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- Our Judgement spells have been replaced by one Judgement spell.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 
Been looking for a 4.0.1 prot pvp guide everywhere.
Thanks a lot. :)
About the recommended cloak enchant… Agility no longer gives us crit and armor. It only gives us dodge. I hardly say it’s worth enchanting now. I hate to say it, but it looks like greater speed is our best option unless you want armor. For engineers it would be the Springy Arachnoweave which gives you spell power AND greater speed.
Engineers, don’t forget that if you enchant your gear and it gives a “use” effect then it will stack with regular enchants.
About the recommended cloak enchant… Agility no longer gives us crit and armor
Agi still gives Crit.
My 60 hit cloak has 22 Agi on it. When I take it off (no BoK), I lose 0.43% Crit. So Agi still gives Crit.
51 Agi = 1% Crit.
Hey Tau,
Good video – I like the new Holy Power mechanic, Rets healing others in BGs with Word of Glory is hilariously fantastic!
Yeah, everything is a bit OP at the moment, aside the poor Warriors.
This is by far the worst patch for it, but it is quite funny to watch everyone be a bit nooby for a few days whilst learning to adapt.
I will get nerfed no doubt.
I had that duel versus my friend the Moonkin a while back, here is the video if you’re interested.
Very fun fight to watch in my opinion.
I like the new Holy Power mechanic, Rets healing others in BGs with Word of Glory is hilariously fantastic!
I think it’s a good thing – that class mechanics encourage team play in PVP such as healing others. But some people are complaining that it makes classes like Paladin feel too hybridy.
here is the video if you’re interested.
Can’t watch it now but I look forward to checking it out.
Let me know how your class(es) are doing with the new Patch. Mage seems very very strong right now, they’re just wrecking people in BGs.
Hi Taugrim.
First off, great guide! This is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been scouring the net for…jackpot!
A few questions though:
Why did you take Divine Guardian? The ‘except the paladin’ part turned me off it a bit. Maybe I’m just selfish haha!
What do you think of eye for an eye? Would this not help with casters? (our bane)
Thanks mate, once again great guide!
First off, great guide! This is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been scouring the net for…jackpot!
Glad to hear it :)
Why did you take Divine Guardian? The ‘except the paladin’ part turned me off it a bit. Maybe I’m just selfish haha!
There’s some history here. Pre-4.0, there was a talent called Divine Sacrifice, which redirected party damage taken to the Paladin. This was useful in arena to avoid getting chain Sheeped or Blinded – the CC on the Paladin would be broken by the transferred damage. That effect no longer exists.
That being said, there is no downside to using DG now – the Paladin doesn’t take any damage – and it’s an AOE damage reduction for the entire raid, which is powerful for mass combat. I can see this having a lot of value for defending or capping nodes in BGs.
What do you think of eye for an eye? Would this not help with casters? (our bane)
It’s 40% chance to reflect 30% damage, or in other words, 12% of the caster’s damage is reflected back to them.
I’d rather have 2 points in Improved Judgement instead of EfaE for the ranged damage and mana regeneration proc. I switched from Crusade to IJ last night and IJ is a great talent for PVP.
With IJ, you can keep your mana up while being kited, so that you have enough mana to cast heals without blowing through your mana pool. This is key, because while being kited you can’t generate Holy Power (requires melee range) so to get your health up you can’t rely on WoG and have to cast heals (e.g. Flash of Light).
If you are going OOM against Mages, I highly recommend IJ. It helps a lot.
You did not mention reforging – haste, mastery. etc??
You did not mention reforging – haste, mastery. etc??
Not yet :D
I haven’t tried Reforging yet. From the bits I’ve read:
– Prot Mastery increases block %, so I don’t think it makes sense to stack Mastery points for PVP
– As far as Haste goes, Retribution has a reason to stack it as the Sanctity of Battle talent enables Haste to lower the cooldown of Crusader Strike. But I’m not sure Prot has a reason to stack Haste
Good to see you are still at it. PvP balance is going to be kind of farked until people are 85 in Cataclysm.
@ Jay – ‘Been looking for a 4.0.1 prot pvp guide everywhere.’
I second that.
Putting 3/3 in Protector of the Innocent and using 1 stack of Holy Power for the bonus is inspired. I was dying waiting for 3 stacks to get the most out of Word of Glory.
I took Rhidach’s advice (http://rhida.ch/2010/10/13/glyph-of-divine-protection-bugged-awesome/) and glyphed divine protection to get 20% magic reduction when divine protection is used. That extra help with casters is priceless.
You’d be better served not taking advantage of what Rhidach talks about – it’s an unintended crutch.
Hey Tau,
Thanks a lot for the great guide!
BTW, can you tell what kind of gear you’re using??
For the 1st two videos, here’s my gear…
The following pieces came from PVP:
* From honor points: necklace, cloak, bracers, ring, Medallion trinket, Battlemaster’s trinket
* From WG: shoulders
* From arena points + honor points: Relentless helm, Relentless chest
* From arena rating + honor points: belt, boots
The following pieces came from PVE:
* From VoA25: Wrathful hands, Wrathful legs
* From PVE: i264 1H sword from ICC25 (Saurfang), i219 shield from normal HoR
* From badges: Libram of Three Truths
* From ICC rep: ring
I still need to get a good DPS trinket.
You can now purchase Arena Wrathful gear that has a rating requirement without having the rating (except for the shoulders and 2200-rated gear):
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27303221811&postId=272830452353&sid=1#2
I had heard this in-game but didn’t want to post about it until I found confirmation that this is not a bug.
This is the spec+glyphs I am using right now:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scZhrRcRddRMu0b:cV0bVRmcM
I find that healing on melee hits using Seal of Insight + 5% extra healing from the glyph has kept me alive long enough to accomplish more damage than the Seal of Truth dots could ever do.
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scZhrRcRddRMu0b:cV0bVRmcM
I find that healing on melee hits using Seal of Insight + 5% extra healing from the glyph has kept me alive long enough to accomplish more damage than the Seal of Truth dots could ever do.
