• Arikah

(v 3.2.2 live)
(Discuss BiS gear here)


 

Contents

1Introduction 1.1Tools and faqs 1.2Acronyms/Shortforms 2Observations/Theories 3The Basic Rotation.. 3.1..and why.. 3.2..and how to complicate it 3.3Addendum 4Stats 5Mechanics 5.1Judgements 5.2Seals 5.3Strikes and DPS skills 5.4Special Talents 6Talent Specs 6.1Talent Options 7Glyphs, Gems, Consumables, Enchants, Professions 7.1Recommended Major PvE Glyphs 7.1.1Recommended Minor Glyphs 7.2Recommended Gems 7.3Professions 7.4Enchants 7.5Consumables 8Tier Gear 8.1Tier 7 8.2Tier 8 8.3Tier 9 9Add-ons 10Macros 11Known Bugs 11.1Changelog

[top]Introduction

Another major patch with major changes for ret again, 3.2 warrants a partial rewrite. This thread focuses on retribution discussions, primarily endgame pve related. Retribution offers great sustained DPS, is very competitive as a dps class/spec, and it also offers the following raid buffs:

3% crit to raid	Ret / Ele shaman / Mut rogue
3% all damage to raid	Ret / BM hunter
3% haste to raid	Ret / Moonkin
100% JoW/JoL uptime	Ret or prot paladin
Replenishment to 10 raid members	Ret / Spriest / Destro lock / Frost mage / Surv Hunter
Blessing of Kings / Imp Blessing of Might	Any paladin
-AP Debuff	Ret or Prot paladin / Warriors / Warlocks / Ferals

We still have the option of speccing into Divine Sacrifice, which has proven to be a valuable raid cooldown throughout Ulduar - time and testing will tell if it is worthy of speccing into for 3.2.

Retribution in Wrath (like most classes and specs) is pretty easy to pick up and play, but somewhat difficult to master; hopefully this thread and its' contributing posters will make it easier to understand, for both new and veteran paladins alike. This thread assumes you have basic knowledge of paladins and their talent trees.

This thread has several predecessors, which can be referenced for a lot of old data (some of which is no longer relevant or accurate!):
3.1 thread
Arikah's 3.0 thread
Cathela's wotlk beta thread
Cromfel's 2.3 ret thread

..and much of this collection of information is thanks to the frequent posters on these boards, who are too numerous to name.

[top]Tools and faqs

Q: Is there a tool to calculate my DPS using a certain gear/spec setup? Or what item will be better for me?
A: Yes, Rawr, Redcape's Calculator, and Bellator's spreadsheet (updated by Exemplar) which much like this thread will improve in accuracy with time. Note that gear upgrades from all 3 tools are mostly dependent on your current gear.

Q: What seal for PvE? And for PvP?
A: With blood removed, Seal of Vengeance(Corruption) is now our sustained pve dps seal. For mobs that die in under 12 seconds (trash), you may want to use SoR or SoC due to the DoT ramp-up time of SoV. SoC is a good cleave seal, perhaps for things like Anub's adds.

Q: What does weapon speed do to us? Do we want slow or fast?
A: We still want slow. Every .1 speed slower is equal to ~20 DPS due to Seals and Judgements not being normalized to weapon speeds.

Q: What weapon enchant?
A: Scroll down to the enchant section, it explains berserking a bit more...

Q: Should I use a fast 1h weapon to stack SoV quicker? What about libram swapping?
A: No. Switching weapons and librams is always a dps loss.

[top]Acronyms/Shortforms

AGI = Agility
AoW = Art of War
AP = Attack Power
ArP = Armor Penetration
AW = Avenging Wrath
BoM = Blessing of Might
BoK = Blessing of Kings
CS = Crusader Strike
CRIT = Critical Strike (rating)
DoT = Damage over Time
DP = Divine Plea
DS = Divine Storm
DSac = Divine Sacrifice
Exo = Exorcism
E4E = Eye for an Eye
GCD = Global Cooldown
HoJ = Hammer of Justice
HoT = Heal over Time
HoW = Hammer of Wrath
ICD = Internal Cooldown
JoW = Judgement of Wisdom
JoL = Judgement of Light
JoJ = Judgement of Justice
JotW = Judgements of the Wise
JoV = Judgement of Vengeance
RV = Righteous Vengeance
Sheath = Sheath of Light
SS = Sacred Shield
SoB = Seal of Blood/Martyr (Removed in 3.2)
SoC = Seal of Command
SoCorr = Don't call it SoCorr please, it's SoV
SoR = Seal of Righteousness
Sotp = Seals of the Pure
SoV = Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption
SoV dot = The DoT portion of SoV
SoV proc = The instant damage portion of SoV
STR = Strength
PoJ = Pursuit of Justice
ppm = proc per minute

[top]Observations/Theories

This section clarifies some things regarding hits, crits, and expertise. Much of this section is thanks Retesting hit table assumptions . The people in that thread have solid math, and Vulajin has provided pretty solid evidence of these theories (40000+ swings!)

Current observations:
Glancing blows are a part of melee combat and cannot be avoided. Glancing blows happen 24% of the time and cannot be critical hits; as retribution, only auto-attacks (whites) are subject to glancing blows.
Our specials are based on a 2 roll system, our normal (autoswings) are a one roll system. SoV dot applications are still based on the 2 roll system, so this is still valid.
You need 8%, not the BC 9%, to be 2H melee hitcapped vs skull level mobs (bosses).
You (still) need 26 expertise (6.50%) to be expertise capped, not the 6.25% reported lately.
All melee classes seem to suffer a 4.8% crit suppression vs skull mobs; this means that your melee critrate will be on average 1.8% lower than your character sheet implies (HotC covers 3% of this, procs from librams and such not accounted for).
All spell attacks have a 3% crit suppression vs bosses. Because of HotC, we do not notice this at all; also only exorcism and holy wrath are affected by this.
The spell hit cap is still 17% - the only skills we have that are affected by this are exorcism, holy wrath, and consecrate ticks - so this is of little importance to us.

[top]The Basic Rotation..

Basic clash resolution is as follows: HoW > CS > Judgement > DS > Consecration > Exorcism > Holy Wrath
For a newly modified clash resolution, see below.

After many months of facerolling, sadly not much has changed and we still use FCFS (First Come First Serve) as our "rotation". What this means is basically that it is better to hit a dps skill that is off cooldown - any skill - rather than wait a second for a certain skill to be ready. In the event that multiple skills are off cooldown, use the clash resolution above to prioritize what to use first; these are sorted by DPS, not Damage per Cast.

The reasoning behind FCFS courtesy Avitus:

[top]..and why..

