Holy Damage Protection Paladin

[Roxanne Flowers 15]

I'm looking for some information, preferably from Theldoras and Killerduki, concerning the relative merits of SoR/JoR versus SoC/JoC in the context of maximizing/optimizing Holy damage throughput (as opposed to just merely "output") in a Protection build that goes all the way to Holy Shield.  As you can probably imagine, I'm "torn" between wanting to go either Prot/Holy or Prot/Ret, and the question isn't over Consecration or Improved Seals, but rather over the choice of Righteousness over Command.

For an apples to apples comparison, I'm essentially looking at either a 11/40/0 or a 0/40/11 build that looks like this:

11/40/0: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#sxxzZVhtIezEo

0/40/11: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#sZVhtIezEoV0xz

The intent here is to try and maximize/optimize Holy damage flowing from Retribution Aura, Holy Shield, Blessing of Sanctuary, Judgement of the Crusader ... and then either Seal of Righteousness or Seal of Command (r 1) ... all to generate maximum Threat via Improved Righteous Fury.

Retribution offers 5/5 Deflection for improved damage mitigation above and beyond Redoubt/Shield Specialization and Holy Shield, and Seal of Command offers a cheap mana method for increasing Holy damage on every hit coupled with 5/5 Reckoning.  This essentially yields single target only tanking build due to being able to generate Threat on essentially only one target at a time.

Holy offers +10% Strength or Intelligence as well as pushback protection while Healing, and the intensely mana hungry Consecration which then makes it possible to generate Threat in parallel and not just sequentially.  In this case, Spiritual Focus rather than Deflection is the defensive option, so as to be able to Heal while taking a beating.

So I'm wanting to examine the merits/flaws of SoR (Holy build) versus SoC (Retribution build), mainly, and in order to do that I need a fresh enumeration of the things that will proc Seal of Rightousness (and Command) when using Judgement of the Crusader to keep them "supercharged" with Holy damage throughput while intermittently using Holy Shield for even more Holy Damage when tanking.

In the choice between Divine Strength and Divine Intellect, if going Holy, how much advantage does either option offer in terms of improving Holy damage throughput?  I'm assuming that Divine Strength offers melee Attack Power and Armor, but am unsure if there is any interaction between Attack Power and Seal of Righteousness (I'm presuming there isn't any).  Conversely, Divine Intellect offers an increased mana pool and a gain in Spell Criticals, but am unsure of the critical hit interaction with all of the sources of Holy damage I'd be bringing to the table (Retribution Aura, Judgement of the Crusader, Seal of Righteousness, Holy Shield) to be pumped into Threat via Righteous Fury.

With respect to SoR/SoC ... would either or both proc on Holy Shield?  Is Retribution Aura "required" for them to do so?

With respect to SoR/SoC ... would either or both proc on damage from a Shield Spike?  Is Retribution Aura "required" for them to do so?

I presume that SoR and SoC ought to be improved by One-handed Weapon Specialization, even if there's a bug currently preventing that for SoR(?) while SoC computes off the damage dealt by the weapon(?) and therefore is working correctly(?).  Is there any interaction between One-handed Weapon Specialization and either Holy Shield and/or a Shield Spike?

So as you can see, my dilemma essentially boils down to the differences between SoR and SoC, and thanks to the guides in this forum I find myself conflicted as to which way to go when it comes to producing Holy damage to fuel Righteous Fury for Threat generation.  I'm presuming the differences between the two choices are relatively minor, but I'd appreciate some confirmation of that.  Also bear in mind that my Paladin is currently Level 15-16 but I'm wanting to "grow" into use of these skills "naturally" rather than using a respec to get to them, because I'm a firm believer that how you play from 1-21 sets the pattern for how you play at the Level Cap.  So in that respect, I'm looking more for an overview and explainer on the inter(re)actions of these combinations, rather than a "just do this" sort of answer so as to be able to understand and play with the underlying game mechanics to better understand how they synergize with each other in actual game play and then use THAT knowledge to make my decision with.

[JCarrill0 17]

Well I guess I'm chop liver...

[Roxanne Flowers 15]

48 minutes ago, JCarrill0 said:

Well I guess I'm chop liver...

