This guide discusses Prot Pally PVP in the Cataclysm (Cata) expansion, Patch 4.0.6. This guide provides comprehensive written material and narrated PVP videos.
Please post your feedback, tips, and questions!
Revision History
The first version of this Guide was posted on Oct 14 2010. It has been through many revisions since then; here is the change log for recent revisions:
- 2011 Mar 05: updated 4.1 notes
- 2011 Feb 28: added links to comments that document previous Patch changes (4.0.3a, 4.0.6). Added my take on 4.1 changes
- 2011 Feb 24: added note re: glyphing SoT for Expertise
- 2011 Feb 22: added more notes on Resil
- 2011 Feb 12: rewrote heal macros for clarity (and hopefully so that they work more consistently)
- 2011 Feb 11: mass update for 4.0.6
Table of Contents
- Mechanics Overview
- Resource Mechanics
- Burst and Sustained Damage Mechanics
- Healing Mechanics
- Bubble and Mitigation Mechanics
- Crowd Control Mechanics
- Seal Mechanics
- Team Support Mechanics
- Recommended Talents and Glyphs
- Stats / Enchants / Gems / Gear Recommendations
- General PVP Tips and Tactics
- Macros
- UI / Addons / Power Auras
- Recent Patch Changes
- Narrated PVP Videos
- About the Author
1. Mechanics Overview
The good news is that Prot is a viable PVP spec :)
Prot is a good fit for you if:
- You want to be a melee, and
- You want to be durable, and
- You want to have the capability of generating solid burst damage, and
- You want to have tools to support groups and spot-heal
Here is a brief summary of the spec’s mechanics:
- Our spec-defining ability is Avenger’s Shield (AS), which is an excellent ranged ability that interrupts/silences the target and when glyphed can provide good burst and apply a daze effect
- Our cast-time heals are mana inefficient and do not heal for large amounts. We do have a mana-free “mitigation” heal called Word of Glory (WoG) that is instant cast
- We have multiple mitigation abilities to work with, and when chained together they significantly increase time-to-live
- Shield of the Righteous (SotR) is our new melee “Execute” ability capable of big burst when used with 3 stacks of HoPo and the Sacred Duty (SD) buff
- Mana typically isn’t an issue as long as you keep casting Judgement and are careful not to spam-cast cast-time heals
- Our Judgement spells have been replaced by one Judgement spell. The downside to this is we don’t have the pre-4.0 flexibility of mixing Seals and Judgments with different effects, e.g. the popular combination of Judgement of Justice (applies debuff that limits run speed) with the damage-over-time (DoT) Seal. To apply the run speed limiting debuff in 4.0 you have to use Seal of Justice but the catch is your damage will take a significant hit relative to using Seal of Truth, which is a scaled-down version of the old Seal of Vengeance / Corruption
- We no longer cast Holy Shield (HS); the HS buff is triggered through the use of Shield of the Righteous (SotR) or WoG. The HS buff has a modest impact in PVP – it increases damage blocked from 30% to 40% (mitigation not chance)
2. Resource Mechanics
We have two resources to manage:
- Mana
- Holy Power
We generate mana via the Judgments of the Wise built-in passive which generates 30% of our mana over 10 seconds when Judgement lands on a target successfully. The Sanctuary talent also generates mana when we Block or Dodge. That being said, there are some situations where you may find yourself getting low on mana:
- You are chain casting heals, e.g. Flash of Light (FoL)
- Your target is > 10 yards away so you can’t cast Judgment
- You use mana-intensive abilities, such as Holy Radiance (HR) or Consecration without the talent Hallowed Ground (HG)
I’ve found it helpful to invest 2 points in Improved Judgement (IJ) to extend the range of Judgement to 30 yards. More on this later. I don’t think HG is worth the investment so I only use Consecration when I have enough mana to work with.
We still have Divine Plea (DP) to regen mana, but with the change in 4.0.3a to Shield of the Templar, the most valuable use for Prot for DP is to generate 3 Holy Power instantly.
As of Patch 4.0, all Paladins have a new class mechanic called Holy Power (HoPo). For Prot, Hammer of the Righteous (HotR) and Crusader Strike (CS) build 1 HoPo per use – assuming the blow is not dodge/parried and the target is not immune – up to 3 total (note that HotR and CS now have a shared 3-second cooldown).
We have to manage HoPo carefully. It’s advisable to use your ranged attacks (e.g. AS, Judgment) while closing a gap so that you can cast HotR / CS as soon as you are in melee range to build HoPo.
At 85, you can spend HoPo to cast:
- SotR for the burst damage
- WoG for the heal
- Inquisition for the damage buff
I like the HoPo mechanic because it adds flexibility and situational control – YOU can choose how to spend it and it makes gameplay more dynamic. It reminds me of the awesome Righteous Fury mechanic from Warhammer Online.
3. Burst and Sustained Damage Mechanics
We generate most of our burst from the following abilities:
- AS
- SotR
- Hammer of Wrath (HoW) on targets at 20% or less health
I do not typically use Inquisition in PVP. While it’s excellent for AOE PVE tanking, the Inquisition buff is not guaranteed to provide value in PVP given that you may be CC’d during the time the buff is up. One case where Inquisition is valuable is when casting it prior to a high-burst sequence with Avenging Wrath and a 3-HoPo SotR with Sacred Duty up.
It’s worth noting that these (and some other Paladin) attacks deal Holy damage, which is not mitigated by any resistance. If you’ve read my class guides for other games, you may recall that I favor non-Physical damage, e.g. Swordmaster’s Spirit damage in Warhammer Online and Orc Reaver’s Fire damage in LOTRO, because targets tend to feel equally squishy when you are dealing damage that is not mitigated by armor or resistance.
AS has a 15-second cooldown, and that cooldown can be reset via a 20% proc (with talents) from HotR / CS. Because of this, you want to use AS early and often. Pre-4.0 sometimes we would wait for the right moment to use AS (e.g. chain CC a Healer/Caster for a burst sequence) but that rationale isn’t as valid anymore.
SotR packs a wallop when it crits at 3 HoPo. In general, you should not use SotR unless
- You have 3 HoPo, due to the damage scaling, and
- You have the Sacred Duty (SD) buff proc from Judgment
The SD buff guarantees that SotR will crit. Given that our Crit % has dropped significantly at 85 (i.e. from ~25% at 80 to < 10% at 85) it’s unlikely that SotR will crit without SD.
We generate solid sustained damage from our Seal of Truth (SoT) ability, which is a scaled-down version of the pre-4.0 Seal of Vengeance / Seal of Corruption. It’s also our only DoT so it’s useful for whittling away kiting targets or when we’re CC’d. As of 4.0.6 all single target attacks (including Judgement, Hammer of Wrath, Exorcism, and Templar’s Verdict) can now trigger SoT.
CS and HotR are our main spam attacks so their total damage adds up – typically ~20% of my total damage. They share the same cooldown. CS is Physical damage and delivers decent burst. HotR is an AOE that delivers low single-target Physical damage and AOE Holy damage. I generally favor CS over HotR because it hits significantly harder and PVP is often about focus-firing one target at a time.
4. Healing Mechanics
With the increase in HP pool sizes to 120K+ in blue PVP gear and the lack of scaling for our cast-time heals, we are limited in terms of our in-combat healing capability at 85:
- FoL is very mana intensive (~25% of total mana) but only heals for ~8% of max HP
- Divine Light (DL) has a long cast time and is therefore easy to pushback/interrupt/silence. Holy Light (HL) takes as long to cast as DL, but if you have the Crusader talent proc HL heals for more than DL, so HL is a nice patch-up heal after you get a killing blow and can freecast a slow heal
- WoG heals for ~4% of max HP per HoPo, so it’s not worth using the cooldown unless you have multiple stacks or you really need a heal immediately to buy time
- We have an AoE HoT called Holy Radiance (HR)
- Lay on Hands (LoH) is our silver bullet, but it has a lengthy cooldown (10m or 7m glyphed) and is not usable in arena
- Seal of Insight (SoI) isn’t guaranteed to proc on melee auto attacks and it heals for a very low amount, so this seal is not worth using for Prot. The mana regen effect from SoI is not useful given that we have other effective mana regen tools already
I consider WoG and HR to be “mitigation heals” – they will not outheal incoming damage but they will enable you to stretch out a fight. Check out the Cataclysm 2v2 video posted Dec 22nd in Section 15 – you can see that WoG healing enabled me or my partner to stay alive long enough to win matches.
When you overheal yourself with WoG, the Guarded by the Light (GbtL) talent converts that excess WoG healing into a temporary absorption bubble.
To boost your healing output, you can glyph SoI and WoG (credit: Donnar), but given that our heals don’t scale well at 85, I would recommend taking 0 or 1 of those glyphs.
5. Bubble and Mitigation Mechanics
As with pre-4.0, we can cast Hand of Protection (HoP) on friendly targets to bubble them from Physical damage.
What has changed in 4.0/Cata:
- Sacred Shield (SS) is now a Ret talent and therefore not available to Holy or Prot @ 85
- Divine Shield (DS) duration was reduced from 12 to 8 second
- Divine Protection (DPr) has been changed to a 10-second 20% damage mitigation ability for the Paladin on a 1-min cooldown that no longer procs the Forbearance debuff. So this is an ability that should get a lot of use whenever you are taking focus fire. It is dispellable
- The passive talent Ardent Defender (AD) was changed from a passive to on-use ability (ugh!) and is dispellable
- We gain an awesome mitigation ability at 85 called Guardian of Ancient Kings (GoAK) which is not dispellable and mitigates damage by 50% for 12s. This ability in some ways is better than DS because your damage output is not affected, the duration is 50% longer, and it does not put Forbearance on you
Per Tullkas’s testing, when you use both DPr and AD, they stack additively (20% + 20% = 40% total mitigation, or 60% damage taken). DPr / AD seem to stack multiplicatively with GoAK; i.e. if you have GoAK and DPr up at the same time, you take 40% damage (50% mitigated by GoAK, then 20% of the remaining 50% of the damage is mitigated by DPr).