1. HoW - This skill only comes into play when a mob is at 20%; it then becomes your top priority due to it's extremely high crit rate and fairly short CD.
2. CS - CS hits like a limp noodle now but it still procs SoV, making it close to judgement in terms of dps. It is ahead of judgement because of the very short cd, and delaying a CS by even a second reduces your DPS by a large amount.
3. Judgement - JoV hits harder than Blood used to in 3.1, but still not quite hard enough to pull ahead of CS.
4. DS - Nothing changed about DS from 3.1 so it sits exactly where it did then.
5. Consecration - Consecration moves near the top of the pile only against multiple (4+) adds.
6. Exorcism - It hits hard, but because of it's somewhat long cooldown (15s) and reliance on spellhit, it isn't great dps. Do not use this on a pull because it will not be instant cast, and will delay entering melee combat.
7. Holy Wrath - Only effective against multiple (6+) demons/undead, you are better off using your free GCD casting DP or a SS on someone. This is as close to a mana dump skill as we have.

[top]..and how to complicate it

Chicken spent some time figuring out exactly what buttons we will be pushing at what time period, so if you really want to micro then compare your usage to "ideal". This does not take bloodlust into account (for quicker consecrate/exorcism/DP GCDs), and assumes that you are using the correct glyphs. If you choose to use DP earlier (at 12 or 20.5), or use things like SS, Salv ect, you simply delay the entire sequence by 0.5 seconds. Obviously, YMMV as nobody plays with 0 latency/0 errors - it's best to stick with FCFS and be an adaptable hybrid.

Time	Skill Used
0	Crusader Strike
1.5	Judgement
3	Divine Storm
4.5	Crusader Strike
6	Consecration
7.5	Exorcism
9	Crusader Strike
10.5	Judgement
12	Free Time
13	Crusader Strike
14.5	Divine Storm
16	Consecration
17.5	Crusader Strike
19	Judgement
20.5	Free Time
21.5	Crusader Strike
23	Exorcism
24.5	Divine Storm
26	Crusader Strike
27.5	Judgement
29	Consecration
30.5	Crusader Strike
32	Divine Plea
34.5	Repeat from start

[top]Addendum

Equipping 2pc T9 is more than just a dps boost for us; it also has the side effect of altering our priority system (due to losing 4pc T8 + better RV's from judgements with T9). This new priority system is also usable (with a barely noticable effect, ~30 dps) at top-end Uld gear levels (ie full hardmode stuff) because of the amount of STR/crit that is on the gear.

If you have 2pc T9 equipped or have above 7000 AP / 45% crit raid buffed, your new clash resolution is: Judgement > HoW > CS > DS > Consecrate > Exorcism > Holy Wrath.

Remember that no matter what priority system you pick and use, we're still bound to FCFS. Roll dat face hard!

[top]Stats

(In order of importance!)
If you are looking for stat weightings I suggest you use one of the spreadsheets at the top, as they vary greatly depending on your current gear.

Hit See Observations
32.8 rating gives you 1% hit. At level 80, we require 263 hit rating, or 8%, to be hit capped on white swings, specials, and judgements. Note that Exorcism and Consecration are considered spells and use the spell hit table, thus we can still miss with these abilities. You need to be hitcapped in order to get your maximum dps. Hitcapping is extremely easy with gear alone and shouldn't be gemmed or enchanted for.

Strength
Our DPS stat to stack after the hitcap, as we have various talents that multiply it's effect. 1 STR gives you 2 AP baseline, multiplied by 1.15 from Divine Strength (Tier 1 Prot) giving us 2.3 AP per STR when specced. This number is further affected by buffs such as BoK. STR also increases the strength of our utility spells such as SS via talents, and the new SoV triple dips on STR. It is recommended that you gem all STR after you are hitcapped.

Expertise
Introduced in late BC, this stat allows us to completely remove dodges from the attack table - you cannot fully remove parries from the table, but you only get parried from the front, so don't attack bosses from the front! 8.2 rating gives 1 expertise; you need 214 expertise rating (26 expertise, 6.5%) to reach the cap. If you are a human using a sword/mace you need 23 expertise (189 rating), and if you are a dwarf using a mace you need 21 expertise (173 rating) to reach the cap due to racials. Capping this stat is a significant dps increase vs uncapped (or none at all) as it affects our whites and strikes. You ideally want to cap this stat alongside hit in order to maximize your dps and this is possible in 3.1/3.2 with the amount of expertise on gear. Anything over the cap is utterly worthless and wasted itemization points. Do not gem for expertise, let it come naturally with gear or glyphs (see glyph section).

Crit See Observations
We are quite reliant on critical strikes to do damage. You can never really have too much crit, but it is not worth gemming for it, gem for STR instead. You need 45.9 crit rating to gain 1% crit at 80. This stat gains no benefits from raid buffs, but you get more per itemization point from crit than you do AGI. This stat also increases your spell crit rating, making it flat out superior to AGI.

Agility
We need 52.08 agility to gain 1% melee crit. Like stated before, crit is flat out better, however AGI does scale with raid buffs such as BoK where crit does not. Often found on leather, mail, or sometimes weapons, but not on plate.

Haste
Haste received some buffs in 3.1; namely for paladins we get 30% more haste from each rating point. Haste increases white damage and SoV damage by giving you a few more attacks against a boss; haste does NOT decrease the GCD on our strikes/judgements, but slightly decreases spell GCD (cons, exo). You will find plenty of it on our sets and pieces, don't enchant or gem for it. You need 32.7 baseline haste rating to gain 1% haste at 80, but adjusted with the 3.1 changes paladins require 25.2 haste rating for 1% haste. Despite all these buffs for haste, it still isn't a great stat for ret and should not be stacked or specifically aimed for.

Attack Power
Most of our skills scale off AP, but this stat is bottom of the melee barrel (about tied with ArP) - STR is just so much better. AP isn't really seen on plate (so you often don't have to worry about this) but you will run into it if you dip into leather and mail. Note that despite AP having a 2:1 item stat budget, it is still far weaker than STR as we have no talents that boost it's effect. When comparing or considering pieces with AP vs plate, you need to look at the item stats/level as a whole.

Armor Penetration
ArP only affects about 35% of our damage, making it our least desired stat. 13.8 rating now gives you 1% armor piercing; unlike BC, you can no longer fully ignore boss or player armor via this stat. ArPen does NOT increase damage done by seals or judgements, just white damage, CS and DS.

Spellpower
Bad item stat for us. Spellpower increases some of our skills' coefficients, but at a rate much slower than STR/AP, and does nothing for our white damage and instant melee strikes - CS and DS gain nothing from spellpower. Avoid this stat (easy to do, since none of our ret gear has spellpower).

