Fellow prot paladins: How do you tank M15+?

[Delever]

So I ve been rolling kyrian prot paladin for all of SL playing in a pretty casual guild 10/10 HC, 2/10 soon 3/10 M CN. Currently sitting at 218 ilvl and 1030 rio (not the best, not the worse). I ve tanked most of the dungeons at above +10 with half of them at +14 or a few failed 15s. So to all fellow prot pallies out there I want to reach out and ask:

How do you tank 15+ keys?

I feel like I m constantly getting my ass clapped. I m clearly not the best tank in the universe but I have enough experience to be able to be conventionally "good". I m having an insanely hard time kiting as a lot of times I feel ike I m forced to momentarily turn my back on mobs to get the full speed of pony and with the long ass cd of pony I often run out of room and if my cds arent up I get insta gibbed on specific packs. Often times, hallowed ground doesnt even feel that great and even with keeping 100% active mitigation through proper haste % and skill usage and always standing in consecration, I still feel so damn squishy compared to any other tank alongside feeling like my kiting is trash.
I came here to seek some advice because I felt really bad after almost gimping a guild run on one of the easiest dungeons at +17 (HoA). I d preffer no troll answers even though class problem threads tend to incite them.

PS: currently focusing on haste/mastery as stats but I had a guy tell me vers is better than mastery for prot pala but so far no guide or video I ve found confirms this nor does it make sense on paper seeing how much more mastery offers.

[Bloodyleech]

I'm not a paladin tank, so I can't help you with this.

But you said, you turn your back when running away (with horse) - that's not the right way tho. If you hold your right mb you can turn <90° to the enemies and use A or D to run almost straight away from them without getting hit into the back. Doing this in a quick way together with jumping, you'll never be hit in the back, at all. (I still see tanks keyboard turning and gettin hit in the back a few times, or backpaddeling away from mobs and wondering why they still get hit...)
The group should help you kiting, too, while you use your consec slow if there is no Frostmage in the group. If your group doesn't help.. well, gonna eat these hits.

[Delever]

I'm not a paladin tank, so I can't help you with this.

But you said, you turn your back when running away (with horse) - that's not the right way tho. If you hold your right mb you can turn <90° to the enemies and use A or D to run almost straight away from them without getting hit into the back. Doing this in a quick way together with jumping, you'll never be hit in the back, at all. (I still see tanks keyboard turning and gettin hit in the back a few times, or backpaddeling away from mobs and wondering why they still get hit...)
The group should help you kiting, too, while you use your consec slow if there is no Frostmage in the group. If your group doesn't help.. well, gonna eat these hits.

Thats the way I ve been doing it but the damage I m taking during that one second made me think that strafing with the pony still counts as having your back turned cause the damage is massive.

[erifwodahs]

Versa and mastery is both viable, but if you stack mastery you have to sit in your consecration ground.

Prepare holy power for the dips. I am running 2nd talent on the last row and opted to go full defensive conduits besides the mandatory potency on any push keys, on lower keys it does not matter (AD cd reduction + GotAK reduction + WoG, and WoG shield conduit ) so I have CDs for any major pulls.
Plan your pulls, if nothing is available - you are running.
Don't spend Holy Power if mobs are casting spells and melee are slowed - use it on WoG when you dip.
Get trinket from Kaelthas (Sun King or whatever he is, this is a literal must for pushing).
Plan your BoPs and Kyrian potion. If pull is not big or you have healer defensive available - ask for that and reserve yours for future pulls (Dog bleed in the HoA)
Consider getting the Avenger Shield refresh legendary. You will loose significant amount of dps but it helps with interrupts when you have to run around and can't get to the mob and most importantly - extra absorb shields.
Use Wings defensively.
If you run blessed hammers - always use them to build HP before the pull starts.

Basic stuff - SotR uptime monitoring vs melee enemies.
Bleeds are full dmg and armor does not help - WoG is the way to go.

You are not alone. I get my face melted and globals. If you are pushing 19s you are in top 20 paladins in the world too so... yeah Would be on page 30 with DH rankings with those keys

[Delever]

Versa and mastery is both viable, but if you stack mastery you have to sit in your consecration ground.