When we block a melee attack with a shield, we mitigate 30% of the damage or 40% if HS is up. Note that we can’t block spells, which limits the value of the Block and Mastery stats.
6. Crowd Control Mechanics
Our stun, Hammer of Justice (HoJ), has a cooldown of 40 seconds with talents.
The daze (snare/slow) effect was removed from the base AS ability but you can and should glyph it back.
Aside from AS, our only “snare” ability is SoJ, but it’s not really a snare, it’s a run speed limiting debuff. As noted in the Overview, we can’t mix and match different Seals and Judgments as we did pre-4.0, because now there is only 1 Judgement spell. Note that SoJ only applies on melee attacks, so you have to close to melee range first before the debuff is applied, whereas pre-4.0 we could apply Judgement of Justice from range.
In 4.0.6 all Paladins can train Rebuke, which is a melee interrupt on a 10 sec cooldown that lockouts the target from the interrupted spell’s school for 4 sec.
7. Seal Mechanics
We have four Seals:
- Seal of Insight (SoI): chance to restore mana/health on melee hit
- Seal of Judgement (SoJ): applies run-buff removing debuff on melee hit
- Seal of Righteousness (SoR): adds Holy damage on melee hit
- Seal of Truth (SoT): same as the pre-4.0 SoV/SoC DoT on melee hit
SoI provides a very minor amount of healing and is therefore not helpful for Prot. In my experience you don’t need SoI for mana regen if you have IJ talented or when you are fighting melees and have Sanctuary talented as your Blocks regen mana. (FWIW, SoI isn’t useful for Prot PVE either, because we glyph SoT to provide an Expertise bonus, and this is necessary to reduce chance for a boss to Parry / Dodge, and the Parry decrease is a big factor as Parry resets a boss’s swing timer.)
SoJ is situational. I’ve found that the effect’s value has been decreased with the increased usage we get out of AS and the fact that you have to melee to apply the debuff, whereas pre-4.0 you could cast JoJ up to 10 yards away to apply the debuff.
SoR adds a flat amount of damage to melee attacks and Judgement but it never crits.
SoT is superior to SoR as a DPS seal in PVP. SoT DoT ticks (Censure in the Combat Log) can crit, and once SoT is stacked to 5, every attack delivers extra damage (Seal of Truth in the Combat Log). As of 4.0.6 all single target attacks (including Judgement, Hammer of Wrath, Exorcism, and Templar’s Verdict) can now trigger SoT.
8. Team Support Mechanics
As with pre-4.0, we can cast Hand of Protection (HoP) on friendly targets to bubble them from Physical damage.
Divine Guardian (DG) was changed to be an AOE raid buff that decreases damage taken – without transferring that damage to the Paladin – and this scales incredibly well the more friendly targets are under attack. Given the lack of damage transfer we can no longer use DG as a tool to pre-emptively break CC such as Sheep/Blind/etc. However, we still have Hand of Sacrifice (HoS) which transfers damage from the friendly target to the Paladin.
In mass combat it’s very helpful to cast DG and HR – this can buy just enough time for friendlies to survive to affect the outcome of a big fight.
In 4.0, the Druid buff Mark of the Wild (MotW) and Paladin buff Blessing of Kings (BoK) provide the same buff, so if you have a Druid in your party/raid you should buff Blessing of Might (BoM).
9. Recommended Talents and Glyphs
Here is the recommended 0/31/10 “Protribution” spec at 85:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZGrMcRzdRRucbG:szcVdzmMz
Here are comments on the mechanics of select Prot talents:
- Eternal Glory (EG): we are dependent on HoPo for our healing (WoG) and SotR burst damage, and EG makes 30% of your WoG casts consume no HoPo
- Grand Crusader (GC): synergizes with AS by having a 20% chance to remove the cooldown when using HotR or CS. Amazing talent
- Sacred Duty: synergizes with SotR to make it crit more often. Amazing talent
- Shield of the Templar (SotT): this talent provides multiple benefits – in particular it reduces GoAK’s cooldown from 5 min to 3 min and enables Divine Plea to instantly generate 3 HoPo
Guarded by the Light (GbtL) buffs WoG healing and causes it to proc the HS block buff, which provides a modest mitigation increase. GbtL is no longer must-have as it was in 4.0 before 4.0.3a, but I still take it.
You’ll notice that I took all the Prot tree talents (31 points total) except the following:
- Toughness: armor is useless against bleeds and non-Physical damage (i.e. Spells)
- Hallowed Ground: buffs Consecration. I passed on this talent because most players will simply move of Consecration and the cooldown of Consecration is too high for my liking
- Reckoning: don’t spec into Reckoning now because not only is Seal damage nerfed (previously, Reckoning’s extra melee attacks proc’d your Seal) – in addition, Reckoning now only procs off Blocks not your melee attacks (credit: Elemental)
As far as where to invest talent points outside of the Prot tree:
- Crusade: buffs the damage from our main spam attacks so it’s worth considering. As of 4.0.3a, also procs the Crusader buff which increases the next HL heal by 300%
- Improved Judgement (IJ): the extra 20 yard range for Judgement is surprisingly useful. It not only provides better ranged damage capability but also helps mana regeneration when you have no nearby targets to Judge and can drop a target down to the HoW threshold. As of 4.0.6 Judgement stacks SoT, so IJ increases the range that you can stack your SoT DoT. Some Paladins IMO greatly underestimate IJ’s utility in PVP
- Rule of Law: provides a 15% increase in Crit rate for frequently-used abilities (CS/HotR and WoG)
- Pursuit of Justice (PoJ): buffs movement by 15%, which is better than any enchant. And it enables some CC effects cast on you to generate 1 HoPo
For Prime Glyphs: SotR and WoG are must-have. Your 3rd glyph should either be CS or SoT. With CS no longer generating HoPo if the target dodges/parries, it’s now worthwhile to glyph SoT for the Expertise buff, which should reduce your target’s chance to dodge by 2.5% and parry by 2.5%.
There are 2 must-have Major Glyphs:
- Dazing Shield Major Glyph: applies the run debuff daze effect we had prior to 4.0
- Focused Shield Major Glyph: this is the same glyph was had pre-4.0 for buffing AS damage
For the 3rd Major Glyph, I recommend taking Hammer of Justice (HoJ) – the extra 5 yards to our stun can be a life-saver. You can also slot LoH, which in 4.0.3a was changed from a Minor to Major glyph. Situationally (i.e. against Locks and DK’s) Turn Evil is very useful.
For Minor Glyphs: doesn’t really matter. I slotted both Blessings. I would have thought Insight would be worthwhile but you typically won’t go OOM – I slotted Truth.
10. Stats / Enchants / Gems / Gear Recommendations
Stats
Summary: Strength and Resilience are our most important PVP stats
- Each point of Strength grants 2 AP (2.10 with BoK/MotW) and through the Touched by the Light (TbtL) passive 0.60 Spell Power (0.63 with BoK/MotW). TbtL is the reason why Prot favors Strength over Attack Power (AP). If you want to boost your damage and healing, this is the stat to stack
- Resilience provides passive always-on mitigation (i.e. reduction) for all damage in PVP. If you want to improve your survivability, this is the most important stat. Note that once you have a full set of PVP gear, you probably won’t need to gem/enchant any Resil – what you get from gear and socket bonuses is sufficient – and in most PVP situations opponents won’t be targeting you anyway (unless you are the Flag Carrier)
Some players have theorized that Intellect is better than Strength point-for-point as many Paladin abilities have coefficients for Spell Power. Given that we “double-dip” from Str with the TbtL mechanic, Str is better point-for-point compared to Int.
Stat Myths
There are a lot of guides that are (unfortunately) providing misinformation about which stats to stack for Prot. I’ll go through stat myths one-by-one.
“Stack Mastery to boost your survivability”
The Prot Mastery Divine Bulwark boosts Block %, but Block doesn’t do anything against Spells. Mastery does provide some value against melee opponents but not enough to stack.
In addition, you can only block attacks from your front-facing and when you are not incapacitated.
You will gain far more survivability from Resilience than Mastery.
“Stack Stamina to boost your survivability”
Stam does not scale based on the amount of incoming damage whereas Resilience does. For other classes (esp Healers) there may be valid arguments for stacking Stam.
I have seen the benefits of passive mitigation, from stats such as Resilience, over Stam in other games – e.g. Toughness in WAR.
“Stack Stamina because it provides a DPS boost via Vengeance”
Vengeance only consistently stacks anywhere near max in PVE because bosses deal very high sustained DPS which more than offsets the fast rate of Vengeance decay. However in PVP you will rarely get to 75% max Vengeance, let alone 100%. You can easily test this in PVP with the Vengeance Status addon. If you watch any of my videos from Nov 27, 2010 on, you can see my Vengeance Status bar below the HoPo bar.
Keep in mind that any additional benefit from stacking Stam would only kick in after you reach the amount of Vengeance before stacking Stam. Therefore, stacking Stam for the DPS benefit would be as helpful as wearing a floatable life vest while driving a car to prevent drowning – it might help in that rare case you drive into a body of water but otherwise it’s of no value.
“Haste is a good stat for Prot”
Haste is pretty useless for Prot. Remember that Prot is an ability-cooldown-limited spec, not a global-cooldown-limited spec, and that the vast majority of our abilities are instant cast. The only benefits you get from stacking Haste are fasting cast-time heals and slightly faster auto-attacks. In most situations the only in-combat cast-time heal you’ll be able to reliably cast is FoL and it already has a short cast-time and its main mechanics issues (mana inefficiency, small healing amount) are not addressed with Haste.
