[Retri] PvE Raid Seal choice.

[masterpoobaa]

Due to our guild lacking dee pee ess recently, and that my holy 2nd spec is rarely needed, ive decided to work on my ret set.

Now ive been playing my pallie for over a year now, yet ive never actually ever gone full ret. kinda feel proud of that in a way.
Soon as i hit L40 i went prot.

Course that makes me a retanoob.

Been reading up on a few ret guides. Rotation doesnt seem difficult, But seal choice does.
From what ive read from http://ferarro.blogspot.com/2009/03/how ... -mans.html and other guides,

Seal of Command seems a bit too random in its damage output and seal of Blood/Martyr may be too risky in a raid environment when there is massive AOE damage going about. (but has the glyph bonus of returning mana)

Experienced Raiding Retters, whats your experience?

[Angelarc6570]

With the way that they made Martyr/Blood more seal damage than Judgement damage, it really is the seal of choice for raid damage. The damage it does to you is easily healed through JoL, spot heals, ect. Even if you think that it may cause you to die, switch seals, or off heal or something, but if you are dieing that quickly, either the healers arnt keeping up to the damage or you're doing something wrong

[masterpoobaa]

Just outta Curiosity, any idea how SoV compares to Blood/Martyr?

And i was considering the following build.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZE0zmMZVfbxbIuhdIfsu

1/1 Divine sacrifice for the Raid damage mitigation in conjunction with Bubble and 2/2 in Imp. Hammer of Judgement for 20sec stuns (im thinking of the kitties in aureya and ancient water elemental in Freya here).

[Orthien]

It doesnt really. Your best bet by far is Blood/Martyr. The only reason to switch to Command if you have it or Righteousness if you dont would be for PVP or in a fight with huge AoE that your healers strugle with as it is(which ether means your healers need to change not you or you are standing in fire).
The other thing to point out which im sure you realise having read Ferarros blog is that we dont have a set rotation for ret its simply FCFS.
I my self have made the swap to Ret as an offset for the same reasons after having leveled as prot since level 1. Best advice is practice alot and focus on things like Wirlwinds they kill me everytime I DPS atm since im used to being able to just stand in them while tanking.

[Dakiros]

Rets use blood, except possibly for fights like Loatheb where you might kill yourself.

[ulushnar]

Always Blood. The kickback damage isn't that bad, and with the glyph I have enough mana and enough space in Rotation to take advantage of Art of War's instant FoLs enough that I'm not that big a burden to the healers.

[lusisia]

Always Blood. The kickback damage isn't that bad, and with the glyph I have enough mana and enough space in Rotation to take advantage of Art of War's instant FoLs enough that I'm not that big a burden to the healers.

And they fixed the AoW swingtimer issue IIRC. Also, Sacred Shield will absorb most of the kick back damage from Blood/Martyr.

[Lore]

Always Blood. The kickback damage isn't that bad, and with the glyph I have enough mana and enough space in Rotation to take advantage of Art of War's instant FoLs enough that I'm not that big a burden to the healers.

I'm able to do that without the SoB glyph

[uke]

For raiding as ret, Blood/Martyr is the ONLY choice for a dps seal. The shift of the bulk of damage coming from the seal rather then the judgement greatly lessened the hp loss per hit, I barely even notice it. Heck, I even used Martyr on Loatheb 25 with no issues.

Command, as a dps seal, has been nerfed so badly it is effectively *dead* as a viable dps seal. If you want to be remotely decent in dps, you need to use Martyr/Blood.

Vengeance is even worse than Command, so it's off the table as well.

Short answer: use Blood/Martyr, nothing else is even remotely viable

[Baelor]

There are select situations where using Blood/Martyr is inadvisable, like Prince Malchezaar. Instantaneous death if he drops your HP to 1 right before an auto-attack, strike, or Judgement. I think that's the only fight of its kind, though, and it's old content.

So, Blood/Martyr. No debate, no questions. Cut yourself.

[ulushnar]

Always Blood. The kickback damage isn't that bad, and with the glyph I have enough mana and enough space in Rotation to take advantage of Art of War's instant FoLs enough that I'm not that big a burden to the healers.

I'm able to do that without the SoB glyph

Fair enough, I've been noticing the few times I go Ret in raids that the SoB glyph isn't really needed, but since my Ret spec's mainly for soloing and Bgs, I'm not quite willing to give the glyph up.

[Fedaykin98]

Anyone wanting answers to these kinds of questions should go read Baelor's Ret FAQ. His blog is linked in his sig. And it does say that Seal of Blood/Martyr is the only acceptable Seal.

Speaking of Glyph of SoB, I don't use it. I rarely have mana issues, and if I do, I can take a mana pot. Most of the time, though, I barely need to use Divine Plea. Been doing Uld10 this week and I'll bet there are a lot of fights I could have skipped Divine Plea altogether.

I use, in accordance with Baelor's FAQ, these three glyphs:

Judgement - moar dmg
Exorcism - moar dmg
Consecration - longer duration for same cost = saves you mana, and the longer duration minimizes cooldown clashes = moar dmg

Soloing I just hit Divine Plea. If I needed more mana, I could use Judgement of Wisdom rather than my default JoL.

[masterpoobaa]

Thanks for all the replies.
I used Farraro's paladin schmaladin blog for my info, very well laid out and informative.

Slapped on my retset, checked on some gems and enchants and did some testing.
2.5k dps on a target dummy, no buffs beside BoM.
3.5k dps on H-drak Trollgore.

The Seal of Blood/Martyr + glyph seems to work quite well, only once or twice did i get low on mana, and that was on trash.

[Lore]

You shouldn't be able to run low on mana even without the glyph. You're either not using Divine Plea enough, or not judging.

[majiben]

JoW makes a big difference for ret too. If they run without a second paladin and judge light it can be an issue too. But no, you shouldn't need the SoB glyph.