Paladin Spec

[blugahin]

Here's a paladin spec where you can last a long time in battle, and dish out some DPS while doing it.


THIS IS NOT MY SPEC GUIDE

I take no credit for this guide, except for bringing it to people's attention.



Protection
Level 10 ¡V Redoubt 1/5
Level 11 ¡V Redoubt 2/5
Level 12 ¡V Redoubt 3/5
Level 13 ¡V Redoubt 4/5
Level 14 ¡V Redoubt 5/5 Yes you will be using a 1h and shield, this will keep you alive!
Level 15 ¡V Precision 1/3
Level 16 ¡V Precision 2/3
Level 17 ¡V Precision 3/3 You ALWAYS want to hit your targets
Level 18 ¡V Toughness 1/5
Level 19 ¡V Toughness 2/5

A Common Mistake, Blessing of Kings, NO, you only use ONE blessing (Blessing of Sanctuary at Lvl 30) throughout the game. Blessing of Kings is used for lazy people in groups that don't want to put Blessing of Might on melee and Blessing of Wisdom on casters (witch are WAY better then Kings)

Level 20 ¡V Improved Righteous Fury 1/3 Now you have 2% damage reduction
Level 21 ¡V Improved Righteous Fury 2/3 4% damage reduction
Level 22 ¡V Improved Righteous Fury 3/3 6% damage reduction, every bit helps!
Level 23 ¡V Shield Specialization 1/3
Level 24 ¡V Shield Specialization 2/3
Level 25 ¡V Shield Specialization 3/3 Again, this will keep you alive!
Level 26 ¡V Anticipation 1/5 Why? It increases your chance to Dodge, Parry and Block!
Level 27 ¡V Anticipation 2/5
Level 28 ¡V Anticipation 3/5
Level 29 ¡V Anticipation 4/5 You will end up doing Block Damage + Ret Aura
Level 30 ¡V Blessing of Sanctuary 1/1 The only blessing you will use from here on out!
Level 31 ¡V Reckoning 1/5
Level 32 ¡V Reckoning 2/5
Level 33 ¡V Reckoning 3/5
Level 34 ¡V Reckoning 4/5
Level 35 ¡V Reckoning 5/5 10% Procs more then you think.
Pay very close attention to One-Handed Weapon Specialization, +5% damage on EVERYTHING spells/melee/auras/seals/blessings attribs.
Level 36 ¡V One-Handed Weapon Specialization 1/5
Level 37 ¡V One-Handed Weapon Specialization 2/5
Level 38 ¡V One-Handed Weapon Specialization 3/5
Level 39 ¡V One-Handed Weapon Specialization 4/5
Level 40 ¡V One-Handed Weapon Specialization 5/5 A must have!

There, now your done in the Prot tree, now I know what you saying, hey drew, you passing all the cool stuff that protection has to offer wtf? Your right, but all abilities unlocked below will only dump mana if used and after each battle you will have to sit and drink (arrrrg down time ƒ¼) remember this guide was made with hunters in mind, and to Level as fast as possible!

Retribution
Level 41 ¡V Benediction 1/5
Level 42 ¡V Benediction 2/5
Level 43 ¡V Benediction 3/5
Level 44 ¡V Benediction 4/5
Level 45 ¡V Benediction 5/5 Its all about saving mana at the end of battle
Level 46 ¡V Improved Judgment 1/2
Level 47 ¡V Improved Judgment 2/2
Level 48 ¡V Improved Seal of the Crusader 1/3 Used for single pulls
Level 49 ¡V Improved Seal of the Crusader 2/3
Level 50 ¡V Improved Seal of the Crusader 3/3 Break on single mobs then use Seal of Righteousness to burn down Eliets or hard single boss/mob
Level 51 ¡V Conviction 1/5
Level 52 ¡V Conviction 2/5
Level 53 ¡V Conviction 3/5
Level 54 ¡V Conviction 4/5
Level 55 ¡V Conviction 5/5
Level 56 ¡V Improved Retribution Aura 1/2
Level 57 ¡V Improved Retribution Aura 2/2
Level 58 ¡V Crusade 1/3
Level 59 ¡V Crusade 2/3
Level 60 ¡V Crusade 3/3 Once again, +3% ALL damage spells/melee/auras/seals/blessings attribs, So what if it doesn't count towards Beasts, Dragon, *no name*, ect. 75% of this game is Elementals, Humans (my fave), Undead, and Demons.
*Done in Retribution Tree*

