Ret PvE help needed

[Aariya]

Hiya all

Just finished doing 25 man ICC with the guild and i noticed that on festergut my dps was lacking some what at the 6k mark.

Now i know rets are not the best of the best, but ive always been able to hold my own and finish usually in the top 5 of our dps. However lately ive been struggling abit and for the life of me i cant figure out why.

So bascially i was wonder if a helpful fellow ret could point a girl in the right direction and help me out

My rotation atm since i dont have 2piece t10 yet is Judgement > DS > HoW > CS > Consecrate > Exorcism > Holy Wrath

and my gear and talents are:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...song&cn=Aariya

Now i know my gears not exactly amazing but like i said i can hold my own in a fight :P

Addons: CLCret, PP, Recount, Omen, Gearscore

So if anyone has some tips or wants to ask more questions cos im tired and cant think of anything else to put here please be my guest

Cheers

Aariya / Vicky

xxx

[McHammered]

Hi Aariya,

Just looking over your stats.. You are well over hit cap, you need 263 hit rating. Your expertise is far to high you only need 6.5%. I would change your meta gem to the 21agi/3% increased crit dmg as it scales with Blessing of Kings and the gem requirements for them are marginly better. i would change some of your gems around in your gear too. Try to use +10str/+10crit gems in the yellow sockets where the bonus socket is +4str or more. I would also put the +10 all stats gem into your chest piece as well as 2 x 10str/10crit gems and change your gems in your weapons to the +20str ones. This provided you decid to go for the 21agi/3% crit meta.
Without the t10 2pce your rotation should be JUDGE>HOW>CS>DS>CONS>EXO>HW
With the t10 2pce JUDGE>DS>HOW>CS>CONS>EXO>HW

Unforunatly at the start of raiding new content the best gear wont be available to us all the time so we take what we can, as it is in my case im well over expertise cap and a touch over hit cap.
Hopefully this helps a bit

Happy hunting

[Aariya]

Sadly me being hugely over hit and exp capped couldnt be helped...just the gear that was available at the time

Not sure i understand the +10 str / +10 crit gems. Always thought it was Str and get as much of it as possible aslong as ur crit is over 30%

[McHammered]

Yeah i realise that. Im in the same boat there too lol

The 30% crit is just a base crit% to aim at. Generally gemming +20str is our highest dps boost, but if the socket is yellow and the bonus is +4str or more, then the +10str/+10crit gem pulls ahead not by massive amounts but enough

[Rennadrel]

Ret pallies best in slot meta gem is 21 Crit Rating and 3% Crit Damage based on what I have seen, every Ret paladin on my server that raids uses it. Gem for strength, however don't feel bad rolling on hunter trinkets, rings or a cloak. I think there is a 25 man ICC cloak for hunters/rogues that is also BiS for Ret pallies, not sure.

[McHammered]

Ret pallies best in slot meta gem is 21 Crit Rating and 3% Crit Damage based on what I have seen, every Ret paladin on my server that raids uses it. Gem for strength, however don't feel bad rolling on hunter trinkets, rings or a cloak. I think there is a 25 man ICC cloak for hunters/rogues that is also BiS for Ret pallies, not sure.

Im dont think ive seen a raiding ret pally with the 21crit one. The 21agi one is better because it scales with kings and the gem requirement is far better which pulls it ahead of the crit rating one.

And as Renn said dont be afraid to roll on leather.. there is a fair amount of leather gear that is BiS for us. And its been like that through Naxx/Uld/ToC so naturally enough tis the same in ICC.. Although i wish we didnt have to wear leather.. it just seems wrong lol

[McHammered]

Otherwise you could also download a program called RAWR it will give you gear choice upgrades with several geming options, it quite an easy program to use.

