Rotational Queries...

In our recent Ulduar 25 run, I had the pleasure of being one of three retribution paladins.

Of the three, I was second in terms of damage. Now, the paladin who topped me is normally a tank (how galling), and does a lot of pugging (how brave), and has really nice gear.

So I just assumed it was an issue more of gear than of rotation or ability or anything like that.

Then I looked at the WWS for the run. With the exception of Exorcism and Ret Aura, my abilities do more damage than his abilities (if you look at the white line. On the green line, his abilities do more than my abilities. I wish I knew how to read this stupid chart better. It seems that the white is damage, the green are how many? Or something... in which case, I'm just not doing ENOUGH). My Seal, Judgement, Swing, Crusader Strike, Divine Storm...

Yet he's out damaging me. (Shut up. I know on the charts it looks like only by 9 DPS. But that's apparently the difference between #1 and #2. So 9 DPS is GIGANTIC. And I have no idea why Micro, who is pulling over 4100 DPS is so low on the charts. Probably because Paladins are awesome and mages are just glorified water boys.)

So I've been trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I'm going to assume it has something to do with my rotation. Which admittedly is my hardest to watch/do thing, given that I'm also often using art of war, and moving, and decursing and all that fun stuff that makes being a paladin so awesome. Which means that my perfect rotation, where nothing is off CD at the same time so I don't 'waste' time waiting for GCD, never happens.

I tend to move in and judge light, to get Heart of the Crusader on the boss. Then I'll try to crusader strike, then divine storm, then judgement will be off cooldown (or close to). I use exorcism whenever I have all three of the others on cooldown (or the boss moves away and I'm not in melee range). I'm not sure if I should use exorcism whenever it's up? It does some nice damage.

I think the problem is that I have one 6s CD and two 10s CDs. And I get confused which one I should be hitting first to try to keep the CD's from overlapping.

I guess it's time with the training dummy for me. Or maybe RetLoL has new information.

OutDPS'd a Warlock...

Granted, I don't know what spec said warlock was, or what gear he was wearing (though Boon says high Tier, maybe a Helm of Bloodshed?) ...

But I out DPS'd him. (Granted, by 2%, but getting over 1100 DPS for my overall Utgarde Keep DPS... nummy)

It's a sad day for warlocks and a day of triumph for Retribution Paladins.

Moardots! Increasing DPS and Damage Done

No, I didn't respec UA, don't get your hopes up.

However, based on what I reviewed earlier, about spell rotation and the website I had found, I made a few changes to my casting rotation.

I removed Immolate. I added CoE. I slapped up Corruption and Siphon Life and then I SB spammed until it was time to slap up Corruption and Siphon Life again.

Due to this, not using improved CoA... I wonder if I should respec slightly, since the only reason to use Amplify Curse is on Curator for CoD and for CoA. I shall have to ponder.

What I noticed is that instead of about 35% of my damage coming from SB, it jumped to nearly 50%.

I also noticed that I was getting more use out of the Improved ShadowBolt debuff, as I was able to almost always hit the mob with 4-5 SB's by the time it wore off.

Now true, some of my increase in damage tonight in ZA was due to shamelessly gleeful use of SoC. *nummy* But one fight where I wasn't AoEing, I topped 1k DPS. *squee*

What doesn't help me is that every so often in a boss fight, I have to just stop casting. I'll have already used soulshatter, and I'm still passing the tanks on Omen.

Just imagine what I could do if I didn't have to stop casting. Or just imagine what I'd have to NOT do if I didn't have salvation and subtlty on.

Love. Warlock.

By the way, I switched to Recount. I really do like it. Not only does it tell you what your overall DPS is, you can select current fight, overall information AND if you select your name, it breaks down what abilities you use for the damage... and if you select an ability, it breaks it down for you in terms of hit, crit, miss, resist, etc.

So, just a friendly reminder kids... even if you think you're already doing the most awesome and the best and there's nothing you could possibly change to do better...

Yeah. You probably could do something better or different or tweak yourself just that extra little bit. Sometimes the difference between a boss dying and a boss living is a holy night elf priest using Starshards everytime it's up. (See, tweak! It isn't very many of the night elf healy priests that use Starshards whenever it's available. It's a skill that now costs no mana to use and is no longer channeled. So, unless you're having to spam heal your tank (which is sometimes what is going on!)... why not use it?)

Grow and evolve. Provide moardots. Make your raid leader happy. Make yourself happy!

