[MoP] Protection Paladin Guide

[Deleted]

- snip -

I'm a tiny bit sleepy, so excuse me if this will be a bit messy.

First. 20-25% is for specials/nukes, not for melee swings. Normally I don't care about melee swings, since they aren't important normally. (Except if the nuke wouldn't reset the melee swing timer, but even then meh.) And it is rather obvious that you can't increase the damage on the nukes as much for 25H, as you can increase it for basic melee swings. This is easily noticeable if you compare how much damage they took from specials vs melee swings. A extreme example is Megaera, where the breaths/rampage deals exactly the same damage on both, so the only difference is the melee damage.

Second. Jin'rokh is a bad example for comparing melee swings. For the simple fact that while the boss hits one of the tanks, the raid damage is relatively low. Which is also obvious from the ridiculous amount of absorbs the 25m tank has on herself. For ex on Megaera, this looks completely differently, if we take two random logs:

10H:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...=11202&e=11685
Warr tank: 82477.1 DtPS (33% from melee swings)
From melee: 27k DtPS

25H:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=8529&e=9016
Warr tank: 89141.6 DtPS (40% from melee swings )
From melee: 35k DtPS

Even here the melee damage has a extra 30%, but it's relatively less important. Primarily as the encounter is more about raid-healing than anything else.

No-one ever said that on 25man there isn't more outgoing damage, but you comment was unneeded, and rude. The difference between outgoing damage ain't huge enough to call it "overcooked spaghetti", it is just enough to compensate for the more HoTs/splash healing the tanks get.

PS: Also on Jin'rokh, only half of my Damage Intake was from melee swings, and everything else deals the same damage on both difficulty. So even if it would melee you 50% harder, it would be in the ~25% increased damage I said. Kinda. Unless I should sleep, and I missed something.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Taking your Megaera logs as an example, while the dtps is similar, look at the amount of melee swings over 200k (i.e. burst events):

From the 10H log:

[22:07:53.095] Venomous Head hits Onzay 206218 (A: 3882)
[22:08:21.973] Venomous Head hits Onzay 279588
[22:08:23.641] Venomous Head hits Onzay 214512
[22:10:39.695] Venomous Head hits Onzay 268733
[22:10:40.945] Venomous Head hits Onzay 216192 (A: 3715)
[22:10:51.621] Venomous Head hits Onzay 210289
[22:13:09.317] Venomous Head hits Onzay 220663
[22:13:12.332] Venomous Head hits Onzay 206018
[22:13:14.339] Venomous Head hits Onzay 258946
[22:13:24.162] Venomous Head hits Onzay 275947
[22:13:26.160] Venomous Head hits Onzay 224930
[22:13:27.155] Venomous Head hits Onzay 238120

and compare that to the amount of melee swings above 200k for the 25H log:

