Talent spec options currently

[Holyfuri]

There is alot of uncertainty about WotLK right now. There is lots of testing yet to be done. I am, however, still spending alot of time toiling over the talent tree. Here's what I have come up with so far. I am writing the builds out to save people linking time, lol.

'Possible necessary talents'

Holy

5/5 Seals of the pure - pretty significant threat increase.

Protection

5/5 Divine Strength - mitigation and threat. Strength is now a primary stat.

5/5 Anticipation - dodging is very good =)

5/5 Redoubt - still very nice aoe talent, but mainly necessary for shield spec =(

1/1 Kings - Might not count on holy paladins with this anymore, we'll see.

3/3 Improved Righteous Fury - Reduces all damage. Must have.

3/3 Shield Specialization - increases amount blocked, we block alot.

5/5 Toughness - armor, straight mitigation. must have.

3/3 Improved Devotion Aura - This talent doesn't suck anymore and it is high enough prot pallies will be the only one's with it. Even so, auras are raid wide and the holy pally will be using concentration aura.

1/1 Blessing of Sanctuary - no better, but still a requirement for holy shield.

5/5 One handed weapon specialization. Still as good as ever. Must have.

2/2 Sacred Duty - 6% stamina. Must have.

1/1 Holy Shield - increased to 6 charges base. Must have.

2/2 Improved Holy shield - more damage plus more blocks. threat and mitigation.

5/5 Ardent Defender - still a life saver. must have.

5/5 Combat Expertise - 10% stamina and threat from expertise. Very nice. Must have.

1/1 Avenger's Shield - Down to a 0.5 sec cast, still awesome burst threat. must have.

3/3 Touched by the Light - Sta > spell damage. How hot is that!!! Must have.

2/2 Judgements of the Just - We get a thunderjudge! Must have.

3/3 Shield of the Templar - increases threat and saves us mana. Must have.

1/1 Hammer of the Righteous - 6 sec. CD proactive threat ability. Very nice. Must have.



Retribution

5/5 Benediction - saves us precious mana, and needed to reach the next talent tier.

5/5 Deflection - 5% parry is 5% avoidance. Must have.




Now, that adds up to 76 talent points... too many. 5 too many to be exact. Sacrafices must be made. First let me explain some talents and why I didn't say they are necessary.

2/2 Divine Guardian - At the time very situational at best. Definetely can live without it. It's more utility.

2/2 Spell Warding - spellcasters seem to be what we aren't as hot at, why try to be less crappy as something you are already crappy at. There are better things for points.

5/5 Reckoning - same reasoning as currently, there are just better things to put points into.

2/2 Guarded by the Light - Saves us mana. Depending on how good the new judgement system may not be needed.

2/2 Improved Judgement - This may change but with holy shield CD being lowered and the new seal changes this shouldn't be necessary to maintain a threat rotation. One point could be beneficial possibly.

Things that can change what is 'necessary.'

1. As of right now shield spec only increases block value from the actual stat 'block value' and block on your shield. If the tank gear holds the same itemization we are seeing most of our block value will come from strength and thus not affected by sheild spec. Conclusion = sheilds spec becomes sub-par and thus so does redoubt. Saves 8 talent points.

2. The change to Guarded to the Light sticks, making it a flat mana return. This could make it viable, depending on in-game testing. Conclusion = 2 more points possibly to deal with...

3. Due to the base holy shield being 6 charges now, for main tanking we could possibly forego imp. Holy Shield. Conclusion = 2 talent points saved.

Talent builds:

Scenario 1: shield spec is still useful at 80. Have to make some sacrafices.

5/56/10 or 0/61/10. Either take seals of the pure or divine strength, whichever one mathematically turns out to be the better choice. Needs theorycrafting

Scenario 2: shield spec is not useful at 80 due to lack of shield block value and abundance of strength.

5/55/11 with 2 points in spell warding and one point in imp. judgement (extras, remember 5 over and saved

5/55/11 with 2 points in redoubt for aoe tanking and one point in imp. judgement

5/56/10 with 3 points in redoubt for aoe tanking

5/56/10 with 3 points in reckoning for threat.

5/55/11 with 2 points in reckoning and one point in imp. judgement.

Scenario 3: Both the changes to holy shield and guarded by the light stick.

Use a build above but switch the two points from imp. Holy Shield into Guarded by the Light.

Scenario 4: Changes to Guarded by the Light remain but Improved Holy shield ends up still being 'necessary.'

Probably end up taking guarded by the light as a more OT spec, and not taking it for a MT spec.

This is quite a few options here. I think I see a possibility of a MT spec and an OT spec for paladins, depending on your typical role... could be interesting.

Edited to add information

[Truthiness]

Bah, already posted else where before I noticed this new subforum:

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ ... 270#184270

[Arees]

1. As of right now shield spec only increases block value from the actual stat 'block value' and block on your shield. If the tank gear holds the same itemization we are seeing most of our block value will come from strength and thus not affected by sheild spec. Conclusion = sheilds spec becomes sub-par and thus so does redoubt. Saves 8 talent points.

I don't understand why everyone keeps saying that shield spec only works for the BV on your shield and from gear that specifically says BV. Lets say its wotlk and im 80. I have 180BV from my shield, and 220 from str giving me a total of 400BV. I have shield spec and I block.... I should block 520 damage (400 * 1.3). The talent reads that an extra 30% damage is absorbed by the shield, so why would it not be the way I just described?

