prot pally tanking specs

[Lexan]

THIS IS ONLY FOR LV 70 PATH 3.0!!! SPECS NOT LV 80.

so here is the tankig spec i am going to use when patch 3.0 comes out i would like to hear what everyone thinks about the tallents

1. http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...13251533312301

2. http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...10251533312301

the first one is more about threat generation then anything else and the one that i have been using on the ptr to tank kara and such. The second is more about the avoidance so that blessing of sanc can proc more often aka more mana = more threat.

now i know that avoidance is important but i have read some other posts that with the gear at 80 we are going to have so much avoidance at 80 that why spec into it if it'll be wasted points. What are your idea's about which tallents to pick up and what do you think of my builds for generating threat.

I am tier 5 and ZA gear doing tier 6 content btw.

[Clasifyd]

Myself, I wouldn't take Kings. It's too many points to just throw away, and is much more liable to be a Holy skill. Instead, I'd put my points into anticipation. Such as:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...13251533312301

The only thing I'm not sure about is Guarded by the Light vs. Judgments of the Just. Currently, I don't have problems with mana, but the spell warding aspect of GbtL is rather attractive. On the other hand, JotJ only be beneficial if the target is constantly judged (which it probably should be).

That brings up an interesting point, though: Why doesn't JotJ also effect spell casting in some manner?

editosted wrong link

[Zorthax]

Also, if available, anything less than 5 points in the new Reckoning is still useless, imo. 5/5 will still need to prove itself, but it seems like a much better talent now that it can proc off of blocks. Thus, I'd move the 2/2 from Imp Judge, to finish out Reckoning for the Lvl 70 build.

[TES]

After the changes to Hammer of Justice, I took another look at the way I am going to spec at 70. I will end up with a spec like this:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...10251533312321

Honestly, Reckoning doesn't synergize at all with the main tanking seals Seal of Corruption/Vengence. I was trying this build on PTR and my Seal of Corruption was ticking for 300 every 3 secs when stacked to 5. This is in Kara epics, so results may vary. With out Seals of the Pure, was a much lower 260 per tick every 3 secs.

With the new Hammer of the Righteous, I don't miss Reckoning at all.

I'm taking Judgements of the Just simply because a warriors slow can fall off. I would rather that warrior put his rage to better use... like beating the crap out of the mob.

I skipped Blessing of Kings simply because I know most Holy pally will pick it up. I'll spend those points on Imp. HoJ and Imp Devo Aura to make his job easier. =P

[Zorthax]

My problem is that HoJ is way too situational. It doesn't work on any raid or instance boss, or, in most other cases, many trash mobs, and is thus never part of my rotation at those times. The added spell casting debuff is something I'm not sure I understand fully though. Is it an additional 3 seconds after the initial stun? It seems utterly retarded for it to be within the time limit of the stun (you've already stunned them, so obviously they can't cast), so I'm assuming it's tacked on. Still, if it's not useful for higher level trash and bosses, why spend the points? Some of the extra Prot points we're gonna have are going to end up as the lesser of two evils...

[Tasttey]

My problem is that HoJ is way too situational. It doesn't work on any raid or instance boss, or, in most other cases, many trash mobs, and is thus never part of my rotation at those times. The added spell casting debuff is something I'm not sure I understand fully though. Is it an additional 3 seconds after the initial stun? It seems utterly retarded for it to be within the time limit of the stun (you've already stunned them, so obviously they can't cast), so I'm assuming it's tacked on. Still, if it's not useful for higher level trash and bosses, why spend the points? Some of the extra Prot points we're gonna have are going to end up as the lesser of two evils...

I think you missed how HoJ is going to work now. If the target can be stunned, then it will be stunned for 6 secs. If the target is immune to stuns, then if it was casting a spell that spell school will be interrupted for 3 sec.

Think Shade of Aran, you can't stun him, but with the change to HoJ, you could interrupt his fireball or frost bolt.

[Lumidar]

like TES said but i still don't think Judgements of the Just is worth it as it is now. (i'd prefer it with Concecrate like thunderclap is)

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0xVAcuMteIRhoxb

then on your way to 80 add Benediction and Seals of the Pure.

