This guide is written for a friend on my server, however if anyone else stumbles upon this feel free to use it as well as it is for anyone that can make use of it.
Since this is a long post I am going to break it up click the link for the complete post
Lets start this post talking about stats. In order or importance (in my eyes)
STATS
Strength-This will be your main DPS stat to stack. 1 point of STR will give you 2 points of Attack Power
Hit-Yes I am putting this at the top of the list because being hit capped is still one of the best DPS stats to have. You must hit 8% hit. To tell what percent you are st mouse over hit and check. Anything less than 8% and you hamper your DPS.
Attack Power/Crit- Lumping these 2 stats together As the balance of Attack Power will come from STR, but if you get it on an item dont slough it off. Crit is a nice stat as well. As the more you crit the more damage you do.
Agility-Many people will tell you to never get gear that has AGI on it as it is wasted. But this is not true. AGI will give you AP as well as crit. Do not go out of your way to gear for it. Off items like necks and rings that have AGi and are better than your current items grab them.
What NOT to stack
Intellect- NEVER and I mean NEVER gear for INT. This is bad. Yes we use manna but we do not need it (as I will explain later)
Spell Power- Again this is a stack to never stack. To many paladins forget that we do not need it, again I will explain this later on.
SPEC
Now that we got stats out of the way, lets talk about your spec.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sVMZVZVfrtbIuGdIfsu
That is a good spec to use. Let me point out a few talents.
2/5 Divine Intellect- I chose this because there were 2 points left over and no real use for them. More INT through talents is good.
Seal of Command-This talent still remains in a Ret Paladins spell book for 1 reason and 1 reason only. Trash, Put this on when you are doing trash and you got 2 attacks that trigger the cleave effect of it. Crusader strike and judgment, also auto attack will as well.
Judgment of the Wise- Remember when I said stacking INT was wrong? Well here is where I explain that. JotW will on every judge grant you replenishment this will give you 1% of your maximum manna every 5 second AND give you an automatic 25% of your manna. Now you may think "Well Valkiryn, if I had more manna it would be better right?" Well that is wrong thinking. Ret Paladins work off of base manna. That is your manna when you are naked. All your spells are based off that manna. More mana would be nice and that is why you have 2/5 Divine Intellect. But stacking it will cause you to forgo DPS stats.
Fanaticism-This talent is great. Ret Paladins can pull treat really easy. This will reduce your threat by a lot. Always have this talent in your tree maxed out.
Sheath of Light- Remember when I said Spell Power was a bad stat to stack? This talent is why. For this talent will take 30% of your AP (attack power) and roll it into Spell Power. This is why you want as much STR as possible. Remember for every 1 STR you get 2 AP.
GEMS
Now on to gems. There are few selection of gems that you want to have.
Meta-Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. This is the only gem you want in this slot
Red Slots- For these slots stack 20STR (Bold) gems in them. Nothing else 20STR if you are a JC put your JC only STR gems (max of 3)
YELLOW- For these slots 20STR as well. You can also place an Inscribed Ametrine in there But ONLY if the socket bonus and gem will be better than a straight 20STR gem. The way to tell is if your crit is low or if the socket bonus will net you more DPS. But conventional thinking is forgo yellow bonus and go straight 20STR
BLUE- For these slots Sovereign Dreadstones. BUT you only need 1 of these. Rest place 20STR gems. Just keep 1 blue open for a Nightmare's Tear. The reason is that you need to have 2 blue gems to activate your Meta socket. A nightmare's tear and that 1 Sovereign will activate it. The best place to put the Nightmare's Tear is in your gloves.
ROTATION
The Ret Paladin's rotation is simple. FCFS. This is First Come First Served. Meaning there is no real rotation just use what is off off cooldown. However with that said, A simple "rotation" to keep in mind is Crusader Strike>Divine Storm>Judge Then use what ever comes off cooldown first. Now since you have the ability to get an instant Exorcism on a crit through Art of War, use that every chance you get provided you have the manna. Now when the BOSS is below 20% Hammer of Wrath is your main attack to use. Use this every time it is off of Cooldown. So bosses that are under 20% rotation is this Hammer of Wrath FCFS Hammer of Wrath will be off of cooldown before your other attacks so keep an eye on that and use it every time you can.
