A Little advanced help for a prot paladin..

[Parhadox]

Hey paladins, yesterday I finally picked my first piece of T9 and noticed how it itemizes for expertise. This put a small problem in my stats. But first, I ask a question that no one has clearly answered.

1) What is the hit cap for a PROTECTION paladin? My assumption is same as ret ~266 (8%) considering that even though we're tanking, we're still melee type dps. Am I correct or incorrect? Also, I checked rawr, and when I had 266 it said 100% hit, and now that I'm under it says ~96% which also supports my 266 hit assumption. Any thoughts?

Then, another problem I have encountered is the fact that w/o the glyph of seal of vengeance (corruption) I have 20 Expertise. So with it I go to 30 (20+10=30, leet math skillz). I'm thinking of ways to re-gem or do something to get hit rating up and put expertise down but I don't see it.

My armory:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...mar&n=Parhadox

Any advice will be appreciated,

P.S- Ignore my spec, I was trying out the Seal of Command for fast heroics, haven't re-specced yet. (BTW, IMO SoCommand tanking= fail)

[SolSphere]

Yes, your hit assumption is correct. 8% unless your are like me you only need 7 then ^.^

Melee hit is pretty much all the same (not including talents or dual weilding).

Then, another problem I have encountered is the fact that w/o the glyph of seal of vengeance (corruption) I have 20 Expertise. So with it I go to 30 (20+10=30, leet math skillz). I'm thinking of ways to re-gem or do something to get hit rating up and put expertise down but I don't see it.

Ignore it. Keep your SoV glyph your hit will come from gear mostly. When i want to concentrate on doing more DPS, I switch to a SBV set and go for it. I do not really waste gemming on hit, just kinda let it come to me as it can.

[Deralte]

its 263 Hit to be precise

[Prentice]

The hit cap for prot pallys is the same as that of rets. 263 Hit Rating is the magic number to get you capped.

For prot pallys, being hit capped is not necessary and has become extremely difficult to maintain with the T9 level loots out there now. It appears that T9 gear is itemized for Stam, Avoidance, and Expertise while having very little hit rating on it. For this reason, many high level prot pallys are being forced to pick up the Glyph of Righteous Defense for taunt hit.

I say that prot pallys being hit capped isn't necessary because pallys have tons of ways to build threat and you can't expect all of them to land simply because a portion of your abilities are based on spell hit. Our guild pally tank has dropped so far in hit rating that he had to pick up the glyph that I mentioned but his threat is still ridiculous.

Expertise is a good stat for all tanks, but it isn't terribly necessary again for prot pallys. The Expertise soft cap is 26. This negates the boss's chance to dodge, however, the boss can and will still parry you. There is no Expertise cap because some bosses can have as high as 17% parry chance. If you are sitting at 20 Expertise and still using the glyph, you are negating the dodge chance and severely reducing the boss's parry chance.

Hit and Expertise rating are great threat stats which are very important to all tank classes. They are of the least importance to paladins though. Considering how hard the bosses in TotC hit now, I would focus less on threat (hit/expertise) and focus on survivability/EH as much as you can.

[Parhadox]

Thank you very much for the great answers!

One last question, looking at my armory, you guys think I should keep stacking stamina or maybe add some +dodge , block , parry into the mix?

[Eurytos]

8% is the hit cap, but as many have said already, it is not important for pally tanks. Gemming or enchanting for it is unnecessary.

Personally, as one of my guilds 3 MTs I have 3 pc of t9, and almost all other ilvl245 tank gear. I am at 2.45% hit. Extrememly low. I actually dont like it that low, but there is so little hit on higher end tank gear that I must deal with it. Nonetheless, I had no problem tanking any fight. I did notice, however, that my threat isn't as high as it used to be. Clearly, we got a slight threat nerf, but I also have seen my threat go down a bit since I have swapped out 3 pieces of gear since Tuesdays patch. All had hit on them.

