This week on Build Shop I've got another Paladin build for you all to digest -- Shockadin (aka 40/0/21)! I like this build because it's all purpose, allowing you to act as the main healer for an instance if necessary, but giving you the freedom to go grind or farm or what have you without needing to respec. It's also got the potential for some great burst damage, if used properly.

This build picks up most of its talents from the Holy tree, but goes into Retribution for some nice support talents, as well as Sanctity Aura, which is what you'll be using if you're in DPS mode.

Alright, let's dig into this build and see what's going on!

• Divine Intellect (5/5) - Increases your Intellect by 10%. More mana is always nice, but the additional Intellect granted by this talent also increases your spell damage with the Holy Guidance talent (further down in the tree).
• Spiritual Focus (5/5) - Reduces the chance your Flash of Light and Holy Light will be interrupted by damage by 70%. A great combat healing talent, and when combined with Concentration Aura gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage.
• Healing Light (3/3) - Increases the amount healed by your Flash of Light and Holy Light spells by 12%. Part of the strength of this build is that you can also act as the main healer in a group, so taking talents that increase your healing power is a no-brainer.
• Aura Mastery (1/1) - Increases the radius of your auras to 40 yards. This gives you more freedom to move around (or have others move around) without losing the effects of your auras.
• Unyielding Faith (2/2) - Increases your resistance to Fear and Disorient effects by 10%. I like this one simply because there are a number of fights where fear can't be avoided, and you can't heal very well if you're feared (and hey, sometimes your bubble is on cooldown and you just can't break it that way).
• Illumination (5/5) - Still a cornerstone of Paladin healing, this talent makes your Holy Light and Flash of Light crits refund 60% of their mana cost.
• Improved Blessing of Wisdom (2/2) - This is likely the Blessing you'll be running around with the most, and increasing its effectiveness gives your mana pool more longevity in fights.
• Divine Favor (1/1) - Gives your next Flash of Light, Holy Light, or Holy Shock a 100% crit chance. It's got a 2 minute cooldown, but can be used for a big emergency heal or to inflict as much burst damage as possible. A highly useful talent.
• Sanctified Light (2/3) - Increases the critical chance of Holy Light by 4%. I only took 2 points in this so I could get the other point in Improved Blessing of Wisdom. Feel free to swap in a point somewhere if you can't live without the 2% additional crit the last point in this would get you.
• Holy Power (5/5) - Increases the crit chance of your Holy spells by 5%. Since the only spells you have that can crit are Holy, this is a solid talent.
• Light's Grace (3/3) - Makes your Holy Light spell reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light by 0.5 seconds. The Light's Grace buff only lasts for 15 seconds, but I really love this talent for healing. There are times you just need a bunch of big heals quickly, and this talent helps you with that. There are also ways to keep this up indefinitely in a fight by downranking a Holy Light (downranked spells have really lost their effectiveness, but can still be useful for this).
• Holy Shock (1/1) - The talent for which this build was named. A ranged attack that causes instant holy damage to an enemy, or can be used as an instant heal on a friendly target. Has a 15 second cooldown, but really helps if you're in DPS mode or need some extra burst damage.
• Holy Guidance (5/5) - Increases your spell damage and healing by 35% of your Intellect. A great talent that scales with your gear, so definitely don't pass this one up.
  

• Benediction (5/5) - Reduces the mana cost of your Judgment and Seal spells by 15%. You'll be using your Judgments / Seals a lot if you're DPSing, so more efficiency is always appreciated.
• Improved Judgement (2/2) - Reduces the cooldown of your Judgment spell by 2 seconds. With a 8 second cooldown instead of a 10 second cooldown, you'll be able to do more damage in less time.
• Improved Seal of the Crusader (3/3) - Increases the crit chance of all attacks made against a target with Judgment of the Crusader on it by 3%. This more than just the Judgment you'll be using most of the time when soloing, this is a nice, group friendly buff.
• Conviction (5/5) - Increases your chance to crit with a melee weapon by 5%. While it's true that most of your damage as a Shockadin comes from holy spells, you will be hitting stuff a lot with your weapon. If you'd like more mitigation, consider taking Deflection instead for an extra 5% to Parry.
• Eye for an Eye (2/2) - Spell crits on you cause 30% of their damage to the caster. This amount can't exceed more than 50% of your own health, but it is in Holy damage and can be very useful when fighting certain player opponents in PvP combat.
• Crusade (3/3) - Increases the damage you cause to 4 of the 7 enemy types by 3%. Mathematically, this is about equivalent to 3% crit so it's not a bad talent to pick up.
• Sanctity Aura (1/1) - Increases the Holy damage done by all affected by 10%. Since all of the spells you'll be dealing damage with are Holy, this is a fantastic talent and a cornerstone of the Shockadin build.
  

Tags: build-shop, illumination, paladin, sanctity-aura, shockadin

Filed under: Paladin, Build Shop