[/quote]IMO, [Fury of the Five Flights] is one of those times when theory does not correspond to reality. It's good when you can reliably hit things, but the risk of it failing for our class/spec automatically means priority should be given to people who can make better use of it. I'm NOT saying it's bad, I'm simply saying please don't take it over a hunter/rogue/warrior/shaman who needs it, because you're only hurting your raid. It's fine to slap it on for those rare tank+spank bosses if you're in one of those rare guilds that is showered with them.[/quote]

This argument is out of context. if your using mirror for example you have even more RNG and have to pull off when you finally get your proc and cant get any benefit from the trinket for another min. With trinekts such as Loathebs shadow or Norgannon you may have to peel off during your 20 second proc then your hurt even more. There will always be unforseeable circumstances but one of the strengths of this trinekt is you can regain benefit full benefit from it in 10-15 seconds. Unless the boss has you stop dpsing for 10 seconds every 10 seconds it will compete with others if not outperform them.

Except you're not taking the Mirror of Truth away from any other character class by using it yourself, whereas you are if you roll on FoFF before faster hitting classes. And yes, there will be unforseeable circumstances, but a rogue/hunter/shaman will rebuild his stack much faster than you ever will and experience even less downtime. It's better suited to them on more encounters... that's what was being argued.

Be that as it may, the trinket is still currently BiS when paired with DMC: Greatness and as this is a forum for Paladin DPS. You could argue that Betrayer of Humanity will be better DPS in the hands of a fury warrior, but in so far as the scope of this thread is concerned, that is irrelevant.

Locks do overall more damage than us and share the same Tier token and are labeled as PURE Dps class, Holy Paladins are considered more important than Ret to a raid so should we pass on all our tokens to them as well?

This argument is pointless. It is personal choice if you pass it to another class. Way too many things effect this such as raid attendance skill, FPS etc. We are analyzing Ret DPS not overall raid dps. FOTFF is better and has less RNG risks which ironically is the main argument people bring for why we should not use it.

Unless you want to wait to get your Tier 8 tokens until your locks, holy paladins, holy priests and prot paladins get theirs I would abandon the argument.

It's not even remotely the same and you know it. There's tier tokens all over the place, I have a full T7.25 set for all specs for ages now. In my opinion a lot depends on how the trinket drops for your guild but if Fury of the Five Flight drops an average of once every 10 raids I would personally feel really bad about taking it over a rogue at least

Regardless... has there been any updates yet on the stat weights for 3.1? I read something about a rather big difference between Rawr's weights and Redcape's weights. Any further results yet?

The big Difference in the Weightings was afaik because of Hit/Exp counted trice instead of twice on Autoattacks, correct me if im wrong.

Analysis of Greatrichie's data
Heart of the crusader was up for the fight.

Crusader Strike Data

Crit -> 31.30 ± 0.82%
Dodge -> 3.86 ± 0.34%
Miss -> 1.23 ± 0.19%

Crit reduction -> 8.08 ± 0.82%

I don't think heart of the crusader is applying to CS...

Assuming that I'm right and HotC is not applying to CS, the crit reduction is 5.08 ± 0.82%

Edit: When I don't forget specials use a two roll system, I get.

crit -> 32.98 ± 0.85%
Dodge -> 3.86 ± 0.34%
Miss -> 1.23 ± 0.19%

crit reduction -> 6.40 ± 0.85% if heart of the crusader is applied to CS, 3.4 ± 0.85% if HotC is buggy.

Neither situation fits... It could be that the penalty for crit reduction is less on specials (because they use the 2 roll system and already are penalised) but there's not really enough evidence to make a call one way or another.

/end Edit

Melee Attacks

Crit -> 34.11 ± 0.52%
Glance -> 24.41 ± 0.47%
Dodge -> 3.65 ± 0.20%
Miss -> 1.30 ± 0.12%

Crit Reduction -> 5.27± 0.52%

We're going to need about 30k of white damage attacks to really pin this down. The errors are still to large to make a call. It's fine to go repair etc. You just need to make sure that conditions are the same when you return.