Prepare holy power for the dips. I am running 2nd talent on the last row and opted to go full defensive conduits besides the mandatory potency on any push keys, on lower keys it does not matter (AD cd reduction + GotAK reduction + WoG, and WoG shield conduit ) so I have CDs for any major pulls.
Plan your pulls, if nothing is available - you are running.
Don't spend Holy Power if mobs are casting spells and melee are slowed - use it on WoG when you dip.
Get trinket from Kaelthas (Sun King or whatever he is, this is a literal must for pushing).
Plan your BoPs and Kyrian potion. If pull is not big or you have healer defensive available - ask for that and reserve yours for future pulls (Dog bleed in the HoA)
Consider getting the Avenger Shield refresh legendary. You will loose significant amount of dps but it helps with interrupts when you have to run around and can't get to the mob and most importantly - extra absorb shields.
Use Wings defensively.
If you run blessed hammers - always use them to build HP before the pull starts.

Basic stuff - SotR uptime monitoring vs melee enemies.
Bleeds are full dmg and armor does not help - WoG is the way to go.

You are not alone. I get my face melted and globals. If you are pushing 19s you are in top 20 paladins in the world too so... yeah Would be on page 30 with DH rankings with those keys

Thanks for the advice mate. Not pushing 19s yet absolutely no hahahahaha. 17 is the highest I ve tried and we ended up downgrading.

[Faesroll]

on my demon hunter

[Holdodlig]

I'd first say tanking during reinforced as a prot paladin has proven to be more difficult for me than tanking in tyrannical where all the fails I encountered during tyrannical weeks were from low DPS. Outside of SD, healing and tanking never proved to be a problem.

Now, the main issue has a paladin comes from the class design itself. You have to stand in the Consecrate, which is really bad in M+ because you spend half your time kiting the adds, the other half being when you have CDs and your mate manage to apply their crowd control correctly. Also, unless you play with a non optimal talent (Blessed hammer), you will have trouble generating Holy Power away from the fight. You're also one of the least efficient class in term of mobility.

Prot paladin could easily get a little up in term of dealing with trashes because their main mechanic is really difficult to play with especially when some melees can hit you while you stand behind your consecrate. Some packs can prove to be real annoyance especially if you don't have an optimized group (who said DoS without enrage dispelling ?).

One of the most dangerous thing to deal with is a freshly stunned pack, as you'll have to deal with all the melee attacks at once so you should always be ready to mitigate or even CC when you're on big packs at the end of a mass stun. Outside of the big melee damages, that's the biggest pain point if you'll deal with. Maybe you should also try to look at prot pals streaming to see where they use their CDs ? What are the strategies they use ? If they get out of LoS to dodge certains big hits etc.

As for the main stat, I'd say it depends on your playstyle, but I'd say Versatility is better than Mastery for Reinforced affix in my opinion because you spend more time kitting than actually tanking so you don't have much value from blocking anything that's not a spell. Also the damage reduction from Versatility is better because you don't have to sit in the consecrate to benefit from it. Outside of this, Mastery is still better. Both stats are good tho.

[Delever]

I'd first say tanking during reinforced as a prot paladin has proven to be more difficult for me than tanking in tyrannical where all the fails I encountered during tyrannical weeks were from low DPS. Outside of SD, healing and tanking never proved to be a problem.

Now, the main issue has a paladin comes from the class design itself. You have to stand in the Consecrate, which is really bad in M+ because you spend half your time kiting the adds, the other half being when you have CDs and your mate manage to apply their crowd control correctly. Also, unless you play with a non optimal talent (Blessed hammer), you will have trouble generating Holy Power away from the fight. You're also one of the least efficient class in term of mobility.

Prot paladin could easily get a little up in term of dealing with trashes because their main mechanic is really difficult to play with especially when some melees can hit you while you stand behind your consecrate. Some packs can prove to be real annoyance especially if you don't have an optimized group (who said DoS without enrage dispelling ?).

One of the most dangerous thing to deal with is a freshly stunned pack, as you'll have to deal with all the melee attacks at once so you should always be ready to mitigate or even CC when you're on big packs at the end of a mass stun. Outside of the big melee damages, that's the biggest pain point if you'll deal with. Maybe you should also try to look at prot pals streaming to see where they use their CDs ? What are the strategies they use ? If they get out of LoS to dodge certains big hits etc.

