Retribution Spec

[Falaras]

So I've recently been asked to make a serious Ret spec, which I haven't done since Seal of Blood existed, and was wondering what spec most raiding Ret paladins use? If it matters this spec will be used for: TOGC 10, ToC 25, Uld 10 HMs that need 1 tank, Algalon.

The spec I am considering using is: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...1,eQpeqR,10596

but it has me worried that it lacks Raid Wall and Vindication.
Also all of our tanks are Paladins that have Vindication.

[Plow]

Varies wildly depending on who's in your raid.

What you have there is functional except ditch the DS glyph for SoV glyph.

Also none of what you listed calls for SoComm, and those 4 points in divinity are netting a whopping 40k extra jol healing for every million you do, at least switch 2 to GF. You could fit raid wall into that build fairly easily by dropping socomm and 1 from divine purpose, or just both from DP.

Basically ret talents come down to 5 imp sor/v, 5/5 DStr, every ret talent that increases dps.

At that point you generally either go for all the buffs, imp might, hotc, vind, SR, or you work around which of those are covered in your raid to fit in fully improved raid wall.

[Falaras]

The Divinity Points are just kind of Filler, not sure of GF vs Divinity as I can't think of a time when I need a lower BoP or freedom CD. I would never drop Seal of Cleave as I can think of tons of fights its useful for, and even speeds up trash which is always nice. If you can tell me the reasoning for GF it would be appreciated since thats something I could change. Oh and Glyph of Divine Storm is really for the utility, I plan to be expertise capped without glyph of SoV and love Glyph of DS for fights like Faction Champions and Twins.

[Plow]

The Divinity Points are just kind of Filler, not sure of GF vs Divinity as I can't think of a time when I need a lower BoP or freedom CD. I would never drop Seal of Cleave as I can think of tons of fights its useful for, and even speeds up trash which is always nice.

What fights are you using command for? Nothing personal or anything, but there's a 99% chance that if you're using it on something other than 5 man heroics/trash or pvp, you're doing it wrong.

If you can tell me the reasoning for GF it would be appreciated since thats something I could change.

Heroic faction champs is the most obvious answer. Freya would be another. Snobolds yet another. Bopping off impale stacks as well.

The fact of the matter is you've got 2 talent points gaining you a whopping 20k healing for every million you do, when those 2 points could be almost halving the cooldown on an extremely powerful ability.

Oh and Glyph of Divine Storm is really for the utility, I plan to be expertise capped without glyph of SoV and love Glyph of DS for fights like Faction Champions and Twins.

Well first off, on Faction Champs, DS is considered an aoe attack and therefore does utterly terrible damage, the glyph might get you like 100 extra healing per use.

Secondly, you're looking at 89 expertise rating to match the glyph. That's a huge amount of crit you're going to give up in order to use a glyph that is, quite simply, really freaking bad.

If you can't help it, because you don't have the gear options without the expertise and you're going to be over cap regardless, the right choice for that spot would probably be exorcism, especially with IC on the way. Although, glyph of holy wrath is probably going to be an option worth considering for both prot and ret in IC.

Rather or not a ret would take it over exorcism in a situation where they can't put veng glyph to use will come down to how many of the actual boss fights involve serious aoe packs.

But really the fact of the matter is that if you have the gear options available to cap expertise without it, you probably have the gear options to turn that one glyph spot into a couple % crit on everything, which makes it one of the best glyphs available to any dps class, period.


Basically, altogether, a ret paladin's utility has shifted away from the healing options. Your utility now comes from the fact that we can offer damn near every passive raid buff, and a couple of immensely useful raw damage reduction cooldowns. Other than that, your focus should pretty much always be doing the most damage you possibly can.


Blame the issues with tank avoidance and massive damage hits as a result, the main reason ret pally healing value has been drastically reduced is the fact that other heals are coming rather yours happen or not.

[Falaras]

Well the Glyph has a thread on Elitist Jerks, while Exorcism is only worth 40 DPS, Divine Storm is worth something like 80 HPS making it very powerful, even without hitting multiple targets. I guess I'll take GF, though bopping off Impale stacks doesn't exactly call for a shorter cooldown, and what can I do about Snobolds?
As far as command goes anytime when stacking SoV isn't really practical (fast switches) or there are multiple mobs I use it. Switch it on for adds on Anub, Razorscale, Kolo, Thorim tunnel, Freya, was thinking of using it on FC, nice for Onyxia though I didn't put that in my post.

