These are all great reasons to use it, but i think your quotee missed the biggest thing. On high movement fights, you can throw it up as you're changing targets or any other non dps time & you wont even lose a GCD's worth of dps. I generally try to use my instant FoLs at times like these during boss fights.

Seeing as there are very few fights that don't require you to stop dps for a second here & there to move, not using SS/FoL at times like this would be just plain silly.

I do have a question though. Will SS really absorb SoB ticks? It seems like those manage to bypass every other form of shield (including DS) and wont even set off prayer of mending. Even if it doesn't though, this bugfix makes SS a great tool to offset the damage we do to ourselves.

edit:typos

Buffie - Martyr and Blood damage will be absorbed, however they CANNOT proc the shield themselves and thus will require an outside source to proc it with said damage.

Many thanks, HamSlammer.

The swing-timer post reminded me of the following: Will AoW still reset it?

And about the DG controversy: I thought of speccing into it even before I found all the good data in here about it, and I'm all for it, and I will certainly gofor it. The only question that remains: which filler to take to get to it? All of those seem to be good choices (apart of the mandatory divine strength), with some clearly pvp-oriented such as stoicism and largely toughness and impRF, so I would prefer from an pve-only point of view divinity and guardian's favor by all means, then fill the rest into toughness.

This spec I derived from it, which certainly others have already suggested:

0/17/54


[Edit: oh, and as the emphasis goes into the direction of SoB, is weapon speed in itself not even more important now, taking into account that SoB dmg is not normalized (or so I remembered)?]

AoW, SS, and Repent do not reset the swing timer in 3.1.

Get Divinity and Divine Sac (you have no choice there), so then you have 4 points to go wherever you feel is best. I will have Guardian's Favor 2/3 in Stocism as my filler.

SoB change means Exp/Hit are better, not slower weapons are better. However, all Ulduar 2H are 3.4 speed, so the point is moot.

The SoB change also makes the seals proccing from our instant strikes better, which does imho make weapon speed more important. Ulduar weapons so far are all 3.4 speed. I'm curious about what the high tier arena weapons are going to be like though.. PvP weapons should be 3.6 and I believe it was said that the high tier arena weapons are comparable to the hard-mode heroic ulduar weapons.

Edit: I realized judgements don't get as big of a benefit from weapon dmg with the SoB change so maybe it does even it out. But then there's the new +%dmg modifiers to divine storm and crusader strike that clearly make weapon speed at least a bit better "stat" than on live.

I also implied the higher instant strike damage of course, but as you already pointed out, with no ulduarweapon faster than 3.4, there is (yet) no point to discuss that. The only thing it changes, is the fact, that the Jawbone and Demise will climb up a little bit in value (as both of them offer also either some hit or expertise, especially for humans and dwarfs even more so). By how much a margin, that remains to be made out.

I'm curious what people's choice will be for those 2 trash points in prot in order to get to Divine Guardian. You've either got 2/3 stoicism or 2/5 toughness.

20% shorter stuns and 20% dispell resistance
vs
12% shorter movement impairing effects and 4% more armor

Stoicism may be appealing now that we won't have Divine Purpose, but then I'm not certain how common stuns are in Ulduar. The dispell resistance is useless in pve.

Toughness seems alright since movement impares are relatively common in pve, though really you're only getting benefit from it when Freedom is on cooldown. The minimal armor bonus is mostly useless, but may still help for bosses with aoe-able mobs that don't need tanked -- trash as well.

In either case it's going to be such a negligible benefit, I'm really disappointed that we're still forced to spend junk points in our pve build. I'd be much happier being able to put those 2 points into Imp Hammer -- there are many fights where I can see that being useful. That would be possible if Divine Guardian were moved a tier up and put right next to Divine Sacrifice; that would make a solid prot template for pve ret paladins.

By the way, I tested around a bit SS and it works quite well... perhaps too well... I tried to solo some mobs in Halls of Stone (non hero) and surprisingly enough I downed 4-5 mob groups, and even the large single sons-of-hodir-look-alike guy, only by timing the SS procs and the AoW procs... If you do it well, you can get some insane SoL procs rollin'... I abandoned because of fatigue... 2:30 AM in my time zone ^^

Concerning Stoicism and Toughness: I thought PvE stun and slow mechanics could not be shortened if the encounter was designed that way, so I rather thought them from a pure PvE point of view quite irrelevant, apart from the extra armor from Toughness.

Unless they add something good to invest in, neither choice is very useful for PvE. I chose Stoicism because while it's not too helpful in raids, it's an extra precaution for when you do dailies or quests for general outdoor PvP. Between 20% stun reduction or 12% slow reduction, both are for the most part unnoticeable in raids, but helpful elsewhere.

Perhaps they'll add something worth speccing into.

Stoicism works on King Ymiron's stun. Most PvE stuns can be HoF'ed except for Archavon's Stomp.

As the choice where to put the two floater talents, they're all quite bad. Anticipation will probably provide the most realistic survivability.

A random question to any Rets who've tested Auriaya, can Hand of Freedom remove the Feral Spirit's Feral Pounce? (Feral Pounce - Spell - World of Warcraft)

Anybody else feeling like the SS scaling with Shol "bug" was only reclassified as such after they initially borked our PTR damage output and "fixed" to somehow compensate for that loss? They might have been anticipating the lowering of SoB Judgement damage as hurting us in PvP and re-evaluated their stance on SS in light of this... I foresee PvP issues with this spell already.