[Zorthax]

Well, the new HoJ seems to have much more viability then. It would seems that Pallies can now interrupt heals and such on certain bosses and adds. Hmm. I wonder how well it's going to work on live, as I would like to not take Reckoning if I don't have to. But, like the person above me has, I'm very much coming around on the 5/54/12 build.

[Lexan]

OMG HOW CAN YOU PELOPLE NOT HAVE BENIDICTION!!!!!

lol sorry it's just that everything that a prot pally will be using to tank with is going to be instant cast, now with the lack of int gear and mana regen issues that we have allways had and crushing blows not there any more omg yes parry is good but no way is it better than mana conservation, imo anyway. Less mana cost on EVERYTHING (judge, seals, consecrate, avengers shield, shield of righteousness, holy shield, hammer of righteousness, avenging wrath, bubble, pally shield wall, blessings, righteous fury) all of it reduced by 10% aka you can use it more since it cost less = more threat.

Most people who have posted about judgements of the just and other avoidance have constantly said "a tanks job is to midigate dmg so they take less over anything else" yes that may be true but with crushes out of the way and all tanks should be uncritable anyway, avoidance is important yes but not as important. The way i see it with the removal of salv, the more threat we do the better. As for kings yea 10% is good for holy pally's but is also very raid viable more so then just wis and might, casting dps, druids and shamans want kings for the more int = more crit then just mp5, and spirit increesed by kings gives more mp5 for druid and some shaman (at least thats what some tell me, don;t go blaisitc about shamans now) healers so it makes prot pally's more desireable for raids without requireing holy for kings. Imp judge, omg awesome i have it now and will forever have it for tanking, the more you judge the more threat you generate simple as that, and with the glyohs for judgements to do %10 more dmg it fits perfect. The more threat you do the more dps can do the faster you down the boss, a good offence is a good defnce so to speak, granted the parry and dodge will be good for 80.

i have heard that judgements of the just will work on bosses but is currently bugged, if true it will be good for bosses for mitigation, BUT AS ALLWAYS FOR PALLY'S WE STILL AND ALLWAYS WILL HAVE TO BALANCE MANA REGEN FROM HEALS ( and now from blessing of sanc ) WITH THREAT GENERATION. it's our plight but makes tanking interesting then hitting 3 buttons you have to think, wtch your threat and try to maintain tps while regenning mana thenpop cd's and go all out, almost like burst threat lol.

either way you do it prot pally tanking is going to be awesome with loits of different viable specs depending on your gear and wants, reckonging for more threat if you can stak the expertice and hit, dodge and parry for mitigation, finding the either high threat spec or the high mitigation and the balance between them is going to be an awesome time at lv 80 to play around with stuff and gear.

this thread is pretty mush dead to me now i'm glad to see that we all know how to tank and that blizzard is letting us tank in different ways but still tanking, good job blizzard you really made me happy about tanking as a pally in wotlk.

Now please make blessing of sanc 3% mana and make hammer of rightousness stakc with ap and sp like all of our other abilities so we can use whatever wepon we want

[TES]

I've tried out the new paladin talents on PTR. I NEVER any mana problems unless I was fighting one or 2 mob and was not receiving heals.

Just use HotR and HS when fighting less than 5 and you will not run out of mana. If I had 5 or more mobs fighting me, I basically had INFINITE mana. I would spam everything I had every GCD when I was AoE tanking and my mana bar was acting like a damn energy bar.

You don't need Benidiction. Mana will no longer be the horrible problem it was in BC. No Int or mana regen on gear will no longer be a problem. Please chill out and play the game before you blow a fuse. GCD will limit threat more than mana will.

Also Lexan, reading your post hurts my eyes and reminds me of a rapid chipmunk on speed. Please try to break it up a bit?

[Iselian]

-Skip kings. It's not worth 5 talent points.
-Benediction can be nice, but if you're looking at t5/6, after the patch but before the release, your content will provide enough damage to not need it.
-Take Deflection. More parry is -always- better.
-Judgements of the Just is nice, if you can work it in. No, it doesn't stack with Thunderclap. But you'll be judging anyway; you can tell your t-clap warrior to use his rage for more threat or damage. If you can't fit it in, no worries.


Clasifyd's pretty much got it; variate that spec to personal likings.


EDIT: The points I threw out are from the intention that you plan on raiding post-3.0 but pre-release.

