All you need to know about protection paladins, and a little more. A guide!

[Simpely]

Really nice guide mate! very helpfull

[MerinPally]

Hello everyone, time for another update - one that really could have been done as soon as DS came out, however, I was not taking the maths side of things as seriously back then as I am now, and unfortunately I've had a 5month break from the game during the time this was most relevent, so I wasn't able to do it then.

The update is regarding Impale damage on Madness 10man heroic and how to survive it using minimal cooldowns, as a paladin tank. I will do the same for 25man heroic later and give you a cooldown order per platform based on what I count this afternoon after my lunch Sure, this isn't as relevent as it used to be and very few people are progressing on this or will be progressing on this - however, it is still useful.

Once I spot a mechanic akin to this in MOP I will do the same as I have here. On the 25man heroic update I'll add in the 30% nerf to both - I won't go through the whole deal for those, just give the final values. I did this for my own benefit but I'm sure there's probably one person out there who it could help too so, here it is!

Edit number 10 million - deleted pictures and 25% damage, because I'm a moron and did the maths wrong. So much for me getting an A at A level maths.

[MerinPally]

Copied from the other thread where I just posted this, so we have a record. If you spot a mistakes (I probably made one) let me know and I can revert it quickly.

Ok numbers time please don't be scared, I will begin with "10man heroic" and then follow with "25man heroic" - I will type these out rather than pictures as I can't seem to get my camera to connect >.>


10man Heroic

Base Impale damage = 840k

After initial debuffs, not including cooldowns (Power of the Aspects, Vindication, Sanctuary) the damage by impale is as follows:

840*0.7*0.9*0.9 = 476.28 k damage.

Before any more meaningful maths can be done, you need a cooldown order. The order will be as follows:

1st = Dream
2nd = GoaK
3rd = DP + AD
4th = GoaK

You can use the trinket, Stay of Execution ( -57k damage) on every single impale, so use this if you can.

For the 1st, 2nd, and 4th platform, the damage looks like this assuming you have no outside cooldowns at all.

476.28*0.5 = 238.14 k damage.

However, you should also be using Divine Protection (1 minute cooldown) on every impale, so the sum looks like this:

238.14*0.8 = 190.512k damage

Now, you can take off another 57k due to the trinket, making the damage 133.5k. If you get any extra cooldowns (Hand of Sacrifice, Pain Suppression) you need to factor those in before taking off the 57k damage, due to the laws of BIDMAS.

On the 3rd platform, things look a bit different. The sum is instead:

476.28*0.8*0.8 = 304.8 k damage.

After this, factor in the -57k from the trinket and you get 247.8 k damage. This is not including the WoG shield you should have, or a priest should. There really is no excuse to dying from impale any more. Same goes for extra cooldowns as on the previous ones - factor them in before the -57k

Therefore, on 10man, if you use the cooldown rotation indicated, the damage you take is as follows:

1st = 133.5k
2nd = 133.5k
3rd = 247.8k
4th = 133.5k

However, none of these factor in the shield you get from WoG, which should be another -36k or more damage, therefore making things even more comfortable than they already are.


25man heroic

I won't go through all the maths again, you don't need to see all that and you can work it out easily and I don't want to spam and make this incomprehensible. Instead, assuming self cooldowns only and the same cooldown rotation as in the above 10man version, here are the numbers:

1st = 215.16 k
2nd = 215.16 k
3rd = 378.5 k
4th = 215.16k

Platforms 1, 2 and 4 are obviously easily survivable alone, as these numbers are without WoG shield too. To survive the 3rd, take a Pain Suppression - you really should have one. You would then take 204.3k damage which is so easy to take it's pathetic.


Conclusion - Bears can fuck off. Paladins are back and via self cooldowns alone can boss this fight.

[Splosion]

Boy, I haven't posted here in a while.