That’s an extreme high-survivability spec, as you have both SoI and WoG glyphed. Must be incredible for solo-defending nodes while outnumbered :)
You just reminded me of something I love about this patch – there are a lot more spec options to suit one’s playstyle. You go for higher survivability and I go for more damage. Pre-4.0, there was pretty much just the Jagoss spec for Prot.
Added a credit to you above, thanks for the suggestion.
can ou give me the armory link,please?
Nice guide, nice job, nice pala :P
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Wildhammer&cn=Taugrimm
What about stacking intelligence instead of strength. Afaik paladins use the highest stat for the calculation of holy damage. The ratio for intelligence to spellpower is 1.0 for strength its only 0.6. Sure the shield would not hit as hard as with stacked strength but what about avenger shield and hammer damage? Oh and ofcourse the insane heals from WoG that you would get with this setup.
Sorry for the bad english, its not my first language :)
What about stacking intelligence instead of strength
Short answer: I haven’t tested myself, as I don’t have a full set of Holy PVP gear.
There has been debate on this question on the forums:
http://forums.wowlite.net/thread.php?id=27387870615&pageNo=1&forumID=10018
Aside from the damage, a minor benefit of Strength is the parry increase, but that’s only helpful against melee opponents.
I’m hoping someone does a test with PVP gear and posts the results – I won’t be able to do so because I lack the gear (and money for gems/enchants).
Sorry for the bad english, its not my first language :D
Your English is excellent, and hello to you in Deutschland!
Hey Tau, I looked at your armory and noticed you had the PVP healing shield, I understand for the crit, sp for holy abilities and all. I was wondering would the Heroic Neverending Winter be a better choice than the PVP shield?
I use the Wrathful shield with Int and Crit, because there is no PVP shield with AP or Str. And I consider it an upgrade from my i219 Splintered Door of the Citadel shield from normal Halls of Reflection. Granted I do more damage with the i219 but overall the Wrathful shield is better.
If I had a good PVE shield with a lot of Strength as you do, I’d be using that. If you are using the shield exclusively for PVP, consider reforging either Dodge or Parry to Crit.
Ok, thanks, I will just use what I get the other pieces I need and not waste honor on the PVP shield.
Thanks a ton. It would have took me weeks to learn how to use my pally in pvp again. saved me alot of time and effort. :)
Thanks!
Posts like Jay’s, Gyl’s and yours make the time I invest in writing a guide like this worthwhile.
Vengeance stacks extremly fast so every stamina point is a little AP buff.
That’s true.
EDIT (2010/10/24): I just remembered that I forgot about Touched by the Light (TbtL), which increases Sta by 15%. So actually the AP difference between Str and fully-stacked Vengeance is much closer than I was expecting:
That said, there are two further considerations:
1. Str converts at 60% to Spell Power per TbtL, so that increases our damage for many abilities that scale with SP
2. whether or not stacking Sta even matters from an AP perspective is whether you can even get to fully-stacked Vengeance and stay there. Remember that you get 5% of damage taken as AP, up to a max of 10%. That means to get to max Vengeance, you basically have to suffer damage amounting to twice your total Health. So it takes a while and you may already be dead. Vengeance fades quickly when you are out-of-combat or bubbled.
————————————–
The math…
1 pt Str = 2 AP, 2.1 w/ BoK
1 pt str = 0.6 Sp, 0.63 w/ BoK and TbtL
1 pt Sta = 10 Health, 12.075 w/ BoK and TbtL
12.075 Health x 10% (maxed Vengeance buff) = 1.2075 AP
1 pt Str = 1.5 Sta from an item budget perspective
1.5 Sta = 1.5 x 1.2075 AP = 1.81125 AP
Therefore:
2.1 AP + 1.2 SP (from 1 Str) > 1.81125 AP (from 1.5 Sta) from fully-stacked Vengeance
Hi,
First wanna thank you for the guide. I was actually runnin a ret alt pre 4.0 but always wanted to switch to Pret whitout finding any good info.
Just wanted to no if you could share macros also ;)
1/ I see in your vids that Jugement & Hammer of the Righteous seem to be link on the same key bind ?
It switches to Jugement when it’s up ? I need that xD
2/ Do you have the same kind you macro for a Hammer of the Righteous / Crusader Strike..
Thanks
Added a new Section for Macros, please see above.
Thanks for the feedback!
Ok cool, i’ll try this toonigh ;D
thks
Hey, i just ask myself, what macros you are using?
they look pretty fun :]
Nice guide! Just wondering, is there really a large benefit in having vindication for PVP? You’d think reckoning would be more useful for the dps boost since holy shield is up most of the time.
Or is the block just too low in ret gear? (I’m have mostly pve tank gear atm so I guess it’s a different story..)
Just wondering, is there really a large benefit in having vindication for PVP? You’d think reckoning would be more useful for the dps boost since holy shield is up most of the time.
I don’t take Reckoning for the reason that Elemental stated in the guide. We already have enough anti-melee capability as-is, and Reckoning is Physical damage.
Vindication is a significant Phys damage debuff on a target for 1 point and is helpful regardless whether your opponent is targeting you or a friendly player (e.g. a healer).
Or is the block just too low in ret gear?
Between Mastery (16%) and HS (15%) we have 31% Block. That’s not low per se.
I have to leave a note on this ;-)
First of all I want to thank you for posting those helpful macros. They are kind of essential if you dont have a g15 or something similar.
Second I’ve got to mention that this guide and the videos (especially your narration) are just great. Never had such an informative blog like this.
It changed my whole gameplay a lot which now makes really more fun to me since you can play it really agressive and people some sort try to ignore you because they think you’re holy or whatever :) (not doing damage – and bam 12k crits :)
So. Big big big thanks for your work and keep it up :)
Best regards
Markus
First of all I want to thank you for posting those helpful macros. They are kind of essential if you dont have a g15 or something similar.
FWIW, I use a stock mouse and keyboard.
I use the lowest common denominator equipment partly so my gameplay/keybinding setup works isn’t dependent on real equipment. I may get around to documenting keybinds.
