Patch 4.0.6 has launched and for Retribution Paladins, we are seeing some much bigger DPS numbers! I think we can all agree this is an improvement over our former DPS state. The Mastery change has given us a much needed boost to our damage totals.
For a quick review, you can view my previous Patch 4.0.6 posts here:
Retribution in 5-Mans
My DPS in 5-man heroics has literally skyrocketed. My overall DPS has jumped from around 9k to 11k. My boss DPS has jumped from around 12k damage, to an average of 15k damage. On some fights, where Divine Purpose was proccing often, I was crashing through the 18k barrier, pushing 19k. Instantly, I became competitive DPS.
With more damage, I noticed mobs going down much quicker. That meant using Inquisition actually was a hindrance at times. It would suck up Holy Power I should have been using for Templar’s Verdict. Now, when it comes down to it, trash is irrelevant and bosses are where Inquisition truly shines, so no real big deal there.
Raiding
DPS in raiding has climbed as well, scaling very well with raid buffs. Now, I’m not going to say we will top the DPS charts, but our DPS should be sufficient enough to not get us an immediate dismissal from raid spots any more. From what I am seeing on the World of Logs reports, Retribution Paladins are now falling in the middle of the pack on DPS.
The Censure change also gives us a buff on fights where we are moving around a ton. when we have to move and cannot stay in melee range, there is a good chance our Seal of Truth and Censure damage could fall off the boss, causing us to have to get the stacks up to 5 again. Now, we can use our ranged attacks to keep Censure ticking, and also can build 5 stacks much quicker with an assortment of attacks now able to apply the DoT effect.
Divine Purpose
Divine Purpose is a tricky talent. For me, sometimes it seemed like it took forever to proc and get me a Templar’s Verdict. Other times, it would proc 4x in a row, and my DPS would soar. It’s still an inconsistent mechanic in terms of Holy Power generation, and Crusader Strike doesn’t seem to be able to add it up quick enough.
While our DPS is high, I wish there was a better (more concrete and consistent) way to generate Holy Power than a 15% chance on specific attacks. Relying on RNG still has its flaws. But hey, we are more DPS after 4.0.6…so, I won’t whine too much.
Haste
Haste value has dropped significantly, and I won’t go into detail here about this. I am working on a post to release soon addressing the state of Haste in 4.0.6
Patch 4.0.6 Summary
Overall, I am content with the patch and its DPS improvements. I still think our mechanics are a bit wobbly, and future patches will give us a better idea if the current Ret build will stand the test of time. I expect to see many more Retribution Paladins in raids now, and I am curious to see what top-end gear will do for our damage totals.
(If you have any comments, please feel free to leave them below! If you link DPS numbers you are doing, try and link your armory as well. Many players see high DPS numbers and instantly want to check that player’s gear for comparison! It’s a simple and great method to help other Rets out!)
Hey, I can do up to over 20K On HC Bosses now after the patch. How much I do in raids I dont know yet. Will do my first raid after the patch this evening:)
Is anyone else experiencing this? Last night I was running some vanilla stuff for guild achievements and I had issues with CS not giving HP on occasion. It wasn’t often but I did notice that I’d have 0-2 stacks of HP and hit CS and get no increase in HP. Is this something I missed in the patch, a bug, or am I just crazy? I’m loving the patch but just a little concerned when I was getting ready to pop a TV because I should have been on stack number 3 only to hit CS and still be on stack 2. If it were only once or twice I’d dismiss it as seeing things that weren’t there, but it was more often that that.
I have not experienced that actually, but I will keep it in mind to see if it happens to me as well.
I’ve seen some huge increases in damage. I think not only because of the buffs as is, but the slightly slower rotation is a lot easier for me to handle and make less mistakes on in the duration of a fight. Here are a couple of WoL reports of just how much difference there was between last week and this week. Halfus Heroic in particular was a massive damage difference(over 20k dps).
Last week.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/1bimbqm2heyxg7gp/sum/damageDone/?s=3173&e=3512
This week
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/4yuv4gwhknmmiyvw/sum/damageDone/?s=4187&e=4514
And my armory for reference:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/arathor/farxx/advanced
(if anyone notices anything i’ve done wrong or has any suggestions; please, let me know)
I hope everoyne else is as happy as me with this patch, we needed it.
