The tree is very bloated, and so much of it is situational. If respecs were free you'd see people swapping between talents like Anticipation, Ardent Defender, Reckoning, Spell Warding, BoK, the ret stuff etc, as the content you were doing that day dictated. It's better that you know the specific use and place for each of the talents and take what you need for the content you're tackling.

I'm looking for a general breakdown of protadin ability usage. e.g. On a boss, my white damage is about 40%, consecrate is 15%, seal of righteousness is 15%, judgement of righteousness is 5%, and misc other stuff for the last bit, while on trash it's <words words words>.

The reason is that we have a new protadin and I just want to know what his ability usage 'should' look like in an ideal world of spherical cows.

That's also the dilemma I've been facing on creating a good talent section. There's a total of 59 good talents for tanking in the Protection tree (Though I'll admit Improved Devotion Aura is arguable in it's usefulness compared to the rest), and an additional 5 to 11 in the Retribution tree (Talents aside of Deflection being open for argument). And of course, the tanking talents in the Retribution tree require you to spend 5 talent points on something that isn't extremely useful for tanking.

There's also some talent combinations that I don't have the time/knowledge to figure out. For example if it's more beneficial to drop one point out of One-Handed Weapon Specialization to take one point in Reckoning so it can at least proc.

There's also a few things which are really more up to your preference. Some of us find the 15% movement speed of Pursuit of Justice extremely valuable while others find it completely unneeded. Some of us like Improved Judgement for the cooldown reduction, while others would argue that due to the 10 second cooldown on Holy Shield you get no real threat benefit from the talent. Some of us wouldn't want to be without the ability to cast Blessing of Kings, others think it's a waste of talent point. Were it not for the fact that you probably want full Ardent Defender, Improved Holy Shield and Combat Expertise, we'd also see a lot of contemplating on whether having a pulling tool like Avenger's Shield beats the (nearly) 10% extra threat of having Sanctity Aura.

I could most likely write a reasonable talent section, but I simply lack the knowledge to cover all the subtleties.

Well, my breakdown looked something like:
That's on Gorefiend (undead fight), using a fair amount of +damage (600ish?), so those numbers probably vary a lot but WWS has gone back to being 'unfriendly' so I can't really look too much deeper.

As for the whole resist set, my FR resist helm is simply a plate green I picked up off the AH, and have never seen the point in investing enough gold to pick up the blue one for more-or-less 5 stamina upgrade (I think, I did the calculations once and then dropped it because it really didn't seem worth it). I struggled pretty hard for uncrittablity and ended up in a suit so barely uncrittable that I actually need the 10 from the flask to put me over.

Also, possibly just a first impression but ye gods do I like 4p T6.

To borrow from the Maintankadin forums:
Maintankadin :: View topic - Tankadin core talent spec

5/5 Ardent Defender and 5/5 Anticipation are both considered "mandatory talents".

I've been at 4/5 Anticipation for awhile now, even for Flame tanking on Illidan. If I had a 62nd point, that's where it would go, but there's nothing in my current spec I'd drop for it.

EDIT: On a general note, it really is a matter of what gear you have and what you're expected to do in raids. It would be less of an issue if the tree weren't so bloated, but as it is a prot paladin progressing through Kara->Gruul/Mag->T5->T6 can expect to respec a few times in order to be "optimal" for different stages of progression.

If I had to do it again from the start I'd do engineering (currently mining/BS-armor). The helms are pretty well amazing, and that has always been the most difficult spot for me to gear up. Blacksmithing has served me well, but badge stuff is nearly as good. I'm not sure I'd take alchemy for a trinket you'd only be using situationally. Most of the time I'm using 2 stamina trinkets, or 1 stamina and 1 save-my-ass-on-use trinket. It's certainly not a bad trinket, but I'm not sure I'd take up a profession just for it.

This is something I have struggled with as well.

You can't go wrong with a money-maker like herbalism, (considering the constant in-demand status of consumables), plus the other tanking benefits of the [Fel Blossom] and [Nightmare Seed]. Keep in mind that if the blossom is used under 35% health, then the Ardent Defender extend's it's absorbtion, making it effectively 975 - 1625 absorbed. It does use a Pot cooldown, so the pot is going to be more useful most of the time, especially with the stone, though the blossom doesn't count as healing, so isn't reduced by Mortal Strike effects or RoS Phase 1 for example, and it does also prevent casting interruption while it is up.

Alchemy would be just a way to boost that profit until 2.4 with the stone, which is REALLY nice in my opinion, though maybe not worth getting a whole profession for.

