My Paladin Respec

[Rinnhart]

Well I was going to start my own thread, but I see no reason to not put all the discussion here.  So I'm putting my spec here too.

Having gotten some end game exp now and having worked with some paladins and playing mine to L37 so far I've started to think about the end game roll.  It seems to me if there is more than one warrior around the warriors will be the main tanks, off tanks, and possible the main assists.

Endgame, post instances and into raid territory, we're healers. That's it. Spec doesn't matter, much, as our talents to improve healing don't improve it significantly.

In a 5 man the paladin would be more of the main assist, tanking the focus fire target while the warrior is dealing with the non CC'd mobs.  The paladin will also be put into the roll of a back up healer.  There may be some rare cases where they are called on to be a main tank but in our guild with what we have for classes I don't see that happening as much.  Paladins will also be some minor DPS.

To me that seems to rule out much of the protection tree.  While the improved seal of fury would help greatly with aggro if you needed to grab it, I'm hoping the slight DPS increase of retribution would help with that too.

Protection is our best utility in a small group situation. Anything that amps up our durability and that of our party is a Good Thing. Holy shield offers an OK area taunt, iBoP is honestly invaluble, and redemption is a second interrupt.

Granted, heavy investment only really shines in PvP, but that's with all our trees.

I do believe that you could put together a paladin build that could be an effective main healer if you gear for it fully work to be the main healer.  I'm not looking for that because I doubt that will be the roll a paladin will need to fill either.  Besides I have my restoration/feral spec druid that can do that.  :)

Build summary, detials on skill to follow:
Retribution Mastery
Improved Blessing of Might  - 5/5
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - 5/5
Deflection - 5/5
Vengeance - 5/5
Seal of Command - 1/1
Precision - 3/3
Consecration - 1/1
Conviction - 5/5
Blessing of Kings - 1/1
Retribution Total: 31

Besides iBoM, that's the route into Retribution I've taken. It will, randomly, increase your damage significantly. But to really get returns off Command, you need some heavy +crit gear and a big, slow weapon. Big, slow weapons aren't great for any kind of control-centric tanking. Also, your dps is neither dependable nor going to ever match that of a warrior, rogue, or any motivated class.

Dependability is the real issue, though.

Holy Mastery
Spiritual Focus - 5/5
Improved Holy Light - 3/3
Illumination - 5/5
Divine Favor - 1/1
Improved Seal of Righteousness - 5/5
Improved Flash of Light Rank 1/3
Holy Total: 20



Holy Total: 20
The big question comes down to Improved SoR and Improved Flash of Light.  Or Improved Blessing of Wisdom and 1 point in Divine Wisdom (Improved Blessing is a prereq).  Divine Wisdom would give me 2% more mana.  Blessing of Wisdom talented is 36 vs 30 mana every 5 seconds.  My Blessing of Kings will probably help more than either of those as it will increase my mana pool as well.
Edit:  Added summary of skills, fixed readability some.

Mana regeneration is king for a class with such a limited mana pool. I never have and never will use BoK on myself. However, those points would certainly be wasted unless you could afford full investment in DW.

I think investing at all in iSoR when you've got Command and such a heavy investment into Retribution is throwing away points. It's redundant. I say drop both iSoR and iFoL and pick up iDevotion