WoW Cheats

Festergut and Rotface suck. They are hard bosses and require each and every raider to give 110%. Each player needs to maximize the performance of their role and minimize anything that hurts the overall team effort (especially avoidable damage!).

Here are some dopey little tricks you can use to bring your A game to each fight:

1. Use a slow dps weapon for Festergut

Considering how tight the enrage timer can get, dps from every member of your group matters, and as Paladins we have the luxury and privilege of contributing more than our fair share of tank dps to the pile.

While Festergut may hit hard, he only does during a small window of the fight. Assuming you have the defense to spare, don’t be afraid to use a slow dps weapon (the slower the better) to maximize your damage. The slower your weapon is, the more damage each 5-stack proc from Seal of Vengeance/Corruption will do.

2. When not tanking Festergut, stand behind him

You should be soft-capped for expertise anyway, so to maximize your damage done on this fight, stand behind the boss to avoid causing parries for yourself and the person currently tanking.

3. Make the best use of your Gastric Bloat buff

Let’s combine points one and two. When you hit 9 stacks of Gastric Bloat and get the boss pulled off you, jump behind the boss, cancel Righteous Fury, self-cast Hand of Salvation, pop wings, and go to town.

Doing that in the ten man last night, after my tank switch I ended up pushing little more than 8000 dps. You can see it after that second huge dip in my dps, I slid behind the boss and immediately exploded in damage.

4. Make sure to Judge when kiting the Big Ooze

Judging is an important part of keeping threat on the Big Ooze while kiting. If you’re just shield tossing every 30 seconds you’re going to find the healer aggro riding hard on your heels. So, you definitely need to judge when possible.

The easiest way to manage Judging without getting murdered by being too close to the Ooze is to run ahead of it (as you would normally) until you’re just out of range and the Judgement icon is red on your bar. The millisecond it gets color back, click it/hit the hotkey, unleash your Judge, and then keep moving.

You can also use the range on Judgement to safely gauge your distance from the Big Ooze.

5. Use Seal of Righteousness for Big Ooze kiting

Seal of Righteousness will give you the most threat bang for your buck. Since you won’t be able to get close enough to build a 5 stack, Seal of Vengeance/Corruption is useless. Moreover, Seal of Command is only really good for aoe situations.

Thus, the burden falls on the neglected Seal of Righteousness. Each time you judge with SoR you’ll do more threat than you would judging any other seal.

with the last of the loot being divvied up in these final days of Wrath, let’s go through Icecrown Citadel and make a shopping list of gear we’d kill for.

Lord Marrowgar’s frosty remains

After fighting waves of undead, tripping traps, and possibly even using crowd-control you’ve finally reached Marrowgar. He’s got his own special issues that have you destroying spikes and the avoidance of fire that’s really burning ice or something. I think he just pours out four bottles of freon. That’s just my theory. Let’s see what we pry from his cold, dead hands.

* Holy
o Frost Needle – 10 man – This one-handed sword isn’t a great choice for your healadin. It has some hit on it, but if your weapon is lagging behind the rest of your gear, this would be a quick way to upgrade.
o Ancient Skeletal Boots – 10 man – This set of boots goes for crit and mp5. It’s also got two sockets.
o Corrupted Silverplate Leggings – 10 man – These legs give you crit and haste and three sockets.
o Coldwraith Bracers – 10 man – While these are spell mail instead of spell plate, they’re not bad if you’re looking for an upgrade. It’s haste and mp5 gear with a red socket.
o Sliver of Pure Ice – 10 man – Marrowgar drops this spellpower trinket with the on use ability to regain a bit of mana. The mana return is equivelant to about 67 mp5 in the long run which isn’t that shabby all things considered. However, being an on-use trinket, you’ll have to keep remembering to actually use it.
o Marrowgar’s Frigid Eye – 25 man – A nice little spell ring. It’s also got some mp5, some haste, and a yellow socket for your gem of choice.
o Rusted Bonespike Pauldrons – 25 man – These spell plate shoulders give you some crit and mp5. If you’d rather it have more of something, there are two gem slots awaiting blue and yellow gems.
o Crushing Coldwraith Belt – 25 man – Here’s a cloth belt that’s sans spirit and sans hit which makes it a decent choice for pallies in need of healing upgrades. It’s got two slots for gems, some crit, and a large chunk of haste.
o Bulwark of Smouldering Steel – 25 man – Here’s a spell power shield for you healadins. It’s got a fair amount of crit and haste on it .
* Protection
o Marrowgar’s Scratching Choker – 10 man – This tank neck-piece has a single blue socket (yay, stocket bonuse) and ups your dodge and parry. Defense rating on it is a little low in my opinion, but at these gear levels, the defense cap isn’t usually an issue.
o Bonebreaker Scepter – 10 man – This little mace is a really nice upgrade if you’ve been following the 10-man track. No sockets, but it has hit, dodge, and defense. I also like the model for it.
o Bracers of Dark Reckoning – 25 man – Even more dodge/parry gear. As a tank, you start to miss seeing the occasional piece of block gear. However, this puppy has a good portion of its itemization towards stamina as well as including a yellow socket for gems.
o Legguards of Lost Hope – 25 man – Protection pants sporting three gem slots (one of each). It’s got a little bit of hit on it as well as some dodge. It also has a not insignificant amount of defense rating on there in case you want to swap some gear around.
* Retribution
o Citadel Enforcer’s Claymore – 10 man – Oh, look it’s a big two-handed sword. This puppy has a large chunk of hit on it as well as some crit. There’s also a yellow socket that would fit a Bold Cardinal Ruby just as well as any yellow gem.
o Gendarme’s Cuirass – 25 man – Retadin pants with three, count’em three sockets (one in each color) with hit and crit as the equip stats.
o Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter – 25 man – Probably the best two-hander, besides Shadowmourne, we’ll see until Cataclysm ships. My one complaint is that it’s a fairly fast weapon, but the proc it has makes up for that. It has a chance on hit to steal over two thousand hit points from your opponent and thus boost you up. It also has two sockets on there, so you could significantly boost the strength if needed.

