Protection Paladins guide to Proving Grounds - Endless 30 and beyond.

[Deleted]

To be honest, most deaths are retard deaths. It gets so frustrating when you die after 20 minutes because you forgot something easy. Just keep your head up and queue again Hope you get 30 soon.

Got my 30 after a bit of banging my head to the wall. You can probably imagine the feeling when you wipe on 30 (I don't even want to know how) on the try before, but I managed to gather my focus back and get done with it. I reached wave 34, but died when I got a call on Skype on the wrong moment (obviously I can't completely blame it on that, though an incoming call popping in the middle of your screen will definitely disturb you). Nevertheless, I'm happy, won't give a go to higher score in a while though.

Now the interesting part: I didn't exactly follow everything in this guide. For instance, I gemmed/reforged for full mastery instead of haste (granted, I still did have quite a lot of haste in my gear + haste consumables), and chose to use Holy Avenger over SW/DP to cope with the slower HP gain, and I found waves x6 and x9 significantly less dangerous. I would still probably recommend haste over mastery for the majority, but you should definitely give Holy Avenger a chance is you're stuck on x6 and x9.

[Deleted]

Going for mastery is completely viable. That is kinda what I was trying to say aswell, any gearing strategy is viable. I have not even bothered optimising for this. I use an intellect shield and are way over hit/exp caps etc. How you gear is the least of the issues in these. I still think a haste build is the strongest because gettting downtime between your 5 stack EFs is not something you want.

There is absolutely 0 logic in picking Holy Avenger if you are stuck at wave 6 and 9, those waves are 3 minutes apart. There is not a single benefit with it for PGs that I can see. The only reason to use it really is if you can not handle using the other talents. I do find DP to probably be the best choice here though just due to it helping so much on the waves where you would not have SW/HA up. But if you feel like everything is very easy except for wave 6 and 9, then by all means go a defensive CD. I would strongly suggest SW for that though as it is better in every aspect for that purpose.

[pld]

I checked on WP and I actually hold the top tank score on our server! (with a whopping 3220)

I was just gonna be content with nabbing my title, but with this newfound tool, I might have to spend a few more rage-filled nights padding my score.

[hatman555]

You should however know that while Sikaris single target breaks repentance, the AoE sikari does do not, so on the bigger pack, you can repentance a big add and it will get killed in the repentance by Sikaris AoE without breaking the repentance.

So something was fixed. Repentance is now broken by her AOE. I don't think this was done in response to it being too powerful, but probably because the AOE was not breaking other CC's that more broken classes had, and when they changed that, repentance which was probably in the same CC class got flagged as well.

I'm still using repentance because it makes wave 6 easier.

Cheers,
Hat

p.s.
Found the log: 5.4 Hotfixes: September 17

Proving Grounds
In Tanking trials, Sikari the Mistweaver's Crackling Jade Thunderstorm should now have a chance to break crowd-control effects that have a chance to break on damage.

[Danton]

Repentance is now broken by her AOE.

Now that's annoying. I can't survive 39 wave w\o one flying dude being cc'ed. I guess i'll try to kite and wait Sikari to finish them off by herself.

[hatman555]

Now that's annoying. I can't survive 39 wave w\o one flying dude being cc'ed. I guess i'll try to kite and wait Sikari to finish them off by herself.

I got to wave 34 and then just died cause I couldn't be asked to go any further, but wave 9 is the hardest going forward, If you save everything for that wave, here is what you can do for CD's

1.) Start off with GoAK (best CD's so you can sit there and do tons of damage.
2.) Face your back to her, so when you get knocked back, you get a little damage break, but you can pick them right back up again.
3.) Start to back peddle while you DPS Use Divine protection + Ardent Defender
4.) Once you are on the other side of the room, and you have everything on you. Use Blinding Light with the 3 second knock down, Pop Speed of light and Run like hell. That will give you like 8 seconds damage free.
5.) Be on the far side of the room again, put Hand of salvation on yourself. As they run to her, BOP her. Then they run back to you. Once they reach you, Divine shield, they will stay on you, till her bop runs out, and they will run to her. Once they get to her, clear your Divine Shield and they will run back to you.

