Veet
After reading this, I decided to attempt using a Protection Paladin in battlegrounds. I found this was noticeably and immediately more viable than my Retribution off-spec. This was unexpected, and I sought to find out why.

Before posting, I searched for any previous relevant mentions of Protection and PVP, as well as reading the last thirty pages in this thread, as well as an examination of the Protection Field Manual. I did not find any discussion on Protection PVP. I have wrapped a standard protection spec paladin in some retribution gear. Some talents could be switched out for more optimal pvp talents.

I kept the sword and shield, and have been using [Libram of Obstruction].

The core stats seem to be strength and critical hit, closely followed by block. Your auto-attack damage is worthless, however the strength increases your block value and spell damage, allowing for fairly ridiculous damage with Avenger's Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, and Shield of Righteousness. Talented and glyphed appropriately, heals also might be reasonable.

I have mostly run with Blessing of Might, Seal of Righteousness, and judge Wisdom. Mana is an issue - even with the infinite Divine Plea, the buff occasionally drops off and once you are out of mana your only ability is a nearly useless autoattack. Naturally, mana draining attacks are the bane of this build.

I am by no means excellent at PVP and nor have I had the opportunity to test this build in an arena at this time. However, running Prot PVP was unexpectedly effective and also highly entertaining.

Has anybody else experienced Prot PVP and would like to comment or seek further details? Is it worth pursuing this into the Arena, or will this be a wasted effort?

Well I can say I have tried the Paladin "Spec"trum to PvP just to find where I can sit with my teammates and the most useful I can be in Arena, and this is what I have analyzed form it.

When we walk in to Arena (and some cases this will apply to BG's) if we see a Paladin he is quickly looked over for his Spec (i.e. Prot (High HP, Low mana,) Ret (Closely equal HP to our DPS, low mana,) Holy (Lower HP, High mana)) and if it is not a healer then he is mostly ignored. Here is why: A Paladin in a well specced Ret build does little better than mediocre damage, we know to be ready to see a few stuns, but our healers can easily heal our Melee while taking a Paladin and (insert melee class.) Also, Paladins tend to fall extremely easy in PvP.

As a Prot Paladin I experienced a drastic drop in DPS overall, a little more utility for quick healing, a LARGE increase in survivability (usually the last standing,) but with out the mana return from judgments I was generally left dead in the water till everyone was dead and the other team decided to focus fire on me.


As a Holy Paladin.... This topic is beaten and bruised and the holy paladin is covered. So I will move on.


Being that most Arenas will not last longer than 30 seconds to 1 min a Prot Paladin can be viable for stunning/silencing healers, or in the case a melee DPS class focuses on you, you can "tank" that person for as long as need with not much fear. It was a highlight during my time as a ProtPvP.

If you experienced a huge drop in DPS compared to ret, you are not playing it right. I LOL at you if you are playing a Prot spec PVP paladin wearing tank gear. A PVP prot spec DPS Paladin should be wearing entirely ret gear, and maybe a few high iLevel BV tank pieces thrown in to get your block value up. You should find the best Str ret PVE items you can get your hands on, 2 Piece T9 is essential, a good slow 1 hander and the best shield you can find. Any relentless pieces you can get are a bonus, but not really necessary if it's too much of a nerf over a nice 245 ilvl Str piece.

You also shouldn't be using might or Righteousness. Sanctuary increases your strength by 10% (and thus your BV) and provides valuable damage reduction and mana return when you are attacked. SoV is your seal of choice and you should be using the SoV libram. With a 5 stack on a healer it will tick between 1100-1500, putting a lot of stress on them to keep both themselves and their dps up. Save your stun and avenger's shield for when your opponent gets to 50%. AS is also useful for catching an escaping druid or shammy healer.

You should shoot for 4500+ ap unbuffed, 1800-2000 BV and 30% crit. The burst potential of a good PvP prot paladin is huge, and usually underestimated by your opponents. Shield of Righteousness can crit for 7k+, Hammer for 6k+, glyphed Avengers Shield for 9k+ and a 3-4k+ judgement crit. This is almost all holy dmg--compared to ret which has much more white dmg to be mitigated by armor and resilience. A lucky string of crits can drop someone before they even knew what hit them.

The downside is your burst cycle revolves around a 30 second cooldown. If you mess-up and miss a burst cycle it can easily be a loss. But with a target at 50% you should be able to drop them within one hammer and dps rotation.

