Popular Tankadin Specs

This thread is meant to be a listing of the most popular Tankadin specs, hopefully to give beginner Tankadins a starting point and answer a lot of questions before they're asked.

0/46/12 - The Maintankadin
(3 points intentionally left open)
This is the "Cookie-cutter" Prot spec. The remaining 3 points typically go into either Improved Seal of the Crusader or Pursuit of Justice. In addition, most Tankadins using this spec will drop 1 point from somewhere else to pick up Blessing of Kings (except in some 25-man situations where there will always be another Paladin to cast it).
Advantages:
-Best suited for standard "main tanking"
-Gets most of the cool stuff in the Prot tree
Disadvantages:
-Not much hybrid left; healing (or DPS) suffers quite a bit

12/49/0 - The Threat Rocket
This build focuses primarily on threat generation, and is best suited for AOE/offtanking roles where uncrushability is not a concern. This build also picks up Improved Lay on Hands for a little more useful emergency button.
Advantages:
-Superior off-target threat generation through Seal of Righteousness
-Slightly more DPS capable than the Maintankadin build
-Improved Lay on Hands
Disadvantages:
-Lack of Deflection makes uncrushable harder to reach

15/46/0 - The "Baelor Special"
Similar to the Threat Rocket build, this build dips into the Holy tree at the expense of Ret talents, but with a different goal. This build picks up the more healing-oriented talents in Holy, centered around a Flash of Light/mp5 focused healing style. You won't make an amazing healer, but you'll at least be a bit better off. There's a little bit of freedom to move talents around as well - the 2 points in Precision could be dropped for Spell Warding, or Improved Seal of Righteousness could be picked up over Spiritual Focus.
Advantages:
-Still functions fairly well as a healer when not needed as a tank
-Improved Lay on Hands
Disadvantages:
-Lack of Illumination and Light's Grace holds the build back from a fully-functional main healing role
-Lack of Deflection makes getting uncrushable harder

37/22/0 - The OT Healadin
(2 points intentionally left open)
This build is primarily a healing build, but gives up some deep Holy talents in favor of picking up some of the more important lower-tier Prot talents. It's not recommended for primary tanking duties, more for primary healers who are called on to off-tank at times, or tank the occasional 5-man.
Advantages:
-Most of the Holy tree is left intact, leaving you a very effective healer.
-Blessed Life helps reduce incoming damage
-Holy Shock can be used either as a quick instant heal on yourself or a single-target threat ability
Disadvantages:
-No Holy Shield leaves you open to Crushing Blows
-Much lower overall threat gen

0/40/21 - Max TPS spec
This build is focused on threat generation, and skips some survivabilty talents like Ardent Defender and Shield Specialization. It's not recommended to use this build in progressions unless you have huge threat issues.
Advantages:
- Extremely high TPS outcome
- Precision reducing also taunt resist chance
- Reckoning which helps in farming
- Improved JoC for 3% raidwide crit
Disadvantages:
- Lack of Spell warding and Ardent Defender
- No Avenger Shield
- No Blessing of Kings

PS: Does anyone have a good Ret/Prot hybrid spec? Is such a thing even possible?

You could try 0/38/23 For OT/DPS goodness I guess.

Ulushnar wrote:You could try 0/38/23 For OT/DPS goodness I guess.

This Variation might be nicer when they shift Sanctified Crusader into the place of Imp SotC.

Yeah, come to think of it it might be a good idea to wait a week or so to try for a ret/prot build. Supposedly they're gonna show off a lot of the ret changes at the Liepzig convention in a couple days.

I humbly submit my spec as "PVE Tank/PVP Healer"

8/41/12

Also known as the "I want my Gavel spec"

This spec takes most of the standard Maintank build, but sacrifices some Threat talents (Reckoning, Precision, 1 Handed Spec) in order to improve PVP Healing through Spiritual Focus and Improved Concentration Aura.

PVP fights tend to be short so Illumination is not needed, and good PVP Healing gear is required.

Honorshammer wrote:I humbly submit my spec as "PVE Tank/PVP Healer"

8/41/12

I'm assuming you've got 3/5 Spiritual Focus in Holy, correct?

EDIT: Ah, you edited your post. Cool.

