Ret pally FCFS priority: HoW placement after analyzing logs

[Kisko]

Hello,

Modern guides for geared T10 retadins state FCFS priority as:

Judge > DS > CS > HoW > Exo > Cons > HW (taken from great Ronark FAQ on 3.3)

I'm trying to understand the theory behind this. It seems to me that the obvious
suggestion to maximize damage output is to use the most damaging ability available
to paladin when deciding on clash resolution.

So, I took the logs(1, 2) of one of the more known rets (Bluedeep, Cuties Only) and sorted each ability
by an average damage per land (or per GCD use, if you like) for a measuring stick fights for ret dps (Marrowgar, Festergut, h25m).

Marrowgar
Judge: 11,336
HoW: 8,627
Exo: 7,462
DS: 6,598
CS: 5,023

Festergut
Judge: 10,047
HoW: 9,740
Exo: 7,217
DS: 6,660
CS: 5,102

Could it be that he is just too geared and common clash resolution can't apply to him?
So, I crunched the numbers for my own icc10/25 geared ret:

Festergut
Judge: 10,754
HoW: 9,235
Exo: 7,197
DS: 6,129
CS: 4,413
HW: 4,102

As we can see HoW outperforms CS and DS by a large margin (30-50%) and also Exorcism is doing quite well.
I browsed more logs to confirm these findings and HoW is indeed #2 damaging ability for everyone and
Exorcism almost always outperforms DS and always does more damage than CS (yes, even with occasional misses).

So, why not use clash resolution as follows:

Judge > HoW > Exo > DS > CS > HW for undeads (whole ICC basically)

Obviously HoW will be used only when boss is below 20% and opening with Exo while you don't
have Art of War up is a bad idea, but other than that what's wrong with it?

[Laskai]

i haven't been ret since early ToC but i would always prioritise HoW over other spells at <20%

[Ronark]

The TLR version: CS and DS not only proc Seals (and with 4pc T10, they hit for 42% - 82% weapon damage), but they also proc Righteous Vengeance.

You will also have a LOT more CS casts or DS casts than the number of Exorcism casts as well in any given time lapse of a fight.

[Prentice]

The TLR version: CS and DS not only proc Seals (and with 4pc T10, they hit for 42% - 82% weapon damage), but they also proc Righteous Vengeance.

You will also have a LOT more CS casts or DS casts than the number of Exorcism casts as well in any given time lapse of a fight.

^^ This is exactly why CS and DS are ahead of HoW in priority. Without dissecting your own combat logs, you wouldn't be able to easily tell how much damage you would be losing by pushing HoW up the line. When Attack A procs Damage B and Damage C while Attack D procs nada.... guess which one I'll be using first.

[Eurytos]

So easy to forget the damn Seal dmg and RV dmg. Sneaky bastards.

[Kisko]

Thanks for replies.

It seems you can't compare abilities within a single log, you have to do several live tests and compare. So my current analysis is a fail one.

Oh well, it's maintenance anyway. ;D

[Babylonius]

My FCFS priority is Judge > DS > HoW > CS > Exo > Conc because you have to look at damage per second, instead of damage per attack. Even though HoW does more damage per attack, its longer cooldown means it has a lower DPS than other attacks.
[[ Damage is taken from averages found above, and assume use on every CD, no clashes]]

Judge is first because its our mana regen, highest crit chance, procs RV, seal damage, and only on a 8s CD.
[[ 10.5k damage every 8s = 1312.5dps ]]

DS is second only when you have 2pc t10, which I assume almost everyone has at this point. You always want to keep DS on cooldown so that it can come back off cooldown as quickly as possible.
[[ 6.5k damage every 1.5-10s = 4333-650dps ]]

HoW is third because it can do a large amount of damage, and very high crit chance. However, it doesn't proc RV or seal damage
[[ 9k damage every 6s = 1500dps ]]

CS is fourth due to its very fast CD, ability to proc seals and RV, but lower damage.
[[ 4.75k damage every 4s = 1187.5dps ]]

Exo is fifth because of the longer CD and is used as more of a filler more often than part of the "rotation" because of this. Its guaranteed crit against undead mobs is whats puts it above conc.
[[ 7.2k damage every 15s = 480dps ]]

Conc is last due to its comparatively low damage and relatively uselessness on movement fights.
[[ Don't have the info up for conc but I don't think anyone disagrees with it being last ]]

HW is rarely used and most of the time I'll keep a blank gcd for DS to come off cooldown than use on on HW.

As you can see, that simply by dps it should go DS > HoW > Judge > CS > Exo > Conc. However, if rets go awhile without using Judgement we run the risk of going oom, and Judgement procs the strongest RV and seal Damage.

TLDR: Judge > DS > HoW > CS > Exo > Conc

[Nikoll]

Do not drop cs so low. You can't just say x does more than y and call it case closed. Judge-cs-ds-how-con-exo-hw is the pq. The reason is cd clashes. And by possibly missing a ds proc, it happens and it sucks, you get cs back faster and get to use little to no hw, and less and less exo/con. Here is a goal to shoot for. Make you pq so you never have to use hw. If you can manage that good job.

[Kisko]

My FCFS priority is Judge > DS > HoW > CS > Exo > Conc because you have to look at damage per second, instead of damage per attack. Even though HoW does more damage per attack, its longer cooldown means it has a lower DPS than other attacks.

