In regards to Sacred Shield, I've just recently started using it on a regular basis, and the difference is quite noticeable. Yes, it will be more effective if used by a holy pally, but if one isn't available it provides 30 seconds of extra damage reduction that adds up quick. On top of that, it only costs 1 GCD to use, and as stated earlier, if you're in a situation where you care about the added damage reduction, the mana cost is a non-issue anyway. At my gear level it absorbs right around 1000 damage per proc, which is pretty substantial when you consider how block value scales much faster now as well.

In regards to gemming, there's the obvious need to get to 540 defense, but I'm actually considering the +def gems as my main source of damage avoidance/reduction once my stamina gets to where it needs to be. There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, it takes 39 dodge rating for 1% avoidance (pre-DR) compared to 41 defense rating, so the two are very close to begin with. Add in the fact that block values are relatively higher now than the beginning of BC raiding, and the gap closes pretty substantially -- maybe enough that defense is better as-is until you reach "unhittable" 102.4% combined miss+dodge+parry+block. Most notably though, the diminishing returns on defense rating is split between 3 types of avoidance, so the decay is much slower. I'm still in process of tossing numbers around, but it really seems like added defense is the way to go for avoidance and reducing average damage taken per attack.

I'm also still trying to figure out the numbers, but I've yet to see anyone figure out the formula for diminishing returns on miss. That said, I think that diminishing returns will likely mean that defense will be better even after reaching "unhittable." Even in BC defense was the preferred choice until 102.4% when compared with dodge rating.

Playing around with Sacred Shield is kinda fun, it does absorb an ok amount of damage.
I am a bit unsure still how good the uptime of the FoL crit buff is tough, so I am gonna have to play around with that some more.

Did anyone work with a Holy Paladin in a 25man to get some more information on this?

Don't forget Enchant Weapon - Potency.
20 Str * 1.15 (DS) * 1.10 (BoK) = 25.3 Str
25.3 Str -> ~16.5 BV (Redoubt) + 50.6 AP

Ivriniel: if a player with the Sacred Shield buff gets hit for the first time, he takes the whole hit, and a Real Sacred Shield (RSS) with a 6 second duration gets cast on the player.

The RSS is the one that actually has the absorb effect. It will only proc once every 6 seconds, and will absorb (500 + 75% spell power) damage.

As long as the RSS is on the player with the Sacred Shield, then the caster of the Sacred Shield also gets the 50% FOL crit buff.

What this means is that it may be possible to never benefit from the FOL crit at all if your Sacred Shield target is taking heavy damage. Imagine a situation where a murloc hits the Shielded player, proccing the RSS, but then Brutallus hits the player for more than the absorb amount half a second later, in the middle of your Holy Light cast.

I've been primarily using SS in fights where taking as little damage as possible feels like it's the primary "goal" for the tank; So far, that's been mainly Loatheb, due to only being able to be healed for 3 seconds out of every 20, and Patchwerk, to try and smooth out the insane health spikes that can result in DPS death. Then again, this has also been primarily on the 10 man runs, where I don't have the luxury of a holy paladin or disc priest.

Do keep in mind that the Weapon Chain doesn't stack with Pursuit of Justice's disarm duration reduction.

While it's not a mandatory tanking talent by any means, I personally consider the 15% movement speed increase to be extremely important in any situation that requires you to run around (Skadi's gauntlet, Anub'arak and Loken being examples off-hand).

I agree with Silyth that Potency is probably one of the best tank enchants available, but I also agree that it's going to be really rare and really inconvenient to get mats for.