Mana is rarely an issue unless you forget to hit divine plea or you are mana burned to death by a disc priest left unattended.

I've found the sustained dmg is about 20% less than ret overall, but I'd guess the burst potential is 20% higher. Add to that a ton of dmg reduction talents for better survivability and a hammer on a 30 second cool-down and you have a very very dangerous spec to contend with.

I can easily beat any ret, warrior, DK or rogue in 1v1 except for maybe someone in a full relentless set-up with 1000+ resil, and you will be running about with no more than 400-500 resil yourself. The spec is a major monster in BGs. I've easily solo'd streams of (albeit under-geared), rogues, warriors, ret pallies, DKs all coming at me 2-3 at a time and feeling like Chuck Norris when all is said and done! I especially love hunting rets in BGs, since they tend to be under-geared, or running around in PVE gear thinking they are hot shit and then you drop them within a single hammer while they have wing up.

The bane of our existence is warlocks and mages, but I don't think that's any different than ret. I highly recommend long-time rets with nice gear giving Prot a try--I think you'll find it to be a ton of fun!

That's incorrect if one plays ret correctly. Retribution offers one thing that Protribution cannot bring to the table: great mobility. When facing mages or Warlocks, the greatest and mostly forgotten tool you have is the ability to pop in and out of LoS between casts. Ret's freedom-breaking stun can be the difference between eating a full Shatter/Chaos Bolt/Lava Burst combo and not eating said combos. As prot you always put yourself at risk against casters with less mobility.

Another thing not mentioned is to never underestimate the fact that Avenger's Shield is a silence. Although it can open a burst every thirty seconds, it's much better when used as a silence if your mmr is at 2k or higher. If you're below 1500 chances are things will just fall over in less than a minute, but for anybody considering high-end arena they need to take the offensive utility prot brings to the table.

In retrospect, it all comes down to playstyle. Personally, I prefer Retribution simply because running it at 2.1k mmr is a challenge given the fact that any smart team focuses rets and we're not the offensive powerhouses we were in season 6. However, protribution is statistically better and much easier to play successfully at any decent mmr.

I must say, Prot dps in PvP is fun. Especially with the T10 2 set bonus (oh god the crits). Because I lack a ret PvP set (building it up with the remainder of my useless arena points over the rest of this season) I am using mostly ToC 25 plate dps gear, with a couple tank peices that I havn't been able to replace yet. Since I am holy for arena and offraids, and prot for the majority of my raids, I do not get the luxury of having triple spec. Knowing that Prot can dps in PvP (as well as heal limited targets, Prot/Holy hasn't quite been nerfed to the ground yet) makes me happy.

With all this talk of Prot PvP, I must say it sounds like a lot of fun. Here's my issue. I'm getting ready for the new arena season with 2 good friends, an Arms warrior and a holy paladin. I was planning on playing an unholy DK. I had concidered ret because I have a paladin as well, but ultimately decided against it because of the lack of snares and silences. Because I've always been ret and never really saw too much Prot PvP I hadn't even looked at the talents. My question is, can any of you arena vets shed some light on why or why not Prot Holy Arms would be better or worse than Unholy, Holy, Arms? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Also, what about specs? Something like 5/53/12? Glyphs? Thank you.

Thanks for the tips scamand. Ithink I should probably go DK because the 2 others on my team are both long time raiders and new to the PvP scene(thank God our Pali has always been a healer). I guess I'll be the "carry" member of the team until they get the hang of it, and it sounds like because of Prot's lack of interrupts, DK's are better equiped for the role. Also, after doing a little research, the top 3's team on my BG is Holy/Arms/Unholy, and there are no prot/ret paldadins in the first 3 pages of the arena ladder, so I'm not sure how viable they'll be. They're starting to sound more like Frost DKs, BG animals, but really no place in the arena. But if anybody has any links/videos that would suggest otherwise, I'd love to see them and give it a try, it just sounds like so much fun.

Both Prot and Ret have great burst, although the lack of an MS and a "catch up" tool causes us to be unable to follow through with a finishing blow. As I have healed the past 7 arena seasons, theres nothing that I love more than getting away with 5k hp and being able to heal myself to full within a few seconds. Unholy works better with a 3s comp typically because they offer the ability to snare the kill target while mitigating damage to their team. A tip I offer to your friend: Plate cleaves do not allow for the healer to LoS in most games, you must stay close enough to your partners to heal them. MAKE USE OF BEACON, it has a 60 yard range even if your heals only have a 40 yard range. If one of you pursues the kill target out of his range, tell him to beacon you and spam someone else.

