Common mistakes in building your Protection Paladin



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.

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 weapons guide with spread­sheet inside
• Inter­est­ing Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin builds
• The cur­rent WotLK Pal­adin Pro­tec­tion tree is broken
• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin build for Wrath of the Lich King
• Read­ers ask, itankstuff.com answears (I)

 

4 Responses to “Common mistakes in building your Protection Paladin”

1. Tokinsmoger says:

   14/01/2009 at 00:24

   Hm… You said not to invest in strength? Why? WotLK made strength a prot pally’s best friend! Increase in block value is nice, but more impor­tant, now it actu­ally gives you a note­wor­thy amount of threat. Also, you said to invest in spellpower, but as long as you spec right, sta­mina gives you spellpower. If your sta­mina is even close to high enough, you should not have to invest directly in spellpower.
   Just a cou­ple obser­va­tions

   Reply
2. Tepisor says:

   14/01/2009 at 00:35

   This post is dated from May, so it’s waaaaaaay before WotLK.

   Reply
3. lolzmasta says:

   28/10/2009 at 18:42

   “Don’t invest in Improved Devo­tion Aura or Improved Con­cen­tra­tion Aura! ”

   yet you got 3/3 imp devo aura

   GG

   lol

   Reply
   • Tepisor says:

     03/11/2009 at 00:10

     Guess it’s hard to read a tii­i­i­i­i­i­iny bit before com­ment­ing, eh?

     Reply