Fellow Ret Pallies, what stat feels better for playing general PVE like M15-20+ or Heroic Raids?
I’m trying to figure out what I want to focus on to get really invested into my pally. Of course, I can change it up in the future, but I want to see what the community feels really makes ret work for them instead of a generic guide.
you sim your upgrades, because non of the stat feel like theres a impact
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^ This. Always sim upgrades and don’t go by what others say their best stat is. All of my stats are within such a small margin of the other it’s not impactful to choose 1 over the other. Gear/trinkets/talents all make an impact on your stat weights.
Just looking to see if the community has a preference regarding what makes ret feel more fun. In the past, for example, it used to be Haste for the super short cd, another time it was Crit for massive Hammer hits, but it doesn’t feel like there’s a preference with DF at the moment based on perusing forums.
I prefer haste/mastery so I dont have to change my gearing from my main prot spec 
Oh, is vers not working as well for prot? I thought vers was the way to go for defense.
Yeh, Haste is king followed by Mastery > Vers > Crit.
i understand that, frankly i just think said feels was just overblown or based on how massive hasty/mastery felt like with corruptions in bfa. people just riding that high.
haste only feels impactful with extremely high % which is impossible without crusade and pi, because we dont run crusade and we arnt a prized pi target
mastery feels like verse in terms of damage but doesnt effect trinkets and cantrips
verse legit feels like nothing, even the defensive values are hardly felt in any spec
crit is the only visually stimulating stat due to big crit numbers, but we have auto crit how, wings crit effecting everything, and ts all of which devalue crit as a stat
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What the others here have said. Sim it, sim it, and sim it. There is no realistic way another ret can tell you what is best simply because of the nature of DF.
We have m+, shadowflame crafting, catalysts, socketed gear, heroic/mythic raid loot drop and dice roll rng + vault rng. The odds you’ll run into someone with the same gear composition as you will be very slim.
What sims well for me will sim differently for you OP. The robot will tell you what specifically are upgrades and sidegrades and help you with gems/enchants better than what any individual could. Like I am at 31% haste with gear and 27% crit with phial + crit rune, where most other CSAA using rets prefer haste rune but for me crit rune is the bigger dps gain.
The only stat that makes any difference in terms of ‘feel’ is haste, as it speeds your rotation.
However, you should never stack a stat based on feelings. Use raidbots and get your upgrades through top gear.
Versa has been consistently doing the highest for my ret. The other stats change around a lot so if you want to min max sim all your gear.
As for what feels good I think haste/vers is best with the auto attack build.
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Well, haste will always FEEL best but other stats are more important after a certain amount.
Haste ofc… i’d rather quit the game than be in the 15-20% haste Hell zone, 30%+ is good gameplay.
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Interesting. I read somewhere that 30% should about max stat and anything above has diminishing returns.
30% achieved through rating provided by gear. You can see the amount given by your gear if you inspect each stat.
Any stats provided by buffs such as druid mark or through talents don’t apply to this, and we as ret paladins have a few talents that raise some of our secondary stats.
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depends on sims
alot of classes just ignore DRs
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A google search shows:
Diminishing Return on Secondary Stats
From 0 to 30%, there is no penalty. From 30% to 39%, there is a 10% penalty. From 39% to 47%, there is a 20% penalty. From 47% to 54%, there is a 30% penalty.
But from what i know is that talents don’t count, only stats gained from secondary rating.
Remember that we have Seal of Alacrity giving a 4% buff to haste permanently, so that doesn’t count towards the cap.
If i’m at 30% with that, then my secondary stats actually only account for 26%, the real cap is at 34% with Seal of Alacrity.
Else it would be ridiculous low, since we also get 5% haste from Rush of Light sometimes, so our cap would be 21% without any talents.
So our real cap is 34%, then it cuts haste rating effectiveness by 10%.
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I’ve found Haste/Vers to be the most fun to play, but as others have mentioned, best to sim it.
Haste is King because of Crusading Strikes replacing auto-attack and generating holy power. combined with Zealot’s Fervor, you should be melee swinging quite often. This is especially useful in multi-target spec with Blessed Champion making your melee crusader swings hit multiple targets.
After Haste, I prefer Mastery, for the extra holystrike damage. Considering our burst windows revolve around Avenging Wrath, which enables auto-crits on hammers, Mastery increases the damage of every Hammer of Wrath used. Beyond the burst windows, in single target spec, Final Verdict/Divine Storm are our sustained damage abilities, and both scale from Mastery as well.
Vers is just so lackluster, requiring so many points for minimal damage increases. The added defense is “okay”, but considering we have no less than 3 defensive cooldowns, we don’t really need to compensate with a ton of vers mitigation.
Crit is the worst stat because our burst damage windows have auto-crit anyway. unfortunately, so many items have crit that you’re going to pick up more than you would ever need anyway.
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So between holystrike and radiant damages, i thought mastery would be devalued since it’s not primarily holy damage as the mastery would only apply to holy damage.
I thought the way holystrike and radiant worked was that it applied the damage type that has the least resistance to it. So if the mob is less resistant to physical or fire, then no holy damage would go out and therefore no mastery usage. Is that not correct?