Pretty much each step is worth like 12 seconds of Damage reduction, and that's 60 seconds of 50%+ damage reduction, or no damage taken during the kiting.

GL!

Once I get enough gear with sockets that is different from my raiding gear, I'll probably make a Proving grounds set and then try for a long score. I'm happy just being the first paladin on Mal'ganis with the title now.

Cheers,
Hat

[Danton]

Tnx hatman, I got to wave 39 and were using everything you wrote (except for salv+bop+ds combo (nice!), because I used bop on the monk earlier). Fucked up using blinding light one second too late. And that was three days ago, with repentance working. I'll try again tomorrow and see how it goes.

[Nobleshield]

Man and I'm still getting my ass handed to me on either Wave 6 or 9. I'm pretty sure I'm just not fast enough with cooldowns, or I delay a second and boom get destroyed. It's pretty frustrating, but I'm not all that concerned with it it would just be nice to get the title

I really don't want to go and reforge stuff to mastery but I'm thinking I can try to get some spare gear in the meantime since I can't use my LMG either and slowly work on it. If I could, would it actually be better overall to get gear that would scale better at 463?

[nightfalls]

I really don't want to go and reforge stuff to mastery but I'm thinking I can try to get some spare gear in the meantime since I can't use my LMG either and slowly work on it. If I could, would it actually be better overall to get gear that would scale better at 463?

Typically for Endless 30 the latter isn't really required but the typical things I've seen people do are 1) another helm without the LMG, and 2) trinkets that are not RPPM. Reforging isn't that bad since you have a vendor sitting in your room but as far as I know you should reforge outside if you use ReforgeLite, because that addon does not properly calculate Blizzard's stat scaling.

[pld]

Man and I'm still getting my ass handed to me on either Wave 6 or 9. I'm pretty sure I'm just not fast enough with cooldowns, or I delay a second and boom get destroyed. It's pretty frustrating, but I'm not all that concerned with it it would just be nice to get the title

I really don't want to go and reforge stuff to mastery but I'm thinking I can try to get some spare gear in the meantime since I can't use my LMG either and slowly work on it. If I could, would it actually be better overall to get gear that would scale better at 463?

I had a Challenge Mode set lying around so I used that and switched around a few pieces. I didn't do any reforging but like Voidspark mentioned, I had a separate helm (lol Tyrannical helm with a +stam meta) and swapped out my RPPM trinkets. LSFO + 489 Stam Valor trinket work nicely.

I most definitely was NOT optimized for PG though.

It took me a few hours to get a hang of when to time my cool downs for those killer waves. The timing required a bit of adjusting on Wave 9 for me depending on how many adds were still up from previous waves, but you start to get a feel for it after a while. I used FF's suggestions as a rough starting point and just tweaked as needed.

Good luck!

[Dom]

Got to wave 37. Didn't bother reforging, but I did use my ToT weapon and shield and T14 shado pan trink. I had been struggling to get even to wave 20 before. I actually got rid of Light's Hammer to specced into HP. LH just wasn't working out for me. All of the times I wanted to use it, the wave always had a wind guard in it. So I constantly got knocked out of the LH aoe. I just used HP on myself, and it seemed to work much better. It was a 40k-50k heal every 20s and was good at picking things up.

I also used Holy Avenger instead of SW or DP. I'm still not used to using EF, so DP just made it even more awkward to play. I used it during wave 2, 5, and 8 to quickly build up BoG stacks.

In retrospect, I played very poorly. Half the time I had to settle for a 2-4 BoG stack for EF since I was having trouble generating 5 stacks in 30 seconds. This apparently isn't a setup that is typically used in PG. After wave 30, I didn't really care anymore, but I think I could get to wave 50+ with this spec if I really put my mind to it.

[hatman555]

Man and I'm still getting my ass handed to me on either Wave 6 or 9. I'm pretty sure I'm just not fast enough with cooldowns, or I delay a second and boom get destroyed.

