Tuesday, April 1, 2008

How to retribution in Wrath of the Lich King




Wrath of the Lich King
(as retribution)


Index:
I: Changes to Talents
II:Changes to Abilities
III: New Abilities (and correlation to retribution)
IV: New Talents
V: Spec choices
VI: DPS rotation and rationale behind it.
VII: Inscription

I :Changes to Talents
Bendecition:
Burning Crusade:15% (5% per rank) mana cost reduction on judgement and seals
Wrath of the Lich King: 15% (5% per rank) decrease in mana cost to all instant abilities
Buff or Nerf: Buff

Improved Blessing of Might:
Burning Crusade: 20% (4% per rank) AP bonus to blessing of might
Wrath of the Lich King: 25%(5% per rank) AP bonus to blessing of might, moved to tier two retribution.
Buff or Nerf: Buff

Heart of the Crusader:
Burning Crusade: Named Improved Judgment of the Crusader, in addition to the + holy damage it increases the chances of all attacks on target to crit by 3% (1% per rank).
Wrath of the Lich King: Named Heart of the Crusader, in addition to your current judgement, all attack your judgments increase the critical strike chance of all attacks on that target by 3% (1% per rank).
Buff or Nerf: Massive buff, allows us to keep Light/Wisdom/Justice judged.

Pursuit of Justice:
Burning Crusade: Increases movement speed by 15% (5% per rank) and reduces the chance you will be hit by spells by 3%.
Wrath of the Lich King: Increases movement speed by 15% (7.5% per rank) and reduces the duration of all disarm effects by 50%.
Buff or Nerf: Buff for ret, if you're getting killed by a aggro based spell, don't pull aggro, buff for PVP as well, getting disarmed is one of our major weaknesses.

Crusade:
Burning Crusade: Increases damage done to Humanoids, Elementals, Undead, and demons by 3% (1% per rank).
Wrath of the Lich Kng: Increases damage done by 3% and damage done to Humanoids, Elementals, Undead, and demons by an additional 3%. (1% per rank).
Buff or Nerf: Buff.

Sanctified Retribution:
Burning Crusade: Named Sanctity Aura, increases holy damage by 10%, Improved Sancity Aura increases damage done by group members by 2% (Three total talent points)
Wrath of the Lich king: Sanctified Retribution, increases damage done by those affected by Sanctity Aura by 2%, holy damage increase folded into all pertinent abilities.
Buff or Nerf: Buff.



Vengance:
Burning Crusade: Gives you a 5% (1% per rank) increase to holy and physical damage after you crit on an offensive ability, stacks up to 3 times.
Wrath of the Lich King: Gives you a 3% (1 per rank) increase to holy and physical damage after you crit on an offensive ability, stacks up to three times.
Buff or Nerf: Nerf.

Improved Retribution Aura
Burning Crusade: Increases damage done by your Retribution Aura by 50% (25% per rank)
Wrath of the Lich King: Lowered two teirs.
Buff or Nerf: Position change

Sanctified Seals:
Burning Crusade: Increases the chance to crit on all seals by 3% and reduces the chance your seals will be dispelled by 100%
Wrath of the Lich King: Moved up three teirs, only change.
Buff or Nerf: Neither, just a position move

Divine Purpose:
Burning Crusade: Reduces the damage done by critical strikes against you by 10% (4%,7%,10%)
Wrath of the Lich King : Raised two teirs, reduces the chance you will be hit by ranged attacks and spells by 4%, your hand of freedom spell has a 100% chance to remove a stun from your target.
Buff or Nerf: Nerf.

Repantance:
Burning Crusade: Incapacitates a target, breaks on damage, only useable on humanoids with a 6 second duration.
Wrath of the Lich King: Incapacitates a target, breaks on damage, useable on humans, undead, dragonkin, and demons. 60 second duration.
Buff or Nerf: Buff.

