I'm not so sure that HoW is higher priority than Judement below 20%, I definitely put it J > (20% HoW) > Cons > CS > DS > Exo > HW

My hammers rarely hit higher than my judgements, and the same goes with the crits, HoW Gets +50% Crit, but Judgement already has half of that crit bonus.

ie, 40% crit +50% = 90% for Hammers, +25% = 65% for Judgements.

I haven't done any testing and I would like to do so, but I get the feeling that your still better off kicking into your Judgement cooldown first even below 20% (Don't forget RV doesn't proc off HoW crits as well)

ie. 65% crits doing %judgebasecritsize%+40% vs 90% crits doing %hammerbasecritsize%
Seems like my judgement crits are far bigger even without counting for RV.

I was also looking at CS vs DS for this same reason (especially as our crit continues to rise up) At the moment i always CS over DS, but isn't DS stronger considerign 2pc + RV?

More investigation required clearly, I haven't had much time to play around lately but should have some tonight.
will post my findings if I'm not beaten to it.

((Sorry for the scattered thoughts post, you guys are all so mechanical, and I come in 'feeling x' and 'seeming like y'))

After raiding Naxxramas tonight, I noticed the infamous Judgement bug is back. And, even worse than before, the macro which alternates Judgements of Wisdom and Light (which prevented the bug from appearing then), doesn't help now.

From my observations, 1 Judgement out of 4 or 5 doesn't do anything. No damage, no replenishment, just eats up mana and puts the spell on cooldown. Also, the animation appears too.

Wonder if anyone else noticed it.

Actually, now that you mention it, last night on Patch, I was checking out all the debuffs while smashing my keyboard and noticed JoW wasn't up on him, even though I hit it every 8 seconds. The next time I hit it, sure enough, my little blue hammery icon popped up. If that was the case, and I'm hitting it when it's coming off CD, it meanst at least 2 in a row didn't do anything. I know for sure I didn't have any misses because I have 313 hit. I'll try and pay more attention to it tonight to see if it happens as well.

My DPS was so bad last night, For the first time in quite some time my melee damage was higher then judgment damage. I also noticed that the Librams are not procing or it seems they are not at all. I figured I would do some testing so I went and beat on a dummy for about an hour trying different gear sets that were resulting in 1 min burst DPS of anywhere from 3200-3600.

Last night in those same gear sets I was lucky to hit 2600 for that 1 min burst test so yes something is definitely wrong and judgments are not firing properly. This patch fouled something up and I knew it when I felt like I was struggling on Razuvious.

I'm not entirely sure this is static across the board. At least from my experience my Judgments were always hitting even with being almost 2% under cap (RNG was in my favor last night). I hit about 5200 DPS on the fight, which was about 300 DPS higher than normal for me. I'd post my WWS for you to compare, but it doesn't seem to be working right now

Have you tried asking your other paladins never to judge justice (incase they were for god knows what reason) and use it yourself, whenever the bug appears, for 3 cd's in a row (long enough for your wisdom and light debuffs to have expired if you didn't judge at all anymore) followed by going back to light or wisdom afterwards?
I tried it the last 2 times and it seemed to work, but then again, who knows how this bug works so it might have been something entirely differant that caused my judgements to work again.

Yes, I did try to use Justice, I also tried to alternate Light, Wisdom and Justice, but doesn't seem to be any different.

Also, I am pretty sure the bug appears way more often during raids that once every 10 Judgements as i see on the test made on dummy. Last time when this bug was on live, I remember that being in a raid increased the frequency of failed Judgements (probably because of number of debuffs on the boss, not sure though).

Maybe someone who has access on US forums can report it? I did it on European ones, but most likely won't help much. I would advise to make a post both on Damage dealing section and the Bug report forums and try to keep it bumped for a while until they acknowledge it.

regarding the rotation discussion from yesterday...

I did some calculations with real raid dmg values of high ranked WWS stats and it seems that the dmg values from especially DS is higher then assumed, as well as CS is lower then assumed.

