Hi all.
Wanted to give Ret a shot in my Mythic runs, as I have enough tank characters that I can do without Prot on this one.
Was wondering if I could get some critique on build/gearing at the moment on what to improve?
I seem to have a fun time when AW is up, but my DPS tanks pretty hard when it’s down so not sure if that’s how it’s supposed to be for this class or not.
I primarily will be doing Mythics with this char so having something to maximize those instances would be wonderful.
Current Talent TLDR; 2/3/2/3/2/1/1
Edit: I’m aware of my trinket issues as well, been striking out in AD/WCM on replacements.
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I’m pulling this advice from both Icy-veins and my own person experience having played a Paladin since the end of Vanilla.
You are a strong AoE melee dps class. As am I, as an Unholy DK. You have advantages that UH could never dream of. Your rotation is also much easier than UH. That being said, let’s focus on an AoE build.
1/?/?/3/2/2
Tier 1: Zeal
Tier 2: Simming required
Tier 3: Doesn’t matter/Situational
Tier 4: Cavalier (Alternate Eye for Eye during skittish weeks)
Tier 5: Word of Glory
Tier 6: Crusade (with Light’s Decree trait)
You’re gonna be a bit bursty, and that’s fine. You’re gonna shine when large-ish packs are pulled as well as during reaping. Single target, you won’t be anything special when you compare ret to many other dps. Though among mDPS you are one of the best, certainly better than UH. There are several reasons to bring you along for a m+, and consistent high-uptime DPS is not one of them. Every spec has it’s specific purpose, understanding what ret does well, will allow you to focus with better clarity and pull numbers you weren’t before. Read the situation, and adjust accordingly.
Note: unless you and your group have planned pulls in advance, don’t take Crusade.
It’s extremely strong if your route is planned around it; it’s probably the strongest DPS cooldown in the game. But if you’re often delaying by a minute because the pulls don’t line up, or maybe you popped Crusade on a small pull before the boss, or maybe you died and had to be b-rezed… Crusade falls off hard in value and you’d be better off with DP for consistent damage over the key.
Don’t get me wrong, AW timing is important regardless of spec, but with Crusade you’re going all in with no backup plan. With DP + Empyrean you can push pretty decent sustained AOE damage; it is proc reliant, but they’re pretty frequent.
Can’t see your Ret gear, but at least 1 x Empyrean Power and 1 x Light’s Decree is mandatory for any talent choice. Beyond that you should sim for optimal choices.
Don’t neglect your utility and offhealing! Freedom, BoP and Bubble can cheese so many mechanics in BFA M+, some of them rather non-intuitively (did you know Freedom clears the barrel blind debuff on Freehold captains?), and Word of Glory + Lay on Hands will save many lives over the course of your career. We have an exceptional toolkit, use it!
What the person above said about the it AZ traits is right, those 2 are great. For mythic plus I like a few that pump mastery with wings up too.
Stat weights are super close with ret, take highest ilvl. The talents look good, but you want word of glory for mythic plus, will save so many wipes, and one of the main reasons to bring a ret. I burn wings on reaping every 20%. Wake stuns then all nicely and I have pushed over 200k dps on those pulls if they are all grouped right away.
Rets dps will always be rough without wings sadly, that is how we are built.
word of glory makes certain mechanics super trivial that are supposed to be challenging.
I’ve been brought to many high level keys just for word of glory.
and BOP can cheeze tank mechanics if the tank has a cancel aura macro for it.
on a regular dungeon overall dps a good medium overall dps for the dungeon for me is around 25k but I’ve gotten up to 30k overall dps with a tank that pulls big into my wings all the time.
did a 15 WM and pulled 29k dps single target on the last boss even with doing the fire mechanic. I specced into procs and got great procs on wings which if that happens you will do great single target. (I don’t run crusade).
I feel like many DPS talents for ret are pretty well balanced to be honest so the important thing IMO is to play what you enjoy and what feels good for your play style and rotation.
beyond that what others have said knowing how to use wings is important. Padding on reaping is fun but if you are coming up on a nasty fortified pack before a boss that needs to die ASAP it will be wiser to not wings the reaping and focus the nasty trash pull.
also people haven’t talked about interrupts. A good ret can control many casts at once. You have HOJ, kick, and if you spec for it an AOE blind which at the very least can be a cast reset or even better on certain mobs serve as a spell lockout due to AI timer.
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