It’s been quite a while since my last Drunken Retnoob blog post.  To get back into the swing of things, I think I’ll copy the format of my previous Captain Heroic’s Guide to Gearing Up a Ret Paladin, and update it for a Cataclysm version.  At this point, we’re all Captain Heroics, relying on 5 man gear and reputation rewards for our entry level raid gear.

The challenge: Build a Ret DPS set using gear from Justice and Honor points, 5 man instances, and reasonably priced BOE pieces, which would enable a skilled player to jump straight into normal mode 10 or 25 man raids and contribute solid enough DPS to earn their raid spot.

Before we start, the Disclaimer! As always, the set I list will only be one of many possible ways that someone could gear up a new Ret Paladin.  For each gear slot I’ll list some other possibilities that could be better to use, based on whether they are realistic for you to acquire.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot of accurate simulation resources out there (like Rawr in the past), so your best bet is to eyeball the stat weights and approximate the best you can.

A note about Stat Weights and Reforging! I tend to favor Exemplar’s stat weights over Redcape’s, since he’s from the same server and I’ve actually talked with him about his results on occasion.  For reference, his approximated stat weights are:

• Strength = 1
• Attack Power = 0.45
• Hit rating = 0.27
• Expertise rating = 0.18
• Crit rating = 0.12
• Haste rating = 0.11
• Mastery rating = 0.06

To simplify things when evaluating gear (and searching on wowhead), I approximate these weights as Strength = 100, Hit = Expertise = Crit = Haste = 15, Mastery = 6.  Why do I put Hit and Expertise the same as Crit/Haste?  The answer is reforging.  Gearing up for Ret is rather simple at this point since Crit and Haste have nearly identical stat weights, and Hit/Expertise can be reforged into Crit/Haste (if you have excess) or from Crit/Haste (if you are below the cap).  So in practice, all stat ratings have nearly identical value, other than Mastery which is near useless (but may be getting buffed, we shall see).

To PVP or not to PVP?  That is the First Question! As you probably noticed from the stat weights above, Strength is far and away our best stat and nothing else comes remotely close.  This means that using 4 pieces of PVP gear will almost certainly be your pre-raid Best in Slot, since A) slightly higher ilvl means slightly higher strength, B) wasting your second rating stat as Resilience doesn’t hurt all that much, and most importantly C) the combined set bonuses of 250 strength simply cannot be beaten by actual PVE gear.  So my advice would definitely be to farm yourself 4 pieces of Bloodthirsty Gladiator’s Scaled gear, enjoy the easy BIS PVE gear while it lasts.  However, since I know that not everyone out there will want to do pug battlegrounds to farm honor, I’ll also include the best set from actual PVE gear as well.

Helmet

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Stonemason’s Helm (Deadmines), socketed with 20 str/hit and Destructive Shadowspirit Diamond.

Other options:

• Obviously use the Engineering goggles if you have this profession.
• The Justice Points tanking helmet, Helm of the Proud, is a surprisingly excellent DPS helmet due to its overly high strength for an ilvl 346 blue.
• If you have a really good epic item at one of the other 5 main armor slots (like say a Corefire Leggings), then I would recommend using the PVP helmet to attain the 4 piece bonus.  However, all other things equal, the helmet slot is generally the place to avoid the PVP item since it has mastery.

Necklace

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Gift of Nadun (exalted with Ramkahen faction)

Other options:

• Buc-Zakai Choker is nearly as good, but will sell for several thousand gold so I would strongly recommend just farming Ramkahen rep instead of buying this (or instead of equipping this if you get lucky and it drops)
• Pendant of Quiet Breath (Justice Points) and Seedling Pod (Halls of Origination) are well itemized ilvl 346 necklaces that you can use in the meantime while farming Ramkahen rep.

Shoulders

Captain Heroic’s choice: Bloodthirsty Gladiator Scaled Shoulders (1650 Honor Points)

Other options:

• Pauldrons of the High Requiem (Justice Points) are the best non-PVP choice.

Cloaks

Captain Heroic’s choice: Shadow of the Past (Deadmines)

Other options:

• Drape of Inimitable Fate (BOE rare drop) is well worth the gold if you can get a decent deal on the AH. It will last you until Heroic Ascendant Council if you get your hands on one.
• Wrap of the Great Turtle (Guardians of Hyjal exalted) is technically slightly better than Shadow of the Past, after reforging the dodge rating to a DPS stat.
• Geordan’s Cloak (Lost City of Tol’vir) is almost exactly the same as Shadow of the Past, but it does have 6 less total stats due to diminishing returns on the Crit rating.

Chest

Captain Heroic’s choice: Bloodthirsty Gladiator Scaled Chestpiece (2200 Honor Points)

Other options:

• Breastplate of Raging Fury (Justice Points) is your best bet for non-PVP gear
• I would not recommend the Hardened Elementium Hauberk (BOE crafted) unless you really have lots of money and want to increase your average ilvl quickly in order to queue for heroics. It is slightly worse than the Justice Points chest above.

Bracers

Captain Heroic’s choice: Alpha Bracers (Halls of Origination)

Other options:

• Terborus’ Rotating Bands (BOE rare drop) are slightly better than the above, but are hard to come by. If you can snag them for under 1k gold on the AH, I would advise it if you can afford it
• Bracers of Cooled Anger (Blackrock Caverns) are another option, although worse than the two bracers above (the missing socket on these is more of a dps loss than the Mastery stat on the Alpha/Terborus bracers)

Gloves

Captain Heroic’s choice: Bloodthirsty Gladiator Scaled Gauntlets (1650 Honor Points)

Other options:

• Hematite Plate Gloves (Stonecore) and Gryphon Talon Gauntlets (Wildhammer or Dragonmaw revered reputation) are basically tied as the top non-PVP option. However, I would strongly recommend getting the PVP gloves even if you only use one PVP piece. The +5% Crusader Strike bonus is not included in itemization costs so the PVP gloves are best in slot on their own merit even without a 2 piece or 4 piece bonus.

Belt

Captain Heroic’s choice: Belt of the Ferocious Wolf (Guardians of Hyjal exalted)

Other options:

• Elementium Girdle of Pain (BOE crafted) is nearly as good and fairly cheap to make. I made this belt so I could focus on Ramkahen and Wildhammer reputations first, but ultimately you would actually replace it with the Hyjal exalted belt when possible.

Leggings

Captain Heroic’s choice: Bloodthirsty Gladiator’s Scaled Legguards (2200 Honor points)

Other options:

• Greaves of Gallantry (Justice Points) are the best readily available non-PVP item
• Corefire Leggings (BOE rare drop) are obviously the best leggings available pre-raid, but they are extremely expensive. If you did manage to get your hands on these, I would recommend using the PVP helmet for the 4 piece bonus and using these.

Boots

Captain Heroic’s choice: Gryphon Rider’s Boots (Wildhammer/Dragonmaw exalted reputation), with dodge rating reforged to a DPS stat

Other options:

• Woe Breeder’s Boots (BOE from Valor Points) are the best DPS boots before ilvl 372 heroic items, and will likely become the recommended item once people have farmed more Valor Points and are selling the BOE boots are semi-reasonable prices.
• Waywatcher’s Boots (Guardians of Hyjal revered reputation) are great to use in the meantime if you farm Hyjal reputation before Wildhammer, on your way to the belt at exalted. But make no mistake, the Wildhammer tanking boots are actually significantly better for DPS than these.

Rings

Captain Heroic’s choices: Gorsik’s Band of Shattering (Therazane revered reputation) plus Pick One of the following:

Other options:

• Blauvelt’s Family Crest (BOE rare drop) is very expensive and not itemized very well, but it’s still a top 2 ring until heroic modes
• Circle of Bone (Grim Batol) and Nova Band (Halls of Origination) are effectively identical items after taking reforging into account
• Skyshard Ring (Vortex Pinnacle) is ever so slightly worse than the two rings above, but almost the same

Trinkets

Captain Heroic’s choices: Mark of Khadros (Grim Batol) plus any one of the following, take your pick:

• Might of the Ocean (Throne of Tides)
• Right Eye of Rajh (Halls of Origination)
• Magnetite Mirror (Stonecore)
• Heart of Solace (Lost City of Tol’vir)

Other options:

• Impatience of Youth (Baradin’s Wardens) is currently slightly worse than the above trinkets, but it will almost certainly become best in slot if Blizzard buffs Mastery for Ret)
• License to Slay (Valor Points) is easily the best trinket available pre-raid, and a viable choice for your first Valor Points purchase. I will likely buy this trinket as soon as I can, and get Tier gear later – but this comes down to personal preference.

