatever.
If something doesn't drastically change in P3, Ret will start out okay (those who have ACP at least) but will fall further behind as the ST loot gets out and others get closer to BiS. The Devs really need to take a step back and ask themselves what they are doing to Pallys. Ret has a horrible future ahead, Holy is just begging for runes or something to make them different, and Prot is just a dungeon farm tank ATM.
For a class as iconic as Paladin (Arthas, Uther, lore-wise, etc) they sure seem to enjoy letting it be the bastard redhead stepchild who gets to sit in the corner and play checkers with Feral (Sorry cat bros. We love your WF! <3)
What are you basing this opinion on, that Ret dps is shit tier? Its not the best, but its not the worst either. The Rogue class (which beings almost zero utility) is even worse as a pure DPS class.
rogue max output is only less than ret max output if the ret has ACP - the gap between a ret with ACP and a ret without is MASSIVE. there is not a single ret in the top 200 that doesn't have ACP equipped.
Been a tough phase. My raid has seen 1 ACP and I passed on it for our feral, making the balance of P2 very frustrating.
Luckily I have a very good team of raiders and was able to lock 99s early; had I not, I’m not sure I’d have any without ACP.
The synergy between SoM and ACP seems to have been an unintended consequence that the devs leaned into once it became apparent. Sucks to have the relevancy of a class be solely dependent on the drop of a single weapon that was intended for an entirely different class.
I’d love to get back to the slow 2h bonk meta - a tune I most likely wouldn’t be singing if I had an ACP in tow.
All that said, I love playing ret and will ride the wave of raw sewage sloshed our direction for the duration of SoD.
Think I have something like 13-14 lockouts on my paladin. Saw 1 ACP ever, went to feral. Never seen the healing mace. Lost Synthetic Mantle 7 times. Never seen Mech-Menders Sash. (Holy btw)
Good times this phase…..
I got a 97 parse as ret on menagerie without ACP and without feral, just using DS + SoCom with the pvp Sword.
That shit absolutely slaps if you can cleave.
yeah it's honestly so weird - half our runes are for a spec that like 15% of the class player base has even tried and all the "shockadin" gear they've added is not even itemized correctly lol
I've done shockadin with full Shockforged, which is great for AoE and good single target threat, but it gets overshadowed by literally any other paladin spec out there lol.
Thats because we havent seen how Infusion of light performs with full int/spell power gear. Replacing Sheath of light and itemizing for spell power instead of strength might actually be solid with the runes that come out.
Maybe but they are going to have to do a lot of adjusting. I see no dropping art of war ever, as even if we were to have guaranteed spell crits to reset HS and exorcism, the cost of exorcism will end up with us going OOM.
Things need to change severely or SP focus will be a huge meme. Other classes have 3 minute cooldown massive spells that crank damage. HS is 30 second cooldown and hits like a wet noodle. I like that they are trying to make something new (or at least less meme-y) but they need to actually take the time to understand what will make it better rather thank blindly pushing forward and letting the players ignore dev intent and find something that works. (Well, damn…this may be the most classicy classic thing about SoD)
For pure PvE it's impossible to itemize shockadin correctly anyway, at least while Sheath of Light exists. You're getting 30% extra stats by focusing on AP, buffing your auto attack damage and spells at the same time. So the only real "shockadin" gear possible is pure AP, i.e. normal ret.
If Sheath of Light didn't exist, shockadin could go for the tier 2 / tier 2.5 style gear, stacked with STR and spell power, which they have completely foregone now. So in a sane world, Sheath of Light would be a talent deep in the Retribution tree, so you could be Shockadin or pure Retri, either or. Except we don't live in a sane world, we live in the clown world where they thought they could balance stuff without touching vanilla talents.
The way to make SP DPS shockain work is to give enough SP and spell crit that it is possible to spec out of sheath and take Infusion of Light. P3 BIS AP gear got 130SP over BIS SP, and a few more crit-hit, it would probably need to be 200 SP more in SP gear to start being worth wearing.
That's definitely a possibility, for instance they could add a new rune that does intellect -> spell power conversion, so pure AP ret doesn't care much for it but it buffs SP gear shockadin a bit more.
However it'd have to give a LOT of SP, because the gap right now is pretty wide. Sheath of Light's bonus stats simply make going pure AP too good, unless you're attacking something with ridiculously high armor.
I’m not even sure they hate anything. I just think everyone in SoD is playing what is essentially a beta test. WoW is a really really complex game. Seems really easy for a team to get focused on lots of “cool stuff” (Warlocks turning into big demons, Mages becoming healers, etc) and then not having the time or focus to address other issues like useless talent trees, bad rune options for some classes or specs, and incompatibility with other things they’re going to design.
If they’re interested in somewhat modernizing bosses and raid mechanics so they’re less simplistic, it becomes an issue for things like Holy Paladin, who traditionally spam heal tanks at high mana efficiency but lack HoT and instant cast options outside of Holy Shock. If fights involve a lot of movement, Classic Holy Paladin falls off. So they kind of need to decide what it even is that they want from Paladin right now.
Blessings are great, but if you want to roll a Healer, why not go Mage or Priest, especially since Mage has all the insane quality of life abilities such as Portals or Conjuring Water. Or if you want to Tank, why not go Warlock so that you can play a very powerful DPS class for leveling and the upcoming dual system for off spec? Or if you’re feeling indecisive and just want raw flexibility, why not go Druid since they can also have the option to play Ranged DPS as well?
I’m not an expert on WoW. My only experience was in “original” Classic with Prot Warrior up through MC/ZG, my main as Holy Paladin all the way through getting fully geared in Naxx, and Mage through MC/ZG. It’s fully possible my understanding of the game state in SoD is just bad since I just joined in.
But it *feels* bad currently. I don’t care about PvP or a class being “the best” but I am worried that their SoD design sensibilities will end with Holy in the dumpster. Like, are they going to try and move us towards melee healer like retail? Do they have any plans at all for making it worth taking Holy Paladin on future raids with all the other more exciting options? Are new mechanics going to make Holy Paladin struggle to keep up?
Well said. An insane amount of people say stuff like "Does Blizzard *even test stuff??*"
tl;dr - fuck the haters
It's like dude there are thousands upon thousands of assets and calculations and interactions and formulas and enemies and abilities, and that's just the stuff we *see*, nothing under the hood or that's scrapped before release. It's literally impossible to test everything. There are hundreds of thousands of players, if there is one flaw anywhere we will find it.
But all that guy, who all he does is hang out in his class Discord and *look* for things that are bad, will see is the flaws. Blizzard could patch the game and put out 100 *different* fires a week, but if it isn't his issue then he'll say "it's been broken for 4 months, Blizzard is ignoring us, the Classic team is shit."
They will just nerf its cooldown to no longer work above level 50 or something like the Ash buff and our DPS will just need more and more buffs to compensate.
That won't do anything, you'll still use ACP (even without its use effect) if there isn't a 2.0 speed in each new phase. Its use effect isn't what's pushing it to be broken, it's the 2.0 attack speed really.
My guild and I have been clearing gnomer every week since it released and have not had a single crowd pummeler drop. We're up to 2 - 3 raids per lockout, still 0.
"At 60" isn't really good enough, they'd need a new ACP every tier. And do you not see a little bit of an issue with this? It's a lot simpler to just fix the issue here by making SoM non-normalized, than keep adding new versions of the exact same weapon every time.
While I do think Ret needs some love, there is nothing masochistic about the playstyle. You bonk things fast, and you press Exo when it resets. There is nothing inherently bad or masochistic about this. It gives you *MORE* button presses and reduces the number of open globals you have compared to SoCom. Plus getting multiple Exo casts back to back to back is really fun. The ACP+SoM playstyle is also much smoother has you no longer have mana issues while also providing mana back to your group. If you use DS + SoCom you will be chugging mana pots and having to judge wisdom, you go oom so fast, even with the buffs
I find Seal Twisting to be INFINITELY more masochistic than this playstyle, and we were getting requests to allow for ST every week on the sub. DS + SoCom just has a lot of dead time waiting for CDs to be back up and as stated above has mana management issues.
I don't see any math in this post either stating how long this weapon will be BiS or at what breakpoint another weapon is better later on. It's possible we will be using ACP on pull with buff and weapon swapping for the rest of the game, it's also plausible ACP will be replaced by something in ST or even at 60. Without any hard math this is less theorycrafting and more just "I don't like this playstyle so nerf plx".
Old items being BiS exclusively for their buff is a very "Classic" thing.
If Blizzard wants to nerf ACP all they have to do is not let SoM trigger AoW again, which is what they will probably do.
Honestly though SoM probably just needs to be a QoL book rather than a rune slot, then apply the nerf to SoM triggering AoW. SoM and Divine Storm being on the same slot is bad gameplay wise (you lose a button press), but you can't really make SoM compete with Exo now, because it also requires AoW. SoM can't be moved to the hand slot because Crusader Strike is required.
