Spear of Xuen - For Ret

[Arganaut]

How good for Ret up until the point you get a 463 or close Strength weapon?

Either way, 85 Hunter, Druid and Monk (eventually) are wet at the prospect of levelling to 90 with this.

[Huntaer]

The amount of AP u get from agi is nowhere close to what you get from str. Iirc it doesn't give any attack power at all.
Sorry mate, i know you were hoping on a yes so u could wear a polearm, but it's not good for retri

[Krekko]

DO NOT EVER. EVER. EVER. EVER USE AN AGILITY WEAPON.

There is NO good reason to EVER do it. Just go with the next best Str weapon you can get and work your way up.

[Arganaut]

But wep damage is insanely better right? And with some abilities based off wep damage perhaps might be a goer.

In fact bud, I got lucky with a world rare mob kill that dropped a 420 epic mace about 10 mins after I got the spear on 2nd solve. Most luck I have had in 6 years so its helped soften the blow if the spear is not worth using. Hunter on the other hand, had a 316 gun!

[Krekko]

But wep damage is insanely better right? And with some abilities based off wep damage perhaps might be a goer.

In fact bud, I got lucky with a world rare mob kill that dropped a 420 epic mace about 10 mins after I got the spear on 2nd solve. Most luck I have had in 6 years so its helped soften the blow if the spear is not worth using. Hunter on the other hand, had a 316 gun!

When using your head, yes, weapon damage is better. But that's in terms of;

Str weapon w/lower Weapon damage -> Str weapon w/higher Weapon Damage

Not Str weapon w/lower Weapon damage -> Agility weapon w/higher weapon damage.


Sure you gain on the weapon damage, you lose on the Str and ALL of that though in favor of Agility.

It's a rule of thumb, not a matter of fact.

[Arganaut]

I've been playing Ret long enough to know agility is not the way to go. In context, I was comparing with a 404 2 hander picked up in Jade Forest vs Spear for levelling, not for heroics. Just intrigued if there was a breakpoint up to say 420-440 where spear might actually yield higher durpes vs a 404. It will increase crusader, TV and 5 stack SOV attacks quite a bit (to so sure on HoR but sure DS would also see it) but accept lose of strength would see Exo, Judgements and probs Heals take a nose dive depending on he AP-SP conversions these days.

[ipoststuff]

krekko do you have any reason to your arguement? Yes we know str is better than agility. But weapons arent used for their stats only .Most important thing on a weapon is its damage.
Im using the archaeology one for now and planning on replacing it with 2h sword from scholo. But im not gonna use a green weapon coz it has str on it.

[Utok]

Its pretty good for leveling considering its a heroic level weapon but you can use it at 85, even with no strength it will probably beat most strength weapons until you hit 90 due to its high damage. Its just the same as using a pvp weapon really, instead of having strength+resi wasted, you have an extra secondary stat+agi wasted.

[Meteoric]

I got the Spear shortly after hitting 90, and then had terrible luck with weapon drops, so I was using Satay's Stabbing Sword for over a week. The Spear definitely looked appealing, but I plugged it into Simcraft and it was pretty much a wash compared to Satay's, despite having an extra 300 weapon DPS and being .3s slower.

Remember, after all, that a large part of Ret's damage doesn't even scale with weapon damage, just attack power. (Well, technically with spell power, but we have AP -> SP from Sword of Light.)

If you're still leveling and choosing between the Spear and some 1900-DPS green, yeah, the Spear probably wins. But it's only roughly as good as a too-fast ilvl 450 blue.

[Huntaer]

U should see agility as 0 strength

[Meteoric]

Yes, definitely. But the question is whether a weapon with zero strength is worth using if it's better by a wide enough margin in something else, like weapon DPS. In this case, since Ret doesn't rely as heavily on weapon damage as some melee specs, that margin has to be very large for the Spear to be worthwhile.

[Christan]

there, is ofc a str 2h boa available. but from the Lost and Found achievement rather than archaeology.
http://www.wowhead.com/item=86523

[Drfireburns]

The only time a Ret Pally would/should ever us an agility item I would think is if you just have the absolute worst luck with drops in 5 mans/raiding, etc. At this point though you should have no issue getting a strength/crit/haste weapon.

[MasterHamster]

http://www.maxdps.com/paladin/retribution.php

Go to weapon rankings after filling your stats.
Yes, losing strength hurts, but it's not that terrible. Personally I was stuck with the i435 str mace from Taran Zu in Shado Pan, and the spear outperformed it by a large margin. Weapon dps >>>> strength

That said, first prio for a fresh 90 ret should be to run Scarlet Halls since there's two Str 2hs that drop there.

[Essenji]

Either way, 85 Hunter, Druid and Monk (eventually) are wet at the prospect of levelling to 90 with this.

I feel offended that you don't know that hunters don't use melee weapons anymore...

[Drfireburns]

I feel offended that you don't know that hunters don't use melee weapons anymore...

Lolololololol.

This made my morning.

[Deleted]

Guildie used it on a warrior and got upwards to 100k MS crits while leveling, killing all the mobs during a charge stun.
If it's anywhere as good for ret I don't know, but go ahead and try.

[kosechi]

DO NOT EVER. EVER. EVER. EVER USE AN AGILITY WEAPON.

There is NO good reason to EVER do it. Just go with the next best Str weapon you can get and work your way up.

i beg to differ, the raw weapon damage on xuen's is pretty good, better then ANYTHING you can get pre heroic. for leveling and heroics till you get a str weapon xuen's is as good as you are going to get.

i wouldn't try to raid with it though.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I use it on my leveling retadin but I plan to replace it when I hit 90. If you're leveling I really don't see a problem with it. I don't worry about gear until I start doing level cap stuff.

[Mefistophelis]

spear of xuen compared to any 440-450 ilvl strength 2hander is godlike ... but less powerful than it's strength counterparts that drop from the heroics . Good luck with the drops !