A Guide to Protection Paladin Glyphs



NOTICE: This post will con­tin­u­ously be updated to reflect the lat­est changes to Pro­tec­tion Pal­adins in World of Warcraft.

Changelog:

01/14/10 – Updated for patch 3.3

12/08/08 – Ini­tial post

Glyphs are great. I love them. I think that they are a good addi­tion to the game and can improved your char­ac­ter to make it stand out and why not, make a dif­fer­ence when needed.

Out of 27 Glyphs (21 Major, 6 Minor), Pro­tec­tion Pal­adins receive good util­ity out of around 10 to 12 Glyphs. Unfor­tu­nately we have only 6 spots to fill, so let’s take a look at how to do that.

Major Glyphs

1. Glyph of Divine Plea — this is the first Glyph that every Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin should get. Don’t leave home with it!

That’s it. That’s the only major Glyph that every­one should have. The rest two spots can be filled to your taste. I’m just here to make sug­ges­tions, not to say which one is best for you.

Every­one has his tank­ing style, right? Me for exam­ple, 90% of the time spent tank­ing I use Seal of Light and not Seal of Vengeance, so Glyph of Seal of Vengeance is pretty use­less for me. If that’s your style, go and take it.

I have a very pre­cise tank­ing rota­tion and using Glyph of Con­se­cra­tion would pretty much mess it up. If you find a way to fit Con­se­cra­tion with that Glyph, go for it. And be sure to tell me also how you did it.

I sel­dom find myself OOM while tank­ing. So, Glyph of Spir­i­tual Attune­ment would just take up a spot that I can fill with some­thing more use­full. Take it if you see you have mana trou­bles (highly doubtful).

I like doing dam­age. It’s some­thing about huge num­bers that makes me smile. Glyph of Judge­ment, I has it and I’m proud of it. Yes, I Judge every cooldown.

Glyph of Avenger’s Shield is very nice. Sure, it’s 2 tar­gets less, but it’s 100% more dam­age. Worth hav­ing for single-target tank­ing and using every CD.

Minor Glyphts

Minor Glyphts are very easy. Pro­tec­tion has so few choices here that it’s not even worth mak­ing a list.

Glyph of Sense Undead for your Naxxra­mas plea­sures, Glyph of Bless­ing of Kings for rebuff­ing with­out much down­time and Glyph of the Wise for questing/grinding (damn those reseals, they cost so much mana!).

A shot conclusion

Glyph­ing (is that even a word?) your Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin comes down in the end to your taste. The way I see it, only Glyph of Right­eous Defense and to a minor degree Glyph of Avenger’s Shield can really make a dif­fer­ence. Fill­ing up the other slots is up to you and to your style of play.

See More Pop­u­lar Posts:

• A Guide to Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin Glyphs
• Patch 3.1 Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin Specs and Glyphs
• Best WotLK Weapon Enchant for Pro­tec­tion Paladins
• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin build for Wrath of the Lich King
• A ques­tion for all tanks

Sim­i­lar Posts of Interest:

• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin Glyphs Revamped
• Inter­est­ing Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin builds
• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin con­sum­ables and regents — get­ting ready for a raid
• Prob­lem solved: Glyph of Divine Plea and BoSanc STACK
• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin weapons guide with spread­sheet inside

 

21 Responses to “A Guide to Protection Paladin Glyphs”

1. Paladin tanking glyphs « Zabery says:

   18/12/2008 at 05:42

   […] can read more analy­sis of pal­adin glyphs over at Bless­ing of Kings, ITankStuff, and — as always — Knaughty’s FAQ post on […]

   Reply
   • Kittys says:

     08/01/2010 at 03:09

     In the Post you for got to men­tion Glyph of Divine Plea which since most pro­tec­tion pal­adins are spec’d into guarded by the light the 3% reduc­tion on dam­age can also help and as long as you are attack­ing the buff will remain

     Reply
     • MessiQ says:

       23/02/2010 at 16:25

       Scroll up a bit.…keep going.….there it is, the very first line — Glyph of Divine Plea and I believe the quote is “dont leave home with­out it”. Now, wasn’t that clever

       Reply
2. Kelathos says:

   28/12/2008 at 06:12

   Glyph of Con­se­cra­tion saves mana. For every 4 or 5 con­se­cra­tions you throw down…you saved about how­ever much mana your cur­rent rank costs. This is also an extra 2 sec­onds where you can look around quick to check if you have some­thing set and whatnot.

   Reply
   • Lortos says:

     02/02/2010 at 18:27

     While Glyph of Con­se­cra­tion saves mana it would mess up my rota­tion mak­ing Con­se­cra­tion take an extra 2 sec­onds. I would pre­fer to have to refresh Con­se­cra­tion more often than save the mana it costs and mess up my rotaion, also check out http://www.wow-pro.com/class_guides/tannyrs_paladin_tanking_guide to fur­ther explain this. If mana is a con­cern I would instead use Glyph of Spir­i­tual Attune­ment, but that is just my per­sonal preference.

