[MoP] Protection Paladin Guide

[Deleted]

Well, either way, we can never keep up both. Even if we had so much haste that we could use a cs-j-cs-j-cs-j rotation, we would still generate only 1hopo/second, which is just enough to give sotr 100% uptime. We could however use something like Divine Purpose and rely on getting procs to keep the shield up, so yeah, maybe with 225% haste we could. 4p retri pvp would help aswell.

[Deleted]

So, if I am right, we will be able to keep full uptime on both buffs at around 90,000 haste. Why are we even talking about this?

[Deleted]

So, if I am right, we will be able to keep full uptime on both buffs at around 90,000 haste. Why are we even talking about this?

Was kinda my point. Given, there are some special situations like HA letting you keep both buffs up. However, you won't be able to keep both buffs up rotation wise, even with insane haste amounts and procs and what not. Basically everytime you apply the block, it is a trade off from SotR uptime.

I think the point of this is to give some extra use to that WoG, when you actually use it so you don't lose to much on it.
Also, for those times you can bank up holy power and prepare for incoming physical hits like an intense add phase, tank swaps or whatever, which will allow you to prebuff the block.

[MerinPally]

We're not talking about this, someone posted it and I assumed he meant to use both so posted about it. If we can't hit anywhere near 100% uptime now why would it be easier when we have another spell to weave in? Hence I assumed he meant 100% uptime on the 2pc and then using SHOTR in between which is the only sensible thing I can pull out of his brief post

[Deleted]

So, if I am right, we will be able to keep full uptime on both buffs at around 90,000 haste. Why are we even talking about this?

better yet, with 100% uptime on SotR we have 100% physical reduction, why would we want block at that point?

[Nairobi]

I think the point of this is to give some extra use to that WoG, when you actually use it so you don't lose to much on it.
Also, for those times you can bank up holy power and prepare for incoming physical hits like an intense add phase, tank swaps or whatever, which will allow you to prebuff the block.

This. This is the whole point. It is a measure to make the use of WoG less detrimental, and to give some cover while you re-build bastion stacks. It is NOT supposed to be a replacement for ShotR or some brand new way to play prot. However, we can certainly use it intelligently in certain situations to augment our already strong defense repertoire.

Most of us camp BoG stacksx5 for 2 reasons: 1) using a WOG means you're not using ShotR and 2) 5BoG WOG is an extremely potent oh-shit button, easily healing between 300-600k. Just because WOG and ShotR are mutually exclusive does not mean that the 2pc bonus and ShotR are. This 2pc SCREAMS tank swap/phase transition utility. ShotR lasts 3 sec of ~50% dmg redux, and currently the best method to perform tank swaps is to build up 5 HoPo, taunt, ShotR -> CS/J -> ShotR and you have 6 sec of uptime while heals get adjusted or whatever. With this new 2pc, you will be able to cast a WOG a few seconds before the swap for 15 sec of +40% block, rebuild your 5 HoPo and transition as usual. All this would cost you is one non-vengeance'd ShotR, which is pretty limp-wristed anyhow.

Don't try to make this a gamebreaking thing; it's a (very) useful tool, but it won't change how we fundamentally gear or play. It's a huge increase to QoL in terms of reducing the dmg redux penalty when you DO have to WOG, which is great.

My gut tells me 4pc is in much the same boat, however with Unbreakable Spirit putting DivProt on a ~35sec cooldown, we should see a decent influx of HoPo provided that the damage range required to proc it isn't something ridiculous.

[monikasun88]

I see this as either a way to buff the weight of mastery or to slightly increase protection DPS with using the alabaster shield glyph for periods of lower physical damage or on fights with more magic damage. With lower mastery, using the the 3HP on SoTR would probably still be better damage reduction.

[Zantos]

So, with this new set bonus, would haste building become even better? Would we start to see world top prot paladins going haste? My guild knocks my haste building at the moment because of the top guys (like the world first heroic kill guy who has a weird rotation). I already see haste becoming better as the expansion goes on, but what about with this set bonus? Needless to say, itll get nerfed by t16. Otherwise we would keep it.

