Anaxie's Totally Revolutionary SoO Retribution T16 BiS & Theorycraft

[Alviarin]

Interesting read, Lore still has a lot of my sympathy (fellow Ret and all) :

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Balance between ranged and melee DPS is a tough issue to solve (and one we talk about regularly). As the game has evolved over the years, both in class and encounter design, we've certainly gotten to a point where ranged have some strong advantages over melee.

Part of how we try to compensate for this is by giving melee more raw damage in stand-still situations (and we're making some adjustments toward that end in 5.4). Ideally, there should be some fights where ranged tend to come out on top, and some fights where melee tend to come out on top.

We don't think that "not targeted by mechanics" makes a good overall niche for melee. We'll do it in certain cases, but only when absolutely necessary. If we let melee ignore too many mechanics, the fights just get boring.

That said, if there are specific mechanics (particularly in Siege of Orgrimmar) that you feel are too punishing against melee DPS, that's great feedback for us. Occasionally, players will approach encounters differently than we anticipate, which can lead to issues we weren't expecting.

[Kragshot]

Due to information I gained early this tier from personal usage and Solsa/ Neldas input Primoridus rage trinket due to RPPM mechanics, haste stacking, and on the pull burts. It now is better then Spark to obtain. (snip)

Anaxie (and gang), is this valid at non-heroic TF gear levels or not? Right now, I'm jockeying at 526 iLvl and using both 522 feather and spark. The 522 Primordius trink dropped for me on a coin last night (was hoping for the ring dammit). So, I'm on the fence. Any advice would be appreciated.

BTW; I need you to levy your influence with the loot godz to help me get rid of this damn hit/crit sword and get some pally love over here on Lightbringer. Us ret pallys are sufferin' over here! Besides my lfr boris, all I've seen are those two weapons in the hands of DKs and other inferior life forms (/s).

On the serious tip...you all keep up the good work!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...aakan/advanced

[Killmour]

Still doing math on reforges, but from first glace, BIS double upgraded warforged gear will be:

Helm: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=99379
Neck: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105513
Shoulders: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105642
Cloak: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=102249
Chest: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=99387
Bracer: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105411
Gloves: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=99380
Belt: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105509
Pants: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=99372
Boots: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105531
Ring1: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105620
Ring2: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105589
Trinket1: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105609
Trinket2: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105491
Weapon: http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105610

Edit: This is first look, and for bloodelf, not alliance. Looking at the other offpiece options right now(IE: using Tier shoulds and using the offset legs)

Edit2: This is also assuming you cannot upgrade the heirlooms.

This is based on haste > mastery > crit. The only real big variables are weather or not the crit damage amplify trinket makes crit worth more than mastery, and if haste has some break-point that we don't know about. If so it obviously changes the entire setup. However since most of the gear is haste and mastery, it should be easy to adjust those numbers.

Edit: read next post.

[Joeseidon]

I'd figured the better itemized Darkfallen Shoulderplates : http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105434 off the 2nd boss would've beat out the Garrosh shoulders. Guess my math was off.

[Killmour]

I'd figured the better itemized Darkfallen Shoulderplates : http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105434 off the 2nd boss would've beat out the Garrosh shoulders. Guess my math was off.

I still have to look at that, I was thinking that as well, but 3 sockets is strong.


Edit: Okay, Gar shoulders over offset is + 220 strength and +824 crit, at a loss of 470 haste and 674 mastery. I don't know how much the amp trinket trinket will change values so I'm going to have to sim these values before I can make a call really. I think they will be really close either way.

As Draenei you gain about 371 mastery and lose like 34 haste reforging slightly different with garrosh shoulders. With the Offset shoulders it's hard to get down to hit cap actually (272 over hit cap with lightning gems in your shoulders and with pure haste gems its -120 strength -32 haste for + 64 mastery). Human's could maybe use the sword if crit is still really close to haste, but I don't think its a gain in the long run over the polearm.



Until I run sims, I won't really know if its going to be worth pushing our haste that high really and potentially many items change if haste ever drops down in value, certainly our new set bonus and fights with lots of cleave already make our mastery very close to haste.

With the amp trinket equipped I came out to 20119 haste 10104 mastery and 5442 crit as the above setup(no racials)

Edit: Oh, and feel free to check my math. Current simcraft seems to be off(haste is worth more than str point for point...) I'll run them whenever the current version is fixed a bit.

[Freppi]

What about the exp/mastery mace for human/dwarfs.

[anaxie]

Thanks Killmour

I agree pretty much with list. Appears to be better option just just max out exp/haste gemming since we have tons of red bloat. Move onto str/haste as per usual after caps. OFC.

I wouldn't sweat wasting Garrosh normal BOA guaranteed before heroic. They don't appear to be upgradeable so a heroic upgrade s hould beat it. Man could you imagine if the BOA wpn had been a 3.8 wpn. Boooing

But as all things learned in ToT your BIS is any goddamn "warforged" wpn you can get your hands on. Atleast this tier we get 5 wpns to play with instead of Last boss VS worst 2hander ever made <Council sword> and 2 of the most rng crap wpns ever RANDOM DROP + RANDOM TF whoop whoop.

