8.2 Rise of Azshara Retribution Paladin Essence Build

Basic Breakdown:

Due to changes from the new options, and basing it off of relative final values (simulations not yet run; obvious changes may occur if unduly low unforeseen proc rates occur, otherwise these are likely to be final)

PvE ST and AoE

Crusade > Divine Purpose ST, slightly, based on RNG
Divine Purpose > Crusade 2 or more targets (by a lot)

Azerite Traits:
Avenger’s Might x 3 => Wings provide massive Mastery buff (huge DPS)
Light’s Decree x 1 => Obviously more provide higher AoE, but at least 1 of these
Empyrean Power x 1 => Also extremely important in AoE, still very solid in ST
Relentless Inquisitor => breakdown is: AM > LD > RI > EP, having 3 of Avenger’s Might is still the most important (exception being having at least 1 of Light’s Decree and Empyrean Power each), then Relentless Inquisitor becomes more valuable in ST over Empyrean Power, but for AoE it is beaten by Light’s Decree, especially with new changes

Ideally 3 of Avenger’s Might, and 1 of each of the others

Essences:

Major => Vision of Perfection, offers roughly 3 uses of Wings, total uptime of 45 seconds (scaling up to 55 potentially if it ends up being that LD applies to these Wings’ duration as well), per 1 minute 40 second time period
-Each usage of Wings over Crusade also provides a 100% Crit Chance moment, which in AoE scales exponentially due to the AoE brought by Divine Storm

Minor => The Unbound Force, when you fail to Crit, create a stack, when X number of stacks are reached, gain 100% Crit Chance for 5 (3-4 based on more recent changes, varies on information, 70% crit seems to be current release candidate; i.e. WoWhead is inaccurate)

Minor => Blood of the Enemy, when you succeed with a Crit, create a stack, when hitting X number of stacks, gain an ungodly amount of Haste

Stat Values:

Haste > Mastery > Crit > Versatility (based on proc-rate, if you can get a lot of Versatility, and plummet your Crit, that might also work as well and reverse their positionings)

Essentially, you’ll have ridiculously long uptimes on your Wings, which combined with the Mastery Trait will skyrocket in value, and every time you utilize Wings (over Crusade) you will also gain guaranteed Crit for the next Templar’s Verdict or Divine Storm (big for M+ as you can get an average of 3 in about 1.66 minutes; they might tune this), resource-less generation (Divine Purpose) is likely to help with generating Procs

In terms of current, non-progression content, Crusade is likely to hold better over this build, primarily due to the ability to (tend) to do the majority of your damage (even killing the boss) not too long after, or well within, the 2 minute cooldown of Crusade (meaning that the Bloodlust stacking with Crusade has a very strong synergy). Allocating the maximum amount of resources within a burst window tends to lead to the best results, so of course this is likely to hold true again when the upcoming content becomes farmed.

The essential idea of Avoiding Crusade is due to the lowered Duration with regards to the synergy of Vision of Perfection, as well as the guaranteed Crit (which can add up to a bit of damage in AoE, as well as can help along Blood of the Enemy), however there are alternatives that would work fine with Crusade, and be more in-line with a ridiculously high opening burst (but a comparatively awful sustained damage).
-i.e. stacking Crusade to 10, then utilizing Blood of the Enemy - Major, into Wake of Ashes, and going from there, would deal an exceptionally high amount of opening burst damage, and an entire build could be built from there (scary to consider for PvP too)

These are just my thoughts, and they could easily change based on Tweaks before the release of the new patch, as well as how often the proc rates are for the new Essences (upon release that is; doesn’t matter so much what they currently are, as they could rapidly go from great to awful, or vice versa).

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This is great. Can’t wait to see the final product. I did just recently watch a video on warlocks+essences. Basically the guy was saying there was an undocumented nerf. Whenever they’re demonic tyrant was procced via the essence the Azerite trait that gives them intellect whenever they use that cooldown wasn’t giving them the full amount anymore as it does when they actually activate the ability themselves. It was something like 7000 intellect before and much less now. I wonder if something similar will happen to the interaction between the Essence that procs wings and our Azerite trait.

I don’t think you have to worry about that with ret.

The design behind ret is typically recycled over time throughout expansions. In cata a set bonus gave DS procs, in WoD it was a talent, and in BFA it’s an Azerite trait.

Following this logic, you can see that in WoD we also had a 4 piece set bonus that gave us this exact same uptime on wings (3 on use charges) with another scaling damage proc for each of these phases.

That period was by far my favorite iteration of ret, and 8.2 is looking like the carbon copy of it. So buckle up for some fun big boy

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This post is entirely wrong.

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End of story.

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Honestly just reading about how the essence allow for such insane up times on everyone dps cds make me wonder how much of a dps jump this tier will bring. I am assuming we will have people in the 70k ST dps by the end of 8.2

You should be pulling 70k ST dps somewhat early on into 8.2

People are already pulling 40k ST dps

I would suspect we will be pushing into the 100k ST and way higher AOE damage mid to late 8.2. That is a hell of a jump

Talking about burst or sustained? I don’t think anyone can pull sustained anywhere close to 40k single target in current gear. You can burst 40k with wings, hero, and buffs, but I can’t imagine someone finishing a boss fight at 40k ST.

Go look on warcraft logs

69k sustained DPS on Mythic Champions, 46k sustained on Jadefire, 36k sustained on Grong, etc.

Plenty of people are doing well over 40k based on fight, there’s only one fight, Mekka, where people are NOT well over 30k ST

All of those fights have adds/cleave. The top parse on mythic champs is all Divine Storm, Light’s Decree, and Wake damage because they stacked the adds. The other examples you mentioned show the same thing.

You can’t say people are doing 40k sustained single target DPS, then point to warcraft logs using examples of fights with adds. Can you find an example where someone actually does 40k sustained Single Target?