Best WotLK Weapon Enchant for Protection Paladins



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

Changelog:

01/04/10 – Updated for patch 3.3

01/28/09 – Ini­tial post

---

Things are pretty sim­ple. We Pro­tec­tion Pal­adins have only 4 viable enchants to put on our weapons. I will sim­ply put them in the order of my pref­er­ence, as I’m not going to fill your head with num­bers and calculations:

Enchant Weapon — Blood Drain­ing > Enchant Weapon – Accu­racy or Tita­nium Weapon Chain (don’t use this if you’re hit capped or put this first if you’re not) > Enchant Weapon – Potency

These would be my options for the best weapon enchant for Pro­tec­tion Pal­adins. Found any bet­ter options? Please state your opin­ions, I’m always opened to discussions.

Edit: fol­low this link over at Fer­raro for more accu­rate expla­na­tions.

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:

• Best Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin Weapon Enchant – Updated for Patch 3.3
• A Guide to Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin Glyphs
• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin weapons guide with spread­sheet inside
• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adins — head­ing towards the right way
• Use­ful pro­fes­sions for a Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin (IV): Enchant­ing

 

35 Responses to “Best WotLK Weapon Enchant for Protection Paladins”

1. Aureilie says:

   28/01/2009 at 12:34

   I heartily agree with you on your choice of BC Potency as the best pos­si­ble weapon enchant. It’s my favourite and what I enchant my weapons with. I just wanted to men­tion the fact that Tita­nium Weapon chains are a viable option if you’re look­ing for a lit­tle bit of hit and are con­cerned about being dis­armed (pro­vided you aren’t specced into Pur­suit of Justice).

   As a tiny note, 535 is the crit cap for hero­ics, not 530. ;x

   Reply
   • Tepisor says:

     28/01/2009 at 12:51

     Thanks, I’ll edit that right away, slipped like I first wrote 450 for raids >.<

     Reply
2. Thorogar says:

   02/02/2009 at 15:34

   You might want to add that Agi adds dodge also.
   This is the main rea­son many peo­ple have Agi on their tank­ing weapon. (I myself have a tita­nium weapon chain.)

   Reply
3. Nyrin says:

   18/02/2009 at 18:06

   I use the AGI enchant cur­rently but with recent gear upgrades i have been think­ing about going back to TBC potency or even mon­goose. i really hope they imple­ment a new tank­ing weapon enchant soon, I (we) feel pretty left out!!

   Reply
4. Vy says:

   20/02/2009 at 15:16

   Ok I see ppl all around say­ing that agility adds up dodge aswell but…I can’t see that any­where on my pal­adin page. It only says armor and crit. I know it’s like that for war­riors and druids but might it be that pal­adins work slightly dif­fer­ent? Or does it use a detour (as in not adding directly towards it)?

   Reply
5. Elmacho says:

   21/02/2009 at 21:09

   I run with Agility as well. And yes it does add Dodge. But can I tell the dif­fer­ence between Dam­age Taken with Str vs Agi.… not really. I use Agi because its a stat I can see the ben­e­fit from. Str is a hid­den Block mod­i­fier and I never trust some­thing I can­not see.

   Reply
6. Thorogar says:

   24/02/2009 at 10:23

   Agility: 1 Agility = 2 armor. It’s also a decent source for dodge and crit.

   Source: http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/viewtopic.php?t=15212

   And, as far as I remem­ber, Pal­adin even ben­e­fit more from Agility than War­riors. At least, it used to be this way. What­ever, I still don’t gem/enchant for Agi.

   Greet­ings

   Thorogar

   Reply
7. Galyan says:

   19/03/2009 at 19:27

   I use a Tita­nium Weapon Chain as well, mostly because I am too lazy to re-enchant it with potency.

   Reply
8. Galyan says:

   19/03/2009 at 19:28

   Tep,

   Is there an RSS feed URL on your site that I can sub­scribe to? I would like to link it on my site.

   Reply
   • Tepisor says:

     19/03/2009 at 22:11

     Well, yeah, right on top and to the right, where my Feed­burner count is

     Reply
9. dark says:

   26/03/2009 at 21:12

   Every­one says the spell power enchant is not good anymore…yet i find that when i change between my titansteel bonecrusher with 50 ap and titansteel guardian with 50 spell my con­se­crate aura does more dam­age. Confused?

   Reply
   • Tepisor says:

     27/03/2009 at 06:45

     No, not at all.

     Consecration’s for­mula looks like [ 32% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 904 ] for rank 8 acord­ing to MMO-Champion.

     Guardian has 457 Spell Power, Bonecrusher has only 140 Attack Power.

     It’s only nor­mal that it does more damage.

     But I think you’re miss­ing the point. Spell dam­age enchant only means a lit­tle more threat which at the moment is seri­ously not an issue. Any other enchant (STR, AGI, etc.) means more avoid­ance which I’m sure you’ll agree will ben­e­fit us more.

