A list of gear goals that I am currently working on for self future reference. Might also be useful if there are any prot paladins reading as well. Because of our itemization, it's hardest to achieve the health and avoidance goal...that is what I am having trouble with now. Unfortunately, much of the current paladin tanking gear is heavy on int and mana/5, which in a heroic/raid setting is not really what we need (damage mititagion is by far more vaulable).
I'm currently 7/47/7...not really sure why I bothered putting any points into Holy. Will in the near future need to respec to 0/49/12, leaving out the 5% Parry bonus in Retribution was a very bad thing to do.
Health: 10k unbuffed bare minimum, hearing of paladins that have 11.5 and even 12k unbuffed o_O. We have a base deficit of around 3k health in comparison to warriors and bear druids.
Mana: Around 6k unbuffed is good enough because of the mana recieved from Spiritual Attunement. In normal 5-man dungeons I tend to run out of mana if I'm not careful, but in heroics I am getting healed so damn much that most of the time, I am sitting on almost a full blue bar...and that's while spamming every single holy damage spell that I have.
Spell Damage: 200 is sufficient, any less than that then you will have trouble holding aggro, any more and you will be gimping your damage mitigation. A lot of tankadins make the mistake of overfocusing on spell damage, at the expense of more valuable stats (stamina, block, etc). You really don't need all that much if you are full prot.
Defense: 490 is the magic number to negate all critical strikes. Once you reach this goal, start focusing on pushing dodge/parry/block to 100% avoidance. The math: All mobs 3 levels or higher (raid mobs are level 73) have a chance of landing a crushing (150% damage) blow on you and all mobs have a base 5% chance to crit. 365 (mob level * 5) + 125 (to compensate for the 5% crit) = 490.
Avoidance: It's the crushing blows that will get you. Blocked hits can't be crits (not an issue with 490+ def) or crushing blows and neither can dodges or parries. In order to become immune to crushing blows you will need your dodge, parry, and block percentages to add up to 100%. Recall that Holy Shield increases your block by 30% while active (10 second duration and 10 second cooldown).
Amount needed per 1% damage avoidance at level 70:
(OUT OF DATE)
- Block: 7.9 block rating per 1% block
- Defense: 14.7875 defense rating for 0.25% to miss dodge parry and block
- Dodge: 18.9 dodge rating per 1% dodge
- Agility per 1% Dodge: 25 (paladin)
- Parry: 31.5 parry rating per 1% parry
- Miss: Base 5% + 0.04% * difference between mob's attack rating and your defense.
Holy shield gives you a 30% bonus to your block, 35% if you have the epic libram from running heroics (I need 11 more badges, sigh). So, in order to achieve 100% block you will need block, dodge, parry and miss to add up to 65%. Assume a total miss of 10%, so 55% between block, dodge, and parry.
I need 6.78% more avoidance, 11.78% without the libram in order to completely push a crushing blow off of the hit table from a leve 73 mob. I hit 10k HP earlier this evening, would like more. I can probably sacrifice some spell damage and intellect to make a few of these goals, those are over qouta...made some bad geming choices.
These values might also be affected by other attributes, not sure. Didn't finish reading up on all of the formulas.
Comments (4)
There are a few things that are inaccurate about your post. In order to avoid crushing blows, you have to have your dodge, parry, block and MISS chance (of the mob you are fighting) add up to 102.4% (since the mob is 3 levels higher than you). Also, if you do the math, the benefit from the epic libram is greater than 5% (about 5.32 to be exact). I would also suggest forming a spec around pure damage mitigation and threat generation, more like 7/41/13. From the holy tree...
5/5 Divine Intellect (If you don't have mana you can't use your abilities and survive in long fights)
2/5 Divine Strength (Since strength attributes to block value) Not really important, but 2 points were left over
Ret Tree...
5/5 Benediction (Saves mana, and more useful than blessing of might when it comes to threat)
5/5 Parry (A MUST HAVE! Right there is 5% more chance not to get hit given to you)
3/3 Improved Seal of the Crusader (I always throw this judgment up on the mob I'm tanking, so it helps me produce a lot more threat) A must have for raids and boss fights
Prot Tree...
5/5 Improved Devotion Aura (More armor = More damage mitigation)
5/5 Redoubt (Useful if your holy shield ever goes down and a must have to get to Shield Specialization)
5/5 Toughness (More armor = More damage mitigation)
5/5 Anticipation (A little help toward the uncritable 490 Defense)
3/3 Shield Specialization (Very important as you will block a lot)
3/3 Improved Righteous Fury (If you don't have this, you don't deserve to be a tank)
1/1 Blessing of Kings (For raid buffing, this point can be changed if another pally has it... I recommend putting it in divine strength if you don't need this)
2/2 Spell Warding (Since 50% of the mobs you fight will cast spells, another great way to mitigate damage taken)
1/1 Blessing of Sanctuary (This is also a must for tanking. It reduces damage while producing additional threat through holy damage every time you are hit)
2/2 Sacred Duty (The only paladin talent that buffs stamina. )
1/1 Holy Shield (Another must have)
2/2 Improved Holy Shield (Allows you to block twice the amount of times! Great for tanking trash mobs and fast hitting mobs. This is the talent that makes our holy shield superior to Warrior's Shield Block.)
