10 things commonly wrong with your ret paladin armory.

[Deleted]

Welcome. In this thread, I want to address some of the issues ret paladins often have with their armory. This is meant as a copycat from a similar topic concerning holy paladins. The idea is that with the recent influx of ret paladin issue threads, this thread is meant to at least remove some of these.

1. wrong professions. What you should have: jewelcrafting + blacksmithing/engineering. Acceptable to a degree are leatherworking, enchanting, inscription and alchemy. encouraged to unlearn are tailoring and skinning. Unacceptable are mining and herbalism.

2. wrong spec. the basic spec is 5/5/55 (http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sVZVZVfbtbIuhdIfsu). From there, you can either go to 11/5/55(http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sVVzZVZVfbtbIuhdIfsu) or 5/7/59(http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sVZVMZVfrtbIuGdIfsu). Discuss with your raidleader and/or other paladins in the raid what you should do.

3. not using the 2 required glyphs. The 2 basic glyphs are glyph of consecration(http://www.wowhead.com/item=41099) and glyph of judgement(http://www.wowhead.com/item=41092). You should ALWAYS use these 2. The other glyph is discussed in the next part.

4. not using SoV glyph (http://www.wowhead.com/item=43869) when below 21 expertise. Even when you can only use 5 expertise from it, the seal of vengeance glyph is better than the next best thing. When you can’t use at least 5 expertise, it is better to use the exorcism glyph.

5. gemming or enchanting wrong. Except in some cases, using a pure STR gem in a red socket is better than using a pure expertise gem. This is because not all our damage benefits from expertise, while nearly everything else doubledips or even triple dips into STR. In a similar boat is enchanting for expertise. the problem is that, compared to the AP enchants (50/44, equal to 25/22 expertise), the expertise enchants are under budget (15/20). In a related matter, you should always use a relentless earthsiege diamond(http://www.wowhead.com/item=41398) as your meta gem, and one nightmare tear as the blue gem in the blue socket with the highest socket bonus.. All other blue sockets should be gemmed with pure STR. Yellow sockets with a +4 STR socket bonus per socket should be gemmed with STR/crit. I will include math on the meta below.

6. not being hit capped. 95% of your DPS benefits from the hit cap. The only things that don’t benefit are ticks 2-10 of consecration. You need 262/263 hit rating to be capped. Until you are hit capped, gemming for hit is the best investment of itemization points.

7. being over the hit cap. Any hit above 8% is nearly totally wasted. The only thing that benefits from hit beyond 8% is exorcism and the first tick of consecration (both of which are on the spell hit table).

8. using the STR ashen verdict ring. Blizzard added a STR ring, but the problem is that they simply took the AGI ring, dropped the AP and replaced the AGI with a bit more STR and (the big problem) more STA. this means the AGI ring has more bang for its buck, because it has less budget wasted on STA.

9. not using berserking. Berserking is the best enchant a melee DPS can have. 400 AP is nothing to sneeze at, and the uptime is very high. Unless you have a cash problem and can’t afford it, berserking should always be the go-to enchant.

10. bad trinkets. Regardless of what you think, any trinket with a ArP proc is bad for ret. 2 easily acquirable trinkets for retribution are the mirror of truth(http://www.wowhead.com/item=40684, 40 emblems of heroism) and darkmoon card: greatness(http://www.wowhead.com/item=42987, reward from Nobles deck turnin, card or trinket currently costs about 3-4K, depending on server). Neither of these should be replaced until ToC25 (http://www.wowhead.com/item=47303), ICC10 (http://www.wowhead.com/item=50342) or ICC25 (http://www.wowhead.com/item=50351). Some view deathbringer’s will as a possible upgrade, I won’t digress on this matter. needle encrusted scorpion (http://www.wowhead.com/item=50198) is a minor upgrade over MoT, but you should not take it over any other melee DPS that can use it.

[Deleted]

Math on the meta gem:
Let’s assume you have 2 blue sockets with an equal bonus in 2 different slots. The difference between the relentless earthsiege diamond (RED) and the chaotic skyflare diamond(CSD) is 21 AGI versus 21 crit rating. Let’s ignore the 3% crit damage.
For RED, we use 1 nightmare tear (+10 all stats) and 1 bold cardinal ruby (20 STR). For CSD, we use 1 nightmare tear and 1 sovereign dreadstone (10 STR/15 STAM). Stats sums amount to:
RED:
30 STR
31 AGI
CSD:
21 crit rating
20 STR
10 AGI
Using ronark’s stat weights of:
Strength 212
Crit rating 117
Agility 113
RED: 212*30+113*31 = 9863
CSD: 212*20+10*113+117*21 = 7827
Difference between these 2 is 2036. For CSD to be better than RED, we need a socket bonus of 10 STR for the sovereign dreadstone. This is beyond what current socket bonuses give (highest current socket bonus is 8 STR).

[Sogeking]

i would argue about conscrenation glyph.
this glyph is actually a dps loss.
yes, its managain, but who has mana problems as ret?
cd clashes? there are none from the moment you obtained 2t10.
so by installing this glyph you nerf your dps by aboyt 30 dps~

[diseous]

i would argue about conscrenation glyph.
this glyph is actually a dps loss.
yes, its managain, but who has mana problems as ret?
cd clashes? there are none from the moment you obtained 2t10.
so by installing this glyph you nerf your dps by aboyt 30 dps~

Not that I am agreeing or disagreeing with your statement, but there has been times when I chain DS and run out of mana fast, mostly on trash, and seldom on bosses. Having the extra mana to judge and then replenish some more is going to be more effective in the end.

It's an extreme circumstance (DS chain, Plea is on cd, oom) I would assume (particularly if you are over expertise cap) the glyph will help you more than a 30dps decrease.

