Oh of course you would always attack from behind; what I wanted to know was if the spreadsheet took this into account.

If the Spreadsheet assumed you attack from the front - then any "Expertise" would negate both dodges AND parry's. In reality you always stand behind your target; so "Expertise" only negates dodges. If this were the case then the spreadsheet would be effectively doubling the DPS value of Expertise rating - if you see what I mean. :P

If you are sure the spreadsheet assumes you are standing behind you target (and can't be parried) then this isn't an issue and the spreadsheet is accurate.

Our raids almost always have a ret pally in them. I was a little surprised to hear him say he was one of the only ret pallys raiding on the server, not just for an Illidan killing guild but for all the major raiing guilds.

I usually keep him in the Windfury+Fury Warrior group but sometimes I mix him into the crit/agi+str totem group (feral druid + hunter + resto shaman) to take turns giving other people windfury. Heres the dps of our last teron kill showing his performance: (1361 dps)

WWS = WWS Loading... Other bosses available on request if anyone is interested.

Not trying to make any sweeping conclusions on spec viability - ill leave that to others to do - but we're very happy with how ret pallys perform in raids (both by themself and factoring in all the utility/synergy benefits) and with any upcoming Class Mechanic changes - it can only get better.

I normally do hyjal and farm bosses as ret, progression as holy. However lately we are simply lacking quality holy paladins (and backup healers in general) who are attuned. The quality of dps applications has been great but we only see healers applying with 1500-1700 +heal and not attuned zzzz.

As for other guilds on Blackrock, I think Eminence will never have a serious raiding ret paladin. Eriond and some of their old school warrior officers are strongly against dps paladins. Before I joined I HitSquad pre TBC I considered Eminence and was told no because they didn't want another Blackreigns 2.0 lol. Well I did have ashkandi and full T2.5 but I also had some pretty awesome healing gear part way through naxx (rejuv gem, shard of the scale, widow's mace etc etc ).

At the end of the day not enough healers = raid over, a ret pally is expendable easy to interchange for any other dps at a push.

Respec'ing at least once a week breaks up the monotony of raiding anyway heh and of not having enough time due to work to have decent alts.

When we first let people know we were recruiting a Ret Pally we were met with skeptisicm (and a little criticism) from others, both in-guild and out of guild. Common comments included "Ret pallys are broken/shit" or "We dont need one" or "They dont justify their spot compared to other classes" or "What benefits do they even bring to the raid?".

When we looked around and researched a little - threads like this were very helpful - and WWS invaluable (I remember following Blood Legions' ret pally Grant quite alot on WWS for a while).

Well thats the thing - guilds really can only have ret pallys if their Raid Leader/GM are a little openminded and prepared to try it out. People who share direct raid/group spots with ret pallys (like warriors, rogues) naturally might be a little more hesitant. As a mage however, I was personally thrilled id be getting JOW up on fights where we needed *evil face *

From the very start we made it clear that we were recruiting a good player and that that we'll give him a fair chance to prove what his class is capable of - and if it wasnt deemed acceptable we'd politely remove him - however that never happened. I think raid leaders have to get away from the idea of 'we are recruiting a ret pally - omg!' and instead focus more on the player.

Find and recruit a player who applies, who happens to be a ret pally, who can convince you of their determination/desire to be a core part of your guild and give them a chance to prove it. Guilds might be surprised at the results.


Perhaps off on a slight tangent, one thing blizzard REALLY need to do is change buff tooltips to be updated by talents that affect them. Some of my rogues still had no idea (after months of raiding with a ret pally in their group) that Improved Sanctity Aura gives them 2% more damage, hence encouraging people tend to question their worth.

People are much more open to hybrids if they see a fancy effect (windfury, LOTP heal and tooltip, moonkin aura tooltip, vampiric embrace) that visibly benefits them. The ret pallys ones are not transparent enough and IMO should be remade into something that much more obvious/visable that people can appreciate. 3% crit, 2% damage is nice, but its completely obscured, hidden by tooltips that dont even mention them - and therefore a little underrated and unappredicated. As a raid leader - thats the biggest problem I have with the class - give pallys a fancy 'ooh - look it procced' buff their group can admire, like windfury/lotp/vampiric embrace etc does currently. It makes you enjoy having them in your group more. It doesnt have to be overpowered obviously, just a little more interactive than the current very uninspired, dull "2% damage to group, 3% crit to raid".

This is basically the crux, and the fact that it is quite easy to get quality DPS, but quality healers are much much more rare in my experience. We have a raiding ret paladin, he was on almost all our BT guild firsts, but there was a long stretch of time when we were struggling for healers and he healed.

If you put your spec ahead of the guild progression, no guild should cater to your whims. There are also some fights where extra melees are a liability, like Najentus, Illidan, etc. Besides that - our ret paladin has done up to 1300 dps on some fights without windfury, and around 1500 at the very max with windfury and all the trimming - usually he hovers in the 1200-1400 DPS range though.

I would like to see repentence made trainable, and add a new spell for ret. Maybe a new blessing that'd be useful for anyone in the raid, like add haste rating. I have no idea exactly how much haste would be "balanced" (maybe like 1%), but I feel like that would be pretty useful to anyone, and would be something very unique to ret paladins.

Blessings aren't the answer, because we need something which is very visible, applies to our party, and affects melee damage only. We need to not only justify our raid slot, but our melee group spot as well. We need Unleashed Rage, or Windfury level group buffs. Crit is take by ferals, AP is taken by enhancement shamans and warriors. Haste is open, as is armor penetration. Since armor pen is less useful to US, my prejudice would be to an Unleashed Rage type buff which increases party member haste by some amount.


To dream the impossible dream...

As far as visible buffs go, I've always loved the idea of having an improved Avenging Wrath where the effect would extend to your group as well. Of course, the effect would be scaled down for the group since 30% extra dmg for the group every 3 min would be slightly crazy. It could replace the terrible improved retribution aura talent. Additionally, have improved AW switch places with Divine Purpose so it's a true deep retribution talent. Give mini-wings to the group members when you use it for good measure too. A man can only dream...

As funny as it sounds, its a good idea. Even if you think of a different effect for a new pally synergy group-buff (haste sounds nice), im sure people would love getting their own pally wings!

I sometimes use it, like when killing Al'ar adds or if I have extra mana at the end of a fight. If you have mana left after a boss, you diddnt rank your spells correctly. I dont know if this is cannonically correct, but I have a fun macro attached to my hammer:

/y ITS HAMMER (of wrath) TIME!!!!!!!!
/cast Hammer of Wrath

My turn for a noobish question. Can you have a sharpening/weightstone on your weapon and still get the benefit of WF totem? I have been using sharpening/weightstones for a while and I ran out of them last night in BT, whereafter I saw a lot more <Windfury Attack>

Showing a little epeen, heres another retpally teron WWS where I blew him out of his shoes:
WWS Loading...

Haste would be nice, but it would be too similar to Bloodlust/Heroism in my opinion. The other idea I had for improved AW is faster mana/energy regeneration and rage generation. It'd be like Shamanistic Rage, Adrenaline Rush, and Endless Rage rolled into one.