Just a quick guide to these at a friend's request.
Head: Arcanum of Torment (Ebon Blade Revered)
Shoulders: Inscription of the Axe (Hodir Honored/Exalted)
Chest: Powerful Stats (+10 to all primary stats)
Back: Greater Speed (23 Haste) or Major Agility (22 Agility)
Wrists: Greater Assault (50 AP)
Hands: Precision (20 Hit) or Crusher (44 AP)
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle (colorless gemslot)
Legs: Icescale Leg Armor
Boots: Icewalker (12 hit, 12 crit) or Greater Assault (32 AP)
Weapon: Berserking
If you have profession-specific enchants, use the AP version of those instead (shoulders for scribes, wrists for LW). Enchanters should use AP on their rings.
Showing posts with label Guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guide. Show all posts
03 March 2010
09 February 2010
Ret Pally Talents and Glyphs
The basic talents that you need to raid as Ret are here. That leaves 6 free points to throw around. The most common way to spend those is 5 points in Divine Intellect, giving you a little more mana cushion and a (very, very) slight DPS increase, and the last point in Aura Mastery, giving you something of a raid cooldown. You could spend those 6 points in order to get up to Divine Sacrifice, but that's not very useful without Divine Guardian. There are some flex points in the 5/5/55, theoretically, but most of them rely on someone else to provide a buff or debuff.
Improved BoM - Only one person in any given raid needs to have this, so if you always run with another Ret, one of you might be able to put talent points somewhere else more useful to the raid.
Heart of the Crusader - This debuff is shared among a couple other classes as well, so you may be able to drop it.
Vindication - Not in the standard build, but this debuff (same as Demoralizing Shout/Roar) is considered important. Prot Pallies usually pick it up in their build, and Warrior tanks or bears can put it up (I would imagine DKs too, but I don't actually know :P). The advantage for Paladins is that it happens automatically.
The standard glyphs are on that page, but for the sake of explanation:
Glyph of Judgement - Increases the damage of your best attack. Perfect.
Glyph of Consecration - Significantly decreases the mana expenditure and priority clashes caused by Consecration. Once you have 2 piece Tier 10 you won't be hitting Cons as often, so having it last 2 seconds longer is nice.
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance - This is better than the next choice (Exorcism) if even 3 of the 10 Expertise is useful.
Glyph of Sense Undead - Only minor glyph that can increase DPS.
Glyph of Lay on Hands - Hopefully you won't use LoH much, but it can't hurt to be safe.
(Not Listed) Glyph of Blessing of Might - Makes your BoM last 30 minutes on you. Handy for questing, and if you are giving other paladins something and want might for yourself.
Improved BoM - Only one person in any given raid needs to have this, so if you always run with another Ret, one of you might be able to put talent points somewhere else more useful to the raid.
Heart of the Crusader - This debuff is shared among a couple other classes as well, so you may be able to drop it.
Vindication - Not in the standard build, but this debuff (same as Demoralizing Shout/Roar) is considered important. Prot Pallies usually pick it up in their build, and Warrior tanks or bears can put it up (I would imagine DKs too, but I don't actually know :P). The advantage for Paladins is that it happens automatically.
The standard glyphs are on that page, but for the sake of explanation:
Glyph of Judgement - Increases the damage of your best attack. Perfect.
Glyph of Consecration - Significantly decreases the mana expenditure and priority clashes caused by Consecration. Once you have 2 piece Tier 10 you won't be hitting Cons as often, so having it last 2 seconds longer is nice.
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance - This is better than the next choice (Exorcism) if even 3 of the 10 Expertise is useful.
Glyph of Sense Undead - Only minor glyph that can increase DPS.
Glyph of Lay on Hands - Hopefully you won't use LoH much, but it can't hurt to be safe.
(Not Listed) Glyph of Blessing of Might - Makes your BoM last 30 minutes on you. Handy for questing, and if you are giving other paladins something and want might for yourself.
