OWTL Iron Will Manastorm

The Iron Will OWTL Paladin

So, why Iron Will? The answer is I wanted something that didn't involve Hoplite. I don't care for it. I understand why people swear by it. I don't. I swear by Iron Will. It's gotten me all the way to 1000 solo, without much head thumping except for Gothik, Kel'thuzad, and Alva, all of which are....interesting fights mechanically.

Pros

• Great damage and sustain balance.
• Easy to play.
• Lots of community discussion regarding OWTL theory.

Cons

• Less mobility. Demonic Leap and Charge are it.
• The Tactical Mastery stagger can sometimes build to unsafe levels.
• A bit less self healing than the Hoplite version. Relies on you to pick up healing hearts, use your potion, and ability-based self healing.

Starter Abilities

Crusader Strike - It's the basic Paladin attack. You'll be hitting it a lot.

Judgement of Light - I choose to use Judgement for a couple reasons. Firstly, sometimes you can't be in melee range. Just another attack you can hit something with. Secondly, it causes your melee attacks to heal you, and sometimes that healing makes a difference. Also, it's a basic Paladin spell and I can't see myself without it.

Enslave Demon - Your demon pet will be both a source of a damage buff and a damage reduction. I recommend a using a Summoner's Stone: Terrorfiend to grab yourself a Terrorfiend (You'll have to visit Area 52 and farm or buy one). However, since this is an enslaved demon, Master Demonologist should allow you to use any demon you can enslave. Terrorfiends are simply a robust preference.

Charge - The basic gap closer. Not a lot to be said. Having to trudge into combat is annoying, especially if you want to immediately smash a caster in the back of the group.

Ability List

This list includes the starter abilities.

Arcane Intellect - Intellect translates into a little more spellpower and healing capability. Never hurts.
Arcane Power - A major cooldown that causes you to deal 15% more damage.
Aspect of the Beast - 5% more attack power.
Battle Shout - More strength means more damage. With Iron Will you gain more parry.
Blessing of Kings - 5% stat increase.
Blessing of Sanctuary - Self healing increase and a small mana return.
Charge
Crusader Strike
Curse of the Elements - Lowers the target's resistance to your holy damage while increasing the magic damage they take from you.
Demon Skin - More armor and a little boost to self healing.
Demonic Leap - Sometimes you just need to jump out of danger. Also super handy in that Sunken Temple Manastorm level with the statues.
Devotion Aura - Armor.
Divine Shield - Sometimes everything gets too crazy and you need to purge effects, drop stagger, or just run away through a hail of everything.
Divine Storm - Area of Effect strike. Standard issue Paladin.
Enslave Demon
Execution Sentence - Certain talents will increase both the damage this ability does and cause any target with this ability active on them to take increased damage from Crusader Strike.
Exorcism - Stun the undead. Hit things from afar. Good times.
Exorcist's Slash - Since they altered it to deal holy damage, this ability has started hitting pretty hard.
Flash of Light - Despite it being a tiny heal, it has saved me a few times.
Hammer of Wrath - Paladin version of execute. Sanctity of Battle will also allow you to use this as a follow-up to exorcism regardless of a target's health.
Judgement of Light
Mark of the Wild - More stats. More Armor. More damage. Little extra resistance too.
Pure Chaos Bolt - Works with Soul Leech to give you HP back. It also hits like a truck on its own, so if you're not in melee, you can use it to still deal damage.
Purify - Sometimes you're going to be poisoned or hit with magic effects (like during Chromaggus). Handy to be able to clear them.
Rampage - 5% increased melee critical strike chance.
Righteous Fury - Sacrifices some up front damage for damage reduction and increased spellpower based on stamina.
Rockbiter Weapon - I vastly prefer the attack power boost over any other option.
Seal of Command - The highest single source of damage you'll deal. Absolutely important.
Soul Link - You'll end up taking 6% less damage, and your demon will take it instead. Hence the need for a somewhat robust demon.
Trueshot Aura - 5% more attack power.

Keep in mind that things like Purify, Flash of Light, Blessing of Sanctuary, Rampage, and Demonic Leap are utterly optional choices. I prefer them. That does not mean you will.

Talent List

This is a comprehensive list of every talent I currently have in use.

