Ret build in wrathFollow

So what exact spec do you think you will play? Basically it seems to be a question of how deep do you go into prot.

It looks like you can get every PvE ret talent maxxed with 61 points in ret. This build tries to max DPS and mana/health regen, assuming you run with BoM:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0ebZVfbtbIucrsguAo

If you take GBoK, I'd see no reason to take imp BoM, so would do something like this:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxbZVf0tbIucrsguAo
which is still all the PvE ret talents but changes to a party wide buffing (BoK and GF) approach.

To get improved HoJ and maximize our ret's CC capabilities and make him more PvP flexible, I might do:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaeb0cZVf0toIucMsguVo

This build sacrifices sheath of light, imp ret aura, and one point of pursuit of justice to get the fast HoJ...I see that as a useful tradeoff, but I'm unclear as to how necessary to dps the spellpower boost of sheath would be, and if it'd be better to keep sheath and tick of three points somewhere else.

Thoughts? Any reason to take holy talents or go deeper into prot?


Edited, Sep 25th 2008 11:16am by Tsarducci

Well, it depends on how ret mechanics work now. In 2.X, spellpower is the least important thing you can stack to add dps. but things have of course changed, and if white damage isn't the be all and end all, then maybe sheath is more important that I am thinking. And 30% is def a big chunk, so it might be better to shave a few points off elsewhere like:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaeb0cZVf0toIucMstdNo

you are missing some of the bread and butter talents.

you must have imp BoM, not just for you but your team/raid.
pvp must have eye for eye.
Ret aura is 'your job', imp it for pvp. (does imp buff only count for pally or whole raid?)
divine purpose is nice to have for pvp.
sheath is godmode on many levels(heals, ret aura, consecrates, etc).

i feel like i would try 2-3 different combinations to get a balance of longevity, survivablity, max dmg, and support. i couldn't post a viable spec w/o first playing through some pvp, raids, and quests to see how the new game mechanics work.

For DPS in instances/raids, http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxZVfbtbIucrsguAo is what I would do. Improved HoJ is nice and all.. til you reach the mobs where DPS really counts, which happen to be stun immune. Taking Imp. BoK has the distinct advantage of freeing up some talent points for your tankadin if you happen to run as a guild, too.

I was thinking of the HoJ cooldown for improved CC and intterrupt ability. What I didn't consider is how good seal of justice is for fighting caster mobs (that aren't stun immune). While its a little random, it procs often enough that it busts up casters quite well. Reduces DPS without SoC up, of course.

For the PvP aspect, I was talking about having a ret build that could do a little PvP, for PvP servers or on the side, without having to respec all the time. There clearly aren't enough points to be maxed in everything. Tommy, are you saying that for PvP on the side I'd be better off with a 0/5/66 build that takes nothing from prot except divine str and tries to buff up the ret tree PvP talents?

ok, my 2 cents... first of i'll say i'm no PvPer so this is from a purely pve perspective.

in BC it was true that imp HoJ was useless for a raiding Ret. with the change to HoJ making it a 3 sec interrupt which will only be noticeable on stun immune mobs and in pvp this actually has some use. however, there are other classes with interupts on shorter cooldowns, so unless you are specifically tasked with interupts in your guild runs for some reason, it'd be better to spend these points elsewhere.

sheath of light will be a must have. specc'ing into imp HoJ at the expense of SoL is rediculous.

all you really need in prot tree is Divine Strength if you're purely PvE.

one other thing to consider is that Seal of Vengeance will possibly be the dps seal even still. at least on longer lasting mobs. i'm working on testing each seal based on the most recent "balancing" of the seals and judgements. in the first set (seals only) SoV was about 30% ahead of SoC and SoB which were tied (about 3dps difference in favor of SoC). SoR was about 1/3 the DPS of SoV. this test was done without seals of the pure or the SoC glyph. this was just standing there for the 2 min seal duration auto-attacking on a test dummy. looking at recount i took only the holy damage and averaged it over the duration of the test so lucky melee crits wouldn't affect the results. i'll be testing with judgements and CS and DS soon. then i'll check with seals of the pure and the SoC glyph. it's likely possible to skip SoC in the Ret tree and taking 5 points in seals of the pure depending on how the seals end up comparing. this also depends on how much haste you have and how much crit (i was at 31% crit). its likely that at entry level raiding a spec including SotP will be best. at higher gear levels a respec to switch SotP with BoK will likely be the preferred spec. if SoC benefits from haste (which i understand it to but haven't tested yet) then at this point taking SoC and a SoC glyph is likely best also. if SoB scales enough better at this point with haste then you can likely still skip SoC.

i'm at work, but i'll try to post a spec with SotP and one with SoC and BoK when i get home. i'll also continue testing the seals so we know better how they compare and if i can i'll test them with some haste too.

hopefully they're done balancing our seals and judgements down so i won't have to repeat these tests...

yeah, we'll see. i think with the way the seals interact with judgements i expect to see SoB move ahead of SoC when i add judgements and SoV staying ahead. however, i'm hoping SoC manages to be king after the glyph.... i honestly am a fan of SoC and have hated that until recently it seemed that SoC was going to be completely useless... i honestly won't even continue testing SoR since its so far behind SoC/SoB (about 60% of their damage) and even SotP can't make up the difference. oh, and i've been doing this without any buffs, so i'll throw some improved BoM on and see how they scale with AP & the resulting SP. gonna take a while though.... i've been doing each seal 5 times at 2 mins each so its taing a while.

ok, for those who were interested... round 2 of testing.

first my stats on my 70 i copied over to Beta a while ago and never leveled...:

