Protection Paladin Guide (6.2)

[Nimillion]

Protection Paladin Guide

Who am I?

Hello, my name is Unomox, and during BRF I maintained a spot in the top ten all-stars on warcraft-logs for damage output for my class/specialization, and top 5 for survivability and healing output for all-stars whilst my guild actually cleared content (eventually fell behind during our break). I’ve never cheesed a rank outside of a few lazy heroics, so I’d consider my parses to be fairly legitimate.

I’ve never done a guide before, but lately I’ve been getting a lot of requests for help regarding how to best play this particular class and specialization, so I figured it would be more convenient to inscribe the totality of my knowledge in a single manuscript.

I’ll do my best to cover everything from talent choices to referencing fight specific mechanics and how your class should be able to handle them. Although, this is for 6.2, I use the prior tier’s fights as references since people are more familiar with them. If I miss anything or if you feel like I’m feeding you false information, then feel free to correct me on anything you might see below.

Twitch: Heliopsycho (I need a new name)
Guild: Resurge (also needs a new name)
Server: Illidan

Table of Contents

Chapter1: Talents and Glyphs - Tier 1-7 talents - Major and minor glyphs
Chapter 2: Rotation and CD usage - Single target – AoE – Opener - Shield of the Righteous - Word of Glory – Seals – Defensive CDs – Hand CDs – Other Utilities
Chapter 3: Abilities and passives – Primary Abilities - Passives
Chapter 4: Stat priorities, Upgrades, and Consumables – Stat weights – Stat explanations – Best in Slot - Enchants, Gems, and Consumables
Chapter 5: Macros, Addons, and Weakauras – Macros – Addons - Weakauras

-Chapter 1: Talents and Glyphs-

-Tier 1-

Speed of Light (SoL)

Increases movement speed by 70% for 8 seconds. (45sec cd)

This option offers the highest possible speed out of the three, but its CD makes it fairly situational. Certain fights and their mechanics may be simplified by using it, and it’s a good option for when your positioning is required to be in timely fashion, but not too often.

Honestly, a lot of paladins pick this because they feel safer with it, and it can even save lives if used in a dire situation. Sometimes a mob likes to run off to chase a healer, maybe you’re in the wrong lane and Oregorger is about to run you over, or on fights like Imperator and Blackhand, it can be used to get back to and run away from the boss quicker before or after dealing with their particularly annoying mechanics (Mark of Chaos/Shattering Smash).

Long Arm of the Law (LoL)

Successful judgments increase your movement speed by 40% for 3 seconds.

I mainly consider this to be, in terms of functionality and usability, in between the other two options since its shares benefits from both. Firstly, much like PoJ, it’s a passive, and it’s great for getting from one mob to the next, but it’s also a burst of speed that can make your character movement fairly erratic, which at times can be problematic on smaller, more difficult to position bosses.

I find that it is best utilized on fights where you might find yourself out of range from your intended target, but are usually still within the 30yard limit. Also, since it’s directly applied by an ability in your rotation, it’ll get better with the more haste you have. My biggest issue with it, however, is that unless you’re putting judgment before crusader strike/hammer of the righteous, your uptime on this talent will be fairly limited, unlike PoJ, although, this might not matter on “stop-and-go” fights. It can get up to 70% or higher if judgment is prioritized, but I wouldn’t consider this optimal for most situations.

Pursuit of Justice (PoJ)

Passively increases your movement speed by 15%, and an additional 5% per holy power (maximum of 3).

Assuming you’re storing your holy power like a good paladin should, then I’d recommend this on most encounters. It’s consistent, reliable, and requires minimal effort to maintain. With the exception of seraphim and certain emergencies (important WoG heal or needing to mitigate a heavy hitting ability), you should never drop below two holy power, which should equate to a constant 25-30% movement speed increase, and even if you do fall short on holy power, you’re going to be getting it right back in a second or two, anyways.

If you can’t decide which talent to take, just choose this one, and change it later when you figured out how one of the other two might benefit you more.

-Tier 2-

Fist of Justice (FoJ)

Reduces the CD of hammer of justice by 30 seconds.

Cutting the cool down of your primary CC in half can be good for fights that have mobs that can actually be stunned. However, I can’t think of a single encounter where it’s even worth the global.

Repentance (Rep)

Incapacitates the target for one minute. (15sec cd)

Honestly, the only time you’ll be using this will be when you’re trying to do trash mobs with only a few people, or you’re trying to solo something (it can be really useful in proving grounds).

Blinding Light (BL)

Blinds all enemies in 10 yards for 6 seconds. (2min cd)

Who cares?

-Tier 3-

Selfless Healer (SH)

Each time judgment is cast, it reduces the cast time of flash of light by 33%, and its effectiveness on other players by 20%. Stacks up to 3 times.
As a tank, you will never use this, so just forget about it.

Eternal Flame (EF)

Replaces word of glory (WoG). In addition to its initial heal amount, it’ll also apply a HoT for 30 seconds. 50% stronger if cast on self.
Words cannot describe how I miss the old eternal flame in MoP, but sadly, those days are gone, and the potential output of its current incarnation is absolutely pathetic. Also, it’ll cost you a hefty 3 holy power, whilst SS only requires a global.

