Ret Damage - Saddened and need halp!

[Kardall]

I am fighting to get my 2pc bonus at least, and it's just not coming. Have to try lfr again to see if I can get lucky, and Sha has yet to drop a 2nd piece for me.

However, I keep seeing my friends with lower gear than I have, pushing out more damage than I can. I am curious if there's anything that I should try to do, to not come up short in our raids.

Profile: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...arkener/simple

Last night we did Mogu'Shan Palace Challenge Mode and we finished it, but didn't even get bronze. I can only imagine that it's due to the amount of dps our group was doing. So I want to do my part in trying to get my dps up. I cannot see any other ways to improve my gear right now. We are 4/6 in MSV and we have another raid tonight.

I have been pondering changing the way I reforge, but every one I talk to says that I am doing it right. I try to get as close to 7.5% Exp and then most of my gear is to Haste and if it has haste, I do Mastery.

As far as actual numbers I pull, last night in challenge mode, I was doing about 35k. In Vaults I have been doing around 40k average. When I pop my cool downs it is pushed up to 75k and then slowly hovers around the 40k average again. Is there something like, "Only pop your cool downs when both trinkets proc the first time, then after that on cool cooldown" kind of rule? I see paladins doing over 100k dps but they have tier bonus', so I am not sure what the approximate non-heroic geared paladin dps is averaging in 10man normals.

When I go through the world of logs and the fights are full of warlocks, mages and rogues... it makes me sad that I leveled my paladin first this time around. Are we just that bad this time around?

[sifuedition]

Your belt has a spirit reforge for some reason. Your hit is too high. A weapon will make a bigger difference than any other slot for you. A LOT of ret dps relies on the weapon.

If you are trying to eeke out every last bit you can, I would recommend two things. First, download simulationcraft (http://simulationcraft.org/). Next would be to learn and then grow past clcret.

Simulationcraft is a highly accurate simulator. Learn to import your toon with the proper settings and determine your true stat weights with your current gear. Set all the buffs/food/flasks to be accurate for your raid group and simulate at least the 10k times setting to reduce the margin of error from random chance. From there, enter the stat weights it gives you into askmrrobot.com to get the best reforges. For ret, my crit and mastery have been swapping places depending on my gear and yours might be doing so as well. That difference will be marginal, but you indicated you want to get everything out of it you can.

Clcret is a really good rotation helper for ret. You will want to understand what it is doing and why. For instance, it does not add Execution Sentence to your rotation. That is fairly easy to modify with a little research. Compare it's rotation priorities to the priorities list in simulationcraft. You should be able to see how they match up and where Execution Sentence belongs in the rotation. I hesitate to simply tell all because you want to "evolve" away from relying on clcret if possible. Learning how to determine when it is wrong or not optimal is important and probably won't happen without you having to research and learn some of this. While clcret is very good, the best players can react and predict even better than it can. How long you should use it just depends on you, I suppose.

Also, you will want to be familiar with when Divine Storm is worth using over Templar's Verdict. When Hammer of the Righteous is worth using over Crusader's Strike. Also when Seal of Righteousness is worth using over Seal of Truth. Also, when is the Mass Exorcism glyph worth using in a fight.

Be aware, most of the top log parses you see will be skewed and should only be taken with a grain of salt. Most of those have been cheesed in some way with the specific goal of getting that top parse. It takes a lot of analyzing a log to be sure they are not doing so, and I typically assume they are unless someone can prove otherwise. I like using the simulationcraft dps estimates as a guide for how close I am to my potential. They are not perfect, but at least I can rule out 9-24 other people trying to artificially inflate it. It does seem like you have potential to increase your dps considering your gear.

Are you already using clcret? Are you keybinding? Are you generating logs on World of Logs? Do you have an accurate measure of your time on target? Are you being asked to use any utility that may effect your personal performance?

[Tengenstein]

Get your Hit down to 7.5%, get your Exp up to 7.5%. Str is worth more twice what Haste is to you so you gem Hybrid Str gems where you like the socket bonuses and pure strength where you don't care for socket bonuses. Enchant your bracers. Dancing steel is generally better than Windsong. crit and master sim at being about equal, you want to get as many CDs in as possible, you don't want to delay a cd if it means you would only get 3 uses in a fight rather than 4, but otherwise try to sync up as many cds/procs as possible. without a log of what you're actually doing its impossible to tell if you're doing the rotation right.

