WotLK Icecrown Citadel - Retribution paladin guide

[dukkha108]

Greetings. I would like to ask seasoned paladins and Icecrown Citadel veterans to review a guide I made. I would appreciate corrections or additions. Thank you.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...a_guide_v1.pdf

[Levvy]

It's difficult to write a guide like this because your role as a ret changes significantly depending on the people you are playing with.

This is especially difficult when you are recommending players to sacred shield a tank, for example, who might have their own (prot pala) or a (hpala). Often times, it just depends on the constitution and level of your raid. For some fights, it's not even worth the gcd. Some raid leaders will ask you to specifically put it on someone, other times its your judgement call specific to whatever the raid composition or context is. This goes the same for pretty much every utility spell including lay on hands, salvation, sacrifice, aura mastery, and even offensive spells like holy wrath. I'm just expressing this because in a hc setting, doing something like casting sacred shield on the tank, or holy wrathing randomly, salving randomly can get you in trouble, gkicked or raid kicked.

So you have to ask

What is the end goal to this guide? To create a play by play or basically a general raid guide with some ret paladin notes? At what level/for what context? Pug/Progression/Farm? Maybe, if you wanted, you could break each boss down into Pugging, Progression, Farming and cover a bit of ground that way.

Are we doing just the basics, the intermediate or the advanced? The higher your expectation, the more complicated it gets.



What ultimately separates the best rets on the server from a good ret is situational awareness, listening well, and making good judgement calls. Is throwing out the flash of light with art of war going to save a life? Sometimes, heck yes. Other times if you just focused on your rotation, you just do damage and the healing is totally unnecessary, it would be better to do a little bit more dps to get the boss down faster/save lives) You don't want to encourage a pug to just cast flash of light every time art of war procs.

And even this point has disagreement among the top rets and top players.

As a general ICC guide, that's what your pdf is but as an advanced guide for ret not really.

Some of the things that immediately stood out to me are the following though every boss can have more detail. For example:

Situational Awareness -
You could add extra details such as (warrior/boomkin have no threat clear. On a boss like Lady Deathwhisper, phase 2, tanks will no longer be able to taunt. In this situation, you should be more alert of the threat meter (Omen) and consider the use of salvation on X class or X on meter etc.

General Paladin Techniques -
You don't mention seals pretty much at all. For example on PP, most of the time you will benefit greatly from Seal of Righteousness and the glyph for it as you are switching targets constantly or getting stunned to the point that you lose 5 stacks of vengeance/corruption every time. Other bosses also benefit from seal swapping or even dancing.

LK Fight
- No mention of Aura Mastery during Remorseless Winter (again this looks different depending on your level of raiding)
- Holy Wrath not emphasized enough on Valks
- Depending on raid comp or if you are doing Bane, you may be responsible for soaking vile spirits with divine protection (may still kill you) or bubble. In addition, you can add a lot of detail here, explaining that Arthas will start casting Frostmourne Hungers, the tank will move or the MT/OT will taunt as the rest of the raid moves to the opposite end of the platform. You will then need to stand in the way and physically run/block into the spirits as they come.
- Depending on raid comp, you may or may not have to soak ghouls, hence the use of Seal of Command and Sacred Shield on yourself. Other times, a raid leader may explicitly tell you not to use this spell.
- Depending on raid comp, you may have to dispel plague
etc etc

Paladins are one of the most versatile classes in the game. Because of this, you may have to wear many hats at once, other times just the hat of dps. I've done hundreds of ICC raids and really none of them are quite the same. Sometimes a great ret and a good ret look the same, but when you have to wear many hats, that's when you really find out.

Anyway, good luck!

[dukkha108]

Thank you very much for such an extensive reply.

This guide primary intention was to be a learning tool and a basic guide for me. I have never raided, and so far I was in ICC twice. In 10-man I was instructed before each fight which ability to use when called upon. For example, I was always salving our biggest dps, taking care of specific adds, using Aura mastery when told. Problem is that I am still fully dependent on instructions and callings of the raid leader and almost unable to support on my own.

I shall try to incorporate Seal of Righteousness. So far I only alternate Command and Vengeance. Is Justice not worth using on stun-able enemies?
Can I safely damage the oozes on Prof P. when they are chasing different target?