Sacred Shield (SS)

Places a buff on the target for 30 seconds that continually refreshes an absorption shield that lasts for 6 seconds. (6sec cd)

There is no situation where you will not choose this option. Either refresh it during downtime in your rotation or refresh it instead of using one of your filler abilities. Letting this fall off for any reason whilst tanking is unacceptable, especially considering how easy it is to maintain with a weakaura tracking it.

-Tier 4-

Hand of Purity (HoP)

Places a buff on the target that reduces all damage taken by 15% and DoT damage by 80% for 6 seconds. (30sec cd)

Being the most situational of the three options, you’ll rarely choose this, but its potential usefulness can far exceed the other two. The only fight I’ve used it on was Brackenspore to deal with his breath, but outside of that, having an unglyphed divine protection (DP) with US is much more reliable and global free considering most dots in raid encounters are either magic and/or long lasting. Despite its short comings, it can be extremely useful on fights such as Thogar,
Blast Furnace, Darmac, and Flamebender.

Unbreakable Spirit (US)

Reduces the CD of Divine Protection, Lay on Hands, and Divine Shield by 50%.

This is simply the best overall option for mitigating damage and surviving. Cutting DP’s cooldown in half alone would make it viable, but since it also does the same with lay on hands and divine shield, it is almost invaluable. This talent is made even better with seraphim, since it and DP will both have a 30 second CD; you can rotate between the two and fill in the gaps with your shield of the righteous(SotR), effectively reducing the amount of time without some sort of mitigation to zero.

Clemency (Clem)

All hand abilities now have two charges.

Sometimes there are fights where raid utility is more important than your ability to mitigate, especially on fights where tank damage is fairly negligible. You might find yourself taking this talent a lot if your guild asks for it and there isn’t another paladin currently in the raid. Hand of Protection (BoP), in particular, can completely negate numerous mechanics and save lives.

-Tier 5-
Holy Avenger (HA)

For 18 seconds, all holy power generating abilities now do 30% more damage and healing, in addition to this, they will produce 3 holy power instead of 1. (2min CD)

For almost every encounter, this will be your go to talent. When built into seraphim, this is easily above the other two options in terms of damage output. When you’re not built with seraphim, you won’t get as strong of a burst, but you can maintain your SotR for up to a solid minute or longer when activated with either the ES haste buff or blood lust.

With HA, you can easily plan out your CD usage ahead of time, and if done correctly, you’ll almost never take any damage without something to ease the pain.
Sanctified Wrath (SW)

Holy Wrath now generates 1 holy power and does double damage.

This is the steadiest and most reliable option for consistently generating holy power, but its potential performance is sub-par compared to the other two. It won’t do overall as much damage as HA and it doesn’t have the potential SotR uptime as DiP. Also, it’s slightly more difficult to plan CDs between 6-9 seconds of SotR as oppose to the dozens of seconds which can be achieved by the other two options.

However, during fights where execute phases are either long or NEED to be short, then this with the glyph of final wrath can actually pull some serious numbers.

Divine Purpose (DiP)

Each time the caster uses SotR or WoG, they have a 25% chance of making the next cast of either of these spells cost nothing and act as if 3 holy power were used.

Whilst it may be last on damage, it does have the highest potential SotR uptime out of the three options, but only if you’re not built into seraphim, since that doesn’t have a chance to proc it.

In fights where overall mitigation is more important than damage or surviving brief periods of high damage, it’s probably the best option, but due to its extreme unreliability, it isn’t truly worth it on progression fights until you reach about 40% haste or higher.

-Tier 6-

Holy Prism (HP)

Does damage to the current target and heals 5 friendlies in 15 yards of that target, or heals the caster and damages 5 targets in the same range. (20sec cd)
This is what I consider the utility spell of the three options in this tier. It’s great for personal survivability if cast on yourself (the selfheal scales with resolve), and it’s also adequate for additional raid healing when cast on your enemy. Ultimately, I only choose this option if I’m genuinely having an extremely difficult time surviving or the melee in the raid group are getting consistently pummeled.

The main issue with HP is that in mythic raiding, the damage you take is so high that you’re either going be between 70% and full health or dead. Yes, if your healers are reliable and you’re playing your class efficiently, you’ll rarely find yourself using it. In other words, it’s an emergency heal.

Light’s Hammer (LH)

Places AoE effect on the ground covering a 10 yard radius for 14 seconds that heals all friendlies and damages all enemies that are inside of it. Also, it’s a 50% slow. (1min cd)

This pick is best on anything with more than one target, and its potential healing output is fantastic considering it also does an insane amount of damage. Even on single target fights, it’s the equivalent of 70% of an ExE. It’s a fine mixture of utility and damage, and it’ll likely be used on most fights and virtually all of trash.

Since you can choose where it goes, it is viable for your raid group to consider it amongst your raid healing CDs if the damage from it isn’t really required. Also, it’s just so damn pretty.

Execution Sentence (ExE)

Damages the current target over 10 seconds, increasing in potency overtime, and eventually finishing with a large spike in damage when it ends. Dispelling it will immediately activate the end damage. (1min CD)

This is for single target damage, plain and simple. If something needs to be focused down in a hurry, or you’re trying to parse in a purely single target fight, then there simply isn’t a better option. Although, while it can be cast on yourself for some extra healing, it is still dead last for survivability.