Intellect
As of 3.1, INT sucks due to JotW/SA changes. 1 INT gives you 15 mana and a negligible amount of spell crit; you need 166 INT to gain 1% spellcrit. INT will increase the mana you get from DP, and your total mana pool, nothing else. You will only find int on hunter/enh shaman gear and it is rare to find a piece of mail better than plate/leather. INT is not a ret stat.

Stamina, Armor
Ultimately, stam does nothing more than keep you alive in situations where there is raid damage, and in wrath there is a lot of raid damage. Most of the damage is magic (not mitigated by armor) therefor armor class does not matter to us, as we have no Armored to the Teeth talents like warriors or deathknights. You'll find all the stam you need and much much more on all wrath gear.

[top]Mechanics

(Quirky!)
Several mechanics have changed since BC, most notably the Seal and Judgement systems.

The following scale off of both AP and Spellpower -

• Seal of Command:
  36% weapon damage
  
• Judgement of Command:
  19% weapon damage + 9% AP + 13% spell power
  
• Seal of Vengeance: (see below for full details)
  33% weapon damage + 2.5% AP + 1.3% spell power per tick
  
• Judgement of Vengeance:
  (1 + (.14 * AP) + (.22 * Spellpower)) * (1 + (0.1 * Stack Size))
  
• Seal of Light:
  15% AP + 15% spell power (healing proc)
  
• Judgement of Light:
  16% AP + 25% spell power (damage)
  2% of maximum hp (healing proc)
  
• Seal of Wisdom:
  4% of maximum mana (mana proc)
  
• Judgement of Wisdom:
  16% AP + 25% spell power (damage)
  2% of base mana (mana proc)
  
• Judgement of Justice:
  16% AP + 25% spell power (damage)
  
• Consecration:
  4% AP + 4% spell power per tick
  (Final rank has 113 base damage per tick)
  
• Exorcism:
  15% AP + 15% spell power
  (Final rank has 1028 base damage)
  
• Hammer of Wrath:
  15% AP + 15% spell power
  (Final rank has 1139 base damage)
  
• Holy Wrath:
  7% AP + 7% spell power
  (Final rank has 1050 base damage)
  
• Sacred Shield:
  75% spellpower

Our healing spells scale strictly off of Spellpower.

In addition to seals scaling from both AP and SP, ALL seals can now be triggered from our instant melee attacks, DS and CS. I'll cover the specific seals a bit further down.

[top]Judgements

Blizzard finally came out and "settled" what we already knew for 3.2. All Judgements are considered melee attacks that cannot be dodged, parried or blocked. They cannot be used while silenced and can still miss if you are not hitcapped. If this is confusing for you, just think of them as ranged physical attacks that are capable of triggering melee events (beserking, AoW ect). Judgements do not stack, and the last/most recent person to judge will be credited with the effects (yes, non-divinity JoL's will overwrite divinity'd JoL's).

Judgement of Wisdom
This is a strong choice for your judgement to use due to equalized JoL and the removal of blood recoil. You want to keep JoW up or you and your mana using dps (hunters in particular) can run into mana troubles. JoW's mana return effect is limited to 15 PPM for spells and physical; because paladins use both, we can see a few more procs than other classes.

Judgement of Light
This was our primary judgement for 3.1, however it has been equalized among all paladin specs to return 2% max hp (it used to scale based on AP/SP). If there are 2 paladins in your raid, you want the prot or holy paladin to use this judgement, so you can keep JoW up. If there is heavy raid damage and you are the only paladin, JoL is a good choice. If you are specced into Divinity, JoL still does benefit from it.

Judgement of Justice
This is your judgement in pvp situations, as all the debuff does is limit movement speed to 100%. This is not considered a movement impairing effect, so freedom or druid shifting will not break it, it can only be pvp trinketed or dispelled. This effect only lasts 10 seconds in pvp, not 20 as the tooltip implies.

[top]Seals

Seals scale off AP and Spellpower. Judging a seal no longer consumes the seal, seals have a 30 minute duration. Seals are NOT considered weapon imbues, and can no longer be dispelled. Seals trigger off instant attacks (CS, DS).

Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption
SoV replaces blood (which has been removed from the game) as our primary dps seal. SoV is the biggest reason that STR is our best dps stat, because it is one of the few skills in the game that triple dip on a stat (once for AP, once for SP, once for AP affecting weapon damage). In case the wording on the skill is unclear, SoV has 2 parts to it - the DoT, and the proc. The proc is basically a weaker, modified Seal of Blood proc but without the recoil. The talent SotP increases the damage from the DoT and the proc (which results in a total dps increase of about 6.5%). It takes ~12 seconds in a raid buffed setting to get a 5 stack active. SoV has some odd functionality detailed below:

The seal procs will begin triggering from auto-attacks once you have a debuff stack of any size, and strikes will always trigger a seal proc (but never a DoT application). The table below shows the damage of the proc per DoT application:

Stack Number	% of Weapon Damage	% with SotP
0	0%	0%
1	6.6%	7.6%
2	13.2%	15.2%
3	19.8%	22.8%
4	26.4%	30.4%
5	33%	38%

When an auto-attack lands (does not dodge/parry/miss) that can proc a seal the of the following things happen independently of each other (see 2 roll system).

1) A "hidden strike" which uses melee combat mechanics occurs. If it lands it refreshes/stacks SoV DoT. Only white swings can trigger a refresh or stack.
2) A weapon damage based proc will occur if you used a special (CS/DS/judge) or if you have a 5 stack (from auto attacks). This attack can not be avoided.

Remember #2 happens regardless of #1 landing, it just requires the initial attack (autos, cs, etc) to land.

DoT functions and mechanics:
DoT application is melee hit/exp based. (Cannot be resisted like a spell, but can be dodged or parried)
DoT will still be applied even if your white swing is fully absorbed (in a PvP situation).
DoT is only applied via auto-attacks (whites).
DoT ticks always hit.
DoT ticks are reduced by partial resist on skull mobs, but not by players (it is holy damage).
DoT gains from CoE (and equivalents).

Seal Proc functions and mechanics:
Proc (after 5 stack/triggered from specials) can NOT be dodged or parried, it occurs as long as your initial white/strike lands.
Proc suffers from partial resists (it's holy damage).
Proc gains from CoE (and equivalents).
Proc can crit. (like SoB did)

With the release of 3.2.2, SoV stack interaction should now be functioning correctly and the damage you get from procs/judgements is solely based on your stack count.

Seal of Righteousness
We haven't used this seal since we were leveling up, and it sickens me to say that it is now an option to use. This seal cannot crit, but also cannot miss or be dodged/parried (unless your white swing or special misses). With 5/5 SotP, SoR averages about 100 dps higher than SoC until you are in Ilvl 250+ gear. Unlike SoV or SoC, judging SoR triggers an SoR proc.

