4.0 Tankadin FAQ - Protection Paladin Basics.

[Arklight]

I totally agree. I've never ever posted on Elitist, they are indeed a bunch of muppets sometimes, and my post here would just have been shot down in flames and then the insults would have rolled in. I'm going to go and throw away all my Expertise and Hit now, and do a proper job on it. No doubt things will improve 100% as my gear is not that bad now. I've been playing paladin since the beginning of Burning crusade. And back then I never bothered with hit or expertise, or stam stacking. I concentrated on 102.4 and I was always the last one standing and made other paladin's look substandard. Then come wrath things changed, everyone had an opinion on how things should be, and some mechanics got changed, I lost heart for a while and started healing. A big mistake I regret now. It's time to go back to basics I see. I'm liking that, I'm liking a lot of things they've done in Cata. Thanks again for the help.

[bollwerk]

Correct, we don't bother with hit/expertise in 4.0. Reforge using this priority list:
(1) Threat to Mastery.
(2) Avoidance to Mastery.
(3) The End. Do not reforge for threat.

Apologies if this is a dumb question, but my prot pally is not my main class.

When reforging Threat into Mastery, does that include just Hit and Expertise, or would that include Strength ever?
I realize you wouldn't want to reforge ALL of your Strength, but would there ever be a time when you want to? Such as if I'm under-geared and need more Avoidance until I get better gear?

BTW, I also noticed you use Glyph of Seal of Truth, which adds 10 Expertise. Is this a mistake or do we need this 10 Expertise?

Thanks for the great site.

[Njall]

When reforging Threat into Mastery, does that include just Hit and Expertise, or would that include Strength ever?

BTW, I also noticed you use Glyph of Seal of Truth, which adds 10 Expertise. Is this a mistake or do we need this 10 Expertise?

Thanks for the great site.

[/quote]

You can only reforge secondary characteristics. Str/Sta/Int are primary ones. The glyph is pretty darn useful. Its a flat +10 rating which is an awful lot of Expertise points one doesn't have to have on one's gear.

[knaughty]

You can't reforge strength.

The WoG glyph doesn't stack with the talents, so we use threat glyphs. SoV is one of the best options.

[theckhd]

The WoG glyph doesn't stack with the talents, so we use threat glyphs.

Are you sure about that? I was under impression that the glyph stacked with our talents.

[knaughty]

The WoG glyph doesn't stack with the talents, so we use threat glyphs.

Are you sure about that? I was under impression that the glyph stacked with our talents.

Well, technically "Long Word" works, but since the primary effect is to help reduce overheal by converting half the WoG into a HoT it has no useful effect when combined with 2/2 "Guarded by the Light" means you can't overheal anyway - it just gets turned into a bubble. Long Word doesn't increase the size of the WoG.

So yes, you could use them together, and it mostly works, but there's no benefit.

There's also the possibility that the HoT created by Long Word doesn't operate correctly with GbtL, which would mean that you'd actually be worse off. I'm not sure on that one.

No benefit, possible suckiness, Long Word = fail for prot.

I suppose you could use a Prime slot on Seal of Insight, replacing Crusader. Hadn't thought about that one.

[Flex]

There's a Glyph of Word of Glory which increases the heal by 10%

[theckhd]

Long Word is certainly questionable, but most people think of Glyph of Word of Glory when they hear "the WoG glyph."

A lot of us are running SoInsight/WoG/(something else) for progression right now.

[knaughty]

Will update Glyph section based on feedback.

[tkitch]

Apologies if this is a dumb question, but my prot pally is not my main class.

When reforging Threat into Mastery, does that include just Hit and Expertise, or would that include Strength ever?
I realize you wouldn't want to reforge ALL of your Strength, but would there ever be a time when you want to? Such as if I'm under-geared and need more Avoidance until I get better gear?

BTW, I also noticed you use Glyph of Seal of Truth, which adds 10 Expertise. Is this a mistake or do we need this 10 Expertise?

Thanks for the great site.

1) Can't reforge strength as mentioned by a lotta people

2) You can only reforge ONE stat per gear piece, so if you reforge hit you can't reforge a second one.

GoSoT: (That's just an awkward acronym now, innit?) It's a lot of threat in a glyph slot. It's also a fair bit of damage when stacked on a boss. There's no reason to not use it to help get your threat lead up. Once you're at double / triple the threat of your nearest DPS, you can switch to SoI to heal more.

[Wrecquiem]

Thank you! I started Paladin tanking when 4.0 came out and have never really had any direction. I learned a lot!

[Tearulai]

Do the damage reductions on our cooldowns stack? If I pop all three, including Guardian, am I getting more than a 50% damage reduction or am I (mostly) wasting the other cooldowns? I thought I'd read somewhere that they stack multiplicitivly but I could not find the post on searching again.

Thanks for the help and the great FAQ!

[Kyoshkin]

Yes, they do stack, but there are very few fights where you need that much of an "oh s**t!!" button. At that point, it's usually a lost cause anyway.

[tkitch]

They stack multiplicative-ly, not additively.

GoaK = 50% DR
DP = 20% DR

Total DR = 60% (Since 20% of 50% is 10%)

[Brian888]

Hey everyone, I'm a first-time poster here and a newbie paladin tank. First off, thank you for a great guide. It's been very helpful to me as I've been leveling up my paladin. I've only run a few instances so far, but I've been holding threat with superglue.

I do have a few questions, mostly inspired by the ongoing discussion in this forum.

1.) The original post suggests the continued use of SotR throughout the fight. However, knaughty has since suggested that only one use of SotR, at the beginning to establish threat, is necessary, and that afterwards the way to go is to blow HoPo on WoG. Which is the right way to go? Further, is the "one use of SotR, then spam WoG" only for end-game raiding, or would that work while leveling up from 1 on as well?

2.) As a follow-up to point 1, is Seal of Truth still the way to go for seals, or would the WoG spam method make Seal of Insight the way to go?

3.) If WoG spam is indeed the way to go, which glyphs should we use? Would the glyphs for Seal of Insight and WoG replace the glyphs for SotR and CS?

4.) Do you have a preference for professions for a paladin tank?

5.) I'm a little unclear as to when the AoE rotation should be used. Is it necessary if I've only pulled two or three mobs, or is it really more for a lot more mobs than that? I only ask because Consecration is such a mana hog, especially at my low level (I haven't really gotten most of the AoE abilities yet), that I don't want to be inefficient and mana-starve myself for no good reason.

Thanks for your insight, everyone.