RET Talent: Tier 1: Benediction vs. Deflection

A lot of people look at guides on how to spec ret and choose benediction. god only knows why. actually I know why, and it is because benediction reduces the cost of all instant spells and attacks by 10%. yep… 10 very awesome percents. but that's great for the raider, or the heroic grinder. but as im leveling through Azeroth, and currently at level 34, I find that deflection is a much better talent to take up than benediction.

Here's what they do:

Benediction: 5 points. reduce your mana cost for instant spells by 10%.

Deflection: 5 points. increases your parry chance by 5%.

one increases your mana efficiency. the other, your survival.

I picked deflection (yes, I know it’s a "tanking" talent, but its not just that, it’s a melee talent) for two reasons.

1) parry keeps me alive longer. yes, when im out questing (and we do that at our levels), im face-to-face with another mob or two. I need that. 5% extra deflection is 5% more chances I will not be taking damage. this is completely different than taking 5% less damage per hit. it is definitely not the same as taking 5% less damage overall.

2) my usual instant spells are… judgment. and judgment. and judgment. yep. just that. and I can only do one every 8 seconds. not only is it limited once every 8 seconds, at my level it costs me 37 mana to cast. 37 mana. my mana bar is 1,100 mana at level 30, just under my health of about 1,200. at 34, my numbers should be a little higher but I do not have that noted. I should just armory myself but I am at work and cannot reach the armory's site.

** I do believe the mana cost is based on the % of your base mana, so any +int in the gear that I have (which isnt much) will not count towards the cost of the spells, including consecrate, judgment, shields, etc. **

anyway, my point is this, I can save myself 4 mana each time I judge, or, I can have 5% increased chance to not get hit.

Here are some other instant spells that I use seldomly. Blessing of Protection. Blessing of Kings. Blessing of Might. Switching Seals. lay on hands? maybe. divine shield. ok, those are all situational. and out of combat spells should not count. those are my reasoning why Benediction sucks for levelers.

last argument: consecration. that's instant and takes up a buttload of mana (22% I think). So I will save myself a good 2% mana. which is great, but will that 2% savings equial one more consecrate? it can, with judgment of wisdom going and maybe some replenishment from another class or totem, it may be useful. but during instances, if I am having to cast consecrate again for the fifth time during a pull due to more mobs entering the fight, I think we have more of a problem than just mana. besides, I top damage meters already. not only that… consecrate isnt my top damaging spell.

my top damaging attack is… auto attack. so consecration is next right? nope. second highest attack is seal of command. in groups of course. (what about solo? I don’t even use consecrate in solo. why the heck would i?) then its consecrate. so even if its third, it is still one of the top three attacks. true. but seal of command costs zero. and seal of auto attack costs zero. jk. auto attack costs zero. so 5 talent points will help consecrate be more mana efficient. 5 talent points to help 30% of my dps do… well, just a little better. does it increase throughput? no. (throughput: basically increasing dps) so it doesn’t help 30% of my dps do more dps, it helps 30% of my dps save mana. with instances the way they are, I miss out on the beginnings of a new pull because I am drinking. do I care? not really. does it matter? not at all. im sitting there with the healer and mage drinking while the tank and rogue are running to the next group. that’s fine with me. and again, in solo, I almost never use consecrate unless I have more than two mobs. seal of command takes care of 3 mobs anyway.

again, consecration can be situational. where seal of command procs wherever I go, consecrate is stationary. depending on the instance, and the skill of the tank, consecrate can actually be my highest dps, or it can be my third. or second. its in the top three. if a tank is able to hold aggro well, then I have no problems having consecrate be my top damage dealer. but if the party is plagued by an aggro happy hunter, or a tank that runs around and pulls a new group when the first group isnt completely dead, or if adds appear and we run back and forth a lot, then consecrate will drop from top, to third. what I do find is that, of the three attacks, Consecrate, Auto attack, and Seal of Command, they all fall within 25-35% (and very often they're all at 30%) of my damage. So essentially 90% of my damage comes from these three attacks. in instances, I don’t even use exo unless im OOC (out of combat) and have time to cast (cant wait to get that talent that gives me insta-exo). so with consecrate being 30% of my damage, it could be beneficial to put 5 points into benediction. but, if everything is perfect, I will always have time to drink (I usually drink more than the healers drink, but we often sit and drink while the warrior tank runs off to the next group). so in instances, mana isnt that important. 3-minute boss fights are rare, actually, are non-existent at my level. so again, Benediction isnt really used here, in groups, or solo.

