I know, I know. We´ve all been using Judgements since we were wee little Paladins with only the strength to equip mail armor. Perhaps we all really do know everything there is to know about these Paladin perks. And yet… while they´re pretty straightforward when you´re soloing or in a small group, the more people you´re playing with, the more important it is to know who should be using what when.

Let´s start out with the basics. As it stands, we have three Judgements, which generate the following effect when used on an enemy target:
Light:You regain health every time you attack the target. (Though Light´s healing used to cause threat — making it the Judgement of choice for Protection Paladins — it has been threat-free since patch 3.0.8, meaning anyone can use it without fear of pulling aggro.)
Wisdom: You regain mana every time you attack the target.
Justice: Prevents the target from fleeing and limits their movement speed.And the nitty gritty details on the subject of Judgements, from the nitty gritty individuals at Elitist Jerks: “All Judgements should be considered as ranged physical attacks, which can miss or crit but cannot be resisted, parried, or dodged. Some game data mining reveals that Judgements are actually melee attacks that have been modified to be immune to parries and dodges, yet they have a 10 yard range and cannot be used while silenced.” Are Judgements melee attacks? Are they spells? We may never know, but we do know they can´t be parried, dodged, or resisted.

So, now, what are your Judgements good for?
Judgements 102: When to use your Judgements
From the effects, the use is fairly obvious:
Use Light when you (or your party) need health. Probably the best all-purpose Judgement — you can never really have too much health! — and it will benefit everyone in your party. Not sure what to Judge? Light is never a bad first choice.
Use Wisdom when you (or your party) need mana. Wisdom comes in a close second after Light. Non-Holy Paladins will often find themselves mana starved, and Wisdom can go a long way to keeping your mana pool happy and healthy. The rest of the mana users in the party (even the healers, who can now wand or melee to regenerate their mana pool) will thank you for it, too.
Use Justice when you don´t want Murlocs to run away at low health and bring back a dozen of their closest friends. (Though, personally, I tend to find it helpful when Murlocs run off and fetch a dozen of their closest friends for me. It saves the trouble of doing it myself!) While Light and Wisdom will probably be all you´ll touch if you´re a PvEer at heart, Justice is more useful in the world of PvP. Judging it will limit anyone´s movement speed to 100% — or full running speed. Mounted targets, sprinting Rogues, and Travel Form Druids won´t be able to move any faster than you do after laying down some Justice on them. (Note: You can´t trinket out of this or escape it in a number of ways because it is not considered a “movement speed impairing effect,” but instead a “movement speed limiting effect.” It doesn´t lower your base speed, but instead prevents buffs from speeding you up.)
Judgements 201: Using your Judgements in a raid
Still nothing you don´t already know? Well, riddle me this, my plate armored friends — which Judgement do you use if you´re in a group (most likely a raid) with more than one Paladin? What if you have two Holydins and a Retadin? What if you have a Protadin, Holydin, and a Retadin? What if you have two Protadins and a Holydin? In each case, the ideal Judgements for each Paladin are going to be a little different, and here´s why:
Light: Scales off attack power plus spell power. (Specifically, 10% AP + 10% spell power.) In a raid situation, you want Light to be up all the time for its all-over healing boost — and you want it to be cast by the Paladin with the highest combined attack power and spell power. In almost all cases, this will be your Retribution Paladin, who will have a high attack power as well as a portion of their attack power turned into spell power. If you don´t have a Retribution Paladin, a Protection Paladin is your next best option, and Holy is a distant third — while both Retribution and Protection Paladins going through a standard spell rotation will keep a Judgement active 100% of the time. A Holy Paladin — occasionally distracted by that annoying need to heal people — probably won´t.
Wisdom: This returns a flat 2% of base mana on proc and doesn´t scale, so it doesn´t matter who casts it. However, you´ll also want 100% uptime on Wisdom if you can get it — which makes Retribution and Protection spec Paladins your best bets.
Justice: Doesn´t scale or really do anything to your typical raid mob. This is what players who aren´t casting Light or Wisdom should judge — so they don´t overwrite an existing Light or Wisdom Judgement. Often the domain of Holy Paladins who will only use it every 60 seconds to keep their Judgements of the Pure ability up.The Cliffs´ Notes version for the TLDR crowd: Retribution should Judge Light, Protection should Judge Wisdom, and whoever´s left can Judge Justice.

Judgements 202: What about Holy Paladins?
“But Elizabeth,” you cry. “Why do you hate Holy Paladins? Why have you relegated them to the most useless Judgment in the group? They have plenty of spell power for Judgement of Light! Plus, they´re healers, shouldn´t they be in charge of the healing Judgment?”