@ Castor27
Are you hit capped? IIRC all mobs at boss level require you to be hit capped for a level 88 mob, even old content bosses. That would tie in with CS not giving HP for a miss anymore. I could be wrong though.
Hi, I have a question about the new ability sacred shield. When i logged on earlier and the patch 4.0.6 was already kicked in I got the Sacred shield ability on my action bar.
Then i noticed that i no longer had rebuke so i went to the trainer’s to get it. My question is if we can have only one ability. Either rebuke or sacred shield. Because sacred shield is no longer in my action bar and it said it is a passive ability but its not available in my spellbook.
Thank you.
It has been noted on the protection Pally’s forums and blogs that IF your CS misses it WILL NOT generate a HP so if yr not Hit-capped and you miss, no HP. Just for yr info.
Add to the last, and confirmed by a blue QA.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/shadowsong/sarnandhun/simple
First, hey Khor! Thanks for all the info you put into your posts, great resource for our class.
Overall I’ve been quite happy with the latest phase of “tweaking” the Ret breed. As stated, it still feels a bit choppy and HP generation is iffy at best, however the boost to our DPS is wonderfully substantial!
Have not tried out survivability in a PvP setting yet – the lack of surplus HP may hurt a bit in the way of free heals, but we shall see.
Just finished my first Heroic of the day – Vortex Pinnacle – and was very happy with my numbers, jumping around about 12-15k on trash pulls with 19k/21k/19k respectively on bosses. (1-2kdps increase with CD’s popped, as well!)
Definitely noticing a large difference in Daily quests – especially in Tol Barad… no more need to pop a bubble/LoH when soloing Problim!
Looking forward to where Blizz takes us in the future. Happy with where we are now, just a little refinement will be grand.
@Alexandre: Sacred Shield is passive and you just need to learn it in your Talent tree. It replaces Rebuke there. As far as I know all Paladins now get to learn Rebuke from the trainer at level 54. So you don’t lose
that. Note that wowwiki has the wrong info. on SS, look at the tooltip in the ret talent tree for the real story.
I can see SS modifying how healers heal Ret Paladins as long as they are aware of the effect.
@ Farzz and Tenar– I’m guessing that may be it, I need to check to see if I am capped. I know I was but did have some gear change and will need to look at it again. I also did not realize the vanilla raid bosses were considered on level with other raid bosses. I assumed (my bad) that I even if I were capped for everything but 88’s I shouldn’t be missing on the old world guys. Thanks for the response.
well, i do a couple k’s more dmg. where i did 10k in BH before patch, i did 13k today. I don’t have full heroic gear, but I sure saw a diff.
btw: met a guy who told me ret got NERFED because of less procs, so apperently not everyone is convinced…
Other than working on rep,dungeons and upping my gear, I still feel like my dps is too low and I’m not sure what I can do about it. I’ve got CLCRet and have the FCFS rotation set up in the order given on the site and I’m still not satisfied. It seems like I still only consistently do anywhere between 5-8k dps…Is this a gearing issue that I need to work more on, or does anyone have any suggestions that may help?
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/undermine/immanis/simple
@Immanis
Yeah some wrong choices in regards to gemming and reforging.
Never gem for hit … ever, you loose out on all the goodness that we get from Strength gems
try and balance crit/haste but you shouldnt be reforging out of mastery for hit/expertise. I’d take crit/haste and reforge them for that. What you lose on crit/haste you are taking a way from our reworked mastery .. all that yummy HoL dmg bonus.
Gear is a little lacking for you atm, greens are never nice to have in ones set 🙁
Keep grinding !
Thanks Lexra!
@Cilkia
I’m pulling down 20k DPS overall on some heroic boss fights now( 24 or 25 on a few undead ones). I haven’t raided yet, but this is certainly a buff. lol. that person is ridiculous. and if they are a ret, that is terrible since they were doing it oh so wrong before.
I am certainly glad to be on par with other DPS at my gear level. Hopefully i can get into a raid or two this coming week to gauge my performance in that setting.
@Khor and anyone else: Have you reforged anything into mastery at all? I still haven’t touched anything beyond hit and expertise caps. Can’t decide if it’s worth it or not.
