He wasn't giving a complete list of "on next melee" abilities.


The quoted Blue post doesn't shed any light on how SoC + WF *IS* working. At best, your post indicates that they don't intend for WF + SoC to work together - in which case SoB proccing on WF is also a bug.


But enough about Blizzard intentions. What are the actual mechanics?

"On Next Melee" attacks convert your next white swing into a yellow swing, which no seal does. Think of Heroic Strike, the old Holy Strike, etc. If you want to see it in action make a warrior alt and try it out, they start with Heroic Strike as their baseline ability.

And you're reading it wrong. It doesn't say that SoC or SoB can't proc off windfury, it says that Windfury can't proc off SoC or SoB.

On Rawr, is there a way to enable items available to you by dungeon? or just manual clicking of each diamond?

For right now I'm near positive (based on an older post) that the only way is to manually click each diamond. I believe that they get saved into your profile if you bother to save it though, so that reduces the strain past the initial effort.

Correct. While just marking some items as available by certain criteria, it's actually alot more complicated than it looks, and isn't a good idea in practice. It only takes a min or two to check off the few reasonable choices there are for each slot, and you only have to do it all once (and then update it as more gear becomes available, of course).

Well, this is WoW we're talking about. How many mechanics are bugged, have loopholes, don't work as expected? Too many to count.

Off the top of my head, the crit libram, the BT trinket judgement effect, how illumination used to work on 2 heals if you did it fast enough (with holy shock), etc. most of this gets fixed, but some endure or get labeled "working as intended" eventually.

It pretty much ends in having to test things we assume as true all the time, to see if they're really true or yet another exception.

Not taking sides on this issue, but I think it's valid not to shoot down this thing, since it is pretty odd. I think the only way to settle it would be to run some extensive testing with a lot more data than is currently available through 5 min boss fights on WWS.


In other news, next time we have any kind of math problems, Fiola is the go to guy/girl xD

There's going to be some improvements in this regard in b14.

This is a bit offtopic, and may be worthy of a banhammer, but I'm going to post it anyways;

Wouldn't it make more sense to have the original poster (or someone with the power to edit the original post) add Rawr, Bellatorix's and some of the more useful "gearcrafting" tools to the very top of the 1st post? I think it would save a lot of folks a lot of time - I think the first time I heard about rawr, it took me flipping through quite a few pages to find the actual link to it.

Anyways, carrying on and returning to the regularly scheduled programming - just to confirm what I'm reading, the mathcrafters that are around are suggesting that Seal of Casino is still the ideal alliance DPS seal unless you stack Armor Penetration to roughly 1300-1400 once you hit 3k Raid buffed AP.

Excellent point Rodimus, and timely. I believe Avitus has a solution in the works. There have been FAR too many people posting the same questions, and I don't entirely blame them. 150 pages is a lot to sort through, especially considering how much fluff and repeats there are. Since cromfel seems semi-MIA, I think Avitus will be making a fully revised (and often updated) ret pally thread. I'll leave it to him to give you an ETA or whatever, but I've already extended my hand to help him with any horde questions he has.

Following the ideas of hunters, I may make a "help me please" thread for retadins, to keep the theorycrafting posts from getting bloated, and where those who have the patience for those kinds of questions can be mensches.

Ok, my eyes are bleeding and my head is swimming right now, feels like I am back in college again. The spreadsheets and rawr are nice, but after working with them for more than an hour, I am kinda befuddled.

#1
I was trying to figure out some rough approximations at certain gear levels.

T4 AP = xxxx Crit = xx% DPS = xxx
T5 AP = xxxx Crit = xx% DPS = xxx
T6 AP = xxxx Crit = xx% DPS = xxx

#2
Since I am at work, kinda hard to get to the armory to doublecheck my gear but I think I have most if not all of it. And yes, I respeced to holy last night because we were short a healer and we finally got Vash !

Anyways from memory I entered in the items and such to RAWR and the Spreadsheet.

RAWR
AP = 3083 Crit = 32.44% DPS = 784.41

From the Paladin DPS Spreadsheet v34_2.4

AP = 3759 Crit = 42.1% DPS = 1300

(And yes I made sure to turn on or off the talents, buffs etc on the spreadsheet and in RAWR)

Why is there such a diffrence ? I like to think I an not THAT much of a noobsauce. And yes I will log off tonight as a ret.

The question is whether we want to make a new thread or just condense this kind of stuff into the wiki. I remember Theras (I think) saying he was writing something up for it.

Oh and Bellator's spreadsheet is in the first post already.

The wiki is a great idea and yes as far as I know Theras is working on it. However I feel too many of the "people that ask questions that have been answered a million times" will be less likely to look for the wiki than the front post.

The wiki should become an excellent reference source, where as the OP of the ret thread should be a roadsign that is more frequently maintained with recent findings of the ret thread, also linking to the wiki for further information that has stood the test of time.


I've pretty much been wanting to do this for a long time (especially every time I see someone ask about their gear or a question that's been answered for the nth time), the only thing holding me back is that I don't want to "rock the boat" if people don't feel like migrating to a new thread.

If this is fine however and people are supporting it, I could probably have it up as early as this weekend. Certainly reaching a 150 page milestone (longest currently running class thread on EJ in post numbers) is good enough reason for a consolidation and refresh.

I'd venture to say that as soon as the first post of any class thread over 30 pages stops being updated with some modicum of frequency, it's time to bring in a new original poster to keep things updated. As you said, the first post is the road-sign and the map, everything needs to relate back to that, otherwise the thread just becomes a long and winding road and you end up with the current problem: people asking previously answered questions.