-Tier 7-

Empowered Seals (ES)

Depending on which seal you have on, it’ll give you a different 20 second buff.

Seal of Righteousness (SoR): 20% haste
Seal of Insight (SoI): heals 3% of maximum health every 2 seconds.

I absolutely despise seal twisting, and the recent buffs to this talent still doesn’t make it worth the headache. In situations where your resolve is above 200% the healing portion of this talent may seem virtually non-existent, and the haste buff is eventually outweighed by the globals lost and the potential output of the other two options. I see no situation where I’d ever take this annoying talent… yet.

Seraphim (Sera)

Gives the caster 750 haste, bonus armor, critical strike, multistrike, versatility, and mastery for 15 seconds. (30sec cd)

When I first saw this talent, I hated it simply for the fact it required 5 holy power, but after actually using it, I suddenly realized how amazing it can be. 750 of each stat (including Bonus armor) for 15 seconds straight is well worth the cost, especially considering how you can rotate between this and DP.
Having this plus HA allows for insane burst dps, and these two talents, when combined together, are simply the best for overall damage output. As for its survival factor, if you don’t have to worry SotR uptime or you’re not taking any/much magical damage, then it beats out HS – for now.

Holy Shield (HS)

Increases block chance by 15% and allows the player to block spells.

In terms of its concept, this is my favorite talent of this tier. Firstly, it doesn’t suffer from the shortcomings of the other two options (holy power and globals wasted), but it’s still slightly more situational than seraphim. Firstly, it usually isn’t worth it on fights with few, slow hitting enemies (I.E. gruul and Franz/Hanz), and if the fight doesn’t have any magic damage.

There are actually two hidden benefits to this option that most new protection paladins don’t initially realize. One is that it can block individual ticks from magical dots, allowing you to drastically mitigate the dots on thogar and flamebender, and the second is that it also blocks AoE damage from magical sources, not just single target spells.

-Major Glyphs-

The good ones.

Glyph of Divine Protection: Instead of reducing magical damage by 40%, DP will now reduce all damage by 20%
Glyph of Focused Shield: Avenger’s Shield now only hits one target, but does 30% more damage.
Glyph of the Consecrator: Consecration will now move with the paladin.
Glyph of Double Jeopardy: Judgment will do 20% more damage if cast on a different target than it was used on last.
Glyph of Final Wrath: Holy Wrath does 50% more damage if the target is below 20% health.
Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice: Hand of Sacrifice will no longer redirect damage to the caster and no longer has an absorption limit.

The other ones.

Glyph of Battle Healer: Your seal of insight (SoI) will heal a damage player instead of you for 30% of its original amount.
Glyph of Ardent Defender: Ardent Defender no longer reduces damage taken, but if its duration expires without it being consumed, then its CD is reduced by 1 minute.
Glyph of Hand of Freedom: Hand of Freedom immediately reduces the remaining duration of all effects which cause loss of control of a character by 25%. Any additional loss of control effects applied within 4 seconds have their duration reduced by 25%.
Glyph of Liberator: Hand of Freedom’s CD is reduced by 5 seconds.
Glyph of Blessed Life: 50% chance to gain 1 holy power when affected by a stun, fear, or immobilization effect. This effect cannot occur more than once every 20 seconds.
Glyph of Burden of Guilt: Judgment now slows the target by 50% for 2 seconds.
Glyph of Consecration: Consecration can now be targeted anywhere within 25yards from the caster.
Glyph of Dazing Shield: Avenger’s Shield now dazes all affected targets for 10 seconds.
Glyph of Divine Shield: Divine shield heals you for 7% of your maximum health when for each harmful effect it removed – cannot exceed 30% of your maximum health.
Glyph of Judgment: Increases judgment’s range by 10 yards.
Glyph of Holy Wrath: Holy Wrath now stuns elementals, dragonkin, and aberrations.
Glyph of Word of Glory: Increases damage output by 3% per holy power spent on any EF or WoG cast on a friendly target for 6 seconds.
Glyph of Protector of the Innocent: healing a friendly target with WoG will also heal you for 20% of that amount, including multstrikes.
Glyph of Flash of Light: Healing a friendly target with flash of light will increase your next heal against that target by 10% for 7 seconds.
Glyph of Divinity: Increases lay on hands CD by 2 minutes, but it’ll now give the caster 10% of their maximum mana. (Why do we even have this?)

-Minor Glyphs-

The good ones.

Glyph of Focused Wrath: Holy wrath will now only hit your current target.
Glyph of Righteous Retreat: Your hearth cast time is cut in half when divine shield is active.

The other ones.

Glyph of Bladed Judgment: Your judgment spell will now resemble your current weapon type, including axes and swords, instead of just a hammer.
Glyph of Contemplation: Allows you to kneel and ponder the mysteries of the universe.
Glyph of Fire from the Heavens: Judgment and Hammer of Wrath criticals call own fire from the sky.
Glyph of Luminous Charger: Your paladin class mounts glow with holy light.
Glyph of Pillar of Light: Critical heals on other players will briefly display a small pillar of light at their location.
Glyph of the Mounted King: Mounting one of your paladin class mounts automatically casts blessing of kings on you.

