The current WotLK Paladin Protection tree is broken
Kinda, at least in my opinion. So stick with me and try to follow.
The problem with Protection Paladins
I was playing around with the talent calculator when I stumbled on a problem that I faced many times: reaching our 51-points talent doesn’t feel right when only taking PvE talents. I know, it sounds weird but try and follow me some more.
Take a look at the picture below.
It’s a standard build with only 24 points invested. Where to go from now? Taking Soicism, Guardian’s Favor, Divine Guardian or Improved Hammer of Justice is wrong, just wrong if you want to PvE.
So basically, in order to move on, we have two choices: take Improved Devotion Aura or Reckoning.
Improved Devotion Aura
Will give 602.5 Armor and 6% more healing on the targets affected at level 80. Does NOT stack with Tree of Life from Druids. Meaning, if you spec into this and raid with a Tree, you just wasted 3 talent points.
Reckoning
Great for leveling, bad for endgame rading. Gearing yourself means you’ll get hit less. Getting hit less makes Reckoning not to proc. Reckoning not procing = you just wasted 5 talent points.
Other solutions
In order to move forward down into the tree, with the build I showed in the image above, we only need 1 talent point. Only 1 more talent point. But where to put it? Investing only 1 point in a talent just doesn’t feel good, right? But if we don’t like eighter Reckoning nor Improved Devotion Aura, we need to make that sacrifice.
So what should we do? At the moment I have no idea. I doubt Blizzard will fix this until Wrath of the Lich King so I’m guessing we’re stuck at gimping our builds.
Gimp? What do you mean?
Let’s say I’m level 80, I’m so good gear that Reckoning doesn’t proc to my satisfaction and I raid not with 1, but several Resto Druids. Let’s think, what are my choices? Get my point?
Conclusion
We can’t benefit from our 51 points talent without investing at least 52 points, while taking only PvE viable talents.
A viable PvE build for a Protection Paladin requires at least 54 points in the Protection tree, one being wasted exactly because of the problem described above.
But I guess the persons capable of fixing this are too busy nerfing Retri…
Well maybe you are right! All those GCs and other crabs are busy / were busy nerfing ret paladins, which may have done PvE paladins weaker. I mean that they have nerfed retri palas and didnt think about Holy or Prot then. When the 3.0.2 came out it was the first time I could easily kill monsters for daily quests, just like resto shamans do, or priests too. Not it changed. Whatever.
Reckoning. Hmm is it so bad? I’ve heard that it’s a good way to get more TPS. Well I used to be a healer, but now in WotLK I’m gonna be a tank. I’d like you to suggest me a few paladin tank builds, please. Thx in advance.
@Elebrimor — Reckoning is not bad. I love Reckoning. But when you’re overgeared it will stop working or get a very low proc rate, so low it’s not worth investing 5 points in it.
As for the builds, here are two. I’ll probably need to revise them or make another updated post.
Reckoning does proc off of blocks also. So, it will still proc when your gear gets good.
Yes, but you want Dodge in end-game raiding, not Block.
“Yes, but you want Dodge in end-game raiding, not Block.”
Really?
So have I been wasting my time this whole since release by making myself into a soak/block tank and not an avoidance tank?
The post and comment are rather old (before the release of WotLK) and they are kinda outdated.
Now with the DR on avoidance, the proper way to do it is a mix between the two.
You can read more about it here.
Well I feel foolish for not paying attention to dates.
Thanks anyway for the great site, Tep. Found and bookmarked yesterday.
I agree that that is a spot where points are not spent on tanking, I took Imp devotion aura for leveling but I hope we have a better choice at 80. Maybe that elusive 11 point talent that has been hinted at.
I also wanted your opinion on blizzard adding damage reduction to shield of the templar. I had skipped that before because I didn’t feel like I had to have the extra damage at level 70 and was going to pick it up as I leveled. With the damage reduction I think it made it a must have tanking talent and made our protection tree too bloated. I have dropped 3 points out of ardent defender since I overgear most content I will be doing until the expansion and will pick it back up as I level. What do you think of it now?
Thanks, great blog, keep it up.
Immanuel of Khadgar
Tensas– Where does it say that reckoning procs off of blocks, I reread the tool tip last night and it does not say that that I can find. It would be a great addition if it did proc off of blocks just curious what the source is.
Thanks
@mandm412 — read rank 5 of Reckoning. It now also procs on blocks, unlike the old one. But only if you invest 5 points in it.
Shield of the Templar is a beautiful talent. 3% less damage taken from all sources plus 30% more damage on two of our main threat building talents (Holy Shield and Shield of Righteousness) are just yummy.
Combine that with Guarded by the Light and we get 9% less damage taken from all sources. Remember how we really lacked protection from spells before? Not anymore.
Tepisor– Thanks, as much as we block reckoning would be up all the time again, but it leads me back to my initial query.
The protection tree is stuffed with must have talents so are main tanks going to end up 63 to 65 talent points in our tree? I definitely think kings needs to go back to one talent point or become baseline so we don’t have two talented must have raiding buffs in our tree.
mandm413– In my builds, I don’t take kings. The holy paladins in my guild are responsible for that. So, that frees up some extra points. I don’t know that reckoning will be in my level 80 build, but it will be in my leveling build from 70–80.