There's a lesson in life in this too. This doesn't apply only to the game. Now, naturally, you can't really cast Starshards on your boss, as much as you wish you could... but in every aspect of your life... there's always room for improvement, even if you're already awesome. :)

Kvasira Update - aka Retribution Paladin kicks ass!

The other night I was playing Kvasira in an instance. Yes. A retribution paladin DPSing in an instance. Try not to fall over in shock. It happens.

My damage done was equivalent to a BM hunter one level lower than I was and my DPS was roughly 300. And according to the hunter, I was outdamaging him on boss fights.

I'm jiggling a bit with my rotation on fights. For the MOST part, I ignore consecration, it being a little too mana heavy for my taste. Maybe it will up my DPS that little bit more, but if it's a longer or tougher fight, my mana is required elsewhere... like judging, crusader striking, dispelling and the occasional healing.

I've learned to WAIT to judge Crusader, due to improved judgement, the mana return will net me immediate aggro from the tank. I make sure my seal is on and I go in and whack the mob with my sword. I open up with a crusader strike and THEN judge Crusader and apply Seal of Command.

I have a macro that I use that judges and reapplies seal of command at the same time. This works well enough for me soloing because I'm a tad forgetful sometimes of reapplying seal of command, but the global cooldown sometimes means that I CAN judge command but not be able to reapply seal of command. A swing timer is rather important as well, since you want to make sure that Seal of Command is up as much as possible when you're about to swing your bigass two hander at the mob.

The most important thing.. is Crusader Strike whenever possible.

In a 'normal' fight (instance) where I don't have to cleanse or heal, my mana pool, albeit low, is enough for me. I immediately pop a drink so I stay as far up in mana as I can be, in case we got a 'not-normal' fight.

If I start to get low on mana, or a fight where I have to start cleansing or offhealing, I judge crusader (or wisdom, depending on where the boss is in terms of health when I would switch judgements) and will often just leave seal of command on, judging only when the seal is about to expire. Crusader strike when it's up. And usually that'll do for it. If the mob or boss is pretty high on life and I'm pretty low on mana, thats when I'll sometimes judge wisdom. Honestly though, considering that I'm using a big slow twohander, I don't HIT it enough to get that much mana back. Based on that, I usually just leave crusader on it.

My personal blessing is Blessing of Wisdom, not Might. (I don't have Kings yet.) Unless I need salvation, which sometimes... I will. Paladin DPS is spike damage. When every 6 seconds you have the potential to hit the mob for 1k damage... yikes. Keep your bubble handy. :P

However... Kvasira is so much fun to play. Love. Love. Love.

The K Game

There is a very fun little game that my friends play when I'm in a group with them. It's called the K game for some reason. I don't know why. Maybe you can figure it out.

The rules are very simple but do vary a smidge depending on what version of the K game you're playing.

You pick one person. Let's just call them 'K'. Just for simplicity's sake. Then, depending on that person's class/role, the rest of the game rules will follow.

The K Tank Game: This is the most popular (most fun, and easiest!) version of the K game.

K is a tank. The game is how frequently you can pull aggro off of the tank. (no cheating, such as taunting (from feral druids), taking off salvation, breaking crowd control, attacking 'second kill' mobs, etc.) This means that in a "normal" situation, with normal buffs, etc, on, you do your damndest to pull aggro off of the tank. Bonus points are given if the tank curses, sweats, cries or otherwise indicates distress. Additional bonus points are awarded if you do this without trying. Even more points awarded if you die.

(On a side note, this is a GREAT way to help tanks learn that they need to draw more aggro, how quickly, what works best, etc. In a "normal" situation, high DPS would hold back to not pull aggro off of a tank. In the game, the tank quickly learns how to generate that aggro, or s/he loses the game, pretty dang quick.)

There are variations given if K is a healer or not. (Making the healer cry, scream, rant and rave gives you points.)

In general, the K game is usually applied with the group versus the tank. The healer USUALLY stays out of it, since the healer getting whacked by something usually isn't so grand. But the K game has versions for the healer too -- generally involving the tank doing something outrageous, like tanking four or five mobs at once. This obviously requires a GOOD tank and GOOD DPS otherwise that quickly turns into a wipe. Bonus points awarded for the healer cursing, crying, shouting, weeping or having a heart attack.

(The bonus... your healer learns how to handle large groups, how to gauge the heals required based on how much projected damage the tank is getting, and probably even learns how to multi-heal multiple people taking large amounts of damage, all at the same time. Quick shifting between targets and mana conservation...)

