flyingtoastr

To put in cool little mouseover links to items you just use the [*ITEM]Item name[*/ITEM] tags (without the asteriks of course).

If you're looking for passive attack power [Bloodlust Brooch] works out to be about 118 AP, and [Berserker's Call] is 150 AP, assuming you pop the trinket exactly every two minutes. So by straight theorycraft the KT trinket is better than Bloodlust Brooch and equal to Berserker's Call.

That being said, I am personally of the opinion that [Mark of the Champion] would be better against bosses that you can use it on (all of hyjal, most of BT). It provides the same AP benefit as Berserker's Call but doesn't jump from low to high every 2 minutes. Also, BC requires you to stay on top of your trinket cooldowns, which everyone has failed to do at least once. Of course, the on use ability on BC is amazing for AW cycles or Heroisms, during which the KT trinket doesn't give any spectacular benefit. Both are good trinkets though. Personal choice.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

CaptBooyah

Jack Thompson Syndrome...

Anyhow, atm, Im still a little disappointed in retadin dps in the overall sense. The only time my performance is outstanding/comparative to other dps is when I have fulltime totem support and a lot of mana incoming. I find it discouraging that this is the only time a retadin will prove themselves and the mistake of not giving them WF (or a negligent resto shaman) will only further degrade the opinion.

btw, Merry Xmas Retadins... I hope you all got the chance to shut -some- ppl up and look forward to a new year of big floating numbers from the crit goddess.

 

Dolamroth

I'm Still having Threat problems with my tank on boss fights that allow me to Whale on said boss,Any tips?I'm trying to get

Prism of Inner Calm,But she wont Drop it for me.

 

Highborne

Alright, here is a question that I guess only I have ever thought.

What is more beneficial for a haste build Ret paladin using Seal of Blood?

I currently have +10 haste helm and +10 haste glove enchants on Helm of the Illidari Shatterer and Pillager's Gauntlets.

I sit at 79 hit rating (I know a tad low) with 1840 attack power and 27.85% crit. I bought the Vengeful Gladiator Scaled Gauntlets which lowers my hit rating more if I use them (looking for a work around for that, ie hit gem in chest and maybe surefooted enchant) but I want to know what people's opinions are on haste on gloves/helm.

Name: Highborne
Realm: Illidan

 

• Anarkii

15 str enchant on gloves is slightly better than 10 haste rating because of Divine Strength and Kings. 34AP/16Hit is much much superior to 10 Haste Rating on helm when you're not hit capped.

 

Highborne

Assume hit capped even though I am not currently.

Would 17str/16 int > 10 haste helm (If 15 str gloves is I would assume same for helm)

Do you have numbers to back this up?

 

• Anarkii

Use Bellator's Spreadsheet linked in the first post. Haste enchants are missing, but you can manually add the enchants and check for the same. Being hitcapped, 17str/16int is the best head enchant.

 

Antiock

What's your general opinion on mana/intellect? Do you shoot for a specific mana pool, or when comparing items do you say "i'd be willing to lose the 5 strength from one item for 20 int from the other"?

Basically I've noticed that whenever I have a tough gear choice to make, it's choosing between warrior drops in raids, which have no intellect, or pvp epics which generally have less str/hit/crit/whatever.

Right now I have about 6k mana unbuffed, and a lot of the time it seems like way too much, but every once in a while I run out of mana and feel like an idiot.

 

• Theras

As a Retribution Paladin you really only have three things you need to worry about in a raid:

1. Keep up your unique buffs and debuffs.
1. Don't die.
2. Do high DPS.

In my experience, Intellect doesn't really do any of the above in any meaningful fashion. It'll increase your longevity slightly - about 1 second per 1 Intellect - but at the cost of other DPS stats. If you sacrifice Strength, for example, you lose about a proportional amount of DPS. Plus, you can chug super mana potions - or even free major mana potions from daily quests, or AFK'ing in AV - and eliminate your mana problems entirely regardless of your equipment.

It's just not worth losing as high as 5% of your DPS by going with the current crop of "Paladin DPS" gear, when wearing off-set pieces will get you better results, and with none of the negatives if you're using mana potions. We've got enough (mostly unjustified now) negative stigma to work through already, and handicapping ourselves doesn't help terribly much with the problem.

 

flyingtoastr

Depending on your content level, you'll want at least a couple of pieces of "real" ret gear with INT on them. Everyone should have the Season 3 Gloves; in addition to their sweet bonus they pack 22 Intellect (with BoK ~360 mana). In addition, the 2 piece bonus for tier 5 and tier 6 are great ways to become more efficient, so you'll be getting at least another 50 INT or so from there. In all regards, you can be very effective with only this additional INT. Of course, more mana means more longevity, which means you might be able to skip one or two Super Mana cooldowns in exchange for Haste Pots, or even weave in Consecration and Exorcism into your cycle. However, point for point I would guess that INT is far less of a DPS contributer than STR.

One interesting thing to note about the changes that have been going into ret is the (partial) removal of spell damage. I am hopeful that 2.4 will also bring a reitemization to the Ret tier sets with the substitution of the Spell Damage for more useful STR or crit, which will make the tier sets (with INT) more appealing to wear.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

grayrest

Does anybody use fel mana pots? I hit 70 two weeks ago and I now have a passable gear set--s1 sword, 1575 ap, 25.4% crit, .2% under hit cap without precision--with absolutely no spell damage because SoB doesn't need it and CS won't either in a few weeks.