Fanatacisim:
Burning Crusade: Increases the critical strike chance of all judgements capable of critting by 15% (3 % per rank) and reduces the amount of aggro generated by 30% (6% per rank) unless under righteous fury.
Wrath of the Lich King: Increases the critical strike chance of all judgements capable of critting by 25% (5 % per rank) and reduces the amount of aggro generated by 30% (6% per rank) unless under righteous fury.

Precison (protection spec'd talent):
Burning Crusade: Increases chance to hit by 3%(1% per rank), requires 5 points in protection
Wrath of the Lich King: Removed
Buff or Nerf: Nerf

Divine Strength (Holy talent):
Burning Crusade: Increases strength by 10% (2% per rank)
Wrath of the Lich King: Increases strength by 15% (3% per rank). Moved to protection
Buff or Nerf: Buff


II :Changes to Abilities

Avenging Wrath
Burning Crusade:Increases all damage caused by 30% for 20 sec, procs forbearance, and has a three minute cooldown.
Wrath of The Lich King: Increases damage and healing by 20% for 20 seconds, does not proc forbearance, has a three minute cooldown.
Buff or Nerf: Buff for PVP (can wings and bubble at once), Nerf for PVE (less total damage).

Holy Wrath
Burning Crusade: Two second cast time, does 635 - 745 holy damage getting coefficients off spell damage, does damage to all demons/undead within twenty yards 60 second cooldown.
Wrath of the Lich King: Instant cast time, does 777 holy damage with bonus damage off attack power and spell damage to all demons/undead within twenty yards. Also stuns them, 30 second cooldown.

Consecrate:
Burning Crusade: Rank 6 does512 + 100% spell damage over 8 seconds.
Wrath of the Lich King: Rank 6 does 576 holy damage + (Attack power*.32)+(Spelldamage*.32) = toal damage.


Lay on Hands
Burning Crusade: Rank 5 consumes all your mana, healing your target for your maximum health, giving them 900 mana as well, 60 minute cooldown.
Wrath of the Lich King: Rank 5 uses no mana, heals your trget for your maximum health, giving them 900 mana as well, 20 minute cool down.

Hammer of Justice
Burning Crusade: Stuns your target for 6 seconds
Wrath of the Lich King: Stuns your target for 6 seconds and silences the target for 4 seconds

Blessing of Sacrifice
Burning Crusade: Transfers 104 damage taken by the target to the paladin, lasts for 30 seconds
Wrath of the Lich King: Hand of Sacrifice, 30% of the damage the target takes gets transfered to the paladin, lasts for 12 seconds.

Blessing of Freedom
Burning Crusade: Grants immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 sec
Wrath of the Lich King: Hand of Freedom, grans immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 sec

Blessing of Salvation
Burning Crusade: Reduces the amount of all threat generated by 30%, lasts 10 minutes.
Wrath of the Lich King: Hand of Salvation, reduces targets total threat by 2% every 1 sec. for 10 sec.

Blessing of Light
Burning Crusade: Increases amount healed by 200
Wrath of the Lich King: Folded into all healing spells.

Judgement
Burning Crusade: Unleashes a seals energy on a target, granting a debuff depending on seal juedged.
Wrath of the Lich King:
  • Judgment of Wisdom: Restores 9% of AP + 9% of Spell Power of maximum mana to the attacker.
  • Judgement of Light: Attacks restore [18% of AP + 18% of Spell Power] health to the attacker.
  • Judgement of Justice: Reduces the targets movement speed, and caps it at 100%
Hammer of Wrath
Burning Crusade : does 665-735 damage, .5 second cast, usable when a target is under 20% health.
Wrath of the Lich King: does [ 15% of AP + 15% of Spell Power + 733 ] Holy damage, instant cast, 6 second cooldown, useable when target is under 35% health.