5/5 Ardent Defender (Has the ability to allow you to take another hit when your health is low without dieing. It can save you on a boss fight)
1/1 Avenger's Shield (The only ranged pulling mechanism for paladins. Be careful when trying to pull mobs that are relatively close as it will bounce from mob to mob. In those cases body pull or use a hunter misdirect.)
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As you can see, I avoided most of the weapon related skilled as the only damage that matters is holy damage. That is where a paladin produces most of it's threat. I recommend the Continuum Blade from being revered with the Keeper's of Time. It has a very fast hit speed (1.8), along with intellect, stamina, spell damage, and spell hit rating. Sure it doesn't do a lot of damage, but if you make this claim you don't understand tanking as a paladin. For a protection paladin, 121 holy damage = incredible. You can also add a spell damage enchant to the sword, or agility if you have enough spell damage and prefer dodge. Remember, our threat is generated through holy damage not white damage.
The rotation I use to tank (1 mob) is Avenger's shield, Holy Shield, Seal of the Crusader, Judgement of the Crusader, Seal of Vengeance. At this point, it is important to keep up Holy Shield ALWAYS, and judge and reapply seal of vengeance as needed. When it is more than one mob, just make sure all of the mobs are in front of you (if they are behind you, you lose most of your damage avoidance chances) and throw Consecration into the rotation above and spam as necessary.
There are my two sense about tankadin's. Take it or leave it as you wish.
Errr read the post date, this article is way way way outdated, before the paladin talent changes and heroic item buffs in 2.1. Was written for self-reference just after I spec'd full prot. I've since then written more current material.
Hmm interesting build. I've actually considered respecing more points into holy (Found that Imp judgement really isn't all that essential...doesn't really add all THAT much threat in comparison to other talents).
Remember: 1 handed weapon specialization increases ALL damage by 5% (including HS, conc, etc etc) while a 1h is equipped. I didn't put any points in divine intellect. I can usually throttle my mana use and threat sufficiently if I'm not getting enough mana back.
I stuck with 0/49/12, I've never had any threat problems (2-piece T4 bonus + talents is more than sufficient, usually get a stable 600 to 800 average TPS on raid bosses): Pop AW and equip your spell weapon. Consecrate, Holy shield, SoR/JoR. When AW fades, judge crusader/wis/light (Whatever is needed) then swap to your avoidance/mitigation weapon.
-If you can sustain a full stack, SoV actually generates more threat than SoR, depending on what weapon you use.
-It's important to use consecration BEFORE Holy Shield, otherwise they overlap during the next rotation.
If you use SoV while tanking, Gavel of Unearthed Secret from exalted Lower City is actually pretty nice. SoV is ppm based, a speed of 3.0 guarantees a proc. 2.7 is pretty close (10% miss rate).
"Remember: 1 handed weapon specialization increases ALL damage by 5% (including HS, conc, etc etc) while a 1h is equipped."
Wow, I never knew that talent was that powerful. Reading the tooltip on the talent, it just states "Increases the damage you deal with one handed melee weapons by 2%". Is there some specific source you have to back up the 5% bonus to all damage? If so that is awesome and I will definitely throw 3 to 5 points in there.
Is there any way you can list all the things you have talent points in in the protection tree? Also, just list the ones you have in the retribution tree? I have been playing the build above with great success. I even generated enough threat with a normal weapon without spell damage to stay above 2 high dps rogues. I am just looking for the best utilization of my talent points as I will be tanking deep into Karazhan for the first time next week.
Also, I think I will go for the Gavel of Unearthed Secret if SOV only procs every 3 seconds. The only thing I don't like about a slower weapon is the issue when it comes to not being able to hit the enemy to get our dot going (parry's, misses, dodges, etc.). I would probably have to put some points into precision to help with my chance to hit.
From the 2.1 patch notes: "One-Handed Weapon Specialization (Protection): Now increases all damage caused by the paladin by 1-5% while a one-handed weapon is equipped." Yeah, it's a pretty awesome change.
This is my current build: 0/49/12 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZVhtIx0dggqzVbx It's pretty much a standard cookie cutter tankadin spec. Been thinking of exploring alternate tanking builds with a few more points in holy for the sake of greater utility. I don't have enough gear to make up for the 5% parry skill yet, so that will have to wait lol.
Actually still somewhat iffy on SoV. It's really really awesome when you can get a fast 5-stack that stays on the boss. I've been testing and keeping an eye on it lately and even with weapon speed optimization, the DoT does still proc off every once in a while, in addition to the fact that it's pretty situational in the first place.
On the PTRs the DoT length is being increased from 12 seconds to 15, and there is supposedly some damage bonus for SoV procs on a mob with a full stack. But we'll see I guess lol.
Regardless of seal choice, the gavel is a nice weapon though. High spell damage with decent stamina makes it a decent choice for threat leading. I have a faster mitigation sword that I swap to after getting enough threat.
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