Prot pally at 540 def now what

[mtdew5309]

Ok so I am getting gear for my 80 ret pally to be a tank. I have gotten the 540 def to be uncritable and I am at 22k health. I plan on swaping out my def gems for stam/str as i get better def armor gear.

With 22k health and 540 def is that good enough for Heroics or what do I need to work on. I still plan on going as ret to any 10 man till I get better prot gear.

[Bigron]

+ hit rating

[mtdew5309]

What plus hit rating should I be shooting for.

[Yqcooli]

expertise.

[Draco cracona]

You don't need hit, threat is trivial, with talents/SoV glyph you're practically soft-capped on expertise too, so just stam, then avoidance (inc. block) imo.

[Verthas]

+ hit rating

Hit rating
Expertise
Stamina
Avoidance
Strenght
Etc

[b37x]

Post Defense Cap (ordered by priority):

Stamina
Avoidance
Strength
Block Rating
Hit rating
Expertise

[Deleted]

Post Defense Cap (ordered by priority):

Stamina
Avoidance
Strength
Block Rating
Hit rating
Expertise

This is what I agree on. You get so much expertise from talents and the glyph that more expertise won't really matter much, you shouldn't have any issues with threat so hit rating doesn't play that big part either..Strength has several benefits as does stamina..and avoidance stats (dodge, parry) help you avoid incoming damage.

I personally love to stack a lot on strength, but that's just my playing style, I too will switch to sta + avoidance as soon as I feel I have enough gear for heroics.

Oh, and one tip: use both rank 1 and rank 2 of ShotR, that increases your threat output quite a bit. I use just a simple macro as follows, modify to suit your own char and style:

#showtooltip Shield Of Righteousness(Rank 2)
/castsequence reset=10 Shield Of Righteousness(Rank 2),Shield Of Righteousness(Rank 1)

[b37x]

Here's the thing about Hit... yes misses suck, but it's only a problem in the opening seconds of a fight. Let's be realistic. With a 5-stack of Vengeance/Corruption and Consecration how far behind is one missed Judgment going to put you? You'll be able to last till the next Judgment without your dps pulling.

Worst case is missing the opening Avenger's Shield (like what happened to you, Chronalis), but you can always tell your dps to hold off a couple seconds so you can build some threat. And unless dps is trigger happy your miss will only cost time.

All I'm advocating is that you take hit when you find it combined with other tanking stats, like on Deflection Band. But I think Lavanthor's Talisman is a better choice for a Prot paladin than Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood.

[DaveTheHunter]

I take a different approach than Chronalis does and it works for me. I've always been a fan of high avoidance so i tend to gear that way, sometimes at the expense of stam. My goal is to reach just enough health to be able to survive a given boss fight and after that it's avoidance, avoidance, avoidance.

When i first tanked Naxx25 at 80 I was at 539 defense and didn't have much over 20k health unbuffed, so don't let anyone tell you it's impossible, you just need a good team backing you up. I've now cleared every encounter in the game so far (with the exception of Sartharion with all 3 drakes up) as MT. My guild let me start MT duties at 80 because I had been with them all the way through Sunwell so they gave me a shot. Since then I've been praised by dps for my insane threat and by healers for how easy it is to heal me (and this is compared to 2 ferals and a warrior tank we also have in guild). The simple fact of the matter is, healers appreciate you taking less damage no matter how large your health pool is.

Currently my unbuffed stats are as follows:

Health: 26344
Miss: 10.68% (This won't be on your character sheet. I would recommend the Tankadin mod.)
Dodge: 22.07%
Parry: 18.16%
Block: 18.43%
BV: 1183
Hit: 160
Expertise: 13

I tend to socket mostly for Defense and use every Defense enchant available in the game. This will not only raise all your avoidance stats across the board instead of just just one (which is a huge concern with diminishing returns on avoidance now), but the more defense you have the larger the miss % is as well. I honestly wouldn't focus too much on hit or expertise, but as Chronalis said, don't automatically pass up a piece of gear with lesser stats elsewhere but with hit, it's always good to maintain a balance and to also develop multiple sets of gear for different purposes.

