Recently I’m excited to announce a new website made by one of our community members here at retpaladin.com. The website is http://gladiatorinterviews.com/ and it offers a new way to get inside the minds of some of the most serious of arena players. http://gladiatorinterviews.com/ offered to interview me and I gladly accepted. Head on over and check it out, and also notice the sexy paladin in the banner! I’m sure we will hear more from them and we will probably be working with them on bringing some more up to date arena information.
Also before I get into my post today about pvp specs I want to make everyone aware of a few changes in items;
Libram of Reciprocation now gives Your Judgement of Command spell a chance to grant 173 critical strike rating for 10 sec. (Old – Haste Rating)
Also Wintergrasp marks of honor now have some more interesting rewards of;
Titan-Forged Plate Helm of Triumph 40 Marks
Titan-Forged Greaves of Triumph 15 Marks
Anvil of the Titans 25 Marks
It also seems that Blizzard is closing in on how to reproduce the Judgment bug; you can read more here
Oh and one more small thing;
* Glyph of Hammer of Wrath – Reduces the cost of Hammer of Wrath by 100%. (Old – Increases the range on Hammer of Wrath by 5 yards.)
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On to the topic of why you are here today; PvP.
How do you spec for pvp?
Here are the pvp builds I find to be acceptable;
This build is the commonly accepted spec by serious arena players. Notice the 2/3 Sanctified Seals for a buffer on things to not get dispelled. This is more important in larger sized arenas, specifically 3s and 5s because of the amount of control you need to hold in those brackets during game play. The 1/2 Imp Might is a debatable choice of points, but it all depends on what comps you run on where that 1 point would be most valued.
This build focuses on snagging 3/3 Sanctified Seals, with the increase of mana cost and Blessings and Hands being separate it is debatable on how important 2/3 Sanctified Seals are.
This build is for people who don’t feel that the toughness slow reduction is helping them as much as an additional damage reduction against spell damage.
This build is a bit different from the normal spec that we are used to looking at. The main focus here, is the reduction of CC time. I find that in larger brackets; again, that Imp HoJ, while is amazing don’t get me wrong, but if you are throwing 1 6 second hammer compared to the reduction of 9 seconds of CC on you for the past minute, it is a toss up of what is more important to the game. Depending on comp, you might want to try this spec out. I just wish Holy had something better to snag for the first 5 points. I take Seals of the Pure for the option of swapping to Seal of Vengeance and using it on high armor targets to get a full stack on before a swap burst to basically negate the effect of some heals.
*UPDATE*
A lot of people seem to have questions on some choices in the builds. I’ll review a few things which made me pick the things I did;
Judgment of Command is an auto crit on a stunned or incapacitated target, when you burst a target down with a teammate you usually have the target stunned or helpless in one way or another. It severely diminishes the value of Fanaticism in PvP. You just don’t need them to crit at random times.
Deflection over Benediction; Benediction is 10% less mana. Deflection is 5% less melee damage. To be able to parry a disarm, parry a Mortal Strike, makes this an amazing survivability talent. It is that little bit of defense in a strong offense.
Kings is nice but it isn’t worth what else you are giving up. Plain and simple. If I could get it without loosing something important I would.
Oh and umm Streaming PvP / Fun times next week; I’ll update people accordingly.
-Slayton
December 13th, 2008 - 1:07 pm
You forgot the 1h/Shield spec. *wink*
December 13th, 2008 - 1:30 pm
I am pretty sure that 2/3 Sanctified Seals doesnt work anymore, since it will try to dispel the seal after all the other buffs are dispelled.
December 13th, 2008 - 4:34 pm
Curious…why no Kings in any of the builds?
That extra health is really nice sometimes.
December 13th, 2008 - 5:26 pm
No fanaticism? 25% extra crit chance on our judgement seems pretty good to me. Though that 5 points is pretty costly.
December 13th, 2008 - 7:46 pm
Wtf, an interview without a centerfold picture? what a rip off….. haha
December 13th, 2008 - 7:55 pm
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0ebVrZxfrtrhufMsrzuo
Something like this will be my spec probably. With people wearing no resilience you would want the defensive abilities of the paladin, and less caring about the extra +crit when you already got 40% just with 1 talent.
December 14th, 2008 - 12:24 am
Do you seriously play with deflection over benediction in all your builds?
December 14th, 2008 - 4:00 am
I actually find deflection to be a good idea…though i’ve never tried it myself. but parrying an opponents attack can be the difference from winning or losing when come those epic arena battles where it comes down to 1v1.
December 14th, 2008 - 4:01 am
I’ve been looking at several builds and I must say the post is interesting albeit that I can’t really find myself in your proposed builds. I’ve been puzzling a while to decide which build works for me. I’ve come up with the following: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaeb0cZVfMtrbufMsgzho
I find that improved HoJ is a must! My main focus is to do 2v2 arena with a frost mage. I’d like to be able to gain 10% more stats for us two from BoK since I think that BoM / BoW are lackbuster for PvP. Also my spec leaves me with two points that could fit in anywhere still. (I’ll probably put them in Crusade for a 4% damage addition.)
Let me know what you think!
December 14th, 2008 - 4:21 am
Rueben let me ask you one thing. How long do you expect games to last in the beginning of season 5 with 40 resilience?
Anything that gives me a bit more survivability is better than a bit mana.
December 14th, 2008 - 9:26 am
hmmm some of the builds are nice but ret seems to still lack 3 major things in 2v2 and 3v3 arena that most other classes bring:
Control
Utility
Useful CC
Sure solid burst+ burst will do rather well for most of season 5 but the second folks start getting reasonable amounts of resilience things like arcane mages and droods with have easy kite contest going on.
