First, let's make the assumption that there is a warrior or druid MT, and the paladin is the OT. Would a build like 0/19/42 be better than the standard full protection build?
Retribution OT Build: 0/19/42
(Switch points from Anticipation to Precision once you have the necessary defence from gear.)
The big difference is that the Ret paladin is not going to be crush immune, but the Warrior/Druid MT is the one going to be handling the bosses and worrying about crushes. Combined with decent tanking gear, this build is more than sufficient to handle all non-73 mobs.
And once tanking duties are finished or not necessary, this build can pull out a 2H and add significantly more damage. If the paladin is in a DPS group, they can even switch to Sanctity Aura and boost everyone's damage.
(Just to be clear, if you are tanking anything during the fight, you are wearing tank gear, not Retribution gear.)
I don't think that this build will be sufficient to MT anything, but given that most groups already have a warrior (or druid) MT available, this build might be a more useful OT build than a Protection build.
You could also do a similar build but go Holy. However I don't think it would work as well, due to limited mana and +healing in tank gear. As well, if a normal 10-man has 2 tanks/3 healers/5 dps, one tank fights would be better off as 1 tank/3 healers/6 dps, rather than 1 tank/4 healers/5 dps.
The increased damage Retribution brings synergizes well with generating threat as an OT. This build would also bring 3% crit for the raid, allowing you to get the increased threat from Judgement of the Crusader at the same time, and Sanctity Aura for the DPS group.
I'm seriously considering respeccing to this build. I'm generally last on the tanking depth charts for my guild, so I never actually need to main-tank. This would make it a lot easier to maintain threat right behind the main tank, as well as be more useful in a fight like Shade of Aran.
The biggest thing stopping me from respeccing is 5-man play. Would this build be enough to tank a 5-man, or what other role would I take up? I am leery of a Ret paladin's viability in an actual DPS slot, at least with the gear I have. (Let's put it this way: I think I have less than 1000 AP in my DPS gear.)
The biggest problem with this is that retribution just doesnt bring enough DPS to the table. This issue has been plagueing paladins since the beginning of WoW and only got worse when blizzard identified Paladins as a Healer/Tanking hybrid..both of which are not renowned for dps.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the problem is that we don't bring enough DPS to the table but more of... we don't bring a good combination of UTILITY and DPS. Utility through DPS is something I would love to see.
ReplyDeleteI don't have the greatest gear in the world but I've topped dmg meters in non undead instances as well as Kara. Last night I was top DPS by over 30k after the maiden. At that point I was asked to off tank some stuff and died promptly because I don't have the gear for tanking. By no means am I saying ret is fine... it def needs buffs IMO especially to the utility dep.
I know this has nothing to do with the Ret/off tank build. :) It would probably work though if you have the gear and you would surely put out more dmg with that build than a full prot build when not tanking.
Yes, but you aren't taking a DPS slot, you are taking a tank slot.
ReplyDeleteThe idea is that you'd normally be wearing full tank gear. Most fights the best you could do is switch to a 2H weapon.
Only on fights which require a single tank would you switch to DPS gear.
A Ret paladin in Prot gear.
GSH said...
ReplyDeleteYes, but you aren't taking a DPS slot, you are taking a tank slot.
The proble is that druids do that better, they have great DPS, great tanking and great utility as a full feral. A ret/prot pally has ok dps and a mediocre prot tree (crushable and no holy shield aggro).
While I can't speak for it personally, I know my guild leader is 0/20/41, and regularly tanks 5-mans (not sure how he'd do in Heroics). If you want I can ask him to post about his experiences either here or on my guild forum (in the latter I'd repost that information here).
ReplyDeleteThe proble is that druids do that better, they have great DPS, great tanking and great utility as a full feral. A ret/prot pally has ok dps and a mediocre prot tree (crushable and no holy shield aggro).
ReplyDeleteGood points, but you actually need to have a feral druid to carry out that plan. ;)
I guess I’m one of the very few that have embraced the Tanking/Healing Hybrid whole heartedly and even without talents we have SA, Conc, Seal of Blood/Vengeance, Righteous Fury, Plate, Parry and Block to help us Tank (defined as absorb damage on behalf of the group/raid)
ReplyDeletePersonally I’m 50/11/0 and have off Tanked the last half of Kara with a Warrior MT with great success. As the third healer we where able to tackle Aran, Prince, Illhoof with 1 Tank, 3 Healers and 6 dedicated DPS (I believe we had a Sharman DPS/Healer Hybrid with us)
Therefore I do think you can make a viable Prot/Ret build however you need to have the gear to back up your job. While DPS can just focus on 17 slots to enhance their ability to sting a dual Hybrid has 34 (and if like me you are a Healer/Tank then DPS gear adds a further 17 slots to work on)
If you have less than 1000 AP in DPS gear then I don’t think you have the gear to add value to the raid as a Prot/Ret paladin yet and need closer to 1300-1400 as while you are off tanking when needed your primary role when it matters most is to dish out the pain. A well played Paladin should be able to out dps a poorly played dps classes so as long as you aren’t the weakest link and are also providing the off tank role then your position is concreted in my eyes.
