[MoP] Protection Paladin Guide

[Kanadei]

If your rotation is messed up, surely it would be better to learn to not mess it up than use a sub-optimal setup as a band-aid?

Following this vein of thought... exactly how badly could you be messing up your rotation that you would need to change your entire gearset to compensate? Is our rotation far more difficult than I initially believed?

[Elathi]

Is our rotation far more difficult than I initially believed?

Probably not, but, something else people often overlook is that your rotation is (hopefully) not the only thing you're paying attention to during a given fight.

[MerinPally]

One thing that is often overlooked however is that mastery also requires you to land your rotation very well... do not believe that mastery is forgiving either.

Thinking in terms of how much fucking up you could concieveably do even if you find yourself drooling on the keyboard occasionally, the mastery build will suffer less from your... lack of interest.

Don't think I've seen anyone claim that you can really fuck it up, of course the mastery build requires a half decent rotation, but for your rotation to be THAT bad where avoidance > mastery in terms of damage smoothing, you really must be sitting at your desk whilst your computer is busy in Afghanistan. Within reasonable levels of rotational mishaps, Mastery > Haste but if you can get it perfect then you have the choice between the 2 builds as they are equal, just depends what extra perk you want.

[Xs]

Thinking in terms of how much fucking up you could concieveably do even if you find yourself drooling on the keyboard occasionally, the mastery build will suffer less from your... lack of interest.

Don't think I've seen anyone claim that you can really fuck it up, of course the mastery build requires a half decent rotation, but for your rotation to be THAT bad where avoidance > mastery in terms of damage smoothing, you really must be sitting at your desk whilst your computer is busy in Afghanistan. Within reasonable levels of rotational mishaps, Mastery > Haste but if you can get it perfect then you have the choice between the 2 builds as they are equal, just depends what extra perk you want.

TL;DR: Start with Mastery, then make your choice after that

[Deleted]

Thinking in terms of how much fucking up you could concieveably do even if you find yourself drooling on the keyboard occasionally, the mastery build will suffer less from your... lack of interest.

Don't think I've seen anyone claim that you can really fuck it up, of course the mastery build requires a half decent rotation, but for your rotation to be THAT bad where avoidance > mastery in terms of damage smoothing, you really must be sitting at your desk whilst your computer is busy in Afghanistan. Within reasonable levels of rotational mishaps, Mastery > Haste but if you can get it perfect then you have the choice between the 2 builds as they are equal, just depends what extra perk you want.

I think you pulled to much out of my post. I was referring to the hypothetical situation were a person is perrty much as you said, drooling on his keyboard and is virutally afk. Considering what I have seen from some players in MoP, this is not that uncommon. The problem is that the damge smoothening in mastery build is coming alot from SotR and not from the block. Mastery is a very active mitigation build, and to be completely honest, yes it would take alot to make dodge/parry superior to mastery, however it would not take much to make a stamina + dodge/parry build superior since that build is not really about damage smoothening, rather max TDR and having enough HP pool to survive the hits you take.

Now given this is based on the basis that you have basically 0 clue what you are doing, but this is still I very real situation.
If you are simply missing a few buttons here and there then yes, mastery could potentionally be better. However not to the extent that most people claim. It is still a very active mitigation build.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

The "mouth-breathing droolers" won't be reading a guide anyway, because they are either convinced they are the best player in the world, or they really couldn't care less about playing badly.

[Deleted]

so we're all agreed that the spirit build is better? good

[Deleted]

so we're all agreed that the spirit build is better? good

Personally I believe spell pen is better as long as you can maintain a good rotation.

[MerinPally]

I believe that {◕ ◡ ◕}

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Follow-up on the spell haste and Sacred Shield discussion, quoted from my paladin tanking guide on TankSpot.com:

Sacred Shield works like a HoT spell, in that Haste (or rather, Spell Haste) reduces the time between applications of the absorb shield. This means that we can get more absorbs out of a single cast of Sacred Shield, making it a very potent spell indeed. Because Sacred Shield scales with Spell Haste, it also scales with the 10% Spell Haste from Seal of Insight, and the 5% Spell Haste from Moonkin Aura, Darkness and Elemental Oath.

