There is another threat about Paladin Tanks on the forum but it's not that good for understanding the basics from new players that choose to play as a Paladin Tank.
First of all I would like to start with this: Tanking is more of and Art rather than science so you could realy improvise in the way you feel it will be much better for your playstyle rather than something that most of the Pally Tanks use. Also this a PvE Oriented Guide!
Abbreviations
Usefull Abbreviations for Protection Paladins(most of them are not used in this Guide)
EH - Effective Health
HS - Holy Shield
SS- Sacred Shield
AS - Avenger's Shield
HotR - Hammer of the Righteous
ShR - Shield of Righteousness
SoW - Seal of Wisdom
SoR - Seal of Righteousness
SoV - Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption
SoC - Seal of Command
SoL - Seal of Light
SoJ - Seal of Justice
JoW - Judgement of Wisdom
JoL - Judgement of Light
JoJ - Judgement of Justice
LoH - Lay on Hands
HoJ - Hammer of Justice
CD - Cooldown
GCD - Global Cooldown
AM - Aura Mastery
DiSac - Divine Sacrifice
DG - Divine Guardian
DP - Divine Protection
DS - Divine Shield/Bubble
HoP - Hand of Protection
HoSac - Hand of Sacrifice
HoF - Hand of Freedom
HoS - Hand of Salvation
(G)BoM - (Greater) Blessing of Might
(G)BoW - (Greater) Blessing of Wisdom
(G)BoS - (Greater) Blessing of Sanctuary
(G)BoK - (Greater) Blessing of Kings
Str - Strength
Agi - Agility
Int - Intellect
Stam - Stamina
AP - Attack Power
SP - Spell Power
TPS - Threat per second
DPS - Damage per second
PPM - Proc Per Minute
DMG - Damage
DR - Damage Reduction
BV - Block Value
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the best race for Paladin Tanks?
For Alliance all three races have their upsides. As for Hordes your realy dont have a choice since Blood Elfs are the only race than can be a Paladin.
Dwarfs have 5 Expertise when they use Maces while humans have only 3 with Swords and Maces also Dwarfs have Stoneform which is quite usefull when they are bleed effects also a good CD when there is a Huge Physical Spike DMG. Humans on the other hand have Every Man For Himself which proves to be usefull when you need to remove some kind of Fear/Stun effect to safe some of your healers and its alot better to use this rather than Divine Shield cause DS cleares all your threat.
Draenei have only a Self Heal that helps during leveling and when your farming. The 1 % Hit Raid Wide is usefull too but most of the times there are more than 1 Draenei in the raid.
Blood Elves have a way to interupt casters which due to Arcane Torrent and the mana returning helps reduce the downtime while you are leveling or farming.
The proffestion bosnuses for both JC and Ench can come usefull too to skip those hard to farm leveling recipes. Also Humans can finish their rep farms 10 % Faster and Dwarfes can track Treasure Chests. The race chosing is crealy all about the looks so choose whatever you like the most.
I've got 540 defense skill so I should be uncrittable, but some mobs in instances or outdoors are still critting me. What's going on with that?
Most of the Outdoor mobs and some instance mobs haves buffs that increase their crit chance further but thats not something your should worry about bacause there isn't a known boss that have higher than 5.6% crit chance which is actualy why the cap is 540.
For other questions feel free to PM me or ask here I will gladly reply to them.
Str is the Main Threat stat for Pallys since it Gives you more SP, BV and AP which are the stats that make all your abilities stronger since most of your spells scale from AP and SP (HotR Scales only from AP) and ShR scales directly with your BV. Also BV gives your a small amount of DR since most of the time you will be Blocking attacks.
Stamina
Each point of Stamina increases your HP Pool by 10. Also Sacred Duty and Combat Ratings increase your Stamina by 8 % and 6 % respectively and a Total of 14.48 %. Stam is also the stat you should look for cause on WoTLK Melee Attacks are not that big of an Issue for tanks.
Agility
- 59.89 Agi = +1% dodge chance.
