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- Our Judgement spells have been replaced by one Judgement spell.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 
I know what you mean Shogan. I was in Tol Barad the other day doing the dailies with 2 of my guildies. We had 4 or 5 horde attack us and a short time later my guildies were dead and I was left 1v3.
I was in vent with the 2 of them and the conversation went something like this. My first comments were a mistake on my part: “You guys are dead? I have 3 of them on me now.” No comment from my guildies. About 30 seconds later: “They’re still on me.” Again no comment and I’m using DP and WoG for healing. A little over a minute later: “Haven’t you guys rez’ed yet?” Where are you?” Followed by one of my guildies saying: “You’re still alive?”
Long story short, when I said “there are 3 of them on me” they didn’t bother to come back thinking I would be dead long before they could get back to where I was at so they rez’ed and went to the base camp and took the portal back to Stormwind. I won’t let them forget about this encounter for a long time to come.
Hey Kevian,
I tried looking up your toon, but no 85 pally showed up with your name, is that your toons name or is something different?
Kevian is not my toon’s name; it’s Gared on Nazjatar. I run ret for pve in my 10 man group (we’ve downed 9 of the 12 Cata bosses now) and run mostly prot for pvp.
This guide is awesome, thanks a lot for the effort is really helpfull, hope u release something about keybindings soon. BTW i found a little thing to fix i think
In section 5 bubble and mitigation mechanics we can read that DPR and AD stack additively but at
11.4 Remember that DPr and AD do not stack. So chain them one after another if needed but don’t activate them at the same time
BTW i found a little thing to fix i think
In section 5 bubble and mitigation mechanics we can read that DPR and AD stack additively but at
11.4 Remember that DPr and AD do not stack
Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed it :)
Ok, I have question, as far “rotation,” I know there is no such thing as it in PVP, but I am seeing an issue in the abilities I use, I am probably using some abilities I shouldn’t. For example, sometimes I find myself using Holy Wrath…I think it is just from being newer to PVP and me using it in PVE.
So from what I gather, you pretty much, as far as damage abilities, just use CS or HoTR, AS, Judgement, and SoTH.
For example, sometimes I find myself using Holy Wrath…I think it is just from being newer to PVP and me using it in PVE.
HW is fine to use as a GCD “filler” if CS/Judgement/AS are all on cooldown, you don’t have 3-stack HoPo yet, and you don’t need to heal or pop a mitigation.
So from what I gather, you pretty much, as far as damage abilities, just use CS or HoTR, AS, Judgement, and SoTH.
I think you meant SotR as the last, but that is correct. Only use HotR in AOE situations, otherwise CS is much better for single-target burst.
Oh, yes I meant SoTR, but thanks for the info, I thought I was doing something wrong.
Had another question, with your macro:
Mitigation Chaining (DP / GoAK / AD):
/cast [mod:ctrl] guardian of ancient kings
/castsequence reset=30 divine protection, guardian of ancient kings, ardent defender
Are you using it as a spam, “oh crap” button to proc all three at one time, or are you using it knowing that DP is first, and it will be on CD the second time you need to use the button and GoAK will be next and then the same for AD?
Are you using it as a spam, “oh crap” button to proc all three at one time, or are you using it knowing that DP is first, and it will be on CD the second time you need to use the button and GoAK will be next and then the same for AD?
I hit the macro over time, to chain not stack. What you described after the “or” is how I think of it.
DP, then GoAK, then AD, and then I need to bridge the remaining seconds until DP is available again.
Hi Taugrim,
Thanks for sharing this guide to the general public, it’s been very helpful.
I was wondering how this comp will fair when Bloodlust becomes unusable in Arena’s, will this affect your win/loss ratio, perhaps?
Just wondering what your thoughts are on using Seal of Insight on double dps teams as opposed to Seal of Truth?
We’ll gladly give up BL so that Mages (and Hunters) won’t have the same ability.
There are a lot of changes not just to Paladin and Shaman. We’ll have to see how it all pans out.
A possible solution to all of you who are having keybind issues. I have been an avid pc user for years and my fps experience has enabled me to have a very easy to use setup for my 6 years of wow. First of all, DONT use wasd as it limits your “field of keys”. Instead use esdf as forward/backward and left/right. With mouse 2 down s and f are strafe. I have mouse 2 down for the majority of fights and the keybindings are as follows. Use bartender to make 4 rows of six keys stacked on top of each other. Make the bottom row your 1 through 6 row. But replace 1 with q and 6 with c as they are much easier to hit. Second row up make the same keys but with shift modified. Third row use g, v, w, t, mouse 3 and mouse 4. Fouth row same keys but shift modified. Then add shift space for thing like cos for rogues. With this setup after practice you will never click again. 24 hotkeys easily reachable with limited typing knowledge are at your command. I have leveled every class and have played with every spec this way and its flawless. Use 3 and 4, etc for most used abilities like cs as they are the most easily hit. That is it! Hope this helps guys. Btw taugrim, thank you for showing up on google when i searched prot paladin pvp cataclysm ;)
Hi Taugrim,
Just wondering what your thoughts are on using Seal of Insight on double dps teams as opposed to Seal of Truth? Have you done any testing on the pro’s and con’s? From the initial testing I’ve done I’ve found that Truth (both seal and dot) accounts for about 12% of total damage done. Healing results over a similar period is 160k or 120% of my health pool.
My thinking is that Insight combined with all our mitigation abilities, holy radiance etc will mean we can possibly use more 3 stack combos for damage rather than healing, also a few more combos for our partner etc. I’m interested to hear your take on this and whether you’ve in fact tried this seal in arenas previously.
Cheers.
Just wondering what your thoughts are on using Seal of Insight on double dps teams as opposed to Seal of Truth?
No, simply because 80+% of the time my partner is getting focused, not me, and SoI only heals the Pally.
Hi,
like your guide. I d like to know what do you thing about tailoring buff on cloak. Chance on getting 1000 AP seems quite same as landslide which you seem to like a much…
thx Leorick
I hadn’t heard of it until you mentioned it.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=75178#comments
It sounds solid. Remember that the AP proc would replace a regular cloak enchant, and that you’d lose buffs to other slots (e.g. Str on Rings for Enchanter, etc).
In general I don’t take profs that are typically suited for another class (i.e. Tailoring is typically for Casters/Healers) just for a particular enchant – you never know if it will be nerfed or removed, just as the LW Bracers enchant is being rendered useless in 4.0.6 due to the addition of a new +50 Str Enchant.
Well, finally got into arena.. and what a nightmare it was. Admittedly my partner (real life buddy) is literally only just starting PvP (500 HK’s only) but is adapting well. We lost our first 11 games in humiliating fashion. All the skills I learned in the game world just seemed to vanish and we were decimated. Did some hefty key rebinding for more speed.
7th game was better, shaman and mage and was going very well, though manic with all the explosions and action. Mage was down to 5% health when my buddy yelled, HE IS DOWN GET THE SHAMAN.. I turned, started at the shaman.. and was frozen. To my horror I heard “CRAP, it was his pet I killed not the mage” ARGHHHH :D of course laughed it off.
Next game he pressed wrong button (he isnt actually as much as a muppet as he sound, honest, just never seen game playing speed like this before and got hyper) and I went 1 vs 2 (last 4 mins to be fair, so not too bad)
Then 2 hunters, my friend went down quick, but using the pets as healing tools, and hiding behind pillars I took them both down.. FIRST WIN, followed by DK and Retadin.. ANOTHER WIN (no deaths), DK down first, then warrior and hunter to make three wins in a row, the hunter dying quick, then melee one on one with a warrior and I felt like I was back on form.
All of a sudden with each match it felt like everything was slowing down and I was able to adjust and make decisions.
This will take some time… rating (dont laugh) 268 and got my first piece of Conquest gear
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/ravenholdt/jaxyrl/pvp#2v2
Admittedly my partner (real life buddy) is literally only just starting PvP (500 HK’s only) but is adapting well.
It takes a lot of time to get used to the pace and dynamic nature of PVP.
In PVE, mobs are very predictable.
In PVP, players are not.
Also, a lot of things that are “OK” in PVE – e.g. clicking on skills, keyboard turning, etc – will severely limit a player’s ability to react in real-time.
If y’all are patient, hopefully your partner will adjust over time.
This will take some time… rating (dont laugh) 268 and got my first piece of Conquest gear
If you can, make sure to “rent” that shield piece. You can turn it in on Tuesday, get your weekly cap of Conq points, and buy the weapon.
For any melee class or Hunter, weapon should always be the very first upgrade. Always.
Dammit.. I already spent the points. How stupid am I. Suppose I was so excited I just splurged. However I will be posting my first vid soon (just editing now). Made a lot of mistakes, lost my binding for Flash heal, even pressed escape once during the fight.. however I beat a druid (not healer spec) and a shaman single handed (both almost at full power) spending 80% of the fight at < 20% health. Admitidly, I think the druid was convinced with my low health he had won and it was only late in the fight realised what a fool he was.
Prots have AMAZING ability to survive against the odds. LOVING IT.
Rating up to 438 (woo!)