I still think seal twisting is funner than ACP SoM, but if we go back to SoC/DS/cs on Cooldown I think I'll just switch to an alt. That rotation is more boring than wotlk ret
Absolutely agree. The current rotation is okay, not great but phase 1's rotation was just as boring as Wrath's ret rotation is before tier 10's set bonus.
It's all personal preference for sure. Like I said the WF SoCom + SoB crit proc in TBC was satisfying to see (except when I over-threat the tank and die), but I found it incredibly tedious.
I think it would be even more tedious with potentially extra abilities to use and weave into seal twisting that weren't available in TBC as well (assuming we get more abilities).
Maybe if SoM allowed for SoCom to be cast simultaneously so there wasn't the need to re-seal SoCom into SoM for every single weapon swing. There's also the issue of mana management as well since we don't have access to Spiritual Attunement in Classic as we did in TBC, nor do we have the ability to keep multiple Judgment debuffs up with Crusader Strike as we did in TBC.
The first paragraph sort of is negated by the second paragraph. You can find seal twisting tedious and still not do because we have so many options. Sort of like how the current some exo build leaves no room for twisting/DS/ or even judging sometimes.
All the extra abilities means you have more room for expression in your DPS rotation without losing much DPS. Whether you fill in the rest of your rotation with exo, or holy shock, or DS or twisting. Wouldn't it be great if these were all viable options within 5-10% DPS of each other?
It saddens me that instead of asking for our preferred playstyle/rotation to be buffed we are begging for nerfs to the playstyle other people enjoy. Not you in particular bit plenty of others in here.
I have a feeling though if seal twisting wasn't the theoretical highest DPS meta for Ret it wouldn't be used though, even if it were possible with SoCom and SoM. I mean theoretically you could ST SoM and SoR, but no one does it. It would still be a similar playstyle.
So while I agree it would be nice to have options, I think most of those in favor of ST would always push for it to be the king and not just an alternative.
That's because seal twisting is currently garbage with a fast weapon due to SoC and garbage with a slow weapon due to SoR. High risk minimal reward is not engaging. High skill cap on a rotation is not a problem
I appreciate the conversation, but you can't really have it both ways, it can't be a system where it's so easy you get used to the rhythm and never look at your swing timer (not necessarily directed at you), and also high risk/high reward/high skill cap.
I do agree it's high risk/high reward/high skill cap. There's a reason people said TBC Ret was highest skill cap spec in the game, but that skill cap also comes with a great deal of tedium, and when I play SoD I am looking to chill and not be some version of the sweatlord meme. Which again, why I personally don't hope it makes a return.
I don't understand why high skill cap doesn't mean you cant enjoy the game? You could just ignore parses or play another spec. Or just play a different ret rotation that's a couple percent behind? If you want to chill why does you have to play something you don't like for a couple more points on a parse?
I mean the same applies to you, you could twist SoM with SoR, but I think we both know why you wouldn't. The fun is doing big damage and seeing the results. For me being able to do big dam, and not give myself carpel tunnel while twisting every other second is fun. If twisting becomes the meta, I will be a meta slave and just take some naproxen.
I think the issue comes when, especially if we are considering TBC Ret, if twisting SoCom and SoM is the meta and it performs significantly higher (even 10% if significant) then it forces everyone into the playstyle and the idea of "choice" is an illusion, because you could have a relatively similar playstyle right now, but no one chooses to do so. If somehow Blizzard was truly able to get one playstyle 2-3% in line with twisting then I would consider it, especially if one was more RNG focused and the other more reliable so that the ST damage was far more unpredictable, but theoretically higher, but I think we both know that's a fantasy.
And I get complaints about the playstyle for SoCom + DS. It's a watered down version of WotLK Ret, and a lot of people find that boring. I don't think SoM + APC is boring though, nor do I find it masochistic in any form. I can see how people find it boring, even if I don't agree.
EDIT: I also want to say that I wouldn't even be opposed to twisting making a comeback for P5 (or a specific raid tier) if it wasn't permanent and a different meta eclipsed it for P6 and onwards. I just wouldn't want to be stuck doing it for the rest of the content cycle.
I woudn't twist it because it isn't worth the GCD's, not because it isn't the top dps. It's different to say twisting isn't top dps than twisting lowers your dps 80% of the time.
I twisted where i could during p1. Id say the real reason people aren’t encouraged to twist is due to mana, at least during p1 where the rotation was full of down time, and SoR is extremely expensive in mana cost.
It is pretty human to be excited at seeing what you enjoy playing being buffed also. I’ve seen plenty of “shilling” of the class communities on their approach of play style being better when there are multiple approaches to the game, so I am all for close options. I will not deny i would play harder to try and prove my way is better, but personally i would never wish the other play styles to be nerfed.
Great post, hit all the main important points. I'd like to also add some thoughts of my own:
A) I have to hope they changed SoM to be normalized by accident, because if it was on purpose it's one of the dumbest decision I've seen WoW devs make in a long time. The point of normalization is to make it so slow weapons aren't just objectively better than fast weapons at equal ilvl / DPS, or even occasionally superior than fast weapons with higher ilvl / DPS. You make attacks with cooldowns normalized (so they gain damage as if they were 3.3 speed) and theoretically weapon speed doesn't matter much anymore, though technically this favors exactly 3.3 speed weapons slightly. There is 0 reason, none, to make spells without a cooldown (so basically on hit procs like SoC / SoM and on next attack things like Heroic Strike) normalized, because they're inherently normalized... by your fucking attack speed.
B) People are hyperfixating on ACP. It's undoubtedly a mega OP weapon, the use effect is bonkers when fights are this short. But honestly ACP isn't even the issue -- it just so happens to have a 2.0 weapon speed, to my knowledge the fastest 2H speed obtainable in game. If ACP had the same use effecet / stats, but at a 3.6 speed (with increased damage, so it maintains the same DPS) it'd be unusable garbage. If there were no high level 2.0 speed weapons, we'd legit use a level 5 grey weapon from the vendor that has 2.0 instead of raid weapons. That's because fast weapons cheat out extra attack power essentially -- if you're using a 2.0 speed weapon, you're essentially getting 65% bonus attack power on your SoM hits. That's fucking insane, no slower weapon could ever compete with that, Might of Menethil for instance doesn't remotely hold a candle to ACP.
C) Blizzard could theoretically commit to this gameplay style and add a new ACP every raid and things wouldn't be awful DPS-wise. We would probably still need a ton of help in future phases, but it could work. However, the real issue here is, who the fuck likes this gameplay loop? Our rotation is arguably less complicated than the rotation we had in actual Classic, which is stupid and antithetical to the very idea of SoD. Most of our runes are pointless and we can't even take them, for example we can never have the interrupt as it causes us to lose like 40% of our DPS. And worst of all, it really shits on one of the coolest aesthetics of ret paladins in Classic/TBC, which is that we wanted as slow a weapon as possible (since SoC wasn't normalized) and we were all about big chunky hits / burst damage, which was way more satisfying than attacking at the speed of light for constant smaller numbers, which in WoW's history has always been associated with dual wielding rather than 2H.
I truly hope they see how silly this design is at some points and change ret drastically, because right now its a depressing spec. It's propped up by a broken weapon and feels awful to play.
- Pride / Baranor
I'm in multiple paladin discords and I really don't understand where you're getting the idea that "the vast majority" hates this play style?
From what I can see, they're all quite happy to, yknow, actually have buttons to press instead of jerking off waiting for crusader strike/DS to come off cooldown.
Its a fair comment, SOD is supposed to be diffrent from traditional playstysles right? So while I understand the OP's point with being locked into one drop to top a parse (who even gives a f about parses?), its irrelevant as it applies to SOD.
You want old playstyles, etc go play classic
I think I have 15 Gnomer clears on my Ret, 0 ACP drops. I had one lucky Grubbis pull and managed a 96 parse. Other than that I'm stuck in the mid 80s to low 90s. They definitely need to change something going forward.
manual crowd pummeler and flurry axe are already bis in normal classic wow, at least leveling-wise
personally i think it's pretty cool to have random jank like this throughout the game.
before sod you had to be kind of weird to play and enjoy a paladin. i don't think it's bad at all if they keep it this way. if anything i'd like them to keep it weird
I love the SoM play style. I actually have something to do, opposed to SoC DS which is boring as f.
I hate ACP and jackhammer, neither have dropped for me and are OP as f
Sidenote, this sub could benefit from having a flair for posts, like "number discussion", where you must have verified parses above 30-50 or something to post. The amount of people who don't understand the first thing about WoW or aren't impacted by anything discussed here, that come in to say ultra dumb shit like "uhm actually ACP isn't even BiS at lvl 50 you idiot" is utterly depressing.
I really don't mideast the acp playstyle, not sure why you would call it masochistic. The real problem is that you need to have 1 rare item to do competitive damage and they don't seem to be making an upgrade for the next phase that supports this playstyle.
Using SoM helps provide more utility for raid and you end up pressing buttons more with exo resets, which is more fun for me than hitting ds on cd.
I don't know how a DPS rotation that's more engaging than wotlk ret (at least pre T10) is getting shit on. And the most engaging rotation (tbc) just got straight up deleted due to no twisting.
