Paladin Guide (Finished It)
Two Types of Gear
There are definitely more than two types of gear, but during the course of playing the game, you only need to worry about two. The first type of gear is “Leveling Gear” and the second is “Level Cap Gear” for the end game. Rolling through old world Azeroth and the Outlands, you should spend almost zero time evaluating leveling gear. With the speed of leveling and the abundance of gear available, the focus should be on three stats per piece of gear. Those three stats will determine if you should equip it or vendor/disenchant the gear in question. Which three stats? Glad you asked. For each of the three primary Paladin talent trees, highlighted below are three (or four) key statistics for determining gear advantages.
Wait a minute before we get started!
Sub Level 80 Gear Stats
Before we get rolling, there is an important thing to keep in mind. While leveling, do not, I repeat, do not chase gear or gear sets. The level 60 Lightforge set was the defining gear for Paladins before The Burning Crusade, but now it is an antique that should stay in the garage. Gear below level 70 will be replaced so fast that any additional work put into getting that gear will feel like a waste (unless you are into the “immersion thing,” and then have at it). The key to keeping gear decisions simple is to focus on the important stats for the type of Paladin you decide to play. The type of Paladin is based on how talent points are spent. For this guide, it is assumed that a character is heavily weighted in one of the three trees (i.e. a Protection Paladin means the character has gone deeply if not all the way down the protection talent tree).
Another helpful hint during leveling, “Use all weapons”
This is really two helpful hints. Always use the best weapon you can get your hands on. Whether it’s a one handed axe, or two handed mace, try them all out. It may help you better understand which way you want to play your Paladin, and it will also keep your weapon skills up. Using different weapons as as you level up, you will keep your weapon skills at a respectable level. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing a sweet weapon drop and not able to use it immediately because a weapon skill is two out of three hundred.
Now on to the show.
Healers Heed These Words
The holy Paladin (sometimes called a Healadin) is gearing up for casting spells, namely healing and cleansing spells. With that in mind, the gear of choice can be any blend of cloth, leather, mail or plate. Since Healadins tend to stand back away from the action, cloth is acceptable. Holy Paladins typically carry one handed maces (maces tend to be spell power heavy), and shields which provide some armor and more importantly healing stats.
Try to stay in the heaviest armor available (stick with plate when given a choice). Once the holy Paladin starts entering Northrend (Wrath of the Lich King content), the gear choices start getting a little more difficult as spell haste, critical strike ratings, spirit and mana/5 seconds become more important. Without getting into serious theory of why each stat is better than another, following is a list of key stats for holy Paladins in their level of priority (highest first):
* Intellect: Intellect provides a larger mana pool and critical strike rating, thus more spells and higher chance to crit with those spells. Intellect is the A-number-one stat desired by Healadins.
* Spell Power: Spell power is an additive stat that increases the amount healed (or damaged) through a somewhat complicated formula. Let’s just say that +50 to Spell Power is better than +30 to Spell power. Intellect trumps all else, spell power is second for the holy Paladin.
* Critical Strike Rating: The holy Paladin has a number of talents for adding to critical strike rating and spell criticals will provide bonuses (such as reducing the mana cost of the spell or subsequent spells). Critical Strike Rating is a good stat to stack and scales well up to level 80.
* Spirit and Mana per 5 seconds: These two are not the same, but in terms of gear evaluation for Paladins, they are low on the priority list so they are essentially equal. Spirit and Mana per 5 second (mp5 as you will see it written) determines how quickly mana regenerates both in and out of combat. The higher the number, the faster mana regenerates. If all other stats are equal, go with the gear having more spirit or mp5.
Protection Preference
A note on Block Value:
Shields have a block value which depicts how much damage the shield will absorb, or you know, block. Block value has two benefits for Paladins. It not only reduces damage taken, it actually builds threat when the talent, "Holy Shield" is active because it causes damage to the attacked. While not as good as avoiding damage entirely, the Paladin does receive some benefit from being hit.
Protection Paladins are the tanking arm of the Paladin arsenal. The tank’s job is to wade into the fray and draw the attention of the foes by building threat (or agro). Paladin tanks generate threat typically by using specific spells that amplify holy threat, thus ensuring the bad guys won’t run at the healers with their game faces on.
The protection Paladin will be garbed in plate, all lesser armor need not apply. If the tankadin (as they are often referred) is going to lead with his/her face, then it better be protected! The protection Paladin carries a shield and one handed weapon. In contrast to the holy Paladin, intellect takes a back seat for Tankadins and strength, agility, stamina and defense come to the forefront. Here’s why:
* Strength: Strength provides attack power which helps drive threat, but more importantly to the protection Paladin, strength adds to block value. Block value is the amount of damage absorbed before weapons hit armor.
* Agility: Even though block values are nice, it’s better not to get hit if it can be helped. Agility provides more of a chance to dodge an attack, a higher chance to crit with weapons, and armor. Each point of agility is worth 2 armor so agility helps to avoid hits as well as cushion the blow when the foes strike home.
* Stamina: Stamina is the spice of life or at least the provider of hit points. Each point of stamina is worth 10 hit points, so it is common to see stamina enchants and other bonuses specific for stamina on a protection Paladin. With protection talents, every ten points in stamina also increases spell power by 1 which aids in threat generation.
* Defense: We’ve already discussed block value and dodge chances with agility, but the key protection indicator is how much defense a tank is able to provide. When two tanks walk into the bathroom, they always sneak a peek to see what the other’s defense rating is, it’s a measure of tankhood/manhood. As characters level up, more points in defense are needed to achieve the same end result. If that is confusing, it should be. The calculus required to understand some of the number crunching is truly painful. It all boils down to the number 540. At level 80, end-game bosses can’t crit a protection Paladin with a 540 defense rating. That is nice because a crit of 15,000 to 20,000 damage could sting. This also means that players below level 70 should ignore defense rating and just focus on the stats above for leveling purposes. Once level 80 is achieved, defense is key.