Not saying the builds are bad,just holy looks like it will prolly do much better overall.(maybe even prot if they give it a distance closer)
December 14th, 2008 - 11:42 am
I’d have to disagree there Diceman. We got utility, we can dispel, heal, buff and give freedom. We got good burst, good survivability and a few CC’s. We are not supposed to have it all.
And for arcane mages, just a matter of time before they all go frost again. Druids will kite as they always did since thats their only way to survive, seal of justice and repeat.
December 14th, 2008 - 11:46 am
The only thing I like about fanaticism is the synergy with Art of War.
Anyway, I agree with Felic in so much that I believe that deflection will be better at the start of the season when there is little resilience floating around. However I also believe that by the end of the season we will have faded into benediction as the first 5 point starting talent choice.
ANd ya it sucks that we can’t get kings for our caster buddies anymore. Oh well we will have to make due =/
December 14th, 2008 - 12:58 pm
No resilience eh? I’m not so sure about that; once pvp gear is available the min/maxxers (I am one) will have it. PVE gear has haste all over it now… Anyways, deflection is not even a consideration for me after doing alot of pvp at 80. I’d like to hear Slayton’s take on this specific issue?
December 14th, 2008 - 1:15 pm
Oh and just to say, I am not interested because I want to be an e-thug or think I’m 100% right. For me it was natural choice so I’m curious to hear an analysis like there were for other talent choices.
December 14th, 2008 - 1:52 pm
Why would you guys NOT max crusade and take things like Fanaticism and Imp HoJ which has massive DRs in PVP…
Blows my mind…
Toughness is a debatable talent but considering you should be playing with some sort of class that has a snare I think the 6% damage reduction is better overall than situational usage of Toughness.
December 14th, 2008 - 3:35 pm
When you parry you not only negate the damage of a MS etc, but you are also granted melee haste. Just remember that.
December 14th, 2008 - 3:41 pm
Lanta, you need to put at least one point in righteous vengeance, becuase this takes rogues out of stealth and mages out of invis if they have this tick..ive won too many duels and battles for this reason not to point this out.
December 14th, 2008 - 8:41 pm
Guys, keep in mind that not everyone is going to have little resil. Don’t forget about the folks that farmed raids/five mans and purchased arena gear with tokens. Also the craftable sets that give resil. If you go into season 5 with no form of resil at all, you’re going to get wiped.
December 14th, 2008 - 9:55 pm
@felic
I was just thinking maybe a akward holy/holy or holy/restro drood pure survivalist teams would work better overall later down the line as it seems blizz is absolutely intent on buffing every other class into
godmode pvp while subsequently ear raping rets pvp viability (they already started with the 10 sec joj thing and “judgment bug working as intended,will fix in 9 months” thing).
Also what you mentioned other classes do as well or better,sure damage is increased but damage naver has or ever will be the end solution for pally pvp issues.
December 15th, 2008 - 12:51 am
@Pandin: as you can see my spec is not focused on entirely on the offensive abilities. I believe in the beginning (atleast the first 2 months), people will be doing so much damage that I find it more fit to take divine guardian and toughness up, rather than full fanatiscm and imp hoj. I still got 2 points in HoJ, but I dont actually like it. The toughness is because I will be giving my freedom away basicly all the time, and use it to remove stuns on others, not myself. The -6% damage taken is dispelable, and it doesnt do as much as you would think (atleast not in level 70). Either you’re dead or you’re not, those 6% wont matter anymore, however 30% from divine guardian will!.
@Reuben: What does Slayton have to say? Just ask yourself, would you prefer a parry or dying with 60% mana or 50% mana? Atm I am doing duels and 1on1 I always get killed or kill before I run oom, imagine with a healer giving you some mana and how fast fights are determined. Deflection might save you for 1 more hit compared to Benediction that wont really benefit you before you can use your entire manapool (fights wont last longer than 2 minutes really.)
@Diceman: I think holy paladins got a better shot at arenas now, but I still think they are broken. Problem is we are to dependant on casts, and we got no offensive spells really. 2xholy wont be able to outlast 1xresto druid and 1xdps for example. You might be able to pull it off manawise with Divine Plea and drinking, fights will take 30 minutes and you will rarely be able to kill a team with any healer, is that the way you want to go
?
December 15th, 2008 - 12:56 am
I’ll be happy to “defend” my spec choice some more, but one of the reasons are also Im going to run retri/warr/shaman, you can read how I used to play on gladiatorinterviews.com ;o)
December 15th, 2008 - 1:17 am
The Only question I have is Divine Guardian, doesn’t this talents damage go through divine shield?
December 15th, 2008 - 2:15 am
No Dragonspear it does not. Or at least when I have used it I see “(0) Divine Guardian” on my SCT
December 15th, 2008 - 3:30 am
Slayton, I think leaving out Fanatacism is actually crippling to any PvP spec for a Ret paladin at this stage in the game. Judgement is such a huge amount of our damage against every opponent and regular crits with it offer utility through Art of War. I consider it second in priority only to Vengeance.
Eye for an Eye is an unnecessary buggy CC breaker. I wouldn’t let it near me in an arena.
December 15th, 2008 - 3:33 am
And yes, I’m aware that a target that is stunned has an auto crit attached anyway, but Judgement is not something that you cannot afford to spam and requiring an autocrit to fire a heal off could be a long wait. What’s more not every ret paladin is going to play in an environment where stuns occur every 7 seconds. Stuns will be trinketed, avoided, BoFed and more importantly mace stun is gone. The only class that is going to be throwing around stuns that often are rogues and if you play with a rogue then by all means drop it.
I will be playing with a frost mage and a disc priest most likely. Neither are stun heavy. Both are high survivability classes, which means more heals are better.
December 15th, 2008 - 5:29 am
Disc priest… Survivability?????
