Retribution T13 Discussion Thread

Well said I just meant that until he (or I, or anyone) are comfortable enough with the toolbox, it's hard to make use of the gear. You're quite right that we need to work on maximizing that, too.

Thanks for the tip on clcinfo being that much better. I didn't know that.

All good, and sorry if I came off defensive. I think you'll have fun with clcInfo--it just has a ton more options for advanced users to situationally tweak their rotation settings and more.

Don't worry about seeming defensive: I can see that what I wrote sounded a lot like "Ignore what he said, mash your face harder!". I noticed a huge difference when I reforged for mastery, and am pretty certain that there's a lot of fine tuning in individual fights that I can do to squeeze out more dps.

I tried clcinfo at one point and could not figure out how to configure it for Ret. =/ So I went back to clcret after a recent (within last six months? year?) update as it was better than nothing. I'm sure that clcinfo's improved a lot since I tried it, and I bet people have pasted configurations for it. (In fact, I think YOU did in this thread.)

I think one of the best points you made was that "early and often" cooldown use is NOT always best -- and it varies heavily with the fight. You'd hate to cast it before one of Hagara's dance phases, as an extreme example, and delaying them enough to have up for tentacles on Madness seems super-useful in LFR. Still, I think of it that way since otherwise I sometimes will go a minute or two and forget to use it. Casting Guardian of Ancient Kings only once in Madness, for example, is a mistake I make frequently.

Knowing when to ignore clcInfo/clcRet is almost important as following it well.... In modern ret play it is perfectly acceptable to allow Inq to fall off during your rotation under certain common circumstances for brief periods.

Can you elaborate on this? I often feel, especially near the end of killing something, that I'd be better off spending my HP on TV rather than Inq, but am not really clear how to measure it or recognize the situation ahead of time.

Back when I played ret, I remind it was fine to let Inq drop for 2-3 seconds top, assuming you weren't using any ability in that timespan.

Pretty much what worldie said, with one addition:

In T13 content, after 2pT13 (even LFR), you generate holy power so fast that 3HP Inq refreshes come much faster than before. In T11 the mantra was initally to refresh at 6 seconds left, but later this became 4, which prevailed (with the exception of 4pT11) through Firelands, particularly after the change to Inq providing 12 sec/hp instead of 10. With the added 2pT13 HP generation it is safe to refresh at 2 seconds remaining or less. Most of the time you find it falling off under these circumstances, as Worldie mentioned, it is "white space" in the rotation. In the rare case that you're actively using an ability with no Inq up, it is usually either holy wrath (low damage) or the Inq refresh itself... an inconsequential dps loss compared to the gain of not having to refresh as often. Sometimes you'll also ignore the refresh suggestion intentionally... some examples:

- On Ultraxion I'll rarely try to squeeze in one more TV before an hour of twilight or fading light, even if clc says to refresh InQ, rather than zone out and waste uptime that could have gone to dps (although now I'm usually "out" for less than half a second--my timing has improved a lot).
- On Yor'shaj if I'm about to run off after an ooze I'll push out one more TV and do the run with no Inq rather than refresh and run.
- On Haraga I'll sometimes try to squeeze in one more TV before feedback falls off rather than refresh because of the damage multiplier (but this usually means I failed at refreshing right as the last Ice Pillar was dying). Same for Zon'ozz's black phase.
- On spine (particularly heroic) getting that last TV off on a tendon before the plate comes down is a better use of 3hp or a DP proc than refreshing. You can build up the HP/refresh on the adds afterward.
- "The boss is about to die" I've found is almost always a DPS loss to not refresh. Unless the boss is going to die in the next 3-4 global cooldowns (TOPS), refresh.

Just a few examples--I'm sure you were actually unconciously doing many of these without even thinking about them and just didn't realize it.

There is an easy way to configure CLCInfo for ret: Ask Warden how to configure CLCinfo for ret. (I use this update mechanic every time a patch drops! Hasn't failed me yet!!)

anafielle wrote:There is an easy way to configure CLCInfo for ret: Ask Warden how to configure CLCinfo for ret. (I use this update mechanic every time a patch drops! Hasn't failed me yet!!)

<3

I was about to do the same thing. I found a quick video on youtube that seemed to show how to get it running, but I'm sure there's many more things to tweak it to be even more awesome.