Libram

Captain Heroic’s choices: Conch of Thundering Waves (Throne of Tides)

Other options:

• Relic of Aggramar (700 Valor Points) is actually a decent choice for your first Valor Points purchase since it will not be replaced until next raiding tier, and 700 points is rather cheap.
• Vicious Gladiator’s Relic of Conquest (700 Conquest Points) is only slightly worse than the Valor Points relic above, and is obtainable after only 2 rated BG wins.
• Notched Jawbone (BOE crafted) and Record of Brotherhood’s End Deadmines) are the best remaining options for relic slots, but neither is particularly good compared to anything above.

Main Hand Weapon

Captain Heroic’s choice: Last, but certainly not least, I’ll go with Blade of the Fearless (revered reputation and 85 tokens with Baradin’s Wardens) in the all important weapon slot. This is a fairly easy weapon for anyone to grind using daily quests (the limiting factor is actually the 85 tokens, not the revered reputation)

Other options:

• Zin’rokh, Destroyer of Worlds (Archaeology) will last you until heroic mode raids if you win the 1 in a million Archaeology lottery
• Vicious Gladiator’s Bonegrinder (or similar sword or axe from Conquest Points) are the best pre-raid weapons barring insane luck on the Zin’rokh. I would certainly recommend these if you have Conquest points to spend, but realize that they would be replaced by any PVE 359 ilvl weapon (potentially including the one dropped off the relatively easy boss Magmaw), unless you
• Foe Reaper (Deadmines) is slightly worse than the Tol Barad sword only due to the faster weapon speed.
• Whitefin Axe (Throne of the Tides), Arced War Axe (Shadowfang Keep), Sword of the Bottomless Pit (Stonecore), and Wild Hammer (Grim Batol) round out the remaining available options for pre-raid weapons, in that order.

The Results

If my addition is right, this set would end up with 712 hit rating (so 250 short of the 962 hit rating cap) and with 340 expertise rating (so 141 short of the 481 expertise rating cap). This may sound like a lot, but this is no problem at all now that reforging exists. Now the mini-game begins to figure out the most efficient way to reforge stats to come as close as possible to the hit and expertise caps!

A recurring theme on WoW forums that I’ve seen since the days of Molten Core, is uninformed raiders complaining about Damage Meter mods and how they hurt the raid.  The truth is that damage meters are a tool, much like a hammer.  When used properly, a hammer can help you build some very cool stuff that you never could’ve built with your bare hands.  Or when used irresponsibly, a hammer can smash your thumbs or poke your eye out.

The most popular damage meter addon is probably Recount.  Another option which I’m told is much less CPU intensive is Skada.  I would consider it essential to run one of these mods (or something similar) while raiding, but this is especially true if you have any hand in the raid leadership, or even if you just want to be able to discuss fight strategies and analyze what happened on the previous attempt without accidentally making a fool of yourself.  However, you will learn very little from simply looking at, say, the Damage Done meter, without analyzing the context in which those numbers were obtained.  The true usefulness of these addons is dependent on digging a little deeper than what you immediately see on the surface.  Here I’ll discuss some examples of how I use Recount for the first 7 bosses in Icecrown Citadel (i.e. Storming the Citadel and Plagueworks sections), emphasizing only DPS classes and ignoring Tanks/Healers.

Lord Marrowgar

- Marrowgar is a pretty straightforward fight, and is a decent boss for judging the strength of each DPS player based on the Damage Done meter.  However, the one extra detail you must examine a little closer is Damage Done to Bone Spikes.  Anyone who has very little damage done to Bone Spikes (or no damage whatsoever) is not pulling their weight in the raid, regardless of how much DPS they did to Marrowgar.  However, the cutoff for “very little damage” will depend on many factors.  For example, if you position your raid right behind Marrowgar then melee should have much more Bone Spike damage than casters – but if you spread out all over the room then melee/casters should all be contributing evenly to Bone Spike damage.  Also, if this fight is farm content and the spikes are blowing up in under 5 seconds then it’s acceptable for casters to not help with Bone Spikes, but if this fight is still challenging or if spikes are staying up for 10+ seconds, then you should really consider sitting any DPS out who are not pulling their weight on the spikes.

- As far as analyzing failures on this fight, Recount isn’t all that necessary since basically anything you die to on this fight as a DPS is your own fault (with the exception of dying to a 10+ second Bone Spike, but this would be so obvious that you shouldn’t need to analyze the Death meter to notice it)

Lady Deathwhisper

- Lady Deathwhisper is one of the few cases where the “Damage Meters are useless!” crowd would actually have a good point.  Anyone DPSing the boss in Phase 1 will have much higher DPS, even though P1 boss damage is probably the least important aspect of the fight.  So the total Damage Done is pretty meaningless unless you are only comparing two people who had the exact same job in phase 1.  Even comparing just the Damage Done to Cult Fanatics/Adherants isn’t necessarily useful, except for spotting people who are  ignoring their particular assignment.  Probably the only way to get any relevant information about DPS players’ performance on this fight is to reset the meter for Phase 2 only, but even then you need to also check the Interrupt meter and realize that people handling the frostbolt interrupts will be lower on the Damage Done meter thru no fault of their own.

- Other uses of Recount on this fight include a) the Dispels meter to find out which people are not decursing, and slap them on the noggin, b) Interrupts meter in Phase 2, or c) Death meter to analyze why people died (there are many possible sources of death on this fight which are completely not your fault – but if you died to Death and Decay, a Vengeful Blast from the Ghosts, or an aggro pull on the boss, then these are your own fault)

Gunship Battle

- I don’t really care what you do on this fight as long as you don’t go AFK inside the cabin where you still take damage but can’t get healed (lookin at you, Asgeroth!).  Analyzing Recount on this fight would be like analyzing the Chess Event in Karazhan, no one cares.

Deathbringer Saurfang

- Saurfang is an excellent fight for judging DPS players’ performance.  Melee classes can be judged strictly by the Damage Done meter on this fight.  For Ranged classes (including Hunters plus the Caster DPS), the relevant metric for judging their performance is mostly the Damage Done to Blood Beasts.  If you really needed to judge the strength of a particular Ranged DPS player (like say an applicant on a farm content trial run), you might consider instructing them to ignore Blood Beasts and only nuke the boss, so that you can compare apples to apples when you review the logs later.

- One of the main causes of wipes on this fight is if melee DPS or the tanks get aggro on Blood Beasts and give Saurfang a ton of energy.  In cases like this, I switch Recount to the Damage Taken meter, and start checking each melee/tank to see how much damage they took from Blood Beasts.  Then when you find out who the culprit is, you can switch back to the Damage Done meter, click on that person, and check out the breakdown of their damage done to Blood Beasts, to tell them which ability they need to make sure to not use when the adds spawn.  The most common culprits are Hammer of the Righteous from Prot Paladins, Maul from Feral Druids, Consecrate/Divine Storm from Ret Paladins while using Avenging Wrath, and Whirlwind crits from Fury Warriors leaving Deep Wounds.

Festergut

- Festergut is the best fight in ICC for judging DPS players’ performance, but like Saurfang, the fight heavily favors melee DPS.  This fight is even better than Saurfang for judging melee DPS, since there is no concern about hitting Blood Beasts with AOE moves.  It is possible to completely remove the “melee bias” on this fight by having Ranged DPS stand at melee, but most guilds prefer to stick healers at melee instead since the tanks can take some large damage spikes.

- There isn’t much need for analyzing Death meters on this fight.  If you died during Pungeant Blight then that’s your fault for not getting innoculated 3 times, and if you died to anything else then you should’ve been healed thru it (exception being death by multiple people getting Vile Gas – then it’s a question of who didn’t spread out properly, which isn’t something Recount can tell you)

Rotface

- Rotface is actually one of the better fights in WoW for judging the true skill of a DPS player, since it is a single target DPS burn with tons of movement and stuff to avoid.  This fight doesn’t particularly favor melee or range, but instead mostly favors people who never have to run out with the Mutated Infection.  Unfortunately this means that you cannot draw much conclusion from a single good or a single bad DPS score, since there is so much RNG involved.  But you can learn ALOT about the DPS in your raid while wiping on this fight several times over the course of a progression night.  Your most skilled DPS will gravitate towards the top of the meters consistently, while your lesser skilled players (including “Patchwerk Pros”) will find themselves dying too often to do well on the Damage Done meters reliably.

- This fight is also one of the best examples of where the Death meter is very helpful, since there are so many ways to get yourself killed on this fight.  Sources of Avoidable Deaths that are always your fault:  Sticky Ooze/Ooze Flood, Unstable Ooze Explosion, melee hits from Rotface (all bets off if tank dies first).  Sources of death that are not really your fault:  Mutated Infection DoT damage (needs to be cleansed), melee hits from Big Oozes (need to be kited).

