[MoP] Protection Paladin Guide

[Deleted]

I did not realise that the red crane doesn't do anything major if no one is in melee range of it... is Garrosh HC even vaguely solo tankable with the boss stacks not dropping off except during WC and EWC or were you purely referring to Normal?

I was entirely referring to Garrosh N but was more an anecdotal refferance. Solo tanked it twice but never got the crane and people were questioning how to deal with the red crane transition before, especially for groups not having a warrior dps for in your case die by the sword. Out ranging makes it viable regardless of group setup.

As for Garrosh HC. The transitions are not random. You will never get the crane transition on Garrosh HC. Only part of the fight that actually requires two tanks is P3 entirely due to Empowered whatever the DoT is called. When the DoT explodes the damage would kill your raid in Heroic in P3. The other issue would be the second transition which could show to be a problem depending on what tank you got. I would not like to solo tank on a paladin as aggroing all the adds would be an issue. A warrior could do it without issue however. Having a paladin (ret or holy would not matter) would siginificantly help though.

Now, I am probably talking a bit conservatively here as my experience of Garrosh is having the "correct" gear for it. If you have a raid team average ilvl of 575 or higher, I think it is highly possible that going with 1 tank 1 healer, you would only get 1 transition in P2, so the second transition is not a problem.
You would also for sure only get 1 EWC in P3, maybe 0. If you can get away for 0 EWCs in P3, and maybe even 1, you could just chain all your defensives and raid CDs for it to survive it.

So really, I guess garrosh HC is solo tankable with enough gear to get 1 P2 transition and 0-1 EWCs in P3.
We had about 566-568 average ilvl when we killed garrosh and I believe our record before the second transition was 16%, with 18-22% being average. Dropping a tank and healer for another dps, and for sure getting 5-10 more item levels on the group would make pushing those last 6-12% trivial.

[Zabuzan]

Would love to see that. Perhaps the last week of the expansion in the best gear possible, we'll give it a go

[Deleted]

I mean, when actually thinking about it, it is probably not that hard. Garrosh is 100% a gear check. It is also a boss that is very easily overgeared to be made trivial.

[Zantos]

What trinkets do I want to be using? I have the stam trinket from guardians, stam trinket from Malk, and dps trinket from Thok. I have spark of the zandalari and the shadow pan valor trinket from last tier on currently. None of the drop trinkets are warforged or thunder forged. I cant really decide. I have been using the Malk stam trinket and the Shadow pan rep one. The reduced cd on my defensives is nice. But the proc from thoks looks nice as well. The gear I got gives me more haste now too, and I could get down to a 3.19second Crusader strike using the zandalari trinket.

[Moussaka]

What trinkets do I want to be using? I have the stam trinket from guardians, stam trinket from Malk, and dps trinket from Thok. I have spark of the zandalari and the shadow pan valor trinket from last tier on currently. None of the drop trinkets are warforged or thunder forged. I cant really decide. I have been using the Malk stam trinket and the Shadow pan rep one. The reduced cd on my defensives is nice. But the proc from thoks looks nice as well. The gear I got gives me more haste now too, and I could get down to a 3.19second Crusader strike using the zandalari trinket.

Thok's + Malk is probably the more versatile combo imo. You have to compensate the exp lost if you were using the SPA one though.

I was reluctant to switch my Spark at first, but it's "only" static haste and a str proc (which, as the Thok's one, is non relevant to me because of vengeance numbers you get while tanking, it's just a drop in the ocean) compared to stats + crits dmgs/heals amplifier.
For my gear, Spark (NM TF) gives me 1% haste more than Thok (NM). But I would lose mastery, crit dmg/heal.

Only use Rook's for specific fights (solo tanking Malk's BR, probably Immerseus... these have been discused here before iirc).

[MerinPally]

With something like trinkets, just keep every one you've got (and try to get as many as you can ) because then you can be versatile. As Moussaka said, Thoks + Malk are the 2 standard go to ones but there may be (or you may find) a niche use on one boss for a different kind of trinket. Back in Cata, every tank who kept his Baradin Warden trinket from launch until hc DS was so happy with himself. Granted this is just the last tier now but still... it's there.

[Jellospally]

Baradin Warden trinket

We used that shit on Lei Shi (myself on my lock and one of our tanks doing the debuff on 25 man)

Shit was op granted they nerfed it after the first week H ToES was open but we full cleared that week so only got it use it once...but that shit was silly

[MerinPally]

We used that shit on Lei Shi (myself on my lock and one of our tanks doing the debuff on 25 man)

Shit was op granted they nerfed it after the first week H ToES was open but we full cleared that week so only got it use it once...but that shit was silly

Was great haha, and is also such a useful example. I remember doing a few attempts on hc Yorsahj then thinking "hang on" and coming back with that trink and considering farming Sindragosa 25hc.

[Jellospally]

Lol yep. Then they had to be like WOAH resists too strong *players above X level no longer benefit from resists* or w/e it was lol

[MerinPally]

Can't really remember but at least he dropped my trinket pretty quickly. That meant I could tank it on a different char and not worry any more. So I chose my warrior because I'm a sadistic bastard, and already had the trinket on him too. Finally after that I did my DK but it was only like 370 ilvl but I'd already killed hc Madness on her so was tanking with a 416 Kiril because Gurth didn't drop. That was easy, and fun.

