Free advice for gearing, talents, rotations

[deceth]

Reply here with the name of character you'd like me to evaluate.

***Please make sure you log out in the gear/talents you'd like me to evaluate***

[paracord]

We already went over mine a couple weeks ago, but I've done the upgrades I think we spoke about and could use more opinion.

Currently I'm just going to save frosts for the ICC tier Lightsworn gear until Cata.

Parachutes

[deceth]

paracord wrote:

We already went over mine a couple weeks ago, but I've done the upgrades I think we spoke about and could use more opinion. Currently I'm just going to save frosts for the ICC tier Lightsworn gear until Cata. Parachutes

*Take the following to apply with the current patch. 4.0.1 will change a lot of things, the least of which will be gear and gemming choices.

Assuming you have a stockpile of frost badges, upgrade to t10 in this order:
chest
gloves

then helm/legs at the same time.
Libram last.

You are currently below the hit cap, so I'd regem as follows:
helm str->str/hit
cloak str ->str/hit
chest str/stam ->nightmare tear
bracers nightmare tear ->str
gloves str ->str/hit

That should net you 50 dps roughly.
Changing the ashen verdict str ring to agi will also net you 20 dps, assuming you do it before the 4.0 patch hits.

Also, try this rotation in ICC with your current gear set(and the above regemming in a 25 man):
Con>J>DS>Exo>CS>HoW, or
J>CS>DS>Con>HoW>Exo.
Of course, DS and Cons take priority with aoe packs along with seal of command.

[paracord]

I'm confused, agi gear over str gear that's pretty much only for plate dps?

Also last we talked about it we knew I'd be slightly under hit cap, but dps would rise due to hitting harder overall and this was alright. Do i regem and lose str gems for the extra hit now? I want to make sure before burning 180g gems.

I'll reorder my faceroll for the rotation you listed. Thanks!

You other guys should get in on this, Deceth really goes the extra mile to help and we'll all benefit in ICC and on because of it.

EDIT: regemmed up to 255 hit. Only lost +- 10 STR in the process mostly due to socket bonuses.

[deceth]

paracord wrote:

I'm confused, agi gear over str gear that's pretty much only for plate dps?

I had a long post with some math to explain it and it got deleted after FF crashed from a flash error in another tab. Long story short, paladins gain more crit from agility than dks and warriors, and the agi ring is better itemized than the str ring. Less wasted stat budget on stamina. This is why some items are better dps even with no strength. Again, this will all change after 4.0, so don't worry about it too much. The ashen verdict rings can easily be changed by exchanging them for 200g.

[paracord]

Guess I'm the only one taking advantage of this?

So, with the patch I've seen my DPS drop as expected. In ICC last night I had a few decent fights but with Sin at the end I think I had around 4.5/5k which was pretty low. Pre patch I'd have expected 8-9+

Fight aside (as melee having to run around a lot, breaking DPS for stacks, etc) what can I do to improve this?

I've been reading up on the EJ forums about the new rotation, and am experimenting with new key bindings etc. I expect my DPS to go up as I get used to it.

I haven't reforged anything. Should I?

Should I save for the T10 pants next or go ahead with the shoulders? I'm close to 700JP right now.

Edit: Also I hear the STR is without a doubt the only thing we should be stacking now. No more AGI ICC ring for example, move to the STR version.

- Parachutes

[deceth]

paracord wrote:

Guess I'm the only one taking advantage of this? So, with the patch I've seen my DPS drop as expected. In ICC last night I had a few decent fights but with Sin at the end I think I had around 4.5/5k which was pretty low. Pre patch I'd have expected 8-9+ Fight aside (as melee having to run around a lot, breaking DPS for stacks, etc) what can I do to improve this? I haven't reforged anything. Should I? Should I save for the T10 pants next or go ahead with the shoulders? I'm close to 700JP right now. Edit: Also I hear the STR is without a doubt the only thing we should be stacking now. No more AGI ICC ring for example, move to the STR version. - Parachutes

Strength stacking ftw. Agility items aren't *bad* now, as we still get more crit rating from agility than warriors and death knights, but with plate specialization, you will never really want to wear mail or leather over a plate equivalent. In addition, there are very few items with attack power , as classes will gain ap from either agi or str.

Reforging is something you will want to do to work around minor stat short comings. The hit and expertise caps have been lowered, 246 hit rating, and 95 expertise rating(assuming you glyph for seal of truth).
Reforge to hit and expertise caps, then reforge to get haste soft capped (roughly enough haste to get your crusader strike cooldown to 3 seconds plus twice your latency, to account for server lag behind button presses).

Dps improvement on Sindragosa, and any other fight with movement and phase changes will come with cooldown ability management, as well as holy power management. Sindragosa will repeat ground and air phases on a consistent basis, roughly every minute or so, therefore you can and should time your trinket/2 min cooldowns such as zealotry and avenging wings to coincide with each phase. If you have trinkets that require stacking, such as the herkuml war token, you may want to consider using a different one as stacks frequently will be cleared. The war token has a large amount of haste, and fully stacked is an excellent trinket, so if you don't have something nearly as good, you should probably use it and focus on keeping up a full 20 stack.
Managing holy power and saving a full stack for the boss, instead of wasting it finishing off an ice block will also help boost your damage. This applies not only to Sindragosa, but any boss fight with add targets. As the add approaches death, say under 15%, save up a 2/3 stack of holy power and use that for a 3stack TV on the boss.