Well, with the chest socketed as you've listed, it'd be 10str gems all the way. Now you've forced me to run the numbers again curse you! (If I'm wrong our survival hunter will have my heart for lunch.)

Edit: Vista just ate my spreadsheet, but even if they are a small dps loss (1-7), I think that the intellect makes up for it quite well.

These "Ultimate" gear lists arent really useful as it depends of your playstyle, raid buffs, race etc. In addition, sunwell will be coming out soon, so these really aren't the "Ultimate" gear you can get =P

It was already stated that this set of gear was for SoB, and optimal buffs/playstyle are obviously assumed when talking about the optimal set of gear. As far as speculating on unreleased content, why not just ignore the spreadsheet entirely since WotLK will be out soon? This is a theorycrafting thread, get with it.

I understand your intention, but the spreadsheet is easy to use and tweak to your playstyle (mad props Bellator).

I dont think there is an "optimal" set of buffs that you can have, because you cant fit all the beneficial buffs you need into a raid/group due to different player specs, party limitations, and overall raid needs. For example, we run with a melee group consisting of Fury/Enhance/Pally/Rogue/Rogue or Feral; our raid also has a survival hunter and usually 4 pallys total for buffs with any hodgepodge of improved blessings. True, some buffs are more marginal that others, but it depends on your raid makeup.

Our shammy puts points into improved ghost wolf instead of imp totems. Believe me we want to strangle him.

If you want to go strictly for Epeen instead of raid function, stick a shadow priest/BM hunter and feral in for the rogues (who will need to spec hemo by the way), make the fury warr spec blood frenzy and lets dance. Hell why bring casters at all, just bring all hemo rogues to the raid =P. Well, a couple locks can come too.

As far as WOLK goes, its a LONG ways away. This is blizzard we are talking about, not the US Govt. They arent built for speed. Sunwell is a more realistic frontier where Im sure a lot of great gear upgrades will be. One of our mages is constantly complaining to to Vashj to get the robes, where Im sure sunwell will have something mo better.

I'm hoping sunwell will have better off-set gear... especially trinket wise. ZA gear and the Darkmoon card are the best two trinkets ATM (assuming you don't have a DST... those never drop ). Also, horde pallies need a new libram very badly... using a blue libram from heroics as end-game is kinda annoying ;(

At least you have epic trinkets. I'm still rocking the [Abacus of Violent Odds] and [Hourglass of the Unraveller]. My guild leader is trying to convince me to do dual [Jagged Seaspray Emerald] in my [Dreadboots of the Legion]. While the stats will end up the same if I do that and gem pure spinels in everything else once I get my desired gear set, I rather have the benefit of STR from [Inscribed Pyrestone] now. Seasprays just look so noob

Isn't it the number of procs that matters for the sample size, not the number of swings? To take it to a ridiculous extreme, suppose you had a weapon that swung 10,000 times per second. After one second, you would have 10,000 swings and (probably) no procs. If the number of swings was the relevant factor, you'd then know that the proc rate was 0%. If it is the number of procs that matter, then the weapon speed has no effect on how long it takes to get an accurate sample.

ZA's hard for me, especially if we're doing a timed run. Without a shaman your damage goes way down, and you become something of a liability, rather than an asset even with the judge, the blessings, and the aura. 25 mans you're much more likely to be able to perform up to par. I'd be sure to make that fact clear to your leadership, if they try to point out bad performance in a 10-man as a good reason not to take you along on a 25. (By the way, you seem to be missing a bit of hit, if your armory's got what you PvE in, not just PvP gear. Otherwise, don't mind me! )

10 mans are rough for a ret paladin. You dont get the proper buffs, and your judgements arent as effective for 10 people rather than 25. Bribe a shaman to drop you WF and you should see an improvement.

If you are using seal of blood, spell damage should be able to up your DPS more effective than SoC. Str and crit are usually better, but some spell damage gear is alright for hordies so I assume....

Seal of Blood doesn't have a coefficient, so SpD gear is less useful for a horde paladin. Also looking at your armoury, you should try and pick up a dps libram rather then using the healing one from Kara.

After seeing all the numbers and hardcore proof, I can only hope that Blizzard does something about the difference between Vengeance and Blood, seeing how Blood gives Horde ret paladins a huge advantage. Vengeance is nice in its own right for tanking since the judgements are quite large, but I'd still prefer SoB on my Alliance pally.

A test like this ought to give a perfect example of a binomial distribution.