I will be posting my first vid soon (just editing now
Post it here when it’s done, would love to see it :)
Here it is, enjoy. Not as professional as yours (first ever home vid)
Facts
1) Missed LOADS of judgements
2) Missed LOADS of SoR
3) Messed up F0L
4) Should have protected partner more
5) should have stunned druid whilst hunting down the shaman
However, I think you may enjoy it. All critique about technique appreciated
Enjoyed watching it. Ran out of room trying to comment on YouTube, so here’s my feedback:
1. against dual DPS comps, use your CC’s early and often to slow down rate of incoming damage
2. against that comp (Feral/Enh), if the Shaman pops his wolves, DPS the Feral and CC the Shaman. You should stun the Shaman (assuming you removed Grounding Totem) then have your partner follow with Repentence then Stun. Don’t try to out-damage the Enh’s wolves, you’ll fall behind
3. your partner should have bubbled when he got low and healed up
4. did you and your partner pop Holy Radiance early? If both of you cast, that’s ~24K in healing in total
5. you have solid melee-strafing technique overall, and honestly IMO that is the hardest thing to learn. Using your CD’s and such will come with practice
Thanks for posting the video!
appreciate the feedback. Just did 2 more for fun and I have new Power auras.. one that surrounds my character with white frost when i have 3 HP, and when that is combined with the wind chimes of Sacred duty, i know i have a huge hit incoming. Focused more on healing / protecting partner (i assume they are recognising low resi / bad armour and hitting him first). We won both (frost mage, paladin) and (boomkin, frostmage). Lacertus is HEALING HIMSELF now, and improving all the time!
Will be putting thaton the youtube channel later.
Finished with 576 rating and 7 wins 16 losses!
Oh, treated myself to Hurricane deck,feb 2nd will have Hurricane card trinket..should help. Noone can do landslide yet, though i have mats ready
Update. I got up to 1800 with a my Feral friend last nite. 21-13 for the week. We did this over 3 nites where the second nite was a huge losing streak and frustration. But we turned it around.
One of the techniques that we’ve been doing is always burning down rogues….in any comp. This means letting some pretty beefy specs freecast on us with occasional cyclones.
We feel that rogues bring too much control to leave up.
Admittedly, this might not work with all comps, but if you are running with a feral, I’d try it. Get the rogue to attack you and have your feral do a full open on him with stacked bleeds. Ride him hard. They will always try and flee. AS, Judgement, HoW and bleeds will finish him.
Good luck.
Admittedly, this might not work with all comps, but if you are running with a feral, I’d try it. Get the rogue to attack you and have your feral do a full open on him with stacked bleeds. Ride him hard. They will always try and flee. AS, Judgement, HoW and bleeds will finish him.
Your comp allows you to implement that strat, because AFAIK a Rogue can’t remove bleeds, which is a huge mechanics consideration.
As we don’t have a Feral in our Comp we always go after the Caster or other MDPS. If it’s a Healer, we stay on the Rogue and reverse-kite non-stop.
I am on the PTR but it seems our AS and HotR got nerfed. It does not seem that I am doing enough damage or other characters have more mitigating abilities. Please check it out.
I’m curious too. Also, has anyone heard more on the HoPo generation against immune/absorb/miss/dodge/parry on the PTR?
Here’s what I heard from the PTR, maybe Marko can confirm or correct:
1. no HoPo generation when CS is used on “immune” targets (e.g. Ice Block’d, bubbled, etc)
2. no HoPo generation when the target avoids (dodges/parries) the CS
3. HoPo is generated (as it is on Live now) from an absorbed CS (e.g. Power Word: Shield)
I posted my questions on this thread here:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1921986072
HoW got accidentally nerfed (it was changed to using Ranged AP instead of AP). Blizzard has acknowledged this is a bug:
http://www.wowhead.com/bluetracker?topic=1921983173
I am on the PTR but it seems our AS and HotR got nerfed
This is the first I’ve heard of that. AFAIK those abilities weren’t supposed to be touched, but maybe that’s a bug.
Please file a bug report if you can, otherwise we’ll be stuck with the bugs when 4.0.6 launches.
It’s been a pretty good week for the group I run with in rated bg’s. My rating’s up to 1782. However, I’ve been running the flag and guarding bases and my team members have asked me to gem stamina and resil instead of strength to increase my health pool and mitigation (resil). Honestly, I think they’re correct for the role I’m playing in rated BG’s.
To form this into a question, would it be better for me to increase my health pool and resil as a flag carrier and someone who guards bases or keep my strength gems and enchants so I can help fight off the attackers? In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not on an arena team and the only pvp I do outside of rated BG’s is in Tol Barad.
Hmmm…I thought I had replied to this earlier but the reply isn’t showing up.
my team members have asked me to gem stamina and resil instead of strength to increase my health pool and mitigation (resil). Honestly, I think they’re correct for the role I’m playing in rated BG’s.
Resil is your #1 survivability stat.
I actually don’t think stacking Stam makes much sense, since it only scales “linearly” whereas Resil applies to every attack from every attacker.
If you don’t stack Strength your heals and damage will be weak, and that’s not a good situation either.
For your situation, I would recommend the following gems:
Red: Str/Resil
Yellow: Resil
Blue: Stam/Resil
But aside from the hybrid Blue gems, don’t stack Stam straight up.
With strength your’re going to have a chance to kill the attacker. With stamina you will only be able to hold off the attacker until help arrives. With strength, I know that if I get a 1 v 1 situation, I cam going to kill the other guy, perhaps 2.
Tough choice.
Hi, i found your guide extremely useful and informative, i have a question though, for prot pvp, would you consider the talent Eye for an eye which have a 40% chance to cause 30% of the damage to the attacker ?
would you consider the talent Eye for an eye which have a 40% chance to cause 30% of the damage to the attacker ?
No, for the simple reason that the other talents in the Ret tree are better investments for talent points.
Its also been pointed out somewhere (perhaps here) that a 40% chance of reflecting 30% damage really is not that much actual damage being reflected. Indeed there are better places to place the points!
Well, I had to raid with my 10 man group last night, but I got some rated BG’s in before that and ended the week at 1798 (doh!). I wanted an 1800 rating before the conquest points were reset for this week.
The group I’ve been running with initially wanted me to DPS as ret, then they asked me to guard bases and carry the flag as prot, now they want me to go holy because we have such a hard time finding good healers and they tell me Holy Pallys are great in BG’s now.
I always try to do whatever I can to benefit the group, but i’ve never played a Holy Pally (or any type of healer). I may have to draw the line on this request. I love playing ret but I prefer prot. The raid leader told me yesterday I could roll ret or prot and I told him I would go prot. Even with 2 DK’s and a mage in the group, I was always in the top 3 in damage output every round with quite a distance between the top 3 and the 4th place guy so I’m very happy with the damage output and survivability of this spec. But to roll a Holy Pally; me thinks not.
Hi there, I love your guide. Very informative, Ive been PvPing in Prot since the end of wrath when Ret wasnt cutting it anymore (still isnt). You have some great advice, however is it possible to write a strategy guide for all the possible specs/classes you will face in PvP? Some classes/specs give me alot of trouble and Id like to learn how i can possibly beat them, other than that everything looks great, Idk why ppl think Prot Paladins arent good for PvP…
however is it possible to write a strategy guide for all the possible specs/classes you will face in PvP?
Ahead of that I have keybindings/strafing as a topic I’d like to cover, when I have time, because I believe it is a huge differentiator in PVP.
Writing a vs xxx guide would come after that.
Taugrim, thanks for all the great info. I’ve been doing Prot Paladin PvP awhile myself, and only recently discovered your stuff. I’d like your permission to QUOTE (i.e., post as a quote, with link to this site) this page on the Tankadin.com forum where I am a regular contributor. I’ve been working on a Prot Paladin PvP guide, but honestly you have it together already!
I’d like your permission to QUOTE (i.e., post as a quote, with link to this site) this page on the Tankadin.com forum where I am a regular contributor
I’d prefer that you link to the Guide here – primarily because I am revising the Guide several times a week, so anything quoted on another site/forum will be out-of-date shortly thereafter.
I’ve been manually keeping a thread on the official WoW forum in-sync with the Guide here, and it’s been a pain in the arse.
I’ve been working on a Prot Paladin PvP guide, but honestly you have it together already!
Post a link here to what you have, I’m sure people would be interested in reading it.
:)
Cool, thanks. Not a prob… Well if I quote anything from you as an excerpt, I’ll be sure to give credit where credit is due. ;-)
my thoughts on Prot Paladin PvP, For What They’re Worth…
http://www.tankadin.com/forum/index.php?topic=1519.0 as well as some other older threads in the PvP section…
Another point… I was just taking a look at your talent build, and you say in your guide that you don’t take Reckoning, but you have a point in Reckoning, and are NOT taking Divine Guardian. What’s up with that, if you don’t mind me asking? ;-)
I wanted to see if 1/2 Reckoning was better than DG for 2v2. After several days of testing in Arena and BGs, my take is that 1/2 Reckoning is very underwhelming. I’m going to swap back to my recommended build tonight.
People have talked up Reckoning in various threads, but IMO it’s pretty ineffective for PVP. The best scenario for Reckoning is when multiple MDPS are beating on you, but in a lot of cases (smart) opponents will go after squishier targets first.
Thanks for the swift reply!!!
I am discovering on the PTR that mana may become an issue. I am running low and almost out. Blizz has made many mana adjustments to pallys in recent days.
Even though I fell a couple points shy of getting an 1800 rating prior to the reset yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to find my max. conquest points go from 1436 to 1931.
Does anyone know of a site you can go to see how many conquest points are available for a given rating? Also, if my rating had been over 1800 this week and fell below 1800 due to a bad week of BG’s, would your max. available conquest points go down? I can only imagine this would be the case.
