Pandaria pallies summed up? Trash sucks (as always), but bosses are awesome.  I think pallies are, overall, in a good place, thought it would be nice to do some competitive damage on some of the trash without having to pop cooldowns.

Paladins, for that matter, are fairly dependent on their cooldowns.  Lining up the cooldowns on the bosses that you will face will be key to doing more than just mediocre (or downright lame) damage.  Make sure to pay close attention to the cooldowns section.

Part 1 – Stats, Gemming, Reforging, Enchanting

What are my stat rankings?

STR is king, as always.  BUT, when gemming haste is very close.  Be careful to read the gemming portion really carefully.

Hit (to cap) > STR > Expertise (to cap) > Haste > Mastery = Crit

Notice mastery and crit are equal. Try to balance them out. The difference between mastery and crit is virtually negligible.

What is hit/expertise cap?

7.5%

Expertise was redesigned to be exactly like hit.  Cap them both off at 7.5%.

What meta gem do I use?

Reverberating Primal Diamond. The largest portion of the meta contribution is the 3% increased crit damage.

What gems do I use?

Gems in Pandaria got a little bit of a bump.  Hybrid gems now have double the secondary stat they used to have.

Also, much to the consternation of Pandaria Jewelcrafters, the perfect form of lesser gems (i.e. Perfect Bold Pandarian Garnet) is EXACTLY THE SAME as the standard cut of the normal gem.  Keep this in mind as you search for gems.  Often times, one is cheaper than the other.  Search BOTH types of gems before buying, and you might find great deals.

Bold Primordial Ruby, Fierce Vermillion Onyx, Etched Imperial Amethyst, Lightning Wild Jade, Quick Sun’s Radiance.

In all cases, do not ever EVER gem straight hit, or expertise. You will lose too much str to gem for hit.

How do I socket gems?

Gem socketing is now two part.  Pre-raid gear (blues and greens), and raid gear and beyond (purples).

Let’s start with Pre-Raid gear:

All STR gems.  In pre raid gear, the STR on the equipment is low enough that STR is the best stat almost 2 to 1.  If you are having trouble hitting hit cap through other means, pop in a hybrid hit gem in a slot or two where you can take advantage of your socket bonuses. Never EVER EVER Gem for hit or expertise straight.  You will lose too much dps.

When you have 50% or more Purple gear, on purple gear ONLY, replace those strength gems with hybrid haste gems in all slots except yellow, yellow slots get pure haste gems (quick).

OMG, reforging is confusing! Help!?!?!

First, reforge to your hit cap.

Secondly, reforge to your expertise cap.

If you have expertise or hit and are above cap, reforge into haste, if possible, or crit and mastery in balanced amounts.

Reforge away from crit and mastery in equal amounts, but the haste bump is not enough to justify reforging away from crit or mastery into haste.

Simple enough

You said we could use tank gear – are you insane?

Nope, not insane. Generally tank gear comes with primary stats equal to, or slightly better, to items of similar Ilvl. Where they differ is secondary stats, which you can reforge. Generally they contain 1 DPS stat, and 1 Tank stat, like parry. Simply reforge the tank stat to one of your highest useful stats. This is not as efficient as having a pure DPS piece, however, it is totally acceptable if the gear is just going to be sharded, and it is an upgrade. An upgrade is an upgrade.

What do I enchant on my xxxxx?

Use your stat rankings to determine your best enchants, exception being if you need to make hit or expertise cap.

Part 2 – Spec and Glyphs

What Spec Should I use?

You should use a spec that YOU like.  LOLWUT?  Yeah.  The only exception is the last tier.  Execution sentence is going to be the DPS leader, unless you are in a fight where you are constantly battling more than one mob at the same time.

Every single other talent is purely preference and may give you slight dps advantage based on how skillfully you use it.  Therefore, use what you are comfortable with and is going to allow you to play the easiest.

What glyphs do I use?

Major

The only directive I give here is what not to use.

DO NOT use Glyph of Harsh Words – while it may seem like it will give you an extra attack, it still uses holy power that will be better used for Templar’s Verdict.  This is a DPS loss.

DO NOT use Immediate Truth.  DPS Loss.

DO NOT use Inquisition.  DPS Loss.

Minor

Your choice

Part 3 – The Rotation, Mechanics, Spells

What are the primary spells I will be using as ret?

Crusader Strike (CS)

Divine Storm (DS)

Inquisition (INQ)

Hammer of the Righteous (HoR)

Judgement (J)

Exorcism (Exo)

Hammer of Wrath (HoW)

Avenging Wrath (AW)

Guardian of Ancient Kings (GK)

Holy Avenger (HA)

Templar’s Verdict (TV)

What are the special combat mechanics of ret paladins?

Ret paladins how have Holy Power, in addition to mana, to manage. This holy power sort of functions like rogue combo points – you build them up in combat using crusader strike (one CS = 1 HP, except in Holy Avenger phase). This is especially important because many of your primary DPS talents rely on HP to do more damage.

Wow, that is a LOT of spells, how am I ever going to manage that in combat?!?!

I like to group up the spells into three categories – Single Target, AoE, and Cooldowns. They are as follows:

AoE

HoR

DS

Single Target

CS

TV

Exo

HoW

Cooldowns

AW

HA

Inq

GK

What seals do I use?

Seal of Truth if you are going to be on a single target. Seal of Righteousness only if you are going to be in a trash pack of 4+ mobs for greater than 7 seconds. Basically, always SoT, due to the heavy situational nature of SoR.

How does my rotation work?

Ret paladins have two separate rotations – one for AoE and one for Single Target (boss fights and such).

AoE

The AoE rotation is simple – use HoR in place of CS, DS at 3 holy power, and fill in with single target as needed.. AoE is particularly mana intensive, so make sure you are judging to replentish mana. Also, Divine storm is only superior to TV if there are 4 targets or more. If there are Fewer than 4, you must switch to single target tactics.

Single Target

A Minor History in Ret – We were FCFS (first come, first serve) prior to Cata.  Then they changed us to a filler rotation.  Guess what?  Were back to FCFS, but we are priority based.  Basically, that means, whatever comes off cooldown first, you push it.  However, there will be conflicts in HP generation, as well as multiple things coming off of cooldown at the same time.  In those instances, you push what will do the most dps first:

INQ > TV > ES (if specced) > HoW > CS > Exo > Judge

The entire point of the ret rotation is to get holy power to use Templar’s Verdict. It is the second hardest hitting spell you have.

