Hey yall.
Recently used my 120 boost to make a paladin, Ive pretty much gotten the rotation down (it’s not very complex) and now I’m in the process of gearing him out.
One thing I don’t understand is what I should be focusing on stats wise for ret… every guide I read and person I ask says something different or can’t give me a full answer.
I’ve been told haste over crit, crit over haste and so on and so forth, what is the correct stat priority?
Based on the HoW ret FAQ the answer is to sim them as they are completely dependent on your traits, talents etc. If you want an easy + free place to sim your character go to Raidbots and just click statweights then enter your character name + server and it should come up with your character, then you hit sim and after a while (depending on how many others are trying to sim as well) you will have your answer. If you want to min maxed its worth siming every piece of new gear you get to see which one is better (obviously this is super overboard but does give the best possible dps result)
Sorry this really isn’t an answer but it’s better to teach a man to fish then to just give him the fish.
Edit: added some stuff
The stats are very close and will change depending on essence / azerite traits and talent combination. Also depends on your main focus of raiding mythic+ or pvp .
PvP it’s Str, Mast, Haste, Vers, Crit in that order.
For pve ret stats vary immensely. If you have 1 or 2 expurgation trait crit becomes #1 by a large margin and usually followed by haste then versatility.
I swapped all my expurgation trait to haste and now my #1 stat priority is vers > haste > crit.
I recommend to use raidbot dot com to sims your character. There is an option for statweight which let you k ow which stat offers the most dps
Run top gear on raidbots when you get new gear it will tell you what gems and enchants will be best . Raidbots even tells you that statweight isn’t accurate
haste, its all haste.
Siming yourself is the most accurate, easiest, and by far most braindead crap play one can ask for.
Sim yourself, sure. But also understand why something sims better at a given moment.
I’ll be happy when this game doesn’t require me to have a third party web site to tell me what my best gear is.
I’m really happy to still be in the gear period where “just wear your highest ilevel item” usually solves that dilemma. Last night I got my first drop that was like “Well, this is the same ilevel but different secondary stats and also it’s azurite so I have to figure out which traits are better.”
You could always just do the math yourself. Too many variables for me, I’ll stick to the bot.
If you are confused about siming in Raidbots, Go for Haste+Versatility for PVE and Haste+mastery for PVP. Even Haste+Versatility works in PVP too.
For gameplay reasons you should keep haste above 20%, the pace of your rotation depends on it. Anything lower feels like swimming thru molasses, then again I could just be spoiled because it’s been awhile since I’ve been low in haste stat. Barring the min/max crap I feel haste makes the spec feel more responsive and enjoyable to play to hell with these sims I’m sick of it.
Haste/vers > haste/mast for pvp
Str > haste >= vers > mast > crit
More haste=
More auto attacks=more blade procs.
Lower CD of blade, Cusader, judgement=more holy power
Lowers GCd= more attacks
Shoot for at least 18-20% haste after that haste = vers
A lot of feels crafters here. Ret syncs with gear very romantically to where the nuance of the stats change the pace. Best option is trust the sims; as there are people who spend ruthless hours to answer the questions we have through a software that is designed to optimize your character in a plethora of scenarios of damage.
For pvp vers/haste/mastery/crit
Pve just sim yourself
like everyone else already said. for PVE ret doesn’t really have a universal stat priority which i really like. you can play what you want.
but that does’t mean if you are concerned for damage you shouldn’t sim or find a good talent build that suits you. like others said stats can vary wildly even between two paladins running the same talent build but with different gear sets.
the build i’m aiming for right now is to get 3x lights decree 2x avenging might and 1x empyrian power for filling the global cooldown in rotation. mastery does affect the damage from lights decree in this build so it is strong but with two avengers mights procing mastery during lights decree mastery on static gear becomes slightly less valuable for that if im not mistaken.
the eternal palace build was really fun too and I enjoyed it. it was a crit heavy build using CLF major essence, excecution sentence and inquisition and 3x expurgation. its not as clearly as meta anymore i believe but it might still be viable as a single target build.
i like the 3x lights decree build cause it involves less swapping of talents for dungeons versus raid. it functions well in single target and cleave, really only swapping final verdict for zeal when i enter dungeons.
the only real answer on stats is to sim it. but until you actually max out your gear its probably safe to equip anything that is an ilvl increase to boost your dps in general. sockets strength depends on what piece its on. cloaks and rings sockets are very strong. on gloves and legs not quite as strong.
this is ignoring all corruption affects which depends on what boss for progression or content choice.