LoDBlog

If there is one question about Ret Paladins that I get more than any other, it’s “Hey, which item is better?”  And no matter which two items they link, the answer is almost always the same:  “it depends on what you have for the rest of your gear”.  Unfortunately, statistics on gear have become high, and the hit and expertise caps so convoluted, that accurately determining which set of gear is “best” often becomes a time consuming mini-game on its own.  Fortunately, there are many incredible spreadsheets and executable programs created by various players, to help make sense of it all.  One of the most common programs that almost everyone has heard of, is Rawr. In my experience, the Rawr module for Ret Paladins is extremely accurate, and I would have no problem blindly following its recommendations, as long as you ensure that everything is set up correctly.  In this guide, I will go over how to use Rawr, strictly from the standpoint of a Ret Paladin.

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!