FYI: Retribution Aura is now increased by 58% against Elemants, Humans, Undead and Demons and 55% against all others (remember 1h wep specialization's +5%!) and your Blessing of Sanctuary is increased by 8%/5% as is all other spells

Holy Tree
Level 61 ¡V Divine Strength 1/5
Level 62 ¡V Divine Strength 2/5
Level 63 ¡V Divine Strength 3/5
Level 64 ¡V Divine Strength 4/5
Level 65 ¡V Divine Strength 5/5 Strength = High chance to Block + Blessing of Sanctuary Proc = Holy Damage
Level 66 ¡V Improved Seal of Righteousness 1/5
Level 67 ¡V Improved Seal of Righteousness 2/5
Level 68 ¡V Improved Seal of Righteousness 3/5
Level 69 ¡V Improved Seal of Righteousness 4/5
Level 70 ¡V Improved Seal of Righteousness 5/5 for solo pulls, boss, singles, ect.


Gear Attributes Order of Priority
1- Strength: For the Block rating

2- Stamina: For a Deep Health Pool

3- Defensive Ratting: all the defense helps that Block %

4- Spell Damage/Chance to Hit/Block Rating (Holy): Your source of Damage aside from common Melee is Holy, you ALWAYS want to hit your target, Block is your AOE Damage source

5- Intellect: Deep Mana Pool (Why this is #4 and not #3? Well, paladins have a very deep mana pool as it is, you won't use much mana

6- Agility: Crits and armor, need say more?

7- Spirit: the minor mana and health regeneration OUT OF COMBAT sucks for a paladin, they have no talents to buff there regeneration, carry lots of water and food for fast moving groups


1- Don't use Consecration, it will waste your mana fast, only use it to impress your buddies when you pull 9+ mobs and don't die ļ
2- Seal of Light is your friend
3- Seal of Wisdom is your mana regeneration, when you get good with both SoL and SoW you will have 0 down time and an endless quest/mob grind!
4- Grab those Quests that have you kill *X* amount of mobs, you will clear them out fast!

[youwish]

Here's a wowhead link to the spec at level 70 if you prefer a visual guide :

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[SockofBadKarma]

There are so many things god awfully wrong with your logic that I could just call you an idiot, but I'm going to explain instead why this won't work.


1. You are under a false impression that Blizzard even itemizes gear anything NEAR what this "spec" would need. For instance, this spec would require both spell hit and melee hit, which never, ever occurs on our gear.

2. You have grabbed Conviction, which is only MELEE crit. Seal of Righteousness can NEVER crit, and the Judgement is based on Spell Crit. Therefore, Conviction will be useless.

3. Divine Strength is just dumb when assuming you will be using Seal of Righteousness. It doesn't scale off of Strength at all, and the block rating is a horrid waste of itemization points, which won't be on Spell Damage/Spell crit gear anyway (see point 1).

4. Reckoning procs much less than you think. By the time Prot becomes survivable, it's due to having Prot GEAR. The combined avoidance of Parry, Dodge, and Block will actually decrease the chance Reckoning will proc, because mobs of any sort won't actually hit you nearly as much.

5. Improved Ret Aura is trash, plain and simple. Complete trash. It will never scale with damage, and it does not get damage from modifiers such as Crusade. The only modifier I have personally seen work on it is the Retribution buff, Vengeance, which increases it's damage by about 6. The only time this Aura should be used in PvP is against Rogues who frequently stunlock.

6. Blessing of Sanctuary is dumb without proper tanking stats. Tanking stats will be found on tanking gear. Tanking gear doesn't have Spell Damage or Spell Crit. See point 1 again.

7. Your "damage" is going to be crap without any on-demand attacks. Crusade and One-Hand Weapon Spec aren't going to solve that.

8. Directly tied to point 7, you have no extra attacks (ie. Holy Shock or Crusader Strike). Reckoning will not proc correctly if you have tanking gear, and you won't survive if you don't have tanking gear. You have no way to effectively heal, no way to effectively do damage, and if you have this spec, you won't have any effective way to TAKE damage.