GEAR
I gave gear its own section down here at the bottom only because I wanted to. Gear and stats are in fact the same thing. You want plate gear that gives Strength, Stamina, Hit, Crit, Attack power. However I fell the need to point out a few things. Grab your Tier 9 as fast as you can. With random dungeons this can be done quite fast. Few key items to pick up.
Libram-Libram of Valiance. Pick this up as soon as you have 2 pieces of Tier9. On bosses this is a good libram until you can afford the Frost Badge one.
Ring- Bloodshed Band. 35 Triumphs. This is a good ring to grab if you find yourself in 3 piece Tier9 and do not have better.
Neck- Spiked Battleguard Choker. This is bought with Emblems of Conquest. Just trade Triumphs in for that. However only do this if you can not get better.
Buffs Flasks and Food
For your flask you want Flask of Endless Rage. For food you want Dragonfin Fillet. This will give you STR and stam. Fish Feast is good if you don't have any Dragonfin on you. Also if you are below the 8% hit cap you can eat Snapper Extreme. This will give hit and stamina. For your buff Might is an all around good talent. Kings is also really good. The way to tell what one to use when solo or if you are the only pally in the group is by this. Look at your stats. If your stats are kind of low, Crit/AGI/STR use kings as it will buff all of those. However Might is generally better so stick with that.
PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE
The only way to get better is to practice and practice. Use the training dummies in the main towns and even unfinished quests. You can't become a good player with out practice. Also use your resources. If you have friends and guild members that will take the time to help you use them as much as you can. I will say stay clear of people that do not play Ret Paladins or Paladins in general. Reason is that most people do not understand how we work and will (even though they think they are helping) will and can give out false advice. I am always there to answer any question you may have and to give tips.
DO NOT GIVE UP
Never let anyone tell you that you suck. This does nothing to help you. Never let anyone tell you that you are bad. There are things that you can do better but people telling you that does nothing but cause hatred, distention, and stress. If you see you are preforming badly as fellow Ret Paladins or use the Paladin section of the WoW forums. Or me. If you hear people calling you bad or saying you suck forget about them, chances are they are elite asshats or people that do not understand that you may be having issues at some fights.
Thank you for reading and if you have any questions leave a comment or send me a tell in the game.
Showing posts with label Paladins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paladins. Show all posts
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, August 6, 2009
New Patch New Specs
With the patch out I had to rework my spec for Ret (both PvP and PvE) and my spec for Protection. These are the specs I am running with. Or should say WILL run with as soon as I can log in and play again. Out of game time, man I hate that.
This is the Ret PvE Spec I will be using. Now you may be wondering why I have both Seal of Command and Seals of the Pure. This is simple. With the removal of Seal of Blood and the reworking of Corruption/Vengeance our main RAID dps will come from Corruption and Vengeance, depending on your faction. But I included SoCommand because we all know we also solo quest, and getting 5 stacks on a target before they die in the world solo is hard so it will hamper our solo DPS. So when solo I will be using Command
This is the Ret PvP Spec will be using. I opted for 20 seconds off the HoJ instead of increased chance of crits solely because PvP and resilience is to powerful now, in my opinion.
View the full blog for the rest of the specs
This is the Raid Prot Spec I will be using. This is pretty much straight forward in how many tanks spec. In other words the Cookie-Cutter spec. The only change is the 2/2 and not 1/2 for Judgements. I could but it in lower mana cost on instants but our mana pool is fine as prot.
This is the AoE Farming Prot Spec I will be using. This is just personal preference but I feel it will be one of the main AoE farming specs when we get back into that style of farming. There are just some days I am tired of Ret out in the world, and love going back to my roots of pally farming.
