I have always loved to experiment with different specs and to try them out. I’ve found 3 best-practice builds that can fit every aspect of a Protection Paladin’s role in a raid and/or outside it. They might look the same, but if you examine them carefully, you’ll see essential differences between them. Here they are. Key talents are bolded.

Grind/Quest build

0/49/12

Overview

This build is best put to practice when grinding large groups of mobs at the same time, like the Demon Hunter Supplicant’s in Shadowmoon Valley. It can be used to tank in raids like Karazhan or Gruul’s Lair, but you’re probably better off choosing another build if you want to tank higher content.

It has all the good stuff in it: Ardent Defender, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and Combat Expertise. Furthermore, I’ve also included Reckoning, the much debated talent of Protection Paladins. I don’t want to start endless discussions, but you’ll find out it’s very useful when you stick to grinding large packs of mobs because it procs very often and it really makes a difference.

The downside of this build is that it lacks even they slightest mitigation against Spell Damage. Also, you might want to be very careful how you manage your mana, because not getting healed means you don’t get mana back and we all know that a OOM Paladin is a dead Paladin.

Offtank build

0/46/15

Overview

As the name already state the obvious, this build is made for offtanking. It can be also used for main tanking, but in low end raids (Karazhan, Gruul, etc.). This is also the build I’m currently using.

This time around, Reckoning is not needed, as you’ll rarely tank more than 2-3 mobs at the same time. Also, you’ll find out that the better gear you’ll have, the proc rate will begin to drop (only natural since you need to take hits in order for it to trigger and better gear means better avoidance) so the 5 points invested here should go somewhere else. You’ll notice that I’ve included Precision (3% hit rating with melee and spells goes a long way - you don’t want your Avenger’s Shield to miss at a critical point or your Righteous Defense to be resisted - by the way, for those that didn’t know, Righteous Defense is affected by melee hit rating and not spell hit rating) and Improved Seal of the Crusader (for helping your raid DPS). Other than that, it’s almost the same with the previous build, with extra Spell Damage protection from Spell Warding.

Main tank build

0/49/12

Overview

Yes, the well known build that became a standard for all Protection Paladins. It’s like the flagship for all builds.

This build has it all. Maximum damage mitigation, maximum stamina gains, maximum Armor and Defense that can be achieved by talents.

For encounters with heavy Spell Damage, a wise thing to do is take 3 points out of One-Handed Weapon Specialization and put them in Pursuit of Justice, getting down to 0/46/15.

Ok, so there are my builds. If you could provide any feedback, it would be appreciated.

I had some spare time last week and while waiting for some BG queues I roamed around Shattrath and inspected some Paladins. I was really glad to see many Protection Paladins (apparently they are very popular on my server). To my surprise, I found some that made some big mistakes in their builds and gear. So here is a list of what I discovered along with some tips on how to correct them.

General guide in terms of gear

• You don’t need Agility, Strength and Intellect on your items. Sure, they are nice to have, but these are not your primary stats so seek to replace them. Remember Spiritual Attunement?
• What you need are Defense Rating, Stamina, Block Rating, Dodge, Block Value and Spell Damage. Stack these and you’ll do a great job;

General guide in terms of builds

• Don’t invest in Divine Intellect! Protection Paladins don’t need any Intellect in items or in talents. That’s why Spiritual Attunement exists;
• Don’t invest in Improved Devotion Aura or Improved Concentration Aura! There are simply much better places to invest your points in so going for these is just a waste;
• Don’t invest in Improved Hammer of Justice! Although stunning is useful in some situations, it’s not worth investing 3 points in it;
• Don’t invest in Stoicism! Even with the 10% stun resist chance you’ll probably still be stunned and besides, who needs dispel resistance? This is clearly a PvP talent and should not be part of any PvE build of a Protection Paladin;
• I saw some Protection Paladins with Pursuit of Justice. In my opinion, this becomes an useful talent only when you start main tanking high end content where every type of damage mitigation is very important, especially Spell Damage, where we are weaker than other tanks;

Common builds

You can check some of the builds I currently play with in this post: Interesting Protection Paladin builds. Also, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll do my best to answer.