[Plow]

Well the Glyph has a thread on Elitist Jerks, while Exorcism is only worth 40 DPS, Divine Storm is worth something like 80 HPS making it very powerful, even without hitting multiple targets.

The problem is that even though DS won't overheal in and of itself, all it really does is add more overhealing to your tank healer.

There's no such thing as overdps.

I'm honestly shocked that thread went past the first page, as it's really knocked out with this post:

I think something we're glossing over is Divine Storm's cooldown of ten seconds.

Divine Storm Glyph is useful IF you have someone needing healing AND IF the extra 15% makes a difference AND IF both previous conjoin when your cooldown is available. There is no doubt that holding your Divine Storm to try to heal at an effective time is an untenable loss of DPS.

The chance of someone needing the heal at the same time you're randomly providing it is extremely low. Gaining added heal on something that rarely will hit when necessary is fairly moot.

It's the same reasoning why Holy Paladin gem for Int, Crit, Haste, or MP5 - not spellpower. Holy Light overheals a significant portion of the time, increasing its healing potential for the tiny fraction where it may possibly prevent a death is not nearly as important as the longevity or reaction (haste) concerns.

I guess I'll take GF, though bopping off Impale stacks doesn't exactly call for a shorter cooldown, and what can I do about Snobolds?

Well, if you're running DP, you should be watching for snobold stun on tanks and getting that shit off, but GF doesn't really affect that. However bopping snobolded healers can be quite useful in 10 man where bopping off impale stacks is meh, especially if you're 2 healing.

As far as command goes anytime when stacking SoV isn't really practical (fast switches) or there are multiple mobs I use it. Switch it on for adds on Anub, Razorscale, Kolo, Thorim tunnel, Freya, was thinking of using it on FC.

Honestly paladin shouldn't even be swapping on anub. You should basically be ignoring the adds except to make sure your DS and cons are hitting them, and holy wrathing. You should be top dps on anub himself pretty much always.

Razor I can see it, but those mobs die too fast to spend a talent for anyway. Kolo adds your ranged should be taking care of, if your raid is somehow killing the arms too fast to stack veng, use righteousness anyway. Freya and Thorim adds fit into that 1% where it's semi-useful for a boss heh. Unfortunately it's not selective with targeting like hotr, so you have to be careful using it on FC, especially if you're using hungering cold. Again if they're dying too fast to stack SoV, SoR is the way to go.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying command is "bad," by any means. I have it in my own build for heroics and stuff. But if you're considering its usefulness to a raid group in comparison to divsac, well, there's simply no comparison there.


Here are the 3 basic builds I use for ret:

No DSac, full passive buffs:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Basic DSac, assumes presence of moonkin:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Without a moonkin, you would have to either have an ele shaman or a prot pally with vind, or both, else drop divine purpose to retain passive buffs.


PvP build with full DSac:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I'm still questioning myself on the allocation between RV, SR, and Fana. Shit is situational, running ret/rogue I'd drop SR for sure, ret/mage, or 3's/5's teams that involve a lock or ele shaman or whatever, I'd stick with full SR.

[Falaras]

I guess Glyph of Divine Storm might not be the best idea, but I do like to keep expertise capped without Glyph of SoV for when I have to use Command. And I never knew you could Freedom off snobold stuns, very useful. The way my guild does Anub is we switch all DPS to the first 2 Adds and then ignore the next 2 until he burrows, so unless we change that I will be switching to adds and probably running command to hit all 3 mobs.
I don't like to assume the presence of any class, but we do run with a metric fuck ton of moonkins and ele shamans so that second build might be the way to go for me (if I can figure out a way to work SoC in)

[Plow]

With what you stated earlier about your tanks all having vind, you can drop those for command if you think that's the right decision.

Or, ele shaman covers HotC.

[Falaras]

Hah, so after all this the guilds MT left and they need me to Tank TOGC so I don't have to DPS! Woot.

[Toxictaru]

Just going to throw this out there for the sake of throwing it out there. If you honestly believe that you need Command for doing trash packs or for adds on bosses, the rest of your raid must be pretty useless. There are so many other classes that can handle AoE packs that don't require paladin intervention.

