I'm generally not a big number cruncher when it comes to figuring out how to optimize my toons. That may be part of the reason I tend to play second-fiddle a lot to players like Typhia. But Ordo has recently broken into Naxx. We've begun 10-man raiding (with a bit of help from QSS alts.) And with that, I feel a need to evaluate how my main, Stofnar, is doing.
Sometimes, I think I show too much of my arms warrior origins in that I tend to prioritize gear/gems/enchants by stacking crit and strength over all others. Time to rethink that in large part because a ret pally has two primary options for DPS seals: Seal of Command & Seal of the Martyr. What I read says SoC is the better choice UNLESS you have a haste value of 13% or greater.
Well, Stof's been lugging around a shiny Meteorite whetstone, which when it procs amps his haste value by (coincidentally) 13%. Now, scuttlebutt has the internal cooldown on the whetstone at around 35-40 seconds. Unless we're speed pulling, that's means probably about one proc per fight. Stof's normal haste is about 1.25%, but I've got gem slots currently dedicated to crit that I could swap. I can also do the +haste cloak enchant easily enough. Persuading my friendly shaman to drop windfury totem (+16% haste) is another option. (I *heart* Ionya.)
Here's the counterpoint. The glyph for SoC is really good (+20% proc) and the glyph for SoM (increased mana via spiritual attunement) is not. So I'm not sure exactly how much DPS I might gain by a switch. I'm also relying on an item proc here to spike my haste rating to the right level. RNG is going to be a big factor.
Stuff to think about. I'll probably experiment a bit and see what's what. Comments are welcome.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
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4 comments:
Let me begin with. I like how you play Stofnar. He is your most effective toon from a DPS standpoint and he brings great utility to the group.
OK that being said... start here.
http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t37843-retribution_paladin_thread_wrath_3_0_a/
I think you're mostly on the right page. STR and Crit seem to be the Ret pally's best friend.
However, most the reading I've done seems to indicate that Seal of the Martyr is better than Seal of Command.
SoC is only supposed to proc (with the glyph) 8.4 times a minute. While SoM procs every swing.
The other issue is, honestly, that i does damage to you. Damage that can be healed and give you mana back (Thanks to Spiritual Attunement). As we raid more and get in longer fights, mana return will become more important.
That being said, pay attention to the PTR. The rumor is that SA is going to become a deep Prot talent. If it does expect the glyph for SoM to change.
The first test runs are encouraging.
I re-enchanted and re-gemmed a bit of my gear to bring my baseline haste up to about 3.5%. I lost about 1% crit over all. Not a big loss, and one that will be more than made up for by having a feral druid and/or fury warrior in the party (which we almost always do.)
A 30-40 second battle with the training dummies showed about a 10% increase in DPS with SoM over SoC. I went from 1.9k-2k to 2.2k-2.3k DPS. Nice jump.
I think I have a new battle strategy.
Further re-gemming. Replaced a couple of +AP gems with +str gems and swapped out my metagem for something stronger. Test runs even more encouraging. Now showing 2.6k DPS.
How long until we hit Naxx again?
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