Protection and you! - Page 3

Fiola · 10/18/07, 10:50 PM

Observation of Vindication on PTR:

Using pitbull to see the exact mana values, Vindicaiton reduced caster mob mana from 3231 to 2916.

That's a difference of 315 mana points, or around 10~%.

Not knowing mob health values, I couldn't really test how much it reduced their HP, but I was able to test if it had any effect.

I attacked a self-healing mob (treants in NE part of Auchindon crater), applied Vindication, allowed the treant to heal to full, and then watched Vindication fade. When Vindication dropped, the mob % hp dropped from 100% to 96% (there might have been a regrowth tick in there, but I was mostly interested in seeing if it affected HP at all). So the % Sta reduction does work, though it won't be 15% of their total HP, obviously.

In other words, Vindication does indeed affect mob stats if the debuff sticks.

Wolftusk · 10/18/07, 11:04 PM

You may also want to include: [Ogri'la Aegis] as one of the initial Shields. It's fairly easy to get with the Ogri'la and has a potential of having more stamina with the right gems.

Bop · 10/18/07, 11:59 PM

Originally Posted by Fiola

Observation of Vindication on PTR:

Using pitbull to see the exact mana values, Vindicaiton reduced caster mob mana from 3231 to 2916.

That's a difference of 315 mana points, or around 10~%.

Not knowing mob health values, I couldn't really test how much it reduced their HP, but I was able to test if it had any effect.

I attacked a self-healing mob (treants in NE part of Auchindon crater), applied Vindication, allowed the treant to heal to full, and then watched Vindication fade. When Vindication dropped, the mob % hp dropped from 100% to 96% (there might have been a regrowth tick in there, but I was mostly interested in seeing if it affected HP at all). So the % Sta reduction does work, though it won't be 15% of their total HP, obviously.

In other words, Vindication does indeed affect mob stats if the debuff sticks.

That leads to the question - how much does stamina account for raid trash HP? and would vindication on a trash mob amount to a 4%~ HP drop on a mob with say...100k hp.

Thanks for sharing the testing you've done Fiola. I'm going to use that method and check mob health drops with the use of beastlore if possible as it shows the mobs current and max health values. Should be very accurate.

• Snowy · 10/19/07, 12:10 AM

Originally Posted by Wolftusk

You may also want to include: [Ogri'la Aegis] as one of the initial Shields. It's fairly easy to get with the Ogri'la and has a potential of having more stamina with the right gems.

Good call. Might want to show something like this:

[Aegis of the Sunbird]
[Platinum Shield of the Valorous]
[Ogri'la Aegis]

The first is good to add since sometimes you might not get a certain drop for a long time, while the Aegis is a sure item if you get the rep and items to turn in for it.

Bop · 10/19/07, 1:07 AM

I've found Figurine of the Colossus To be a useful trinket for a protection Paladin too. It's really a golden on use ability when tanking multiple mobs at once.

galzohar · 10/19/07, 3:06 AM

Unless it's more significant than 4% it's probably going to be quite useless on trash... 4% on a trash mob takes like what, 1 second? And any DPS done before vindication procced reduces the effect. If the reduction is 4% and the raid does >=4% damage to the mob before vindication procced your vindication had done absolutely nothing when it comes to killing the mob faster.

kallio · 10/19/07, 4:03 AM

Just a quick question: doesn't the fact that with PTR 2.3 all seal and judgment scaling comes from AP rather than from spelldamage totally trash spelldamage as a stat for Prot Pallies ?

Or did i missunderstand the changes made to improve raidperformance of our Ret brothers ?

Youngblood · 10/19/07, 5:12 AM

Originally Posted by kallio

Just a quick question: doesn't the fact that with PTR 2.3 all seal and judgment scaling comes from AP rather than from spelldamage totally trash spelldamage as a stat for Prot Pallies ?

Or did i missunderstand the changes made to improve raidperformance of our Ret brothers ?

EDIT: You gave me quite a scare there, but it seems like you have misunderstood the changes. When I asked around in the cesspit.. erhm... I mean on the official forums, I quickly got the reply that no, seal and judgement damage still benefits from spell damage, not attack power. According to the replies, that has not been changed. (See this thread.) I hope they are correct.

Original message:
Eeeek?! Now I'm worried. Could someone please check or confirm if paladin judgement and seal damage scales with AP instead of spell damage on the PTR?

If I have understood correctly, that would entail a significant threat generation nerf for protection paladins.

Please put my troubled mind at ease by saying ain't so. Sorry if this is considered off topic, but I feel that this thread was the best place to ask.

Xequecal · 10/19/07, 6:11 AM

Does anyone know if the proc on Ashtongue Talisman of Zeal is considered Holy damage? If it is, it's 57 threat per second from that item alone, more if the proc is affected by spell power. (I doubt it.)

I'm not in BT, so I don't know how hard it is to get, but it seems to be fairly easy. I hear you have to kill some BT bosses to get to the vendor, so I'm not sure how difficult it actually is.

RadicalSS · 10/19/07, 9:30 AM

Great guide! Could you add resilliance mechanics to the first section please?

