I'm seeing more and more people shy away from Ret specs for leveling and going towards holy. Is it because +dmg is easier to get for current Pallies?

I'm planning on rerolling a BE Pally in Burning Crusade and don't have any experience with the deeper talents. If you've played a Warrior for over 2 years and decided to start a new Pally, what tree would you take?

Edit: Double post like woah

I think it's more because Holy is a much more solid tree and the effects of going Holy are a lot stronger than going down Retribution.

Retribution is more of a leveling or a PvP tree with CruStrike and Repentance. Sure, you get some damage in Crusade, you get crit, parry, vengeance, etc. which is bread and butter for melee damage.

In Holy though you get solid stat and group-oriented bonuses, and versatility in damage and healing with Holy Shock.

Add the fact that dmg/healing meshes together decently well in both Judging targets and healing others, and you have a well-rounded winner, whereas with Ret you're probably grasping at melee DPS gear and giving up Judgement and healing power, so...

Does that help?

Personally I'm planning on going Retribution for the 'old world', and contemplating respeccing when I reach Outland. Mostly because Retribution benefits the most from 'warrior' DPS stats, which is pretty much all you'll come across throughout Azeroth, while Protection and Holy specs seem to benefit more from spell damage which you don't really have easily available until Outland quests/instances.

That said... Survivability can be nice and save a lot of time while levelling too, and can sometimes allow you to solo stuff you wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

Honestly Blizzard should redesign BoSanc like they did with Curse of Weakness. The current CoW is a flat -AP curse; why shouldn't BoSanc reduce the AP of the mobs attacking you? If a mob with 1000 AP is going to hit you calculate it's damage as if he had 1000AP-x. Ah well, one can hope.


Btw, what is the threat modifier of one point of Holy damage for Paladins and Warriors? Will the Warrior gain as much as threat from the Holy damaged procced by BoSanc as a Paladin would? (I am tending to think no because if all Holy damage done had a threat modifier, wouldn't Holy Priests pull aggro when DPSing with Smite?)

A little bit. I guess I just have a hard decision in front of me. I'll pretty much be power leveling myself with other accounts so I'm not really worried about what I bring to a group until 70. I have no intention of raiding unless Blizzard chills out on the consumable requirements. This character will be specifically for PvP, both solo and arena teams.

I was leaning towards Ret because I've been a Warrior since launch and I feel it would be easier to adjust as Ret. I also think Repentance will be a huge boost to an arena team, giving my Blood Elf a 3rd spell interrupt. I guess I'll just level him up and see how it goes.

I have to disagree - I would say for leveling head straight down to Seal of Command being that while leveling you'll be in strength and stam gear, and SoC works well with just pure AP. Later on you can switch to Righteousness as you begin to acquire spell dmg/heal plate.

I don't think there's any specific threat modifiers for holy damage other than righteous fury - paladin only spell. The way you worded it sounds like you're asking wether there's a fundamental threat modifier for holy damage just because it's holy damage and I don't think so. Sanctuary block damage may carry it's own threat value though, I haven't seen any testing with BoSanc honestly.

I disagree. If you don't need a main tank or a main healer, Ret brings more utility to a raid than any other spec.

Sanctified Crusader is a 3% crit boost to the entire raid against any target. When you factor in the various talents that increase damage from crits either directly or indirectly, that's probably at least a 4% dps boost raid-wide. Improved Sanctity Aura is a 6% boost to all healing on the paladin's group, which is a very nice buff for endurace healing fights. And to top it off, you can maintain judgments from other paladins while they do other things.

There's nothing in Prot or Holy that matches those talents for raidwide benefit, especially in a 25-man.

I really wanted to like UF when I had it, but in pratice it is only helpful in pvp, and acutally hurts some in pve. It doesnt work anywhere near often enough to be counted on, say trying to tank the ony encounter, or a core hound or whatever. On the same note with how fear currently works if everyone gets hit and the 10% resist fires, guess what the big dragon that was being tanked spins to you and kills all the healers.

It hurt more than helped, and if you try to work LoH in, it is really useful, and the cooldown reduction makes it seem to sting less.

(Im still of the mind that they should rework LoH, I agree its powerful and awesome, but the long cooldown combined with the mana drain if have any mana makes it so it is less defining than it could be, espeically since I have druid friends who can crit heal for just as much, and thats not an hour cooldown by any means)

Holy damage doesnt do any more threat than normal damage for warriors and priests (so 1 for 1 for priests, and modified by defensive stance for warriors, (definace et all) but still just basically white damage.

Paladins its the same unless buffed with RF then its improved by 1.6-1.9 (depending on talents)

Command is almost always better than Righteousness for grinding because of mana cost (you should be using rank 1 SoC most of the time).

Perhaps. However, assuming that you are bringing a Ret paladin to a raid, you have to consider that they are taking a DPS slot first.

Now here are my experiences with DPS classes:

Rogues/Fury Warriors: 600+ dps sustained.
Shamans (Enh) 450+ sustained, along with giving the above Unleashed Rage/Windfury.
Kitties: 450+ sustained, possibly more, haven't taken them along in raids much.
Warlocks/Mages: 550+ dps sustained, more/less depending on spec, water elemental, etc.
Hunters: Can't really say, though I suspect at least 400.