Btw, if people have helpful macros, please post them, so other people can benefit!
Second I’ve got to mention that this guide and the videos (especially your narration) are just great. Never had such an informative blog like this.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ve been providing content like this for other classes in other games. I just came back to WoW earlier this year and with Patch 4.0.1 realized that there was an information gap that needed to be filled, hence this guide and the vids.
It changed my whole gameplay a lot which now makes really more fun to me since you can play it really agressive
Awesome. That an a nutshell summarizing Prot PVP to me. We can be aggressive and annoying because we’re durable. It’s fun :)
Is judgment of the just really more worthwhile than toughness? Considering both really only affect melee.
We need to put 2 points in either as filler to open up the 3rd and 4th levels of the Prot tree.
Toughness increases armor, which doesn’t help against bleeds and spell damage. And Toughness is only relevant if you are the target.
JotJ debuffs a target’s melee/ranged attack speed, which is useful regardless whether you are the target or not.
So I took JotJ over Toughness.
Hi,
I just had a little question … what is the UI you use to make the icon for Sacred Duty to pop in the middle of the screen??
Thank you!
That’s from an addon called Power Auras.
I just added an Addons / Power Auras section to the guide.
Currently I’m testing the following gear:
PvP Ret: Head/Shoulders/Chest/Wrist/Hands/belt/Pants/Boots/libram.
PvE Ret: Neck/Cloak/rings
Battlemaster Crit Trinket and the Resilience Medallion
PvP Spellcaster: Mace and Shield.
The reason behind this is that, the almost 1000 Spellpower from the weapon scales better with your WoG and Offensive attacks (except SotR and CS).
Because my weapons DPS and Max dmg is much lower when compared to, eg, the PvP melee mace, I’m not using CS at all, but use HotR always. Ofc the % of weapon dmg is a bit lower, but the holy dmg part of HotR is boosted by the extra spelldmg, also the 8Y range is nice for some cleaving and together with a 3 target AS nice extra dmg on your none primary targets (especially during Battlegrounds).
With this Spellcaster weapon setup, I will most likely loose some DPS (due to vengance not scalling on my melee hits and poorly with HotR), but my burst is better and I still think that burst > sustained DPS.
My Armory:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eonar&cn=Wraak
Does anyone have a link to the new coefficients for AP and SP for 4.0.1? It would be useful to help theorycraft, at least.
The reason behind this is that, the almost 1000 Spellpower from the weapon scales better with your WoG and Offensive attacks (except SotR and CS).
Have you tried target dummy testing between the 1H axe (Wrathful Gladiator’s Cleaver) and the 1H SP mace (Wrathful Gladiator’s Gavel)? Unfortunately, I don’t have a SP mace.
Because my weapons DPS and Max dmg is much lower when compared to, eg, the PvP melee mace, I’m not using CS at all, but use HotR always
Other things are affected by the low damage range (due to 1.6 speed) of the SP mace. E.g. not only CS and the Phys damage portion of HotR but also the SoT instant swings, crits from auto-attacks (I know, not a main source of damage).
That reminds me about shockadin Spiegelmann. I think I’m willing to try this out aswell. Please give us an update how your tests are working out.
Would be really interesting for me since I feel like I am doing more damage with HotR since I do use the glyph for it. Especially in 1 vs more situations.
By the way when it comes to addons I do use ForteXorcist aswell to see when my survival cds such as AD or Bubble come off cooldown.
You can find it here – http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/fortexorcist.aspx
I use the selfhealing seal (glyphed for an extra 5% healing) or Seal of justice to minimize kiting.
This is a more defensive playstyle, but my motto is: A dead guy don’t do dmg at all.
Spells that are stronger with a spelldmg weapon:
– AS, Exorcism, Judge, WoG, Concecration, AW, HoW?, all other heal spells, all Seal dmg except SoT
Spells that are weaker with spelldmg weapon:
– Base weapon attacks, CS, SoT dmg if you get 5 stacks on an enemy
Spells that are the same or need to be number crunched for exact effects with spelldmg weapon:
SotR, HotR (no data yet)
Since the main part of my burstdmg will come from AS, Judge and HoW (all other attacks just to peel of some of my enemies HP) and I use HotR/CS only to build up HoPo, a spelldmg weapon might favor (my) playstyle.
This is with a 3/31/2 defensive build.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=2&tal=030000000000000000003222022312012012023100200000000000000000
With a 0/31/5 build I think that the gladiator’s cleaver (melee pvp weapon) be better, but in that case I would aim more at doing heavy melee (whiteswings and CS) dmg.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=2&tal=030000000000000000003222022312012012023100200000000000000000
p.s. forgot to mention it in my first post, but your guide really helped me playing a decent protection paladin at PVP, I just want to keep the debate going on.
But a Lot of thnx for the side!!!
your talentlinks are both the same one.
rest seems reasonable.
I do have a question that just popped on my mind.
What’s the thing with mastery in pvp. Did anyone of you guys reforge anything?
Or is it a stat not worth to go for in pvp.
From the guide above:
Second build should be:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=2&tal=000000000000000000003222020312212012023103200000000000000000
Reforging to mastery ain’t worth it, since it only generates blockchange
imho you should proritize to following:
5% to hit change
Crit
All other stats are not worth it and should be reforged (hit or crit depending if you have 5% to hit).
Since most PvP gear has only crit (and res) as secundairy stat and your PvE neck/Rings/Cloak optimal should have crit and hit on them you can reforge them to get at 5% to hit (all below reforge some crit to hit, all above reforge hit to crit)
For gemms/enchants:
Str
Sta
Int/spellpower
Agility
I use str gemms on all red, str+sta gems on blue and str+crit in yellow sockets (if socket bonus is worth it)
sorry:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=2&tal=000000000000000000003222020312212012023103200000000000000000
(hope that you can edit posts)
bit sleepy here
ah sry. doublespamposting. my browser obviously didnt recon that :)
well i do use str gems but having 2k spellpower is just huge. i only do have about 1k atm.
will test that with the gear you have.
