[MoP] Protection Paladin Guide

[celinamuna]

Is it worth it to try and get the Prot paladin T15 4-set for a haste build?

The 2-set seems like it is worth it, since the neither the helm nor the shoulders have avoidance. The leggings and gloves however seem like less favorable since they have avoidance. The chest looks like it should be avoided since it has dodge and parry.

So should I be going for a non set or ret set pants/gloves or should I get the prot ones for the 4-set?

I'd get prot 2set (helm/shoulders) and everything else go for ret. (4set seems so so)

[Promdates]

FYI, there's no buff or anything telling you how long is left on the 2P bonus. Even checking the combatlog, there's no buff or anything that can be shown that we gain.

[britishbubba]

FYI, there's no buff or anything telling you how long is left on the 2P bonus. Even checking the combatlog, there's no buff or anything that can be shown that we gain.

I was able to make a weak aura to track it. A buff does pop up as being gained on MSBT so I was able to figure out the name of the buff.

The buff is called "Shield of glory". Kinda annoying that it doesn't show up as a buff on ElvUI though. Only was able to find it because of MSBT.

dmdbcaGlvuVwf0CrIzJ42uP2jQSxYUL0(vf)uf6Va1VfnuvIbRknCK0Xa15KWcvbwkQswmQIwUspuLQNs5XuLNd4Bu vtvWKrPPd1frvQddKNHIRlrBKkAAqAZkA7Ok8rvsJtv5ZqCAfgjQQwMqJwfz8OQCsQKBrfUgsDEvvBtLYWa5YsTGvq 2qMRkU3jiVMIlVScqXO2ecy(tYp4dinaWOICCEztC7HhzvgGm4ZON9pxiZTmwzSkiZlj5QGWYM52iBwwzVNKCvqCOY jnkekte6dfMHb1)Jwth00clJNG8oezZYk79KKRcIdworPJWXBqFqrg)c)IOMoOzexuorPJWXBqFqrg)c)IOMoOzehJ CIshHJ3G(GIm(f(frnDqZiouXbjSm8oqq6vbzvqUBafehSm70OjSpV5859kj3FHfwgjbXQGSnjTcYCxsWdfewyHLnZ Tr2SSYgA(WLBlZO2ecaLl86yG33dGHJFY2gzK1Wp1wg1nr2gaa38Hl3w2GvMDA0e2N3C(8ELK7VSAP7Woqq6fqCWcl dKcYStJMW(8MZN3RKC)L5QI7DcYRP4YlRaumQnHaM)K8d(asdamQihNx2e3E4rwfwgpehmkeKWsa

There's a weak aura string for the WA I made to track it. Don't know if you can track it as a progress icon, I chose to do it as a progress texture because that's how I prefer to track things.

Still haven't actually decided how to play around with this 2pc though. doesn't seem worth it to try to keep it up over SoTR.

[Deleted]

Still haven't actually decided how to play around with this 2pc though. doesn't seem worth it to try to keep it up over SoTR.

Ofc it is not worth to keep up over SotR. It is not reliable, SotR is.

It got 2 uses.

1. When you actually use a WoG, it makes it less shitty.

2. On a fight where you take predictable huge magic damage nukes, like tsulongs/elegons breath last tier.
If you use a WoG on those situations to top yourself off, it will lower the physical damage taken afterwards making it less dangerous to die from a magic damage + punch to the face combo.

[britishbubba]

Ofc it is not worth to keep up over SotR. It is not reliable, SotR is.

It got 2 uses.

1. When you actually use a WoG, it makes it less shitty.

2. On a fight where you take predictable huge magic damage nukes, like tsulongs/elegons breath last tier.
If you use a WoG on those situations to top yourself off, it will lower the physical damage taken afterwards making it less dangerous to die from a magic damage + punch to the face combo.

Yeah the only time this week I actually found myself consciously choosing to bank HP in order to throw out a WoG was on maegera.

Although the 40% bonus block is certainly interesting when tanking adds. Every SoTR becomes a 3stack albaster shield ^.^

I do have to wonder though, what's your opinion on the 4pc? I ended up passing on teir shoulders tonight because I felt other people getting their 2pc would be better than me getting my 4pc since I'm not actually 100% certain on how the 4pc functions. do I have to take 20% in one hit? or is it for every 20% of my health post mitigation I take while DP is up, I gain a HP? And even then, is that really good in any scenario?

[MerinPally]

The maths behind it was done and it was determined to not be worth keeping it up. Think that was done shortly after the bonus was announced

[Deleted]

The maths behind it was done and it was determined to not be worth keeping it up. Think that was done shortly after the bonus was announced

The problem with the "math" is the math only account for the standard physical damage melee hits on you.
A quick glance on my logs from yesterday show that only 55% of the damage was physical melee hits. What about the other 45% of the damage?

This is why a lot of the paladin math falls short, it is just to hard to analyze every situations since ever boss fight is unique. All we can do is educated guesses on what is generally the best.