The Retribution Reference
The retribution Paladin has finally become a force with which to be reckoned. The typical weapon of the retribution Paladin is a two handed sword, axe or mace. The bigger and badder the weapon, the better! Armor values and spell ratings are out the window, for the retribution Paladin it’s all about bringing the pain.
Sharing some of the same stat bonus desires as the tankadin, the retribution Paladin (Retadin) wants strength, agility and attack power. Beyond the three key stats, Retadins will want to seek out hit rating, expertise and crit chance. Even though Paladins want intellect due to damage from spells, the damage components of the Retadin are centered on strength as the key ingredient. The optimal stats include:
* Strength: As discussed above, strength provides attack power, and with talents each point in strength can yield 2.3 attach power as opposed to the standard 2. Always add strength as a Retadin, you can never have enough, end of discussion.
* Agility: Critical strikes are part of the bread and butter of the Retadins attacks. Agility adds to crit chance and scales well with buffs as opposed to plain old “bonus to crit.” Bonus to crit is easier to find and can be increased with enchants so if agility is difficult to come by, add “chance to crit” where applicable.
* Attack power: Of the basic stats to keep in mind for Retadins, attack power will be found early and often on all kinds of weapons. Strength provides attack power, but many weapons and armor pieces will have an added attack power stat. As a stat, it’s not as good as strength and does not benefit from buffs, but it still improves the amount of damage dealt.
What does it all mean?
This guide is a starting point, not an end-game min/max guide for theory-crafters. The goal is to provide the primary stats new Paladins should evaluate when leveling up and starting to assemble sets for dungeon running. Opening up a character sheet will provide a myriad of stats and some are very important, others not – all depending on how the Paladin is built and played. By using the key stats highlighted above, Paladins of every flavor can determine if a new weapon or piece of gear is an upgrade. Above all else, have fun and experiment with different combination's and see what works best for you.
Basic Stats
Lets Start out by looking at the basic stats and see which is best for each of the types of Paladin. For a breakdown of what the stats provide check back to the Paladin Basics page. Remember though that these are only your basic stats – Strength, Stamina, Intellect, Agility, and Spirit, not your advanced stats. The next section will cover your advanced stats and they are at least as important as the basics, if not more so.
Retribution – As a Retribution Paladin your main goal is to get as much Strength as possible since it allows you to cause the most damage. Beyond the stats that come on the gear that brings you the most Strength, don’t even worry about other stats.
Holy – As a Holy Paladin your main stat will be Intelligence, since it provides more mana to use to cast spells and more spell power and spell crit.
Protection – As a Protection Paladin you will be looking to stack Stamina as a primary stat. Even more than the other two spec’s though Protection Paladins really need to balance this with their Ability Bonuses.
Advanced Stats
The advanced stats in WoW are all the extra things past what would be considered normal stats in most RPG’s. These advanced stats include things like your critical hit chance, block chance, defense score, and more. These stats are critical to your character and must be watched closely to ensure you are getting the right ones.
Retribution – Retribution Paladins require several bonus stats. While leveling you should just focus on bonuses to Crit and Attack Power. Once you have reached max level then you should also focus on getting enough Hit and Expertise to reach their caps. Armor penetration is also an important stat but since it is known to be too good, Blizzard has already started to nerf it and will continue to in the future. How much effort you put into obtaining it is up to you, just be forewarned it will change.
Holy – As a Holy Paladin your key advanced stats to get are Spell Power and Crit since the Spell Power makes all your heals larger and the more times you critically heal the more mana you get back and the longer you can keep healing. MP5 is also good to have so that you have enough passive mana regeneration so you do not run out. This is true while leveling or at the end game raiding.
Protection – Protection Paladins probably have the worst of it when looking at Advanced Stats since they have so many to worry about. Protection Paladins must focus on Defense at all times, as they need to be at the defense cap for their level or they can suffer critical hits. The cap at level 80 is 540 for raid bosses. In addition to Defense they must also stack Dodge, Parry, Block Rating, Block Value, and to a lesser degree Hit and Expertise.
Gems
Now that you understand the best stats for each of your builds, gems should be pretty easy to understand as well. You should always gem for your most important basic or advanced stat. Ideally every gem will be the same other than your meta gem in your helm and enough other gems to meet its requirement. This means that for most slots you will not be matching the slot color. This is important to understand, since many players think that they must follow the slot color and therefore hurt themselves by not getting the biggest benefit possible.
Retribution – You should be gemming and enchanting for hit and expertise until you reach the caps and then focus on Strength. If you are still leveling just focus on Strength. The best meta gem is a Chaotic Skyflare Diamond since it provides crit and a causes all critical hits to cause more damage.
Holy – You should gem and enchant for Spell Power as much as possible. This means red “Runed …” gems. The best meta gem is Insightful Earthsiege Diamond which provides Intellect and a chance to restore mana each time you cast.
Protection – You should gem and enchant for Defense until you are defense capped and then for Stamina. For Defense this means either yellow “Thick …” gems or green “Enduring …” gems until you are capped. When focusing on Stamina it will be “Solid …” gems. As a Protection Paladin while leveling or new to max level an Eternal Earthsiege Diamond is the best meta since it provides more Defense and extra Block Value. However, once you can easily be Defense capped it is better to change to an Austere Earthsiege Diamond which provides more Stamina and increases your armor value.
Enchants
Enchants are much the same as gems. Focus on the stats that are best for the type of Paladin that you play and you should be good.
A very important thing to remember with both gems and enchants is that each time you get a new piece of gear your balance will change. For example: if you are a Protection Paladin and had 540 Defense and replaced a piece and the new piece has much more stamina and dodge, but less Defense, you may need to re-gem or re-enchant a different piece to make up for the change. This is critical for any spec and you should remember to look all the time and see where all your stats are currently.
This chart provides some suggestions as to which enchant is good for which slot based on your talent build.
