Protection paladin FAQ

[Deleted]

Personally I think our talent tree is still bloated since we have so many 5/5 talents. I wish a few of those would be dropped to 3/3.

I have to agree to this. Too many of our must-have talents are 5/5. If they were dropped to 3/3 we could spec a bit more into holy or ret and have the few useful talents there.

I loved to have pursuit of justice on my protadin in TBC. It helps in any situation where the boss/mob throws you around, it is useful in PvP and all that. Now I just don't have enough talents to get there.... :/

[Dreamkeeper]

gaygirlie - how are you thinking about specing at 80 ? I'm still not for sure what im doing but pretty close to what has been posted

[Geary]

I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread - I've only read the first couple pages - but prot paladins who are serious about their role really should visit

maintankadin.failsafedesign.com

for more detailed information and discussions about all things tankadin.

[Deleted]

gaygirlie - how are you thinking about specing at 80 ? I'm still not for sure what im doing but pretty close to what has been posted

As tempting as reckoning is (it is useful whenever you want to solo dailies or such) I guess I have to skip it and look at something like: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...10251533312321

Heart of the crusader doesn't really benefit me that much, but since it gives 3% crit chance to everyone in my group/raid it just is something I feel I definitely should take. I will shuffle points around later on if I have any threat issues or if HoJ doesn't seem that useful or anything. I'll just have to first see for myself before I can make informed opinions.

For PvP I am considering something along the lines of http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...10251533312301

Might move seals of the pure to conviction though. I just like seal of corruption so much, I've gotten several kills from allies who have tried to run away and gotten eaten to death by the dot :P Will have to just try and see which one produces better results.

And yes, I am actually going to try PvP with prot paladin. We do dish out quite good amounts of damage at 80 if we just have good main hand weapon, shield and lots of BV

[Dreamkeeper]

Your first spec is almost what i was thinking debating that or going for BOK ..it all depends if my husband ( healer pally) keeps his kings if so then pretty much my spec is what you just posted , I dont care for PVP so no spec there to commet on

[Deleted]

Your first spec is almost what i was thinking debating that or going for BOK ..it all depends if my husband ( healer pally) keeps his kings if so then pretty much my spec is what you just posted , I dont care for PVP so no spec there to commet on

If you want BoK then you could try dropping 4 points from seals of the pure and move them to BoK and then follow how your threat goes. If it drops significantly and you start having troubles then move the points back and drop heart of the crusader instead.

But if you don't have troubles with threat then heart of the crusader benefits the whole raid more than seals of the pure

[Sokyl]

I wasn't talking about it doubling anything other then white dps. But No more agruing on reckoning.. I like it, you don't, not gonna change your mind.. we both gave our reasons.

My spec at 80 will be http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...14251533312301

Now the reasons behind it... like I said, I can't justify taking kings, and with the lackluster bottom half of our tree, i try to move my way up quickly. Str, Aticip, rfury, and toughness all necessary, now moving onto divine guardian over 2 into the other two. I MT roughly as much as I OT so I find while OT' ing its nice to have a move that benefits the raid in such a big way, Distance of course being a factor, in raid i can absorb 30% of 24 peoples damage for 12 seconds. Like having Hand of Sacrifice on 24 people at once with a bubble, it is 'EXTREMELY' noticeable when used in raids. Other than that I dont like to take devo aura as its Healing effect shares with another class with the exact same effect (think its druid we have a few of em, eg. Grace (disc priest) and BoSanc.) Now at this point I take everything almost to the bottom, this is what I mean about a lackluster top... everything is necessary at the bottom almost... Judgements of the Just, I don't take it.. doesn't stack with other similar effects.

Now into the ret tree for parry and imp Judge, I follow this up with lowered mana cost on instants because I am fairly sure we have the same problem with Heart of the crusader, not stacking (let the ret pally put it up) . Now I go straight into conviction for 5% extra crit, and the last two altho I love pursuit of justice, I put into crusade for 2% extra damage (only prob is im not sure yet if it stacks with one-handed wep spec..) which is also 2% extra damage against humanoids, demons, undead and elementals which im sure ill be seeing plenty of (4% inc damage <3)

[Deleted]

Judgements of the Just, I don't take it.. doesn't stack with other similar effects.

But are you sure you will always have a warrior with you who will also be using thunderclap? Or if it's f.ex. a multi-boss situation and you're tanking one boss, are you sure you will have a warrior with you? -20% melee haste is quite a lot less damage taken.

Especially if you do any 10-mans or 5-mans you can't count on always having warriors with you.

[Sokyl]

But are you sure you will always have a warrior with you who will also be using thunderclap? Or if it's f.ex. a multi-boss situation and you're tanking one boss, are you sure you will have a warrior with you? -20% melee haste is quite a lot less damage taken.

Especially if you do any 10-mans or 5-mans you can't count on always having warriors with you.

True, but I don't wanna waste 4% incr. damage in the Ret tree to take it, and its not just warriors that have a slowing effect. I intend to be doin more 10 mans and 25 mans in WotLK, so my spec is towards that, even if it screws me over for 5 mans, heh. It's just another thing I feel better leaving for two extra points.

