Hidden Warcraft » Paladin Talents

Retribution Paladin’s DPS Rotation

Renei — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:14:02 +0000

Discovering that my venerable Paladin, once re-specced to Retribution, could not only stay alive, but deal massive DPS damage was one of the coolest things that went with the new Wrath of the Lich King expansion and its attending patches.

Everybody should equip their Paladin according to the personal preferences and play style, but here is what I look for in new equipment and quest rewards, in that order:

Strength Bonus
Critical Strike Chance Bonus
Stamina Bonus
Attack Power Bonus
Haste Bonus
Agility Bonus

Strenght modifies your attack power, which directly influences the DPS. Stamina is self-explanatory – you want to live to fight another mob, right?

Critical Strike bonus is, well, critical. This is what transforms an ordinary hard-hitter into a massive burst-DPS God.

My agility is only at 150 or so – I’m level 76 – but my Critical Strike chance sits pretty at over 35%, which is HUGE.

So without further ado, here is my rotation for maximum DPS in the shortest time possible.

Cast Greater Blessing of Might on yourself. It adds 512 to your Attack Power for 30 minutes.
Make sure, before the fight starts, that you have Seal of Command cast. It only lasts 2 minutes, so check often.
Select your next victim and cast Judgment of Light. This will cause you to Judge “Seal of Command” as well as give you a boost of roughly 500 mana.
Cast “Crusader Strike”
Cast “Divine Storm”

Repeat steps 3 to 5 until the mob is dead. All these attacks are on top of your regular melee attacks so you can really pack a punch. In my case, it’s not rare to cause upwards of 6,000 damage in the first few seconds of a fight, crits helping.

That’s why having a high crit chance is crucial to maximize DPS.At the end of a fight, you have a choice. Personally, if I am fighting more than one mob at a time, I like to quickly finish off the first one with “Hammer of Wrath” which crits 90% of the time for upwards of 3,000 damage and so promptly move on the second mob.

However, if I am fighting just one mob, I like to use “Judgment of Light” for the Mana boost at the end of the fight, which lowers the downtime significantly.

If you have chosen “The Art of War” in the Retribution talent tree, and you should have, make sure to cast “Flash of Light” on yourself at any time it’s on and your health is low

The Art of War, Judgement of Light (or Wisdom) and Flash of Light, when properly combined, can make drinking for mana a thing of the past when it comes to straight grinding.

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Paladin’s Lay on Hands Emergency Spell

Renei — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:58:15 +0000

Lay on Hands is one of the Paladin abilities that are so far out of the rotation that you almost never use them. Personally, I always have to be reminded by someone to be ready to use it, or even that it exists.

I call it an emergency spell because it is very good – very powerful, and it has a long cooldown, 20 minutes.

What Lay on Hands does is restore health equal to caster’s total health, as well as a predetermined amount of mana, up to 1950 at Lay on Hands (Level 5). That means if you cast it on yourself, you will be back up to 100% health and will have more mana that you started with, since Lay on Hands does not cost any mana to cast.

It is a very useful spell when all else has gone bad, to pull yourself or a buddy out of a difficult situation. Moreoever, since the latest patch, the cooldown is down to 20 minutes from the 60 minutes it originally was.

Also, before the patch, casting Lay on Hands would cost you all of your remaining Mana, whether 1 or 10,000. Definitely a big upgrade!

By investing 11 points in the Holy tree of World of Warcraft’s Paladin talents, you can get Improved Lay on Hands, which will reduce the cooldown by 2/4 minutes.

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A Paladin in Utgarde Keep

Renei — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 01:14:41 +0000

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Utgarde Keep is the first instance you will encounter if you start your Wrath of the Lich King adventures in Howling Fjord. I don’t want to go in very much detail insofar as the story goes, mostly because I don’t really know it, but basically, and much like every other instance in World of Warcraft, you have to go in and kill everything that moves.

Utgarde Keep is a 5-man instance, “man” being a relative and all-encompassing term. Our dedicated group, drawn from the ranks of the “Brute Force” Guild, was composed of:

Hladonar, Level 74 Feral Druid – “The Tank”
Drehand, Level 71 Hunter – DPS, “The Silent One”
Chianna, Level 71 Mage – DPS, “Dear Leader”
Gravewax, Level 71 Mage – DPS, “Chuckles” and owner of big bags

and that’s it… Oh wait. There’s me, too. I was hoping to exclude myself. Darn.

Mandorall, Level 71 Paladin – Healer, “The Clueless”

See, I was hoping that Hladonar would heal, and that Kithany would tank. Unfortunately, Kit respecced to Retribution – good call by the way – so Mandorall was dragooned into respeccing for Healing, against his better judgement.

Was that a good call? Read on!

Utgarde Keep is populated by those same Viking-type Norse giants that seem to haunt the rest of Howling Ford, the Vyrkul. The non-boss mobs were no match for our awesome power, and they went down fast. Everyone was lulled into a false sense of security because I did not have to heal much. Boy, did I have a surprise in store for everyone!

Then we came upon the first boss, Prince Keleseth. What a tool that guy is, sort of like a giant Blood Elf, with the same condescending gaze. To make a long story short, we wiped 4 times before finally taking him down. Several of those wipes were caused by my inability to Heal properly, and at least once because I cast Lay on Hands on myself by mistake instead of on the tank. Oups.

Anyways, on with the adventure, which from my point of view is getting more and more frustrating, mostly because of my nagging sense of responsibility for the numerous wipes.

We then proceeded, as a group, to slaughter a whole bunch of other trash mobs, which dropped absolutely nothing of worth in terms of loot, but did restore a little bid of my confidence. Healing only 800-900 at a time with Flash of Light, I was hoping for a boss-free dungeon trek from then on.

Leaving behind us a path of ruin and desolation, we came upon the next boss, who are two named Vyrkul at the bottom of some steps. Despite a wipe or three, we managed to overcome them without too much aggravation, if you exclude the fact that by then I had chewed my knuckles bloody. The sacrifices we have to make, I guess.

The going was smooth until we got to the last boss. Some giant – again – named Ingvar, who has the terribly rude ability to get rezzed once you take him down. He also “shouts” a lot, besides the usual grunting and complaining. All this unseemly noise turned out to be an area of effect spell that damaged everyone in the party, yours truly included. Since I had so much trouble just keeping the tank from dying, I could not spare any heals for either myself of anybody else.

We wiped 5 times on the last boss. Everyone’s equipment started turning yellow, then red, so we had to go back to the town to repair. When we came back, SURPRISE! the Instance had reset. Everyone was pretty dungeoned-out by then, so we called it a night.

We did not manage to kill the last boss, I’m sorry to say, and it seems to me that most of those wipes were caused in great part by my inability to Heal properly.

But all is not lost! Oh no! I learned a valuable lesson!

And the valuable lesson is: “A Holy Respecc Does Not a Healer Make.” Especially a last minute respecc on a Paladin with low-grade Retribution gear.

That’s the lesson. Anytime you want a Healer, feel free to ask! I’ll then point you to Hladonar, or Vitamina, or Talarin, or anyone esle but me.

Cheers!

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