[MoP] Protection Paladin Guide

[pld]

-snip-

Like Nairobi I use WASD for movement and use a G600 so I have a few extra buttons on my mouse. (Convinced my co-tank to get one too!)
I don't think my keybinds are optimal, but I try to keep them all within easy reach and don't go past 5 for any important binds. Important ones below.

1 - Taunt
2 - Judgement
3 - Consecrate
4 - Speed of Light
5 - Bubble
Shift 5 - Divine Protection
E - Avenger's Shield
R - Crusader Strike
F - Shield of the Righteous
Q - T90 talent
T - Ardent Defender
V- GoAK
Ctrl Q - Devo Aura
X (I should really change this) - HW
Shift-X - HoW
Mouse 4 - SS
Scroll Wheel - AW + HA (when applicable) macro
Mouse 3 - LoH
Mouse 5 - Ironbark (Symbiosis)

Shift/Ctrl Spacebar - Ground/Flying mount
Shift 1-5 - Buffs + Hands
~ - Extra Action Button
Mouse 6 - Macro button (ex. Heroic Tortos crystal macro)

I track all my cooldowns right below my character using TellMeWhen and have a Weakaura set up to show me time remaining on SS and ShoR.

[Drummerboy]

Just going to say this. If a tank is more concerned with DPS and has a significantly lower survivability percent than most of his raid party he may need to reconsider his role. Not going to point fingers but I'm sick of seeing certain people spreading bad advice backed up by lies and exaggerations.

Prot need to get back to their grass roots. We should be about making sure the raid doesn't take unnecessary damage and this includes us.

"Leet" discussions should be separated from mainstream advice threads.

[Nillo]

Just going to say this. If a tank is more concerned with DPS and has a significantly lower survivability percent than most of his raid party he may need to reconsider his role. Not going to point fingers but I'm sick of seeing certain people spreading bad advice backed up by lies and exaggerations.

Prot need to get back to their grass roots. We should be about making sure the raid doesn't take unnecessary damage and this includes us.

"Leet" discussions should be separated from mainstream advice threads.

[pld]

Just going to say this. If a tank is more concerned with DPS and has a significantly lower survivability percent than most of his raid party he may need to reconsider his role. Not going to point fingers but I'm sick of seeing certain people spreading bad advice backed up by lies and exaggerations.

Prot need to get back to their grass roots. We should be about making sure the raid doesn't take unnecessary damage and this includes us.

"Leet" discussions should be separated from mainstream advice threads.

To be honest, I haven't played prot prior to MoP, but tanking has evolved since previous expansions. We're no longer just here to soak damage and afk after building up some threat. Our damage is actually important now and we provide utility apart from being a meat shield.

I agree that someone who sacrifices their own survivability for a chance at getting a WoL ranking is detrimental to their raid, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for us to be considerate of our DPS as well. Not sure which topics of discussion you're referring to, but the general consensus in this thread appears to be focused on helping our raid team.

[Nillo]

Judging by his post history it looks to me like he was trying to respond to a post from like 2 and a half months ago >_>

[Drummerboy]

I apologize if I'm not totally relevant to the current topic of this thread. I just want to advise that some of the people providing advice may not be the most credible sources and actually are subject to the "scumbag tanking" mentality as described.

[pld]

I apologize if I'm not totally relevant to the current topic of this thread. I just want to advise that some of the people providing advice may not be the most credible sources and actually are subject to the "scumbag tanking" mentality as described.

If by "scumbag tanking" you're referring to /sit-tanking and other DPS/Vengeance-oriented topics, the majority of the discussion I've seen about that are between people who have already cleared the content and are just looking for better numbers to spice up their farm nights.

I first came into this thread a few months ago with no background in tanking and very limited knowledge, but the active posters have been extremely helpful in answering my questions and helping me improve my performance. This is probably the most helpful and knowledgable places for prot paladins I've found since I picked up tanking.

[Nillo]

I apologize if I'm not totally relevant to the current topic of this thread. I just want to advise that some of the people providing advice may not be the most credible sources and actually are subject to the "scumbag tanking" mentality as described.

And by not stating who or what you are referring to specifically noone has any idea what you're on about.

- - - Updated - - -

If by "scumbag tanking" you're referring to /sit-tanking and other DPS/Vengeance-oriented topics, the majority of the discussion I've seen about that are between people who have already cleared the content and are just looking for better numbers to spice up their farm nights.

Sit tanking if done right is actually more than worth it in the long run not just dps wise but also due to the vengeance scaling of defensive abilities.
Same as with many other forms in the art of vengeance cheesing. Eventually one has to find a balance between doing damage and taking damage that works best.

