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Looking for the ever elusive DPS.

Lately, if you've been scrolling the Lich King forums along with me, you've been noticing the vast ammount of QQ going on for Paladin DPS in the Retribution Tree. First let me say this: You are a UTILITY DPS as a Retribution. Your job is to keep seals refreashed, and to keep steady dps. In my opinion, steady DPS is better than spike damage which is what Mages, Shadowbolt Locks and Combar Rogues bring to the table.

If you want to do.....that....then I would suggest being a shockadin. When I wear my shockadin gear, I'm more than capable of DPSing a heroic. Would I want to do it raid wise? Hell no. We have hunters for a reason, and Sangai and Skorpy (our fire mages) along with our Boomkin etc. would be a much better replacement for me. Plus, Svelvet, Sista and Xores would murder me until I was dead for leaving the Healing team.

Anyways, that's what I wanted to talk about. Building the best Shockadin build you can with talents. Be aware, this build, Shockadin, is very much spike DPS. Which is why, mostly, it's an arena or PvP build. Due to that, it's very VERY possible to pull threat with this. Especially being spike damage. You're going to be managing cooldowns on both trinkets and spells inorder to make this effective. But keep an eye on Omen or KLM.

Here's the Build

Now, this is a little rough, the problem is deciding where to put talents so they aren't going to get wasted, and still increase damage. So let's take a look at the talents in the Retribution tree first, since thats where I felt my time was being wasted mostly.

Honestly, for a shockadin, Benediction and Improved Seal of the Crusader are no brainers. Without those, you ARE going to hamper your DPS for a couple reasons.

1: Shockadin is a very mana intensive build. Constantly sealing and judging will eat through your mana pool very VERY fast. Benediction will help alliviate that somewhat, not a ton so keep a druid or healing pots standing by. Now, when it comes to this, I cannot stress pacing enough. Generally the rule is "DPS wait for the first concecrate/5 sunders/maul" or whatever. And you NEED to do this, especially since, on your first rotation, everything will be up and ready to go. Keep your wits about you and don't go overboard.

2: Seal of the crusader is your life line. You remember when Obi-Want told Anakin "This weapon is your life!"? Well, it's the same here. If you are not including Seal of the Crusader into your rotation, you need to. No you aren't stupid. I didn't really get SotC's ability until about 2 years ago. Clearly I was a retard. Seriously. It should be the first button in your rotation.

3: I didn't choose Seal of Command for two reasons.

A) I'm not a Retadin, therefore, my weapons are, most often, going to be a 1h and a shield for the increased mana/spell DPS, which of course means that SoC's damage is going to be hampered due to the lower weapon damage vaule of the 1h weapon when compared to a 2h.

B)I'm a Blood Elf, which means I get Seal of Blood as my Racial Paladin Skill. This in and of itself has a better overall damage output when compared to SoC. It also has the added benefit of hurting you. Yes, that is an added benefit. Why? Spiritual Attunement. If you're taking damage, your healer is going to heal you which means what? Mana back. So, this is up in the air.

I could for-go Improved Seal of Righteousness and go with the Seal of Blood. The reason I prefer one of these two over SoC is both Seal of Blood and Seal of Righteousness both proc on every swing which maximizes your DPS. It just up to you to choose your preference. Again, given that SoB is based on over all damage of the weapon, and Seal of Righteousness is not. Though it does get a bigger boost from 2 handers.

The basic reason I chose to go with SoR is I can improve it beyond its base parameters.

Next let's talk rotation. This is a very easy topic because you only have a few choices and no real way to mix them up very much. My rotation is going to look like this:

1:Seal of the Crusader
2:Judge
3:Seal of Righteousness
4:Concecrate
5:Divine Favor
6:Holy Shock
7:Judge
8:Seal of Righteousness
9:Concecrate
10: Judge
11:Seal of Righteousness
12:Holy Shock
13:Judge
14:back up to SOR unless your Divine Favor has cooled down, then wash rinse and repeat.

Now the big question is what Blessing are we going to go with, and what Aura? That depends entirely on what Seal you are using to supplement DPS. If you are using Seal of Righteousness where it is being judge as soon as the cooldown pops, then I would go with Wisdom. Especially since I allocated points to it for Imp. BoW. If you are going with Seal of Blood, go with Might. Now, there isn't any way to go with Improved Blessing of Might and keep the build intact as it is.

Why you ask? Because you are a Shockadin. Physical DPS is an augmentation to your primary role of nuking. That's why I went with Crusade. It increases ALL damage by 3%, magical and physical. Yes, you can remove that and two points out of Reckoning for Imp. BoM, but I feel that, given that you are more than likely going to be using a 1h weapon, that extra attack power isn't going to do much for you. But the extra chance to crit chance will. The basic theory is, the more damage you do with your weapon, the greater damage you do with SoR, SoC or SoB. But you need to improve your over all damage to help your spells out before you worry about your physical prowess.

Now for Aura? There aren't any that are really going to be of use to you. (Until we get to our 2nd build that I'll talk about). I would go with what your praty or raid-party needs. If you are in the raid party with the most casters, obviously Concentration Aura. If you are with the tanks? Retribution. If you are with the physical DPS, go with Devotion. None of these will really help you except Devotion, so use that for soloing. Or use Retribution for a little extra DPS.

Gear wise, anything a Healadin would use is up for you. Also, any 1h a mage would use. Chance are though, the mage is going to get the roll ahead of you since he's a more reliable form of steady DPS. As for Gems, look for anything that is +Spell dam, +Spell Crit, +Healing. Why healing? A) You're a shockadin, You have some skill in healing. B) Paladins get a bonus from healing to spell damage.

Enchants? Well, that's a different story. Blasting on gloves is always a good one, so is Spell Power. Really, it comes down to personal taste. If you want high spell damage but low crit chance, go the spell power route for your enchants. If you want lower regular damage but lots of crit, do the opposite, obviously.

My next post is going to be about a different type of Shockadin. One that has less utility, but greater overall damage chance in my opinion. Though it loses out on a couple of things. You'll see....