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Let's try this again. So I typed up this awesome, long and well thought post on a Justicar Leveling and Raiding build and the board said that will not be tolerated and ate it. So this time I will be hammering that Save Draft button so I don't lose an hour of work. I know in the last post I said I would discuss healing souls; however, I few guildies asked me questions about my build and how I go about tanking. This post will be about that.

First and foremost, prebattle prep. Justicars have approximatly eight hundred million self buffs, every single time before you pull you should be 100% sure the following abilities are up if you have them: Cavalier, Mien of Leadership, Reparation, Salvation. You may get other self buffs from your other souls. Cast those too.

In many MMOs, like WoW, there is something called an ability rotation. What that means is a set order most abilities should be used in to gain the greatest benefit of each global cooldown. Does Justicar have that? No, not really. There are some ablities though you want to watch and use each time their cooldown is up. Three of them come to mind:

Precept of Refuge - If you have a shield you should wear out this button. This ability rocks. Cleric shields have garbage for block rating compared to the shiny awesomeness that is Warrior shields. PoR makes up for that in some way. Combine this with the passive talent Commitment and not only are you mitigating more damage, but you are gaining back more mana. This ablitity is just awesome. I try to never have this off cooldown.

Bolt of Radiance - This one is just my opinion. Many Justicars save this ability because it's our only ranged taunt. In AOE fights or fights that I know more adds are coming I very much agree. Otherwise this ability has much DPS than Strike of Judgment, the single target global cooldown filler.

Sovereignty - Another ability that just does more DPS than SoJ. The neat thing about this is if spend two points in Supremacy this can be used situationally to interuppt casters than can be stunned. Not terribly useful in that regard on bosses as they are usually stun resistant, but on trash is a nice thing to have. Otherwise I just use this on cooldown on single target fights.

The other important abliity when single targeting is keeping the debuff from Censure up. Note that the ability has a 6 second cooldown and the debuff lasts 15 seconds so you don't want to be using this on cooldown every time as it does the least DPS of all of our single target abilities. Managing debuffs in this game is a royal pain in the ass though(WTB Big Icons for debuffs or buffs applied by the caster), so if you macro this with SoJ are you losing very much? No.

The last ability I want to chat about before I discuss some builds is the bread and butter of AOE pulls and that is Even Justice. AOE you will Spam this and spam this HARD. It does very nice DPS which translates into a lot of self and group healing which translates into more threat. It chews your mana apar, but paired with Vengeful Justice, there is no better way to hold aggro on big pulls than this baby.


Now, on to builds, first I will chat about the build I used while leveling up to 42. Why 42? Because while Two Handed Justicar tanking rocks and I really love it, past 42 it starts to lose viability for two reasons. First, mobs and bosses just start to hit too hard and the lost mitigation from a shield really makes your healers start to hate you. Secondly, two handed always has mana problems and as you level your abilities will cost more mana. This snowballs out of control by the time you hit level 40. Up to level 40, screw the shield, find a nice two hander and melt face

Two Handed Justice

32 Justicar/14 Shaman/6 Purifier

The Justicar Tree selections are pretty self explanitory. I skipped every single blocking talent and PvP talent. Convictions should be spent on either Doctrine of Valiance, Doctrine of Bliss, Doctrine of Authority, or Doctrine of Loyalty depending on the situation you are in at the time. You have to be very careful spamming Even Justice with this build. Mana is a horrendous problem I found in dungeons. Bring pots, drink and only use Purpose when you know you will get a lot of swings in to gain back as much mana as you can. This build is still a ton of fun. Aggro is no issue whatsoever and in addition to taking damage like a champ, dealing a fair amount, you also heal the group for a fair amont with each swing of your mighty hammer.

I chose 14 points in Shaman because the lower end of the Shaman tree offers lots of defensive abilities. You'll notice every single one of my builds will have Shaman in it for tanking. Is this the only way to go? No, I've seen some where Druid is the second soul and if you can make that work and enjoy it, awesome! I'd love to see it in action. The third soul you take is completely and totally up to you. There's no perfect way to go there. I took purifier while leveling because I wanted the extra wisdom for 5 points and the the extra armor. Procced heals count for Flame Ward, so that basically stays up all the time. Sadly the armor bonus is applied before and independently of Mein of Leadership, so it's not as awesome as it could be. Were it so, no other 3rd soul would touch Purifier.

My Level 50 build

44 Justicar/16 Shaman/6 Cabalist

This is the build I plan on doing Experts with and Tanking Raids with if I end up being tabbed to tank. The Justicar tree is mostly unchanged. I simply took all the blocking talents and dropped Doctrine of Valiance. Why? Convictions will be spent elsewhere and with a 1 hander it is not worth really ever using. If you choose Shaman the 16 points is pretty standard when paired with Cabalist. I chose Cabalist for the boost to spell power in the first tree and the very nice buff, Dark Harbor. I think i'm in the minority with that choise though. There's lots and lots of options for that third soul if you take one at all. I've seen quite a few 51 Justicar/15 Shaman tanks out there and they seem to be rollin. This is what I like, my suggestion to you reading this is to experiment for yourself and see what you like. If you find something you feel is better, great! Tell me about it, I like to talk strategy.

Next up is one that is a theory, but I want to try once I'm geared just for quicker run throughs in Expert 5 mans.

Little Less Survivabliity, Much More Damage

40 Justicar/26 Shaman/0 Purifier

I am itching to try this. Why? Well the Justicar's biggest and most glaring weakness is you have no way of quickly making up distance between you and your target. This solves that issue by going 26 points in Shaman for their charge ability, Battle Charge. It also grabs some passive abilities that will make Jolt hit like a truck when it procs, which should be quite often. I don't really have much more to say about this build, cause it could be pure fantasy, but I will give it a try and if it works I will post a follow up to this with more thoughts.

Have a build to add to this? Great! Post a blog up for the guild to devour. Commence commenting below.