That is some very interesting stuff by vulajin; I think I'll add that to the op now, but am not sure what section it belongs in.

For the 4pc I thought about how to pump out some math, though it is not entirely accurate (it is hard to measure it's value). It assumes you have 2/2 imp judgements like you should if specced properly, and also assumes perfect conditions (sub-50 ping, no judgement failures ect). Say a fight lasts 4 minutes, which seems to be the average t7 level boss - over that time without the 4pc, you would have 30 judgements. With 4pc, you would have 34 judgements. My average JoB when raid buffed hits normally for ~4600, and crits for ~9200; my average critrate with judgements is ~70% raid buffed (25% base crit + 35% crit from gear + 3% HotC + 5% LotP/warrior version + raidbuffs such as kings and motw - 4.8). Holy crap that got messy let me clean it up...

WITH 4pc bonus, raid buffed -
Fight lasts 4 minutes (240 seconds):
- 34 judgements (as opposed to 30 without 4pc)
- 2638 extra mana from JotW
(2638 / 240) x 5 = 55, so 55 mp5
- 7800 average judgement damage
70% assumed critrate
4600 - 9200 damage range on judgements
- 31200 more damage from judgements
- 31200 / 240 = 130

So unless someone can disprove my math (and hopefully supplement their own), 2pc T7 is a straight 1% damage increase, and 4pc T7 is worth ~130 dps and 55 mp5. If I don't see any math to prove otherwise by tomorrow I'll add it to the OP.

Well, you are putting one in terms of a percentage increase and one in terms of dps increase based on your stats. I think it would be easier to summarize the Judgement CD as a 12.5% increase in total Judgement damage. Or, assuming your Judgements contribute about 25% of your total dmg, that turns into a 3% increase in total damage, and 55mp5 (which is static, not dependent on current gear).

2pc T7 ~ 1% damage increase

4pc T7 ~ 3% damage increase

The place where it gets tricky is when you start considering that the reduced cooldown on Judgement would mean some abilities would get delayed more than without the reduction in cooldown.

As an example, prior with an 8 second cooldown on Judgement, you might have a Crusader Strike come up at the 7 second mark, used it, and then used Judgement when the GCD was up. Now however, you would delay that CS to the 8.5 second mark, after the GCD of Judgement.

Averaged out over an entire fight, you would expect to see some material reduction in the number of casts for non-Judgement abilities due to the new cooldown conflicts it would create. This is why it's so hard to quantify the 4-piece T7 bonus in anything approaching a rigorous sense. We pretty much just have to crudely approximate.

Add Vulajin's testing proving a 4.8% crit depression could be added in a new section called Interesting Observations. You could add 3% ghost hit as well.


The issue with giving a value for Judgement at 7 seconds is having more GCD interruptions that you may not have had before. Another thing is non-set items (if including Leather) are better than the set items is true for T7 except for the Shoulders. This item difference is likely close to or more than 130 dps.

The additional 55mp5 doesn't seem like it is worth much, assuming Judgements don't bug.


I would say 4 Piece T7 is worth 3% dps increase with the note that non-Set items will prove equal or better.

Actually creating more clashing in an FCFS rotation by decreasing the CD on the most damaging ability in that rotation will increase our dps MORE than the 3% or so we have theoretically laid out.

8s CD Judgement
0s - Judge
1.5s - CS
3s - DS
7.5s - CS
9s - Judge
13s - DS
14.5s - CS
17s - Judge

7s CD Judgement
0s - Judge
1.5s - CS
3s - DS
7s - Judge
8.5s - CS
13s - DS
14s - Judge
15.5s - CS

Just in the initial 20s burst, you can see how much time is saved with a 7 second Judgement, which doesn't speak as much to Patchwerk dps, as it does to Malygos dps, where you're constantly working that starting rotation.

Hi, I had recently switched my main from my mage which I've played since release to a ret pally (played it at 70 for a few months prior to WOTLK releasing), so I'm still learning how to most effectively play ret as I go.

My biggest question at this time is swing timer. Although I never played ret before patch 3.0, I had heard that watching out for swing timers (and thus having it being reset by abilities as little as possible) is an important aspect of getting the most DPS out of a ret pally. However, I've also been keeping up with the various discussions that a FCFS rotation is the best way to go, and have heard some people say that watching swing timers isn't necessary anymore, so I can just spam all my abilities on a FCFS rotation as soon as they come up. Is this true? Do I no longer need to pay attention to swing timers and thus not need to worry about which abilities are resetting that timer? Or is watching that swing timer still an integral part of effectively squeezing the last ounce of dps out of a ret pally?

thanks ahead for any help,

Maddpally, Hyjal horde

None of our dps abilities reset the swing timer at this point, the one thing you may be weary of is using your instant cast flash of lights which do still reset the timer.