     Reply
     • Dark says:

       01/04/2009 at 17:38

       I agree mit­i­ga­tion takes preference…but I can sit with 20 dodge / 16.8 parry / 31.1 shield with def cap…or i can sit with 24 dodge / 17.3 parry / and 25.5 shield block for bet­ter dodge. With either sets of gear I have at least 29K unbuffed…I have yet to actu­ally use a def tank­ing weapon yet…or to find a 1 han­der that can up my threat per sec as high as the spell weapons…In most cases I agree with not being able to touched in threat generation…but every now and then there are cer­tain boss fights that good war­locks can give me a run…I’d like to have that lit­tle extra threat gen­er­a­tion and the scal­ing on ap and spell lets me get more threat from spell at the moment.

       Reply
10. How to Get Six Pack Fast says:

    15/04/2009 at 19:09

    Hey, nice tips. Per­haps I’ll buy a glass of beer to that man from that forum who told me to go to your site

    Reply
11. Karess says:

    18/04/2009 at 12:57

    Proud bearer of a Last Laugh with spell power enchant. lawl.

    Some­day when I find some­one on my pathetic server who has 20 strength I might switch.

    Until then I do like the smidge bit of higher dmg on my spells for burst TPS on pick up.

    Maybe that’s an incor­rect assump­tion. Look­ing for a new enchant either way.

    Reply
12. alex says:

    22/04/2009 at 10:20

    i’m a prot paly Raid­ing Ulduar25, using Titansteel Guardian with spell enchant, over def cap, over 30k UNBUFFED, (thats over 40k buffed). and yes i tried other weaps (sword and mace) but guardian still the best to man­tain agro.

    Reply
    • Eagle says:

      03/01/2010 at 04:52

      I think a lot of prot pallys is doing wrong by using the Blade­ward enchant it sucks for prot pallys because it only procs on 2 out of 100 hits but for war­riors it procs about 50–60 times per 100 hits, this is due to the fact that it procs on phys­i­cal dam­age while pallys using holy dam­age for most part.

      Reply
      • Eagle says:

        03/01/2010 at 04:53

        Sorry, this post reply was for the post below this

        Reply
      • Funkenstien says:

        12/01/2010 at 20:15

        Could you please show the source of these sta­tis­tics. I have never heard this before.

        Thanks

        Reply
      • Dave says:

        20/01/2010 at 15:44

        Seal of Vengeance ticks now count as weapon attacks and thus can proc blade ward­ing, mak­ing it a very viable enchant. Also, your stats are way wrong.

        Reply
13. deminoen says:

    23/05/2009 at 12:23

    i have blade ward on my weapon as enchant go check it

    Reply
14. Sveltana says:

    24/05/2009 at 21:33

    I run a level 60 Prot Pally on an account that doesn’t have BC or WOTLK on it (so I’m level capped at 60). I use this toon to run level 60 instances solo for fun. So far I have killed about half of the bosses in Stratholme. Self-buffed I have around 8k hp.

    I use life­ward. Since I have no need for threat pro­duc­tion and my mit­i­ga­tion is already sky-high for my level. I think the 1k-1.5k hp this heals in boss fight is prob­a­bly more valu­able than the mit­i­ga­tion potency would provide.

    I grant that the orig­i­nal post was refer­ring to level 80 raid­ing pal­lies, so I’m not argu­ing against potency, per se. But I thought some oth­ers might be interested.

    Reply
    • tbone844 says:

      11/06/2009 at 01:20

      I lol’d.

      Reply
15. Eagle says:

    03/01/2010 at 05:01

    As from patch 3.2.2 sta­mina isn’t increas­ing spellpower through tal­ent instead strength is doing that. So the potency enchant is look­ing better.

    Reply
16. Pitt says:

    18/01/2010 at 16:30

    I per­son­ally use a sta­mina enchant. I think its like +40 or +45 stam. some­thing like that. I also got all sta­mina gems as my sock­ets, so maybe im just loco. lol. But thats me. My pally cur­rently has a lit­tle over 38k unbuffed.

    Reply
    • Thorogar says:

      22/02/2010 at 10:39

      What kind of enchant would that be ? Could you sup­ply a link to wow­head oder thot­tbot ? (Are you mix­ing this up with the bracer enchant ?)

      Reply
17. Peli says:

    29/01/2010 at 13:54

    The proc rate on Blade Ward seems to have been reduced slightly; pos­si­ble hot fix?

    I have no real need for any other enchants though; cur­rently sit­ting at 45K++ Unbuffed; Full Raid buffed around 57K++; so regard­less of the drop in proc rate, it is still the most viable enchant for me.

    Reply
18. Citronelle says:

    22/02/2010 at 02:31

    Hon­estly, mon­goose is still your best choice. The 120 agi not only yields almost another 2% dodge when it procs (which is very often and way more so than blade ward) but you also gain a lil armor (240), a good chunk of crit (threat) and increased attack speed (threat).