Also, Warden -- thanks for the rundown. I've been doing it on a few things (tendons, Ultraxion), but hadn't managed to do it as well on Hagara or Yor'shaj. I always manage to lose track of when I need to have holy power pooled on Hagara, especially -- on LFR I get so few GCDs on target for the dance phases that I often am unable to have full holy power for the Feedback phases. I confess that I tend to not spend my holy power on the ice crystals, and put up Inq just before her shield falls (when possible).

I'm especially bad at making sure that I have 20+ seconds of Inquisition rolling before I pop Avenging Wrath and Zealotry, and at timing my Guardian.

Dear Ann Landers,

I apologize for the seemingly dumb question, but for fights like Zon'ozz, Spine and Hagara where you have limited windows of burn time, is it best of pop all your cooldowns at once say on the first and third damage increase phases or stagger them? Or do something completely different?

For example, we usually get 3 Dark Phases on Zon'ozz in our guild runs. So should I hit Zealotry for the first, AW for the second and then Zealotry + GoAK for the third since you have the damage multiplier stacked or pop Zealotry & AW on the first and third and include GoAK on the third one and just ignore the second?

Same idea for Hagara and Tendons since the timing of my cooldowns don't seem to sync up. I want to help out as much as I can on each tendon without jeopardizing the success of tendon #2 or #3 or whatever.

Sincerely,
Confused Terrible Ret Paladin on Grizzly Hills

Your cooldowns are ALWAYS* better stacked together rather than apart. If you get 3 dark phases, you should be able to AW/Zeal #1, nothing #2, and AW/GanK/Zeal/Pot #3. For Hagara again I aim for the #1/#3 feedback phases I think. For tendons, it depends on your raid's timing and strengths, which I'd be happy to work with you on, but are very timing-specific. Just send me an ingame message when you see me come up on RealID and we'll talk--I love talking ret with friends. Also, there are external factors to consider on Spine, like heroism. Common logic says to stack cooldowns with hero, but if the only thing that matters is tendon damage, cooldowns + hero might be overkill, depending on your raid. Again, hit me up and we'll talk. Also, if you want to see how timings and such line up (ONE way, not THE way), I usually livestream while raiding and I'd be welcome to shoot you the address (tonight will be 7-11 CST, 8/8H DS and 7/7H Firelands most likely)... just shoot me a PM on here or a message ingame.

* = there are incredibly rare, exceptional circumstances where this doesn't always apply that are so rare I don't want to talk about here so I don't confuse people.

Hey Warden, was focusing on DS with my tank for the last few days. Last night we one shot everything in normal, so next week it looks like we start taking on the heroics. (we did try a few, including one shotting Morchok)

But you have been so helpful, and I would like to work on my ret a lot the rest of the week, so I am gonna do my lfrs as ret, and might do some HoT as well. Would love to keep the talk up, I will also have time an a few gold to put the enchants on my gear, but I am not putting the expensive ones on unless I have gear that I will keep for a while.

thanks again,

gronc

Thanks for clearing that up. I'll definitely take you up on chatting a bit ingame. The reason I asked was due to my anecdotal yet shortsighted evidence of "feeling" like I was wasting procs when under the effects of all the cooldowns.

We just barely got Spine down on normal and we use hero on the 2nd tendon and you are right that cooldowns don't feel like they are necessary as it's the easier tendon for us to burn.

Many thanks,
Not so Confused but still Terrible Ret Paladin on Grizzly Hills

Can I ask a utility question? Let's just say I'm not a brain dead ret (which is debatable) and I see some upcoming spell that the tank needs to mitigate so I decide to pop Hand of Sacrifice on him before it happens. Let's also say that I'm even more cognizant that I should pop Divine Protection on myself to lessen the blow to myself.

Does that 20% damage reduction effectively increase the amount that can be transferred since Hand of Sacrifice is limited to 100% of my health? Or does it bypass any mitigation that the pally might have? Either way, I'd assume it's a good thing to use DP when using HoS.

Also, outside of a Corrupted Tentacle's impale, is there ever a time where I should use Divine Shield where a 50% reduction in dps is worth it? I'm sure there are but that was the only mechanic I could think of in DS.

warden wrote:Just a few examples--I'm sure you were actually unconciously doing many of these without even thinking about them and just didn't realize it.

Out of curiosity, what sort of customization do you use in clcinfo that you don't in clcret? I use clcret and just make on-the-fly adjustments to the situations you're describing above (i.e., I'm smart enough to recognize that casting Inq right before running to an ooze is wasteful).

