For The Paladin

So you’ve been playing your paladin for a while, and you’ve decided on what talent tree you are going to spec into. The question of the day is, what weapon are you going to use? Well depending on your spec, you could be spending time trying to collect anything from a sword to a mace to a 2 handed weapon. I will try to explain which ones you should be getting for which spec, as well as where to acquire such weapons.

For the most part, Paladin weapons aren’t hard to find. It’s a simple matter of what spec you’re going to be using. Let’s say that you’ve decided that you’re going to be a Protection Paladin. Well, your best bet would be investing in a 1-handed sword, or a 1-handed mace, so long as they supply the right stats. As a Protection Paladin, you’re going to be going for stats such as strength, stamina, defense, parry, block value, and dodge. So a weapon like Infantry Assault Blade would be a good starting choice for a fresh 80 Prot Paladin who’s looking to pick up some better gear through heroics. If you can handle heroics for now, the best non-raiding weapon you can pick up is Rimefang’s Claw from the Pit of Saron. I would recommend going through that instance over and over until you can grab this item, as well as most of your tier 9 gear. At this point in the game, any items within the 226-232 region will be good for raiding, so you should be picking up emblems while you’re going through heroics. Once you’ve started to raid (and for the most part, you’ll be picking up gear from either Trial of the Crusader or Ice Crown Citadel), you can acquire new weapons like Crusader’s Glory from Anub’arak or The Facelifter from Professor Putricide.

That’s it for now, keep tuning in for more Paladin Weapons!

~Baros

So you decided that you’d wanna take all the hits, eh? Well, look no further. I’ll try my best to explain what Paladin tanking is all about without the technical mumbo-jumbo the guys at Elitist Jerks talk about.

So let’s talk tanking in general. Basically, you’re going to want to hold all the aggro on whatever it is you’re fighting while your DPS beats the ever-living crap out of it. Now, let’s get one thing straight. Tank’s don’t top damage meters. Ever. If you can find me a screenshot of a tank out-DPSing any DPS in any fight ever, you need to find that player, and tell him he needs to change his gear/rotation/enchants/etc. because whatever he’s doing obviously isn’t working.

“But Baros, if a tank isn’t doing the most damage, how is he supposed to hold aggro on anything?”

Well, just because a tank isn’t doing much damage doesn’t mean it won’t hold aggro! That’s what a Prot Pally’s spells are all about.

Spells

Shield of Righteousness: This spell hits one target for a lot of threat. There. That’s about it.

Hammer of the Righteous : Smashes 3 targets with an attack which also produces a great amount of threat.

Avenger’s Shield: Use this bad boy when you want to pull mobs from a good distance. This spell is one of the reason Pally Tanks are so useful: they can stack threat on multiple mobs with one spell.

Exorcism : Need to put a little more threat on a mob? Avenger’s Shield down and you wanna just pull really quick and get it over with? Hit the mob with exorcism! **NOTE: This spell always crits when used against demons and undead. Sweet!

Holy Shield: This spell should always be in your rotation simply because it adds 30% more block. Adding it with the benefits of Blessing of Sancutary, Holy Shield pays for itself in a couple blocks, which means extra mana reserved for your other spells.

Consecration: Here it is, the spell that pulls all your mobs you’re not currently attacking to attack you instead of any healers/dps. Drop this down, and watch the numbers fly. AoE FTW. This is also great to put in a hallway when spawning mobs will have to run to you. If a mob is running through your consecration while trying to get to healer, for the most part the mob will turn it’s head towards you.

Judgement of Light/Judgement of Wisdom: While these spells aren’t exactly “Threat” worthy, they are useful in putting up those judgements so that your DPS will either regen health or mana on hits. Pretty neat spell to put into your rotation.

Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption: This is your primary seal as a Prot Pally. Use it to stack a DoT on the mob(s) which, once judged, will cause more damage, and thus more threat.

Righteous Fury: Let me say this once, and only once. If you are tanking an instance, and for some reason you aren’t holding the mobs at all, do me a favor and check and see if this spell is active. It isn’t? Give yourself a nice palm to the face. You, good sir, do not understand Paladin tanking. It’s a good thing I’m writing this guide now isn’t it? This spell increases your threat by HOLY spells by 80%. If you haven’t noticed by now, ALL of your spells are holy. Yeah, this spell is indeed awesome.

Blessing of Sanctuary: If you’re the only Paladin in your group, you’re either going to have this spell or Blessing of Kings on yourself. Small stamina and strength increase, damage reduction, and 2% of your mana back every time you dodge, block, or parry (which if you’re gear is in check, you should be doing all of those a lot). You shouldn’t have a problem with mana with this blessing applied.

Divine Plea: Two words: MANA. REGENERATION. With the talent Guarded by the Light, you will be gaining 25% of your mana over 15 seconds, ALL THE TIME.

Sacred Shield: Absorbing damage? I’ll take it. 500 damage may not sound like a whole lot, but with the Divine Guardian talent, it increases the duration by 100% (so a full minute of the shield), and increases the shield absorption by 20%. Plus, your spell power increases the amount you absorb. But for the sake of this argument, let’s just say that you only absorb 500 damage. In a typical 5 minute fight, you’ll absorb 500×60 (the max amount of times Sacred Shield will proc in 5 minutes) = 30,000 damage. So if anyone ever asks you why you put sacred shield up on yourself, you let them know why.

Righteous Defense: This is one of your taunt spells, that makes up to 3 enemies attack you. Good to use: when you need to pull all the mobs to you. Bad to use: When you need to only pull one mob.

Hand of Reckoning: Single-mob taunt. Nothing much about it other than that.

Divine Protection: This spell reduces all incoming damage by 50% for 12 seconds. The big difference between this and Divine Shield is that this spell doesn’t drop your aggro. So use it when you feel like you need to give your healers an extra second to get those big heals off, or when you feel that you’re gonna get hit with a huge attack. This is your Shield Wall

Divine Sacrifice: Transfers a bunch of damage being done to the raid to you. Add it to Divine Protection and all that damage is reduced by 50%, which should be enough to keep everyone alive during an AoE blast (just make sure your healers are focused on you!)

Ok, now that I’ve talked about spells, lets talk rotation.

Generally, your spells are either on a 6-second cooldown or a 8-second cooldown. So, in order to provide maximum threat in your rotation, you want to keep switching between your 6 and 8 second cooldowns. Here is an example of my rotation

- Open with Avengers Shield

-Consecrate

- Hammer of the Righteous

- Holy Shield

- Judgement of (your choice, I normally choose light)

- Shield of Righteousness

- Repeat (minus Avengers Shield)

There you have it! Hope you enjoy Pally Tanking as much as I do, and make sure to watch this page for any updates as the game goes on!

Happy Gaming!
~Baros