Phantom, you are completely correct in saying that Judgement of Light can be a huge healing benefit to melee. Couple that with shadowpriests in the caster groups and the bulk of a raid would have steady incidental healing. However, that still doesn't change the issue of opporunity cost with a ret pali whacking a mob versus another pali healing. A holy pali can swing enough to keep judgement of light up while still primarily healing. In theory, Crusader Strike does help because it allows other palis to stay out of melee range and not worry about refreshing their judgements, but it just doesn't provide the same incentive as the analogous VE, VT, and unleashed rage.

Again, there is nothing in this post that cannot be done by any paladin.
The correct answer is the paladin that does both. It is not a requirement to spec Ret to be able to keep your own judgment up, and any encounter where a Ret paladin can stand in and DPS safely is an encounter where any paladin can stand in and whack away at a mob to keep a judgment up safely.

Improving my gameplay at this point is a constant battle with the global cooldown and better efficiency for moving when I have to move. Keeping a judgement up cuts deep in both of these things especially when you think of all the antimelee nature of a lot of the encounters and the fact that casting a channeling spell resets your autoattack timer. So I either use up a global cd every once in a while to seal up and judge or I stand there and wait for what seems like an eternity to swing to refresh judgement. And I might miss too, I miss a lot.

I agree with what has been said here, right now its about gear utility. If there was amazing ret gear out there they could most likely push the 700dps range which would definately start to justify a spot, however that gear does not exist.

None of their unique utility (+23 points in the tree), thus inacessable for holy or prot, is that huge a gain to justify the off spec.

I really wish that the numbers told me something diffrent, but I currently cant see a good reason to bring a ret paladin if you have another choice for the slot that is more optimal (another dps class if dpsing, another healing class if needed to heal, a feral druid or S. Priest if you need to do both (I kid I kid)).

Im not sure what should change, and I would like to see a ret paladin be truely useful as a raid slot. If raids were still 40 man I could see bringing one, but with a smaller raid cap I think there is all the more reason to bring the more min max classes or if you need another paladin have them be 38/0/23 if you really want improved scanity, and imp BoM.

What if Crusader Strike did more than just refresh judgements; what if it also improved them? If Crusader Strike increased the effect of Judgement of Light, Judgement of Wisdom, and Judgement of the Crusader (just the holy damage portion) by 25%, would that make a ret paladin more enticing?

As mentioned elsewhere, the trouble with Ret paladins in raids is their opportunity cost relative to other paladins. In theory, Crusader Strike helps overcome this by refreshing other judgements, and it is certainly a useful benefit. However, the benefits of other hybrids in DPS roles (shadowpriests, ferals, and enhancement shamen) exceed the benefits of a paladin in a DPS role, so it generally makes more sense for the paladin to fill a healing slot. Sanctified Crusader would be great in a 40-man, but its more difficult to justify in a 25-man. However, if the synergy effect of Crusader Strike were boosted with more unique benefits, it might help justify the slot.

Another option would be for crusader strike to add a debuff like the following in addition to refreshing judgements:

Inquisition: Physical attacks against this target have a 5% chance of causing additional holy damage equal to 50% of the attack. This effect lasts 15 seconds.

Unless they find out some way to make Retribution Paladins a unique snowflake, I don't really see them having very much raid viability at all. Blizzard's already in a twist trying to nerf the burst dps potential of paladins. By reducing the burst potential, there's obviously going to be some reduction is sustained DPS, and paladin's sustained DPS is pretty crap to start with. So we get down to a matter of utility. What does a ret paladin bring to the table that a prot or holy paladin can not?

1: Sanctity Aura
2: Crusader Strike

Sanctity aura can be gotten with an almost complete holy or prot build. Crusader strike's viability is limited in that it requires the paladin to stay in melee range, and doesn't provide any extra utility, only additionally convenience and a bit of GCD time from other paladins.

I haven't been grouped with any well-geared ret paladins, so I don't know how their DPS actually is. I have grouped with one moderately geared one and I outdps'd him in defense gear tanking, the mage easily doubled him up and then some.

Considering that Blizzard intends for paladins to be Tank/Healers and are working to lower our DPS as it is, I don't see much viability for the "DPS" tree in raids in the near future. In fact I think the ret tree really doesn't fit the class very well at all.

JoL is pretty worthless on most fights and paladins due to lacking HOTs might not realize this but Paladins are infamous for topping off players that have a HOT on them due to the great efficiency of FoL.