In short, there is a reason why good Paladins don't have specs like this. The specs don't work. We don't have the gear for it, the stat allocation for it, or the on-demand abilities for it. The only spec that can effectively put out sustained damage is full, 41-point or higher Retribution (Shockadins can also do burst, but they don't have nearly enough damage to consider them "dps"). The spec is poorly thought-out, weak in all three areas, and I feel saddened that it was even created.

I know I sound like a jackass. I probably am one. It doesn't make my comments any less truthful, however. This spec will not work in PvE or PvP for healing, tanking, or damaging. There isn't a role for "half-assedry".

Surely, some PvP specs do well without going 41 points in, eg. AR/Prep Rogues (nerfed in 2.3.2, though), SL/SL Warlocks, Elementalist Mages, or Arms/Fury Warriors. Such specs only work, however, because both trees that are being specced into are built for the same goal: dps.

As a Paladin, you have three specific trees: Healing, Tanking, or DPSing. Anything more than 20 points into the "off-tree" will fail, time and again, esp. in PvP. If you want to PvP as Holy, go 41/20/0 or 41/0/20. If you want to PvP as Ret, go 10/0/51, 0/20/41, or 5/11/45. This watered-down spec just doesn't work... I'm sorry.

[Zason]

Hey its an attempt at testing new specs which I am for.

I respec all the time trying new combos, however I have to agree that this one on paper definately looks like it would not be as good as others.


I will go ahead and post this Spec I am testing. It may not be the best and I dont have the best gear but it does work for PVE and I have yet to really test it in PVP. Go ahead and give me feedback, I know there are better Pallys, but please comment based on the spec, not that one is better, but maybe how it could be imporved. >;+)

Holy Talents (17 points)

Divine Intellect (5/5)
- Increases your total Intellect by 10%.

Spiritual Focus (5/5)
- Gives your Flash of Light and Holy Light spells a 70% chance to not lose casting time when you take damage.

Healing Light (3/3)
- Increases the amount healed by your Holy Light and Flash of Light spells by 12%.

Unyielding Faith (2/2)
- Increases your chance to resist Fear and Disorient effects by 10%.

Improved Blessing of Wisdom (2/2)
- Increases the effect of your Blessing of Wisdom spell by 20%.


Protection Talents (44 points)

Redoubt (5/5)
- Damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 30%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks.

Precision (3/3)
- Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 3%.

Toughness (2/5)
- Increases your armor value from items by 4%.

Shield Specialization (3/3)
- Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your shield by 30%.

Anticipation (5/5)
- Increases your Defense skill by 20 .

Stoicism (2/2)
- Increases your resistance to Stun effects by an additional 10 % and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by an additional 30 %.

Spell Warding (2/2)
- All spell damage taken is reduced by 4%.

Reckoning (5/5)
- Gives you a 10% chance after being the victim of a critical strike that the next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec will generate an additional attack.

Sacred Duty (2/2)
- increases your total stamina by 6%, reduces the cooldown of yoru Divine Shield spell by 1min and reduces the attack speed penalty by 100%.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization (5/5)
- Increases the damage you deal with one-handed melee weapons by 5%.

Ardent Defender (5/5)
- When you have less than 20% health, all damage taken is reduced by 30%.

Weapon Expertise (5/5)
- Increase your weapon skill with all weapons by 10.

[SockofBadKarma]

Hey its an attempt at testing new specs which I am for.

I respec all the time trying new combos, however I have to agree that this one on paper definately looks like it would not be as good as others.


I will go ahead and post this Spec I am testing. It may not be the best and I dont have the best gear but it does work for PVE and I have yet to really test it in PVP. Go ahead and give me feedback, I know there are better Pallys, but please comment based on the spec, not that one is better, but maybe how it could be imporved. >;+)

It's fine that he posted a spec. I was merely explaining why it doesn't work well.

As for your spec, the main problems are the major lack of focus. You go deep into Prot, but you don't have Holy Shield, which is INCREDIBLY important for tanking. It doesn't have Imp. SoR in Holy, so you can't do as much damage, and it doesn't have Illumination, so you can't heal well.