Personally, I play my own K DPS version as well, this one just isn't advertised. Now, every DPS is trying to get to the top of the charts. Every DPS is trying to not pull aggro. My own version is to walk that very fine line. If I die, then I lose the game. If I'm not holding my own on DPS (given similarly geared individuals), I lose. If I'm not holding my own against a warlock from Risen, well, that I can understand. If I'm not holding my own against a green-geared whoknowswhat, that... well, that makes K cry.

The official version of the game doesn't actually HAVE points, but you can keep track if you want. Arbitrarily assign a certain number of points for each cuss word, for each time the healer shouts in desperation, "OOM!", for each time the tank has to burn challenging shout, for each time a DPS dies from pulling aggro off of the tank appropriately.

Obviously, for the DPS involved, this CAN be pretty pricey, if the tank isn't good at the game.

The tank wins, regardless of cuss-points garnered, if no one dies. :)

Top of the DPS Chart!

As a DPS class, everyone knows all that matters is that you're the top person on the DPS chart. Who cares about aggro! It's the tank's job to keep it off of me, not MY job to keep it off of me! Pfft.

Now, to some extent this is true. There is nothing worse to a high output DPS character than to have a tank that doesn't generate good quick strong aggro.

On the other hand, a GOOD DPS class isn't just all about the output. It's about aggro management and staying alive. Which is something that poor DPS shaman's had such an issue with for a while, though I hear with the new patch, Blizzard made it a bit easier on the poor poor shammies. Most (not all) other DPS classes have some way of dropping aggro. Poor shammy's really only have death to drop their aggro. (Did I really just spell shaman in three different ways? Why yes. Yes I did.)

Today I was in Shattered Halls with some guildies/mixed pug. I've posted before what happens to my DPS when I'm in a 'normal' instance with good DPS. We had a BM hunter, an elemental shaman and myself. Things were dying like.. things should die! It was lovely. But the shaman was out DPSing me. Now, this shaman has been in Karazhan with me, where I'm way out over him on DPS usually. Granted, he's updated his gear quite a bit since our last Kara run together, but he was still quite shocked about matching me for DPS in the instance. Myself, I was dismayed at my performance. After a little bit of finangling with what I was casting, I caught up.

And bonus, he didn't die! Which is grand. I died more often than he did -- PUG healer was very very good, but probably not expecting the amount of hate that I tend to pull. I died two or three times before the healer learned -- the warlock is going to tank more than the tank sometimes. Gotta watch her! In those cases, it was a bit of me and a bit of the tank not doing what we should. Live and learn! I gotta remember when I'm not with my faaavorite tankadin, Owaru with my faaavorite healadin, Boon, I need to be a good little warlock and not play with Seed of Corruption and multiple dotted targets.

Anyway... I won't go on again about how in longer lived mobs and bosses I tend to be high on the DPS chart, because I've already talked about how in longer lived mobs and bosses, I tend to be high on the DPS chart. And there's no need for me to reiterate that on longer lived mobs and bosses, I tend to be high on the DPS chart, since this isn't about how on longer lived mobs and bosses, I tend to be high on the DPS chart!

Later on, I was asked to go into Zul'Aman for the last boss, because the raid leader wanted some good DPS. I was #4 on the charts -- but, the last boss of Zul'Aman has a phase where you CANNOT DO MAGIC. This is, I think, entirely unfair.

Not only do melee DPS have no mana to watch (excepting hunters), but then you make a boss where you can only do melee DPS? I mean, the boss in normal Mechanar is bad enough in the whole 'melee, magic, melee, magic' switcharoo, but at least the melee have to stop DPSing for a time too. This boss -- no magic. It was a very sad sad time for me. I had to sit and watch others do all the DPS. I was a very sad panda. A very sad warlock panda.

Anyway, the point of this is that I tend to be too focused on the DPS meters. I hate seeing myself not in the top 1 spot. Seeing myself down at #4 or #5 is even more hideous, but something I need to get over, because at times, when I'm crowd controlling (see previous post on why the warlock is the premier crowd control class! :), or saving the butt of the healer (deathcoil FTW!), or trying to stay alive after I pulled aggro from five mobs at once... my DPS isn't going to be so hot, but that's okay... because I have more important things to focus on other than merely being the top of the DPS charts (though it's nice to be there, anyway.)

I'm a good warlock. I'm a good DPSer. But I'm not the best. No where CLOSE. But I'm still pretty dang good.