Is the prediction algorithm in clcinfo somehow better than that of clcret? I assumed they were the same, and all clcinfo bought you was customization of the display (to track things like Censure, cooldowns, etc.). You can do all of that with WeakAuras/PowerAuras (or even within clcret - I had aura icons set up to track AW/Zeal/AoW/Inq availability/uptime).

It sounds like clcRet has added a lot of functionality that used to only be in clcInfo then. You're also totally correct that many things can be tracked with creative use of power auras (I posted a bunch of these in the old ret thread even). One of my old guildies even re-coded a version of Shock and Awe (his main was an enh sham) to work for ret too and called it Judge and Awe--not sure if its still around. There are lots of ways to do the same thing I guess is what I'm saying, and there's nothing wrong with deciding to use clcRet instead and backfill the difference in capabilities with a method you prefer better. Back in the day, clcRet didn't support multiple rotations, clash settings, and a bunch of the other things I love about clcInfo today. To my knowledge, however, they use the same prediction algorithm... for a time reference, I made the switch between the two back in 4.0.

Cogglamp wrote:Can I ask a utility question? Let's just say I'm not a brain dead ret (which is debatable) and I see some upcoming spell that the tank needs to mitigate so I decide to pop Hand of Sacrifice on him before it happens. Let's also say that I'm even more cognizant that I should pop Divine Protection on myself to lessen the blow to myself.

Does that 20% damage reduction effectively increase the amount that can be transferred since Hand of Sacrifice is limited to 100% of my health? Or does it bypass any mitigation that the pally might have? Either way, I'd assume it's a good thing to use DP when using HoS.

Also, outside of a Corrupted Tentacle's impale, is there ever a time where I should use Divine Shield where a 50% reduction in dps is worth it? I'm sure there are but that was the only mechanic I could think of in DS.

Absolutely you should macro DP and HoS together. Also, DP should be glyphed in every fight in DS except Morchok. The damage reduction does not reduce the effectiveness of the HoS in any way... What it does do, however, is mitigate the damage you recieve from the HoS NO MATTER WHAT THE ORIGINAL SOURCE OF THE DAMAGE. The caps part was a big eye-opener for me back in T11, and has proved invaluable in content since. Say my warrior tank eats an Impale (physical damage) and I HoS him and eat 200k damage (purely pulled-out-of-my-ass numbers). He takes 200k less physical damage (absorbed by me and transfered via the HoS) and lives. I take 120k magic damage (200k minus 40% from my GLYPHED DP) from the HoS and live.

Finally, I use bubble in a bunch of situations (all examples are 25 heroic).
Morchock: 2nd soaker dies on my side. I bubble or HoP myself and soak to take 0 damage on stomp. 20% from unglyphed DP would kill me, but 0 damage from bubble or stomp.
Zon'ozz: Black phase, running out to tentacles with a debuff ticking. I bubble it off. DP might save me, but that's a lot of damage while healers are moving.
Yor'shaj: 4 stacks of deep corruption and low on health OR lots of damage going around and standing in Spirit Link totem, which helps the raid.
Hagara: I fail at ice walls. Bubble saves me.
Ultraxion: On 25H (at least before 15%, not sure about now), bubble soaks HoT, while DP means dead ret without an external (Ana and I actually alternate bubbling and HoSing the other).
Blackhorn: I can't get out of a shockwave in time, or the spirit link trick again.
Spine: Bubble/cancel breaks a firey grip, critical during tendon burns (especially the cancel when you don't want the 50% damage done reduction).
Madness: I don't run away from the Elementium Bolt (bubble doesn't soak impales on heroic). Instead I bubble and HoS the tank. This way I can keep dpsing the corruption and swap instantly to the bolt. Our rogues also cloak here to do the same thing.

Hope it helps

That really helps. I don't think we will be hitting heroic anytime soon but having an understanding of useful "bubble" periods is great. It certainly helps me in building a framework on useful times to use bubble or HoP and trying to analyze fight mechanics better on a class level.

Does Hand of Protection break Fiery Grip on Spine?

Also, that really is eye opening on the Divine Protection/Hand of Sacrifice transfer. Time to go buy a few more dusts to have in my bag.

One question about the Spirit Link totem comment. You say it saves a lot of health but how? Are you essentially removed the spirit link health transfer mechanism since you're immune so more heals are going to those that need it or are you included but your health is going up faster since you're immune from damage?

