Paladins Talents Strategies
Talents:
Prot: Divine Strength - 5 pts for 15%. You're getting about 2.3 AP / Str, this is one of your most important talents since it increases ALL of your damage
Ret: Benediction - 5 pts will reduce the mana cost of all your attacks, + your instant heals by 10%. At first it seems like its not a lot, but it adds up a lot over a boss fight
Improved Judgments - 1pt or 2pts is debatable on which one is better. I haven't done enough experimenting with this to really know, but you definitely want at least 1 point.
Heart of the Crusader - Your judgment is your priority attack. This will keep everyone at a constant 3% crit chance buff on the target.
Improved Blessing of Might - It explains itself, a bigger bonus to BoM, which will buff all of your damage.
Conviction - 5% crit chance buff.
Seal of Command - VERY IMPORTANT. Some bosses deal constant damage, and hurting yourself can be really bad on that fight. Everyone who got to play ret in TBC remembers accidently killing themselves on prince for not remembering to use this seal on that fight. THIS IS NOT YOUR MAIN SEAL
Pursuit of Justice - We dont have a movement increase, we don't get charge, intercept, sprint, dash, intervene... For us, this is what is going to get us out of an AOE that's about to go off. And lowering the disarm time is great in PvP
Sanctified Seals - The crit chance on its own is great, but in PvP, having your seals undispellable is great. Once you judge justice on a druid, he is never getting away as long as that judgment stays up on him.
Crusade - 3% or 6% dmg increase depending on what youre attacking.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - This buffs the damage on your swings. You're only going to be using 2H weapons, get this.
Sanctified Retribution - This buffs everyone's damage by 2%. Since you're going to have ret aura up almost the entire time, you want this one.
Vengeance - Stacks to a 9% holy damage buff after 3 crits, the timer refreshes on every crit, so as long as your crit chance is high enough, you have an almost constant 9% dmg buff to your seals, judgments, consecrate, exorcism, and holy wrath.
The Art of War - You're going to be using Seal of Blood / Martyr as your main seal, and its going to hurt you, especially on crits. This instant FoL is to make up for the damage that you'll be causing yourself
Repentance - This is your "CC", or your gap closer
Judgments of the Wise - 15% of your base mana back, which you're going to need, + the replenishment effect, which isnt too much mana to the raid on its own, but combined with other effects and over the course of a fight, it adds up to a lot.
Fanaticism - First it lowers the threat of all your attacks, just for that you want this, but it also buffs the crit chance of your judgments (which both command and martyr can crit) by 25%, properly geared, you'll be around a 60-80% crit chance by now.
Sanctified Wrath - Until AW is fixed, this doesnt seem as good as it should. But it WILL be fixed. When you use AW it will buff your physical damage, lower the CD on AW, and Bring the crit chance of Hammer of Wrath up by 50%, which will be a 60-100% crit chance on it.
Swift Retribution - Haste buff to the raid. This also stacks with heroism and windfury totem. While we don't benefit from haste too much, casters love it. Use this so stuff can die faster.
Crusader Strike - just an attack, you need it, get it
Sheath of Light - Your seals are based on a percentage of your AP + a percentage of your spellpower. Getting this talent will buff your seal damage. Which as we already know, is most of your damage.
Righteous Vengeance - 40% more damage on crits from judgment and Divine Storm. Alone you would want this, but we also have an insane crit chance on judgments, This debuff will be up on the mob for most of the fight.
Divine Storm - Another attack, its 4 targets, and heals 3 raid members for 20% of the damage you do.
------------------------------
Vindication, Eye for an Eye, Divine Purpose, Stoicism, Guardians Favor, and Toughness can all be used for a "PvP" spec, you'll have to sacrifice some damage to get all of them, but you should have 7 points to play with if you use a pure PvE ret spec. For PvP you can get rid of Hear of the Crusader and Sanctified Wrath for an additional 5 pts.
Gearing (in order of importance):
Hit - You need 295 for your hit cap as a ret pally. This is very easily attainable with just quest rewards and a couple drops from 5 mans.
Your main stat is your Strength. Equally geared, most AP gear will be around a 2:1 AP vs Str. Since you gain more AP from Str
Crit - Either from crit or Agi, this is your second stat. As you saw from our main talents, you rely on crit. Your goal should be around 30% for just starting to raid to really be competative.
Expertise - After wether or not you hit is calculated, the game calculates if that hit is dodged, parried, or blocked. This will lower that chance.
Armor Penetration - This is your next stat in line. Since armor mitigates physical damage, this would give your Crusader Strike and Divine Storm a small damage increase.
Haste - Haste for us, isn't that great. Most of our damage is based on a cooldown, not a swing timer. Since haste doesn't affect a cooldown, it is the last thing on our list.
Intellect, Spirit, and Spellpower can be completely ignored. And just through gearing yourself right, your stam will be high enough.
-------------------------------
Enchants:
Shoulder - any shoulder enchant that increases your AP, Hit, or Crit. This would change depending completely on your hit rating. If you're an inscriptor, Greater inscription of the Axe is the best enchant in the game for your shoulders.
Back - Major Agility, this will increase your crit chance. Right now, its the best one in the game for you.
Chest - Powerful Stats, this will give you 23 AP. The crit is pretty neglegable, but you want the damage.
Bracer - Greater Assault - Self explanatory, 50AP
Weapon - This one is still up for debate. Massacre is 110 AP, Berserking comes with a chance of a higher AP at the cost of some armor. To me, Massacre seems like the better one, but feel free to experiment with them
Gloves - Crusher, 44 AP
Legs - Icescale Leg Armor, 75 AP + 22 Crit. Really cant go wrong with this.
Rings (enchanter only) - Assault, you only have a choice of 1
--------------------------------
Gems:
Meta - Either Relentless is higher crit damage, which would be the preferred meta.
The rest - Your main focus is Str / Crit, i forget the name of that gem, but you can also substitute a wicked for a small AP loss. If you're not hit capped youll be using Pristines for the hit. If you want your set bonuses, or need blues for your meta, a Forceful, Vivid, or Jagged Green can be used, Jagged for crit, Vivid for hit, and Forceful as a placeholder until you can get a Jagged or Vivid.
-------------------------------
Hurting Things (in order of priority):
I'm going to keep this one short. Judgment gets priority. With Seal of Blood / Martyr, an average ready to raid paladin (you'll have around 2500 AP) will be critting for 7-9k depending on buffs). If there is less than 1.5 seconds between a crusader strike and a Judgment, wait for the Judgment, you HAVE to get these off.
Crusader Strike - 110% Weapon Damage. This is next in priority
Divine Storm - 100% weapon damage. This is last on your list.
Consecrate - Pretty big DPS buff, keep this up as much as possible.
Exorcism - If you can use it, use it
Holy Wrath - Same as Exorcism
Hammer Of Wrath - This thing hurts. When its up, you'll be using this between Judgment and Crusader Strike in priority.
