No, it's been doing this since 3.2, namely because of the introduction of auras auto-applying after death function that was added. It's still doing this on the PTR iirc, I would encourage people that are on the PTR to report this bug, since they still seem to not know about it.

4 Piece is between 40-60 dps bonus which isn't that great (with 2p being 150-250 dps). The OP is still accurate.

Rawr can tell you when item swapping is better, it is really good program. It is an interesting mini-game for me finding out which combination of items with reach the hit and exp caps. Assuming you were replacing similar item level items, then the 4 piece is slightly better.

Retribution's priority order is simple and getting it "wrong" doesn't have a huge effect on your overall DPS. The three largest factors in your performance are gear, latency, and familiarity with the encounter. Clearly he out gears you. There's no way to address the other two factors without more information.

If you think you're having rotation problems, then you can objectively evaluate this issue through SimulationCraft. Load up your gear set and compare the usage number of each ability to one of your logs in a relatively stationary fight (e.g. Lord Jaraxxus).

My guild leader tells me that even though he out gears me, it isn't a sufficient excuse for the dps difference. Personally, I think he's full of crap. He believes that I should be doing at least 6-6.5k with my current gear.

I want to make it clear that I believe it is most definitely NOT a rotation issue. The only thing I can think of along those lines that might make a difference is when I use AW. I always wait until I have a full 5-stack of Vengeance on my target before firing it off, but that's about it. Would it be a significant dps increase to hold off on it until I see the 1000 AP proc from my trinket? My only concern about that is that it's difficult to know when it goes off, since it has no easily visible notification that it has done so, and it seems to be very unreliable in proccing in the first place.

As said above, latency can play a huge part into your dps. As an example, when I am at home, I have about 30 ms ping. When I go to my parents and use their wireless, I have ~290. I lose about 1k dps on most of the ToC fights when I play at my parents.

You also kind of answered your own question. When you use AW can make a huge difference in your dps. If you look at the last few pages in the UI thread, people are looking for mods that show the internal CD of greatness and death's choice. The reason is so they can hit wings as these abilities proc. Since you don't have greatness, and are using the holiday Mirror of Truth, get an addon like MSBT and configure it to alert you when you get the buff from it. Usually these trinkets pop in the first 20 seconds of a fight. It is also extremely important to use your AW during lust/heroism combined with a haste pot.

Outside of the two above issues, I cannot really explain why there would be a massive dps gap. Money is not that difficult to come by in the game and greatness decks have become a lot cheaper of late. Also, Death's Choice should be obtainable and is the best in slot trinket.

Pursuant of Justice is a dps increase, get it. You could do 6k dps in that gear.

What may be happening is not hitting your buttons fast enough. Ret is nearly GCD locked, so there is usually some button to hit. How you can check if you are hitting the button fast enough is comparing the number of CS, Judge, and DS cast with the other Ret.

I totally agree, He might have the Justicebringer on his side but doesnt have 1 Tier 9.5 item on only 3 normal Tier 9's. Another thing that came to my mind is that he's not expertise capped 18 points due the Vengeance glyph instead off the 26. So its clear that 5k is about rite indeed.

I don't see why there should be that much difference. The GCD is a client side check, and we are completely GCD based. I play with ~300 latency and I can push my DPS to what RAWR tells me I can do. Even if I go into RAWR and change the "Delay" value it's only a few hundred DPS, not 1k.

SBMaster86: For what it's worth, according to RAWR my DPS is right about where yours is (It is telling me 6700 for yours. Mine is around that value as well but don't know mine exactly because I logged out in PvP gear). I have found that RAWR is very accurate for my actual DPS values. Make sure you start spamming your next abilities before the GCD is finished rather than waiting and clicking once. I personally don't really see how your DPS wouldn't go up at all using CLCRet, it helped me out a lot.

What you are assuming is that it's a fight where the paladin can stand and utilize his gcd's to the fullest, but when it comes to other factors where ms do play a part, a difference of 250ms can even make you miss upkeeps on debuffs such as vengeance on such a fight as Icehowl for example. A scenario where you have to reapply your vengeance stack would lower your dps considerably. The full damage from colored balls can be missed at valkyr twins with alot of ms delay and power up can get delayed and cause you to not do as much dps as if you played on 30ms.

What I'm trying to say is that a 250ms increase can play a part in your dps output and depending on factors, to a varying degree.

I should clarify that my argument was against his DPS being 'lowered by 1K on most ToC fights' being strictly a factor of 30ms vs 290ms. 1K is a lot.

I'm not trying to argue that latency makes no difference. It most certainly does.

A word of caution - by default in Rawr you're looking at a single target fight with no adds whatsoever. WoL doesn't have a "DPS to boss" filter, so a nontrivial amount of damage to Infernals and Mistresses is being lumped into the DPS calculation. Your DPS to Jaraxxus + adds may be near some number in Rawr, but it's a coincidence and likely obscures that you may be able to significantly improve your performance relative to the ideal. WMO does provide a DTB metric, and I suppose you could calculate it manually from WoL.