Finally Patch 3.1 has finally been released. Changes have been made to the talent trees. Holy got a little nerfed, Protection got some new talents and Retribution gets somewhat balanced. Unforunately still no improvement on Seals.

With my exams coming within a month and busy preparing for it, I am sorry to say I can’t post a detailed informative document on the new talent specs. I will post core talent builds for each spec, so there will be leftover/spare talent points. These talent points are for you to decide on the kind of build you want.

The good thing (or bad depending the way you see it) about Patch 3.1 is that talent points are freed up, so you can have more variation with your build. Holy Paladins used to spec probably 51/0/20 to amp their critical chance, now with 3.1 you can spec into Protection for Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian. Retribution paladins can also opt to have that talent now that less talent points are needed for a proper Retribution build. This makes the paladin a more “hybrid” class.

HOLY (51/5/5)

In the Holy tree it is still the same old 51 points allocation, feel free to switch between Improved Lay on Hands and Blessed Hands.

Divinity is a exciting new talent, improving heals given and received by 5%.

Benediction is specifically for Holy Shock, so if you find the 5 points here not worthwhile simply pump them into Protection for Divine Sacrifce and Divine Guardian. Divine Guardian increases the duration of Sacred Shield by 100% and amount absorbed by 20%, which is a solid talent. Alternatively invest remaining points in Retribution tree for more critical chance.

PROTECTION (0/56/6)

While reading through sites for info on Protection build, the ironic thing is that the new talent Divine Sacrifice is deemed more a offtank/non-tank spell. This seems more usable in a situation when the whole raid is taking heavy damage, such as EoE Phase 2 ,instead of in a boss fight, so use it wisely. You are only bringing more hurt upon yourself if it is used in a boss fight, apart from boss damage you are taking damage from other party members. In my build you can see I left Divine Sacrifice out, but it is optional. Probably in 25 man raids where raid takes heavy damage it will be needed.

Remember to spend only 1 point in Improved Judgements, this is because of the 9 6 9 rotation. If you don’t already know, 9 6 9 rotation is a spell rotation for tankadins. You can read about it HERE and the SacredDuty blog has a post on it.

Divinity might seem to be a Holy talent, but it works for Protection as well. It increases healing received by 5%, that is enough reason to take it.

RETRIBUTION (0/5/52)

Retribution tree went through some tweaks, what used to require heavy points investment, now has talent points reduced considerably. Seal of Blood/Martyr had Judgement damage reduced but Seal damage increased, bringing a balance to it.

You can see I have no points in Improved Blessing of Might, this is due to Warrior’s Battle Shout. There are problems of Blessing of Might clashing with Battle Shout (Sorry but I will have to look into it in detail in later posts.) Seal of Command is optional.

From then on it’s pretty much the core talents for Retribution paladins. The remaining talent points can be invested in the Protection Tree for the new talents, it will help raid survivability. With instant Flash of Lights and Divine Sacrifice, you can provide additional support in situations where the raid is taking damage or you are unable to DPS the target.

Alright, let’s continue from where we left off, last post I introduced addons such as Grid, Power Auras and Ghost: Pulse.

I have used these addons and they have been an immense help to me. This time I’ll introduce 2 more addons I always use and cover other useful addons.

Today’s post will be more beneficial to the Holy paladin as the addons featured are more useful to them.

QUARTZ
Quartz is a castbar mod that is able to track and compensate your latency/lag in your spell casting. If you’re a healer/caster and you don’t have it, you don’t know what you’re missing. Most WoW players are plagued by latency problems in game. (especially now, I haven’t been able to raid 25M, WTH man!?) Quartz is able to reduce the latency problem by correctly tracking your spell casting. It’s hard to explain, but you will understand once you installed it. Basically you can fire off your spell earlier than you think you need.

DOWNLOAD QUARTZ

DECURSIVE
Decursive is a debuff tracking/removal addon. Once installed, you will see another panel of small unitframes on your screen. Afflicted units will be shaded red and all you need to do is just click to dispel the debuff if you have means. So for a paladin raid members afflicted with magic effects, diseases and poisons will be shown red, but cursed raid members will not show for the paladin because he does not have the spell to dispel it. Instead druids will be able to the cursed members as red.

Unforunately I could not find a video for this addon, but scroll down in the addon page you will see screenshots of Decursive.

DOWNLOAD DECURSIVE

HEALBOT CONTINUED
I don’t use Healbot but it has been getting a lot of cheers and boos. It really simplifies the healing process so there’s one side singing its praises and another side saying it degrades healers and makes the game too easy.

It has nice features like tracking who’s healing who, which prevents overhealing, but it also would dull you alertness in the long run. And in raids awareness/alertness is a vital attribute for healers.

My thoughts, I would not recommend using this addon because this kinda automates healing. Where is the fun in that? But if you are really a healer in dire straits, by all means use it. For the Raid.

DOWNLOAD HEALBOT CONTINUED

There’s pretty much I want to cover about addons. Of course there are plenty more addons out there for you to explore. Keep looking and try them out and see which one suits you.

Be careful though, some addon/mod takes up memory and might slow down your game.

Been away from WoW lately, busy preparing for exams. Most people have been waiting for 3.1 to be launched, so can’t find any news to write up on. Was checking through the guides and I realised I never done a proper post on addons, so here we go.

If you don’t already know, addons/mods are external programs in WoW that enhances gameplay and capability.

Raiders are familiar with raid mods such as DeadlyBossMods, Omen Threat Meters and such.

The addons I’ll be covering today will be mainly to improve your gameplay and capability in raids. You can look for other addons at either WoWInterface or Curse WoW Addons page.

How to use these addons are really simple, just make sure to read the information posted on the addon page, or the README note in the files.

POWER AURAS
A very powerful addon. Its purpose is to provide visual aid for your spells and buffs.
For example if you’re a Holy Paladin, a visual marker will appear for the duration of Judgement of the Pure after you cast it. A tanking paladin can configure it for Holy Shield so he knows he keeps the spell up. Say you got a Holy Shock crit, Infusion of Light procs, there will be a graphic on your screen when that effect is in duration.

It is a simple to use addon, after installing just type /powa to bring up the configuration window. Say you want to provide a visual aid for your trinkets, create a New Icon and insert the name of the buff. Play around with the settings and you have it. If you are not sure the video below is a tutorial on it.

DOWNLOAD POWER AURAS

GHOST: PULSE
Ghost: Pulse is another visual aid addon. The difference is that it informs you of cooldowns. When spells finish their cooldown, a icon of that spell pulses on the screen to let you know the spell is up and ready.

Say you casted Holy Shock and after 6 seconds when it finishes its cooldown, a Holy Shock icon will pulse on your screen. Alternatively you can configure it to show what spell you are casting, shown in the video below.

DOWNLOAD GHOST: PULSE

GRID
A raidframe addon that can also work as a healing addon. If you’re a healer and you don’t use any raidframes addon but the default raidframes, this is a MUST HAVE. This will increase your healing capability TENFOLD.

Although small and compact, it is able to convey enough information for you to perform your duties efficiently. If you find it hard to understand GRID, it will come to you eventually, or you could configure it to be larger and more instructive.

In non-combat it doubles up as a raidframe, showing all members currently in your party or raid. I really like the fact it does not take up a lot of space. In combat each unit frame will display any loss of health, debuffs, if its in range of your spells and other information.
For instance, a raid member having aggro will have a small red square on the top left corner of his unit frame. Raid members out of range of your spells will have their unit frames transparent.

DOWNLOAD GRID

That’s it for now, I will cover a little more on addons the next time round. See ya.