- 52.08 Agi = +1% melee crit chance. All of your ability(exept Exorcism) scale with Melee Crit
- 1 Agi = 2 Armor
Although it gives you direct DMG Mitigation and Avoidanceits not a stat that you would like to gem for or gear for since rating give alot more Dodge and Armor is found on every item you get.
Intellect
- 1 Int = 15 Mana
- 166.67 Intellect = +1% chance to crit with spells.
Int is quite unneeded for Tank but it haves it usefullnes but should only come from Buffs and nothing more. The increasement in your mana pool means more mana from Replenishment effects and also more mana from Sanctuary. It also gives you spell crits but the only thing that benefits from Spell Crit are your Heals and your Exorcism and neither of them are included in your rotations.
Combat Ratings
Defense Rating
- 4.92 defense rating = 1 defense skill (If you're new to these stats, pay careful attention to the difference between defense rating and defense skill.)
- 25 defense skill gives:
- 1% chance to take a critical hit from melee or ranged (non-spell) attacks.
- 1% chance to be missed
- 1% chance to dodge, parry, and block (each).
Most of the mobs have a 5 % Crit Chance against a level 80 player with 400 Defense Skill(which is the base skill for all classes) and you need to avoid that. Every 1 level difference give 0.2 % Increased Crit Chance and for a level 83 (Which is the level of all bosses) makes it a total 5.6 % Crit Chance to avoid so that means 5.6 * 25 = 140 Defense Skill (689 defense rating) and a total of 540 Defense Skill needed to avoid crits on a Boss. For Heroics the highest level boss in there is 82 and you need 535 Def Rate(664 defense rating) for there to be Crit Caped.
Dodge Rating
- 45.25 rating = 1% chance to dodge.
- Dodging an attack means that you wount take any DMG from it.
- Dodge suffers from diminishing returns meaning that the more Dodge you have the more rating it will require for 1 %. There isn't an exact known graphs about them.
Parry Rating
-45.25 rating = 1% chance to parry.
- Parry just like Dodge suffers from Diminishin returns.
- Parried attacks also means that you wount take DMG for it.
-Parried attacks reduces your swing timer (also known as Parry Hasting)
Block Rating
- 16.29 block rating = +1% chance to block.
- This does not suffer from diminishing returns.
- Block is far "cheaper" than dodge or parry or even defense per point of avoidance; however, blocking only absorbs an amount of damage equal to your block value.
Hit Rating
- 32.79 hit rating = +1% chance to hit with melee or ranged attacks (-1% chance to miss).
- For our purposes, this applies to melee swings (white damage), Avenger's Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of Righteousness, Hammer of Wrath, and Judgements.
Against a raid boss, melee and ranged attacks have a base 8% chance to miss (this is changed from 9% in TBC), so 263 hit rating is required to eliminate all melee misses if there are no other bonuses to hit.
- Draenei have a racial aura that gives +1% to hit. This reduces the requirement for melee hit-capping to 230 hit rating if you're a draenei or have one in your group. (This is group-only buff, not a raidwide buff.)
It is not a must to be Hit Caped as a Tank, Hit should only be considered if your need it for specific Fights, or if your lacking threat. Also have in mind that Spell Hit tables scale differently. The only abilities that require spell hit are our Taunts and Exorcism.
Expertise Rating
- 8.10 expertise rating = +1 expertise (Same as defence you have two seperate things)
- 1 Expertise = 0.25 % reduce chance to Dodge and Parry for your attacks
- 32.79 expertise rating = -1% dodge and -1% parry for your attacks.
The effective exepertise cap is 26 for Dodges but that realy doesnt concern you that much. The thing that concerns you is the Parry since you are aways attacking from the front and thus making your attacks to parry. When a boss parries an attack his Swing Timer gets reduced by 40% (as mentioned above) thus making the boss hit you harder. Most of the bosses have between 11% and 15 % which means that you need something like 56 Expertise and that ammount is nearly impossible to get. My advice is to gear for Avoidance and take as much Expertise as you can get your hands on but dont aim straighly for that stat.
Block Value
Although this is not a Rating I would like to mention that this is a Strong Mitingation stats because every point of BV causes your blocks to avoid another extra point of DMG also BV increases the DMG of your ShR and thus increasing your Threat.
