Reply With QuoteReserved
>last updated for 4.2
Introduction
Hey. My name is Jorj and I play a retribution paladin. I didn't see an up-to-date Ret Paladin guide on the forums anywhere so I thought I'd take it upon myself to share my expertise with players new to the spec, or just looking for general guidence on dealing damage effectively as a Ret.
This guide will be updated as frequently as possible to ensure that what you're reading is accurate on Live.
The guide itself is intended for Rets wanting to excel in a PvE raiding environment. There will be no discussion of PvP or 5-man dungeons here.
Table of ContentsThe Video Guide
- Talent Specialisation
- Glyphs
- Itemisation
- Rotation
- Cooldowns
- Macros
- UI
- Useful Resources
- Encounter Specific Tips/Tricks
Talent Specialisation
This is the reccomended spec for a raid-focused Ret Paladin.
Selfless Healer
Selfless healer may look like a useful filler talent, but remember that the holy power spent on Word of Glory is always better spent on Templar's Verdict.
[useless trivia]
For a short time on the PTR of 4.2, the buff duration from Selfless healer was increased to 30 seconds, up from 10. This would've made keeping Selfless healer up our top priority in the PvE rotation. The buff was quickly reverted back to a 10 second uptime, as Blizzard stated that Selfless healer was primarily a PvP talent, and it wasn't intended for damage dealing classes to feel they had to heal others to do optimal damage in a raiding environment.
[/useless trivia]
Eye for an Eye
Eye for an eye has a 40% change to deal 30% retribution damage when you are hit by an enemies targeted spell. This averages out at 12% total incoming targeted spelldamage. Many encounters at current progression level will randomly select a target and deal spelldamage (think Nefarian's Shadowflame Barrage, or Chimearon's Caustic Slime!) and depending on how unlucky you are (or lucky depending on how you look at it) this talent can do in excess of 200k damage throughout the duration of the fight.
Pursuit of Justice
Pursuit of Justice grants us a passive 15% movement speed, which may seem trivial at a glance (or not if you've looked into graphs proving how valuable movement speed is), but consider that's 15% more uptime on a boss during a high movement encounter such as Twilight Ascendant Council or Conclave of Wind. If, during a 5 minute encounter you are out of the bosses hit-box (unable to attack) for 1 minute, or 20% of the time, then we subtract the time that Pursuit of Justice grants you (15% of 1 minute = 9 seconds) That's 9 seconds extra we are able to deal damage to the boss that would be impossible without the talent. At an average of 25k dps that's 225k passive damage from that talent, and now you begin to see how valuable movement speed really is.
Glyphs
Prime Glyphs (From highest dps increase to lowest)
Glyph of Seal of Truth
Glyph of Templar's Verdict
Glyph of Exorcism
Glyph of Crusader Strike
Glyph of Seal of Truth is the best DPS gain from a glyph that is available to us. 10 Expertise is the equivalent of 301 Expertise rating, or -2.5% chance to be dodged or parried, significantly reducing the amount we need to reach the parry cap, which is 26 Exp. The glyph is still a greater DPS gain than the others even as much as around 5 Expertise above cap (exact number tbc), making it very unlikely it will be useless to you.
If however, you are so far above cap even after reforging all expertise off your gear, you may be forced to use our fourth best glyph available to us, Glyph of Crusader Strike. You should note that it is probably worth downgrading a piece of gear to something without expertise on if it comes to this, as utilising this glyph is very beneficial to our DPS.
Major Glyphs
There are no Major glyphs available to us that directly affect our damage output. Instead, the glyphs are focused mainly around mana conservation, with a few exceptions. The most useful major glyphs for a Ret paladin are:
Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader
Glyph of Hammer of Wrath
Glyph of Rebuke
Glyph of Divine Protection
Glyph of Lay on Hands
Without atleast one mana conserving major glyph, you'll find yourself running oom very often, especially if you get unlucky with procs and are forced to use Consecration more often than you would like. For this reason, Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader and Glyph of Hammer of Wrath are highly recommended, as these are the greatest mana conserving glyphs we have.
