Hey guys I need some help on a good prot spec for paladins. I have only been 80 for less then 1 days played time so I went with what I thought would be good, and so far it works out pretty well...however I am willing to try anything that will help me improve.
As far as gear goes as well, I have attempted to pug H-ToC on multiple occassions and I keep getting kicked from the group before it starts because I don't have enough health. While I know I am not a fantastic amazing tank, I am still rather new but I don't think my health is an issue. I've only been able to run it once due to a few empathetic guildies, and I am pretty sure I need the gear out of there to help boost me for Naxx.
Any suggestions on spec, gems, enchants or gear would be great!
Noob Prot Pally - Armory
Someone more familiar with paladin specs might suggest more changes than this, but I would recommend taking 1 point out of improved judgments and putting it into Spiritual Attunement (putting it at 2/2)
The reason is that you'll get more mana back when healed, which is never bad, and also, all you need is one point in imp. judgments to do a 969 rotation (that's alternating between abilities with a 9 second cooldown and a 6 second cooldown, enabling you to do something every gcd).
Maintankadin is an absolutely fantastic site for all your Protection Paladins questions. Allow to quote from their FAQ(Frequently Argued Questions).
A: Basic tanking talents http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...&version=10128
Note that said spec is impossible - you need to put 3 points somewhere in tier 1-5.
Q: So where do I put the three points?
A: Good options: Divine Sacrifice + Divine Guardian are quite good utility. Reckoning provides moderately OK TPS.
A: Meh options: Imp HoJ is very occasionally useful in PvE. Divinity works, but isn't real useful for a tank (or anyone, really).
A: Bad options: Stoicism and Guardian's Favour are PvP talents.
Most any Boss will hit you hard enough that 1/2 Spiritual Attunement is sufficient for your mana regeneration needs.Originally Posted by Bashal
I don't ever really have a problem with mana (due to Guarded by the light, Divine Plea is almost always up, and I use BoW and JoW), the only reason I put the 1 point into spiritual attunement was because I needed an additional point to get down to the next tier of talents in prot and I didn't see much use for the other talents. I already use the 969 rotation, except mine turns out 8/6/9/6/9...so my rotation could probably use some work. I start with Judgement / HoR / Concerate / SoR / Holy Shield, which tends to work well for me.
Also as far as improved Judgements, the reason I put 2 was so I could get to my Conviction talent. I think extra crit chance definately helps me with my threat, which also gave me enough points to put into Crusade. While Crusade is not a HUGE help, again any extra damage (at least I think) helps me with threat.
I could go with removing one point from improved Judgements, but then I in order to get my points back into conviction I would have to add a point into another unneccessary (spelling) talent. While I do appreciate your feedback, I'd like a prot pally that I can check out in the armory for visual effect.
Noob Prot Pally - Armory
To be fair, Heroic Trial of the Champion drops iLevel 219 gear, which is the same gear level as Ulduar 10-man. Ulduar 10-man is tuned for people in full 10-man Naxx gear and ToC is a relatively new instance. You don't NEED anything from it to do Naxx because back when Naxx was the instance du jour, ToC didn't exist at all. Looking at your Armory you will have no trouble tanking in there, but PUGs are often run by idiots who have no idea about tanking and just want their pointless 500dps arse carrying through it without them having to try - stick with guild runs and keep a note of those people who refused to let you PUG with them before - when you're decked out in full Tier 10, be sure to tell them they can't do the Daily Heroic with you because they're not geared enough. Nothing like a little petty revenge :P
But seriously, looking at your spec, it seems perfectly fine to me. You probably want to take 2 points out of Conviction and pick up Vindication as it works on bosses and is a huge mitigation talent for you. I'd take a further 2 and put them in Persuit of Justice personally, but that's more a matter of personal taste and playstyle.
Glyph-wise, you're right to have Divine Plea but you're missing Seal of Vengeance - not only is this our highest threat glyph by far, but it's also pretty good at mitigation as well (the latest theorycrafting from Theck on Maintankadin found that reducing the chance of parry haste via Expertise is 80% as effective as Dodge at reducing incoming damage). Definitely pick up the glyph for a "free" 10 Expertise Skill. Either switch out the HotR or RD glyph for it.
Since you're just about to begin tanking Naxx, you'll also want to pick up the Glyph of Sense Undead for a 1% damage (and, therefore, threat) increase against undead mobs (which is basically all of Naxx).
Next, you definitely need to get your Shoulders enchanted. There's a long quest chain in Storm Peaks which opens up the Sons of Hodir faction and their dailies, which you'll need to complete to get the best PvE shoulder enchant - it's essential if you plan to raid seriously. In the meantime you could pick up the PvP +30 Stam / +15 Resilliance enchant for 10,000 Honor. The PvP enchant is also a great option for more recent endgame content, but still work on Sons of Hodir as it's always good to have flexibility.
As for your gear - you obviously want to use the 40 Stamina enchant on bracers eventually but I can see why you wouldn't want to with blue gear. Level Mining to 450 for 60 Stamina and if you're going to stick with Engineering, get it to the level that you can use the Armor enchant on gloves. Icewalker isn't great on Boots - either take +22 Stamina or Tuskarr's Vitality if you decide against taking Persuit of Justice. Titanium Weapon Chain is generally inferior for threat to Accuracy but again I can see why you might opt for a cheaper enchant in your early gear that you'll hopefully replace soon.