HAI GAIS 10K crit. Btw, Art of War resets swing time and heals for absolutly shit when debuffs are on.
December 15th, 2008 - 7:54 am
Toughness also makes up for the armor loss from beserker
December 15th, 2008 - 9:02 am
You should really check your tone before responding to people.
Art of War has saved my arse even in the resilienceless environment we’re in now. It might heal for “shit” but “shit” happens to be greater than “nothing” and it means I don’t have to stop and sit there like a lemon for 2 seconds waiting for a heal to cast. It’s not Holy Shock or Nature’s Swiftness but it’s not meant to be. It adds up.
As for disc priests, do you think those 10k crits are going to last that long? We’re looking at the worst possible burst damage that can exist right now – a resilienceless wasteland with people throwing around Deadly Gladiator level attack damage with nothing to counteract it. It’ll take a little while and maybe even a patch to get the traditional healer/dps back on track but it will happen and when it does Disc Priests will be doing exactly that. Surviving.
December 15th, 2008 - 10:52 am
Let me show you a little video we got going around on arenajunkies atm, we got a threat exactly like this discussing the issue.
Rheya you might want to take a look at ” warcraftmovies.com/stream.php?id=96367&stream=1&h=995de88c9ff2aaafd4bac443ab3d3a22 ” and tell me what your Art of War is going to do, the only thing it is good for is if you’re running after a mage… Else its not worth resetting a swing and a proc chance. Btw, you do the math. Target with 900 resilience would still take 16200 damage in 1,5 seconds if crits occured PHUNNY??!?!!
December 15th, 2008 - 12:00 pm
I agree that Fanaticism will be decent now, but I still don’t think that choosing it over other options is good. Regardless, I will try it when the arena season starts, because that’s what I do, and then I will give a more experienced response regarding Fanaticism, no one knows exactly how well it is going to be in arena now.
December 15th, 2008 - 1:26 pm
@Slayton thank you for clearing that up. I know that in beta for a time it was, and that was the last I heard about it. With this new news, especially putting on HoSanc right after you bubble, you can mitigate a lot of damage done to your partner.
In other news I am trying to decide pvp glyphs.
I figure we have 4 options and 3 slots.
Options:
1. Judgement (Obvious)
2. SoComm (Should be going off either every yellow attack or swing provided they aren’t together)
3. Turn Evil (Warlocks and DKs)
4. Hammer of Justice (Because Stunned healers can’t say no)
I think I will be running 1-3, what does everyone else think? I will prolly be posting a pvp blog tomorrow @ anotherpaladin.blogspot.com where I will be looking into these again. Feel free to come over and have fun as its a new blog (and no, ferraro puts me to shame so don’t expect it to be that awesome.)
December 15th, 2008 - 3:20 pm
Anyone can be awesome. ♥
December 15th, 2008 - 10:06 pm
You have yet to meet my mom apparently. There is a limit to who can be awesome. Trust me.
December 16th, 2008 - 1:43 am
Dragonspear, race you to shoulders?
Ferraro, good you have you around! Why can’t we all get along, less pvp more pve
December 16th, 2008 - 8:36 am
My money is on you Felic.
Running new comps that I’m still not sure if they will last. I lost my longtime rogue partner who went back to his PvE Server ><
December 16th, 2008 - 8:41 am
I would say the same :->, well I dont know, lets see. Was quite fast in season4 but this season5 is just totally fucked up.
December 16th, 2008 - 9:11 am
Ya I never got my S4 shoulders. Started the season in mostly Blues and PvE Epics because I had just changed to a brand new female paladin on my pvp server that I was also raiding with. And couldn’t get a steady partner all season =/
Good Luck to you though I hope to be there by the end instead of being stuck in the 1800s-1900s again all season ><
December 16th, 2008 - 9:36 am
At least you got to 1800-1900, I had a bum team mate, couldn’t get passed 1700 with him. All he did was bladestorm and die -_-
December 16th, 2008 - 9:40 am
Bladestorm wasn’t even out yet, I don’t consider post3.0 @ 70 ratings. It was more just a way for select few to achieve missing set items
Mainly because within a week or two ques were horrible =(
December 16th, 2008 - 10:27 am
I was curious as to the possible viability of any Reckoning Specs (Full ret w/ 1 in righteous vengeance out of 5) And going into 5/5 Reckoning… Never considered speccing for this before but considering for an alternative Build for using Divine Storm since in my opinion the further prot talents seem lackluster for me to want to use my off build to grab. Likely could be useful in pvp/arena, and could tank Heroics and stuff (perhaps not 10 mans, but any 5′s….) *especially with the Darkmoon Card: berserking 105/crit and resil on one trinket… omg* Anyways just a brainstorm variation of ret i was considering since DS while awesome and sexy in it’s golden goodness, does remind me alot of whirlwhind. Here’s the build thus far, http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0ebNc0xZVfztbbufMsGzu – What do you guys think?
December 16th, 2008 - 10:30 am
Oh let me add on that build as to that deflection wouldn’t be necessary because you would want to be hit to proc reckoning, You would also likely use Glyph of Flash of light, to increase your net healing off of the Art of war procs. So GoSoC, GoFoL, And glyph of Judgement would be used – The same which can be viable for the Full DS build without having to have any differences in gear, aside from the usual… Sword and Board =)
December 16th, 2008 - 10:46 am
I’m likely going with this build to start out. Imp. RF looks good on paper, but I’m not a fan of having damage reducing effects as buffs that can be dispelled. Sure, it’s one more buff that dispellers have to “eat” through, but Toughness is passive and it has the movement effect baked into it.
I may be wrong though, since I can totally see Season 5 starting out as pure DPS obliteration with little focus on CC, control and healing. So Toughness may be useless in 2′s and 3′s, and IRF might reign king. I’ll let you know how I fare in a couple weeks. =P
EDIT: The “Judgement bug” is apparently fixed.