... and with all due respect if a Paladin is top or even top three in DPS then the rest of the DPS are either horribly under geared for the encounter or horrible players or suffering from both gear and ability shortcomings.
Honestly, I was thinking about this over the weekend and think blizzard's plan of tank/healer hybrid is the most possible option. Blizzard pretty much made it a statement of fact to paladins that ret is for leveling, endgame, paladins are a heal/prot hybrid. From the looks of it,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sVxuMxzhxZVMphx0dgz
is much more viable than
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZVMphx0dgzZVf0tzcuq
Some rules of thumb:
ReplyDelete1. RF on - you can tank 5 mans
2. Bless of Sanctuary- you can off-tank raids
3. Holy Shield- you can raid tank.
4. 0/49/12 and you're specced for main tank.
The pallies in my guild have been kicking around the ret hybrid plan, and the best option seems to be to play to strengths (healing), rather than weaknesses (DPS). 20/0/41 is reasonable, and if you have a good set of +dmg/+healing you can do fine with spot healing, as well as meleeing with seal of wisdom to keep the mana up.
I don't think that you can compare the threat of a retri off tank to a dps warrior but I have yet to see you :) I would appreciate it if you could change the link to my blog from "samownall" to "world of warcraft guru" as samownall is just my character name ingame. Thanks a bunch and keep up the great posts :)
ReplyDeleteOur guild has a Prot/Holy paladin. He's got some great tricks up his sleeve for tanking (mainly Lay on Hands, and the ability to be a relatively good off-healer due to the extra mana from the INT talent on single tank bosses). Post-Patch this will be his spec:
ReplyDeletehttp://talents.unleashedgaming.net/?p=vt&i=18245&b=70505c2o53251335e152521501w
I personally am/will be the following spec:
http://talents.unleashedgaming.net/?p=vt&i=17692&b=7055031205201325213510502413zm
I've been able to tank a ton of 5-mans (usually groups need a healer more than a tank in my guild, so I haven't done them all) and I've tanked a few bosses on heroic (I always seem to end up tanking the eyeball boss in crypts when the tank goes down due to lack of insta-cast spells).
With Imp. Righteous Fury you can hold aggro on ANYTHING. With the Purifying Power + 2 piece Righteous Bonus, you have a 25% reduction in Consecration, that's a HUGE help. With blessed life, you've got an equally helpful version of Ardent Defender but not as reliable (but at least it can't be leap frogged). Also, Divine Illumination makes it easier to wtfspam things when you need to, and if you're OOM or just plain scared you're not gonna get a heal in time you can either throw concentration aura on and divine favor/heal yourself (I do this a lot in 5-mans) OR you can Lay on Hands if your mana is REALLY hurting.
In general, I think the Holy Tank can be VERY effective at maintaining aggro and staying alive with good gear. The only major hurt is the lack of Sanc/Holy Shield, however if you gear yourself out from Karazhan DEF gear (When it's on the verge of being disenchanted, our guild doesn't do DKP systems) or Heroic/Arena gear for tanking, I can easily see you being able to tank Heroics with this build.
This doesn't really add to the conversation, but I wanted to link something Kalgan said in the WoW stratics Q&A.
ReplyDelete"Brannoc: *little3* Retribution specced paladins are not seen as a viable raid choice as their DPS is 'low' and the support they bring could easily be done by another DPS class. Will retribution be made into a viable end-game raiding spec through either DPS increases or support increases?
Tigole: but then who will save the hunters, kalgan?
Kalgan: Yes, I'd like to see ret become a bit more raid viable in terms of dps and overall utility.
Kalgan: the ret pallies will save them!
Kalgan: next patch'!
Kalgan: ok, maybe not
Kalgan: or maybe...
Kalgan: Right. At any rate, something we've noticed in our testing is that ret pallies are in kind of a jam where their dps isn't enough to get the put in a dps group in a raid.
Kalgan: ... which makes their dps suffer even more.
Kalgan: Hopefully we can get that solved in a way that doesn't cause ret pallies to rule the pvp universe."
So in the never-specified future something like the Ret off-tank build might be ideal for non-healing pallies.