Someone mentioned that the improved HoF talent isn't worth taking, because it doesn't remove the daze from tantrums. However, on Deconstructor, it is INCREDIBLY helpful to healers if you HoP (or BoP or whatever acronym is being used at the moment) the person that has gravity bomb ticking on them during the tantrum. The light bomb damage is healable, but the spike damage from gravity bomb + the tantrum can often result in death. Removing the damage from tantrum on this vulnerable player an extra time in the fight justifies the talent to me and the alternatives are fairly useless.

I will also sing the praises of a beefed-up Sacred Shield that is actually using our SP, has +20% more absorption, no cooldown, and twice as long to slam Art of War proc'd FoLs on.

Question: Has anyone looked at the benefits of shielding + Divine Guardian(300% HP/10s) + Hand of Sacrifice(100%HP/12s)? It seems like that might have a place as a backup shield-wall or something.

Also, has anyone noticed a significant drop or increase in their mana with or without the SoB glyph?

Question for you guys who are testifying that DS is really helpful during deconstructor.

I suggested this to my raid group, since we were running with 4 pallys, and it was quickly shot down because the damage mitigation was perceived as "meaningless."

Their logic was that, a holy pally with 25K health will absorb 37.5K damage from tantrum with DS. Raid wide, with everyone taking 120% of their health as damage, this amount is useless.

What would you say is average raid HP? About 25K fully buffed? 25K*25*1.2 = 750K damage during tantrum.

37.5/750 = .05

So DS reduced raidwide damage by 5% during tantrum? I would say this is probably worth it, but I'm not sure 5% will make or break the encounter.

Divine Sacrifices dmg cap is bugged in that, if you use it while under divine shield, divine sacrifice doesn't stop mitigating after 150% of your max hp.

Do you have any testing results to show this?
IF this is the case I am pretty sure it will be hotfixed very quick, although I think it might not be from my own experience at Deconstructor.

I use the following spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Divine Sacrifice:
I have used this many times by now, and I have to say it's quite amazing. Almost every boss in Ulduar has some sort of predictable AoE, so it's possible to use it on virtually every encounter to reduce the pressure. However, it's only possible to use it once every 5 min, since bubble is mandatory (as has been pointed out several times).

Divine Guardian:
Another amazing talent. Most of the time I use it on myself, and I've gained incredible surviveability through it. However, every now and then I pop it on the tank if I see that the healers are struggling to keep up (i.e tank going low every few seconds). There are definetly times where it's most useful on the tanks, especially if you don't have enough Holy Paladins around to keep it up.

10 man WWS vs 25 man WWS:
Not really comparable I'm afraid. Retribution Paladins have always been amazing in fairly small settings (i.e 5 or 10 mans). There's not a heroic or 10 man raid I don't destroy the meters on. The reason is quite simple: Retribution Paladins bring such a large % of our total buffs, we don't really scale too well with the rest of the buffs (we hardly gain any dps from a 10 to a 25 man setting). I have almost the same dps on Patch 10 as Patch 25 (RNG being a bigger difference than the missing buffs). However, other classes gain so much more - i.e Warlocks and Rogues both scale incredible well, since they generally bring very few buffs, making every buff in the raid is a boost to them.

We have several Warlocks and Rogues who consistently do 6k-6,5k on bosses in Ulduar, even on rubbish attempts and what not. I can't even get close to those values at the moment. Then again, whenever we're doing progress runs, I spend quite a bit of time helping others survive (Hand of Sacrifice + Divine Protection, Divine Sacrifice, instant FoLs, etc).

Edit:
The key to Tantrum is that it deals 10% damage per second for 12 seconds. All you really have to do in order to survive it is to actually mitigate or heal 21% on every player within 12 seconds. Since he deals equal damage (in %) to everyone, you mitigate an entire "wave" by yourself when using Divine Sacrifice, giving the healers a full second extra to heal the damage you didn't mitigate.