Ret paladins: ????

Can a ret paladin even sustain 400 DPS? Most of the dps classes above are more than capable of doing so by themselves, and with buffs hit the levels I just described.

I think that in 25-man raids there'll be a spot for a S.Cru Paladin if you want to surely min/max, but I still think they'll be darn rare, and I can't see it happening much. It will probably come down to whether you need that 2nd (likely) or 3rd (not likely) Blessing that they also provide.

I have to go with Liar on this one. Unless you're super-careful, Spiritual Focus will save your ass often enough to be worth the delay in getting SoC.

Especially in groups. Being able to off-tank is nice, being able to off-heal is nice, but being able to do both at once is worth its weight in gold.

I levelled 1-60 with your classic 41+ Ret build, but I'll probably be Holy/Prot or Prot/Holy to level through TBC. Once I hit 60, I specced 26/25/0. While I learned afterwards that Imp SoR is applied before +dmg and thus mostly a waste, I've been very happy with 2h Reckoning soloing. This build doesn't have the 'loloneshot factor' that you occasionally get with Ret chain crits, but it's great not to be starved for mana all the time, especially when you're worried about being jumped. I also dislike gimping my healing ability with Warrior gear, so I'm sticking with the build that nets me the most soloing power out of caster stats.

My guildmaster hits 400 out of a Ret spec fairly easily. That's with AQ gear (which I assume is around the level you're talking about in the numbers you cited.

Consider the following for typical raid dps, using the numbers you gave:

3 Rogues = 1800 dps
1 Fury Warrior = 600
1 Enhancement Shaman = 450
1 Kitty = 450
3 Mages = 1650
2 Warlocks = 1100
2 Hunters = 800

Total: 6850 dps

That's 13 people on dps, absent the paladin, so we're assuming that your other healers are healing, that your Arms warrior is OTing something, etc.

Now what's the effect of Sanctified Crusader? Without talents, physical damage classes crit for double damage and magic classes crit for 150% damage, so working off of that we might say that physical damage classes get a 1% dps boost per additional point of crit, and magic classes get a 0.5% dps boost per additional point of crit. However, every class has talents that boost the damage done by a crit, either directly (Lethality), as damage afterwards (Ignite), or indirectly (Flurry). As a result, the damage boost due to a crit will be greater than these values. Conservatively, let's say that the overall dps boost to the raid is 1% per additional point of crit.

(You could work out the details by guessing specs for each of these classes and calculating the exact size of the damage boost done by a crit. I strongly suspect that if you did that you'd find overall raid dps goes up by more than 1% per point of crit.)

So the total value of Sanctified Crusader is (conservatively) a 3% increase in raid dps. Using the numbers you gave above, that amounts to 205.5 dps. If the paladin is hitting 400dps personally, then his total contribution to raid dps is over 600 -- equal to what you'd get by adding another rogue or another fury warrior. Comparing him to the kitty or the shaman is a bit trickier, since they also buff the dps of other players. Their buffs are certainly stronger per player, but they only buff one group, whereas the paladin buffs the entire raid. I'm certain that Sanctified Crusader is a bigger raid dps boost than one Leader of the Pack; I'm less certain about Windfury, since I have no working experience with it.

This is not to downplay the value of Holy or Prot -- I'm Prot myself and have no intention of changing in the forseeable future -- but their value depends on whether you need more healing or more tanking. If you do need one of those, then a paladin specced for your need is going to be better than a Ret paladin.

But if you don't need either of those, a Ret paladin is going to help you more. When everyone is staying alive, you have enough healing. When all the mobs are under control, you have enough tanking. But there's no such thing as enough damage. You always want more. And one Ret paladin delivers damage.

And if you're talking about a Ret paladin vs another dps class, the paladin also brings backup healing, offtanking, cleansing, another aura, and another blessing. (And yeah, you do want a third blessing if you can get it. Given the choice, Rogues and Fury Warriors will certainly want all of Might/Kings/Salv, casters will want all of Wisdom/Kings/Salv, hunters will want Kings/Wisdom/Might (now that Might affects RAP), etc. That's another buff to the raid.)

I'm very certain that the paladin will have a place actually in 25-man raids - I kind of got confused and should've said 3rd and 4th blessing in place of 2nd or 3rd.

I think the case is much more muddled in 10man groups, actually.

Secondly, is your guild master on live or on beta? That is a key qualification there actually.

Thirdly: What about the possibility of a S.Cru-bot? Seems to me like there could be a distinct possibility of having a paladin be an okay healer, as well as being a S.Cru bot! Though I doubt you'll find someone who wants to even be that spec. :)

Oh yeah, no question. But I'm expecting that when the dust settles and people know all there is to know about Karazhan, it won't require minimaxing to beat. That would defeat the purpose of it as a place to gear up for 25-mans.

He's in the beta, but I'm referring to his dps on live. To be fair, he's an extremely good player in terms of being able to analyze game mechanics and gear and figure out the route to optimum performance, and he's had 99%+ raid attendance over the last two years so he's pretty much maxed out on the gear he can get from everything up through AQ40. Oh, and he has a Sulfuras. So he probably represents the peak dps for an (effectively) pre-Naxx paladin.