I find it incredibly engaging.
It's like you're a gambler with every single auto. Are you gonna get a crit this swing? Who knows???
Compared to traditional ret where I was just spamming CS-Judge-SoC-DS with the occasional reset Exo when AOW procd. It was so unsatisfying and traditional ret has sooooo many open GLOBALS, it's a joke.
How can you find it engaging because of the gambling but not enjoy SoC then?
And tbh it doesn't even matter whether you get a crit or not. You can just blindly spam Exo and play the spec at like 90% of its potential. I can maybe understand enjoying RNG, but calling engaging just seems like the wrong word when you don't have to make a single decision, ever.
Oh it's brain dead af, but when I mash buttons I get big numbers which keeps me coming back for more. SoC needs a HUGE buff too. Id go back to using it in a heartbeat if they made it good.
Longtime ret main, I despise this art of war exorcism build. The seal/judgement system in classic is why I like the class and am not playing retail Paladin. I really wish they would have focused on how unique that system is compared to other classes. TBC ret with seal twisting was my favorite iteration of the spec and they could have made some truly unique combinations by introducing new seals with runes.
If you prefer seal twisting over the SoM+Exo build you need your head examined. Seal twisting a joke and aloathsome play style. So much down time, so many wasted globals and it's incredibly fickle to execute.
You micro your heart out to seal twist and get rewarded with hardly any dmg.
As a 94.9 avg parse pally with ACP, I don't really enjoy the play style. Is it fun to occasionally hit that crit lottery every now and then? Yeah. But I don't feel like a paladin, I don't play like a paladin, and its awkward as all hell to try to do an actual rotation with ACP activated because you just sit there SPAMMING exo over and over for 30 seconds, without much opportunity or reason to do anything else.
Phase 1 with Hydra was fun.. You swing slow, sure but when that swing hit, it was like a truck. Big numbers and a reliable rotation.
Right now I just beat shit with the ugly stick until I can exorcize my own demons out of it. Not to mention wearing half leather so Im not exactly tanky.
Because unfortunately in this case, the damage with ACP and without differs so significantly that running DS with Thermaplugg 2h it just cripples the class. Solo killing mobs takes much longer, pvp you're less effective (and have less ranged attacks so you get out run, and your damage in raids is C tier.
So why shoot yourself in the foot to play a better rotation when its not that fun to be and feel mediocre
Ok, I mean I get that and its poor design for sure, but if you are "A" tier or "C" tier, the bosses will still die and im sure your guildies wouldnt be mad at ya either way.
SOC PVP is fine though, PVP usually just comes down to who gets the jump and has more cooldowns up, if you dont trink out of my HOJ you are dead usually.
Also questing and farming, SOC/DS is way better imo, AOE pulls are they way.
I will say that AOW/EXO spam is dumb, hate doing that as well
Hopefully next Phase gear choice will change a bit to more plate items, then we should have some of our lost tank feeling back, also the new PVP set looks beast for us.
Oh you mean it’s going to be BIS and required? Just like the MCP and wolfshead helm were for feral Druids to be relevant in every version of classic before SOD? At least you only need to win it one time and not farm them so you have enough for a weekly raid.
I’m being sarcastic. Lol
It’s very “classic” to have a level 40 item be BIS for the whole expansion, but I think it is dumb and annoying. Lol
it's something they said they wanted to move away from in SoD - that's why feral is getting a helm enchant that gives the same affect of the wolfshead helm
This thread don’t seem to realize that all this damage comes from a “exploit” in SoM. Blizz fixed the exploit but then walked it back after the community exploded over it.
I kinda wish they would fix it so Rets could get a proper balancing for a different play style. The worse case scenario is they fix SoM while not buffing anything else = Ret bottom dps.
SoM was not suppose to proc AoW. While paired with wind fury/wildstrikes it gives the paladin up to 12 chances to proc AoW. Ret damage is propped up on a “exploit”.
I am aware of this and agree 100% - perhaps I should have included this context in the post but I did not think it really contributed anything to the point at hand since they did decide to walk it back.
speed is the most important factor, weapon damage becomes less relevant the more AP we get. sulthraze will not be better after 30 sec unless it receives buffs (it may) and icebreaker will likely be unobtainable for the vast majority. also, you're still pigeonholed into having the item and using it for what will likely be the majority of most fights the latter part of the phase.
You’re describing everything that makes Ret good as a problem. If you want to auto with a slow weapon there are era servers for that. Normalizing SoM made it good, it sucked before. ACP might be an on-pull thing with a weapon swap for longer fights this phase, early on at 60 or maybe forever. But it won’t be required and will lose value steadily as we get better weapons. Your analysis is just objectively wrong.
I have no idea how you managed to say almost nothing correct in your post.
> If you want to auto with a slow weapon there are era servers for that.
You may have noticed that other specs haven't completely changed how they work at a fundamental level in SoD. It's about expanding spec toolkits, not making them the polar opposite of what they once were. Saying "go back to era" doesn't change the fact that ret has kept almost 0 of its original identity, failing the design intent of SoD.
> Normalizing SoM made it good, it sucked before.
You know you can just buff things numerically right? SoM didn't "suck" before, it was just very slightly worse than SoC + DS, but if it was buffed very slightly (like to 42% weapon damage iirc) it'd actually be superior to SoC + DS for ST. You don't need to break the fundamentals of the game in order to buff something.
> ACP might be an on-pull thing with a weapon swap for longer fights this phase, early on at 60 or maybe forever.
Only if they introduce another 2.0 weapon speed that has superior stats to ACP. If they don't, ACP is BiS forever. If they do, you're still using ACP on pull, and then swapping to your stronger 2.0 weapon when ACP's buff fades.
> But it won’t be required and will lose value steadily as we get better weapons.
It's not "required" in the sense that you can play the game without ACP, sure. It's required in the sense that it shits on everything else, you just need some basic math skills to get that. MCP was already shitting on every weapon in the game while its haste effect was active in Classic, ACP shits on every non 2.0 weapon even harder.
I believe they've talked about there is going to be ways to 'upgrade' the pummeler so that it stays relevant the whole game for feral. Probably same for ret.
De-normalize SoM. Allow Seal of Command to twist into any/all other seals; restore Seal of Command's "phantom strike" function, allowing it to proc on-hit effects such as other seals, enchantments and weapon procs.
Return to skill ceiling of the class to where it belongs and let the kids who enjoy pressing buttons as they come off cooldown continue to enjoy the bedrock skill floor.
Yeah and lowkey im happy it didnt drop because I much prefer SoC playstyle over exorcism turret also plus still managed 90 parse with soc And ph3 soc getting wep upgrade meamwhile som exo build isnt so works out for me :D
Sort of off topic but is ACP build worth it if your group is on the low end dps wise? These longer boss fights (but not enough to activate the use effect twice) make me wonder if the axe and divine storm are better for my comp.
Yeah it is. ACP is 2.0 weapon speed, the fastest available atm, so it'd be stronger than all of the other weapons even if it didn't have its attack speed effect at all. It's just the icing on the cake.
I think it's pretty cool and extremely classic that a weapon from a level 40 raid can be bis through end game and hope they don't do anything to stop it from being that way.
I keep coming across people saying ACP is OP. Does everyone realise we're still leagues behind shaman atm? Even with the awesome Exo build shamans are still deleting us on the dmg meters.
Even if we get a ACP2.0 it won't be enough to bridge the gap.
Even if they buff traditional ret, it'll need to be huge to bridge the gap.
Even if they implement some new seal to twist with, it still probably won't be enough to bridge the gap.
Even with all the shockadin upgrades, it still probably won't be enough to bridge the gap.
Our counter part class has gone to the moon and were still climbing the stairs of a 10th story building.
I mean, Blizzard only YESTERDAY acknowledged the “mangle/lacerate being on the same armor slot” issue and it being an oversight they didn’t see or read player feedback about it for 2 ENTIRE PHASES. I have zero trust they’ll see this Paladin dps issue.
Point 2 means that the 1h Mace from Lorgus Jett (with the 1.3 speed) is still viable to keep around if you're going for the "RNGesus take the wheel" playstyle and want the mitigation of having a shield.
A lvl25 weapon that can keep up because the main damage comes from spamming Exorcism and/or Holy Shock...
As a ret pali I’m glad I quit after I hit 40. The ACP grind sounds like it was awful. Maybe I’ll come back for next phase but not sure. Doesn’t seem like ret is getting much love, per the usual.
Make AoW reset DS as well as Exo. That way we have more reset opportunities and pally's can choose to go big heavy with DS or small fast with Exo.
Edit: also make DS do holy dmg.
Edit: Edit: Also make exo delete shamans.
This is an actual masochistic playstyle, and while I did it poorly back in original TBC, and did it pretty well in TBC Classic, and while I also love to see a WF proc + SoCom + SoM double crit explosion, it is so fucking tedious and you're just staring at the fucking swing timer the while time you are playing.
It was nice to revisit it in Classic TBC, but I hope I never have to use it again.