On LK, I still have troubles grasping all the movements and tactics around adds. I do not even remember seeing ghouls or vile spirits in my runs. Everything is new to me so I fail at situational awareness.

I may not be well suited for a support class. I tried playing Warlock and it seemed easier, but I used to play prot in TBC and I became a firm follower of the Light, so now I am reluctant to play any other class.

[Levvy]

Thank you very much for such an extensive reply.

This guide primary intention was to be a learning tool and a basic guide for me. I have never raided, and so far I was in ICC twice. In 10-man I was instructed before each fight which ability to use when called upon. For example, I was always salving our biggest dps, taking care of specific adds, using Aura mastery when told. Problem is that I am still fully dependent on instructions and callings of the raid leader and almost unable to support on my own.

I shall try to incorporate Seal of Righteousness. So far I only alternate Command and Vengeance. Is Justice not worth using on stun-able enemies?
Can I safely damage the oozes on Prof P. when they are chasing different target?

On LK, I still have troubles grasping all the movements and tactics around adds. I do not even remember seeing ghouls or vile spirits in my runs. Everything is new to me so I fail at situational awareness.

Seal of Justice is not really needed as you have HoJ and Holy Wrath and many other classes bring stuns as well. Other times, you just need an interrupt, not your job.

After oozes have targetted someone, you can feel free to do as much damage on them as you can. If someone is afk and gets targetted, you can also BoP the red ooze to force a change target (though be aware this can backfire with rng targetting). It's still worth a try if the red ooze is inevitably going to hit your teammate though.

The LK fight has various different stages. Phase 1, Drudge Ghouls are summoned as one of the accompanying adds. They typically are kept in the main tank's area though sometimes these ghouls will escape and get onto the ranged. You also want to have some ghouls on the off-tank so it is a hectic mechanic. Generally, most of the ghouls will be kept on the Main tank with the melee dps. They need to die obviously because they do significant damage. As a ret, you can help the main tank by taunting ghouls that escape to the ranged and bringing them back to melee. Furthermore, you are fortunate enough to be a plate wearer so you will not instantly die to these ghouls if you get aggro on them. You want to keep focus on the Lich King, but its important that the ghouls are being killed/soaked. This role is typically performed by the Fury Warrior, as they get crazy amounts of rage from it and just destroy with cleave whirlwind. Hence the reputation, on the LK fight, a fury warrior just breaks the game. However, there are times, like in a 10 man setting, you simply might not have a fwarr, so the role will default to you.

Similarly, adds will spawn in phase 3 after valk->transition phase-> back to main stage. These are called vile spirits, and are summoned in the sky high above the LK. He literally stays in place channeling this spell so its hard to miss. These adds perform no other function than to be walking bombs. You can't really cast spells on them, instead someone has to physically block them before they reach the raid. This job can be performed by Shadow Priests (Dispersion), Bear Form with Barkskin, Paladins (bubble), DKs (ams), and Warriors (shield wall) and needs to be performed/swapped between more than 1 player as the interval of this event is every 30-45 seconds or so.



If you enjoy ret, stick to it. It's a very rewarding class.

Your rotation, unlike some other classes is not very demanding, and so it really slows down your gameplay in a good way, allowing you to be aware of whats going on with the raid more-so than many other classes. An easy rotation is not that different say from an MM hunter or a Arcane Mage or a Demo Warlock, but unlike those classes, you actually have the tools to influence and help struggling areas around you. In parallel, in a advanced environment, you are also the reason the raid can maintain driving at 100 mph by proactively casting spells. This 'MVP' status is only for ICC though as because of Smourne, Tiny Abom, and 2 piece t-10, your damage is much more dynamic than in previous raid tiers. Of course, WoW is a team game, so there are areas of the game ret can not cover such as purge/interrupt/md but paladins as Blizzard's favorite class really has a ridiculous amount of tools and damage at very little expense paired with a low entry point for mechanical skill but a high ceiling for playmaking. It is difficult to play any other class/spec when you play ret, especially at bis. The only other class that can have similar versatility is a phenomenal dps druid.

[dukkha108]

Thanks for another advice. I am adding it into the guide.