HoP and HoF don't break it. They might have during the first week or so (I've heard conflicting reports) but definately don't anymore. By the spirit link, I essentially mean that our raid strat often uses spirit links to immediately stabilize the entire raid's health (making healing almost 100% efficient) after a big spike like bolt or the last few seconds before Ultrax dies or Yorsahj yellow/red/black phases. By entering the spirit link with full health (due to the bubble) or not taking damage I'm not just helping myself... I'm helping stabilize the raid. You'll also, in our raids, see a lot of people use healthstones and stuff like LoH during critical spirit link times if the raid as a whole is very low to help spread that healing around. I know individually it isn't a lot, but we've had a ton of people saved from the instant death scenario of "Bolt explodes, corruption slaps 1/4 of the raid" because when that bolt exploded 7 or 8 people avoided the damage and spread their extra health around to the rest of the raid, allowing them to survive the slap.

Also, to save yourself some dusts... I just leave DP glyphed for the most part. I have two "guarenteed to save me" cooldowns for stop and have never needed both. If someone was doing serious progression H Morchok it might be worth it, but I'm not sure those two things even belong in the same sentence

Thanks for the rundown. I'm sure I have more questions but they are a bit mundane so I'll save them for later and not clutter up this thread on seemingly Ret 101 stuff.

PS - How's the classy achievement coming along?

Don't worry about the questions--They're intelligent and good info to archive for any lost fellow protadins looking to sharpen up their offspec skills. I learned most of these tips and tricks from asking other pallies as well. Also, as you can tell, I can talk about Ret all day

On the achieve, not to derail the thread: Level 84 and 2500/6000 rep til honored, and I'm REALLY not looking forward to that last 3k rep (my 9th 85). After that we'll probably have to power level a dwarf rogue. One of our mages SoRed one from 32 to 80 so that'll be start.

Fenrìr wrote:BIS weapons go

H Gurth > H ESS > H Warmaster weap > Normal Gurth > N ESS = H Sulf > Norm warmaster

Another quick question. Does Human racial change this in anyway? Or does the Mastery from H ESS outweigh the expertise gain from N Gurth/H Ataraxis regardless.

So another question regarding spine if you don't mind.

What's the proper usage on GoAK on a tendon? I'm assuming you should pop it before the plate is blown off so you can begin to stack the strength buff but obviously you don't want to blow it too early. What do you use a queue to pop it? Do you wait until the Amalg is channeling his nuclear blast? A little before?

Also, I tend to feel uneasy about blowing my Inquisition too early so I tend to sit on 3 HoPo from 10% and less on the Amalg since I want a clean Inquisition when I run up and smack the tendon. I don't have 2 piece T13 yet on my paladin so maybe that will solve my issues and this is a moot point.

I know I'm wasting time by not downing the Amalg as fast as I can be since I'm preparing for the tendon; however, I don't want the raid to be overwhelmed by bloods either so it's a double edged sword it seems.

On another note, I've found on Yorshaj that I can close the gap on the blobs quicker if I perform a jump-spin-Judgement on Yorshaj (much like a jump shot on a hunter when kiting in PvP) after I'm sufficiently far enough away to gain the Long Arm of the Law sprint. I'm sure no one has troubles killing the blobs and I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of it but I becamse confident enough to tell our Demo Lock to just sit on the boss and nuke him as I could get more dps on the blob.

Judgement doesn't have a facing requirement so no need to worry about spinning. However if you want to get fancy you can use a focus judgement macro to make sure censure doesn't drop off Yor'Sahj. I wouldn't risk using it if there's any danger of not killing the ooze comfortably, but if you able to time it properly without risking the ooze hitting it's a small dps gain overall.

Gab wrote:

Fenrìr wrote:BIS weapons go

H Gurth > H ESS > H Warmaster weap > Normal Gurth > N ESS = H Sulf > Norm warmaster

Another quick question. Does Human racial change this in anyway? Or does the Mastery from H ESS outweigh the expertise gain from N Gurth/H Ataraxis regardless.

The best answer I can give is to sim it, but IIRC it still falls ahead. It could vary though, depending on your own personal stat weights. The ones I used had it ahead by about 52 dps.

Cogg: Ok, so this is probably more information than you asked for, but it is the summary of a long email discussion between Anafielle and I when we were working on H Spine progression. All timings are applicable to normal as well.