Enchants
Holy
Protection
Retribution
Head
Arcanum of Blissful Mending (Revered - Wyrmrest Accord) +30 Spell Power and +8 mana per 5
Arcanum of the Stalward Protector (Argent Crusade - Revered) +37 Stamin and +20 Defense
Arcanum of Torment (Argent Crusade - Revered) +50 Attack power and +20 Critical Strike Rating
Shoulder
Greater Inscription of the Storm (Sons of Hodir - Exalted) +24 Spell Power and +15 Crit Rating
Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle (Sons of Hodir - Exalted) +20 Dodge rating and +15 Defense Rating
Greater Inscription of the Axe (Sons of Hodir - Exalted) +40 Attack power and 15 Critical Strike Rating
Chest
Powerful Stats +10 All Stats
Greater Defense +22 Defense Rating
Powerful Stats +10 All Stats
Cloak
Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed (+23 Haste Rating)
Titanweave +16 Defense Rating
Greater speed adds 25 Haste Rating
Wrist
Superior Spell Power +30 Spell Power
Major Stamina +40 Stamina
Greater Assault adds 50 Attack Power
Hands
Exceptional Spell Power +28 Spell Power
Armsman +10 Parry Rating and +2% Threat Generation
Crusher adds +44 Attack Power
Legs
Sapphire Spellthread +50 Spell Power and +30 Stamina
Frosthide Leg Armor +55 Stamina and +20 Agility
Icescale Leg Armor Adds +75 Attack Power and +22 Critical Strike Rating
Waist
Eternal Belt Buckle
Eternal Belt Buckle
Eternal Belt Buckle
Boots
Icewalker +12 Crit Rating and +12 Hit Rating
Greater Fortitude +22 Stamina
Icewalker adds +12 to Critical and Hit Rating
Weapon
Mighty Spell Power +63 Spell Power
Accuracy +25 Critical Strike and +25 Hit Ratings
Berserking adds a chance to increase attack power by 400 at the cost of reduced armor.
Shield
Greater Intellect +25 Intellect
Defense +20 Defense
Glyphs
Glyphs are found in two different types, Major and Minor. Once you reach max level you can have 3 of each type. As a Paladin the three majors vary depending on your talent spec, while the minors do not have a huge effect as we do not have very good minor glyphs.
Retribution – As Retribution your main goal is to do more damage, therefore your glyphs focus on that. Your three major glyphs should be Glyph of Judgement, Consecration, and Vengeance. Judgement provides 10% more damage each time we judge a spell, since this is a primary way for us to get damage, it is a solid glyph. Consecration allows you to save some mana and time in your rotation by not having to cast Consecration nearly as often. Vengeance grants 10 Expertise while the seal is active allowing you to gear slightly differently and not have to look for as much expertise gear.
Holy – For a Healing Paladin it is all about big heals and mana. This means that your glyphs focus on these things. The best to get for general purpose are Glyph of Flash of Light, Seal of Wisdom, Beacon of Light. Flash of Light gives you an additional 5% crit chance on all casts of Flash of Light which is a huge boost in both healing and mana regeneration. Seal of Wisdom makes all your heals 5% cheaper which allows you to heal longer. Beacon of Light makes your Beacon last longer which can be critical in raids.
Depending on what you are doing as a healer Glyph of Holy Light, Holy Shock or Seal of Light all have their places as well. Holy Paladins have many great choices here.
Protection – Tanking Paladins have several solid Glyphs but none as good as Glyph of Divine Plea. Since the talent Guarded by the Light essentially allows Divine Plea to be active 100% of the time this Glyph provides a 3% constant damage reduction. After that you should also get Glyph of Vengeance for 10 expertise and Hammer of Righteous to hit additional targets. If you tend to tank solo targets the Glyph of Avenger’s Shield is a solid choice as is Righteous Defense if you do not have a lot of hit gear.
There are no really solid minor glyphs for any of the talent specs specifically. Everyone should take Lay of Hands to reduce the cooldown. Other than that though, there really isn’t a whole lot. You can take Sense Undead to do slightly more damage, or increase the time on your blessings, the choice is really yours.
Paladin Tanking Basics
So you want to take a beating, do you? Well, you’ve come to the right place. This guide will walk you through the basics of playing a protection based Paladin, or Tankadin as they are commonly called.
Playing a Tankadin can be a lot of fun but can be quite challenging, so you should only enter into tanking if you are prepared to be responsible for groups and learn a lot. Tanks are the lynch pin in every group and as such are expected to know and understand all of the fights in an instance or raid. That is an easy task compared to actually knowing how to tank and when to do what though as the biggest difficulty now is actually learning how to tank and doing it well. That's where this guide attempts to help.
Paladins differ a little in tanking from Warriors, Druids, and Death Knights who generate all of their threat (aggro) from the damage they directly cause. As a Paladin, a significant portion of your threat still comes from the damage you cause with your weapon, but a large portion also comes from your other abilities. These include the damage you cause to everything near you with Consecration, and the damage you cause to everything that hits you with Holy Shield and Aura of Retribution.
A Tankadin gains aggro from all of the above things and many more. Most of the threat is caused by the holy damage that you cause from the various abilities. This means that to hold aggro on a target you need to cause as much holy damage as possible. Luckily all of your abilities cause holy damage and all of that holy damage causes 80% additional threat due to the boost from our Righteous Fury ability. Your talents also allow you to take 6% less damage while this is active, which makes a huge difference for your healers.
Paladin tanks have slightly worse damage mitigation than a Warrior, Death Knight or Druid tank, especially when taking big slow hits. However, when taking many fast hits we are better than any of the other tanking classes. This is due to our super high block rate and value, which allows us to mitigate a high percentage of low damage attacks.
While we do not have a rage bar, we have a mana bar that gets used in much the same way, and gets replenished every time we get healed or as we block or dodge attacks if using Blessing of Sanctuary. We also have both a single target and multi target ranged taunt that can be used as a backup taunt in the form of Blessing of Protection, and a ranged pull back in the form of the Avengers shield. We also have a stun on a cool down timer and an AoE stun against undead targets.