If you are wondering why Ret Pallies talk about Haste so much – it reduces the cooldown of CS through the Sanctity of Battle talent, which is not applicable for Prot.
Enchants
- Weapon: Landslide or Avalanche
- Shield: Titanium Plating – please note this is a must-have for the 50% Disarm reduction as we can’t generate HoPo when Disarmed
- Head: 60 Str/35 Resil (PVP enchant)
- Shoulders: 50 Str/25 Crit (Therazane faction) or 50 Str / 25 Resil (PVP enchant)
- Back: 65 or 50 Crit
- Chest: 20 Stats, 15 Stats, or 40 Resil
- Wrist: 50 Str, 65 Crit, or 50 Hit
- Hands: 50 or 35 Strength
- Waist: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle for the 2nd gem slot
- Legs: Dragonscale Leg Armor
- Feet: 50 Hit
Gems
- Red sockets: always Str
- Yellow sockets: Str/Crit, Str/Resil, or Resil
- Blue sockets: Str/Hit
- Meta socket: Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond (+54 Str and 3% Increased Critical Damage)
Reforging
Reforge the following stats to Hit until you reach the 5% cap, then reforge to Crit:
- Haste (almost completely useless for Prot)
- Mastery (only helpful against melees)
- Expertise (actually not that bad, reduces avoidance for any target)
Gear
In general you should stick with PVP gear instead of PVE gear, given that there are 1+ PVP items with Strength and Resilience for each slot. You want to use the Pally Scaled PVP set and off-set plate pieces and the accessories that have Strength on them.
Make sure that your first purchase with Conqueror points is a/the weapon – this is the case for any MDPS class or Hunter. Get the Mace (Vicious Gladiator’s Bonecracker) or Axe (Vicious Gladiator’s Hacker), as these have the highest max-damage number for 2.6 Str weapons. The Sword (Vicious Gladiator’s Slicer) is a no-no because it has a lower max-damage number and PVP is all about burst. If you play a Human or Dwarf Paladin, take the Mace over the Axe per the 3 Expertise racial (contributed by: Marko, Tullkas).
For PVP shield, get Vicious Gladiator’s Shield Wall.
Aside from the classic PVP trinket which removes CC, we have two Str trinkets available that have different mechanics:
- Bloodthirsty Gladiator’s Badge of Victory: 1520 Str for 20 sec, 2 min cooldown, activated on-use
- Bloodthirsty Gladiator’s Insignia of Victory: 912 Str for 20 sec, 1 min internal cooldown, proc chance of 15%
Which trinket (Insignia or Badge) depends on what are you trying to maximize:
- For controlled burst, go with the Badge
- For higher average benefit, go with the Insignia
For a great breakdown on the new PVP points systems and the order to buy PVP pieces, read Cynwise’s excellent article on PVP Gear in Cataclysm for Season 9. If you want to understand the relationship between arena team rating and weekly max Conqueror points, check out Felbent’s chart or a points calculator. Keep in mind that a Prot Pally can buy their 1H weapon with 2 days of Arena – Monday and Tuesday – it’s super easy.
The one non-PVP item you should consider picking up is Darkmoon Card Hurricane (DMCH), as Andy suggested:
the main reason for my post was to mention that this spec does really well with the Darkmoon Hurricane deck. Average damage is around 5k’ish but it can crit and I’ve seen 8k+ numbers from it previously. On my damage meter it’s normally sitting just below my melee or auto attack damage. If you don’t need the resilience from the other trinkets I would recommend grabbing this trinket for this spec.
DMCH synergizes great with our class mechanics!
11. General PVP Tips and Tactics
- When closing the gap to opponents, open with AS and Judgement – there is no point anymore in saving AS. You want to use CS or HotR as soon as you are in melee range to start building HoPo and to proc the cooldown reset for AS
- Use enemy Pets as Holy Power batteries, esp as you are making your way to your target while they are kiting you. Against Mages, do not get caught in No Man’s Land – where you are taking fire from the Mage and their pets but are out of melee range of any of them
- Remember that CS / HotR will not build Holy Power on an Immune (e.g. bubbled / Ice Block’d) target or a target that dodges or parries your attack (e.g. Rogue with Evasion), so plan accordingly
- If you are low on health and have 3 Holy Power and your opponent is also at low health but above Hammer of Wrath range, you can choose to finish with SotR or heal with WoG. If you go with WoG you have a 30% chance to get an EG proc which restores those 3 Holy Power and you can use SotR immediately. It really depends on the situation, but against DPS classes going the WoG route is the more conservative play in 1v1s
- If you need to bubble yourself to heal up, it’s a good idea to use a GCD while you’re bubbled to cast Judgement, which procs your mana regen. Then spam-cast FoL. That way you can heal up without going bone dry on mana
12. Macros
Macros can be a HUGE help for simplifying your keybinds and thereby improving gameplay. Below are some of the key macros you see me using throughout my videos.
CS / Judgement
This macro is simply for convenience, so I can hit the same button at least 3 times in a row when engaging a target in melee range:
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=2 crusader strike, judgement, crusader strike
I do also keybind Judgement separately, so that I can use it without having to use CS first.
HotR / Judgement
Same macro as the previous one, but for HotR
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=2 hammer of the righteous, judgement, hammer of the righteous
Bubble Me or You or Us
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl] divine guardian; [help] hand of protection; divine shield
Here’s how this macro works:
- If you hit the macro with the Ctrl key, you bubble everyone else
- If you have a friendly player targeted and you hit the macro, you bubble them with HoP
- If you don’t have a friendly player targeted you bubble yourself with DS
As a side note, I map this macro to the “B” key (“B” as in “Bubble”) for easy recall.
Mitigation Chaining (DP / GoAK / AD)
/cast [mod:ctrl] guardian of ancient kings
/castsequence reset=30 divine protection, guardian of ancient kings, ardent defender
Divine Plea On / Off
#showtooltip
/cancelaura Divine Plea
/cast Divine Plea
Pressing this once will cast DP, which generates 3 HoPo, and pressing it again will remove DP. This is a great macro if you need an emergency WoG heal or SotR.
Cast-Time Focus Heal
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl] holy light
/cast [@focus, mod:shift, nodead] flash of light; flash of light
If you press Shift with this macro, you FoL your focus. Otherwise you either cast FoL or HL.
WoG Focus Heal
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl] holy radiance
/cast [@focus, mod:shift, nodead] word of glory; word of glory
If you press Shift with this macro, you WoG your focus. Otherwise you either cast WoG or HR.
Hand of Sacrifice
#showtooltip hand of sacrifice
/cast [help] hand of sacrifice; [target=focus, exists, nodead] hand of sacrifice
If you have a friendly player targeted, this casts HoS on them. Otherwise this macro casts it on your focus target, if you have one.
In-Combat Aura Switch
/cancelaura
/castsequence retribution aura, resistance aura
Before engaging in combat, use this macro to get to the Aura you want to have up. Then during combat you can simply hit the macro to switch to the other Aura. For simplicity, I map this macro to the “A” key (“A” as in “Aura”) for easy recall.
Maximum Burst (credit: Spiegelmann)
Cast Inquisition (with your 2 HoPo) for 8 secs
Activate my macro:
#showtooltip
/use Bloodthirsty Gladiator’s badge of Victory
/cast Divine Plea
/cast Avenging Wrath
Then SotR
PVP Self-Buff
No Druid around, use this:
/castsequence reset=10 blessing of kings, seal of truth
With a Druid around, use this:
/castsequence reset=10 blessing of might, seal of truth
13. UI / Addons / Power Auras
To turn on enemy health bars with class colors with the default UI functionality:
- to show the health bar over all players, use the keybind for Show All Name Plates
- to color the health bars of enemy players per their class: check the box for: Options | Interface| Combat | Class Colors in Nameplates
I recommend the following addons specifically for Prot:
- Range Display: this simple but highly useful addon shows distance to target, focus, and mouseover
- Power Auras: highly customizable addon that can display buffs, debuffs, procs, etc. Non-trivial to learn. Below are some Auras I use
- OmniCC: displays numeric cooldown over your abilities
- Quartz: elegant cast bar addon, shows latency
- Rogue Spam Reborn: suppresses annoying error messages including “you have no target” or “out of range” et al
- Vengeance Status: displays your current Vengeance AP buff. RAWR!
For Arenas, the following two addons are must-have:
- Gladius: provides enemy health, mana, and casting bars
- Gladiminish: enhances Gladius to provide diminishing return timers for CC
Power Auras
Please do not ask me technical questions about how to use PA, you can ask those on the addon site.
Here are some of my auras:
- Hammer of Wrath: when HoW is usable on your target, this aura displays the HoW icon and makes a clear sword unsheathing sound
Version:4.4; ignoremaj:false; icon:INV_Hammer_04; buffname:Hammer of Wrath; x:99; bufftype:7; owntex:true; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; sound:50; exact:true; size:0.15; texmode:2; ismounted:0
- Sacred Duty: when SD procs, this aura displays the SD icon with the timer til the buff expires and makes a clear bell ringing sound
Version:4.4; ignoremaj:false; icon:Ability_Paladin_JudgementRed; buffname:Sacred Duty; x:136; owntex:true; isResting:0; mine:true; inVehicle:0; sound:36; exact:true; size:0.15; texmode:2; ismounted:0; timer.g:0.1882; timer.h:1.11; timer.enabled:true; timer.r:0.1451; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:BOTTOM; timer.Transparent:true
- Crusade: if you land the KB on an opponent, you get this buff icon with timer. The buff increases your next HL cast by 300%
Version:4.9; ignoremaj:false; icon:Spell_Holy_Crusade; buffname:Crusader; x:172; owntex:true; isResting:0; mine:true; inVehicle:0; sound:61; exact:true; size:0.15; texmode:2; ismounted:0; timer.g:0.1882; timer.h:1.11; timer.enabled:true; timer.r:0.1451; timer.cents:false; timer.Relative:BOTTOM; timer.Transparent:true
14. Recent Patch Changes
The Devs are still making a lot of tweaks to Paladins in Patch 4.x. Below is a summary of changes (documented and undocumented) for recent patches and their impacts.