Armored to the Teeth - Turns armor into attack power.
Consecrated Strikes - 50% chance to create a consecration when using the listed abilities. Removes the need to use the ability.
Consecrated Weapon - Stand in your consecrated ground and you get 5% more strength and the chance to strike an enemy for more damage, which can trigger Seal of Command.
Conviction - 5% crit and some bonus strength.
Rising Chaos - Enables the use of Pure Chaos Bolt as an instant cast.
Critical Blademaster - Parry an attack and use Divine Storm. Instant extra crit.
Cruelty 5% crit and 5% more strength.
Crusade More damage. More crit.
Deadliness 6% more attack power.
Unbounded Deathbringer OR Deathbringer - Either way, just adds some damage on the end.
Deflection - 3% more parry and 3% more stamina. The capstone is a big deal. If you have 30% parry, you get a 10% reduction to spell damage you take.
Demonic Tactics - 5% crit.
Divine Blademaster - Parry an attack and use Divine Storm. More armor and more holy damage.
Divine Strength - 6% strength and 3% stamina.
Divinity - Makes you take more healing, reduces your damage, and increases your healing power based on your stamina.
Draining Strikes - You hit them, it heals you.
Dual Wield Specialization - 5% crit.
Faithful Flex - 10% increase to physical and holy, playing off each other.
Fanaticism - Makes Crusader Strike hit harder when a target is afflicted by Execution Sentence and causes Crusader Strike to make your seals do more damage.
Felstorm - Every time you attack, the cooldown on Pure Chaos Bolt is reduced. Shorter cooldown means more usage, which means more healing (every 3 seconds becomes very possible).
Ferocity - 5% stat increase.
Heart of the Crusader - Causes Judgement of Light to hit every target within 8 yards of your primary target. Also increases the critical strike chance against those targets by 3%.
Holy Power - 6% more damage from every ability that does holy damage, which -thanks to One With the Light- is most of them.
Hunter vs. Wild - Turns your stamina into attack power, making extra use of all those other talents that boost your stamina.
Improved Righteous Fury - More armor. This means Armored to the Teeth has more armor to turn into attack power. Also gives a 3% reduction in damage you take.
Iron Will - This is the big one. Turns 25% of your strength into parry.
Judgements of the Pure - Seals hurt more. Judging increases your haste by 6% (if you have any).
Light's Vengeance - 3% parry and when you parry it does some holy damage to the attacker.
Malice - 5% crit.
Master Demonologist - Works with Enslave Demon. When your demon is active next to you (passive or attacking) you gain 5% increased damage and take 5% less damage.
Mental Quickness - Increases spellpower beyond its normal 1:1 and makes it 1:1.75 as well as periodically causing you to deal 10% more magic damage.
One With The Light - You do 20% less physical damage, but empower Crusader Strike and Divine Storm to hit harder.
Powerful Divine Storm - Divine Storm hits 20% harder. Win.
Prey on the Weak - 10% more top end crit damage.
Reckoning - 5% parry. If you parry, small chance your next 3 melee attacks will swing twice.
Righteous Vengeance - 20% of the damage you do with certain abilities becomes a DoT on the target.
Sanctity of Battle - Allows you to use Hammer of Wrath as a follow up to Exorcism regardless of a target's health. Handy when something forces you out of melee.
Seals of the Pure - Seals hurt more.
Shadow and Flame - Pure Chaos Bolt hits harder. You get more HP back.
Soul Leech - Causes Pure Chaos Bolt to heal you for 15% of the damage it deals. Healing works every 3 seconds.
Spellblade - Gives you mana back when you attack things. Always handy.
Strength of Arms - 4% more strength and 2% more stamina.
Tactical Mastery - The capstone allows you to stagger 30% of the damage you take as a DoT over 10 seconds. More armor for Armored to the Teeth.
The Art of War - More damage. Also has high odds of making Exorcism instant, which allows the use of Hammer of Wrath as a follow up.
Thick Hide - More armor, meaning Armored to the Teeth has even more armor to turn into attack power.
Thundering Strikes - 5% crit.
Twin Disciplines - 5% more crit, healing, and holy damage.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - Seals hurt more. Higher odds of a seal crit.
Vengeance - 3% more holy damage, stacking 5 times. Triggered by critical strikes.
Vengeance - 180% more critical strike damage.
Ward of Light - Enemy spell damage can reset the cooldown on your Divine Storm.

What should you card?

That's not an easy question to answer. Ideally, one should avoid carding as long as possible. These days they've changed it so you can add cards in at any time, as long as you have free slots. However, once those cards are activated and their talents and abilities are granted, you cannot remove them except by going back to level 1 via prestige or salt rolling via GM in Moonglade. It's better to roll off as much as you can and only card your last 6 abilities and 8 talents. However, not everyone has the sheer number of scrolls it takes to blindly roll everything and only card the final stretch.

Abilities

Abilities are something I usually don't have to card right out the gate because I usually get lucky. However, Arcane Power, Pure Chaos Bolt, and Soul Link have proven annoyingly difficult for me to roll in the past.

Talents

Again, harder to answer. Ideally, you should always leave a card slot or two blank until the last minute. Having said that, the prime talent candidates are:
Consecrated Strikes
Consecrated Weapon
Master Demonologist
Mental Quickness
Seals of the Pure
Divine Blademaster
Critical Blademaster

Mystic Enchants

1 x Strength in Faith
3 x Sanctity of Battle
1 x Crusade
3 x Vanquishing Storm
3 x Seals of the Pure
1 x Deflection
1 x Balance of Power or Wizard's Divine Storm if you're over hit cap.
1 x Precision or Wizard's Divine Storm if you're over hit cap.
3 x Lunar Guidance

Gear and stats

Strength, Stamina, and Spell Power are your stats of choice.
Critical Strike Rating and Hit Rating are desirable. Hit less so when you're capped.
Defense never hurts. It equates to more parry. More parry means Blademaster procs more in the end. It is, however, not necessary.

Staring out, you're likely to have access to gear like Field Marshal's Regalia and (Item Set #-1525), both of which are solid choices.
Later, you'll gain access to (Item Set #217) and (Item Set #505). I ended up running the 3 piece set bonus from each of these for a long time. Much later on, you'll end up with (Item Set #-1512).

Flame Wrath is the usual choice for weaponry.

However, if you're avoiding pushing keys to upgrade M+ items like Flame Wrath, you may not get lucky and find it at higher M+ levels (and thus higher ilvl) in Manastorm. If that is the case, Kalimdor's Revenge is also a very solid choice if you get it. Later on you might come across Maul of the Redeemed Crusader, which will outperform Kalimdor's Revenge (should you get it on at Mythic quality). Having said that, you can actually use pretty much any strength based two-handed weapon if it hits hard. If it's close, use the aforementioned choices over something only slightly better that doesn't have spell power on it.