[Nairobi]

I apologize if I'm not totally relevant to the current topic of this thread. I just want to advise that some of the people providing advice may not be the most credible sources and actually are subject to the "scumbag tanking" mentality as described.

Who, exactly, are you referring to here?

I'm not really trying to be antagonistic, but I've seen similar "warnings" from you crop up in other tanking related posts, usually cautioning people about the dangers of not stacking D/P and stam as tanks. I'm not really sure what your current progress/experience is, and won't venture to guess, but I can state that for myself and the other 13/13H Prots in here, we're all stacking haste over avoidance with no ill effects. We avoid avoidance for a reason, and those reasons have been stated and restated repeatedly, proven with math, logs, and logic.

If you're lobbying for a "return to grassroots", do you have any proof or logs or math to show that this is actual good advice? Or is this just an emotional decision since it's how some folks thinks "tanks should be"? You're essentially suggesting that we continue to build airplanes out of wood, because that's how the Wright Bro's did it back in 1900. Meanwhile, we're trying to explain why alloys and synthetic materials available today are far superior. Sure, both are airplanes, but I know which one I'd rather be in/on.

Is this crusade against "scumbags" truly founded? I'm curious. I've solo tanked things that are designed for 2-tanking; is that scumbag? I've abused /sit, since survival is such a non-issue that I can do so; is that scumbag? Or is it just scumbag behavior to prefer/take Haste loot over Dodge/Parry DE-fodder?

How SHOULD a tank behave, in your opinion? I'm not trying to be inflammatory, I'm genuinely curious. Once we're not at risk of dying, which is pretty staggeringly easy, what else is there to do besides increase our raid DPS and HPS so that the fight is over faster? I mean, you say the goal is to protect our team and make them take less damage, right? Certainly ending a fight faster means less damage goes out...

[Deleted]

I steal ret pieces!

<- scumbag

[Drummerboy]

Taking haste gear is not scumbagging. Ignoring avoidance for crit when on progression is. When on farm though who cares honestly. But I am seeing a trend of advising to take crit because "DPS benefits the raid" when on progression.

Part of the problem is that normal progresson raiders could take what 13H raiders are doing as the "right way" to tank when their right way isn't the best way for some guild who doesn't have god-like heals that can cover scumbagging. At the same time though I'm also seeing non-heroic raiders also giving this same advise.

Many people here state that Blizzard is in a state of denial because they keep pushing these "useless" avoidance stats on us. But since they are the ones designing the class are they really the ones in denial?

As far as what I think the focus should be is, then as the support class after we have our job well handled of minimizing our incoming damage we should help out heals as much as possible by either throwing out CD's or heals on our raidmates.

Again once on farm, do whatever you want.

[Nillo]

Taking haste gear is not scumbagging. Ignoring avoidance for crit when on progression is. When on farm though who cares honestly. But I am seeing a trend of advising to take crit because "DPS benefits the raid" when on progression.

The thing is that those crit vs avoidance choices are often comparing a crit/haste vs a double avoidance piece in which case the crit/haste piece is obviously the better choice.
Also I have to agree with firefly - avoidance is basically a zero value for anything that isn't tanking a shitload of adds or trivial content

- - - Updated - - -

Part of the problem is that normal progresson raiders could take what 13H raiders are doing as the "right way" to tank when their right way isn't the best way for some guild who doesn't have god-like heals that can cover scumbagging. At the same time though I'm also seeing non-heroic raiders also giving this same advise.

God-like? Seriously?

[Drummerboy]

And again, progression content is typically not trivial; farm content is typically trivial.

As far as "god-like heals", if you're not helping your healer your hindering them. Remember "mana sponges"?

[Nillo]

And again, progression content is typically not trivial; farm content is typically trivial.

So you're agreeing that avoidance is only good for trivial content , or in other words useless - we're making progress /sarcasm off.

[Deleted]

Crit > Avoidance.

Not like it matters anyway, since you still won't gem/reforge for crit as long as you can't reach 50% haste.
Maybe in next patch we can talk about whenever we should go:

hit-cap>exp-cap>haste-cap>mastery>crit>>>>>>avoidance
OR
hit-cap>exp-cap>haste-cap>crit>mastery>>>>>>avoidance

But that will depend on the encounters and personal playstyle mostly.
For avoidance... no one cares about that here.

[Dastuross]

And again, progression content is typically not trivial; farm content is typically trivial.

As far as "god-like heals", if you're not helping your healer your hindering them. Remember "mana sponges"?

All i'm seeing so far is that you don't like haste as a prot, therefore in your mind, everyone who uses it on progression is hindering the raid?

