Switching to Prot - Need sanity check pleaseFollow

Precision really isn't necessary for a pure tanking build. Holy damage is the source of ur aggro. Same with One hand specialization.

The protection side of a normal "pure" tanking build looks like:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZVMtIx0dgzxo

Guardian's favor/Ardent Defender/ BoK (BoK can go somewhere else like Imp HoJ or precision), but the first two are pretty great for tanking.

Vindication is pretty useless. Conviction is a much better use per point. What we're really after is eye for an eye and crusader. Improved retribution aura... well it's a very flat small hate gain that really doesn't help much in the long run.

End build ends up looking like

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZVMtIx0dgzxoV0xxMc

Eye for an Eye is completely useless for a PvE build, and if you're tanking, you don't really need conviction either. SoR doesn't crit and who really cares about a 41 dps 1h critting? Not worth it to put points in there, spend them elsewhere. The same reasoning applies with 1h weapon specialization. Increasing the white damage dealt with a 41 dps weapon by 10% just isn't worth it.

I would definitely get BoK, it seems silly to go through the entire prot tree and not obtain one of the best buffs in the game.

I'd leave your points in precision, since if your regular swing doesn't connect, neither does SoR and you generate less threat. I would most definitely get Ardent Defender. It's basically a last stand whenever we hit 20%. It'll save your butt on many occasions.

A build like this will get you through 5 mans no problem and be pretty nice when soloing. Spend the last point wherever you feel like it, I jut put it in Crusader for the 1% dmg increase.

Edited, Apr 21st 2007 3:16am by HanyouGod

THanks for the replies -

I took precision because I had HanyouGod's thoughts on it - if weapons don't hit, neither do my seals. And didn't take conviction precisely because of the white dmg (I took the 1h spec more as a "Just because" - I'd thought I read that Ardent Defender was just about useless but maybe not!)

Do we get a free respec when the patch comes out? If so that would rock - I could test drive a build until then and then change it up for nothin if it sucks.

Keep Precision, keep 1-hand spec, and keep ardent defender.

Here's why:

Precision right now is a critical tanking talent. Paladins do an awesome job of generating aoe threat, but their single target threat is inferior to warriors and druids. You may be able to keep aggro off the healer with no problems, but if you run with a rogue that outgears you, you don't want to have to keep blowing taunt cooldowns on him. Precision is your best tool for preventing that from happening. And moreover, if you look at the combat tables--+5% hit chance = +5% dps. That's a big boost.

1-hand spec: The next patch is changing the functionality of this talent from an increase in 1-handed weapon damage (eh) to a flat 5% increase in ALL your damage, as long as a 1 handed weapon is equipped. This is a huge tanking buff.

Ardent Defender: This is being changed also in the next patch. The amount of damage mitigation is being reduced, but it's being changed to kick in earlier. This will also make it much more useful for tanking paladins.

The trick is, no one gets a free respec for this patch. So make sure you put your points in here before the patch comes out, or you might have to respec again.

Are you serious? I thought that since we are getting an added talent we get a free respec so that we can try it out...if that's true it completely puts a cramp in my style.

I disagree pretty much on all counts. First, precision is a 3% increased chance to land a physical blow. Aside from vengeance procs, physical damage is completely meaningless to paladins [tanking]. Most threat should be coming from holy shield , judgments, shield fling, and consecrate if you have the mana (ie boss fight).

Now, it is not wise to compare single target threat to warriors or druids. First of all, in boss encounters I've yet to taunt unless there's some sort of aggro wipe. It is not hard to get an early lead and stay on top. So if my threat generation is lower than a warrior, its irrelevent since its high enough to keep aggro off the biggest hitters. (any rogue should be smart enough to use ktm and feint, btw, so if they continuously pull aggro kick them out of the group, or get more +spell dmg).

Also, this is my biggest complaint with rage-based tanking. In order to keep aggro high enough to outpace the best dpsers (unless the boss is an insane melee type), a high amount of damage must be taken in order to keep rage generation at a steady pace. Consequently you get warriors that gear for stamina instead of mitigation, foolishly squandering the mana of the healers.

On the other hand, the damage taken by a pally tank in order to ensure steady mana supplies is comparatively less. Thus, a paladin may stack dodge/miss/parry to an insane degree, free up healer mana, yet stay on top in threat.

Disclaimer: I have successfully tanked King Maulgar and The Curator, cleared every heroic except Arcatraz, Shattered Halls, and Shadow Labs, spell damage is +228.

You can skip the 4th tree entirely. There's enough points in the 2nd and 3rd tree to lift you over.

Precision actually increases your damage from weapon by more than 3%.
Very basic example, the value's way too low for the sake of simplicity. Your base chance to hit is 50%. With precision it becomes 53%. That means that your DPS from weapon goes up by 3/50 or 6%.