[Draco cracona]

Only problem I see with that spec Sokyl is that you've got 2/2 imp. judgement - Only take 1/2, for a standard 9/6/9 rotation you need 1/2 imp. judgement and to take consec as a 9s CD, at which point you have a near-seamless rotation of 9s CD abilities with 6s CD ones in between. 3/5 benediction->HotC might well be better too, although that does depend on if you know any ele shammies, and even with the 6% less spelldam taken on Guarded by the light imo it's still very lackluster, might be worth dropping that for JotJ. 2/2 imp. judgement is a complete waste though tbh.

[Sokyl]

Not sure if i'm to much of a fan of the cons glyph, atleast not now , but yeah definately something to think on.. The one thing I will never take is J O T Just, It just makes me feel like I'm missing an ability, when others in the 25 mans, 10 mans will prolly have a similar effect, that wont stack with mine. Guarded by the light is lackluster with us having no mana problems, but still.. you cant argue that the 6% less incoming damage from spells isn't nice. Can't wait for Wrath lol... work thurs tho X|..

[Vzelik]

Please forgive me. I recently leveled up a protadin (month and a half old now) which is going to be my second character that I level up to 80. I've been tanking for awhile, but I haven't ever heard of this 9/6/9 rotation. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but is it Consc, Judgement, Hammer?

Thanks in advance.

[Draco cracona]

96969 is a new thing, it's for example HS(9s), hammer(6s), consec(9s), sotr(6s), judge(9s), with the sotr slots being filled with AS/seal twisting pre-75. When you get sotr it becomes a near seamless rotation of GCDs though. You end up with a full rotation like HS/HotR/Consec/SotR/Judge/HotR/HS/SotR/Consec/HotR/Judge/SotR, with every ability used as soon as it comes off CD, and no gaps, although you'll have to interrupt the rotation every 2 min to reseal. Note that this requires 1/2 imp. judgement and no consec glyph, as well as not having consec up for 1/9th of the time, and means that haste doesn't affect our rotation although the GCD is lowered, so you should still leave the haste to the warrs for HS spammage.

[Vzelik]

96969 is a new thing, it's for example HS(9s), hammer(6s), consec(9s), sotr(6s), judge(9s), with the sotr slots being filled with AS/seal twisting pre-75. When you get sotr it becomes a near seamless rotation of GCDs though. You end up with a full rotation like HS/HotR/Consec/SotR/Judge/HotR/HS/SotR/Consec/HotR/Judge/SotR, with every ability used as soon as it comes off CD, and no gaps, although you'll have to interrupt the rotation every 2 min to reseal. Note that this requires 1/2 imp. judgement and no consec glyph, as well as not having consec up for 1/9th of the time, and means that haste doesn't affect our rotation although the GCD is lowered, so you should still leave the haste to the warrs for HS spammage.

Thanks for the info, cheers!

[custos]

If you have to many things to press and to little space on for it were you preffer to have your hand on the keyboard, there is a few macros that makes it wery easy to to keep tanking rotation going and at the same time save space.

/castsequence reset=3 Shield of Righteousness, Hammer of the Righteous, Hammer of Wrath

/castsequence reset=3 Holy Shield, Consecration

/castsequence reset=3 Judgment of the Light, Avenging Shield

you can make many more then those, and free up valuble space on your keyboard, while making it a lot easyer to keep good tanking rotations going. the "reset=3" is that the macro will reset after 3 seconds, and can be changed after how you preffer it, its just the way i found most usfull. you can also reset the time it will be reset by pressing it again, while GCD isnt ready to avoid it to reset when you dont want to.

If you want one that will make it posible to spam one button only, you can add a full round of what rotation you preffer, an d just smash that one while you worry about other things.

Side note: many say they preffer to use judgment of wisdom, but honestly guys, if you are getting many problems you are getting overgeared, and just need to pull more mobs. Some times bosses can be anying yes, but on trash groups and chainpulling, the healing aggro that you get from judgment of the light is far superior then the treat you can make from the extra mana, this being 2 reasons: 1 you shouldnt have manaissues, you should pull more, and 2, the constant small heals will make sure you get the initial aggro of mobs most the times, not the healer whos keeping you alive.

Forgive spelling mistakes, not able to logg wow atm to check if if this is how i wrote the macros, but its more or less it.

[custos]

Noticed that there is a disagrement on the specs, so gone trow what im going for in here as well:

Reason for taking BoK: as a pala who play prot as well as holy, i find it a lot easyer to spec into as prot, since i dont like recogning at all, and i dont see that many usfull talents beside it when you got all your points at 80.

Reason for taking divine guardian: This is a brilliant talent, that was amasing during KJ fight right before Wotlk came, and will be wery nice for soft enrages on any kind of boss to help avoid dmg of other tanks if im not MTing.

Reason for taking Imp. Devotion aura: 6% more healing for evryone, whitout the need of a priest building up grace or whats it called, and a nice boost in armor.