III :New Abilities (and correlation to abilities)
Sacred Shield
Rank 1 80 Each time the target takes damage they gain a Sacred Shield, absorbing 500 damage and increasing the paladin's chance to critically hit with Flash of Light by 50% for up to 6 sec. They cannot gain this effect more than once every 6 sec. Lasts 30 sec.
12% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast

Pertinence to Retribution: Throw a shield up on yourself, doing a little less than a priests bubble. Whenever you get a art of war proc, you should cast flash of light on yourself while this shield is active, with a 30% spell crit chance (spell crit and melee crit now are the same stat), it will be a 80% crit chance on your heal. This in turn, if it crits, will give a heal over time due to Sheathe of Light (talent discussed at a later time)

Divine Plea
71 You gain 25% of your total mana over 10 sec, but the amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50%.
Instant, 1 min cooldown
Its like a mages evocation, but it’s a activated and not channeled. Think of it as a heal over time, instant cast, which restores mana instead of health.


IV :New Talents
Divine Storm
Rank 1 11 2 An instant weapon attack that causes Holy damage to up to 4 enemies within 8 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totaling 20% of the damage caused.
12% of base mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 10 sec cooldown
This Talent, by far, is the most damage ability we gain in the expansion. It offers a ton of single target damage, as well as a viable form of AOE with a bonus heals attached to it. It should be cycled into your rotation as often as possible

Righteous Vengeance
Rank 5 Increases critical damage bonus of your Judgment and Divine Storm spells by 25%.
Bonus critical damage by an increased 25%, no matter on what ability, is always very welcome, increases critical damage bonus by 5% per rank.


Swift Retribution
Rank 3 Your Retribution Aura also increases casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 3%.
Increases your raids haste rating by 3% as well as your own, this effect is in addition to the 2% more damage done in your raid


Sheath of Light
Rank 3 Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 30% of your attack power and your critical healing spells heal the target for 60% of the healed amount over 12 seconds.
From the onset, this is a slightly odd talent for most. Why would we want a ability to increase your spell damage and benefit healing? Most of our abilities now share coefficients (15% spell damage 15% attack power as an example), it provides a way to upgrade the 15% spell damage from 0 to 607. Which is a extreme increase of power. The heal over time also helps with a flash of light critical, instant cast due to art of war, with bonus crit from sacred shield.


Sanctified Wrath
Rank 2 8 3 Increases the critical strike chance of Hammer of Wrath by 50%, reduces the cool down of Avenging Wrath by 60 seconds and while affected by Avenging Wrath 50% of all damage caused bypasses damage reduction effects.
Your Hammer of Wrath’s critical strike chance will be 80%, which is now instant cast, and does a lot more damage. Not to mention, your Avenging wrath has a one minute cool down, and negates pain suppression and plate armor.


The Art of War
Rank 2 Increases the critical strike damage of your Judgment, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities by 20% and when these abilities critically hit your next Flash of Light spell becomes instant cast.
Coupled with all the other bonuses critical damage, your critical strikes on Divine Storm and Judgments have their damage increased by 95% more damage when they crit, and your crusader strike does 70% more damage when it crits. In addition, when any of these do crit, your flash of light becomes instant cast, which raises your survivability (instant flash of lights every seconds)

Judgments of the Wise
Rank 3 Your Judgment spells have a 100% chance to grant the Replenishment effect to up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of their maximum mana per second, and to immediately grant you 20% of your maximum mana.
Retribution used to suck up your mana, you had to budget, you couldn’t use consecrate rank one or it would eat your mana as well. This talent changes that, your mana being restored as quickly as it rains. Replenishment effectively makes you a melee mana battery, IE melee shadow priest

V: Spec choices

Max DPS spec
Holy (5 points)


5/5 Seals of the Pure

Protection (5 points)

5/5 Divine Strength

Retribution (61 points)

5/5 Benediction
2/2 Improved Judgments
3/3 Heart of the Crusader
2/2 Improved Blessing of Might
5/5 Conviction
1/1 Seal of Command
2/2 Pursuit of Justice
3/3 Sanctified Seals
3/3 Crusade
3/3 Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
1/1 Sanctified Retribution
3/3 Vengeance
2/2 Improved Retribution Aura
2/2 The Art of War
1/1 Repentance
3/3 Judgments of the Wise
5/5 Fanaticism
2/2 Sanctified Wrath
3/3 Swift Retribution
1/1 Crusader Strike
3/3 Sheath of Light
5/5 Righteous Vengeance
1/1 Divine Storm

This spec focuses less on utility(else there would be more points in prot) and more on the buffs you need and ways to deal out as much damage as possible.