Just a little test to get some numbers from the test dummy.
Test is done with 3/31/2 spec and spellpower weapon with WoG glyph with Seal of I (healing) and 0/31/5 spec with melee wrathfull weapon and Crusader glyph and SoT.
Spellpower Melee difference
HotR/CS 1034 2479 -1445
AS 6890 6497 +393
Judge 2273 3063*
HW 3924 3145 +781
EX 3192 3112 +80
Melee 452(1.6sec) 874 (2.6sec)
WoG 4673 4372 +301
PoI 4329 – +4329
Seal o I 1199 –
Seal o T 333
As you see there is a big difference in HotR and CS, but HotR has AoE, but in terms of Burst spellpower weapon looses the difference might be even bigger with Vengance extra AP.
Also the melee weapon has some extra dmg from the seal, but this is marginal but still some extra. The extra dmg you get from 5 stacks (IF you can get them on a single target during PVP) is 333/swing
*Also The judges are higher, but keep in mind that this is also with 5 stacks, which basicly is 150% the normal judge dmg.
All other dmg spells will slightly favour a spellpower weapon with 1 exception, HW, which greatly bennifit from the spellpower
Also the selfhealing from the seal (1199/swing) and the extra healing from WoG and PoI (total of 4629 extra healing/ WoG) gives a lot more survivabilty.
Conclusion:
Yes you loose a pretty amount of damage (mainly melee dps) and gain a bit ranged dps (but not enough to compensate)
But your healing will be and impressive amount more with a spellpower weapon.
I dont know if a spellpower weapon gives enough punch for arena matches, it has enough for battlegrounds and a awesome amount of survivability which favours the extra spellpower for me.
If you have other experience, or some better test (eg what the effect of vengance is on the numbers), I would love to read them!
Spellpower Weapon is insane, just tested it imo the better healing and a hammer that rips through MULTIBLE enemys 3k damage a hit is absolutly worth it.
I mean 3k crits ^^ , but try it out its very good in BG.
EDIT (2010/11/05): please see the section in the guide for Upcoming Patch Changes for the latest info. Some of my comments below are outdated
—————–
Notes for Build 13221 have been posted:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2045-Cataclysm-Beta-Build-13221
Obviously this isn’t live yet, but let’s look at the possible impacts to Prot.
NEGLIGIBLE IMPACT
* Exorcism now scales from 34.4% of SpellPower or AP, up from 15%. Base damage increased by 15% from 2343 to 2741.
Exorcism shouldn’t part be of a Prot’s rotation.
* Holy Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3202-3567 to 4162-4637.
HL is not really a PVP ability even with the buff, as it still has the worst of both worlds: long cast time and small heal.
* Seal of Truth now scales from 12.85% of Attack Power and Spell Power (up from 12.5%) but now deals 15% weapon damage when stacked 5 times. Down from 16%.
SoT’s changes are so minor…why bother?
* Lay on Hands no longer restores mana.
LoH change won’t matter much in a solo context given our tools to regen mana, but it’s a slight nerf if casting on another player
* Avenger’s Shield now has a 15 sec cooldown, down from 24 sec.
AS already has a net 15 sec cooldown, so no real net change.
* Holy Wrath now scales from 61% of SpellPower, up from 30%. Base damage reduced by 22%, from 3122 to 2435.
Changes to HW seem to even out but will allow for better potential scaling.
BUFFS
* Divine Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 8538-9512 to 11100-12366
* Flash of Light base healing has been increased by 30%. From 5313-5961 to 6907-7750.
Both PVP cast-time heals got buffed significantly.
* Shield of the Templar no longer reduces the cooldown of Avenger’s Shield. Now allows your Divine Plea to generate 1/2/3 Holy Power.
This will provide a second mechanism for generating HoPo. Not sure offhand if this is macroable so that you can hit a macro to cast DP then hit it again to cancel the aura (because the heal debuff is crippling). Prior to this change, DP had gone from crucial for Prot in pre-4.0 to being of limited value in 4.0. So this is an interesting change, at least for Prot, to make it semi-relevant again.
* Wrath of the Lightbringer now increases the damage of Crusader Strike by 50% at Rank 1, up from 30%. (Not sure if the plan is to make it a single rank, or a 2 Ranks 50/100%, seems bugged)
Whether or not CS is net buffed or nerfed when considering the changes to WotL and CS (see next section) will depend on whether WotL is 2 ranks or 1.
NERFS
* Hammer of Wrath base damage has been reduced by 22%. From 4890-5404 to 3814-4215.
* Crusader Strike now deals 115% weapon damage, down from 150%.
No comments on the above two.
* Shield of the Righteous now deals 609/1828/3656 damage depending on Holy Power. (Old – Deals 20%/60%/120% of Attack Power as damage)
The SotR change is the significant one, as we rely on SotR burst to finish off opponents or drop them into the “red zone” where HoW is usable. I’m sitting close to 5k AP without Vengeance at 6k PVP GS, so off the cuff, this is reduces the base damage by ~2350.
* Guarded by the Light now increases Word of Glory by 15/30%, down from 30/60%.
Before this change we have excellent mobile, insta healing but after the change may have to use more FoL or given the nerf to SotR go more into turtle mode by spamming WoG
NOT APPLICABLE FOR PROT
* Holy Radiance’s effectiveness now diminish on targets farther than x yards away.
* Beacon of Light now lasts 5 min, up from 1 min.
* Mastery: Illuminated Healing now absorbs 10% of the amount healed, up from 8%. Now lasts 8 sec, up from 6 sec. Each point of mastery increases the absorb amount by an additional 1.25%, up from 1%.
* Holy Shock base healing has been increased by 30%. From 3033-3285 to 3943-4271.
* Templar’s Verdict now deals 235% weapon damage with 3 Holy Power, up from 225%.
Check GCs reply to SotR and WoG nerfs http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/27401648032/beta-build-13221/
Looks like WoG stays the same even after nerf. SotR has been reduced and so nerfed. Lets hope Wrath of the Lightbringer is 2 rank so thats its something for something.
