Patch 3.1 Protection Paladin Specs and Glyphs
Apr 15, 09
The patch is up, the specs are these:
Prot pala spec 3 (added 4/17)
Prot pala spec 4 (added 4/18, suggested by Gymal) — mana regen and mana conservation, improved heals, helping DPS out
Please feel free to discuss my choices. This post will be updated with future input or insights I might have.
Have fun and don’t forget to enjoy the game and the new content!
Since Im kinda new to pala tankin i wonder about the new added glyphs. guess have to read bit more about them…
does it mean a change in the rotation? read so many posts about rotations im even more confused. wots the “standard” rotation u suggest?
thx
Paladoox
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=51886.4
http://www.pinkraidframes.com/blog/?p=317
I may as well be the first to question your speccing.…
The version first…
Why put the 2 points in the ret spec Pursuit of Justice instead of the new protection spec of Divinity? Cause as the tankadin, isn’t making the healers job more important then going a little faster? The duration reduction on disarm is handy, but even with the hiccup in the spell rotation, and the loss of some threat…isn’t making the healers job easier a handier thing?.…Unless I’m wrong again the threat can always be quickly regained from a Righeous Defense and a Consecration.…
Now, Spec 2:
Conviction — Handy, but shouldn’t staying alive (Divinity again see above post), and dealing more threat be more important then dealing more damage?.…Or is there a trade-off between DPS and Threat?
Pursuit of Justice — see above bit…
Crusade — Same as conviction..
Thoughts?
Tohrment
72 Protection Pally
I don’t like Divinity so much. That 5% extra healing received could very well turn into 5% over heals. I’m not worried about how big the heals are, I’m just worried that I get them in time.
Besides, putting 5 points in that seems a bit of an overkill. But I guess time will tell if it’s a good talent or not.
I just got to say that specs are awful overall. You favor dps talents way way too much while your missing talents to either make healing you easier or keeping your efficiency up. 2 of your specs are missing seals of the pure which is much more valuable than the extra points you’ve put for dps in ret. Stop taking improved might, let a ret pally do that or get a dps warrior, and dont bother with pursuit of justice. Just get Tuskarr’s Vitality boot enchant. The remaining speed lost is insignificant compared to having 2 extra talent points. And don’t use the excuse that you’re an OT. With dual speccing you off spec to ret for fights that you don’t have to tank. Otherwise stop wasting talents trying to up your dps while tanking and be a real tank.
Fair enough, you have a good point and I respect your opinion.
I would like to see your optimal build for a Prot Pala. Or at least give us an armory link.
Also, keep in mind that not all of us do 25-man raiding constantly so a Ret Pala or a DPS Warrior (your examples) might not always be available.
From now on, I’ll try and separate the builds in 10-man and 25-man categories, just to avoid confusion.
people are probably speccing into DPS talents for the sake of more threat. Pursuit of justice saves you two enchants. Titanium weapon chain, and Tuskars Vitality. Replace with the 22 stam one, and a threat enchant on the weapon. Imp Might is nice because then if you are in a group with only one pally and he’s ret, you can make him kings you both while you do might on him, and it’s nice when you’re the only pally to help DPS out a bit. For 5 and 10 mans, it’s a nice talent. For 25mans, I’d likely drop some of the ret talents and pick up divinity and maybe something else.
Heres my armory link.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Feathermoon&n=Rolim&group=1
you could drop 2 more points into devo aura (taken from hammer of justice) for the maximum benefit of it, but for 5 and 10 mans i often use ret aura or have been seeing some holy pallys pick up the imp devo aura. With this build i generate an ungodly amount of threat, i never get pulled off of single target tanking and can often rip off of DK tanks. As far as dps, while tanking 5 mans i usually pull around 1800 dps with a mix of aoe and single target tanking. In naxx i was always above 2k dps (excluding thaddius)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sVZE0xA0uMGsIufdE:p0Nzcm
This is my suggestion for a raidtanking I came up with, good enough mana effiency without losing too much threat and/or avoidance or migitation
Good Points .. Thats true
Just want to Menshin , that ” Divine Sacrifice ” Not Important if u going with good Healers
(Druids, Shammy) .. Including tanking skillz.
I Currently believes in “Divinity” & “Conviction”.
More Crit = More Damge = More Threat
but without losing important Talents in Prot.
just saying i crited 66666 lay on hands on myself. xD
Your Prot specs lean toward a Ret Pally Dropout.
You need to rethink your talent tree to survivability and not damage.
Yes, most of my specs come deeper into Ret than the others and I can justify that by the fact that I offtank 90% of the time (what can I say, I was lucky enough to land in guilds where the GM is also the MT..).
I am not sure that I am a big fan of the Divine Sacrifice “Spell” let alone improving it.
Personally I am leaning towards mana regen and mana conservation, improved heals, and helping my DPS out. So I am going this way. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZE0xA0uMGsIufdER00b:kpLMzc
Thanks Gymal, I’ll add that to the list.