**EDIT**
Unless when it says "absorbed by your shield" it means specifically just your shield, which in this case an extra 54 damage (180 * 0.3) for a total of 454 damage blocked. Is this what you are suggesting?

[Holyfuri]

1. As of right now shield spec only increases block value from the actual stat 'block value' and block on your shield. If the tank gear holds the same itemization we are seeing most of our block value will come from strength and thus not affected by sheild spec. Conclusion = sheilds spec becomes sub-par and thus so does redoubt. Saves 8 talent points.

I don't understand why everyone keeps saying that shield spec only works for the BV on your shield and from gear that specifically says BV. Lets say its wotlk and im 80. I have 180BV from my shield, and 220 from str giving me a total of 400BV. I have shield spec and I block.... I should block 520 damage (400 * 1.3). The talent reads that an extra 30% damage is absorbed by the shield, so why would it not be the way I just described?

Becuase it doesn't. That isn't the way it works now on live and it's not the way it works on beta as of now.

If you have a shield with 160 block on it, shield block value of 200, and 600 strength (just as an example) then it takes the 160 + 200 = 360 * 1.3 = 468 + 30(from str) = 498 blocked on live servers.

If you had those same stats on beta it would be 160 + 200 = 360 * 1.3 = 468 + 300(from str) = 768.

[Arees]

So is block value from strength not displayed under Block Value on the character screen?

Also, sorry I kinda sorta hijacked your thread.... lol.

[Holyfuri]

when you scroll over your block percentage and it says:

"498 damage blocked" that is your total number after everything is taken into account.

[jere]

So is block value from strength not displayed under Block Value on the character screen?

It is not displayed separately. Basically it does all the calculations and displays the end result on your char sheet.

[Dorvan]

I think it's quite preamture to put Divine Strength under the "necessary" column. There are a lot of threat talents among which we'll only be able to take a subset, and it's not yet clear which will be the best bang for your buck.

[Holyfuri]

I think it's quite preamture to put Divine Strength under the "necessary" column. There are a lot of threat talents among which we'll only be able to take a subset, and it's not yet clear which will be the best bang for your buck.

agreed. That's why I put the 'possibly' at the top. lol. I have a feeling though that given the scenarios I listed it will come down to either seals of the pure or divine strength. I don't know if I see any other combinations to maximize threat/mitigation given current available facts...

[Arees]

when you scroll over your block percentage and it says:

"498 damage blocked" that is your total number after everything is taken into account.

ah ok. I understand now. I assume they would change this in wotlk though. Chances are one of two things will happen. 1) They change it to work with str. Generic (non tier) gear will likely not have any BV on it, or 2) They don't change it and our tier gear will have a lot of BV on it.

[Holyfuri]

when you scroll over your block percentage and it says:

"498 damage blocked" that is your total number after everything is taken into account.

ah ok. I understand now. I assume they would change this in wotlk though. Chances are one of two things will happen. 1) They change it to work with str. Generic (non tier) gear will likely not have any BV on it, or 2) They don't change it and our tier gear will have a lot of BV on it.

I personally hope its 3) They keep the mechanic the same and do not put block value on our tier gear. Just to lighten up the prot tree a bit, lol.

[Dorvan]

agreed. That's why I put the 'possibly' at the top. lol. I have a feeling though that given the scenarios I listed it will come down to either seals of the pure or divine strength. I don't know if I see any other combinations to maximize threat/mitigation given current available facts...

Reckoning and Imp Judgment still belong in the mix. Especially with the Judgment change, the number of point in Imp Judgment can't screw up your rotation regardless since there's no need to reseal. Likewise, it's far from clear at this point that Reckoning is worse than say Divine Strength or Seals of the Pure for threat.

[Holyfuri]

agreed. That's why I put the 'possibly' at the top. lol. I have a feeling though that given the scenarios I listed it will come down to either seals of the pure or divine strength. I don't know if I see any other combinations to maximize threat/mitigation given current available facts...

Reckoning and Imp Judgment still belong in the mix. Especially with the Judgment change, the number of point in Imp Judgment can't screw up your rotation regardless since there's no need to reseal. Likewise, it's far from clear at this point that Reckoning is worse than say Divine Strength or Seals of the Pure for threat.

That is true as well. There are alot of factors still unknown, lol. I really don't like unknown stuff.

I guess it really comes down to threat talents at this point then, doesn't it?

Imp. Judgement

vs

Seals of the Pure

vs

Divine strength

vs

Reckoning

vs

Imp. Holy Shield

vs

One Handed Weapon Specialization

vs

Shield of the Templar

I mean, yea the other talents play a hand but the unknown factor of how much each of these is going to contribute is probably one of the biggest unknowns right now.

[Dorvan]

Yep, I'd agree that that's where it stands right now. To make things even more complicated you could try to take mana management into account and attempt to compare Guarded by the Light to the others as a threat talent.

[Holyfuri]

Yep, I'd agree that that's where it stands right now. To make things even more complicated you could try to take mana management into account and attempt to compare Guarded by the Light to the others as a threat talent.

But I would never get any actual work done then... lol