Lady Deathwhisper and her adds

Kill this, kite that, don’t stand in bad stuff, and for the love of all that is sacred, don’t tank her for too long. I’m still trying to figure out why she was delivering speeches while standing on an elevator. However, now that she’s dead, let’s go through her pockets.

* Holy
o Deathspeaker Disciple’s Belt – 10 man – Again, we’re taking a look at resto-shaman gear and in this case, a belt. It’s stacking haste rating and mp5. It also has two gem slots on it which can be increased to three with a buckle.
o Necrophotic Greaves – 25 man – Yes, I’m still looting shaman gear. We’ve got two gem slots, crit, and a fair chunk of mp5. If you’re looking for haste, this is not the item for you.
o Fallen Lord’s Handguards – 25 man – Here we go, some real spell plate gloves. We’ve got our crit. We’ve got our haste. And most important, we’ve got two gem slots to play with.
* Protection
o Ghoul Commander’s Cuirass – 10 man – Here’s the first tanking chest upgrade you’ll probably have in ICC. It has three sockets, two of which are even blue and uses the standard death knight tanking stats of defense, dodge, and parry.
o Broken Ram Skull Helm – 25 man – This tanking helm has a meta socket as well as a red gem socket on it. As for equip stats, it’s got defense, dodge, and hit. Another note is that it has almost twice as much stamina as it does strength (which will probably be doubled after gemming and enchanting).
o Juggernaut Band – 25 man – This tanking ring has a red gem slot as well as the standard parry, dodge, and defense itemization.
* Retribution
o Deathspeaker Zealot’s Helm – 10 man – This melee helm has a meta socket and a blue gem slot. As for equip stats, it’s boasting some haste as well as a decent chunk of crit rating.
o Whispering Fanged Skull – 10 man – Imagine an upgraded version of the old Mirror of Truth we got from the Emblem of Heroism badge vendor and that’s what you’re looking at here. Some nice crunchy crit with a side of attack power proc. Not a shabby trinket at all. I just wish it wasn’t unique.
o Ahn’kahar Onyx Neckguard – 25 man – This is hit and crit necklace with a blue gem socket tossed in for good measure. If you’re using a blue gem to activate your helm’s meta gem, you can put it in here for the +4 strength socket bonus. It’s not much, but ever point of strength adds up.
o Blood-Soaked Saronite Stompers – 25 man – These are more warrior dps boots than ret boots, but they’ve still got critical strike rating. The two gems slots are nice, but the armor penetration leaves me cold. These still might be an upgrade for you, so don’t dismiss them immediately.

Gunship battlechest
Jump to the other ship and kill the mage, wait for the opposing commander to stop evade bugging, jump back, kill some saboteurs, shoot, rinse, repeat. Oh, there’s also the archers. If you’re lucky, you can get your shield to bounce down the line of them. Now that they’re out of the way, let’s loot the equipment locker that was sitting on our ship the whole time. That gear might have been useful earlier… oh, well. What did we get?

* Holy
o Ice-Reinforced Vrykul Helm – 10 man – Yes, yes, a shaman helmet. However, it’ll still work on our paladin head. This one sports a meta socket and a yellow gem slot. Haste and mp5 are the equip stats along with the spell power that makes it spell mail.
o Bracers of Pale Illumination – 10 man – Spell plate bracers with a blue gem socket in tow. The Intellect is actually a bit low on this piece. Equip stats are haste and mp5 along with some spell power. Overall, I’m not all that impressed with this item due to the lower intellect, but I might be getting cynical.
o Waistband of Righteous Fury – 25 man – A two gem socket belt. One’s blue and the other is a yellow gem slot. Equip stats are mp5 and crit with the usual spell power.
o Ring of Rapid Ascent – 25 man – A crit and haste spell power ring. It also has a blue gem socket on there in case you’re interested.
o Althor’s Abacus – 25 man – This one is fun. It’s a spell power trinket that adds a flat 179 to your totals. However, it also has a proc with it. When you heal someone, there’s a chance the trinket will heal someone else nearby for five to six thousand. According to stats I’ve seen thrown around, it’s about 30% proc rate and a 45 second internal cooldown and it can also crit. This trinket will proc off of normal heals, Beacon heals, HoTs, and even Judgement of Light heals.
* Protection
o Abomination’s Bloody Ring – 10 man – Here’s a dodge and hit tanking ring. It also has a blue gem socket on it with a +6 stamina socket bonus along with it. Equip stats are of the hit, dodge, and defense variety with the slight edge being in dodge. Also, the stats are itemized with over double the stamina compared to the strength.
o Neverending Winter – 10 man – I’ve liked most of the shield designs in Wrath and this is no exception. If you’ve been taking the 10-man progression route the whole way, this will replace your baby mummy coffin you got in ToC10. Block rating, parrry, and defense are the equip stats, but no gem slots on this one. Stamina is half again more than the strength, so if you’re stacking effective health, then it’s probably going to be a good choice.
o Boneguard Commander’s Pauldrons – 25 man – These shoulders are of the dodge/parry variety with some defense rating tossed in to keep you at the cap. It has a yellow as well as a blue gem socket on it for bumping up your stats of choice.
o Corpse Tongue Coin – 25 man – This dodge trinket (and that’s 152 flat dodge rating as an equip) has a nice proc for us paladins. When a melee attack drops you below 35% health, it boosts your armor by 5712 for ten seconds. That means above and beyond our normal toughness under 35% (thanks, Ardent Defender) we’ll also get some extra melee damage mitigation to keep us afloat. It also has a 30 second internal cooldown, so don’t expect this to save your life non-stop, but it’s a nice little proc.
* Retribution
o Saronite Gargoyle Cloak – 10 man – Here’s a new cloak for you damage dealers. It’s got a red gem slot, so you might as well just figure that +4 strength socket bonus into the rest of the stats. This one also has about half the crit compared to the haste for itemization which may be a problem.
o Bone Drake’s Enameled Boots – 10 man – While these are dps plate boots, they’re really not itemized for retribution pallies. The armor penetration doesn’t do much for us and if you’re already expertise capped from other gear (that’s about 214 rating or 26 skill or 6.5%) the the expertise also does nothing for you. However, it has two sockets that you can stick strength gems into if your boots are lagging behind the rest of your gear.
o Polar Bear Claw Bracers – 25 man – These bracers go with hit and crit as the equip stats as well as a yellow gem slot.
o Skeleton Lord’s Circle – 25 man – This is a plate dps ring with a yellow gem slot on it. It has crit and expertise in vaguely equal levels.