     Reply
3. tankman says:

   29/12/2008 at 09:06

   Kelathos, how­ever if you get con­se­cra­tion glyph, it fucks up the whole 969696969 idea,
   also, glyph of avenger’s shield is more of a PvP thing IMO, the whole idea is to get aggro on the pull on mul­ti­ple mobs, not alot of aggro on 1 mob.

   Reply
4. Vision says:

   08/01/2009 at 23:48

   Glyph of avengers shield is great now that its instant cast. Its a good way to get a large amount of threat on a sin­gle tar­get, like a raid boss. But at the same time its bad if you still plan on tank­ing 5 mans where you pull 3–5 mobs at a time. Pick it up at your own discretion.

   Con­se­cra­tion is just bad, dont get it IMO.

   Reply
5. Dirz says:

   30/01/2009 at 23:52

   Con­se­cra­tion for me is a ‘grab tyhe mobs as they run amok’ type abil­ity so I fig­ured it wasnt worth the 2 secs I’d have to wait to move the cir­cle:) I grabbed the Spir­i­tual Attune­ment glyph because even though I don’t have cronic mana issues, get­ting more mana from a heal is never bad. And I didn’t bother with the Avengers Shield glyph because of the new taunt abil­ity if I only want to get sin­gle tar­get agro– I like hav­ing the agro on a group and my threat gen is around 3k tps when i need it to be with the new libram. And my healers/ cast­ers love that I usu­ally use Seal of Wis­dom since it helps them heal me/ do more con­stant dam­age and I don’t care about dam­age– I’m a tank, wrong meter;)

   Reply
6. kaleida says:

   20/02/2009 at 20:48

   With the new seal CDs i would be hes­i­tant to use up a slot for the lower seal cost — still nice if noth­ing else though.

   like your other suggestions.

   Reply
7. Holymaster says:

   09/03/2009 at 17:11

   I pre­fer glyph of con­se­cra­tion it works well with my rota­tions. I also use glyph of judge­ment as i judge every cd. I keep glyph of bless­ing of kings just cuz I use kings on every­one regard­less of in party of raid most play­ers pre­fer kings to other bless­ings on my realm. the rest is up to style for me.

   Reply
8. Bryae says:

   09/03/2009 at 19:14

   Frankly a Prot Pally spec’d into kings is retarded. Let your ret pallys or the occa­sional Holy pally do that. Your wast­ing 5 points that you absolutely need.

   Glyph­ing for Avenger’s shield is use­less. Most of the time (Even in Raids) we are pulling mul­ti­ple mobs. The only time that you should Glyph for Avenger’s shield is if your the OT whip­ping boy. IF your not an OT then don’t glyph it b/c its useless.

   Conc. Glyph.…. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Look through your rota­tion. You should con­stantly be judg­ing, shield slam­ing, ham­mer­ing, holy shield­ing and con­cen­crat­ing. If you throw in the 2 extra sec it will throw your rota­tion off and cause less TPS. Also we all know how range or retarded melee like to pull extra mobs to make our job hard. 2 sec’s is a hell of a long time to wait when you have 5 mobs poundin on healers.

   Glyph­ing for Ven­ge­nace– Pro should be used. If your a pro­tadin and not using seal of cor­rup­tion then start. You’ll notice your TPS go sky high and your DPS also. It ticks harder than right­eous­ness, and it also judges harder. Plus the exper­tise is a very nice thing to have since we shouldn’t really be wor­ry­ing about it on our gear like other tanks.

   Glyph­ing for Judge­ment– Pro, author of the arti­cle is right about this. More judge­ment dmg more threat.

   Minor Glyphs– Undead is very nice since most mobs are undead.

   All of your buff ones are absolutely a gim­mick. Ooooooo Longer buffs i’m to lazy to buff myself every 10 mins.…Get pally power and life will be better.….

   Glyph of Right­eous­ness– Some like this glyph. Per­son­ally I don’t need it. It is a sit­u­a­tional glyph that you use if your not doing your job cor­rectly. And with our new sin­gle taunt who needs to glyph for more chance to taunt. 99.9% you will not be resisted, and 99.9% if your doing your job they are not going to run amok.

   Glyph of Spir­i­tual Attune­ment– Yes you should have this, when you get high enough gear level you will have mana issues. Ex. 213 gear level in 25 man naxx it isn’t so much of a prob­lem, but in 10man Naxx mana regen is a huge issue. You out gear the instance your going to have issues. And you never know when you’ll go on one of those infa­mouse 17 string dodges.

   In short Prot Pally Glyphs are bad, and the minor ones are even worse! We have hardly any ZOMG MUST HAVE glyphs, and most you could do just fine with­out. In 3.1 it is to change with some new glyphs com­ing in to truly make a dif­fer­ence in some of our abil­i­ties. I hope this is help­ful, and if you have any ques­tions feel free to con­tact me, Bryae of Dethecus.

