[7.0 Retribution Paladin] Guide and Discussion

[Calimon-ZJ]

Tier pieces are looking a lot better statwise

[Anardel]

Tier pieces are looking a lot better statwise

Indeed. Much better right now with some haste to keep that 20-23% cap and a lot of crit/versatility. Now at least I want to use it. I was even thinking to scrap Tier before they made this change.

[Morally Grey Storm]

also getting an answer is pretty rare...

back on topic: Patch notes! no news is good news?^^

No.

It means they decided not to bother themselves with boring, bothersome developer stuff that is balancing and fixing, which just so occasionally happens to be a part of their jobs.

Ofcourse we can sit here like good boys and believe this is going to work out, that they are going to fix this mess they turned Ret Dragonslaying talent grid into.
Ofcourse we can tell ourselves Judgement of Pathetic Heals is just a placeholder, bound to be replaced with some fethawesome new talent.
Or...we could see lazy ass gakkers for who they really are.

[Poundcake]

No.

It means they decided not to bother themselves with boring, bothersome developer stuff that is balancing and fixing, which just so occasionally happens to be a part of their jobs.

Ofcourse we can sit here like good boys and believe this is going to work out, that they are going to fix this mess they turned Ret Dragonslaying talent grid into.
Ofcourse we can tell ourselves Judgement of Pathetic Heals is just a placeholder, bound to be replaced with some fethawesome new talent.
Or...we could see lazy ass gakkers for who they really are.

Yea it's getting to be depressing that we still have holy abortion and divine RNG as 2 of our level 100 talents. They said they would rework talents and all that shit and they've done nothing so far.

[Deleted]

No.

It means they decided not to bother themselves with boring, bothersome developer stuff that is balancing and fixing, which just so occasionally happens to be a part of their jobs.

Ofcourse we can sit here like good boys and believe this is going to work out, that they are going to fix this mess they turned Ret Dragonslaying talent grid into.
Ofcourse we can tell ourselves Judgement of Pathetic Heals is just a placeholder, bound to be replaced with some fethawesome new talent.
Or...we could see lazy ass gakkers for who they really are.

It was more of a reference to the Crusade BS they tried to pull with 7.1

[BrassTheRet]

I have four questions about the rotation: BoJ VS CS, Wake of Ashes,Opener and TV.

I noticed that CS has a priority over BOJ. Why is this? BOJ gives more holy power and with the Blade of Wrath talent it procs quite often. Do I occasionally ignore BOJ and make sure CS never caps at 2 charges? I tend to ignore CS if BOJ is up and if BoW keeps on procing. Yet, I've looked at logs and most rets tend to ignore BoJ and make sure CS stacks at either 0 or 1 but I'm fundamentally confused because why would you ignore a 2 holy power generation and use a 1 holy power generation, twice, when it takes longer to get the same.

Where does Wake of Ashes fall into the rotation? I've seen logs where rets don't use WoA on the pull and tend to wait until up to 8 seconds. Why is this? I've been under the idea of how WoA should be used on the pull after crusade is used.

Lastly, how am I suppose to open? I've seen rets use BoJ>Jugdment>Tv (TFOJ)>Crusade> WoA>Cs>Cs...etc. I've also seen some rets open with: Judgment>Cs>Cs>TV>CS>Cs>BoJ>Cs>Crusade>TV...etc . This is also another source of my confusion because I tend to: Crusade>WoA>Judgment>BoJ>Cs>TV>Cs>

I tend to use TV when I'm at 3 Holy power because I've been under the idea that getting off as many TV's as possible is more dps than saving up to 5, and especially during crusade.

[suzaku0]

I have four questions about the rotation: BoJ VS CS, Wake of Ashes,Opener and TV.

I noticed that CS has a priority over BOJ. Why is this? BOJ gives more holy power and with the Blade of Wrath talent it procs quite often. Do I occasionally ignore BOJ and make sure CS never caps at 2 charges? I tend to ignore CS if BOJ is up and if BoW keeps on procing. Yet, I've looked at logs and most rets tend to ignore BoJ and make sure CS stacks at either 0 or 1 but I'm fundamentally confused because why would you ignore a 2 holy power generation and use a 1 holy power generation, twice, when it takes longer to get the same.