I have a question why would you spec so deep into the ret tree when it isn’t necessary. after all, enough threat will be produced in the 9696 rotation (if you don’t know about it it produces maximum amount of threat possible) also i noticed you on specs 1–3 do not have spiritual atunement fully set, which is a bad idea because a large amount of fast mana is brought in by it in addition to the slow rate of regain from divine plea.(this is only increased by the divinity talent and keeps you alive by providing more heals)
i personally only spent 6 points in ret in order to get improved judgments and increase parry rate because i will be getting all threat from the 9696 rotation so the higher crit chance is not needed
however from the higher damage dose improve aggro but, as i read above that you normally OT which would be not as good an idea because the chance to over bare the MT is possible if you forget to take off RF
over all this is a decent spec but decent is as far as ill go as i can either Mt or OT so i focus on increasing interruption raid on adds as well as keeping aggro (9696 rotation)
here is my set, i chose it because it decrees stun time(vital in some encounter) as well as giving me ability to hold out when fighting a boss. here is my spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZEhtAruRGsIufdxo:kpLMzc
hope you find it useful and no hard feelings OK?
1 point in SA, BoSanc and Divine Plea are enough to keep our mana up.
Can’t really say I’m a fan of your spec, but if it works for you, it’s all good.
Gonna have to say that stoism is a pvp only talent.. I have tanked all wrath content up to 3.1 and have never seen a time when stun effect reduction was needed. Same for reckoning.. the little or no threat it generates is offset by the possibility of a parry, wrath prot pallies generate plenty of threat with out reckoning. You should take the 3 points in stoism and put them in HotC as its not uncommon in 5 and 10 man instances to not have a ret pally and 3% raid crit is significant.. the 1 point in reckoning could go any where else but there maybe in pursuit of justice to help in gathering up adds in encounters where you are OT and have multiple adds from multiple spawn points
personally i think the 4th build is really, really bad. by the way benediction shouldn’t be required with 100% uptime divine plea
I’m about to start raiding soon and im guessing im most likely going to be an OT for a while. I was wondering if this build was any good.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sVZE0tAbuMGsIufdxk:pLNzcm
Yes, the build is OK. I would suggest looking to put two more points in Heart of the Crusader.
I do very well with this set up, hope it helps:)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZy0xA0uMGsIufzxf0x0c
Drop the points out of Divinity, as stated before, the 4% extra heals could very well turn into 4% overheals, but the talents in divine sac, and imp divine sac, use this to keep Sacred shield up if you care about survivability, this will probably be more effective then 4% heals, also as stated before, only one point is needed in SA, and place the left over talents in Judgments of the Just, as the 20% melee speed reduction can be very effective at surviving, if mobs arent immune to it, also Prot PvP is the way forward, and those two talent points make it a whole lot more fun
I personally prefer a http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZE0tAruMGsIufdE:kLczc
Gives great mitigation, and mana conservation.
You need at least one point in Improved Judgements to fit in the 9696 spell rotation! Otherwise you will generate less threat and you will have no stable sustained rotation
Things I spec’d into ret was for the extra crit. Since the more you crit the more threat you put out I believe. Im up to about 20% crit melee and Spell. And about 63% avoidance. And up to 29k hp unbuffed. And unsure about glyphs
I’ll soon put a link for my build. Or you can WoWarmory my tank. And I’m open to any question about the build or anyway I can make it better, Thanks.
Bunrakuken
Evacuation Plan
Hydraxis
Hello fellow protadins, I’ve been checking out your speccs and your opinion about more damage and more mana efficiency but as a maintank in my guild I have no problems at all with “damage” which I assume you transfer to tps.
As I’ve check out all the speccs available Im still missing the old paladin burst tps build with reckoning and seal of righteouness which I personally like best of them all, I’ve been using it since early tbc and I acctually been against seal of corruption from the beginning, it doesn’t support the original paladin threatbuilding at all.
To acctually tryout this specc and give it a decent chance you need to have a slow weapon to increase the damage of seal of righteousness and make it scale better with hammer or righteousness and reckoning, I use Broken promise from naxxramas.
The thing with this build is that it’s solid for all your melee swings to hit which makes hit and expertise a more importaint stat. I myself is a little low on hit, I only have 182 but expertise cap is reached.
I maintank and offtank ulduar so I use glyphs that works out for both, Seal of righteousness since it’s the skill thats triggered the most, divine plea because of the ulduar bosses less nice damage, and hammer of righteousness because well, it rocks.
As i’ve seen many of you commented here about the increased healing on you talent I acctually prefer it to 3% less damage taken overall since you most likely get more heals that hits it benefits you better overall.
Enough babbling, heres my armory and spec.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormscale&n=quinie
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sVZA0tAbugGsIubdxb:upNVcm
Im very pleased with the spec and it keeps me on a tps between 6-10k all the time, I have no problem with mana since divine plea is up at all times and the spec contains all the proper damage mitigation stats.
Edit:
Why is seal of righteousness better than seal of corruption?