Considering the fact that you mitigate a minimum of 5%, you basically cut the needed healing by 25% (well, more like 20ish, since you'll be taking some damage from Light Bombs as well).

I was pretty sure it wasn't. Any report you or your raid might have will be useful here.
I usually see lots of "0"'s the first few seconds after popping it (as I take 0 dmg when in bubble and absorbing other peoples dmg). However, it stops WAY before the bubble is gone. Even if the aoe dmg continues.

AM affects the base effect of all Auras, so with FrA up you would add 260 Frost resist while AM is up. Having a buffed SS/DiSac is more important to me than double base aura effect. I do have AM in my Holy builds.

You can Bubble + DiSac + HoSac for lots of damage absorbed, but you lose 3 GCDs. Still it is a lot of utility.

I did a raid last night without JoW (I was the only pally and used JoL). I had all the other mana buffs and I used all my abilities fine. I couldn't use Flash much and had to cast Judgement ahead of the priority stack a few times.

I would not underline that. You can build a Melee 10 man Raid or Caster group and in these Raids the DDler will have nearly every buff they need, but as a Retri you do profit from Caster Buffs aswell as from Melee Buffs. In a 10 Man raid you will never have all buffs which increase your Damage.

A side note, CoE/EP is the most powerful single buff to our DPS. Being a melee class, you wouldn't guess that the caster buff was our best but it is! But yes, I have to agree. Unless you have a raid full of hybrids with specific specs designed around buffs and no real pure dps, you won't get the buffs you need in 10 man to be ideal.

On another, unrelated note...for those of you sweating about Vezax and not having any regen allowed other than JotW, blizzard gave ret pallies a freebie that no one else has: Corrupted Wisdom (click and look at the buff). It makes the mana return ~2x as powerful, but reduceds your non-JoL healing to about 25% of its total. I actually had fewer mana problems on general vezax than any other fight.

This is highly misleading. Quite frequently he drops a lightbomb in the raid mid-tantrum, which sucks twice over because of the snare. And no, you do not mitigate the "ENTIRE" wave, but rather a portion (not to downplay DS, but lets be realistic).

Mana is fine without the SoB glyph, you should be using Judge/Consec/Exo. You *can* drop consec for SoB if you really feel the need, but it means "you're doing it wrong"... there are only a few fights I can think of where I had to watch my mana, and by watch mana I mean I simply pushed judgement to the front of the priority queue and was fine.

I never said ideal, that's the whole point of my post - it's very hard to build ideal 10 mans, but since we rely mostly on our own buffs we look totally awesome when doing 10 man DPS. I often pass Warlocks in 10 mans, but when going into 25 man instances, the same Warlocks will suddenly be 1k dps ahead of me, since they scale so well with all the buffs they get.

It's simple: We bring a bigger percentage of the total buffs than anyone else (except Elem/Enh Shamans, perhaps), which means we gain less by being in the company of others, than others gain by being in company with us.

@Zurm
I'll even add some math to that, just to show people how good DS really is. Let's add a Light Bomb to the example by ks197. The Light Bomb does 3000 damage per second to the main target, and 2750 damage per second to everyone within 10 yards. The duration is 9 seconds. Let's say it hits 3 targets, and they can't move out of range due to the snare:
3000 + 2750*2 = 8500
8500*9 = 76.500

725.000 (the damage done by Tantrum) + 76500 (Light Bomb damage) = 801.500 total damage
37.500/826.500 = 0,046

So, it's now a total of 4,67%. Since we need to heal at least 21% during that phase (168.315 damage), Divine Sacrifice will it reduce the needed healing to 16,3% (130915 damage).

Conclusion: A single Divine Sacrifice will lower the needed healing (not total healing to get everyone back up to 100%, but for everyone to survive) by roughly 22,2%. Numbers are just "fairly accurate" since most of it is done in my head. I can probably make the example more accurate later if that's needed.