Hardly.  I just don't remember everyone's handles off the top yet.  ^_~

Having been thinking about this while playing this morning, I'm starting to seriously lean towards the Holy tree instead of the Retribution tree, with the intent of using Divine Strength rather than Divine Intellect to get past tier 1 Holy.  My reasoning for that preference is simply because Paladins actually GET Strength from their Level advancements, while Intellect pretty much stays put and barely budges short of gear equips.  As I'm sure plenty of people in this forum can tell me, you'd want to be going with Divine Intellect as a Holy Paladin equipping Cloth to use as a healer, rather than wearing Mail/Plate and orienting around being a tanker.  Therefore, on thinking further about the prospect, I figure I'd be getting more synergistic advantage out of Divine Strength when augmented with Toughness and Anticipation from the Protection tree.

Anyway ... what were your 2 coppers?

[Drehar 2]

As a Paladin you have a ton of Options, Pure specs, Hybrids. However Seal of

Ret:
Command is nice for 2handed DPS, you will find that you want the reliability of Seal of Righteousness. If threat is a big concern I would look at Imp Judgement and Imp Seal of the Crusader before Deflection. You are the tank its ok to get hit your healer won't go OOM unless something else happens like (A dps pulled agro and is 2hand tanking like a bad). 

Holy:
As for your Holy Spec I would pass on spiritual Focus for your tank spec. If you are trying to heal while tanking... Some one F'ed up and it wasn't you :) I think you would get a lot more benefit from having Imp Seal of Righteousness or 10% Int.

I am leveling as Prot And started with 11 in holy with (10% STR and Seal of Rightousness) I went with STR because leveling plate/Mail DOES NOT have int.
The rest of my points are going into Prot (No Imp Hammer of Justice) And then my last 9 points are going into Ret ending (11/31/9). Once I put my time in as a tank at level 60 I'll figure out my next spec of 20/31/0 or 30/21/0

 

[Roxanne Flowers 15]

Curious that you'd say SoR is more "reliable" than SoC.  I was under the impression that both procced off weapons/melee attacks.  I suppose that the difference there is that damage from the weapon is variable (crits, nominal ranging damage spread) for SoC but that SoR really only cares about Attack Speed so as to normalize Holy damage output per minute via SoR.

My rationale for wanting to take Spiritual Focus is for reasons of Selfish Sufficiency while enduring the solo grind.  In solo leveling, you won't have a healer in your back pocket all the time, and I'd rather not have to resort to the self bubble as my first (and only?) option for being able to heal myself (quickly, without pushback) while under attack.  Granted, the calculus will change by the 50+ part of the game, when +15% to SoR at higher ranks can be significant, but down at rank 1-3 it just isn't that much of a buff for 5 talent points.  Improved Seal of Righteousness just doesn't have enough to "work with" at low levels (where I am and will be for a while) to be worthwhile.

Oh and I made a mistake on the Divine Strength boost.  Strength adds to Block damage reduction, not to Armor ... which is similar but not the same.

So considering that I'm planning on going 1h+Shield, I guess that means that the 2h side of things becomes moot.

[Theloras 108]

Seal of Command in Vanilla is "CHANCE on Hit" and not 100% proc rate like Seal of Righteousness is.

SoC is based on a Proc per Minute formula and normalized at 7PPM - this means that the slower the weapon, the higher the proc rate but on the other end of the equation, the faster the weapon, the lower the proc rate.

With a fast 1hander, you will be getting SoC procs maybe 15-20% of the time compared to SoR proccing 100% of the time.

Also, without Consecration, you can't AoE tank for $hit either.

TLDR - go 11 Holy, not 11 Ret for your Prot tanking build.

[Roxanne Flowers 15]

D'oh!

See, this is why we ask these things, just in case something gets overlooked.  For some reason, I was thinking that SoC did 70% of weapon damage on every hit, sort of like what SoR does.  I don't know how I forgot the "chance on hit" verbiage ... although knowing that it's normalized to 7 PPM will help drive that home.

So yeah, with that, the decision becomes more than abundantly clear. 11/40/0 is the way to go for the build I want to play.