The third glyph can be situational. In most instances, Glyph of Divine Protection will be most useful to you, as the majority of boss fights contain at least one unavoidable spell ability cast on the raid (think Nefarian's Electricute!), and a 40% spell damage reduction on a one minute cooldown can be extremely handy. However, if you are used in a Lay on Hands rotation, or find using the ability more often than you would like, it may be beneficial to utilise the Glyph of Lay on Hands instead, but like I say it's highly situational, and partly down to personal preference.
The only Major glyphs I would try to avoid would be Glyph of Salvation and Glyph of Consecration. The salvation glyph, although looking attractive with our current burst threat during cooldowns in the beginning of a fight, does not work as you might expect. Instead of stopping your threat generated for the duration of buff, the glyph merely "banks" the threat generated, making it invisible until the buff expires, and you get all that threat back in one big burst, as if you never had salv to begin with.
Glyph of Consecration also has an ambiguous tooltip. At a first glance it might look to be a DPS increase, generating 20% extra ticks from it's increased uptime, but it doesn't work like that. The glyph merely spaces out the time in between the ticks, so you'll always end up with 10 ticks per cast whether you use the glyph or not. Note that Haste does not affect Consecration ticks.
Itemisation
Stat Priority
Hit (to 961 or 8.00%) > Expertise (to 481 or 16Exp w/ Glyph) > Strength > Mastery > Haste > Crit
Stat Weights
[Section removed due to inaccurate weights. See below.]
Exemplar's spreadsheet was bugged and hasn't been scaling haste with censure as it should, giving haste a much lower value than it has in reality. This has been fixed and it now seems haste has a higher value than crit, but less than mastery.
Gemming
Meta: Reverberating Shadowspirit diamond
By far the best meta available to us, with perfect socket requirements.
Anything with <20Str socket bonus:
Bold Inferno Ruby
If you can match a 20Str bonus by using one "Half Coloured Gem" ie. 20Str/20Hit, 20Str/20Mas, you'll be netting yourself a free 20 rating. Refer to your Stat Weights to determine exactly when it's viable to gem for the socket bonus.
Enchants
Head
Arcanum of The Wildhammer (Alliance)
Arcanum of the Dragonmaw (Horde)
Shoulders
Greater Inscription of Jagged Stone
Back
1. Greater Critical Strike
2. Critical Strike
Chest
Peerless Stats
Bracers
Major Strength
Gloves
Mighty Strength
Belt
Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs
Dragonscale Leg Armor
Boots
1.Mastery
2.Precision
Note: Run speed enchants do NOT stack with Pursuit of Justice
Weapon
Landslide
The Rotation
As with most classes in current content, Rets do not as much follow as set rotation as they do a priority list. The list for most situations looks like this:
Single Target
Inquisition
Templar's Verdict (3 HP)
Crusader Strike (<3 HP)
Templar's Verdict (Divine Purpose proc AND <3 HP)
Exorcism (on Undead/Demon)
Hammer of Wrath
Exorcism (if NOT Undead/Demon)
Judgement
Holy Wrath
Consecration (if above 75% mana)
As of 4.2 and the release of Firelands, Inquisition now lasts 12, 24 and 36 seconds up from 10, 20, 30. With the 4-piece Tier 11 bonus, a 3 HP inquisition will last 48 seconds.
If you are using the 4-piece Tier 11 bonus, you can save a lot of holy power by refreshing inquisition at only 1 HP as much as possible. This is due to the fact that using 3x1HP inq's would net you 72 seconds uptime using the set bonus, where as using 1x3HP inq would only net you 48 seconds uptime. You use the same amount of Holy Power, but the former optimises consumption.
Note that even using the 4 set bonus, you should have atleast 30 seconds Inq up whenever you use cooldowns, as having to refresh Inquisition during cooldown uptime is a big waste of DPS.
AoE (More than 4 targets)
The priority list for AoE is very similar to the one we use for Single target, the only difference is we'll be using Seal of Righteousness instead of Truth, and using Divine Storm on cooldown rather than Crusader Strike. Consecration also moves above Judgement. It should look something like this.
Inquisition
Divine Storm
Templar's Verdict (3 HP)
Exorcism (on Undead/Demon)
Hammer of Wrath
Exorcism (if NOT Undead/Demon)
Consecration (if above 75% mana)
Judgement
Holy Wrath
Note: Remember that Divine storm is absolutely not worth using on less than 4 targets, as it will not generate holy power. For anything less than 4 targets, stick to the single target rotation.