You can have up to 5 HP stored at any time, and everything that does not consume HP, generates HP.  It is a DPS loss if you lose HP because you are full on HP.  USE YOUR HP FIRST.  TV has no CD, so you can use it back to back, if need be.

Some sites like EJ put priority on 4-5 TV over a standard 3 TV.  This is to emphasize that you NEED TO USE YOUR HP.  Since my readers are smart enough to know that (RIGHT?) I have omitted that here.

How am I using cooldowns?

Cooldown usage is simple enough.

Inquisition

First off, inquisition should be thought of as a very short duration cooldown that needs to be up as close to 100% as possible. It increases your holy damage for each of your spells. For each point of HP you generate, it lasts 10 seconds. Generally, you should refresh INQ only when you have three holy power. Depending on latency, start anticipating refreshing INQ at about 3 or 4 seconds. Your goal is to clip as little time (meaning refreshing before its expiring) and not let it expire if at all possible. Think of it as The Price Is Right – The closest to the actual time of expiry, without going over.

Holy Avenger

Holy Avenger is a more refined Zealotry from Cata. It makes it so each of your HP Generators generate 3 HP, as well as increases your  damage. Holy Avenger should always be used in conjunction with INQ to ensure you get maximum dps benefit (i.e. all of your HA goes to TV rather than losing one to refreshing INQ). HA is usually perfectly timed so that as you lose the effect, the next three HP generated will refresh your INQ with little or no time loss. HA should always be used with Avenging Wrath, as well.

Avenging Wrath

AW increases all damage done by 20%, as well as allows you to use HoW as if the target was below 20%, significantly boosting your dps. AW should always be used with HA the first time, but they no longer share a cooldown timer.  If you are in tank and spank situation, Use HA without AW the second time.  If you are not, you will need to evaluate if you will get most use out of waiting an additional 60 seconds to use HA with AW.

Guardian of Ancient Kings

GK is an awesome looking pally/knight/angel that will come out and fight for you when you activate it. Each of your strikes that land during the duration will increase your STR by 1% for a maximum of 20%. Once it expires, it does a minimal amount of dps.

Use GK exactly 10 seconds before you pop Zeal, Inq, and AW. This will give you the maximum strength benefit to your other cooldowns.

Whenever possible, tie GK with AW to maximize the benefit, but to blast the DPS meters its best to use them all at the same time.

Part 4 – General Suggestions, and Questions!

Find a way to track your buffs, including holy power, in a way that works for you!

Holy power, especially, is so important to your dps, that not tracking it in a way that you can manage is DPS suicide. There are a ton of addons out there that can do it.

Remember, this is only a guide to get you started.

As with anything, people are different and do things in different ways. This sheet will work for 95% of all you rets. But for some of you, because of latency or setup, or whatever, will make this less than optimal. The only thing that matters is that the boss is down and you have done your part. Being at the top of the DPS meters is just that much sweeter If this isn’t working for you, adapt to maximize your own personal play style!

Did I miss anything?

Ask me in the comments.

I have been itching to get back to blogging wow.  I have several pages I want to write, some of them ret posts, mostly gold posts.  Will I be back blogging regularly at LF?  Maaaaaaybe.  I dont know.  It is a big time commitment.  But it is not unpossible.  I can definitely say I miss it a ton.  Even if I have no more readers, and I will have to build them back up.

Here is a short list of things that I have been mulling over in my mind to post:

Understanding your Market.

The Quality Dillema

L2Ret

The impossibly innacurate “you dont have to” mentality in wow developement.

L2Ret is long overdue, and I will likely post that soon even if I decide to ignore the itch and hunker down and not write.  But I do so love it.

Would you still read LF if it was rebooted?  Sound off in the comments!

*crickets*  LOL, at least thats what I would expect at this point.

I expected some of that, for a couple of reasons.  First, you cannot go six months without the game changing.  Secondly, cross realm zones mean a whole hell of a lot of people I dont know.  Finally, the AH game is just not what it used to be.

I first noticed this feeling of disconnect when I logged on to the game, and was still smack dab in the middle of Stormwind.  So many people were around me.  And you know what?  No trade chat spam.  Trade chat was almost completely dead.  Compared to six months ago, I had to turn trade chat off because it was so horrendous.  A cesspool of people who didnt even know basic tact.

I started looking around, and browsing the forums.  All the old names were gone.  The top three (maybe even four?) guilds transferred out.  The age demographic has surely changed from one of being adolescent 20′s to teens.  At best.  The server is now a much colder place than it once was.  And I find little solace in my own guild.

At the end of Lich King, my guild started a slow death rasp.  We defeated the Lich King, which many, including me, had saw as the pinnacle of the game.  Cataclysm rolled around, and content was a little more difficult.  For a casual guild like mine, it meant that there was a wedge being driven in the player base.  There were the top gamers who could do a heroic in greens, and then there was everyone else.

Raiding never got off the ground.  We went into BoT, and for three months struggled heartily at the first three bosses.  We got a few good attempts at cho’gall before the team just sort of fell apart and stopped coming to the raids.  Several attempts to revive it fell flat on its face.  In addition to that, the leadership (myself included) started spending less and less time in game.

The end result is that when I logged in to WoW a few weeks before Pandaria, A guild of more than 600 toons (many of them alts, to be fair), pruned itself down to less than 400.  What used to be a vibrant and lively social guild, with on average, 10 people on a night, has downed itself to at most 5 people on at a time.  Some of them new recruits.

The AH game is brutal right now.  I suspect that is, in part, because the AH game is now so accessable that more and more people are in it.  Part of it is that JC went through major changes – the side effect of requiring 3 rare gems for research every day, as well as keeping the mid grade ore quite rare (kyparite is the new elementium, and is not found nearly as often as ghost iron) is that there are tidal waves of uncommon gems hitting the market.  Right now G.I. Ore is running about 145 a stack, on average.  Raw uncommons are going for 9g or so each.  Raw rares are going for 100 ish.  So if I sold just raw gems I *might* break even.  Cut rares are less than 1G each, exceptions being the red ones and they are 4-5.  Perfects are only going for 25g each, exceptions of course being the reds.  They can pull about 300.  Cut uncommons are running about 80g.  Of course, reds more expensive.