One last note: I was in Tol Barad last night and was attacked by a warlock after the battle was over. That turned into a fairly long 1v1 battle and to my surprise no one else joined in to help either of us. Since I’m sharing this, you can guess the outcome. I always feel good when I get defeat a mage or warlock 1v1. They’re by far the toughest classes for me to defeat. Spriests and hunters are up there as well, but locks and mages are my nemesis.
Even though I fell a couple points shy of getting an 1800 rating prior to the reset yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to find my max. conquest points go from 1436 to 1931.
Grats :)
The weekly Conq cap scales very quickly at Rating 1500+
Does anyone know of a site you can go to see how many conquest points are available for a given rating? Also, if my rating had been over 1800 this week and fell below 1800 due to a bad week of BG’s, would your max. available conquest points go down
See Section 10, the link to Felbent’s chart.
And your weekly Conq cap is based on the highest Rating you have across Rated BGs and Arena. So doing poorly in 1 bracket will not affect anything. I used to run 3v3 with poorly geared guildees to get them Conq points, it never adversely affected me even though our Rating was low.
I always feel good when I get defeat a mage or warlock 1v1. They’re by far the toughest classes for me to defeat. Spriests and hunters are up there as well, but locks and mages are my nemesis.
Indeed, those classes have a kiting advantage over us. But you can wear them down if you are the better player and smart about it :)
Just another random thought, why don’t “we” post some suggestions on what we do while fighting other classes instead of asking Taugrim to do all the work? I assume most of us PvP quite often so let’s share some of our experiences and Taugrim can let us know if we’re off track or not.
I shared in an earlier post that I don’t “trinket” out of a rogue’s sap to start a fight. I wait until the kidney shot. I find this a more effective way to combat a rogue. But the following is what I do against a Warrior.
Warriors are a different battle entirely. They hit very hard and for this reason I try to mitigate damage as much as possible at the start of a fight including using Divine Protection. I then go into a semi kiting effort since they hit so hard. I’ll hit them with CS and either run through them or strafe left or right to create some distance. I then hit them with Judgement, AS if available, and HW if my mana supply will allow it.
I continue this sequence until I build up 3 HoPo and a SD proc and use WoG for a nice heal. I continue this until the warrior gets below 20-25% health and then I use the SD proc with 3 HoPo to lay the hammer down (ie. SotR) along with HoW. Also, if the battle lasts long enough, I refresh DP as soon as it comes off CD. If my health is low at this point in the battle I use LoH to get back to full health and finish the warrior off.
One last thing I’d like to add is I pop AW and any trinkets once the warrior gets down to 20-25% health.
Just another random thought, why don’t “we” post some suggestions on what we do while fighting other classes instead of asking Taugrim to do all the work? I assume most of us PvP quite often so let’s share some of our experiences and Taugrim can let us know if we’re off track or not.
Yes, that would be appreciated. Plenty of people are as knowledge about PVP as I am.
And I agree with your strats vs Rogue and Warrior, although I do tend to pop Wings early vs Warrior to inflict damage and keep my health up.
Good info.
May I point out that you *don’t* “use LoH to get back to full health” in Arena, but you already know that… ;-)
Very true bloodniron. I don’t have an arena team; I pvp in Tol Barad and run with a rated BG team so I always have LoH. :-) But you’re exactly right, for those here who run on arena teams, LoH cannot be used.
I do most of my PvP in TB and random BG’s. I’m in a guild that claims to be about PvP but so far we have not yet fielded a team for Rated BGs… :-/ And I have a 2’s team with Frost Mage partner. So I sometimes get confused and reach for LoH and its not there… lol…
Taugrim, I’d been looking at Landslide for awhile, and based on your ‘recommendation’ I got the mats together and put it on my Vicious Gladiator’s Bonecracker.
On my server (Sen’jin, Horde), the mats cost me a little over 10k gold. Holy cow! The Maelstrom Crystals are going for almost 3k gold each on the AH, but I found a guy in Trade chat selling them for 2k each. Still a helluva lot to pay for an enchant, but I know that I won’t be changing my weapon any time soon, so… ;-)
I don’t have any hard numbers yet, but it felt like it was making a nice difference. Maybe it was mostly psychological but I felt like I was hitting way harder, heh!
I did notice in the combat text that it refreshed at some point. I’m trying to learn what to look for in reading the combat text. And in interpreting info from Recount…
Thanks again for all the info! I have linked this Guide at the very top of my latest thread (http://www.tankadin.com/forum/index.php?topic=1519.msg11618#msg11618), and am suggesting your Guide to everyone!!
First of all, I want to say thanks for all the hard work. I’ve been frequenting the site and your YT channel for awhile, but this is my first time commenting.
I started up on retail back at the beginning of December, after playing on TBC privates (waits for collective gasp) for close to 4 years, hit 85 a couple of weeks ago, and am now looking to replace the last of my crafted gear with Bloodthirsty.
What are your thoughts on picking up two pieces of the holy pvp set (the legs + 1 piece) to capitalize on the double 2-piece bonus? One of the commenter mentioned this, but didn’t really mention how much of a DPS hit he took (though he did switch back.)
I know that Blizzard has said that they aren’t a fan of this, but they’ve also made it pretty clear that they’re not going to do much about it until next season.
I know you’re losing a bit of strength (2 pieces worth plus the 4-piece bonus), but you’re gaining a good chunk of resilience and exchanging a ton of haste for crit (even after reforging the ret pieces) which I’d think would make up for most of the strength loss. Add the additional spell crit from the intellect gain (the SP basically works out to what you’d get form AP conversion), and I’m thinking that it might be a worthy trade-off.
I’ll probably pick up both options and experiment with them while using the blues so that I can make a more informed decision when I start upgrading to Vicious, but I thought I’d throw it out for discussion.
Thanks again for the blog and vids. You’ve helped make the transition directly from TBC to Cataclysm much smoother than I thought it would be.
First of all, I want to say thanks for all the hard work. I’ve been frequenting the site and your YT channel for awhile, but this is my first time commenting.
Welcome :)
What are your thoughts on picking up two pieces of the holy pvp set (the legs + 1 piece) to capitalize on the double 2-piece bonus? One of the commenter mentioned this, but didn’t really mention how much of a DPS hit he took (though he did switch back.)
I’d strongly advise against that for three reasons:
A. the 4-pc bonus (Judgment cooldown reduction) is huge, especially since we need Judgment to proc Sacred Duty. The shorter the cooldown, the more opportunities you will have to get SD up
B. we double-dip from Str from the TbtL mechanic
C. we don’t need the double Resil bonus, we’re Prot
Thanks again for the blog and vids. You’ve helped make the transition directly from TBC to Cataclysm much smoother than I thought it would be.
Glad to hear it!
Wow, that was quick. I totally overlooked the judgment cd reduction, but considering that, I’d be inclined to agree with you. Thanks again.
DOUBLE 2-PIECE BONUS: This is something that I experimented with for a few weeks, and had I given it the proper thought in the first place, I would have realized my honor points coulda been spent more wisely ;-) But ya know, Liv and Lern…
I had equipped the ‘Holy’ Shoulders and Legs. Bottom line is, by taking the double 2-piece bonus, I was missing out on 678 Strength [218 (Shoulders) + 280 (Legs) + 180 (4-piece bonus) = 678]. [b]678 Strength = 1356 Attack Power…[/b]
So it comes down to: 678 Strength/1356 AP versus 400 additional Resilience and a smattering of Intellect… What was I thinking? Okay, well, I was thinking Survivability. But there comes a time when Greater strength means bigger hits/crits meaning more damage meaning the opponent dies quicker meaning I don’t have to survive as long…
For me, it was more about exchanging the haste for the crit on the legs to make up for a chunk of the strength loss, but yah, after looking at it a little more objectively and crunching the numbers, it definitely seems like less of a good idea. I may still play with it for the lols since I want to put together a holy blue set anyway, but that will be down the road.
Speaking of the SD proc, I’ll check this when I get home but does anyone know if you get a greater heal with WoG from 3 HoPo with a SD proc than you would with just 3 HoPo? We all know the SD proc guarantees a SotR crit, but I’m not sure if the SD proc benefits the WoG heal or not.
Nope, it does not.
Hi Taugrim,
I was just playing arena with my mates and were running quite an unusual setup with prot pala (me) feral druid and lock. We managed to get 1.4k rating today which isn’t as bad as I thought it would be but we seem to be losing a lot of rating againsthealer dual melee comps. I was wondering if you had any specific things we should be trying to do as the melee are just burning down our lock as were trying to kill one of the melee whilst ccing the healer.
Thanks in advance
Darros
I was wondering if you had any specific things we should be trying to do as the melee are just burning down our lock as were trying to kill one of the melee whilst ccing the healer
If I’m understanding you right, are you running a triple-DPS comp for 3v3? If the answer is yes, unless the three of you are coordinating your CCs effectively and you and the Feral are offhealing the Lock and the Lock has high Resil and is a good kiter, you are going to lose matches against Healer/DPS/DPS comps if they coordinate well.
The margin of error is in their favor, not yours.
Hey Tau, Areann here. I’m running Prot Pally/ MS Warr. How viable do you think this comp is? It seems to be a little less effective than yours atm, because yours has Hex, which works wonders in my opinion.
Also, I was looking at the top rated-prot pallies on my battlegroup (Whirlwind) and it seems that the top 2 (didn’t check any further) prot paladins are using tanking gear. First comp being rated # 68 in the BG. Thoughts on tanking gear as opposed to PvP gear?