PVE Ret Utility Spec
Holy (0 points)

None

Protection (16 points)

1/1 Blessing of Kings
4/4 Improved Blessing of Kings
5/5 Divine Strength
3/3 Stoicism
2/2 Guardian's Favor
1/2 Divine Guardian

Retribution (55 points)

5/5 Benediction
1/2 Improved Judgements
3/3 Heart of the Crusader
2/2 Improved Blessing of Might
5/5 Conviction
1/1 Seal of Command
2/2 Pursuit of Justice
3/3 Sanctified Seals
2/3 Crusade
2/3 Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
1/1 Sanctified Retribution
3/3 Vengeance
2/2 The Art of War
1/1 Repentance
2/3 Judgements of the Wise
5/5 Fanaticism
2/2 Sanctified Wrath
3/3 Swift Retribution
1/1 Crusader Strike
3/3 Sheath of Light
5/5 Righteous Vengeance
1/1 Divine Storm
This spec focuses more on buffing your group, divine guardian a way to save your party, while still able to dish out enough damage. It also offers all the possible party buffs.

PVP Retribution
Holy (0 points)

None

Protection (20 points)

1/1 Blessing of Kings
4/4 Improved Blessing of Kings
4/5 Divine Strength
3/3 Stoicism
2/2 Guardian's Favor
3/3 Improved Righteous Fury
3/3 Improved Hammer of Justice

Retribution (51 points)

5/5 Benediction
2/2 Improved Judgments
3/3 Heart of the Crusader
5/5 Conviction
1/1 Seal of Command
2/2 Pursuit of Justice
3/3 Sanctified Seals
3/3 Crusade
3/3 Two-Handed Weapon Specialization
2/2 Divine Purpose
3/3 Vengeance
2/2 The Art of War
1/1 Repentance
3/3 Judgments of the Wise
2/2 Sanctified Wrath
1/3 Swift Retribution
1/1 Crusader Strike
3/3 Sheath of Light
5/5 Righteous Vengeance
1/1 Divine Storm
This, offers all of the survivability that it can without being a tanking spec. The reason for lack of fantacisim is due to you'll be using seal of command for PVP, you're only going to judge it when your target is stunned, and if they are stunned, its a 100% crit chance, and you will not be pulling aggro in PVP anyways, so its a moot point.





VI: DPS cycle
GCD : 1 second
Consecrate: 8 seconds
Crusader Strike: 6 seconds
Divine Storm: 10 seconds
Judgement : 8 seconds

Pre battle:
Cast:
Seal of Vengance.

In battle boss:
Cast:
0.0 Crusader Strike//Auto Attack // Seal of Vengeance stack 2
0.5 GCD
1.0 Divine Storm //Seal of Vengeance stack 3
1.5 GCD
2.0 Consecrate //Seal of Vengeance stack 3
2.5 GCD
3.0 Downtime
3.5 Auto Attack //Seal of Vengeance stack 4
4.0 Downtime
4.5 Downtime
5.0 Downtime
5.5 Downtime
6.0 Crusader Strike //Seal of Vengeance 5
6.5 GCD
7.0 Auto Attack//Judgment //Seal of Vengeance 5
7.5 GCD
8.0 Seal of Blood
8.5 GCD
9.0 Downtime
9.5 Downtime
10 Consecrate
10.5 Auto Attack // Seal of Blood
11.0 Divine Storm //Seal of Blood
11.5 Downtime
12.0 Crusader Strike //Seal of Blood
12.5 GCD
13.0 Downtime
13.5 Downtime
14.0 Auto Attack // Seal of Blood
14.5 Downtime
15.0 Judgment
15.5 GCD
16.0 Downtime
16.5 Downtime
17.0 Downtime
17.5 Auto Attack //Seal of Blood
18.0 Crusader Strike
18.5 GCD
19.0 Consecrate