Thanks much for posting that link, I had not seen it!
Do Prot PVP need any Exptertise?
Maybe you could share some thoughts in this subject.
Short answer: nope.
Expertise helps in PVE against the higher-level mobs/bosses by reducing the chance that they Parry or Dodge, which is significant when when fighting a boss (level 83).
PVP is against same-level players opponents, and with good positioning you can prevent your opponent from being able to parry (i.e. by staying at their backside).
Also, PVP is all about burst damage, so even if some of your attacks are Dodged / Parried, you want the ones that land to really hurt.
So for PVP:
Hit (to 5%) > Str > Crit
There have been some good posts above about using a Spellpower weapon instead of an AP weapon, but I think part of the reason for that lies in the fact that the 1H Gladiator weapons do not have Str.
hey great guide. its become a bible to be the past couple days..
my question is, i am confused when to be using CS vs. HotR.
CS has bigger damage but HotR procs AS. what do u do with these two abilities?
thanks
hey great guide. its become a bible to be the past couple days
Glad to hear it!
i am confused when to be using CS vs. HotR.
CS has bigger damage but HotR procs AS
Both CS and HotR have a chance to re-set the cooldown of AS.
Here are some straightforward guidelines:
– if there are lots of opponents that you want to pressure, you use the AOE
– if you are focusing on killing a specific target, esp when that target has cloth/leather armor, use CS
– if it’s a mail/plate wearer, take your pick
hello, i can win against anything except spriests.. they are like 50/50 i do everything i can do. when i comes to them silencing/fear/horrifying/disarming i get screwed. i pop all my cd’s and still get down. i can usually get them down to a 10-20% with SotR crit but then then bubble and heal faster than i can HoW. i tried out lasting them mana wise but they have infinite mana.
any help against spiests would be great thanks.
Against spriests, here’s what I recommend:
1. make sure to use Divine Protection whenever it’s up, it’s a huge help in keeping your health high, esp when you get feared or silenced. Use Ardent Defender as well
2. your goal is to get them to shift out of shadow form ASAP. When they do, their DPS drops dramatically, and they’re usually doing it to heal up. While they are healing up, you should either heal up or continue to pressure them
3. you shouldn’t be running out of mana in this fight, if you are using Judgement whenever it’s up. And especially if you have IJ talented, as I do, because you can use it even while being kited. 30 yard range talented >>> 10 yard range base for Judgement
4. pound the Shadowfiend to death the moment it appears. It’s a big piece of their mana regen
5. you can usually squeeze off 1 FoL heal after tossing AS, if you need the health. You can also bubble then FoL, because usually by the time they cast Mass Dispel you’ll have squeezed out a FoL
Summary: use your CC’s early, get a health advantage over them, which will force them to shift out to heal, keep pounding them so they have to burn mana continuing to heal, keep your mana up with Judgement
ok thanks i appreciate the fast response. thanks for the help ill keep trying it. :D
This is probably the most informative guide I have seen. Especially considering how quickly you posted it and how fast you respond to people. My main is a balance Druid and after hating on pally for awhile now I decided to make one. Hence the name Haterade. He is not max lvl yet but he is quickly becoming my favorite. Especially if I can follow someons advice and info like yourself. I never found anything great on the moonkin. This guide was exactly what I was looking for in the exact direction I was thinking.
Thanks
This is probably the most informative guide I have seen
Thanks, glad to hear it.
My main is a balance Druid and after hating on pally for awhile now I decided to make one. Hence the name Haterade. He is not max lvl yet but he is quickly becoming my favorite
Yep, Pally is fun to play. Not sure why some folks bag the class :)
My (former) main was also a Balance Druid.
I never found anything great on the moonkin
I was thinking of writing a Moonkin PVP Guide, but to be completely honest I found the spec frustrating at times in PVP, esp the mechanics as compared to other casters, who IMO had better tools to work with pre-4.0 and probably still in 4.0.
If you haven’t seen it already, I made Moonkin kiting video:
As I posted in another brief article on this blog, the Eclipse mechanic sucks for PVP. The idea of any caster getting successive casts of cast-time spells off to move a meter to a buff is fine for PVE but doesn’t work given the highly mobile nature of PVP. I had hoped the Moonkin would be improved, and in some areas it has, but net-net it still feels very limited in PVP
yet another question :)
what about the glyph for 10% more wog heals. i have sincere issues in surviving against 2+3 melees and cant escape the finishers when going low hp.
gonna test that one.
Yes, if you want to boost survivability, you can glyph WoG, SoI, or both, as Donnar suggested in an earlier comment:
Make sure you are popping Divine Protection whenever you start to take focus fire and Ardent Defender after. The 20% reduction to incoming damage is significant.
Also keep in mind if you are already at low health with 2-3 melees on you, you will likely die quickly if you don’t have a major cooldown (Divine Shield or Lay on Hands) to extend the fight until you can get help. We can’t sustainably outheal the damage from 2 geared and competent DPS.
Did I read it correctly that proc pallys are getting nerfed???
If you are referring to the Grand Crusader talent proc that enables CS / HotR to re-set AS cooldown, no you are not reading it correctly.
People keep repeating that misconception on the forums.
AS net-net isn’t being changed. There are some nerfs coming to SotR and HoW – how serious those are we’ll have to wait and see.
Vindication applys the debuff on all targets hammer of the reighteous hits. Not like the tooltip says. At least thats what the tidy plates addon shows me.
Interesting. That sounds like a potential bug.
AFAIK the HotR AOE does not proc any of our debuffs or the SoT DoT on the non-primary targets that are hit by the AOE.
I think you mentioned this but my Divine Protection tooltip reads “Reduces all damage taken by 0% for 10 sec. This is a mistake, is it not?
The ability definitely works.