I’m running Prot Pally/ MS Warr. How viable do you think this comp is? It seems to be a little less effective than yours atm, because yours has Hex, which works wonders in my opinion.
Warrior has a lot of CC to work with, more than Enhancement IMO. They’re also excellent against kiters.
Also, I was looking at the top rated-prot pallies on my battlegroup (Whirlwind) and it seems that the top 2 (didn’t check any further) prot paladins are using tanking gear. First comp being rated # 68 in the BG. Thoughts on tanking gear as opposed to PvP gear?
Look at the talents/glyphs and gear, more than likely they play Holy for PVP and Prot for PVE.
PVE gear doesn’t work in PVP, period. We have Str/Resil pieces available in every slot. The only non-PVP you might consider is the 2nd trinket.
Wow, thanks for the quick reply :D One more question for you. Like I said, my team is Prot/MS, and I find that the biggest teams we have troubles against are DKs in general, but more so Holy paladins. I’ve noticed that in most of your videos, you seem to target the non-paladin target first. Could you comment/tip me on that subject? I honestly don’t think we’ve beaten one yet, and right now we’re stuck at ~1300 rating.
I’ve noticed that in most of your videos, you seem to target the non-paladin target first. Could you comment/tip me on that subject? I honestly don’t think we’ve beaten one yet, and right now we’re stuck at ~1300 rating.
Well, first off a DPS/HPal comp that is solidly geared will be hard to beat until your partner has decent Resil (2.5k+).
Here’s the reason we go after the DPS and not the HPal
– if we go after the Healer, the Healer will kite us, the DPS will CC one of us, and I as Prot won’t be generating much HoPo because I’ll be out of melee contact for stretches as the Healer kites. My partner will eventually die as I don’t have enough HoPo resources to work with to heal them
– if we go after the DPS if it’s a MDPS we can reverse kite the MDPS out of LoS of the Healer, which creates multiple issues for them – no slow-cast efficient heals, their MDPS may get into a severe health deficit and require big heal cooldowns to keep alive from their Healer
– if we go after the DPS and it’s a RDPS, we can “tunnel” them and prevent freecasting / cast-time spells. Make sure to rotate CCs on them to lock them down
That’s the basic logic.
I know it sounds counterintuitive to try to kill the DPS – and it’s the opposite of what usually works in BGs – but when you consider the matchup mechanics, it makes sense.
Your Warrior partner will need to stance dance and turtle if he is getting hit hard, and you will both need to use CC on the DPS situationally to slow down the rate of incoming damage.
You do that, you will keep your partner out of trouble, and you can eventually catch the DPS at a vulnerable time and burn them down.
Be very careful when you look at those armories. It’s buggy. I would bet that if you look further you will see that they have a second spec of holy. Look at both their talents. Better yet, look at their activity and see what Vicious pieces they have been buying.
I bet they are pvping as holy and the armory is mis-representing them as prot.
I’ve done a very thorough check into the prot pallies out there. When you could only look at the top 200 teams in each battlegroup, I was noticing that the few that were labeled as prot weren’t prot at all, but holy or even ret.
hey taur! can you help me ask kashmir what priority stats he goes for like what gems he make, and his reforges, enchants and etc. thanks
Also I have some personal question I want to ask you,
can you give me a few guides in beating Assassination Rogues + Fury Warriors, idk why I have trouble beating them. tys
can you help me ask kashmir what priority stats he goes for like what gems he make, and his reforges, enchants and etc. thanks
Post your questions on one of the Arena videos or Shaman threads, he’ll see it there.
Eh, I don’t want to make a youtube acc just for that so can you please help me ask him instead lols. or tell him to look at this blog and answer my question. thanks, also you haven’t answer my question on the rogue and warrior.
Hey Taugrim,
I find this guide very useful and it helped me a lot in the beginning.
I faced one problem however – I was not able to find a good teammate for long. Either the teammate was a noob (I played with a 3,2k resil DK who was whining that DK’s are useless in PvP), had low gear (they didn’t last long, since most comps don’t start on prot pally) or a combination of both :D Yesterday I found a good DK, and it seems to go well. Got almost 1,5k rating in no time and are gonna play more during weekend. We noticed it’s better to go after the healer in Heal + DPS comps, since we can burst him down very quickly. We also managed to defeat dual frost mage comp, which really surprised, cause I find mages the biggest challenge.
I will post again after we have a higher rating to keep you updated.
here’s my character: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/burning-blade/lastjudge/advanced
We noticed it’s better to go after the healer in Heal + DPS comps, since we can burst him down very quickly. We also managed to defeat dual frost mage comp, which really surprised, cause I find mages the biggest challenge.
Well, you have a DK, and they can pull with Death Grip, silence, stun, AOE slow, etc. It’s a different ballgame :)
We don’t go after Healers because we lack the tools to control their position. You don’t have that problem, so you have the flexibility of going after either.
Let us know how it goes!
we got to around 1650 rating today – 27-10 (since I began playing with the DK)
I really like this comp, but we seem to have some trouble with healadins + arms and resto druids + arms (or some hard-to-get-to class like mage) for obvious reasons. So we just need to time our CC a bit better.
I can recommend DK as arena partner. The grip is awesome, cause he can pull a mage or some ranged dps close and I have no trouble doing full damage. The mage can still flee, but his HP is low enough to finish him while he tries to kite.
I recently started giving arenas a try on my paladin. I hadn’t really played arena before and a friendly guildy offered to give me a shot in some 2v2s. He is an arms warrior and while we’re able to do quite a lot of burst damage and a surprising amount of survivability between us, we seem to be really lacking on the healing side of things.
After I’ve used my crusader strike’s holy power, my divine plea, and my hand of sacrifice/divine guardian I find it takes an eternity before I can viably heal again. In longer matches this is especially true and I often find myself in a pretty dire situation later on in a match – very low on mana, most or all of my cooldowns unavailable, sitting on about 40% health and just no options left aside from waiting 9 seconds for a full word of glory or having to constantly spam 1 or 2 charges in the hope I’ll get an eternal glory proc to keep it going.
At present I’m stuck at 1500~ rating and I’m just curious as to whether a prot pally and arms warrior is really a viable comp for 2v2s, or will I have to find someone with bit of self healing capabilities but still mostly dps focus (boomkin/enh shammy/shadow priest etc.)
He is an arms warrior and while we’re able to do quite a lot of burst damage and a surprising amount of survivability between us, we seem to be really lacking on the healing side of things.
As you are not a main-healer spec, your Arms Warrior will need to approach Arena with you a bit differently – i.e. he’ll need to use cooldowns defensively, not just offensively, and if he’s getting hit hard he’ll need to stance dance, put on 1H+shield, Shield Wall, etc
After I’ve used my crusader strike’s holy power, my divine plea, and my hand of sacrifice/divine guardian I find it takes an eternity before I can viably heal again.
Don’t forget to use Holy Radiance early and often, use your CCs on DPS to slow down incoming damage.
Also pick a target that you will be able to generate sustained HoPo from. I.e. don’t chase a kiting Resto Druid, you will likely lose.
For some reason, your system will not post for me. I have tried posting a few more things yesterday and this morning, to no avail.
Nevertheless, I’ll try one more time.
LANDSLIDE: I got Landslide on your ‘recommendation’ and love it! Mats cost me about 10.3k gold on my server (Sen’jin/Horde), but had the gold, so… And with my Vicious Gladiator’s Bonecracker, I won’t be changing weapons anytime soon…
ATTACK POWER: I was soloing some instances last night, finding the Elders of the Dungeons for the achievement… Not needing my ‘Medallion’ for that, I swapped in my Badge of Victory, which is macro’d with Avenging Wrath. Kept my Character sheet open, hit the macro, attacked some mobs, and between Landslide, and my “Badge of” and “Insignia of” Victory trinkets, I saw my Attack Power hit over 17k! Imagine getting a Crit at that time!!
And with Bloodniron going back to human shortly (I have a RL friend on my original server that I’m going to rejoin to have some fun together…), I’ll have Every Man for Himself, and won’t need the Medallion… Good stuff!
REVERBERATING meta gem… Can you verify that this is a real item? I have not been able to confirm this by looking it up on a legit WoW site…
REBUKE… You say that all Paladins can train this at 54? When I go to the trainer, he offers me nothing but grief, lol… Well, nothing at all. So is this old info, or something that’ll happen in an upcoming patch, or what?
Thanks again for all that you do…
For some reason, your system will not post for me. I have tried posting a few more things yesterday and this morning, to no avail.
It looks like the WordPress Akismet spam filter got a little over-zealous and marked some of your comments as Spam, so they didn’t show up automatically. I’m sorry about that :(
I had up to this point assumed Akismet was accurate, but I just looked this morning and say some comments (yours and other people’s) were marked as Spam.
Please let me know if this continues to happen to your posts – I don’t want to lose information you’re trying to share.
It might help if you register a login (a pain, I know) on WordPress.com, in terms of not getting filtered out.
LANDSLIDE: I got Landslide on your ‘recommendation’ and love it! Mats cost me about 10.3k gold on my server (Sen’jin/Horde), but had the gold, so… And with my Vicious Gladiator’s Bonecracker, I won’t be changing weapons anytime soon…
I agree it’s well worth the investment IMO. I was talking to my 2v2 partner and he said that if we reach 2200 in 3v3 we’ll have to buy Landslide again, but I told him that is a “problem” I’d be happy to have :)
And with Bloodniron going back to human shortly (I have a RL friend on my original server that I’m going to rejoin to have some fun together…), I’ll have Every Man for Himself, and won’t need the Medallion… Good stuff!
