Retribution Paladin

[Sinzhu 5]

This thread is for questions, comments, and feedback on our Retribution Paladin guide for Wrath of the Lich King Classic.

[leetius 0]

I'm a bit confused about Glyph of Consecration, the guide says it increases the duration and lowers the cooldown, but it increases both duration and cooldown by the same amount. And unless I'm missing something, the damage seems to be worse because of the total damage being the same.

[Sellinz 14]

8 hours ago, leetius said:

I'm a bit confused about Glyph of Consecration, the guide says it increases the duration and lowers the cooldown, but it increases both duration and cooldown by the same amount. And unless I'm missing something, the damage seems to be worse because of the total damage being the same.

Hey! I misspoke in the guide saying it reduced the cooldown, it does indeed increase it along with the duration as you mentioned, but the part that makes it a DPS increase while doing the same damage is the fact it allows you to cast other abilities instead of casting Consecration if that makes sense, you have more time between casts to use your other abilities. Consecration is always *worth* casting but this just allows you to maximize your globals on other abilities while keeping it active if that makes sense. 

Thanks for checking out my guide!

[Aeonus 0]

Is there any reason with the spec not to get the most of both worlds and pick up divine sacrifice while using the last 5points in seals of the pure? 

You're only missing out on the 10% extra damage decrease but you still get the 30% redirect from the basic divine sacrifice, and iirc correctly you can bubble to ensure the damage doesn't push you below 20% and cancel the effect as ret, meaning the extra damage reduction isn't as useful as it would be for a prot paladin who doesn't have that luxury if he's tanking a target 

[lightshaper 0]

how important is the 4 set bonus? some bis lists have you using 226s like frosted adroit handwraps and leggings of the honored instead.

[Sellinz 14]

22 hours ago, lightshaper said:

how important is the 4 set bonus? some bis lists have you using 226s like frosted adroit handwraps and leggings of the honored instead.

Hey, it's not particularly important as more often than not you have an ability to press, if you were in a constant lull just waiting for judgement to come back up it'd be a lot stronger but the added stats from 226s will give you more DPS from the gear set up.

[Squilliams 0]

I think you are making a mistake by choosing so many non-Str pieces. The Strength and Agility that this set gives is just too mixed up to make any sense to me. You're going to have a feral for your 5% crit so its not like kings is gigantic for agility. Kings is huge for strength though, but since so much of it is sacrificed for the agility items, you lose a staggering amount of base damage. Right now it is late but tomorrow I could do a breakdown of my stats in a strength dominant set vs an agility dominant or hybrid set. I would be showing my stats while raid buffed in the ideal composition, as attaining BiS is in the skill level range of min-maxing raid buffs and auras and such.

If you have to use agility items to make a set work, you're not going to find any of them important enough to use unless they have a perfect amount of expertise. Even then, if you are hit capped, you won't always need to cap your expertise. You can still achieve it, but you will see a dps increase by eliminating as much agility you can without dramatically lowering your miss count on tank spank encounters. I will always take hit over expertise first until cap as it works for spells and melee in wotlk classic, so its very good for paladins. They scale from strength / ad but are spells, honestly cant name them off the top of my head atm. Either way, hit cap has a bigger effect per accessible stat point compared to expertise effect per accessible stat point while not capped on hit. When hit is capped, expertise obviously takes your attention from then on, and if you have good strength, % based buffs are going to help you keep your dps more steady. Imo, with extreme prejudice, my prio is while hot capped: Hit, str, expertise, crit. When im hit capped my prio is maintaining hit cap, expertise cap after,then crit. When both are capped, it gets less easy to determine what is considerably an upgrade. It will depend on which raid and raid size you are in. Losing hit cap should never have to be done. If anything, expertise cap can be missed by 2/24(human) or so, as hits can miss from behind but bosses cant dodge or parry from behind. Idk if this makes sense or helps at all. 

I also wanted to say that there are more strength items with the two blue sockets in perfect places to activate the crit chance and damage % meta, so you can use that instead of 15 agility +crit dmg %. Usually the ladder is better due to the 2 gem restriction, but there are plate items in my strength dominant set that have two perfect blues. Again its late, so if anybody really cares I could look at some stuff tomorrow and try to compile something useful. 