[MerinPally]

So, with this new set bonus, would haste building become even better? Would we start to see world top prot paladins going haste? My guild knocks my haste building at the moment because of the top guys (like the world first heroic kill guy who has a weird rotation). I already see haste becoming better as the expansion goes on, but what about with this set bonus? Needless to say, itll get nerfed by t16. Otherwise we would keep it.

I was under the impression that they were all using haste anyway apart from that one guy in Blood Legion.

Your guild needs to consider 2 things - the first being to stop copying the top guilds. They do not always have it right and in some cases purposely don't because the problems which face many raiders are not the ones that they face. The most famous example of this was their shield tanks stacking stamina in early Cataclysm when everyone else was getting CTC, suddenly there was outcry that they knew something we didn't. Nope, it was a case that their healers could deal with the spikes and a bigger health pool for their tanks was more important than smoothing things out for their healers.

The second one, is that haste outshines mastery in 10mans because the extra healing/dps really helps in a 10man whereas in a 25man the impact is far less. Therefore, considering that mastery reduces damage taken ever so slightly more than haste and definitely isn't as reliant on a good holy power generation and the perfect rotation (although it helps a LOT) so some 25man tanks go for mastery instead, although it is the minority as far as I'm aware.

If you're 10man then you really should be haste. If you're 25man you should still be haste but if for some reason your healers really can't cope and that tiny difference in damage taken is going to make the difference, go mastery - but they'll have to make up a healing and dps deficit. If your guild is that blindly looking at like 1 person and using that as an example of you doing it wrong, it makes me sad to a ridiculous extent. Same as some guy the other day who was moaning his protadin was using haste trinkets on bosses but then swapped to stamina for Lei Shi hc (smart move) so that must be the cause of all the raids issues so he must be dropped because he's doing it wrong. /palm

[Zantos]

I was under the impression that they were all using haste anyway apart from that one guy in Blood Legion.

Your guild needs to consider 2 things - the first being to stop copying the top guilds. They do not always have it right and in some cases purposely don't because the problems which face many raiders are not the ones that they face. The most famous example of this was their shield tanks stacking stamina in early Cataclysm when everyone else was getting CTC, suddenly there was outcry that they knew something we didn't. Nope, it was a case that their healers could deal with the spikes and a bigger health pool for their tanks was more important than smoothing things out for their healers.

The second one, is that haste outshines mastery in 10mans because the extra healing/dps really helps in a 10man whereas in a 25man the impact is far less. Therefore, considering that mastery reduces damage taken ever so slightly more than haste and definitely isn't as reliant on a good holy power generation and the perfect rotation (although it helps a LOT) so some 25man tanks go for mastery instead, although it is the minority as far as I'm aware.

If you're 10man then you really should be haste. If you're 25man you should still be haste but if for some reason your healers really can't cope and that tiny difference in damage taken is going to make the difference, go mastery - but they'll have to make up a healing and dps deficit. If your guild is that blindly looking at like 1 person and using that as an example of you doing it wrong, it makes me sad to a ridiculous extent. Same as some guy the other day who was moaning his protadin was using haste trinkets on bosses but then swapped to stamina for Lei Shi hc (smart move) so that must be the cause of all the raids issues so he must be dropped because he's doing it wrong. /palm

Thanks. Which top end tanks use haste? My guild really relies on them solely as (you should be following them. They are top so they are doing it write no matter what the others say). If it wasn't for the fact I refuse 90% of the time to listen to them, I would have been using the heroic agil cloak. Also, at what gear level is haste all that great? I mean, currently my ilevle is 482 and a guildie insists im not at the point it helps.

[MerinPally]

ilvl is somewhat irrelevent, it's based more on how much hit/exp you can squeeze out of your gear. Was someone on here before I came back that was ~475 and struggling to get any haste yet when I was 370 I began stacking haste.

An armory link would be really helpful then I can give you a hand. The agility cloak may or may not be an upgrade, you really want Hiseks Chrysanthemum Drape I think it's called, from the first boss of Heart of Fear as that's about as good as a cloak gets for us this tier.

Either way, if your clearly more intelligent officers noticed anything other than that they're looking at a rather unusual case, they would see that all the people are hit and 15% expertise capped and then getting haste, as you don't accidentally stumble on 5100 expertise. There's not a lower limit because haste affects us lineraly rather than exponentially increasing.