Dunno about others, i try to keep 1 charge of CS and use BoJ on cooldown. I'm on 80%+ uptime on leg cloak, and even with 15%> haste I'm able to keep 3-4 HP and judgement w/o loosing uptime on buff, WoA helps if you are on 0 HP and 1,5cd on judge.

Where does Wake of Ashes fall into the rotation? I've seen logs where rets don't use WoA on the pull and tend to wait until up to 8 seconds. Why is this? I've been under the idea of how WoA should be used on the pull after crusade is used.

Lastly, how am I suppose to open? I've seen rets use BoJ>Jugdment>Tv (TFOJ)>Crusade> WoA>Cs>Cs...etc. I've also seen some rets open with: Judgment>Cs>Cs>TV>CS>Cs>BoJ>Cs>Crusade>TV...etc . This is also another source of my confusion because I tend to: Crusade>WoA>Judgment>BoJ>Cs>TV>Cs>

I tend to use TV when I'm at 3 Holy power because I've been under the idea that getting off as many TV's as possible is more dps than saving up to 5, and especially during crusade.

You're wasting Crusade uptime
IMHO it's better to build 3/5 HP on pull and judge, before popping up Crusade. We tend to pop up BL after pull, like 4-5secs. There goes 3-4 gcd for building HP for first two TV. Next thing is WoA and... that's all

[BrassTheRet]

Dunno about others, i try to keep 1 charge of CS and use BoJ on cooldown. I'm on 80%+ uptime on leg cloak, and even with 15%> haste I'm able to keep 3-4 HP and judgement w/o loosing uptime on buff, WoA helps if you are on 0 HP and 1,5cd on judge.


You're wasting Crusade uptime
IMHO it's better to build 3/5 HP on pull and judge, before popping up Crusade. We tend to pop up BL after pull, like 4-5secs. There goes 3-4 gcd for building HP for first two TV. Next thing is WoA and... that's all

It's more dps to BoJ and CS, on the pull, then judgment leading to a TV, and WOA. And you'd want to crusade after or before WOA? And what about tv? I've seen guides saying that you only want to tv if you're at 5 hp,but I find this to be confusing because that's a longer time during crusade without acquiring x15.

BoJ>Judgment>Cs>CS>TV>Woa>Crusade>BoJ(Blade of Wrath)>Cs>TV>CS>...etc.

[Taeldorian]

No.

It means they decided not to bother themselves with boring, bothersome developer stuff that is balancing and fixing, which just so occasionally happens to be a part of their jobs.

Ofcourse we can sit here like good boys and believe this is going to work out, that they are going to fix this mess they turned Ret Dragonslaying talent grid into.
Ofcourse we can tell ourselves Judgement of Pathetic Heals is just a placeholder, bound to be replaced with some fethawesome new talent.
Or...we could see lazy ass gakkers for who they really are.

Yeah they're doing a pretty bad job.

But he's right. No news is good news. Just gonna sit on the sidelines while the other classes who are getting news seem to be getting deleted from the game (over exaggeration, but still). It's not ret this time!

On the other hand, our tier set now has better stats for all 3 specs overall. So that's good.

- - - Updated - - -
@Vuagnon You should watch some top Ret Paladins. Quinret, Shouldice, Lueko and many others do just fine in terms of AoE in mythic+ and even raids. I mainly watch them run mythic+ and they do completely fine.

I do too. Sure, other classes have better Aoe. Did you know other classes say that about us and our ST? That's right, and that's how it works. Overall Ret is good and competitive, if you're having trouble don't put it on the class. It's quite clear if you're good at the class then there's no issue with Aoe. Yeah, other classes have better Aoe. So? How does that make us not competitive with Aoe? Just go watch good rets and you'll see that we aren't uncompetitive.

But with your mindset, I don't think you'll be happy with anything unless they're absurdly OP and easy to play in terms of Aoe.