Updated the op with tier sets and and observation section. Regarding the observation section, if anyone has time to kill would you please, PLEASE go test exactly how much hit we require for judgements? My own mini-test of ~100 judgements showed that I never missed one with 9%, so we can safely say they are not spells; I have not personally tried 8% yet. Feel free to try it with 5% hit as well although we pretty much already know the outcome of that. Mostly what I'm looking for is an 8% vs 9% test :>

In the past 2 weeks I have not missed a single Judgement with 197 hit rating, or 6.01%. But I have also been getting Draenei aura.

Oh ok, make our testing even more confusing, THANKS GEVLIN ;o

So then, would anyone be willing to test judgements on the heroic target dummy, with 5%, 6%, 7%, and 8% hit? Please be sure to post recount shots or combat parses to back it up; anecdotal evidence is good and all but we need solid evidence.

Gevlin - did you have Precision before 3.0? I.e. are you getting the ghost hit?

This weekend I did 1000 melee on the boss dummy and some random number of judgements during this time. I got 8% miss on melee and 9ish on Judgement - however it was a very small sample size so large deviation possible. I finished Naxx 10 the other day (6 bosses) and no missed judgements at 7.6% (including Draenei aura). I'd suspect we're across the board 8% (or 5% if you had precision). But this is anecdotal, I too would like to see a large sampel size with definitive information.

Stats: 197 hit rating, 8 expertise

This is ungrouped, and unbuffed besides ret aura and kings.

Here are my Judgements after nearly 400 tries, 0 misses



This little gem popped up however...not sure what to think of it. Happened a few times



The ONLY misses I saw were on HoW, where I had about a 2.5% miss rate.



Dodge rate was about 3.25% with a sample size of over 2000 with 2% expertise, which puts the expertise cap at 5.25% +/- about .25%

Since Hammer of Wrath doesn't use a Weapon (just like Shield of Righteousness), HoW/SotR are unaffected by 3% ghost hit. Precision only affects attacks made with a weapon.

My WWS parse linked above confirms this non-ghost hit affect, with a 3.4% miss rate (I had 5.6% hit). The cap for HoW is 8%, just I didn't have enough attacks to get the correct 2.4% miss rate.

Regreding Retri dps cycle and spell rotation as new dps pala i find this link rly good,so check it out.
Noone confirm is it corect or not tho but i did test few rotations myself and pick working one for me with cos i rly dont wanna belive that retri dps is only about pressing ability with CD rdy w/o any useing of brain parts.

I pick Exempl 7 : with 8 sec judgements and 10 sec Cons.
I find that rotation rly good cos there is no many time wasted w8ing cooldown to pop up.
There is a 4 rotations for using in that exempl:
1. J > DS > CS > Cons
2. J > CS > DS > Cons
3. J > CS > DS
4. J > CS > Cons
After 4th part you starting all over again.There is a time after 3rd and 4th wave to use spells for undeads and demons w/o interupting rotations at all.I cant w8 to test it after restart cos i read this after all bosses are killed :/

Also about hit.
When i switch from holy to retri on start of wotlk raids i have like 198-200 hit.I miss ALOT in 25 man raids...aloooot !!!
Recount was crazy...on every single ability i have hugeee amount off misses.It was scary.So my first task was to cap hit and ignore stories about ,,ghost hit,, cos in my case that was not correct.Now i have abit too much hit cos my gear setup is still in proces,365 hit and total rock solid 0 missing atacks and i like it.
My next goal is to pimp expertize high cos imo those 2 stats,hit and exper. need to be taken really serious w/o leaving space for ghost stories:P

After reading this thread, I decided to do some testing on my own... But before I share the results, I would like to state some this very important fact:

** Pre-3.0 I was Holy specced, and that includes the night before the patch... I did not have Precision, or actually ANY Protection talents prior to the patch night. I logged on the next day after patch still in my holy gear even.

Isolating Variables:

1) To further neutralize the whole variable of talents, and also eliminate a personal doubt that might be a 'typo' in one of our talents that gives us hit instead of crit, I performed the following test without allocating any talent points; i.e. I had 0/0/0 specc.

2) Both tests were performed on the Heroic test dummy in Ironforge.

3) Both tests were conducted around 3:30 a.m. in the morning to make sure the dummy was not afflicted by any debuffs of any sorts, and I had no buffs/potions/elixirs or external buffs of any sort, including my own blessings/auras.

4) The tests were done using the "Tabar" 2-handed white axe, bought from the weapon master in ironforge. The choice of the weapon was to also eliminate any expertise benefits that could be yielded upon using a 2h sword or mace from my Human racial.

First Test:

It was performed without any gear equipped on. I had zero hit rating, and zero expertise. I took a sample of 1000 melee swings, performed on the aforementioned dummy. The results yielded illustrated in the following recount screenshot:



I had a 5.2% miss chance on the dummy. Putting in an 0.2% margin of error, that rounds us very close to the claimed 5% hit chance.

