Fielding

When did they hotfix the dmg changes? I was comparing this last Tuesday to the Tuesday before. I probably should have clarified that a bit. It wasn't like I went to sleep Monday a tps machine and woke up Tuesday with a noticeable decline. Were the hotfixes done sometime that week? I think I remember the Thursday inbetween or something. We usually clear sw in about 1.5hrs on Tuesday and then I go and respec for quest grinding (achievement mega nerd).

 

Russta

When offtanking Brutallus and Sacrolash last night, I noticed that my threat wasn't as artificially high as it was last week. I noticed I had to actually try to catch up instead of doing whatever, riding Judgement of Light and taking it back when I wanted. Regardless, it wasn't really a big deal and I completely agree that we'll be where we need to be once we get Shield of the Righteous at 75.

Also, I don't know if anyone noticed this post;

Tongue-in-cheek and hardly original but I quite frankly would not turn down a form of charge. The idea that it's damage is based off AC is a really good idea too because it obviously makes it do more damage for Protection.

 

gouldukat

Now not, because you got time to spend in waiting of some cool down, but when we get the Shield yes you put Consecration on the last place of skill to fire for single target TPS, but still you fire it sometimes, just because you're waiting for some cool down too in a long rotation with skills overlapping cool downs, so you still using it but not so often and not every of its cool down but every now an then when you get time to fire it, and only if you got mana and you want to do the max TPS possible.

In my perspective for max TPS ( i still need to find a post with mats, huge forum is huge ... ) Shield of Righteousness > Hammer of Righteous > Judgment > Any other single/multi target spell if we can cast them > Consecration.

And still i cant figured out where to put Holy Shield on that rotation, because it's screw all, or you go defensive using it when pop up, and loose like 1/2K TPS, or you go for max TPS and you stay out of the 30% block for 2/3+ seconds ( and yes i played sometimes in beta at 80 too, finding myself doing 2/3k TPS using it every cool down, and instead doing 4K+ on never using it ) so yes it's so bad to have this defensive plus little TPS spell who scale inversely on gear up who need us to roll a GC for it.


I think if they put more down the protection tree and make it do 10yard effect it become so nice for trash pulling/defense or for some laugh time in BG ( arena is impossible for us in protection ).

 

Qalor

You will commonly see this referred to as the 96969 rotation. The idea is to use your 6 second cd moves (SotR, HotR) every cooldown and your 3 other staples (judgement, holy shield and consecrate) every 9. Thus, your rotation would be HS,SotR, Judge, HotR, Consecrate, SotR, HS...etc. You can see how the moves start rotating in from that point on.

 

Shalcker

Umm, sorry? Did you actually tried arena as Prot? It's far from being "joke" even now, actually i'd say it's at about same level as pre-3.0 ret with some fun differences. Mana burns kill you, fears can be quite painful too, chain-dispels are quite annoying, but you CAN fairly easily kill shaman and paladin healers if it comes to 1v1 (especially paladins, being able to ignore armor for 80% of your burst damage is big bonus), and can burst down many other classes in span of single HoJ with Avenging Wrath.

HotR with [Rising Tide] hits for MORE then Crusader Strike with [Torch of the Damned], and deals armor-piercing Holy damage, you got reckoning, your melee crits up to 1k, you get extra HotR ricochets when people try to peel you off their healer or focus-fire, you got snare in Avenger's Shield (or extra burst from it when you need it), you got 20s cd 7s stuns (glyphed) for limited "crowd control" or catching up to people running away, you don't lose ANY damage while bubbled, you only lose about 2% crit compared to ret (and on lvl80 you'll actually be able to get MORE crit then ret), and most ret damage bonuses are compensated by 1h spec flat 10% damage increase. It's fun, and while it's a bit less damage then ret in general, in some situations it can still be superior.

And all that - in basic raid tanking spec.

 

Redcape

The big difference is you have absolutely no way to generate mana. The ability of a retadin to generate mana is currently a bit questionable, and since a protadin is substantially worse and will be oom and 100% useless in 40 seconds I can't imagine you being anything but awful. You can't ride JotW for some mana recovery; you are totally reliant on SA returns which are not remotely like enough to make you good.

Edit: Fixed tag errors

 

Lookit

While I haven't done any arena since the patch, my experience in BG's has been that BoSanc provides all the mana I need against melee opponents. Obviously still useless against casters, of course.

 

Fqubed

As ret in arena and BGs I will just ignore any "tank spec" and kill them when they have no friends anymore. Yes you can do some damage but not on par with a full dps class / spec and you run oom fast enough if ignored that you are not a threat. Once its just you alive, well you still have a lower dps once we feed you some mana, and no way to "burst" someone down.