[Squilliams 0]

I think you use too much agility on this set. I say this because percentage based buffs are prevalent in wotlk. Having more STR is compounded on itself .5 times for each 10% buff on you. I think agility is worth less, by a lot, than people think for ret. We only get crit from it, thats all. Crit buffs are HUGE in wotlk though. Feral, anything else like that. Agility loses a lot of value for me when I am able to cap out hit. Hit per point is huge compared to expertise per point when not capped. As a human 22/24 is suitable for me and what im using. I think focusing on getting hit cap is the most important so if you NEED to use agility to get that, do it, but if you dont, avoid it IMO. After hit capped, the same goes for expertise, but in the same regard, with the right set and the correct amount of STR you would have a noticeable dps increase while in raid. I would also say 4 piece is the biggest increase you are going to get beside maxing the other stats. Judgment of veng is first prio on rotation until you have betrayer

Edited December 13, 2022 by Squilliams

[Sellinz 14]

7 hours ago, Squilliams said:

I think you are making a mistake by choosing so many non-Str pieces. The Strength and Agility that this set gives is just too mixed up to make any sense to me. You're going to have a feral for your 5% crit so its not like kings is gigantic for agility. Kings is huge for strength though, but since so much of it is sacrificed for the agility items, you lose a staggering amount of base damage. Right now it is late but tomorrow I could do a breakdown of my stats in a strength dominant set vs an agility dominant or hybrid set. I would be showing my stats while raid buffed in the ideal composition, as attaining BiS is in the skill level range of min-maxing raid buffs and auras and such.

If you have to use agility items to make a set work, you're not going to find any of them important enough to use unless they have a perfect amount of expertise. Even then, if you are hit capped, you won't always need to cap your expertise. You can still achieve it, but you will see a dps increase by eliminating as much agility you can without dramatically lowering your miss count on tank spank encounters. I will always take hit over expertise first until cap as it works for spells and melee in wotlk classic, so its very good for paladins. They scale from strength / ad but are spells, honestly cant name them off the top of my head atm. Either way, hit cap has a bigger effect per accessible stat point compared to expertise effect per accessible stat point while not capped on hit. When hit is capped, expertise obviously takes your attention from then on, and if you have good strength, % based buffs are going to help you keep your dps more steady. Imo, with extreme prejudice, my prio is while hot capped: Hit, str, expertise, crit. When im hit capped my prio is maintaining hit cap, expertise cap after,then crit. When both are capped, it gets less easy to determine what is considerably an upgrade. It will depend on which raid and raid size you are in. Losing hit cap should never have to be done. If anything, expertise cap can be missed by 2/24(human) or so, as hits can miss from behind but bosses cant dodge or parry from behind. Idk if this makes sense or helps at all. 

I also wanted to say that there are more strength items with the two blue sockets in perfect places to activate the crit chance and damage % meta, so you can use that instead of 15 agility +crit dmg %. Usually the ladder is better due to the 2 gem restriction, but there are plate items in my strength dominant set that have two perfect blues. Again its late, so if anybody really cares I could look at some stuff tomorrow and try to compile something useful. 

 

7 hours ago, Squilliams said:

I think you use too much agility on this set. I say this because percentage based buffs are prevalent in wotlk. Having more STR is compounded on itself .5 times for each 10% buff on you. I think agility is worth less, by a lot, than people think for ret. We only get crit from it, thats all. Crit buffs are HUGE in wotlk though. Feral, anything else like that. Agility loses a lot of value for me when I am able to cap out hit. Hit per point is huge compared to expertise per point when not capped. As a human 22/24 is suitable for me and what im using. I think focusing on getting hit cap is the most important so if you NEED to use agility to get that, do it, but if you dont, avoid it IMO. After hit capped, the same goes for expertise, but in the same regard, with the right set and the correct amount of STR you would have a noticeable dps increase while in raid. I would also say 4 piece is the biggest increase you are going to get beside maxing the other stats. Judgment of veng is first prio on rotation until you have betrayer

 

Hey Squilliams! I would first off like to say I really appreciate all of the work you've put into your feedback. I am totally agree with you on the importance of Hit/Expertise caps and the gear listed reflects that as they are clearly the highest possible damage increases due to the amount of damage you deal with each swing as a Ret Paladin and our very slow natural swing timer. There are some arguments to be made about specific pieces (I.e. Fools Trial vs the Key Necklace from Saph) but I am a strong believer in the importance of crit this early on in the expansion because of our numerous talents that scale with it namely Righteous Vengeance and Art of War, there is certainly some flexibility in a lot of slots where you can switch out some of the pieces I'd listed (The necklace, possibly Surge Needle Ring/Ring of invincibility for Kirin Tor Ring or maybe Ruthlessness) but generally speaking I think the later we go into the expansion and secondaries continue to rise in availability as gear becomes stronger, especially with the ilvl bumps Blizzard is doing for Wrath Classic strength gear will become king whereas there is currently a strong need for the crit rating granted from agility.

[Axlethunder 0]

1. Request that you add a normal mode BiS guide, as well as still retain the previous guides for fresh 80's leveling up. (BiS BoE, Heroic, etc. )  It helps to compare and progress for new and in progress characters that don't have access or want to compete in Hardmode raids. 

2. Also, can you post a link for download of your BiS gear recommendations so that we can easily run them in WoWSims?

BTW, Thank you for maintaining this site! ❤️