I wish you luck in the next season, hopefully I'll be able to find a team willing to let me test out prot in 3s (2s, although fun, don't mean much anymore)

The two main specs for Protribution look like (7/53/11) or (0/53/18). If you go into the holy tree it is mainly for Unyielding Faith as Protribution is extremely susceptible to crowd control.

Regarding Glyphs, the only mandatory one is the Avenging Shield one (100% Damage). Recommended glyphs are Salvation (20% damage reduction), Turn Evil (Instant Fears on Warlock pets and DKs), Hammer of Justice (5 yard extra range), Shield of Righteousness (80% Mana reduction) and I'm sure there may be a few others.

Depending on your preference of seal, you may want to use a corresponding glyph. SoCor, although good sustained dps, is lacking for burst in most situations. Seal of Righteousness procs off of pretty much everything (Sheild Slam, melee attacks, Hammer of the Righteous and twice* from judgement) as does Seal of Command. Righteousness has a higher judgement damage than Command, where the later adds more damage to each hit (in addition to cleaving)

Command provides some decent mana return glyphed
Righteousness provides a small amount of extra damage
SoCorr glyphed won't do you much good and should be avoided.

It should be noted that SoCorr has the highest judgement damage once 5 stacks are reached (although it only procs the 33% weapon damage once)

Personally I prefered SoCorr over Righteousness because I didn't find the extra damage to be enough. Command however is worth testing out.

10 Expertise is actually really good considering there aren't many other glyph optioins. A lot of your attacks can be parried and dodged.

Mana shouldn't be a huge issue if you pop plea as you engage your target(s). 1 point into Spiritual Attunement can also help out.

You will be peeled quite easily, the important thing is to not blow your mana if your plea is down and on cooldown..

Agreed, the key is to be able to put out enough pressure to pose a threat to their healer while avoiding downtime. I find that as soon as DP goes up, most players will do their best to make it fall off by kiting you. So if you need to keep it up, put on Freedom to keep up with your target. It's best to use your own judgement depending on the situation. WTB easy mana return like ret :P

No. Avenger's Shield has a three-second silence attached to it that is often used as an interrupt instead of a burst opportunity.

As for prot uptime, if you're starting to get kited you need to toss a freedom on yourself to get another hit in. Outside of that, freedom is best utilized on a warrior partner.

Has Anyone thought to use BoW as the blessing of choice for protribution? I think it would help the mana based uptime significantly. I haven't done in game test yet but it might be worth the 10% str loss from dropping kings/sanct.

as far as glyphs go I would say Glyph of Avenger's Shield, and Glyph of Shield of Righteousness(~4.75% base mana saved per 6 seconds) are a MUST . The final glyph is up to you and your play style, Turn Evil, Salvation, Divine plea, Judgement, Seal of Vengeance, any of these is viable if put to use properly in PvP.

Can't see any situation where lossing stamana and strength plus the 3% damage reduction and mana return is justifiable .
If you are having mana issues , which everyone will have facing range classes that kite us all over the place , invest more into benediction and hope divin plea will be off cd soon.
And about glyphs I use AS , glyph of judgement and salvation. Extra burst from judgements is something I hate to lose

Are you trying to heal with the ret spec? If so, that spec has not been viable since season 5.

For those still playing Ret as a dps pvp spec, it is still quite powerful when partnered with a hunter or warrior.

Strated a 5s team last night , first time on my protpally.
Arms,rogue, protpally, resto druid and a holly pally.
Like the idea of cleaves but I am not sure if it still has a place in 5s .
We have no mass dispell or hero/bloodlust.
Now do you guys think this could be a viable comp? Or is it just a 1800 hero?

So I've been playing with protribution for awhile and I really like it. My question is this. Does anyone know if the weapon enchant Crusader still procs well at lvl 80? I did the math and the Blockvalue increase (added dmg to righteous shield), the sp increase ( through talents) and the ap increase garnered from the +100 str proc of Crusader would outweigh that of a 400ap proc from berserking IF the proc rate is equivalent. I looked around and couldn't find any info on the lvl 80 proc rate of Crusader.

