Prot Pally in 4.0.6
Here are the notable changes based on my PVP’ing in BGs and 2v2 Arena tonight:
- CS/HotR no longer generates HoPo on a target that avoids the attack (i.e. via dodge or parry). This was not documented in the Official 4.0.6 Patch Notes. A Blue poster said it shouldn’t generate HoPo against blocks either (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2046735514?page=2#29) but I haven’t noticed that yet. This is a significant nerf against MDPS but isn’t that noticeable against Casters. EDIT (2009/02/09): per Cassan’s comment below, Blue corrected their post: HoPo still generates even when the target blocks
- Dazing Shield glyphs seems bugged, it doesn’t apply the daze effect (credit: Darthmullett). I would expect this to get fixed soon, as it’s crippling in PVP. EDIT (2011/02/10): this has been hotfixed :)
- Rebuke as expected is very helpful against cast-time classes. I am now able to kill 2K rated Shadow Priests in duels, which I was not able to do in 4.0.3a. I haven’t had the chance to duel skilled/geared Mages. I’m having to re-train my brain to use Rebuke over any other ability when a RDPS starts casting in melee range
- The buff to SoT – it stacks from any single target attack
(excluding FS-glyphed AS)– is excellent for continuing to whittle away targets that are kiting. The change in the SoT mechanic is another reason why the Improved Judgement talent is a must-have for PVP, as Judgement now stacks SoT up to 30 yards away with IJ. EDIT (2011/02/10): correction, FS-glyphed AS does stack SoT :)
Please share what your experience has been thus far!
2v2 Arena in 4.0.6
I started running 2v2 with other players tonight. So far the team is 11-14 for the week and the Rating has dropped from 2K to ~1870. I went 0-4 with a Mage and then 11-10 with an Enhancement Shaman (Kømuri) who needs to get enchants on 7 slots (*hint hint*).
I am going to be trying various classes in 2v2 and am hoping to find skilled/geared partners. I’m planning on running with a skilled/geared Rogue this week so I’ll post my thoughts on that comp.
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
About Darkmoon Card: Hurricane,
The trinket seems to be fixed in 4.0.6. No longer we have 100% dmg proc on Avenger’s Shield and Hammer of Wrath. With some quick dps meters checking, in 4.0.3a that trinket was doing 10% of my damage, now it is at little less than 3%.
Very glad that I held off on picking this up, anticipating that it would be fixed. Still might be a nice trinket to pick up, since that 3% (plus str gain) is still a decent chunk of damage (more than I’m getting out of avalanche for example), but I’ll hold off for a bargain.
Yea, same here. It’s probably still BIS for PVP, but by a much smaller margin than it was previously.
Block does generate Holy Power.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2046735514?page=3#43
Block takes 30% of dmg dealt. The target even if he blocks he takes dmg, so it is normal that we generate HoPo from it I guess.
Thanks Cassan!
one really big thing I noticed is my attack power is less than it was before,even after I added 2 vicious pieces with the same gems,and a plus 15 all stats instead of stamina enchant on my chest.Anyone else notice this? My dmg isn’t close to what it was pre-patch. The dazing shield glyph really hurts in arenas.I found it near impossible to peal without having a slow.
I believe it is happening because we lost some str from the 4-PvP set bonus. Everybody lost this stat amount.
Good catch, thanks th3m!
Taugrim, good write up on the patch!
The AS daze bug is an game breaker vs some classes but luckily it hasnt cost me yet and still won an arena 2v1 last night vs rogue & hunter combo.
I did feel soft last night I’m not sure if I was off my game or what but it very rare I die first in Arena but I got hammered good my first fight!
The DMC:Huricane fix sucks too! I have to go thru my logs tonight and see if that’s still my best option.
What’s your thoughts on a DK & Prot for 2v2? I feel it sucks. My RL friend plays a DK and it seems like he’s always dead and we’re stuck @ 1440-1480. I really don’t think it’s me. I’ve won 7-8 arenas 2v1 this season an the night before last I went 26 minutes solo vs Spriest & shaman.