December 16th, 2008 - 1:25 pm
I notice that most of the builds include righteous vengeance. I realize that under perfect conditions a target slated for CC wouldn’t have the DoT on them (and cause it to break), but I considered that it would end up happening anyways a good amount of the time. I guess what I am asking is breaking stealth > sometimes breaking cc? I haven’t messed around with it so far.
December 16th, 2008 - 4:10 pm
RV doesnt break CC, only sheep-alike spells basicly. Dragonspear, I was also 400 rating above you in s3 – s4 then ;-P So was my teammates hehe, so yeah might not be fair
Though Death knight + retri looks promising.
December 16th, 2008 - 4:11 pm
To be honest, it is a bit hard to settle for a solid pvp talent since resilience is non-existence right now. People like my brother(war) is actually looking for a way to “1 shot” rouges right now. I truly feel that depends on your partners in arena, the talent tree is going to look a bit different for everyone. I mean that’s why there is talent in the first place, so everyone will be a bit more “unique” in their own way.
I think people like me, who don’t play as often and do not have high end s3/s4 gears should start looking for the new blue blacksmith pvp gears, once new season starts, I like to see the prices on those items. $$
To defend FoL as piece’o sh*t…well…don’t we have a new skill at lv80 that will make FoL a bit more useful? And I think many paladin have said in couple post before, we’re not all for dmg?? I mean if my instant FoL can keep my let say my ever so weak(def) rouge alive, I don’t see the problem with me missing a swing, and if you have some extra time, my HL in blue can crit for 10k.
Anyone consider the Glyph for HoW?? I think its very nice glyph for pvp…too bad it doesn’t work @30% anymore…and I don’t see wat’s wrong with Fanaticism? If you going to put that 10% Judgment Glyph why not increase the chance to crit Judgment? The only thing is I feel even with 0 resilience environment, Judgment on a player seem to crit less than when you fighting monsters…I’m not sure, its just me…
By the way, missing 3x Judgment because of the bug on the same player is very annoying =_=
December 16th, 2008 - 6:15 pm
PvP is utter chaos right now with gear levels ranging from a huge spectrum, a slew of poorly understood class changes, and damage far in excess of what can usually be coped with in the opening moments.
Whatever theory you have right now will probably need to be tossed out the window until gear and balance changes stabilize.
As always, the ability to CC and evade CC will reign supreme compared to varying levels of mitigation for fights being counted in seconds. A Death Grip from a DK into a waiting melee group can spell unavoidable insta-gib.
Oh and, watch the disarms…
December 16th, 2008 - 9:01 pm
I saw that you were felic, after I had left the same pve server my rogue did (I rerolled hence 2 human paladins), my rogue ran rogue/rogue when he came back and got 2400 =(
Oh well, I’ll figure out partners somehow ;p
BTW, Latest post is up, Prolly do another pvp post tomorrow to clean things up.
December 16th, 2008 - 10:01 pm
God damn…a whole day of s5 and my arena partner is no where to be seen…I’m getting left behind.
December 16th, 2008 - 10:20 pm
The paladin I plan on making my real arena push with Meka is only lvl 78. However with the arena twitch im feeling I might need to get my DK outta raids and into arenas before bad things happen.
December 17th, 2008 - 4:09 am
My 2s partner is going to be a prot warrior.
We’ll, uh, see how that goes, and if it actually works I’ll report back.
December 17th, 2008 - 4:22 am
i am not sure if others have encountered this but i have noticed that when you judge wisdom, eye for an eye does not work. I was fighting horde yesterday when i noticed this, got crit several times and when i checked the combat log not once did eye for an eye proc
December 17th, 2008 - 6:33 am
Heres my whole take on the “lets leave fanaticism out of it arguement” I understand that you get an auto crit when using command on a stunned opp, but i’ve actually been using blood in pvp cause its a higher damage judgement. Having fanaticism helps me get that crit with blood. i’m level 70, currently no expac and i do wsg 24/7, i’m usually top on damage or close to it, even over the other 79′s believe it or not. without my wings popped i get about 2900 command judgement crits, with blood i get about 3500. Since i play with a nostromos game pad, i dont mind the loss of life i take from the blood judgement, cause one flick of my thumb and i heal it back instantly. the whole arguement is “your bursting down a target that is going to be stunned so the judgement is free crit with command”. But cant we look at this in a different way and say “your bursting down a target so you want the highest damage possible”…and that means Blood, not command, and that means you NEED fanaticism.
December 17th, 2008 - 8:13 am
Yeah, but nobody uses Blood in arena PvP. It puts more unnecessary pressure on your healer
December 17th, 2008 - 9:03 am
Slayton,
I like your most recommended build, but I have a couple points to share.
1) While 3 points in “two hand weapon specialization” might seem good, making it two points and putting that additional point in Improved Blessing of Might is perhaps better for 2’s, definitely better for 3’s/4’s/5’s. Because IBOM increases the AP of all non-caster damage dealers. The only situation where I think 2/2 IBOM might be less useful is when you have more caster partners than non-caster damage dealers, or if you have a warrior with Improved Battle Shout for your partner.
2) Season 5 is going to be all-out dps as I see it. So maybe, just maybe, Improved Righteous fury is better than Toughness for Season 5.
December 17th, 2008 - 9:04 am
You do realise that blood/martyr is a horrible choice in PvP dont you? It does damage on every swing, yes, and does more damage over time than SoC. However SoC is preferable because of its higher burst capability, and simply because you dont cause damage to yourself on every hit.
Justifying using Blood/martyr with the “I can just heal up with instant FoL anyways” is silly since using FoL uses a global cooldown, hence using it instead of a damaging ability will cause a damage loss. The instant FoL’s also cause your autoattacks to reset (Most likely because of a bug) further lowering your damage output.
