Protection Paladin 3.0 Changes Guide

[Kreedos]

I figured I would update everyone on my take of the Protection Paladin changes for 3.0. Just to give all the people that are nervous about the changes an idea of how it looks like it's planned to work. Take this all with a grain of salt you trollers =P.

Basic Class Changes And Additions

-All Paladin gear has been revamped, strength has been added to all pieces of gear and spell damage has been removed.

-Block value from strength is now 2 to 1 ratio or so. 500 str = 250 sbv (shield block value)

-Paladin’s core talents are now based heavily on sbv with the addition of Shield of righteousness. The strength added to the existing gear will benefit this new ability which I believe will be the main threat building ability for a paladin at level 80.

Slam the target with your shield, causing Holy damage equal to your block value plus 300. This spell causes a high amount of threat.
6% of base mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 6 sec cooldown (obtained at level 75)

-Due to the addition of strength and the fact that Hammer of the righteous is based on weapon damage, I believe that a spell damage weapon is no longer the way to go for threat generation on a paladin. I think it would be advisiable to pick up a dps based main hand weapon such as the brutalizer off supremeus. Hit rating is also another factor as well as expertise

-Divine Protection now works like a shield wall, reduces damage by 50% over a period of time

-Ret Aura damage increased dramatically

-Holy shield damage increased dramatically

-All Judgements have been revamped

-Seal of righteousness still seems like the seal to use for threat

-Sacred Shield may be a good mitigation ability

Each time the target takes damage they gain a Sacred Shield, absorbing 500 damage and increasing the paladin's chance to critically hit with Flash of Light by 50% for up to 6 sec. They cannot gain this effect more than once every 6 sec. Lasts 30 sec.

-If Divine Plea isn’t channeled it will be an awesome mana gaining ability

You gain 25% of your total mana over 15 sec, but the amount healed by your spells is reduced by 100%.
Instant, 1 min cooldown (Obtained at level 71)

-Avenging Wrath no longer triggers forberence, damage reduced by 10%
Increases all damage and healing caused by 20% for 20 sec.
8% of base mana, Instant cast, 3 min cooldown



Talent Changes

Here’s my build

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...13251533312321

or

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...14251533312321


Now, going over the build from top to bottom

-Blessing of kings

Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing total stats by 2% for 10 min. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.
6% of base mana, 30 yd range, Instant cast
Not even worth taking now due to the amount of points needed to be invested in it. I say let the holy paladins take this one while we get more useful skills.

-Divine Strength

Increases your total Strength by 15%.
Totally worth getting if even just for the pure block value gained from it. But due to carrying a warrior weapon this will help with tps from white damage.

-Anticpation

Increases your chance to dodge by 5%.

Changed from +20 defense, huge change. Plan to stack more defense after the patch and see an overall drop in avoidance.

-Toughness

Increases your armor value from items by 10% and reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 30%.

Added a 30% reduction for movement slowing effects. Could be useful for fights like Vashj where mobs hamstring you.

-Righteous Fury

While Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 6%.
Still the same, the only difference is that the 90% threat is built into righteous fury now

-Blessing of Sanctuary

Places a Blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 10 rage, 20 runic power, or 2% of maximum mana. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.

Huge change, and a huge buff for paladin tank mana gen. Plan to use this as your main blessing now over kings.

-Redoubt

Increases your block value by 30% and damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 30%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks.

Increases block value by a large amount, very very good to take. More SBV = more damage

-Guarded by the light

Reduces spell damage taken by 6% and reduces the mana cost of your Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield and Shield of Righteousness spells by 30%.

Huge buff to reduce the mana cost of some main abilities, will help with the loss of int from gear, and the constant paladin mana problems

-Avenger’s Shield

Hurls a holy shield at the enemy, dealing [ 7% of AP + 7% of Spell Power + 338 ] Holy damage, Dazing them and then jumping to additional nearby enemies. Affects 3 total targets. Lasts 10 sec.
30% of base mana, 30 yd range, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown

Instant cast now, so can be used more effectively. Before when using this you would lose all chance to dodge block or parry during the cast time. With instant cast it’s not an issue.

