Talk:Paladin builds/Archive

'Instructions to WoWWiki editors: In order to keep this page precise and concise, please do not add complete builds here. For those who are interested in contributing their own builds, please add them to Paladin build samples. Any complete builds found on this page will be moved to Paladin build samples.' Moved instructions to the talk page. They got in the way of the article.Qii 20:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Poker's rewrite
I'm not sure if it's really 'better'. I'm not a fan of the nicknames to be perfectly honest, as it isn't particularly professional. :/ Any opinions on whether the new version is better? (the previous version: http://www.wowwiki.com/index.php?title=Paladin_builds&oldid=176056)

About this page structure
This page stilll changes a lot mainly because ppl want to add they own builds. I will restructure whole page soon and will make a space for all implementations of said specifications at the end of page. This hopefully make this page to look a bit more professional.--Ittai 07:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Unless I do not receive other constructive comments relatively soon, I will call back my originally edited page and simply add to relevant builds in page visible atm into end of it.

Also I most likely move some content to a new page. Since most of the comments so far about this page are about different builds, how good ppl think they are and so on it may make sense to separate pactical part from theory. So that we have different page where we explain every aspect of every build.--Ittai 13:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thelian's reason for flagging the neutrality of this article
Nicknames or not, this whole page is now just one person's big Opinion / Editorial. As imperfect as the old pages may have been, at least they had multiple opinions and points of view.

"Holy is the talent spec to go with. In raids, everyone who's role is to heal, naturally heals. A Paladin fits into this role by staying back and healing, and thanks to their ability to wear plate, can be one of the most dangerous healers in the raid group, if they're played well" - is entirely a personal opinion.

"Tanking is considered by many to be the hardest and best that a Paladin can achieve." - is an unsupported statement of fact.

"The large majority of players also agree that build that goes into the protection tree, without the intention of tanking or the need for extra survivability, makes little sense, since it gimps both healing and dps..." - is both an unsupported statement of fact and a personal opinion.

The whole Retribution section is also unsupported conjecture and personal opinion.

Editor's, please consider revisions going back to the multiple build page and nicknames, as flawed and non-neutral as they may have been, they at least had helpful information from differing points of view that are closer to the spirit of a wiki.--Thelian 22:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Ittai's Response to Thelian's reason for flagging the neutrality of this article
You have pointed out a lot of good points. If you would have checked those points (a pieces of text) against previous vesions you may have found out that all texts you are refering to has been there a long time. A long before I started editing this article. So, even that I do editing I do try to make sure that all different opinions are still there and visible as well, I just want them to be there a bit more structured way. Those same statements you have pointed are also ones that I do not personally like and I would love to edit them to more neutral and by doing so follow, since I do not consider them to be professional enough. Why I left them was that I do not want to do too big changes without seeing how other active editors may comment them. Also whole Retribution part is fully text of someones else from previous version. I left it as wholse since I hade no time to modify it more neutral and by doing so to follow Policy/Neutral point of view.

Why I feel akward to see all user builds "nicknames" here on same level than main three as builds is that they mix thinking so easily. That's why I have ended up to use same logic as Blizzard does. So that your build is defined according how many talent points you spend to each talent tree. If most in Holy talent tree, your build will be marked Holy and so on. If about equal amount points in two or three talent tree then your build is Hybrid.

That is main reason why I like to put all implementations of builds to different section than explanations (mainly speaking).--Ittai 10:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Restructuring the page is good and all, but why did you remove the leveling up build that was at the bottom of the page previously. Are you suggesting it should be its own article but linked in here? if so, do so. I had someone asking me for that information just this morning. --Brawlizard 15:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Leveling build was same as Retribution build and that build was in Retribution part. --Ittai 10:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

"If most in Holy talent tree, your build will be marked Holy and so on. If about equal amount points in two or three talent tree then your build is Hybrid." I disagree completely. Priests that spec 34/27/0 aren't called Holy Discipline Hyrbid specced, they are called Smite specced. If a warrior goes 31/30/0, it's never called Arms Fury Hybrid, it's called MS/Flurry spec. Also, the nicknames are useful for if you're looking for a spec and would rather check the top before going through wall of text after wall of text to find one that suits you.--Spaz attack3000

