Retribution Paladin DPS Guide (TBC Classic)

[positiv2 952]

This thread is for comments about our Retribution Paladin DPS Guide.

[Guest ret]

".  Nightfin Soup also stacks with other 'food' buffs as it does not give a well-fed but its own unique buff" Tried it out, does not stack with other food buffs....

[Sellinz 14]

5 hours ago, Guest ret said:

".  Nightfin Soup also stacks with other 'food' buffs as it does not give a well-fed but its own unique buff" Tried it out, does not stack with other food buffs....

Thank you for catching that, I've updated the guide to reflect this.

[Guest Tone]

You are doing a disservice to ret pallies everywhere by not including a seal twisting specific rotation.. If a ret paladin followed your priority list while seal twisting they would lose dps casting hammer of wrath as its almost always better to continue twisting. I've always thought of icy veins as the site to go for if you want to maximize your dps but the rotation you lay out wouldn't even put you in the top 75% of parses. If you aren't seal twisting, you won't be competitive, its as simple as that.

[Sellinz 14]

5 hours ago, Guest Tone said:

You are doing a disservice to ret pallies everywhere by not including a seal twisting specific rotation.. If a ret paladin followed your priority list while seal twisting they would lose dps casting hammer of wrath as its almost always better to continue twisting. I've always thought of icy veins as the site to go for if you want to maximize your dps but the rotation you lay out wouldn't even put you in the top 75% of parses. If you aren't seal twisting, you won't be competitive, its as simple as that.

Hey Tone thanks for checking out the guide and your criticism is genuinely appreciated, I don't agree about the rotation being only 75% at best but I do agree with you that seal twisting is a considerable amount of damage. I'll see about adding more on this.

[Thaodan 1]

Hammer of Wrath resets the swing timer. Suggesting it will reduce the dps, in addition it also only scales with spell power and costs much mana.

[Sellinz 14]

1 hour ago, Thaodan said:

Hammer of Wrath resets the swing timer. Suggesting it will reduce the dps, in addition it also only scales with spell power and costs much mana.

Hey Thaodan! Thanks for checking out the guide and offering this critique, if you are twisting it definitely is a dps loss because of its impact on the swing timer. I'm currently looking into editing the guide in a way to offer a seal twisting rotation and a non twisting one.

[Trajer 0]

This Phase 3 BiS list has a few items that are wrong. Bow-Stitched Leggings are quite a bit better than Leggings of Divine Retribution. Also, Shapeshifter's Signet should be used for consistency, but both Unstoppable Aggresor's and Band of Devastation are better than Eternal Champion. But Shapeshifters' should be included 100%. Also for trinkets, DST is BiS for the entire expansion (for humans) and so far Darkmoon Card: Crusade is simming worse than both Bloodlust Brooch and Abacus. 

Edit: For reference, this is Baranor's BiS spreadsheet with annotation - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SxO6abYm4k7XRaP1MsxhaqYoukgyZ-cbWDE3ujadjx4/edit#gid=2120462556

and here is a seventyupgrades for Phase 3 assuming you have Improved Faerie Fire in your raid: https://seventyupgrades.com/set/mCoFTy9kVpTkuFwvjcG3DP

Edited January 23, 2022 by Trajer

[Sellinz 14]

7 hours ago, Trajer said:

This Phase 3 BiS list has a few items that are wrong. Bow-Stitched Leggings are quite a bit better than Leggings of Divine Retribution. Also, Shapeshifter's Signet should be used for consistency, but both Unstoppable Aggresor's and Band of Devastation are better than Eternal Champion. But Shapeshifters' should be included 100%. Also for trinkets, DST is BiS for the entire expansion (for humans) and so far Darkmoon Card: Crusade is simming worse than both Bloodlust Brooch and Abacus. 

Edit: For reference, this is Baranor's BiS spreadsheet with annotation - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SxO6abYm4k7XRaP1MsxhaqYoukgyZ-cbWDE3ujadjx4/edit#gid=2120462556

and here is a seventyupgrades for Phase 3 assuming you have Improved Faerie Fire in your raid: https://seventyupgrades.com/set/mCoFTy9kVpTkuFwvjcG3DP

Hey Trajer! Thank you for checking out the guide and offering your feedback, I really do appreciate you checking it out and offering your perspective, I think outright saying the items are wrong is unfair and I will offer my opinion below. 

I think we need to see Crusade in some more logs before I'm willing to accept that it's actually worse than BL Brooch and Abacus but I think that it definitely might be if fight durations trend shorter, BL Brooch would definitely be king in this situation but I think it could end up being our 2nd best trinket, I will update the guide accordingly for this when more logs are available.

Eternal Champion I think is quite good especially if fight lengths trend shorter which on the PTR they currently are, and I think when people actually get to exalted that they'll be even quicker than the logs posted from the PTR.

I do agree on Bow-stitched leggings though that they are probably the best item in that slot though and that was for sure an oversight on my part. I think Leggings of Divine Retribution are a must have if you can get them as we get towards P5 when ArP is more available and I think will quickly become one of our best stats (if you have enough, obviously).

Thank you again for your time and checking out the guide!

[Trajer 0]

Yeah, I'm not totally against Eternal Champion. On short fights is has the possibility of being better, but it's still somewhat RNG-based. Thanks for the response and the update - I like this list a lot more too. I'm curious to see how Crusade will perform as well. I think it's going to be mostly fight-dependent; for example, fights like Reliquary, Illidan, and possibly Mother/Supremus will be better for BLB, but fights with consistent attacking like Bloodboil, Najentus and others could lend better to Crusade (especially undead/demons where you can exorcism).

[Sellinz 14]

6 hours ago, Trajer said:

Yeah, I'm not totally against Eternal Champion. On short fights is has the possibility of being better, but it's still somewhat RNG-based. Thanks for the response and the update - I like this list a lot more too. I'm curious to see how Crusade will perform as well. I think it's going to be mostly fight-dependent; for example, fights like Reliquary, Illidan, and possibly Mother/Supremus will be better for BLB, but fights with consistent attacking like Bloodboil, Najentus and others could lend better to Crusade (especially undead/demons where you can exorcism).

Totally agree on most of what you said and I think we will have a much better idea in the coming weeks. It is important to me that this guide is as good as it can be and while I am confident in what I post outside perspective is always welcome and allows for this to be a better tool for people who are trying to find the best information possible, so I appreciate your feedback more than you know.

[Guest Ahrima]

Just wondering is there any merit to keeping the seal of vengeance dots up on a target while using a different seal like blood/martyr in between refreshing the dot? Maybe that’s just too much dps loss while waiting for the stacks to get to 5 and maybe just too much mana usage between the two seals but I was curious. Thanks! 

[Sellinz 14]

12 hours ago, Guest Ahrima said:

Just wondering is there any merit to keeping the seal of vengeance dots up on a target while using a different seal like blood/martyr in between refreshing the dot? Maybe that’s just too much dps loss while waiting for the stacks to get to 5 and maybe just too much mana usage between the two seals but I was curious. Thanks! 

Hey Ahrima - It's just not feasible if you're focusing on twisting both for the sake of missing twists which would outweigh the DPS gain  and you'd quickly run out of mana.