Anyway GL on the new 2v2s Shaman should give you some good oh shit heals, CC and a snare!
The nerf to the Hurricane Deck does hurt along with the loss of HoPo when being dodged or parried. I didn’t run any rated BG’s or Arena last night since it was my 10 man raid night.
However, if anyone plays ret in PVE, we gained a huge buff. I reforged my gear to mastery and removed as much haste as possible and my dps was amazing. On a couple of the boss fights where melee doesn’t have to move a great deal (Magmaw and the Tol Barad boss), I ranked in the top 100 WoW logs on those fights and my gear consisted of a lot of blues during that time. I had a good run on gear last night though picking up 3 new pieces (finally).
I can tell you my dps on those fights went from around 12-13k to 18k with the only difference being the Hurricane Deck trinket and the changes from the new patch. It was the first time since ICC I had to watch pulling threat off our tanks. I can’t wait till Thursday night when I get to try on the new gear I picked up last night. My Mastery rating is around 14.5 and Divine Purpose procs a good bit at that level. I just hope we can continue to be a viable class as Prot in PvP as I have grown very fond of this role.
What’s your thoughts on a DK & Prot for 2v2? I feel it sucks
I think that comp would work great, so long as the DK understands rotation of CCs and AMS/AMZ and self-healing. DK is very very durable and has great counters to Casters and Healers.
Anyway GL on the new 2v2s Shaman should give you some good oh shit heals, CC and a snare!
Kømuri plays Enhancement not Resto. I wouldn’t run with a Resto Shaman in 2v2, the matches would be too painfully long for my taste.
I played with a shadow priest we won 5 lost 3 in 2v2 but theni play with unholy dk he would just drop so fast. Your right dk/prot not a good comp.
Yeah, I was thinking a Aff lock or Spriest but Spriest seem to be dead when they blow disp.
I think DK/Prot would be a very good comp, if they pick an accessible target for the Prot to build HoPo on.
DK’s have a lot of great tools for survivability: AMS, AMZ, silence, stun, etc.
I didn’t have much time to play during the last days (RL > WoW). But I’m gonna try arenas today to see how the new changes affect them. I have a rating of 1700+ now (still running with a DK, but have a bit of problems around this rating cause we were used to just burning down the healer before :P .. and the higher the rating, the better geared and more skilled players, so it was natural we had to switch for the dps and kill those first before going for the healer).
Last time we played we got a funny comp against us – frost mage / shadow priest. first time they got us, but the next time they made the worst mistake. we manage to split them, so we both basically had 1v1 and managed to kill them without any significant problems (reverse-kiting is a nice thing :) ).
And yes, Dazing Shield at the moment only dazes prot pallys! yay!
Just finished a wsg game, there was a prot pally on the opponent team and our shield were dazing each other.
Dueled a retri pally to check if it works on pallies in general and it didn’t. So if you see mirror, daze them to death :p
Too funny. Did a couple arena matches last night against another prot pally and didn’t notice.
I play Feral with a prot.. but with the nerfs it probably will not be great. We play very little. have like a 1400 rating after our first 3 weeks only playing enough games to get the conquest points (usually we go 5-3 or 6-4)… I bet rogue would be good with Prot. We tend to be able to burst down a lot of classes at this level with him attacking first and then me pouncing and killing. Obviously the 2k bracket is much harder than the easy stuff we are doing now.
Yes prot,rogue is a good comp.I played with an undergeared rogue to help him get points and we went 5-1.He only had 1800 resil,but we used him to shut down heals or 1 dps while I solo’d the other.
Played 12 matches with a geared Rogue (Arkaan) last night. We went 6-6 at around 1870 Rating, and we’re still learning how to play the comp.
Rogues have a lot more utility than I was expecting. Smoke Bombs are awesome not just for preventing a target from getting heals but also for turtling – RDPS can’t attack us in the SB.
My Shift-focus macros for healing are not working 100% of the time, even when I am positive I am pushing Shift. Very annoying. I’ll have to tweak the macros to make sure they are working, because I hate it when I WoG myself even though with the Shift modifier its supposed to WoG my focus target.