About +SpellDMg
Some authors are proposing idea that +SPLDmg actually increase damage done bu Paladin Holy Spells. I have not found proof for that not in game nor any reference i.e. note in Patch notes so therefore I keep deleting all references away. There has been some discussion that in future (Earliest in Patch 2.3) +Healing automatically generates around 1/3 of +SpellDMG of said value. This means boost to Protection Paladins threat generation unless underlying logic will be changed as well, but any evidence is lacking about that so far.--Ittai 09:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that +SpellDMG doesn't increase a paladin's spell damage? Or something else? I don't think there is any proof needed for it, strip naked and cast consecration then put on spell damage and do it again, the ammount goes up over the duration of the spell (spread across all ticks evenly). The numbers are there. --Brawlizard 15:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

+Spell damage both affects and increases Paladin holy damage spells (i.e., Consecration, Holy Shock, etc.) The mere fact that you personally haven't found proof of that does not make it irrelevant information. Why would you summarily dismiss (and delete) information simply because you can't find it? In the specific case of Holy Shock, the tool-tip itself details the damage / healing nature of that spell. It seems to me that you would need a citation to support why you think Paladin holy damage spells don't receive the same treatment from +Spell Damage gear that all other damage spells (including Priest Holy Damage Spells) do.--Thelian 21:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

+SpellDamage adds more SpellDamage in game and that SpellDamage then reduces mob's health points. But in Paladin class SpellDamage does not cause any additional damage to be done to the mobs. It is use in case of Paladins to generate more threat only and that is reason why Protection Paladins need it. You can easily verify this in game. Take relatively durable mob, use Consecration into it with your normal +SpellDamage gear and note varianceof damage your Spell is doing for the mob. Then take away one SpellDamage item (Sword is good candidate since it has typically a lot +SpellDamage) then take same mob and note againg damage variance you do for it. And as you can see, actual damage you do to mob through Consecration is same.

You can also repeat the test and now look the threat you generate.... Happy testing. I will rerun tests tomorrow when we have new 2.3.0 Patch implemented. I guess I need to describe a bit how tests are performed so, that you can have better visibility why I have such "odd" conclusion. --Ittai 10:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I've actually noticed the EXACT opposite, as I add +spellDMG gear I've seen the damage on my consecration go up, as I remove it, the damage goes down. Don't forget that the +dmg is spread across the entire spell so the amount per tick is not as significant of a change and all spell damage is rounded down so pay attention to rounding issues in your math. --Brawlizard 14:27, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

+spellDMG increases almost all "yellow" damage done by a paladin - Judgment/Seal of Righteousness, Judgment of Command, Consecration, Hammer of Wrath, Crusader Strike (CS changes in 2.3.2), Holy Shock and so on. I don't know how did you get the idea that +spellDMG does not increase paladin's damage, but it's completely false. Boldwyn 10:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The recent changes should be reverted
I rolled a paladin for the first time several months ago and I found the original build page VERY helpful.

The current pages make it seem that there's only three viable paladin builds (and roles) and anything else is "wrong".

How you should spec greatly depends on what you plan to do with your paladin. I see people arguing all the time about which build is best for leveling, protection or retribution. I say we present the most common leveling build in each tree (and possibly one for holy if it exists) with the pros and cons of each and let the user choose.

Overall, I think that there should be as many DISTINCT builds as possible, with a distinct build being more than just moving 5 points around from one tab to another. For minor variations, we should present the most common build and then point out variations in a subsection.

Having the funny names just make it easier to convey what sort of build you have to other players since there's not just 3 viable builds like with many other classes.

The biggest problem I see is that it's not that easy to group the builds along definite lines for presentation purposes because many of them are hybrid builds that fit several roles.

Possible organizational divisions...

PvE / PvP

Tank / Healer / DPS / Off Tank / Off Healer

There are a lot of "compromise" builds where people give up being the best at a particular role in exchange for being more flexible and not having to re-spec all the time.

Another area that is often overlooked is the farming build. Some people don't want to raid or do arenas and just want to use their paladin for generating income. This usually results in a build that is primarily a protection tank build, but often with more points in the holy tree so you can heal yourself easier. But again, there is much argument over what makes the perfect farming build.

Finally, you can't discuss paladin builds without making it clear what gear is needed. Paladin builds and roles are VERY gear specific. For example, a farming build would typically require gear with a LOT of spell damage and block rating vs the avoidance and stamina heavy gear used for main tanking.

Wkrick 16:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100% and I'm rather upset to find the page has changed _substantially_ for the worse in the past couple of weeks. (Especially with the Rekabution spec no longer listed) WereTiger 19:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Old Page
While the original page wasn't neutral it was useful. It presented multiple options available to the user. The current page is lacking and doesn't hold any truly useful information. Please revert back to the original page

- Grdavison (Old Page)

I agree. I've reverted it, and I don't care if there's reprocussions to that. I'll mirror the site as it is now and use it offline if need be :P.

WereTiger 20:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Questioning the validity of the builds
I like the details on the new page but I am concerned about their accuracy.

I am currently working a level 56 Pally and I just re-learned all of my talents and went with the recommended build for a Retadin which is currently set as.

What I find is that I am now taking a considerable amount of damage and am unable to deal as much damage. This is especially notable when I take on 2 or 3 foes. This cannot be done as easily as I could with my prior build 17/16/14].

I went with the recommended build because I was concerned about the end game experience but I am now thinking that perhaps my original idea of a balanced approach might have worked better. What do you think?

--Tubal 16:39, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

This isn't exactly the place to discuss which build is most effective for what (the forums are really the place for that), this page is for discussing the actual content. However since you brought it up. 2things are wrong with what you're trying to do. The holy talents are meant to be taken after you've put at least 41 points (usually 45) into retribution in that build you linked. You don't have the extra crit from sanctified seals (3% crit to melee and spells is really good stuff) and you don't have the extra dmg from the crusader strike. Furthermore, that spec is really designed as lvl 70 dmg spec for raiding not a lvling spec. Even more so, it says right in the retribution section that it excels at fighting one mob at a time, not multiples. Multiple mob soloing is best handled by a prot spec and AE/reflective damage. --Brawlizard 14:01, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The ret leveling build represented.
Does anyone have any idea as to how to progress with this build? It sounds good enough for leveling, but there's no 10 - 19, 20 - 29 parts...just what you should use, and how many points you should put into it. --Super Bhaal 17:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

They are presented in the order they are recommended to be taken, however. Some changes need to be made to the leveling build to make up for the latest retribution changes.

Protection Specialization
What an odd editorialized defense of some paladin's protection build for raid tanking atop this section. I'm considering editing it to be more informative and NPOV. (Besides, if I specced 0/51/10, I would lose a point in the defense talent and max Reckoning. You need all the DPS (aggro) you can get.) Additionally, this section could use a leveling build much like Retribution has. I'd probably go in this order for leveling as Protection, which is insanely good for grinding. Not that I recommend starting out as protection, I leveled Retribution like everyone else and as soon as I got Seal of Light (Level 30) I switched over to Retribution -> Protection. First 17 points go in the Retribution tree.
 * 5/5 Benediction
 * 2/2 Improved Judgement
 * 5/5 Deflection
 * 3/3 Vindication
 * 2/2 Improved Retribution Aura

