Shock Spec Discussion

[Jaedyn]

So, with all the new talent changes, Judgment being on the GCD, and the new spell power only gear, I want to get intelligent discussion going on Shockadin specing for PVP. The cookie cutter 40/21 is gone and frankly there are a lot of very good specs depending on you're role.


First, lets examine the new paradigm of a Shockadin. In the past it was a instant burst spec with a Holy/Ret hybrid of talents, centered around baiting opponents with a low initial damage output, to finish off with a 4-6k burst. The strength of this spec came from it's hybrid versatility. After a target is down, you can then viably heal or offheal due to the talent builds deep holy aspect.

So what's a Shockadin now? Well that's a little more complicated. With the new talent points, reworked Seal system and reworked talent trees we're no longer stuck in a cookie cutter build. Available to Shockadins now (obviously including Holy Shock as minimum in all builds) includes: Divine Favor, Enlightened Judgements, Holy Guidance, Infusion of Light, Eye for an Eye, Vindication, Benediction, Imp BoM, Sheath of Light, Repentance, Sanctified Seals, Judgements of the Wise, and Conviction.

All of these above are very very powerful talents for a 2vs2 or 3vs3 Shockadin build. And of course you can't have them all.

Anyway, since I do my 2's and 3's with a Boomkin, I'm looking at providing finishing DPS and support healing more than a raw omgwtf burst. So this is the build I am looking at:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?paladin=50230250210301303310000000055250050000130053100200000000000000000000000000000000

It provides decent offhealing capability while giving me a new CC option (Repentance), preventing Seal dispels and maximizing spelldamage. I was originally going with 5 into Holy Guidance but Sanctified Seals is just too important to our viability with the new GCD on Judgement.

The Judgements of the Wise talent is a huge boost against Warlocks/Priests/Hunters who are our main bane in 2's due to mana drain effects. It also offsets the lack of Benediction, and allows me to pick up Imp BoM to increase my spellpower through Blessing of Might more efficiently per point than I could through Holy Guidance.And since Sheath of Light provides spelldamage based on AP, I *should* be gaining more Spelldamage from BoM than I will from my intellect at 80.

So, what's everyone else's thoughts on possible builds? Don't forget to include team makeup.

[Arthaal]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?pal ... 0000000000

This is a better build in my opinion. Makes those mad HS crits actually increase your defensive abilities... you lose repentance, but honestly, shock builds aren't designed around CC, unmitigatable burst and surprise is their strength. That being said, the loss of sanctity aura and judgements on the GCD really killed shockadin builds in arena imo.

EDIT: actually, 3 points in sheath over crusade is probably a better idea.

[SmurfZG]

how can you skip sheathe of light arthaal :s at the very least it must surely be better than crusade

edit: >_> you edited t.t

[PsiVen]

In WotLK gear, every holy paladin will be a shockadin.

Wait, I can't see the trees at work. Did Repentance get moved to 21pt when I wasn't looking? What's in 31?

[Jaedyn]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?paladin=50230250220301002000000000055352050000130050102500200000000000000000000000000000

This is a better build in my opinion. Makes those mad HS crits actually increase your defensive abilities... you lose repentance, but honestly, shock builds aren't designed around CC, unmitigatable burst and surprise is their strength. That being said, the loss of sanctity aura and judgements on the GCD really killed shockadin builds in arena imo.

EDIT: actually, 3 points in sheath over crusade is probably a better idea.

Honestly the only reason I went so deep is for Sanctified Seals. But since I'm down there, one point for Repentance doesn't seem like all that bad of a deal. I'm sure it will take a lot of playing around to tweak come 80, and if I was doing a 2 paladin team I would definitely grab a build more like yours. Boomkin makes it a little different because you aren't looking at an 8k burst with a macro. We'll see if Sanc seals is worth it or if I feel I need more healing. If that's the case I'll stop at Sheath.


P.S. - It's still 31. I did a 37/34 Holy/Ret Build.

[Questioner]

Infusion of Light + Sheathe of Light is where you start with a level 80 shock build.

Infusion of light: Your critical holy shock spells cause your next holy light to be INSTANT CAST. Which means healing without interruption and while on the move.

Sheathe of Light: Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 30% of your attack power and your critical healing spells heal the target for 60% of the healed amount over 12 seconds. Which, besides the healing increase, is yet another healing spell that can apply while on the move.


Also, Judgements of the Wise make a very compelling case.

This is what I currently have:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/cla ... 0100000000

[Questioner]

Been doing a little more thought on it...mostly because if it was viable I would switch. I love prot but the playstyle of shockadin is exteremely appealing to me.

5 Man Shockadin:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/cla ... 0100000000

Group support via Improved Ret Aura
Repentance for CC
Imp BoM

Raid Support (LOL?):
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/cla ... 0000000000

Imp BoM
Divine Illumination for Crunch moments

[Airenis]

I was wondering, will this be the return of the shockadin in pvp or will ret spec still dominate since the last patches.

[Jaedyn]

I think Shockadin will always be a "niche" role that very few people will play into. I'm sure we see a disproportionate amount of players here that are educated about it. In fact I'm sure this is probably due to our reliance on SD weapons. Ret will stay ret, Holy is likely going to stay Holy, we're basically the only spec forced to change for PVP usefullness, so a lot go where the weapon takes them.

@Questioner:
The *one* reason I did not outright grab Infusion of Light is it's a very defensive spell that requires you to have already cast a holy light to reach it's true usefulness.

