Gear
The general rule with gearing: Item Level is the King, however, you always should sim your character.
Trinkets
- Cataclysmic Signet Brand
- Rezabn’s Gleaming Eye
- Branch of the Tormented Ancient
- Coiled Serpent Idol
- Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge
- Augury of the Primal Flame
- Accelerating Sandglass
The rest of the trinkets are somewhat similar, and you should not focus on them too much.
Amirdrassil, the Dream's Hope Tier Set
- 2 Set Bonus: Expurgation lasts an additional 3 sec and deals 30% increased damage. Casting Judgment or Divine Toll on a target with Expurgation causes Wrathful Sanction, damaging the target for Holy damage and resonating Holy damage to up to 4 nearby enemies.
- 4 Set Bonus:Wrathful Sanction grants you Echoes of Wrath, causing your next Templar's Verdict or Divine Storm to deal damage a second time at 25% effectiveness. This effect does not consume Judgment.
Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible Tier Set
- 2 Set Bonus: Judgment and Hammer of Wrath deal 10% increased damage and 15% increased critical strike damage. Hammer of Wrath applies Judgment to enemies
- 4 Set Bonus: Judgment increases the damage enemies take from your Holy Power spenders by an additional 15%. Hammer of Wrath now hits 4 nearby targets for 20% of its damage.
Tier sets management
Collecting tier pieces from Amirdrassil with a high chance will bring you to a very popular question: should I break Aberrus 4-piece bonus for 2+2? The answer is YES. Using 2 Aberrus and 2 Amirdrassil tier pieces will provide a significant dps increase.
Embellishments and Crafted Gear
With new Sparks you are able to create gear up to 486 ilvl. Before we jump into ratings and suggested order of crafting, I would like to go through all interesting crafted gear.
Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch - this thing can be applied to any plate armor crafted piece and also to the cloak. This is a very powerful embellishment for a single target, but it isn’t that good for AoE. This embellishment still remains our BiS option for raiding.
Unstable Frostfire Belt - This is a mediocre embellishment that you can still use but there are some better options.
Frostfire Legguards of Preparation - the best thing you can craft for Mythic plus content. It provides a lot of haste in every beginning of combat which is very cool, because usually you have Avenging Wrath in the beginning of each pull in M+.
Elemental Lariat - the best days of this embellishment have passed away. Since the buff from it was nerfed from 12 to 5 seconds baseline (can still be 12 if you have all sockets on your gear) but anyway it isn’t worth it to use this embellishment anymore. Try to replace it ASAP with any necklace. Vortex Pinnacle has at least 2 good necks for Retribution: Amulet of Tender Breath or Ionized Choker.
Allied Wristguard of Companionship - This embellishment looks better in 10.2 due to the same reasons - nerfs to Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch and Unstable Frostfire Belt. So keep an eye on it. It might sim a bit worse for your character because of a lot of versatility on your gear.
Crafted Weapons - this is always a very powerful craft for Ret, but it costs 2 Sparks. Including the fact that you can get a 470 (upgradable up to 483) weapon from M+ or even 483 (upgradable up to 489) from your Great Vault I wouldn't recommend using your sparks on a crafted weapon. Especially including the fact that you can obtain a Legendary Axe from Fyrakk.
Raid:
- Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch on Head or Legs (Legs will be better for character management if you play raids and M+)
- Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch on Belt or Feet (bracers and cloak works too)
- Allied Wristguard of Companionship
Mythic Plus:
- Frostfire Legguards of Preparation
- Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch
- Allied Wristguard of Companionship
Best combo is Frostfire Legguards of Preparation and Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch