Prot Pally needs Fixing

In Development WoW: Forever Beta Discussion
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My Suggestions for Improving Protection Paladins

  1. Remove Consecration’s Target Cap

The original idea behind limiting Consecration might have made sense when Paladins were intended to be the premier AoE tanks. However, that design philosophy falls apart when Warriors and Druids got their aoe abilities buff that allows them to easily compete with or even outperform Paladins in AoE tanking (Druid’s berserk looking like it will).

AoE tanking isn’t necessarily what defines a Protection Paladin, but it was one of the things that made the specialization unique compared to other tanks.

If Blizzard is going to give other tanks comparable AoE capabilities, then there’s no reason to continue restricting Consecration in this way.

  1. Merge Improved Seal of Fury into Improved Righteous Fury

into what I’m calling

Divine Fury
3-Point Talent
When Seal of Fury’s shield is fully absorbed, it restores X Mana, increased by 5%/10%/15% per level the attacker is above you, up to a maximum of 45%. Additionally, while Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 2%/4%/6%.

  1. Move Holy Shield Back to Its Original Position

Holy Shield should be moved back to its rightful place in the Protection talent tree, where Improved Seal of Fury is currently located.

The purpose of this change is to encourage greater hybridization across the Paladin class rather than forcing players to invest heavily into a single specialization just to become reasonably effective at their intended role.

For those who played Paladins during Vanilla before the second Paladin nerfs, (the talent tree restructuring in 06) Holy Shield was originally positioned much higher in the Protection tree.

That earlier design allowed Paladins greater flexibility for hybridization. But the restructured forced Paladins into deeper specialization just to become decent at anything, while most other classes didn’t necessarily face the same restrictions.

Moving Holy Shield higher in the tree would restore some of that original hybrid flexibility.

If Blizzard is concerned about Holy Shield dealing too much damage when accessible through an earlier Protection investment, then simply reduce its baseline damage and shift that damage into a deeper Protection talent such as Iron Creed; also increse holy shield’s damage to get it back when more specialized into prot.

This would allow hybridization for tanking without having to dive so deep to do the job.

And let’s not forget that Warriors have Shield Block as a baseline ability. It provides a greater block chance and has a shorter cooldown, yet Paladins must invest heavily into Protection just to access Holy Shield.

  1. Rework Iron Creed

Iron Creed
5-Point Talent
Increases the threat generated by Holy Strike and Judgement by 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%. Additionally, Holy Strike reduces all damage taken by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% for 6 seconds.

It should also make judgment damage do more threat too.

  1. Make Avenger’s Shield the Protection Capstone

Avenger’s Shield should be the final talent in the Protection tree, protection Paladins desperately need a proper ranged ability to initiate pulls

Blizzard claims that classes shouldn’t be able to do everything and that Paladins need to lack certain abilities to preserve class identity. Yet they turn around and buff other classes, giving them tools and capabilities from retail like Mage with Ice Lance, to Shammy with Riptide and etc. But Paladin are told to stay restricted?

Warriors and Druids now gain access to their AoE abilities at lower levels and can arguably AoE tank better than Protection Paladins. On top of that, Protection Paladins still lack a proper ranged pulling ability, while Warriors and Druids have access to ranged tools.

This wasn’t nearly as much of an issue in TBC because Paladins eventually gained Avenger’s Shield. More importantly, they received Righteous Defense, which was designed differently from traditional taunts. Other players could pull groups of enemies on behalf of the Paladin, and the Paladin could then use Righteous Defense to taunt enemies attacking that player. This gave Protection Paladins a practical way to manage pulls despite their limitations.

What makes the current situation even more frustrating is that Paladins are being saddled with additional handicaps when the class is already struggling, while other classes are receiving abilities and improvements inspired by Retail WoW.

Mages get Ice Lance. Shamans get Riptide, Lava Burst, and Maelstrom Weapon. Granted, Shaman DPS is still weak, but at least they’re receiving substantial additions to their toolkit. Meanwhile, Paladins are largely stuck with the same abilities we’ve always had, with only minor adjustments.

Even Shamans can use Ghost Wolf in WoW Forever, yet Paladins still can’t use Blessing of Freedom without overwriting another Blessing. Why are Paladins expected to follow these outdated restrictions when the same philosophy clearly isn’t being applied consistently to other classes?

Yes, Paladins received some baseline abilities and quality-of-life improvements, but so did everyone else. Warriors received improvements such as Tactical Mastery and reduced reliance on stance dancing. Hunters received Aimed Shot, and Shamans received Totemic Projection.

These aren’t exclusive advantages given to Paladins. They’re part of the broader class improvements being made across the game.

So why should Protection Paladins continue to be denied a proper ranged pulling ability? If Blizzard is willing to modernize other classes while preserving their Vanilla identity, then giving Protection Paladins Avenger’s Shield is entirely reasonable.

Retribution also desperately needs a proper capstone ability, but that’s a separate discussion. This post is specifically about Protection.

29 Likes
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You dreamin.

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Bump, strong agree.

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If you are having threay issues on a prto paladin right now, the problem is not the class, the problem is you are playing it like a TBC paladin.