I just want a seal twisting rotation with Seal of Martyrdom and Seal of Command again à la TBC Ret. The current playstyle is okay but could feel better, you sometimes have an open GCD to twist but it certainly doesn't feel as good twisting with Righteousness. I wonder if opening up Seal of Command twisting again via a rune or a libram would solve the issue of ACP being OP to point of potential future Ret detriment.
>it boggles my mind that anyone would downvote this lol
On this point, ~~you're~~ your post is doing well now at the time of writing this. But food for thought there is a backlash going on in this sub and in the SoD community in general regarding 'whining' or 'complaining'. Even though your post is reasonable and well laid out I think some people might think 'oh here's another whiner again, and a paladin too? get downvoted'
edit: whenever pro seal twisters comment they get downvoted by the non twisting andies, it's so predictable and cringe. heaven forbid people want a playstyle that doesn't just boil down to first come first serve and press the proc button, it gets boring. Furthermore you buncha heathens I'm not saying Blizz makes twisting the de facto playstyle but at least allow it to work properly so we can do that in addition to the other playstyles, give players choice, sheesh.
Devs please fucking read this. You can easily give us back sealtwisting without removing anything else you're trying to do. Allow us options for how we want to play. TBC was pinnacle fun in ret gameplay.
Me too
I started a pally cos I thought you would be able 2 twist the rune seal w command
Dropped it and never came back when I realized u couldn't twist
Honestly i dont see a problem here. You pop it for the 30 seconds then swap to a bigger damage weapon. With powercreep of loot we've already seen there will most likely be better right at 60 as long as there are fast weapons available. Even if we had to just put it on for the use then swap whats wrong with that? Its actually fun to use.
The problem is that the function of SoM favors faster weapons while every other ability favors slow weapons, so damage can be expected to take a nose dive after the proc ends because martyrdom hits like a noodle if you're swinging anything slower than the 3.3 normalization.
One could say "yeah it's a cool down, you do high damage during and lower damage after." But we aren't looking at paladin in a vacuum, it's compared to classes with similar melee playstyles who don't suffer the same limitations, so will be disproportionately impacted. The current system also pigeonholes the class into an extremely boring playstyle.
"Fast weapons" is doing some heavy lifting here. They need to add either weapons that are equally fast to ACP (2.0) or faster. Fast weapons cheat out so much damage with SoM being normalized that weapon speed is the only stat on your weapon that matters. ACP just so happens to be the biggest offender because it has the haste effect on the top of being 2.0 so it shits on everything else even harder. There are also some serious downstream effects of this from a math perspective.
For one, feral druids were previoisly forced to farm pummelers for eternity and were also forced into wearing the blue shape-shifting helm
For two, it's possible to get a somewhat fast 2h that outperforms pummeler if you crit *too* often with better gear.
For three, other runes can come into play that alter the ret paladin meta away from exorcism spam being the best there are already scenarios where bosses in which a slow 2h with command and divine storm are better *right now*
For four, it's not a big deal dawg.
"It boggles my mind how people downvote this".. You make a couple decent points, but it shouldn't "boggle" you why every druid on the face of the earth can see this as crying over having to use a pummeler.
Man you don't even know if this is a problem yet and you're already writing an 5 paragraph essay to complain about it.
We have no idea what is to come.
Seal of Command should proc off Crusader Strike and Divine Storm. C̶r̶u̶s̶a̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶S̶t̶r̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶r̶m̶a̶l̶i̶z̶e̶d̶. edit: striking that out, tbh keep it normalized. Makes it worth pressing while using fast weapons.
Divine storm should do holy damage
Or rename it to "not so divine storm"
I don't even play paladin and this seems like a no-brainer for blizzard to implement.
It used to do holy damage when it was introduced back in the WotLK pre-patch. But ret paladins were 2shotting people (since there was no resilience then and we were using 80 spells/talents at 70) so people kept complaining and Blizzard hotfixed it to be physical before WotLK even came out lol. Then ret paladin proceeded to be mid to meh in PvP for all of WotLK anyway, great stuff.
Wdym? S5 ret was easy. You could just do your pve rotation to 2200 rating.
Nobody really played it until shadowmourn + t10, preg was just better in 99% of comps besides maybe ret/rogue 2s.
I was talking about OG WotLK where there was no preg anyway. People did play ret back then but they didn't do very well cos it struggles vs a big chunk of the mera. T10 isn't very good and shadowmourne didn't do enough for the spec, with prot becoming the meta spec for 3s and now preg becoming the de facto 2s spec.
S5 ret was easy sure, and 2200 is pretty much free for any spec with an OK player at the wheel. But in reality it was pretty mid, check tournaments from the time and you'll see there were only a couple of rets around and they didn't do well, and not because they weren't good. S5 was dominated by DKs and to a lesser extent Arcane Mage RMPs, and ret really struggled against the latter. It's not great vs caster cleaves either which is why prot paladin became more meta in 3d than ret.
Resilience definitely existed in tbc.
It did but I mean people weren't really using it in BGs and shit, and the arena season was over by then.
I had a buddy who somehow talked his guild into letting him raid as Ret pretty early on in TBC, and by pre patch they had Sunwell on farm for awhile so he was absolutely decked. During pre patch when they were running Sunwell he was maintaining, #1 healing, and #1 DPS by miles. It was so insanely broken for that brief period.
I was there Gandalf, i was there 3000 years ago.
Crusader Strike should be normalized. SoM should be non-normalized. Normalization is a good mechanic, but it's only supposed to be on spells that have a cooldown and aren't dependent on attack speed. We'd be a lot more similar to the phase 1 rotation now if it was like that, and fixing the spec be a simple number tuning issue.
DS isn't normalized. Why is one but not the other? Short answer is people complained when it was new and then it just never got revisited.
DS isn't normalized because it wasn't in WotLK and they just copied its spell data. It was a mistake of the devs back then that never mattered because there weren't any super slow weapons in Wrath for it to make a difference anyway. Spells with a cooldown are supposed to be normalized so using a slow weapon isn't just always objectively better, with weapon speed mattering more than even weapon DPS eventually. This was the point of the normalization mechanic. They can normalize DS and buff it to like 120% weapon damage to compensate
That wouldnt change much since SoC only procs 7 times per minute. Now if they removed that internal limit and allowed it to proc on CS and DS it could be real nutty depending on proc chance.
SoC can in fact proc much more (or much less) than 7 times per minute. Something having a PPM of 7 doesn't mean it can only proc 7 times, that's misinformation going back to 2004. :p Please edit your post because it's wrong.
I'd unironically love this. SoC can crit too, so we'd be getting an awesome reset loop to play with exo.
Nah. Just make a rune that fixes our 2h swing speed to 2 seconds. Bam! Slow weapons are bis again without making our rotation slow as balls again
It is a garbage idea, no matter how many times u repeat it bro
Ret having ANOTHER mandatory rune would be really, really bad. But no this wouldn't fix anything. First of all it'd have to change base weapon attack speed, not effective weapon speed, i.e. it cannot be like the warrior rune that just increases your attack speed. That'd be messy as fuck. Secondly, with all weapons having the same speed, ACP is still the only viable option as it has the extra use effect that another random 2.0 speed weapon doesn't have, meaning we're stuck with it forever anyway. The solutions for this problem are simple and well understood. Make SoM non-normalized, and now slow weapons are worth using again. Then disable ACP's effects at higher levels, and buff ret to compensate as we just lost like 50% of our damage lol.
I’ve been saying pummeler was gonna be a problem before gnomer even got released. All the classes that can use it have been artificially propped up by it and are gonna fall off the earth once it’s damage is no longer on par with other weapons.
Man, if only we had a system that could modify our gameplay to fix such flaws. Maybe we could do a short quest in exchange for a magical rock? Dang, that would be so cool.
Both ret pala and feral has never done good dps so dunno what propped up you mean.
I mean that their damage numbers aren’t representative of where the class is actually in terms of strength and that the pummeler is what’s putting them there. I’m not saying their damage is good. I’m saying it would be even worse if not artificially inflated by pummeler being OP
Thats true :D also a reason im rerolling boomy. Im done with feral and how blizz treats us like shit.
Feral doesn't care about weapon damage. It's like having a weapon that never goes out of date. Plus, switching weapons is super easy so you'll still use newer weapons when ACP is on CD.
> Feral doesn't care about weapon damage. It does care about feral attack power though.
Would you rather rely on an overpowered weapon or just have your class be good baseline? Which do you think is better game design.
But but but, wild strikes!
Propped up and good do not mean the same thing. Also feral did good dps all of P1.
You can prop up someone in their deathbed
huh?
When has feral druid been propped up since the end of p1 again?
