Welcome to the Guide to Paladin Tanking in Cata
Some of the things we are going to cover are
-Talent Tree
-Glyphs
-Important Stats
-Abilities
-Macros
-User Interface
-Other possible random stuff i should remember.
Talents
This link Below will take you to a Paladin talent tree which has been filled out for example i will go over each talent of every tier
and explain my reasoning for each.
Lvl-80 Protection Talent Tree; Here
Lvl-85 Protection Talent Tree; Here
Protection Tree
Tier 1-
Divinity- 1/3 - while increased healing done by you and healing effect on you are good. healing is not your job and is best left to healers.
Seals of Pure- 2/2 - Increased damage of seal of truth (new version of corruption) will help keep aggro with increased damage
Eternal Glory-2/2 - Even if at 30% chance the use of keeping your holy power exceeds the use of divinity by a long shot
Tier 2-
Judgements of the Just-2/2 - In addition of extending the slow of seal of justice, the reduction of attack speed means as a tank, your target cant hit you as often in turn unable to do as much damage to you.
Toughness-3/3 - a bit of a no brainer here the more armor you have the more the reduction of damage is from attacks
Improved Hammer of Justice-0/2 - while stunns are nice, raid composition should provide more than enough stuns for dps to handle not to mention most raid bosses are immune to stun.
Tier 3-
Hallowed Ground-2/2 - while on 30sec CD when aoe mobs are present during trash or boss fights this allows it to not only be used without taking half your mana but give it an edge against dps AoEs
Sanctuary-3/3 - another no brainer in addition to making you uncritable, reducing damage, for ever attack blocked or dodged returns 3%mana
Hammer of the Righteous-1/1 - A base ability for multi mobbed enviorments also grants a charge of holy power
Wrath of the Lightbringer-2/2 - Increases damage of your crusader strike which increases the threat generated by it for single target
bosses and crit for holy wrath which will stun demons, undead and if glyphed elementals and dragonkin
Tier 4-
Reckoning-2/2 -With 20% chance when you block which your mastery goes to gives you 4 extra weapon swings with in 8 seconds which helps stack seal of truth and general threat
Shield of the Righteous-1/1 - This attack uses holy power and is used to increase your single target threat and when used gives you holy shield increasing your block for 20secs
Grand Crusader-2/2 - victims of your crusader strike or hammer of righteous have a 20% chance of refreshing your avenger shield. useful in single target and multi mob fights
Tier 5-
Vindication-1/1 - reduces your primary targets physical damage done, this gives your hammer and interrupt for mobs immune to stun
Holy Shield-1/1 - again increasing your block when using the abilities Shield of the Righteous or Inquistion
Guarded by the Light-2/2 - Increases your Word of Glory when used to heal yourself, over healing creates a protective shield equal to the over healing also causes holy shield
Divine Guardian-?/1 - while this does reduce party damage for 6 seconds it may be a good idea when lvling during challenging lvls, later in content i placed this talent tree over in the ret tree
Tier 6-
Scared Duty-2/2 - chance of making shield of righteous critical more threat for us tanks
Shield of the Templar-3/3 Reducing the CDs of one main ability and two situational CDs
Tier 7-
Ardent Defender- New survival CD which is no longer automatic
Retribution Tree
Tier 1-
Eye for an Eye-0/2 - magic attacks not horribly common with 30% chance of damage done back to the attacker isn't enough to justify this talent nor doesn't benefit physical attacks
Crusade-3/3 - only to fill 2 slots in here while lvl 80 once 85 should be maxed, increases the damage of your base single and multi target attacks as a tank
Improved Judgement-2/2 - while this was left 0/2 during lvl 80 increased distance on your judgement allows you to get the first attack gaining the intial threat or pulling that mob running away after your healer
Tier 2-
Guardian's Favor-0/2 - while hands of protection and freedom are useful utility is best left to heals to worry about saving that life while you take that mob off them
Rule of Law-0/3 while this increases the crit chance of all 3 abilities in use by you, it doesn't justify for tanks to worry about the crit. your priority is survivability
Pursuit of Justice-2/2 - while a ret tree ability and left empty while lvl 80 your last two points should go here, as you as the tank can be hit by stun fear or imbolized gaining additional charge of
holy power is more useful especially if you are stunned early on or desperate for a heal on yourself after a group wide stun
Holy Tree
I found no talents required by tanks in here
Glyphs
3 prime 3 major 3 minor
Prime
1. glyph of shield of the righteous defense more threat generated
2. Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous Increased damage=more threat
3. Glyph of Judgement increased threat or Glyph of Seal of Truth if your expertise is low
Major
These are pretty debatable, these are just my choices atm
1. Glyph of Divine Protection Nice to have a reduction for those spell cast when the majority of my abilities already decrease my physical damage
2. Glyph of Divine Plea I'm not entirely sure but prot pallys don't seem starved for mana, will switch when i get another glyph
3. Glyph of Holy Wrath I don't think the undead will be as common so its nice to increase its utility to dragons, demons, undead and elementals
Minor
theses are whatever you feel like no real priority on them. just one that always seems to be handy is
Glyph of Lay on Hands
Important Attributes
Alright lets talk some Stats
Base
-Stamina of course increased health 45201-160stam=43271=1930 health 1930\160=12.0625 This math was done by removing my shield and all its stam increase, according to this for every point
of stam you have you get about 12.06 health
-Strength while you wont need to stack this, I believe strength now stacks both dodge and parry
-block is a straight reduction of 30% of the damage dealt
-Parry if an attack is parry deals no damage
-dodge if an attack is dodged deals no dmage
-Hit Chance- allows you to hit the target which helps apply your threat
Expertise- decrease the chance a boss can avoid your attacks which is needed so your threat stays constant
Mastery- I don't know a whole lot about this quite yet but for every point increases your chance to block melee attacks by 2%
Armor- Straight Damage reduction for attacks against you
Rotation
While this is a bit of a topic everything is just my person preference and is not solid gold and doesn't include spells beyond lvl 80 since i haven't had practice with them.