Your actual base hit chance is a lot higher though, so you're only increasing the number of hits by slightly more than 3%, but still. On the other hand, say your miss chance is 5%. With Precision, you reduce it to 2%. Then you reduced it by 60%.

However, this has no effect on Holy Shield, Judgement, Consecration, or whatever else you use for aggro besides base swings, so it's not that important.

1H Spec currently affects both white damage and SoR/SoB damage. Still not usefull, though.

Ardent Defender still remains useless in Raids/Heroics. Mobs will still oneshot you if you get a hit while below 35% health.

Both the new 1H Spec and Imp Holy Shield seem worthwhile for me, so I'll be ditching Precision, Shield Spec and 1 point in GF.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=aZVzthx0dgtZVfx0bczb

Do you really need to put anything into retribution as a prot specced pally? I say maybe...if you plan on doing nothing but soloing at high lvls. Now, I may only be a lvl 44 pally right now, but I've beent rying out a lot of builds for prot tanks and so far, I've seen a few that have worked but for the most part the are completely rediculous.

I can see putting points into things like benidiction, if you htink you can spare them, as well as imp blessing of might, though personally I don't use that on myself. BUt to take deflection? At ALL? It's absurd. Maybe it's different at higher levels but aren't the best parts of our hate gen and aggro keeping abilities reliant on our ability to deal damage by getting hit by our targets? Why on earth would you want to parry...at all?

With things like toughness and imp devotion aura, your ability to soak damage goes up quite a bit. Even at my lvl, not using devotion, I soak 56% of all damage with just my armor, not counting everything else that I think at this point reduces all damage I actually do take by another 10-15 percent. With a couple of seals of light active, I can heal three times the amount of damage a non-elite mob 2 lvls higher than me can dish out and can traditionally fight and not even think about worrying about taking 6-8 mobs my lvl at once by myself.

What you should be putting all those ret points into is holy, you will do better with the strength and int bonuses the first to spots give you because you will hit harder, block better and still have the mana for everything you need,

But here's where my real damage comes from. Right now, with my basic, non-improved seal of rightousness with a crusader judge on the mob and my sword that's finally starting to get outdated from SM, I hit consistantly for about 100 or so damage per non reckoninged swing (REckoning bTW is almost always proced for me which would I guess double that but I'm not counting it for this).

Now...if an enemy hits me, there's my real power to get hate and deal a lot of damage. With aura of ret active, as well as BoS and Holy shield, coupled with a mithril shield spike. If an enemy hits me, I do maybe 25 damage or so, if I block, which chances are I will, I deal 130-150 points of damage, simply by getting hit, almost all of which is holy, which draws 120% extra hate, thereby ensurinng that it'll be a while before I need to start spamming flashes of light in an instance and guarunteeing in a solo fight against four mobs that by the time Ikill the first three, the fourth only needs about 1 hit to go down.

Think about it real hard, I know quite a few pallies that fight like this and it serves me rather well, while on the other hand, I don't personally know any pallies that ever put anything into ret, or any that keep any in ret after watching me fight, but again, I don't know what things are like at the really high lvls, where I see most pallies go holy and start outhealing priests.

If you want to look my build over or maybe give it a try to see wha tI'm talking about,

here's my current build.




And hre's the way my build looks like it will be heading as I lvl up,




Again, just my two copper...take it as you may.

Edit: For some reason...the link wasn't working right before

Edited, May 4th 2007 12:59am by FmcRelic

Did I mention Thels melts the face of ignorance, and for that I am truly grateful.

Rate ups for actually knowing what you are talking about.

Don't we all? Well, Avenger's Shield looked cool back when I had it on level 60, but I haven't had it since and I don't really miss it. Love Imp Sanctity though.

My current build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZVGtIx0dgzZVfx0bczb

After the patch, I'll drop Precision and Shield Spec and remove 1 point from GF to get Imp 1H Spec and Imp HS. And yes, it's completely PvE tank oriented.

The Warrior/Paladin/Druid % are the % of complete avoidance they get with that gear. The Paladin CB % is the % to prevent crushing blow (includes block rating).

It's slightly outdated, though.

Edited, May 8th 2007 9:22am by ThelsDeKwant

If you don't mind my inquiring, what purpose does Pursuit of Justice serve? It seems like it wouldn't be particularly useful for standard PvE fights, but maybe there's something I'm missing? I know you needed to spend the two points somewhere to get to Sanctity Aura, but wouldn't they be better in Eye For An Eye (for bosses/mobs that cast spells...not greatly useful, but seems like it'd be more useful than Pursuit of Justice)?

Ah, I wasn't aware that bosses and mobs were incapable of critting with spells. I just assumed that since players could, so could mobs. I guess that explains it :)