When using the principle of highest dmg (which seems to be the best, everytime. Is also did some rotation calculations...) first I come to this priorities:

J > DS > HoW > Cons > CS > Exo > HW

DS seems to be really strong, because of the 3 dmg compontents (physical attack [main spell], seal of martyr proc, rightouse vengance proc)

as base for this calculations I used these 2 raid situations:
http://wowwebstats.com/2kzh3mlr3ywgs...0e08#abilities
WWS Loading...

At these raid situations (incl. Raid buffs, crits, special equip ...) the average dmg values of each spell are (everything without selfdmg): (I lowered the dmg of the real spells a little bit, because of the higher miss chance)

judgement of the martyr 10693
Crusader Strike 4504
Divine Storm 5982
Consecration 5811 (10ticks)
Exorcism 3640
Holy Wrath 2682
Hammer of Wrath 5417

Can anyone confirm these results? Especially with other well equiped raid situations?

Yeah I was leaning towards something like this.

I didn't check my own WWS's yet but probably will do before making a decision about it, Its kinda hard cause a lot of my gear has changed in the last 2 weeks. (from 'okay' epics to set pieces largely.) So I don't feel my WWS parses are accurate. Now this Judgement thing has come up eating all of my manas. (Seemingly)

But it looks like J > HoW/DS (Gear/Buffs will certainly vary this) > Cons/CS > Exo > HW

I've been having great success going:

J > (HoW at 20%) > Cons > CS > DS > Exo > HW

Granted, I'm having no problems with missing Judgments. As such, I've milked more person DPS out of this rotation than any other I've tried.

Here's a WWS based on using this rotation: http://wowwebstats.com/f5bl5iwhffdfc
And my armory link to compare gear sets: The World of Warcraft Armory

Please consider that CS is on a much shorter cooldown than Divine Storm or Consecration. For an optimal damage cycle, we are looking on "highest DPS first", not "highest damage per cast". So Crusader Strike is clearly the winner, especially when thinking of the two CS librams available.
There is really no need to discuss this back and forth, please read the statement from Avitus to FCFS on the very first page in this thread.

Spell rotations aside for a minute.

I've also noticed a significant drop in DPS, i have just changed guilds so I am unsure if its raid set up , or what the go is. On target dummys i capped out at about 4200 dps, over a 1 minute period (level 80 heroic). I was just pulling 3k-3.5k on Malygos this evening sporting 250 hit, which has been more than enough in the past. Recount shows 0 misses. I don't have access to a WWS at the moment.

Can we get some clarification on this change in damage or type of damage as i also experienced this. Melee is now considerably higher.

Here's an interesting one. Using the numbers from Redcapes dps posted in the PAWN thread input into wowhead's weight scaler (NOT their default ret pally numbers), I am seeing Spiked Titansteel being ranked approx. 2% above Obsidian Greathelm. The numbers would change oh so slightly as I would be using an Enchanted Tear in the socket, but I don't see it being a large margin, as it would actually improve spiked's ranking. Is anyone else getting numbers anywhere near there?

Spiked Titansteel Helm 46.40
Obsidian Greathelm 45.86

For further information: By far the biggest margin in difference is showing in the glove slot, where Frosted Androit is ranked 38.66 (even crude discolored is at 35.76) while valor is 27.58.

Since the patch my dps has gone up a decent bit, with my distribution of abilities unchanged, so it is possible you just had some bad luck, or your new guild misplaced a bloodlust or you were missing buffs or debuffs. It is also possible you are experiencing the Judgement bug that people on this page are noticing.

Also, I'm not sure if I would use Malygos as a means for testing optimal dps. If you're judging, consecrating, and using Divine Storm during vortex, then your overall dps will be slightly lower than most other bosses, as your white swings and crusader strikes are not landing.

FCFS is always going to apply, but I was taking these 'rules' as a "what to do when cooldowns collide" It gets smokey with Hammer in there.

So.. we should be be doing this as in Damage per second, not Damage per 1.5 seconds. which seems to reinforce using Judgement over Hammer of Wrath. Using AVG / CD = DPS, you can quickly see what your rotation should be, and because CS outstrips DS by more than 10% the 2pc bonus is pretty much irrelivant to our rotation at this point.