December 17th, 2008 - 12:42 pm
Why does it put more preasure on your healer. With good gear “AND WITH” Fanatacism, when you crit your judgement with blood you get to instantly heal yourself and replace the lost health. I’m sorry i’m being stubborn, but i really dont see a viable reason as to why NOT to take Fanatacism and use blood instead of falling back on the lesser damaging command and having to waste your stun to garuntee the crit, other than, the cool kids are doing it and say its better so everyone else jumps on the band wagon. i’m really not having a problem fighting against higher levels and keeping myself topped off on health WHILE using blood as my main seal. It provides exactly what the original poster here claims to be necissary “bursting down a target” use the harder hitting judgement. What happens to the paladin who uses his stun only to find out his opponent is running a macro and trinketed immediately…boom there comes the judgement of command on a NON STUNNED target and now what? Repentence? No the paladin already used that too…so now we have a paladin that cant stun for another 30 seconds and is judging at 25% less chance to crit than a paladin who took fanatacism. Or god forbid the guy he stunned didn’t trinket, but he has an awesome healer who managed to outheal the “burst” now what does the paladin do? swing Johny Swing! and hope your judgements crit.
No thank you. I’ll keep Fanatasism and use my stun for stopping runners, stop healers from healing ect..ect…and enjoy watching my judgements crit over and over without having to rely on the weaker seal of command + wasted stun combo.
December 17th, 2008 - 1:02 pm
I feel that I do more damage with blood then my instant FoL recovers me. I could see myself using it in 3s and 5s but in no way can you get by with using it in 2s. Right now 2s is going to be very strong for Retadins with the lack of resilience most people have.
December 17th, 2008 - 1:58 pm
Although Blood/Martyr scale much better than Command, once you start getting really good level 80 weapons you start taking decent sized chunks out of your health (read wings can add up to a 3k health loss), whats more blood/martyr damage go through bubble.
Slayton is also right about the 2s bracket being the ret bracket atm. With little to no resil in the format for now, your crit specs are huge.
Finally, its also nice when you have someone stunned that you know you are gonna crit, so if they are low health and forbearance ain’t up yet you can pop wings to finish them off.
For battlegrounds though I will say martyr is fun.
December 17th, 2008 - 2:10 pm
I play without a healer as double DPS, and SoB/M puts an unacceptable mana and time drain during the course of a medium/long length fight due to the extra heals needed to stay topped off. Often times I’ll have to omit a DS to keep parity with mana regeneration, and healing with a MS effect on yourself is really a crappy situation. It also can mess up the GCD resource in tight moments (CC/anti-CC push).
During a burst opportunity I will use it as a reliable damage boost, but for general DPS I don’t like it. If I go for burst at the start (yay for death grip), I might use it right away.
It all depends on the situation and playstyle; I tend to hang on the defensive by maintaining low cost offensive pressure for a bit until I see a good opening and then popping buffs. Habit I picked up during S4.
December 17th, 2008 - 3:04 pm
The only thing I can say about using Blood, is that it does work for BGs to some extent. But battlegrounds aren’t a focused group of people, there’s usually a lot of chaos in battlegrounds, allowing you to get away with a lot more than you would in an arena match .
And I ask you this, using a blood judgement, and then healing yourself with an instant FoL. It’s more mana consuming, and more time consuming, meaning that while the burst is a bit more, the overall DPS will probably be lower, due to the fact that you have to heal yourself every time, using a GCD, AND resetting your swing timer. Yes, it’s nice to see bigger numbers, but when I look at the big picture, I see that the extra dmg isn’t worth its cost (in most situations)
December 17th, 2008 - 5:10 pm
Blood/Martyr…i like to use that against healers and chase after them. i think its a waste on tanks(prot war), very dangerous against other dps (you never know they will have better gear than you do and you’ll be dropping like flies), and so not worth it against mage or hunter (getting kite is no fun) where you need all your hp to chase after them.
like i said how many people actually getting used to using sacred shield? i think by now most of us are used to using divine plea
have anyone notice disarmed have been a favorite move for war and rouge using against ret paladin?? anyone consider using the new weapon enchant to lower the disarmed time or most of you guys still sticking with mongoose, etc??
by the way, i dislike ret paladin being called “hybrid.” i mean yea we can do a bit of healing and all other stuff, but most of our mana is use for dmg, and w/o mana that’s like a disc. priest hitting ppl with their staff. now that we are sharing the itemization with war and dk. i really don’t think ret paladin should be label as hybrid. i think we should start calling those war with bloodthrist and blood craze “hybrid” instead. don’t they have healing abilities using rage?? i saw they heal about 800 each tick. . .meh. . .
December 17th, 2008 - 5:30 pm
The new weapon enchant doesn’t stack with Pursuit of Justice. and you ARE taking Pursuit of Justice RIGHT?!
December 17th, 2008 - 6:24 pm
to be honest, it seems pursuit of justice is ret paladin’s trademark, but is it necessary? well its true in the end, it does seems we’re giving up a weapon enchant and movement speed for 2 talent points?? just trying to see which weights more
December 17th, 2008 - 10:09 pm
You will not have anything else to spend points on once you’re doing 80 pve OR pvp. Pursuit of justice helps you get to your target faster, TOTALLY necessary for paladins. Weapon enchants that help dps take priority, get pursuit of justice every time.
December 18th, 2008 - 2:06 am
Seal of Blood going through DS is kinda stupid, but whatever. Seal of Justice… Now there’s a debate.
December 18th, 2008 - 7:40 am
I think you should actually do the math with pursuit of justice
, assuming the player u’re chasing has the minor speed enchant somewhere (+9% speed) it would actually take you hella lot of time to catch anything. I cant remember where but it would take around 5 minutes to catch 100 yards if I recall correctly.
