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- Our Judgement spells have been replaced by one Judgement spell.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 
Hey, ya the video comment thing would be cool. I recently got raps and was planning on getting some footage this weekend but my new arena partner transfered servers to play with som RL friends… ah well diversity is also good for learning.
i have a pretty indepth set of key binds and ya all my action bars are up on the screen, i have always done that. Then with the 2 bars that are left i use one as my buff and profession bar and the other one has some of my healing spells and such. i want all my usable abilites to be only a ‘click’ or shift click away. I recently got an addon that tests you on your key binds. havent got it to work quite right yet but it seems cool for practicing just after you make some changes.
Just hit 3k Resil yesterday!!!
I’ve noticed that I seem to be having some mana issues since the patch dropped. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination or if there’s been an undocumented change aomewhere. Anyone else noticed mana issues since the patch?
Mana seems the same to me in this patch, with the exception of the higher mana costs for cast-time heals.
yeahy i posted a commnet about that some time ago. in the actual patch notes on WoW it tells you mana cost increased for flash of light and holy light if im not mistaken
Yes i have noticed a shortage of it, compared to pre patch
I have a question for the forum. I’ve noticed as I pvp whether it’s world pvp, BG’s, arena, etc… that when I get my opponent down to very low health and death is imminent, alot of them begin jumping like rabbits. Why is that? You obviously have them targeted so they don’t become more difficult to target, and as far as I know you don’t mitigate damage by jumping in the air; so why do it?
If I’m in a setting with lots of horde and alliance fighting (like TB, AV, or Isle of Conquest), I look for someone jumping because I know they’re low on health and they become an easy target (I do look at health bars as well). Do you really want to draw attention to yourself when you’re low on health? I see this happen so many times, I’m just wondering if there’s something I’m missing.
when I get my opponent down to very low health and death is imminent, alot of them begin jumping like rabbits. Why is that?
So folks do it for the lolz factor. AFAIK in WoW, jumping does nothing.
I know of at least 1 game (Warhammer) where jumping induced lag on your opponent and was therefore a tactic of people trying to kite, which was lame. I didn’t realize this til months after I’d been playing the game and I tested with people who told me about it.
It’s funny because it’s so true. I see this all the time.
No, you’re not missing anything that I am aware of. I think people just get to the point where they know that they’re not going to win a fight and they just stop fighting back and mash their spacebar/jump key until the die.
I’ve even caught myself doing it the other day after getting jumped by a mage and hunter while farming with nothing close to LOS around and my HoPo battery (hunter’s pet) dead.
Actually, it dawned on me that this is a pretty common behaviour for hunters while kiting since it allows them to turn to face you while in the air to pop off an instant cast without loosing speed. Quite common for those that only use their mouse and can’t strafe/cast at full speed.
Having said that, it’s usually not hunters doing it.
Ya for hunters and other casters with instant cast spells it is a valid tactic. Used to play a twink troll hunter back in the day
Jump shots are great for hunters – shooting and moving in opposite directions.
You had to be pretty good to complete the class quest back in vanilla WoW to finally get http://www.wowhead.com/item=18713.
You folks are right. I had forgotten that some classes such as Hunters had to jump-kite.
E.g. for abilities that required Line-of-Sight but were instant-cast, the kiter would jump, spin (often using mouse-look) to face the target, cast, and hit the ground running in the opposite direction.
Now it is simpler IMO to strafe-kite instead of jump-kite. I used to strafe-kite on my Moonkin Druid: i.e. run sideways, which keeps targets in your forward facing and cast spells.
i think thier just panicing lol. i know i start to jump a lot out of habit. i panic when im low lol
…Just out of curiosity, wouldn’t this panicky jumping a lot when you’re low health, as you say, be more “a sign of weakness” than calmly, methodically working the HoPo/WoG ability? Just my thoughts. Have fun out there…
i know i said it was a HABIT….
You start hitting the spacebar when you’re in panick mode? I start hitting WoG when I’m in panick mode not caring if it’s 1, 2, or 3 HoPo. :-)
hitting WoG is a bad idea to me when your low on health. especially when thiers so much more you can do. for instance. when im low on health. i do 1 of two things.. i either throw up three buffs i call the deadly trio (divine protection, ardent defender, and avenging wrath i think its called.) they make you take less damage and block more. and heal big. than after thier up i heal. its not one hundred percnent garantee your gonna make it but if you throw in the stun you will. or jus stun and two flashes of light will hold you up to fnish. spamming WoG is bad when your low, it also tells the target it got nothing to do but WoG so im not attacking. its a sign of weakness especially for other pally players. but again thats my opinion and my method. ::)
I don’t agree. Read what Tau says in section 11.4 above. You do not have to agree, but by saying what you say here, you are essentially saying that those of of who use WoG when health is low – including Taugrim – are weak. Not a good way to endear yourself to the community.
I do like your idea of including Avenging Wrath in an “O Sh*t” macro. Since I have it macro’d with my Trinket and Use it more for a Burst increase, I haven’t included it in my emergency macro, but great idea as far as I can tell!
Just make sure that you ‘stack’ your talents so they are the most effective. You did not mention Guardian of Ancient Kings. My emergency macro goes something like this:
/cast Guardian of Ancient Kings
/cast Divine Protection
/cast Ardent Defender
And I suppose you could tack on /cast Avenging Wrath to it, yeah!
Gives a needed 20% boost to healing for 20 seconds, also gives the more well-known 20% boost to damage, and popping wings can have a psychological effect on the opponent as well, lol! So hey, why not!
“Throwing a stun” is no guarantee for anything. People trinket out of it, or for whatever reason are simply immune, then what?
Good luck out there…
Also, if you add something crazy to /y YELL while popping that emergency button, it may just startle the opponent so much they waste some time trying to figure out what’s going on!
Something like “COME LIGHT, BE THOU MY SHIELD!”
Anyway, I might be wrong, but I’ve been operating under the assumption that our mitigation abilities don’t stack, so like, you wouldn’t want to pop both Divine Protection and Ardent Defender because that would be a waste of a cool down.
Lol… “COME LIGHT…” makes too much sense! Ya gotta baffle ’em with bull!
