How to Spec Protection: A Talent Guide (3.0-3.1)

Knaughty wrote:You might want to bump TbtL to Recommended.

I ran the numbers, it's worth very nearly 3% TPS per point (full 25-man gear/buffs is over 8% TPS boost at 3/3).

Biggest TPS talent. Healy thing is semi-useless gravy.

It already is recommended, I'm assuming you mean to bump it up to Standard. If it's conclusive that it's more TPS than 1HWS (something I marked as Standard), then I have no problem doing that. It's going to take a little more than Rawr saying so, though.

What we really need is a transparent spreadsheet for TPS like PsiVen's spreadsheet, except for things like this... because this stuff just seems to keep coming up more and more often.

Yo, I was reading up on all the speccing, and reading what people think of specs, and I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on mine, I'm trying to improve my tanking, since hitting 80, I've had a tiny bit of issue with aggro.

http://tinyurl.com/Valspec

Please criticize, or give helpful information, thank you.

Val

1) No Judgements of the Just is bad (Get it and stop being bad)
2) 0/2 Improved Judgements is bad (Get 1/2 for best results)

If you're having threat issues and you're not tanking Malygos with spark stacked geared to the teeth DPS then you're doing something wrong. I suggest reading threads related to the 96969 rotation.

Here is a link to my build. I dropped kings since it's a waste of 5 points and I use BoS now anyways. I have had a lot of people comment on how my spec is "odd" on my server but it does me just fine and I haven't run into a single issue with threat, dps, damage, or rotation cd's at all. I also use SoC with the SoV glyph, hence the 5 in holy.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sVZ0xVA0ugteIRhoeb

I wouldn't consider your talent spec odd. When you choose how to use your talent points, it is always good to know in what kind of situation you are in. That's why there are many different speccs for 5 man/10 man and 25 man's.
But one example: Imagine there is a retribution specced paladin in your raida and he has (1+) 4 points in improved Blessing Of Kings and 3 in Heart of the crusader. So why then waste those 8 points, when you could safe mana by putting points into Benediction? Or maybe put them into Divine Guardian.

Also, many people here say that those 2 points in Judgements of the Just is a must-have. I used those 2 points, too, but a couple of other protection paladins - i never analyzed it myself though - told me it only works on trash - not with bosses. And that's what the whole thing is about. So maybe if someone decides to use it for something more "usefull" , i'll be the last person to blame him

Right now my specc is a 5 / 56 / 10 ====>
Holy (5 points)

5/5 Seals of the Pure

Protection (56 points)

5/5 Divine Strength
5/5 Anticipation
3/3 Improved Righteous Fury
5/5 Toughness
3/3 Improved Devotion Aura
1/1 Blessing of Sanctuary
3/5 Reckoning
2/2 Sacred Duty
5/5 One-Handed Weapon Specialization
1/1 Holy Shield
5/5 Ardent Defender
3/3 Redoubt
3/3 Combat Expertise
3/3 Touched by the Light
1/1 Avenger's Shield
2/2 Guarded by the Light
3/3 Shield of the Templar
2/2 Judgements of the Just
1/1 Hammer of the Righteous

Retribution (10 points)

5/5 Deflection
2/2 Improved Judgements
3/3 Heart of the Crusader

BUT it changes almost as often my underwear changes

Jylliana wrote:
Also, many people here say that those 2 points in Judgements of the Just is a must-have. I used those 2 points, too, but a couple of other protection paladins - i never analyzed it myself though - told me it only works on trash - not with bosses. And that's what the whole thing is about. So maybe if someone decides to use it for something more "usefull" , i'll be the last person to blame him

Judgements of the Just works on bosses!!! It is all over these boards, with proof to back it up.

i guess those are the kind of problems you get when you quit playing a while and then think you can start a discussion that has been talked about a long long while ago. Damn it sucks, not being up to date, but thanks for the information

Panzerdin wrote:I can't help but feel that you're giving Benediction a worse press than it deserves. A few % off all your moves is pretty good, and coupled with the fact that you've got nowhere else to put points (other than imp Judgement) if you want to reach PoJ, it's probably worth having.

HotC and imp might are better options, by far, and since you really cant run oom on anything but noth/anub'rekhan 10 man, theres nothing really to it

Conaan! wrote:HotC and imp might are better options, by far, and since you really cant run oom on anything but noth/anub'rekhan 10 man, theres nothing really to it

OTOH if you run with a full-time Ret pally, those points in HotC and BoM are likely to be useless on most fights, whereas Benediction will give you some benefit, however slight.

It really comes down to personal preference, in my mind. I would take HotC for convenience, just to have it when I'm soloing, 5-manning, or 10-manning. But I couldn't fault someone for using Benediction as a point dump to get to PoJ if they felt they got more benefit out of it.

theckhd wrote:

Conaan! wrote:HotC and imp might are better options, by far, and since you really cant run oom on anything but noth/anub'rekhan 10 man, theres nothing really to it

OTOH if you run with a full-time Ret pally, those points in HotC and BoM are likely to be useless on most fights, whereas Benediction will give you some benefit, however slight.