Sacred Shield grants, when naked and without buffs, 5 shields of 6 second duration and has a standard duration of 30 seconds. It grants an extra shield at the following amounts of Spell Haste:

10%
30%
50%
70%
90%
and every 20% there-after.

10% Haste is granted by Seal of Insight alone, so you will always get a 6th absorb out of Sacred Shield, even without a single point of haste rating on your gear. In essence, this means that if you get a short-term haste buff, be it a trinket use, bloodlust or an encounter buff, you should definitely think about refreshing Sacred Shield before that buff drops off. Likewise, if you get a negative haste effect, such as Curse of Tongues, you should aim to replace the Sacred Shield when it is convenient to, as this will make you lose ticks.

You can find a link to the maths behind SS haste scaling (and thus any other over-time effect) linked here

Credit for the maths goes to Theck, we had an exchange of private messages last night on the topic. The contents of the PM is linked at the end of the quote.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

As far as I'm aware, both Holy Prism and Execution Sentence generate threat. The only reason Light's Hammer doesn't is because it's not actually you doing it--the spell summons a totem that generates the damage/healing effects, so all of the threat goes to the totem.

Light's Hammer does generate threat from what I can recall of every time I've used it to pick up mobs, it generates threat the same way shaman totems do now which directs the threat at the owner rather than the actual totem.

[MerinPally]

I'll read all this stuff later and act accordingly. I had a formal dinner last night, woke up this morning wearing a bow tie and nothing else. I need to put the pieces together and work out wtf happened and then go to a 4 hour labs session >.<

[Rivin]

Light's Hammer does generate threat from what I can recall of every time I've used it to pick up mobs, it generates threat the same way shaman totems do now which directs the threat at the owner rather than the actual totem.

When did they change shaman totems to redirect threat to the shaman? Last time I played my shaman was 4.2, and they didn't redirect then. They do generate their own threat, but I've never heard that totems were given a threat redirect. o.O

[Fhi]

When did they change shaman totems to redirect threat to the shaman? Last time I played my shaman was 4.2, and they didn't redirect then. They do generate their own threat, but I've never heard that totems were given a threat redirect. o.O

Guildmate just tested it out - ishe says it works slightly differently now. If you pull a whole group of mob (just pulling without attacking) and drop a totem, mobs will attack the shaman and ignore the totem. However, if a mob paths into a totem without aggroing into the shaman, they will attack the totem.

[Rivin]

Guildmate just tested it out - ishe says it works slightly differently now. If you pull a whole group of mob (just pulling without attacking) and drop a totem, mobs will attack the shaman and ignore the totem. However, if a mob paths into a totem without aggroing into the shaman, they will attack the totem.

That's how it's worked for a long time. Back when I played my shaman, most totems only caused proximity aggro, so if the shaman already had aggro they wouldn't attack the totems anyway. Searing/Magma, however, would pull aggro on mobs that the shaman didn't have threat on, because they generated their own threat from damage. Did she test using Searing/Magma or one of the others?

[Rivin]

If you go to a neutral mob, say the deer you need to kill for your dailies in vale. If you drop your hammer on it the mob will take damage but not actually aggro.

Yeah, that would be because the threat is going to the totem, and the totem isn't attackable, so the deer just ignores it.

[Fhi]

Maybe my deer has an attitude issue, but throwing light's hammer at it caused it to attack me. I'm in a dungeon now and throwing light's hammer at a pathing mob far away causes them to aggro onto me.

[pkm]

Does anyone have problems holding aggro? Even with vengeance stacked, I still somehow lose aggro to some dps. A taunt doesn't seem to be enough I gotta really lay a smackdown to get the mob back but since mop I just hit like a wet noodle.

[Deleted]

Quite the opposite I feel that aggro has never been easier. Even in ICC aggro was harder, and that says alot. Personally I think aggro is a non issue.

Sometimes I have been tanking for a long time without righteous fury ( because of spec swapping ) without even noticing it.

Are you referring to Raids or 5mans?

Regardless make sure you keep SoI and RF up, its the 2 most important parts of aggro right now.

[pkm]

Talking about 5 man's. Though I'm not 90 yet maybe that's why?