Prot and spellpower query

[Hrethel]

I've been thinking of digging out my paladin alt and levelling him for a bit, he's been sitting on lvl 35 for months now. I'm probably going to go with a prot AOE-grind type of spec, mostly because it's something I haven't done before but also so that I can tank in dungeons on the way up, and learn how to pala-tank.

So, the question is, I already have the BOA spellpower mace, Devout Aurastone Hammer, enchanted with +29 Spellpower, and I noticed that it's actually got the same DPS as the BOA sword (Venerable Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge) at my paladin's level. Is it worth me getting the sword as a weapon, or will the Hammer be alright? Do you get much benefit to Consecration from the spellpower bonus? Is there anything else it'll benefit on a low-level prot pally?

Anyway, hope someone can point me in the right direction, I'd rather spend my emblems on trinkets rather than another weapon. Cheers for the help!

[Haskel]

As far as consecration is concerned, 1 AP = 1 SP.

Other spell power based damage pre-60 will be:
Seal of Righteousness (1 SP = 2 AP)
Holy shield (not sure exactly, but seems to scale with both AP and SP)
Avenger's Shield (1 SP = 1 AP)


And naturally, spell power will make your heals stronger where AP won't. But AP will make your auto-swings harder while SP won't.

[grymgroeth]

Frankly, unless you plan on rolling holy, spellpower is wasted on a paladin. We get far better returns from atk and strength since ALL of our damage abilitys scale on atk. Until you get hammer of the righteous it doesn't make a lot of difference what weapon you use but once you get hammer (if you're prot) it's all about how much dps you can put on the weapon and spellpower weapons simply suck for dps. If you're going ret, crusader strike is going to give you far better results with a high dps weapon than spellpower.

[Deleted]

So, the question is, I already have the BOA spellpower mace, Devout Aurastone Hammer, enchanted with +29 Spellpower, and I noticed that it's actually got the same DPS as the BOA sword (Venerable Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge) at my paladin's level. Is it worth me getting the sword as a weapon, or will the Hammer be alright? Do you get much benefit to Consecration from the spellpower bonus? Is there anything else it'll benefit on a low-level prot pally?

Low-level it doesn't actually make much of a difference. Spellpower might be useful in leveling because your heals will be slightly bigger and you can double as a healer, but... once you get Hammer of the Righteous you can ditch the spellpower mace. And at lvl75 and upwards you'll be completely stupid if you still continue using spellpower gear since you Shield of Righteousness doesn't benefit from spellpower at all and it is the strongest attack in your arsenal. It benefits from strength and block value items, nothing else.

[Draco cracona]

HS scales twice as well with SP as AP (9% as opposed to 4.5%); you'll do better with SP until you get to HotR.

[grymgroeth]

HS scales twice as well with SP as AP (9% as opposed to 4.5%); you'll do better with SP until you get to HotR.

That is balanced by the fact that you get roughly twice as much atk as sp from gear at any given level. Add to that the sp pallys get from stam as prot and atk gear is even more attractive because that's usually where the stamina is to increase survivability. Prot pallys gear very much like warriors but get far more benefit from block value after 75. The divine plea change in 3.1 makes mana a nonissue for tanks in addition to damage reduction when glyphed.

[Sasquach]

Personally I would say it should be a decent weapon until about level 60-65. You get Hammer of the Righteous at level 60, so sometime soon after that I would look for a weapon that has a higher DPS. On the Heirloom Item Scale website it shows the stats per level on the BoA items, but it conveniently leaves out the DPS of the spellpower weapons. But on WoWHead some commenters say the DPS will drop off sharply at level 58, which is when it picks up the BC itemization. So that would be about the right time to switch to a DPS or an actual tanking weapon that you can find.

[Hrethel]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll probably try using the Aurastone for a while then and see how it goes, maybe switch to something more melee orientated if it's good enough, and then look for a replacement at the 58-60 level.