Thursday, July 8, 2010

Retribution Leveling: 11-20

Well, it's ah... been a while, ha ha, since I have made a post...

Sorry, that's a little inside joke I have with some of the people I went to Germany with, none of whom read this blog, so you could say that it's superfluous, but I miss those times, so ha.

I've gotten into the leveling grind, I have. Between Judgements, I watched some old Voyager re-runs, chatted with friends, didn't work for a week and a half, and generally did absolutely nothing with my life. Glorious.

You'll notice that I've added a feed reader for my paladin on Lightninghoof. As a proud member of Enveloping Shadows, I am blazing through the shattered world of Outland on my way to face the Lich King's minions... erm, yeah. It's an RP-PvP server, thought I'd get into... Yeah, I'll stop now.



Before we get into this second tier of levels, I'd like to thank Rhidach, Anafielle, and all of the people in ES for the guild invite and for the lively green-colored chatter I see popping up on my screen all the time. I'm slowly starting to get a feel for the residents of the guild and truly enjoying my stay!

Talents

Here is what I feel is your optimal talent build for Retribution leveling up until level 20.

0/0/11

In short, take Benediction 5/5 (levels 10-14), then Improved Judgements 2/2 (levels 15-16), Heart of the Crusader 3/3 (levels 17-19), and Seal of Command 1/1 (level 20).

I included a major and minor glyph, which both become available at level 15. I went with Glyph of Judgement for the major, because:
  1. You'll be using Judgement a lot. I mean it. A L-O-T. 10% extra damage on your primarily primariest of spells is a good thing.
  2. Mana isn't a terrible issue at these levels, and Seal of Command isn't even available until 20, so Glyph of Seal of Command can be postponed.
  3. ... Glyph of Seal of Command was damn expensive on Lightninghoof. So I guess I defaulted to Judgement out of thrift. But still, the point about mana holds, as long as you don't Consecrate every inch of Azeroth on your way to 80.
Use the time between levels 20 and 30 to make some gold so you can purchase that glyph when you get there.

How, you may ask? Simple: DON'T LEVEL FIRST AID. I don't care what 'experts' say, it's a waste of time and gold. You're a paladin: toss a FoL on yourself and call it a day. There may be a select few situations in which bandages might do you some good (especially in Cata, it seems, but hey, that's a few months away at least), but overall, you can heal yourself.

Take that cloth (especially the lower tiers of cloth) and sell it on the AH. I saw stacks of Wool Cloth going for 20g and up. Hawtness.

Back to glyphs, the minor I chose (Glyph of Blessing of Might) was more for convenience than anything. This way, you only have to rebuff both spells once every half hour, which means more time to kill wolves and murlocs.

Level 12

Here you'll see an upgrade to your Might, Judgement of Wisdom (more on this later), and your Resurrection spell quest. Go do it now, especially if you're going to do dungeons and cheat on me as holy.

Level 14

Upgraded Wisdom and Holy Light, as well as Righteous Defense. The namesake of Rhidach's blog is useful... for prot paladins. No way! I wouldn't even put it on your bar at this point in your soloing career. However, grouping may find a use for this button.

Level 16

An upgraded Ret Aura, Righteous Fury (which is another case of "not unless tanking"), and an ability I've grown to love: Hand of Reckoning.

Take a minute to drink it in. A 30 yard taunt that damages the target if it's not targeting you. Even better is that the damage incurred scales with our AP. Are you peeing yourself yet? You should be. Let me give you an example.

I was on my paladin earlier this morning, doing a quest loop in Zangarmarsh in order to hit 64 before I had to leave for work. So I was walking down this path, doo dee doo, and all of the sudden I see a village of weird Umbrafen things. Apparently I needed to kill very specific amounts of them for a quest, so I go up to the first one (which had about 4,000 HP) and hit Hand of Reckoning while I was running into melee range.

BOOM! Hand of Reckoning crits for 1000 damage!

While I was a few levels higher than this mob, Hand of Reckoning is still another damn button to push for us, especially at the aforementioned level 16.

Use it to pull everything, use it to pull mobs away from other mobs, use it to pull my finger.

Don't use it in a dungeon or other tanking situation where you aren't the one taking the beating.

Oh, and another amazing thing about Hand of Reckoning; you can easily pick off runners with it! When a mob "runs away from you in fear," it detargets you and flees. Take advantage of this opportunity and snipe it with a taunt. Most times, the damage will be just enough to kill the fleeing mob.

Level 18

Hand of Freedom. Amazingly useful spell, put it on a keybind (mine is "F").

Level 20

The moment you've been waiting for: free mount! Go to your class trainer and learn Summon Warhorse. You'll automatically get Apprentice Riding and your Warhorse in your Mounts tab.



Oh, and you get a few other cool things too:
And an upgraded Devo Aura.

In general, don't use Consecration unless you're fighting 3+ mobs (maybe even 2+, depending on  your ability to burn down the first quickly), don't use Blessing of Kings unless you're fighting things substantially higher in level than you and you feel the extra HP would be of benefit, and don't cast Exorcism unless you're trying to get hold of a caster and your Hand of Reckoning missed.

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