Telaan: July 2008 Archives

You may recall I did a talent overview of the Balance tree when the pre beta talent trees were published after the Worldwide Invitational. Well, now that Beta has arrived, bringing with it both Hunter and Paladin talents, I am here to give you my perspective on the new form of Retribution in the current Beta build. After I give you the highlights from the Ret tree, I will go over a few general changes and improvements to the Paladin class. Here is my prospective talent tree, and my current tree.

Let me first say, I am really excited about staying Ret all the way to 80 and into whatever end game I decide to play in. While both Holy and Protection will be getting some amazing changes, making them more versatile than their base abilities, I honestly believe the Retribution tree is getting the biggest, and best changes. Will it change how people see us? Unlikely, but it will be a start. Now, to the talents:

Heart of the Crusader - Ranks: 3 - In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement spells will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 1/2/3%. Opinion: As seemingly the only Paladin in the world who uses Seal of the Crusader, I will miss that ability, but I will like the fact this ability might make me that little bit more desirable to raids.

Sanctified Retribution - Ranks: 1 - Damage caused by targets affected by Retribution Aura is increased by 2%. - Opinion: This stacked with the removal of Sanctity Aura will make the Retribution Aura an actually desired aura for (now) the entire Raid. I know I will be changing my macro from Sanctity(yes, another 'rarely used' one that I use all the time) to Retribution.

Sheath of Light - Ranks: 3 - Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 10/20/30% of your attack power and your critical healing spells heal the target for 20/40/60% of the healed amount over 12 seconds. - Opinion: With Blizzard's change from the Burning Crusade widespread stat list, to the more general ones coming in Wrath, this is both expected and welcome. As a Paladin who, while Blizzard has talked about switching Ret itemization to more warrior based, knows that Alliance Paladins still use a lot of spells and go through a lot of mana, I look forward to this talent which will still help me out.

Sanctified Seals - Ranks: 3 - Increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and attacks by 1/2/3% and reduces the chance your Seals will be dispelled by 33/66/100% - Opinion: Another +crit talent is always nice, and while I do not think that in PvE I was in great risk of having my seals dispelled, I will take that as an added buff in case I am ever PvPing.

Sanctified Wrath - Ranks: 2 - Increases the critical strike chance of Hammer of Wrath by 25/50%, reduces the cooldown of Avenging Wrath by 30/60 secs and while affected by Avenging Wrath 25/50% of all damage caused bypasses damage reduction effects. - Opinion: So at top rank Hammer of Wrath does about 700, which is not much even on crit, especially when you can usually only cast it once per mob, but I'll take it. The bigger thing for me is the Avenging Wrath buffs. 1 minute chopped off that spell, plus it's already dropped forebearance, and adding the damage bypass... that will make Avenging Wrath a must use spell in any fight.

Swift Retribution - Ranks: 3 - Your Retribution Aura also increases casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 1/2/3% - Opinion: Yet another buff to Retribution Aura. Anyone noticing a theme here?

The Art of War - Ranks: 3 - Your damaging Crusader Strikes have a 5/10/15% chance to cause your next Judgement spell to cause double damage. - Opinion: Watching for the buff will be important, because this would be one of those 'OMG, go for broke' level of buffs.

Righteous Vengeance - Ranks: 5 - Increases critical damage bonus of all attacks by 3/6/9/12/15%. - Opinion: Retribution Paladins = God Mode, crit style

Divine Storm - Ranks: 1 - An instant weapon attack that causes Holy damage to up to 4 enemies within 8 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totalling 20% of the damage caused. - Opinion: Great for solo, decent for party. I imagine the animation will be bloody fantastic!

General Abilities:

-The change from Blessings to Hands on some of the 'off blessings' of current game is great, and I look forward to seeing what they come up with.
-Aura's being raid wide will be awesome, and will allow for a more overall coverage of aura's in a multi Paladin group
-Lay on Hands will be nice to see the changes, but I want to know how much mana it will now drain and how much health it will heal.
-Repentance will be nice, though I can honestly say I do not recall ever using it before. I will have to check it out, cause I clearly forgot this ability previously.
-Righteous Fury now doing 90% more threat on holy damage will be awesome for those non Prot who need to off tank in a run.
-Enlightened Judgements is a talent I wish was in Ret, as the improved distance was, I am told, in Ret pre TBC.
-DI and and LoH having lowered cooldowns of 20 minutes will be awesome.
-Holy Wrath being instant cast and does a stun? Finally!


Overall I am really enjoying the look of the Retribution tree in the Wrath Beta, and really enjoying the overall Paladin based improvements. I have concerns about mana pools, because Ret Paladins still need to cast a lot of spells and I am not seeing a lot so far to change that. Still, this is leaps and bounds better than currently in the game, though, of course, anything said here can and very well may change between now and Launch Day of Wrath of the Lich King. 

I have mentioned a few times that I have now four level 70 characters. There is one thing I have noticed in the leveling from 58-60 all the way up to 70. Medros and Arita almost leveled together. Due to the simultaneous leveling, it was really difficult to learn much toon to toon, and therefore the streamlining to improve leveling was non existent. The only improvements where in the 'where's this mob' type of improvements.

With Ameland, my now 70 Hunter, I learned a lot. I knew about the BoE items that could be used to gain rep quickly, and therefore rep was very easy to gain. Unidentified Plant Parts, Pair of Ivory Tusks, Oshu'Gun Crystal Fragment, and more were farmed up by my two 70s for easy gaining of rep. With those controllable rep grinds out of the way, I began to level my Hunter to 70 and did so relatively quickly. Unfortunately I pretty much seem to have stopped there, having done relatively little with my hunter other than a few rep dailies.

Not that I have worked my second Paladin up to level 70, I have applied all of the lessons I learned from the first 3 70s to this one. I was gathering and buying Plant Parts as soon as I hit Outlands. I arranged runs through Ramparts, Blood Furnace, and Underbog early in those zones. I had enough Tusks to get to friendly with the Consortium and even gift a few to an up and coming guild mate. I fully quested in Zangar in order to maximize the gain from the Nagrand quests, and whenever I fly through Nagrand I help out with the Ring of Bloods.

I have waited to do any warbead turn in's until I was done with all of the Netherstorm quests in Netherstorm. I maximized the leveling I did in each zone to ensure I made a full 2 levels per zone including any instances I did. I will point out that even with the massive rep from the Midsummer Fire Festival, I was on the last quests out of Evergrove before I dinged 70. I did all of my SSO dailies on every day I could, and when time allowed I added to my balance by doing the quests in Netherstorm.

Before I was even done in Netherstorm, though after I hit exalted with SSO, I got enough gold saved up for an epic bird and training, which made the last part of the zone go much, much faster. At roughly 500g per landmass in Netherstorm, it was not difficult at all to work my way toward 5000 without even touching the quests in Shadowmoon.

After 4 times running this progression,  I am finally confident that I have maximized the time and resources it takes to hit 70 in the most efficient manner. This, as I am sure some of you realize, is a very important thing looking ahead. With the maximized leveling I have perfected, and the level 55 starting point of the Death Knight, I am fairly sure I can hit 70 on my Death Knight within a few days of the expansion's release. The only big question that remains, though, is whether I will have a chance to master the 70-80 progression.

How are you preparing your skills and resources to maximize the events that follow the launch of Wrath of the Lich King?