-Touched by the light

Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 30% of your Stamina and increases the amount healed by your critical heals by 30%.

Huge buff that offsets the loss of spell damage on gear, when nearing around 30,000 hp you will have around 900 spell damage without a piece of spell damage gear.

-Judgements of the Just

Your Judgement spells also reduce the melee attack speed of the target by 20%.

Thanks for giving us thunderclap for free blizzard

-Shield of the Templar

Increases the damage of your Holy Shield, Avenger's Shield and Shield of Righteousness spells by 30%.

Must have talent for threat gen for obvious reasons.

-Hammer of the Righteous

Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing 3 times your main hand damage per second as Holy damage.
6% of base mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 6 sec cooldown

Based off of weapon damage, so it’s also an incentive to carry around a dps type warrior style weapon over a spell damage weapon. Very good ability on ptr with a low mana cost.


If anyone has any ideas or comments I'd love to hear them, I'm still not 100% sure how everything is going to work yet.

[DaveTheHunter]

1. Stoicism -- Really?.... no.... just no. Not a useful pve talent at all.
2. Reckoning -- Righteousness is NOT the threat seal of choice, Corruption/Vengeance is, which does not proc on extra reckoning swings, so this talent is useless.
3. Kings -- Take the points from Stoicism and Reckoning and put it in kings. It's good to have the flexibility to choose between Sanc and Kings.
4. Benediction -- Also useless. There really is no such thing as mana issues anymore on a prot pally. Between Divine Plea, Sanctuary, Spiritual Attunement, and multiple raid wide mana battery sources you won't have issues.
5. Improved Judgements -- Take 1/2 Imp. Judgements. This will time your rotations as perfectly as possible.
6. Heart of the Crusader -- Throw your last 2 points into this. A little extra crit won't hurt.
7. Improved Hammer of Justice -- This might also be worthwhile for those 2 extra points now that it silences mobs that can't be stunned.
8. Divine Plea -- This currently isn't channeled, which makes it amazing for both prot and ret.


This will be the ideal build with the talents as they are currently, leaving the couple points left over to put wherever.

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


A few other things of note.

1. Potency will be the enchant of choice, at lvl 70 at least, giving us ~40 AP and ~10 BV.
2. With the loss of 20 defense out of our talents and reductions in defense on gear you may have to gem for defense, unless you're in T6.
3. They nerfed the agility to dodge ratio, so if you have any agility gems, enchants (ie. mongoose), etc, then you will need to replace those most likely.
4. I'm not certain at what point it becomes a real issue, and may only affect Druids, but there's also diminishing returns on avoidance stats. What this means is we may not be able to just stack all dodge gems for avoidance, for example, or be able to pick and choose gear with high amounts of dodge on them. (For those unaware, parry has a higher itemization cost, and takes more "rating" than dodge to equal the same percentage of avoidance, which is why tanks tend to steer towards dodge)
5. You are correct about changing our main hand weapon, preferably something fast but with high dps. (fast to apply stacks of corruption/vengeance faster, high dps to do more dmg with HotR) Hit rating and Expertise is definitely something to look for as well. It may not be quite as important as it is for a warrior, but will still go a long way towards increasing TPS.

[Kreedos]

1. I apoligize for stoicism, for some reason I thought this read

(reduces amount of time stunned by 30% and chance spells will be resisted by 30%) will change this in the post)

2. I don't believe that Corruption is the seal of choice unless they changed it's coefficent. Where does it state that reckoning procs don't proc corruption? I didn't know this. Source if you could.

3. Kings can be gotten if the points are freed up, I still think that sanc is the blessing of choice

4. Everything a protection paladin casts is instant, there's no way this is a waste of 5 points. All int is taken off of gear, and most paladins are going to have around 4kish mana come patch time.

5. Imp judgement seems sort of useless come level 80, when your rotation will be longer than 10 seconds in itself to get back to your judgement.

