WotLK [Guide] Retribution PvE 3.3.5a

[Gnimo]

If i wer u i would probably go for eather RS 25m hc Neck or RS 25m hc Trinket (Penumbra or Sharpened).

Gloren is better for DPS if u ask me when it comes to Ret on Icecrown (the server).
It gives u insane amount of stats and u can cap expertise without going for those extra Gems and Glyph.
Yes u lose armor penetration in the process but that wont matter anyway... U have more than enough crit from those 4 agility items so u dont need more.
Even if the DPS diference was only 160 as ppl said, it wont matter since RNG ussualy decides who does more DPS when u are BIS.

If u play PvP and u dont have Wrathfull Shoulders i would suggest going for that since its aids to farm.

If u play PvE only just think about which item u would need to farm the most (or spend most DKP on it, or idk what u use for items in ur guild runs). The less u see a sertain item drop, the better to spend coins on it.
If u farm RS on weekly notice i guess u should get Oath, if both Halion and LK are hard kills for u just get Penumbra or Sharpened if u ask me.

I would advise going Strength Ashen ring and Winding Sheets if u decide to get Oathbringer anyway...

[Danwithaplan]

Can anyone or has anyone made a bug report about Judgements resisting. Was doing Jaraxxus 10 HC and literally went oom because I had several Judgements fully resist. Judgement is not supposed to be fully resistable, only partially resisted. http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/p...+%22Vanazir%22 Here is a source. A Ret Paladin from Retail in ICC 25 HC. There are 0 fully resisted Judgements in his damage timeline.

[Gnimo]

The Damage itself is NOT getting resisted fully.
What does get resisted is the DEBUFF u put on the boss after u cast the sertain Judgment.
The debuff, aka: Chance on hit to restore some Mana / Health / preventing target from Fleeing and Limiting their movement speed.

But the mana lost is there and its aids yes...

U can check this aswell by looking at ur Judgment damage. If there is no resist, than its not getting fully resisted.
I didnt check this in the past couple of days so if ur recount / skada shows a fully Resisted Judgment than the bug is even worse than before.
But from what i know its only the effect that is getting resisted. Make sure u put that in the bug report tho so it doesnt gets dismissed. :D

[Zecht]

So guys, yay or nay on chaosbane removal? I found the addon here. If yes, should I always have it enabled or?

[Gankmaniac]

I have cancelaura bound to my divine storm in order to try and utilize chaos bane during judgements, been working the best for me so far.

Haven't tried that addon tho.

[Zecht]

The addon automatically removes chaos bane as soon as its up. How much does it affect dps when you don't cancel chaos bane?

[Gankmaniac]

It is a clear noticeable dps incraese with resetting it and after doing some tests i'd say it's around 5-7% more dps which is an awful lot. I could be fooled by my RNG tho and would probably wait for the word of the test geniuses of this thread.

[Mercy]

It is a clear noticeable dps incraese with resetting it and after doing some tests i'd say it's around 5-7% more dps which is an awful lot. I could be fooled by my RNG tho and would probably wait for the word of the test geniuses of this thread.

It is a dps gain.

[Zecht]

I have cancelaura bound to my divine storm in order to try and utilize chaos bane during judgements

Is this for real? I've asked my friend and he just macros it to everything so you can get as much stacks asap to get more explosions.

[Gankmaniac]

Is this for real? I've asked my friend and he just macros it to everything so you can get as much stacks asap to get more explosions.

Can't prove it mathematically it would be a question wether chaos bane would do more damage than a judgement with 270+ str bonus and I don't hold on to chaos bane for more than max 2 sec really if Judgement is about to refresh and DS is on cd

just my current prefrence i'm not a genius or pro

[Gnimo]

On IF dummy, DMG diference btwn Judgment with Chaos Bane and with 0 Soul Fragments is 700 dmg (8k without, 8.7k with Chaos Bane up).
DMG of Chaos Bane is 2300 - 3300 for me atleast...
I think u should just cancel it as soon as u get it. Its more of a DPS lost if u wait cos u are delaying that 2-3k extra DMG since there is a high chance to proc 2+ Soul Fragments after using Judgment, especialy if a Melee hit occurs within those 2 sec.

[Zecht]

Thanks for the replies @gank @mercy @gnimo.

[Danwithaplan]

For Chaos Bane removal, http://www.wowinterface.com/download...neRemover.html download this addon. Automatically removes the debuff. It's slightly faster than macroing it to your abilities and removing it manually. And yes it is a DPS gain over keeping the buff. If you're not convinced I can find the link that shows the math on it.