 

Shalcker

What SA returns? Anyone who is dumb enough to focus you generally learns fast.

But your most damaging move, HotR, uses LESS mana then Crusader Strike... and you don't have mana dump of Divine Storm, so your mana usage is way less then ret. Unless manaburned, i only get oom at about 2-3m mark, and if i can keep melee range (or at least occasional HotR contact) i can actually get positive mana by using Seal of Wisdom (happens when it gets 1v1 you vs healer - you win 90% of the time unless it's priest). Your damage drops a bit, but mana gains are fairly substantial, and once you get enough you can switch back to dps seal for burst.

 

Bluhd Wuhlf

I have a quick question. Does anyone use the mod Pawn for tanking itemization? If so do you have a scale I could look at to import? I have been looking for something else other than just Tankpoints to compare items. Any other item mod suggestions are welcome. Thank you for your time.

 

solbergb

Agree with prot comments in pvp.

Protadins have uses on the battlegrounds. You can run flags, tank AV bosses, take AV mines, be nearly impossible to kill on an Eye of the Storm node, you can heal /bubble that nice high DPS class who is killing 2x as fast as you and getting focused and you can get some nice stunning action+snare in with talented hammer+avenging shield+seal/judge of justice. You can free others from snares or cleanse them. You can also just make a nuisance of yourself and distract several people trying to finish you off and failing. Crusader aura all by itself can be a benefit to your side in responding to incomings.

But your strengths are tied to objectives of the battleground, or the confusion of mass melees. That stuff isn't there in arenas.

 

Shalcker

Suppose you run in and start with 7s HoJ. How much damage you can do in "perfect storm" scenario?
Dragging some random numbers from arena combat logs (might be a bit old though, without latest nerfs):
HotR x2 - ~2253 x 2 (crits) = 4.5k
Judgement of the martyr - ~2k crit (with glyph)
Avenger's Shield - ~1.5k crit
Melee - 3x crits for 1k - 3k
Seal damage - Seal of Blood (3x melee + 2x HotR + 1x Judgement) - ~2k (all crits)
Hammer of Wrath - ~2.4k crit
Total damage: ~15.4k in 7.5 seconds, 80% of which is armor-piercing holy damage, with up to 6k coming on second/third target too.
If nothing crits, you get 7.7k (around 6.4k without how, 5.7k without AS), still pretty decent with current hp levels as long as your partner adds some pressure.

 

gouldukat

Yes if you're not getting CC cyclone/sheeped/chain dispelled or other ... and remember or you waste point to get 15% Pursuit of Justice or you still need to close the distance, with 5k mana its really not a game for us.
Plus we don't have spell survivability and you're going to need more point spent in Stoicism and Sanctified Seal, it become a mess spec only to adapt in arena, at least in BG there is not so much ppl who try to spell steal/dispel/cc you.

But come back on this :
Ok it's nice to get taunt addressed, the only problem i see there its another key bind, i'm already using 13 key binds on normal tanking day ( Holy Shield, Judgment, Hammer of the Righteous, Consecration, Shield of Righteous, Avenger's Shield, Hammer of Wrath, Righteous Defense, Avenging Wrath, Exorcism, Holy Wrath, Every man for Himself, Sacred Shield), plus 7 for panic time (Reseal, Hammer of Justice, Turn Evil, Divine Protection, Hand of Protection, Divine Shield, Lay on Hands), where i put this skill ? i'm already an octopus now :-/

 

Saladin

Considering paladin cooldowns are shaping up into a nice and neat 96969 rotation, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that you could put HS, Judge, HotR, ShoR, and Consecration in a /castsequence macro to save yourself 4 extra keybinds. (Or if you feel like really testing your healer, a /castrandom macro, mwhahaha. >: D)

With the addition of the new taunt though, would it be too much to hope for RD to hit more than 3 mobs? As it stands, AS, HotR, and RD all target 3 mobs max, so it could make things really hinky if your mage starts AE'ing before the first two Consecrate ticks. Which would actually be the mage's fault, but there are certain scenarios where a real AOE taunt would be quite useful to get them stuck on our consecrate and reflective damage, like Murlocs on Tidewalker. I'm far from saying it's absolutely necessary though.

 

Corronach

You should be able to make a macro so that you can just shift-click it and get one or the other.

 

Prinsesa

It would probably be too much, yes, since the 'justification' of us deserving a single-target Taunt is Righteous Defense being a 'flavor' spell.

Warriors have a Challenging Shout, but it's on a 3 min cooldown.
Bears copy Warriors directly, but don't have Mocking Blow
Death Knights have a +10 yard Taunt that moves the mob to the DK himself.
We have a +10 yard, 3-target Taunt.