- - - Updated - - -

I will need to look at our offset tier slot choice. Kinda how Rein binders beat the triple socket legs ppl drooled about early ToT. Sockets aren't quite as big a deal as the used to be imo. HOWEVER, if epic gems launch in 5.5 midtier then yeah. more sockets = BOING.

[Joeseidon]

Rechecked my math and got the same values as you Killmour. Thanks for all your work.

There seems to be some really decent possible offset pieces: Gloves off first boss http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/103733-co...tted-gauntlets or maybe legs off Garrosh? http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/104311-le...hinking-strife ?

Epic gems being released as a mid-raid patch seems odd but I guess it's a possibility.

[Deleted]

I'll try to ask this again, since I keep getting misunderstood on this topic:

4P T15. I know it's a huge DPS increase. I'll likely only get LFR gear.

I currently got shoulders and pants, with the helmet in my bag. I have been trying to get the LFR chest for nearly 4 months now, over 20 loot attempts in total. my armory is http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Nzall/advanced.

the answer is likely yes, but is getting the LFR tier gloves a viable alternative course?

[Faesroll]

I'll try to ask this again, since I keep getting misunderstood on this topic:

4P T15. I know it's a huge DPS increase. I'll likely only get LFR gear.

I currently got shoulders and pants, with the helmet in my bag. I have been trying to get the LFR chest for nearly 4 months now, over 20 loot attempts in total. my armory is http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Nzall/advanced.

the answer is likely yes, but is getting the LFR tier gloves a viable alternative course?

Yes, and don't forget Nalak, he drops them as well.

[Deleted]

Yes, and don't forget Nalak, he drops them as well.

Poor guy seems to have killed Nalak 15 times without much luck.

[UnderworldSoup]

I will need to look at our offset tier slot choice. Kinda how Rein binders beat the triple socket legs ppl drooled about early ToT. Sockets aren't quite as big a deal as the used to be imo. HOWEVER, if epic gems launch in 5.5 midtier then yeah. more sockets = BOING.

Helm: There are no better itemized helmets for us or any with a yellow socket. There is one with blue with crit/haste.

Tier Helmet;
Possible Alternative;
Possible Alternative #2.

---

Shoulders: Two sockets versus the three in Garrosh's off piece. Has expertise/mastery which might come in handy versus the crit/mastery on Garrosh's.

Tier Shoulders;
Garrosh's shoulders.

---

Chest: Haste/Mastery. Pretty much as good as that gets unless a chest slips through with four sockets.

Tier Chest;
Possible Alternative.

---

Gloves: Tier piece has just as many sockets as any of the off pieces. Has hit rating, but it's unlikely that we'll run into such heavy hit issues without the feather.

Tier Gloves;
Possible Alternative;
Possible Alternative #2.

---

Legs: Crit/haste with double yellows. Potential off piece available which might be a good consideration if the expertise on the tier shoulders feels better.

Tier Legs;
Possible Alternative.

---

Quick analysis without going too deep into the loot tables. Likely off pieces (assuming BIS available) can swing between shoulders or legs with either off piece granting an additional socket over the alternatives.

[Neldarie]

Dunno maybe PTR is abit laggy and shit, but personally I don't see how ya can put 20k haste to use with t16 4set + DP specced. May wanna invest more into mastery/crit past some "breaking" point. Too many streaks of just spamming finishers like a retard w-o any fillers with DP+4t16 synergy. And ye RPPM trinket stuff is gone aswell so.

[Faesroll]

Dunno maybe PTR is abit laggy and shit, but personally I don't see how ya can put 20k haste to use with t16 4set + DP specced. May wanna invest more into mastery/crit past some "breaking" point. Too many streaks of just spamming finishers like a retard w-o any fillers with DP+4t16 synergy. And ye RPPM trinket stuff is gone aswell so.

Was about to post this, I only replaced my tier gear with the T16 4set and equipped the CRD and Amplification trinket, ended up at around 38-39% haste and 46-47% mastery. Speccing into DP in combination with the T16 4 set made me not have any downtime AT ALL, 20k haste will do absolutely nothing for us. Just speculating but around 35-40% haste you should probably consider reforging into Mastery or crit depending on which one is better with and without the Amplification trinket. Anything above is barely noticeable.

[Killmour]

Thanks guys! Yea there are tons of good offset items, I didn't have time to check the other offset pants, and some of the other offset items. The really big thing is still where our stats end up, crit and mastery were getting pretty close to haste in ToT.

Pick up whatever weapon you can, with the way luck works and warforging it's going to be a pain to get the perfect stuff for sure. Still never seen a bo-ris in our raid ever, of any type.