Edit: As mentioned below, the damage is taken by 24 people, not 25, since the Paladin is immune. The example by ks197 should therefore be updated to be 725.000 damage instead of 750.000. I've updated my calculations accordingly.

PS. Sorry if it's not clear what I'm trying to say here. I've always been good at finding the right answer, but horrible at explaining it. I'm just trying to say that DS is a very powerful tool - in fact, it's one of the most powerful mitigation tool in the game right now.

It's still very misleading. Light bombs hit HARD when coupled with tantrum, its extremely difficult to heal. Sure DS helps, but it's absorption is very limited. I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion, but your post made it sound like it was the "end all be all" of tantrum mitigation, when really it's not THAT noticeable.

It seems to me you are under the impression that DS lasts the full duration and has no cap if you bubble; this isn't correct from my experience. Blizzard would never allow an ability that powerful. I notice it is more effective on some fights than others. It has never seemed terribly effective on Deconstructor (though still helpful!), but it really shines on Council hard mode, certain pulls, and when tanks need a buffer on some hard hitting fights.

Certainly, it doesn't exactly remove the need to heal, but it is currently the strongest tool any class has to mitigate damage during such circumstances. Add a Hand of Sacrifice on the tank (they take considerably more damage due to having more HP), and the total mitigation is far more than anyone else can come close to. I'm just trying to say it's an incredible tool that should definetly be used during tough phases.

Also, the math mentioned is incorrect. The Paladin is immune to damage during the process, so only 24 people need to be healed, lowering the healing needed. I'll update it shortly.

Edit: No, I am using 37.500 absorbed in my calculations. Otherwise it would simply be a flat 30% reduction. Remember - the damage during Tantrum doesn't have to be fully healed, you just have to heal 21% of it, so everyone survives. Of course, in reality, people will heal significantly more than that, but there's no need to top people off.

I have never theory crafted anything, but I am concerned about using the Exorcism glyph over the Avenging Wrath glyph, especially on shorter fights. This is what I came up with just using my recount numbers from our XT-002 fight last night. I am currently using the Exorcism glyph by the way.

Exorcism-72 hits for 360,182 damage = 5,002 damage per hit on average, which is 1,000 more damage per hit than would be done without the glyph. 5,002/.80=4,002

Hammer of Wrath-18 hits for 105,005 = 5,833 damage per hit on average.
Assuming a five minute fight:

Exorcism Glyph
300 seconds = 20 exorcisms maximum if used every cooldown (which I don't think it will be) = 20,000 extra damage throughout the fight. 20*1000=20,000

Avenging Wrath Glyph
20 second uptime used when boss below 20%. Assuming boss is below 20% health for 16% of the fight then he is below 20% for 48 seconds, as 16% of 300 is 48 so you should be able to get in a full cycle. Assuming you pop wings at 20% you should get seven HoW’s in 20 seconds which is three more than you could get without the glyph.
3*5,833=17,499

So in a five minute fight exorcism wins 20,000-17,499-2,501 more damge by exorcism.

Assuming a four minute fight

240/15=16 exorcisms which is 16,000 more damage than not using the exorcism glyph.

Still assuming 16% of a boss fight happens after a boss is below 20% health, then the boss will be below 20% for roughly 38 seconds which still gives a full Avenging Wrath rotation during the final 16%.
3*5,833=17,499

So in a four minute fight Avenging Wrath would win 17,499-16,000=1,499 more damage for Avenging Wrath.

This math does not include trash or any of those type things so I’m sure for a full raid night Exorcism would provide more damage, but specifically on bosses, especially as gear gets better and fights get shorter (like in Naxx from day one to now) would it be feasible to start moving towards the Avenging Wrath glyph over Exorcism Glyph or at least making our dual spec have the AW glyph for shorter boss fights if we are trying to maximize our dps which is the entire point of this tread to begin with.