The two issues I'm unsure about are 1) whether you can have negative spell damage (which would affect JoB and consecrate/exorcism) and 2) does the debuff interact with JotC? Basically, the question is whether fel mana pots have the drawback when you're at 0 spell damage or not. I'm not sure what you'd do with the extra mana, but I figure more mana can't hurt.

 

• Anarkii

They're worth using if you can afford it. More mana means you can use the next pot cooldown on haste pots, for example.

 

CaptBooyah

I'd say no myself to jotc being affected by -dmg debuffs. Wouldn't the +dmg apply itself on the mob's received dmg rather than what the paladin delivers?

So you send a certain amount of dmg towards the mob based on your stats and then the mob applies its mitigations and dmg increases from vulnerabilities/debuffs, giving you your final number for the strike.

 

flyingtoastr

Unless something has drastically changed in the last patch, no (at least on the character sheet).


This would be interesting to test. I'll jump on my warrior and make some fel manas after the raid tonight and check it out. I'll update when I have data.

EDIT: Just realized I can not test the results well because of the fact that I am still holy and thus even naked have a small amount of spell damage due to spec. Sorry. If one of our ret friends could quickly test it that would be stellar.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

• Theras

All tests were with a two handed weapon, with zero spell damage, and Seal of Righteousness. No percentage modifiers were present as I'm currently Protection specced and unbuffed.

Baseline test: 159 - 160 damage per strike.
Judgement of the Crusader up: 249 - 250 damage per strike.
Fel Ache up: 149 - 150 damage per strike.
Judgement of the Crusader and Fel Ache up: 239 - 240 damage per strike.

My character sheet did go down to -25 spell damage when I quaffed the Fel Mana Potion. So you can indeed go negative on spell damage, and the debuff is indeed detrimental to Retribution Paladins (roughly 3-4 DPS per potion you drink in a fight). Of course, if you were to use the extra 800 average mana you gain from the potion to cast minimum rank Consecrations you'd gain about 4-5 DPS, so it would be a wash. It really comes down to what's cheaper: Fel Mana Potions, or Super Mana Potions. Probably the Supers, if your realm is anything like Uther.

Edit: Also interesting to note is that the character sheet doesn't go negative on healing, but you still lose an amount equal to -50 healing off your spells. I wonder if this is unintended?

 

Gormal

After 2.3.2, I don't see a downside for horde paladins other than a reduced effect from JoL (and what paladin doesn't want other people to heal them anyway?) As it stands now, horde paladins should already be using these as you can make up the minimal loss in dps with a single consecrate allowed by the 400+ mana if you're wearing pure str/crit gear. This is a really interesting question and a great answer quickly, though. As far as the poor alliance saps are concerned, I don't see the loss of a little spell damage hurting your command damage enough to make up for the extra mana you're bound to gain from these things.

 

Merple

Are there any recommendations for talent specs for Ret oriented off-tanks? Essentially, I'd like to be able to tank normal and heroic instances while still maintaining a competitive Ret DPS build.

I'm thinking something along the lines of this: Essentially the only tanking talents I'm taking are Redoubt, Shield Spec and Imp RF. I assume for all normal instances and most heroics, the healer can make up for the lack of mitigation, so long as I hold aggro.

-In our country, any CBC reporter can dream of becoming head of state.

 

Tilted

Don't bother with shield spec if you don't have Holy Shield. Put those points in Toughness instead, which will increase your overall survivability more. I'd also shift the points from Guardian's Favor into Toughness as well unless you want it specifically for PvP.

 

LockApologist

I've tested this. Hammer of the Naaru is my only +dmg, so 33. Popped 2 fel manas. Char sheet reads -31 +dmg.

So, this will affect JoB/Consc. About 16 dmg per pot for JoB and 32 per pot for Consc. Since I don't typically use Consc due to mana, I can live with the minor dmg debuff. And, since Fel's return mana over time, you can take them a bit sooner than you would a Super.

 

Lockeed

I have a question regarding Retadin PvP gear for S3. For the non set epics, would it be better to go with the warrior gear, or to stick with the actual Retadin gear?

 

• Theras

Well let's take a look at the [Vindicator's Plate Belt] and the [Vindicator's Scaled Belt]. The boots have the same stats.

You're going to gain Strength and a good chunk of Intellect going with the Scaled gear, at a loss of a bit of crit, resilience, and Stamina. Personally I value Strength over Crit, and I feel the loss of a minor amount of Resilience isn't really relevent since it's now possible to Resilience cap in the Season 3 gear. I went with the Scaled gear, since unlike PvE, having a deeper mana pool can matter for longer PvP fights where you're being ignored.

Your experience may vary.

 

grayrest

IMO the only case you might choose plate is on the bracers if you want to snag the gem bonus [Vindicator's Scaled Bracers][Vindicator's Plate Bracers]. I use the orange as one of my RED activation gems.

 

Luxury

General comment on haste: Keep in mind that haste is really only worth the cost in crit for SoB paladins. Because haste doesn't increase the SoC portion of your dps, point for point you're better off with crit for all current levels of crit achievable.

 

Luxury

I also don't think S3 gloves are the best choice if you're not hitcapped and have decently high crit. In that case [Grips of Silent Justice] is better assuming 10 str gems in each slot. Remember that a 5% gain to CS is about a 1% gain in overall dps.

The int on S3 is irrelevant as most people with ret raiding experience can attest mana is generally not an issue, and int does little to help mana consumption anyway. MP5 is actually the far superior choice given the mana consumption rate of the standard abilities for improved longevity in PvE.

 

• frmorrison

That site is updated to include Seal of Blood.


Something I did not see listed, is Vindication (spell hit based) if it procs on a boss even though immune, can proc JoW and the Darkmoon Card: Crusade.