Cooldowns
Retribution Paladins have three major cooldowns at their disposal.
Guardian of the Ancient Kings
Avenging Wrath
Zealotry
These cooldowns are best used in conjunction with eachother, which means using Guardian of the Ancient Kings 10 seconds before using Avenging Wrath followed instantly by Zealotry as to wait for Ancient Power to stack up and to fully make the most out of your cooldowns.
Obviously there are exceptions to this rule. Zealotry only generates the additional 2 holy power if Crusader Strike is used. This makes it not worth using in an AoE scenario, where using Avenging Wrath and/or Guardian of the Ancient Kings would still be beneficial.
As of this post, you can use Guardian of the Ancient Kings while wearing 4 piece tier 11 Protection gear for an extra 15 seconds on guardian, then switch back to your DPS gear quickly before the pull in the same way you would prepot. This is a pretty significant DPS gain but I expect it to be fixed relatively soon, as the tier 10 mage exploit was.
Macros
Kick your Focus target without switching from your Main target:
#showtooltip Rebuke
/cast [target=focus] Rebuke
/cast Rebuke
Zealotry and Templar's Verdict - No CD time wasted:
#showtooltip Zealotry
/cast Zealotry
/cast Templar's Verdict
Keep 5 stacks of SoT rolling on your focus target without moving:
#showtooltip Judgement
/cast [target=focus] Judgement
Quickly cancel a debuff and get back to DPSing: (press twice)
#showtooltip Divine Shield
/cast divine shield
/cancelaura Divine Shield
User Interface
My UI:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=P12EQV9G
Unfortunately I'm not expert in setting up UIs or making them compatible with other resolutions (or macs LOL) so please don't ask about how to make it work, because I don't know. The addons that don't work are probably under profile "Jórj - Jaedenar", I think you need to change bartender and omen at least.
Useful Addons
Clcinfo
Omen3
Satrina Buff Frames (SBF)
Tidyplates: Threat Plates (requires Tidy Plates)
Parrot
Deadly Boss Mods (DBM)
My UI Video
If you'd like to know exactly which addons I'm using to raid with, watch this video.
Encounter Specific Tips n' Tricks
Halfus:
Using the Judgement macro it's possible to keep 5 stacks of truth on Halfus whilst keeping the drakes as your main target. You can also use the Rebuke macro to interrupt his shadow nova without switching targets.
Valiona & Theralion:
Again using the Judgement macro you can keep 5 stacks of Truth rolling on the dragon in the air. You'll need to switch Focus when one of them lands but it's overall a massive DPS increase.
If you are targeted by Blackout you can also run outside of the raid, bubble to dispel the debuff, cancelaura using the macro and run back to continue dps. Although not a personal DPS increase this is a big save of movement time for your raid.
Magmaw:
If you use your cooldowns at the start of the fight, they won't be up in time for the headphase where they're twice as useful. Pop your guardian 10 seconds before headphase (about when the chains come down) and use everything on the head for maximum damage. It's a good idea to pop your second potion then too.
Omnotron Defence System
Again you can use the Judgement macro on the last golem you were on (be careful of the shield!)
You can also try to save cooldowns for when your main target is Arcanotron and you can stand in the Power generator for 50% extra damage.
Chimearon:
Pay attention to Caustic slime. If you miss a crusader strike, you put it on a 4 second cooldown without generating any holy power. Watch the debuff closely and use your ability as soon as it wears off. Never use cooldowns during Feud or you'll be missing a hell of a lot and save your third set of cooldowns for the last phase and Bloodlust.
Maloriak HC
As Zealotry is limited to a single target, use it in the beginning of the fight on it's own. When the dark sludge spawns you can use GaK, and then AW 10 seconds later and spam that Divine Storm button for maximum damage. Try not to use cooldowns in Red phase or you'll end up getting parried 8% of the time.
Atramedes
Cooldowns line up nicely with ground phase on this encounter, but during air phase you can use judgement on cooldown and keep up the exorcism debuff without going oom from using other abilities.