This is the Ret PvE Spec I will be using. Now you may be wondering why I have both Seal of Command and Seals of the Pure. This is simple. With the removal of Seal of Blood and the reworking of Corruption/Vengeance our main RAID dps will come from Corruption and Vengeance, depending on your faction. But I included SoCommand because we all know we also solo quest, and getting 5 stacks on a target before they die in the world solo is hard so it will hamper our solo DPS. So when solo I will be using Command
This is the Ret PvP Spec will be using. I opted for 20 seconds off the HoJ instead of increased chance of crits solely because PvP and resilience is to powerful now, in my opinion.
View the full blog for the rest of the specs
This is the Raid Prot Spec I will be using. This is pretty much straight forward in how many tanks spec. In other words the Cookie-Cutter spec. The only change is the 2/2 and not 1/2 for Judgements. I could but it in lower mana cost on instants but our mana pool is fine as prot.
This is the AoE Farming Prot Spec I will be using. This is just personal preference but I feel it will be one of the main AoE farming specs when we get back into that style of farming. There are just some days I am tired of Ret out in the world, and love going back to my roots of pally farming.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Valk's Prot Leveling guide
This guide is a bit outdated, i just wanted to get it up on here. I will be back tomorrow to edit it and make adjustments. This guide was also written for my good friend Kikode so that is why it sounds like I am talking to a person rather than just explaining.
OK this is how you want to spec starting at 35
lvl 35
lvl 40
lvl 46
lvl 52
lvl 58
lvl 62
lvl 67
lvl 72
lvl 80 Now this if for a AoE farming spec.
lvl 80 Now this is for a raid and dungeon spec
Now when you gear up from 35 on you want to pay attention to defense a little bit. More so you want to have parry and block. Also when looking for a weapon gear look for a weapon than has a speed of 2.2 or faster this will work well with reckoning. Also as you well know do not gear for int at all or spell power, gear like a warrior Pay attention to the skill reckoning. This skill when it procs will allow you to get an extra swing in. Now this may not seem like a big deal in it if itself. But when you use seal of light mixed with judgement of light each swing will heal you 2 times. When reckoning procs it heals you 4 times. And when you have 0 plus mobs on you reckoning will be on you almost all the time. IT is a great tool/combination. Use seal of light/wisdom accordingly. At level 80 i was defense capped and had high dodge/block/parry that i was barely hit but when i did it proc reckoning. I was using wisdom on both ends. But it is all circumstantial. You know how that works. Guarded by the light is also a great manna regen tool. When you get it ALWAYS use Divine Plea, this will allow it to remain up the WHOLE fight.
When you start a pull of MANY mobs, starting out i recommend 5-6, do not think aoe is like that of a mage aoe. We have to body pull and keep attacking. Round them up and get them ALL in front of you. Drop consecration and then judge a mob. Attack him till he dies keeping our judgment on him at all times. At early stages you wont have to worry about a rotation. But at 70-80 there is a rotation you have to follow. This rotation is called, 969. This is your global cool down timer you have to follow. What I do is go in auto attack. Then i use Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Judgement, consecration. shield of righteous. You wont get Shield of Righteous till 75 so just leave that out till you get it. Aoe will become second nature so you will not have to worry much at higher levels and higher gear tier.
