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Hello, I’m Angel of Frostwolf. I’ve been playing paladin since November ’12 after being introduced to it by my then Guild Master/Arena Partner/Best Friend. He taught me about paladins in general before he left for retail. Within a month I was 2.2k Rated in 2v2 in crafted bloodied gear, with a Frost DK who wasn’t much more geared then me. I might be known for my Death Knight Jyx, more than I am for my paladin, but it doesn’t stop me being a better paladin than a DK. I have always played a support spec, it’s the most enjoyable spec for PvP in my eyes, every nub can roll damage and go out there and just try and one shot someone with CDs, but to me this isn’t fun, the ability to protect your partner, to aid them whilst keeping up pressure to their team in both damage and healing is what I love.
Anyway, I’m writing this as a more in-depth guide compared to Lyena’s, as hers is more a ret guide as a whole I want to specifically go down the support road.
Contents:
1) Overview
2) Talents
a. Tree
b. Glyphs
c. Individual Talents
3) Gear
a. Gearing
b. Gems
c. Enchants
d. Professions
4) Playstyle
5) Macros
6) Addons
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Paladins are Guardians, using the power of the light to heal and protect whilst casing out evil. Normally most would stick to one spec or the other, Holy, Protection or Retribution.
Holy – Healer: Using light to heal and aid those around them, while being hard to take down on their own.
Protection – Tank: Stops masses of enemies bearing down on their comrades, risking everything to shield they innocent.
Retribution – Damage: Strong knights who use holy damage to judge evil and cast it from this world.
Support spec paladins are Ret paladins with a holy background. Striving to aid their party whilst dealing damage themselves.
Major changes in 4.3 meant that the way in which Paladins healed were changed.
• Word of Glory now has a 20s DC or 10s CD when Talented (0s for Holy, 10s Ret with Selfless Healer)
• Holy Radiance now has a 3s cast time (1.5s with Holy talent). It lost it’s CD and instead of being centred upon the paladin itself, it now heals a target for a good amount and places its AOE around that target healing for 3s.
Picking your Race:
Alliance:
Human – Probably the best Paladin to be, free trinket slot so you can use two DPS trinkets. Expertise with Swords and Maces means more of another stat from Expertise. *You can reforge your gears expertise into crit/hit depending on what you need. Allows you a little more flexibility.
Dwarf – the tankier of the 3 alliance races, racial allows you to remove all poisons and bleed effects (Hop/Divine Shield do the same thing on a longer CD).
Dreanei – Probably the 2nd best Alliance race, a small HOT and 1% Hit rating.
Horde:
Blood Elf – AOE silence (one thing a paladin does miss from the class itself) which also gives you 6% Mana back on use.
Tauren – AOE stun (Shares DR with HOJ) and an increased 5% Base HP.
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Talents: http://freecode.hu/wowtal/eng/?PA#20...23,21,16,17,-1
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Glyphs
Prime:
Glyph of Word of Glory - Increases Healing done by Word of Glory by 10%
Glyph of Templars Verdict – Increases the damage of Templar's Verdict by 15%.
And either
Glyph of Crusaders Strike - Increases the critical strike chance of Crusader Strike by 5%.
Glyph of Seal of Insight – While Seal of Insight is active, the effect of your healing spells is increased by 5%. *This is a holy/prot glyph, it can be helpful to change to if you feel you are struggling with healing, switch it out for Crusaders Strike*
Major:
Glyph of Hammer of Justice - Increases your Hammer of Justice range by 5 yards.
Glyph of Turn Evil - Reduces the casting time of your Turn Evil spell by 100%, but increases the cooldown by 8 sec.
And either
Glyph of Hammer of Wrath - Reduces the mana cost of Hammer of Wrath by 100%.
Glyph of Cleansing - Reduces the mana cost of your Cleanse by 20%.
Minor:
Glyph of Blessing of Might - Reduces the mana cost of your Blessing of Might by 50%.
Glyph of Insight - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Insight by 50%.
Glyph of Truth - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Truth by 50%.
Individual Talents:
Most of the talents are fairly obvious as to why they would be taken. Some however you may question.
Ret Talents
Guardians Favour (2/2) - Reduces the cooldown of your Hand of Protection by 2 min and increases the duration of your Hand of Freedom by 4 sec.