We talking about clash resolution, so it's damage per attack (GCD use), dps means nothing here.
It was explained above why HoW isn't as high on priority list and it has nothing to do with cooldown.

HW is rarely used and most of the time I'll keep a blank gcd for DS to come off cooldown than use on on HW.

So I heard if you do nothing and just sit there waiting for some "good" ability off cooldown you are losing dps. That's why hitting HW and even HoR in certain cases is better. Makes sense actually.

As you can see, that simply by dps it should go DS > HoW > Judge > CS > Exo > Conc. However, if rets go awhile without using Judgement we run the risk of going oom, and Judgement procs the strongest RV and seal Damage.

All I can see now is that without precise mathematical simulation, which would including RV and procs, we can see nothing.

Topic can be closed actually.

[Needonboots]

I thought DS > Judge because of the 2 piece? Or am I out of date? :P

[Ronark]

I thought DS > Judge because of the 2 piece? Or am I out of date? :P

Judgement hits harder, does more damage, and returns mana.

[Deleted]

Marrowgar
Judge: 11,336
HoW: 8,627
Exo: 7,462
DS: 6,598
CS: 5,023

allow me to append those numbers with the RV and seal procs, derived from the wowmeter site.
RV:
he has 67.3% DS crits, averaging at 8,023. these deal 30% additional damage over 8 seconds. this means 67.3% of his DS connects deal 10,430 damage. he has 52 connects, 35 of which are crits. this means we have 17 hits.

his 35 crits deal combined 280,805 damage. his hits deal 62,291 combined damage, or 3,664 per hit.
(we need to calculate it like this because the avg mentioned by WMO is not differentiating between crit and hit)

if we combine these numbers, we have ((35*10,430)+(17*3,664))/52 damage for DS.

if we take the same math for Cs:

average crit: 6,172
amount of crits: 22
average crit /w RV: 8,023
amount of hits: 13
average hit: 3,079
combine those numbers:
((22*8,023)+(13*3,079))/35

judgement:
average crit: 13,219
amount of crits: 15
average crit /w RV: 17,184
amount of hits: 6
average hit: 6630
combined:
((15*17,184)+(6*6,630))/21

seals:
his average seal damage (hit or crit): 3,403. both CS/DS crits and hits proc a seal. crit and hit don't make a difference here, due to seal not proccing RV)

new calculations:
DS:
((35*10,430)+(17*3,664) + (52*3,403))/52
= 11,621
CS:
((22*8,023)+(13*3,079) + (35*3,403))/35
=9,589
judgement
((15*17,184)+(6*6,630) + (21*3,403))/21
= 17571


this might seem finished, but we are not done yet. we don't use our abilities in DPGCD, but in DPS. and that's where Kisko is wrong, because if an attack does X damage with a Y second CD, but another ability does 2X damage with a 3Y CD, it is higher DPS to hit the first one first than it is to hit the second one first, because we can use the first one sooner then.

so, CS has a 4 second CD. this means it does 2,397 DPS.
judgement does 1757 2196 DPS. (thanks Prentice for pointing out my error)
DS is a bit more fickle. he DPS'd 185 seconds. he hit DS 32 times in that time (he has 52 hits, but 20 of those are on bone spikes). a CD of 5.78 seconds, or a DPS of 2010.

i won't do exo or HoW, but you get the picture.

edit: i can predict without a doubt that kisko will quote my damage per attack calculations and say it confirms his own.

[Rlyskilled]

Conc is last due to its comparatively low damage and relatively uselessness on movement fights.
[[ Don't have the info up for conc but I don't think anyone disagrees with it being last ]]

I would disagree with this. >.<

If you take consecration's full damage into account, it's better to use it as close to on-cooldown as you can (when j, ds, cs are all on cd of course) over exorcism.

Pulled up a parse of Festergut 25H. My average conc ticks were 866.5. 2 misses, attributing them to that pesky first tick. So that's 7798 on average for a consecration spell if the first tick always missed. My average exorcism crit was 7261. Consecration also attributed for 1% more of my total damage done than exorcism, dealing ~30k more damage over the course of 4:41. Just because exo's always going to crit doesn't automatically make it better. Exo can also miss, being that it's on the spell hit table. Yes, consecration is too. But if you miss a tick, there are 9 more coming in just one GCD. If your exorcism misses, that's a completely wasted GCD. And that makes pallies sad.

Therefore, in my opinion, exo should be only used before holy wrath.

* This makes sense for any Patchwerk type fight. I will agree with you on fights with a ton of movement like the Professor

[Prentice]

judgement does 1757 DPS.

Pretty sure this is a typo. You divided the 17,571 damage by a factor of 10(as opposed to the 8 it should have been). This would have made your Judgement DPS 2196, and not 1751.

[Deleted]

Pretty sure this is a typo. You divided the 17,571 damage by a factor of 10(as opposed to the 8 it should have been). This would have made your Judgement DPS 2196, and not 1751.

thanks for pointing it out.

but is the rest of my math correct?

[dalsand]

The reason for this is that Crusader Strike and Divine Storm are the only attacks that procc a seal.

So judgement is your hardest hitting attack
Divine storm + seal = probably 11k
CS + Seal = probably 10k
How = probably 8k

Which is why the FCFS rotation is judge, ds/cs, how, cons, exo.