Thankfully there are plenty of sites available for classic talent trees and I have contributed a significant amount of traffic just playing around with the paladin. Because the paladin has a hybrid set of skills, there is a lot of variability with how one decides to play the class. You could select for mostly damage points with some off healing, mostly damage with pvp oriented talents, mostly healing with some damage talents for soloing, mostly healing with some pvp talents, most tanking with some off healing, or mostly tanking with some damage. That’s a broad overview, as there are tons of slight variations that players will make, but you get the idea.
My goal in classic it to try my hand at tanking dungeons on a paladin while having some utility when soloing quests and pvp. I will play two paladins, one by myself and one in a group. Both will try to tank primarily, but the one going solo will have more Retribution take ya to help with killing things quicker.
Paladins are fine tanks but they have some weaknesses. They have armor and self heals plus a plethora of buffs to support their group. However, they lack a taunt, and because mana is their primary resource maintains threat over longer fights is a struggle. With that in mind, I have an idea for a spec that aims to alleviate some of the mana and threat struggles that the tanking paladin faces.
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#syVz0MZV0xhZVfe00bo
Going down the Holy side of the talent tree, I opted for Divine Intellect 5/5 and Divine Strength 4/5. The bonus to intellect will help my mana pool, and the bonus to strength will improve my block value. The 4/5 in the Divine Strength is to move down the rest of the tree to pick up the Improved Blessing of Wisdom 2/2. I anticipate using Wisdom as my primary blessing to help with mana regeneration. Consecration is an obvious choice as it does holy damage over an area which will make tanking three or more mobs a lot easier. Improved Seal of Righteousness 5/5 is also desirable as it will increase the holy damage I deal, which is where my threat generation will come from.
Moving to the Protection portion of the tree, I am picking up a surprisingly low amount of talents considering I'm trying to tank, and I've debated about what to focus on here. Should I focus more on damage mitigation or hit rating. I've opted for the damage mitigation, which is why I'm going with Toughness 5/5 to increase my armor contribution. I've also picked up Redoubt 5/5 to increase my block chance after receiving a critical hit, and those ten points will unlock the Improved Righteous Fury 3/3 to increase threat generated from holy spells.
To build on the threat from holy damage and to help manage the mana I use, I went with Benediction 5/5 to reduce the mana cost of my Judgement and Seal spells. Moving down, I've got Deflection 5/5 for the parry chance to help mitigate damage, as well as Improved Judgement 2/2 and Improved Seal of the Crusader 3/3. Being able to Judge more often plus increasing the holy damage a target takes by an additional 15% should both be useful in helping my threat, especially on a boss fight. I'm going to opt not to pick up Seal of Command even though it is one of my favorite spells in the game because it's not really useful while tanking. This also frees up a point to spend in Vindication 3/3, which will help reduce the damage I take. I'm then getting Improved Retribution Aura 2/2 for the increased holy damage taken by attackers. This opens up one point that I can put into Sanctity Aura which increases the holy damage done by another 10%.
Between the increased damage from Improved Seal of Righteousness, Improved Seal of the Crusader, plus Sanctity Aura, by holy damage from Seals and Judgement alone will be a bunch of bonus holy damage not including Consecrate. My planned rotation on a boss fight is to start with Retribution Aura. Since the boss will probably be hitting me before I'm able to start hitting him this will be some initial holy damage. Once I Judge with Seal of the Crusader, I'll swap auras to Sanctity and cast Consecrate followed by Seal of Righteousness. Then I'll be Judging on cooldown, and using lower ranks of Consecrate throughout the fight if I need to. On trash pulls I plan on using Retribution Aura and not worrying about Seal of the Crusader since it will use more mana without very much yield since the fights will be shorter. Consecrate will be my go to with more than two mobs, and lower ranks will be used after the initial pull.
The key to all of this working as I have planned is that the damage players give me some time to get the initial threat built up on boss fights, and I'll be using markers to prioritize kills on trash to help ensure they are attacking the same target that I am. Consecrate and Ret Aura should produce enough ambient threat to keep mobs on me even if I'm not attacking them. I still plan on tab targeting to get a couple of melee swings with Seal of Righteousness up to ensure that they ancillary mobs are taking holy damage, but I think this set up will work well.