Seal of Command
SoC has been retooled yet again, to mirror a warrior's cleave this time. SoC procs follow all standard melee attack rules, no longer have an ICD, and can crit. Judging on a stunned target no longer guarantees a crit, and the judgement is fairly weak to being with, you use this seal for its' proc damage. The way the cleave damage works can be sort of described with this little ascii table! An "X" indicates your primary target, a "Y" indicates if the cleave will chain to a mob, and "_" means nothing will happen! The table assumes that the mobs are being tanked within cleave range of course, and that A and C are too far apart to chain to each other.

Scenario	Target A	Target B	Target C	Target D
1	X	Y	Y	_
2	Y	X	_	_
3	_	X	Y	Y

Let's assume that target B is the boss, and the rest are adds. Scenario 1 is fairly obvious, targeting an add chains a proc towards both the boss and add C. Scenarios 2 and 3 are a little more tricky; if A and C are too far apart to chain to each other (it's about 8 yards, it uses the same chain rules as prot's Hammer of the Righteous) then either 2 or 3 could happen, but not both scenarios at the same time. What target the cleave picks to chain to seems to be random, of course this is subject to testing.

You don't really want to use SoC on bosses unless there is a lot off add killing - the single target damage of SoC is still inferior to SoR and SoV, and the general rule of thumb for usage of SoC's cleaving is that add mobs should only live for between 12 and 15 seconds before considering using SoC over SoV. There is also the option of seal twisting, just make sure you can maintain your SoV stack and juggle GCD's and mana properly!

[top]Strikes and DPS skills

These spells are used in the retribution skill rotation.

Consecration
Widely viewed as a necessary part of the retribution rotation, as our DPS is not very competitive without it. Should be used against both single and multiple targets. Consecration has some odd behavior on skull level mobs; the first tick can be fully resisted (miss) and subsequent ticks can also be partially resisted (due to mob level difference). You cannot work around the partial resists at all, but they are often small enough to not matter:
Hammer of Wrath
With the release of 3.0, this skill was buffed a substantial amount, to the point where it is used on cooldown vs targets under 20% health (due to deep ret talents that give this skill a 50% base crit chance, in addition to gear). It is now an instant ranged execute, but retains its' fixed mana cost. Using this skill does not reset your swing timer.

Exorcism
Chnaged again in 3.2. This is now usable on all mob types, can crit (based on your spell crit), and has 100% crit chance vs undead and demon mobs. It uses the spell hit table so you can still miss with this even if melee hitcapped. It has a base cast time of 1.5s which means you will never ever use this without an AoW proc available - when used with AoW it becomes instant and does not reset the swing timer. Note that because it is not a base instant cast it does not benefit from Benediction.

Holy Wrath
Also uses the spell hit tables, can crit. Has no target limit so it is very useful on certain fights with many undead/demon adds. Changed from a 60s cooldown/20yd range (BC) to a 30s cooldown/10yd range, and it now stuns all targets that it hits for 2s.

Divine Plea
You will need to use this to keep your mana up in both PvE and PvP. It scales off your total mana pool, and is dispellable. DP is usually responsible for 10% of our total mana income on bosses.

And of course, our talented instant attacks:

Divine Storm
Our 51 pt talent, it is basically the same as a warrior's whirlwind ability except that DS heals for negligible amounts. Despite it seeming like an underwhelming talent it is critical to our DPS as it can and will trigger seals and RV. This skill is normalized to 3.3 weapon speed.

Crusader Strike
Our still bland 41 pt talent, yet still crucial to our DPS as it also triggers seals and RV. CS no longer refreshes your or any other paladins' judgements. This skill is also normalized (to 3.3).

[top]Special Talents

and their ..."specialness"
This is just to cover some talents that have odd quirks or interesting functionality.

Art of War
AoW seems like it becomes more important in pve, but realistically nothing has changed. Exorcism still has a 15 second cooldown, and the chances that you will not see a crit on the pull (7.5 seconds in) while raid buffed are 1.6%, while the chances you won't see a crit in 15 seconds is 0.2% - therefore there is no reason to stack crit or worry about not being able to use it every 15s. AoW has been changed to proc on all melee crits, which means whites, strikes and judgements, but not seal procs.

Righteous Vengeance
Once again stealing from the warriors! The RV dot does indeed "roll" like the warrior version, meaning critical judgements and DS's in succession will refresh the dot duration, not overwrite it. The RV dot is a magic effect and thus dispellable, can be partially resisted by bosses, but is not mitigated by armor. With 2pc T9 equipped, RV crits for 200% damage, just like any of our other melee abilities.
How RV rolls courtesy Redcape:
Sheath of Light
One of our most exciting talents for wrath. This talent helps to increase our damage because of the way we double-dip in AP and SP, gives retribution paladins heals actually worth casting/using, and makes STR that much more important. Sacred Shield finally also scales from spellpower granted by this talent. The healing portion of this talent acts the same way as RV; getting a crit heal while still having a sheath hot active "rolls" (see above). This effect stacks with the SS hot, meaning using a FoL on yourself (with SS active) and getting a crit results in a 130% strength HoT.

Sacred Shield
Since this spell now works properly as retribution you can expect to be using it a lot, it is fairly potent when combined with Divine Guardian. Using this does not reset the swing timer. Sacred Shield also has a 6s ICD even when talented, so it is capable of refreshing itself every 6 seconds, even if the 'old' shield has not been fully used up. With 3.2, having SS active on a target and using FoL results in a hot; it does not require that the shield be triggered, only the SS buff. Note that any paladin can get the hot from any other paladin's SS (example: a holy paladin uses FoL on the tank, and the tank has used SS on himself, resulting in a hot).

Divinity
This has an odd double dipping interaction with your own heals (JoL, DS heals) which causes it to multiply twice, like so: (original heal number) * 1.05 *1.05. It is taken in pve builds only when you are trying to get to DSac. If you pick up this talent, you may want to use JoL and have other paladins use JoW.

Divine Sacrifice
A powerful raid cooldown, when used in combination with the bubble you effectively give your entire raid 30% damage reduction for 10s (as damage "immune'd" by the bubble does not count towards the break limit**). Divine guardian increases the damage redirected to you from 30% to 40%.

**After many months of testing, logging and data combing, we know how DSac works. Pulsing damage auras such as Vezax HM, Valk Twins, or Northrend Beasts bile, will not break DSac early despite going well over the 150% absorption cap. Direct damage auras or abilities, such as Freya3 tremors or an attempt to ease damage on your tanks, will break shortly after reaching the 150% cap regardless of time remaining. Due to latency, DSac can continue to absorb for up to a full second after its' expiration, so be careful in timing your bubble with it (or, have a /cancelaura macro handy).