-Chapter 2: Rotation and CD usage-

Generating as much holy power as possible is your largest priority when it comes to your rotation (barring special circumstances). This’ll allow you to maximize your dps and survivability through SotR and generate bastion of glory (BoG) stacks as quickly as possible for stronger WoG healing.

-Single Target-

1: Holy Wrath (SW)
2: Avenger’s Shield (Grand Crusader)
3: Crusader Strike
4: Judgment (use this before grand crusader, but after crusader strike)
5: ExE, LH, or HP
6: Holy Wrath (with glyph and sub 20%)
7: Hammer of Wrath
8: Avenger’s Shield (focused shield)
9: Holy Wrath
10: Avenger’s Shield (raw)
11: Consecration

-AoE-

The rotation below is considering 5 or more targets, if you only have two-four targets, then keep using Crusader Strike instead of Hammer of the Righteous.

1: Avenger’s Shield (Grand Crusader)
2: Hammer of the Righteous
3: Judgment
4: LH or HP
5: Avenger’s Shield (raw)
6: Consecration (Can be used before Judgment if you have enough targets for HotR, but only if you’re going for damage over survivability)
7: Hammer of Wrath
8: Holy Wrath

Everything but the top three are fillers, and there are few situations where you will deviate from this pattern. Sera is one of the few things that’ll throw a small wrench into this rotation. For example, if sera has 2 seconds until its off its CD, you’re at 5 holy power, and some of your fillers are ready to go, it might be worth it to hold off on your judgment and/or crusader strike instead of using SotR for this very short period of time so that your CDs stay as lined up as possible. However, anything more than 2 seconds will probably not be worth it.

-Opener-

On fights where you’ll be using HA and sera, it is important for your dps to use your first two globals with HA to immediately generate 5 holy power, pop sera, and then use your tier 6 talent (unless its holy prism), even if you have a Grand Crusader proc from your initial crusader strike. The reason for this is that’ll line up all of your necessary CDs and have the maximum output during trinket procs. If you’re not built into sera, then simply use the first 2 globals with SotR and your tier 6 on the third global.

Your opener shoulder look like this: taunt/AS pull > HA > CS > JuD > Sera > T6 > CS JuD

-Shield of the Righteous-

Consumes 3 holy power to reduce all physical damage by 25% for 3 seconds.

SotR is the bread and butter of your survivability, and maintaining as high of an uptime on this as possible is usually your goal. However, since its duration is only three seconds long, it is at times viable to hold off on using it so that you can time it with the boss’ melee attacks or to soak a heavy hitting physical ability, but try not to wait too long or you might end up wasting possible holy power.

With higher levels of mastery, the difference between having it up and not can be as big as night and day. This is why it’s very important to track your SotR with a weakaura or addon of some sort so that you can easily manage your CDs around its duration.

Remember, unless you’d consider it to be dangerous, please, wait until you have 5 holy power before using SotR, so that you’ll always at least have 2. This’ll allow you to chain your SotR for up to 6-9 seconds, or to leave you with enough to cast a WoG within the next global or two.

-Word of Glory-

Consumes 1-3 holy power and all BoG stacks to heal the target.

WoG is your primary self-heal ability, and its strength is dependent on your mastery and BoG stacks, which are gained by using SotR. BoG can stack up to 5 times, each stack increasing the output of WoG by a base amount of 15%, and the buff itself lasts up to 20 seconds, which will be reset every time you use SotR. At lower resolve levels anything below 3 stacks will generally not be worth it, but if you just got hit by a huge ability (I.E. Kromog’s slam), then even two stacks might just take you right back to full health.

Never, EVER use WoG with less than 3 holy power, unless you’re absolutely sure you will die otherwise, and be careful when deciding between it and SotR, because that heal isn’t usually as viable as a SotR when taking consistent damage, even more so considering that the healers will be trying to beat you to the punch.

If you have a nice mouse with some extra buttons on the side for your thumb, I highly recommend moving your SotR and WoG over there since they’re off the global CD. Trying to actively use these abilities whilst maintaining your normal rotation with a single hand can be extremely difficult, especially on high movement fights.

-Seals-

Seal of Righteouness (SoR)

SoR is usually a 4.5-5% single target increase and a 7.5-9% AoE increase for damage output. I’d only recommend using this if tank damage is negligible or if you’re trying get good dps parses.

Seal of Insight (SoI)

SoI is usually a 15-18% single target increase and a 17-21% AoE increase for healing output. These numbers include healing others with LH and HP in addition to myself. This is a considerable chunk of your self-healing, but a lot of it can be wasted on over healing when your healers know what they’re doing.

-Defensive CDs-

Guardian of Ancient Kings (GoaK) or (GoK)

8 second 50% all damage reduction. (3min cd)

This is arguably your strongest defensive CD, and should be used right before periods of intense damage or an extreme lack of heals.

Ardent Defender (AD)

10 second 20% all damage reduction, and a 12% maximum health self-heal when hit with an otherwise lethal blow. (3min cd)
Your second best defensive CD unless you’re about to take a very big hit. I believe it does have an absorption limit, but usually its only mechanics that were intended to be mathematically impossible to survive that’ll kill you through it (I.E. Thok’s chomp).