All I can say is I play a Holy Paladin — and I know from experience that if I have to make a choice between casting a heal that´s going to save a party member and keeping a Judgement up, I´m going to cast the heal every time. A Holy Paladin can do a great job at keeping Judgements up (and they have talents that let them cast from a safe distance, which is a definite bonus) — most of the time. But unless there´s not a lot of healing to be done, you aren´t likely to get 100% uptime on any Judgements a Holy Paladin is trying to keep up, while both Protection and Retribution Paladins will be laying down a Judgement every cooldown.

Welcome readers to this week´s Build Shop. I know you haven´t seen this feature since the middle of last June, and that´s because most viable talent specs have been covered for each class. Not a lot of additions or enhancements have been added since then but that will surely change when Wraith of the Lich King arrives. So this week I thought I would try a “theme” talent spec, one designed for a particular task, leveling a Hunter. Many people agree that the Hunter is one of the easier classes to level, but for fellow WoW Insider blogger Matthew Rossi and others, it´s taking longer than expected. Let´s see if this beast mastery spec can give him a boost!

LinkI´d like to prefix this by saying that talent specs are a hot topic of debate, and I don´t expect everyone to be 100% in agreement on the intricacies of such builds. The scope of this particular build is to level fast by minimizing downtime and making the pet the best tank it can be so the Hunter can sit back and do their thing. If you have suggestions or feedback you´d like to make I welcome you to leave a comment, but please keep the tone civil. Let´s get to it!

The Thought Behind the Build

This particular talent spec is built in mind for leveling a Hunter with minimal downtime. As the pet can be healed by bandages, spells, and food, we´re gunna use a beast mastery spec of 41/20/0. Unlike the prior Build Shop on the same spec, the point distribution will be different as this is meant for a solo/grinding roll rather than a group/raiding one. For those wondering how much choosing the right pet makes a difference for leveling, in my experience it doesn´t much. Get the pet you plan to use at max level, or if you´re on your toes about swapping pets in and out, you can potentially level two different ones if your persistent about it. I invite you to open this WoW Head talent planner in a new browser window or tab so you can refer to it as I break down the build.

The Build Analysis

Beast Mastery (41 points)

Our purpose here is to turn the pet into the best tank it can be while maximizing damage and efficiency. There is an argument that Improved Revive Pet can be handy during those “Oh crap!” moments, but hopefully with the tanking prowess imbued by our talent choices and pet training, and use of Mend Pet and bandages, those occasions won´t rear their ugly head very often.
Improved Aspect of the Hawk (5/5): Leveling up this will be your main aspect. The haste proc added with this talent is the cherry on top of the proverbial sunday of usefulness. Focused Fire (2/2): You should have your pet out at all times so you might as well get 2% extra damage for doing so. And the extra crit on Kill Command will make the 60s go by smoother. Thick Hide (3/3): This will help turn the pet into the ultimate damage sponge. Unleashed Fury (5/5): Upping manaless/focusless passive damage is always good! Improved Mend Pet (2/2): Making the primary heal for your pet more efficient means less time drinking. Plus being able to cure debuffs off the pet means no more waiting around for that annoying curse to fade. Ferocity (5/5): Gotta take this as it´s a prereq to one of Beast Mastery´s best talents. Bestial Discipline (2/2): Extra focus means more special attacks done by the pet, which means more damage and agro. Intimidation (1/1): Perfect for stopping casters and runners, and securing agro from your pet. Spirit Bond (2/2): A constant manaless regen, slight though it may be, keeps us topped off in between fights meaning less downtime spent eating. Frenzy (4/5): If you feel you need to max this go ahead and move around a point you feel is worth it, but even at the 80% chance this effect procs like crazy! Bestial Wrath (1/1): Big Red time! A trademark BM talent that´s good for any occasion. Catlike Reflexes (3/3): This will help as you enter Outlands and mob damage is higher. The extra dodge means less mana for healing and more for special attacks all adding the benefit of less downtime. Serpent´s Swiftness (5/5): Another hallmark of the BM tree, adding passive haste to the hunter, increasing damage in the process. The Beast Within (1/1): The King of BM talents. With proper use of this talent and maybe a potion or two and some luck, you´ll be able to solo some elite quests for big exp and loot!Marksmanship (20 points)

For the remainder of the points, I feel that Marksmanship has the best bang for the buck, and pairs the best with our Beast Master emphasis. The choices made here won´t vary as much as it did in the Beast Master tree when compared to a BM raiding specs. Hey, there´s only so many good low tier talents to go around!

