The Light and How to Swing It: Resources to be the best in retribution
by Matt Low 
Mar 24th 2010 at 4:00PM
Yeah, you're stuck with me again this week and if you haven't figured it out yet, I am the world's worst ret paladin. So why am I here penning this post? Because I am on a quest. Yes, friends, I am on a quest to be the best ret paladin ever. Now am I going to succeed? Probably not. It's hard to become super awesome on a character that isn't played as often. It is an alt, after all.
Now if I don't want to suck as a retribution paladin, where would I go first?
Step 1: Research
As with any undertaking, I have to start somewhere. So I may as well start with the basics, right? I'm not too worried about gear or best-in-slot lists at the moment but I do need to make sure I'm hitting the right glyphs, spec, enchants and gems. The spec
I figured I'd start off with one of Gregg's previous posts on specs. He does an excellent job on giving me a guide on how to spec. I could go the traditional Divine Sacrifice spec (5/11/55) or go for the Vindication spec (5/5/61).
But I did some more searching around and there is one more build for retribution that I had not considered (Found it on Stratfu). It is also known as the Aura Mastery spec (11/5/55). It comes in handy if I need some form of silence immunity on the raid like Yogg-Saron. For something more relevant and current, I'd use during the Blood Queen Lana'thel encounter when she hits her air phase for extra shadow resist damage to her Bloodbolt Splash.
In any event, I opted to go for the Divine Sacrifice build. It just seems to be something that I'll make a habit of using fairly often in raids. I'm extremely jumpy about defensive cooldowns.
The glyphs
For glyphs, the Elitist Jerks guide suggested the following:
I do have the option to snag a Glyph of Excorcism. Unfortunately, for that to happen, I need 26 expertise rating. I currently have 17 (or 141) to be precise. The 26 rating happens to be the cap at which any expertise over that amount is unnecessary. If I can hit that number without relying on gems or enchants, then I can switch my glyph accordingly. Until then, I'll be rocking the Vengeance glyph.
The gems
My meta gem's fairly simple: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond. I could have gone for the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond, but the Earthsiege has a slight edge. Why? Because the Relentless only needs 1 blue gem compared to the Chaotic's 2. I had no idea a meta gem requirement could make such a difference.
For red gems: Bold Cardinal Ruby
For yellow gems: Rigid King's Amber
For orange gems: Inscribed Flawless Ametrine (Oops, I used strength and haste gems. Guess I better go fix that.)
For blue gems: Nightmare Tear
I would only use the Rigid if I'm below hit. A quick glance at my armory shows that with my current gear, I have 326 hit rating. The cap is 263. I am over by a good 63 points. I'll need to dump some hit but all of that naturally comes from my gear. I guess I won't need hit gems at all. There is nothing I can do here but wait and grab some hit-less gear to replace the ones that do have hit on them.
The enchants
Head: Arcanum of Torment
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe
Chest: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Major Agility
Bracers: Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault
Hands: Enchant Gloves - Crusher
Legs: Icescale Leg Armor
Feet: Enchant Boots - Icewalker
Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Berserking
That's a fairly straightforward list of enchants and augments to use that I found. I'm a little undecided on the boot enchant. I sure as heck don't need that all that hit rating. Maybe I can use the Enchant Boots - Greater Assault instead.
Step 2: Application and testing
Now it's time to put this ret paladin to work! Managed to join up with a random pickup group for Icecrown Citadel and decided to have some fun and give it a shot. The goal with my paladin is to go in to some raid where I can see massive numbers without having to worry about not pulling my weight.The rotation
My rotation seems fairly easily enough. The model I chose is the first come first serve approach (FCFS). Since I'm already sporting the awesome 2 piece tier 10 bonus, it happens to be this:
Judgment > Divine Storm > Crusader Strike > Hammer of Wrath (If the target is at the appropriate health level) > Consecration > Exorcism.
Now this leads me to wonder if I can obtain maximum efficiency by bringing my face down to the keyboard or by bringing the keyboard up to my face instead.
Anyway, there isn't much to do other than to go out there and record myself for a while. It's not exactly an overnight process but I figure I'll get some data myself for about a week and see where I end up. After that, I'll need to go and cross-reference it with some other retribution paladin parses on World of Logs. So after my first raid, I noticed my DPS on Saurfang is pushing 8300 and Festergut stands around 9000 DPS. That's a little weird and a big discrepancy. The next step is learning how to understand and interpret combat parses to find get down to the bottom of the story. But I think that's a step better suited for Gregg when he returns. Or if he doesn't and you happen to get me again, I suppose I'll need to learn.
Uh, Gregg? You are coming back, right?
Sources
- Elitist Jerks retribution guide
- Stratfu's introduction to retribution
- Retpaladin.com
- Retribution FCFS addon (clcret)
Special thanks to the Bossy Pally for help with resources.