Will JC ever be profitable this expansion?  Here is my prediction – Yes, but…

The first idea to make it profitable is to have an XMUTE spec alchy that XMUTES the green gems over to blue gems.  This will only work if two conditions are met – first the XMUTE has no cooldown.  Secondly, Golden lotuses have to be relatively cheap.  Sadly, I dont think they ever will be.

The second is simply patch cycle (i.e. time).  People are going to realize that JC is not so profitable, and stick it out for a bit while they get their research done.  That means that they will try each patch to make a comeback.  Once they realize there are a lot of people trying to do that, they will finally start dropping out.  Also, farmers will start kicking in more relaibly, driving the price of ore down.  That will only help if people have exited the market.

So where do I go from here?

I let the JC market cool.  All those pent up gems really do not have a place to go right now.  My server is a slow leveling casual server.  It wont be for a few more weeks even as much as a month before there is even a decent market for gems.  In addition, ore should start coming down in price.  I may be able to muscle my way in to the market after that happens. In the meantime, I will continue researching my cuts.  As a side effect, that is going to mean I am going to have to keep buying lots of rediculous ore.  I will keep my eye on kypartie, but I dont expect it to budge much anytime soon.

In the meantime, I am going to lvl my tailor and alchy.  Alchy is rediculous, requiring you to produce a million and one items for research purposes.  It seems only the rejuv potions and health pots research.  I will try and look that up a bit later.  It would be nice if that were different .  I dont even know how to research the transmutes.

Inscription might be profitable again, but I am hesitant.  I played the inscription game back in the day, and so many glyphs are just a pain in the ass to manage.

But really what am I going to do?  Level and enjoy the game.

I havent even dinged a single toon to 86 yet.  I have enjoyed the quests so far, so I cannot wait.  The problem is I am just kinda burned out on fire, and I feel a sense of loyalty to him.  I need a change of pace, and want to level either my shammy or my priest first.  Or hell, even my monk.  Or one of my other million toons.  I just really dont like the pally rotation right now.  It is so clunky and…   I guess I miss having more than 4 buttons to push.  Its a damn crying shame and I hope that as I lvl him up he becomes more interesting.  Otherwise it is heal spec or tank he goes.  I just get mind numbingly bored on him.

I haven’t even been writing on my other blog (which will be changing as soon as I finish up this post).

There are many many reasons for that, none of which I will bore you with.

I will, however, regale you with the story of why I resubbed to WoW, when I thought… I hoped…  that Diablo 3 would take its place.

Are you ready?  Its really a long winded reason…

Alright.  Here it is:

It took me just 45 minutes to clear all of Act4 on my witch doctor (aptly named oogabooga).

Ok, that was a short and oversimplified statement, but when you boil my reasoning down, that is what it rests on.  Simply put – Diablo 3 does not have the exploration aspect of its gameplay, nor the overbearing and fantastic storytelling of its predecessors.  It isn’t nearly random enough.  And when compared to WoW, a game I have enjoyed over the last… 4 years?…  It simply does not have an engaging endgame.  While I can do one of a million things in WoW, the end game for Diablo 3 is ONLY the item hunt.  That’s it.

So after sitting down for a minute and thinking about where I was with my gameplaying and such, I decided that I will return to wow after an almost 6 month break.  So I went and bought pandaria that day, and logged back in.

It was so refreshing to relog and see all of my toons.  What wasnt so refreshing was blizz resetting all of my addons >.<

Does this mean I am back to blogging?  Meh.  When I get the penchant for it, or I have a big enough rant I will write about it.  I will, as promised, post and updated L2Ret FAQ.  But guess what – I am just as lost as you right now.  I am reading, practicing, learning.  I am hesitant to post one anyway, until I hit 90.  What I can say is this – it seems I have really high (out competing higher geared characters) single target.  But my trash dps is just trash.  Lowest by a large margin.  I need to figure out why that is before I can begin to fix it.

Also, our rotation feels….  clunky.  And very very…  not enough buttons to press.  I miss holy wrath and consecration.

On the AH side of things…  I ended the game with an entire bank tab (and then some) of uncut gems and 650k of gold in the bank.  I had another half tab of glyph ink that I never cashed in.  I gave it away about a month ago.  Before I quit, those mats would have taken me to gold cap at least.  But they were just sitting in the bank, and I had no motivation to resub to mobile ah just to liquidate them (this was before it went free).  So I just let a friend have them in the hopes that he would at least make some cash off of it, and it cleared out my inventory to make room for pandaria (because even at that point I was strongly considering going back to wow).  As of right now, I have a tab that is my “junk tab” – a collection of motes and things past that I sell off as I get them, and also to have a small stockpile so that I can raise up baby crafters.  I also have an entire tab of netherweave cloth bolts.  Netherweave bags always sell really well at the beginning and through most of the start of the expansion.

What I don’t have – Inscription ink.  When blizz changed the glyphs, they made some not discovered.  I need to go through and discover the new glyphs again.

And my thoughts on Pandaria money making?

*sigh*

Crafters who hate farming (me) and have two crafting professions (me) are going to be hit with a hammer.  Because of motes being BoP.  They do drop from mobs, but at a lower rate.  I have seen everything from 1 or 2 motes every 5 or so mobs, to just getting 5 total SoH (that’s 50 motes) from 85-90.  I hope, for our sake, it is the former.  Otherwise it is going to be essential, nigh required, to have a gathering profession on each toon just for the extra motes.

JC – JC is a bit of a mixed bag.  Let me list the positive things before the negs.  Positive – JC now no longer uses a daily token system for recps.  We are on a discovery system like alchemists or inscriptionists.  Our special JC only gems will come from shards we get while prospecting.  We got some expensive (but cool) mounts.  Our hybrid gems got buffed significantly, and we should see a more of a balance on sales.  It will devalue our red gems a slight bit.  But it should value at least our orange and purps by a bit too.

