Prot Paladin - Assistance Requested

[Rheckameohs]

My main since I started playing WoW has been a Prot paladin, though I never felt the need to level her past 80 until a few weeks ago. Now that she's capped and whatnot, I'd like some advice on tanking heroics and raids.

The biggest problems I'm having right now are with survivability and mobility. In regards to the former, I feel like I'm taking way too much damage than I should, relying heavily on WoG when it's up and my weapon enchant, as well as Gift of the Naaru (lol draenei) when things start looking rough. It feels bad knowing I'm putting a lot of strain on the healer, regardless of whether or not I actually am.

As for the latter, when it comes to stationary groups that don't have a tendency to move around, I can hold aggro like a champ. The problem is when, say, that one hunter decides to go balls to the wall on a mob (or a pack of them) and peels it off of me. On one hand, I can't really move too much or else I'll lose aggro on everything. On the other, what kind of tank would I be if I didn't adequately deal with such a situation?

Any tips from seasoned veterans would be appreciated.

My paladin's Battle.net page if you want to look over her gear and such. Keep in mind that the enchants are a work in progress.

[Deleted]

Your gear is a large part of the problem regarding survivabilty, but that will not last long as so much of it is replaceable with Justice points, Valor points and Molten Front Dailies. You may already know, but you should be trying to reach 102.4% total avoidance ( 5% miss chance, block, dodge and parry combined) and mastery stacking is the best way to reach this due to it not having a DR and giving the most total avoidance per point.

You can get a good helm from Nalorakk in Zul'Aman, and Tol Barad Dailies will award you with the Mirror of Broken images Trinket, which provides high mastery and a very powerful anti-magic damage on use effect. You can also get a 365 Mastery/expertise neck from the vendor in the Molten Front (requires no real grinding).

Quick note, I see you've used a prismatic gem in your relic, intuitively assuming that is what goes in a prismatic socket. This is misleading I'm afraid, and simply means you can put 'any' gem in it except a metagem, but with no socket bonus. So +40 mastery would be a start there.

Regarding threat, be sure that you are prioritisng Hammer of the Righteous every other GCD to keep your AoE TPS at it's maximum, and if you need even more threat then keep Inquisition up using your Holy Power.

[Deleted]

As stated above, your gear is a part of it, try to reforge haste, its useless, get mastery, and even out parry/dodge.

We have tons of cd's, DS, GoAK,DP, AD, and you have 2 on use trinkets. Try to rotate them, and CC ofc.

[davep]

Mastery is our best survivability stat when leveling through heroics, then it's dodge and parry. I'd suggest making sure mastery is on every piece of your gear and then the secondary stat being either dodge or parry. You want to make sure you keep the dodge and parry percentages equal so you don't make one better then the other.

For your current gear reforge it as follows:
Head : HitRating -> MasteryRating
Neck : HasteRating -> DodgeRating
Chest : ParryRating -> MasteryRating
Waist : CritRating -> DodgeRating
Legs : ParryRating -> MasteryRating
Feet : ExpertiseRating -> MasteryRating
Wrists : ExpertiseRating -> MasteryRating
Hands : ParryRating -> DodgeRating
Ring2 : CritRating -> MasteryRating
Trinket2 : DodgeRating -> MasteryRating
MainHand : HitRating -> MasteryRating
OffHand : HitRating -> DodgeRating

For gems: Blue -> 20mastery/30stamina, Red -> 20parry/20mastery, and Yellow -> 40mastery

[Tomhvk]

I have been really struggling with mobility issues, mainly when we were progressing on shannox hc a while ago, I was tanking Riplimb, thers a couple of things that realyl help with mobility.

(please note this is not required ever, even so is very situational)

1. I always have speed potions on standby, okay its the most elegant of ways however it works
2. Have a priest who you can communicate with well for body and soul and or life grip
3. I have engineering, as a very last resort I will use rocket boots (and usually bubble if they fail)
4. Have a feral druid, or even balance / resto use Spampeding Roar

Of course if you problem is people failing then most of these wont work, as they require pre planning, however good luck

[Straiin]

My main since I started playing WoW has been a Prot paladin, though I never felt the need to level her past 80 until a few weeks ago. Now that she's capped and whatnot, I'd like some advice on tanking heroics and raids.

The biggest problems I'm having right now are with survivability and mobility. In regards to the former, I feel like I'm taking way too much damage than I should, relying heavily on WoG when it's up and my weapon enchant, as well as Gift of the Naaru (lol draenei) when things start looking rough. It feels bad knowing I'm putting a lot of strain on the healer, regardless of whether or not I actually am.