Have you tried using repentance? I fine wave six pretty trivial when your only dealing with 2 guards. Three spawn, left/center/right in the back, coming out of wave 5 you should only have 1 half dead monkey rogue on you. As soon as the guards spawn do a 2 count in your head, and hit the right on with repentance. I do use Holy Avenger for wave 6 just to help on DPS to get one of the guards killed faster. Wave 6 should be a pretty easy rest wave at that point.

I actually got rid of Light's Hammer to specced into HP. LH just wasn't working out for me. All of the times I wanted to use it, the wave always had a wind guard in it. So I constantly got knocked out of the LH aoe. I just used HP on myself, and it seemed to work much better. It was a 40k-50k heal every 20s and was good at picking things up.

You know, I was thinking about that myself. At first when you learning, the hammer is great to drop on the spawn spot from ranged if your late, or forget where the next wave is coming from, but once you learn the 10 waves, your going to be ready and waiting with a conc anyways. For sure you will get more healing out of HP too.

Going to try that next time I want to run some waves.

Cheers,
Hat

[dratnos]

I cleared through wave 32 a few pulls after swapping to Holy Avenger (died because hand was all shaky from finally beating 30). I really liked being able to use it as a damage/mitigation cooldown on the x6 waves, so I would always enter the x7 waves with only one wind-guard left up.

[Belloc]

There is absolutely 0 logic in picking Holy Avenger if you are stuck at wave 6 and 9, those waves are 3 minutes apart. There is not a single benefit with it for PGs that I can see. The only reason to use it really is if you can not handle using the other talents. I do find DP to probably be the best choice here though just due to it helping so much on the waves where you would not have SW/HA up. But if you feel like everything is very easy except for wave 6 and 9, then by all means go a defensive CD. I would strongly suggest SW for that though as it is better in every aspect for that purpose.

The logic is that HA is an incredibly powerful tank (and DPS) cooldown. I would regularly wipe on waves 19/29 with DP, but with HA, I don't even need to use GoATK on those waves until around 29/39/49. Indeed, I find great usage out of HA on waves 2, 6, 9 and every repeat of those waves. DP is 100% random and the procs are, more often than not, completely wasted.

What's better; Random DP procs on waves where they aren't needed, or a guaranteed HA on the waves where they are needed? The answer is the guaranteed HA. Indeed, the very first attempt that I went back to HA was the attempt where I got my 30 wave achievement. Ever since I've switched, I've reached higher waves every single attempt. DP = random, HA = guaranteed cooldown, faster kills. I don't care that you might go a wave or two with HA off cooldown and unused as long as it is there when you need it.

Again, look at it this way: Waves 6 and 9 (and repeats) are the most (and, oftentimes, only) dangerous waves. What good is DP if it doesn't proc on those waves? No good at all, is what. Having HA up for those waves trivializes them. Seriously. I haven't felt threatened on any of those waves since I switched to HA.

[Nobleshield]

Might have to try HA, because yeah so far every time I go there, I get utterly destroyed on Wave 6, usually with DP and/or GAK running to boot. Those damn things have way too much health if you ask me. I'll try with HA and see if I fare any better.

[Thark]

I seem to be alone here, but for me 3/4 of my wipes are from wave x7. I don't really have issues with wave x6 ever, and wave x9 is mostly a concern for me for threat reasons.

Wave 7 I just feel like I'm really missing something because it wrecks me and nobody else seems to find it challenging. The first few seconds of the wave I pop DP, and I also have AD and LOH to use as well. I drop LH and pick up all the adds from that wave, but with the 2 wind guards still up the damage is too high. Typically I start the wave with the 2 wind guards on me, drop LH to get aggro and use DP/AD to stay alive. When one of the wind guards knocks me back I taunt it and use Speed of light to sprint around. About this time the foragers are dead, so it's just a wing guard and conqueror with the ambushers that spawn. I still find that combo to be be pretty hard hitting and am spending a lot of time running around. I don't die much at that point, but do have issues with keeping things on me when the wind guard knockback lines up with the Ambusher spawn while running.

