[How-to] 5x Paladins Disscusion

[Multibocks]

Oh and having to eat after most 5 mob trash pulls sucks too =(

edit: forgot to mention slaves have 21k health buffed with kings.

[Stealthy]

Ok so my paladins are 80 and lets just say i'm none too impressed. I run 1 prot and 4 ret, they are wearing mostly deadly gear (did close to 100 AV victories on each /wrists) and I can so far only kill Trollgore and the last guy in Draktheron. Granted they are only using De-Rage Waraxe for the main and I am actively searching for Titansteel Destroyers (no one makes these anymore), but the dps leaves a lot to be desired. Trollgore takes 1min20secs to kill which is 4 x slower than my shaman (who are obviously more geared). However the problem I am running into is mana.

Take the frost boss for example. I get him down to about 120k and my guys are OOM. Everyone. Including the prot because his only heals are from Divine Storm (which is really all he needs.) So I switched all slaves to the glyph that gives 8% mana back when you judge with Seal of Command active. (Used to use the glyph that gave 12 expertise when using Seal of Vindication.) Even using this they are still running oom. It's frustrating really. How do they expect this class to play if they are always oom?

I run the Niley's superlong macro for Ret PvE dpsing and I also use Divine Shield/Divine Sacrifice on round robin to reduce group damage. At this point I am considering shelving the paladin group and going back full time to 5xshaman for pvp slaughter. Oh and that's another thing. Holy crap can mages kite the everliving shit out of your group and thats with DS, Hand of Freedom, Cleanse. I F*cking hate mages. They make you look so stupid.

Anyways, I just wanted to say I wasnt expecting awesomesauce from the getgo, but considering most of my gear is ileve213 and three have i226 helms(PvE BoE), I just dont really see how it can get much better. Maybe using pvp gear aint all that and that's my problem. They need more mana regen as a group and I just dont see how it can get any better than the judgement talent + the glyph.

p.s. mad props to the guy who used 5 paladins to down H ToC. I see now how truly insane that is.

p.p.s. anyone notice that paladins are mad aggro? Halfway through fight Im having to taunt shit off them and this is with a 35k unbuffed health tank. I shouldnt have that much trouble. Yes I have the right ret talents, it's the same cookie cutter one everyone takes.

Can you link your armory for your prot and ret spec'd guys...? I'd like to check out your spec, and more importantly your glyphs...

When I started, my rets were in the pvp blue crafted set...sad I know! But mana has never been that big an issue for me.

Anyway, some of the following may be "captain obvious" material, but I usually find it's good to make sure you have the basics covered first, and then look at some of other issues in depth....so here goes!

1. DON'T USE SEAL OF COMMAND. It's bad...really bad. Even for PvP (although it's getting a buff next patch). Instead use Seal of Vengeance / Corruption. Once you land a full stack of dots you'll be doing way more DPS than you ever would with Command.

2. Sacred Shield should always be up...ALWAYS! Ok...bit of a no brainer, but its easy to forget to re-apply it. You should also have 2 points in Divine Guardian so SS will last for 60 secs and the damage absorbed is buffed by 20%. Apart from the damage shield, it also gives you a HoT for the same amount healed by FoL over 12 secs, and increases the chance for FoL to crit by 50%. And of course FoL crits proc Sheath of Light (which SS also scales with btw), so you can end up with 2 HoTs going at once for each cast....this spell is AWESOMESAUCE!!

3. Divine Plea - should always be up on your main (if you have 2 points in Guarded By The Light). Use on your rets just before combat ends or inbetween combat (becuase the reduces the effectiveness of your heals by 50%).

4. Judgements - Light / Wisdom / Justice and repeat for whichever two you want to make sure land. Judgements don't stack anymore, so you'll only ever see these three debuffs on the target. Very important to note - while judgements cannot be blocked or parried, they can still miss if you are not hit capped. A missed judgement is VERY bad for rets, becuase you will miss the proc from Judgements of the Wise (which all your rets should have 3 points in), which means missing out on a big chunk of mana back.

5. Generating Threat - Apart from the obvious one of making sure Righteous Fury is active (especially recasting after a wipe) you can get a quick lead on agro by pulling with Hand of Reckoning and immediately following up with Avenger's Shield. Consecration and Hammer of the Righteous (which you should also have glyphed) are essential for group pulls. Shield of Righteousness and Hold Shield for single target threat. Prot pallies spell power is based on strength, so if you're fidning theat is a problem, you can try gemming / enchanting for more strength. A note on Divine Storm - for group pulls divine storm crits can pull adds if used too early. I set my rotation up so that my main gets off consecration and Hammer of the Righteous before Divine Storm gets cast, which lets him get a handy threat lead...