December 18th, 2008 - 11:44 am
Yeah, and you have something called JoJ. Never mind that without PoJ, even with JoJ on the target you likely will get additional out of range messages due to lag. It also means a split second snare as you cleanse off a frost nova can be recovered.
PoJ is essentially mandatory for PvP, end of story.
December 18th, 2008 - 2:51 pm
Yeah, I’m gonna have to say PoJ is much required in PvP. +Movement speed and -Disarmed duration is pretty vital, especially for a class with no closer and is wholly dependent on having a weapon equipped. And it’s only 2 points. Plus, it’ll save your enchants for other, more useful things.
December 18th, 2008 - 4:25 pm
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=000000000000000000000000001453200003000000000000000502302512223302302135201301
Sorry for the wow link. But i think this will be my pvp build when i get some pvp gear… too bad everyone will already have a boat load by the time i get the blue stuff.
December 19th, 2008 - 1:10 am
I have to disagree still, it is a PvP talent, you will pick it up, but if I lacked the points I wouldnt give a rats ass about it, I never used it beneficial when I got gladiator season 3 or season 4, Judgement of justice works just fine. The -disarm duration is nice however, however that is a new thing. I’d prefer other talents and a metagem / foot enchant to give minor speed. For the argument with “lag and frost mages”, GL vs. a frostmage, only way you have to get to them is basicly freedom or bubble.
December 19th, 2008 - 4:02 am
You don’t bother to cleanse roots and snares fighting a frost mage?
HoF alone will not solve your kiting problems. You’re not going to out-bubble a mage with two ice blocks. Nor an arcane mage with instant invisibility.
HoF gets spellstolen if you use it at range, so you need to save it by using cleanse until you get hit with multiple stacks or get into melee range; never mind if you’ve used HoF on a teammate. Without PoJ to keep up with the constant snaring and blink in a cooldown war using cleanse, you’re just giving them more time with less pressure since you can’t close as fast.
It also gives a rather hefty boost to mount speed without the aura switching, which can be an odd lifesaver (mostly in 5v5 comps, or BGs)
After they added the disarm resistance it’s a no-brainer. Nothing like closing the distance on someone and having a warrior intervene-disarm, letting you punch with a shield for 10 seconds without PoJ.
I really don’t know what you would consider *more* important for PvP that you would not take it–any examples?
December 19th, 2008 - 6:49 am
As I said, I’d take it because I got the talent points for it and the new -disarm duration effect, but fighting a frost mage is retarded either way, you will fail to dispel nova when you have 5 stacks of deep freeze on you or he just re-applys a new nova. Goal is also to kill him before 2nd iceblock. HoF will not be spellstealed if you have righteous fury, sacred shield, blessing of might, vengeance and other buffs. Any good frost mage will basicly tear you apart with blinking on hammer, trinketting repentance and should you have some 3rd stun unknown in game he just iceblocks and re-blinks with 2xnovas.
In 5on5 you talk about not bothering to switch to crusader aura? Why would you not use it from the beginning to get your team upfront, then switch retribution aura/resistance aura. This talent is shit and I’d like to come up with a better idea if they asked me, that +6% run speed it gives aside from a gem is braindead.
Sorry to sound like an arrogant prick, but I do know what I am talking about and this talent is absolutly helping you in no way to really catch an opponent. Ask yourself how many times you used repentance or HoJ to stop an enemy, tell me one of those times you actually caught up to him then to see him fly away. Dispelling on roots? ofcause, take a swing and pop a dispel… repeat. You’re basicly saying a +6% speed increase is good as a closer.
December 19th, 2008 - 8:17 am
How come I dont see these new items with the quartermaster? Am I missing something here or just stupid and going to the wrong guy?
December 19th, 2008 - 9:41 am
Did 10 games today with a DK some epics, mostly blues, myself in mostly heroic naxx10 man gear went 9-1, only lost to dk mage because mage invisded at start so we thought rogue wasnt paying attention and ate 9k arcane barrage crit and a 10 k pom pryo crit and died, beat them next game easily, good spec i liked it
December 19th, 2008 - 12:42 pm
So basically you admit you’re wrong, and there’s no other more important PvP talent in that tier. PoJ is an *option*; you can get other talents, especially in a PvP build where there’s never enough talents to get everything you want. You say it’s shit, but you can’t point to anything else?
If runspeed was so unimportant, why does nearly everyone enchant for it in PvP? I mean, even you already assume everyone has it in your statement that you’re only getting a 6% speed boost with PoJ.
And of course I don’t bother to cleanse multiple stacks–did you bother to read my post?
Here, let me quote:
“HoF gets spellstolen if you use it at range, so you need to save it by using cleanse until you get hit with multiple stacks or get into melee range”
Durrrr?
You don’t use crusader aura unless needed because that’s 2 GCDs you have to eat to swap back and forth, which blunts your pursuit. With PoJ I can stay in ret aura and run right next to someone without invoking a GCD so I can start spamming things right away instead of being unable to start as I wait 1.5 sec for an aura switch. Someone roots you at that time and you can’t even cast a HoF waiting for the GCD to finish; suddenly you find yourself being kited again. I’ve owned myself not being able to cast DS or HoJ because of the GCD–anything that helps me not use it is an improvement in my book.
How is that not helpful in chasing someone down? Really, ‘helping you in no way’ at all?
You have a 30 second window to get a frost mage after the first iceblock. If you have no speed advantage, a mage can simply keep running, spamming spellsteal until they get HoF–then they open up on you and it’s GG. I can’t count the number of times that has happened swapping targets back and forth thanks to the lack of an intercept. Sure, fighting a frost mage is hard, but to give up before you even start… well, that’s just terrible. If a mage plays flawlessly I probably won’t win. But if they make a mistake, they’re easy to take down.
