Psojed
Authorized
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2009
Hey, since there's a lot of discussion going on about other classes but Paladins kinda died, I decided to give a few basic tips to our Pally-wannabes.
The basics:
- Paladin is mainly a defensive and supporting class. If you want only to "pew pew", please go play a warrior.
- Paladins can use plate armor, they can also use shields. This makes gearing rather easy, because nearly any item you acquire can be used.
- Paladins can use One-handed Swords, Axes, Maces, Two-handed Swords, Axes, Maces and Polearms, thus some of the neat caster Daggers won't be available to you, but don't worry - there are suitable replacements.
- Paladins are a melee class. No, there are no holy missiles of vengeance :no:
Pros of being a paladin:
- You can be a tank, heal or deal damage, everything works. With proper setup, you can do all three at once!
- Your class has one of the most versatile talents in the game (in my opinion), so you can experiment with different builds and still do your job just fine.
- You have three PANIC buttons. You can use three PANIC buttons on other players too (tho one will kill you).
- You have useful buffs for every class and almost every situation. You also have debuffs that can help the whole raid if required.
- You are the only class in the game that can have an innate immunity to pushback. That means, you can tank 20 enemies and still heal yourself or others while getting beaten, only your mana is your limit.
- You are the only class in the game that can cast Fear on Undead NPCs.
- Even while being a melee class, you are not that gear dependant.
Cons of being a paladin:
- You have no ranged attack until late game. Can't even throw a rock or somethin'. Your most used ranged ability is Exorcism, which is limited to undead enemies.
- You have almost no combat abilities. You will do just fine with autoattacking, but Paladin's rotation is like 1) Seal up, 2) End of rotation, and repeat that every 30 seconds, sometimes add Judgement. That can get quite boring.
- You have very low DPS. Levelling a Paladin is a pain, and you will want to keep equipping better weapons even if you don't really need to, just to speed it up a little.
- You have no slows, speed boost or ranged stuns, you basically cannot catch an enemy player. It gimps you in low level PvP situations, and you need farmable items or professions to make up for it.
That's about it.
How to levelup as a Paladin
Holy Paladin
Just don't.
Holy tree improves your healing abilities and support skills, so if you plan on playing with a permanent group, go ahead, your group will love the extra mana regen from BoW and JotW. Consecration is a weak AoE, you can't really AoE stuff alone with it. Pushback immunity is the best thing here, but what's the point of boosting healing skills if you won't have the damage to kill an elite?
Protection Paladin
Your best bet.
This tree improves your armor, block and defense making you harder to hit and take less damage, thus you can last longer, +3% hit for not missing your hits, shorter stun cooldown comes in handy anytime, and Reckoning. You can also take on higher level enemies thanks to extra hit and by dealing automatic holy damage even if your melee attack hits for 3.
Grab a shield and the fastest weapon you can get. Keep upgrading them both, but keep the speed as fast as you can.
Your rotation is: Seal of Crusader-> Judgement -> Seal of Righteousness, reseal when required. If you fight more enemies, kill one, then judge Crusader on another enemy and repeat.
Judging the Crusader will add bonus Holy damage to your every hit with Seal of Righteousness, so you want to hit fast. After you get 5/5 Reckoning at level 34, you can make a choice: Keep your shield or drop your shield.
Keep your shield - The best weapon you can get is the Flurry Axe, this will last you until 60 and it's still useful if you plan to be a tank. Reckoning becomes only a bonus in that everytime you get crit, you deal an extra attack back to the enemy, your rotation remains the same.
However, you are not gear dependant, you kill enemies with your holy damage from spells, so you can save for a mount and live off quest rewards.
Drop your shield - You get a big slow two-hander, like The Pacifier and spec for Seal of Command after Reckoning. You will use your Reckoning to store up to 4 extra attacks and you can initiate every combat with a BANG. Oneshotting enemies when well-equipped is possible.
