holy
Latest
The Light and How To Swing It: Maximizing Paladin DPS, Part 3
It's time for another edition of The Light and How to Swing It on this fine patch 2.3 Tuesday! Today is the final installment in our three-part series on Maximizing Paladin DPS, and there's lots to go over. With the changes to healing gear implemented now with the new patch, I'll talk a little bit about what you can do with your Healing spec Paladin, but mostly I'm going to focus how to deal damage with a heavy Protection Paladin.As usual, I will be recommending talents but don't feel tied to the choices I make. As I said last time, if you need certain talents to support your style of play, go for it -- but at least read about why you should consider taking some of the talents I suggest.Let's start by briefly examining a typical healing-orientated build, and how you'll be able to deal damage in your healing gear starting today!
A primer on the WoW Paladin community
The internal dynamics of a class in a given game are usually quite impenetrable to outsiders. People with only a cursory knowledge of a given game, or people who are working through the game for the first time, often see these dynamics as mysterious and unpredictable. Even veteran players often have little idea what is going on within a class they've interacted with for months. Among these enigmatic groups is World of Warcraft's Paladin class. Blessing of Kings' Rohan gives us a brief primer of the Paladin community, ostensibly to promote a greater understanding of a class that seems to want to have it all.At the crux of the conflict, according to Rohan, is that the Paladin community is split into three camps according to the roles they want to fulfill. Holy paladins want a greater variety of healing abilities to supplement their role as primary healer in most raids, Retribution paladins want greater DPS and increased raid viability, and Protection/Hybrid paladins are generally supportive of any kind of buff, provided it doesn't result in heavy specialization into either the Holy or Retribution archetypes. The result? No matter what changes are made, whether in healing, DPS, or utility, the community as a whole doesn't sound happy. That's not uncommon in a game as big as WoW, but it's particularly pronounced for Paladins.The one point on which the Paladin community is likely to come to a consensus though, is that they would all look really spiffy in a brand new murloc suit.
The Light and How to Swing It: Maximizing Paladin DPS, Part 2
Welcome back to the second part in our three-part series on Paladin DPS! Our goal, once again, is to squeeze as much DPS out of your Paladin regardless of their spec. Last time, we focused mostly on the Retribution tree, and how best to slam gigantic weapons into your opponents. This time, we're going to be looking mostly at the Holy tree, though we will be picking up some goodies from Retribution.A quick word before we start -- I will be recommending certain talents over others. In any spec, there is usually a good amount of wiggle room for you to pick up the talents that you feel are best for you, and you should take advantage of this. While I will be focusing on the talents that provide the maximum amount of damage and mana efficiency, you may want to pick up others depending on your play style. In fact, I encourage you to break out from the "cookie cutter" builds if you need certain talents to support your play style. Customizing your character... isn't WoW great?Let's get started with the Holy / Retribution hybrid known to some as the Shockadin!
The Light and How to Swing It: Building a better Paladin
It's an odd time to be a Paladin. The entire community seems to be embroiled in our own version of the War of the Roses -- with holy paladins on one side, and retribution / protection paladins on the other. No other class I know of fights itself from within, which is a point that's been made in this column before.With that in mind, today I'd like to examine some of the reasons why paladins have been bickering, fighting, and sometimes engaging in outright hostility towards one another.
The Light and How to Swing It: I leveled a Holy Paladin
As Elizabeth mentioned last week, leveling builds for a paladin are... shall we say limited? You can spec Holy and struggle with solo-play or farming; you can spec Retribution and get laughed out of instances; or you can spec Protection and spend your time convincing your fellow players that yes, you do wear plate and you can take a few hits. So with such appealing options, which spec do you chose? We know that Elizabeth picked Protection, for all its AOE goodness. But for my part, I picked Holy. Why, you ask, would anyone choose to level up as a Holy-spec Paladin? Doesn't it gimp you beyond belief for soloing? I've asked myself these questions more than once, but I'll try to explain just why I've stuck with it through the levels.
Build Shop: Paladin 21/31/0
Hello, talent-loving faithful! Ready for some more build dissection? This evening we turn to a hybrid class that's getting a bit of a nerf for one of its roles in the upcoming patch, but some buffs to its other major role. Yep, it's time to poke and prod Paladin talents. The Holy talent Illumination, as I'm sure all Paladins reading this know, is receiving probably the single biggest nerf anything is getting in patch 2.1 (aside from Alchemy). On the other hand, the Protection tree is getting a few buffs, including a new Improved Holy Shield talent, elimination of the deadzone on Captain America's Avenger's Shield, and a buff to Ardent Defender.The arithmetically astute among you may note that the build above, 21/31/0, is incomplete. It only has 52 points in it, out of the 61 points available at level 70. This is because the submitter of this build, Mithral of Kael'Thas, isn't quite sure how exactly he wants to finish it off. The reason I picked this build is because, like Mithral, I "actually like the idea of a Hybrid class." His goal is to somehow make a Pally build that is decent at both of the class's primary roles, healing and tanking. This, he says, could also take advantage of Pally itemization, since "most Pally gear comes with +Spell damage AND +healing in one piece." I have my doubts about this point -- I definitely maintain very separate healing and DPS gear on my Priest. Just because it says "damage and healing" doesn't mean it's going to hold a candle to a dedicated healing piece.
