Sup all Kiasinel here giving you a short guide on Paladin so far from the LvL 1 to 31 perspective i will add more sectioned's as i neer max lvl
Paladin Main Attributes
1. Wisdom: Increases Ability Power and Mana regeneration for Paladins. (Note)This is our most Important DPS and Healing stat get as much as possible.
2. Intelligence: Increases Ability Power, and Maximum Mana for Paladins. (Note) Don't actively stack this as it is a determent to the 300 stance's and The High Mana stances Convert your Wisdom into Int.
3. Knowledge: Is power baby and this stat will do wonders for you when you have more of it. First of all it functions as your basic crit stat and sense your dots crit and your heals crit its a pretty damn good overall DPS and HPS boosting attribute. The second thing it dose is that it reduces cool-down/usage times and Skill cast time on ability so you cast faster and come off CD faster
4. Vitality: Is the final Most Important stat because if your running a sacrifice build you will want your maximum HP to be as High as it can be
5. Strength: Increases Attack Power and Block chance. (Note) If you want to live though big hits stack this as it is a extra layer of dmg mitigation on top of physical defense it also affect the side stat to block called Absorption giving you more dmg mitigation on top of that and our best defensive ability's in Healing and sacrifice perform even better thanks to The block we get from strength.
Paladin Supplemental Attribute's
1. Hit: This is self explanatory this stat is Both your Magical Accuracy and Physical Accuracy its the most important side dps stat you have because nothing is more discouraging than landing a DoT But half the ticks miss because you have a poor hit ratio and on top of that your dots can also be resisted outright. So you definitely want to make sure your Hit is stacked to a point were Mobs and players don't resist and dodge your dot ticks. This stat will go head to head with the agility stat to check if your skills hit or miss so player stacking agility will be your nightmare if you don't at least keep up with this stat
2. Block: Get this you will need it its dmg reduction self explanatory dog
3. Shield Absorption: Increases the amount of damage absorbed by a block
4. Acceleration: this reduces the Casting Time CD reduction and Ability usage speed
5. Ability Power: This affects your attack and healing amounts
High mana Stance's and 300 mana Stance's Plus Adaptive Mana Stance's
Ok Before i go into Mana Management lets sit and have a chat about how Ridiculous Int and Wis work to undermine each other if stacked together on paladin so lets get the number one rule out of the way. Dont stack Int on stance's that relies heavily on Mana Recovery you will severely gimp it.
High Mana Stances: Rely on you having a sizable amount of mana to pull from they tend to spam skills with additional mana cost allowing the sheer amount of mana they have blow though at least 3 or 4 combo's of skills before they need to refill with prayer. NOTE When used together both High mana stance convert 60% of your wisdom to INT and due to the way prayer works almost all of it will be shot back to you with a single use of the skill.
Mana Management Skill: Prayer
1: Protector Tactics
2: Healer Tactics
300 Mana Stances: Rely on you having a low 300 base Mana this means you have virtually no Int and High amounts Of wisdom. The low base Mana Makes the Mana Recovery Side Stat that much more potent and you will immediately see mana recovery's effect with a 300 base mana pool. When running any of these stance's you don't want to stack Intelligence at all as it will work against you can gimp your recovery time making it take longer to regenerate the percentages of mana necessary for skill usage. NOTE 300 base Mana stances should not be paired with stances that give passives INT boots it makes crusaders basically useless in managing there energy because they have more of it.
Mana Management Skill: Crusaders Will
1: Interruption Tactics
2: Sacrifice Tactics
Adaptive Mana Stances: Current i dont know how energy mangment works so were putting hast and hybrid here will update when i have more information.
Mana Management Skill: Unknown
1.Hast Tactics
2.Hybrid Tactics
Individual in depth Stance Review
(This stance is broken atm and wil not give you int/Str bonus)1.Protectors Tactics: This is the first DpS stance you get as a paladin its a mix single target DoT and AoE skills. The main Playstyle of this stance is to upkeep your Branded and your DoT's while providing solid AoE/Single target Filler DMG.
Combo Chain Breakdown:
1.Chastise Chain: This is your weakest dps chain but also the most important one as its signature skill chastise will spread your DoT's to nearby targets as well as refresh them all on the main target letting you essentially keep them on a main target permanently. You don't want to spam this chain its terrible DPS you only want to use this to refresh and spread your DoT's.