[top]Talent Specs

Caveat: There are no two exact situations that are the same. Looking at one paladin's spec may vary from another, due to guild progression, rostering, ect. The specs below are provided only as a base, hence the new sub-section below.

The core PvE DPS talents are: 5/5/54.

The common PvE spec for 3.2 is: 5/11/55.

A PvP talent spec looks more like: 0/19/52.

[top]Talent Options

There are several talents that provide (de)buffs that can already be covered by other specs, or are highly situational, so let's look at situations and numbers below. Many of these can be juggled or dropped to gain other talents if they are already covered, giving us some freedom in our talent choices. Tailor your spec by using the core spec provided above, and finding out what you already have covered in your raid.

Divine Sacrifice - Was absolutely required for 3.1 raiding, time will tell for 3.2. It is high enough in the protection tree that we can reach this by sacrificing one point from one of the talents below. Typically only ret and holy paladins will have this, so keep that in mind.

Heart of the Crusader - This is a critical debuff to have in your raids, however it is early enough in the tree that both protection and holy paladins can reach this. This is also covered by an elemental shaman and does not stack.

Vindication - Turned into an actual debuff in 3.2, our "demo shout" requires no thought or resources to apply, thus saving your druid/warrior/warlock friends a GCD and some rage/mana. It's situational because this is a mandatory talent for protection paladins, so if you raid with one then you don't need this (ps go make friends with a prot paladin). Demo shout is superior for AoE situations like Anub's adds, because vindication only procs on attacks (such as DS) and not from consecration - Vindication is superior for single targets because it is applied on your first melee attack and is basically a passive debuff.

Swift Retribution - Another required buff for your raid, but if you have a moonkin in your roster who is always present, he can provide this buff (does not stack).

Divinity - Due to JoL no longer scaling this talent has diminished value. It is still increases JoL healing, but only from 2.0% to 2.1% of max hp (2.2% on yourself only).

[top]Glyphs, Gems, Consumables, Enchants, Professions

I won't mention horrible glyphs, because they are horrible! Some glyphs are of debatable use, and there are (slightly) better uses for the slots, so they are also left out. Apologies in advance for the hard to read colors, but there doesn't seem to be a way to override wowhead's item links.

If you don't want to know why we choose the glyphs, then the TLDR is: Judgement, Cons, SoV for majors, Sense Undead for minors.

[top]Recommended Major PvE Glyphs

[Glyph of Judgement]
This is your primary glyph as retribution. 10% more damage on one of our primary attacks is mandatory.

[Glyph of Consecration]
This is a PvE glyph, it saves a ton of mana and some GCD clashes over the course of a fight (worth 108mp5). With our GCD as locked as it is this is also a mandatory pve glyph.

[Glyph of Seal of Vengeance]
We now have the option of glyphing for 10 expertise! This glyph grants exactly what it says, 10 expertise (82 rating, 2.5%) when using our primary dps seal. This is a decent option if you are under the expertise cap or if you want to use other stronger items in place of expertise items. It's worth noting that if you benefit from even half of the expertise (example, glyph puts you at 31 expertise) it is more dps than the exo glyph. The main benefit of this glyph is a lot of freedom in gear choices, as you can drop weaker expertise pieces.

[Glyph of Exorcism]
An option if you are naturally expertise capped, or perhaps for pvp. This glyph is worth ~50 dps, and as noted above you can gain more from using freed itemization on non-expertise gear.

[Glyph of Seal of Command]
PvP glyph - note that even if your judgement is fully absorbed, you will still get 8% base mana back (unlike JotW's absorb mechanics).

[top]Recommended Minor Glyphs

[Glyph of Sense Undead]
1% damage to undead, in an expansion filled with undead mobs. PvE glyph, even if there are no undead in ulduar...

[Glyph of Lay on Hands]
Self explanatory, taken for lack of decent minor glyphs.

The other four minor glyphs are your choice for the last minor slot. They aren't particularly useful in pve or pvp situations, but they can save you a reagent here and there.

[top]Recommended Gems

Sometimes you will have to ignore socket bonuses because they are terrible! This is more a guide for when you want to meet such requirements. We finally have epic gems available, and so rare cuts have been removed from the lists. Due to JC changes (removal of the prismatic portion of the dragon's eyes) all paladins are equalized in gemming options.

Metas:

[Relentless Earthsiege Diamond]
This is the preferred meta, simply because of fairly easy gem requirements. You do lose between .5 and 1 DPS between this and the CSD but you gain more DPS by not using 2 blue gems. Do not use [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond] because 2 blue gems suck.

Prismatic:
You will be using one (and only one) of these to fulfill your meta requirement. Use it in a blue slot, preferably one with a good socket bonus (like str).
[Nightmare Tear]

Red slots:
You will be gemming pure STR in everything, until you have 2T9 (and even after that in most cases)
[Bold Cardinal Ruby]

Yellow slots:
If a yellow socket has a 4 STR bonus or better, you can safely gem with one of these (usually inscribed) for a net dps gain due to 2T9.
[Etched Ametrine]
[Inscribed Ametrine]

Blue slots:
Gemming for blue sockets is always a dps loss until we have 10 str socket bonuses (aka, not in this xpac). You should use the prismatic tear above. You do find the following gem used in pvp gear, though.
[Sovereign Dreadstone]

[top]Professions

The quick and dirty of it is, if you are min-maxing every point you can get, Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting is the strongest combo for ret pve (because STR is far superior to AP). Gathering professions are the weakest.

Profession perks:
*A special note on alchemy's new flask ([Flask of the North]): because this flask does not stack with other flasks and does not benefit from mixology, you will be using Endless Rage flasks like the rest of us for pve. However for pvp, you will get 40 STR from drinking the flask, making it on par with Blacksmithing.

[top]Enchants

Bolded enchants are what you should be using at endgame levels (the good/expensive stuff).

Head: [Arcanum of Torment]
Shoulders: [Greater Inscription of the Axe] / [Lesser Inscription of the Axe]
Chest: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats / Enchant Chest - Super Stats
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Major Agility / Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed
Bracers: Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault / Enchant Bracers - Striking /
Hands: Enchant Gloves - Crusher / Enchant Gloves - Precision (if hit is a problem)
Legs: [Icescale Leg Armor]
Feet: Enchant Boots - Icewalker (unless you are way over hitcap, use this) / Enchant Boots - Greater Assault
Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Berserking / Enchant 2H Weapon - Massacre

How berserking works: Berserking is a ppm based proc, similar to mongoose - in a raid environment it has a ~75% uptime. It can only trigger off attacks flagged as melee attacks and melee specials (Judgements, CS, DS, white swings). It has increased uptime since 3.2 due to SoV's hidden strike mechanic, which seems to be able to trigger and refresh the buff. Because of this, this is our only real choice for any dps weapon enchant.