It's not unlimited targets because it's already on a short cooldown, although I wouldn't put it past Blizzard to bump it back to the ~15 second range if and when we get a real Taunt.

Yes, the target limitation is quite regrettable, but keep in mind that our Consecrate carpet is the most consistent and effective source of AOE threat available.

Warriors will miss anything that runs past during the 6 second window, Druids have to struggle with Swipe's facing requirement and Death Knights have a 20/5 second window with their Death and Decay.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't really consider this a Paladin problem, since any tank would arguably have a tougher time if that Mage is really trigger-happy with his Blizzards.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Shalcker

With exception to seals being undispellable, it's no different from Ret. You can get stoicism in classic prot build without sacrificing anything tank-centric... and having lower stun duration is actually pretty useful for tanking too.

All arena games were played with this build (you can swap Reckoning for Shield of the Templar for extra survival now, most reckoning charges are wasted by running and getting range anyway).

Avenger's Shield is decent and pretty long-lasting snare (i was baffled by 10s duration before, now i see the light!). It's sufficient to reach HoJ distance to mage that just blinked to get away from you, and finish him off.

But you take 10% less spelldamage then ret... with Righteous Fury and Guarded by the Light. 13% less if you get Shield of the templar. Plus Ardent Defender, which almost never gets leapfrogged in PVP.

I'd actually love to see Glyph that would reduce cooldown, mana cost and damage of AS by 3 to make snare sustainable
That and some extra effect on HotR would be nice too.

 

Anedris

I think the relevant question to ask about prot arena is not "How much damage can a protadin do during a 7s stun?" but rather "Why is the protadin better than the retadin?" The retadin can also put out that 7s stun and is going to do more damage during it. If we're basing our choice on a HoJ gib scenario ret is going to beat prot.

 

Shalcker

Not in every case. Heavy armor will skew results in Prot favor.

Prot:
80% armor-ignoring holy damage (Ret has about 40% holy damage now with divine storm becoming physical)
Bigger group damage (HotR is superior to Divine Storm and has lower cooldown)
10s chaining Snare on 30s cd (good for group support)
Greatly reduced stun cooldown (not really available to ret now without sacrificing damage)
Reduced damage taken, both spells and melee
Even greater reduced melee damage because you wear Shield (that's +6k armor, as well as about 700-800 block value from strength)
Extra protection and extra damage for melee from Holy Shield
...and all that without leaving your raid tanking spec

 

Qalor

If you're able to find some minor success arenaing as prot, then that's awesome and good luck. I sincerely doubt we'll ever see a prot paladin above...oh, I'll say 1700. Feel free to prove me wrong, but whatever justification you can provide, I really just don't see it. You don't have to theorycraft it anymore, the expansion is only a few days away. Rise up in the arena ranks, then come back here and say I told you so.

 

◊ Cathela

SotR is also going to add some burst to a Prot paladin in arenas. If I were going to design a prot build for arenas at 80, I'd probably go with something like this. The logic behind the talent choices is:

• Anticipation, Deflection, and Toughness aren't that big a deal, since you'll wreck melee attackers anyway; you need those points to help you against casters and to improve your offensive utility (Benediction, Divine Strength, Conviction, etc).
• Leaving Reckoning out since arenas are about burst damage, and an extra weapon swing isn't a terribly large portion of that.
• Ardent Defender I'm kind of wishy-washy on. Perhaps someone with more arena experience could comment on this.
• I decided to leave Spiritual Focus out on the grounds that the Prot mana pool is going to force healing to be almost entirely FoL, and 5 points is far too expensive for the utility SF provides.
• Seals of the Pure would be nice, but again it seems like a large investment for a relatively small value.
• JotJ seems not very useful for arenas, since it's about reducing steady damage and basically does nothing to reduce burst. I could see it being useful if a match boils down to a 1v1 between you and a melee class, but in that case you've basically already won.
• I'm assuming that a Prot paladin would be expected to bring BoK to the team.
• I think Benediction is essential for arenas as Prot, and I probably wouldn't want to be without Imp. Judgement. The further 11 points in Prot are crit-boosters and PoJ; if you wanted you could shift those over to Holy for SotP (or SF I suppose) plus Healing Lights, UF, and Aura Mastery if you want a bit more of a defensive/backup-healer build. That may depend on the exact makeup of your team.

The big advantage I see to a Prot arena build is that you get a lot of the early-tier Prot PvP talents "for free" whereas Ret and Holy builds have to stretch and/or make choices to get these. e.g., things like a 30-second HoJ, Stoicism, GF, are "built in" for a Prot build where they aren't necessarily for a Ret or Holy build. If the devs decide to make the 11-point talent some kind of gap-closer/snare or some other PvP utility (GC has hinted at that) then that's another bonus.

