Protection Paladin questions

[iLive]

Hi mates,

I have a friend who is playing a Protection Paladin, but honestly I don't think he knows 100% what to choose for stats, talents etc., but I am willing to try to understand it and help him become a better tank with the help from you. Hopefully, it'll give me a better image of how tanks work, so I bet it's beneficial for me aswell. I've never had interest for melee roles, so I never digged into stats etc. for them.

The way I understand it is that there's 2 different stat options: "damage stats" and "tank stats". Damage stats are hit and strength and tank stats are stamina, mastery, dodge and parry. It makes sense to reach hit rating cap to make abilities hit for more, but how do you know which tank stats to go for? You have the option between 4 and they all seem to serve the same purpose, make you a better tank. Can you please explain the difference between them and what a Protection Paladin would want to stack (gems, enchants, gear)?

Which seals should be used as a Protection Paladin? My mate always uses Seal of Truth, but I think he can maintain his threat without it, so do you think Insight would be a better choice or is it completely shit? Infos. Tell me when the one is better than the other.

He actually asked me if I could help him with his talents too, since he isn't sure about if they were chosen in their right ways. Perhaos you could take a look there too?

I appreciate any comment/help!

[Kewi]

For stats...

Mastery vs. Stamina has not been well determined, therefor I will classify them together, however I find in practice aiming for 3 unmitigated hits as your stamina goal to be a good target

1) mastery &/or Stamina.. Reforce any piece without Mastery to have it, favor gear with static mastery over reforged mastery
2) Dodge/parry balanced by rating (to optimize DR)
3) Expertise
4) Hit

Really #1 and 2 are all that matter, theorycraft gods spoke and said hit/exp not as important at this stage.

Go through gear roughly like this: (With kings on)
* Avoidance = Dodge or parry (NOT Mastery) on source gear, when it's reforge target, target the lower of the two by rating
Threat + Threat stat -> Highest rating stat to Mastery (i.e. if 150 hit, 100 exp, reforge hit to mastery)... And replace this piece ASAP
Mastery + Threat stat -> Reforge threat stat to balance dodge/parry
Avoidance + Threat stat -> Reforge threat stat to Mastery
Avoidance + Avoidance (Dodge/parry) -> reforge to mastery in line with balancing dodge/parry (if dodge/parry already balanced, reforge one to mastery, and make up for it elsewhere)
Avoidance + Mastery -> Only reforge if still avoidance imbalance

Gems:
Red: I go with Parry/Stamina (there is no dodge/stamina)..
Yellow: I favor Pure mastery, however Mastery/stamina is fine too
Blue: Mastery/stamina, or pure stamina if needed


Your friend is also missing 3 glyphs, 3 enchants
He also is targeting Dodge/parry, not mastery. Inform him Mastery will better 'normalize' his damage taken per second, providing a better healing experience for his healer

I don't have time to look over his talents atm ;-) sorry

[GLRockwell]

Swap Seals of the Pure for Eternal Glory. 12% boost to seal damage =1% boost to overall damage. It doesn't apply to Judgements either. Eternal Glory is a vastly superior talent because it gives you the option of using Shield of the Righteous or another Word of Glory if it procs.

Drop Judgements of the Pure (prot has no use for haste at all), Eye for an Eye and Divine Guardian. Use those points to fill out Crusade and Rule of Law.

Stamina + Mastery > every other stat.

That's it.

[Téuntjûh]

These 2 guys said enough
Try to get survability stats, so max mastery and minimalize your hit/exp

[iLive]

Thanks for the help guys. That really did help.

How come you want a balance between dodge and parry? Don't they serve the same purpose anyway? And you still haven't mentioned anything about the Seals to choose. :S

[Reluctant]

Thanks for the help guys. That really did help.

How come you want a balance between dodge and parry? Don't they serve the same purpose anyway? And you still haven't mentioned anything about the Seals to choose. :S

U want to keep em balanced so u lose less to diminsing returns

[Veliane]

They have the same DR now so keeping dodge and parry at 11% works smoother than say 14 dodge 8 parry

[BurningStick]

U want to keep em balanced so u lose less to diminsing returns

You want to balance dodge and parry because they got an equal diminshing returns, so if you had 15% parry and 9% dodge you could have a higher amount of total avoidance if you reforged /geared some parry into dodge.

And you want to use Seal of Truth with its corresponding glyph. The only time I change to Seal of Insight as a tank is when my healer is death or oom / close to oom. He should use Glyph of Seal of Truth instead of his Glyph of Judgement.

Also, Glyph of Dazing Shield is pretty bad in my opinion because casters wont run nearly as close to you after you have silenced them.

You friend should also reforge around 4% of his dodge and around 5% of his parry into mastery. It will reduce the damage he takes and greatly smooth out his damage in take (easier to heal)

3 of his items are also unenchanted and a belt buckle.

http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t110338-...3_2011_4_0_3a/ <---- Very good guide if you want to read more about protection paladins.

Edit:

Swap Seals of the Pure for Eternal Glory. 12% boost to seal damage =1% boost to overall damage. It doesn't apply to Judgements either. Eternal Glory is a vastly superior talent because it gives you the option of using Shield of the Righteous or another Word of Glory if it procs.