December 19th, 2008 - 3:46 pm
so many talents, not enough points, can’t get them all…how’s everyone’s pvp talent working so far?? i have couple questions regarding these talent points again…anyone have problem with oom in pvp lately?? do you die b4 you used up all your mana or you die because you run out of mana??
i didn’t have much time for games because of work *sigh…so the only information i can get is just reading numbers and words, so the main question i want to ask is, do we really need 3/3 on judgment of the wise? will 2/3 be enough for our pvp needs? i mean for 1-3 points, we get the same mana back only to increase our chance of the replenishment goes up. will 66% be enough? save that one point for HoJ?
another talent in question is sanctified seals vs fanaticism, first of all, how likely is our seal being dispel? will our seal being dispel able be a good thing?
3 points for 3% crit for both spell and melee vs 3/5 15% crit for judgement.
i keep going at fanaticism because i feel sheath of light, glyph, and pvp set have become more favorable to judgement spell dmg. so i’m wonder if this is wat blizzard wants…and you can still judge while you disarm right? but then again…judgment bug…
o and last thing, sacred duty2/2 reduce atk speed penalty while bubble. since they are changing our bubble to reduce our dmg instead, wat will become of this talent?? will it let us have 100% dmg while in bubble?
December 20th, 2008 - 1:11 am
Let’s try to keep debates that become more individual to PM’s. I welcome debates as long as they are generally focused at the topic and that alone, some of the comments I’ve seen are drifting towards a head to head. While I won’t ban or remove comments made in this fashion, I do frown upon it. However, I understand the thin line and just know even I cross it at times for reasons I feel are fair.
Let that be just a heads up to everyone as we continue this conversation.
December 20th, 2008 - 8:50 am
Drops I am not trying to insult you, and dont take things out of context. The speed is important, but the enchant can pretty much do all thats needed. I dont think theres other talents important enough to actually skip it since I like Icewalker aswel. But the feet enchant could do the trick, I think they should revamp the talent to something we could use as a real closer.
December 20th, 2008 - 11:46 am
Like Pursuit of Falcon Punch Justice.
December 20th, 2008 - 5:21 pm
Yeah, and it could knock the enemies even further away
December 21st, 2008 - 1:03 am
Engineering Nitro Boost!
December 21st, 2008 - 5:54 am
Well, someone has to admit that what actually makes us catch people is not PoJ talent, but a shaman shocking, a mounted charge, a warrior intercepting, a deathknight griping, a rogue crippling, a hunter wingclipping/concussiving, a mage slowing, a warlock slowing/fearing and defently not a paladin as the only class without a slower.
December 21st, 2008 - 2:25 pm
Btw, is it on time that you get this site up to date again with arena teams, best gear optainable etc
? Feels like we only got the comments left concerning wotlk discussions.
December 21st, 2008 - 9:09 pm
When it comes to abilities, catching isn’t a yes or no, black and white answer. There are abilities that vary in effectiveness and that work in conjunction with other things. That also holds true for everything.
Depending on the context, some things will we beneficial for the cost, other not.
Looking at one thing in a vacuum, devoid of the appropriate situation will not lead to the correct analysis.
December 22nd, 2008 - 12:22 am
Sup Freud?
December 22nd, 2008 - 4:00 am
I checked out Arena last night for about 50 straight games of 3′s. My comp was me, a Hunter and a DK. We ended up with a respectable 1739 rating. *shrugs* One of the more powerful comps we saw out there was Ret/Ret/Frost Mage. They beat us four times in a row until we unlocked their strat and then we eeked out two wins (gogodivineguardian). Outside of that, Rets pair up extremely well with DKs it seems. The combination of pulls, stuns, silences, Freedoms, and burst had pretty vicious results every now and then. My Hunter has 26k HP, and he once got drilled to zero inside of three seconds.
We’ll see what the following weeks bring as more and more people gain Resilience.
December 22nd, 2008 - 6:15 am
Could have told you about that Divine Guardian ;o), with no resilience it is a lifesaver. I am using it in 2v2 with my resto shaman as retribution. Currently we got 1840, but you do know that a BM hunter has the most damage atm Arenawise with 2xBW
December 22nd, 2008 - 9:54 am
still hoping for a response on those wintergrasp pvp rewards. I do not see the helm, trink or the greaves for marks at the quartermaster. Is it located somewhere else?
December 22nd, 2008 - 11:37 am
No it will be implemented later on Demonic, in the upcomming patches.
December 22nd, 2008 - 11:59 am
Trying to PvP here, but I couldn’t even get vent to work properly with the packet loss on comcast. :T
DK is a great partner however, finally providing that anti-caster/anti-kite suite in a persistent presence. Nothing like death gripping someone into an anti-magic zone and watching dps casters freak out.
December 22nd, 2008 - 5:03 pm
Sorry Slayton, all your builds are terrible. No one uses SoC.
December 23rd, 2008 - 7:07 am
Considering you got SoC yourself I would pretty much say you just failed that one.
December 23rd, 2008 - 11:45 am
I’m curious why people include Vengeance. Is this a no brainer? Especially considering that people may not take Fanaticism which would increase your Vengeance being up. It seems to me like the damage increase, especially in a high resil environment, wouldn’t be justified.
What do people think about leaving Vengeance out?
December 23rd, 2008 - 3:43 pm
There are Paladins that are choosing SoB’s “burst” potential (usually from Judgements) in Arena right now since there’s very little strategy, especially when compared to the last two Seasons. It’s basically everyone throwing Nuclear-tipped Falcon Punches at each other and the last one alive after 15 seconds wins. But as Slayton mentioned, depending on your comp, SoComm can crit just as often (and sometimes even more) than Blood/Martyr due to stuns.