- Ironically, the Damage Taken meter is arguably of little use on this fight since the main sources of avoidable damage are not ALWAYS avoidable.  For example, normally any DPS player who takes a lot of damage from Slime Spray is failing horribly – but there actually are cases where you can get caught in a Slime Spray thru no fault of your own, if you have Mutated Infection and are running to the Big Ooze, or if you get sprayed on while spread out from the Ooze Explosion.  Also, it is normally the responsibility of the raid to prevent Radiating Ooze damage by avoiding the Big Ooze if it gets kited too close to the raid – but it is not uncommon to take 1-2 ticks of this damage aura if you run out with Mutated Infection and find that your Little Ooze is being stupid and not merging quickly.  Deaths to these two sources of damage generally require a closer inspection of the Death meter to really figure out what happened.

Professor Putricide

- Putricide is a very difficult fight to analyze meters for.  On one hand, the DPS requirements are steep, and squeezing every ounce of DPS out of your raid is critical, especially on the Volatile Ooze and Gas Cloud adds.  On the other hand, there is so much target switching involved that differences in class mechanics will often play a much larger role than differences in players’ skill.  Also, it is quite possible that players outputting the most DPS on adds may be positioning themselves too aggressively – which they can get away with if they don’t get targeted by the oozes, but which can cause serious problems for your raid if they do get chosen.  In my opinion, on this fight I think for the most part you just have to stack your raid with the players who generally performed the best on earlier fights which are easier to analyze than Putricide, and trust that they’ll do their jobs correctly.

- As far as analyzing the Death or Damage Taken meters, there isn’t a whole lot to find here.  One important thing to watch for is people taking too much unnecessary damage from Malleable Goo.  But beyond that, the main causes of deaths on this fight are either extremely obvious (like if you die to Gaseous Bloat/Ooze Adhesive, or if an Expunged Gas goes off on the raid), or are difficult to analyze what exactly went wrong if people died to the Volatile Ooze Eruption (which can be due to lack of DPS, or people not stacking correctly, or both)

Finally, A Word About Blame

If you’ve read this far, then you probably noticed a recurring theme of mine is analyzing who was “at fault” when people die to various sources of damage.  This is not just so you can go around pointing figures at people for making mistakes.  The point is that if you really want to judge the performance of a DPS player, then you need to take into account both how much damage they are doing on each particular fight, and also how well they keep themselves alive and avoid taking unnecessary damage.  Both of these factors are extremely important for judging DPS, as well as execution of “the little things” like damage on adds, interrupts, dispels, etc.

Finally, it is just a good habit to get into as a raider, to always analyze how you died on every fight, and to ask yourself whether the death was your fault.  If yes, then you need to figure out how you can learn from the mistake and prevent yourself from repeating it in the future.  And if not, then you want to ask yourself if there is anything you can change (either in the fight strategy or your playstyle on that fight) to make it easier on the healers/tanks who are struggling with that particular aspect of the fight – or if your death was just due to dumb luck and no adjustments are needed by anyone.

Part II for Crimson Halls and Frostwing Halls to be continued when I have more experience on these fights…

The challenge: Build a Ret DPS set using gear from Emblems of Triumph, 5 man instances, and reasonably priced BOE pieces, which would enable a skilled player to jump straight into normal mode 25 man Icecrown Citadel and contribute solid enough DPS to earn their raid spot.

The result: An epic gear set with a Rawr-estimated 7500 DPS, which would be reasonably obtainable in around a month, by only running 5 man heroics and daily quests!

Before we start, a Disclaimer!

The set I list will only be one of many possible ways that someone could gear up a new Ret Paladin.  For each gear slot I’ll list many other possibilities that could be better to use, based on whether they are realistic for you to acquire.  As always though, use Rawr to determine whether something really is an upgrade for you, and keep in mind that changing one piece can lead to many other “best items” changing, due to the hit and expertise caps.  If you aren’t familiar with using Rawr, check out my guide for using the Ret Paladin module!

A note about Set Bonuses:

• Tier 10: both set bonuses are incredible for Tier 10.  2 piece is a great DPS bonus, and adds a ton of FUN to the Ret dps rotation.  4 piece is kinda boring, but a great DPS increase nonetheless.
• Tier 9: The 2 piece bonus is extremely good.  4 piece is very weak, but slightly better than nothing
• Tier 8: Back in Ulduar, the 2 piece bonus was horrible and the 4 piece bonus was awesome.  But by this point it doesn’t matter, the low ILVL on this gear makes the set bonuses not worth worrying considering.
• Tier 7: Forget about it

Ultimately your goal will be 4 pieces of T10 plus one offset piece.  But since this will take a ton of Emblems of Frost, you’ll want to get 2 piece T9 as soon as possible.  Your gear progression should probably look like:

1. 2 piece T9 + 3 best other pieces (may include 4 piece T9 bonus, may not)
2. 2 piece T9 + 2 piece T10 + 1 other
3. 4 piece T10 + 1 other

Helmet

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T9 helmet (50 Emblems).  Obviously get the 245 version instead if you can get the trophies

Other options:

• Judgement Hood (Onyxia 25), Judgement Hood (Onyxia 10), and Faceplate of Silver Champion (ToC 10) are a couple stat points above their respective versions of T9.  If people are still running Onyxia or ToC 10 man on your server, you can save yourself some Emblems if you score any of these helmets first.
• Helm of Thunderous Rampage (75 Emblems) is better than the 232 version of T9, unless you net a set bonus from your T9 helmet
• Frayed Scoundrel’s Cap (Forge of Souls) and Eyes of Bewilderment (Forge of Souls) are both better if they don’t cost you a set bonus – although you’ll have to work around the LFG loot system not allowing you to roll Need

Necklace

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Barbed Ymirheim Choker (Pit of Saron).

Other options:

• Wodin’s Lucky Necklace (BOE, ICC25) and The Executioner’s Malice (BOE, ToC25) are significantly better options, but I highly doubt you’ll find either of these BOEs at a price that I could get away with calling “reasonable”, unless money is no object for you
• I debated including Sparkling Onyxia Tooth Pendant (Onyxia 10 or 25) on my list instead of the PoS necklace, since the quest item is a guaranteed drop for 1 person on each Onyxia kill, so it is relatively easy to get.  But I left it off since it technically requires a raid to obtain.  This is a very good option that you should look into, but keep in mind that the extra hit on this necklace will likely change your “best” items on other parts of the list.
• Favor of the Dragon Queen (Naxx25/Malygos25) and Spiked Battleguard Choker (19 Emblems) are not as good as the PoS necklace, but decent backup options if you have bad luck with your 5 man drops.

Shoulders

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T9 Shoulders (30 Emblems).  Obviously get the 245 version instead if you can get the trophies

Other options:

• Pauldrons of Trembling Rage (45 Emblems) is exactly the same as the 245 T9, and probably worth getting unless it costs you a set bonus
• Spaulders of the Snow Bandit (ToC 10) and Pauldrons of the Timeless Hunter (ToC 10) are both a tiny bit better, if ToC is an option for you

Cloaks

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Tapestry of the Frozen Throne (Halls of Reflection)

Other options:

• Drape of the Untamed Predator (BOE, ToC 25) is a huge upgrade, but will likely cost you a ton of money if you can find one on the AH at all
• Shawl of the Shattered Giant (BOE, Ulduar 10) is a very tiny upgrade, and probably not worth the money unless you find it cheap or just really want to avoid Halls of Reflection
• Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak (25 Emblems) is a downgrade, but probably your best backup option if you can’t get the HoR cloak to drop

Chest

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T10 Chest (95 Emblems of FROST).  This one is cheating a little bit, but since you can get ~20 Emblems of Frost per week solely from heroics and the weekly raid quest, you can still get one piece of T10 in about a month, so I’m allowing myself one piece on the list

Other options:

• Breastplate of Cruel Intent (ToC 25), Cuirass of Calamitous Fate (ToC 25), and Armor of Shifting Shadows (ToC 10) are all well itemized pieces from ToC, but are tough to PUG your way to if they use standard loot rules preventing you from rolling on leather/mail
• Titanium Razorplate (BOE crafted) is actually pretty good even with Armor Penetration (the 3 sockets will do that for you), but between 10 titansteel bars and the 8 crusader orbs, it was a bit too pricy for me to include on this list.  Many people would consider it worth the money though, depends on personal preference
• Frost Wyrm Ribcage (Pit of Saron) isn’t really all that good, but if you do plan to buy the T10 chest first with your Frost Emblems, then this chest will probably be a good piece to use in the meantime

Bracers

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Crusader’s Dragonscale Bracers (BOE crafted).  Of the three ToC craftable bracers, I’d go with the mail ones since they are better itemized and likely cheaper to craft than the plate bracers.

