Post by Arannia
NOTE: GRAIN OF SALT. TAKE IT. THIS GUIDE IS OLD. UNTIL IT'S REPLACED IT IS THE BEST YOU HAVE.
The original author of this guide no longer plays the game and will not be making any alterations to the guide in terms of upkeep and updating. It will fall out of relevance as time progresses. So be warned and be careful.
DISCLAIMER: Much of the following is based on personal opinion, and is to be perhaps taken with a grain of salt, however I deem myself rather qualified to answer as I have played, and indeed, continue to play and experiment with offensive holy paladin builds. :) The following has a PvP focus but I do mention levelling strategy in a number of areas, so it should be useful to both. Just realize that you're not under the constant looming threat of death in every second whilst 2-3 shotting mobs!
SUMMARY:
(Skip this if you intend on reading the entire article)Talent Build and Glyphs:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#schrdrduu0d0bZc:mcaodaMzmPrefered Stats and Gems:
Intellect and Spirit. Lots of crit! Here's your
Meta.
Gear: Caster Weapon and Shield. Standard Holy Paladin equipment.
Usage: Anywhere but high-end, level-capped PvE environments. (Yes, I'm saying this build is
more than likely good in competitive PvP now). A good levelling alternative.
Q: What is a Shockadin?
A: A Shockadin is a Paladin in Holy gear who spends 31 points or more in the Holy tree of the Paladin class, and chooses to spec heavily for the more
damage or offensive utility oriented talents that the tree provides, occasionally even skipping out on some talents that do not serve either
purpose that a regular Holydin might otherwise take. They do this to enable them to deal a more significant amount of damage than their regular Holy Paladin brethren, although often to a detriment to their own ability to serve the same role. The build is named after the Holy/Ret Paladins of The Burning Crusade, due to the builds heavy reliance on the spell
Holy Shock (However, contrary to popular belief, Judgement (of the Righteous) hit far, far harder than Holy Shock ever did at average level 70 gear levels).
Q: Why would anyone roll a Shockadin?
A: Well, I suppose the most primary answer to that question I can offer you is this: Fun. The Shockadin spec currently represents the strongest possible method of serving a hybrid roll in the Paladin class, mixing the abilities to deal Holy damage, and healing our allies. These two roles offer a certain amount of depth, strategy, and variety in playstyle, and the very fact that the spec is somewhat unique also adds to the fun-factor.
Another reason one might roll a Shockadin is to simply deal more damage. Like me, many Shockadins are ex-Pure Holy Paladins who turned to the build in an effort to remove some of our inadequacies in the standing-on-your-own-two-feet department in a PvP environment (and indeed, in a solo PvE environment). Whether it's in an environment where your allies sometimes outright refuse to aid you in burning down that nasty rogue, or even on a competitive level where you want to remove your reliance on your team-mates to deal damage for you, the Shockadin certainly does have some advantages over it's more purely-built brother. And some disadvantages, naturally.
The final reason is for levelling purposes - The Shockadin provides a very well rounded character for levelling, featuring a large amount of armor, great healing ability, and reasonably good DPS. There are some disadvantages to rolling ANY holy paladin to level, over their Retribution or Protection alternatives, namely that of mana reliance, however, with intelligent gear and talent choices this soon becomes negligible.
Q: What does a good Shockadin do?
A: A good Shockadin is adept at mixing between the roles of healing, damage and support. She knows when a string of
Exorcism casts will aid the cause more than healing that ally, even sometimes when they're at low HP! This is the case regardless of where they are, in a dungeon, heroic, arena or battleground.
However it is important to note that the spec has little to no business being inside a raid, be it 10 or 25 man, standard difficulty, heroic, or hardmode. They do not do sufficient damage to be able to pull their weight, and sacrificing your healing capabilities in a raid scenario, as a healer, is definitely not a good idea. Unless you're farming the content and your friends do not mind carrying you, or you've been asked to come specifically as a Shockadin, do not attend raids as this build unannounced.
Q: What are key Shockadin abilities?
A: A good shockadin will use the majority of her spell book to great effect, be it in dealing damage or healing. The ones they use most frequently however include the following:
Exorcism - Your primary spammable nuke.
Holy Shock: Can be considered to be an instant counterpart to the above, with a shorter range, but a little more damage.
Holy Wrath: Very strong against a single target, and provides one of
only two ways for us to deal AoE damage.
Word of Glory: Our primary healing ability. We generate Holy Power, on a base, untalented level, via Holy Shock, and optionally, Crusader Strike. Whilst talented we can also gain Holy Power from
Blessed Life and/or
Tower of Radiance, each of which has their own advantages and disadvantages in certain settings.
Crusader Strike: Best used whilst moving and in melee range of an enemy target, to generate a free Holy Power, to be used with Word of Glory (Above).
Judgement: Used only to keep Judgements of the Pure up, or whilst on the move
and your other alternatives in that situation are on cooldown.
