Oops, down to #4 now (in the unlikely case anyone cares) - looks like a few more rets broke the 50k mark on Tuesday.

The buffs you gain up in the air benefit other specs much, much more than it benefits us (I'm looking at you, fire mages). If the top ret parses for Alys are bordering on 50k, that's enough proof to let the fire mages, boomkins, affliction warlocks, and shadow priests go up in our stead, raking in at least 15k extra DPS simply because they like haste more. For the sake of optimizing your raid DPS, staying on the ground just makes sense. It also lets us make use of our burst DPS and interrupts, especially when those ranged DPS that we're sending up don't have the same tools.

Of course, I did qualify that part of the article with "if you want my opinion." I guess you didn't!

Certainly the specs you mention are outperforming 50k by a wide margin - I wouldn't argue that Rets should go up above those. But other ranged specs don't get as much of a buff from the rings/crit buff, and among melee, only rogues can get more of one - so Rets are not a bad choice for the air team. But my point wasn't so much that Rets *should* go up, but rather that the reason stated why they shouldn't - that it is difficult to be continually DPSing Alysrazor - is blatantly incorrect.

I don't mean to fanboy/white knight or anything, but it seems like you're focusing on a small point because you happen to do the job that he's saying we shouldn't.

I think the message is that WoW's StarFox64 is a game better left for other classes. He could have elaborated a bit more on why playing tag with Alysrazor isn't a good idea, but he's definitely right that we're not the right choice. Even with proper play, you will start and end the air phase out of range, have less time to dodge clouds, and have less to show for your efforts. Plus, we can't swoop down and dps the mobs on the ground like ranged can.

Not only do casters benefit far more than we do from the buff - one caster does about 25% more damage by himself than a melee in the air and a melee on the ground combined - but the huge gap between them and us dwarfs any differences between us and other melee. If you do have to send a melee up, as long as you don't pick an enhancement shaman, you'll see pretty similar results.

For comparison, a shadowpriest, lock, or boomkin flying through the air would match my damage to the targets on the ground, while doing 75k extra dps to Alysrazor. Take my damage on the adds, my damage to Alys, add in your #4 parse, and they'd still have a 10-20k lead on us. A mage would do even more. You'd have to have a pretty irregular raid comp if there's no better option than sending one of us up.

I think you're right to point out that we *can* do the air part of the fight, and have a valid point about why his reason is overstated. I was initially assigned to fly through hoops for our guild, and though I found it markedly more difficult than you seem to, it's doable. However, you're not just saying we're capable, but actually say that it's not a bad idea, and I disagree completely. It is definitely possible for a ret paladin to do that task. That doesn't change that we shouldn't.