I’d be really interested in hearing more about this and maybe seeing some videos if the two of you keep going. I’ve been having trouble finding a partner, but I have a friend who’s a skilled rogue, but not geared, so I’ve been thinking about helping him get geared, etc.
I have a friend who’s a skilled rogue, but not geared, so I’ve been thinking about helping him get geared
That will definitely help.
The reality is that the majority of Arena teams (my guess is 80%) never crack 1600 Rating or so. So most teams lose as many games as they win. That’s normal.
If you try 2v2 with him before he is geared, he may (incorrectly) assume it’s because the comp isn’t viable.
As I said above, I just ran a dozen games last night with a Rogue for the first time ever, and we went 6-6 at around an 1870 Rating.
OK, so I don’t think Prot / Rogue is going to work for 1800+.
We went 7-12 overall, with a 1-6 record tonight. The issue with the comp is we don’t have enough healing or enough CC, which is a bad place to be.
I’m glad I tried it. I know my partner is competent and well-geared so those things weren’t the issue. There just isn’t enough synergy in the comp.
Cool, this is good to know. That was kind of how I felt when I tried a few matches with a shadow priest. He would just get focused and we didn’t have the CC to keep them off him for the whole match, and with him wanting to stay in shadow form as much as possible, our heals were lacking as well. That was honestly probably a silly comp to try anyway, I’m just getting desperate for a partner :\
He would just get focused and we didn’t have the CC to keep them off him for the whole match, and with him wanting to stay in shadow form as much as possible, our heals were lacking as well
I think any class with solid off-healing / survivability would partner well with Prot.
E.g.:
– Shadow Priest
– Feral Druid
– Enhancement Shaman
– Prot Warrior
– DK
Shadow Priest is pretty durable now, between AOE fearbomb, silence, PWS, etc.
If your partner is Spriest you need to go in first, and buy time for your partner to start DPS’ing. Your partner also needs to be smart about shifting out to heal. DPS with healing buttons who refuse to use them are going to get rolled in PVP, period.
I see a lot of (stupid) Moonkins and Spriests not understanding they need to pre-kite and pre-heal before they are in trouble, because if they get low other good players will shut them down and finish them.
Dude I teamed up with a skilled Feral druid last night for points and even though he wasn’t geared, we went 5-0 no problem. His off healing was great and even though it would drop his dps a little, slipping into bear gave him the mitigation he needed to bridge the heavier bursts of dps from the enemies when things got tough. Definitely a comp I’m going to pursue more in the future.
Tau, same thing happens to me with the focus WoG macro, veeeeery annoying!
Yea, I’ve tried tweaking the macro but the bottom line is it’s *not* working 100% of the time, which makes it unreliable.
E.g.:
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus, mod:shift, help, nodead] Word of Glory
/blah blah blah
That doesn’t always work, even when I have a focus and I am holding down Shift
Now that ret is buffed it is doing pretty decent dmg wild be a best spec for arena but for bgs/duels I still say prot
Ret isn’t as squishy as it used to be, which is great.
My gut feel is that Sacred Shield will get nerfed. A 30k absorption shield with +20% healing received, 30 sec internal cooldown, and 15 sec duration seems a bit imbalanced.
But I am glad Ret got revamped. It’s way more durable now.
Prot is doing well now IMO. I can take down RDPS much better in 4.0.6 compared to 4.0.3a.
Well I would still go prot for bgs/duels but ret for arena considering the buffs Which caneasily burst down healers and there is apparently a melée counter for us prot pallys that is a blood dk their are incredibly op right now with necrotic strike and crap loads of self heals despite that it would seem like a even match and would continue forever the blood dk would win ><
I’m currently playing with a DK and tonight we went 6-0… right before going on a losing streak. But we’re very effective at locking a healer down while taking out the dps, we can both take a lot of damage without a lot of worry.
I’m currently helping my buddy level his rogue to 85 when he’ll become my permanent 2’s partner (real life friend) so I can’t wait to see what your thoughts and experiences with it are. A video would be great.