The rest go into Protection. Qii 16:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 5/5 Redoubt
 * 3/3 Precision
 * 2/5 Toughness
 * 3/3 Improved Righteous Fury
 * 1/1 Blessing of Kings
 * 3/3 Shield Specialization
 * 5/5 Toughness
 * 1/1 Blessing of Sanctuary
 * 5/5 Reckoning
 * 5/5 One-Handed Weapon Specialization (Really, your preference if you want to go 3/5 one-handed and 2/2 Sacred Duty if you are soloing a lot.)
 * 1/1 Holy Shield
 * 2/2 Improved Holy Shield
 * 5/5 Ardent Defender
 * 1/5 Anticipation (Your choice, you could put this point into Stoicism, Spell Warding, or Guardian's Favor. I'm tempted to say Stoicism, after one too many Warlock kites.)
 * 1/1 Avenger's Shield
 * 4/5 Anticipation (Your choice, you have three points left over you can stuff into any particular talent you please. Might I suggest Seal of Command/Eye for an Eye or Seal of Command/2 points of Improved Seal of the Crusader in Retribution?)
 * Oh, and referring to the rather nebulous 'gear references' demanded above for proposed builds: You need a great deal of armor, strength/stamina, and haste rating (or a fast weapon) for grinding protection. Mana will never be a problem unless you get reckless, and then you use blessing of wisdom / judgement of wisdom + seal of the crusader to get it back. For group tanking, you're going to want a good deal of (in order) stamina, spell damage (strength is icing on the cake, and quite useful as well for your block value at a rate of 20:1), intelligence, and armor to keep your threat high. This build is not meant for heroics, so look into respeccing more in line with the raiding build once you hit 70. Qii 19:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Wha?
What is this nonsense I see on the Ret paladin part of this page? All of the build descriptions sound like they were written by schizophrenic 10 year olds. ._. There's blatant personal bias in several of the builds, such as "TALENTS I DECIDED AGAINST:" There's plain ol' bad advice: "The primary judgment you will use is Crusader, the primary blessing Might, the primary aura Devotion and the primary seal is Command. This spec works better with a faster weapon, as you would get all 4 reckoning strikes. " A. Using a fast weapon with Seal of Command is a bad idea B. Devotion Aura helps much less in PvP than Retribution/Sanctity Aura would have. There's also a good bit of assuming shitty gear: "Add up all those % Damage done and you get +57% To all damage (holy+physical) dealt, with a good critial strike rate, good strength, you will hit EASILY for 1000+ damage PER melee attack or 2k+ crit (granted you have a decent 2H Weapon.)" "20% chance to crit on melee and spells if you are the best pally ever" Maybe I just have really good stuff, but my level 67 ret paladin has 20% crit and is capable of that kind of swing I pop a 140 more AP trinket. And did you notice that bit of voodoo math there? "Add up all those % Damage done and you get +57% To all damage (holy+physical) dealt" Vengeance to 3 stacks+Imp Sanctity =/= 57% more damage. It's 17% more physical and 27% more holy. You don't get to add the 12% holy damage increase and the 2% physical increase from Sanctity, Nor do you get to count Vengeance as a 30% increase. Even then, that would only equate to 44%. Essentially, I noticed a lot of stupidity in that particular part of the talent build guide. It may be because people are new to the Retribution tree and are still hammering out the details, or it could be a bunch of retarded warriors and rogues decided it would be funny to raid the paladin build section. I added my own, personal build there at the bottom. I tried to back up my thoughts with facts. If anyone wants to bash me for being a hypocrit now, I invite you. Just make sure you back up what you said with something concrete.

-Please sign and timestamp contribution --Vernes 00:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Prot section.....
Similar to Ret section, the protection build section is also terrible. The introduction of prot section is full of inacurrate comments. Putting the last 4 points into Divine int? Guardian favor? Terribad. Those builds with points in Holy tree are so similar that they should be grouped into one, with the comment that this build is not recommended for maintanking raid. And PvP prot spec? Plz, who were the newbies that wrote up all these rubbish? WakemanCK 11:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. I am going to overhaul the protection section with information available on the Tankadin page. Qii 20:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. Please, PLEASE add in other builds, remove redundant ones, and submit another shot at a sample raiding build. Qii 20:50, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, I spent a whole morning to clean up the protection section. Edited the builds a bit for the 2.3 changes. Removed the pvp spec and the out-of-date and quite useless so-call survivaladin spec (I don't think anyone would miss them. Plz discuss here if you think otherwise). It should look better now. WakemanCK 04:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well I disagree about requiring anticipation, defense is easy to get on items and as such the points could be put elsewhere. If anything  12:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I bet you play as a Warrior in game. Strictly speaking, Anticipation is not a "must" for tankadins, just like Avenger's Shield. However, for the purpose of this page, it is better to include it because it helps a lot for the new paladins to reach uncrushable, even after having 490 def. Surely there are tankadins out there don't have maxed Anticipation. They are either the top raiding T6 contents, already long passed uncrushability but need every talent points they can gather to max their threat generation, or the newbies who have never heard of uncrushability. WakemanCK 03:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually I have a protection spec'd Paladin. My warrior is somewhere in the 40s... the only class I never took to 70.  Anticipation will make you uncrittable, uncrushable needs more mitigation than you can ever get from just defense, basically holy shield spam    10:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * oic. So I hope you learnt something from this discussion. You should also learn how to calculate uncrushable and how to get there. WakemanCK 11:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

How can we prevent people from putting up repetitive/unnecessary/excessive builds???
Luckily so far no one attempted to mess up prot pally part after I cleaned it up. I'm no expert at holy or retribution, so I won't touch those sections. They are still full of repetitive/unnecessary/excessive (or whatever negative adjective you like) builds. Especially the Holy section, 12 builds over there right now, many of them are so similar. To make it worse, someone just made a slight adjustment from other builds and added a subjective and not very useful subsection, and signed it..... Plz, someone gotta do something. WakemanCK 17:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yet another terrible prot build was made..... I posted the problem of this page and other similar pages here: Wowpedia talk:Village pump  Someone suggested we can make a whole new page and let everyone put their own builds there instead, to keep this page clean. Looks like a possible workaround to me. If there is no other better solutions, I will work on it soon.  WakemanCK 12:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The real way would be to set forth a standard for all build pages. Put an example on my talk page.  Lets use Paladins here instead as an example.


 * Holy
 * Basic/Farm build
 * PvP build
 * Raid Build (10 man+)
 * Protection
 * Basic/Farm build
 * PvP build
 * Raid Build (10 man+)
 * Retribution
 * Basic/Farm build
 * PvP build
 * Raid Build (10 man+)
 * Variants
 * Variant #1
 * Variant #2


 * Basically anything other than the three build types per tree needs to go under variants. If its a slight variation of a build a line or two could be added below the original build description that moving a point or two between talent x and y can help  12:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I like the format you suggested Sharlin. I do not see the need for 10 Ret builds like we currently have listed. Some of those could go in the Variants category. I can start to move those into that category now. I like the Shaman and Warrior pages. They are pretty clean. Should we put a leveling build in there are incorporate that into the basic build? Also, I think any descriptions of the builds should be set to one paragraph of no more then 3-5 sentences. Some of these builds have paragraphs of why this was done etc...  It is needless. Paly 1 13:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * No need to hurry, I'll reform the page soon enough. The new content of this page will be more precise and concise, probably something like the format listed above, and probably only contains incomplete sample builds. It was suggested that no matter how suboptimal some builds are, it is not good to removed them completely. Therefore, as concluded from the discussion at village pump, I'll move most of the things here right now to another new page. So no need to worry about its current format now. WakemanCK 01:55, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Too much oppinion and not enough facts.
I think that statements such as the following are unneeded, and potentially should be removed.

"REMEMBER, RET AURA HELPS A GREAT DEAL MORE THAN DEVO AURA WHEN TANKING, KEEPING AGRO AND MAYBE DYING IS A LOT BETTER THAN DROPPING AGRO AND DEFINITELY DYING."

Although devotion aura does not scale well there is simply no proof in given by the above statement. In fact, this has been debated many time on Maintankadin and Improv. Devotion Aura is generally frowned on.

Either way, the build is valid, but the added flare I think should be omitted. I'm a bit new to editing Wiki pages, what is the best way to approach this?

Rykis 17:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)Rykis


 * No worry, I'm working on it. You will see a completely new page later today.  WakemanCK 03:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

New paladin builds page
I reorganized the whole page. Protection section should be fine. However, my experience with Holy and Retrib are limited, so please help to correct any flaws there. Also, you can find all the old stuff here: Paladin build samples.

WakemanCK 13:31, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Besides proof reading everything currently on the page, if you find anyone attempt to add in their own complete builds here again, please help to move them to the Paladin build samples page. WakemanCK 02:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, since you asked.


 * Why provide a talent progression for Retribution and not other specs? I would move "which talents to pick and when" to either a long sentence or another page.  By long sentence I mean "as a Retribution Paladin the first talent points are spent in Improved Blessing of Might, Improved Judgement, 3 points in Benediction, Seal of Command", etc...
 * Still it comes down to why treat one tree differently than others, they should all be presented in the same manner.
 * the High Threat tank build is laughable, sorry no paladin tanking build skips Ardent Defender.
 * The over all problem I see with the revamp is the trees are not consistently displayed. How many tanking builds are there really?  Outside of one or two builds, where the difference is only a few talent points here and there, there are no choices when it comes to making a tank.  Same goes for a primary Paladin healer.  There is a base selection and very few optional points.
 * So it comes down to, well, if your going to actually revamp the page then at least do something where the rest of us can tell you tried. 14:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The over all problem I see with the revamp is the trees are not consistently displayed. How many tanking builds are there really?  Outside of one or two builds, where the difference is only a few talent points here and there, there are no choices when it comes to making a tank.  Same goes for a primary Paladin healer.  There is a base selection and very few optional points.
 * So it comes down to, well, if your going to actually revamp the page then at least do something where the rest of us can tell you tried. 14:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * So it comes down to, well, if your going to actually revamp the page then at least do something where the rest of us can tell you tried. 14:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comments. It is understandable that players who haven't played paladin before may have lot of misconception about this class. I'll take my time to explain your questions one by one.
 * Actually, if you read it carefully, I explained ret spec is the more prefered spec during leveling. In fact, I also added a shorter talent progression for prot AOE lvling. It is shorter because AOE grinding is only possible after leveling 30, again explained in the description. Leveling as holy paladin is not recommended, just like you won't tell people to level as holy priest. Nevertheless, it's right that the format of that section for prot and ret is slightly different, because the ret one was directly copied from the old page. I'll revise it today.
 * As I commented in a previous reply, some talents are very important, but not strictly necessary for a tankadin. Ardent Defender is one of such. As a matter of fact, there are paladin tanking builds that skips Ardent Defender: . Though this is definitely not a recommended build for beginner tanks. I will add that to the description.
 * There are more Holy, Prot and Ret builds possible than you can imagine. There were much less variation for prot paladin tanks before patch 2.3. Now I can easily throw out 10 prot builds if you like. There are even much more variation possible for holy paladins. You will appreciate it if you take a few mins playing with a Holy talent calculator.
 * WakemanCK 02:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I know the class inside and out, I have tanked many instances with the Paladin. While it can be claimed that there are many builds for any tree it cannot be claimed there are many GOOD builds.  That is what these page revamps should be focused on, GOOD builds.  Simple, solid, SINGULAR, builds per task.  At one time, like over a year ago I actually had these pages cleaned up.  I just gave up on maintaining them as I realized that everyone had a build and would edit what was there regardless of true usability.
 * If you can't level with a build that is heavy on holy then you don't know the class. Frankly leveling is all about know where to go and when and not what your build is.  I could probably level a no talent paladin to 60 without too much pain - the class is one of the easiest to level.
 * the problem is obvious, your injecting your view of how to play paladins into the build page and not presenting simple solid builds. That talent spec and thread you listed are laughable  10:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Good thing that you know paladin actually, despite it was not obvious.
 * Long time ago, it could be true some classes only had 2 to 3 "standard" cookie cutter builds, because at that time there were a lot of next-to-useless talents that no one would choose. Blizz thought this was no good, so they made it such way that for every task we have a few core talents, a few optional but useful talents, a few still situationally useful talents, and the rest useless. As a result, we see a lot of builds with variation among the useful but not core talents. If you want to complain this change, go to the official forum and complain there. Tell the devs "ok, I want to tank, so make 61 point worth of talents for tanking and the rest MUST be all useless for tanking". It is pointless to shout at us here.
 * If you indeed helped maintaining these pages previously, I wonder how come you still don't understand the idea behind this reform? Without the new sample pages, no matter how good you clean up this page now, it will be flooded with other suboptimal builds very soon. The new sample pages act as a buffer. People can still add their builds there, while this page can remain clean. In fact, it seems working. Soon after I reformed the page, someone added another build to healing section. Another user helped to move it to the sample page (Thx Paly1! :) ), which is how we wanted it to work.
 * Now that you are getting too far. You are starting to argue for the sack of argue. I have no doubt you can possibly level to 70 without spending a single talent points for any class. But what's the point of this? You had just been talking about we should show people the more useful thing. What is the advantage of leveling as Holy, or even leveling without a single talent point spent?
 * I think no one would disagree "your injecting your view of how to play paladins" is a more suitable statement to describe you.


 * WakemanCK 12:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course I am inject my view, but did you bother your declaring one spec over another and then justifying poor talent choices by referencing websites where it was obvious reading it the choice wasn't even a good one. So whatever, if you wreck it I will just undo it, simple as that.  Make the page look good and make the builds good.  Do not declare one build better than others for leveling because of the inability to play one build over another  13:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Look like you hadn't read that reference careful enough. It didn't say this was the best build, but it was agreed that it had its value in certain situations. Just what I have been trying to say in the description text.
 * About the rest of your arguement..... sorry, I don't want to waste time handling you anymore. To be honest, you are one of the worst debaters I have met. If you want to continue further on this subject, please feel free to post it on the village pump.  WakemanCK 15:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Protection PvP
I think it focuses way to much on telling paladins that they are no good. Which is not really true in the battlegrounds. I have a protection paladin and PvP with him regularly with high success. I think the article should be designed to help protection paladins understand their role and not tell them what they are not good at. After all this is a website people come to for insight and help not to be told that they are no good like the current article is worked. I am reverting to my helpful revisions and I don't think we should use the negative edit.