Nefarian HC
Get a death knight to make a macro using Dark Simulacrum on you whenever you get Mind Controlled. As soon as you free yourself, either pop AW as usual to get the most out of the Stolen Power buff, or if it's on cooldown use Seal of Truth. The death knight will also get these buffs for a nice burst to his own damage.
In phase 2, if you are targetted by Exploding Cinders while on the platform, you can simply bubble and cancelaura the debuff without exploding, saving you the trouble of having to jump off the platform, and extremely useful if you are assigned to interrupt.
Conclave of Wind
If you are an engineer, you can use your Parachute to float into the centre of a platform and cancel aura to land right ontop of the boss, saving you 5 or 6 seconds running time every use.
When running from one of the Jin to the wind booster, you can Judgement the boss behind you to get the Long arm of the Law buff and slice a second or 2 off your running time.
Al'Akir
Hand of Protection will make you immune to the squall line, meaning you won't even get picked up if you run through it. Use this if you find yourself in a sticky situation with boss timers.
You won't take damage from the ice patch if you use Hand of freedom while running through it.
You can clear your stacks of Acid Rain in phase 2 by using bubble and quickly using the cancel aura macro.
Shannox
Keep 5 stacks of censure rolling on one of the dogs using the focus target macro. Don't bother doing this in heroic as you typically don't kill the dogs and as such it's just wasted dps.
Lord Ryolith
Use Seal of Righteousness until phase 2 and stand in the middle of the fragment adds for extra damage.
Beth'tilac
Help taunt the spinners down from their webs using Righteous Defence as well as Hand of Reckoning. If there are more than 3 up in melee, divine storm them down with the drone.
Alysrazor
It's not possible to keep up 5 stacks on this boss 24/7, however you can throw a judgement or hardcast an exorcism on him as he flies over while you're waiting for an initiate to spawn or unable to otherwise dps on the ground. Remember to save your 2nd set of cooldowns (including GaK) for his "down" phase where he's taking aditional damage. You should also save bloodlust and shatter/second potion for this time.
Baleroc
This is as "Patchwerk" as fights get for melee in Firelands. If you know your rotation, you can execute this encounter flawlessly.
Majordomo Staghelm
When Majordomo is in his scorpion phase, stand behind him until he's 90+ energy then quickly move infront of him to avoid as many parries as possible.
Using Seal of truth, spread a couple of stacks of censure to the kitties as Majordomo himself jumps out of melee range when he's in his cat phase.
Ragnaros
On your second set of cooldowns, stagger Avenging Wrath for use with Divine Storm on the seed adds.Useful Resources
ElitistJerks - Pretty in-depth discussion about class mechanics and patch changes.
SimCraft - Use this tool to determine which talent/glyph/gear/rotation combinations are optimal.
WowReforge - Using this tool can help you optimise your reforge options to make sure no rating is wasted.
So I hope you found the guide useful, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have on the spec or class in this thread or on my youtube videos.
Last edited by Jorj; 09-05-2011 at 05:50 AM.
Reserved
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/jaedenar/jórj/advanced
Why I hate Paladins yet really want to be one at the same time - see above.Al'Akir
Hand of Protection will make you immune to the squall line, meaning you won't even get picked up if you run through it. Use this if you find yourself in a sticky situation with boss timers.
You won't take damage from the ice patch if you use Hand of freedom while running through it.
You can clear your stacks of Acid Rain in phase 2 by using bubble and quickly using the cancel aura macro.
Do the first two tricks work on other people, too? I know you can lifegrip people out of the squall lines but never heard of bopping them out!
Good guide btw, I just didn't have any questions about actual Ret stuff.
Do you have any suggestions for maximizing dps and surviving last phase for longer than 15seconds for heroic chimmy 10m as the ret break tank? I know i didnt utilize my cds for dps as much as i could have because i was worried about pulling aggro when MT's taunted off...and i was saving my first and 2nd AWs for fued phases with holy radiance just to help healers (im pretty sure the healers could handle 20% less from ret holy radiance, if i went back now i would use AW with my other cds). During the stack phase even when i turned off RF i pulled aggro and was killed so i had to sit there and maybe throw a CS when my aggro dropped below 97-98%. I could only manage 11.8k DPS at best, sometimes hovering around 9k (mainly due to getting used to the taunting/aggro because i never ret tanked the fight and the AW-during-stack-phase thing). Sadly after about a dozen attempts or so (half of them into phase 2) we couldnt down him. A couple attempts chimmy was below 500k but we couldnt get the kill. The rest of the dps are pulling 20k+ and tanks are right behind me every pull and with me dying so soon into last phase i feel my low dps is the problem.