Went 11-3 tonite and 15-4 for the week so far in a double prot comp. It’s so funny, the off heals are great and you shut down casters and gears so well. I think alot of it is cause teams are confused on who to target. Cracked 1400 rating and my partner only has 1k resil.
AS price ftw!!!
Update, as double prot we are now 21-9 for the week and going well with a rating of 1480 in the Bloodlust battlegroup ( considered to be one of the top/hardest groups to arena in). We have made some mistakes though, like tunneling a healer and getting kited till one of us dies and then it’s pretty much over. We changed that to just tunneling the dps and trying to chain our HoJ and AS procs on the healer, longer fights but generally always a win, just keep trying to get them into a large health deficit. If we have the dps at 30% or so, one of us switches full-time onto the healer.
We have found we have a 85-90% win ratio against double dps. My partner is still only half-geared tho, will get better as we go n
New useful macro!!!!
/cast [target=focus] word of glory
*this means you can cast wog’s on ur partner without changing targets at all. Can also be interchanges with Hand of sacrifice aswell, as double prot we both have it set up. You could put a modifier on it, so that it will cast WoG on yourself or ur focus with a button click.
This is the macro I use:
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus, mod:shift, nodead] word of glory
/cast [mod:ctrl] holy radiance; word of glory
What is very annoying is that it does not always cast WoG on my partner when Shift is depressed. I have tested this multiple times, and it’s frustrating because I don’t really trust the macro.
And before anyone asks: I don’t have the Shift-focus option turned on, because that Menu option doesn’t work with macros.
Maybe try replacing the “@focus” with the “target=focus”? Could also be a Los issue, but if not the I don’t know what it could be.
@focus and target=focus are the same thing, the @focus is just shorthand.
That being said, I re-wrote the macro, hopefully this will work better:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl] holy radiance
/cast [@focus, mod:shift, nodead] word of glory; word of glory
This macro seems to work just running around Org, but then again, the previous version I used was working that way too. In Arena, with my partner in LoS, my previous one wasn’t always casting on him. Maybe it’s because I’m also pressing other keys at the same time (but not Ctrl).
I’m done running 2v2 for the week so unless a guild Priest is available I won’t be able to run 3v3 and test the macro.
You could also try:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl] holy radiance; [@focus,mod:shift,help,nodead][] word of glory
(that should be all one line if it doesn’t render properly). Basically it’ll move it all to one line. The empty [] means revert to default behavior – which should be self heals (depending on if you have the option on or off – if it’s off you’ll get the click on your target cursor) – it should be processed slightly more efficiently and maybe fix the issue?
Yea I have thought about replacing:
/cast [@focus,mod:shift,help,nodead] word of glory; word of glory
with:
/cast [@focus,mod:shift,help,nodead][] word of glory
Functionally they should be the same, the latter version is simply shorthand.
I’ll test this week and let you folks know.
Another one.
/cast holy radiance
/cast divine guardian
*lifesaver, really takes the bite out of an opening burst on your partner, especially double prot cause if they switch ur partner can use if aswell.
Hot tip, use divine shield before you hit 50% health, can get you out of that health deficit with judgement, divine light, divine light, judgement. You should be on full mana by then aswell after 2 x 15k non crit heals. If you add a wings to a DS macro, it’s a 20k non crit heal x 2, and with the 2 x judgements, increased 20% dmg on the judgements ant that’s 4 stack of SoT aswell.
Check it out.
Dazing Shield seems to be fixed :)
I was worried we’d have to wait until a patch.
Maybe a little too fixed. I’m seeing tons of reports of ret pallies getting dazing effects out of their attacks.
Now, as prot, I don’t have to cast AS or even have a shield equipped to get the dazing effect. Being triggered by regular attacks.
At least they’re working on it, but I wish I wasn’t stuck at work right now and could enjoy the fun while it lasts.
ditto. lol
I just want Dazing Shield glyph to work correctly, so I can get an accurate feel of our mechanics in 4.0.6.
Read this as “Danzig Shield.” Calling it that from now on.