[top]Consumables

Flasks and elixirs:
Just flask, they last the same time amount as an elixir and last through death.
[Flask of Endless Rage]

Food:
More interesting choices this time around - you have traditional STR food, in addition to some new foods that actually support our double-dipping into AP/SP. Dragonfin and Fish Feast are roughly equivalent:
[Dragonfin Filet]
[Fish Feast]

Potions: (it might be wise to carry a stack of each)
[Runic Mana Potion] If you have mana issues
[Potion of Speed] If you don't

[top]Tier Gear

[top]Tier 7

This sub-section is outdated due to major changes in 3.1 Please refer to the 3.0 thread if you were looking for what it did.

[top]Tier 8

Refer to the 3.1 thread for full math and such. T8 is not as outdated as T7 was (the mechanics didn't change as much) so the 3% dps boost from the 4pc should still be valid.

[top]Tier 9

T9 is of course better than all previous gear, because of a great 2pc and a huge itemlevel jump (from 226 to 258?!). Time will tell if the 4pc is better or worse than offset gear, but equipping 2pc T9 is a must.

2pc: Allowing RV ticks to crit results in a ~3% dps boost, which is by far the best 2pc we have had so far. As is the case with most wrath sets, this scales with your gear (as more STR increases the dot strength, and more crit means it will crit more often). Expect to see this used everywhere, in both pve and pvp.

4pc: 5% more crit to our judgements is paltry and probably our worst set bonus in wotlk. It works out to a ~0.5% dps increase.

Tier 9 also slightly changes our clash resolution system, please see above.

[top]Add-ons

Pre-facing this by saying these add-ons are entirely optional. Listed in no particular order:

• ForteX -
  ForteXorcist tracks your buffs and debuffs on multiple targets, as well as tracking cooldowns, item procs and various junk like healthstones.
  It can be customized in many different ways and is one add-on I'd recommend even to experienced paladins. It also looks pretty.
  
• OmniCC -
  OmniCC is an addon that adds text to items/spells/abilities that are on cooldown to indicate when they'll be ready for use.
  It's pretty useful to know when your abilities are ready, especially now that we use FCFS. Very helpful for newer paladins, still helpful for experienced ones.
  
• Omen -
  Omen is a threat meter.
  Pulling aggro often means death, don't do it.
  
• Grid -
  Grid is a modular, lightweight and screen-estate saving grid of party/raid unit frames
  Paladins are a hybrid class; even if you are a dps role, you should have some small raid frames to help res the dead, or to toss salv on the lock in group 4, ect.
  
• Itemrack -
  This is a mod to make swapping equipment easier through popout slot menus, equip slot buttons, gear sets and automated swaps.
  Hybrid class means lots of gear sets! Swap entire sets at the click of a butan. This is also a very, very stable mod that often doesn't even need updating when major patches hit.
  
• Quartz -
  Quartz is a modular approach to a casting bar addon.
  This one is more pvp related these days - it comes with a swing timer bar (which we used to watch in sunwell, not so much now) and you can set it up to see your own and enemy spell casts.

[top]Macros

You can get by just fine without them, but these are helpful in many situations.

Cleanse on mouseover
Auto-attack / CS if possible
Start autoattack with DS
Change librams based on what seal you are using with these macros. Because you don't usually swap seals in combat, the single GCD makes this worthwhile (if used when not melee'ing).
Hammer of Wrath on mouseover
Salv on mouseover (yes I like mouseover macros okay?)
You can modify the Salv macro to other things like HoP, HoSac, HoF ect.

[top]Known Bugs

Provide data samples when reporting possible bugs please. Green text means it has been fixed, blue means devs are aware of it, red means it has been recently discovered and not commented on by devs.
3.2.2 -

[color="DarkRed"]Sanctified/Swift Retribution not always working:[color]
If you are running any aura besides Ret aura, you can lose the 3% damage/haste buffs when losing another aura. This happens most often in 25 mans when another paladin moves out of/back into your range, though it's been noted to happen everywhere (even solo). The only solution we have for this right now is simply to always run retribution aura :/

JotW not returning mana for killing blows:
This occurs when judging SoR, because doing so triggers an SoR proc (which will sometimes kill the mob before the judgement does). Devs are aware of this issue.

SoV interaction:
See SoV seal description for full explanation. SoV (the damage proc portion) does not recognize the difference between your stack and another paladin's stack, and bases your proc damage on the lowest applied stack. JoV also does not recognize paladin stacks properly, but gives the opposite effect of the proc's problem.
Fixed: in patch 3.2.2 (see notes)

Tier 9 2pc is busted:
Our tier 9 2 piece bonus is providing 1/10th of your crit chance to RV (so with 45% crit RV is only critting 4% of the time...).
Fixed: in patch 3.2.2 (see notes)

SoR judgements:
Judging SoR results in a double SoR proc, widely documented.
Hotfixed (stealth): Judging SoR triggers a single SoR proc as of 8/11. Still double procs with JotJ as prot.

Hand of reckoning:
HoR deals damage to bosses even if they are immune to taunts. Unclear if it is intended or not.
Hotfixed: Hand of Reckoning no longer damages targets that are immune to taunt, including players.

Older bugs can be found in the 3.0 ret thread (link in intro section)

[top]Changelog

10/01/09 - updates 'n bugs
09/22/09 - patch v3.2.2
08/26/09 - major bugs (t9), sov
08/20/09 - priority system update
08/11/09 - minor bug updates
08/06/09 - bugs!
08/05/09 - minor corrections
08/04/09 - patch v3.2

 

• Arikah

Some things like wowhead links are broken, yes I'm aware of this. Other things like DSac are subject to live testing and as always theorycraft knowledge changes over time. Aaaaaand go 3.2!

 

Maddjester

Has there been a definitive answer posted regarding whether using a 1h for ramp-up is a dps increase? or maybe conditions like fight length that make it potentially worthwhile?

 

endo

Zero latency and perfect execution I believe has weapon swapping at a .1% increase in DPS. The longer the fight the more amortized this increase becomes. Also, if you mess up on one GCD, it is an automatic loss. What it comes down to is, the high risk of messing up the switch isn't worth the increase in DPS.

 

HamSlammer

The slight DPS increase weapon swapping had over sticking with a 2hander died after the implementation of the partial strike on SoV.

 

Lesrek

It was a .1% increase when we weren't getting 6.6% weapon dmg stack procs. Now that we are, using a 1 hander is a dps loss even under the most ideal circumstances.