Other options:

• Malykriss Vambraces (Pit of Saron) is only about a 50 DPS downgrade from the crafted bracers so you may rather wait on these to drop than the spend money.  Although one benefit of getting a few crafted items right away when hitting 80 is that they’ll boost your average ILVL and help you get into the ICC 5 mans more quickly.
• Wristbands of Sentinel Huntress (BOE, 60 Emblems) is probably your best backup option if you don’t want the spend on the crafted bracers and can’t get the PoS bracers to drop, but is probably not worth the emblems unless you’re drowning in them (although note that the Emblems don’t need to be from your Paladin since the bracers are BOE)

Gloves

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T9 Gloves (30 Emblems or VoA 10).  Obviously get the 245 version instead if you can get the trophies or get lucky in VoA Koralon

Other options:

• Gloves of the Silver Assassin (ToC 10) are extremely well itemized but you have to fight the Rogues/Ferals for them along with Fury Warriors probably
• Gauntlets of Rising Anger (ToC 10) are almost exactly the same as the T9 gloves, might save you some emblems

Belt

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Belt of the Titans (BOE crafted).  The other Ulduar craftable belts are better itemized (WTF 126 stamina!), but one thing I’ve noticed is that expertise is tough to come by on starter gear, so I think this belt is a pretty good value for its cost.

Other options:

• Bloodbath Girdle (ToC 25) is a great direct upgrade if you can get it from a ToC PUG or something
• Flayer’s Black Belt (Pit of Saron) is almost an exact sidegrade, including the expertise.  If you don’t want to spend for the Belt of Titans, see if you can get around the LFG loot system to get this belt
• Belt of Twilight Assassin (28 Emblems) is your best backup option if you don’t want to pay for the crafted belt, and get any of the above belts

Leggings

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T9 Leggings (50 Emblems or VoA 10).  Obviously get the 245 version instead if you can get the trophies or get lucky in VoA Koralon

Other options:

• Legplates of Painful Death (BOE crafted) are obviously a big DPS upgrade, but with the price of Primordial Saronite, these are only an option if money is no object at all
• Legguards of Ascension (ToC 25) is well itemized, and a very good upgrade if you have enough expertise elsewhere.
• There isn’t really anything else I’d consider using – the T9 leggings are very well itemized and will provide much needed expertise, so I’d probably try to get them right away

Boots

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Footpads of Silence (BOE crafted).  These boots are extremely well itemized, and I used them for a long time before I upgraded them.  They’re even relatively inexpensive now that Runed Orbs sell for very little, easily the best bargain for the money of any BOE item on my list.

Other options:

• Footpads of Impending Death (BOE crafted) are incredible – I’m looking to get some crafted myself to use until ICC hardmodes come out.  They’re also incredibly expensive, but these boots will last you a long time if you’re able to drop the 10-15k gold on them (important fashion note!  these things look hideous if you don’t have T8 or T10 leggings!)
• Greaves of the 7^th Legion (ToC 25) are a very good option for boots if you drift away from the Belt/Leggings expertise scheme (like if you get Leggings of Ascension or any ICC level belt)

Rings

Captain Heroic’s choices:  Bloodshed Band (35 Emblems) and Dextrous Brightstone Ring (35 Emblems).  The Bloodshed Band is an obvious choice, and doubles as a great Protribution PVP ring if you do use that spec for PVP.  The DRB isn’t nearly as enticing, but it’s still a pretty good value at only 35 emblems.

Other options:

• I didn’t include Ashen Verdict rings (Friendly, Honored, Revered, Exalted) since they technically require a raid, but they can actually be obtained purely from farming trash mobs if you can find a group doing this.  Even if you don’t raid at all, it is well worth your time to get in a trash farming group to at least get up to Friendly – that would give you a free ILVL251 ring for a couple hours work.
• Ring of Rotten Sinew (BOE, ICC trash) is extremely good (and makes the perfect Protribution PVP ring to pair with Bloodshed Band), but will also likely be extremely expensive.
• Runed Ring of Kirin Tor and Runed Band of KT (9800 to 11750 gold each, depending on Kirin Tor rep) – ok here’s the deal with these, you’re paying 6800-8000 gold to get a 2^nd Dalaran hearthstone, and then if that’s worth it for you, go ahead and pay the last 3000-3750 gold for the upgraded DPS ring.
• The Lady’s Promise (Halls of Reflection) is approximately as good as the Dextrous Brightstone Ring, despite lower ILVL.  So you could save yourself some emblems by getting this ring instead, but it will depend on how much expertise you have elsewhere
• Band of Stained Souls (Pit of Saron) is a downgrade to DRB due to the lower ILVL, but not by all that much since it is optimized better

Trinkets

Captain Heroic’s choices:  Darkmoon Card: Greatness (BOE) and Mirror of Truth (40 Emblems).  Darkmoon Card is VERY much worth the money.  I assembled mine for a combined 14k gold back when we first started running Naxxramas, and I’m still using it 3 tiers of content later.  In order to replace DMC, you’ll need 2 of the following trinkets: Death’s Choice, Whispering Skull, Deathbringer’s Will, and Herkuml War Token.  If you’re reading this list for advice then you won’t be getting two of those four trinkets any time soon – so buy yourself a Darkmoon Card ASAP.  For Mirror of Truth, there are a few other options which are approximately as good, but MoT is arguably the easiest to obtain (especially if you have the Brewfest equivalent trinket).

Other options:

• Needle-Encrusted Scorpion (Forge of Souls) is a tiny bit better than MoT, although you should be prepared for lots of hate from random Rogues, Warriors and Hunters if you use one (doesn’t matter if no one else in the group wanted it, they’ll still hate you)
• Banner of Victory (normal mode Trial of Champion 5 man) is listed by Rawr as a tiny upgrade over MoT, which seems dubious to me – but if Rawr is correct that MoT has a longer internal CD on the AP proc, then I guess it could be true
• Bandit’s Insignia (Naxx 25) is a bit worse than Mirror, but they’re pretty close
• Finally, don’t be afraid to use hit trinkets like Mark of Supremacy (50 Emblems) or Pyrite Infuser (Ulduar 10) if you need the hit rating.  Most people never mention these since it’s generally pretty easy to get hit capped, but these options are out there if you do need the hit.

Libram

Captain Heroic’s choices:  Libram of Valiance (25 Emblems).  Don’t even think of joining a raid without this libram, it is by far the biggest upgrade you’ll get from one single Emblem of Triumph item.  I recommend buying this first out of anything, although if you’ll just be running heroics for a while then you can wait since this libram is worthless in 5 mans, for soloing, and in PVP.

Other options:

• Ultimately you want Libram of Three Truths (30 Emblems of FROST) instead, but this is only a small upgrade over Valiance in raids, so I recommend getting all your Tier 10 pieces first.  The only way I would buy this first is if you care much more about PVP than raiding, and still PVP as Ret instead of Protribution
• Until you get 3 Truths, you’ll want the best arena PVP libram that you are able to get, for those times when you can’t use Seal of Vengeance. The lowest available version doesn’t actually require a PVP team, only 15k honor points, so there’s really no excuse to not have at least this version
• Please don’t ever use the Divine Storm Libram or Crusader Strike Libram!  They are horrible under any and all circumstances – even when you do have 4 targets to hit with Divine Storm, any PVP libram is still better.  You’re better off just leaving your libram slot empty and telling people that you left it in your bank, you’ll get less /facepalms this way than if you use either of these librams

Main Hand Weapon

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Last, but certainly not least, I’ll go with Tyrannical Beheader in the all important weapon slot.  Its stats certainly aren’t itemized all that well, but high Weapon DPS and slow speed will always be the most important factors, so this weapon is a good starter weapon for sure.

Other options:

• Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter (ICC 25).  I’ve been avoiding putting ICC raid gear on this list so far, but Brynntroll is best in slot until ICC hardmodes come out, and it drops off the very first (and very puggable) boss in ICC.  It was nerfed a bit recently, but it will still be very much worth getting.
• Shadow’s Edge (ICC 25 questline) is the ultimate in extremely expensive BOEs, but technically anyone can get this weapon (which may end up better than Bryntroll after the nerf) with “only” 50k gold and a kill on Rotface/Festergut in ICC25.
• Justicebringer (ToC 25) is a solid DPS upgrade, from a quick puggable raid instance
• Sharpened Obsidian Edge Blade (Onyxia 25) and to a lesser extent the Keen OEB (Onyxia 10) can both be better weapons, although they require redoing your expertise items
• Orca-Hunter’s Harpoon (Halls of Reflection) is a sidegrade to the Tyrannical Beheader, also from an ICC 5 man
• If you’re just starting out, there are several options for ILVL219 weapons until you can get a 232 or higher weapon, including Garfrost’s Two-Ton Hammer (Pit of Saron normal mode), Mourning Malice (Halls of Reflection normal mode, Marrowstrike (ToC 5 heroic), and Edge of Ruin (ToC 5 heroic).

