Checking Bellator's spreadsheet (after fixing CS Normalization) Cataclysm's Edge looks to outperform Torch by a very slight margin.
So in reality, it's mainly aesthetics - in which case Torch wins.

I thought the latest version (v18) had normalised CS is in it.

But anyway, the model does indeed suggest for SoB the cataclysm is the best, and for SoC the torch is the best. But its only marginal in both cases.

Whichever has drops more often for your guild.. which may turn out to be S3 weapons :/

I'm actually not sure that's true about the chest, even if you're hit capped (though given current itemization, every bit of +hit is great to open up different ring/neck choices etc).

S3: +9 Crit rating
T6: +41 Spelldamage, (+9 Hit rating)


This is including socket bonuses btw, both chests have the same amount of Str.

Sure Spelldamage isn't the top dog stat, but at least for an alliance paladin, 41 more spelldamage is quiet a lot.


I'm still not sure what to make of the S3 set. With no spelldamage, CS is reduced and the coveted "armor unmitigated" holy portion of our damage is nerfed.

Unless they make a significant low level change to our mechanics or benefit from stats as some people have already mentioned, this is not good.

And if they do, I hope they retroactively do these changes to current PvE gear (similar to the change to our Judgement set when 1.9 hit and they came up with all that spelldamage crap).


I've compared T6 and the S3 sets and at least for PvE I'm definitely staying with my T6 set, it's far superior for PvE as it should be.


On an amusing side note, a pic of my log from an Archimonde fight:



32k damage (exactly 31947) burst in 7 seconds! Thank god for the upcoming threat reduction..

Just out of curiosity how did your tank retain aggro after that? Your TPS numbers might have been a new record.

I'll probably be going ret with my paladin in 2.3 thanks to the threat reduction. A couple of quick questions since I can't use the spreadsheet (OpenOffice):

Is the tier 6 2 piece bonus worth picking up? If so, which 2 pieces? I can grab any 2 pieces I want so I'm just concerned with which ones are the best if the bonus is indeed worth getting.

He may have possibly been more than 32k threat in front of the paladin.

Spikey threat does not mean more threat. It just means if you are riding their ass with threat, you are more likely to fuck up. I never understood why "spikeyness" was bad.

Oops, my mistake entered the stam/str values the wrong way round in S3. Does indeed make T6 chest better


Please note the gear sets entered into the model are only examples of gear sets at different levels. The best of the best was at the time one of the highest combinations i could find to maximse dps.

The 2 piece lghtbringer is reasonably nice. It adds about 30Mp5, so I would say it's worth it as it either makes certain you can spam judgements etc on CD in a raid or allows you to throw in extra exorcisms/consecrations. This extra Mp5 use cant be modelled into the spreadsheet as dps, but can often be worth it.

Personally i would go for the chest and shoulders

Reposting from Cromfel's forums, below is the best dps setup I came up with using Bellator's sheet (note this is for SoB, SoC might be slightly different).

Head: Illidari shatterer, glyph of the outcast, relentless earthstorm, 12 crit (JC only) or 10 str
Neck: Choker of Endless Nightmares
Shoulders: Lightbringer, greater inscription, 2x 5str/5crit
Back: Shadowmoon Destroyer's, +12 agi
Chest: Lightbringer, +6 stats, 24 AP (JC only) or 10 str, 5str/5crit, 5str/7sta
Wrist: Furious Shackles, brawn, 10 str
Hands: S3 gloves, +15 str
Waist: Red Belt of Battle, 5str/5crit, 5str/7sta
Legs: Endless Rage, nethercobra
Feet: Dreadboots of the Legion, +12 agi, 2x 5str/5crit
Rings: Unstoppable Aggressor's+Band of Devastation or Band of Eternal Champion (seem to be fairly close)
Trinkets: Darkmoon Card Crusade+DST or Berserker's Call
Weapon: Cataclysm's Edge, savagery

You need 2 blue gems for the metagem, you can use the 5str/4agi one from heroic SV for a bit more dps though.

This setup also puts you well over the hit cap so you can drop your Prot talents completely if you want.

Exactly how much would this differ for a SoC retadin?

This may come across as a stupid question, but what is the cap on hit rating for a paladin?

Sweet thanks!

With precision, we need 95 hit rating to be caped (see there).

For the t6 bonus 2 pieces bonus, I'll say it's a must have. Just don't take the gloves, you'll need s3 ones (+5% on CS!).

For the data on executionner / savagery: sorry it's taking me so long, never used wws before and I had a couple of trouble running it. But I'm still on it!

Last thing, since a post here reminded me of something:
I know cataclysm outdps the torch by a lil' bit, but isn't it better just because it's a faster weapon? The question is, how good are faster weapons for SoC user? I really been wondering about that, since SoC's there every time you hit, I would tend to think "the faster the better". And considering the s3 halleberd dps, well it might be even better than those two weapons. Any thoughts, any one?

@ Meuble

As a quick reply to your faster weapon question, the quick answer is Cataclysm's edge isn't a better weapon for SoB (i assumed you meant this not SoC) due to the faster speed.

