New Paladin in AzerothFollow

*A new paladin enters the forums* Hello everyone. I've been reading on these forums for some time now and figured it was time to finally make my first post. Recently just started playing World of Warcraft. I come from playing a Paladin on Final Fantasy 11 for over 2yrs. The economy has fallen into the waste lands so I decided to say goodbye to my Paladin. I love playing a paladin in just about any game that offers the class. I know that the paladin class here is far different from any other game I've probably ever played. I'm willing to learn.

I've read the Paladin FAQ 2.0. I'm going to solo for the first part of my experience in Azeroth to better understand the quests and what skills I can learn for myself. My professions will most assuredly be Mining and Skinning so that I may support myself through out my quests. Curiousity struck me about the Retribution talents for a pally. High damage per second plus being able to heal is exceptionally nice. After reading certain posts about people asking what build is best for my paladin. I've been on wowhead.com playing with the talent calculator for ret. I figured instead of being like most who ask you to show them a solo build, I will build one myself. Maybe you could look at it and tell me if the talents I chose are wrong: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxzVZVcbtrIhcrsxzAo

Just want you all to know I love paladins. All my friends play paladins on Wow. I'm going to join them soon as I get a reply from you. Thanks for all the great posts even though alot of them revolve around raiding and pvping. Not really interested in them yet. I know Str and Stam are best stats before outlands. Then the reward gear I obtain will add AP, +hit,Crit and agi. Thanks for reading my post.

Honestly, you will not need the points in Anticipation or Toughness. You'll kill fast enough that you won't take much damage at all, and any you do take will probably heal between mobs or with a quick bandage. Eye for an Eye is also not the best talent one could take in Ret. It only works off of crits, which shouldn't happen all that often (though I guess it could work well in BGs before you have an opportunity to stock up on Resilence), and when you're grouping in instances/raids you shouldn't be getting hit at all aside from AoE moves, so its usefulness is somewhat meh.

In my opinion, a final Ret build should look something like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxZVfMtbIucrsguAo

gizmober is right in that you should definitely max Improved Judgements. Your ability to keep moving without downtime is directly linked (when you get there) to Judgements of the Wise, and the more often you can use a Judgement spell to regain mana, the better off you are. Improved Blessing of Might is not a bad choice, but you'll probably be using Kings or Wisdom on most people. I suppose you can choose not to take Vindication since it doesn't work on bosses (good for the trash mobs and while soloing though) and put the points into IBoM if you want.

Sanctified Retribution is a definite. For 1 point you up all damage you do, and anyone else in your party does, by 3%. Considering that you should never be using anything other than Ret aura, it's a no-brainer. Sanctified Wrath increases the crit chnace of our "finisher" and allows use to use Avenging Wrath more often, which just means more damage.

Swift Retribution is good, but depends on your group make-up. If you've got someone else like a DK who is also providing that effect, your points are somewhat wasted and are probably better off elsewhere. Otherwise, I see that as my optimum end-game build.

I'm currently specced Prot at level 65 though. So some of our Ret vets out there may disagree with what I have said, and I'd probably defer to them.

(The above build assumes you'll be focusing on PvE. A PvP build would look quite different.)