Best Paladin Builds – DPS Paladin Spec For Patch 3.3
Posted on January 26th, 2010 by Lawbringer under Alliance, Blood Elf, Build, Dranei, Dwarf, General Tips, Heroics, Horde, Human, Instances, PVE, Paladin, Raiding, Spec, World of Warcraft, WotLKRetribution Is Back With A Holy Vengeance
Perhaps no other class waxes and wanes more in overall DPS than the paladin. A lot of it has to do with PvP. Paladins get a PvP buff, then in a week there is one in almost every arena team pwning face. That’s no kind of balance so they get a nerf, then they are worthless in PvE.
We’re not sure why Blizz has such a hard time keeping PvP and PvE separate for pallies, but at least for now, the Ret paladin can do more than just respectable damage in raids. The following build and numbers bear that out. Since all we’ve done on Paladins for quite a while has been about tanking, we thought it was high time to do a DPS build for them.
Remember that the following comes from the Simulationcraft Engine. If you have any problems with the use of gear or glyphs, you can download the engine yourself and tinker with the simulated toon and rerun the numbers for yourself. Be sure to save your output and post it below if you can beat the preset numbers.
Also, once you’re done retrofitting your toon with any new spec changes and glyphs, run the engine yourself to get a fresh set of Pawn scales – you can read how, and why you should do this, in the article: Making Gear Choices For Your Character.
Gear
Gear Suggestion Character For Ret Paladin Early Patch 3.3
Talent Build
Retribution Paladin Build For Patch 3.3
Glyphs
Major
Minor
- Anything you like
Priorities
- Flask = Endless Rage
- Food = Dragonfin Filet
- Seal = Vengeance
- Hammer Of Justice
- Divine Plea
- Arcane Torrent – (Assuming You’re A Blood Elf)
- Avenging Wrath
- Judgement – (Your choice here depending on raid makeup and mana issues)
- Crusader Strike
- Divine Storm
- Consecration
- Hammer of Wrath
- Exorcism
- Potion of Speed
Damage Sources
Ret experts should help out the neophytes by giving tips on how to use the priorities above, and there will probably be some discussion about how gear choices might have changed a bit now that three wings of ICC are open and it is at least fairly likely you could have gotten one to three pieces of t10 or t10 equivalent gear by now.
If you had your Paladin DPS spec on the sidelines for whatever reason, it might just be time to dust that bad boy off and give him (or her) a whirl. One thing is certain, a decently geared Ret paladin can pump out some seriously dominating DPS in patch 3.3.
You said there are no prefferences for minor glyphs but wouldn’t glyph of sense undead (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43368) be a dps upgrade in ICC where i assume all mobs will be undead?
It would be. I’m quite surprised it wasn’t mentioned…however since there aren’t any other real gylphs to use people should be smart enough to at least pick up the glyph (not sure about remembering to switch to tracking undead)
I am confused why your gear choice makes the Pallys Str so Low. I am not close to BiS with my gear, and my non buffed Str is 1892 whereas your BiS gear makes your guy 1817. I am not a JC either. I would most likely re-vamp the gear with Plate. you have leather and altho the gem slots are noce (assuming that’s what you were going for) the plate has more Str on it than the gems. you seem to be stacking Agi at that point, and you really shouldnt.
Dont get me wrong, my healer uses mail and even some leather – but poubd for pound, Plate stats work best with Pallys.
now, if your goign to say that leather is cool because we shouldnt be getting hit – I agree, but then why are you stacking Agi?
You guys are pretty right on the money on posts here – but even with that new program – there is No way a Pally with that level of gear should be under 2500 str. Once you can buff to 3k str or above, you can use Kings over Might (trust me – the math proves it) and you should be raid buffed to around 3.4k str – upping your damage emencly.
looks like its the best T9, so not BiS, but your on the money, STR is the be all and end all, gems should only be STR or STR/Crit if and only if the socket bonus gives 6+ str. (not counting the 1 +10 all stats you use to activate your meta).
notes should be made for the use of vengence, only on single target mobs that are gonna stay up for more than 60 seconds, otherwise use veng for the ‘cleave’.
rotation for single target something like judge, CS, DS cons, exer
I have found this to be completely untrue, but it’s an opinion that goes through many circles. I have had a couple guild leaders tell me to gear my toons differently, but they stop giving me grief when I own the dps charts. Some have even converted their pallies to this way of gearing, realising there’s more to gear than 4 simple stats on every plate piece.
While it is true that STR>AGI pound-for-pound, agi gear offers benefits that str gear does not. AP for example. You cannot gear a pally in agi gear alone of course, because that will detriment your toon. But some really boosts the dps. When you gear in AGI gear, you aren’t stacking AGI, but rather AP & Crit primarily. While one stat vs another may not seem like a sensible upgrade, the synergy of different stats works.
When I first walked into ICC10man, I found 11k dps on trash pulls and 4.5-7k on bosses (depending on fight) was quite easy to sustain. However, I did spec with Seal of Command so fights involving multiple mobs and quicker fights meant more dps. And this on a toon that requires little more than facerolling when it comes to combat.
When I encounter random plate-only ret pallys who laugh at my leather gear (and it happens all the time), I simply ask them to meet me at the target dummy and we whack away together. Ultimately I hear “But .. how? That’s impossible.”
My advice is don’t be a stick in the mud. Enjoy the maths. I follow the theorycrafting, and it works. Dare to be different.
Whereas I Love that going against the norm is a Good way to discover new and better ways to play a class… I cannot see how the drop of what should be almost 1k Str can possibly give you more DPS.