Edit: Even without the CS Libram, which I don't use.

hm, I know it is an old topic - but I'm not sure if it is full analyzed already. Especially now with full high-end Raid gear in a Raid situation.

Regarding the rotation:
When doing an ideal rotation (every 1.5sec one cast - and only waiting 0,5sec for Judgement [I tested this before and it seems best to wait if neccesary 0.5sec for judgement, because it is such a hughe dmg increase]) on a 2min fight and starting at 100sec with HoW I receive these results:

prio: J > DS > HoW > Con > CS > Ex > HW
in 2 mins: 17J, 16CS, 11DS, 10 Con, 7Ex, 3HW, 6 HoW
result: 443.785 dmg with styles

prio: J > HoW > CS > DS > Cons > Exo > HW
in 2 mins: 17J, 17CS, 10DS, 9 Con, 7Ex, 3HW, 6 HoW
result: 436.496 dmg with styles

The biggest problem when you rank CS higher is, that you always loose 1 sec of the CS cooldown, when you start it direct after the 7sec Judgement.

On the 4-part T7 single target rotation (7sec judgement) and why FCFS does NOT apply here

First things first: The first come first serve is not a rotation per se,
it is more the result of having abilities with different cooldowns clash to such an extent that finding a reasonably short repeatable rotation is impossible

This does not apply when you have 4 parts T7. As illustrated previously, by utilising this set bonus we are now able to produce a steady,
repeatable and optimal 21 second rotation wherein you will have 3 judgements, 3 crusader strikes, 2 divine storms, 2 consecrates and also 2 more global cooldowns available wherein you can use the other abilities at your disposal (exorcism, divine plea, holy wrath and ofc resealing)
This rotation will ofc break down into a FCFS variant once you hit 20% and get another 6sec cooldown (avenging wrath)
I'll not pretend to be the first to discover anything I'm writing in this post. Just felt like it needed some clearing up

Now. You will notice that crusader strike is used on average every 7 seconds. This is due to the fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get more crusader strikes into your rotation unless you prioritise CS over judgement (which will result in a lower DPS and also defeats the whole point of having 7sec judgement cooldown, so might aswell go for offset gear)
Also: notice that I prioritise divine storm over consecrate. This is due to divine storm having a higher damage per application that consecrate. I realize that this is under debate currently due to a misconception about the mechanic of consecrate. I'll get back to this later on
The rotation breaks down as follows:

Judge 1
DS
CS
consecrate
1 sec wait time
Judge 2
GCD 1 (most likely you will want to put exorcism here vs undead/demons)
CS
DS
1 sec wait time
Judge 3
consecrate
CS
GCD 2 (which is where you will end up alternating the other abilities)
1 sec wait time

and then it starts all over again
When comparing this to a FCFS rotation (no matter priorities) you will notice a few differences.
1. The constant 1 sec delays within each judgement cycle.
Adding an ability here ends up postponing your judgement and thus makes the cycle LONGER (by atleast 0.5sec, more with lag), which results in a NET LOSS of DPS
you have 2 free global cooldowns each 21 sec cycle. Your other abilities go there

2. The on-purpose delaying of crusader strike by always putting 1 ability before crusader strike after judgement is cast.
The reason for this is simple: you will only get 3 crusader strikes no matter where you put them, so the best option is putting them where they don't end up causing other abilities to your judgement
While you do not technically NEED to delay the crusader strike after the second judgement any more than what happens automatically, it's just a whole lot easier to get into a rotation when you have a "red thread" going through the whole cycle

The rotation broken down by judgement phases
Judgement 1:
Judge
Divine storm (or consecrate if you're convinced that it nets a higher damage output) takes prio over crusader strike. The reason for this is that postponing divine storm here will result in a 0.5 (or more) delay of your THIRD judgement due to a cooldown clash
Crusader strike
Consecrate
And now you just chill until next judgement. Pretty neat also that these 1 sec delays actually makes the rotation robust versus lag, no?

