[Ret] 3.1 Talents: Aura Mastery vs Divine Sacrifice

[Baelor]

As I see it, unless there are any more talents added or heavily modified to the PTR talent trees, there are 2 options for a ret paladin seeking to bring maximum damage and a modicum of utility to a raid. I am operating under the assumption that the 0/5/54 core talents of a ret raid build on the PTR are preserved.

Option A: 11/5/55
Aura Mastery is included in this build, which gives some party Silence immunity and gives an opportunity to boost aura effectiveness in crunch time. If a boss flurries or dual-wields, doubling ret aura feedback doesn't sound so bad. My ret aura now reflects 300 damage or so. Double that and ret aura really hurts.

Option B: 0/17/54
Divine Sacrifice/Divine Guardian are included in this build, which gives the party an extra cooldown to use to protect the tank. No personal damage is lost to Option A. Divine Guardian + Hand of Sacrifice on the tank is a pretty powerful raid damage negation tool.

Anyone have any input as to which option they feel is more appealing at present?

[Sharlos]

Now that Sheathe of Light will work with SS I'd say go with ret/prot. Aura mastery isn't a huge deal in pve. Unless ret ends up using SoR or something weird like that.

[Fedaykin98]

Either of those two are acceptable, imho, because you are choosing between two different kinds of raid utility that are to the side of our personal DPS.

I'd guess that if you're going for Sarth 3D, it's better to get the extra tank-saver. I'm not sure what the situation would be in which doubling Ret aura damage (etc.) for a short time is totally awesome; I guess it lets you down bosses slightly faster? Maybe it helps the tank establish aggro faster at the beginning of a fight?

I'm waiting to see what happens with the SoR speculation.

[Baelor]

Either of those two are acceptable, imho, because you are choosing between two different kinds of raid utility that are to the side of our personal DPS.

I'd guess that if you're going for Sarth 3D, it's better to get the extra tank-saver. I'm not sure what the situation would be in which doubling Ret aura damage (etc.) for a short time is totally awesome; I guess it lets you down bosses slightly faster? Maybe it helps the tank establish aggro faster at the beginning of a fight?

I'm waiting to see what happens with the SoR speculation.

Aura Mastery can negate a silence and therefore let you Judge when you otherwise would have to wait out the silence duration.

It can also prevent/break a silence on a healer and indirectly save a tank.

Silence is a pretty situational use, but couple it with the aura effectiveness boost and it becomes acceptable in my eyes. That's why I'm asking the question - both options have "save the tank" cooldowns, one cooldown is just more broadly applicable than the other, and the one that is more situational comes with a broadly applicable side effect.

[Sharlos]

Either of those two are acceptable, imho, because you are choosing between two different kinds of raid utility that are to the side of our personal DPS.

I'd guess that if you're going for Sarth 3D, it's better to get the extra tank-saver. I'm not sure what the situation would be in which doubling Ret aura damage (etc.) for a short time is totally awesome; I guess it lets you down bosses slightly faster? Maybe it helps the tank establish aggro faster at the beginning of a fight?

I'm waiting to see what happens with the SoR speculation.

Aura Mastery can negate a silence and therefore let you Judge when you otherwise would have to wait out the silence duration.

It can also prevent/break a silence on a healer and indirectly save a tank.

Silence is a pretty situational use, but couple it with the aura effectiveness boost and it becomes acceptable in my eyes. That's why I'm asking the question - both options have "save the tank" cooldowns, one cooldown is just more broadly applicable than the other, and the one that is more situational comes with a broadly applicable side effect.

Well it depends on if/how many silences there are in Ulduar and if aura mastery prevents them. If they do then Aura mastery would be a better tank saver than divine sacrifice.