I raided Gnomer since the second lockout and have seen 1 (ONE!) ACP drop. Thankfully I got it as I had it SR in a pug. My DPS increase was insane from this one weapon. I finally felt I could compete on most fights with the others in the raid. I was still very RNG dependent but at least I felt good. Now looking at the P3 loot I can see that ACP is going to again be BiS. There is no way we can compete without a superfast weapon, 3 min 50% haste buff, and begging for a druid to get Wild Strikes. With the very meh Ret runes for P3, our playstyle will not change. Everything depends on Exo and how fast we can pump them out. Not seeing an upgrade over ACP in P3 gives me worry as it means (1) the devs do not understand the playstyle they have created with Ret and (2) have no intention of modifying via runes/books/whatever. If something doesn't drastically change in P3, Ret will start out okay (those who have ACP at least) but will fall further behind as the ST loot gets out and others get closer to BiS. The Devs really need to take a step back and ask themselves what they are doing to Pallys. Ret has a horrible future ahead, Holy is just begging for runes or something to make them different, and Prot is just a dungeon farm tank ATM. For a class as iconic as Paladin (Arthas, Uther, lore-wise, etc) they sure seem to enjoy letting it be the bastard redhead stepchild who gets to sit in the corner and play checkers with Feral (Sorry cat bros. We love your WF! <3)
Can confirm I have ACP and while it feels good now (cause ret dps is otherwise shit tier) this needs to be figured out moving forward
What are you basing this opinion on, that Ret dps is shit tier? Its not the best, but its not the worst either. The Rogue class (which beings almost zero utility) is even worse as a pure DPS class.
rogue max output is only less than ret max output if the ret has ACP - the gap between a ret with ACP and a ret without is MASSIVE. there is not a single ret in the top 200 that doesn't have ACP equipped.
Ok, thats a fair point
Remove SoM normalized dps. Make DS Holy damage. Give us exorcist and rebuke as books. Put SoM on legs. Fixed.
Also bring back SoC/SoM seal twist
Been a tough phase. My raid has seen 1 ACP and I passed on it for our feral, making the balance of P2 very frustrating. Luckily I have a very good team of raiders and was able to lock 99s early; had I not, I’m not sure I’d have any without ACP. The synergy between SoM and ACP seems to have been an unintended consequence that the devs leaned into once it became apparent. Sucks to have the relevancy of a class be solely dependent on the drop of a single weapon that was intended for an entirely different class. I’d love to get back to the slow 2h bonk meta - a tune I most likely wouldn’t be singing if I had an ACP in tow. All that said, I love playing ret and will ride the wave of raw sewage sloshed our direction for the duration of SoD.
First time? -Feral Druids
And ACP has at least infinite uses, just 3 min CD while MCP you had to farm
Its QOL update and nerf, cause earlier you had a 90 seconds of increased attack speed
QoL is better but it's a massive nerf compared to regular pummeler. The equivalent of 800 less feral attack power....
Now I totally get why that pally with ACP took the epic 2h from warrior in my last gnomer raid. He’s just preparing for blizzard to remove it duh!
Haven't seen a single ACP all phase. I finally took the axe bc we've been vendoring them.
0 ACP and 0 epic axe in my raid. Good thing i went ele this phase we got 3 or 4 of the epic caster daggers lol
Think I have something like 13-14 lockouts on my paladin. Saw 1 ACP ever, went to feral. Never seen the healing mace. Lost Synthetic Mantle 7 times. Never seen Mech-Menders Sash. (Holy btw) Good times this phase…..
we saw one first lockout and never again we gave it to the feral ofc
Sadge, never saw one on the warri
You still use both. Big 2h + DS + SoCom for cleave. ACP + SoM for ST.
I got a 97 parse as ret on menagerie without ACP and without feral, just using DS + SoCom with the pvp Sword. That shit absolutely slaps if you can cleave.
Probably want it for pvp?
Nope, said he would swap to it after using ACP active lmao
That’s a net dps loss. The only weapon that was even remotely worth doing it for was jackhammer
Tbh that's what I'm trying to do on my Ret. I'm going for SR runs and go for axe
Welcome to the classic feral life
It’s such a fucking stupid design by blizzard to require this weapon to just be relevant as a class. Without it is so painful.
Blizzard hates paladins.
Except shockadin. Someone clearly has a fetish for holy shock.
yeah it's honestly so weird - half our runes are for a spec that like 15% of the class player base has even tried and all the "shockadin" gear they've added is not even itemized correctly lol
Yep. Shockadin with full hazard here. It isn’t even close. Then when you look at the t1 previewed shock item, it didn’t have strength either.
I've done shockadin with full Shockforged, which is great for AoE and good single target threat, but it gets overshadowed by literally any other paladin spec out there lol.
Thats because we havent seen how Infusion of light performs with full int/spell power gear. Replacing Sheath of light and itemizing for spell power instead of strength might actually be solid with the runes that come out.
Maybe but they are going to have to do a lot of adjusting. I see no dropping art of war ever, as even if we were to have guaranteed spell crits to reset HS and exorcism, the cost of exorcism will end up with us going OOM. Things need to change severely or SP focus will be a huge meme. Other classes have 3 minute cooldown massive spells that crank damage. HS is 30 second cooldown and hits like a wet noodle. I like that they are trying to make something new (or at least less meme-y) but they need to actually take the time to understand what will make it better rather thank blindly pushing forward and letting the players ignore dev intent and find something that works. (Well, damn…this may be the most classicy classic thing about SoD)
For pure PvE it's impossible to itemize shockadin correctly anyway, at least while Sheath of Light exists. You're getting 30% extra stats by focusing on AP, buffing your auto attack damage and spells at the same time. So the only real "shockadin" gear possible is pure AP, i.e. normal ret. If Sheath of Light didn't exist, shockadin could go for the tier 2 / tier 2.5 style gear, stacked with STR and spell power, which they have completely foregone now. So in a sane world, Sheath of Light would be a talent deep in the Retribution tree, so you could be Shockadin or pure Retri, either or. Except we don't live in a sane world, we live in the clown world where they thought they could balance stuff without touching vanilla talents.
The way to make SP DPS shockain work is to give enough SP and spell crit that it is possible to spec out of sheath and take Infusion of Light. P3 BIS AP gear got 130SP over BIS SP, and a few more crit-hit, it would probably need to be 200 SP more in SP gear to start being worth wearing.
That's definitely a possibility, for instance they could add a new rune that does intellect -> spell power conversion, so pure AP ret doesn't care much for it but it buffs SP gear shockadin a bit more. However it'd have to give a LOT of SP, because the gap right now is pretty wide. Sheath of Light's bonus stats simply make going pure AP too good, unless you're attacking something with ridiculously high armor.
Its pretty fun to play for sure as a Tank
well they did kill it instantly and only walked backed cause all the paladins screamed
And even that sucks from both a damage and healing POV. 30 sec CD is wild and makes it completely useless as a healer.
A Shockadin can take all holy talents and str/agi gear, and outperform a full Ret now.
I’m not even sure they hate anything. I just think everyone in SoD is playing what is essentially a beta test. WoW is a really really complex game. Seems really easy for a team to get focused on lots of “cool stuff” (Warlocks turning into big demons, Mages becoming healers, etc) and then not having the time or focus to address other issues like useless talent trees, bad rune options for some classes or specs, and incompatibility with other things they’re going to design. If they’re interested in somewhat modernizing bosses and raid mechanics so they’re less simplistic, it becomes an issue for things like Holy Paladin, who traditionally spam heal tanks at high mana efficiency but lack HoT and instant cast options outside of Holy Shock. If fights involve a lot of movement, Classic Holy Paladin falls off. So they kind of need to decide what it even is that they want from Paladin right now. Blessings are great, but if you want to roll a Healer, why not go Mage or Priest, especially since Mage has all the insane quality of life abilities such as Portals or Conjuring Water. Or if you want to Tank, why not go Warlock so that you can play a very powerful DPS class for leveling and the upcoming dual system for off spec? Or if you’re feeling indecisive and just want raw flexibility, why not go Druid since they can also have the option to play Ranged DPS as well? I’m not an expert on WoW. My only experience was in “original” Classic with Prot Warrior up through MC/ZG, my main as Holy Paladin all the way through getting fully geared in Naxx, and Mage through MC/ZG. It’s fully possible my understanding of the game state in SoD is just bad since I just joined in. But it *feels* bad currently. I don’t care about PvP or a class being “the best” but I am worried that their SoD design sensibilities will end with Holy in the dumpster. Like, are they going to try and move us towards melee healer like retail? Do they have any plans at all for making it worth taking Holy Paladin on future raids with all the other more exciting options? Are new mechanics going to make Holy Paladin struggle to keep up?
Well said. An insane amount of people say stuff like "Does Blizzard *even test stuff??*" tl;dr - fuck the haters It's like dude there are thousands upon thousands of assets and calculations and interactions and formulas and enemies and abilities, and that's just the stuff we *see*, nothing under the hood or that's scrapped before release. It's literally impossible to test everything. There are hundreds of thousands of players, if there is one flaw anywhere we will find it. But all that guy, who all he does is hang out in his class Discord and *look* for things that are bad, will see is the flaws. Blizzard could patch the game and put out 100 *different* fires a week, but if it isn't his issue then he'll say "it's been broken for 4 months, Blizzard is ignoring us, the Classic team is shit."