6. Healing - never heal with your main if possible, since when you cast spells, you can't block or parry.

Hope this helps...

Cheers,
S.

[Multibocks]

Can you link your armory for your prot and ret spec'd guys...? I'd like to check out your spec, and more importantly your glyphs...

When I started, my rets were in the pvp blue crafted set...sad I know! But mana has never been that big an issue for me.

Anyway, some of the following may be "captain obvious" material, but I usually find it's good to make sure you have the basics covered first, and then look at some of other issues in depth....so here goes!

1. DON'T USE SEAL OF COMMAND. It's bad...really bad. Even for PvP (although it's getting a buff next patch). Instead use Seal of Vengeance / Corruption. Once you land a full stack of dots you'll be doing way more DPS than you ever would with Command.

I use Vengeance.

2. Sacred Shield should always be up...ALWAYS! Ok...bit of a no brainer, but its easy to forget to re-apply it. You should also have 2 points in Divine Guardian so SS will last for 60 secs and the damage absorbed is buffed by 20%. Apart from the damage shield, it also gives you a HoT for the same amount healed by FoL over 12 secs, and increases the chance for FoL to crit by 50%. And of course FoL crits proc Sheath of Light (which SS also scales with btw), so you can end up with 2 HoTs going at once for each cast....this spell is AWESOMESAUCE!!

Ok for some reason I forget to use this, I'll have to work it in!

3. Divine Plea - should always be up on your main (if you have 2 points in Guarded By The Light). Use on your rets just before combat ends or inbetween combat (becuase the reduces the effectiveness of your heals by 50%).

Yep do this.

4. Judgements - Light / Wisdom / Justice and repeat for whichever two you want to make sure land. Judgements don't stack anymore, so you'll only ever see these three debuffs on the target. Very important to note - while judgements cannot be blocked or parried, they can still miss if you are not hit capped. A missed judgement is VERY bad for rets, becuase you will miss the proc from Judgements of the Wise (which all your rets should have 3 points in), which means missing out on a big chunk of mana back.

Yea I do this too, sometimes I wonder if they miss because they are all being cast at the same time and WoW has a problem with it since two judge wisdom to make sure its always up. My guys are very close to hit cap for heroics and I'm working on it.

5. Generating Threat - Apart from the obvious one of making sure Righteous Fury is active (especially recasting after a wipe) you can get a quick lead on agro by pulling with Hand of Reckoning and immediately following up with Avenger's Shield. Consecration and Hammer of the Righteous (which you should also have glyphed) are essential for group pulls. Shield of Righteousness and Hold Shield for single target threat. Prot pallies spell power is based on strength, so if you're fidning theat is a problem, you can try gemming / enchanting for more strength. A note on Divine Storm - for group pulls divine storm crits can pull adds if used too early. I set my rotation up so that my main gets off consecration and Hammer of the Righteous before Divine Storm gets cast, which lets him get a handy threat lead...

Been doing this too.

6. Healing - never heal with your main if possible, since when you cast spells, you can't block or parry.

Yep Im aware of this too.

Tank
Ret Dps

I'll fix the ret's talents to include two more in prot for Sacred Shield and dont pay attention to his rings, boots or belt, lol they are the last upgrades before I consider them okish.

[ElectronDF]

You can go ahead and call me stupid right now. Back in the day (2-4 years ago), casters used to complain that they ran out of mana. I asked them how much spirit they had and they laughed at me and said spirit is useless. I said back, you are the one running out of mana with no spirit, not me. They all wanted crit, spellpower and such. Fine, but if you have enough DPS, maybe you can use some spirit instead.

My idea is 96% of your spells can use either attack power and/or spellpower. So if you put on 2-3 int plate items, you get MP5 (which your is 19, no wonder you have no regen, you literally have 000000 regen). The int never hurts, the SP can be used in your spells and you get MP5 for free. All should help. You can make fun of me having a ret with a few SP items, but I am not the one running out of mana. You can even use a gear manager (built in or Outfitter) to swap out when you need more mana (bosses and such). I use 1 prot, 3 rets and shammy, the mana tide totem is pretty nice. If you are okay on health, you might set up for them to use a mana pot.