Deathbringer Saurfang
Definite daddy issues here. Tank swapping, beast kiting, and a fight that could, honestly, last forever if you screw up. Healers, I just wanted to say I love you guys and gals. Also, Blizzard nerf NPC blood spec death knights, plz.

* Holy
o Soulcleave Pendant – 10 man – This spell power necklace is stacked with a little more crit and a little less haste. There’s a yellow gem slot in the middle of it just asking to besocketed with something.
o Belt of the Blood Nova – 25 man – Sorry, shammies, it’s another piece of your gear. In this case, we’re looking at a belt with haste and mp5 on it. There are two gem slots on it with one being red and the other being yellow. Don’t forget to add a buckle.
* Protection
o Deathforged Legplates – 10 man – These tanking legs have a nice chunk of stamina allotted in the itemization points. Along side that, you’ve got defense rating, dodge rating, and expertise rating all lined up. Let’s not forget the three gem slots of red, yellow, and blue.
o Gargoyle Spit Bracers – 10 man – This is actually something you don’t see much, but it’s a bracer with some extra armor tacked on increasing the total by about 50%. Its other stats are defense and dodge. Oh, I forgot to mention the yellow gem slot. You’d think a pair of bracers would have two gems lots… one for each arm.
* Retribution
o Blade-Scored Carapace – 10 man – This is a nice chest-piece for ret paladins. It starts with a fair amount of strength, plus it has three gem slots which you’ll likely end up filling with strength gems. The equip stats are crit strike and haste rating.
o Ramaladni’s Blade of Culling – 10 man – This is really more of a death knight tanking axe than it is a ret dps weapon. However, if it’s an upgrade, then you might as well grab it. The stat allotment for armor penetration doesn’t help us much nor does the expertise to a substantial degree unless you’re still a bit short of the cap. However, it does have two gem slots which could be filled with strength gems.
o Deathbringer’s Will -25 man – Okay, this trinket has been debated quite a bit. While the armor penetration on it is kinda “meh” for us pallies, the special proc is really swank for just about everyone. It’s a smart trinket in that it gives its wielding melee class a set of bonuses appropriate for them. As a ret paladin, your random choices are 600 strength, 600 crit rating, or 600 haste. The internal cooldown is somewhere under two minutes which means that the uptime shouldn’t be too bad.
* All Paladins
o Conqueror’s Mark of Sanctification – 25 man and H10 man – Ah, the armor token. This is a generic armor token much like they had in the Coliseum. The token can be turned in with the Emblem of Frost tier gear to get an upgrade to a better version of the original. It’s a universal token, so it will work with whichever of the five pieces you want to bump up. For those of you like me in 10 man progression, it’ll be a while before you see this.

How to play a Retribution Paladin

So you want to lay the holy smack down on the enemy? Want to prove that Paladins can dish it out as well as they can take it? Well, you have come to the right place. This guide will walk you through the basics of playing a Retribution spec’ed Paladin. Since part way through the Burning Crusade expansion Retribution Paladins have seen huge buffs in ability and utility. Through WotLK they have continued to be a strong DPS choice in any group.

Playing a Retribution based Paladin can be a lot of fun as long as you realize you may still not be to be at the top of all the DPS charts. You will however be able to hold your own in PvE and PvP content and level at a far faster rate than other paladin specs. Realize up front though that DPS classes and players FAR outnumber healers and tanks. In addition most players view Paladins as healers or tanks, so you will most likely be expected to have a heal or tanking offspec and gearset. Discuss your options with a group before joining so that they know what you are. If you are doing this for PvP then more power to you, explain to no one!
Talents and Glyphs

As a DPS Paladin you will be spending the majority of your talent points in the Retribution talent tree. You need to do this gain some serious damage causing abilities including some of your main damage abilities such as Crusader Strike and Divine Storm. There are also several other abilities that add a lot to your damage causing abilities through passive boosts to some of your key spells and stats.

Probably the most important talents are your Crusaders Strike and Divine Storm, since they will form 2 of the 5 main attacks that make up your DPS rotation. For more information on that rotation skip down to the Attack Rotation section of the guide. Crusader’s Strike is a single target attack with a short cooldown that will become a staple in all of your rotations, while Divine Storm hits multiple targets and factors in against groups of enemies.

Some of the other really critical talents in the Retribution tree are Judgements of the Wise, Sanctified Retribution, Swift Retribution and Heart of the Crusader. All of these talents grant you party or raid utility which is much needed since you are just a DPS player once you are in a group (Tanks and Healers being much more important in a group situation). Judgements of the Wise brings you the ability to replenish mana to up to 10 raid members, which your healers and casters will thank you for. Sanctified and Swift Retribution bring you a 3% damage and 3% haste buff that affects the whole raid as long as your retribution aura is active. Lastly, Heart of the Crusader puts a +3% crit debuff on any target you judge, once again boosting party damage output.

