Yah improves healing done to you and by you by like 5% or something of the sort. My understanding is that it doesn't stack with the druid aura, or am I completly bonkers here?

It's Imp Devotion aura that doesn't stack with the Druid aura. Divinity stacks with anything and everything.

This is incorrect as Divinity is a self buff while Imp Devotion Aura is a raid buff, and as such is the one that does not stack with Treeform.

Yes, I know I am under-hit. I foolishly passed on all that hit gear in naxx-10. :P

Dug up the titansteel helm from my bank for boss attempts and took the ring off deconstructor last night. Should put me back where I need to be for now on hit.

I completely seemed to go brain dead when I was running my numbers and didn't take into account the double-dip and as such didn't realize we needed hit cap again. GG.

That should help with my numbers quite a bit; looking back over WWS I had almost 4% total misses on all my abilities. Talk about a wake-up call. Though I am still surprised I did the damage I did, even with those high misses, last night.

Hoping to be staring Yogg in his ugly mug tonight. ;-) Thanks for the tips all.

Hi. Long time listener, first time caller. So, for the guilds that have hit ulduar - how have we been doing, competitively speaking? My gear is pretty solid, given all of the parameters here (just barely below hit and EXP cap) - assuming I do a good job, can I expect to still have competitive DPS? I tried to seek out some WWS reports, but haven't found any yet for Ulduar runs. Some have said we took a hit, others said we are a little better than before, and still others say the latter, but add that most everyone else took a big leap forward.

Is there enough data at present to say what's what?

From my own experience... we do fairly competitive. Rogues, feral druids, hunters, and warlocks beat me almost all the time except for certain fight situations or based on their job. (Deconstructor and Hodir for instance... I just nuke!)

I'm rounding out top 5 usually, or at least close.

Just minor notes for anyone who cares to read them:

Hit and expertise are huge now; most of our damage is from seals and white combined. Which means we scale better with haste than we did before.

The thing that is really starting to annoy me?

Every upgrade you take is probably going to hurt you somewhere until you get more gear.

It seems EVERY piece of gear I have that I could replace would lose crit, hit, or expertise in order to gain elsewhere. it's like all the gear with hit/haste on it is being replaced with crit/expertise... and vice versa. My crit dropped 4% after the items I got last night but my haste went up 5% and my hit is almost capped. I need alot more expertise but that'll come soon enough.

Just be prepared to take some deductions in crit for a while until you start to round out your gear.

In reply to the previous posters statement, I'm finding myself going hugely over the hit cap, picking up pieces of gear from ulduar. Part of that is my weapon, since our KT never dropped a single betrayer for us, ever, and I'm still whiffing with a death's bite. But overall, I'm finding that I am trading crit for hit & str, which once I start getting some t8 should sort itself out. In the meantime, The libram from razorscale dropped last night, and as the only ret paladin in the raid, I got it. I don't have the deadly libram, so it's between 235 dmg on DS, and the libram of radiance which is +144 dmg to CS. Dividing the +dmg by the cd's, it looks like the ulduar libram is 23.5 dps, and the Naxx25 one is 24 dps. Is there some way in which the talent modifiers affect this seemingly simple additive bonus dmg, or is it just a really awful (for its ilvl) libram?

I've used it on flame trash, and on Deconstructor during tantrums but I'm unable to use it without another sheild atm.

And I'm finding Divinity, JoL, Sacred Sheild, and insta FoL to be Huge, I'm always near top damage taken but so far the improvements have been keeping me topped, imo USE Sacred Shield!

I wanted to throw in my spec,
19/52
Our guild is working on Razor and Deconstructor, I'm finding the imp hammer great for adds on razor, and since HoF doesn't work during tantrum on Deconstructor, I've skipped it's imp talents.

Avitus, Exemplar, Zurm, Redcape, frmorrison, - Thanks for all the discussion - it's helped us all. And I'm looking for more.

Are you 100% sure that BS/JC are two best profs?

I love divine sacrifice... gives a nice utility buff. Only problem is it nukes our damage pretty heavily because you more or less HAVE to bubble during the effects.

I've used it successfully during deconstructor tantrums, auyulia pull (goddamn cat lady), hodir, and during ignis.

It's just more utility we can bring.

@above poster

I really wish I had imp hammer to help with interrupts more; but getting imp might is probably better for your raid. Most holy palys aren't going to get ret anymore (or if they do it's dual specced with the prot build. Imp might is still a great buff.

Additionally... whats up with your glyphs? Seal of R, DP, and blood? Just wondering about the logic behind those.

(I use judgement, concecration, exorcism personally.)

My spec: Ret (17/54)

The numbers on the OP suggest that they are. Are you offering that there is a superior alternative? They are superior simply because they allow you to increase your strength instead of attack power. (BS allows 32 str instead of 64ap from the others). This is not to mention that bypassing meta gem requirements puts JC above and beyond.

From what I remember if you swap specs and lose an improved buff talent, that buff gets removed from everyone you cast it on. I'm at work atm so I can't test, but will when i get home.