EDIT: Haste tanks

I'm not going to trawl through armories to please your stubborn officers. Every single guide I've seen at least says haste is a viable option (even Noxxic does...) and if they really want proof, go onto SacredDuty and look at Theck's work, who runs these numbers through so many situations through a computer with loads of different variables and complex and accurate maths to map it properly, and he comes back with "Haste is better than mastery, only just and only because it increases your healing" as a really basic summarization.

[Zantos]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...s/Holoo/simple

here ya go. I was at ilevel 477 and we were wiping on the final boss in HoF and they said my gear was too low and haste building sucks. Then they quoted that blood legion fella as being god mode. So if I get someone better or just as good who haste builds theyll shut it.

[MerinPally]

And what proof do they have of him being "god mode" except him doing it differently? The paladin tank in Paragon was initially mastery but they all were because this was before the revelation about haste and definitely before the proof of it, once it came out suddenly everyone swapped including them just minus that guy in Blood Legion. They didn't all change for no reason. Also I'd like to point out that Blood Legion didn't win the race (again) so if they're going to emulate the top, actually go for the top not just below it because why be anything less than the best? If they want to lick the best's ass, lick it, don't go for the guy outside who's seen it from a window.

You should really take a look at a few gems and enchants on that armory, don't do anything else until you get those hit and expertise caps. 2550 hit and 5100 expertise. Get them sorted, your hit is ok but your expertise is lacking. Check your chest enchant and that shoulder gem. Also, unless you really need those extra hand spells, you're taking a bit more damage from not speccing Unbreakable Spirit. Same goes for your boot enchant, do you really need that run speed considering our first tier of talents can sort that? Can get some expertise or haste on those instead.

Your officers can say what they want, until they have some basis for complaining you have every right to tell them to shut the fuck up, and if you just use your spells and hit SHOTR whenever it glows you can't be doing too badly.

[Zantos]

And what proof do they have of him being "god mode" except him doing it differently? The paladin tank in Paragon was initially mastery but they all were because this was before the revelation about haste and definitely before the proof of it, once it came out suddenly everyone swapped including them just minus that guy in Blood Legion. They didn't all change for no reason. Also I'd like to point out that Blood Legion didn't win the race (again) so if they're going to emulate the top, actually go for the top not just below it because why be anything less than the best? If they want to lick the best's ass, lick it, don't go for the guy outside who's seen it from a window.

You should really take a look at a few gems and enchants on that armory, don't do anything else until you get those hit and expertise caps. 2550 hit and 5100 expertise. Get them sorted, your hit is ok but your expertise is lacking. Check your chest enchant and that shoulder gem. Also, unless you really need those extra hand spells, you're taking a bit more damage from not speccing Unbreakable Spirit. Same goes for your boot enchant, do you really need that run speed considering our first tier of talents can sort that? Can get some expertise or haste on those instead.

Your officers can say what they want, until they have some basis for complaining you have every right to tell them to shut the fuck up, and if you just use your spells and hit SHOTR whenever it glows you can't be doing too badly.

thanks for the advice. I actually take less damage then a 490 guardian druid. Ill change those around . Didnt know there was exp chants for hands and feet.

[Deleted]

Thanks. Which top end tanks use haste? My guild really relies on them solely as (you should be following them. They are top so they are doing it write no matter what the others say). If it wasn't for the fact I refuse 90% of the time to listen to them, I would have been using the heroic agil cloak. Also, at what gear level is haste all that great? I mean, currently my ilevle is 482 and a guildie insists im not at the point it helps.

Haste is good in blue gear, your guildies does not know what they are talking about. Refer them to this thread. If you are doing 10 man, you should as a 99% rule of thumb be stacking haste, with very few exceptations. ( And if your are one of those, you probably know WHY you should not gear haste in that particular situation )

[Zantos]

Haste is good in blue gear, your guildies does not know what they are talking about. Refer them to this thread. If you are doing 10 man, you should as a 99% rule of thumb be stacking haste, with very few exceptations. ( And if your are one of those, you probably know WHY you should not gear haste in that particular situation )

Gonna feel dumb, but no. Im not sure which situations would be the exception. Which situations?