And the bad – The shuffle is going to depend largely on the price of mats… as it always has.  It now requires three gems and a setting to make one ring.  I’m not sure how this will play out in the long term, and will force us to really think about profitability.  It’s a squeeze basically.  It takes three gems of a color to research a new cut of that color.  It isnt a total waste, we will get two randomly cut gems back.  But it is a lot of mats just to research new cuts.  I would like to see it require green gems, rather than blue gems.  There are no “frozen orb” type spells to convert green gems to blue gems.  We can override the daily research with three SoH to give us a random cut of any color.  This is why SoH are so precious to us, and why it might be worth it to crab a gathering profession.  It really depends on drop rates.  For sure, I will be sinking all of my SoH into this for a long while until I get most cuts.  My BS will just lay by the wayside.

Blacksmithing got the nerfbat right to the head.

Rods got taken away, so that no longer makes money.   In addition belt buckles use an xmute mat that is on a 1D cooldown.

BS is going to be hard pressed to find a reliable way to make money, which is another reason I am considering very strongly dropping it from Fire.

I guess that is it for the moment.  The moment Mists launches I will be grinding out JC mats.  That will be it and all for the first week.  Then we will go from there.

Catch ya all around in game.

If you still happen to read my blog, or have it in your feed reader gathering dust, I am here to tell you that I haven’t left!

Yes, Light’s Fury is dead.  Save for the occasional paladin mechanics post (I.E. the RET FAQ that I have done whenever paladin mechanics change enough), I feel that Light’s Fury has run its course.  This is not a “I’m coming back” post.

This is actually a post for those of you who enjoyed my off topic writings and musings.

I have created a new blog, and have set up shop there.  It may contain WoW related posts, but it will not be a WoW blog.  Rather, this blog will be a place for me to vent, bitch, muse, write, and do all the million other things that the million other blogs do.  But instead, it will be more awesome.  Because it is mine.

I welcome anyone who ever read, or will read, Lights Fury and enjoyed its off topic posts to venture over and say hello!

implicitrandomness.wordpress.com

See you on the flip side!

During my freshman semester of college I was fortunate enough to take Psychology 101 with one of the most respected professors on my campus.  I don’t know how I actually got into her class – generally it has a waitlist of 50-100 people (I would later find out).  I just happened to be in the right place in the right time, I suppose.  The class was the only class she teaches at night – I had a full time job so I was a 7-1030 PM student.

And I suppose that bears some on this piece of advice I am about to give you too.  Classes at night are a whole different breed than the classes during the day.  Generally, they are filled by the kind of people who WANT to be in class – they are working towards a degree while also holding a full time job, etc…

Anyway, this teacher had a tradition in her class.  You see, people generally don’t approach Psychology with an open mind.  They think shrinks and insane asylums and such (at least that is what she tells us).  They don’t appreciate the finer points of Freud.  Her tradition started with creating a very safe protective environment.  I remember the speech still in my head.  ”We are going to broach some very serious topics in this class.  This class will be a sanctuary from the outside world.  What happens here, stays in here, and what happens there does not come here.  If there is any ridicule of any sort – laughing, teasing, anything whatsoever, you will be escorted from this room and you will fail my class.  No exceptions.  No dropping to avoid the F.  I will publish the failing grade to your transcript no matter what.”

The silence in the room after such a serious statement was palpable.  She went around the room to ask each student what they thought Psychology was.  I was surprised to find that the subject did have a very negative connotation to it.

“Thank you.  Now I am going to teach you what Psychology really is.  I am going to give you an assignment, and then we can all leave early.  This is a very practical assignment, not one out of the book.  I am 40 some years old, and I carry this book..” She held up a very nice leather-bound journal.. “with me everywhere.  It is a diary.  It holds my life in it.  I want you guys to start a diary – or journal for you guys – for at least the duration of my class.  To get started, I want you to write a chronicle of your life.  An autobiography.  I want nothing less than 10 pages..”  She was interrupted by groans around the room, but just raised her voice.  ”This will not be seen by anyone by me.  I will read it, but it will be a complete/not complete assignment.  There will be no A’s or B’s, it is not my place to grade your life.  I will use it to get to know you guys just a little better.   And I bet a pizza party that two things will happen.  Every person who does this assignment will be reduced to tears.  Those that don’t cry, havent done the assignment.”  With that, she left the room, and we left counting our blessings that we got out early.

I started the assignment two days later, and initially laid out a timeline.  I wrote on it, and it only came in at about 2 pages.  I started adding detail, and realized that if I was going to fill 10 pages, I would actually have to go into detail about many, many aspects of my life.  As I wrote, I found myself drawn into the writing, and at a certain point, I don’t know what point it was, but at a certain point I just started writing without thinking about what was coming out, or what was next.  What followed was a 20 page monument to my own life.  the pages were stained with tears, sweat, and the blood of my inner being.

When we met again, the next week, I found out that my story was not unique.  Almost every person who actually completed the assignment had a similar experience.  She called us up one at a time from our seats (it was a typical lecture hall with 70 students, so it took a while).  We were instructed to stand in front of the class and share how it felt to write our assignment.  At first, it was awkward, especially for us guys (lets share our FEELINGS – could you think of something more foreign to a guy?).  But, as more people came up front to turn in their assignment -the size of each assignment astounded me – 20, 30, 40 pages some of them spanned – it got easier.  And each person had a similar story of just letting everything hit the page, for better or worse, and having the sense of an amazing emotional release.

Next week the students all pitched in $10 and we had an amazing pizza party complete with ice cream and sodas for all.

Around the campus, those that had taken her class were easily spotted writing in their own journal whenever they had free time, long after they had even stopped taking her class.

All of the preceding 900 words serve only to point out how powerful a tool writing can be for cleansing one’s soul.  Myself, I have a journal and a story that I have maintained ever since that class.  The journal is a journal.  It is a place where I write to keep things straight in my head, remember things, put them down on paper to get them off my shoulders.

But the story, the story is something different.  The journal is something very practical, very academic.  The story… The story has a life of its own.  Whenever I cannot put something to paper in my journal, whenever I am feeling particularly lost, hurt, sad, happy, confused – whatever – I write in the story.  In many ways the story parallels my life, because that is its purpose – to help me figure out what I am feeling, what I need to do, or whatever.  The characters in it have had a harrowing and exciting time as I have had.  It is not a carbon copy, not even close.  But it does bear the same scars and bruises that I do.