Also playstyle might come into play. If you use all your high mana attack all the time, you might not need to do that. Again, if you are okay on enrages or DPS in general, you might just take a few high mana attacks out and only use them when you need them. Just my 2 copper.

[Multibocks]

Well I seemed to have solved some of the mana problems by using sacred shield. Crit heals heal more and therefore I have to heal less and that means more mana. I no longer have to stop and wait for mana unless I wipe. Oh and one other thing, since we are all paladins my in game combat mana regen is 92, so getting another piece that may have 19 on it seems kinda silly when it will barely help me in doing damage.

P.S. Anyone notice that there are no buyable epic rings with str, sta and crit? Weird.

P.P.S. How are people handling anti melee bosses? Krystallus, Skadi, and that elemental boss come to mind. Kinda ruins being able to farm the daily. Jamba follow isnt helping me much when Im trying to run from my slaves, lol. NONO GET AWAY FROM ME! AAAAAHHHHH!!!

editx3: One thing I forgot to admit, when I first tried Draktheron Heroic I had just bought all my paladins Titansteel Destroyers. I didnt realize there 2h mace skill was 330, so that's why the first few instance runs were so bad. They are just now getting close to 400. And the reason I bought the maces is that no one will let you PuG ToC Heroic with a blue weapon. No one. They will all laugh at you.

[Stealthy]

You can go ahead and call me stupid right now. Back in the day (2-4 years ago), casters used to complain that they ran out of mana. I asked them how much spirit they had and they laughed at me and said spirit is useless. I said back, you are the one running out of mana with no spirit, not me. They all wanted crit, spellpower and such. Fine, but if you have enough DPS, maybe you can use some spirit instead.

My idea is 96% of your spells can use either attack power and/or spellpower. So if you put on 2-3 int plate items, you get MP5 (which your is 19, no wonder you have no regen, you literally have 000000 regen). The int never hurts, the SP can be used in your spells and you get MP5 for free. All should help. You can make fun of me having a ret with a few SP items, but I am not the one running out of mana. You can even use a gear manager (built in or Outfitter) to swap out when you need more mana (bosses and such). I use 1 prot, 3 rets and shammy, the mana tide totem is pretty nice. If you are okay on health, you might set up for them to use a mana pot.

Also playstyle might come into play. If you use all your high mana attack all the time, you might not need to do that. Again, if you are okay on enrages or DPS in general, you might just take a few high mana attacks out and only use them when you need them. Just my 2 copper.

I understand where you are coming from, but IMO Prot & Ret pallies should not be running out of mana mid-fights with the correct use of our abilities.

In combat your Prot main will be getting mana back from 5 main sources:

1. Divine Plea - 25% mana back over 15 secs (refreshed with every swing if you have 2 points in Guarded by The Light) - should always be up
2. Blessing of Sanct - 2% mana back from any dodge, parry or block (helped by holy shield & 3 points in Redoubt) - should always be up.
3. Judgement of Wisdom - chance for 2% base mana back with each hit - should always be up
4. Blessing of Widsom - 92MP5 - should always be up
5. Heals from your rets - with 2 points in Spiritual Attunement you'll be getting 10% of healing received back as mana.

In combat your Rets will be getting mana back from 4 main sources:

1. Judgements - 3 points in judgements of the wise = 25% mana back every 8 secs plus 1% back every 5 secs from replenishment
2. Judgement of Wisdom - chance for 2% base mana back with each hit - should always be up
3. Blessing of Widsom - 92MP5 - should always be up
4. Divine Plea - situationally used becuase it cuts heals by 50% (since your rets are the only ones healing) - I use it whenever it's up outside of combat.

Outside of these, in a pinch you can also use Runic Mana Potions - 4.2-4.4K back (about 75% of mana bar back), and Lay on Hands will give back 1950 mana (about 30% of mana bar back).

Hope this helps...

Cheers,
S.

[Stealthy]

Well I seemed to have solved some of the mana problems by using sacred shield. Crit heals heal more and therefore I have to heal less and that means more mana. I no longer have to stop and wait for mana unless I wipe. Oh and one other thing, since we are all paladins my in game combat mana regen is 92, so getting another piece that may have 19 on it seems kinda silly when it will barely help me in doing damage.