last last argument: some will say that since getting seal of light, I'll be getting health back quicker than ever, so why not just skip deflection and go for better uptime with benediction? the health gained from seal of light will outshine the 5% chance to parry anyway. good point. as for how much? I do not know. I'll let the theorycrafters do that over at EJ forums. but what I do see is that this is a very good counter to my arguments and I do like this idea very much. with seal of light, I can constantly pull mobs one after the other for longer durations before I have to drink. I don’t have to use mana for healing, and I'll be using judgment of light or judgment of wisdom depending on what I need more. but keep in mind that this argument still has holes. one, I am using only one instant spell that's super cheap. my main mana sink here is exo. and that's not instant. I consecrate in the case I have three mobs on me, and that’s it, and if I have three mobs on me, I know for damn sure I'll be using more than just my auto attacks. so after every fight like that, I'll want to drink and heal anyway. in addition, using seal of light means less dps. so I often switch back and forth. meaning I switch to seal of light if I have enough mana and just want to get some health back. then switch back to command. the dps loss inst noticible on quest mobs, so its not so bad. still, a dps loss is more time required to kill mobs (it is not necessarily more time you're taking damage, since health is refunded almost as fast as its lost). over the course of say, an hour, that loss of exp/hr adds up and when Seal of Light is up, that’s about a 20-25% loss in dps. . argument rebutted.

so with that said, the first five points in the ret tree are almost completely useless (hahaha, all that to say it sucks? well not really useless) but that’s ok. the first tier of every tree sucks anyway. what im trying to say is that the difference is minimal. especially with a paladin and our ability to switch seals, judge different judgments, and toss up some bubbles or heals, the difference in picking the first tier talents is merely a matter of personal taste. it's not until you get to the third or fourth tier that there's something to actually drool over. in my case, pursuit of justice and seal of command. and the rest just adds more damage or crit percentage. all are awesome. but when half of my leveling is questing, and my only instant spell is used only in certain situations, most of which isnt essential to survival, then I would say, you can go either way with this. deflection? sure. benediction? sure. for me, I chose deflection due to the above reasons (and until level 50, I wont be seeing any more instant spells anyway). it isnt gamechanging or gamebreaking either way. just know what the tradeoffs are.

RET vs. PRT: Mana

As far as differences go regarding Retribution and Protection, I find that my have more trouble with mana as prot while questing and ret while in instances. really? yes, even with blessing of the sanctuary up. this is because a lot of quest mobs are scattered, and many are casters. to keep a prot paladin's mana bar full, I will need to run up to about 3 or 4 melee mobs (or hope a caster or two will stand in melee range and take a swing at me, or pull the two melees towards the caster and tank them at the caster's position) and take them down together, as a group. I'd be halfway down in health, but my mana bar will be full. I just need to cast heal on myself and move to the next set of mobs. although this works well with cats and raptors, this doesn’t work well with humanoid or undead mobs who cast spells. so instances are the best places for prot paladins to work. but overall, questing isnt so bad if you plan out the pulls.

as far as ret leveling goes, questing is slow enough that I do not need to sit and drink often. switching to seal of light basically negates all need to heal after combat, even when judging wisdom, leaving my mana for better things like exo or judgments or lolturnevil. I don’t even use turn evil. I may have to one day tho. so after several mobs, I sit to drink, then continue with my kills. for one-target pulls, I pull with exo, then judge and walk to my fridge to look for a bite to eat. come back--mob's dead. its that simple, and im so glad that in cata expansion, pallys will have one more attack to work with.

now, as ret in instances, things get a little tricky. since it is a group effort fighting other groups, starting off with an exo might be a dps loss, unless it’s an undead I am trying to kill. so I run in with judgment, then consecrate. I keep consecrate up as long as there's three or more mobs. im using seal of command instead of seal of light, and the tanks do not seem to have problems ever, so im keeping ret aura up instead of devotion or whatever else. sometimes I am surprised with my mana regen and im at 75% mana after a big pull. and sometimes I find myself completely out of mana.

for example, in SMGY, after the first hallway there is a torture room with 10-12 mobs. some tanks pull the whole room. some pull half but end up getting the whole room pulled due to fleeing mobs. sorry, judgment of justice has an 8 second cooldown. if mobs die one at a time, we usually finish them off before they aggro a new group, but when two or three decide to flee at once, in different directions, we end up with more groups being pulled. this isnt too much a problem. but I find myself running back and forth a lot, which is always fun. in this room, I usually deplete my mana supply. then I drink and move up to the actual graveyard. I deplete my mana supply there as well, right before we enter the mausoleum. now if the group decides to kill all the mobs in the graveyard (instead of killing only the ones on the path), then I drink midway through the graveyard and once again before we enter the mausoleum. im at about 25% mana before we hit the boss, but I find that that is just enough mana to finish off the boss.

so there, some minor nuances in mana management between prot and ret. please note that I leveled prot almost two years ago, and that was before the changes made to the paladin class in patch 3.0. and even then, i only leveled prot to 60 before picking it back up again several months ago, during patch 3.3.2. so many prot leveling is a little different now. or maybe the same. some input may be required. =]