The biggest thing I can think of is proper CD management and gear choices. Since I've seen three posts on gear choices and little to none on CD's. So I'll take that route.

Holy Shield has a 30 second cooldown. Use it every time you take physical damage. Every time.
Divine Protection has a 1m CD. Use it a lot.
GoTAK Is your big CD. Use it when you see your health going down rapidly.
I use ardent defender in two situations.
1. To rotate with DP
2. As a last minute "oh sh**" CD - This is usually only if LoH is down, as I will use LoH first.
We also have Divine Shield - though I find I have to taunt right after I use it
You can also use HoP + HoF to bubble off stacks.

-
Don't forget about DG and Holy Radiance as they're raid / party CD's.

As for the latter, when it comes to stationary groups that don't have a tendency to move around, I can hold aggro like a champ. The problem is when, say, that one hunter decides to go balls to the wall on a mob (or a pack of them) and peels it off of me. On one hand, I can't really move too much or else I'll lose aggro on everything. On the other, what kind of tank would I be if I didn't adequately deal with such a situation?

AS can hit three targets at once. I usually combine this + a taunt to return a runaway mob to me. Don't forget you have a 8 second taunt that taunts three at a time.

For AoE packs - make sure to get a 3 point inquisition ASAP, and then make sure to keep it up. Since you're mostly doing heroics at this point in your gear level I would also invest in Hallowed Ground and use consecration. With the LFG 15% Buff, I have hit 30k+ DPS on trash pulls.

Also you have salv - if you see a guy is about to peal from ya just Salv him. I use this macro to make salving easier:

#showtooltip Hand of Salvation
/cast [target=mouseover,exists,help] Hand of Salvation; [target=target,help] Hand of Salvation; [target=targettarget,exists,help] Hand of Salvation;

If you reach an scenario where you've lost all controll, blow your raid CD's and HoP the DPS that pulled from ya.

Hope this helps a bit.

My armory if you want something to reference to- http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Praxys/simple

[Splosion]

Your gear(try and obtain what i mention here):

Crafted sword(365), t11 chest(359), hyjal dailies neck(365), jp haste/mastery helm(346) (best pre-t11 raids, screw that ZA helm, it sucks), maybe boe shoulders(359), else ZA ones(353) (or grim batol ones), both the dps and the tank ring from jp(359) (haste/mastery and dodge/mastery)(there's also one from hyjal dailies), wildhammer boots(359), halls of origination(346)/hyjal dailies bracers(365), and tol barad trinket(s)(359)

Here is a chardev for "ideal" early gear (minus long-term hyjal daily items):

http://chardev.org/?profile=237689

Reforge all of the above for maximum mastery. If the piece already has mastery, reforge dodge. Gemming should be as follows(assuming stamina/mastery/avoidance socket bonuses:

Blue = mastery/stam
Red = parry/mastery
Yellow = mastery

Any other socket bonuses (strength, hit, etc) gem straight mastery.

Enchants:

Helm = earthen ring rep (stam/dodge)
Shoulders = therazane (stam/dodge)
Cloak = 250 armor/20 fire resist (basically the same use in firelands)
Chest = 75 stamina/(55 if it's something you're sure you'll upgrade quickly)
Wrists = 50 dodge (stamina if you're a leatherworker)
Gloves = 65 mastery(50 if you're sure you'll upgrade quickly)
Belt = socket (40 mastery gem in here)
Legs = 145 stam/55 dodge rating (the old agi one is a decent substitute, but lacks any avoidance)
Boots = 50 mastery (since you will be taking a +movement speed talent)
Weapon = windwalk/blade ward (mending is just awful)
Shield = mastery(nothing really to say here)

Talents:

Drop both points out of hallowed ground, and 1 point out of reckoning. Max out sacred duty and get pursuit of justice in the retribution tree.

Glyphs:

Pick up seal of truth, it's very good.
So is glyph of holy wrath (ragnaros adds, halfus adds, any elemental/dragon adds ever.)

Follow what has been said for your rotation, it's fairly simple once you get used to it. Try and use holy shield on cd, it's VERY overpowered. divine protection is your go-to cooldown for damage, followed by guardian of ancient kings. Divine guardian/holy radiance (maybe combined) when your group takes many damages. Don't use seal of insight unless your healers really suck. The dps you provide from using any damage seal outweighs it.

Get a mouseover macro for righteous defense and some kind of threat indicator for your party. it is an absolute godsend (I use it more than our standard taunt).

You have quite a bit to get in form of gear, but if you follow the above steps you should be fine. Paladin tanking is in a good place right now, and it doesn't have a spectacularly high skill-cap(til heroic raids at least). Whilst you're learning, ignore everything people say in heroics unless you deem it helpful.