EDIT 2: Can you link the build?

How important would you say precision is? I've recently respecced to 10/41/10 as an experiment and instead of precision I have BoK and spell warding.

edit: sorry, just realised this is a bit of a thread hijack

Magnusharkov wrote:How important would you say precision is? I've recently respecced to 10/41/10 as an experiment and instead of precision I have BoK and spell warding.

I chalk it up to personal preference. Each build will vary a bit, as well it should, because each Tankadin is different, each guild is different, each level of encounters is different.

Every tankadin should feel like their spec is the "best." That means it works well for you and you are used to it. Personally, I've been specced as both the 0/49/12 and the 10/41/10 and thought that they were the best at the time. It also depends on your gear, level of progression, role, pvp interest and what you are willing to sacrifice for what.

Test. Play. Respec. Retest. Play more.

Personally, I would suggest to anyone that they start off with the cookie cutter 0/49/12 and make your own personal changes from there.

What follows are my now outdated comments on the original "Baelor Special", a 20/41/0 prot-holy split, which incorporated Illumination and Holy Light into a build made primarily for tanking. Its function was to be a flex-spot in both 5 mans and raids, capable of either tanking or healing, whichever the situation/encounter called for. It still functions as was originally intended, however patch 2.3 and the advent of Combat Expertise's 10% stamina boost high in the prot tree makes a more prot-heavy hybrid spec more appealing. I strongly urge paladins who are looking to keep a hybrid tank/heal feel in their build to consider funneling more into prot at the expense of Illumination, for example 13/48/0 and 15/46/0.

Aw shucks, Lore even kept my name attached to the 20/41/0 hybrid spec. I'm honored.

A note to anyone looking at the 20/41/0 spec and thinking about using it: as Lore said, it's very customizable. If you want to truly feel like a tank/healer hybrid and be able to use the plate healing gear you will inevitably get with all the spell crit on it, you'll want to keep the 20 holy almost as is. The one thing I would change, if anything, in the holy tree is take the points in Spiritual Focus and put it into 5/5 Improved Seal of Righteousness. Raid healing you don't find yourself getting hit so much, but that extra threat on SoR/JoR might come in handy. I myself keep Spiritual Focus for when I farm, PvP, or 5 man, since I tend to get hit while I heal in those situations, and I hate getting spell push-back.

The prot tree, your flex points are the ones I have in Spell Warding, Reckoning, and Ardent Defender. 1-hand specialization, Guardian's Favor, Precision, Weapon Expertise, and Improved Devotion Aura are your other options there. I went with Spell Warding and Ardent Defender to get the most out of my mitigation. 5% extra threat from 1H spec would be nice, but in crunch time, Ardent Defender provides a little more effective health. Personal preference.

One pro to the spec that was not mentioned: Improved Lay on Hands. The 10/41/10 and 0/49/12 specs do not have access to it, this one does. It gives one of your only "oh sh!t" buttons a little more oomph with a 30% armor increase in addition to the full heal.

I would *not* recommend dropping Avenger's Shield for Divine Favor for increased healing. Avenger's Shield, despite its tendency to bounce a bit funny sometimes, is a major tool to frontload some extra threat, and great for single-target off tanking threat if you've got the mana to support it. When I don't have aggro on Void Reaver, I throw it into my rotation to get back up the threat list after a knockback.

One last thing - a warning. This build requires very, very careful gear choices, as you don't have Deflection, so you've got to stack 5% extra avoidance/block to get uncrushable compared to the other "cookie cutter" builds. You'll have to deal with using some "crappier" gear until you reach the tier 4 and tier 5 item-level gears, and your stamina and/or spell damage will probably suffer until then. Once you get to those item levels, you will still lag a little behind in either threat or stamina, but not as noticeably. However, this build is not for those who mean to main tank everything all the time. I made this build in full knowledge that I had 2 prot warriors ready to take the beating from the big boss, and that my job would most likely be add-tank, off-tank for trash, and main-tank farm content when necessary. It's *not* for main-tanking progression content, without 5/5 Deflection, maintaining uncrushability will keep you behind the gear curve.

Baelor wrote:Aw shucks, Lore even kept my name attached to the 20/41/0 hybrid spec. I'm honored.