It reduces the CD on your HOP and Freedom, even though HOP can be dispelled/purged/stolen it will help a LOT especially against rogues/paladins/ferals/DKs. Freedom itself should always be used on your partner, since cleanse will remove any root/slow effect on you. A reduced CD allows your partner much more mobility.
Sanctity of Battle - Haste effects lower the cooldown of your Crusader Strike and Divine Storm abilities.
You may be asking why when we don’t stack haste. The Holy talent Judgements of the Pure will give you 9% haste for 1 minute when you use Judgement. This takes off 0.5s (approx.) from your Crusaders Strike, that’s nearly a GCD. Also allows us to get more holy power quicker, reducing your 15s for 3 Holy Power down to 12s. Also haste effects (Spell Haste) reduce it too, so things like Shamans, Shadow Priests, Boomkins, Warlocks, their buffs which gives Spell Haste adds to your CS cooldown. *Note that Melee Attack Speed buffs have 0 effect. (e.g Icy Talons)*
Selfless Healer (2/2) - Reduces the cooldown of Word of Glory by 10 sec. In addition, when you heal others with your Word of Glory, it increases the effectiveness of the heal by 50% and increases your damage done by 4% per charge of Holy Power for 10 sec.
This is your 10s WOG. Also increases the healing done by 50%. To make it even better it gives you a nice (12%) damage increase for 10s after you heal.
Inquiry of Faith (0/3) - Increases the periodic damage done by your Seal of Truth by 10/20/30%, and the duration of your Inquisition by 66/133/200%
We don’t need this talent at all, we are not a damage spec, and half the time you might find yourself not even using Seal of Truth or Inquisition, don’t waste your talent points on this.
Acts of Sacrifice (1/2) - Reduces the cooldown by 10% and mana cost by 10% of your Hand of Freedom, Hand of Salvation and Hand of Sacrifice. In addition, your Cleanse will remove one movement impairing effect if cast on yourself.
You need one in this talent, and only one. Your Guardians Favour reduces the CD on your Freedom enough already, the mana cost is nothing. You taking one point in this purely to make Cleanse remove a slowing/root effect.
Prot Talents
Eternal Glory (2/2) - Your Word of Glory has a 30% chance not to consume Holy Power.
A lot of people forget that this talent is pretty great, because here on Warmane it’s proc rate is high, so when your WOG you can go straight in for a full Templars which keeps pressure up, your healing mixed with a chunk of life taken from the other team keeps the pressure high for the opposite team.
Holy Talents
Judgements of the Pure (2/2) - Your Judgement increases your casting and melee haste and mana regeneration from Spirit while in combat.
Increases all your haste by 9%, which works in turn with Sanctity of Battle *more above*
Last Word (2/2) - Gives your Word of Glory a 60% increased critical chance when used on targets with 35% or less health.
This is where the BIG WOGs come in, your primarily wanting to heal when your partner is more low life, wait till he hits about 30-35% HP and then use WOG, it’s 60% Crit chance. With your CDs out you can easily see them 80k+ heals on them.
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In any PvP environment you should be going full resilience, you ideally should have 4.6k+ Resilience. Even buy a 1h Sword and Shield.
Once you have your full PvP gear you should be sticking to this stat Priority.
Hit (5%) > Expertise (15)* > Strength > Crit > Mastery / Haste
*Expertise at 15, this is not the PvP cap, its 5 below. Why? Because you will rarely find youself missing an attack, Warmane there is issues with Expertise, I’ve played around with it, even at 39 Expertise I was being dodged by warriors. Don’t waste stats, stick to 15 and you will be fine.
Crit?
Many people argue that mastery is better for rets, no, not even as a damage ret should you be using mastery. Crit always. In PvP it’s about unpredictable damage, keeping this up in pressure. What keeps a healer on their toes? That nice 50K Templars on his DPS.
Also, we take crit because it increases spell crit too. Spell crit is important, very for support. You need to get them WOGs out and you want them to crit as much as possible (combined with Last Word talent).
Gearing
With the release of Dragon Soul, with the new Tier (13) set available you should think about using 2 items from it should you be able to obtain it. It gives you Holy Power from your successful Judgements allowing more control over your abilities, while greatly adding to the pressure. Using this however will take a good chunk of your resilience away and this you will be unable to use a PvE trinket/weapon. Gem for resilience in your Yellow socks, pure resilience (Mystic Ember Topaz).
This is a personal choice, if you find yourself being tunneled too much and finding yourself squishy play with full PvP gear, if you are not having issues with this then try with the T13 2Set.