When you instance tank it has changed a bit. we used to get Spiritual attunment thru a trainer now it is only a prot talent. But you can still aoe tank pulls with no trouble just remember as the tank you should ALWAYS and i mean A!L!W!A!Y!S!!!!!!!! have lead of the group. Now this is not a ego trip but you are the person they need most and they should listen to you. You need to make an order skull x and that is it. You need to make sure that they are killing skull first then x especially at early levels. If you see dps not following kick them. It may seem mean but i and most people would rather have to wait a bit to find a dps (dime a dozen) class than a repair bill or another tank. And most people will go along with you. Now after those 2 are dead if you have been using your aoe talents no matter how many mobs are left up the dps can split if they want , but to bring them mobs down faster keep having them focus fire. Tanking will get easier as time goes on. Most of the time when I tank i ONLY stop for my healers manna. MY favorite healers in order are druids, paladins/shaman. I love druids for their h.o.t.s that mixed with SA is a great combo. Paladins are a broken healer class when it comes to aoe healing but they are great single target healers. A holy/prot combo of paladins are king in bc instances and a few Wrath instance. Also as a pally tank certain class/specs are king to bring along. Frost mage for aoe dps. I always have in tow when i tank. I made friends with about 15 frost mages that love to tank with me so i always have a supply of them at hand. Seed locks are good as well. The aoe seed of corruption does is great. I had a lock ask me if it would ok to dps with seed and i told him that if he didn't i would kick him lol. the last dps spot s good for a rogue or ret pally. I cant begin to express how great 3 pallys are in a instance. i have pally friends and we spec all 3 i normally do prot and ret and the others are holy prot so w/e 1 is we fill in. Remember practice makes perfect. get a group and mow down instances for a while and you will be a good tank soon. I went on a emblem farming rampage 1 day and ran all but 2 instances in just under 4 hours.
OK this is how you want to spec starting at 35
lvl 35
lvl 40
lvl 46
lvl 52
lvl 58
lvl 62
lvl 67
lvl 72
lvl 80 Now this if for a AoE farming spec.
lvl 80 Now this is for a raid and dungeon spec
Now when you gear up from 35 on you want to pay attention to defense a little bit. More so you want to have parry and block. Also when looking for a weapon gear look for a weapon than has a speed of 2.2 or faster this will work well with reckoning. Also as you well know do not gear for int at all or spell power, gear like a warrior Pay attention to the skill reckoning. This skill when it procs will allow you to get an extra swing in. Now this may not seem like a big deal in it if itself. But when you use seal of light mixed with judgement of light each swing will heal you 2 times. When reckoning procs it heals you 4 times. And when you have 0 plus mobs on you reckoning will be on you almost all the time. IT is a great tool/combination. Use seal of light/wisdom accordingly. At level 80 i was defense capped and had high dodge/block/parry that i was barely hit but when i did it proc reckoning. I was using wisdom on both ends. But it is all circumstantial. You know how that works. Guarded by the light is also a great manna regen tool. When you get it ALWAYS use Divine Plea, this will allow it to remain up the WHOLE fight.
When you start a pull of MANY mobs, starting out i recommend 5-6, do not think aoe is like that of a mage aoe. We have to body pull and keep attacking. Round them up and get them ALL in front of you. Drop consecration and then judge a mob. Attack him till he dies keeping our judgment on him at all times. At early stages you wont have to worry about a rotation. But at 70-80 there is a rotation you have to follow. This rotation is called, 969. This is your global cool down timer you have to follow. What I do is go in auto attack. Then i use Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Judgement, consecration. shield of righteous. You wont get Shield of Righteous till 75 so just leave that out till you get it. Aoe will become second nature so you will not have to worry much at higher levels and higher gear tier.