I don't think heart of the crusader is applying to CS... that sucks. Before I post a bug report (or you can if you want Greatrichie, it's your data) was this on live or PTR? I'm guessing live by the trade spam but I thought I should be certain.

Yeah it was live.

Edit: After looking at the WWS, SoC only had 31% crit too. Is it possible it's all specials?

1. Trinkets aren't guaranteed to drop from whichever loot table while tier pieces are.
2. Holy paladins are more valuable to your raid? How so? If limited to a single paladin in your group I can think of at least 3 reasons to bring a retribution paladin over holy or prot: replenishment, strong scaling JoL and guaranteed 100% uptime on Judgements. That's 3 things holy can't guarantee and which, in the case of Judgements scaling and uptime, are unique to ret (ok prot can also guarantee uptime on their Judgement as well). On the flip side, with good players playing them, a number of healing classes can achieve what a paladin can while healing the MT (disc being the most obvious choice).
3. Rawr continues to show me Mirror as superior to FoFF in BiS gear (this may be changed with the new version, I haven't booted into windows to get it setup and find out in a few weeks though).

Come on now people, we're here to discuss ideas, tactics and ways of improving our DPS in raids, not make attacks on one another over "This is better for them, thats better for us" style comments with moody and/or aggressive replies to keep a pointless argument going. As Alleyra said, it depends on the kind of fight you are going to be in - theres nothing stopping you from not using it, and theres no harm in having some else in that slot if you feel its not reliable enough for you personally.

Myself, I've got Grim Toll and FotFF - i intend to (for Ulduar beginnings) switch FotFF for the expertise trinket temporarily for the Hit/Exp cap until I can get it on my other gear, then replace them with the BiS trinkets once I am satisfied. Yeah, it might cost me some DPS initially, but considering I am on average 2-5th in my raid group's DPS anyway, I'm not going to fuss over an initial 2-3week drop .... and neither should other people. So please, no more arguing over this issue please.

I'll post in dulcet tones, so as not to make this inflammatory.... :P

I have done some personal testing with FoFF and Mirror. There are factors to consider that are not easily charted through spreadsheets, as has been mentioned here. Mirror does have some advantages when looking at live raiding. The most obvious is the initial start up of a fight, or after a pause (e.g. Safety Dance).

Take a Patch fight as an example (currently an RNG nightmare for us). The advantage of this short fight I find is towards Mirror + Greatness. I start the fight with wings. My first judgment almost always procs both mirror and greatness together. For those few seconds, you have god mode. That is more advantageous than working to stack FoFF. The fight is over too quickly.

The same usually happens after a Safety Dance. Heig. comes running out after p2 (usually somewhere around 25% health left), I use wings and the first judgment tends to proc both together. That's also the time when heroism is used. Again, Mirror + Greatness takes the lead.

Other fights favor FoFF. Sarth 3d is an example. Previously, I would see bad luck procs on Mirror as I was running for a lava wave, or when I was not dpsing a drake. There I can stack FoFF easily. The first 15ish seconds are irrelevant, at least in theory. You can attack the boss while waiting for the first drake to land. Once he has landed, you can keep stacks up without any trouble whatsoever. I weight FoFF heavier in that situation.

In the end: it's very difficult to answer the debate, imo. It's very dependent on the situation. Our damage pre-3.1 is very bursty. Trinket combinations that accentuate that burst damage tend to edge out other trinkets that provide more sustained AP. I don't find it's an issue of stacking as much as the way our dps works. A Mirror + Greatness RNG chance is wonderful at the moment, though it can't easily be measured. I am on PTR, and the issue I see isn't whether or not I can keep FoFF up (which is still relatively easy), but whether it provides the best scenario over time. That just can't be decided at this point to 100% accuracy.