EDIT: my tooltip in-game says “Reduces all damage taken by 20% for 10 sec.”
yes it’s 20% (not very much tho if you face a lot of casters).
i followed another tactic now.
i switched glyphs for wog and switched glyph for dp to remove that buff but give me instead more spell protection.
so when i’m fighting melees i start off with seal of light and switch to sotr when i’m getting my proccs and pop wings.
you cant do that vs healers obviously. but these are the only classes where i put more pressure on it. mages are no battle. i pop bubble when i get deepfreezed. silence them when they blink away and instantly hammer them. no big deal at all.
by the way i tested ret pally aswell.
it’s just lolish.
all you can do is pop your cooldowns, finish the guy off hide for two minutes and repeat.
the only good thing about ret atm for me is the “huge” crit heals from wog you can do. pretty much supportive. i wish it could be the same for prots.
Pure Ret lacks so much atm. It’s burst comes from AW and HOW. The AW/wings can be dispelled instantly along with bubble and usually is. The 6 sec cool down means a max of 3 strikes, if you are lucky you may also find someone under the 20% health cap. There is no aoe per se. DStorm is not a viable option. I like playing this hybrid proc/ret mix for survivability, hard strikes (10 to 20k on average) and silence. When I silence other group members join in and blast the target. With the right combination of talent and glyphs, casters melt. I feel I can talk down anyone at any time. I did a flash heal on me for over 20k – good god.
I was in a fight a hunter and a druid (WSG BG). Likely weak sauce. But i focused on the hunter who blew himself out of range of the druid heals. I eliminated him and then the druid. I was heaven. My confidence has soared.
AS is amazing. Long distant cast. I let it go and it just finds a target – lol. Big hits at times 20k once.
I am usually in the top 3 on everything in my premade but only because we have many casters who hide under the cliffs under the gyard and cast. As melee, I need face time. Casters are op’ed with incredible damage and kills atm. Always on top in every category. But they won’t get nerfed – likely we will.
Enjoy the time. I enjoy this post area. Many thanks from a long time ret with over 310,000 HK’s.
The AW/wings can be dispelled instantly along with bubble and usually is. The 6 sec cool down means a max of 3 strikes, if you are lucky you may also find someone under the 20% health cap. There is no aoe per se. DStorm is not a viable option
Yep, those are the major issues for Ret PVP. AW for Ret specifically needs to be made undispellable. In another kind of coordinated PVP (arena or rated BGs), AW and Zealotry will be dispelled, rendering Ret’s burst useless.
I think it would be fair to Ret to make AW and Zealotry undispellable, as part of an existing talent (e.g. add that dispel resistance to Zealotry).
Enjoy the time. I enjoy this post area. Many thanks from a long time ret with over 310,000 HK’s.
Thanks for posting! It’s been fun talking to other Pallies here :)
The enchants I prefer:
Weapon: Berserking
Shield: Titanium Plating – please note this is a must-have for the 50% Disarm reduction as we can’t generate Holy Power when Disarmed
Head: Arcanum of the Outcast[+17 strength, +16 intellect] (which is 35,7 AP (with kings) and 38,22 SP)
Shoulders: Inscription of Triumph [40 AP, 15 Resil], Greater Inscription of the Gladiator [+30 stamina, +15 resil]
Back: 22 Agi
Chest: 10 stats
Wrist: 40 Sta
Hands: +20 hit
Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle for the 2nd gem slot
Legs: Frosthide Leg Armor [+22 agility, +55 stamina], Sapphire Spellthread [+50 spell power, +30 stamina]
Feet: Tuskarr’s Vitality (run speed + Sta)
Great guide, love it. But I suggest you taking a look at my character:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Akama&cn=Kh%C3%A1il
I’ve been using Prot PVP since long ago and it really rocks. I suggest the 264 PVE boots. They are far superior that the PVP ones as you get 2 sockets with more STR/STA capacity, reforge the haste into hit or any other viable option. As for trinkets there are many options available as well. I myself Herkulm War Token, the constant damage is a great increase into your AP. I reforged the Hit into extra Crit. I try to keep the critical above 25%. And for last I suggest the +15 enchant on the hands. More AP and SP, which equals to more healing thanks to our passives. Cheers and good luck.
I suggest you taking a look at my character:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Akama&cn=Kh%C3%A1il
One thing you might want to change is the enchant on your shield.
Initially I thought Resil or Stam would be OK but players on the WoW forums pointed out that we need the Disarm reduction given that Pursuit of Justice doesn’t do that in 4.0.
Therefore, Titanium Plating is the best enchant right now for Prot. Disarm can last up to 10s and it means no HoPo generation, which is crippling.
I suggest the 264 PVE boots
I didn’t realize there was crafted gear of that high iLevel. Those are nice boots! I’m sticking with Wrathful for the Resil, but I can see for a more offensive spec why those crafted boots would be attractive.
I myself Herkulm War Token, the constant damage is a great increase into your AP
This is a Haste + stacking AP trinket, and Haste doesn’t really help Prot.
Str / AP trinkets are the way to go, if you can get them:
– Death’s Choice
– Whispering Fanged Skull
– Deathbringer’s Will
– Darkmoon Card: Greatness
And for last I suggest the +15 enchant on the hands
+15 Str? Yea, I noticed that some highly-rated arena Prot Pallies used that enchant before 4.0.
Interesting suggestion. I might switch from the 44 AP to 15 Str.
Yes my shield enchant, let’s ignore it for the time being. I’ve been a bit lazy to get Titanium Plating and frankly the last time I checked my AH, I saw one for 400g, pretty much expensive. Anyways I will get a BS to craft me one tonight. I have to run more ICC and get lucky on any of those trinket you mentioned above, so let’s see if Lady Luck comes to me this week. And for last I forgot to mention about the PVE 264 belt. You might take a look at that as well. It gives you 3 sockets and 60 hit rating. Great belt for anyone who needs hit.
Cheers.
This is My Armory:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eonar&cn=Wraak
I still prefer the PvP belt and boots above the PvE 264 items, because Crit and Res are the only things that matters in PvP. (both only 1 gem-socket extra).
The PvE boots give you 8 str, 14sta and 2 crit rating extra, but 80 haste for 80 Res still makes my choise the PvP 1, but that is marginal.