[Priesten]

I am pretty sure retris never have a 100% uptime of consecration due to it's low priority on the dps list. Especially with 2 tier10s, there won't be room to use it as much since you divine storm more often. Therefore the glyph is very good because it makes consecration last longer on the "rare" chances you do get to use it. I believe that Furiozo is, as they say, full of shit.

[Azharok]

i would argue about conscrenation glyph.
this glyph is actually a dps loss.
yes, its managain, but who has mana problems as ret?
cd clashes? there are none from the moment you obtained 2t10.
so by installing this glyph you nerf your dps by aboyt 30 dps~

Cd clashes will most likely ONLY happen once you have 2T10 in which you prioritise. Other than that you will have the odd clash and it's still down to FCFS. How is consecration ticking for 2 extra tick for the same amount of mana not a dps gain ?

[Deleted]

glyph of consecration proves to be about an 80 DPS upgrade raidbuffed for my paladin (http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...7gall&cn=Nzall) over no glyph, and 60 over exorcism glyph (only viable alternative).

[crabmousse]

sorry but I do not agree with one of my professions being "unacceptable". I have a crafting and a gathering profession and I'm not doing dual crafting because I don't want to be forced to level a second character to level 85 as soon as the expansion comes out. 2 x crafting professions is an optional way to increase your dps slightly, not a mandatory thing unless you're in a worlds first srsbsns raiding guild.

[Azharok]

sorry but I do not agree with one of my professions being "unacceptable". I have a crafting and a gathering profession and I'm not doing dual crafting because I don't want to be forced to level a second character to level 85 as soon as the expansion comes out. 2 x crafting professions is an optional way to increase your dps slightly, not a mandatory thing unless you're in a worlds first srsbsns raiding guild.

I think he means, Ret's that try and min/max, and in that case min/maxing means having JC/BS. Any other profession can deliver good results but a JC/BS Ret with all his dogs barking will still be superior in terms of DPS output.

[Wonderboy]

i would argue about conscrenation glyph.
this glyph is actually a dps loss.
yes, its managain, but who has mana problems as ret?
cd clashes? there are none from the moment you obtained 2t10.
so by installing this glyph you nerf your dps by aboyt 30 dps~

This is wrong, just plain wrong.

1. Consecration glyph is superior in practically every situation including single target undead dps. This is supported by basically every ret simulation tool out there.

2. There are still CD clashes even with 2pc T10. I can tell you this from experience, i don't think there has been a normal length boss fight (>5 min) that has never had every normal rotation spell on CD at some point.

[Deleted]

i would argue about conscrenation glyph.
this glyph is actually a dps loss.

consecrations glyph is not a dps loss it adds 2 ticks of damage you seem to belive it spreads the normal damage over 2 more seconds this is wrong it adds 2 more ticks of its normal damage.
also for the op acording to rawr and otehr sources enedle encrusted scorpion is better than mirror of truth not by much but it is slightly better so if no class can make better use of it and you are still using mirror go ahead and grab it.

[Sogeking]

consecrations glyph is not a dps loss it adds 2 ticks of damage you seem to belive it spreads the normal damage over 2 more seconds this is wrong it adds 2 more ticks of its normal damage.
also for the op acording to rawr and otehr sources enedle encrusted scorpion is better than mirror of truth not by much but it is slightly better so if no class can make better use of it and you are still using mirror go ahead and grab it.

perhaps, it was just my personal expression and imho.

I believe that Furiozo is, as they say, full of shit.

i believe that you are, as they say, a turd sandwich

[crabmousse]

I think he means, Ret's that try and min/max, and in that case min/maxing means having JC/BS. Any other profession can deliver good results but a JC/BS Ret with all his dogs barking will still be superior in terms of DPS output.

well unacceptable is the wrong word, "does not provide any additional damage or benefit for ret" would be better. generally I find the people asking the questions answered are not the min/maxing kind, they already know. you're looking at freshly dinged 80s and casuals asking these questions so would be better to aim the information to them.

[Nighty]

also for the op acording to rawr and otehr sources enedle encrusted scorpion is better than mirror of truth not by much but it is slightly better so if no class can make better use of it and you are still using mirror go ahead and grab it.

yea, rawr is telling me the same for ma paladin. but its such a small upgrade that i cant really be bothered to deal with the farming and all the retards flaming me because they see a ret wearing an arp trinket and they go nuts ...

[Deleted]

for my armory, NEC is a 21 DPS upgrade fully raidbuffed, and a 14 DPS upgrade selfbuffed.

if you are the only player in the group who can use it, feel free to take it, but if another player can use it, it would be a bigger upgrade for them.

OP has been updated with this info.

[Nighty]

if you are the only player in the group who can use it, feel free to take it, but if another player can use it, it would be a bigger upgrade for them.

there was a time when i used to think like this. but this changed after running FoS with chars that really need the scorpion as a major dps increase and losing rolls to people like mutilate rogues and enhancement shamans. i just dont give a fuck anymore if theres some random in my group that gets a bigger benefit out of the drop. if i need it then i click need!

[Pope]

crabmousse, if you would have looked at the OP's armory, he doesn't have two crafting professions either,
so I agree on what Azharok said, it's about min/maxing

[Deleted]

i was waiting until someone pointed out my armory is flawed as well.

if anyone of you can find an armory where all 10 points on this list are completely correct, then i'll take up blacksmithing instead of mining. the points about the hit cap can be changed to 260-270 hit rating.

[PetersenII]

perhaps, it was just my personal expression and imho.

That's just it, this isn't a matter of opinion. This is a matter of fact and math and you are wrong.

[Sogeking]

That's just it, this isn't a matter of opinion. This is a matter of fact and math and you are wrong.

and your point is?