Gorehowl - 345-518 damage (3.6 speed)
char sheet weapon damage - 1029-1240 (3.45 speed)
1958 AP
587 SP
80 hit (was my hit cap on live as a draenei) - 5.07% + 1% draenei racial
31.28% crit

i'm doing this in a series of tests to see what seems to effect each seal best using test dummies in SW. i started in front of the dummies not thinking about it so when i realized it i stayed there for consistency. also doing my best not to use a dummy someone else has debuffs on that might influence the results. firs series was seals only with no buffs, glyphs and using ret aura with its improvements. second one was same but adding judgement of wisdom on cooldown. third will be with CS & DS. then i'll repeat the series with imp BoM up, and then with glyph of SoC and glyph of Judgement. during the seals only test for martyr i didn't self heal (it didn't hurt me badly). during the part with judgements i only self healed when i had an instant FoL avail and it wouldn't interfere with judgement CD. these were all during the duration of the seal except SoV which i counted till the debuff disappeared. i may try to redo SoV clicking it off at 15 secs left to get a more comparable number. so you know the discrepane between total damage and melee+holy i have the SSO necklace so the differnce is arcane damage from that. my dps numbers are based on only holy damage

first set (seals only) from weakest to strongest:

Try Total Melee Holy
SoR:
1 43538 34488 7839
2 37329 29275 7266
3 38247 29212 7855
4 38784 30863 7536
5 40499 32522 7604

each attempt was 120.x seconds but the holy damage was only over 120 seconds.

average dps for holy damage was 63.497

SoB/M:
1 42670 27322 13391
2 37626 28853 8371
3 48174 36056 11319
4 48268 32783 14810
5 43218 31752 11084

average dps for holy damage was 98.292

SoC:
1 41714 30623 9933
2 39374 29830 9544
3 48156 32107 14058
4 46150 30186 14831
5 43415 29976 11852

average dps for holy damage was 100.363

SoV:
1 49395 31663 16944
2 50627 32862 17003
3 54444 35627 17259
4 53771 35057 17518
5 53077 34940 17363

average dps for holy damage was 127.536

Second set (seals + judgement of wisdom)

SoR:
1 54750 27187 26366
2 59394 30614 27267
3 54163 28430 24525
4 54021 30921 21951
5 63101 32406 29888

holy dps - 216.662

SoC:
1 68800 35427 32986
2 59556 26463 31893
3 70587 34943 34066
4 72333 36254 35296
5 63131 31366 30647

holy dps - 274.963

SoV:
1 80519 37196 42520
2 80536 39637 40084
3 74237 35713 37756

i was tired and ths was my last part for the day and i had a lock keep putting up increased spell damage debuffs on my test dummy so i quit after 3. i'll finish, but i'll only post it if it's coconsiderably different

holy dps - 297.185

SoB/M:
1 71682 30317 40576
2 73243 30640 41821
3 70089 30068 38486
4 65858 29796 35290
5 73858 29020 43647

holy dps - 322.707

some other random math i did after this to predict how they'll scale with stats. SoC/SoB/M scale with weapon damage and AP.

SoC will scale slightly better with damage on slower weapons, but not significantly.

1 AP will add:
.0163 dps to SoC
.0200 dps to SoB/M
.0148 dps per stack of SoV
.0740 dps for a full stack of SoV

unless i did my math wrong this should mean SoB will continue to be ahead of SoC on scaling test, but higher levels of AP should bring SoV even more ahead. i was tires so i didn't get to seeing how judgements of each seal scale... i'll try to work on that today.

so far it's looking like either SoB/M or SoV (with SotP) will be the best dps seals. SoB was top dps despite needing to self heal 3-5 times during each test. with judgement stacking SoV also there was no real problem getting SoV to a 5 stack. typically it was a 5 stack by the second judge unless i missed an attack. SoB likely will be the solo seal and SoV may end up being a viable boss dps seal.. but i'll continue trying to find out.

I'm gonna make sure there's not something i'm missing before i say that for sure, but thats what it looks like.

absolutely. i'm doing the level 70 tests first since we'll have these new talents at 70 for a month before wotlk goes live anyway. i'll move on to the lvl 80 premade as soon as i'm done. scaling is scaling though so i don't see that being much different at 80. SoC and SoB being based on weapon damage which will prolly scale less with AP at 80 than 70 might actually scale worse at 80 while SoV has a consistent scaling %.

and yes, i want to see how the glyphed SoC compares first before i make final pronouncements on the seals. right now beyond the testing i've already done i can only make general predictions based on math, which i might be leaving something out on that will make my non-tested predictions a bit off.

i had so many sign up for our 3 kara runs this week that i only planned on one of my toons going. took my ret last night so i'll have this evening available for some more testing. i'll post my results when i'm done.

Some of you guys mentioned that SoV takes to long to stack, you gotta remember that you have (auto wing... crusader strike.... divine storm..... auto swing.) withing 3 secs or so, you can get a 4 stack. So that makes the seal of vengence even more useful, mostly cause of the 100% proc rate.

I remembered somthing else, since there is that 100% proc rate, that means you will deal some instant damage everytime it procs after you hit 5 stacks. Its not much, but its somthing.

Edited, Oct 3rd 2008 11:52am by cmcculloch

argh.... logged into beta just in time to barely continue my tests when the server went down for the new build.... oh well.. testing will be another day i guess :(

the problem i see with that tommy, is that I can't afford to allow another GCD to fire during most fights. In general, when the GCD is off, I have DS, CS, or Judge to throw, or want to toss a FoL. If I've got a moment, there's DW, HoJ, HoW, and the often very useful hand spells. It seems to me that switching seals mid fight is likely to mean missing a chance to throw an offensive spell.