If you are concerned about your DPS on trash or adds, you're probably only looking to pad the meters. Clearing trash quickly is one thing, but honestly, it really shouldn't matter... its trash. If you are working on adds in a boss fight, wtf? You are stepping outside of your usefulness. If you are looking to maximize your DPS, stick with SoV glyph and spend a few points in holy to increase your dps again. You're not a healer, and your divine storm is trivial if your healers are good. 1-2k heal? If you are relying on that to keep tanks alive, you're doing it wrong... especially when you consider Divine Sacrifice is readily available elsewhere and can EASILY save a whole raid.

SoComm's usefulness is still mostly limited to trash or adds, neither of which are of significant importance to a ret. As far as I'm concerned (as a raiding ret), your job is almost exclusively to do a lot of damage to a boss. Taking extra points to speed up trash when you could take other far more useful talents is... pretty silly. There should never really be a time where you "have" to use SoComm. Heroics are not important enough to build your raid spec around, and your raid comp should have a reasonable enough spread of people that AoE trash packs should go down fast, and single target trash is going to get a positive benefit from using SoV.

This is basically the spec that I use right now, it puts out top or very near top dps in my raids: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Its pretty simple. Its also the recommended EJ spec for ret right now.
Minor glyphs are reasonably irrelevant (I take BoM/BoK/LoH, will be changing that a bit with IC and Sense Undead), but major are simple: Judgements, SoV and Cons.

Honestly, there isn't much reason to go against the people who are running the math on this. Anyway, I'm rambling due to it being late.

[Khelek]

I currently use this spec since I don't have any real use for Divine Sacrifice atm:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
I'd say, move the Guardian's Favor to Vindication or something, if you don't find yourself HoPing ppl. I've found it to be rather useful though.
This is the alternative for when ppl whine and bitch at me for not having Divine Sacrifice, which really doesn't seem to help much anyways imo (I'd rather get the less time spent disoriented):
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

These are for overall usefulness. If you want to be focusing on single target dps, you don't need Seal of Command.

[Falaras]

Just going to throw this out there for the sake of throwing it out there. If you honestly believe that you need Command for doing trash packs or for adds on bosses, the rest of your raid must be pretty useless. There are so many other classes that can handle AoE packs that don't require paladin intervention.

If you are concerned about your DPS on trash or adds, you're probably only looking to pad the meters. Clearing trash quickly is one thing, but honestly, it really shouldn't matter... its trash. If you are working on adds in a boss fight, wtf? You are stepping outside of your usefulness. If you are looking to maximize your DPS, stick with SoV glyph and spend a few points in holy to increase your dps again. You're not a healer, and your divine storm is trivial if your healers are good. 1-2k heal? If you are relying on that to keep tanks alive, you're doing it wrong... especially when you consider Divine Sacrifice is readily available elsewhere and can EASILY save a whole raid.

SoComm's usefulness is still mostly limited to trash or adds, neither of which are of significant importance to a ret. As far as I'm concerned (as a raiding ret), your job is almost exclusively to do a lot of damage to a boss. Taking extra points to speed up trash when you could take other far more useful talents is... pretty silly. There should never really be a time where you "have" to use SoComm. Heroics are not important enough to build your raid spec around, and your raid comp should have a reasonable enough spread of people that AoE trash packs should go down fast, and single target trash is going to get a positive benefit from using SoV.

This is basically the spec that I use right now, it puts out top or very near top dps in my raids: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Its pretty simple. Its also the recommended EJ spec for ret right now.
Minor glyphs are reasonably irrelevant (I take BoM/BoK/LoH, will be changing that a bit with IC and Sense Undead), but major are simple: Judgements, SoV and Cons.

Honestly, there isn't much reason to go against the people who are running the math on this. Anyway, I'm rambling due to it being late.

One thing I've found is that as much as you may think so, single target DPS doesn't matter as much as whatever gimmick the fight throws at you. If there are adds that need killed, SoCom is there, if someone is getting raped by Rogue+Paladin on FC, Glyph of DS could save them. The game isn't as black and white as Ret = Single target ONRY. Now for the FEW fights that single target DPS does matter I agree, but there are so few of them (Hodir HM is the only one I can think of at the moment though I don't and will never do TOGC 25)

[Plow]

The game isn't as black and white as Ret = Single target ONRY.

