0/59/12 New Cookie Cutter Wrath MT Build

[Tiandelin]

Holy Paladins won't be picking up Kings or Imp Devo Aura anymore, so you'll probably want that in your build. Conviction will now increase their spell crit rate by 5%.

Most Holy-pallies i talked to didn't care about 5%
they will go into prot at least for BoK and maybe even 20 points for Devo aura and divine guardian

At least one of my guild's pallies is planning on holy/prot despite the current state of low-tier ret, specifically because of Divine Guardian. And I still think there's about a 90% chance that Conviction will be restricted to damaging spells in the end anyway.

[moduspwnens]

Holy Paladins won't be picking up Kings or Imp Devo Aura anymore, so you'll probably want that in your build. Conviction will now increase their spell crit rate by 5%.

Most Holy-pallies i talked to didn't care about 5%
they will go into prot at least for BoK and maybe even 20 points for Devo aura and divine guardian

I would figure they'd want the 15% less mana cost on seals and judgements (since they'll be doing that now), Heart of the Crusader, as well as the 5% crit, and the other talents in the holy tree they'd pick up instead of going all the way to tier 4 in prot.

[Lightbeard]

Yeh i think I am gonna take imp SoR instead of judgement

[Hollyhell]

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tcxczrgqeRGo

I'm starting here.

After that, it will all depend on changes blizz makes after that.

Imp Judgement is not needed now. There are at least 2 more threat abilities now.

Imp Righteous Fury is so-so. Since the +threat from holy dmg was rolled into the base spell, it's all entirely dependent on the amount of dmg and hits being taken. Over time, it's obviously going to add up, but the short term benefits are going to be negligible.

In 3 years of raiding, there are very, very few times where I've EVER seen a tank end up at the amount of health that something like Imp RF or Spell Warding made the difference. So that's 5 more pts free as well.

I'll probably end up taking 10 pts in ret as well for the parry.

[Hollyhell]

Holy Paladins won't be picking up Kings or Imp Devo Aura anymore, so you'll probably want that in your build. Conviction will now increase their spell crit rate by 5%.

Most Holy-pallies i talked to didn't care about 5%
they will go into prot at least for BoK and maybe even 20 points for Devo aura and divine guardian

I had to go back and look at this.

I would take the 5% over kings, at least right now.

It's a tossup, really. The only thing to get for a raiding holy pally IS kings (and now divine guardian).

[bjanssen]

The new tree is way bloated so we have the same problems as before.

One thing I noted was SoV gets a longer duration which should have the effect of making it less likely to drop off. So is that enough to make SoV worthwhile, and then is a better SoV enough to make the 5 points in SoP worthwhile?

The issue for me is without seeing the gear available it's really hard to figure out if we really need the 5 points in deflection. If the gear has enough avoidance then that's 10 points that could go elsewhere making the bloat problem less severe.

Another part of that thought is that if we are going to get more strength on our gear and hence more block value (to power shield of the righteous) then we need to block and if we have too much pure avoidance block might get pushed so far off the table as to make the strength (and divine strength) worthless.

We will have avoidance and BV gear sets but it's hard to swap talent specs.

[Hollyhell]

The new tree is way bloated so we have the same problems as before.

One thing I noted was SoV gets a longer duration which should have the effect of making it less likely to drop off. So is that enough to make SoV worthwhile, and then is a better SoV enough to make the 5 points in SoP worthwhile?

The issue for me is without seeing the gear available it's really hard to figure out if we really need the 5 points in deflection. If the gear has enough avoidance then that's 10 points that could go elsewhere making the bloat problem less severe.

Another part of that thought is that if we are going to get more strength on our gear and hence more block value (to power shield of the righteous) then we need to block and if we have too much pure avoidance block might get pushed so far off the table as to make the strength (and divine strength) worthless.

We will have avoidance and BV gear sets but it's hard to swap talent specs.

In my standard gear, I push something like 900 BV (go go mother shaz libram). Switching to the autoblocker and popping it puts me at 1200.

[sahiel]

In 3 years of raiding, there are very, very few times where I've EVER seen a tank end up at the amount of health that something like Imp RF or Spell Warding made the difference. So that's 5 more pts free as well.

6% less damage is far more than 6% more health.

If you have 20,000 health, 6% more health would add 1200 (which if you never fall down to 1200 or less you could argue is never used, comes back to is additional health the first or last HP). However if over a fight you take say a 1,000,000 points of damage, with RF up you take 60,000 less... that's a lot less for healers to cover, especially towards the end of a long fight when mana is low. It makes spike damage, less spikey.

It's overall mitigation for a fight you're looking at. If the talent said "6% more armour vs all physical and magical damage." would you not think "Wow, that's pretty nice." Every single attack that hits you is reduced in damage thanks to this talent, thats an awful lot of "free" mitigation working for you without you having to do anything.

[Witchaven]

I'm considering going with this spec personally.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?pal ... 2155310321

It looks like Paladins will be more focused on Blocking Damage then Avoiding it. Also, it looks like Tanks will be required to generate a lot more threat, so anything we can do to help generate more threat will be a good thing.

[Hollyhell]

In 3 years of raiding, there are very, very few times where I've EVER seen a tank end up at the amount of health that something like Imp RF or Spell Warding made the difference. So that's 5 more pts free as well.

6% less damage is far more than 6% more health.

If you have 20,000 health, 6% more health would add 1200 (which if you never fall down to 1200 or less you could argue is never used, comes back to is additional health the first or last HP). However if over a fight you take say a 1,000,000 points of damage, with RF up you take 60,000 less... that's a lot less for healers to cover, especially towards the end of a long fight when mana is low. It makes spike damage, less spikey.