More seriously, in Section 5 above, Tau talks about the stacking of our mitigation talents.
Oh, right you are. I thought he had said differently in one of his videos. So if we throw all three (AD, GotAK and DPr) does GotAK cover 50% and then the other two cover 40% of that remaining 50%? leaving…what is that, 30% that we take? I suck at math.
On a more serious note, I forgot to add that I also have Divine Guardian in that macro, to help out my teammates.
So then, I’m going to redo my “O SH*T!” macro thusly this evening:
/cast Guardian of Ancient Kings
/cast Divine Protection
/cast Ardent Defender
/cast Divine Guardian
/cast Avenging Wrath
/y Got a GOOSE, not a MOOSE, did you GET the canned MANGO?
Between the Guardian manifesting, wings popping, and the yelling of “Bohemian Rhapsody”-inspired gibberish, there should be some confusion factor in there, lol…
Any other dwarfs also use stoneform in their panic macro?
I wonder what that will do mathematically, adding another 10%.
I guess it mostly depends on your definition of “Panic Mode.” I use my wings and mitigation abilities long before “Panic Mode” sets in. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Panic Mode to me is imminent death and my “special” abilities have been used long before this occurs.
The deadly trio is indeed a good way to handle a low health situaion imo.
Tonite I will give this a few tries to test it and maybe throw in a HR too.
Even when I’m in “Panic” mode as opposed to “Panick” mode.
I’m fairly new to Prot Paladins and have found your guide excellent.
I partner mostly with a Druid, could you recomend a strategy for when we get to 2v2 arenas?
That’s a very open-ended question.
What spec is your Druid partner?
If your partner is Feral, you’ll be following similar strats to Prot / Enhancement, and I highly recommend you check out my Arena videos if you have not already.
Thanks for the reply!
My partner is a Feral Druid.
I go over your videos not only for the battle strat, but also to better understand the best situations to use the different heals and abilities.
I know that the main factor of success in arenas lies in the players ability and reactions, but hopefully by using better our spells we can give a better fight (in a previous life as rogue and priest we only managed about a 15-20% rate).
Keep up the great work!
Landslide is SO EXPENSIVE! I just got my enchanting up to 525 and I was all “alright let’s get that landslide!” until I realized it was not only 5 M Crystals just to buy it from the shard vendor, but then you need 5 more to actually do it! that’s like, 35k!! >:[
Landslide is SO EXPENSIVE!
LS is great but if you don’t have the coin Avalanche is totally fine.
Mana certainly is an issue in this patch.
The added cost of rebuke is too much too handle.
Ofcourse thats not the case when I am hit by melee (thus generating mana from blocks), but in many arena games when I face caster teams (rebuke is used more often) I can get oom.
I’ve stopped using holy radiance for that reason, and I can stil find myself oom.
Seal of Insight seems to get back in business. I’ve put the minor glyph for SoT and SoI so that I can switch when I am almost oom and get back to Truth when I am good.
Unless I am doing domething wrong ? But I dont see what. And thats even when I dont even use FoL. Even when using a simple attack rotation that only0 includes Crusader Strike, Judgement, Avenger Shield and SotR on a dummy you can see that mana slowly drops. Add to that HoW, rebuke and all the other spells you use in arena and it even from a theoretic standpoint a prot should get oom quite fast unless he is attacked by melee.
Can U please give the names of the enchants in the enchants section?
love ur vids and guide
WOW thank gos i said in my opinion. also im going to stik with my thoery. i never said Tau is weak. i jus said i think itsa bad ideato use word of glory when your low instead of a flash of light. thnx for being so rude. i appreciate it. like i care if a cyber “communuty” will accept me. yeal ok…… im jus simply giving my point of view. No you you dont have to follow. no you dont suk without it. in my point of view. thnx for replying by the way ::)
Chill, bro, we’re all pallies here.
I did not take it that you thought anyone was weak. Just chill.
Have u used Retribution in arena? If yes,which one do u prefer prot or Retr? I am a up and coming prot pally and i coming through the lvl i once am geared for the level i find i do very decent in BG. but my friends been telling me that late lvl for bg or arena prot is no good i should Retribution if anything.
Have u used Retribution in arena?
but my friends been telling me that late lvl for bg or arena prot is no good i should Retribution if anything.
I dominate BGs as Prot.
Most players, including Paladins, don’t understand the mechanics or capabilities of Prot. Played/geared/spec’d properly, Prot is solid in PVP.
As far as Arena, it depends what your goal is. 2k is reachable as Prot. The bigger issue is convincing people to team with you.
Watch my videos and keep in mind that Prot is now better in Arena (Rebuke + SoT stacking faster and from range) than when I made those videos.
Thanks… Will continue the good fight to give prot pallies the respect in pvp they deserve.
Alright! I started a 3s team last night! It’s me, a fury and a holy priest! Yes, I know that holy priest is not the “best” of arena healing specs, much like prot is not the “best” of arena dps specs (see what I did there?!) but she’s been doing alright so far. We didn’t have vent going last night, so a few matches were lost just at the breakdown of communication, but that will be remedied tonight. I’m hoping we can make this a regular thing. We all seem to be pretty motivated so I’m excited!
Ok starting out as a prot pvp pala, and not have the conquest point to get the weapon as said, what weapon do you suggest do i get in the meantime? Bear in mind i dont do heroics
I used Dragonscorn Mace which is a quest reward from Twilight Highlands. It served me well until I picked up my pvp mace.
My suggestion – just use your current weapon in the meantime, and do the following…
1) Put together a 2’s team for the points. There’s plenty of people that advertise for exactly that. You’ll get 1343 points, plus whatever you already have…
2) Next Tuesday do more Arena for the points, and you WILL be able to get your Epic weapon NEXT TUESDAY.
Simple enough? But since I don’t know what weapon you have, if you have not done the CoC fights/quests in Twilight Highlands, they culminate with a decent 333 weapon of your choice. It would tide you over until NEXT TUESDAY!
We posted at same time. I agree, the Dragonscorn Mace is a good one UNTIL NEXT TUESDAY! Its an i333 quest reward from “Narknall, the Drake Tamer” quest. Easier to get (than the CoC) I would imagine.