[sifuedition]

To clarify what Teng suggested on cds...

First look at how long your raid takes to down the boss. Let's say just over 6 minutes.

Guardian of Ancient Kings - 5 min cd
Avenging Wrath - 3 min cd
Zealotry (if you are using that one) - 2 min cd (Edit: should have said Holy Avenger since the talent changes)

You will want to use all three with a trinket and pre-pot at the beginning. (assuming that you will be able to be on target that entire time or at least most of it)
2 minutes later, Zealotry will be off cd. You can either use it or wait for AW. In a 6 minute fight, use it or you get one less overall use. Using it 3 times is better than lining it up with AW and only using it twice.

[Fetzie]

And make getting the 4set T14 a priority.

[theodisius]

From what I've read, retribution is around the (lower) middle of the pack when it comes to dps, so I would not despair. I think Blizzard balances the classes sufficiently - with maybe one or two exceptions - that you should not let dps ranking dictate what class you play.

Looking at your gear, it's the weapon - and lack of tier bonuses perhaps - that is your weak point. You can always use Justice Points to upgrade your current one until you get lucky. (Remember you can convert honour from Tol Barad or wherever to JPs if you are short.)

I'd second the recommendation of CLC-ret. If nothing else, it can help you push the buttons faster.

I think you are doing your reforges right in principle (haste>mastery>crit). Add-ons like reforgelite can help you min-max a bit closer to the caps.

Ret is very CD dependent and knowing when to pop CDs is something that comes with experience of the fight, so keep practicing and learning by doing.

[sifuedition]

Fetzie....

Originally, I heard that Divine Purpose and Holy Avenger were really close in value. Then I heard that Divine Purpose pulls ahead at some point that wasn't that high on the gear curve. With the 4 piece making Holy Avenger and Divine Purpose line up so well, does that re-favor Holy Avenger?

[Tengenstein]

you've confused one of those abilities names somewhere.

[sifuedition]

The level 75 talent tier...

Divine Purpose
Sanctified Wrath
Holy Avenger

Ah...now I see where I caused confusion. It should read:

"Since the 4 piece causes Holy Avenger and Avenging Wrath to line up so well, does that re-favor Holy Avenger"

[Fetzie]

I'll ask my ret pally friend.

[theodisius]

With the 4 piece making Holy Avenger and Divine Purpose line up so well, does that re-favor Holy Avenger?

I love Holy Avenger, but the 4 piece favors Sanctified Wrath more. The 4 piece gives you Avenging Wrath more often, so making it last longer through Sanctified Wrath becomes a no brainer.

In my gear (483) with the 4 pc, using SimCraft, I should get 81292 dps with SW; 79159 with DP and 75518 with HA.

(I am surprised DP held up so well as I dislike the talent, but average dps is not everything - I suspect there's a value to having more burst damage - e.g. for enrages.)

[Fetzie]

Sanctified Wrath is higher damage because it affects all your abilities, HA only affects CS (that does auto-attack damage), J, Exo and HoW. SW affects your biggest hitting ability (TV). You get a higher burst at the beginning of the fight, but as soon as HA expires your damage per second drops like a rock until 2 minutes later.

[sifuedition]

Changed to SW and ran ToES lfr about five times. DPS is about the same as before and maybe a little lower on some fights. I guess they are fairly close and I may just need to get my timing better on when to pop it so I have more time on target.

[Kardall]

I was magically able to get the LFR version of Starshatter so weapon wise I am good.

Thank you for all the replies. I do agree that your dps shouldn't warrant what class you play, however, our raid group is rather melee heavy, and I am wishing that I switched mainly for that.

That being said, I have tonnes of fun with my paladin this time around. It's a lot less boring than it was the last time I played this in WotLK, where I was stuck healing. Now I heal when I need to get into LFR really quickly for my legendary gems right now. I just can't see where I am going to be going with this character in 5.2 yet. We are going to try heart of fear, rather than attempt Elegon tonight.

People are saying that the first boss or two is slightly easier to pull off than Elegon, plus the gear is just a bit higher iLevel for upgrades to get people. Hopefully we can do it

[Tengenstein]

Melee heavy can be good, garalon is very nice for melee heavy setups.