I have okay gear... 357il with the correct and most maelstrom enchants, Zin'rokh, but only a 2-set tier bonus. My spec is talent-for-talent the one in your post. Im using your top 3 prime glyphs, for majors; ascetic crusader, divine protection and started with lay on hands but switched to glyph of salvation on the last few attempts, hoping that i could have 10 more seconds to live in phase 2. I can pull around 22k DPS on a good day in BH 10. Ive been thinking about doing a couple things differently, like utilizing my hand of salv more, dropping repentance and divine storm for 2/2 in acts of sacrifice and possibly even dropping 2/2 from pursuit of justice for 2/2 in selfless healer. I just reforged into as much expertise as possible without sacrificing hit and managed 15k dps on the raid dummy, up from 14k, attacking from the front (self buffed+food/flask and going all out with cds and no regard for taunting/aggro/healing) though a bosses parry chance is still 4.75 with 37 expertise. Im gonna work with the exp. some more to get it higher, seems to be the best thing i can do from a gear standpoint. Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated
Yep they work on other people, but it might be a bit difficult to co-ordinate the Hand of Protection trick in an emergency situation unless you have very good communicationOriginally Posted by Sebadoh
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/jaedenar/jórj/advanced
I've never been the break tank on chimearon before, but I'd suggest not using cooldowns in the feud phase as you'll be missing a hell of a lot, and also throw a hand of salvation on yourself if you have a free gcd in phase 3, so you're not his next target after the tank dies. Taunt works so that the caster gains any threat that is above him, so don't be afraid to go nuts just before he taunts, you'll actually be giving him threat.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/jaedenar/jórj/advanced
Firstly, great job ! its good to see someone so passionate when it comes to the class i play.
Here are a few questions i ahve for 4.2
What are your plans for Firelands in regards to itemization.
Will you been looking at crafting some of the black smith gear?
will you save up for tier asap when it comes to valor badges ?
Will it be worth breaking our T11 4p for T11 2p + T12 2p ?
What will be the best way to maximise our aoe dps with the seal changes?
Sorry for all these questions but i believe they will be extremely helpful for other rets reading this guide.
Ps: For ClCret what are your settings (when to refresh inquis, min HP to refresh inqu)? i know you hate UI questions but the appropriate settings for CLCret will improve our dps which is ultimately the goal of this guide.
Pss: sorry for my english it is not my first language.
As far as itemisation goes, nothing changes as of yet. Stat weights look pretty much the same until we reach some sort of a mastery cap where crit will become more attractive, but for the moment that looks unlikely.
I'll be collecting as much of the rep, smithing, engineering items as possible and working out the best combinations.
The 4set T12 is a better holy power conservation mechanic than our current T11 4Set, so yes I'll be saving up for the set asap.
I don't have the math to check if it'll be worth dropping the 4set T11 for 2 set T12, but at a first glance the 2 set does look a lot nicer than our current T11 4Set. Coupled with the general stat increases in the gear I'm quite sure it's worth dropping the 4set.
It's unclear yet at which point it's better to switch from Truth-tabbing to straight up Seal of Righteousness, but the number of targets and the target's uptime will definitely come into play there. I'll keep this guide updated.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/jaedenar/jórj/advanced
Thanks for reply . Cn u reply about clcret question . I love this gudie
I'd pick PoJ over Eye for an Eye anytime. The feet enchant for the movement speed -would- also work, but don't forget that this talent also produces holy power on different fights, which might come in handy.
Otherwise great guide! Keep up the good work.
You should take both.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/jaedenar/jórj/advanced
Things may change.