Divine Protection (DP)

8 second 40% magic reduction or 20% all damage reduction. (30-60sec cd)

DP is best used either on CD (rotating between it and sera), or for specific mechanics and periods of increased damage. This isn’t one you want to sit on for too long because of its short CD, but you still have to be careful not to squander it. Also, the game usually considers this to be “Active Mitigation”, so keep that in mind when there are certain mechanics that call for it.

Lay on Hands (LoH)

Single target heal for the maximum health of the caster. (5-10min cd)

Unless you’re about to heal the other tank who just so happens to be more geared than you are or has stamina trinkets, this’ll likely always be a guaranteed full health heal, and if applied to a “mouse-over” macro, it can quite easily be used to snipe heals or save lives. Just remember, it’s for an emergency, and if you’re intending to use it on yourself, make sure you can’t use a strong WoG heal instead.

Divine Shield (DS)

Complete immunity to virtually all negative effects and damage. (2.5-5min cd)

This ability isn’t used whilst tanking too often since it’ll temporarily deactivate all of your current threat, and make it so you’re unable generate any more threat while it’s active. Also, when it’s up your damage output will be reduced by half.

DS can be used to cheese certain mechanics since it’s a complete immunity, and you can even taunt when protected by it, forcing the target to attack you for 3 seconds, thus allowing you to solo soak things like Gruul’s inferno slice or Blackhand’s shattering smash. There are exceptions to DS' immunity when boos mechanics are designed to bypass them. However, there are exceptions to this - some boss mechanics may bypass its immunity (think Ko’ragh’s orb soaking).

-Hand CDs-

Please remember that these are incredibly more practical and effective if you use mouseover macros or something else equivalently swift.
Hand of Protection (BoP)

Makes the target immune to all physical attacks and effects for 10 seconds, but the target is also unable to use any physical abilities during its duration. (5min cd)

BoP is probably the most commonly used of the hand spells, mainly because of its ability to negate all physical damage on the target and make it so healers/spell casters can keep casting during mechanics that will otherwise interrupt them (yes, interrupt immunity, yay)!

BoP will also make the target immune to certain abilities and debuffs that are technically classified as “physical”, but it still doesn’t have nearly the range of immunities as DS. Just make sure to not accidently cast it on a melee dps or the other tank, since they can’t do much while it’s active.

Hand of Sacrifice (HoS)

Redirects 30% of all the damage done to the target onto the caster for 12 seconds, and the absorbed damage cannot exceed the caster’s maximum health. (2min cd)

A good ol’ fashion external that can be glyphed to remove the damage redirection and absorption limit to increase its effectiveness. Just be careful not to use it on someone who is about to take a near full health hit when you’re already low, or it might just kill you.

Hand of freedom (HoF)

Removes all movement impairing effects on the target, and makes the target immune to said effects for the next 6 seconds. (25sec cd)
Sometimes fight mechanics involve a slowing effect of some sort that can be considerably problematic. Mechanics that function by slowly pushing your character or displacing you will probably be unaffected by HoF, and certain magical debuffs from bosses might also be immune to its effects.

Hand of Salvation (HoS)

Temporarily deactivates all threat on the target for 15 seconds (2min cd).

I haven’t had to use this ability for ages, but if you’re a paladin who is having serious threat issues after your burst has run off, then it might be worth it. Just remember that it doesn’t literally remove your threat, but converts it into a passive state so that enemies won’t attack you during that period. It’s still possible to generate threat while it’s active, so once it runs off the enemies will behave as if it was never there in the first place.

-Other Utilities-

Reckoning
A simple 3 second taunt. (8sec cd)
Rebuke
A basic melee range interrupt. (15sec cd)
Hammr/Fist of Justice
A 20yrd range 6 second stun. (30-60sec cd)
Cleanse
A single target dispel for poison and disease effects. (8sec cd)
-Buffs-
Blessing of Might
550 mastery increase for the whole party.
Blessing of Kings
5% increase to strength, agility, and intellect.

-Chapter 3: Abilities and Passives-

-Primary Abilities-

I’ll give you my unbuffed values to give you a better idea of how much each abilities does relative to one another.

Crusader Strike (CS)

An instant strike that causes (My current value: 8019) physical damage and grants 1 holy power. Shares cd with HotR (4.5sec CD).

Hammer of the Righteous (HotR)
Hammers the current target for (my current value: 2806) physical damage, causing a wave of light that hits all other targets within 8 yards for (Mu current value 1603) holy damage. Grants 1 holy power, Shares CD with CS (4.5sec CD).

Judgment (Jud)
Causes (my current value: 9,949 holy damage and generates 1 holy power. Requires an active seal to cast. It has a 30yrd range. (6sec CD
)
Avenger’s Shield (AS)
Hurls your shield at an enemy target, dealing (my current value: 13,141) holy damage, interrupting and silencing the target for 3 seconds, and then jumping to 4 additional targets. It has a 30yrd range. (15sec CD)

Holy Wrath (HW)
Sends bolts of power in all directions, causing (my current value: 15,643) holy damage divided among all enemies within 10 yards, stunning Demons and Undead for 3 seconds. (15sec CD)

Consecration (Con)
Consecrates the land beneath you, cauing (my current value: 14,688) holy damage over (same as CD) seconds to enemies who enter the area. (9sec CD)

Hammer of Wrath (HoW)
Hurls a magical hammer that strikes an enemy for (my current value: 18,771) holy damage. Only usable on enemies that have 20% or less health. (6sec CD)

Righteous Fury (RF)
Increases your threat generation by 900% while active.