This is the Retribution Build I use when speccing for damage in raids – Retribution Build.  It has proven itself over and over again in the level 80 instances and raids. It dips into the protection tree for some extra strength, healing and a situationaly awesome ability called Divine Sacrifice. Divine Sacrifice allows you to absorb some of the damage incoming to the group and transfer it to you.

While there are a number of decent Glyphs for a Retribution Paladin the ones I suggest are based on raid usefulness. Therefore the greater glyphs I believe you should use are:

Glyph of Seal of Vengeance – This glyph gives you almost half of the Expertise (10 points) that you need to reach the soft cap. That’s a lot of expertise that you will not have to find on equipment, gems or enchants, allowing you to focus on more damage causing stats.

Glyph of Judgement – Increases damage of all Judgements by 10%. Since Judgements are one of your main damage dealing abilities, a 10% boost to it is a great boost from a glyph.

Glyph of Consecration – Increases the length and cooldown of Consecration by 2 seconds. This means that you will not have to cast Consecration as often, freeing up an addition global cooldown for a damage attack.
Stats and Gear

Gear for a Retadin is not nearly as difficult as many other classes. Up until you are level 80 you simply need to stack as much Strength as you can, with critical strike being second on your stat radar. Once you get to level 80, however, your priorities change a little. Reaching the Hit and Expertise cap are your priorities, and after that is done you start stacking Strength, Crit, and Attack Power (when strength isn’t an option).

Once you reach level 80 and start looking for +hit it takes just under 33 points to earn a +1% chance to hit. This means you need 263 points of hit rating to reach your 8% hit cap. This means you will not miss your melee attacks, spells can still miss though as a significant amount more hit is required for spells. Reaching hit cap when fresh to level 80 can be difficult and requires several gems or enchants and tough gear choices. Once you start getting higher item level gear, you will generally have more than you need.

After hit, expertise is needed to remove the chance an enemy will dodge your attacks. If you are attacking from behind (as you should) you only need to reach the soft expertise cap. The amount of expertise you need varies based on your race, weapon, and glyph. You will normally need 214 expertise to be capped, 190 if you are a human using a sword or mace, or173 if you are a dwarf with a mace. If you are properly glyphed with the Glyph of Seal of Vengeance you need 82 less as long as you have Seal of Vengeance active. Due to the glyph’s bonus it is relatively easy to reach the cap and you should not need to go out of your way to find much expertise.

After you are capped with both hit and expertise the most important stat is Strength. Every point of Strength you gain grants you 2 attack power which is then multiplied by your Divine Strength talent. This means a real bonus of 2.3 per point in Strength. This Strength is then further increased any time you or another Paladin has Blessing of Kings active. This easily makes it your best damage causing stat.

Critical strike boosts are also important as any time you crit you cause extra damage. However if you ever have a choice, more strength beats more crit.

Gems and Enchants

Gems and enchants will play a critical part in how much damage you can put out against an enemy. The bonuses that you can add through enchants and gems at high levels are almost as much as you get on the item itself. Better yet they can be customized to be what you require.

Starting with the easier topic of gems, in general you should be putting a +20 strength red gem or better in every socket you have, red or not. When the socket bonus is worth following (meaning it is at least +8 strength of more) you can fill the other coloured sockets as follows. Yellow slots should be filled Strength / Hit orange gems. Blue sockets should only be filled when you need to meet meta gem requirements as they will always result in less DPS than any other gem.

As for Meta Gems the best you can get is the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond because of its very simple to meet requirement. It provides agility and increased critical hit damage and gives you more damage than the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond since you will not have to use 2 blue gems.

Now onto the more difficult topic of enchants on your gear. Proper enchants can add a ton of stats to your already good gear. The most critical ones will largely depend on your gear level. If you are fresh to 80 you will probably require +hit to gear through gems and enchants. Once you have been 80 for a while this will shift to pure damage abilities. The most critical damage enchant will likely be the one to your weapons, so don’t be cheap on it, as soon as you get a good weapon get it enchanted with Berserking. For the rest of the enchants I have included a table to outline the ones that are best on each slot.
Gear Enchants
Slot     Bonus     Notes / Source (if not from an enchanter)
Head     +50 Attack Power and +20 Crit     Knights of the Ebon Blade – Revered
Shoulders     +40 Attack Power and +15 Crit     Sons of Hodir – Exalted
Chest     +10 to all stats
Back     +50 Attack Power
Wrists     +50 Attack Power
Hands     +44 Attack Power     Can substitute with +20 hit if you are not hit capped
Legs     +75 Attack Power and +22 Crit     From Leatherworkers
Feet     +32 Attack Power     Can substitute with +12 Crit and +12 Hit if you are not hit capped
Weapon     Berserking     A must have, it is the best by far

Seals, Judgements, and Auras

As a Retribution Paladin you really only have two seals that you will use with any regularity. Seal of Vengeance (Alliance), or its equivalent Seal of Corruption if you play Horde, or Seal of Command. In most situations when fighting Bosses you will use Seal of Vengeance and when fighting groups of enemies you will use Seal of Command.

Vengeance is our main seal though and it is complicated due to its two parts. Firstly, it does a small amount of damage when you hit someone, secondly it places a DoT on them that hurts them over time. Lastly, the higher the stack the DoT is in on the target (up to 5) the more damage the seal does when you judge it on them.

Seal of Command is a seal that allows you to hit additional targets with your attacks. This means that when fighting normal enemies if there is more than one there, you can hit multiples with the same amount of damage. So against multiple targets you want to switch over to this seal. Due to the extra DoT damage that SoV causes though, it is not as good against single targets.