Unfortunately, I took a gamble on Blacksmithing that 2.4+ would open up some Prot Pally BoP items, but it looks like I lost on that bet, and the only thing I use BS for is the [item]Greater Ward of Shielding[item], which are buyable. Even mining, I generally end up buying my ore, since on my server, ore is massively over farmed. I am seriouslly considering dropping both for Herb/Alch.

The only other professions I could make a case for are Enchanting for the ring enchants (minor benefit), and Engineering (for another pulling weapon and the early tanking goggles), though the benefit is really minor, and easily surpassed or overlooked.

Unfortunately, every profession that has something useful, is just 1 thing that is useful, maybe 2 or 3. The only real motivation for getting 1 profession over another is how useful that 1 thing is, if it is worth it, and if you can make a case for any of the rest for any alts/guild/etc.

Just wondering what everyone thinks about the 2.4 tankadin badge loot. It looks pretty poor to me in comparison to for example the 2.3 badge chest, boots and t5 set pieces.

Ederick

As for professions, I felt that I have been jipped as an armorsmith. Get a moneymaker.

As for tankadin loot, the "Warr" chest is far better than the pali one in my opinion, but I think that they are some nice upgrades if you are still with Kara/T4 gear.

WoW BlueTracker: [ Bug ] Multi Shot

Per Hortus, most of the multi-target abilities that were changed to not break CC have been reverted to their 2.3 state, and will continue to function as they did previously.

Can anyone with a current PTR build check to see if Avenger's Shield still avoids CC'd targets?

And regarding the 2.4 badge loot, I'll be picking up the [Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor] and [Chestplate of Stoicism]. I love the spell damage on [Shattrath Protectorate's Breastplate] but I'd rather have the mitigation of the "warrior" chest piece than the spellhit. Along with the boots, I'm surprised that they opted for so much spell hit, but I suppose that fits the profile of "High iLvl with non-perfect itemization" for badge loot that prevents it from being out and out equal to or better than tier loot.

Right. Unfortunately, that doesn't actually mean that the change will be present when 2.4 goes live.

It's live today, thats what the notes said while installing the patch. Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

It's this your first time patching WoW?

I can't remember the last time a set of patch notes went through for WoW that were 100% up-to-date. If Hortus, of all people, said yesterday that the change isn't going to go through then, judging from their previous track record, the change isn't going through.

It's true that historically the patch notes released with the patch are usually a couple builds old and do not reflect any changes made just a few days prior to the patch going live. But people are reporting in the 2.4 thread that AS still does not target CC'd mobs, so it looks like we're good.

Well I do actually hope I'm wrong because it seems a really good change, the post I quoted just screamed of naivety.

The people that know that anticipation is not mandatory are the people that don't need to look at the core talent spec when making their character. That post was aimed primarily at newer paladins who aren't sure what the best talents are. It would be very, very difficult to get to uncrush/uncrit without anticipation when you're pre-kara while maintaining a reasonable health pool. Yes, you can do all sorts of specs when you're geared to the point where you don't need to worry about anticipation, but it's very good most of the time - and those 5 points can't be spent in a whole lot of other talents. Reckoning and spell warding, basically.

Because of timing issues it turns out that improved judgment is actually worse on a per-point basis than 1hws is for improving threat, at least against targets that can crush. When you don't care about crushability it's better, but when you do you end up sacrificing uptime on seal of righteousness because of the need to always do holy shield and the correct desire to keep consecrate up as much as possible. I've linked to sample 40-second sequences in the past that show this, but the summary is basically that you lose 4 seconds of sealed attacks in exchange for one more judgment in a 40 second period, all the while having a much more complicatd cycle that you must maintain to get optimal use. The first point is much better than the second for this reason as well.

On the subject of professions, I truly believe that engineering is far and away the best of the best - especially now that the goggles can be upgraded to T6+ quality. Engineering can provide money, it doesn't cost that much to level any more, there are plenty of useful items for paladins and it gives a huge boost early on when gearing. BS is not nearly as useful, JC is less useful but more profitable, enchanting has longer use but is not as useful.

I personally would go engineering/herbalism if it's your first character, or engineering/enchanting if it's another character. Having enchanting means you can do things like instance runs to make money, but having both will be a big money sink early on. And herbalism is far more profitable than mining is.

For what it's worth, I consider 1hws pretty much mandatory as well. But Imp Judgement in general will give a larger threat boost than 2 points in reckoning.

The quoted post said anticipation was mandatory.

I said it is recommended for lower gear levels, though at a certain point you can change it out for other talents.

Likewise, I wanted to note that point for point, deflection does more to put you towards crush immunity than anticipation does.