[ThePants999]

I noticed that CS has a priority over BOJ. Why is this? BOJ gives more holy power and with the Blade of Wrath talent it procs quite often. Do I occasionally ignore BOJ and make sure CS never caps at 2 charges? I tend to ignore CS if BOJ is up and if BoW keeps on procing. Yet, I've looked at logs and most rets tend to ignore BoJ and make sure CS stacks at either 0 or 1 but I'm fundamentally confused because why would you ignore a 2 holy power generation and use a 1 holy power generation, twice, when it takes longer to get the same.

The most important thing determining your DPS across a lengthy fight is the total amount of HoPo you generate. We're not quite GCD capped, so taking more GCDs to generate the same amount of HoPo is not necessarily an issue, unintuitive though that is. Despite the fact that BoJ generates double the HoPo, it has more than double the CD. If BoJ and both charges of CS are available, and you press CS, you've kind of lost one-seventh of a BoJ by delaying it one GCD, which means 2/7 of a HoPo; if you press BoJ, you've lost a third of a CS = 1/3 of a HoPo. That difference is pretty much what matters most.

If you're seeing people consistently prioritise BOTH CS charges over BoJ, though, they're doing it wrong. If you look at the SimC ret APL, it only prioritises the second charge of CS over BoJ if either
- you're at 4 HoPo, or
- you're at 3, and the 2nd CS charge is available in less than 2 GCDs.
If you're at 0/1/2, or you're at 3 and you just used the first CS charge, you cast BoJ over the 2nd charge of CS.

Where does Wake of Ashes fall into the rotation? I've seen logs where rets don't use WoA on the pull and tend to wait until up to 8 seconds. Why is this? I've been under the idea of how WoA should be used on the pull after crusade is used.

I'm a bit less sure on this one. The APL casts it pretty much immediately at the start of a fight, then any time it's up and you're not going to waste too much HoPo by using it. Delaying it at the start gives you a better Crusade but risks losing one WoA during the fight. If you know what the fight duration will be pretty accurately, such that you know whether delaying will cost you a WoA, then that gives you your answer. If not, then there isn't an obvious answer IMO.

Lastly, how am I suppose to open? I've seen rets use BoJ>Jugdment>Tv (TFOJ)>Crusade> WoA>Cs>Cs...etc. I've also seen some rets open with: Judgment>Cs>Cs>TV>CS>Cs>BoJ>Cs>Crusade>TV...etc . This is also another source of my confusion because I tend to: Crusade>WoA>Judgment>BoJ>Cs>TV>Cs>

Again, fight length is relevant. The APL goes WoA>Crusade>Judgment>TV>CS>BoJ>TV...etc. I do that if I'm not going to be able to get a full Crusade off (Elerethe) or if I know the fight length would screw me over if I delayed it (Ursoc). Otherwise I build HoPo first. I will say:
- it's definitely wrong to ever cast TV while Crusade is available, like both of your first examples do! When Crusade is up, you don't spend any HoPo until you've activated it.
- your personal opener I assume was a typo, you said Crusade>WoA>Judgment>BoJ>Cs>TV, but I assume there's a TV missing in there so you don't waste 3 HoPo.
- assuming you have at least one WotA relic, you don't cast Crusade immediately before WoA, that's a wasted global during Crusade just for 3.5% extra damage on WoA. You either cast WoA immediately before Crusade so you can go straight into TV, or you build HoPo first and WoA after you've activated Crusade and spent your built-up HoPo. (The relic means you'll still get one WoA into the Crusade window, just at the end instead of the beginning.)
- similarly, you want to minimise the number of times you judge during Crusade, so judge just before it, not just after it.

I tend to use TV when I'm at 3 Holy power because I've been under the idea that getting off as many TV's as possible is more dps than saving up to 5, and especially during crusade.