   Reply
9. Dirz says:

   10/03/2009 at 07:17

   Some of us don’t always raid with another pally and some of us GASP run hero­ics where we are the only pally– so Kings is use­ful to spec into.

   Reply
10. Bryae says:

    12/03/2009 at 01:37

    If you have to spec kings to get through an encounter then you need to re-evaluate your skills and your gear.

    Reply
    • Dirz says:

      12/03/2009 at 08:58

      If you have to touched by the light to get through an encounter then you need to re-evaluate your skills and your gear.

      That makes as much sense as what you just said. Kings ben­e­fits every­one and makes the encounter eas­ier– it is the same as prop­erly gemming/enchanting your gear and mak­ing sure to bring proper consumables.

      Reply
      • Bryae says:

        12/03/2009 at 17:55

        But when you have 5 points that are not needed in kings and can be spent much bet­ter into keep­ing one-self alive then why would you spec for the kings over mit, or avoidance?

        Reply
11. Dirz says:

    13/03/2009 at 00:50

    If you can absolutely garaun­tee that no one will ever want you to do kings than you can spend your points elsewhere-but nowhere would you be pick­ing up more mitigation.

    http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html

    I can’t seem to get hyper­links to work on this thing but copy that into your browser– it is the start of the prot buid and you have a choice between kings or reck­on­ing, basi­cally. My prob­lem with reck­on­ing is it opens you up to par­ries since it is another attack– and to my knowl­edge, attacks can be par­ried. Whereas if you grab kings it buffs every­one, ups your sta­mina and strength a ton and in addi­tion ups the dps and heal­ing of your other party members.

    Reply
12. Dirz says:

    13/03/2009 at 01:26

    Well that link didnt work– try

    http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0xVA0h

    Reply
13. Bryae says:

    13/03/2009 at 02:00

    You should spec into reck when using cor­rup­tion it is faster applic­ta­tion of the dot and even though most of our “magic” is counted as phys­i­cal dmg it can’t be par­ried or dodged.

    And to say that the 5 points would not go into any sort of mit would be to say that the indi­vid­ual shaved the 5 points from some­thing that you chose not to. Exam­ple could shave 5 points from judge­ment of the just which slows the mob’s attack speed. They could shave from redoubt and guarded by the light. These are only a few of the things that peo­ple could shave from.

    Spec’s are great as you can do what­ever you want. In my opin­ion and any good end game con­tent guild will tell you that hav­ing your Prot pally spec into kings is absolutely hor­ri­ble.. A good thing that tak­ing kings out in 3.1 as a spec. Another way that blizz water’s down the game for the more casual player.

    Reply
14. Paladin Tanking Glyphs in 3.1 | Sacred Duty says:

    18/03/2009 at 18:12

    […] A Guide to Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin Glyphs and Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin Glyphs Revamped by Tepisor at itankstuff. […]

    Reply
15. Guthian says:

    25/09/2009 at 11:14

    Ok those glyph you use in this explaina­tion sux hardball.

    The glyph of spritual attune­ment is good ok 2% more mana woot!

    But 3% Dam­age reduc­tion is bet­ter so go for divine plea glyph, If you have the specc on pro­tec­tion then divine plea will be ever­last­ing which makes up for the loss of 2% spir­i­tual attunement.

    Avenger’s wrath glyph is GREAT for boss­fights when you are about to lose agro so keep that one.

    And for the third, AoE glyph such as Glyph of ham­mer of the right­eous which hits 1 extra tar­get is your best choice.

    Although if you go for pvp I’d sug­gest to use glyph of Shield of the right­eous instead as it reduces mana cost, this is good for pve too at those mana low– situations.

    As for minors: Glyph of the Wise is the only one needed.

    As for the seals, Use Seal of Ven­gence when you tank bosses, gives you more threat and at the same time more dps. When mana runs low put on Seal of Wis­dom, that’s where the glyph comes in. Ofc if you are smart now you use seal of ven­gence glyph instead of the seal of the right­eous or glyph of ham­mer of the righteous.

    10% dmg on judge­ments are more of a dps glyph for retri pal­adins so screw that one.

    And that’s pretty much everything:

    glyphs: Major: Glyph of SoV, Glyph of Avenger’s Wrath and Glyph of Divine Plea. Minor: Glyph of the wise, Glyph of bless­ing of kings and Glyph of sense undead.

    Seals to use: Seal of Ven­gence at boss fights, change to Seal of Wis­dom when you need, At aoe fights: Seal of Wisdom.

    Bless­ings to use: Bless­ing of Sanct.

    Then final, Stack stam gems and get defense cap, screw the right­eous defense glyph it sucks hardass.

    // Guthian 3 years of tank­ing knowl­edge on pal­adins.
    Death­wing — EU.

    Reply
16. Arelius says:

    05/03/2010 at 23:31

    Wait…Glyph of Avenger’s Shield or Glyph of Aveng­ing Wrath? I’m pretty sure you mean Avenger’s Shield because there is no way I’d get a glyph that’s only viable every three min­utes that also blows your fore­bear­ance CD.

    Reply