Crit immunity was never difficult for me to reach, even pre-kara. But if it is something you are struggling with, yes, take the talent. My point was not that it is a bad talent, but that it was not a mandatory talent.

0/49/12 is my recommended build. Put 5 points into anticipation and 0 in reckoning when you need the defense. Take them out of anticipation and put them into reckoning if you start to need the threat more than the defense.

On the subject of 2.4 badge loot: I plan on getting the [Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor], the [Ring of the Stalwart Protector] and 2 [Nether Vortex] for a [Belt of the Guardian].

The Legplates are slightly worse off than the Unwavering Legguards in terms of mitigation, perhaps most noticeably with the lack of Block Value, but I feel it's worth gaining spell damage in that slot, as well as trading off the Shield Block Rating for some pure avoidance via Dodge Rating.

The Ring is a rather obvious choice, with the armor, the load of STA and more pure avoidance, although some gear juggling may be necessary depending on how much the lack of Defense Rating will affect me.

I consider both the [Blue's Greaves of the Righteous Guardian] and the [Shattrath Protectorate's Breastplate] to be inferior to their 2.3 counterparts, the [Sabatons of the Righteous Defender] and the [Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian] because they spend way too much item budget on spell hit and not nearly enough on more relevant tanking stats.

Is there a point to having spellhit now? JoR/V resists, Holy Shield Resists, and the occasional resist on the first tick of Consecration are all I can think of since RD got moved over to melee hit. I appreciate the +spellhit in Precision, but it really seems hugely wasted on gear. Maybe this is just another case of the itemization team being a few months behind the class devs.

On another note, has anyone verified the default implied targeting of RD (i.e., you can cast it on a mob without a macro and it works the way you'd expect), and that RD can now be cast on friendly NPCs? I forgot to check that in Hyjal tonight.

You didn't taunt once in an entire Hyjal raid? :P

Implied targeting works by default on friendly players now (duplicating the usual macro functionality) and you can indeed taunt mobs off friendly NPCs - but the implied targeting does not work. You have to cast RD on the NPC directly. I saw some people headscratching at Kalecgos about this.

I'd have to agree with you there. There's nothing in our spell hit arsenal that demands so much, and I'm willing to bet raw spell damage is going to improve TPS better than spell hit over time.

Even if we consider resist-sensitive situations (initial pull, post-aggro drop), Avenger's Shield is controlled by melee hit (and Blood Elves have Judgement of Blood).

One can also consider that they simply chose spell hit as the one to waste itemization points on, since I think it's quite a well established pattern of making these 2.4 badge rewards inferior to actual MH/BT despite their ilevel by virtue of bad allocation. That being said, they certainly could've picked something else: Parry Rating, Shield Block Rating, or even plain STA might be suboptimal without being quite as useless.

=====

On the subject of Professions:

I heartily recommend Engineering: The [Tankatronic Goggles] are excellently itemized and might be seeing use well up to Archimonde, along with their healing and DPS counterparts. The 45 STA trinkets are a little sidestepped with Commendation of Kael'thas being available to the mainstream, but served me very well up until now.

Finally, the [Zapthrottle Mote Extractor] is an oft-ignored aspect of this Engineering, but in my opinion is one of its biggest strengths. This little gadget separates Engineering from all the other crafting professions by letting you harvest material without a harvesting profession. As a Paladin with a single-mob killspeed measured in minutes, being able to snag a Primal Air in-between BG queues pays off huge dividends in the long run.

Enchanting is another great profession, and the second one I took. Ring enchants are a great and inimitable bonus for any non-enchanter at the same gear level, and again provide benefits for all three Paladin specs.

I've also been heavily considering Alchemy in the light of the new epic stones, but I've never had any particular problem with tank trinket itemization (whereas tank helm itemization is pretty meh). True, I've been running a double [Blessed Book of Nagrand] setup for almost a year now, but I can just chalk that up to bad luck on Black Morass runs.

Tanking has always had nice trinkets available, so I really don't feel the pressing need to drop either of my current professions for a buttload of Defense. Yes, all that might come in handy for someone just getting into the game and trying to achieve uncrushable ASAP, but that's the only unique benefit I can see Alchemy providing.

I wouldn't go with Blacksmithing at all. The only Tankadin-tailored item in BS are the [Boots of the Protector]. The [Belt of the Guardian] is BOE, and can be bought completely via 2.4. The BS-specific weapons are nice for Ret, as are the new Sunwell recipes (I think they have 2 healing items in there too), but not worth the potential Tankadin gains in other professions.