The trick is that you simply beat the npc to low health, at low health you stop autoattack and sit down. This gives your enemy 100% chance to crit you with his autoattack, thus a 100% chance to gain a Reckoning charge. So you get crit 4 times, then finish off your enemy with Judgement, Exorcism or whatever. Your next target will then take 5 autoattacks + seal hit at once.
This will however require upgrading your two-hander on a regular basis, because you want to deal as much damage as possible. Keep the weapon speed above 3.00 and always look for highest weapon damage (not DPS!)
Retribution Paladin
This is the fastest way to level up.
Talents in this tree improve your damage, which means you kill stuff faster. Seal of Command becomes your best friend for damage. You will pray "please proc", but when it procs, they will feel the pain. Extra critical chance, lower mana cost of Seals/Judgements, lower Judgement cooldown, all this is overshadowed by a neat 2 point talent that many people overlook.
Pursuit of Justice that gives +8% movespeed both mounted and on foot. I don't know how people forget that most of the time you keep moving around. This makes you move around faster, and it's available early at level 21. Also the only way you might catch up to someone if you try some PvP. Weapon choice is obvious, you won't be using shields, you want a big slow hammer to beat your enemies hard. There are some specials. You might want to use Ravager longer, because it gives a whirlwind-like proc. And Taran Icebreaker is an exception with very fast attack speed. The reason for this hammer is the fireball proc, which procs damn very often. I once tried if it was better to use Seal of Righteousness with this fast epic, but Commanding is still better.
Seal of Command is a PPM based attack, so the slower your weapon, the more it will proc. It's also great for mana conservation, because a rank 1 SoComm will deal the same damage as rank 5 SoComm. The Judgement damage is negligible, but the proc damage comes from your weapon and attack power, so you can save mana for healing while beating them up, and that means less downtime.
This is the only skill that will scale with your gear. Any other Seals or spels you have get no boost or boost only from spelldamage, which is rare during levelling. Seal of Command will benefit from extra Strength and AP, and there are many items that give you AP, you can even craft some. Don't be afraid to take a shield if you have to, but if you plan to use SoComm with a shield, get a slow onehand weapon with high weapon damage like Heaven's Light.
Hopefully this wall of text will help someone. Ask questions if you want :wink:
The basics:
- Paladin is mainly a defensive and supporting class. If you want only to "pew pew", please go play a warrior.
- Paladins can use plate armor, they can also use shields. This makes gearing rather easy, because nearly any item you acquire can be used.
- Paladins can use One-handed Swords, Axes, Maces, Two-handed Swords, Axes, Maces and Polearms, thus some of the neat caster Daggers won't be available to you, but don't worry - there are suitable replacements.
- Paladins are a melee class. No, there are no holy missiles of vengeance :no:
Pros of being a paladin:
- You can be a tank, heal or deal damage, everything works. With proper setup, you can do all three at once!
- Your class has one of the most versatile talents in the game (in my opinion), so you can experiment with different builds and still do your job just fine.
- You have three PANIC buttons. You can use three PANIC buttons on other players too (tho one will kill you).
- You have useful buffs for every class and almost every situation. You also have debuffs that can help the whole raid if required.
- You are the only class in the game that can have an innate immunity to pushback. That means, you can tank 20 enemies and still heal yourself or others while getting beaten, only your mana is your limit.
- You are the only class in the game that can cast Fear on Undead NPCs.
- Even while being a melee class, you are not that gear dependant.
Cons of being a paladin:
- You have no ranged attack until late game. Can't even throw a rock or somethin'. Your most used ranged ability is Exorcism, which is limited to undead enemies.
- You have almost no combat abilities. You will do just fine with autoattacking, but Paladin's rotation is like 1) Seal up, 2) End of rotation, and repeat that every 30 seconds, sometimes add Judgement. That can get quite boring.
- You have very low DPS. Levelling a Paladin is a pain, and you will want to keep equipping better weapons even if you don't really need to, just to speed it up a little.
- You have no slows, speed boost or ranged stuns, you basically cannot catch an enemy player. It gimps you in low level PvP situations, and you need farmable items or professions to make up for it.
That's about it.
How to levelup as a Paladin
Holy Paladin
Just don't.
Holy tree improves your healing abilities and support skills, so if you plan on playing with a permanent group, go ahead, your group will love the extra mana regen from BoW and JotW. Consecration is a weak AoE, you can't really AoE stuff alone with it. Pushback immunity is the best thing here, but what's the point of boosting healing skills if you won't have the damage to kill an elite?
Protection Paladin
Your best bet.
This tree improves your armor, block and defense making you harder to hit and take less damage, thus you can last longer, +3% hit for not missing your hits, shorter stun cooldown comes in handy anytime, and Reckoning. You can also take on higher level enemies thanks to extra hit and by dealing automatic holy damage even if your melee attack hits for 3.
Grab a shield and the fastest weapon you can get. Keep upgrading them both, but keep the speed as fast as you can.
Your rotation is: Seal of Crusader-> Judgement -> Seal of Righteousness, reseal when required. If you fight more enemies, kill one, then judge Crusader on another enemy and repeat.
Judging the Crusader will add bonus Holy damage to your every hit with Seal of Righteousness, so you want to hit fast. After you get 5/5 Reckoning at level 34, you can make a choice: Keep your shield or drop your shield.
Keep your shield - The best weapon you can get is the Flurry Axe, this will last you until 60 and it's still useful if you plan to be a tank. Reckoning becomes only a bonus in that everytime you get crit, you deal an extra attack back to the enemy, your rotation remains the same.
However, you are not gear dependant, you kill enemies with your holy damage from spells, so you can save for a mount and live off quest rewards.
Drop your shield - You get a big slow two-hander, like The Pacifier and spec for Seal of Command after Reckoning. You will use your Reckoning to store up to 4 extra attacks and you can initiate every combat with a BANG. Oneshotting enemies when well-equipped is possible.
The trick is that you simply beat the npc to low health, at low health you stop autoattack and sit down. This gives your enemy 100% chance to crit you with his autoattack, thus a 100% chance to gain a Reckoning charge. So you get crit 4 times, then finish off your enemy with Judgement, Exorcism or whatever. Your next target will then take 5 autoattacks + seal hit at once.
This will however require upgrading your two-hander on a regular basis, because you want to deal as much damage as possible. Keep the weapon speed above 3.00 and always look for highest weapon damage (not DPS!)
Retribution Paladin
This is the fastest way to level up.
Talents in this tree improve your damage, which means you kill stuff faster. Seal of Command becomes your best friend for damage. You will pray "please proc", but when it procs, they will feel the pain. Extra critical chance, lower mana cost of Seals/Judgements, lower Judgement cooldown, all this is overshadowed by a neat 2 point talent that many people overlook.
Pursuit of Justice that gives +8% movespeed both mounted and on foot. I don't know how people forget that most of the time you keep moving around. This makes you move around faster, and it's available early at level 21. Also the only way you might catch up to someone if you try some PvP. Weapon choice is obvious, you won't be using shields, you want a big slow hammer to beat your enemies hard. There are some specials. You might want to use Ravager longer, because it gives a whirlwind-like proc. And Taran Icebreaker is an exception with very fast attack speed. The reason for this hammer is the fireball proc, which procs damn very often. I once tried if it was better to use Seal of Righteousness with this fast epic, but Commanding is still better.
Seal of Command is a PPM based attack, so the slower your weapon, the more it will proc. It's also great for mana conservation, because a rank 1 SoComm will deal the same damage as rank 5 SoComm. The Judgement damage is negligible, but the proc damage comes from your weapon and attack power, so you can save mana for healing while beating them up, and that means less downtime.
This is the only skill that will scale with your gear. Any other Seals or spels you have get no boost or boost only from spelldamage, which is rare during levelling. Seal of Command will benefit from extra Strength and AP, and there are many items that give you AP, you can even craft some. Don't be afraid to take a shield if you have to, but if you plan to use SoComm with a shield, get a slow onehand weapon with high weapon damage like Heaven's Light.
Hopefully this wall of text will help someone. Ask questions if you want :wink:
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