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Timings to work with:
Inq: 36 Sec—note, it is fine if this falls off as the tendon uptime expires… we can afford the time without it after the tendon isn’t targetable.
GanK: 30 sec
Zeal/AoK/AW: 20 sec Rotting Skull (if used): 15 sec (this is important, as it isn’t 100% uptime)
Nuclear Blast: 5 sec cast
Tendon: 24 sec (I think the timer starts with the blast cast finishing Tendon Uptime: 19 sec (sometimes 18). Also note that sometimes I can’t cast for the last .5-1 second on the tendon.

Lets backwards plan here. The goal is all CDs falling off just as the tendon uptime finishes. That means cooldowns must get popped 3-4 seconds after the nuclear blast explosion… 1 second before the plate comes up is permissible. You don’t want to be popping them as the tendon is appearing… you’re already spamming TV at that point. Nuclear blast explodes, 2 GCDs as you’re running in, pop the CDs. The key is making sure we’re already sitting on 3HP… can’t afford to CS once to get that 3rd HP on the tendon. That means…

HP after Inq—You need 4 GCDs to get it, 5 is better. After Inq refresh (we’ll get to that in a minute), you CS, Judge, Filler, CS, and then are ready for CDs. I like having a blank GCD after that last CS before burning CDs, just for timing in case something goes wrong… like an add isn’t in range to CS immediately or whatnot. This takes 7.5 seconds (for 5 GCDs—in reality it’s a tad less since some of our abilities are on the spell GCD). 7.5 seconds before “active” is 4 seconds after nuclear blast… or 1 second into the cast. Lets also tack on the 1.5 sec GCD after the Inq refresh, which takes us back to .5 sec prior to the Nuclear blast refresh to start building our holy power to pop our CDs. This means, counting back, that at the start of our holy power building we need to have [19 sec (tendon uptime), 5 seconds (after blast, before tendon is up), 5.5 seconds (blast and padding)=29.5 sec) of Inq up prior to starting to build our holy power… Which brings us to…

Inq. What we’ve arrived at above is that the add needs to start casting Nuclear blast within 6.5 seconds of doing a 3HP Inq refresh, but before he starts casting blast. In practical application, we have a 6 second window. Once the add hits about 4-5% (or Shira calls to kill bloods), I sit on my holy power. I pop Inq with the add hits 9 stacks… This is a GREAT time marker for us, because once it hits 9, it starts AoEing… it MUST start casting blast within 3-4 seconds of this, or the raid will wipe from the aoe, making it perfect for our purposes. Also note that after the InQ is popped, don’t spend any more holy power… you’re building it and sitting on it for the CD pop. If you get a DP proc BEFORE blast starts casting, you can spend it (I use it to refresh InQ again when the time remaining on the DP is <1 sec, otherwise just try to hold it.. there’s nothing worth dpsing), and fill the extra time with DSing the bloods that are still up to refresh apparatus stacks until cooldown popping time.

Recap:
When the add hits 4-5%, start pooling HP as we kill bloods.
1-6 seconds before Nuclear Blast (when the add hits 9 stacks is ideal), refresh Inq with 3 HP After refresh and during blast cast, build and hold 3 hp.
Use empty space to keep apparatus stacks up and fish for DP procs.
Pop GanK as blast starts casting. Blast cast finishes, run in and pop CDs just before the tendon appears (while the plate is doing its post-blast wiggle).
????
Profit.


More thoughts, this time on Heroic tendon CD use (note this only applies to 25 man, as 10s can easily down a tendon in 1 burn whereas during early progression on this 25s struggled to do it in 2, and often had to do one in 3).

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(T=tendon, B=which burn on that tendon):
What I think is going to be most efficient:
T1B1: GanK, AW, Zeal
T1B2: Nothing.
roll
First Amalg: AW/Zeal
T2B1: Nothing
T2B2: Pot, AW, Zeal
roll
T3B1: Hero, GanK, AW/Zeal
T3B2: kill
This got us 1 more cd uses of the course of the fight while still getting a full burn on each tendon and a more optimal one on T3 when we lose one dps (kitty) to be the 3rd tank. It also helped us move the Amalg along a bit faster, shortening the overall fight.


warden wrote:The best answer I can give is to sim it, but IIRC it still falls ahead. It could vary though, depending on your own personal stat weights. The ones I used had it ahead by about 52 dps.

Just curious, do you use Redcape's weights or custom weights?

Custom weights from Simcraft, customized to my own gear and raid buffs and 200-500k sims depending on how much time I have.

Above post edited with spine info, yay for code tags!