Protection Paladin in PvP advised?

[Arctagon]

I recently leveled my paladin to level 80. Beside going PvE I want to try out PvP, in which field my knowledge is pretty limited, especially on a class I am not very familiar with yet.

I have done some researching. I asked in my guild a while back about this, and was told that I should go Protection, at least to start with. And well, it sounds logical, as they have good survivability, and, as far as I know, nice burst damage. Later I have been around on the Internet and tried to find anything about this, specifically using Google, as I don't know any major websites devoted to PvP (if there are any).

At Arena Junkies almost all the paladins are Holy specced, and if I have understood this correctly, Holy is the way to go at higher gear levels. The few guides I have found have been outdated, most of them originating from pre-3.3/3.2.

The information I have found renders me doubtful about what my guild mate said. So after having read the sticky with helpful topics for paladins, and used the search function here on this forum, I thought I should make a thread instead, as I am completely depleted of ideas on how to find anything about this that is updated.

So my question is: is it advisable to start out as Protection in PvP? If so, is it then true that Holy would be the way to go at higher gear levels? If not, what would be advisable? I wouldn't mind if you also could come with some tips about, or link to an updated source I can read on. Of course, if Holy would be the way to go all the way I could just use the nice topic already present here at MMO Champion.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, I do apologise if this post is not paragraphed well, or if I didn't make myself very clear, or anything alike, as I am very tired as of now. Please feel free to ask for more specific information about anything if needed.

[Doylez]

Depends on what you want to play, who you play with and what your equip is. Prot is great for BGs, great survivability, great damage. Holy is overall best for arenas, boring for BGs though. As ret you need top equip or you're just a running joke. So if you want to heal play holy if you want to hit stuff play Prot, it's a ok spec for beginners.

[BDF]

Prot in pvp is kind of all over the map. The specs are all fairly similar, but differ depending on what group comp you are running with. Like ret however you'll be laughed at without gear, being able to put out very little pressure.

If you are a fresh 80 and want to pvp, I would recommend holy
If you have lots of ret gear for pvp, go ret
If you have lots of ret gear for pvp and pve, go prot

[Arctagon]

Thank you lots for your replies. Say I wanted to go Prot; would this spec be a good start?

[zcks]

Thank you lots for your replies. Say I wanted to go Prot; would this spec be a good start?

I would not use that spec, the main reason people use prot spec with ret gear is the insane amount of damage mitigation & offensive tools it gives while not losing much of the burst that ret provides.

I would suggest http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...K,UY-O3-,11723 spec with a really slow 1handed weapon & shield with +block value, it will give you allot of the damage reduction of the prot tree as well as all of its offensive tools but will also give you better mana management crit rating & insanely good cleave & if you do get in an oh shit moment the glyph for salvation is a really nice mitigation tool.

For this spec there are 2 different ways you can gear. Ether get a couple of items that add allot of block value like the t9 or t10 pieces (the 2 set on t10 is great anyway because of the set bonus) then just stack ret pvp gear. The other way you can go is just stacking all ret pvp gear, this will not give you quite as much burst but the extra mitigation from the resilience will make you even harder to kill because it will stack with the damage mitigation from talents.

Either way you will want to stack allot of strength or strength/crit gems and enchants, the crits from a glyphed avengers shield shield of the righteous or hammer of the righteous can do allot of damage because they are pure holy damage. The only down side to prot pvp spec is that it does not self heal as well as ret & can go oom if not played right, it does however not have the problem ret has with catching ppl or fighting casters.

[Arctagon]

Ah, exactly what I needed. I think you just covered pretty much everything I needed to know, so I am very grateful for your reply. The spec I linked is old, so I was almost sure it wouldn't be of much use nowadays. And I think I will wait with acquiring the 2pcT10, as I don't have access to it as of now.

So the gemming is the same as Ret PvE, then?

I might come back later if any questions should arise. Thanks.

[BDF]

I would suggest http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...K,UY-O3-,11723 spec with a really slow 1handed weapon & shield with +block value, it will give you allot of the damage reduction of the prot tree as well as all of its offensive tools but will also give you better mana management crit rating & insanely good cleave & if you do get in an oh shit moment the glyph for salvation is a really nice mitigation tool.

Is that a battleground spec? If you want to arena, than taking judgements of the just to make hammer of justice on the same CD as your avenger's shield is a must.

I reccomend this spec for arena, providing you have someone dispelling fears in some way:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...UPGER0z,,11723

But again let me say, without near-top end gear you dwon't be killing anyone with resilience in any form.

[Traejun]

If you're going to run with a normal PvE spec, then it's fairly simple - get some PvP armor for triumph badges/honor. I would suggest using your off-spec for a PvP spec, which will usually be kind of a prot/ret hybrid...but only do that if you intend to get serious about PvP.

One last piece of advice - use a slow 1H weapon with the highest possible top end damage.

[Elessa]

If you want to focus on damage mainly - Go Protection.
If you want to heal and support - Go Holy.
If you want to support/utility and damage - Go Retribution.

Protection does more damage than Retribution, but has limited utility and support. Their mana pools are harder to handle aswell if you want to support with heals, you should definately go ret.