Tag Archives: Swing

The Light and How to Swing It: Raid gear for ret paladins in Dragon Soul

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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!

Before we begin talking about upgrades in Dragon Soul, we need to discuss the three separate tiers of raid gear available in patch 4.3. Thanks to the introduction of the Raid Finder, a lower tier of the same gear that drops from normal and heroic Dragon Soul is readily available to those who queue for it. This lower tier is of ilevel 384, the same level gear that drops from Ragnaros on normal difficulty. If you had done any heroic Firelands raiding and got some gear, you will find that the Raid Finder tier is seven ilevels behind that gear.

For most pieces, you will want to upgrade as normal (from 378 to 384, for example). For tier gear, however, it appears that the new two-piece T13 set bonus overpowers the itemization difference between heroic T12 and Raid Finder gear, at least for now. If you’re available to do additional testing, I’m sure the theorycrafters at the Elitist Jerks retribution thread would adore you for contributing. For the time being, I would pick up some lower-ilevel tier and test it out while still holding onto your heroic T12. Remember, four-piece T13 is our ultimate goal here, so don’t skimp on those loot rolls.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Raid gear for ret paladins in Dragon Soul originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: The best patch 4.3 gear for your holy paladin

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tier 2 paladin set

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.

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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.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 3 things tankadins need to know

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Tier 13

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.

Patch 4.3 is upon us, and the Hour of Twilight has come. Once more, it falls to us rugged men and women of plate-covered action to strap on our Bulwarks of Azzinoth (because, seriously, what other shield would you transmogrify to?) and march into the fray. Deathwing’s assault on Azeroth is coming to a head, and to make sure we’re ready for the challenges beyond, we need to be as prepared as possible.

4.3 is a pretty tame patch when it comes to class changes — no nerfs or buffs galore … my kind of patch. Nonetheless, there are three key things you need to know about the patch to bring your absolute best to the table. Let’s dig in.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 3 things tankadins need to know originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Latest holy paladin preview for Mists of Pandaria

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paladin talents

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.

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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.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 4 trends for tanks apparent in the new MoP talent calculator

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New talent calculator

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.

On Wednesday, Blizzard released the preview of the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator, and while other classes were gleefully ripping through it like kids under a Christmas tree, the paladins were scrutinizing and trying to figure out exactly what had changed — looking for interesting divots in the chunk of coal, if you will.

I guess Blinding Shield is confirmed as our level 87 spell (though we’ve been there before, yes?), and Speed of Light is even more obviously the best first-tier talent choice. There are some minor things here and there, however, that tend to point toward larger trends that will hold sway over our beloved spec in the next expansion. In today’s column, I’ll dissect those trends along with all the evidence that points toward them and forms the foundations of what we can expect.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 4 trends for tanks apparent in the new MoP talent calculator originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 26 Nov 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Dealing damage in Dragon Soul heroic dungeons

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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!

This new series of heroics runs akin to the Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection trio of Wrath in that you must complete them in a specific order. In the interest of fitting all of these encounters in one post, I will need to truncate a lot of descriptions and irrelevant details. If you have any questions or suggestions for your fellow ret paladins, please feel free to drop a comment below!

Warning: This post contains strategies and brief descriptions of the new heroic dungeons in patch 4.3 that may or may not be spoiler-esque. As always with my columns, proceed with caution.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Dealing damage in Dragon Soul heroic dungeons originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Adjust your healing in patch 4.3

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holy radiance

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.

With patch 4.3 looming on the horizon, holy paladins need to be prepared for all of the changes that are headed our way. Both of our AoE healing options have been significantly altered, along with several of the talents and glyphs that support these abilities. Retribution paladins are also looking forward to a few buffs to their sustained DPS, but their ability to help with AoE healing is being greatly reduced.

Our core mana regeneration mechanic is about to be completely scrapped. In fact, if we continue using Judgement without making any adjustments, we’ll actually have less mana in patch 4.3 than we do today. We’ve been healing with holy power for nearly a year now, but many of the habits we’ve picked up along the way will need to change.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Adjust your healing in patch 4.3 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: The storied history of the paladin tank, part 2

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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

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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.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Putting our Hands to work

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paladin bubble

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.

If healers were defined by their heals, then holy paladins would be the strong, silent type. Our roster of healing spells has always been meek. The three-heal model of Cataclysm and the introduction of our holy power heals definitely increased our selection, but we have nowhere near the healing spell diversity of a priest or druid. We’re only now receiving a true AOE heal in patch 4.3 with Holy Radiance’s redesign.

Rather than leaning on a variety of healing options, holy paladins like to keep it simple. We’re able to compensate for our undiversified healing tool box by drawing on our numerous other abilities. We might not have as many healing spells as the other guys, but we certainly have more utility spells than they could ever dream of. Our “Hand of” spells allow us to go further than any other healer can.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Putting our Hands to work originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: The storied history of the paladin tank (part 1)

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History of paladins

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?

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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.

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