6. True

7. Never thought about the silence part, good point

8. Nice

9. As far as imp devo aura goes, I'd be planning on using ret aura for tanking most of the time.

[Bregor]

Shield of the Righteous is obtained at 75, not 65.

BoK is for progression content, BoSanc for farm content. (Although you would want both on you anyways.) At first I didn't plan to pick it up in my build, but I have since changed my mind on the issue.

Benediction is not worth it. You regain enough mana either from SA or from BoSanc. IMO, those points are better spent elsewhere.

SoV is awesome. With HotR you can apply it to several targets at a time and it does very nice threat.

The rotation will (likely) be 969, so 1/2 imp. Judgment is sort of a must.

[Kreedos]

Shield of the Righteous is obtained at 75, not 65.

fixed

[thankyouforthevenom]

i like what their doing with prot now, ive picked up the brutalizer as my new weapon should b good.

does anyone see something wrong with this build?

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...15251533312321

[Bregor]

i like what their doing with prot now, ive picked up the brutalizer as my new weapon should b good.

does anyone see something wrong with this build?

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...15251533312321

I would put the points from reckoning into BoK. Not sure where to put the 2 free points (the ones from Benediction) yet. 2/5 Benediction is a possibility, or imp. BoM, 2/3 Heart of the Crusader...

[thankyouforthevenom]

I would put the points from reckoning into BoK. Not sure where to put the 2 free points (the ones from Benediction) yet. 2/5 Benediction is a possibility, or imp. BoM, 2/3 Heart of the Crusader...

reckoning will benefit us more for threat then kings..BoK will b a waste of 5 points for prot its so high up in tree becoz holy pallies will spec into it imo, best for them to get it. our main buff will b BoSanc>kings

[Quinton]

In my view having BoK is a very nice idea. It is still the best blessing for some classes and you can't rely on having a second paladin in groups and 10 mans.

Furthermore I have been thinking of putting those last two points into Unyielding Fate: Reduces the duration of all Fear and Disorient effects by 30%. If it's one thing I hate when tanking it's not being able to rescue my party members because I'm feared or Disoriented. I would rather have a warrior anti-fear ability, but until it's there I'll take this.

[custos]

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...15251533312321

At 80 this will be the best spec from what i can see.

Talents dropped:

BoK? There is always another holy pala.

Imp HoJ? Yes, it can be wery usfull, will wait and see how the rogues and the rest of the interrupting classes are.

1/2 imp judgment? in Wotlk we are fighting the CD, it fits better whit 9 sec, and 8 sec is a waste.

Bendiction: Will wait and see if i get mana problems, but that can usualy be solved by pulling more when ur raid group is good.

Stocisme: If we get another hyja, were the abos stuns makes such a often tank killers im gone spec for it.

Talents taken:

Reckoning: Saw somone said that vengance dosnt proc on this, but i want to see the source of that before i dont take it. ( if its true those talents will go in Imp HoJ, not BoK)

Divine Guardien: This is a mini shield wall for any other tank in your group, and reduce raid dmg by a lot in fights wiht a lot of aoe.

Seals of the Pure: Nice treat talent, but not 100% it will be needed now that Blizz is gone make it less likly to be treat capped as dps.

The rest of the talents are pretty obvius

My grammar suck, so no point nagging about it.

[Stoan]

Why Divine Guardian? This talent seems a bit counter productive of a prot pally to me. But then again I could forsee a few times it could be useful, though risky to use, unless you are an off-tank, then giving the MT 30% DR could be very useful.

[Swedishcow123]

Why Divine Guardian? This talent seems a bit counter productive of a prot pally to me. But then again I could forsee a few times it could be useful, though risky to use, unless you are an off-tank, then giving the MT 30% DR could be very useful.

30% DR to the entire raid
Could be a godsend on fights that take alot of damage at a set point (Naj'entus comes to mind).

Going with Custos spec, but this thread gave me one or two eye-openers

Will Paladins always use Vengeance though? Shouldn't we twist every other cooldown to Righteousness, keeping the DoT up but still using a damaging threat seal? It does last 15 seconds, so there should be a few seconds to spare.