I really can't agree with that concern arthaal, since it is still vulnerable to purges and limited to a single target (probably yourself) only. Really the only classes we got a leg up on with SS working is unlucky warlocks (kill those stupid felpups), dk's and rogues, all of which are extremely powerful in pvp (yes even in 3.1). If anything is making people uncomfortable it is the exorcism change, since we've been pretty useless while being kited since forever. Now we can at least fight back once every 15s. It'll be interesting and also kind of sickening to see 75% of pvp paladins as ret because holy got kicked around so badly, but more than likely our class/spec representation will fall back in line with everyone else.

From a pve standpoint, there is an incredible amount of raid damage in Ulduar, even on trash, so having it limited to a single target is again the balancing act. It's great that in good gear we can solo lower instances or what have you, but it has no bearing on balancing for most of the game (raiding and pvp). Nice quality of life boost for people doing dailies too I suppose.

As for specs, I planned to shuffle my points into 2/3 stoicism simply because I don't enjoy being stunned by anything, and the talent build in the new OP will reflect this (if wowhead ever updates). Speaking of which I added stuff about our strikes' 2 roll system and pretty much anything relevant in the last 10 pages (how SS doesnt trigger with sob ect). If you have any more good info now is a good time to get it out there, I'll be updating to the 3.1 post before the 14th.

I was concerned with exorcism until they changed SoB. With the weaker Judgements I see exorcism becoming our go to burst (except better because of the range... it's too bad we can't pickup the shorter cooldown in holy though). SoC might also make a comeback... but the way things are shaping up I could actually see either being useful depending on whether you expect a quick kill with controlled burst (HoJ + SoC) or attrition (SoB).

Hello 2 all. I`ve spent some time and created not bad gear setup for Ulduar25 (yeah i understand that we`ve seen only maybe a half of the items, but even now this setup looks pretty nice imo). Just posting here Rawr compilation

All of the parts are gemmed for STR(used 3 JC gems), exept waist (i`ve inserted there 1 JC expertise gem for capping it). Some stats may be incorrect due to wrong Rawr calculation of raid buffs or including "not finished Wrathstone".
Note that i`ve included in stats all raid buffs, Flask of Endless Rage, STR food. (2), (4) Set bonus calculated

Head Warhelm of the Champion
Neck Frigid Strength of Hodir
Shoulders Conqueror's Aegis Shoulderplates
Chest Conqueror's Aegis Battleplate
Waist Belt of the Titans
Legs Conqueror's Aegis Legplates
Feet Battlelord's Plate Boots
Wrist Wristbands of the Sentinel Huntress
Hands Conqueror's Aegis Gauntlets
Finger1 Sif's Promise
Finger2 Ruthlessness
Trinket1 Darkmoon Card: Greatness
Trinket2 Wrathstone
Back Drape of the Deadly Foe
MainHand Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion
Ranged Deadly Gladiator's Libram of Fortitude

Race: BloodElf
Health: 30466
Strength: 2395
Agility: 410
Attack Power: 7996 (imo this one is too OP due to Wrathstone, maybe something else)
Crit Chance: 39,95%
Miss Chance: 0,00% (8.17% hit = 268 hit rating)
Dodge Chance: 0,00% (26 exp = 215 rating)
Melee Haste: 31,15%
Weapon Damage: 2773,94
Attack Speed: 2,49

Some feedback or criticism are welcome.

I feel we are where we were when EJ re-did their forums. We have mega threads that take a new player forever to look through. The first post in this thread sums up a good deal but for detailed answers a player must dig through 131 pages in this thread alone. Isn't it time we raise a new Ret thread (other threads as well) to keep in line with this thinking?

@B2R, what are you asking for? As you said we don't know all of the drops from Ulduar so any discussion on BiS set up is premature. Clearly the set up you built is a good set for a number of reasons, so again, what are you asking?

I`m not asking, i`ve just meant that if i missed some better variant for some slot - correct me.

Just making a new Ret thread wouldn't solve the problem though; what is needed is a separation of Ret-related topics into multiple threads. For example, take the recent melee/special attack data collection and spading. I feel that it would have been better executed as a separate thread. Splitting up the mega-threads into their constituent subtopics would make things a lot easier for a newcomer to search and read through.

You do atleast want Belt of Colossal Rage as your belt imo

No, giant loss in expertise, and due to current itemisation to reach hit cap is harder than overcap it. And for expertise only few BiS items got it.

I will stick to SoB simply because the seal damage will keep my burst consistent. JoC will hit harder, but the Seal damage will have the 1 second internal cooldown, whereas SoB does not, and will hit just as hard. If you choose SoC, you may need to the glyph to get the most out of it. With SoB, you won't have to worry about that.

I'll personally be using SoB glyphed for PVP -- SoC, even glyphed, is still just underwhelming as far as sustained damage goes. I'm seeing a de-emphasis on burst for ret (every 15 sec with exo instead of every 7 sec with judge), but a significant gain as far as support and utility goes.

At the moment we can sustain our mana well enough in arena if we use our heals sparingly. After the patch I'll have Sacred Shield up constantly while throwing instant FoL crits (that don't reset my swing timer) as much as possible, and I'll be happy knowing I won't be oom 2 minutes into the match. Being able to cast more than 3 Holy Lights will certainly be nice.