Hello all you retadins out there, and to start off with, thank you for sharing a bit of your time with me.
A small preface. I am by trade and nature a healer. Everything from the skills down to where the eyes and attention focus is entirely new to me.
I'm respeccing ret at the behest of my guild; we've become over-logged on paladin healers, and our guild has been running without a ret paladin for quite a while. My spec - armory Tolsimir, Belf Paladin on Thrall - was thrown together as the raid was forming, without time to get gems or enchants for the gear I've accumulated. My gear itself is in large part a piecemeal composition built of scraps scavenged from the Disenchant pile, and so, not all optimal for my class and spec.
Not a QQ, just something to keep in mind.
So my questions are relatively simple, I'd just like to know about where I stand in reference to a fully raid-geared and experienced retadin.
At the moment, my dps is riding right in between the tank and the offtank, somewhere around 18th on the guild's meter. My raid-buffed damage spikes are ranging between 1200 for Crusader Strike, and 5000 for Judgement crits. I am a little over hit cap - 8.3% hit - with about 26% crit, and a little over 2k ap.
As a tried and proven ret paladin, where does your damage and stats average around?
All thoughts are appreciated, thank you for your time. =)
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Well, let's start off with your choice of talents. You did not pick up Sanctified Wrath, which is a big no-no. Hammer of Wrath does a huge chunk of damage for us once a boss hits <20% HP, so you want to get the crit chance up on that. Plus, it lowers the CD on Avenging Wrath, which is awesome as well. I'd take two points out of Eye for an Eye (I don't know why so many PvE Rets get this talent, it's mainly PvP) and pick up Sanctified Wrath instead. Vindication is also kind of meh. It's nice while soloing and for trash, but bosses are immune to it. I run scrolling combat text, so I got sick of "Immune" constantly popping up while I was fighting bosses, so I don't bother taking it anymore. There's not a whole lot more in the tree to spend on to up DPS, so I went with Pursuit of Justice for the movement speed bonus, helps when I need to chase down an errant mob heading towards a healer. This one is more for flavour so leave it if you want, but definitely change EfaE with SW.
As for gear, you're doing fairly well. Next time you're on, check the AH and see if you can find a BoE blue named "Cloak of the Bloodied Waters". It has 60 strength, which gives us more AP than any of the purple cloaks that have 112 AP. I've passed on a number of purple cloaks and am still using that one. For the chest piece, you might want to look into getting the plate one from normal Oculus or the one from Heroic AK. Also, get the plate boots from Knights of the Ebon Blade. You need exalted for that, but they're well worth it. Also, try to pick up a Mirror of Truth (40 Emblems of Heroism), it's a lot better than that Heroism trinket you have.
For gemming, you pretty much won't want to gem for anything but strength. You'll want the +16 str ones (Bold Scarlet Ruby), and I see you have a tear in your helm. The Titansteel gem bonus (crit rating) is not as good as the one from your T7 shoulders, so you'll probably want to put the str one in there and the tear in your shoulders.
In all honesty, being hit capped is not that important for Ret as of right now (that changes somewhat in 3.1). I only have around 180 or so hit rating, and in 5-man heroics I can usually pull around 2800-3000 DPS. Part of that is that I have the 4pcT7 bonus, which gives us a huge increase in DPS because so much of our damage comes from our judgements. Also, what is your "rotation"? You should be using a First Come, First Serve (FCFS) type rotation. This means that you start off with what could be called a rotation, then when 2 skills come off CD at the same time you prioritise the one that does more damage first.
Judgement > Hammer of Wrath (when <20%) > CS > DS > Consecrate > Exorcism > Holy Wrath
This can vary as well. On trash pulls or ones with lots of mobs, you may want to prioritise Cons over CS and DS. As for me, I don't have the libram from Naxx yet (I have not seen it drop ever yet *sigh*) so I'm still using the DS one from Venture Co., hence for my personal rotation I put DS in front of CS for the increased crit chance for CS.
Are you using Seal of Blood? (The answer should be yes.) What glyphs are you using? You should also always be buffing yourself with BoM if you're the only Paladin around, it gives you much more AP than Kings. If you're curious at all, here's my Armory for you to take a look at: Mugen of Turalyon.
