Protection Paladin guide to Karazhan: a few words of introduction

Posted by Tepisor in Uncategorized | 2 comments

This post is part of the Com­plete idiot’s guide to Karazhan for Pro­tec­tion Pal­adins and cov­ers inter­est­ing con­cepts of game­play, min­i­mum gear require­ments and a few intro­duc­tion words to get your Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin started with tank­ing Karazhan. Be sure to read my other guides for your Tankadin on the Guides page. Inter­est­ing reads indeed!

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I remem­ber back when I started Karazhan with a few of my friends and the guild I was offi­cer in, I didn’t find any resources to read upon what was my role in each encounter. I only found a few guides (mainly all adap­ta­tions from wowwiki) that con­fused me more. Why? Because none of them gave credit to the awe­some power that is Pal­adin Tanking.

A Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin is sim­ply the best tank to have around when raid­ing Karazhan.

Rea­sons:

• incred­i­ble AoE tank­ing abil­ity which is heav­ily needed, both on bosses and on trash;
• most mobs are Demons or Undead, which makes a Pala Tank build aggro like no other;
• the best sup­port tank you can have: extra bless­ings, capa­ble healer if it’s really nec­es­sary, use­ful abil­i­ties (like Improved Judge­ment of the Cru­sader for extra crit or Bless­ing of Pro­tec­tion for that nasty Garrote);

Gear­ing your­self up

I’m not going to make a guide about the gear you should have sim­ply because many oth­ers have done so before me. Just fol­low those great people’s advices and you’ll be fine. It’s impor­tant to keep in mind a few aspects, which I’m going to point out again:

• don’t step foot in Karazhan with­out 490 Defense Rating!
• it’s not impor­tant to be Uncrush­able for the first bosses so focus more on Defense (but try and reach it when you’re fur­ther away in pro­gres­sion — Prince for example);
• get a decent amount of Spell Dam­age (around 200 should be enough);

How to act

A very impor­tant part of every raid are the play­ers. This might sound silly to you, but it’s true. Most raids don’t fail because of gear, they fail because of people’s atti­tude. No mat­ter what hap­pens, keep your focus and your mind clear. Remem­ber, it’s only a game after all.

Dos:

• Lis­ten to sug­ges­tion and/or crit­i­cism. Every­one can improve;
• Accept wipes with a smile on your face. Pro­gres­sion can’t hap­pen with­out wipes;
• Lis­ten to your raid leader even if he’s wrong. If he is, he will fail and look stupid;
• Come in time and pre­pared for the raid. Here is a list of regents and con­sum­ables that can help a Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin to get ready for a raid;
• Read before­hand tac­tics for each encounter you’ll be facing;
• Keep WWS logs (and ask your friends to do so too) to keep track of performance;

Don’ts:

• Don’t openly crit­i­cize other peo­ple even if you are right. If you aren’t the raid leader, it’s not your job to keep an eye on other play­ers. If you see some­one slack­ing, best you can do is whis­per the RL with your observations;
• Don’t slack;
• Don’t go AFK with­out let­ting the RL know. You’ll just make peo­ple in the raid angry at you;
• Don’t leave the raid before it’s time with­out find­ing a replace­ment, unless it’s really urgent;

It’s impor­tant to know that if you act mature and help­ful it won’t go unno­ticed and you will ben­e­fit in the long run.

I guess this is it for now. I plan to develop the guide with per­sonal insight for all the bosses and step-by-step instruc­tions on how to approach them so stick around!

Sim­i­lar Posts of Interest:

• The Com­plete idiot’s guide to Karazhan for Pro­tec­tion Paladins
• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin guide for Karazhan: gear guide and drops
• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin guide to Karazhan: know­ing the instance
• Mini guide to tank­ing Night­bane for Pro­tec­tion Paladins
• Pro­tec­tion Pal­adin weapons guide with spread­sheet inside