It can be clicked off via your buff’s bar or a cancel aura macro.

-Passives-

Grand Crusader (GC)
When you avoid a melee attack, or use CS/HotR, you have a 30% chance of refreshing the CD on your next AS and causing it to generate 1 holy power.

Sacred Duty (SD)
You gain 30% more of the haste stat from all sources.

Shining Protector (SP)
All heals you receive, including multistrikes, have two chances equal to your multistrike chance to trigger Shining Protector, healing you for an additional 30% of the triggering heal.

Resolve (Res)
Increases your healing and absorption done to yourself, based on damage taken (before avoidance and mitigation) in the last 10 seconds. It is percentage based, and caps out at 280%.

Empowered Avenger’s Shield (EAS)
Avenger’s shield hits two additional targets.

Improved Consecration (IC)
Increases damage done by consecration by 50%.

Improved Forbearance (IF)
Reduces the duration of forbearance by 30 seconds.

Improved Block (IB)
Increases block value from 30% to 40%

Heart of the Crusader (HotC)
Increases mounted movement speed by 20%. However, it doesn’t stack with any other speed increasing effects.


-Chapter 4: Stat priority, Upgrades, and Consumables-

-Stat Weights-

ES BA: 1.0>Haste: 0.6>Mast: 59>Vers: 0.45>Multi: 0.41>Crit: 0.4
Sera BA: 1.0>Haste: 0.6>Vers: 0.46>Crit: 0.45>Multi: 0.44>Mast: 0.43
Hs BA: 1.0>Haste: 0.6>Mast: 0.59>Vers: 0.45>Mutli: 0.44>Crit: 0.4
All BA: 1.0>Str: 0.75>Haste: 0.6>Armor: 0.6>Stam: 0.5

-Stat Explanations-

Bonus Armor: A straight increase to armor and attack power – the best of both worlds.

Haste: This stat reduces the CD of CS, Jud, HotR, AS, HW, and Con, and also reduces the GCD for all of your abilities, eventually capping out at 50% haste for a 1 second GCD, thus improving your holy power generation. Other benefits include speeding up the refresh rate of your SS and EF, and increasing your auto-attack rate, thus improving SoI healing by a small amount.

Mastery: This stat increase SotR mitigation value, attack power, WoG healing, and block chance. This is generally your most useful stat outside of haste, with the exception of a seraphim build, because much of your holy power will not be used on SotR.

Versatility: A percentage increase to damage output, healing output, and damage reduction for half of the prior two values. This stat gets better with more gear and higher ilvls because of how it works, but it’s always a good thing to have.

Multistrike: Increases the chance for all of abilities to multistrike for 30% of its original value, and also increases healing received through the Shining Protector passive.

Critical Strike: Increases damage and healing output via a chance to double their values, but also gives avoidance through Riposte, allowing you to parry more often.

Best in Slot (needs confirmation) (6.2)

Tier Helm: Kormrok – Crit/Haste
Tier Chest: Mannoroth – Mast/Multi
Non-Tier shoulder: Xhul’Horac – Crit/Mast (Doomcrier’s Shoulderplates)
Tier Hands: Socrethar the Eternal - Haste/Crit
Tier Legs: Fel Lord Zakuun – Mast/Multi
Wrist: Xhul’Horac – Haste/Mast (Breach-Scarred Wristplates)
Waist: Mannoroth – Crit/Mast (Annihilan’s Waistplate)
Feet: Archimonde – Haste/Muli (Treads of the Deviler)
Neck: Archimonde – Multi/BA (World Ender’s Gorget)
Ring: Mannoroth – Mast/BA (Mannoroth’s Calcified Eye)
Cloak: Xhul’horac – Mast/BA (Void Lord’s Wizened Cloak)
Trinket #1: Kil’rogg Deadeye – Haste/dmg reduction (Warlord’s Unseeing Eye)
Trinket #2: Shadow Lord Iskar – BA/Mast proc (Anzu’s Cursed Plume)
Weapon: Xhul’Horac – Multi/Crit (Fiendsbreath Warmace)
Shield: Tyrant Velhari – Multi/Mast (Fallen Defender’s Argus)

I didn’t add the Archimonde trinket because of how it uniquely functions. It’ll likely be a good progression trinket, but I just hate procs that only work below a certain percentage of health.

-Enchants, Gems, and Consumables-

For gems, always use greater haste taladite or the next best option according to the stat weights above. As for enchants, I’d use gift of haste on everything and Mark of Warsong for your weapon, unless you fear reaching past the hard haste cap of 50%.

For consumables, try to always use Buttered Sturgeon for the 125 haste buff, it’s usually better to use the strength flask over the stamina one, and bonus armor potions are the best regardless of what your goals might be.