Hmm maybe i should’ve also mentioned that im a horde, that dragonscorn mace is an alliance only quest mace :P
there’s a comparable quest reward for horde, I had it for a while. I used it for 3 weeks of my pvp experience, but that’s all it took to get both my epic shield and weapon with conquest points.
I believe the equivalent is Mace of the Gullet.
How can you get the Epic NEXT TUESDAY? I used to play arenas with an earlier char and never could get past 1800 points for my weapon.
I am hoping I can do better with my Pala, but still would like to know how it works on Cataclysm.
By Epic, I do not mean the “Glorious” weapon, I simply mean the Vicious. Its an “Epic” as far as I can tell! It costs 2450 points, so if you simply do 2 weeks worth of 2’s to get the points… THIS week, and NEXT TUESDAY, you have enough points to get it. Sorry for any confusion.
Hi, I was wondering if you could advise on how much resilience is enough!? I have a protect pally at 82 and am planning on getting pvp kit. I do not want to over do it if there is no point at some level.
Regards
Andy
how much resilience is enough!?
At 85, if you have a full set of PVP gear, the Resil you get from stats and socket bonuses is sufficient for most contexts.
You do not need to enchant/gem for Resil.
But just for the sake of argument (and thankfully I’m a JC with a good stash of gems in the bank), I decided to experiment more with the DPS/Holy mix of gear for the dual 2-piece bonuses. I put Resil gems throughout, used “Mystic”, “Resplendent”, and “Steady” with 3 Mystic Chimera’s Eyes. With my current gear (10 pieces Bloodthirsty, 7 pieces Vicious), I have 4305 Resilience, meaning 45.21% damage reduction. Full Vicious will add a couple hundred more…
My thought in this was that in BGs, I tend to play Defense, and/or FC, and in that capacity, it seems like it would be more important to survive and hold down the fort until help comes (I use BG Defender addon to make calling for help/inc easier…), or have more Survivability as a FC.
However, that said, I miss the BURST of my old approx 10k AP Strength-based build.
I guess I got frustrated because even with my best gear (including the DMC:H trink), I went into BH as a Mdps, and was only pulling 8.9k, and that included using Inquisition to boost damage. And it made me think that maybe being a powerhouse is not what we were ‘meant’ to be as Prot.
I’ll describe my basic Rot.: Judge > CS > AS > CS > HW > CS > Judge etc… except when I have SD, at which point I make sure I have 3 HoPo and I’ll throw in a ShotR. Also in the BH raid I used some Consecration to provide extra DoT.
So long story short, I have not yet EVER completed BH. Which sucks. It could mean a nice drop or two! But my Tank gear has not been deemed high enough to tank it so far, and just not pulling the dps either.
Maybe you can offer some clue that might help? Anyone? Unfortunately I think I logged out with my Tank gear on, don’t remember. But you can look up my spec/glyphs on armory (Bloodniron@Gnomeregan), my MS is PvP, OS is PvE Tank.
Hey everyone,
Wanted to get some advice on some changes I was thinking of making.
Basically, I’ve been thinking of using SoI with the prime glyph (5% increased healing). The main reason is, in either 2’s or 3’s, I’m usually not the player that the enemy team is focusing on. Since they know I’m prot, they tend to try to burn down my 2’s partner (or in my 3’s group, out of the UH DK and the Fury WAR, they usually go for the squishier warrior) Therefore. by using SoI with the glyph, I’m able to increase my healing to my partner w/ free WOGs, and when using casttime heals). Also, because I’m usually not target, my mana does dry up somewhat fast when I’m not being attacked. So I’m able to increase my mana regen with the SoI, in order to cast heal once in awhile when my parter’s health is too low. The most important issue for my 2’s team is for me to make sure my teammate lives, cause they focus on him so often. We don’t have any CC’s.
Also, I was thinking of changing my HoJ glyph to Turn Evil. I think this might have been brought up before. I know this is situational to DK’s and Warlocks. But those are two of the harder classes that I face in either 2’s or 3’s. Also, when DK’s turn themselves undead to heal, we can CC them during that time. Also. I know HoJ is a great glyph. But it can only be used once every 40 secs, and it has diminishing returns. But the turn evil glyph is on a CD of 8 secs, which is not bad when it is an instant cast.
On a final note, I’ve been reading a lot on people using righteous defense to get passive pets away from your teammate to attack you, but also, righteous defense can take away a grounded totems from shammy’s.
I’d love to hear advice from everyone in the community, and especially Tau. Hope everyone’s enjoying their prot pvping, it’s been a lot of fun so far. GL!
any responses?
Let me recommend a macro for everyone
/cast crusader strike
/cast rebuke
Putting those two together saves another button you don’t have to push, since i am spamming CS anyway why not get a little more in return.
It is not a good idea, in this case you will always find your Rebuke on CD when you actually need it. This macro makes Rebuke useless and a total waste of mana.
I agree too. I have seen that Macro suggested for Ret PVE when you glyph the mana free Rebuke. In PVP as prot it can really hinder you having that on a cooldown when you really need it. I just bound it to the same key as my Hammer just added the Ctrl key to it.
In a bg with madness ablaze, using rebuke when ever it is up is just a bonus. That are you saving it for? This a totally reactive environment, sure you save but why and miss other opportunities?
BGs much diffrerent than Arena. I can see your poimt when you are charging into a group spamming your instant attacks. Still, id still prefer to have it bound separately in BGs.
You should never use Rebuke unless you are intentionally wanting to interrupt a spell.
It’s very mana-intensive and the interrupt is critical for shutting down healing, CC, or DPS.
Why waste it?
My focus is usually healers or other casters in BG. So yes, I am intentionally trying to interrupt.
Have you guys heard about the new changes coming in 4.1? 20 second cool down for WoG and it still costs HoPo.
Not a good news:(
The WoG change is awful. Well, I have a WoW-related announcement to make later on my blog, which was a decision I made prior to reading your post. Will share the news tonight.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2356431#blog
Here are the proposed 4.1 changes:
Holy
* Divine Light now costs 30% of base mana, down from 33%.