Ret Pally Gearing
The first post I made about playing Ret is here, about ability use. This one is going to be about gearing and stat priority. Gear isn't very complex for a Ret Paladin, but it's the kind of thing you need to know a little about to do right. The short version is get to 8% hit (7 if you can count on a Draenei), gem Strength, prioritize Expertise (up to anywhere from 16 to 23) and Crit for secondary stats.
Hit is the single best DPS increasing stat available to you until the melee cap, pure and simple. Beyond the melee cap, it is mostly useless, and no longer with gearing for. You need 263 rating to be hit-capped against raid bosses. Getting this from gear is much nicer than having to gem for it (when you get hit from gear, it replaces a secondary stat, like Crit or Haste, but when you gem for it, it replaces Strength, which is your second-best stat).
Strength is the next best stat, and since it has no cap, it is the one you will likely gem the most. It's better than AP because of Divine Strength (15% Strength) and Blessing of Kings/Sanctuary (each of which give a non-stacking 10% Strength). It also gives SP through talents.
Expertise prevents dodges and parries, and for us the dodge is the important part, since you should be standing behind mobs. It takes 26 Expertise (NOT Expertise Rating) to push dodges off the table for a raid boss. Expertise is very good, but since the gems are red, you are unlikely to use them. We also get 10 Expertise from the Seal of Vengeance glyph whenever SoV is active.
Crit is very good, especially with the 2 piece Tier 9 bonus. Crits (as with most classes) trigger certain talents and such. There is a cap, but if you are in danger of reaching it as a Ret, you are doing something wrong. Agility is also provides us with Crit, but at a lower conversion rate (though better than everyone else's) and it does not affect spells.
Haste, AP, and ArPen are all hanging around basically at the bottom. You will end up with some of these, and they aren't reasons to reject gear, but you shouldn't generally be seeking them out. Note that many procs are only available in an AP form, not Strength, so you'll be mostly out of luck there.
Spellpower and Intellect provide a small DPS increase, but much less than any physical DPS stats. Don't be that guy.
Dodge, Parry, Block Value, Block Rating, and Defense Rating are all tank stats. No. Just no.
Despite Strength being so good, there are several pieces of leather gear that are better than their plate counterparts for us. This is thanks to way Blizzard's itemization works and our nice Agility conversion. It's annoying, but that's the way it is. This problem will be going away in Cataclysm, but until then, we're stuck with it.
For gemming, you will be using Bold Cardinal Rubies (+20 Strength) in all red slots, all but one blue slot. The blue slot that will give you the best bonus should be filled with a Nightmare Tear (+10 All Stats). Yellow sockets that will give you a bonus of at least 4 strength (per yellow socket) should be filled with either Etched Ametrine (+10 Strength, +10 Hit) or Inscribed Ametrine (+10 Strength, +10 Crit). Your meta gem will be the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond (+21 Agility, +3% Crit Damage). There is a +21 Crit version, but it requires 2 blue gems, and is therefore a DPS loss.
Hit is the single best DPS increasing stat available to you until the melee cap, pure and simple. Beyond the melee cap, it is mostly useless, and no longer with gearing for. You need 263 rating to be hit-capped against raid bosses. Getting this from gear is much nicer than having to gem for it (when you get hit from gear, it replaces a secondary stat, like Crit or Haste, but when you gem for it, it replaces Strength, which is your second-best stat).
Strength is the next best stat, and since it has no cap, it is the one you will likely gem the most. It's better than AP because of Divine Strength (15% Strength) and Blessing of Kings/Sanctuary (each of which give a non-stacking 10% Strength). It also gives SP through talents.
Expertise prevents dodges and parries, and for us the dodge is the important part, since you should be standing behind mobs. It takes 26 Expertise (NOT Expertise Rating) to push dodges off the table for a raid boss. Expertise is very good, but since the gems are red, you are unlikely to use them. We also get 10 Expertise from the Seal of Vengeance glyph whenever SoV is active.
Crit is very good, especially with the 2 piece Tier 9 bonus. Crits (as with most classes) trigger certain talents and such. There is a cap, but if you are in danger of reaching it as a Ret, you are doing something wrong. Agility is also provides us with Crit, but at a lower conversion rate (though better than everyone else's) and it does not affect spells.
