Archives Posts

The Truth about Seals…

September 11th, 2009 by morninstar

There has been changes to Seals in 3.2, Seal of Blood/Martyr has been removed and Seal of Corruption/Vengeance has been replaced to be the primary DPS Seal.

The functionality of Seal of Blood/Martyr has been built into Seal of Corruption/Vengeance in patch 3.2, once the debuff from your seal attacks has built up to 5 stacks, your attacks will deal ADDITIONAL 33% damage on top of Seal of Corruption/Vengeance’s DoT debuff.
Simply put, once you built up 5 stacks of debuff you got Seal of Blood/Martyr AND Seal of Corruption/Vengeance working together.

Sounds OP, I know, but it requires some time for you to built the debuff to 5 stacks and there are some conflict when there are multiple Seal of Corruption/Vengeance applied on the same target. For example, if you got 5 stacks up while another paladin only just start up his seal stack, your Seal procs will only work as according to his stack.

Also another problem is on trash mobs, before you seal can built up to 5 stacks and release its full potential, the target will probably be dead before 5 stacks can be applied.

The workaround for this problem is to use Seal of Righteousness on trash mobs and Seal of Corruption/Vengeance on raid bosses.

In the coming patch 3.2.2, Seal of Command has been reworked to hit an extra target when active. But it only procs when you are using single target attacks, meaning Divine Storm will not proc Seal of Command. But whether will Seal of Command be effective it is still to be seen. If you want to do AoE damage, Divine Storm is going to be an important spell in your DPS rotation and having it not to proc Seals attack is ridiculous.

Seal-twisting again? On trash mobs you will use Seal of Command then switch to Seal of Righteousness when you Divine Storm? Not very friendly. But thats a problem Blizzard should be working on.

Our Seal spells are starting to look like a mess.

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Filed under 3.2, Retribution having 2 Comments »

Archives Posts

Healing Builds: Holy/Prot vs Holy/Ret

September 9th, 2009 by morninstar

This build hereis the typical 51 points spent for Holy Paladins.

Where do you put the remaining 20 talent points?
Theres two common builds for Holy Paladins these days and both have trade offs. Which build would be better for you? Let’s take a look.

HOLY(51) / PROTECTION (20)
The first build is the Holy/Protection build, which puts all 20 talent points into the Protection tree.

The main feature of this build is Divine Sacrifice, which absorbs incoming raid damage up to 150% of your Paladin’s health. When combined with Divine Shield, you are absorbing raid damage at no cost. This makes it easier for healing massive raid damage such as XT Deconstructor’s Tantrum, Kologarn’s Shockwave.

But of course there are disadvantages, Divine Shield can only be used once every 5 minutes, so you probably can use it once per fight. Also you trade 5% spell critical chance in the Retribution Tree for this spell. This brings us to the Holy/Retribution build.

HOLY(51) / PROTECTION (5) / RETRIBUTION (15)
The Retribution Build offers more utility than the Holy/Prot build with talents such as Heart of the Crusader and Conviction. Conviction offers additional 5% spell critical chance, which is substantial in healing.

SO? WHICH SPEC DO I USE?
Well, both specs honestly are equally effective, but it’s down to your preference. A heroic geared paladin prepped for raids shld have about 20% spell critical at the very least, but 25% spell critical chance is recommended for beginners who are raiding. If your raid can handle AoE damages, it’s better to use the Holy/Ret build. Or if you want a high critical holy healing build it’s obviously Holy/Ret.

Whereas some people would choose Holy/Prot because of Divine Sacrifice/ Divine Shield Bubble, which can be a raidsaver at times. It is a good emergency combo that would prevent a wipe. But they would have lower healing due to 5% loss in spell critical chance. Also, if you are highly geared and can hit 25% spell critical chance just from gear, going Holy/Prot build is a good choice.

Ultimately it comes down to your opinion which build would benefit your raid more. Some people would think having more CRIT would help raid healing more than Divine Sacrifice, whereas some find Divine Sacrifice more useful since their raid might be more subjectible to raid damage.

Try both builds and find one that fits your style and your raid composition.

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Filed under 3.2, Guides, Holy, Talent having 4 Comments »