[Ret] - Someone who's bored, compare these pally apps for me

[Kedon]

#2 has a bad spec, those points in divine intellect serve no purpose. It's commonly accepted to take Divine Guardian if you're going for Vindication.
#2 has haste instead of agi on their cloak

No way a ret paladin should ever have Divine Guardian, I hope you meant Guardian's Favor.

Haste on cloak is perfectly acceptable, even superior to 22 agi.

Just looked through the stuff quickly, but #1 seems a bit better to me as well. :>

[fafhrd]

Thread is going well, thanks everyone (keep 'em coming). I actually hadn't noticed the str ring on #2, going to have to bug him about that. #2 also posted a "blah blah blah I don't trust rawr/spreadsheets/EJ" thing, which if I were doing recruitment would get him an instant "denied", so I'm rooting for #1 too. #1 has an orange gem in a red helm socket though (but red gem in his yellow ring socket), which has me scratching my head.

[Shoju]

I didn't even look at the WoL. I don't need to look at the WoL to tell you which one I would rather have.

I would take Paladin #1 every single day of the week.

He has specc'd smart
He has the better gear choices
He has the right meta
He has the better glyphs

You can tell that this is a 'main' for him by look at his achievements. Cruise through the non dungeon/raid achievements. I think it would be safe to say that

#1 is more invested in the character. I don't know how big of a deal that is, but to me, that says that #1 is more likely to be a rock solid player, understanding everything that they can about the character. This could be totally wrong, but it is how I see it.

If it were me, I wouldn't even look at the WoL. #1 has it together, is more 'invested'.

Just my 2c.

[Boyfriend]

No way a ret paladin should ever have Divine Guardian, I hope you meant Guardian's Favor.

Yeah meant that, was misinformed about the issue with the cloak enchant; haste is better afterall.

[Kelaan]

So, because I am not using a "top" glyph I am stupid and lazy and I fail at playing the spec. Cool. I didn't know that people could be termed bad just based on ONE glyph choice alone.

I am not making an arguement. You said I failed at playing my spec because my glyph choices are not top of the line.

I won't call you stupid, but I will say that your choice of not using consecration is significantly suboptimal. The damage effect is not as important as the fact that it reduces GCD conflicts, which let you use OTHER spells (rather than consecration) more often. When I started using the Consecration glyph, I got many more divine storms in than I used to. If you don't have the glyph, you need to spend about 25% more global cooldowns to maintain the same Consecration dps; ergo, those are 25% more cooldowns that could be spent on other things.

Skipping the consecration glyph is indicative of a similar lack of understanding as using SoR instead of SoV to tank a boss is. Sure, it takes some research, but it's cookie cutter for a reason. If you're not doing it, you're definitely playing worse than you could be. You may be happy with the damage you do but you could be much better.

Try it out. What is the alternative? Cons/SoV/Judgement/Exo?

I hope you don't take offense at my words. When others say "you fail at ret", it's an internet-fueled shorthand for "you are playing much worse than you could be, and here's how ...". You're on a site populated primarily by people who care a lot about playing their role well -- hence Theckhd's awesome threads about the best spells/enchants/rotations/weapons/tabards. It's pretty silly when you complain that this attention to detail and mastery is applied to our DPS spec also.

When you say "I do {X that isn't cookie cutter} because it is fun/better/I like it/not-minmaxing", what you are really saying is, "I choose not play optimally". Now, I'm the first to admit that I often play poorly. However, I work damned hard to TRY to play well. I manage my FCFS as best I can, I gem and enchant properly, and I glyph in ways that both theorcraft and my own experience show increase my damage done. The mistakes I make are in execution, not in fundamental gameplay choices (such as the wrong seal or the wrong glyphs).

It's OK to say "I prefer to play suboptimally"... but be honest with yourself that that is what you are saying, and don't be offended when other people point out that you are doing so. It's like someone who drives on the highway in second gear. Sure, your car can do it, and sure you get from A to B, but you're still doing it poorly.

[thegreatheed]

so everyone should be min-maxing to the Nth degree and personal preferences are never considered because we all raid in progression guilds that are doing hard modes and everyone has to be pushing their peformance 1000% and should be following mathcraft blindly?