[Tasttey]

I've tried out the new paladin talents on PTR. I NEVER any mana problems unless I was fighting one or 2 mob and was not receiving heals.

I was messing around on the PTR with them as well, I found that the only time mana was an issue at all what when I used consecrate in a regular rotation. Seriously if its 3 mobs or less its not really even worth it, HoR and HS are plenty of threat. With HoR actually proc'ing seals on all 3 mobs in addition to the base holy damage its quite a punch.

This is the spec, I'm currently using on the PTR.
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...10251533312301

Seals of the Pure is rather crazy if you're using SoV since HoR will apply and refresh it on all 3 targets. I'm thinking filling out Deflection and Benidiction and Imp Judgments on the way to 80. Judgments of the Just just isn't much to my liking, honestly. Since Thunderclap hits multiple mobs JoJ just doesn't seem as special.

[Grenwalis]

Why rely on a Warrior to drop his DPS to slow melee hits from a boss if you can talent and get the same passively every 8-10 sec?

[Dokoran]

Too lazy too look at your spec to be honest haha, but still have my notepad up with the link to the prot spec I settled on: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...10251533310321

I chose this -after- testing it on PTR. Doing various 5mans and even a kara run.

"OMG NO BENEDICTION" Don't need it. As a tank, I'm always getting heals, so I usually throw up JoW anytime I'm in need of mana, which is rare, but every now and then, if we get an add or whatever, I'll resort to using JoW and it's -FINE-. Keep in mind, Blizzard has intentionally gone out of their way to make sure paladins don't have to rely on mana so much. So, yes. No benediction, at level 70, I have no need, this may change @ end-game but for now, I'm golden.

Just about everything I have in my prot tree is a "Must". The only talents I considered swapping were Guarded by the Light and Judgements of the Just. I went with Guarded by the Light. Again, this is at level 70 and I never tank anything harder than SSC and there aren't any bosses that I would require Judgements of the Just for.

Again, keep in mind, this build was made with the current talent and game mechanics on ptr as of 9/24/08.

I used this and loved it and plan on sticking with for the pre-wotlk 3.0 patch.

[Tasttey]

Why rely on a Warrior to drop his DPS to slow melee hits from a boss if you can talent and get the same passively every 8-10 sec?

You know you're right, Thunder Clap requires the warrior to drop Beserker Stance, bad for Rage management. Perhaps the Feral Druid can use Infected Wounds instead.

I just don't find JoJ that stellar right now for the 2 points considering its placement in the tree. Now if mana is not an issue at 80, then yes dropping a couple of points out of Benediction for JoJ could be feasible.

[Lexan]

Also Lexan, reading your post hurts my eyes and reminds me of a rapid chipmunk on speed. Please try to break it up a bit?

sorry i think kinda fast talk kinda fast and thus type kinda fast in such a maner, i have alot to say and short time to say it in lol. So basicly it seems like people will have thier own spec and maybe even need to change specs per instance, while thismight suck it could also be alot of fun.

If we're able to change things around where we see fit and tank how we want to with mitigation or threat or utility or w/e we want we can do it. As long we we get the job done atm with nothing on live ther is no "best" pally tanking spec and i hope ythere never is so it will revolve alot more around player skill rather then just spec. i can;t wait till the expansion and i'm lv 80 and i can really do some testing, or at least when the patch comes out and i can raid hyjal with everything.

[DaveTheHunter]

THIS IS ONLY FOR LV 70 PATH 3.0!!! SPECS NOT LV 80.

so here is the tankig spec i am going to use when patch 3.0 comes out i would like to hear what everyone thinks about the tallents

1. http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...13251533312301

First, Anticipation is just dumb not to take. We're already behind warriors in avoidance as it is and more avoidance is never bad for end game raiding.
Second, Reckoning does not proc Seal of Corruption/Vengeance which is the premier tanking seal. Unless things change it's unlikely that Reckoning will be worthwhile.
Third, if you have to choose one or the other, drop Guarded by the Light for Judgements of the Just. You can't count on a warrior doing it for you.
Fourth, Deflection.... see first feedback.
Fifth, Benediction is useless. You will not have mana issues. Blessing of Sanctuary, Spiritual Attunement, and raid wide mana batteries are more than sufficient.
Last, You should only put 1 point into Improved Judgements. 2 points will only leave you with abilities on wasted cd's. 1 point will time everything much better.