It is no secret to my guildies and close friends that I have had a craptastic few years in my life.  Life threw punch after punch and I was feeling like I couldn’t get my footing.  And about 4 or 5 weeks ago, another blow hit me that knocked me flat on my rear.  So, I dealt with it as best I could, even though I knew I wasn’t really dealing with it.

And then I thought about my story.  So I looked for it.  I looked for it on the hard drive of my old computer, the various flash drives I have lying around the house, and my own external drive.  After searching everywhere I could not find it.  I think that I had it on my old computer when the hard drive crashed.  I had to admit to myself that it was lost.  I cannot tell you how sad I was when I finally searched the last possible place, only to find an empty screen staring back at me.

Yesterday, feeling particularly low, I decided to re-write the story.  So I thought for a while about what I had already written, and where I was going and I started writing.

It became clear to me, very early, that this story was not going to be the same as the last.  Whenever I tried to guide the story, it felt wrong.  The characters that I know and love would practically scream at me, “No!  That’s not what I would do.  This isn’t right!  I can’t do that!”  and I would backspace and stop for a moment.  I would take stock of what I had written in this new story, and after getting only about 2,000 words into the story, backspacing and re-writing at least double that, my will was broken.  I gave in and let the characters guide the story, for better or worse.

What followed was a frantically paced writing session.  I made the mistake of starting the project at lunch, while I was at work.  Thankfully, it was a very slow day, and my only job was pretty much to answer calls.  Oh yes, I had other projects.  But they were all waiting for other people to do their jobs before I could do mine (Oy!  I hate days like that!).  So I sat at my desk and I wrote and wrote and wrote.  I stopped long enough to answer calls, and do a few related tasks, and of course, stopped to go home.  But as soon as I was home I resumed writing – I didn’t even eat dinner.

When I was done I had a story that was different, but familiar.  New characters were added, characters that were previously key to the story dropped to the background, and I had a 20,000 word document that I immediately backed up online.  Most importantly, I had a new chapter added on the end.  A chapter about my recent issues.

Writing that last chapter was, as I expected, quite cathartic.  The story, while not the same, was familiar in many ways to the last 5 weeks of my life.  And when I put the last period on the last sentence of that chapter, it felt as if I had lifted the weight of the world off of my shoulders.  The character now bears the weight, and he did it without me guiding the story at all.

Creative writing – writing to get rid of your sorrows – writing to get your thought onto a page – writing for work – writing for fun – writing for school -it doesn’t matter.  Stop guiding the story.  Let the characters themselves write the story.  Do this, and you will find you will write a more satisfying story than you ever thought possible.  And if they choose to bear the weight of your troubles for you, all the better.

Perhaps this isnt the end.  Perhaps it is the end for the forseeable future.

In any event, I am no longer going to be actively posting on this blog (as if that wasnt painfully obvious).

There are many reasons for it, but the most important one is simply time.  A person really close to me re-introduced me to my love of table top RPG’s (during a games convention), and I have picked it up and started running with it.

WoW is, for the most part, losing influence in my life.  Heck, over the last week, I have spent less than 5 hours on the game.  Raid time only, basically.  Part of it is my new found vigor in my second hobby.  I have also found several games that I want to play, other than wow.

A lot of it, though, is that…  I guess I am saying cataclysm sucked for me.  For me, it feels all too insubstantial.  Where is cataclysm?  BC, and WOTLK both had whole continents to them, and cata has 5 zones.  It feels like cata really didnt happen.  I am (or was) playing my little warrior through all the new zones, but even that didnt really seem like “cataclysm”.  A LOT of it also has to do with the story.  For me, a good story is what makes the game.  Sure, there are pokemon and games of its ilk, where its just really a time waster.  And those are ok.  To an extent.  But, for a big blockbuster game, cataclysm just doesnt seem to hold my attention.  I was with arthas as he rose to power back in WC3, and I was there when I ran my blade through his heart.  Though deathwing is a pretty darned big threat (who isnt, that can tear the world apart?), to me he feels like generic dragon #129587.  He doesnt have a storied history like arthas.  Note to Blizz – a prime target for “posession” is Tirion Fordring.  I would love to see an expac with him getting posessed and ripping through the faction leaders, Bonus points if its crazy ass sylvanus that did it.

I have not cancelled my subscritpion.  And I likely wont, for a long while at least.  But in the times of 1-1.5 hour heroics, endless grinding to get gear, and raids that are….   demanding.   I don’t see myself becoming as hardcore as I was in LK.

I will be putting up a blog for campaign notes for my current RP campaign.  when it is created, and has a few posts fleshed out, ill post the link here.

Till the next time, swing those hammers hard fellow paladins.

But with success also comes failure. Stats are quite frankly boring, and in my opinion, completely broke. We now can share gear with tanks, which somewhat limits our choices for gear and gems. Our AoE is lacking compared to almost every other class.

Even with these problems, ret is still amazingly fun to play, and difficult to master. Welcome to Retribution 4.1.

Part 1 – Stats, Gemming, Reforging, Enchanting

What are my stat rankings?

This is where I was referring to stats being broken. STR is king, more so that even in wrath. So much so that, when determining whether an item is an upgrade, STR determines wether you take it or not. If an item has more STR, take it. You can reforge to move around secondary stats.

Hit (to cap) > STR > Expertise (to cap) > Mastery = Crit > Haste

Don’t you dare pick up anything with agility. Leave that to your hunters.

Notice mastery and crit are equal. Try to balance them out. The big theory crafting think tank that is EJ says that Mastery is marginally better than Crit. But realistically, the difference between mastery and crit is virtually negligible.

Haste used to be king – USED – it is now universally the worst stat. You will be reforging haste in every instance to something else.

What is hit cap?

8%

What is expertise cap?

Technically, expertise cap is 21. But due to glyphing (see the glyph portion), you will only need to get to 11.

What meta gem do I use?

Reverberating Shadowspirit. If you have a cheap helm from lvling and don’t want to invest, you can look at chaotic shadowspirit, and chaotic skyflare. The largest portion of the meta contribution is the 3% increased crit damage. You don’t want to lose that.