[Deleted]

I've been trying out my paladin on PTR and I must say, Benediction isn't worth it. I have no mana issues and didn't notice any difference with and without it.

Reckoning IS useful IMHO. It allows you to get a few more hits on the mobs and that is always positive. Just be sure to use a fast weapon so you get the maximum out of reckoning procs

Divine Guardian is a dodgy one...I could see the use for it on 25-man raids, but I doubt there'll be use for it in 10-mans, or 5-man instances. The issue is, if you pop Divine Shield you'll lose agros immediately, so what's the point? As I don't like 25-mans I wouldn't take it.

Unyielding faith (Holy tree) is useful. There's several bosses that do fear and if your healers are busy they might not be able to dispell it (if it even is dispellable). The less time you spend running around without any control over yourself the better.

BoK? Well, it is indeed true most holy paladins will spec into it and yes, it would be useful for you to also have it so you can atleast buff others with it. But I'd still use BoSanc on myself rather than BoK. If you are in a guild where you can always count on someone else having BoK then you could ignore this. BoK doesn't mean life or death in 5-mans anyway.

As such, http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...15251533312321 will be my raiding spec at 80. I'm not planning to go to 25-mans so..

[Clasifyd]

I agree on Divine Guardian. If anything, this will be another Holy talent, IMHO. No sense in wiping aggro.

I also find it odd that nobody has explicitly mentioned Imp. Devo Aura, even though I've only seen it in about half the builds. Is the increase in healing just not worth it? Furthermore, is Spiritual Attunement not effected by this healing increase?

With the changes in BoSanc, I can't warrant any reason to put any points into Benediction. When uncrittable now, the only thing that is left is to Block, Dodge, Parry, and Miss, right? So that means the vast majority of the attacks against us are going to be returning mana. I guess I'll have to see exactly how this works out when it hits live, but for the time, I'll stick with this judgment.

Reckoning is a dicey one, I believe. I haven't been really watching the gear, so I don't know what level of expertise we'll be having.

Just my two cents.

Edit: I got my attack table a little bit confused; forgot about normal attacks since I'm uncrushable, ATM. Please forgive, it's early here.

[Lexan]

reckoning is pretty much useless sis you use SoCor since the extra attacks are white dmg and thus no threat modifier. it'll be awesome if you use SoR but then you better stack alot of hit rating and expertise so you don't miss and you don't get parry gimmped and double hit by bosses.

[Lumidar]

to the comment about Corruption not proccing from Reckoning. it does but not in a good way. the only thing it does is add a stack if it's not at 5 already or refresh the duration of the DoT without doing any extra damage... that is why it is not worth it with reckoning but Seal of Righteousness is still awesome for Reckoning. Corruption does scale better than Righteousness once the 5 stacks are up otherwise righteousness is still better. judgment with 5stacks of corruption is also alot higher than righteouness but not when it's at 0 stacks

[Kavalir]

Hope all you tanks are considering that a lot of holy pallys, of the ones that decide to continue putting up with blizz's crap, may very well not be putting any points into prot. Theres 8% spell crit to be had if they throw 18 points into ret, thats almost as much as there is in the holy tree. So I wouldn't hold your breathe about having the holy pallys pick up kings when they need ever spare point the same way tankadins do.

I would suggest assuming anyones gonna talent a certain way is probably not the best idea.

[Nich]

The only pallies likely to get BoKings are either prot paladins or ret paladins with spare points.

Divine Guardian is going to be useful for anyone who doesn't think they're only ever going to be the MT of any instance.

[Stoan]

The only pallies likely to get BoKings are either prot paladins or ret paladins with spare points.

Divine Guardian is going to be useful for anyone who doesn't think they're only ever going to be the MT of any instance.

I am skipping it on my pally, Sanc for me, baseline wisdom and might for everyone else.

[Xephan]

BoK should be baseline, or at least be reverted back to single talent point and moved into the Holy tree.