Repeat 11-19

This keeps up your judgement of wisdom (judge that over anything else), seal of vengeance for its DOT, and keeps your mana and DPS at a maximum. If the mob is undead or a demon, and single target, use excorisim at 3.0, repeating every 10 seconds. Use holy wrath at 9.5 and repeat every 10 seconds. This will again, max out your damage output.

VI: Inscription

What is it: This is the new profession for Wrath of the Lich King, it allows you to augment abilities, as well as create specific shoulder enchants, offhands, and cloaks. The cloaks are at the moment quite top-end, though with more content being released, it will be interesting seeing how they compare.

The list
Glyph of Seal of Command
Increases the chance of dealing Seal of Command damage by 20%.
Take or Pass: Take this, it increases the proc rate by 20%, which with a 3.5 weapon speed is 64%.

Glyph of Hammer of Justice
Increases your Hammer of Justice duration by 1 sec.
Take or Pass : Take it, a longer stun is always more useful

Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom
Your Blessing of Wisdom causes your target to also regenerate health at the same rate as mana.
Take or Pass : Pass, you're going to use Blessing of Might

Glyph of Hammer of Wrath
Increases the range on Hammer of Wrath by 5 yards.
Take or Pass : Pass, useless for PVE, you'll be meleeing them anyway.

Glyph of Crusader Strike
Your Crusader strike deals 20% more damage when your targe is incapacitated or stunned.
Take or Pass: Take, more Crusader Strike damage no matter what is awesome, to nice to let go.

Glyph of Judgment
Your Judgments deal 10% more damage.
Take or Pass: Take, judgments make up a large part of your DPS, and this builds on that.

Glyph of Consecration
Increases the radius of Consecration by 1 yards.
Take or Pass : Pass, its not really needed unless you're tanking, even then, its still not necessary.

Glyph of Righteous Defense
Increases the chance for your Righteous Defense ability to work successfully by 8% on each target.
Take or Pass : Pass, taunting is bad

Glyph of Avenger's Shield
Your Avenger's Shield hits -2 fewer targets but for 100% more damage.
Take or Pass : Pass, you don't even have the spell

Glyph of Blessing of Kings
Your Blessing of Kings also increases attack power on affected targets by 3%.
Take or Pass: Eh, if you have Blessing of Kings, its your call, and if you have enough slots, I would take it.

Glyph of Seal of Light

While Seal of Light is active the effect of your healing spells is increased by 5%.
Take or Skip : Skip, you're not healing enough to make it useful.

Glyph of Seal of Wisdom
While Seal of Wisdom is active the cost of your healing spells is reduced by -5%.
Take or Skip : Skip, also not healing enough to make it useful.

Glyph of Lay on Hands
Your Lay on Hands also grants you as much mana as it grants your target.
Take or Skip : Skip, nice, but not worth the slot as ret.

Glyph of Blessing of Might
Your Blessing of Might also grants offensive spell power equal to 10% of the attack power it grants.
Take or Skip: Take, this makes sheathe of light even better, 40% of our AP into spell damage, much more dps all around.
Glyph of Holy Light
Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 5 (yards) of the initial target.
Take or Skip: Skip, you're not healing enough with holy light to make it useful

Glyph of Flash of Light
Your Flash of Light heals for 50% less initially but also heals for 200% of its initial effect over 0 sec
Take or Skip : Skip, even the holy paladins don't want this.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very nice guide.
Added this to my bookmarks.

Can't wait for your PvP retardin :D