What gems do I use?

Bold Inferno, Skillful Ember Topaz, Inscribed Ember Topaz, Etched Demonseye

In all cases, do not ever EVER gem straight hit, or expertise. You will lose too much str to gem for hit.

How do I socket gems?

Bold Inferno. For 99.9999% of sockets you will use only bold. The default position should be socket bold, except in these circumstances:

If your socket bonus (for one socket) is 20 STR then use a hybrid.

If your socket bonus (for one socket) is 30 Mastery or Crit, use a hybrid.

If your socket bonus (for two sockets) is 30 STR, use a Hybrid.

If your socket bonus (for two sockets) is 50 Mastery or Crit, use a Hybrid.

OMG, reforging is confusing! Help!?!?!

If you have any haste, Reforge to the next highest stat allowable, based on stat rankings.

If you have expertise or hit and are above cap, reforge into next highest stat so long as you do not go UNDER cap.

If your item has crit, and mastery, and you are at or above hit and expertise cap, leave it alone.

If you are not at hit cap, reforge away your worst stat (mastery and crit in balanced amounts) into hit. It is more important to be at hit cap than have those secondary stats.

If you are within 1-3 of your expertise cap, DO NOT reforge into expertise.

Simple enough

Almost every single item will be reforged.

You said we could use tank gear – are you insane?

Nope, not insane. Generally tank gear comes with primary stats equal to, or slightly better, to items of similar Ilvl. Where they differ is secondary stats, which you can reforge. Generally they contain 1 DPS stat, and 1 Tank stat, like parry. Simply reforge the tank stat to one of your highest useful stats. This is not as efficient as having a pure DPS piece, however, it is totally acceptable if the gear is just going to be sharded, and it is an upgrade. An upgrade is an upgrade.

What do I enchant on my xxxxx?

Use your stat rankings to determine your best enchants. Unless you have the maelstroms to excess, use the next available enchant.

Avalanche for the “cheap” weapon enchant, Landslide if you are rolling in the cash.

Part 2 – Spec and Glyphs

What Spec Should I use?

This is the accepted standard spec. You can move the points from Long Arm Of The Law around as you like, however, it is generally inadvisable. Remember, the quicker you can move into battle, the more dps time you will have. You have one point that is “your choice”.

What glyphs do I use?

Prime

Seal of Truth – 10 expertise, the single biggest dps gain from a glyph you can take

Templar’s Verdict

Exorcism

Major

Hammer of Wrath

Ascetic Crusader

Your choice

Minor

Your choice

Part 3 – The Rotation, Mechanics, Spells

What are the primary spells I will be using as ret?

Crusader Strike (CS)

Divine Storm (DS)

Inquisition (INQ)

Judgement (J)

Holy Wrath (HW)

Exorcism (Exo)

Consecration (Cons)

Hammer of Wrath (HoW)

Avenging Wrath (AW)

Guardian of Ancient Kings (GK)

Zealotry (Zeal)

Templar’s Verdict (TV)

What are the special combat mechanics of ret paladins?

Ret paladins how have Holy Power, in addition to mana, to manage. This holy power sort of functions like rogue combo points – you build them up in combat using crusader strike (one CS = 1 HP, except in Zealotry phase). This is especially important because many of your primary DPS talents rely on HP to do more damage.

Wow, that is a LOT of spells, how am I ever going to manage that in combat?!?!

I like to group up the spells into three categories – Single Target, AoE, and Cooldowns. They are as follows:

AoE

Consecration

Divine Storm

Holy Wrath

Single Target

Consecration

Holy Wrath

Crusader Strike

Templar’s Verdict

Exorcism

Hammer of Wrath

Cooldowns

Avenging Wrath

Inquisition

Holy Wrath

Guardian of Ancient Kings

What seals do I use?

Seal of Truth if you are going to be on a target for 20 seconds or more. Seal of Righteousness if you are frequently changing targets, or in an AoE situation. Trash basically.

How does my rotation work?

Ret paladins have two separate rotations – one for AoE and one for Single Target (boss fights and such).

AoE

The AoE rotation is simple – use Divine Storm, Consecration, and Holy Wrath as they come off cooldown, filling in with single target as needed. AoE is particularly mana intensive, so make sure you are judging to replentish mana. Also, Divine storm is only superior to Crusader strike if there are 4 targets or more. If there are 4 or fewer, you must switch to single target tactics.

Single Target

The previous incarnations of ret were simply first come, first serve, priority based. That means, you smashed the buttons whenever they came off cooldown, with weight towards the highest dps spell. The new rotation is a priority based filler rotation. The rotation is this:

CS > Filler > Filler > CS > Filler > Filler > CS > TV

The entire point of the ret rotation is to get holy power through Crusader Strike to use Templar’s Verdict. It is the third hardest hitting spell you have.

Filler spells in this rotation is any spell other than CS. This could be Exo, Cons, or any of your cooldown spells, or even a potion. The idea is the only time you are going to miss a crusader strike is if you have a proc that is higher priority. All filler spells should be used based on the highest dps available.

Your CS will come off of cooldown before the GCD of the second filler finishes. Do not take this as incentive to stand and wait, or trim off that second filler. It is universally a DPS loss. Do not try to stack haste to trim this second filler off either, it is simply not feasible, and a massive dps loss to try and do.

I have the basic premise of the rotation down, what are the priorities of the spells?

HoW > Exo (proc only) > TV (3 HP only) > CS > Judge > HW > Cons

Hammer of Wrath is your single biggest dps spell. It hits like a Mack truck, and a large part of that damage is holy, meaning it cannot be mitigated by resistances – it shoots straight through to the target.

Exo is next, but it only ever should be used with an AoW proc. If you cast exo at any time without the proc, it is a dps loss. It loses the DPS gain of AoW, drains your mana, and most importantly, stops and resets your swing timer.

Templar’s Verdict should only be used with three holy power. Using it with any less is a massive dps loss.

Consecration is at the end only because it really is your lowest dps spell, and is only used as a filler when you have NOTHING ELSE you can do. It will use 50% of your mana, but it is SOME dps, rather than none.