The main problem that I see here is the lack of key talents such as Illumination or Holy Shield. It isn't as hard to get the gear for this spec, but the spec itself is quite weak and almost absent of extra 1/1 abilities that you get from Prot or Holy.

It will generally be useless in PvP, as you don't have the mana efficiency or talents necessary to fill a healer spot, and Prot (for either Paladins or Warriors) is mainly complete trash for Arena.

[Zason]

Yeah I was just trying something different , I normally get Holy Sheild with my Prot Spec. And I do not use SoR much, I use Seal of Vengence. I start off with SotC, Judge, then SoV and let it build to 5 and then Judge, tinse and repeat.

Currently my gear is horrible anyways. So even if I had a perfect spec, I would lose due to lack of gear. This spec keeps me alive in PVE for sure, perhaps I will respec to incude Holy Sheild again, however, in your opinion, would it be better to go in holy or ret as secondary talents?

[SockofBadKarma]

Yeah I was just trying something different , I normally get Holy Sheild with my Prot Spec. And I do not use SoR much, I use Seal of Vengence. I start off with SotC, Judge, then SoV and let it build to 5 and then Judge, tinse and repeat.

Currently my gear is horrible anyways. So even if I had a perfect spec, I would lose due to lack of gear. This spec keeps me alive in PVE for sure, perhaps I will respec to incude Holy Sheild again, however, in your opinion, would it be better to go in holy or ret as secondary talents?

I really still don't know what your spec is supposed to accomplish, but a good Prot spec can either go into Ret for extra threat generation, or go into Holy for Illumination (and therefore the ability to heal by switching gear when a tank isn't needed).

You are listed as an Alliance Blood Elf Paladin, so I didn't know your actual faction or race. Even then, SoR is better for extra threat generation (while SoV is still useful due to the DoT).

[Kier101]

My personal belief is that until you reach level 70, most of your points should be focused in the retribution tree purely because the amount of damage you do is significantly higher. I leveled from 1-70 as retribution spec, so I can tell you that it is the most practical way to go about leveling solo, which seems to be an all too common theme throughout Warcraft since BC came out ( at least on the ally side).

Levels 9-14 Benediction 5/5
Levels 15-16 Imp Judgement
Levels 17-19 Imp Blessing of Might 3/5
Level 20 Seal of Command 1/1 (staple for the retribution tree imo)
Levels 21-25 Conviction 5/5
Levels 26-28 Crusade 3/3
Levels 29-30 Eye for an Eye 2/2 (for those pesky casters)
Level 31 Sanctity Aura 1/1 (adds to your holy damage, and holy heal'rs will ty)
Levels 32-33 Imp Sanctity Aura (mmm...holy damage)
Levels 34 Two Hand Specialization 1/3 (will fill it later)
Levels 35-39 Vengeance 5/5 (huge benefit to damage)
Level 40 Repentance 1/1 (because HoJ is just not enough)
Levels 41-43 Sanctified Judgement 3/3
Level 44 Two Hand Specialization 2/3
Levels 45-49 Fanaticism 5/5 (its healthy sometimes)
Level 50 Crusader Strike 1/1 (your one "dps" move as a pally.... cherish it)
Level 51 Two Hand specialization 3/3
Levels 52-54 Pursuit of Justice 3/3 (boosted movement speed=better escapes)
Levels 55-57 Sanctified Seals 3/3
Levels 58-60 Divine Purpose 3/3

Hope this helps, but as a forewarning to ret pallies, not many groups are going to be looking for retribution spec pally, so have some healing gear ready if necessary. As for ret gear, focus on strength, stamina, and intellect with a little smattering of spell damage here and there. I don't personally see much value in stacking spirit nor agility, but to each his own.

[issuesbunny]

Looks like there's lots of important discussion going on in this thread.

[SockofBadKarma]

My personal belief is that until you reach level 70, most of your points should be focused in the retribution tree purely because the amount of damage you do is significantly higher. I leveled from 1-70 as retribution spec, so I can tell you that it is the most practical way to go about leveling solo, which seems to be an all too common theme throughout Warcraft since BC came out ( at least on the ally side).