Feel free to check out my amory here.

[Aeorred]

I'm also going for mainly defense then +stam. Since dodge and parry are on diminishing returns (more rating = more rating needed to get the same amount), defense is actually the best avoidance rating you can get. It's quite a bit better than parry and about equal to dodge until you've passed something a certain point, but better if you like blocking. 41 defense rating = 1% full avoidance (.33% miss, .33% dodge, .33% dodge AND .33% block but that's not counted in full avoidance). 39-40 dodge rating is required for 1% and 49-50 parry rating is required for 1%.

So defense is *the* best avoidance stat you can get, no matter what really. All your enchants should be +def unless you're really lacking health. Not +health enchants though. The +275 health to chest blows. Socket for defense then stam and your healers will love you, as lumenos said.

Still finishing up finals then off to Naxx to get geared!

[yiptastic]

This is what I agree on. You get so much expertise from talents and the glyph that more expertise won't really matter much, you shouldn't have any issues with threat so hit rating doesn't play that big part either..Strength has several benefits as does stamina..and avoidance stats (dodge, parry) help you avoid incoming damage.

I personally love to stack a lot on strength, but that's just my playing style, I too will switch to sta + avoidance as soon as I feel I have enough gear for heroics.

Oh, and one tip: use both rank 1 and rank 2 of ShotR, that increases your threat output quite a bit. I use just a simple macro as follows, modify to suit your own char and style:

#showtooltip Shield Of Righteousness(Rank 2)
/castsequence reset=10 Shield Of Righteousness(Rank 2),Shield Of Righteousness(Rank 1)

I place block at the bottom of my shopping list.

actually, here's how I gear

assume uncrittable:
stam
avoidance (including defense)
block
expertise
hit

I wanna be a dodge/parry tank, and it's possible to hit 102.4% with dodge/parry/defense gear.

pass Naxx, I'm gonna switch to:
stam
avoidance
expertise
hit

I'll drop block rating from the list.

[yiptastic]

I take a different approach than Chronalis does and it works for me. I've always been a fan of high avoidance so i tend to gear that way, sometimes at the expense of stam. My goal is to reach just enough health to be able to survive a given boss fight and after that it's avoidance, avoidance, avoidance.

When i first tanked Naxx25 at 80 I was at 539 defense and didn't have much over 20k health unbuffed, so don't let anyone tell you it's impossible, you just need a good team backing you up. I've now cleared every encounter in the game so far (with the exception of Sartharion with all 3 drakes up) as MT. My guild let me start MT duties at 80 because I had been with them all the way through Sunwell so they gave me a shot. Since then I've been praised by dps for my insane threat and by healers for how easy it is to heal me (and this is compared to 2 ferals and a warrior tank we also have in guild). The simple fact of the matter is, healers appreciate you taking less damage no matter how large your health pool is.

Currently my unbuffed stats are as follows:

Health: 26344
Miss: 10.68% (This won't be on your character sheet. I would recommend the Tankadin mod.)
Dodge: 22.07%
Parry: 18.16%
Block: 18.43%
BV: 1183
Hit: 160
Expertise: 13

I tend to socket mostly for Defense and use every Defense enchant available in the game. This will not only raise all your avoidance stats across the board instead of just just one (which is a huge concern with diminishing returns on avoidance now), but the more defense you have the larger the miss % is as well. I honestly wouldn't focus too much on hit or expertise, but as Chronalis said, don't automatically pass up a piece of gear with lesser stats elsewhere but with hit, it's always good to maintain a balance and to also develop multiple sets of gear for different purposes.

Feel free to check out my amory here.

heh, I'm actually quite similar to your gearing style. I gear for dodge/parry all the way.

the DR on avoidance sucks, but defense is actually the best and cheapest defense stats out there. But I do the math first.

