Paladin: The Jack-Of-All-Trades

I've been experimenting on different Holy Paladin variations since 2.3 hit. Not just because I was bored, but because I want to be able to make an effective jack-of-all-trades Paladin. Ever since the original Diablo, Blizzard has set the caster-warrior class as a hybrid and I believe a lot of World of Warcraft players do not realize that hybrids are supposed to be able to a little of everything and not be too great at one feat.

Let me explain why I think this:

Back in Diablo, you could have three classes: Warrior, Sorcerer, and Rouge. Most people thought inside the box and played them as they should be... A tank, a mage, and a ranged fighter. However, I took a different route that not many people took and that is a hybrid of the Warrior and Sorcerer. I named him a Spellwarrior. In Diablo, everyone can learn every spell in the game by finding spell books. If you put the right points (str, vit, energy, etc), you could make any class a hybrid. In this case, I put points into Vitality and Energy. I was able to off-tank, heal, do a bit of with crowd control, and damage with this character.

Once Diablo 2 was released, I noticed that they had made a Paladin class which acted a lot like my Spellwarrior. He could give auras which my guy couldn't, but he could do damage, tank, and heal (well, somewhat... not really helpful in this game). I was ecstatic that I finally have a pure character that fit my playstyle.

The same mindset I had with the Diablo series is the same I had when I came into World of Warcraft: Find and play the jack-of-all-trades class. Now, there are a lot of classes in the game which can do this (Druid, Shaman, and Paladin) but Shamans were part of the Horde and I didn't feel like looking at a bear's butt (:P) so I choose the Paladin. Having played the class for over 7 years, it was the right choice and fit into my comfort zone.

Back to the real point of this post:

Time and time again, I see Paladin running around with 61 points into the Ret tree, 61 in Prot, or 50/11/0. These are all fine and great. I will be the last one to tell you how to play your character. However, in the true aspect of the character, I do not believe this was how Blizzard wanted the character played. All three trees were made to support each other: Holy-Prot, Prot-Ret, and Holy-Ret. There are a view out there who even go across the board into all three trees.

I always laughed when I heard a Paladin complain that Ret was weak and they wanted Blizzard to buff Ret Paladins. The bottom of the Ret tree was weak and will always be weak (in my opinion). Under Sanctity Aura, there is only one good talent and that is Repentance. The others are OK but not something that stands out to me.

Having said that, I've tried three different builds that can be deemed jack-of-all-trades. The 40/00/21, the 41/20/00 and the 40/11/10. I'll start in order.

40/00/21: The pure Shockadin build. Most people believe (as I did) that Sanctity Aura was the key for adding DPS. Well, I was wrong and I think a lot of people are still decieved by it (I'll explain why in the next build). What I liked about this build is that you can heal and do grat burst damage. Vindication is now my new favorite Paladin talent. -15% to the target's stats. That's 15% of their base HP and MP gone. The key for a Shockadin is to get your opponent's health down and then burst Hammer Of Justice for the stun, Judged Seal Of Righteousness, Holy Shock and Hammer Of Wrath for a good 2,200-2,700 damage within a matter of seconds. You also get a nice talent called Pursuit Of Justice which can be very helpful while chasing down an opponent or just to be lighter on your feet. This is a good build but it doesn't work as well as I would have liked it.

41/20/00: Another good build. Not as mana efficient as the 40/00/21 though. That is a huge drawback! After 3-4 fights, you will be drinking. I never thought that Benediction (from the Ret tree) was as helpful as I thought. You really do miss something once it's gone. You also lose Vindication. /cry but we can manage without it. There are 3 bonuses with the 20 in Prot though. First is Blessing Of Kings. 10% to all stats! That's an extra 600 HP and MP (for me). Remember Sanctity Aura? Throw it out the window because Kings is the reason why it's not that great. I had found that my spell damage dropped only 30 points! I went 21 points down in Ret for something I could get with 11 in the Prot tree (also the HP and MP boost). The second is the ability to block more damage with Sheild Spec and Redoubt. Third is Improved Concentration Aura. Your cast bar will never be interrupted by damage and an your party's resistance to silence can help in PVP and PVE. Again, the problem was the loss of mana. I did not like all the downtime the build had.

40/11/10: Can this be the jack-of-all-trades build? In my eyes, the answer is YES! You get your normal 40 points of Holy, you get Blessing Of Kings and you get Benediction for Mana with a 8 second cooldown on your Judges. I can main heal, do decent DPS, and off-tank (badly but survivable). Love to solo? This is your build. You can help in many situations. Just make sure you have Stam, Int and spell damage / healing on your gear. It is important to have a high spell damage and balanced HP and MP. I believe mine is around 9,200 health and 9,500 mana, as well as 600 spell damage, 1,100 healing.

The main important thing here is to learn that Paladins can be more than just pure Ret, pure Prot, or pure Holy. You can play as you want but I would try out some of these builds for the fun of it. I would love to try the new Ret Paladin builds but my gear is not set for it and I feel like I would not be successful without proper gear.

After months of research, the 40/11/10 build, in my opinion, is the best Paladin build if you want to heal, do damage and more importantly, solo. If you plan on getting to 80 soloing, I would highly recommend this build.

(This will be my last post until Monday. I have a very busy end of the week ahead of me.)