-Chapter 5: Macros, Addons, and Weakuras-

-Macros-

Rotation button replacements

#showtooltip
/cast Avenger's Shield
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear
#showtooltip
/cast Consecration
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear
#showtooltip
/cast Crusader Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear
#showtooltip
/cast Holy Wrath
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear
#showtooltip
/cast Hammer of the Righteous
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear
#showtooltip
/cast Judgment
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear

Mouseovers

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover] Hand of Protection
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover] Hand of Sacrifice
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover] Hand of Salvation
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover] Lay on Hands
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear

Cancelaura

/cancelaura Divine Shield
/cancelaura Hand of Protection
/cancelaura Righteous Fury



-Addons-

Angry Assignments
Good for assigning tasks or using as a personal clipboard.

Big Wigs
Raid timers and alerts – it’s a common and reliable boss mod.

Pawn
A programmable tracker of stat weights and equipment value.

Weakuras
Extremely customizable tracker for just about anything.

Skada
Numbers meter for damage, healer, est.

Quartz
Cast bar addon.

Elvui
Heavy interface addon.

-Weakauras-

Primary: SotR uptime, BoG stacks, Sera, T6, and Proc Trinket
http://pastebin.com/2eGUpru2

CDs: GoaK, Ardent, DP, and on use trinket
http://pastebin.com/NHew2Jex

Holy Power
http://pastebin.com/EDEx1LSM

Externals
http://pastebin.com/rfp5Fi6w

BoG Stacks (Extra)
http://pastebin.com/3BJAL4ZN

Other: Priest absorbs, Resolve, Forbearance, Dip Procs, and GC Procs
http://pastebin.com/K4LzCHnW

Thanks for reading.

[Kortiah]

The good ones
Glyph of Battle Healer: Your seal of insight (SoI) will heal a damage player instead of you for 30% of its original amount.

Hah.

Other than that, whatever. Your stats explaination is just...well explaining. No weight value or even priority order if someone were to read that thread wondering what would be the best. It's mostly reading paladin skills for not much else than making the guide longer. You don't even explain mechanics behind everything, which is what a guide is supposed to do (thinking of the Sera - DP - Sera rotation, which is where 99% of paladins fail, for example).

There are parts where I don't fully agree (Fist of Justice, Long Arm, ...) but to be honest I don't even see the post in discussing it here.

We didn't really need a guide like that since we have one in sticky, alhouth you added your 6.2 BiS List which is nice, I guess. But if you want to add something that you felt was lacking in the stickied post, you should probably talk about it there.


Edit: Your opener is also wrong, since there's no place in hell an opener where you use your T6 talent before a HoPo generator is better. Its explaination "because lulz damage output" is even worse. IF YOU POP SERA and THEN you have no HoPo, sure. But say you're not Blood Elf, you pull with Judgement, CS, wait, pop HA, CS, Sera. If you don't have 660 ilvl, your judgement will be up less than 0.5sec after the GCD from your CS. And waiting for it to get a SotR up ASAP is infinitely better than using that 0.5sec to pop your ExS/Hammer and then have your judgement sit off-cooldown for a second.

Opener should be:

Not blood elf :
(Speed of Light), Pre-pot, Judgement+Taunt, CS, [Filler], {if(GC proc): HA+GC, Sera}, HA+CS, Sera, Judgement, SotR, T6 talent, rest of rotation

Blood Elf:
(Speed of Light), Arcane Torrent, Pre-pot, Judgement+Taunt, HA+CS, Sera, T6, rest of rotation

What you said applies to Blood Elf, but you didn't say it anywhere. These are the kind of things a guide is supposed to talk about. If it's just doing a guide to say "I'm top 1250 Warcraft logs lulz trust me" and you're not going in-depth anywhere, just don't do one, no offense.

[Jackielope]

The haste numbers are off due to haste being multiplicative between buff effects and the like. The haste cap when using Holy Shield for example is 1.5/1.05, which is 1.4285 or 42.85%. Multiply that by 90 to get 3858 character sheet haste, which gets divided by 1.3 due to Sacred Duty's boost to end up with 2968 raw haste needed to get to the 50% haste cap using Holy Shield.

HS cap is 42.85% haste which is 3858 character sheet haste or 2968 raw haste rating from gear.


Empowered Seals is 20% haste, so 1.5/1.2=1.25, and then go 1.25/1.05 for 1.19047, or 19.047% haste on the character sheet after Sacred Duty has been factored in. This is equal to 1715 character sheet haste, which is 1319 raw haste rating on gear.

ES cap is 19.047% haste which is 1715 character sheet haste or 1319 raw haste rating from gear.


Seraphim is a straight haste rating buff, so we take 750*1.3 to get 975 which is 10.833% haste. We already calculated the character sheet haste rating needed when we have the 5% raid buff (which is 3858 rating or 42.85% from the Holy Shield math) so it's 3858-975= 2883 character sheet haste rating equal to 32.033%. 2883/1.3=2218 raw gear haste rating needed, which is also exactly 750 less than the 2968 raw haste needed to cap with Holy Shield.

Sera cap is 32.033% haste which is 2883 character sheet haste or 2218 raw haste rating from gear.