Current Live Version: 4.0.6
Analysis for Previous Versions: 4.0.3a | 4.0.6
My comments for changes are in italics.
Patch 4.1 Changes (Official Patch Notes)
- Word of Glory now has a 20-second cooldown. This is a monster nerf for Prot and Ret in PVP. Here’s the explanation given by Blizzard:
Word of Glory: We want Retribution and Protection paladins to have reasonable healing on themselves or others, but we know paladins sometimes feel like they can’t use their Holy Power on anything but their heals in some situations. We’d rather these two specs spend most of their Holy Power on damage-dealing abilities, with occasional healing.
IMO Prot and Ret will be steeply nerfed PVP if the WoG nerf goes in with even a 5-sec cooldown let alone 20-sec, without some other strong compensating mechanics, e.g. increased CC.
Back-to-back WoG heals (via Eternal Glory for either spec, or Divine Purpose for Ret) or WoG heals cast within 2 GCDs of each other (e.g. WoG, Divine Plea, WoG) are a huge part of what make Prot and Ret viable in PVP.
Anyone who debates that point IMO is either ignorant about the mechanics of those specs in PVP or biased against Paladins.
I’m very perplexed by the reasoning for the nerf mentioned by Blizzard. Granted, Blue posters often get skewered / nitpicked by players for anything they say, but this is one case where I think the concerns of the playerbase are entirely warranted.
I have read some inane arguments that Prot and Ret shouldn’t have offhealing capability in PVP, but what the people saying those things fail to take into account is that relative to other DPS classes, we lack CC. As such, we heal because that’s what is needed in some situations to help friendly players, because we can’t peel to the extent other classes do.
- Walk in the Light (passive) removes the cooldown of Word of Glory. N/A for Prot
- Divine Guardian cooldown is now 3 minutes, up from 2. Minor nerf to Prot
- Grand Crusader will now generate a charge of Holy Power if the Avenger Shield it procs is used within 6 seconds. Very nice buff that should help offset the nerf to HoPo generation in 4.0.6
- Divine Storm now generates 1 point of Holy Power if it hits (i.e. successfully lands on) 4 or more targets. N/A for Prot
- Sacred Shield’s internal cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds, up from 30. N/A for Prot
15. Narrated PVP Videos
Below are my narrated PVP videos, in reverse chronological order (most recent first). Although some of the mechanics in the older videos are outdated, there are points I make in each video which are timeless.
2011 Jan 31 (Cataclysm, Patch 4.0.3a): 3v3 Arena Volume 2
2011 Jan 28 (Cataclysm, Patch 4.0.3a): 3v3 Arena Volume 1
2011 Jan 19 (Cataclysm, Patch 4.0.3a): 2v2 Arena Volume 4
2011 Jan 11 (Cataclysm, Patch 4.0.3a): Victory by Landslide
2011 Jan 08 (Cataclysm, Patch 4.0.3a): 2v2 Arena Volume 3
2011 Jan 05 (Cataclysm, Patch 4.0.3a): 2v2 Arena Volume 2
2010 Dec 31 (Cataclysm, Patch 4.0.3a)
2010 Dec 22 (Cataclysm, Patch 4.0.3a): 2v2 Arena Volume 1
2010 Nov 27 (WotLK, Patch 4.0.3a)
2010 Oct 24 (WotLK, Patch 4.0.1)
2010 Oct 21 (WotLK, Patch 4.0.1)
2010 Oct 16 (WotLK, Patch 4.0.1)
2010 Oct 14 (WotLK, Patch 4.0.1):
16. About the Author
Added this section due to this (predictable) post on the WoW forums, prior to the launch of Cataclysm:
It doesn’t look like you have that good pvp gear and experience, i wonder what prompted you to make this post ?
My Paladin hit level 80 over the summer of 2010. I didn’t get to 5k PVP GearScore until 2 months before Patch 4.0, so I had very little time to Arena before 4.0 launched.
I earned the 2k rating Achievement in 2v2 and 3v3 in Cataclysm as Prot and was the highest-rated Prot Pally in the Shadowburn battlegroup in 2v2 and 3v3. You can see my Arena teams here:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/wildhammer/taugrimm/pvp
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
K, another RBG night and i’m rly thinking of getting more resi. It makes sence since my job isn’t to dps peeps, but to stay alive, take/cap flag and protect my healers.
So i’ll be goin full resi (around 4.4k is doable from what i’ve heard).
I’ll also take the 15k healing PVP trinket + a new 1H weapon since i’d like to play aggresive aswell when not doin rbg. So i went to have a look at the PVP 1hders and found str or intel one. My thoughts are, as a FC, why should i take the str one over the intel one with extra spelpower?
As DPS in fungames bg i oc have the str one, but what when needing to stay alive?
Also, ins’t it better to use SoInsight instead of SoTruth for FC’ing? Every heal and/or damage reduction counts…
To be honest, I’m taking a long hard look at holy as a FC option this patch. Ignoring survivability for a second, the mobility benefits added in this patch through the speed of light talent are intriguing. Chaining HR and DP together can certainly put some distance between you and your enemies with freedom up.
Add shock and wog spam, and you’re looking at something that might be much harder to bring down that a traditionally specced prot paladin.
I dropped Prot as my main pvp spec in favour of Ret after 4.1, but I have a holy off-spec that I am thinking about experimenting with.
Holy Paladins are the hardest to take down now definitely, their self healing is rediculous.
Don`t forget you get 0.6 Intellect with every one point of strength, and this obviously affects your Spellpower also. If you want to go that way with the weapon, maybe get the strength one and put an Intellect Enchant on it… this may not make sense, but as a basic Stat strength is still better for Prot.
It`s basically impossible to get some Intellect in without sacrificing Strength, but it may well be at least worth experimenting with in some cases. I have been thinking about it a lot as I am getting OOM way too much now and it cost me 3 Arena matches.
I think the Willfull Ember Topaz is worth looking at for what you are thinking. You can use that and cover with Strength Enchants elsewhere maybe.
In any case, if you are going to sacrifice something, Crit is probably the one that is least important purely for a survival build, and even Hit to a degree. Whenever I get over the Hit cap, I gem Stamina in until a gear upgrade puts me under the cap then I switch back.
Regarding the Seal, I simply found that in most cases it wasn`t neccessary to use Insight as I was not ever getting below half health or mana and kept with Truth for the extra DPS IF I needed it. But if you wanted to play safe then yeah, maybe just go Insight. If there are a lot of casters on you though you will get low on mana so then definitely use Insight.
Sorry, the post below was meant to go in here…
Dave, don`t forget you get 0.6 Intellect with every one point of strength, and this obviously affects your Spellpower also. If you want to go that way with the weapon, maybe get the strength one and put an Intellect Enchant on it… this may not make sense, but as a basic Stat strength is still better for Prot.
It`s basically impossible to get some Intellect in without sacrificing Strength, but it may well be at least worth experimenting with in some cases. I have been thinking about it a lot as I am getting OOM way too much now and it cost me 3 Arena matches.
I think the Willfull Ember Topaz is worth looking at for what you are thinking. You can use that and cover with Strength Enchants elsewhere maybe.
In any case, if you are going to sacrifice something, Crit is probably the one that is least important purely for a survival build, and even Hit to a degree. Whenever I get over the Hit cap, I gem Stamina in until a gear upgrade puts me under the cap then I switch back.
Regarding the Seal, I simply found that in most cases it wasn`t neccessary to use Insight as I was not ever getting below half health or mana and kept with Truth for the extra DPS IF I needed it. But if you wanted to play safe then yeah, maybe just go Insight. If there are a lot of casters on you though you will get low on mana so then definitely use Insight.
WHAT ABOUT HASTE?
I asked awhile back, but no responses. If specc’d 3/31/7 with the 9% Haste buff from Judgements, and Reforge everything (after Hit 5% and Exp 20) to Haste, do you think this will give more damage? I can’t tell. Probably some Addon that I could get that could decipher it for me… So I’m lowering my Crit chances for Haste… Probably not wise… Maybe that’s why I’m not seeing so many crits, lol… I suppose the thing for me to do is go back to the more traditional model which Reforges to Crit…
I did a lot of testing on this on dummies with a DPS meter addon. Haste on `you` gives no extra DPS (well, about 10 dps tops using the Haste flask ~ +250 haste from memory) and therefore is not worth reducing something else. Haste on your weapon does make a big difference however, I have already mentioned this.
Can i ask you how you manage to pull 40-60k WOGs?
A 3HoPo WoG gives me 17k-30k
My average WoG now is 25k, I very rarely see under 20k. Probably every 3rd one will be 45~50k. The biggest i`ve seen is 65k which was when I was carrying a flag in WG, so some buffs from other classes probably helped. But in the high 50`s at least a couple of times is pretty normal in BGs.