EDIT: Beaten

 

Blackthought

I noticed a change in the official patch notes for 3.2 that was not on the PTR. The relevant text is bolded below:

Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned. Only auto-attacks and Hammer of the Righteous can place the debuff on the paladin's current target(s). However, while the seal is active, each melee swing or ability (excluding judgements) that lands on the target will deal a percentage of weapon damage as Holy damage to the target. This damage maxes out at 33% weapon damage with 5 applications of the debuff and scales upward evenly based on how many applications of the debuff are active. This Holy damage deals double-damage critical strikes. In addition, the damage-over-time debuff is now considered a melee attack for the purposes of determining its chance to hit, miss, be dodged or parried.

Official notes can be found here: WoW -> Patch Notes -> Current Patch Notes

The OP should be updated to reflect this change.

 

Neraya

...

 

Lesrek

I'm waiting to see if it actually plays out like that in live or if that is just another misleading patch note. I do not doubt that they would stealth nerf the ability, but we can't say they have until realms are up. I will be assuming it works as it did on the PTR until I can test in on live.

 

tarja

Another minor nitpick with the raid buffs list - we now bring an attack power debuff, which is a capability we share with Warriors, Feral Druids, or Warlocks

 

• frmorrison

Good start!

Yet another minor point, when listing the clash resolution, you said 3.1, but it should say 3.2 (in 3.1 CS was better than HoW).

Using a 1H to stack SoV is always a dps loss (your answer said it was a 0.01 gain).

I agree that waiting until 3.2 is live to see if Judgement doesn't proc Seals before listing it in the OP (that would hurt Holy's mana regen as well as Ret dps).

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Alcapwnd

As of today's patch, Judgements no longer proc SoV. I'll leave it the really smart folks to deteremine the impact of it. I don't really understand Blizzard's rationale lately with regards to Ret. They came out and announced that their dps was too low. They buffed us, then nerfed us below 3.1, then gave us a little back, and now they've nerfed again.

 

greatrichie

I don't see them specifically changing the patch notes to exclude judgements and it just be misleading. It makes way more sense to assume that Judgements no longer proc seals unless proven otherwise.

 

gmedina

Not sure if this has been addressed for for PvP is SoC worth it or is the damage from it still so bad it is still better to use SoV even with the ramp up time?

 

greatrichie

Not really a pvp thread, but I think the general thinking is that if you can afford to stay glued to your target, you'll kill people faster with SoV(Also depends on cleansing, but I don't see them cleansing under pressure too much). If you will be making quick switches, SoC would be better to use.

 

Boaz

I'm probably wrong here but I figure if I'm gonna be wrong I may as well be wrong near the beginning. I thought I read somewhere that both Redcape's and Endoscient's stat numbers agreed that str is better than the hit cap now like 3.0. Sorry if I'm wrong but if by chance I'm right I'd rather it get changed now.

 

stoneisman

Does anyone know what will happen to the existing prismatic Dragon's Eye gems socketed in our gear when we first log in after the patch goes live? Do we get one uncut one back for each one we had? Do they just get removed from the gear?

 

• Arikah

The numbers provided by all the tools are based on what they are wearing; since everyone is hitcapped, STR is by far the best stat. Even if STR is better than hit point for point, there is no reason to not be hitcapped in 3.2 due to the amount of hit available on items (it's common to have too much hit).

 

Exemplar

Okay. Re-mathed now that we know of partial-stack procs. I'm assuming white melee proc lower %, then stack next debuff. However, even if hit increases stack and then procs the end result is unchanged.

Weapon: Rune Edge
Fully raid buffed with:
6468 AP, 2220 Spellpower, Hitcap, almost Expertise cap, 26.4% haste, 44.2% crit, 17.9% ArmPen. No procs of trinket, Berserking, etc.

0 - Autoattack (1), CS (1), 1-proc (1)
1.5 - JoV (1), 1-proc (2)
2.69 - Autoattack (2), 1-proc (3)
3 - DS (1), DoT tick (1), 2-proc (1)
4.5 - CS (2), 2-proc (2)
5.38 - Autoattack (3), 2-proc (3)
6 - Cons (1 tick), DoT tick (2)
7 - Cons (2 ticks)
7.5 - Exo (1)
8 - Cons (3 ticks)
8.07 - Autoattack (4), 3-proc (1)
9 - CS (3), Cons (4 ticks), DoT tick (3), 4-proc (1)
10 - Cons (5 ticks)
10.5 - JoV (2), 4-proc (2)
10.76 - Autoattack (5), 4-proc (3)
11 - Cons (6 ticks)
12 - Cons (7 ticks), DoT tick (4)
13 - CS (4), Cons (8 ticks), 5-proc (1)
13.44 - Autoattack (6), 5-proc (2)
15 - Cons (9 ticks)
14.07 - nothing

CS - 4
Average Hit: 2114
Average Crit 4357
(2114 * (1 - .442)) + (4357 * .442) = 3105
3105 * 4 = 12420 total CS damage
JoV - 2
Average Hit: 2435
Average Crit: 5018
(2435 * (1 - .622)) + (5018 * .622) = 4041 (note Judgement's special crit rate)
1 stack: 4041 * 1.1 = 4445
4 stacks 4041 * 1.4 = 5658
4445 + 5658 = 10103 total JoV damage
DS - 1
Average Hit: 2710
Average Crit: 5584
(2710 * (1 - .442)) + 5584 * .442) = 3980 total DS damage
Cons - 1 (9 ticks)
Average Tick: 601
601 * 9 = 5409 total Cons damage
Exo - 1
Average Hit: 4551
Average Crit: 6966
(4551 * (1 - .442)) + 6966 * .442) = 5618
5618 total Exo damage
Auto - 6
Average Hit: 2091
Average Crit: 4310
(2091 * (1 - .442)) + 4310 * .442) = 3071
3071 * 6 = 18426 total Autoattack damage
SoV Procs
1 stack: (225 * (1 - .442)) + (463 * .442) = 330
2 stacks: (450 * (1 - .442)) + (927 * .442) = 661
3 stacks: (674 * (1 - .442)) + (1390 * .442) = 990
4 stacks: (899 * (1 - .442)) + (1853 * .442) = 1321
5 stacks: (1124 * (1 - .442)) + (2316 * .442) = 1651
(330 * 3) + (661 * 3) + 990 + (1321 * 3) + (1651 * 2) = 11227 total proc damage
SoV DoT ticks - 4
Damage (2 stacks): 396
Damage (3 stacks): 594
Damage (4 stacks): 792
Damage (5 stacks): 990
396 + 594 + 792 + 990 = 2772 total DoT damage
Grand Total Damage: 69955

Weapon: Rune-Etched Nightblade
Shield: Bulwark of Algalon with epic Str gem (maximum Str)
Fully raid buffed with:
6678 AP, 2283 Spellpower, Hitcap, almost Expertise cap, 26.4% haste, 40.7% crit, 14.4% ArmP. No procs of trinket, etc. Superior Potency on weapon.