Does Avengers Sheild refresh or spread SoT? The patch notes state single target skills and AS is a multi target. It also doesn’t list AS. I also run the glyph to make AS focused to one target, does anyone know if this effects the change?
AFAIK, AS even glyphed with FS does not count as a single-target attack that stacks SoT.
Negative, I can confirm that AS does put a stack of SoT on a target, from 20 yards away on a dummy I threw AS only (with FS glyph) and it put the dot on.
Prob get changed tho, use it while we have it.
You are right, just tested it :)
Something else that sinteresting that may be an oversight from me, but Judgement of SoT puts 2 stacks on aswell, so a quick AS and judgement will put 3 stacks on straight away. This is very useful when being kited, particularly as the stack countdown seems to be 20 secs, which is plenty of time to keep the SoT DoT refreshed.
Anyone else getting the same result?
Also Taugrim, I have a question for you on theory crafting if you know the answer. How does resistance and resilience stack? does a spell go thru Resilience check first then the resistance check? with Resistance aura its supposed to be a 25% reduction in that school’s magic damage. I gather thay dont stack, but if a 10 k dmg spell gets to the resistance check adn I have 30% reduction, only 7k should go through, then lose 25% to resistance…… I might be reading this wrong tho.
Anyone?
Anyone else getting the same result?
I didn’t notice multi-stacking, but I will test next time I’m online.
How does resistance and resilience stack? does a spell go thru Resilience check first then the resistance check?
Honestly don’t know. If anyone can provide a link to any kind of math on this, please do!
Judgement of SoT puts 2 stacks on aswell
Tested this morning and got the same result. It may be a bug.
Hey Taug,I have a great macro I made for healing team mates.I know your interface is full already,but it is great for targeting your team mate and healing them with one keybind.If you would like to try it I would gladly share it with you.
Have you tried Ret yet? Vanguards (most famous US ret paladin) released a video a couple days ago of him going from 0-2650 rating in one day playing Ret after patch changes. It’s available at Warcraft Movies.
Have you considered Hunter/Prot in twos? I thought about playing it on my Prot Paladin. Premise of the comp would be to prevent switches on to the hunter and let him do the damage while you minimalize caster dps/healing via interrupts. It may be nerfed but MM Hunter’s burst is very potent right now although they need some time out of the line of fire to set it up. With a hunter you can pull off a decent cc chain like HoJ>Scatter Shot>Trap>Monkey(Bad Manner) which is 23 seconds if executed perfectly, making it viable in terms of cc for all but the highest ratings. Obviously with master’s call and hand of freedom the Hunter should be able to escape pressure with ease.
I also played Mage/Ret last season and it was a solid dpsx2 comp and should only be stronger considering what mages are like now and the recent buffs to Ret.
Have you tried Ret yet?
Not yet in 4.0.6.
I tried it briefly in 4.0.3a without a PVP weapon and didn’t like it. That being said, my main concerns (squishiness and dispel vulnerabilities) were well addressed in the patch.
I will have just over 3400 Conq points when I cap out this week, so I will hopefully get a 2H weapon today or tomorrow to try 2H Prot (per Vir’s excellent thread) or Ret.
I can’t access Vir’s post at work and you have my curiosity peaked. How do you use a 2H in prot spec? There’s no shield to use with AS :-0
I’ll read the full post when I get home today, but if someone could paraphrase it, that would be greatly appreciated.
To summarize, the 2h prot build takes advantage of Prot’s CS perks (increased damage and speed), as well as our vengeance mechanic. Harder CS than ret, and it’s damage scales even higher as you take damage. Plus, you still benefit from all of the defensive abilities, so although you loose some survivability when not carrying a shield, you’re still much more durable than a typical ret build.
You can create weapon swap macros for your AS (which adds GCD downtime), but allows you to close gaps and make use of the extra silence as you would 1h+shield.
Generally, you’ll be spending your HoPo for WoG heals, since you want to take damage, though a weapon swap macro for your shield slam is probably a good idea to have on hand, just in case you need it.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I fully intend on it once I get my hands on a good two hander. I don’t think it will replace my 1h+shield as my primary setup, but it certainly looks likes fun.