I only really use WoG in BGs or Arena, and I haven`t been doing any Arena as all my partners are AWOL :-(
But I remember one 45k WoG in Arena about a week and a half ago, I had somehow gotten down to no visible health at all and had a Rogue on me, I hit WoG and then took the Rogue down and we won, my partner was WTF I thought you were toast !?!? lol
I was keeping an eye on it today in TB, couldn`t really see any reason why one would be 23k then the next 45k etc. At first I thought it might be if all the strength buffs are up but no it didn`t seem to be that. Maybe it`s something to do with having 4685 base strength and the relative boost to spellpower…I don`t know. I tried to find a Holy Power addon but there is nothing any good atm.
I will keep an eye on it though and see if I can see why they are that high if you think it isn`t normal.
Skype: anthoneo1 anyone is welcome to hit me up to talk Prot :-)
@Dave, regarding WoG, the only real consistency I have noticed is that if I have 2 or more people attacking me, the WoGs tend to be consistently bigger. My base str is now up to 4770 and the average WoG size is definitely up so I can at east say that has something to do with it.
One thing I think it may be, is Guarded by the Light and Rule of Law are up and I also have at least one str buff. It’s hard to keep an eye on all the Buffs while fighting, but at least GBtL is something to do with it.
I went through a very bad patch trying to find a new 2’s partner and went through some shockers dropping my rating a lot lol. But I have found a good one now and atm we have won 9 out of 12 together. His gear level is only 361 but he’s very good at PvP. He’s a Dwarf Holy Pally. We owned all DPS combos easily within prolly 3 mins and the 3 we lost were against a Holy Pally and Rougue (35 min match, my partner gave up lol), and a Priest / Druid combo we got twice. There was nothing I could do about the second team at all, they had me either Feared or Cycloned constantly :-(
Other than that, i’ve tentatively joined a 3’s and a 5’s Team and we’ll see how we go ;-)
Aloha Anthoneo,
Keeping the thread alive :)
I’m proud to say i’ve reached 1.9k in RBG as Flag Carrier. Just changed my spec a bit, which should give me extra heals. I only need to change some glyphs and use SoT whe it’s a non flag map like AB.
Problem is finding a decent guild now. One without cocky 14y old’s who blame other for their own mistakes just because they paid for a ‘gladiator’ title.
Grats Dave! That’s awesome. A good team makes all the difference :-)
I have had the same issues with guild, finding a good Arena Partner, and was even seriously considering a server change. But at the last minute I was actually approached by a Pally friendly guild wanting me to Tank for their RBGs coz they’d seen me in BGs a lot and knew my Guild was falling apart. So I joined.
They are very organised and have 3 dedicated RBG teams, I am now Tank for the ‘A’ Team. The previous guy was a Prot Warrior who had simply gemmed all Resil up to 4.3 Resil… they couldn’t understand why I could last so much longer lol an was popping 40k plus heals all day.
Funny thing was, I was telling them how ‘good’ Prot Pallys are and next thing I know the Guild Master Challenges me to a duel with his Marksman Hunter main. Lasted about 2 minutes max lol, absolutely Pwned him. Great guys though and I think this is what I needed. Have already gone from 384, to 1200 RBG rating in one day hehe.
All I need now is a decent Arena partner or two and i’ll be a happy man :-)
In any case, I can say with no uncertainty that Prot Paladin specced as per Taugrim`s guidlines is untouchable in BG`s esp as an FC.
Unless there are a couple of Arcane Mages, I can easily tie up 5 enemy players for as long as I like.
And funnily enough, it actually works very well as Ret Pally also ;-)
Anthoneo, can you post an armory link to your pally?
He’s Anthoneo. Go to wowarmory.com and search Anthoneo. Looks like he’s running Ret right now… I’m wondering how does Prot work with a 2H’er? Worth a try?
Tvm
Again thank you Taugrim/Anthoneo for the information (and everyonelse who keep this alive). As Prot my whole wow life, I enjoy a lot using prot spec in pvp. I’m having some problems with ferals guys at the moment =(.
Hey guys.
Yep, Anthoneo@daggerspine. My build strategy is basically exactly what Taugrim recommends with only a few minor exceptions which I have found are better for me due to Patch changes, and doing many many hours of testing on Dummies and NPCs such as Problim. As well as then trying things in BGs. These may also though simply be a result of my play style as well.
@Bloodniron, I have been ‘playing’ with Ret as a ploy to get Arena partners, then I swap back to Prot hehe, and just for fun. I am only in Ret occasionally. Don’t worry, Prot will always be my main :-) If you have one specced like Taugrim suggests atm, just grab the PvP 2 hander, enchant the Pyrium weapon chain, copy my Ret talent tree and give it a go!
I can say that this Prot build does work with Ret, and looking at the builds of many top Ret Paladins, I was surprised that many are close to what I have. The ONLY difference is mastery here and there, and realistically that is splitting hairs IMO. It is though taking me a while to get used the different spells and quite different fighting style for Ret….they move so damn slow and attack speed is terrible lol
I don’t want to come across as a dick, but I have not been beaten yet one on one by another Paladin since I hit Bloodthirsty gear, including in Arena, and about a week ago took down a BElf Ret and an undead Rogue by myself. I will say that to see another PvP Prot in Cyclone Battlegroup is very rare now. But until proven otherwise ( and I may be), I still believe that Prot is stronger than Ret in most cases, and I believe that if I can find a good, reliable partner, an Arena ranking of 2000 + is possible. I have spent a few days at over 1500 with a matchmaking level of 1800 when I was a beginner, and I have a lot more experience now.
The only combination I dread in 2’s is a Shadow Priest and Feral / Resto Druid combo as they keep me CC’d all the time :-( I’ll figure it out though.
While I spend a LOT of time testing and studying Prot, again I want to say THANK YOU to Taugrim for this guide, it is the best and has saved me a lot of time!
I now have a (hopefully) regular Holy Pally, and a Subtelty Rogue as 2`s partners, and we have done very well so far.
And yeah, I talk too much.
Keep fighting :-D
Skype: Anthoneo1
Got into a new guild that is focused on PvP. They asked me to be FC/BGTank, and to gem Resil, with the idea that they will give me my STR gems back if I don’t like it. So I’ve had some fun with them. A few wins so far. I changed my spec to focus on survivability. Currently close to 4.3k Resil.
I decided, this being my purpose in (R)BGz, to go the mixed gear route and pick up the 2-piece Ornamented gear for the +400 Resil bonus. I got shoulders last night and should have legs today or tomorrow. Less Strength/damage, yes, but a large chunk of Resil+larger mana pool+faster mana regeneration=greater survivability. At least that’s my theory, and it worked awhile back when I did it, pre-Cata…
BLOODnIRON@Gnomeregan (Alliance)
Hmm, let us know how you go, I will be interested to hear.
With your 4.3k Resil you have 41.97% damage reduction but with a marked reduction in self healing (much less Spell power) and self defense ability, compared to my 3.8k Resil with 38.43% damage reduction… only an extra 3.54 % dude…
My way of thinking and experience is that you won’t always have enough support or healers, especially if guarding bases or waiting in the Flag room, and you will have to defend and heal yourself. And it is fairly unlikely you would go OOM as a flag carrier.
But I understand that your guild prolly doesn’t understand Prot Pally mechanics and look at us like Warriors. The extra Resil IMO would only be worth it for Cloth or Leather Armor wearers who can’t self heal much.
I went through this exact same BS with my new guild with the BG organiser saying my Resil wasn’t enough to Tank and he initially kicked me from the Team, I said I don’t need an extra couple of % Resil when I can WoG for 25~65k and have LoH as well as our other buffs, and explained it all but ended up I literally had to prove it after a big fight with him in guild chat lol, the Guild master was one of a few who wanted me so I got the chance to prove it.
The most frustrating this was that this guy is a Holy Paladin lol
Also, as you get more Ruthless or Vicious gear, you’ll get the Resil anyway. Just my 2 cents worth but see how you go anyway. Maybe as you get the better gear, just Gem STR back and don’t tell them!
And hurry up and come back to Daggerspine, i’m waiting for my new Arena partner ;-)
Ah crap… well, the dual 2-piece idea STILL doesn’t work. I got my 2nd piece of Holy (Ornamented), and when equipped, the tooltip SHOWED the +400 Resil, but it did not register in my character sheet info. Bah… So I quickly traded it back for my hp’s. I am keeping my Holy shoulders that I bought – I get more Mana pool, and quicker mana regen from them, so trade out.
I regemmed using all hybrids to add some STR back in for heal purposes. I’ve been doing great in the BGz…
Just a quick comment: BG’s, espcially PUG are quite different from RBG’s and Arena. The skill sets are quite different as are the requirements, composition, and specs. When I go into BG’s it’s pretty much a free for all but in RBG’s it’s all about organization, team and communication.
I know, I find in normal BG`s it’s often (not always) even easier to stay alive as the opposition team isn’t as organised lol.
Hia!
Im currently building my prot pvp gear..can’t wait to try it out! Quick question: what aura do you guys use? Been looking at Towelliee and he is using resistance both in arena and bg’s.
Hi Nualis.
Use Retribution, unless there are casters focusing you enough to be a problem, then use Resistance.
What about meta gem?
Crit? Spellreflect?
As Taugrim says, # Meta socket: Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond (+54 Str and 3% Increased Critical Damage)
Well have you guys tried anything else or is this “the” meta socket to use?
I have the str and crit myself since its the obvious one but Im just askin you guys since you’ve had time to do some testing:) I haven’t got the gear yet to make up my own “mind”. Just 2 pvp items so far,hehe.
I personally wouldn’t bother with anything else. As Taugrim says, and as I have argued also, STR should always be Gemmed where it can as so many of our Talents and Spells are reliant on it.
I have experimented with other stats, and IF you have reached your hit cap, then maybe gem Sovereign Demonseye into blue sockets for some extra STAM, but STR is still our most important stat.
With Enchants there is a bit more flexibility, but if I am at Hit cap, again I always go STR if possible because I want the Spellpower increase. Or CRIT.