You are also unlikely marking Skull X and think you should just naturally be able to hold off people attacking differrnt targets.

Its almost laughable how bad the new breed of tanks is.

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Above^ utter nonsense dps ripping on even single target bosses, certainly ripping skull target. on my paladin with over 100 sp mostly available bis. maybe your dps actually wait or are just bad

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Marking skull shouldn’t be because you cant hold threat, it should be to focus dps on a big threat and kill it quickly.

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Yes. And also to mark the target you will be focusing on, which prevents them pulling aggro off of you.

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And they were also the worst single target tanks. Are you willing to make that trade?

Thunderclap hits 4 targets and Swipe hits 3 as they always did in Classic. The buffs to their damage were to keep them in line with consecrate scaling with spell power.

Berserk is a 3 minute cooldown and still only hits 3 targets.

The devs are not going to allow one tank to be able to pull and hold an entire dungeon while the other two cannot. Paladins are balanced, you’re just used to being better.

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I think paladin tank cannot be what it was in TBC where I just remember doing silly things with massive sections of dungeons, pop one or two consecrations and keep aggro while mages aoe 12-15 enemies.

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I disagree, I mark skull on a low threat target and use X as the largest threat.

Guess who never has targets pulled off them…oh yeah me… because I don’t try to over tank burst dps on the first target that is no threat to the dps doing it.

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Thats what they want, and it is BORING.

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The problem I ran into with Paladin tanking, is that it’s borderline unplayable before level 20.

You have two threat abilities: Judgement, and Holy Strike. And both of them are on 8+ second cooldowns.

So you can’t tank more than 2 mobs at a time. It’s just impossible unless DPS gives you like 5 seconds to get threat on things before they even start attacking.

Warrior has Thunderclap, Revenge, and Sunder, the latter of which has no cooldown and can be spammed.
Bear has Maul and Swipe which can both be spammed.

Paladin? Your only two threat abilities are both on long cooldowns. You press them both and then pray that you hold threat for the next 8-10 seconds. (which you won’t because autoattack + seal threat is absolutely garbage) I ended up spending most of my time just frantically taunting mobs off the DPS because my threat was so bad. Once I hit 20 and got Consecrate, it was all smooth, but before that? It genuinely felt like a broken, unfinished spec.

My suggestion would be to make a baseline change to Holy Strike, lowering its CD to 3 seconds ONLY while you have a shield equipped. That way you at least have SOMETHING that is “spammable” to get some decent threat with.

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Wait…

You have ret aura on, threat is being genned on every mob.

You mark a non elite, caster or non-threatening mob to the dps, as skull.

SoF up, judge the X, holy strike another target, melee a third,
second judge on the X, dps has moved to the X which you are far ahead on, holy strike it, and then move off judging the third…and so on…

Pall has plenty of tools to hold initially and tank just fine.

Set the kill order at the beginning of the run…assign a mage CC if you need to…

Have a smooth run.

STOP TRYING TO OVERTANK against the dps who just want to zug on the first mob.

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Lol what are you even talking about?
Skull = nuke this.
Star = CC or interrupt
X = do not attack, kill last
Rarely used
Orange = keep it CCed
Green = root it
Blue = freeze or stun

Tank has most powerful ability in the game, marking target with skull causes it to die almost immediately.

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… it’s the lack of gear to allow you to scale alongside that of other paladins, coupled with mechanics that punish paladins moreso than other tanks when we lose threat. So much of our threat is passive, and our resource regen exclusively relies on being hit to trigger.

So this means when paladins lose threat, we fight an uphill battle with no sustain to regain that threat. Especially since our taunt will likely be on cooldown for the next 9-1s, because the number one rule of Paladin DPS: ABJ. Always be judgin.

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Weird. When I was tanking in TBC, it was always

Skull: kill first
X: kill next
Orange: this is the tank
Moon: Polymorph

Everything else would be established at the beginning of the dungeon, but on my server these were the standard marks. Funny how different things can be.

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Warrior and Druid rage generation requires being hit much more than hitting too. Protadin should absolutely get a taunt not tied to Judgment, it’s a pretty poor design decision to pair their taunt (which is required for game mechanics) with a threat ability that needs to be used.

Holy Block should help with threat more, and Iron Creed. But it does seem like there’s still threat issues outside of AoE for Protadin right now.

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I don’t know anything about prot pallies but I will say this. I grouped with 3 pallies on my mage last night. 2 of them couldn’t hold threat to save their lives, the third one was exceptional. I could freely do all the things on my mage, including but not limited to, flame strike, blizzard, arcane explosion, cone of cold.

All I can gather from this is, to those other two prot pallies, git gud.

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This is true. But they do get SOME rage for hitting, whereas we get ZERO mana back.

Sadly, only on being attacked. Our off-tanking is going to SUCK

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Warrior and Druid get rage from hitting. How much mana is a paladin getting from Improved Seal of Fury and Shield Spec when they are not being hit? And before you say “But Seal of Wisdom”.. if a paladin is now using Seal of Wisdom to sustain their mana, then they are effectively doing 0 threat, and have given up trying to tank that mob entirely.

How much threat does Holy Block generate, when you aren’t being hit? And Iron Creed still feels like a trap to me.

1 Like