I believe there's been some debate in the past (back in BC) whether Heart of the Crusader basically does anything beyond applying a pretty debuff. In short, it may not function in the slightest. Proving a 3% raid crit buff is a nightmare, since the vast majority of data is from raids where so many other things can fluctuate and affect crit (aura range for Feral and Boomkin for instance), along with every raid member having a different crit rate.

It might be advantageous for someone who can convince guild members to go test on the same-level dummy as a party/raid. I say same-level so there's no crit reduction issue, since the crit reduction could be different per class or mainhand vs offhand (thus dual wielders having different reduction from single wielders as theirs defined so far would actually be a blended amount). Say 10k autoattacks without Heart of the Crusader, then start 10k with judge every 8 seconds (hit capped, please, to guarantee Heart uptime). Although how anyone will get multiple people to stick together and sit through 20k= attacks, I don't know (any Ret multi-box?). Perhaps a third test with a Feral for aura, just to ensure the Feral aura isn't "better" and obsoleting Heart (which is most definitely should not).

If Heart of the Crusader is not actually functioning, that's sorta a kick in the gut for Ret raid utility.

So I would suggest:
1) a 10k CS run solo vs boss dummy (only take about 17 hrs!), no gear to test special crit reduction
2) a 10k autoattack run in group vs same-level dummy, after those 10k start a 10k Judge run in group w/Heart of Crusader vs same-level dummy, gather data from all in group to test Heart, finish with a final 10k (total 30k woohoo!) Judging to compare Heart with Leader of the Pack.

Should have over 20k autoattacks in test #1, so the test could serve double duty (autoattack crit reduction and special crit reduction). And test two, yes, that's 10k Judgements (~22.5 hrs at 8.1 sec per Judge and only ~20 at 7.1 sec with 4piece), not 10k autoattacks, so phases 2 and 3 will be significantly longer than phase 1.

I asked the question about the FotFF trinket because i had wanted to see if it was worth spending the DKP on now for it vs waiting for the 3.1 Patch and getting some new trinkets. So basically just wanted to know if it was worth dropping from number 1 on the list to 8 or 9. Or would i be better off grabbing now and then get what i can in Ulduar. For those of you who have discussed it thank you. For those of you complaining about how this isn't the fourm for it, i believe you are wrong this is exactly the forum for it, just because you feel you would like to discuss this or that doen't mean you should exclude other discussions that ppl are interested in. If you don't like it , simply skip along to the next post of your liking.

Thanks again.

Switching topics (wow I didn't mean for the trinket discussion to go that far)...

I'm actually expecting a nerf to JoL, personally. With it healing DPSers on PTR for 900-1000 often, I'm usually 1st-3rd on healing meters (yes, effective). And our guild does NOT have bad healers by any means. Bringing a ret paladin in Ulduar fights seems almost mandatory at this point, even with having broken DPS (damn you, Blood Elves!).

Has anyone else noticed this?

Discussing whether an item is better for class than another has no place here. No one cares what DKP system you use, or whether you're a goody two shoes or even Mother Teresa.

So please whether now or for the future do not use that as part of you argument(s). It has no relevance.

Regarding FoFF:

It's dead simple. On tank and spank it's going to be superior to Mirror, otherwise it's not. In all cases the difference is fairly small (about ~30 DPS in maxed Naxx gear).
Question is: For each one of us, is 30 DPS worth it to you to have to carry around an extra trinket? If yes, go for it, if no, don't bother.

On some fights the healing from JoL is awesome, such as the general or on mimiron but right now, even if the seal was fixed for us alliance, the dps is looking too weak for JoL to outweight it.
Right now my spot in the raid is looking hard to aquire when EVERYONE else is doing so much more damage than me, even with gear and action to put out above 5.5k on patchwerk each kill and more than good enough for a paladin on the rest of the encounters. My raidleader even asked me privately on ventrilo once if I thought that the patch could bring a respectable percentage buff in terms of DPS because right now it's not looking good enough. And he is not looking at me alone, he's got enough data on the top 50 dpsers of all classes, so it's not me but the class.