Paladin AOE Tank
Paladins work best when
you group creatures up
and tank many at
once.
Because all of the Paladin abilities are on timers or act for very short time frames, tanking as a Paladin involves very close management of spell casting if you want to get the most threat possible. You constantly have to manage all of your abilities and cooldowns all while watching what is going on around you. It can take some serious getting used to.
Talents and Glyphs
As a Tankadin, realize that you will need to place almost all of your points in the Protection tree. You need to do this to grab all of the major tanking abilities, many of which are found very deep in the tree. You will spend at least 51 points in the protection tree and likely a bit more before venturing over to the retribution tree to spend your remaining talent points.
There are several great Protection abilities, but the ones that really stand out to me are your Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield and the Hammer of the Righteous. All three of these offer great methods of producing additional threat. Your Holy shield offers increased block as well as holy damage caused back to the attacker. It is on an 8 second cooldown but lasts 10 seconds. This allows you to overlap it so that the increased block chance is always active. Avenger's Shield provides a great method to pull enemies from range and establish a good head start on threat. Lastly your Hammer of the Righteous provides a great way to supplement the AoE threat that Consecrate provides, since it affects multiple targets.
There are many critical abilities in the protection talent tree though. In fact there are more good talents than most players can reasonably take. Just a few of the key ones are: Anticipation for a 5% boost to dodge, Toughness for 10% extra armour, Sacred Duty and Combat Expertise for 4% and 6% additional stamina from each respectively, One-handed weapon specialization for a 10% boost to all damage while holding a one-handed weapon, and many more.
This is the Tankadin Build many players are currently using for raid tanking - Tankadin Build. While it focuses heavily on Protection it also goes into Retribution to get increased damage, speed, parry, and a debuff to the opponent's attack power. It is a fairly standard raid build used by many Tankadins.
While there are a number of decent Glyphs for a Protection based Paladin the ones I suggest are based on tanking usefulness. Therefore the greater glyphs I believe you should use are:
Glyph of Divine Plea - This glyph reduces the damage you take while you are using your Divine Plea. Since Divine Plea can effectively be active 100% of the time due to the talent Protected by the Light, this is a 3% constant damage reduction.
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance - This glyph increases your Expertise by 10 while Seal of Vengeance is active. Since you will be dodged and parried less this increases the damage and therefore the threat that you cause.
Glyph of Hammer of Righteousness - This glyph allows your Hammer to hit one additional target. This is great for AoE situations and really helps you AOE even better than you normally can.
Stats and Gear
Gear for a Tanking Paladin is pretty easy in theory, but turns into a constant juggling act of micro-management in reality. In theory it is easy as you need to get to 540 defense to avoid getting critically hit by raid bosses and then stack Stamina and avoidance abilities (Dodge, Parry, Block). There are some other useful abilities such as Strength (for threat generation and block value), Hit, and Expertise. However this is where the balancing act comes in.
Your primary goal will always be to remain at 540 Defense or just slightly over. Once this is complete then you need to focus on health through Stamina so that you can take big enough hits to live until a heal hits you. Stat wise it is easy to see why Stamina is important - every point provides you with 10 extra base health which turns into more after your talents and Kings. When you factor in the boost through talents and Blessing of Kings, a simple investment of 10 stamina that would grant 100 health becomes significantly more. Obviously the more health you can have as a tank the better, however a balancing act comes into play as you need to ensure defensive abilities as well or you will be too hard to heal no matter the amount of health you have. Because all of your stamina increases are multiplicative they work out as follows: 104% x 106% x 110% = 121.25% instead of the 120 that you would expect.
Once you have enough health for the content that you are tanking you should instead focus on becoming "Unhittable" or "Block Capped". While this is a bit of a misnomer since you can still be hit, what you are looking to do is raise your avoidance stats to a point that you are not able to be hit with a normal hit, instead the worst you will suffer is a hit that you block with your shield. What this means is that the worst an enemy can do to you is their normal hit damage minus your block value. We will look at this more in the Unhittable section below.
Paladin Weapon Threat
Paladins get threat from
base weapon damage
when attacking with
Hammer of the Righteous.
Strength is the other tanking stat as it provides both threat through increased attack power and damage, and mitigation, through increased block value. Every two points of strength adds a point of block value reducing the incoming damage.
The other item bonuses are a bit more complicated than stats and defense. The three you are primarily looking for are dodge, parry, and block rating in that order. Dodge and Parry are better than block rating because a block only mitigates a portion of the incoming damage up to your block value. The bonus numbers on the items again go through a conversion process that is based on level to determine how much they affect the actual percentage change to dodge, parry or block. At level 80 the numbers required to generate a 1% chance of each ability are roughly: Dodge = 39.3, Parry = 49.2, and Block = 16.4. Dodge and Parry are subject to diminishing returns though, so as you get more points in them it takes more points to earn a 1% increase.
In addition to the above core stats and bonuses, many items will have additional stats and bonuses. The ones that are also good for a protection based Paladin are: Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Block Value. However, you should not give up any of the previous core stats or bonuses to get them, but they do come into play at certain times though. For example Block Value is very important when AoE tanking many enemies. In many fights where you are holding the additional enemies that come in, or when tanking large groups of trash mobs a high Block Value set of gear can completely mitigate all incoming damage.
While +hit and +expertise will increase your threat output due to you hitting the enemy more, threat is generally not an issue. +Hit is helpful though so that you can always hit with your taunts and special abilities. If you can, reaching the melee hit cap of 8% is useful but not nearly as necessary as with other tanks. The same applies to expertise since it adds additional threat but is not a necessity like it is for Warriors and Death Knights.
Unhittable or Block-capped
As explained above this does not mean you can not be hit, but that you can not suffer a normal full damage hit. Prior to the WotLK expansion this was called uncrushable, but WotLK essentially took crushing blows out of the game. The same math as before applies to figuring out if you are unhittable.