The only encounters where JoL makes a huge differences are encounters like Sapphiron or Loatheb. If you want to talk about a worthwhile Judgement its all about JoW which is always useful.

Fair enough.

I was maintaining about 230 DPS. He was shy of that.

Edit: I haven't been retribution since 2.0 Pre TBC but I know that retribution can pump out more damage than that. What I don't know is by how much. I would assume that using 93+ DPS weapons and TBC gear even an unpracticed ret paladin should have seen some increase. With nerfs to vengeance and CS since I've played ret, and decreasing of crit by new rating system I don't know how much Ret actually brings to the table in terms of DPS. I'm sure an awesome ret paladin with the right gear would surprise me. But I can't see them getting in the same range as even DPS warriors or rogues.

Ah, well that ain't good then.

Based on what I recall from pre-BC days, 400dps really shouldn't be hard to achieve.

I did some math in an eariler thread and yeah thats pretty terrible ret DPS, 400 should be pretty easy to keep up, 500+ if your fully kitted out and using AW when able etc. I can dig up the math if your intrested.

/edit here's the math, originallly posted here: Paladin TBC Talents/Spec Discussion

This is with nerfed 10 sec CS, and 10% vengence.

Lets try some math, because honestly Im not sure myself.

CT Profile: http://ctprofiles.net/13568 (Note just something I threw together for math there are most likely other builds that are better.)

So rough numbers from that profile: 23% crit, 1000 attack power, weapon dmg range is 289-495, 156 spell damage, 4217 mana, 11 mana per 5.

So white damage:
That paladin deals (1000/14) = 71 * 3.8 (wep speed) = 269.8 + 362 (av wep damage) = 631*1.03(crusade) = 649.

Now Vegence on top of that, This is the major assumption on my math If we assume that between a 23% natural crit rate, + 3% crit from Scantified crusader + 15% crit on judgements the paladin has a large chance to have vengence up all the time. Luck will play a factor but for ease, Im going to say he does have it up all the time.

649 x 1.10 = 714 white damage per swing, so 714/3.8 = 187 white dps.

Now crits, so the paladin crits for double damage 23% of the time, so out of the 15 swings per minute he will take, on average, 3 will crit.

So, 714 x3 = 2142/60 = 35 crit dps.

So total white dps is 222 before mitigation, lets say the mob mitigates 20% of each attack (fully sundered this sounds about right), so 20% less dps, gives the paladin 177 white dps.

Now Seal of the Crusader, which does 70% holy damage 7 times per mintue.

so 714 *.7 = 500 (approx 499.8).
500 x 7 = 3498 damage over a minute, so per second is) /60 = 58

But it like the above, it crits about 25% of the time so 1 crit per minute. 500/60 = 8 more dps from crits.

Now Judgements 240 holy damage, judged 6 times a minute. = 1680 /60 = 28

Again critting but now with a 38% crit rate so of the 6 judgments 2 will crit. Also 8 more dps from crits.

36 *1.03(crusade) *1.10 (vengence) gives us 40 dps from judging.

Now both of these holy damage sorces are modified by scanity aura so.

58 + 8 + 40 = 106 damage from seal and judge *1.10(scanity) = 116 holy dps.

So total now we are up to 116 + 177 = 293 dps.

So far the paladin is basically doing nothing just sealing and judging, now add in CS

714+62(40% holy) *6 = 4656/60 = 77 dps.

Crits give us: 25 more dps. so CS adds = 102 dps.

So Just CS, Seal and Judge gives the paladin 396 dps.

(Note Im going to basically stop here since I hit 400dps, the paladins DPS would actuall be much higher with spell damage up and Seal of the Cursader Judged, also if they wanted to go all out they could add conceration spam in for another 50 or so dps.)

Sustainablity should not be a problem, they are only using 2705 mana per mintue, and they gain 11 mana per 5 from gear, and 33 mana per 5 from BoW, and lastly gain 686 over the minute from judging so...

They lose 2705 mana and gain 1214 mana, = 1491 mana lost every minute, so with no pots, and no outside healing, they can keep going for approx 3 minutes. If the are burning a pot every cooldown, or getting healed they should never run out of mana.

So long answer short, ret pallys with end game gear can easilly hit 450 dps without pots, or ou

Even just ignoring all of those factors I don't think that's an acceptable level of dps. =p