Lethal Shots (5/5): A no brainer, more crit equals more damage and more procs of Kill Command and Go for the Throat. Efficiency (5/5): Making your shots more mana efficient means less down time spent drinking. Go for the Throat (2/2): With a name this awesome how can you pass it up? Your pet will be rolling in the focus with this talent. Rapid Killing (2/2): With this you have a reaso
n to go from mob to mob as fast as you can. And as a bonus you can use Rapid Fire more often. Aimed Shot (1/1): What use to be the pinnacle of Hunter shots have been nerfed into near uselessness since it now clips auto shot. It´s still not a bad opener move when used in conjunction with Rapid Killing and Intimidation. Mortal Shots (5/5): One of the biggest reasons you dip into the Marksmanship tree, this talent really adds to your DPS potential.Well that wraps it up for this talent review. I think this spec offers one of the best leveling builds available to the Hunter. For those who stick to it and get to 70, be sure to check out our prior Build Shop articles on the Hunter featuring a talent build analysis for each major spec. Until next time, happy leveling!

Want more in depth talent analysis for every class? Check out the Build Shop archives! And for help leveling up that new alt don´t miss our class leveling guides. For those looking to get into the fun of Karazhan, be sure to bone up on our gear guides. And as always, trust WoW Insider to bring you the most in analysis, news, tips, and guides for World of Warcraft!

You might be wondering why the Playboy Bunny is displayed as this article´s image.

Well, one of the achievements for the Noble Garden is to “Use Spring Flowers to place rabbit ears upon females of at least 18th level.” And that to me just screams getting the title “Hefner,” and I mean, Kendra was 18. So it´s all good.

The list of Noble Garden achievements after the break.

I Found One!
Chocolate Lover
Faction: Both Description: Find a Brightly Colored Egg. Points: 10 Reward:
Faction: Both Description: Eat 25 Noblegarden Chocolates during the Noblegarden celebration. Points: 10 Reward:
Chocoholic
Sunday´s Finest
Faction: Both Description: Eat 100 Noblegarden Chocolates during the Noblegarden celebration. Points: 10 Reward:
Faction: Both Description: Discover the White Tuxedo Shirt and Black Tuxedo Pants by opening Brightly Colored Eggs during the Noblegarden celebration. Points: 10 Reward:
Dressed for the Occasion
Hard Boiled
Faction: Both Description: Discover an Elegant Dress by opening Brightly Colored Eggs during the Noblegarden celebration. Points: 10 Reward:
Faction: Both Description: Lay an egg in Un´Goro Crater´s Golakka Hot Springs as a rabbit during the Nobledarden celebration. Points: 10 Reward:
Spring Fling
Spring Fling
Faction: Alliance Description: Find your pet Spring Rabbit another one to love in each of the towns listed below. Points: 10 Reward:
Faction: Horde Description: Find your pet Spring Rabbit another one to love in each of the towns listed below. Points: 10 Reward:
Noble Garden
Noble Garden
Faction: Alliance Description: Hide a Brightly Colored Egg in Stormwind City. Points: 10 Reward:
Faction: Horde Description: Hide a Brightly Colored Egg in Silvermoon City. Points: 10 Reward:
Shake Your Bunny-Maker
Desert Rose
Faction: Both Description: Use Spring Flowers to place rabbit ears upon females of at least 18th level. Points: 10 Reward:
Faction: Both Description: Use Spring Robes to plant a flower in each of the deserts listed below.
Points: 10 Reward:
Blushing Bride

Faction: Both Description: Receive a /kiss in an Elegant Dress from someone wearing a White Tuxedo Shirt and Black Tuxedo Pants. Points: 10 Reward:

You can also check out an additional listing of this achievement over on WotLKWiki.

Sometimes it´s just not your day. Some people consider themselves to be just plain unlucky. Gainus of Icecrown posted a thread on “Murphy´s Law,” as it applies to World of Warcraft. Murphy´s law states “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way.” This particular adage is regularly applied in situations of irony and coincidence, in much of Western Culture. The original poster noted “Every time I get to that point in 2v2 arena where a psychic scream will let me get off 2-3 mana burns, my fear makes my target run in a perfect L, away from me and behind a pillar before I can even get off 1 cast. It´s like that´s the exact path they would have taken if they weren´t feared.”

Such is life in the world of randomness and procs. Some of these others might sound familiar:
Delrof of Argent Dawn, “Every time I fight a DPS intensive boss fight, Windfury never goes off.”

Gazlow of Kalecgos, “Watching Beast Lord shoulders drop 3 times in a row in Steam Vaults on my druid. Then running it 8+ times on my hunter never to see them drop.” Abloodymess of Blood Furnace, Ii will somehow get crushed 3 times in a row by Prince Malchezzar even though he has only a 3% chance to crush me” Gamera of Uther, “Dropping Grounding Totem the instant Death Coil hits, so you run around like an idiot watching it sit there useless.”Nethaera even weighed in on the subject with “Anytime I need to roll for something I want, I lose. If it´s something I don´t need and isn´t worth all that much, I´ll win the roll every time.” Sometimes I find it hard to find a group. Whatever my spec for Shaman or Paladin, groups are inevitably looking for something else.

Have you found that Murphy´s Law applies to your WoW experience?