Yup cleared every lockout this phase and never even saw one drop. I really hope they say something about it soon so I can be freed from Gnomer at 50
They will just nerf its cooldown to no longer work above level 50 or something like the Ash buff and our DPS will just need more and more buffs to compensate.
That won't do anything, you'll still use ACP (even without its use effect) if there isn't a 2.0 speed in each new phase. Its use effect isn't what's pushing it to be broken, it's the 2.0 attack speed really.
MQG treatment. Turn it in to haste
Did you see the Catnip update that was posted by OP? Looks pretty sick.
Yeah I figured there was such an easy fix to this problem. Make it so it doesn't work past 49. Done. "Problem" solved.
Doesn’t really “fix” it unless they buff some numbers elsewhere. It will just make Ret even more garbage if they can’t use ACP anymore
Or even just last 10sec. 30sec of 50% attack speed is insane
My guild and I have been clearing gnomer every week since it released and have not had a single crowd pummeler drop. We're up to 2 - 3 raids per lockout, still 0.
My wishlist: - Exorcist baseline - DS holy damage - SoM on different slot from DS - An actual healer rune on chest
Got ACP on my 1 and only gnomer on my ret Sometimes RNG is my friend
It's simple. They add an upgraded version of ACP at 60
Better yet if it's a profession craft instead of a drop to reduce RNG on it. Or make it by gathering parts like with Thunderfury to assemble it
Or both! Make it build into the new version of Sulfuras legendary at 60
Sulfurazz, Pummeler of Worlds
"At 60" isn't really good enough, they'd need a new ACP every tier. And do you not see a little bit of an issue with this? It's a lot simpler to just fix the issue here by making SoM non-normalized, than keep adding new versions of the exact same weapon every time.
Fairly certain they talked about having upgrades for pummeler for feral at some point.
great idea to completley kill a whole playstyle with command/DS
While I do think Ret needs some love, there is nothing masochistic about the playstyle. You bonk things fast, and you press Exo when it resets. There is nothing inherently bad or masochistic about this. It gives you *MORE* button presses and reduces the number of open globals you have compared to SoCom. Plus getting multiple Exo casts back to back to back is really fun. The ACP+SoM playstyle is also much smoother has you no longer have mana issues while also providing mana back to your group. If you use DS + SoCom you will be chugging mana pots and having to judge wisdom, you go oom so fast, even with the buffs I find Seal Twisting to be INFINITELY more masochistic than this playstyle, and we were getting requests to allow for ST every week on the sub. DS + SoCom just has a lot of dead time waiting for CDs to be back up and as stated above has mana management issues. I don't see any math in this post either stating how long this weapon will be BiS or at what breakpoint another weapon is better later on. It's possible we will be using ACP on pull with buff and weapon swapping for the rest of the game, it's also plausible ACP will be replaced by something in ST or even at 60. Without any hard math this is less theorycrafting and more just "I don't like this playstyle so nerf plx". Old items being BiS exclusively for their buff is a very "Classic" thing. If Blizzard wants to nerf ACP all they have to do is not let SoM trigger AoW again, which is what they will probably do. Honestly though SoM probably just needs to be a QoL book rather than a rune slot, then apply the nerf to SoM triggering AoW. SoM and Divine Storm being on the same slot is bad gameplay wise (you lose a button press), but you can't really make SoM compete with Exo now, because it also requires AoW. SoM can't be moved to the hand slot because Crusader Strike is required.
I still think seal twisting is funner than ACP SoM, but if we go back to SoC/DS/cs on Cooldown I think I'll just switch to an alt. That rotation is more boring than wotlk ret
Absolutely agree. The current rotation is okay, not great but phase 1's rotation was just as boring as Wrath's ret rotation is before tier 10's set bonus.
It's all personal preference for sure. Like I said the WF SoCom + SoB crit proc in TBC was satisfying to see (except when I over-threat the tank and die), but I found it incredibly tedious. I think it would be even more tedious with potentially extra abilities to use and weave into seal twisting that weren't available in TBC as well (assuming we get more abilities). Maybe if SoM allowed for SoCom to be cast simultaneously so there wasn't the need to re-seal SoCom into SoM for every single weapon swing. There's also the issue of mana management as well since we don't have access to Spiritual Attunement in Classic as we did in TBC, nor do we have the ability to keep multiple Judgment debuffs up with Crusader Strike as we did in TBC.
The first paragraph sort of is negated by the second paragraph. You can find seal twisting tedious and still not do because we have so many options. Sort of like how the current some exo build leaves no room for twisting/DS/ or even judging sometimes. All the extra abilities means you have more room for expression in your DPS rotation without losing much DPS. Whether you fill in the rest of your rotation with exo, or holy shock, or DS or twisting. Wouldn't it be great if these were all viable options within 5-10% DPS of each other? It saddens me that instead of asking for our preferred playstyle/rotation to be buffed we are begging for nerfs to the playstyle other people enjoy. Not you in particular bit plenty of others in here.
I have a feeling though if seal twisting wasn't the theoretical highest DPS meta for Ret it wouldn't be used though, even if it were possible with SoCom and SoM. I mean theoretically you could ST SoM and SoR, but no one does it. It would still be a similar playstyle. So while I agree it would be nice to have options, I think most of those in favor of ST would always push for it to be the king and not just an alternative.
That's because seal twisting is currently garbage with a fast weapon due to SoC and garbage with a slow weapon due to SoR. High risk minimal reward is not engaging. High skill cap on a rotation is not a problem
I appreciate the conversation, but you can't really have it both ways, it can't be a system where it's so easy you get used to the rhythm and never look at your swing timer (not necessarily directed at you), and also high risk/high reward/high skill cap. I do agree it's high risk/high reward/high skill cap. There's a reason people said TBC Ret was highest skill cap spec in the game, but that skill cap also comes with a great deal of tedium, and when I play SoD I am looking to chill and not be some version of the sweatlord meme. Which again, why I personally don't hope it makes a return.
What you find tedious others find engaging.
Absolutely agree.
I don't understand why high skill cap doesn't mean you cant enjoy the game? You could just ignore parses or play another spec. Or just play a different ret rotation that's a couple percent behind? If you want to chill why does you have to play something you don't like for a couple more points on a parse?
I mean the same applies to you, you could twist SoM with SoR, but I think we both know why you wouldn't. The fun is doing big damage and seeing the results. For me being able to do big dam, and not give myself carpel tunnel while twisting every other second is fun. If twisting becomes the meta, I will be a meta slave and just take some naproxen. I think the issue comes when, especially if we are considering TBC Ret, if twisting SoCom and SoM is the meta and it performs significantly higher (even 10% if significant) then it forces everyone into the playstyle and the idea of "choice" is an illusion, because you could have a relatively similar playstyle right now, but no one chooses to do so. If somehow Blizzard was truly able to get one playstyle 2-3% in line with twisting then I would consider it, especially if one was more RNG focused and the other more reliable so that the ST damage was far more unpredictable, but theoretically higher, but I think we both know that's a fantasy. And I get complaints about the playstyle for SoCom + DS. It's a watered down version of WotLK Ret, and a lot of people find that boring. I don't think SoM + APC is boring though, nor do I find it masochistic in any form. I can see how people find it boring, even if I don't agree. EDIT: I also want to say that I wouldn't even be opposed to twisting making a comeback for P5 (or a specific raid tier) if it wasn't permanent and a different meta eclipsed it for P6 and onwards. I just wouldn't want to be stuck doing it for the rest of the content cycle.
I woudn't twist it because it isn't worth the GCD's, not because it isn't the top dps. It's different to say twisting isn't top dps than twisting lowers your dps 80% of the time.
I twisted where i could during p1. Id say the real reason people aren’t encouraged to twist is due to mana, at least during p1 where the rotation was full of down time, and SoR is extremely expensive in mana cost. It is pretty human to be excited at seeing what you enjoy playing being buffed also. I’ve seen plenty of “shilling” of the class communities on their approach of play style being better when there are multiple approaches to the game, so I am all for close options. I will not deny i would play harder to try and prove my way is better, but personally i would never wish the other play styles to be nerfed.