You must understand how the hit table works before we start though. A raid boss has a 102.4% chance to hit you since you are 3 levels lower than he is. This means that you need 102.4% of total avoidance to not suffer that hit. How is it made up?
Your avoidance stats are Miss, Dodge, Parry, and Block. Miss is normally a base 5% chance, however since a raid boss is 3 levels higher this goes down to 4.4%. While defense capped at 540 you gain 5.6% more miss. To this base 10% you add your other abilities.
Here is a little chart to show a typical "Unhittable" Paladin tank. Remember that we are aiming for that 102.4% with your holy shield bonus active, since it should be up 100% of the time.
* 10% - Miss (Base % plus 540 Defense bonus)
* 19% - Dodge
* 14% - Parry
* 30% - Block
* 30% - Bonus to Block when Holy Shield is active
Those stats are relatively easy to reach and provide a good starting point. However, as you can see 70% of that 102.4% is made up of Block. A blocked hit still inflicts most of the damage dished out by the boss, so your goal is to start swapping it for Dodge and Parry. Many players fight to reach this number, then start getting better gear and forget about it and slip under the number. Keep it in mind at all times, whenever you see that you are low, play with gear to get back to it. At raid level gearing, being block capped guarantees at least 2,000 damage less per hit suffered than not being block capped, therefore it is well worth keeping.
Gems and Enchants
Gems and enchants will play an important part in getting you to the numbers you need to be able to tank heroics and raids.
First we'll start with the easier topic of gems. In general you should be putting +Defense gems in every socket you can when you first gear up so that you can reach the defense cap. Once your gear allows you to do that then blue +Stamina gems should go in every socket possible blue or otherwise. When the socket bonus is worth following you can fill the other colored sockets as follows. Yellow slots should be filled with the green +Defense / + Stamina gems. Red slots should be filled with the purple +Strength / +Stamina gems. Each +30 Stamani gem ends up granting you 363 health self buffed.
As for Meta Gems there are two options. If you are still reaching 540 defense to get to defense cap then get the Eternal Earthsiege Diamond that grants +21 Defense and +5% Shield Block Value. If you have reached defense cap then get the Austere Earthsiege Diamond and the +32 Stamina and and 2% increased armour value that it provides.
Now onto the more difficult topic of enchants on your gear. Proper enchants can add a ton of stats to your already good gear. The most critical ones depend on the stats that you are lacking at the time and will fluctuate as you gear up.
Gear Enchants
Slot Bonus Notes / Source (if not from an enchanter)
Head +37 Stamina and +20 Defense Argent Crusade - Revered
Shoulders +20 Dodge and +15 Defense Sons of Hodir - Exalted
Chest +22 Defense May sub with +10 to all stats
Back +16 Defense May sub with +22 Agility
Wrists +40 Stamina
Hands +10 Parry and +2% Threat
Legs +55 Stamina and +22 Agility Frosthide Leg Armor
Feet +22 Stamina
Shield
+20 Defense
May sub with +40 Block Value
Weapon
+25 Hit and +25 Crit rating
May sub with +26 Agility or +20 Strength
Threat Rotation - 969696
Ok, you now understand the basics about gear, stats and talents but how do you actually tank something? Knowing that most of your threat generation comes from holy damage how do you cause as much as possible as quickly as possible? What is the best rotation to generate as much threat as possible on your target so that they stay attacking you?
The best rotation is generally called by the name 969 or 96969. These two simple number based names come about due to the cooldowns from your basic tanking abilities, and involve weaving the two cooldown lengths together to cause as much threat as possible.
The 6 refers to your abilities that are on a 6 second cooldown. These are Hammer of the Righteous and Shield of the Righteous. Both are excellent threat causing abilities. HotR causes essentially AOE threat since it hits multiple targets, while SotR is our best damage ability.
The 9 refers to your abilities that are on a 9 second cooldown. These are your Holy Shield, Judgment, and Consecrate. Now I realize Holy Shield's cooldown is only 8 seconds, but it lasts 10 seconds so to overlap and ensure it is always active the Paladin community considers it to have a 9 second cooldown. Holy Shield and Consecrate are essentially AOE threat while HS also provides mitigation. Judgments cause damage as well as procing abilities and librams.
Now that you know the spells, you should start to see why we want to use your 6 second spells as often as possible, yet want to use the 9 second abilities as well. The best way that has been found is to start your rotation with a 9 second ability and then use a 6 second, then 9, and continue on.
To make this easier many players will arrange their abilities in a manner that they can easily remember what to do next. A fairly standard setup is:Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of the Righteous, Holy Shield, Judgement, Consecrate, as shown below.
By using this setup on your toolbar your rotation becomes as follows: 3-1-4-2-5-1-3-2-4-1-5-2 and then repeated. You can also find a fairly standard pair of macros that many players use in the macro section of this guide that allow you to just use 2 buttons. While useful and making your bar cleaner I would suggest at least keeping the full list on one of your toolbars for fights where you may need to break rotation or prioritize different abilities. For example on a pull with a large number of enemies you would not leave Consecration until so late in your rotation, or your DPS and Healers would all be dead having pulled threat from you. Yet in a raid against a single boss it is a lower priority.
Tanking Seals
The two main seals that you can use to generate threat while tanking are Seal of Righteousness (SoR) and Seal of Vengeance (SoV). Both cause holy damage, but cause it in a different way. Which one should you use though? The answer is pretty simple, in almost all cases you use Seal of Vengeance since it will generate more threat.
Seal of Righteousness generates holy damage every time you hit with it. It causes damage based on its starting damage plus a percentage of your attack power and spell power. Seal of Vengeance works slightly differently as it places a DOT on the enemy that stacks up to 5 times in addition to the initial holy damage it causes. This DOT causes damage and therefore threat over time. While the damage it causes on the initial hit is slightly lower than SoR the DOT makes up for it. This means that at the start of a fight it generates very little threat, but ramps up over the first 5-10 seconds of the fight until it is generating full threat. Seal of vengeance gains a percentage of your attack power and spell power to cause holy damage.