[19:23:40.815] Frozen Head hits Bigpeat 239912
[19:23:43.252] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 213718 (A: 3903)
[19:24:52.110] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 227987
[19:25:27.759] Arcane Head hits Bigpeat 259163
[19:25:29.798] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 238392
[19:25:40.782] Arcane Head hits Bigpeat 217015
[19:25:57.546] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 246977
[19:25:59.779] Arcane Head hits Bigpeat 211432
[19:26:00.391] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 226653
[19:26:39.614] Frozen Head hits Woodyhoss 254852 (A: 2109)
[19:27:16.361] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 208526
[19:27:17.624] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 261705
[19:27:50.919] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 216116 (A: 918)
[19:28:01.720] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 200315
[19:28:08.984] Flaming Head hits Bigpeat 216804
[19:28:26.578] Flaming Head hits Bigpeat 227561 (A: 26436)
[19:28:33.397] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 204588
[19:28:36.752] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 222203
[19:28:37.079] Flaming Head hits Bigpeat 241787 (A: 37004)
[19:29:21.545] Arcane Head hits Woodyhoss 239424
[19:29:21.710] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 203534 (A: 3743)
[19:29:24.727] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 253303
[19:29:36.489] Arcane Head hits Woodyhoss 224250 (A: 21514)
[19:29:40.536] Arcane Head hits Woodyhoss 204040
[19:29:42.576] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 212221 (B: 90952)
[19:29:53.498] Arcane Head hits Woodyhoss 233691
[19:29:54.505] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 209976 (B: 89990)
[19:29:56.526] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 274521
[19:29:57.532] Arcane Head hits Woodyhoss 239533
[19:29:58.552] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 244946
[19:29:59.526] Arcane Head hits Woodyhoss 236901 (A: 27957)
[19:30:01.538] Arcane Head hits Woodyhoss 242809
[19:30:02.553] Venomous Head hits Bigpeat 243505 (A: 2475)
[19:30:44.370] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 215072
[19:30:50.698] Frozen Head hits Bigpeat 275817
[19:30:55.467] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 248227
[19:30:56.405] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 238625
[19:31:01.620] Frozen Head hits Bigpeat 243956
[19:31:06.013] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 211279
[19:31:06.925] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 257460
[19:31:07.860] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 217687
[19:31:08.884] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 206991
[19:31:11.645] Venomous Head hits Woodyhoss 205209

You have the tank(s) taking a significantly larger amount of large melee swings than in ten man (12 in the ten man log, 43 in the 25 man log - almost four times as many). The high damage melee swings also only come from the green head in the 10 man log, which is the only head whose debuff stack increases melee damage taken by the target, the others enhance spell damage only. There are almost as many 250+k swings in the 25 man log as there are 200+k swings in the ten man log.

"Specials" rarely result in a tank death, because we plan for cooldowns to cover them. Like using unglyphed Divine Protection for breaths 1+3 at Megaera. If a special attack does result in a tank death, it is mostly due to a special+1 or 2 swings combination; i.e. the melee swing is what makes that moment dangerous, not the special.

[zloitima]

Meg is probably the worst boss to take as an example, green head's breath increases damage taken.

25s bosses hit harder, compensation for having 5-6 healers.
I raid both 10s and 25s (separate lockouts ftw), and tank deaths happen more often in 10s just because there is a higher chance of one of the healers suddenly dying, other one too busy healing raid or smth like that. in 25s even 2 dead healers won't result in tank's death.

[Deleted]

Meg is probably the worst boss to take as an example, green head's breath increases damage taken.

But that affects both difficulties.
We technically should search for 2 tanks, who:
a) have the same class
b) have around the same ilvl
c) tank the same head in the same order, and should also take the same amount of stacks
And then there are the adds too...
+ if we look at paladins, then there is SoTR coverage too. Or the druids ability to reduce auto attacks. >.>

Warriors are at least somewhat easier in this regard. (Unless their co-tank is a druid...) Except they like to use the tank-meta. : \ Meh.
Meg is bad for showing that the bosses hit harder on 25man. As that encounter is taxing enough for the healers without that... Even I brought it up as a extreme case.

- - - Updated - - -

Taking your Megaera logs as an example, while the dtps is similar, look at the amount of melee swings over 200k (i.e. burst events):

The problem with this is that since the boss will obviously melee harder on 25H, this number would be obviously higher there. Even I only brought Meg up as a example where tanks don't take much more damage on 25H. Even if you look at the swing you can see it, the melee might hit even 30-35% harder, the overall damage they take won't be that much different. But this is because this is Meg. Where it isn't like normally, that the tanks take 80-90% of the damage. Instead it is there as a raid-damage.
It is the opposite of Jin'rokh. Where there is either only tank-damage or raid-damage. There is obviously some minor raid-damage even outside from the thunderstorm phase, but that is rather negligible. (Well, except when ppl fail, and they will be one-shoot.)