I see there is a talent, selfless healer, that allows me to get a DPS increase for using my HP to heal others, thats neat!

Yup, it is. But using selfless healer will ALWAYS, in EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE be a dps loss. The buff is not large enough or long enough to counteract the loss of the TV or Inquisition refresh.

However, when faced with the choice of TV or keeping the tank up through a rough spot, there is an obvious choice.

Mastery procs are quite unpredictable. How do I fit them into my rotation?

Treat mastery procs as a “filler”. Either use it to refresh inquisition, or fit an extra TV in as one of your filler placeholders. If you absolutely must, you can use it for selfless healer, but remember, its ALWAYS a dps loss.

Alright, enough of that. How am I using cooldowns?

Cooldown usage is simple enough.

Inquisition

First off, inquisition should be thought of as a very short duration cooldown that needs to be up as close to 100% as possible. It increases your holy damage for each of your spells. For each point of HP you generate, it lasts 10 seconds. Generally, you should refresh INQ only when you have three holy power. Depending on latency, start anticipating refreshing INQ at about 3 or 4 seconds. Your goal is to clip as little time (meaning refreshing before its expiring) and not let it expire if at all possible. Think of it as The Price Is Right – The closest to the actual time of expiry, without going over. Remember, you can use your mastery procs to refresh it.

Zealotry

Zealotry is a unique little bugger. It makes it so each of your CS generates 3 HP. Effectively, it compresses your rotation to get more TV in. Zealotry requires 3 HP to activate, but does not consume the HP used to activate it. For this reason, Zealotry should always be used in conjunction with INQ to ensure you get maximum dps benefit (i.e. all of your zeal goes to TV rather than losing one to refreshing INQ). Zealotry is usually perfectly timed so that as you lose the effect, the next three HP generated will refresh your INQ with little or no time loss. Zealotry should always be used with Avenging Wrath, as well.

Avenging Wrath

AW increases all damage done by 20%, as well as allows you to use HoW as if the target was below 20%, significantly boosting your dps. AW should always be used with Zealotry, and since they have the same cooldown timer, they will always be ready together.

Guardian of Ancient Kings

GoAK is an awesome looking pally/knight/angel that will come out and fight for you when you activate it. Each of your strikes that land during the duration will increase your STR by 1% for a maximum of 20%. Once it expires, it does a minimal amount of dps.

You can use GoAK in one of two ways.

The official stance from EJ on the subject is that you use GoAK exactly 10 seconds before you pop Zeal, Inq, and AW. This will give you the maximum strength benefit to your other cooldowns.

Now for reality.

For us mere mortals, in my opinion, it is better for us to separate GoAK into a second cooldown phase. Phase 1 being Zeal, INQ, and AW. Phase two being GoAK, Trink, Pot (if appropriate).

Why? Two reasons.

First, fights are extremely mobile in Cata, and rarely will you ever have a solid 45 seconds of stand and burn time, leading to loss in usefulness of your cooldowns, penalizing your dps.

Second, and most importantly – threat. Popping everything you have like EJ suggests introduces a MASSIVE dps spike. In some cases as much as double your normal dps. It’s not hard to rip aggro off of your tank during this phase. And remember, even if you are doing awesome dps, a dead DPS does no DPS. Splitting them up allows you to smooth that spike out, and manage aggro much easier. And let you live. To swing your hammer. And do DPS. You get what I mean.

Overall, using this method, I have found that my DPS is much more even and threat is less of an issue for my tanks.

Part 4 – General Suggestions, and Questions!

Find a way to track your buffs, including holy power, in a way that works for you!

Holy power, especially, is so important to your dps, that not tracking it in a way that you can manage is DPS suicide. There are a ton of addons out there that can do it, but I myself prefer Power Auras Classic. It allows me to track not just holy power, but duration left on inquisition as well as other things.

Remember, this is only a guide to get you started.

As with anything, people are different and do things in different ways. This sheet will work for 95% of all you rets. But for some of you, because of latency or setup, or whatever, will make this less than optimal. The only thing that matters is that the boss is down and you have done your part. Being at the top of the DPS meters is just that much sweeter If this isn’t working for you, adapt to maximize your own personal play style!

Did I miss anything?

Ask me in the comments.

WTB more time, that does not slip through my hands like water!

Anyway, its been a good month.  I have gotten into heroics and raids.  Haven’t tried a single attempt at the new ZG raid.  And I am still not a permanent member of a raid group, but rather a fill in.  And for now, I am ok with that.  I have, however, been there with my guild for the first downs of the raid bosses we have defeated, so im good.

But I cannot, for the life of me, seem to find the time to do 7 heroics each week.  So lacking in the VP department.

I’ve ventured into arena, and pretty much had my rear handed to me.  That was to be expected tho, I am still only in crafted gear.

It does seem to me that heroics…  heroics are a bit punishing, maybe a little bit too punishing.  I dont know, I did just one heroic in BC, and of course, a ton of heroics in wrath.  I know blizz is trying to make heroics more ‘heroic’, but it seems like there should be some middle ground there.  Coming from an era where blizz’s sole goal was to make the entire game more accessable, then just locking everything down so tight, it seems counter intuative.  I can tell you that *I* personally know 5 people who cancelled their accounts because, and I will use their words exactly, “I’m tired of telling my friends, sorry, I am not good enough, or sorry, you are not good enough, to play with me.”  That is just bad juju.

I got linked by wowinsider!  Woo hoo!

Dammed chaos orbs hate me…   They just LEAP into other people’s hands.

I leveled my priest and shammy, with my DK coming close behind.  I like healing on both.  But it just seems like priests are still not fixed.  I have every piece of gear so heavily laden with spirit, AND spirit pots, and it just seems like I have to use every single trick in my book to have *just* enough mana to end the encounter.  My shammy, she has mana for days.  Something smells broken, out of whack, to me.

I currently have more money than I have ever had in the history of wow.  AND stock for days.  I have diversified quite nicely, tho I still cannot seem to get a foothold in the glyph market.  That is rather frustrating.  Glyphers are more cutthroat than JCers, if thats possible!

L2Ret 4.1 edition coming, I promise.  I havent forgotten about you, mr. blog!