As for the main stat, I'd say it depends on your playstyle, but I'd say Versatility is better than Mastery for Reinforced affix in my opinion because you spend more time kitting than actually tanking so you don't have much value from blocking anything that's not a spell. Also the damage reduction from Versatility is better because you don't have to sit in the consecrate to benefit from it. Outside of this, Mastery is still better. Both stats are good tho.

Thank you for the tips man. I tend to go for mastery because its better for raid. I guess I have to practice a bit more with some pulls

[Caerrona]

Looking at a handful of the top paladins on warcraftlogs for m+ they are all haste=vers >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>mastery and crit.

Almost no mastery and crit.

[Samuraijake]

consider lower CD on-use trinkets like blood splattered scale or if you get your hands on a quantum ??? box (3min cd). If the ??? box procs say ... verse... you get a 7~10%ish damage reduction which is decent from a trinket during hard times.

[Simulacrum]

Prot paladin is probably the strongest tank in 15s and below with the gear we have right now, because of all the control and damage they bring and because they are immortal with the low damage in these dungeons. They're weak in very high keys where you have to do massive pulls that do huge damage and take a long time to die, so there aren't enough cooldowns to cycle through to cover the whole fight, so VDH or even something like a bear is better there. But in groups where you're presumably not pulling 2 packs with the boss and trying to kill it all at the same time over a minute, ppally is extremely strong, and you should almost never have to do stupid things like kite if you to learn how to cycle through your cooldowns. And you definitely should never "run out of room" while kiting, since you can literally just run in a circle around the mobs while they're stuck in your consecrate.

Ppally tanking is literally just, you walk up to the mobs, you cast avenger's shield on the caster(s), you make sure they're all stacked, then you push 1 of whatever cooldown you have up (AW, AD, Divine Toll, trinket, GoAK, whatever), then when it expires you look at the mobs. Do they have enough health left that you'd get full value out of your next cooldown? Then you push that one, unless you need it for the start of the next pull. Then you just sort of stand there haphazardly pushing buttons until the mobs are dead. Maybe the last 10-15% of their health, when your cooldown runs out and you don't want to pop a new one since it will lose a lot of value between packs, you kite a little bit while waiting for the mobs to die. Then you run to the next pack and do it again. Keeping SotR up near-100% should be easy with the gaps in its uptime occurring between pulls, and while SotR is up you almost can't die to melee damage from normal pulls.

Just make sure to spec Righteous Protector in order to turn AW into a ~1 min cooldown, and Unreakable Spirit with the Resolute Defender conduit to turn AD into a 1 minute cooldown. You should basically always have a cooldown up or the important parts of pulls as long as you're not overlapping them, which you should never do unless you're doing a huge pull. And you should never have to kite while a cooldown is up. ESPECIALLY as a prot paladin, who can negate all the mechanics that normally force other tanks to kite, such as stacking bleeds or other debuffs, that we can simply BoP or bubble off (when we don't just kyrian potion it).

For example, when pulling the pack of 3 dogs + 2 houndmasters after the 2nd boss in HoA. As kyrian, you can just cornerpull them all into your face, wait for the dogs to each apply their second stack of the bleed (for 6 stacks total) and simply phial it away. Then if the pack somehow dies slowly enough that you get back up to 6 stacks again, simply BoP it away. Or bubble. Then just keep an eye on the enrage casts and be ready to hammer and/or blinding light if nobody else gets them. Just about every pull can be managed in a similar way. Throw some healer externals in there as well, and maybe some stuff like treants, and you should almost never have to kite. Only instance I can think of where I regularly kite on ppally is DOS, where the first two packs have so much shadow damage from the little troll skeletons that we can't mitigate with SotR, so we have to kite those, and the big skeletons when they enrage are a bad idea to facetank as well. And you have to kite a little when pulling like 20+ mobs at once in the ardenweald area. And I suppose the devoted by the endboss in plaguefall. But other than that, I basically never do it outside of a few seconds here or there at the end of a pull when I want to conserve a cooldown for the next one.

[Wildpantz]

Not enough vers and sounds like youre not kiting

[DazManianDevil]

On the topic of Divine Steed, stupid question.
How does it affect Block/Dodge/Parry/Crit Immune components? I noticed the OP mentioning he took excess damage during steed, which obviously could be a positional issue but it got me thinking about the other passive mechanics of tanking and defensive DRs.