Of course, as the Season wears on and more people will get Resilience, all the reflective Blood/Martyr damage and those crits that are no longer happening as often will become more and more of a liability than a benefit.
December 23rd, 2008 - 5:41 pm
Ferraro said ” But as Slayton mentioned, depending on your comp, SoComm can crit just as often (and sometimes even more) than Blood/Martyr due to stuns.”
I agree and disagree. See, i’m a huge arguementor (dont know if thats right but i’ll use it) in savor of taking Fanatacism…i know a huge populace of the paladins dont take it and rely on socomm to crit on stunned opponents. “IF” the paladin in question is one of the latter, then no his crit wont go off “just as often” cause he will still get the autocrit on the stunned opp but other than that, he will be judeging at a 25% less chance that others like me.
And this is exactly what i predicted and exactly what i was needed for pvp in todays game. If your bursting, then you want to be throwing (i love this analogy) Nuclear-tipped falcon punches. If your bursting, you need to be judging blood, not command cause of its higher damage, and this means you NEED fanatacism. And be damned to the arguement “but it puts preasure on your healer”….i say, “WHAT THE HELL IS THE HEALER THERE FOR?” Preasure? Preasure?!!! Preasure on the healer? By asking them to Heal? What are we wanting our healers to do? Sit there watching us Judge with command (so as not to make them heal us) and eating a ham sammich that belongs to me anyways? Screw putting preasure on the healer, make them heal…its their JOB!
December 23rd, 2008 - 6:43 pm
Ah, but what about those of us that run without healers.
December 24th, 2008 - 5:33 am
I played vs. a druid/hunter, the druid had 730 resilience and the hunter 550. I am playing with resto shaman and I had to switch SoB/SoC depending on the pressure on my healer and their cooldowns. I ended up winning the manawar since the druid had so much resi and no regen that he could not keep up with my switching, and fanatiscm kinda made the game by making me switch and instantly crit. SoB/SoC switching saved me since I almost killed myself with SoB at one point. But you try to kill a tree with 200% armor and 730 resilience, and he was not a gimp druid, he used to play 2400+. For 2xrogues I use SoB for example, basicly because I need to whack them faster than they whack my shaman. Doing 1850 before I took xmas break.
December 25th, 2008 - 10:15 am
How would you guys recommend to gem your PvP gear? All out DPS stats vs a mix of resi/stam/damage stats?
Any tips would be awesome, constructive tips would be even more awesome
December 25th, 2008 - 10:41 am
I’ve always gemmed more for STR than anything else. But yes, you can mix it up with some STR and Resil.
December 26th, 2008 - 4:44 am
Currently I am gemming resilience + crit since we lack so much of it. Gemming strength gets you a shitty rate of critstreaks.
December 27th, 2008 - 5:18 am
Cheers chaps, might perhaps be an idea to add some PvP gemming tips to this article Slayton?
December 27th, 2008 - 4:14 pm
Okay Felic, I’ll bite. I had SoC for my 3s, since I do occasionally (read: once every 5 games) have to use it.
I’m currently #1 and #2 in 5s, the first team being well over 100 points ahead of the second. Top 3 in 3s, although I’m making a new team. (bop the warrior and Betrayers of Humanity being the 5s teams, Ret Paper Scissors being the first 3s)
Martyr is just much better than command, plain and simple. I don’t think you guys have adjusted to the new changes, although I must say I don’t think Slayton ever did. I remember in Season 3 when Ret was just changed, and I hit #2 in 3s undefeated (#1 team was inactive and well above everyone else). After that success, I wanted to raid as Ret. However, I didn’t know anything about PvE Ret, so I asked the only person I knew that PvE’d as Ret back then, Slayton, and after talking a bit about PvP, I realized he was clueless. He may very well be the resident expert on PvE, and it’s obvious he’s done a lot for the class both with this site and on other forums, but honestly, I don’t think you should be turning to him for advice in this season.
You’ll get all the resilience you need from the PvP set / offset, there is 0 need to gem for it since if you are swapped to at the right time, you will die in one global. I have just shy of 500, and our only loss in 5s I died in exactly 1 second, to 27k damage. I got stunned, hit freedom, and died before I had the global to shield. I’m sure 16 resilience would have saved the day. Gemming crit is equally worthless.
December 27th, 2008 - 8:13 pm
Hello Axreal, if I were sober I would have loved to take on the talk, however as long as I am quite drunk (yes in Denmark we can drink at the age of 16) I would have liked to give you a proper answer. yes, I was wrong about SoC/SoB but if you were here just a bit more, you would have read a bit longer than just the “SoC” is the answer, (as it is somehow) and you would be able to see that SoM/SoB is not the only answer. Many games you have to put a brain into using SoB/SoC since you have to switch depending on your situation, I made sure that I had shitloads of pressure towards a druid (in treeform @ GG) being purged, while I switched to the hunter meanwhile to get the druid OOM. Vs. a priest rogue I had to CC the rogue wilge being on the priest, but it is not everytime that the shaman has the choice to actually heal you, and you pop the bubble. Tell me just how many times have u not been pressured to actually bubble? If u tell me you can just use AW as you want, I will call you a liar, since this it how it goes. SoB untill you feel you need to bubble. Vs. healing teams (read holy/dk) you HAVE to you SoB/M wisely for a quick burst, or the paladin gets the advantage. If you dont spec SoC i’d like to go Arenajunkies with you, I am sure I will find u with SoC 100%, and i u want to brag, yes I was in the tournament aswell called ESL League meaning if we qualifed we were going live tv, except hello we played paladin shaman ;o)
December 27th, 2008 - 8:18 pm
Spelling is for free