This comes back to what I said first. Your DPS over the fight is about generating as much HoPo as possible. Spending will happen naturally - unless it's literally the last GCD of the fight (or of Crusade), you don't lose anything by delaying a spender, but you DO lose out when you delay a generator. If you use TV when a generator is available that wouldn't overcap you, then you probably just reduced the amount of HoPo you'll generate over the fight, and lost DPS. You only TV at 3 if generators are on CD.

[Piwielle]

Hey. Regarding openers, you can sim differents openers and see the results for yourself (you can take http://pastebin.com/L0fVzgdL as a base to sim, if you're good at using simc).

However, the "standard" openers goes :
WoA > Judgment > Crusade >...
or, if you have the legendary ring
BoW -> Judgment > Crusade > TV > WoA >...

Regarding priority, do CS (2 charges) > BoW > CS.
The point is to always have stuff on cooldown. During an opener with bloodlust you *can* prioritize BoW and hope for resets because of high haste, but meh.

[Maduk]

Did you know other classes say that about us and our ST? That's right, and that's how it works.

I'm still hoping that some day our DMG will not be focused around our wings.

easy to play in terms of Aoe

Are you implying that our AoE rotation is not easy?

[BrassTheRet]

The most important thing determining your DPS across a lengthy fight is the total amount of HoPo you generate. We're not quite GCD capped, so taking more GCDs to generate the same amount of HoPo is not necessarily an issue, unintuitive though that is. Despite the fact that BoJ generates double the HoPo, it has more than double the CD. If BoJ and both charges of CS are available, and you press CS, you've kind of lost one-seventh of a BoJ by delaying it one GCD, which means 2/7 of a HoPo; if you press BoJ, you've lost a third of a CS = 1/3 of a HoPo. That difference is pretty much what matters most.

If you're seeing people consistently prioritise BOTH CS charges over BoJ, though, they're doing it wrong. If you look at the SimC ret APL, it only prioritises the second charge of CS over BoJ if either
- you're at 4 HoPo, or
- you're at 3, and the 2nd CS charge is available in less than 2 GCDs.
If you're at 0/1/2, or you're at 3 and you just used the first CS charge, you cast BoJ over the 2nd charge of CS.


I'm a bit less sure on this one. The APL casts it pretty much immediately at the start of a fight, then any time it's up and you're not going to waste too much HoPo by using it. Delaying it at the start gives you a better Crusade but risks losing one WoA during the fight. If you know what the fight duration will be pretty accurately, such that you know whether delaying will cost you a WoA, then that gives you your answer. If not, then there isn't an obvious answer IMO.


Again, fight length is relevant. The APL goes WoA>Crusade>Judgment>TV>CS>BoJ>TV...etc. I do that if I'm not going to be able to get a full Crusade off (Elerethe) or if I know the fight length would screw me over if I delayed it (Ursoc). Otherwise I build HoPo first. I will say:
- it's definitely wrong to ever cast TV while Crusade is available, like both of your first examples do! When Crusade is up, you don't spend any HoPo until you've activated it.
- your personal opener I assume was a typo, you said Crusade>WoA>Judgment>BoJ>Cs>TV, but I assume there's a TV missing in there so you don't waste 3 HoPo.
- assuming you have at least one WotA relic, you don't cast Crusade immediately before WoA, that's a wasted global during Crusade just for 3.5% extra damage on WoA. You either cast WoA immediately before Crusade so you can go straight into TV, or you build HoPo first and WoA after you've activated Crusade and spent your built-up HoPo. (The relic means you'll still get one WoA into the Crusade window, just at the end instead of the beginning.)
- similarly, you want to minimise the number of times you judge during Crusade, so judge just before it, not just after it.


This comes back to what I said first. Your DPS over the fight is about generating as much HoPo as possible. Spending will happen naturally - unless it's literally the last GCD of the fight (or of Crusade), you don't lose anything by delaying a spender, but you DO lose out when you delay a generator. If you use TV when a generator is available that wouldn't overcap you, then you probably just reduced the amount of HoPo you'll generate over the fight, and lost DPS. You only TV at 3 if generators are on CD.