The PvE Belt give you 8 str, 14 sta, 11 crit extra and 80 res vs 60 hit, which is indeed better, especially if you can reforge some other hit for crit, or if not hit capped. Might change that 1! THNX!
Currently grinding for the 270 chest and pants en I need the titanium Plating on my shield (didnt get any from AH yet)
Any comments on gearing/enchanting etc are welcome!
From your above enchants, the only ones that caught my eye for commenting on:
Head: Arcanum of the Outcast[+17 strength, +16 intellect] (which is 35,7 AP (with kings) and 38,22 SP)
Interesting choice. It’s a BC enchant but given our class mechanics, it seems like a viable one.
Shoulders: Inscription of Triumph [40 AP, 15 Resil], Greater Inscription of the Gladiator [+30 stamina, +15 resil]
Given our self-healing capability, I think it’s not work stacking Sta.
Hands: +20 hit
44 AP is better bang for your buck. You should be able to hit the hit cap (5%) without having to gem or enchant for hit.
Legs: Frosthide Leg Armor [+22 agility, +55 stamina], Sapphire Spellthread [+50 spell power, +30 stamina]
Frosthide is great for PVE tanking, but per my comment above, I don’t think Sta makes sense to stack for us.
Huge thanks for an extremely informative guide Tau.
Like a few others, I’ve only recently returned to WoW after a significant break, this has helped me massively to understand new game mechanics etc..
Keep up the great work mate :)
Anyone looked at the notes for patch 4.0.3? Looks like a big time nerf for prot pvp. No more 15 sec AS, no more AS procs, and a big nerf to SotR. Also wog healing as prot has been nerfed, as well as PotI – which will not include heals when healing yourself.
Oh well, enjoy it for a month or so.
EDIT (2010/11/05): please see the section in the guide for Upcoming Patch Changes for the latest info. The changes below do not include changes from previous builds in Beta.
——————————–
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2057-Cataclysm-Beta-Build-13241
Ouch. This patch looks over-the-top for Pallies of any spec in PVP.
Holy
* Holy Radiance 20 yards range added to the tooltip.
* Light of Dawn now uses Holy Power instead of Mana. Now heals up to 5 targets. No longer has a cooldown – Consumes all Holy Power to send a wave of healing energy before you, healing up to 5 of the most injured targets in your party or raid within a 30 yard frontal cone for 1008.96 to 1124.15 per charge of Holy Power.
* Blessed Life now cannot occur more than 8 seconds (up from 2 seconds).
* Protector of the Innocent now affects heals on any target except yourself.
Retribution
* Sanctity of Battle now also affects Divine Storm.
* Divine Storm no longer uses Holy Power. Now deals 60% weapon damage, costs 5% of base mana, and has a 4.5 sec cooldown.
Protection
* Mastery: Divine Bulwark now increases your chance to block melee attacks by 18%, down from 24%. Each point of Mastery increases block chance by an additional 2.25%, down from 3%.
* Shield of the Templar now reduces the cooldown of Guardian of Ancient Kings by 45/80/120 sec, down from 1/2/3 min.
* Holy Shield now increases the amount your shield blocks by an additional 10% for 20 sec instead of increasing your block chance by 15%.
* Protector of the Innocent now affects heals on any target except yourself.
This is the end of defensive prot pvp build.
So, it looks like Blizz is trying to kill Prot specs in PVP or kill Pallys all together….
well i don’t really see a use for another nerf. since you do really have problems to stay alive if you have one ore more hard hitters against you. i didnt mention casters at all… they are another story.
as the build as it is right now you can have fun. if you play offensive. but you will also be an easy target to chicken kitty kiters (ferals, dks).
if they fix down wog for prot, they will have to fix it for ret aswell since this build is the better wog-healer than prot…
i cant remember getting 25k crit heals out of wog when using prot … but when i’m on ret…
i am just appalled, but not surprised. Paladins are a target for Blizz. The idea is to keep us from excelling at any spec. As a hybrid class – we are the jack of all trades and the master of none. I don’t know how to tell them other than to QQ on the forums but this doesn’t have any affect as I can see.
I don’t trust Blizz to test, rationalize, balance or to get anything right. Flawed algorithms, no practical observation, and little opportunity to provide direct feedback we are left to the discretion of the midnight janitor so it seems.
While arcane mages get a buff, druids another hybrid class continue to get preferential treatment, excelling at healing, protection and damage. When does it all stop?
PotI becomes useless for protection. The shield block is a total nerf. The SoT helps a little in my opinion as it reduces cool down but over all AS loses. And for me AS is my biggest offensive attribute. Am I forced to return to pure RET?
Paladins are a target for Blizz
Well, as a former long-time Druid main player, this is a statement I don’t agree with.
While arcane mages get a buff, druids another hybrid class continue to get preferential treatment, excelling at healing, protection and damage
Mages do look very strong right now, and Feral and Resto both seem like excellent PVP specs.
PotI becomes useless for protection. The shield block is a total nerf
Yea what is disturbing about the 4.0.3 Patch notes is that for Prot we get multiple nerfs, no buffs, and meanwhile other classes have remained largely intact.
EDIT 2010-11-05: ok, I’m going to write up a longer post. Part of what is causing confusion is the Build 13241 patch notes are reversing changes made in Build 13221. I’ll have to look at the changes cumulatively to assess what the net impacts may be.
Am I forced to return to pure RET?
Unfortunately this doesn’t look to be a viable option either. The PotI nerf hurts Ret in PVP too, and while Divine Storm is getting buffed back to a (hopefully) useful AOE, the bottom line is most of Ret’s burst in PVP is tied to 2 buffs, Avenging Wrath and Zealotry, that are dispellable. Being able to effectively dispel a DPS spec’s ability to DPS is poor design.
We’ll see how things look when the Patch is done and live.
Druids excelled at tanking but I agree they were pigeon-holed in that role. They were excellent healers and now have offensive strengths.