More of this math can be found at http://www.sacredduty.net/2015/02/23...-i-protection/ and http://www.sacredduty.net/2015/01/13...s-gonna-haste/, though in the second one Theck's numbers for Seraphim are off because it got nerfed from 1000 haste to 750 haste. I've provided the correct number for Sera, which lines up well with your number given.


That haste math aside, there are other issues. For example, it's been shown through SimulationCraft modeling that having CS and J as priority above a GC proc will result in higher Holy Power (and damage) over time. The rotation is CS-J-X-CS-X-J-CS-X-X where X is a filler that's AS, HW, etc. The direct math to show this is too tedious for even me to bother with unless I got paid for it or was otherwise highly incentivized, and the same is quite likely for the vast majority of people.

As alluded to above by Kortiah, Glyph of the Battle Healer is a laughably bad glyph for us. In addition it's also shit for the raid because the transferred 30% of normal heal is so small that it won't do anything for other players except make your healer hate you because you're doing less healing on yourself.

It should be noted that the number of things we can cheese with Divine Shield or Hand of Protection is not as much as we'd all hope. Immunity doesn't always mean immunity anymore since Blizzard decided working around our utility made some interesting encounter designs potentially trivial, thus some abilities DS or HoP ought to protect against instead go right through for full damage. I'm not aware of a full list that's been compiled for each boss encounter, but some mentions can be found in the Prot discussion thread.


Admittedly the sticky's guide is outdated, but it still does a better job of explaining things and providing information than this guide does.

[Nimillion]

Okay, lets address some of the issues.

Firstly, the glyph. Okay, that was an oversight, and I'll be sure to move that one down with the other ones.

Secondly, I thought the stat priority was pretty clear, as seen from the decreasing values going from left to right. Also, I mention the Sera > DP > Sera rotation in the guide. Admittedly, the information is a bit segmented, but I'm confused as to what exactly I actually left out.

Thirdly, I must have worded it oddly, because there seems to be some confusion with the opener I suggested.

I like to pull with AS > HA > CS > JuD > Sera > T6 > CS > JuD - This allows you to get 5 holy power within the first two globals upon reaching the boss, and then maintain a normal rotation afterwards. The only time you'd be prioritizing the T6 over an HP generating ability is if GC procs, and if you use that instead, you'll end up having CS and JuD off cooldown, thus further delaying the T6 usage. The only thing you lose out on is a single holy power. I've had much better results with this than the one you mentioned.

Moving onto Jackielope...

Firstly, thanks for the correction for the math regarding haste, I'll be sure to make necessary adjustments.

Secondly, I'll be sure double check simcrafts on the rotation priority, thanks for the info.

Thirdly, I'm well aware that some boss mechanics go right through immunity of the DS and BoP. It was an oversight, and one I'll address.

[Deleted]

shit guide is shit

[beelgers]

shit guide is shit

Haven't been into the paladin forums since MoP. Good to see the toxic nature I've been avoiding hasn't changed.

Certainly some issues with the OP, but its a good effort that can probably be fixed I think without wholesale changes. I didn't read through the whole thing, but I would suggest a little more formatting/organization. Font sizes, bold, underlines... that type of thing to organize it and make the sections stand out.

[Deleted]

Haven't been into the paladin forums since MoP. Good to see the toxic nature I've been avoiding hasn't changed.

Certainly some issues with the OP, but its a good effort that can probably be fixed I think without wholesale changes. I didn't read through the whole thing, but I would suggest a little more formatting/organization. Font sizes, bold, underlines... that type of thing to organize it and make the sections stand out.

good to know.

[Squinty]

I would suggest a little more formatting/organization. Font sizes, bold, underlines... that type of thing to organize it and make the sections stand out.

This very much so, right now its a wall of text even if it was 100% good information the way it was delivered is bad and ppl just cant be fu**ed reading it.

[Deleted]

I'm perfectly happy for somebody else to write the guide so I can devote myself exclusively to sim work, but IMHO you're going to have to put a hell of a lot more effort in if you want this to be the stickied guide. With no consideration given to the actual content, like others have pointed out, you've half-assed the formatting and the guide is functionally illegible as a result thereof.

@Jackielope - With regards to prioritizing CS and J over GC, your statement is based on outdated information from before the change to GC that took place in Highmaul. What sims I've done indicate that prioritizing GC over CS (but not over J) has no statistically significant effect on TMI, but increases DPS marginally and has a significantly lower rate of proc overflow - i.e, it's best practice. With regards to the opener I'd always lead with my lvl 90 talent while out of range, AS thereafter if for some reason pulling from particularly far away, then CS-J-HA+CS-Sera. Opening with HA+CS-J is an unnecessary waste of Holy Power.

Furthermore, as others have said, what other than a BiS list does this contain that's 6.2-relevant? Are you making this guide to be informative, or are you making it for the sake of having a guide with your name on it? I appreciate that I'm taking rather a long time with my own 6.2 guide (partly in anticipation of any changes on the PTR, partly because overhauling the SimC module and getting the sim work I want done to accompany the guide is an utter and unrepentant bitch of a job), and I'm perfectly happy for someone, anyone, to put out a guide to fill the void, so to speak, but if it's essentially just going to be a repeat of what's already in the 6.1 sticky and a BiS list (several of which have already been discussed in the Prot discussion thread), what's the point?