New Prot Paladin M+

[Yhcti]

Hi all,

So I'm attempting M+ as Protection and so far I only have a few issues I'd like to see if you guys and gals have an answer for...

1) light of the protector outside of wings - is it normal for this to heal a pathetic amount, even if I'm low hp? Prior to Paladin I played Guardian and the difference in the heals is HUGE (ok yeah Paladin gets bubble etc also).

2) taking large constant damage i.e. shadow of zul. Seema a very hard task trying to stay tanky for long periods of sustained damage intake, is this one of the weaknesses for Prot Paladin?

Gear wise I'm slowly getting there.. I'm missing aegis + suppression, corruptions and a tank trinket, so maybe that will be the push I need to survive better..

Any tips for a newbie Prot Paladin? I'm aiming for Haste/Versa, so far I'm 13% versa, 27% haste. I only have 1 bulwark of light (sadly) and every item is atleast 465 except shield, waist and trinket (445 and 410).

P.S. I've done 11 AD & KR runs today and I've yet to see a trinket drop hahaha... I'm hoping Mondays raid will drop psychic shell & raden trinket.

[Bloodyleech]

As you are new to prot tanking, but not new to tanking itself, you know that this week is pretty hard self-sustain wise for Pally, DK and DH, yeah? If LotP heals low, you mostly have high stacks of necrotic. As pally, you can use your consecration for a permanent slow, which is used to let necrotic stacks drop - otherwise your selfheal is indeed quite low.
Your statpriority seems legit. Try to get one TD corruption though, focus other corruptions on versatility or haste, if you want more of it.

[Yhcti]

Thanks for the response! I forgot to ask, what corruptions do I want to aim for? Do I want to grab a single TD and then stack versatility amplifiers?

To be honest I completely forgot necrotic affected my self sustain, doh!

[apinksquash]

This is the top ranked pally tank in M+:
https://raider.io/characters/us/gala...n=season-bfa-4

If you want to see what he's doing gear wise.

[Marrilaife]

You can bop the necrotic just make a cancelaura macro and press them very fast otherwise mobs will start meleeing other people. Also you can spec into bubble taunt for big pulls, it both drops necrotic, gives you extra tank cd, extra aggro tool and room for healer to catch up if you drop low on hp.

Shadow of Zul does shadow damage so you can spec holy shield to mitigate it a bit (armor / active mitigation uptime won't help on him), but personally I hate not having blessed hammer for trash, so up to you. Also it's tyranical this week and this guy counts as trash (=fortified buffs him) so if he's living too long on a +11 I'd say your group dps should stop slacking. You can defo pop cds to survive him like ardent defender, it's pretty short cd and should be back in last phase on the boss after.

For trinket you can use so many different things don't worry about "bis". If you pug raid remember to loot swap to ret for Xanesh and Drest, both trinkets are good for dungeons, drop only as ret loot spec, and these bosses don't have any prot specific drops (weapons / shields). You can also use any dungeon trinket to some extent (ok, big red button sucks).

Corruptions just stack TD and if you can get sword from wrathion, is about similar value as rank 1 td for 5 more corruption, but you can track when it's gonna proc unlike td that's completely random.

Essences my preferred combo is crucible major + formless void (really good uptime with crucible) + null barrier + vision of perfection, you can use anima major if you do big pulls every few mins to utilize it, but tbh in pugs you're running it's hard to utilize it well and plan pulls around it. You can also run cheat death major (forgot name) if you have the feeling the group is kinda scuffed and you'll have to fight for your life a lot (if it procs it also resets guardian cd if rank3).

Some people use the pvp minor essences (either the bg one or conflict & strife), if you have them, try them out, if you're allergic to pvp like me, it shouldn't be a problem to find something else useful if you aren't playing at hardcore level and need everything BIS min maxed.

Also you need at least 1 azerite with the trait that shield jumps to 4 targets instead of 3 (must have for dungs), 1 trait that grand crusader has 20% chance instead of 15%, and rest you can fill with whatever you like, I prefer the absorb on avenger shield, you can also pick any good stat trait (heart of darkness, meticulous scheming, blood rite, clockwork heart, etc. etc.), in absence of those extra inspiring vanguards / soaring shields can be stacked but for less benefit, if still none of the above can be picked, increased dmg on judgement or extra healing on light of the protector, even grace of the justicar are servicable. Inner light / judicious defense is giga trash, don't pick them (they're undertuned as hell).

General rule for gear is ilvl > stats, can do some exception for rings, trinkets, items with sockets to an extent (but you can add sockets with grinding visions so it's temporary), but you aren't a dps where you can downgrade an item 30 ilvls just because it has preferential secondaries and get away with it. Loss of hp / armor is something dps never have to worry when downgrading items, for gearing up tanks they matter more than having perfect distribution of secondaries.

- - - Updated - - -

This is the top ranked pally tank in M+:
https://raider.io/characters/us/gala...n=season-bfa-4

If you want to see what he's doing gear wise.

As long as you keep in mind that tanking +26 is a completely different experience than tanking +11 with herpderp pugs. You won't be able to do the same as top players due to lack of own experience and more importantly, lack of proper, coordinated group.

[Yhcti]

Appreciate the detailed response there thanks! I didn't know bop could clear necrotic, that's extremely helpful, I do have a cancelaura macro just out of habit for when you couldn't attack in bop haha.

I have the divine shield talent and I'm still sure when I use it, mobs swap aggro, but I'm not sure entirely.

[Marrilaife]

I didn't know bop could clear necrotic,

Yeah they changed it from magical to physical somewhere in 8.1 or so to "nerf dks" (so they can't reset with ams), hilarious because due to class changes and meta changes those "dk nerfs" weren't even needed, as dk fell out of favour since warriors got a lot of buffs and they synergized much much better with m+ environment esp. in reaping season (mass aoe haha).

I have the divine shield talent and I'm still sure when I use it, mobs swap aggro, but I'm not sure entirely.

If you track debuffs on mobs on your ui you will see they have the final stand icon on them if they're taunted. You need to be in their close range when you cast it (can't remember exactly but like 10-15 yards, if they're in melee they're closer than that), also it used to be bugged if you stood on some rock or slope and mobs were "below you", I think they hotfixed it though? It works on bosses, the only mobs it wouldn't work on are mobs that are meant to attack random targets not the tank (for example there's a mob in king's rest that cast hex on people or mob in waycrest that cast silencing curse - these spells are often cast on random party member not the tank).