In 25 mans, I put out a steady 6.5k on, lets say OS Zerg. I am not Anywhere near the iLvL that your toon has. I agree that you don’t “Have” to wear plate – i am just saying that the Str pluses on plate tend to be a Lot higher than other types of armor. This is designed to help DK tanks as well as Ret pallys.
I have run the numbers, and I have seen/read most tests that EJ and the likes have put out there. additionally, you don’t need to switch seals if you use the 245 libram – the math proves that command does nothing anymore with the libram and seal. the “cleave” procs too often to worry about the 60 second rule. and if you are encountering trash that takes more than a minute to kill… well – that’s surprising.
Either way – I think the goal in this post is to Experiment, and do not just follow the Masses. Experimenting is the path to Dominance – and I know you guys know about that =)
talentwise, couldn’t moving the 5 in Divinity (+healing in and out) have a slight dps increase if moved to Divine Intellect (+ intel, which also means spell crit)? Also, why would you use divine sacrifice (’cept in the case of a down tank w/ a near-kill)? Couldn’t that one point be better placed to give 3/3 Swift Retribution (haste)?
With regard to the leather pieces, as a rogue- I’d be 10 shades of ugly if a Pali rolled on a leather piece. However, if I already had the pieces- these pieces seem to be legit stat bonuses for palis. The puny 700agil he has gives him over 16% crit. Since palis hit slower, but harder- crit has a bigger role. More crit = win. However, I see the validity of Tim’s comment. I’m not sure how the plate pieces w/o agil, but +crit rating would weigh against the leather. (Side fact, for other noobadins like me- palis have no armor = +AP like warriors or DK’s)
These are honest questions, I don’t know for sure- but those are the only things that don’t make sense to me.
Hey, i tried the simulationcraft engine and its saying that with my gear i can pull 5.5k dps, yet on bosses 3.5k is average and 4k is the highest. How is the engine getting these numbers, or am i doing something wrong? Im Nazera on Dalaran realm, so any help would be great..
The engine by default presumes fully raid buffed. It may be you are not while hitting bosses. Also you may have a “patchwerk” style fight selected whereas the fight is more “helter skelter”.
I find the simulated engine and my own dps about 10% different on average. Lag, fight circumstance, etc will reflect this.
I’m curious as to why Hammer of Judgement is so high in a dps priority list as its just a stun with no added benifit to dps and most boss encounters it would be a trivial thing anyway because boss mobs are immune to stuns…
@ Nazera – check your assumptions. Simulationcraft has a section that lists all the buffs it is assuming you have (which you probably don’t unless you have a perfectly balanced group). In some cases it can also be important how long the fight is assumed to last – I’m not sure this makes a difference for Pallies, but for a mage who can run out of mana, the time IS a big factor. Also, it is hard, even using “Helter Skelter”, to simulated how much running around you do and when you are not in range of someone to hit, how much the tank is moving the boss (i.e. if the boss moves out of your consecrate, the DPS drops. If the tank pulls 5 adds into your consecrate your DPS goes way up.), how many extra’s there are around you (ex: for Divine Storm), etc. Simulationcraft is good for comparing gear changes, etc, because it uses the exact same assumptions with each change you make, but there is no way it is going to reasonably reflect what you do in a given fight. Ever drop a consecrate and Holy Wrath only to have a mage/hunter/warlock AoE everything to death before your consecrate gets a tick off?
I suspect if you watch carefully, you will see your DPS change significantly between different boss fights even though you are fighting the same way. This is doubly true if you do what you are really *supposed* to be doing, which sometimes involves helping others rather than cranking out DPS (i.e. stunning, repenting, kiting, and the like).
Yea, your right about that, I didn’t think about it in that way. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t failing in some way lol. Thanks for the response!
The engine always puts interrupts pretty high on the list. It’s not that HoJ is a stun as much as it is an interrupt. Which shows you that the engine is not just a DPS slave, but also takes into consideration other things that make fights go smoother as well.
(I’ve tried replying previously but it didn’t go through perhaps because I had links in my reply?)
The talent spec is incorrect, Retadins (should!) not be speccing into DiSac post 3.3. The current recommended spec per EJ is the 11/5/55 Aura Mastery spec:.
It’s in the 3.3 Retribution thread in the EJ Paladin class forum. There are some other options explained in the EJ thread as well.
The FCFS priority depends on gear/setbonuses
2t9 Judgement > HoW > CS > DS > Consecrate > Exorcism > Holy Wrath.
2t9 + 2t10 Judgement > DS > HoW > CS > Consecrate > Exorcism > Holy Wrath
4t10 Judgement > DS > CS > HoW > Consecrate > Exorcism > Holy Wrath
A couple other gear notes – 4pc t9 bonus is not worth it*. Get offset pieces. 2 pc t10 is great, get it ASAP. DO NOT get the EoF libram until you are done purchasing all other gear. The other gear is more important.
I highly recommend the clcret mod to help with FCFS priority/rotation. Get it at curse.
It doesn’t ‘play the game for you’. It does help you keep things tight.
*I just checked the gear link. I am not sure whether even with the higher ilevel pieces it would be worthwhile to keep a 4pc t9 at this point, or to start breaking it up. I have not heard anything remarkable about 4t9.
Regarding STR vs AGI. Yes, generally speaking STR > AGI.. However ret paladins have a high AGI to crit coefficient. Nonetheless, Using myself as an example I have over 2100 STR and my gear is pretty much just Emblem gear/crafted epics, and I choose gear according to RAWR.
Hope this helps some!
Actually – 2 t10 and 2 t9 is our best stats currently for bonuses.