There are 56 Talent points that are a must for you to be an effective tank and 3 that are just to get to the higher tiers. Those 3 of them must be putted on talents in the first 5 tiers.
The Core Build - this includes all the core talents and the 3 needed points to get down to the other tiers are puted in Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian although Divine Sacrifice is better uses with Divine Shield on bacuase if you plan to use it without it you most likely die. But the real power here is in Divine Guardian because it improves your SS alot. Those 3 Point may be puted simply where you want it doesnt have that much of Impact but I highly recomend this one as a Core because of its Utility.
For the Rest 12 Talent Points:
Retribution
0/53/18 This is the most common build that most of the pallys use however for Warmane WoW I think it will be better to get those 2 Point in Vindication and move them to Imp BoM since Vindication proc rates here suck and its hard to maintain high Uptime of the Debuff.
Some ppl also like to get points in Conviction for further Threat Increasement.An example build for that would be this one. Here you loose most of your Mobility due to droping Persuit of Justice and alot of AoE Threat due to Seal of Command, also you loose some Utility due to droping Vindication (Imp BoM as mentioned above).
Holy
Holy offers only high Utility but at the cost of a reduced threat. A Great example for Holy as a way to put your is given by Lazeil from Paragon. This spec and Glyph setup is used mainly to on the 25 man Lich King where there is alot of tank changing and threat is not an issue there an there he uses most of his abilities to reduce the Raid DMG also the Tank DMG (Imp LoH, AM and DiSac). Note that he puted 5/5 Divinity and the reason for this is mainly because 25 Man Lich King is very heal intensive and this helps healers to deal easily with it. The 1 Point in HoJ is puted because it makes HoJ available for every Valkirye spawn. In all the rest points in Holy are preferably to be chosen when there is alot of Spike DMG on the Encounter thus making this choice rather Situational.
Credits goes to @theckhd and @Dorvan from maintankadin forums mostly for the Holy Part since I have never played Holy/Prot
NOTE: Have in mind that at the moment on Warmane Vindication and Judgements of the Just aren't working on NPCs and only on Players so its advisable to drop the points from them and put them somewhere else.
Justification:
In all Lazeil from Paragon gives a great example about that you can modify your talents the way your role on a given Encounter requires as you can see he droped some of the Core talents just to improve the group's survivability at the cost of threat and since LK 25 Man Hard Mode doesnt require that much of Threat this spec has great Utility there. So the conclusion is to put your talents where ever you want them and the Core Build is something like a point of starting for new Tanks in time they can make choices which suits them best.
Rotation
The Pull
First of all before the pull start by casting Divine Plea and Sacred Shield. The pull the boss with Hand of Reckoning and Avenger's Shield after you position yourself you should consider using 696 Rotation.
696 Rotation
This is basicly using your cooldowns with 6 seconds CD and 9 seconds CD.
The abilities with 6 second cooldown are Shield of Righteousness and Hammer of the Righteous. So the ration should be something like this:
The abilities with 9 second cooldown are Holy Shield, Consecration, and Judgement. Holy Shield actualy haves 8 Sec CD but it haves 10 Sec duration and Consecration haves 8 sec CD but due to the GCD triggered by the abilites (1,5 sec) and thus making it an avaiable for aprox every 9 secs in most cases. So when we include the final Rotation should be:
For this rotation some ppl prefer to cast Judgement before Concentration and its not wrong its just personal preferences.
Also this roration locks most of your spell bacause everytime a CDs are over when you need them to continue your rotation. Avenger's Shield should also be used on CD for its Utility and you should change in the rotation for a Conc or a Judge.
Here is a Video that shows exactly how the 696 Rotation works -> Youtube
Multi Target Tanking Rotation
The start is the same as the 696 rotation one but for this I start with Conc then HotR to catch the aggro and prevent the mobs from jumping on the healers. So the rotation should be something like this:
This is again more like 696 rotation but as mentioned above you get crucial start aggro and you dont allow trashes to jump on your healer or another Melee DPS that uses abilities that hit aditional targets (Heart Strike, Whirlwind, Divine Storm etc.).
As I said earlier Tanking is an Art and when it comes to rotation you can use your abilities the way it suits you better but aways try to maximize your potential.