Gems:
Red/Prismatic – Bold Inferno Ruby (40 Str)
Yellow – Inscribed Ember Topaz (20 Str + 20 Crit) or Resplendent Ember Topaz (20 Str + 20 Resil)
Blue - Etched Demonseye (20 Str + 30 Hit)
Meta - Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond (54 Str + 3% Crit Effect)
Enchants:
Weapon: Landslide
Helm: +60 Strength and +35 Resilience (PvP Vendor)
Shoulders: +50 Strength and +25 Crit (Therazane Rep) / +50 Strength and +25 Resil (PvP Vendor)
Back: Swordguard Embroidery (Tailoring Prof) / +60 Crit Rating (Greater Critical Strike)
Chest: +40 Resilience (Mighty Resilience)
Bracers: +65 Crit (Greater Critical Strike) / +50 Strength (Major Strength) / +130 Strength (LW Prof)
Gloves: +50 Strength (Mighty Strength)
Belt: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs: +190 Attack Power +55 Crit (Dragonscale Leg Armor)
Boots: +50 Haste / +50 Mastery
*Rings: +40 Strength (Enchanting Prof)
Professions:
Professions help you in many ways, whether it be a buff or an enchant, you’re going to get something out of taking up a profession. However not all them are beneficial to your role and class.
Blacksmithing – Two Gem Sockets on your Wrist/Gloves where you can put ANY Coloured gem in it, this is probably the best profession to take as a ret paladin. So that’s +80 (+100 when DS is released) of any stat you want, Strength/Resil/Crit being the 3 best.
Tailoring – The cloak enchant gives you 1000 Attack Power for 15s. And since WOG scales with Attack Power if you can use it while this is proc’d it such a helpful boost.
Enchanting - +80 Strength from the two ring enchants.
Leatherworking – Your fur wrist enchants gain you +130 Strength on your bracers, it works out to be a +80 Strength Increase.
Alchemy - +80 Strength Flask (Usable in Arenas).
These are the best ones to take. The rest you gain not a lot from in terms of helpful stats. Even Jewelcrafting when DS is released is bad, since there will be epic gems.
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Support Rets playstyle is pretty balanced, your still dealing damage whilst holding back a little to make sure your partner is ok. It takes a lot of practice figuring out when to heal and when to damage.
Wait until your partner is about 35% HP, then as long as you have 3 Holy Power throw him a WOG.
If your WOG didn’t use your Holy Power then use it on a Templars on the enemy.
Allow your partner to be the main damage dealer. You have to time your CDs right. Don’t just run out there and one shot something unless you know you can, your Wings increase your Healing done by 20%. Your Guardian increases healing done depending on stacks. Try keeping these for when you need them, either finishing of the enemy quickly or to heal up. If you get a Killing blow, your next Holy Light is a 100% crit, normally healing 40k depending on what CDs you have up, LOS and either heal who ever needs it.
You’re able to focus a bit more on control and CC. Focus interrupts, HOJ’s and Repentances timely used will make up a lot.
If you’re going to HOP someone try and get a CC on the enemy if they can dispel it (Silence Mage/Priest/Shaman and HOJ or Rep Warr/Hunter)
Hand of Protection is an amazing tool, It DOES NOT remove magic abilities, but it will remove physical DOTs and debuffs, like a Feral Bleeds, a Warriors Rend/Deep Wounds and best of all a DK's Necrotic Strike.
You can use Hand of Salvation in two ways, first for the damage mitigation, and the second to preemptively break a CC.
Hand of Freedom should always be used on your partner, as Acts of Sacrifice means you can cleanse any root or slow on you with that.
Get into the mindset of Holy if you have to, go offspec Holy, and get used to using HOP/Sacrifice and your CDs for healing with.
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I really hope you like macros, because I’m about to give you a lot, they will come with time and practise but one you have them you’ll be hot off the mark with your healing.
Replace Arena1/Arena2 with your partners names. And your Modifiers to whichever you feel comfortable with.
Spoiler:Show
http://i.imgur.com/J0iUi6X.png
Galdius – PvP addon showing enemy Health and Resources Bars, Casting Bars, Trinket CDs and CC DR.
Movable Holy Power – Allows you to move and scale your Holy Power bar so you can have it in a position where you can see it clearly
Grid – Alternative raidframes so you can clearly see debuffs on your party and how much HP is lost.
And Just so you can see, my UI.
Spoiler:Show