The delay in initial full threat does mean that in extremely short fight situations you may want to use Seal of Righteousness so that you are building full threat right from the start. It could be used for trash mobs in normal instances, some heroic instances and even some of the easy to kill raid trash. However, for anything that is going to stand up to your group for more than 10-20 seconds you want to switch to Seal of Vengeance as it will generate more threat over time.
There is another seal that can be used at times as well, which is Seal of Command when AoE tanking. However to get to this you need to go into the Retribution talent tree, and it generally does not add that much more damage. While I have seen some tanks do it for clearing trash, it is not really worth it.
Consumables
While items and gear are required for any raid, obviously, you also really should bring along all the consumables that will help you maximize your tanking ability. The ones that every Tankadin should bring to a group or raid are:
* Flask of Stoneblood - Increases your health by 1300 for 1 hour. Since Stamina is a key stat and this adds so much health, there really isn't any other choice.
* Blackened Dragonfin - Grants 40 Agility and 40 Stamina. This food grants more avoidance.
* Dragonfin Fillet - Grants 40 Strength and 40 Stamina. This food grants more threat.
* Snapper Delight - Grants 40 Hit and 40 Stamina. This food grants hit for those fights where you need to ensure you land blows.
* Runic Mana and Health potions - Bring a stack of each just to be safe.
Macros
There are several very common macros that every Tankadin should use (assuming they haven't started already) to simplify their life. Many more can be found in the official forums. The most common that I use though are as follows.
Managing Judgements
With the new Judgement system you have several choices when you do judge a seal on an enemy. Most of the time you will be using Judgement of Light, however sometimes you will need wisdom or justice. Most players will not want to tie up 2 extra slots on their action bar for them though. What you do then is create a macro that will cast Light by default, or Wisdom if you hold down a modifier key (Alt in this case) or Justice if you hold a different modifier key (Ctrl in this case). Then simply replace your Judgement of Light button on your toolbar with this macro.
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier] Judgment of Wisdom; [modifier: ctrl] Judgement of Justice; Judgement of Light
Taunt
This macro can be used to turn your Righteous Defense taunt into a more Warrior like taunt. Simply click on the mob you wish to taunt and the macro will target their target for you and cast Righteous Defense. If, however, you already have a friendly target set as your target it still works as it normally would.
#showtooltip Taunt
/cast [target=target,help] Righteous Defense; [target=targettarget,help] Righteous Defense
Emergency Taunt
While not really a taunt, many Tankadins use Hand of Protection (HoP) as a backup taunt. Since it protects the affected player from physical damage if the attacker is only doing physical damage they will leave them to attack the new person on top of their aggro table, which is hopefully you.
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is possible to hit yourself with HoP with this macro if the attacker switched targets while you are targeting them, If you do, the macro will cancel the bubble if you simply use it again, however you have now wasted your HoP.
#showtooltip Backup Taunt
/cast [target=target,help] Hand of Protection; [target=targettarget,help] Hand of Protection
/cancelaura Hand of Protection
All in One Taunt / Backup Taunt
For those minimalist players that want as few commands on their toolbars as possible, you can combine the above two macros into one. When combined it will first try to use Righteous Defense on the target or targets target and if that has already been used it will cast Hand of Protection on that target.
#showtooltip All In One Taunt
/castsequence [target=target,help] Reset=8 Righteous Defense, Hand of Protection; [target=targettarget,help] Reset=8 Righteous Defense, Hand of Protection
Bubble to Break Fear, Poison, Debuffs
Sometimes you get feared, poisoned or something else and need to get out of it fast. This can happen in fights with mass fear effects when you do not have enough priests for a full fear ward rotation or don't have Shamans for tremor totems. Using this macro once casts your Divine Shield, using it a second time cancels it so that you can grab threat back from the target fully cleared of debuffs.
You will notice that technically it cancels the aura first. That is so that when you use the macro the second time it does not error out with "Spell not ready". If you do not have Divine Shield active already the cancel aura command does nothing.
#showtooltip Divine Shield
/cancelaura Divine Shield
/cast Divine Shield
Tips
Things to do
* Learn to use the 969 rotation and staggering your Holy Shield with other abilities to make sure it is active at all times.
* You should always run a threat meter of some sort (the one I prefer is Omen). It will allow you to judge how far ahead you are of your DPS'ers.
* Try to use post-pull CC as much as possible, especially if you are relying of Avenger's Shield for your pulls. While it will not hit CC'ed targets it may not jump to what you expect. It hits 2 random targets after your first. While it will be the closest to the previous target, if 2 targets are equidistant it is random. Sheep, banish, shackle and trap should be your preferred CC as a Paladin tank, sap only when necessary and then pull by getting close and judging instead of using Avenger's Shield.
* Remember everything in this guide! You're not a Warrior tank - you have different concerns and requirements. While they are different they are not necessarily better or worse, just different.
* Tanking is not something you can pick up in a day. It is a long hard road that requires lots of practice and gear. Make sure it's for you before you even start.
Things to avoid
* Since you really need to use Consecration to hold aggro on multiple enemies, make sure you back up from any crowd controlled enemies so that you do not set them free.
* Do no use your taunt right way, instead of trying to pull the enemies back in some other method, unless there is more than one creature on that group member. Then taunting should be your first option to grab them back. Try to save it for when your healer has pulled aggro or when a DPS'er has several enemies on them at once.
* Avoid looking at stats other than your core stats. Due to mana return from healing and blessings you no longer need to worry about Intelligence as a Paladin tank (at least on gear). Similarly, since you get +spell power from stamina, you do not need to focus on +spell power on your gear.
How to play a Retribution Paladin
So you want to lay the holy smack down on the enemy? Want to prove that Paladins can dish it out as well as they can take it? Well, you have come to the right place. This guide will walk you through the basics of playing a Retribution spec'ed Paladin. Since part way through the Burning Crusade expansion Retribution Paladins have seen huge buffs in ability and utility. Through WotLK they have continued to be a strong DPS choice in any group.