Some people summise that gemming and enchanting away from STR gives more ‘balance’ or ‘versatility’, but that is forgetting the fact that Prot is already a balanced and versatile spec.
My 2 cents worth.
Good luck :-)
Thx mate!
I know there has been a discussion about using darkmoon card earlier because of the strength bonus, I wonder if its possible to gem resilience ( if you have jewelcrafting that is ) and use the “new” str trinket: apparatus of k…etc.. and still have enough resilience? The use ability of the trinket might add some extra dps? ( using the macro for burst dmg )
Again with the questions,hehe.
Nualis
Nualis
As I said above, I don’t believe a few extra percent damage reduction from gemming even all resil, is worth the big reduction in self defense and self healing ability. We are plate armor wearers and have excellent damage mitigation if used correctly even if our own damage output is nothing special. And don’t forget, as you upgrade to Ruthless gear you will be way past the point of Resil diminishing returns anyway because even just a few pieces gives you 3800+ Resil.
Seriously all this Resil talk is either Warrior Tank or Cloth armor wearer mentality. To them, every 1% is worth it. We are different.
The only FCs that come close to us in efficiency are Blood DKs as they also have plate armor, and self healing abilities as well.
Just today I was in Twin Peaks as FC with my ‘strength build’, sitting in the Flag room alone waiting for the DPS to kill the EFC, there was a DK, a Rogue, and a Shaman hitting me full on and I just stood there dancing and hit the occasional WoG. Then I took out the Rogue and DK by myself, help arrived, and wiped the Shaman.
Later in the same BG but a different battle the same thing again plus a Hunter hitting me from upstairs, with just me and a Holy Pally from our team, it was so easy lol.
I never get killed taking the flag from A to B. IF I get taken down, it is only in the Flag room with no healer and the enemy team hits me really hard for more than a couple of minutes.
I’m nothing special, If I can do it, everyone can do it.
Oh, regarding the trinkets, I stick with the PvP STR ones, but there are some pretty nasty PvP weapons and Trinkets out now, so yes if your Resil is high enough, they are definitely worth looking at as options.
I have the PvP weapon, but I use a PvE one and will continue to until I upgrade to the Ruthless PvP one, or can get my hands on a high level PvE one ;-)
At the moment in RBGs, the hard to beat teams have all been armed with PvE gear :-P
I do that all the time – i gem resil and trinket strength. If I am with a 4 healer group in RBG’s I can also add another damage trinket. Remember we wear plate which also gives us protection. In some instances I will use both of my resil trinkets because the situation necessitates i.e., damage abilities of the opposing team. Just be flexible and add macros that allow you to switch in and out with a single key stroke.
Always in bg’s and rbg’s look at the opposing team before you enter the bg and size up your needs. Also look at your team mates and make decisions on their strengths and weaknesses. Make use of that wait time. Don’t just sit there. Since damage spec’ed paladins are second class players, we need look at any advantage we can leverage on the field.
Been going back and forth, spending gold on gems… I looked at the numbers, and the difference in WoG healz when ya go back and gem all STR is minimal as well.
So, gem STR, have more damage (which aint really our forte anyways)
OR gem RESIL and have more damage reduction, and slightly less WoGs…
I imagine that at the end of the day, its 6 of one or half a dozen of the other…
Resil is vital for PvP, but the amount we now get with our gear puts us easily past the point of diminishing returns.
Gemming all Resil will give you at the most an extra 3~4% damage reduction ATM (which will continue to reduce as you get more Ruthless gear). But the reduction in Spellpower from the loss in STR will give you prolly a 10% drop in self healing ability or more (as well as your ability to defend yourself), which might not seem like much, but to me it will more than compensate for the minor buff from Gemming Resil. and is more than enough to save your ass when in trouble.
Even with a bit more damage reduction from Resil, moving away from STR makes you more reliant on healers, which I personally don’t like.
The ability to heal yourself for even an extra 5% is far greater than an extra 5% damage reduction. Think about it.
The other main Tank in my guild is a Prot Warrior with 4.3k Resil, and he goes down much quicker than I do once the healers are taken out, even though he`s a much more experienced Tank than I am. He will only really do RBGs with 4 healers, whereas I don’t really care as long as we have at least 2.
Don’t really know what else I can say about it.
Regarding out Damage output, this is one of the reasons I am in no hurry to upgrade my weapon, it is much better overall now to upgrade the other gear first in my opinion given the STR, STAM, and Resil we get from them.
One interesting thing I found in testing, Mastery does seem to have some benefit for us now compared to Crit. Crit doesn’t do anything for our constant damage output and is very situational it seems. Testing on Dummies, I ‘unreforged’ Crit back to Mastery on Helm and Cloak, and did more damage wtf…
And given the extra defence against Melee, it seems from where I sit, a better stat for Prot as a Tank than Resil (PROVIDED your ilvl is at least 365 and you have the Resil from that).
Food for thought anyway.
Getting consistent damage would seem like the way to go and the practice dummies can verify the benefits of mastery. But…. being kited, feared, stunned, frozen, silenced, etc. reduces my consistency. So when I am finally attacking, I need everything I have which means I need the big crit. Dummies are great but their real-world function is questionable. Field testing is they way to go. Since the playing field is different each game, you would have to do a lot of testing.
I don’t do heavy mastery or crit but seek a balanced approach between the two..
Agreed Mark, balance is what i’m looking for too. The biggest Damage Crits I am consistently managing are only about 37k with my best only 41k (most are around 25k though). But considering I don’t use Macros (but am looking at it now) that’s prolly not too bad. And the damage output is very constant. My WoG Crits are much bigger though with HP up they are never below 25k and prolly half are 45k with the biggest ones well over 60k.
I noticed that the only difference between my set up and the top Rets was Mastery, and as I have been doing a lot of Ret lately to get into RBGs when someone else is Tanking, I wanted to see if a move from Crit to Mastery would harm Prot, and it was actually better.
Rets still can’t beat me as Prot though :-p
I only have the Helm and Cloak back to the standard Mastery at the moment and certainly won’t put any more in without a lot of testing and won’t do anything that will harm Prot. Generally my testing procedure is: I will do at least an hour or two on Dummies and average everything out, then Problim in TB, then BGs.
For what it’s worth, GMs told me that the dummies are about 90% accurate, which to me seems about right.
I just did my first ever few 2×2 arenas using this spec with only season 10 vicious shoulders, legs and chest from honor points I had bought with justice points, the rest of my gear being reasonable 353-359 pve damage stuff. k the first 5 were wipes, because I had to get used to pvp having only ever pve’d before but over all i got 8 wins out of 11, which i thought was quite good, given my lack of experience. I will be sticking with this spec for now.
I’ve started a 3’s team with an Arms Warrior, and Resto Druid. We won 5/6 battles. This seems to be a great team. We’ve been 3’s dos teams and 3’s teams similar to us. Bomb the healer and/or caster and you’ve won. I’m not the best geared, I’ve got mostly vicious 9 and 10 and some bloodthirsty and a couple ruthless. Check out my gear/gems/spec: Polifema. I love being a tank. keep it up.
PS I wish taugrim would come back and do some 4.3 updates… :)
Checked your gear. Remember enchants…proper Cata Prot/Ret enchants. Good going with the 3’s team, glad you are having fun with it and feeling good! Keep it up.
Bloodniron@Gnomeregan
I could only do that if I were playing WoW again, so that I could test out the game mechanics myself.
I’m playing RIFT now, and the next game(s) I would consider playing are SWTOR and GW2.
Hope things go well for your 3s team :)
Tau…
I wish I could jump to RIFT, but at this point, I’m afraid that I’d just get in the same situation somehow. I have so much time and expense vested in WOW via Bloodniron… I can’t see leaving. Although I must say its hard as hell right now to feel like I’m doing anything worthwhile. Worthwhile in a game? Hmmm… Well ya know what I mean… I just want to kick a little ass once in awhile, and not have to relearn everything.
I understand what you mean by time invested.
The thing is, sunk cost is sunk cost. If you don’t feel like you aren’t doing anything wortwhile, does that mean you aren’t enjoying yourself?
A new game might be refreshing. Learning new mechanics can be fun.
Check this out, it’s the RIFT spec calculator. Just looking at it is what convinced me to try RIFT:
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html
Okay, thinking about RIFT… Given that I love melee, I love Tanking, and I want to produce viable dps, if I join, do you suggest that I try the RB/Champ/Paladin spec that you talk about in your blog?
And is there a good overview of what to REALLY expect, in regard to PvP?
Maybe a change to something more…flexible…would be good.
Well, if you would be OK healing 3 times as effectively as your Prot PVP Pally but having half the DPS, you could run what I use, my M*A*S*H Melee Healer Cleric spec:
To me, M*A*S*H provides functional DPS, with some mini-burst:
taugrim.com/2011/08/27/mash-rift-cleric-healer-pvp-guide/
Check out the videos to see what it’s like.
The main differences, compared to WoW PVP:
1. a lot of DPS specs have functional healing
2. Warriors are squishier in RIFT compared to other games but pack hard burst damage
I don’t know guys, but Blizz has screwed pallys, RET and PROC. They made a hybrid class that really has no utility. It’s really sad that we get left off the PVP invites, that we can’t compete with other classes. It’s really sad that others are so OP’ed. When it comes to blance – Blizz is fail. I think thy have really lost it. Now the Pandas are coming out. I am done. I am not playing with Pandas.
Warriors are pretty squishy in WOW now too ;-) Prot Pally destroys them.
I have been doing well in RBGs and Arena considering the server I am on is a joke for PvP and finding a partner who will do Arena other than for points cap is basically impossible. I am leveling another Pally on Tichondrius and will see how that server is and if it is worthwhile, it certainly is way more hardcore than Daggerspine lol.