Reason for not taking reckoning: I hate it, i think its usless due to white dmg not being wery treat benifitial, and when tanking with SoV i get the procs up in 3-4 sec anyhow. The only time reckoning can be usfull is for soloing, but im not wery interrested in that part of the game as prot anyhow. Last but not least, reckoning increase the chance of a a boss doing a duble parry and being realy unlucky if you dont dodge/parry any of it might lead to a wery uncontrollable burst from the boss. I find it usless to stack expertise to avoid this problem as i find other stats a lot more usfull, like dodge, str, stam and def.

Reason for taking Judgment of the Just: 20% slower attackspeed on from the boss is always a nice thing, and to be deppending on a 2nd tank/dps warr/whatever to do that debuff for you is IMO a bad way to optimise groups. And there will ofc be times when you cant get that help ehiter, say fights that needs mutlple tanks.

Reason to take 1/2 Imp. Judgment: 9 sec = 6 cd´s 8 sec = 5.whatever and makes it 6 cd´s, and 10 sec makes it 7.

Might consider removing 1 talent to get 2/2 pusuit of justice, and if the situation calls for it when there as trash mobs like in MH that stuns a lot, making me a easy target to smack down when tanking 5+++ mobs, i might go for Stoicsme.

Last, i noticed some people took 5/5 in seals of the pure, and i have considered doing the same, only to trow the idea away since aggro isnt a issue for me.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...h=000000000000

If for some reason i know 100% that another pala in the raid/group will have kings, im not gone go for it, and go for maxing PoJ, Imp HoJ, and then use the last talent on anything i find amusing. (I respec 10 times a week, so unless blizz gives us dual spec any time soon i spec for the next raid i do, not in general whats the most prefferd spec)

[Draco cracona]

Right, to reply - Reckoning or boK is your choice, very much personal opinion tbh.
DG - if you're not MTing then what are you doing in most fights? It's a very situational talent, good for quite a few pre-wrath fights like BB, Kael, Illi etc, but I'm not convinced of it overall tbh.
Imp. devo is tree of life from a druid that it doesn't stack with, grace is with BoSanct, but you'll generally have one tree in a 25 man raid, so it's a 5-10 man talent tbh.
Expertise is good for threat, but reckoning's power, as discussed earlier, is throwing up full stacks of SoV on large AoE packs - not sure about how powerful it is, but it's that or BoK, and it is controllable via /removeaura macros etc.
Imp. judgement - 1/2 is for a standard rotation, although there is a 868 rotation that Chronalis has been using based on 2/2 imp. judgement which is high bursts of threat for taunts etc., and if you're going for crit then you might as well drop the one filler there.
I prefer conviction to guarded though tbh.

[custos]

DG is imo one of the best talents u can get from 2 points, considering how often there is soft enrages on bosses, or on bosses that have adds, the last one left alive will do some stuff to do more raid dmg. In BC id say it would be wery helpfull to have this on the following bosses:

ZA: bear boss, eagle boss, lynxboss and hexlord.
SSC: fathomlord, leo and vash
TK: solarian and Kael
MH: practicaly all since you need more tanks for the trash then the boss ( apart from archi )
BT: supremus, treon, BB, RoS, Mother and Illidan
SWP: Kalecgos, Brut, Twins, Muru and KJ

This is all bosses that you will need more tanks at some points in the fight, but you will have free time to bubble as OT. Most raids preffer warriors as MTs because they was in BC better suted for it then palas, unlike in WotLK, but only one tank can be MT, and 1-3 other will be OT, and thus making it most likly that this ability will be helpfull.

From this list id take it for granted it will be a lot of simular situations that will be hard for the raid, classic tankkiller times(illidan 30% as exsample)and heavy aoe situations, (KJ p5, muru p2, hexlord during spritvolly), and will make a raidwide 30% a huge benifit.

Imp. Dev aura dosnt only give the added 6% healing, but also 600 more aromor, wich is always helpfull. I dont see any more benifitial spells to place talent points in early in the prot tree anyhow.

On the Expertise note, i never said it was usless, but i said i find it usless to stack, being there is more benifitial stats that you can get for the same cost, at greater benefit.

As for 1/2 Imp. Judgment, yes if you are going for crit its a okey filler, but i cant say i find crit wery usfull, since we already do more treat then the dps when played propperly, and i preffer steady treat over random high treat.

Btw, when i spec i spec to take the least posible dmg to reduce healers stress, but if i find a fight were healing isnt an issue, but treat is, then ofc there will be some more focus on treat talents. But as it is now with 71 talent points, i find this the most usfull spec there is when it comes to avoidance and raid utility.

[krick]

Your neck sucks. Honestly. Necklace of the Deep?

Actually, with the new WotLK +24 stamina gems available, Necklace of the Deep is pretty damn nice for a crafted necklace you can start wearing at level 65...

+21 Agility
+68 Stamina (gemmed)

It's actually one of the better neck options until level 74 when you can get this quest reward...

Betrayer's Choker
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39655

[SDlight]

Excelent topic! Cheers