Protection Paladins

[Alron]

Hey.

I'm leveling up a paladin atm (when I get the time). And I was thinking of going protection pretty soon (lvl 47 atm), so I'm just curious if there are any protection Paladins raiding with MM at the moment? What's your experience with using protection Paladins in Heroics, Karazhan and 25-Man raiding?

Thanks

 

[Braque]

Read all about it here:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t10440-pala .... ty_thread/

I raid with MM as holy, but I've also been working on my protection set, and have tanked Karazhan and heroics.

Protection is an awesome spec for leveling, but once you hit the level cap you face a much more difficult gearing up process than Warriors, since not only do you need to hit 490 defence to become crit immune, you also have to stack a ton of avoidance stats to get the extra 30% block value missing from Holy Shield (when compared to the warrior's Shield Block) to become Crush Immune. The items with avoidance stats are out there, and you can get crush-immune / 10k hp pre-karazhan, but its a lot of work, and you'll never catch up on the stamina / hit points pool that Warriors and Druids sport.

 

[Alron]

Got any faith in that itemization is getting better in future patches?

Anyways.. will at least go prot for leveling and instancing up to heroics and raids then. Still nice to have one of each type of tank though, so I can experience the differences myself.

 

[Braque]

There is room for improvement in the itemisation of paladin gear.

Currently spelldamage is half wasted itemvalue, it could easily be changed to +holy, freeing up iLevel points to pump into stamina or chance to block, to improve avoidance with zero reduction in threat output.

Intellect is also to a certain extent wasted. Given that we depend on mana return from healing to sustain us anyway, a larger mana pool at the start of the fight is of only situational value (ie, off-tanking where little or no damage is taken, or keeping us going through avoidance streaks). Many Prot paladins, especially in Karazhan, use mostly warrior gear, and get their spelldamage from the weapon slot only.

 

[Gink]

Have leveled Deadstar to 70 now as prot, only tanked some normals yet and have shit gear. But managed to tank Shadow Labs nicely at lvl 68, tho we had some issues on the 2nd boss ><
Can't wait to get my gear improved and started on the heroics, cause paladin tanking ALOT of fun.

 

[Braque]

2nd boss in SL is a total shit for a paladin tank.

Mana pool in tank gear + MC == OOMlol

OTOH, given then stuggle to get crush immune that Paladins suffer, consider:

The following Hyjal/BT bosses don't crush: Azgalor, Archimonde, Supremus, Shahraz, Gathios (council), Illidan.

 

[Ayu]

That also sounds good for Druid tanks

 

[Stuvvie]

Last time I actually did an instance with a protection pally, did some with Illusion's paladin at first and later on some with braque's but it's truly a dps'ers paradise due to the high amount of aggro generation at the start of a fight but it's also that you gotta get done with it as soon as the mana pool starts to run out.

Pallies being plate wearers they don't really take that much damage so the healing to mana thing is crunching it up really fast and from my opinion there is no class build running out of mana faster then a prot pally altho the better the group get's the more fun it is with a paladin tank but even still I have a hard time not mentioning the paladin as my foremost favourite tank in any instance.

And 2th SL boss stays a very strange boss as instead of it getting easier the better the group get's the harder the boss becomes but that really isn't to blame on the tank.

Pallies got the huge advantage of even being able to pop a heal during tanking mode and even tho it's a small advantage it's a huge one to have every spell available from the book to you in 1 form/stance so that makes the 2th SL boss even easier (if the mana allows it which normally isn't but still).

It's really fun for the group and it makes the game so much more challenging.

 

[Gink]

Concerning mana issues, group with a shadow priest, judge JoW, and suddenly you dont have an issue anymore.

 

[Ayu]

I really don't see the big deal with mana issues. Braque tanked SH heroic just fine and while you won't break speed records with a Paladin tank since he will have to actually drink after a few pulls although the healer is good to go (this is somewhat the opposite of a rage based tank who can pull faster after combats with lots of rage saved). But then again, the other two tank types won't be able to AoE tank as well as a Paladin either.

Point is, if you wanna criticize Paladins, it is usually not the 5 man instances they need help in

 

[Bani]

I've had only bad experiences with prot palas in 5mans, even those I knew were fairly skilled players in Holy. Haven't grouped with Braque though!

But my personal opinion, which seems to be in line with what the others here said, is that it's a class you have to play pretty hardcore to make it viable/fun. It seems to me if you don't do the extensive gear optimization+collecting and math crunching Braque outlined, you'll be a subpar tank for 5mans and not viable in raids at all.

Sorry my opinion isn't more joyful :yes:
Bani

 

[Gilbert]

did SH with a pala tank, smoothest run ive ever done, he basically just pulled a group (up to 8 elites) and we had an oomkin/lock/mage aoe/dps it down in seconds while i just spammed heals on him, fun

edit: was normal ofc he had shit gear as well but palas are awesome, just ask ded (soc madness) ^^

 

[Braque]

did SH with a pala tank, smoothest run ive ever done, he basically just pulled a group (up to 8 elites) and we had an oomkin/lock/mage aoe/dps it down in seconds while i just spammed heals on him, fun

edit: was normal ofc he had shit gear as well but palas are awesome, just ask ded (soc madness) ^^

That's pretty much what we did in Heroic as well; me tanking, Galatea healing, Urasnis and a mage dps'ing, and Elwynn doing an awesome job of kitty dps+bear off tanking. It was pretty cool.

 

[Gilbert]

gonna try to set up a healer (me), a tank (pally plx ) and 3 warlocks for soc madness!