Haste, AP, and ArPen are all hanging around basically at the bottom. You will end up with some of these, and they aren't reasons to reject gear, but you shouldn't generally be seeking them out. Note that many procs are only available in an AP form, not Strength, so you'll be mostly out of luck there.
Spellpower and Intellect provide a small DPS increase, but much less than any physical DPS stats. Don't be that guy.
Dodge, Parry, Block Value, Block Rating, and Defense Rating are all tank stats. No. Just no.
Despite Strength being so good, there are several pieces of leather gear that are better than their plate counterparts for us. This is thanks to way Blizzard's itemization works and our nice Agility conversion. It's annoying, but that's the way it is. This problem will be going away in Cataclysm, but until then, we're stuck with it.
For gemming, you will be using Bold Cardinal Rubies (+20 Strength) in all red slots, all but one blue slot. The blue slot that will give you the best bonus should be filled with a Nightmare Tear (+10 All Stats). Yellow sockets that will give you a bonus of at least 4 strength (per yellow socket) should be filled with either Etched Ametrine (+10 Strength, +10 Hit) or Inscribed Ametrine (+10 Strength, +10 Crit). Your meta gem will be the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond (+21 Agility, +3% Crit Damage). There is a +21 Crit version, but it requires 2 blue gems, and is therefore a DPS loss.
Ret Pally Button Mashing and Abilties
Retribution Paladins are often derided as "facerollers," and to be brutally honest with ourselves, that's not entirely inaccurate. If I recall correctly, the difference between the best priority system possible and the worst one starting with Judgement is only about 5% with 2 piece Tier 10, the kind of difference that gets eaten up in RNG. This is not to say that you shouldn't do your best to play well, because the better priority will still do more damage more often, but more as a point to be aware of.
The ability to mash buttons well is absolutely key. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but in order to do Ret well, you should be hitting the button for whatever ability is next from about half a second before it comes off cooldown until you get the response from the server that the ability went off.
The first thing that should be said about abilities is that you should ALWAYS be hitting a button if you have a useful DPS ability available to you, with the possible exception of Holy Wrath. Delaying any ability in order to wait for a higher DPS ability is a DPS loss, even if you are waiting .2 seconds to hit Judgement instead of Exorcism. Seriously, just hit the button. Secondly, we give our abilities priority based on their DPS, not based on their damage per cast.
There are 3 priority systems, only one will apply to you, based on what set bonuses you have. These are all for single target dps. All of these assume access to at least Tier 9, since that is really easy to get these days.
2 Piece Tier 9 - Judge > HoW > CS > DS > Cons > Exo
2 Piece Tier 9 and 2 Piece Tier 10 - Judge > DS > HoW > CS > Cons > Exo
4 Piece Tier 10 - Judge > DS > CS > HoW > Cons > Exo
That should do it for a "rotation" guide. Any questions, comments, whatever, drop a comment and I will do my best to answer them or at least refer you to someone who can.
The ability to mash buttons well is absolutely key. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but in order to do Ret well, you should be hitting the button for whatever ability is next from about half a second before it comes off cooldown until you get the response from the server that the ability went off.
The first thing that should be said about abilities is that you should ALWAYS be hitting a button if you have a useful DPS ability available to you, with the possible exception of Holy Wrath. Delaying any ability in order to wait for a higher DPS ability is a DPS loss, even if you are waiting .2 seconds to hit Judgement instead of Exorcism. Seriously, just hit the button. Secondly, we give our abilities priority based on their DPS, not based on their damage per cast.
There are 3 priority systems, only one will apply to you, based on what set bonuses you have. These are all for single target dps. All of these assume access to at least Tier 9, since that is really easy to get these days.
2 Piece Tier 9 - Judge > HoW > CS > DS > Cons > Exo
2 Piece Tier 9 and 2 Piece Tier 10 - Judge > DS > HoW > CS > Cons > Exo
4 Piece Tier 10 - Judge > DS > CS > HoW > Cons > Exo
That should do it for a "rotation" guide. Any questions, comments, whatever, drop a comment and I will do my best to answer them or at least refer you to someone who can.
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