Yea that’s really nice for Human Pallys. You can take both “Badge of” and “Insignia of” Victory trinkets.
REVERBERATING meta gem… Can you verify that this is a real item? I have not been able to confirm this by looking it up on a legit WoW site…
REBUKE… You say that all Paladins can train this at 54? When I go to the trainer, he offers me nothing but grief, lol… Well, nothing at all. So is this old info, or something that’ll happen in an upcoming patch, or what?
These are coming 4.0.6, search for “Reverberating” and “Rebuke” on the Patch notes page:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2011384#blog
As far as Rev. Meta and Rebuke, these are in the 4.0.6 patch notes, so get excited for the patch to come out! :D
I’m also looking forward to 4.0.6 when “we humans” get Every Man For Himself back to a 2 min CD. Why that was nerfed to 3 mins in the first place I’ll never know.
Blizz hates paladins… Changes in 4.0.6 especially Ret, is a measured change in direction after ignoring complaints for months.
Blizz hates paladins… Changes in 4.0.6 especially Ret, is a measured change in direction after ignoring complaints for months.
I wouldn’t necessarily go that far.
Blizzard just released their 3rd expansion, which is a massive undertaking, and in this expansion they’ve arguably overhauled the mechanics of classes moreso than in any previous xpac.
It takes time to stabilize and sort out, especially any tweaks/changes that need to be made to balance things out.
Ret is getting a lot of needed fixes, e.g. Inquisition and Zealotry being undispellable, improved Survivability (Sacred Shield), better Mastery.
As we know, most PvP’ers do not seem to accept Protection as a viable Arena spec. So we end up always having to defend our choice to do this, and we end up looking for a good PvP’er who will accept an off-kilter comp for Arena.
Friends/guildies are usually more willing to accept one another having a history together.
That said, as I mentioned in another post, I’m about to take Bloodniron back to my original server (Gnomeregan) and race-change back to Human. I’ve enjoyed him as a big Red Bull, but…
I have a friend there who has been playing forever it seems… Anyway, I’ve been talking to him about joining me in some Arena. His Hunter is 85, but he thinks that the Hunters have been nerfed and suck in PvP now (I don’t know…). He has a Warrior that is 83 now, and he’s thinking to partner with me on the Warrior.
I imagine the thing with the Hunter is that he just needs to dig into it more and get a deeper understanding of the changes that Cata has brought, and learn to work with things as they now are. But I don’t know, maybe he is right…
What are your thoughts on these comps?
Anyway, I’ve been talking to him about joining me in some Arena. His Hunter is 85, but he thinks that the Hunters have been nerfed and suck in PvP now (I don’t know…)
Hunters are probably the most underrated spec in PVP.
In Arena, they are horrifically difficult to kill for MDPS, as they have a lot of CC: Feign Death, Deterrence, the leap-back thing, Ice Trap, Scattering Shot.
I have only seen a couple Hunters at 2K+ in 2v2 but they were awesome. Same goes for Hunters in 3v3 so far around 1700+ MMR.
It’s unfortunate your friend has that perception, and frankly it’s very commonplace. The funny thing is Hunters are getting big buffs in 4.0.3 which IMO are not actually needed, based on what I’ve seen. But more power to ’em.
He has a Warrior that is 83 now, and he’s thinking to partner with me on the Warrior
Very viable comp to 2K IMO. You will be primarily WoG healing your partner and you should both use CCs on DPS to slow down incoming damage so that you can heal. And the Warrior may need to kite/stance dance+Shield Wall in some situations.
The great things about Warrior are the controlled burst, Spamstring, and ability to create/close gaps. Intercept is getting nerfed tho in 4.0.6.
Hey Taugrim. I’ve really enjoyed your prot guide, and using some of your advices has definetly helped me and my feral mate getting to 1800 rating. We do extremely well vs any healer/MDPS and any MDPS/MDPS teams, but once we we meet comps like lock/healer and lock/mage we are having a really hard time winning. Affliction locks usually do so much dmg too the both of us, aswell as cc’ing us alot, that it seems hopeless at times. Got any suggestions on how we could beat those comps?
Please note that in patch 4.06 you will get Rebuke, cast interrupt and lock. I know it may not help you at the moment but something to look forward.
lock/healer and lock/mage
lock/healer: use your WoG and your Feral’s PS proc to heal. It’s an exhaustion match, just cover each other and use defensive cooldowns
lock/mage, or really mage/xxx: you might get lucky and burst a Caster down. Use your Stuns/silences/Cyclone to take one of the Caster out as long as possible
Thanks, will try to stay more defensive in those matches, rather then going for the fast kill.
u have to practice the reverse kiting he explained in one of his videos
REVERSE KITING
Hey there, first of all i’d like to say your vids/guides are awesome!
I also play a prot pally in arenas, my partner for 2s is a assn. rogue. We are both fairly new to arena as we haven’t been playing WoW for that long. Do you think our comp is viable?
We were able to hit 1500 a days ago. Our main struggle usually comes with anything with a Hpally or Affl lock or Frost mage in it. Do you have any tips us against these classes or our comp in general?
Our main struggle usually comes with anything with a Hpally or Affl lock or Frost mage in it. Do you have any tips us against these classes or our comp in general?
Do not go after the HPal since you can’t dispel Divine Shield, stay on the DPS, play defensively, heal your partner, and use CCs on the DPS (stun, etc) as needed to slow down their DPS.
Frost Mage is overpowered, expect to get owned.
Oh good grief LOL. After getting my 3v3 video series off-the-ground, I was going to make a Guide/video for keybinding, but I get almost 10 times as many requests re: comps as I do keybinding.
Hey Taugrim.
First off, I want to thank you for writing and continuing to update this post. Everytime I google “Cataclysm Prot Pally PVP”, you’re page is the first that pops up. So congrats on that.
Anyways, I have been prot pvping on and off since LK. I maingly Prot PVE’d and did PVP once in awhile with little to no resil. Since cata came out, I’ve decided to push more towards PVP, and am almost fullgeared with Honor Points Gear. At first I had most of my reforging done to mastery and dodge, but after awhile, decided to just keep hit at 5%, and then to move everything else to crit. I’m at about 10% crit as of now.
Anyways, As a prot pally pvper, it’s hard to balance the line between survivability and damage. We are a very hybrid class style in Cata PVP, as survivability for Prot Pallies is only showcased when flag carrying for WG, TP, etc. So with that in mind, I’ve been swapping the resil gems that I put on in the beginning (when i had very few pvp gear) and started putting in more STR/CRIT, STR, and STR/HIT gems.
So with this background in mind, I was wondering if it’s practical to try to put Enchant Weapon Mending on my main weapon (I’ve read it proc heals around 700-800 heal per hit, not sure how often it procs) and to combine that while also using seal of insight and the glyph of seal of insight in order to gain healing while melee attacking. From what I’ve researched, this seems like the best “healing enchant/aura setup” but i’m not sure if it’s practical at all. If both aura/enchant procced together, if it were around 2-3k heal would seem worth it.
Let me know what you think about this idea? if it’s viable, and if there’s any changes or additions you would make to make this “healing melee style” possible. Thanks
p.s. is there a way to private msg you? I couldn’t find anything in the blog. jw. later
Post here, this is the place I’ll most likely respond, because I keep getting the same questions asked over and over again, and I’d rather post here so others might see it.
thats not a good idea IMO get landslide and titanium playing on shield .. ive been using SoL and after reading this blog ima start using truth, when im not using SoJ
So with this background in mind, I was wondering if it’s practical to try to put Enchant Weapon Mending on my main weapon (I’ve read it proc heals around 700-800 heal per hit, not sure how often it procs) and to combine that while also using seal of insight and the glyph of seal of insight in order to gain healing while melee attacking. From what I’ve researched, this seems like the best “healing enchant/aura setup”
If you’re trying to turtle and not kill anything, you can run like that.
Mending procs for ~1k or less, and it’s not a guaranteed proc. SoI heals for ~2.6k or so, but it’s not a guaranteed proc. Also keep in mind those only happen if you are meleeing. If you are flag-running and out of range of opponents, they provide no benefit. And these procs only benefit you not other people.
I play Prot not as an “cow” but as a “bull”. I want to kill things.
really enjoyed ur guide, got a question though. with my gems ive been gemming in blue 60 stam and yellow 40 crit, im not sure if crit is worth it. do u think i should get 20/20 orange str resil insted? and is the 60 stams in blues a waste
Stacking stam is a an absolute waste. Prot pally has enough endurance, you don’t need to stack gems in stam. Just use a combination of str / hit or str / crit and pure str gems. Every other gem doesn’t have much of a use for you. You’re not going to the arena to tank. Mostly they won’t even attack, cause you’re teammate is easier to kill than you.
Agreed. I’d say that the socket bonuses are good, so personally I go for them, but I put all STR-based gems.
RED – “Bold” (STR)
BLUE – “Etched” (STR/Hit)
YELLOW – “Inscribed” (STR/Crit)
That way you have STR in everything, plus a smattering of Crit and Hit. You’ll always be doing some Reforging in regard to Hit, so a little on a few gems helps…
You could go with the “Resplendent” (STR/RES) but very likely you’ll have enough RES on your gear already… (I think I currently have 3.1k Resilience, and that’s with no ‘Vicious’ armor.) In my opinion the Hit or Crit is a more important stat to have when it comes to hybrid gems.
What’s up Taugrim.
So I wanted to update the community on my current talent build and advice on a possible change.
