Ruby Sanctum Retribution Gearing: Moar ArP!

Oh, work. I've spent today and Monday in my office playing Zork I and II, which are a couple of text-based adventure games that run in MS-DOS and were made in the early 80's. Truth be told, I was actually looking for a very similar game, except it took place on a spaceship; I remember playing the space one as a kid but couldn't remember for the life of me what the name was. But yes, to answer your inevitable question, I have been pretty bored lately.

Anyway, enough about that; Ruby Sanctum is being "released" today! Huzzah! Finally, Wyrmrest Temple will see more people than those ambitious Sarth-3D puggers.

IMPORTANT NOTE (from official patch notes): "Please note due to the way this patch is being applied in all regions, this dungeon will not immediately be available in North America."

So don't get your panties in a bunch; it'll be out soon!

Until it's ready for us, all we can do is sit and speculate. Therefore, let's go over some details. The following things have been stated before, but I'll state them again in case you missed them (all of this is subject to change, of course, but this is just what we have been told thus far):

• Ruby Sanctum will contain four bosses: Halion the Twilight Destroyer and three drakes, Baltharus the Warborn, General Zarithrian, and Saviana Ragefire, in a setup reminiscient of Obsidian Sanctum.
• The drakes will each drop one Emblem of Frost, with Halion dropping the only loot to speak of in the instance. 
• Unlike OS, RS will not feature a "drakes up" scenario for complicating the encounter and getting extra loot or achievements. 
• While Halion drops higher iLevel loot than each tier's ICC counterpart (251 loot in ICC 10m and 258 loot in RS 10m, 264 in ICC 25m and 271 in RS 25m), it is not intended to be any more difficult than ICC.
• Heroic modes are supposed to be available, though it is unclear how they're to be accessed (right off the bat, after killing Halion, or some other means)
  

Honestly, I haven't watched any PTR encounter videos to see what the fights are like (mah bad), but I do have the ability to skim Halion's loot table! So let's go on an adventure and see what us ret paladins can nom up!

10-MAN

Both Zarithrian's Offering and Bracers of the Heir appeal to my hunger for strength-plate. Although the ArP that was sprinkled delicately over these items gives me gas...

Don't let my intestinal problems dissuade you though; these are pretty damn good. Grab 'em up, provided they're an upgrade.

25-MAN

Oh Mama. There's Apocalypse's Advance, with some hit that frees up some itemization, and Penumbra Pendant, which noms that itemization, when switched with Ahn'kahar Onyx Neckguard, and gives us some amazing... ArP. Well, it's better than more hit!

These upgrades pale in comparison to the Sharpened Twilight Scale. Well, sorta. I guess the "pales in comparison" part depends on your current gear setup.

See, getting trinkets is a pain in the royal ass. Now a BiS (or close to it) trinket for almost every melee DPS drops in a fairly short 25-man. And yes, you guessed it; it's quite good for us rets as well.

Given our first trinket slot contains Tiny Abomination in a Jar (normal), the DPS order of the second slot goes:

Sharpened Twilight Scale (heroic) > Death's Choice (heroic) > Whispering Fanged Skull (heroic) > Death's Choice (normal) > Sharpened Twilight Scale (normal) > Whispering Fanged Skull (normal) > etc.

This trinket order is fairly general, and if you have it, TAJ (normal) will only be replaced by TAJ (heroic) because the trinket is just so amazing. I mean, at the time I had a DMC: Greatness, which I replaced with TAJ (normal), along with a Whispering Fanged Skull (normal), and just by equipping that trinket my DPS jumped up by over 600 points.

Obviously going from a 200 iLevel to a 264 was going to be a big increase, but not only is the proc really hot, but the passive hit on the trinket itself allows us to switch some gear around, especially useful since the four pieces of tier we use don't have any hit on them. So leggo our Abo's, rogues!