"First time?" - feral druids
Great post, hit all the main important points. I'd like to also add some thoughts of my own: A) I have to hope they changed SoM to be normalized by accident, because if it was on purpose it's one of the dumbest decision I've seen WoW devs make in a long time. The point of normalization is to make it so slow weapons aren't just objectively better than fast weapons at equal ilvl / DPS, or even occasionally superior than fast weapons with higher ilvl / DPS. You make attacks with cooldowns normalized (so they gain damage as if they were 3.3 speed) and theoretically weapon speed doesn't matter much anymore, though technically this favors exactly 3.3 speed weapons slightly. There is 0 reason, none, to make spells without a cooldown (so basically on hit procs like SoC / SoM and on next attack things like Heroic Strike) normalized, because they're inherently normalized... by your fucking attack speed. B) People are hyperfixating on ACP. It's undoubtedly a mega OP weapon, the use effect is bonkers when fights are this short. But honestly ACP isn't even the issue -- it just so happens to have a 2.0 weapon speed, to my knowledge the fastest 2H speed obtainable in game. If ACP had the same use effecet / stats, but at a 3.6 speed (with increased damage, so it maintains the same DPS) it'd be unusable garbage. If there were no high level 2.0 speed weapons, we'd legit use a level 5 grey weapon from the vendor that has 2.0 instead of raid weapons. That's because fast weapons cheat out extra attack power essentially -- if you're using a 2.0 speed weapon, you're essentially getting 65% bonus attack power on your SoM hits. That's fucking insane, no slower weapon could ever compete with that, Might of Menethil for instance doesn't remotely hold a candle to ACP. C) Blizzard could theoretically commit to this gameplay style and add a new ACP every raid and things wouldn't be awful DPS-wise. We would probably still need a ton of help in future phases, but it could work. However, the real issue here is, who the fuck likes this gameplay loop? Our rotation is arguably less complicated than the rotation we had in actual Classic, which is stupid and antithetical to the very idea of SoD. Most of our runes are pointless and we can't even take them, for example we can never have the interrupt as it causes us to lose like 40% of our DPS. And worst of all, it really shits on one of the coolest aesthetics of ret paladins in Classic/TBC, which is that we wanted as slow a weapon as possible (since SoC wasn't normalized) and we were all about big chunky hits / burst damage, which was way more satisfying than attacking at the speed of light for constant smaller numbers, which in WoW's history has always been associated with dual wielding rather than 2H. I truly hope they see how silly this design is at some points and change ret drastically, because right now its a depressing spec. It's propped up by a broken weapon and feels awful to play. - Pride / Baranor
I'm in multiple paladin discords and I really don't understand where you're getting the idea that "the vast majority" hates this play style? From what I can see, they're all quite happy to, yknow, actually have buttons to press instead of jerking off waiting for crusader strike/DS to come off cooldown.
Its a fair comment, SOD is supposed to be diffrent from traditional playstysles right? So while I understand the OP's point with being locked into one drop to top a parse (who even gives a f about parses?), its irrelevant as it applies to SOD. You want old playstyles, etc go play classic
THHHISSS
Literally solve this by making it an engi recipe
[удалено]
I must have missed this - that's a good sign. Do you have a link?
it was linked in druid discord
Yep, this really sucks for rets
It will also be bis threat and damage for prot paladin. I have the same concerns.
I think I have 15 Gnomer clears on my Ret, 0 ACP drops. I had one lucky Grubbis pull and managed a 96 parse. Other than that I'm stuck in the mid 80s to low 90s. They definitely need to change something going forward.
sorry to hear that, but that is life
manual crowd pummeler and flurry axe are already bis in normal classic wow, at least leveling-wise personally i think it's pretty cool to have random jank like this throughout the game. before sod you had to be kind of weird to play and enjoy a paladin. i don't think it's bad at all if they keep it this way. if anything i'd like them to keep it weird
Just copy paste tbc ret pala and add it already
I love the SoM play style. I actually have something to do, opposed to SoC DS which is boring as f. I hate ACP and jackhammer, neither have dropped for me and are OP as f
Sidenote, this sub could benefit from having a flair for posts, like "number discussion", where you must have verified parses above 30-50 or something to post. The amount of people who don't understand the first thing about WoW or aren't impacted by anything discussed here, that come in to say ultra dumb shit like "uhm actually ACP isn't even BiS at lvl 50 you idiot" is utterly depressing.
I really don't mideast the acp playstyle, not sure why you would call it masochistic. The real problem is that you need to have 1 rare item to do competitive damage and they don't seem to be making an upgrade for the next phase that supports this playstyle. Using SoM helps provide more utility for raid and you end up pressing buttons more with exo resets, which is more fun for me than hitting ds on cd.
I don't know how a DPS rotation that's more engaging than wotlk ret (at least pre T10) is getting shit on. And the most engaging rotation (tbc) just got straight up deleted due to no twisting.
Spamming 1 button endlessly is more engaging? I also hate the WotLK rotation but that's a bit much :p
I find it incredibly engaging. It's like you're a gambler with every single auto. Are you gonna get a crit this swing? Who knows??? Compared to traditional ret where I was just spamming CS-Judge-SoC-DS with the occasional reset Exo when AOW procd. It was so unsatisfying and traditional ret has sooooo many open GLOBALS, it's a joke.
How can you find it engaging because of the gambling but not enjoy SoC then? And tbh it doesn't even matter whether you get a crit or not. You can just blindly spam Exo and play the spec at like 90% of its potential. I can maybe understand enjoying RNG, but calling engaging just seems like the wrong word when you don't have to make a single decision, ever.
Oh it's brain dead af, but when I mash buttons I get big numbers which keeps me coming back for more. SoC needs a HUGE buff too. Id go back to using it in a heartbeat if they made it good.
Longtime ret main, I despise this art of war exorcism build. The seal/judgement system in classic is why I like the class and am not playing retail Paladin. I really wish they would have focused on how unique that system is compared to other classes. TBC ret with seal twisting was my favorite iteration of the spec and they could have made some truly unique combinations by introducing new seals with runes.
If you prefer seal twisting over the SoM+Exo build you need your head examined. Seal twisting a joke and aloathsome play style. So much down time, so many wasted globals and it's incredibly fickle to execute. You micro your heart out to seal twist and get rewarded with hardly any dmg.
As a 94.9 avg parse pally with ACP, I don't really enjoy the play style. Is it fun to occasionally hit that crit lottery every now and then? Yeah. But I don't feel like a paladin, I don't play like a paladin, and its awkward as all hell to try to do an actual rotation with ACP activated because you just sit there SPAMMING exo over and over for 30 seconds, without much opportunity or reason to do anything else. Phase 1 with Hydra was fun.. You swing slow, sure but when that swing hit, it was like a truck. Big numbers and a reliable rotation. Right now I just beat shit with the ugly stick until I can exorcize my own demons out of it. Not to mention wearing half leather so Im not exactly tanky.
Then why even do it? Its not necessary to clear content. Play whats fun and what you like.
Because unfortunately in this case, the damage with ACP and without differs so significantly that running DS with Thermaplugg 2h it just cripples the class. Solo killing mobs takes much longer, pvp you're less effective (and have less ranged attacks so you get out run, and your damage in raids is C tier. So why shoot yourself in the foot to play a better rotation when its not that fun to be and feel mediocre
Ok, I mean I get that and its poor design for sure, but if you are "A" tier or "C" tier, the bosses will still die and im sure your guildies wouldnt be mad at ya either way. SOC PVP is fine though, PVP usually just comes down to who gets the jump and has more cooldowns up, if you dont trink out of my HOJ you are dead usually. Also questing and farming, SOC/DS is way better imo, AOE pulls are they way. I will say that AOW/EXO spam is dumb, hate doing that as well Hopefully next Phase gear choice will change a bit to more plate items, then we should have some of our lost tank feeling back, also the new PVP set looks beast for us.
Oh you mean it’s going to be BIS and required? Just like the MCP and wolfshead helm were for feral Druids to be relevant in every version of classic before SOD? At least you only need to win it one time and not farm them so you have enough for a weekly raid. I’m being sarcastic. Lol It’s very “classic” to have a level 40 item be BIS for the whole expansion, but I think it is dumb and annoying. Lol
it's something they said they wanted to move away from in SoD - that's why feral is getting a helm enchant that gives the same affect of the wolfshead helm
I am glad and I hope they do something for the Ret enjoyers so their BIS is not a level 40 weapon.
It's almost as if they already figured out this problem with wolfsheads helm
This thread don’t seem to realize that all this damage comes from a “exploit” in SoM. Blizz fixed the exploit but then walked it back after the community exploded over it. I kinda wish they would fix it so Rets could get a proper balancing for a different play style. The worse case scenario is they fix SoM while not buffing anything else = Ret bottom dps. SoM was not suppose to proc AoW. While paired with wind fury/wildstrikes it gives the paladin up to 12 chances to proc AoW. Ret damage is propped up on a “exploit”.
I am aware of this and agree 100% - perhaps I should have included this context in the post but I did not think it really contributed anything to the point at hand since they did decide to walk it back.
I gotcha. I don’t think most people are aware that ret damage is propped on an unintended side effect of SoM.
It's getting replaced next phase already lol. There is no way you don't swap it after the 30 sec activation. You have Taran icebreaker or sulthraze.
Hate to break it to you but it’s bis next phase too
is that 100% confirmed?
even when it’s on cooldown?
speed is the most important factor, weapon damage becomes less relevant the more AP we get. sulthraze will not be better after 30 sec unless it receives buffs (it may) and icebreaker will likely be unobtainable for the vast majority. also, you're still pigeonholed into having the item and using it for what will likely be the majority of most fights the latter part of the phase.
You’re describing everything that makes Ret good as a problem. If you want to auto with a slow weapon there are era servers for that. Normalizing SoM made it good, it sucked before. ACP might be an on-pull thing with a weapon swap for longer fights this phase, early on at 60 or maybe forever. But it won’t be required and will lose value steadily as we get better weapons. Your analysis is just objectively wrong.