Even if they're "equal" talents, as it seems to me that you're saying (which I personally do not believe), an important thing to note is that Eye for an Eye is purely damage-based, whereas PoJ is both an increase to damage, mobility & overall performance, which may help you deal even more damage, or at least improve your ability to survive (which is a huge boost in damage anyway).
inqa inqrhp cs tvhp tvdp exoud how exo j hw cons
is the prio system you should be using, with Inq cast and refresh at 1HP.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/jaedenar/jórj/advanced
It seems situational to me. If we suddenly had to pick between PoJ and E4E, it might work out better to use E4E and a run speed enchant on boots, but of course that might change on a high movement fight with little spell damage.Things may change.
Even if they're "equal" talents, as it seems to me that you're saying (which I personally do not believe), an important thing to note is that Eye for an Eye is purely damage-based, whereas PoJ is both an increase to damage, mobility & overall performance, which may help you deal even more damage, or at least improve your ability to survive (which is a huge boost in damage anyway).
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/jaedenar/jórj/advanced
bump
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/jaedenar/jórj/advanced
typically we don't allow bumping of threads, at least if you want to bring your guide back to light, you can post more than just "bump" (this isn't the wow forums!). Typically I sticky or link guides that are well written in a sticky for the sub forums. I don't know enough about ret paladins however to accurately determine if this is deserving of a sticky or not (you can understand why we only want quality guides being advertised here).
So if any other community members would like to contribute or provide feedback to better my decision to sticky or not do so!
Looks a good guide to me, although I am not expert.
Are you sure about the bubble macro? Shouldn't the cancel aura line come before the bubble? That's the point of pressing twice. First time, you get the bubble. Second time, you cancel it.
The latest EJ ret findings by Exemplar have things in a lather about stat priorities - haste is looking better than crit and maybe mastery.
Have I missed it or do you not mention CLC ret in your guide? As a tank who seldom does Ret, I found the add-on enormously helpful.
Having read a bit of stuff and discussing with other individuals, it seems that there has been changes done to the Ret Paladin information that has not been included. I would sincerely suggest you review the guide and make sure it's updated to 4.2 with the correct information: much of it is not in the guide as suggested.
I'm not saying this to malign the work you've done, simply stating that there are things that may want to be reviewed before having it placed in any sort of informational situations for the community. It just seems that some of the changes 4.2 did for Ret paladins aren't noted. One of the changes I believe that was done and wasn't mentioned here is the following:
That's just something to show that I'm not just talking out of my rear telling you that there's stuff missing and then not tell you anything at all. But this guide really does have some promise. Just needs to be 'fully' updated for 4.2 and kept a track on. People will rely on the information to stay as such.a 3 HP inquisition is now 36 seconds, not 30, regardless of set bonus. With 4pc t11, it's 48.
Tankspot Moderator
Twitter: Follow me on Twitter! @Krenian
"Damnit!" - Jack Bauer, 24
Guide updated, the recently found 'inaccurate' stat-weights removed, Inquisition times updated, new boss tips n' tricks added.
@Kazeyonoma, Sorry for the bump. Obviously I'm new to these forums and I'm just trying to share my expertise. I saw a thread looking for a retribution guide so this post is obviously hard to find.
@Krenian, the only changes done to ret in 4.2 were the inquisition timer and the Seal of Righteousness hitting all targets in melee range. Both have been accounted for.
@Theodisius, yes the bubble macro works. Yes I've added links to clcinfo in the guide.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/jaedenar/jórj/advanced
Exemplar's spreadsheet was bugged and hasn't been scaling haste with censure as it should, giving haste a much lower value than it has in reality. This has been fixed and it now seems haste has a higher value than crit, but less than mastery.
^ That's an interesting statement, given that everybody tought crit wasn't that much behind mastery (but never actually can catch it) and haste had almost no value. Censure (SoT's dot) only makes up for 7.4% of your total damage done in T11 regular gear (7% in BiS T12Hc gear). So unless you can get enough haste to decrease the cooldown on your CS to 3 seconds i can't see how haste should bypass crit.
When Majordomo is in his scorpion phase, stand behind him until he's 90+ energy then quickly move infront of him to avoid as many parries as possible.
^ You should be careful with that, if many melees try the same you might end up triggering him accidently.
Besides that a very well written guide, lots of useful hints on the bosses.
Last edited by klausi; 08-01-2011 at 06:22 PM.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks