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    TwinStar team

Paladin Levelling a paladin

hey. nice guide. but should i use JotC before Seal of Command as lvl 34?

JotC increases holy damage taken by the target, and SoComm/JoComm deals holy damage so yea, you should JotC first. Won't be the end of the world if you don't, but you will lose some DPS.

I have a question about leveling: I rolled a Pally mostly to be a healer, but leveling in Holy isn't great and Pursuit of Justice looks really sweet, so I figured I could go into Ret just up to SoComm and Pursuit of Justice then go into Holy after that. So like this then all Holy after that for better healing in groups. Is this a good idea or should I level Prot with fast weapon + SoR if I want to be healing in groups? Talent build suggestions appreciated!
 
JotC increases holy damage taken by the target, and SoComm/JoComm deals holy damage so yea, you should JotC first. Won't be the end of the world if you don't, but you will lose some DPS.

It depends on how long it takes for you to kill the mob. If it dies fast you might do more damage by just using Judgement of Command/Righteousness for direct damage. On longer fights use Judgement of the Crusader instead.

I have a question about leveling: I rolled a Pally mostly to be a healer, but leveling in Holy isn't great and Pursuit of Justice looks really sweet, so I figured I could go into Ret just up to SoComm and Pursuit of Justice then go into Holy after that. So like this then all Holy after that for better healing in groups. Is this a good idea or should I level Prot with fast weapon + SoR if I want to be healing in groups? Talent build suggestions appreciated!

I have always used a mix of holy and retribution talents too for leveling. Grinding as retribution paladin is faster than as protection paladin. You don't really need any holy talents for healing though early on. Just stack as much intellect as possible. +heal is fine too if your mana pool is big enough.

I would not put any points in Improved Judgement of the Crusader. The damage increase is so little, you benefit way more from the increased parry chance.

So at level 22 you'd had a 0/0/13 for SoC and Pursuit of Justice. After that you could put your points into holy for Illumination and Divine Favor: 21/0/13. Thats all you need from Holy for healing. You can go deeper into retibution afterwards. Like 21/0/30 perhaps. If you go into Retribution solely for grinding Improved Retribution Aura adds way more DPS than Sanctity Aura. That's why I have chosen that talent. It is available sooner too.

Remember to always keep your weapon updated. If you are using SoC it should be as slow as possible. For solo play just stack Strength and Stamina. A little intellect isn't wrong either but for grinding it isn't a priority at all. It's really easy to manage your mana in general. If you are running low on mana use SoC rank 1 for instance instead. The proc damage is the same. If you don't use JoC it does not make a difference. And don't spam Consecration. One cast does just a little more than a weapon swing on a single target anyway.
 
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I would not put any points in Improved Judgement of the Crusader. The damage increase is so little, you benefit way more from the increased parry chance.

Is Improved Seal of the Crusader really that bad? The main reason I went with it is for when I'm using just Seal of the Crusader on myself, e.g. to get in a few swings between heals in a group. Or is SoComm just better for this anyway?

Parry does look very attractive, more parry means less damage taken (about 3.16% at 3% extra parry), and I do find myself using Devotion Aura over Retribution Aura just to take less damage sometimes.

So at level 22 you'd had a 0/0/13 for SoC and Pursuit of Justice. After that you could put your points into holy for Illumination and Divine Favor: 21/0/13. Thats all you need from Holy for healing. You can go deeper into retibution afterwards. Like 21/0/30 perhaps.

What about Improved Blessing of Wisdom? BoW on myself is great both for healing and DPS (more mana -> more JoComm -> more damage), and great on mana users in groups.

Thanks for those talent builds, very helpful!

If you are using SoC it should be as slow as possible.

Slower weapons give it a higher proc chance, right? I read somewhere that the proc is 7ppm, so my per-swing proc chance would be roughly weapon_speed/8.57, meaning about 37.3% proc chance on a 3.20 weapon, is this correct? (8.57 is 60/7)
 
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You don't judge command on leveling because you don't level command outside rank 1 for mana and wep dmg. The Judge dmg is negligible, and your manapool is low, so it's best to save for crutch heals and rebuffs.
 
Is Improved Seal of the Crusader really that bad? The main reason I went with it is for when I'm using just Seal of the Crusader on myself, e.g. to get in a few swings between heals in a group. Or is SoComm just better for this anyway?

If you go further down the retribution tree you could put 5 points into deflection which would give you additional 5% chance to parry an attack, completely avoiding its damage (you would have roughly 10% total). Improved Seal of the Crusader increases the holy damage against the judged target by 161 instead of 140. It's like you had 21 spelldamage more with the highest rank of SotC. It's not really much. Mind that you don't get that damage flat. You have to add it to your spelldamage to calculate the damage you would deal.

What about Improved Blessing of Wisdom? BoW on myself is great both for healing and DPS (more mana -> more JoComm -> more damage), and great on mana users in groups.

It's not bad but putting points into it means removing points from other talents that are more useful if you go either 20/0/31 or 21/0/30. If you are on your own you should not have mana problems at all.

Slower weapons give it a higher proc chance, right? I read somewhere that the proc is 7ppm, so my per-swing proc chance would be roughly weapon_speed/8.57, meaning about 37.3% proc chance on a 3.20 weapon, is this correct? (8.57 is 60/7)

With a 3.2 speed weapon you get 18.75 attacks per minute. From those attacks 7 should proc Command, so each 2.68 attack. This is equivalent to a chance of 37.31%, so you are correct.
 
I am pretty tempted to go 21/0/30. Ret's turned out to be much more fun than I expected, and it still allows me to get all the really important Holy talents. More Ret is great for defending yourself in world PvP, and being able to also DPS without sacrificing much healing effectiveness comes in really handy in groups aswell.

Improved Seal of the Crusader increases the holy damage against the judged target by 161 instead of 140. It's like you had 21 spelldamage more with the highest rank of SotC. It's not really much. Mind that you don't get that damage flat. You have to add it to your spelldamage to calculate the damage you would deal.

I was referring to the attack power bonus on oneself that the seal gives, so I can put it on me and then just normal attack while I heal. Though that probably isn't all that much either, and yesterday I did just fine doing this with SoComm on myself instead of SotC. Ended up pulling surprisingly okay DPS while keeping everyone in the group alive with heals. (Might be because dungeons are supposedly under-tuned on K2 ATM, a lot of people have been complaining about that on reddit.)

It's not bad but putting points into it means removing points from other talents that are more useful if you go either 20/0/31 or 21/0/30. If you are on your own you should not have mana problems at all.

Yea, fair enough. I guess I can make up for the talent by just managing my mana better, which shouldn't be too hard considering I can do fine by just auto-attacking and occasionally resealing.
 
I mean some of the scripts in Deadmines haven't been implemented (such as sneed jumping on a character and the cannon fire in the dreadnought room), but otherwise I haven't noticed any undertuning. Maybe it's higher level dungeons.
 
Hello. I don't want to make a whole new thread so I will just ask here.
I recently started playing on this server and I decided to go for paladin :smile:
I plan on doing lots of dungeons and a friend recommended this build to me, to use while leveling with a 1h weapon and a shield. Are there any better or more interesting choices out there or should I just stick with this build? :smile:
 
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If you are running dungeons mostly and plan on tanking as well you need Consecration. For healing Spiritual Focus, Illumination and Divine Favor are really nice. So I'd say that 21 points in Holy are mandatory if you are focusing on group play and support. I would move the 5 points from Divine Strength to Spiritual Focus. Together with Concentration Aura that gives you a 100% pushback resistance when healing. This is super useful in any case.

So I'd go at least with this: 21/0/0

With having the basics for tanking and healing covered you have a few options now.

If you don't care much about your killspeed when you are questing or grinding alone, because you run dungeons most of the time anyway, you could aim for Holy Shock. It is really useful when tanking low level instances actually. It causes a lot of threat especially when you let it crit with Divine Favor. So you can range pull with it and use it as a taunt. It makes tanking very easy. Most aim for 31 points in protection for tanking to get Holy Shield. But I think that build does not shine as long as you dont have Consecration as well, which would require level 51. I found just picking Holy Shock instead is making tanking way more comfortable before you are able to get both Consecration and Holy Shield.

31/0/0 You can move the points in Imp. Lay on Hands, Imp. Blessing of Wisdom and Lasting Judgement however you like altough the reduced CD of LoH and the armor bonus are really useful. Having that powerful ability every 40 mins instead each hour does make a noticable difference especially when running dungeons a lot.

From there you could either go for Protection to increase your support abilities (Guardians Favor) and threat (Imp. Righteous Fury) or Retribution to increase the killspeed when you are playing alone.

31/13/0 or 31/0/13

I usually went with the latter one. My build has been 31/0/20 most of the time with retribution talents that aid me while I am alone. Imp. Retribution Aura is better than Sanctity Aura for damage as long as you get hit. So if you are not doing dungeons as damage dealer/support always get that one if you have points in retribution. And it increases your threat when tanking as well. I tanked and healed every instance up to UBRS with that build. The only thing I am missing here is the +3% hit from Precision. Especially when using slow 2H weapons you will notice a difference.

You can also go for a support spec that focuses on protection talents like 20/31/0 or one that is focusing on Retribution like 21/0/30. You will notice here that I picked both Imp. Retribution Aura and Sanctity Aura with this build. That seems like a waste at first but if you don't have that much AP and Meleecrit Imp. Retribution Aura outperforms Sanctity Aura as long as you get hit. If your role is damage dealer/support in a dungeon group you can switch to Sanctity Aura to increase your damage output. Although sometimes tanks demand either resistance auras or Retribution Aura as it increases their threat.

The build your friend gave you looks good too basically. But I think the 10 points in Divine Strength and Imp. Seal of Righteousness are wasted as you could use them to go further down either the holy or protection tree to get the 31 point add some weight to a specific playstyle.

You see there are many ways you could go. You are lucky though. The cost to unlearn your talents is capped at 5 gold. So why not try all of them :)

If you feel you need to take a break from dungeons and want to farm/quest/grind a little give this one a try. It's a selfish spec but in my opinion there is nothing better for solo PvE than 0/26/25
 
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Thank you so much for the fast reply and all this useful information! :smile:
I didn't know that the talent reset cost was capped at 5g so I might as well try 1-2 builds, like you suggested.

The Holy Shock spell looks really tempting but it seems like I lose a lot by not investing in the defensive tree - (Redoubt), (Toughness), (Blessing of Kings), (Improved Righteous Fury) and (Shield Spec). I will think about it but I will probably go for the 20/31/0 build for now since I plan on mostly tanking until I reach the higher level dungeons (My friend mentioned that a pally tank starts sucking big time after that). After that I will probably go for a Holy Shock support build.
 
You can get those talents as well after you got Holy Shock or even after you got Consecration. I just think for group play sticking to the holy tree is more beneficial than focusing on protection. You will maybe see the right away as tanking before level 20 is almost not possible because you don't have Consecration, which is a holy talent.

And Blessing of Kings is pretty overrated for small groups. When I have it I mostly use it to buff other classes when there is another paladin. In most cases the other blessings you have are more beneficial if you are the only paladin in the group or playing alone.

If you want to focus more on tanking and want to increase your toughness perhaps you should aim for 11/16/0 and go further down the protection tree afterwards.

People that say paladins suck at tanking later on mostly refer to raiding. But 5 man tanking is really easy as the only difficulty you have basically is managing your mana pool. So knowing when it is safe to use Seal of Wisdom to get mana back or Righteousness for more threat or which rank of Consecration to use. Other than that you basically just focus on the main target and let your AoE do the thing. Because of the AoE threat paladins are able to do classes like mages and warlock can use their AoE safely as well. In my opinion good paladin tanks that know how to manage their resources are often even better tanks than other classes in 5 man instances.

What I do to maximize my mana gain from Judgement of Wisdom is to get a fast weapon and enchant it with Fiery Weapon. It procs a lot and every proc has a chance to trigger JoW as well. So more mana gain for you. Fist of Stone with that enchant is a pretty awesome weapon for paladin tanks and very easy to get as well.

The issue is you don't have a ranged pull (if you don't have Holy Shock). You can pick up engineering to make up for this. If you don't want to pick that profession you can farm Crystal Charges as well. You can farm those in Un'Goro Crater. Before you reach the level to do that you can use either Ez-Thro Dynamite or Ez-Thro Dynamite II as you can use those even as non-engineer.

You don't have a taunt. Blessing of Protection or Holy Shock/Judgement of Righteousness can make up for this (if your threat isn't being reset because of some boss mechanic for example). So it is useful to pick Imp. Blessing of Protection to have it ready more often. But usually with a group that keeps that in mind and is focussing on the marks you set (Skull for primary target etc) this isn't an issue.

Leaving only Mana Burn and Silence. Nothing you can do here really. Sometimes your stun or grenades help you preventing Mana Burn/Silence from being cast. Other than that hope that you have somebody in the group that can dispell Silence. And when I know I can't do something against getting mana burned I try to spam everything I have to maximize my threat before this happens. Grenades help here as well to keep your threat up. And Retribution Aura which of course works even when oom or silenced. So make sure you have it up.
 
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Thanks again!

If you want to focus more on tanking and want to increase your toughness perhaps you should aim for 11/16/0 and go further down the protection tree afterwards.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I take the Consecration and then I move to protection. I'm also planning on taking engineering and enchanting.
 
I tend to finish up the ret tree first as I'm leveling, but only because I love vengeance for the pew, and repentance for PvP.

Imo consecration is only worth it if you intend to tank dungeons. It's damage per mana is horrible without spell damage or attack power scaling (the latter was of course a bug on Nost)

I use Judgement of Command, but buff myself with wisdom rather than BoM.
 
I tend to finish up the ret tree first as I'm leveling, but only because I love vengeance for the pew, and repentance for PvP.

The problem I have with Vengeance for leveling is that your crit chance is so low that you can't really rely on having the buff up. You have to consider that Vengeance is not refreshed when you crit while under the effect of it. So you rely on applying it as fast as possible after it faded. I usually save Judgement for this moment to increase my chances for a crit. But before you hit 60 you probably don't have a crit chance above 15%. I'd prefer picking Reckoning instead. Repentance is awesome but I encountered either rogues or warriors most of the time. Having Reckoning against those is a free kill basically.

I tried both for leveling but thought I had a way easier time as Reckoning paladin. Grinding was more efficient (I usually pull 2 mobs for a higher chance for extra attacks) and PvP is alright as well. You don't have Repentance thats true but at least you can reduce the CD of Hammer of Justice to 45 secs.

The only issue I have with a 0/26/25 Reckoning/Ret spec is that its super selfish but for grinding/questing its pretty neat :)
 
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