The Light and How to Swing It tries to help Paladins cope with the dark times coming in Cataclysm. See the upcoming Paladin changes the expansion will bring. Wrath is coming to a close and the final showdown with the Lich King is here. Are you ready for the assault on Icecrown Citadel?Filed under: Paladin, Raiding, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Triforceelf Mar 24th 2010 4:04PM
Your right on Icewalker, its only better if you do indeed need the hit. The spec's you listed are all fine, just ask your raid or class lead what they want you providing. Your DPS on Saurfang makes sense for one reason: When Blood Beasts are out, you have to stop using Divine Storm. Also, check fight lengths. If you snuck in an additional Avenging Wrath right at the end of festergut that can boost your DPS significantly.
clundgren Mar 24th 2010 4:42PM
Agreed. 23 AP > 12 Crit.
clundgren Mar 24th 2010 4:59PM
Doh...that should read 32 AP. Curse the lack of an edit button.
Pyromelter Mar 24th 2010 7:01PM
Divine storm is very, very bad with blood beasts. Just as bad, maybe worse, is Consecration. Our main tank is a pally, and I cringe every time I see the bright white on the floor when the beasts come out. Fortunately we have a pro moonkin and our ranged are beasts at dps (2 of us broke 10k on saurfang yesterday), so that's not a problem, but I can easily see a difference of 700 dps (about 8%) from festergut to saurfang based on those differences. I'm imagining the good rets out there having Crusader Strike, Judgement, and Exorcism on cooldown... and correctly not pressing those Divine Storm, Holy Wrath, or Consecration buttons.
Btw there is no way you are the worst ret pally out there Matt. 9k on festergut isn't a world record, but it's still pretty good, and that probably means you spend time to gear him up appropriately. Also, since you are using a sacrifice build, I have to wonder if you are putting up Party Wall on that third inhale for festur, which also is lowering your dps. And heck, this column has been way more interesting the past 2 weeks with you writing it. Wouldn't be unhappy if Reece was still busy for, say, the next year or 10.
Triforceelf Mar 24th 2010 7:32PM
Consecrate doesnt do anything to blood beasts as they have a 90% reduction to AoE effects like that. If your pulling off the ranged with that, get better ranged.
boatarific Mar 25th 2010 1:18AM
totally agreeing with triforceelf here..
Pyromelter, consecrate really does nothing to draw aggro from blood beasts. I cringe every time someone QQs about the paladins using it, especially when they say im a scrub for explaining why its OK to use it.
I'm saying this from experience, i have never once pulled from just using consecrate. However, add a couple divine storms in there and you can bet your going to pull. Paladins are (imo) with out a doubt the easiest class to learn to raid with, but learning to raid with them doesn't mean you know all the abilities inside and out.
Pro tip of the day: Holy Wrath is a great filler spell for this fight because blood beasts are.. well.. beasts, not undead or demons.
Kanuris Mar 25th 2010 7:31AM
My Consecrate ticks on blood beasts are less than 100 typically. Thats how much damage reduction they have.
Divine Storm can pull them though so hold off that, but if you pull with just Consecrate then your range dps suck balls.
Adrian Mar 26th 2010 1:53PM
You shouldn't be changing your rotation at all on Saurfang as a ret paladin, except when wings are up. Prot paladins can pull and hold a beast if they aren't careful, but if your ranged aren't bad a ret shouldn't have issues. You have to be careful when wings are up because half of your damage will ignore the AoE damage reduction and that can get you into a bit of trouble. Save wings for right after the beasts get pulled away and you're good to go.
Everyone else seems to be saying that DS will pull, but I use it every single time we do that fight on CD and I haven't had issues since we were first learning it. Maybe my guild's ranged are just that cool. I'm pretty sure that DS counts as AoE, not cleave, so it should get the damage reduction as well.
Rydaan Mar 24th 2010 4:07PM
I'm a firm believer in the fact that socket bonuses, most of the time, aren't worth missing out on the extra strength of gemming straight Bold.
Triforceelf Mar 24th 2010 4:09PM
I used to believe that myself, but I found that gemming Inscribed gems when the strength bonus is 4 or greater is worth it if its going to give you a socket. My DPS jumped about 250 when I switched to orange > straight strength.
Kaelandros Mar 24th 2010 4:18PM
That's a really cool picture at the top. Where did it come from?
Matticus Mar 24th 2010 4:50PM
The image is official Blizzard art from... somewhere.
Orrine Mar 25th 2010 12:18AM
It's on official page of 3.2 patch
catharsis80 Mar 25th 2010 12:10PM
That's Tirion in the picture, fyi.
Dixonij Mar 25th 2010 4:44PM
Its from the Blizz artwork for Patch 3.2 "Call of the Crusade".
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/implemented/3p2.xml
venumus1 Mar 24th 2010 4:19PM
im probably gonna catch some shit for saying this but a hefty dose of haste is pretty bitchen.
my haste is at 611 not gemed. and when hero, haste pot, and wf totem all line up, my swing time is
Cataca Mar 24th 2010 5:36PM
"my haste is at 611 not gemed. and when hero, haste pot, and wf totem all line up, my swing time is "
Wow, you swing so fast I can't even see it!
(And yes, I hate the comment system too)
venumus1 Mar 24th 2010 5:55PM
pretty much that fast. its under a second
AppleZilla Mar 24th 2010 4:19PM
As many would agree, in the rotation wait for Art of War to proc.
Then boom.
AppleZilla Mar 24th 2010 4:23PM
Oops. I'm talking about Exorcism, of course.