Level 70 prot spec post patch 3Follow

I've been having a hard time deciding what I want my spec to be as well: both at 80 and leveling to 80.



Personally I hate what they did to Kings, and most of the builds I have put together I just did not have the points for Kings. The other builds I had points in Kings, but not a full 5, making it basically worthless (at least in my opinion).

Strength is going to be a MUCH better stat for us, increasing our AP and BlockValue by a considerable amount. I personally will be going with Divine Strength as the first 5 points in the tree, and most likely leaving Kings alone.

Various posts have been condemning Kings to a "Ret build only" talent, and the more I play with the calculator, the more I think it's true.



I still have Ardent Defender in the builds I've been looking at, but in your case I'm not sure it'll be a huge dramatic loss. Leveling instances this talent was never the life saver it can be in a raid scenario. Also you mention you haven't been 70 long. Based on that I'd have to agree Reckoning is still a viable talent for you. I was thinking of picking it back up again, but my gear won't change (much) with the patch, just the fact I can gain XP again, so for me I don't think it's worth it. Those with less avoidance, keep Reckoning in.



Touched by the Light: no reason to not take this talent as soon as one is able to get it (after Avenger's Shield naturally :P). With basically no spell power on gear anymore not taking this talent would be a huge disservice to you and anyone relying on you to keep threat.

Guarded by the Light: the calculator you used seems to not be up to date. This talent also reduces spell damage taken by 6%. While certainly increasing it's usefulness, I don't particularly think this will be as useful leveling up to 80 as some other talent. I believe it'll definitely be wanted once you reach 80 and go raid, but before then, can probably put the points someplace else.



Yes: Devo for tanks, Ret for Ret, Con for Holy. I can still see tanks using Ret in the absence of a Ret Paladin on occasion, but I'm sure Devo will be the most run Aura by tanks.



I have noticed this as well. Not just the change to Anticipation, but some of my gear is also losing Defense Rating with the patch as Blizzard re-itemizes tanking gear with Strength. I'm not entirely convinced though that swapping a weapon out with Wrath so close is going to be necessary or worth the time/effort. Then again, I have the cotton-candy-mace, lol, but for those with a blue weapon, you may very well be able to find something relatively easy to suit your needs better. Run Kara for a King's Defender? It's faster, but going to Heroic Mech for a Suneater may be worth your time.

EDIT: I forgot to add a link to what I'm thinking of speccing when I log back in to my Paladin: 0/52/9.

Thinking to put the last point in Benediction as I hit 71, then get Seals of the Pure maxed out, Heart of the Crusader maxed out, then respeccing to my raid build at 80. I'm not 100% sure on this yet. May end up putting Reckoning back in at some point should my avoidance be low enough to accommodate it, or possibly other talents. Anyway, hopefully I gave you a few things to think on :)

Edited, Oct 14th 2008 5:57am by Maulgak

Thanks for the input. I'm glad to hear that it's not only I who is finding it a bit difficult to spend Talents. :)

I have a follow up question. This from you has me confused:

I haven't been online since the patch (posting from the office) but I did look at my Armory, and I see that my Spell Damage is now represented by Spell Power, and it's the same amount I had pre-patch. But my Talent tree remains the pre-patch tree, so perhaps there are changes which I'll only see after logging in (for example, my Defense shown is what the gear I'm equipped with would have given me, with 5/5 Anticipation). But otherwise your statement "with basically no spell power on gear anymore" doesn't make sense to me.

Mostly. :)

Being 70 for only 2 weeks, my gear appears to have been lowly enough to have been passed over by the changes which impacted the tier gear. But, I'm afraid I don't understand you calling your spellpower weapon obsolete, and then turning around and describing how Touched by the Light is a favorable Talent choice and is boosting you to higher than pre-patch spellpower levels.

Basically having a spellpower weapon with a spellpower enchant is still "ok" since it does increase your threat.

However, with talents, 1000 stamina now gives you a base of 300 spellpower even if none of your gear has spellpower on it at all.

Now you want a "reasonably" fast weapon but one that IDEALLY would have +Strength, +Stamina, HIGH DPS, and some defense/avoidance stats. I don't know if such a weapon actually exists yet, and a super-fast weapon with paltry DPS that has spellpower and a spellpower enchant will still WORK, it just isn't necessarily the best choice anymore, and it CERTAINLY isn't the ONLY choice anymore like it was before the patch.

I don't understand why spell dmg weaps would be obsolete anymore. Many abilities still deal damage based off spell power, including ret aura now. Just because we get more spl pwr off stam doesn't mean we don't want more? A higher dps weap would increase our HotR hits but lower everything else. Is it worth it?

Just to hopefully make it clear:

1) We are getting a ton of spell power from talents so using a spell power weapon is not the only means we have now of getting the spell power necessary to hold threat.

2) Spell power weapons have much lower physical damage so they lower the potential for Hammer of the Righteous.

3) Spells are now scaling not only with spell power, but attack power as well.

4) Spell power weapons lack strength and other tanking stats, not only further reducing our damage/threat from physical attacks/scaling, but also making us lose out on another source of mitigation.

5) Blizzard has stated that they felt Defense was way too easy to acquire in BC, hence why many pieces of gear had a Defense Rating nerf in this patch, and the change to Anticipation. They want it to take more effort to acquire the needed Defense so using a spell power weapon (which won't have any Defense on it) will hinder our quest for uncrittability that much more.



Wow, I wrote all that like 2 hours before I'm actually getting around to posting it, lol. Playing WoW while surfing forums = one of them is going to eventually take all attention away from the other >.>