Playing a Retribution based Paladin can be a lot of fun as long as you realize you may still not be to be at the top of all the DPS charts. You will however be able to hold your own in PvE and PvP content and level at a far faster rate than other paladin specs. Realize up front though that DPS classes and players FAR outnumber healers and tanks. In addition most players view Paladins as healers or tanks, so you will most likely be expected to have a heal or tanking offspec and gearset. Discuss your options with a group before joining so that they know what you are. If you are doing this for PvP then more power to you, explain to no one!
Talents and Glyphs
As a DPS Paladin you will be spending the majority of your talent points in the Retribution talent tree. You need to do this gain some serious damage causing abilities including some of your main damage abilities such as Crusader Strike and Divine Storm. There are also several other abilities that add a lot to your damage causing abilities through passive boosts to some of your key spells and stats.
Probably the most important talents are your Crusaders Strike and Divine Storm, since they will form 2 of the 5 main attacks that make up your DPS rotation. For more information on that rotation skip down to the Attack Rotation section of the guide. Crusader's Strike is a single target attack with a short cooldown that will become a staple in all of your rotations, while Divine Storm hits multiple targets and factors in against groups of enemies.
Some of the other really critical talents in the Retribution tree are Judgements of the Wise, Sanctified Retribution, Swift Retribution and Heart of the Crusader. All of these talents grant you party or raid utility which is much needed since you are just a DPS player once you are in a group (Tanks and Healers being much more important in a group situation). Judgements of the Wise brings you the ability to replenish mana to up to 10 raid members, which your healers and casters will thank you for. Sanctified and Swift Retribution bring you a 3% damage and 3% haste buff that affects the whole raid as long as your retribution aura is active. Lastly, Heart of the Crusader puts a +3% crit debuff on any target you judge, once again boosting party damage output.
This is the Retribution Build I use when speccing for damage in raids - Retribution Build. It has proven itself over and over again in the level 80 instances and raids. It dips into the protection tree for some extra strength, healing and a situationaly awesome ability called Divine Sacrifice. Divine Sacrifice allows you to absorb some of the damage incoming to the group and transfer it to you.
While there are a number of decent Glyphs for a Retribution Paladin the ones I suggest are based on raid usefulness. Therefore the greater glyphs I believe you should use are:
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance - This glyph gives you almost half of the Expertise (10 points) that you need to reach the soft cap. That's a lot of expertise that you will not have to find on equipment, gems or enchants, allowing you to focus on more damage causing stats.
Glyph of Judgement - Increases damage of all Judgements by 10%. Since Judgements are one of your main damage dealing abilities, a 10% boost to it is a great boost from a glyph.
Glyph of Consecration - Increases the length and cooldown of Consecration by 2 seconds. This means that you will not have to cast Consecration as often, freeing up an addition global cooldown for a damage attack.
Stats and Gear
Gear for a Retadin is not nearly as difficult as many other classes. Up until you are level 80 you simply need to stack as much Strength as you can, with critical strike being second on your stat radar. Once you get to level 80, however, your priorities change a little. Reaching the Hit and Expertise cap are your priorities, and after that is done you start stacking Strength, Crit, and Attack Power (when strength isn't an option).
Once you reach level 80 and start looking for +hit it takes just under 33 points to earn a +1% chance to hit. This means you need 263 points of hit rating to reach your 8% hit cap. This means you will not miss your melee attacks, spells can still miss though as a significant amount more hit is required for spells. Reaching hit cap when fresh to level 80 can be difficult and requires several gems or enchants and tough gear choices. Once you start getting higher item level gear, you will generally have more than you need.
After hit, expertise is needed to remove the chance an enemy will dodge your attacks. If you are attacking from behind (as you should) you only need to reach the soft expertise cap. The amount of expertise you need varies based on your race, weapon, and glyph. You will normally need 214 expertise to be capped, 190 if you are a human using a sword or mace, or173 if you are a dwarf with a mace. If you are properly glyphed with the Glyph of Seal of Vengeance you need 82 less as long as you have Seal of Vengeance active. Due to the glyph's bonus it is relatively easy to reach the cap and you should not need to go out of your way to find much expertise.
After you are capped with both hit and expertise the most important stat is Strength. Every point of Strength you gain grants you 2 attack power which is then multiplied by your Divine Strength talent. This means a real bonus of 2.3 per point in Strength. This Strength is then further increased any time you or another Paladin has Blessing of Kings active. This easily makes it your best damage causing stat.
Critical strike boosts are also important as any time you crit you cause extra damage. However if you ever have a choice, more strength beats more crit.
Gems and Enchants
Gems and enchants will play a critical part in how much damage you can put out against an enemy. The bonuses that you can add through enchants and gems at high levels are almost as much as you get on the item itself. Better yet they can be customized to be what you require.
Starting with the easier topic of gems, in general you should be putting a +20 strength red gem or better in every socket you have, red or not. When the socket bonus is worth following (meaning it is at least +8 strength of more) you can fill the other coloured sockets as follows. Yellow slots should be filled Strength / Hit orange gems. Blue sockets should only be filled when you need to meet meta gem requirements as they will always result in less DPS than any other gem.
As for Meta Gems the best you can get is the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond because of its very simple to meet requirement. It provides agility and increased critical hit damage and gives you more damage than the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond since you will not have to use 2 blue gems.
Now onto the more difficult topic of enchants on your gear. Proper enchants can add a ton of stats to your already good gear. The most critical ones will largely depend on your gear level. If you are fresh to 80 you will probably require +hit to gear through gems and enchants. Once you have been 80 for a while this will shift to pure damage abilities. The most critical damage enchant will likely be the one to your weapons, so don't be cheap on it, as soon as you get a good weapon get it enchanted with Berserking. For the rest of the enchants I have included a table to outline the ones that are best on each slot.