TBH, I think it would be worth carrying a two-hander around just to fool the occasional person not paying enough attention into opening on me in arenas.
Thanks for the summary Cylarus. I’ll read about this build when I get home.
Harder CS than ret
Yea, I was testing this morning and I was getting 14k 2H CS crits on a 3800 Resil target, as compared to ~8k 1H CS crits. It’s a huge difference.
The other thing to factor in is that SoT 5-stack on-hit bonus damage (not Censure) is based on weapon damage, so the Seal of Truth in your Combat log is 40% higher for 2H than 1H. Granted the Seal of Truth damage isn’t a lot, but it adds up.
You can create weapon swap macros for your AS (which adds GCD downtime), but allows you to close gaps and make use of the extra silence as you would 1h+shield.
I started experimenting with this last night and this morning.
What I’m finding is that I need to write enough macros that allow me to use abilities and weapon swap.
E.g. if I know AS is coming off cooldown in 2 secs, I’ll use a CS/Judgement macro that fires off either of those abilities and changes to 1H+shield at the same time. Then I can hit AS immediately.
Ditto goes for SotR: when I have SD up and 2-stack HoPo, the last CS I’ll use is the same macro that swaps to 1H+shield.
Interesting idea, please inform us how it goes :)
I decided not to purchase my Vicious shoulders this week and wait until next week to purchase the Vicious 2H. This sounds like a fun spec to play.
About the whole weapon swapping situation.
Isnt’ the easiest macro to just have a 1-handed weapon/shield macro w/ crusader strike.
And another macro with 2-handed weapon w/ crusader strike?
I kept thinking that using different weapon swaps for each special actions was too complicated.
I’ve been testing this out. And it’s pretty easy.
My mouse is a Logitech Mx1000. and my mouse wheel clicks left and right.
I made the left click of my mouse wheel the 1-hand/shield crusader strike macro.
I made the right click of my mouse wheel the 2-handed weapon crusader strike macro.
1-hand/shield macro
/equipslot 16 Vicious Gladiator’s Hacker
/equipslot 17 Vicious Gladiator’s Shield Wall
/cast Crusader Strike
2-handed weapon macro
/equipslot 16 Blade of the Fearless
/cast Crusader Strike
This way I don’t have to use any other macros for AS or Shield of the Righteous.
Instead, anytime I’m ready to use my Avenger’s Shield, i’ll just 1-handed macro crusader strike, next and use it. If i have gained 2 HOPO from 2-handed weapon crusader strike. i’ll use my 1-hand/shield weapon crusader strike for the 3rd HOPO. and then I’ll use my Shield of the righteous.
But also, if you have high health, and you want to continue to just keep raising your vengeance, you can just continue using the 2-handed weapon crusader strike macro, and continue WOGing.
I’m not sure if it was a good idea for me to post this. Haha.. it just seems way simpler than anything else I read about 1-hand/shield and 2-hand weapon swapping. Especially since we have no other special attack move to use to gain HOPO as Prot/Ret Pallys (Holy can gain HOPO from Holy Shock as well as CS).
Let me know if my idea is too simple or just wrong. Thanks
Instead, anytime I’m ready to use my Avenger’s Shield, i’ll just 1-handed macro crusader strike, next and use it
This is what I do but the issue is you always lose at least a GCD before you can pop AS. I found myself not able to use AS as soon as it was available, and against kiters/healers that is a bad thing.
I would love to see a review, at least, of 2H Prot or Ret with your testings Tau (Now that you have also the weapon). Maybe a new topic in your blog so we can discuss about it.
Dont have a good 2H atm and i cant support much the idea though.
^^ This. We are sorely due for an update. New vid, new topic, new anything.
https://taugrim.com/2011/02/20/wow-4-0-6-first-impressions-ret-2h-prot/
Whoa! This blog looks just like my old one!
It’s on a completely different subject but it has pretty much the same page layout and design. Outstanding choice of colors!