I have been experimenting with Mastery and have found it is not as useless a stat for us as we thought, whereas Crit is not what it’s cracked up to be and a balance between the 2 seems a good way to go. That and trying different weapon specs and enchants, I have found that for pure survivability the ‘Weapon Mending’ enchant is really good making a noticeable difference. That and getting my First Aid skill up too lol, I am am about as unkillable as possible, without sacrificing too much DPS. I have not gemmed Resil (except for belt where I had a spare blue socket and didn’t need hit so I put in 20 Resil/30 Stam ) or moved away from STR as the main stat.
I go into RBGs and Arena with my ‘damage’ weapon, and depending on the opponents I will change to the ‘survival’ one. This is especially helpfull in BGs where damage is better for caps, and survival is better for protecting caps or as FC. It is sometimes amazing how long I can survive with half the enemy team DPS’ing me lol. And in some cases I even wear them down enough to kill them all, (prolly nubs though lol).
The 40% extra damage buff to SoT via Censure we just got is also a welcome boost to out damage muhahaha :-)
Aloha,
I’m still loving the prot pvp. Only in bgs though, arena isn’t much fun for me but i don’t realy care :)
The thing i’m still wondering about is the reforging.
What do we reforge to? Crit or Mastery?
Crit seems good for damage, but as FC we need to last longer.
Mastery seems only good against melee damage…
And for weapon enchant, we have only 2 choices imo (as fc).
Mending or Wind Walker.
Any tips/suggestions?
How can we know/test which is the best choice?
@Dave,
I have been going back and forth between Crit and Mastery, and for now will stay with Mastery as it really helps when I spec as Ret (which is about 50% of the time these days to get Arena, and RBGs when they want to use a DK or Druid for FC). From my experience as FC, survivability does seem better, although it is hard to tell.
I have also been experimenting with different Prot talent builds on my other 85 Pally and may have found one that greatly increases survivability (with lower damage of course) but am still experimenting with that. The main difference is with an extra 60% Crit chance on WoG.
Regarding the enchant, I have found that Mending, used with Seal of Insight gives pretty good constant healing and is more than enough if you only have a couple of people on you hitting you hard.
When I don’t have the Flag, I still use a higher damage PvE weapon and Landslide.
I tried Ret again, for a week… Still don’t like it. “Rotation” too clunky. Yeah, I know… there is no rotation for Ret, but still…
So I decided that what I needed to do was reacquaint myself with our basic Paladin abilities, and “Calling”, make sure I’m using my healing, utility, etc., abilities, and not just trying to kill stuff and self-heal.
Made a macro that target’s my 2’s partner with a bubble and a heal, and that in itself helped already.
Gemming according to Taugrim’s guide (RED: Strength; BLUE: Strength/Hit; YELLOW: Strength/Resil).
Reforging to Crit, after an exact 5% Hit. Mastery does next to nothing for us. In my experience, the one’s that are really hurting me are casters, and Block is only useful against melee that we are facing. (Those filthy back-stabbing rogues are not hindered by our Mastery…).
I played with Haste awhile. Found that it does not much of anything as well. Stick to Crit. Makes for higher damage, and better heals. Yes, we are reliant on RNG, but… So is everyone in the game.
Yeah Ret takes a bit of getting used to, will take a lot more than a week to really get to know it.
But as with Prot, there is NO ‘rotation’ for PvP, everything is situational. I still don’t use any macros for attack at all.
Probably the closest thing we have to a rotation are some basic attacks/spells that we can spam to a degree, because interrupts will reset a lot of what we use which will seriously mess with macros and the like.
The only macros you need are for WoG, HoP, and Freedom for your partner(s) if Arena. And maybe a burst macro one if you like.
The key to PvP is keybinds, this is where time is gained or lost.
Regarding Mastery, I have found it helps to have the extra block when an FC. I can effectively completely ignore Rogues, DKs, and Warriors(lol) and just worry about Casters.
If Arena though, yes a Crit build is still probably better for sure.
In my case I have just had to balance things.
Regarding Haste, as I mentioned some time ago, I did LOT of testing on Dummies and found that on the weapon it gave a worthwhile DPS increase (38 Haste = 61 DPS), but anywhere else on you only about 10DPS so is not worth it compared to what you give away to get it.
In regard to BG’s…
First thing I do when I beam into a random BG is set my role as “Tank.” Then see what healers there are, if any. Make sure you have a healer, and you don’t have to worry so much about SoI and heal-proccing weapon chants.
SoT and Landslide will kill your attackers quicker. Make sure you have some good macros for those “O Snap!” moments…
Best bet is to make friends with a PvP healer on your server. Run together when you can, so you don’t have to wonder about the healers in your randoms…
Meanwhile, get your gear up to par as best you can. And don’t forget… PROTECTION PALADIN: ITS NOT JUST A JOB, ITS AN ADVENTURE.
I have been looking over some of the new PTR data that is coming out and would some feedback on an idea I have for the upcoming PVP Season. I have enjoyed playing as a Prot Pall in PVP since i first came across this thread in the beginning of cataclysm and have been rolling with the punches that have come through the last few patches. I am definitely excited about the buff to Vengeance
the first melee attack taken by the tank generates Vengeance equal to 33% of the damage taken by that attack. In addition, as it updates periodically during the fight, it’s always set to at least 33% of the damage taken by the tank in the last 2 seconds
as it will make it more viable in PVP.
The second think is the 2 piece raid set bonus
Your Judgement ability now also grants a physical absorb shield equal to 25% of the damage it dealt.
I am thinking about replacing my hands and legs with 2 of these pieces. I have done a little calculating with the data on the PTR and I should still be about to get around 4.1k Resil with the raid piece in my set and the mitigation fromt he bubble should be high since i keep my judgement on cooldown. I am hoping this may help even out my dmg as now i currently take the most dmg from spell casters and this bubbles should help mitigate that.
I would like to here some other Prot PVP Opinions
I have not seen this yet. Been away for a few days playing RIFT (BADASS GAME!!!).
Regarding this PVE 2-piece Judgement bonus… Let’s look at the numbers. If I recall correctly, If I use SoT, my 85 Prot with strength stacked to the gills has a Judgement that hits for around 3k damage.
.25 x 3000 = 750
So… What you’re saying is that you will give up whatever you are giving up (including the 4-piece PvP bonus) for the sake of having a physical absorb shield of 750… Doesn’t sound like much of a deal to me.
I agree that at first it doesn’t sound like much and it may also just be a situational build. Also I have not tested the way the absorb works yet so many of these factors will play a part in the viability of this combo. such as can you store it up and how long it last before it falls off.
As for trade offs
The 4p you give up are 1s cooldown reduction on judgement and 90str.
but you gain and extra gem slot from the raid legs and the stats seem to be very fairly equal.
so for the sake of things lets say that the only thing you are trading is the resilience from pvp pieces and the judgements 1s cooldown reduction.
Now with the high amount of resil that is already on all of the rest of the pvp gear we will be way over the soft cap and the question really is do we more mitigation from the absorb or the resilience.
I know .25 x 3000 = 750 doesn’t seem like much but it equates to 5625 per minute which it not going to make you OP but may save your life
I haven’t done any experimenting on PTR yet, but plan to in the next week or so.
Since Ret is taking a bit of an ass kicking from a pvp perspective (even though it’s being sold as a buff), I plan on playing around with prot again to see how it feels.
With the substantial buff to Judgement of Truth, as well as some of the other baseline changes (vengeance for example), I expect that this patch will somewhat narrow the gap in “practical damage output” for pvp between prot and ret. Obviously ret will still be miles ahead on stationary targets or dummies, but with the reduction of ranged burst in favour of damage which requires melee range, and no improvements to mobility (snare/gap closer), I expect that ret will be worse off after the patch goes live unless the patch notes change substantially between now and then.
^^ For the sake of continuity of comments, this was posted by Cylarus of Darkspear. Damn pre-populated fields.
Ret is losing most of it`s Crit from Hammer of Wrath, but the general consensus now is a pretty good boost to overall damage with the other changes. I guess time will tell which way it really goes…
Here’s a question that I have that relates to this recent discussion of the physical absorb shield…
How is the damage reduction/mitigation calculated?
For example, let’s say an enemy player hits you for 15k physical damage. Where does the 15k damage go?
Does the 15k first hit the physical absorb shield for 750, leaving 14,250 damage
the 14,250 hits the armor for 35% damage reduction
Sorry, did not mean to post the above. Was still trying to formulate my question, and lost sight of it… Please disregard, or remove if possible. Thanks…
Got no time, nor brainpower, for study of the matter… Lol…
I think it is Valid. I am trying to figure all the details out myself. I am also interested in knowing if it stacked or builds up if you are judging and not taking dmg. Also if it does what is the decay rate or duration of the shield
Okay, lunch time, mayhap I can think this thru a bit. Just a bit…
I’m not a theorycrafter, so I don’t know all the formulae/Math involved but here’s my basic understanding…
Someone hits you with an ability that should produce ‘Z’ physical damage.
Your armor reduces the damage of Z by a certain percentage, so that Z is lowered.
Your Block/Parry/etc… also reduces it somewhat.
Resilience (in PvP situations) reduces damage further…
But my thought is that, somewhere along the line, that 750hp physical absorb shield doesn’t count for a whole lot, so why not use gloves that have a damage boost, i.e., the PvP gloves?