When you Judge your seals against an enemy you will generally be using Judgement of Wisdom so that you have constant mana returns. However you can use Judgement of Light instead if there is lots of damage being caused and other ways to get mana back. Lastly in PvP situations you will likely use Judgement of Justice to keep enemies from fleeing, especially against pesky Druids or Shaman.

As for Auras, since so many of your talents focus on improving your Aura of Righteousness and granting extra benefits to it, it becomes your only valid choice. Unless of course you are in a fight that really needs some form of resistance that you and no one else can provide.
Basic Attack Rotation

Ok, you have the gear, you have specced retribution, now what? How do you go about doing damage?

A Retribution Paladin uses what is called a FCFS (First Come First Serve) rotation. This can be considered a face roll rotation too, however since some abilities do cause more damage there is a decreasing level of priority that you need to work through. However, since even the lowest DPS attack is not significantly lower, it is better to use any ability rather than wait for another to be available.

The order of priority is as follows:

1. Hammer of Wrath – Only becomes available once the enemy is below 20% health
2. Crusader Strike – A decent attack that also applies a Seal of Vengeance stack
3. Judgement – Use Judgement to do Vengeance damage once you have a 5 stack up on the target.
4. Divine Storm – Against single targets it is fourth, when there are multiple targets it jumps up to #2
5. Consecration – This provides ok DPS against any number of targets but as soon as there are 4 or more targets this becomes the #1 priority instead of Hammer of Wrath.
6. Exorcism – It’s ok, but due to being a spell it needs more hit to be reliable.
7. Holy Wrath – If you are fighting lots of undead this becomes a good option (4 or more)

As with any rotation there are numerous exceptions and situations where you need to break the standard priority. Some of them are outlined in the list itself, such as AoE situations of 4 or more enemies, while others depend of different factors. For example if you have 2 pieces of Tier 9 gear equipped the 2 set bonus significantly alters your priority making Judgement jump to the top of the list.

For any standard fight though, try to stick to the attack rotation as much as possible. Just remember the basic rule: it’s better to be hitting something than nothing, so use an attack any time the global cooldown is up.
Consumables

While items and gear are required for any raid, obviously, you also really should bring along all the consumables that will help you maximize your damage causing ability and your survivability. The ones that every Retribution Paladin should bring to a group or raid are:

* Flask of Endless Rage – This flask provides 180 attack power, there is no real alternative
* Dragonfin Filet – This food grants a boost of 40 strength and stamina allowing you to cause more damage and live longer.
* Runic mana and healing potions – Bring a stack of each just to be safe.

Macros

There are a few simple macros that you can make that will simplify your life. Three that I really like are a Judgement Macro, Seal Macro, and various mouse over macros.

The first two are Judgement and Seal macros that are essentially there to simply save tool bar space. They are set to cast the Judgement or Seal I use most frequently when clicked, or my alternate Judgement or Seal if clicked while holding the alt key.
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier: alt] Judgement of Light; Judgement of Wisdom

or
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier: alt] Seal of Command; Seal of Vengeance

The other macro I like to use is one that lets me cast key spells by moving my mouse over a player or their frame rather than having to click on them first. This can be used with various spells but I mainly use it with Cleanse (when not using Decursive), Hand of Salvation, or Blessing of Protection.
#showtooltip <Spellname>
/cast [target=mouseover,nomodifier,exists] <Spellname>; [help] <Spellname>
Things to remember

Things to do

* Learn to watch your attack rotation and learn the sequence that works best for you.
* Learn to switch between seals and judgements as required, it will up your DPS and utility.
* You should always run a threat meter of some sort (the one I prefer is Omen). It will allow you to judge how close you are to the tank and if you need to lay off damage.
* Remember everything in this guide!

Things to avoid

* Avoid multiple combats of the same level or higher if you can. You have much lower armor than you do with a shield equipped and do not have any multiple target attacks.
* Using potions or bubbles too early. Save them and try to use Seal of Wisdom or Light instead. My favorite is to judge Seal of Light and then use Seal of Wisdom, then when the SoW is almost expired, reverse them. Continue this mixed with heals until you are at full mana and health.
* Ignoring some of your stats. Don’t focus on just one thing or you’re cheating yourself
* Fast low damage weapons! Even though they often display higher dps rates, they do not factor in how your abilities work. Stick with the weapon that has the highest maximum damage.

br style=”padding: 0px; margin: 0px;” />

The ICC loot available to us is fairly limited until January 5th when the next wing opens up. Furthermore, between patch day and January 5th the maximum EoF potential is 146 emblems, severely limiting how many badge items we can pick up before the next group of bosses. Here’s what we have to work with:

Marrowgar

Bonebreaker Scepter (10)
Marrowgar’s Scratching Choker (10)

Bracers of Dark Reckoning (25)
Legguards of Lost Hope (25)

Lady Deathwhisper

Ghoul Commander’s Cuirass (10)

Broken Ram Skull Helm (25)
Juggernaut Band (25)

Gunship Battle

Abomination’s Bloody Ring (10)
Neverending Winter (10)
Unidentifiable Organ (10)

Boneguard Commander’s Pauldrons (25)
Corpse Tongue Coin (25)

Deathbringer Saurfang

Deathforged Legplates (10)

Trash Drops

Harbinger’s Bone Band (25)

EoF Gear

Sentinel’s Winter Cloak 50
Libram of the Eternal Tower 30
Cataclysmic Chestguard 95
Gauntlets of the Kraken 60
Verdigris Chain Belt 60
Corroded Skeleton Key 60

Lightsworn Shoulderguards 60
Lightsworn Legguards 95
Lightsworn Handguards 60
Lightsworn Faceguard 95
Lightsworn Chestguard 95
Pick Order

This is tricky because there are so many amazing items to choose from. What’s making me torn right now is deciding which gearing goal I want to pursue first: more stam/EH, or more avoidance. Generally, getting the badge trinket or offset gear will fulfill the first goal, and tier gear will fulfill the second. Personally, with regards to how the boss encounters of the first wing are shaping up, I’m going to start on goal two, dip into goal one in preparation for the magical damage-heavy future wings, and then swing back and forth intending to pick up tier pieces when I anticipate I’ll have the Marks to upgrade them. To be less obtuse, my personal order will be:

1. Lightsworn Shoulderguards
2. Corroded Skeleton Key
3. Gauntlets of the Kraken
4. Lightsworn Faceguard
5. Verdigris Chain Belt
6. Lightsworn Chestguard
7. Sentinel’s Winter Cloak
8. Lightsworn Legguards
9. Cataclysmic Chestguard
10. Lightsworn Handguards

I will be avoiding the new libram until maybe my dead-last choice.