2.Convection Chain: This is your Main Single target DPS stance there nothing here two important to discuss this is the stance you will be spamming the most on single target mobs.
3.Sacred Verdicts Chain: This is your DoT chain you want to cast this ASAP and go into maintaining your dots you should only have to cast this chain once and from then on just focus on Up keeping the dots with chastise.
4.Penalize Chain: This is the main AoE stance when your fighting packs of mobs with combined with the sacred verdict DoT Divine punishment it can deal massive AoE dmg to a pack of mobs affected by the DoT spread.
Recommended Supporting Stance's: This stance will always be partnered with healing tactics to Convert 60% of your Wisdom into InT for a Highest possible mana pool as well as having a high amount of ability power coming from both WIS/INT. But until we know what Hast and Hybrid can do i will hold my recommendations for them.
(This stance is broken atm and will give you protectors int/Str bonus effectively hampering your energy management) 2.Interruption Tactics: This is the second DPS stance you get as a paladin its a Mix Of Heavy CC DoT and High crit Single target dmg. The main play-style of this stance is similar to protectors but to make up for the lack of INT and the ability dmg it gives it has a crit buff that you need use at the start of every combo.
Combo Chain Breakdown:
1.Chastise Chain: This is just like Protectors only used to spread and maintain Dots
2.Sacred Verdicts Chain: when used together with fanaticism branded and chastise your dots crit for high amounts of dmg
3.Execute Chain: This is your main dps combo it deals high single target dmg.
Recommended Supporting Stance: This stance should always be combined with sacrifice or one of the last 2 stances we have yet to unlock.
3.Healing Tactics: This is the first healing stance we get as a paladin and its a stance focused on crit healing and Quick Insta cast healing alone with some potent HoTs and AoE heals
Combo Chain breakdown: Before Every Combo chain you will want to self Buff with blessing and Your Crit or DMG mitigation Buff.
Healing beacon chains: The first chain starts with a AoE into A large Single target heal into a HoT its your standard healing chain for tank healing. The second chain leads down to the sacrificial plea AoE HoT skill NOTE Your safe to cast grace on yourself when you start this chain as when your done channeling grace will begin to recover your HP after the use of SP. TIP Don't fully channel SP only channel for as long as you need to heal your party any more is wasted HP.
Healing Grace Chains: This set of chain chain off your HoT into a self buff designed to make the next skill have a chance at casting instantly one will make Beacon cast Instantly as well as the next healing Light.
Recommended Supporting Stance: Always protectors and or one of the other 2 unknown stances we have left to unlock
4.Sacrifice Tactics: This stance is the Third Healing stance you get it revolves around Massive party wide healing with the use of sacrificial plea this is the paladin you will want for raid groups and world bosses because sacrificial plea has no limits to how many targets it can hit.
Combo chain Breakdown: Like healling tactics blessing into your ability power or dmg mitigation buff.
Sacrificial Chains: These 2 chains sole purpose is to spam SP and then quickly heal yourself right after so you can use it again it's so potent in doing this you can spam this one chain alone and keep your party alive in a whole dungeon no problem. That said use this chain responsibly and don't kill yourself.
Retribution chains: The chains here Lead to some slight energy management but more importantly the chains here do single target healing so when you need to focus on the tank you have this chain to do it with.
Recommended Supporting Stance: Always Interruption or one of the other two Unknown stances
Final Verdict and Post June 1 Update Thoughts
Well my final thoughts on paladin atm is our Buffs and debuffs have been put into the spotlight now so we will need use them more we cant just heal and forget about them. That means if we want to kill boss mobs faster we need to be on the ball and have proper usage of our buffs. I feel like our dps just got more situational i mean if your party is good at avoiding attacks you can go DPS and add a 5th dmg dealer to the mix but only if necessary other than that stick to heals and throwing out the occasional DoT and branded. I will be creating a new guide to explain and mention some thing i did not go over here or hard to remove and some more advanced tips gear tips stuff like that see you over there guy and ty for reading my basic guide to Paladin.
Been trying to understand my class more but everything is a bit confusing. This guide really breaks down all the important points I should know and what to aim for. Thanks for sharing your experience!
