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The Queue: Will I get banned for raiding as a ret paladin last night?
Joystiq by Adam Holisky Feb 2nd 2012 at 11:00AM Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) will be your host today. |
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.
With some of the buffs from 4.3 (specifically the buff to Seal of Truth, when Judged) along with ever-increasing stats and item levels, our rotational priorities have changed as well. In order to keep everyone up to date on the latest theorycrafting being brought down from Mt. Sinai from Theck over at Maintankadin (as well as a refresher for the rustiest among us), this column today will look over single-target and AoE threat rotations and talk about what is the most optimal way to roll face.
First things first — the right setup
Talenting is important when it comes to producing threat. If you’re sacrificing a key DPS increaser like Reckoning for a monstrosity like Hallowed Ground, you’re going to be doing yourself a disservice in the long run. No matter how cool a damage-dealing talent sounds (Eye for an Eye is case in point here), unless it brings the proper numbers to the table in the sims, it’s not worth it if optimal play is your goal.
This is the pretty standard setup. I included the three heaviest-hitting prime glyphs in there as well. With regard to the talents, you can also go a little deeper by swapping the second point out of Pursuit of Justice and finishing off Grand Crusader. The second point is worth about 241 DPS with 2% hit/10 expertise.
Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: An updated look at the prot paladin rotation
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The Light and How to Swing It: An updated look at the prot paladin rotation originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You’re playing the game, you’re fighting the bosses, you know the how — but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.
Uther the Lightbringer to Arthas, Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie GoldenContinue reading Know Your Lore: The paladin tradition
Filed under: Paladin, Lore, Know your Lore
Know Your Lore: The paladin tradition originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Know Your Lore: The paladin tradition
Joystiq The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how — but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know … |
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.
The itemization team at Blizzard has been especially stingy when it comes to holy paladin drops in Dragon Soul. While there were hundreds of items added in patch 4.3, very few of them are ideal for holy paladins. We’re used to this sort of treatment though, as we’re the only special snowflake spec that requires its own set of gear. No other class wants to wear intellect plate, and there’s nothing more frustrating for a raid group than seeing the same plate healing gloves drop every single week. A few character slots have a limited number of items available, but there’s an upgrade for every single piece of gear you have today.
Between blacksmiths, the valor points vendor, and Dragon Soul bosses, there are still plenty of gear for us to lust after. There are also new epic gems available from the Dragon Soul bosses that we can adorn our gear with, making us more powerful than ever. Our overall gearing strategy hasn’t changed much since the last patch, although mastery rating is a bit better due to the new design of Holy Radiance. I am favoring spirit as the best secondary stat, with haste close behind. Critical strike rating and mastery rating are a toss-up; you can pick your favorite.
Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: The best patch 4.3 gear for your holy paladin
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
The Light and How to Swing It: The best patch 4.3 gear for your holy paladin originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.
The official Mists of Pandaria talent calculators were released by Blizzard recently, including a list of each talent tree’s abilities. By diving into the skill list and analyzing the talents, there is a lot of information available. Most of the information is old, as we learned about many of the changes at BlizzCon and in the developer question and answer sessions.
It’s hard to draw any concrete conclusions from the talent preview because the Blizzard team has stated that everything is still up in the air. Since the information is still in a pre-alpha state, I can guarantee you that what we’re seeing today will be changed dramatically by the time Mists of Pandaria is released. While we can’t make any firm predictions, we can gain some insight into the direction that holy paladins are headed, and we can offer feedback to the developers on that direction.
Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Latest holy paladin preview for Mists of Pandaria
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
The Light and How to Swing It: Latest holy paladin preview for Mists of Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a Blood Elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.
Last week, we talked about the beginnings of the protection paladin spec and the stirrings of the infancy of the “tankadin conscience,” as it were. To briefly recap: In vanilla, we were presented with a series of hurdles ranging from terrible gear choices, to poor threat potential thanks to limited mana (after the Righteous Fury change), to terrible talent trees that didn’t offer the tools needed to tank effectively.
Then The Burning Crusade launched, and the game changed completely. Suddenly we had real tanking tools — a taunt, for example — and were finally primed to explode upon the tanking world with all the sound and righteous fury we could muster. That’s where our story begins today, with the prot paladins of yesteryear preparing to make a name for themselves and their spec in earnest.
Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: The storied history of the paladin tank, part 2
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
The Light and How to Swing It: The storied history of the paladin tank, part 2 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a Blood Elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.
I’ve been playing this class for an awful long time, since the beginnings of The Burning Crusade. Prior to that, I played the special class known as the huntar (this is a distinct entity from the common hunter, I assure you). Since then, I’ve been firmly strapped into this roller-coaster ride that we all lovingly call the paladin class, experiencing all the terrifying lows, dizzying highs, and creamy middles.
It’s been a wild experience and one I’m very interested in sharing with those who might be new to our beloved spec. To be a prot paladin is to be like that famous picture of human evolution, starting with the hunched-over monkey with Seal of Fury applied, all the way to the present-day man with Divine Protection, Ardent Defender, and Guardian of Ancient Kings all up at that same time — just because he can, something that that the monkey could only hope to dream of.
Let’s take a trip back in time, shall we?
Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: The storied history of the paladin tank (part 1)
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
The Light and How to Swing It: The storied history of the paladin tank (part 1) originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions!
Since we’re approaching what should be the final content patch before Mists of Pandaria, now would be a good time to discuss secondary stats. We saw in Wrath that things like haste and crit got out of control near the end of the expansion; a mage in my guild longs for the days when he could get his crit up past some absurd number and make fire “good again.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him that no amount of crit will ever make him good — but I digress.
Let’s take a look at those stats on our gear other than King Strength and how they work together to give us some big numbers.
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
The Light and How to Swing It: Secondary stat discussion for the discerning ret paladin originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned retribution paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or compliments!
Before we begin, let’s have a quick overview of our snazzy new tier 13 armor, complete with set bonuses!
Aesthetically speaking, I really like the look of it. Sure, the helm is a bit gaudy, but I think the color scheme and overall design really fit the concept of paladin well. Blizzard stated that it based the design off of Guardian of Ancient Kings, but it obviously went beyond that just a tad. Also, for those of you not keen on plate dresses, this set should be right up your alley!
Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Retribution paladin feedback
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
The Light and How to Swing It: Retribution paladin feedback originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.