For Paladins a Talent Tree for Prots

[HDEagle71]

I love this forum but I got told last night my talents where not quite right and to check out maintankadin.

Jere has a great 969 rotation guide here so I stole his talent tree after looking at several at tankadin.

Just wanted to share as Paladins are not as in demand here as warriors.

Take it for what is is worth I am running 10 mans with it today so I will let you know if I see any difference.

I was running very similar to this but I can see why this might be better for raiding.

The World of Warcraft Armory

[Zothor]

I love this forum but I got told last night my talents where not quite right and to check out maintankadin.

Jere has a great 969 rotation guide here so I stole his talent tree after looking at several at tankadin.

Just wanted to share as Paladins are not as in demand here as warriors.

Take it for what is is worth I am running 10 mans with it today so I will let you know if I see any difference.

I was running very similar to this but I can see why this might be better for raiding.

The World of Warcraft Armory

There are some really poor talent choices in there. The two that are practically inexcusable are Reckoning and Benediction.

Benediction is entirely worthless with your current build. If you're having mana issues, tank more, keep Divine PLea up more. If you're still having mana issues (usually because you massively outgear the content, which from the looks of things you won't except maybe in heroics), take a 2nd point in spiritual attunement. That's a hell of a lot more mana return for several fewer talent points.

Reckoning isn't entirely worthless anymore, but is still the worst threat talent available. While you do need 3 points to go further up the three, Divine Sacrifice is an amazingly useful spell for raiding if you're ever NOT the aggro target (Fights with no tanks, with down phases, when you're offtanking, etc). Whether you take Divine Guardian at that point for the longer sacred shields (if you don't have a paladin healer, keeping it up on yourself is a big buff) or imp Hammer of Justice is a flavor choice, but I always go for the hammer so I can dependably handle my own interrupts/stuns on fights where I can use them. It's a lot of flexibility.

Get up the ret tree by taking Heart of the Crusader, and either a point in imp BoM or 2/2 judgements. the 2nd point in judgement doens't help your maintanking rotation, but is great for adds, trash, etc. Heart of the crusader is a huge raid buff and you won't always have it brought in a 10 man if you don't bring it yourself.

If you're going to spring for epic gems, why are you being cheap about your boot/shoulder enchants? Grab 22 stam or Tuskarr's to boots, and since you don't have the hodir rep drop 10k honor on the PVP shoulder inscription for 30 stam, the best effective health enchant available there.

Speaking of your boots, outside of a threat specific set tanking gear should never have a straight strength gem in it.

And on the topics of gems, your'e way over the 540 defense minimum. While defense still provides valuable avoidance, at your gear level stacking Effective Health is what's going to allow you to progress onto higher end content. Lose the pure defense gems in your sword and shoulder, switch them to def/stam if you want to keep the socket bonuses. Both bonuses are relatively poor though, so I personally wouldn't bother, but you prbably might as well since hopefully you'll be exchanging Seal of the Pantheon for The Black Heart as soon as possible. Then you'll need the defense (although the 15 resil from your Gladiator enchant WILL stack with defense for maintaining uncrittable status).

tank on.

[Irat]

They are not poor choices of talents just different ones.

Although Reckoning is our poorest threat talent at the moment, it is our only threat/dps talent out of all the options to push further down the tree. So it depends what you are chasing in your build.

Benediction is questionable but again what are the points better spent in? Heart of the Crusade doesn’t stack with Totem of Wrath or master poisoner so if you have an Ele Shammy or a Ret pally or a rogue it becomes a waste of points pretty quick.

Not saying your points are wrong just saying there are two sides to the story.

[HDEagle71]

Well the Str gem is for to activate my meta gem and I was def capped and have almost 30K in HP so I decided to go straight strength and I am being cheap because I am trying to save for my epic flyer so 300 gold for a gem vs 50 gold and I loose 6 str, stam whatever for now is worth the compromise The shoulders I messed up on and bought the wrong buff at the vendor and need badges again to get the PVP enchant and I am working on Hodir rep when time allows.

I am not saying this is the best talent tree I changed it based on not getting into a Uldar raiding guide and am in the process of trying it out.

I do pretty well have not had any complaints that where gear realated yet or threat related (3.0 -3.5 and up K dpsers) I have to watch closely though.

I do have mana issues if I do not run seal of wisdom for trash I switch over to SoV when taking on the bosses and yes I do need to keep up the mana regen spell more.

I would love to see more disussions on Pally trees so post if you have better ideas.

To Irat's point this may be a raiding spec because you can have others classes in the group pick up the weaknesses in this build but that is the point I believe of the build.

No sure but debate is a great thing!!

FYI: the 2nd point on hammer messes up the 969 rotation so you don't need that one at least for tanking.

[Fetzie]

FYI: the 2nd point on hammer messes up the 969 rotation so you don't need that one at least for tanking.

It doesnt mess up the rotation, you simply cannot use the extra second off the cooldown in most circumstances.