P.S. Anyone notice that there are no buyable epic rings with str, sta and crit? Weird.

P.P.S. How are people handling anti melee bosses? Krystallus, Skadi, and that elemental boss come to mind. Kinda ruins being able to farm the daily. Jamba follow isnt helping me much when Im trying to run from my slaves, lol. NONO GET AWAY FROM ME! AAAAAHHHHH!!!

editx3: One thing I forgot to admit, when I first tried Draktheron Heroic I had just bought all my paladins Titansteel Destroyers. I didnt realize there 2h mace skill was 330, so that's why the first few instance runs were so bad. They are just now getting close to 400. And the reason I bought the maces is that no one will let you PuG ToC Heroic with a blue weapon. No one. They will all laugh at you.

Glad to see it helped.

Had a look at your guys - your tank is pretty well geared already, i'd suggest dropping the Spiritual Attunement glyph for the Hammer of the Righteous - it really helps in group pulls. Talent-wise, I picked up Persuit of Justice on my tank (since it's pointless having it on your rets and not your tank), didn't bother with seal of command, and put 4 points into Divinity which makes healing my tank a bit easier.

There is one buyable ring with Stam, Str & Crit...but it's kinda expensive though - www.wowhead.com/?item=Etched Ring of the Kirin Tor
Otherwise the best buyable rings for rets are www.wowhead.com/?item=Surge Needle Ring and www.wowhead.com/?item=Greatring of Collision.

Anti melee bosses are difficult thats for sure. I don't use the strobe following in Jamba, only the follow after combat, so I can control the follows in Combat. On bosses that like to whirlwind (Skadi, Gal'darah), or that have directional AoE (Ingvar, Anub'arak) I usually position my guys like so - M = main, B = Boss, A = Alts, both main and alts are facing the boss:

[M]
[B]
[A]

That way when they start to whirlwind I just hit the down arrow, and everyone starts moving backwards, so you end up with:

[M]
[B]


[A] <---now out of Whirlwind range

Both Skadi and Gal'darah are tauntable through their whirlwinds, so if they start going after your alts, taunt them back. When the whirlwind has finished, I hit the 'Interact with Target' key adn the alts run up and start attacking the boss again.

The elemental boss in Gundrak is a major pain in the ass - rotating Divine Sacrifice / Divine Shields are the way to go there. I haven't tried Kystallus yet, will have a crack tonight and let you know how I go.

Just another note about 'Interact with Target' - if you're not using it, you definitely should be. Not only for the situations above, but it is the BEST AOE FEAR RECOVERY WE HAVE. The range on Interact with Target is much much greater than follow, which means after an AOE fear, just hit the mapped key and your guys will all run back (providing there is nothing blocking their way) and start attacking the mob. You don't have to waste time gathering up toons that are out of range of follow. Same for bosses that do knockbacks as well...its pure win for melee classes!

Cheers,
S.

[mebben]

Awesome thread, thanks for all the good info!

I recently started a 5 paladin team that just dinged 62-61. So far I've been glancing at Tdogs setup and tried something similar. My biggest issue so far is healing. I read somewhere that ppl suggested VuhDo + ISboxer mouseover regions...

I am atm using innerspace + isboxer, but I haven't been able to find a good guide how to do that, if that now is the best way to heal... atm I've just hotkey'd my slaves to heal the tank and heal self with a modifier. Havent tried the outlands instances, but I doubt that will do.

[Multibocks]

I use interact with target, I just forget that it works from a long range. Thanks for reminding me, fear bombs in WG were really annoying. Oh and I dont have a problem with trash hitting my rets, so I'll forgo the glyph. I did finish VH for my first heroic completion on my rets yesterday, but I got cocky this morning and didnt do my Divine Sacrifice/Divine Shield rotation and wiped. Sigh.

Oh and SoC on my tank was an accident when I did his talents a long time ago, I just never went back to fix it lol. Maybe tonight I'll take care of that. Oh and the second ring you linked for buyable says BoP on the tooltip

[mefaircloth]

I am having fun with my paladins. I started with TDog's set up. Later I copied Stealthy's macro for /click and saw a nice dps increase. (could have been gear upgrades that were happening at the same time, or just the stopcasting/excorsism part, I'm not sure) My gear is still pretty crappy so there are only a couple of heroics I can clear.

PS. Stealthy I am Horde in the Ruin BG as well, we may meet in a battleground.

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