If it doesn't, I'll be swapping to a more conventional tanking spec. My main concerns are that I will be squishy since I won't have the bonus shield block, I won't have Blessing of Sanctuary, and I won't have Holy Shield which all provide added mitigation. Gear wise, I'll try to accumulate a mix of spell damage through rings, trinkets, and weapons, while maintaining a solid amount of stamina and armor. I'm excited to see how this build works out, and I'll keep updating on how the spec is progressing through leveling and eventual end game.
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#syVz0MZV0xhZVfe00bo
Going down the Holy side of the talent tree, I opted for Divine Intellect 5/5 and Divine Strength 4/5. The bonus to intellect will help my mana pool, and the bonus to strength will improve my block value. The 4/5 in the Divine Strength is to move down the rest of the tree to pick up the Improved Blessing of Wisdom 2/2. I anticipate using Wisdom as my primary blessing to help with mana regeneration. Consecration is an obvious choice as it does holy damage over an area which will make tanking three or more mobs a lot easier. Improved Seal of Righteousness 5/5 is also desirable as it will increase the holy damage I deal, which is where my threat generation will come from.
Moving to the Protection portion of the tree, I am picking up a surprisingly low amount of talents considering I'm trying to tank, and I've debated about what to focus on here. Should I focus more on damage mitigation or hit rating. I've opted for the damage mitigation, which is why I'm going with Toughness 5/5 to increase my armor contribution. I've also picked up Redoubt 5/5 to increase my block chance after receiving a critical hit, and those ten points will unlock the Improved Righteous Fury 3/3 to increase threat generated from holy spells.
To build on the threat from holy damage and to help manage the mana I use, I went with Benediction 5/5 to reduce the mana cost of my Judgement and Seal spells. Moving down, I've got Deflection 5/5 for the parry chance to help mitigate damage, as well as Improved Judgement 2/2 and Improved Seal of the Crusader 3/3. Being able to Judge more often plus increasing the holy damage a target takes by an additional 15% should both be useful in helping my threat, especially on a boss fight. I'm going to opt not to pick up Seal of Command even though it is one of my favorite spells in the game because it's not really useful while tanking. This also frees up a point to spend in Vindication 3/3, which will help reduce the damage I take. I'm then getting Improved Retribution Aura 2/2 for the increased holy damage taken by attackers. This opens up one point that I can put into Sanctity Aura which increases the holy damage done by another 10%.
Between the increased damage from Improved Seal of Righteousness, Improved Seal of the Crusader, plus Sanctity Aura, by holy damage from Seals and Judgement alone will be a bunch of bonus holy damage not including Consecrate. My planned rotation on a boss fight is to start with Retribution Aura. Since the boss will probably be hitting me before I'm able to start hitting him this will be some initial holy damage. Once I Judge with Seal of the Crusader, I'll swap auras to Sanctity and cast Consecrate followed by Seal of Righteousness. Then I'll be Judging on cooldown, and using lower ranks of Consecrate throughout the fight if I need to. On trash pulls I plan on using Retribution Aura and not worrying about Seal of the Crusader since it will use more mana without very much yield since the fights will be shorter. Consecrate will be my go to with more than two mobs, and lower ranks will be used after the initial pull.
The key to all of this working as I have planned is that the damage players give me some time to get the initial threat built up on boss fights, and I'll be using markers to prioritize kills on trash to help ensure they are attacking the same target that I am. Consecrate and Ret Aura should produce enough ambient threat to keep mobs on me even if I'm not attacking them. I still plan on tab targeting to get a couple of melee swings with Seal of Righteousness up to ensure that they ancillary mobs are taking holy damage, but I think this set up will work well.
If it doesn't, I'll be swapping to a more conventional tanking spec. My main concerns are that I will be squishy since I won't have the bonus shield block, I won't have Blessing of Sanctuary, and I won't have Holy Shield which all provide added mitigation. Gear wise, I'll try to accumulate a mix of spell damage through rings, trinkets, and weapons, while maintaining a solid amount of stamina and armor. I'm excited to see how this build works out, and I'll keep updating on how the spec is progressing through leveling and eventual end game.
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