Levels 9-14 Benediction 5/5
Levels 15-16 Imp Judgement
Levels 17-19 Imp Blessing of Might 3/5
Level 20 Seal of Command 1/1 (staple for the retribution tree imo)
Levels 21-25 Conviction 5/5
Levels 26-28 Crusade 3/3
Levels 29-30 Eye for an Eye 2/2 (for those pesky casters)
Level 31 Sanctity Aura 1/1 (adds to your holy damage, and holy heal'rs will ty)
Levels 32-33 Imp Sanctity Aura (mmm...holy damage)
Levels 34 Two Hand Specialization 1/3 (will fill it later)
Levels 35-39 Vengeance 5/5 (huge benefit to damage)
Level 40 Repentance 1/1 (because HoJ is just not enough)
Levels 41-43 Sanctified Judgement 3/3
Level 44 Two Hand Specialization 2/3
Levels 45-49 Fanaticism 5/5 (its healthy sometimes)
Level 50 Crusader Strike 1/1 (your one "dps" move as a pally.... cherish it)
Level 51 Two Hand specialization 3/3
Levels 52-54 Pursuit of Justice 3/3 (boosted movement speed=better escapes)
Levels 55-57 Sanctified Seals 3/3
Levels 58-60 Divine Purpose 3/3

Hope this helps, but as a forewarning to ret pallies, not many groups are going to be looking for retribution spec pally, so have some healing gear ready if necessary. As for ret gear, focus on strength, stamina, and intellect with a little smattering of spell damage here and there. I don't personally see much value in stacking spirit nor agility, but to each his own.

There are a few holes in your leveling spec logic.

Particularly, the 3/5 Imp. BoM can be spent into Imp. SotC instead. The damage increase from SotC is a static 3% more crit for all spells and attacks, making you much more viable in a group than with Imp. BoM, seeing as it will only add 44 AP at max rank (even less when leveling), and 3% crit is always the same % at any level.


I'm confused because I don't know if the spec is meant for solo play at 70, solo grinding before 70, group play before/at 70, or pvp before/at 70.

Supposing you aren't grouping much and you feel like doing solo pvp some times (you took E4aE so I suppose you are), having Fanaticism is just a bad idea. The 15% crit only applies to one ability used once every 8 seconds that scales with spell damage (which you actually shouldn't stack, believe it or not). The judgements are mitigated by spell hit (excepting Judgement of Blood, which is purely melee stats anyway), so you have about a 15% to have them resisted. As such, you are getting a 15% crit modifier on an ability that, at max, accounts for just about 10% of your total damage WITH that 15% crit. That's a whopping 2% increase, overall.

Taking the 5 points in Fanaticism and investing them in other trees is great. It's very important to get Sanctified Seals whenever you can get it, as well. That's a static 3% increase in damage at all times for all abilities, as well as 100% dispel resistance. It costs 2 less points than Fanaticism, as well, making it a much stronger solo/pvp talent. If you are pveing? Yes, get the threat reduction. Otherwise, forget Fanaticism.




Also, Divine Purpose, while semi-useful for undergeared pve Retadins, is just that. The maximum damage reduction you can receive from Resilience is 25%, so after you break 300 Resilience, Divine Purpose starts losing effect until it becomes almost useless. Factor in the fact that, if you ARE pvping and are decent at it, you should basically faceroll any melee fighter anyway.



I've noted that you posted a leveling spec. However, for solo leveling, it's much more viable to put 10 points into Divine Strength and Divine Purpose, allowing you to heal yourself when necessary. This is a less useful spec for solo pvp (it works decently in arena teams that already have enough CC to not merit a 0/20/41 spec), but it's much more helpful for leveling than taking stuff like Divine Purpose or Fanaticism.





Lastly, the stats you should be focusing on are, in order from greatest to least value:

Melee Hit (essential to have 5% for PvP and 9% for PvE, no excuses)
Strength/Crit Rating
Stamina/Resilience (for PvP)
Attack Power/Agility (both being inferior, itemvalue-wise, to Str/Crit)
Intellect (useful, but you should be very mana-efficient anyway)
Spell Damage (mostly useless, but it does make SOME abilities scale a bit, so if it's already on gear with the aforementioned stats, so be it)
Spell Hit (good luck finding that on any plate gear)
Spirit (elohel)






Also, Prot is a viable leveling spec for aoe grinding (albeit being worse for solo questing).