Edit: To support myself with some symbolic images so people can relate.
(Sorry for posting images but feel like it is the best way to get point through)


Common Tanking Theorycrafting = How do we deal with these situations? (Doesnt matter who represent you and the boss)
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5...k830o1_500.gif


My (simplified) Idea of Tanking Theorycrafting = How do we deal with these situations? (You are the brown guy, the boss is the blue guy)
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln...sz95o1_500.gif

For example in that last situation, stacking more mastery would help you significantly more than any other stat. Presuming that the attack is lethal and you actually need more survivability. And the 2p would not help you at all since the attack is not blockable.

Whereas in that first situation, is what we see in thecks theorycrafting where haste shined in T14 and now still good but a bit worse than the other stats in the defensive stats. Also the same reason why Hit and Expertise is so valuable.
(As we can clearly see in the second image, the tank misses his crusader strike on the boss so he is not able to use SotR in time for the punch because he got no holy power right?)
However that is almost irrelevant information, as it is not these situations that will kill us, it can be a good pointer for some niche fights, and it is good to know, but you should not base your gearing on it.
In that first situation the 2p is not that bad either, actually decent.

[MerinPally]

The problem with the "math" is the math only account for the standard physical damage melee hits on you.
A quick glance on my logs from yesterday show that only 55% of the damage was physical melee hits. What about the other 45% of the damage?

This is why a lot of the paladin math falls short, it is just to hard to analyze every situations since ever boss fight is unique. All we can do is educated guesses on what is generally the best.

Unlike warriors especially and I don't know enough about other tanks (I'm rusty as it is, more so on other tanks) we have no direct way to stop magic damage - Shield Barrier works for them but blearh yeah, we just have to take it then reheal. I'm obviously not including sacred shield because I cba to trawl through those bits this early and then DP is a CD.

[Deleted]

Unlike warriors especially and I don't know enough about other tanks (I'm rusty as it is, more so on other tanks) we have no direct way to stop magic damage - Shield Barrier works for them but blearh yeah, we just have to take it then reheal. I'm obviously not including sacred shield because I cba to trawl through those bits this early and then DP is a CD.

Our way to stop magical damage is in our cooldowns. We also got one other tool. If we know we are gonna take a 200k punch in the face at the same time we are gonna take 500k magic damage.

Well, then we can still use SotR to reduce that punch in the face to 100k and we only take 600k damage instead of 700k.
Using SotR before/after taking magic damage to reduce the physical damage taken at the same time is also very smart

Also, a lot of boss spells are physical, so SotR helps on them.

Again going back to that log, I see that roughly 25% of the damage I took was physical non melee hit damage.
And that is when Mastery shines defensiviely, if I both take a physical falcon punch aswell as a melee hit, then Mastery is a beast.

Just look at a lot of the early bosses in ToT, Horridon, Tortos. Both have a lot of predictable physical damage nukes. Those are what kills you, not something else, so having extra block is not really useful there. Timing SotR however is vital. I often found myself overcapping on Holy Power intentionally so I could use double SotR at appropriate times, like when Horridon did that double cleave + a tripple puncture afterwards or when tortos do that snapping bite + an earthquake afterwards, I would rather have a lower uptime on SotR and having higher effective uptime on when I actually need it. The melee damage in between those spells really hit for nothing.

Btw did you see my edit on the previous page?
Explained a bit of my reasoning there aswell.

[MerinPally]

Btw did you see my edit on the previous page?
Explained a bit of my reasoning there aswell.

Not yet, going to clean the blood off my hands, reattach the bathroom door and calm down a bit first, I already had a really aggressive rant in another thread that I'll get banned for so I'll read, analyze and then post after my probable ban expires.

[Deleted]

Not yet, going to clean the blood off my hands, reattach the bathroom door and calm down a bit first, I already had a really aggressive rant in another thread that I'll get banned for so I'll read, analyze and then post after my probable ban expires.

Delete that post, quick.

[Deleted]

Btw guys, a bit to early to tell for heroic modes. But for normal modes, we are 1.4k dps on average behind monks! Time to grab our swords out an beat those monks! Everybody push that DPS so we can get ahead monks on ranks!

[Nairobi]

Stuff about how to use ShotR.

Aside from those good points, I must say that Prot Pal once again has tailor-made fights this tier.

Solo tanking Horridon HC is stupidly easy with correct ShotR use, although you WILL overcap/delay at times. Coupled with LAotL to get out of the double swipes and UbS to refresh bubble (for stack dropping between doors), and it's one of our best, most fun fights.

Shoutout to Iron Qon for similar things (though HoPur reigns supreme here, so you may need one external BoP).

But yes, as you said, our main anti-magic ability is DivProt. Not as good as SBarr, surely, but intelligent use of DP and ShotR can effectively halve incoming damage from that nasty combo-falcon-punch.

---------- Post added 2013-03-14 at 05:46 PM ----------

Aside from those good points, I must say that Prot Pal once again has tailor-made fights this tier.