Second Test:

It was performed on the same target dummy, I had equipped the following 3 items:
- Spiked Titansteel Helmet (60 hit rating)
- Collar of Dissolution (24 hit rating)
- Staggering Legplates (80 hit rating)
===========
Total hit rating: 164 (Precisely 5% hit chance)

The results of this test is represented in the following recount screenshot:



As you can see; from the 1,000 swings, I had ZERO misses on the dummy. Which in conjuction with the previous test of 5.2% miss chance, pushes me to the complete certainty that right now our hit cap is 5%, i.e. 164 hit rating.

Please analyze my testing and results, and provide any feedback if I had any wrong assumptions or testing mechanisms.

Prism, lvl80 Retribution Paladin, Ascendance Guild, Alonsus-EU

Have a Nice Day (tm)...

I did a test myself on this 5% hit rumor and got a 3.2% miss chance with a hit rating of 201 (6.13%) and no buffs, just my normal gear. I was holy at the time of the patch so I don't have this "ghost hit". What am I doing wrong? So many people have nearly confirmed that 5% hit is the melee cap. It's not the vindication either in the recount screenshot, I saw melee misses on my SCT.


Test 2: 300 swings, 8 misses.

@Olympus - Gratz! Wish I had the ghost hit. My test proved me needing exactly 8 to cap - same 1000 melee test. My Naxx 10 confirmed this.

@Joelly - your samples are too small. Do at least 1000 melee attacks and make sure it's with a weapon you have 400 skill using, then check your miss. You could just have had a good/bad day with the Random Number Generator, or be affected by weapon skill (my first test I started with my new 2H sword and immediately realized I hadn't skilled it to 400 - needless to say I scrapped those numbers, hit the field, came back later to do the 1000 I've discussed).

Honestly, even 1000 melee attacks is a small sample size, but it should be enough for rough numbers (i.e. a .4 round down, .6 round up rule - .5 and retest!).

I think we can definitively state:
A) Some Paladins require 5% to hit cap
B) Some Paladins require 6% to hit cap
C) Some Paladins require 8% to hit cap
D) These do not appear to be tied to talents (Olympus got 5% with 0/0/0 spec and I got 8% with full Ret spec and Ret Aura).
E) These do not appear to be tied to talents prior to 3.0 (Olympus and I were both Holy, no precision and we have 3% difference between us).

Until Blizzard resolves this discrepancy (probably as difficult as the non-Judgements they admit happen but have yet to resolve) I can only recommend that every single Ret Paladin test their own personal hit cap.

So basically with the Hit cap problems, Exemplar is on the money. There seems to be too much variation between Paladins (mileage may vary) and their hit cap.

I myself have about 6% hit cap, and I can gear accordingly to boost my own personal DPS.

Whether or not Blizzard will implement hit rating as a static 5% (to just give Ret inherent precision somewhere down the tree) for the class at all is distressing.

Until then, if you have ghost hit, then go for broke and utilize your gear to base yourselves around it - you will find yourself doing a lot more DPS than our 8% brethren.

Regarding rotation I read earlier:

This rotation is standard for bosses, however in bold I have added in things and changed it accordingly.

This rotation allows for mana regen, is just .5 seconds off of the other rotation, and takes in account that Consecration does more DPS than Divine Storm on a single target over a long fight duration. If you have the mana, that is.

Question: If you're on a 7s Judgement rotation and you're prioritizing Consecration over DS, does [Libram of Furious Blows] overtake [Venture Co. Libram of Retribution] in usefulness?

Absolutely. With the reduction in cooldown, and situational fights, Libram of Furious Blows can be more useful than Venture Co. Libram. Granted, if you are doing trash, your priority should be Consecrate and Divine Storm over Crusader Strike, so the Venture Co. Libram would be a better fit.

Unless you're talking about a ridiculously short fight, no. [Venture Co. Libram of Retribution] still wins.

Granted it takes a few extra seconds to get the first buff, but after that it's pretty easy to see why VCLoR is better.

[Libram of Furious Blows] - Assume 7.5s between buffs

(5/7.5)*61 = 40.6 crit average

[Venture Co. Libram of Retribution] - Assume 10.5s between buffs

(8/10.5)*73 = 55.6 crit average

edit: In another week it doesn't matter anyway as the PvP librams>all.

This is my parse including judgement hits. The way recount was counting my judgements was strange. Seems like judgement misses are reported in the combat log as a separate spell. I did this with 0 gear, in ret raid spec. No aura or expertise racial weapon equipped. Well here it is, take of it as you will:








Through some simple math, I tested 1784 total judgements, of which 149 missed. Which calculates to about a 8.3% miss chance judgements. I'm not going to try to conclude anything with these results. I wanted to post them in hopes that someone could make a better judgment of my results (lolpunhaha)