I love it how only people who have a hair up their butt and don't even know the reason for the theorycrafted accepted norms talk about "following mathcraft blindly". What I see in this thread instead are several people who follow "mathcraft" intelligently. The only "blind" or uneducated person here is the one who doesn't think glyph of consecrate is any good.

Oh, and regarding personal preference. The only personal preference that can be assumed to be shared by 25 people in a raid is the preference to raid. Knowingly playing sub-optimally to satisfy a personal preference is selfish and disrespectful towards the personal preferences of the 24 REAL PEOPLE in that raid with you. Your attitude says your need to be a special flower is somehow more important than the time and effort of 24 other people. Pushing your performance to a higher level only helps yourself and everyone around you. Heaven forbid that you actually try to make the time you share with 24 other people more enjoyable for them.

[Baelor]

Hey.

HEY.

Play nice people. I don't care how bad/good/colorful/splendiforous you think Vorianloken is at playing retribution based on his gearing, that isn't the topic of this thread. Take it outside. Unless you are evaluating fafhrd's ret apps (and in a civilized and polite manner, I might add), you are deviating from the thread topic and adding nothing to the conversation.

Vorianloken - if you'd like to continue your vehement defense of choosing not to lend weight to retribution best practices as laid out by the theorycraft community, I don't care. Start a PM conversation with those you feel you'd like to engage in this discussion.

Levantine - whether I agree with your assessment or not, calling people out in the manner you have done so in this thread is not the way of this forum. I point, once again, to the Maintankadin Code of Conduct:

Be considerate and respectful of others. Everyone plays this game for the same reason - to have fun. This extends to these forums as well. Please try not to be rude or disrespectful to others (no matter how wrong they are). If you must get into an argument with someone, please do so with civility, and with consideration to their viewpoints as well.

Post like this: "I understand your opinion, but I disagree."
Not like this: "You might think that, but that's because you're stupid."

It saddens me that I need to keep bringing this up.

[fafhrd]

FWIW, we seem to have recruited both. Only #1 has been in raids so far. His DPS seems acceptable, although he's yet to make any of the pure's worry to keep up, which a ret we briefly had in ToGC did. He also bathed in malleable goo for rotface heroic.

[Shoju]

Was he a kingslayer pre-joining your guild? If he wasn't, and it was his first time seeing the fight, I would cut him some slack, but then, I don't necessarily have much experience at the top end of raiding.

[fafhrd]

Was he a kingslayer pre-joining your guild? If he wasn't, and it was his first time seeing the fight, I would cut him some slack, but then, I don't necessarily have much experience at the top end of raiding.

No, but it was everyone's first time seeing the fight, since we only went on a recruting binge because we didn't have enough people to do heroic bosses last week. Hell, half our our LK25 learning was with 22-24 people in the raid :/

[Modal]

Rawr only puts 23 haste ahead of 22 agi at very high gear levels (definitely need 4pc10, at a minimum) and even then only by 1 or 2 dps. Plus, Rawr has a hard time modeling small amounts of haste accurately (see EJ thread). Both are acceptable cloak enchants after 4pc10. I'd go with haste myself, but I had 22 agi still from 2pc9, and see no real reason to replace it until I get a new cloak.

Divine Intellect is actually not wasted talent points; with 2pc10 mana management becomes a small issue for rets again, and more intellect = fewer GCDs lost to Divine Plea. Not a great argument for it, but everything else you can buy with those points is pretty much as useless. I have a point or two in it to get me to Aura Mastery.

[Kedon]

Divine Intellect is actually not wasted talent points; with 2pc10 mana management becomes a small issue for rets again, and more intellect = fewer GCDs lost to Divine Plea. Not a great argument for it, but everything else you can buy with those points is pretty much as useless. I have a point or two in it to get me to Aura Mastery.

It only gives a very small amount of mana though, and you can't regen that extra mana with JotW. Replenishment would give slightly more regen but not really enough to notice. So basically that extra mana would only be enough for like an extra two Divine Storms and you'll only regen it through Divine Plea.