Also Does anyone have any other insight for a protribution pvp weapon enchant? definitely looks like Berserking or Crusader but i could be wrong.

Thanks.

Bloodlust and mass dispel are arguably "must haves" in a 5v5 environment.
5v5 also favors ranged/casters a bit more than melee types.

That being said, most setups are capable of going well beyond 1800 regardless of how viable they might be at the top end (2600+).

Woah, this is rather shocking! I was browsing through the first 40 odd pages of this thread without much word of Prot at all, decided to hop to the end and chuck something in but found it's all here already!
I've recently picked it up, still working with my specc, however, I don't think it's right to say one is better than the other.
Ret has next to no mana issues, so therefore can really help with cleansing, healing, so on, Where the class lacks any real offensive breakthroughs, like a DK can lockdown casters pretty well, a warrior has mortal strike and so on, they relieve alot of stress from your healer, whilst offerring some tasty damage.
Where prot can lockdown, very well, it's not really in a position to heal or cleanse anywhere near as much, and your often ignorred by all but the odd bit of CC, which put smore preassure on your teamamtes, and as mentionned above, not having the stun remove on your hand of freedom means there really is little you can do to stop them.
Once your stun and silence is used, you'r more or less useless for another 20 or so seconds, where as ret your still just as deadly.
Saying that, Prot has better burst, and will probably do better at getting an enemy healer down, or atleast keeping it from healing a more squishy target for a while whilst you and your team wails on it. Aswell as being less common, prot is a little more unpredictable.

In arena, Prot seems to be more "useful" if your team has the damage and healing pretty much covored, but I think it's important to remember ret is more consistant, and in some senses mroe versatile, It's not unlikely prot just hasn;t had it;s potential truly unearthed yet though, ofcourse, So I encourage you all to keep going at it!

as for Bgs, Prot would be my choice, in those situations where you run up to the lumbermill and find your on your own against 3 enemy players... Prot can acctually deal with those situations where ret is going to struggle, aswell as in a messy cluster of players you've got your hammer hitting 3 people, and can burst for insane numbers which is rather stressefull for a healer, aswell as keeping a player inactive for alot longer.

I've been using the ret pvp gear, with pve rings/neck/cloak, a pvp trinket and a tanking trinket, tanking shield and melee dps 1 handed axe. It seems to be going well so far, but i'd like to know if full PVE gear is better than PVP gear.
Seeing as i've never been focussed for more than about 8 seconds, the PVE gear would seemingly be better, for more damage, but at the same time, the pvp gear has won matches for me, falling into a 1 on 1 with about 20% health left and a rogue sneaking arround at full health, the resillience came into play, but hey, any suggestions?

Protribution is incredibly viable in arena. the burst allows (with proper coordination) the almost instantaneous destruction of pretty much any class. That said it seems plate cleave, and double healers in 3v3 are the bane of this spec. I'm currently running protribution/rogue/priest and we demolish every comp we come up against except these two. Granted we haven't played that much (roughly 30games a week since the new season) but between the silencing shield, survivability, lack of interest from other team's dps due to sword and board, and the 30s cd on HoJ the protribution spec is fantastic and very fun.

That being said; While using ret pvp gear is essential for the strength there are some other pieces of PROT PvE gear you should try to get your hands on. Remember for this spec the most important stats are (in order) str>crit>block value. Str= ap,sp,and Blockvalue and the other two are self explanatory. So ideally you are going to want T10 gloves and chest for the 20% boost to HotR(assuming you can get arena shoulders and helm), T9.2/.3 pants and helm (helm is optional if a ilvl 264 replacement can be had), a tank trinket (corroded skeleton key has a nice clicky and lots of stam) with a nice ret trinket (crit here if you can; Whispering Fanged Skull?). Add to this a SLOW 1H dps weapon with high top end to maximize your SoV dmg and a tank shield with high block. Cloak, rings, boots, belt, bracers and neck are all up to you. I'm currently running Wrathful/relent rings, tank neck, and soon wrathful belt/boots/bracers. this type of item set up, while not necessarily giving you high resil, will effectively top out your protribution "burst".

Quick note: the T9 legs and helm are the highest iLvL tanking gear with raw block value on them which = raw dps in this spec. the pants are a must due to the sheer volume of BV on them but the helm is a little more replaceable.

Hope that helps.