* Flash of Light now costs 27% of base mana, down from 30%.
* Walk in the Light (Mastery) now removes the cooldown on your Word of Glory.
* Word of Glory now has a 20 sec cooldown.
* Aura Mastery now improves the effect of Devotion Aura, Resistance Aura, and Retribution Aura instead of all auras.
* Conviction now procs from non-periodic spells.
Protection
* Divine Guardian now has a 3 min cooldown, up from 2 min.
Retribution
* Divine Storm now grants a charge of Holy Power if it hits 4 or more targets.
* Sacred Shield now cannot occur more than once every 60 sec, up from 30 sec.
I’m not at all surprised by the SS change – I predicted the internal cooldown would get increased.
But the WoG change is just awful for Paladins of any spec.
I expect Blizzard will probably have to adjust the WoG cooldown downwards. But any cooldown is just a horribad idea.
Actually prot palas are the ones hurt the most as they got fat better HoPo than rets and since we are a survivalability based class we tend to rely on WoG much more than rets.
Holy palas are not affected by this change.
isn’t that only for Holy Pallies?
Nope, in fact, Healadins will have a talent that makes other heal spells reset the CD of WoG, so they’re virtually untouched by it. It’s only prot and ret getting the WoG axe.
I expect Blizzard will have to scale back on the WoG nerf when people complain. E.g. decrease the proposed 20-sec cooldown for WoG to 10-sec.
But still, any cooldown IMO would be inappropriate.
Back-to-back WoG healing via Eternal Glory is one of the key mechanics for both Prot and Ret right now.
Here is the reasoning given for the WoG change:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2356431
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.
That justification for the change just makes no sense IMO. We heal via WoG because the situation warrants it, and because unlike other classes, we can’t peel / support other classes with an arsenal of CC.
If WoG has a 20-sec cooldown, we’ll get to watch ourselves or our friends die while futilely spending HoPo on damage-dealing abilities when that is not what is really needed.
Great points Tau. Its another ‘choice’ that is taken out of players hands.
Speaking of choices, I’d love it if we could choose what faction we are, regardless of race. I’d be Human for the Every Man for Himself ability, and HORDE! for the Strength and Honor… (love those Orc sayings…), and for the more Barbarian vibe… Ah well. Choices… who needs ’em?
I totally agree, All over this game and the warcraft games there are times where teh alliance and horde join up. I think it should be which leader we choose to follow. Obviously it is the case with other factions like the Cenarion circle etc. Id personally like to see 3 factions of groups with different morals and ideals and you choose which one with any race you like.
Updated the Guide:
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%.
[…] which started today. I know this news will disappoint many Paladins who have been following my PVP Guide and videos For me it’s time to move […]
Good luck, have phun there, and thank you for the job you’ve done :)
P.S. Same feelings after the WoG nerf actually…
Now that Patch 4.1 notes have been published, I’m archiving my notes on the Patch 4.0.6 changes here:
Patch 4.0.6 Changes (Official Patch Notes)
I would like to thank you for all the info you have here. I have followed your advise to the letter and have become a bit of a powerhouse in BG’s. I am consistently on the top of the list in terms of kills, and dmg, even if I am at the lowest level. I just can’t wait to get to 85 so I can do Arena. If you had a donations box I would def donate!!!!
One question I do have is how important is armor. Often I get better pieces of armor in terms of stats (Str/Sta) but they are a much lower armor values. Do you have a general rule of thumb I could follow here.
Hopefully one day I get to meet you in a virtual face to face on Azeroth. Thanks for the hard work!
I have followed your advise to the letter and have become a bit of a powerhouse in BG’s. I am consistently on the top of the list in terms of kills, and dmg, even if I am at the lowest level.
Grats, that’s great to hear!
Often I get better pieces of armor in terms of stats (Str/Sta) but they are a much lower armor values
Go for gear that has Str/Resil/Crit. Don’t worry about Armor, it’s bypassed completely by spells and bleeds.
also armor is usless agianst rogues so might wanna stat up fot that too
Hi Taugrim,
You did a really fantastic job both on the guide and the videos. Inspired me :)
I just want to ask you about “expertise” it was not mentioned on your guide. In my opinion we need a decent amount of expertise as well not only against rogues or hunters (due to their high agility) but also against casters, because of the racial passive 5% dodge.
But is expertise to be replaced in cost of extra crit or str? could you comment on that please.
Thanks in advance
But is expertise to be replaced in cost of extra crit or str? could you comment on that please.
Don’t stack Expertise.
IIRC, we do get that stat from the shoulder and wrist PVP pieces, but you can re-forge those to Hit or Crit as needed.
What I would recommend is that you glyph SoT, the 10 bonus Expertise is huge now, as that reduces the target’s dodge and parry by 2.5% each.
I’m very concerned about the WoG 20 second CD nerf. I just read a Blue Post on the Tanking forums that pretty much said they’re not going to change the nerf because they are more concerned about Prot PvE than Prot PvP’s viability. As a Prot Paladin doing PvP now, what should I do when the next patch hits?
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140507653?page=2#38 <—-Link to Blue Post
“We’re not too concerned with keeping Protection viable in PvP. We know some players enjoy it, but the majority of Prot paladins are more concerned with their ability to tank, and that’s where we spend most of our Protection design effort. It’s a great goal to make all of a class’s specs viable in PvP, but it’s not always possible to do so and paladins have other options.”
Wow just like a slap to the face. First take away our ability to effectively pvp and then tell us yep you’re boned and we don’t care.
“We’re not too concerned with keeping Protection viable in PvP…the majority of Prot paladins are more concerned with their ability to tank…paladins have other options.”
Wow! I don’t remember filling out the Prot Paladin Concerns Survey, do you? Out of all the many Prot Paladins represented just in the comments on this blog, do any of you remember being consulted about your concerns?
What utter bullshit. Its things like this that WILL drive me to RIFT or some other game. Yes, I have ‘other options’ but I enjoy Prot, and I enjoy a challenge, so…
And what is it about this nerf that they think has anything to do, in all honesty, with making the spec more viable for tanking concerns? Bloody hell. If I’m tanking, I normally wait for SD to proc with 3 HoPo and slam with ShotR, BUT… there are also times when the healer just aint healing, or its not happening fast enough, and I have to do something and do it quick.