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZGrMcRzdRRuf0G
In the ret tree, i have 2 pts in eye for an eye, 3 pts for crusade, 3 pts for rule of law, and 2 pts for pursuit of justice. I did have 2 pts on improved judgment before, but i decided to switch that to rule of law.
My main reason for switching to eye for an eye is since magic users are one of the most difficult classes for prot pallies to fight, then i would have a chance to attack them with their own spell damage, even if it’s on a 40% chance. I have read that eye for an eye does not work for DoT damage (warlocks, rogues) but only for incoming magic attacks (but the attack back to the enemy is mitigated by our own armor/resistance/resil.)
I’m wondering if its’ better to put 1 pt on improved of judgment, and 1 on eye for an eye for a 20% chance. If I should keep it the way it is, or put it back to the way it used to be.
A different solution I wanted to make was to put only 1 point for pursuit of justice. and then to stack that with the movement speed enchant boots. But I don’t believe they stack, and I think run speed stays at 8%.
Lastly, could you make a macro for WOG on mouseover press on ally or myself. it would be much easier to deal with WoG my 2v2 partner, instead of switching to focus target on my ally and then WoG healing.
Thanks I appreciate it.
Personally (I know you are asking Taugrim, not me, but…) I think Taugrim has it right when he gives his opinion of where to put the points outside the Prot tree.
There’s a reason we don’t take Eye For An Eye. A 40% chance of returning 30% of SOME caster damage… The numbers add up to a rather small amount actually being returned. I.e., there are much better ways to spend your points.
IJ allows you to extend the reach of your judgements significantly, and this brings with it a lot of benefit. Taugrim speaks of it above.
You are correct in that the movement speed enchant does NOT stack with PoJ.
For the macro, you can simply do something like:
/tar (name of your partner here)
/cast Word of Glory
/y “Here’s a bit of heals for ya bud! Wish it was more, but…”
Thanks a lot bloodniron.
I read your Prot Pally PVP followup post on Taugrim’s blog. I really appreciated your input on Prot Pally PVP aspects as well. I’ve been trying to find as much information as possible and it seems that Taugrim, you, and Toweliee/HolyShield.com are the only really good posters on Prot Pally PVP. If you had any other suggestions on blogs or posters, that’d be great as well.
I guess I’ll go back to my previous build, for 2 pts into Improved Judgment, and take out 2 from Eye for an Eye. Thanks
Here’s some Eye for an Eye numbers.
Say you were able to get into a full health 1v1 situation with a caster. Be it lock, spriest or mage.
You have 130k health and let say in the end with heals, you have 200k effective health. (Mitigation cool downs, don’t change the equation).
E4E procs 40% of the time. So out of 200k of your effective health, it will proc on 80k damage.
It returns 30% of that damage, so it will kick back 30% of 80k, which is 24k.
So, with E4E talent, if you were to solo a caster, you can expect roughly 24k damage to the caster over the entire fight with you ending with 0 hp.
It’s difficult to compare that with the other talents in the ret tree, but IMHO, those numbers aren’t real impressive.
A little more about E4E: Seems that it only reflects back actual damage, not damage that is mitigated, absorbed, or resisted. So lets say that a caster sends a 20k attack your way, but between the Resilience on your gear, and other talents, only 5k actually ‘damages’ you.
THEN there’s a 40% chance that 30% of THAT will be reflected back to the caster. So there’s a 40% CHANCE that 1.5k damage will be reflected back…
I don’t know, but I don’t think that “chance” means the same thing as “proc”, i.e., I don’t think that it is guaranteed that this talent will activate 40% of the time. But chances being what they are, if the chance rolls on every hit, it could happen more often, or less often… Ah… I still think its crap… ;-)
A little more about E4E: Seems that it only reflects back actual damage, not damage that is mitigated, absorbed, or resisted.
Wow if that is the case, EfaE is absolute garbage :D
I’m wondering if its’ better to put 1 pt on improved of judgment, and 1 on eye for an eye for a 20% chance. If I should keep it the way it is, or put it back to the way it used to be.
People take EfaE without considering the opportunity cost.
With 30 yard range on Judgment with 2/2 IJ (instead of the default 10 yard range), you have a much greater range to hit targets with Judgment, which means you can use Judgment in more situations, which means:
1. you regen more mana (definitely important in non 1v1 situations)
2. you get more Sacred Duty procs, which last 15s – long enough to get into melee range, beat on a target, and then pop a crit SotR
3. you have more opportunities to get targets at range to Hammer of Wrath range for the finish
EfaE is a trap. Don’t waste talent points on it. You severely nerf all the amazing mechanics around Judgment if you don’t invest the 2 points in IJ.
Totally agree. Our ability to cast while frozen makes judgement so valuable and again keeping mana up is so important.
Alright, after seeing this site i feel very confident i will go over 2k in 2’s this week. i learned a few things from taugrim, mainly my glyphs were not set up right. i think with that minor adjustment and maybe using my DP for extra burst instead of saving it for a desperate wog i can squeeze out some more concentrated burst. i just wish i had money to get all the enchants and gems i need.. so broke in game :( BUT THANK YOU. This blog has validated that ive been on the right track with my pally. just one more question, is there a such thing as to much resil? is there a cap?
I don’t think there’s necessarily a cap. My highest resil set’s around 3.3k resil, but i do almost no damage. it’s mostly for flag carrying in BGs.
When I go to my STR/DMG PVP Set, My Resil’s around 2.4k, but my AP w/ might is about 8.2k compared to like 6.6k AP with my resil set.
I’d say 2.2-2.4 would be a good minimum resil rating for 2s arena, but just make sure you’re doing enough damage output. Reforge to crit.
Good Luck
I’d say get the hit capped first and then reforge to crit.
I’d say 2.2-2.4 would be a good minimum resil rating for 2s arena, but just make sure you’re doing enough damage output. Reforge to crit.
With full PVP gear, you should be running close to 3k Resil without any Resil gems or enchants.
There is no reason to use PVE gear anymore, aside from the 2nd trinket slot.
just one more question, is there a such thing as to much resil? is there a cap?
Resil seems to scale linearly up through 3800 (which is what our 3v3 healer has).
That being said, you don’t really want to stack Resil for Arena. The reason is that you are not a squishy target and you have plenty of mitigations and such to work with. Your opponents will know this, and they will typically go after your partners.
That is the reason in Arena why I use the Bloodthirsty PVP trinket with 301 Crit on it instead of 301 Resilience.
i just wish i had money to get all the enchants and gems i need.. so broke in game
Green-quality gems should be very affordable, esp as a lot of JCs are still grinding their crafting up. If you can find inexpensive “Perfect” cut greens, that will be close to what Blue gems offer in terms of stats.
Wow, I didn’t think this Eye for an Eye topic would create such a conversation. I’m glad I brought it up.
Yea. it seems that the talent is intended for us to be a bit more effective against spell casters, but unfortunately, it is VERY underwhelming.
Otherwise, I wish more of our auto attacks proced some of our abilities, but it seems mainly to come from CS/HoR. Then, reckoning could be a possible choice. but that’s a bit underwhelming as well.
I’ve been playing 2s on Horde Mal’ganis server with a unholy dk (friend and a fury warrior (guildie). we do okay, especially when I can WoG my teammate. It usually works best when they attack me, as I can easily take the damage with my cooldowns, and self WoG. But when my teammate’s attacked sometimes I have too much tunnel vision trying to down the healer, or I’m stunned/silenced too long to do any healer for my partner. Otherwise, Prot Pally PVP has been nothing short of AWESOME! If only we could get 2 pts into long arm of law.. then we’d have no kiting problems. HAHA
But when my teammate’s attacked sometimes I have too much tunnel vision trying to down the healer, or I’m stunned/silenced too long to do any healer for my partner
In 2v2 against a DPS/Healer, you can eventually drive the other Healer OOM. You should be careful to keep your partner’s HP up while you are DPS’ing – just rotate WoG heals in as shown in the Arena videos. And make sure your partner is using their excellent defensive cooldowns (AMS, etc) and CC’ing the DPS.
If only we could get 2 pts into long arm of law.. then we’d have no kiting problems. HAHA
Next xpac, when we can hit level 87, we can get LAotL :)
Hey I’m also a port paladin running around with a aff warlock, we’re pretty much stuck at 1800 rating and we really wanna get it up to 2000, our main problem is holy paladin with a warr or dk, any tactics you use that might help us ? Also wouldn’t the 30 stanima and minor speed boost enchant for boots be nice aswell ?
holy paladin with a warr or dk
Go after the DPS, use your CCs on the DPS to slow down their damage.
That enchant is bad for Prot
2/2 PoJ > boots speed enchant
Check out how I’m geared on Armory:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/wildhammer/taugrimm/
hi
really nice guide! made me a way better pvp’er.
my question is. i dont see any comments on gemmeng for spell penetration. saw on another web side that 130 spell pen is good. any comments?
saw on another web side that 130 spell pen is good. any comments?
Take what you read with a grain of salt. People say a lot of very inaccurate things about Prot.
There is no Holy Resistance in the game, therefore having Spell Pene does nothing but gimp your stats.
Question:
I’m hitcapped and have reforged as much stats (haste/mastery even hit) to crit as possible.
Now I can de 2 thinks for my gemms. I can get str+hit gemms, so I can reforge those extra to hit from my gemms into crit or I can use str+sta gemms.
