First Report

Ok, here's a link to the first "full" report. (I am fully aware that my web design fu is negative. Hopefully CSS will save me someday.) This structure of report should mostly stay the same (I hope). For each class I've generated 4 spec/build reports, one specialized for each talent tree (31 points or more in a given tree is considered specialized) and overall. Each report lists the top 10 specs, and the top 10 builds within each spec. There's way too much information for me to come close to discussing this, so if you find something you want to discuss, blog about it and let me know and I'll mention your blog here.

Shockadins on WoW Insider

Last night WoW Insider posted an article about a Shockadin build for 40/0/21, and is catching a lot of flak for it, saying the author didn't do enough research, etc. Research? That's what we're here for. Let's take a look-see! (Remember this data is not up-to-the-second accurate. This is data obtained a couple of months ago.)

Quick numbers for non-clickers: 1412/69338 level 70 paladins share this spec. That's barely over 2%.

Since I haven't even touched my pally since the BC talent trees came out, I can't comment much.

The top build is shared by 20 people. In the Holy tree, the top build ditches 2/2 Improved Lay on Hands and 3/3 Sanctified Light in favor of 5/5 Improved Seal of Righteousness. Not having ISoR seems to be a common complaint in the article's comments, so that's consistent. As for the Retribution tree, the top build puts 3/3 in Improved Seal of the Crusader, 5/5 Deflection (instead of 3/5), and 3/3 Crusade (instead of 2/3), ditching Conviction and Seal of Command.

The first negative comment seems to be close to the voice of the "majority" of the spec. However, the third build does forgo ISoR....

So? Is there a valid criticism for WoWI not doing their homework? In the end, these types of situations are exactly what I'm trying to address.

1st Million - Paladin

If hardcore raiders are to be believed, paladins are the new priests. There are 27,538 level 70 paladins, and without further ado, the breakdown:

1. 41/20/0 - 3821 (13.88%)
2. 50/11/0 - 1776 (6.45%)
3. 43/18/0 - 1516 (5.51%)
4. 42/19/0 - 1164 (4.23%)
5. 47/14/0 - 942 (3.42%)
6. 44/17/0 - 821 (2.98%)
7. 45/11/5 - 751 (2.73%)
8. 45/16/0 - 726 (2.64%)
9. 48/13/0 - 696 (2.53%)
10. 0/49/12 - 576 (2.09%)

Well, well, well. The top 10 specs represent 46.4% of the class, and not a single Retribution spec to be seen. Apparently the 3,713 Retribution paladins (13.5%) left aren't much in agreement. The only one that's not Holy is in 10th place, with a focus on Protection. And speaking of Protection, there's only 3,981 Protection paladins (14.5%), and 19,691 pallies (a whopping 71.5%!) are Holy-spec'd. 153 paladins have no spec at all, and 4 people either haven't realized they got a free respec some time ago, or are so hardcore they don't need talents to crush.

Pre 2.1: Most Popular Builds - Paladin

Next up, Paladins. 1,457 level 70s. Here's the breakdown:

1. 18 characters: 41/20/0 - Holy/Protection. I'm guessing this is a Healadin build. The focus seems to be on bumping up healing as much as possible, and using Protection talents to build up auras and overall buff utility.
2. 13 characters: 0/49/12 - Protection/Retribution. Tank build, since the Retribution talents focus on mana efficiency, Parry and pumping out Judgements.
3. 10 characters: 41/20/0 - A variant on 1. Ditches Aura Mastery and 1/3 Blessed Life in favor of filling out 2/2 Improved Blessing of Wisdom. Also switches from 5/5 Improved Devotion Aura to 5/5 Redoubt.
4. 7 characters: 50/11/0 - Holy with just enough Protection to get BoK. Pretty much every heal/buff oriented talent has been taken.
5. 7 characters: 41/20/0 - Yet another Holy/Prot build. The Holy spec from 1, and the Prot spec from 3.

55/1,457 Paladins represented, just under 3.8%. Pallies, what say you?