I’m more than a bit perturbed about this…
RIFT? Thinking more about it…
I think we should wait and see where they go with this. While the initial changes on PTR don’t look very promising, I don’t think we’re yet seeing the entirety of the changes they have in mind. Another relevant blue quote from the link above is:
“… As I mentioned earlier, after looking things over, we arrived at the conclusion that having a powerful heal you can use infrequently is more compelling than having a weak heal that you can use more often.”
This leads me to believe that the healing output of a 3-stack WOG will eventually be greater than it currently is, perhaps with tweaks to the vengeance scaling.
If that’s the case, the key will be making sure that we can survive and bridge the gap between WOG spikes, which as prot, probably isn’t so bad. I have a hunch that this will impact ret more, due to their much lower survivability.
I know that these decisions have been driven by an assessment of PVE paladins, but if you take a step back, this makes sense for PVP as well.
It’ll (along with the sacred shield nerf) certainly put a damper on the “lone-gunman” behaviour that I am seeing out of many ret paladins right now in battlegrounds. After the patch, if a ret paladin wants to stray away from the group and try to do things on his own, he’ll end up dead, just like every other melee-centric class/spec that tries to jump into outnumbered situations.
Prot pallies should still have enough survivability to hold their own in most outnumbered situations. Maybe not indefinitely, which is sometimes the case now, but certainly long enough for help to arise. We’ll just have to be a little more strategic about our cooldowns, making sure that we’re using them efficiently, and not just pushing buttons out of habit.
Cylarus, Good points. I know that we will adapt and overcome, its just this whole attitude of thinking they know what Prot Paladins concerns are when they obviously have not asked me, or any other prot paladin that I know. And yeah, maybe they will do something to make the healing scale up… God help us… ;-)
That was the approach that many of us took with the stealth nerf to CS and HoPo, look where that got us.
I honestly like the place where prot is now. We really don’t have the ability to deal with someone who can range us, kite us, or 2v1 create gaps and nuke us in the middle other than heal. So we are persistent, keep pushing and hitting anything that is close to us to generate just one HoPo more and healing, and sometimes even a little praying till we get the ever satisfying final hammer in the back of our enemies or die trying. But hey I guess that doesn’t play well with the community at large that wants their arena encounters to end in 60 secs or less.
So as it stands right now I guess I should be working on a holy set because as it stands right now it will be the only viable pvp spec come 4.1
Been thinking that as well… Maybe a mass migration of Prot>Holy might wake them up?
I doubt that.
People switching spec/gear to Holy = they accepted the change.
Wow just like a slap to the face. First take away our ability to effectively pvp and then tell us yep you’re boned and we don’t care.
Honestly, it’s better to know that Blizzard has no intention of keeping the spec viable, so people can reset their expectations and gear/re-spec accordingly for PVP. That being said, as I wrote in another comment, Ret is still screwed in 4.1 PVP.
From your link, here’s the relevant section:
We’re not too concerned with keeping Protection viable in PvP. We know some players enjoy it, but the majority of Prot paladins are more concerned with their ability to tank, and that’s where we spend most of our Protection design effort. It’s a great goal to make all of a class’s specs viable in PvP, but it’s not always possible to do so and paladins have other options.
Here’s an article quoting GC from last November:
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/11/11/ghostcrawler-vengeance-not-a-fun-toy-for-pvp/
We’re hoping that Rated BGs give Prot specs a useful role similar to tanking in defending towers, carrying flags, etc. A tank in an Arena needs to have a lot of control and damage just like everyone else to be competitive, which coupled with their inherent survivability and resistance to being controlled got us into trouble.
So, Prot may be dead, but IMO Ret is also screwed too. From your link, here’s is the quote on Ret PVP:
We think the 4.06 changes overall gave Retribution too great a buff for PvP. We realize that there are those that disagree, but we’re pretty firm on that point and we needed to make some adjustments. Given that Ret is primarily a dps spec, we thought it made more sense to reduce their off-healing capacity, which had become quite strong, rather than their damage.
That’s not to say that we mind a hybrid dps spec occasionally helping out with healing – that feels cool, and it’s appropriate. On the other hand, we want damage focused specs to be primarily focused on dps. It’s true that there were other ways we could have reduced Retribution healing. We could have changed Selfless Healer or even Word of Glory itself. As I mentioned earlier, after looking things over, we arrived at the conclusion that having a powerful heal you can use infrequently is more compelling than having a weak heal that you can use more often.
What Blizzard fails to address is that Ret heals because their CC capability is limited.
wow lol. lots of info, to much to wrap my mind around…lol but anyway. i really do agree with cylaras. ……and even if they do nerf all our fav strategies, we will find another way.. and like i was explaining before flash of light to me is better. we jus have to make a transtion from spamming WoG to using flash of light just at the right momment. and as i said before this is my opinion. im not calling any one weak. so dont reply saying that im a cyber community outcast becasue i really dont care. but anyway. PROT PALLIES WILL DOMINATE FOREVER. EVEN IF WE DO HAVE TO RE CALCULATE OUR STRATEGIES.and i bet that these blue quotes are jus from some people who have a toon that keeps getting smashed by our kind. so they jus got mad. but well find another way.
PROT PALLIES WILL DOMINATE FOREVER. EVEN IF WE DO HAVE TO RE CALCULATE OUR STRATEGIES
You can’t fight game mechanics.
I have played what were perceived as “underpowered” specs in other games (e.g. LOTRO Reaver, WAR Swordmaster, Aion Chanter, etc) and found ways to make them work from a mechanics perspective.
But if the mechanics aren’t there, there isn’t much you can do.
Beastimus: I’ve been thinking the same thing. If they are going to nerf WoG, I might as well start modifying my methods so that I’m using FoL more. One mantra of the US Marines is “Improvise, Adapt and Overcome,” and that’s what we’ll have to continue to do if we are to remain viable as Prot Paladin PvP’ers in spite of the odds and the oddballs at Blizz trying to run us out of Arena.