The General
Judgement- Restores mana and is mandatory in all rotations for the prot pally
Crusader Strike and Hammer of Righteous generate 1 holy power and as far as i know are the only 2 abilitys that do. They also share the same gobal CD
Holy Power
The new resource for paladin which gives it a twist.
Crusader strike and Hammer of the Righteous will give you 1 holy power as a tank
Shield of the Righteous, Inquistion, Word of Glory will all consume Holy Power as a Prot Tank and will
all proc Holy Shield for 20 seconds in addition to there natural ability.
Single Target
The base of this relies on single target damage most commonly bosses. in which
Judgement- mana return
Crusader strike - Holy Power - 20% chance refresh Avenger Shield
Shield of Righteous - Consumes all Holy Power and Increase Damage and Procs Holy Shield (inceases block) for 20 secs
Avenger Shield - Extra threat + possibly refresh cd
Word of Glory - Self heal + over heal creates protective shield = over healed amount (prot applied only) - Holy Shield
Hammer of Wrath - 20% and below attack
Inquistion - while this increase holy damage i think this is must useful before laying down a consecration this also procs - holy shield
Multi Target
Again this is just basics these are not exact order as holy power has to be managed sparingly
Judgement - Mana Return
Hammer of the Righteous - Holy Power - 20% chance refresh Avenger Shield
Avenger Shield - Extra threat + possibly refresh cd
Consecration - AoE (stationary) 30sec cd
Holy Wrath - dependent on Mobs/stuns
Word of Glory - Self heal = over heal creates protective shield = over healed amount (prot applied only) - Holy Shield
Inquistion - while this increase holy damage i think this is must useful before laying down a consecration this also procs - holy shield
Cool Downs
The Prot Pally's Cds have increase a huge amount
Avenging Wrath - Standard Damage/threat increase 2min
Divine Shield - Standard im gonna and run away now 5min
Divine Protection - can be used as physical damage reduction, or magic damage reduction if glyphed (i recommend it since you have others to reduce physical damage)
could be spammed with such a low CD for physical but i still like the idea of something for sure to reduce magic since avoidance ect is all directed toward physical damage 1min
Ardent Defender - Reduces damage 20% (doesn't say physical or magic so i assume all) and will bring you to 15% health if you are killed 3min cd
Divine Guardian - If speced can reduce party damage for 6 secs, i recommend for lvling till 85 or appropriately geared 2min
Guardian of Ancient Kings - 40% reduced of all incoming damage 2min
Abilities Not Covered
Guardian of Ancient Kings - a reduce all damage button much like the older version of divine protection, which also gives flexibility for the new one to be a magic reduction cd
Inquistion - a new instant cast that consumes holy power with each charge increasing the duration increases holy damage done and is a general use which will also activate holy shield "possibly"
i will have to check
Holy Radiance- instant cast AoE heal while on 1min cd could possibly be of use for tank yet to be seen in use. and most likely unpractical.
Macros
/macro brings you to your macro interace where you can create general and character macros. I don't get to terribly fancy with these but ill place some basics down.
Self Cast- this allows you to cast a spell on yourself no matter who your targeting and without targeting yourself and losing the boss
/cast [@player] Spell
Focus/clear focus- this macro is mainly used for xperl focus targets and to clear the focus
/focus [nomod]
/clearfocus [mod]
General- This is what i use to stack spells on top of the same button. be careful some spells that you may macro might already be keybinded and you will need to clear them inorder for the spell to actually cast
#showtooltip
/cast [nomod]
/cast [mod:Shift]
/cast [mod:ctrl]
/cast [mod:alt]
Mouse over - This spell usually useful to healers allows you to cast your spell with out selecting the target but merely having your mouse over their character or frame
how ever if your mouse is not over the target, no spell will be cast even if they are your selected target your mouse be over there "name" in some way
/cast [@mouseover] Spell
Critter Call- a Fun macro used for all my toons, this macro will Random select a pet for you everytime
/run CallCompanion("CRITTER",
random(GetNumCompanions("CRITTER")))
Sequence cast - personally used for my priest this allows you to have a set order in which you would like to cast spells and can also be set to a timer to reset to the begining though not required
if not will wait till full cycle has gone threw and will end and click to reset
/castsequence reset=7 spell1, spell2, spell3, spell4 after 7 seconds will reset to spell1
/castsequence spell1, spell2, spell3, spell 4 will continue from where ever you left off
Tank to Spank - a simple macro i use from my characters to have easy access to there duel spec
/usetalents [spec:2] 1;2
Burn Cds- like many of us, we want to pop everything at once for that boss fight this macro will display a paladin using a trinket and avenging wrath at the exact same time
#showtooltip - this merely will show either the first spell or item listed under each or can be set to a spell or item for my avenging wrath is used for its familiar look
#showtooltip Avenging Wrath
/cast Mark of Norgannon
/cast Avenging Wrath
each has a 20 second duration this allows both being activated at the same time however individual use will not be able unless separated.