0 - Autoattack (1), CS (1), 1-proc (1)
1.1 - Autoattack (2), 1-proc (2)
1.5 - JoV (1), 2-proc (1)
2.2 - Autoattack (3), 2-proc (2)
3 - DS (1), DoT tick (1). 3-proc (1)
3.3 - Autoattack (4), 3-proc (2)
4.4 - Autoattack (5), 4-proc (1)
4.5 - CS (2), swap weapon to same as initial, 5-proc (1)

6 - Cons (1 tick), DoT tick (2)
7 - Cons (2 ticks)
7.5 - Exo (1)
8 - Cons (3 ticks)
8.69 - 2HAutoattack (1), 5-proc (1)
9 - CS (1), Cons (4 ticks), DoT tick (3), 5-proc (2)
10 - Cons (5 ticks)
10.5 - JoV (1), 5-proc (3)
11 - Cons (6 ticks)
11.38 - 2HAutoattack (2), 5-proc (4)
12 - Cons (7 ticks), DoT tick (4)
13 - CS (2), Cons (8 ticks), 5-proc (5)
14 - Cons (9 ticks)
14.07 - 2HAutoattack (3), 5-proc (6)

1H Portion
CS - 2
Average Hit: 1626
Average Crit: 3350
(1626 * (1 - .407)) + (3350 * .407) = 2328
2328 * 2 = 4656 total CS damage
JoV - 1
Average Hit: 2510
Average Crit: 5174
(2510 * (1 - .587)) + (5174 * .587) = 3594 (Note Judgement's special crit rate)
2 stacks 3594 * 1.2 = 4313 total JoV damage
DS - 1
Average Hit: 2134
Average Crit: 4397
(2134 * (1 - .407)) + (4397 * .407) = 3055 total DS damage
Auto - 5
Average Hit: 784
Average Crit: 1615
(784 * (1 - .407)) + (1615 * .407) = 1122
1122 * 5 = 5611 total Autoattack damage
SoV DoT ticks - 4
Damage (3 stacks): 396 total DoT damage
SoV Procs
1 stack: (85 * (1 - .407)) + (176 * .407) = 122
2 stacks: (171 * (1 - .407)) + (352 * .407) = 245
3 stacks: (256 * (1 - .407)) + (528 * .407) = 367
4 stacks: (341 * (1 - .407)) + (703 * .407) = 488
5 stacks: (427 * (1 - .407)) + (879 * .407) = 610
(122 * 2) + (245 * 2) + (367 * 2) + 488 + 610 = 2566 total proc damage
1H Total Damage: 20597

2H Portion
CS - 2
Average Hit: 2114
Average Crit 4357
(2114 * (1 - .442)) + (4357 * .442) = 3105
3105 * 2 = 6210 total CS damage
JoV - 1
Average Hit: 2435
Average Crit: 5018
(2435 * (1 - .622)) + (5018 * .622) = 4041 (note Judgement's special crit rate)
5 stacks 4041 * 1.5 = 6061 total JoV damage
Cons - 1 (9 ticks)
Average Tick: 601
601 * 9 = 5409 total Cons damage
Exo - 1
Average Hit: 4551
Average Crit: 6966
(4551 * (1 - .442)) + 6966 * .442) = 5618
5618 total Exo damage
Auto - 3
Average Hit: 2091
Average Crit: 4310
(2091 * (1 - .442)) + 4310 * .442) = 3071
3071 * 3 = 9213 total Autoattack damage
SoV Procs
5 stacks: (1124 * (1 - .442)) + (2316 * .442) = 1651
(6 * 1651) = 9906 total SoV proc damage
(330 * 3) + (661 * 3) + 990 + (1321 * 3) + (1651 * 2) = 11227 total proc damage
SoV DoT ticks - 4
Damage (5 stacks): 990
990 * 3 = 2970 total DoT damage
2H Total Damage: 45387

Grand Total: 65984

Difference: 65984 - 98855 = -3971 damage.

Again, I did this in notepad with a lot of scrolling up and down and copy/paste from Excel - it's entirely possible I have a math or (more likely) transcription error somewhere.

Swapping weapons with a very fast melee weapon and the best shield currently available is a loss of nearly 4k damage. If you're less than robotic it's an even greater loss.

TLDR: In every circumstance, weapon swapping is a DPS loss.

In crap gear (crafted PvP) then Str > Hit. As you gain better gear (hit harder) a miss is more significant and Hit becomes > Str. As Arikah said, should be easy to get Hit on gear, but you do want hit cap. Expertise slightly less important, but it'll be ridiculously easy to get, and if you're short just glyph SoV.

Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."

 

Glycell

've been thinking about my spec for 3.2.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...&version=10192

It's a risk I am thinking about, I want to keep the usefulness D.Sac brought to our raids, as well as bring the new Vindication (Demo Shout). We Run a Warrior Tank and he sometimes ditches Demo Shout if he is stressing threat. Does anyone think that sacrificing the one point from PoJ is too much of a liability especially considering the time we need on Target to ramp up?

 

Exemplar

Yes. Myself and most others would strenuously argue that PoJ is the single best DPS talent we have. It's also a huge survival talent - running from shock blast or moving out of Fire™.

Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."

 

Noraj

Depending on your raid makeup, you could alternately drop one point from Swift Retribution while maintaining raid buffs. However, if you don't have the Moonkin available, you're going to want to look elsewhere for that movable point.

"The question is not how far we are going to take it... the question is, do you possess the constitution to go as far as needed?" - Il Duce

 

TheEnder

I think that DivSac's usefulness is going to be 0 if it is indeed consumed regardless of bubble. In those cases where you'd use it; it'd most likely be for a tank situation... since an AOE situation would not absorb very much at all. (Maybe 1.5k per raid member). If in fact you are in a tank situation; you'd use Hand of Sacrifice anyways to ensure the full absorption is on the tank and not spread amongst the entire raid.

If thats the case; I think that the standard build would revolve around 5/5/57 with 4 points being in limbo.
(This assumes you are getting swift retribution, imp might, and vindication). Four points would be most useful in Divine Purpose or Divinity (I -believe- it still increases JoL healing).

Something like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Obviously if you are always going to have various buffs from other places you can move points around. I'd keep vindication though as it is essentially a static debuff that will always be up.

 

Shldnhearth

Why bother with the 1 point in SoC when SoR is better with 5 points in SoTP?

 

Wutangrza

Your section on expertise is either wrong or worded ambiguously.

You can push parries off the table with expertise, it's just that bosses have a much higher percentage chance to parry than they do to dodge.

Suggest editing it to point out that having more than 6.5% expertise is a waste when attacking from behind, but if for some reason one is attacking from the front, then additional expertise is still useful. I believe bosses have a 14% chance to parry when attacked from the front.