WotLK Spell rotation as a ret

[LeBright]

Hi everyone !

So first, I know there already are a few guides for the retribution paladin in 3.3.5 patch, but most of them are meant for ICC geared players. I am playing on Lordearon with a GS of 4500+, and I couldn't find any accurate guide for Ulduar HC/TOC raiding.

My dps seems a little bit low for my gear (you can find all informations about my char right here, feel free to tell me if you think there are things to change on my optimization even though it should be fine (hit and expertise capped, prioritizing strength then crit, haste and arpen when I can't find anything else).

My main concern is my priority order : I've really struggled finding my current one (for single-target dps, and of course using SOV), and I'm stil not sure it's the right one :
Judgement > Hammer of Wrath if available > Exorcism > Divine Storm > Crusader Strike > Consecration

Why ?
- Judgement is mana (need that to keep spamming spells) + insane damages once SOV is fully stacked
- Hammer deals absurd damages (the 10k+ crits are real)
- Exorcism is currently (with my lame weapon, trust me I'm trying to change that) my highest damage ability, causing almost 5k on hit
- Divine Storm comes next, dealing around 3k plus the effect of 5-stacks SOV
- Crusader Strikes, dealing around 2k5 + SOV bonus damages without crit
- Consecration ticks for around 1K atm (a little bit less), so I need at least 3 ticks for this to be more interesting than CS. Hypothetically (that one was tough to write), if I had to decide between one CS and Consecration and I knew I'd have to use Judgement+Hammer+Exorcism in the next few seconds, Consecration would be the right choice, but that almost never happens.

I always try to get the most of my Avenging Wrath (use during Heroism, or at least one of my two trinkets proc), with a potion of speed when needed. All of this brings me slightly under 4k with self-buffs on Heroic Dummy, and something like 5k5 in best case scenarios on bosses like the Beasts or Jaraxxus. That puts me on the bottom of the recount, and I can't help but feeling that I could do more : I know I won't reach top 5 (since I bring a lot of utility), but something around 10th place, or at least a steady 6k dps would seem more appropriate.

Really eager to hear what you guys have to say about that, thanks for reading !

[Bensten]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...on-Paladin-FAQ

^This guide contains a rotation breakdown for T9 gear levels.

[LeBright]

Very interesting guide, thanks !

[Bensten]

Very interesting guide, thanks !

You may wanna double check some of the information as this guide was written for retail and mechanics definitely will differ in some ways on warmane. Just take it as a starting point for some more research.

[Danwithaplan]