The Results

295 Emblems of Triumph, 95 Emblems of Frost, a few ICC 5 man drops, and around 10k gold worth of crafted items, and you should end up with unbuffed stats looking something like 4400 AP, 33% crit, 13% haste, with 8% hit and 6% expertise.  Not too bad at all, you should definitely be able to pull your weight in raids with those stats, with plenty of room for gear improvement as you start obtaining better items in ToC or Icecrown raids.  Just remember though, this list is only a fraction of the items out there, so always use Rawr on your own to determine whether something is right for you to use!

Northrend Beasts

Gormok – Your strategy for maintaining your SoV stack will depend greatly on how your raid handles Snobolds.  For LoD, we ask any Ranged/Healers with a snobold to run into melee.  What I recommend is attacking Snobolds for a few GCDs (Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, Consecrate, Exorcism), and then turning to refresh your SoV stack on Gormok whenever Judgement is off cooldown (Judgement will hit Gormok much harder than the Snobold since he has 5 stacks).  Also note that no matter who you are targeting, DS and Consecrate will hit Gormok but not hit the Snobolds, so you can use these abilities while targeting either one.

Acidmaw and Dreadscale – My first piece of advice is to stand at maximum melee range on Acidmaw and watch his cast bar very closely, and then immediately strafe away when he starts casting Paralytic Toxin on any melee DPS.  With quick reaction time you can actually “dodge” the AOE splash, which obviously results in a huge DPS increase if you don’t have to waste time running across the room to clear your debuff.

You can greatly increase your DPS on this phase by keeping your SoV stack up after a worm burrows – however, this is very dangerous due to the aggro reset.  I recommend either playing it safe and backing away entirely until your tank establishes aggro (remember, even the ticking DOT can steal aggro if your tank is too slow), or if you really trust your tank then can autoattack immediately without using any instant attacks, just to make sure you refresh the DOT stack.

Icehowl – Maximizing DPS on this phase is all about having that 5 stack SoV DoT alive for the double damage period after he gets stunned.  I recommend watching the timer for Massive Crash, and cheating towards the center of the arena right before Icehowl jumps into the center, so that you can get one last autoattack in and ensure a 15 second duration on SoV.  Then when he’s charging, you can actually run into his path and autoattack him again, as long as you are far away from the wall when he hits it.

One other powerful raid utility a Ret Paladin can bring on Icehowl is that if you spec for Divine Purpose, casting Hand of Freedom on the target of Icehowl’s Arctic Breath will actually cause Icehowl to stop casting the spell completely (since Arctic Breath is a stun and HoF removes it).  This will save a lot of extra raid damage, and increase raid DPS by a decent amount.

Jaraxxus

The most important thing on Jaraxxus is killing the Nether Portals and Infernal Volcanoes immediately, regardless of how much it hurts your DPS.  One important thing to note for Portals/Volcanoes is that Hand of Reckoning works on them, and can help you do extra DPS off the GCD.  Once the Portal/Volcano is dead, you should immediately switch back to Jaraxxus to try to refresh SoV – if your raid DPS is high enough on the Portal, your SoV stack should still be up on Jaraxxus when you get back.  Whether you should stick on Jaraxxus or help on the Mistress/Infernals will depend on your raid composition/strategy.  What I find works well for me is to help DPS the Mistress except when she jumps in the air to piledrive someone, and to completely ignore Infernals due to their nasty hellfire.

Faction Champions

The most important thing you can do on Faction Champs as a Ret Paladin is spamming that Cleanse button, and I mean SPAM it, son!  My “DPS rotation” will usually look something like:  Crusader Strike, Judgement, Cleanse times 5, repeat.  Consecrate is worthless on this fight due to the AOE damage reduction, and the importance of CC.  The same is true of Divine Storm but to a lesser degree since it *can* be safely used occasionally if you are very careful.

Another important thing you can do as a melee DPS is to immediately kill any Tremor Totems before they screw up the CC chains.  And of course you’ll want to keep an eye out for clothies about to get lit up, and use Blessing of Protection accordingly.  On normal modes, you can do considerable extra damage with Hand of Reckoning (which potentially doubles as a weak form of CC), although on Heroic modes this only works on the Cat and Felhunter pets.

Twin Valkyrs

Ret Paladins do incredibly well on this fight since Righteous Vengeance “double dips” on the percentage modifier from Light/Dark Essence.  LoD tanks the bosses separate from each other, with DPS split so that half are on each boss (i.e. Ensidia strat).  Also, we ignore the Touch of Light/Dark debuffs, and rely on healers to just heal thru it.  Here are my tips for using that strategy, which may or may not be relevant if your raid uses a strategy with bosses tanked on top of each other:

• The first method for improving DPS on this fight is to try to time your Avenging Wrath with the Empowered Darkness.  I generally use AW near the start of the fight as soon as I get 5 stacks on SoV, then save my second and third AW to use during an Empowered Darkness.
• On the topic of Avenging Wrath, note that although it may seem like the raid would be better served by Ret Paladins using AW during the damage shields, this is NOT true since half your damage will pierce thru the shield if you use wings.
• I always try to catch as many stray Orbs of my color, even if it means losing a little DPS time on the boss.  Ret Paladins can probably do this better than any other melee class since three of our main attacks have no facing requirements.  However, remember that the goal is only to catch orbs that would’ve passed by your group – if you run out of the melee clump to catch orbs that would’ve hit the group anyways, then you’re lowering the raid DPS significantly.
• Unfortunately, using the split boss strategy, your SoV stack will always fall off when you need to switch to break the opposite boss’s shield.  However, this should be the only time you ever lose your SoV stack.  Whenever the opposite color Vortex occurs, I recommend always switching colors rather than bubbling the damage, since absorbing the Vortex builds your Dark Essence stack.

Anub’arak

There are many details to my job on this fight as a Ret Paladin.  Note that like Twin Valkyrs, some of these details may or may not be relevant depending on how your raid tanks the adds (LoD uses one tank for all 4 adds), and deals with burrow phases.

The Pull: Open with autoattack on Anub’arak immediately to get SoV stack built up.  Save first Divine Storm CD for when the Frost Orb is deathgripped next to Anub.  If this isn’t enough to kill the Frost Orb, switch targets and kill it with Hand of Reckoning.

Hand of Freedom: I find it very helpful to use a macro such as “/cast [target=TANKNAME] Hand of Freedom” to cast HoF on the add tank as he comes back to the frost patch, so that he can position the adds easily without worrying about being slowed to a crawl.  Of course, any Paladin can do it, but when you get to phase 3, it is probably easier for a Ret Paladin to spare the GCD than for a healer.  Note that using this macro, you won’t lose your DPS target on Anub.  (**important edit:  We found that due to the mob pathing bug introduced in the 3.3 patch, it can be advantageous for the tank to get slowed by the patch – discuss it with your add tank to see which method they prefer!)

Interrupting Shadowstrike: If you use the 1 offtank strategy, this will be by far your most important duty.  Every 30 seconds, Anub’arak will signal all Burrowers near him to cast Shadowstrike.  This is  normally a long cast time, but with 4 adds on top of each other they will cast almost instantly.  The trick here is that any add which is stunned at the moment Anub signals for the Shadowstrike, will NOT cast after becoming unstunned.  So the responsibility of the Ret Paladin in your raid should be to wait until there is about 1.5 seconds left on the Deadly Boss Mod timer for Shadowstrike, and then Holy Wrath to stun them all.  Misses should not be a problem since the adds are lower level (assuming you are melee hit capped for Anub like you should be).  One issue that can be a problem is to make sure no one stuns any of the adds to put it on diminishing returns.  This goes for obvious candidates like Warrior intercepts or Rogue stunlocks, but also less obvious culprits like Felguard intercepts or Spirit Wolves bashing

Choice of Seal: The best role for a Ret Paladin on this fight is doing maximum single target DPS on Anub’arak with SoV, while adding moderate AOE damage on adds with Divine Storm and Consecrate.  The only way it would make sense to use Seal of Command on Phase 1 is if your raid is just REALLY having trouble getting the adds down in time, and there is absolutely no one else available from any of the classes that are better suited to AOE DPS.  I recommend switching to Seal of Command for killing scarabs during burrow phases though, for obvious reasons.

