Playing Ret on Mythic Tindral
I’ve seen a ton of questions about how play Ret on Tindral prog, so I think it’d probably be useful to just make a public post for it that goes into some detail. These are just what I found to be the best thing for me to do for prog; there’s definitely alternative ways to build your spec and to use cooldowns, YMMV.
I did the first set of feathers in my guild, so the timing specific details I cover here are all based on that.
Talent Choices
You’ll have to make some decisions about how much single target vs AoE damage you want to be able to do. Ret cannot do both at once; you need to make major concessions to the other to do good damage at one of these.
In general, I would always recommend starting with an AoE build early on prog. Single target damage only starts mattering to break the absorb shields at the start of P2 and P3, and even then running an AoE build isn’t going to make a big difference in breaking them. I started off using full AoE talents, and then swapped to single target once we started getting to P3, and I think that’s a good general way to do it for prog. You could stay full AoE for the whole of prog if you’d be struggling to kill specific root sets otherwise, but there’s usually other specs that are able to kill them without sacrificing as much single target damage to do so as you are.
AoE Talents
For AoE, this would be my starting point:
Code: BYEAomTTpSA9oX6huYLb5nP3rDAAAQAAiWp0KJtSTiSkkikAAAAAAARQSSRgkQkSESCkSiWIiQIKFaAA
There’s a few ways you could tweak this. I don’t have Truth’s Wake talented since roots and treants don’t live long enough for it to tick for any substantial amount, and Divine Arbiter is a better talent for single target. Empyrean Power and Divine Purpose are alternative options, but I didn’t find them particularly good since the proc rate for them is very low and you usually only have a few GCDs to do AoE in, which you’ll be spending pressing other major cooldowns anyway. Blessed Champion isn’t taken since you’re damaging 20 targets, not 5.
Crusade is also an alternative option, but I don’t think it works well for doing AoE damage - most of your AoE damage comes from Final Reckoning, Wake of Ashes, and Searing Light procs, none of which are affected by Haste and all of which benefit from the Crit increase from regular Wings.
Single Target Talents
Single target is just the same as the regular single target build.
Crusade is actually a good option for single target, especially if you’re struggling to figure out how to use subsequent Wings casts. I didn’t use it on prog, but I would expect it to be basically as good as regular Wings for single target damage and let you move ES casts a lot more easily without needing to worry about delaying future cooldowns as much.
Potential Hybrid Builds
If you want to keep a largely single target build that can still contribute to AoE, there’s a couple of ways you could try to go about this. These will all still be substantially worse single target damage than the regular single target build.
The smallest changes you could make are swapping one or both of Divine Wrath or Vanguard’s Momentum for Tempest of the Lightbringer, and Empyrean Legacy for Blade of Vengeance. Past that, you could also take Searing Light by dropping Truth’s Wake and either Divine Arbiter or Executioner’s Will. I’ve tried both of these options, but the middleground approach didn’t seem to be worth doing - I would either commit to full AoE or full single target depending on what your guild needs at the time.
Cooldown Timings
AoE Timings
For P1 and P2, the important root set to kill is the second one, where you don’t have damage from the dragon divebombs to help kill them. These are at around 0:50 and 3:14 for those phases. You want to have all cooldowns available for this set, so for the very first one you can either hold Wings until they spawn or use it 10s before the pull to have it back up in time. You can use Wake on pull and then hold it from that point too. Burst sequences during the set itself are fairly straightforward - pool some Holy Power, press Wings, Final Reckoning, Divine Storm, Wake of Ashes, Divine Storm again, and everything will probably be dead. With Divine Wrath, you also get a couple of seconds of Wings still active for the subsequent root set, but this set shouldn’t be difficult to kill in time as long as all the feather assignments do their job.
Cooldown usage for P2 is simply to use cooldowns on the Supernova shield and then again on the second root set. For P3, I would start by using it on the Supernova shield too, and then holding for the first set that doesn’t have dragon divebombs to help kill it around 5:49, although this does mean you’re holding cooldowns for a while. Non-divebomb sets past this point also happen at less than 1 minute intervals, which means you won’t be able to use cooldowns on every one. I had already swapped to single target talents at the point we were doing this part of the fight, but I would probably just use the next set of 1 minute cooldowns at around 7:00 even though it also has divebombs to help it since those divebombs can take longer than normal since there’s a lot more fire beams than usual to dodge.
Single Target Timings
Single target cooldown timings are a lot more specific to which feather set you’re doing; these will probably be very different for every phase if you’re doing a different set. In general, P1 and P2 have pretty tight timings to fit in all possible ES casts, while P3 is very straightforward to use cooldowns for.
Pull - Use ES + Wings.
0:30 - Do your feather set. Use ES when you land at around 0:38 - you want to use it ASAP in order to not delay your subsequent cooldown set.
1:08 - Use ES + Wings. You can use Wings a couple of seconds early to make subsequent timings better. Use DT as your first builder, then use Wake once the root set spawns a couple seconds later. Your ES might not land before the boss flies off; don’t worry, it will still deal full damage.
2:03 - Use ES as the boss lands and Wings as soon as it comes up. Don’t delay ES for Wings or the shield, since the Dream Essence buff still buffs your damage before the shield is applied, and your ES will still land while the shield is up. You need to cast ES early in order to not lose a cast.
2:33 - Use ES + Wake. You’ll need to do your feather assignment before ES lands, but your option is to either have a suboptimal ES or lose a cast in P2 altogether.
3:12 - Use ES + Wings after the second seed set. Same as P1, use DT as your first builder and Wake once the next roots spawn.
3:42 - Use ES. This will definitely not land before the boss takes off, but is still worth casting.
4:20 - Use ES + Wings on the Supernova shield.
4:55 - Use ES after you land from your feather assignment.
5:26 - Use ES + Wings. Use Wake after the root set spawns a few seconds later.
5:57 - Use ES, then do your feather assignment.
6.28 - Use ES + Wings. You can save Wake for the next root set that spawns a few seconds later, but it’s longer to hold it than usual and probably won’t be up for the next root set.
6:58 - Use ES. Use Wake when the roots spawn. Just use cooldowns as soon as they come up from this point onwards if you haven’t already killed the boss.
General Tips
If you’re assigned to Freedom or Sac dispel targets, this often happens right before your feather assignment and you’ll need to use Freedom early. Make sure you’re still in range if you’re casting it as you walk to your feather spawn.
I would highly recommend just using Bubble on the root set at 0:50 that happens as fire beams are still moving. For other defensives, you can just use SoV early on in P1 for damage, and use DP for the third root set at 1:10. I found that P2 was the most difficult to live, especially if you’ve got Sac still on a dispel target while you’re doing your feather assignment, so I would regularly use SoV and/or a healthstone as soon as I landed before I soaked a seed. I used DP on the second root set in P2, and often health potted the third if I wasn’t healthy as it came out. I used SoV when I landed for the P3 Supernova and then rotated SoV and DP for root sets after that. I would recommend trying to avoid using Bubble during a root set in P3 since spawning an extra treant at that point in the fight can be a lot of extra raid damage.
If you want to try to optimize AoE damage, I would try to run a lot less Haste than normal and probably use Sophic Devotion instead of Wafting, for the same reasoning as above - most of your AoE damage doesn’t really get buffed by Haste. I tried swapping my Shadowflame embellishments for Blue Silken Lining, and you’ll be very likely to have it up for the 0:50 root set if you bubble it, but I don’t think this is really necessary to do in general and it has pretty awful uptime overall. I would definitely use stat trinkets if you have them available, especially Ashes.