I use an 100% haste build for 10m heroic tanking, i'm 2/13 ATM, working on horridon. here's my armory http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...turos/advanced

and /sitting or staying in fire isn't really a bad thing if done right, you gain a huge boost to SS and SoI heals through vengeance, that said, i don't do that on progression, but so what if someone does?, if they do it correctly then they won't hinder the raid in any way, and if they're doing it wrong, they're not all that smart to begin with.

- - - Updated - - -

Crit > Avoidance.

Not like it matters anyway, since you still won't gem/reforge for crit as long as you can't reach 50% haste.
Maybe in next patch we can talk about whenever we should go:

hit-cap>exp-cap>haste-cap>mastery>crit>>>>>>avoidance
OR
hit-cap>exp-cap>haste-cap>crit>mastery>>>>>>avoidance

But that will depend on the encounters and personal playstyle mostly.
For avoidance... no one cares about that here.

Agreed. it will be interesting to see what we do in 5.4, i see it being hit-cap>exp-cap>haste-cap>crit>mastery>>>>>>avoidance if the fights aren't Sha of Fear like.

[Deleted]

Worrying about dps and survival are not mutually exclusive things. A better rotation means both better survivabiliy and dps.

You need to differentiate survival and survivability though. I could trade away a ton of survivability and still survive without issue.

In the end, tanking is at its roots, surviving is the number one priority. If you are experiences frequent deaths as tank, you probably should focus more on your survivability over your damage throughput. However considering how easy tank survivability is this expansion, it does not take a top 100 paladin to take the next step and focus on more dps rather than only surviving. The problem is that active mitigation is too strong. Either you fail and you get overkilled by a mile, or you succeed and the damage is not even dangerous. So tank deaths in a raid is often just solved by not messing up. Any decent paladin and any paladin that is actually reading up trying to perfect his play will care about his damage output aswell. We are not in wrath or cata anymore, the meta changed.

The only discussion I would consider to be to "leet" for mainstream advice threads would be discussion about exploiting vengeance (like eating decapitate to the face and /sitting for boss swings with the physical damage taken increase), discussions about reaching rank 1's and similar stuff that severly increases the chances for tank deaths.

For example, I do megaera by pulling 1-2 Shale spiders from the trash pack before megaera during each rampage. While that does give me another 50-60k dps on Megaera, it is not something I would never recommend someone do for progress. For the same reason I would not advice /sit tanking for progress for anyone except the top 200 paladins.

[Drummerboy]

For avoidance... no one cares about that here.

And no one sees anything wrong with this? >_>

All i'm seeing so far is that you don't like haste as a prot, therefore in your mind, everyone who uses it on progression is hindering the raid?

I haven't said I don't like haste. And the active gameplay it brings is great.

My criticism is against taking crit over avoidance.
And btw I am also 2/12H and we don't farm. /shrug

In the end, tanking is at its roots, surviving is the number one priority.

But this isn't where the reducing our damage should stop. If the healer is spending more time healing you that's less time they have to take care of the rest of the raid. Again, if you're not helping the healer your hindering them.

[Nairobi]

And no one sees anything wrong with this? >_>

Nope. Because there is nothing wrong with having an opinion that is different than yours, Blizzard's, mine, or anyone else. However, the pure mathematical facts show avoidance is, strictly speaking, subpar to all stats (including crit) for progression in every way, unless you're tanking a boatload of adds.

But this isn't where the reducing our damage should stop. If the healer is spending more time healing you that's less time they have to take care of the rest of the raid. Again, if you're not helping the healer your hindering them.

If you, as a paladin tank, are not 50-65% of your own healing, you're also hindering the raid. The more that I take care of myself, the more that the healers can babysit the raid. You know how you boost your self-heals? Stacking haste. You know what pieces don't have haste on them? Avoidance pieces.

[trystero]

You know I used to like avoidance too in T14. 'Like' may be too strong, but I tolerated it. Yes I haste stacked. Yes I loved Haste. Even still, I felt pretty good if I had a few avoidance pieces equipped. After all, suppose a boss hits you for 320k unmitigated. Dodge an attack and that's 320k of damage you never took, never had to be healed, never had to distract anyone from. Sure, it's not as good as having higher Haste and Mastery, but it's still sweet, right?

Then I examined logs and the way that most damage presented itself. A well-played Haste tank should see this type of line very often (and it's on 25H, where bosses do hit us for 300k+ unmitigated),

Horridon hits Trystero for 68144
Beacon of Light heals Trystero for 28444
Seal of Insight Heals Trystero for 34011
Seal of Insight Heals Trystero for 29111

You don't take a lot of damage to begin with because of multilayered mitigation: SotR, SS, external shit like a PW:S. And then what damage you do take gets swallowed up by pulsating raid-wide heals.

Avoidance is a waste of time. I wouldn't dream of passing on my crit/haste shoulders because it has a "wasted stat" on it. It gives me haste, so it's good to go.