_____
But you also said… “as i said before this is my opinion. im not calling any one weak. so dont reply saying that im a cyber community outcast becasue i really dont care”
Lol… That was 13 days ago, get over it already! And just for clarification, I never, ever, called you a ‘cyber community outcast,’ I was saying that the way you tried making your point in that post was “Not a good way to endear yourself to the community.”
And we *are* a community. We interact, preferably with respect, and listen to one another because we each have something valuable to share.
I’m a member of a few forums in diverse disciplines. Once in awhile you run into that guy that just makes your skin crawl when you see his name/icon. Sometimes that might be ME, admittedly. I don’t want YOU to be that guy. I don’t want to see Beastimus on a post and automatically think, “Oh look, Dickweed posted again…” And that’s not what I think about you. It *is* what I think about a few people on another forum or two.
Think about it: there’s something very wrong with using the anonymity that the Internet provides to tear others down indiscriminately. There’s also something very wrong when we speak of how we interact with others (whether in RL or online) and say “I really don’t care.”
There’s lots of us that *do* care. And we like what you have to say, when worded in a constructive manner.
If they are going to nerf WoG, I might as well start modifying my methods so that I’m using FoL more
Pre-4.0, FoL healed for much more meaningful amounts.
In 4.0, FoL got hit with the double whammy: lowered output and higher mana cost. This was not an issue because we had WoG (decent output, no mana cost).
In 4.1, you’ll be OOM after several FoL casts. That’s the mechanics issue. Casting FoL more won’t be the solution. And keep in mind almost every class has an instant-cast interrupt/silence/CC to cut off a heal.
So what you are saying is, better just kick as much ass as possible, and just heal when we absolutely have to. Or try a different game, lol…
Or switch to Holy.
I don’t think Ret will be viable in 4.1 with the way things are lookly.
yes i undersatnd that it will leave us OOM taugrim… but this is when perfect timing comes in. you need to time it perfectly to conserve mana and stay alive, and it is possible becase i been doing it. this is where we need to manage when to do what.
or we can mix a balanced strategy of WoG and FoL muah hahahaha. we can use WoG then if we need another FoL. and that should ive enouhg time for the CoDon WoG to stop then WoG agian. repeat if neccesary…its a brilliant idea Muah hahahaha
Beastimus,
I was checking your profile and saw that you have purchased Legacy PVP Gear for your level.
My Guild Leader suggested that we hoard all our honor points until 4000 so we could purchase the better 85 lvl gear when we get there.
Certainly your method seems better/more enjoyable!
I play casualy, rotating Questing, running Instances and BGs, so I guess I will start buying my PVP gear tonight :D
In a way… Thanks for the tip… ;)
one problem with that. lol i really wish i hadnt because when you get around 76 you will start to outgrow it lol. and i really do wish now i saved for my 85….but i guess it does depend on how much you pvp. i do pvp not as much as i want. but if you do. the points that you spend. you should be able to make double that by 85.
Tau said “You can’t fight game mechanics.”
And… that’s the frustrating part.
That said, I have time for one game. I really don’t have much patience for leveling up other toons, and I have all this cool stuff on my Main, and recently been working on finishing off some of the Glory of… achieves to get the various drakes with a few friends…
I got a nice “Holy” shield drop in a heroic last night, and kept it. Maybe I will start building a Holy set and see how I like it. I guess its kinda like the divorce I’m currently going thru… Sometimes ya gotta do something new…
Ah, we’ll see…
New
Paladin
* Protection
o Grand Crusader will now generate a charge of Holy Power if the Avenger Shield it procs is used within 6 seconds.
This is a very nice mechanics change, and it will reward reactive play. Granted, we should be using AS as soon as possible in PVP.
But I like and appreciate changes like this.
Now if only the WoG nerf were removed…
Oh boy, a new way to generate HoPo for SotR.
At least I know now that I’ll be able to do SotR more often in the future.
This does nothing for my survivability. Wonderful.
My idea, make WoG selfcast only.
My holy pala’s been able to cats WoG to others
Eternal glory now has a change to proc on SotR
Selfless healer now works for all rets healing spells and dont give any extra Dmg Bonus.
This way you dont mess completely with the game mechanics and blizzard got what they want with WoG.
(other option is to use Seal of insight to keep mana always to 100%, use all HoPo for SotR (extra dmg) and use FoL more often
That doesn’t fix the problems introduced with the nerf.
E.g. having Selfless Healer buff all Ret spells doesn’t eliminate the fact that FoL is the only healing spell that can be reliably cast during combat due to interrupts and it is a mana pig and heals for a small amount.
Here’s the simplest solution: remove the WoG cooldown.
Voila!
Hey taugrim, thanks for the great info here. I am leveling my prot paladin through BGs (level 79 atm) and I was looking forwards to doing bgs and arenas when I reached level 85, but when I started looking for information about how to play my best as prot it was disheartening to not find any info about it anywhere.
Anywhere but here of course. Thanks a lot! Bookmarked, and will keep following this blog through Cata.
Its been hard lately as a prot pally, 2’s arena seem to be really imbalance I always lose against healer/dps comps. For some reason I can never kite away the healers. They follow the dps tightly. and Prot just isnt bursting fast enough.
Hey all,
I’ve been using Taugrim’s guide for some time now. It’s been great, and it’s turning out to be lots of fun :) Great work!
The link below is a friend and me doing a double Prot comp in 2v2 against an arms war/holy paladin. Overall, we did surprisingly well, I think we lost maybe 3 or 4 out of 12 or so games that night.
[…] you may know, five months ago I wrote the first draft of my Prot Pally PVP Guide with the 4.0 changes. Four months ago, I posted a copy of my Guide on the new WoW us.battle.net […]
I’m going to be that annoying guy and mark a typo
Titanium grants 60% reduced disarm time not 50% as stated in this post :)
Beside that I gotta say I love this post. Read it, rolled prot-pvp and lovin it :)
I’m going to be that annoying guy and mark a typo
Titanium grants 60% reduced disarm time not 50% as stated in this post
I appreciate the feedback, but are you sure it’s not 60%?
