4.0 Tankadin FAQ - Protection Paladin Basics.

[Kevian]

Tip 2: I didn't check your gear or armoury. Please check mine. Copy my first spec (the second prot spec is my "Rated BG PvP" spec).

Knaughty:
I've been running rated BG's for the past 4 weeks as a prot pally and I'm loving it. I was asked to carry the flag this past week in WSG and that was awesome. I'm going to take a look at your spec when I get home, but in case you logged out in pve gear, how do you gem and enchant for rated BG's? Do you gem for strength or stamina? My primary role in 10's and 15's is to run flags and guard bases.

Please share any other tips you may have as well. Rated BG's are proving to be a blast; the most fun I've had playing WoW in a long time.

Thanks,
Kevian

[xstrykr]

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?

Short answer: use your own discretion.
Long answer: For leveling as prot, given that you don't get SotR until 39 at the earliest, WoG is really your only HoPo dump until you get it. So in that sense, you need to use WoG to dump HoPo. Once you get SotR, I'd probably use it as necessary.

I haven't raided yet this expansion; I'm sure that I might use more WoG's against a raid boss than I do when I'm in a 5 man. Generally speaking, when I'm doing a 5man boss, I'll just WoG as necessary. I usually end up with slightly more SotRs than I do WoGs.

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?

As said earlier, if you can afford to lose 1/6th of your TPS, it'll work. However I feel the Prime WoG glyph isn't as powerful a prime glyph as the other choices. The benefit of healing yourself (which you should be doing w/ 99% of your WoG spam) is that you take a load off your healers.

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?

Probably; I personally would still keep GoSotR though.

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

As long as you're not using useless (read: crap) professions (Herbalism, Tailoring, Skinning mainly, Leatherworking and Inscription to a lesser degree), you're fine. BS/JC is considered the two best for min/maxing; any combination of BS/JC/Ench/Eng is considered good. I personally don't like having two crafting professions, so I'm Mining/JC; I know plenty of people who do take two crafting professions, and so are either JC/Ench or BS/JC. In the end, it's all up to YOU - pick two that you want to work with.

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.

3 mobs doesn't necessarily mean it's an AoE pack, but if it's a group of 2-3 I usually will switch off between CS and HotR, leaving my AS and HW to take care of threat on the other mobs. The only time I really use Consecrate is when I'm pulling a large group - usually 5+ - and I'll use it shortly after they're all grouped up on me. I usually tell my DPS to wait until they see the consecrate to start DPS if I don't have a threat transfer.

Thanks for your insight, everyone.

Hope this helps! Welcome to Maintankadin!

[Brian888]

Thanks for your thoughts.

[knaughty]

Tip 2: I didn't check your gear or armoury. Please check mine. Copy my first spec (the second prot spec is my "Rated BG PvP" spec).

but in case you logged out in pve gear, how do you gem and enchant for rated BG's? Do you gem for strength or stamina? My primary role in 10's and 15's is to run flags and guard bases.

Short reply from iPhone.

I'm going to change my second spec to drop eye4eye - it doesn't return much damage. Will pick more direct damage talents.

For gems/enchants: resilience massively beats everything. Order after that is probably: strength > crit > stam > haste.

Stamina isn't great: pvp vengeance stack is tiny, so minimal AP. Resilience much better for not dying than stam or dodge.

Unlike Wrath, pve gear mostly sucks. Wear ret-pvp.

[Kevian]

Thanks Knaughty, that's exactly what I was looking for. As I continue to gather my Vicious gear, I'll gem and enchant accordingly.

[knaughty]

For both PvE and PvP I'm matching socket bonuses on pretty much everything.

Free stats are free.

PvP meta I'm currently using crit/1% spell reflect as the 10% stun resist meta requires too many blue gems. I believe this is fixed in 4.0.6?

[Håvard]

I'm curious, would it be an issue for an 84 to tank the 84-85 dungeons (non-heroic)? Specifically, I'm referring to the Lost City of Tol'vir, Grim Batol, and Halls of Origination on normal mode.

[fuzzygeek]

I'm curious, would it be an issue for an 84 to tank the 84-85 dungeons (non-heroic)? Specifically, I'm referring to the Lost City of Tol'vir, Grim Batol, and Halls of Origination on normal mode.

No.

[Flex]

Don't do what every other tank I've had in normals do and not mark CC and rush into every pull like you are a god and you should be fine.

[Håvard]

No.

Merci.

Don't do what every other tank I've had in normals do and not mark CC and rush into every pull like you are a god and you should be fine.

Gotcha, thanks.

[Sur-Pseudo]

So, kinda feel odd asking a question about the defense table.. but it mildly confused me a few days ago...

Frequently we talk about stats being "Floored," or decimals dropping off on stats...

I guess I just want to confirm this is NOT the case for Miss+Dodge+parry -- and you should aim for a total of ##.60% parry/dodge to bump up avoidance to a full percent (i.e. 12.3 dodge, 12.3 parry, + 4.4 miss = 29% avoidance)

[theckhd]

Avoidance isn't rounded. My understanding is that combat table entries are accurate to at least two or three decimal places.

[Brian888]

This is a really "duh" pointer, but it might not be obvious for new Paladin tanks: Always make sure that you have Righteous Fury up. I died outside of a dungeon and reapplied my buffs before going into the instance. However, I didn't notice that RF also drops off when you die. Needless to say, holding aggro didn't go so well until I noticed that RF wasn't up.

[Arcand]

This is a really "duh" pointer, but it might not be obvious for new Paladin tanks: Always make sure that you have Righteous Fury up. I died outside of a dungeon and reapplied my buffs before going into the instance. However, I didn't notice that RF also drops off when you die. Needless to say, holding aggro didn't go so well until I noticed that RF wasn't up.

The media company BASF gives you your checklist: Blessing, Aura, Seal, Fury.

Losing auras isn't an issue anymore, but it was a couple years ago when I made this up - and keeping it in the checklist should save you from starting a run with Crusader on. It also prompts you to consider if you're in a caster-heavy instance where Resistance will do more for you than Devotion.

Edit: BASF is a chemical company, it turns out. I only knew them as a maker of audio tapes and floppy disks.

[Awyndel]

They don't create chemicals actually, they create chemistry.