Another more theoretical advantage is that a Prot paladin has a better chance of surviving after popping AW (i.e., better chance of surviving without needing to bubble). I dunno how much better, and you'd probably want to have full points in AD if you want to test this.

The big question mark is whether there's enough offense and/or group-defense utility here to draw attention. The model for Prot warriors in arenas is that they do pretty good burst damage, and also have a lot of disruption/control/defensive utility (group Spell Reflect, AoE stun, single-target stun, Vigilance on the weakest party member, etc, in addition to all the baseline warrior stuff like fear, hamstring, etc) so you pay a price for leaving a prot warrior alone. Does a prot paladin have enough guns to draw attention? I'm kind of skeptical. (I'm curious to see what HotR+SoJ can do though.)

This is all a theoretical exercise at this point (for me, anyway) but I think I'll give it a shot at 80 and see what happens. What I will predict, though, is that it'll be better than Prot in arenas was in TBC; that was basically just like playing a Holy paladin except that you were marginally harder to kill and your healing was incredibly worse.

[e]: I was misremembering Vigilance. It's only 3% damage reduction, which is not much by PvP standards, and refreshing Taunt doesn't amount to much either.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Saladin

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the primary appeal of a PVProt spec is to be able to not get slaughtered when you go to grind a couple rounds of arena after your weekly Naxx raid. That is, to avoid having to respec from our main (prot) specs. And that idea really does intrigue me, because it was massively expensive to swap from Prot to Ret and back every week to tank the guild runs and then get my arena games in (dual spec system not withstanding).

The build you're proposing would not be feasible for PVE raiding, which means the hypothetical Prot paladin would have to switch specs anyway in order to take it (via respec or dual-spec). If a paladin has to respec for arenas, he may as well go Holy or Ret, which are at least intended to be competitive. Otherwise it's just like a Shadow Priest respeccing to a different kind of Shadow spec to heal.

The notable exception here is for those paladins out there who are absolutely obssessed with prot and refuse to ever play any other way, and I do have one of those in my guild. She despises arenas and all PVP with a passion, however.

 

◊ Cathela

Oh yeah, from any practical point of view this is not a good idea. I'm just looking at it as an experiment.

Personally, the appeal for me is that I like the playstyle and I'm just curious to see how well it can work in competitive PvP (meaning arenas, and BGs that aren't AV). At one point Ghostcrawler was talking about adding a few more "cool" talents to deep prot, and the implication was that these might have PvP utility. That never happened (I assume due to time constraints) but if the devs ever get back to that it'd be nice to have some kind of feedback to give them about how well the tree works now.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

solbergb

Yeah. But a raiding PVE spec does ok on battlegrounds, expecially if he took the 3 points of improved hammer of justice to get a fast-enough-cooldown spell interrupt . I had some practice with this during the weekend on a 0/56/5 spec. The L80 raid spec would have one point in improved judgement, 5 in seals of pure or blessing of kings and 4 points scattered around in other talents mostly irrelevant for the comparison.

The only real prot tree talent you're likely missing that would be helpful in PVP is the stun/dispel reduction one. If I end up doing my dual spec as Prot/Holy, it would be the prot spec I'd bring for honor grinding. Holy for arenas, if I did arenas with her at all.

The durability was helpful, the snares/interrupts were decent, the burst damage felt low and sustained damage felt like about half what I could do with my mage. Some of that though was gear. If my paladin had the gear of my mage, especially "threat" gear, both forms of damage would have been better...maybe 2/3 or 3/4 what the mage could do in single target and small-aoe groups (large AOE, the mage has a huge advantage). Ranged options were limited but avenging shield helped slow things down enough to run up and smack them. There were a lot of retadins running around, and I even dueled some with similar gear levels. They flat out did more damage but were easier to burst down. We both kinda sucked at healing/cleansing but were "better than nothing".

I found my resistance auras surprisingly useful in PVP as well, although I had to change them up a lot. Auraswapping did give an edge at times, when I remembered to switch out of Crusader after riding over.

 

◊ zeidrich

I tried a PvP prot build in beta for a week or so, primarily doing battlegrounds. It's utility and burst capacity is actually quite reasonable, the real issue is that you run out of mana very very quickly and have no reasonable way to recover any of it.

You can be moderately effective in BGs as a raid spec prot paladin, better than you could at 70 at least. But you run into the same issues of mana longevity, and you skip most of the toys that you would have with a pvp build like imp HoJ and Guardian's Favor