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/item/44936
http://www.wowhead.com/item=44936
One idea might be to use a couple pieces of holy pvp gear for the extra int. You would lose a bit of dps but be able to cast a bit of extra FOL’s if needed.
This has been discussed many times – and the answer is always the same: stacking Int instead of Str makes no sense given the TbtL mechanic.
Please re-read Section 10.
FoL healing is incredibly inefficient, so stacking Int will give you very poor returns relative to the investment.
Beautiful guide man, just posting to say if you’re still on the fence about the 1v1 section, I’d, for one, find it hella useful :P
I’m not going to write a 1v1 Guide. I’ve talked about every key Prot mechanic and counter through my Arena videos.
The best teacher for 1v1’s is simply dueling every class/spec over and over so you see how their mechanics work.
G’luck to you!
Hi guys.
Taugrim, I love your work, thank you!
After short and boring careers as a Warrior and Hunter,I started as a Holy Pally then changed to Prot / Ret because quite frankly Holy was getting boring and wasn`t as effective in melee as I wanted. Gave Ret a go in PvP and was not impressed. But with Prot I couldn`t be happier.
I have been doing a lot of PvP since around lvl 45 and can honestly say that there have only been a handfull of opponents who have beat me one on one, and it feels good those times I last 20~30 seconds against half the opposition team before they take me down. But then there are those wtf times when a caster will drop me with 2 shots even though I have more than half my health lol.
I agree that really the only way to know 1v1 is just to do it, lots. Certainly you need different tactics against different opponents, like drag a Warrior out into the open and run rings around him, and drag everyone else into a narrow space and hit them with the lot. As Taugrim has said, if you use your environment and draw casters especially to come to you. Or my favourite, run around that rock / bush / corner, hit them from behind with HoJ and stun them then take them out.
I`m about to hit 80 and I know once I get to 85 it`ll be a whole new ballgame again. But i`m enjoying every part of Prot Paladin and even though the nerfs are frustrating, and quite frankly some other toons have some pretty unfair advantages, it makes it all the more rewarding to do well with what we have, even if it is a nightmare gearing and balancing everything ;-)
Hey Taugrum, love your guide. Currently running feral/prot pally and we’ve hit a brick wall at 1800/1850.
Was curious to see if running resto/prot pally would be better than our current comp. Also, with the WoG nerf incoming, I was thinking the extra heals would be nice. If we tried resto/prot, would gemming remain the same you think?
Thanks
Grats on 1850.
IMO Prot Pally is best paired with a DPS in 2v2.
If you go Prot/Resto as your comp your matches will be painfully long against a DPS/Healer.
Your gearing for Arena should be as much Str and Crit as you can stack while still reaching 5% Hit cap.
I had the same problem with my feral partner. We peaked at about 1850-ish, after which I decided to try ret for that particular partner, and we’re now slightly over 2k (limited by gear for the most part).
As for prot / healer, my personal experience has been that with every healer I’ve tried, we’d fight for about 20-30 mins, and end up losing. This is very demoralizing and stressful, so I would not recommend doing that.
My opinion: We prots just don’t have big enough bursts to burn through a lot of comps alone; couple that with the fact that our bursts can be easily purged and our vulnerability to CCs, and it becomes obvious why we need another heavy hitter to help us out.
Saw on the Prot Pally PVP Guide you have stickied that you’re done with the game.
In case you don’t hit up the forums any more.
“Tyvm” for the props.
“Best wishes Taugrimm, on whatever endeavours you have planned.”
Recently started an prot/prot arena team and its incredibly fun. Ofcourse this blog was an awesome inspiriation and I would like to thank you for that, Taugrimm.
The big question will be if its still fun after the next patch, cause a lot of fight are mainly about survivability and that is getting nerfed big time.
I prefer to use Seal of Insight when I get focused by the other team. It does about 30k healing in one minute. It’s not so bad as author says here.
Just a tip- I’ve macro’d inquisition onto my HoW- greatly increases damage of the HoW to almost always take them down. Add in a little Avengers Wrath if you really want to for maximum pwnage.
Hey i just wanted to thank you for this incredible post, I no longer do any prot pvp in arenas as it was getting to hard to bring healer/dps comps down at about 1800 rating. However i did had tons of fun mainly in battlegrounds where it took many pple to bring me down and i was able to be the hero in many fc bgs. Im currently playing ret and even tho i no longer have the survability that prot spec offers its quite fun to do 60k hammer of wrath crits.
I know both specs are screwed with this 4.1 stuff but i will try to do some holy pvp and pray for blizz to fix WoG for ret and prot.
I hope you are enjoying rift and excuse me if my english is bad but it isnt my main language.
I hope you are enjoying rift and excuse me if my english is bad but it isnt my main language.
Your English is excellent.
Thanks much for taking the time to stop by.
So how does the Prot PvP spec change now that WoG got that huge 20s nerf? Is it even viable anymore?
I cant even count how many times, ive been able to stay alive in a 1v1 situation in a BG because of WoG, If anything doesn’t this make us even more defensive as we can no longer let our health drop to <20% because we know we've got a WoG (and possibly 2 if it procs).
Just wondering what your thoughts are as someone who understands the importance of WoG for Prot PvP viability.
Kraetos
So how does the Prot PvP spec change now that WoG got that huge 20s nerf? Is it even viable anymore?
See Section 14 of the Guide, I give my take on the introduction of the 20s cooldown to WoG.
TLDR: this is a hugely crippling nerf for Prot and Ret in PVP.
I read section 14 about the nerfs, do you have any suggestions as to how to compensate for this? I know you dont play the game anymore, but you really are an expert on Prot pallies as far as Im concerned :D
Do you think its still worth it to gear for PvP as a Prot, or can we just not recover from the changes?
Do you think its still worth it to gear for PvP as a Prot, or can we just not recover from the changes?
Well, you make the decision first which spec you want to play, then you gear accordingly.
If what you meant was “is it still worth it to spec for PvP as a Prot” that is not a question I can answer for you based on firsthand experience.
There are already a number of threads on the WoW Pally forum today asking Blizzard to reverse the change.
