The Level 80 Paladin (TBC ideas for WLK talents)
Note: This was put together on March 4th of 2008.
After a number of months, inspired by Baluki’s dream talent trees for shaman, I’ve finished my war-tools.com level 80 paladin talent trees. I had done the Holy and Prot trees but hadn’t yet taken a stab at the Ret side.
Here it be:
http://www.war-tools.com/?p=vt&i=48657&link=yes
Comments appreciated!
Image from www.guildcafe.com.
March 6, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Here are my thoughts.
Note that my Paladin experience is mainly 10 man raiding and PvP.
Holy:
Blessing of Power: Nice, though I’d rather it be a trained skill.
Divine Clarity: All other Clearcasting talents are 100% mana reduction.
Blessed Inspiration seems pretty powerful. I tend to focus on more crit than anything else in my healing gear, and with spamming FoL I’m not sure this buff would ever fall off.
Holy Blast: Nice. It’d be nicer if this was the instant heal many healing Paladins are looking for.
Protection:
Blessing of Redemption: A “Oh Shit!” button for tanks? Why is it split across a base and improved version? The Protection tree is already pretty bloated.
Divine Constitution: Nice talent for early Tanks, but wouldn’t see much use at high gear levels.
Spiritual Channeling: I don’t really like this one. Generally, tanks getting beat on don’t have mana problems but it’s a pre-req for Divine Sacrifice. Paladin off tanks have mana problems, but they aren’t blocking enough to benefit from this.
Divine Sacrifice: This I like. It’s a good example of the defensive nature of Paladins. Consecrate should already heal, in my opinion. Make me wonder exactly how much damage a strong AoE fight will be putting out… :)
Retribution:
Avenging Gaurdian: I love the idea of Ret having some sort of heal, and this is a good start. It’s a little weak though (2k AP would only heal for 500). The additional damage buff is an interesting touch.
Improved Avenging Wrath: A 30% movement buff is overkill. This talent also doesn’t address the two main problems with AW: It can be dispelled or the Paladin can be CC the entire time it’s up. I’d rather see the talent address these. 33/66/100% undispellable and a +20/40/60% chance to resist movement impairing effects. Even with my changes the paladin could be sheeps / stunned / cycloned. But at least we have a chance against Frost Novas, Hamstrings, etc.
Penance: I dunno. There are already enough complaints about the fact we can go immune for 12 seconds every 5 min… allowing a 2nd 12 seconds would open the floodgates of QQ.
March 6, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Made some changes. Thanks for the suggestions.
Note: The Shaman Clearcasting buff in the elemental tree doesn’t have a 100% mana cost reduction and I was hoping to model the paladin one similarly :D
-Holy-
Moved Divine Clarity to much higher in the tree, and it now procs from FoL and also can affect consecrate.
New Talent: Sanctified Determination, where Divine Clarity used to be.
-Prot-
Moved some stuff.
Added Blessing mana cost reduction to Spiritual Channeling.
-Ret-
Changed Vindication to stack a % increased holy damage debuff instead of applying a stat reduction debuff.
Changed Improved Avenging Wrath: now increases resistance to dispel mechanics while active.
Weapon Mastery now increases expertise instead of reducing enemy dodge chance against the paladin, and moved it one spot higher in the tree.
Avenging Guardian now the bottom talent in the tree, and is a bit more powerful and can be used offensively. May need a new name.
Replacing Weapon Mastery is Zealotry, a mana regen talent based on Strength. May opt instead to cause it to increase spell damage and healing by a % of the paladin’s attack power like the shaman talent Mental Quickness (but this would sort of detract from the current Blizzard focus on moving spell damage out of the Retribution repertoire).
March 7, 2008 at 12:44 am
Not bad,
But arent weapon mastery and improved crusader strike overlapping. As well 1 pt in 5 pt talent gets you the full effect which is never be dodged. If you cap expertise you cant be dodged either.
March 7, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Alright:
Holy:
Divine Clarity: I like the position. With my current 41/20/0 build I’d rather have one point there than in Divine Health / Purifying Power / Blessed Life. Unless Holy Shock gets some better buffs, though, I’m not sure the talent will see much use.
Sanctified Determination: Shockadin build I guess? Really don’t see this being used much in any situation. Maybe if it improved my chances to Cleanse a target instead of Spell Hit. Help me fight those blasted anti-dispel talents in PvP.
I was able to build a very solid 51 Holy build with this tree without feeling like I was wasting points. That’s with 1 point in Clarity and none in Determination.
Protection:
Some good changes.
Spiritual Channeling: Good start with the mana reduction, but make it reduce mana cost on Judgements and Seals. A tanking (be he main or off)Paladin isn’t casting enough BLESSINGs in combat to make a difference. However, an off tank is going to be sealing and judging his heart out to keep up on threat.
Blessing of Redemption: Still not sure why this is split into a base and improved. It’s a good blessing, though. :)
My tanking build is 55 points. Having the new tiers using only one talent point each is nice since the current tree is so bloated. I didn’t take 1h Specialization, though. Took max of the new talents. I really like this tree.
Retribution:
Vindication: I don’t like the change. Blizzard is taking spell damage away from us, so increasing what little SoC does is meh.
Sanctified Judgements: Anything that increases mana. :)
Improved Avenging Wrath: THAT’s a nice talent.
Zealotry: OMG MUST HAVE. Hehe. Seriously, that’s good stuff.
Improved Crusader Strike: I’d take it for the damage increase, the anti-dodge is extra.
Avenging Guarding: Very solid. Assuming the new Expansion increases abilites the way TBC did, this will be a 1k+ heal every 15 seconds.
My Ret build would be 58 points for PvE and as much as 63-65 for PvP. This tree is still very expensive. Which may be a good thing considering the healing power contained in the Holy tree.
October 23, 2008 at 1:40 am
With the new patch, I am very pleased with the improvements for paladins. I was Ret up to lv60, then respecced to Holy for the guild I was in, then the guild went south and I was stuck with Holy (couldn’t afford a respec). I was having a difficult time killing things as a healer and almost just gave up. Now, with the new patch, Holy has been beefed up and I can dish out damage with the best of them… as Holy. Here are some of the improvements I like.
Holy Shock – Love the reduced cooldown. 6 seconds is excellent.
Three different Judgements, plus Seals not consumed – I have a choice of what I want to do without needing to waste a second to refresh my seal. Seals lasting two minutes now and not being consumed is a mana saver. Judgement of Wisdom and not spending mana refreshing the seals means I don’t run out of mana when fighting.
Spell power vs. spell damage/healing – This helps Holy go on the offensive a lot. Now instead of being forced to stick to heal bonuses, they just focus on spell power and can do both. They can level and fight mobs when soloing, and heal when grouped without switching gear. A major plus.
Now for thinks I was a little disappointed with.
No Seal/Judgement of the Crusader – My favorite seal/judgement ever, gone. With this seal gone, it took away some power from paladins, since paladins are all holy and physical damage, and the holy damage bonus fron Crusader was very much welcome. Now that it’s gone, I am sad.
Judgements only last 20 seconds now – Considering that a real DPS paladin will be casting Judgement every 8-10 seconds, this shouldn’t be a problem, but as a healer, I always cast a judgement (which depended on the class the tank was) before moving to my healing task. Now that the time has been reduced, that means I must take my focus off healing more often to recast the judgement. I tend to just ignore it and focus on healing now.
Additions I would like to see with the expansion:
I would like to see at least one group heal and one heal over time in the Holy tree (perhaps an Improved Consecration that damages mobs and heals allies). Holy Shock is a nice instant heal that is a must have for any healer, but a heal over time would be good too.