2. http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...10251533312301

the first one is more about threat generation then anything else and the one that i have been using on the ptr to tank kara and such. The second is more about the avoidance so that blessing of sanc can proc more often aka more mana = more threat.

now i know that avoidance is important but i have read some other posts that with the gear at 80 we are going to have so much avoidance at 80 that why spec into it if it'll be wasted points. What are your idea's about which tallents to pick up and what do you think of my builds for generating threat.

I am tier 5 and ZA gear doing tier 6 content btw.

Only issue i see with this spec is Benediction instead of Deflection.


To those of you saying Kings isn't worthwhile you're dead wrong. If you ever have to choose between Kings or Sanctuary for yourself, there's occasions where one will be better than the other. Not being able to self buff kings is a bad idea. Not to mention your holy pallies will NOT be taking Kings to get extra spell crit down the ret tree, unless dictated otherwise by your raid leader. Ret pallies will probably pick up kings in their pve spec as there's not much else for them to get after filling out the ret tree, but it's always a good idea to have more than 1 pally in a raid with Kings to allow for flexibility with buffs. ie. the ret pally just buffed the rogue with might, not kings, so now i have to bless kings.

Kings is in the prot tree for a reason people.

I was messing around on the PTR with them as well, I found that the only time mana was an issue at all what when I used consecrate in a regular rotation. Seriously if its 3 mobs or less its not really even worth it, HoR and HS are plenty of threat. With HoR actually proc'ing seals on all 3 mobs in addition to the base holy damage its quite a punch.

This is the spec, I'm currently using on the PTR.
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...10251533312301

Seals of the Pure is rather crazy if you're using SoV since HoR will apply and refresh it on all 3 targets. I'm thinking filling out Deflection and Benidiction and Imp Judgments on the way to 80. Judgments of the Just just isn't much to my liking, honestly. Since Thunderclap hits multiple mobs JoJ just doesn't seem as special.

In my tanking on the ptr i didn't work concecration into my rotation unless tanking more than 3 mobs, so it's really only needed when truly doing some aoe tanking. I understand this is a total 180 in previous threat mechanics for us, but get used to it, much is changing.

I agree Seals of the Pure is nice. I definitely will be taking it once i start leveling, but most likely not at 70.


With all this being said, keep in mind that the devs are still doing an avoidance/mitigation pass on us still, so the tree could change fairly significantly.

[Lexan]

yes kings is nessisary for a prot pally to have seriously the utility a prot pally brings with kings outweighs it's 5 tallent points. I want benidiction since i seem to be running out of mana alot (i might be playing wrong but it works for me) and i have over 102.65 avoidance in my full def/ avoidance gear wich is actually what i will be using for live so losing 10% avoidance is not that huge as long as i keep the libram on ithink i'll haev about 98% avoidance ish 4% chance for full dmg with no crushes is fine for me in order to generate more threat as for 1 point into imp judge, i'll have to test my GCD's with 1 point and 2 points at some time i havn't done what with prot yet atm and since judgeing does alot of dmg with the glyph i was thinking of having it be top priority for me but like i said i'll have to test.

aslso SoCor not procing off of reackoning is no big deal since the seal itself does no dmg it's the dot that the seal applies that does dmg and the dot lasts for 15 seconds 9or 12 i'm to tired to look it up right now) so there is no big deal there.

[DaveTheHunter]

aslso SoCor not procing off of reackoning is no big deal since the seal itself does no dmg it's the dot that the seal applies that does dmg and the dot lasts for 15 seconds 9or 12 i'm to tired to look it up right now) so there is no big deal there.

That's exactly why you don't want reckoning. All you're getting for your talent points is white damage which does next to nothing for your threat generation. You're much better off spending those points elsewhere.

[Lexan]

That's exactly why you don't want reckoning.  All you're getting for your talent points is white damage which does next to nothing for your threat generation.  You're much better off spending those points elsewhere.

i can see your thoughts but after looking at the nerf to SoCor i might go back to SoR for single targets liek bosses and with the expertices from combat expertisse and the expertice from high lv gear the extra procs of SoR from reckoning might actually be worth it just for a little more burst tps.