To put it quite bluntly:

If the rest of your raid is just as good as you are, it really is that simple.


Reason being if someone's getting raped, BoPs, GF's, etc. should happen. If you need more aoe dmg, the aoe classes can cover it just fine.

On the flipside, DS crits on FC mobs are like 1500, if it hits all 4 that's 6k dmg, so that's less than 1k extra healing from the glyph, when 4 mobs are in range and all hits crit. If that saves someone, it's an absurd fluke.


Basically, at this point, if you're not carrying bads, every last bit of paladin utility outside DSac, BoP, and HoS is already covered much better by other people.

[Falaras]

The AoE classes put up just as much single target DPS than you, if everyone contributes to the AoE gimmick (which is more important then single target DPS in the majority of fights), the AoE classes can go back to the single target DPS that they do well also. Such as, the faster I help kill the first set of adds on Anub, the faster the whole raid can switch back to Anub. And even without hitting the extra mobs on FC you are still dropping a heal that averages 76.7 HPS which really isn't anything to scoff at. The FC example was not because of extra mobs, it was because that fight is all about survivability. Such as when I go on my Mage I have to use Mana Shield, this rapes my single target DPS, but in the end is more useful for the fight as a whole.

[Plow]

The AoE classes put up just as much single target DPS than you, if everyone contributes to the AoE gimmick (which is more important then single target DPS in the majority of fights), the AoE classes can go back to the single target DPS that they do well also. Such as, the faster I help kill the first set of adds on Anub, the faster the whole raid can switch back to Anub.

The math has been done, it's mathematically more effective for you to sit on anub keeping vengeance stacked than to switch to adds, provided your aoe dps are sufficient.

And even without hitting the extra mobs on FC you are still dropping a heal that averages 76.7 HPS which really isn't anything to scoff at. The FC example was not because of extra mobs, it was because that fight is all about survivability. Such as when I go on my Mage I have to use Mana Shield, this rapes my single target DPS, but in the end is more useful for the fight as a whole.

Divine storm is an aoe ability-- its damage, and therefore healing, is reduced by 75% on FC.

[Falaras]

The math has been done, it's mathematically more effective for you to sit on anub keeping vengeance stacked than to switch to adds, provided your aoe dps are sufficient.

Divine storm is an aoe ability-- its damage, and therefore healing, is reduced by 75% on FC.

I'd like to see that math considering the only classes I'd say are good for AoEing anub adds are classes with Cleave, its not like I cast blizzard on them as an arcane mage its not the best thing to switch to. Be that as it may, my guild demands every member switch to the adds, for good reason too considering we don't run with any melee that can cleave, so for now I will always be running SoC for that fight.
And divine storm is nerfed even on the target your on? I actually never knew that so I retract all of my arguements there.

[Plow]

Flamestrike rank 8 > rank 9 > blizzard > rinse and repeat. Mages are ridiculous on this fight.

DK's

Locks

Spriest

Even moonkin are vastly superior for aoe dps.

And that's not even mentioning rogues or wars.

You lose *so* much damage by switching to Command, and you can still hit with all your aoe abilities without switching targets.


The "math" I'm referring to is just done with worldoflogs. The damage on Anub is just as important as the adds, and Paladin is extremely good at it, and loses a ton but gains very little by switching to adds. You can log it and check it on your own fights to see.

[Falaras]

Using Flamestrike/Blizzard is barely better then single target DPS, if at all better, for a mage when theres 3 things to kill. I'll agree with DKs and wars but that's about all.

[Plow]

Well, ok, on 10 man I can see switching.

You're going to need to give up something, though, a passive buff or whatever. After a couple weeks of experience in 10, and a week of 25 where we downed FC and ran out of time so didn't even try Twins (with like 35 attempts left sigh), I can say with certainty that skipping DivSac for a ret pally running togc is every bit as bad as skipping it for ulduar hard modes.


Faction champs alone the difference in the first 20 seconds of a fight is mind blowing, especially on 25 man.

It's also a lifesaver when 2 of the wrong orb make it into the mass on twins, amaaazing for anub if you know when the frost dmg is coming during swarm, etc. etc.

Shit's crazy atm with bubble still preventing it from fading no matter how much dmg you take.

[Falaras]

Yeah I've never and will never do TOGC 25 man, my guild is 10 man only (except for a half pug 25 man TOC in the week sometime)