[Rennadrel]

Rawr helps to an extent, but you still need to know your rotation and what the ideal stats are to be looking at. Armor penetration is a no no, it's ok to have a little bit but don't try at all to stack it. Our best gems are 20 strength, 34 strength if you are a JC and the yellow 10 strength and 10 haste gems (Fierce Ametrine). MaxDPS lists the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond as being the best meta for Retribution, second in line is the agility, though yes the scaling probably does make the agility a bit better, I would have to do some tests to see which one gives me more DPS. It would be wise to use the agility ICC rep ring at exalted until DPS counts have been put out for the strength version of the ring, if you really don't need expertise and stuff then just keep trying for agility rings like the one off 25 Marrowgar.

[Aariya]

Thanks guys

Any1 else have anything further to add?

[DeviousOne]

Until you break your 2 pc tier 9, 10 str 10 crit in yellow sockets are the way to go. Once you break your 2pc, its 20 str in everything.

Rotation right now, without tier 10 2 pc is Judgement>CS>DS>HOW>Consecrete>Exo. Pop your avenging wrath during bloodlust and/or during trinket procs.

[Turkson]

Until you break your 2 pc tier 9, 10 str 10 crit in yellow sockets are the way to go. Once you break your 2pc, its 20 str in everything.

This is incorrect. Even after breaking our 2pcT9 bonus, we're still going to gem 10str/10crit for the str socket bonuses.

RE: the meta gem, Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (CSD) is indeed the "highest dps" meta over the Relentless Earthsiege (RED). The CSD does require two blue gems to activate, so a Nightmare tear and one other blue gem. Because the RED only requires us to use a Nightmare Tear to activate it, it ends up pulling ahead simply because it frees up the second blue gem, which we can turn into a red or orange gem.

[Aariya]

So basically ur saying where I have complete red gems and ignored the socket bonus I shud regem and add the 10 str 10 crit orange to achieve the socket bonus? I'm guessing this is to increse my overall crit without affecting my str too much? Hope that's the thinking behind it cos if not then I'm totally lost.

On a more positive note I did change my rotation slightly which has boosted my dps slighty so thanks for that bit of advise

Sadly it takes me a while to make money/aquire gems so I won't see any benifit from regemming for a while, but it's something to work towards.......gotta have them goals lol

thanks

Aariya/Vicky

xxx

[Rennadrel]

MaxDPS says if you need a yellow gem then use 10 strength and 10 haste. Crit can be stacked on your gear easily enough, gemming for it now seems a bit silly in my opinion when you get the right items since there is squat all for haste on our gear now.

[Turkson]

MaxDPS is...not very well regarded. Rawr! and the various spreadsheets on EJ are more accurate.

@Aariya, if you've already spent the gold and time to gem solid str gems, don't worry too much about gemming with orange gems, they're small dps boosts. Unless you're rolling in gold, keep it as is, and just remember this when you get new gear to gem.

[Aariya]

Thanks Turkson You've been a massive help

Just got a new helm and 2nd bit of t10 (gloves) I can start adding the orange gems to both to get the gem bonus and already aquired a 21 agil/3% crit gem ready and waiting to pop in the helm.

Got festergut hopefully again on Sunday. Will keep you informed if progress has been made

Again thanks

Aariya/Vicky

xxx

[guamie]

Just took a look at your spec. The glyphs and talents look find. Took a look at the hit and expertise cap. As someone already mentioned the hit is really, really high and sometimes I declined better gear score items to have a better balance of stats, for eg. give up items with hit for haste etc. it be nice to know roughly what amount of dps you are doing, but I found getting the tier 10 4 set bonus had a huge impact on the dps.

In a 10 man ICC, I am pulling comfortably around 7k dps and usually in the top 2 in the group. In a 25 man ICC, I found it was much harder trying to the top the group, esepcially when going up against some of the mages, hunters and rogues.

[Unclepally]

I found this quite an informative site hope it helps. http://www.retpaladin.com

[Rennadrel]

Ret Paladin is a terrible site for information, Elitist Jerks has the true BiS lists and rotation to use. Essentially it's just FCFS once you get into things and have your 4 set Tier 10. Judgement and Divine Storm take a bit more priority due to being bonuses from Tier 10, in my gear I get up to 25k Judgement crits and Divine Storm tends to reset a lot. Pulling almost 9k on Saurfang with very little use of Consecrate as well and I have not properly itemized my gear yet.