About specials: I tipically care about specials as I want to know how hard they will hit approx, so I can plan CDs. And for some bosses this ain't that obvious. (Twins or Ji-kun for ex, where it is in melee wpn damage % in the tooltip.) Knowing how hard a melee swing will hit me is less advantageous.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Most of the raid damage comes from the Rampage phases though, when the tanks take zero melee damage at all. The damage alternates between tanks getting beat up and the raid getting bombarded with magic damage.

[Deleted]

Most of the raid damage comes from the Rampage phases though, when the tanks take zero melee damage at all. The damage alternates between tanks getting beat up and the raid getting bombarded with magic damage.

Even on 25H Meg the tank damage ain't high. Unless they are on the green head in the end. (With it's +haste stacks & the +damage stacks from the breath.)

There are 6 rampages in the encounter (as you need to kill 7 heads), each last 20 sec.
6*20 = 120 sec, or 2 min.
Typically the encounter last around ~8 minutes. So ~25% of the encounter is a Rampage.
It is true, that the tanks take (aprox, there are 2 debuffs, which change this obv.) the same damage during it than everyone else, but the damage during the remaining 75% ain't much higher either than on 10H.

They could have maybe made the boss hit harder there, but more than likely they excepted people to actually kill the green head sometimes. Which would have cause more raid damage. Or something. It doesn't necessarily has to make a sense for us, what they do.

[Deleted]

Can anyone tell me the "normal" BiS set for Haste Protadin with Exp Hard Cap?

[Deleted]

Can anyone tell me the "normal" BiS set for Haste Protadin with Exp Hard Cap?

it will be the items with haste on them

[Deleted]

it will be the items with haste on them

Well that was really helpful! Thanks meng!11! )))

[Nairobi]

Well that was really helpful! Thanks meng!11! )))

Are you looking at t15 or t16?

PD has a spreadsheet (in the Fix my Tanking thread) for next tier that you can play with.

[Deleted]

Are you looking at t15 or t16?

PD has a spreadsheet (in the Fix my Tanking thread) for next tier that you can play with.

T15. Literally just came back to the game and I wanna get myself up to par again.

[Nairobi]

So looking at only t15 normals? 10m?

If so, you can avoid all prot tier, but the 2pc isn't bad and you can use the tier helm/shoulders. Here's a quick list off top of my head:

Helm = DA Crit/Haste OR tier helm
Neck = Valor haste/mast
Shoulders = Tortos crit/haste OR tier shoulders
Cloak = valor haste/mastery OR 600
Chest = Ret tier chest
Bracers = Horridon (or if you get a lucky roll on Durumu for straight haste)
Gloves = Primo
Belt = JinRohk
Legs = Durumu (or Horridon for mastery > exp, depending on needs)
Boots = 522 crafted haste/mast
Rings = Valor + Primo
Trinkets = Valor + Spark
Weapon = IQ or JinRohk
Shield = LeiShen or Primo (don't waste coins rolling for Primo shield though, since he drops 2 good Prot pieces as Ret, and his loot table for Prot is a minefield of dodge/parry shit)

That set favors expertise in the trinkets. chest and legs. Can swap them around as needed with other stuff, but it's hard to go for a "BiS" tank set since the values are so personal. IE if you're short on hit, you can get Feather or the JinRohk chest.

No idea how that maps out at 522 (+8) in terms of exact caps, but it should get you into "gem/reforge range" at least.

[pld]

So looking at only t15 normals? 10m?

If so, you can avoid all prot tier, but the 2pc isn't bad and you can use the tier helm/shoulders. Here's a quick list off top of my head:

Helm = DA Crit/Haste OR tier helm
Neck = Valor haste/mast
Shoulders = Tortos crit/haste OR tier shoulders
Cloak = valor haste/mastery OR 600
Chest = Ret tier chest
Bracers = Horridon (or if you get a lucky roll on Durumu for straight haste)
Gloves = Primo
Belt = JinRohk
Legs = Durumu (or Horridon for mastery > exp, depending on needs)
Boots = 522 crafted haste/mast
Rings = Valor + Primo
Trinkets = Valor + Spark
Weapon = IQ or JinRohk
Shield = LeiShen or Primo (don't waste coins rolling for Primo shield though, since he drops 2 good Prot pieces as Ret, and his loot table for Prot is a minefield of dodge/parry shit)

That set favors expertise in the trinkets. chest and legs. Can swap them around as needed with other stuff, but it's hard to go for a "BiS" tank set since the values are so personal. IE if you're short on hit, you can get Feather or the JinRohk chest.