Basicly I have to chose between +40 crit or 60 sta, what would you chose? The extra HP’s or some extra critrating (which is low by default anyway)
the extra HP is useless for you. go with the crit. prot is hard to kill anyways and most of your foes realize it and therefore are more like to attack your teammate so your stamina gem would just be a waste.
Crit.
I agree with LastJudge.
For optimal power, get as much Strength as you can, using the following gems:
RED SOCKET – “Bold Inferno Ruby” (STR)
BLUE SOCKET – “Etched Demonseye” (STR/Hit)
YELLOW SOCKET – “Inscribed Ember Topaz” (STR/Crit)
And if you are a JC, use 3 “Bold Chimera’s Eye” ;-)
Personally, I’m hoping that by the time I’m wearing all Vicious gear, I’ll be able to Stack straight Strength and not worry about how I’m getting enough Hit or whatnot. Still the Socket bonuses are decent enough to gem for…
TRINKETS:
I have both the Bloodthirsty Gladiator’s “Insignia of…” and “Badge of…” Victory, and often run with both equipped. I’m currently Tauren, but am very soon (sometime this week) changing back to Human, as I’ve stated elsewhere. So with Human I get EMfH, so no need for the Medallion…
But you talk about the Darkmoon Card Hurricane trinket, and in looking up info about it, it seems there must be different versions? All I’m finding (due perhaps to filtering) is the Agility version. We would want a Strength version, of course… So, given that for you to be discussing it, there must be a Strength version, would you say that this trinket is better than the PvP trinkets mentioned? And would you say that it is truly worth the gold it will cost?
I’m a bit underinformed regarding the Darkmoon Faire. I went to it this last time it was around, and did the quests, and got some Rep, and a bunch of tickets, and just don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to do, or where these “Cards” come from… Is there a way to get the trinket other than buying it at a ridiculously high cost?
Thanks!
And I suppose that while on subject of Trinkets, I could ask about your thoughts on the Right Eye of Rajh. I have the i333 version, procs 1512 Strength based on melee Critical strikes.
For awhile I thought it good, but with our Crit being so low, seems like (without hard numbers) it would not really proc that often to be truly worthwhile, and that our PvP trinks would be better and more consistent.
Your thoughts?
Wayyy too much time on my hands this morning. What about the Vendor trinket “License to Slay”? Anyone have any experience with it? 321 Hit, and “Your melee attacks grant 38 Strength. Lasts 15 sec, stacking up to 10 times.” From the way it reads, once you are started with your melee, as long as you keep it up, you will keep a nice 380-ish STR, translating into 760+ Attack Power throughout a fight. That would be the theory anyways… Your thoughts?
Right Eye of Rajh. I have the i333 version, procs 1512 Strength based on melee Critical strikes
The PVP Insignia and Badge provide Resil too, which I’m finding at 2K Rated 3v3 is highly valuable.
Stick with PVP trinkets, with the exception of DMC:H.
What about the Vendor trinket “License to Slay”? Anyone have any experience with it? 321 Hit, and “Your melee attacks grant 38 Strength. Lasts 15 sec, stacking up to 10 times.” From the way it reads, once you are started with your melee, as long as you keep it up
Same advice as above, stick with PVP Insignia, PVP Badge, or DMC:H for the 2nd trinket slot.
The issue with License to Slay is that if the buff drops off, you have to start all over again,and it’s a gradual build-up buff, not a “cliff” buff where you get 100% of the benefit immediately as you do with the Insignia or Badge.
There is indeed a Strength version:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=62049
The way you go about getting it is a bit confusing for some. For the most part, there are 8 cards (Ace through 8) that an Inscriptionist can craft. However making cards can be expensive and difficult, since which card the Inscriptionist can make is purely by chance. This is why decks (or the individual cards themselves) can be so expensive.
Ace through 8*
haha site decided to make it an emote…
But you talk about the Darkmoon Card Hurricane trinket, and in looking up info about it, it seems there must be different versions? All I’m finding (due perhaps to filtering) is the Agility version. We would want a Strength version, of course… So, given that for you to be discussing it, there must be a Strength version, would you say that this trinket is better than the PvP trinkets mentioned? And would you say that it is truly worth the gold it will cost?
The DMC:H version we want provides:
1. 321 Str (always on)
2. 5k damage proc that can crit
The people who have it (including a Prot Pally named Darthmullett in my guild) have raved about how good DMC:H is.
Given that Str is our best stat, and that the proc damage helps us burst stronger, this is currently the best PVP DPS trinket available to us.
I’m still saving up for it – I only have 8k gold and it costs ~15k on my server – but it is the main purchase I am targeting.
I’m trying to save money for the DMC:H as well. It’s not as expensive as some of the other cards, but 13k-15k is a big chunk.. Good luck to everyone trying to get their hands on it.
Got it. Pretty well wiped out my savings. 15.9k gold on the AH… So the Faire starts this weekend, I can take it then and finish the quest! BAM! Sweet trinket!!
Rumor has it they’ve changed the way that the card works on PTR. Not sure if it’ll impact the proc rate on AS/HoW, but for those that haven’t bought the deck yet, it might be worth holding off on this until the patch drops.
I’ve yet to read any confirmation on whether the proc rate on those abilities is “as designed” or something that’s slipped through the cracks and will eventually be patched up. If anyone has seen anything specifically addressing this, please let us know.
I purchased the Hurricane Deck as well this week. There were 2 in the ah going for 20k + but I was able to buy it from someone in trade chat for 17.5k (still alot of gold). Anyway, I have never been to the Faire before. Do I have to complete some quests before I can get my new trinket? If so, how many quests and how painful will it be? Hopefully, I can solo the quests and not have to bring people with me.
Anyway, I have never been to the Faire before. Do I have to complete some quests before I can get my new trinket? If so, how many quests and how painful will it be?
It’s just one quest AFAIK – you just turn in the Deck.
Here’s the rub: you have a 50/50 chance of getting a Str Deck or a Agi Deck.
If you get an Agi Deck, you’ll need to sell or trade with someone who has the Str Deck.
Are you sure about that taugrim? I spoke to someone I know who got the epic 200 level a couple of seasons ago and they said they were able to choose whether they wanted the strength or agility trinket. For the price we pay for those decks/trinkets, it seems silly to have a 50/50 chance of getting what you want without having to trade or sell it (but if that’s the way Blizz set it up, I will be one sad puppy if I get an agility trinket and don’t find someone right away to trade with).
I spoke to someone I know who got the epic 200 level a couple of seasons ago and they said they were able to choose whether they wanted the strength or agility trinket
Well, if they’d done the DMC thing, I’d listen to them. I’ve never had enough coin/time to buy/farm a DM card.
I can verify, looking at the Deck, it says “You will be able to choose one of these rewards,” and like other Quests we’ve done with rewards, it gives two icons to choose from: the Agility deck or the Strength deck. Its your choice.
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!” (And I guess at that point, you won’t go to the Faire to turn in the quest, lol…)
Just a heads up. Word is that proc rate has been changed/fixed on PTR and is no longer 100%. Confirmed for HoW for ret pallies. Nothing firm for AS, but at this point it’s probably safe to assume that it will no longer be 100% either.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2016081860
http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t110342-retribution_concordance_4_0_3a/p19/#post1846956
For those of you with decks, you may want to dig a little deeper before turning them in to see how well the trinket is going to perform post patch. Unless of course you have the 15-20k to gamble with, in which case you can let us know.
Looks like my comment from yesterday morning got hung up in moderation, probably because I had a couple of links in it.
Here it is without the links:
Just a heads up. Word is that proc rate has been changed/fixed on PTR and is no longer 100%. Confirmed for HoW for ret pallies. Nothing firm for AS, but at this point it’s probably safe to assume that it will no longer be 100% either.
For those of you with decks, you may want to dig a little deeper before turning them in to see how well the trinket is going to perform post patch. Unless of course you have the 15-20k to gamble with, in which case you can let us know.
Hey, Taugrim!
Your guide is nice and clear. Well structured. It helped me a lot. Well done!
I am waiting for that keybinds and strafing guide you mentioned. I bet that will help me alot also!
keep up the good work :)
Heya Taugrim !
I’m running 2v2 with a F-mage, and were having a really hard time.
Main problem is that I’m melee (prot pally ofc) and he is range, and were always seperated. I’m finding it hard to keep him up with heals and mitigation and at the same time being able to reverse-kite/pillar-hump.
Seeing you and Kash are both melee, I would suspect it easier to keep together.
Any thoughts ? =)
Grats on the one week 2k rating in 3v3, quite the prestige !
Main problem is that I’m melee (prot pally ofc) and he is range, and were always seperated. I’m finding it hard to keep him up with heals and mitigation and at the same time being able to reverse-kite/pillar-hump.
Assuming you are both in Vent, you should be relaying where you are going / what you are doing constantly through the match. Communication is key.
It may also be helpful for both of you to turn on the health bars of allies and enemies as discussed in Section 13 of the Guide. I highly recommend turning that on.
Mage has more CC and survivability than any class in the game at the moment, so make sure your partner is blowing cooldowns aggressively, esp as he has Cold Snap to reset many of those cooldowns anyway.
Grats on the one week 2k rating in 3v3, quite the prestige !
Thanks :)
Hey, i have been gearing and practicing based off of your guide here for a few weeks now. Based on how much ive improved in a short time I am even more stoked to continue with this build in Rated bgs and arena teams. I have been mostly a PVE player and recently got interested in PVP
I currently play with an RL friend who plays an AFF lock. He isnt as into Arena as i am, and im looking to branch out.