It scales better with your stats in raids, benefit better from both strength, attack & spellpower.
if you click on his armory his current spec is honestly the best raiding spec although i am not a fan of conviction ill probably put it somewhere else but it is a raiding spec although he is geared horrible 37k health unbuffed is just fail im in 25 man naxx gear with more dodeg and parry than you
ok if you are all such good tanks you must not know how to spec or somthing… who the fuck goes into divine sacrafice… that is the most pointless skill in the game also as you can tank even half way good you can hold agro and pull agro put it somwhere else
I have been tanking / healing for awhile now and have found this spec to be very useful. Now I will admit that I am not one of these wizzes who mathmatically breaks down every stat…I go with what works for me. Take a look and let me know what you think.… http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Terenas&cn=Nikimo&gn=Hordes+Most+Wanted
Niki
i have these talents cuz i think its gr8 when i level , aoe grind and big pull in instances , im lvl 73 atm so i´ll follow these talents until im 80 .
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZE0xA0ugGsIufzE000b:p0Nzcm is wilkins spec lol
forgot to link 
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZE0xA0ugGsIufzE000b:p0Nzcm is mine spec atm , i have it like that cuz i do aoe grinds and big pulls in instances , level 73 atm i´ll follow this spec tho until im 80
would this spec be optimal for max thread and survivability
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZV0tAbuMGsIufzEf000c:kpLmVc
max threat*
With spec i posted above you should get max threat as well as great survivability as far as the 5% healing if u have decent gear you wont really need it plus if your in raids odds are you are being over healed anyways.Even though i only took 1/2 spiritual attune benediction more then makes up for it. you also get imp judgments and a few other ret talents that are great for threat. in fact i hav erevised my spec to create more damage (threat) for yourself while you loose 3% crit for everyone odds are you have a ret pally in 25 mans so its not necessary.…http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZV0tAbuMusIufzEb0h0f:kpLmVc
Oh wise ones! Learn me something here …
… why do we care about One-Hand specialization? Our threat comes from our shield and our AOEs. Likewise, why do we care about Judgements of the Just? I haven’t equipped HoJ since HotR came out! By putting those 5 point into Ret Conviction you will get 5 points of melee and spell crit. That’s alot of threat, and alot of damage.
Whaddyathink?
One-Hand Specialization — Because it’s extra 10% damage, and it’s the best spot to fill when climbing up the talent tree.
Judgements of the Just — For the 10% melee speed reduction.
If you don’t like eighter of the talents, don’t spec in them. Do your own thing, you don’t have to be like everyone else.
how come barely anyone speced for “hammer of justice”? I always found it to be a very helpful talent for a quick protection of the other party members and also to regain aggro. However, I haven’t played in months, so please tell me if I’m wrong…
While most of you are arguing about talents that involve play style and spells that aren’t used much, you all seem to be missing out on how valuable the Reckoning talent can be. I use all 5 points here and it proc’s a LOT. Especially with multiple mobs and on lengthy single target fights. Having twice as many attacks means more damage, threat, etc. If you haven’t played with this, you should give it a try.
You don’t want more attacks because this causes the boss to have a higher chance of parrying your attacks and resetting how often they swing and thus doing more damage to you. This is why melee NEVER stands in front of a boss because they will cause the boss to parry an attack, reset their swing, and will slam the tank harder.
Reckoning is a leveling talent, not a tanking talent. If you’re having problem with threat, put the threat enchant on your gloves. Other wise, it only does bad things to you.
As for doing damage as a tank, whoa, stop right there.. You’re a tank, not a dps. While some dps is useful, your job is to keep yourselve alive, not out DPS anyone else. Which, you aren’t even going to come close to anyway. If you want to do dps, level a dps, not a tank. And no, threat is not an issue, again. Most of your threat comes from Righteous fury, which is based on your spells, which your primary spell for making everything hate you is consencrate. Don’t worry about hitting faster, more often, or even harder. It’s a non-issue.
As for the talents, get out of the ret tree. Deflection is good, Improved judgement, just to help spell rotation. Other wise, stop playing in it. Nothing in there helps you tank better. Divine guardian is a must, so is divinity, so is Improved devotion aura, so is pretty much everything in that tree. Holy should be ignored, don’t do seals of the pure just to boost damage. And don’t take persuit of justice either. You aren’t going to be disarmed any time soon by these bosses, since none of them disarm. If they do, get a weapon chain put on your weapon or make a second spec just for having to deal with that, but other wise, ignore it and help out your healers. Paladins don’t have the health to be fiddling with gimping their healers.
DPS or Tank. Not both.
/agree! there’s so much talk about tanks doing damage in here. yes it is important for you to do damage to maintain threat, and yes, more damage equals more threat. but when you’re surpassing everyone else on threat by 3k-4k tps, why continue to stack it. stack stamina, increase mitigation or avoidence, improve healing intake. threat is a non issue now with RF. make your selves survivable, and it will result in less wipes. if dps pulls off you, rethink your tanking tactics, not the amount of damage you put out. damage is not your job.
This is my setup so far
It works pretty well, but i would love some suggestions on things to improve and what talents to use my last 8 points on (when i get there 
)
I I think my last major glyph will be Hammer of Wrath.
Also i have not changed my talents since i made this character
Yes lveling with prot. can work very well.
I think i will get 3 points in Redoubt