Gear Enchants
Slot Bonus Notes / Source (if not from an enchanter)
Head +50 Attack Power and +20 Crit Knights of the Ebon Blade - Revered
Shoulders +40 Attack Power and +15 Crit Sons of Hodir - Exalted
Chest +10 to all stats
Back +50 Attack Power
Wrists +50 Attack Power
Hands +44 Attack Power Can substitute with +20 hit if you are not hit capped
Legs +75 Attack Power and +22 Crit From Leatherworkers
Feet +32 Attack Power Can substitute with +12 Crit and +12 Hit if you are not hit capped
Weapon
Berserking
A must have, it is the best by far
Seals, Judgements, and Auras
As a Retribution Paladin you really only have two seals that you will use with any regularity. Seal of Vengeance (Alliance), or its equivalent Seal of Corruption if you play Horde, or Seal of Command. In most situations when fighting Bosses you will use Seal of Vengeance and when fighting groups of enemies you will use Seal of Command.
Vengeance is our main seal though and it is complicated due to its two parts. Firstly, it does a small amount of damage when you hit someone, secondly it places a DoT on them that hurts them over time. Lastly, the higher the stack the DoT is in on the target (up to 5) the more damage the seal does when you judge it on them.
Seal of Command is a seal that allows you to hit additional targets with your attacks. This means that when fighting normal enemies if there is more than one there, you can hit multiples with the same amount of damage. So against multiple targets you want to switch over to this seal. Due to the extra DoT damage that SoV causes though, it is not as good against single targets.
When you Judge your seals against an enemy you will generally be using Judgement of Wisdom so that you have constant mana returns. However you can use Judgement of Light instead if there is lots of damage being caused and other ways to get mana back. Lastly in PvP situations you will likely use Judgement of Justice to keep enemies from fleeing, especially against pesky Druids or Shaman.
As for Auras, since so many of your talents focus on improving your Aura of Righteousness and granting extra benefits to it, it becomes your only valid choice. Unless of course you are in a fight that really needs some form of resistance that you and no one else can provide.
Basic Attack Rotation
Ok, you have the gear, you have specced retribution, now what? How do you go about doing damage?
A Retribution Paladin uses what is called a FCFS (First Come First Serve) rotation. This can be considered a face roll rotation too, however since some abilities do cause more damage there is a decreasing level of priority that you need to work through. However, since even the lowest DPS attack is not significantly lower, it is better to use any ability rather than wait for another to be available.
The order of priority is as follows:
1. Hammer of Wrath - Only becomes available once the enemy is below 20% health
2. Crusader Strike - A decent attack that also applies a Seal of Vengeance stack
3. Judgement - Use Judgement to do Vengeance damage once you have a 5 stack up on the target.
4. Divine Storm - Against single targets it is fourth, when there are multiple targets it jumps up to #2
5. Consecration - This provides ok DPS against any number of targets but as soon as there are 4 or more targets this becomes the #1 priority instead of Hammer of Wrath.
6. Exorcism - It's ok, but due to being a spell it needs more hit to be reliable.
7. Holy Wrath - If you are fighting lots of undead this becomes a good option (4 or more)
As with any rotation there are numerous exceptions and situations where you need to break the standard priority. Some of them are outlined in the list itself, such as AoE situations of 4 or more enemies, while others depend of different factors. For example if you have 2 pieces of Tier 9 gear equipped the 2 set bonus significantly alters your priority making Judgement jump to the top of the list.
For any standard fight though, try to stick to the attack rotation as much as possible. Just remember the basic rule: it's better to be hitting something than nothing, so use an attack any time the global cooldown is up.
Consumables
While items and gear are required for any raid, obviously, you also really should bring along all the consumables that will help you maximize your damage causing ability and your survivability. The ones that every Retribution Paladin should bring to a group or raid are:
* Flask of Endless Rage - This flask provides 180 attack power, there is no real alternative
* Dragonfin Filet - This food grants a boost of 40 strength and stamina allowing you to cause more damage and live longer.
* Runic mana and healing potions - Bring a stack of each just to be safe.
Macros
There are a few simple macros that you can make that will simplify your life. Three that I really like are a Judgement Macro, Seal Macro, and various mouse over macros.
The first two are Judgement and Seal macros that are essentially there to simply save tool bar space. They are set to cast the Judgement or Seal I use most frequently when clicked, or my alternate Judgement or Seal if clicked while holding the alt key.
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier: alt] Judgement of Light; Judgement of Wisdom
or
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier: alt] Seal of Command; Seal of Vengeance
The other macro I like to use is one that lets me cast key spells by moving my mouse over a player or their frame rather than having to click on them first. This can be used with various spells but I mainly use it with Cleanse (when not using Decursive), Hand of Salvation, or Blessing of Protection.
#showtooltip <Spellname>
/cast [target=mouseover,nomodifier,exists] <Spellname>; [help] <Spellname>
Things to remember
Things to do
* Learn to watch your attack rotation and learn the sequence that works best for you.
* Learn to switch between seals and judgements as required, it will up your DPS and utility.
* You should always run a threat meter of some sort (the one I prefer is Omen). It will allow you to judge how close you are to the tank and if you need to lay off damage.
* Remember everything in this guide!
Things to avoid
* Avoid multiple combats of the same level or higher if you can. You have much lower armor than you do with a shield equipped and do not have any multiple target attacks.
* Using potions or bubbles too early. Save them and try to use Seal of Wisdom or Light instead. My favorite is to judge Seal of Light and then use Seal of Wisdom, then when the SoW is almost expired, reverse them. Continue this mixed with heals until you are at full mana and health.
* Ignoring some of your stats. Don't focus on just one thing or you're cheating yourself
* Fast low damage weapons! Even though they often display higher dps rates, they do not factor in how your abilities work. Stick with the weapon that has the highest maximum damage.
I will be working on the DeathKnight Frost Dps Dual-Weild Rotation asap. Right now, this is what I have.
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And also the discipline spec is also a good way to go. I think on retail some people were saying its good for raids, but i cant remember XD been a while since i went in instances on retail...
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