Heroic Ruby Sanctum Retribution Gearing: Even Moar ArP!

Yesterday we took a look at all the shiny new gear from Ruby Sanctum, which is unfortunately still unavailable until Blizzard says otherwise. I neglected to include any information on the heroic loot from RS, as I didn't find any links to it. Well, it turns out I didn't look hard enough; a friend of mine pointed out that the heroic loot tables are on the front page of MMO Champion. Doh! So then, without further ado, let's get to it.

First, if you keep up with Elitist Jerks' BiS lists, you'll have noticed that they included this subsection at the bottom of the OP:

Ruby Sanctum Patch 3.3.5 All Item BiS

Wrist: [Polar Bear Claw Bracers] => Umbrage Armbands (Heroic)
Ring: [Band of the Bone Colossus] => Signet of Twilight (Heroic)
Trinket: [Death's Choice]=> Sharpened Twilight Scale (Heroic)
Boots: [Frostbitten Fur Boots] => Apocalypse's Advance (Heroic)
Neck: [Sindragosa's Cruel Claw] => Penumbra Pendant (Heroic)
No other changes from the above listed All Items BiS listing.

Notice that these upgrades pertain to the "Heroic All Items Priority List." Therefore, I'm choosing to ignore a few of the upgrades because I refuse to wear agil gear as a ret paladin. Granted, for the moment I suffer a DPS loss for doing so, but I take it in stride (I intend to explain my anti-agility philosophy as best I can in another post).

So what can we add to our "Heroic Plate Items Priority List" over on the EJ forums?

10-MAN

Just as in normal, we get Bracers of the Heir and Zarithrian's Offering, only this time they're heroic.

The ring, or as I like to see it, Might of Blight 1.5, seems to be just that: the exact same ring, only half way between the item budgeting of the normal and heroic versions. Maybe not exactly half way, but you get the idea. Also, with a red socket, and depending on what the socket bonus turns out to be (more than likely +4 Strength), this could compete for a spot on our BiS lists.

As compared to the heroic version of Might of Blight, and given that the Might of Blight is socketed with an Inscribed Ametrine and Zarithrian's Offering with a Bold Cardinal Ruby (with a socket bonus of +4 Strength), you're looking at a trade-off of 14 Crit and 4 ArP for Might of Blight compared to the 4 Strength from Zarithrian's Offering.

Although I'm waiting to compare the theoretical DPS between the two using an updated version of Rawr (which will hopefully come out soon), I'm leaning toward Zarithrian's Offering for a couple reasons:

1. Strength scales our AP up, and most of our attacks have an AP modifier, meaning the more Strength we get, the harder we hit
2. Crit Rating increases your chance to crit, not the damage from the crit itself. 14 Crit Rating translates into 0.305% Crit Chance, meaning you're 0.305% more likely to hit critically. This seems kinda marginal, but as I said, I'll have to wait until I see the sim to make a conclusion.
3. Armor Penetration Rating, as it is, is not one of our most ideal stats. It's not terrible, true, but we have bigger stats to fry. Therefore, a loss of 4 ArP isn't going to be noticeable.

Also, given an excess amount of hit, this ring might be worth using in place of your Ashen Band of Endless Might. Just keep an eye on your stats!

The bracers are somewhat more fickle. Compared to our current BiS heroic bracers, the Bracers of the Heir have -6 Strength and -4 Critical Strike Rating, as well as -60 Hit and +56 Armor Penetration Rating. Again, this comes down to whether 56 ArP > 6 Strength and 4 Crit, and again I'm going to have to hold my tongue until I can see it for myself.

Much of this is dependent on your Hit Rating (remember: 263 = sexy), which the next set of loot is bound to screw with.

25-MAN

Again, for our taking are Apocalypse's Advance, Penumbra Pendant, and Sharpened Twilight Scale, all heroic-quality items. Even according to EJ's All Item list, the boots and necklace are BiS. Therefore, it would stand to reason that they can find a home on the Plate list too. And as we've already seen, Sharpened Twilight Scale (heroic) is one of our BiS trinkets, along with Tiny Abomination in a Jar (heroic).

If you swap out the Ahn'kahar Onyx Neckguard and Blood-Soaked Saronite Stompers on our current Plate BiS list with Penumbra Pendant and Apocalypse's Advance, you see +34 Str, +21 Hit, +12 Crit, and -9 ArP, not including any gems or socket bonuses. So let's see: +9 ArP, or +34 Str, +21 Hit, and +12 Crit? I think that's a no-brainer.

So if we equip all of the 25-man gear listed above, we find ourselves with 21 extra Hit Rating (presuming you're sitting on the hit cap, of course). This extra garnish isn't quite enough to warrant ditching any piece with hit, as the piece in the current Heroic Plate BiS list with the lowest non-zero Hit Rating has 59, but who knows? Maybe we can reshuffle some gear and squeeze out a few more points of DPS while maintaining our hit cap.

You could do the math yourself... or you could just wait for more motivated people to build the sims for you, like me. So let's get working, people!