As for gear, you're doing fairly well. Next time you're on, check the AH and see if you can find a BoE blue named "Cloak of the Bloodied Waters". It has 60 strength, which gives us more AP than any of the purple cloaks that have 112 AP. I've passed on a number of purple cloaks and am still using that one. For the chest piece, you might want to look into getting the plate one from normal Oculus or the one from Heroic AK. Also, get the plate boots from Knights of the Ebon Blade. You need exalted for that, but they're well worth it. Also, try to pick up a Mirror of Truth (40 Emblems of Heroism), it's a lot better than that Heroism trinket you have.
For gemming, you pretty much won't want to gem for anything but strength. You'll want the +16 str ones (Bold Scarlet Ruby), and I see you have a tear in your helm. The Titansteel gem bonus (crit rating) is not as good as the one from your T7 shoulders, so you'll probably want to put the str one in there and the tear in your shoulders.
In all honesty, being hit capped is not that important for Ret as of right now (that changes somewhat in 3.1). I only have around 180 or so hit rating, and in 5-man heroics I can usually pull around 2800-3000 DPS. Part of that is that I have the 4pcT7 bonus, which gives us a huge increase in DPS because so much of our damage comes from our judgements. Also, what is your "rotation"? You should be using a First Come, First Serve (FCFS) type rotation. This means that you start off with what could be called a rotation, then when 2 skills come off CD at the same time you prioritise the one that does more damage first.
Judgement > Hammer of Wrath (when <20%) > CS > DS > Consecrate > Exorcism > Holy Wrath
This can vary as well. On trash pulls or ones with lots of mobs, you may want to prioritise Cons over CS and DS. As for me, I don't have the libram from Naxx yet (I have not seen it drop ever yet *sigh*) so I'm still using the DS one from Venture Co., hence for my personal rotation I put DS in front of CS for the increased crit chance for CS.
Are you using Seal of Blood? (The answer should be yes.) What glyphs are you using? You should also always be buffing yourself with BoM if you're the only Paladin around, it gives you much more AP than Kings. If you're curious at all, here's my Armory for you to take a look at: Mugen of Turalyon.
2k AP is pretty low, even for an intro set.
Talent set up is really off in general. Ret, at the moment, already has too many extra talent points, so you should be getting pretty much all the ret damage increasers and support abilities without even trying. Ditch Improved Retribution Aura and Eye for an Eye, get S. Wrath and P of J. Use Blood/Martyr for grouping aside for a fight like Loatheb, that's the only time to be hitting Righteousness.
Focus on getting some rings. Heroic wise farm Nexus for the Band of Frosted Thorns, and probably Gun Drak for the epic ring. Nexus also has a good trinket for ya. It's hit rating, which ya dont really need anymore but will allow you to lose some in other slots, as trinket wise there's only 1 or 2 upgrades to be had while your other slots have more. It's also a Use trinket for like 700 AP, so in general dungeons between that and Wrath you'll be getting a damage boost every few pulls, and for boss fights you'll have boosted damage for 40 seconds out of every 2 minutes.
I personally am not a huge fan of Demise. Nice Strength, sure, but fairly low top end damage. Do 10 mans as Ret, try for Death's Bite or even Wraith Spear for the higher top end damage. Get your tier chest as well from the horseman, if your group is anything like my raid group, very few people need their tier chests anymore.
Get the cloak Wchigo mentioned. It'll last you a while (as will your current helm, wrists, shoulders). So you can freely enchant those slots.
Talent set up is really off in general. Ret, at the moment, already has too many extra talent points, so you should be getting pretty much all the ret damage increasers and support abilities without even trying. Ditch Improved Retribution Aura and Eye for an Eye, get S. Wrath and P of J. Use Blood/Martyr for grouping aside for a fight like Loatheb, that's the only time to be hitting Righteousness.
Focus on getting some rings. Heroic wise farm Nexus for the Band of Frosted Thorns, and probably Gun Drak for the epic ring. Nexus also has a good trinket for ya. It's hit rating, which ya dont really need anymore but will allow you to lose some in other slots, as trinket wise there's only 1 or 2 upgrades to be had while your other slots have more. It's also a Use trinket for like 700 AP, so in general dungeons between that and Wrath you'll be getting a damage boost every few pulls, and for boss fights you'll have boosted damage for 40 seconds out of every 2 minutes.
I personally am not a huge fan of Demise. Nice Strength, sure, but fairly low top end damage. Do 10 mans as Ret, try for Death's Bite or even Wraith Spear for the higher top end damage. Get your tier chest as well from the horseman, if your group is anything like my raid group, very few people need their tier chests anymore.
Get the cloak Wchigo mentioned. It'll last you a while (as will your current helm, wrists, shoulders). So you can freely enchant those slots.
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