I'm looking for:
+151 defense
290 dodge rating
506 parry rating

(got these numbers from full Naxx-25 tank gear stats)

[yiptastic]

here's my gear wish list:

dragonstorm BP
Pauldrons of Unnatural death
Legplates of Sovereignty
Bracers of the Unholy Knight
helm of Vital Protection
Kyzoc's Ground Stomper
Callous-Hearted Gauntlet
Ablative Chitin Girdle

Sand-Worn Band
Deflection Band
Nexus War Champion Beads
Platinum Mesh Cloak

Last Laugh
Hero's Surrender

Essence of Gossamer
Repelling Charge
Libram of Obstruction

[Vasir]

The order I'm aiming for is:

Defense
Avoidance (Parry/Dodge/Block @102.4%)
Stamina
Attack Power

Why some Paladins go for expertise is beyond me, it only affects melee swings and SoC does 6 damage on a swing :S I know that it reduces the chance for a mob to gain an extra attack but the amount we get from talents covers that, you start shopping for expertise and you lose other stats. Hit rating is a moot point because we're never going to be capped and SoC ticks/consecration/Holy Shield can't miss anyway.

[mtdew5309]

Thanks alot guys. This will help me alot. Last night I tanked Ahn'kahet on reg to help out some guildies. I have 5.5k mana and felt like i was going boomm alot. I started to use JoW because of lack of mana but I was at full health for almost all trash and boss fights. I also use Divine Plea every CD. I would see when the priest healed me that my mana would go up. But it just didnt seem like i was getting enough heals my way for my mana regen.

[DaveTheHunter]

Vasir,

You do realize that white dmg is the second biggest overall dmg on a boss fight now right? We also get something like ~1.4 threat modifier to white dmg with righteous fury up because our dps threat isn't reduced like other dps classes when it's up. Same goes with warriors in defensive stance, ferals in bear form, and DK's in frost presence.

I'll link a WWS when i get home this afternoon if you would like. I'm unable to do it while at work. It makes it very apparent that white hits are a significant source of dps and, subsequently, tps.

A quick recap, which i'll follow with a link for proof later. This is on Sapphiron WITHOUT me using Exorcism or Holy Wrath.

DPS: 1829
Primary dmg output, ShoR: 187,675 dmg
Secondary dmg output, white hits: 91,594 dmg
Tertiary dmg output, HotR: 68,517 dmg
Blood Corruption (SoC dot): 63,004 dmg
Holy Shield: 34,543 dmg
Judgement: 34,235 dmg
HoW: 14,470 dmg
AS: 6,599 dmg
Ret Aura (supplied by ret pally): 2,954 dmg
SoC (this is the additional ~6-8 dmg on swing): 1,512 dmg

Also, according to WWS, the boss mitigated significantly more of my holy dmg than my physical dmg.

Another note of interest to those of you not using Judgement of Light (I know there's some of you out there that still aren't). I was 3rd overall healing for the fight putting out 884,380 in effective heals. Not only does this greatly assist the raid as a whole, but generates massive amounts of threat. I highly recommend you start using JoL if you're not already.

[mrtim81]

Vasir,

You do realize that white dmg is the second biggest overall dmg on a boss fight now right? We also get something like ~1.4 threat modifier to white dmg with righteous fury up because our dps threat isn't reduced like other dps classes when it's up. Same goes with warriors in defensive stance, ferals in bear form, and DK's in frost presence.

This is correct, we need alot of white damage now. When you have a 1h that does alot of white damage, you can tell a huge difference in threat. Expertise helps land these attacks, and keeps you from taking extra attacks...why wouldnt you want it? Read the tooltip on HotR...takes 4 times the dps of the weapon, and then it converts it to holy dmg for threat. Plus all the strength we get now just adds to that through attack power. I crit HotR on some mobs for around 4k in raids.

I would also like to know what libram most people are using for tanking at 80? Maybe I should just make a new thread?

[DaveTheHunter]

I forget what it's called, but i use the new badge libram that's basically the upgraded Mother libram that increases BV on judgement.

[mrtim81]

Yeah, thats the one I have now. Is anyone using the one you get from the pvp coins? I think you can get it in Grizzly Hills. I can't remember the stats.