On a related note, is anyone working on an article for the Theorycrafting Think Tank for Paladin: Retribution?

There were several posts some pages back (maybe around page 120 or so) questioning whether Vindication ever proc'd JoW when the mob was immune. I think the conclusion was along the lines of "ret pallies see a really high JoW proc rate and nobody knows why." There were a bunch of WWS logs with pallies seeing 70% JoW proc rates without Vindication in their build.

Personally, I paid attention to the darkmoon buffs over several fights and Vindication procs on immune mobs did not increment the stack.

I notice alot more JoW procs on vindication immune mobs/bosses then the none immune targets, thought not often judge none immune targets with judgements.

The extra procs could also come from refreashing judgements, everytime it refreashes it is like it cast the spell. Like warriors Spellreflect gets used when judgement is refreashed.

So, do you guys want me to make a Q&A thread then, in the next day or so to accompany avitus's thread?

Hey guys Kip here from bonechewer. I been reading this thread form page one and am still confused. If someone could put it into clear text for me what the best DPS cycle is currently for ret, that would rock.

Also if i could get the top PVE raiding Ret Build aswell. Thanks so much for all your help guys !

I'm not so sure really. While I think we should make a new general thread with a clear map of information on the OP to cut down on "hlep me plz I couldn't find info", I don't think we want to completely restrict such questions there (when justified) either, since more often than not they lead to spurring more theorycafting discussion anyway.

Otherwise, you'll get long gaps of inactivity when there's not that much theorycrafting to be had and the thread will die down. I think we're actually doing it right in this thread at the moment, we just need a measure to catch some of the completely clueless questions already answered.

Also, there's only so much to talk about eventually, making two threads and restricting what can be posted in each will only alienate the posters I think and/or lead to constant "you shouldn't be posting this here, post in the other thread".

I'm planning to add each new (justified) question presented through the thread to the OP in some way or another so we end up with a "check the OP" stamp for most of what's coming in eventually.

I suggest after the new thread has been made we let it run its course for a while and if then it it turns out it's still necessary to break its functionality down into two threads, then by all means.

(Apologies for the current off topic posts, but I believe we're in an exceptional state right now and discussion about how we'll proceed with the new thread should be valid for now, at least in limited form.)

Very soon

Rotation:

Apply JotC then Seal up (SoC/SoB).
1. Crusader Strike
2. If not going to cause any GCD issues with the above, cast Judgement, reseal instantly (use a macro).
3. If not going to cause any GCD issues with the above, cast Consecration (rank depends on your mana income).
4. If not going to cause any GCD issues with the above, cast Exorcism.

If mana is low, never let it affect 1. and 2., just downrank/delay Consecration.


Build:

Any variation of 5/8/48.

Most points are set in stone, however:

-There's 1 point of Vindication for extra JoW procs (unconfirmed whether it helps on bosses, which are immune to it).
-If there's a holy paladin with imp BoM in your raids, use those points to max out Benediction and/or invest into some general purpose talents (Anything is fair game since no other talents increase DPS at this point. A popular choice is Pursuit of Justice, where as Divine Intellect is not recommended since you shouldn't have much +int to work with).

One more abnormal JoW WWS on Brutallus.

~271 Attacks and 253 JoW procs

Saltycracker - WWS

=/

edit: That number doesn't count consecrates. I'm not specced Vindication either.

Remember the first tick of Consecration (if not fully resisted) can also proc JoW, according to that WWS, you used Consecration 22 times (1 resist), so it's actually 253 JoW procs out of 292 attacks.

Still that's ~87% proc chance (from a supposed 50%), that's just obscene and I'd say definitely too much to be "just RNG".

And as far as I can tell, you didn't even have vindication in your spec, so that's not it

This is just very weird.

Checking my own logs from previous Brut kills:

Avitus - WWS 281 JoW procs out of 337 chances to proc: ~83% JoW procs

Avitus - WWS 260 JoW procs out of 294 chances to proc: ~89% JoW procs


Again, obscene proc rate, this can't be RNG.

Unless it's a bug with WWS, maybe we should start re-evaluating what we know about JoW. All the tooltip says is:

"Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy for 20 sec, granting attacks and spells used against the judged enemy a chance to restore 74 mana to the attacker. Your melee strikes will refresh the spell's duration. Only one Judgement per Paladin can be active at any one time."

Doesn't specifically state what percentage. Maybe things have changed since last someone ran tests (I believe the 50% proc chance is assumption that hasn't been reconfirmed from as far back as pre-TBC).

As a side remark: I didn't spend much time looking at the rest besides JoW procs and hit numbers, but what happened to your DPS btw? You're doing roughly 450+ DPS less than you did last time, bad group assignment or just horrible RNG?

Well, I am kinda leaning towards bug. During the attempt I just saw a HUGE amount of procs hit all at once, probably like 7 or so for about 30 secs. I think it happened at about 30% IIRC...

We dont have blood frenzy or expose weakness anymore, and I'm not in the heroism group anymore since we picked up another warglaives rogue; I got amazing crits on that 1995 attempt. I gave a shot trying to convince our RL to put a ret in the melee group, but he tore that idea a new one.

Was the JoW from another pally?
I really think that the refreshs from auto attacks are proccing JoW.
If you add the swings 2x to account for that you will get ~50% proc, a little more, maybe some other skills are refreshing your JoC and proccing JoW.

At least when I judge wisdom the proc seems to suck a lot compared to when another pally judges it, so the only thing I can think of is that auto attack refreshs have a chance to proc.

If you look at the other classes proc chance its ~50% as it's supposed to be.