Its pretty tough to find people who think Prot is viable. Though in several of our matches I have been able to kill 2 players after my partner dies. usually just finishing off one we got down then getting the other. I am thinking Id like a DK partner for the survival and ability to grab opponents and bring them into melee range.
Going on a bit here but I feel like this website is a refuge for Prot players to actually get constructive open minded criticism.
I have read nearly every comment and I saw one or two asking about finding partners. I feel like i need to finish gearing with the honor gear before i can even find a new partner. It is easy enough to get the ocnquest points cause when you fall far enough in your rating you will play some pretty slow and under geared comnps. My current partner only wants to cap our points then quit each week, whereas i want to grind matches and learn. I put a posting on arena junkies, so we will se how it goes…
Thanks for the great guide!
Oh, i was also wondering if you have any new videos, those are very helpful!!!
I feel like i need to finish gearing with the honor gear before i can even find a new partner
If you want to put your best foot forward with a new partner, show up geared/enchanted/gem’d. The better you perform the more clear it will be that you are a useful partner.
First impressions count, make them good!
It looks like I’m late to the party, but I just wanted to thank Taugrim for his hard work and brilliant strategies (and those of the other posters here).
It has been discouraging seeing so many Holy paladins out there (I guess they like playing on easy mode), so I was delighted to see an insightful Protection guide, and I’m inspired to see so many others who believe, as I do, that Protection is what our class is designed for. I’ve been prot since my first talent point and have had no interest in being anything else.
Thanks also for being good about keeping your guide up to date.
Cheers and best of luck in your future arenas,
Nippon-Nesingwary (horde)
hey there, really nice blog u got here :)
I’ve started pvping a few weeks ago. I teamed with 2v2 with an other prot pala and we did good. We reached 1700 when both of us were running 2-2.5k res and were missing key items like trinkets. Unfortunately he had to drop on wow, and I am having troubles finding an other partner.
I’ve since tried teaming with the following:
– an encha shaman (but he was both undergeared and a bad player).
– an unholy dk (ok gear and good player but the combo was missing and he didnt have the patiece to try to learn).
– a blood dk (he was undergeared but we did surprsingly good, still he left as he believed he could get a better partner for easier play).
– A frost mage (again we did ok but didnt play much. had a 7-1 ratio with him, but we were lucky to get drawn against bad teams mostly. He left on the first loss saying there is no way it will work once we ge higher. I checked on him a few minutes later and he was playing with a rogue).
The biggest problem with us protadins atm, is that we are not recognized for what we can do. People have to learn to play a bit different when teamed with us. Finding arena partners is harder than ever.
That plus ofcourse our very serious mobility issues, kills us. The say rets have great troubles against kiters, but abviously we are to be ignored.
As I too have mentioned, we have this trouble (of being taken seriously as Prot PvP). But look at it this way – in one sense, it helps weed out those people who really don’t think for themselves.
This is something that I think we all here have in common. We want to think for ourselves, be ourselves, and Taugrim (and others) is proving that the spec is a viable Arena spec.
I intend to do the same once I get moved back to my old server. But at the same time, it must be said that I intend to partner with a friend (his Hunter or his Warrior), and he may or may not do well… We’ll see. He’s been in WoW since Vanilla days, and he and his wife (Holy Pally) did decent Arena in Wrath… So again, we’ll see.
I don’t intend to give up on my friend just because we may not hit a certain level. I’m encouraging him already to be getting geared up, and to be reading up on arenAJunkies and similar forums about Cata Hunter PvP builds…
Something we all need to remember… WoW is full of people who will judge you having never ran BG’s with you, dueled with you, etc…, based solely on their ‘superior’ knowledge… Elite bastards… *rolls eyes*
“WoW is full of people who will judge you having never ran BG’s with you, dueled with you, etc…, based solely on their ‘superior’ knowledge… Elite bastards… *rolls eyes*”
Amen to that bloodniron. I have 2 guildies who rant and rave in vent about how great they are because their 2v2 arena team is rated in the 1900 range (and to their credit that is good but they’re so “in-your-face” about it I don’t give them any props).
Anyway, I was in vent the other day and they were talking about how they steam rolled this comp or ROFL stomped this comp. I noticed they were in Stormwind so I invited one of them outside to a duel and the other guy immediately said I’ll meet you there too. Well, 2 duels later, I had beaten both of them and QQ was flying through vent.
I raid with both of them and during last night’s raid, I made it a point to tell everyone in vent that I had beaten both of them in a duel. It was a very nice change not having to listen to these two self-proclaimed elititsts talk about how great they are after I served them a big helping of humble pie. :-)
nice :D
Well… 1900 isn’t such a high rating, sure they should be proud to reach it, but it doesn’t mean they are crazy op or something. Something like dual frost mage comp shouldn’t have problem with reaching a higher rating than 1900 ..
It’s nice you proved them they weren’t as good as they thought they were :P
I have similar problem with 3 of my friends.. they say prot is useless in arena and stuff like that. Sure I can’t say they’re noobs (one of them is one of the top frost mages no our server), but they still don’t know what they are talking about cause no one of them ever tried a prot pally in Cata (and not even in WotLK). And to me they seem to be to full of themselves. They are saying they will achieve gladiator this season (which could be possible, but I seriously doubt it – I have my reason for that). So I want to prove them wrong. I know I won’t achieve Gladiator this season, but I think having a nice rating in any bracket proves that the prot pally is a viable spec.
I’m currently running 2v2 with an unholy DK (the sad thing is he doesn’t have the vicious two-hander yet :( ) but are working our way up. It’s not so easy since I’m quite new to the arena (got the mercilessly dedicated achievement just recently), so I’m just exploring some strategies – I’m not a total noob in arena, but I think I can still do better ;) . We used to go for the healer and pop everything on him so it’s not a big chance that he’ll survive, but it’s still tough and I’m thinking of trying to go dps now cause with the highed ratings there will be better healers and will be more difficult to nuke. And also, today we faced the same HPala, Ele Shaman comp. We lost both times cause we tried to kill the pally (well, force into bubble and then kill). We almost succeed, but with the Ele Shaman freecasting it wasn’t such a bright idea :P So it seems to be better to go for the caster if there is one – at least in the prot pally / unholy dk comp :)
We used to go for the healer and pop everything on him so it’s not a big chance that he’ll survive, but it’s still tough and I’m thinking of trying to go dps now cause with the highed ratings there will be better healers and will be more difficult to nuke. And also, today we faced the same HPala, Ele Shaman comp. We lost both times cause we tried to kill the pally (well, force into bubble and then kill).
The old “kill the healer” tactic made more sense before Cataclysm. In many cases, it doesn’t make sense now.
Against a 2v2 Healer/DPS comp, if your partner is a DK, you should be able to keep your partner alive while you burn the DPS down. If you go after the Healer, you are putting yourselves at risk, esp as Prot because if the Healer is kiting and you are not building HoPo, you can’t heal. Use your CCs to disable the DPS as you are burning them down (e.g. stun/silence/etc).
Don’t ever let an Elemental Shaman freecast – they can’t DPS much when you tunnel them because most of their damage comes from (slow) cast-time spells.
I agree, it doesn’t make that much sense now to kill the healer. We’re just to it cause it was easy to do when we had a lower rating and now I see it’s not such a good idea anymore.
And with the Elemental Shaman … I already learned the hard way that “ain’t nothing gonna save you now boy” if you let him freecast :D
Have an alternative boot enchant if I am still over hit 5% and have reforged all my hit to something else?
I don’t see any meaningful enchant for boots besides the one with hit. Are you sure you reforged all the hit rating you could?
I think it’s impossible to be in full Honour/Conquest PvP gear and still be over hit cap AFTER reforging all the Hit on your gear. Sounds to me like you might be rocking the crafted (Bloodied) set, since it has an abundance of Hit. Even a few pieces of Bloodied adds LOT of Hit.
Double check your gems/enchants too, there might be something you missed!
Also if you have such a high hit rating, it would be wiser to change your +str / +hit gems for some +str / +resil or something gems rather than trying to pick of of those other boot enchants.
But doing that would make him miss out on the socket bonus, which is usually a good thing to aim towards. Str/Sta is useless, so maybe Str/Expertise for blue sockets? At least until he has Honour gear.
I’m not sure what are gems for blue socket are there, but I didn’t see any other meaningful enchant for boots. And since he claims he reforged all he could this is the only option I see ..
but I also don’t see any useful gems here .. maybe +str / +sta .. I don’t know .. sta is pretty useless.
Maybe he should just leave it the way it is… farming the honor gear is now that difficult so he won’t be in this temporary gear for long. I don’t have the hit cap issue in honor / vicious gear so I don’t see a reason why anyone else would. :)
correction: farming honor gear is not that difficult…
Thanks, yes I am still in some crafted gear…but I will check once I get those pieces replaced. I also picked up the landslide enchant, holy crap that procs a lot, and will have the DMHC this weekend.
^^
especially when Strand of Ancients is on call to arms. As they can be over so fast. Last weekend i racked up a heap of honor grinding those. it helped that we won 70% of the time. :)
Sorry going under a different name but that was me asking about the boots…ok I still have some crafted gear so that makes sense…thanks guys! Very helpful. I did get my landslide enchant and will get the trinket this weekend…wow the enchant is awesome.
Sorry going under a different name but that was me asking about the boots…ok I still have some crafted gear so that makes sense…thanks guys! Very helpful. I did get my landslide enchant and will get the trinket this weekend…wow the enchant is awesome!