Drop Judgements of the Pure (prot has no use for haste at all), Eye for an Eye and Divine Guardian. Use those points to fill out Crusade and Rule of Law.

I agree that Eternal Glory is a great talent but I do not think he should drop Divine Guardian. It provides invaluable group utility and it would simply be greedy to drop it just to gain a talent point he doesn't really need. I would personally use this spec http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZhrhfRzdRRucbh. It has 1 free point to spend.

[GLRockwell]

I agree that Eternal Glory is a great talent but I do not think he should drop Divine Guardian. It provides invaluable group utility and it would simply be greedy to drop it just to gain a talent point he doesn't really need. I would personally use this spec http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZGrhfRzzRRucbh. It has 1 free point to spend.

Never, ever, skip Grand Crusader in any type of Prot spec, be it PvP or PvE. Avenger's Shield is your hardest hitting ability. It generates more threat than anything else you have. Skipping GC is a massive, horrible, mindblowing mistake. Please don't do it.

[BurningStick]

Never, ever, skip Grand Crusader in any type of Prot spec, be it PvP or PvE. Avenger's Shield is your hardest hitting ability. It generates more threat than anything else you have. Skipping GC is a massive, horrible, mindblowing mistake. Please don't do it.

Oh yeah, cause SoR hits for so much less... Owait..
But aye, I see your point.

Edit: Posted a new spec since Seals of the Pure is crap anyways (for prot)

[tjanson]

Never, ever, skip Grand Crusader in any type of Prot spec, be it PvP or PvE. Avenger's Shield is your hardest hitting ability. It generates more threat than anything else you have. Skipping GC is a massive, horrible, mindblowing mistake. Please don't do it.

Incorrect. Shield of the Righteous is your hardest hitting ability, and generates more threat than anything else you have. Grand Crusader is great for tanking heroics, and for picking up and maintaining threat on multiple adds, but for single target fights it's actually a very small threat increase.

[brighteyes44]

Incorrect. Shield of the Righteous is your hardest hitting ability, and generates more threat than anything else you have. Grand Crusader is great for tanking heroics, and for picking up and maintaining threat on multiple adds, but for single target fights it's actually a very small threat increase.

Actually im going to have to disagree on the SotR being the hardest hitting ability at this point in the expansion crow control is needed for almost all random heroics and even raid trash so your AS needs to be glyphd to only hit one target as to not break CC im an avg item lvl of 356 currently and my AS is hitting for between 20-26k and with Grand Crusader being able to throw more of those not only is able to hold threat by itself but it provides you with valuable interrupting capabilities. SotR is really only usable in my opinion in the first 45 seconds of a fight by that point with the Vengance mechanic you should have more then a mile of threat and be using Word of Glory spam to help healers and keep up holy shield. Also if you are using SotR on trash pulls its time for a CAT scan on your brain since for aoe you should be using inquisition to keep up holy shield and produce more aoe threat on Hammer of Righteous.

[Kewi]

Actually im going to have to disagree on the SotR being the hardest hitting ability at this point in the expansion crow control is needed for almost all random heroics and even raid trash so your AS needs to be glyphd to only hit one target as to not break CC im an avg item lvl of 356 currently and my AS is hitting for between 20-26k and with Grand Crusader being able to throw more of those not only is able to hold threat by itself but it provides you with valuable interrupting capabilities. SotR is really only usable in my opinion in the first 45 seconds of a fight by that point with the Vengance mechanic you should have more then a mile of threat and be using Word of Glory spam to help healers and keep up holy shield. Also if you are using SotR on trash pulls its time for a CAT scan on your brain since for aoe you should be using inquisition to keep up holy shield and produce more aoe threat on Hammer of Righteous.

As threat is not an issue in boss fights, I would say Grand Crusader is actually not that important for raiding... Especially when 4.0.6 is released and prot gains Rebuke.

Grand Crusader is a nice talent, yes, however my logs for last night show on average, over ~160 SotR and ~110 AS, SotR consistently hits for 15% more damage then AS. On top of that, SotR crit 67 of those times, vs. 3 for AS.
For the comparsion, I only compared average hits to each other, and average crits to each other, and not a collective total, even though crits were still in favor of SotR.

For Heroics, I would say Grand Crusade can be helpful, however it's not a requirement.

Theckd would also approve:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...wtopic#p593313

His numbers show Grand Crusade as being a minor DPS increase, and only noticeably beneficial in AOE situations in which AS is NOT glyphed, otherwise Seals of the Pure provides better damage per talent point

To quote him (Emphasis mine):

Grand Crusader is almost low enough to fall into the "weak" category. The slew of adjustments and tweaks to other abilities simply made many of them almost as good as AS, and the 939 rotation doesn't have a lot of room for free-styling. The priority simulations show that using GC procs immediately is a DPS loss, and fitting them into the 939 structure is just too limited for this talent to shine.

GC's one saving grace is that it's great (Unglyphed) for AoE rotations. Tripling its damage output makes it good even when constrained to 939; pushing it above Judgement in the queue should be an even greater DPS increase.