Breakfast topic: Hand out some buffs
theantipoet asks a great question over on Livejournal:If "you could buff any class -- any class but your own (your main or mains if you've got multiple) -- which class would it be and how would you buff them?"I'll say that if you want cool points on this one, you should stay away from any classes you play regularly-- for me at the moment, that'll be shaman, rogue, and hunter. I really like anti's answer of priests-- they are QQing a lot, but there is no reason they should be DPSing while paladins heal in raids.Personally, I'd hook up prot warriors a little bit-- right now, their DPS is such a joke that the only way they can really play is in instances. I'm not saying that we should give them tons of DPS-- that would mess everything up in PvP-- but just a little extra DPS would let them solo, and wouldn't unbalance PvE groups that much (since it's likely that if the group makeup is right, the prot warrior's DPS will still pale in comparison to your regular DPS class's hits).A buff like that isn't really necessary, but it's an interesting thought experiment to see where you might make positive changes that don't actually affect you. So if Blizzard suddenly gave you the chance to buff any class except your own, what would you say?
Revisiting respec costs
We've covered the idea of changing respec costs (and even having more than one talent build) before, but the issue continues to get play-- Good has posted a very in-depth analysis of respec costs and why they need to be lowered or done away with completely.Good claims that the problem with respec costs has to do with the tanking and healing classes. The DPS classes-- Mages, Hunters, Rogues, Warlocks-- can fill their role in any spec, but tanks and healers, Good claims, have to be raid specced to do well in a raiding environment, and putting respec costs in the game just creates a barrier to keep them from playing other parts of the game.To the normal arguments, Good has answers. Lots of people say losing respec costs will just create cookie-cutter builds, but he says it will actually allow for diversity within groups-- instead of having two holy priests, one can switch to shadow. And for those who say 50g to change respecs isn't much (especially considering how much money is in Outland), he says then it shouldn't be in the game in the first place-- you're just burdening those classes who need to change to enjoy the game.Still other respec cost suggestions include allowing them to be paid for with BG tokens-- to let PvPers have the chance to switch back. Unfortunately for Good, I don't see it happening. Blizzard wants you to choose a spec and stick with it-- I'm known throughout my guild as a resto Shaman, and that's the way they want it (even if I have to switch to my Rogue to do PvP). The 50g respec cost isn't much, but it'll keep most players from switching, while still allowing those who really feel they need to switch to do so without too much trouble. People who want it all won't like hearing it, but I think respec costs are "working as intended," and will stay so for a while.[ via Paladin Sucks ]
I'm in ur Outlands, holyin' my Priest
The Priests in my guild are falling off to the dark side, one by one. The most die-hard Holy one went Shadow today, after hitting level 64. However, I've refrained, instead having taken the advice of our guild's shadowiest Shadow Priest and specced into dps-focused Holy. As of level 62, I was 14/32/7: Discipline (14 points) 5/5 Wand Specialization 3/5 Silent Resolve 2/2 Improved Power Word: Fortitude 1/1 Inner Focus 3/3 MeditationHoly (32 points) 2/2 Healing Focus 3/3 Improved Renew 5/5 Holy Specialization 5/5 Divine Fury 1/1 Holy Nova 3/3 Inspiration 3/3 Improved Healing 2/2 Searing Light 1/1 Spirit of Redemption 5/5 Spiritual Guidance 2/2 Surge of LightShadow (7 points) 5/5 Spirit Tap 2/2 Improved Shadow Word: Pain And as a matter of fact, I'm now level 64 and haven't figured out where to spend my two more TP.
Make your own talent tree
If you haven't seen this yet, it's pretty funny. A site called Unleashed Gaming has broken out a nifty little feature: it's a javascript setup that allows you to create your own talent trees. Now you too can not only create your own specs and share them with others, you can actually create all new talent trees.A few of them have been popping up in different places. Linde offers a Hunter's wishlist tree that's chuckleworthy (the 51-point Marksmanship talent is called Swoop: "The next item you loot costs 0 DKP"), and Menae has made a much more cynical (and therefore hilarious) Priest talent tree. Finally, Priests are able to get Holyform (the tooltip says that the talent was really put in place just to shut the forum QQers up), and my favorite is probably (one of) the 51-point Shadow talents: with Improved Shadowform, "Your character is replaced with a Warlock."Unfortunately, just like the WoW Item Creator, there's no way to track what other people are making-- I'd love to see a list of the "ten most-viewed talent trees," just to see what people are coming up with. But this thing is definitely a lot of fun to play around with, whether you're trying to perfect what Blizzard does, or just mock them. If you come up with a good one, post it below.[ Thanks, Ootah! ]
Circle of Healing or Circle of Terrible?
First Holy Nova. Then Lightwell. As of 2.0.1, Circle of Healing is the top-tier Holy talent for Priests. Notice a trend? All these talents have been considered...um..."less than optimal" by many vocal members of the priestly community. And folks have tried to defend all three of them by pointing out that they are nice to have in certain situations. Well, today Drysc plays the "situationally useful" card with respect to CoH over in the WoW General forums: "[CoH] has some amazing tactical uses; that you can sit (likely well) out of harms way and send heals to a group of players. To equalize some of that ability the healing potency isn't as strong as a normal prayer of healing maybe, but I don't think it's anything to be scoffed at either. I would be surprised if the talent was completely overlooked in strategies for future dungeons and encounters, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was relied on for more than a few".
Answers for Those Nagging Priest Questions
This charmingly titled FAQ provides a nice compilation of answers to questions that are posted in the forums ten times a day by priests. From what enchant to put on your Benediction to whether spirit gear is better than mana per 5 gear, this guide isn't covering the basics - for basic information for a starting priest you might try this FAQ instead - but it does hit on all the hot topics. If you're a priest looking for answers, this is a very good starting place. Hopefully it will also slow the constant inquires over the best enchant for the Benediction, but I'm probably just being optimistic...