Cathela · 10/19/07, 10:32 AM

Originally Posted by kallio

Just a quick question: doesn't the fact that with PTR 2.3 all seal and judgment scaling comes from AP rather than from spelldamage totally trash spelldamage as a stat for Prot Pallies ?

Or did i missunderstand the changes made to improve raidperformance of our Ret brothers ?

What you're referring to was a rumored change that would have affected SoC/JoC and Crusader Strike, but nothing else. That change never materialized (or at least it hasn't yet) but regardless it wouldn't have affected non-Ret paladins.

Wolftusk · 10/19/07, 12:08 PM

Something that i find very confusing is the whole topic about weapon speed. I know it's been talked about in the viability thread, but i think it could be useful to place a summary under the gear section.

Also, i think it would be beneficial to place some comments about what gear you should equip when a protection paladin is not tanking or off tanking and how to DPS "effectively" as a protection paladin. I know it has also been talked about in the viability thread, but i think it would be nice to summarize it here as well.

Just some thoughts. Great thread tho, i already found it to be very useful.

Questioner · 10/19/07, 12:39 PM

Weapon Speed for Protection Paladin
--------------------------------------
Personally, I have found it to be a non-issue completely. Both slow and fast weapons have their pros and cons.

Fast Weapon ( under 2.0 ): More consitent threat. The less time between weapon swings, the less a dodge or parry will hurt you in terms of short term threat per second. With a speed under 2.0, you will lose some of the direct benefit or reckoning, however you will gain the ability to take better advantage of repeated reckoning procs. Fast weapons also proc utility judgements such as JoW more often, as they are % based rather than PPM. A con is that you will have more parries with a faster weapon, thus take slightly more spike damage.

Slow Weapon( over 2.0 ): Less consistent threat due to dodge/parry, but takes better advantage of reckonings 4 swings. The dps/threat gain of any weapon over 2.0 speed is exactly the same over time. Slower weapons also have a higher chance to proc SoV for alliance paladins choosing to use it.

Speed has no effect on SoR dps, as it is normalized to the weapon speed.

This topic will probably die even moreso with 2.3, as I forsee reckoning being cut from many MT builds in favor of more mitigation(CoEx)/more consistent aggro(Precision/ISotC).

Questioner · 10/19/07, 1:02 PM

Looking at the OP, I find a lot of it seems to be focused on what we might call a Maintankadin. Many protection paladins often find themselves in a shared role for this and should take note of different strategies/gearing for different roles they might play. It can be very rewarding playing a prot paladin that is not maintanking (Morogrim, Al'ar come to mind first).

Gearsets for a Protection Paladin
-------------------------------------
Main Tank Set: This set is designed for tanking the hardest hitters or progression content. Focus on maximizing stamina and armor while maintaining uncrushability. We are no different than warriors in this respect, as it has been proven that constant, low damage is far more healable than spike damage that you would gain by increasing avoidance instead of mitigation.

Threat Set: This set is designed for aoe fights or fast fights where you must obtain and build aggro very fast. Look for the paladin specific gear with spell damage, and spell damage trinkets like [Eye of Magtheridon] and [Icon of the Silver Crescent].

Block Value Set: This set is designed for aoe tanking many mobs for longer durations. The idea is to reduce the mob hits to near zero. The [Item not found!] is great for this. 2.3 is introducing many new block value items as well. With a full block value set, a paladin will be able to block approximately 1000hp post-mitigation hits.

Non-tanking Damage Set: I haven't done the numbers to be honest, someone should probably get on it. Personally I use a spell damage set (my threat trinkets and the lamellar pvp gear, some of the tier items). I know some horde use a retribution style set with SoB instead of SoR. Irregarless, turn off Righteous Fury or you will die faster than an Enhance Shaman without salvation.

Healing Set: Do not take offense to being asked to heal. Some fights there just is not room for many tanks, and the best you can do for the raid is heal. This set should not be like a holy healing set, but rather focus on healing and mp5, as crit does little for a non-Illumiation build.

Additionally, you will want to get a set of 20 slot bags, as on any given raid you may use all 5 of these sets. Oh, and don't forget your resist gear for Hydross. Suckers!

Denogran · 10/19/07, 1:52 PM

Originally Posted by Questioner

Additionally, you will want to get a set of 20 slot bags, as on any given raid you may use all 5 of these sets. Oh, and don't forget your resist gear for Hydross. Suckers!

O man, so true, I've been too cheap to buy the 20-slotters, but it's always embarrassing to tell a mage "Can you just give me 2 stacks of water? I'm out of bagspace." I've actually not taken side-grades before because it wasn't worth it to throw something out.

If you're primarily an off-tank I'd suggest concentrating first on a threat set. In my experience, the off-tank's tend to have their target dps'd down first, so you need to be able to pump out the threat fast in order for the dps to be able to light it up.

But don't neglect your high stamina, high mitigation set, low threat set either, even if you're not going to be MTing anything. Often, if you're assigned a target that's not going to be dying for a couple of minutes (last channeler on mag, last FLK add), staying alive is the hard part, and keeping the mob on you is near trivial. In these cases, you can pretend you're a warrior and play with items like [Mallet of the Tides].