This section has been fairly inactive for some time as far as discussions are concerned. So I figured I would post something to help keep it a bit lively. I may visit other subjects in the future in a similar fashion.
So I continue to see some people use Deathbringer's Will on their Retribution Paladins. I also see some people say that they do not know why it is or is not good. I've also seen people claim that Deathbringer's Will is "not for ret because of arp". This post will explain the situation and why using it and claiming it is bad because of armor penetration is not entirely correct.
"DBW is not for ret because of arp"
Armor penetration is not a bad stat for a Retribution Paladin. Many people have this misconception about the stat because they think that since a lot of a paladin's damage is holy, armor penetration has little effect for the paladin. While partially true, I would classify this mainly as a "myth". The truth of the matter is that while a fair amount of our damage is holy, a large amount of our damage is actually physical.
Assuming a single target, your #1 source of damage should be Seal of Corruption/Vengeance procs. Not the DOT damage, but melee damage procs that occur with each weapon swing. This damage scales directly with your weapon damage on your character sheet; not to be confused with the damage of your actual white hits.
The #2 source of damage should be fairly close behind, is your auto-attacks. Your auto-attacks should be roughly 18-20% of your damage, perhaps a little more. Obviously, auto-attacks scale with armor penetration.
Your next 3 strongest sources of damage should be Divine Storm, Judgment and Crusader Strike. Judgment does holy damage and is unaffected by armor penetration. However, both Divine Storm and Crusader Strike deal physical damage and scale with armor penetration just the same as your auto-attacks do. Each of these 3 abilities should be worth approximately 9-10% of your damage (perhaps higher for Divine Storm, depending on the proc rate of your tier set bonus).
Next up are your Consecration and Seal damage ticks. Which can be dismissed as they are also holy damage and do not scale with armor penetration. However, following these two abilities are Righteous Vengeance, which scales directly with Divine Storm, Judgment and Crusader Strike, it is obviously affected by armor penetration as two of those abilities are and Righteous Vengeance scales off them. Righteous Vengeance's damage value will vary based on your crit rating, but I believe I'm giving it a fair approximation at about 6% of your DPS.
And then last thing worth mentioning is Manifest Anger, which is the melee proc from the Tiny Abomination in a Jar trinket, which is worth 3-4% of your DPS.
Keep in mind that these numbers here are approximations and not exact values. I expect them to be approximately fair extrapolations, but they won't be perfect figures.
To sum up the values that we get;
Auto-attacks: 20%
Divine Storm: 10%
Crusader Strike: 9.5%
Righteous Vengeance: 6% / 0.66 = 4%
Manifest Anger: 3.5%
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Total: 47%
Approximately 47% (and due to approximations and extrapolations, this value can go as high as 50%, 55% or even higher sometimes) of our damage is purely physical or relies heavily on our physical damage to give it its value. The fact that a Ret gets about half the value from armor penetration that a Warrior would is generally why armor penetration is decidedly a stat not worth going for. However, it is necessary sometimes to obtain other things that a Ret would consider greatly valuable. As such, the stat is defined as "not something you would want to aim to get, but not a stat you want to avoid at all costs". For example, Shadowmourne has armor penetration, but it is still the single strongest weapon for a Retribution Paladin in the game.
"However, it is necessary sometimes to obtain other things that a Ret would consider greatly valuable." This leads into my next point.
Why Deathbringer's Will is an undesirable trinket.
Sharpened Twilight Scale is BIS, right? It has arp, so that means DBW is OK too, right? Actually, no. As explained above, armor penetration is a lesser-value stat. If that is the case, then why is STS considered BIS? To put it plainly: because of the strength of the proc. STS heroic gives 1472 attack power for 15 seconds with a 45 second internal cooldown. This means the trinket will have a 33% up-time in an optimal situation, thus granting the equivalent of approximately 461 attack power consistently.
Deathbringer's Will has a 30sec duration when it procs, but it also has 115sec internal cooldown. This mean that it has a duration twice as long as STS, but it has 2.5 times longer the internal cooldown, thus giving it an approximate 26% up-time in an optimal situation. This means that the 700 strength (1750 attack power with Divine Strength and Blessing of Kings factored in) you get from heroic DBW equates to roughly 350 attack power consistently. The crit and haste values are obviously worth less to a Ret than the strength proc is. This shows just how inferior DBW is to STS.
But what about comparing it to Death's Choice heroic? Just like STS, Death's Choice's proc is a 15sec duration proc with an internal cooldown of 45sec. This means, using the same equation as the previous two trinkets, Death's Choice heroic proc of 510 strength provides approximately 425 consistent attack power. As you can see, this too is higher than DBW. This isn't even factoring in the 288 static attack power stat on Death's Choice heroic VS. the static 167 armor penetration on DBW heroic. Given the explanation on armor penetration above, one should be able to extrapolate that the static stat on DBW is about the same as Death's Choice heroic if we assume that 1 ARP = 1 STR based on itemization via blizzard and that ARP affects about half our damage.