Eventually my goal is to have three sets: a high avoidance set with the tier four piece, a high armor set with lots of offset gear, and a high stam set with a conglomeration of the pieces with the most stamina from each.

Paladins, as a hybrid class, have a wide variety of skills available to them. Some of these can be useful, some have no part in a tank’s skill rotation. We’ll take you through your initial buffs and what skills to keep within reach if things get ugly.

Skills:

I’m not really going to tackle the spells in order of level, but more in order they need to be talked about. We’ll do a couple what spells to avoid and then we’ll work our way through the ones you do want.

When tanking, you’re going to want to make a point of using only instant cast spells. If any spells require you to sit there and magically wave your hands for a couple seconds, then you should avoid using it while things are beating on you. This means Holy Light and Flash of Light are out. Exorcism is out except for pulling new mobs. And while we’re on the topic of things that are out, Redemption isn’t much of an option to any paladin in combat, but that’s for a completely different reason.

There are also two other spells that while they can have some great uses while tanking, generally aren’t something you want to cast on yourself and leave on. Those are Hand of Protection and Divine Shield. There lesser sibling, Divine Protection that you get at level 6 is perfectly fine though and we’ll get to it in a second. The reason you should avoid using HoP and DS is that while they’re active, your threat is zero. Anything attacking you will suddenly lose interest and go find another person to play with and your healers really don’t like it when that happens. If you cancel either of those, your threat will be back to where it was beforehand. This can be handy if something jumped out of nowhere to attack your healer or one of the dps, you can cast Hand of Protection on them which will drop their aggro to nothing allowing you to pick up the target easier.

The first buff you’ll want to cast on yourself as a tank is Righteous Fury. This is the key spell to tanking as a paladin. Without this buff, you’ll have a really, really hard time keeping your threat high enough to do anything. This spell boosts the threat of any holy based spell by 80%. That means everytime you hit a judgement, you’re getting almost double the threat out of it.

This used to be one of those buffs that you’d have to re-apply every 30 minutes. That means if you weren’t paying attention, it could just drop off in the middle of a fight. Now, however, it’s a permanent buff much like your auras. Once you put it on, you have to manually remove it (or die or run Magister’s Terrace, because it can be dispelled and there’s a fight in there where you can have it stripped off of you… we hate that fight). I actually have something setup in the Power Auras addon that will put a big flashing red shield in the middle of my screen when I don’t have this buff cast so that I never forget it and will always notice if it gets dispelled.

Now that you’ve got Righteous Fury up, you’ll need to pick your blessing and before level 30, you’ll be using Blessing of Kings which you get at level 16. This will increase all of your stats by 10% which means more stamina for health and more strength for threat and block.

Past level 30, Blessing of Sanctuary (an ability you get via talents and not from a skill trainer) is going to be the defacto blessing you’ll have up. It also increases your stamina by 10% for added health as well as your strength by 10% to up your threat. However, instead of giving you 10% in the rest of your stats, it decreases incoming damage by 3%, which is something I’m sure anyone can appreciate. Lastly, it also gives you mana back whenever you dodge, parry, or block an attack. Being that this will be the only way you have to get mana back for quite some time other than Judgement and Seal of Wisdom, it’s a very important blessing to keep up.

Lastly, for getting our long term buffs ready, you’re going to need to pick a seal. For most of your tanking career while leveling up, you’ll be using Seal of Righteousness. It’s a solid little seal that will serve you quite well until your mid-sixties. Some people still like using it past that and depending on a couple of different variables, it’s actually pretty good. I, personally, like it for fights where I want to avoid any damage over time effects related to some of the other seals due to strange threat issues with the fight (Hydross, Twin Emperors, etc).

At level 66, you’ll be able to go learn a new seal from your trainers. If you’re an Alliance paladin, you’ll learn Seal of Vengeance. If you’re a Horde paladin, you’ll learn Seal of Corruption. The important thing to know about these two seals is that they’re the exact same. No, you’re not getting a lesser version than the other side. Any talent, bonus, or glyph that affects one always affects the other. They’re just named differently.

The way this Seal of Corruption/Vengeance works is that every time you hit your opponent, it will put a damage over time effect on them named either Blood Corruption or Holy Vengeance depending on your seal. Once the stack has built all the way up to a maximum of five, you’ll do an extra 33% damage with every hit. Also, the judgement damage related to this seal builds up with each extra charge on your debuff stack.

One seal to keep on the back burner for special situations is Seal of Justice. It is usually dragged out for use against casters as it has a chance to stun your opponent with each hit you make and can interrupt their casts. While this feature isn’t useful in every scenario, it is a good one to know about if you ever have a need for it. However, due to it’s lack of threat, you’ll almost always want to use something else.

Speaking of judgements, your choice in which judgement to use really depend on what you happen to need. If you need mana, go with Judgement of Wisdom. If you’re fine for mana, do Judgement of Light. If this dungeon has a lot of guys that try to run away and grab their buddies, then hit Judgement of Justice (it’s also good in PvP).