Granted I have a very old school tank mindset from when Def cap was a thing, but there are times when this still comes up.
Example being Blood drinker for BDKs, it specifically states it retains Dodge and Parry chance for the channeled spell duration.
Can you still auto attack, block/dodge and or parry during the 3second steed window or does the animation not allow these passive interactions?

Probably dumb, but it would be funny if the animation for Pony made you unable to auto attack, block dodge or parry, thus lowering your damage smoothing for that small window.

With that being said OP, probably a good habit to tell your group 2-3 seconds before you Pony kite, as a fair few classes offer AoE slow or root effects. I'm sure this was already said so I apologize for the redundancy.

[Naville]

Playing Final Stand here, I think it's a really underrated talent. Can help with multiple pulls and/or debuffs, and if you also play Unbreakable Spirit, you've got Divine Shield available more often than Guardian of The Ancient Kings.

Concerning stats, Mastery is overall stronger that Versatility with mobs' melee damage because of the increased block chance, BUT Versatility is giving you more damage reduction per point than damage reduction you get from consecration.

That's the theory. Now what? By doing multiple tests I figured that you should NOT play full mastery or full vers. You need a minimum amount of both. So I would suggest you test different amounts of stats and choose what you feel confortable with. Here I'm playing with ~22 % mastery and ~10 % versatility and I'm good with that on 15s.

[Batoa]

2 Things you really need.
First is Haste at a minimum of 20%.
Second is Blood splattered Scale from DOS.

I did the Keystonemaster already and some 16s. I always make sure to let the healer know before we start what he has to watch out for. Like when i get really hard spikes. Cause we are nearly helpless when it comes to kiting i really like Final Stand. I do a big pull with it and let the DPS do there work, interrupts are no problem for a protpally...hell i can do it alone if i want with up to 5 adds. When i get Pridebuff i can do really big pulls cause we get the movementspeed buff and kite really well.

15s and above i juggle my big CDs with big pulls. Mastery is garbage for M+ cause you ll often leave your concecration.

Also you have to learn strafing backwards and not turn your back. I use WASD and A / D are strafe. With holding down the right mousebutton you can do it very easy.

[Araevin]

Looking at a handful of the top paladins on warcraftlogs for m+ they are all haste=vers >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>mastery and crit.

Almost no mastery and crit.

Partly though because they are wearing pvp gear I assume?

- - - Updated - - -

On the topic of Divine Steed, stupid question.
How does it affect Block/Dodge/Parry/Crit Immune components? I noticed the OP mentioning he took excess damage during steed, which obviously could be a positional issue but it got me thinking about the other passive mechanics of tanking and defensive DRs.

Granted I have a very old school tank mindset from when Def cap was a thing, but there are times when this still comes up.
Example being Blood drinker for BDKs, it specifically states it retains Dodge and Parry chance for the channeled spell duration.
Can you still auto attack, block/dodge and or parry during the 3second steed window or does the animation not allow these passive interactions?

Probably dumb, but it would be funny if the animation for Pony made you unable to auto attack, block dodge or parry, thus lowering your damage smoothing for that small window.

With that being said OP, probably a good habit to tell your group 2-3 seconds before you Pony kite, as a fair few classes offer AoE slow or root effects. I'm sure this was already said so I apologize for the redundancy.

Pony is not a channel. You can dodge/parry/block if you keep the proper facing. Problem is it's fast enough that it can mess your facing. What you have to do is always start strafing as you hit the pony keybind and then strafe while facing the mobs.

[KTM]

i got my prot pally a side for a while. Do u think would it be viable in high keys with this 10% reduction damage nerf or still it's gonna be mediocre tier?

[Shayd]

Some good tips in here, if you want to do +15 you have to know each pack and how to handle them with which CD’s up (meaning you have to anticipate so you have the right CD when you need them).

Last stance is really strong, too with the Kael’Thas trinket it’ll help a lot.

For my self I like to stack up a little bit of speed. Enchant+gems you will easily go up to 15-20% move speed and it saved my ass a couple of times ^^

[Yhcti]

It’s a lot of dungeon knowledge.. naowh timed a 19 Mists with 4 minutes left as Prot.

I’m about to try and tank a bunch on my Pally now that he is geared through pvp and is sitting at 226 ilvl with 31% vers haha.. I have noticed the 2 tank trinkets make a HUGE difference as it’s effectively 2 more cool downs.

[Dzonathan]

I dont. I give myself mercy, go Holy and chill.