But Ret never achieved its masterly. I have been spit upon because I was Ret instead of holy by my own team mates. No other class has been so disrespected, been the butt of so many jokes as Ret. Even Blizz/blue indicated that Ret was still too defensive. We’ll that has been removed, survivability is such a big issue and the offensive abilities are grossly lacking for balance. And when you consider it can be all be dispelled, why bother?
To help clear up the confusion about upcoming Beta changes, I have added a new section to the guide, Upcoming Patch Changes, which provides my interpretation of the changes and their net effects (i.e. buffs, nerfs, etc).
After putting together the list of deltas from what’s on Live (4.0.1), my belief is that we are getting net-nerfed but the overall picture may not be as bad as some folks are saying.
Got a question for some advise on gear. I currently have the Furious shoulders have been debating which shoulders to get next the Titan-Forged or the Relentless. I almost have enough Justice points to get the Relentless and save my Honor points for something else. Now I do have the Wrathful neck with hit on it so the hit from the Titan-Forged would balance out, just wondering if I should just get the Titan-Forged or get the Relentless for the extra crit….I think I may have answered my own question there, but I will leave it up to you guys.
Answer depends whether you are at the baseline (5%) hit cap in PVP:
– if you are not, buy the Titan-Forged shoulders with Honor points
– if you are, buy the Relentless with Justice points
I personally get my hit from Titan-Forged, Wrathful Cloak, and the ICC rep ring. As I was over the 5% cap, I re-forged some of the Hit on the shoulders to Crit, which dropped my hit % down to 5.04%, which is sufficient against most opponents.
Ok, thanks, I’ll prob get the Relentless for now then, as I have like 5.80% hit.
My other question is this, I am needing to know what trinket I should go for next. I am Human and I am currently running with the Greatness card and Herkuml War Token as it was part of my Ret PVE set. What would be the best trinkets for me. I read that the Greatness card is one of the best to use, my concern is the other is prob not the best cause it needs to stack to be useful and wont be very viable in PVP. Other trinkets I have in my inventory are Black Heart, Glyph, and Mirror of Truth.
You can check out my pally here:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ner%27zhul&cn=Reggs&gn=Something+Simple
I am currently running with the Greatness card and Herkuml War Token as it was part of my Ret PVE set. I read that the Greatness card is one of the best to use, my concern is the other is prob not the best cause it needs to stack to be useful
As you guessed, HWT is really bad for PVP. The reason is not just that the stacking AP buff can “fall off” when you are CC’d or being kited, but also that the base buff is for Haste, which is meaningless for us.
The list of good ones for Prot PVP:
– Death’s Choice/Verdict: AP, proc for Str
– Deathbringer’s Will: Crit, proc for Str
– Sharpened Twilight Scale: Crit, proc for AP
– Darkmoon Card: Greatness: Str, proc for Str
– Whispering Fanged Skull: Crit, proc for AP
Other solid choices:
– Wrathstone: Crit, proc for AP
– Coren’s Chromium Coaster: Crit, proc for AP
– Banner of Victory: Crit, proc for AP
– Loatheb’s Shadow: Crit, proc for AP
– Mirror of Truth: Crit, proc for AP
http://www.wowhead.com/items=4.-4?filter=qu=4;minrl=80;cr=77:20:96;crs=1:1:1;crv=0:0:0;ma=1#0-2+15+1
Now that I think of it, I might pick up Mirror of Truth from the Dalaran vendor. It’s better than what I have (Battlemaster’s AP trinket).
The list above has been added to the guide, as I’ve been asked about trinket selection multiple times.
Ciao!
I’m not surprised at the PotI nerf. Blizzard has an aversion to giving anything for free. As HPs in Cata rise, 3-4k (it might be larger with extra spellpower) will be proportional less effective.
Also, having talents in Holy will make getting POJ (assuming people want the speed) in Ret impossible.
I also have a feeling that there will be a nerf to how much bonus damage Prot receives from spellpower.
I’m not surprised at the PotI nerf. Blizzard has an aversion to giving anything for free.
Well, I’m not surprised for a different reason. I’ll be the first to admit that PotI was very powerful, for both PVP and PVE. Part of the problem is that PotI was designed to heal for a static amount, which made for example 1-HoPo WoG self-heals very strong.
If PotI healed the Pally for a % amount (e.g. 10/20/30% of the heal cast) then I think there wouldn’t be an issue and PotI could still heal the Pally on self-heals.
having talents in Holy will make getting POJ (assuming people want the speed) in Ret impossible.
This is very true, and it will mean Prot will go back to being “Protribution” again.
I also have a feeling that there will be a nerf to how much bonus damage Prot receives from spellpower
Nah, I doubt it. Prot and Ret were already receiving SP conversion from Str and AP respectively pre-4.0.
As a protection /retribution paladin I have a mix of Wrathful and PVE gear to optimize strength. Though I like ret/protc for PVP does it have a place in PVE for damage? If not, my alternative is RET in PVE. But here is the issue. RET benefits from haste and reforging items in haste takes away crit that Protc needs. Or did I get this wrong? Or is my viable PVE choice pure Protection?
I’m not clear on what you are asking.
For Prot PVP, Wrathful + PVE gear is fine.
For Ret PVE, you want to stack some Haste to get the cooldown on CS down from 4.5s.
For Prot PVE, if you want to do any raiding (10/25) you need Prot PVE gear. You can tank Heroics in PVP gear because of WoG/DP/AD/LoH but some healers will not like it.
well atm as it is i don’t receive very much dmg spites when tanking heroics in pvp-gear. but true. if you focus pve you should use pve gear because of the substantial stats you have on pve-gear.
you would ruin the gear if you tried reforging stats to optimize it for pve. though – i must say – reforging some stats to get expertise capped did help me also in pvp.
anyways the thoughts about prot-pvp will anyway change if we are coming close to level 85.
Shield of the Righteous now deals 609/1828/3656 damage depending on Holy Power. (Old – Deals 20%/60%/120% of Attack Power as damage),
baaaaaaaah. sotr static dmg? sucks. what the heck :s
if i take a look at the changes, its 80% paladin, 20% rest they will change…