One thing I left out completely because I’m not that good at math is, on my first scenario I had exorcism being used on every cooldown which I don’t think is going to be the case. Does anyone know on average how many Exorcisms you will use in 300 seconds of a normal boss fight? Because if it drops from 20 to say 17 then maybe the AW glyph would still be better? And secondly, is Exorcism based of spell power compared to HoW being based off AP? If so would it be safe to assume as our gear improves during Ulduar their will be a greater gap between the damage from HoW and Exorcism?

I hope I'm not completely off base and wasting everyone's time its just something I was thinking about today.

Edit-I see where Exorcism and HoW are both 15% sp and ap. So as your ap and sp goes up, if HoW does more base damage per hit than exorcism would it begin to do an even higher percent of damage in comparison?

That is correct Njorer - they are in direct competition as far as pure DPS is concerned. However, the big problem with the AW glyph is that pumping HoW like mad will leave you OOM rather fast. Especially considering how low Judgement currently is in our prio list.

Also, it's far more situational, but you already mentioned that.

Edit: I should probably add that it certainly seems to be a viable option, but I think most will still prefer the stability of the Ex. Glyph.

Little off topic -

I looked through the first post, and the thread, and either missed or did not find an answer - are we still seeking slower, high top end damage weapons? Or has the change to seal damage made faster weapons more attractive? For example, I have a choice between Cryptfiend's Bite and Death's Bite - both with 'zerking. Which is a better option? Currently I am one shy of hit cap and 2 shy of expertise cap, using Cryptfiend's.

I've found the meter to be somewhat misleading so far in Ulduar, at least from my experience. So far we've downed Flame Leviathan, XT-002 in heroic, with 2-3 attempts on Razorscale getting him into phase 2 during that time. Leviathan really doesn't count towards class balance (obviously).

My DPS on Deconstructor was running around 5.9-6.2K DPS per attempt. At first glance it looked pretty good, then I decided to investigate it a little further. On our kill, approximately 400K of my ~1.600 Million damage was to the adds. I went through and subtracted add damage out the other top damage dealers in the raid (that weren't specifically assigned to add duty of course), and they were doing signifigantly more single target DPS (around 225K+ more).

On the few razorscale attempts, my boss DPS was comparable to theirs - however, I had AW available for each boss landing.

TLDR: Meters aren't always telling on what really matters.

Why do the adds not count? They need to be killed, and are part of the fight. I can understand padding on fights where the DPS has no net effect (hitting 2+ bosses on Council at a time, freya before adds are dead, etc), but most of the time meters are quite accurate. Think about it this way: would leaving all the adds up and purely killing boss lead to a successful kill? If not, then damage to adds matters.

Perhaps I should have been more detailed. They were the large adds that hit an offtank for about 1.5K and have a large health pool. We didn't actually kill those adds (the despawn when deconstructor dies). They were being tanked near the boss and the damage being done to them was consequential consecretion damage - they despawned when the boss died.

I agree completely with Zurm. Saying that only single target dps matters is not true at all; quite a few fights have adds you need to be kill as fast as possible, and if you have noone capable of dealing with such situations, you'll wipe. Retribution Paladins are excellent at it, and it shows on the meters as well.

Edit:
Indeed, that damage just makes your DPS seem better than it is.

All items aren't known, so I would think there are some decent expertise items. Looking at the damage done with the new SoB, you really want expertise near the cap (after hit cap). The good thing about expertise is the in-game tooltip is wrong, the game takes into account partial expertise numbers.

Looking at the limited gear, you have the helm from Sarth +2 and the chest from Maly25 to give a decent bit of expertise with 4 piece T8.


The points about 37k raid damage are right, it isn't the end-all ability. If you had enough pallies to rotate DiSac that would be noticeable.

I think you will find that deeper within the instance such (seemingly consequential) damage is necessary. So your raid and yourself can weigh your (ret paladin) dps during that deconstructor fight, as to what it will be when such damage is vital.

On a side note, on that same fight if you were using JoL, check to see how much healing you did. I know on one of our kologarn attempts, I was first on damage done, DPS, and healing done. Any reasonable raid/raid leader will find this quality attractive.