But what about comparing it to worse trinkets? Herkuml War Token, for example, provides a consistent 340 attack power, which puts the proc efficiency at 10 consistent attack power less than heroic DBW. Now just let that bit sink in. Herkuml War Token is undeniably one of the worst trinkets for a Ret from the raid, especially if you consider in the welfare factor of the fact that it comes from a vendor. It should also be noted that haste is quite a bit better stat for a Ret Paladin (especially if you're wielding Shadowmourne; haste = more procs). Herkuml War Token has 153 haste on it, whereas DBW heroic has 167 armor penetration. This means that haste only has to be 9.2% better than the armor penetration stat for Herkuml's haste to overcome DBW's armor penetration. This is more than true, haste exceeds this level, even to a point where it may make up for the loss of the 10 attack power (perhaps debateable). This means that DBW heroic is arguably the worst trinket in all of ICC for a Ret Paladin.
As I said a short while ago, just let that sink in.
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Member
I will now talk about DBW & Rets
Edited: August 1, 2016 Reason: grammar, punctuation, gud stuffz
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Banned
DBW in 2016 EleGiggle
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Banned
dbw is on a 30/105 icd, not 30/115
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Banned
The difference that you're pointing out is completely irrelevant to the final point since the outcome will always be the same.
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Banned
I kek`d
a 30/120 dbw would actually make a decent ret trinket because it would sync with AW, so it is fairly relevant
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Member
I'd also like to add that in addition to what I've already posted, what I stated was based on the assumption that you would get the strength proc 100% of the time. Which, realistically, you will only get the strength proc about 33% of the time. As stated in the OP, the crit and haste procs that you can get from the trinket are obviously inferior to the strength proc for DPS. On a 1:1 ratio of strenth vs. any other damage stat, strength always wins. It is by far and above the most efficient stat for the spec, and it is the main reason why trinkets such as Darkmoon Card: Greatness and Death's Choice are such highly regarded trinkets for the spec.
Point blank, the consistency of the trinket is unreliable and volatile.
I stand corrected then.
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Banned
Considering you still wouldn't use the trinket since you would need to pray for the right proc to pop I guess you would be licking a window while using it then. You know, somewhere out there in the wild, there's a tree giving all she has to produce oxygen for you to breathe. Now go tell her that you're sorry for wasting such an effort.
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Member
Cosindering that Sela didn't actually say anything wrong I've no idea why you gotta be so stuck up. She didn't say you'd use it, but that it would be decent since it can sync. There's a tree giving oxygen to you as well, yet you can only use that oxygen in giving.. um.. nothing useful to this discussion?
Edit: IF only DBW could have an ICD of 45 and give the same procs. Rip 1:45 icds.
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Banned
Considering that I did state that in the end you would still use STS over DBW (as comparisons) what's the relevance of stating that there's a difference of 10 seconds when your final choice will be the same even with that change in the equation? I assume that people have the need of pointing that out in order to try to look smart however what concerns me as a player it's the final result and the result for this simple equation will STILL BE THE SAME and that's my point all along. About the tree giving oxygen, don't worry: Every year I do a donation to save trees and plant trees in a region here in Portugal so all those trees and respective oxygen that they produce belong to me.
Wait, he's a she? Don't confuse me with those traps.Edited: August 1, 2016
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Member
A 115 cd would actually make a noticable difference.
AW: 0; 120: 240; 360; 480
DBW (105): 0; 105; 210; 315; 420
DBW (115): 0; 115; 230; 345; 460
DBW + AW sync:
In the case of a 105 CD, there's a sync of 15 secs on the 2nd proc since AW has a duration of 20 and DBW of 30, 0 on the 3rd one; 0 on 4th; 0 on the 5th.
In the case of a 115 CD, there's a sync of 20 secs on the 2nd with 5 seconds remaining on DBW's duration after AW runs out, 20 on the 3rd, 15 on the 4th; 10 on the 5th.
(1)It is assumed that the proc is proced on CD and there's no human error in play. Also "0" is the first proc and /use of wings. As you can see there's actually a very noticable difference between the two ICDs. Of course this won't magically make DBW a more desirable trinket. It's still less valuable than STS/dv/any icc dps trink, but for the sake of accuracy, it's important to note that the ICD is indeed 105, not 115.
(2)As for my previous post, what I meant is that you're unnecessarily rude against Sela for no real reason since her statement isn't irrelevant/incorrect. Had DBW been a trinket with a 2 minute CD, it would actually be better than it is now, which is quite ironic.
Edit: @ (1) Let's not forget that most fights on Icecrown don't even last more than 2-3 minutes.Edited: August 1, 2016
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Member
That's great and all guys, but I'm getting the feeling that you're all missing the point.
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Member
@Lynea You really believed somebody would argue against that stone cold logic? Where the best argument to be had(it seems) is the relevance of the internal cd. Don't you think people continue to argue for DBW so that they can be badass axe swinging tauren for 30 sec. Maybe you should cover topics that are more out there.
Edited: August 1, 2016
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I wasn't looking for arguments. I was just putting the information out there in hopes people would wisen up.
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Member
So what you are saying is, I should be using DBW, right?
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Member
You're still assuming you get to be a badass axe swinging tauren with every proc. I fail to see how the argument of the unreliability of the proc rate for strength (considering strength > agility) is not stone cold logic. You are correct however, the internal cd is irelevant. Not sure why people keep failing to understand this point since I didn't see the tauren proc rate accounted for in the math provided by Rifokelt.
Edit: I suppose in the end it could also be argued that people have their personal preferences. Maybe they don't mind not getting the proc 100% of the time. To each their own, people should at least be aware how their faith in RNG might impact their damage.Edited: August 2, 2016