Your key tanking cooldown is going to be Divine Protection. It reduces all incoming damage by 50%. You can use this when preparing for a large incoming hit or spell from the a creature or if you know that at a certain percentage, the boss just goes crazy and starts hitting twice as hard as he used to. One of the downsides of this skill is that it causes a debuff known as Forbearance. This means that you can’t have any other spell that also causes this same debuff cast on you for a couple minutes. Other Forbearance spells include Lay on Hands, Divine Shield, and Hand of Protection.

A lot of the time, tanks will announce to healers when they use skills like Divine Protection, due to the fact it usually gives healers a small break from tank healing while it is up and they can take care of the rest of the party. Because the skill is very similar to the warrior ability Shield Wall, people often announce Divine Protection by the warrior skill name instead. This gives the healers one phrase to watch for instead of two. Traditions on your server or in your guild may vary though.

Lay on Hands used to be another key tanking cooldown that was sometimes used in conjunction with Divine Protection, but it now causes Forbearance when cast on yourself. However, if you’re low on health and need a big heal, you can still use it, but that locks out your other main tanking cooldown. This isn’t to say the skill is without merit. One of the things I often use it for is quickly healing healers who are too busy paying attention to everyone’s health bar except their own. If it looks like a healer is taking too much damage from just area of effect spells and about to die, I’ll toss a Lay on Hands on them so they can keep me up and running.

At level 40 you’ll be able to grab the talent for Holy Shield. This is another one of those ‘up at all times’ type buff and it’s well designed for it. The skill cooldown is 8 seconds, but the spell lasts up to 10 seconds. This gives you a little bit of leeway when it comes to mashing your hotkey. The skill boosts your block percentage by thirty and any attack you block does damage back to the monster that dealt it. It’s a charged buff, so that means it will only be available for 8 blocked attacks or that 10 second duration. Whichever ends first.

Consecration is a skill you nab at level 20. This is where you bless the ground with holy power and cause damage to everything killable in that area. It does have its good and bad points though. It’s a great skill for maintaining threat and damage on multiple targets at once and one you’ll turn to a lot as you get higher level. The issue is that it’s an extremely expensive spell. It uses up about 20% of your mana (or 22% base mana for those of you that know what I’m talking about) with each cast and only lasts 8 seconds. There’s a lot you can do with that amount of mana. That’s like four judgements and change worth of mana. So, unless you’re either all set on mana or just have a whole bunch of big bads after you, this skill could probably be avoided. After all, a paladin tank without mana isn’t all that useful.

Hammer of Justice is a good thing to keep around. You can use Hammer of Justice to interrupt spells your opponents are casting or just prevent them from hitting you for a couple seconds with the stun. A lot of monsters in dungeons are immune to stun, so don’t expect it to always help you out.

Purify/Cleanse is something to have available for quick access to on your button bars, but not really a priority spell. Depending on the type of healer you have in your group, it can help remove debuffs that they might not be able to touch. For example, if you’ve got a priest in your party, they won’t be able to remove poisons from you. If you’re running with a druid, they won’t be able to remove whatever magical effects the bosses toss on you. It’s not usually something you have to worry about, but can be a life saver those times where it does matter.

As you get higher level, you can grab the Avenger’s Shield talent. This puppy is a multi-pulling wonder skill. You literally lob your shield across the room Captain America style to your target and it bounces to his two closest buddies. If you’ve nabbed the talent Shield of the Templar, it will even attempt to silence your targets for a couple seconds. On top of all of that, it’s a great threat tool for the start of a fight or to grab adds in the middle of a fight.

At the bottom (or top depending on your viewpoint) of the protection tree is the talent Hammer of the Righteous which is first available at level 60 (depending on how you’ve spent your talent points). This is a good damage skill that chains to multiple targets much like Avenger’s Shield. The nice thing about this is that it will spread whatever seal you happen to be using around to every target you hit. If you’re using Seal of Vengeance or Seal of Corruption, it will spread that damage over time debuff to each and every one of them.

In your 70s, you’ll grab a couple new skills: Divine Plea, Shield of Righteousness, and Sacred Shield.

Divine Plea returns 25% of your mana over 15 seconds… unless you’re a protection paladin. If you’ve got Guarded by the Light at two of two points then you’ll refresh Divine Plea every time you land a melee attack on something. This means if you keep pulling with very little downtime, you’ll be able to keep Divine Plea up non-stop in an instance. This is extra cool, because there is a glyph that allows Divine Plea to reduce 3% of all incoming damage.

Shield of Righteousness is another damage skill and it packs quite a punch. It scales with your block value, so the more block you have, the more damage it does. With this in tow, you’ll also be able to do what the level 80 tankadins call the 969 rotation. Essentially it means that if you’ve got a point in the talent Improved Judgements you can do a simple rotation where you hit a skill with an eight or nine second cooldown (Holy Shield), followed by a six second cooldown (Shield of Righteousness), followed by another nine (Judgement), then another six (Hammer of the Righteous), and then another eight or nine second (Consecrate) and then back to your first six second skill again (Shield of Righteousness). You can swap certain skills in if they’re needed like Sacred Shield which I’ll talk about next.

Sacred Shield isn’t a total damage stopping bubble like Hand of Protection or Divine Shield nor does it reduce all damage like Divine Protection. Instead, it’s a buff that will occasionally flip on to reduce incoming damage by 500 and a bit extra depending on your spellpower for thirty seconds. Being as any incoming damage you can avoid is good incoming damage to avoid, this is one of those skills you’ll want to keep up on yourself at all times while fighting. Also, with the talent Divine Guardian, you can increase the duration to one minute.

Talents:

The three talent trees available to paladins are holy, protection, and retribution. Holy is devoted to healing others, protection is concentrates on staying alive longer, and retribution is focuses on doing damage. Being as this is the guide on low level tanking, we’re going to primarily be looking at things in the protection tree.