Just wanted to say thanks for working so hard at this site to keep us Rets on the map, up and running into our future!!! I love ret good or bad, I have always played ret with my main and I always will, weather hated in BC or loved in Wrath it doesn’t change. I like being the underdog, but what I like even more is seeing a ret that can dps the crud out of other classes, weather in pvp or on the meter in an instance. It makes THEM SWALLOW HARD.
Khor,
I am a newly minted 85! I started playing Wow for the first time last summer and I finally hit 85 last week. I have spent sometime reviewing your site and I think it is the BEST site for any ret pally hoping to succeed. Your tips have helped me immensely but now I have a real issue to ask you and anybody else willing to help.
Now that I am 85 and working on the new gear, enchants, etc, I need to really understand the new FCFS system. I get it that it is a not a true rotation, but system based based on priorities, and I am confused.
If you or anybody else would please take the time and help out a fellow paladin, I would be most thankful.
My questions/issues.
1. I do have Seal of Truth in use and I try to position myself behind a boss, etc…
2. When I first launch into an attack on a boss/trash, I quickly hit Judge as it gives me a boost to Haste I think and starts off everything.
3. Here is where I am stuck. What do I do next?
4. I am trying to follow your listed FCFS priority system but I am getting confused on using Inquisition, TV, and CS. I can tell that Holy Power is building, but then I have to look at the top left of the screen to see the buildup of holy power and the top right of the screen to see how many seconds I have left on Inquisition.
5. I then see my icons light up and then see where the Icons are actually shining and spinning. I know this is when Art of War procs but I am confused a bit on what keys to hit.
6. So what I think I am doing is going in with Judge, then hitting Hammer, TV, CS, until holy power builds up to 3, then hitting Inq, and rinse and repeat? Is this correct?
7. Now, when Art of War procs, I see several icons, Inq, TV, Ex, all really shine up and spin. Should I be hitting EX first or Inq. Because if I hit Inq, I lose TV for a bit.
I do apologize if I seem like a noob, but I really want to put in the effort to learn my toon so I can enjoy the game and raid with my guildies. So if anybody can help, I would appreciate it.
Thanks again Khor and everyone else for your great posts!
@Handera
Reforge everything you can to mastery once you are hit and expertise capped, it makes a huge difference. With 17 mastery, I have 36% extra holy damage added to my attacks. Hand of Light is now my 2nd highest damaging ability.
At ilvl 359 I am top melee damage and on some boss fights overall top damage (in 25 mans – in heroics the next closest damage done on a boss is less than half of mine – too many other classes are dependent on raid buffs IMO).
I cannot complain about randomness in our rotation anymore.
Honestly I expect the next patch to include a nerf or two.
Following the EJ advice exactly I am reforging all haste into mastery, am expertise capped, all strength gems, and TV, Exo, SoT glyphed. (I tried no SoT glyph with Exo and CS glyphs on Tuesday’s raid, it was good, but returning seems to be a bit better.)
@Super80
You need to install the CLCRet add on. It will actually show you what the most optimal next attack is.
at least in my guild i’m the god of DPS now =D
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k194/magickiller_2006/WoWScrnShot_020811_234015.jpg?t=1297436580
I must say im very happy with the patch seeing the dps increase in raids was very amazing but it will be interesting to see if it says or gets changed with future patches…
Killing Cho’Gall was amazing winning the t shoulders even better but topping the dps was the icing on the cake for me…
retri is best class now
My 2 new wishes for Rets: is another way to generate guaranteed Holy Power and make CS & DS separate cooldowns.
my guilds tanks are scared of me in heroics now because when i pop my trinket wings inquisition guardian and zalotry at the same time i have instant aggro we did a zerg run on commancer springvale and im in all heroics gear i pulled 23k dps with everything poped and blood lust
Holy Power Issue
Is anyone having issues generating Holy Power?
I usually go into a fight wit Judge and then hit with CS to start HP. At my first 3HP, I hit INQ, then have to wait to hit TV for the second 3HP to build up. Is there something I am doing wrong? Should I be hitting CS as much as possible? Because at times, CS is on a long cooldown, then I am stuck with filler attacks.
thanks Khor and everyone else who contributes to this site.
RHappy
I’m currently Prot/Holy, but after reading most of these reviews, i’m half tempted to go back to being Ret/Holy. If I can get Zin’rohk soon then i’ll definitely switch.
28K dps in a boss fight today ;D