The main point is that I am doing fine with only 2% hit, but I am not nearly as far out infront of our highest dps as I once was. Would I like it to be higher? Yes. Is it necessary to be capped? No.

[Parhadox]

Should I gem for some dodge, parry, block or should I keep stacking more stam?

[Offhand]

Ignore it. Keep your SoV glyph your hit will come from gear mostly. When i want to concentrate on doing more DPS, I switch to a SBV set and go for it. I do not really waste gemming on hit, just kinda let it come to me as it can.

Bolded part is incorrect. Looking at the ToC loot tables, hit isn't that common at all. The majority of gear is itemized for expertise.

My advice would be to get at or near expertise soft cap via gear and then drop your SoV glyph in favor of the RD glyph. Not only is expertise not much of a priority for paladins, but going over the soft cap is complete overkill. Likewise, the only important use for hit is landing taunts (negated by RD glyph). Threat increases via hit are outpaced by both strength and block value.

My final word is to never gem for hit or expertise. These stats have very specific uses (as cited above) and inferior threat components.

[Eurytos]

Should I gem for some dodge, parry, block or should I keep stacking more stam?

Stam seems to still be the way to go. I like to use a stam/str or pure str gem in my red sockets, partly because of the Sp from str change, and partly because I like to make full use of my socket bonuses if i can. Also, I have several Stam trinkets to use if the case proves necessary that I need more HP.

Don't gem for parry, DR hits it really hard. A hybrid dodge/stam gem isnt bad, though. But, tbh, you'll have plenty of dodge from gear and trinkets.

[SolSphere]

Should I gem for some dodge, parry, block or should I keep stacking more stam?

agility/stam.

as you move into DR really hard you're going to want to make a few changes to how you gear. Check your dodge rating while raid buffed and with the proc from the new badge librim. When it reaches say 800 or so go agility and switch out your shoulder enchant to the PvP stam one. Yes I know resilance for PvE is fail, but it's not the resil that you are going for. At the point of cracking 800 dodge rating the benfit of the defense from the enchant is being lost on you and the stam is out weighing the whole thing.

The agility gems, while the are not as good for dodge rating as dodge gems are, they add in EH (armor).

If you are not at the 800 mark yet I would stick with the dodge/stam or even still go with the agility/stam but leave out the PvP enchant.

I can tell you know a lot of people will not agree with it especially because of the nerf to dodge and the double nerf to agility, but it is still a valid and solid choice. Nerfs don't mean do not use...

[Parhadox]

Well as of right now, without some modifying I am going to do to my gear once I have access to WoW this evening, I have 602ish dodge rating, so with the proc'd libram, which is almost all the time, I would be at the low 800's self buffed. Do you think I should then start with agil / stam ? And if you could specify a bit more why agility, would be great. I am sincerely curious/intrigued since I have never heard of putting agility on gems or gear (except for of course, mongoose)

[SolSphere]

Well as of right now, without some modifying I am going to do to my gear once I have access to WoW this evening, I have 602ish dodge rating, so with the proc'd libram, which is almost all the time, I would be at the low 800's self buffed. Do you think I should then start with agil / stam ? And if you could specify a bit more why agility, would be great. I am sincerely curious/intrigued since I have never heard of putting agility on gems or gear (except for of course, mongoose)

When you are at 800 dodge rating you are so far into DR that you are losing great deal of what dodge is suppose to be gaining for you. By removing some of the dodge, but not all of it (switching to agility from dodge) you are wasting a lot less. At the same time, the trade off of going from dodge to agility gains you armor. The armor is an Effective health (EH) gain. I don't really have numbers for you, but if you visit Maintankadin (website) there is a post by theck which explains the concept with numbers.

[Parhadox]

Ok, I'll do that then. When you talk about having 800+ dodge, that is counting the libram being proc'd, correct?

[Offhand]

Libram has practically 100% uptime, so, yes.

[Parhadox]

Cool, sounds good. Going to start working on Agility + Stam gems then.

Thanks a lot for the great help,