You can download RAWR here.
I read about RAWR on some random site and I decided to give it a try because I wanted to see what exactly is my retribution paladin's DPS and how I can optimize it. Actually RAWR also has this really cool feature where you can specify a rotation and find out how efficient that rotation is. You can change spells in a rotation and it updates the DPS in real time.
Sure enough, I soon discovered that my rotation was bad and quickly reordered my priorities such that now (hopefully) it is optimal. Now of course, I realize that in the case of retribution paladins we can't really talk about a "rotation" per se but rather a system of priorities.
My old "rotation" was something like this:
Crusader Strike > Divine Storm > Judge > etc
My new one is this:
Judge > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm > etc
Of course, at any point insert Hammer of Wrath > Exorcism if the first becomes available and if Art of War procs for the second.
Here's a screenshot of the rotation portion of RAWR, along with some DPS stats.
As you can see, my DPS at the time this screenshot was 3380 but with the new rotation. My old rotation, although not terrible, would have given only 3234 DPS.
I also discovered that Seal of Command is much better than Seal of Vengeance (or Corruption) when fighting 2 or more mobs, which is always the case in heroics. Since I was using SoC anyway, I'm relieved that I'm doing at least something right.
I won't go into further detail regarding RAWR but I urge anyone interested in optimizing their character, whatever class and spec it may be, to give it a try. It is a very complex program but I managed to figure out the things that were of interest to me fairly quickly.
As I write this my DPS has gone up to 3657 (according to RAWR) due to some upgrades. My biggest problem is still expertise as I only have 7 (or 35 rating). For this reason I'm enchanting and gemming for expertise on my future gear.
Quoting from wowwiki, "DPS will need a total of 6.5%, or 26 expertise, or 213 expertise rating, to avoid Dodges on yellow attacks against a raid boss." So I still have a ways to go but since I'm not fighting raid bosses I can stay a bit lower and I should be fine.
I've been running heroics like crazy with my retribution spec so I could get emblems to gear my protection spec. Now I've completed my last piece of the puzzle and in theory I should be ready to run heroics on my protection paladin. I'm holding back though. Tanking is not as easy as DPS-ing and I need more experience under my belt.
My strategy these days is to run the daily heroic as retribution and then run a normal (non-heroic) random as protection. So far the worst dungeon I've tanked (on normal) has been Pit of Saron (twice). I actually tanked the second Pit today and I did much better than the first time.
On the other hand retribution is so much fun that I've decided to get my dude some DPS gear from Triumph Emblems as well. I'm referring to the Turalyon set. I've already got the gloves and I'm working on the other pieces. I've also set my eyes on a nice libram.
One more observation about DPS. I've noticed that it varies from dungeon to dungeon. In some instances my DPS is top-notch, around its theoretical maximum. In others it is dismal. One example of crappy DPS is The Culling of Stratholme. And it's not just me. Looking at the DPS meter, it seems that everyone is performing poorly there. I don't understand why. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this.
Now I'm off to run some more heroics.
4 comments:
Watch your hit on your prot pally. My hit was dismally low and I was SUCKING at tanking. Equipped my pyrite injector and bam... i was a tanking machine.
I to enjoy ret more than prot... but I've committed to 2 piece t10 on my prot pally and heroics are a dream now. Pulling in over 2k dps in heroics as prot.
Lundigras on Durotan.
Oh but I have a crapload of hit, over 8% which is overkill for heroics.
The DPS in CoS is depressed a bit by the Risen Zombies running around. Typically, on a Scourge heavy instance, Paladins to a bunch more DPS than if the Undead weren't present. That's due to certain automatic crits against Undead that Pallys have, as well as the Glyph of Sense Undead (assuming you have Sense Undead activated at the beginning of the run).
Yeah, I've got the glyph, in fact it's always on because I don't have any other tracking that I use. What I'm saying though is that it's not just me as a paladin who has low DPS, it's everybody. And I noticed the same thing on my hunter.
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