The latest build in Beta fixed one of the big problems we had, that HotR was doing more single target damage Crusader Strike, but buffing through talents the damage of CS. It’s a pretty textbook change, but they just modified a talent to buff CS. Keeps it out of the hands of those greedy Rets, so that’s a plus.
Here are the changes to our spec this build:
- Wrath of the Lightbringer slightly revamped – now increases the damage of your Crusader Strike and Judgement by 30/60% and increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Wrath and Hammer of Wrath by 15/30%.
- Guardian’s Favor is now a Tier 2 Retribution talent.
- Improved Hammer of Justice is now a Tier 2 talent, up from Tier 1.
- Eternal Glory is now a Tier 1 Protection talent.
- Reckoning is also now only 2 points (instead of 3) and maxes out at a 20% proc chance, instead of 30%.
The Eternal Glory <> Guardian’s Favor swap and knocking Imp HoJ up the tree a level changes how we spec a bit. Before Improved Hand of Justice was a no-brainer, because Protector of the Innocent sucks, but now Eternal Glory fills that roll. And, with Imp HoJ on the same tier as Toughness and Judgements of the Just, we basically skip it on our trip to the top. It might have a use in certain situations, but there is more ROI from later talents than spending points on knocking 20 seconds off of a stun/on-GCD interrupt.
Reckoning also got stealth nerfed for what it’s worth. I’m still holding a skeptical eye towards this talent until we see a Theck crunch on talent TPS, so I’ll hold off any concern for now.
I’m pretty happy with the Wrath of the Lightbringer buff, because it was a much-needed damage boost to CS. It also makes Holy Wrath and Hammer of Wrath possibly heavier hitters as well, which is a bonus.
Ultimately, I specced like this in Beta while screwing around yesterday. I pulled both of the Word of Glory talents because I wanted to give the spell a shot, at least while leveling. Color me underwhelmed.
Heals for 9076 with 3HP, which is… ok. It’d do 9621 with Divinity, but that hardly helps. At the moment I’m just not seeing the pay off for Word of Glory and 3 Holy Power. HoPo is too precious and rare a resource to blow on a non-scaling heal. I can see situations where it could be useful, but those are limited. I’m crossing my fingers that the nigh-mythical numbers pass might make Word of Glory more attractive, but who knows? At the very, very least we need some kind of additional Holy Power source. Be it a proc, or another ability… something.
Yesterday was also the first time I got on Beta since they fixed Sacred Duty. Hoo-boy, now that is a fun proc. It can be ill-timed, refusing to proc when you have a 3HP ShoR loaded in the chamber. On the bright side, a 15 second buff lasts a long time and more often than not you’ll have that delightful little red judgement icon waiting for you when you’re ready to shield slam something.
There is nothing more satisfying than a 15k ShoR. And this is at level 83 while soloing. I can only imagine in level 85, with raid gear, and fully buffed.
One last heartache: the Seal of Truth glyph is gone. Farewell, free Expertise. (Correction: It was switched from a Major glyph to a Prime. Sorry for any confusion, I regret the error!)
I’m curious, with overhealing no longer a concern in Cataclysm, wouldn’t Divinity be another survival talent? I would’ve figured you’d be singing it’s praises by now.
Haha, I have elsewhere. I am very positive on Divinity in Cataclysm. I’ve said in the past my plan is to dual spec prot: one for threat, and one for survival with Divinity.
Oh, what’d they do to the Seal of Truth glyph? I missed that, though it does help explain my frequent new SotR parries.
They took it out completely, sadly.
well, I would not say its such a bad thing, it IS a hell of a TPS buff for us right now, but I see this as an opportunity for the devs to come up with more clever stuff for a class like ours which is pretty lackluster on the glyphs department.
On checking, I find it’s been moved to ‘Prime’ status, so it’s still there! Not sure which other Major to use now.
Oho! Even better in that case. Nice catch!
I find myself underwhelmed by Sacred Duty… Sure, the extra damage might be nice, but isn’t there somewhere better to put those points?
In my builds, I’ve been skipping SD and picking up DG for the utility. This has the added benefit of giving me an extra point to spend in Ret/Holy.
Yeah – Word of Glory is rather underwhelming – especially as it is in direct competition with ShoR and Inquisition.
Looking at the one that you’ve thrown up – it basically makes it a bit under 10% Last Stand at max level (I had 104k on my premade warrior) – and it doesn’t scale… would hit 10% if you also use the word of glory glyph (major)
.-= Gameldar’s last blog ..Consequences of Drinking =-.
Totally. I’ve been recommending on the forums that the easiest and most interesting fix for Word of Glory is for it to activate Holy Shield. Right now our Holy Power choices consist of ShoR (threat) and Inquisition (threat). Hmmm.. So it’s really AE threat vs. Single-Target threat.
Why not make WoG bigger (maybe Heal+Shield instead of Shield only on OH), make it scale and make it activate Holy Shield.
Yay! Super pumped today.
Guarded by the Light additional effect – In addition, your Word of Glory will also cause Holy Shield.
This, imho, is a strong move in the right direction for WoG. And /pass out something I’ve been advocating for happened.
Yeah great build dropped today. Good step in the right direction. Writing a post about it right now!
I could still see the use of Word of Glory as a preemptive bubble before going into a fight. Sure you lose some threat but a 10k bubble still would out way a 15% chance to block and you could get your block up before the 6secs expired. Your dps would need to hold back for a split second but i wouldn’t think it would be that hard to coordinate.
I do agree that during the fight it would be quit lackluster since the only appealing benefit is the over heal bubble which would be next to impossible to time just right with your healers.