First off, the rotation should be Judgement > Hammer of Wrath (When 20% or lower) > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm > Consecration > Exorcism for single target rotation for the current content. The reasoning behind it is because Judgement is obviously your hardest hitting ability and it sustains your mana, Hammer of Wrath hits 2x-3x harder than Crusader Strike on a 6-second cooldown, Crusader strike is something that you should always prioritize over Consecration and Exorcism because it's a 4 second cooldown that average 2-3k damage and will really show a difference in your damage done the more globals of it you get off. Divine storm is behind crusader strike in single target because it's a 10-second cooldown and only hits slightly harder than Crusader Strike (in a scenario where there is 2+ target for an extended period of time, Divine Storm gets priority over Crusader Strike). Now the reason why Consecration is placed before Exorcism is because it's less RNG reliant and a consistent form of dmg (esp in 2+ target situations) because if you crit with exorcism it will usually crit about 4-5k and if you miss with it you essentially wasted a global (unless everything else is on global which it should be if you're using exorcism). Now the reason Consecration is better is because it ticks for 700-1.1k(with procs) consistently and you just put it down and it goes so it will round out to about the same/more damage as exorcism but if you miss 1 tick of consecration it's pretty irrelevant and therefore more consistent. Obviously, there are situations where Exorcism will be better than Consecration such as: knowing the boss is going to be moved soon or is moved frequently so you're not wasting the global on Consecration just to have it sit elsewhere and do no damage for you. The best glyphs to use with these ideology are 10 Second Consecration, Vengeance, and Judgement. As for Heroism, it is ideal to pop Avenging wrath during Heroism only if you know you will only be able to get off the one Avenging Wrath off from the rest of the fight or if you are delaying it by a couple of seconds just to line up with Heroism. For example, on XT HM in Ulduar, if there is 5 minutes left until beserk, and I know we usually pop Heroism around 2 mins until berserk, it is better to use your Avenging wrath at 5 mins, and then save it at around 3 mins with Heroism rather than just popping it because it's off cooldown because that'll usually be the last Avenging Wrath you get off since we usually kill the boss with about 1-2 mins left until berserk. It's a lot of situational awareness and practice in order to increase your damage done in small ways, but the more small ways you find the bigger the combined result will be. I did about 9.3k DPS on Jaraxxus on Wednesday 28-09 with maintaining 5 stacks of Seal of Vengeance on boss and swapping to Seal of Command for AOE on infernals and I usually averaged about 6-8k DPS in Ulduar depending on which encounter it was. I'm Danwithaplan, a Retribution Paladin from Archetype (the top guild on Alliance atm) and I've played paladin for well over 8+ years and I've done a lot of testing and experimenting with Retribution Paladin to really try to push my DPS to my classes limit. I have my World of Logs here ( http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/347463/ ) if you would like to check it out for certain fights (however I did do a bit of tanking of Ulduar so make sure you're checking specific fights and not overall Ulduar run damage). Another tip would be to make sure you have strong professions such as JC + BS or JC + Engineering or even JC + Tailoring to add several hundred DPS to your meters. That's about all I can think of right off the bat at the moment as I just wrote this hastily so if you have any other specific or general questions go ahead and ask and I'll try my best to answer them :). And here is my Armory to see my current gear set up http://armory.warmane.com/character/...daeron/profile .

[LeBright]

@Bensten Of course, I'll need to check a few things (like the whole righteous vengeance part and the stat weightings) but it definetely helped me.

Edit : thanks for the big answer Danwithaplan, I'll check your logs. Changed my Exorcism glyph for Consecration one, I'll just practice and try that rotation out as soon as possible !

Currently JC and BS with 3 dragon eyes + the gloves/wrists sockets, why would you roll Engineering (I can see the utility and few bursts tools, but are they worth ?) or Tailoring (no clue on this one !) ? And would you recommand me first getting the 245 libram or keeping my emblems for incoming 2p t9 ?

Do you mind me contacting you ingame in case of further questions ?

[Danwithaplan]

@Bensten Of course, I'll need to check a few things (like the whole righteous vengeance part and the stat weightings) but it definetely helped me.

Edit : thanks for the big answer Danwithaplan, I'll check your logs. Changed my Exorcism glyph for Consecration one, I'll just practice and try that rotation out as soon as possible !

Currently JC and BS with 3 dragon eyes + the gloves/wrists sockets, why would you roll Engineering (I can see the utility and few bursts tools, but are they worth ?) or Tailoring (no clue on this one !) ? And would you recommand me first getting the 245 libram or keeping my emblems for incoming 2p t9 ?

Do you mind me contacting you ingame in case of further questions ?

Well JC is the 1st best Profession to have, and BS and Tailoring are basically the same amount of DPS increase (I think BS is like 9 more DPS with t9 2-set with is pretty irrelevant but it is still there). As for Engineering, I took engineering because Nitro Boosts make you get to bosses faster like Icehowl after his Crash or allows you to perform raid mechanics faster like Burning Bile on Paralytic Poison on twin Jormungars which means if you get to a boss 2-3 seconds faster then someone else you're going to do more damage to them. Also at 350 Engineering you can use Saronite bombs on a 1 min CD which do about 2k dmg per target hit so on fights like Jaraxxus and Gormok, hitting multiple targets with it is a pretty decent slight dps increase. So, Overall it is a bit better than if I were to take BS or Tailoring but only for people who really want to min-max and try hard their DPS like me xD. Also, the 245 Libram is the 1st thing you should buy because it's a solid 200+ DPS increase right off the bat while going from T8 4-Set to T9 2-Set is about 100~ DPS increase.

[LeBright]

So for those wondering, I've gained like 1k dps on yesterday's Ulduar, and I still haven't changed any item. Will keep following Danwithaplan's advices, thanks :D