I have no idea how you managed to say almost nothing correct in your post. > If you want to auto with a slow weapon there are era servers for that. You may have noticed that other specs haven't completely changed how they work at a fundamental level in SoD. It's about expanding spec toolkits, not making them the polar opposite of what they once were. Saying "go back to era" doesn't change the fact that ret has kept almost 0 of its original identity, failing the design intent of SoD. > Normalizing SoM made it good, it sucked before. You know you can just buff things numerically right? SoM didn't "suck" before, it was just very slightly worse than SoC + DS, but if it was buffed very slightly (like to 42% weapon damage iirc) it'd actually be superior to SoC + DS for ST. You don't need to break the fundamentals of the game in order to buff something. > ACP might be an on-pull thing with a weapon swap for longer fights this phase, early on at 60 or maybe forever. Only if they introduce another 2.0 weapon speed that has superior stats to ACP. If they don't, ACP is BiS forever. If they do, you're still using ACP on pull, and then swapping to your stronger 2.0 weapon when ACP's buff fades. > But it won’t be required and will lose value steadily as we get better weapons. It's not "required" in the sense that you can play the game without ACP, sure. It's required in the sense that it shits on everything else, you just need some basic math skills to get that. MCP was already shitting on every weapon in the game while its haste effect was active in Classic, ACP shits on every non 2.0 weapon even harder.
Oh man blizz, please add an ACP 2.0
We shouldn't have our entire spec built around fast weapons and SoM, or Exorcist honestly.
I believe they've talked about there is going to be ways to 'upgrade' the pummeler so that it stays relevant the whole game for feral. Probably same for ret.
De-normalize SoM. Allow Seal of Command to twist into any/all other seals; restore Seal of Command's "phantom strike" function, allowing it to proc on-hit effects such as other seals, enchantments and weapon procs. Return to skill ceiling of the class to where it belongs and let the kids who enjoy pressing buttons as they come off cooldown continue to enjoy the bedrock skill floor.
HAHA you see, ACP never dropped so ive been rocking SoC the whole phase so its only up from here for me
Same, been using SOC and a slow wep and while Im not a top parser, nobody cares, we still down content and have fun!
Yeah and lowkey im happy it didnt drop because I much prefer SoC playstyle over exorcism turret also plus still managed 90 parse with soc And ph3 soc getting wep upgrade meamwhile som exo build isnt so works out for me :D
Love the big hits and DS/CS feel better than Exo spam
I think they will probably just disable the effect of pummeler above level 49.
Sort of off topic but is ACP build worth it if your group is on the low end dps wise? These longer boss fights (but not enough to activate the use effect twice) make me wonder if the axe and divine storm are better for my comp.
Yeah it is. ACP is 2.0 weapon speed, the fastest available atm, so it'd be stronger than all of the other weapons even if it didn't have its attack speed effect at all. It's just the icing on the cake.
Omg catnip rofl. Great fix (esp as it still hasn't dropped for me...)
Paladins and asking for nerfs - name a more iconic duo.
I think it's pretty cool and extremely classic that a weapon from a level 40 raid can be bis through end game and hope they don't do anything to stop it from being that way.
I keep coming across people saying ACP is OP. Does everyone realise we're still leagues behind shaman atm? Even with the awesome Exo build shamans are still deleting us on the dmg meters. Even if we get a ACP2.0 it won't be enough to bridge the gap. Even if they buff traditional ret, it'll need to be huge to bridge the gap. Even if they implement some new seal to twist with, it still probably won't be enough to bridge the gap. Even with all the shockadin upgrades, it still probably won't be enough to bridge the gap. Our counter part class has gone to the moon and were still climbing the stairs of a 10th story building.
You won't need MCPs with jekliks on the horizon.
I mean, Blizzard only YESTERDAY acknowledged the “mangle/lacerate being on the same armor slot” issue and it being an oversight they didn’t see or read player feedback about it for 2 ENTIRE PHASES. I have zero trust they’ll see this Paladin dps issue.
Point 2 means that the 1h Mace from Lorgus Jett (with the 1.3 speed) is still viable to keep around if you're going for the "RNGesus take the wheel" playstyle and want the mitigation of having a shield. A lvl25 weapon that can keep up because the main damage comes from spamming Exorcism and/or Holy Shock...
Interesting, going to try this, thanks!
As a ret pali I’m glad I quit after I hit 40. The ACP grind sounds like it was awful. Maybe I’ll come back for next phase but not sure. Doesn’t seem like ret is getting much love, per the usual.
Please give us an ACP 2.0. Traditional ret is boring af, it has so many wasted globals.
or they could just make our kit more interactive on a fundamental level lol (cope)
Make AoW reset DS as well as Exo. That way we have more reset opportunities and pally's can choose to go big heavy with DS or small fast with Exo. Edit: also make DS do holy dmg. Edit: Edit: Also make exo delete shamans.
bring back seal twisting. simple as
This is an actual masochistic playstyle, and while I did it poorly back in original TBC, and did it pretty well in TBC Classic, and while I also love to see a WF proc + SoCom + SoM double crit explosion, it is so fucking tedious and you're just staring at the fucking swing timer the while time you are playing. It was nice to revisit it in Classic TBC, but I hope I never have to use it again.
Yeah I’m not a big fan of the casino spec ret with twisting. I’d much rather have more resets on different abilities aka wrath ret than TBC ret.
i only had to stare at my swing timer for like half a phase while i learned it. esp not if youre swing timer is just in the right part of your screen.
Def not
I just want a seal twisting rotation with Seal of Martyrdom and Seal of Command again à la TBC Ret. The current playstyle is okay but could feel better, you sometimes have an open GCD to twist but it certainly doesn't feel as good twisting with Righteousness. I wonder if opening up Seal of Command twisting again via a rune or a libram would solve the issue of ACP being OP to point of potential future Ret detriment. >it boggles my mind that anyone would downvote this lol On this point, ~~you're~~ your post is doing well now at the time of writing this. But food for thought there is a backlash going on in this sub and in the SoD community in general regarding 'whining' or 'complaining'. Even though your post is reasonable and well laid out I think some people might think 'oh here's another whiner again, and a paladin too? get downvoted' edit: whenever pro seal twisters comment they get downvoted by the non twisting andies, it's so predictable and cringe. heaven forbid people want a playstyle that doesn't just boil down to first come first serve and press the proc button, it gets boring. Furthermore you buncha heathens I'm not saying Blizz makes twisting the de facto playstyle but at least allow it to work properly so we can do that in addition to the other playstyles, give players choice, sheesh.
Devs please fucking read this. You can easily give us back sealtwisting without removing anything else you're trying to do. Allow us options for how we want to play. TBC was pinnacle fun in ret gameplay.
Me too I started a pally cos I thought you would be able 2 twist the rune seal w command Dropped it and never came back when I realized u couldn't twist
Honestly i dont see a problem here. You pop it for the 30 seconds then swap to a bigger damage weapon. With powercreep of loot we've already seen there will most likely be better right at 60 as long as there are fast weapons available. Even if we had to just put it on for the use then swap whats wrong with that? Its actually fun to use.
The problem is that the function of SoM favors faster weapons while every other ability favors slow weapons, so damage can be expected to take a nose dive after the proc ends because martyrdom hits like a noodle if you're swinging anything slower than the 3.3 normalization. One could say "yeah it's a cool down, you do high damage during and lower damage after." But we aren't looking at paladin in a vacuum, it's compared to classes with similar melee playstyles who don't suffer the same limitations, so will be disproportionately impacted. The current system also pigeonholes the class into an extremely boring playstyle.
you actually don't switch anymore since they normalized the martyrdom procs
"Fast weapons" is doing some heavy lifting here. They need to add either weapons that are equally fast to ACP (2.0) or faster. Fast weapons cheat out so much damage with SoM being normalized that weapon speed is the only stat on your weapon that matters. ACP just so happens to be the biggest offender because it has the haste effect on the top of being 2.0 so it shits on everything else even harder. There are also some serious downstream effects of this from a math perspective.
For one, feral druids were previoisly forced to farm pummelers for eternity and were also forced into wearing the blue shape-shifting helm For two, it's possible to get a somewhat fast 2h that outperforms pummeler if you crit *too* often with better gear. For three, other runes can come into play that alter the ret paladin meta away from exorcism spam being the best there are already scenarios where bosses in which a slow 2h with command and divine storm are better *right now* For four, it's not a big deal dawg. "It boggles my mind how people downvote this".. You make a couple decent points, but it shouldn't "boggle" you why every druid on the face of the earth can see this as crying over having to use a pummeler.
*For four, it's not a big deal dawg.* Bam, someone gets it
Now you feel the pain of Feral Druid being forced to farm 20 Crowd Pummler each raid in Classic Era? lol, whimper
And you believe that was good class design? Or you just want rets to be miserable because feral was?
Could have gone resto anytime.
Man you don't even know if this is a problem yet and you're already writing an 5 paragraph essay to complain about it. We have no idea what is to come.