When it comes to dps, whilst white damage and SoB are independant of weapon speed (ie they will produce the same dps all things except weapon speed being equal), however CS (and for alliance paladins, SoC), the slower the weapon (due to the higher top end damage), the more damage per hit these abilities will do, and since the rate of the these abilities is not reliant on weapon speed, the dps of these abilities will increase.

For SoB paladins, whilst cataclysms is not a 3.8 speed like the torch, and thus the CS "loses" out in terms of dps, the weapon is 10 ilvls higher, and the dps increase from this is greater than the CS loss so it is a better weapon.

For SoC paladins, since both SoC and CS are effected by weapon speed, the gain of Torch being 3.8 is greater than the gain from going to a faster, Ilvl superior weapon.

Thus in short, for all paladins, slower weapons will be better, but faster weapons can still be superior is their ilvl is far greater than the slow weapon

Spikey threat does mean more TPS (Threat per Second), which is exactly what my post said.

Threat spikes are much much worse than riding a threatline. If your hate comes in spikes it is very difficult to control where your threat levels will be relative to the tank. If you're already riding the tank's hate level you'll pull, if you're not you'll be damn close to doing so and have to hold back DPS until the tank regains a sufficient margin. If you know your threat is going to be all over the place you'll either be stuck:
a) holding back so if you do deal 32k damage in 7 seconds you won't pull
b) being forced to hold back after a bad spike
c) dying (and on Archimonde most likely wiping the raid by doing so)

Of course these will be addressed with the new Threat Reduction talent in 2.3, so its not as much of a problem now.

I came up with a fairly similar setup with one glaring except... I rather use teh Vision of Sargeras. The agility on the leather helm is just... amazing. Helm of Illidari shatterer has too much hit.

Looking at the stats CVoS looks like it would be marginally ahead (a few less AP but with enough raw crit to make up for it). But agility is relatively useless for ret pallys as opposed for those who the item was made for, namely rogues. I think if every rogue (and maybe druids if they wanted it) has it, I would take it as well, but they should be recieving first priority on it, just as a DPS Warrior/Ret Pally should have dibs on Illidari Shatterer over the other plate wearers.

Might want to work on your grammar before a banhammer strikes you too bro.

A hint lies in the 2nd part of the line

You are absolutely correct however with your later reply about having to hold back in order not to spike up to aggro gain.

I usually try to stay at 70% on omen in such fights, but even then, "shit can happen" like in the example above.

Just goes to prove how badly this threat reduction was needed.



The 2 piece bonus is most definitely worth it. The 50 mana proc goes off fairly often, ~20% according to my tests.

I wish I could say the same for the 4 set bonus, which is completely useless.

Since you're a belf and will be using SoB, I guess mostly "warrior plate" would beneficial (if you can keep your mana pool up), however for alliance paladins I'd highly suggest sticking to Lightbringer/retadin gear, simply because the increased mana pool allows for a lot more flexibility in your damage (consecration/exorcism).

I've seen many such lists mentioned and I'm not sure I agree here, same explanation as before about bellator's suggested "best of best" set.


The thing is, while going blindly by spreadsheet this is the max theoretical DPS, however you're cutting many corners in order to achieve minute DPS increases over the traditional ret gear.



For example here are the numbers from bellators item upgrade analysis:

->Helm of the Illidari Shatterer offers 5.77 dps increase to T6 helm

You're losing ~530 mana for that (with BoK).

-> Legguards of Endless Rage offers 1.15 dps increase to T6 pants

You're losing ~363 mana for that (with BoK) and 9mp5.


I'm sure you can see the pattern here.

Now that extra mana/regen gives you the option to add a few consecration here and there, or like I do with Alchemist's Stone keep up consecration spam virtually 80% of the time in some fights.

1 tap of consecration adds roughly ~150 DPS in my current gear for 8 seconds.

On demon/undead mobs, you can factor in exorcism spam too (which is pretty much all of Hyjal and many in BT).

If you run out of mana, you're forced to reduce your damage considerably.

Simply put, for alliance paladins, I feel warrior gear is really gimp (though I do make exceptions with bracers/boots where there is no viable paladin alternative).



Another thing to consider is, while spelldamage is inferior to Str etc, most of those models consider a fully sundered/CoR etc etc mob. On many mobs which do not have all these debuffs (like on bosses with multiple targets or even trash), spelldamage gains a bit of worth since it buffs your armor unmitigated holy damage.


Just food for thought, I've seen even worse "best of best" lists which have only 1 or 0 T6 pieces and it's just ridiculous.

I didn't claim it to be anything other than a pure "maximized dps list".
Also, I made that list without any buffs or target debuffs taken into consideration, only retribution talents (not even BoK). Obviously additional buffs/modifiers that you can select in the spreadsheet may influence it.

I think in future versions of the spreadsheet "best of the best" will be labelled "tier 6 warrior gear". The gear sets were only there as examples showing how the save/load/delete functions work, yet have caused far more trouble than they are worth :p

Yea I'm just pointing out the "dangers" of just going 100% by spreadsheet, I've seen too many people start making up wishlists that would be really bad in practice, simply based on the DPS numbers the spreadsheet spits out.

As paladins we don't have the same luxury as other classes, mana efficiency has to be considered

Note bellator's excellent "time till OOM" figure which was added.