Paladin Build

[mjdoom]

Ok, so after the post I made earlier today I got to thinking about how to go about making a paladin designed as a tank (with some of the built in benefits of paladins like some healing abilities, rezzing, etc.)

I used a talent calculator to make out this build but I'd certainly appreciate comments. My paladin alt is currently level 10 so it's about time to decide what to do with him anyway. Also note that I might switch him to being an engineer so I can use things like bombs to generate more hate.

Here's the build I came up with, I have added comments for each talent:

Holy Talents (0 points)


None: This paladin will be a tank as his main purpose and his healing ability is only an additional utility.

Protection Talents (21 points)


Redoubt - 5/5 points
Increases your chance to block attacks with your shield by 30% after being the victim of a critical strike. Lasts 10 seconds or 5 blocks.

I intend to have retribution aura up almost exclusively so the utility of devotion aura is almost nil. This will help with damage reduction anyway. (A general question, if I successfully "block" will retribution aura proc, my gut is that it won't but I'm not sure)


Toughness - 5/5 points
Increases your armor value from items by 10%.

More damage reduction.


Shield Specialization - 5/5 points
Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your shield by ?.

This is absorption instead of blocking so retribution aura should still proc. More defense.


Improved Seal of Fury - 4/5 points
Increases the amount of threat generated by your Seal of Fury and Judgement of Fury by 12%.

This is for those pesky mobs that try to run from me. A quick flash of Seal of Fury and a few swings will hopefully regain the mobs attention while a caster stops nuking.


Blessing of Sanctuary - 1/1 point
Places a Blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage dealt from all sources by 7 for 5 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.

In a perfect world I would always have this on me to reduce damage I take even further. The only potential pitfall is if I'm not doing enough damage to keep aggro I might need to switch to Blessing of Might.


Holy Shield - 1/1 point
Increases chance to block by 30% for 10 seconds and deals 40 Holy damage for each attack blocked while active. Each block expends a charge. 4 charges.

If I'm especially taking a beating from many directions this should help soften the blow and dish out some damage to those mobs in return. Also, I am gearing toward doing holy damage so this damage will be scaled up in some situations.



Retribution Talents (30 points)


Improved Blessing of Might - 5/5 points
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 20%.

This is for when I need to do more damage to keep aggro. Also, from my limited research it seems that reducing mana costs for retribution talents only won't help me too much with this build.


Improved Seal of the Crusader - 5/5 points
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Seal of the Crusader and the Holy damage increase of your Judgement of the Crusader by 15%.

This is my big opener for the main mob in a pull. Open with SotC and after a swing or two judge the seal to increase holy damage to that mob. From this point forward I will be using Seal of Command and other holy damage enhancers like retribution aura that will all benefit from the judged seal.


Vengeance - 5/5 points
Gives you a 15% bonus to Physical and Holy damage you deal for 8 seconds after dealing a critical strike.

In combination with Conviction below this will help me to increase my holy damage output even more as well as increase my physical damage to help my dps and with keeping mobs glued to me (This can help consecration and retribution aura do more damage to keep those off mobs swinging at me and not the squishy casters)


Seal of Command - 1/1 point
Fills the Paladin with the spirit of command for 30 seconds, giving the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to the damage of the Paladin's weapon. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy for 30 seconds, causing 24 Holy damage any time the enemy becomes stunned. Only one Judgement per Paladin can be active at any one time.

This will be my main attack seal. Once SotC is judged it will increase the damage done when this procs. In the case of single mobs getting pulled off of me I can judge this seal followed by Hammer of Justice (as opposed to going Seal of Fury) to slow them down and resume the beatdown while doing even more damage.


Anticipation - 3/5 points
Increases your Defense skill by 6.

More damage reduction. If I could find a place to steal some points from they would probably go here.


Improved Retribution Aura - 5/5 points
Increases the damage done by your Retribution Aura by ?.

Retribution Aura will be my aura of choice other than certain situations (when resistances are necessary for example). This is my main ability to hold aggro on groups of mobs (along with Consecrate) as this will proc every time a mob hits me and generate more hate toward me, lessening the chance that they will break free.


Consecration - 1/1 point
Consecrates the land beneath the Paladin, doing 120 Holy damage over 8 seconds to enemies who enter the area.

This is my aoe attack to grab some hate on enemies surrounding me. The damage is minimal but stacked with holy damage enhancement and Retribution Aura procs it should help keep attention on me.


Conviction - 5/5 points
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 5%.

This is mostly to help proc Vengeance more as well as having the added bonus of increasing my damage output.

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Using this setup I would also intend to keep Blessing of Salvation on at least any healer in the group to minimize the chance of breakaways due to healing. Retribution Aura, Consecration, and bombs from engineering would be my aoe to keep multiple mobs on me while the increased holy damage from judging the SotC should help keep the main mob fighting me. Lots of damage reduction would hopefully lessen the amount of damage I take from the mobs thereby increasing my staying power and lessening the chance of a healer having to chain heal me (which can easily lead to the healer gaining aggro). I would be looking for top items to reduce the damage I take and try to get a decent dps one-hander so that I am still doing enough damage to stop nukers from grabbing aggro.

If mobs do try to get away I have Seal of Fury and Hammer of Justice to try to slow them down. I also have Paladin abilities like Seal of Protection to use in a pinch and if absolutely necessary I can heal myself. As long as this paladin can hold aggro decently well I would think that survivability would be high and although pally dps is not the highest in the game, with the additional holy damage I would be dishing out I should be able to contribute to taking down any mob.

The major caveat to this is I have not really played a paladin to high levels so I'm not sure how this would all work out. I would welcome any and all comments ("Hey, you don't know what you're talking about" or even "Hmm, maybe that's an idea worth trying").

- mjdoom

Edit: As Occhi would say, preview post is your friend.