[MerinPally]

Ok done a pretty major reword and general clean up, will go over "Talents" section again tomorrow or the day after dependent on when I get time and then the rotation section, I'm going to fill out a proper rotation of X's rather than leaving the guessing game.

@ Zantos - an example would be Lei Shi where because haste is to increase your physical damage reduction as thats what most damage is, there just isn't any on Lei Shi so people go to stack stamina instead on that one in terms of trinkets at least. There's other things though, I'll stay out of this one and let you and Firefly chat as I want to go to bed and I'm going back to uni tomorrow so need sleep in preparation for a messy night.

[Deleted]

There's not a lower limit because haste affects us lineraly rather than exponentially increasing.

While haste scalse linearly, the effects scale exponentially.

Just to take another stat as example since its easier. Lets say you do not have any mastery, your SotR reduces 30% damage. If you increase that by 10% to 40%. You went from taking 70% damage to 60%. Which is a 15% decrease.

If you instead got the exact same increase at higher level, say, you have some insane amount of mastery, you have 80%, and increase to 90%.
So you go from taking 20% damage to 10%, that is a 50% decrease.

So defensive stats the scale linearly, the actual effects is exponentially.

---------- Post added 2013-01-13 at 02:43 AM ----------

Gonna feel dumb, but no. Im not sure which situations would be the exception. Which situations?

There are a few things that can contribute to this. In a situation when the stars align and all/most of the following is true, you might have yourself a situation where mastery could outweigh, but mostly it can boil down to you are stuck on a fight where mastery is slightly better.

For one, lets say you do not have so much availability for the gear.
Maybe you are raiding with 2 plate melees, or maybe you are raiding with another paladin tank going for haste.

If you have extremely competent dps your dps will have less value.

If you are stuck on a fight where mastery has an inflated value, and you are having healing problems, not dps problems, like Sha, Empress, Bladelord, Vizier.

If you are undergeared on said encounters.

A bit depending on your healing and tanking setup

Though generally, this is more fight specific, and extremely rare. Alot more factors that weigh in. To much to cover really in a post, all depends to much on your group and what fights you have problems with and what is the problem in that fight. The biggest 4 are though: Gear availability, your current gear ( are you undergeared ), current fight and what fights you have problems with, your groups gear, skill and classes.

---------- Post added 2013-01-13 at 02:46 AM ----------

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...s/Holoo/simple

here ya go. I was at ilevel 477 and we were wiping on the final boss in HoF and they said my gear was too low and haste building sucks. Then they quoted that blood legion fella as being god mode. So if I get someone better or just as good who haste builds theyll shut it.

Remember that BL plays 25 man which is fundamentally different from 10, assuming you play 10. Haste has lower value in 25 and mastery + stamina got higher than in 10. ( Not saying mastery have higher than haste, just saying that 25 man mastery > 10 man mastery and 10 man haste > 25 man haste.
+ Don't look at top end tanks, most silly thing you can do.

But if you want a top end guild tank stacking haste. Check 10 man guilds, oh, I do not know, lets check the top 10 man guild in the world.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ggoji/advanced
Stacking haste.
Now I do not generally like to look att fragg, since I feel like he is kinda bad (read as: Worse than expected from someone in a top 5 guild) at playing paladin. ( Don't get me wrong, he is a great player, but he does alot and alot of mistakes as a paladin )

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

I dunno, I'm tanking 25m heroics, have quite a lot of haste, take less damage, die less often and do rather more damage than our other tank who has focussed more on stamina and mastery. Anecdotal evidence, I know - but don't make the mistake of thinking that haste stacking for 25man heroic is really bad.

[Deleted]

I dunno, I'm tanking 25m heroics, have quite a lot of haste, take less damage, die less often and do rather more damage than our other tank who has focussed more on stamina and mastery. Anecdotal evidence, I know - but don't make the mistake of thinking that haste stacking for 25man heroic is really bad.

Never said that. I think that they are more equal in 25 man though, not the same difference as in 10, so I don't really think bad of a tank going either way in 25 man. Its more whatever fits your playstyle. And you are likely just better than that other tank then