Binomial distribution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Where the variance will be: "Number of swings" * "proc chance" ( 1- "proc chance")

Or for a 7 PPM occurance: 7 * "Test lenght" (1 - "proc chance")

To minimize the variance for a test of any given lenght it would be best to have a proc chance as close to 50% as possible, in other words using the slowest possible weapon.

As a stop-gap you can always try and get [Libram of Righteous Power] which is a quest reward in SMV.

My ZA group always has me with a Feral Druid and a Shaman, so I really con't complain
In our T5 gear we've managed to get the third timer, where I snagged what Maxdps.com is calling the best Retribution ring in the game, the [Signet of Primal Wrath].

I'm a bit critical of armor penetration since it only effects 70% of my damage output.

Anyone have some thoughts on this item?

I'm rather leery of maxdps calling it the best ring for retribution mainly because your returns from armor penetration relies on a number of factors (boss armor, debuffs available, how much armor pen you have). With [Unstoppable Aggressor's Ring] or [Band of Devastation] you have stats that will affect all or most of your damage no matter what the situation. I've read anecdotal accounts that armor pen sets do about the same dps as haste or normal sets, but I'd like to do the testing myself if I ever get enough gear.

The problem is that the meta we need requires 2 blues, and I find this to be a problem. [Dreadboots of the Legion] is the one off-set item I'm still waiting on, haven't seen one in at least 3 months. Honestly, I might dual [Jagged Seaspray Emerald] in them, since you really can't depend on a gem slot from the cloaks in the long run.

But yea, if that meta didn't have that annoying requirement my gear would be all pyrestones and spinels.

I would be VERY careful with maxdps.com. I find many comparisons are flat out wrong when I input my fully buffed raid stats as directed. This is especially true with SoB calculations. I would strongly suggest switching to the spreadsheet.

NO... this is a common misconception. SOB damage is calculated BEFORE armor is taken into account on the main hit. SOB is a magic attack, so that wouldn't make much sense. Also, horde paladins tend to do slightly more magic damage in the breakdowns than alliance paladins, since SOB procs every hit and SOC doesn't. Also JoB hits harder than JoC. As such, the value of armor penetration for horde paladins is less than that of an alliance paladin.

And please stay away from maxdps.com. It gives decent general ideas what to look for, but for real comparison you should really stick to the spreadsheet. Keep in mind, you input your stats, not your gear into maxdps. When it looks for upgrades, it doesn't "remove" your item first and look for the best upgrade, but rather adds it on top, which is simply not realistic.

That being said, it is still a very good ring, but I'm fairly sure [Unstoppable Aggressor's Ring] off bloodboil tops it out, at least in my gearset it does.

Zurm, do you currently have the [Shifting Tanzanite] in any of your gear? As far as I know its the only blue gem that would help towards the meta, but give ap/crit.

No, SoB damage is(thankfully) calculated off pre-mitigated weapon damage. So, ArP(passive/executioner proc/sunders) don't affect it at all.

I do not. I actually did not think of that gem, and I'll try to get one for my cloak. However, in the long run I need two green gems for those boots, yellow to get the good bonus and blue to appease the meta requirement.

I didnt ask if it was effected by it, I was asking if the initial autoattack ( that is now doing more damage, thanks to exe.) would cause the SoB that would follow ( since afaik it isnt an instant, it takes a little while to hit) to do more damage.

So the situation would go something like this:
Autoattack/CS, proc Exe.
Autoattack(effected by exe. now) hits, does damage to the target.
SoB is calulated and hits next, doing damage.

What I wanted to know is will SoB do more damage after the proc because the Autoattack that its damage is derived from is doing more damage, or will its damage stay "the same"?

MaxDPS isnt all that bad, but if you're a retadin at the level that most of us on these boards are at, its probably not as needed, although it is nice to see something else backing up our claims.


Edit: thanks Anarkii, for the answer. Your haste in answering is > my question of a question.

Bellator's spreadsheet has [Signet of Primal Wrath] equal to [Unstoppable Aggressor's Ring] and 3 dps higher than [Band of Devastation] with my gear setup (no armor pen at all). That being said, I won't be replacing my band if primal wrath drops since it'd probably give more benefit to a class that does 100% physical damage. Gurtogg needs to stop being stingy.

Edit: Yeah, I'll probably end up socketing dual [Jagged Seaspray Emerald]. We have a glut of [Crimson Spinel] amazingly enough and a dearth of [Pyrestone] and [Shadowsong Amethyst].