[MoP] Protection Paladin Guide

[Nairobi]

Well you have till the 10th, confirmed, to find some new raiders, GET TO IT! haha

WTB good mage and ele shaman. All we get is vanq/prot tokens and int gear. Come sponge!

[Aceshigh]

WTB good mage and ele shaman. All we get is vanq/prot tokens and int gear. Come sponge!

512 ele shaman alt, which was only ever used for heroic Durumu OP chain lightning fun, I'll come take all your prot gear, and it won't be a carry at all!

[Nillo]

Yep, I've seen MORE clipping with high haste, since the "totem" still lasts for 9 sec, but we've got more filler openings to slot it in (that's what she said).

Nillo - you've been a bit quiet on plans next tier. t15 4p, t16 4p, or high-haste off pieces? SS or EF? Why?

Have been on vacation for a while so I'm not really up to date with the patch notes yet.
My guess would be t16 4p with EF most of the time since I'm not that keen on keeping SS up all the time.
Other than that I've got t15 4p lying around just in case but since most of it isn't upped yet the chances of me using it are low.

[rhandric]

WTB good mage and ele shaman. All we get is vanq/prot tokens and int gear. Come sponge!

If you can manage to convince me to turn my undead mage into a *sigh* alliance, then you've got me!

[Lethora]

I don't know how difficult normal modes are this time around as I havn't tested either of them. But with avg 545+ gear I can't imagine a whole lot of them being difficult

Normal modes are usually balanced for ~20 itemlevels below of what they are dropping. (i.e. 489 MSV was pretty balanced for 463 blue gear, 522 TOT was very doable in 500 gear, so my guess is 553 SoO would be balanced for 535-ish gear, which all heroic guilds have by now)

[Deleted]

I have a question concerning [Gong-Lu, Strength of Xuen], I'm not on the PTR.
Does the proc trigger our seal of insight?
I remember the question going around in these forums, but couldn't find an answer.

[gerus]

Normal modes are usually balanced for ~20 itemlevels below of what they are dropping. (i.e. 489 MSV was pretty balanced for 463 blue gear, 522 TOT was very doable in 500 gear, so my guess is 553 SoO would be balanced for 535-ish gear, which all heroic guilds have by now)

They were doing PTR rounds with normal mode at 520 ilvl. I think that's probably about the target for normal clears.

[Deleted]

They were doing PTR rounds with normal mode at 520 ilvl. I think that's probably about the target for normal clears.

Maybe not clears (unless we're talking people with experience) but probably for a good part of it. I think the end is probably tuned more around 530

[Nairobi]

If I recall, they said that entry wing was 520, scaling up 10ilvl each wing thereafter.

Puts Garrosh at ~550 balanced, which seems about right.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

The item level scaling of the raid gear for the Garrosh testing last night was set to 550.

[Deleted]

Seems like a new thing then. Don't recall a tier in which the final boss was tuned for BiS heroic gear from last tier.

[Promdates]

He's tuned just under the ilvl of the items that drop. So guilds that aren't doing heroics can gain a large increase of ilvl with some boss kills. Going from 522/528 to 553/559.

[trystero]

It's looking like I may need to grab the 4P in SoO, prioritizing my coins for it...you guys agree?

I f'ing hate tier, though. One, it cannot be thunderforged, which does nerf some of the advantage we 25s have. Two, it's better served going to DPS, so by the time I collect my tier it'll be near doomsday as we have literally almost half the raid on my token. Three...got no third.

[Deleted]

It's looking like I may need to grab the 4P in SoO, prioritizing my coins for it...you guys agree?

I f'ing hate tier, though. One, it cannot be thunderforged, which does nerf some of the advantage we 25s have. Two, it's better served going to DPS, so by the time I collect my tier it'll be near doomsday as we have literally almost half the raid on my token. Three...got no third.

that's really up to you. It's not necessary to run with the 4p at all. It's fine and the stats aren't too bad since they finally put haste on tier gear. But it's not some omg-must-have bonus like the ret 2p was in DS.

[Nairobi]

It's looking like I may need to grab the 4P in SoO, prioritizing my coins for it...you guys agree?

I f'ing hate tier, though. One, it cannot be thunderforged, which does nerf some of the advantage we 25s have. Two, it's better served going to DPS, so by the time I collect my tier it'll be near doomsday as we have literally almost half the raid on my token. Three...got no third.

Trinkets first (Vial and Thok for me), then tier.

Until I get 4pc, going to stick with 4t15 and let folks grab their tokens. We run 4-5 conq users too, so it'll be a while (probably) before I get a piece, let alone 4 of them, but whatever. That's also what Flex is for if you REALLY want it.

[Promdates]

So, I'm honestly curious if people have even looked into how much haste you'll actually have next tier... and if anyone has come up with an item build for it.

[Nairobi]

Even in t16N gear, but especially so in HC, we'd be far over the 21250 mark. Given Thok's, when we only need 19.6ish, that frees up even more.

Are you asking in terms of shooting for a higher haste cap? Or reforging into something like crit/mast? Or just for a ballpark figure?

[xebtria]

does haste actually do anything (useful) beyond the cap? As I understand it, the cap is where we reach a GCD of 1 second.
so then haste loses some of its value, question is, how much? I know, it is no hard cap, because at the end of the day it still increases our attackspeed and thus increases SoI procs and so on. but would it be worth to switch to mastery or even crit after reaching that cap? Or just go mindless for max haste?

[Nairobi]

does haste actually do anything (useful) beyond the cap? As I understand it, the cap is where we reach a GCD of 1 second.
so then haste loses some of its value, question is, how much? I know, it is no hard cap, because at the end of the day it still increases our attackspeed and thus increases SoI procs and so on. but would it be worth to switch to mastery or even crit after reaching that cap? Or just go mindless for max haste?

Haste's main point is not GCD reduction as much as it is ability CD reduction. GCD reduction is a great side effect, but haste continues to reduce spell CD even beyond 50%/21250.

So, your CS/J still come off CD faster, you just can't press anything more frequently than once per second. Fillers also come off CD quicker, allowing for less (or better) clash prevention. And, of course, you have linear scaling on white attacks and therefore SOI procs. SS/EF also scales with haste beyond 50%, meaning faster/more ticks.

So, yes, haste loses SOME value past 50% in the sense that it's intrinsic value for GCD reduction has been reached, but it does continue to reduce the CDs of abilities and yield additional SS/EF/SOI ticks.

After 21250, you can opt to swap in additional stats of Crit, Mastery, or Avoidance. What you choose will largely be determined by your content, progression, and personal choice:
Crit - More throughput, but no notable increase on survival (outside of EF scaling).
Mastery - More survival via ShotR boosting (and EF scaling), but no throughput increase.
Avoidance - More survival via TDR, albeit unreliable. Minor boost to throughput via GC changes.

Can't tell you how to play, as those stat values will be different for you than for me, or for anyone else, depending on content, raid comp, skill, and preference.

[Promdates]

Yes, once you reach 50% the best option is to go for a different secondary stat. The issue I'm seeing is we're not able to reach the 50% cap, unless it's in all 2/2+heroic warforged gear with 4pT16 with haste elixir and thok's trinket... which puts us at 21,317. So unless someone can find a set that has 7.5%/15% and 18,746 haste before we reach 580 ilvl, I'd like to see it.