This is not a list of the only abilities you use. If you don't use all your
Hands, your
Hammer of Justice and
Wrath,
Turn Evil, and indeed, your
Divine Shield to good effect, you are a bad Shockadin. A bad Paladin even.
Q: What kind of stats should a Shockadin look for? What kind of gems do I need?
A: A lot of
intellect, for obvious reasons (It provides Spell power). Other than that, the other stats a Shockadin might find on his or her gear include the following:
Spirit: Important for mana regen and hit rating. Get
enough, and no more.
Critical Strike Rating: Very useful for us. Has a larger effect on our damage abilities than our healing ones, strictly from a theorycrafting point of view, due to the possibility of overhealing, but it does provide certain benefits through a number of talents that make it an important stat for us, regardless of whether it is our heals or damaging spells that crit.
Haste Rating: Again, important. We want enough of this to get our exorcism down to a decent cast time. Also effects all of our casted heals, but our focus on the healing point of view are usually instant casts.
Mastery Rating: Absolute trash. Provides an absorb shield equal to a certain amount equal to a percentage of the total amount of healing done. Sounds good in theory. In practice, it doesn't roll (It gets overwritten, the effect of the previous buff doesn't carry over to the next), and doesn't serve any offensive utility anyway.
Hit Rating: Only really necessary if you haven't talented for Enlightened Judgements (Not something I'd currently recommend), in which case you'll need quite a lot of this. It isn't available on Holy Paladin gear by default, so you will have to reforge some of that Mastery or surplus spirit into it, or find it on offplate gear, such as your Neck, or your Cloak.
Armor, Resilience and Stamina: Naturally, very important stats for battlegrounds and arena. I personally recommend you get as much of these as you can via gear, but gear only. It is my recommendation that you do not enchant, or gem for any of these stats, but if you must, depending on your playstyle choice, I have linked suitable gems above. Your shield is the best item to upgrade if you're interested in armor. Also helps if it has Resilience and Stamina on it.
Spell Power: Only here for the sake of weapons. Naturally, the higher number on your weapon, the better. Also seen on trinkets and socket bonuses.
For our meta, I personally use the
Insightful Earthsiege Diamond, however, there are alternatives such as the
Chaotic Skyflare.
All other stats are irrelevant or useless for us, unless I've missed something. Strength provides no benefit but parry, which is almost completely useless, agility provides useless melee crit and armor, also for the most part useless, dodge and parry - for the most part, useless. Spell penetration, deceptively good, also useless, as all of our attacks are non-resistable (As there is no such mechanic as Holy Resistance in WoW, other than a seldom ever used flask).
In terms of what items you should find these stats on: Preferably, full plate. Before level 40 it's okay to wear a mixture of Cloth, Leather and Mail, but at level 40 you get the very nice
Plate Specialization, so -try- to get full plate.
This isn't likely though before level 58, as there are very few caster plate options. To go along with your armor, you'll want a 1 handed Mace or Sword with Spell power on it, and a caster shield (Any shield with intellect on it). These may be hard to find at low levels, so try to find "of the Eagle" (Intellect and Stamina), "of the Whale" (Stamina and Spirit), or "of the Owl" (Intellect and Spirit) gear. You may need to wear a lot of cloth before level 40, after which is where a larger variety of caster leather and mail begin to drop.
When you get to Outland, you'll be showered in better itemized caster Plate rewards, so just bide your time till then.
Q: What are key talent choices for a Shockadin?
A: The following build is suitable for both PvP and levelling. Feel free to change the talents a little and mix them up, but use your intelligence when doing so. It is already a decent talent tree, so I suggest if you can resist toying with it, you do so. (Might be a good idea to move a point out of
Enlightened Judgements if one rank will keep you hit-capped against same-level targets. It will almost always be the case at 80. You can chuck it into
Tower of Radiance if you like.)
Final Universal Level 80 Shockadin Build w/o Glyphs (See below).
Q: Glyphs?
A: Glyphs are fairly straight forward.
Prime: Holy Shock,
Word of Glory and
Divine Favor.
Exorcism is deceptively good, however, the DoT it applies does not roll and so does not add up to a very meaningful increase in damage output at all. You could use it to apply a junk debuff though.
Major: For PvP, you'll need
Glyph of Turn Evil. The other two are your choice out of the following:
Divine Plea,
Divine Protection, and
Beacon of Light and
Light of Dawn (which is useful for maintaining
Conviction).
Minor: Blessing of Kings to make it inefficient for Purge spammers to dispell it from you constantly, then
Blessing of Might, and
Lay on Hands.
Q: What Seal and Blessing should I use on myself?
A:
Justice is handy to have already buffed in PvP, ready to whack a passing druid in travel form, shaman in ghost form, a rogue in sprint... all manner of situations. Elsewhere you'll want
Insight or possibly
Truth, though I've not actually tested that one out yet.
As for your Blessing, you'll almost always want
Kings, though if you're having mana trouble,
Blessing of Might helps a lot.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Gryphon##DELIM##