Phase Transitions: In our strategy, we pull Anub’arak away from the frost patch before he submerges, so that we don’t accidentally break the frost patch which has adds tanked on it.  If your raid uses this strategy, keep in mind that it’s fine to follow Anub and add more single target DPS before the first burrow, since the second set of adds will never cast Shadowstrike.  However, make sure you don’t follow Anub before the second burrow phase, because a Shadowstrike will go off just before he submerges.

BoP Rotations: During burrow phases, our strategy is to deathgrip down two patches for each burrow phase, with 4 Paladins in a BoP rotation to buy time before each one is broken.  Whenever it is your turn in the rotation (which for me, is 4^th), make sure to get the kiter targeted quickly, and be within 20 yards of them to BoP just before the spikes hit them.  If your raid does have 4 Paladins, I would recommend letting Ret Paladins go 2^nd or 4^th in the rotation, so that they can help DPS adds right after Anub’arak burrows (and definitely not 3^rd in the rotation, since you need to be ready to interrupt the Shadowstrike right before he burrows).

Phase 3: First of all, make sure you switch to Judgement of Light if you normally do Wisdom earlier in the fight like I do.  Also make sure you have Mighty Frost Protection Potions and Healthstones on hand to use when you get Penetrating Cold (Frost Pot for the 1^st one, Healthrock for the 2^nd).  Other than that, Phase 3 is just an extended Phase 1 where you need to HoF each time adds come out, and Holy Wrath every Shadowstrike.  Just make sure that you never get behind on your Holy Wrath casts, because the Shadowstrikes come exactly every 30 seconds.

Step 1:  The Basics

For the purposes of this tutorial, I will assume that you already know how to download the most recent version of Rawr, and load your character’s DPS gear/spec from the Armory.  I’ll also assume that you are familiar with how to change the gear/enchants for each particular slot, and run the optimzier.  If you need help with these steps, there is a very helpful video tour of Rawr on the frontpage of their website

Step 2:  Check talents, glyphs and buffs

• Click on the Talents tab. Rawr should input your talents directly from the armory, but doublecheck real quick to make sure they are correct.
• Under Talents, click on the Glyphs tab. Make sure you have Seal of Vengeance, Judgement and Consecration checked.
• Click on the Buffs tab. There are a couple ways you can do this part.  If you mostly run heroics or 10 mans with the same people, you can check only the buffs that you usually have in your typical group comp.  If you mostly run 25 mans, then you probably can check almost every single buff, unless your raidgroup is typically missing some buff.  If you would like to compare directly to published Best-in-Slot lists, the standard method is usually to assume every single buff, except Focus Magic (and obviously no Heroic Presence if you are Horde), plus a Flask of Endless Rage and Strength food.  Note that for the most part, changing a couple buffs here and there will rarely ever change which gear you should choose to wear, with the notable exception of Heroic Presence since it alters your hit rating needed.

Step 3:  Set up the fight details

Click on Options, then Fight Parameters.  The standard method is generally agreed upon to be:

Fight Length – 6 minutes;   Mob Type – Humanoid;   Seal: Vengeance;   Target Level: 83;   Below 20% time – 18%;   Stacked Trinket Reset: 2;   Target: 1;   Time in front of the mob: 0;   Consecrate Effectiveness: 100%;   Bloodlust is checked;   Target Switches/HoR effectiveness: 0

You may change any of these as you see fit.  I prefer to change Time in Front of Mob to 5% since almost all bosses occasionally turn to cast spells at ranged/healers, or need to be repositioned from time to time.  I also change Consecrate Effectiveness to 90%, because I feel that is more realistic.  Use your own discretion here, or just stick with the standard settings above.

Step 4:  Set up your rotation

- Under the Options tab, click on Rotation.  There are two ways you can do this.  The first way is to use the First Come First Serve simulator to calculate your effective cooldowns on each ability.  The second method is to manually input your Effective Cooldowns on each ability.  I would only recommend manually inputting CDs if you have enough combat log parses to accurately determine how many times you used each ability per minute (and then convert to seconds per cast).  Otherwise, just use the FCFS simulator, and choose something reasonable for Delay and Wait (I use 0.1 second delay, and 0.2 second wait).  The good news here is that whichever method you choose to use will rarely change which gear is best for you to equip, in my experience.

Leather: cleavage = more DPS!

Step 5:  Leather or no leather?

- There are many reasons why a Ret Paladin may choose to only wear plate armor:  extra survivability from stamina and armor, less competition for the Rogues/Ferals to get the gear they need, and less random people in Dalaran whispering you to ask why you’re wearing Rogue gear gemmed with Strength.  There are also many reasons why a Ret Paladin may choose to wear leather or mail gear instead:  it is higher DPS, and… no wait that’s the only reason, just the higher DPS.  I won’t get into whether or not you should use Leather gear, but if you do wear Leather then make sure you click on the Tools drop down menu in Rawr, then select Refine Types of Items Listed, and check the boxes for Leather and Mail.

Step 6:  Gems

- One of the greatest things about Rawr is that it even figures out the optimal way to gem all your gear.  However, you first have to tell Rawr what gems it is “allowed” to put in each color slot.  To do this, click on Tools, then select Edit Gemming Templates.  I recommend that you set up the following 3 Custom settings:

1. Red: Bold, Yellow: Bold, Blue: Bold, Prismatic: Bold, Meta: RED
2. Red: Bold, Yellow: Inscribed, Blue: Nightmare tear, Prismatic: Bold, Meta: RED
3. Red: Bold, Yellow: Etched, Blue: Nightmare tear, Prismatic: Bold, Meta: RED

You can add other combinations if you like, although I can nearly guarantee that Rawr will never choose anything other than these three combinations.  One exception would be if you are just starting out with Ret and have very little gear with hit rating then it may be worth including an option for Etched/Rigid/Vivid/Rigid/RED.  However, note that the same is not true for Expertise, since Strength gems will be better even if you are not Expertise capped.

One final note for Jewelcrafters:  you can enter additional Custom settings with Bold Dragon’s Eyes, but I prefer not to, since the Rawr optimizer will often get confused and tell you to switch a bunch of gems around with no actual change in DPS.  I prefer to just set Rawr enchants as if I’m a Leatherworker, and ignore the slight inaccuracy of 40 Str vs. 80 AP.

Step 7:  Enchants

- For each gear slot, you need to tell Rawr what enchants it is “allowed” to use.  In the middle of Rawr, at the top of the screen, click on “Slot: Gear”, and change this to “Slot: Enchants”.  Then select the following (by clicking on the green diamond to the left of each enchant’s name):

Head: Arcanum of Torment; Shoulder: Greater Inscription of Axe (unless you have Inscription); Back: both 22 agi and 23 haste; Chest: 10 stats; Wrist: 50 AP (unless you have Leatherworking); Hands: both 44 AP and 20 hit (unless Engineering); Leggings: Icescale Leg Armor; Feet: both Icewalker and 32 AP (unless Engineering); Main Hand: Beserking

Step 8: Running the Optimizer

Ok finally we’re to the good part!  Luckily you only need to do the Set Up steps once, and from now on you can just start on this step whenever you open Rawr again (note: if you update to a new version of Rawr, just copy/paste your old XML files into the folder for your new version, so you can skip right to this step).  There are two main things I use Rawr for when analyzing gear – determining Current Upgrades for each item that may drop, and building a Best In Slot list each time a new instance comes out.  Let’s take these one at a time:

Step 8A: Current Upgrades

First, I recommend creating an XML file called “Current”.  For this character profile, you should go thru each gear slot, and click on the green diamond for every piece of gear that you have “instant access” to (either wearing it now, in your bank, BOE craftable you can easily obtain mats for, or purchasable from an Emblems vendor which you can easily afford).  Now when you run the Optimizer, Rawr will tell you the optimal way to configure this gear.  Once you get this optimized, you’ll want to save this XML profile, so that you can quickly open it whenever new gear drops and you need to figure out whether you should bid or pass.

To determine whether an item is a Current Upgrade, click on its green diamond to select it as gear that you “have”, and then run the Optimizer to see whether adding this item to your collection would result in a higher DPS set once you switch your gear around.  It is very important to note that you should NOT just base your decision on the DPS value listed for each item, since upgrading one item will almost always require switching other items around, due to the hit and expertise caps.  I highly recommend that you periodically go over the loot tables of upcoming bosses, and determine ahead of time which items are current upgrades and which are not, so that you can be prepared in advance before items actually drop.