I for one is fearing for my future raid spot and it's not a very nice fealing.

That is a strange comment when SoB is broken for Alliance, and the Horde poster below you saying he was #1 dps (that doesn't mean that much, but it says in his guild he is doing fine).

Anyway, JoL is powerful mostly passive healing effect.

Even if HotC and Ret Aura were removed (due to others giving those buffs), I would take a Ret for the extra blessings + JoL, even if their dps was 1000 below the next dps.

That's an odd statement. Right now, we've gained a buff to our dps through our Seals that outweighs the nerfs, we have much better itemization (as confirmed by Redcape and several others), and we generally have better mana management (don't have to rely on being damaged/healed). Live, I usually place top 5 in the overall damage done, and top 10 on every encounter, even Malygos (which is a horrible fight for Retadins right now). 1-3 where add killing is involved (Ulduar has several such boss fights) or where we get insane multipliers (Thaddius).

The only drawbacks to Retribution at this point:
- Our entire mana supply depends on Judgement. I'd like to see that evened out a bit, but not through SA like it used to be.
- Crusader Strike is still boring.
- Our talent tree is generally very boring as well. There is no mixing, no hybrid specs, no way to actually perform better, no personal preferences or style of play choices to make. This is a problem the Druid and Paladin classes will always have though, since we have three different trees that support completely different specs.

Other than that, I'd say Ulduar is looking mighty good for Retadins, and I certainly see no reason to not bring them along. As frmorrison pointed out - the buffs alone are worth it.

Equiped
[Obsidian Greathelm]
[Fool's Trial]
[Valorous Redemption Shoulderplates]
[Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak]
[Valorous Redemption Chestpiece]
[Bracers of Unrelenting Attack]
[Valorous Redemption Gauntlets]
[Girdle of Razuvious]
[Valorous Redemption Legplates]
[Iron-Spring Jumpers]
[Circle of Death]
[Ruthlessness]
[Mirror of Truth]
[Bandit's Insignia]
[Betrayer of Humanity]

In Bags
[Favor of the Dragon Queen]
[Bladed Steelboots]
[Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood]

My hit is at 202 with the equiped set. is it worth trying to use the [Favor of the Dragon Queen] and the [Bladed Steelboots] while replacing [Bandit's Insignia] with [Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood] for hit? Any other suggestions?

Saying that you are nr1 on the dps list says about nothing other than that the other dpsers totally suck unless the seal bug accounts for 1000+ dps. Any other DPS class, even the shamans, can and rightfully, with the current data, should outdps the paladin, even if the paladin is given flawless circumstances.

Well then I guess our guilds perform differently with different aspects of our raiding goals. The guild I am in is looking to go from world top 20ish to world top 10 in ulduar and a dps'er that is 1000 or MORE behind the next to last dpser isn't going to make the cut. In my guild, JoL and a blessing does not make up for terribad dps that can be replaced with way better dps that more than make up for semi-good group buffing and the healing from JoL, or simply just some other healer.

Looking at the WWS and other such reports from the high ranked guilds with players performing close to flawlessly, this is exactly the case.

Why are you so worried about hit? Switch the Fool's Trial for the Favor, there's no reason to swap your boots (simply because iron-spring are better) or trinkets.

These kinds of questions are best answered by using Rawr or the spreadsheets, or at least post it in the simple questions/answers. In generally posts like yours are frowned upon by the community, please refrain from these kinds of questions.

I suppose it's different for every guild, but I am in no way 1000+ dps behind anyone else in my guild, even with weakened judgement and no seal buff. I still usually place 5-8th in ulduar, almost always beating the other hybrids (except DKs).

I feel like i miss a lot, and I have trouble convincing myself that running around with less than 200 hit is ok.