Best WotLK Weapon Enchant for Protection Paladins
Jan 28, 09
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.
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
Thanks, I’ll edit that right away, slipped like I first wrote 450 for raids >.<
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.)
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!!
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)?
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.
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
I use a Titanium Weapon Chain as well, mostly because I am too lazy to re-enchant it with potency.
Tep,
Is there an RSS feed URL on your site that I can subscribe to? I would like to link it on my site.
Well, yeah, right on top and to the right, where my Feedburner count is
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Sorry, this post reply was for the post below this
Could you please show the source of these statistics. I have never heard this before.
Thanks
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.
i have blade ward on my weapon as enchant go check it
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.
I lol’d.
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.
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.
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 ?)
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.
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!
Since the nerf of the Paladin’s stamina scale; yes, Mongoose is now arguably the best enchant. =]
Could you supply mathematical justification for the impact of the 3.3 stam nerfs on the enchantmens situation ?
What was the best enchant before the stamina nerf then? I can’t think of anything that was better than DA GOOSE?!?!
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.)
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.
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.
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.
Survivability, survivability and survivability, so the Blood Draining is the best. When you have low hp and you pray that the Mongoose will proc it doesn’t. Blade Ward is the worst choice to pick, parry sucks at PvE so don’t even think about it anymore.
If your dodging more often you are surviving. I have done testing on this extensively and mongoose proc’s more period in comparison.. Test it yourself please!!!..
Mitigation is the game for a tank and 1 agility = 0.04% of dodge (if you had 50 agility you would have an added 2% dodge). If your dodging your not getting hit there fore you don’t need to worry about the heal as much. Also the proc for Enchant Weapon — Blood Draining wont even begon to happen until you reach 35% of health or lower with a max potential of 5 times the heal of 360–440 x5 = 1800-2200hp at max benefit at a 10 sec interval when it does proc which is way less often than Mongoose proc rate.
At 30-50k raid hp 2k isn’t gonna make or break your raid, i have been raiding for years (Pally Bear and DK tanks) and as of LK 2k doesn’t add up to a hill of beans unless you or your healer are under geared for the encounter.
With us tanking ICC i never drop below 35% but for a rare second or two never enough time to stack more than 1–2 of the procs when it does decide to proc.!!!
This should be easy to see and the math is clear on it ( http://www.wowwiki.com/Agility_equivalence_points )
As for the guy saying spell power for his wep for threat you are wrong.. Spell Damage = Sacrificed DPS * 4 per point.
Your taking away a 2–1 modifier to replace it with a –4 to 1 modifier for threat. ( http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Item_Values )
a minor bit of research shows you why mongoose is still a top notch tanking enchant and has been since BC.
a minor bit of research shows you why mongoose is still a top notch tanking enchant and has been since BC. <- Did it and you are right.
Blood Draining is good for warrs, not for pallys. Sorry! 
hmmm..no mention here about armsmen. Isn’t increased threat the goal?
scratch that lol
I’m new pally tank but not a new Tank or WOW player, I think a bear/DK tank talking about what is best for a Prot Pally based on his experience is weak. Prot Pallies gain aggro from holy damage which benefits from spell power, in that, Consecration and any other spell damage that can take advantage of spell power will benefit. So the real answer is, can you hold aggro? If so, mitigation is better of course. If you need aggro and your a pally tank who gets the lions share, of said aggro, with Spells, well then… spell power may be better. With all things, with all these types of games, balance is always good. No one knows what gear you have…
People who give absolutes about anything are generally either very narrowly focused on their gaming experience (which is fine if you are similarly focused) or they are stupid.
I was browsing the auction house today looking for a suitable tanking weapon enchant when I came across Scroll of Enchant Weapon — Blade Ward. I think this may possibly be one of the best weapon enchants for tanks.
In the early days of the Lich King expansion, the spell power enchant actually did up our threat. Since then there have been several changes and the gear has become so OP that the AP scaling from STR far outweighs spell power anymore. As far as bladeward, lifedraining, mongoose etc. it all boils down to preference really. On fights with bosses, overrall numbers lean toward mongoose being the overrall best choice because of proc rate, mitigation, and threat gained. Bladeward while an interesting idea turned out to not be as great overall and less mitigation, if you use it good luck to you, but mongoose is a better mitigation and threat generation. Blood draining because of Ardent Defender seems a little underwhelming for Prot pallies atm…it could be a much better enchant with the changes in cataclysm but now is a choice that is in my opinion better than bladeward but less than mongoose. That being said, with the mitigation gained from gear being so high, accuracy (HIT and CRIT) is the BEST threat generating enchant if you are under hit cap. I have used all these enchants and gearing and find that I value my hit cap more than anything else that these enchants can offer. If you want a 2k heal at a certain point it is your choice of playing, you aren’t a bad player for it, but bladeward plays 2nd fiddle to mongoose.
I’ve been playing with pure threat gem/enchants. I seem to be getting the most threat from 63 sp over 20 str or anything else. Anyone else playing around with sp???