Seals and Aura
For Aura the choice is clear your should aways use Devotion Aura caise it gives you DMG Mitigation.
NOTE: If you have Essence of Gossamer use Retri Aura cause the buffs removes your Dev Aura
Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption - This is your main tanking seal and you should aways use it, nothing more to say about it. Seal of Command - This seal is mainly used in Multi Target Tanking since most of your abilities are considered Single Target and thus procing its secondary effect. Seal of Wisdom - This is the seal of choice when your doing Heroics and you lack mana also this is the Leveling seal you should use since there you dont recieve much of a Healing. Seal of Light - I personaly use this seal when I'm leveling and when I gather alot of mobs because I need the healing from this one and I get the needed mana from BoS. Seal of Righteousness - This seal is basicly used in low level tanking just before you get SoV then its totaly replaced by it.
Glyph
Must Have Glyphs
Glyph of Divine Plea - This glyph is a must have glyph for all tanks and its quite self - explanationary. When Divine Plea is active (and thats all the time due to Guarded by the Light) you gain 3 % DR.
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance - This is another glyph you must have cause Expertise is quite hard to get as a tank and this gives you a total of 10 and since Expertise is kinda mitigation stats (look above for Expertise Rating and Parry) this makes it a Must.
Situational Glyphs
Glyph of Righteous Defense - We all know that a missed taunt means someone will most likely die and thus making this glyph a very valuable choice. Although Pally haves 2 Taunt there are cases that you have to taunt more than one target and thus this Glyph is rather Situational.
Glyph of Salvation - This is another Situational Glyph bacause this one makes you loose alot of Threat but at it gives you 20 % DR on a 2 Min CD. Use this glyph carefully because most of the fights you need to hold hell of alot aggro and for there this is just not usefull at all. Note: Dont use this glyph if you have Aggro problems.
Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous - This Glyph is your best choice for Trash Tanking and AoE Tanking but its Situational cause if your an MT it makes it quite unneeded since that extra bounce is not going to be puted in use.
Glyph of Avenger's Shield - This is your best choice if you are the MT of your Guild and thus your not tanking that many mobs most of the time. Usualy I prefer using this Glyph since most of the time the hiting of 3 Mobs is enought and there isnt that big need for Glyph of HotR.
Rejected Glyphs
Glyph of Spiritual Attunement - This is rejected bacause if you happen to need mana then thats most likely your quite well geared and you are doing heroics. And simple for there you can change SoV for SoW to keep your mana needs.
Glyph of Judgement - Your judgement dont hit hard at all the only usage for them is to keep their effects on the target and not for extra Threat.
Glyph of Shield of Righteousness - No ShR haves low enought Mana cost so no need to lower it further remember that you have a Blue Rage bar and if you dont have mana on a Raid then thats most like that the Healers are dead and your wiping.
Glyph of Exorcism - This is a Glyph for Retri pally you dont use Exorcism in your rotations so this makes this glyph unneeded.
Skinning, Herbalism and Tailoring are all crap for tanks so just forget about them. Engeneering is also quite crap for Tank but it more usefull that those listed above.
Blacksmithing - Gives you 2 extra slots for your Hands and Wrist. You gain 60 Stam, 40 Dodge Rating , 40 Def Rating or you can gem with whatever combination you want thus meaning this is the most flexible proffesion for you. Not to mention that you can craft some nice BoE epics yourself when you level.
Jewelcrafting - Gives you 63 stam, 42 Dodge Rating , 42 Def Rating or whatever gems you choose to take. But usualy every tank on WoTLK uses stacks Stam mainly because their Melee Attacks are nothing special and thus Avoidance tankers dont apear too much.
Leatherworking - Gives you 62 more Stam due to its Fur Lining.
Mining - Gives you a flat 60 Stam boost but the downside of this is that there is no subtitude for Holy or Retri Off Specs
Inscription - 40 Dodge and 5 Def Rating more than the SoH Enchants. Downside is that it gives only Avoidance no Effective HP subtitude.
Alchemy - Provides 750 hp if a flask is used.