In today’s inaugural post, in addition to laying out the rules, he decided to touch on tanking and the stats thy use. Specifically, he focuses on this thoughts on bringing hit and expertise back to an attractive stat for tanks.

My first reaction to his post is this: tanks pay attention to stats?

Now wait. Don’t stone me. Yes, I know we all pay attention to stats. Let me explain a little about what I mean.

Way back before I ever rolled my tank and started playing him at any competent lvl, I had only Fire, and his awesome dps-ness (new word, woot!). I was raiding Ulduar, and my group was heading back to Hodir in that god awful frozen cavern with the bazillion worm spawn points. Someone brought up that they would hate to ever tank, that it would be too stressful. To which our tanks laughed and said that it was, in actuality, pretty damn boring. That got me to thinking, what does a tank really even do?

A tank, as GC points out, has two major jobs. Threat and survivability. In other words, a tank has to take the punches and keep the mobs pissed off enough at him that they won’t decide to slug out your healer or one of your dps. Yes, the tanks other job is to appropriately position mobs and obey the mechanics of the fight, but no amount of expertise or dodge is going to help with that. That is the human element that makes the game so compelling. Since these concepts are wholly different, let me tackle them separately.

The Case Of The Inadequate UI

Blizz has a major problem with tanks.  Actually, it’s not so much with tanks themselves, but rather the Tank UI.  The simple fact of the matter is that the UI is really built from a DPS point of view.  It gives very little Tank feedback.

You see, when I am DPSing, (sorry blizz, no matter how badly you want me to adopt “Damage Dealing”, It just does not work) there is a TON of information flying at me.  Whether I am hitting or not, what my general threat status is, how much I am hitting, how much more damage I have to do to kill a mob, when that mob is going to cast something I need to interrupt, how much life I have left, etc…  I can refine that even more with addons that tailor this to my specific needs.

How much of that information is useful to a tank?  The only real thing that tanks need to have there is their health status – whether they are going to die soon or not.  Everything else is borderline completely useless.  Yes, even general threat status.  How important is it to know that you have aggro?  Pretty dang important.  But that you can tell just by looking at the mob, because it beats on you.  But the general threat status does not tell you who is coming up close to ripping off your mob, and how close that is to happening.  It only tells you that the mob hates you enough to be smacking you in the face.

As an extension to the pervious statement, when managing threat, the damage portion of the UI only matters because a tank needs to do damage to piss the mob off.  How much threat does 8,365 damage generate?  Approximately 3x that, right?  OK, great.  What does that mean?  Does that mean that I need to hit a mob for 2k more damage to move them from the green shade of general threat, to yellow?  How much do I need to damage them to keep them from ripping off of me and going to my lock and one shotting him? Where is that line?  The answer is this:  The default UI does not compensate for this.

Oh yes, this information can be obtained.  Omen is a great tool that everyone should use.  But even Omen has its limits.  If you pick up a pack of 3 baddies, omen will tell you the threat status of only your currently targeted mob.  You have to tab around, wasting precious time, to find out which one needs to be smacked in the back of the head most.  Threat plates are the best solution to this, that I have seen.

Let’s get back to the stats, though, because that is the focus of GC’s article.  Let me ask this – How much threat would 125 hit rating net you?  Well, in order to obtain this information, you would have to do a whole crapton of math – Translate rating to %, then figure out how much more you would hit than miss without this stat, then figure out what strikes hit effects, and how often you use them, then translate that over to damage, and back to threat based on that damage.  *whew*

DPS, if they wanted to know exactly what Damage that Hit net them, they would have to go through a similar process, but hit is so fundamental to DPS that it is a moot point – you always make sure you are at hit cap, otherwise you are losing a significant amount of damage to misses.  DPS does not think twice about hit because they know they HAVE to be at cap.  Plus, DPS does not have a need to know how much threat a specific stat would generate.  Because tanks have different strikes that do not use hit tables (taunt anyone?), tanks don’t always need hit, nor do they have such an ingrained need to be at the cap.

Also is the always present question – Do I even need to increase my threat, as opposed to survivability?

Are You Really Dying, Or Just Faking It?

Let me ask you the single most fundamental question in tanking – Are you going to die?

Threat can be dealt with – Lower the DPS output, give time to get threat and build it up a bit, etc.  But, being one shot, there is nothing we can do about that.

Let’s play some mind games here.  Lets say that you are in a normal group – A healer, three dps, and a tank.  How do you know you have enough survivability?  When you die?  That’s what the healer is for.  The healer is supposed to keep you up.  Is the healer not up to par?  How do you know?

OK, let’s remove the healer.  Can your DPS heal you?  Should the DPS be able to heal you?

Survivability has to be the single most nebulous concept – everyone knows it, but no one can really quantify it.  Survivability is so essential to the game – you have to be alive to play, yet because so many factors are involved, there is no hard and fast “This is what you need to have” guideline.  And without that guideline, without that threat of dying or putting massive stress on your healer – why should you take 125 block over 1250 armor?

Survivability is not a binary stat.  By that I mean, it is not “you survive or you don’t.” I know, that seems a bit counter intuitive, right?  But surviving an encounter is more like “you survive with the help of a stressed out healer, and dps that were doing some healing, or you don’t.” The simple fact of the matter is that in almost all circumstances, having a better geared, and more skilled healer is more important than you squabbling over 1% dodge or .5% hit – In the long run, the healer has to be able to compensate for the RNG and differences in tanking style, more than you having 1% less survivability than threat.  Being an undergeared tank can be compensated for.  But being an overgeared tank with an undergeared healer is not going to help you much.

Ok, I Lied

Stats do matter.  They matter as a game mechanic – you need to block, dodge, and have armor to be able to survive the incoming hits.  You must have strength and hit and expertise to generate enough threat to keep the mobs stuck to you.  But in the big scheme of things, the stats are really only present on gear to function as progression – I know X piece of gear is better than the other, because it has .5% more dodge on it.

But as a function of being an interesting mechanic for tanks – There needs to be a better measure, and a much improved UI to boot, than just “we got through this encounter.”  That puts too much of the responsibility on your healer and your dps (either for backup healing or dialing back their dps to compensate for threat).  There needs to be a finer line in threat and a finer line in survivability for stats to really matter.

Image courtesy core77.com