The spec hadn't even occurred to me until I saw your "The Baelor Special" thread ages ago, so the name just kinda stuck with me

One pro to the spec that was not mentioned: Improved Lay on Hands. The 10/41/10 and 0/49/12 specs do not have access to it, this one does. It gives one of your only "oh sh!t" buttons a little more oomph with a 30% armor increase in addition to the full heal.

Oh schnapps, I meant to mention that too. I'll edit it in.

I would *not* recommend dropping Avenger's Shield for Divine Favor for increased healing. Avenger's Shield, despite its tendency to bounce a bit funny sometimes, is a major tool to frontload some extra threat, and great for single-target off tanking threat if you've got the mana to support it. When I don't have aggro on Void Reaver, I throw it into my rotation to get back up the threat list after a knockback.

Yeah, I wasn't really as clear as I wanted to be there, I'll spruce that up a bit too. That one talent point is really a complete focus shift from being a primary offtank/occasional healer to a primary healer/occasional offtank. Though I suppose at that point you'd want to drop even more out of the Prot tree. Jere I think gave a good Holy/Prot build in some thread somewhere, I'll try to dig that up and just add it to the list.

Since we're submitting builds, I will also submit my build.

I call it the "Get most of the important Prot/Ret stuff while keeping uninterruptable healing for PVP"


9/41/11
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qVLZV0tIhMdMgqzVbL

Picks up 2/3 Imp Conc Aura in Prot to shave the Holy Requirement by 1.

In comparison to the Canonical 49/12 this loses the following:
- 1.28% avoidance (incl. block) between 1 Deflection and 2 Anticipation
- Precision (-3% melee hit)
- Reckoning

Overall you will see a slight threat decrease from the loss of Precision and Reckoning, and will need a little more gear to cover the 1.28% avoidance.

From this sacrifice you gain the ability to heal while soloing and PVPing.

I recommend this build for anyone who plays on a PVP server and wants a little more survivability when grinding, e.g. getting jumped by some jerk, or when you overpull and need to toss off a quick HL. Also, I do pretty well healing in the Arena with this spec. My heals are obviously not as big as any Holy spec, but they can't be pushed back and I don't blow 50g a week respeccing for it.

Lore wrote:PS: Does anyone have a good Ret/Prot hybrid spec? Is such a thing even possible?

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZVhtIx0zMTqZVfxp00z

Some variation of that. I can imagine the threat generation on that build to be quite high. I tried it for a while but I really missed my shield.

Basically the point is long fight threat generation while tanking with sanctity aura.

Edit: Disadvantages in my mind with this build while using it were of course the snap aggro that shield provides. Spell warding isn't there as well (not a huge deal). Also you end up spending a lot of "non tanking" points in the ret tree just to reach sanctity aura.

Sabindeus wrote:Since we're submitting builds, I will also submit my build.

I call it the "Get most of the important Prot/Ret stuff while keeping uninterruptable healing for PVP"


9/41/11
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qVLZV0tIhMdMgqzVbL

Picks up 2/3 Imp Conc Aura in Prot to shave the Holy Requirement by 1.

In comparison to the Canonical 49/12 this loses the following:
- 1.28% avoidance (incl. block) between 1 Deflection and 2 Anticipation
- Precision (-3% melee hit)
- Reckoning

Overall you will see a slight threat decrease from the loss of Precision and Reckoning, and will need a little more gear to cover the 1.28% avoidance.

From this sacrifice you gain the ability to heal while soloing and PVPing.

I recommend this build for anyone who plays on a PVP server and wants a little more survivability when grinding, e.g. getting jumped by some jerk, or when you overpull and need to toss off a quick HL. Also, I do pretty well healing in the Arena with this spec. My heals are obviously not as big as any Holy spec, but they can't be pushed back and I don't blow 50g a week respeccing for it.

Cool, thanks. I'll add it to the list. It sounds similar to the build Honorshammer mentioned earlier in the thread as well.

EDIT: Also, I hope you don't mind, but I replaced your worldofwarcraft.com talent build link with a wowhead link, mostly because the worldofwarcraft.com links are so long they stretch out the page and make everything look funky >.>