If using Elixirs, pick one of each row:
- 400 armour, 375 hp, or 22 defence rating for Guardian Elexirs
- 25 str, 22 agility, 10 stats for Battle Elexirs
Note: Although Mixology doesnt work here its good to know when it gets fixed what can you get by it.
Red Sockets: Regal Dreadstone Defender's Dreadstone
Choose which ever stat you need more. I have also excluded the Pure Dodge and Parry ones since you need alot of stam. If you however dont need Dodge or Parry stack Stamina
Yellow Sockets: Thick King's Amber is the only option and fill them only when you lack Def Rating
My advice is to get a Nightmare Tear and put it in a Red or Yellow socket that yields the most stamina to active your meta gem(if you decide to use the BV Meta pick one of the Red Socket Gems listed Above) the rest of your sockets fill with Solid Majestic Zircon
Both of these foods give you 40 Stam the real choice is if you have a very low Expertise take Wormsteak either take the Filet since it gives you more threat.
I know that the guide become too long but after all the point of making a guide is for new players to understand better a given class(spec) mechanics. If you have some other questions feel free to ask them here, PM me or whisper me ingame. Hopefully this will help some of the Tanking Pallys on Warmane.
Thank you for updating this outstanding guide. Been reading this since 2014.
For glove enchants, there are Glove Reinforcements, made by leatherworkers, not bound on pickup, and can be sold on the auction house. Adds 240 armor to gloves, probably better than the 18 stamina from armor kits. What do you think?
It hasn`t been updated. Waldamer hasn`t been active for 2 months now. It just got bumped because of the imminent cleanup.
In that case, does anyone know if Blood Draining and Blade Ward weapon enchants are working properly in the newly released WOTLK core of warmane (from March 2016)?
Use Mongoose or plain agility. And don't ever gem for dodge or parry.
Agility is a much better all-around stat for paladins. Even though it gives slightly less avoidance the additional mitigation (which has a linear scale, so no DR from EH point of view) and threat totally worth it.
It is a limited duration, just like all of the other tank's tier bonuses.
Then that mean, one i push divine plea will received 12% dodge for 10 seconds, and in all next manual activation (after 1 minute) will take another 12% dodge for 10 sec and so on?
If that mean, man this is a very bad bonuss :(, neither the first one also is not good ..
Use Mongoose or plain agility. And don't ever gem for dodge or parry.
Agility is a much better all-around stat for paladins. Even though it gives slightly less avoidance the additional mitigation (which has a linear scale, so no DR from EH point of view) and threat totally worth it.
Agility is not worth for prot paladin @all. Sure on main hand you can ench Mongoose, that is fine, but still blade ward is better since now it works like it should work(atlast parry bonus, i am not sure if its doing dmg on next parry). And about geming dodge + parry, let me just say its not worth. You will lose 10k + HP in icc for 3% more dodge or 3% more parry? And belive me with this fixed dmg on lich king, you want to get as much stamina as you can. So gem for full stamina. Aslo that 3% dodge or 3% parry doesnt mean that you will dodge attacks more, it only means you will have more chance to dodge. In some case it can happend that you have 40% dodge and for 1 min you didnt dodged single attack, and sometimes with 10% dodge you dodge 3-4 times in a row. Its luck depended so that is why stamina is best for tanks.
Blood Draining looks good on paper, but in reality its not worth to use it. With 80k HP tank, that ench will proc when you drop below 35% of ur maximum HP whitch is 28k and It will heal you for 2k. On LOD you get constant 35k-45k hits, so imagine you are on 70k HP and you get 45k hit and you will drop to 25k hp. That ench will proc and heal you for 2k, and you will be on 27k. Next LK mele hit, lets say its 35k and BOOM. Tank is dead. On other hand, if you use blade ward, and you have 2-3 stacks of it. Its 600 more parry raiting and you recive same hit for 45k and to 25k hp, only this time you will parry next attack and survive. Anyway its better to use blade ward over blood draining, i would use only blood draining ench if you are doing solo some low lvl raid and you need to survive by self healing.
Smash all dmg abilitys off cd, keep up sacred shield and holy shield, get carried by healers forget to pop defensive's and ardent carry gg ez, wtf is hard about it lol.