A Prot Paladin Stuck In a Ret's Role: Anyway to maximize?

Hey all,

As I was in LFR on Friday my third piece of set gear finally drops after what, four months now 5.2 has been out (My windwalker has been 5/5 since the beginning of June but I think that's because he has secret panda luck). As I glanced at the new 502 chest piece I was disappointed with the stats (dodge/parry) and immediately returned it to the vendor for my token. Further, I read on here that the four piece bonus does not really benefit tanks prior to heroic mode (which my current schedule/playstyle will never meet). As such, I've just felt blah this expansion. I used to lead a 10 man group but now I'm lucky if I do LFR, and before Loot Specialization I had to run all of Throne of Thunder as Ret in order to get desirable gear, which while less stressful in some cases, really makes me feel inadequate to switch back to tanking in LFR where I would like to be. Cap all of this off with the fact that my guild depends on me to be a backup tank for the 10 man progression group when the regulars aren't around and my schedule is available, and I feel like I am trying to please too many masters. I say all of this to ask (as I have tried multiple AMR scenarios comparing ret/prot gear/spec) what is the optimum gear I should shoot for in order to maximize myself in both roles (tank/dps) as much as possible? I have been a control/mastery paladin since 5.0 but I have debating about switching to control/haste to see if I can still be effective.

Prot Gear (In Armory):
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/w ... har/simple


Since I can't find a way to link two sets of gear yet I will list what I have for ret:

SPECS: 11.75% Expertise, 7.91% Hit, 21.51% Haste, 30.28% Mastery
Helm: Same as Prot
Neck: Same as Prot
Shoulders: Tier 14 483 ilvl Ret (also have access to 522 exalted shoulders)
Back: Same as Prot
Chest: Tier 14 483 ilvl Ret
Bracers: Same as Prot
Weapon: Bloodmoon, Reborn
Gloves: Carnotaur Battlegloves (also have 496 Tier 14 ret)
Belt: Same as Prot
Pants: Vaultbreaker Greaves (also have 483 Tier 14 token)
Boots: Same as Prot
Ring 1: Same as Prot
Ring 2: 502 Spinescale Seal
Trinket 1: Brutal Talisman
Trinket 2: Relic of Xuen

Thoughts?

Yes, it's a pain to try to juggle two roles in one gear set.

My advise would be to prioritise - you can't serve two masters; are you a tank or dps first? Gem and enchant your highest item level gear for the role you prioritise.

Definitely go haste/control. It's clearly won the contest of gearing paradigms this expansion. And would make your juggling roles MUCH less painful. You could also give stamina a low priority in AMR, making your gemming similar for both prot and ret. You have two stamina trinkets if needed.

The main differences you will be left with are (a) enchants; (b) expertise caps. Sometimes your second best piece of gear will be better than your best if suitably enchanted or reforged. But often the base sta/str/armor and higher budget of secondary stats will trump good itemisation or even some enchants.

I'm probably wearing half ret gear in my tank role. My ret gearset has 10% or so expertise that is the price of wearing some gear tank from that is better than the alternative for my dps, even when wrongly enchanted/reforged.

AMR is good for tank gearing; Simcraft is useful for working out stat weightings for ret dps.

Wasn't Haste the better Ret stat nowadays anyhow?

Yes, using your gear in 2 sets is a pain, but at least we want "Hit -> Expertise -> Haste -> Mastery ->" in both our sets. (Crit might compete with Mastery for Ret, but it's really tight, so it's ok to go for Mastery first.)

It helps if you can get by with enchants like Hit on Cloak, so it's useful in both sets, but that might get you over Hit cap.

But indeed, as econ said, which one do you prioritize? I personally socket everything with Haste, Hit/Haste and Exp/Haste. Then equip my tanking set, and reforge it entirely with ReforgeLite. After that, I equip my DPS set (which has like 8 identical pieces in it), tell ReforgeLite not to touch the tanking pieces, and then reforge that set.

Major downsides: I have the Stam LW enchant on my Ret legs, and I have like 10% expertise in ret. I also used to have rings that fit both sets, and had to re-enchant them for any serious content, but ToT lacks rings that fit both gearsets, so it's not an issue.

Haste is better if it can be simmed 2:1 higher than strength.

I was actually comparing Haste to Mastery for the reforges, but good point about Strength.

That's one of those things where you make concessions, though. If Strength is still the better stat to you, you'd probably gem Haste in the shared pieces anyhow, as Haste benefits both your gearsets.

Ah, got it. Then yea, you're correct; haste > Mastery > crit is how I keep my ret stuff reforged.