It's overall mitigation for a fight you're looking at. If the talent said "6% more armour vs all physical and magical damage." would you not think "Wow, that's pretty nice." Every single attack that hits you is reduced in damage thanks to this talent, thats an awful lot of "free" mitigation working for you without you having to do anything.

We're looking at 2 different sides of the same coin. Honestly, I would say that a single fight where you're taking a million dmg, your healers *probably* aren't going to notice much of a difference; the same could be said of if that's over a long period of time.

Like I said, it's kind of a tossup at this point.

[Dorvan]

We're looking at 2 different sides of the same coin. Honestly, I would say that a single fight where you're taking a million dmg, your healers *probably* aren't going to notice much of a difference; the same could be said of if that's over a long period of time.

Like I said, it's kind of a tossup at this point.

No, it's really not. Individual tanking talents simply *don't* provide more than a 1-2% damage reduction per point....anywhere. That doesn't make them worthless, it means you want to take a lot of them to achieve an overall significant effect. Skipping Imp RF would be nothing short of foolish for any sort of progression tanking.

[QuantumDelta]

Tell that to ferals Dorvan !
There's a reason why their tree got so little in WOTLK

Overall I completely agree though.
But in the same token many people (including myself >_>) skip spell warding which is very similar in value.

[jere]

Tell that to ferals Dorvan !
There's a reason why their tree got so little in WOTLK

Overall I completely agree though.
But in the same token many people (including myself >_>) skip spell warding which is very similar in value.

Yes, but spell warding only applies to spells, which do not make up a large portion of overall damage in most fights. Imp. RF applies to almost all dmg all the time.

That doesn't mean I think spell warding is crap, but it doesn't quite compare unless the encounter is "heavy" magic damage, and there are only a handful of those where it would be anything near the melee damage output.

[Dorvan]

What jere said. In most encounters magic is only a small portion of damage taken, which makes Spell Warding a lot less than 2% damage reduction per point, and hence a bit more optional.

[jere]

Here are my thoughts.

In a sense it feels like we have a base set of talents, but then have to pick out of a handful of extra threat, extra mitigation, and utility talents:

Extra Threat:
---------------
Reckoning
1HWS
Improved Judgement
Seals of the Pure
Divine Strength

Extra Mitigation:
-------------------
Ardent Defender
Spell Warding
Divine Strength

Utility:
------------------
Divine Guardian
Guarded by the light
Heart of the Crusader
Pursuit of Justice

If I had to label core talents, I would go:

1. Anticipation - 5% avoidance

2. Redoubt - Required for SS =/

3. BoK - debateable, but given wotlk changes, I think it will be required by the majority of prot paladins, so I would consider that core. A holy or ret paladin could pick this up, but I see that as happening less in the wotlk given the other talents coming out.

4. Improved RF - 6% damage mitigation from all sources

5. Shield Spec - lots of damage mitigation and a threat boost

6. Toughness - 10% more AC

7. Improved Devo Aura - again, debateable, but as we will be most often the only spec to provide this, I think it will become a staple talent. Extra healing to the melee and the tanks is a nice boost for healers (especially AoE style healers like holy priests and shaman). Again, a holy paladin could conceivably get this, but it will be rare and most will be spec'ing into improved concentration aura, and we all know how we like to spec into two buffs that we cannot use at the same time.

8. Blessing of Sanctuary - required for Holy Shield =/

9. Sacred Duty - 6% stam

10. Holy Shield - Goes without saying I hope.

11. Imp. HS - This one could also be debateable, but I think given our niche as the "block tanks" and the "AoE tanks" coming up in the wotlk, that this will be a very important talent.

12. Combat Expertise - 10% stamina and 5 expertise

13. Touched by the Light - Stamina to spell damage conversion.

14. Avenger's Shield - At this point, while the skill itself isn't necessary, it is a req for the next level, and it is a good tool for 1 point that probably won't be skipped.

15. Shield of the Templar - Improves threat to both Holy Shield and Shield of the righteousness by a large portion. This could be debateable I guess, but I see it as a pretty large portion of threat given SotR's current state.

16. Judgement of the Just - Thunderclap. Hopefully that explains it enough.

17. Hammer of the Righteous - I think this will be a great extra threat skill that we will make use of.

18. Benediction - While, I see it providing less mana reduction than it currently does, given the seal/judgement changes, something needs to be picked to get to deflection

19. Deflection - 5% avoidance.

***********************

So all in all, it boils down to 46 points in prot and 10 in ret, with us getting to choose where the last 15 go. Most will pick Ardent Defender (I know I think it is pretty much required, but I realize it is up for debate), leaving 10 points to spend on threat. Most will probably nab 1HWS, leaving the choice between Reckoning, Divine Strength, and Seals of the Pure, or an improved Judgement hybrid combo with something else.

This leaves talent tree climbing. You can get up to 28 points in prot without having to choose just yet, but once you reach there, you need to spend 2 points in something to continue:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tIxczM

They could go in Reckoning, 1HWS, Spell Warding, Divine Strength, or Divine Guardian.

I am going with 1HWS for now. Putting 2 points in it lets you move up to Holy Shield and Imp. Holy Shield, but you stop there again, short by 2 points:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tIxczMro

I put 2 more points in 1HWS spec to move (AD and the previous talents are an option). That opened up CE, and Touched by the Light, but 1 point short of the next tier. This can be filled out by Guarded by the Light, or the previous talents. I filled out 1HWS:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tIxczMgoeo

This let me fill out the rest of the tree and the 10 points in ret:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tIxczMgoeoGoV0x

I would consider this the cookie cutter, with the 5 points in 1HWS being a floating 5 points if anyone is against them as cookie cutter. This also leaves 10 points to put where you like. I personally think AD is required, so I will put 5 there, but that is really left up to the reader.