Step 8B: Best in Slot Lists

If you only raid part-time on your Ret Paladin, or if Retribution is your offspec, then you will probably only need the above Current Upgrade XML profile.  However, if you raid full-time as Ret, then I would highly recommend also compiling a Best in Slot list for every new instance.  You don’t want to end up kicking yourself later because you passed on items that you need now, just because you happened to have too much or too little hit/expertise at the time.

In principle, determining your Best in Slot list is actually quite simple – just click on the green diamond for everything.  In practice it can become much more complicated as you start considering all the various details like a) can my guild complete hardmodes yet? b) does my guild let me bid on leather gear? c) do I actually have a shot at getting double Death’s Verdict trinkets? d) is it realistic to put the Tribute to Insanity cloaks in my set? e) will my guild see enough Anubarak HM kills for me to get 4 piece 258 Tier 9?, etc.  You’ll want to consider which gear is *actually* realistically available to you when you build this list.  You can always create an updated BIS list as the answer to each of these questions changes.

Step 9:  Common Sense check!

In my experience, Rawr has always been extremely accurate for planning gear upgrades, but injecting a little human common sense into the process is always a good idea.  Check over what Rawr is telling you to do, and ask yourself if it “feels right”.  Especially if it’s telling you do something expensive like redoing many of your gems.  Once you get used to using Rawr, it’s usually pretty quick to go thru all these steps with very few mistakes.  Unfortunately there’s a bit of a learning curve for setting things up properly, but I think you’ll definitely find the increased DPS output to be worth your time!

Q:  Ok srsly, what the hell IS a “Protribution” spec?  Why not just call it “Prot”?
A: Protribution is another word for “Prot/Ret PVP spec”. You actually spec very similarly to a cookie-cutter Protection tanking PVE build, except that you also take all the early Prot talents that a Retribution PVP spec would take (which I assume is the reasoning behind the “Protribution” nickname, to set them apart).  I currently prefer 0/53/18, although certain talents can be tweaked around (I’ll address this later).

Q:  Isn’t this a blog about Ret Paladins?  Why are we talking about Prot specs?
A: Technically Protribution has mostly Prot talents, and uses a 1H and Shield.  But that’s basically where the similarities to tanking end.  In PVP, the playstyle is almost exactly the same as Ret, except you lose your wannabe CC (Repentance) your ability to bust out of stuns (Divine Purpose), and you gain a snare/silence on a 30 second cooldown, plus lower Hammer of Justice CD.  The DPS “rotation” plays exactly like Ret, where Shield of Righteousness (ShoR) = Crusader Strike; Hammer of the Righteous (HotR) chains = Divine Storm AOE; Judgement = Judgement (obviously); and Avengers Shield (AS) = instant Exorcism.  If you are used to playing Ret, you will pick up the Protribution playstyle in no time, as there is very little difference.

Q:  What type of gear do you wear for Protribution?
A:  Short answer:  the same exact gear you wear for Retribution, except a 1H weapon (slower weapon speed is better) and a Shield (highest block value is best).  You don’t need as much resilience as if you are Ret, so you can sprinkle in more PVE gear and still survive.  I would recommend at least 500-600 resilience, although your mileage may vary depending on your particular team comp and arena bracket of choice.  See below for the long answer.

Q:  Everyone keeps saying Protribution does more DPS than Ret – if that’s really true then why don’t you see anyone speccing like this for PVE DPS?
A:  Couple reasons.  First of all, a lot of people use the terms “DPS” and “burst damage” interchangeably, even though they’re completely different.  Protribution does arguably have better burst damage (and every 30 seconds when Avenger’s Shield is up, there is no argument, it IS better burst), but Ret still has higher sustained DPS in PVP.  The second reason is that Ret does a ton more DPS in PVE than in PVP, since so much of the PVE damage (Seal of Vengeance, Righteous Vengeance, Holy Vengeance) is not feasible in PVP.  On the other hand, a Prot/Ret DPS spec loses very little DPS going between PVE and PVP, since you ramp up SoV quickly with a 1H, plus most of your DPS is from HotR/ShoR which obviously cannot be dispelled.

Q:  I also hear everyone saying Protribution has much more survivability than Ret, way better heals, and endless mana from Divine Plea.  How can they really get all that on top of better offensive utility (snare/silence plus 30 second HoJ CD)?
A:  Let’s take those one at a time:

• Survivability = Fact! I think it goes without saying that this is true.  Against Magical attacks, you have 6% reduced damage from Improved Righteous Fury (note: Ret does too), 3% from Glyph of Divine Plea, 3% from Blessing of Sanctuary (if not dispelled), and 6% from Guarded from the Light – that’s ~17% reduced damage before you consider Resilience (note: not 18%, they are multiplicative not additive).  Against Physical attacks, your damage reduction from armor jumps from about 48% to about 64% (remember though, this is before Armor Penetration!), plus you can now block about 2k damage off attacks made from the front, in addition to Imp RF, DP and Sanct reductions mentioned above.  Plus you obviously gain more HP from all the +stamina talents, although this is lessened somewhat by wearing more PVE gear.
• Healing = Myth! This is by far the biggest misconception about Protribution.  Any time someone mentions how Protribution has awesome heals, immediately discount their opinion as that of an ignorant forum troll.  Prot/Holy has ridiculously good healing, but Prot/Ret has almost no healing whatsoever.  You are wearing Retribution gear, so you have very little mana.  Also, you rely on keeping up Divine Plea at all times or else you will run out of mana extremely quickly, so any heal that you cast is a choice between leaving DP up for a self-MS effect, or canceling DP and ensuring that you will shortly be OOM.  Situations where it is worth healing as Protribution are very, very rare, for the most part you just leave the heals to the real healers and act like a Warrior wannabe.
• Endless Mana = Depends. In theory, this might be true since you can refresh Divine Plea on any melee hit.  But in practice, this is by far the biggest weakness of Protribution.  If the other team is able to CC you well enough to make DP fall off, you will lose a ton of DPS time due to lack of mana (especially if they’re able to combine that CC with mana burns to speed up the process).  However, this does take a lot of work on the part of your opponents (unless you do the work for them and go around healing like a dummy).

Q:  Ok enough about the basics, you’ve sold me on the idea – where do I start!?
A:  Let’s start out with the talents, since they’re the easiest.  Like I said above, I currently prefer 0/53/18, although my mind could be swayed in certain talents in the following cases:

• Is 2 points in Vindication worth it? Very hard to say really, it’s just personal preference.  The other option is 2% crit.  I’m on the fence, I could go either way depending on which direction the wind blows.
• 3 points in Crusade vs. Seals of the Pure? This is no question, 6% to all damage easily beats 15% to Seal and Judgement damage only.  Just wanted to point that out in case you thought about putting any points in Holy.  Not worth it.
• Why 2 points in Toughness? These are just floater points required to reach Tier 5 of the tree.  You can put these 2 points wherever you want really.
• Why 4 points in Reckoning? Confession:  at this point I exclusively do 5v5, although we’ve been working on getting a 3v3 comp together with me as Protribution.  There’s a lot more random AOE hits flying around in 5v5 that will still proc Reckoning than you would see in 3v3 or 2v2.  I’m still not really sure if it’s worth it since the big hitting moves are AS, HotR, ShoR (all unrelated to autoattacks), but the other options for these talents points aren’t all that great either.
• Can I take 1 point out of Redoubt? When I checked the armory links of 2500+ ranked Protribution Paladins, they often took 1 point out of Redoubt (either for SA, or for an extra 19^th point in Ret), but I don’t really understand the logic.  Block Value is awesome for boosting Shield of the Righteous crits, but I have to admit I haven’t done the math on whether 10% BV would beat 1% crit (what you’d get by spending 1 more in the Ret tree).  If anyone cares to do this math, I’d be interested.

Q:  How about glyphs?
A:  Your options include:

• Avenger’s Shield
• Divine Plea
• Hammer of the Righteous
• Hammer of Justice
• Judgement
• Salvation
• Seal of Vengeance
• Shield of Righteousness
  

Avenger’s Shield is really the only “Must Have”.  It hurts to lose the snare/silence on 2 extra targets, but the additional burst capability is borderline overpowered.  From there you can pick any two from the rest of the list.  I recommend the HotR glyph for 5v5, but obviously not for smaller brackets.  The Hammer of Justice glyph can be anywhere from extremely useful to pointless, depending on your team’s playstyle and how often you need to throw a stun on someone out of melee range.  I personally use Divine Plea as my third glyph since a constant 3% damage reduction is very powerful, but there is a great argument for using Salvation instead if you find you are rarely attacked except after popping Avenging Wrath.  Judgement and SoV glyphs are decent DPS boosts (with J > SoV), but neither will contribute a whole lot, since Judgement is your weakest attack, and expertise is weak for PVP in general.   Finally, some Paladins swear by the mana reduction glyph for Shield of Righteousness (which makes ShoR cost almost zero mana), but in my experience I’ve never had enough mana issues that I would even consider using it at this point.