My read on the situation:
1. WoG nerf is crippling for both Prot and Ret in PVP, and for any meaningfully competitive PVP context, both specs will be ineffective
2. Blizzard isn’t going to reverse their decision to introduce the cooldown for WoG. The 4.1 patch notes were initially released over 2 months ago, players expressed concern about it then, and Blizzard chose to move forward anyway
I’ve done a fair bit of experimenting over the past couple of days, and despite my efforts, find myself even more disheartened.
In an attempt to make up for some of the survivability loss, I’ve gone so far as to completely build around SoI, as a means to bridge the gap between WoGs, fully knowing that I’d be paying a price in terms of damage output for this. It just wasn’t enough.
While the WoG nerf is the main issue, we’re also being hit by the changes in how resilience scales.
I can’t express just how squishy I feel as prot right now. To put it into perspective, I find myself struggling against classes that I didn’t even have to rely on WoG to beat handily a week ago. Not only am I self-healing less, but I feel like I am taking way more damage. Maybe I’ve just been running into more top geared opponents than usual that are in BGs tweaking and testing themselves post patch, but it’s not very fun. I’ve dropped my DMC:H in order to squeeze a little more resilience in from the second trinket, but didn’t notice a difference.
In a sad turn of events, I finally got Landslide last night (for a steal with the new abundance of crystals), and now I’m seriously considering shelving this guy for awhile, or going holy just to get games in and cap weekly at lower brackets to finish off the remainder of my Vicious gear.
I noticed the same stuff in Holy.
A few weeks I started farming Holy gear, cause the WoG nerf was incoming. I have a mix of holy gear with 2 pieces scaled for the extra resilience bonus and a full holy set, but with either sets I drop like fly after the patch.
Then I put on my old trusted prot gear and I kinda experienced all the above which Cylarus mentioned.
In an attempt to make up for some of the survivability loss, I’ve gone so far as to completely build around SoI, as a means to bridge the gap between WoGs, fully knowing that I’d be paying a price in terms of damage output for this
That’s unfortunate but not surprising. SoI has never been more than a very modest mitigation heal, and after the changes to SoT in 4.0.6, SoT because a must-use Seal IMO.
You can’t find game mechanics :(
The problem I see is damage. In RBG which id different from arena, damage is the measured component. If you are not high on the damage or kill list you are not viable. Unless you are the fc in which case surviability is everything. But only two RBG require a fc. Beingable to guard a flag without damage utility is questionable. These are difficult stats to compare which brings me back to damage as a the only viable measure.
I’m a little confused. I recently switched to prot pally from ret and have been delving into PvP. I have a couple of gladiator items, nothing to speak of yet really. I’ve been gemming as I would for prot PvE gear. I’m curious what you gain from being a prot pally geared/gemmed as ret? Why wouldn’t you just be ret? I’m finding it takes three people to knock me down in a bg geared as I am and I’m afraid if I gear/gem like a ret pally I’ll lose that survivability against another equally geared opponent. Can you list the reason a protribution pally is better than a ret pally? Thanks!
I have a couple of gladiator items, nothing to speak of yet really. I’ve been gemming as I would for prot PvE gear. I’m curious what you gain from being a prot pally geared/gemmed as ret? Why wouldn’t you just be ret?
PVE gear has no place in PVP – the mitigation provided by Resilience is hugely important in PVP, and PVP gear provides better stats for PVP (Stamina, Crit, etc)
Please read Section 10 in full.
I haven’t played in weeks due to blossoming lovelife :) I’ve been staying at her place just about everyday/night. She’s cool with me playing, but I need my computer to play, and its at my place, lol… We’re looking at moving in together soon in an ‘our’ place, but meanwhile…
And with all that I’m reading here and Tankadin.com, I guess it might be in my best interest to ‘shelve’ Bloodniron for awhile, and level Demoniron, my Worgen ‘Lock. I don’t know how things have changed ‘Locks, but they’ve always impressed me…
Come on guys! I know this patch has hit Prot Pals very hard, but by the sound of it most people are just about abandoning their toons. Is it really that bad?
I would certainly think that Taugrim will not be able to survive against 4 or 5 opponents as he did before, but I guess 2 will not be able to bring him down easily, as for me, I certainly was not very good at PVP before, so I will probably stink now, but that doesnt mean PVP will not present challenges and in a way be some fun (I agree, its a lot more fun when you are not somebodys doormat).
Is there anyone out there who thinks that Prot Pals might somehow adapt and compete?
Keep posting…
With the current tools at our disposal, I don’t think we’ll see prot viable. I’ve tried milking and twisting every mechanic I thought might help, and was met by disappointment after disappointment.
While we’re the minority as far as PvP paladins go, the same nerf is also affecting Ret paladins, which make up a much larger portion of the PvP paladin community. Hopefully any tweaks and changes they make to improve Ret’s viability (which is more of a priority than Prot’s) are baseline changes, and not Ret only changes. Given that the WoG changes were made to address Tanking issues as well, my worry is that they’ll compensate Ret in a way that isn’t accessible for Prot paladins, but at least those of us that consider going ret if it’s compensated won’t have to start from scratch as far as gear goes.
The situation for all paladins is dire. This can not be an oversight. There are too many posts, forum debates and replies. It is intentional palicide. Blizz wants to obliterate the class. Patch 4.1 was an extinction level event. Do what I did. Cancel your account like 600,000 have already done.
by the sound of it most people are just about abandoning their toons. Is it really that bad?
As you may or may not know, I quit WoW over 2 months ago to play Rift instead (which has been a ton of fun – IMO Rift PVP > WoW PVP):
Therefore, I can’t tell you based on firsthand experience how bad I think the introduction of a 20-sec cooldown is for WoG. However, it’s reasonable to project the implications of the WoG nerf by considering the impacts on our healing mechanics.
Rets and Prots can no longer output solid healing, in terms of burst (e.g. back-to-back WoGs via EG) or over periods of time.
Before 4.1, Prot had solid DPS, limited CC, and solid healing. Now? Prot has solid DPS, limited CC, and *limited* healing. That’s a bad combination in PVP.
You can’t fight game mechanics. It is what it is.