Holy Power generation will give more sustain damage (Generally using TV at 5 holy power)throughout a fight than always using TV at 3 holy power? I actually never knew that. I thought you had to get as many as TV as possible. What if you're at 3 or 4 Hopo and CS is at 1 charge, and BoJ is on cooldown then do I use TV or CS?

I believe I know what you're getting at since uou generally prioritize CS over BoJ when the 2nd charge is within 1 second and at 4 hopo.

WoA>Judgment>Crusade>TV>CS>BoJ>TV>CS>TV...

Would be a more general opener and ignoring TFOJ and BOW procs, but what about these procs? Which one is more priority? An extra BoJ is more holy power generation than a 2 Hopo TV.




Piwielle said that you can prioritize BoW procs over CS stacks during lust+crusade and I already do this but you did mention about me not having the 2nd CS stack being on cd is actually lost dps throughout a fight.

[Taeldorian]

I'm still hoping that some day our DMG will not be focused around our wings.



Are you implying that our AoE rotation is not easy?

Oh hell no it's easy. I meant a class that has insanely good Aoe but only takes 2-3 button spam. Seems to be his style.

[ThePants999]

Holy Power generation will give more sustain damage (Generally using TV at 5 holy power)throughout a fight than always using TV at 3 holy power? I actually never knew that. I thought you had to get as many as TV as possible.

You do have to get as many TV as possible, that's the point - but TVs aren't bounded by time, they're bounded by HoPo. So you don't cast more TVs by casting them as soon as possible, you cast more TVs by generating more HoPo. HoPo generation IS bounded by time, so you prioritise spending your time on HoPo generation, and the TVs follow naturally :-)

What if you're at 3 or 4 Hopo and CS is at 1 charge, and BoJ is on cooldown then do I use TV or CS?

CS. Cast CS and you lose nothing - that TV can wait, you don't lose anything by casting it next GCD (or even later) rather than now. Cast TV and you might lose nothing - or you might lose HoPo generation because BoJ comes off CD as well, or you have to move, or cast something else, or whatever. There are exceptions, like early in Crusade where you want to cast the TVs as soon as possible to build stacks faster, but the general principle is always prioritise generators that won't overcap your HoPo.

[Lumineus]

Oh hell no it's easy. I meant a class that has insanely good Aoe but only takes 2-3 button spam. Seems to be his style.

Because as long as those classes exist then building up to a (fairly weak, for the investment) Divine Storm will always feel stupid. Chasing four GCDs worth of Frostscythe to catch up is kekmode.

[Wrecktangle]

You do have to get as many TV as possible, that's the point - but TVs aren't bounded by time, they're bounded by HoPo. So you don't cast more TVs by casting them as soon as possible, you cast more TVs by generating more HoPo. HoPo generation IS bounded by time, so you prioritise spending your time on HoPo generation, and the TVs follow naturally :-)


CS. Cast CS and you lose nothing - that TV can wait, you don't lose anything by casting it next GCD (or even later) rather than now. Cast TV and you might lose nothing - or you might lose HoPo generation because BoJ comes off CD as well, or you have to move, or cast something else, or whatever. There are exceptions, like early in Crusade where you want to cast the TVs as soon as possible to build stacks faster, but the general principle is always prioritise generators that won't overcap your HoPo.

What if Judgment is falling off in 3s? Do you still cast CS? What if Judgment is falling off in 2s?

[ThePants999]

What if Judgment is falling off in 3s? Do you still cast CS? What if Judgment is falling off in 2s?

Are these genuine questions, or are you just trying to point out that I was oversimplifying? If the latter - yes, I explicitly admitted that.

[Wrecktangle]

Are these genuine questions, or are you just trying to point out that I was oversimplifying? If the latter - yes, I explicitly admitted that.

Admittedly a little bit of both. I didn't see it in the last 2 posts above (it's possible I missed it or it was before that and I just don't remember), but I don't recall you covering the timing aspect of judgment. I also do know the answer for both scenarios, but I do think it'd be helpful to cover it as its fairly nuanced for others to see.

[Morally Grey Storm]

So how do you guys like this Archimonde's Ret Ripoff Legendary cape so far?