[shoeboy4]

I have built a heroic warforged set on wowhead that actually trumps the one posted earlier that with amp trinket it ends up with 20637 haste, 11625mastery, and 3870 crit while being at 2581 hit and 2642 expertise using 3 exp haste gems and 2 hit haste gems.
My changed pieces were the neck for http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105566
shoulders to http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105434
and seal of forgotten kings ring to http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105534
The reforges i did were neck crit->haste,blood seal expertise->mastery, bloodclaw band hit->haste,
boots crit->exp,Cloak crit->exp, Gloves hit->mastery, Legs crit->exp
just throwing that option out there it may be completely wrong but i tried so enjoy

this was done on a belf for reference

[Deleted]

I'm going to do some napkin math involving haste numbers.

the cooldown reduction from haste scales down: at 0% haste, adding 1% haste reduces your CS CD with 0.04455. at 10% haste, it reduces it by 0.03686 seconds. at 40% haste, it reduces it by 0.02230 seconds. haste, in effect, has diminishing returns.

you need 4 GCDs per templar's verdict. at 50% haste, you have 60 gcds per minute, or 15 templar's verdicts. for your holy power sources, you have 20 CS, 15 judgements and 10 exorcisms. combined, this gives 60 GCDs exactly. however, we need more than 60 gcds, due to art of war, our 4P and our T90 talent. AoW gives 5 extra exorcisms. 15 TV at 25% per proc gives us 3 4P procs.

at 0% haste, you have 40 gcds per minute, or 10 TV. You also have 13 CS, 10 judgements and 4 exorcisms. this gives us 3 free gcds to juggle with: our T90 talent and AoW, with a 3.6 weapon, we have 16 swings, or 3 AoW procs.

somewhere between these 2 numbers is the optimal haste number.

if we increase haste from 0 to 50 in steps of 5% and calculate how many of each holy power generator we spend, we see that for every 5% haste we gain, we gain 2 GCDs per minute, but we gain 2.04 GCDs worth of pure rotational skills, and 2.17 gcds worth including 4P. so whatever we do, we will keep needing more GCDs than we have.

now, we can try and see which spells we can drop from our rotation, because we will need to do so. however, this isn't quite as simple, since you'll likely have clashes between your 2 strongest skills, and AoW and 4P complicate things further.

however, if you increase haste beyond 50%, you notice that because we get no extra GCDs, our GCD surplus per haste suddenly skyrockets from 0.01 GCD/1% to 0.41 GCD/1%. because of this, we effectively see a haste softcap at 50%. Before this point, we still gained exponentially more GCDS than we could spend, but after this point, it increases tremendously. even if we include 4P procs (which soften the blow), you'll see a marked increase in rate of holy power wastage going from 50% to 51% haste.

because we see a sudden increase in wasted GCDs here, and because up to this point we scale relatively equally with Haste, I think 50% after buffs is the upper bound to our haste cap.

there is however another factor to the haste cap, namely the power of mastery. I'm not going to math this out, because that requires factoring in other stuff like crit. I think a good place to start is checking how our haste and mastery stat weights change if you add 300 of each up to 30K, and each permutation of that.

[anaxie]

Gcd reduction is the biggest benefit haste provides mostly u need ahk to fully benefit from every .01 is gained its impossible to always fully benefit without it fatigue will set in eventually and spamming will slow imo

[Killmour]

I have built a heroic warforged set on wowhead that actually trumps the one posted earlier that with amp trinket it ends up with 20637 haste, 11625mastery, and 3870 crit while being at 2581 hit and 2642 expertise using 3 exp haste gems and 2 hit haste gems.
My changed pieces were the neck for http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105566
shoulders to http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105434
and seal of forgotten kings ring to http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=105534
The reforges i did were neck crit->haste,blood seal expertise->mastery, bloodclaw band hit->haste,
boots crit->exp,Cloak crit->exp, Gloves hit->mastery, Legs crit->exp
just throwing that option out there it may be completely wrong but i tried so enjoy

this was done on a belf for reference

So you give up 460 str from shoulders/gems and 1570 crit for 1500 mastery, and 500 haste, I don't believe that's worth it. However like I said before, really depends on how our scaling works out next tier.

Edit: Before we can really call it there needs to be a fix to simcraft and/or the spreadsheet for the new tier.

[xarxz]

yep haste confirmed for pleb-tier stat. dunno if it was just general ptr lag in addition to my australian ping (fluctuates from 180 to about 750 mid boss attempt) but with the new 4set+DP i did not have a single gcd to spare ever, and this was at 530 testing level. went and forged everything i could to mastery (sans the hit and exp i needed with the stupid ptr reductions on those) and was just destroying the meters on everything, even moreso on aoe fights. with the nerf to feather and general rppm nerf, all haste is good for now is art of war procs and sanctity of battle. and seeing as i barely ever hit exorcism on live anyway, you can shorten that list to just sanctity of battle.

not like it matters seeing as ill probably be playing a ranged alt for progression yewwww