Burnout

Have you ever experienced a time when you just woke out of bed one morning and decided that you did not want to play a video game anymore? It happens to a lot of casual gamers who are on the threshold of hardcore. Sometimes they just want to go and push themselves towards a goal (ie: Beating an FPS, getting level 40 and a mount, etc) only to find that when they reach that goal, the game is no longer fun to play. This has been labeled "Burnout". That usually subsides after a few days or a week and the person goes back to their normal gaming routine.

There's a few ways to deal with burnout. I find the most handy technique is to get together with some friends or family for dinner. It brings you away from the game and lets your mind rest by not thinking about it for a day. If you were grinding out those levels to get to 40 (or even 1-70), then a good long break will suit you. In this case, then find a TV show you enjoy and buy the DVD Boxset/s. Pick up a good book; one that suits your liking. You'll be amazed how far you can get by reading one good book. Another option is to spend some time volunteering at a local organization or church. Businesses are always looking for an extra hand. Pay a visit to your Park & Rec and ask if they have a list of places you can go volunteer. You can really fill in your normal gaming hours with volunteering hours.

One last solution is to take a break before the burnout happens. This can be done by devoting a few days a week to any of the suggestions listed above. Slowly cutting down your hours is the most effective way to stop the burnout before it hits.

Have you ever experienced a burnout? Share you story in the comments and if you have any other tips, please feel free to leave them as well.

Reins of the Riding Talbuk

Here's another tip post but this one is for my second favorite mount in the game (besides the Spectral Tiger): The Talbuk! First, you need to be exalted with Kurenai (Alliance) and Mag'har (Horde). You also need to be at least level 60. However, doing this at level 60 is almost impossible without some help. Ideally, you should wait until level 65.

There's three ways to gain rep with your faction. The first is to complete all the quests with that faction. Secondly, you need to grind out ogres... lots of ogres. My choice is the Warmaul clan's ogres. They have a 35% chance to drop Netherweave Cloth and a 33% chance to drop Obsidian Warbeads. These beads will be your life-saver! If you turn in 10 of these beads, you will get 500 rep.

There's four different colors to choose from: Cobalt, Tan, White and Silver. I picked the Cobalt one. There's also a black one you can get by doing the Halaa PVP. There's the normal 60% mount and the epic 100%. There is no difference in speed from your normal mounts back in Azeroth.

To be honest, it is the easiest faction grind in Outland and the reward is pretty cool. Just buy some food, some water, and spend a few days over in the beautiful zone, Nagrand.

Battleground Gear & Tips To Get Season 1 Gear For Your 70

Since before the Burning Crusade, I have played countless numbers of Battlegrounds (BGs). Grinding out my Grand Marshal (GM) gear was a pain and took many weeks of endless grinding. However, that gear helped me all the way through level 67 and even at 70, I still had a handful of GM gear that I was still using. I heard that Blizzard was making Season 1 (S1) Arena Gear available for honor in the BGs. I then started to grind out more honor for that gear.

Remember: I never group. No raids, no instances, no group quests (unless I can solo it).

When Patch 2.3 hit the live realms, I already had enough marks and honor to get 4 out of 5 pieces of S1. Instantly, I noticed a huge difference! It almost doubled my health and mana, my healing skyrocketed and my spell damage increased slightly. I never knew how grand Resilience can help you in PVP. I played some more to finish the S1 set and also the Vindicator's Boots.

After all of that, I have three words to say: Well worth it!

Now, how should you go about grinding out your S1 gear? First and foremost, you should get some background of the BGs themselves. You're going to need to play all of the BGs to gain the marks cost. Here are some websites if you never entered into a BG before:

Alterac Valley
Warsong Gulch
Arathi Basin
Eye of the Storm

On a side note, WOWWiki is my number 1 resource for WOW Info. If I have any questions about an item, a mod, or zone, WOWWiki is where I go. Highly recommended!

So, now you know what you need to do to play these BGs. Figuring you're 70 (or late 60s), you should head over to your Champions' Hall (Alliance) or Hall Of Legends (Horde) and write down how much honor and marks you will need in total to purchase your gear. You might get shocked by the total but that's the fun of the PVP grind... Well, not really but try to stay happy about it.

The best way to get honor is to grind out in Alterac Valley (AV). You can gain an easy 300 honor per 20 minutes. If you win, it is about 450 honor. Also, a little trick I learned is to stay on defense when you play AV. You can easily get honor kills. As a Holy Paladin, my healing kept many other defenders alive. Sure, I died a lot but it is worth it.

Playing the other BGs, to me, is a horrible grind. AB can take 30 minutes a match for little honor. Playing for 30 minutes and getting 1 mark of honor is a knife in my heart. My way of handling this grind was to play 1 AV right when I log on, 2 BGs of your choice, then go back to AV for the rest of your playing session (I would say 1 session would be 2-4 hours for the average player). It spaced out the grind and helped not only gain marks but also a good 1200+ honor.

S1 gear is just like having Tier 4 gear (GM gear is equal to Tier 2). It has helped me a lot and should help all of you. If Wrath comes out next Christmas, those with S1 gear will be all set to get out there and quest to your heart's desire!

(To look at S1 gear for your class, visit WOW's website Here)