It really comes down to personal preference, in my mind. I would take HotC for convenience, just to have it when I'm soloing, 5-manning, or 10-manning. But I couldn't fault someone for using Benediction as a point dump to get to PoJ if they felt they got more benefit out of it.

HotC assures people get 3% crit, if a ret pally dies, its gone, its an assurance policy that it stays

and its nice for trash/5mans/10mans/soloing as you said, whereas benediction has no noticeable benefit, or if noticeable, miniscule

Conaan! wrote:

theckhd wrote:

Conaan! wrote:HotC and imp might are better options, by far, and since you really cant run oom on anything but noth/anub'rekhan 10 man, theres nothing really to it

OTOH if you run with a full-time Ret pally, those points in HotC and BoM are likely to be useless on most fights, whereas Benediction will give you some benefit, however slight.

It really comes down to personal preference, in my mind. I would take HotC for convenience, just to have it when I'm soloing, 5-manning, or 10-manning. But I couldn't fault someone for using Benediction as a point dump to get to PoJ if they felt they got more benefit out of it.

HotC assures people get 3% crit, if a ret pally dies, its gone, its an assurance policy that it stays

and its nice for trash/5mans/10mans/soloing as you said, whereas benediction has no noticeable benefit, or if noticeable, miniscule

You'd also need your Elemental Shamans and Assassination Rogues to die, though.

moduspwnens wrote:It already is recommended, I'm assuming you mean to bump it up to Standard. If it's conclusive that it's more TPS than 1HWS (something I marked as Standard), then I have no problem doing that. It's going to take a little more than Rawr saying so, though.

What we really need is a transparent spreadsheet for TPS like PsiVen's spreadsheet, except for things like this... because this stuff just seems to keep coming up more and more often.

There's a brief ongoing discussion about TbtL vs. Crusade vs. 1HWS here. "Napkin math" suggests 1HWS > TbtL > Crusade for mobs where Crusade is 3%, while Crusade should pull ahead for mobs that it does double duty on.

I plan on running this through the MATLAB sim this afternoon when I get some time, probably for several sets of gear (current, T8ish set, and maybe an estimated T9ish set).

Conaan! wrote:HotC assures people get 3% crit, if a ret pally dies, its gone, its an assurance policy that it stays

and its nice for trash/5mans/10mans/soloing as you said, whereas benediction has no noticeable benefit, or if noticeable, miniscule

I'd agree with miniscule, and probably not too noticeable. I think I did the math somewhere (ah, here it is) and it comes out to 5.36 mana/second per talent point.

But again, neither is likely to make much difference unless all of your 3% crit-bringers die. I can think of more cases where HotC would be useful, which is why I'd go that route myself. But I still think it comes down to the SotP vs. PoJ style argument, where it's really personal preference as long as you're doing your job well.

moduspwnens wrote:

Conaan! wrote:

theckhd wrote:OTOH if you run with a full-time Ret pally, those points in HotC and BoM are likely to be useless on most fights, whereas Benediction will give you some benefit, however slight.

It really comes down to personal preference, in my mind. I would take HotC for convenience, just to have it when I'm soloing, 5-manning, or 10-manning. But I couldn't fault someone for using Benediction as a point dump to get to PoJ if they felt they got more benefit out of it.

HotC assures people get 3% crit, if a ret pally dies, its gone, its an assurance policy that it stays

and its nice for trash/5mans/10mans/soloing as you said, whereas benediction has no noticeable benefit, or if noticeable, miniscule

You'd also need your Elemental Shamans and Assassination Rogues to die, though.

my guild runs with no ele shamans, and as far as i know, all our rogues are combat, even if they are different, i have only seen 3 instances so far that my HotC has been overridden

depending on your situation it could change

Matlab sims complete. Feel free to suggest alternative specs, I think I've covered enough bases that we can estimate any other variations fairly quickly.

So we're going with http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tAbuMGsIufdvo0x0M as the cookie cutter then? I'm guessing we're not going to be advising 1/2 SA on it.

Hmm. Thinking about SA. According to me/Knaughty in the anti benediction thread, it required 1200 MP5 to keep you afloat, and DP is equal to about 500 MP5 (constantly). This means that you're going to need some mana from elsewhere. Replenishment is 75 MP5, BoS should be another 240, so you have 815 MP5 and need 1200 MP5. From that, I think it's fairly reasonable to argue that you need SA, but how much of it? You need 385 MP5, from it, so you want 20x385 in incoming damage if you have 1/2. This is equivalent to 7700 incoming damage every 5 seconds on a boss, which is a reasonable assumption. So I'm happy to recommend 1/2. Cookie cutter to http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tAbuMusIufdvo0x0c perhaps? People can dig into Conviction a couple of points if they want PoJ.