I wasn't playing around with Bop/Salv, so between using those I should be able to cut out issues with keeping adds off her. In waves 7/9 I run around the outer circle a lot and can LOS myself to taunt the wind guards or ambushers off, or have 2 on her and no ranged abilities up to pull them back. It's not the threat drops that bothers me but rather I don't get why I have such a hard time surviving the start of x7 when it hardly seems mentioned by others. I'm not dying to an enraged conqueror or a stun, but more the wind guard+everything else damage at the start, or the wind guard+conq+ambusher damage.

In wave 6 I use GOAK and Blinding light, leaving me with all the small CDs up (HOJ, DP, Sprint) as well as AD and Lay on Hands. I understand the basic strategy to pick it all up, stun a wind guard on conq enrage and DP from wave 4 very well, but in practice I'm just being overwhelmed by damage at this point and don't quite have a good handle on what I'm missing.

I'm strongly considering taking HA over DP to use HA on wave 6 and hopefully enter 7 with just 1 wing guard alive. It might also let me shift a CD from 6 to 7, but then I might have to worry about wave 9 more so I'm reluctant to do that. I'd figure having DP/AD/LOH available for wave 7 should be plenty of CD power and the issue is just my playstyle or missing something.

And to help others, a few tips that worked well for me:

I made a CD map with every CD I had and what I'd have available in each wave. Knowing what CD's I had to use each wave made sure I always have them up at critical points, and can use them as filler otherwise. It works great except wave 7. I also find it helpful to macro Speed of Light and Blessing of Freedom together for this for when ambushers are active. I used 3 world markers to mark spawn locations easily so I can always greet them as they spawn.

Edit: My issues with wave 7 were probably just due to letting Eternal Flame fall off at some point. Focusing on the highest health Wind Guard and stunning them during the enrage like on wave 4 was all I was really missing. The damage really dropped off when I started doing that. Thanks Belloc.

[Deleted]

The logic is that HA is an incredibly powerful tank (and DPS) cooldown. I would regularly wipe on waves 19/29 with DP, but with HA, I don't even need to use GoATK on those waves until around 29/39/49. Indeed, I find great usage out of HA on waves 2, 6, 9 and every repeat of those waves. DP is 100% random and the procs are, more often than not, completely wasted.

What's better; Random DP procs on waves where they aren't needed, or a guaranteed HA on the waves where they are needed? The answer is the guaranteed HA. Indeed, the very first attempt that I went back to HA was the attempt where I got my 30 wave achievement. Ever since I've switched, I've reached higher waves every single attempt. DP = random, HA = guaranteed cooldown, faster kills. I don't care that you might go a wave or two with HA off cooldown and unused as long as it is there when you need it.

Again, look at it this way: Waves 6 and 9 (and repeats) are the most (and, oftentimes, only) dangerous waves. What good is DP if it doesn't proc on those waves? No good at all, is what. Having HA up for those waves trivializes them. Seriously. I haven't felt threatened on any of those waves since I switched to HA.

Yeah, but the point is why not pick SW for proving grounds?

-It is up for 6 and 9 (and 2)
-Its self healing scale great with your EF and SoI
-It also scales great with Sikaris HoT on you
-You still maintain a good HoPo regeneration from range so you can cap HoPo if you are kiting / getting knocked away

That was my point, not that DP = the one and only talent, but taking HA over SW makes no sense in PGs as SW is stronger in every aspect due to the 3 minute interval between the dangerous waves and sikaris HoT on you.

[Belloc]

I seem to be alone here, but for me 3/4 of my wipes are from wave x7. I don't really have issues with wave x6 ever, and wave x9 is mostly a concern for me for threat reasons.