Q:  You said to use basically the same gear as Ret – can you be more specific?
A:  In general, your goal should be to stack as much Strength, Stamina, and Crit as possible, while remaining over the 5% hit cap, and keeping at least 500+ resilience.  Some tips for particular gearslots:

• Tier armor slots: I would recommend using at least 4-5 PVP pieces, and getting the majority of your resilience from these.   One other option is to use the 2 pieces of Tier 9 tanking gear with block value (helmet and leggings) – you will lose a lot of crit but the 2 piece bonus rocks.  However, for that to be worthwhile, you would need to enchant/gem your tanking gear with strength gems and crit/AP enchants, which may or may not be an option for you.
• Belt, Boots, Bracers: You cannot go wrong with Relentless gear in these slots, especially bracers since any high ILVL plate gear will have useless armor penetration.  I would probably only recommend using PVE boots or belt if you have a higher ILVL PVE piece (for example a heroic Bloodbath Belt or Greaves of 7^th Legion).
• Neck, cape, rings, trinkets: Prot gets insane scaling with Strength due to Touched by the Light, so these slots are where you really need to stack your best PVE gear, since the PVP pieces have Attack Power instead of Strength.  Examples of ideally itemized pieces for each slot would probably be Executioner’s Malice (neck), Strength of Nerub (cloak), Bloodshed Band (ring), Death’s Verdict (trinket).  Notice how most of these items have hit rating!  You’ll probably end up getting most of your 5% hit from these slots.
• Main hand: the most important thing you’re looking for in a 1H weapon is the highest DPS possible.  If the ILVLs (and therefore weapon DPS) are equal, then slower is better – but a fast tanking weapon with Strength is surprisingly almost as good since HotR is normalized (assuming you still enchant it with Berserking)
• Shield: I highly recommend any of the ToC shields, since they all have extra block value, which is the main thing you’re looking for in a Shield (plus high Strength, as always)
• Libram: Libram of Valiance, no question.

Q: Ok last question, is it worth my time to get all this gear together, or will Protribution just end up getting nerfed?
A:  I’m sure Protribution will end up taking some sort of nerfs, since anything with this much QQ on the WoW forums will inevitably get hit just to quiet the masses.  The question is what will they nerf.  My prediction is that Blizzard will be wary of nerfing anything that affects Prot’s ability to main tank in Icecrown Citadel, so Protribution will be relatively safe for some time.  I figure they’ll nerf the Avenger’s Shield glyph first since this is not actually used for tanking, and it fits the mold of “very overpowered but balanced by a long cooldown” abilities which Blizzard has been going after lately.  I would also not be surprised to see nerfs to the scaling of Hammer of the Righteous (it currently scales with Attack Power as if the 1H weapon speed was 4.0!).  HotR is perfectly fine at the AP levels that a tank would expect to see, but ends up hitting ridiculously hard (while ignoring armor) when you are in full DPS gear.  Shield of Righteousness also hits very hard while ignoring armor, but I wouldn’t really expect to see any nerfs here since it stops scaling well once you reach 2400 Block Value (and the damage caps out completely at 2760 BV).

On the flip side, will Retribution ever get buffed to make it more attractive than Protribution?  My prediction is that I seriously doubt we’ll see Ret buffed with any offensive utility whatsoever until Cataclysm (and they sure as hell aren’t going to buff the PVP damage back to where it was, for obvious reasons).  Blizzard tends to take a longer view of things, and I just don’t see them adding something as major as a snare, interrupt or Mortal Strike debuff in the middle of an expansion.  Expect to see them continue nerfing the baseline defensive utility of Paladins in small doses until the expansion, when they can sit back and redesign Retribution to strike a better balance between burst damage, defensive utility, and offensive utility.  Until then, I say strap on your shield, hop on the bandwagon and have some fun with Protribution, the new Ret, while it lasts!

I Was There, Part I

- Vanillea WoW raiding as Ret? I was there, from the beginning of Molten Core, raiding as Retribution with my 17/0/34 spec. Believe it or not, 31+ points in Ret was actually the cookie cutter raiding spec for Paladins back in those days, since 17 points in the Holy tree could get you every talent relevant to healing (and 31 in Ret was needed for Blessing of Kings).  Of course, I was there doing what any self-respecting Retribution Paladin did in raids:  Heal.  Good old Flash of Light spam, wearing terribly itemized plate healing gear with a mix of Strength, Spellpower and loads of Spirit.

- Oh my god the buffs! Actually scratch that.  It’s not exactly accurate to say that we all healed in raids back then.  Technically what I should’ve said is that I was there, BUFFING.  With 5 minute blessings on 40 targets, you had to spend at least 60 seconds out of every 5 minutes just doing your buffs.  Then on many of the fights, the remainder of that time was spent doing nothing but spamming Cleanse.  At least Decursive made cleansing painless back then, since you could set a priority list of what order to cleanse people, and which debuffs to avoid or prioritize first.

Actual DPS gear?

- Paladins can deal damage? When I did get my chance to DPS in raids on occasion, I was there trying to keep up, using my highly theorycrafted DPS rotation of “activate seal, autoattack 30 seconds, repeat”.  People were only half joking when they claimed that Ret DPS involved alt-tabbing to browse porn in 30 second intervals.  Fortunately, there was a little known trick that one could use to boost your DPS above the really bad players of other classes – consumables.  Since almost every elixir and flask stacked, you could get some pretty crazy DPS boosts if you were willing to go all out with your raid preparation (and very few people were back then).

- Scientific studies show, FHPs have more fun! I was there for all the WoW Paladin forum memes, back in the good old days before the Damage Dealing forums.  My favorite meme was the FHP craze (Female Human Paladin), with thread after thread reaching the post limit, despite having no content of interest whatsoever.  I remain a proud FHP to this day, despite temptations of overpowered +hit auras!  Because what’s the point of kicking ass if you can’t look fabulous doing it?

- You know who I don’t miss?  Fangtooth! I always have to laugh nowadays when new players criticize Ghostcrawler for not responding to issues, or sidestepping questions.  I was there back in the day when one vague post per month by our inept Community Manager named Fangtooth was considered a huge amount of communication.  Fangtooth claimed to play a Paladin, but then when people asked him about it, he admitted that he never started one, and that he was waiting for a new PVP server to come out.  Then when a batch of new PVP servers came out, Fangtooth disappeared and was never heard from again, leading to the epic Sahara spoof:

At least we LOOKED badass!

- Alliance Paladins vs. Horde Shamans. I was there the day The Unstoppable Force met The Immovable Object. The result:  160 totems, plus 40 consecrates equals one massive server crash.  When the server came back up, we crushed them, but it was hardly a fair fight.  We tried a rematch shortly afterwards, but too many bystanders joined in on both sides.   I’m the smokin hot FHP with the Ashkandi at 1:20 into the video, and now I’m kicking myself for vendoring that awesome looking gear like an idiot.

- It doesn’t get worse than the Paladin Class Review. I wish I could remember more about the debacle that was the 1.9 patch Paladin Class Review.  I was there for the whole thing, posting great ideas that were summarily ignored by Blizzard like the rest of the great ideas.  All I really remember was that every class review before Paladins had been full of great buffs to fix the class, but we just got our talents randomly shuffled around.  The lack of communication was astounding, we never even once got so much as a PTR patch notes update – every single update had to come from Paladins on the PTR storming back to the forums with the bad news.  This was pretty much the darkest hour for Ret Paladins, and luckily things have only gotten better since this point.

- Lastly, a hypothetical Vanilla WoW loot question: Drake Fang Talisman drops, and 2 people bid.  Person A does about 350 DPS, has near 100% attendance, has been an officer in the guild since the beginning, AND has the highest DKP.  Person B does about 250 DPS, has been in the guild for three weeks, and shows up to raids less than half the time.  It’s a no brainer, right?  Person A has more DKP, does higher DPS, and is an infinitely more dependable raider – anyone would agree they should win the DFT.

As you might have guessed, I was there as Person A, and Person B happened to be a Rogue.  Needless to say, given the culture of contempt for Ret Paladins at the time, not only was Person B given the DFT (and then never logged on for a raid again), but it started a huge drama that a Ret Paladin would even dare to bid in the first place, ultimately resulting in some gquits, and a lot of hard feelings that persist to this day.  So yeah, we’ve really come a LONG way since the bass-ackwards days of Vanilla WoW.  You just kinda had to be there.

…to be continued…