    While blade­ward can stack with 200 parry rat­ing per, but it dis­pels on the next parry and the enchant doesn’t proc a lot.

    Some peo­ple will still argue over this and I don’t know why or how they do. I’ve played around em all and mon­goose is where it’s @ IMO.

    Also, I’d like to add that I just stum­bled across this site for the first time. So, hi!

    Reply
    • Peli says:

      22/02/2010 at 10:15

      Since the nerf of the Paladin’s sta­mina scale; yes, Mon­goose is now arguably the best enchant. =]

      Reply
      • Thorogar says:

        22/02/2010 at 10:37

        Could you sup­ply math­e­mat­i­cal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the impact of the 3.3 stam nerfs on the enchant­mens situation ?

        Reply
19. Citronelle says:

    22/02/2010 at 16:54

    What was the best enchant before the sta­mina nerf then? I can’t think of any­thing that was bet­ter than DA GOOSE?!?!

    Reply
    • Thorogar says:

      22/02/2010 at 18:31

      Be that as it may, I just asked for evi­dence con­cern­ing the influ­ence of stam changes on the sit­u­a­tion. (Mind: I did not say there are any. Peli did just that.)

      Reply
20. Citronelle says:

    22/02/2010 at 18:54

    Sta­mina changes shouldn’t be even related to this topic. Mon­goose was the best before the — 4% scale down and still is after­wards. There isn’t a stam enchant to a 1h that makes it a “fac­tor” in this dis­cus­sion or out­weigh the ben­e­fits of Mon­goose. So, I guess I’m agree­ing with Thorogar and ques­tionong Peli? Idk.

    Reply
    • Peli says:

      22/02/2010 at 22:34

      It’s quite sim­ple; pre-Stam nerf we weren’t par­tic­u­larly con­cerned about the agility bonus and opted for the proc of the Blade­Ward; what with hav­ing around 63K raid buffed; now that our stam has been nerfed — Mine has per­son­ally been reduced to around 58K raid buffed; the agility does have a major affect our EH and is, in my opin­ion, only now “far” more appeal­ing than Blade­Ward. It always been beni­fi­cial but only for the lower geared or those that are overly con­cerened that their heal­ers aren’t up for the task.

      Ulti­matly it used to be per­sonal pref­er­ence and of course your own play­ing style matched against that of your raid groups play­ing style as a whole. Now? No choice but to go with Mon­goose; not entirely a bad thing but I do miss BladeWward on the odd occassion.

      Reply
21. Citronelle says:

    23/02/2010 at 03:19

    Um, yeah, I’m still lost on your logic.

    I can’t see why you think the stam nerf has any­thing to do with mov­ing mon­goose into 1st place choice over tieing with blade­ward pre­vio­suly (based on “pref­er­ence” or play­ing style”) It’s ALWAYS offered more avoid­ance (for the excep­tion of blade­ward maybe proc’ing again to stack BEFORE you parry to dis­pel the effect. (which is less likely to hap­pen than the enchant proc­ing in the first place).

    And isn’t that what we’re con­cerned with as tanks? Achiev­ing the most EH? I mean why wouldn’t you have picked mon­goose before the nerf if it’s always been the bet­ter choice sta­tis­ti­cally? Even if your health is insane buffed, that’s no rea­son to quit. Keep going I say! Make your tank even more retarded in terms of EH.

    Say­ing mon­goose is bet­ter now vs blade­ward because of the stam nerf still doesn’t make sense to me, but maybe you can break it down for me?

    And as far as end game raid­ing goes, while “Chill of the Throne” is in play, Blade­ward starts to suck a lit­tle more con­sid­er­ing you’re gonna see more par­ry­ing over a dodge or miss on your avoid­ance table (pre­ceded by block of course for war­riors and espe­cially pal­adins). So that means the chance of the effect dis­pelling is now even higher, even if it stacked to maybe BRIEFLY be supe­rior to the avoid­ance of mongoose.

    Mon­goose how­ever con­tin­ues to, once again, proc way more, offer as much threat and doesn’t dis­pel until the effect times out. It’ll prob­a­bly proc again within the next 10 to 15 sec­onds, after it does.

    And while you might say, “Well, with –20% dodge, why even worry with 120 agi proc?”

    The answer is because we still treat dodge as though the –20% isn’t in effect. Chang­ing gear or gem­ming for parry isn’t very smart con­sid­er­ing you get dra­mat­i­cally less in terms of avoid­ance from parry rat­ing than you do dodge rat­ing or agi. Also, you’ll con­tinue to notice crazy amounts of dodge on the gear out of ICC. So, no real rea­son to get out of dodge. It is what it is. Now I know that dimin­sish­ing returns is still a tire­less enemy but with mon­goose and eva­sion up, my dodge chance is back @ 15% I hope they offer a 2.0 ver­sion or some­thing of the enchant in Cataclysm.

    Sorry, for the rant, or if I went off topic, I’m just incred­i­bly pas­sion­ate as I’ve debated this topic many times before.

    Reply