Wave 7 I just feel like I'm really missing something because it wrecks me and nobody else seems to find it challenging. The first few seconds of the wave I pop DP, and I also have AD and LOH to use as well. I drop LH and pick up all the adds from that wave, but with the 2 wind guards still up the damage is too high. Typically I start the wave with the 2 wind guards on me, drop LH to get aggro and use DP/AD to stay alive. When one of the wind guards knocks me back I taunt it and use Speed of light to sprint around. About this time the foragers are dead, so it's just a wing guard and conqueror with the ambushers that spawn. I still find that combo to be be pretty hard hitting and am spending a lot of time running around. I don't die much at that point, but do have issues with keeping things on me when the wind guard knockback lines up with the Ambusher spawn while running.

For wave 7, I suggest using Fist to stun the high-health Wind-Guard immediately as the wave spawns, picking up the new wave, and focusing on the small adds. Feel free to pop AD if it's up, but save DP for when the conqueror enrages. When the stun on the Wind-Guard expires, pop glyphed Blinding Light, which will stun everything for 3 seconds. Remember to reapply a 5-stack EF before/when your other one expires.

The stun at the beginning followed by the AOE stun should be enough to let you survive having two wind-guards up. The DoT stacking adds and the low-health wind-guard should be dead by the time your DP expires and then you'll be set for the rest of the wave.

Yeah, but the point is why not pick SW for proving grounds?

-It is up for 6 and 9 (and 2)
-Its self healing scale great with your EF and SoI
-It also scales great with Sikaris HoT on you
-You still maintain a good HoPo regeneration from range so you can cap HoPo if you are kiting / getting knocked away

That was my point, not that DP = the one and only talent, but taking HA over SW makes no sense in PGs as SW is stronger in every aspect due to the 3 minute interval between the dangerous waves and sikaris HoT on you.

Well, that certainly makes sense. I've never used SW, so I can't really say anything about it. I do, however, really like getting around 20-30 seconds of sustained SotR uptime with HA.

I can see the value of SW with the extra healing, but I don't see as much value from HP generation. I find myself getting lots of GC procs during waves 6 and 9, which gives me high uptime on SotR when used during HA. Personally, I'd rather be using GC procs immediately (3+ targets on those waves) than using Judgement on cooldown. I can't say whether or not SW's benefits compare, but I'd imagine they're even at worse.

HA still seems like the right choice, to me. It gives you higher SotR uptime and it seems to me like it's a DPS increase. If the dangerous waves only had 1-2 mobs, I'd be all over your SW suggestion, but at 3+ mobs, GC procs become more valuable than 2hp judgements.

[YataZuljin]

After 5 wipes on wave 29 and a lot of frustration, I went back and ended up going all the way to wave 49, and only died to a fat finger on my CDs from wave 48.

This guide really helped me with figuring out where everything spawned easier, and I could just look at this screen and remind myself what's next.

Did a couple things different, went with Evil is a Point of View, Holy Avenger and Holy Prism instead of Fist/Dp/LH. Feared one of the adds on wave x1, x3, x6, and x0 to give myself more breathing room. Used HA on x2, x6, x9 waves along with AW, didn't run into any problems on the other waves without DP or DPS cds.. Popped DP pretty much anytime I could, AD on wave x0s. I preferred LH, but I kept placing it poorly when I was using it, so I just cut that out and did Prism instead.

I'm sure there's tons of ways to do the waves, that's what makes all this so exciting. Was a nice challenge and I'm totally going back for higher ranks (I think I can do to 60 pretty easy), but for now I'm just glad I got wave 30 after all those W29 wipes lol.

[Zabuzan]

Thanks for relinking this Firefly! I gave Endless a couple of goes, but with the legendary meta in and DPS trinkets back at the start of 5.4. Hopefully get some time over the old Xmas break to get stuck in and get the realm first endless rank sorted, got some right slacker tanks ahead of me atm!

Is anyone able to confirm that the Malkorok Stam trinket with the CDR works? Will have to have a think about build options if so, may make HA more viable on a shorter CD? ... still tending towards SW. Think the first time round I did PGs I was using SS with WoG rather than EF as well, so shafted myself there! :P

Cheers,
Zab