DPS in prot spec - what gear?

[ragawaga]

Hi, this is my first post so be gentle

Currently my paladin's main spec is prot and offspec is holy. There are occassions where it would be better for me to be DPS instead of tank/healer. As we don't have a triple spec functionality yet and I don't want to to respec a lot, I was thinking of just DPSing in my prot spec. That said, I'm not entirely sure what the best gear to use would be? Should I just stick with my prot stuff....go with my holy set for increased spell damage.....or go for a melee based set (with a 1H weapon and shield of course)?

Off the top of my head (can't check as I'm at work) I'm not entirely sure if the prot abilities damage is spell based or physical.

Thanks for your time

[Nillo]

1) don't try to do dmg with prot spec :!
2) If you really need to do that use retribution gear as strength has a much larger influence on dmg done than SP.
3) Sometimes Set Bonuses of prot gear can be helpfull as well (like 2pc t8), just equip items with blockvalue on them to get the Set Bonus (like t8 shoulders,gloves).

[Lumidar]

if you're looking to raid DPS as prot i'd say forget about it. if you want to PVP Dps as prot then go for it.

[zcks]

if you're looking to raid DPS as prot i'd say forget about it. if you want to PVP Dps as prot then go for it.

As lumidar said if you want to raid as prot spec doing a dps role forget it you wont have anywhere near as good of dps as ret, however If you want to pvp as prot with some points in ret it can work. If done correctly a prot paladin (who has some points in ret) can be very annoying and even bring down some classses/specs you would have allot of trouble with as ret "IE frost mages & other casters" because of the silence effect on avengers shield and the very short cool down on hammer of justice. Mind you you wont have as much self healing or burst as a ret paladin but the amount of cc and damage reduction you have make up for allot of that when facing certain classes. I have done this some myself and must say it is pretty fun being able to hold of 4 or so mele classes at a time (as long as they don't have ms) or completely locking down a mage so my friends can wail on them.

[ragawaga]

Fair enough. Looks like I need to decide if I want to DPS so much to lose my healing spec.

[Vashta]

It depends what you want to DPS. If its heroics,naxx and parts of ulduar, you can easily pull 3k dps as prot in ret gear. If you want to do higher stuff then I would think about re-speccing.

[Varon]

For PvP it's fun as prot because you sometemies see funny things like
- rogues killing themselves by hitting on that holy shield b/c they can't get behind you
- any melees and sometimes caster dying on Consec
- killing melees (sometimes nearby caster) with HoR ... 4 of them with a single button push
- runnig into some caster and letting them eat a frisbee
- surviving death every 2 min

sooo much fun ...

PvP: can be fun ... much fun tbh
anyways PvE: no way ... go Ret ... pays off better

[ragawaga]

In response to Vashta : I was only planning on doing heroics as DPS...maybe naxx. Although we've moved onto Uluar 10, it's different people who are tanking for the moment until we've got it down. So if I can do 2-3k DPS as prot in ret gear it could be OK. I'll see if I can give it a shot tonight then.

[Lumidar]

the reason i love PVP as prot is the rogues/druids/warriors who attack me for 45seconds and then realize i've only lost 2k HP out of my 40k HP so they turn tail and run.

[Copain]

Just use DPS gear and keep your one hander and shield on hand. As a Prot Pally you do more DPS with a one hander and shield than a two hander.

As a fellow tank, I know how it is when there's times you aren't needed to tank and yet you can't just go ret lol.