When you instance tank it has changed a bit. we used to get Spiritual attunment thru a trainer now it is only a prot talent. But you can still aoe tank pulls with no trouble just remember as the tank you should ALWAYS and i mean A!L!W!A!Y!S!!!!!!!! have lead of the group. Now this is not a ego trip but you are the person they need most and they should listen to you. You need to make an order skull x and that is it. You need to make sure that they are killing skull first then x especially at early levels. If you see dps not following kick them. It may seem mean but i and most people would rather have to wait a bit to find a dps (dime a dozen) class than a repair bill or another tank. And most people will go along with you. Now after those 2 are dead if you have been using your aoe talents no matter how many mobs are left up the dps can split if they want , but to bring them mobs down faster keep having them focus fire. Tanking will get easier as time goes on. Most of the time when I tank i ONLY stop for my healers manna. MY favorite healers in order are druids, paladins/shaman. I love druids for their h.o.t.s that mixed with SA is a great combo. Paladins are a broken healer class when it comes to aoe healing but they are great single target healers. A holy/prot combo of paladins are king in bc instances and a few Wrath instance. Also as a pally tank certain class/specs are king to bring along. Frost mage for aoe dps. I always have in tow when i tank. I made friends with about 15 frost mages that love to tank with me so i always have a supply of them at hand. Seed locks are good as well. The aoe seed of corruption does is great. I had a lock ask me if it would ok to dps with seed and i told him that if he didn't i would kick him lol. the last dps spot s good for a rogue or ret pally. I cant begin to express how great 3 pallys are in a instance. i have pally friends and we spec all 3 i normally do prot and ret and the others are holy prot so w/e 1 is we fill in. Remember practice makes perfect. get a group and mow down instances for a while and you will be a good tank soon. I went on a emblem farming rampage 1 day and ran all but 2 instances in just under 4 hours.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Classes in grens/bules VS Full Purple Ret
So I was browsing the paladin forums and came across this snippet NERF PALADINS. In it Athesis, a human paladin on the realm of Spinebreaker said this.
"I'm sick of warlocks, hunters and other classes in greens QQing about Ret being OP in full hateful."
Now I have to agree about this. Most of the Ret is OP QQ'ing is coming from people in greens being rolled by a full s6 paladin. I don't care how good you are, if you are in greens or blues you will get walked on by any class, not just paladins. So in turn instead of them noticing that the paladin is grossly over gearing them they QQ cause we should not be able to kill them even if they were in greys, my original 3's team was called. Back on track, they should be focusing on getting the gear to be on par with us so then they can walk over us and mop the floor with our armor.
So please I beg you if anyone is reading this and are in greens, blues and no piece of PVP gear or resilience and you get owned by a paladin, please for the love of that cute kitten over there do not QQ on the forums. We all know God kills cute kittens when a green player QQ's about being owned by a purp pally. So please dont QQ cause that kitty is cute and I dont want to see it killed cause you are a child
"I'm sick of warlocks, hunters and other classes in greens QQing about Ret being OP in full hateful."
Now I have to agree about this. Most of the Ret is OP QQ'ing is coming from people in greens being rolled by a full s6 paladin. I don't care how good you are, if you are in greens or blues you will get walked on by any class, not just paladins. So in turn instead of them noticing that the paladin is grossly over gearing them they QQ cause we should not be able to kill them even if they were in greys, my original 3's team was called
So please I beg you if anyone is reading this and are in greens, blues and no piece of PVP gear or resilience and you get owned by a paladin, please for the love of that cute kitten over there do not QQ on the forums. We all know God kills cute kittens when a green player QQ's about being owned by a purp pally. So please dont QQ cause that kitty is cute and I dont want to see it killed cause you are a child
From LOLRET to OPWTFBBQDAIRYQUEENOMGRET back to LOLRET
We have seen changes and we all rolled with them. Rolled faces that is. I have been playing a paladin almost as long as I have been playing WOW. Now I remember pre 3.1 pre wrath talents and t6how hard it was to find a good ret paladin or a ret raiding progression content for that matter. T4-6 was when I started to tank I was not in a progression guild at the time as we did not have enough full time raiders to get into 25 mans. But I was told "LOLRET we dont need that dps wanna tank or heal?" Now at that time I loved tanking but I had worked so hard on my ret set I was reluctant to tank. But with the help of fellow guildies I geared up and became the MT for our 2nd raid group, opposite a druid (how I loved that combo), but I digress. Even in pvp we were the class people sought out when they needed to auto attack while they were /afk filling up a Mt. Dew tossing a Hot Pocket in the mic, or tossing a load of laundry into the dryer. We were the free HK of BC. We were also the laughing stock of the wow community.