Regarding Enchants: Potency vs Accuracy

Correct me, if i'm wrong but:

20 Strength equals ~50 AP and 16 BV increasing damage (threat) by this values:

<Attack> | <dmg inc> | <threat *> | threat inc | TPS

White | 3,57 | 1,43 | 5,11 | 3,192
HotR | 14,29 | 2,72 | 38,81 | 6,469
SealoV | 7,5 | 2,72 | 20,38 | 6,793
Judgement | 10,5 | 2,72 | 28,53 | 3,170
Holy Shield | 2,8 | 2,72 | 7,61 | 3,804
AS | 3,5 | 2,72 | 9,51 | 0,317
ShieldoR | 21,29 | 2,72 | 57,86 | 9,64

Sum: 33,39 TPS


So assuming you are not hit-capped

(taken from my last WWS)
65% of all Attacks uses "melee hit"
35% of all Attacks uses "spell hit"

--> 25 Hit Rating = 0.76% melee hit | 0.95% spell hit

TPS increase on
melee -> 0.495%
spell -> 0.333%

add the Crit Rating = 0.54% Crit and with ~75% of all Attacks can crit

TPS inc -> 0.41%

Sum would be ~1.24% TPS increase...


breakeven with 20 Str @ 2692 sustained TPS


If everything is correct you benefit more from Accuracy then from Potency when you produce more then ~2700 TPS and you are not hit capped. (And 2700 TPS is a piece of cake)

Don't forget that +hit has other side effects as well. For instance, every time my Judgement pops up a MISS message, not only does it fail to do damage, but it fails to put up the regen debuff, it fails to give the +3% crit debuff, and it fails to activate my block value libram. When HotR misses, it fails to activate your current seal, and it appears as if a miss on the first target will also cause it to miss the other two (still need to do more testing on this last point). And my personal favorite, if the first ShoR of the fight misses, it's not uncommon for a DPS to pull aggro right off the bat.

Personally, if +strength and +hit enchant options are even remotely close for threat generation, I'm going to pick hit every time until it's capped.

Normally a full prot specc is without Heart of the Crusader and Judgement of the Wise.
But sure the BV libram is even more a reason for accuracy

From what I've noticed so far, threat is really not that big of an issue, especially with the fun we have been having with ShoR. So, when it comes to enchant, like everything else, of course it's up to you as well as on your current gear situation. Of course hit plays a big role in our threat, but as soon as you get those first two ShoR off, our threat is out of the park.

Personally, the added block from Potency really helps with some damage mitigation which, for me, is very much needed until I get some more pieces of gear.

I wasn't referring to JotW, I was referring to the health or mana regen from JoL/JoW. And yes, I have 3 points in Heart of the Crusader because we typically do not run with a ret paladin, and even if we did I would probably keep it because there's no guarantee we're attacking the same target. Those two things plus the libram effect are very noticeable when Judgement misses.

As for the block value gained from potency, we're talking about ~16 extra blocked after talents and BoK. It's technically added mitigation, but the value is tiny.

Doesn't Judgements of the Just operate under similar mechanics? I'd say it's arguably our most important survival skill after Holy Shield.

With regards to the validity of the Consecration Glyph, I believe it's very worthwhile. If you have to reposition a mob, either right after or in the middle of a Consec. cooldown, then your threat loss (if you're moving the mob all the way outside the consecrate), is fairly negligable in the long run. At any given time, we as tanks have very little repositioning to do of boss mobs, and usually just as little with trash. There are a few exceptions, such as Sartharion with drakes up, Malygos, Heigan, and perhaps a few others - but all in all the extra couple seconds of Consecration does add up, and helps with any rotation you may currently be using.

I don't understand why a fully protection spec'd paladin wouldn't have Heart of the Crusader - although I do agree that you will never likely have JotW. The +3% critical strike chance is nice to have in all cases when a Ret. Paladin isn't available, although it can be a waste of talent points in a 25 man.

Agreed. A build like >THIS< would have all the Prot mitigation talents, plus Blessing of Kings, plus Heart of the Crusader for maximum raid contribution (plus Pursuit of Justice, but again, that's just my personal preference).

I used to think that Benediction would be really important, but ever since I've started tanking with Seal of Wisdom, mana is a total non-issue, so I just might respec HOTC later.