Judgement 2:
your crusader strike is actually available 0.5 secs after the GCD from judgement is over, and you may opt to use it here with no damage done to the rotation. You will still have 1 whole global cooldown to spare afterwards (where you can use exorcism or other stuff) with no damage done to your rotation
I'd still recommend doing it like this to get used to things

Judge
GCD 1 (exorcism where applicable, anything you like when not)
Crusader strike
Divine storm
aaaand chill this last second so as not to delay your judgement

Judgement 3:
Judge
Consecrate
Crusader strike
GCD 2 (on an undead boss where you have plenty of mana this will break down into holy wrath, divine plea, holy wrath, reseal aaaaand repeat)
chillsmode for this last 1 second aswell

Now. Had I opted to use crusader strike directly after judgement 2 instead of delaying it with another ability both crusader strike and consecrate would both be available directly after judgement 3
Prioritising crusader strike over consecrate after judgement 3 results in atleast 0.5 seconds delay of judgement 2 in the upcoming cycle, which hurts your DPS

So how bad is delaying those judgements? essentially each 0.5 second delay comes down to a 2.5% extension of the cycle. Depending on how large a part of your overall DPS these abilities add up to, each delay of 0.5 seconds will end up being 1.5-2% loss of damage done.
Feel free to put in your REGULAR ability usage into this cycle and you'll get a good idea of how much damage you usually end up losing due to using a sub-optimal cycle

If you see anything wrong with what I've posted here feel free to point it out. We're all here to help, after all

Now that that bit is cleared up: on to why divine storm does more damage than consecrate
When viewing WWS parses you can easily see that when adding up all of the damage that divine storm results in (the attack itself+a seal procc that is guaranteed as long as divine storm lands+righteous vengeance dot damage on crit)
it ends up outperforming consecrate.
Much of the choice to prioritise consecrate over divine storm is the result of multiplying the average consecrate proc by 10 and calling this the damage per application
Consecrate doesn't work like that.

Consecrate can miss, as is stated in the original post. I'm not talking about the initial application that shows up in your combat log, but rather the hidden ones that result in "<player>'s consecrate fades from <target>".
You can try this out yourself on the heroic dummy. Equip healing gear with 0 hit and cast a set number of consecrates. Write down the actual ammount of consecrate ticks that damaged the dummy
Now equip your maximum hit gear (possibly getting a shadowpriest or moonkin to help you out with +3% spellhit on the dummy) and cast the same ammount of consecrates
Quite a staggering difference, is it not?

Change meta to [Relentless Earthsiege Diamond] & replace all those hit gems with [Bold Scarlet Ruby]. (except the prismatic to meet meta requirements). If your worried about hit then farm heroics for the [Staggering Legplates].

Thanks for the advice, Exemplar. So the rotation should be Judgement > Cons > CS > DS > Exo > HW? Then someone please edit the first post of this thread, as it says that Consecration should be after DS.

No it doesn't. FCFS given priority to Judgement, HoW, CS, DS, Consecrate means if I'm off GCD, Judgement cooldown is up, I hit Judgement - no questions asked. If I'm off GCD, Hammer of Wrath is off CD and Judgement is off cooldown, I hit Judgement first...hence "first come first serve." You are confusing FCFS with clash avoidance...they are two different techniques. Rotations have been analyzed, and FCFS is preferred. No need to super analyze it more unless there are more developments.

At the previous poster - if you have the DS libram, DS should take priority over consecrate (higher uptime on the crit buff). Also, with the set bonus to increase DS, it doesn't hurt to use it. You should change your priority based on what you are doing: Consecrate should take priority over DS (and maybe CS) if you're getting stunned frequently (Consecrate continues to tic). I put consecrate as priority of DS if I have more than 4 mobs (as DS only hits 4). Adjust your priority as you deem fit. Plus, if you have consecrate glyphed correctly, DS and consecrate have the same CD...so you shouldn't have to pick one over the other in most cases.

Thanks for the reply.

I've regemmed a couple to remove the hit and sit at about 7.38% now, so will farm those legs unless I'm lucky enough to get the T7/7.5 legs soon which will then itself hopefully increase my dps with the 4 set bonus.

That was a very interesting read and well thought out. I'll definitely be giving it a try.