Edit:
Grand crusader is likely best in an AOE-focused talent build with Hallowed ground. My only hits against GC is that you must choose between it and many other good talents, and GC's talent benefit is only if it procs at proper times and is properly usable -- which is more the case in unglyphed aoe-centric builds with CC-less heroics.

I find Threat a non-issue early in fights (compared to the duration of the fight), and find there are many, many other talents I value more then GC -- though some of them do not provide direct DPS/Threat increases, and are more group beneficial, or enhance already predictable abilities (as opposed to adjusting to procs while I'm trying to do something else, like watch adds, or heal other people)

[AetherMcLoud]

Actually im going to have to disagree on the SotR being the hardest hitting ability at this point in the expansion crow control is needed for almost all random heroics and even raid trash so your AS needs to be glyphd to only hit one target as to not break CC [..]

Avengers Shield NEVER breaks CC unless the primary target was CCed and then it only breaks it on the primary. That was fixed in one of the first wrath patches. If there are no un-cc'ed mobs within jump range for the shield, it simply won't jump. 5 Mobs, 1 sheep, 1 hex, 1 sap, throw shield at the un-cc'ed mob, it will only ever hit two mobs maximum (those being the ones without CC) no matter how bunched up they are. I prefer 3 mobs silence and snap aggro over 1 mob silence and more 1 mob snap aggro.

Question though: is 1 point in reckoning worth losing divine guardian? I currently have 1pt reckoning and see it proc pretty regularly, but dunno what percentage amount of my aggro it makes up.

Edit: I use http://wowtal.com/#k=-e406wPAy.adl.paladin. as a spec, or should I just drop pursuit of justice and max out sacred duty and take guardian + 1pt reckoning? It's only a 7% increase over the boots enchant, but still, if you have to kite/move?

Or is 1pt seals of the pure worth more aggro than 1pt reckoning?

[Kewi]

I have no supporting evidence, but my concern would be the less traditional but still used "fear" cc, which breaks on some % damage taken.
Also, I don't think the jumps are smart enough to realize intent to CC, and can still do the "Double death" bug -- Due to lag, both events happen.. meaning your shield jumps to a new target and hits it as CC is applied....

Considering people all do their spells within 1-3 seconds of each other on a pull, I would assume shield toss on pulls breaking CC would not be terribly uncommon (though could be solved by.. not.. shield tossing)

In either case, I dont use unglyphed AS ;-) bad taste from the past, and I don't find it terribly useful in heroics

[Jaitee]

Avengers Shield NEVER breaks CC unless the primary target was CCed and then it only breaks it on the primary. That was fixed in one of the first wrath patches. If there are no un-cc'ed mobs within jump range for the shield, it simply won't jump. 5 Mobs, 1 sheep, 1 hex, 1 sap, throw shield at the un-cc'ed mob, it will only ever hit two mobs maximum (those being the ones without CC) no matter how bunched up they are. I prefer 3 mobs silence and snap aggro over 1 mob silence and more 1 mob snap aggro.

it should also be noted that it determines its jump targets when you throw it not when it hits the first target so starting its throw as your ccers are casting or trap is traveling can still cause it to chain to a cc'd target so wait till the mobs actually turn into a block of ice/sheep/pig/frog etc before you use AS

[AetherMcLoud]

it should also be noted that it determines its jump targets when you throw it not when it hits the first target so starting its throw as your ccers are casting or trap is traveling can still cause it to chain to a cc'd target so wait till the mobs actually turn into a block of ice/sheep/pig/frog etc before you use AS

Didn't actually know that. I always let CCers pull because it's so easy to snap the un-cc'ed mobs with a shield throw then. Good to know though.

[Jaitee]

Didn't actually know that. I always let CCers pull because it's so easy to snap the un-cc'ed mobs with a shield throw then. Good to know though.

so do i but a few times i got a little to excited and threw my shield at skull as they where casting and the mob would turn into a sheep then my shield would slam into its head

[Kewi]

so do i but a few times i got a little to excited and threw my shield at skull as they where casting and the mob would turn into a sheep then my shield would slam into its head

You're not very good at making friends >.>

Well.. I guess in a sense you are... they probably want to come over and hug you afterwards....

[GLRockwell]

Incorrect. Shield of the Righteous is your hardest hitting ability, and generates more threat than anything else you have. Grand Crusader is great for tanking heroics, and for picking up and maintaining threat on multiple adds, but for single target fights it's actually a very small threat increase.

I was talking proactive abilities that are limited by cooldowns, not reactive abilities/'finishers' like SotR and Hammer of Wrath. Also, calculating how much overall damage/threat SotR will generate is impossible because you won't always be using SotR every 3 holy power unless you're in a perfectly coordinated raid with amazing healers, you are overgeared for the content you're tanking or you're being carried by people with better gear. Word of Glory is still used on level-appropriate content, be it bosses or trash. You don't always need to push out as much single target threat as humanly possible - just enough to stay ahead of the healers and DPS.

My main problem with the build that was linked is that it traded Grand Crusader for Seals of the Pure. That's a bad trade any way you slice it.