ConorConors make sure you sign your comments using 4~ marks. Thanks for reverting back the prot pvp section. This site should be insightful and used as a tool for people to help them better understand their roles for their characters. The previous revision was way too negative. Paly 1 (talk) 13:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand your belief at bringing up the spirit of other fellow paladins. However, this is not a proper way to do it. You are giving out false hope to people by exaggerating the usefulness of Protection Paladins in PvP.
 * First, I have no doubt you have joined and won some battlegrounds. A common mistake of many people is that they think it sounds logical to say "I am XX spec and I won in battleground battles, so XX spec is very useful in battleground." However, follow this logic, you can say "I have spent zero talent point and I won in battleground battles, so an empty spec is very useful in battleground!"
 * To say a spec is "very useful", you need to explain which talents are useful in PvP and in which ways you are performing better than other group members. I have no arguement with Protection Paladins role when tanking in AV or being flag carriers, and these were mentioned in the previous version. However, tell me a game that you topped the damage/killing chart as Protection. To be fair, Protection Paladins have their roles in PvP, but there are many limitations as well.
 * So, once again, you misunderstood the function of WoWWiki. It is not a place to make every effort to support a class and covered up all the "negative details". WoWWiki is a place for giving out the correct and complete information to the people. To say Protection Paladins is "very useful" is definitely not correct and do more harm than good to new Protection Paladin players. And to be complete, you need to mention both the positive and negative facts. I hope you understand this.
 * As a compromise, I used a "neutral" point of view instead of "very good" or "no good" in the last revision. Please don't remove those relevant negatives points again. WakemanCK (talk) 14:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That's the thing they don't do dps, but there is a lot more to the PvP game than just raw dps, especially in the BGs. There are many RL fighting styles based upon defense that are very effective.  Some styles focus on attack, others do not, but that does not make one more correct than the other.  While true you will not see a prot paladin on the top of the dps charts, but you would not see a healer either.  I think what is is that you are coming from a raid/PvE perspective and not thinking things through.  You do not have to kill other players in BGs to be successful.  The BGs are won by other means, such as holding ground, avoiding death as you capture the enemy position or flag and tanking/killing PvE targets.  The only BG that could conceivably be won by PKs alone is AV, and even then the resilient nature of a prot paladin would be advantageous, because they are a pain to kill.
 * These are what I have a problem with in the current edit: "and there are not much the protection paladins can do if their opponents choose not to hit them" this is not true paladins can drop seal of wisdom and vengeance, stun, and basically harass a player to the point where they either attack or retreat.  A properly geared paladin will kill someon who does not attack them, they can do active dps as well, to say otherwise is terribly misinformed.  "Against casters or hunters, the chance to win is close to zero", this is not true especially for hunters by using Seal of Justice, one can keep them in melee range and there is not much a hunter can do at close range.  "Also, the healing is not as good as Holy paladins" - this is not mentioned in the ret PvP info, and there is not reason to mention it here other than to find more things to be negative about.  ConorConors (talk) 23:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Alright. I think this edition is acceptable. Though I would like to remind you Seal of Wisdom/Vengeance and stun are not protection spec specific, so you can virtual say all the same thing with Holy or Retribution paladins. Also, if a melee player is smart enough not to hit a Prot paladin, the damage deal to him is restricted to mainly you autoattack, Seal and Judgement. (You can't rely on the long cooldown Avenger's Shield. Consecration is too mana intensive for a Prot paladin to keep spamming.) You can probably kill someone with autoattack+Seal+Judgement, but it may take forever. Seal of Justice can't completely prevent a smart Hunters to get back to range for a long time. He can slow/stun/disorient/trap you as well, so your only chance is killing him within the short-lived (even shorter if he is able to Arcane Shot dispel) freedom provided by Divine Shield and Blessing of Freedom, which is very possible for a Ret paladin, but probably not a Prot. Nevertheless, huntards are common, so you can take your chance. Lastly, theoretically a Prot pally is not likely to win a Ret pally. Prot pallies beat rogues, fury warriors and enhance shamans because they dual-wield. Ret pallies normally use a slow 2-hander, so your reflective damage will be around 30-50% of that against the dual-wielders. Try dueling some good Ret pallies and see if you want to correct it. WakemanCK (talk) 02:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