Well, you say that you are not getting Imp Devo aura because you could potentially waste 3 Talent points…But what if you’re raiding with other Paladins? Then you waste 5 talent points with BoK. Besides, the game of tanking has changed since there are diminishing returns with Dodge/Parry and pure avoidance. Also, your block value is going to be huge…HUGE! In TBC, it was, “Lets see how much damage you can take!” so people stacked stamina heavy on everything. This isn’t to say that you won’t be doing that now, but I notice a lot of tanks stacking Defense now (Not sure how permanent that is going to be since the cap is 540). I think in WotLK it is going to be more, “How much damage can you absorb?” I choose not to take Kings, and I choose to get the 3 points into Imp Devo Aura for that extra armor…even if it is just a little bit. It does give almost 3% extra damage reduction anyway while active. Then you just get stuck with what to do with your 3 points to get to the next tiers of the protection tree…which then you would “bite the bullet” and put them into Reckoning since everything else is virtually useless. I am sure you will get hit a lot at 80 while raiding no matter what the gear. It is just that you will be getting hit for less and less now…So I think overall, reckoning will be pretty useful even at 6%.
@Catylist — you are absolutely right on this one. The “problem” with BoK needs to be disputed between the Paladins within a guild. Decide who will spec into BoK in order to optimize raid performance.
I chose to spec into BoK because I’m currently the only Paladin in my guild who’s 80. And besides me, there’s going to be only another Paladin raiding and he’s Holy.
I agree that I had a distorted view on things at 80, but now that I am there, I can safely say that the number one priority will be stacking Defense and Block Value. I’m starting to love Block Value. Seeing those 3k+ crits with Shield of the Righteousness just makes my heart melt.
We’ll see how things evolve.
As it stands, prot cannot take BoK because tanks DEMAND BoSanc. When I do Naxx, my OT Warrior whispers me nonstop if I don’t rebuff BoSanct immediately — it’s that important for rage generation. And as a pally I wouldn’t be able to tank anything below raid bosses without BoSanct on me without running out of mana.
But there are still some good PvE choices in the low prot trees for paladins. Get 3/3 Imp. Devotion, as if any sane tank would turn down 600 free armor, its like a free armor elixir up all the time. Plus you aren’t guaranteed to have a druid in 5– and 10-mans unless you have a pocket one.
The remaining 3 talent points can be spent in imp HoJ instead of reckoning. This is not strictly an PvP talent anymore, it is invaluable in 5mans, for the stun, and the interrupt component could make the difference on interruptible raid mobs.
I do hope that our promised 11-point talent will be good for mitigation though, as that would be a solid place to put a point early in the tree.
I see your problem, but I also see wasted points.
As an MT you’ve got to expect there to be a holy pala or retadin in the raid who’s going to have BoK. Sanc is a must have to any tanking class, if just for the mitigation its still needed. For my build I’ve included imp. devo simply because your not always raiding and in most heroics your going to have an even spread of healing classes. What I’m currently finding incredibly good is stoicism, that –30% stun duration really helps when your tanking multiple mobs (and as a tankadin anything less than 3 to tank is boring) if 1 or 2 of those mobs has a stun you can guarentee they’ll use it at the worst possible time, making Stoicism a really useful addition.
Imo, skip reckoning unless you have the points to spare and masses of expertise.
If you really get stuck with your build just stick a few points into Guardian’s Favour, its definately not a talent that you need per-say, but its always nice to have a slightly smaller CD for those members who go off and attempt to solo-kill a mob your not working threat on.
As it is we’ll just have to sit and wait for any talent changes that might be coming with the next few patches.
Good discussion, but one thing I don’t understand with you guys. How are you expecting holy paladins to have kings? They give up at least 3% of precious crit to get it:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=503501503001300531025212510000000000000000000000000052300500030000000000000000
That said, I’d always expect a ret pally to have it unless they’re all out pvp spec or some kind of holy/ret hybrid.
Note: As a tank, I kind of expect to be the responsible party in terms of bringing group utility, so it doesn’t entirely bug me that I have to have 2 talented blessings.
(As to OP, you’re spot on I have a heck of a time getting to the bottom half of the prot tree whenever I build a new spec. Of course, I really like having Divine Guardian, even though I can’t use it while tanking, so usually that’s where the extra point or points go.)
I picked up kings for heroic runs– usually I’m the only pally in 5 man groups. I also picked up imp devo aura as it helps when there isnt a tree in my raid/5 man– which means I directly can help my healer out. I don’t have threat gen issues, with 3k tps if not higher in all heroic/naxx gear– mostly heroic gear. I also took heart of the crusader in the ret tree as it increases the crit strike chance aginest the target by 3% and thus helps kill the boss faster. I didnt take reckoning because of bad experiences with prince:) Might have to rethink that one since it seems the wrath bosses arent into parry deaths
hey guys just thought I’d get some constructive criticism on my build lemme know what u think and what i could improve because I’m sure everyone is gonna tell me what I’m doing wrong lol http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Blood+Furnace&n=Doramue
Hey Doramue,
First thing I would suggest is to drop Reckoning and get Ardent Defender. It will help out a lot more.
Another thing I would suggest is to get Pursuit of Justice (maybe drop the points in Conviction).
Other than that, you should be OK.
Good luck!
can i ask why i should take pursuit i dont understand since i’m geared for raids and never do pvp will pursuit of justice really help me since i can’t remember ever being disarmed by a raid boss or are there other hidden benefits i’m missing?
It’s just that you move faster.
When you’re done with the Prot tree you can usually go T3 in Ret and PoJ is imo the best place to put your extra points into.