Frankly the instant holy light would be nice but it is extremely rare for me to have casted a heal before using my Boom Macro which blows up my garunteed crit. I might grab it, again I need to play a little but I just don't see it as useful in 2v2 which is my primary bracket. Basically for my 2's team either we blow someone up or we're boned anyway so...the extra spelldamage goes a lot farther to that end than I think a situational instant heal would.

Also worth noting is just how rowdy our healing is going to be anyway. I can still keep my partner up in 2's for a reasonable amount of time as is...come expac and the spellpower change that's going to become even easier.

[Questioner]

@Questioner:
The *one* reason I did not outright grab Infusion of Light is it's a very defensive spell that requires you to have already cast a holy light to reach it's true usefulness.

Uh...no it doesn't. It is based on Holy SHOCK. Not holy light. You know, that spell you are using to burst the opponent with that will have ~50% crit rate.



Think of it like this. You take some time out of healing to do some burst. You use your judgement and your DF Holy Shock. The opponent has done some damage to you during this time. Now you automatically have an instant cast Holy Light ready to cover that damage because your holy shock just crit due to DF.

This instant cast Holy Light will also make sure light's grace is up, making any follow up holy lights fast as well.

[Jaedyn]

@Questioner:
The *one* reason I did not outright grab Infusion of Light is it's a very defensive spell that requires you to have already cast a holy light to reach it's true usefulness.

Uh...no it doesn't. It is based on Holy SHOCK. Not holy light. You know, that spell you are using to burst the opponent with that will have ~50% crit rate.



Think of it like this. You take some time out of healing to do some burst. You use your judgement and your DF Holy Shock. The opponent has done some damage to you during this time. Now you automatically have an instant cast Holy Light ready to cover that damage because your holy shock just crit due to DF.

This instant cast Holy Light will also make sure light's grace is up, making any follow up holy lights fast as well.

Yeah, yeah, I fail at reading comprehension. I thought it was 2 seconds not 2.5. This is why I should not theory craft at work. Definitely worth 2 points over Holy Guidance.

P.S. - 50% Holy Shock crit rate is just so freakin OP. Actually hell that should be 52-3% by the time I finish my Brutal Set out.

[Kelaan]

P.S. - 50% Holy Shock crit rate is just so freakin OP. Actually hell that should be 52-3% by the time I finish my Brutal Set out.

Getting nearly +20% crit from holy/ret talents is pretty sweet, and Ican only hope it goes up more with gear, too. I was excited even before I saw the 6 sec shock cooldown.

[Jaedyn]

Yeah it's 22% from talents I believe.

3% Judgment
5% Base Holy Crit
5% All Spells/Attacks in Ret
6% Holy Light/Shock
3% Sanctified Seals

I love my boomkin partner for the extra 5% for that too =)

Now all they need, is to make a freakin +Spelldamage/Crit weapon and shield from Arena's. Drives me nuts our PVP weapons only have hit on them.

Ok more talent discussion:

Anyone currently in the Beta able to give signifigant feedback on Judgments of the Wise talent?

Specifically:
1) Does each person recieve mana = to 60% damage done?
2) If not, do you recieve the full 60% if you are solo, or 30% each with a partner?
3) Kinda doubt this, but if you are at a mana deficit less than the amount returned, does the leftover transfer over to the other people in the group?

IE I only need 10% to max out my mana pool, does the other person in my group then get up to 50% of the mana returned or is he capped at 20% (Or 30%)?

I'm sure this was posted SOMEWHERE but I couldn't find the specifics with the search function.

[Kelaan]

Yeah it's 22% from talents I believe.

3% Judgment
5% Base Holy Crit
5% All Spells/Attacks in Ret
6% Holy Light/Shock
3% Sanctified Seals

I seem to recall having trouble getting that far in ret without losing the free holy light from a critical Shock. I realize it's more healing-heavy than yours but I think an instant Big Heal in pvp offsets the extra crit damage (and vindication?) from ret. I'll have to play with the talent calculator more to be sure.

Drives me nuts our PVP weapons only have hit on them.

Do we need +hit at all? Can Holy Shocks or judgements miss? I'd imagine they do, and thus it's still worthwhile, right? (not to mention that +hit ensures your SoR hits)


... off topic of Shockadin, but on the topicof healing .. has anyone tried healing as prot or ret spec? how do we do, with the bonus to crit heals that we get?

[Jaedyn]

I seem to recall having trouble getting that far in ret without losing the free holy light from a critical Shock. I realize it's more healing-heavy than yours but I think an instant Big Heal in pvp offsets the extra crit damage (and vindication?) from ret. I'll have to play with the talent calculator more to be sure.

No, this is a deep Ret build for 2's. More of an all or nothing suicide bomber build. Healing is an afterthought after getting the first target dead. If I did a 5's build it would probably be a bit deeper holy, but since my teams chances of winning are largely dependant on me not being dispelled...

Do we need +hit at all? Can Holy Shocks or judgements miss? I'd imagine they do, and thus it's still worthwhile, right? (not to mention that +hit ensures your SoR hits)

We can use it, sure, but honestly Holy Resist in Arena's is so ridiculously low it's really useless. A crit sword would be an amazing alternative to what we have right now. Actually scratch that. A +SD/+Crit 1h Axe would be amazing.

... off topic of Shockadin, but on the topicof healing .. has anyone tried healing as prot or ret spec? how do we do, with the bonus to crit heals that we get?

The ret talent Sheath of light looks absolutely amazing because it stacks like ignite. Basically if you crit heal for 5k, then again crit for 3k the new HoT after the 2nd crit is an additive total. I think the Prot talent will be relatively weak, but then again our healing always is...