The taco is going paladin prot and needs help

[Taconite]

Hello all, some of you may know me from being a DK tank. Well after clearing 25 togc up to anub and all the other stuff i've gotten overly bored with my DK. nah to be honest, im tired of hearing the glory that is paladin tanking. So i leveled up my paladin. I have jut dinged 80. Im crafting my bs'ing tank set to start.

My question.

I am looking but nothing is really clear. Alot of stuff has been out-dated and conflicting. so, just some real simple questions below.

Talent + glyphs. Simple just let me know the cookie cutter please.

Secondly, rotation. Tips, tricks etc thatyou can provide.

thanks in advance guys/girls.

[Synapse]

The most basic talent setup is 5/5 parry, 1/2 improved judgments, and 2/2 vindication in the ret tree.
On prot, you'll get mostly everything: Divine Strength, antecipation, improved devo aura, improved righteous fury, sanctuary, everything past sanctuary...

My character is in my avatar's list, Sinapse. That is my current happy spec. The only mandatory glyph is Divine Plea, which means a solid 3% DR through the whole fight.

The rotation is callled "969", and it consists of weaving 6s cooldowns(shield of righteousness, hammer of the righteous) and 9s cooldowns(consecration,holy shield, judgment), always a 9, then a 6, then a 9, then a 6...

Gearing a paladin isn't very different than gearing a warrior, if at all. We don't care about weapon speed much(mostly, there are minor benefits to slower weapons). There is little to do in terms of threat output, the 969 is the optimal rotation that keeps holy shield and judgments up, so you will learn to deviate from it for faster fights, new adds and the like.

Oh, and part of our attacks can't be dodged/parried, so expertise's threat is a little less valuable, while str is much more valuable for threat.


If you really want a full detailed work on tankadins, you're better off reading the guides here and at maintankadin.

[Taconite]

you rock man, thanks for the quick reply.

[Insahnity]

Mostly agree with Synapse, a few items:

We are slowly being transmongrellified (spelling intentional) from a melee class using spell caster mechanics based toon to more melee mechanics. As such, there are a few threads you can review which detail the changes, but Expertise isn't as much of a minor stat as it was before. I would say the value of expertise to a paladin is 90% of a warrior's dependance, and I would not enter into advanced content without paying attention to it.

That being said, Glyphs. Divine Plea is mandatory, everybody agrees. Starting out, expertise is a PITA, use Vengeance glyph to give a nice 10 Expertise skill bonus. Finally, the last glyph is situational. Due to lack of hit in endgame gear, taunt will be valueable to stock up on for TotC, HotR/judgements for threat, any of the CDs are good for survival, etc.

Minors, as with many classes, are lackluster. Most agree with LoH Minor to reduce CD. I personally also have Sense Undead from Nax days and Seal of Wisdom minor (reduces its cost).

As for spec, there are some basics, the only variations are in points savings with respect to overlapping raid debuffs, which can be redirected to threat talents.
I suggest this build as a template. If you can raid with a ret paladin who can provide vindication, a warrior/bear with demo shout/roar, etc. then pull out the 2 points in vindication and drop into crusade. Some like Pursuit of Justice + 22 stamina on boots, I prefer Tuskarr's.

Additional tips and tricks:
-Pulling can be accomplished in many ways. Exorcism (now with annoying cast time), Hand of Reckoning (our taunt which also actually does a some Holy Damage when we aren't top aggro), and shield (which silences targets, good for ranged casters). I usually HoR + shield or Exorcism+ shield, depending on situation.
-If you have mana issues, the first place to look is Divine Plea uptime. If you let it fall off, aside from 3% Damage reduction being lost, you will also be stranded without mana as it is on CD. Get it up as fast as possibly and keep it up with Hammer of the Righteous or autoattacks.

[Synapse]

Additional tips and tricks:
-Pulling can be accomplished in many ways. Exorcism (now with annoying cast time), Hand of Reckoning (our taunt which also actually does a some Holy Damage when we aren't top aggro), and shield (which silences targets, good for ranged casters). I usually HoR + shield or Exorcism+ shield, depending on situation.
-If you have mana issues, the first place to look is Divine Plea uptime. If you let it fall off, aside from 3% Damage reduction being lost, you will also be stranded without mana as it is on CD. Get it up as fast as possibly and keep it up with Hammer of the Righteous or autoattacks.

Actually, we just don't have to be targeted. I've bored more than one Reckoning crit on bosses who switch targets to spit adds like the magnataur in UP.
And on the expertise thing, well, I said it is a little less valuable
The biggest "user" of it is our melee, which, because of SoV, is actually two attacks that can be parried(the melee itself and the SoV application both can be parried/dodged). It's not as big a deal from the survival side because if one gets parried the other doesn't happen, but you must pierce both chances to have the sov reapply.
SoV is our undeniable best seal for threat. The DoT hurts, and the melee hurts harder while the dot is there.