[Akeber]

Prot paladins are actually very well represented on tankspot, and there are already many threads about specs, but I'll throw my two copper in about the one you've posted.


Reckoning VS Other:
Prot paladins already have excellent threat generation. Reckoning gives a very slight increase in threat, whereas divine sac or the improved HoJ gives some raid utility. It's always an individual choice, but why invest talent points into something you already have more than enough of. There are a few situations where the extra TPS might be useful, but they would be gimmick encounters where the DPS are getting buffs that the tank is not. Also, keep in mind the boost from reckoning is actually quite small, only one or two hundred tps. Probably not even noticeable outside the odd TPS spike on Omen when it procs, which gives a placebo effect that it's a bigger increase than it really is. The choice here is do you talent for more, and probably useless threat, or grab some talents that will provide some raid utility.



Benediction VS other:
I've always wondered about the thought process behind builds that take 1/2 in SA, and then proceed to take points in benediction in some vein attempt to reduce mana consumption. I'm not advising 2/2 in SA, 1/2 should still be lots for anything except tanking general vezax. Use DP intelligently so that you can have it up at all times, it's a huge part of our mana return. I know it takes some "finesse" to make sure it doesn't fall off between trash pulls, but it is entirely possible to keep it up all the time. It's the first thing i ask prot pallies who are complaining about mana. The response is usually that they are letting it fall off, so it's only off CD for every second or third trash pull. Don't let it fall off, goodbye mana issues. BoSanc scales with the number of mobs you pull, pull more trash and make sure they're not hitting you in the back. BoSanc procs from dodge/parry/block and you can't do any of those to attacks from behind.

IMO, heart of the crusader is much better use of points than benediction. There isn't always a ret, ele shammy, or rogue specced for MP in a ten man. When there isn't, the extra crit chance is far more benefit to the raid than 6% mana saved on your spells.

[HDEagle71]

It good to know then my old spec probably was teh better one!
Once again everyone thinks they know what is best vs just seeing if the person at the keyboard is is good or bad that has a lot more to do than a point or 2 in the wrong place.

Back to the old spec :-)

[Zothor]

They are not poor choices of talents just different ones.

Although Reckoning is our poorest threat talent at the moment, it is our only threat/dps talent out of all the options to push further down the tree. So it depends what you are chasing in your build.

Benediction is questionable but again what are the points better spent in? Heart of the Crusade doesn’t stack with Totem of Wrath or master poisoner so if you have an Ele Shammy or a Ret pally or a rogue it becomes a waste of points pretty quick.

Not saying your points are wrong just saying there are two sides to the story.

So you're not going to take Vindication either, because a warrior can apply it? Or ever buff wisdom, because shamans can drop it?

Not every raid has every buff you need. Some fights involve DPS on two different targets, which may not have all the debuffs up. 3% crit helps -everyone-. Period. 5% reduced cost helps virtually NO one, especially compared (as I said) to a 2nd spiritual attunment point. More importantly, with Sanc, DP, and 1/2 attunement, you literally cannot go OOM maintanking progression level content, and if you simply drop con once or twice if you have to and judge wisdom, you basically can't go oom offtanking either. How you spec for farm level content is irrelevant.

The reckoning points, as I said, aren't completely worthless. But they come at the cost of a HUGE amount of raid utility.

Benediction though... is utter junk. If you have points in benediction without picking up 2/2 SA, it's apparent that math eludes you. 1/2 spiritual attunement is like 350-450 mp5 when you're tanking an ulduar boss, and is about 1/3 to 1/4 of your total mana regen. Doubling it kicks in 25% additional mana for the fight... where even 5/5 benediction only saves you 5%. The second point in SA is, for any maintanking application, at the very least 3-5 times more valuable than FIVE full points in benediction. And it should be no surprise that those points can be put elsewhere.

Still though. You don't need either if you're tanking a boss whose name isn't General Vezax (a retardedly irritating fight. wtb bring the player not the spec please)

[Irat]

Its not that math eludes me at all, a second point in SA is hardly going to get you further down the Ret tree is it?

The truth is the 3% crit isn’t amazing. According to Theck's work its almost on par with Reckoning. That being said, my main tanking spec only has one point in benediction and 3 in HotC. I was just trying to point out that just because you have read somewhere that Benediction is bad doesn’t mean its completely worthless. My second Prot spec has 5 points in Benediction and 5 points in Reckoning. Does that mean I don’t know how to spec?

for reference:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Barthilas&cn=Detriment&gn=Disposable +Heroes

The truth is it is much better if you understand what the talent does and why you should or shouldn’t put points in it then to just copy a spec from somewhere else and have little idea of its strengths and weaknesses. There is a time and a place for nearly every talent in our trees.

Also it is probably worth pointing out that threat is not all you should care about. Tank DPS is a factor now too. I tank the first half of Ulduar in my BV gear now days.