Solo tanking Horridon HC is stupidly easy with correct ShotR use, although you WILL overcap/delay at times. Coupled with LAotL to get out of the double swipes and UbS to refresh bubble (for stack dropping between doors), and it's one of our best, most fun fights.

Shoutout to Iron Qon for similar things (though HoPur reigns supreme here, so you may need one external BoP).

But yes, as you said, our main anti-magic ability is DivProt. Not as good as SBarr, surely, but intelligent use of DP and ShotR can effectively halve incoming damage from that nasty combo-falcon-punch.

Btw guys, a bit to early to tell for heroic modes. But for normal modes, we are 1.4k dps on average behind monks! Time to grab our swords out an beat those monks! Everybody push that DPS so we can get ahead monks on ranks!

Yeah DPS is looking better. I tank with a BRM, and he ranked #1 on our HC JinRohk kill, while I was #7 while doing MORE dps...but I'm guessing this is more likely a function of our early kill, as well as low rep of BrMs vs ProtPals. But still...looking very respectable. And tanking bats...GG DPS.

[Fhi]

Btw guys, a bit to early to tell for heroic modes. But for normal modes, we are 1.4k dps on average behind monks! Time to grab our swords out an beat those monks! Everybody push that DPS so we can get ahead monks on ranks!

That's odd. Monks are saying they're bottom of the charts.

Come to think of it, so are shadow priests and mages saying that too......

[Deleted]

Yeah DPS is looking better. I tank with a BRM, and he ranked #1 on our HC JinRohk kill, while I was #7 while doing MORE dps...but I'm guessing this is more likely a function of our early kill, as well as low rep of BrMs vs ProtPals. But still...looking very respectable. And tanking bats...GG DPS.

The problem is that the top paladins are higher than the top monks, but the bottom paladins are lower than the bottom monks.
I often rank above #1 Monk on fights.

The issue is that monks are easiest tank to play in terms of dps rotation (ignoring survivability rotations and CDs).

Monks rotation get a difficulty value of 19.11 while paladins get a value of 38.76 from the sims that I ran from ToT logs. Now, not enough logs up to give a certain result. Though it was the same in the end of T14, monks was just so much lower on rotation difficulty value than all other tanks.

So we need to show those monks that we skilled paladins can overtake them!

That's odd. Monks are saying they're bottom of the charts.

Come to think of it, so are shadow priests and mages saying that too......

Mages are always on the bottom of the charts, in their own mind.

[Deleted]

Fml phase two of heroic Horridon is a lot of tank damage. Pretty much have to pop guardian for warlord and when that fucker is dead and gone you just have to pray someones external is ready for when your extended SoTR from HA is up. Went from playing with divine purpose for like 20 pulls because of it's usefulness in P1, but realized it's just not worth it. And SW isn't viable, because your life literally hangs on being able to have something in the form of a cooldown or a SoTR up at all times.
That phase is 25-man tuned tank damage with 2 healers, it's absolutely bonkers. Doable, but pretty much barely in my gear.

[Deleted]

Does something change in heroic Horridon? Otherwise I see no purpose in having HA. You can cover every tripple puncture and more with SotR anyway, so HA won't do much usefulness.

[Deleted]

They basically just tuned the tank damage to hell. The moment the wargod dies on heroic, simply timing your SotR for triple puncture isn't going to cut it. It's all about having something up constantly. The way we're doing it is also that i'm picking up the wargod first (who can melee you for 500k depending on how many cries you let through), and when he's dead you pretty much tank horridon through chaining cooldowns and tank switch when you're out of them and hope the DPS is enough to kill him until the other tank is out. HA is simply another cooldown to buy me some more time in that phase.

I'm not complaining, because it is a lot of fun. But i suspect the tuning is a little off there compared to 25-man with additional healers. (and more externals obviously)

[Deleted]

They basically just tuned the tank damage to hell. The moment the wargod dies on heroic, simply timing your SotR for triple puncture isn't going to cut it. It's all about having something up constantly. The way we're doing it is also that i'm picking up the wargod first (who can melee you for 500k depending on how many cries you let through), and when he's dead you pretty much tank horridon through chaining cooldowns and tank switch when you're out of them and hope the DPS is enough to kill him until the other tank is out. HA is simply another cooldown to buy me some more time in that phase.

I'm not complaining, because it is a lot of fun. But i suspect the tuning is a little off there compared to 25-man with additional healers. (and more externals obviously)

Comparing some logs from 10 man to heroic, naturally different groups, different tactics etc.

It only seems to be a 25% damage increase. That is not that insane. For me to tank heroic mode in good gear would almost be the same as for me tanking normal mode in my current gear.

However in the final phase the rampage increases that attack damage by 100% instead of 50%.

So that is roughly a 66% damage increase from normal mode in the last phase.

[Deleted]

Yup, either way you go from barely noticing any damage taken on normal to struggling to stay alive. It's interesting, considering a lot of encounters didn't have any intimidating tank damage last tier.