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.

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.

Hi guys

New poster, but have read the forums for a while and learned a great deal from you.

I see that most of you are getting 5k in raids, where I'm still only hitting about 3-ish, occasionally slightly more.

Is this down to my few bits of gear that need upgrading, or something I'm missing?

My armoury link is The World of Warcraft Armory

I use SotM, and fcfs rotations though usually favouring a Judgment start

Any advice would be appreciated

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?

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.

@Banka

with that rotation you posted, you could just as easily use a Judge->Conc->CS->DS opener to get the same amount of dps(possibly more, as you'll get the libram crit bonus on your next Judgement), like exemplar had suggested earlier, correct? As you'll still get 2xConc and 2xDS in that 21s since they have the same length CD (glyphed).

If you're correct that this is the optimal use of CDs, then we could cast sequence this and use Exorcism/HW when they are available.

I and other paladins I raid with noticed a substantial drop in DPS over the last 2 days, I have also noticed (or atleast I think I did) that my judgement hits were not always showing up in SCT though I didn't think anything of it till I read the most recent posts here. If this is true it would explain alot of what I have been experiencing. Naxx was surprisingly lag free when I experienced this and my frame rates are solid so I can only assume that some sort of ability clash seems likely, either with master poisoner as suggested or perhaps with other ret paladins in the raid, of those of you who have experienced this were you raiding with another ret pally/a rogue with master poisoner?

most likely blizzard didn't think things through. what's probably happening is that judges are not overriding other judgements. and since Vengeance seems to affect judgement (+% holy dmg). so instead of getting "there's a more powerful spell..."-error. it simply doesn't apply.

this would explain why sometimes it does show for you (you have a higher Vengeance stack; so your judgement is more powerful).


most likely the culprit is in the WG-hotfix that was done : /

Here's what this boils down to: Yes, with the T7 4-set you will end up in a situation where you're Judgement and CS clash every time if you use J > CS.

So instead of blindly using the normal clash resolution: Judgement > CS > DS > Consecration > Exorcism > Holy Wrath

You add any random ability between Judgement and CS whenever they're both out of cooldown.

Meaning your starting attacks (with 7 second judgements) would be: Judgement -> DS -> CS -> Consecration... and then continue with the normal clash resolution until J/CS line up again, at which point you use J -> *something* -> CS and continue.

This way you avoid the very predictable repeated clash of Judgement and CS every ~7 seconds.

(Clarification: *something* being any ability you have out of cooldown out of DS > Consecration)




On a side note:
While I appreciate that you're trying to write an extensive post, there's a point where it simply becomes too much (and that's saying something, coming from me as I have that habit too). Please try to boil down your thoughts more even if it takes going over your post again and rewriting parts before you post it.

If all else fails, formatting (bold, underline, headlines, paragraphs) is your friend.