For that matter, so is just about every other gear augmentation we use. There's a reason people paid for the gem upgrades to epic level gems in TBC, even though in most cases it was only an extra what, 2 rating or stat points? It's not the individual augmentation that makes the difference, it's the overall effect that all the gems, enchants, armors, etc add in.

I like Potency over Accuracy solely because of the fact that it does things for offense and defense both. It is that extra bit of blocked incoming damage for one, there is the fact that it does increase SoR hits, and there's the added attack power generated by the Str stat. Accuracy is good for offense, to be sure, but I remain unconvinced that it outweighs all the benefits you gain from Potency. It's the same reason I went back to Tough Shield as my primary shield enchant...the added SBV helps in survivability and threat now.

I do think, though, that it's close enough to be a YMMV enchant.

Unless I'm tanking 2 hard-hitting mobs or 3 mobs (or a boss), I have crazy mana issues when dropping Consecration on each cycle and using Holy Wrath to stun/hold mobs. In most dungeons I'd say that Divine Plea is on cooldown about 60% of the time, and about 40% in Naxx. Of course, I'm competing with a pair of well-geared warriors who also love Shockwave there, so incoming damage is a bit less than it might be otherwise. I'm specced for Kings and Imp. Devotion Aura, so I don't have space for more than 4/5 Benediction, or Heart of the Crusader and 1 point somewhere.

You can replace the run speed of Pursuit of Justice with the Tuskarr's Vitality boot enchant.

Has anyone else noticed how stupidly good Ardent Defender is when MTing Patchwerk-25? I'm running Tankadin2, and I definitely see a couple "Death Avoided" messages each attempt. I've been using Sacred Shield on that encounter when possible just because we don't always have enough healing pallies for each tank to get a sacred shield; it seems like about 5-10k mitigation per cast, which is not a terrible payoff.

Thing is, I don't use Consecration unless it's at least 4 mobs (or a hard-hitting boss), at which point the damage intake is usually such that SA will keep me reasonably full on mana anyway, quite apart from BoSanc. I do notice a bit of a mana drain when single-tanking things that summon adds partway through; for example, tanking the Keepers and Guardians in Violet Hold tends to be mana-negative, at which point Divine Plea is pretty much on cooldown until another squad or boss.

First time poster, just have some questions on some of the more complex math stuff.

So correct me if I"m wrong, but from the info I've been able to gather, 10-12% avoidance over our base avoidance is when diminishing returns starts to kick in, correct?

So ideally we should strive for about 20% (total) in each avoidance to go for max benefit from our avoidance. Or am I misunderstanding how DR works?

From my experience, it appears as though after missing the first target, the hammer will fly off into the distance, then 1-2 seconds later, boomerang back to hit the other 2 targets.

I am also a first time poster and after having read every post in this thread I have found very little information on the subject: hitpoints, stamina & protection paladins.

Is infact avoidance superior to a high hp pool that one should always enchant and socket primarily for avoidance and see stamina only as a bonus. (Like the gems that give 8 dodge/parry/defense+12stamina).

A lot of tanks out there have combinations of jewelcrafting, blacksmithing, mining and enchanting for the sole purpose of gaining extra stamina/hp. (I tend to find myself 1500-2000hp under a similiar geared tank with only the choice of professions and their unique benifits differing).

Are these professions more or less mandatory for a tank nowadays or is there no other way to maintain defense cap, keep avoidance and achieve a high hp-pool?

The DR for parry kicks in around 2.07%, and for dodge it's around 3.88%. When you consider that gearing for uncrittable puts you at 5.6% dodge and parry (before DR), you will always be fighting diminishing returns.

And just because avoidance stats now suffer from diminishing returns doesn't mean they stop being useful after a certain point. The returns are just closer to linear now than they were before, so they shouldn't scale to absurd amounts like we saw in BT and Sunwell.