Pretty much, every time you Judge (once every 8 seconds?), you’ll create this 750hp physical absorb shield. But very, very likely, someone’s going to be hitting you back. That 750 will be gone in less than one tick. What happens the rest of the time, and to the rest of the damage dealt, is of far more importance, imho, than the 750hp…
[…] at launch and (time permitting) write up detailed Guides for PVP and PVE. I mean Guides like this one, which to-date has ~1000 comments and is stickied on the WoW Pally […]
sooo…why arent we gemming/reforgeing for dodge/parry ….would seem to be the go to stats to stack for an FC blizz seems intent on making squishy in comparison to the other FC options.
If you know your Prot, then you know that our MASTERY is about Chance to Block… So if you want to go that route, you would be much better off by stacking/prioritizing Mastery than Dodge or Parry. HOWEVER… That being said, Block, Dodge, and Parry are ONLY good for melee/physical attacks that you are facing. They do NOTHING against the many non-physical attacks we face out there. THEREFORE Resilience is what we want, defensively, in PvP, as far as an FC/BG-defender goes.
As far as Blizz-intent… Bah, who knows.
Have fun out there!
feel free to checkme out on kil’ jaeden..not too shabby for my first season :) in fact i found that gem for gem chant for chant the amount of dodge/parry we can attain vs the amount of mastery able to be attained, the dodge/parry stack mitigates approx double (2.3times) the amount of dmg. i can only assume at this point however that the amount of res stacked within the same slots would have to mitigate more dmg than the dodge/parry stack as only physical attacks facing us would be mitigated same as block. i’ll check it out and let ya know…..i’ve found the best arena partner to be a blood dk synchronizing our cc’s and bursts has proven quite effective….what are some of your rbg ratings and prefered healer combinations of the moment….i am partial to a disc and a resto druid on me atm
as far as blizz goes….screw em, i am glad i roll a class and spec i cant smash my face into my keyboard with and still come out looking like a champion.
Might be a stupid thing to ask, but do you have older versions of your guide, specifically back to patch 3.3.5? I watched the old videos and I was instantly a fan of how you play. I’m new to the class and PvP with a Prot Pally, so any help would be great. I’m also on a private server which is why I’m playing 3.3.5. Thanks
rofl thx for this man i wanted to know this rly bad
Hey Guys
New season coming up.
Have you checked the new PVE tier bonuses and are they worth it maybe taking a 2p PVE set bonus? Or should we keep playing with the 4p RET PVP ones?
I’m thinking of these…
* Old PVE Prot seems good for extra SoTR damage, but we lose bit of str + 400 resi and some basic stats.
* New PVE Prot seems good for Flag Carriers.
* New PVE Ret seems nice for anyone realy. Fastter Holy Power
– NEW PVP:
(2) Set: +400 resilience rating.
(2) Set: Increases Strength by 70.
(4) Set: Reduces the cooldown of your Judgements by 1 sec.
(4) Set: Increases Strength by 90.
– OLD PVE PROT:
2 pieces: Your Shield of the Righteous deals 20% additional damage as Fire damage.
– NEW PVE RET:
2 pieces: Your Judgement ability now also generates 1 Holy Power.
– NEW PVE PROT:
2 pieces: Your Judgement ability now also grants a physical absorbtion shield equal to 25% of the damage it dealt.
Both Ret and Prot much stronger now. Ret`s filling the 3`s upper ranks, and Prots starting to creep into some 5`s teams here and there. BGs are seeing Prot a lot more now too yay!
Hey Bloodniron, get back over here to DS and join my guild bro, nothing but ARENA and RBGs ;-)
[…] stickied Protection Paladin Cataclysm PVP Guide on the WoW Pally forum. The copy of the Guide on my blog has ~1000 comments. During my time in Cataclysm, I was the only Prot Pally rated 2k+ in the 2v2 and 3v3 Arena brackets […]
Unsub’ing this thread… Becoming less and less relevant… Taugrim hasn’t played WoW in a year, no updates, etc… And I understand why. But I’m sticking with WoW as it is where I have some RL friends (could never get them to even try RIFT… and I have not logged into RIFT in over a month…) and I’ve invested a lot in WoW. Getting back into PvE tanking, and looking at a PvP build that is more tank-like… Good luck, one and all!
Take care man, and thanks for all your insightful comments!
There look to be some positive changes coming for Prot Pallies in Mists of Pandaria.
Blood, its a shame to see you leave the thread, your comments during the past year have been very useful.
Any tanking or PVP advice you can give I’ll be glad to have it.
Best of Luck!
Mavros@Quel’Thalas
They are still useful advice. Details of each fine-tune itself.
Blizzard has now nerf burst damage, no vengeance in pvp, but still playable prot PvP paladin.
See you in the MoP
Been a while since i’ve been here. Been playing ret and holy (holy for rbg), but lost the fun in the game tbh. Nothing compares (or compared) to my prot pally times.
– Anyone still playing prot pala pvp and in what? bg fun, rbg as fc, arena?
– What’s your current and best ranking?
– How does prot pvp feel since the vengeance nerf? Thinks it’s still doable?
I gave it a try last night, and as FC in RBGs it wasnt too bad. Battlegrounds just arent my thing though, and when I tried to arena it was woeful to say the least. Even 1v1 duels is just ridiculous. I think the benefits of playing ret right now (or to be more accurate, the lack of benefit for prot) are too big to ignore and that although you can still win arenas with a prot, its not going to be because of your amazing ability, but rather the fact that your partner can pick up ALOT of the slack.
Makes me sad, but im getting pretty good with Ret (hit 1700 last night) and I think I’m going to keep it. We’ll have to see what the xpac brings but i’m not holding my breath.
I haven’t played as much as I like, the last few months maybe only a few hours here and there.
But I’m still into BGs (love php). FC and just general dps and support off-heals as prot…30 000-45 000 WoG heals are fantastic. And the 12k FoL heals are not bad either.
I’ve got a good mix spec of prot/ret, with dps specced gear and trinks with 4.7k resilience. It’s all around awesome for everything in bgs. And world pvp.
Polifema@Gorgonnash
I’m tossing out usually 1.5-2 million damage per bg- usually warsong and arathi (my favs) With around 5-12 kills all depending on bg length and my role.
Not bad, not the greatest. But it’s still a very fun and viable spec. I’m waiting on the mists of pandaria update (can’t fully stop playing as I purchased the annual pass..lol) and will see what the talents are like. They seem promising.
I haven’t done arena in a while, my goal is 1550 in 2s. Or 3s. Highest I have achieved is 1520…sighhh.
Prot POWA.
I mostly play Ret now and have gone over 2200 in 3`s. Not a chance as Prot unfortunately, but I still FC as Prot in BGs and as long as I have at least one heals i’m usually good. But yeah the vengence nerf made a noticeable difference in Arena and even in BGs.
Prot will always be my favourite. I can still 1v1 pretty much anyone in BGs as Prot, takes a while though and I prolly bore them to death lol
I even rolled another Prot / Ret on another server lol.
Hopefully MOP will have some good news for us.
@Anthoneo, Good to see that you are hanging in there, howbeit in that ‘other’ spec, lol… I’ve been doing nothing but PvE dungeons/raids and working on acheivements and reputations (for acheivements) the past 2-3 months. My PvP gear is sitting in the bank :-(
But there’s plenty of acheivements that I can work on in BGs and arena that I have not yet acheived…
Oh, in my boredom, I switched to Draenei, so I can now say that Bloodniron has been all 5 paladin-friendly races. Started as Human, switched to Blood Elf and eventually Tauren, returned to Human, Dwarf briefly (I like dwarves, but Blood didn’t…), back to Human, and now Draenei. I like Draenei, as I’m a relatively big man (6’2″), and I love sci-fi themes… I like the healing racial. Comes in handy.
Last few days I’ve actually been pondering returning to PvP as Ret myself, for now… I got burned out in a few PvP guilds that take this stuff wayyyy too seriously and at the same time, wayyy too immaturely. Most of the PvP guilds I’ve been in or talked with seemed populated by teenagers…
Have you heard of an addon called CLCRet? It helps prioritize abilities for Ret.
Whats the word on this now in days?? With MoP around the corner is there any hope for this build? I just started a Prot pally but now i wonder if i should do something else…
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Dead or not, Taugrim playing or not, I still love port. It’s not as viable as before, but it is amazing as support in BG’s and as an FC. I realize guard druids have upwards of 1 million health and don’t die……..BUT without prot, I wouldn’t have fun in the game :) haha
I hope that blizzard does something to make it viable again, a little more mechanics.
I think it’s a fun spec and have a great time playing it. I’ve since also specced into Ret, which is insanely strong and kills people instantly, but I still have more fun as a tank.
Anyways, keep on keepin’ on.
Bye :)
I’ve found a newer protection paladin PVP guide. Whilst Taugrim was amazing for the day, Venoma’s guide is still relevant and just as spectacular.
It’s a little out of date, but it’s still a great read. It’s a simple build, and the information was right in front of me the whole time – with glyphs and gems and such.
I’ve increased my damage output in battlegrounds from about 1-2 million to 5-7 million. And I actually get 5+ kills now… I’m using the more damage output build with glyph of harsh words, glyph of word of glory, and glyph of focused shield – the “mini-inquiboom” works really well – my AV crits for about 60-80k in battlegrounds. And I’ve specced the FoL talent for increased heals – and I can use WoG or FoL instantly now.
The other one is Eternal Glory to heal yourself or partner, and get the mini-inqiboom, and up your AV with focused shield, dazing shield, and glyph of holy wrath or even double jeopardy. I like this for its huge survivability – but I noticed that damage suffers, especially burst in Arena.
I am actually very useful in 2’s arena with an Arms Warr. – I haven’t done that well, but I’ve stayed around the 1290-1350 range.
I use a bit of haste, lots of str and some crit and it’s quite good. Check out my character and build if you like: Polifema @ Kel’Thuzad.
Here’s the link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3082029869
Thanks,
Jordan