No idea how that maps out at 522 (+8) in terms of exact caps, but it should get you into "gem/reforge range" at least.

Wouldn't the Tortos int shield be worth consideration as well? Currently using the heroic version.

[Nairobi]

Wouldn't the Tortos int shield be worth consideration as well? Currently using the heroic version.

I guess. He DID say he's going for a max haste build, which is what that shield is for.

I just don't ever use Int stuff, personally. I do recommend it to folks playing catch up, but personally never use it. "Do as I say, not as I do", I suppose. With the upcoming 5.4 GC changes, I'll have even less use for Int gear.

Huzzah for a Mastery/Exp shield in SoO too!

[pld]

I guess. He DID say he's going for a max haste build, which is what that shield is for.

I just don't ever use Int stuff, personally. I do recommend it to folks playing catch up, but personally never use it. "Do as I say, not as I do", I suppose. With the upcoming 5.4 GC changes, I'll have even less use for Int gear.

Huzzah for a Mastery/Exp shield in SoO too!

Yeah, I'm not a fan of using int gear as well, but I figured the Tortos shield is > than 522+8 Primo's. The Primo and Lei Shen ones are Mastery/D and the Mastery/P respectively (I think) so I'll probably hold onto the Tortos one until we get H Lei-Shen down.

Doesn't hurt that we get the Tortos shield on a weekly basis.

Also - excited for some Str/Haste 1H in SoO.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I'm currently using tortos shield because it's HTF. Better than my 530 primo shield.
I'll try to get my hands on a 543 (at least) STR shield before 5.4 though, if I can, otherwise, I'll just cope with it until a SoO drops

[Promdates]

I personally wouldn't recommend the Tortos shield.

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items...99.0.0.0.124.2

The spirit and int have 0 value for us. Sure you can argue that the int gives us spell crit, but honestly that's not worth enough for me to swap out any kind of mitigation/avoidance stat for the spell crit. While you can argue that dodge/parry has no value, it actually does have some value as it will proc GC, especially in 5.4.

[Nairobi]

I personally wouldn't recommend the Tortos shield.

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items...99.0.0.0.124.2

The spirit and int have 0 value for us. Sure you can argue that the int gives us spell crit, but honestly that's not worth enough for me to swap out any kind of mitigation/avoidance stat for the spell crit. While you can argue that dodge/parry has no value, it actually does have some value as it will proc GC, especially in 5.4.

Basically this.

The times that I recommend it are for new tanks that are coming in with a Tyran shield or an LFR/N MSV shield. I always urge to dump it for a "real" shield when the chance arises. It's much like D/P gear vs H/M/A gear: if there is a significant ilvl gap, you'd be foolish to stick with your low item. However, at a similar ilvl, even if slightly behind, I go with H/M/A > D/P and STR > INT.

I've got a 549 LS shield, and a 549 JinRohk ring. They're not the best itemized pieces in terms of pure haste, but the pure ilvl and stats make up for it (to me).

[Nillo]

I'd also mention

IQ haste gloves.
Lei Shen haste legs.
.... and maybe the crafted helm (well possibly a bit too expensive unless you're as unlucky as me with helm drops)

as possible alternatives.

[pld]

I'd also mention

IQ haste gloves.
Lei Shen haste legs.
.... and maybe the crafted helm (well possibly a bit too expensive unless you're as unlucky as me with helm drops)

as possible alternatives.

Aren't the Lei-Shen legs actually really good for someone who's Exp capped? The crit is a nice DPS boost and it has a 3rd socket.