Best in Slot gear
Cloak: Indefatigable Greatcloak, 397 ilvl (Valor Points)
Belt: Goriona's Collar, 410 ilvl (Warmaster Blackhorn)

A note on the weapons: Souldrinker heroic is technically our best in slot due to the great amount of healing it yields. However, you may decide this healing isn't really required as your healers are competent, most of it is overhealing, and it doesn't happen in large enough quantities when that heal is actually needed. For this reason, you see many well geared paladin tanks using Heroic Hand of Morchok instead. Although the weapon hits for less, due to the socket, it actually gives a bit more stamina (albeit not much) than Heroic Souldrinker - essentially, utilizing a dps item for tanking because it grants more stamina, in exactly the same way you use Backbreaker Spaulders off Heroic Spine as the technical best in slot
shoulders.

A few things. I'm going to assume you know that souldrinker does more damage, and a single proc is enough to ignore the ~60 or so stamina on it. It's around 1k hp, I'm sure we can live with that.

As for the pieces I've picked out, why not roll with something like this, as you don't waste much and end up with more stamina. The avoidance thing isn't really done much anymore anyway. Dreadfire drape is rather well itemised, despite the agility, and Runescriven Demon Collar is very similar for CTC to the way backbreaker vs Brackenshell works (less so, but still worth considering).

Just a thought.

[MerinPally]

I agree that Souldrinker > Morchok, way and away clearly with daylight in the gap between them. However, some people don't agree with me and just seem to stonewall any argument for it I have so I decided to put both on just incase.

Runescriven Demon Collar was something I was not aware of at the writing, especially seeing as I had taken a long break from the game. Will change it over. The cloak I also agree with but was just one of those things that I get hatemail ingame for saying is good so I didn't bother. My reason being that I knew it would be ~3months to MOP when I wrote this so if they haven't learnt now they never will so they can have their little victory as those who know what they're on about are already using the alternative should they have obtained it. Other than that, our lists are identical ^^

[Splosion]

Aye, I spent around 6 pages over on the dk forums arguing the same point. Some people won't be told.

But yeah, the lists are 99% the same, just the belt/cape thing. I've even had arguments with the paladin tank in my guild about trinkets and flasks (apparently the elixir combo is bad, who knew?), so some just won't take advice from real people, vs just reading something somewhere once that they then rigidly stick to the whole expansion.

[MerinPally]

Elixirs aren't bad at all, annoys me just as much when people say it. Sure, you'd get more stamina by using the flask, but you can't put a stamina value on spell resistance or armour!

I use maths for a lot of things (Soulshifter Vortex, I had a lengthy post on it) but there just are some things where it'd be very complex and at this point in the expansion, there is no point in doing so. During MOP I will do this sort of thing because I'll be writing guides and shizzle but at this point in the expasion it's a case of "it just is, here is a torrent of people, and only these people have worthwhile opinions, and they agree with me" and if they still say no then... just yeah. Really. If you're going for progress and people don't listent o each other then it's just a facepalm moment.

Back in the third week of DS doing yorshaj hc progress, people in my raid team listened and used Prismatic Elixirs instead of flasks. Lo and behold, it worked. The other team (which had slower progress) didn't listen and took a while longer to kill it. People need to listen to each other and stop relying on 1 single source - hence for my current MOP thread/guide thingy, I'm getting as many sources as I can rather than just my own.

[Splosion]

Elixirs actually provide 28 more points of mastery (150 stam + 228 mastery vs 450 stam -> 300 stam vs 228 mastery, 228 mastery is worth 342 stamina), so unless you're in heavy farm, you should elixir for everything.

I can't say my raid team needed elixirs for yor'sahj, but resistances are too good to ignore (nef hc is a prime example).

Unfortunately, the reason you posted is half the reason I took a break from posting here, as sometimes it can be a crazy nightmare to get your point heard, as people flat out ignore it, even in reasonable discussion. I play an 80 twink, and with the community is so small I often have to re-theorycraft everything to establish stat values and best in slot sets, which involves adapting current math (Theck's work for example) to work with a completely different set of scalars.

Anyhow, I'm getting off topic.