The problem with an SC bot is that the talent is so deep in the tree that you can't go more than halfway deep into Holy if you pick it up, so you miss all the talents that really turn a Holy paladin into an exceptional healer. I'm sure it was placed that deep on purpose, so that guilds who wanted the benefits of having SC would have to come by it "honestly".

Actually for that reason alone they should lower the CD of Crusader Strike to atleast 9 seconds or keep it at 6 seconds with decreased DPS. What are you going to do if that CS misses, gets parried or dodged? Judgements are only active for 20 seconds, so unless you have a ping of 0 or the server gives you leeway, one CS that does not connect means Judgements are lost. Wasn't the utility part of refreshing CS part of the package?

This just feels a lot like imp Hamstring/imp Intercept sort of build. Crusader Strike is really the defining point of the ret tree, it's an at least 20 talent point swing in ret tree investment wether you take it or not. Things like improved sanctity and sanctified crusader are nice, but they're not nice enough to justify a build for themselves without crusader strike. They're a worthy filler on the way to crusader strike.

I can't be certain what I'm going to do at 70. I'm 44 holy 7 prot for the time being and I enjoy this build. Given the game doesn't change too much, I'll probably be 41 holy 20 prot. I played around with a crusader strike build on PTR, and I'm certainly speccing for it for leveling.

Lets try some math, because honestly Im not sure myself.

CT Profile: http://ctprofiles.net/13568 (Note just something I threw together for math there are most likely other builds that are better.)

So rough numbers from that profile: 23% crit, 1000 attack power, weapon dmg range is 289-495, 156 spell damage, 4217 mana, 11 mana per 5.

So white damage:
That paladin deals (1000/14) = 71 * 3.8 (wep speed) = 269.8 + 362 (av wep damage) = 631*1.03(crusade) = 649.

Now Vegence on top of that, This is the major assumption on my math If we assume that between a 23% natural crit rate, + 3% crit from Scantified crusader + 15% crit on judgements the paladin has a large chance to have vengence up all the time. Luck will play a factor but for ease, Im going to say he does have it up all the time.

649 x 1.10 = 714 white damage per swing, so 714/3.8 = 187 white dps.

Now crits, so the paladin crits for double damage 23% of the time, so out of the 15 swings per minute he will take, on average, 3 will crit.

So, 714 x3 = 2142/60 = 35 crit dps.

So total white dps is 222 before mitigation, lets say the mob mitigates 20% of each attack (fully sundered this sounds about right), so 20% less dps, gives the paladin 177 white dps.

Now Seal of the Crusader, which does 70% holy damage 7 times per mintue.

so 714 *.7 = 500 (approx 499.8).
500 x 7 = 3498 damage over a minute, so per second is) /60 = 58

But it like the above, it crits about 25% of the time so 1 crit per minute. 500/60 = 8 more dps from crits.

Now Judgements 240 holy damage, judged 6 times a minute. = 1680 /60 = 28

Again critting but now with a 38% crit rate so of the 6 judgments 2 will crit. Also 8 more dps from crits.

36 *1.03(crusade) *1.10 (vengence) gives us 40 dps from judging.

Now both of these holy damage sorces are modified by scanity aura so.

58 + 8 + 40 = 106 damage from seal and judge *1.10(scanity) = 116 holy dps.

So total now we are up to 116 + 177 = 293 dps.

So far the paladin is basically doing nothing just sealing and judging, now add in CS

714+62(40% holy) *6 = 4656/60 = 77 dps.

Crits give us: 25 more dps. so CS adds = 102 dps.

So Just CS, Seal and Judge gives the paladin 396 dps.

(Note Im going to basically stop here since I hit 400dps, the paladins DPS would actuall be much higher with spell damage up and Seal of the Cursader Judged, also if they wanted to go all out they could add conceration spam in for another 50 or so dps.)

Sustainablity should not be a problem, they are only using 2705 mana per mintue, and they gain 11 mana per 5 from gear, and 33 mana per 5 from BoW, and lastly gain 686 over the minute from judging so...

They lose 2705 mana and gain 1214 mana, = 1491 mana lost every minute, so with no pots, and no outside healing, they can keep going for approx 3 minutes. If the are burning a pot every cooldown, or getting healed they should never run out of mana.

So long answer short, ret pallys with end game gear can easilly hit 450 dps without pots, or outside buffs. Only to get better as they are full raid buffed.

Hmmm, interesting. I will have to take a ret pally along in Karazhan sometime and compare numbers if that paladin is going to be a DPS slot.

Oh, I definitely agree that its the defining point in the tree; however, I'm balancing the vastly improved DPS that it offers against the vastly improved healing potential that Divine Favor provides. Admittedly, if I went for a Retribution-centered, rather than simply focused, build, I'd pick CS up in a heartbeat; however, based on my small-instance experience with the 21/0/30 setup (DF/Venegance) that I'm running at the moment, I just don't know if I'm willing to lose the healing talents.