Yep. So it was an interesting night last night. After failing to get to the first boss in Hyjal Summit 4 days ago, this time we did it. And we did it good.

Took us 2 tries to finnaly get the kill. First one was failed because we didn’t have time to equip the PvP trinket in time after the last wave (yeah, we were kind of slow). On the second one tho, all things went very smooth. Waves we’re positioned great of the AoE and we had like 15 seconds after last wave to prepare for boss. Tossed up my healing gear and helped healing the raid as best as I could. Fight went pretty good, a couple of Holy Priests got 1-shotted by the Icebolt but we managed to pull it togheter.

On a side not, I just love MH. Makes me proud to be a Protection Paladin when I just take the mobs on waves 1-4 all on me and not having to break a sweat to do so.

There was a downfall to it also. The trash dropped Hammer of Judgement. But guess what. When it did, I was DCed (had some connection issues for 2 minutes or so). So it ended up to a Shadow Priest. Maybe it was for the best but I would have loved to be able to roll on that.

After Rage we pushed our luck and tried Anetheron. I was assigned to take the Inferno that spawns and pull him out of the raid group. Unfortunatelly, things didn’t go as smooth as with the first boss and after second attempt, we called it a night. Thing is, I think some of the people we had we’re not really ready gear-wise for the fight, including me. I didn’t have any kind of fire resist gear and it was kind of hard for the healers to keep both me and the raid up. But I manage to get 2 pieces of the Flamebane set so next time I’ll be ready.

It was a fun night, a progression night for my guild and after this raid, spirits are high again in Unseen.

Sunday (yeah, I know, I forgot again), after many weeks of being not so keen to PvE (for various reasons, including that not a single raid got through), we went SSC with 22 people.

Killed Hydros, killed Lurker and we had to stop there (apparently we had no warlocks). They both dropped only crappy loot and I got 2 healing plates. Not interesting. But the fun part only starts.

We went Mount Hyjal! Yep, without even knowing what to do, where to stand, who to kill, even with a ninja start of the event, we still had incredibly much fun. At least I did. It’s just such an entertaining event. We only got to Wave 6 but tonight we’re going again with our homework done and hoping to at least see Rage Winterchill!

Whish us luck.

Didn’t get to write much in the last week because it was my week off from work and I was being busy playing WoW and doing other stuff as well. But here is a list of what I’ve been up to:

Gear upgrades

Got myself into a Karazhan and Zul’Aman groups. From Kara I got Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable, which is a nice upgrade to Sha’tari Vindicator’s Waistguard. I also tanked Maiden and I’m pretty happy with myself that I was able to do it. But let me tell you, that was some heavy button-smashing I did back there! The Gloves didn’t drop (again) and I’m starting to be rather pissed about it. Maybe I should stop hoping, I’m sure then will drop.

From Zul’Aman I managed to pick up Bulwark of the Amani Empire. Thing is, I’m starting to have problems keeping myself above the 490 DEF cap. With the new upgrades I’m sitting exactly at 490. I’m curious what new upgrades I’m going to get and if this problem will be solved or not.

New experience

I went SSC with my guild. Not really much to say because I felt REALLY not needed in that raid. Might as well taken another DPS/healer instead of me, because 1) I didn’t even get to tank on trash; 2) I _healed_ on Hydross; 3) I helped with the platform adds on Lurker. Yesterday it was Morogrim’s turn to die and my turn to shine but guess what? I had over 1Kms lag all day and couldn’t attend the raid. We’ll see what this week brings to the table.

I respeced

Yes, I did. I dropped Reckoning. Now I’m your average Tankadin with 0/46/15 build. So far I get the feeling I’m killing things even slower than before and that really hurts my questing time. But you know what they say, help your guild with Improved SoC. Right..

Guess that’s pretty much everything that happened in the last week. I’m looking forward to this weeks raiding and hope I get to do more 25-man tanking.