Some people will tell you that you must have this one talent build or you’ll be horrible and die. While there are some must have talents out there, you can also setup things in a couple different ways. The most important thing is that you know your talent tree and the talents you have available to you. Play around with one of those online talent calculators for a while until you find a setup you like. Actually, with the feature in the game to preview talent changes turned on, you can even do that while taking a break one afternoon.

However, always be sure to try and know your class as much as possible before going out and seeing what other people say is the best way to do things. I’d rather have a knowledgeable player in my group than some guy that read somewhere that this talent build makes him uber. All it takes is one hotfix for that guy to suddenly have a very un-uber talent build and not know what to do until someone comes up with the next greatest talent build.

Generally, as a tank you’re going to want to make a bee-line up the center of the protection tree. This is mainly to grab Blessing of Sanctuary at level 30 and Holy Shield at level 40. These are rather key skills in the protection paladin arsenal and it’s rather hard to tank without nabbing them. The other big skill talents you’ll aim for are Avenger’s Shield at 50 and Hammer of the Righteous at level 60.

These aren’t all the skills in the tree, because I didn’t mention Divine Sacrifice. You can run dungeons happily without Divine Sacrifice, because it’s more of a raiding talent. Yes, there are places where it would be nice to use, but all in all it’s designed more for raids.

As for other talents, you’ll want to have some utility as well as survivability. Divine Strength is a good place to start out the tree for a little easier time while killing things while soloing and for threat while tanking. Anticipation and Toughness are nice as they boost dodge and your armor which will let you live a bit longer. Combat Expertise adds a stat called Expertise that helps reduce the amount your target can dodge and parry your attacks. The talent also adds a decent amount of stamina as well as some extra critical strike rating for threat.

There are also some obscure talents in the tree that might be confusing for a new paladin. Kind of like Reckoning, Redoubt, or Spiritual Attunement.

Reckoning lets you occasionally get another quick hit in on whatever you’re attacking. This is a nice soloing skill and also can help out your threat in dungeons. It’s one of those talents that is really nice while leveling, but not one of those end game talents you see a lot of 80s recommending for raids. Being as this is for the leveling paladin, we’re going to recommend it.

Redoubt is a fun one. It’s essentially a second Holy Shield that randomly pops up adding up to 30% block for a short period of time. The talent also increases your block value by 10% per point you put in it taking you up a maximum of 30% extra block value.

Spiritual Attunement is a peculiar one. It restores some of your mana for every heal you receive. It used to be something that all paladins learned from trainers, but then there started to be issues with how it worked in higher end raids with holy and retribution paladins. After that, they removed it as a baseline ability and tossed it into the protection tree. If you’re absolutely fine on mana, then don’t worry about this talent. If you’ve got some mana issues, then grab at least one point. If you’re still having mana problems, then grab that second point.

Ardent Defender is made of win covered in awesome sauce. When you’ve got the full three of three points in it, every time you fall below 35% health, all incoming damage is reduced by 20%. This gives your healers some breathing room by reducing some of that incoming damage so they can get caught up.

Also, if you do happen to take a killing blow with Ardent Defender talented, you will be healed up to 30% of your maximum health once every two minutes and depending on your defense skill. The more gear with defense rating on it, the larger the heal will be. So, how this works is much like Forbearance. If Ardent Defender saves you from death by healing you, you’ll get a debuff called Ardent Defender for two minutes. During that two minutes, Ardent Defender won’t save you from death again. However, once that debuff is gone, you’re vaguely immortal again. Oh, and from personal experience… falling damage doesn’t make it turn on.

Touched by the Light is a funny talent. Paladin is a mana and spell power using class, but neither retribution nor protection paladins wear spell power gear. That’s why each of those two trees were given special talents to convert stats they do use into spell power. This adds threat, because our spells scale off of both attack power and spell power. But not only that, a skill we get later in the game, Sacred Shield, scales off of spell power as well.

Guarded by the Light is useful for a couple different reasons. First off, it reduces incoming spell damage which is one place we need as much help as we can get. Secondly, it refreshes a spell we get at level 71 called Divine Plea which helps us recover mana much easier. Third, it helps prevent Divine Plea from being dispelled. With this talent, we can keep Divine Plea up 100% of the time if we keep pulling monsters fast enough. Being that Divine Plea gives us 25% of our total mana back every 15 seconds, this is a massive boost to our available mana.

Non-Protection Tree Talents:

Not all of the good tanking talents are in the protection tree. There are some useful ones scattered across the other trees. Retribution has a lot of good threat talents if you go deep enough as well as couple useful debuffs. Holy actually has a decent threat talent within easy reach. You’ll probably want to talent these after you’ve already taken Holy Shield in the protection tree and might even wait longer depending on your plans. Let’s look at a couple of the major ones.

Deflection over in the retribution tree is the parry version of Anticipation. With full points, it adds a flat 5% to your parry percentage. This definitely goes on your talent grocery list of things to pick up.

Improved Judgements as a tier 2 talent in retribution is always worth at least one talent point. Since you’ve already gone 5 points into the tree for Deflection, it’s not difficult talent to grab. This lowers the cooldown of judgement by one second per point (with a maximum of two points).

Seals of the Pure adds bonus damage to your Seal of Righteousness and your Seal of Corruption/Vengeance and their judgements. The strange part is that this is from the holy tree which isn’t usually know for its extra damage dealing. However, it’s up at the top of the tree and you can grab it without putting anything else into the tree.

There are a lot more talents I didn’t cover, but most of those are fairly self-explanatory or deep enough in other trees that you don’t need to worry about them. Remember, be sure to read through your talent tree and make informed decisions when picking what talent spec best matches your play style. If that talent spec doesn’t work out, you can always respec.