Then comes beta and the new talents. Being a person who did get a beta key I started to mess around with the new talents (pre Serennia QQ for nerf), and I was giddy like a school girl. The Art of War talent was sexy as all get out. And judgements were op. I was one of the paladins who, even though I loved it, wrote in and let devs know about the op status of paladins. I even blamed it all on Serennia lol, sorry mate I had to you lead the way of Nerf cries. After a while the talents were balanced and were released. There were still people QQ'ing about paladins being op. I and alot of paladins replied to this with remarks like,
"You are just mad we are no longer a /afk hk anymore for you"
"So you cant face roll a death on us GG"
"Those of us who were/are skilled paladins and were held back by talents will now shine"
"LOLTIMETOONEHITEVERYONE"
"We cant kill you in the span of 1 hammer if we can you suck/need better gear (more res)"
"Our time now"
Cries came in all over that we were now op and should be nerfed. I agreed to an extent. We needed to be re-tooled and looked at but not nerfed.
Now here we are towards the end of the Naxx season (I know we are in Ulduar now but time line sake), and we are not putting out as much damage. I was geared better than our fury tg warrior and our best dps DK and I was still only putting out 2-3k on boss fights (non gimmick while they were hitting 4-5k. Now I was blown away by the numbers They were worse geared and able to beat me. How was that far. Now came the lol's of yesteryear "LOLRETCANTDPSHEALMENOOBLOL" We all remember these cracks.
Now into Ulduar, we were given a buff, and a nerf to Exorcism. It was a way for us to have 1 more button to press and a way to do more damage. Nice but not on the pvp end. It was no longer usable on locks pets demo locks or lich dk's wtg blizzard. Granted our dps was slightly better but come on is it fair that we have to be in the best gear only to put out the damage or every other class from the last tier?
I, like most other paladins will continue to play this class. No matter how many nerfs "into the ground baby" (god I hated that GC he was so arrogant) we will still rise above and still find a way to dps and kill you. You can cry OPRET all you want we are like the a TIMEX we take a licking and we keep on ticking.
In closing keep your heads up my fellow paladins we will get there some day.
Then comes beta and the new talents. Being a person who did get a beta key I started to mess around with the new talents (pre Serennia QQ for nerf), and I was giddy like a school girl. The Art of War talent was sexy as all get out. And judgements were op. I was one of the paladins who, even though I loved it, wrote in and let devs know about the op status of paladins. I even blamed it all on Serennia lol, sorry mate I had to you lead the way of Nerf cries. After a while the talents were balanced and were released. There were still people QQ'ing about paladins being op. I and alot of paladins replied to this with remarks like,
"You are just mad we are no longer a /afk hk anymore for you"
"So you cant face roll a death on us GG"
"Those of us who were/are skilled paladins and were held back by talents will now shine"
"LOLTIMETOONEHITEVERYONE"
"We cant kill you in the span of 1 hammer if we can you suck/need better gear (more res)"
"Our time now"
Cries came in all over that we were now op and should be nerfed. I agreed to an extent. We needed to be re-tooled and looked at but not nerfed.
Now here we are towards the end of the Naxx season (I know we are in Ulduar now but time line sake), and we are not putting out as much damage. I was geared better than our fury tg warrior and our best dps DK and I was still only putting out 2-3k on boss fights (non gimmick while they were hitting 4-5k. Now I was blown away by the numbers They were worse geared and able to beat me. How was that far. Now came the lol's of yesteryear "LOLRETCANTDPSHEALMENOOBLOL" We all remember these cracks.
Now into Ulduar, we were given a buff, and a nerf to Exorcism. It was a way for us to have 1 more button to press and a way to do more damage. Nice but not on the pvp end. It was no longer usable on locks pets demo locks or lich dk's wtg blizzard. Granted our dps was slightly better but come on is it fair that we have to be in the best gear only to put out the damage or every other class from the last tier?
I, like most other paladins will continue to play this class. No matter how many nerfs "into the ground baby" (god I hated that GC he was so arrogant) we will still rise above and still find a way to dps and kill you. You can cry OPRET all you want we are like the a TIMEX we take a licking and we keep on ticking.
In closing keep your heads up my fellow paladins we will get there some day.
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