The TRUE ShockadinFollow

I'm a BE paladin. I was protection for the first half of my time to 70. And just recently, I switched to holy spec.

I was around in trade channel about last week, and I heard something about the "TRUE shockadin". I got interested right on the bat. Heres the spec of so-called, "TRUE shockadin"

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sEohMxu0xoZZVfctMczf

Do you think this will work? Is it good for both PvE and PvP? I'm willing to respec again for this spec, because it looks like it can kick some major ***.

Actually the real shockadin spec is 40/0/21 and does it work? Well for PvP if you want to be a shockadin and heal 95% of the time and throw out the occasional holy shock, then I guess it does. For PvE if you're going for the lowest place on the dps charts, then I would say it most certainly works. Otherwise, no, its pointless.

wow... worse than ret... didn't expect that from you bodh.... ;) haha.

Shockadins aren't bad so much as they're unnecessary. Really, you should think of yourself as a basic (if poor) healadin with the ability to put out damage now and then.

Shockadins run out of mana way too fast to be effective damage, and the gear requirements of a shockadin don't mesh with the optimum gear for a healadin. So, basically, you give up some of your PvP healing for a 3000 HS crit every now and then.

It's fun. it isn't logical, but it's fun.

Edit: Okay, I looked at your spec and now I can tell you what I think is wrong.

- Divine Strength is useless. It gives bonus white damage, and only retadins need to worry about white damage. Spiritual Focus is a better PvP investment.
- Vindication is pretty useless, since like someone above said you'll be healing 95% of the time and throwing the occasional shock. Since HS's mana efficiency is poor, you want Imp. BoW.
- Can't believe you picked Pure of Heart over Sanctified Light for a holy spec.
- SoComm and Conviction are melee abilities, and melee is what a retadin wants. Like I said: any holy spec, the best thing to do is heal. A shockadin is just a more entertaining healer. To heal, you need to stay far away - melee's a bad idea, plate notwithstanding.
- You probably want Imp. Seal of Righteousness, since you can supplement your HS with JoR's, mana inefficient as that is. Hence Benediction.
- I would assume any 70 shockadin to want Holy Guidance and Divine Illumination. They seem much more conducive to the spec's objectives than Vindication and Conviction.

See, this is odd. You've got Vindication, which is mainly PvP since it won't work on most bosses, but you've skipped Pursuit of Justice, which is arguably the most useful PvP ability in that area of the Ret tree. I don't know, you seem to be working against yourself here.

Edited, Jan 6th 2008 6:11pm by zepoodle

But that's the thing. Find a good guy with a sh*tty spec and only average gear who is still playing damn well, you know that guy is pro. It's like throwing kids into a desert. Many will die, but the ones who survive to adulthood will be totally awesome because they survived alone in a desert.

I view Retribution as an idiot filter. If you want a measure of how skilled someone is at WoW, give him a crappy spec with average gear and judge how well he performs. If he's sucky, that was expected. If he does okay, that's fine. And if he totally melts face then you've got a chunk of pure Darwinian gold.

Edit: Wait, Andy, I just realised that isn't your spec. Now, I want you to go back to the trade channel on Twisting Nether and /slap the asshat who advised you get it, because it's a sucky spec.

Edited, Jan 7th 2008 1:08am by zepoodle

The Shockadin spec isn't playing to a paladin's strengths very well. In pvp, paladins generally win via our sheer survivability, and battles are often won by strategic bubbles and knowing when to start pumping out some damage. The shockadin spec doesn't do good dps, let's face that. Whatever way you put it, it's still inferior to that of ret. Healing wise, Missing the talents in prot means that it's much harder for a shockadin to pump out heals in an arena situation.

That's about the whole deal with shockadins. Until Holy shock gets a buff, the spec won't be as practical as full ret or full healing. Ret pallies post 2.3 can do pretty good dps in PvE, but shockadins really can't.

One thing about shockadins is, it's a great spec to go into for a weekend of BG-ing, because BGs are generally much easier than arenas and duels. Just avoid direct 1 on 1 confrontation and just hang around the group. It's much more fun than healing, and respeccing ret requires a complete gear change (if you're normally holy). I've tried every spec and i must say shockadin is fun as hell. Put it just isn't practical enough for it to arrant a serious spec into it. If you put in enough effort and stack enough spelldam, you may be able to pump out mid table dps, but it just isn't worth it.