Gem-wise you're along the right lines, but you'll ideally want to be using Stamina as part of all your gems from Ulduar onward. This means Agi/Stam in reds and Def/Stam in yellows. The reason many Paladins go with Agi is because it also offers Armor and Crit on top of the Dodge component, despite being slightly less Dodge.
For your trinkets you could run Halls of Lightning Normal for Seal of the Pantheon (or Thaddius in Naxx-10 for Repelling Charge) and Azjol Nerub Heroic for Essence of Gossamer. Mark of the Relentless will hopefully drop for you in ToC Heroic soon as well, which you can use to replace the Keystone Great-Ring.
In short, your gear is definitely going in the right direction and you'll do fine in Naxx-25 or even early Ulduar-10 in the gear you have. It'll come with time (and badges!) so stick with what you're doing and you'll get there in no time. In the meantime, keep reading Tankspot and asking questions as you go! Good luck
The part about 1/2 Improved Judgements is true, but 1/2 Spiritual Attunement is easily sufficient with BoSanc and Divine Plea up. The reason he can't move that spare point out of the Ret tree though is so that he can unlock the Vindication, Conviction, Persuit of Justice tier. I personally take 1/2 Improved Judgements and 1/5 Benediction, but basically you'll always have one pretty much wasted point in Ret with any build that takes Vindication.
Nah you're doing it fine - in fact, most of the "9" spells are in fact on an 8 second cooldown. The trick is that you can still only cast them every 9 seconds due to the fact the Global Cooldown is 1.5 seconds long.
A more accurate way of describing the rotation might be "646" as Judgement, Consecration and Holy Shield can be cast exactly once every 6 GCDs and Shield of Righteousness and Hammer of the Righteous can be cast once every 4 GCDs. Ignore the spell's cooldown - the seconds in "969" are still the earliest it's possible to cast them in the rotation.
The order in which you cast the spells themselves doesn't matter at all as they all get equal uptime (they're "rotating" after all) but you may find some benefit to opening with Holy Shield at the pull so you're beginning the fight with the Block buff already applied. A minor thing, but it's the only real "optimisation" you could make with 969 - as I say, the order you cast them doesn't really matter.
Wow, Mert you are amazing! Thank you so much this is all a huge help and a boost in my confidence as a newer Tank. A couple of the things you mentioned I have already been attempting (like the seal of Pantheon). I haven't really gone all out on gems and enchants unless I know the gear is not going to be replaced for quite a while. I want to get the Peacekeeper Blade (is this overrated or actually a good sword?) and put a good enchant on that. I was thinking bladeward, or lifeward...but I've heard mention of Accuracy a couple of times so I'll have to look into that as well.
As far as the Storm Peaks quest goes...wellll....leveling as prot I did mostly instances...so I have hardly done any of the quest zone...(i think the most is half of Borean Tundra, and maybe a couple quests in Dragonblight) so I'll definately have to get out there and do some questing! Again you've been a huge help, thank you so much! I am now going to be a repeat tankspot customer :-)
Noob Prot Pally - Armory
Peacekeeper Blade is a great sword but the problem a lot of people have is they try to utilise it in a relatively early gearset which struggles to make up for the lack of Defense Rating on it. Since you can also get Mark of the Relentless from ToC (which also doesn't have Defense Rating), new tanks often spread themselves a little thin and end up having to gem for pure +Def as a result and, as discussed, you ideally want to be having at least 15 Stam from all your gems.
Having said that, it's a fantastic avoidance weapon and I'd definitely recommend picking one up, just don't be too over-eager to use it and make sure you're not gimping your Effective Health too much by having to re-gem everything for Defense.
To answet the second part about the enchant, I'll go into some slightly more advanced gearing. Once you're fully decked out in epics, the really good tanks collect gear for all different purposes and switch around their trinkets, rings, weapons and often other pieces depending on what the encounter entails. One thing you will most commonly hear is a "block set" which is a set of gear specifically designed to maximise Block Value - this is useful for fights with lots of fast-but-light hitting adds, for example.
People categorise gear by what its primary stats are centred around and the general rule of thumb is to gem and enchant to a piece's strengths rather than to cover its deficiencies. Peacekeeper Blade has high avoidance and mitigation stats so would primarily benefit from avoidance-related enchants as well rather than a threat enchant like Accuracy.
None of this matters so much when it's your first or clearly best tanking weapon of course - you should gem and enchant for whatever you need most. However, I wanted to mention this for when you do get to having a few different pieces to switch around on a fight-by-fight basis as it's always good practice to be considering whether something is an EH piece, an avoidance piece, a threat piece and so on.
Know the feeling - I tanked my way right up to 80 and found myself in a similar situation to yourself. The good news is that the accompanying storyline to the quests in Storm Peaks is really quite good so you'll breeze through it. It also has a few "go kill this elite" group quests but pfft, what kind of Tankadin does group quests actually in a group, right?
Any time, man - always happy to help. Feel free to PM me if you ever want some advice or clarification or anything
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