[Valimus]

Instead of using a binding with your abilities to cancel Chaos Bane you can use an addon called Freeme. It's light with no UI. Once you install it you type /Freeme 73422 and it will cancel Chaos Bane immediately.

Addon Download:
http://www.wowace.com/addons/free-me/files/?sort=type

[Valimus]

Here is some test data for BIS Ret Paladin DPS with and without a cancel aura addon to remove Chaos Bane as soon as it procs. Bottom line, it is a 2% to 3% DPS net gain to cancel Chaos Bane immediately and start collecting fragments all over again. This is due to 2 reasons:

1. How quickly we accumulate fragments as Ret Paladins. I averaged 1.5 fragments/second in my test and this is without any raid buffs. That results in a Chaos Bane proc every 6.7 seconds for approximately 2750 damage. This means that our average strength buff over the course of the fight doesn't take a huge hit when we cancel Chaos Bane and start over. You can see this in the tables below; without cancelling Chaos Bane my average strength buff was 222 and when cancelled my average strength buff was 148.
   
   Looking at retail DPS logs, I see 1.9 fragments/second but that paladin was raid buffed. It is still incredibly fast for us.
   
   
2. While under the effect of Chaos Bane we cannot collect any fragments. So while the strength buff is held constant at 270 for 10 seconds we would have missed out on at least one more shadow explosion during those 10 seconds.
   

I came up with the numbers above using two methods; One was with testing on a HC dummy in IF for 2.5 minutes using Recount. The other method tries to explain that DPS gain using math. The two numbers are very comparable; cancelling Chaos Bane is a 2% to 3% DPS gain or approximately a 180 DPS gain.

DPS Variance Estimate – Test Data

• Target: Heroic Dummy in IF
  
• Duration: 151 seconds using SoV (open with Wings and pop wings again when off cooldown)
  
• FCFS Priority: Judgement, Divine Storm, Crusader Strike, Consecration
  
• Number of Shadow Bane Procs: 22 when cancelled and 9 when Shadow Bane was kept for 10 seconds
  
• DPS Variance: Testing shows cancelling the buff to be a 224 DPS increase or 3%

You may wonder looking at the above chart why melee DPS was not obviously higher when Chaos Bane was kept since average strength buff was higher. The answer is, it actually is higher but RNG on such a small sample size can be very deceiving. I had about 50 melee swings on every test; the average melee hit when I kept the buff was 2900 but it was only 2810 when I cancelled it. As expected it is a modest gain and all it takes is a few extra lucky crits to overshadow the difference. The main thing I wanted to show with the chart is the big jump in Chaos Bane shadow damage. That part is a lot more reliable.

And for the reason above, I would say the DPS gain is closer to 2% as per the math below.

DPS Variance Estimate - Calculated

• Assumed 1.5 fragments/second which was confirmed by testing
  
• When Shadow Bane was kept for 10 seconds the average strength gain throughout the fight was 222
  
• When Shadow Bane was cancelled using FreeMe the average strength gain was 148
  
• The table below shows how I came up with these averages
  
• DPS Variance: Calculation shows cancelling the buff to be a 141 DPS increase or 2.1%

Math Example:

At the end of the first 2 seconds I expect to have 3 fragments. That translates to average of 60 strength for the first 2 seconds; 30 strength at the end of second #1 and 90 strength at the end of second #2.

At second #7 I expect to have 10 fragments at which point I could keep a 270 strength buff for 10 seconds or cancel right away and start over.

If I keep the buff then my strength gain for the next 10 seconds is 270 of course. If I cancel as soon as I get the explosion then I am assuming that my average strength the second of the explosion is 135; 270 for the first 0.5 seconds and then 0 for the last 0.5 seconds then I start back up with 30 strength in the next second and so on.

Per RAWR and the 3.3 Ret Paladin DPS Spreadsheet an increase of 1 in strength results in a DPS increase of about 1.5 which sounds reasonable, that works out to 1% Strength gain to 0.65% DPS gain which also makes sense.

So the extra 74 in average strength I gain by keeping the buff yields an extra 111 DPS but when Chaos Bane is cancelled I can get an extra 5 explosions/minute which would be closer to a 230 DPS gain.

The net gain favors cancelling the buff and testing data supports that theory. Faster fragment generation during raids would make the DPS gain even more significant when cancelling the buff.

Gear screenshot. I can post the complete tables if anyone would like to look at them.




My favorite way of cancelling Chaos Bane is using a lightweight addon called Freeme. Once you install it you type /Freeme 73422 and it will cancel Chaos Bane immediately. It can be easily turned off with the command /Freeme off.

Addon Download:
http://www.wowace.com/addons/free-me/files/?sort=type