WOTLK Prot Build
I noticed the Prot build posted based from the WOTLK is a little PVE and PVP specced. I feel the title of the build is misleading as there are more beneficial talents than that are used for a standard PVE spec. Ex. Guardian's Favor isn't needed for PVE. Improved Devotion Aura and Divine Guardian are too good to pass up. I wrote a WOTLK Cookie cutter type build with some minor tweaks that are solely for PVE only in the Paladin build samples section. I think that it may be worthy enough to post it on the main builds page especially if none of those talents changes. Damurp (talk) 20:38, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that build is definitely flawed. Nevertheless, it is not a question of whether a build is worthy enough here: all complete builds should go to Paladin build samples page! Unfortunately, sometimes people don't read the instruction at the top and keep posting complete builds here. I moved 3 complete builds added recently to Paladin build samples. Actually, everyone please feel free to move any complete builds to sample page to keep this page clean!
 * On the other hand, paladin talent will undergo major change in WotLK, so the current basic builds here will need some update very soon. Nevertheless, please wait until WotLK is live! --WakemanCK (talk) 10:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Why no complete builds?
The paladin build page is useless. These builds are nowhere near complete ( some only spending 35 points, ex: holy section). How is this going to help anyone? I noticed the other class build pages list much more complete builds. The worst being the deathknight page, well... not saying its worse , listing complete builds is just a guideline. Most people will take a look at them and change them how they see fit. This is why there isnt anything bad about listing complete builds. And if complete builds will not be listed on these pages, perhaps the other class pages should be given an edit. Change all the links to builds that are far from complete. Lest i sense a possible bias at work here haha.


 * Talk:Paladin_builds
 * The idea of this page is to list out the "core" talents needed for a specific task. The optional talents are then listed out and readers can choose according to their own play style.
 * If you have experience of maintaining other class' builds page, you will know how exhaustive and frustrating the job is. It is certain that some random people would put up their own inventions on the page every one or two weeks. Unfortunately, most of those builds are either redundant or faulty. Personally, I would prefer deleting those builds right away. However, it was decided that a Paladin build samples page can be set up to keep those user submitted builds. Therefore, if you want to find some complete builds, you can go to that page. Nevertheless, their validity are not guaranteed.
 * Currently, other class builds page are heavily bombarded by random new builds ever more than before, since WotLK was only out recently. Some pages still look ok if there are a few dedicated editors maintaining. Yet others, such as DK builds page are already next to useless due to the overflow of rubbish. --WakemanCK (talk) 01:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I see your point with the overflow of other peoples idea of a "good" build, being listed on the builds page. But one thing i noticed, you mentioned the "core" talents needed for specific task listed as part of the build description.Yes thats a good idea list the"core" talents, not garbage talents. For example, under the shockadin build Pure of heart is listed in the 35 point build along with blessed life. Those are not core talents for a shockadin build , they could have been spent elsewhere to better help someone trying a shock build get a solid idea of where to start and then where to spend the remaining filler points. thats only one build ive noticed. Once again though... whos idea of a good build are being posted up on the page if talents like that are being shown as "core" talents? I still think there is basic cookie cutter builds that could be listed as complete builds.


 * I agree with you that Pure of the Heart and Blessed Life may not be the core talents of shockadins, depending on what task the build want to achieve. Please feel free to edit it out if you want. This is how we want this page to work. You will probably need to find one place holder to replace Pure of the Heart. Please clarify it in the article.
 * The so called standard "cookie cutter builds" are almost non-exist since TBC. More likely you will see builds with similar talents distribution but several points spent on different minor talents. This makes maintaining a wiki page very difficult, as everyone would think their builds are the best and add theirs or edit others' from time to time, resulting in the unneccesarily redundant content and ugly layout you see on other class builds pages. The method used on this page is aimed at reducing this problem. Again, if you insist that you must see complete builds, you can always visit the Paladin build samples page. --WakemanCK (talk) 04:03, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Denmon's PvP retribution
I rewrote the entire PvP retribution topic since whoever wrote the other one obviously didn't have much of a clue on how to play a PvP Paladin...

Opinions dominate
This section looks a bit one-sided and opinionated to me. I have experience in all three Paladin trees for PvE, and I love building characters. A Paladin actually can be built and trained in any tree. The approach I would take is: Here is how a Paladin can be built in Holy, Protection and Retribution. Admittedly it is easier to build a Paladin in the Retribution tree, but many players, myself included, like the challenge of building a character in the "non-easy" trees. For example, there is no need to respec a Paladin from Retribution to Protection at 30 if you are building a Protection Paladin from the ground up. It is just a waste of money and time. Draconthir (talk) 19:55, June 7, 2010 (UTC)