[Zabuzan]

I was reluctant to switch my Spark at first, but it's "only" static haste and a str proc (which, as the Thok's one, is non relevant to me because of vengeance numbers you get while tanking, it's just a drop in the ocean) compared to stats + crits dmgs/heals amplifier.
For my gear, Spark (NM TF) gives me 1% haste more than Thok (NM). But I would lose mastery, crit dmg/heal.

As far as I'm aware - and testing by equipping and unequipping it, Thok NM trinket is an additional 7% of your total mastery/haste stat (e.g if you have 10k haste it gives +700 haste) rather than an outright 7% increase.

I've got the Thok trinket (NM) and the Horridon Spark trinket (HC), both double upgraded. I use the Malkorok trinket fortough fights for shorter CDs, in combination with the Horridon trinket for the highest haste possible in my current gear. Switching the Thok trinket in for the Spark one, at my current haste level, is a net haste loss for a small mastery gain. Damn avoidance stats on some of my pieces!!

I still don't have Rook's trinket though

For the first 8 SoO bosses, I use Thok NM + Spark HC. After that I swap Thok NM for Malkorok HC trinket, as losing a chunk of haste seems a decent trade off for much more regular potential CD usage.

Is anyone else able to confirm my thoughts on the Thok trinket?

If I'm correct, it would mean that, diregarding stat benefit of mastery or +7% addition crit damage+healing, Thok NM wouldn't pull ahead of Spark HC double upgrade until the +7% haste equated to 1785 haste.

Normal Thok Trink pulls ahead of Spark double upgrade when haste (x) reaches...
x*0.07=1785
x=1785/0.07
x=25500
(which is well above haste cap anyway!)

Heroic Thok Trink pulls ahead of Spark double upgrade when haste (x) reaches...
x*0.08=1785
x=1785/0.08
x=2231.25
(still above haste cap!)

The true point where Thok NM/HC pulls ahead of Spark HC double upgrade is obviously lower than that, dependant on the mastery level on your gear and equivalent mastery gain, as well as benefit to +dps and + healing from + critdmg/heal which is a bit more subjective.

Is my napkin math right in theory there? For Siegecrafter Heroic, I've recently been going Malkorok HC trinket + Spark HC (both double upgraded) for the highest outright haste without losing shorter CDs. Dropping Spark for Thok is a 1-2% haste loss for ~1% mastery gain off the top of my head (that's also pre any upgrades from the end of the reset, ilvl upgrades due tonight and any other drops I get). The extra crit damage and healing I've not weighed up yet, our group rarely has DPS issues and certainly not ones an additional 7% crit damage on a 5% base crit rate would solve and my self HPS is already massive, but if the gap in haste loss gets much smaller I'll be switching anyway. Tonight I'll be running Thok NM + Spark HC up until we've cleared to Siegecrafter, as the shorter CDs don't help on Thok anymore due to CD alignment with various phases with our strategy.

Wondering what people's thoughts are on my napkin math above and then onto thoughts regarding trinkets on Siegecrafter?

My armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Zabuzan/simple
(may have logged out in gear I was running Heroics in and will have some reforging and other bits to sort out due to new upgrades post clear... just dropped my 543 legs for the Garrosh Haste Mastery ones woop! )

[celinamuna]

http://healiocentric.files.wordpress...nty1.jpg?w=640
For the exact amp amount.
And tbh i don't think it really matters what trinkets you use on siegecrafter, last week i had no problem surviving + killing shredder in 556 gear with Thok-N and Spark-H

[rhandric]

Trinkets? What are these trinkets you speak of? /sigh Damn things don't exist for me/my raid

[Nillo]

Is there some trick to get the dps cloak to proc with the ret proc rate - because I've tried using it again for a few bosses and never got higher than 4% (while I've seen logs of people getting 10%).

[Jellospally]

Really depends on the fight. Though I don't think a single fight out of the first 10 on H where I use dps cloak it is ever below 5.5% and some fights above like 12%

I personally don't do anything i just reforge for tuesday farm nights and have my dps cloak on

[celinamuna]

Is there some trick to get the dps cloak to proc with the ret proc rate - because I've tried using it again for a few bosses and never got higher than 4% (while I've seen logs of people getting 10%).

The proc rate(?) or ya mean uptime / dmg done ?

[Nillo]

The proc rate(?) or ya mean uptime / dmg done ?

Well higher proc rate => higher uptime => higher dps o0

[celinamuna]

Well higher proc rate => higher uptime => higher dps o0

I just mean what exactly were you asking about.
Because getting extra adds, or getting rng and it procing at higher than average veng.

[Nillo]

I just mean what exactly were you asking about.
Because getting extra adds, or getting rng and it procing at higher than average veng.

Well the thing is that I've seen people getting ~10% on single target, while I've had 4% on a fight like Sha (and we do leave adds to the tanks so there's plenty of stuff to cleave) so I really can't explain that difference other than getting the ret proc rate !:

[Zabuzan]

http://healiocentric.files.wordpress...nty1.jpg?w=640
For the exact amp amount.

Thank you very much for this, very useful! Will have to get it posted on the guild forum as well.